Music video progress and construction

 I used the video filters to put my video into black and white effect using the desaturate tool.  

After making the video clips black and white, I had to render each section, transition and filter. I feel like rendering wasted a lot of time.

After I rendered for the black and white, I decided that it was a lot darker than the footage looked on the camera. I had to repair this by using a brightness and contrast filter. This only worked a little bit as the beginning is still quite dark but I feel as if the darkness fits in well with the attitude and energy coming from the lyrics.

The cross fades that I used were 3 seconds long to make sure that they show a nice dissolve between two images.

Between the jar smashing, each fade in fade out I did, I set as 3 seconds long to make sure that there is a dramatic long pause between each jar smash to build up tension.

For each cross dissolve between the ending chorus, I set as two seconds long so that there is elegant changes between them. I think that these worked well because it made it feel like a memory within the video.

I have put a 3 second cross dissolve between the dancers to create an elegant transition and have both dancing footage on one screen for three seconds which is really effective as it makes the video look innocent and elegant.

Evaluation: Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

This is a development screenshot of how we have developed our font/colour ideas on Photoshop. We used Photoshop in AS level, so we had good knowledge already on what colour scheme to choose.

This is also some of our construction work, we have developed from AS with the use of technology we have used. We used a professional camera and Tripod which we hadn't used before. Using this new technology gave us a professional outcome to making our product.













This is our special effects research, we had not covered anything like this in AS level. Researching Green screen, Slow motion and backgrounds gave us an idea of how to make our product looking professional using different technology. In A2 we had to really think about and discuss what worked and what didn't work when thinking about background, colour and setting. 

Evaluation: Question 3- What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Part one of question three

 


From the audience feedback from teachers within the school, I learnt that our music video appeals to the correct target audience (teenage girls) and is about a break up with the girl showing her courage to break free from it and her build of becoming stronger. However, I learnt from it that the dancing could be better choreographed and the lip syncing could be improved in some parts but not all places. It is also mentioned how the jar smashing is too violent for the bridge part of the strong but I think that this works well to show how she is innocent but she can stand up for herself and is becoming the bigger person.


Part two of question three
After completing the music video task, I decided to publish a survey on my Facebook to get friends to complete a few questions regarding the music video. The reason I did this is because we both have a wide variety of Facebook friends considering we have family, school friends, work friends and family friends on our Facebook friends list meaning we would have a wide sample size to answer our survey. However, only 12 people took time to complete the survey but it was enough for us to get feedback.

 From this, it is clear that the majority of our friends who answered our survey were female and were between the ages of 18-29 which is slightly sample bias as there wasn't an equal split between male and female and ages. However, we did get people from different ages responding to our survey.

The first question that we asked was
When you watched the music video, what stood out to you the most?
The answers that we got the editing was good, professionalism, lighting changes, monotone effect, main character shows a lot of emotion and is very good at her lip syncing, jar smashing and the choreography.

The second question was
In a short summary, what would you say the storyline for the music video is?
The answers that we got were a boy has played the girls around and has broken their hearts but the main character has suffered in particular with this and shows how she can over come it, heartbreak, the end of a relationship, "a small mouse has ran into the cage of a lioness" and a broken love story.

The third question was
Do you think that the storyline links to the song lyrics?
Out of 12, 9 of the respondents said yes and the other 3 said no.

The fourth question was
Do you think that the actors used within the music video fit the genre and suited the song?
Every respondent of the survey said yes.

The fifth question was
Do you think that the camera angles worked well? If yes, why?
The answers that we got were yes but there could've been more involved, they showed a lot of different emotions, they showed different aspects of the dancers which worked well and they were soft which matched the song and made it professional.

The sixth question was
Do you think that this is a typical music video that you'd see for a pop song? Why?
The answers that we got were yes because it had dancers which is a typical code and convention for pop songs,  and a lot of pop songs involve a girl and a boy.

The seventh question was
Looking at the lighting, angles and transitions within the video, do you think that they work well and why?
The answers that we got were yes because they are in pace with the song, fit the emotion, create a sense of relief when the lighting changes to indicate her strength compared to his.

The final question we asked was
If you could make the video better, what would you change? 
The reason that we asked this was because we found that it would be interesting to see what others would change if they were in control of our music video. The answers that we got were have some parts in colour, more effects and backgrounds, lip syncing and maybe the lighting could be lighter.

In conclusion to this, I do agree with a lot of the comments said in the survey. In regards to the improvements that could be addressed, I believe that the lighting could be lighter but it fits with the lyrics and story lines. In the video, we made the lighting brighter on two occasions when the lyrics and video indicated that the main character was the bigger person in the scenario.

Evaluation: Question 2- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

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

Bloopers

Final Music Video

Ancillary task- Poster

We have created a poster promoting our artists tour which would have been found around cities, for example, on the underground on bus signs. We've decided to keep the poster minimal as we compared it to artists posters such as Beyonce. We've kept it simple without giving out too much information to keep the fans engaged with the artist for the tour. We have used a big and bold font to draw attention of fans and other people who enjoy the genre but may not have heard of our artist. 

Ancillary task- Final Digipak

I have changed my final digipak to improve it. I removed the album name to fit typical codes and conventions of a pop digipak as typically most pop digipaks don't have the album name on the back cover and it is usually just on the front cover. I replaced the album name on the back cover by placing a barcode, record label logo and the name of the record label as it fits the typical codes and conventions of a stereotypical pop digipak.

Costume Planning

The main costume that will be seen in the music video is this dress which will be worn with white heels by Alanis. We chose a white dress because it indicates her purity and honesty regardless of what she has been put through. The cut out waist shows that she has a different side to her innocent self as she is revealing skin which can be seen as being promiscuous. The flowers on the bottom of the dress symbolise her innocence as sweetness as flowers often have a sweet scent which are always appreciated by people.

The three dancers will wear white tops and black leggings. The idea of this is that the girls dancing are past victims of the love interest (Charlie) in the video so the white indicates their innocence and purity which is contrasted by the black which indicates that they have been played and it has changed their lives for the worse.

Charlie wears a black top with black trousers which indicates that he is the bad person with lots of bad morals within the story line. He is the dark one and the black contrasts with the girls who are all in light colours to indicate that he is turning them bad which is portrayed with the use of black leggings and the black dress.

For sections of the video, Alanis will wear a black dress to show how Charlie has taken the good out of her and she is now someone who can't go back to her complete pure self as she been put through so much by someone who plays girls off each other. However, when Alanis wears the black dress, the setting will be white to indicate that no matter how she is feeling, she will always be her innocent, pure and honest self deep down.