Evaluation

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

Our media product contains and uses various media theories in the way it is being filmed and the shots used or with the mise en scene of these shots. Our band is supposed to appeal to the audience as part of their unique star image, they are of a similar class to those listening to and watching them. This makes the band appeal to the audience more as they can relate to them on another level, rather than the audience of a mainstream band or artist would. For example a fan of Alexisonfire would only aspire to being like the band they saw in the video’s, unlike our band, with our audience watching a video and feeling like they could actually be part in a similar situation to them or have been at a gig and can connect with the band on a more personal front rather than just seeing a video of a mainstream band on a music channel. This makes the for the fan base to be more likely loyal fans as the band appears more ‘down to earth’ and ‘realistic’ to them. This makes them more approachable and there music would become more attractive to those fans.

This is portrayed in the album cover well, showing the 4 band members loitering against a brick wall, in black and white with a light tint taking the main focus away from them and lets the band name and album title stand out from the artwork, as these are the only parts in colour. This brings focus away from simply how they appear even though there is still an influence from them as they are obviously still part of the cover unlike the majority of the high end mainstream market where the main focus would be the band even when they try to make it appear that it’s all about the music and not just their image. This is typical of punk album covers and is one of the main reasons we carried this through to ours.

Due to the genre of punk being fairly dated the bands attire does not match that of today’s modern trends and this makes them appear different to mainstream bands which although not the best option from a marketing or business point of view it remains that this is not what our band is about and because of this can appeal to a different audience entirely who may find highly produced music to appear ‘fake’ and prefer the more realistic approach that our band offers.

Therefore the majority of the video being in black and white and in relation to our questionnaire results the band are seen performing more with more relation to the music in the video. Because of this we can apply our video to Archers theory of having a strong relationship between the narrative and the performance sections of the video and joint with Goodwin’s theory that the narrative sections amplify and in some cases can contradict the lyrics of the song.

With the visual being overly literal to bring in to it instead of simply portraying what the lyrics are saying. Therefore we have tried to keep non performance sections to a minimal and to verge on being random. We hint at Freud’s theory of voyeurism in the party scene as we filmed it so that it appears as if it is not staged what so ever, and yet every aspect of it is set up especially for the shot just it does not come across like this due to how we filmed it and makes it appear as if the camera isn’t there and all performers are appearing not to be conscious of the camera as no one noticeably reacts to it and appears almost as a point of view shot.

The sections of our video containing the half naked girl can be based on Mulvey’s theory that the presence of the women is solely for the purpose of display. As we put this in to the video primarily because of our audience research with a number of people saying that they would like to see “boobies” and “naked ladies”.

How effective is the combination of main product and ancillary text?

The purpose of the album cover is for it to relate to the music video, this is achieved by continuing the dated black and white theme throughout the performance sections of the video.

With little focus on the band doing anything other than playing, except in the case of the album cover where they look like they have stopped playing for a cigarette. This means that as one of the first things the audience will see being the album cover it will give an insight in to what they should be expecting - an old style of music accompanied by a matching persona and image from the band, this also appears in the promotional poster as this may lead people in our specific target audience towards buying the album. As both the cover and poster have a similar look about them which the audience will notice easily. Both must attract the attention of our audience not only in genre and style but a similar design to previous bands as it will be more noticeable to the audience, therefore catching their attention more effectively as the audience is more specialised meaning it must catch their eye.

Our main product links in with our album artwork well as we continue the ageing look with the bland and white editing of the image. This make the link together with the performance sections of the video as the cover shows the band being calm but this contradicted by what is inside the case with upbeat punk, yet still with the focus on the band and their music.

Each inner page of our album shows the a different band member this is to let the audience learn something about the band they’re listening to as each page shows a band member with their name and their role in the band which makes the audience attach to them on a new level.

The centre page in all of this shows the band messing about, obviously taken just after we took the cover shot. This is an enhancement to how the CD inside the album would have an effect on the audience, seeing the band calm and collected on the cover, but with everything becoming slightly mad once you open it up, as this is what would happen with the song. This gives the audience a parasocial relationship with the band as they are brought closer to them, knowing more than just how they look and the music they play but there personalities shown through a believable picture.

What you learned from your audience feedback?

Our audience feedback told us that we had produced a product that matched the demands of our consumer as many thought our video fitted with our genre of punk. It is obvious that it is not a mainstream video and this reflects on the band and their music as well, which was one of our primary objectives when planning the video and the appearance and characteristics of the band which is common in this genre and style of music. By using our audience research what we put in to our video would catch the attention of that audience, with people seeing what they wanted to see such as “the band just rocking out” and “random s**t”. Suggestions like this gave us a wide range of what we could put in to our video and still have it appeal to our audience. The majority of our audience feedback came from showing our final product to a number of friends and other students in 6^th form as they fall in to our age category. Further research was conducted by the final video being shown to a few working adults in their 20s, who are enthusiastic in regards to the subject. The majority liked black and white editing as it fitted with the theme of the video and related to the poster and album cover as they are both edited like this as well.

From watching various video's on Youtube before planning our video we could learn a few attributes about our target market.

This video of Buzzcocks performing Ever Fallen In Love is a typical video of the genre and contains numerous similar characteristic to our final video, by studying videos like this we could learn more about what our audience wanted to see from the video, with typical shots and angles for example showing the guitar being played, as the bands performance is what makes up the majority of the video as this 'performance style' is what is important in punk videos,

How did you use media technologies in the construction, research and development and evaluation of your production?

To construct our video we used a combination of two cameras, primary camera was my own personal Panasonic SD10 HD camera, we used this as I had it available to use constantly and it had a better specification than any of the other cameras available to our group, however when filming the main performance sections of the video’s we filmed twice the amount by running two cameras at once and used the schools Panasonic SD9 HD camera which gave us a second set of shots with a very similar quality. For the majority of the filming we used an Opteka wide angle lens that allowed us to capture a lot more in a shot, especially with the limited space we had to film in with the performance sections and the party scene at the beginning of the video where this effect was very useful as without it the shot would have consisted of a close up of the actors legs and the vital parts of the shot would have been a lot harder to capture. The effect that the lens gave also links to the punk genre as it is typical of similar video’s and reflects on the semi professional/amateur low budget effect that our audience wanted to see and is also typical of punk video’s.

We used a standard size tripod to film almost every shot in the video other than the performance and the party scene, this enabled us to keep a steady shot and various shots this was vital to allow us to edit each clip together, to gain the desired final effects with the drawn eye that blinks, when “only as far as the eyes can see” appears written and the “gimme gimme” shots. This would have been impossible without the tripod as each shot would have ended up at a slightly different angle each time and along with lighting and size which would have rendered the shots useless.

Similarly we used a monopod for the “running after me” piece where the camera was attached to it and then held much higher than would have been possible without it and by tilting the screen back towards the floor what was being filmed could still be seen and we were able to maintain a steady focused shot, as if the character was being watched from a height rather than simply appearing as if we had filmed him from ground level.

For the party shots we needed to adapt the lighting of the shot as the mise en scene of a party is at night time with a dark crowded room, therefore we needed it to appear dark but not so dark that the picture quality would suffer because of the low light causing 'noise' in the picture. To get around this and to achieve the right effect for the scene we used a strobe light to emphasise the party theme and to provide a level of lighting that wouldn't cause the image quality to deteroiate, to make the room dark we covered the windows with black out curtains from the outside which effectively made it appear as if it was at night. Other lighting techniques we used were a lot simpler. We took a number of shots in the schools drama studio as it is a totally black room which gave us a very blank canvas to draw attention primarily to the subject in the shot so that the audience does not get distracted by the background as it would not be relevant to the shot. The drama studio is equipped with a lot of high level lighting which we used to our advantage, using only the direct spotlight to minimise shadow and to remove any detail from the background we could get a shot that only focused on the subject. In other shots we used 'natural' lighting, "running after me" shots used streetlights, although beyond our control we choose a time that would mean the streetlights would need to be on. The performance filming needed a very different lighting technique we didn't use the rooms normal lighting and instead used a halogen spotlamp to backlight the shot, as direct light defeated all other light in the shot and so by backlighting we could capture a 'dark' shot that still showed everything that we needed in the final image.

Evaluation

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

We had to produce a music video as well as an album cover and poster advertising the band and album. We wanted all of these to look as realistic as possible so we did lots of research into similar bands and looking at what they have produced. We decided that we wanted our products to have conventions of other similar products with out being exactly the same. I watched videos from bands like 'The Clash' and 'The Sex Pistols'. I noticed that a lot of the videos from the punk genre contained a lot of performance from the band, for example in 'The Clash- Should I Stay Or Should I Go' and 'The Buzzcocks-What Do I Get'. A lot also included some narrative as well as performance, which is what we chose to do for our video. But we have challenged the convention slightly by adding in lines that instead of being narrative relate to the lyrics.

For example

Using a gun with the word 'BANG' on it when the word 'bang' is used.

A mega phone along with the line 'Wont listen pretty muma'

And 'Gimme Gimme' written when the line 'Gimme Gimme' is used.

Although this is quite daring as it does not follow conventions, we found out from the questionnaire that the target audience of 16-30 year olds like to punk videos to be 'random', 'different' and 'interesting' so this is why we decided to do this.

As Laura Mulvey states woman are often used in videos solely for the purpose of display. Although half dressed woman is normally a convention of a dance or pop video (for example Eric Prydz- Call On Me) we decided to include some of this in our video. We decided to do this because this is what our audience said they wanted to see in a punk video, which is Mckee's theory. But as we didn't want to challenge the convention too much, we put it in but in a different way. We decided to write the lyrics 'Gimme Gimme' on to a female body, and using editing techniques to make the text appear on its own. This includes what the audience wants, but making it different.

During the performance scenes to fit into the correct camera conventions we included a lot of close ups of the lead singers face and the band members hands as they are playing the instruments, as well as long shots of the whole band.

From watching other videos I noticed that cuts are often in time with the beat of the music, we have therefor done this in our video, which makes the whole video run smoother.

We decided to use pictures of the band themselves for both the album cover and the poster, as this shows the audience who is in the band, and they can then relate the music to the band members. We asked the band members to stand in a very laid back way, as this is goes with the laid back, relaxed theme of the band. We took photos of the band standing against a graffitied wall, as the graffiti fits in with the punk theme. The band standing together in this way is used in some similar album covers for example 'The Essential Clash' album cover.

We found that a lot of punk album covers simply used the bands name and did not include a photo for example 'The Sex Pistols- Never Mind The Bollocks'

But we preferred the idea of showing the band on the album cover.

We decided to use black and white for the album cover and the poster, as this links into the punk look and it also looks older. We decided to use a messy, hand written style font as this adds to the laid back, silly look we want our band to portray. This is also a convention of punk as shown in The Sex Pistols album cover. We made the font a red, as this stands out over the black and white and i saw it in other albums and thought it looked effective.

On the inside pages of our album cover we included photos of the band members performing as this shows them doing what they do best.

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

The main product is the music video and then then ancillary texts are the album front and back cover, and inside pages and a poster. The main purpose of the C.D cover is to accompany the C.D when it is on sale. But it is also to inform potential customers and grab their attention. The back cover gives a track list and the inside pictures tell the audience the band members names as well as showing pictures of them performing. The purpose of the poster is to advertise the band as well as give information about when the album is released, this connects the two products.

We decided to include an image of the band on both the album cover and the poster. From looking at similar bands covers and posters we noticed that a lot included photos of the band plus some 'obscure' images. To include conventions of both we decided to use images of the band but we made the stand as if they were messing around.We put both

images into black and white as this is the same as the performance part of the video. We also made the album cover look like it has Polaroid photo's on it, this makes it look older. We chose a graffiti style font, as this goes with the 'punk' image. We decided to put it in red as this is a contrast and stands out against the black and white. On the back cover we used a photo of drums for the background and used the red graffiti style font again.

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

In order to construct a successful music video we needed to know the conventions of music videos. I watched different videos from the 'punk' genre through youtube on the internet, as well as on music channels on the television. I watched a selection from different bands and noticed the kind of things they include such as live performance and humor. We also researched these artists album covers and posters, to give us ideas and so we knew the kind of thing to include in ours, we did this by using a search engine as well as looking through our personal C.D's.
To help us find out what our audience wanted to see in the video we carried out questionnaires. We put it onto an internet forum as well as asking people we personally new to get to a wider view. This worked very successfully and we tried

our hardest to include what the audience wanted to see.
When it came to the filming, before each shot we did a couple of practice shots to test the camera, lighting and to check that what was happening the shot was correct. This helped as it meant we didn't make too many mistakes resulting in having a lot of unwanted footage.
We decided to use an HD camera for filming as it is much better quality. As Chris has his own this was very helpful as we always had access to it when we needed to film. When filming the performance section of the video we also borrowed the school HD camera so we could have two of us filming at once which meant when it came to editing we had quite a few shots for each clip to choose from.
We used a tripod for quite a lot of the static shots, for example the eyes moving, the body shots and the 'only as far as the eyes can see' lines, this was good as it kept the camera steady.
This is an example of a shot that was quite complicated to both film and edit and therefor needed a lot of technology to make it successful.

To film this clip we had to film a lot of very short clips. We put the HD camera onto a tripod and pointed the camera down, like a high angle shot. We wrote a letter then started filming then stopped and wrote another then filmed again and stopped again and repeated this for each letter until we had finished the whole line. When it came to editing the clip there were a lot of shots of slightly different lengths, and as this was my idea i offered to edit this bit alone. I had to place each shot onto the story board and make them all the same length and altogether last the whole line of the song. It did take a long time but was worth it in the end as a lot of people have said they like this bit.

What have you learned from your audience feed back?

We showed our video as well as the album cover and

poster in a screening and asked people to come along and give their opinions. We wrote and provided a questionnaire for both the video and the ancillary texts for people to fill in, so that they gave the correct feedback. We asked people from our target audience to come along and give us f eedback. Not everyone could make the screening so we also showed others at a different time to get more feedback. The video was also viewed by working adults in their 20's who are all interested in the subject.
Overall our screenings were successful as everyone enjoyed the video and gave some very positive feedback.
Four of our questions were answered using a rating system, this is what we found.

During the questionaire we asked the audience to rate the the video, poster, album cover and how well they met the punk conventions, 5 being very well and 1 not very well. As you can see we got very possitive feedback from this which we are very proud of.

We also asked what their favorite part of the video was, we got a mixed response for this but there were some parts that came up a lot. For example a lot of people enjoyed the line 'Running down the street on the right hand of the law' which is a boy running down the street, but it is sped up. This is because it is humor and what the audience wanted to see. They also liked the performance parts as it looks relaxed and fun which also is what the audience wanted to see. The older end of the target audience also appreciated how well the lip sync is done, and the timeing with the music to the instruments. I was very glad at this as personally i spent a long time editing this, especially in the last instrumental parts. I am also proud of the part (shown in the video bellow) when thr lead sings 'OOOWWW' as i had to slow part of the video down to make it fit, and i think it works well.









The last part that the audience enjoyed was the line 'Only as far as they eyes can see' When the writing appears on its own, that i discused earlier. It was because we used clever editing techniques to do it and couldn't work out how we did it, which they liked. I was also very pleased they liked this bit as it was my idea and i also really liked it.

Overall I am very proud of what i produced for my work. I found out that many poeple enjoyed the video and liked the album cover and poster. From research i found out what needed to be included and i feel this was done successfuly.

Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
We had to produce a music video, along with an album cover for the band’s album and a poster to advertise the release of the album. We researched into videos which were of a similar genre so that we knew what the conventions were, and therefore use the best and most popular conventions in our video. For example, in punk videos there are normally long shots or close ups and few in between, they are also quite fast moving. A modern example of a band which uses this idea is Alexisonfire with their video This Could Be Anywhere in the World, as seen below:

There is a mixture of narrative and performance as Steve Archer’s theory says that there is a need for an understandable relationship between the two, and our audience research showed that most people like to see both. The long shots and close ups are used mainly in the performance as in the narrative many different types of shot are used depending on the narrative used. An example of this is an original punk band, The Clash with their video Should I Stay or Should I Go which has both live performance and their routine of the day before a gig. In our video we decided on a narrative which would illustrate and amplify the lyrics, as Andrew Goodwin's theory says. We looked at the lyrics for our song and decided on having performance for most of the video, but certain lyrics have been illustrated, for example ‘when we walked into the party’ will be a party scene, and some lyrics have been amplified ‘your older brother said we're way too loud’ is a shot of a man shouting down a megaphone.

Those are the ways in which we have used and developed the conventions of a real punk music video. To challenge these conventions we have shots of people doing things that relate to the lyrics but in a different way within the narrative so that the audience will remain entertained. We knew that the audience wanted to see something different but funny due to our market research. With this market research we also found that most of our audience will be men aged around 17-25 as this music appealed mainly to them, Laura Mulvey says that the presence of a woman is mainly for display, therefore we decided to put in a few women with writing on their bodies to amplify the lyrics and appeal to the men. An example of a video which uses this theory is by a band called Good Charlotte with their video I Just Wanna Live as they have the entertainment factor of them dressed up as food, however there is no relation to the lyrics, there are also girls dancing though they are not the main focus of the video. Another way in which we are challenging but also using the conventions is that we are have used a black and white tint, and but have put the narrative in colour so that it separates the two different kinds of shots. The black and white adds to the idea of a low budget video, which our audience also asked for. We thought about this after we saw a video by The Clash which uses a blue tint over the top to make it look more low budget, though the blue tint fits with their video as it is filmed at night; London Calling.
How effective is the combination of your main product and the ancillary texts?
To accompany our main product of a music video, we also made the front and back of an album cover, a poster to advertise the album and the band, and finally the inside pages for the insert of the album. For our ancillary text of an album cover we have used a photo taken during a break from the filming of the performance, we asked the band to pose but not to make it look formal. I then used photoshop to edit in a Polaroid using a brush I downloaded and added text, along with the symbols seen on all CD covers. Taking inspiration from the album covers of bands such as The Clash and The Jam, it is simple, black and white with a picture of just the band on the front with coloured text, and on the back a photo from the bands performance, taken during the filming for the video of a drum kit. We used the same font and colour on the back so that it matches. This will link the cover and the video and should make it more recognisable. However the other ancillary text brings everything together as the poster has dates of release, a photo of the band and the album name and band name in bold contrasting coloured text. These texts are very important combined with the music video as it is the promotional material and without it not many people would know about the album, video or maybe even the band. The inside pages have pictures of each member with their name and the instrument they play in the red text, I edited the photos so that they were in black and white and added 'noise' to them to make them look older, there is also a page of the whole band in the middle which is in colour. To make this one look older I changed the colour levels, this separates the black and white photos to give something different.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Our audience feedback showed us that our music video and ancillary texts were successful in appealing to our audience and fitting with the genre of punk. Once we had put our project onto a disc, we held a screening in one of the media rooms in a lunchtime and asked males and females in our sixth form to watch it and fill out a questionnaire, as they fall into the target audience age range. This is where most of our audience feedback came from, with the majority of people saying that their favourite parts of the video were the eyes and the writing on the paper and that they mostly understood the video, however if they could hear the lyrics better it would have made more sense to them.

Further research was carried out on the older end of our target audience, with the video shown to working adults in the media profession, aged in their 20's and mainly males. They said that they liked the black and white tint on the performance and the lip syncing was done well. There were few criticisms, with only 4 people saying that they did not understand the running down the street as they could not understand the lyrics. Other than this, people seemed interested in our video and understood the humour as I watched their reactions whilst they watched the video, they thought the song was catchy and that the certain parts of the lyrics which were hard to understand were not an issue. The reason we were able to fulfill the wants of our audience was due to our audience research at the beginning of this project, before we started storyboarding, and by watching videos of a similar genre so we could use the popular conventions. The main conventions people said they wanted to see were the band performing, naked ladies which we have used in an appropriate way, and 'random s**t' which we have used in the man running down the street and policeman. As shown in my audience research blog post. After we had shown our audience the music video and they had filled out one side of the questionnaire, we asked them to look at our ancillary texts and answer questions on these. The results for this were also mainly positive, with people giving an overall rating for the album cover and poster between 4 and 5, at the top of our rating scheme. Out of the 14 sixth formers we asked, only 2 said that the poster would not make them want to buy the album or listen to any of the bands music, however both of their reasons were that they do not listen to music of the punk genre. Every member of the audience agreed that both ancillary texts fitted with the punk conventions, saying that they liked the black and white photos with coloured texts, that their clothing matched the genre of music and they fact they could see the two fitted with the music video. The general market response was very good, having every member, apart from the two people who are not fans of punk music, saying that they would attend a gig if the band played close to home and would buy or download the album or single.

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

In order to construct our music video we used many types of media technologies, some which we had used before, and some which we had to learn how to use this year. First of all we had to research into the conventions of a punk music video, therefore I started by watching videos on YouTube and looked at the statistics and comments left by the viewers. As shown in this blog post, you can see that the people who left comments on the Gallows video, a modern band, referred back to original punk band members and the genre of music which shows that we had to appeal to both fans of modern and original punk music. To do this we used the wide angle lens, used in modern rock videos such as You Me At Six-Gossip as it looks like a fisheye, a more modern editing and filming technique. To appeal to the fans of original punk music, we used a black and white filter which looks as though it has noise and therefore looks like an older camera has been used to film.

We also used a forum on the internet called Edition 38, which Chris is a member of, and posted our questionnaire in the music section which gained more responses than we thought which was very useful. The results for this were also posted on this blog by Chris as he was the only one with access to the forum. During filming we decided to use Chris' Panasonic HD camera as this gave us the opportunity of filming whenever we needed to in high quality due to our school only having one HD camera available. However to film the performance section of our video, we booked to use the school's HD camera so that we had two cameras of the same quality and could get more shots in one run of the song. It also meant that when it came to editing, we had more choice of shots to match together and some would flow with the lyrics. Before every shot we did a few practices so that we could test the lighting and overall look of the shot. In order to get a shot with a high enough angle for the scene of a man running down the street we used a monopod and waited until there were no cars, the lights from shop windows and street lamps were enough to light the shot correctly.

For other shots which needed to be steady we used a Jessops tripod, for example the short shots which amplify the lyrics.

This helped us to get these short shots to match with each other better when it came to editing, and connects all the short shots together, giving the video a better flow. When it came to lighting our video, we used three different methods. The first was for the performance, for this we used an industrial halogen lamp and placed it behind the drummer so that the performance was backlit and stood out from the rest of the video which used spotlighting and lighting to one side. For the scene of the party we used a strobe light set up in the left hand corner of the room, meaning that this was lit almost in the foreground. The last method of lighting we used was the spotlight for the short shots filmed in the drama studio with a lighting board. As seen in the video of Jasmine below

Finally, we had to edit all the shots we had filmed into a whole video. To do this we used a software called Final Cut Express 4 on the Apple Mac's. This involved many problems which we managed to solve, for example loading the footage from the cameras onto the Macs, as there is a different technique to uploading HD film. We also had a problem with the clip below as the first attempt did not flow as we had wanted it to, there was no way around this and therefore we had to film again. With this new clip we rewinded it and cut out the sections in which my hand is showing, we then sped it up and placed it all together:

Another very time consuming task was the 'only as far as the eyes can see' writing, however overall this was worth it as many people said that this was their favourite part of the video. To do this, I wrote each letter of the word down while Chris and Jasmine pressed record on the camera and paused it while i wrote the next one. This meant that when it came to editing each letter had to be cut and placed together. This added something different to our video, and helped us to respond to what our audience said they wanted to see. I wrote it in capitals and uneven writing so that it gives the impression of rebelion and carelessness, in fitting with the punk attitude.

Finally, we put all our clips together and made sure that the audio fitted in time with whe visuals.
For our evaluation, we needed to know what our audience thought of the video. Therefore we held a screening one lunchtime in a media room and used a SMART board and projector to show it on a large screen as we thought this would have more impact than asking our audience to watch it on a computer screen.

Editing

Today we spent 10 hours on editing and completing our video, we also started and finished the digipack of the album cover (back and front), the inside pages and promotional poster.
We all spent time editing the video to start off with; putting all of our clips together, deciding on which ones to use and when, however after a few hours we decided that we should take it in turns and start on the digipack. Jasmine carried on with editing the video whilst Chris and I started on the album cover. However we both did the front cover and had to do a vote on which one we would use, people preffered my version as it was more fitting with the punk genre and Chris agreed. After this communication problem, and as Jasmine was doing well with editing the video, we decided that Chris would start on the back of the album cover and I would start on the pages to go on the inside of the album. In the last two hours, I finished the poster and helped Chris and Jasmine with the video editing. We added a watermark to it and put the digipack onto the Mac's so that we could burn it all onto one disc. Using iDVD we put both medias onto the DVD and made the main menu fit in with the punk genre.
This was a very successful day as wel managed to finish everything and make sure it was as good as we could make it.

Final Shots

During our free periods today we filmed the last of our shots, for the lyrics of 'it's only as far as the eyes can see' First of all we went to the sixth form block and asked three girls if we could use them to film their eyes, we blocked out the light at the end of the corridor and used the light on the camera. They stood close to the camera and we told them to look around and the back at the camera. These are very shot shorts, but should look effective when we have edited them in.
Finally, we went to the art department and drew one of the eyes on a piece of paper using paint, then brushing over it so that it is not longer visible, when we edit this we will reverse it so that it looks as though the eye appears from the paint. The second eye was drawn on a whiteboard. For this one, we wanted it to look as though it was a wink, therefore I drew it open first, and then closed. When we come to edit this, we will speed it up and make it look as though it is a wink. For the last one, I wrote the letters one by one on a large piece of paper, to make up the words of the lyrics. Jasmine and Chris then filmed each letter and when we edit this it will flow quickly. This will take a long time, but will hopefully look good.

Filming short shots

Throughout the week we have been filming the shots that go inbetween the performance. First of all we filmed me for the shot of the megaphone using the same lighting and positioning as we did for Jasmine's 'Gimme, Gimme' shot so that it all connects and flows. This only took four trys to get lip syncing in time as we played the lyric of 'won't listen pretty mama, won't you hear my plea, got me on my knees' until it was right, out of this we got two useable shots.
After this we filmed the shot for 'your older brother said we're way too loud' using Chris, another group member, again using the same lighting and positioning. We also played the part of the song and got two useable shots.
Two days after these shots we filmed a friend being a neighbour and a teacher being a policeman for the 'might be your neighbour or the crooked 5-0' lyric. We used a policeman's hat from the drama studio and gave Mr Fletcher a long black coat and a shirt and tie, this made him look like a policeman from the original era of punk. For the neighbour we found a long green coat, a hat and a stick so that he looked like an angry old man.
We then went to Bishop's Stortford to film another friend running down the highstreet for the 'now they're runnin after me, like the right hand of the law' lyric. To get this shot, we used a monopod and waited until there were no cars. Olly then ran down the highstreet in front of shop windows as the lights were on, we asked him to look behind him and make it look as though he was being chased.
We will upload these shots on monday and start editing.

Filming the band

Last night we filmed what will cover a lot of our video, this being the band performing. I think it went really well. We took two cameras and ran through the song a number of times so we got a wide selection of footage. We organised the band in a way that we wanted them to stand, along with the equipent and set. As the performance is ment to look like a simple band practice the mise en scene was quite simple as it was ment to look low budget.