Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Friday, 30 April 2010
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Evaluation
When we decided to make our music video, we wanted to push the barriers, be creative and go against the normal conventions. We had many ideas of what to do, but they were all very conventional. After many hours of trying to think of new, fresh and original idears, we came up with ANIMATION. The use of personal family pictures, other images and transitions was the key idea for our video. We thought this was the best way to portray the poetical, imaginative concept of the band. Originally we were going to incorporate some footage in the video, but apart from the opening scene, we decided to use only animation. The reason for this decision was to challenge media forms and conventions of most other music videos and also to challenge ourselves and to also create the correct video for such a statement band like The Crookes. The Crookes have a very distinct image and indie/pop sound and a very original personality to the band. We began to collect photographs from my family albums, of my great grandparents, all dating back to the 1950’s/1960’s. This really helped me feel the emotion of the song as the video now has a very personal meaning to me. The photographs really showed the old feeling for the band, portraying the old style clothing they dress in.
The video ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ from the Maccabees was the main inspiration for us. This is the only successful band we have seen that has used this sort of animation for a video. Looking through their list of videos, we saw that they also like to push the barriers and challenge conventions by being creative and challenging the normal video conventions.
The first and main way in which our video challenges conventions is that it is solely animation. By animation I mean that the story of the video is told through manipulating images and creating motion to tell the story of the song. We used many tools to enhance the colour and look of the images. We knew that we needed to keep a narrative going through the video so we needed to keep the transitions of the photos smooth and fluid, if not the story would not be created. We wanted to make it like a moving photo album and creating scenes of what was happening.
I feel that the photos tell the story of two young people coming together, then the struggle in the middle as the family falls apart, with the happy ending as they get back together. This follows Todorov's theory behind music videos. He calls is the Classical Narrative. He says that a music video starts with Equilibrium (the normal state at the beginning. Any opposing forces are in balance) followed by the Dis-equilibrium (An action or conflict introduced into the narrative) and finally followed by the New-equilibrium (where the conflict is resolved and the narrative strands are tied together). The Equilibrium is shown in our video through the use of love hearts, doves and emotive words. The Dis-equilibrium is shown in our video through the use of rain clouds, the family splitting up and the father walking away. The New-equilibrium is also showed in our video mainly when the audience saw the family re-uniting.
Following this format may mean that we did in fact follow conventions, but we just portrayed it in an unconventional way. It would have been conventional if we had used Todorov's theory and filmed it in a studio with the artists etc. I feel that although we followed convention with the narrative, but developing it by using animation.
There is a clear relationship between the lyrics and the visuals in our music video. With the video consisting of animation and imagery the photographs and brush tools that we included in our video have a clear relationship with the lyrics.
Throughout the video certain lyrics are represented by animated scenes and words on the screen to enhance the lyrics and create a relationship between them. Also a certain points in the video we have included words and text which reflect certain lyrics and again enhances the importance of the lyrics due to it holding the essence of the narrative .
There is also a clear relationship between the Music and the Visuals. At the beginning of the song the beat is slow and subtle and the imagery and animation that we used worked in relation to this. However as we reach the climax of the song the beat begins to increase and the track gets quicker in speed. Due to this we also enhanced the speed of our animation and also reversed particular parts of animation to show the dramatic change in the music and the visuals. Due to this change there is definitely a clear relationship between the music and the visuals in our music video for the Crookes, Chorus of Fools. 
Throughout the production tasks I have tried to keep a consistent theme throughout my work. The video relied heavily on pictures, black and white images, sepia tones and fonts, therefore I have tried to incorporate this is both my Digipak and Magazine Advert. I think it is essential to keep the house style as it will keep our target audience interested.
I feel that the Digipak sticks to the house style and theme of the video particularly well as I have incorporated many of the images used in the video, on the front cover of the Digipak itself. I decided to create a collage of images for my front cover as I didn't think it would be right to go with a traditional front cover image of the band, as we didn't incorporate a image of the band in the video, therefore it would have looked out of place.
I think it was essential to keep the house style throughout all the material linked with the video, as it keeps the strong theme evident throughout.
When making the magazine article I kept the same colours and fonts throughout and a picture of the Digipak. On the magazine article I have not incorporated any images apart from the Digipak itself, but the house style is followed through.
Throughout the video, Digipak and magazine advert I have kept Monotype Conversia font. I feel that this font represents the band and as it was used in the video, I wanted to keep it strong throughout the project. I think it is essential to keep the house style throughout as it shows that they all go together and represent the same band and song. The idea of the magazine article was to advertise the Digipak, in which the Digipak included our video. For the audience it wouldn't have many sense if they didn't all have to same house style, to show they are all for the same thing. I feel that I have created an effective project in which all the materials work together and represent the band well.
Due to The Crookes being a young, unsigned band with the pop/indie vibe that they carry i knew that they would have a strong target audience. I believe that the target audience for The Crookes would people aged between 15-30 who have an interest in bands. I know that knowing your target audience is very important when making a music video and portraying the band simply so the right people would know of the band and what they have produced. The video has to match the style and theme of the band and their track. This is why we found that using photographs from the 1950s and the sepia tone would be most affective; it works great in combination with the track and should therefore appeal to the bands target audience. To make sure this was achieved, I created a survey on surveymonkey to achieve audience feedback.
Audience feedback about our video has been very positive. It seems that the audience believe that it was a good idea to use animation and they also said that the video fitted in with the style of song. They all agreed that the Indie feel of the band was portrayed well by using animation. It seems that the audience feel that the video is very creative and using the old photos was effective.
The majority of feedback on the Survey Monkey suggested that most people expected our video to be shown on music channels and YouTube. I was very happy with this as the audience obviously believe it has the potential to be shown on music channels with professional videos.
The Crookes have also commented on the video, and really liked the fact that we used animation as they were not available to appear in the video themselves. They said they enjoyed watching the video and liked the creativity. We have also found out since we completed the video, that The Crookes themselves have now had a video professionally made and have used the same animation format as we did.
From the audience survey I have conducted on Survey Monkey, I have not had any negative feedback, but obviously I know the video is not perfect and there would be a few things looking back on it that I would change.
During the video making process, we used many new, as well as ones we already knew, technologies to complete it. The biggest hurdle we came across was using Adobe Premiere Pro. Firstly, we had never used Premiere before, and had also been made aware that it was not a programme predominantly used for animation. We had to learn many new techniques in Premiere, including how to move, crop, colour change, rotate and scale images. 
The video ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ from the Maccabees was the main inspiration for us. This is the only successful band we have seen that has used this sort of animation for a video. Looking through their list of videos, we saw that they also like to push the barriers and challenge conventions by being creative and challenging the normal video conventions.
The first and main way in which our video challenges conventions is that it is solely animation. By animation I mean that the story of the video is told through manipulating images and creating motion to tell the story of the song. We used many tools to enhance the colour and look of the images. We knew that we needed to keep a narrative going through the video so we needed to keep the transitions of the photos smooth and fluid, if not the story would not be created. We wanted to make it like a moving photo album and creating scenes of what was happening.
I feel that this idea challenges conventions of most music videos in a great way.
By challenging conventions, I mean that we went against what you may call the ‘traditional’ music video.
The ‘traditional’ music video would feature the artist, maybe lip synching to the song, and the story would be told though the acting of the artist along with extras. It would usually be the lip synch of the lyrics which tell the story, whereas in our video we have used photos and other symbolic images to create the story and narrative.
‘Chorus of Fools’ is a song about relationships and how they break up and form back together through any difficu lties they may face along the way.
By challenging conventions, I mean that we went against what you may call the ‘traditional’ music video.
The ‘traditional’ music video would feature the artist, maybe lip synching to the song, and the story would be told though the acting of the artist along with extras. It would usually be the lip synch of the lyrics which tell the story, whereas in our video we have used photos and other symbolic images to create the story and narrative.
‘Chorus of Fools’ is a song about relationships and how they break up and form back together through any difficu lties they may face along the way.
I feel that the photos tell the story of two young people coming together, then the struggle in the middle as the family falls apart, with the happy ending as they get back together. This follows Todorov's theory behind music videos. He calls is the Classical Narrative. He says that a music video starts with Equilibrium (the normal state at the beginning. Any opposing forces are in balance) followed by the Dis-equilibrium (An action or conflict introduced into the narrative) and finally followed by the New-equilibrium (where the conflict is resolved and the narrative strands are tied together). The Equilibrium is shown in our video through the use of love hearts, doves and emotive words. The Dis-equilibrium is shown in our video through the use of rain clouds, the family splitting up and the father walking away. The New-equilibrium is also showed in our video mainly when the audience saw the family re-uniting.
Following this format may mean that we did in fact follow conventions, but we just portrayed it in an unconventional way. It would have been conventional if we had used Todorov's theory and filmed it in a studio with the artists etc. I feel that although we followed convention with the narrative, but developing it by using animation.
There is a clear relationship between the lyrics and the visuals in our music video. With the video consisting of animation and imagery the photographs and brush tools that we included in our video have a clear relationship with the lyrics.
Throughout the video certain lyrics are represented by animated scenes and words on the screen to enhance the lyrics and create a relationship between them. Also a certain points in the video we have included words and text which reflect certain lyrics and again enhances the importance of the lyrics due to it holding the essence of the narrative .
There is also a clear relationship between the Music and the Visuals. At the beginning of the song the beat is slow and subtle and the imagery and animation that we used worked in relation to this. However as we reach the climax of the song the beat begins to increase and the track gets quicker in speed. Due to this we also enhanced the speed of our animation and also reversed particular parts of animation to show the dramatic change in the music and the visuals. Due to this change there is definitely a clear relationship between the music and the visuals in our music video for the Crookes, Chorus of Fools.
Throughout the production tasks I have tried to keep a consistent theme throughout my work. The video relied heavily on pictures, black and white images, sepia tones and fonts, therefore I have tried to incorporate this is both my Digipak and Magazine Advert. I think it is essential to keep the house style as it will keep our target audience interested.
I feel that the Digipak sticks to the house style and theme of the video particularly well as I have incorporated many of the images used in the video, on the front cover of the Digipak itself. I decided to create a collage of images for my front cover as I didn't think it would be right to go with a traditional front cover image of the band, as we didn't incorporate a image of the band in the video, therefore it would have looked out of place.
I think it was essential to keep the house style throughout all the material linked with the video, as it keeps the strong theme evident throughout.
When making the magazine article I kept the same colours and fonts throughout and a picture of the Digipak. On the magazine article I have not incorporated any images apart from the Digipak itself, but the house style is followed through.
Throughout the video, Digipak and magazine advert I have kept Monotype Conversia font. I feel that this font represents the band and as it was used in the video, I wanted to keep it strong throughout the project. I think it is essential to keep the house style throughout as it shows that they all go together and represent the same band and song. The idea of the magazine article was to advertise the Digipak, in which the Digipak included our video. For the audience it wouldn't have many sense if they didn't all have to same house style, to show they are all for the same thing. I feel that I have created an effective project in which all the materials work together and represent the band well.
Due to The Crookes being a young, unsigned band with the pop/indie vibe that they carry i knew that they would have a strong target audience. I believe that the target audience for The Crookes would people aged between 15-30 who have an interest in bands. I know that knowing your target audience is very important when making a music video and portraying the band simply so the right people would know of the band and what they have produced. The video has to match the style and theme of the band and their track. This is why we found that using photographs from the 1950s and the sepia tone would be most affective; it works great in combination with the track and should therefore appeal to the bands target audience. To make sure this was achieved, I created a survey on surveymonkey to achieve audience feedback.
Audience feedback about our video has been very positive. It seems that the audience believe that it was a good idea to use animation and they also said that the video fitted in with the style of song. They all agreed that the Indie feel of the band was portrayed well by using animation. It seems that the audience feel that the video is very creative and using the old photos was effective.
The majority of feedback on the Survey Monkey suggested that most people expected our video to be shown on music channels and YouTube. I was very happy with this as the audience obviously believe it has the potential to be shown on music channels with professional videos.
The Crookes have also commented on the video, and really liked the fact that we used animation as they were not available to appear in the video themselves. They said they enjoyed watching the video and liked the creativity. We have also found out since we completed the video, that The Crookes themselves have now had a video professionally made and have used the same animation format as we did.
From the audience survey I have conducted on Survey Monkey, I have not had any negative feedback, but obviously I know the video is not perfect and there would be a few things looking back on it that I would change.
During the video making process, we used many new, as well as ones we already knew, technologies to complete it. The biggest hurdle we came across was using Adobe Premiere Pro. Firstly, we had never used Premiere before, and had also been made aware that it was not a programme predominantly used for animation. We had to learn many new techniques in Premiere, including how to move, crop, colour change, rotate and scale images.
Another useful tool we found useful, was when we learnt how to reverse parts of the timeline. We used this at the end of the video when we wanted to reverse some of the previous footage we already had. We also had to decide how we would make the video flow, making the objects move across the screen. We did this by using key frames. We also learnt how to import images from Photoshop, which we had scanned in to the computer, and with the help of our teacher, how to import the track for the video. There were many different tools that we did not know about at the beginning of making the video. We came across a lot of tools simply by trial and error, and as we were not familiar with the programme, this was the best way to do so.
Another programme we used was Adobe Photoshop. We had used this many times before, especially when completing our AS Magazine Project. It took a bit of refreshing our minds to feel comfortable using it again, but it soon came back to us.
We used Photoshop mainly to remove backgrounds from photos and crop images to later import into Premiere. We also used Photoshop to correct flaws on some of the photos as they had a few marks on them as they are very old.
Another useful piece of technology we used was the video camera. Although we didn’t use much footage in our video, we filmed the opening of the video. We used the camera and tripod to film the opening and closing of the book. We used the tripod to make sure the camera was still enough to film to the book well and make it look professional.
Other simple technologies we used throughout the making of the video were programmes such as Microsoft Word and Paint, for simple jobs such as simple cropping and colouring to pictures.
I also had to get to grips with Blogger. We originally used Ning, but felt it was holding us back slightly as we simply did not like the programme. This is when we decided to swap to Blogger as we knew how to use this and could get on with the pre-production straight away. We used Blogger to upload and keep track of all our work, both pre-production and post-production. We learnt how to upload images and other documents such as Google documents and slide share files. We also learnt to import YouTube videos using the embed codes.
I also used Google Documents to help us in pre-production. I chose to use Google Documents to create PowerPoint's and other documents as it made is accessible to use from any computer I may be on. It was a simple programme to use and I found it very helpful. I used Google documents to create PowerPoint’s mainly for pre-production work when researching artists and directors.
Looking back at the video, there would be a few things I would change if I completed it again. I feel that there are a few transitions that look a bit messy that we didn’t realise at the time. Also, at the end we reversed a lot of the footage, but looking back I may have wanted to create newer footage rather than repeating footage.
Looking back at the project as a whole, I think I may wanted to be a bit more organised in the fact that we changed our song, ideas and plans for the video many times which slowed us down in the making process and made us feel a bit rushed towards the end, which looking back could have been easily corrected.
Another programme we used was Adobe Photoshop. We had used this many times before, especially when completing our AS Magazine Project. It took a bit of refreshing our minds to feel comfortable using it again, but it soon came back to us.
We used Photoshop mainly to remove backgrounds from photos and crop images to later import into Premiere. We also used Photoshop to correct flaws on some of the photos as they had a few marks on them as they are very old.
Another useful piece of technology we used was the video camera. Although we didn’t use much footage in our video, we filmed the opening of the video. We used the camera and tripod to film the opening and closing of the book. We used the tripod to make sure the camera was still enough to film to the book well and make it look professional.
Other simple technologies we used throughout the making of the video were programmes such as Microsoft Word and Paint, for simple jobs such as simple cropping and colouring to pictures.
I also had to get to grips with Blogger. We originally used Ning, but felt it was holding us back slightly as we simply did not like the programme. This is when we decided to swap to Blogger as we knew how to use this and could get on with the pre-production straight away. We used Blogger to upload and keep track of all our work, both pre-production and post-production. We learnt how to upload images and other documents such as Google documents and slide share files. We also learnt to import YouTube videos using the embed codes.
I also used Google Documents to help us in pre-production. I chose to use Google Documents to create PowerPoint's and other documents as it made is accessible to use from any computer I may be on. It was a simple programme to use and I found it very helpful. I used Google documents to create PowerPoint’s mainly for pre-production work when researching artists and directors.
Looking back at the video, there would be a few things I would change if I completed it again. I feel that there are a few transitions that look a bit messy that we didn’t realise at the time. Also, at the end we reversed a lot of the footage, but looking back I may have wanted to create newer footage rather than repeating footage.
Looking back at the project as a whole, I think I may wanted to be a bit more organised in the fact that we changed our song, ideas and plans for the video many times which slowed us down in the making process and made us feel a bit rushed towards the end, which looking back could have been easily corrected.
Audience Feedback
Audience feedback has been very positive. I collected my research through Survey Monkey.
Magazine Advert
This is my magazine advert for The crookes digipak. I have kept the same fonts and colours throughuot the magazine that also feature on the digipak itself. I have included a picture of the digipak itself, so the audience know what to look out for in the shops. I have kept the advert quite basic, just with enough information to encourage fans to purchase one.
The idea for a magazine advert is to promote a band's new cd/dvdor digipak. They may also be used to promote tour dates for the band. The magazine advert should tie in with the band's image and shoudl create the same impact as other ancillary texts, such as the DVD Digpak and the music video. A magazine advert is essential to promote the bands new material and without this essential promotion, the band would not sell as many copies of their material as they would obviously hope for.
My magazine article keeps the house style of the all the ancillary material I have created to make sure the target audience recognise the fact that all the material fits together. The magazine article i have created includes the bands name, song name and when the digipak will be released. I have also tried to make it look professional by including the logo's of shops the digipak will be available in. 
Digipak
Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. Since Digipaks were among the first alternatives to jewel cases to be used by major record companies, and because there is no other common name for Digipak-style packaging made by other companies, the term digipak or Digi-Pak is often used generically, even when the media holder is a hub or "Soft Spot" rather than a full plastic tray.
- Wikipedia
Digipaks come in many different shapes and sizes. The typical digipak consists of either 4,6 or 8 panels. I have completed my digipak with 4 sides and an inlay. On the front cover, I have made a collage of the images used in the video, to keep the house style, and the back cover has the list of the tracks and bonus tracks which are in the digipak. The inside features the DVD holder on the right side and the left side is information about the band. The inlay also features information about the band, and upcoming shows.
- Wikipedia
Digipaks come in many different shapes and sizes. The typical digipak consists of either 4,6 or 8 panels. I have completed my digipak with 4 sides and an inlay. On the front cover, I have made a collage of the images used in the video, to keep the house style, and the back cover has the list of the tracks and bonus tracks which are in the digipak. The inside features the DVD holder on the right side and the left side is information about the band. The inlay also features information about the band, and upcoming shows.
The main features of a digipak are:
- myspace/facebook address
- barcode
- record company logo
- live concert footage
- it must look intersting
- blurb on the back that tells you what is inside the digipak
- may feature a picture of the band or an interesting image
- interviews
- information about the band
Friday, 26 March 2010
StoryBoarding..
When trying to create a storyboard, we found it very hard to plan out step by step of what we were gioing to do. We had the idea of what the video would look like and the type of theme we wanted, but especially as we still didn't know every feature on Premiere, therefore we may change things during the production process. We collected many old photographs from my family album ans knew this was the theme we wanted to use throughout the video. The track 'Chorus Of Fools' is about a relationship that is dying out and being reformed again; with many twists and turns along the way. We obviously wanted to portray this as our main theme and by doing this we wanted to use my photographs, animation and any other tools we foud along the way to tell the story.
As mentioned before, the song has a distinct story to it. It ties in with Todorov's theory. He suggested that there is three parts to a music video. Firstly, the Equilibrium: the normal state at the beginning of the text. Any opposing forces are in balance. Secondly, Dis-equilibrium - An action or conflict introduced into the narrative and lastly, the New-equilibrium - the conflict is resolved and the narrative strands are tied together. We used this to decide on the storyboard for the video.
This is where the couple will look back at some fond memories they have had together as they begin to realise they want to get back together as a family. The pair will rekindle their love and the family will slowlt get back together. We will use a reversal tool, in which we will reverse some of the footage we have already used to show the time that has passed and all that has happened in that short time.
Section 7:
Section 7 is the happy ever ending. The family will be re-united and we will use the book footage, as the book closing the end of the story. We will include words and brushes going back into the book to show the happy ending.
TEST FOOTAGE
As mentioned before, the song has a distinct story to it. It ties in with Todorov's theory. He suggested that there is three parts to a music video. Firstly, the Equilibrium: the normal state at the beginning of the text. Any opposing forces are in balance. Secondly, Dis-equilibrium - An action or conflict introduced into the narrative and lastly, the New-equilibrium - the conflict is resolved and the narrative strands are tied together. We used this to decide on the storyboard for the video.
Scene one will start with the opening of a book. The book signifies the 'start of the fairytale'. We will incorporate many different objects in the book (e.g hearts, starts etc.) which will feature in the rest of the video. The book is the only piece of footage we will bring to the video, to keep the animation strong.
Scene Two: 
Scene two is the introduction of the couple. The scene will be a bright, happy scene to signify the happiness of the relationship.
Scene Three:
Scene three is the introduction of the clock. We have decided to use a clock to show time passing as the song lyrics explain about how they are lookin back on their time together. It is also a happy scene as the couple are happily in a relationship.
Scene Four:
This part is where we introduce the 'wedding' scene. This is where the couple will be at their happiest and we will create a cupid/love scene
to create the happiness between the couple.
Scene Five:
This is when we see the family start to dissolve apart. The family will split up and the child will
appear to be alone and upset. We will use symbols and images to create this sad time. We will use clouds and rain in these scenes to move away from the hapiness before and really signify
the sadness that is happening.
Scene Six:
This is where the couple will look back at some fond memories they have had together as they begin to realise they want to get back together as a family. The pair will rekindle their love and the family will slowlt get back together. We will use a reversal tool, in which we will reverse some of the footage we have already used to show the time that has passed and all that has happened in that short time.
Section 7:
Section 7 is the happy ever ending. The family will be re-united and we will use the book footage, as the book closing the end of the story. We will include words and brushes going back into the book to show the happy ending.
TEST FOOTAGE
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