EVALUATION 4 - How Effective Is The Combination Of The Main Product And Your Ancillary Tasks?

We wanted to balance the costume seen in the original video for 'The Ballad Of Mona Lisa' with the costume worn on the front cover of the album 'Vices and Virtues'. In the video the costume worn is outlandish and interesting. This is in great contrast to the simple more civilised costume worn on the front cover of the album and it is something we wanted to try for ourselves.

Here the contrast between the two is clear as both album covers are defined smart clothing whereas in the music video the costume is outside of the box and unusual. As you can see we have followed the themes of interesting costume in the video and having simpler more styled outfits on the album cover.

We wanted to keep the themes similar in the music video to the ancillary task and felt it was essential to maintain the stylistic feel of the band throughout both pieces of work. We did this is in a variety of ways, because the majority of the video was filmed in and around the Cabot eye which gave it a specific look we felt it necessary to take our photos in the same environment but with a twist. So we shot the pictures outside of the eye and the album covers pictures backdrop is the outside of the building. We felt like keeping the same location would provide a professional look to our ancillary.

We wanted the music video to reflect our ancillary and we achieved this through the use of costume, it was really important the costume in the video altered from the ancillary but what was really key was maintaining the look and showing similarities whilst also establishing the difference. Here we have a picture of the performer in the music video alongside a picture from the digipak where the costume is similar in style to emphasise they were both used for the same band. As you can see in the performance shot i am wearing a bow tie, braces and sunglasses - we kept the similar theme in the digipak photo where i am wearing the same bow tie and shirt but without the braces and sunglasses which scales down the unusualness of the performers clothing but keeping the same feel of the band that we wanted to keep. 

We tried to keep the energetic feel of the song with our editing where we used quick cuts during the chorus that heightened the sense of urgency and excitement in the catchy lyrics that feature in the song. But we also wanted to make sure that when the song slowed down during the bridge and the slow performance of 'Mona Lisa wear me out' features that the editing would reflect that with its focus on the performer and the cuts becoming less regular and quick symbolising the thought provoking feel of the song - this is style we wanted to replicate in our digipak. We wanted it to be reflective of the song in the way the pictures were took, for example the picture above where we are gazing into the distance appearing thoughtful. 

We made a strong attempt to tie our ancillary and our main task together as one coherent piece and we feel like it has really worked and looks great together. However there are things we would of liked to have done that we simply didn't have the time to do. We wanted to take some shots in the music studio where it would appear we were recording 'our' songs and make it look as if we were in the process of recording our album. Another thing i would of liked to have done is include the puppet character from the music video as part of the digipak which would connect the video to the ancillary completely and really solidify the two together. 

The rock genre focuses greatly on hidden deeper, darker meanings to their videos and this is something we really wanted to bring across with our narrative - we felt we had achieved this with our story reflecting a man trying to escape the mundane life he had been accustomed too. Through our research we discovered that many music video narratives focused on people who were looking for acceptance and failed to find it in their society and needed a release from somewhere. We feel our music video reflects these themes hugely. To show that the performer was following the main protagonist we used quick shots where the performer would appear looking menacing but enticing leading the character into his eventual consumption by the performer. 

EVALUATION 3 - How Did You Use New Media Technologies In The Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

The use of new technology is a vital factor in every stage of our project.

Possibly the most important aspect of the new media that has been vital to us is the internet. The internet was a huge part of our ability to research and gain understanding in the early stages of the process with it's infinite capacity of knowledge available to us through sites like Wikipedia where we would search rock music artists and learn every detail needed in an instant. We were also available to search real media products like music videos on YouTube and then analyse and evaluate these videos for our own personal understanding - having access to such a number of videos

in an instant gave us quick and easy knowledge to build on and start our process

of film making. 

Through the internet and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter we were able to gain a direct audience response immediately by setting up pages where we would regularly post to seek feedback and opinions from our target audience. This was hugely beneficial as it made sure we got our response quickly and could alter and improve our ideas to create a video that would appeal to our target audience in the correct way.

As well as all of this the most important sire the internet provided us was of course Blogger. it provided us with the perfect platform to display our progress and our final pieces of work. It was a perfect way of keeping our project on track and making sure we had a clear coherent plan. For our blog it was vital we kept things neat and well balanced - we had to make sure it didn't become over reliant on long paragraphs so the use of the software 'Microsoft Power Point' to generate aesthetic engaging documents that would be then uploaded through the 'Scribd' - a programme that allows such documents to be posted online.

The key media technology we had to use of course was the filming equipment and editing software. For our project we had to use handheld videotape cameras. We used these as they were small light and easy to upload footage onto a PC from, having used these in our AS project it we were able to use these cameras correctly with ease. However the editing process proved hugely difficult for us as both Sam and I were using Adobe Premiere Pro - a software that was completely new to us both as we had used the basic Macintosh programme 'Imovie' in our AS project. It took us a long while to really grasp the software as it was so complex and hugely professional but once we started to understand it we found that it was a huge advantage in the production of music videos. With its non linear editing we were able to overlap the performance shots with the narrative. We were also able to place the music in order to sync it correctly throughout the whole video very simply. One thing that was vital to us was the ability to crop the shots, this was needed when we discovered that something we didn't want to be seen became visible in one of the scenes - we were able to crop it out which meant we did not have to re film anything. The most important tool however was the use of black and white, something that was vital to us for our final piece.

For our ancillary tasks we had to use Digital SLR Cameras. This was new to Sam and I as neither of us had used them for reasons other than taking simple photos with friends. Thankfully because we knew someone who has one we understood the basics of using a SLR and our media studies background helped us use the correct lighting. For the photo editing process we used the software Adobe Photoshop, which was completely new to us and we found to be hugely challenging throughout the process. We worked with our teachers and fellow classmates that had previous experience with the software to gain the basic knowledge needed. Thankfully for us we didn't plan to over edit our photos simply reverting the colours to black and white and altering the contrast to erase the shadow that was originally in the picture. We then simply added text to the photos to finish our digipak.

The ability to use all these software's, programmes and social networking sites with such pace and being able to receive feedback from our progress as well as reviewing our own progress on things like Photoshop is a huge advantage of new media technology and the current phase of Web 2.0.

 

EVALUATION 2 What Have You Learnt From Audience Feedback?

Once our music video and our ancillary tasks had been completed we started to focus on gaining some feedback and responses from our target audience.
This was in order to discover if our music video had been successful in its aims to entertain and also if there were any negatives or things we could build on and improve if we were to do the project again. We used social networking sites like Facebook as well as feedback from our video post on YouTube to achieve an immediate response from our audience.



Here we have feedback on our music video that we posted on YouTube, the response we got was hugely positive from all concerned and it was great to hear such praise from our audience. However the audience doesn't have a strong media knowledge, so I asked my drama teacher who works at a film company part time what he thought of our video. He was full of praise and loved our concept but was also helpful in pointing out things we could alter such as the editing of certain shots and just the timings between scenes could be improved. This is something that was discussed to us by our media teacher also so although this version was posted on YouTube we did go back and review the video and re edit some sequences, perfecting and polishing our
previous failings.

Here is our Facebook page we created for our label Pilgrim records where we updated our progress and posted videos in order to generate an audience response

This is an example of some feedback we got from a YouTube viewer, interestingly they pointed out what they would of liked to have seen in the narrative and what they felt could of been improved on if we were to do it again. It's an interesting contrast to the previous feedback about the editing.

During the early stages of the process we had actually used a focus group to generate some ideas as to what sort of narratives were often associated with the rock genre so even after our research we discovered the audience opinion of a narrative is very personal and specific. After seeing this it has made me think that if we were to do this project again perhaps next time I would have questionnaires and focus groups throughout the process, having our target audience guide us whilst we discussed our progress and ideas would be the perfect way of taking the audiences feedback and putting it into immediate practice.

  

EVALUATION 1 - In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms of Conventions of Real Media Products?

For A2 media studies, we were asked to create varied media products, such as a music video, album digipak and advertisement. We had to create a band for ourselves in which the music video and digipak would be made for - our blog would essentially become a progress tracker with updates focusing on the 'band'. Our band reflected our chosen music style of Pop Rock and this was mostly due to the initial research into the codes and conventions of our chosen genre. My partner Sam and I carried out extensive research into the genre and our previous knowledge and understanding of rock music benefited us greatly. This gave us the impetus to generate our own ideas as well as sticking to the typical genre formulas that were there for us to play around with. After much deliberation and a song change midway through the process, we eventually the chose the Pop Rock song 'The Ballad Of Mona Lisa' by 'Panic! At The Disco!'.

Pop Rock Album Research Moodboard.

In the Official video for the song 'The Ballad Of Mona Lisa' the narrative appears complex but it actually quite simple but strange and unusual. It does not follow Andrew Goodwin's theory that music videos are simply an extension of the lyrics as the song has not real focused meaning and is quite broad in interpretation, however the music video is focused and is actually about a murder and takes place at the wake of the deceased. the video is essentially about discovering the deceased was killed and who killed him. This is shown through shots of the performer singing with the band and then different shots of him singing as the dead soul of the deceased character, he is shown reaching out to people and eventually finds someone and shows them he was killed. The narrative in the video is very clever and the two versions of the same character idea along with the final reveal to the videos meaning at the climax was something Sam and I really appreciated and found engaging. We knew from the start we were going to include something similar in style in our video. Of course we never wanted to simply steal the same idea as we wanted our video to be personal to us and a product of our creation and invention. We then looked into some music videos that featured similar ideas and themes such as '30 seconds to Mars' - 'The Kill' where two opposing sides of the same characters personality fight against each other until one is consumed. We felt that mixing these conventions of the ideas we wanted to use was the best possible way to balance our own ideas whilst still incorporating typical genre forms. As a result of this our narrative became the story of a normal everyday man being followed by visions of an alternative version of himself, who would be the performer of the song. As the song progresses the visions become increasingly more regular and longer until the two characters become one at the end of the video. We felt that the final reveal used in 'The Ballad of Mona Lisa' and the battle between two versions of the same character from 'The Kill' were perfect conventions to follow and use as a basis for our original narrative creation. 

Our music video balanced performance shots with narrative shots as well as having both connect with each other toward the end of the video. We studied Rock Pop narrative styles at length during our research progress and found that most of the shots were basic regular style shots seen in most projects, however some shots were more elaborate such as shots taken from above to establish the setting, and shots of parties that involved crowds of people and a huge amount of props. We have developed greatly from our AS project but the shot types we used were quite similar due to restrictions of the filming equipment we had available to us. However our execution of the filming of the shots has vastly improved over the year and the filming of these shots have become much easier, almost second nature. I Would, if I had had more time and less pressure to reach a deadline, liked to of used more advanced shot types but I feel we have achieved a final piece that although small on scale looks big in ideas and execution. 

Album Advertisement

Completed Digipak!

Using Photoshop

For our ancillary task we are using the software Adobe Photoshop to create our digipak, here is a screen shot of the process of using the software. i have found Photoshop challenging as a software as it is something i had never previously used and it was completely new to Sam and I. Thankfully for us the editing we wanted to do on our original pictures was simple, changing the colour to black and white and adding text was as advanced as we needed for our project.