evaluation

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

The video we created sticks to the conventions of most music videos in this genre. We have the band scene, which conforms to the videos we researched including the actual video for Bring Me To Life by Evanescence. The story line we used is similar to the one used in the Bring me to life video where she is also in a dream world. The long, elaborate story is also similar to videos such as the Tool videos and Michael Jacksons’ Thriller.

Parts of our video switch between the band scene and Alice’s nightmare. This conforms to other media products that will often switch between an artist and the action.

We are also in our own video which is popular amongst most artists and only very few videos do not feature the artist in them. In this sense we conformed to the conventions.

We challenge the conventions by using a title screen and introducing our song in similar way too a film. This is rarely seen and the music videos are usually introduced by subtitling on the television.

The bulk of our video is of Alice’s dream world which is not usual for videos as they usually have flashes of the band in short intervals of the storyline although we decided we would have the main part of our video being the dream world instead as we felt it was more interesting for the viewer.

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

We felt that for our ancillary tasks, the digi pak and Website, we needed to keep a common theme amongst them in order to show that we can create product recognition and that when people saw our website or digi pak it would be linked with our video.

In our music video we used a title screen in a cream colour to keep the effective gothic look. In order to keep the same look we decided to use cream card and make it look old fashioned in a similar way to the video. We also used blue ribbon to match with the blue of Alice’s dress. The artwork on the digi pak is also matched to the music video. It’s also related to the original Alice in Wonderland drawings.

The booklet in the digi pak is also old-fashioned looking and is actually tea stained to give the right effect. I t contains the lyrics to the music video and our thank yous.

Our website is again following the blue Alice theme and sticks to the same gothic conventions as our music video. It also has our video on and pictures of when we were filming and screen shots of the actual finished video.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We posted our video on YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook in order to gain audience feed back. It was also passed around the school via teachers and a showing we did in an assembly. The feedback we received has been mainly good and the comments on YouTube have all been positive. Although its nice to hear that your work is good its also difficult to improve as constructive criticism would of helped us change our video for the better.

The only bad feedback we received was a dislike on YouTube, this doesn’t help us though as its anonymous and no comment was left.

This meant that we had to criticise our own work, which isn’t always easy as we created it and found it hard to find faults with our work.

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

For our research we used the Macs to access the Internet using YouTube and other websites such as artist sites and Google.

To find a song to use and video ideas we used band websites and YouTube to find examples of their work to find what style we could take ideas from.

We drew our storyboards by hand then scanned them onto the Macs and added them to Blogger in order to follow them wherever we where as we had access to mobile internet.

When we started to film we used a HD camera to shoot as the quality was better than the cameras we used last year when HD was not available to the public easily. We also used an IPod to get the lip sync in time while we were filming. We plugged in the instruments we used into amps just in case it was visible on camera.

When we edited our film we used iMovie and Garage Band to add the music and change things we needed to change. We also had to cut out things and re-arrange them, as things aren’t filmed in order and to cut it down to the right time.

We used Facebook, YouTube, Blogger and Vimeo to post our video on the Internet and get some audience feedback.

I also used Blogger to post my blogs of the full duration of our media project.

website

We decided to make a website as one of our ancillary taks as it seemed the most creative and up to date. http://www.wix.com/a2medianewacademy/a2-media-coursework#! This is the link to our website.

While we all were involved in the 3 tasks we mainly had our individual jobs as Paul was most experienced in this area he did most of the technical side and me and Zoe did the designs.

We decided to go with the blue theme for Alice's dress. We decided to put on lots of pictures of our time filming and also print screens of our finished video to show the link of the video and ancillary tasks.

This is the home page:

The 'media' page:

The 'Merchandise' page:

and the gallery:

Digi pak

We decided that we wanted to make a physical prototype of our digi pak. We looked at various digi paks made by other bands in a similar genre to ours.

Pearl Jam - black & white vs colour

Machine Head - The red case gave the us the idea of using a blue case and so inspired our work.

Evanescense - This shows where we got the patterning from and the colouring for both the digi pak and the title screen of the music video.

Atreyu -The pull out case is how we made our digi pak we also used the idea of there being the bad counterparts of our characters on the inside.

The blue disc holder and ribbons were to show the Alice in wonderland type song and video and keep all our media product similar so you can tell its all from the same people.

To make it we used nets of our product and then glued it together. i thought that stitching the pocket to hold the booklet fit with our blue and cream theme and kept with the weird twists that our work shows. We had a problem with the disc holder as it wouldn't stick because it was too heavy. we decided to also stitch this bit into place to keep it on.

Here is our finished product:

...and finally

We finished :) Heres our video:

Editing :)

The first obvious edit is the title, which introduces the video in a typical Gothic patterning. we chose the stained background to make it seem older in style.

The edit between me and Paul was made to be as i went to head bang you see Paul in the same position as i was and then continues my action (sort of as Paul found headbanging difficult).

The fade between Paul and Zoe was a fade to make it seem as though the move between them is seamless.

We chose a jump cut between the band scene and Zoe in the park as it showed there was a clear difference between the places and what was happening.

When turning over the Piriton box we used a wipe edit in the same direction as the box turned in order to show the 'May Cause Drowsiness'.

We thought that through this bit jump cuts looked the best in order to not break up the sequence

too much.

Changing Zoe into Alice showed a zoom transition edit which helped the change to be almost magical. To make it look like Zoe was still in the same place but had just changed we needed to do this.

After the disorientated look around we did a fade to the caterpiller showing Alice had walked around and found somewhere to sit. We put in a close up of dans face between Zoe sitting down and running to make this scene more interesting. it showed that the caterpiller wasnt happy about being sat on and gave a reason why the caterpiller wasnt in the rest of the music video.

The cheshire cat part shows me with quick jump cuts where i move quicly to make me seem less normal and less human. This technique is used in many horror films and adds a creepy effect.

All of this part is slightly sped up to agfain create a feeling as though something just isnt right.

Making the cheshire cat disappear and re appear was simple by just placing me behing zoe and then cutting out the parts where i walk into shot etc.

The cut back to Zoe was to reming the audience that the band were still practicing and breaks up the long Alice in Wonderland sequence. It also introduces the next part of the video where the Hatter is introduced.

The next bit is all the characters having a tea party the jump cuts make it feel like a dream land as in dreams often bits are missed out although you know whats happened.

When Alice throws the cup the slight movement of all the charaacters shows them brace up and show the tension between the characters.

Zoe runs out of shot and then the scene moves back to the band where me and paul are doing a bit of a duet.

After this part the shot moves to a mid shot of me changing into the creature. We kept my head out of shot as i had the other make up on already. This was sped up to make it more nightmarish and unreal.

It then cuts to me on the floor looking up, we repeated this movement to re-enforce the change and creepiness.

we then did an upwards pan of paul looking up on showing his own tranformation.

I then crawl towards zoe this was made much faster as i had to crawl slowly to avoid hurting myself. This made the scene even more creepy and showed that we had used the conventions of typical horror films.

After Alice fell i climbed up her and then we cut to Zoe struggling on the bench. This was the end of the edits.

Final Shoooooooot!!!!! :D :D :D :D

Another shoot at west park and another cold day... Why cant you examiners change this to be done in the summer? D: Anyway, the first thing we did in the morning was make sure we had everything we needed. I had the the grudge style creatures make up and costume on but wore the Cheshire Cats costume over the top so i could transform when i was at the park. We decided that this would be our first scene and we set to doing a shot of me climbing out of my cat skin and revealing a hideous creature. luckily for this I didn't have to keep a straight face; the make up i had on was hidden by my hair so we didn't have to re-apply my make up in the park. We started to shoot me walking after zoe with the hatter following. We soon realised that a edited crawl would be must scarier and fitting with the fact that I was still supposed to be a cat in some sense. However this was rather painful so short bursts were all that i could manage. The price of bruised knees were nothing compared to the result. With countless people commenting on how scary I looked in the shot I think we accomplished what we set out to. Next up it was Paul's turn to change he managed to change his clothes in the park and we thought a shot of him sitting would look effective. I did this shot and followed his head as he looked up smiling to reveal the dark make up and changed clothing. At this point Zoe did her running shot where we see her running from her perspective this was done by just holding the camera in her eye line as she ran. We had a direction to follow as if we just wondered in an opposite direction to zoe the edit wouldn't fit. Me and paul then wondered after zoe and filmed the chase. Part of the filming was shot in pauls view looking down at me and showing i'm still cat like. The shot after this was Alice running away but realsing she doesnt really know which way to go. Somewhere between this and the attack where i crawl up zoe she obviously fell and so we didnt feel we needed to show her falling. this wraped up that days filming ^^. finishing was amazing and getting out the cold was even better.

Shooting in Patsull Park

We needed a separate location for the parts outside which were separate to the dream. We live near a park and decided that we could use the location. I brought my dog (Prince) along, probably not the wisest decisions ever. After I had established to Prince that the tripod was not a chew toy we set up the shot of Zoe on the bench.

We positioned the tripod and started the camera, Zoe got into position and sat on the bench with the cheese and Piriton (allergy) tablets. I then moved the camera behind zoe and made it seem as though she was looking at the box and the all important point of "May Cause Drowsiness" We then did the shot of Zoe eating the cheese, and as our earlier research shows its known to cause strange dreams which is why it is important within our video although not vital.

I did the shot of Zoe on the bench in normal clothes like i did in west park as i knew the movement and have the steadiest hands. While she was still lying down on the bench we shot her 'wake up' scene where she is flapping about trying to attack the dream creature. this is when me and paul walk into shot. We used the tripod to set up shot and shouted action while out of shot to be able to distinguish where the scene begins when editing... another dilemma prince also wanted to be in the shot and kept walking into shot with us. To solve this I sent him chasing some birds (which he would never catch) to give us enough time to shoot the scene.

Finally, after around an hour and a half we finished up and when home half frozen. Another day of good filming.

Here's a short video of Prince :)

Alice IS In Wonderland

West Park is a central park in Wolverhampton.

On a freezing cold Saturday, with wind that pushed the cold right through you, we decided to film the wonderland parts of our music video. Seeing as it is supposed to quite dark the weather worked quite well. The contrast of the green grass to the grey sky made the whole thing seem a little more surreal, although this was just a coincidence it re-affirmed the reasons we chose west park.

We chose to film the cheshire cat bit first and had placed the camera in the right position on the tripod. Paul shot this scene as me and Zoe were in shot. After half a take we noticed the equipment we were using was in shot... fail! Attempt 2... This went well and only took a few attempts.

After filming this i realised why everyone was happy to let me be the cat... wet knees and feet are not comfortable.

We had planned to shoot the caterpillar scene next but our actor had failed to turn up. Dan a close friend and Zoe's boyfriend kindly stepped up for this part but had to make his way. We decided to film the Mad Hatters part while we waited for dan to arrive.

The long shot of the hatter was done by me and zoe. the tripod was being blown by the wind but we finally got a shot that we were happy with and gave the right effect for the music video.

After we had filmed this bit, our stand in caterpillar arrived. After a quick break with a trip to the local supermarket and hundreds of weird looks we continued filming. Our next shot was the tea party and seeing as all three of us were in shot we positioned the camera and asked dan to keep an eye on it while we acted through our scene.

We quickly shoved Dan into the sleeping bag and had Zoe sit on him mistaking him as a bench. The separate shot of his angry face took quite a while as we were all laughing at the face he was pulling. Finally, after Grrr couching he pulled the face we needed and we got our shot.

Last but not least we did the birds eye view of zoe on the bench. I did this as i have the steadiest hands and knew how to do the shot.