The End

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Final Thoughts

My final thoughts on this year of media:

From this year I've learnt a lot, not just in terms of the course but also in my own personal style and way I like to work. Filming outside in really populated public places proved much more of a challenge than I thought it would be, but it's been a real learning point. I've learnt that I much prefer working in a small, private environment like last year, as I can control everything that possibly moves. Also, it really eliminates the light and weather changes which did become a bit of a challenge for us this year. This said, I'm really glad I learnt these things now so that I can be more prepared when I go to uni in September.

Evaluation 4

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

Evaluation 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation 2

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

Evaluation 1

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

Evaluation 4: Planning and Script

Script

Throughout this year of media, we have used a variety of technologies to research, plan, construct and evaluate our main and ancillary tasks.

These technologies can be categorised by either hardware or software, both of which came together in order for us to develop ans create our products.

Hardware we used includes an iPhone 6, a Mac, an iPad, a MacbookPro and a Wacom graphics tablet; and the software we used includes Blogger, Youtube, Deezer, iMovie, Adobe Creaive Cloud and CutecCut Pro.

In the initial development stages of creating our product, we used various technologies to carry out the necessary research. When deciding on the song we wanted to use, music streaming service Deezer was particularly useful as it suggested smilar songs and artiststo those we had searched for ourselcesd, allowing us to find the song we eventually settled on. We also used Youtube to find pre-exisiting music videos and this allowed us to lwarn about the conventions that we could use or challenge on our own products.

After editinf, we did some research on how to create the animated scribble effect. and for this we used Twitter and Youtube.A video I came across from Savannah Brown featured  style of animation similar to what we wanted to create, so I decided to get in contact with the illustratoe, Maddy Vian. I used Twitter to do this, and it proved successful with Maddy gettong back to me within 10 minutues, explaining how she created the effect with Photoshop. We then headed over to Youtube to find this explained in more detail, which is where I found a tutorial for creating animations in After Effects instead. A fter looking into both, we decided to use After Effects as it seemed to be a better fit with what we had in mind.

Ater research we began to plan exactly what we wanted to film- a lot of this was through practice shoots and communiccarion, both done through media technologies. Things like photographing potential filming locaions ad going out to test the feaability of filming on trains allowed for us to plan in more detail and with more accuarcy. For both of these we used an iPhone to capture the images and footage. As for communication, a group chat between myself, Rachel, Ted and Catherine was vital, and for this we used Whatsapp. It allowed us to easily check schedules, plan filming days and share any ideas we had with eachother.

Producing and constructing our main and ancillary products is where the majority of media technologies were used this year. Like last year, we decided to film on an iPhone ratgher than a camera as this allwed us to easily share, back up and import footage to to other Apple devices we were using through feautres such as AirDrop. Also like last year, we edited our footage together on iMovie 9 on a Mac, however when itcame to adding post production effects we moved to different hardware and software. When we were ready to add the animations, we moved the project over to a MacbookPro where we could open it in After Effetcs. With a Wacom tablet and After Effects, we were able to create simple, sketch-like animations to bring another dimension to our music video and achieve a more light, fun feel.

As for my ancillary tasks, the digipak and magazine advert were created using Photoshop and Pages, both on a MacbookPro. We used Photoshop to edit the images, and Pages fro creating the layout and postitioning the text.

For my evaluations, in order to create 4 different videos, I used software such as Prezi to add variety. When collecting data to help evaluate my products, I used media platforms such as Twitter and Whatsapp to share or video and gather feedback from our audience. I also used survey creating software SurveyMonkey, a media technology I had never used before. This proved a really effective way of getting feedback from a large audience. Finally, I edited all my evaluations on an iPad on editing app, CuteCut Pro.

For all stages of media this year, from initial research to final evaluations, I have used Blogger to document my progress and share my final products.

Evaluation 3: Planning

Here's the planning of the evaluation Rachel and I are doing together. 

Evaluation 2: Planning and Script

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

Script

As with any marketing campaign, it was vital that the music video, digipak, and magazine advert were all variations of the same thing. This means there needed to be a clear link between all the products, and this was achieved by using the same colour scheme, images, font and style on all 3 products. Real media producers also ensure this kind of correlation between their products, for example the recent album, video and advert from The Pretenders are all linked through the black and white images and light pink, eye-catching pink.

Our main task this year was to create a music video, and for this we used 'Don't Get Me Wrong' by The Pretenders. To add another dimension to the video, we used simple, hand drawn animations to display the thoughts and inner monologue of the main character. These animations became the base for digipak and magazine advert in terms of colour. The 5 main colours used in the animations were: pink, yellow, blue, red. and orange, but perhaps most prominent were the pink and the yellow. They were often used in small stars in various shots and scenes.

From this, we decided to use these as the main two colours for our ancillary tasks. The bright pink background with yellow accents and black and white writing on both the digipak and magazine advert immediately makes them eye-catching and noticeable even to someone who isn't looking out for them. Not only do they stand out, but these bright colours hold connotations of fun and youthfulness a lot more so that darker, more dull colours do. This really represents the music video well as it was intended to be a quirky, light-hearted, upbeat narrative. Feedback from the music video was overwhelmingly positive, and so by using the same style and features on our ancillary tasks, they too should be effective.

The use of the font chosen for the band name and album title is meant to act like a logo for the band. As it features heavily on both ancillary tasks, it would be reasonable to assume that this is a style the band always use, much like a trademark. The style of font we used in all of our products was a sans serif white font called Futura, placed on a black background. This makes it easily recognisable as well as legible. The lettering was capitalised for the most important information like the band name, the album title and "out now", but used in a lower case for the smaller details such as the reviews on the advert and song lyrics on the digipak. The use of this style of font was based off research into other bands of a similar gnere and era. Oasis use a very simple black and white logo for all of their products, and it is instantly recognisable to millions, making it very effective. We have adopted this style into out own products to also have the same effect.

The images we have used on all three tasks are perhaps the most effective feature of these products. From audience feedback, we found out the ending shot of the video was really memorable as many people commented in our survey how much they liked it. For this reason, we used it as the cover page for the digipak. It works really well because audiences are instantly introduced to both members of the band, as well as meeting them again inside the digipak. As for the magazine advert, the main photos are taken from the scene of the music video where these 2 characters meet and establish a 'love at first sight' connection. These photos are used in the inner sleeves of the digipak, and again ties all three products together. The decision to not use the ending shot as the main advert picture, is because it is featured on it already in the form of the the digipak towards the bottom left. By having more than one photo from the music video on the advert may act as a way of gaining more attention as it shows audiences that there is a story between the two characters.

Finally, the use of animations in the music video was a huge success, with all comments describing them as fun and that they give a new feel to the video. With the feedback we got, it was essential to include the animations in the ancillary tasks. In the main pictures on the magazine ad, there are some small hand drawn hearts between the two characters- for audiences who haven't seen the video, this is easily recognisable as the start of a possible relationship. As for the digipak, the same images are used on the inner sleeves but it is the CD itself where the main bulk of animation is. The CD shows the shot of the pivotal moment when the male character noticed the scarf, and what essentailly began the story that was to follow. It is placed on top of a pink and yellow map of London, tying the digipak to the music video.

Overall, I believe our main and ancillary tasks to have been very effective as  welistened to our audience and incorporated many of the features they enjoyed, namely the ending shot and the animations. All of our products are libked together in various ways, an this makes them memortable to an audience as they are seeing repeated images. The bright colours used in all three products are also memorable anf bring a light, quirky feel to all three tasks.

Evaluation 1: Planning and Script

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

Script

The song we chose to use for our music video this year is 'Don't Get Me Wrong' by The Pretenders. Though classed as a 'rock band', this particular song falls under the hybrid genre of pop-rock. For this we have created a music video that has both conventions of pop and rock, but falls more towards the genre of pop. 

Some typical conventions of pop music videos include things like bright colours, a narrative story line, and a link to the lyrics; whilst typical rock videos will often use lowkey lighting, have a darker colour palette, and are generally performance videos.

In our video, we have confromed to many more conventions of pop that rock, but we have also challenged many convetions of standard music video. As well as this, we have also developed upon some of both genres convetions to create our own.

To start, the style of music video is strictly narrative, with a distinct lack of any elements of performance, this develops the style of most pop videos, and challenges rock videos. Though many pop videos often feature a narrative element to them, they tend to be combined with performance elements, either through cut-aways to a performance, or with the performance taking place throughout the narrative, for example Dua Lipa's New Rules. As for rock videos, they are much more likely to be completely performance, with a strong focus on the artist, as seen in the Foo Fighter's The Pretender video.

The plot in our video is very typical to many narrative videos, as there is a focus on love and friendship. As this is a theme running through many songs, it makes sense that it would be a part of many music videos as well. Songs such as Ed Sheeran's 'Galway Girl' have a strong theme of love, and this really shows through in the video, particularity the ending shot. Our video conforms to the love narrative, and the animations simply emphasise this, particularly the use of hearts in the two shots.

Our use of animations in this video comes under a style of special effect, a feature that is becoming more and more common in all types of videos, including pop and rock. Bruno Mars' 'That's What I Like' video features sketched animations not too different from ours, and this is a convention of real media products we have used. Also, videos like Biffy Clyro's 'Wolves of Winter' branch into abstract, suggesting that the boundaries of what defines a rock video are shifting.

A convention of pop videos that we really utilised throughout our music video is the use of both highkey lighting and bright colours. Filming during the daytime in quite open parts of London allowed for us to get bright natural lighting, and even the scenes set at night saw bright indoor lights being used. As for colour, through both the mise en scene and the added animations, there is a lot of colour among the shots. with the main prop also being a bright red scarf. As this was in every shot, it meant there would always be some form of colour, even if filmed in a more plain location. Though this conformed to pop conventions, it really challenges typical rock videos which often feature lowkey lighting and a dark colour scheme.

The rest of the mise on scene in our video also challenges rock videos. As they tend to be performance videos, they often feature close up shots of the instruments played by the band, however this was something we decided not to include. The main mise en scene in  our video focuses on the famous sights and landmarks of London, such a The National Gallery and Piccadilly Circus. However, something in the mise en scene that pop and rock videos share is the costumes used- they both often feature casual dress. As our characters are both wearing jeans, a tshirt and a jacket, they conform to the typical dress of pop and rock music videos. 

According to Andrew Goodwin's theory 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory', two of the things all music videos should have is a link between the lyrics and the visuals, and a link between the music and visuals through editing to the beat. We have done this throughout our video, in order to conform to real media codes. On lyrics such as "pass on the street" our two characters cross paths, linking our lyrics to the visuals. It is also edited to the beat throughout, but is particualrly noticable in the instrumental montage section, where our character appears at a variety of famous London landmarks. At this section of the video, we have used fast paced editng to match the beats, a technique often used in rock videos to match the pace of the song.

Overall, our video for 'Don't Get Me Wrong' uses, develops, and challenges many codes and conventions of real media products. The style of video develops upon the usual pop video by being strictly narrative, and at the same time completely challenges rock videos as they tend to be all performance. The lighting and colour palette also conforms to pop and challenges rock, with bright lighting and colours. However pop and rock do have some shared conventions which we have utilised in our video such as the casual dress costumes and editing to the beat. 

Magazine Advert- Final Version

Here's our final copy of the magazine advert which promotes the digipak.

It's main colours are bright pink and yellow to match the majority of the animations, and it links together with the digipak and music video. The font used to display the band name and album title are also the same on all three products. The 2 main photos on this advert are also taken from the music video, and the animations on these shots really sum up the video and accurately advertise it.

Typical traits of a magazine advert such as quotes from critics, a star rating, and a plug of the hit singles also feature on here in order to make it look as close to a real media text as possible.

In the last quarter of the page there is a photo of the front cover of the digipak, one of the CD itself, and a label which simply reads "Out Now".

The website, band logo, and social media symbols also feature at the bottom of the page as this is a common feature of many types of posters nowadays, whether that be music. film etc.

Digipak- Final Version

Below is the final version of our digipak, it's come a long way since our first draft. We decided to go for a 6 panel instead of a 4 panel to make it look more like a digipak rather than a CD. Each panel has strong links to our music video, and the bold colour scheme is in place of the animations.

Survey Monkey

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/B5Q2NSG

Here's the link to the survey I created to get some anonymous feedback on our video. I thought that a survey would be an easy way of getting a fair amount of feedback from a variety of people as it can be distributed simply by sharing a link. As well as this, as its anonymous, it allows for respondents to be more honest than they would perhaps be face to face.

Possible Survey Questions

Here's a list of some possible questions to include in our Audience Feedback survey. As we are using SurveyMonkey to create and distribute our survey, we can only ask 10 questions so a couple of these will have to go.

For our evaluations, it is important to get a wide range of audience feedback so that we can learn from and improve upon what we have made. A survey can be easily distributed to a vide range of people of different ages, locations, etc, and are a quick and simple way of getting feedback.

Audience Feedback- Mary

After showing Catherine the music video she went home and filmed her mum watching it for us! This was really helpful as it allows us to get an adults perspective on it, rather than all teenagers. I think Mary enjoyed it, especially as it's a song she already knew.

Upside-down Vlogs

Something we've noticed with our vlogs on some of our posts is that they're all uploading to to YouTube upside-down. When they're preparing and uploading onto YouTube they're the right way round, but as soon as they publish they've been flipped upside down. I've Googled ways to fix this but to no avail, and I've even tried to rotate the video outside of YouTube, but it's still not working. It doesn't make sense as they were filmed on different days but it seems that they just will not upload properly. I'll keep trying to find a way to fix this.

Audience Feedback- Catherine

Our friend Catherine played a really important role in the making of this music video, so getting her opinion on the final product was great! Though she was in it, we only filmed with her for a few days so she really had no idea what the shots from other days were like and how they were going to be put together. The animations were also something she'd never seen, and from this we can see she really liked them.
   

Don't Get Me Wrong- Final Version

Here's the final version of our music video!

Audience Feedback- Sophie

In this video, Sophie is watch an incomplete version of our video. At this stage, we've added afew animations but not all of them, and from this you can see that she agrees there should be more. We had already planned to add some more animations but its great to get an audience's opinion too!

Audience Feedback- Class

In class today we got some initial feedback on our music video from the other groups, and were able to ask them some questions about what they got from it. Though we didn't show the completed version, the footage is edited together the way it will be in the final version, but we are yet to add animations. Once we have finished our video completely, we will get some more feedback.

From this, we learnt that all of the audience understood the narrative of the story and accepted the dominant reading, but there was a comment which suggested that we could make it more specific and clear as to where our character would be in London as it's such a large city and impossible to cover all of it in a day. Other than this, there were no issues and our audience liked the use of the colour red and the handheld camera.

Audience Feedback Questions

1) Apart from some shots being too long, are there any issues with shots?
2) Is the narrative clear?
3) Does the feel of 'London' come across? (through locations, etc?)
4) Does the song fit with what's onscreen?
5) Does the handheld camera work fit with the idea that the protagonist is rushing?

Magazine Advert- First Draft

Here's a really rough first draft of our magazine advert. Like our digipak we've used the yellow that features throughout the music video and the same font for the band name. The central image is apicture of the front cover of the digipak as this is a simple way of linking our products together. Underneath we also have "Out Now", advertising the release of the new album, a trait common to magazine adverts.

Digipak- First Draft

This is the first draft of our digipak. We've decided to do a 4 sided version, similar to a CD case.

The main colour is yellow, this matches a lot of the animations in our music video, particularly the stars that appear in many of the shots.

The front cover has a photo of the ending shot of our music video, showing the characters who are in place of the original artist. It also features the name of the band, and we have matched this to the font used on the video.

The back page so far has a space for a list of songs, and also features aspects of a CD cover such a the 'compact disk' logo and the logo of a record label.

The inside left hand page simply has a silhouette of a porcupine, on a yellow background, and we took inspiration from a digipak from Birds of Chicago. I think it's an interesting use of the bands logo and name.

'Birds Of Chicago' digipak

This article I found on digipaks features one from folk band Birds of Chicago. I really like the use of the black silhouette of the bird against the bright coloured background, and is something I would be interested in incorporating into our digipak. I think it's a really good way of adding either a logo or icon releated to the band, and since our band is called The Porcupines I think this could really work for us.

Significant Filming Locations

For our music video, we wanted to create an obvious feel of being in London, which we have done through the locatrions used throughout. As it is a narrative, it made sense for all of our main locations to be in Central London as it allows the character to move about within the time frame it is taking place, without the need for a lot of transport.

Our main filming locations are very 'London' and include a lot of the recognisable attractions and tourist spots. They include:

• Trains/ tubes
• Station fronts eg Picadilly, Oxford Circus
• Oxford Street souvenier shop
• Horse Guard Parade
• Millenium Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral
• St. James' park
• Trafalgar Square and The National Gallery
• Covent Garden Market

Filming Day Six

Today was our last day of filming! It was quite a a short day of filming today as we just needed a couple of filler shots and montage scenes! We're really happy we've managed to complete filming whilst still in half term as now we have all our time left to edit.

Filming Day Five

We had another filming day today, and we managed to get LOADS done. We filmed in various parts of London, from Oxford Street to Piccadilly, Horse Guard Parade to Hyde Park. It was quite a long day but hopefully this means we only need to film for one more day. We're going to go into school tomorrow to edit this footage and then hopefully film for just one more day, probably Thursday as the weather's nice.

Filming Day Four

Tonight we headed up to London to get a few shots at night to link in the night train shots we got the other day. We wanted some shots at night as it shows the progression throughout the day and that the character has spent the entire day looking for the girl. Next week in half term we're going to have a couple more days of filming and then hopefully we'll be done before school starts.

Filming Day Three

Yesterday was our third day of filming and we got some shots to make the night train scenes. We had a little blip at the start because Ted didn't have the right top on, but we've managed to overcome that by making sure he kept his hoodie zipped up. As the narrative doesn't follow his entire day minute by minute, it doesn't conflict with our continuity.

Filming Day Two

Today was our second day of filming, and we filmed with both our actors today.  We got more done then we had planned for as we found ourselves with more time to travel into London to film some shots we needed from there.

Originally we had planned to film between 9am and 12pm, but due to Ted's later plans being cancelled we were able to film until about 3pm. Along with the train shots we had planned to do, we were also able to film the bridge shots and the ripping up of the map. This has given us a lot more footage that we can edit together next week in school.

Track List

Earlier today, Rachel and I took a bit of time to think of the list of songs we're going to feature on our digipak later this year. Here's a rough list of what we came up with:

As 'Don't Get Me Wrong' is the song we've chosen to make our music video to, this was an obvious choice for the song list. We've also added another genuine song by The Pretenders ('Holy Commotion'). Not only is this a great song, but also the track we used in our film opening last year! The other songs are ones we've made up, a couple are based off other genuine songs from other artists.

'Letters to Amsterdam' is a take on Chris Rea's 1979 song 'Cenotaph/ Letters from Amsterdam', and 'The Ballad of ...' is something we decided to use as it's a popular style of song title, examples including 'The Ballad of John and Yoko' (The Beatles) and 'The Ballad of Perry Smith' (Bastille).

Band Name

For our band name, we have decided to go with... The Porcupines!

There were a few factors which influenced this decision. Firstly, as the song is by a band called The Pretenders, we thought we'd pay homage to this by also using The P.... Having a band name with 'The' at the start is not uncommon for a band of this genre and era, for example, The Beatles, The Clash, The Rolling Stones, and many many others. Another reason we decided to go with The Porcupines is the use of the animal name. Again, many artists choose to use animal names in their name, The Beatles, The Animals, and more recently, Arctic Monkeys are just a few examples.

With these factors in mind, we narrowed it down to The Porcupines!

Filming Day One

Today we finally started filming! Later than would have liked to due to illness and bad weather but we've started nonetheless. There were a couple of issues with filming in stations and using a tripod which we've spoken about in the blog below.

Creating Animations

After doing some research into different animating software, we've decided to go with Adobe After Effects. I had a look into also using Photoshop as this is what I was suggested by illustrator Maddy Vian, but I think After Effects is going to be more suitable for exactly what we want. This video tutorial for how to use the animation/ scribble effect is really helpful, and I think we'll use this as a step-by-step guide when it comes to actually adding the animations.

Forgetting the Plate

When we got to filming yesterday, we quickly realised that we had a tripod and phone clip but no plate to attach them with. As a quick fix we used a piece of ribbon we Rachel had on her to tie the phone and clip to the tripod.

This worked surprisingy well and kept the phone really steady, but it has remindind us that we need to be more prepared when we film our final footage! We are, however, keeping the ribbon attached to the tripod as we might use it as reinforcements when we film.

Practice Shots

As we have planned to film quite a few shots on trains and tubes, we decided to go out and test out different lines to see which is the smoothest as a way to reduce shaky footage and reshoots.

On Monday, we spent a couple of hours filming on both the overground and underground to see where we would get the steadiest shots. Luckily for us it was more successful than we anticipated; both went well so we could film on either, but we've decided to go ahead with the overground for the opening and closing shots,and the underground for the single shots during the montage section of the video.

As the video shows, both the trains and the tubes were pretty steady.