EVALUATION Q.1

1.In what ways does your media product follow the codes and conventions of similar media products?

the music video that we decided to do is "Worlds Greatest" by R Kelly. While doing this video we obviously thought that we would have a completely different video from its original music video but at the same time we wanted to have similar view and theme to the original music video. Like most music video, we also have a major of close-ups. the purpose of close-ups is for viewers to see the main artist singing, I also think the purpose of this is for the viewers to see the artist's feelings and the way they sing the song and that they put their heart and soul to the song. We wanted to achieve this in our music video because we didnt want our viewers to think that our main artist is just lip syncing the song but we wanted to give the impression that he puts his heart out while singing. Like most narrative music videos, our video has a story behind it. We made sure that our story relates and fits in well with the meaning of the lyrics of the song. We made our story very original but at the same time we also wanted to make it unique. A story about people who wants so much more in life and want to achieve something that they never achieved before. We believe Our story is very original as it is normal for any other song that has a meaning of never giving up and achieving something big, but we also believed that we did very well of making our story very unique as we combine it with the song. As we thought through the story, we didnt just want to put up a unique story but we also wanted to relate it to people. We wanted our viewers to see what it would feel like to be in the same situation and we also wanted to give an impression that we made this music video to relate to those that has a similar view or life.

As concluded, We did very well of making our music video and to make it similar to other RnB songs. But we are sure that we also achieved making our video very unique and to stand out from other same genre songs. Like most major hit songs, they would have ways of advertising them to their audience. In our blog we made our advert to be simple as possible but also persuasive enough to sell them to customers. We did research of techniques of how to sell your product through advertising and we learnt that most adverts for songs have very simple adverts because they know that viewers only want to focus on the actual artist and the song not other random things. This has helped us come to to final idea of making our advert very simple and we just want to give a simple message to all of our artist's fans out there as the very simple message our song gives, 'never give up'.

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

Our video fits in well with our other media based work as at the start of the video, the clothes that the main character is wearing (Solomon) we have also used within our digipak as well. The digipak which we created consisted of four panels; each of the panels had a picture of either the star image or the images of the locations we filmed in, which created continuity between the music video and each of the four panels. We created the link between the different media formats because it allowed them to tie in together with each other and shows the audience that the singer has a significant role in the video because he continuously visible on the digipack and the video.
















Many of the music CD/magazine which are available on the market today usually have the band or singer positioned on them, so we decided to follow this trend and to do something similar which would make our digipak fit in with the rest in hope that we could attract people into purchasing the album. To do this, we decided to take a more artistic approach towards creating the panels and we thought by making the pictures have a Sepia effect would create this certain mood and effect on the picture when the audience see it. We want the audience to feel calm and relaxed when looking at this. If we kept the pictures with their original colour we thought it wouldn’t be eye catching and the audience wouldn’t pay any attention to it.

On the back panel of the digipak and on the music advert, we decided to keep the sepia effect which shows that it is consistent through out each panel. We had someone in our group which was good at using Photoshop which was great because he was able to make our own logo which is positioned on the bottom left of the back panel. This logo will make our digipak unique. We also chose to put the record labels on as it makes the media products more realistic and authentic. These labels consisted of different versions of our music video; these were versions such as a remix by a different artist. We gave the digipak the similar aspect of the video, we believe that this would help us sell our product to an audience because the idea of the sepia effect on each panel very simple yet easily effective.


























Another way that advert and digipak compliment each other is was the font that was used while creating them. The font was consistent through out the creation of the magazine front cover and the cd panels.. This was done to create continuity between the products but also to create a house style for the artist of this song, His name has also got the same font, over time it will become more recognisable, distinctive and unique to the artist. Due to the music video being creative and different compared to other videos, we felt that we should do something just as innovative when creating the magazine advert.

Overall, as a group we feel that all of the media products which we produced are extremely creative and artistic but each of them are unique in their own way; we believe that all three off the different media formats all link together and compliment each other because of the consistency which they all have in them. I believe the audience would appreciate our products and by them because we put allot of time and effort creating our completed music video and digipak.

EVALUATION QUESTION 3

Audience Feedback Sheets:

Feedback Sheet 1:

Your overall response to the video:

Overall I liked it, i thought the editing was a real strong point in the film.

List 3 particular strengths of the video:

Lip syncing
Studio Shots
Slow motion shot to really give it a strong ending.
Write down one suggestion for improvement:
Use of scenery/Places

Choose one technical area: either camerawork, editing or mise en scene and give detailed feedback:

Mise En Scene - Location
Location's were in the college like most of the time, so the shots were not as effective as they could have been.

Feedback Sheet 2:

Your overall response to the video:
Good Shots
Lip syncing - On time
Good use of lighting
List 3 particular strengths of the video:

Many shots used at Different lengths
The use of the slow motion
Cropping images into other images
Write down one suggestion for improvement:
Should have used frames in other locations, not just the studio.

Choose one technical area: either camerawork, editing or mise en scene and give detailed feedback:

The editing was really cut on time, lots of fading that was really in sync to the music and video.

The question: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
After getting feedback from a sample audience, our music video received some positive feedback. One typical comment was that the editing , and this immediately stimulated interest; and also the use of the cross fading, which we used throughout the video, also seemed to get really good feedback. On the negative side, however, the comment was made that it was detrimental doing all the video within the studio.
The audience’s overall response from the video was that our editing was really good and kept the audience interested and there eyes glued to the screen. The use of different types of shots encourages the audience watching the music video to perceive it in different ways, and also creates a successful and professional feel towards the music video. Another positive comment which was made was about the roof shot, many of the audience thought it was a really creative idea and showed the underlying meaning of being 'the worlds greatest' and trying to be the best and being on a high place such as the roof top really sets a great sense of superiority.
Other positive comments which we received were about the the lighting, for e.g when we took the shot of the pianist walking into the theater getting ready to play the piano. Another strength that was given was the lip-syncing, apart from one clip, people thought the lip-syncing was in time and matched the lyrics of the song perfectly. We found this bit exceptionally hard because i did not know all of the words so i had to use different clips and make it look like Ive got the words in perfect sync, and this ended up working well and most people could not tell the difference.
Some music videos that are created are not perfect, like many other videos ours is not perfect either, and with hindsight there are things within the video which could have been improved on and made better. The audience which viewed our music video, felt the biggest problem was the fact that we had done most of the music video in the studio and all of the video in the college grounds, we did this because we wanted certain lighting options and certain effect that we could of not been able to obtain anywhere else apart from either the college or the studio.
From our audience feedback we have learnt a lot, the audience feedback picks out both positives and negatives about the music video and it allows us to get an idea of what people think of it, and what can be done to make it better.

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

The first thing that we done for the project was to have a look and research into which song we was going to do, we done this by using the Mac’s by looking on YouTube through a variety of different videos until we found a video that we all agreed on and decided to do. Through the research stage of the task we mainly used the technology on the Internet, we looked at a number of different music videos in the same genre of our video and also music videos from different genres so that we would expand our knowledge of music videos. After we had decided what we was going to do in our video we had to decide on the locations that we were going to film at. We again mainly used the Internet to find out suitable locations for our video, we used the Google street view to look around and find some locations as it saves a lot of time rather than going round all the places which we thought may be suitable for the video.The research for the digipak and magazine cover we also used the internet to gain valuable research, we used Google images to search for CD covers and magazine covers from artists who are in the same genre as the artist who’s music video we had decided to do. Through the Internet we had access to thousands of different CD covers and magazine covers so that we could get ideas from them and ass them to our own ideas to make sure that we had a good professional looking CD cover that would also work well with the genre of song we had chosen. We looked at CD album covers from Bruno Mars, Chris Brown and Usher who are in the same genre as R Kelly and these shown that there can be many different CD covers but most of them promote the performers star image so we took this into consideration when designing our own CD cover.


Whilst filming the video we used a number of different technologies, we filmed part of our video using the green screen. We used the specialist cameras in the media suite so that we could get good quality close ups of Solomon performing as we though this sort of performance would suit the song. We also had two other parts to the video which we filmed with the normal camera’s, there is a difference in the quality of the shots between the two but you can get more of a variety of shots with the normal camera as you can get handheld shots and move around with the camera. After we had done our filming we edited the footage on a programme called ‘Final Cut Pro’. This was an essential part of out video because we had a lot of footage to choose from and had to bring it all into 3 and a half minutes for the video, we had to use a number of effects for the transition between all the shots in the video. One of the hardest parts when editing the video was making sure that the lip-syncing was in time with the song but through all the specialist tools in final cut pro we managed to successfully lip-sync the video.


When making the CD covers we used another type of technology, the digital stills camera. We used this to take a number of pictures of Solomon so that we had a variety of shots to choose from when making our final decision on the CD cover. After we had decided which picture we were going to use we used the programme ‘Adobe Photoshop’ to add effects and text to the picture. We had to crop the image so that it was 12cm by 12 cm and the same as a normal size CD case. We then decided to add the ‘sepia’ effect to the picture as it creates a mood that works well and is backed up by the song itself. We also added the text in Photoshop and went for fancy, stylish form of text as in the research of CD covers we seen that there wasn’t many plain text and all of them were unique to that one singer. The blog was also another major part of our project, as we had to regularly update it with screenshots, videos and other things throughout all the different stages of the project. The media technology helped us greatly in all areas of our project and without this we wouldn’t have been able to plan, research or make a successful music video.

OUTTAKESSSSS!!!

FINAL DESIGN: Magazine Advert

This is the final design of our Magazine advert. As you can see we kept the theme in our poster because we did not want different various styles in our advert. We also liked the idea of having a picture of the CD somewhere in the advert so our customers know what it looks like. We also kept the idea of having our music company logo in this from our first draft. The rating from a newspaper is kept, but we took away the comments. We also made that we kept the style of font fit together and not having random font styles on each writing. We wanted our poster to be as simple as possible but at the same time persuasive enough to sell our album nationwide.

ANALYSING MAGAZINE ADVERTS: Basement Jaxx

This is an advert for Basement jaxx. I think this is a quite simple advert but very effective. Its got the name of the artist in bold capital font so the viewers can see it clearly. Its also got events in at the bottom for information on concerts and events. This also has the music company name on it to advertise their music label. I think the picture of the bird is a good image for this theme, the colours also match the image of the bird and the font style in advert. Looking at this advert made us think and made sure that we keep the theme in the advert and not having random things on it.

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

The first thing that we done for the project was to have a look and research into which song we was going to do, we done this by using the Mac’s by looking on YouTube through a variety of different videos until we found a video that we all agreed on and decided to do. Through the research stage of the task we mainly used the technology on the Internet, we looked at a number of different music videos in the same genre of our video and also music videos from different genres so that we would expand our knowledge of music videos. After we had decided what we was going to do in our video we had to decide on the locations that we were going to film at. We again mainly used the Internet to find out suitable locations for our video, we used the Google street view to look around and find some locations as it saves a lot of time rather than going round all the places which we thought may be suitable for the video.

The research for the digipak and magazine cover we also used the internet to gain valuable research, we used Google images to search for CD covers and magazine covers from artists who are in the same genre as the artist who’s music video we had decided to do. Through the Internet we had access to thousands of different CD covers and magazine covers so that we could get ideas from them and ass them to our own ideas to make sure that we had a good professional looking CD cover that would also work well with the genre of song we had chosen. We looked at CD album covers from Bruno Mars, Chris Brown and Usher who are in the same genre as R Kelly and these shown that there can be many different CD covers but most of them promote the performers star image so we took this into consideration when designing our own CD cover.

Whilst filming the video we used a number of different technologies, we filmed part of our video using the green screen. We used the specialist cameras in the media suite so that we could get good quality close ups of Solomon performing as we though this sort of performance would suit the song. We also had two other parts to the video which we filmed with the normal camera’s, there is a difference in the quality of the shots between the two but you can get more of a variety of shots with the normal camera as you can get handheld shots and move around with the camera. After we had done our filming we edited the footage on a programme called ‘Final Cut Pro’. This was an essential part of out video because we had a lot of footage to choose from and had to bring it all into 3 and a half minutes for the video, we had to use a number of effects for the transition between all the shots in the video. One of the hardest parts when editing the video was making sure that the lip-syncing was in time with the song but through all the specialist tools in final cut pro we managed to successfully lip-sync the video.

When making the CD covers we used another type of technology, the digital stills camera. We used this to take a number of pictures of Solomon so that we had a variety of shots to choose from when making our final decision on the CD cover. After we had decided which picture we were going to use we used the programme ‘Adobe Photoshop’ to add effects and text to the picture. We had to crop the image so that it was 12cm by 12 cm and the same as a normal size CD case. We then decided to add the ‘sepia’ effect to the picture as it creates a mood that works well and is backed up by the song itself. We also added the text in Photoshop and went for fancy, stylish form of text as in the research of CD covers we seen that there wasn’t many plain text and all of them were unique to that one singer. The blog was also another major part of our project, as we had to regularly update it with screenshots, videos and other things throughout all the different stages of the project. The media technology helped us greatly in all areas of our project and without this we wouldn’t have been able to plan, research or make a successful music video.

ANALYSING MAGAZINE ADVERTS: Gwen Stefani

This is a magazine advert for Gwen Stefani's new album. Her name is in Big stylish wrting to make it clear for the viewers. Also, the font fits in very well to the style of the advert and the whole theme of the album. Some adverts normally just have a plain background that has a colour that fits in with the theme. But this one has an image of the artist, I think this is emphasise star icon. I also like the idea of having the picture of the album in the advert to turn to its original purpose to sell albums.

SHOT LIST: Final Ideas

LONG SHOT: We had a lot of long shots in our music video. This is because we wanted the viewers to know where the main setting is and what is mainly happening. We also made sure that our long shots arent just random shots but of settings and things that relates to our video. for e.g we had a long shot of the church in the begginning of our video because we wanted to let our viewers to know straight away where the first location is. In the end we have a long shot of Solomon raising his hands up high while hes in a roof of a building. We made sure that we get both our singer (Solomon) and the background in this shot because this emphasis the 'feel good factor' and also helps to create that certain joyous mood.

CLOSE-UP: We thought that this particular shot is very important in our music video so we made sure that we had plenty of it. In the beggning of the video we see Solomon sat down in a chair with the background plain black. We filmed this in the studio because it creates that certain effect. In these shots we made sure that most of them were close-up, because we wanted to make sure that our viewers clearly see him sing and to see that he put his heart and soul to the song. In the studio we also had mid-range shots because we wanted to see his actions as sometimes he raises his hands or leans back etc.

MID-SHOTS: Another shot that was important to us is the Mid-shot. Most of the times in the video Solomon and the other characters do a little or plenty of action for e.g raising there hands up, dancing etc. We wanted to let the viewers see the real feeling into the song as all of the our characters sing with their hearts. This is also to show that our character werent just lip syncing but to give the impression that we also plenty of joyful moments while filming this video and to achieve our main goal to 'get in the song'

DIGIPACK AND ADVERT DEVELOPMENT

For our CD cover, We have looked in various places to set the background images for our CD. While looking through various places, we made sure that we stick to the locations thats in our video and we also took different pictures from different angles or on different corners of the location to have a different view in the places that we already see in the video.





We thought to stay in the same place for our CD. As you can see, from all of the four panels of our CD they are all in the same place but in a different point of view. For e.g the front cover of our CD is a medium picture of the Altar with Solomon standing there with his hands raised. Inside of the CD on the left panel. The picture is of Solomon sitting in one of the benches looking up, I also included a bit of the lyrics of the song. This is because when I researched CDs most of them have lyrics inside, I think this is because they want to let the customer know straight away what is the true meaning of the song what its mainly about. The lyrics also makes a better effect on the Image of the left panel because the way I have edited it and with the style of writing combines really well and creates this certain mood in the image as you look at it.














For our magazine Advert we chosen to set it in a different place thats not included in the video. We figured it would be a fresh idea to have a different location for the advert. But we stuck to idea of having Solomon in the picture. But we also wanted the church in the background to show the main location of our video.

FIRST DRAFT: MAGAZINE ADVERT

This is the first draft of our magazine advert. As you can see we have inculded companies such as HMV and to iTunes to advertise and sell our Music video. When we were doing the research, we came across comments from famous icons in the advert. So I decided to put comments up from a famous music producer and well known Newspaper. I also included star ratings from the comments to make it a good response to our Music Video. At the bottom left, I also included our own production company (B D Produ.). This is because for people to know whos company has made this song and also to advertise our Music Production Company.