Evaluation Questions 1-4

 Question one: In what ways does your media products use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

For our A2 Production for Media Studies was to create a music video for an unsigned band/artists as well as developing two related promotion product. We researched an unsigned band on a website called ‘http://www.unsignedband.com’, after that we explored the band in further depth like their background, genre of music and the song itself. After filming and editing the promo, we then created a digipak and magazine advert for our chosen single.

The main purpose for these three promotion products is to make the artist stand out and also make them known to the public. The video shows their talents which in our case are vocals and acoustic guitars, the digipak purpose is to ... and finally the magazine to advertise the band itself to show to the target audience wherever it may be placed.

We chose to pick a band with the genre of folk. This because we felt at the time that it would be the most challenging genre to do as this song in particular has a fast beat and a catchy song.

Since no one else in our Media group was going a Folk style music genre, we all thought it would be different to crate on own. Our main aim for the music video that we were crating at the time was to make it fun and enjoyable for the audience as well as portraying the right story.

http://prezi.com/u-chwwpx1z2d/music-videos/#

Full definition of a Music Video - A videotaped performance of a recorded popular song, usually accompanied by dancing and visual images interpreting the lyrics.

The main reason for the three promotional products, music video, digipak and the magazine advert is to publicise the artist and to focus on their target audience. By promoting these products for the artist, helps them to be exposed in media. Most of the time on the internet because that it where people usually will see these three products. This will be effective because the internet is very popular and all the products will be exposed to not just the UK but also the rest of the world and that leads to the products being better known.

In a music video the artist will represent what young women would be inspired to be.  So for example, they are more likely to be thin and toned and air-brushed gorgeous young woman to be the artists/actor in the being portrayed as the girlfriend in the video. However, in some cases this could in a bad influence on young women because if they are inspired to be supermodel thin then this could cause problems by young girls not eating properly and so on... This will mostly likely occur in Rap video where women in general are represented as supermodels. However with the genre of folk the artists are usually well dressed, commonly displaying denim while performing and this is one reason why we chose folk because it represents the music not the image.

Promo – The purpose of a music video is to sell the song and invoke a reaction so it leaves the audience thinking and remembering the song hopefully which they enjoyed. In a music video, it also gives the view an understanding of the song especially if that video is showing a narrative. Also, a music video can offer the artist’s interpretation from the song because it demonstrates what the artists is suggesting in his/her lyrics. The chorus in the song gives the audience the repeatability of certain lyrics and this helps get the message across the important element in the song.

Digipak – The main aim to a digipak is to promote the sales to an artist/band. As well as the CD inside, I could always have special editions element to give the fans more rather than just a CD with the artist’s song on. Digipaks are more of a collector’s item for those who really want to something special. They consist of 4-8 cardboard panels which include picture of the artists/band, dates and places. They are usually used to market the artists/band and their music. Examples:

 

 

 

Magazine Advert - The most obvious purpose of advertising a Magazine is to inform the public i.e. the fans of the artists/band. Through the process of advertising it announces new and existing products from the artists to their target audience. Since there are so many magazine publications out there now-a-days, each individual one target different genre audiences. This is by only producing exactly what the target look for in the magazine. For example, pictures of popular bands, interview and perhaps inside gossip about the band’s latest album.

 

One way to advertise a product is by using a ‘digipak’ and this is by using images that will capture the audience’s eye. For example, if the images were portrayed as ‘boring’ and dull with no colour to it then their target audience will not be as interested. However, with most genres like folk, pop and country then the digipak needs to be colourful to attract their target audience. Creating an interesting to look at image will engage the audience more than if it was colourless and not unique

 
 

 http://prezi.com/5a7m3nb7izt_/analysis-of-a-digipak-alternative-rock/#
 

Conventions:

All digipak includes the following information:

•Visual image/key to the production
•Band/artist name - allow audience to identify band/artist
•Album title - on main cover and along the spine
•Track list/What's on the DVD
•Basic background information of the band/artist

One example of a folk genre digipak:

 

We created our digipak on Photoshop and Pixlr by using photos that we have taken during the process of making the video.

With the music promo itself, the intension is to give an audience an image when listening to the song. This gives the audience a story to watch as well as lyrics to listen to make the narrative easier to understand.

Kelly Clarkson – Since U Been Gone

For example, in this video of KC, SUBG, all the shots reflect the mood that she is on and atmosphere around her both in narrative and performance. In a music video, it is very important that there is a variety of shots from extreme close-up to long-shot showing expressions from the artists whilst singing as well as the backstage and set around the artists/band/instruments to create an atmosphere for the viewers and also give a sense of realism to the performance by giving the opportunity to be close and personal with the target audience. All of these give the impression to the viewer how skilled and creative they are but it also needs to show they original side rather than copied off someone perhaps bigger and more well known to their target audience.

 

 Also in music videos, the genre needs to be portrayed because if it’s the artist’s first official video then it needs to have so many different elements in it, such as:

· Showing a narrative which the viewer can understand easily.

· Performance which reflect how passionate the artist(s) is over their music

· Shows genre.
- For example:
Rock = Leather jackets and quick shots which relates to pace of show and shows close-ups from the artist(s).
Classical = Show, calm and relax atmosphere showing to the audience.

· Creative and unique

· Conventions to each genre – for folk it’s more of the artists wearing denim with acoustic guitars and enjoying themselves while expressing their music.

Depending on the genre but in most cases music videos (promo) have high energy and enthusiasm through the elements of mise-en-scene and the editing. In the editing process the all the different types of shots need to keep in time with the construction of the song and official video. This will then link with the full narrative and performance n the promo.

In music promos the usual shots and cuts are plain straight cuts which are the simplest and easiest way to cut the track to the pace of the song. But, with some unconventional music promos, (e.g… ) the sound may come from the narrative and this could help set the scene and create atmosphere but depending on the narrative and what is happening in it. But say this folk music promo doesn’t have a narrative, then the story must come through the performance by how the artists/band portray/ express themselves

 

The main purpose of a music video is to get the viewer in the main focus to the audience and give they a means of being a lot closer to the performer, especially close-up and extreme close-up shots. More over it gives the view more depth into the song by understanding and relating to the song lyrics again it will feels a sense of intimacy with the artists or band.


Olly Murs - Dear Darlin' - Variety of Shots

Long Shot

This long shot from Olly Murs’ music promo, Dear Darlin’ shows him in a, seems to be large living room, which suggest loneliness. The colours in the shot are natural and this suggest that he is in a sad mood because the colours aren’t bright which suggest being happy.
We used long-shots to show expression and body language mainly whilst the performance side to the video because in our narrative part in the video, we mainly usedmid shots and close-up shots to be
personal and create interest for the viewers.

 

 

 

Mid Shot

This mid shot is showing he standing near a window suggesting that that he is looking out for something/someone. The mid-shot shows some of his body language but then focuses most on his faces expressions whit suggest his feelings towards the lyrics. In this shot, his facial expressions show that he is determined about this girl and also suggest a passionate side. We used mid-shot to demonstrate the expression whilst in the performance shots. 

 

Close-up Shot

The close-up shots shows a more
in-depth and personal view for the
audience of the performer and in
this particular shot, the expression on
Olly’s faces suggest sadness and
perhaps desperate for her attention.

 

 The shots above shows the confusion in my (the performer/actor) face because after the agreement and slamming the door, I come to this ‘random’ place and am confused about how I got there. The close-up helps the audience understand my reaction to this random place.

Comparing shot from The Pierces and our video from Sound of the Sirens.

The main group who inspired us with some shots from their song ‘Glorious’ are named The Pierces. I was looking through their video before we started shooting and noted down some shots in the video which we could use and we did!

Below on the left show screenshotsfrom the video, Glorious from the
group The Pierces. While we were
doing our research, I came across
this band and just feel in love and
thought of so many ideas that we
could do in our music video.

Below, here on right are the shots from
our music video and are inspired from
the video on the left. Both bands are so
imilar because they are both a duo with
folk, acoustic style music.

In the first screen grab, it shows the similarities of the shot from both folk music videos. Both are mid-shots, the main focus is on the two performers with their instruments and their facial expressions while singer lyrics which will give the true meaning to the song. These two visuals are very similar but then different as well, for example the lighting. With the shot on the right, the light from above was basic but with the shot on the left the shades of the different colours shows more excitement and with the yellow in the background shows passion and strength. Another convention to a convincing performance would be a point of view shot from the audience perspective at different angles but mainly is a mid-shot looking directly at the performers.



The difference between the two screenshots are the left one is more of a point-of-view shot but with ours it is a low-angle point-of-view  shot and this suggest that the audience are looking up to them while watching their performance. A typical convention to a music video would that the majority of the close-up shots would be of the lead vocalists. But with the shot on the left, they are both equal even though the brunette girl is closer to the camera.

With the left close-up shot from the ‘Glorious’ video, it shows clear a facial expression since the framing of the shot is just bordering her face and not her body. It suggest that they did this to the viewer can concentrate on the face then they can get a proper meaning and understanding from the way she comes across while singing the lyrics. But with our video, this is particular shot and since it is a extreme-close up, it can perhaps suggest the viewers might invade their personal space because their audience wants to get involve with their song/life.
 

 

 

Old Magazine Advert

New and Improved Magazine Cover

The main purpose with a magazine advert is to promote a single/album release and to see the band and it should show the genre of the band/artists and the things that the audience needs to know about the band, for example, their name and the title of the song, release date and any other relevant information needed.


What is required from a music promo?

http://prezi.com/iu8nz7c4trvl/what-is-required-from-a-music-promo/

Conventions for folk music


Atmosphere
Fast paced shots
Slow paced shots
Performance
Narrative
Syncing
Bright lighting
An audience

When it comes to the genre of Folk music, there are many ways that the associated conventions can be represented. In some cases Folk bands use fast paced editing to create the feel of excitement and elation for the viewer; other genres such as ‘Country’ may include slower pacing in its use of shots to aide in developing an emotive response with the viewer. Each genre of music comes with its own set of conventions and these are all subjective to the genre so are presented in different ways depending on the desired effect.

Before creating my own music video I researched what the conventions of Folk Music were and then tried to incorporate these same conventions in my video; in my research I found that the most common conventions used in the Folk Genre were that there were many close ups on the acoustic instruments. This is done to emphasise the quality of the instruments as it is the focus point of the piece, there are no accompanying instruments to take focus away from the guitar and the musician and also exposes musical skills of the performer(s). I have included this use of close ups in my video as you can see from the screen shot below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8uc7c0HZuc

I keep referring back to The Pierces

with their song ‘Glorious’ because this

video inspired me the most when my

group and I were doing our

Researching and Planning for our folk

music promo. This girl duo shot

on the left was a huge influenced to my

group and I as Sound of the sirens are so

similar to them. Watching their

video, Glorious made it so much easier

produced or music because of the

inspiration we had rom The Pierces.



 This shot in particular was inspirational because it shows two young women performing and since the man focus is on them with the medium shots, it indicate to the audience that these two are the most important. This performance shot from the video ‘Glorious’ is showing that the girls closer to the camera are singers and behind them is the drummer and a guitarist. With this shot, you can see that they are all working together t put on a performance and still emphasising the fact the girls with the standing microphones are the lead vocalists and main performers.
 

We then incorporated this shot into our video:

Even though this shot is classes as a long shot, the main inspiration is from the screenshot above. I think that the performance part is very important and perhaps more essential than the narrative piece in the video because this is where the viewers only there can the real emotion that the performance feels about the song and the meaning behind it. With the narrative it only tells the story behind the lyrics not the writer/performer view on it.

The screenshot on the left is from our music video for ‘The Night Before’. This close-up is clear and use to see and I chose this shot because it illustrates and meaning and importance of the acoustic guitar. And again, with the screenshot on the right except with this shot, I would class it as a extreme close-up and the only problem with these particular shots is that it is harder to see what’s going on. For example, in the shot on the right, I can only see 4 guitar strings, which indicates to the audience that it could be a bass guitar. But it does suggest good elements to the shot as well. It pulls in the focus from everything else to that specific shot and then this shows at this point in time and importance of instruments a folk music promo. It also shows the performer is credible.

As I researched the main,important
conventions for
folk music promo before
my group even began shooting,
it helped us with collecting and
producing these conventions
and made it easier when we had  shoot because I had an idea on what we need to do. We used many close-up shots of the guitar, but mainly Ronnie because she was acting as the main guitarist while I was acting as the main vocalist telling my story.

In the close-up shot, the main focus is the guitar because that is in the centre of the shot even though you can see my arm and the microphone stand towards the left of the shot.

With the editing side to the music promo, in some cases its fast paced but then again, it’s not. As my group and I finished the shooting (both performance and narrative), we moved onto the editing. We always knew that we needed to link the music to how speed of the shots a long with the lyrics.


Locations

 

As a part of our researchI used Google Maps to help
me calculate how long it
would take to get from my
house to the location where
we were shooting on the
8^th September 2013,
Shillingthope Park.

 




 

Above are some pictures that my group took for evidence for our blogs. They all show different shades of light to show different meaning for each shot. For example, the left picture is showing the person in the picture is heading towards the light. Lighting is very important in any type of media production and this is because the darker the set is usually means that something dangerous is going to happen, but with the lighter and brighter set, it suggests that the person is feeling good and that they are on a high. The middle picture shows light beaming in through the trees suggest something great is going to happen. Adding to this, the colours of the tree and their leaves help the viewer recognise something good will happen to the main character. With the right photograph, this is a shot of Shannon setting up the camera for one of the shots for when I pick up some leaves and throw them up in the air. The greens scenery surrounding me in this shot contracts with the browns and yellowy oranges leaves on the floor.

The overall reason why we chose the location to shoot half our narrative is because for me it gave the scene of reason and freedom to it and since we shot in early November, the colour had that autumn feel to it, even though it was still rather cold and at time, a slight wind and overall, I thought it was a great day to shoot.
In my view, this setting is very conventional to a music video about love and relationships because it portrays the fact of freedom and I have explained above with how the lighting helps shows different emotions on how people feel at different shades of lighting.

 

Even though, we didn’t use these shots the out narrative part of the promo, I still think it’s a good idea to show other ideas that we had when filming. While we were in the editing process of making of promo, we all then decide that the shots of me running up the stairs and opening ‘the door of freedom’ wasn’t necessary so in the end we didn’t place it in our thriller.

Like any other narratives in music promos, ours has many different conventions to it. For example the variety of shots to create interest and other emotions relating to the song, costumes to reflect on the genre of the video and other element which help the audience understand the story behind the lyrics. But perhaps some unusual and unconventional shots like: Extreme close-up

 

The unconventional transition from her in the house to in the (Shillingthorpe) Park.

 

 

 

  

Performance:

 

Above are some pictures that we took during the process of us filming for the performance piece. We didn’t use any of these three shots there are just there for evidence of our production process. On the right, there is Shannon and her role was to control the camera as well as with mine and Ronnie advice and suggestions. Ronnie and I were the performer as seen here on the right and left picture above. Finally, the middle picture is showing me preparing to shoot. At that time, I was readjusting the stand for the my microphone so it would stay in the right place for when I was performing. We used the wooden blocks with metal stand for the staging to emphasise that we were at a height, looking down at our audience. Even though there wasn’t actually an audience when we were filming, with some shots that we produce, it looks it we are actually performing to an audience and this helped create ... for the viewer.

Costumes

These were the costumes that Ronnie and I were wearing during filming our performance. I chose to wear this because I think that it fits the conventions of the genre of folk especially with the ankle boots and the denim waistcoat. Also, I think the colours go well together especially with the vibrant blue guitar. As I was doing make research and planning of Folk music, I looked up in the way in which different folk artists dress.

 

1960s - Folk

 

 

 

Ian and Sylvia in the 1960s

How are represented in folk (genre) videos?

Through all the times from when folk music has come about to now, the styles of costumes have been very similar throughout.

Similarities:

Simple, lose denim clothes to keep the focus away from the appearance and to concentre more on the music.

 

2000s - Sound of the Sirens
 

I researched the band before and I foundthese pictures on Google and it shows the
band, Sound of the Sirens the two girls
earing denim and also found out that it
is a conventions for a most folk artists to
wear these types of clothes because folk
music is more about the music and not
about the image of the artists. The two
pictures on the left are similar to the
outfits that Ronnie and I wore during
the process of filming of the performance
part to the video. We took inspiration
from these two because we wanted to
represent them as much as we could
since it was their band and song.  Since
they are wearing some sort of denim in
both performances it suggest how the
folk musicians are represented now-a-days
because it demonstrates what women wear
while performer.  

 

Illustration, amplification or disjunction

                                                          

   

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary task?

 

 

Digipak:

 

 

Magazine advert:

All these product work very well together as a promotional package as they promote the band and their song. Also, the three promotion products need to relate to the genre of folk by distinguishing the band to help the audience see and relate back to the image and title of the band. This helps the promotion of the artists because every time their audience think about the genre of folk music and think about this style of packaging, then they will connect with the artist, creating great publicity.

Since the digipak and the magazine advert have the same picture of the woodlands with all the nature surrounding it, it links together and relates to one another. All of the element that my group and I have done is all to do that promoting these three products to sell copies of the music. Even with the little elements, we had to think of, for example, the font writing or the promotion material, they had to have meaning and also make a statement. With the font on the digipak, I thought that I should be: easy to read, soft and gentle to reflect on the music genre of folk. However, with the magazine advert, it is quite the opposite. I wanted it to be bold and in the audience’s face but like the digipak, easy to read and focus on. Promoting all three products is very essential.

 

 

 

 

 

                            

 Traditional Media

·       Before the Internet was a huge phenomenon, industries generally considered part of the old media were broadcast newspapers, book and basically most print publications.

New Media

·       It refers to on-demand access to content anytime and anywhere on digital devices.

 

 

These three promotional products will be/ have already been exposed using traditional media (Music channels, radio) as well as new media (Facebook and YouTube). The traditional methods still have a huge target audience and keeping running the perspective of freedom and happiness. All ways of promoting is good for an artists because it gives their name out into the public. However, there is a down side to using traditional media and that is that it is getting less popular and they find it easier to use new media in this day and age. This is because new media is growing more and more everyday because people want the easy way to for example, download music. The benefits of using and consuming media in this way are the much larger market the products will be exposed to. The growing number of people using new media will increase the profit share for the artist(s)/band.

 

 

 

My exposing the music on different types of media helps each band in promoting the products by letting different types of audiences see their products. If their music video is shown on a well-known, popular music channels like MTV, 4Music and Viva then more and more individuals will have been exposed to the video. However, if the folk music is exposed on Folk Radio UK or Folk Alley then their music will be shown to their audience instead of people who enjoy the genre of pop or rock.

With the magazine advert, it is most likely to be placed in NME (The New Musical Express), a music magazine; because that is where the target audience will be placed since it is such a popular and successful music magazine.

 

 

 

Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 

I began my research while in progress of
doing my Research and Planning. I collect
some people opinions and overall perspective
on folk music in general. I then went deeper,asking questions on why they thought this and

then after that, I asked questions on the genre
of folk itself, how it is portrayed? Many people
said comments on the line of ‘links closely with
country music’ and used words like ‘acoustic
guitars’. The people I asked were not Media
students so this help with my research because
then I knew there wouldn’t be a bias opinion
about the music and perhaps folk. If they were
media student the I don’t think that the research
that I did would be fair because they would
probably use ... even though terminology would
be more precise. Because I did the research before
as well as during, I collect some interesting results
and overall I wanted to see different people’s
perspective on folk music and folk artist’s videos.

With doing the audience research, I thought that if we do many different types of methods towards research with different and varied people that my group and I would get more of a broader range of answer and opinions. This is particularly important because then we all received a varied answers rather than a narrow stream and it’s better to have a broader view rather than one mined views because then our answers become more accurate and valid to our research.
 

Facebook was one way that we thought would attract a wide variety of different people since it is so popular and many would watch it while socialising on the network. However, we didn’t get that many responses as I would have liked.
Above is a screenshot I took from Facebook and shows some of the comments that we received on it after we completed it and placed it on YouTube.
 

We used the results of the questionnaires to put our video at an advantage by using the audience feedback. This helped during the production process because we then knew who exactly our target audience was and how to get grab their with what they were expecting in a folk music promo.
 

Luckily there were other methods to collect our audience research. The questionnaire that we conducted was written down and handed it out to people from the ages of 11-50 and they were given the opportunity to fill it out while watching our music promo and, the results are as follow:

 

The results were as shown:

 

 

 

After finding out these results, I personally felt that this wasn’t enough evidence for our audience research. So, after that I asked a few more people for their personal comments:

• ‘Impressive range of shots’
• ‘Great story line’
• ‘Performers are well synced with the music’
• ‘Impressive work’
• ‘The performance looked professional and their costumes linked in nicely with the genre.

However there were some constructive criticisms as well by telling us what and how we could improve.

• ‘At the beginning, about 5 seconds in, it is clear that the guitar is not sync properly’
• ‘Confusing at times’

This feedback was very useful as we could saw people’s reactions and then we could see which elements we did well on and which people thought needed to improve. People’s feedback also helped us understand the actual message that we planned to get across to the audience and as the individuals were giving their feedback back to us, we then could understand if our original plan worked out to make a clear plot for our audience to understand.

Our original plan for our music promo included a clear plot with that link to each lyric to make the audience understand what the song is about, jealousy and freedom. The main aim got across to the audience and overall I was glad that our hard work and planning went to good use to portrayed this folk promo.

Overall, getting all of the audience research back was important because t shows if we listening and constructed the element of the video and the target audience wanted. Before creating the video as a part of the research and planning, we researched people opinions and perspectives of folk music promo to see what they would and we took that on board when delivering our promo and seeing their reaction was just what we needed. It felt like we did something right and presented an amazing mc promo or our audience to enjoy!

 

Overall, the audience research was great because I learnt about the different methods of collecting alternative types of research.

 

 

Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

 

By using this website above, unsigned.com, it reduced our chances with any issues with copy write within the industry. We searched through this website to see if there were an artist/band that we would like to shoot a video for. However, as we were looking through this website, as a group, we could find something that floats everyone’s boats. So we looked around other websites and found: http://www.bestofbritishunsigned.com/



 Screenshot of the website's front page
which shows the which website we found,
Sound of the Sirens.

 

The below screenshots above are e-mail was sent to the bands to asked questions and to see if it was possible to use their song, The Night Before for our music promo.

 

  Above is an e-mailing showing one of the band members replying to one of our request stating what is the true meaning behind their name, Sound of the Sirens.

YouTube has massive helped during the production process because of the material it has. YouTube has helped me with my researching and planning because it let me explore different music promos in many different genres. Also, it helped me develop many my ideas that I had for my music video. Watching many different genres of music promo, it encouraged me to follow folk music because it ticked all the boxes for a music promo, for me and my group. This is because as I was watching these folk music videos, it shows the conventions which we needed and then went on to use because we had watched how it was done. This technology has also helped us by promoting the product and inviting other to see, comment and question.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We mainly used Photoshop for our ancillary tasks: magazine advert and our digipak. Photoshop help massively because we could use tools like cropping and cutting, use the different layers and others elements to it like using the different range of colours and effects to make the products look clean, complete and professional. This technology helped us complete our intentions in our plans to create a eye catching digipak along with the magazine advert because it allowed us to explore and create new ideas and other ways to improve them as well.





This technology is the main product that we used to make to music promo, iMovie. We put the shots/clips from the two cameras that we used for shooting onto the iMac and then used iMovie to put the clips together using transitions and also to edit it nicely so the story is clear and makes sense the viewers. Also, when needed, we placed some effects onto the video to make it more interesting such fade, dissolve and cut.

 

 

 

 

 

Above is displaying the last effect of the video,

showing how it is coming to an end and the
girls in the video(me) is thinking about the
last good memory of her relationship.

The black and white picture suggests
that it is a reminiscence of her past
(flashback)showing the good times
that they had

 

Blogger is for showing what input we have had during the production process of creating a music promo from an unsigned band and creating two ancillary tasks; magazine advert and a digipak. Placing photographs, video, screenshots and explaining what it is, how we used and also why we used it. This helps me understand and shows other how well we used all these elements and other and also how well we can present it. By placing it on Blogger, it gives the opportunity for and range of people and see my ideas and analyse from different screenshot, picture and others.
 

While shooting this music promo, I have learnt many camera skills while doing this process. For example I have learnt more about the effect of more unfamiliar camera angle (extreme close-up)  and why they are used.  It has also helped me create a plan which consists of a range of variety of shots to make the promo interesting for the viewers.

Another element to the promo which I have learnt is sticking to the plan which we created before shooting any of the promo. As we did stick to the plan, the music promo went exactly how we wanted.

During my A2 project I have developed my editing skills in many ways which include, cutting clips and syncing. As I wasn’t the main person editing our thriller for AS, I thought I should improve my skills and experience on the iMac. We decided to used a picture effect(stop motion), one picture after another to show start the narrative of because it suggest something different also not a typical convention for any music video.

 
 

 

 

 

 

Especially with the performance shots, at first it was very hard to get the correct lighting when we were on the stage. Even though we filmed the performance scene in the drama studio where professional lighting is placed, at the beginning, there were some issues. But thankfully Tom, the technical support arrived to help us sort it out and brighten the lighting so Ronnie and I (the performers) was clearly scene on camera. Other than that, there weren’t really any other major technical issues while filming. However, after we finished filming and then went onto the editing,  the issues just kept pouring in. After we imported all of the footage from both cameras onto the iMac, we began to set the clips in the correct order, liked panned however, sometimes the Mac would not let us do some of the things we wanted. For example, setting the length of the clip to 2.3 seconds, then it would atomically change it to 2.0 seconds but then the promo would not be syncing and/or make sense. Lucky, we produced more shots than we needed so then we overcame the problem by inserting a different clips where other difficult ones were placed so in the end the story was synced and the story did make sense overall but perhaps not how exactly we wanted it in the firstly because of the iMac’s software.

The benefits of exhibiting all our material online is that the internet is so popular now-a-days and since it is exposed in the public’s face all the time, people will have no choice so view it and maybe comments on it. Especially on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, the video can be shared or retweeted so others can see them and by putting it on YouTube before Facebook (to get an audience reaction), it gave us the opportunity to express it to a wider range of people since YouTube is so popular, a different audience s able to see, like/dislike and comment on the video.

 

When we were filming our performance part to the music promo, we had to make sure that we chose many different angles so that it would create interest for our target audience.  We did this by giving ourselves plenty of time during the shooting process so then nothing was rushed and to make sure we didn’t miss anything.

As Ronnie and I were performing the song, behind the camera a TV screen was placed with the lyrics projecting off it so we wouldn’t miss anything so then the music and lyrics would be sync to look neat and professional.

The main challenge for me was conducting the lighting so it would look professional on camera. However, we overcame this with a little help from our technical support. He moved the lighting so they were directly focused on us and turned up the brightness so it would create the impression of us actually performance in a ‘gig’ rather than for a music promo.

The researching and planning helped massively because it gave us the chance to look at different areas in Lincolnshire that would be the best for our narrative to show her freedom and also her own sovereignty. Shillingthorpe Park was absolutely perfect to show this.

 

Since Shillingthorpe Park is so big, we had so many opportunities on where we wanted to film. We began right at the entrance because I thought that this would be a good place to start because it shows a opening to something and this create mystery for the audience.