Evaluation of the use to blogger

I found using Blogger as a way of showing my development of my media absolutely awful. As much as I enjoy many new media technologies we have used such as Youtube. I thought Blogger was very inconvenient and not user friendly whatsoever. Perhaps it was due to the operating systems that we use at school and our internet connection but I did not have issues with any other websites that we used. I understand that my using blogger we have ease of acces to the coursework and do not need to send of files with the coursework in because it is all virtual but I believe that a better way to document my progress would have been uploading a word file online that could then be viewed by anyone who needed to view the coursework. Problems that I encounterd when using blogger included the in ability to change the layout of my blogs, for example on a blog where the layout seems sprawled around inserted photos I was unable to change this. When I uploaded a photo the layout of any words would automatically change. To add to my frustration on several occasions I would be editing a post when for reasons beyond me I would get a pop up, the page would close and I would lose my last hours work. I also thaught my blogged lacked security as anyone in my year group of 120 had acces to my blog and could quite easily erase all of my two years work on it. I know it was not required of me to critique Blogger but I thought a critical evaluation of a media method used during my media course would add value to my coursework.

TASK FOUR: HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

Video Commentary Script

Ruby:We used many differnet types of media technologies extensively through out the five stages of production. In our research and development our group used the internet a lot. The internet enabled us to use websites such as youtube, where we were able to watch music videos that could inspire us and give us ideas this was very useful as our group lacked knowledge on the heavy metal genre so we were able to discover the generic approach music videos had to heavy metal. Online music browsing websites such as Itunes helped our group decide upon a song to use in the music video the availability of music over the internet made this a far easier job for us, as sampling music is cheaper and easier online than through CDs and other previous methods used to distribute music. Google made the research far easier by pooling information together where we would previously had to use books to research informatition, particularly google maps for browzing possible locations for the shoot.


Olivia:
In the planning phase of our project we used PowerPoint presentation as a method of sharing our ideas with the class this is very useful software as it is very good at showing simple presentations to a group of people using images and text through slides shows.. We could also then put our presentations online using a website called “slide share” this is a PowerPoint presentation sharing website that we used to make our completed presentations available online and also in order to attach them to our blogs. Our blogs were the method we choose to use to report everything that we did and evaluate it, this method is far more visual and expressive than a formal essay.


Luke:
On the actual shoot day we used a digital camera, the Sony Z1 and DSR 570, which are very mobile and this allowed us to vary our shots and therefore have a bigger variety to choose from when it came to editing. We used green screen a lot in our video because what we wanted to achieve could not be done on location or created in the studio so the best alternative was to use the green screen the use of the new media technology enabled us to achieve the unique visuals in our video


Ruby:
Due to new media technologies editing was made a lot easier as we were able to view the footage very easily on Final Cut Pro which has a relatively user friendly interface making it far more simple for us, as relatively inexperienced editors. After Effects which play a huge part in our project and are becoming more and more realistic as technologies advance played a huge part in our video and we would never have managed the complex after effect without having a program that manages to simplify them for us.


Olivia:The back drops for the green screen were created on after effects. These programs made it easier for the synthetics in our video to be achieved when working with a small budget size that we had, no longer do media products need huge budgets to achieve the realistic after effects. It also meant that we didn’t have to waste time on our shoot day travelling to do a location shot.


Luke:
Before the video finishes we will quickly talk about the distribution of our product.
New media technologies played a huge part in our distribution, video sharing website YouTube was supposed to be the main method of distribution however due to copyright laws it has been an issue and our video was removed by WMG from YouTube so it has been an unsuccessful method for distribution in our case. DVD is also being used as distribution as it is now easier to upload footage onto this format but it is more expensive to distribute via DVD than online however DVD is significantly more cost effective and efficient than VHS due to smaller packaging and less raw materials needed so we decided DVD would be a better format than VHS.. Thanks for taking time to watch our video commentary we hope you found it insightful and give us a really good mark, thanks.

TASK THREE: WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?

We got roughly 12 people who are members of our target audience to watch our music video and handed out some questionaires to them. This is the feed back we got:

 

-Does it fit the brief? (Does it look like a real pop promo) Why?

Most of our audience believed that the use of special effects while inputting a Sin City cityscape and having a narrative and performance element made the video fit the brief.

-What type of genre does this fit into to? Does it fit the genre?

The outcome of the answer fit our expectations where they thought that the video fit into the genre of rock/indie/alternative rock.

-Digipak and Poster. Does it fit into the video? How?

They thought that the dark and red colors fit into the theme of the video which they stated was danger and sex.

-Would you buy it? Why?

All of our viewers stated that they would have bought the song 'Demon Cleaner' after have had seen our music video.

-Who is the target audience meant to be from what you have seen?

We were aiming to a unisex audience and this was the answer we recieved from our viewers who said that our video is meant for both female and male audiences because of the sensual narrative element and the subverse performance element.

-What did you most like about it? Why?

Our viewers mostly liked the idea of the universalization of women seeing that we have female members of the band and a female murderer.

-What did you least like about it? Why?

Most of our viewers thought that the blood was too excess and graphic for a music video and made it look like a James Bond opening sequence.

-Do you think that the idea of having a female rock band was necessary? Why?

All of our viewers thought that the idea of a female rock band was sub verse from that of having a typical boy band and thought that it brought sex appeal to the video.

In order to generate audience feedback about the pop promo we used various digital technologies to reach viewers. The promo was uploaded onto YouTube this allowed the promo to be broadcasted to a wide audience all over the world. This allowed viewers to make comments, giving us audience feedback about the promo; however the disadvantage of using YouTube was that users may not have been browsing for anything specifically related to our promo and therefore may not have come across it. The video was also uploaded onto our blogs through the website Blogger. I then posted this link onto my Facebook page, this meant that our specific target audience could view the promo as my ‘Facebook friends’ are of my own age group who are our target audience (16-25 year olds). The feedback I received from my friends was that the video was of an impressive standard and appeared very professional as well as this they liked the use of a mixed gender band and the ‘sin city’ style narrative. However, only my friends could view the promo meaning that I could not reach a wider public audience through Facebook.


We also used a traditional form of research, our group got about 10 people aged 16-18 to watch our video and give feedback by answering pre prepared questions shown below. The advantage of this was that we could gain specific feedback of our choice. We asked our audience whether our promo looked professional. Most of our audience believed that the use of special effects where we used a Sin City cityscape and having a narrative and performance element meant that the promo conformed to the conventions of existing pop promos. We also asked whether the video fit the genre of indie/rock/alternative, we found out that most of our audience believed that our video fit the conventions of this genre. We also asked if the digipak and poster tied in well with the promo, the audience thought that the dark and red colours fit into the theme of the video which they believed represented danger and sex. We also asked if our viewers would buy the song, all of our viewers stated that they would have bought the song 'Demon Cleaner' after have had seen our music video. We were aiming to a unisex audience and this was the answer we received from our viewers who said that our video was meant for both female and male audiences because of the sensual narrative element and also because we had a mixed gender band. We also gained the information that our viewers mostly liked that we used women in our band as it presented gender equality as well as bringing sex appeal to the video and subverting stereotypes of typical of the genre four piece all male bands. However, most of our viewers thought that the blood was too graphic for a music video and made it look like a James Bond opening sequence.

The encoding-decoding model derives from the work of Stuart Hall. It is a theoretical model, which is based upon the notion that the audience do not act as a ‘mass’, but rather as a collection of smaller groups defined by social and ideological elements. Media texts are ‘encoded’ (both consciously and unconsciously) with the values of their producers, who are generally white, middle-class, men. However, the audience is not made up exclusively of these groups and different groups are likely to ‘read’ the text indifferent ways. This ‘decoding’ process has 3 possible outcomes which are a preferred reading, a negotiated reading and an oppositional reading. A preferred reading is when the audience understand the intended values and the concept behind the media text. From most the feedback we received it was clear that all of our audience gave the preferred reading about the narrative. Ultimately our promo was successful as all our aims and intentions translated effectively to our target audience. Predominantly our viewers understood that the woman represented a dominant female promoting male equality with women and subverting to gender stereotypes, however the power of her sexuality over the male is an existing stereotype of females. Having both genders within the band help to attract a mixed audience as there was sex appeal for both genders as well as subverting to stereotypes providing the band with an individual element.

TASK TWO: HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS?

I have uploaded two powerpoint presentations below, one of which is is an introduction to some of the theroy our group used in order to have an effective combination of our main product and our ancillary texts the other presentation is how we used this therory in our product and evaluating the use of it.

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TASK ONE: IN WHAT WAYS DO YOUR MEDIA PRODUCTS USE, DEVELOP AND CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

The well know media theorist Keith Negus talked about specific conventions in music videos.
Keith Negus said Some acts are organic, organic acts follow these conventions:

-A ‘naturalistic’ approach to artists

-The seeds of success are within the artists, who have to be ‘nurtured’ by the record company.

-The image of the artist is ‘enhanced’ by the record company.

-The artist is given time to evolve and progress through their career

-Emphasis is given to album sales and the construction of a successful back catalogue

-Often aimed at older or more sophisticated consumers

-Profits generated by this kind of act tend to be part of a long term strategy by the record company

Keith Negus also referred to synthetic acts that followed these conventions.

-A combinatorial approach to artists and material

-Executives attempt to construct successful acts out of the artists and the songs at their disposal

-The image of the artist is often constructed by the record company

-The artist will be given a short time to prove their success before other combinations will be tried out

-Emphasis is given to single sales and to promoting first albums

-Often aimed at younger, less sophisticated audiences

-Profits generated by this kind of artist tend to be part of an immediate, short term strategy by the record company

I researched and analysed the major conventions of music videos with Beyonces music videos because she is a very popular music artist so follows a generic approach to her videos, although I would consider Beyonce quite organic because she is raw talent it is arguable that she is a synthetic act because she came from a girl group called destiny’s child.
Destiny’s child would defiantly be considered a synthetic group and was one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time, But it is arguable that once destiny’s child split up and Beyonce went solo she was an organic act because she had such talent that her record companies saw her as a long term investment rather than a short term one such as a act like sugar babes, or Hannah Montana. For this reason Beyonce is still a very popular music artist 6 years after going solo in 2005. This according to Keith Negus would cattogarise beyonce as a organic act because one convention of the organic act was “profits generated by this kind of act tend to be part of a long term strategy by the record company”.

However in Beyonces music videos such as “Single Ladies” is a very sexual performance with a complexly white background and only the performance element because the audience is so fixated with her star image that they do not need to see anymore the music video capitalises on the fact that the she is such a famous image.

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

Stills from music video.

This still from our video is used to make a unrealistic world a reality using special effects, in some ways it follows the existing forms and conventions of music videos because the special effects are used to make the narrative of the video more exciting and entertaining for an audience and for that reason alone, it is conventional for music videos. This still represents the narrative aspect of the promo. It is conventional of music videos to have a narrative as it is a way of building a star image for the artist as well as maintaining audience interest. Some artists do not use narrative as they already have an existing star image and large fan base or a more focused on their music so place the emphasis of their promos on the performance element. However, it is arguable that this still challenges conventions as it uses special effects to create the scene, this is not often used for bands within our specific choice of genre, and it is more conventional of the pop genre to use an unrealistic world. Using a woman in the promo and presenting her as a sexual magnet is a convention of the pop genre as women are often presented in a derogative way, wearing little clothing or as dancers and generally as sex symbols. Using this does not conform to the conventions of the indie/alternative genre, as bands of this genre usually place more emphasis on marketing their music through their talent rather than sexual magnetism; however the dark and powerful nature of the woman in the promo subverts gender stereotypes and therefore would attract a niche audience.

This image is a close up of the band’s lead singer, this a convention of music videos as the lead singer of a band is often present within the music video and is usually a focal point to the promo, through the use of close up we have conformed to this. By depicting him wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket we are presenting a ‘rock and roll’ attitude and star image, which is often depicted in other music videos of the genre. The microphone depicts the performance element of the promo, this a convention of the genre as predominantly bands in the genre place a focus on their music and performance suggesting that this is their passion.

This image furthers the use of special effects in our promo and conforms to the conventions of other promos that use special effects and green screen. This image suggests the male is in power by the way he is lit as well as his smart clothing; this conforms to stereotypes of masculine domination. He also appears mysterious due to the lighting; this contributes to the promos narrative which is a convention of promos as it markets the entertaining side of the promo to an audience and attracts them. However, within the genre special effects are not always used within a narrative as focus is often placed on an alternative band’s performance element therefore this also challenges conventions.

This image is created through special effects, often special effects are used in music videos and therefore we are using a music video convention. However, this image is not often seen within music videos, as the simple use of three colours that represent death and sex. It is more likely to see this image within a film narrative such as ‘Sin City’ therefore this challenges conventions of promos and provides individualism for the band.

The use of set with lighting and smoke is a convention of music videos within the genre; this dark, eerie atmosphere is often created within rock promos. The use of guitars presents a performance element within the promo and uses music video conventions. Their long hair is over the band’s face which provides a rock and roll element and uses conventions of the rock genre. The star image created is moody and individual, an image relevant to the genre. The use of female band members challenges conventions as it is rare to find female musicians within a rock band however it links to bands such as the White Stripes who have a similar image and band set up and therefore to an extent uses some conventions.

This image depicts the full band set up. It conforms to the conventions of music videos as the whole band is present within the video. Conventions are also used in that the band are all playing their instruments and therefore provides a performance element to the promo which is often scene in music videos, particularly of the genre. The low lit room provides an eerie atmosphere which ties in with the narrative and uses conventions as mostly the narrative links to the performance element within promos. The band is clearly dressed in an individual way which uses the conventions given within their genre. It perhaps challenges conventions as they are not presented on a stage with a crowd which is often depicted in promos within this genre.

Pannels from digi pak.

This is the front cover of the digi pak and depicts the band which uses conventions as artists are often depicted on the album cover which is a form of marketing the artist as buyers can clearly identify the artist’s album. The sin city scape continues the theme from the promo and image created for the band as being quite edgy and moody which conforms to conventions as often a particular image is used to market a band. The album title is depicted which is a convention of digi paks as it enables an audience to identify the album. The album title is the same as the song title which is often used as a way of marketing the single and linking it to the album. However, we have challenged conventions by not placing the band name on the cover; this was in order to present the band as individual. The way the band is dressed is an individual style and uses the conventions of the image of their genre.

This panel challenges the conventions of digipaks as the female from the promo is used, as she is not part of the band this is an alternative way of presenting the artwork and makes the band appear more individual and helps them to stand out as being different. The song titles are depicted which uses the conventions of promos, it allows an audience to know which track they are listening to on the album clearly, however sometimes song titles are depicted on the actual disk rather than on the panel. The low cut top represents her as a sex symbol and therefore attracts an audience, often sex is used to sell albums as it attracts a wider audience.

Promotional Poster.

This poster depicts the band name which is a convention used in promotional posters and it clearly promotes the band. We chose to use the same image of the band as the album cover which provides a common theme and uses conventions as it is a marketing pattern. However we have used a different background to create diversity and give some form of difference to the front panel of the digi pak. The same font is used which is identifiable to the band and uses the forms and conventions of marketing an artist to an audience. We chose to depict the tour dates as well promoting the album as a double marketing campaign and to provide more hype about the band. This uses the conventions of other marketing campaigns.

Poster

Here is an analysis of my poster and also the finished poster, to view the analysis please click on the image to enlarge it because i was unable to show it in its actual size.

Digi Pak

These images are our final digi pack (made on photoshop, photos taken on shoot day)

What Is A Digi Pak?

Digipacks are a type of CD packaging made out of card or other paper material. Digipacks can flip open like a book, or it can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the center portion. Usually, the portion of the digipack that hold the CD is made of plastic. Here is an example of a digipak for an oasis album.

The alternative to a digipack is a jewel case shown here

I wasn’t sure weather it was a better idea to use a digipack or a jewel case so I did a survey in my boarding house to discover whether more people liked their music in a jewel case or digipack. I asked 40 students and showed them the images of a jewel case and digipack I found that 26 out of the 40 students preferred a digipack presentation then a jewel case. Here are some pros and cons of digipacks which I found on a forum using Google as a research method.

-They look nice, and many bands and labels like to use them for aesthetic reasons. The three section digipack sleeves opens up more design options because there is more room. However, they're more expensive than traditional liner notes and jewel cases.

-Digipacks don't crack like jewel cases do, but they will rip and eventually the paper begins to peel apart and separate.

-The trays in digipacks break much more often then in jewel cases. There's not as much protection since the outer portion of made of paper, so the teeth that hold the CD in place crack and fall out easily.

-When the teeth of the tray does break in a digipack, the CD falls out of the bottom of the digipack, because unlike jewel cases, there is nothing to hold it in.

-Digipacks can be more environmentally friendly than jewel cases because they can be made of recycled paper - however, they aren't always in fact made in this way.

-However a small record company may be forced to use jewel cases because they are produced cheaper then digipacks even though they are less ascetically pleasing.

Our group decided to use a digipack in the end because they are a generally more preferable packaging according to our survey.

Digi Pack design and measurements

Post Production Evaluation

Shoot Day

We began shooting the music video at 9:00am on the 19th of November. On the evening on the 18th of November we had put together the lighting plan and the first set that we would start off with in order to save time the following day. The set did not take long to build all we needed was to put the black curtains round the studio, to put the instruments in place and to make a final decision on the lighting that we would like to have in order to create out desired mood. The evening before the shoot we also made one very important decision that would completely change the narrative of our video this was to remove the element that involved the office scenes with the main character in the narrative (Amy) being sexually harassed by her boss. We used a digital camera, the Sony Z1 and DSR 570, which are very mobile and this allowed us to vary our shots and therefore have a bigger variety to choose from when it came to editing. I found them rather complicated to start off with and we were getting behind schedule because we were not completely confident on the cameras but after a bit of time being showed them by Guy Stanley our teacher were able to use them and after an hour it seemed very simple and we began getting shots much faster and got back on schedule. We used green screen a lot in our video because what we wanted to achieve could not be done on location or created in the studio so the best alternative was to use the green screen. For example, some shots had the main killer girl in the narrative (Amy) on roof tops and jumping massive distances this can only be done on green screen for safety reasons. Although some effects that we used could have been done without use of the green screen, for example the blood splattering effects we used, it is possible to achieve this look without use of a green screen. However I do believe that it adds to the overall atmosphere of our video having the quite obviously synthetic backgrounds and gives it a more “sin city” vibe. Not only does it give us the unique look but it also meant we could achieve the shots which we would otherwise not have had the means to get. I believe that our shoot day ran very well indeed. The reason for the day running so well I think is due to the preparation we had done with the call sheets, set and lighting plans and story boards and also because we had used the previous evening to plan for the shoot and this meant we were able to maximise out time getting shots on the day of the shoot rather then setting up the studio therefore we had more footage to use when editing. I was unsure weather or not the shoot day had actually been a success until we had uploaded the footage onto Final Cut Pro and we actually viewed to footage. The amount of shots we had to choose from was enormous and the quality of them was also very impressive.

Set Sketches

These images are our set sketches and lighting plans, although they were very usefull for planning lighting and props needed we did not stick to them fully and some of the sets were not even used in the final video. Here is the disign for board room scene where the man was to act in apropriatley towards the woman and she would show her resentment towards him this was taken out because we belived that although it creates a strong narative and a media representation of harasment i the workplace we belived that it would work better as a music video without this scene.

In this set sketch you can see our set that the was the performance element of our video we had a white light circling above the band and we planned to have red glow lights at the sides of the set, however we did not use these red lights because on the day of the shoot we decided that we preferred the simplicity of one white light circling and believed that it made the audience concentrate on the performers rather than the complex lighting.

Call Sheet

Cast list

Patch Wadsworth
Lillie Resta
Freya Spargo
Molly Astley
Amiee Watts
Simon Wood


Props List

Long board room table
Office chairs-leather
Office cubicles
Office appliances (stapler, hole-puncher, pencil and pen holders, folders, filing cabinet, pictures, billboards, maps)
Harsh lighting
(Graffiti) Brick walls to move around for different shots
Office plants
Laptops or computers
Printers
Interactive Board
Bass Guitar
Electric Guitar
Drums
Microphone
Abandoned building set
Sharp murderer knife
Big garbage bin
Lamp post


Costume list

Woman dress:
- Zip-up Latex suit
-Combat boots (whatever)
-Push up Bra
Office scene:
-Pencil Skirt (Black)
-Blazer with shoulder pads (Black)
-Black high heels
-Ordinary glasses

Man dress:
-Black business man suit
-Red Tie
-Deer Stalker
-Brief case

Band
Girls dress :
-Ripped Tights
-Tattoos (drawn on or sleeves)
-Piercings (Fake)
-Doc Martins
-Ripped tops
-Denim short or ripped trousers
-Lot s of jewellery (rings and necklaces)
-Coloured hairspray (blue and red)

Boy dress:
-His own jeans (black or denim)
-Checked shirt
- His own shoes
- Sunglasses



Schedule for the day

9:00 am- all meet in studio – get cast into costume

9:15 am- finish preparing the set for ally way shooting beforehand.

10:00 am- begin filming scenes with the alleyway set and costume.

12:30 pm- Get Lunch.

1:00 pm- continue filming in alleyway

2:00 pm- set up for band section
2:15 pm – begin filming band section

4:30 pm – wrap + strike kit


Lyrics

I've got the demons in me
I've got to brush them all away
I feel the demons rage
I must clean them all away,
Yeah, yeah [with echo]

Excite to scream them away
Cobwebs in the way
That magic cleaner will
Shine his smile over me
Yeah, yeah [with echo]

I am the demon
Cleaner who saves the day
I get the backwall
And important they'll always stay
Yeah, yeah [with echo]

If only one thing that you know
Imposters from the show
They'll try to trick you into
Normal treatment
Oh don't you listen to them say
Shush them all away
I am the demon cleaner
Madman so,
I am the freedom cleaner
Standing naked here to say
I'm the only way
I'm the only way
I'm the only way
I'm the only way



Shot list

Close up tilt down of drum set.

Extreme close-up of drumstick on drum.

Extreme close up from side of foot on drum pedal.

Close up of bassist playing.

Close up of strings of bass being played.

Extreme close up of bass players head.

Close up at low angle of electric guitarist playing.

Medium close up track across bass and drum player.

Crane shot of electric guitarist.

Extreme close up of bass players hand.

Pre-Production Planning

Story boarding was used so we would be able to see if our song demon cleaner would work as a video that we had in mind by seeing if cutting on the beat worked and where we should cut, it is essentially a plan for editing so we have something to refer to as help while we edit our main video.

Set sketches helped us to plan our lighting and shots by giving us an idea of what the set would look like on the day. Without these sketches we would have trouble planning the lighting because we needed to know what the area is like and where we want to draw attention by using bright lighting e.g. the plan also helped us decide the positioning of our cast and make sure that we have all the elements we need to create the set.

Lighting plan was done so one the day of the shoot we would not waste time preparing lights and choosing how to shoot it, we did not stick to the lighting plan 100% but it was still used as a frame of reference for example; with the band shooting we planned to have red gel lights coming from the side to signify danger or passion while a light would be spinning over the band while they performed to make the video more interesting and seem as if more is happening. In the end we just had the light circling over the band through a Smokey aroma, this worked well because it moves the audiences attention from band member to band member as they are put into light then darkness and it created more of a sense of movement to a band that perhaps movement through dancing etc.

The call sheet was used to give to all of the people involved on the shoot day so they would have all the information they need. It comprised nearly all pre production planning we had done from the costume list and lyrics to the lighting plan and time schedule.

The shot list was used so we would not waste our limited time on the day choosing what shots to take, and although we did not use all the shots on our list it was very useful and saved us huge amounts of time because we could move from shot to shot without spending time thinking about the next shot to take.

Schedule for the day, this was used so they day had a rough plan for time and we could calculate how much time we could allocate for different jobs so we could get everything we needed done in the day and so that all the people involved in the day from our teacher to the cast would know what was happening and when they would be needed.

Preparing costumes and props we chose Amy’s (the lead girl’s) tight black leather costume and her props because we wanted it to seem Hyper real, this is when something is an exaggerated reality this is appropriate because it is supposed to be the woman’s imagination. The costume of the band was intended to be rock n’roll

Test Footage

This clip shows a shot that we chose not to use in the finished products, it shows the woman swinging and we were planning to use after effects to have her swing over the city scape.

Storyboarding

Copyright Letter

Hurtwood House

Dali Records

Dear Sir or Madam,

We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualifcation in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track as part of this project:

Demon Cleaner by Kyuss

With your permission the track would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. The video will be viewed only by members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board.

The arist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognised in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We cna also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself.

Yours sincerely

Olivia Cox, Ruby Kammer, and Luke Chapman
Hurtwood House School

Composition Rules

Rule Of Thirds The rule of thirds is one of the most popular 'rules' in photography and can also be applied to filming. It works like this: Imaginary lines are drawn dividing the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. You place important elements of your composition where theselines intersect. As shown on the diagram below. As well as using the intersections you can arrange areas into bands occupying a third or place things along the imaginary lines. Using the Rule of Thirds helps the final media product be “nicely balanced” and it will seem easier on the audience’s eye. Also it can stop the main subject from being surrounded by a vast empty space.

180 Degree Rule

The 180° rule is a film making guideline that is rather basic. It says that two elements such as characters or objects of importance should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.

First Pitch

Our idea of a heavy metal song came from the challenging of media ideology that the man is the powerful character, in our video the woman is supposed to show a strong female, this is unusual in heavy metal as it is usually a masculine sound that is aggressive and fronted by a man. This will be the videos unique selling point the way that we will be putting a more politically correct twist on what is generally considered a masculine type of music. Media ideology is the ideas behind a media text and agenda of its producers. It is common for an issue to be raised such as gender, sexuality, racism and crime and punishment etc. every thing has an ideology behind it; our group is choosing to focus on sexual harassment in the workplace as an ideology.
Sexual harassment is common in the work place, as an ideological value our group believes that sexual harassment is often represented in music videos but it is a problem that needs to be addressed as 31% of the female workers reported they had been harassed at work by men.
To achieve this ideology we are going to have a woman being sexually harassed by her boss, who is spanking her and getting her to bend to pick things up so he can get a nice view of her bum etc. We are also going to have the woman in her thought of following and then killing the man in a fantasy of hers. To show her resent for the man out of her thoughts and in the office we are going to have shots of her looking hatefully at her boss.
The ideology can be interpreted differently by different people for example some men might interpret this as women are always whinging about everything whereas some women will interpret it as men are so disgusting and abusive.



(In the finial product we did not use this office scene in the narrative).

Introduction To The Music Industry

The term 'music industry' covers a massive range of businesses and organisations that have something to do with music. In terms of recorded music, the industry today is dominated by four major labels:
EMI The Electric & Musical Industries Group is a British music company. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry

SONY Sony Music Entertainment is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation.

UNIVERSAL Universal Music Group is the largest group of record labels in the recording industry. It is the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations. Universal Music Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of international French media conglomerate Vivendi.


WARNER Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry. The current incarnation of the company was formed in 2004 when it was spun off from Time Warner, and as a result, Time Warner no longer retains any ownership, despite the name.

This image was sourced from wikipedia and shows the largest 30 music exporting countries in the world (that dominate 95% of the worldwide music industry) and their music sales by proportionate sizes.
The pie chart shows world-wide music market sales shares (sourced from IFPI)
Outside of the 'big four' there are thousands of independent labels, as well as millions of unsigned artists. However, the music industry also encompasses a variety of other areas, from music publishing to concert promotion, management and media.

Research and development

This powerpiont shows some first ideas we had, and then presented to the group to help us discuss what song we would choose and to how we would show the star image through out the video.

Pop Video Ideas

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Star image and first ideas.

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Researching as a group

After viewing everyone in the groups first ideas via PowerPoint presentations and discussing the ideas the group began to research different genres and star images in order to finalise our decision on the song and music video type. For the research we used different methods in order to gather the most information.

I found that we used a large number or relatively new media technologies for example Youtube the video search engine was a very useful tool to view other music videos from different genres and it was also a free way to browse potential song choices because we did not need to purchase any of the music until we had decided on a song too download due to the ability to just stream the videos.

Another method of research was also Google there was vast amounts of information we could potentially get by just entering in a query thousands of pages of information would be shown to us. This was incredibly useful as we did not need to use many books to research so it was time saving. However there are disadvantages of researching using Google because a lot of the information that would come up after a search would be irrelevant and some of it would be unreliable I found.

Britney spears - Toxic

I wanted to know about what audience different music videos attracted so I picked a Britney Spears music video called Toxic, however for some reason i was unable to upload it to blogger possibly due to copy right laws so have put the hyper link in instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9kVZ1Zperc

From the video it is clear to see this is a synthetic act due to the sexual representation of Britney spears in it. Youtube now offers a statistics service for every one of its videos where you can see the age of the viewers and also where they come from. I found this a very valuable tool to use in the research element of our video because it is important to know as much as you can about your audience in order to create your video so it appeals to them.

Audiences

This video is most popular with:

Gender Age

Female 13-17

Female 18-24

Male 35-44

From this map we can see that south America and Spain are clearly the largest viewers of this music video on Youtube. This surprises me because the lyrics of this video are in a language that is not native to these countries. It surprises me that the males 35-44 are one of the largest audiences of this music video, perhaps they are viewing it due to its sexual nature. However i expected young females to be a major consumer of this product.

Our group decided not to use an act like Britney Speares because we were not keen on how synthetic it was. We also thought that the fact that it was viewed most in countries where English is not the native language may be an issue because we want to use English lyrics.

Jamie T - If you got the money http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DLo54YDNek

Audiences This video is most popular with: Female 13-17, Male 18-24, Male 25-34

It does not surprise me that Jamie T is listened to most in Britain at all because his star image represents British "lad" culture. The video is set in some sort of pub with white people primarily. It seems to be aimed at working class men. For this reason i am surprised that the one of the main groups of people who watch this video are 13- 17 girls. But perhaps this is because Jamie T has some sex appeal or even because it could be considered an organic act and therefore attract a wider audience.

Here is our first group idea with a planned scene

Our group feels that the genre of punk- rock could be more successful with the younger generation than it is. This can be done by re-shaping the star image of these bands. By using attractive females in the video instead of the usual long haired rocker on the drums we would have young females this is the reversed rocker stereotype. We plan to have a female guitarist, drummer, and bassist but we wanted a male singer to attract a unisex audience. We want to give the female a more imposing role and make the male seem as if he was in their control. This is subversion of the gender stereotype.

Scene 1 (fade in) night time Helicopter with night lights circling (chopper sounds and police siren sound ) (pan down) wrecked building site (music fade in) fade out sound affects chopper and siren) band set up in middle of rubble, playing.

Scene 2 Cut from band to day time in a street. (Slow motion) Business man legs crossing on white line pedestrian crossing ( pan from feet/ legs up to full body / side view ) She Devil flies through the air out of nowhere and karate kicks business man in back. (Camera, side view leap and pan to back view of full foot in back , thrusting man forward flying on his face ) Fast cuts to and from: (slow motion) She devil appears and throws man through plate glass window, smashing (slow motion) She devil smashes man into brick wall. (Slow motion) She Devil sets man on fire - we see him burning.

Scene 3 Daytime in an Office. She devil in business conservative clothing (secretary) sits in bosses office with computer (fade to her looking at boss with distaste, imagines, throwing man through plate glass window, smashing (slow motion) fade back to Office - She devil enters bosses office with cup of tea (fades to her imagining smashes boss into brick wall) Fade back to Office - She devil at photocopy (music stops, we hear only the photocopy machine) camera pans from her face to her action doing photocopies. Boss (same guy all the time) walks past from the back and suggestively rubs against her. Camera pans to photocopies, as we see a montage of the violent shots repeated on the photocopy paper, as it spews out.

Scene 4 Cut to montage (music again) quick edits between band, wrecked site, helicopter, she devil moves (fast cutting this time , not slow motion from band to helicopter to siren to chopper noises, to she devil abuse.

The Brief

In a group of three we will go through the five stages of creating our own personal pop video for hypothetical distribution. These five stages are:

Research and development

Pre-production

Production

Post-production

Distribution and exhibition through established television outlets (terrestrial, subscription); CD; DVD; internet; mobile phones etc…

Task 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

When I started the preliminary task I felt that I was limited to how much I could make it mine and how in control I was. This was due to the fact that we were given our story board and script, and had no decision in them. The only factors of the preliminary task that we were in control of were the location and the mise-en-scene. But after we had filmed I was introduced to final cut editing this was completely new to me but I picked it up quite easily so that when I came to my main task I was very confident on the program But I found that when it came to the main task I had to learn how to use a variety of new skills. Firstly I had to learn to create a storyboard this was not as hard as it could have been as a lot of the script was improvisation and the shots were mostly basic medium close ups as the majority of it was filmed to look as if it was a video blog which meant the shots were the same but we still had to story board the shots of the killer as they were not done in this video blog format and we used a variety of shots. Although our story board was relatively simple for the shots where we were filming the killer I did find it difficult to get the correct mix of different shots because I only had the knowledge of shots that we had learned in = class and had never experimented with different ones before as in the preliminary the shots were not very varied and consisted of close ups, medium close up and wide shots for example the POV shot in the main task was new to me but I found that it worked very well.

For the preliminary task we told the story through the use of dialogue this was very basic and common so we wanted to do something different in our main task. This is where I was introduced to after effects. After effects would help us to tell and visually communicate a story to our audience. We needed this because the majority of the dialogue was irrelevant to the story, for example; the audience do not need to know what Angel3323 did last summer but they need to know that she is blogging and that someone is watching and stalking her and we did this buy showing her webpage with her video blog and tracking out onto the green matrix which was supposed to represent the virtual world and the way it links to another computer. The after effects were also used to use to show text being typed on the computer and when the audience read the text and picks up on the fact that it is being typed by the characters being shown they will know the killers intentions.

I also learnt about lighting and how important this was to create the effect we want. In the preliminary task we did not change the lighting and just used the light that happened to be in the room at the time but in the main task we spent a lot of time thinking about the light. We had to improvise methods of getting the lighting effect we desired with the blogging shots of Angell3323 we used some blue florescent strip lighting to give the effect that she was being lit up by the light of her computer screen and with lester727 we used clear colored plastic sheets and put them over a single bulb which we positioned in a certain place in the room to give a shadowy effect over the objects in the room and on his face.

The sound aspect of the main task was very different to the preliminary task we used Foley work for the typing sound and we used sound effects for when we reduce the sound from the video blog and introduce an electronic sound. This was not necessary in the preliminary task we did not need to add any sound and only used sound recorded on the set.

Task 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

This is an annotated version of the main Task

Task 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

Adressing the audience was a very importat factor in Angeldust. This is because the story is made to be very relevent to todays life in a way of adressing and to scare the audience even more as it is a story about someone who is a bit like them and does the same things which is justn using social networking websites. but who is watching them on the internet. below is a powerpoint presentation on this

Addressing And Attracting Power Point!

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This is a video report in the news that was released after we had the idea of a story about social networking websites. this video helps highlight the dangers of the internet and also shows us just how relevent this topic is right now and the more relevent the story is to the audience tthe better.

Task 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

This is an image of the cast from the popular TV series skins, I have chosen this picture because I think that is depicts the target audience for my film very well. I think that this target audience will make this particular film a great success due to the link between cinema, facebook and age this is because Young people aged 15 to 24 are the most likely age group to go to the cinema. In 2002, 50 per cent of this age group reported that they went to the cinema once a month or more in Great Britain, compared with 17 per cent of those aged 35 and over. When you consider those statistics and the fact that the age range that uses facebook this most is 18 – 25 which is very similar to the largest group of cinema customers at the age of 15-24 and the age group that visits the cinema the second most is also the age group that uses facebook the second most, you can begin to see why I believe that this film can be very profitable.


I think people who use facebook would be more likely to come and see this film then people who don’t this is because although our film is not entirely about social networking it does centralise its plot over them and as social networking sites are very popular there is an element of “angel dust” being a pre-sold film, but in this modern generation we live in the film is not pre- sold in the form of a book or a comic or a theatre production but instead a massively popular website this makes our film very unique and i think that as technowlogy and the world wide web advances and become more popular we will begin to see many other films with that same element of the main concept being pre-sold. I think that the audience will be primarily men because generally genre horror is more popular amongst men than women.

this graph shows the ages of people who visit the cinema it can be usefull for helping us to predict how much money angeldust will make and help the film make more money by making the target more suitable and aiming the film at the largest market acording to the graph wich is 15-24.

this pie chart shows us the age of facebook users, as we can see the largest age for them is 18- 25 so it makes perfect sense to make a film centralised on the idea of facebook as it will atract the 18-25 year olds and seeing as that group is the age where people go to the cinema the most the film has the potentiol for sucess.

Task 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

After researching horror film production companies the biggest ones that were specific to the horror genre that I could find was braindamage films having produced titles such as Death Factory, Slaughtered, The Forever Dead and Silent Bloodnight, brain damage films has made a name for itself in the horror genre but after then researching the films listed on the branidamage website i found that nearly all of their films are low budget and with poor acting, reviews of the films were nearly all negative and they all seemed to revolve around two main things sex and gore and I did not want my film to revolve around only two things like that instead I wanted to the film to have more substance and a deeper plot I think that this can be far easier to mass market a film with a more intelligent story and less pointless gore and sex because often this content can be frowned upon . so I had to consider another production company because going down the path of Braindamage productions might mean my film does not turn out how I want it to firstly because if I was seen to be connected with a production company like theirs it may damage the image of my film prior to the films release and secondly because the production company might get involved in the film and change it from what I wanted it to.

I next looked at the production company Lionsgate. Lionsgate is the primary next generation studio with a key presence in the production and distribution of films and television programs. With films like their largest ever opening weekend grossing film “tyler perrys madea goes to jail” (which made $41 million in the opening), Forbidden Kingdom, Rambo, and the Bank Job these are all respected films that have grossed well, with more to them then only sex and gore, the acting is good compared to films by Braindamage productions but the films are still mass-market so they are not centralized around character and story. This is the sort of category I want my film to meet so I continued to do more research into Lionsgate and I tried to find any horror films that they had made eventually I came across horror films made by Lionsgate such as: My Bloody valentine 3D, and the very successful Saw franchise this was very encouraging so I decided to research more specific aspects of Lionsgate I wanted to know things about their market share, their influence in the horror industry and any sister companys to Lionsgate that could invest in my film.

I discovered that Lionsgate entertainment sister company was 20th Television who owns a huge number of American channels including FX which is a channel for male audience and often shows horror so a lot of the viewers would be interested in a film like Angeldust. 20th television owning channel FX means advertising costs can be reduced if we use Lionsgate to produce as Lionsgates sister company is 20th Television. I also discovered that Lionsgate Entertainment has recently acquired TV Guide Network which one of the 25 most widely distributed cable networks this will also probable reduce our advertising costs and it also means that the film once it has shown at the cinema and reduced on DVD can begin showing on TV guide Network. Lionsgate is also a partnership in FEARnet, FEARnet is a website for reviewing and showing movies and even better it specialises in horror movies! This resourse means that we can probably receive higher reviews through the website and we can also advertise Angeldust on FEARnet this will be very cost effective advertising because all people who are using the website will be interested in horror films

Task 2: How does your product represent particular social groups?

Angel dust represents the young adults of today particularly the social networking websites and many teenagers who all use social networking . A horror film which uses facebook to draw and find victims for a murder is very relevant and current today when young people are often in the newspaper, having been killed after being groomed or lured to meet strangers on the internet. We are all unaware at who is watching or looking at our at our blog and Internet pages so we can feel like is a very venerable place to be and this fear is a very new one particularly to the users of the Internet who are the majority and can come from all social background as the Internet is so widely available these days, and can also come from all age ranges though the younger the more vulnerable usually as these people are the most naive to the dangers of the world wide web. This young adult age range is what my film trys to convey as being at risk and that it is not really to do with race, social standing or location but the naivety of these young people. The victim (angel323) is the epitome of the factors that make some one more vulnerable on the Internet she was attractive on purpose (not only was this to attract the male audience but also to show just how exposed she really is). She is young and broadcasts information that anyone can read or watch and then is willing to meet up with people that she has never meet before and only knows by their screen name on the Internet (Lester727). This vulnerability factor in attractive young girls can be compared to many other horror films is a common feature in a huge percentage of them as shown below.