Task 4 - How have you used new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Using new media technologies I was able to work on constructing, researching, planning and evaluating my products for my advanced portfolio.

The reason for our research was to solve any new or existing problems, prove any new ideas, develop new theories or changing ways we went about things when constructing our media products. One technology we used frequently was Youtube. We used Youtube in order to view other videos of the same genre. Having the option to do this made us more aware of our typical target audience and what we needed to change or keep so we were able to reach out and attract this audience. Via Youtube we were also able to upload our own videos, such as our preliminary task and our storyboard/anamatic where anybody was able to comment. This meant if they had any opinions or better ideas they had the option to share them with us, because ultimately they’re the ones our project is aimed too so this was something useful which helped connect us to our target audience. I also used Youtube to embed videos onto my blog to record research so that it was permanent. This meant that when I did research on my own, the rest of my group were able to see what I had done, such as finding videos from different genres of music analysed how image is constructed and technical conventions of editing, camera work and mise-en-scene which I used a Youtube video of Rihanna-'Only Girl in the World' for compared with Funeral Party who were similar artisits to our preliminary task. This helped my final product because I was able to use some of the technical conventions in my own music video.

Another technology which helped us with researching our target audience is Twitter. This allowed us to go onto The Prodigy’s Twitter account and look at all the people following them, which meant they were our target audience, if not, very similar. This benefited my final piece as I was able to make the poster and digipak more accurate when designing it for my target audience.

 

Blogger also came to use as we were able to keep an online planner, which made things much easier to organise. As it was online it meant that one person in our group did not have to carry it round with the chance of losing it, it was permanent. It also meant adding new information was much more flexible as every member in our group was able to access the blog and add their new found research which made things much easier and faster.

When planning for our music video we used a graphics editing program called Photoshop. With this editing software I was able to take photographs of our band members and blend their heads into bodies found from Google Images in order to find out what our band would look like on the day of shooting with their costumes on. By doing this we came to realise that the clothes we had told them to wear did not conform to their band image.

This made things smoother on the shoot day as we were able to tell them in advance to bring a change in clothes which saved us time. Photoshop also came in very useful when designing and creating out Digipak and poster. Photoshop allowed us to be very flexible, things were easily changed and adjusted till we were satisfied with our final products. The only difficulty we had with Photoshop is a couple of members in our group were not familiar with it which meant we had to use some of our planning to teach the others the basics.

I also used Photoshop for codes and conventions of a digipak and advertisement. I got a picture of digipak, uploaded it to Photoshop. This enabled me to label it easily, such as production details. This helped me when creating my own digipak as I was able to follow the key elements in order to create a successful digipak. 

Another everyday technology which came in very useful with planning was mobile phones. As we all carried our phones around with us we were able to photograph the different stages, for example when we were choosing our location I took pictures and put them up onto my blog. I also took pictures when our group were brainstorming what to call our band and album which I wrote about on my blog.

The main technology we used for construction was Final Cut pro which enabled smooth transitions and after effects. Using after effects allowed us to create imagery which is made to make the viewer feel slightly uncomfortable, such as the mirror editing which was created to make things more interesting, to catch the viewer’s attention. Final Cut pro was advanced and as a group we were able to work together, experimenting with different techniques until we found one we were all satisfied with.

With the evaluation of our final product, Blogger was a new media technology which we used. Using Blogger we were able to distribute our music video via Youtube. This was permanent and meant we were distributing our product worldwide. Blogger was flexible and I was able to update my blog and write about the different things we did to get our final product.

This is our director's commentary, which we recorded our creative decisions made and how we were able to do these, played along side our music video, 'Warrior's Dance'.

Evolution of Digipak-Front cover

As part of creating our digipak we designed and created an image which woulld be our front cover on our album and poster. As a group we drew many different designs but we all decided this one was the right one for our digipak. We then scanned that image into a computer and sythsasised it to match our synthasised track. Using Photoshop  we experimented with merging our image into different backgrounds to see which one worked well. Below you can see the thumbnails of the different options and what we had to choose from in this prosess.

This was our final choice of background which is a peeling, painted wall. We chose this image because it has that urban feel which we were trying to create. I also put on our band name and album name to getter a better feel for it, and to justify our final decision making.
This worked well for our track because it conformed the stereotypical youthfulness and rebeliouness which are the conventions of our target audience.

Our Digipak

One thing which came with making our digipak was also creating a band and album name. To help us decide on names we wrote down words which we thought described what our band and/or music video was about and then words that followed on from those. We also used synopsis words and a thesaurus to help inspire our ideas.



Originally we decided on 'The Auspice' for our band name and 'Backbones' as the album name and so we started creating a digipak revolved around that. However we later realised it was not right for the message we were trying to project. By having a male back on the album was giving out the wrong message and would perhaps attract the wrong audience. Therefore we thought again about our choice and decided on 'Dirty Habit' for our band name but kept 'Backbones' for our album name.

When developing our digipak we researched into darker things, as this was appropriate for our band's image. These are a few of our rough sketches for planning our digipak.

Our Shoot Day

Our shoot was to start at 9am on thursday, november 4th. However at 9 o'clock we noticed that two of our band members had not shown up which did not work to our advantage. We found out that one of them had pulled out last minute and the other had not bothered to turn up. We managed to find one of them, which was the guitarist and the other was unavailable.
Therefore we had to make do with what we had. We were missing our DJ, therefore we took another band member, which was supposedly meant  to be playing another guitar and he became our new DJ.
Although me was a guitarist and had no clue he was going to DJ he did a very good job and was much better than most of us expected.

Our set had two tyres on the floor with a red and blue light coming through the middle, and other lights placed around, which added a really nice effect. We also had chains on the floor, a rope hanging from the ceiling and a deck, set up for the DJ. We had to get Holly, our lead singer, onto the rope, which she swings off. I know that this was very uncomfortable for he, however she was very patient and listened to commands very well.

After shooting our first section, which was the performance element of our media video we were meant to shoot in the woods, for our narrative section. However the weather was not how we wanted, therefore we had to shoot our performance element in the studio. So after a quick set change we were ready, however once again, more of our cast had pulled out last minute. We managed to have a few that we originally wanted, but had to collect a few others which were not originally supposed to be in it. Although a few of them did not know what they were supposed to be doing they were very helpful and did what we asked which made it so much easier for us. We got everybody into costumes, these our a few of our cast in costumes:

We got everybody into costumes and got them into a classroom, where we told them to get into creepy, animal characters. Although it started slow as people were unsure of what to do, they picked it up and really got into it which saved us a lot of time. These are our freaks rehearsing in the classroom:

After we had a few rehearsals and our new set was built we were able to take our cast into the studio to carry on with filming. Holly was also in some aspects of the narrative scenes, which meant the audience would relate her into both aspects and the two scenes would merge together in our final cut.

There were a few shots when our main narrative cast, Abby, was being attacked by the freaks/animals to add tension and an aspect of violence in a descrete way, so our target audience felt they could connect with our music video. One of the shots we did for this was birds eye view which had a different effect, which worked really well.

Although I was slightly worried with what might or might not happen on our shoot day, due to lack of organisation, I think we managed to pull it all together just before shooting which I thought was a success and althought there was stress at times, I think everybody enjoyed themselves.

Codes and Conventions of a Digipak & Advertisement

Digipak

The Digipak and advertising is very imortand for an artist/band and its all about selling their product to their target audience. A lot of  what they want to acheive is adding value, however they dont want to lose possible buyers by setting their price to high. The customers want a reasonable price for what they are purchacing. Therefore if their digipak is giving something special, unique and adding something extra people will be willing to pay more.

We went through a couple of digipak examples in class, however I decided to analise my own which I created using PhotoShop:

Overall digipak style:

• Usually uses 2-3 colours, 4 colours maximum. This digipak has used 3 colours, white red and black which signify danger colours, which is re-enforced with the blood. These three colours are used throughout the entire digipak which gives it continuity
• A digipak does not tend to use over 2 diffent style of fonts
• Includes elements of graphic design
• Must create some sort of visual link with advertisement

Advertisement

The advertisemnt must or is most likely to include:

• release date of album
• prominent display of artist name & album title
• Usually has image of album
• Repeats the same graphic style of digipak
• may also include; tour dates, review quotes from magazines, record label logo, website

By doing this I have re considered our own digipak. I have taken this information in and its helped me to think about our digipak which we have to design and create.

Timetable of our shoot day

The Storyboard Anamatic

Originally we were going to have a girl in a club cutting to and fro the same girl in woodland with creepy animals and weird characters. However, we have since decided to change this. We decided that the club scene would be boring and wouldnt work well. Instead of the club scene we decided to have a performance element, which would include 3 band members. The lead singer, who would be a sexualised female, inspired by Taylor Momsen, a DJ, and a guitarist all of which will be wearing dark clothes.

We put together a storyboard anamatic of our original idea to help give us a rough understanding of what our final video might look like. The images of our storyboard have been cut together with our track and I think this will give us a better idea of what we should expect.