Final Evaluation

DRAFT EVALUATION

Ancillary texts questionnaire

Music video questionnaire

Final Music Video.

Ancillary texts - final.

 With my digipack there were several things I changed, including the back of the digipack and the sides. I now feel as if they all comes together well and I believe that I have created synergy well between my two ancillary texts.

There was nothing that I changed on my poster as I liked it as it was and my teacher gave me no criticism on it and I felt as if there was nothing that needed changing. I kept it as the front cover of my digipack as I believe that it is therefore easily recognisable. 

Filming for the last time.

Filming for the last time was a little stressful as my actor didn't wear all of the same clothes and it was hard then to shoot and long distance shots. I did manage to re-shoot my out of framed side shots though which I am now much happier with. I finally got better shots of nature though to fill in the little gaps between the performance and conceptual elements of my video. If I had a change I think that there are parts which I would still like to re-shoot again, however, I think I edited to the best of my ability with the stuff that I had and I do prefer my second attempt to my first draft of my music video. I think that this is mainly due to the lighting, as it was bright to film on my last day and therefore the shots look a lot nicer aesthetically and syntactically flow a lot better because of this. I believe that my music video denotes the message that I want it too with the couple in the forest representing the couple being sung about but with the use of the masks and shots of the surroundings, I hope that I was able to capture more of the meaning to the song that nothing really makes sense and things should be more simple. I am afraid that this message might not get across to all of my audience when watching it, the tea drinking shots in particular which I deemed to be iconic a of relaxation and little care.

My changes.

These are some shots which grabbed my attention when watching my music video back and I decided that I didn't like them, either because of the way they were shot or the length that I had place them in my video for. Therefore I went out to shoot once more to get some footage  - These are the things that I wanted to change.

Digi Pack and Poster - First Draft.

 These are my first drafts of ancillary texts and I am so far proud of what I have created. After feedback from my teacher there are some bits that I need to add to it such as information commonly found on CD cases. My teacher seemed happy with the images I had used and I am pleased with this and I liked them too and thought that they suited both the genre well whilst also linking in significantly with things found within the music video such as the masks and the guitar. I also was able to capture these shots within the nature the same as the video; although nature was not something I aimed to focus on throughout my music video, due to the location it became important to keep that element throughout all pieces of work I created.

My main inspiration was a previous cover/advertisement I found for the band and I felt as if this sort of artwork represented the band well and I therefore decided to create something similar for them this time.

I think that I have done this well but without copying the album cover exactly, however, there are elements such as colouring which I felt were necessary to keep the same as they fitted well with the genre of music.

Feedback I received for my digi pack mainly focused on the back cover - for example I am now changing the colour to all blue and still need to include writing commonly found stating the writing of the songs and the creature of the digi pack etc..

I was also given feedback on the spine of the digi pack as I need to think what will be shown when  the digi pack is closed. I have decided to go for another colour as well as have some writing on           the main spine to identify the band when the album is too the side.

As for my poster my teacher had no issues with it and agreed that it fitted the genre well whilst also linking in with the digi pack to create synergy between the two.

I decided that I would use the album cover to promote my album as I believe that this would make it automatically recognisable to the audience. I also found that many bands do this in promotion for their album for the same reason and therefore felt as if it would be worth doing.

There is nothing that I really want to change, however, I might have to ask my teacher again in case there is anything he can think of changing when seeing it for a second time.

I am currently happy with my progress on the ancillary texts and I don't have any real doubts or concerns about completing this section of my work before the 13/03/2012.

Music video - First draft.

I am aware that there is many parts of my music video which I need to re-do, such as shots which are cut off at the head due to poor framing, I also need to find more shots of nature which aren't dull and more of a variety so that I can stop having to use the same ones again during the video. I also think that I may have to capture some more shots with the two characters, however, this is harder to do as it can be hard to think of things to do with them other than what I already have them doing. I am actually quite happy with the editing and the pace of it and personally believe that it fits well with the music, even if it does need slight tweaking in places. I am going to get my teacher to watch it and let him decide if he agrees with me on what I need to change or if he thinks there are other aspects of the video which are more important to change.

Image problems again.

I still can't upload my images to blogger so I am also unable to upload my different images. This is a slight problem but I'm going to talk to my teacher today and see if there is anything that I can do so that I am able to upload the images that are too big.

Images influencing my digi pack and poster .

 These are some images which I took during my filming which I believe will work well with my digi pack and poster. Although I am not focusing on nature, I believe that it is necessary to keep the theme running through the video of the characters in the woods through the art work.

I believe that the image of the guitar also reinforces the genre of music and the instruments that are played rather than sounds being made on the computer as I believe that is a curtail element of indie music.

 The masks are a reminder of the characters with the horses faces and I also believe that the weird quirky style of the horse marks also echos the genre of music as indie.

I'm unsure what angle of shot I would like to use for my work, however, I decided that I didn't want the characters to be wearing the marks any more and decided that the message of the song, with things not making sense could be reinforced through the masks no longer being worn.

Problems with my band.

My band were all very unreliable and decided that they wouldn't turn up or that they would cancel on me when I was filming and this was really starting to annoy me as I needed to get the work done fast. However, I had one reliable person who was willing to help me and I therefore filmed the song from only the singers view rather than having the band play. I wasn't happy with this as I felt that parts of the songs could do well with different instruments being focused on, however, I eventually got round that slightly by having him play a guitar.

I am not completely happy with having just the singer, although it is not as bad as I thought it would be and I believe that it is better than nothing. There are still aspects that I want to change, however, I am okay with my first draft and hope that my teacher can give me feedback so that I am able to edit areas that I'm not happy with.

This did slightly effect my digi pack and poster and I was going to have the band but I think that I am able to get over this hurdle and now have new ideas for my post and digi pack which I will be uploading shortly.

Snow -

After deciding that I would film my media coursework indoors I spoke to my media teacher and let him see the footage I already had and he advised me to keep with the outdoor theme and shoot the band outside instead. I was happy with this idea and had no problem with arranging this. However, it has snowed this week and there is now a forecast for more snow on the way, so I am going to have to try and overcome this problem somehow as the deadline is coming closer.

I have decided that within wooded areas the amount of snow is less likely to decrease rapidly as less people walk on it and therefore my aim is to try and film,edit and re-shoot within a space of 3 days so that the amount of snow is the same. I am hoping that there is more snow on it's way so that if I need to re-shoot again after that, the snow will not have totally melted.  I was going to simply do close up shots until the snow melted, however, the shots I need are likely to catch glimpses of snow in the background and therefore I think it would be better for me to try and do it all within the space of a few days.

This does also change some issues with clothing but nothing that can't be sorted quickly.

The band -

• Firstly one thing which had held me back massively in my production of my performance elemant of my video was the band memebrs, it took me a long time to find people who were able to play instruments in order to replecate playing the song - although they will not being playing the song I decided that personally it was crutial that the 'band mates' appeared to be playing the instruments accurately to the song rather than guessing and therefore this would be achieved through choosing people who were able to play instruments.
• Secondly, I found it hard to find people who appeared old enough as the only people I know that play instruments are younger than me and this was also a trouble, however I have got there in the end.
• Thirdly, the singer was an issue also. Although I could once again pick anyone for the job I decided that I wouldn't get a confident performance out of someone who didn't know how to act infront of a microphone or camera and therefore had to find someone who was able to perform.
• Lastly, finding a time which was sutiable for everyone was also tough due to the time table of the younger people within my music video. As well as being able to use the music equipment and the drama studios in order to have a space to film. This is still a slight issue however I have decided that this is my music video and the actors are going to have to cooperate with me. The harder issue still is finding a time which is suitable to borrow the equipment as there is a lot of it and this might be hard for the teachers.

Further exploring posters.

The poster elemant for my music vidoe which feature inside a magazine is something which I had forgotten about doing as I have been focusing more on the creation of the music video and the digipack. I have decided through research already that it is nessisary to keep an elemant of continuity in terms of advertising an album and therefore the advertisment will either be the exact image on the front of my digipack in order for the audience to relate the two together or will be an image similar, cannoting a similar theme or thought so that the two are easily linked together and recognised as something from the same band for the same song/album.  (IMAGES TO COME)

Further exploring digipacks-

This is currently an idea for the layout of my digipack, I now know how many images I will be needing and just have to consider the different types of covers that I could have. I am currently considereing having my front cover as the instruments set up without the band, I think that an image like this would cannote the type of band by presenting the playing of their own instruments. However, I am aware that often indie bands rather than using instruments will use other image which do not directly relate to the band but instead an idea behind a song or the album title.

Arctic Monkey's album cover focuses on the band memebers and I therefore am consdiering not focuses on a symbol as my album cover but rather something relation directly to the band. My biggest worry currently is working photoshop as I'm not very good at it so far and I am unsure on how exactly to get the images to the exact size for the digipack. All of this I will have to talk to my media teacher about as I am currently confused on what to do.

Conceptual -

I have already filmed my conceptual elemants of my music video, however, I am unsure if I am going to be using them or not until I film my performance elemant this week. Once I film the performance I am going to decide if it is nessisary to include any other elemants to my music video depending on the way the performance turns out and if I decide that it is lacking in elemants of the genre which are instead included in the conceptual element.

I have story boarded both parts and still need to upload them, however, I am having trouble uploading images at the moment. I know what I am going to do but I might need help in being able to control three cameras all at the same time filming in order to make sure that the correct footage is being recordered by each camera and the angels are as I want them. Once I finish the song a few times I will then have to ask the band the perform parts of the song focusing directly on instruments in order to get a range of different angles and shots. I am not sure how long exactly this will take me, however I think I will be asking to borrow the equipment for and the room hour and hour and a half. If I am unable to film it perfectly or if I run out of time I will have to rebook for the week after. I am aware that I have left the most of my filming two weeks before half term and I reget doing this, however, I have had just had trouble with focusing on one single idea and took me longer than expected to film the conceptual elemant of my music video, which I now feel might have been a huge waste of time. If I am able to get all the footage nessisary this means I will be able to edit over the half term and half it finished for the 21st of Febuary. I am also going to get photos whilst I film so I am able to explore different covers for my digipack.