Evaluation.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?


When we making our questionnaire we decided to make most of the questions open ended this would benefit us because we could get opinions from the audience feedback, this allowed us to make some improvements. This also allowed us to get back some positive feedback, it was rewarding and fulfilling to receive some praise about our music video.
We gave our questionnaire to our specific target audience late teenagers around 18 years old, both female and male, the majority of our responses where female however we knew this was predictable as most females would sympathise with our main character and the main story line.
We mostly worried about the story line of our video and that our viewers wouldn't understand it clearly, we did not want to make the story too confusing but it was hard doing this with out revealing the twist to the viewers. Results from the questionnaire confirmed us that everything was fine and that people understood, we did have some opinions to help us which was to show the flashbacks off the ex which would help illustrate the twist and make it more clear. Our audience liked the idea of the twist, and accepting their opinions and feedback it helped us make our music video better.
We also asked questions about the music and the speed of our clips, we was worried about some of our clips being too long and that the music would make it boring for our viewers. We was reassured that our clips and timing of the music worked perfectly from our audience one feedback wrote 'the timing of the music worked perfectly and the quick shots made it more exciting', this is exactly how we wanted to portray our music video and how we wanted it too be seen. By receiving positive feedback like this it helped us feel more relaxed about most of our work.




By handing out questionnaires to the viewers it helped us work on our video or things we was not certain off, we learnt to keep it the same and not change anything. Most perspectives of our video we was unsure about but we knew that they were conventional things in drum&bass music videos, our main problem was the drugs we was worried that our audience would get the wrong idea but we did portray them as bad in the video. We had positive feedback from our audience about this particular area. We know that people that attend these drum&bass gigs/festivals are surrounded by this environment, this image is taken from a gig at the famous drum&bass band Prodigy, as you can see in this photo everyone seems to have a 'buzz' about, so we know that this type of audience is who we would be appealing too and who we aim too sell our products too.


We also so had some critical feedback for our video, from our teachers at school, when planning our video out we looked at all the different angles of how we can have our blunt ending of our protagonist killing himself. We was just going to have the build up of our protagonist doing more drugs and drinking, getting more and more into a depressed state. We knew that by doing this people may expect that because of the slip of depression he might actually kill himself, so our teacher gave us some critical feedback to have a 'turning point' therefore the audience would think he was getting better and then the blunt ending of him in the bath after committing suicide. This we think made our video much better and in fact changed how everyone will see this video, as well this helped us promote that the use of drugs and alcohol is bad as we use some camera shots that shows the viewers his vision getting clearer and him as a visible state seems better, this helps us show the audience that drugs and alcohol are bad. The main reason of having the turning point makes the ending seem more delayed and blunt which keeps the audience in suspense and in shock when they see him finally dead.
We also wanted the promo pack to relate to the our music video and keep the same occurring theme throughout it all, we took some constructive feedback from our questionnaire audience when we asked them what would best suit the audience, they agreed that keeping the theme of black and dull colours would be the most appealing. We also received some response about the front page that we should make the text smaller but more bolder so that it stands out from the page. This helped us as it did make the image look better rather than having a big bold and taking it away from the picture. This helped our promo back look more professional and less tacky than what it did before by making the text smaller and changing it too a Gothic text.
Once our promo pieces was done we asked too our target audience 'If you saw these pieces would you buy them?' 15 out of 18 people said yes, which is a high percentage of people liked them, this made us feel positive about our work.


We learnt whilst reading our questionnaire answers that it is important to take on the opinions and use them to help your work, as their feedback is the most constructive and will make our product more appealing to the viewers.

Evaluation.

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

Before we began to start our own media project we researched into videos in the stereotypical drum&bass music video's, we looked at all the conventions that they used in them, Eg: the drugs, alcohol and parties. We also carried on looking at the other conventions the less popular ones but they still appeared in each video, we looked at this because we knew we could change them to make our video stand out and have an unique selling point, which will be more original to other video's.
We have a typical convention that is normally associated with Drum&Bass genre's, this is the drugs, alcohol and the minor bit of violence that appears in our video. We choose to keep this conventions the same because they are so commonly seen in these types of videos. At the start when I analysed my perfect target audience, I mentioned that most teenagers this age would be going out to parties, gigs and festivals, stereotypically drugs, alcohol and violence are involved in these environments, by using these conventions it helps us relate to the audience. All though, by using these conventions we do not promote the use alcohol and drugs, we show this by the protagonist sinking into deep depression and the end result is not well, we do this on purpose to show the negative view of drugs rather than the stereotypical 'fun' side that can be seen with drugs, we got this idea when analysing out main video, Let You Go - Chase & Status.


This photo is from a drum&bass music video, this shows straight away the bad effects of drinking alcohol as you can clearly see the depression on his face and the positioning of his body. This is what we try to imply when doing our video that the use of alcohol and drugs is bad and not a sensible road to take.
Most video's of the drum&bass genre also have the quick movement and high action, we also tried to copy the un-steady camera angles, by doing this hand held, by doing this it shows both the edge-y and hectic style and also we done this mostly with our point of view shots so we could also say that this is the bad view of taking drugs and drinking alot of alcohol.
Another common convention that is seen in drum&bass videos is that the band do not appear in the actual video, they normally have a set story that follows the lyrics of the song, we followed this convention as well by not having any sign of a band in our video, also we had no characters to mime the lyrics of the band. By following this convention we thought it would keep the audience more intrigued with the story and the music.

Our main inspiration came from one of our first minor analysis 'Prodigy - Smack my bitch up'. We liked the whole one shot throughout the whole video, the point of view shot made it more personal and intriguing to the audience, because of Prodigy being a well known band we expect these frantic and crazy video's from them, this is why this types of video works well for them. The camera the whole time is very un-steady and hectic, this is where we got the idea for having this angle of camera's. As we follow the protagonist of this story around we watch the person get drunk and do drugs this continues through a whole night, the main character does stupid things with touching and trying it with various woman and actually having sex with a woman at the end of the night, we the audience straight away come to the assumption that it is a man to be the protagonist, until the twist is revealed in the morning, that the protagonist is a woman.



Having a twist like this appealed to us. This is when we decided to challenge the conventions, by having a twist similar to this video but more serious. We looked at various drum&bass videos and there is always a key interest of romance involved, we try to focus our ideas around a relationship. The conventions of a stereotypical romance in a film is having the girlfriend/boyfriend leave them, and they begin the lonely story. This photo is from the video - Chase & Status - End Credits (Feat. Plan B), this demonstrates a typical romance drum&bass video, the couple on the left side of the photo and then the lonely story begins on the right side. This is what we want to demonstrate but challenge the convention with our very own twist at the end which is that our protagonist is in a homosexual relationship.
Another way we challenged conventions was that normally in pendulums video they do not set a story for the video, they have irrelevant videos to the lyrics, in the actual pendulum video for 'Water Colour', it is mostly wide shots of the band playing to a crowd and water is sprayed and fired everywhere. We challenged the convention by having a story line with our very own twist. We choose to do this because we knew trying to follow the conventions would be very hard to conceive and instruct, also opting with having a story line makes our video more original and modern, especially with our twist.
The main convention that we have changed challenged in our video is our theme, our video is mostly centred around the theme of love, and for a drum&bass video this normally does not happen. We slipped in the normal conventions of drugs, alcohol and mild violence to keep our audience involved and interested and not to change to much. We kept the audience interested by leading the whole story over the course of the day, with the usual items that are involved in the drum&bass video we kept the audience involved by always having them involved and sympathising with the protagonist, we keep the viewers on suspense with the quick and hectic shots also the two attempts of near death, that leads to a shocking blunt end. Most conventional drum&bass videos have a dark and gloomy edge to them, we kept to this convention but had our main twist of the main character being in a homosexual relationship, this challenges all conventions but also keeps the video modern and up to date and with the times which is accepted in this generation.

Evaluation.

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


To create a more professional and modern look on our music video and promo packs we wanted to have a clear theme running, this keeps a clear connection between the prices of our promo packs and the price of our music video, the main way I think we achieved this was by keeping the same colour theme through out everything, besides the front cover in some way. We stuck to black and dull colour except a part off the front cover from a first look the cover seems bright, which is what we want it draws you in at a first look but when taken a closer look at the front cover their is a clear edge of darkness from the burnt outside and the shadows in the picture, also because of the dull shadows the bright colours stand out, this falls perfectly into our perfect into a dark and dull theme we have set.
We mainly want to set a different, quirky and modern edge to our advertisement, by doing this we can attract the right attention we want and attract the audience that this style appeals to. When creating our front cover we added a patch border that had look like it had been burnt, by changing the contrast of the main image it created shadows and dark outlines on the features of the front cover. Tilting the title and having the text in Gothic writing also makes it a bit more different, by doing these little easy features it creates a different image straight away, which will attract the target audience we want.
Our promo packs are created to address the teenage audience we want by having our simple and modern promo it works effectively, especially with our promo prices this helps sell the Pendulum, therefore helps sell their music, 'Water Colour'. As we have mentioned at the start of our tasks as a group, we know that this certain target audience do not fuss over big advertisement and big promotion packs, they know about Pendulum as a band and are passionate about their music, this therefore is enough to keep them keen and interested in the band and their music.
Further more we know advertisement plays a big key in this, we do like to reflect the deepness within the music though our advertisement, we wanted to keep the running theme and we still think that our promo pieces are eye catching, we added reviews from professional companies so for anyone who is new to listening to Pendulum all ready have a good on look from our advertisement.
We believe as a group that a key to keeping our main video and ancillary texts similar is too keep a constant theme running through all of the media products we produce, in this circumstances being the dull and dark colours. We make this appear realistic because of the main theme making our products look professional, and using the normal conventions.

Evaluation.

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



We used various media technologies to make our products, the main media technology we used was Blogger, we used this technology so that we can keep track of our on progress knowing what left to do it also helps us analyse, plan and construct our final product and finally evaluate it all. Using the blog technology shows that everything is more modern than working on folders, it also makes work more efficient and professional looking, this is the second year of using a blog as we used it the year before in our AS work.


To help aid stages of our analysis we had to look into other video's that are similar to ours we used youtube, youtube is another media technology that was very useful, we was able to watch the video's as many times needed and then post onto our blog by copying the embedded code into a post. I think youtube is the most useful technology we used, it helped us look at wide range of music video's which helped us depth-en our video analysis, the blog was very simple and easy to use and posting videos onto our blog was even easier.

Another simple technology was goggle images, we used this to get photo's of existing CD covers and annotate and analyse them. This helped us a lot as we was able to get some ideas in able to help us create our promo packs and make it that bit more original and quirky. We also used it to access some images that have been print screened so we could help evaluate and compare our images to professional footage.


The main piece of media technology we was using was our camera, tripod and charger now and then. We was taught how to set up the tripod and use the camera basically, we knew were all the USB slots where and batter slot. However we had not actually used it ourself, but was fairly easy to use and set up, as we continued filming are skills with setting up the camera and using it became more efficient. Once we would have finished we would upload our footage to the mac, which we have been using since GCSE, so it was easy and quick to use.


Once the footage was uploaded we would then move it into Premier Pro CS4, this was the main technology we used it allowed us to construct and build our music video. The programming was efficient and brilliant to use. All though most of the time it was frustrating and difficult to use the end results was worth the time that was put in. We was given a basic use of how to use this programme by our teachers, we was taught how to upload, save and move our clips, from now on we had to use it ourselves we found as a group that using this type of programming yourself and figuring things out was the best way in learning. We figured out how to use basic editing by trying and if it was wrong, did not look right or just did not work we would simply undo it.


Without these use of media technologies it would of been extremely difficult to make our final media products which were effective, successful and professional.

Audience Feedback.

When doing our questionnaire we found it best to do a hard copy rather than a blog as we knew we would get a better feedback because not many people use blogs. We handed our questions out to late teenagers 17/18+ both female and male, this helped us get a wider knowledge of what suited other people. The majority of the audience that had got back to use were majority female, this worked out better for us as we knew that females would sympathise more with our main character also the story would appeal more to them.
When handing out the questionnaires our main concern was that the audience would not understand the story, that it might not be clear enough to the audience. It was hard trying to reveal the story bit by bit without giving away the twist, once we had the feedback, our questionnaire audience re-enforced that the story line would be fine and clear to the audience and that it was not that complicate to follow. All though some responses did tell us that we needed to make the part and the end clear for it to work, we needed to add a flashback or more than the photo to tell us that the boy was the ex, we made sure of this by added the flashbacks of the boy 'Alex' at the end as we thought that the was the best idea, and as it was an idea from a viewer it would work more than most ideas we would come up with as a group.
We tried to mix up our questions so that people would give us a view about everything and even some advice, we asked 'Are the drugs/alcohol a good idea to include in this kind of video?'. We asked this because we believe that this was an issue we realised could cause most problems, but because most of our viewers would be 18 and above that they would be sensible enough to know that it was just a video. People responded well to this question as we had hoped, this helped us improve our video by editing well on the parts that involved drugs and aggressiveness when smashing the bottles. the positive feedback included 'The drugs and part violence gives it the edge that is involved in a drum&bass genre' also 'This stuff happens everyday with drugs and alcohol, its good to confront it because its in the environment we live in'. This type of feedback was encouraging for us so we continued with out positive attitude with the drugs and alcohol use in our video.
When we was editing we was worried about the speed of our song because it has so many fast paced and slow paced parts it's hard too keep control with the shot's, we did not want the viewers to be caught up in the fast paced editing and then find the slow parts boring, we asked a question to our audience about this, ''what do you particularly like the most about the music video?'' the responses was good as people said the editing worked well with the timing of the music, one reply said 'the slow parts of the music was the best, the rocky-ness of the camera made it exciting and they seemed deeper and darker than most parts of the video' - This was a good response and what we hoped for, also the way the included the 'dark and deep' bits worked well to our advantage as this was how we wanted our video to be portrayed.
We had good responses to our point of view shots especially the one on the bridge, one response told us 'The shot on the bridge, when looking up to the sky made it different to what most people do, even though it was a long shit and was stable, it still kept me interested'. This was a brilliant feedback as even the long shots did not bore people as we thought they would, it is good to hear that some of our shots our different to most video's, this gives us the sense of individuality which is what we aimed for at the very beginning of our project.

We also asked questions about our promo packs to see how they would come across to our audience. We had good feedback from this also, we asked 'If you see this as a CD pack would it appeal to you to buy it?' - Our responses went well talking about our individual photo's majority of people preferred our front picture, 'the colours are eye catching and the effects on the photo also the type of photo suits Pendulum'. This was a brilliant feedback that was received, as the majority of people liked the front picture we was concerned about the back of the CD cover, until we came across what we think and no is positive feedback. One reply said 'The back cover is amazing, not something you would put with Pendulum but the originality works perfectly to draw in people'. We think that this is very positive feedback as we said at the start of this project we want something different and original. Everyone gave positive feedback about the poster inside including how it is the perfect advert for people to go to one of their concerts as well as lesson to their music.

We had a lot of different responses to our questionnaire all positive, and we are great full for this response we have got.

Magazine Advertisement.

When creating our magazine advertisement we wanted to make it easy and simple and nothing too fancy, so we stuck to the conventional things to do.
We have in big bold letters 'PENDULUM' this straight away attracts the audience and gets their attention of who it. We then put the front cover of our CD as the main image so the audience know what is is about and what were advertising.
At the bottom of the page we have magazine quotes and ratings about our album. All positive of course to promote the band. In the right corner we have a puff like text telling the bands when the CD will be released and available to buy. This is key information and therefore is in a different colour so it stands out and is a main focus for the audience to see.
We then have the same image we used in the middle of our CD and is a very famous photo of Pendulum, so this will draw in the audience attention, across that in a different colour we have 'UK TOUR IN JUNE', this straight away will get attention from the audience. This is added to create publicity and not only help sell their CD but their tour for next year, we are multi-advertising to make Pendulum bigger and well known. This is common amongst Drum&Bass or Rock genre bands to get them promoting everything all at once, so everyone knows what's next for this band.
When first making this advertisement we was going to challenge conventions that Pendulum normally do and make it bright and out their, but then we realised it would make more sense to keep it dull and dark with bright which they normally do because other music advertisement will be having bright colours to attract attention. We kept our advertisement in tune with the same theme of colours we used for our DigiPack, by doing this is makes the whole advertisement process look sophisticated, modern and neat instead of having bright and tacky colours. By having the dull colours it also creates the real pendulum vibe they give out, but when they preform it is the complete opposite. Also by having the simple colour theme the writing will stand out which is a repetitive theme that we used when making the DigiPack, which helps us deliver the message short and sweet to the readers by making it stand out.

Our Final Music Video.

The video starts with a close up of a phone, the phone vibrates a receives a text in perfect timing with the beat of the music. The camera then moves to an extreme close up of the text being opened and the text reading, 'Sorry I can't do this any more' from 'Alex'. We then pan upwards to be introduced to our main character who has just red the text his face shows different emotions of upset and anger, so we assume he has just been dumped. This is where we know that the whole music video will be revolved around our main character. We then have a shot reverse shot of our main character resulting to alcohol, he would take swigs of vodka and then a medium shot of the alcohol slowing decreasing, this emphasizes how much the character is drinking in such a short period of time. We continue these shots for another 6 shots until the alcohol is all gone. We chose to have our main character drinking alcohol so early because it will show his anger and un-happiness caused by the text just received, also alcohol is a convention that is normally associated with drum&bass music videos. We then have a point of view of him looking down on the vodka bottle that he has just dropped, this also shows how much he has drank as he has finished a whole bottle.
We then have wide medium shots of our main character messing up his room by tipping part of his bed, throwing items and throwing his clothes. When editing these shots we had to decrease the speed to make them fit in with the slow pace of the song at the beginning. We then have a close up of our main character ripping the photo up, this photo has a big importance in the video as we see it later on in the video.
We then use medium shot of him leaving a house, this helps makes the video flow and make sense so we know how he gets to one place to another. Also using different transitions help show that time is passing throughout the video quickly.
As our main character is walking along the street he is still reading the same text from earlier in confusion, but is shocked to see his ex with another person, their is obviously tension in the atmosphere. So as our main character passes staring at the couple, they both look over their shoulders making eye contact, we have decreased the speed of this clip as well to show the importance of this part of the video.
As the slow music begins to speed up, we have added quick cut shots of the main character and his actions, this fits in with the music and keeps the audience engaged. Out of fit of anger, the main character goes onto kicking and throwing road signs, this shows the audience how angry he really is, we then switch to a point of view shot of an on coming car, this is done by hand held so it still fits in with the fast paced music with the unsteady and jolt of the camera, this creates excitement for the audience as they do not know what's about to happen, in a last second our main character jumps out of the way to watch the car go past. This shows to the audience how desperate and distraught our character is with his attempt of suicide.
By keeping this whole shot hand-held it keeps the audience intrigued as its as if they are watching it through the characters eyes.
The following sequence start with the lyrics 'Take me out of her' as we have a pan downwards to the protagonist falling onto the floor in weakness, the high camera angle shows the vulnerability and weakness. The protagonist makes a phone call, which is then followed by a mystery character walking around the corner, we use a long shot so the audience can see the full mysterious character, from a stereotypical dress and walk we can see that this character is trouble. We use a shot reverse shot of the protagonist and our new mysterious character talking, the camera is close to show the frustration and anger on their faces this highlights the tension and anger in their conversation. An extreme close up of drugs being swapped from hand to hand is seen, so we now know this character was a drug dealer. After the shot of the swap, we switch to a point of view shot of a white blur that dissolves into a clear point of view shot of drugs lined up, the blur and then sudden clear view shows the effect that drugs and alcohol has taken on the main character.
A new location is introduced by an establishing shot, the following shots are of the protagonist throwing bottles at a wall, we used a special effect to keep the audience interested and highlight the smashing of the bottles by reversing the shot and slowing the duration down, so our character throws the bottle - it smashes - the then bottle reforms like rewinding and he throws it again. We then highlight one and slow the speed down when a bottle smashes against a certain part of the wall with graffiti reading 'Jay is Gay', the audience for the time being will take no notice of this un till later when it relates back. To keep the flow going we have a shot of the protagonist running up a hill from a long distance shot, to then a point of view shot of him looking down whilst standing on top of the tunnel, the camera is still shaking and unsteady this emphasizes the use of drugs and alcohol. The use of this hand held shot makes the audience again see the pressure and distraught from our protagonist considering suicide again. We have an extreme shot of a watch, this is to illustrate time going quickly and that the events have taken place over a whole day. From now on all of our shots are in darkness, this helps creates more confusion from the main character especially the point of view shots with lights that blur and spin, this again highlights the use of drugs and alcohol.
The following section of the video is the fire, we choose to use this bit towards the end because using the fire in pitch black makes it stand out, it also makes the video have the dark and gloomy feel. He burns presents and items that belong to his ex, this emphasizes the lyrics that are playing at this moment of time 'Feed the Fire', we switch to a point of view shot, by using the camera hand held to where he walks towards the fire then falls in front of the burning fire, again this is another near death experience for our main character.
From the previous shot the blurriness zooms out into the clear view of the drugs to which our protagonist wipes away the drugs and throws away alcohol, this is a significant turning point for our character to which we believe he gets better. He pours alcohol into the sink which shows the cleaning phase we us a transition from the running water down the sink to running water coming out of bath taps. This helps keep the video running smoothly. As the audience now knows we are in the bathroom, we have an over shoulder shot of the main character looking into the mirror with a distraught and deppressed look on his face. We see a close up of a phone were out main character forwards the text previously recieved from his ex, saying 'Sorry i can't do this no more', this add suspicion and confusion to the audience as they expected him to be getting better. We have a pan upwards to show the protagonist in the bath, but with blood on his wrists as the pan upwards continues we see him laying their in the bath surrounded by his blood and his other wrist slit. As the audience would be startled to see such a blunt ending, the photo that was ripped earlier by the main character is slowly dropped from his hand, and in slow motion falls to reveal that the ex 'Alex' was in fact the boy from which we saw earlier in the street when our main character had passed them. This reveals that our love couple are a homosexual couple, this challenges the conventions of the typical couple as we see homosexuality to be embraced. We see a flash back of the boy Alex from earlier we also increased the contrast of that shot to make it brighter this clearly shows that its a flashback, we then switch back to the photo laying on the floor to remind the audience that it was the boy from earlier. We switch to a medium shot of our main character whilst zooming out, it ravels that he is still in bath still with slit wrists and has sunk lower in the bath as the blood spreads, and the music slowly dissolves out to a blunt ending.

Final CD DigiPack.

This is our finished and final piece of our DigiPack from left to right we have the front cover, middle section (poster) and back of the CD.
When all three are put together their is a clear colour scheme of dark and gloomy colours, mostly black. Black is normal seen in the indie/rock genre, which is what Drum&Bass appeals to, this works out perfectly as we know we will attracting the right attention.
As I said earlier when analysing the images singly you can see that the middle section and back of the CD is mostly back, this is because it creates and a classy and more modern look. But in the middle section the lights and crowd are showing a bit of radiant colours which dose not make the whole DigiPack look to dull, also on the back of the CD cover, the white smoke pops more, which takes away from the blurry background. As well we especially did not want the front cover being too dull and colourless as this is the first thing are audience will see and base their first opinion on, so we tried to keep some colour in their by changing the contrast. We want the front cover to stand out a bit so it attracts the audience, but in the fine detail when you have a close look, the colours are very dull, and the outskirts of the image is very dark and dull where we used a burnt tool on it.
The most important thing is the band reputation as well, the audience would buy the music purely on the music, it would not make such a difference if the DigiPack was done badly. When the fans are passionate about the music they wont mind. This is why we used typical normal conventions that is normally seen on Pendulums CD covers such as the production company, magazine reviews and song titles. To keep the audience interested in the basics.

Our DigiPack - The Photo's.

INITIAL IDEA'S FOR BACK OF CD.




These two photo's don't seem as effective to be on a back of the CD they both seem pretty boring and dull, their is no smoke coming from the cigarette makes it seem that it's not alight and look fake. These two images also show too much off the characters face when we wanted to create a mystery. These two photos wouldn't draw in enough attention to be put on the back of a CD.











FINAL BACK COVER



This photo out of the three is the best photo. So we have decided to use this is our final photo. The image of the character, who is actually our main character in the video is smoking which fits in with current theme of drug and alcohol abuse that is in our video. The smoke raises at a perfect angle to cover his face slightly which adds to a mystery sense. Also the dark and dull colours fit in perfectly with our occurring theme.
This photo will be turned into black and white by changing the saturation on photo shop also this will make the smoke stand out more, it will challenge most conventions of having a black and white background as that can be associated with being a bit boring.
We then can add on the conventional stuff such as the titles and track names, they can all be placed on the left side where there is a lot of room. This photo we think will be the most effective and attract the audience in and it is not a conventional background.












FRONT COVER


When choosing the front cover we wanted to keep it nice and simple and something that will draw the audience attention. We choose this photo, it was the only photo we took and the best photo. We find this photo very effective and appealing. The bright colours and burnt edges are just like pendulum. Also it is the same as most Pendulums covers with having a photo of a place as their front cover.
This photo is taken on top of the tunnel that appears in the video, this is where the characters stands on top and looks down.
The photo is a picture of a train track that is empty and by the looks of it, looks run down. All though the photo itself is very bright the actual details of photo are quite dark and dull which fits in with the occurring theme in all our work.
We think by using this image it will attract the readers and create a good feel about the album.











MIDDLE SECTION.



This will be the inside of our DigiPack where the audience will be able to see various photo's of the band and have posters.
The band pendulum do not appear in the music video and also they do not show in either front or back of the CD case, it is normally conventionally to show the band in the Drum&Bass genre. Therefore we are using this image, it is important to keep promoting the band and by using this image we are showing the audience how good their gigs and performances look, therefore this is helping promote not only the music and their CD but their tours. By doing this we helping Pendulum to be bigger and more successful band.
The image is very eye catching and almost dose not look real because we rarely see photos taken like this from bands gigs and performances. So this really makes it eye catching to the audience when they first look at it. The audience in the picture also seem to be enjoying themselves with their hands in the air, in the bottom right corner of the photo you will also see a signature. This makes it more realistic and original that it is actually Pendulum, so when their target audience buy this album they will be getting an signature signed photo by pendulum which makes it even better and more appealing.

Existing CD Covers Analysis.

This front cover is Pendulum's actual front cover for 'Watercolour', instead of having an item of just a basic pattern like they normally have they have a place as their background, they have a river and mountain in the background, with a faded edges around the sides of the cover which makes the main focus on the middle of the page where in big white letters they have 'Pendulum - Watercolour'. Because the title of the band and song is white and the rest of the photo is dull colours it makes it stand out more drawing attention to it. By doing this it makes us the audience focus of the name of the band more.







This is the back of a CD cover by pendulum. The photo seems as if it is in an ocean with neon lights.
They use bright colours and keep the writing in white this again makes the writing stand out more on the page so the audience focus on that part and their music. Also the writing about their company's are made in white to keep them stood as well. They have their name written on the side horizontally so it keeps the audience appeal to the band Pendulum.


Ideally I would like Our DigiPacks too look like these but on the back of the CD cover keep the back of it plain and simple and nothing over the top with the bright colours, maybe even have it black and white.

The Editing Process.

Once we had imported our footage onto the computer by uploading them from the camera, we created a file so our work could be saved. We then would upload them to Premier Pro CS4, we used this to edit our photo's from here on, our videos would appear on one side on the left, which we could view in a preview window, once we was happy with out clips we would drag them down to the editing box at the bottom, this is where we could edit, cut and do anything to our clips we wanted, how ever we did find to drag down all of the clips we had and needed, to then re-arrange and edit because it gave us a better awareness of how much we needed and what worked when it was all their.



This is how our screen would look, and where the blue area is is the preview window of where would see our clips, before dragging them down to the editing box, the long box and the bottom. The one clip their is one clip, the red line through the middle is how we would edit that single clip, by clicking on the edge of the clip box and dragging it to the red line is how we would cut it. By holding the red clip on it is how we could break the clip down to seconds, this helped us getting the editing to the perfect second especially when editing and cutting the song.


Once we had all the clips down and ready to edit, it was important to mute the sound on the footage, it was simple to do this helped us when editing the footage to match the song beat, lyrics and speed of the song.
Once we had done this we had to edit the actual clips, because our song lyrics is quite dark and deep it helped to dim most of the footage by editing the contrast, we done this by selecting the tool bar at the top 'Colour and Correction' and then 'Brightness and Contrast'.






Another simple effect we used was changing the speed of the actual clip, because the pace through out the song differs we had to edit the speed of some clips to suit the positioning on the music, through the slow bits of the music we would slow the clip down to create a slow motion effect. But when the pace of the music speeds up we used different typed of shots and would sometimes speed up the clip, for example the close up of the watch. Changing the speed of clips was easy, this was done by clicking on 'Clip' on the tool bar at the top and then clicking on 'Speed and duration', a small box would appear were we could enter the percentage of speed until it was right.


We also used transitions to help keep the flow off our video moving and also it made it easier to watch instead of just having the constant cut and cut from shot to shot. By doing this we had simply drop the transition by dragging it from the box and dropping it on the edge of clip where the transition would merge from. The main transition we used quite a bit is dip to black, additive dissolve and cross dissolve. We thought these transitions fitted our video best because they were not to much for our video as it's very dark, also using the transitions with black in it fitted in well with the dark.





After adding all our footage and re-filming twice we decided that the only choice left was to cut the song as we could not fill the whole footage space. When we had imported the song we had to cut it down, this was done by counting the beat exactly and when getting to the main drop before the tune started again. This was a very difficult part of editing as it required patience. It was very hard to cut the section at the right point without it being noticeably different, using the razor tool you select the start of the part you didn't want and then mark it again with another mark up to where you would like it too finish. You then slect it and delete it, we had done this several times and also done this at the end with out song, because we did not want the song to end on such a blunt note we cut the ending out and slowly quietened it so that it would fade out like our last shot did.

Analysis of Locations.

When choosing our locations, we used the basic locations in a house hold which are normal conventional rooms, at the beginning of the video in our main characters room, we have a typical boys room, blue wallpaper and blue bed sheets. Also posters on the wall of rock music bands. Again Half way through the video when we have the turning point a typical living room, with a couch a table and some family photo's dotted around the room, we also have the part where our character tips away alcohol in the kitchen with typical props, washing up liquids, metal sink, sponges and clothes etc, by having this typical conventional items the audience knows exactly where the character is and why.

But we did choose some unconventional area's because we think it will be more unique and stand out in the audience mind, also the important part of the films and happen at his unique places which makes it stand out in the audience minds.





This image is the tunnel which our main character stands on and looks down, and also underneath he smashes glass bottles, this area is very significant as this is where our character releases most of his anger and grief and when standing on top of this bridge he has another second thought of committing suicide. This is a perfect place as it suits the dark and gloomy re-accruing theme that we have throughout all of this media project.










This wall is inside the tunnel, the use of graffiti makes the area look rough and horrible which this fits in with the rough and hardness that is normally associated with drum&bass. This wall is where we see our character smash all the bottles and releases his stress and anger. We also zoom in and one part of a bottle smashing against a part on a wall in the video and on this part of the wall it says ''Jay is gay'', this graffiti fits nicely in with our video's twist at the end.








This hill is how our character got up to the top of the train railway on top of the tunnel, this image is important because after filming we had to edit a lot of shots like these into our video for it too make sense to the reader. Also the image shows a very dark and gloomy setting which fits in with our video well.












This two images are very important as they show the key point of how the video takes place over a whole day. The picture of the road is shown in the video when he is running away after just seeing his ex with a friend, this is done during the day time. Because the shot is during the day with all the traffic going past it adds to the fast paced music upbeat pace.
The photo of the woods is taken during the day here, but in the video it is used at night and we changed the brightness and contrast on the actual film clip, to show him running home in the dark. This then shows the day passing away and slowly moving into night. Also this photo fits in with the music video because of the gloomy and dull colours and in the film the actual footage is off balance which fits in with the face paced music.

Re-Filming and Re-Editing for Final Video.

When we had done most of our filming and began editing it all together, we realised that we had not enough of film to finish the music video and also some of the shot did not make sense as they had big jumps between them, this made our video seem a bit all over the place and didn't not create a real clear story line for the audience.

We decided to use some film to show how the character got to the different areas these parts of filming act as transitions instead of using the basic slides, this helps the audience know how our character got from place to another, one example is the shot of him running in the woods at 1:16. We did this handheld so the clip looks more hectic which fits in with the fast paced beat and up tempo of the music. Also as he has taken drugs this highlights the paranoia he is experiencing. Another shot we had to do this is at 0:34 when he is running along the street and we then switch to a point of view shot of him running back this also again illustrates the use of drugs and the paranoia.
Another time we had to use these shots of our main character was to show how our character had got on top of such a high bridge, but we didn't do this hand-held, we had kept the camera still to not make it to repetitive and mix the shots up slightly. At 1:07 we see our main character running up a little hill which leads to the top of the bridge this makes it tie in nicely of how he had got up their.
By doing these different shots we was able to fill up time that was needed and show how our main character got from place to another instead of him just appearing in placed.

We also had to re-film parts in our video again because once we had uploaded the footage onto the computer it was not good enough to be put in the final video because it was either to dark, or the lighting was not the same as the previous footage or we did find that sometimes the footage would seem fine on the camera, but when put onto a bigger screen it became too grainy.
We had to film a part at the start again because the lighting had got dark quickly the footage did not fit in with what we had filmed literally an hour before, so when put together it looked silly and out of place.
Also we had some probably with the timing and positioning of this footage. At the beginning when our main character decides to trash the room after being dumped, our main plan was for him to flip the bed, throw pictures of the wall and smash a guitar. But because of the timing this part of film would be at the point when the music is very slow, with all the hectic movements and shots it did not fit in with the music and looked very out of place, so we had to change some off the ideas, instead of him smashing the guitar we had to change it to him sliding clothes off towards the camera at 0:14 this also helps as a transition to move onto the next clip. We then had to change the speed of the clip so it would fit in with the speed of the music, we had to slow it down and speed it up again to find the exact time to make the movement our character look powerful and meaningful other wise it would look fake and unrealistic like it did when we had slowed down the clip of the guitar being smashed.

We wanted the events in our video to be spread out over the course of a whole day, this was difficult as we found when filming in the dark, the film would come out very grainy and poor quality. So we found that filming most of it in the day and then editing the brightness and contrast made it appear as if it was night time. We did this a lot with most of our shots, and used the same shot twice but changed the contrast and brightness to make it look like a different shot. At 1:09 we see a shot of our main character twitching due to a reaction to the drugs, later on in the video at, 1:20 wee see him doing the same thing but it's darker so this makes it seem like a different shot done at a different time.

Even when adding all these shots the music was still too long so we had to add extra footage that would also make it seem that time is passing and then we could use footage that was in the darker to make it seem like this had happened all day. At 1:17 we have a shot of a watch on stopwatch mode, we made it count time so when filming it, it would see like a longer shot and that would give the illusion to the audience that time has passed quickly and now he is out in the dark and the burning of old possessions begins.
We also had to use random footage to fill gaps to waste time, and exampled was used earlier with the twitch that our main character would do, he would run holding the camera under his chin, this hand held effects adds to the excited and hectic pace of the music. By doing these types of shots we was able to fill a couple of seconds which really makes a big difference. We also used other shots like this, they would also be hand held but it would be used to show a point of view shot, at 1:22 we have shot of cars going passed but because we made the camera jolt and wobble the lights would blur which helps show the audience how drunk and drugged our main character is. We also have another point of view hand held shot at 1:26 when he looks up at a light and spins, (this idea was influenced from a further analysis of Chase & Status - Let you go, when he spins around a lamppost). We also see this again near the fire to show our character walking towards the fire but then collapsing on the floor at 1:35, straight away you can see it's a point of view shot because the camera tilts slightly and wobbles. By doing all these types of shots it was able to help us fill the gaps needed to and the footage fitted quite well with the shots and music.

After all this re-filming and editing the song was still too long, so we had not other choice but to cut the song, from the original version of 3:24 we was able to cut it down to 2:12. Through out the song 'Watercolour' their is repetitive beat, in each section before it repeats is self again there is a big 'boom'. We had to count these and time it perfectly so we could cut out big sections which allowed us to fit our filming perfectly into timing. Also in the original version of 'Watercolour' at the end just after the slow part finishes at 2:48 it then speeds up again to a frantic drum&bass finish and then finishes suddenly with a boom at 3:24. We had to cut out that last heavy bit other wise the music would of not fit in with our ending, we had to cut it off and fade it lightly so that the ending would ease off gently and would create the perfect ending.

Our Filming Time Table.

Saturday 9th October

Scenes to film:
- Protaganist seeing ex in street
- Protaganist going crazy in street
- Protaganist meeting up with drug dealer
Equipment: Camera and tripod
Locations: Street in a residential area, discreet alleyway
Props: Hoodie, flour in a bag resembling cocaine
People needed: Media group - Lucy, Michelle, Miles. Actors - Pad (main character), Miles, James, Lucy
Estimated time: 2 hours

Monday 11th October

Scenes to film:
- Opening bedroom scenes, eg. reading text and destroying room
- More going crazy in streets including him smashing bottles in the tunnel underneath the bridge.
Equipment: Camera and tripod
Locations: A boy's bedroom, a pavement besides a busy street, tunnel
Props: Alcohol glass bottles, road signs, a bed, clothes, photo
People needed: Media group - Lucy, Michelle, Miles. Actors - Pad
Estimated time: 3 hours

Thursday 14th October

Scenes to film:
- Night scenes including fire scenes and point of view shots
- More inside scenes, eg. turning point
- Bath death scenes
Equipment: Camera, tripod, lighting
Locations: A field, a living room, a bathroom
Props: A large oil drum to have fire in, matches, paper and leaves to create fire, teddy bear to burn, alcohol bottles, flour representing cocaine, a bath, razor, mirror
People needed: Media group - Lucy, Michelle, Miles. Actors - Pad
Estimated time: 4 hours

Video Support Analysis.

A small issue was raised when filming that the drug dealing scene may not be clear enough that their is a disagreement and that the dealer is not happy with our main character.
We think as a group that the facial expressions shown by the two characters that their is a disagreement of some sort, also their is some dialogue between the two characters but we have decided to play the music over the top. If we was to play the dialogue over the top of the music it would interrupt, especially as this bit of filming falls on a fast paced and up beat part of the song, but cutting that out it would ruin the song a distract the audience from the actual song itself. We think by just playing the song over the top it will be enough to show the audience that their is a clear disagreement between the two, because of the acting from the two characters. To prove that this will work I have looked up other music video to further my point.




Referring back to this video I used earlier to analyse, at 2:09 we see the young woman holding her kids shouting at the main character who is leaving, the song is not interrupted but their is dialogue used, we can tell from her acting and actions she uses towards him we see that their is a disagreement between the two for example the hand throwing she does, her facial expressions of disgust and also the slamming of the door.
This proves my point that to show the disagreement between our main character and the drug dealer, we will just need to use certain actions and movements to show the anger and tension between the two.

Shot by Shot - Final Music Idea's.

The video starts with a close up of a phone. The text message is from 'Alex' reading 'sorry I can't do this any more'. Even thoe the audience has not met the character it is obvious that the receiver of this text has been dumped. The music starts when the text message appears with a 'Boom'. After the texts has been read we then see the main character where a pan upwards is used to show the intensity of this moment, we see the main character shaking his head and shocked. Out of anger the main character messes up his room, by tipping the bed, throwing clothing and tearing a photo exactly in the middle. This photo is a vitial bit of infromation that is used later on in the story. hen the character leaves the house to buy more alcohol and let off a bit of steam. At this part the music video the music is still slow so we are going to use slow motion so that the events fit in with the music. We are going to be using close ups to show the audience how upset the main character is.
We then are going to use a medium shot which will be of the main character drinking vodka from the bottle, to brake up the shorts and use lots of shorts shots to add to the excitement and movement that normally occur in drum&bass music videos, by adding short consecutive shots in-between the shots of the main character drinking the alcohol, the shot wills be off the vodka bottle with the amount in it slowing decreasing shot after shot to show the high amount of alcohol consumption from the main characters. We then follow the character leaving the house to buy more alcohol, on his way their, he passes a girl and boy their is some flirting going on between the couple, and the look that each character does show awkwardness and tension which tells us that one of the characters is the ex of the main character who has just been dumped. The medium shot of the boy and girl looking over the shoulder will then be slowed down to exaggerate the tension and we then cut to another medium shot of the boy looking angrily which tells us that he has obviously seen something that has angered him. As this happens the music begins to fasten up and we then follow the character lashing out his anger by kicking signs and throwing things.
We then switch to a different setting of the character collapsing down on the floor by using a pan shot following him to the floor, from here the character then makes a phone call to a drug dealer. By using a high angle shot at this moment in time makes the main character look weak and vulnerable to the audience. There is then a medium shot of the drug dealer coming around the corner and main character meeting him, we will use close ups to show the different expressions from each character and use shot reverse shot to show the conversation between the two characters. There is then a close up of them exchanging the drugs. We would like to us a transition from the drugs to then point of view shots of the character lining up and taking the drugs.
After the character has taken the drugs he is more fired up and angry he smashes bottles and classes out of anger against a wall in a secluded area. the character then decides to burn some stuff from the ex, including a teddy and cards, we have a medium shot of the character through a big fire, we see him dropping the bits into the fire, and then the fire growing bigger.
We then see a turning point for the character as he wipes the drugs of the table and throwing drink in the bin, also poring some down the sink. As the audience believes the character to be getting better and the song drawing to an end they think that this is the end. So as the song begins to slow down again we switch to a shot of running water out of a bath, this fits into the song title of 'Watercolour'. We then see a close up of a phone of the character forwarding the text that he had received earlier back to his ex. This then confuses the audience, we then see a shot of him laying in the bath with his eyes closed as if he is 'relaxing', the camera begins to zoom out of him the bath to the then cutting to a shot of a photo falling from the main character in slow motion, to then revealing that his ex partner 'Alex' was the boy from earlier in the music video, which challenges conventions that are usually seen in other music video's. As the audience are grasping the fact of the photo, we then cut back to the shot of the main character in the bath to then reveal that the main character in the bath with slit wrists. This then ties in the message earlier sent from the main character to his ex 'Alex'.

This is our plan shot by shot, but a rough idea, because when actual filming begins we may decide to add or even remove some ideas because of limitations or that the shots may not work, also when editing some of the shots may not fit or it may not look right, so we might need to film other bits of film again to fill that gap. Also some rearranging may need to be done to help the audience understand the plot better.