Final Music video

The quality of the original movie file is alot higher quality when not uploaded onto blogger.com

Evaluation

Evaluation

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

From my understandings of real media texts every genre of music has a certain set of codes and conventions in which it adheres to. Some of these have been subverted by various directors and artists whilst others strictly follow the generic guidelines. After analyzing music videos, and comparing conventions to similar texts, patterns became clear through all music videos with other smaller conventions then running through each genre. For example, rock music videos often portray rebellion by the use of mise-en-scene and pace of editing, often provoking an attitude or ideology to be portrayed and amplified within the audience. Nirvana's "Smells like teen spirit" video is a prime example of this, although the video provokes rebellion and chaos it still strictly follows the same conventions of rock music videos. I feel my finished media product an animated music video, DVD cover and advert for its release, all use ideas from real media products aswell as challenging and subverting others. For my video I chose to take a different approach and create something new and unique. I intended to create an animated dual narrative music video with limited colour use. I didn't want to completely subvert everything, however did not feel comfortable with creating a generic music video, one which there will already be several similar videos around. For this reason I chose the genre "indie" ( derived from "individual" ) which not only is a personal favourite but I feel will suit the style of animated video I wanted to create. I knew a local unsigned band who were also good friends and I got there permission to create the video for one of their acoustic songs. Once I chose the song 'Complacent' I felt it vital to start gathering ideas and influences by looking at similar artists of the same genre analyzing how they met or subverted the conventions of the genre. As my target audience were mainly males aged under 19, I used similar codes and conventions from other Indie videos aimed at this group to attract them. I focused the story around relationships which although seems a feminine topic is clearly a subject that is very relevant in teenagers and young adults lives and featured in many music videos. This would be further reinforced by the slow paced and lonely feel to the track I'm using. In my blog post (initial ideas for storyboard) this is further expressed further. My product further uses codes and conventions of traditional music videos in the form of its narrative structure. My 'Complacent' music video follows a dual narrative structure of a performance based section combined with a narrative, which is seen in many other Indie music videos but not as much in animated music videos. The majority of animated music videos simply feature a narrative possibly with a character singing within such as Radiohead's video to “Creep” or Nizlopi's video to “JCB song”. I chose to subvert this and feature an animated version of the band developing similar conventions to the band “Gorillaz” and entirely virtual and animated band. This I feel will show the auidence that instead of the video being more of an art based animation it is focused on the band.

Similar to the “JCB song” my product also uses limited colour, this is used to draw attention onto and away from specific subjects on screen to direct the audiences attention. For example 1:28 in my product shows this use as the hearts float upward. This has lead to a final product that both uses forms of real media products in terms of its use of narrative structure and animation style, as well as subverting conventions by producing an animated version of the band and narrative in a dual narrative structure which is usually done in traditional film based music videos, rather than animated ones.

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

I created a DVD for the music video's release on DVD form and an advert to advertise the sale of this DVD in stores: Both to promote and market my music video. During the creation of these ancillary tasks I researched into similar products in order to create mine. I decided to follow closely the codes and conventions of similar products in order to attract my audience with my advert and DVD resonating with them through similar conventions so they feel confident and comfortable in what they are buying.

From my blog posts ( “Auxiliary tasks first drafts”, “Developed DVD cover and poster” and “Final auxiliary tasks” ) the process of following codes and conventions to create continuity and synergy between my main product and ancillary products is clear.

The use of limited colour is a key factor in all of my productions. The use of limited colour and fine line used in my final video I have continued into ancillary tasks, this is further reinforced by the similar fonts, titles and mainly the use of the main animated characters throughout. By doing this a sense of continuity is created between all the pieces. This synergy helps the audience to interact with the products and gives them an idea of what the main product is like just from viewing the ancillary tasks. The ancillary tasks are even, I feel, on their own very effective in terms of attracting and informing. I also feel that by having this number of tasks enabled me to reach out to a wider audience through different media, eg. The music video through television, the advert through magazines and billboards and the DVD through stores both online and physical.

Overall I’m happy with the outcome of the DVD cover and advertisement. I feel they meet the look and need of the band and their audience and follow the style I wished to create throughout and reinforce the main task itself. They are both eye catching whilst not being over done, yet still maintain the image and style of the band that is reflected by the images, text and colour pallet that I’ve chosen.

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

Media technologies played a crucial role during the preparation and research section of my project in which I used a large varity of various media technologies to help me further develop and improve my ideas, ranging from internet based research to viewing the television. The internet was most efficient as I could easily search for appropriate websites to help find my band Against Spoken Words on Myspace to finding existing Album covers for inspiration, simply by typing into Google search engine which delivers suitable sites quickly and efficiently. www.myspace.com was extremely helpful for the search of my unsigned band as it plays the artists music, gives a general description of the band, has photos of the bands which helps gain a general understanding of their look and style, and contact options to contact the band and their management if needed. As I knew the band Against Spoken Words and was not only a fan but close friends with the members I chose them almost immediately. I knew this would have advantages as I could work with the band and get further ideas and co-operation. This helped a lot throughout the project especially during the character design stages.

After choosing my band, I was then able to decide with them the song on which to create the video and of course get the official permission to do so:

To help develop ideas and gain inspiration from existing artists I used the website youtube.com, which enables you to search got any video on the net, allowing me to view any music video I wanted at my own time and leisure. To continue with this research into different music videos, I watched music channels on sky TV, such as MTV2 and NME TV to broaden my knowledge of new coming artists and the current videos that are being made, helping me understand what modern audiences expect to see. To help me further with my understanding of what my target audience would want to see in a music video, I created a questionnaire which I handed out to better gauge what audience I was targeting and what attracts them.

Their response supported my idea and plans, which made me feel confident in my decision. I decided to create my animation similar to the JCB style of animation as this proved very popular. First I created the first drafts of character designs for the band. I began the construction of my first idea, which didn't have a storyboard just a rough plot idea. From here I further developed my ideas, using information from my questionnaire to develop the prop, location and narrative to one that would attract the audience. I had concluded that a flash based animation was the best format.

Three main pieces of software were used for making my products:

Adobe Flash CS3

Adobe Photoshop CS3

Adobe Premier Pro

I feel this worked successfully and gave a professional finish to my piece.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

During the planning stages of the music video, I a questionnaire to find my target audience and to give me a broader view on ideas, influences and generally what they would be attracted too in a music video. In the facebook group that I made I added a questionnaire as it was an easy way to gather results, these are the following questions I asked:

1: Gender

M/F

2:Age

19 and below 20 -29 30 - 39 40+

3:What type of music do you prefer

Metal Rock Indie Pop RnB Hip Hop Rap Dance other

4:When watching an animated music video what musical genre do you expect it to be on.

Metal Rock Indie Pop RnB Hip Hop Rap Dance other

4b:If it was that genre what props would you expect to see

........................................................................................................................

5:What effects do you like to see in animated music videos

....................................................................................................

6: What narrative style do you prefer in music videos

Narrative Dual Narrative No Narrative

6b: Give reasons for this choice

...................................................................................................

After collecting my responses I know what genre and style of music video I should create, overall the answers I gained where very useful.

Current progress - behind schedule

With very little time left I am currently behind schedule. Here is my music video in its current format. There are several major errors and countless small ones aswell as close up shots of the singer singing missing but this shows roughly how I want it to turn out. The quality of this video is very poor as this was a test export version.

Final auxiliary tasks

Final DVD cover:

Final Poster/Advert:

Developed DvD cover and Poster

This is my developed DVD cover. The first one I realized was too simple and looked more like a CD case cover and lacked information. This was a problem because it didn't meet the codes and conventions of DVD covers. To overcome this I created a second draft or a developed idea for my DVD cover. This version was made in a net format so you can see how it would fit around the DVD case.

This is my developed poster. The first one I realized was way too simple and didn't have a good composition. This was a problem because it didn't follow the codes and conventions of a magazine advert/poster at all and in my opinion looked very amateur.

To overcome this I created a second draft/developed idea for my advert/poster cover. This version was much better than my first and follows the codes and conventions much better than my first. Both of these however will undergo slight changes before made into the final products.

Research into auxiliary tasks

After careful analysis I realised I could improve my auxiliary tasks be researching further into music video DVD covers and music promotional posters. Therefore I chose to analysis several music video DVD covers and music promotional posters and specify the codes and conventions of these. Once the codes and conventions are highlighted I can use these to help better create my own products.

Magazine Adverts/Posters :

Magazine ad 1

Band/Artist: Gnarls Barkley

Music Genre: Pop, Blues,

This poster is a poster advertising Gnarls Barkley's new album St.Elsewhere.

The image appears to be a large black and white mushroom cloud as seen after bombs explode. This is then juxtoposed to bright and vibrate coloured images in the top of the cloud that are slightly war related.

The images in the cloud are very vibrant colours and are of a cartoonist nature and include, a tiger, a gasmask, a bomb and a cityscape. These reinforce the theme of conflict in this composition however juxtapose the rest if the image which is desaturated.

The artist name and album name are in the top left in a plain, italic but effort font similar to the 'impact' font. The mushroom cloud dominates the cover, and the limited information is kept small and placed in the corner. Through looking at the whole image, it is apparent that the large central composition is the main focus of the frame. This possibly shows some significance to the narrative or subject of the album or song. There is also very good use of negative space used in conjunction with the images to further draw attention to the central image.

Magazine ad 2

Band/Artist: Sway

Music Genre: Grime, Rap

This poster is a poster advertising Sway's new album St.Elsewhere.

On the poster appears to be a large shot of the artist dressed completely in white, similar to the plain white background. This is juxtoposed to the bright superimposed text and the vibrant balaclava printed with the Union Jack upon it, symbolizing his British nationality and also reinforcing the 'London' rap style music.

The use of colour in the advert is crucial as all the coloured aspects are vibrant an eye catching. This draws attention to specific areas of the image for example the important text and the face of the artist. The font is constant throughout in its style and font. The artist name is located in the top left, just like the Gnarls Barkley poster. Its large red font is eye catching but at the same time doesn't dominate too much of the main composition.

Magazine ad 3

Band/Artist: Stone roses

Music Genre: Rock, alternative

This poster is advertising the Stone Roses new LP album.

The image appears to be much simpler than the other images I analyzed. A bold eye catching title is centered at the top of the advert. The font is very simply and sharp in form, with a plain black colour. Below this is then a large, vibrant and dominating image of a slice of lemon. The image has been edited with effects similar to the posterize effect in photoshop.

This lemon image stands out significantly due to its high saturation, and dominance of the space on screen. Unlike the previous posters the band name on this is much larger, and this seems to be the only main information here. This possibly connotes brand confidence from this group as the feel they only need to show their band name and already viewers will want to buy the product.

The album name in the bottom left in a plain, black font the same as the title font. Through looking at the whole image, it is apparent that the large central composition of the lemon slice is the main focus of the frame and almost significant. This possibly shows some link to the narrative, subject or visual style of the album or song. Simplicity is the key aspect used in this advert to create impact.

Music video DVD covers:

DVD 1

Band/Artist: Nirvana

Music Genre: Rock, Grunge, alternative

DVD 2

Band/Artist: Will Smith

Music Genre: Hip hop, R'n'b, Rap

DVD 3

Band/Artist: Kristine W

Music Genre: Electro pop, pop

Auxiliary Tasks first drafts

Here are my first drafts for my auxiliary tasks :

DVD cover for the music video release :

Poster promoting the new single and music video :

SNOW

Due to severe snow on thursday 18th December school was closed and therefore I couldn't get equipment for the christmas break. Due to this fact and that several other students couldn't get cameras etc the deadline was moved back to weeks to February 28th. When back after christmas I began animating again, however due to more snow again another week was missed!!! However I did manage to finish two more scenes and begin another two as well. Although I am still behind schedule the extension of the final deadline should hopefully just allow me enough time to finish.

Current progress

The christmas break is approaching, and in terms of finished quality, animation completed I am behind schedule. By now I was hoping to have finished the whole starting sequence, from the opening establishing shot of the desert through to the character walking in through the streets. However at this point, although I have created all of the shots in this scene there are two that still need editing or finishing. I have completed both extreme long shots of the taxi leaving the city and entering the desert. I have also completed the scene where the cats are sitting on the wall and the scene in which the character enters the the taxi. Several other scenes I have began to create the basis for and the first steps of animation. However at this point I was expecting to have all of these scenes that I had started finished and have begun to start animating several of the other more complicated scenes. Our deadline announced today is 18th of January, which considering what I have left to complete is not alot of time. Over the holiday period Intend to have began at least 50% of the animation and have the majority completed. 

Rough Cut

This is first rough cut. This consists of the animation I have done so far joined with the storyboard/animatic to create a dual mixture of my final quality animation and my animatic.

So far I am very pleased with the product, it looks very much how I intended but I am concerned about how much animation I have left to do and the time left available.

Animating

Today I continued animating different sections of the video. Rather than animating the scenes in order, I chose to just pick particular scenes I wanted finish first. Once these were finshed I would begin layering them over the top of the animatic. This way it makes it easier to edit and I can see what needs to go where and how long each shot should be.

Starting the animation

This is shot2 of my animated music video ( see animatic )

This is the quality I expect my final piece to be, this scene is not finished but this again gives a feel as to how I want my final piece to look.

Animatic

This is my animatic for my animated music video. It consists of my storyboard images played in sequence with the soundtrack over the visuals. This gives a feel and a rough image of how I want my music video to look.

Storyboarding

This image here shows the character progression I have gone through to create the band members animated figures. The top image shows the draw characters in their first stage. The second shows my initial ideas for the first set location and my interpretation of that. The third is my first digital collaboration of the digital characters and the background. The fourth is simply the same as the image before but in colour as I have yet to choose how I wish my video to be saturated or desaturated.

After experimenting with my character designs I placed them into flash to draw digital counterparts, which would then be used in my animation. These came out looking like the following images above. The beginnings of my storyboard also began to take hold as I began to plan locations and further narrative structure. The music video will begin with the performers, Tom (singer) and Sam (guitarist) located on a lonely road through the desert. Both look into the camera and perform, this is to engage the audience and follow codes and conventions of performance based music videos. However with this one I intend to have a dual narrative and possibly subvert codes and conventions by merging the performance section of the animation into the narrative to create almost a mixed narrative and performance towards the end. I chose to locate the beginning of the animation on a desert road as it is a lonely, desolate place and it mirrors this stage of the narrative in which our main character in the narrative ( not a particular band member ) will be searching for love and at the beginning he is very alone. As the narrative continues he will eventually find it creating a stereotypical happy ending.

This is one screenshot from my storyboard which is nearing completion. Once completed I will take these still shots and create an animatic which will give a detailed impression of how I wish my final piece to look.

initial ideas for storyboard

After listening to the song several times I began listing how I thought the song felt and I began to produce initial ideas as to themes and subjects that should be portrayed in the narrative of my music video. I thought that as it is a common factor in most musical lyrics I think I shall include the theme of love/relationships. This would be further reinforced by the slow paced and lonely feel to the track I'm using. After more brainstorming of ideas I concluded this would be my focal theme. I already designed my initial character designs so I know the look and style of how I want the animation to be, this will follow a similar visual experience as the monkeehub animations. As the song sounds very soft and placid, and the title 'complacent' seems very fitting to this therefore I wish to create a similar tone in the music video. 

Conclusion for target audience

After analyzing my questionnaire results I have concluded my target audience. As my chosen song and band (  Complacent acoustic by Against Spoken Words ) are an indie band from Bucks I need target the appropriate audience. The audience Im aiming for is to be aged mainly under 19 although I am aware others older may listen to a similar style of music. I will aim more towards the male audience using correct props for the genre in the video and having a narrative that runs through.

Codes and conventions of music videos

Media Music Video Codes And Conventions Presentation

View more presentations from guest60af28.

This presentation was made by me and the two other students studying music videos. This is our research for all the codes and conventions of traditional music videos. Although Im creating an animated music video the codes and conventions of standard film music videos are crucial. From looking at these codes and conventions and those of animated music videos I have gained a larger insight into what I can do in my video.

Questionaire Results

These are the results from the questionnaires after 100 people answered it.

1: Gender    

   M = 58    F= 42

I tried to ask a similar amount of boys as to girls to get an even spread.

2:Age             

19 and below =40

20 -29= 27

30 - 39 = 12

40+=21

Again here I tried to get an even spread although I did see to ask more younger participants, this mainly due to the majority of my questionnaire work being based at college.

3:What type of music do you prefer

Metal=11

Rock=16

Indie=22

Pop=13

RnB=29

Hip Hop=19

Rap=18

Dance=21

other=27

Here participants were allowed to tick more than one box. The majority of answers here were well spread and a significant correlation wasn't clearly visible however it did appear slightly that the younger participants chose dance, rap and metal whilst older participants chose pop and rock.

4:When watching an animated music video what musical genre do you expect it to be on.

Metal=4

Rock=11

Indie=31

Pop=17

RnB=15

Hip Hop=15

Rap=26

Dance=29

other=35

Here again participants were allowed to tick more than one box. The majority of answers here were in indie and other categories followed by rap and dance music. 

4b:If it was that genre what props would you expect to see

........................................................................................................................

There are too many variations of answers to list them all here but most commonly ones written seemed to fit the stereotypical norms. If people chose hip hop and rap they'd expect to see props such as guns, money, cars, women, luxury items etc

Whilst people who expected to see metal and rock videos expected to see props such as guitars, rainy stormy weather, black hair, women and moody atmospheres. 

5:What effects do you like to see in animated music videos

....................................................................................................

Again here there were a variety of answers and no real correlation was visible.

6: What narrative style do you prefer in music videos

Dual Narrative=36

Narrative=32

Performance based=25

No Narrative =7

Here it was clear that the audience would prefer a music video with a narrative in it rather than a performance based video or one with no narrative what so ever.

6b: Give reasons for this choice

...................................................................................................

Here the majority of people stated that a narrative in the music video helped them stay engaged.

After gathering all these results and analyzing them I have come to some conclusions. It seems that out of the 22 people, who ticked indie in one of their preferred music boxes, 19 of them were in the age category of 19 and below. Females tended to prefer Pop, RnB, Dance and Indie music whilst boys usually answered Rock, Rap and Metal. Also of the 25 who preferred a performance based video 24 of them were in the age categories of 30 - 39 and 40+. After looking through all my results I am beginning to gather an idea as to who my target audience is to be. 

Questionaire

This is the questionnaire I gave out to gather more information research for making my music video.

1: Gender    

   M/F

2:Age             

19 and below             20 -29           30 - 39           40+

3:What type of music do you prefer

Metal         Rock       Indie          Pop         RnB           Hip Hop      Rap        Dance   other

4:When watching an animated music video what musical genre do you expect it to be on.

Metal         Rock       Indie          Pop         RnB           Hip Hop      Rap        Dance   other

4b:If it was that genre what props would you expect to see

........................................................................................................................

5:What effects do you like to see in animated music videos

....................................................................................................

6: What narrative style do you prefer in music videos

Narrative             Dual Narrative           No Narrative 

6b: Give reasons for this choice

...................................................................................................

Character designs

These are my initial character designs for the band members. I found these images of the band and created my charactures from them and what I know they look like. I'm particularly pleased with the ones of Tom ( singer ) and Sam ( guitarist ) which will be the main characters seen in the animation as these are the two playing the acoustic version however the other two will feature.

Here are my character designs for Tom and Sam. Tom is the singer who is at the front of the top picture in blue and is the character on the right of the bottom image. Sam with the guitar can be seen in the top picture as third from the front.

After showing these designs to friends, fans of the band and the band themselves, all the feedback has been positive and it has become clear that my designs do represent the band members in an accurate and positive way.