Final Poster

Final CD album

Here is the inside cover of the CD album:








Here is the front and back covers:

Evaluation

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

I believe that our media product uses many of the forms and conventions that you will see in a music video, firstly the variety of camera angles and shots that we used were essential. Like most music videos we had to show that we understood the 180 degree rule, once that was done it was important that we used a variety of different camera shots so that the audience would not get bored whilst watching the video. This arguably challenged the regular codes and conventions of a music video, this is because most videos do not have such a number of different camera shots in such a short space of time. But as explained earlier, the reason for doing this is to keep the audience fully focused on the music video and keep a sense of variety to our music video.

Our music video uses the codes and conventions of a music video in terms of how it is edited, like all music videos ours is mostly all continuity editing so what the video runs almost seamlessly throughout. We used a realistic mise en scene image, the main character was a typical over confident individual who are frequently shown and highlighted on shows like 'X factor' and 'Britain's got talent' the out fit he is wearing was chosen as we believed as the main character thought we had 'talent' he would dress similarly to one of the most iconic individuals of the music industry in Michael Jackson (hence the name Michael Jameson). It could be argued that our music video challenges the normal codes and conventions as well as the majority of the video is completely random (most of the town sections) their is no particular journey that the character is on, there are even times when there are just animals dancing. However, all of the clips relate back to the video in some way shape or form.

The CD album follows the codes and conventions of most CD albums, om the front cover we have one main shot, which is the penguin posing with professional dancers, doing a famous Michael Jackson pose. Like most CD album covers this cover had a main focus (the penguin) whilst also offering offer aspects. The two inside sections of the CD cover again both follow the codes and conventions of a regular inside section of a CD cover, the two famous dancing posers do however arguably challenge the regular codes and conventions as not many albums have images on the inside (normally just text) But we do include text about the Artist and a sing-a-long page which allows the listening to sing along with the song. The backing of the CD album again follows the regular codes and conventions, we have the track listings for the audience to read and look up and we have a bar code, website and picture.

The music poster does follow the codes and conventions of similar texts, we have chosen the famous 'Saturday Night Fever' pose (which is also present in the album, allows the audience to associate with the Artist) as the main image, as most music posters have one particular key image which attracts the users attention. We have also continued to use the same text on both the album and the poster to again help the audience associate the text and images to the music video and most importantly the artist.

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

I believe that our combination of our main product and ancillary texts clearly mix and compliment each other extremely well. Our music video is all about 'dancing like an animal' in other words dancing however you deem suits yourself and your style, so for our main poster we decided to use one of the most iconic dancing posers in history. The John Travolta 'Saturday Night Fever' pose re produced in an animal costume has a clear humorous factor whilst also clearly showing and highlighting that our music album and video are all about dancing and feeling good about yourself regardless of what others believe.



I also think that the CD album compliments our music video, all of the pictures have people in dancing posers (including Michael Jackson and John Travolta) so the audience will instantly realize that the album is all about dance music, we have also a dance floor as the main background on all four sections of the album, hopefully this will allow the audience to establish that our music video is all about dancing. This clearly relates to the music poster as well as both the poster and album continue the famous dancing posers theme, highlighting continuity. Overall I feel that all three products compliment each other as they are clearly relate which was the clear goal throughout the entire project, as we decided early on to use to the same animal costumes from the actual music video and implement them onto the CD album and then on to the poster would show a clear understanding of continuity and inter-textual knowledge. The idea of putting the animals in a number of different famous dancing poses we thought would work extremely well as the music video itself was designed to highlight get children it express themselves whilst dancing, we felt that the posters whilst offering the children humor (animals to strange dancing posers) the famous dancing poses would also attract a completely different generation.

• What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We have learned that the majority of people who have watched the music video have found it extremely humorous, enjoyable and original. These are all extremely valid points, our main goal when we set out to create a music video (with the song 'dance like an animal' in mind) as to make it enjoyable to watch, and obviously original. Many individuals have pointed out that during our 'Britain's got talent' like section, we appear to have two different judges. Now obviously we understand that this is clearly un professional, but we were unable to attain the services of one of the actors so therefore had to change the actor. We did attempt to re film that section using a different camera, sadly the format was incorrect and for continuity reasons decided to keep the original footage as it was all the same dimensions as the rest of the footage. The following video shows the footage we did not use:







Apart from that all of the feedback was mostly positive, myself and Michael were credited by many of the public with the large variety of shots and angles that we used. Again this was largely satisfying as one of our main aims was to make sure our music video did not drag on and had plenty of variation in it. We were also credited by how for the large majority of the song the different shots of footage ebbed and flowed with the music video and was in sync for the large majority, again this was pleasing as editing all the different clips in order to sync with the music video was extremely taxing and frustrating due to the amount of cutting and editing that was to be done in order for all of the footage and song it merge together.

As explained earlier the major negative feedback we received was due to the change of personal for one of the judges, as well as that many people said that some of the shots did not really make too much sense. An example was when during the song it says 'do the crocodile' and we have a shot of a penguin walking down a foot path, we clearly indeed to make a late change to this to improve the music video. Some people thought that there would of been a few more angles used and shots used, we did use high, mid and low angle shots and also some close up shots for our video.

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

During the the research stage of our coursework we used the Windows computers available to search for similar media texts for the CD albums, CD magazine covers and for similar music videos. I used the website www.muzu.com which is a music video website, this was done to research different music videos which I believed related and had similar codes and conventions to the music video we intended to create.

For the planning section of the project we used the Flip video camera, this was done because we wanted to film and explain where and why we were going to film our project in these particular locations. As explained earlier in the blog Michael was in charge of location spotting, he thought it would be a good idea if I filmed in at the locations we intended to use and whilst doing that we would explain what exactly was going to take place at the particular location. I also used the MP3 audio voice recorder during the planning stage to inform the viewers what our particular idea for the music video is and how we intend to achieve our goals.

For the evaluation stages I have again used the voice recorder, this was done for an interview with myself and Michael. During the interview I explain what particular parts of the project I thought went to plan, which parts did not and how I thought it would be improved and what I had learned from this task. I again used the audio recorder and the video camera to create a directors cut of the music video, this involves dubbing over all of the sound during the music video and dub over it with the recording of my voice, i will be critical of the video and highlight the parts I enjoyed and would wanted to have improved.
When creating the music video I used iMovie HD on the Apple Macs, this program is highly complex but allowed us to upload the video footage and edit the footage, after that we had to export it into a web quicktime file so that it could all be posted up on the blog. Whilst creating both the CD album and poster I used the Photoshop software available on the Apple Macs, this program was massively useful as it has a wide array of texts and visual effects which helped create what I feel is a very good poster.

Overall I believe that we have used a large variety of different media technologies to create the project, I used the voice recorder, video camera, flip camera and I took plenty of screen shots from the Apple Mac computers to highlight the different stages of creating the music video and the posters.

Here is the audience feedback which he received from members of the public after watching our music video:




HERE IS WHERE WE INTEND TO ADD THE FEEDBACK FROM ERIC HERMAN, I HAVE SENT THE EMAIL INCLUDING OUR MUSIC VIDEO BUT ARE STILL AWAITING THE RESPONSE, WILL BE POSTED UP ASAP!

Here is a short audio interview with Elliot Hamlin (lead actor), he describes what he enjoyed about the project:




Here is my summary of what I believe where the key strengths and weaknesses of the project:




With reference to Rolands Barthe's theory of 'Death of the Author' this project has played with the idea that it is not important who ahs created text (in this case the music video) but it is far more important how the piece has been interpretated by the audience. This was exercised within the opening section of the music video when by pure accident the school janitor walked through the shot in the background which went unnoticed by myself until the editng process, however we decided to keep it in (very much like Tarintino did with the balloon going across the screen when he was shooting Resovoir Dogs) whilst learning about Roland Barthes so that was the main reasoning forkeeping him in, it also allows the audience the chance to wonder what he represents in our video.

Production of Main Task- Creation of CD album

In order to create the CD album we used the Photo shop software on the Apple Macs.

Firstly what we had to do was find out the correct size of a CD album, the dimensions were 12 cm by 12 cm. Once we had found this information I had to change the dimensions of the document by 12x12. The following picture highlights how we did this:
















Once that was done Michael went to take the photographs for the background of the album, this is the same background we have used on all four of the sides as you felt that the dance floor fitted the criteria for our particular CD album. Once that was done we uploaded the pictures from the still camera onto the apple Macs, the next stage included editing the pictures. This applied for every single photo that we took for the CD album.

• firstly we opened up the particular picture we wanted to use.
• secondly we used the magnetic lessee tool to cut the main picture out from the background.
• once that was done we had to copy and paste the picture onto the CD album and place it where it was positioned.
• the same process was taken for all photos.

The following pictures show graphically how this process was done:











After we had imported the pictures and edited them into the CD album we had to edit the text so the particular style that we felt best. The text we decided to use was 'Postmaster' this is the Saturday Night Fever text which we also used for the poster, I felt this felt really suited our CD album as it clearly relates to the Dancing images which are present on our album. We achieved this by using the blending options on the photo shop software, we used the stroke effect to give our text a radiant red outline which I believe helps emphasize the text so that the pictures do not over shadow the text. The following pictures shows this process:










The following is a short video highlighting how I edited the text of the CD album and imported the one of the pictures:

THIS WILL BE UPLOADED ON MONDAY, LEFT ON SCHOOL MAC!!!!

Production of Main Task- Making the Music Poster

I used the program Photoshop on the macs to create the music poster.

Firstly I had to create a new document, the following picture highlights how it was done:










I started off with creating the background to the poster, this was done using the gradient tool, we choose two colours (blue and purple) and moved the mouse across the page to create the background we desired. The picture below shows how this was achieved:












Once that was done I uploaded the main picture for the poster, this was done by up uploading the picture then using the magnetic lasse tool. This removed the background which was not required. The following picture highlights the process:














Once the picture was cut out we had to copy and paste it onto the background of the poster.


The next step was to add the text to the poster, I had to simply press the text button and start to write the correct information where we deemed it was best to place it, the next picture shows how we achieved this:


















After that was completed we began to add different effects to the text (please note that the text used was the exact text used for Saturday night fever, it corresponds with the picture in the poster) you used many different affects, including the stroke and outer layer. The next picture shows how it was done:




































Once all of the text was completed, all we had to do was save the project.

The following it a short video, highlighting how I edited the text and how I edited the main picture for our poster:

Production of Main Task- Editing the Music Video

Editing the music video was without doubt the most difficult process of creating the Music Video, I used the iMovie HD program which was available on the Macs.

The first process was to upload a new file for the music video, the picture below shows this very process:

Once that was complete I had to upload all of the footage from the camera, this was was done by connecting the camera to the Mac via a USB cable and then pressing the import button.

Once the footage was uploaded, the editing process began. We had taken a number of different shots, at different angles and areas, the following shot shows all of the different shots we had taken:

Once we had decided on the particular clips that we felt best suited out music video it was my job to edit the clips so that they were well synced with the song itself. This meant that a large proportion of the clips had to be cut down to short and sharp shots which would keep the viewers interested and entertained. The following picture below shows that process being done:

All of the above clips were cut up significantly, this complicated the process of making the video as many clips were no longer than four seconds long, meaning that much of the other clip was re used at different sections of the video, which does not mean that the video is boring and one dimensional.

Once all of the clips were edited together, Michael had the ever frustrating job of fitting every single shot so that it was synced with the music video, as our video changed shot extremely often it was important to make sure that all of the clips were in time with the song lyrics, if that was not the case we had to delete and edit every single clip until it slotted in with the music song as well as it was possible.

The following is a short video, highlighting how we edited the footage:

Production of Main Task- Filming Music Video and Location spotting

As I was working in a group with Michael Morris, we firstly outlined what we would do individually and collectively. When planning our task Michael was given the task of filming our small video section which highlighted how we came up with our ideas, the locations we had decided to film in and who will be casted for the music video. Once that had been decided you went on to filming our main project.

-As I mostly specialized in editing and Michael was extremely keen to film our project it was a rather straight forward decision to decide who was going to do what.

-On the first day of filming we were up at the great hall at our College, Elliot (main protagonist in the video) was filmed dancing on the stage in front of the three different judges. As we used Michael as one of the judges I was in charge of these shots, we thought that the shots and angles that we did use fitted the scene extremely well and did not break the ever frustrating 180 degree rule.

- Once we had finished filming in the great hall we filmed Elliot leaving the main entrance of the college, the idea behind this was as he walked 'into the light' (biblical reference) the character realized that it is not the end of the world and he can dance.

-On the second day of filming we shot Elliot leaving the college groups via the main gate, again we used many different angles, including a front and back angle shot and then we had a match on action shot of the animals leaving the grounds with Elliot. Michael filmed every single one of these shots, the key angle I believe was the front mid-shot as it shows all of the animals coming out from behind the gates to comfort and dance with Elliot.

-Later that day we went into the town centre, we both took terms filming different shots and angles of Elliot dancing individually and collectively with the different animals at different times. We thought it was highly necessary to film plenty of mid shots from different angles so that the audience with have a clear view of what they were doing.

-On the third and final day of filming Michael shot the high and low angle shots of the animals and of Elliot dancing, this was done mostly to add a variation of angles to add much needed variation to the filming. Again this was mostly filmed in town as it gave us easy access to people in the streets who were willing to dance randomly for our music video. We managed to persuade roughly three different individuals to dance, we wanted to get random people from the streets to dance in the music video to add a different dimension tour video, almost to encourage any to dance how they like and 'let themselves go' on the weekend.

Final Day of filming review: