Thursday 11 April 2013

Evaluation 4:

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

HD Camera (Panasonic HDC SD500):
I used a HD camera when planning for my video in order to see what was achievable with this equipment, and also to get a good practice at using it before shooting my video which took several attempts before eventually getting all the scenes I needed. So other than having to re-shoot a few times I had no issues using the camera.

Adobe Premier Pro:
To store our clips and edit them I used Adobe Premier Pro, I had previously used it before at the start of the course when learning to lip sync which was useful as the editing process would have taken a lot longer as it can be quite difficult to use at times when you're looking for specific effects. I rendered my work throughout the editing process as it saved time at the end and also allowed me to fine tune parts that didn't look as good as I would have liked.

When using Premier Pro I used a lot of the effects within the software especially when editing my video, due to my genre being heavily synaesthetic I thought that utilising the software and finding each and every effect of which I did some of my own personal research in order to do more advanced effects which paid off, the only downside of this was having to be very precise with every clip and having the exact timings right, unfortunately for Premier Pro I couldn't find a way to apply the same settings to a multiple number of clips which could have saved a lot of time.

Pentax K-r DSLR:
I used my own DSLR camera instead of the one provided by college purely because I knew how it worked for the specific photo's I wanted during the construction side of my digipack and advert, I went to town and spent a long time photographing the birds down by the river, it was slightly overcast that day so the light wasn't great, however I was happy with my result and then took the photo's on my SD card and began to edit them in Adobe Photoshop.

Adope Photoshop:
I used Photoshop to edit my photo's for my digipack and advert, I find using Photoshop a very tedious and time consuming task, as the layout of things and just plain awkwardness of the software made it difficult for me to be as effective as I would have liked, the effects I applied to my photo's were not as I would have liked and the resizing of the photo's in order to fit them into the correct size became really annoying as it kept changing when I put the photo into the set of four. On the other hand, it allowed me to do certain things such as use tools to take colour out so as to make the barcode and other label's on the back of the digipack look more authentic. My advert was easy to make, a simplistic design and it didn't take long to produce, I didn't use Photoshop for any other process'.

Media 2.0:
Youtube;
Youtube was very useful in all the stages as I was able to watch other videos in the same genre in my research and of course be able to look at ways to edit clips and effects created in Premier Pro were easily accessible, Youtube was where I found Walker Palcher, a director from the Netherlands who was the main source of inspiration for my video.

Facebook;
Facebook was a great and efficient way to gather audience feedback and also host my video and digipack and advert on. So the advantage of using Facebook was that in the Evaluation stages I simply posted on all of my work asking people in my focus group of which I chose the most sensible of my friends and also ones studying Media too, and requested that they comment their thoughts on my work, good or bad, as long as I got feedback. I also posted little clips and photo's of my video and digipack when in the construction process so that they could comment their thoughts, that way it would be easier for me to improve my work whilst saving time as well.

Tuesday 9 April 2013

Evaluation 3:

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Again, here is the responses I got about my video;
  
There is a clear relationship between the visuals and the pace and genre of the song. The use of multiple locations and cast members keeps the video interesting and the fact that there are not really any 'main characters' adds a sense of ambiguity which links in with the mysterious captions and optical effects.
Really good use of effects and youve made something very simple look interesting. Fits with the song very well and i like the way you cut to the beat a lot. Good use of contrasts. 

the random clips in a non linear style work really well with this uncommon type of music. I find the effects used make a strange yet very interesting aura around the video, which is also increased by the various words that pop up during it. the short focal length in some of the shots adds a sense of uncertainty and mystery yet again increasing how interesting the video is. overall a good video to watch due to the unique filming and editing style used

I learnt from these responses that my audience enjoyed watching my video, it left them interested and curious, I didn't expect the responses I got, I thought they would've either not understood what I was trying to do or just saw it as a complete failure. So I was surprised at the comments, however I do believe that I made quite a few errors within the video which have seemingly gone unnoticed by my audience, maybe they thought they were done on purpose because of the style of my video?

They read the text within my video very well, even though nobody grasped the political stance of the song they still saw it as something 'mysterious' and the non-linear narrative that pursues within deeming the video interesting to watch. The controversial flashing texts throughout were also not picked up as offensive or a edgy part of the video, this helps as it is typical of this brand identity and therefore not seen as something that shouldn't be there.

My audience have made a relation between the video and myself, I made the video intending to keep it as 'organic' as possible, ensuing only my ideas within the video, and the audience has recognised that. The disjunctive nature of the video and myself has made the video more understandable from there point of view, nobody made comments about the cats in my video which disappointed me as it was a main aspect of the song and that a lot of working class people have pets like cats or dogs.

My audience being young adults are using their social status and background to make sense of my text and the fast paced nature of my video coincides with the fast nature of growing up, the entropic audience has created a relation of their lives and the song in order to feel more satisfied when listening to it, this is also one of the pleasures it offers the audience, a sense of home. Where everything has been simplified in the most frantic way, As if a morphing of two typical teenage characteristics has happened.  

Evaluation 2:

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

My music video is easily heavily linked with my ancillary texts by the use of repetitive themes, e.g. animals, distortion of colours etc.. My goal was to identify this IDM genre as an emergent market and I achieved this by having my music video heavily disjunctive and containing no narrative, almost like a collage of images that all stand for something individually and then collectively by the end, this theme ran on from my digipack and advert, both of those being basic and hard to analyse from an academic view but as an emergent 'cult' genre it stands out as it's own brand identity. The song I used itself is quite political and I tried to capture the meaning through obscure images whilst still having the meaning as solid a possible. When filming my video I went with a cinematography style similar to gaspar noĆ©, plenty of vertiginous shots and strange colour patterns.

The locations were everyday places of working class folk, and I used no props at all other than when editing, the addition of flashing text was prominent throughout.

The response I got from my audience was as I expected, acknowledging the mysterious and clouded side to the song and visuals, These are the responses I got about my video;
 "There is a clear relationship between the visuals and the pace and genre of the song. The use of multiple locations and cast members keeps the video interesting and the fact that there are not really any 'main characters' adds a sense of ambiguity which links in with the mysterious captions and optical effects. "

"Really good use of effects and youve made something very simple look interesting. Fits with the song very well and i like the way you cut to the beat a lot. Good use of contrasts."

"the random clips in a non linear style work really well with this uncommon type of music. I find the effects used make a strange yet very interesting aura around the video, which is also increased by the various words that pop up during it. the short focal length in some of the shots adds a sense of uncertainty and mystery yet again increasing how interesting the video is. overall a good video to watch due to the unique filming and editing style used"



My own response about my video is that I'm not pleased with it, I now realise that I could have done plenty of other things in order to solidify my messages and values within the song, those being about control, hierarchy and capitalism. The artist 'Drums of Death' has his own brand image, which is very DIY, a relation to his audience that he is not idolised in anyway but just a regular guy who has the ability to make IDM tracks, this is his own video to the song 'Got YR Thing'  He also states in an interview that the face make up is only used to separate him from his day to day self, as t allows him to get into the moment fully and put on a good show. 











Evaluation 1:

When researching and planning I decided to check out quite a few bands within the 'Dance/IDM' genre of music, from my research I noticed that a lot of music video's within this genre share similar conventions, A vast majority of them feature special effects generated on a computer using some high level software,which is fitting for the music. A lot of the videos use synaesthesia as a key way to reflect the music and visuals.

In my video i've used various effects available to me on Premier Pro and used them in abundance. As my idea was to film something simple and make it visually convoluted. The absence of continuity editing also plays a vital role as the disjunctive style, the style of music is to challenge and not to conform.

Editing is the main micro-feature within the 'IDM' genre, so that became my focus area from the off-set. whilst maintaining a rather simple level of attention to Mise-en-Scene, Lighting and Cinematography. The song itself meant quite a lot politically to the modern, working class citizen of the UK, predominantly C1's C2's and even D's on the Jicnar's scale. So with casting and costume I decided it was best not to tamper with what was already there, I used friends all from a similar background and locations typically associated with these stereotypes of people.

I was influenced by Chris Cunningham, Aphex Twin and Venetian Snares. All of which are referenced within my video and Print based media work. E.g. the birds and cats are previous album covers for Venetian Snares.

The beginning of my video features a cat merged with a human this is to emphasize the lyrics within the song, of which a reading could be found that humans are treated like animals, as the phrase goes. That the government are trying to cage and seemingly nullify our 'existence'. Cats feature heavily throughout the video with various transformations and effects, I aimed to create a video where people were shown to behave like a cat so that it was easier to understand the message I was trying to get across.

On the other hand, if the audience are unable to read the preferred reading they could find the video 'repetitive' especially as the IDM genre features very disjunctive and entropic video's heavily. My digipack and advert I made visually for a neo-classical audience, by having smart aesthetics for the print based media and in contrast having a macabre, pessimistic meaning.

Also the problem with the IDM genre is that it requires a very high intelligence to truly grasp the meanings behind it, and by challenging those conventions would detract a lot of my target audience, and by recognising that I was then able to create a mix within my video, to allow an aesthetically pleasing  video to watch and produce layers of meaning also.

A key factor that helped me film my video is that the audience don't expect anything, which means that I could film absolutely anything I wanted. I stuck to my idea and thus created a very confusing and disjunctive feel whilst maintaining an upbeat and humorous side to it as well.

Videos like; Venetian Snares - 'Seqsy' has a style that I wanted to push for in my video, it also contains cats which is a direct reference within my video, however this video is much more professional with seemingly flawless time signatures and a cohesion of images that fit the style of music perfectly. The fluid editing and narrative is something I admire within this video, on the other hand I felt that making mine increasingly disjunctive. I also feel that by having a home made aesthetics in my video helps make the audience become more attached, as something they can possibly relate to by whatever means.
There is only a certain amount you can film with next to no budget which also doesn't necessarily mean that the video will be bad, but rather it won't be generic.

When I filmed scenes from inside a pub, I wanted to manipulate what the 'real' was, I did this by distortion of colour, morphing faces around and altering the speed of the scene. My reasoning behind this was purely to make a normal formality of youth appear a lot more simplistic/settled than what is usually portrayed in other media forms.

When making my digipack I decided to make it in the style of neo-classical, By using calligraphic font and rich tones of colour, then using the same photographs but doing the complete reverse in order to create contrast. Where as when designing my advert I thought to link it with my digipack with the use of birds, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, this way it wouldn't attract a mainstream audience but still relate to my niche market.

Friday 8 February 2013

Final Filming

This weekend i've decided to take a camera out again in order to film a few extra things that i'd missed initially.

Wednesday 16 January 2013

Filming

Now that my filming is complete, and after looking at all the clips that I have. I think I will need to film a few other things later this week.

Monday 7 January 2013

equipment re-booked

I have now rebooked the equipment for my video until the 14th/1/13

Problem Filming

I was ready due for filming over the Christmas period however an unforeseen problem occurred when the main actor who was supposed to be in my video was going on holiday for his Christmas present, he was unaware of this so I couldn't blame him for not telling me, Therefore as he is now back I have re scheduled the filming for the end of this week and hope to have got everything done without another problem happening.