Evaluation Activity 4

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

Construction 

Digital camera and tripod used to film our music video. We found the tripod hard to use at some times because the joint that is used to turn the camera became quite stiff so it affected some of the shots i.e. panning and establishing shots. we found the battery life of the camera adequate as it only lasted about four hours and we were filming and had the camera on for longer which made it hard for us to get every shot we needed. using our own camera was a great advantage because we were more familiar with it and it was newer so had better features than the school's equipment. With the SLR we were able to focus on certain things and have great colours which gave us really nice visual footage.

iMovie - the editing program we used to put our music video together. We normally used iMovie HD but as we used a different camera, the footage was not compatible with iMovie HD. Because of this we needed to use iMovie. It was hard to get to grips with it as it was so different to the usual program we were used to, but it had more editing software and was more beneficial.

iTunes - the music playing software that we used to put the song Down in Mexico - The Coasters on and listen to whilst putting our video together. We were all very familiar with this program because we use it often for our own personal uses. This became very helpful as using iTunes wasn't difficult like using iMovie was.

Evaluation

Blogspot - the blog site that we used to document the progress of our work on our music video and other work e.g. magazine advert, digipak, etc. We have been using Blogspot as the website for our blog since the beginning of our AS course so we are quite familiar with it.

Evaluation 3 - Interview and Group discussion

GROUP DISCUSSION from Ellis King on Vimeo.

The above video is our groups discussion on our thoughts on the music video talking about the problems we faced and how we overcame them.

INTERVIEWS from Ellis King on Vimeo.

The above video is interviews with other people asking for their opinions on our final music video and the digipak/magazine ad and how they all work together.

Evaluation Activity 3 - Audience Feedback

What have you learned from your audience feedback?


Having shown our music video to the other class members we found that, in general the feedback was positive. The audience commented on the intensity of the colour right away which was viewed in a positive light by many of the class members. All in all the mise en scene was suited to the music style and comments such as the colour working well were brought up quite a lot. The audience also said that the lip synching was very good and the hard work the cast members of the video was shown in this (our band members learnt the lyrics off by heart and learnt to play 'Down in Mexico' on their various instruments i.e. drums and guitar) the few problems we had faced with lip synching were then fixed after audience feedback. The cut between shots was said to be interesting and kept the continuity of the music video going, keeping the audience entertained throughout. There was also positive feedback on the costumes used, and the music video showed the cast to be enjoying the performance which gave the music video performance the professional and positive feel to it. However the few issues which arose, which we have now dealt with included problems with editing, i.e. when the music speeds up - the music video cuts and shots must also speed up - this was later fixed.

Upon showing the audience our Digipak and magazine advert, we were criticized on our magazine advert which was not immediately recognizable to the Digipak. We applied these changes later on as we were advised by the audience to change our magazine advert to our front cover of the Digipak as it would work and look better and more consistent.

Evaluation Activity 2

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

Digipak - changes

After audience feedback, we have decided to swap the poster cover that Ellis put together with our current album cover (the Mexican skull). We decided to do this because even thought we loved and cherished the Mexican skull drawing that Alex did, we felt that the photo that Ellis had linked more with the rest of the digipak and music video. We have chosen to still use the Mexican skull drawing but as the middle inside panel; the cd panel.

The original front cover of our album:

The new front cover of our album: 

Old CD panel: 

Here is our replacement of the CD panel:

We have replaced the front cover with an alternative image and used the old front cover image as a CD panel!

Evaluation Activity 1 - Group Work

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

The style of the video

We used both narrative and performance in our music video but it was dominantly performance which can be seen in the screenshot above of a band member playing guitar. With the use of mise en scene we adapted the style of our video to give it a vintage/old school look, to do this we used warm colours for example, as shown above, red, orange and brown. This colour scheme links to the mexican influence of our song and music video. The performance aspect of our music video is a popular theme, however we added a slight twist to it by giving it a old school and mexican feel. 

Setting/Location

This location complies with conventions because it is very similar to 'Deathproof' the movie which features a music video of the song we chose, we chose a similar setting of the bar, with a performance of a band rather than the one of the girl alone. The image above is a screenshot of the opening of our music video, it has been used as an establishing shot. The setting/location we chose has a dance floor, a bar and a stage which was perfect, as this is also what you would see in the 'Deathproof' version of our music video. 

Costumes and props

Here we used red lipstick for the main girl, Julide. She used this prop in the music video, as shown in the shot of her applying the lipstick. Red lipstick represents someone who is sexy and feminine i.e. Marilyn Monroe. By using the red lipstick, we have represented our main girl as someone who could be seen as a sex icon. Using a beautiful girl, we aimed to show the idea of how 'sex sells' which is a common convention in the music industry, especially in the music videos for their promotional value. For example, Beyonce's video of 'Single Ladies' is very simple, as she is basically using herself as a sex icon to sell. We also added a black lace hand fan (screenshot below) in order to give the music video its Hispanic feel.

Camerawork 

The screenshot above shows the main girl, Julide's legs as she is walking towards the band. With the camera we panned the shot downwards as she walked past the camera. Julide has enviable legs, which helps heighten her sexual lure, so we thought we'd capture shots of her legs to emphasize this. After I panned the shot down to her shoes, i travelled back up the body to her hips before she starts dancing towards our lead singer, Dan. The fact that Julide is a model helps us to conform to the ideology of what you'd see as a leading lady in a music video. There's a specific look which people in the music and modeling industry look for and expect. We used certain shots to highlight these idea's and qualities that Julide and the usual cast members of a music video share. 

Editing - consider use of lip synching /edited to the beat

The people we got to be in our band learnt the song on guitar and learnt the lyrics which helped a lot because it meant that when they were playing they actually  knew what they were doing and it shows. They had huge enthusiasm especially Dan, the lead singer seen in the screenshot above. Dan lip synced the song with passion and excellent acting, this made the music feel more believable. Majority of music videos have lip synching and require the artist or cast to act considerably well or the music video would look unrealistic, we believe that our music video has the right feel to it to make the capture the audience. 

We made sure that the music video is cut to the beat, this is a main convention of music videos of today. In the screenshot above, the band are jumping with their instruments to the beat which is something we see bands do a lot when the beat drops or changes suddenly. This part of the music video shown above is quite fast and upbeat, for this reason we asked the band members to jump at this bit.

Any other techniques used

Edited Version

Above, is the 'flipped' version of a shot we used in our music video because we thought it worked better; It would not have made sense otherwise, as the direction of the character walking onto the shot would not be consistent with the previous shot. We made this simple change to keep the continuity going. 

Special effects

We used various special effects in our music video such as fade in and fade out, lighting and on screen text. One concept which is seen in music videos as a convention is on screen credits at the beginning which include, the name of the song, the band name, director and record label name which we made up. We also applied fade in and fade out using the IMovie editing software to make our music video look neater at the beginning and ending.

Performance 

This was the main aspect of our music along with the narrative, we showed the performance throughout the video with the band players playing their various instruments and lip synching. These are conventions of music videos and have been applied very professionally to the music video through precise editing to make our music video look realistic. 

How the video suggests the music genre of the track

Our music video which is under the genre of Soul/R'n'b of the 1960s has been reconstructed to be aimed at a modern audience of all ages to present time.  It conveys a combination of retro and old school feel which is shown in the colours and mise en scene, the bar being slightly old fashioned and latino. These are the various ideas we came up with to convey a soulful and mexican feel to the Soul/R'n'b genre, to make our music video look unique yet still follow the criteria in order to reach a wider audience of 16+. 

How does your video reflect research done into the style of the artists other videos?

There isn't a music video for "Down in Mexico" but it was featured in the 2007 Quentin Tarantino action thriller film "Deathproof" where the sequence featured is actually a music video in itself. We used a 'honky tonk' type bar (a small bar where music is played in Mexico) similar to the bar used in the film. 

The image below is a screenshot from the sequence where "Down in Mexico" is featured in the movie "Deathproof"

The bar, as shown in the screen shot above, is quite similar to the one we used , in a sense that the colours, look and feel of it is very retro and latino.

Progression of our Down in Mexico Skull drawing

ORIGINAL DRAWING:

FIRST DRAFT OF FRONT COVER:

With inspiration from the Mexican Candy Skulls, we produced our own image according to the style of our music video. This skull head, drawn and coloured by Alex Harvey, shows the image we are going for on our Digipak (Mexican). We researched the different types of skulls and Mexican candy skulls. When it came to producing our own one we picked different elements off them to inspire our own skull. For example we used the idea of the upside down cross from this image:

INSPIRATION FOR FRONT COVER:

Final CD Digipak

The Front Cover:

The First Two Back Panels of the CD Digipak:

The First Panel of the Inside Part of the CD Digipak:

The Second Panel Which Holds the CD Itself:

The Third Panel of the Inside of the CD Digipak:

Plan for our CD

This is a rough layout of what our cd digipak with look like. The top row is the exterior and the bottom is the interior. The whole cd will have a Mexcian and vintage feel. We will do this by using warm tones and orange colours.

progress on first draft

As you can see this is the same photo and layout as the poster I last posted, although I have tampered with the saturation, contrast and brightness. I have also edited the file in Photo Effects Studio to add the 'ancient' effect on to the image which therefore reflects the era of the The Coasters

first draft of magazine advert

For this album artwork I used Photoshop to put it together. I used a photograph that I had taken when I first came to the Sheepwalk, I felt that it was a good image to use because it includes some of the set used in the video but not any of the performers which works to keep it simple. I also used the website 'dafont.com' to find and download a number of appropriate fonts of which i felt went with the theme of 'Mexicali' and finally decided to use the two seen in the poster. I then added the colours to the text that fit  in with the colours of the photograph behind the text. I plan to draft some other ideas as well as work into this one.

POSTER RESEARCH

This is the poster for the album 'Contra' by the band Vampire Weekend. The simplicity of this poster is what made it so memorable and  think that the idea behind it could be interpreted in to our own work. Of course this woman would be replaced by Julide Ayger who featured in the music video.

As you can see in this poster, it is promoting a new single called 'Don't Look Back Into the Sun'. This poster includes a lot more detail as it not only includes the band and song name, but also the release date, other versions included and information stating that it is in fact the new single.

Digipack Research

This is the standard layout for a CD digipack which is the one we are most likely to use. It has three panels, includes a booklet and the CD. 

This is one style that could be used. Instead of folding out in to a straight line it opens up on each side of the cd with each panel displaying images. There is also a booklet with all the lyrics plus various information inside a pocket on one of the panels.

This has the similar concept although instead of being a CD digipack it is a record album. This particular album opens up as a book with each page displaying all the lyrics with additional information and artwork, also followed by the record itself. As the song we have chosen to use in our media video was released within the record era it may even be an idea to produce it in this format.

Candy Skull Front Cover DRAFT

    FIRST DRAFT:

    SECOND DRAFT:

I filled in some of the gap around the mouth. I plan to colour the skull in soon to see how it'll look. If it doesn't look particularly nice, I'll start again. After it's coloured in, i shall scan the picture and use editing software to make it look more professional.

Ideas for the Digipak covers - Mexican Candy Skull

As we've previously said on the blog, the group plan to use a Mexican candy Skull design for one of the covers in the digipak. We eventually came up with the idea of drawing a candy skull onto a model (the girl who was featured in our music video) and use that as the front cover of our Digipak. 

Now, the only problem that we face is timing. We might not be able to get to her, paint her face and take the pictures that we need before Tuesday, which is the deadline for our Digipak so we've got a back up, which is using an actual skull drawing that we'll design ourselves. I've drawn a picture of a basic outline in the post before this and after i plan to modify it if my group want it to look different and colour it in with bright, vibrant colours like a conventional candy skull. 

Rough draft of our skull design

Rough Ideas for the Digipak

Research for front cover of Digipak

Initial Idea:

We used the outline from this skull for our own one. We really liked it as it wasn't too weird or scary but was just right and perfect for what we needed. We also tried to recreate the colour scheme of this skull because we really wanted to have a lot of colour with our own one to go along with the colourful Mexican theme.

We were going to use this skull as inspiration but the cheekbones were just too prominent. Although we did like the circle pattern around the eyes, similar to a few of the other skulls.

The above 2 images features crosses which we really liked. For some weird reason we decided to add this to our own skull and luckily it looks very good.

The above 2 images are of actual skulls with small beads glued onto them. They have a really tribal and are very colourful, especially the second one which we like.

We were draw to the red lips of this skull mainly as we feature red lipstick and lips in our video with our main girl, Julide. In our final image, we put red lips on our skull.

Second Idea:

If we were to paint a skull design on our model and main girl in the video, Julide we would have use the above image as our main inspiration. 

We later came across images of these girls who have painted skulls onto their faces, this idea was intriguing however it was not so practical for us as we only had a week left to compete everything. Although this would have been a good idea to use on our main girl who was in the music video, we decided not to go ahead with it, instead we went back to our first idea and created a hand drawing ourselves.