Evaluation Task 1

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

When I was undertaking my primary research, I analysed music videos of the same genre. This was in order to identify real codes and conventions from the genre, that I was creating a music video. I was inspired by some videos and noted if I could incorporate similar attitudes, shots and lighting techniques into my video. There are also codes and conventions I chose to challenge by creating them differently with a slightly different meaning.

The idea of colour correcting my footage was inspired by Sigur Ros - Glósóli. Sigur Ros' has a cool blue colour balance. The connotations of blue can have a tendency to cause feelings of sadness. I also could have used the blue colour balance to accentuate the feeling of isolation & sorrow of Les Estolies, however my video was about the character finding relief from visiting a picturesque place. So instead I increased the saturation and gamma levels to brighten the image.

I feel that my video challenges conventions because the lyrics suggest the mourning of a loved one and the norm of society and majority of music videos, would express a heterosexual love. However the two possible readings that the audience may take from my video is either a paternal love between father and son, or a homosexual love.



Final Products

Magazine Advert

Front View

Inside

Evaluation Task 4

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

It was easy to get used to shooting with the Sony PD150. The PD150 was comfortable in manual mode, but it also has automatic hot buttons. These buttons enabled the camcorder to take care of speed and aperture settings. However I preferred the manual settings since the camera can't read my mind and may not record something in the way that I hoped. I used the Zebra stripes since it aided in exposure evaluation. I used the viewfinder's black-and-white resolution, making for easy focusing and attention to composition. (look at Post: Equipment Checklist for more info)

The program I used to edit was Sony Vegas Pro 9. If I didn’t have any access to this program, I would have had to use the school's Adobe Premier. I personally did not want to use Premiere since our school computers were not compatible for editing software. I believe Vegas 9 has more effects, plug-ins and is user friendly, unlike Adobe where the Video FX Bin is very perplexing. In the end Vegas creates a more professional look.

The image below shows one of my colour correction settings, I used on my footage. You can see the vast difference between the raw footage and the edited version on the video preview tab. 

I also used Adobe After Effect CS5 to create a ghost effect, to express time passing. I used two plug-ins to achieve this effect, which are frame blending and Twixtor Pro. I also used Maxon Cinema 4D and Photoshop to create the digi-pak and manipulate my images for the magazine advert.

For my planning and research I used Mr. Fitzpatrick’s Myspace for inspirations and ideas. But I mainly used YouTube to analyse music videos of the same genre.

It would be ineffective to just promote bands/artist by only concerts and gigs without advertising them via YouTube or social networking sites. For example in order to actually receive feedback for evaluation task 3 I had to upload my video on a video hosting site, such as YouTube. I then was able to embed a link to my Facebook and Blog for feedback from friends and teachers.

 

Evaluation Task 3

3.    What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From the feedback I received from my first draft, the general conclusion was that my music video was not attractive to the eye; it was grey and monotonous, which did not correspond with the lyrics - as the lyrics expressed the artists relief from beautiful landscapes. Taking on board my audience’s feedback, I used colour correcting tools to alter the tones and saturation of the video.

The right-hand side of the image below is the final result.

Another major criticism was my shots were not in sync with the track, It was commented that the editing was "unprofessionally" put together. So I went threw each clip and cut the clips so they were in sync with the low-notes of the piano. Depending on the timing of the low-notes I sped up or slowed down the frames to tie in with the rhythm.

I believe that the criticism on our "unprofessional" editing really benefited me, since syncing the shots with the audio track is a convention of all music videos.

My final video gained a postive feedback from my audience.

Evaluation Task 2

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

Album Cover Research

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