Evaluation Of Project

I’m Kerrin Gilbody, and this is my evaluation of my A Level music video production task.

The brief for the task was to produce a music video and promotion pack for a local band, in which we were given St Neots band, Starfish.

Within out groups, we distributed production roles, consisting as myself as the producer, Emily as Director, Paige as Designer and Jamie as Editor. We felt we distributed the roles well depending on each of our abilities and weaknesses. Once we had established this, we set about contacting our band and researching music video ideas and conventions.

Having carried out much research on real media products that are similar to that of our rock genre band, we noted that many of the conventions consisted of isolated settings, live performances and dark colours. We applied these conventions to our media product by choosing to use an isolated location of a factory warehouse to film our bands live performance video.

We looked at bands such as Greenday, Stereophonics and Takethat to gain an understanding of the genre conventions. However, we also tried to portray our bands own image and lively personality alongside these conventions in order to promote Starfish as a band. We did this by, asking them to wear their own clothes for the music video, to portray a casual band look, and also allowing them to perform the song just how they would if they were performing to a live audience.

In terms of our production brief, we were also given the task to put together a promotion pack for the band; this consisted of a DVD cover, magazine advertisement and DVD menu page for a DVD of the finished music video.

 In order to ensure that the genre and target audience of the band came across in these promotional ancillary texts, we combined similar effects to these and the main product.

We used photos from the music video to promote the band in the DVD cover, advert and DVD menu. This therefore, would not only promote just the band, but the main music video itself.

We used continuity throughout the ancillary tasks, by using the same or similar font styles on all the promotional texts, as well as using the same colour and style of writing. We also researched band’s music video DVD covers, and looked at adverts for band promotion. We took the conventions of these, as well as the previous conventions from the main music video, and applied these too the promotion pack. An example of this is shown in our magazine advert, as we used limited text and imaging to make the advert easy to read, but still affective due to its simplicity and large image of the band. We felt that because of the continuity throughout the tasks and understanding of conventions, the combination of our main product and ancillary texts works together very effectively.

Before completing the main music video product, one band member from another group’s band came to view all of our music videos. This enabled us to gain clients feedback of our videos, which would then be able to assist us in completing them.

We received very positive feedback from the client, as he stated how he really liked what we had done so far. He commented on the use of effects throughout our video and how the music reflected the images very well. This audience feedback enabled us to listen to the comments said and see if any changes could be made to the video, however, in this case, we were not given any negative feedback.

After completing the first draft of the music video, we received more feedback from our band themselves and like the band member before, we again received only positive feedback, saying how they really liked what we had done!

More feedback we received was from our class members. After watching our video, we received both positive and critical feedback, which turned out to be extremely useful for the completing of the video. Critical feedback included comments on the reason behind why we used the effects we did and maybe that they were used to often. As a result of this, we are going to amend the video to cut done on the effects used, in order to make it more easily watchable. More feedback was that we could have done with more shots, as we had a fairly fast song, giving us the opportunity to use more and quicker cut shots. We are unfortunately unable to act upon this feedback, due to the fact that we would have to film new shots. However, receiving this audience feedback enables us to understand what people want to see, and also allows us to think positively about what we could do differently if given the opportunity to do this again.

Through the course of our production task, we used many variations of new media technologies in order to complete all areas of the course. This included the research and planning stages, the main production and the evaluation stages.

Throughout the research and planning stages I used a blog to record and note the research I had conducted as well as communication evidence between both myself and the rest of my group and myself and the band members. I found the blog extremely useful as it allowed to me to easily show what research and planning I had done in a simple manner.

In terms of communication between the group and band members, the main form of communication was by email. However, we also used methods such as texting, phoning and social networking sites like Facebook.

Within my research, I used the internet as well as own primary research to plan ideas for the main product. I further used most types of word programmes in order to record the research before uploading it to my blog.

For the final evaluation stage, I first typed up my evaluation, taking into account the conventions used throughout the task, the ancillary texts, audience feedback and technology used. Once completed, I set about recording this evaluation on camera, in order to portray my ability to use new media technologies as well as showing my communication skills.

Email To Band

I emailed the band informing them of the new and improved music video and telling them it will be available for them to see on YouTube.

Group Meeting

Having finished filming the narrative for our video and taking the footage off the camera and putting it onto the computer, we met as a group to discuss the layout of putting the narrative into the performance music video we had so far. We looked through the footage we had and began planning a draft of where to place the narrative within the video. We listened carefully to the lyrics of the song, which gave us the second draft of the completed music video.

2nd DRAFT

After getting feedback for the draft, we took on board comments such as 'The narrative needs to flow more and make more sense within the video and the lyrics' and 'You need to fix the jump cuts'. We worked on this feedback and amended the video and narrative to produce a thrid draft.

3rd DRAFT




After discussing the third draft of the video, we still felt that the narrative needed to be adjusted to make more sense. Myself, Emily and Jamie used the time in one of our lessons to edit the video and finalise it. Once watching it through and being completely happy, we exported it and plan to send the final product to our band.

Despite this however, after one last lot of feedback from parents and teachers, we felt that the effect we choose in the video was over used. I especially felt that it took away from the idea that we wanted to show and promote the band, as the effect was hiding the indentity of the members of the band.
We ammended this by only using the effect at the start of the video and in certain appropriate places throughout. We now feel that the video is finally complete and we have produced something we are 100% pleased with :)

 FINAL MUSIC VIDEO

Narrative Filming Day

On arriving at the filming location at 5:00pm, we met with the actors whom all brought their production schedules along with them. We explained what we wanted to portray through the narrative, and once fully understood, we began setting up the camera and filming the first scene of two 'lovers' sitting on a bed laughing and joking. We ran through this first scene 4 times and then began filming the next 3 scenes; the couple having an arguement, the man walking out the house and the girl chasing after, and the party scene.
We ran through each of these 3 scenes another 4 times, and once completed, we looked over the footage to see if everything had run smoothly and gone to plan.
We finished filming at approximately 6:40pm and thanked the actors for their time.

Risk Assessment and Production Schedule For Narrative

Situational Hazards	Actions to be taken
Cold/Warm Environment	Cast and crew to take jackets on set for in between takes and light clothing as well
Loose wires	Cast and crew to be aware of wires
Sharp object/material	Cast and crew to stay away from sharp objects within the kitchen
Slippery surface	Cast and crew to keep shoes on at all times and if any spillages show, to mop them up immediately
Trip Hazard	Beware of all surroundings and for all band and crew to wear shoes at all times.

StoryBoard

After discussing and finalizing the narrative and shots, Emily put together a storyboard to clearly show the narrative and our intension to improve our video so far.

Shot List

Shot List

 

First shot - Mid-long two shot of the couple on the bed

Second Shot - Close up of 'I love you' message

Third Shot - Mid shot of the couple hugging

Forth Shot - Change of scene and location to a long shot of the couple arguing

Fifth Shot - Long shot of girl leaving the house and walking down the street

Sixth Shot - Close up of the girl, moving with her as she walks away

Seventh Shot - Change of location to mid shot of party scenes

Eigth Shot - Mid shot of girl coming into the door, camera pans to follow her as she greets her friends

Ninth Shot - Mid shot of guy coming through the door

Tenth Shot - Mid Shot - Close up of the girls showing their reactions

Eleventh Shot - Long shot of guy as the girls sweep past him, completely blanking him

Twelfth Shot - Long shot of girls walking away arm in arm

Thirteenth shot - Mid shot of girl as she stops to get the note from her pocket

Forteenth Shot - Close up of the 'I Love You' note again

Fifteenth Shot - Close up of her scrunching up the note

Adding of a Narrative

After viewing our music video several times, we decided to improve it by adding a narrative story line to accompany the performance based video.
We listened carefully to the lyrics and interpreted this into an idea for a narritive, which like most narratives, consisted of a couple and their relationship.
When researching narratives, I started by looking at the original 'Since You've Been Gone' music video by Kelly Clarkson.

The video starts off by showing a confident girl (Kelly Clarkson), showing how she's moved on from her boyfriend. This narrative then continues into a performance video, similar to that of our video.

Another music video I looked at is Beyonce's video for song 'If I Were a Boy.

The part of the video that particularly catches my attention is the narrative in the middle of the video. In shows a clear arguement between a couple, which is portrayed as a common thing in most narrative based music videos. As a group, we will take these points upon board and try to use aspects of them in our own narrative.

DVD Cover Research

In order to make sure our music video DVD cover followed the conventions of a promotional cover, I first started off by identifying them. These conventions included;
- Band name
- Song
- Image of the band
- Images of the music video or performance
- Barcode
- DVD logo
- Copy Right
- Rating
- Synopsis
- Credits
- Special features

I looked at DVD covers such as Evanescence and Micheal Jackson inorder to see the layout of such covers and the conventions in place. We then made sure to use all these conventions in our own DVD cover, also taking into account types of font and colour schemes. We used the same font throughout our project, using it on both the promotional advert poster and DVD cover.

DVD COVER

Magazine Advert Research

I began to research magazine adverts similar to that of our bands rock/pop genre. We looked at the font styles, text, imaging and promotion techniques and thought about how we could use these in our own magazine advert.

Looking at the band Paramore's rock genre advert, we noticed that it was very simplistic, yet it attracts the reader's attention.
We took this technique on board by using a simple image of the band and hardly any writing, in order to promote what we needed to, but without going over the top.

We also looked at an advert for the band Manic Street Preachers, which took similar conventions to that of Paramore's poster advert.
It used similar and clear text on a plain background, and also used limited text to promote the band. One large image was used, which is also what we used for our advertisement.





As our band Starfish's genre is also partly pop, I further looked and magazine adverts first hand out of the latest magazines.
I noticed that unlike the rock genre posters, the pop genre tended not to use back and white backgrounds liek that of Paramore and Manic Street Preachers. We took this on board and instead decided to use the original light colours in the image of the band, but combined this with the other features and techniques of the rock band adverts, such as, the simple and plain text.

MAGAZINE ADVERT

Making Of The DVD Menus

As a group, we began to put together the 3 pages of DVD menus; these being the Home Page, Special Features and Evaluations.

We thought carefully about the menus, and all agreed that we wanted to keep the pages simple allowing them to be easily viewed.

For the main Home Page menu, we used a picture of the band so that this promotes them and shows the viewers who the band is. We found this was a convention in other DVD menus, using it to promote the members. We kept the text white and simple, further allowing for it to be seen easily. However, we made sure to use a font that fitted in with the rock/pop genre.
We continued this same simplicity through both the Special features and Evaluation menu, but used images of the bands instruments as the background image. We felt this was appropriate as it further promotes the genre of the band, and doesnt take away from the main home page menu promoting the band.

DVD MENU HOMEPAGE

DVD MENU PAGE 2

DVD MENU PAGE  3

Email To Band

I emailed the band sending them a copy of the final music video and our plans to produce a DVD cover, DVD menu and magazine advert.

Group Meeting

The music video is now finished and will be emailed to the band soon to ensure they like it, and feedback can be given. The behind the scenes documentary is almost finished, and the special features are also well on their way; consisting of the Storyboard, Meet the Band, Starfish LIVE, and Photo Gallery.

Over the next few weeks we will be completing the DVD menus, magazine advertisement and DVD cover.

MUSIC VIDEO 

Group Meetings

Over the following two weeks, as a group we met 4 four times during lesson time to continue to help Jamie edit and discuss further ideas. Piage, Emily and myself also begin to create the 5-10 minute documentry using the backstage footage from the shoot.
Paige has also emailed the band to talk about meeting up to do some further interviews and talk about the video so far.
Overall, I feel the video is coming along really well, and as a group we work together brilliantly.

Brief Editing Meeting

Thursday 20th January

Myself and Jamie stayed after our media lesson and looked over the editing Jamie had completed so far. We added a few more shots to the video, and also talked about other ideas we could input.
On the Adobe Premier software we are using to edit our video, there is a specific effect which we feel would be appropriate in our video as it portrays the rock/pop genre that our band focuses on and we also feel it helps make the video look more professional.
Taking this on board, I set about researching music videos that used smilar effects, and came across the video for Aha's song 'Take On Me'.

The video's 'sketch' effect gives the impression of life as a magazine, and I believe this unusual effect attracts the viewers attention and encourages them to want to watch on. This is a key reason why we wish to use an effect within our own music video. We feel our effect however, also portrays a grunge effect to match that of our rock band genre.

Filming Day

Saturday 15th January

The group met at 9:30am around my house. This gave us roughly an hour to make sure we had everything we needed;
- 5x HD cameras
- 4x tripods
- 1x audio kit
- 8x production schedules
- Lyric sheet with timings
- 2x Ipods with the track on
- 1x Ipod speakers

At 10:30am we left the house and picked up Helen, who came to help us film.
We arrived on location at 11:45am and five minutes later, Jamie rang Steve to inform him we were at the factory. At midday, the band arrived and began to set up their instuments as we set up the cameras.

After a short break and after telling the band the ideas we had of shots and positioning, we began the first take at roughly 1:15pm.
We started off by filming steve on the stairs walking down towards the performance area. We then filmed Mark doing the same thing, but using a different set of stairs. The third take was Alan W walking through the middle of the waerhouse. In the next take we filming Alan T sitting at his drums.

After all the individual takes, we began to film the band performance.
We started off by camera 1 recording a long shot (high angle) of the band, camera 2 filming a second high angle shot and camera 3 filming a long distance front shot of the band.
The second take used camera 1 filming a long shot side angle (left), camera 2 filming a long shot side angle (right) and camera 2 filming mid-long shot (front).
On the third run through, we switched the cameras around again to record a variety of shots. Camera 1 filming a close up of Steve, camera 2 filming a close up of Mark, camera 3 filming a close up of Alan W and camera 4 filming a close up of Alan T at the drums (back).
By the fourth take we still had plenty of shots to film, so we used camera 1 to film a mid-close up of the back of Alan T, camera 2 filmed long shot side angle (high) of the band, camera 3 filmed mid long shot of the band performance and camera 4 filmed a long shot (high angle) tracking shot of the band.
The final take used all of the four cameras. Camera 1 filmed mid-closeup (low angle) of Steve, camera 2 filmed mid-closeup (low angle) of Mark, camera 3 filmed mid-closeup (low angle) of Alan W and camera 4 was hand held by Emily to give more of a movement active shot of the band. Half way through this take we moved camera 1 to film a long shot (from behind) of the band performing.

The whole of the filming took roughly 2 and a half - 3 hours and most of this time, a camera manned by Helen, was filming the backstage footage.
After filming, we also took some promotional stills of the band which could later be used as possibe pictures for the album cover, poster or DVD sleeve - Promotional stills were also taken throughout the day of the music video.

Email To Band

I emailed the band to send them a copy of the production schedule.

Production Schedule

Risk Assessment

 Due to the location of our setting, Director Emily produced a quick risk assessment to assess the possible harm when filming the music video.

Hazards	Who’s Exposed	Risk	Control Measures	Risk
Cold Environment	Band and Crew	Medium	Band and crew to take jackets on set for in between takes	Low
Entanglement in moving machinery	Band and Crew	Medium	Band and crew to keep away from the machinery and not to film near it	Low
Sharp object/material	Band and Crew	Low	Band and crew to stay away from sharp objects often found on machinery and not to film near them.	Very Low
Slippery surface	Band and Crew	Low	All band and crew to keep shoes on at all times and if any spillages show, to mop them up immediately	Very Low
Trap in moving machinery	Band and Crew	Medium	Keep away from all machinery during the shoot	Low
Electric shock	Band and Crew	Medium	Take care when coming into contact with surfaces.	Low
Nuisance noise/vibration	Band and Crew	High	For both the band and crew to take this into account and take care. Possibly wear ear plugs.	Medium/Low
Interference to factory production	Band and Crew	High	For the band and the crew members to stay clear from machinery and all aspects of the factory work to prevent interference.	Medium/Low

Contact With Group

I rang each group member to inform them of the change of location plan! They were all happy with this and we agreed it was a more realistic environment. I also told them I would be emailing the production log asap.

Location

Factory Warehouse



Contact With Band

Jamie rang the band to see if they were happy with the filming location. However, they said how they didn't think it would possible to bring the instruments outside. Baring this in mind, Alan emailed me explaining that they could get hold of a factory warehouse location, and that they have permission to film there. We looked at the pictures Alan had sent us and believed it would be a perfect location! Following on from this, they band sent us the directions to the location.

Storyboard

After discussing the different shots we would use, Emily put together a rough picture storyboard to get an idea of what each shot would look like.

Shot List

SHOT LIST

• Close up of guitar (camera 1)
• Fade to black
• Low camera – band member walks over to guitar, picks in up and walks over to performance area  (camera 1)
• Close up of bass guitar (camera 1)
• Low camera – band member walks over to bass guitar, picks in up and walks over to performance area (camera 1)
• Close up of drums (camera 1)
• Low camera – band member walks over to drums in performance area (camera 1)
• Close up of guitar (camera 1)
• Low camera – band member walks over to guitar, picks in up and walks over to performance area (camera 1)
• Long shot/high angle of band in performance area with heads down (camera 1)
• Side angle (left) of band performing (camera 2)
• Side angle (right) of band performing (camera 3)
• Long shot (front) of band performing (camera 4)
• Long shot (back) of band performing (camera 1)
• Close up of drum kit (camera 1)
• Close up of guitar 1 (camera 2)
• Close up of guitar 2 (camera 3)
• Close up of bass guitar (camera 4)
• Mid long shot of lead singer (camera 1)
• Mid long shot of guitarist (camera 2)
• Mid long shot of bass guitarist (camera 3)
• Mid long shot of drummer (camera 4)
• Close up of lead singer (camera 1)
• Close up of guitarist (camera 2)
• Close up of bass guitarist (camera 3)
• Close up of drummer (camera 4)
• Side low angle (left) of band performing (camera 2)
• Side low angle (right) of band performing (camera 3)
• Low angle (front) of band performing (camera 4)

Email To Band

 I emailed the band to inform them of ideas for filming locations.

Group Meeting Nine

As a group we met to talk about final preparations for filming.
As we hadn't had a reply from Conington, we opted for our second filming location - Tort Hill. Paige said she would get in contact with the council to ask permission to film, and later she text me saying that we did not need permission, aslong as we had consent to film the band. Having established this, I emailed the band informing them of the plan - I am currently waiting for a reply.

Email To Conington Airfeild

I emailed Julie Churchill, the airfield operator at Conington, in hope to use one of the dissused runways as our filming location - we are currently waiting for a reply.

Text To Group

I text the group to talk about finding a definate filming loaction as time is running short! This resulted in myself and Emily talking about getting in contact with Conington Airfeild, so following on from this, I began emailing the Airfield Operator.

Location Ideas

Our ideal filming location is an isolated open area, in which the band would be able to perform freely giving off the idea of freedom - this connotes the lyrics in the song which the band are using for their music video.
After much research of local areas, we came across a dissused runway which we feel would work perfectly with what we wish to produce.
I am going to email the airfeild operator to query about possibly using this setting as the filming location.

I also know there is a fairly large local field which would fit in well with our filming plans. This field is known as Tort Hill, and like the Airfield, it is an open sceneic area, perfect for the production of the video.


Conington Airfield

Email To Band

I emailed Steve and Alan from the band to inform them of the progress we are making in preparation for the music video.

Email To Group

I emailed Emily in reply to her email about filming locations.

Group Meeting Eight

6th January.
Today we met as a group, (minus Jamie) to discuss how our music video preparation and research is coming along. I explained to them how I had contacted some companies about using one of their warehouses, however this came with a price. Baring this is mind, as a group, we are beginning to feel that an iscolated field/large area is a more realistic option in order to film the video.
We continued to discuss how we are all going to look into an investigate finding locations, as we only have a week before we film!
We also discussed further plans such as production schedule, shot list and storyboard, and decided when these had to be done for.

Font Ideas For The Band

Having researched rock band album covers, I came to the conclusion that nearly all of them use a similar font style. This font style is block letters that are easily readable and in black or white ink, depending on the background.

I believe this type of font is used as it stands out and makes an impact, which is a characteristic of rock bands. Baring this in mind, I believe the following fonts would be suitable for STARFISH as a band.