MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT

DVD COVER

Storyboard

Evaluation

With the media production task this year being to create a music video with two ancillary products, it was very important to consider the forms and conventions of existing media products, and whether my group and I had used, developed or challenged those conventions.

The band that we promoted was a local unsigned band called The Vees, this meant that we could form their identity as a band, and no issues with copy write would arise.

After listening to the song that The Vees asked us to use (entitled ‘Don’t Matter’) it was clear that the genre of the band was classic rock, similar to bands such as Bon Jovi and Snow Patrol. Conventions required for a music video for this type of genre include: band performance, narrative to develop the meaning of the song, close ups of the main singer (to establish him), particular attention of the instruments used, and quick cuts for an upbeat song and slow cuts for a mellow song. Therefore, many classic rock videos are ‘illustration’ videos, as opposed to ‘amplification’ and ‘disjuncture’. 

Our video is made up of a dominating performance, with a smaller narrative injected to reflect the meaning of the song. The performance is set on a stage to reflect a gig, which shows the band’s playful nature and gives them individuality. The setting also enables the audience to see that they are talented musicians who play authentically. My only suggestion for improving the performance aspect of the video would be to have an energised crowed, so that the audience can feel more connected to the band, and so it would fit more of the conventions as seen in many of Bon Jovi’s videos. However, due to lack of resources and willing extras, this was difficult to achieve, but I do feel that we used our resources effectively and I also feel that the use of close ups, particularly on the lead singer, Wolfie, enabled the audience to feel connected with the band, as shown in Snow Patrol’s ‘Just Say Yes’ video, as they don’t use a crowd.  Another place of improvement would be the lighting on the stage. I feel it looked a bit too washed out and didn’t give the atmosphere of a gig. But something which had been a very prominent criticism of my preliminary task was the dark lighting, and as a group we were very weary of lighting and didn’t want it to be a problem, so decided to light it sufficiently, so the image was clear.

The narrative we kept very simple, which enabled the audience to understand the meaning of the song. It consisted of images of a boyfriend and girlfriend, who were arguing and breaking up, mixed with happy memories, shown in black and white to reflect the past. This mixture of happy and sad images evokes an emotional response from the audience as they see the trauma the couple go through. This reflects the song, because the lyrics say ‘but it’s true to say some time away will bring us closure, bring us closer’. The image of the male driving away in his car reflects the lyrics ‘load the car I drop the hood’, ‘rear view mirror sees me turn my back on your town’ and ‘every road soon leads here’.  The scenes when they are on the phone reflect the lyrics ‘when I called you tried to keep me from talking’. My group and I felt it important to include this narrative that reflected the meaning of the song as it showed our creative abilities and also conformed to the conventions Andrew Goodwin put forward in his theory; suggesting that narratives must reflect the lyrics of the song.

The editing, I thought was fairly conventional. It had simple cuts that were to the beat of the music and were to the pace of the music too. This enabled comfortable viewing for the audience, so that they may enjoy the music video. One aspect that perhaps wasn’t so conventional for a classic rock video was the use of fade transitions. Fades are more associated with acoustic genres and slower songs, however, when editing the video we decided that fade transitions between the performance and the memory scenes would be appropriate as it enforces the use of black and white to show the past.

Also in the task set was to produce a magazine advertisement and DVD cover, complete with DVD and menu selections. This combined with the music video helps promote the band as a whole, which gives them a certain style to appeal to their target audience.

With the magazine advertisement we kept the photo of the band a very dominant part of it. This is a very striking image as all members of the band are looking at the camera, so it gives the impression they are looking straight into the eyes their target audience. Furthermore, the black and white effect creates almost a harshness which promotes the band’s image of the classic rock genre (as shown in some of Bon Jovi’s promotional stills). The band’s logo is centred above the heads of the band members, so that band members and the logo are associated together. The text was kept quite simple, so that attention wasn’t taken away from the picture of the band, but at the same time it got the message across that their single ‘Don’t Matter’ was going to be realised on the given date.

While the music video and the magazine advertisement enabled the band to be promoted as a group, the DVD cover and content inside the DVD enabled each band member to be shown individually. On the back of the DVD cover, are photos of each individual member with their name in different positions and different style texts to reflect their handwriting. This not only creates a very personal link between the band member and the audience, it also enables the band member to be known as an individual.

Audience feedback is very important to consider when evaluating, because it reveals areas of improvement that the target audience have suggested. When showing our production to the class, they all agreed that it was a well constructed video with a large variety of shots and accurately synced. However, there were a few areas of improvements that were raised. Although they said they understood the narrative and thought it added a different dynamic to the production, there were issues as to whether the acting was convincing. This was a difficult issue during production, because we knew that we wanted fairly good actors and the cast that we chose had been doing drama at college, so from our resources and budget, I believe we did the best we could.

Another improvements that was put forward was the location of the performance. They did not give a reason for this criticism, however I imagine it was to do with the fact that the band wasn’t playing to a crowd even though they were on a stage.

The band member’s clothing was another issue with the audience’s feedback. They thought that it wasn’t ‘fashionable’ enough and therefore, didn’t appeal to the target audience. I must say, I do agree with this statement. However, we did ask the band to wear something contemporary and suitable for their target audience such as blue genes and coloured converses, but unfortunately we couldn’t have much control over what they wore.

Technology was at the forefront of the research, planning, production of the music video, advertisement and DVD cover, and even this evaluation.

In the research I used the blog to present my findings and used websites such as YouTube to research into existing music videos.

In the planning stages technologies such as Facebook and Twitter were primarily used to communicate between group members, and communication between the band members was through email.

On the recce that we made I took my camera so we were able to take photos of the hall, even details such as the booking forms I had to fill out. This helped us present everything on the blog and was proof that we had researched the venue before booking it.

During filming the main technology we used was the HD Canon cameras, four altogether. They enabled us to shoot the video to the highest quality available, which made the video look professional. We also used simple technologies such as tripods to keep the cameras steady whilst filming, which again, made the video look more professional. We used a high quality canon camera that had different lenses that could be attached in order to achieve a different effect, to take the promotional stills. This greatly increased the professionalism of the pictures, and I was very pleased with the results.

To edit together the main music video, we used Adobe Premiere Pro. In the programme we had to import all of our video files, from each of the four cameras, and cut them where appropriate and assemble them on the timeline. As we had used this in the preliminary task and at AS I was quite familiar with the programme, although throughout this project I leant even more. The music video was then copied onto a DVD disk, so that it created a pack together with the evaluation and photo gallery.

With the construction of the DVD cover and the magazine advertisement we used Adobe Photoshop, which enabled us to edit and create the products to a high standard. One of the tools I was most impressed with was the ‘clone stamp tool’, which enabled us to edit out some unwanted items in the back of one of the pictures we wanted to use for the magazine advertisement.

With this evaluation, I have presented a written copy on my blog, but constructed it using Microsoft Word. I also decided to produce this, almost video style blog, to enhance communication. This video has also been through Adobe Premiere Pro and been transferred onto the DVD, much like the music video.   

Magazine advertisement

Cliants opinions on finished video

Audience's opinions on finished video

DVD cover

Editing

Editing started first thing on the Monday morning after filming. As Helen was the producer of the DVD extras, she focused on editing the interview we filmed on the day of the shoot, while Sarah and I started editing the main video. 

We started by importing all of our footage from all four cameras into Adobe Premiere Pro. Then we named each shot as appropriate, so that it was easier to find what shot we needed when editing onto the timeline. This was a very effective way for conserving time.

We decided to find a shot that was in sync all the way through the song, as a back up plan if a shot that we planned to use didn't fit in or wasn't to a high enough standard. 

Sarah and I had put together a few shots, making sure they were as synced as we could get them and asked for Helen and our teacher's opinion. They were very realistic with their constructive criticism and me and Sarah were able to amend and improve the production. We made sure to have a wide variety of shots- wide shots of the band as a whole and close ups mainly on Wolfie, whilst not leaving the other band members out. 

We then showed it to our teacher again and some of our classmates and they said that they didn't think the narrative went in any particular order and was therefore confusing and they didn't understand the story. Thus me and Helen decided to take out all of the narrative shots and start again, agreeing on an order and one that would make more sense. We started with arguing shots to show that that was what was going on at that moment in time and then gradually progress into black and white happy memories. Something which was perhaps unconventional for a classic rock video which we decided would be appropriate was the fade transitions to the happier scenes. We felt that this added to the effect of the black and white and reiterated the fact that it was a memory and in the past. This change got positive feedback from all the class members, which was greatly encouraging. 

We then sent the finished video to the band and when they replied we were upset and slightly confused to see that they didn't like it. They gave us a few positive pointers, but most of it was negative. They had a problem with the syncing of the instruments and the technicalities of who was singing at particular times. When we tried to rectify this issue we discovered that all our raw footage had been deleted from the computers due to the school technicians updating the software. Thankfully we had exported the video before this had happened, so we did not lose our work. However, we were upset that we weren't able to improve the video for the band's satisfaction, but hope that they will use it nonetheless. 

Filming day- narrative

Helen was able to get two people she knew who did performing arts at college to take part in our narrative sequence. This had a good effect on the professionalism of the acting, because we were worried we would have to find people who wouldn't take acting in the narrative seriously and therefore it wouldn't be convincing. 


We needed some happy scenes and sad ones, so therefore, different costumes were needed for both parts. For example in the happy scenes the girl dressed in bright colours with floral patterns. Her hair was down and curly, which showed that she had spent a lot of time on her appearance, which connotes a positive manner and greatly contrasts with that of the sad scenes. In the sad scenes she wore darker colours and baggy clothing, which connotes lethargy and sadness. 


We started filming the happy scenes to get the actors relaxed. The garden scenes allowed the audience to see that their relationship was a deep relationship and not just a 'fling', because the close ups enable the audience to see the emotion on their faces, and therefore when the sad scenes are incorporated in the final edit, they will greatly contrast, evoking an emotional response from the audience. I felt the dancing scenes in the living room especially portrayed the closeness and the romanticism of their relationship. These scenes we plan to edit so they are black and white to reflect the past and memories.


The sad and frustrated scenes are to be left in colour to reflect the present day and show the audience what their relationship has become. We decided to film an argument in the kitchen, because it is a domestic part of the house and makes the scene more realistic because the audience can picture themselves in that position. 


The two separate rooms, where they are arguing and crying on the phone were shot to represent the space between them. The girl's room was typically girly, with flowers on the wall and makeup in the background. The boy's room was darker, which is typically a boys sort of room. 


We filmed close ups in the sad scenes too, because we felt this would contrast dramatically with the happy scenes, showing progression and evoking further sadness from the audience point of view. 




Here are some pictures of our narrative location:

Filming day- performance

Our location is Mandeville hall in Kimbolton near Huntingdon it has parking facilities and kitchen facilities for us to use along with toilets.

Full address

Thrapston Road

Kimbolton

Huntingdon

PE28 0HW

 The Day

9:00-10:00	Producer (myself) will drive to Folksworth to pick up Lucy then to Alconbury for Helen we will then make our way to the location that is Kimbolton mediville hall.
10:00-10:30	The group will prepare the location for the arrival of the band practical things prepare heating etc and the mise-en-scene such as the curtains and any other props we shall use.
10:30-11:00	Tests of all the equipment and go through the production schedule and make sure the band and the crew know what they are doing. Clear all of the decisions made with the band.
11:00-11:30	Film the first take of the song in full on pure freestyle performance not to the storyboard to ensure we have enough spare footage.
11:30-12:00	The first 5-6 shots done twice over this includes the close up and the zoom which we will probably repeat more times.
12:00-12:30	Lunch break for everyone and again ensure everyone is sure on what they are doing.
12:30-1:30	Done all the shots on the storyboard at least once.
1:30-2:30	Make sure we have all storyboarded shots 2-3 times and film the song fully changing the camera angles from the previous run through.
2:30-3:00	Run through the song as many times as we can to feel comfortable with the amount of footage we have.
3:00-4:00	Pack up all equipment and clean around if we have made mess hand the key over and go.

Useful Numbers

Emergency Services

St Neots Police Station                                 03454 564564                                     7.2 miles

Huntingdon police station                           03454 564564                                     8.8 miles             

St Neots Fire Station                                      01480 474601                                     7.1 miles

Event paramedics                                            01480 271030                                     9.3 miles

Important people

Producer/director                                           Sarah Matthews                              07596088400

Technical                                                           Lucy Rosbrook                                07516873847     

Design                                                               Helen Pearman                                07720390661

Band Representative                                     Tim Walpole                     07525193565 /01954710365

Media teacher                                                Brendan Sheppard                         

Media Teacher                                                 Alexia Smith                     

Hall owners                                                        Sally                                                      01480861877 

Risk Assessment

Hazards	Who’s Exposed	Risk	Control Measures	Risk
Wires on the floor for lights and cameras etc.	Crew and band	Medium	Tidy wires- duct tape them to the floor- keep them ordered.	Medium
Lights- get very hot	Crew and band	Medium	Wear gloves when assembling and adjusting them. Make sure they are set up correctly	Medium
Falling off the stage	Band and crew	Low	Creating a line where people aren’t allowed to cross. Putting amps at the front of the stage, so there is a clear barrier.	Very Low
Electric shock	Band and crew	Low	Keep water away from the equipment. Make sure there are power breakers attached to the lights.	Very Low
Fire	Band and crew	Low	Locate fire exits and fire extinguishers. Don’t use the cooker.	Very Low
Trip hazard- stairs and uneven ground	Band and crew	Medium	Take extra caution when walking around and take notice of signs saying ‘mind the step’	Medium/Low
Objects falling	Band and crew	Medium	Make sure the band and crew are aware of their surroundings and everything is set up safely.	Low

Risk Matrix	Likelihood of Harm
Severity of harm	Remote	Unlikely	Possible	Likely	Probable
Negligible	Medium	Medium	Low	Low	Very Low
Slight	Low	Low	Very Low	Very Low	Very Low
Moderate	Very Low	Very Low	Very Low	Very Low	Very Low
Severe	Very Low	Very Low	Very Low	Very Low	Very Low
Very Severe	Very Low	Very Low	Very Low	Very Low	Very Low