Evaluation Questions 4

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

Evaluation Question 4 from Alex Newcombe on Vimeo.

Here is a photo of my group filming with the Sony handheld camera, also showing how we did the tracking shots in the music video.

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

This is the feedback my group were given by our class on our rough cut (see Rough Cut in the links). This feedback was crucial to making sure the video's narrative was understood by everyone and we could also gain some criticisms' to progress on the final cut. It turned out that this was the best ideo we could have asked for as we realised our Rough Cut was far too bleak and repetitive, and the narrative was not clear to understand at all.

So to make our video better, we added more shots of the narrative, took our the shots of the singer with a guitar (because they simply looked awful), and played about with panning and tracking shots. All of this made our final cut look ten times better than the rough cut (see Final Cut in the links).

Not only did we get feedback on our rough cut, but we also showed the final cut to some school friends so that we could gain their feedback too:

Untitled from Alex Newcombe on Vimeo.

Even though it is too late to make dramatic changes to our final cut, we learnt that, positively, our video was actually at a good standard for its genre and we had successfully created a video fitting with the style of music it was for.

On the negative side, it appears that the narrative was still not clear enough for some members of the audience as the idea of it confused some of them. Also, some of our camera shots were not at their best state. This is shown in the above video at around 1:54.

Overall however, my group are very pleased with the outcome of the final cut and its initial response from most people who have filmed it as the majority of them appeared to be positive.

Evaluation Question 2

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

Here is my group's first ancillary task, designing for a poster advertising a new album by a musician:

After researching acoustic artists' poster designs, we decided to stay with the classic method of keeping the design fairly simple, and having a dominating photograph of the artist.

In our poster, the photo of the artist makes it clear that one single person is being advertised. We added the name of him in the biggest font size out of any of the sizes on the photo and made it a brighter colour than the rest to emphasise his name and make it memorable for the viewer. As you can see, the name of the artist is in a very plain font and is extremely easy to read. The colours are dark and the picture is faded, suggesting that the music is perhaps on the sadder side of moods.

I believe that by using a simple layout and design, my group has achieved the uniform style of an acoustic artist.

In a similar way, my group stuck with the uniform-style of acoustic artists on the second ancillary task; to design a CD album cover:

The album cover gives off a great idea of what the songs featured on the CD would sound like, just by acknowledging the pictures.

The top half of the finished album cover features one single male smoking a cigarette by a pond. The picture itself is not very uplifting and gives a sense of loneliness, but can also be seen as relaxing by the male smoking the cigarette. The colours are quite drained on the same half of the picture, though the brighter colours are still easy to see.

All of this gives off the sense that it is a solo album, written and sung by the artist on the front cover, and it has been linked with the first ancillary task, keeping a uniformed style to the artist 'Joshua Radin', so that his potential audience knows what music he does and what it is likely to sound like.

Group S.A.G FINAL CUT from Alex Newcombe on Vimeo.

The ancillary tasks almost give a still-frame preview of what the final cut has in store for the consumer. The poster created for one of the ancillary tasks actually contains a photo from a shot that used to be in the music video. Even though it is not now, the dress sense is the same and the overall mood of the shot is kept in both forms of media.

The creation of the 2 ancillary and the final tasks made our whole idea in to a Multi-platform Brand. This initially means one idea split in to separate selling points. In my groups case, this is the poster, the CD digi-pak, and finally the music video. The objective of this in a real selling scenario is to entice the targeted audience with all of this digital media so that they will pay for the end product such as the artists album, for example.

Evaluation Question 1

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

My group's choice of song for the music video held the musical genre of acoustic, meaning acoustic instruments were the only thing recorded in the song. In our case Joshua Radin's 'Winter' involves only acoustic guitars and vocals.

The acoustic genre usually has slow paced music videos if it compliments the tempo of the song. Examples of this include: Joseph Arthur - In The Sun
(Click HERE to see the video)

The lyrics to the song were fairly simple to interpret, so instead of contradicting the lyrics with the video narrative, or simple just having a performance of the song; we decided to stick to the meaning of the lyrics and create our own story behind it.

The lyrics are as followed:

"I should know
Who I am by now
I walk
The record standssomehow

Thinking of winter
Your name is the splinter inside me
While I wait
And I remember the sound
Of your November downtown
And I remember the truth

A warm December with you
But I don't haveto make this mistake

And I don't have to stay this way
If only I wouldwake

The walk has all been cleared by now
Your voice is all I hear somehow
Calling outWinter

Your voice is the splinter inside me
While I wait
I remember the sound
Of your November downtown
And I remember the truth
A warm December with you
But I don't have to make this mistake
And I don't have tostaythis way

If only I would wake
I could have lost myself
In rough blue waters in your eyes
And I miss you still
I remember the sound
Of your November downtown

And I remember the truth
A warm December with you
But I don't have to make this mistake

And I don't have to stay this way
If only I wouldwake,"

With lines such as "Your name is the splinter inside me," and "I remember the sound of your november downtown," it is clearly about the singer losing someone and is lost in himself. Whether or not the singer wrote the lyrics about someone dying or losing a child (for example), we decided to interpret it as the singer losing his lover.

The story line goes as followed:

- Man and woman (the only two inthe video who are the characters) appear to have a healthy relationship, taking photos with each other on their days out and enjoying each others company.

- There are short clips -mostly at the start of the video- of the woman in a white dress with ribbons on her wrist, holding a red rose, hinting depression and death. This suggests early on that maybe something becomes twisted later on in the narrative.

- Eventually, the couple start arguing and the watcher realises that maybe they're not as happy as the watcher thinks.

- Some of the final scenes have the man in a first-person camera shot taking one last chance at winning the girl back with roses, but she rejects him.

- Woman picks up a rose from the bunch, then fades in to the costume of the white dress and red ribbons. This ends on a cliff hanger, so the watcher can decide whether the girl commits suicide or just goes in to a depressive state.

Scenery

The scenery we chose in our music video fits in well with the song title mostly, So we filmed it in a woods in West Kingsdown, wrapping up the man in warm clothes and capturing shots of him singing with condensing air coming out of his mouth.

Not only was the weather fitting but the colours in the shots were drained-looking, and the clouds in the sky were thick and grey, so generally the scenery looked bleak and fitted really well with the mood of the song.

The scenery also became a kind of memorial for the couples times together, viewed when the man sticks up photos he takes in previous scenes on the tree.

Camera Shots and Angles

The camera shots for the performance side of the video had to focus on the singer as we did not include any other musicians. We wanted to portray the singer as being a solo artist, working independently on his music. We dressed the singer appropriately, styled his hair and made sure he lip synched without concentrating too much and not being able to perform.

We made the singer of the video the main viewing point in his scenes by centralising him and using different kinds of close-up shots whilst performing.

The narrative included a wider range of camera shots and angles, including:

- Full body shots of the couple

- Extreme close up shots

- Every distance shot available at the start of the video

- Medium close up shot of the mans leg

Lighting

As stated above, the lighting was mostly natural and we didn't edit any of the shots filmed outside. The natural greys of the sky emphasised the dull mood of the song.

The shots inside of the house (in the narrative) sometimes had the lighting changed to fit the scene. This is shown in the clip of the couple on the sofa as we tried to portray them watching television.

Editing

The video was not heavily edited, but when it was edited in the right places, it complimented the genre brilliantly.

The 'Cross-Fade' transition was used in nearly every single clip switch in the video. This emphasised the slow pace of the video which went really well with the tempo of the song.

The 'Fade to Colour' transition was used to emphasise the camera flash on the clips of the couple together in the narrative. I edited the transition so that the flash was quick.

In the shots of the memories, the clips were edited a good amount. The memory clips included the following effects:

- 'Edge Blur'

- 'Motion Blur'

(and in some clips) - Slow motion. Speed of the video reduced by 50%.

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Final Cut

Group S.A.G FINAL CUT from Alex Newcombe on Vimeo.

This is our finalised video! Enjoy.

Animatic

This is the animatic for my group's video:

Animatic from Alex Newcombe on Vimeo.

This anamatic is of the old rough cut, giving us an idea of what we needed to achieve in our video.

Editing Techniques -Soft Edges

'Soft Edges' is a Video Filter used in Final Cut. It is essentially a border of a black blur (see pictures below).

We used this filter to represent a hazy remembrance of the main character with his lover. It came out like this:

Just for a good effect on the video, following this clip we used a clip of the main character singing by a tree but momentarily with the black border around the screen, as if he was still lost in his thoughts:

Then he returned to singing: