Final video!

This is our final video to our media coursework and are happy to say that we are very pleased with the end result. With the problems we had to go through and overcome, to the success of what we caught on camera, we were able to produce something that really highlights our thorough enjoyment of this subject.

We are very happy that we had to change our idea due to our actor because now we have something that we really think goes well with the song. Through the feedback we received from our class and teachers we were delighted with the amount of negative feedback given as it was very little. With this we knew that we had produced something to be watched by everyone.

Pleniminary task

This is our fast/slow sequence we created at the beginning of the year. We learnt a large amount while filming and editing. Shamaila and I didn't have a very strong point on editing, therefore when we had to edit this, we gradually became aware of how to do basic editing skills. Furthermore, we were able to use our stop motion skills that we had picked up from our AS coursework, therefore becoming better in that field.

Evaluation overview-plan

Open publication - Free publishing - More yes

Final digi pack!

CD cover.

Inside



Outside



Advert

Social Groups ..

In order to make the most of our video, and thinking about the marketting aspect, we researched social groups. Different social groups will listen to different music as it may appeal to them for a numerous amount of reasons, for example, the artist could be from the same place as them, speak about the same personal issues, dress a certain way or simply because they are from a specific genre. We found that mainly females listen to songs like 'one of those days' as females are more likely to empathise with Leo Hunter and probably find him attractive, whereas males would not be so interested in the song. However this is somewhat a generalisation, and keeping this in mind, we decided to use both female and male actors/actresses in our video because it would appeal to a wider audience and therefore attracting more fans. An iconic video, does not have to contain a specific iconic artist, it could be iconic due to a location or even the way it is filmed. We chose to use relatively natural settings as it would allow our audience to feel as though they were a part of the video, even if they could not empathise with the song, surely they would be able to empathise with the locations or even find the way the video was filmed somewhat of interest and difference.

We wanted to create a video which would appeal to many social groups, and I believe it can safely be said that through our feedback and the times in which we have showed a varied audience our video, people from all social backgrounds and groups have actually enjoyed watching it and have given positive feedback AND positive criticism which we did not take to offence, yet understood and if it was possible changed our video.

Album cover-inspirations!

These are all rather simplistic album covers and the Kings of Leon-Come Around Sundown is really something that has grabbed our attention as its simple, yet effective. Therefore, we want to create something similar to this to indicate the link between the music and the album cover, as it doesn't need a large amount of different things because it's the music that the people are buying. It also highlights the originality of the song and how it doesn't neccessarily fit in with the general conventions of pop videos we see now, as they mostly contain a large amount of movement, such as dancing and the singer. We think that our type of song goes well with Kings of Leon's new song Pyro as the music video does not focus entirely on the band thus allowing us to create a link between what is going on in the video and the song. There isn't always a link, however we find that effective because it's usually quite bizzarre and will stay in our heads when the song is played.

The natural settings are also highlighted in the album covers which is also something we want to create in ours. Luckily I went to Thailand in the summer holidays and took some beautiful pictures of scenery which indicates the uniqueness of the cover.

The Music Industry and Music Genre

As our world today is so controlled by the media, whether it be film or music we decided to look at the music industry for some inspirational ideas for our video, the look of our artist, the record label and the digi-pack. An article was recently published in 'The Times' newspaper regarding the music industry, and after reading this we realised that the current situation for the industry at the moment is a non-productive one. People are far more interested in downloading music illegally or converting it from youtube, hence the music industry is making less money as people are no longer buying the latest CD's. There is literally no money in the music industry at the moment and this was an important topic we researched as it opened our eyes as to how important an artists image is as this is the single thing which could make or break them. Although the music industry has been around since before people can even remember, times have changed a great deal and with the advancement in technology it is no wonder that even though music maybe becoming more popular and there are millions of different varities of artists and music genres, now people are able to access music wherever, whether it be on ipods, blackberrys or MP3's.

The music industry has always been one of competition, however it seems that recently even more rivalry is growing within the different record labels and between different artists. It is often hard to categorise an artist into a specific genre as many artists have different sounding songs, for example some indie, some electro pop, on the same album, therefore can we really portray an artist as being from one single genre? Our research shows that due to the advancement in technology, record labels are often being created by artists themselves, enabling the artists to be their own producers and thus allowing them to sign on different artists. This seems to be the new trend within many artists from different genre's and in actual fact, it makes sense as then the artists are in complete control of their music and how they want to be portrayed, not how their manager or producer thinks they should be.

What we have learnt and discovered.

Throughout the proccess of research and completing our pop video we have gone through a large amount of problems that we were able to sort out, learnt how different techniques such as camera angles are utilised to manipulate our perception and upgrade our understanding in how to edit with imovie, as we needed to make sure the lip sync was in time with the song. We have discovered how different effects such as slow motion can add an interesting effect when not in time with the song, how coming up with a second idea was one of the best decisions we made, as feedback from our class and teachers agree that it has a much better concept than our original idea which was more cliche and predictable.

We also discovered a deeper knowledge in how messages through a pop video can have such an impact on a song. An example of this can be from Eminem-Love the way you lie, featuring Rihanna, this is because the song was released without a pop video into the charts and got into the top 10, however when the video was released the song went straight to number 1. This is a clear indication that the music video plays a very important part in selling a song.

With livetype being completley new to all of us, we had to teach ourselves in how to use the software so that we could use it in our final video. Luckily it came to us naturally and we were able to grasp the knowledge in how to export the certain clip we wanted to use from our video into quicktime and then open it on livetype. With this done we were able to quickly and effectively manage our time as it didn't take us long to do and put the rest of our concentration on planning our digi pack and evaluation.

Impact of technology.

Growing up as a digital native, technology has improved greatly and I have found great ease in being able to use such products like, digital cameras and computer software. With the advantage of advance technology we are able to show our music video on a variety of different things such as, ipods/iphones, youtube, DVD and so on. With this we will be able to get a larger audience for our pop video as anyone will be able to access it. With this upgrade in technology I am able to see how different and harder it would've been to mass produce, as there would be less possibilities in showing our video years before. This has hugely facilitated artists in getting noticed from the music industry and is key to success, if done right.

Record label

We needed to think of a name for our record label and a symbol to go with it. We wanted it to link with our artist to indicate a close link between the two so that consumers can recognise the similaritys without needing to think in much detail. Therefore, we decided for the symbol of our record label to be the letter 'm' in an interesting font as we thought that a full moon usually symbolises a man turning into a wolf, whereas we wanted to keep him as a man growing slowly into someone he doesn't want to be, because of his first love leaving him which created negative emotions such as anger and depression. For the name of our record label we decided on Moonset Records. This fits in well with our symbol. We came across this name through Kings Of Leon's new album names 'Come Around Sundown' and the Twilight Saga: Eclipse. We thought 'eclipse' wasn't original therefore, thought of something that didn't neccessarily need to make sense and as another phrase for 'sundown' is 'sunset' so we came up with 'moon set'.

Why we chose to name our artist 'Leo Hunter'

We wanted a name that sounded attractive and mysterious at the same time. We thought for the artist's first name that 'Leo' sounded interesting because it is also a star sign and therefore, can be significant because it is the zodiac sign for the month of August, which indicates his youth and can relate to his song in being in love at a young age. We decided to put the artist's surname as 'Hunter' because this adds to the mysterious and emotional side to our artist. When we chose the surname we automatically thought of a wolf or a full moon and thought of using a symbol of one of them for our record label to initiate a link between the label and our artist.

Fan behaviour.

Fan behaviour can become very extreme and can lead to stalking/cyber stalking. Knowing that there are different levels of fandom we wanted our video to be clear that the females are infact the fans, without having to show drastic measures taking place. Individuals may create a parasocial relationship with the artist and thus leads to extreme fandom. After the death of John Lennon, celebrity fandom has become very popular in the western culture. Knowing that John Lennon was shot outside his doorstep by a fan indicates the serious high risk becoming a celebrity is. This particular fan had developed a very strong parasocial relationship and got to the point that if they can't have John Lennon, then no one can. This devastion is linked with the psychology of the mind. Knowing this is possible we did not want anything this extreme in our video, however wanted a thorough understanding in how it happens. We think it is key to find different perspectives on fan behaviour, as it is what makes or breaks an artist.

Demographic trend

The pop video would be more suitable for a young demographic who enjoy listening to indie/pop music. This is because the use of the females acting as a fan club could be aimed to how people react towards their favourite artist/band. Children and young teenagers wouldn't have as much as an impact on the pop video as even though there is no narration, the dilema of using females to be included may be, to them, a different perspective on fan behaviour. This is because older people usually show a more laid back side, as they consider the artists' space.

Decision making.

We were given a list of songs and lyrics to listen to in our class and had to decide as a group which one we wanted to use for our pop video. We were torn between Joshua Radin-One of Those Days and Donkeyboy-Ambitions. However, as Shamaila already knew Joshua Radin's song, she already had basic ideas in how we can portray our pop video to fit in with the genre of the song. With this already in our minds, we brainstormed ideas and first thought a romantic narrative could be done, however changing our idea due to our actor meant having to think of something new. Therefore, we came up with using females as his 'fanclub' to indicate that even though the main protagonist has a large amount of females chasing him, it isn't the one he wants. Which is why there are subtle indications with livetype that highlight the more emotional side of this song. Facial expressions from our main protagonist also suggests his feelings towards having to sing this song to someone who won't sing it with him, whereas the females are willing to.

She and Him ' In the sun' music video..

In our AS year of media, we were given the task to recreate a video to She and Him's 'In the sun' music video. As a class, we had to all take part in order to create the most accurate version of the existing video. We had to watch the original video many times in order to gain accurate perception of the narrative, the choreography, the lyrics and the setting. This filming experience truly boosted our knowledge and understanding of how much hard work goes into filming a music video, as our previous work before this had only been a one minute sequence opening to a film. Filming the video was stressful and needed alot of organsitation and as we were producing the video as a class and we only had one day to film, we had to all co-operate to the best of our abilities even if we didn't get along.

This task was put in place to prepare us for this years media project of filming an entire video yet not having to replicate it, but create from scratch the narrative, find the actors/actresses, research the artist, and find locations suitable. It was hard work, as we were a two man band, whereas most people in our class had a group of 2-4 people, we found ourselves overwhelmed with the amount of work we had to do in order to get our video finished intime. The she and him video gave us an insight as to what we as directors,editors, storyboarders, and even actors were in control of, and of those things we simply could not control, such as the weather, the tripods not being steady enough and actors or actresses bailing out last minute. Although the video was a chore, it did actually prepare us and enabled us to see all the work that goes on behind a finished video product and therefore we can appreciate our video much more, knowing how much work, time and effort was put into the finished video.

Editing part 2

The reason we needed to continue with the editing on the school mac computers was because we needed to use livetype and the imovie on Parmiss' laptop lacked a few features that the imovie on the school mac computers had. Once the video was transferred Shamaila continued editing with the livetype and added it into our final video. She found it difficult to get the hang of so we both tried to figure out how to transfer the clip onto livetype. Once we had that covered, she carried on and competed the livetype.

After dicussion with our teachers we decided to use slow motion on the ending of the video for when our main protagonist does the last strum on the guitar. This is because at the end, the song ends with music slowing down for a few seconds therefore the slow motion edit would fit in perfectly.

To use or not use final cut pro.

At first we wanted to use final cut pro to dissolve our black and white faces together as it wasn't working on imovie. However, after this was done we realised the dissolve was too quick and wouldn't go in time with the music, therefore we decided to not use it as it was becoming over complicated and we really want to keep our music video simple to keep a link with the simple album cover.

We found final cut pro rather difficult to understand so had help in learning how to use it. This shows that even though we are digital natives that doesn't mean we know how to use everything and that we still needed to learn how to use complex editing soptware to make our music video look more professional. However, this became too time consuming for us as we needed a large amount of help and thought that we wouldn't have enough time to finish editing.

Letterboxing

We decided to letterbox our music video to add a certain rustic effect and suits the purpose of the song very well. Furthermore, with this effect it suggests a different aspect of music videos as most videos do not letterbox, therefore by not sticking to the general conventions of a music video we are hoping this different effect will work.

Livetye problems.

An issue we came across with livetype was when we compressed the clip we wanted to edit, the exposure was darker than the other clips. Therefore, we decided to alter the exposure when we put the clip back onto imovie and asked other students to watch our video without telling them the difference in the clips. At first they didn't realise the exposure change until we told them afterwards, therefore we knew that this wasn't a major problem as techincal difficulties can not be fixed.

Editing part 1

We decided to do our editing on Parmiss' laptop as she would have more free time to do it at home and whenever we could we would go to her house and help. Parmiss found it easier in doing most of the editing on her own as she knew exactly what she needed to do and could do it quickly so we left most of it to her. She edited the whole thing together and then transferred it onto the school mac computers, however a problem arose. The problem was that it was difficult to transfer the file from her laptop onto the school mac computers and when she tried the quality decreased. Luckily she found out where she went wrong when exporting the file, as there were different choices in levels of quality to chose from, therefore we were able to transfer it onto the computer and continue the rest of our editing.

When Parmiss first began editing she found it quite difficult in chosing which shots she wanted to include as there were so many similar ones yet they needed to be perfect. After accomplishing the first 20 seconds of the video she realised how time consuming this was becoming and had to manage her time efficiently with her other subjects. Therefore, she decided in doing large amounts of editing at a time every week. After the first 40 seconds of the video Parmiss was beginning to find editing quite fun and interesting which helped her speed up the proccess. When the first minute of the video was done she was able to complete the next minute in the next week. After spending her longest time editing, which was for a day on the weekend she was finally done and transferred the video the day after. From this Parmiss learnt how to use imovie efficiently on her laptop as the imovie was different to the ones on the school mac computers. She learnt from watching a few video tutorials on youtube and thoroughly paid attention. This made it easier for her to undertand the concept of how the imovie on her laptop works and got straight to work.

Parmiss decided on changing the colour scheme to link in with the genre of the song. This is because it's quite emotional, therefore by lowering the exposure and increasing the contrast, the background would look washed out and the actors and actressess' features would stand out.