Production Work A2

Final Video

CD Front Cover

Inside Front

Inside Back

CD Back

             

                                         Magazine Advert - 2Page Spread

Evaluation

Q1: I what ways does your media product use develop or challenge conventions of a real media production?

My final A2 project was a music video for Skrillex,- a known Dubstep artist and his song Cinema. Dubstep originated from Drum & Bass and contains electrical sounds with fast base beats. The artists that produce it are often DJs and perform at ‘raves’ and festivals. Each of the artists have their particular styles and tastes when it comes to making a music video for their singles. A lot of the artists tend to have some videos with a linear narrative with actors as well as non-linear with the artists staring as themselves. 






Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary asks?

 Q3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

                                                                     What we've learnt

Classmates Feedback

 Questionnaire

Q4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction &research, planning & evaluation?

Research

At the start of our research we had to do find out more about the different genres of music that exist. For this we used a very popular search engine Google and sites such as Wikipedia and BBC which allowed access to the articles that closely described different music genres and their origins, as well as giving examples of the artists within that genre. I also used democratic sites such as YouTube and Jamendo.com which allow not only to view but also to share the information desired as part of Web 2.0. Jamendo is a site that contains artist albums which can then be used by the members of general public if the album licence chosen by the artist states so. These sites allowed me to search by music genres, exploring different artists such as Eminem, Skrillex, Juice Big City and more. Social networking such as Twitter and Facebook also helped as they allowed me to follow/ like artists’ pages and follow their profiles in order to find out more about them. Furthermore, our decision was to create a music video for a dubstep artist Skrillex which we researched further on YouTube. Analysing his music videos we found that he uses a lot of outside locations along with tracking shots. This has benefited us when it came to our planning. We used Google images in order to carry out research into our ancillary tasks and get some ideas about the CD Pack. We visited a number of online magazines such as Rock Sound, Spin and MixMag to find out more about their adverts in general and those that Skrillex has featured in. we further researched the TV Channels that would be of a similar genre to Dubstep and found MTV Base, an alternative channel which plays dubstep, rap, reggae and many more music genres.

Planning

During our planning we used Blogging to record our ideas of our music video. This has enabled us to note the important things and ideas that we had and develop them further through brainstorming. Blogging also allowed us to display our planning to an open audience with a chance of getting some feedback on our thoughts. Once again Social Networks helped us to find our actors and ask for the artist’s permission via Facebook to avoid any copyright issues. During our storyboarding we took inspiration from the music videos we’ve seen and used smartphones to take some test shots of locations. We then were able to save the pictures and post them on our blogs, this way we could review them and decide on the Mise-en-Scene we could use. We then used Microsoft Word in order to create a Call List for the actors. Using the table tool available in the software, we created a list of actor, dates and activities that we would like to carry out. This gave us and the cast a sense of direction within the schedule. During these planning stages YouTube once again helped us to search and discover some of the editing techniques that we planned using for our video, such as the sin city effect and the ‘film look’.

Call List

Sin City

Film Look

Construction

During our construction changes we used Canon HD cameras which gave better image qualities. Depending on the shots we planned, we used different equipment, for example using a tripod helped us shoot the steady frames that we needed in contrast with the experimenting hand-held shots. We used the Gorilla tripod for our shots of the couples spinning, placing the tripod around the actors’ shoulder to get a point of view shot of the person spinning opposite. For the actual video construction we used an Apple Mac and their editing software Final Cut Pro 7.  The software allowed us to edit music as well as the footage and the lighting. Firewire helped us to upload the footage onto the mac. We also used iTunes, which is now becoming part of Web 3.0 to download our track. We had to cut the music from 5mins to 3mins 20secs using a Razorblade tool on the pallet or using an Apple Keyboard – ‘B’ for Blade, ‘A’ for Arrow; same goes for cutting the footage. Furthermore, we used Straight Cuts, Cross Dissolve to show passing time and Stop – Motion blur//Jump cuts to show our character’s confusion. We also used Nikon Bridge and DSLR digital cameras to capture some images needed for the ‘base drop’ section of our video. Changing the lighting/filter colour was important to our music video as we wanted to give it a darker edge which is often seen in Dubstep music videos. Using ColourCorrector3Way built in the Final cut pro we were able to edit the shades of black to a slightly blue, giving our video darker effect, meeting the codes and conventions of a Dubstep music video.

Evaluation

For my evaluation I have used various techniques to answer the questions. I used Microsoft Word to type up part of the questions. Some question we decided to answer together as a group, using an iPad3 and its built in camera. This has allowed us to see ourselves on the screen and watch our actions in a relaxed atmosphere. We also used the app iMovie in order to edit the sections of the recording we did. The app has also allowed us to upload the video straight to YouTube, which shows how the technological devises make it easier for us communicate and share the information online. For question 2 I have tried using Powerpoint to analyse my ancillaries but have then moved on and printed them out on paper, and did the analysis by hand, making it more attractive graphologically. I also made screenshots on the Mac and took some pictures to illustrate some of the processes we went through during the making of our video. 

Ancillary Task - Creative Process

In order to create our ancillary task ( CD Pack and Magazine Advert ) we went through different creative processes. 

We first had to research the album work of Skrillex in order to know how he is represented in his album artwork and also the magazines. We found that he always produces a futuristic font with his name and his single on the front cover, similar to other artists of that genre such as Nero. We therefore decided to go for a similar approach and make the font big and bold, with hint of green, to link the artwork to our video with predominantly 'green' mise-en-scene. We then researched some of the magazines he's previously featured in and tried to produce an advert that would be similar.

We then had to plan and shoot the images for different sides of the CD and the advert. We shot more images in order to give us more ideas and a chance to experiment to see what works. We have produced multiple examples of the CD pack and had some audience feedback to help us choose the final ones. Copying, cropping and playing with the colour gradients in Photoshop has allowed us to edit our work with detail and produce more professional images. 

We tried to link our ancillary work with our video as much as possible but we also tried to keep that in balance with an iconography of Skrillex. We therefore used his 'Ill' symbol, iconic to him on our album artwork. We also had to place his record label and co-workers Big Beats on the back. We noticed that the magazine adverts often contained the artist's name along with the album's, a release date, reviews and some Twitter and Facebook icons. We have managed to incorporate that style into our advert. The picture is in black and white in order to make the artist name and album stand out and make it noticeable on the shop shelves.

Magazine Advert

I have researched some magazines in which Skrillex has previously been featured. 

Rock Sound is a British magazine which champions rock music. The magazine aims at being more "underground" and less commercial, whilst also giving coverage to more well known acts. It generally focuses on the pop, punk, pop-punk, emo, hardcore, post-hardcore, heavy metal and extreme metal genres of rock music, rarely covering indie rock music at all. The tag-line "For those who like their music loud, extreme and non-conformist" is sometimes used. Although primarily aimed at the British market, the magazine is also sold in Australia, Canada and the United States.

Spin in its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard. It pointedly provided a national alternative to Rolling Stone'smore establishment-oriented style.

Mixmag is a British electronic dance and clubbing magazine, published in London, England. It styles itself as "the world's biggest selling dance music magazine", with an Audit Bureau of Circulations audited circulation of approximately 20,000 (1 January 2011 – 31 December 2011). Launched in 1982 in the United Kingdom, the magazine covers dance events, and reviews music and club nights.

We have also been shooting for our magazine advert.

In this picture we would place the title Skrillex in between his hands, and the album name Cinema just beneath the title.

In this picture we would place the title Skrillex at the top, and Cinema just below it, following the critic reviews such as the sun below that and the gig dates even lower

CD Pack

We have been working on our CD pack and have come up with a few designs for the back CD cover.

We have decided to use the iconic 'ill' logo for which skrillex is recognised for to make it recognisable. We have also used contrasting colours such as red and black so that our CD stands out. The writing is done in simple white writing and is neither too bland nor attention diverting.

We have also been shooting for the insides and our magazine advert. These are some of the shots that we took.

We are considering to use these shots for the inside left of our CD pack. We will use photoshop to crop Dan out and place him on a different background.

CD sketches

During the last couple of lessons we have been working on the designs of our CD. We have borrowed and combined some of the features used by a range of dubstep artists, for example dark and bright colours.

Front and Back covers: We have borrowed the 'ill' logo as it is our artist's trademark and is recognisable for his fans. The background will also be dark to represent the convention of the genre.

Inside Right: We have decided that on the CD side of the pack we will put together a collage of pictures we used in our video piece. This would allow us to relate the CD to our video production.

Inside Left: We decided to keep this side relatively simple and either include the words of the hit single in transparent white or use a picture of our lead actor's back.

Back: We have also thought of using the 'ill' logo once again at the back, but place small ones around the design.

Research and Planning - CD designs

Over the Last week we have been sketching the designs for our CD covers, as well as researching the covers of other dubstep artists. We have put together a collage in the lesson to gain understanding of the dubstep CD covers.

We have noticed that many of the album covers have a dark theme to it, with one or more bright colours standing out. The lettering is also done in a futuristic font, making the name of the artist stand out. We have sketched out some ideas inspired by this research.