Candidate Information

CANDIDATE NAME

Charlotte Coe

CANDIDATE NUMBER

5027

CENTRE NAME

Wilmington Grammar School for Girls

CENTRE NUMBER

61119

Evaluation 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To begin with, I will first evaluate the feedback we recieved from our rough cut and the changes we made to make it better. We had a lesson in which we recieved feedback from the rest of our class. This is what they said:

Positive feedback:

• Actors were very believeable
• Effective variety of camera angles
• The cutting to the best of the music worked really well
• The black and white memory scenes were really professional

This very positive outcome made us very optimistic, even though we are very aware that there are some parts of the video that need re-filming/re-editing.

Improvements:

• The text on the phone is almost impossible to read because of the sun which reflects on the screen.
• The acting of our actress when singing 'Ignorance is your new best friend' is not the best cos it seems as though she is laughing.

After hearing these improvements, we then refilmed the bits that weren't to their best potential. I learned from the audience feedback that even the slightest change can make the video look all the more professional. As a result of our rough cut feed back, we then went on to make our final cut, which proved to be a lot more successful than our first draft.

Final Cut feedback

The video shows some audience feedback from our targeted audience. From our audience feedback in this video, I have learnt the following things:

-Our editing was successful because it was very in time to the music.

-The lip synching, which proved tricky to master, worked very well and was also very in time with the music.

-From the feedback I have also learnt that there were a couple of things we could have  slightly differently, like making Elle seem more drunk when she is drinking and also making more of a link between the ancillary tasks and the main product.

-Something that I have learnt from this experience is that our research helped us a lot in the production of the video, because if we did not have this initial research, we would not have known what is expected from real music videos.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback cc

View more PowerPoint from charlotteacoe

The class feedback we recieved on the ancillary tasks and the main video proved our productions to be overall successful, with a clear link between all the products. Having initial feedback from the class on our rough cut and original ancillary tasks really aided us in making our final products more successful and professional

Evaluation 2

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

Our Audience Feedback

We received various reactions from our target audience on the combination of our main product and ancillary tasks. Here are some reactions that we received:

'Although the actress isn't wearing the same clothes, there is a definite link between all the products'

'Well, there's not really a connection between the main product and the ancillary tasks because they don't look similar'

'I think they combine really well because the poses that the actress is doing in the ancillary tasks reflects the attitude of the actress in the video.'

'The CD and magazine poster looks really professional and so does the video. The advert and the CD made me want to watch the video.'

After taking on board what our audiences views were on the effectiveness of the  combination between our products, I will begin to analyse myself the connection between all the products. It is true that the ancillary tasks and the main product do not look very similar but having said that, after all the research we have done, we begun to realise that the music videos do not usually have a direct similarity to the products that promote it. Having taken on board this knowledge, we did not take much care in making sure the ancillary tasks linked perfectly with the music video. 


After all the research that I had undergone, I had come to the realisation that when creating a music video, digipack and magazine advert,  I would not just be promoting a single song or the artist, but in fact, I would be promoting a brand. Instead of making the products really similar, we used certain aspects to show the link between all of our products. For example, we tried in the photoshoot to make Elle look very surly and with a lot of attitude, to match her character in the music video. It is a subtle link but I believe it is nonetheless effective. In the ancillary products also, we ensured that Elle wore casual clothes to match the casual costume that she is wearing in the video. 


We chose to use these subtle links rather than obvious links because our research proved that the music video and products to promote it have a very subtle, if any link. Our first draft of our magazine advert was actually a photo of Elle in the costume that she wears in the video. However after attempting to make a magazine advert from this, we realised that we wanted something more close-up, with not such an obvious link to the music video. The very last comment we received on the combination of the products claims that the professionalism of the CD and the magazine advert made them want to watch the video. This proves that there does not need to be a direct link between all products to make it effective. The close up photograph on the CD cover and magazine advert is much more professional than our original drafts and also subtly links to the close up of Elle when she sings 'Ignorance is your new best friend': 

As you can see, the link between the Close Up in the music video and the CD cover is again, subtle but effective. 

Evaluation 4

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

Please choose a link to see what technologies I have been working on.

Choose One
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Premier
Blogger
Camera
Video Camera

Research
In the my research, I used websites on the internet to help me understand the forms and conventions of real media products. Youtube was the biggest help as it allowed me to view music videos and pause when I thought there was a good camera angle or movement. I would then note these down on my blog. When looking for pictures of existing artists to help us in developing the character for our music video, I used Google images, which gave  me many choices of photographs to choose from.

Planning

I used the old fashioned pen and paper to plan the ancillary tasks and make drawings as examples of what I would like to go on the ancillary tasks. Besides this, I used a website called 'bubbleus' which allowed me to create spider diagrams with all the ideas my group and I had come up with for various products.

Construction

Obviously, when making the music video, we used a video camera in which we were able to pause and retake, which was really helpful if the actress went wrong. The editing of the video was all done in a program called  Adobe Premier Elements. In this program we were able to cut the individual films as we pleased to fit in time with the music. The program also allowed us transitions such as the fade, which proved very effective when fading from colour to black and white.


Evaluation
In my evaluation, I have used the video camera once again to be able to film some of our audience to understand their feedback to our video. I have also used a website called 'Glogster' in which I was able to make interesting posters for answers to the evaluation questions. At the top of this evaluation I have also used the html for a drop down box which allows the user to click and go to the website of that particular technology so that the reader can easily see what I have been working with. I have also used a recording to answer a question to an evaluation. 

Evaluation 1

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

Characters

Ellie Blancke

The Protagonist Female

Ellie plays the part of the girl in which the story follows. She has been dumped by former boyfriend and becomes an obsessive person, looking at his phone and breaking into his house to see if he is with another girl. She becomes untrusting and crazy, which is why Harry breaks up with her.

Harry Painter

The Protagonist Male

Harry is portrayed as the innocent bystander in this situation. He breaks up with Elle because she begins to become very obsessive and jealous of his talking to other girls. At the end of the video, Harry has enough and throws Elle out of his house.

Sarah Brushett
'The Other Girl'

Sarah is Harry's friend, but Elle seems to think there is something going on between them, hence her obsessive behaviour. She is not featured much in the video and is only shown when Elle comes in to attack her.

Magazine Advert Drawing

Below is an example of what we would like the magazine advert to look like. Unlike most magazine adverts, we would quite like the advert to be landscape. This means that it would take up two pages of a magazine. We'd like the photograph on one side and all the information on the other, making it clear to read and eye-catching. The boxes are all different. The top one will have the name of the artist and the name of the album. Below that, we intend to have ratings from newspapers, other songwriters, etc. We plan to have the front of the album pasted somewhere on the page also, showing our intended audience what they will be looking for when going out to purchase the album. Most posters also have a few contact addresses like myspace and soundcloud so that readers can support the artist.

Character Style

The mash up of costumes to the left are all the types of clothes that we want Elle to wear in our video. We want her to wear a simple t-shirt, quite like the one that Kesha is wearing in the photo to the left. You may also notice that all of these costumes include denim shorts. The denim shorts give a casual look and yet also makes the character seem rather 'rockstar'.

Below is the outfit we have created for our character, giving her a very casual look rather similar to those above. We have used our research to dress her in denim shorts and a plain t-shirt to achieve the same type of look.

Props

THE VODKA BOTTLE.

The Vodka bottle is an important prop to the storyline. It is evident that Elle is obsessed with the break up between her and Harry and tries to make herself feel better by drinking away her sorrows. The vodka bottle can be seen as a motif of her obsessiveness, representing addictiveness. The vodka bottle was not a problem to use, we simply filled it with water (obviously the actress was not actually drinking vodka) to make it look like vodka.

THE PHONE AND PHOTOGRAPH

The same phone which is used to take the photo is also shown when Harry recieves a message from Sarah. The phone signifies the double dating that Harry has been participating in, playing both Elle and Sarah along at the same time. The photograph is significant of the good times that Harry and Elle spent together. When Elle burns the photograph, it gives a final end to their relationship. Both were easy props to use, however when burning the photograph, the wind became a bit of a problem and so we had to shoot that scene on another day.

Preparation for Shooting

When about to start our first photoshoot, we had problems with the setting. We wanted a white background, and so we had to throw a white sheet over the wardrobe to be able to do this.

Using our knowlege of the type of poses that models/artists do, we tried a few different poses to see which one looked best, giving us a variety to choose from when it comes to producing our ancillary tasks.

This is the camera that we used when taking photos for the ancillary tasks. We tried a few practice shots before shooting to make sure that we had control of the lighting in the room.

Shoot 2

In this photoshoot we decided to make the poses with a little more attitude, trying different clothes to see what looked best. This time round we also had the white sheet and the lighting which helped us produce the best photos we could.

Shoot 1

 

Camera Angles

These drawings were drawn by sarah to show the angles that we have been working on. We plan to remember these angles and use them when filming next. The change of angles makes the video more interesting, making it a lot easier to cut to the music. The drawing to the right shows many angles from birds eye, to low angles, to eye level angles. A good variety of angles will make the video more interesting for our audience.

To the left are more examples of angles that we aim to do when we film next. This scene is one of the first in the video in which she wakes up. The use of many angles will straight away establish the upbeat rhythm and hopefully get the audience's attention.

What Channel For Us?

When we complete and finalise our music video, we may think about adding the logo of the channel that will be most likely to support us on the television. Sarah did a bit of research into what music channels would be best for our type of music and came up with this:

MTV plays all sorts of music from rock to dance, to hip hop and rap. This would be the best music channel for us because it has such a wide audience range. The target audience for MTV is generally 16-25 year olds so this would definitely be the right channel for us if we were to do this idea.

However, after deliberating with the group, we have decided that we won't bother putting the music channel logo in as most music videos do not do this.

Final Cut

Copyright Letter

 

Dear Warner Music Group

I am a Year 13 student at Wilmington Grammar School for Girls in England. I am writing to request your permission to use one track from Paramore’s album ‘Brand New Eyes’, called ‘Ignorance’. With your permission, along with the three other members of my group, I would like to use this track for my Year 13 Media Studies Coursework, which involves creating a music video with a popular and well-known song.

We will also be producing a digi-pack and magazine advertisement which will include the name of the song. If we receive your permission, this track will be used for educational purposes only and will only be viewed by my media class, teachers and the OCR exam board. However, to upload the music video to our coursework blogs we will require uploading the video to YouTube for a short period of time until the exam board has viewed it.

The artist and the company will be fully recognised throughout the pre-production and the music video and a copyright notice supplied by you can be included in the records of the project. If this is required please send full details.

Thank you for your time, we look forward to hearing from you soon,

Sarah Biswell

Zoe Richardson

Charlotte Coe

Sarah Brushett

 

Above is the letter that Sarah wrote to Warner music group so we would be able to legally use the song 'Ignorance' in our video.

 

Time Changing in Music Videos

Like in our own music video, other music video's use different colours to express past and present. Sarah did some research on the time changes in music videos and how it effects the outcome.

As you can see, in this video by Katy Perry, the top clips are when she is older, obviously the present tense. It is darker and greyer whereas the coloured clips at the bottom are full of life, representing the past.

Effects

One of the main effects of our video is our use of black and white to distinguish the memory scenes from the present day. Below is an example of how we were able to do this. The process included selecting the shots that we wanted to make black and white and then changing the colour of it. It was fairly simple to do but it was time consuming as we had to do each clip by itself as we were not able to highlight many at a time. We tried both colour and black and white themes for the memories and decided that black and white looked better.

This is what the black and white effects looked like:

The black and white is effective because it relates to old films and videos, which are black and white, therefore representing the past.

Cutting

Cutting to the music is essential when editing our video. The printscreen below shows adobe premier and the effects (on the left of the screen) that we could potentially use in the cuts of our video. The following things are essential when cutting our video:

-Ensuring that the separate shots run smoothly

-Making sure the story is easy to follow

-Making sure cuts don't cut into any significant parts of the video

-Ensuring the cuts are in the right places

-Making sure that our flashback scenes are obvious to the audience

The photo below shows some potential effects that we can use when cutting our video to attain effective transitions.

The slide below shows how we have cut one scene from another smoothly. We chose to use black and white for our memory/flashback scenes, then changing to full colour again to represent present time and day. We used a fading transition, which means that one shot will fade into another smoothly, rather than just cutting. We decided to go with this transition as the smooth fade reflects Elle's mind and how she is remembering these memories.

Ideas For Behind the CD

Feedback on Our Digipack

Positives

1) There is a definite and clear connection through the whole of the digipack through the use of colours, font and photographs.

2) The photographs are all very similar, with the costumes being the same and the lips being the exact same colour in every photo.

3) The photoshop effects are all very similar and very well done.

4) The colour blue shows good continuity.

Negatives

1) The back of the CD photo is slightly lighter to the others due to lighting in the photoshoot that was beyond our control.

Feedback on Our Magazine

Positives

1) Effective link between the red lips and the red font for the song title.

2) The ratings for the CD are easy to see and realistic.

3) Although the photo is the same, more of this photo is shown on the advert, which creates an interesting yet effective difference.

4) By using the same photo we are making sure that people purchasing this digipak will know what it looks like when they are searching for it.

5)The date is the largest font on the advert, catching the readers eye and making that date stay in the readers mind.

Negatives

1) There is no record label on the advert.

Feedback on our Rough Cut

Positives

1) We were told that our editing fits very well to the music, cutting to the beat and making it look more effective.
2) Costume and prop choices were very informed, they went well with the bleak atmosphere and the attitude of our actress.
3) The black and white scenes work well as they reflect her memories, shows how they are in the past, contrasting to the full colour of the present day shots.
4) The acting from the actors was very good, it was very believeable.

Negatives

1) The shots where she goes down the stairs in her house, it looks as though the shot shows her going down the top of the stairs twice. We need to make this clearer.
2) The bit where Elle is texting Harry, there is light shining on the screen, making it almost impossible to see what has been written. We need to change this to make it more visible.

Overall

Overall we were given very good feedback and are very happy with our roughcut. We will refilm the negatives that we were given in order to make the video make more sense.

Spine of the Digipack

In order to complete our digipack, we need to create a spine for the CD. Most CD spines only contain the name of the artist and the name of the album. Knowing this, we have decided to go along with this idea, using the same fonts we have used on the digipack already.

Going by the height of the CD we had to estimate the height and width that the spine would be. 

This is our first draft:

This is our second draft. We have added two circles around the writing to create more of an effect:

After playing around with the dots, we came to the conculsion as a group that the dots made it look a little childish. So we have resorted to the original design:

FINAL

Final Magazine Poster

Final Digipack Pieces

Rough Cut

This is our rough cut that we have been working on for quite some time. There are still a few bits that need tweaking but we are almost finished. When we have finished the final cut, we will put it onto facebook and get some feedback from our friends on there to see what they think is good and what the think is not as good.

Bits we need to re-film

1) The scenes where Elle is walking along the street outside her house needs to be refilmed as there is no real relevance to it and we need to make it a little more interesting with more frequent cuts so it fits the music.

2) The scene in which Elle says 'Ignorance is your new best friend' needs to be refilmed as the lighting changes quite drastically in this scene from being outside to inside, making it look rather light and happy whereas the atmosphere should be a little more melancholy.

Magazine Advert Update

After some debate and research into magazine adverts, I have decided to create the advert based on the front cover of the CD. This way, people buying the CD can relate to the advert and recognise the CD easily when coming to buy it. I have noticed in my research that all good adverts have a clear link to the digipack. If there was not a connection, buyers would be less inclined to purchase the CD as they would not know what it looks like. 

This is why we are going to use the exact same photograph that is on the front of our CD. This obviously shows continuity and consumers will be more likely to buy the CD if they know exactly what to expect on the front of the CD.

Beside the photograph, here are a few things that I have included in the magazine advert that my research showed completely necessary if you want to make a successful and effective advertisement:

As you can see, we have stuck to a lot of the same fonts, colours and ideas that are correspondant throughout the digipack, keeping both products similar.

FINAL POSTER

Problems in Editing

Making and Devloping the Magazine Advert

Construction of the Magazine Advert

 The two plans above are drawings we made as a plan for the layout of our magazine advert.

These designs above are a few more examples we came up with. The top left one shows Ellie in the middle, with the 'other girl' far behind her and the boy in the film to the right of her. The top right photo shows Elle to be leaning against a wall, looking casual, quite like the bottom right in which she is standing in a road. The bottom left one shows Elle to be blowing a kiss, but for the type of song that it is, personally I don't think this sweetness is the right photo to go with.

The example to the left is a photograph from our first photoshoot. It shows Elle to be leaning against the wall, quite like the drawing we made as an example. This could be an idea for our magazine, so we blurred the background around Elle to give an effect of time passing. With this design however, the blue font clashes with the background and is a little hard to see.

When researching into magazine adverts, I found that most magazines advertising music go along with the same theme as the digipack. In realising this, Zoe took it upon herself to create a vague drawing of what the magazine would look like, considering I have already created the digipack.

The image on the design will be the same as the front cover of the CD.