The final evaluation section

I chose to do the final section of my evaluation whooly by video, which can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGS3fW_Y3PQ

Asking permission

Also this week I emailed the bands record company to ask if I could use the track in my final project.

Evaluation pt. 3, Audience research

As my audience research I showed my coursework in the Sixth Form Common Room and asked for suggestions from my peers, I left them 4 areas to leave their comments on as well as a few short interviews, these are the conclusions I came to;



I also recorded several video interviews, which can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAulY0v9vf0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM-aW_W1F4o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkvdA3989aY

• What did you like about my music video?

A lot of people liked the use of synchronicity in the band shots, their varying length and the use of multiple band members

The effects I used gained a lot of positive comments about the way they looked, how complex and generically suited they were.

Many people felt that the choice of song worked well with the narrative I chose for the pace and aggression.

• What do you feel I could do to improve it?

The lack of a vocalist was the major criticism I received, but this is not something I could have fixed.

Some people felt the band shots had too much digital manipulation in them.

The quality of the footage was also criticised in some ways, but was equally acclaimed because it suited the genre well.

• Would you say it looks like a genuine music video?

The majority of people were of the view that although somewhat amateur, it did look realistic

A lot of comments said that the quality of the footage was what made it look more/less like the real thing

• Do the special effects I used look professional?

ALmost all of the comments about the effects said they looked well executed and professional, but were in places too excessive

The next evaluation point, the use, challenge and development of similar texts

For this section I will look at the way in which my music video uses, follows, challenges and develops conventions of the metal video genre.

an example of a real metal video for comparing with my main task is Laid to Rest by Lamb Of God; www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOWB6rmSd4I

The whole ideological concept for my music video follows the main convention of music videos as a whole, especially rock and metal videos, in its splitting of narrative and instrumental/band shots. The video, much like the example I chose, splits between a story-style narrative and band shots which are for the most part separate.

The band shots in my main task are shot in dingy, run-down and grotty locations, another convention of the genre, as shown by the example I used. Many rock and metal videos use a warehouse or other run down area for the band shots to add to the gritty nature of the music itself. I chose to use a mixture of warehouse and outdoor shots to develop the convention of using that type of location and trying to connotate interweaving with the narrative shots.

I further messed with this idea by using a similar enviroment inmy narrative shots in that they are all shot in an enviroment with similar characteristics. The narrative itself is also used in following several conventions found in similar texts. The whole narrative follows a single story, in my case and the example I chose, a chase. This was a choice which followed the conventions because it meant the fast editing and violent connotatiosn associated with the genre of music I chose fitted well together. I chose to have something of an ambiguous ending to the video, but also a sense of closure, as is the case in many similar texts, although not in the example I used.

So, overall, I chose to take a mixed approach to following, developing and challenging the codes and conventions of the genre in my main task.

The first of the evaluation questions (the boring one)

How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary tasks?

My ancillary tasks all had a recurring theme of a charred, almost old and rusty skull on a rusty metal type background. This could be a combination with my music video because the setting for my narrative and band shots were also in somewhat similar, rusty, suburban areas. This use of rusty, dingy and neglected areas and textures is something of a heavy metal cliche, an idea which I play on and use in the combination of the tasks.

The use of cliches of the genre is also important in assessing the effectiveness of the combination of my main and ancillary tasks. The concept of using a skull as an integral part of my ancillary task, and as part of a heavy metal album advertisment, is a common heavy metal cliche, which is followed on with the style of my music video.

The use of a skull within my ancillary tasks is an important idea because of its connotations and their ties with my main task. The connotations associated with a skull tend to lean towards masculinity and violence, possibly even death. This is effective in that the theme for the whole of my narrative aspect in the main task is a chase scene, which due to the way it is filmed, shares the connotations of violence, and through an all male cast, of masculinity too.

Having tried for 30 minutes to upload the pictures I need for relevant comparison, I havent got anywhere, so I'll move on.

The evaluation begins

The evaluation consists of four main parts;

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

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

·         What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

I'm going to try and make this whole thing as multimedia as I can. Each section I'm going to try and employ a new idea.

For the first section, about how I used codes and conventions I'll use direct comparisons with real music videos as well as writing. I'll look at several real music videos like the ones used in my research, and point out similarities, differences or variations on the conventions.

The second question, about the combination of my main and ancillary tasks I'll take up a mainly text approach, with a few images for the sake of orchestrating a point.

For the section about audience feedback I'll interview the other members of the class, and the sixth form, to get their opinions, and from there have some reflections on their thoughts.

The final section, about the use of media technologies I'm gonna use ScreenFlow and directors commentary to run through the finished product and say what I used to do what parts, and possibly a few 'how I did it' type videos.

As far as the main project goes, with not having internet i'm going to upload it at the weekend, with all the video parts of my evaluation.

This month

All of the last 2 weeks has been spent on my main task, with no time to add any more here (that and I now don't have any internet outside of school, which isn't helpful). In that time I've upped the pace of the editing, played with a few more effects, and done a lot of working on the synchronicity. The main task is now pretty much fully finished, and I'm now gonna start working on the evaluation.

EDIT: I got the main task uploaded, it can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZZ-_DaOEyM

The last few weeks

I havent updated in a long time, far too long in fact. While Mr Dowson was away I've been working on getting the editing faster, and then was trying to get the drumming shots done, and green screening them. The problem is that getting any access to the schools drum kit is moderately more difficult than getting into a bank vault with a toothpick. I'm still waiting to get access, so I'll work on the evaluation until then.

This week

This week I've been trying to organise getting into the music block to get access to the drum kit for re-doing the drumming shots. It looks like I'll be able to get in there on Tuesday to get those, and I'll do a load more guitar shots then too. Mr Dowson is on paternity leave as of next week so while he's gona I'll finishe the edtiing , upload any more images I need to and then get on the evaluation.

This week

This week I've not been particularly able to do very much work. I've had mock exams most days, and no lesson time to work on it. I had planned to do the other guitar shots today, but I was told this morning I had to do another mock, so can't get those sorted yet, but I'll do them next week. I'll also book the music room with the drums in to re-record all of that. Witht hat done I'll do the chromakeying to go with that and then all I need is to finish the editing.

No more lesson time

As of this week, we are moving to almost totally theory based lessons, only spending one a week on coursework. This means I'm somewhat limited to what I can do, because i have a lack of resources at home. I'm working on getting drumming shots, and now that I have another guitar (it arrived today) I'll get a new selection of band shots to play with.

This week

This week I've done more editing on the band shots, and after consultation from Mr Dowson I've had to make the editing a lot quicker. I still need to reshoot drum shots because i lost the original footage I had. Once I have all these shots I'll drop them in and I'll be finishing the editing in the next week or two.

CHromakeying is succesful

I've finished chromakeying all the guitarist band shots, and I'm waiting to get hold of the camera with my drumming ones in to attck those. As far as shots of a vocalist go I chose not to use any because any associated lip syncing would have been difficult because the majority of the vocals for my song choice are screamed vocals, and thus would have been difficult to lip-sync. Over the next week I'll try to chroma the drum footage and then it's just a matter of finalising a few bits and I'm done.

Chromakey

Using a youtube tutorial I'll link below (because Mr. Dowson is away and so I could grasp the ideas) I've taught myself to chromakey in After Effects, so I'll spend tomorrows lesson chromakeying the band shots I have and get them sorted to be added to the video, should all be done fairly soon.
The tutorial I used I'll link below, I chose it because it was the first thing and I had a basic idea of hwo to do it and ho it worked. I used borrowed footage where the green screen wasn't the best quality so the test I made looked messy and a bit crappy but with my better quality footage it should come out better.

This week

Mr Dowson has been ill most of the week, I was ill for 3 days, and in exams for 2, so I've had fairly limited work time. I've managed to do composition work for the majority of the narrative shots I ant to use. I've also got images to chromakey band shots onto, so I'll do some practice chromakey work in the next few days.

Band shots

Today I re-did the band shots and imported the files for them. I re-shot them in the media hut, on the pre-set-up green screen, and they look a lot better than the last set, so I'll be getting a background and doing some chromakey practice work as ell as composition of the final edit over the next week.

Footage

I've spent a few days with Mr Dowson looking over my footage, at any adjustments I need to make etc before the band shots, because I can't do those until tomorrow. He suggested stabilising the footage, but i can only do so much of that due to softwae limitations. On top of that, theslight shake, or extreme shake in the case of a couple of shots I feel adds to the effect of the narrative, and so I'm choosing not to make all my shots perfectly stable, to create a better atmosphere. I'm re-doing a load of band shots tomorrow, and I'll get a backing for green screening them on to over the weekend, dump them in next week and then start cutting it together for the final cut.