In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product does a mix of both conforming and challenging current trends and forms in media products. The music video goes against the typical style and conventions commonly found in music videos of the Electronica/ Dance genre. It does this through several ways, one of which being the lighter, happier atmosphere, not commonly found in Electronica videos. Also, continuing this challenge against typical Electronica, is the use of Will's puppet. The puppet contrasts the normal dense, heavy atmosphere held by Electronica videos, but also sticks to the way Daft Punk present themselves through their videos, for example in Technologic and Da Funk, the main character of the video is not human, nor do they have a clear identity. Our video uses conventions commonly found in music video, such as a variety of camera angles and shots, particularly close ups. Also the video is not made up of entirely static shots, it contains a fair amount of camera movement , making the video appear to be more fast paced, less boring, and more inkeepng with typical conventions of music video. Our video also contains a variety of performance, abstract and narrative features. This is common for many music videos and it is becoming increasingly less likely to see new music videos showing just one of these aspects.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I think that the style of the Digipak suits the video well. The light blue representing the Electronica genre of the song, and giving a real digital edge, linking to the theme of the video and song (Particularly the song name). The main image of the Digipak being an old commodore 64 does well to demonstrate the way we are escaping the norm of the Electronica genre, moving away from the modern, clinical style of current Electronica videos, and instead focusing on the older, retro side of technology. This is also to represent the love for technology back when it was first becoming popular, and relating this love to the song title and Daft Punk's approach to their music. The use of Daft Punk's logo on the screen of the commodore is there to relate to Daft Punk's other album covers and adverts, making it instantly recognisable. The font used is also sticking to the retro, digital theme. This retro style is carried on throughout the digipak, the inserts showing images of retro commodore and spectrum games. Wittily replacing the characters of the games with 16 bit graphics of Daft Punk links to the humour we've tried to present in places of our video, through the use of the puppet. The advert links well with the Digipak, especially because of the use of the digipak cover as the main image in the advert. This was done to follow the conventions of Daft Punk's own adverts, as previously blogged. The colours in the advert follow the same trends as the digipak, linking to the same parts of our production. I think that the use of font on the advert could have been more effective if it had been more digital looking, for example use of the font 'OCR A EXTENDED'.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Our original plan was to gather audience feedback at the completion of our product and then apply the feedback to the product. By having finished the product apart from the changes they suggested, we figured it would make it easier to gain feedback and edit what was suggested. Unfortunately due to our own lack of time, organisation and ability we were unable to finish the product until late into the editing process. This is very much a shame as audience feedback is very important to us and would've greatly helped us improve our video. Throughout the creation of our product we have received some small comments, mainly from our teachers, with suggestions to improve their dislikes of our video. At first we were told that our project was too adventurous and too similar to the Owl City - Firelflies video. We promptly ignored this and continued working. Today the teacher that told us this told me that we were right to ignore them and we have proven them wrong, which I must say, was very satisfying. Since the completion of our video, we have asked our target audience of 17 - 21 years old, what they thought of our video. We received very encouraging responses with few criticisms, which was very pleasing to hear.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
In constructing our product there was a lot of use of technology. When filming our video we used cameras, which, while not being high-tech, were still a challenge to use efficiently and to the best effect. On the Mac's provided by the school we were supplied with the editing software Final Cut Express. This near industry standard software was at times challenging to understand, but rewarding when you took the time to explore it. Through using this technology I learned and developed a lot of new skills in editing. For research the web was very useful. Web 2.0 has made it very easy to find information, video and images across the Internet. Through this we have created this Blog, found images for our research and used online freeware to create snazzy presentations. One of these online software products is called Prezi, this program took a while to get to grips with but once you did the results were awesome. The ability to create zooming, sweeping and high quality presentations adds another level to the presentations we made with it. Also among the online technologies we used was slideshare. Slideshare is a really useful online tool for turning Microsoft Powerpoint presentations into web and blog friendly Flash presentations, allowing easy presentation of the storyboard and other planning and research. The use of video, audio playback and images has also been of great reward during this coursework. In the evaluation stage I really should have used more technology, but unfortunately due to time constraints this was impractical, which is a shame as I would have loved to have combined several media types to create a really engaging evaluation.
Overall I think that the project has been a real insight into media creation. The use of technologies has really expanded my knowledge and skills, as well as giving me a brief insight into the flaws with such technologies. I am very pleased with our production as a whole, there are places that could be improved, but some of them are due to hardware constraints, for example the image quality could have been much much higher. The ancillary tasks have been, unfortunately, a bit neglected through our focus on the main product. If I was to do this again I would be much more aware of my time management, and aware of the spread of work between the group members, so that not too much falls on some members whilst other are left not doing as much (though admittedly through their own choice). I greatly appreciate the chance to do this project and have really enjoyed it.
Luke Leadbetter
Thursday, 15 December 2011
Evaluation ~ William Dixon
In what ways does your Media Product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We used a lot of inspiration for our music video with other videos out there. The concept, which has been compared to a lot, is "Fireflies" Music Video by Owl City. As it is the same form of it's in a bedroom, things are coming to life around him in a stop motion form. So in a sense we did use this form to create our music video, using the same basic idea. An idea that we developed on was Daft Punk's own "Da Funk" music video. This conveyed the idea of hidden identity with the dog mask and the fact that nobody was establishing the fact that he had one on. So we developed on that idea with creating something gives a hidden identity idea. Which brings me on to the last point which is what we did to challenge other videos which was that used a puppet. Yes puppets had been used in other videos before, but in Electronica music, it's not all that common. Because electronic is very abstract music, most music videos are very abstract and not meant to be taken literally. So we used the idea of a puppet to challenge that idea, but with the fact that the music is electronica, our puppet is in fact not meant to be taken literally at all.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary task?
Our main product, the music video, has a very planned meta narrative of hidden identity, music creation, and retro features. The ancillary task has exactly the same features. With the hidden identity of the puppet in the music video, we create the effect of the hidden identity that Daft Punk use. With our ancillary task, we used the Daft Punk identity embedded in the retro games with the 8 bit characters to create that hidden identity once again, thus adding to the meatanrrative. The music creation is conveyed with the keyboard playing and puppet playing the guitar. With the ancillary task, the front cover is the very retro computer which conveys the idea of electronica, and electronica is mainly created on a PC so this too fits the idea of music creation. The retro features in the main product is the lamp, keyboard, one of the phones and the laptop. This creates the metanarrative of a look into the past of Daft Punk's history from when they were first starting out as two people experimenting with music ideas. With ancillary task, the retro game screen shots, the retro PC and font gives the same effect and combines to give the look into the past in both aspects. So the combination of both the main product and the ancillary task create a very effective metanarrative giving a whole combination of thoughts and effects.
What have you learned from your audience feedback? NOTE: please refer to the Audience Feedback blog as I will be referring to it.
I learnt a few things from our audience feedback. The first piece of feedback was that he enjoyed the originality of it but we went over the top with the lights. I would agree that we may have gone a bit over board with the lights in every shot. What I would have maybe liked was a better light to use to give a better fill effect so that we wouldn't need to use the lights nearly had much, so that's one thing I would have improved. Another person said that the keyboard solo with all the lights spinning everywhere was confusing. Although this person may not have like that, our aim was to actually create that very feeling. It was meant to be confusing because it was part of the narrative that it was the end of the dream world and it ended on a cliff hanger, so what I learnt from that small negative feedback was actually positive to us. The last comment which I will take into account was that I as the actor didn't look enough like that puppet. What I have learnt is that we should have spent more time making me look more like the puppet. How exactly we could have achieved this, we would have had to gone into some research to achieve this I believe.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?
For our technologies, we used a range of different technologies to construct our research. The obvious one is the internet. With Web 2.0 it is one of the best ways to devise research into every aspect of anything. So finding research on Daft Punk and other bands and media products was a breeze. For planning such things as the stop motion, we used an app on an iPod Touch called FXR by Joby, we could test different stop motion techniques and calculate what frame rates we wanted to use and how much time it would take. For researching other music video, we used Youtube. With Youtube, we were able to compare, research and take ideas from all videos. To blog different songs and share audio, I used an audio sharing software called DivShare. It works in the same way a Digital Cloud works. I upload the song I want to share on to DivShare and then you use a share code that they give you to embed it into the blog HTML. One of our most favourite ways to show research was the Prezi application. We used it to put all our research into one presentation but present it in a very interactive way to make it interesting to look at. But also, there is the option to stop the presentation from moving and move around the presentation yourself. To help plan, I created two video blogs. This was another interactive way to show the plan of lighting and costume as I could actually present it feature and discuss it at the same time. Finally the two most basic ways, I uploaded photos to the blog to show what it was I was talking about and also I used this blog to present research, plans and to keep a journal on the progress we were making.
Conclusion
In conclusion of this Media Production of a Music Video, I am extremely pleased with the outcome we got. After spending weeks on filming and editing and months on research, our video turned out almost exactly how we wanted it to be. We did make a few changes on the way so the original idea was in fact different from the final outcome, but most things do through trial and error. I honestly can not say what I would change if I was to do it again, what I wish we did though however was finish everything more early and maybe use a better quality camera to make it look sharper so the video wasn't ruined by the quality.
We used a lot of inspiration for our music video with other videos out there. The concept, which has been compared to a lot, is "Fireflies" Music Video by Owl City. As it is the same form of it's in a bedroom, things are coming to life around him in a stop motion form. So in a sense we did use this form to create our music video, using the same basic idea. An idea that we developed on was Daft Punk's own "Da Funk" music video. This conveyed the idea of hidden identity with the dog mask and the fact that nobody was establishing the fact that he had one on. So we developed on that idea with creating something gives a hidden identity idea. Which brings me on to the last point which is what we did to challenge other videos which was that used a puppet. Yes puppets had been used in other videos before, but in Electronica music, it's not all that common. Because electronic is very abstract music, most music videos are very abstract and not meant to be taken literally. So we used the idea of a puppet to challenge that idea, but with the fact that the music is electronica, our puppet is in fact not meant to be taken literally at all.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary task?
Our main product, the music video, has a very planned meta narrative of hidden identity, music creation, and retro features. The ancillary task has exactly the same features. With the hidden identity of the puppet in the music video, we create the effect of the hidden identity that Daft Punk use. With our ancillary task, we used the Daft Punk identity embedded in the retro games with the 8 bit characters to create that hidden identity once again, thus adding to the meatanrrative. The music creation is conveyed with the keyboard playing and puppet playing the guitar. With the ancillary task, the front cover is the very retro computer which conveys the idea of electronica, and electronica is mainly created on a PC so this too fits the idea of music creation. The retro features in the main product is the lamp, keyboard, one of the phones and the laptop. This creates the metanarrative of a look into the past of Daft Punk's history from when they were first starting out as two people experimenting with music ideas. With ancillary task, the retro game screen shots, the retro PC and font gives the same effect and combines to give the look into the past in both aspects. So the combination of both the main product and the ancillary task create a very effective metanarrative giving a whole combination of thoughts and effects.
What have you learned from your audience feedback? NOTE: please refer to the Audience Feedback blog as I will be referring to it.
I learnt a few things from our audience feedback. The first piece of feedback was that he enjoyed the originality of it but we went over the top with the lights. I would agree that we may have gone a bit over board with the lights in every shot. What I would have maybe liked was a better light to use to give a better fill effect so that we wouldn't need to use the lights nearly had much, so that's one thing I would have improved. Another person said that the keyboard solo with all the lights spinning everywhere was confusing. Although this person may not have like that, our aim was to actually create that very feeling. It was meant to be confusing because it was part of the narrative that it was the end of the dream world and it ended on a cliff hanger, so what I learnt from that small negative feedback was actually positive to us. The last comment which I will take into account was that I as the actor didn't look enough like that puppet. What I have learnt is that we should have spent more time making me look more like the puppet. How exactly we could have achieved this, we would have had to gone into some research to achieve this I believe.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?
For our technologies, we used a range of different technologies to construct our research. The obvious one is the internet. With Web 2.0 it is one of the best ways to devise research into every aspect of anything. So finding research on Daft Punk and other bands and media products was a breeze. For planning such things as the stop motion, we used an app on an iPod Touch called FXR by Joby, we could test different stop motion techniques and calculate what frame rates we wanted to use and how much time it would take. For researching other music video, we used Youtube. With Youtube, we were able to compare, research and take ideas from all videos. To blog different songs and share audio, I used an audio sharing software called DivShare. It works in the same way a Digital Cloud works. I upload the song I want to share on to DivShare and then you use a share code that they give you to embed it into the blog HTML. One of our most favourite ways to show research was the Prezi application. We used it to put all our research into one presentation but present it in a very interactive way to make it interesting to look at. But also, there is the option to stop the presentation from moving and move around the presentation yourself. To help plan, I created two video blogs. This was another interactive way to show the plan of lighting and costume as I could actually present it feature and discuss it at the same time. Finally the two most basic ways, I uploaded photos to the blog to show what it was I was talking about and also I used this blog to present research, plans and to keep a journal on the progress we were making.
Conclusion
In conclusion of this Media Production of a Music Video, I am extremely pleased with the outcome we got. After spending weeks on filming and editing and months on research, our video turned out almost exactly how we wanted it to be. We did make a few changes on the way so the original idea was in fact different from the final outcome, but most things do through trial and error. I honestly can not say what I would change if I was to do it again, what I wish we did though however was finish everything more early and maybe use a better quality camera to make it look sharper so the video wasn't ruined by the quality.
The final Production ~ Luke Leadbetter
Here is our final production all done and dusted! (Ater 5 hours of uploading to YouTube!)
Ancillery Task - Digipak CD ~ Luke Leadbetter
Below is an image of the CD art to be included in the digipak.
The design is simple, keeping tot he themes and conventions of the rest of the digipak and advert. Also, due to lack of available software this had to be made using a creative solution of Microsoft Word and MS Paint.
The design is simple, keeping tot he themes and conventions of the rest of the digipak and advert. Also, due to lack of available software this had to be made using a creative solution of Microsoft Word and MS Paint.
Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Ancillary Task - Magazine Advert ~ William Dixon
This is our Magazine advert
We heavily inspired it from Daft Punk's "Human After All" advert. I used the 'RusselSquare' font at it looked very digital and it's very similar to the font of a retro computer. This fits with the retro style and to have it in the lime green colour is very similar to a retro computer also. I mentioned that the single will be available to download as we are in a very digital society today so to say it's available to download is now the norm. I added the two logos at the bottom, Virgin and the Daft Punk logo as this is the same as the actual Daft Punk poster. This is probably for legal reasons as Virgin is Daft Punk's record label. The colour of the background was simply copied from an embedded colour in the album cover, this simply kept the background similar to the album cover. Finally the album cover, designed by Jess, was put on there to promote the actual album itself and it was completely necessary to have that on the poster so people know what we are promoting.
Final Digipak ~ Jess Hitch
This is our final digipak which includes a front cover, back cover and a folded insert.
Since Daft Punk is a very electronic group, we decided to use cold colours like blues and green on a black background. We also followed the general rule that Daft Punk follow with their album covers by just including the logo rather than an actual image of the band themselves.
The Commodore 64 on the front cover adds a retro feel to the cover whilst the blue lights add a much more futuristic touch. We decided on the commodore because the Daft Punk album 'Human after all' depicts the logo on the screen of a retro televison, so we decided it was appropriate to follow suit rather than use modern day technology. The font on the front is called 'Game over', another feature I thought would be appropriate seeing as the song is called digital love and a games console is pictured on the front. I decided to use a gradiented colour for the album title as it stood out more and helped pick out the blues and green in the background a bit better. It has a blue glow around it so that it appears as if it has come out of the virtual world of the computer and into ours.
The inserts are screenshots of games played on the commodore and I have replaced the original pixel characters with the Daft Punk characters instead, this is because we wanted to keep a certain theme to the inserts but make it personal to Daft Punk. The folded out insert corresponds more to the front and the back of the pack as it has the lyrics to the song on it. I thought this should suit the back more because it will be seen in between the two images of the games, so it is mostly to add a bit of variation but to also tie in the back cover with the inserts so it didn't look out of place. I used square brushes to achieve a glowing pixel effect and added a blue glow around the lyrics (which are also in 'game over') to make it look more futuristic.
The spine is simple with just a black background and blue and white 'game over' font for the album name and the artist name. The back cover continues the glowy futuristic theme from the insert and the front by using flowing, glowing brushes and floating squares to achieve a pixelled design. The back cover also includes the barcode and the record company as it will be sold in stores. The list of the songs on the back is written in the same font as the rest of the pack for continuity and it is also glowing to match the background.
Daft Punk's metanarrative is usually a serious group that make futuristic sounding music from retro and outdated technology. We replicated this in our digipak by mixing retro and futuristic elements together until we achieved the final product.
- Jess Hitch
Audience Feedback to our Video ~ Luke Leadbetter
Here's some quotes of what's been said about our music video:
"The part I liked most was when it fades out at the end and he wakes up with goggles and shows his virtual experience with digital love, the part I didn't like was the room starting to spin as it in my opinion was a bit OTT"
"I liked the originality of the idea. I disliked the last minute as the lights were confusing. The end of the movie is good as it is emotional"
"I liked the puppet, it added humour. I liked the moving toys because it's original"
"Has a good storyline and you feel connected to the character. Effective use of lighting and camera positioning. Finally very enjoyable to watch and humorous"
"Really good storyline, very original. Good stop motion - really liked the bit with the lamp. Very effective lighting. Looks very professional"
"the fade outs could be shortened"
"A good narrative and concept, especially the way the set is kept to the one room. There could be more clarity and the human actor could look a bit more like the puppet"
"The part I liked most was when it fades out at the end and he wakes up with goggles and shows his virtual experience with digital love, the part I didn't like was the room starting to spin as it in my opinion was a bit OTT"
"I liked the originality of the idea. I disliked the last minute as the lights were confusing. The end of the movie is good as it is emotional"
"I liked the puppet, it added humour. I liked the moving toys because it's original"
"Has a good storyline and you feel connected to the character. Effective use of lighting and camera positioning. Finally very enjoyable to watch and humorous"
"Really good storyline, very original. Good stop motion - really liked the bit with the lamp. Very effective lighting. Looks very professional"
"the fade outs could be shortened"
"A good narrative and concept, especially the way the set is kept to the one room. There could be more clarity and the human actor could look a bit more like the puppet"
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