Ancillary Tasks

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Digipack

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

Blogger

Throughout this development, research and planning and evaluation I have used Blogger to update and log changes.

This has involved:

> labelling posts according to each stage

> inserting images of storyboards, locations shots etc.

> uploading permission forms, screen captures, Digipack & Magazine drafts, final ancillary tasks and clips from my music video and YouTube

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

PhotoShop

To construct the ancillary tasks we used PhotoShop. It involved uploading the photos we had taken, in order to edit them.

To create the imagery that is used throughout our ancillary tasks, we used the 'cut-out' effect located on the PhotoShop software.

Here is an example of the 'cut-out' effect in action. It dulls the colours, but heightens the imagery as everything is less defined helping to create the bleak sense of isolation and abandonment we wanted to create.

We used the 'magnet tool' to extract the image seen here, as the original photo had a completely different background. I decided that in order to create the bleakness we wanted to imply in our title we needed a bleaker background, hence the background we completed the project with.

As we took the photo for our magazine advert on the green screen it was easier to replace the back ground. We still applied the same 'cut-out' effect to continue with our heightened imagery. We used the 'paint tool' to colour the instruments and chose the colours to match those used in the music video, as pointed out earlier.

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

Final Cut

To edit the footage in the construction stage we used the FinalCut programme. It was a more complex programme than iMovie, as it is more industry standard and had various applications that are not available on iMovie - like the 'Chroma Key' tool.

Other tools included: using theblade tool - to cut clips, using 'i' and 'o' keys to set in and out-points on clips - these identify the start and end of the section of footage you wish to use.

Another benefit of the FinalCut software was the multi video track. That meant we could sync footage on many levels and then cut footage up without moving it so the lip movement of our artists were maching the lyrics - an easy technique that ensure continuity.

We also added the 'Bad TV' effect, to highlight the 'fake' section of our video - as it gave the distorted effect, that we wanted to achieve.






We used a colour tint to create a black and white image, making the urban background look dull and mundane.





(Jing not working)








In order to remove the green screen background, we had to use the 'Chroma Key' tool. This involved removing the green outlines behind the artists and then creating a 'matte' or template background. Watch the video below to see how the 'urban sprawl' effect was created using 'Chroma Key' on FinalCut.





We used footage of local 'urban' looking areas filmed from the back of my car and from a bus window, as it fit our gritty-urban genre. We then used the chroma key to take out the green screen and put our artist over the footage. It would not have been possible to do this on iMovie, which is why FinalCut is a more superior product.

I also used this tool to create the multi-colour background effect shown in the chorus. In order to do this I had to make a 'matte' or a colour background to go behind the artist. Then remove the green background and insert the coloured 'matte'.

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

Green Screen

During the construction period we filmed on a green screen. This enabled us to remove the background behind our artists and replace it.

For the chorus we replaced the green with the colours featured in our magazine advert to show linkage between the products. We also replaced some of the green with some genre-specific 'urban sprawl', this enabled us to appeal to our target audience and stay true to the genre. Without the green screen we would not have been able to achieve this, because it would have been extremely difficult to remove other backgrounds entirely. The green screen is completely green, so it means users can remove it completely without much hinderance - with some exceptions, when there is a lot of shadow from the lighting. In an ideal world, we would have been able to flood the backdrop thus avoiding the problem of shadowing, but on the whole it was not a major problem for our group.

We filmed using SD cameras, lighting, tripods and a fig rig as shown in the images below.

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

I used YouTube to analyse videos in the Alternative Rock genre and to upload my final music video in order to gain feedback from peers.

We used iMovie in order to upload the footage from our SD camera to FinalCut, as it was not possible to upload directly to the FinalCut programme.

I used Jing to get screen captures of work in progress. I have demonstrated the use of Jing on my blog here.

Dafont is a website where one can download fonts that are not available as part of the standard font menu. Without this tool we would not have able to use the font we chose for the ancillary tasks - 'Edo SZ'

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

In order to remedy the inefficiences of 'peer evaluation' I decided to carry out some objective evaluation with some people not in my media class and some members of the target audience. Here are some responses: (to be carried out imminently)

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

At the start of this advanced portfolio I carried out some audience research, results here, to look at how consuption of music videos has changed. I found that most people still watched music videos, which was positive as it potentially means that the genre of music video will be around for many years to come. I also found that mediums like YouTube and digital television also increased consuption and curiosity about new music products. Obviously, music videos are a key promotional tool and it is clear from the research.

With respect to my genre of 'Alternative Rock' some more genre specific research would have been useful - for example asking audience samples: 'what do you expect from a music video in the Alternative Rock genre', 'how influenced are you by the genre, and the style of the videos in it?', 'do you buy digipacks - what do you expect from a digipack & magazine advertisement in the 21st century?' As this would have generated answers that would have directly influenced the look, style and theme of my project, as it give direct audience feedback and concerns about their favourite genre as they are the ones who know it best - rather than the initial research carried out.

However, from the research I found that the genre appeals mainly to male audiences, which we sort of already knew, but it made us focus more on a male audience than a female one - ie, the band isn't made up of stereotypical 'pretty boys', and the theme of the album is based exclusively on the music rather than looks or love etc. - factors which normally entice a female audience and switch off a male one.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

In the early construction stage, as a class we carried out some peer evaluation on our works. The feedback was generally positive, which is often the case with peer evaluation as nobody wants to be particulary objective or critical to their classmates. Here are some responses:

Music Video

Due to the peer evaluation being scheduled very early in the editing stage we had not done much work on our video. Most people suggested we needed to carry on with the lip-syncing and green screen work, which we already knew. Our peers praised the performance in our video and enjoyed the mise-en-scene and camera work.

As a result of the peer evaluation we carried on with our work, editing to the best of our ability.

Ancillary Tasks

Most people enjoyed the 'cut-out' effect that we used on our ancillary tasks, and how it created a link between the two ancillary tasks. The colour and imagery was also well recieved.

Not many people picked up on the theme of the tasks, and some stated that the font and clarity of the back cover of our digipack clearer.

As a result of the peer evaluation we decided to soften the 'cut-out' effect on the back cover of our digipack to make the tracklisting clearer. In order to create a more explicit theme link between the two tasks we resolved to take a new photo for the front cover, which made the final edit. It is more effective to because it clearly shows the idea of 'what happened to hardcore?' because our artist, the epitomy of 'hardcore' has been thrown in a skip and left abandoned by the 'fakers' and 'wannabes'.

How effective is the combination of the media products?

Representation, Audience and Genre:

Through audience research, it was clear that this genre appealed mainly to a young male audience - hence the prevelance of new, young, male artists in the genre.
In order to target this demographic, our band consists of three young males, and the theme focuses on 'music' rather looks and feeling, that would stereotypically femine audience.

To present our band, in the style of the alternative rock genre, the colour of their clothing is quite bland - the two instrumentalists wear black and grey and white, but the lead singer wears slightly extroverted colours (blue and light grey) to stand out.

Making the idea of 'music' stand out was important for me. We decided to colour the instruments brightly on our magazine advertisement and have the background bleak and dull (grey), to show that even though 'real' hardcore has been abandoned there is hope for it with our album and band.

We also portray the idea of 'fakers' in our video. The song 'Fake Tales of San Francisco' is about escaping from the poor, immitations and fakes to something better. The dress of the 'fakers' changed a lot - initially we wanted to have the fakers wearing cut out masks of people percieved as fake (Simon Cowell, Katie Price etc.) but we decided that this would be a bit to critical and harsh, and wouldn't happen in real, industry videos (& not something that would endear people to the cause, so to speak). Then we decided to use plain, white masks to show how boring and devoid of personality these fakers are. Finally we chose the concept of using clown masks, as they could connote fear to some people - as if the audience should be scared of these fakers, diluting the music industry - it also shows that they are a joke, and that other artists in this genre should be considered thusly, in comparison to our band.

Perhaps, a generalisation but there is an air of percieved intelligence & integrity (like Noel Gallagher etc.) in this genre, that looks down on other genre (like Pop music) and we attempted this through our ancillary tasks. The concept is quite subtle and clever, showing the isolation of the one true rocker - our artist, thrown amongst the rubbish because he is unique and not generic like all the other artists in the genre. Hopefully this theme is thought provoking and the imagery and ideas will engage the target audience of about 18-25, who are generally serious about good, pure music.

How effective is the combination of the media products?

In the magazine advert we used three specific colours on the instruments: purple (bass), green (drums) and gold (lead guitar). In the music video I decided to incorporate

theses colours to replace the green screen during the chorus. This links both magazine ad and music video, but more specifically the performers to their instruments.

We also included a homage to our ancillary task in the music video by including a graphic match to the unedited photography at the start. Personally, I feel that it is unsuccessful because it doesn't really fit our video, or at least the opening sequence; however, it does help to emphasise the sense of abandonment hinted at in our album title and in the song itself.

How effective is the combination of your media products?

We have not finished the product yet, so it is difficult to comment. Here are some examples of successful ways they have been combined

Digipack + Magazine Ad

- similar effects and the use of PhotoShop
- followed conventions to convey relevant information to include
- there is a successful themeatic exploration
- stuck to the genre, and stayed relevant to genre

Ancillary Tasks + Music Video

- attempted to include a graphic match to the magazine ad, but it was not successful - looked out of place
- meaning of video reflects that of both the song choice and album title
- styling of band is consistant

How effective is the combination of your media products?

On both the digipack and magazine advert we used the 'cut out' effect on PhotoShop - which creates the strikingly artistic and jagged look.

This effect was chosen as it highlights the contours and marks of our images, which looks appealing. It also heightens the striking images we have created - and the sense of abandonment suggested in the album title.

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

Develop
Throughout the coursework tasks we tried to develop and personalise the forms and conventions as much as possible. One example of this is the style of editing we used. After making our song choice, one overriding feature was the jaunty beat. We tried to use Goodwin's theory of 'Illustration', so there is a lot of cutting to the beat of the music. One technique I particularly liked was assembling a clip, cutting it up to the beat and then rearranging the order, which we used frequently in the video. This was because it creates a sense of disorientation and jauntiness that fit perfectly with our song choice and the visual style of the music video.

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

Challenge
I think the use of green screen was a really innovative way of challenging our genre, as it is not used prominently throughout the genre. I did find one way of it being used here. We used a similar effect in our video, to have the band performing over an urban backdrop.


To create the sense of a 'battle' going on between the band, we replaced the green screen with a different colour for each band member. I also cut between the band members singing different parts of the chorus to create a sense of frenzy that is not really portrayed in many videos in our genre.


Another way we challenged the conventions in our ancillary tasks was the way we laced the meaning of album title through both the digipack cover and magazine advert. The title 'What Happened to Hardcore?' is depicted through the absense of light in our magazine advert. The world is much darker without 'true' hardcore, but with the release of our album a bit of colour is seeping through. There are no people in our advert, which is a striking image as it suggests, like our album title implies, that hardcore has been abandoned.


The setting of our music video is quite bold. The track 'Fake Tales of San Francisco' sounds raw and earthy and we shot the video in a forest to highlight this. The lyrics imply a sense escape which is also highlighted by the setting - but the lead singer cannot escape this as he is constantly followed by fake people in masks.

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

Use

Through a vast amount of research we were able to detirmine the 'look' and style of artists in our genre. The style was simple and had simple colours - black, blue, red etc. and we asked our performers to wear these colours in our video.

We used the conventions of existing conventions of the alternative rock genre in our use of urban scenery in our music video. We also used the 'colour tint' effect on FinalCut to create the imagery that is most associated with our genre. It is a successful way of conveying a sense of scorn for modern urban life, something that is hinted at in the theme of our song choice and the theme that runs through our collective media product.

A successful way we used the conventions of our genre was through the use of handheld cinematography. This created a really dynamic effect and created excitement and movement in the video, which is less successful in music videos and films that use static cameras on tripods without movement. It also helped to reinforce the jauntiness of the beat in our song choice, that would not have been achieved by the smooth movements that are attained from static camera angles and movements.

Another simple way of using the forms and conventions was including legal jargon on our digipack, and including the name of track, artist, record label and release date at the start and end of our music video.

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

The music video genre is quite restrictive on two counts:

1 - there are a set of conventions for the music video itselft

&

2 - there are a set of conventions for the genre itself.

In order to create a successful music video, which I believe we have done, one has to use the conventions to avoid making a mess.

Music Video:

This post shows the 'Conventions of a Music Videos'

[include a video showing the conventions used]

Genre:

There is also an extensive list of conventions associated with the genre of your music video, in this case 'Alternative Rock'. I did copius amounts of research into the conventions of the genre we chose in order to gain a good understanding of what should be included in our final media texts, to create a product that is autentic to the genre.

[include a video showing the conventions used]

I also studied the conventions of a digipack and magazine advert to create realistic products.