Our Evaluation Video

Here is our evaluation covering the entirety of the project, where we have evaluated every thing we have done to produce our music video, digipak and advert. We have done it in a gogglebox style where two people are flicking through different TV channels and watch clips, including CSI, Come Dine With Me, BBC Look North and Planet Earth in which we have answered all the questions. 

Filming Our Evaluation

For our evaluation, we had decided to film over the course of two separate days in which we would film our different TV shows.

Day 1 Monday 11th December

Today, we filmed our Planet Earth scenes as well as the narration for the different scenes as well as the Top Gear and Homes Under The Hammer scenes are included as the man flicks through the different TV channels.

Day 2 Friday 8th December

We used Friday morning and evening in order to film our BBC Look North Scenes, CSI and Come Dine With Me clips. This took us several hours and multiple attempts to do but we got all the footage that we had needed.

Here are some images from these shoots.

Our Evaluation

In the evaluation of our project we have to make a video answering four questions to do with the whole project we have completed. These questions are -

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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

Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

Becca has started to draft some answers to these questions which we will use as the starting point for the production and scripting of our evaluation. Here are some our notes -

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

	Use	Develop	Challenge
Music Video	·          Close up shots of the singer and of the instruments at key parts in the lyrics and certain beats of the song ·          Close ups of the actors in the narrative when emotion is shown ·          The pace of the editing always matches the song and changes on a beat ·          Mike Posner club scene – red lighting, slow motion editing ·          Eminem strangle scene – brutal and scary with her disappearing at the end with him being alone ·          Contrast between light band shots and dark and light narrative shots linking in with the binary opposites theory by Claude Levi-Strauss ·          Ferdinand de Saussure – the signifier and signified through the lipstick, Laura’s clothing and the smashed mirror ·          Key moments on a beat – fast paced bit of the song and the glass bottle smashes exactly on a beat from 2 angles	·          Mike Posner – slow motion club scenes – we added the sound of tinnitus on top of this to increase the effect ·          A lot of the music videos we have looked at don’t usually start with an establishing shot, but some do (Paramore, Now) so we have decided to develop this and create an establishing shot without any characters or band members in it, just a location ·          A lot of our narrative footage is very dark in order to represent the dark and sinister feel behind our narrative but videos that we have watched don’t normally have it quite as dark as we do but we think ours is much more effective ·          Laura Mulvey – Visual Pleasure and the Male Gaze – Laura is presented as powerful not passive. However, she is presented as an object of male sexual desire and Orrin does have ‘the bearer of the look’ throughout the video hence why he keeps going back to the drugs	·          Stereotypical all male band ·          Andrew Goodwin feminism – presents women as voyeuristic – Laura is powerful ·          Black screens for a beat right at the beginning of the video ·          The music videos we have looked don’t usually have shots that are as far away from the band as some of ours are, but we have used this as an establishing set of shots for the band shot location ·          Another thing we noticed when analysing videos is that the band members are normally in the narrative in some way and this is something that we haven’t done, we have separate actors to our band members (Paramore, 30 Seconds to Mars etc.) ·          Using an outdoor location for the band shots in such bad weather isn’t something we have really seen done either, they are all normally on a stage or in some fancy room that has some link to the narrative – dark and dingy
Digipak	·          Not having the band on the front cover of the digipak and having something that relates to the key theme of the album instead ·          Including the advertising for the deluxe features that come as a result of it being a digipak ·          Using an image on the back cover that has some space that is clearly suitable for the track list to be placed there	·          A lot of examples we have looked at don’t include the band at all in the digipak but some do, to develop this we have decided to include an edgy image of our band on the inside left cover of the digipak to clearly state the identity of the band somewhere on the digipak	·          Female band member is presented as being quite powerful and equal to the male band members – challenges Laura Mulvey as she is not meant to be sexualised and also challenges Andrew Goodwin as she is not presented as voyeuristic or passive ·          A lot of the examples we have looked at have not numbered the track list – we have decided to number ours to make it clear to the consumer exactly how many tracks and features are on the album
Advert	·          Including key pieces of information about the item that the advert is selling ·          Including an image of the band as the main image on the advert to clearly show who and what is being advertised. ·          Including social media logos and website URLs to inform the consumer about how they can follow the band and keep up to date ·          Including the disclaimer notice at the bottom	·          Having the band on the advert is something that is sometimes done and other times isn’t and when they do have the band on the front, there is usually an interesting effect on the photo making it not so clear. We have developed this by using quite a normal image for our advert with no effects ·	·          Female band member is presented as being quite powerful and equal to the male band members – challenges Laura Mulvey as she is not meant to be sexualised and also challenges Andrew Goodwin as she is not presented as voyeuristic or passive ·          Not using the image as the whole background – using a black frame instead to create the contrast between dark and light.

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

Digipak

·         Image of the smoke on the back of the digipack – links to the drug abuse used as a key feature of the narrative in the video. Orrin is pictured with a lighter which holds connotations of smoking etc.

·         Image of the legs standing on the hand in heels – links to the instability and the role of a powerful female that is featured in Laura in the video. Links to the fact that she has full control over him and he is much weaker than her when he is high on the drugs.

·         Image of the band in an edgy looking location on the inside left cover – this links to the band location in the video as well as linking to the edgy and dingy looking locations that we filmed in for both the narrative and the performance.

·         Image of the lips on the CD part – lips are red which links to the seduction and temptation involved in the narrative. Laura is also wearing red lipstick throughout the video which helps link the two products together.

·         Title ‘Temptress’ – links to the element of temptation that we have made very prominent in the video to help tell the story of how addicted and tempted Orrin is by Laura’s presence.

Advert

·         Image of the band in a dark location – links to all of the dark scenes that we have used in the narrative section of the music video. Complete blackness links really well to the really dark scenes that we have in the narrative.

·         Image of the digipak in the corner – links the product (digipak) to the advert for it showing the consumer exactly what is being advertised on the poster.

Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Video

·         We got some audience feedback about the song choice that we used right at the beginning of the process. We were stuck between our chosen song and Warriors by Imagine Dragons so we asked our target audience which one they preferred since the songs were of the same genre.

·         Rough Cut – once we handed in our rough cut we spoke to our target group and got them to answer some questions about our video at that stage to give us some specific feedback on what we could do to make our final cut even better.

·         When we re-filmed our performance footage after the rough cut, we were a bit unsure on the footage so we asked our target audience what they thought and this helped us make the decision that we should re-film it another time just to improve it even more. The feedback was very positive and everyone we asked said that it had improved, however we wanted to make it even better again.

Band Identity

·         We got some audience feedback about our band logo. We had 3 choices that we were undecided on so we went to our target audience and asked them which one they preferred out of the 3.

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

Research	·         Blogger was used to present all of the research we collected both secondary (from the internet) and primary (target market research).
Construction	·         Adobe Media Encoder was used to encode all of the footage to the correct file format – Microsoft AVI, PAL DV Widescreen. ·         Adobe Premier Pro was used to edit all of the footage together for the music video. ·         Adobe Photoshop was used to edit all of the photos used on the digipak and advert. ·         Adobe InDesign was used to create the layout of both the advert and the digipak.
Planning	·         Blogger was used for all of the planning that went on behind all 3 media products as we documented everything on there.
Evaluation	·         Adobe Media Encoder was used to encode all of the footage to the correct file format – Microsoft AVI, PAL DV Widescreen. ·         Adobe Premier Pro was used to edit all of the footage together to form the 20 minute evaluation in the form of DVD extras.

Finished Advert

This is our finished advert. We are really happy with how it turned out and we are confident that we have included all of the necessary features and presented it in a conventional way. 

We have used the same 'Temptress' font here as on the digipak which you can see. We have done this because we thought it looked really effective and we are of course trying to link the advert to the product that is being advertised. 

We opted for the black background as a frame around quite a colourful image. We decided to do this because we wanted the clear contrast between dark and light, and we also wanted to emphasise the edgy location used in the image, in order to communicate the edgy image of the band.

We are really happy with this image that we have used because of the positioning within the frame and also the use of mise-en-scene in the form of facial expressions and body language that we have used. The two male band members are closer to each other than the female band member whom is stood a bit further away. We did this to show her independence and power to emphaisise the fact that women don't need to rely on men. We also really worked with the facial expressions here because as you can see, the two male band members are looking either down or away into the distance and not at the camera. This makes the fact that our female band member is looking directly at the camera even more effective as it really represents the idea of her being very powerful. 

We also liked our use of fonts and we were really careful about which ones we decided to use. We wanted the font for the band name to be very distorted and edgy to communicate the edgy, rock feel that we wanted to create for the image of the band. We then opted for a more basic font for the rest of the important information that was included at the bottom of the advert. We liked this font because it is very clear to read and it looks like a conventional advert font. As you can see, we have also included the hashtag and Twitter handle as well as all of the social media icons and also the band's website URL. Along with all of the other logos etc. is the logo of DCD2 Records which is the record company we wanted to use for our band. This all helps with the branding of the product that we have done our best to keep continuous throughout the media products.

Finished Digipak

This is our finished digipak complete with all of the tracks and all of the bonus features. We are really happy with how this turned out in terms of the overall appearance and how well all of our photos have come together. 

The front cover is an image of a woman in heels standing on a mans hand who appears to be lying on the floor, surounded by empty bottles of alcohol. We wanted to use this image to keep the theme of temptation and a powerful female running from the video through into the digipak too. We have also decided to use a broken and edgy font for the band name to communicate the edgy image that we are trying to portray for the band. The font we have used to write temptress is a very curly font that we have placed a smoky image into and then blurred the curly parts of some of the letters to create the smoky feel. We then used the blur tool straight through the middle of the font as well to create a sense of it being broken.This is sharply contrasted with the clean-cut white font that has been used to write 'DELUXE EDITION' just next to it. This makes this piece of information really stand out against the rest of the fonts because we want people to be aware of the fact that this is a deluxe version of the basic album.

The inside left cover is just a plain picture of the band. This image was edited quite a lot on Photoshop in order to darken it down because the original image was quite bright, which isn't the theme we are going for here. Other than that, we didn't really want to include anything else on this part of the digipak because we wanted this to solely be an image of the band to communicate the identity of them throughout the album. 

The inside right cover is where the disc would be and we decided to use a pair of red lips for this part with the teeth where the hole in the CD would be. We then used the same font for the word 'Temptress' and put this on the bottom lip, almost like a tattoo. This works really well here because the background around the disc is a smoky image so it looks like the word 'Temptress' has been cut out of the lips to reveal the smoky image behind it. The idea behind using very red lips was to help keep the theme of temptation and again, a powerful female running throughout. 

The back cover includes the whole track list as well as listing all of the bonus features as well. We used another smoky image for the background of this side as well because we were trying to keep a running theme of continuity throughout the whole thing. We have also included other important information on the back of the digipak such as the barcode, the social media icons and band website and then also a disclaimer notice in small print at the bottom.

Overall, we are really happy with how this turned out as a whole product and we are confident that we have managed to make good, solid links between this and the music video.

Digipak Track List

We are now well into the process of making our digipak and we have started to think about our track list for it. As it is a digipak, it is also going to have some deluxe features added to it which we have also thought about.

We have really thought through each song title and tried to relate it in some way to the image of the band and also the message we are trying to communicate about temptation through our video and digipak itself, hence the album name, Temptress.

We have a reason for each and every song title that we have chosen which we will discuss here on this blog post.

1. The Kids Aren't Alright

This is the name of the song that we used to make our music video so this had to be a song included in our track list. This song is really well suited to the image we are trying to portray of our band as it includes lyrics such as 'bad trip' and 'rush in my veins' which all have connotations of drug abuse - a key concept in our video.

2. What Do We Do?
We feel that this title relates to the lack of good decision making that our main character makes during our music video. We also feel that this song title sounds quite confused and unsure about what to do with life which we think is really relevant to the idea of substance abuse that we have communicated throughout all of our media products.

3. No vision
We think this name could relate to the impaired vision our main character experiences through our video due to his addiction. There is a clear moment in our music video where our main character experiences very blurred vision as a result of his drug taking and so we feel that the title 'No Vision' is quite relevant in this sense as we feel like our main character wouldn't have much of a vision about his life and his future at this time as a result of his addiction.

4. The Siren
When we were thinking about our track list, we started thinking about the idea of temptation that we have made very clear throughout all three of our media products. This led us on to looking at a figure of Greek Mythology, a siren. We found that a siren is a dangerous female creature who lured nearby sailors to rocky shores by singing where their boats would be shipwrecked and they would then be killed. We liked this idea of temptation where a man is tempted in some way by a woman and this results in him being vulnerable in some way. We feel that this is represented very clearly in our video which is why we liked this name for one of our songs.

5. Broken Glass
Another key idea that was featured in our video was the idea of self destruction and destruction towards other people and public places. We featured smashed glass in our video both in the form of a smashed bottle and also a smashed mirror. We used the glass to create an image of destruction and the broken mirror to represent the idea of a "broken man". The words broken glass also have a lot of connotations of danger and pain which is another key idea that is present in our narrative.

6.Recovery
The main idea behind our story line in our video is that the main character eventually finds the strength to get over his addiction and get rid of "the drug", being Laura, our main female lead. We thought that the name 'Recovery' as a song title was quite fitting with this idea that we included in our video because we have created the idea that he then recovers and gets his life back on track.

7. Lone Wolf
We liked this for a song title because we thought that a lone wolf represents independence, but also loneliness to which is something that we feel would also be present for someone with a heavy drug addiction, similar to our main character. Although our main character has "her" for company, the whole idea is that she isn't real which isn't as fulfilling as a real person being there. The idea is also that he is addicted to the drugs because he doesn't like being on his own, and when he is high, she is there with him. This idea of loneliness works really well here, and the idea of independence that goes along with the title 'Lone Wolf' is completely contradicted which creates a bit of a metaphorical oxymoron.

8. On Fire
This song name idea came to us when we were thinking about the destructive element of our video. We have a key shot in the video where our main character is using a lighter and "she" appears next to him in the light of the flame. Although this doesn't directly relate to something being on fire, we thought about the fact that if something is on fire, it isn't going to be salvageable. Quite like the idea that someone who is self destructing so much, like our main character in the video, is also not salvageable.

9. AWOL
AWOL stands for Absence Without Leave. We thought this related quite well to our narrative concept in the video because our main character would be AWOL from his life pretty much all of the time due to his drug addiction. Substance abuse takes people away from reality and we created this idea in our video and so we thought that this song title also fitted in well with this idea.

10. Hallucinations
This song title idea was more of an obvious one for us to come up with. The whole story behind our video is someone having hallucinations of a person due to drug abuse. We thought that this was also quite a good title for a song in the rock genre that we have gone for in choosing a Fall Out Boy song.

11. Corruption
We came up with this song title because we feel that our main character in our music video has been corrupted by his drug use. The Wikipedia definition states that 'Corruption is a form of dishonest or unethical conduct by a person entrusted with a position of authority, often to acquire personal benefit.' We think that this fits in well with our theme and narrative because our main character does show unethical conduct and it is involving acquiring personal benefit.

12. Relapse
We decided on this as a name of one of our songs because our relapse scene is probably the most important scene in our whole video as this is where the audience realises that she isn't real and they understand what was happening throughout the whole video. We thought that this would make a really good final track for our album as a result of how important this moment was in the video.

Overall, we are really happy with how our digipak looks in general and we are also really happy with the track list. We think we have related it really clearly to the main ideology in our video which has worked out very well for us.

Using Photoshop To Manipulate Digipak Images

When creating our digipak we had to manipulate the photo's and font in Photoshop to create the mood for the album that we wanted. The mood we wanted to create was quite dark and gloomy but also a little bit seductive and presenting female power. The first photo we manipulated was the picture of the lips

We used a mask to hide everything but the lips. The we brightened the teeth to make them appear whiter, and adjusted the brightness and saturation to create the perfect shade of red that we thought looked nicest. We then placed the lips without a background on to the CD.  

For the front cover image, we needed to darken it to make it look more as if it was taken jsut before dawn, after a night out. We adjusted the brightness to make it darker but discovered by doing this it appeared that the toes started glowing red. To distinguish this problem we used two layers (one the original photo and one the darkened.) Then by adjusting how much of the original image we saw of the toe's, we made it so that they weren't too light but also not glowing.

To create our font we picked a script font and then using a mask we removed bits we didn't want to include and drew in more swirly bits to create a smokey affect. Then we used the smudge tool to make the font look as if it was smoke fading off.