Finished Products

Final Versions

Video

Advert

Album



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

Contact sheet for our images used to answer the questions.

1. A shot that shows a link between lyrics and/or music and visuals.

1. I think that this shot of Nathan singing and fading out into Christian singing represents the vocals and imagery you get in your head at the same time very well as when Nathan says "Round the Corner" it fades out as if the person is turning a corner and the sun is actually going down at the time and transitions into Christian, I tried to extend the fade out for a bit longer then usual to give the impression that it takes a long time to look for this certain person.

2. A shot that typifies the way a record company would want their artist to be represented & 3. A shot that illustrates how your video uses music genre.

2/3. I think that this shot is bang on for showing how a record company for the genre of punk would want their artist to be like. He has got the look down as you can see, casual look and clothing that bands such as blink 182 would wear. He's in the air about to strum hard on his guitar giving this shot the energy of the song when the music really hits in. Why would you not want your punk artist to not be full of energy and look this entertaining to the audience, theres nothing better then jumping around and showing you are enjoy yourself and making things look interesting which I think this shot justifies very well, again I think that this picture demonstrates the genre very well for the reasons above mainly due to the energy of the shot.

4. A shot that shows an intertextual reference.

4. This image represents the idea of the song "The sun goes down". Because there are fade outs during the video into the next clip as our transitions, this represents the sun going down when it fades out and then the sun comes back up the next clips fades in.

5. A shot that demonstrates your use of camera.

5. This shot represents the use of the camera very well as in our feedback we were given, one of the main things pointed out was that we need more close ups and different angles. I think that this shot definatly shows both of these things as we have got a close up of the guitar showing what Nathan is doing and also his body is slightly facing away from that camera giving it a different angle to the rest of the video, we intentionally shot Nathan this way and Christian facing a different angle to add a bit of flavour to the video.

6. A shot that demonstrates your use of lighting.

6. This shot demonstrates the use of our lighting as to the left of Nathan there was a massive window which lit in a lot of light, we used this to our advantage so that lit up the side/front of him and reflected off his guitar making it look even whiter giving it a clean effect however because it was quite light it created a decent shadow behind him which gave it a kind of gritty/grunge look about the shot.

7. A shot that demonstrates your use of mise-en-scene.

7. I have used this shot for this question to give the clip more energy as so much is happening at the time so I decided to split it up in to four screens to show it which a lot of videos do these days to give more entertainment and energy to the video, however showing them rocking out definatly shows that this isn't some cheesy pop video but a punk video.

8/9. Two shots which you feel demonstrate something which shows you have watched other music videos.

8/9. For this shot of Christian playing his guitar is quite a good shot in my opinion as it quite clearly shows the viewer exactly what he is doing on his guitar at the exact moment of the song which sort of makes it seem more of a live performance clip put in a video to spice things up a bit which is what RHCP have done in their video. I liked the look of it for those reasons however I changed the camera angle whilst filming as front on seemed at bit boring so I wanted to make it seem a bit more dynamic and shot it from the side which they do with some of the clips within the video from RHCP which again I used for inspiration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuFI5KSPAt4

This clip was very hard to sort out as I had to find clips from all 4 of our shots with the most energy to put in to give the music video alot of energy especially when the chorus comes in on the guitars and you are able to see how much energy is going on. However I think it works well in the Franz Ferdinand video as the sweeping kind of pushes away the frame next to it and I liked that effect however I didn't want to do that as I just wanted to show the performance in its raw form and keep everything on show as it fits more into the genre of punk giving it more gritines and action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58IM48-EU9E

3 photos from 3 videos place into a contact sheet.

Bloodhound Gang - http://youtu.be/If9fC9aJd-U

Foo Fighters - http://youtu.be/SBjQ9tuuTJQ

Greenday - http://youtu.be/NU9JoFKlaZ0

I think that this photo is representitive to the one I have used to my own question 2/3 as there is definetly energy in this shot as you can see he is enjoying playing his bass guitar which is like the close up of my shot. It also shows 2 people from the band behind him rocking out having fun which again is showing the energy keeping the audience entertained. Due t the energy of this shot I think it represents the punk artists very well.

This shot is all about having fun and showing the lighting on the bands members, mainly focusing on the 2 singers in the middle as one is lifting his top up having immense fun whilst the guitarist is rocking out to the music dipping his body in time with the music, the lighting is going all over the place to show it is frantic and fun but is only on them two as they are the main source of energy in the shot.

I think this shot demonstrates the genre of punk very well as every one is rocking out and having fun showing that they dont give a monkeys about what they look like and don't care what people think as they are having fun doing what they want again keeping the audience entertained. Personally for me the 3 guitarists make this shot very well as they are all enjoying themselves and are definatly going for it on the guitars so it doesn't seem boring at all.

This shot is similar to my shots for question 4 and 6 as it has a background behind it, in this case it is red. Like my picture it is showing some one playing guitar and with a lot of energy in the shot, its also showing the lighting reflecting of the background which to me in quite effective and give the shot a lot of depth making it more than just a red background with a bloke standing in front of it. The clothing that he is wearing is also pretty punk like, a random t-shirt, jeans and boots.

To me this shot is nearly perfect as it is just brilliant for the following reasons: You firstly have the lighting effect which adds more to the shot as mentioned above; The guitarist is absoloutely going for it his stance is perfect for rocking out; the drummer in the background is also going for it smashing down on the drums and symbols creating immense energy in this shot. The reflection on the floor is good aswell though as its like your seeing two of everything making it even better as theres more in the shot.

This shot is awesome its kind of like the closeups of our guitar shots but just from the side, I think that the paint splurting out all over it is great though as it adds a different dimension to the shot and makes you sit the and think what on earth is going on dragging you deeper into the video. The effect of this is great though as its just a total mess which kind of represents the punk factors of having fun and not giving a care in the world about what is happening. I'm not sure if they have a filter on this or not though as when it stops all of the water is just a normal colour.

This shot is all about the lighting from behind creating silouettes of the 4 artists playing on their maki shift stage of circular pillars. I think the white lighting and black shadows go very well together but also goes witth he video as it is all about a war zone and people are getting shot and hurt possibly representing ying and yang? 

The lighting effects on this shot are amazing, the red and black combine very well and the outline of the singer is crystal clear giving it a kind of mysterious effect, perhaps the red represents the blood in the video when the soldiers are getting shot buy it also looks very grebby and mysterious.

This shot is misty, dusty, different colours of light emerging into each other. It creates a very strange atmosphere in the video im not sure if its to go with the action happening in the video but I think it is. All though I it creates a very punk look as the clothing, hair and lighting all go together very well.

Comparing Albums

Images comparing my album that I created compared to an actual Blink 182 album.

My front cover compared to the Blink 182 actual album are both completly different however they are both random. Mine has a range of colours and the picture goes with the title of the album 'Every Time I Look For You' with a young boy looking through binoculars checking out a womans body walking down a sunny beach. Where as their album has the logo of Blink 182 in a black and white layout. It goes with the name of their album though as it is a greatest hits album so they have just selected their logo. Both of the fonts are both very punk and all over the place and the letters are not in a straight line, they are also distored. Both albums also look like a form of graffiti with the fonts, and images on the wall, the blink 182 logo looks like it could be spray painted as well.

The inside of our albums are know where near a like in the slightest as mine is a picture of the two performers in my video: Christian and Nathan. Where as their album is just a booklet with information written on the back which to me looks very boring. I feel that mine is more interesting and adds a different dynamic to the album as it is a different colour scheme to the rest of my album as it is in grey scale. I did this because of the back of blink 182s album has a grey scale photo of the band so I felt that I should do the same as I feel that it fits very well with the theme, however I didn't take a picture of them just standing there I decided to use a certain frame from our video as I felt it showed how much energy out performers have and what the genre is about.

Their albums CD Holder is a complete let down as all it is, is a black plastic holder and has nothing to it at all! Where as mine follows the theme of the front cover which is a graffited wall, when you take the cd out there is a 'hole' blown in the wall to give the impression that punk is about creating mess and destroying things which happens in most videos. behind the hole in the wall I have written Blink 182 as it is obviously their album and so you get the impression I just talked about and associate it with the name of the band.

I like the back of their album here as it fits very well, the image of the 3 band members has something about it and with the middle person doing the rock hand sign fits in very well with the rest of the album and the punk theme. The grey scale fits in very well as it gives them a lot of shadowy effects making them look realitvly evil at the same time. I like how each song has a different font name which livens things up a bit unlike mine which has every song name with the same font which I think I could of changed and used different fonts. All though I personally prefer my album as I am a bigger fan of colour, I purposly put the sun in there as the lyrics of the song every time I look for you involve 'The sun goes down' and have thrown some graffiti up top thats on the inside of the album so when you open it you will recognise it. I kept the colour of the font yellow and black to go with the theme of the graffiti as it is yellow.

Comparing Adverts

Both my advert and Sum 41's adverts fit the theme of the album very well as mine is - Every Time I Look For You, I have places an eye in a sun coming over a horizon through a hole in the wall to give it that gritty effect so its not just some nice sunset going on in the background. Sum 41's album is called - Screaming Bloody Murder, the woman laying there has supposedly been killed if you go by the name of the album which fits in with the obvious theme of the murder that's happened also how it is all gray scale is very effect as it looks dark and mysterious dragging you in even more. My poster has a lot more colours on it and has a variety of things to look at such as the wall covered in graffiti, the huge hole in the wall, a sunset with a strange eye in and all of the sponsors around it. I believe that the more colours there are the more eye catching it will be meaning more people will look at it however Sum 41 have doing a very good job with their poster as I think it is very effect how it is, I could say its just dull and boring but it fits extremely well like a classic 1950's murder you have a rip in her tights with the other pulled near enough to her knee which is going to get you thinking what's going on so your going to study this poster just as much mine.

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

These are my three main items: Advert, Album and my Music Video. They are all different but all similar at the same time but together they all work very well and you are also able to recognize how every one of the 3 connects to the other and refers to it. All of my products the I created all include the theme of the song which is looking for some one and the sun as the lyrics are ''Every time I look for you, the sun goes down'', as we dont really focus on the performers at all except for a photo within the album we made ure we focused on what the song itself was about. Allthough everything fits with the theme neither of them look a like at all except for the fact that the advert and album have a brick wall background. The reason behind them all being different is so that its all fresh as looking at three things that are exactly the same would bore you and you would get to the second item and be like ''oh it's the same'' and would only take a quick look at the third and having them all different means you will be more interested in each of the three items.

I have tried to keep the album and advert slightly a like as they are the main two items that go together as you would look at the advert and think: Yeah I want that! so you would go looking for something similar to the advert hence the same theme of background ect. I have made the fonts follow the same theme making them look like they are scruffy and and thrown up so go with the genre. I have purposely only used heavy graffiti on the front of the album cover as this is where you are going to be looking when you first pick it up and I think that it represents the genre very well and it is dirty hardcore graffiti been thrown up yet again with the paint still being wet so it is dripping down. Both the Album and the advert incorporate the theme of the song which is looking for some one as you have a boy looking through a pair of binoculars and an eye in the sun however this goes into the music video very as I make sure that the moments these are said in the lyrics that they are pointed out very well or I fade them out after to give the impression that they cant be found however If I had included my story clips that I wanted to put in this would of been made much stronger, showing that all three of my items eventually involve the theme of the song and share the same feel such as the graffiti transforming into a hard performance in the video itself. 

The advert and album like I have said have the eye in the sun and the boy holding binoculars, I made sure that they looking right at you rather than to the side so it sort of feels that they are addressing you and think that they are looking for you so you feel the need to go and pick up the album. However at the same time it may be considered a bit weird to have it constantly staring at you but this is punk after all and nobody cares about what's happening or what they are doing so I feel that having it staring at you works very well. All though none of my products are the typical aggressive punk videos that you may see on tv I have made sure that all of the products are again looking at you including during the performance so you fell the need to think about what he's looking for and so you feel sorry him as he is having no hope what so ever and maybe some punk fans could relate to that? 

In conclusion I think that my products and ancillary texts have been created very well, they combine together to make what I think is a perfect punk project. My advert and album go beautifully together as they are both pretty identical but my video only matches some of the things and leaves a lot of things out that are on those two products and is no where near as effective as my Advert and Album pair. If I was to do this project again I would make sure that I smoothly planned everything out day to day as it would be a hell of a lot easier then just thinking it up on the spot, even though I wrote it down or drew it To have my ideas constantly flowing in would of been more creative and productive and I would put in my narrative in the video so that everything fits together perfectly.

3 What have you learned from your audience feedback?

For our initial feedback, we found out how we needed to change a few of the parts to our music video from members of the class and from our teacher. Here is what a few people had to say after watching this rough cut;

Dan Tom and Sunny - Punk rough cut - Every Time I Look For You from cmdiploma on Vimeo.


After this my group created a group on the social networking site Facebook and invited certain people that we thought could give us back some important feedback, I have chosen two examples from the feedback we got.

Scott's Feedback

Leanne's Feedback

Following feedback from people we have asked we have taken into account that there needs to be more close ups so we got more guitar shots so you can see exactly what they are doing up close, this enables us to put them in the video creating a more entertaining video as you can see what is happening and how they are playing the riffs on the guitar at the time. We also made sure that we got Christian and Nathan's shots from different angles, after going through all of this we have learnt that audience feedback is very important so you can hammer out all the bad bits and configure everything till it is spot on and is seen as entertaining.

For planning and research, we used the media technology of the internet (youtube, google, flickr…) to find images and videos which we would find useful videos and images to relate to. This helped us develop our research and create a better idea of how we would create our video. We looked at Blink 182 videos from a youtube playlist and images from a punk related search into flickr.

From the earlier idea’s we had planned to film outside but none of the nearby locations were as appropriate and good as the indoor locations, below is an image of our initial sketch and how we thought out how we would film from the beginning. This shows hows our ideas changed through the planning and feedback process.

Here is our idea for a map idea throughout our video however we couldnt do this due to not having the correct people in when we needed to film.

This was our idea for having a perforamce whilst doing part of the narative as the idea was to have the people in the video walking down a footbath with tree on boths sides whilst they were walking down it with a map in their hands singing their part of the song, switching between Nathan and Christian, whilst the other was singing the other would be behind him. Then once they had finished their singing it would go into a part where it was just music and we would have whoever sung last hold the map up and when it was pulled down a different person was there and they would pull it up again with a different person behind it, we intended to do this a with about 15 different people to show they are are trying to look for the right person. Unfortunatly the people we needed at the time were not available for some reason so this idea could never go ahead but I think it would of been a great story/narrative to put in to go with the performance clips then our audience would be happier so they wernt just watching a performance.

This is the idea for the rough cut performance we did however we had to change this due to the fact that Sunny was not a man, also involves the map idea.

This was out original idea for the rough cut video we did as it shows how we were all on a stage and closeups of certain people who were performing at the time however due to our audience feedback we obviously had to change this as Sunny was not male and we needed two male singers and I was no longer the drummer as after this we didnt have a drum kit available for us to use which was unfortunate because drums with Nathan and Christian would of made a very good group shot. It also shows our planning in less detail about the map idea, this was when I first thought of it and quickly scribbled the idea down whilst thinking of others.

This was the origional idea for our rough cut however it never went to plan as we felt the skate clips just didnt go with the music so we scrapped the idea.

These were our very first ideas showing the skate clips we had and how we were going to incorporate the performance around it, there is a animatic on my blog which shows this in greater detail. However due to some feedback I got some people said that this didnt fit in with the song so we scrapped the idea completly.

The feedback for my digipack was realativly good however people said the back was a bit pointless as it didnt really go with the front of the album however They said I should stick with theme of the album. Also the mentioned I should make it look more punky, scruffy and grungy so I decided to add a brick background to my final idea and create a explosion within the inside of the album on the cd holder giving the album that gritty punk look that it was lacking.

Final Versions

Video

Feedback from scott about my video.

Scott's feedback was very good, he has given me a lot of constructive criticism and I can fully understand all the points he has made. Due to creating more fast paced cuts between clips has obviously paid off as he has mentioned it here saying that it is more interesting and engaging which to me is what I was aiming for as I wanted to make a video some one can watch without getting bored. Also commenting on my screen split where I have 4 clips on at a time seems to of worked very well from a viewers point of view as well creating a more interesting and engaging video rather than just watching clips change from person to person all the time as it was limited as it is due to having only two people to switch between. I personally felt that the lip syncing was good and Scott has also commented on it so I feel my job has been well done there however I do agree with the point he has made about Nathan's lip syncing as it is no where near as good as Christian's as its a bit sloppy and sometimes not 100% clear what he is saying but you can make it out but in my opinion his performance was still good enough to be put into the video. I 100% agree with the narrative, we needed a story line but due to the circumstances of people turning up when they wanted and not turning up our options were pretty limited and I did not feel the clips we all ready had fit with the performance clips so would of looked out of place.


Advert

Holly's feedback points out two main problems which I now agree with, the name of the album should be much bigger and fit around the sun more and I feel that I should now change the font as it just doesn't fit very well with where I have placed it. Also the quote from a well known punk or music magazine would of made this even better if I had placed it where the heart graffiti is on the left side saying something along the lines of 'Best punk album of the decade!' I fell it would make the poster complete and fully agree with her points, some good feedback on some very minor things.

Album

The feedback that I got from Scott on my Album was very useful and the majority of it was good feedback so I am proud with what I have produced however there are some points that I need to adjust. The main problem is the gray scale 4 spilt picture on the inside, I fully understand what Scott is saying is it is completely out of place compared to the rest of the album however I feel that a picture of the band is good and I just wanted to mix things up a bit so placed it in and changed the colours to make it stand out to pinpoint the main people of the band. All though I do feel I could of incorporated the feel of the advert into the picture maybe roughing it up and making it look as if it was ripped or something along those lines so it looked more gritty and punky just like Scott has pointed out.

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

This is all the equipment that I have used during this project: My mac; camera and video camera with tripod. My mac has been the most important tool out of them all as this is where I have done everything from my blog posts and internet sites all the way to editing everything that I have worked on. My camera has been important to take stills and photos of anything we have needed at the time. the video camera and tripod have been very important as without the we would not be able to record our video clips that we have done a lot of trial and error with until we got everything right after countless retakes and hours of shooting different clips such as skating and miming our song in different locations.

This is proberbly the most important of them all when it comes to programs as this is where I have been able to have my work all saved so that people are able to see it online, It has everything I have done loaded, typed and embedded on here to show a complete time line of my project and how it has advanced from beggining to end. It enables me to go back and look at my previous work from previous posts which I can then use as base for the next post to show how I have used this idea for any improvements etc or how I have completly changed my idea into a brand new one. I have made sure that all my designing I have is uploaded here yet again allowing you to follow a story of how my project has gone, without online blogging sites none of this would be as simple.

Youtube has every single video that I could want to research and use their videos for ideas within my own, there are so many different videos each with different story lines, settings the lot. For example I used fanz ferdinands video as an inspiration and red hot chilli peppers whilst looking at 100's of other videos for different ideas and to find out a bout how the punk genre went about doing different things such a dress code and how the act, This was all easily seen on this online video library and whit out this site I would of had a hard time finding alot of the videos I was looking for as I could not find them on many other sites. Youtube is very user friendly and straight forward and also allows you to put loads of videos into a playlist which I have done for loads of blink 182 videos as this was the band our song was from I watched as many as possible to see what sort of things they did so I could use them as ideas and inspiration.

Vimeo is very helpful to me it was my blog for the videos and clips we had created so that we were able to upload them here and every one in the class had the ability to watch them and give feedback and see what ideas different groups were using and perhaps they might incorporate that into their own video? In my opinion this site is good but its not very user friendly as its pretty fiddly sometimes and the codes to embed videos with sometimes take a lot of fiddling around with to get them to work on the blog properly but without this site we would not be able to have a safe place to upload and store our videos for reference.

This site is where I got a lot of inspiration from for the project as this is where I got a lot of my pictures for my mood board to do with my genre and we also uploaded out own stuff here. We had to go through the creative commons licensing to make sure that we were able to use these for our work and these were great ideas and inspiration as this was the starting point for our work as we just used our base images to research from and find more and more out about our certain area such as clothing and looks for people that are involved in the punk industry and what sort of things they get up to in their spare time. Without this site I would of had a hard time finding legit pictures to use that were under the correct license and it was great to upload everything we had done here.

Facebook was actually very useful for once in media as every group had the ability to set up a group to get feedback for our videos which was very helpful as we were able to incorporate this into out blog as evidence that we had got feedback for our certain items we had created. Without this we may of just had to rely upon certain people to just type up feedback which may not of looked very realistic and may of been presumed as made up. Thanks to this social networking site we were able to get legit feedback form people that we found helpful. 

Posterous was our main source of information for our blogs as it was were our work came from as it had everything listed on here and it was very useful as you all ways could just click onto it see what you had to do and you were away answering question. Also the ability to go back and see if you had missed anything really helped as well as your able to go back and hopefully try and pick up on any marks you have missed out on to improve your work. Without this we may not of been able to make our blogs as good as they are because if every thing was printed out on paper I'm pretty sure that people would of lost certain parts then they wouldn't of had a clue on what they were supposed to do. This has been a very good source of information as well as it involves links to every one else's blogs enabling you to see what every one else has been up to again giving you more ideas and inspirations for your own work.

Google is pretty standard but in my opinion was the best search engine to find the information you were looking for as it pin points the best sites with the information you are looking for making research a complete walk in the park without this search engine things may not of been as easy as they were.

Without this program we would not of been able to make all most of the images we needed for the project such as our digipack as it is a very good tool giving you everything you need to make whatever you want. We all so made our record lables here which would of been really hard without as other programs do not have the functionality of photoshop or as user friendly. If we were ever stuck on something there was all ways a helpful guide you could follow allowing you to again create whatever it was you wanted with ease. You could adjust minor little things that have gone wrong or rapidly change something you didn't like, the best thing about photoshop in my opinion is how you can make anything how you want and throw certain filters on to change or manipulate the image, such as placing tattoos onto my body to make it look realistic. Without this program a lot of my work would not of been possible to do.

iMovie was where we imported all our videos to on our macs it is very easy to use and allows you to save the files you want with ease allowing easy access to them and the ability to import them right into final cut allowing us to edit them from the get go, without this program we would of had to do a hell of a lot more fiddling around to find the correct clips we wanted and not been able to import them into one select program to do the work for you.

We imported all our photos into PhotoBooth just like iMovie but obviously for photos instead, without out we would of had the same problems with that we would of had without iMovie again it made out lives and editing much more easy and quicker.

Finalcut is where all the magic happened for our video, we spent a very long time making rough cut after rough cut to get the desired clips that we wanted. We went through many clips that we thought were good however did not end up using such as our skating clips however this just made out ideas stronger and stronger also allowing us to increase our skills in final cut as we went. For our rough cut we spent a few hours precisely trying to down our clips exactly how we wanted and placed them in the time like syncing them up with the lyrics in the video which final cut made 10 times easy by turning on the wave transform tall allowing you to see where the big chunk of lyrics you were looking for was. Our very final video took a lot of fiddling around with to get it exactly how we wanted using techniques we found from other videos we had watched and following guides on how to do certain things such as putting 4 clips into frame at the same time and allowing us to do transition and fade ins/outs to make our video look better also making sure you cut between clips quite quickly made the video more interesting to watch. Without Finalcut all of us would off struggled as we would not of known what other programs to use, sure it takes a while to figure out what to do with the program but once you know how to do stuff on it the program is a breeze to use!