Completed Music Video

Completed Magazine Advert

Completed Digipak Design

Evaluation - Question Four

Evaluation - Question Three

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Created with Padlet

Here is some of the feedback that we received based on the questions we asked on our survey on surveymonkey.com . This feedback was very helpful to us in the planning of our music video. A lot of people's feedback were things we decided on including in our music video. For example some said they imagined someone playing the guitar which is something we incorporated into the video. We asked questions such as 'Do you think this song would be good to use for a music video?' , after getting 100% of people agreeing that it would be, we knew that we had picked the right song to start working on. I think getting people to fill in a survey for us was a major help for us, we needed the music video to promote the artist and be exciting and attractive for the audience. So who would be better to get ideas feedback from than the audience themselves!

We also received a lot of comments and feedback whilst we were in the editing process. Every so often we asked some teachers to come and look through what we had so far as we thought that it would take up too much time to try and finish the whole thing and then ask for feedback as it could be that everything we had done they don't necessarily agree that it works, or that maybe the footage isn't that good. We also did this with some students to see their thoughts on what we had. Early on the in the editing process we got some feedback to scrap certain footage we had as in didn't look or fit in well with everything else that we had. Looking back on it now I'm glad we took on board what they said and rethought about how to come up with new ideas.  One piece of feedback that we received from a teacher really did help us to realise that we were being creative with the video. We got many comments on how people liked the dance footage that we decided to include as dance is usually used within genres such as 'pop'. The idea to use this was one that could go either way so we were glad to get such great feedback about it.

Evaluation - Question Two

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? 
(Digipak & Magazine Advert)

Magazine adverts and digipaks are both created to help with promoting the product and and artist. Generally with these ancillary texts you will find that there is a certain theme that runs between them. For example certain, statements colours, images or texts. The theme itself is what will attract its target audience , they also fit within the genre that the music falls. For example the acoustic genre. The digipak and magazine will run with the theme and mood of the song using black and white dull colours that reflects the mood of the product, if they were to use bright colours with bold text then it is contrasting and may falsely attract the wrong audience.

Some ancillary texts may use images that have been used in the main product. For example some of the images that appear on the digipak were taken at the location(s) of where the main product was shot. What might also be included in the texts are lyrics from the media product. Often you will find, especially in digipaks, there is a section that includes lyrics to the song(s) that are on the single/album for the viewer to
read, sing along to etc.

Examples of real digipaks and magazine adverts -

My Magazine Advert

Here is the magazine advert that we created to go alongside and promote our media product. It is a very plain and simple design which we felt would be more effective and would fit better in the acoustic genre. The one thing we made clear to stand out in our advert is the title of the song, we felt that this is main information were promoting and that we want the audience to remember so we decided on making it the centre of everything in much larger text than the rest. What you can also see that we have included on this advert is some quotes about the artist of the media product. Like anything else whether it be makeup, clothes, furniture etc you will also take a peep at reviews to see other peoples thoughts on it. This helps to promote the product further. We have also included where it is possible to download, share, watch , buy the media product. This is always helpful to an audience as it will direct them straight to where they can get to the product. The image that we used of the artist/character I think is quite bold as she is seated in front of a plain black background which makes her stand out more. However in normal genres we find that the artist is normally the main attraction or centre of magazine adverts, especially with genres such a pop. The texts that we have used are clear and easy to read and we stuck with a simple colour choice of white which I feel works well on the black background.

My Digipak

Here is is the digipak that we created to go alongside and promote our media product. There is a slight colour theme that runs through both the digipak and the magazine advert, of white and black. However we did in the colour blue so something stood out. The front cover we kept very simple, our genre is the complete opposite to genres such as 'pop' for example. An album cover for a pop artist is likely to be quite out there and include bold colours to make the album memorable. Acoustic is a lot more calm and laid back to we stuck with a simple image and decided to opt plain text so its easy for the audience to read. The back cover carries on with the sam colour scheme and has the same image as the front cover but smaller and it has been moved to the left. We used a bit more fancy text here to list the songs within this album. We included a barcode, the record companies logo and also a website dedicated to the artist. The inside panels we decided would look good if we used some images that we included in our footage for the video. One panel includes a collage of all the dance shots, which is something you wouldn't normally see in a digipak but it key footage within our video so we thought it would be nice to use. Another image is of the artist looking into a mirror, this image we took from the first shots we have in our video.We both really liked the idea we had to sing into the mirror as it seems self reflective, and thought it would make a good addition to our digipak to show an element of what the song is about. Another panel we have is of the scenery we see when we filmed at Hainault. We liked how the image seemed quite eery and it also fitted in well with our colour scheme. The final panel is an idea we had from analyzing other digipaks. In most digipaks you will panels that include the lyrics for songs on that album. Instead of taking up a whole panel with all the lyrics we to the song we thought it would be nice to just use the Chorus as it tells a lot about what the song is about. The idea of having the blue guitar in the shot, came from early footage we filmed of me playing the guitar. However when we looked over this footage we thought it best to leave it out and re-filmed playing an instrument later on and also in a different location. Although this particular guitar does not feature in our video we thought that this worked well with the colour scheme we had and added a nice splash of colour into the digipak.

Music Video (Main Product)

Here is our main product, a music video for the song 'Paper people' by Charly Houston. The genre of music we picked for our project was acoustic. To get some ideas for our video we researched into a lot of famous music videos to see if they would give use some inspiration. We the different shots we decided on all have their own specific meaning within the song. We used shots of the artist/character playing both the piano and guitar, the decision to use these wasn't anything to do with the character or emotions, it was mainly that the song shows a clear contrast changing from the piano to the guitar and we though it would look nice to show this. It also linked in well with the lip syncing of the song, we managed to film some nice shots of the artist/character sitting on a stool playing the guitar and singing. We also used a variety of dance shots within the video. This isn't very common within the genre of the music we had chosen. But we managed to make it work by using contemporary styled dancing to fit the flowing music of the song. The dance sections were something that were commented on quite a lot when people gave us some feedback during the process of editing, they agreed they it gave something unique to the video. We also decided on filming some footage in a popular forest near us called Hainault. We got some nice footage from there, especially the few shots we got of all the scenery from the forest. Overall we was very pleased with the outcome of our video as all our hard work seemed to pay off as we got some great feedback!

Overall I feel like our main product and the ancillary texts are all effective. I think they work well together as we've kept with colour schemes and also simplicity. This shows that there is a theme running between all of them which shows consistency and doesn't confuse the audience. I think each of them fit within the acoustic genre and would attract the right target audience. I think both the digipak and magazine advert promote the music video fairly well and show a good representation of the artist and what her music is about.

Evaluation - Question One

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? from elliemoore

Extra Filming

Today we filmed some extra footage for our music video. After speaking to a couple of teachers on Monday during our lesson it was clear that our music video was missing something and needed something a little extra to tie it altogether. We talked over what was already in the video and asked ourselves what could we add in that would still make sense? One of our teachers pointed out that we have footage of a piano being played at the beginning of the video but it is not continuous throughout and suggested adding in another instrument.

We come to the conclusion that we should try out filming some guitar sections. We had previously done this when we first started filming but the footage we had was not great and we felt it would be best not to use it. So this time round we changed our location, we used one of the teachers drama studios where we could ourselves manipulate the lighting and angles.

The footage we filmed was great. It worked well with the shots we already had in our video, as soon as we had finished filming we went straight over to the media block to get what we had onto the computer and to start editing it all.

Contingency plan

Contingency Plan Name: Ellie Moore & Jessica Pye Production: 'Paper People' music video - Charly Houston

Potential problems and how to overcome these problems: Weather conditions - The weather did become an issue for us at some stages when trying to film the hainult shots. Obviously filming in the rain is not ideal, however the weather did forecast both fog and snow which is easier to handle. To overcome the problem of the weather we checked the forecast each day, or re-arranged and focused on other filming and editing. Usage of locations - The main location that came as an issue was the dance studio in the leisure centre. As this studio is used for PE lessons, BTEC/GCSE classes and dance clubs it was hard to find a time that allowed us to film in there. To overcome this issue I spoke to my dance teacher who runs all these classes/clubs and asked for the dates which the dance studio was free to film and me and Jessica worked around them days.

Shot List

Shot List
Scene	Shots	Description
1 2 3 4 5 6	Black and white piano,Lip syncing & dancing Lip syncing & dancing Heart drawing & lip syncing Hainult forest shots Lip syncing and dancing Lip syncing	For the beginning of the video we have varied shots. We have used close up shots of the piano and added the effect of black and white. We also have used our filming from the dance studio. We have both some lip syncing into the mirror and a few dance moves. These shots are used for the first verse of the song. The shots are varied between dance moves from the studio and lip syncing up against a plain, white wall. For both the pre and chorus we have a shot of someone drawing a heart onto paper and again some lip syncing against a wall. We have varied shots from hainult forest, of the character walking through the trees and lip syncing standing against a tree. This is  again varied shots of dancing from the studio but also some lip syncing but a window with natural lighting. Mixture of lip syncing shots , some from hainult, blank background singing and looking out of a window.

Editing new footage

Today we come in during our free periods to try and get a start on editing the new footage we filmed yesterday. We re very pleased with how the footage and come out and it looks as if the different shots will fill a big gap we had within our video. I am currently experimenting round with the shots , changing the effects etc, to see what we could come up with.

Extra Filming

Today we filmed some extra shots for our music video. We thought that it might be nice to film myself lip syncing against a plain white wall so that it contrasts with the Hainult and dance studio shots. We thought it would be effective to have something just really simple slotted into the video.

We filmed up against one of the plain white walls in Jessica's living room. We tried a number of different angles and even went on to try and experiment filming by her dining room doors that over looks onto the garden, trying to catch any bit of sunlight we could on camera.

Opening titles

Jessica came in this lesson with a new idea for our opening titles. At the moment our opening titles is someone writing out the words paper people in a notepad which we feel does look good, but whilst on the internet she came across a video whose opening titles caught her eye. It starts with the name of the artist with an out of focus image of her moving in the background and then we see the title of the song appear. After watching this I think it is a good inspiration to try something new out, as the titles now do seem obvious that is is school students who have created the music video, because it is an obvious amateur opening to a music video used many times before.

Editing photos for digipak

For the other panels of the digipak we have decided to use a ranger of photos that we took during filming, some screenshots from the camera and prop photos. The main program used to edit these was 'Photoshop'.

Hainult Photo

Prop Photo

Screenshot Photos

Editing photos for digipak

 Front Cover

We found a picture that looked suitable for our front cover. It shows half of my face but Jessica has edited it so that darker areas of the photo; my eye ,hair and the shadows from the photo stand out more. She did this using photoshop, it also had to be cropped to fit within the digipak. The final effect that was added to the photo was an effect on the filter tab that made the image seem 'sketch like'. We then added the title and name of the artist to the bottom of the photo.

Digipak Tester

We decided that it may be a good idea to start putting the photos that have been edited into place on a digipak template to get a start.  We thought that printing it out may also be helpful as it allows us to see whether photos need to be cropped, if the colour may need to be fixed or if they simply do not look right.

We was pleased with the result and it didn't seem as though anything needed to be edited. although after looking at the digipak we decided it may be a good idea to change the colour of the title and artist name as because it is on a black and white photo and the text is in the colour white it fades into the background a bit and we want it to stand out.

Digipak Tester

Digipak Tester

Digipak Tester

Editing Process

I have been editing our all our footage we have filmed since mid December and we are really pleased with the outcome so far. Our main focus is to get each little bit we want into place and then try and experiment with different effects and transitions. Although we have already added a few effects that we had previously planned to do.

Upon showing one of our teachers what we had done so far, we received some good feedback and helpful advice. We were told that what we had so far was really good however it may be more effective to focus one main location. We were advised to make our 'Dance filming' the central part of our video as it brings a unique idea to the table. 

Taking this all into account we are now thinking about filming more dance section for the video as it isn't alot of hassle as I am the character in the video and am in the Dance studio most of the week. Although we have had an idea of maybe introducing a male character into these sections, so including maybe lifts and pair dancing? This is just an idea at the moment that we are looking into doing.

It is clear to us that we are not necessarily going to stick to all of our original plans , as some ideas we had and filmed did not come out exactly how we wanted and so we thought it best to remove them.