Our Finished Music Video

This is our finished music video. After a lot of filming, editing and tweaking we are finally happy with the end product. We hope you enjoy it!

Our Finished Digipak!

This is the finished digipak as done by myself and my group. Whilst me and Charlie had the artistic input, Daniel was the one to actually make it and create the digipak from scratch. We are really pleased with our digipak as we put a lot of effort into it and came up with some really good ideas. To make it realistic, we have added a barcode to the back panel, the artists's website and lyrics to the song as well as a track listing.

Magazine Advert

Here is the magazine advert that me and my group produced for our music video. We used Photoshop to create the advert.

Evaluation Question 1

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

To gain inspiration for our music video, myself and my group watched various music videos to try and identify conventions of a music video set to a particular style of music. As our song 'Make It Out Alive' by Sarah Bird falls into the acoustic category and is of a slow tempo, we found songs that were similar to ours to get ideas. A popular artist who creates music that is similar to our song writer is Adele, so we analysed her videos closely.




Camera Shots are important when creating a certain mood for a music video. For a slow tempo song like ours, the camera shots tend to be close ups to show the emotion on the singer or the actor's face. This is a convention that we used in our video as there are frequent close ups of the actress' face, and also of particular props such as the photograph. However, before we finished our product we realised that there were not enough close ups and extreme close ups in our video to fit the conventions of our music video. In order to rectify this, my group and myself filmed separate close up shots that were then added to the finished video to give it more depth. 

The speed of editing is also important with this type of music video. All music videos should have some degree of editing to keep the audience engaged (Sinead O'Connor's 'Nothing Compares' is a rare exception of a successful music video with little editing), but the editing must not be too fast as to seem out of sync with the message that the video is trying to convey. Quick editing is more appropriate to a quick tempo song. Therefore, we kept editing at a steady pace, but lingered on some shots to get the emotion that we were trying to convey spot-on.

The costumes and props that we used in our video fit in nicely with the genre of our music. As in most sad and slow music, we wanted to make our video tell a story of heartbreak. By using specific props, we believe that we have successfully achieved in conveying a tale of sadness. The torn up photograph of a couple in happier times being ripped up conveys a break up, a shot that has been used in many music videos. In the scenes that were filmed at Hainault Forest, the actress in wearing all black to symbolise sadness and depression, much like Adele does in the above video. This gave us inspiration for our own music video.

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts (DVD digipak, magazine advert etc.)

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Before we finished our music video, digipak and magazine advert, we asked our peers and teachers for their input on how we could improve. We received a lot of praise for our work and ideas, but also a fair amount of constructive criticism.

In terms of our video, we initially had quite a few long shots and not much editing as the song that we produced a video for was quite slow. However, after talking to our teacher, we received the following comments:

• faster editing
• more close up shots
• use a wider variety of shot transitions and cuts

After taking on our teacher's comments on board, we made the relevant changes. We then posted our video on YouTube so that our peers could watch it and provide our feedback. The results were very positive! After making the relevant changes, people enjoyed our video a lot more and said it had much more of a professional feel.

After completing our video, we made a digipak.  Here was the original prototype that we made:

After consulting our audience, we decided to make changes in order to make it better. For instance, we originally decided that we wanted the digipak to be in black and white with just a hint of colour. We decided to make the lips and the writing in red to make them stand out on the black and white background. We also made the face the focus of the digipak by enlarging it and having less of the background of the trees on the front cover. We had a black and white image of trees on the inside of the digipak as we wanted the digipak to remain simple. This was a good and effective move as our digipak ended up looking very good because of the changes we made.

We were informed by our peers that our magazine advert should run along the same lines as our digipak - black and white with a hint of colour, and the face being the main focus. We consulted various other designs of magazine adverts to get inspiration. In the end, our magazine advert ended up looking very much like the front cover of our digipak. The lips are the only hint of colour on the advert despite the HMV logo which we put onto the bottom.

Here is a compilation of the ideas we got from our audience feedback in order to improve our work:

Evaluation Question 4

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

When constructing, researching, planning and evaluating our music video, we used the following new media technologies:

• HD camera
• Monopod
• Tripod
• YouTube
• Final Cut Express
• iMac
• Blogger
• Google

Here is a screen grab from Final Cut Express during our editing process. By using this program, we were able to cut some bits of filming that weren't necessary and by moving parts of our video around. This meant that we did not have to film in the order that it would be shown in the video as we could change it at a later date. We uploaded the footage we filmed from the HD camera onto the program and easily edited. To et our shots looking smooth and professional, we used a tripod and a monopod. All of the editing was carried out on our school's iMac computers.

Google was the main way we conducted our research for our artist and the song we chose. We also used social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter to spread the word about our video and gather interest in order to receive audience feedback.

Finally, we used YouTube to upload our video to the internet. YouTube is the most popular way to share videos on the internet and we have already gathered plenty of views on our video. This makes our video available to the masses and is the quickest way to gather interest.

All of these forms of media technologies made our music video a success.

The Process of Creating a Music Video

As me and my group have discovered, making a music video is a long and difficult process. It requires a lot of time, good ideas and an extraordinary amount of effort to make it successful. This is a step by step guide of how to prepare to make a music video.

• Choosing the song - the song needs to be something that you can work well with. If you don't enjoy the music, you probably won't be able to get any inspiration for a video.

• Getting a team together - without a strong team of likeminded people, your music video will not be a success. As well as actors, you need a camera man, a director and a lighting person (if you have a larger budget).

• Get your equipment - obviously, you will need a camera, but you will also need other equipment. For example, a tripod, a monopod, lighting equipment (if required) etc.

• Creating a storyboard/treatment - this is where all of your ideas will be put onto paper. This maps out the process of the filming so that everything can be scheduled.

• Filming - putting all your ideas together to create the video.

• Editing - when you have completed your filming, the footage needs to be uploaded to a good editing program such as Final Cut Express for Apple Macs. This is where you can cut parts of the filming, rearrange it and get the lip syncing perfect.

These are the basic steps to make a good music video.

Editing: Update

This is what me and my group have so far in terms of editing. As you can see, all of the footage has been uploaded and the music has been synced. Here is a screen-grab from the process:

          

Editing: The Update

Me, Charlie and Daniel are currently in the process of editing our music video. We have uploaded all of the footage to Final Cut Express and have synced it all together. Now we have to cut the parts we want and put them in the right order.

Digipak Pictures

Here are some pictures of a mini digipak that we printed off and folded. We plan to print a more professional looking one later on and it will be glued together and straightened up.

Digipak: The Start!

Whilst we are editing our music video, we are also working on the digipak for our CD/DVD. This should consist of 6 panels as previously demonstrated earlier in my blog. Here is the picture we will be using for the front cover, back cover and the first inside panel. We plan to add all the relevant information later in the editing process.

Editing

Here is a screen shot from our editing process. We have only just started, so there is not too much footage on here right now, but as we progress we don't think it should take too long to edit fully. We have synced the video and the music together perfectly so that it looks flawless.

Filming is Complete!

Over the Christmas break, myself, Charlie and Daniel completed our filming for our music video to 'Make It Out Alive' by Sarah Bird.

We have shots from Daniel's house in Dagenham to Hainault Forest in Essex for our filming. All in all, we have about 45 minutes worth of film that we will then cut down to roughly 2 to 3 minutes for the actual video.

Screen grabs from the editing process will be up shortly!

Filming the Rest of our Project: Update

Charlie, Daniel and myself have set a date to finish off our filming. This Thursday we will be finishing off our filming at Hainault so that we can then edit it into our existing filming. Weather permitting, Thursday will go ahead. We plan to use the new MonoPod for some of our filming which will allow us to do crane and tracking shots.