The final cut video

Evaluation

Untitled from Lizzy Gaskin on Vimeo.

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

Every stage of my project used media technologies, from Google to SLR cameras.

There were 3 main stages to my project that I used medias for;Planning and research, construction and documentation.

The first stage the planning stage used the most variety, I began using youtube as the basis of my project, I used this to start looking a short stop motions as this was the original idea that I was going with, as my project developed further I used youtube to look at other music videos. Another video sight I used to both research the original video for my song and also to host some of my practise stop motions was Vimeo, a website very similar to youtube.

In terms of my initial practises I did with stop motion I did a clay-mation test using Adobe Premier Pro, however this was very tricky software and in fact I didn’t continue using stop motion.

For planning I also used Google to look up the lyrics (Linked me to lyrics mania) of the song I was making a video for and also to look at pictures of the band an finally research into the magazine adverts etc the branding of the band used.

For the construction of the music video I used a mini-dv video camera and to edit the footage I used imovie, the main effects I used on imovie was the bleaching filter that was used for the grave yard scenes.

For the ancillary tasks I used Photoshop to construct all of the elements, I was different colours, filters and other effects. I did use an SLR camera for one of the ideas for the digipak but didn’t use it in the end.

Finally the documentation was all done through blogspot, on blogspot I used polls to get the audiences opinions on things.

Re-done digipak

Just to follow the proper forms and conventions, I added a spine and a barcode!

Final Story Idea

I am going to have the beginning of the video an accident happening where the girl dies, she will hve a fall, it will then be the guy returning to her grave unable to cope with her death but then realising that life has to go on.

Death Facts.

From looking at this information the second highest accidental death event is falls, this once again would tie  into my song! I think this will be the idea that I continue to work with.

Story Ideas working with what I already have...

What could I make the burning photos and walking away into?

The lyrics..

When I'm falling down, Will you pick me up again, when i'm too far gone, dead in the eyes of my friends...

A suicide?..This is a bit steriotypical...

A death? This would be a good idea as they lyrics are to do with death..

Feedback and Changes

After gaining a lot of feedback about my video I analysed the results and worked out that maybe my video was a little repetative and that although I didn't initially want one maybe it did need a stroy go to with it.

The final designs:

Music Video:


Digipak:

Magazine Advert:

Planning vs final product.

There were quite a few aspects of my planning that I didn't incorporate into my final video, this wasn't through lack of ability or lack of location scouting but down to the fact that driving around and actually beginning filming I had a lot better, more appropriate ideas that I felt I should go with rather than sticking to what I had initially planned to do.
For example I had planned to do a lot of my filming in woodlands and around water, However when I went to my chosen location I found it wasn't as good as I had hoped, the natural lighting didn't fit with the mise en scene I was going with and the water wasn't as easy to see flowing as I had hoped, this meant that I began to think of other ideas and went with them instead. Some aspects I did film such as the sun set but putting this into imovie didn't look as perfect as I hoped so didn't include it.

Another example was to do with the main blue and green colours I was to try and include, instead it seemed as though I had 2main colours present through-out;
Black- The night, black and white"night vision" of the party,
red/orange- The flames, colour of the fish, traffic lights, car lights

This I feel gave it a much better "darker" feel anyway.

Narrative of the video.

I think the narrative of the music video isn't so much a "story" type narrative but a slow release of information style narrative. This makes it very different to many of the original music videos I looked at, I also think whilst filming I varied a lot from my initial plan of action, this was because of many contributing factors such as time, mood, lighting etc.

In terms of narrative I think that my video has a peak and dip type story line, the opening is quite flat in comparison to the rest of the film, this means that the film slowly increases through-out, building up tension, not only through the music but also it seems to show a lot more fast-motion aspects.

Building the video

I started to put together all of the pieces of the video.
The best thing about it is the match of colours through-out the video that means it all links together really nicely, the colour of the traffic lights matches the colour of the tropical fish and also the flames,  and the contrast of the really energetic dancing goes really well with some of the more slow motion bits.
 I think they key thing that I had to try and do was to make sure all of the slow music sections went with slow pieces of filming and visa versa.

3RD MAGAZINE EXAMPLE

I didn't really like this one as much as the others but i thought i would put it on my blog anyway.

Second example

I think this might be the final one I use, after asking around and making a few adjustments I finally settled on this idea, I love the umbrella used.

Magazine Advert examples...

This is the first one I created, any comments? I really like this one to be honest as it's really illustrative and strange...

FINAL FILIMING!

So today I think I completed the final parts of my filming, it was the main "story" element that I needed to film and I thought it was going to be the hardest part but it wasn't too bad.

Firstly I filmed the talking mouths part which was to be the opening of my video, I set everything up with a blue tinge on it to keep it quite dark and secretive, I think after putting night vision on it began to really work, I will have to do some cropping of the film but hopefully if i can get it all in time it will look lush.

For the photo burning part of my video the wind became a huge issue, I wanted to just have the photos burning in the dark but it was so windy I had to try and provide some shelter as the flames wouldn't light, hopefully again I will have done enough to make it good and not tacky.

I also finished some tracking parts following the character which i'm hoping will work out well..

Rough cuts to come!!

Filming continued....

So yesterday for the opening of my music video "when im falling down" I filmed the sunsetting, however it didnt really work as well as I wanted too... the sun didnt set quick enough and I was beginning to run out of film! So I might have to go and re-film this tomorrow.

The Big Evaluation, The questions:

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

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

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

What else I have to do...

Tonight!
I am going to get some footage of very beaty "rave" type of thing, this will help even more with the instrumental pieces of my song which I was finding the hardest to film, a combination of this and the driving footage will fill up most of my intrumental pieces and ill just need to get human footage, so far so good!



I think the hardest part of this is going to be pieceing it all together so that it doesnt just look all jumbled up.

More Ideas and beginning of filming

As I was thinking the other day I decided that I wanted to have some more urban pieces in my piece, my theme that runs the whole way through is colour( Due to the song) So I was thinking about colourful things in life, then looking at some of my previous ideas I saw the lights of night traffic, it clicked that this could be a really good idea! I would set up my tripod in the front of my car but not so you could see any of the car and then film quite a lot, this would enable me to speed things up to make it fit the beats!

Costume of the main character

I want the main character to be very average looking, so the audience can almost relate to him, he'll be in very real locations so it would look strange if he was dressed in a way that's out of the ordinary.
Inspiration:

Actual costume was just a simple pair of dark jeans and a blue coat, these are the only parts of clothing you see on the character as there is not a lot of close up work etc.

Planning for the shoot- Filming location

Inspiration:

Bure River, Norfolk

Being so fortunate to live in Norfolk there are plenty of places to film because of the beatuiful coutryside, woods and scenery. For my video I am going to be filming here:

The only thing i am going to have to be careful of is mud!

Mood Board Before Shoot

Connotations of Chosen Colours

I thought I would just quickly explain the reasoning for chosing the colours that I chose for my album;

Green is a color that has both an up and down side. It's associated with the new growth of spring, prosperity, and clean, fresh air, yet it can also carry a negative connotation, in terms of mold, nausea, and jealousy. Throughout the ages, green has most often been considered to represent fertility, and during the 15th century, green was the most popular choice of for the wedding gowns of European brides.

Because Blue is associated with the color of the sea and the sky, blue has come to symbolize serenity and infinity. That's especially true of the more greenish shades of blue, such as aqua and teal. On the other hand, cooler shades of blue can have a tendency to cause feelings of sadness.

In terms of these covers i think the greens represent clean and fresh ideas and that the blues represent sadness.

Digipak take Two!

For this digipak I decide I would use an image that would relate to the video so I took and editted(mainly colours) of some tropical fish. This came out really effectively I think as it is a colour contrast to the rest of the digipak!

Magazine advert inspiration

I knew I wanted to do an illustrative piece for the magazine including little images that would be included in the video, this is the inspiration I used:

Issues with the Digipak

Copyright:

Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by the law of a jurisdiction to the author or creator of an original work, including the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work. Exceptions and limitations to these rights strive to balance the public interest in the wide distribution of the material produced and to encourage creativity. Exceptions include fair dealing and fair use, and such use does not require the permission of the copyright owner. All other uses require permission and copyright owners can license or permanently transfer or assign their exclusive rights to others.
Copyright does not protect ideas, only their expression or fixation. In most jurisdictions, copyright arises upon fixation and does not need to be registered. Copyright protection applies for a specific period of time, after which the work is said to enter the public domain.

On part of my digipak I used an image of the band that I got off google pictures, because I don't own the rights to the image I cant use it, Therefore I will have to change the image to something else.