Key Questions for the A2 Advanced Production
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
In my opinion, I think that together my products are an example of how new media is used and implemented. I used a variety of visual effects, interesting and new camera angles, transitions, while still following most of the codes and conventions of my main and ancillary tasks. I think that my music video is unique because it follows a distinct storyline; it blends together a freestyle type music video with visual imagery.
My concept behind the video is based around an actual scene in the Twilight Zone series. In the TV series, a possessed woman is staring at the cartoons shown on the TV screen because she is hypnotized by it. I tried to replicate this but with a twist; instead of the woman being hypnotized by the cartoons, she is instead hypnotized by the rapper coming up on the TV screen. This was my main basis, and from this I came up and developed new ideas I could use in my music video.
In order for me to produce my video I had to look at a variety of different music videos and study the content, analyse and look at the techniques music directors use when filming, and whether the music video promotes the song effectively. I chose to look at the hip-hop genre as I am very knowledgeable in terms of the conventions and stereotypes you may find in this genre. When doing my research I looked at videos which were quite different and didn't follow the conventions and stereotypes which are likely to be found in hip-hop music videos. This is why my music video can be seen as quite different compared to other hip-hop music videos, because of the research I have found when analysing and looking at the diverse hip-hop videos.
The demographic of my target audience is a male audience of 18-30. This is because the context of my video is largely based around that age. The reasons and meanings behind the video can be seen as quite complex at times, so it would only be right not to suit it for a younger target audience. The reason why it is aimed at males is again to do with the context of the song and because of this, males can relate to the song better than a female. In my opinion, there are subtle references which empower women. However there are references which do the entire opposite. An example of this is the 24 effect scene where the rapper is arguing with a female. Furthermore, the female is emailing him, and she shoes weakness as she puts: “why haven’t you called? I’m not trying to be obsessive...” This puts her in a weaker position. On the other hand, the park scene shows the complete opposite, as he tries to pursue a different female and gets turned down; due to the female thinking that she will get mistreated and abused because of his power and status. At the end of the scene she walks away, indicating a clear sign of power for females. You can strongly argue that this goes against the codes and conventions, as in stereotypical hip-hop videos the women are shown as powerless and ‘slaves’ to the men in the videos. Their main role in music videos is just to ‘perform’ and ‘look good’. This contrasts with my music video as I represent women in the opposite way.
My music video has a lot of hidden perspectives to it, which relates to some of the hip-hop videos you find today. I focused a lot on the visual image, and applied certain colour effects to make it look more like a film; reinforcing my story idea. Finally, I used a variety of effects in my music videos, developed ones I already knew, and came up with new effects. For example the transition from the first scene to the phone; where the scene zoomed out into the phone, was completely experimental. I practiced using loads of zoom effects and that one worked. I got a lot of inspiration from the Twilight Zone series, where they incorporated weird and mind-bending effects in their TV show. One way in which my music video does follow conventions of real media products is that music videos today do use and utilise a lot of special effects and transitions in their videos. I have followed that route in an attempt to make my music video as modern as possible.
However, my music video does challenges forms and conventions, because it is based around a storyline. At some points, the rapper in my video doesn’t even appear on screen. I chose to do this because I wanted my music video to have even more of a story feel to it. This separates itself from the stereotypical videos you see today.
My magazine advertisement is another example of how I have followed the codes and conventions. After researching basic advertisements, I followed the format which they used and implemented this for my advert. The choice of font, the format, and picture was all due to following the codes and conventions of this. I opted to continue the twilight theme in both of my ancillary tasks.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I think that for my main product and my ancillary tasks, I have a recurring theme to them; I think that they combine well together. I wanted to utilize the dark, eerie, theme to my ancillary tasks so that they all have a strong combination. Also I wanted to follow the Twilight Zone theme, so I came up with the idea of using stars in my background for both my digipak and my magazine advertisement. I used exactly the same picture for both the ancillary tasks as research suggests that this is effective. Also the spinning door in my music video is one of the panels in my digipak; so all together I tried to incorporate this theme as much as possible. The spinning door is also used for my left and right panels inside the digipak, so from this you can tell it plays a vital role as it keeps reoccurring in all of the projects. In addition, things such as the font have all been implemented into my projects, so anyone looking at the video, magazine advertisement or digipak can clearly see they all relate in some shape or form. The font I found after some research is the exact same font as what is used in the Twilight Zone, but instead says The Rabbit Hole. An older audience would see and recognise the font, and be familiar with its relation to the TV series.
Digipak: I think that my digipak relates to my music video and poster the most. This is because almost everything placed in there, is used to represent The Twilight Zone. Looking at my front panel, the image is manipulated to make it blend in with the theme as much as possible. One way in which it does this is the stars blended in with the rapper; this gives him an out of space look. The same Twilight Zone font is used.
My inside panel shows a picture of the spinning door in space with the lyrics to the song over it. These again incorporate into the theme. The eye in the middle panel was inspiration from the Twilight Zone intro whereas, once the door is opened, it quickly shows an eye for a couple of seconds before moving onto the rest of the introduction. So using a close-up picture I took of my rappers eye, I edited this using Adobe Photoshop, and placed another picture of my rapper into that eye. So in other terms, he is somewhat looking at himself. I then blended this into the stars and used the Twilight Zone font at the top of the middle panel in my digipak.
Magazine Advertisement: For my magazine advert, I kept the same picture, and font for the Rabbit Hole title, however the rest of the font is entirely different. I didn’t want to use the same font for every piece of text in my advert. So instead I found a ‘futuristic’ looking text which I thought went well with my advert, as it looked a bit clearer, and it only seemed sensible to use it for the important information. Small details such as the false companies and website name I made is also used in the digipak.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I learnt crucial information from audience feedback, it helped me to improve on my media products, and the criticism made me determined to work harder and produce a better product. For my audience feedback, I used a combination of questionnaires and social interaction websites such as Facebook so my audience could see my drafts and comment as necessarily. I wanted as much audience feedback as possible so I could improve my media products. I gave my questionnaires out to my target audience (18-30) this was a good source of useful and quick feedback for my projects.
The reason why I chose this target audience was for a number of reasons. Firstly, in my opinion, I think that my music video is quite complex when you first watch it, as there are various things going on at one time. A younger audience may be confused with is actually happening in the video and why. On the other hand, I have made the video also in an attempt for the younger audience to still be entertained without necessarily having to know what is going on all the time. Secondly, The Twilight Zone TV series is quite old; a younger generation would have a very low chance of hearing or knowing about this series; even I vaguely knew it before I started researching into it. However, what I have learnt from my audience feedback is that most people did understand the concept of the video to some extent. What they knew wasn’t perfect, but they knew the basis of the video, and could break down the different scenes and know why certain things were happing. So overall, I do think that the video suited its purpose in terms of the concept.
After I got audience feedback from my drafts, I decided to start again altogether; this was because I wasn’t too fond of the picture and knew that a different one would work better. Even though my audience suggested that draft 4 was the best, they still mentioned that there wasn’t much going on in the background, and this is what I had to improve on. After taking new pictures and editing, I came out with a much better result:
Audience feedback helped me to improve on a lot of aspects on my digipak front cover. Altogether I had about 4 different drafts, of my front cover. Not only did audience feedback help me to make a decision on the final draft, criticism also helped me choose different decisions and change different things about my digipak front cover. For example, one person from my audience said that the feathering had to be better so it blends in with the stars a lot more. So this is what I focused on and came out with a much better result. Also for my magazine advert, I had criticism such as the picture was too dark. So again I improved on the picture and tried to make it look brighter. Overall, audience feedback was a massive learning curve for me and it helped me to improve on a lot of key areas in project.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Firstly, blogger.com has been a significant part of producing my music video. From here I kept all aspects of planning, research and more. It shows the progress I had made and kept track of everything and what more I had to do. I uploaded a variety of photos which helped me for this project. Things such as annotated location photos gave me more of an aspect of where I was going with my project and what I needed to do. Also because I uploaded my construction process, I could see exactly how I had produced and edited footage, just in case I needed to change my footage at a later stage or tweak it. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter enabled me to upload quick drafts of my projects so people could see and comment. Even things such as blackberry messenger helped me to obtain more audience feedback, as I would have my draft pictures as my display picture and people would comment.
I used various programs and software to help design, plan and construct my mediums. The programs I used were very convenient and efficiently helped me with my project. The software I used to create my music video was Sony Vegas Pro 9, Toon Boom Storyboard Pro and Adobe After Effects CS4.
Toon Boom Storyboard Pro was the basis of my project as I was able to thoroughly plan out my ideas visually with ease. Together with the audio, I could roughly see how my outcome of my music video would be; if any changes needed to be made I could easily manipulate my project. I wanted to use a storyboard program because it would give my planning more of a professional look instead of having to redraw sketches. I initially researched a few other storyboard software programs but ended up choosing this one due to user rating. Toon Boom Storyboard Pro was essential for my project. It helped me bring my ideas to life in a professional manner. Storyboard Pro delivers powerful features that make it the tool of choice to create an entirely digital storyboard.
When constructing my digital storyboard, I took pictures of the locations I would use and imported them into the program. I used the default character images and placed them onto the image in replace of the rapper and actors who were going to be in the music video. The default character images included a variety of different actions and directions. This made it easy to incorporate this onto my base image and get a decent vision of my video. Finally, I used different camera techniques to incorporate the effects I would use in my video. For example, I used camera movement to incorporate the zoom in effects. Overall, this program was a handy and useful tool for me to use in aid of my project.
The program I used to construct my music video was Sony Vegas Pro 9. This program was packed full of professional tools which took my video and audio to a high quality level; Sony Vegas is full of video effects and transitions to use at your will. There are many advanced options such as colour correction, surround sound mixing and more. Because of the wide range of tools, I could produce the music video I wanted, without the need to download and use other software and equipment. Like Toon Boom Storyboard Pro, this program was also new to me; however after a while I began to become familiar with all of its uses and functions.
I used a combination of Sony Vegas and Adobe After effects; for any footage that needed additional effects, I would import my raw file into Adobe After Effects, manipulate my video, and then render this and import it back into Sony Vegas. At times this was very time consuming, switching between the two.
One of the key features I liked when using Sony Vegas was the preview window. This enabled me to preview my videos without actually putting them on my timeline. This was particularly useful when it came to syncing my audio and video, as I could import the clip from a certain time within it. Another thing I thought was useful was the video effects in this program. There was a vast range of effects I could drag and drop into my project and adjust them accordingly.
Adobe After Effects contributed to a vast amount of special effects in my music video. Its features I used included key framing, colour correction, size remapping, masking and rotoscoping. This powerful tool provided me with additional effects and animations for my project.
However, I came across a number of problems with these programs. Because I had so many programs on my laptop, it started to run very slowly. This meant that it took a lot of time to use these programs, and the more footage I had on the laptop, the slower my laptop became. To result this issue, I had to borrow an external hardrive and transfer all of my footage onto there.
For my ancillary tasks, I used a combination of Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft word. On Adobe Photoshop I was able to construct my digipak while editing my each panel at the same time. I downloaded a 6 panel digipak from the internet which was a PDF file. Photoshop can open PDF files so there was no need for conversion. First I made and constructed each panel first. I had to resize, edit, and crop my panels so that they were the right dimensions for my digipak. I then placed them in the template and they were ready to print.
How did you project evolve?
My project evolved and started to come into shape from when I had filmed all my footage and began editing. From here I witnessed what it would evolve into, as you never really know exactly what it’ll look like, even if it’s planned. So once I had my first draft of my music video ready, I knew what I could do to make it better. From this draft, it inspired me to come up with new ideas for my ancillary tasks. So I would say from this point my project began to evolve and take shape. From studying The Twilight Zone intro, I came up with new ideas, so my main and ancillary tasks could evolve even more.
What creative decisions and revisions did you make and why?
I made various creative decisions during my project and had to improvise a lot during this period. This is particularly shown in my special effects in my music video. I studied and looked at different ways of blending my footage together. My main focus was to relate the song to the Twilight Zone as much as possible. This meant that most of my creative decisions were based around this theme.
What worked what didn’t and what did you do about it?
In my opinion, I think that my concept as a whole works very well; it is quite unique, and I think that it does work well to some extent. I was quite proud of my special effects in my music video as they are all used within reason; with each of them having a particular purpose or desire, they weren’t just randomly thrown in for the sake of it. I think the wide range of camera shots and angles helped me to keep the video fresh and so it doesn’t look repetitive. The one thing that I would improve on is some of the lip syncing, as my rapper didn’t always look like he is saying the right words. In reality he actually was, but he didn’t know the lyrics confidently enough in my opinion.
My final magazine advertisement pretty much came out how I wanted it to be, some aspects make it look professional, but others downgrade the advert. I really like the choice of font I’ve used for the advert, and I focused on following formats I found as researched, as much as possible. For example, the fake website and made up logos are an example of exactly how professional magazine adverts look like for a promotional release. My image on my poster looked great on the computer, but when it was finally printed off onto photo paper, everything appeared to be darker than it was. This meant that the stars in the background aren’t as clear and don’t stand out as much as they should. Also certain areas around his face look too dark, and this wasn’t the effect I was looking for. Overall, I do still think it is a really good poster to some extent.
My digipak ended up looking quite good, although there wasn’t as much research and planning put into it, compared with the other two tasks. I again focused on the format of other digipaks, so I knew what to include and what not too.
How far did your finished project match your planning ideas if there were differences why?
I think that my finished project matched quite nicely to the planning I had prepared for it. However there were many differences due to improvising locations, camera shots and editing. For example, for the first scene with the possessed woman, was supposed to be filmed at an entirely different location, however at the last minute I decided to opt with a different location due to light issues. I feel that sometimes you even come out with a better finished project when certain elements or ideas are improvised. Even though I was following my camera angles and shots from my storyboard, I often filmed scenes from other angles, so I had a wide variety of shots I could choose from. It can be quite frustrating when you go through your footage and you aren’t quite happy with it; you want to re-film it. So to resolve this issue, I filmed scenes again and again which meant there was more to choose from, so I could implement more cuts into my music video.
Out of all my tasks, my digipak was the least planned and the last task to be completed. This was due to the chain effect my project seemed to have. I completed my music video first, and then from this I had come up with a brand new picture idea for my magazine advertisement. My music video and magazine advert were planed out so much that I had more than enough ideas and knew exactly what I was going to do with my digipak.
