Tuesday, 19 March 2013

Message to examiner

Hello Moderator.

My name is Gareth Owens, this blog contains my work and my groups work for our Music video project for G324 A2 Coursework Portfolio unit within the OCR CGE course in Media Studies.

I was working in a group of three which included me as well as Jonathan Bullock and Ellie Brown;
together we created a music video using the song "Good Time" by Owl city and Carly Rae Jepsen.

The tabs which have been placed along the top of the blog are there is help you navigate.
each tab hold posts relating to the title of the tab.

Regards,
Gareth Owens

Tuesday, 5 February 2013

Brief evaluation ideas


This is basically a few ideas and very very brief answers on how we are going to answer the Evaluation  questions, we have decided to use a full documentary but use different cliques to interact with the audience.

Music video in background
half and half on inspirations
throw images

Documentry
Day one
Day two  Etc plan the day of filming and the days of filming

We were thinking we could say narratives such as
“ Day one of filming; we’re filming Ellie lets see how this goes”
Throw different collages of photos and outtakes etc.

Answer the questions through 1 and 3
3 get people to watch the video and feedback it!

2nd how 3 products work together


Above are just a few ideas the group have put together for the Evaluation questions. We have decided to do a full documentary for the 4 questions but use different types of camera shots so it doesn’t become boring or stale.
Firstly we have decided to go back in time and start filming days of filming and use two cameras to show filming of filming and then analyses what we have done throughout the day, with a few outtakes on the way.
We will mix days of filming with a documented studio so the viewer gets the best of both worlds of serious and fun(Which will help share the experience of the project to the viewer).
We are going to get a presenter for the interview scenes.

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

Ideas :
 This question requires detailed analysis of your finished work.
š -Which videos/films etc influenced your work? – on set analysis, take photos of shots and place name next to different still images of our influence video.

Did you challenge conventions at all? Yes thoughtbeats narratives etc.
š How conventional was your video? Very we set out what we did and tried to mix ours with the conventions of  a music video.
š Could consider Vernallis and Goodwin
Yes highly  we considered the 4 concepts of Vernallis  and thoughtbeats and narrative with Goodwin.
š 

do a link click towards question 2:
š Question two : How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

ideas :
Consider the brand identity of your products. Indie-pop,
Sound waves for the band WAVE
š Deconstruct your ancillary texts and discuss how you used conventions.
š Discuss how your ancillary texts reflect the themes/narrative of your video.     
š Link to institution


Coming up : preview of question 3:


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

ideas : Get 3 people to watch the video/film them watch it and get their reaction.
cut to a scene where the 3 of the group are in the studio talking about the research analysis and how it made it work and cut to a scene of me editing the mistakes.

After the break: Create an advertisement of our video/album



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

Ideas: Final cut (brief tutorial) on how I’ve edited. The use of PhotoShop, the Camera footage and putting it all together.

Tweak Week


Tweek Week

Once we had finished our music video we noticed a few shots that needed improving and decided to manage these again when tweak week come along. The main parts of our music video we have decided to change is the scene of walking in the house / walking back out, this NEEDS to be changed as it is obvious to the eye that the doors have changed and so we need to make sure they are the same when entering and exiting the house. We have also decided to re-adjust some of the camera shots because during our time off we managed to come up with new ideas of what could be included in some shots that could boost our marks.
After looking through our feedback from the class we came across a variety of strengths and achievements within our feedback such as our music video relating well to the genre and good thought beats, the good use of continuous colours, same font throughout and the pulse of energy relating to the song in our digipak, and promoting the star image well, matching the theme of the digipak along with having essential criteria for our advert. On one of the feedback sheets one group had marked us as a high level 3 out of 4 which we were really pleased with and are hoping that tweak week will help us raise that to a level 4.
The feedback we received also had comments of areas of improvement which have been filled in. To ensure we meet the needs of all audiences we have decided to take into consideration their opinions on what we can improve and include that during this week.
We noticed that other groups had put comments about our lip-sync, this is one of the most noticeable signs in any music video, so to make sure we can put it across that it looks like we actually are singing we are going to re-record lip sync scenes and try to adjust them in Final Cut to go with the singing in our chosen song.
They have also made comments on our digipak noting that the colours are really dull which doesnt reflect well on our music genre. To resolve this we are going to come up with a new look for our advert and digipak so they relate with each other and use a wider variety of bright colours.
There were also comments about the text on the advert not being clear enough, mainly where we have advertised the release date. To resolve this we are going to use a more simple text and make it a few font sizes larger to help it become more noticeable

Recce Shots



Window Shot


Bathroom Scene


Shopping Centre Scene

Girls House Scene
                                                    

Photobooth Collage Shots 


Amusements Scene


Firework Display

Filming Dairy


24th October 2012

Today we filmed the girls scenes at her house. Throughout the filming we had no problems or concerns and collected plenty of footage which we can choose from when editing our piece together.

29th October 2012
Today we returned to my sisters house to film as there were some scenes that, when looking back at our footage, could be improved and included other shots. Due to us forgetting the tripod we had to make sure the person recording and handling the camera had a steady hand or placed it on a steady surface to prevent the footage being jerky and unprofessional


2nd November 2012

Today we filmed the scene for the first chorus of which the girl was focussed on. We took a variety of shots and decided to use a camera to take snapshots of me and my friend who were taking part in the video to look like we had been in a photo booth. I thought this would be a good idea to use in our video as we could make a collage out of them and use other editing techniques to preview a quick slideshow of the images.


3rd November 2012

Today we filmed the final bits of footage that needed to be recorded outside. This included the boys verses and chorus and the grand finale of the firework show. Due to not having a tripod it was hard for us to keep a steady hand on some shots, however we manage to use furniture such as tables to keep the camera steady. The hardest part of the day was filing the firework scene as the event was only on for one night so we only had one chance on getting the filming right. We got some decent shots where the rides were due to the bright lights in the background which added a good effect to our footage. The firework display took the most time, effort and and skill as we couldn't record the fireworks after the display so we only had one chance on getting it right. Luckily we got some good shots of the display which we can include.


5th November 2012

Today we were supposed to go to the other firework show according to our calendar, however due to not being able to get transport there and back and some of the cast not being able to make it due to more important plans that had to be made, we didnt get the opportunity to, however during the week back we are planning on going back to Seaton to record more scenes in the arcades to add more to our clips for us to chose from.


11th December 2012

Today we travelled to the town centre to finish the filming for our music video. However we were told that we couldn't film within the shopping centre premises and so had to change our ideas slightly and film outside. Luckilly the data we gathered managed to turn out successful and would be relavent to include in our music video.

12th December 2012

Today we had to film parts of the first verse again. The recording was successful however when it came to putting the data onto the computer we couldn't find it anywhere and so due to this we had to arrange to re-film those sequences at a later date before Monday. It has been decided that we will film the scenes again at the weekend.

15th December 2012

Today we finished off the final filming that we failed to find on Wednesday. We managed to gather enough footage to include in our music video and made sure we had considered everything we wanted to include in our music video to make sure we hadn't left anything out as this was our last chance to film. Luckilly the re-filming only took just over an hour which meant Jonny could check through the footage and get started to include them in the music video as soon as possible.

Evaluation Script



Evaluation Questions Script.

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

Jonny: When we were deciding what type of music video we wanted to produce we were determined to use a wide range of camera shots and editing skills which would have to be done through Final Cut.

Ellie: We looked through a variety of music videos from different genres such as We are never ever getting back together by Taylor Swift. From her music video we found we could take emotion from it with how she finds breaking up pretty sarcastic and add it to ours by exaggerating our opinion of having a ‘’Good Time’’
Jonny: we also looked at Lights by Ellie Goulding as Ellie thought it would be a good idea to include flashing lights on our faces at some point. However sadly we never managed to include this because we couldn’t find the correct equipment that we could use apart from a torch but this didn’t really have a decent effect with the footage so instead we decided to come up with something different which was recording lights in the arcades which worked well as they went with the beat!
Ellie: our third inspirational video was Down with the trumpets by Rizzle Kicks. This video has camera shots which really inspired us to try to include in ours as they are different to what you would find in other typical music videos. There was a change of shots as the singers acted like they were falling but as they hit the ground it changed to them in a different setting. We tried to use a shot like this in our video and we had Jonny getting out of bed and walking out his room using a hand held approach with the camera which helped to show we could use a range of camera skills rather than just recording everything from it being stood on the tripod.

*recordings of filming and having a narrator*

say some stuff here depending on what clips we decide to use…



Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
(possibly record outselves watching our music video and giving our opinion on what we thought we done well and some weak points)
* record the three students watching the music video in the recording studio hopefully – try get get a good close up of their facial expressions and body language eg if they’re actually paying attention or slouching back on the chair. Try not to make it too obvious youre recording them. *

* interview them each one at a time asking questions such as what they liked about our music video and what they think could’ve been better. Ask them as a group to discuss their opinions with each other (possibly hand them some sort of questionnaire to fill in) *
post the video on facebook , wait for about 24 hours to get enough feedback and printscreen all the comments (do something with the printscreen, not sure what yet) *
·      have images or record Jonny looking back at the feedback and editing the sections people thought could be improved and have him briefly describe what he is doing*
·      * record and get imaged of me and gareth editing the digipak and advert to fulfill what the feedback wanted.*
·      * re-record the new music video being shown to the same students and go through the same process of recording their facial expressions and body language, along with asking the same questions and interviewing them alone and as a group.*
·      *post the improved video on facebook again and wait 24 hours like before to gather enough feedback and printscreen all the comments (then do something with the printscreen) *
·      (possibly record us watching our final improvements and talking about what we thought about the feedback in the atrium)


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

(images and recordings of us using the camera, tripod and phone camera. Recordings and photos of Jonny using Final Cut, Ellie using Photoshop and Blogger and Gareth using Photoshop)

Tuesday, 29 January 2013

Draft Photoshop

Draft CD 
This was going to be the CD cover art originally, but after some discussion with my group i changed to the Final version.

Draft Advert
This was going to be the advert originally, but after a discussion with my group i added a picture of the two artists.

This was the advert after the added artists which was ater changed again because of the colour issue.

Draft Back Cover
This was going to be the back cover, although this is not finished and the creation of this version was stopped part ways through to work on the current version.


Monday, 28 January 2013

Rough Cut 4




Evaluation of the Rough Cut 4.

Positives 

Eventually the Final Cut is completed. The positives of the video is that all the clips are in place and the there is no Black flashes left in the video.
The Effects in the video give the video a cutting edge and a 'Swagger' about it because it helps fade in/out each clips and help it become continuous and fluent throughout and the fast clips can keep the viewer intrigued.
Our video was difficult due to the thought beats being different in each chorus and the verus's . I slowed the music background down to see how I can get the clips to the beat and to see what was the difference between each beat on the track. I realised even if a beat was a mili second out it was noticed in each clip.
Hopefully the beats are correct because a little difference can make a big impact on the video.


Negatives

The couple of negatives are noticeable in the video.
1.The quick change shot leading to the final night scene needs re-doing because it is choppy and you can tell the difference of scenery.
2.Also at the start it is a bit chop/change so hopefully it can be smoothed out shortly. Its easily changed i just need to slow the clip down and create a smooth touch for to be more satisfying to watch.

Conclusion 

Overall i am happy with the progress made in the video.
The montage type video helps get across to the viewer to have a 'Good Time' doing whatever.
We have played around with stereotypes of male and females in the narrative of our music video. This is because we have shown a girl enjoying shopping etc while a boy enjoys cars and game consoles.
I still need to make the negatives into positives to make the video better even though this is a final cut i am going to 'tweek' the video to make it better. To do this i am going to slow the music down and count the thought beats and make the start of our music video fluent and aesthetically pleasing to watch.
Also re-film of the quick change is needed.

Rough Cut 3

Thursday, 17 January 2013

Written Evaluation


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

 As a group, we picked to use the song “Good Time” by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepson. The song is a mix between Owl City’s Electronic and Carly’s Pop music genres to make synthpop.

In the video, we followed Andrew Goodwin’s theory. We included thought beats in the video to make it more exciting and to keep to the pace of the song. We used the star image of both artists whom can be seen singing both of their parts and acting in the video.
Throughout the music video we’ve tried to link the scenes into what is being sung, the main narrative of the song is in the name as well; they are doing what allows them to have a good time and are singing about it.
The Original “Good Time” Official music video shows both Carly and Owl getting prepared for the outdoor party then traveling to the great outdoors to have a good time. throughout the song both of the artists are separate doing their own preparation for the night, and only in the later parts of the song are they finally performing together, we tried to re-create this in our music video. 

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our brand identity is made up of the mix between the genres of Carly Rae and Owl City.
We've taken the Pop from Carly and the Electronic from Owl City which owes it's partnership to the synth pop genre; from these genres we created our brand identity.
The the Advert and digipak uses the same colour scheme throughout, this is to help people to indicate the relationship between the advert and digipak.
The typical pop conventions would include bright colours and more repetitive colours or images associated with one of the songs or the name of the album in the case of the digipak or tour.
With the bright and repetitive colours from the pop genre, i also included the more electronic styles with the techniques that included these colours. It is often that the typical pop conventions includes the bright and repetitive colours but so does electronic; the main difference between them is the style/techniques which are used to create the final product i believe.

The narrative of the song "Good Time"is about two people getting ready to have just that, a good time. throughout the original song the first part of it is compromised of the two performing artists preparing themselves and gathering friends then making their way to the meeting place for them to have their party. With our cover of the song we tried to mimic the same process that the original goes through, however in our version in the stead of the wild party in the woods we have the firework display and the arcades. In the advert and digipak the digital art used is an attempt to mimic the bright lights of fireworks but some other images stray form this, such as the tri-pane images witch i am the most proud of.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

During the planning stages for the Digipak and advert, I wanted to keep it within the genres of Pop and Electronic in keepings with the two main artists.
After seeing the planning of the music video; seeing that we were going to go with night time and fireworks for the great finale at the end of the song i decided that i should base the digipak around this.

During the planning thought process I was going to try and create a very typical colour scheme for the work, picking blue to represent Owl city and pink to represent Carly Rae. I needed to plan to create the digital art for six panes and with the colour scheme already chosen, I then started to use photoshop tutorials to find new techniques that I could later implement into the creation of the digital art. During the tutorial that was to create a fire orb I gave me the idea of creating a Katharine wheel firework and placing it on the back of the Digipack where the song listing and copyright information would be. I would of created it so it was quite big, and then place it on the back where you could only see one quater of the image witch would be placed in the top right; I also intended on having sparks flying off to the edges of the back cover.
This however proved to be initially difficult to merge blue and pink into the Catharine wheel and also to create the sparks, and at this time I had not decided on the constant background colour being black.

After looking at many other Digipaks from pop artists I thought to myself that these look too easy to make, the majority of the albums had a picture and slapped a layer on top of the picture to change it's colour. To me this was very boring way even though is was simple and sometimes effective which I admit can be the best solution or way to proceed.
Some Examples of the albums i was talking about.


These albums show the artist, with some colour layers slapped over the top on top of some air-brushed artists.

During the construction phase of the digipak and the advert, I had a set idea of what i wanted to create. I decided to go with a black background and use blue and pink for the colours, this was intended to represent the night time (black) and both Owl city and Carly (Jonny and Ellie, Blue & Pink).
In my work I focused more on an electronic styled digipak and advert, but in keeping with the genre I added pictures of the artists.
When I was creating the digipak the first image I created was the front cover, or what was supposed to be the front cover. In the final digipak this picture is still used, but instead it is used for an extra pane. The image is very simple and has the word "Good Time" centered on the pane and with photoshop I gave it a glow and made it look distinct and I believe it is eye catching. The reason it didn't become the front cover is because it didn't have a picture of the artists; unfortunately adding a picture to the picture didn't seem to fit and in my personal opinion made the image worse, which happens a lot when you add people to images I believe.

Later the second part of the Digipak i created was the disk, although originally the disk was going to look like this:
This was going to be the CD, but i felt that the text didn't fit and that the sound wave could be used to better effect it it was bigger. Although i liked this art for the CD, I changed it to better look like the Catharine wheel as i thought that would fit the CD better.
After i created the CD i went straight onto the creation of the spine, i did't really have an idea for any graphic art on the spine but i ended up simply putting two semi-circles witch differ in colour; the different colours are still consistant with all of the colours used.

The next part of the digipak i worked on was the back cover, originally the back cover was going to have a Catharine wheel in the top right corner, then the idea moved onto a firework. But after some time experimenting with ways to create fireworks and from some feed back from my other group members we agreed that the firework just "didn't fit.
So then I ended up creating an symmetrical pond ripple which in my opinion worked really well and i was happy with the results. I did use the same wind technique that is used over and over again to make it; I also use the pond ripple technique again when creating the front cover.  

The next part of the digipak i created was the tri-pane, I was going to create a image for each one separately but then i had the idea of using the sound-wave on the tri-pane instead and knocking three birds with one stone in the process. During the creation of the sound-wave i tried to get the colour the same as that on the back cover, however for reasons i don't know the colour never seemed to get the exact same which really irritated me. But none the less i continued to make the tri-pane sound wave, after it was finished i was really happy with the result, and i believe that if viewed large enough it's good enough to be a desktop background!

Lastly i created the final front cover for the digipak, i used the same technique that i used of the back cover for the front, originally i was not going to include a picture of the artists on the front cover and was going to display the name of the album in their place. I did however include a picture of the artists onto the front cover; with my main goal for the front cover was to keep to the constant colour scheme (which unfortunately i couldn't get the colours to match) and to make it stand out i believe that i managed to achieve it.

I then went on to make the advert which was the last piece of digitalart that needed to be created.
While pondering what i could make for the advert, i finally landed on the original front cover; although the technique i used on the original "Good Time" front cover is also used on the CD itself i felt that this technique could be used again and that on a larger canvas, it would look considerably better than the limited space it was already in.
I started out with the same black canvas, i then used the same technique from the CD and extra cover to draw the lines. I spaced the line groups out; from the placement of the groups, i started with one group being low, then the next being high then the last being lower. The reason for this was to imitant the pitch of the song, it starts off calm then it kicks off and although it does not maintain the high pitch it levels at a higher pitch than when it started.

After the initial feedback for the digipak and advert, one of the main issues to arise was focused on the wrong order of the digipak. Compared to other digipak's the template that i had was in a different order from everyone else's. After a little editing i re-ordered the digipak so that the tri-pane included the back of the CD instead of the extra pane.
I also tried to edit the advert to make the pink lines brighter but 

In conclusion, i enjoyed the creative side of the project; creating the Digipak was interesting but at certain times i wish i had some more inspiration and for photoshop to stop changing the colours when the properties are the same.

Printed DigiPak

Front

 Back

Open-Two Pane

Open-Three Pane

DigiPak Flattened