Monday 21 February 2011

Evaluation 4

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

In the beginning of the project my group and me constructed the idea of the time lapse by watching music video's are teachers gave us on YouTube one of our biggest influences was the time lapses in Ray of light by Madonna, we also used music channels such as mtv to try to get an influence for our video, the internet also helped because we got images of what we thought would work in our video and put it on our mood board this really helped construct and give us an idea of what we were going for so the internet and T.V were really helpful in the construction of our music video.

During the reasearch stages of the music video project the internet was a very useful new media, for instance youtube allowed us to listen to our song and create ides around it, we also reasearched a lot around music video's webiste such as using wikepedia and imdb to look into what music video directors have done what and who for, i used the internet such as wikipedia and imdb again for my artist reasearch where i did a case study on eminem. Another reason the internet was so useful was because we were able to look into music company's background such as the rough trade and sony bgm company this also allowed us to fufill posts on our blogs about music video company's. We also used youtube converter to covert our song so we can listen to it and storeyboard it so it would be easier to do, while reasearching and storyboarding we also used a camera to take images of our storeyboard then upload them to i-movie so we could watch the storyboard which was extremely useful. Another thing we used on the internet which was useful to document our reasearch was blogspot which is very useful.

During filming we used many new technologies such as an i phone 4 for its hd camera which we took photo's of our props and sets which was really useful in documenting our filming, anotherthing we used which helped with the mise-en-scene was a smoke machine and lights that you would find in a club which helped develop our set into a pretend club, the technology that was the most important was the HD camera we used that made our timelapses look very crisp and smooth and worked really well, without these small things on the day of shhoting we would have struggled greatly one last thing we used was an Ipod and speakers so our actor could lyp sync which was useful.

During the editing of the film the technologies we used were the apple computers which were useful as they run the proggrames fast that we needed to edit with also we used the proggrame final cut pro to edit which we used very sucessfully it was very useful as we could edit our film almost to a proffesional standerd another proggrame that helped even know it was not useful for editing was photoshop which was useful in creating my digipack and poster.

Sunday 20 February 2011

Evaluation 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback



When we initially showed our rough cut for a crit of our music video we had done the majority of it the anything we had not done at that point was the time lapse of a car so we added a YouTube clip of one to show what it would be like. In the crit we had our class the head of 6th form Miss Beer and our teacher Miss Whitaker they all agreed that our music video was extremely creative and very good, they also agreed that the music and the video were worked really well, Miss Beer was very pleased with it and called us very creative and our video was one of the best she had seen at that point, the criticisms they had was that one part of the video was out of sync but that was because of the programme we had to export it with and everyone understood that after we told them. The other criticism was that we needed to film the last part of the film which we knew and also that we had to many tile effects that did look good and not enough of the women singing which we understood. Overll i feel that the crit helped develop our final product and made it look really good i think without the groups comments we would have had to many effects and the video would have looked extremly linear where as now it looks very attractive and every scen is uniqe. However i think the video helped more than the crit with my digipack and poster to be honest.



The internet has been really helpful with audience feedback websites such as facebook and youtube is where we put our video's and we got a lot of posssotive audience feed back. for instance many of the comments were generally the same they all were like "Great work the video looks really good" or "This is amazing you have obviously worked really hard" however there were some negative comments such as "Parts of the video are out of sync" which we rectified straight away as its important to us however more people seemed to like our video rather than comment which was annoying as we did ask for comments rather than like but i took the likes as people thinking the video was really good so it helped in that respect. we did ask our audience of what they thought of the concept or idea at the crit they said it would make more sense once we had the car time lapse which we showed again and fully understood the idea, i asked my family what they thought of the video and they said that "it was extremly well thought out and you could understand the story really easily" everyone that we showed the video all agreed that the time lapses were really good and almost "brought london to life" said one person they also thought that the editing and the cuts used to make the beats and the cinematography match wee really good and so were the tiled effects during the film, they also thought that the mise-en-scene of the club looked really realistic and could identify what it was straight away as it did not look tacky or poorly done.

Evaluation 2

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

My groups video had a big dance/clubbing feel to it the way that, the structures of london almost came alive as the way we edited the video made them feel as if they were dancing also the way we created the club scene with the mise-en-scene of the lights and the smoke, and Hayley dancing really defined the video and song as something you would dance to or something you would hear or see in a club.

So i decided to give this feel to my Digipack and poster, i feel i achieved this especially with my Digipack for instance in the video we have our female character dancing in a club so i wanted to help give the music video a club feel so i got an image of people dancing and adjusted the colors to something more vibrant and eye catching almost a theme color so it would feel almost as much as a club as our video then instead of using a women on the cover i used D.J magma our artist to do this i took a photo of a person in a D.J pose an changed the contrast and brightness levels so he could not be seen in some respects i left him mysterious but in others i feel this helped created a club as the dark image helped give the feel of a nightclub as it was pitch black with only a few colors illuminating the room. Another thing i felt i had to get right on the digipack so it would go with the video's club feel as the wrong fault would make the digipack look out of place, so i made the font by giving it a purple neon effect and the effect bevel for the name of the album so it looks really suited as i put it on the D.J's Deck i also decided to make the name of the DJ in a fiery or magma looking font it looks good and gives the album character and emphasises his fiery character. The other images also suit the music video as its more club images that i have changed the color to purple to give it a club feel again like the video this emphasizes the video i feel and our music video and digipack go hand in hand almost. I used the same font for my album songs as i did for the album name which again help create a club feel to the album and match the video, my group decided to go for more of a magma look but i decided against this look as i felt it would not suit the video but more the artist.


My poster is very similar to my digipack it has the same layout as the front of my digipack so it suits my groups music video really well and suits my digipack really well i feel like all three products work together really well, as they all have this similar club feel to them and match each other, The poster and the digipack i feel have their own unique style that match the music video and represent and promote the artist to its audience, i think the way i have made the digipack and poster gives the artist an identity as if he is clubbing and it shows in his music video's, digipack and poster i also feel that all my products represent a presentable and unified image of the artist as a D.J that people will recognize and understand almost like an image for a brand or a logo however this is a style that you can recognize for the artist.

I think that our artist really would appeal to the dance genre for many reasons the way i have represented him in my digipack and poster almost makes him look and appear to care a great deal about this genre as it is how he is represented for instance in a club, with him on some decks and people dancing all around the club, this is a good representation for fans of this genre as the majority of this music is played at clubs so again this would appeal to fans of the genre, i also think our artist would appeal to fans of the genre because of the music video as well the way the music video is very upbeat and almost makes you want to dance through a mix of cuts and time lapse photography i feel that because of this fans of the genre will repeatedly want to watch the music video thus making more fans of this paticular genre, another reason i think the unified image would appeal to our audience as all of our products are of similair look and style my digipack and poster have a big club feel and influence and so does the video so i feel the style will do two things attract the audience to the music and create a uniqe style that is iconography for the audience to know the artist identity much like how bands have logo's and styles.

Saturday 19 February 2011

Evaluation 1

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

The genre of music my group and i had picked for the music video was dance music as it really appealed to us we felt we could do a lot with it as it has many codes and conventions in it that we could develop or challenge through our music video to make a video that suits but is different to the genre at the same time, i have analyzed many different types of music video from this genre of music such as the prodigy "Invaders must die" and justice "D.A.N.C.E" and this helped me find different genre characteristics to challenge and add to the film.

There are many codes and conventions in music videos that are a must for a video a director can choose to challenge or develop these ingredients Andrew Godwin is a Key writer for the ingrediants for a music video he argues that most music video's will challenge or develop six key conventions, they are.

  1. Music video demonstrates genre characteristics (E.G stage performance in rock videos)

  2. There is a relationship between music and lyrics aplifies, illustrates, contradicts.

  3. There is a relationship between music and visuals, aplifies, illustrates, contradicts.

  4. Demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist may develop motifs which recur across thier work a visula style.

  5. There is frequently the notion of looking (screens within screen, telescopes ect) and paticularly voyeristic views of the female body

  6. There is often an intertextual reference (Film, tv, other music videoes.
One of the conventions i have noticed in this genre is that a majority of the videos video's agree with the Godwin theory that the music matches with the video as all the videos i have analyzed from this genre the music and a lot of the lyrics match up with the video which is a convention we have tried to develop this convention as in our video the way we have edited it is as if the song and the video were made for each other and the beat matches cuts we have made so the beat matches with the video we have also made our actor lip sync so it matches the lyrics and again goes with the the Godwin theory as it looks like the video and the song are one. So overall the video and the song match also just the way the beat goes and the places we have filmed match each other as the way the lights are on iconic structures makes the song almost look like its bringing London life.

Another convention that we developed in our music video is that all the videos i have watched from this genre they make you want to dance it may not be a convention but it is something i have noticed about the majority of the dance video's for instance the use of lights and colours and certain cuts in the animated video makes you want to dance its not some clever secret message you have to analyse it just some animated shirts that makes you want to dance.

Another convention we have tried or in my opinion have followed is something that Andrew Godwin mentions in his theory is that a video and the music and lyrics match for instance when the women of our son say "and i close my eyes now" hayley closes her eyes and falls on a bed as if ready to dream also the way certain scenes mix with the song for instance lights change colours and match the beat, there are many other parts of our song that do this and develop this convention.

One convention we challenged that i feel is a convention and Andrew Godwin comments on as well is that an artist has to be in their video however we have not put an artist into our film we have just an actor so the artist is not the focal concern which i have noticed with many video's of many different genres even our own genre they do this however we decided to go against it, i think this was a smart decision as it would have not matched the video however Andrew Godwin did say that some video's are voyeristic of the female body i feel this is the case in our video a lot of our video is based around watching a girl dance so in that respect we have not challenged this convention but challenged the convention of having the artist in it.

Another convention that Andrew Godwin mentions that we have challenged is in our video there is no intertextual references to anything its all our video something new we did not do this intentionally i guess you could count London as an intertextual reference to Britain. The genre that our music comes from is like any genre with intertextual references for instance not every video has one it all depends on wether the reference and the video mix or suit each other like Dance the video on my blog has many references to Michael Jackson because they fit into the song and the video.

Thursday 10 February 2011

Music video Final



This is our finished music video, for media it has taken a long time but we are really proud of it.

Tuesday 8 February 2011

New time lapse (car time lapse)

We have finally filmed the time lapse of the car in london which has come out in a really high quality and looks really good and completely goes with our film and gives the video this feel she is traveling through her dream i need to get the photos to upload from tommy.

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Our artists DJ magma poster





This is the poster i have made for My media artist it is similar to my digipack as it shared the same color scheme and images however it is different and more like a poster as it shows dates and the album name and is advertising the artist.

Friday 28 January 2011

Filming one of our last shots







These are the screenshots of one of our last shoots unfortunately i could not be there because i was ill at the time but this my group filming.

Screen shots of the actual editing process







These are some of the screenshots that show our groups editing process i could not put them all on so i have just put a few outling the brief process of our editing process which we have nearly finished. Some of the techniques we used were to use montage shots so there were a fast succession of shots you will see this in the beginning of our video off Hayley getting ready another technique we used was to tile some of the images as i have explained in a previous post which is where you get a selected image you want and put the effect tile on it which gives it the feel off looking through a gyroscope as a kid and gives it a party feel. Another technique we used was a thing i have talked a lot about throughout the blog is time-lapsing which is really the highpoint of our video as it shows london at night at its brightest and really connotes a club feel like the city is dancing with the song. My role through the editing process was to help Jay as he edited by coming up with the ideas and showing him the plan to stick to whilst he edited and he taught me how to use a lot of final cut pro which i can say i know how to use as i have only ever used imovie, i also told jay what was and was not in sync and told him where to put certain things, in a way me and Tommy were his advisors to how we wanted the Video as Jay did the majority of the editing for the video.

Photo's of our props





These are just some of the props we used for our music video they did not cost us anything and we were allowed to use them the whole day, this is how we got the different lighting colors in our music video.

Finished digipack



Here is my finished Digipack. For my Digipack i did not want to follow what Tommy and Jay were doing of playing on the idea of Magma and lava i wanted to play on the idea more that he was a DJ and give the Digipack a more upbeat club feel much like our video i feel the album goes with the video as it shows this night club scene, the images of the bright purple in the background i feel connote a club scene really well. I put a Photo of Tommy in a DJ pose on the front cover and turned the brightness down on him so this connotes the idea that he is DJ magma and i put a black square in front of him so it looks like his deck, the text i have used as well i feel suit the DJ as his album name is in this club looking neon font, and his name is in this fire magma font which connotes the word magma.

Thursday 27 January 2011

Presenting

Even know we still have not filmed the final part of our video the majority of it is done and we showed it to our media class, everyone really liked it and none of the other students could say a criticisms for it which really made us happy as we have put so much effort into it, also both Miss beer and Miss Whitaker agreed that the video was amazing and miss Whitaker even went as far as to say "she could not fault it" and said once we finished it we would be getting top marks which made me and my group proud all we need to do now is finish the video and for me to finish my digipack and do some more blogging to get my posts up.

Filming for our project

We have filmed another part of our film it is the beginning part we needed and have also successfully edited it into our project and gives it music video a dream feel which is what we wanted. All that needs to be filmed now is the final time lapse which is in a car and should only take roughly an hour and a half so it will look like the women is travailing in her dream.

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Video for our first screening



This was the video we used for our first time lapse unfortunately we could not film our car time lapse in time so we had to use a clip from youtube to show what it will look like it looked good but did not feel right because it was not our work.

Thursday 20 January 2011

My digipack so far



This is my Digipack for my artist DJ Magma it is nearly finished. I have chose to go for a lot different feel than my groups digipack they have decided to play on the fact that that our artist name is called Magma where as i focused more on the fact he is a dj and the fact is more relevant to a club so i have tried to give my digipack a more club feel which i feel i am doing now.

How i made my digipack club scene





This is me showing how i made the vibrant colours for my image on photoshop.

Saturday 15 January 2011

Tiled transitions





These are the tiled transitions for our music video which make the video feel a bit more upbeat as it matches the beats of the song itself.

Friday 14 January 2011

Tiling transitions

we have put tiles in our film by this i mean that while editing we have put an effect on an image so it will have almost as its called a tile look it makes the video look really upbeat and we have used them in some areas to match the beat of the song which they do really well however our teacher feels their are to many of them and not enough of the girl although we have rectified this problem in the editing process.

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Screen shots of editing process





These screenshots are of our editing for instance there is brightness bar which we used to adjust the brightness and contrast of the shots which we did use as some of the shots were darker than others however now we have corrected the issue. The other screen shots are off the actual editing process the two shots are from our music video these screenshots are proof of the editing process itself so it is documented. You can also see that the shot on the top in this post is darker than the one at the bottom which shows that we have brightened the shots again it is documented.

Sunday 9 January 2011

overview of the week

We have edited at least half of the Video now however we still need to film a few pieces to go into the final parts of the music video, also tommy has talked about re-shooting parts of the shots at the club scene as the brightness of the shots are different and have come out better in others however we sorted this out by adjusting the brightness levels on final cut.

Tuesday 4 January 2011

What we did today

we have started editing our music video we still need to film a few tiny pieces more to get a full video but i think we should be done within two weeks which is good as we beat the deadline for our music video just need to get our blogs updated.

Saturday 1 January 2011

99 problems analysed with godwins theory

  1. This music video agrees with godwins theory as it has rap genre characteristics for instance in most rap video's the rapper will usually stand in front of the camera rapping to the audience, another thing with this video is that it is gritty and in your face much like rap lyrics, this is another characteristic of rap videos is that the video is usually in your face and gritty.
  2. The lyrics do match the song for instance when he talks about getting in trouble with the police you see it in a short clip however i have noticed this trend with a lot of rap video's for instance eminem 3am does this another would be 50 cent candy shop however the whole video does not match the lyrics although there are some rap videos that do this eminem's stan is set in a lyrical match up fashion however i feel that it depends on the director and artist whether these sort of things that happen.
  3. There are lots of close ups of Jay Z in the 99 problems video however if you look at most videos there is some form of close up of the actor i do not feel this is the record labels choice and will not usually mean anything i feel its just to establish the artist however i am not saying that record labels do not put a quoter of how many close ups there must be off the artist in question as the record label is funding it they can decide what does and does not go.
  4. I would agree that there is the notion of looking at the artist as there are lots of mid/close up shots of the artist himself also there is a screen within a screen as you see Jay Z on a T.V in Brooklyn which agrees with this part of Godwins theory. Another thing is that in this video women are seen in a voyeuristic fashion however i feel this is more of a genre characteristic of rap as women are usually represented as sex objects and not people all the time in these video's but not just the videos, the lyrics to.
  5. I don't feel there is an intertextual reference to anything in this music video however i am not denying rap does this its music video's if you look at Eminems 3am there are lots of intertextual references to many horror films such as halloween, hanibal and many other films of the horror genre.




Justice, Dance analysis using Andrew Godwin's theory




  1. This music video comes under the dance genre as the music video is very vibrant and interesting to watch much like, the music is interesting to listen to as it makes you want to get up and dance so the music video follows the genre as it is really funky the way they have used animation as well makes the music video vibrant and bright an energetic which suits the genre.
  2. There is a relationship between the visuals and lyrics in this video for instance there is a when the lyrics Say's you were such a p.y.t pops up on the shirt there is also other references to the lyrics and the animation throughout the video in some respects though the lyrics don't match the video in somerespects as sometimes the lyrics of the song are said and an animation that is not relevant to this pops up on the shirt.
  3. There is relavance to music visuals in this as the animation on the shirt not only match with the lyrics of the song they also match with the beats of the song for instance when the song puts a more beat based part of the song the animation begins to match with these beats not all the time but it does do it in certain areas of the song.
  4. There are no close ups of the artists in this song so it cant be a demand from the record label there is no shots of the artists face in any part of the video.
  5. There is no women in this video so there is no voyeristic look on women in this video i feel this convention is more for rap video's or rock video's, in some respects we are always looking but not through the notions of mirors we are looking at these shirts as they are being animated so we have to look its compulsory or else there would be no music video we have to look at what the camera isshowing us.
  6. This music video has many intertextual references to the late Michael Jackson such as the lyrics they are references to his song such as "P.Y.T" pretty young thing and "abc" is his song abc when he was in the jackson five they also say "stick to the b.e.a.t" referencing his song beat it.

Godwin's theory analysis of Invaders must die music video





  1. This music video demonstrates many characteristics from the dance genre, for instance the music video is very upbeat and uses many fast cuts to match the song the music video is upbeat by this i mean that watching it makes you want to get up and do something much like the song would if it came on in a club. This video follows a lot of characteristics of other dance videos they will usually follow a character usually someone famous or the artist but it can be an unknown actor, the music video will follow these people, it happens in many dance videos such as dreamer and smack my bitch up, Omen, also fire starter another thing about music video's is they will never be slow or else the song would not match they are usually fast up beat video's that when you watch you will want to dance.
  2. The lyrics do match the song as the song keep's repeating "Invaders must die" and the character (Noel Clarke) he is marching as if he is going to fight these invaders throughout the video he is leaving symbols around like he is some sort of fighter leaving his mark on his enemy's area and by his performance we can see he looks angry as if something or someone has really annoyed him. So this music video's lyrics do match the video. Other than that there is not that many words in it as it is more of a techno dance song.
  3. The music matches the video as it is as if the music video is trying to rally us to fight with Noel Clarke as when he is walking we get this music that really makes you want to get up and dance and do something thus connotating the idea of rallying us up like troops also the lyrics of the song sound like a world war two tannoy the way it keeps repeating "Invaders must die" is also as if the song is trying top rally us the music definitely matches the music video as its Noel Clarke walking as if trying to rally us up and the music compliments it really well.
  4. In some respects i agree with the Andrew Godwin theory at this point as we are always looking at Noel Clarke most of the camera shots have him in them however i feel that he is a big British star and they would need to give him considerable screen time and therefore ads the notion of looking as we are always staring at him, however i feel that there is not a notion of looking in this video the notion in this music video is more to match the music and it does well as it gives the video this feel of some one rallying troops against the invaders.
  5. There is no intertextual reference's to anything that i can see however there probably are i just cant see them, the only thing i would say there is an intertextual reference to is world war 2 as this song sounds like it is a reference as it says things like "Invaders must die" and it sounds like some sort of army tannoy calling out to people like in world war 2.