Evaluation-Question 1-Tanzila Huda

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



We searched through a lot of videos looking at different genres, one genre that caught our eye was Rnb which made us look at Jay sean -'tonight', we thought this would be a good song choice because its modern, catchy and will also attract a younger audience, but then we thought that it would be a bad idea because it was too popular, so then we decided to go for a genre that was unique and different  such as Rock/ indie.







we were flicking through the rock/ indie videos when we came across Coldplay-'fix you' and we liked the idea of one man against the whole world so we decided to take this idea, we thought about doing this song when we came across a video we was watching in class called 'Bitter sweet symphony' by the verve









The verve influenced us alot because of the tracking shot of him walking through the streets whilst singing.



In the end we chose Snow Patrol- 'run'




We chose this because we thought it was different and it attracted a young audience also an older audience aswell, we thought that the Depressed feeling of the song would go together with the idea of the tracking shot of the man walking through the streets in cold play-'fix you'
we thought this would be a good idea for our video because our song is quite depressing so we thought tracking shots of the singer in the video walking would empathise the mood.

There are two screenshots of videos shown above, the first one is of Coldplay- 'Fix you' and the Second one is from our video, i've chosen these screen shots because they link mis en scene as both of the characters are walking through somewhere such as the streets also its the same tracking shot showing the singer walking and singing looking depressed.

 This screen shot is of a close up shot of the singers foot while walking from our video.

This screen shot is also a closeup shot of the singers foot while walking, this is from the 'Bitter sweet symphony' by verve

the video of 'Bitter Sweet symphony' influenced us to do a close up of the singer walking because it shows that he's depressed and that he might be looking down while walking.

Digipak

while researching digipaks and adverts i came across a lot of styles that have been used and i chose to use images from my video so it links instead of using graphical images on the digipak.

This digipak Of Snow patrol uses graphical effects instead of using images which link to the album such as the artist. i decided not to use a graphical effect because i wanted a more clearer link from my digipak to my video.

So i looked for digipaks which had images of the artist instead

I came across this digipak cover by Coldplay which had the bands/artists face on it this, i likes this because it had a clear visual link to the band and the song.

I also found this  Digipak cover  of Stereophonics which also has images of the band/ artists mixed with graphical effects of the 'sea', i liked this idea because it looked very challenging to do, but i thought it would be very time consuming so i decided to stick to the idea of using the artists image.

 This is my digipak, i was inspired by Coldplay because images of the band/artists were used in the front cover, by doing this it creates a clear link from the video.

Adverts

 While looking at adverts i came across these two adverts of Stereophonics and Razorlight, these influenced me because again the artists face is used to advertise the song and video which gives a clear link to the audience.

Above is my advert, i used the idea of the artists image as the background to give a clear link for the audience.

Evaluation Part 4 - Mehmet Tarhan

Evaluation Part 3 - Mehmet Tarhan

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


Construction:
Arguably the most important part of the whole process, the use of technologies in constructing our main product, as well as ancillary products. We used high quality professional JVC recording cameras to capture the artists performance. The use of the attachable microphone really aided me and the group. We could easily hear which part of the song I was singing, and then easily put the actual track on top of the video, so that the lip syncing would be spot on. The large capacity memory cards, and also the reliable batteries made it easy to record for 5 hours straight without any hassle or need to go to college and back to the locations if we required any equipment.

Photoshop was my favourite program because you could create really dramatic effects, and it was good to learn how to use it. My knowledge on how to use final cut stemmed from the AS year, making our thrillers. However, the method enlisted in putting together the bits and pieces of our video was very different. In the thriller we just stuck parts of it on, and cut parts of it off, but this time we needed to use precision, and needed to be aware of how much of a clip we needed to cut. This was all down to the most important thing in a music video. Lip syncing. If it had been off even for 2 or 3 seconds, it would of put our whole video into disarray. We needed to make sure that we edited to the beat of the music as well, otherwise the video would not of made sense.


This was made easy with the use of portable hard-drives, and an easy to use interface on the iMac. 


Research:

Our main format for research was the internet, and more specifically, YouTube and Vimeo. These websites are crucial for any form of research you wish to do. They have hundreds of millions of music videos, both original from the artists themselves, and from cover artists. These websites helped us in that we got to see how the ideas we wanted to use, were used by others and we judged how successful they were in the implementation of using that idea.   


Planning: 
I created a presentation on powerpoint outlining the main points, key information, that needed to be noted down. This project was then shown to the class, as we outlined what we wanted to achieve, and how we planned to do so. 
Powerpoint Presentation - You can view it by clicking this link.


We also created our storyboard, and scanned it in to the computers. It is available to watch here:
The Animatic


Evaluation:
Our medium to evaluate our work, to critique it, to show others it, is right here. Blogger, without it, and without its easy to use interface, countless features and simplistic handling, it would of been a great mission to evaluate our work. Blogger enables us to post and embed videos onto here, uploading our planning stage work, as well as showing our ancillary products. We can also change the design and fonts, and colours as well as the background, to make it different from other groups that are using blogger. 

Evaluation Part 2 - Mehmet Tarhan

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The story in our music video is quite sad, and to show this we used a variety of shots to show the artists sadness with the use of close ups and mid shots. With this in mind, we used a rural area of space in the first couple of verses, because the artist is needs space, and needs to think about his loss.

Here are a couple of visual links about our video and my ancillary products.

Digipak Inside Covers

Run Video - Verse 1

Here, the background for my digipak is the same as the walk path in the canal. This is a good visual link and I chose to use this because the colours shown in the picture were appealing, the green and brown leaves as well as the trees were a link to the park in the second verse. The upside to choosing this was also I didn't have to add any effects, except for the sign post in the above digipak. The sign post was a good addition, it contains lyrics from the artists song.

Digipak Front & Back Covers

Advert

The advert and digipak are linked also, there is a small picture of the front cover of the album on the advert it self. The image is also the same. I think the advert will be successful because it shows the information that is crucial about the artist. These include the artists name, the album name, its biggest single, reviews, tour dates, and websites and where to buy. 

In selling the artist, I think that the ancillary products went well with the main product. 

Evaluation Part 1 - Mehmet Tarhan

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

We searched through various music videos, both in class and at home before the production of our video. The time spent was worthwhile because it was crucial that we made the correct choice, and that we were all up for the challenge. There would be no point in choosing the latest number 1, or a previous smash hit, if we had no opinions, or thoughts about the song. We chose Run in the end, although it was quite a well known song, and we would preferred if it were a less popular one, we decided that that was would be the song that we would produce best at. 

At first we looked at singers like Jay Sean, and his song Tonight. But we decided for a more indie/alternative genre, and looked at songs like Bittersweet Symphony - by The Verve, Fix You - By Coldplay, a nd ultimately, Run - by Snow Patrol. These songs all have a message, about loneliness, love and care and change. All of the videos have something in common, there is one lead singer, walking alone and signing the lyrics. I liked this.

In many ways there can are comparisons made with The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony to our video Run, the main protagonist of this video is the main singer, as it is with our video. The camera work is also worthwhile to note, many tracking shots of the artist, views from the side, front and back, as well as close ups on the artist. There are also striking differences between the two music videos. The Verve, has a more urbanised feel to the video, shooting wholly on a crowded and buzzing road. Compared to our video, with a slightly rural feel, as most of the video was shot in the canal, park. 

Coldplay - Fix You

The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony

Snow Patrol - Run (Our Cover)

As you can see with the screen shots from the videos above, we've followed some conventions of media.       

Such as the typical camera work included in the music video itself, the close-ups - which creates emphasis on the artist, because of the emotions showed in a close up shot. We've used a variety of other shots, long shots/ extreme long shots, and as the images above show,  mid-shots. We also used typical camera movements like pans and track shots.  

Our media product uses other platforms of media to promote itself. With the use of the ancillary products, our digipak and advertisement. 

Coldplay - Parachutes

The Verve - Forth

Mehmet Tarhan - Turbulence

Whereas Coldplay and The Verve have gone for different forms of art for their digipak covers; I decided to put the main artist on the cover. The reasoning for this was because our artist was new, and we wanted to show the audience what he looked like. By comparison with the other two, it would seem that we are challenging the conventions of indie/ alternative rock bands and artists.

I think my ancillary products are effective in selling the whole album, and not just the cover song. 

The Evaluation - Part IIII - BEKTAS

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Reactions in the cinema screening was rather good,our video was giving the 'awww' treatment near the end ( during the cab scene) which was followed by a warm round of applause after it was finished. Overall the reaction was very promising and much better than I personally expected.

The audience feedback was very positive, however there were a few comments and opinions which were slightly negative, although I do agree with some of the negative comments to an extent. Listening to opinions and feedback in any context is very important to help improve, and to spot aspects of the product which can be changed or edited for a better effect.

Comments and views that we received -


"Really had an 'indie' feel, well done!"
"Needs a clearer narrative"
"Should of Included more locations"
"Locations were boring"
"Taxi scene could have been done more dramatically, for a better effect"
"Lip syncing was flawless" 


After really relentlessly analysing and deeply thinking about the comments made, I believe they are all correct and fair to an extent. "Really had an indie feel...", I fully agree with this judgement, the main influence over this specific comment may have been the walking tracking shots of our artist which is reminiscent in other indie videos and artists, such as The Verve, Coldplay and Radiohead.


 "Should of Included more locations".Watching our music video back a few times we realised that the locations seem repetitive as we only used three primary locations, perhaps we could have included more locations during the planning stages. What would adding more locations result in? Well, possibly it would of generally made the video more interesting as a whole, although in my opinion the quality of the location/s used rather than the amount of locations is of more importance.


"Taxi scene could have been done more dramatically". I also agree with this opinion. Although I thought we captured the main purpose of the taxi scene, which was for sympathy and sorrow, shot lengths could have been longer so the audience connected and related more with the our artist and the female character in the video. Thinking back, this would have involved the audience possibly more than our finished video. Involving the audience creates a more personal connection with the audience which may have been even more effective.


Overall looking back at the feedback and the final cut of the video, in my opinion the video was successful. However, The comments made did make me see our video from a different light, such as from the point of view of the target audience, which was very helpful. If we were able to apply the feedback and make changes to our video I reckon we would not have made overhauling changes, keeping the core of the video as it is.


Feedback received on my ancillary products (advert & digipak) was also positive. Several comments were made on how it my products were at a professional standard and seemed professional. "All of the important conventions are included and very attractively used", I agree with this, however reflecting on the products I realised that in actual fact not all regular conventions were used, If I were able to go back and make changes to my products I most certainly would have included more conventions of a digipak and advert such as an inclusion of a competition on my advert, which was a regular feature whilst researching adverts.

The Evaluation - Part III - BEKTAS

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

The iMac, a glorious piece of a hardware.