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

Image 1 – The first image is used to show the surroundings. The image contains the main singer (Neil Diamond). He is walking down the field thinking about how he met Caroline, the lyrics ‘Where it began’ shows this.  After the singer has finished the lyrics he walks past the camera, the camera then switches to members of the band playing the instruments. The main idea into the beginning of this song is to give the audience an idea of who is in the video and what sort of setting they can expect.

Image 2 – Image 2 is very a very important part of the video it shows how Neil and Caroline first met, it shows that they were walking down the street Neil was looking at his phone and walks into Caroline who as a result drops her bag of shopping, Neil helps her pick it up and they catch each others eyes.  After this they are in the video at various times together.

Image 3 – This is a follow on of image 2 showing more detail into how Neil and Caroline met, I have used two images to show this as it is such an important part of the video.

Image 4 – This shows Neil Diamond with his arms out, at this moment he is singing the Chorus of Sweet Caroline, there are a number of these parts throughout the song as there is 3-4 choruses during the song, I have picked this one especially because it shortly follows images 2+3. He is singing about Caroline after he has met her while walking down the pathway. This part of the song is supposed to get the audience feeling happy and cheerful.

Image 5 – This image is a close up of Neil Diamonds phone, you can clearly see that Caroline is calling him, at this point in the music video you can hear the lyrics ‘Look at the night’, and then ‘and it don’t seem so lonely’, ‘we fill it up with only two’ . This part of the song is showing us through the lyrics that Neil does not feel lonely anymore because he has Caroline in his life, I tried to show this through the images on

screen by having it at night time, with the singer looking sad, but when the phone rings he realises who it is and starts to look happy.

Image 6 – Image 6 is another image containing both Neil and Caroline, the lyric before Caroline is ‘And when I hurt’, and ‘Hurting

 runs off my shoulders’ , after she appears the lyric goes into ‘how can I hurt when holding you’. I have included this image due

to it being an important part of Neil Expressing that how ever sad or unhappy he is Caroline can make him feel better.

Image 7 – Image 7 contains Neil and Caroline looking at each other while holding hands, you can lip read Neil saying ‘I Love You’, this is a nice part to the video as it shows how they feel about each other. 

Image 8 – This image contains an image of the band performing together, they are positioned together as I wanted to get a togetherness and team feeling across, as if all of them could feel what each other feel. I think that on the whole having people closer together make the video feeling warmer.

Image 9 – This is near the end of the music video, Neil and Caroline are walking into the distance together, it’s a happy ending for them both and a nice end to the song.

 



 

Evaluation Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?

Hi I’m Matt

And this is my music video that I made for my A2 project. I used Neil Diamonds Sweet Caroline as the selected track. The interesting thing was that it has never had an official music video because when it was made in 1969 music videos were not really around. So it was performed live and put on a cassette tape or CD. So I was able to come up with something completely original as there has not been a music video for this song.

This song is in the pop rock genre. Pop Rock is defined as a style of music which mixes a catchy pop style, of light lyrics, with the typical guitar based rock songs. I did some research into other songs that are in the same genre, and watched their videos, songs like U2 Beautiful day and others. They showed me that they had to typical pop rock video which contained a mixture of a narrative storyline and a band performance. I wanted to get this into my video and also use the pop rock influence on my digipak.

The image I wanted to create was a sort of a togetherness style video, which clearly tells a story. I wanted to show this through a variation of camera angles and shots. I wanted to have a typical rock band, drummer, guitar and singer, in my video I needed a trumpet player as well as the trumpet is sort of the iconic part of the song its how people remember it by saying, sweet Caroline and the going der der der. I wanted something memorable for this part so I used a range of effects on the trumpet player to get this iconic part to stick in the minds of the audience. I wanted to carry this over to the digipak.

DROP IN Album Cover

You can now see the album cover, it has 6 panels throughout. First of all I will talk about the inner three panels. I wanted to ensure that my album cover was well linked with the video and advert. The first objective that I wanted to achieve with my album cover was a strong visual link with the video, as well as a professional looking album cover. I looked at my video and saw the effects that I used such as the Kaleida effect and the threshold effect. I decided to implement them onto my album cover as it would give a strong visual link between the two products. I used the threshold effect in my music video quite a lot so I decided to take iconic print screens from the video and add this effect to them, I then positioned these images either side of the CD. I decided to use the Kaleida effect as the background to these panels. However I decided to further this Kaleida effect into the main part of my inner panel by making the CD Kaleida as well, you can see below that it looks as if it is not there I just think this is a nice little touch to have on the CD as not many other Albums do it.

The other panels are the main ones when the album is on sale in the shop. The front and back panel have to be really effective in order to catch the eye of a passing customer. I wanted the front cover to be as strong and as eye catching as possible. I used which in my opinion is a very strong image, Neil Diamond is not a hard guy like we see in some album covers such as Eminem, I had to try and get his friendliness and warmth in the picture so when I was taking the photo I had my actor with a light smile where you can see his entire face as it is light by what looks like sunlight but I used a stage light. I then wanted to have a nice background location, so I used a bright sunny day with a blue deep blue sky and a pavilion walkway behind the actor, this worked well as the stage light acted as sunlight which in fact made the actor look as if he was at the location itself, the other reason for making this scene so warm and welcoming was that that is how some parts of my video are, so again there is a strong link between them. The back of the album cover I wanted to enhance a similar effect, so I added another image of my actor and used a cut out effect around the edges of this image. I then added line paper, a tea stain, and a fountain pen with some ink leaking, the font I used was the sort that comes out of a fountain pen sort of a calligraphy font and I used blue to math the ink, again I wanted to create a friendly feeling. I also wanted it to look like he Neil Diamond had hand written it and I feel that the tea stain and spilt ink adds a personal human touch because we are not tidy and do make mistakes. The other panel on the front three is split into four sections each with an image with a different effect on it, I did this to make the album cover eye catching.

DROP IN Magazine Advertisement

You can now see my magazine advert, this is an important part of the digipak as it is an advertisement and we know that advertisements have to be memorable and eye catching to actually be effective. I wanted to have a strong link with my album cover and video when making this, I featured the front three panels of the album cover on the advert as well as using the same font that is used on the album cover. I used a different image for the magazine cover this time, however I used the same technique to cut the image from the background as the album cover. I then added a glow to the edge of the image to make it stand out. You can see that I have used the same Kaleida effect on this advert as I have on the other parts of the other products, I feel that this build a strong link as it is consistent all of the way through. I have used Neil Diamond as the main focus of each part of my products as he is the main focus, but mainly as it adds the warm friendly effect to the product. The other part of the advert is the quote used at the top, this is used as all new music products have some sort of quote when being advertised, so I added my own to make it look more realistic.

OVERALL

Overall I feel that I have achieved what I set out to do with my music video and supporting products. I wanted a friendly togetherness feeling over the combination of the products. I also wanted to have a strong consistency and visual links between my music video and supporting products, I feel that I have achieved this as well, I feel that this has been done because of the similarity in effects and colours as well as images used throughout the music video and supporting products.

Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I have gathered a range of feedback for my music video. Below is eight graphs, the feedback that has made up the graphs has been gathered from two different sources. I also have feedback that will be shown later, which is comments that have been left on my Media Blog. The three sources that I used to gather feedback for my graphs were:

1.A film screening, this is were parents and friends were invited in to watch all of the media students videos and leave feedback for each one.

2.The second was the AS media students, they had a lesson that was dedicated to watching the music videos and leaving feedback.

3. The third was an interview I did with somebody from my class, I filmed him watching the video and answering questions about it. This part will be in question 3.

              The feedback system is basic, there are eight questions that the people giving feedback had to answer, they could score each question from one to four, one was the lowest score and four was the best score attainable. After receiving the data I sorted it into graph an charts in order to represent in question three of the evaluation. From these first two sources a total of 43 people gave feedback.

               To the left is question one of eight, this question asks whether the audience felt that I held the camera steady. Holding the camera steady was very important when filming as it keeps a professional feel, it also makes it smoother to watch. You can see on the pie chart that I have not received any ones or twos, I ‘am very happy about this as when filming I was trying at all times to keep the camera completely still. I have received only threes and fours, so this shows that the audience felt that I held to camera steady throughout the video.

               This question refers to how well framed my shots were. I have received a variation of results, showing that some people have different opinions. However I feel that the over riding feeling from the audience was that the shots were framed well as I have received mainly threes and fours. I feel the framing throughout the video was good. There were some areas that I felt that the framing could have been better and would therefore agree with the twos I had received.

              When making the video I wanted to use a vast variation of shots, this was an attempt to keep the video fresh and keep the viewers interested. I feel I used a range of shots and I feel that my audience agree with this. I have received mainly threes and fours, however I have received some twos again, this may be because that I could have had to many shots of the same style and they wanted something different. I feel that I did use a big variation of shots and because of this disagree with these twos I have been given.

                When making this video it was hard to find the appropriate locations, I only had a small few at my disposal. I feel that I could have used more, but I do not think that I used to few. 19% of my audience feedback feel that my choices of locations were not appropriate. The other 81% feel that my choices of locations were appropriate. I feel that the locations that I chose were appropriate. I if I could have chosen another it would have probably been some sort of stage for the band performance.

                When making my video I was not really thinking about the lighting, the only thing that was going through my mind at the time of filming was that the lip sync was good enough and the framing was tight. I obviously checked to see if the people being filmed were visible and they were so that was good enough for me at the time. I was happy afterwards that the quality of the lighting did not effect the video. You can see in the table to the right that a lot of my audience agreed with me that the lighting was appropriate, most of the light was natural anyway.

                In my video I wanted to portray a clear story of how the singer falls for Caroline. I feel I have done this well by showing an accidental coming together of the two, this was when they bumped into each other. I then went to show the singer spending tine with Caroline and singing about her. The story I wanted to get across to the audience was of how they met each other and how things escalated from their, I personally feel that I have done this well and 89% of my audience feedback agree with me.

                 I feel that the main attraction to my video is that amount of effects I have used. I feel that these effects make my video interesting and keep the audience hooked, I used the green screen when filming which allowed me to add a range of backgrounds that could be used as different locations. As I have said in the second part of my evaluation I wanted to use effects to show the iconic part of the song which is the trumpet player, I used a whole range of different effects on the trumpet player to show this. Looking at the results I received you can see that 39/43 people agree that the effects I used were appropriate.

                This projects main time consuming part was the editing, it took along time to put together, it was essential that the images shown and the lyrics being sung were in the right context with each other. I feel that I had done this well an example of why I think this would be because of the lyrics ‘Look at the night’ at this point the camera goes into a night time shot. Looking at the audience feedback you can see that 88% of the audience agree with me.

Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback? Part 2

The feedback I have received here is in the video above. i have learnt a few things from this feedback. I have learnt that I could have used a better location to film some parts of my band performance, as it looked as if they were struggling to play the instruments, according to this feedback. I also learnt that there was some camera shake and that if I was to do this again i would have to take extra care in ensuring this does not happen.

Evaluation Question 4 - How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Construction

In all parts of this course I have used a range of technologies to assist in the filming and constructing of my A2 Media Coursework. The first pieces of technologies that I used was the camera and equipment that I would use to film the music video. The camera I used was a Sony HD Camera, I had never used this camera before, but quickly adapted, and in the end found that it was simple to use. In addition to the camera I had a tape that I would record onto, this was placed in the side of the camera. I also had a tripod, this was used to secure the camera and help me capture a steady shot. There were buttons on the side of the camera, these were easy to use, there was a button called ‘tape’ this meant go to the tape and you could then start to record. There was a button called ‘play edit’ this allowed you to review what you had previously filmed, this was especially useful as you could see if the footage looked ok and if it did not you could then re film. The other button was ‘off’ this was used to turn the camera off. On the main arm of the camera there was more buttons, one of the was ‘record’ this was the button which allowed you to stop and start recording. Next to this button was a ‘zoom toggle’ this allowed you to zoom in and out on to what you was filming. The tripod was easy to use and set up it had three legs which could extend out twice and could be clipped in to the height that you desired. It had a screw on the top that allows you to securely attach the camera to the tripod, this eliminated any threat of the camera being dropped.

Construction

There was a great amount of editing involved in this project. The program I used for this was called Adobe premier pro, this was a completely new program to me at the start of this course. I felt that it was complicated to use but once you got the hang of it, it was really effective and simple to use. You can see screen shots of the main parts of this program. There was lots of different tools that I had to use in order to effectively edit and construct my video. An important tool was the Razor Tool. This is the tool I probably uses the most, this is the tool that you cut the footage with. You use this when you need to shorten a piece of footage, you can zoom in to make more precise trimmings. This tool is easy to use as you only have to click where you want it to cut and it cuts it for you. this toll was particularly useful when trying to get lip sync to the correct timing. The zoom tool is very useful on this premier pro especially when cutting footage, you can use this tool in two different ways. The first is a magnifying glass which can be found on the tool bar to the right of the layout. The other is a bar with a triangle in the middle, you drag the triangle left for zooming out and right to zoom in. Another tool that I used was a tool called the cursor tool, this is your basic cursor that allows to navigate the program, it lets you do everything from selecting an effect to exporting a movie. The layout of the program is in my opinion effective. It has two main screens, the one on the right shows you footage that you have selected that is on the timeline, this is footage that if you exported the video there and then would feature in the video. The screen on the left is the library screen this is selected footage that is not on the time line. This is a great feature to have as it allows you to see what is in your timeline as well as seeing what is in the library at the same time. Below both of these screens is a timings bar, this bar allows you to see what second you are in on that selected piece of footage, this was particularly helpful when trying to get good lip sync. In the bottom left hand corner of the program is an effects box, this  holds all of the effects that you need to make a smooth running video. 

Research and Planning

Before filming my video I did a lot of research and planning. The research I conducted in included looking at other music videos on Youtube. The reason for doing this was to get a basic understanding of a music video. Videos I watched included videos from a variation of genres, such as Handlebars by Flobots, Stan By Eminem. I then started to watch videos from a similar genre, videos such as Beautiful Day by U2. You Tube was easy to use, so I found the research easy to conduct.

After my research I began planning, I firstly created a document containing three initial ideas. I then chose one of them to use as my main video. I chose Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond. After this I had to start thinking about how I could use in the video and locations that would be available to me. I asked friends to feature and they agreed. After this I made a storyboard, this storyboard contained a stocky note for every single scene of the song,. I then filmed this storyboard sticky note by sticky note and edited it together, this was a very early look at what the video may look like. This was called my animatronics storyboard. After this I created two music video analysis as you can see on my blog. This was research for the filming aspect of the project.

I then started to research and planning into my Digipak, the first piece of research I did was looking at other artists album covers and music adverts. This time I looked at Neil diamonds album cover to get an idea of what already existed for the song I was doing. I analysed other album covers as you can see on my blog. 

Evaluation

Throughout my evaluation I have used lots of different technologies. An example of this is on my question 2 of the evaluation, I used the Sony HD camera and recorded my self speaking about my music video and supporting products. To do this I first recorded my voice, I then uploaded this from the camera onto Adobe Premier Pro. After this I put my voice over onto the time line, I added my music video to use as a visual aid, I then listened to the voice over and when I could hear myself talking about my Digipak I added a screen shot of the Digipak on the screen so the viewers could see what I was talking about. I did the same thing with the advertisement. After this I exported the entire sequence and uploaded it to YouTube. After it had finished uploading I posted it on my blog. This was similar to what I did in Question 3 of my evaluation. For question 3 I recorded myself and somebody from my media class talking about my video, this allows you to see me getting feedback first hand. I took similar steps to get it onto my blog in the sense of Adobe Premier Pro and YouTube.

Another technology that I used was again for question 3, I used Microsoft Excel, what I did here was gathered feedback and produced graphs as you can see in question 3 of my evaluation on my blog. I produced eight graphs in all, and evaluated each of them.

Risk Assessment

This is my risk assessment. This risk assessment shows all of the potential dangers that my filming locations may hold. It shows that me and my actors will having to be careful in certain areas of the filming locations.

Final Digipak

This post contains my final digipak, the digipak is in two parts. Each part is three panels long measuring up to 44 cm by 12 cm. When making the panels I had to take into consideration the spines that are found on all albums.  The spine was 1 cm wide. The first panel of the three contains the Front of the album cover, the back of the album cover and one inlay. The second of the three panels contains the CD itself and another two inlays.

The front cover of my album cover needed to be personal. I chose a close up of my actor who played Neil Diamond in the video. I used photoshop to cut him out and then placed the image on another image, the background image I chose was important. I wanted the image to relate to the song, the song is happy and up beat, so I wanted the background image to go well with it. The image I chose was a sunny day by the sea.

The back

I wanted my CD to look different to most CD's whilst it was in the album case. I decided to make it the same colour as the case  behind it making it look sort of camouflage. Either side of the disc I have images taken from the music video with a Threshold effect on them. I think this looks effective as it gives more attention to the CD due to the colours used.

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