Prezi Evaluation

http://prezi.com/r2keglcjxot8/evaluation/

Evaluation

In this essay I will cover how my product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media product. I will also include how effective the combination of my main tasks and ancillary tasks are. And finally I will be covering how I used new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages. 

My media product uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products because I took ideas from different music videos of different genres that gave me a wider range of styles. So I took ideas from certain parts of a variety of music videos and interpreted it in my own way. This shows that I have challenged forms and conventions because I watched hip-hop, indie, rock music videos and mixed a bit of everything to make my final music video. I also challenged real media products by going opposite to what a real music video is set out to do, which is make it look as professional and expensive as possible. I however, did not want it to come across perfect and professional so I tried to use a limited amount of props as possible. This was the same with the camera angles and shots, I tried not to use a tripod because that would of cleaned the shots up, I wanted to make it look unsteady as if it has been taken from a home camera deliberately. When watching the video back it may look as if I tried to make it look like every other video but it did not work out. However, this was planned. Already this shows how I have challenged forms and conventions because I have not had steady shots throughout the video, yet I have challenged myself to include a wide range of camera angles and shots. I think it has been successful with the experimentation side of it. Most music videos are edited and perfected,my music video was aimed in the opposite direction which was a big challenge for me to take on. The conventions depend mainly on the genre and style of the artists, that is why the character used in the music video was not too groomed and personally styled. It would be different if the genre was pop because then you would need well dressed, model-like characters that are sure to appeal to the audience. This differs to the style I was aiming for because at parts the outfits changed unintentionally, because the scenes were shot on different days the character had different outfits. If this could be changed, I would have planned to have a certain outfit for every scene that would be shot. 


When choosing the song I wanted to produce a music video for, I had to research into the same genre of music to see what the bands, music and overall images are. The group I chose was The City Lightz, a low budget, local group where the drummer was my group member, so I did not have to worry about copyright permission. This was both an advantage and disadvantage because it was difficult researching into the band on the internet to search for websites and inside information. Luckily, my group member that is in the band gave me information about the band and what genre of music they would be classed as. This again is a challenge because usually on a task like this you could look at the artists original music video and take ideas. But for this one I had no music video from the band to look at that could give me ideas so I had to produce it all from step 1.


Also one of the points that shows good planning and editing skills is that the video is timed and synchronised perfectly with the audio. Even though the character in the video does not mime throughout the entire video, it is timed to the beat. For example, when the music breaks down, the video reverses and you can hear the real audio as well as the music. However, there was a big problem with the ending, there is a part where the audio matches the video when the singer fades out the character yawns, so it matches, but due to problems whilst uploading the video onto Youtube, it cut out the last 10 seconds of the video. This was a problem because the ending was a perfect way to finish it off and humorous at the same time. Which moves me onto the feedback that was given.

"I liked the music but didn't understand the ending"

                                                          - Year 8 student

- The reason that not many people understood the ending was because of the problem uploading otherwise it would have been easy to understand and would of come together quite nicely.

"Great music, good use of camera shots and funky imagination" 

                                                          - Year 8 student

- There was a wide range of camera shots used, I used almost all of the shots and they fit in well. I would have only used the shots that would suit a music video like this, but luckily it went well.

"I enjoyed the video and I think they've tried very hard. Good music and acting, good camera shots and angles"

                                                          - Year 8 student

" Personally, I think this is the best CD cover I have seen for an unsigned band, ever. It's gritty, subversive and dirty. It captures the mood of the band fantastically, and I'd be delighted to have it as a cover for an album or single."  

                                                          - Sam Lewis, (Band member, drummer for The City Lightz)

- Sam Lewis was my team member, band member and also featured in the music video. His feedback helped me a lot and gave me a positive boost which helped me bring the products to a positive close.

I would have liked to hear more critical feedback, with negative points to help me improve what I had already got. But I am glad that most of the comments were positive.

I think the combination of my main product and ancillary tasks are very effective because not only did I plan and research in depth but I updated ideas on a regular basis. My main product and ancillary tasks combined are very effective because I had a strong amount of research and planning and I would draw out plans and ideas of the magazine cover and CD cover and then publish it electronically and compare them to other CD covers. This shows that my plans for the ancillary tasks are effective. The outcome of the ancillary tasks were just as I had planned and if any changes were made, I would blog about it and write improvements for future.


The main product, which was my music video was completed before I had started the ancillary tasks, however I had planned for these before. But after completing the music video it simplified the two ancillary tasks because I could take the same style as the music video and create a CD cover, followed by the poster which would be the same design as the CD cover. 


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


To research for the music videos, I used Youtube to search for different music videos for different genres. And to research for the CD Covers I used Google images, and other sites that were linked to Google images showing a good example of CD covers and a bad example which directed me into the right way of creating something that would be seen in a positive way. For the magazine poster I researched online as well as music magazines such as NME. Not only do I collect this magazine but as a creative student it helps me with my ideas and designs. The image below is just a small example of the sort of things that I looked at to get inspiration. I noticed that a lot of bands have collages on posters and covers which gave me an idea that that is something I wanted to create.

Links-  The link below is of the myspace site for the band, The City Lightz which is were I found images, information and ideas for my CD Cover.


www.myspace.com/thecitylightzmusic


The link below is the final outcome of the music video, edited, uplaoded and perfected.

http://www.youtube.com/user/sugarjunkiesam#p/a/u/0/7Yqs6Y_FWmI


The images below are of the CD covers and magazine cover. I had designed them, created them and then uploaded them. So it is both hand made and digitally edited.

Collectively, I believe that this project as a whole has been very successful. There would be slight changes that I would make if need be but I am not disappointed with how it has turned out. I enjoyed planning, producing and researching into the whole product and I would happily do something like this again.

Magazine Advertisement & Web Homepage

This the second ancillary task - the magazine advertisement. Deepak, my team member and I worked together on this, I designed the art work and designing and Deepak put it together and edited and perfected it.


I designed the magazine cover exactly like the CD cover. As I had planned before I would create this after I have created the CD cover because I will use the same design concept. Deepak and I planned the magazine cover and it was very similar to the CD cover so he added some text to make it look more like an advertisement. If I had to change something, it would be the font, because I would have used the same font that I had used on the CD cover. This is the part that Deepak had edited so I left him to it.

Below is an image of the homepage that is part of the digipak. The image has cropped the top half, but it has a banner of the logo which I had created and designed for the magazine advertisement and the CD Cover. The only thing about this is that it is not consistent like the CD cover has the same font all the way round.

Music Video

The link to the completed music video is below. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/sugarjunkiesam#p/a/u/0/7Yqs6Y_FWmI 

I did experiment with different camera angles and used a variety of shot distances as appropriate. Because the video was supposed to look grungy, I did not want it to look so professional, so I tried to avoid using a tripod. However, when I did record steady shots, I used a tripod. The screen capture below is a shot of when I needed to use a tripod, this was the only time I used it. The other shots where all just free hand.

I also included word art for the beginning of the music video as an introduction. This was a good way to start the video because it showed the audience viewers that this is a humorous video and prepared them for what they were about to watch, instead of taking it seriously.

This is an example of how myself and my group made it slightly humorous. This is shown before the song has kicked in so it gives the viewers a bit of an idea of the story line and a bit of an introduction. Even though unsteady shots are seen as unprofessional, for this video, it works. It would look more unprofessional if I had used a tripod throughout the entire video and planned each shot perfectly, I think the glitches went well with the product asa whole.

I used a huge variety of shot distances throughout the video, e.g. - 

A Point of View Shot

Close up

Over the Shoulder shot

Extreme close up

Extreme Long Shot

Long Shot

Worms Eye View

Unsteady Shots

The Mise en Scene used for the music video included the lighting, we did not use indoor lighting because the end shot was supposed to be of the club so it had to be quite dark. Also we had to make sure recording took place in the daylight to make it look like it was all recorded at the same time avoiding mistakes.


However, there were some mistakes that occurred whilst recording, these being because of a lack of planning for mise en scene. The first mistake made was when my group recorded the day I was absent, they did not record the scene of Sam checking his watch, this was because it was my watch used in the video. And as the storyboard shows, we planned to record the scene of him checking his watch every time he was in a different location.

Another mistake made was when we recorded on different days, Sam obviously wore different outfits, this was a problem when editing and replaying because it was visible and obvious to the viewers but could not be changed because we had already shot those scenes and if we had to re-do them, it would be very time consuming.


































Also whilst editing, myself and the group agreed on leaving the sound on as well as having the audio over it. So on some scenes when Sam is running, you can hear the wind hitting the camera, this could be distracting and off-putting but it suits the style of the video. 




There are a variety of different styled music videos on the market. Some produced like a short movie and some that have quickly been edited and then distributed. This music video is short, quick and simply edited. 

Another problem we ad as a group whilst editing is that it misses out the ending. This was caused whilst uploading. There was more word art and a clip that was supposed to be shown at the end but it freezes and stops close to the end. 

Outcome of CD Cover

[FRONT]

[BACK]

[FOLD - LYRICS]

[TRAY 1 - TRACK]

[TRAY 2 - VIDEO]

[FOLD - PICTURES]

The Magazine poster will be designed after the CD Cover has been completed because it must be the same design and theme or else it would look poorly planned. The poster will be very similar to the CD cover, the only difference is that it would look more like an advertisement but with the same colour scheme, theme and pictures. 

The CD digi-pack is completed, the final product images are above. I created and designed it by hand instead of digitally because I thought it would go better with the genre of the music and the style of the band. 

The CD cover did turn out the way I imagined and planned, however, I was afraid it might look too messy and rushed, which it did on the main cover but I didn't plan it to look neat and tidy so it looks similar to the plan. I gathered images from The City Lightz website and created a polaroid effect for one of the folds. 

Then the second fold included the lyrics, for this I used the bold font to match the newspaper cuttings. I did change a few things that I had planned to do but didn't get to do. Such as for the back of the cover I wanted to use the skyscraper silhouette and fill it with the details as I did with the first cover. But at the time I created what I thought looks best, I didn't want it to look overdone. 

I also planned to add illustrations quite a lot on and around the cover. However but whilst I was creating it there was not much space to add illustrations but on the back fold I added illustrations on the wires continuing off the page, so it wasn't actual illustrations, just a few effects.

I am pleased with the outcome of the whole CD digi-pack. but I would say I would change a few things, because after creating it, I have spotted out a few mistakes and things I would change. But I cannot re-create it due to time. There were little things I had to change just for the size of the CD cover, such as the lyrics that I typed out took up a whole page so I had to cut it down and put them in sentences so it would fit the square sized cover. 

" Personally, I think this is the best CD cover I have seen for an unsigned band, ever. It's gritty, subversive and dirty. It captures the mood of the band fantastically, and I'd be delighted to have it as a cover for an album or single."  

                                                         - Sam Lewis, (Band member, drummer for The City Lightz)

CD Cover Research

I have done a lot of research over the past few weeks for the CD cover digi-pack. In this section I explain how I got hold of the images, music, lyrics and themes of the band to lead me in the right direction of the music video and digi-packs and to see if what I have created so far fits in well with the band. To get to know a little bit more about the band I visited a couple of sites about the band to get into more depth on what music they listen to and what style they like.


The link below is the Myspace page on The City Lightz including samples of their music, images of the band and information and updates. The City Lightz had an official website but it has been removed by the band.


http://www.myspace.com/thecitylightzmusic


I got a band member Sam Lewis, who is also my team member for the music video to write down the lyrics to the song, so I can include it for the fold over section in the CD Cover.


The lyrics to the song 'Drink' are below:


"I was out with the lads on the riz,
we were fully on the siz as in
neville we were fully on the level.
Drunk my drink fast, now i'm blowing out my arse
Acting like an arse really make myself
Joke's sweet so much, might set toothache
My friends tellin' me B see ya next tuesday.
I work hard so I feel on weekends,
Too entitled to be burnin' the candle at both ends.


[Pre Chorus] Life's different when your looking through
a beer tinted lens,
Cause through any blues your friend recommends,
We rave till the sun comes up,
All the way round,
Till it goes right back down and then we...


[Chorus] Drink - till we hit the floor
Then get up and then drink some more.
(Fill up my cup I'll it one x2)


Probably weren't a good idea to mix my spirits
with my bees.
I'm merry like i'm at the end of my year.
I'm here with my bevvies,
taled up with my bessies.
They try to close the club but we're just not ready.
We ain't gonna stop,
Take the party back to ours,
Go to the bar that serves 24 hours
Not even thinking 'bout bed, or nursing 
our head - we'll get up in the morning 
and do it all again. 


[Pre Chorus]


[Chorus]


[Breakdown] 2 vodka shots, gimme a pint,
Sex on the beach girl we'll be alright,
JD on the rocks, sambooka shots
Everybody's lookin' like they're kinda shocked
like aftershock, down in one
Gimme three sours and a Jager bomb
2 tequila shots don't need lemon + lime
Wash it all down with a bottle of
wine and Drink


[Chorus] x2


[Breakdown with lyrics from above] "






The images that will be included for the cover will not be of the band, so I will cut out pictures of alcohol, instruments, live shows and scan them in the shape of the skyscraper that I had planned. It will not be the typical album cover by a band, it might have cut out images of the band scattered somewhere around the cover but not just a single one that takes the attention off the detail of the rest of the images and text. I have also decided to add a bit of illustration to make it look a little more humorous like the music video and show it from the characters point of view on what his idea of grunge is. I will draw certain things like a cigarette in a comic style and mix it with actual images to make it add together instead of having cartoon and reality separate. Another idea I had was to draw over the images and edit them over the original pictures using ink which might look a bit more organized. 

Creating the CD Cover

I have researched some CD covers to give me ideas for my CD Cover design. I have planned the idea of having a skyscraper outline across the cover mixed with another idea I had of 'sex. drugs & rock'n'roll', with the bottles, cigarettes etc. So I thought about using both ideas to produce the final piece. I want to keep it quite simple and make it very easy to understand but still interesting to look at. I have planned the design of each side of the CD. My aim is to make it look really raw and grungy, so I will use ripped up newspaper and creased polaroids to give the effect. I have also chosen not to create it digitally, this will make it look clean cut and perfected where as I am aiming for the opposite. So. I will create it on paper with cut outs and then scan it to look as messy as possible.


I have collected a few fonts that I thought would look good on the magazine poster and the CD cover. The front of the CD cover will not have a certain font as I will have collected cut outs and stuck them on. But, for the spine of the digi-pack, the lyrics fold and the back I will need the same font to keep it consistent.


Below I have chosen a few fonts that in my opinion will go well with the rest of the CD Cover and Magazine Poster.

THE CITY LIGHTZ
-Helvetica

the CITY LIGHTZ "drink"
-Trebuchet


The City Lightz
      DRINK
-Verdana


The fonts I have chosen above are all very similar and simple. I didn't want to make it more complicated or fancy because there is already enough detail on the cover.




Below is a plan of the CD cover that I have sketched out to give me an idea of what it will look like. This will also show me if there are any changes to be made.

The image above is a scan of the plans that I sketched out for the CD cover. I drew out a detailed version of what the CD will look like or what I would like to to look like.

The image above is the continued scan of the image above showing the other sections of the CD cover e.g. the folds, the spine, the CD trays.

The image above is a scan of ideas that I have created for the magazine poster, The image below is also another idea for the magazine poster, both are both related to the CD cover, which is what I am aiming for. I would prefer to create the magazine poster more like the scan below because it is more similar to the CD cover and will look more consistent.