Formatting evaluation question 4

Evaluation question 4 is my final evaluation question,and to answer this question I am going to make a small video with a voice over. The question is 'How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? To make my video I will use iMovie.

Evaluation question 3

Formatting evaluation question 3

I have now written a script for my article and worded it as if the band are being interviewed and answering the question. I am next going to print screen the NME article and then delete the words and add my own.

Formatting evaluation question 3

I have been looking at different websites and articles on these websites today and plan to answer the question in an article following this format.

Formatting evaluation question 3

Now evaluation question 2 is complete I am starting to work on my next question evaluation question 3. This question is 'what have you learnt from your audience feedback?' To format this question I am going to put it into an article on a music website.

Evaluation question 2

My prezi is now finished this is my answer to evaluation question number 2.

Formatting evaluation question 2

My prezi is near enough finished now, and today I am just putting together the final touches and adding its path.

Formatting evaluation question 2

I have been looking at a lot more bands today that i can use as examples of brands that combine videos with other products they have. I have been trying to broaden my span and look at bands that are outside of my genre of indie rock. I have also looked at bands that manage to create a brand swell as a band.

Formatting evaluation question 2

Today I have started to build my prezi, I have added a few points and pictures and began to build my path.

Formatting evaluation question 2

Now that I have finished formatting evaluation question number 1, I am starting to format question number 2 'how effective was the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?' for this question I am going to present it in the format of a prezi.

Evaluation question 1

Media Evaluation Question 1 by georgehill15

Formatting evaluation question 1

Today I have been looking at examples I can compare my video to so that i can use them in my letter similarly to how Coldplay used examples of other artist in their letter.

Formatting evaluation question 1

Coldplay wrote a similar letter to what I am going to write after one of their videos was criticised, this gave me inspiration to layout my answer in this format. they write to show they have used and developed lots of pre existing media products but not just ripped off one product.  

Originality Explained - Shynola Press Release

Formatting evaluation question 1

For my first evaluation question I am going to format the question into a letter. The question is 'In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?'  The way I will set this out in a letter is as if another production company has accused me of copyright and I am replying saying how everyone must copy something but it does not breach copyright.

Formatting my evaluation questions.

Now I have written all of my evaluation questions in essay format and got the content of what to write or talk about I am now setting about putting them into different formats.

1st draft evaluation question 4

Media Evaluation Question 4

1st draft evaluation question 3

Media Evaluation Question 3

1st draft evaluation question 2

Media Evaluation Question 2

1st draft evaluation question 1

Media Evaluation Question 1

My thoughts on my video.

I am very happy with how my video has turned out, I would definitely watch something similar if someone else had made it. I am now going to begin evaluating my video.

Final music video.

This is my final video, after planning, preparing, filming and editing. I hope you enjoy it.

Editing final music video

When I was editing my final video, the main problems I was looking to face was the lip syncing and the guitar solo, another problem was creating movement but this was not as essential as the other 2 despite fixing it anyway. I fixed my main 2 issues to find that really the rest of the footage I had was fine, so I didnt have to do much else. I used the Ken Burns editing tool on iMovie to create the movement which my video was calling otu for.

Editing final music video

This is the same picture that I uploaded when I was editing my draft, but I did not see the need to take another this time, it is the same process and the same program and even the same mac I am using, but here I am editing my final video.

Getting my footage onto the iMac

I thought I would make this post to let you know that after a stressful attempt at getting my footage onto my mac when making my draft this time, the footage dropped straight from the memory card into iMovie, there was no complications and I can now edit.

Finished re filming.

Yesterday I succesfully refilmed, after trying to get the room to look exactly the same as before and sorting out some minor wardrobe issues we cracked on and think we did okay, I am now to begin editing my footage.

Refilming

Today I am refilming, I have booked the studio after school, me and my band are hoping to get all of the shots we failed to get and get right last time.

Jake Bugg Taste It.

With refilming just around the corner i am posting this to show an extreme examplof a performance video. Jake Bugg is obviously a real artist, and this video will have been made with the best equipment and the best team and editers. so I cannot recreate this video exactly but I can try and create a similar style of video by using the quick cuts and different shots used in this video.

Extended deadline

Today I have been granted an extended deadline of one week. I have spoken to my teacher and explained how much i have been struggling to get my band together all at the studio and have been unable to hit this deadline for my final video. I will have my video completed including filming editing and being posted onto you tube and my blog by next Friday.

Reminder for filming

Before I film tomorrow i thought i would text the band to let them know what the plan of action is and clear up any questions they have.

Today and past few days work.

Over the past few days I have been using tube chop to, cut out bits of my video I wasnt happy with to emphasise what I want to change, and what I want to refilm.

Tube chop

In This clip, the singer throws the mic stand down, as he does this the bassist and guitarist look at each other and begun giggling, this will be edited out, or dealt with when i refilm.

Tube chop

This was my biggest worry about my song and band, and unsurprisingly ,has been and, is being my biggest problem. The lengthy guitar solo. The guitar solo was going to be hard enough to frame as it is, but with a band who cannot play the song and have never played instruments before in they lives it was going to prove more difficult. I am still working on how to counter tho issue.

Tube chop

In this clip, again the singing and music are slightly out of sync. The problem here is that I have used the same shot from earlier in the song, it is the same lyrics but it's slightly different timing. I can solve this by slowing down my clip or re-filming with my singer singing at a different speed.

Tube chop

The problem I am highlighting here is obvious, my singer is no where near in time with the song. Looking through my clips there are extra clips of this same section where he is actually singing the right words at the right time, so i can simply switch the clips around and cut bits off before and at the end of the clip to keep the timing right.

Tube chop

Here I have used tube chop to cut up my video, I am not happy with this little sequence at the beginning of my video. The drums come in ever so slightly too late, this subsequently effects the timing of the guitar which also comes in late. This won't be to hard to edit out, and it won't require extra filming to correct it.

Todays work

As I am still waiting on my new footage to get filmed, to save myself from doing nothing today I have tidied up my blog. I have added labels to all of my posts, added an 'about me' a page views gadget and a mix pod so people can listen to music directly from my blog.

Todays work

As I still haven't managed to re-film anything for my video today I have been re-editing the footage I already have. The main problem was the lip syncing from my singer, but by sowing down some of the clips I already have and changing clips around I am managing to do a lot to my video which I didn't think I could of without re-filming.

Todays work

Today I have been looking through my video and the spare clips that I have to see if there are any adjustments I can make before I refill with my band.

Filming Reschedule

There has been a problem with my plan to film tonight. One of my band members car has broken down and we were relying on him to drive me and the rest of my band to the studio. So I have to reschedule my filming, I am currently unsure as to when I will be able to do this, hopefully sometime early next week.

Shooting schedule.

When i went and filmed my footage for the first time, I was relatively lucky with the footage i came out with, I seemed to fall to pieces as far as following any sort of shooting schedule was concerned. so for when i re film tomorrow I plan on using this schedule.

Front man walking on to the stage.
Front man walking off the stage.
Close ups of front man and all instruments.
Long shots of the whole band performing.
Mid shots of the band performing.
Mid shots of individuals.
Extreme close ups of instruments and bands members.
1 run through of the whole song whilst I move around stage, getting slightly random and disjunctured shots which can be used to fill in blank spots in my video.

This weeks schedule.

After last weeks highly succesul week I plan on near enough copying the weeks schedule.
Monday:Organise final bits, hiring the studio and times to sort means of getting there with my friends.
Tuesday: Go to the studio afterschool and film my video.
Wednesday: get footage onto the iMac.
Thursday: Begin to edit my video.
Friday: Finish editing and upload video to blog.

Refilming

Today I have booked the studio again to refilm the parts of my video I am not happy about, it is mainly just getting the singing in time with my front man and the track so another hour of filming should do the trick.

Changes to music video

I have only just finished my first draft of my muisc video, but already there are obvious problems which I need to change, there are certain parts where the singing of my front man does not sync up with the track at all.so this will need to be adressed, and the unavoidable guitar solo midway through the song. I have previously stated that my band are not actually a band, so this is difficult and I am currently working on a solution to this problem.

First draft music video

Editing

I have spent today and spent the whole of yesterday editing my video. I DL very impressed with the outcome. Apart from the animatic I made a few weeks ago, I have never used iMovie. Also none of my band members have ever done anything like this and none can play an instrument so I am happy about how I have managed to disguise this in my video with the editing. Below are done pictures of my footage on iMovie.

Getting my video on to a computer.

After facing challenge after challenge with getting my video filmed I was incredibly happy to finally have it sorted, but then i had another bump in the road when trying to download my footage from the SD card to a computer or a mac. Firstly i tried putting my footage straight onto the mac, it put my SD card into the SD card slot in the mac, I then tried a similar method using an SD card reader which i plugged into the USB port on the mac, failing this i tried the same on pc. After these had failed I tried to put my footage on to the pc via the camera itself this did not work however when i tried to do this with the mac, miraculously it worked, this however was very time consuming and frustrating.

Downloading my footage.

After successfully filming yesterday today i have failed to download any footage on to a computer or mac from my video camera.

Filming

This is my band in the studio where we filmed my music video.

Filming

Today I am filming my music video after school, as i have previously said it has not been easy to get all of my band together and today one of the boys who was going to be in the video has dropped out, another problem on my long list of things that have kept holding back from filming, but i have asked another one of my friends to fill in so there will be 4 people still in my band how I had originally wanted it.

Filming studio

This is the room I have booked for my band to play the song. It is a dark practice room which I think makes the room look more full and fits in with the genre best as possible. I have looked at several videos which are filmed in white rooms or with incredibly pale backgrounds, videos from top artists and amature videos including A-Level music videos, and i did not like them as i thought it left way to much space present in the room, but i want the room to seem as full as possible. 

Filming

I am going to film my video tomorrow, this will be my first filming, it has been very stressful to try and get everyone organised and together in one place at one time, but finally I got it together.

Final digipak and poster

Band Poster

Below are my first draft and my final band poster. Directly below is my first draft and second below is my final poster, as you can see I have not made a vast amount of changes from my first draft to my final product, they are very minimalistic changes, I started by changing the font size, and made the band name larger than the album name but made it just as visible. I then changed a modest 7/10 rating from NME to a 8/10 as well as realigning it and making it smaller which was the same as what I did with Q mags rating. I decided to boost the rating as I didnt want it to be unrealistic but I wanted it to show the band are good, Kings of Leon's debut album youth and young manhood was given a 9/10 but also called 'the best debut album of the last 10 years' so I did not want to try and out do myself by making my band the best band ever, as it is meant to be an amateur band that is relatively young and new to the music scene but also incredibly talented. I then made the small print at the bottom actually small, as on my first draft it is very big. I have also chosen the release date 4/2/2013 as this is a monday and albums are usually released early in the week so they have a whole week to get as many sales as possible in the first week and try to make it inot the charts by the end o the week.

Digipak

The final change I made to my digipak was to fill the empty to panels, on one of the the top right panel I have copied the thank you list from the kings of leon's debut album youth and young manhood on which there was two columns of writing thanking all of the producers, engineers, technicians, studios etc that were involved in the making of the CD. On the other panel, the top left panel, I have added an element of disjuncture, I have written two columns of text again so it is similar to the opposite panel, but I have filled it with things that a band may do on a night out, and as the hit song on the album last nite, is about not knowing where you stand with someone and being confused I have added elements of this to the writing. below shows the final changes I have made to my digipak but also my final digipak.

Digipak

Here my digipak is almost finished, I have now emoved the template pictures of kasabian, but I havent managed to take any pictures so I have left the two panels where previously there were pictures blank. I have also moved the band name to the front cover as opposed to the inside panel, and the legal text and barcode has moved for the final time to the bottom left corner of the back panel of the digipak.

Digipak

On this screen grab I have moved all of the legal notice and text with the barcode to the back corner of the CD case instead of the spine where I had it before.

Digipak

Here I am continuing to make changes to my digipak, this is after I have changed the font over the whole digipak.

Digipak

I am now begining to make changes to my digipak, the first change I made was to change the font, as it did not fit my genre of inide rock well enough, The font I had used was fitted more between the rock and western genre. The picture below shows the first change I have made to my digipak by deleting the font on the cover.

Disjuncture on my digipak

After looking at the kings of leon album yesterday and deciding to do a similar style credit role on my digipak, it meant scrapping the images I was going to use. Doing this would mean I would be left with one blank panel. Having one plank panel may be okay had it been the panel behind where the CD would be stored, but it wasn't  it was the panel next to it. So I have decided to add an element of disjuncture. Following the same format as the credit role opposite  I have listed things that people might do on a night out all starting with 'last nite' the name of the album.

Kings of Leon

Today I was looking through some different CDs and came across the kings of Leon's youth and young manhood album. What I really liked about this digipak was what was on one of the inside covers, it was a list of credits of who had help make and contribute towards the album in a very formal two column layout, I have decided to do this instead of having a picture there.

Making a band

One of the big problems I am facing is getting a band together, I am using my friends none of which are actually in a band (but I will cross that bridge when I get to it.) There are various commitments that my friends already have with sports and work, not to add my already busy weekly schedule of sport and work of my own, so trying to rally everyone together on one day is proving a real challenge.

Happy about my feedback.

Overall I am very happy with my feedback, after all it was only feedback from my first draft, so really i was looking for criticism just as much as praise. With this I can now begin to start making changes.

Digipak feedback

digipak feedback set, a set on Flickr.

Here is the feedback I recieved from my class regarding my first draft of my digipak and poster.

Feedback from friends on digipak and poster

Today I gave some friends a copy of my digipak and poster to have a quick look at. They aren't media students but listen to music and will have seen a band poster and a digipak before. The feedback was positive, this was reassuring as its only my first draft and they liked it, hopefully I wont have to change too much.

Getting digipak feed back.

Today I have given everyone in my class a copy of my digipak and poster and also sent them an email containing them so that they can all give me feedback on what they liked, didn't like and what worked well and didn't work so well.

draft digipak and poster teacher feedback

I have now recieved some feedback about my digipak and poster, using WWW (What worked well) and EBI (Even better if) comments I will be able to make necccessary changes  to both digipak and poster. Below I have copied and pasted what was in the email i recieved with my first feedback:

Digipak

 WWW

Colour good, nice use of images on the front and back (not entirely convinced by brown beer bottles).

 EBI

What is image of on Young Natives page? It doesn’t matter if unclear but justify on blog if this is the effect you want.

 Images of band need to be own in final version

 Low level 3 7/10

  Poster

 WWW

Colour and layout good. Font looks good where it is messed up.

EBI

Make reviews smaller font – Q and NME

Consider positioning to ensure key info hits an intersect

Font at bottom of page too large, needs to be much smaller

Level 3 7/10

The Strokes Last Nite original video.

 Whilst I have been going a bit over the top on watching other A2 Level performance videos, I thought I would post this one, This is the performance video of the actual song that I am doing by the band who performed it originally, The Strokes. I find this video a bit boring, I understand the idea of star image and would be contradicting myself massively if i said it was a bad idea, if not criticizing the whole music video industry, but i just feel the camera is to static and fixed on Julian Casablancas (the lead singer). In my video, I will focus on the front man more, but will use much more movement and show a lot of the instruments as well.

Other A2 videos.

This is another performance video made last year, I was looking at this whilst waiting for my feedback on my digipak and poster. It is different to the previous performance video I looked at. This one, obviously, is outside which does add a slightly edgy advantage to it, but essentially is what I will be truing to make indoors.

Draft Digipak and Poster initial thoughts.

After handing in my first draft digipak and poster yesterday, today I have had a quick look at things I could change, there are certainly tweaks I could make. one thing that I think doesn't look quite right is the track listings on the back cover of the digipak, this is definitely something that I will change, but for now I am going to wait until I get some feedback.

Digipak and poster template draft

This is my poster to advertise the release of my bands album ans also the CD digipak, I have not had much feedback about my poster, but I have had some on my CD digipak and with this in mind there are some changes that I may look into. The font has proved to be slightly out of touch with the genre characteristics and fits in better with rock or western music, the bottles are also in need of attention. I personally like the idea and think they fit in well with the look of the band I am trying to portray. I have not Yet taken pictures of my band and plan to do so when I film my music video, but whilst this is only my first draft I have used pictures of indie rock band Kasabian until I have my pictures.

Other A2 videos

Today I have taken a break from my digipak and poster and have been looking at other videos, I came across this video (below) which was made by A2 students last year. The interesting thing about this video is however, they are in the same room at the same studio i plan to use, so it has given me a real insight into how I would like my video to look. I do not know what grade they got but as a performance video I like it and it uses all the conventions of a performance video a long with capturing all the necessary shots to make it. Effectively all I need to do when I film is do the same, if not better, as what these lads did.

Track Listing

The reason I have chosen the names of my songs are because they all represent a similar aspect of the rock and roll lifestyle. Half of them are already existing songs and EP's by other bands but even these were chosen carefully because of their names and relation to the idea of drinking, partying, touring, performing etc.

Track Listings

On my digpak has the tracks that are on my album, my tracks are:
Shoot Up
Forgotten Memories
Last Nite
Smashed Glass
Ex Drugs And Rock And Roll
The Time
Ashtray Full Of Dreams
Fire
Cigarettes and alcohol
The Masterplan
Cut Off
Saturday

The tracks that are on my album are a mix between songs that I have made up and songs that i have used that already exist, six are created and six are pre existing (including the song for my video) the songs I have used that are pre existing are all from the same genre of music that I am using. I have put 12 tracks on my album because after looking at some albums of a similar genre, Streets in the sky (the enemy) employment (kaiser chiefs) and west rider pauper lunatic asylum (kasabian) they have around 12 tracks on their albums, kasabian and kaiser chiefs have 12 exactly and the enemy have 13 but also an acoustic track. I have copied the amount of tracks to follow the genre conventions as much as possible.

Album cover practices

These are a few ideas I have been working on for my album cover of my digipak. I have tried to encorporate my idea of the 'sex drugs and rock and roll' lifestyle with the stylemodels I have looked at already to try and create something that fits all of the backets.

Album cover ideas

On my album, there is not lots I can put on it to keep with my simplistic idea, but I am trying to encorporate the idea of showing the band as a band that goes out and parties, living the 'sex, drugs and rock and roll' lifestyle. to do this on the front I am going to try and to put a small image on based around drugs, or drinking that does not make the band come off as drug addicts or alcoholics but as a band who parties hard in amongst touring and recording.

Ideas for fonts on my album

Font Ideas

Album name

I have decided on the name of my album, after looking at a few other artists and seeing that they have called there album the same name as one of the songs in i am going to do the same. Kasabian recently released 'Velociraptor' the song which was in the album 'Velociraptor' and Arctic Monkeys released the album Suck it and see with the song 'suck it and see' making it into the album. As the song I am doing is called 'Last Nite' my album will be called 'Last Nite'

Cover Font

The chosen font of writing on the cover of an album is important. I want mine to be a simple font that is also quite sophisticated and will be effective if it stands alone on a simplistic cover which i am trying to create.

Conventions of poster

Looking at band posters I have picked up a few things, the key conventions I will follow are where I must show the ratings from music magazines, In my genre of music I will use NME or a similar magazine. Most posters also have a picture of the band, but I plan to challenge this convention by not putting on an image and keeping the simple colour scheme from my digipak.

Conventions for digipak

I have been looking at a variety of digipaks and album covers and picked up little bits from all of the, one of the convetions of have come across in my genre, and across a lot in general which I like is the simplicity of the cover and colour scheme. I plan to use a simple colour scheme, similar to suck it and see, I like the off white colour used.

analyses of album covers

Album Cover Analyses

Digipak research

From only looking at a few digipaks and album covers I have already decided that i want the cover to be incredibly simplistic, not to much detail and not to much colour, possibly even a monochrome album, however inside the digipak I want to have pictures of my band together and a few details about the band including further pictures, inteviews and small biography's of the band members.

Beggining of my digipak

I have now started looking into several digipaks from different bands and am gathering ideas and opinions on what I like and what I dont like about album covers and digipaks as a whole.

Location

I have chosen my location for my video, as I am doing simply a performance video I am going to be filming in a studio. I have got a studio that a friend of mine uses to practice in with his own band. this will add to simplicity of my video

Letter requesting permission to use my song choice

Dear Copyright Holder,

I am an A-Level student and I am writing to request your permission to use one of your songs for my A2 media music video. The song I would like the use is 'Last nite' by the strokes.

With your permission, the song will be utilised in my current A-Level Media Studies project, which involves creating a music video to a popular music track, as well as producing an album cover and a magazine advert for the artist, which i have created and profiled myself as a band consisting of four people with the band called 'Young Natives'

If I received your permission, this track would be used in an educational context and be viewed by my media class, my teacher and the OCR exam board moderator. 

The artist and your company would of course be fully recognised throughout pre-production and the final video itself.  A copyright notice with wording supplied by you can be included in the records of the project.  If this is required, please send full details.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Regards

George Hill, 

Lutterworth College media student.

Wardrobe

The bands I have taken inspiration all fall into a unique category off dress, they all put there on touch on their fashion sense but as a whole is quite predictable. The look the bands go for appears to have started off smart but hen been thrown into moshpit, the shirts, ties and blazers sported by many bands I have looked at are worn and torn to say the least, frayed edges, rolled up sleeves and undone buttons certainly seems to be the dress sense I will follow, There is also another dress sense that falls into the same category of music, this look is more of mod like, wearing brands like fred perry and adidas original, tracksuit jacktes and parkas, which follow the dress of bands like oasis, blur and the enemy. . With the simplistic colour scheme hopefully I won't struggle to make this happen.

Colour scheme

After looking into bands of a similar genre, I am going to imitate the common colour scheme which issued. although it is less specific than a 'colour scheme' the bands i have taken inspiration from all follow a 'dark' colour scheme Kasabian follow a more extreme colour of just black especially in the video switchblade smiles. But in the overall scheme it is simply a more run down and vintage colour scheme that dominates the indre rock genre. below are some picture of some british bands i have taken inspiration from, note the style and colour of their clothing.

animatic story board

Story boarding pictures

I am now creating a much more advanced animatic story board, to do this I have redrawn my shots larger and with slightly more detail, these are my pictures before bring edited into an animatic.