Beth's Filmed Evaluation

Beth's Feedback Wordle Art

In order to gain a general idea of people thoughts on our music video I entered the comments from  the our feedback sheets into Wordle in order to create this word cloud :) I will be using this to help with my evaluation.

Beth's Evaluation - Question 3

Question Three: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We gathered audience feedback throughout the making of our video by showing various scenes and edits to people and asking for their opinions. Mostly we asked people who would be considered our target audience, 18-25 year olds, as we thought this would give us the most accurate view of the general reaction to the video.
We also gathered audience feedback by showing our music video to the class and getting everyone to fill out focus group feedback questionaires. This was a really useful way of gauging audience reaction to our video as everyone in the class comes under our target audience. The feed back questionaires were also good because there was space for people to add comments which was helped us understand the strengths and weaknesses of our music video.
Some of the positive comments we got from our feed back questionaires were;
- Suitable performance
- Good variety of shots
- Good lighting
- Good storyline
- Works well with the song
- Easy to watch
- Effects were really well done
- Actors matched the look
- Shots were steady and framed well
- Location fit with the genre

The feed back was generally very positive and almost everyone seemed to have a similar oppinion. Almost unanimously our audience decided that the photograph burning scene was the best bit. We were really pleased with the way this shot turned out so we were glad that other people liked it as well :)



Photo burning scene from our music video



Our feedback told us that people also enjoyed the relationship storyline in our video and the use of props.

Relationship storyline in our video <3

Some of the concerns that people raised over our music video are as follows;

- Slight lip synching issue (possibly because of the actors hair covering their faces in some shots)

- Shorter or greater variety of shots needed

- Actors looked more "metal" - didn't suit genre

- More emotive actors

- More close ups would have been better

We think that these are all justified concerns and are valuble points for us to improve on in the future.

As I have said, we found this method of getting feedback very useful. However, it does have it's problems as some people oppinions of the video may be biased if they, for example, don't like the song/artist or if it is not their prefered style of music.

All the same, we agree with most of our feedback and are really pleased with the reception our video recieved :)

Beth's Evaluation Question 2

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

We think the combination of our three products (music video, web page and digi pack) works really well together as we kept the same themes running continuously throughout all of them and kept a lot of the same motifs so they all related to each other.

For example, our three products relate together as we used some of the same imagery and themes which you can see below:

The famous alphabet spaggetti scene in our music video :)





Image of the spaghetti on our disc in the digi pack design.



Spaghetti image on our web page

As you can see we used the same image of the spaghetti plate in our music video, web page and digi pack which links the three of them together and makes them recognisable as products of the same artist.  We decided to use the spaghetti image as we thought that it fit with the fun, quirky image of our band and it also illustrated some of the lyrics from our song ("You used to dine out on a dollar...") Spaghetti on toast is generally regarded as a cheap meal but here it has a cute twist so we thought it would be a fun and visually interesting way to interpret the lyrics. It also reflects the narrative of our video as spelling out names in spaghetti is the kind of silly, romantic gestures people make in the fun, early days of relationships which we were trying to show in our video.

Images of our actors as Jenny&Johnny taken from our music video shoot and used on the front and back covers of our digi pack.

Images of our actors as Jenny&Johnny taken from our music video shoot and used on the web page.

Our actors as Jenny&Johnny in our music video

We used similar images of our actors as Jenny&Johnny throughout our three products. We did this because we wanted our two ancillary products, the web page and digi pack, to reflect our main product, the music video. We thik we did this very effectively, particularly between the music video and the digi pack as the images on the front and back covers of the digi pack reflects the narrative of our music video. In our music video we see the story of a couple, Jenny&Johnny, who are initially very happy together but their relationship gradually breaks down throughout the video. This story is reflected on our digi pack as on the front cover the couple are sitting together on the bench which features in our video, looking very close and happy together, then, on the back cover, they are sitting far away from each other on the same bench and look very distant.

Another theme that ran through both our music video and digi pack was photographs.

Polaroid style photos on our digi pack

Burning photographs - Green scene effect used in our music video

We decided to use the polaroid effect on our digi pack because we thought that it fit in with Jenny & Johnny's slightly vintage image and it fit in with our video. We decided to include the green screen photographs in our video because they reflect the charecters "happier memories" and the narrative of the song and video. The burning of the photographs is supposed to show the break up of the two characters in the video in a way which would be fairly obvious to anyone watching it. We decided to include this visual clue as, because it is a music video, there is no dialogue between the characters to explain this.



Beth's Evaluation Question 1 - Web Page

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

Web Page

We think our web page fits well for our artist as we used their signature colours to create it (red, black & blue) We used many of the conventions of alt/indie bands web pages but the page we created is actually very different to Jenny & Johnny's web page.

This is the webpage we created.

http://jennyandjohnnymusic.com/

This is a link to Johnny and Jenny's web page.

As you can see Johnny and Jenny's web page is more of a blog and the colours are very plain, although the website is done entirely in their signature colours. We thought that their website was a little too plain and, frankly, boring, so when we did ours we decided we wanted it to a lot more colourful! We stuck with the theme of using the red, blue, black and white by altering one of our pictures in photo shop to these colours and using it as a theme throughout the rest of the page. We also included images of our band members on the page which is a conventional for this type of site and which Jenny&Johnny's page lacks. We did use Jenny and Johnny's blog idea a little when we included the news feed and twitter feed on our page. We also included links to twitter and facebook pages. Most bands now use twitter and facebook as they are now a vital marketing tool so we thought that it was really important to include these on our page.

https://www.facebook.com/JennyAndJohnny

This is a link to Jenny&Johnny's Facebook page.

Beth's Evaluation Question 1 - Digipack

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

Digipack

We think our digi pack fits well with both our song and artist. However, in many ways it is quite different to Jenny and Johnny's CD cover and other CD covers of our genre (Alt/Indie).



Front and back cover of our digi pack







Inside cover and disc of our digi pack





Jenny & Johnny's CD cover ("I'm Having Fun Now")

Our digi pack uses the conventions of alt/indie videos because it has a picture of the band on the cover. CD covers are supposed to advertise the band which is why it is important to have this picture on their. Jenny&Johnny's album cover also has a picture of them on it. Also, like on the Jenny&Johnny cover, our actors are close together on the cover which once again markets them based on their relationship. However, the colouring on the two covers is very different. On our digi pack we used lost of very bright, vibrant colours as we wanted it to stand out and have a very quirky, cartoon type look to it whereas Jenny&Johnny's CD cover is very dark. Their image is shown through a red filter which means the entire image is only in red and black. Jenny&Johnny's CD cover seems to be conventional of the genre as it is simular to other covers from this genre such as Belle & Sebastian's "If Your Feeling Sinister."

"If Your Feeling Sinister" - Belle and Sebastian

Because of this, our digi pack seems to challenge the conventions of our genre. This is because we based our digipack more on our music video rather than conventions.

Beth's Evaluation Question 1 - Music Video

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

Music Video

In the music video that we created for Jenny & Johnny's "Switchblade" I think we used a lot of the conventions of music videos in generally and conventions of indie/folk/alternative muic videos specifically. We didn't want to stray too far from these conventions as, obviously, our product needed to be recognisable as a music video and be suitable for the genre of our chosen artist.

As the embedding of Johnny and Jenny's other music video for the song "Big Wave" is disabled I have posted the link below:

Big Wave - Johnny&Jenny

There are many simularities between this music video and our own. One of these simularities is the fact that both videos feature a love story theme which reflects Johnny&Jenny's real life relationship.



Johnny & Jenny Love Story in our Switchblade video



Jenny & Johnny Love Story in their Big Wave video



We thought that this was an important element to include in our music video as when we did our research on Jenny & Johnny we found that they are generally marketed based on their relationship and it plays a big part in their overall image. Alternative love stories are also a major convention of indie/alt music videos.



As you can see in this picture, Jenny & Johnny's main "selling point" is usually their personal relationship.



Another way in which our music video uses the conventions of alt/indie music videos is the theme of rebellion that runs through most videos of this kind. When we did or research we discovered that most alt/indie videos feature some kind of alternative life styles which generally involves either sex, drugs, alcohol or all of the above.



In Johnny & Jenny's video for "Big Wave" there were some slightly sexual scenes

  




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However, as we didn't want to make our actors too uncomfortable we opted for alcohol instead :)

We also tried to use the conventions for these types of music videos when it came to both costume and location for our video.

Alt/indie artists generally have a very laid back, casual style with a slightly quirky twist. Johnny and Jenny are no exception to this. Their image is very casual but often has a subtle 50's influence.

 Johnny and Jenny - Casual style with a 50's twist in the "Big Wave" video

Casual style with a slightly vintage twist in our Switchblade video

However, unlike Jenny & Johnny, our actors had the great British weather to contend with and some of their style had to be sacrificed in order to keep warm! Still, I think our costume choices work well with the video and bring a little English charm to Johnny and Jenny's sunny Californian look :)

 The locations in alt/indie music videos is generally very naturalistic and outdoor so we decided to include this in our video by using the very visually affective Victoria Park.

Naturalistic locations in Jenny & Johnny's "Big Wave"

 Victoria Park archway in our "Switchblade" video



We also used conventions of music videos in general when it came to the technical aspects of our video, for example:
In music video's we expect to the band members, often with close up shots of them.

Close up shot of Jenny & Johnny in the "Big Wave" video



Our actors as Johnny and Jenny in our Switchblade video

Overall, I think we stuck pretty closely to the conventions for alt/indie videos and used a lot of our artists style. I think this makes our video suitable for the genre, the artist and the song. However, as Johnny and Jenny's Californian roots show through a lot in their image (the way they dress, sunny locations etc) our videos is bound to be slightly different as it was filmed in England in the middle of Winter. Therefore, I think we bought a little of our own British style to our video :)

14 Key images from our music video

Below is a selection of key images from our music video with annotions. We think that these are the main images that appear in the video as it follwos the storyline and narration that we wanted to show in the video. This narration matches the song and lyrics well in our opinion. =]

Push effect in chorus

Nicely framed shot of walkway

Very start of our video

'Mirror effect' what isn't a mirror or meant to be a mirror...Greenscreen FTW!

Our actor as Johnny peformaning singing section

"Sleeping throug the afternoon...."

Lovely shot of "Jenny and Johnny" written in spaghetti!

"with your feet on the ggrrrooouuunnnnddd"

A nice couple shot in the 'good times'

Feeling playful in the park...

"Here's Johnny!!!"

3...2...1 look sad! =[

....still in that fun playful mood! =]

General instrumental filler.

Beth's mini review!!!

As we have previously posted, our music video is now finished! Wahooo! Now that the hard works done it's just the evaluation that we have to finish. But before we move onto that, just wanted to type up a few words in review of our video :) I am really pleased with our video overall. My favourite part about it is the green screen effect we used on our photographs. It took alot of work to get those right but I think it has a real wow factor and we are apparently the first students at our college to attempt it so yay for us! I also like the push transition effect we used on one of the choruses. Initially we were worried that the effect would look too amateur and cheesy but were forced to use it as the vocals overlapped and we wanted a smoother transition between the shots of our artists. In the end I think it actually looked good and fit well with the song. I was also pleased with our finished film as it has so much shot variety including CUs, MCUs, MS, LS,over the shoulder shots and hand held shots as well as alot of different angles. However, there are some elements of our video which I am less happy with such as the arrow scenes in which I think our actors look slightly awkward. But overall I don't think this has too much of a negative effect on the video :) See you for the evaluation! :D

What our final edits were....

After nearly finishing it all yesterday, Beth & Mart stayed in at college to add the final bits and pieces to the music video. The bits needed adding were a 'push' transition and a fade to black.  After watching it through we noticed that some lip syncing was out slightly so we had to alter the milli seconds to make it perfect and line out fine. One clip wouldn't work as we wanted so we had to go back through our whole footage to find the right section. Even down to the millisecond!!!!!! =O

Push transition

Some final shots....

It's now finished so.....

RELAX =]

Are we finished at last?!?!?!

We think we are!!! WOOOOOOOOH! =D

See below for our finished music video:

Editing - January 20th

In todays media lesson we continued to edit our music video. Unfortunately we had a few issues which took us a while to solve which meant we didn't get as much done as we had originally hoped. The issues  were only things like certain shots that jumped or just didn't look right when we juxtaposed them. We solved this problem by putting different shots in between them or using transitions. Despite the delay we are happy with how the video is looking so far. In next Tuesdays lesson (the last lesson before Thursdays deadline!) We have just got to finish the editing on the last part of the video and ensure all the lip synching is correctly lined up. One thing that we are a little worried about is a long instrumental section in the song which we are worried we won't have enough footage to fill. However, if we can't do this then we can edit the song to make it shorter. Here's hoping it all goes well! :)

17th January - Editing!

Since I was ill last Friday I missed our media lesson so I was really looking forward to seeing what Bronwyn and Mart had managed to get done. They'd edited about the first minute of the film and I thought it looked really good :) I wanted to make up for missing a lesson so we cracked on with the editing straight away. We decided that it was best to put all the clips we were using into the right order first and then cut them down before lining up the lip synching. This is because we didn't want to spend ages getting the lip synching right only to knock it all out of synch again if we changed anything. We managed to get about another minute of the film edited and also experimented with a few transitions before deciding on the "Push" effect for one of our chorus scenes. We decided this transition would be appropiate as the vocals on the song overlap so it made it look alot smoother when moving from the shot of one of our actors singing to the other. We're pleased with how everything is looking and so far and can't wait to get it finished! :)

Beth

Editing on FRIDAY 13th!!!!!!! =O

Our lesson on the first Friday 13th of the New Year started badly and went on giving us bad luck!!!

Beth got in contact with Bronwyn and Mart to pass on the bad news that she was going to be off the lesson as she was ill.

Throughout the lesson we had many problems with the Mac and iMovie crashing and not working as normal. After a while and a fix, the Mac started to work normally again and we managed to edit the first minute to the beat and with lip syncing. It took ages to do but was worth it as that first minute looks really good....well we think so anyway!

Editing

Todays lesson Beth couldn't be with us as she had a trip with film studies. So we had to edit without her. We checked that the green screen worked with the photo on the walls. It did work but the green bottles at the bottom of the shoot was reacting with the effect. Although we didn't do as much editing as we would have liked to as we discussed problems and ideas, which is helpful as when we edit together we should be able to sort them out quicker.

First lesson back....

We started back at college last week from having the Christmas brake. First lesson back we uploaded all the footage we recorded in the holiday. Then started editing the clips putting clips in order and getting rid of any clips we didn't need.

Filming = success!

Today we finally managed to get all our filming done as planned. Unfortunately, Mart was unable to make it as he had a prior engagement but we decided to film without him as we were concious of getting too close to the deadline. We filmed the whole of the performance scenes, the park scenes and the ending in an hour which we were really pleased with. Overall we ended up with 12 minutes worth of footage (although at least half is probably bloopers! :)) We were really pleased with how everything went and glad to get inside out of the cold when we were finished. A great start to the new year media-wise :D

New filming date?

After much planning, organisation and mind changing we have decided on Monday the 2nd as our new filming date. Although, seeing as our filming dates have a tendancy to fail at the last minute I wouldn't get the baloons out just yet :) Still, heres hoping it all goes well.

On another note...Happy New Year From Beth, Bronwyn & Mart! :D

3rd time lucky

As we've had problem with filming in the past few weeks. We have booked equipment out over the Christmas holidays to get all our filming done. Ready to edit when we come back after Christmas (=D).

The provisional dates we have planned to film on are the 27th, 28th and 29th. We will film on ones of these days or maybe two if we don't get everything filmed in time.

When we come back on the 4th January, our next lesson is on the 6th. We shall be importing all the clips then and then we will have two weeks to fully edit the video.

Webpage Finished!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH =D

At last the webpage is finished, woohoo!!! Beth and Mart (with help =]) added hyperlinks to the webpage. See below for the amazing webpage.