Thursday 10 December 2009

CD Cover and Magazine Advert Audience Feedback

We asked 4 people from 6th form to take a look and discuss what they thought about our CD Cover and inserts, and our Magazine Advert.The feedback we got from the front cover of our CD cover was all positive and what we were hoping for. It was described as 'eye catching' because of the black and white 'contrasting well' with the red features on the image. The red was described as an 'appropriate' colour to contrast with the black and white. The main image was also described as 'surreal', 'unsettling', 'creepy' and 'scary', which was also a feature we were hoping for. However there were mixed opinions about the text on the front cover. Some people thought the text was 'appropriate', 'stood out well' and was a 'good choice of font and placement'. While others thought it 'didn't stand out enough from the image' and 'wasn't big enough to comfortably read'. We weren't surprised with the feedback about the text as there were mixed opinions about it in the group when we produced the cover.In regard to the inserts, the first image, of just the two masked people standing outside was described as 'boring and not as interesting compared to the other images'. There was also feedback concerning the person in the gorilla mask, the people we asked to look at and discuss the CD covers said there should be 'an additionaly colour on the gorilla mask just like there is on the clown mask'. Even though we are happy with the image, we are aware that it was taken at quite a simple angle compared to the other images which were considered more interesting.The second image, the image of the masks being thrown in the air, was much more popular than the other insert image. The image was described as 'interesting and effective because of the location'. It was immediately labelled as 'better than the other insert' and someone described the angle in which is was taken as 'clever'. Everyone we asked also liked the text placement and it was described as 'absract'.The back of the CD cover was described as an 'effective contrast with the front' because we used a close up image again. The 'angled font' was also described as 'helping the surreal feel' of the overall CD cover. However, some people described the text as 'too small and didn't stand out enough' and 'should be straight with the rest of the image'.With the magazine advert, again we recieved positive feedback for the 'red colour contrasting effectively with the black and white'. The advert was also 'an effective link between the CD cover, the music video and the advert' as the image is similar to a scene in the music video. Our advert was described as 'attention grabbing' and 'providing the desired information in a clear and simple way because of the choice of words'. However, people didn't like the fact that the gorilla was in 'poor lighting' and was 'not very visible at all'. One person said the image would have looked better if everything was a bit more 'symmetrical' as there was 'too much clown and not enough gorilla'.Overall we are pleased with the audience feedback. We have worked carefully to ensure there is an obvious relationship between the music video, magazine advert and CD cover - this is something that our audience picked up on very quickly as it was one of the first things they all mentioned.

Music video audience feedback

We gathered feedback using the questionnaires from ten people, some that already did Media and some that didn't to get a variety of different opinions.

9 out of 10 people thought our video matched the music and fitted with the indie genre - We were expecting a result like this.
8 out of 10 people thought we hadn't used too many effects in our video - we found this result surprising.
5 out of 10 people thought we should have included the band in our video - we were expecting a result like this.
7 out of 10 people thought there were no errors with our editing - we found this surprising as we were aware of a couple of small continuity errors that we imagined people would pick up on whilst watching.
10 out of 10 people found the video amusing - this result was expected as the aim of our video was to amuse people.
5 out of 10 people would change something in the video - 3 of these people said they would only change the amount of camera shaking. This was something out of our control as a lot of our filming was done on the move. 1 other person wanted to make the narrative clearer which is something I think we should have worked on. The final suggestion was to not repeat certain clips although we had changed the clips we had repeated.
4 out of 10 people said the narrative was easy to follow - this was expected as there's a lot happening visually in the video and our main focus was on keeping the audience amused so keeping a strong narrative wasn't our main priority.
6 out of 10 people said they couldn't think of any areas where we needed to improve - out of the 4 that said they had identified weaknesses, 3 of these were about the use of slow motion and the other was about camera shake.
1 out of 10 people didn't think we had any strong areas in our video - Out of the 9 that thought we had strengths in some areas, the majority said our choice of effects was a strength - something we found surprising as we thought we had used too many. Other areas of strength mentioned was our accuracy with timing and 1 person even said our continuity was a strength, although we knew about a few small errors.
10 out of 10 people thought our choice of props and location was appropriate for the music - we were not surprised with this result.

Overall we are very pleased with the feedback for our music video. I feel that we have achieved our goal of making a video that fits the genre and is amusing to the audience through our use of editing, mise-en-scene and props.

Wednesday 9 December 2009

Our Audience feedback questionnaire

We have produced a questionnaire for people to fill out whilst watching our video. We will ask between 10 and 15 people to fill out the questionnaire and this will include media students and non media students of different ages.The aim of the questionnaire is to get feedback from a range of people, not just out target audiebnce, and to find out if the editing choices we made were right and appropriate.


My Evaluation

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

The music genre we have decided to use to help create our music video is indie rock, one of the most influential genre's in todays music industry. We agreed on using local band 'Kilimanjaro'. Generally indie rock music videos tend to be performance based where we just see the band performing the song on a stage or in a studio, however, we have decided to create a video which has a narrative and follows a storyline because we felt that the audience would find this more refreshing and interesting rather than just seeing the band perform the track and mime the words as this has become very common in videos of this type of genre. We felt that audiences would be fatigued by performance based music videos so we delibrately contradicted this idea and challenged the forms and conventions you often find in an indie music video. In our video we have tried to get across the surreal elements which are not always presented in this type of genres music videos.
In our video we see two people, one wearing a gorrila mask and the other wearing a clowns mask. At first we see a boy casualy walking around a park from a variety of different camera angles however as the song tempo picks up the boy begins to start running as he is being chased by the clown and gorilla and this is filmed using a number of different camera styles including handheld. This gives the effect that our video is quite fast paced as when the music speeds up we had our character start running. Another effect this gives is one of realism, as we haveused a handheld camera technique which gives the effect of the audience actually being in our video as we have used the handheld technique in a point-of-view angle.
I feel that our video is quite experimental as it is narrative based rather than performance based and i havnt seen many other indie rock music videos similiar to it. I also feel that the images we have used to create our c.d cover and inserts are experimental because of their simplicity in only using 3 colours and using a striking image and title. However i do feel that this simplicity is a positive thing as Kasabian's, highly succesful , album 'Kasabian' uses the same ideas. Our music video does not reflect the lyrics used in the song 'crystal clear'. This is because we were very keen on the idea of using our narrative and we felt we would have to change this in order to relate it to the lyrics of the song as the song had no real relation to our ideas used in our narrative.

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

To produce an interesting and effective video we felt that costumes and appearance were both very important so we used the idea of our characters being dressed in masks. As part of our coursework we were asked to create a c.d cover,inserts, back cover and also a magazine advert to help promote the c.d. We produced all of these using photoshop and iMovie HD on the apple macs. We decided as a group that the images we used to produce our c.d design and advert should be very similiar to the images that we see in the video so that we can create a cohesive image for the band. Whilst shooting our video we made sure that we took a number of photos at the same time so that we had a good choice of photos to choose from to use for our c.d covers and advert. We all agreed that the image showing an extreme close up of the clowns mask was the most effective in terms of catching the eye of the audience so we used this for the front cover of our c.d. We experimented using different colours on the image and we eventually came to the decision that we would take all of the colour out of it so that it was black and white and just leave certain features such as the nose and eyes red. We did the same thing for the inserts and back cover as we felt that this worked well and it showed continuity throughout.
Our c.d advert shows both characters, the gorilla and the clown, poking their heads around a tree. We used this idea so that we could print the adverts text on to the tree. We made the text red so that it would cohere with the colour that we have used throught the whole of the c.d covers and inserts. I think that this use of cohesiveness could be a good marketing technique especially if the consumer had only seen the video they would immediately be able to pick out the c.d in a shop because the images from the video cohere with those on the front cover. Also the image we have used for our front cover is so simple but at the same time very striking and this would immediately cath a customers eye if they saw it in a shop.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To get an overall idea of how successful we've been in creating a music video we needed to get a number of opinionsfrom a wide audience so in order to do this we created a questionnaire.
In todays music industry product feedback is very important when trying to create a successful product. When asking for feedback we made sure we got the audience to provide some constructive criticism on any aspects of our product they didnt like or thought we could improve on and any ideas they had to make our product more attractive.
It is the same for big music and film companies. Negative feedback and constructive criticism can be just as important as positive feedback if not more important as it will help them to identify specific areas which need improvement and then should help them to sell their product and effectively make the company more successful.
If a company completely ignores its audience feedback then it will not be able to achieve its goal of pleasing its target audience, which is the most important thing when trying to sell a product. Also during the marketing stage of a product, if a product is not marketed in an effective way that doest reach the target audience then the targeted audience aren't likely to know much about the product and this will mean they are less likely to go out and buy it.

We recieved both positive and negative feedback from our target audience. Many people liked the fact that we didnt use too many effects in our video as they felt this would have been inapropriate. I was surprised by this as i felt that we could have used more effects in certain parts of the video. In terms of our c.d cover, inserts and magazine advert we were surprised by the number of people that felt our clown mask was 'creepy' and 'unsettling', however they said this wouldnt put them off buying the product.

The audience gave plenty of negative feedback and constructive criticism to help us improve our product. The majority of the audience felt that we had used the 'slow-motion' effect too much in our video. We wanted to use it primarily to give our video that slightly cheesy feel to amuse the audience however they felt that we had over-used it which is probably a fair assessment and something we could definately learn from in future. The audience also felt that the first of the 2 images used for our inserts was a little 'plain' and 'boring' in comparison to the other images used and eventually we began to agree with this.


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

During the research and planning stages of our music video we used a wide variety of different media technologies to help us. First of all we used Microsoft Word to help create our target audience questionnaire and we also used the same programme to write up our results from the questionnaire.
In the research process of our project we used Myspace as it allowed us to listen to the different tracks produced by our chosen band ' Kilimanjaro'. Kilimanjaro have their own page on Myspace Music, a free site which bands of any genre can use to create a fan base and where fans can easily access recent updates on events, new tracks etc. The band have their own biography on the site and all the tracks they have produced which meant we could find out any information we needed about the band and we were also able to choose a track we thought would work well with our video.
We also used Youtube when researching other bands music video's and we also used it to upload the finished version of our own video 'crystal clear'. This is so that we could have a back up of the video if we ever lost it and we could also gan feedback from a much wider audience.
The seaarch engine 'Google' came in very useful in the research process as we could type into it anything we wanted to research and get instant access.

We used various different forms of media technology during the construction proces. The most important one was the digital camera as this enabled us to capture all of the footage we wanted to film and anything we didnt like we could easily delete. The tri-pod was also a very important piece of equipment as it meant we could film with the camera being still when we needed to and it also meant that we didn't need someone operating the camera at all times and we could all be involved in the video at the same time.
A digital camera was also a vital piece of equipment as it enabled us to take 'still photographs' for our c.d covers and magazine advert.
During the editing process of our video we found iMovie HD to be very useful as it wasa high quality piece of movie making software which had a number of key features such as creating effects on our video. Examples of these which we used include fast motion, slow motion, flash and N-square.
To actually create our blog we used the website http://www.blogger.com/home. This website has enabled all of us to keep a personal log on everything we have done so far along the whole process of making our music video. It also meant that our target audience could get easy access to questionnaires and images of our final product and so they could give any feedback they wanted to or ask any questions.

Our finished products





Here are our finished front cover, back cover, inserts and magazine advert

I have also included the original photos below each image so that you can see what it looked like before we edited it.
In all of the images we have used for the front cover, back cover, inserts and magazine advert we did exactly the same thing by firstly making them all black and white and then, using the 'magic wand' tool, selecting certain features and making them red and then using the 'inverse' tool to keep those features red whilst the rest of the image is black and white.


Inserts:

As you can see there are two images in the inside of the CD sleeve. The image on the right shows two masks being thrown in the air. The actual photo only had one mask in the image and we had to carefully use the magic wand tool to select the gorilla mask from a different image we had taken and then enlarge it and paste it into the original image. Then, using a free hand drawing tool, we managed to draw in the sky and clouds so that they would surround the gorrilla mask to make it look realistic. We did this because we felt that two masks looked much more effective than one on its own.











Back Cover:








Front Cover:







Magazine Advert:


Overall we are very pleased with our final products. Using only 3 colours is very simplistic however we all felt that this was very effective as it was eye catching and memorable. Also, Kasabian did the same thing with their album 'Kasabian' by using very few colours and one striking image and we felt that there's was very effective in grabbing the audience's attention and so we have tried to replicate this idea in our own c.d cover. We decided to use extreme close up pictures for the front and back of the CD sleeve because we thought, although detailed, the close up images created quite a simple effect that we wanted.

Sunday 29 November 2009

Final Editing

We have now finished editing our video. Our main problem was syncing the music in time with the visuals but we found ways around this and now everything is in time and still in the order. The solution we found to overcome this problem was swapping around some of our footage and place them in other places where we feel they sync with the music a lot better than in their original position, we did all this using the iMovie HD programme which we have been editing our video with. This is, however, something we could definately improve on in future. We added a few more effects to certain clips such as adding the N-square effect to a number of clips and also the flash effect in order to keep the fun factor and a slightly cheesy feel to the video so that the audience are kept amused.

Wednesday 25 November 2009

Editing our Video.

We have recently began to edit our footage from our 2 filming sessions. To edit and produce our video we used the prgram iMovie HD. We have tried to include as many ideas from our storyboard as possible and I think this has helped us through the editing process smoothly and effectively.I think that the style of editing we have used has given our music video a slightly 'cheesy' feel because of our use of effects within the video. This has given our video a bit of a comic factor which i feel will help to attract the audience. We have used quite a lot of slow motion in places to emphasise what is happening in the shot and to keep a consistent surreal feel to the video. We have also experimented with the N-Square effect to give the video a retro and parody style feel.The main area we need to focus on is our timing with what's happening on screen and the audio that's playing. There are a number of times when the music is not in sync with what is happening on the screen but we are working to correct this ane ensure the music matches the visuals.

Monday 16 November 2009

Trip to the CLC.


Over the past few weeks we have managed to finish filming our music video and recently we have began to edit our video using imovie hd.

We have also recently visited the state-of-the-art CLC (City Learning Centre) at Brislington to use the ICT facilities they had available to help produce our cd cover and sleeve. The four of us worked as a group effectively to help produce the cover and sleeve in the given time frame. We had already taken quite a lot of photos of what we wanted to use in our cover photos and middle pullouts so we just had to decide which five photographs to use. We voted as a group on which photographs to use and once we had decided then we started work on editing them to make them look how we wanted. As a group we then came up with the idea of our picture having all the colour taken out of it apart from the red which we felt that when left on its own in a black and white background was a very striking effect. We felt that this would catch peoples eye as it is intersting and different which is what our target audience wanted according to our questionnairre results.We stuck to our original plans to produce our end product which we were very pleased with.

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Storyboarding our music video



In todays lesson we began to plan and storyboard our music video. We have drawn out the scenes which we wish to use. This will help us in making our video as we will have a plan to follow and wont have to make up scenes on the spot, although we may part from our original plan if we have different ideas. We tried to include a number of ideas from the feedback we recieved from our target audience such as making it a narrative based music video as we only had one person who felt a performance based music video was preffered. We decided that if our film was going to be narrative based then it should be set outside where we had easy access to parks and other open spaces where we could film our chase.




Monday 5 October 2009

Analysis of 3 Music Videos




Arctic Monkeys- Fluorescent Adolescent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma9I9VBKPiw&feature=player_embedded)





I am analyising the song Flourescent Adoloscent. Flourescent Adolescent is By the Arctic Monkeys who are an English Indie band from Sheffild and is directed by Richard Ayoade. The video is for a song belonging to the genre of indie. The video shows caracteristics of being an indie video as it is a lot different from other videos in that it seems that it is completely of the Arctic Monkey own volition and not influenced by a record label or any other external sources which can be said for a lot of other Arctic Monkeys videos.

Fluorescent Adoloscent was really the main inspiration for our own music video. This is because we really liked the idea of people being chased by people in clown costumes and also using a handheld camera style which gives it the effect of being in real life. In this video we see an ongoing battle between the clowns and a gang of men and in the end it is the clowns who win. We also really liked the idea of special effects being used to blow up the car and if possible we would like to use this in our own video.
The mis-en-scene in this video is interesting. Costumes feature very heavily in this video, the clown costumes are all of varying colours and styles. But the colour red does feature quite heavily, I think the reason for this is that as there is a lot of fighting and i think the reason for the heavy use of red is to emphasise the violence in this video as red is the colour of blood and so is associated heavily with violence and fighting. props, lighting, etc.
A lot of the camera work in this video is done using a handheld camerawhich I think is a good technique to use for this particular video. The reason for this is because this video has a lot of fast movement by the characters and is a very fast moving video in terms of the editing so using handheld camera technique makes it seem as if the cameraman is running which adds to the notion that movement plays a big part in this video.


Kasabian- Fire (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd0Y1Sko7hA&feature=player_embedded)

This song is called 'Fire' and is by the band Kasabian. In this video we see a gang of robbers rob a bank using their guitars as weapons. At the start of the video a member of the band is singing and looking at himself in the mirror. This gives a visual representation of the song being performed by the band. Much of the filming is done by the use of c.c.t.v and filmed in black and white as we see the gang walk into the bank and take the money. I think this idea of filming using c.c.t.v is effective because it is different to how a music video is normally filmed and in this way it is an interesting approach and it is also appropriate for the video as the audience are witnessing a robbery take place. During the robbery we see the band using guitars as guns and i feel this brings a comedy feel to the video. The gun shots were hear in the video are a contradiction of using guitars as guns and these sounds are editted into the video and are not in the song alone. I think that the music and the visuals match the tempo of the track. At the beginning of the video we have the build up to the song and the story line which is very slow, in this slow tempo we see the lead singer of Kasabian singing along. However as the tempo speeds up so do the visuals as we see the band members moving frantically to finish the job.













Kasabian- Club Foot

This video is partly set in a recording studio as we see the band playing the song we are listening to. The only colours used are black and white which i think is simple but actually very effective. We see a number of war movie clips such as soldiers dressed in uniform and army vehicles. I think the idea of using the revolutionists helps potray the bands image of being rock stars/ rebels. This video gives off feelings of sadness and depression as it is all about the Hungarian Revolution where thousands of people lost their lives. The props and set of the video add to the sad, depressing and anti war effect as the start of the video before any real music starts concentrates on the derelict buildings, the ragged clothes the people are wearing the empty streets that give off a cold, ghost town looking effect, the life less trees and the poverty people are facing by showing them eating food straight out of a can. They do this to show people how bad war can be. Also the climax of the video shows the death of a women and this also adds to the audience's feelings of sadness. In this video we are again left with the message that war is a negative thing and more peaceful methods should be used to overcome a clash of opinions and i feel this really helps to show off some of the bands political views.

Our Questionnaire


This is an image of our questionnaire that we handed out to fellow students in our sixth form to get an idea about the types of music video people like and dislike.

Monday 28 September 2009

CD cover Analysis: The Prodigy- Warriors Dance.


THE PRODIGY- WARRIOR'S DANCE
FRONT COVER:
The cover is very high tech. The cover is simple and using only three colours makes sure that the cover appeals to the audience. Black and red would usually make the audience think of danger however in this case it draws your attention. The image is unusual however links to the title of the song and the music video for this single which uses animation. The bands name is in the centre of the cover and the white bold font stands out against the black background and draws the audiences attention immediately. This would help the audience identify the bands cd easily if they were looking for it in a shop. All of the writing on the cover is in bold capitals and this helps it to stand out. I think that the characters and the writing on the cover give a real sense of speed and i think this helps to represent the pace of the music. In a way it links to the genre yet in another unless you know the band or know the style of this then you probably wouldn’t know that this is from the genre of dance.Although aimed at both genders, the image would predominantly appeal to males as the images are almost aggressive looking. The use of these strong, aggressive images suggests that the music will be that with a strong, heavy beat. We are able to get a good idea of the genre of music from this.

Sunday 27 September 2009

CD cover analysis



Kasabian:




'Kasabian' -2004 album .

This is the band Kasabian's debut album realeased in 2004. This was one of our main influences for our own CD Cover. The genre of this CD is Indie Rock, this is the same genre as the song whih we have made our music video for.
This CD uses just 2 colours, black and white, which contrast well with each other. Although there is only 2 colours used, i find this to be very effective as the white image of the persons face really stands out against the black background and helps to grab the audience's attention. I feel that the image of the persons face is mysterious as it only shows half of their face and they are also partly covered by a scarf. I think this gives the buyer to the idea that the album may be quite mysterious itself and i feel this could make the buyer want to know more about the band and the album and therefore make them go out and buy it. I also feel that this album cover is very serious as we see the person with a scarf over their face in almost military style and i think this could be carrying a political message of anti war as this is then backed up in a number of their songs such as 'club foot'.
The band have decided to present the albums name in white bold and in capitals i think that this, again, is very striking and stands out against the black background and would immediately grab the buyers attention if they saw it in a shop. Also using the bands name as their album name could be a very clever marketing technique especially if it is their debut album or just simply to let the buyer know straight away who the album is by.

Wednesday 23 September 2009

Other Band Research

THE KOOKS
Basic Info

Members:Luke Vocals, Hugh Guitar, Peter Bass And Paul Drums

Genre:Alternative, Indie

Hometown:Brighton, United Kingdom

Record label:Virgin Records



Current Location: London


Influences: Police, Jack Johnson,The Kinks, The Beatles, Funkadelic Parliament, Neil Young, Dylan, Mason Jennings, Free, Velvet Underground, Bowie, Lou Reed, John Butler Trio, John Martyn, Nick Drake, The Doors, The Smiths, Rolling Stones, Stone Roses, Jeff Buckley.


Biography: Brighton's The Kooks are that rarest of pop entities: a scuzzy, fresh-faced group to fully restore your faith in the holy grail of English singer-songwriting stretching from Supergrass via (early) Blur to The Kinks and beyond.Released in Jan 2006, the LP Inside in/Inside out, followed the hit singles You don't love me and 'She moves in her own way' getting rave reviews from the music press and gaining the Kooks the reputation of being Britain's youngest, hottest, live groups to date.The Band are currently on the road and have announced dates of a monster UK tour, as well as dates across Europe and America.


Tuesday 22 September 2009

Previous gigs and performances


Kilimanjaro have already had a number of Gigs and have played at numerous venues across Bristol including the Colston hall, the Cooler, the Louisiana and the Croft.


Monday 21 September 2009

Kilimanjaro recording their EP.





Here are the band recording their first EP titled 'Kilimanjaro'. The EP consists of the bands 4 recorded songs, 'Between my head', 'Stratocaster', 'Wasted times' and 'Crystal clear'.

Band Information

We did some basic research on the band such as who their influences are. This information was taken from their facebook page.

Basic Info
Name:
Kilimanjaro
Category:
Music - Indie
Description:
Genre: IndieInspirations:The Libertines,Foals,The Cribs,The Clash, The Strokes, Babyshambles, Peter Doherty, Vampire weekend
Contact Details
Email:
Website:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fus...
Location:
Bristol, United Ki
The band have already made their own video for their most popular song 'between my head'. Here you can see the video.. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/video/video.php?v=290211750312&oid=40907882359

Thursday 17 September 2009


Kilimanjaro Research

Today we have decided to do some research into the background of Kilimanjaro. So for example we will look at any previous LP's or albums which the band has produced. We would also like to get some personal information from the three band members, Zac, Hamish and Ed.

Wednesday 16 September 2009

The band we have chosen for our cousework is 'Kilimanjaro', a new local band made up of three 16-17 year olds.

Today, as a group, we decided on the genre and the band/group that we will use for our coursework. We have decided:- The band we will use is a local Bristol band called Kilimanjaro- The genre of music they play is Indie/RockWe are going to find out soon from a band member if they are willing to let us use their music in our final production.



This target audience research should really help us as it will help us to sell our product. We will be asking a number of different people what they enjoy most when they are at a gig or just watching their favorite bands music video on MTV.

Target Audience Research

Today we have decide to create a questionnaire. This will help us to get a number of opinions on peoples likes and dislikes in music videos.