Final Post

Well, this is it. I'm sat with my laptop at a ridiculous time of night/morning as I have been for most of these posts, listening to many of the band who feature many many times within this blog. It will be weird and unnerving to not have this media ritual of just myself, my laptop, and my music. This course has turned out to be something much more than I had expected, it's the first course where I've been given the opportunity to work with someone, which was noted at the beginning was not my plan, but looking back at it now, I'm so glad it turned out to be my plan. Working with your best friend can be a dangerous move, however I feel like I hit the jackpot. I had someone to go to when things weren't working, I had someone encouraging me when I had no motivation, I had someone to bounce ideas off of, I had someone to share our love of this genre with, and most of all I knew I had someone I couldn't disappoint. 
So I thank you media exam board, for allowing this to happen, and i'd like to thank Becky, for putting up with my crazy late texts and emails and constant annoyance.
I shall continue on listening to music which some people disapprove of, which some may not like and others who simply don't understand but I shall also continue to replace this therapeutic ritual with another.
But the main thing I shall walk away with from this course, that I will never, ever be able to watch and medium be it a film, TV show, music video or even an advert, I can't look at any of them in same way in which I did two years ago, so for that - I don't thank you! 

Evaluation Question Four

How effective is the main combination of your media product and ancillary tasks?

Personally I feel as if my ancillary tasks not only complement the final music video well but that they all work well together to provide a clear unit representation of the band.

I knew from the start that I wanted to create ancillary tasks that were easily recognisable as to who they represent and as to what/whom they refer to. I gathered ideas of how to do this from several artists I have used for inspiration and genre conventions throughout this process, for example Of Mice&Men.
I set up a photoshoot with the lead singer of the band to use as linking images between the music video and to enable continuity through all of the finished products. For example in Bring Me The Horizons (BMTH) newest album release Sempiternal use the same colour scheme throughout all of their promotional products from their album cover to the gig posters, they all follow the same house style which makes them easily recognisable to BMTH and that is what I really liked and wished to incorporate into my own work. I felt that due to not only BMTH being the only metal core band who follows this layout that I should not challenge it but adhere to the convention as it proves so successful within the music industry.
Deciding to make a poster was mainly due to the fact that it is one of the most seen things when it comes to a band, as it can be printed, posted online, emailed as document attachments and can be accessed over any visual medium. I chose to make a website too as from a 'fan' point of view and from a 'teenagers' point of view of someone who listens to metal core it's one of the ways I keep up to date of the latest tour releases and where the band are and what the band are doing. I feel that being able to not only link my ancillary tasks visually with the same band members being shown with the same colour schemes but also linking them through how they can be accessed. Enabling the digital natives (a person born or brought up during the age of digital technology and so familiar with computers and the Internet from an early age) to be served on their platform and serving them what they want will surely be a winner purely due to the fact that they will buy the products if they are what they want.
To enable the level of continuity to continue throughout my work I decided to embed the poster I created and the final cut of my music video into the website I feel like this was just the cherry on top of the ice cream to really show the users/viewers of my work how all three products really do work together and how the internet can really provide us with all the information we need in one search.

Evaluation Question Three

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Audience feedback has had a vital part in the production of my music video. I have used audience feedback to gain a better understanding of my audience as my product has progressed and have used this feedback to form my final product(s).
I found that the more people I asked for honest opinions the more unbiased I was about my work. The majority of my feedback was either one on one conversations or group discussions however my partner and I did compile a few online surveys and social media posts. Facebook is the most heavily used social media site in the world, and with a combined number of 1438 'friends' we decided to upload our work not only after our first edit but of our final copy too, admittedly we didn't get as many responses as we had hoped for (I highly suspect it is due to my lack of 'posting' and 'socialising' on social media) yet we did get a few very helpful comments from friends and family (images to the left).  

We gained an idea of how the audience perceived our work and their thoughts and feelings through a survey monkey we made, the results are as followed: the audience were majoritively females aged 17 or older, 70% of the 20 people who took the survey were female and over the age of 17, of all the people who answered our survey only 60% actually listen to the metalcore genre, 15% said that they 'may listen to it' which leaves another 25% of surveyors who do not listen the genre at all; 30% of men who completed the survey commented that we needed to produce a video that would appeal slightly to males as well as female. (screen shots of our results can be found below in the presentation)

I found during my research of audience that there were many different ways of presenting a text to an audience including theories such as the Hypodermic Model where the messages in media texts are spoon fed and injected into a passive audience via a powerful and syringe-like media form, with this form of presentation the audience is powerless to resist to the text and is overcome by the power of the media, I did not want this to be the form in which my texts were ingested by my audience I much prefer the uses and gratifications model where there audience is active and the audience uses the text rather than the text using them, I wanted my audience to use and enjoy my text for their own gratification rather than to be sucked in by the media as I believe this is a much more enjoyable experience.

During my face to face discussion with my potential target audience they too felt that they would prefer to be treated as intelligent enough to not be spoon fed the media text and that they felt that they should be treated as active and forward thinking as they are the ones in control of the media nowadays as the power lies with the audience and not the producers and they are only there to produce what the audience want.  

Evaluation Question Two

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

Personally I feel that all three products that have been produced (ancillary tasks and music video) work well together as a trio as they all link together.
Throughout my construction phase I used Adobe Premier Pro CS4 to edit, trim, distort, use transitions and assemble all my clips to the soundtrack. I used this software as it enable a really professional looking finished product. My camera choice was originally my Sony DSLR Alpha 500 (A500) (image 1) as I was really comfortable with how it filmed and I knew it gave an amazing quality to the film and shots taken, however I encountered issues when trying to transfer the clips from the SD card to the Apple Macs and there was only one Windows PC which could read the SD card within college, this proved to be a massive waste of time, so as a result we used my partners Canon EOS 450D (image 2) which still gave the same great quality clips and shot just used a different SD card so it made everything so much easier.

Throughout the research and planning stages not only did I use windows computers/laptops, Apple Mac's, Samsung tablet but I also used a variety of digital camera, such as the Samsung ST66, the Samsung WB250F and the Nokia Coolpix S7000, to see the different outcomes of different cameras and to see how everything looks on different resolution screens and screen sizes.

I viewed posters, digi-packs, read numerous websites and even purchased the latest album release by the band Bring Me The Horizons 'Sempiternal'. I noticed throughout all of the bands and artists of the genre which I chose to use for my final piece all shared a similar colour pallet throughout all of their merchandise and packaging, I found as a fan and eager music enthusiast that the clear colour match, font usage and layout that is repeated throughout works well to show the audience and for this reason I decided to use the same method and I decided that I was going to adhere to this because I felt that it would not add anything to my products by challenging it and will also show that all my products link and would show a strong level of continuity.

After researching artists such as Pierce The Veil, Of Mice&Men, Asking Alexandria, and A Day To Remember, there was a clear convention of either the lead singer or entire band featuring on the poster, this works to represent the artist and to not only get their music known but their faces too. During this research phase I came across a few posters which only featured the location shot of their latest music video or of their band logo, I found that these did not work as well to promote the product for the band as they did not show a clear link between the artist and the product, hence why I chose to use my lead singer as the image for my own poster.
Another point to consider whilst choosing the layout of the poster and website was the instant recognition of the band via their work and merchandise, for example on YouTube each video has a screenshot as the thumbnail, which nine times out of ten includes the lead singer or band, and on websites and social media such as Instagram and Facebook the thumbnails and previews of the product includes the band, this makes it much easier for the audience to recognise the product as the bands and due to this link being made easier by choosing to use a band member for my poster will allow the product to be instantaneously identified when looking to purchase the product online or in a shop.

As the genre is of an alternative background I noticed that the lighting to all the photo-shoots and the final edited versions of the images all sport the dimmed 'depressed' lighting of a minimalist lighting rig set up, of course these images all sport the same high quality finish yet they are all heavily influenced either by a single direct white spot light or by a faint glow, I chose to use a spot light for my images as I felt that this directed the audiences attention straight to the main 'star image' of the lead singer. This also worked well as it showed the link between the male not only being the lead singer yet the main male role within the narrative of the music video. To achieve this instant allure of the readers gaze I edited the image using not only Adobe PhotoShop but Serif PhotoPlus, the reasoning behind the use of two different image editing software packages was due to the restriction of the different computers I was using, for at home and on the move I used a windows laptop which only had Serif PhotoPlus and when in the media editing suite at school I used Apple Mac's which only had Adobe PhotoShop software, this did not prove to be an issue during the construction phase as I was able to save the files twice to two different settings to ensure the ease at which I could open them within the different packages (of course it
 could get confusing as to which file was the most recent but thankfully due to file properties including 'date modified' this was soon distinguished).

As I previously mentioned the 'alternative' and 'darkened' or 'depressed' nature of the lighting and colour pallet of the products for the band, we (myself and my partner) chose to edit the the music video clips to darken and add a slight blue hue to lower the mood and emotions of the video, therefore I chose to use a black background on the poster and website I created, I edited the lead singers eye colour to enhance the blue of his iris to match that of the blue hue of the music video and I ensured that the black background of the poster and website matched that of the make up and costumes of the actors in the narrative of the music video.
I feel that the iconic denotations of black and white enable the website and poster to stand out together as they clearly link and represent the band and the genre perfectly, as a simple yet alternative elegant pairing which is weaved into each of my final pieces.

Evaluation Question One

Institutions

Institutions of media can be described as the captions in the diagram above, the Internet, film, music, broadcast and print. Four out of five of these institutions represent a singular text with a singular purpose. Yet the Internet encompasses them all, I feel as if the Internet (despite being the newest) is the largest and most successful institution there is simple because of its enormity and its ease of access (unless you live in Internet supervised/censored zones such as areas of China and North Korea). Yet the Internet is accessed every second by people of all generations, from all over the world, it is the number one method of contact between different borders and provides many many opportunities to all who use it. 
Not only all of these points but thousands more are only a few reasons as to why we decided to share our work via the Internet to not only gain feedback from people we know on social media sites, but to see whether or not we'll get any feedback from complete strangers over YouTube.

To produce my products I will be using a branch of Sony Music - RCA Records, who are part of a conglomerate company, this will enable massive financial backing behind the band and their products enabling maximum promotion via mass use of product placement and background music to adverts and films, using Web 2.0 via YouTube to enable a profit from YouTube by using the song as adverts before other peoples videos, this enables both low cost and cost free distribution as Sony is a large company and can provide the artist with opportunities through the company without having to spend a penny due to the scale and amount of enterprises which Sony own. Not only this but the band themselves will be encouraged to use their own social media to help spread the word along with TV interviews and private ticket only gigs to start with to gain more income and profit to help the band expand their horizons.

From preliminary to pulling the stops out

As I have mentioned previously during the first baby steps of this course my preliminary partner and i were unable to completely finish and upload our first trial run at film making due to technical issues. This has meant that I do not have much to show visually in the transition that I have made throughout the course but I can easily explain it.
Throughout the entirety of this course I have been able to develop, not just technically and with theory but as a person too. I was able to fine tune and implement into everyday activities organisation and patience and learning how to deal with stress and to prioritise. This has enabled a significant improvement within my own time keeping and quality of work.
Technically I have been able to adapt quicker to using different software and hardware and I have gathered enough knowledge to be able to think of reasonably quick solutions out of technical  difficulty rather than believing that all was doomed.
Through using Apple Mac's so regularly and (much to my dislike) for lengthy amounts of time I have finally after two years am able to confidently and quickly move around the system and software set up, however the biggest change was having to use Adobe Premier Pro after using either iMovie or Windows Movie Maker to use a more technical and impressive piece of software was challenging but very rewarding when the final product was produced to such a high standard.
Along with making my final pieces I have also built upon my reliance and understanding of the importance of ensuring that I have conducted enough research into the genre, codes, conventions, audience, narrative, representation, camera angles, perceived perceptions and many many other things, these all acted as influences and inspiration to aid the creation of an original and professional final piece.

How we worked as a team

I feel that working with Becky, not only has it worked really well due to our close friendship but also due to our love of this genre and how we're both very creative yet in different ways. 
The original plan to work as a complete partnership was that we'd either both film half the music video (one narrative filmer and one band filmer) and that we'd both work together on the editing, however due to the mishap with actors early on, it ended up that Becky did the majority of the filming (as I ended up in the narrative), I set up all the technical equipment such as lights, any additional cameras for proof of our work, the organisation and transport of equipment (e.g drum kit and lead male actor) and we worked together on the editing of the film as we could both sit down and discuss if our plans for the editing looked good enough on screen or if we were going to have to change it as it didn't look as planned. Being able to drive has been a massive help as Becky and I do not live close to each other and gathering all of the equipment from various local areas and towns was a road trip in itself let alone playing taxi for the boys.
One thing that I am really proud of us as a team is that there were no discrepancies or conflicts, we worked efficiently and (relatively) calmly. The only thing that I would re-do would be to ensure that our day-time management of working together during school hours had been better but due to a clash of timetables this couldn't be helped, but at the same time this didn't affect us drastically as we could (and did) work around it.

Justification of end credits on music video

It was challenged in a group feedback discussion that a music video should not have 'end credits' however I feel that this general assumption that credits are only for films can be subverted as a music video is a film, it is still classed as an expressive art form through film and media so why shouldn't the creators get some credit for it?
To prove my point that it can work I have found some examples of music videos (of similar genre and some of not so similar genres to my finished piece):

• Stereo Reform - Fire- Official Music Video
• Mayday Parade - Kids In Love 
• Coldplay - Princess of China Ft. Rihanna
• Rihanna - Stay Ft. Mikky Ekko
• Abandon All Ships - Take One Last Breath (director/producer credits at the beginning)
• 30H!3 - My First Kiss Ft. Ke$ha
• Lady GaGa - Telephone Ft. Beyonce
• Lady GaGa - Applause
• Avril Lavigne - Rock N Roll
• Katy Perry - Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)

All three finished products together

If you would like to view my finished and fully working website please either click on the website images (images 2, 3,4,5,6), the hyperlink blow these images or HERE.

Website can be viewed online here: sophielavisa2media.co.uk/index.html

Ancillary task 1: Poster

Ancillary task 2: my website

Here are all the pages of my website, as you can see I have had to zoom out to 75% rather than the conventional web browser setting of 100%, I also used F11 to go full screen, I did this to show you in full what each page looks like. Of course when the audience uses it they will have to scroll up and down the page to gain full access to each page. I used the same colour scheme of black and white as my poster as I felt not only did it enable all three pieces to have the same colour scheme (the clothing in the music video) yet it enabled the genre of the music to be shown too on the website and poster and not just the music video, to show that all three pieces are interlinked not only have I used the same images, but I have embedded the music video and poster onto the website and I have ensured that the colour schemes and house style are the same throughout.

Editing and lip syncing

Editing was a fun, interesting and at times frustrating challenge. Not only through technical difficulties but due to blatant human error on my part for being far too precise about certain elements and (possibly) wasting more time than I should've spent on the task in hand.
I feel that the most difficult part of editing is getting the lip syncing to a perfect match with the lyrics of the song, granted in a room full of media students trying to achieve the same thing (and some without headphones) this could get very trying at times. Yet as you can see from the final product we have managed to not only get the lip syncing on time yet actions to the beat (thought beat editing - Andrew Goodwin), I do have to give the majority of the credit for this to Becky as she has far more patience than I do, as I almost got so close on many occasions yet in the end she was the one who finally got it right, down to the second.
I admit the editing is key, but to start with if our lead singer (Joe) hadn't known the lyrics or the timing - which I have to admit he is terrible at keeping time from experience of hearing him attempt to sing - it would've made the editing even more difficult. I think we were able to keep Joe in time throughout the filming through playing the song from my phone and singing along with him to ensure that he followed the lyrics correctly and word perfectly without trying to get away with a slur and undefined mouth movement.

Band members and costume/makeup

Final Piece