Tuesday 6 April 2010
Commentary
Commentary
Uploaded by gromi5432. - Watch original web videos.
here is a video of me and eric discussing what thoughts we put into the video.
Steven's Evaluation
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our music video strongly challenged the form and conventions of real media products due to the fact it was abstract, subtly dealt with many themes that are otherwise less touched upon in the music industry and also because it has a non linear narrative. We chose "White Light" by the Gorillaz. They are a fusion band as they are compiled of different artists. However for us to effectively challenge the forms and conventions that govern the music industry we had to take a few on board. This is shown through the traffic scene. Most music videos either have a conventional fast moving traffic scene or at least a close up on a car. Whilst we incorporated this into our video we also tried to implement at least some type of unique spin onto it. We achieved this by cutting up the video and rearranging it into a random order that matches the beats of the song.
Original Location
Our original plan had been to film at an abandoned hospital and deal predominantly with mental health issues in a way similar to that of "Jacobs Ladder", one of our key inspirations. After having gone for an initial shoot and finding the hospital block freshly boarded we needed to seriously rethink our idea. However trying not to have wasted our day we tried to shoot on the outer layers of the hospital coming back with some mediocre footage and minds set upon changing our idea.Having drastically changed our idea, inspiration came in the form of director Spike Jonze's work. Having watched Being John Malkovich and watched his idea for "Drop" by Pharcyde we quickly formulated an idea bordering upon what we had used before. The video had been done entirely backwards which in turn inspired us to focus upon reversing time in our video. As we had originally planned to use a gas mask for a creepy costume effect we felt that it would be a waste to not use it. However we thought a suit would be an acceptable contrast to what was covering the face and would also misguide the audience into having assumption about his character. However another key influence in using the gas mask was the song itself; White Light. Because white light is something that is associated with the explosion of a nuclear bomb we felt that by having an angry and destructive character he could represent the damage of a bomb and thus fits in with the song name.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The ancillary texts whilst having had after effects and being severely photoshopped are all made up of images actually included in our music video. They effectively work alongside the video which itself is obscure and very often quite a dark video because they are also bizarre and dark images. The strongest theme that resonates quite strongly through both is that of the gas mask. The gas mask is both attention grabbing and creates a dark atmosphere. Because it is so unusual to see a gas mask in today's society it ensnares the audiences curiosity from just a glance. One main criticism however is the style of writing used for both the digipak and the magazine advert, because there was a lack of communication between the group instead of coming up with one definite design for the writing we have two separate design. We could have resolved this simply by asking each other what we feel would be more effective. However whilst I feel it takes away from the authenticity of our artist, both ancillary texts are strong in design and realism.
The Artists Logo
The two texts are very different in design the digipak which I made uses a contrast between light and dark and I have conciously made all of the outer layers show the gas mask whilst all three inner covers light and portraying the artist. This is because there is a heavy contrast in our video between the artist and the man in the mask. I also felt strong and vibrant colours needed to be used in order to attract potential buyers to noticing the cover and ultimately into purchasing our product.
After having designed our digipak cover I still felt something was missing and thus settled upon the idea that we should have a poster. I added wings to toms back and a red tone to the picture to give him a devilish effect. The explosive looking background was also designed in order to create an otherworldly effect adding further menace to the character's persona. Not only does the poster give something else to the audience but it also encourages them to buy the digipak instead of the regular CD because you get more for your money.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback was an essential throughout the creation of our video. We began just by asking our classmates what their opinion was of our footage. Often they said it was creepy or good and this encouraged us to continue working down the route we were going. Having received feedback from our peers we felt that a questionnaire may help us further. Although we wanted a more widespread opinion we didn't divide the questionnaires equally between age group or sexes and therefore cannot give an equal viewpoint from both genders.
Some of the most important questions were uncovering what people liked in their music videos and why. We found that often people were quite divided, coming close to 50-50 for yes/no questions. For example when asked if people prefer a narrative the majority ticked yes however many people ticked no. What we learnt from this is that the content is what is important rather than the concept. Because we handed our questionnaires out in college we only manged to get the majority of 19-21 year old's this once again has affected what our overall result from the questionnaires was. Some of the most vital questions however were about location and whether they are unique videos or not. The general response was generally in our favor once again allowing us to continue with our general idea and only having to make smaller changes. The internet however has been instrumental in getting audience feedback, allowing me to connect with friends worldwide and to get their opinion on our video.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
As the director I engaged with all parts of the construction of our video. I acted as cameraman for a short time and thus had to use the camera and tripod. However having done this before it was a relatively simple take. For our second shoot I took control of using the lighting in the drama studio which was controlled via a circuit board. This allowed us to change the lighting and colours to our advantage, often we used yellow lights instead of white. Whilst doing this I also learnt to effectively fade and cross-fade the lights in order to enhance our audiences viewing experience. Also during shoot two I had to use the smoke machine and ensure that there was the right amount of smoke. The smoke machine was one of the key parts in other parts of our coursework due to the fact the smoky image with the gas mask is our key image for marketing our artist.
(Me with the smoke machine)
(The lighting board i used)
We predominantly used the internet for research, generally using social networking and messenger to quiz friends and family on their likes and dislikes in order to ascertain what we should and shouldn't do. Search engines were instrumental in finding similar artists and also learning about our selected artist: "Gorillaz"
Post production is where we really learnt new skills. Whilst Tom managed to do basically all the editing, my original role had been editor and I started us up doing the first 20 or so seconds. Because of an overhaul of the editing suite's equipment we were lucky to learn how to use the mac's and final cut pro. In comparison to the computers we used last year which had less effects and were generally slower to use. Also I used Photoshop CS4 in order to create ancillary texts. This helped significantly as it allows for high quality editing of any image.
In conclusion I feel our overall production and ancillary texts work extremely well together. As with anything created there are many flaws and I feel we could have worked better together, however we have managed to create an effective video and ancillary texts and I am pleased with the final result
Our music video strongly challenged the form and conventions of real media products due to the fact it was abstract, subtly dealt with many themes that are otherwise less touched upon in the music industry and also because it has a non linear narrative. We chose "White Light" by the Gorillaz. They are a fusion band as they are compiled of different artists. However for us to effectively challenge the forms and conventions that govern the music industry we had to take a few on board. This is shown through the traffic scene. Most music videos either have a conventional fast moving traffic scene or at least a close up on a car. Whilst we incorporated this into our video we also tried to implement at least some type of unique spin onto it. We achieved this by cutting up the video and rearranging it into a random order that matches the beats of the song.
Original Location
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The ancillary texts whilst having had after effects and being severely photoshopped are all made up of images actually included in our music video. They effectively work alongside the video which itself is obscure and very often quite a dark video because they are also bizarre and dark images. The strongest theme that resonates quite strongly through both is that of the gas mask. The gas mask is both attention grabbing and creates a dark atmosphere. Because it is so unusual to see a gas mask in today's society it ensnares the audiences curiosity from just a glance. One main criticism however is the style of writing used for both the digipak and the magazine advert, because there was a lack of communication between the group instead of coming up with one definite design for the writing we have two separate design. We could have resolved this simply by asking each other what we feel would be more effective. However whilst I feel it takes away from the authenticity of our artist, both ancillary texts are strong in design and realism.
The Artists Logo
After having designed our digipak cover I still felt something was missing and thus settled upon the idea that we should have a poster. I added wings to toms back and a red tone to the picture to give him a devilish effect. The explosive looking background was also designed in order to create an otherworldly effect adding further menace to the character's persona. Not only does the poster give something else to the audience but it also encourages them to buy the digipak instead of the regular CD because you get more for your money.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback was an essential throughout the creation of our video. We began just by asking our classmates what their opinion was of our footage. Often they said it was creepy or good and this encouraged us to continue working down the route we were going. Having received feedback from our peers we felt that a questionnaire may help us further. Although we wanted a more widespread opinion we didn't divide the questionnaires equally between age group or sexes and therefore cannot give an equal viewpoint from both genders.
Some of the most important questions were uncovering what people liked in their music videos and why. We found that often people were quite divided, coming close to 50-50 for yes/no questions. For example when asked if people prefer a narrative the majority ticked yes however many people ticked no. What we learnt from this is that the content is what is important rather than the concept. Because we handed our questionnaires out in college we only manged to get the majority of 19-21 year old's this once again has affected what our overall result from the questionnaires was. Some of the most vital questions however were about location and whether they are unique videos or not. The general response was generally in our favor once again allowing us to continue with our general idea and only having to make smaller changes. The internet however has been instrumental in getting audience feedback, allowing me to connect with friends worldwide and to get their opinion on our video.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
As the director I engaged with all parts of the construction of our video. I acted as cameraman for a short time and thus had to use the camera and tripod. However having done this before it was a relatively simple take. For our second shoot I took control of using the lighting in the drama studio which was controlled via a circuit board. This allowed us to change the lighting and colours to our advantage, often we used yellow lights instead of white. Whilst doing this I also learnt to effectively fade and cross-fade the lights in order to enhance our audiences viewing experience. Also during shoot two I had to use the smoke machine and ensure that there was the right amount of smoke. The smoke machine was one of the key parts in other parts of our coursework due to the fact the smoky image with the gas mask is our key image for marketing our artist.
(Me with the smoke machine)
(The lighting board i used)
Post production is where we really learnt new skills. Whilst Tom managed to do basically all the editing, my original role had been editor and I started us up doing the first 20 or so seconds. Because of an overhaul of the editing suite's equipment we were lucky to learn how to use the mac's and final cut pro. In comparison to the computers we used last year which had less effects and were generally slower to use. Also I used Photoshop CS4 in order to create ancillary texts. This helped significantly as it allows for high quality editing of any image.
In conclusion I feel our overall production and ancillary texts work extremely well together. As with anything created there are many flaws and I feel we could have worked better together, however we have managed to create an effective video and ancillary texts and I am pleased with the final result
Toms Evaluation
- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
For a music video to escape conventions of previous media products, is next to impossible, for music videos themselves are already a heavy product of the mainstream music industry, regardless of the content presented within it. Having said that I don’t believe that music videos can’t take on many of the conventional traits of previous media products, and push them in a way that is so unique it sets the trend for many videos to come. With our video, we tried to go against having a clear, black and white narrative, and instead create a visually interesting and exciting video, mainly editing based. The decision to leave out a form of narrative came after a few decisions, as at first we had a completely different idea and song to work with. We originally planned a much more dark and sinister video, filmed in an ideal location we found, an abandoned hospital block. Unfortunately we had difficulties coming up with interesting ideas and getting good shots, and the location became inaccessible. We were forced to rethink the whole project, which lead us to think “why do we even need a narrative?” and that’s how our final piece was first conceived as an idea. We also liked the fact that the viewer could take away what they wanted from the video, and give it their own interpretation of what it meant to them, which I felt gave it a lot more of a personal quality to it.
A media product we were very influenced by in the early stages of development was a video by rap group “The Pharcyde” called “The Drop.” The bizarre nature of the video lead us to aspire towards a similar tone, as the whole video is in reverse, yet set in a typical busy New York style area. I saw this as a contrast between the mundane and repetitive life of day to day work in a busy urban environment with excitement and something out of the ordinary. Originally we planned to have most, if not all of the video shot in reverse also, in tribute to the drop. This turned out to be a rather more tedious task than we first thought it would be, so we decided to mix it up with some fast paced editing, and various other effects, even though there are a fair few bits in the video that are in reverse, and are effective.
With the whole gas mask and suit theme, we were going with a creepy look, the dullness of an everyday suit, combined with the shocking image of a gas mask – something most people rarely see – is very visually striking, this is why we chose the opening shot to be the artist walking towards the camera from a distance, as at first the viewer doesn’t quite notice the gas mask, and from a distance the suit is more recognizable. We also used this contrast to replicate a meeting of two very different styles of music, one which the ‘artist’ combines in his song white light. The suit represents early 60’s pop bands, such as The Beatles or The Kinks, who would often perform in a matching wardrobe of just suits, and plain old mop hairstyles. The gas mask represents the new generation of electronic music, where the creative input towards making their products involves less instrumentation and more of a production element. An example of a musician who has taken on the gas mask as a suitable representation is dubstep heavyweight Caspa. This contrast directly mimics the tone of Gorillaz song white light – the song we chose for our music video. The song contains a lot of traditional instrumentation, yet at the same time it is heavily produced, and the strong pounding beat imitates that of modern day dance music.
- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our Main product and our ancillary texts go quite well together, we kept the theme of the gas mask strong through out both. The magazine advert was designed to be bold and striking, with the artists image barely coming out of the black background. The front cover of the digi pack has the same image as that on the magazine advert, so people can draw a familiarity between the two. With the magazine advert I tried to make it as realistic and believable as possible, and in the end this boiled down to the little details, such as shops you can buy the digi pack and the record label’s logo. One criticism I have is that we used a different logo for both the magazine advert and the digi pack cover, due to the digi pack cover being designed by someone other than me in the group. This detaches from the reality and the authenticity of the artist. If more time was given this is one of the things I would have spent more time looking over.
The Advert differs from the digi pack cover in the sense that its trying to get people to buy the digi pack, therefore it needs to be more attention grabbing and appealing to its target audience. I used a stark contrast between black and red to grab the readers focus, and the use of large font gives out all the vital information, i.e. artist name and release date, from only a glance.
- What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Throughout production, audience feedback and research was very important to us, as it helped us connect with our audience more and improve our video to our target audiences liking. We made questionnaires and handed them out to a wide variety of people, to be able to get mixed opinions on music and music videos. Unfortunately we did not hand out the questionnaires equally between sexes, meaning we have more of a biased opinion from a male viewpoint. The majority of the people who filled out our questionnaire were between the ages of 19-21, as most of them were handed out in our college.
The most important research from our questionnaires was obviously what people liked in music videos, since we were going for a very abstract and non linier music video. We found that most people liked a narrative, but we also found out that a respectable minority enjoyed ones without a narrative. Since we were creating an artist that was meant to reach out to the minorities of the masses, we decided to continue with our original concept. We were very happy when we found out that most people like unique videos over conventional videos, as this obviously benefits our ideas. Another thing we learnt was that our audience liked variety in location, something I think we strived to achieve from very early on in development. And last but not least we learnt that people aren’t too fond of performance shots in videos, which also directly links to our video, as the nature of our artist doesn’t allow for many performance shots. Along with these questionnaires, the internet has also been great help, e.g. uploading the final video to youtube to get feedback from around the world.
- How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
New media technologies were obviously a very large and important part of what helped make our music video what it is, and even in the research planning and evaluation stages, we still took advantage of the tools at our fingertips to get the most out of what we could. Obviously the most important media technology we used, which goes without saying, was the camera. We used a standard digital filming camera, with a tripod for stability. Since it was a music video and no audio was required to be captured, we didn’t have to worry about audio quality, i.e. an external microphone. When we originally had the idea of the abandoned hospital location, we used a normal still image digital camera to take pictures of the location, to bring back and get some feedback on. Ultimately this helped us change our ideas and dismiss the location as unsuitable, as lighting would have been a key issue. A huge part of our tone and theme of the video, as has been mentioned before, was the amount of editing that went into the piece. To edit we were working on final cut pro on a mac, which was very effective and useful software. We used various techniques and effects with in final cut pro to replicate some almost animation inspired techniques, such as stop motion. We also used a lot of reverse effects, as said before.
The internet was a huge help throughout the production process, in creation, research and evaluation especially. Youtube is one of the best tools I could think of that we used throughout, tutorials on the video site taught me a lot about editing on mac computers, having come from a primarily PC based background. Youtube also helped us out a lot in later stages, i.e. uploading the finished product and getting feedback from around the globe, which is really invaluable. The vast database of music videos that are already online also was of tremendous help, as we researched many different styles and directors to find inspiration that we thought would benefit our piece. Another benefit of the internet in media is obviously this blog. Essentially a journal of how far we have come since birth of this idea, a blog like this is invaluable when looking at our piece and insights into how it was made and what ideas were put behind what you see on screen. New media technologies also helped in the evaluation stage, as we did a voice over over the original video, and that helped give any fans a further insight into what we did and why we did it. Overall we used various new media technologies throughout production
Poster for Digipak
Please click to enlargeWe decided to add a poster to our digipak so that we could give the customers more for their money. The poster is an image of Tom in a gas mask with wings. I thought it was a striking image but lacking so i added some wings and gave it an explosive motion blur effect. I believe this was particularly effective because the image is striking and eye catching. The black and red colours mixed with the writing that Tom used to create the Magazine Advert seems to work particularly well together.
Artist Research
Gorillaz
Gorillaz are a British virtual band created in 1998 by Damon Albarn of Britpop band Blur, and Jamie Hewlett, co-creator of the comic book Tank Girl. The band is composed of four animated band members: 2D (lead vocalist, keyboard), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar), Noodle (lead guitar and occasional vocals) and Russel Hobbs (drums and percussion). The band's music is a collaboration between various musicians, Albarn being the only permanent musical contributor. Their style is a composition of multiple musical genres, with a large number of their influences including: dub, hip hop, alternative rock, electronic and pop music.
The band's debut album, released in 2001, sold over seven million copies and earned them an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Successful Virtual Band.It was nominated for the Mercury Prize 2001, but the nomination was later withdrawn at the band's request. Their second studio album, Demon Days, was released in 2005 and included the singles "Feel Good Inc.", "Dare", "Dirty Harry" and "Kids with Guns"/"El Mañana". Demon Days went five times platinum in the UK, double platinum in the United States and earned five Grammy Award nominations for 2006 and won one of them in the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals category.[Gorillaz have also released two B-sides compilations and a remix album. The combined sales of Gorillaz and Demon Days had, by 2007, exceeded 15 million albums. The band's third studio album, titled Plastic Beach, was released in 2010.
They also wrote a fictional biography called Rise of The Ogre with mention to their protege band "Space Monkeyz" however Space Monkeyz never came close to touching upon the success of a virtual band such as Gorillaz.
www.gorillaz.com
www.fans.gorillaz.com
Record Label Research
Warner Brothers + Reprise Records
Warner Brothers is big and established mainstream company. They use known artists such as Green Day and Linkin Park. Warner Bros. has one of the most successful and well established record labels to date. Having over 39 years of experience and dealing with all mainstream music channels. Not only has it founded new time greats in its time it has also dealt with lengends such as Frank Sinatra and the Sex Pistols. We chose Warner Brothers as its a very mainstream and well established company. Most people in western society would recognise the logo that the company bears and also trust in the quality of the companies merchandise.
The Warner Brothers website has all the new technology such as using a blog to announce album releases and other major music events. Also they promote the music videos for free through their website. Also it allows you to subscribe to their website for free updates to either your mobile or email address and therefore is very young people friendly. Overall we chose this record label because of the opportunities that working with a well known mainstream record label offers.
Audience Feedback
In conclusion we feel that the audience seem to like our ideas however not our particular genre. Although we feel we have a strong idea and thus only incorporated some of the audience feedback as opposed to everything.
The audience who put no to this question when asked why told us that performance shots often have a tendency to distract from the narrative which is often entwined with the video. This told us that we shouldn't use performance shots which we had originally planned to do.
This tells us that location plays a fundamental role in music videos whilst also allowing the audience to feel that the video is more enjoyable because of the variety.
As our video is quite unique we were very happy when we found out that the majority of people preferred unique videos to quite conventional videos. This is because it gives them something new and original to watch
This was an important question as it is incredibly relevant to our idea for a music video. Whilst the majority preferred to have a linear and easy to follow structure, many people seemed to enjoy non linear as well. The majority of the non linear likers, were female and thus gave us a better idea of our target audience.
This is obviously an important question as our coursework consists of creating a music video. Once we have the relevant information we can understand if the digipak would prove more valuable than the music video. Luckily the majority liked music videos.
Favourite music genre was used obviously to let us know what kind of genre's are popular, however our initial idea was to go for a soundtrack and not something popular. But instead we went with the well known band Gorillaz instead thus hitting quite a large audience.
Once again this question is designed specifically to help us determine who our target audience consists of. However as with the first question it does not provide an accurate variety of age groups. Generally only people of our own age groups are in the questionnaire and this is because we generally only know those of our own age.
The first question was designed so that we could accurately determine who our target audience would most likely be. However one of the problems easily detected is that we did not ask an equal amount of people from each sex. This means we did not get an accurate general response from our female target audience
The audience who put no to this question when asked why told us that performance shots often have a tendency to distract from the narrative which is often entwined with the video. This told us that we shouldn't use performance shots which we had originally planned to do.
This tells us that location plays a fundamental role in music videos whilst also allowing the audience to feel that the video is more enjoyable because of the variety.
As our video is quite unique we were very happy when we found out that the majority of people preferred unique videos to quite conventional videos. This is because it gives them something new and original to watch
This was an important question as it is incredibly relevant to our idea for a music video. Whilst the majority preferred to have a linear and easy to follow structure, many people seemed to enjoy non linear as well. The majority of the non linear likers, were female and thus gave us a better idea of our target audience.
This is obviously an important question as our coursework consists of creating a music video. Once we have the relevant information we can understand if the digipak would prove more valuable than the music video. Luckily the majority liked music videos.
Favourite music genre was used obviously to let us know what kind of genre's are popular, however our initial idea was to go for a soundtrack and not something popular. But instead we went with the well known band Gorillaz instead thus hitting quite a large audience.
Once again this question is designed specifically to help us determine who our target audience consists of. However as with the first question it does not provide an accurate variety of age groups. Generally only people of our own age groups are in the questionnaire and this is because we generally only know those of our own age.
The first question was designed so that we could accurately determine who our target audience would most likely be. However one of the problems easily detected is that we did not ask an equal amount of people from each sex. This means we did not get an accurate general response from our female target audience
Monday 5 April 2010
Magazine Poster 2
Please click to enlarge
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