Final Music video

Final Ancillary Tasks

Below i have add images of my final lanyard and music magazine advert.

Music Magazine advert 

Front of Lanyard

Back of my Lanyard

I like my ancillary tasks.  I think they are very basic however this is a good thing as it gives it that urban theme and attracts the audience because all the information needed isn't all crammed on. I really like the colour scheme we chose, i think its a little depressing meaning it finds in with the theme of isolation from the music video. I used a shot from the studio photo shot so that there is a bit of variety plus because it is promoting the tour and therefore has nothing to do with the single.

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

We used lots of technologies throughout every stage of this project, some new, some old. With the technologies I’d already used before I was able to develop my skills and become more confident when using them.

Research & planning (pre – product)

Before starting our music video I did some research into exiting real media video including analysing the real music video for ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’, along with other music videos from bands such as ‘The Fray’ as they are the same genre as The Script. I also looked at their social networking sites and read some of the comments to see what the fans like about their music and the bands official music videos so that we can add that in to our video to make it more appealing to the audience. We also storyboarded and took notes using Microsoft PowerPoint. For my ancillary task I used the internet to look at the script’s website (http://www.thescriptmusic.com/gb/home/), but not only did I look at bands website that are similar to ‘The Script’ including Muse (http://muse.mu/) but I also looked at some pop artist as well such as Jessie J (http://jessiejofficial.com/) I did this so that I could get the best possible research, that way I can pick up elements from music website in generally. I also used the internet for the research of my advert and lanyard with Google images.

Construction (production)

In the production stage most of it was done using technologies. We filmed the actual video on a Sony Handycam camera. After doing that we uploaded on to the video editing machines using PMB that software also converted the clips into WMA format. We actually edited all the footage in Premier Pro, instead of importing all the clips into premier pro we viewed them in windows media player first, this also helped us so that we knew when we were going to cut it when we finally imported it into premier pro. I learnt a lot of new skills in Premier Pro for example about adding key frames to add movement to each shot, throughout the music video we only used one kind of visual transition which was a cross dissolve, I learnt how much more professional videos looked when only one transition is used. When filming the band and lead male singing shots I brought my Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile Speakers and played the song through my iPhone, this helped when it came to editing the lip-syncing together.  For our ancillary tasks we had two photo shoots, one on location the other in the studio. When on location we used a Canon Powershot camera and in the studio I used another digital camera. To actually create my ancillary tasks i used three Adobe CS3 software’s altogether. They are: Photoshop for the advert, lanyard, and website banner and also for editing images. Dreamweaver for the actual webpages and the rollover buttons for the website were created in Flash. The biggest skill I learnt while using the software’s was that I now know how to add YouTube videos in to Dreamweaver, I gained this new skill from trial and error and also YouTube tutorials. As well as using YouTube for tutorials it was also very useful as the little behind the scenes videos needed to be uploaded on to YouTube first before the short videos can be posted on Blogger. I also created a Prezzie to show the development and draft work of my ancillary tasks. Below is a short video of my filming one of the flashbacks in Greenwich using the Sony Handycam.

Evaluation (post product)

I got a variety of people to evaluate our music video, all of the reviews where filmed on different cameras, I think this is a good thing has I have the ability and skills to use a variety of cameras correctly, and for example one camera I used was a Samsung Schneider Kreuznach. We also had a Creative arts evening where our video was shown on the big screen to an audience, after we set up a little booth and recorded people’s reactions to the video we used the same cameras we shot the actual video on which was a Sony Handycam. On the same camera the three of us did a piece to camera analysing our music video. I recorded a shot video on my iPhone about my ancillary tasks. 

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Above i have madjhje a wordle of feedback that i got from a variety of people through word and mouth. The make thing that i learnt was the it was very relatable due to the strong structure of the narrative. The editing at the end was liked by most people as it got them really thinking about the song and its lyrics. People also really liked the flashbacks as it made them think of their past relationship so they can empathise with the lead male.The split screens were effective according to our audiences as it showed that the characters were now living two separate lives. I personally only got one bad criticise and that was that it was a bit slow and boring meaning the editing could have been improved.

As well as just talking to people at the music video, i recorded some peoples reactions, to back up our reception theory. Below i have posted one of the people i recorded.  She is the type of audience we were going for as she can relate to both characters for example trying to move on after a brake up but also missing a boy so much she'd do anything to have him back. 

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

Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our music video uses forms and conventions of real media products. For example it features band shots, shots of the lead singer and a good structured narrative. While doing my research I found that every music video either has the band performing or the lead artist singing to the camera. We knew from the start that we wanted to have a very strong narrative in our video. This is because ‘The Script’ always has excellent narratives to go along with the music. On YouTube all of their official music videos are about 5 minutes long as they have a lot of narrative in the video it make it more interesting for the audience. We wanted to do that with our video especially because it is such an emotional song and we had lots of creative ideas.

 The video has lots of conventions, such as iconic locations, by doing this the audience can understand the locations helping them understand the video better. In the real video for the song the band shots were filmed in an abandoned car park, we wanted to portray this in ours so chose for ours to be filmed in an isolated building estate in Woolwich on a Sunday.

The mise–en-scene used is the same in both videos for example, the costume our lead male was wearing is the same as Danny O'donoghue and by this I mean, it was dark, had a hood for the rain, and looked like a tramp however we know he isn’t a tramp from the song lyrics. There was only natural light used to make it look realistic. We also had the same props, our lead male has a sleeping bag through some of the video the same as Danny O'donoghue has as well.

The themes in video are very conventional; most songs these days are about a past relationship or a brake up. So the themes are isolation, harsh reality and moving on. Isolation because of the band shots and emotionally the man is now alone, the girl & this band have gone. Harsh reality is a big thing because people are always thinking about their pervious relationship (the flashbacks) and miss it. It is obvious that the girl broke up with the man and she is now trying to move on and forget about him by being with her friends, this is also part of reality.

However we have challenged conventions in our music video. I don’t think I have ever seen a music video for a band that has shots of them performing and of the lead singer singing not in the narrative, I do feel this elaborates the isolation theme though. In the real music video they didn’t use a variety of shots when filming the band; however they did have a timelapse unlike us. So to make it more interesting we used a number of variety of shots, the reason we never used a timelapse was because we wanted to keep the editing basic, to make it more urban and simple.

Overall I feel our video was very conventional and we stuck to the lyrics.

Analysing the music video

Below is a piece to camera the three of us did, where we explained everything to do with our video, for example the themes and our thoughts behind the creative process.