Soem good points Tiegan but just needs more detail in some questions and obviously lots of images/stills etc...
Question 1: Good - just needs to be put into a video now.
Question 2: Good on definitions of branding.
Keep focused on how this brand image (quirky, fun and young) is pushed through the 3 products ( focus on your own print products mainly)
E.g. use of mise en scene, editing, colour, lighting, cinematography, fonts etc.. connotations and how used to push her image.
Question 3: Remember to comment on your intitial audience research - what did yoru learn and how did you put this into practise in your final music video?
Include charts and graphs for both bits of research
Use the final feedback to sum up how effective you feel the final 3 products are - real? authentic? professional?
Question 4: Good detail on how you actually used the technology and good use of images.
Remember to evaluate the technology - good/bad things about it - problems that may have been created by it ( how did you get round these?) Did it allow for creativity? Hard or easy to use? Did your skills develop over time?
See the examples on the Advanced Portfolio blog to see the level to aim for.
Miss McNulty
Thursday, 16 February 2012
Evaluation Feedback - Zaynab
A great start Zaynab!
Question 1: Good use of stills and good analysis
Question 2: Good on definitions of branding and use of images
Keep focused on how you are pushing this brand image (quirky, young and fun) through the 3 products ( music video and 2 ancillary/print products.)
A little more detailed analysis on the print products needed - look at the use of colour, mise-en-scene, images and fonts - connotations? Links to brand image? Focus particularly on your own and link them to the video.
Question 3: Very good - use the final audience feedback to sum up how effective you feel the final 3 products are - real? professional? What the audience expect or something more?
Question 4: Good detail on how you actually used the technology - remember to evaluate the technologies - good/bad things? Caused problems or were good for creativity? Easy or hard to use? Did your skills develop over time - did you feel more confident with them as time went one?
Well done!
Miss McNulty
Question 1: Good use of stills and good analysis
Question 2: Good on definitions of branding and use of images
Keep focused on how you are pushing this brand image (quirky, young and fun) through the 3 products ( music video and 2 ancillary/print products.)
A little more detailed analysis on the print products needed - look at the use of colour, mise-en-scene, images and fonts - connotations? Links to brand image? Focus particularly on your own and link them to the video.
Question 3: Very good - use the final audience feedback to sum up how effective you feel the final 3 products are - real? professional? What the audience expect or something more?
Question 4: Good detail on how you actually used the technology - remember to evaluate the technologies - good/bad things? Caused problems or were good for creativity? Easy or hard to use? Did your skills develop over time - did you feel more confident with them as time went one?
Well done!
Miss McNulty
Sunday, 5 February 2012
Teigan's Evaluation; Question 3; audience feedback.
Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
From our audience feedback, we learned whether or not our media product and overall branding was successful or not.
Initially, using demographic profiling, we decided our target audience was a large one, a Female, 12-15+, with no race or no socio-economic status playing a part. The target is for the audience to identify with the brand identity/artist we created through the overall image. Also, using psychographic profiling, we determined that under Young and Rubicam's Cross Cultural Consumer Characteristics (CCCC) out audience would fall into the 'individuals', the fifth category that emerged.
These people value quirkiness (brand image), individualism and diversity and are generally interested in music that emphasizes lyrical meaning.
To start we used an initial questionnaire to get a rough idea of what we need in a video to appeal to an audience and to find out who are our our ideal audience.
To appeal to this audience, across the portfolio we used recent music for inspiration for both our song choice, video concept ideas and ancillary tasks.
Our initial project research, the questionnaire and work on audience profiling, helped us decide an initial target audience, of that of which watch music videos, and specified it to fill more of an indie-rock niche. We decided on Indie rock, as the most listened too genres from the initial questionnaire we gave out, replied most as pop, rock, and indie. So with wanting to do something different and quirky, we thought the middle ranged genre would be best! We also chose this because of our personal preference too, as out group on a whole was not so much interested in working on a RnB Hip-hop video.
From this result, we saw that the vocalist and the special effects were key in a video, and we decided that these features were most important in our genre, as dancers and costume changes are found more in pop/rnb and not Indie music videos.
Through the same initial questionnaire we found that complimentary visuals to lyrics/song were liked and a combination of a story line and studio shots too. We followed this as this result shows a story is liked to be followed, with performance, and a story almost ALWAYS is complimentary to the lyrics of a song, so this is what we worked on with the Jess vs. Jesster story.
In the final audience feedback, I was really happy with the feedback we gained, it made me feel that all the effort I put into the work paid off, so I was proud of myself. To aquire this, we made a questionnaire, and sat the class down to watch our video and comment on it by answering the questions. We recorded the response and uploaded that to our blog.
(add graphs, video). My favorite response was one saying 'I wish it was longer' though, its obviously my favorite for a reason of flattery. We found out that out actor in the video could be one more confident, and that is understandable but going back and thinking about it, we could have got her to be a bit more enthusiastic, but nevertheless, if that was the only thing commented on that was wrong, then I am happy!
The most liked thing about our video, which I am thankful for, is the use of editing and Chroma keying, which I worked especially hard on. Also, the background layers and comic frames hag a great response also. The plot also seemed to get likes, as one comment was that they liked when the 'bad guy' got beat.
Overall, from the final feedback, the audience questionnaires and feedback, I feel that we created a slightly professional product using good effects and enough planning to make it work for what was at our ability to use. It seems not as authentic for an Indie genre, but we were aiming to go for a more 'out of the box' approach, so the realism/authenticity could be averted. I do feel that it was like a real video, as it achieved its goal of people wanting to see more of the footage and wanting to see a longer video, and, looking back, if I had more time, I would have made this so and maybe tweaked everything to make it go smoother and overall more real/professional.
Initially, using demographic profiling, we decided our target audience was a large one, a Female, 12-15+, with no race or no socio-economic status playing a part. The target is for the audience to identify with the brand identity/artist we created through the overall image. Also, using psychographic profiling, we determined that under Young and Rubicam's Cross Cultural Consumer Characteristics (CCCC) out audience would fall into the 'individuals', the fifth category that emerged.
These people value quirkiness (brand image), individualism and diversity and are generally interested in music that emphasizes lyrical meaning.
To start we used an initial questionnaire to get a rough idea of what we need in a video to appeal to an audience and to find out who are our our ideal audience.
To appeal to this audience, across the portfolio we used recent music for inspiration for both our song choice, video concept ideas and ancillary tasks.
Our initial project research, the questionnaire and work on audience profiling, helped us decide an initial target audience, of that of which watch music videos, and specified it to fill more of an indie-rock niche. We decided on Indie rock, as the most listened too genres from the initial questionnaire we gave out, replied most as pop, rock, and indie. So with wanting to do something different and quirky, we thought the middle ranged genre would be best! We also chose this because of our personal preference too, as out group on a whole was not so much interested in working on a RnB Hip-hop video.
Through the same initial questionnaire we found that complimentary visuals to lyrics/song were liked and a combination of a story line and studio shots too. We followed this as this result shows a story is liked to be followed, with performance, and a story almost ALWAYS is complimentary to the lyrics of a song, so this is what we worked on with the Jess vs. Jesster story.
In the final audience feedback, I was really happy with the feedback we gained, it made me feel that all the effort I put into the work paid off, so I was proud of myself. To aquire this, we made a questionnaire, and sat the class down to watch our video and comment on it by answering the questions. We recorded the response and uploaded that to our blog.
(add graphs, video). My favorite response was one saying 'I wish it was longer' though, its obviously my favorite for a reason of flattery. We found out that out actor in the video could be one more confident, and that is understandable but going back and thinking about it, we could have got her to be a bit more enthusiastic, but nevertheless, if that was the only thing commented on that was wrong, then I am happy!
The most liked thing about our video, which I am thankful for, is the use of editing and Chroma keying, which I worked especially hard on. Also, the background layers and comic frames hag a great response also. The plot also seemed to get likes, as one comment was that they liked when the 'bad guy' got beat.
Overall, from the final feedback, the audience questionnaires and feedback, I feel that we created a slightly professional product using good effects and enough planning to make it work for what was at our ability to use. It seems not as authentic for an Indie genre, but we were aiming to go for a more 'out of the box' approach, so the realism/authenticity could be averted. I do feel that it was like a real video, as it achieved its goal of people wanting to see more of the footage and wanting to see a longer video, and, looking back, if I had more time, I would have made this so and maybe tweaked everything to make it go smoother and overall more real/professional.
Teigan's Evaluation; Question 2
Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary tasks?
-What is a brand?
-What is your brand image?
-How have you constructed a sense of brand identity using media language - first, in the video,
then how have you continued this across the ancillary tasks?
-What is a brand?
-What is your brand image?
-How have you constructed a sense of brand identity using media language - first, in the video,
then how have you continued this across the ancillary tasks?
Branding, as defined by Niomi Klein is the turn about product from mass production, and people looking for direction in the form of product personalities to give consumers a bias in their purchases. A brand image gives a personality and identity to a product, which is appealing to consumers who want to buy the products. A well known brand for an example, is Nike.
Nike is an overall brand name, where many many products fall under it, though a same theme of sporty goods come from it.
In relation to the music industry, a band image can be make or break. A brand image is what can initially draw a consumer to the 'product', be it the band themselves or songs by the artist. In the music industry it is common for the brands image to reflect the sound of the artist or band. This can allow a 'brand essence' to be formed, which allows the consumer to label what the band is about and sum them up in a few words.
The brand image of our artist, Jess vs. The World, is a Quirky, Fun, young image, for a singer, with no band in the indie pop/rock genre portrayed to a mostly female audience.
The brand image can be compared to the singer, Bats For Lashes, as she is from the same genre and has the same artist set up as the one we created.
In our video, we constructed the brand image through the mise en scene, Jess' costumes throughout to start off. Her natural look the one we see at the start, matches the brand image as she pulls off a very fun, causal school look. Her super costume, is very 'spunky' and shows her fighting spirit with its play on her causal costume, with the added accessories (glasses, belt, cape). The Villain's costume helps enhance this, by looking more evil, to contrast her good look (blood stained strait jacket).
All amplify the brand image.
The brand Identity in the video is also shown and produced in the scenes where jess is performing/lip singing the song, and the editing work done there, lots of colours have been used, filtered over the footage, making it more interesting and fun once more, conforming to the audience as well as the desired brand image, and making her seem hypo-realistic and making her colours 'pop' in the 3D scenes especially. Another way we built up the brand image is through all the intertextuality we used, referencing all different types of pop-culture/game-culture and comic books through the video, mainly being superheroes and Scott Pilgrim, all identifiable with teenagers and a younger AND older audience, showing the main character in the video to appear spunky and youthful, the brand image, again.The video could work as a reality escape; which is always interesting, ridding the 'norms' of daily life, by showing this secondary world through a comic book perspective of two faced crime where good always prevails, It also hints towards a childhood interest to comic-books, to gain the same feeling of victory.
We created a mood board of pop culture related things to try and conform to and be inspired by.
Through the ancillary tasks, we could push the brand image further! Adding more comics, space and more interesting things. We could focus as much as possible onto one image, for example the front cover of the album. It looks fun, it looks colourful, it looks appealing and quirky. This is portrayed by the fact the Jess you see is a cartoon and the background is entirely illustrated, there is no photography used in this cover making it seem on another dimension, another universe even, if we take the space into account. The cartoon Jessica also emphasizes this and, as its something not commonly seen in an indie genre, being heavily video-game based, it sticks out to the consumers and overall is intertextualised to other products they like, such as games and comics and even indie fashion (brought with the space aspect) will build an association with enjoyment and emphasize quirky fun.
In the final ancillary task I focused on, Jess, is on a magazine advertisement. She is in space, within a comic, which seems bizarre, but all the colours work well by contrasting each other and making each stand out and pop. I tried to add several dimensions to this work, with real Jess and cartoon Jess, this seems fun, showing two personas, both equally as interesting, but one is more subdued (real Jess) hinting that the cartoon is more real and that the cartoon is more fun. This is all within a comic frame, which is a fun play on the page of which the advertisement would go, kind of showing its a separate entity entirely and should be considered that way. It also hints as an escape, which is interesting to the audience.
Thursday, 2 February 2012
Question 1: Directors Commentary: Zaynab and Ross
Script
Conventions of the indie music genre:
v Scruffy unkempt slightly long hair
v Casual clothes
v Performance videos
v Shot in studio, as is relatively inexpensive, or in working class locations
v Close ups of band members and of instruments
v Fast-paced editing
We analysed real music videos of the Indie genre, some of which broke the conventions of the genre and some of which followed the conventions.
A video that stuck to the conventions of the indie music genre is the Arctic Monkey’s ‘I bet you look good on the dance floor’. It is performance-based, as indie music videos generally are, with certain elements such as close ups of the band members and the instruments, and also fast-paced editing.
The band members appearance’s also contribute to the typical conventions. Male indie artists usually have long unkempt hair and wear casual clothes, which the Arctic Monkeys have done. They have also shot it in a studio, where most indie music videos are shot in, due to the relative inexpensiveness of it. They have also made use of various effects such as the coloured lighting within the video as are usually used within performance-based indie music videos.
[Show certain stills from the video after several sentences i.e. studio set-up & a couple of close-ups of band members & a couple of instruments & coloured lights]
A video that challenges the conventions of the indie music genre is Franz Ferdinand’s ‘take me out’. even though it sticks to several of the typical indie conventions, as it was shot in a studio and is fast paced as well as having the band members within the video, the video breaks away from the conventions as it is comprised entirely of animated images instead of footage of the band members playing – it has pictures of the band and of Victorian-esque machinery and objects that are put together, which ends up creating a very unusual looking video. There are many types of other shots as well the typical close-ups and medium shots, such as long shots with all the band, and shots that cut to a close up then zoom out, slowly also panning slowly in one direction. Whenever the video cuts to actual images of the band, they are dressed casually as indie artists tend to do, and yet this is very uncommon within the video as it is mainly comprised of animated images of the band’s heads placed on top of bodies made from an assortment of different machinery, giving the video a strange quirky feel, as it is definitely unconventional.
[Show certain stills from the video after several sentences i.e. different types of shots & casually dressed image of the band & band’s heads on top of machine bodies]
Our finished product challenges the conventions of Indie music videos in that Jess is a solo artist, whereas most indie artists are usually in bands, and though the video is fast paced, that is the only obvious thing in relation to Indie conventions. Many indie music videos generally have a toned down colour theme, whereas ours is brightly coloured, following a colour theme of white, green, black, red, blue and many other vibrant colours, also Jess is not dressed casually, and instead in a superhero/evil villain costume. As Jess’s brand image is quirky, fun, spunky, etc., as made apparent by the theme of the music video and the print adverts, this differs from the typical brand image of other artists; as other indie artists are more serious and usually more male-orientated, down to earth, etc. There is also a performance element to the video, yet Jess is dressed in her costume and the video includes significantly more shots of the narrative. There is also a wide range of editing used within the video, such as the one where Jess has a coloured shadow around her during one of the performance based clips. Also, the fact that it incorporates elements of other types of media such as comic books, video games etc is very unconventional, which is also known as intertextuality.
[Insert clips from the video regarding what is the focus in a particular sentence i.e. beginning of video for fast-paced & good Jess and bad Jess & different clips of different types of editing & comic book scene]
Zaynab; question 4.
Question 4: how did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
From the beginning to the end of making this product, I used several different types of media technologies from researching through to evaluating the music video. For planning and research, it was mostly using the computers to go on the internet etc, whereas for the actual making of the product it was more practical based where we used actual equipment such as cameras and advanced software programs i.e. Final Cut Express.
Planning and research
iMacs: We had to use iMacs for our work as they contained more advanced software etc than regular Windows computers. They also included Final Cut Express which is what we used to edit our video, as well as Photoshop and InDesign. . They are very different to Windows operating systems though, and so problems arose as I tended to have some difficulty in navigating them, but eventually I managed to discover how to use them after several trial and errors. I found they were much more efficient that Windows machines for the purpose of processing information, i.e. during the editing of the video, although I feel that was the only good point about using them. I felt I could have done many more things with a Windows PC, the iMacs greatly limited what my finished products could have turned out like, as I understand Windows PC's more and therefore put my knowledge of them to better use. I was fine with the iMacs after a while but I still would have preferred to use a Windows PC, as I could have been more creative etc.
Google: As we had to research many things such as examples of artists for our genre, I used Google as a search engine as it is what I always use. It is simple and straightforward and takes quicker to load than other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing, due to their not being many images and links on the page etc. It always includes new searches whenever they are available, and I was able to find out the information I needed easily. I had no problems with Google, and I wouldn't have used any other browser.
YouTube: YouTube is a video streaming site accessible to all which includes videos from professionals’ i.e. real artists, as well as of normal people’s videos, i.e. their version of a song etc. As we were doing the music video genre, this was a really helpful site to use as we could look at examples of real artist’s videos within the genre. It also had past projects of students, which is another element that greatly helped us out in the making of our final product, due to being able to see how it differed and knowing what we could and couldn’t do in regards to making it the best we could, even though it was only for a college project. A bad point about YouTube is that it does limit certain videos to a specific country or region, therefore we could have no access to it, and it also is very strict about copyright laws. But there were no problems when I used it, and I found it fairly easy to use, also it gave us inspiration for our own video.
Blogger: Blogger is where we put all our work from the beginning to the end of the project. It is a free website which comes in handy as we wouldn’t have to pay for it, and is really efficient in that you can incorporate images and embed PowerPoints and videos, thus making it a good medium to use for our coursework. The only bad points I can see about Blogger is that it is not very efficient with uploading videos directly onto it, and is unable to upload PowerPoint. Also, the fonts/colors are limited, but nonetheless it is a good website, simple and easy to use.
CreateAGraph.com: When gathering the initial results of our audience questionnaire, I made charts for them using this website. It is really easy and simple to use, just simply inputting the information and seeing the output as a graph which we could then save. We could also change what type of graphs we wanted, the colours, fonts, etc. I found this website much easier and simpler to use than using other methods such as creating them using Microsoft Word, which I find more complicated to do, and so therefore I found nothing wrong with using this method of creating graphs and would use it over others.
Microsoft Word: I used Microsoft Word to draft many of my blog posts rather than simply writing in blogger itself. It has many great features that aren’t really accessible on blogger, such as a variety of fonts, picture editing, colours, etc. Also, blogger requires an internet connection and for the user to have to log in at all times, whereas for Microsoft Word the user could just save the file on a location of their choice, i.e. a flash drive, and access it whenever and wherever, regardless of whether they have internet connection or not, or want to go through the hassle of logging into blogger when it is more restrictive than Word also. Word is a great word processing software, and was easy enough to use.
Construction of product
HD camera: We used a HD camera reserved solely for the studio to shoot all our video. As it is high definition, and we used green screen, this made significantly easier for us in the end to edit the green screen out, because of the clear, high resolution pictures. Though it has many different features, it wasn’t that hard ultimately to get the hang of, and saved us a lot of time and effort as with any other camera, the green screening task would have been that much more difficult, which was key. It was easy enough to get the hang of, and was good to use.
Studio and lights: The studio was essential as it was where we decided to shoot our whole video, as opposed to deciding to shoot it on location, as it contained the green screen which we needed to edit our video and include the various effects ultimately used. We used several lighting equipment to maintain a constant tone throughout the video to make it consistent and look more professional. The lighting equipment also came in particularly handy for when we used effects such as making Ross’s face be in shadow, which fit in with our video for the purpose of making him look like a criminal. The lighting equipment did tend to overheat, and we did have very specific times within college to use the studio as well as a time limit which we struggled with, but it turned out okay and was all worth it in the end.
Digital camera: We used a digital camera to take pictures of some of our progress, as well as needing it for pictures for the ancillary tasks. They were very quick and easy to use, and took good quality pictures.
Final Cut Express: We used this particular program to edit our video. Everyone did the basics such as arranging the video and audio within the footage, importing files, cutting, copying, and pasting footage within the actual video, and various features such as cropping/trimming off parts of the video which were irrelevant and therefore didn’t need to be included. Teigan had specific ideas in mind to include more advanced special effects etc, and so she incorporated those into the video. Final Cut was easy for me to use as it is a lot like Sony Vegas, which I have used a lot of times in the past, and so it was easy enough to get the hang of. I learnt how to use chroma key and found it simple enough to use, as well as adjusting the hue/saturation/brightness levels etc to make the cutting out of the green screen more efficient when all the green wouldn’t fade away completely, and so it levelled it out. It has many features, which allowed for our group to be more creative, even though we had to get the hang of a lot.
InDesign: This is what I used to create the print projects, and included a variety of very useful features, i.e. changing the fonts, importing pictures and backgrounds, and having picture ratios to work with, thereby making the task a lot easier for me. The actual program itself was easy to use, and I could do many things for my prints, such as patterning and using opacity for the boxes etc. Due to the fact I had to pattern the background from scratch as I couldn’t find a shortcut of this, it was very time consuming, and so this was something I didn't appreciate about the program.
PhotoShop: I used PhotoShop to edit my photos, as it had a wider variety of features than most regular photo editing programs had, and could do more advanced things, i.e. cropping out the backgrounds etc, which were very useful, as we created custom backgrounds on PhotoShop using its wide range of brushes and other features and then were able to use the cropped images to incorporate into our created backgrounds. PhotoShop was easy to handle, and I would rather use it over other photo editing programs as it includes the basics such as changing the hue/saturation/brightness etc, but also the more advanced features such as the brushes and editing out the background were more useful in creating successful print pieces. The downside to PhotoShop was that it wasn’t able to successfully complete some tasks I required such as the patterning.
DaFont.com: This is a website compromising of free fonts to download. This was a big part of our ancillary task, as it was where we could find the perfect fonts for our project, ultimately discovering comic book and video game style fonts which seemed almost as if it was created for the purpose of our project, as normal standardised fonts wouldn’t have been effective and as appealing if we had used them instead in our project. The website is simple enough to navigate, and has many categories that could provide useful when narrowing our search. Downloading and installing the fonts from the website was extremely easy to do, and so overall there wasn’t any hassle in using this site.
Evaluation
Microsoft PowerPoint: I used Microsoft PowerPoint as I was able to use different coloured fonts and themed backgrounds to make my presentation of information more visually appealing, also it wouldn’t look like a big block of text as it included bullet points and I could also incorporate pictures of our artist and graphs etc onto it. It was straightforward to use and was a better way of presenting my information than using blogger or Microsoft Word, which would have been more restricting and I couldn’t have used as much artistic license.
Slideshare: We used this site to upload our PowerPoint presentations, as it was the only way we could embed them into our blog. It is simple enough to use and doesn’t take very long, and so it is a good medium as we couldn’t upload the presentations directly onto the blog.
In this stage, I also used:
Microsoft Word: For the drafting of my script for the director’s commentary.
Final Cut Express: The video editing program I used to make the director’s commentary.
Google: To access the pictures I needed to include within the PowerPoints and this post.
Blogger: To link back to relevant wall posts for use in my evaluation, and to upload the final evaluation onto.
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