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

A Presentation To Answer This Section

A Detailed Equipment List-

Hardware-

Macbook- Personal Laptop. Built in webcam and microphone used in some sections of my evaluation.
iMac- School Computer.
Olympus OM-10- 35mm SLR Camera
Panasonic NV-GS60- A Digital Video Camera

Software Packages-

Photoshop- Photo Editing Suite. Used to creat ancillary task.
Garageband- Digital Audio Workstation. Used to create section of my evaluation.
iMovie- Video Editing Suite. Used to edit my music video
Google Chrome- Web Browser. Used during research and evaluation stages.
Pages- Word Processor. Used to type up shooting script.
Keynote- Presentation Software. Used to make powerpoint presentations in this section of the evaluation and in my research.
Shape Collage- Used to arrange screen shots in the evaluation stage.

Online Resources-

Poll Junkie- Poll Website. Used in audience research
Blogger- Used to document the process.
Dropbox- Free online server space with file sharing capabilities. Where I hosted all my files
Reddit- Forum website with a twist. Where I posted a link to my poll.
Voice Thread- Online video commentary application. Where I did a section of my evaluation
Scribd- An online document hosting website. I hosted some powerpoints on there.
Flikr- An online photography community. I hosted my storyboard on there.

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

My Answer

Above is a link to "Voicethread" an online video commentary application on which I have answered this section.

[Evaluation] How Effective is the Combination of Your Main and Ancillary Tasks?

The combination of my ancillary CD sleeve and my music video create a genre specific representation of the band. The ideologies presented are very much inline with Dick Hebdige's ideas about subculture- the style I have used throughout is very genre specific. The referenced subcultures are the psychedelic movements of the 1960's, 1970's and 1990's and also the various decades of drug subculture. The archived drug film footage I used in my video used film from the 1960's and 1970's. I felt that I wanted to create a "freakout" section as when the band perform live they often perform a psychedelic freakout, which involves heavy use of lighting and feedback from guitar effects pedals. In my research I looked at bands such as The Brian Jonestown Massacre and My Bloody Valentine because they suit the Fly Honey Warehouse's Ideologies.

In my ancillary task I creating this feel by using a film SLR camera to shoot the images. This creates a "cheap" film grain and cheap processing look that is familiar with my research bands and genre and reminiscent of lomography style images (some examples). I edited the colours further on Photoshop and added the titling. The back cover (the image on the left) is rotated slightly to make the lamp post parallel to the frame. This in itself presents a narrative which is linked to the slightly unsettling images of the psychedelic genre.

After I shot this image I was informed by the lead singer of the band that the same location was used by Bristol based Portishead (a "trip-hop" band) in the inner sleeve of one of their albums. This adds a layer of intertextuality to the narrative. The psychedelic subculture is generally considered to be one where people are well read into bands and music generally, so I decided to use this image as a homage to (and therefore a confirmation of the ties to) this subculture. The similarities in the narratives of the two texts create an overall set of ideologies which are aligned with those presented by followers of the psychedelic genre. Overall, the effectiveness of the combination is an individualistic experience based upon the audience's experience with the ideologies of psychedelic sub-culture.

[Evaluation] What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

MP3 FILE

Above is a link to a .mp3 file which answers this section of the evaluation. I put it together using a microphone and Garageband.

Music Video- Final Cut.

THE FINAL CUT

Above is a link to the final cut of my music video. I will be shortly uploading the video to youtube.

Updates

After having sent emails to the person in charge of the location I originally planned to film in and getting no reply, and with time running out I have decided to film the performance element of the video inside my own school's drama department as a last option. This was not something that I originally wanted to do, because there is no stage in there and a poor selection of lighting options.

Finished D.I.Y Fisheye Camera

In the end I decided not to make the fisheye described on my previous post because of parts, so I decided to make my own. I ordered a 160 degree door viewer from ebay and made a simple hold for the lens with a plastic lid, a drill and a steady hand. Please find the pictures and video link below.

THE VIDEO LINK

Finally Beginning To Edit!

I shot some footage on the weekend and am finally beginning to edit! I am going to use the same iMovie project file as I used for the animated storyboard so that I can get the shots to exactly the right length.

Animated Storyboard

Here is an animated copy of the most recent changes to the story board-

(It is an external link because in the new beta release of blogger video uploading capabilities have been removed for some reason!)

THE LINK

General Updates- Change of plans.

The original girl in my music video was away in France over christmas when I had planned to film. She didn't let me know and therefore I wasted the day that I had planned to film on. I have now asked another girl who is hopefully more reliable and should hopefully be filming this weekend.

Storyboard (finally!)

Due to my scanner being broken, I have only just managed to upload my storyboard to flikr.

The below link should take you to a gallery to view it.

THIS ONE

Magazine Advert

Above is the magazine advert for the digipak. They plan to give out free copies of the E.P at a future gig, so I produced this to put in a free local pack called Don't Panic which promotes bands.

Final Digipak

Above is the final printable digipak for "Fly Honey Warehouse (To Go, Please)". The cut out cover folds in half and stuck along the tabs. I decided on a card digipak because it is relatively cheap to produce and the band is giving away it's E.P for free, so I was asked to keep costs down whilst designing this for them.

Shooting Script (Finally!)

The finished shooting script for the music video is below-

INT            DARK BUT COLOURFULLY LIT STAGE

The first shot is of a close up of the lead guitar. On the beat we cut to similar close ups of the other guitars, and at the drum fill we cut to the drum kit. We then repeat this, but on the last shot we cut to

EXT            MORNING            COLD FROSTY FIELD

Lead singer is walking across a field smoking in the cold morning. The shot is very empty. The footage is jump cut to make it look as though the lead singer is teleporting about the field.

INT            DARK BUT COLOURFULLY LIT STAGE

We cut between the guitars on the beat, then the Lead singer sings the lyrics “Do you know how it feels?” into microphone with light behind him. We then see a close up of him playing guitar. He then sings, “To phase out from what is real” and we see another close up of the other guitar playing, which fades out.

EXT             NIGHT            LONG ALLEY WITH STREET LAMP           

The members of the band appear one by one at the end of a dark alley, stood under a streetlight. “I need a pick me up to go” is the lyrics in the background

INT             DARK BUT COLOURFULLY LIT STAGE

Cut back to the close up of the bass guitar playing. On the words “Because if there’s no lights then there’s no show” a slow fade of the entire band playing comes up and sustains for the bridge, until the solo, when we cut back to the original close up of the drums and the guitar.

EXT            NIGHT            DARK STREET LIT WITH STREET LAMPS

We are in a street with lots of lamps, so the lead singer’s shadow is jumping about the place. The lyrics “And I’d give you what’s mine to share” are being sung in the background.

EXT             MORNING            COLD FROSTY FIELD

Slow fade up of a shot of an attractive girl walking toward the camera, looking directly into it. The lighting is coming from the other way to the shot of the lead singer. “But you wouldn’t even care” are the lyrics being sung in the background. “All the little things I hold” is sung whilst we see a similar shot of the lead singer.

INT            DARK BUT COLORFULLY LIT STAGE

We cut back to the shot of the lead singer and the microphone. He sings “How can I trust they won’t get bought out, sold out, Cast away their souls just torn out?”

EXT            MORNING            COLD FROSTY FIELD

The lyrics “And you, you aren’t the one for which I care” are sung and we see over the shoulder of the lead singer looking at the girl, and then the girl looking at the lead singer.  We then cut back to

INT            DARK BUT COLOURFULLY LIT STAGE

The lyrics “But you’re the only one, who’s really there” are being sung as we pan round the band and the singer to the crowd, where there is only the girl stood there watching.

EXT             NIGHT            DARK STREET LIT WITH STREET LAMP

We cut back to the same shot as before, but this time a close up of the lead singer as the lyrics “In this old heart of mine”. We cut to the same street, but looking out at it from a window whilst the lyrics “Now I’m just going through a hard time”

INT            DARK BUT COLOURFULLY LIT STAGE

We cut to the lead singer singing “A hard time, baby a hard time”. We cut to the guitar as it solos and then the drums as they solo, as in the intro.

EXT            NIGHT            DARK STREET LIT WITH STREET LAMPS

The lead singer is running down the street. The chorus is repeated and we see various cuts of the band dancing about on the stage during this section, with a fish eye effect on the camera, whilst the camera zooms in and out. We also see the girl stood in the audience, as before. The shot is contrastingly still and slowly zooms in as we cut about to the shots previously mentioned.

EXT            MORNING            HILL LEADING UP TO STONE CIRCLE

“Do you know how it feels” is being sung as the girl walks up the hill to the lead singer. It is jump cut as in the intro.

EXT            NIGHT            LONG ALLEY WITH STREET LAMP

“To phase out what is real” is being sung in the background and the band standing at the end slowly disappear (the opposite to what happened earlier).

INT            DARK BUT COLOURFULLY LIT STAGE

“I need a pick me up to go” whilst we see a close up of the lead singer, we then cut to the entire band on “because if there’s no light there’s no show”. We can see the girl in the audience.

EXT            MORNING            COLD FROSTY FIELD

“You, you aren’t the one for which I care” is sung as we see a shot of the lead singer looking out at the field is sped up so the clouds move quickly.

INT            DARK BUT COLOURFULLY LIT STAGE

           

We see a close up of the lead singer singing “But you’re the only one who’s really there”.

EXT            NIGHT            DARK STREET LIT WITH STREET LAMPS

The singer is walking down the street smoking, there is a close up of the smoke in the street lamps then we cut to the front of them. The lyrics “In this old heart of mine, now I’m just going through a hard time,” are being sung.

INT            DARK BUT COLOURFULLY LIT STAGE

           

We see a close up of the lead singer singing “Hard time, baby, a hard time”. We then slowly zoom out to see the whole band finish the song to a slow fade

EXT            MORNING            COLD FROSTY FIELD

The video ends with the lead singer walking off into the distance and disappearing into the distance.

Album Cover Draft

The name for the band's E.P is "(To Go, Please)". I have designed a draft cover for their release whilst I am waiting for the latest release of the song for the video. I shot the image and used photoshop techniques to create the final image below.

I used different layer masks and the eraser tool to make the black and white section and then added a hue to the background layer to make it psychedelic colours. I then downloaded an open source font called "Will Robinson" to do the text on the front cover.

Concept for Music Video

After conversations with the lead singer of the band, we decided the song was about loneliness and emptiness. The lyrics of the song are all about the death of the lead singer's close relative, and girl troubles. We therefore decided that the concept of the music video would be "Emptiness". This wikipedia article describes what we mean by "Emptiness" as a concept.

Expect a storyboard uploaded fairly soon.

UPDATE: The band are re-recording the track I plan to do, with slight differences (hence the delay in the story board upload). I have had several in depth conversations about the structure of the piece with the lead singer of the band and I am currently writing a shooting script based on my ideas and for the purpose of using as a plan for my story board.

Response From Audience Questionnaire

(The link to the results)

The results were by and large very interesting. The fact that the average rating for the 35mm film look was only 2/5 is probably due to the fact that i failed to mention the genre in the questionnaire, as i only originally planned to direct fans from the band and readers of this blog to it. The fact that most people watched music videos on Youtube was not a surprise to me.

I am going to speak to the lead singer and generate a concept for the video and talk about more shot ideas from the results of this poll.

Home Made Fish Eye Lens

After researching how to make a fish eye lens, i found this website about making one out a pair of glasses and some duct tape.

I am going to make one for my camera out of a pair of broken glasses, as i've had an idea for a shot using a fisheye camera, but i don't currently have one.

Audience Questionnaire

I have created an online survey for my target audience to fill in. This can be viewed here.

The results of the poll can be viewed here.

I am putting the link on the band's Facebook and Myspace for people to fill in. I should hopefully get a larger target audience. I have also used tinyurl.com to make an easy to remember link to follow for people "http://tinyurl.com/fhwpoll".

UPDATE: I have also posted the link to http://www.reddit.com/r/wearethemusicmakers, which is a forum for people involved in music production and composition, to get an "inside" opinion from producers and record label owners.

Idea: Guitar With Attached Camera

I had an idea whilst fixing a broken web cam of playing with the wiring, making a new case for it and attaching it to my guitar. The resulting footage is below.

I am going to use this idea in my music video because it gives really distorted footage, because of the poor quality of the camera (it only captures about 5 frames per second, because of me altering the wiring of the camera to limit the maximum amount of data (or bandwidth) it can output). This is reminiscent of the psychedelic genre.

Getting That FIlm Look With DV Cameras

For my music video i really want parts of it to have that look of film, such as in the My Bloody Valentine's video for "Feed Me With Your Kiss" (The video can be viewed here). I really like the look of it, and it draws on the genre conventions of psychedelic rock music videos and gives the video a "vintage" feel which is currently very popular. However, i am going to be using a DV camera.

After researching it, what people on forums and advice websites suggest is keeping down the frame rate to 24 frames per second, because that's what 35mm film is shot in, planning the lighting well so that it the censor in the camera has to compensate in an extreme way, and using film and colour effects to get the right look in my editing process. Other sources suggest manually controlling the aperture and exposure levels on the camera whilst shooting.

iMovie Video Effects Trials

I am going to be using Apple's iMovie software to edit my music video. One of the codes and conventions of psychedelic rock music videos are strange video effects, so i thought I would do a trial video to try out what effects I can create on the piece of software, and what they look like when they are compressed into web streaming quality.

The effects I like the most are the "Colour TV", "False Colours", "Newspaper" and "Edges".

My Brief

The band that i am going to be making a music video for are are Bristol based physchadelic rock band called Fly Honey Warehouse. They would like me to make a video for their song "Pick Me Up (To Go, Please)".

I have spoken to the band about the purpose of the video, and they want a promotional video for their myspace page, and to put the video on youtube to direct possible events managers and PR people towards. The video should promote their alternative image and should draw on conventions of their psychedelic roots and be a combination of performance and concept based elements. The target audience for the video will be later teens (16+).

The lyrics to the song are as follows:

Do you know how it feels,

To phase out from what is real?

I need a pick me up to go,

'Cos if theres no lights then there's no show.

And I'd give you whats mine to share,

But you wouldn't even care.

All the little things I hold,

How can i trust they won't get bought and sold out,

Cast away their souls just torn out?

And you,

You aren't the one for which I care.

But you're the only one,

Who's really there,

In this old heart of mine

Now i'm just going through a hard time,

A hard time.

"Going To Hell" The Brian Jonestown Massacre

BJM- Going to Hell

"Ladies Of The World"- Flight Of The Conchords

I chose this video because I feel it follows most of Andrew Goodwin's six music video conventions.

The visual/lyric matching runs throughout as this is where the comedy element is created. For example, when they are listing different types of women, they show them (but are only actually showing 2 or 3 women on a loop)

"All You Sexy Hermaphrodite Lady Man Ladies"

The video follows Genre characteristics of comedy music videos. There are comedy elements to the video, created by parodying the 70s and the folk/jazz genre.

There are intertextual references to the era of the 70s- roller skating and sun-kissed film style colours. This creates a very memorable stylisation to the video and add to the surrealism of the video.

There are close-ups of the stars of the video as they sing, parodying conventional music video stars, in poses and pulling strange expressions etc

The music video is very fitting to the genre and tone of the musical content of the song. The overall brightness of colour and lighting and the general lighthearted nature of the video strongly reflects the song's message ("If all the soldiers in the world put down their guns and picked up a lady, the world wold be a much better place").