This is my final blog, and this is a post saying that it is done.
Thank you.
Goodbye.
Friday, 20 April 2012
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Evaluation: Question 4
Creating this video to the standard that we did would have been extremely difficult (if not impossible) had we not had the technology we were lucky enough to have.
We were blessed enough to have a HD camera that was owned by a group member, Jake. This gave our footage a crisp and sharp look, and I feel that really helps the video stand out. We were also lucky enough to have Macintosh computers available to edit our footage on, and this helped very much as the software that is used my Mac computers is very advanced and professional. I've been able to use expensive and nice to use products such as photoshop and final cut to work on this video, which has been a great use and has really helped to create a video and create digipaks that we wanted to create, to the highest standard possible.
Social networking sites like Facebook have also assisted in my research, by allowing me to quickly and easily get in touch with target audiences and focus groups, as well as share the work I have been doing and receive feedback. Programmes such as prezi have also allowed us to give concise and easy to follow presentations to the class.
YouTube has been used a great deal to share our final video, rough cuts and focus groups with one another. Things as simple as mobile phones have also made it much easier to share information, schedules and messages between one another, making the process of getting together and working much easier.
We were blessed enough to have a HD camera that was owned by a group member, Jake. This gave our footage a crisp and sharp look, and I feel that really helps the video stand out. We were also lucky enough to have Macintosh computers available to edit our footage on, and this helped very much as the software that is used my Mac computers is very advanced and professional. I've been able to use expensive and nice to use products such as photoshop and final cut to work on this video, which has been a great use and has really helped to create a video and create digipaks that we wanted to create, to the highest standard possible.
Social networking sites like Facebook have also assisted in my research, by allowing me to quickly and easily get in touch with target audiences and focus groups, as well as share the work I have been doing and receive feedback. Programmes such as prezi have also allowed us to give concise and easy to follow presentations to the class.
YouTube has been used a great deal to share our final video, rough cuts and focus groups with one another. Things as simple as mobile phones have also made it much easier to share information, schedules and messages between one another, making the process of getting together and working much easier.
Evaluation: Question 3
Through out the time we spent making our video, we found that audience feedback was crucial to the video going well, and also the development of idea. If we were unsure in what direction to go with an idea in the video, we could assemble a small focus group and ask what their opinion was. This came in useful on numerous occasions, including and possibly most importantly when the group was debating whether or not to proceed in the direction of making a narrative video.
After showing our concerns to a focus group and asking their opinion, they decided it to be best that we proceeded in a performance only direction also. They felt, as we did, that the narrative didn't make enough sense to be relevant to the video - so this confirmed our feelings and the narrative was then cut from the video.
Facebook was a valuable tool in receiving audience feedback about my video. This made it extremely easy for me to share the video onto a page on facebook, and essentially have an online focus group without anyone having to leave their house. Also, when online people are more likely to tell the truth about their opinions and not hedge around subjects (because of the protection of not being face to face with those you are criticizing) - so this lead to honest and good feedback about our video. This feedback was positive, which is lucky and a good feeling when you have worked hard to create a video and a product to go with it.
It also is a useful way to make decisions you don't want to make yourself, such as when I wanted to decide on a house font and a logo style font for The Novocaines. The audience feedback showed me the font that was most popular, and it was by a landslide, and because of this it made it onto my final product as a main feature and recognizable point to the work.
After showing our concerns to a focus group and asking their opinion, they decided it to be best that we proceeded in a performance only direction also. They felt, as we did, that the narrative didn't make enough sense to be relevant to the video - so this confirmed our feelings and the narrative was then cut from the video.
Facebook was a valuable tool in receiving audience feedback about my video. This made it extremely easy for me to share the video onto a page on facebook, and essentially have an online focus group without anyone having to leave their house. Also, when online people are more likely to tell the truth about their opinions and not hedge around subjects (because of the protection of not being face to face with those you are criticizing) - so this lead to honest and good feedback about our video. This feedback was positive, which is lucky and a good feeling when you have worked hard to create a video and a product to go with it.
It also is a useful way to make decisions you don't want to make yourself, such as when I wanted to decide on a house font and a logo style font for The Novocaines. The audience feedback showed me the font that was most popular, and it was by a landslide, and because of this it made it onto my final product as a main feature and recognizable point to the work.
Evaluation: Question 2
In what ways is the branding coherent? Why does it all look like it's for the same band?
One of the big themes across the music video, digipak and the magazine advert is that all 3 use primarily 3 main colors - black, red and white. I decided to use this color scheme through out all pieces as I believe it to be a powerful color scheme, and have tremendous impact on the audience.
Jack White (of The White Stripes) said this about the color scheme, which was also used in his band: "the White Stripes' colors were always red, white and black. It came from peppermint candy. I also think they are the most powerful color combination of all time, from a Coca-Cola can to a Nazi banner. Those colors strike chords with people. In Japan, they are honorable colors. When you see a bride in a white gown, you immediately see innocence in that. Red is anger and passion. It is also sexual. And black is the absence of all that."
These colors appear through out each bit of advertising to keep the product coherent and to help the audience and potential customers associate these colors with the band, and making the band stand out more in a record store or on TV.
The images used on the digipak are also used in the advertisement and are taken directly from the music video - this also keeps the product coherent and allows the products to be associated together by audiences. If you see one, the idea is that you recognize it again when seeing another linked advertisement. Keeping the clothes, setting and colors the same in the images was very important to me, and the only change in the color scheme comes in the disk quarter of the digipak - this is to make the disk stand out and seem highlighted and important.
The audience were able to associate the products together with ease as a result of the house style I have used. I feel more entropic elements such as the unusual clothing that the band has also help the band to stick out and be memorable.
One thing that does differ slightly from the digipak and advertisement is the font type I have used. For example, helevicta was used mainly but in places different fonts have been use that are not as associated with part of the actual product - such as reviews on the advert and thank yous on the digipak.
One of the big themes across the music video, digipak and the magazine advert is that all 3 use primarily 3 main colors - black, red and white. I decided to use this color scheme through out all pieces as I believe it to be a powerful color scheme, and have tremendous impact on the audience.
Jack White (of The White Stripes) said this about the color scheme, which was also used in his band: "the White Stripes' colors were always red, white and black. It came from peppermint candy. I also think they are the most powerful color combination of all time, from a Coca-Cola can to a Nazi banner. Those colors strike chords with people. In Japan, they are honorable colors. When you see a bride in a white gown, you immediately see innocence in that. Red is anger and passion. It is also sexual. And black is the absence of all that."
These colors appear through out each bit of advertising to keep the product coherent and to help the audience and potential customers associate these colors with the band, and making the band stand out more in a record store or on TV.
The images used on the digipak are also used in the advertisement and are taken directly from the music video - this also keeps the product coherent and allows the products to be associated together by audiences. If you see one, the idea is that you recognize it again when seeing another linked advertisement. Keeping the clothes, setting and colors the same in the images was very important to me, and the only change in the color scheme comes in the disk quarter of the digipak - this is to make the disk stand out and seem highlighted and important.
The audience were able to associate the products together with ease as a result of the house style I have used. I feel more entropic elements such as the unusual clothing that the band has also help the band to stick out and be memorable.
One thing that does differ slightly from the digipak and advertisement is the font type I have used. For example, helevicta was used mainly but in places different fonts have been use that are not as associated with part of the actual product - such as reviews on the advert and thank yous on the digipak.
Evaluation: question 1
When we began the process of creating our media product and music video, we first had the task of finding a band and a song that we felt would fit well with the styles of the group, and mix well with types of filming, editing, and general music taste that the group were comfortable with and enjoyed. This first step began with searching through YouTube individually and reporting any findings back to other members of the group. A few suitable songs and bands were found, but these artists were almost always under the copy right protection of a record label, and thus unsuitable for our independent video. After some searching around we came across a band called "The Novocaines", who had supported bands our group enjoyed (such as "The Crooked Vultures") and had a style of music that we felt would fit perfectly with the ideas we already had in our head. We first settled on using the song "Cup of Coffee", and emailed the band seeking permission. After they had granted us permission to use the song and had sent us a free mp3, we had second thoughts and re-evaluated our choices - eventually settling on "Ragdoll Blues", but having to buy the song from iTunes as we could not recieve another free copy. This song was seen as more suitable as it was longer, and had more varying tempos and a sound we felt generally suited the video more than "Cup of Coffee".
I then researched some music videos of my own for inspiration and ideas to put towards the video, as well as to learn how professionals handled creating high quality music videos. I studied the very entropic music video to "Karma Police" by Radiohead. This kind of video appealed to me very much as I found it interesting how the entropic concept of the video stuck in your mind, as it was dark and sinister, yet also unlike other videos from Radiohead (or in fact other similar bands). This helped us create our first idea for a narrative video, in which we would try and entropic approach to catch the audience's attention. I also looked up a more redundant style of video, by analyzing "All My Life" by Foo Fighters - a band much closer to the musical styling of The Novocaines. This also gave us ideas to do a performance based more redundant video, and possibly entwine the 2 styles, as the Foo Fighters video used this style to great effect in their video.
As a group we found it relatively easy to agree on good, creative ideas and each be happy with them. There were slight disagreements in style of costume, and a few of the shots we had in mind to use, as well as if we should go full performance or full narrative, or fuse the two together. The group luckily worked well together creatively, which took a lot of the stress off creating the video - less worrying about keeping everyone pleased as each mind was working on a similar level.
After presenting our ideas to a focus group and receiving feedback that they thought the video would work as a mix of narrative and performance, we began filming our music video. This presented challenges to us as the ideas we had presented and decided upon for the entropic narrative weren't jelling well with the style of the song, and when we came to editing we noticed performance elements taking priority over narrative as the very first cut developed. We consulted a focus group and found that they agreed that the video would work better as performance from what they had seen. This shows a definite convention in the style of music we used, having heavy performance based music videos with little to no humor or narrative seemed to work well for both the rock band we had chosen, and rock band's we had studied, such as Foo Fighters.
Our filming process of the performance was conventional to how a rock performance video would be filmed, with individual mining parts and group performance shots taking place one after the other, being edited together in final stages to look like one big performance. Lighting and setting may not have been as professional or expensive as other bigger and more funded music videos, but this worked to an advantage and helped give the video a rough, vintage and deliberately budget quality to the music video, and a grunge feel that goes well with the music - similar to that of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, also filmed in a school/college hall.
We found it difficult to be fully original in our music video, due to all the preset conventions already formulated by the music industry, especially in the form of rock videos that are performance based. We tried to stick out from the crowd by having costumes that are entropic, such as Hawaiian shirts and general bad taste in clothing. I feel the that our video will stick out to fans of the genre as taking a very redundant style of video, and adding quirky elements of entropy to it - for example, odd clothing, strange styles of playing guitar and over the top performing. The video has an equal balance of seriousness and fun, which should captivate viewers imaginations and assist in the enjoyment of the song. Walter John Williams believed that labeling a band with a style or genre is only a starting point and leads to targeting audiences - but you can't make the audience in the end like the product. I feel that after holding our focus groups appropriately and tweaking the video to match our ideas and feedback, that our video now appeals to a greater audience than it would have had we stuck to doing a narrative video, and I believe this is a main contributing factor as to why I believe it is a successful video.
I then researched some music videos of my own for inspiration and ideas to put towards the video, as well as to learn how professionals handled creating high quality music videos. I studied the very entropic music video to "Karma Police" by Radiohead. This kind of video appealed to me very much as I found it interesting how the entropic concept of the video stuck in your mind, as it was dark and sinister, yet also unlike other videos from Radiohead (or in fact other similar bands). This helped us create our first idea for a narrative video, in which we would try and entropic approach to catch the audience's attention. I also looked up a more redundant style of video, by analyzing "All My Life" by Foo Fighters - a band much closer to the musical styling of The Novocaines. This also gave us ideas to do a performance based more redundant video, and possibly entwine the 2 styles, as the Foo Fighters video used this style to great effect in their video.
As a group we found it relatively easy to agree on good, creative ideas and each be happy with them. There were slight disagreements in style of costume, and a few of the shots we had in mind to use, as well as if we should go full performance or full narrative, or fuse the two together. The group luckily worked well together creatively, which took a lot of the stress off creating the video - less worrying about keeping everyone pleased as each mind was working on a similar level.
After presenting our ideas to a focus group and receiving feedback that they thought the video would work as a mix of narrative and performance, we began filming our music video. This presented challenges to us as the ideas we had presented and decided upon for the entropic narrative weren't jelling well with the style of the song, and when we came to editing we noticed performance elements taking priority over narrative as the very first cut developed. We consulted a focus group and found that they agreed that the video would work better as performance from what they had seen. This shows a definite convention in the style of music we used, having heavy performance based music videos with little to no humor or narrative seemed to work well for both the rock band we had chosen, and rock band's we had studied, such as Foo Fighters.
Our filming process of the performance was conventional to how a rock performance video would be filmed, with individual mining parts and group performance shots taking place one after the other, being edited together in final stages to look like one big performance. Lighting and setting may not have been as professional or expensive as other bigger and more funded music videos, but this worked to an advantage and helped give the video a rough, vintage and deliberately budget quality to the music video, and a grunge feel that goes well with the music - similar to that of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, also filmed in a school/college hall.
We found it difficult to be fully original in our music video, due to all the preset conventions already formulated by the music industry, especially in the form of rock videos that are performance based. We tried to stick out from the crowd by having costumes that are entropic, such as Hawaiian shirts and general bad taste in clothing. I feel the that our video will stick out to fans of the genre as taking a very redundant style of video, and adding quirky elements of entropy to it - for example, odd clothing, strange styles of playing guitar and over the top performing. The video has an equal balance of seriousness and fun, which should captivate viewers imaginations and assist in the enjoyment of the song. Walter John Williams believed that labeling a band with a style or genre is only a starting point and leads to targeting audiences - but you can't make the audience in the end like the product. I feel that after holding our focus groups appropriately and tweaking the video to match our ideas and feedback, that our video now appeals to a greater audience than it would have had we stuck to doing a narrative video, and I believe this is a main contributing factor as to why I believe it is a successful video.
Monday, 16 April 2012
I have followed the leads of others and i have created a facebook page to receive feedback. Some of the images I will be uploading will be from there, such as one from my previous post.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)