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I hope you enjoy our music video and my blog!

Evaluation Q1

Question 1 - In what ways does your music video and digipak use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Here myself, Lana and Joely created Prezi answered the first evaluation question:

Evaluation Question One on Prezi

Evaluation Q2

Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your music video, your digipak and album advert?

When given the task to produce a digipak and magazine advertisement in link with my music video, I assumed the best option was to look at professional CD covers and packages as well as effective music posters/advertisements in order to gain an understanding of what exactly I had to create. I looked at various artists - mainly ones in the Indie/Alternative genre, after doing some thorough research I noticed that the most visually effective digipaks were understated yet original with not too much on the page but enough for their target audience to appeal to. A great deal of artists stuck with one main image for both their CD and their poster and that is what I intended to do as well - as seen with Lana Del Rey's Born To Die poster and CD. This way, it was ensured to have a sense of continuity and synergy between all products. 

My final digipak

I ensured that my completed digipak had a recognisable element of consistency throughout, in order for it to visually look both impressive and professional. As one of our original thoughts for our music video was the idea of being 'watched', I thought the fisheye effect would work particularly well on the front cover. The female against the brick wall can be seen to signify different codes according to how you view the image - my intention was to symbolise female empowerment (the strong arm movement), nevertheless, it can also be seen as vulnerability (facing towards the ground) and not in confident view of the camera. 

I liked the theme of a brick wall as it was urban styled and fit perfectly with the genre of our music video - quite Indie style. I kept the brick background on each page of my digipak yet changed the picture for all - my back page played on the running shot in my actual music video, alongside rhe fist inner page where the shot of myself, Lana and Joely is repeated with HUNT THE NOISE on top of us. My inspiration for the page where my CD will be placed was given to be my the artist Banksy (as shown below) - it was my own creation of the image and is in fact, implied towards the end of our music video where we suggested that our female character is 'pushed off the edge' - leaving a cliffhanger for our audience to simply decide for themselves.

Devlin's Urban city background represents the type of music expected to be on his album

CD page influenced by Banksky's thought-provoking brick wall painting

Images taken for digipak/advertisment

In order to create my digipak, I took various photos against this brick wall so I would then be able to choose suitable images for each page. I ended up choosing an image where I was not facing the camera - creating a sense of ambiguity - tying in brilliantly with our main theme of identity.

My magazine advertisement also holds the same constant theme as my CD digipak - I used the same image on the front, however used a different effect on it using a picture editing website pixrl.com. I kept the font and colour scheme the exact same as the one used in our music video, therefore, making it recognised by our audience who perhaps has seen the poster but not the music video and vise versa. As NME are a well known and respected Indie label dedicated to music, I decided to include a quote from them alongside 5 stars showing verification and giving the brand a positive status to viewers of the advertisement. 

Evaluation Q3

Question 3 - How did you use media technology in the construction and research and planning stages of your music video?

Here is a iMovie video of us recording the screen using Quicktime Player to show our research and planning and how we constructed our music video. 

Evaluation Q4

Question 4 - What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Our target audience was predominately youth of both genders, who would associate themselves with the band and the underlying message expressed in our music video. We applied a multiplatform strategy to promote and retrieve feedback from our target audience and also appeal to a wider range of the public. By creating specific pages for Hunt the Noise on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook allowed us to draw a vast amount of information.

Shown below are some of the feedback we have received from fans about our new music video, it also shows how much popularity we are getting by the amount of followers we gain.

We also pitched our initial ideas to the rest of our class via Prezi. This was extremely effective as we were able to plot thoughts of storylines, settings and costume all into this one treatment and then see our teacher's and classmate's reactions to them - we asked questions at the end on what they liked and what we could perhaps develop. It was an extremely interesting way to express what we intended to create and hear other people's views on it.

When attempted to decide a band brand name out of so many ideas, we struggled slightly and so we carried out a survey on paper which we handed out to classmates and other people in the school. It was a quick and easy way to come to a final conclusion as to what our brand name would be and as presented below - the majority (40%) voted for Hunt The Noise.

In order to attain specific feedback, I decided to post a question on Facebook alongside our finished music video asking 'Is our music video professional enough to be shown on a music channel?' 

I produced this bar chart online after receiving a significant amount of replies from friends and family. This method of presenting the data collected is very clear and evidently shows that the majority of Facebook users/fans do think our music video is professional enough to be shown on a music channel.

We also asked A2 Media students what they thought of the music video produced - we thought this would be a brilliant way to gain a genuine response with a selection of people who are already familiar with Media. Here are two other Media students who kindly offered to be filmed - the others agreed to writing down their opinions instead!





Here are some quotes of what other students said:
What worked well -

"The use of lighting in the close up lip syncing shots were particularly effective - loved the edited colour scheme, very quirky!"
"I liked the whole idea that we couldn't see the individuals in the masks"
"The shots of the balloons and sunset were exactly to the beat - amazing!"
"It was far from cliche, very original take on today's youth"
"The spinning shot is without a doubt the winning shot - how did you even do that?"
"Great lip syncing"
"I liked seeing great quality video quality and then shaky hand held shots - fit very well together"
"This could be shown on MTV!"
"I liked the beginning part of the music video - you don't see it often, however made it very professional looking...also gave me a good insight into what had gone on with the character previously"
What could have been improved -
"More lip syncing shots!"
"If the music video was a little longer - I wanted to watch some more!"
"The actual music video song came in quite harshly after the montage at the beginning"
"Nothing...it was fantastic"
"A clearer outcome at the end - what happened exactly?"
"More of a performance element"
Did you understand the concept/storyline - 
"The break up of a relationship having a positive effect on the girl"
"Expressing the today's younger generation and showing them having fun?!"
"Clear understanding, however the ending confused me slightly - did she jump?'
"Having fun with friends instead of spending sad times with an abusive boyfriend"
"I didn't fully understand the concept...however I just didn't need to - visually brilliant"


We asked 42 friends/family and students of Enfield County School what they thought the genre of our music video was after watching it - here is a bar chart I created after collecting my findings:

This is definitely the feedback we intended on receiving, as our genre is Indie/Alternative and that obviously came through when our broad audience watched it. I can see why there may have been slight Pop or Electro elements, as the beat of the song towards the end was quite Electro-y. Here are some key words I put into a Wordle relating to themes which our audience picked up on whilst watching our music video. This is definitely positive feedback as these words are exactly what we intended for our audience to gain a sense of.

Hunt The Noise - Dreams

WE HAVE FINALLY FINISHED OUR MUSIC VIDEO, SIT BACK AND ENJOY!

Music Video Teaser!

I've noticed that many successful artists and music videos tend to have teaser videos before the full length video is released to the public. This is a brilliant way to create excitement and suspense for the target audience by showing snippets of the song!
Justin Beiber has also had a music teaser made for his hit Boyfriend - an already highly viewed song before the actual music video has even been released:

The Beat of our Song

We discovered that in order for our music video to look as professional as possible, everything must be on the beat to the music. In particular with our song, which has a very strong beat at the end where the lyrics finish, we have ensured to cut up certain clips of the balloons and the sunset and change the colouring in order to fit the timing of the song. 

Filming Day 5

On Friday, we managed to capture the finishing shots for our music video! It was mainly focused on the character for our music video - myself - where I was made to 'hang' on the edge of a building (reflectively), stand in the middle of an isolated space whilst a car drove round me and play with sparklers.  We're excited to upload the footage next week and finally put everything together fully, as Friday is the big deadline!!

MTV Titles

Our music video is almost complete and to add the finishing touches, we decided to add MTV titles which include the artist/band name and song name on the left hand side of the screen to allow viewers to know what is currently playing.

We have also included the record label company - we chose Pollution Records as this is a word associated with an Urban/London setting where our music video is based. We chose to include the website name to ensure our viewers could access other videos and information about the band.

Print Screens of Music Video

Here are a range of printscreens from my music video under the catergories of Creativity, Post-Production (editing), Research & Planning, Conventions from Real Media Texts and Digital Technology.

             

              

99 Problems - Fast Pace Shots

Whilst trying to put our music video into chronological order in pace with the beat of our song, it can actually be very difficult. After looking at Jay Z's 99 problem video, it is clear he has put quick shots and clips in beat of the music and it has made it a little easier when arranging our video to visually experience how fast each has to be. 

Production Journal - Friday 16th March

This week has consisted of us putting together what we have so far. It has definitely been successful as we have put the beginning altogether in pace with the music and created our karaoke video as well so we can film those shots this weekend.

Media Trip to Richmix

Yesterday my media class and myself went to a trip regarding the written exam section of our A2. It was extremely helpful, as collective identity was something I was not completely clued up on.

    In particular, I found this powerpoint that chief examiner, Pete Fraser created summed up exactly what we need to know and learn before the exam. We were also fortunate enough to have the ____ of the Inbetweeners talk about the progamme/film where we were able to discuss how he chose the certain roles of characters and what exactly he was trying to represent of Youth. 

Organising Meeting Times

We organised meeting times using digital technology from our phones, it is a quick and easy way to communicate and here is a screen shot of our phones:

Preparing for Karaoke Shots

Yesterday we created the video of the lyrics of our song so we can do another day's filming, where we will show voyeurism and young people singing along to karaoke. 

Colour Change

This is a tiny 3 second snippet of what we were editing earlier. As seen in the Redlight video - we managed to split a piece of footage up into tiny bits and change the colouring - it is both effective and quite quirky, adding a vivid bit of colour into our music video. 

Putting It Together

We finally started putting our entire beginning of our music video together on Friday! We have a real range of bits that we storyboarded originally. We decided to begin our music video with an establishing shot of a building as we see this is commonly done in most videos typical to our genre. The relationship between girl and boy is also shown in quickly by quick snapshots of being pushed aside - alike to Rihanna's We Found Love - the initial 6 seconds of our music video does not begin with the song but begins with a windy sound we managed to find on the LGFL sound website.

Filming Day 4 - Wall Shots

Yesterday we managed to film our wall shots - where I had to run across a brick wall in the dark. We wanted to create this effect to represent escapism and freedom - we particularly wanted it to be a night shot, as everything is much more mysterious and we were able to produce a good deal of light from having the beams on in Lanas car. We filmed still shots of Joely, Lana and myself in a still shot, where we were wearing masks. We had the idea that when editing the running piece of footage - it could quickly cut to these still shots. Overall, it was again another successful filming session. 

Magazine Advertisement Final

After doing my audience feedback, it definitely confirmed my choice in the advert I was going to pick and it is evident to see a distinctive link between digipak. I'm sure it will appeal to my main audience, as it has an underlying message conveying a sense of escapism and feminism, relating to our music video. The gesture of the woman in the background can be seen to symbolise vulnerability, however it can alternatively show independence and strong-will as her identity is unknown. My advert has all the information it needs, yet does not appear over cluttered and represents the message clearly. I have managed to express realism through my advert, as it carries a quote from a famous Indie/Alternative magazine.