Tuesday, 24 February 2015

Note to Moderator

Dear Moderator,

My brief was to create a music video, a Digipack and also a website as a promotional package of an artist of my choice. I chose the band, The Kooks and chose the song, Always Where I Need To Be.

I have used Labels which can be found on the right hand side of my Blog to make it easier for you to navigate.

Yours Sincerely,

James Merry
Edgbarrow School

Candidate Number: 9136
Centre Number: 51111

Final Products

This is my final music video.

This is my final Digipak. 
 
 Back page of digipak
CD part of digipak
Front page of Digipak
Middle page of Digipak
 
 
This is my final webpage 

Evaluation Question 1

This is a link to my Evaluation Question 1

http://prezi.com/mpmvk_6ankf1/present/?auth_key=8g0ja1q&follow=ukwa4ztw-akg&kw=present-mpmvk_6ankf1&rc=ref-96810481

Evaluation Question 2

For a band to be successful at promoting themselves and making themselves know they need a brand identity. This identify will feature on everything that they make or do, so then everything matches and could be linked back with ease to the band without confusion.

This identity can be like a colour scheme or a font style the band use to write their name on everything from their website to their digipaks. I personally took this into account when designing my website and digipak as I wanted to make sure they all looked similar so my target market knew what band was producing these products, I did this by the colour schemes I choose.

As our video was manly in black and white I decided to make my website colour scheme greys and black as this would match the video im trying to promote, I also tried to incorporate the bright colours that are seen in the chorus so the name of the album on the website and along with other important titles are in red as that was one of the colours used in that chorus section so it matches.



My digipak also has the same colour scheme and has the same font style used on the title of the website so that matches. The pictures that I used for the website and digipak are screen shots used from the actual video as this is promoting the band and the music video at the same time which is good for developing more fans, even though I used pictures of the entire band Paddy (lead singer) does feature a lot on the website and digipak.




I believe that I have made a successful brand identity as everything links well together and can be traced back to the band very easily.

Evaluation Question 4


We had to learn how to use final cut pro as that was the software we used to place and edit our music video on. We had to learn how to put the footage on the software. In addition we had to learn how to put all the footage together so the music video made sense. Furthermore we experimented with video filters and adjusted the sound levels of different audio tracks. This benefited the product as this is a professional software that is used in the real media industry and it helped us produce a product of a high standard to fit alongside our coursework criteria. 




Another technology that was new and we had to learn was motion. Motion is the software that we used to make our credits for the music video. We had to learn how to make the credit and how to add certain behavior's to the text to make the text do certain things like fade in or smoke in. We used the  flash in for the credits as both of us liked that effect and it matched our genre very well. This benefitted the product very well as we were able to add credits and titles to the video so people could see the band name and the name of the song. In addition, I think we used the right amount of credits to make it seem realistic when compared to other RMAs. 



Wix.com is a webpage creator which we used for our webpage that we created. We had to learn how to create the actual homepage for the webpage and had to learn how to add all the different parts of the webpage that we were going to use on the site. We managed to add a selection of images, text and add our own video. We also adjusted the appearance of each page by choosing the layout and background image. This benefitted the product as were able to make it look like that we're a real company and experiment with a variety of technologies to help  us make our final product look how we want it be at the final stage.

 

Continuing on I have also used YouTube to upload versions of storyboards, drafts and final products so that I can embed them on my blog page. I put them up so they were unlisted which meant that they weren't public and could only be viewed if the link had been shared with them. This benefitted the product as we are able to post the product on YouTube so people could take a look at our music video and by doing this we could gain feedback from viewers and possibly help us to improve our product. Furthermore, this helped us as it made our product look more professional.
 Blogger is the website I have been using to create a blog in which my moderator can use for marking and easily access different sections through the labeling function. This benefited the product in the pre-production stages as we were able to blog about what we have done and post little sections and drafts of our music video to gain feedback. This also helped us iron out issues with our product in the pre-production stage rather than making changes later on.





                                                                              

Friday, 13 February 2015

Web Page Updates



These are some images from my website. I have chosen these images as i believe these are my favourtie pages. Also I wanted to give a taste of the house style i have used throughout my website. As you can see that the colours are the same throughtout each page and match my digipak. I did this so people know that the webpage and the digipak belong to the kooks.

Throughout the video we used close ups of the lead singer for a promotional package so i did the same on the website by including loads of close ups of Paddy who is the lead singer of the band. This was a commom thing with other bands web pages so i decied to use pictures of him as this is what the target market liked.

Digipak



This is my digipak as you can see that it all matches up and i have used to the same fonts and colours for the word Kooks. I did this so everyone knows what band this is.

Tuesday, 10 February 2015

Digipak Analysis

This digipak is of the British Indie/Rock band 'The Kooks' and was released in 2006 by Virgin records.

Front cover
The front cover shows the full band playing their guitar and wearing relaxed clothing that relates to their chosen genre and immediately gives them an identity for their target audience. The front cover is done in black and white and none of the band members make eye contact to the camera suggesting their passionate about their music and instruments. The band look very relaxed and comfortable which could link in with their music and personality's and also link in with their chosen genre. It also features the conventional title 'Inside in, Inside out' which is in red which could connote love? danger? romance? and it also contrasts against the artists name which separates inside in and inside out.

Back cover
The back cover is a similar image to the front cover and taken from the same angle. The image is blurred so the conventional song titles and the conventional song length can stand out more to the eye. It also features CD conventions with the bar code, credits and record label provided on the right hand side.

Spine
The spine features the name of the artists to promote them and the record label their signed to so the institution can be recognised. It's been put in red to contrast from the front and back cover.

Disc
The disc is in red which could connote love, passion, danger and the the artists name is in black to contrast against it, the hole in the disc is used as an O in the artists name ' The Kooks' and the album title is in white and doesn't fit on the disc which again could show their relaxed approach to their music and their promotion. It features the conventional credits and record label on it again to promote the institution.


Web page Analysis

During the process of making my own music video website, i was finding rather difficult on what to write down on the page so i researched into existing indie rock bands web sites. I looked at the Bastile website i looked at the Kooks website and i looked at Arctic monkeys, and two door cinema club

This is a link to a prezi which i have produced on exsiting indie rock band wweb pages

https://prezi.com/qx8na1qxutv6/edit/#142_30863873

Draft Evluation for question 2

For a band to be successful at promoting themselves and making themselves know they need a brand identity. This identify will feature on everything that they make or do, so then everything matches and could be linked back with ease to the band without confusion.

This identity can be like a colour scheme or a font style the band use to write their name on everything from their website to their digipaks . I personally took this into account when designing my website and digipak as I wanted to make sure they all looked similar so my target market knew what band was producing these products, I did this by the colour schemes I choose. As our video was manly in black and white I decided to make my website colour scheme greys and black as this would match the video im trying to promote, I also tried to incorporate the bright colours that are seen in the chorus so the name of the album on the website and along with other important titles are in red as that was one of the colours used in that chorus section so it matches. My digipak also has the same colour scheme and has the same font style used on the title of the website so that matches. The pictures that I used for the website and digipak are screen shots used from the actual video as this is promoting the band and the music video at the same time which is good for developing more fans, even though I used pictures of the entire band Paddy (lead singer) does feature a lot on the website and digipak.
I believe that I have made a successful brand identity as everything links well together and can be traced back to the band very easily.

Draft of Evluation question 1

The media product I am going to be evaluating is my music video which was of The Kooks, Always Where I Need To Be. Before the construction stage of my ancillary tasks  and music video I did researched into how to make the end product look professional as possible i did this by finding out what the codes and conventions of a successful media product were. The codes and conventions that I used in our music video were; The first one was that my video was many a performance based video which I believe really suited the genre of my music video which was indie rock. Researching into known indie bands and there music videos I found that the videos are  mainly performance based videos with little storylines. As most of these videos were performance based videos I thought that I should try and make my video a performance based video as wel as I believe this is what the indie rock demographic like. My next convention was what the band looked liked.
I also followed the convention in the way the band looked. It was important the band looked the part so that the video was realistic. So I asked my friends who I felt looked the part whether they would be willing to be in the music video and after weeks of asking I finally got 4 people. Paddy (lead singer) and Guy (lead guitarist) are actually brothers in real life and that is also common that in indie bands there are brothers so this is another convention I followed. John who was the other guitarist looked like a stereotypical indie band member, skinny jeans, t-shirt and beard and this was just what we needed to help the band look real. Jack who was on the drums also looked the part, rolled up sleeves, short spiky hair and this was another thing we found from our research, that is what most drummers looked like. The mise-en-scene we used was also following conventions, I wanted the band to look as real as possible so having analysed what current indie band members where we then picked out outfits for our band to wear. For example, Paddy’s leather jacket and Jack’s rolled up sleeves. I also paid close attention to props, for example when filming in the recording studio I made sure that guitars where plugged in, headphones were used for Paddy and also smaller things such as having the electronic drum set turned on so the small green light came on.  So I think the casting and mise-en-scene defiantly followed the codes and conventions of an indie rock band. Another convention we followed was our camera angles. Mainly using midshots and close ups made the video relatable and also follows the demands of a record label as they demand close ups for publicity of the band. I think the close up of Paddy with the lyrics ‘do do do..’ work very well as he keeps eye contact straight down the camera so it looks as if he is singing directly to the audience. Getting Paddy to do this was something I massively struggled with, Paddy is just a friend helping me out and not a drama student so found filming quiet awkward and embarrassing in places and getting him to look straight down the lens was very difficult as he didn’t feel comfortable doing it. However, there wasn’t anyone else who was first of all willing to help and secondly looking the part. I used a variety of shots when filming, mainly being mid-shots and close ups but also over the shoulder shots such as when they were walking into the house and also establishing shots. Another convention we followed was the pace of the video. When editing I made sure that there were lots of shot changes which met the beat in the music. This was so crucial as if the shots cut different to the beat the video would look strange which is why it was so important the music met the image. On the other hand I also challenged the editing used in indie music videos. The main part being the four different coloured boxes of Paddy. Editing like that isn’t often found in indie music videos from the research I did. I believe it is more found in pop music, changing and flashing bright colours. However, I believe it works extremely well in my music video as it is firstly a break from the black and white, it stands out and is eye catching which is extremely important in a music video, it is also a factor which could give the video repeatability as it is quirky and due to its quirkiness is could become a talking point which is great promotion for the band and that is the ultimate goal of a music video; to promote the band. Finally it is also a way to show the personality of the band, which I have found to be very common in indie music. The bright changing colours show that the band aren’t boring and plain and have energy and are fun. So I have challenged the codes and conventions of editing but at the same time I have followed the convention of expressing the bands personality and giving a video a repeatability factor. I have also developed codes and conventions, for example the lead singer in a band is seen as the public face of the band and I have firstly followed that convention by giving Paddy the most screen time and the most close ups and having him centre stage, I have the developed this by making it more personal to the lead singer as at the beginning of the video you can see the brothers of the band practising and writing the song. It makes it more personal to the lead singer as the video is inside his house of him writing the hit song. The video then follows his journey of writing the song with his brother, to recording it at the recording studio and then performing it on a big stage. Performing the song on stage is a convention of an indie rock video however, I have developed it by showing the journey of how the song got on stage and this is something that I have never seen before. Overall, I have used many codes and conventions to ensure my video looks as professional as possible, such as casting, mise-en-scene, camera shots and the majority of the editing. I have also challenged the codes and conventions by using editing that isn’t usually found in indie rock but I feel it works very well. Finally I have also developed codes and conventions through the concept of my video, where most is just the band performing on stage; I have developed to show the story before that.

Friday, 6 February 2015

6/02/15

I have made the changes nessasry for my evluation questions and made sure that these questions are up to date with all the right information.

Friday, 30 January 2015

Update post 30/01/15

I looked at the comments that were made on evulation questions and edited the questions that i needed to change , over the weekend i will be making sure i have everything on my blog an dmake sure that i am orgainsed

Saturday, 24 January 2015

Evaluation Question 3

Without an audience, you don’t have a film/ music video so at one of the earliest stages in making your film/ music video you need to establish an audience. Huge amount of research goes into any potential new media product before it is actually made or marketed. The audience feedback gained from this can create improvements for your film/music video and could be an indication of how successful your film/music video may be. So audience feedback holds great importance because, you find out what the audience wants.
 – While this is good as it allows you to make improvements on what they say it is also a hard process as many people will have many different opinions and views. But selecting the majority of people’s opinions could make your piece attract more audience.
 You can tailor products to specific audiences
 – If you want your piece to appeal to one particular audience or pin point what parts which demographic enjoys most then audience feedback is good. This is because you can see what the target market likes most and play it up in the film or promotional material.
 Improve any weaknesses 
-This is important because then you know what parts of your film are not working and it will help improve your product.


This is some feedback we gt from another group that watched our music video. They said that they liked the video. Overall they gave us 37/40 which is quite high and we were very happy with the feedback they gave us. 

Evaluation Question 2 Draft

For a band to be successful at promoting themselves and making themselves know they need a brand identity. This identify will feature on everything that they make or do, so then everything matches and could be linked back with ease to the band without confusion.

This identity can be like a colour scheme or a font style the band use to write their name on everything from their website to their digipaks . I personally took this into account when designing my website and digipak as I wanted to make sure they all looked similar so my target market knew what band was producing these products, I did this by the colour schemes I choose. As our video was manly in black and white I decided to make my website colour scheme greys and black as this would match the video im trying to promote, I also tried to incorporate the bright colours that are seen in the chorus so the name of the album on the website and along with other important titles are in red as that was one of the colours used in that chorus section so it matches. My digipak also has the same colour scheme and has the same font style used on the title of the website so that matches. The pictures that I used for the website and digipak are screen shots used from the actual video as this is promoting the band and the music video at the same time which is good for developing more fans, even though I used pictures of the entire band Paddy (lead singer) does feature a lot on the website and digipak.
I believe that I have made a successful brand identity as everything links well together and can be traced back to the band very easily.



Evaluation Question 1 draft

For this question I shall be presenting it using prezi.

The media product which I shall be evaluating is my own coursework piece. The song that we decided to use was 'Always where I need to be' by the Kooks. During the planning of my piece I did a lot of research into what makes a music video successful I did this by looking at other music videos which matched the genre of the song which was indie rock, I also looked at the different codes and conventions of a music video so I knew what I needed to place in my music video to make it a successful music video. Looking at indie rock music videos I found a common trend, this trend was that these videos where mainly performance based videos so this made me think that performance based videos is what the target market want and like so we made the coursework piece a performance based video. Another code and convention for indie rock bands was the look they had, so in my research we found that the outfit that most band members had was skinny black jeans, leather jackets or t-shirts with other bands on them this we felt was a very odd look however most bands are owned with  independent record company's so this cheapish look looked very well at showing the genre of the music. Having done this research we tried to match this look as best we could. But we didn't want to copy other bands as we wanted our band to stand out and not just blend in with the other indie bands that already existed. The band members that are in my band are Alex (Paddy) finch as lead singer, Guy finch as bass guitarist, Jack leach as drummer and John Dillon as lead guitarist. These boys looked quite similar which I also found from doing my research that band members may look like each other ever so slightly which also I found the target market like. The boys were dressed in clothes that they thought where indie so all of them had skinny black trousers on. Paddy had a leather jacket and boots on this look was found to match most indie band lead singers so having that was good as its what the target market like. Guy had another bands t-shirt on and jack had a top which he had pulled the sleeves up to make the top like a vest and john had a light blue top on. The look the boys had made them look like a real band which was key in the development of our coursework and it is a convention as most indie rock bands look rather similar. The next convention which is key for an indie rock music video is props that are used. The props that we used for our band are very stereotypical for a band so their was a mic, 2 guitars and a drum set with sticks these props were used throughout the music video. We also paid close attention to the detail needed to make the music video look even more realistic so we had amps for the guitars and had the wires plugged in, we also had headphones for both Jack and Paddy to wear in the music studio, this was vital as this is what these types of band members need when making a song as they need to hear the beat of the song so they can match it with their singing and drumming, these headphones where also plugged in just to add to the verisimilitude of the video. When analysing any type of music video the element that is looked at in proper detail is the camera angles and movement. Before we started filming our music video we did some research into the types of shots that are used in indie rock music videos so that we could see about trying some of those shots in our coursework piece. We used loads of different shots and angles as we didn't want the video to be boring and as this song is quite a fasted paced song we needed to match the shots and durations to the beat of the music. We used mostly mid shots and close ups of the band because this song is an indie rock song and as this genre type have independent label companies their isn't much money involved so the band aren't able to promote themselves that well as they don't have the money to do it, so these bands rely heavily on the music videos to promote themselves so having the close ups means people can see the band members quite clearly, especially Paddy as he is the lead singer as he is the most important part of the band so we needed him to have most camera time and he has a lot of close ups during the video as its what all bands of any genre do as the lead singer is the tip of the mountain when it comes down to the most important band role. During the editing stage of our video we decided to add a little section in that isn't in most indie rock music videos in fact it is a pop thing to do. We wanted something inside the video that challenged the style of the video and gave the band a sort of identity. This then would make the video more interesting and brings the video alive as the rest of the video is in black and white so having that shot of colour works well at making the video less boring to look at.That we did was at the chorus of the video we did was take a close up shot of him singing the chorus which is 'do do do do do' then put the close up in 4 different boxes and add 4 different colours to this boxes so when the chorus came in these boxes would change. During the editing part of our coursework we got many people to wathc this part of our video. The people we choose to watch this part of the clip were people that enjoyed all types of music not just people that enjoyed indie rock music. We did this so then we could get an clear understanding if people liked that part and if we should go agains the conventions and use this section in our indie rock video. This went down well with everyone that watched our music video as those lyrics were great at matching to that part, having something in a music video that makes people want to watch it again is a convention that all music videos should have. Although this video is mainly a performance based video there is a little narrative that flows through as this video shows the band writing their song, recording the song and then finally performing the song on the stage. Performing the song on stage was vital as it what all indie bands do as this also promotes the band and what they would be like when doing their tours. Overall I believe that I have covered most of the codes and conventions that are needed to make a successful media product and a successful indie rock music video.

Saturday, 17 January 2015

Dolby

I need to see drafts of the evaluation questions asap.

Friday, 9 January 2015

Dolby

I like the layout and design for the webpage- this just needs to be recreated for the digipak in terms of style. The embedded sound clip needs to be accessed and try adding in the music vid when it is done. Check the tour dates as they don't make sense and fill in the written details to get good marks for language and tone.

Web PAge design

http://jim82901.wix.com/james-website-as

This is the link to my WIX webpage, hti si my first draft and there are some things that i may need to teek ever so slighty