Dear Moderator,

This blog belongs to:

Paul Gilfoyle, who worked with Scott Fletcher-Dobson and Jake Davies

Thank you for taking the time to take a look at our blog, it is a result of 5 months of hard work and it showcases the stages of development that we went trough as a group in order to create our music video and ancillary texts to the best possible standard. The three stages we went through were planning, research and production, all of these stages are shown through text, images, videos and presentations.

Regards,

Paul, Scott and Jake

Final Music Video

This is the final cut of our music video. We have responded to the feedback we were given on our second rough cut in order to get the best out of the video. One issue that was pointed out with our rough cut is that a certain shot was too hard and it was hard to read the wanted poster, making the meaning of the narrative unclear to the audience; We designed an improved a wanted poster that was easier to read and added more lighting to the setting and re-shot those parts. We then edited the new shots in a new layer over the old ones, making sure our match on action was still present. With the new footage, one part of it was inappropriate and with our own initiative we created a censor image to go over the top of the taboo footage. There was an issue with one of the shots being too long. Over the breakdown, the lead vocalist and the bassist are shouting the lyrics at each other and it is one continuous shot for almost a minute. This is an issue as it is the fastest part of the song and therefore should have more shots cut to the beat. We have resolved this issue by editing a lot more shots into that part, so that the shots change to the beat. There is a drum roll towards the start of the song and we have added a lot more shots into that as that is another really fast part of the song so its taking the thought beats into account. Another piece of criticism we got was that some of the shots were too similar and repetitive, we changed this by adding more shots and angles to go along with the song and also taking the thought beats into account such as the breakdown as i have shown earlier, we have took different shots and angles of them singing and then as the music gets faster the editing to different shots gets faster also and eventually ends up with close-ups so the audience didn't get bored of the same shots as shown in the feedback. So all in all our final cut has taken into account all of the criticism that was given by our peers and teaching body and adapted it to our finalized product to create a well structured, funny and appealing music video.

Final Magazine Advert

The magazine advert was not as time consuming to make as the digipak, but equally effective. The aim of the advert is to interest the target audience and potential fan's attention, and I thought it was important to capture the same essence as the digipak, which is why I included the same plain white background. I also used the images for the band name and album title; I wanted the theme to stay very close to the digipak, and as these are the biggest pieces of text, it was vital that they were the same. I used the photo of the band members with their arms crossed in this also, not to remain continuity, but because it was best suited. The photo looked the most professional and represented each band member as equals, as well as fitting perfectly above the text. The small description is the key selling point and is multi-functional as it lets readers know that it is a good album, and what genre it is etc. The 'OUT NOW' is there to replace the release date and inform the reader that the album it already out and can be bought in shops. This is also a vital piece of text, hence the large bold font. The small features at the bottom give the digipak a realistic feel as they are the features that most magazine adverts contain nowadays. As facebook is the largest current social networking site in the world, it is vital that the band would promote themselves and their album via facebook, which is why I have included the link at the bottom of the digipak. The smartphone barcode is also a vital part of modern technology if the band want to keep up with other competitors within their genre. I think that the theme of the advert suits the music video and digipak perfectly whilst still maintaining the unique features of a modern day magazine advert.

Final Digipak

This is the digipak we have designed via photoshop to go along with our music videos. In order to make our digipak look professional, we decided to have a band photoshoot rather than just use screenshots from our video. After our photoshoot, the next step was to find a digipak outline on google images that we could use. Once we had the outline, we thought it best to start on the front cover of the digipak as it is the first thing the audience would see. We used the website 'dafont.com' to find appropriate fonts for the band name and album title, we then used screenshots of the text and imported them into photoshop. 'The Automatic' was filled in with the same blue as the cookie monster in order to link the style with the video. We used the same fonts on the spine with a cookie separating the band name and album title, this again linked our digipak with our music video narrative. The next step on our front cover was to include some photos from our band photo-shoot, this would keep the CD cover looking original and unique. We includes a shot of each band member holding a frame and pulling a face, using the quick selection tool to delete the background. The back cover was the most complex part of our digipak; we included a shot of the band sat on a couch, but most of the background had to be deleted using the rubber as the quick selection tool wasn't accurate enough. We also had to reduce the opacity by a considerable amount so that it didn't overpower and take attention away from the track listing above. The track listing was also time consuming as it was difficult to decide on a suitable font that was comical and suited the light hearted theme of the digipak, as well as fit the longer song titles on the page. The font I chose was again taken from 'dafont.com'. The most difficult part was fitting the correct copyright information, logos and barcode onto the bottom of the page without it looking cramped and jumbled; but I think we have chosen the right arrangement and it looks pretty realistic. We decided to leave the CD holder side blank as we didn't want it to look over crowded when the disc was in, we wanted a contrast as the CD is designed to look like a cookie (again linking the digipak to our music video narrative.) The other sides are unedited photos of the band from the photoshoot with a clear background, this idea took influence from the booklet that comes with Lostprophet's 'Liberation Transmission' Album. This band are of a similar genre and the booklet includes photos of the band with a plain background, but it looks very effective. The first side that will show when the Digipak is opened will be the one with the four band members stood with their arms crossed. I think this creates a good effect as it is different to other band shots and looks good on its own. The photo of the band crouched down and the other photo of the band on the couch take up a similar amount of space and make the digipak look quite symetrical as well as filling the digipak out to make up for the plain center. Overall I think the simple but effective colour scheme and use of images such as cookies put a young and almost immature feel on the album cover, which will appeal to the teen audience.

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1 on Prezi

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation question 2

View more PowerPoint from SFDobson94

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 4 on Prezi

Q.3 Script

What have you learnt from you audience feedback?

Feedback from our target audience has had a great impact on the final edit of the music video. After uploading our second rough cut in November, we received feedback from peers in the class. The aim of this task was to find out what improvements could be made when it comes to making our final video. The feedback we got was...

1. Some shots were too dark - This was a big issue as the wanted poster was hard to read, and if the audience couldn't understand what it was, they probably wouldn't understand the rest of our narrative, thus effecting the rest of the music video. We resolved this by re-shooting this part of the video with better lighting and a new wanted poster that was clearer and easier to read, as well as looking more realistic.

2. Some shots are too long - Some of the songs lasted too long and seemed to drag as they were not cut to every beat. We resolved this by including more of the performance shots and cutting between them more often, also using thought beat to improve the effect of the performance.

3. A lot of shots seem quite repetitive - We had not included enough variety in our performance shots and this was noticeable to our target audience. We resolved this for our final edit by including more of the band shots that hadn't been used much in the rough cuts.

Stuart Hall came up with the reception theory, he stated that meanings and products are encoded by the producer, and decoded by the audience. There is a lack of fit between the two and there is four possible readings that can be made; dominant, negotiated, oppositional and aberrant. Within our text, we aimed to encode one possible meaning. We aimed to create a humorous narrative that would reflect the lyrics of the song. We found through our audience feedback that our audience agreed with our dominant reading, for example, we received comments on our final edit from members of our target audience. We did this by posting the video on social networking site facebook, where the highest percentage of users are teenagers (our target audience) we requested constructive feedback and hopes for positive comments as well as areas for improvement.

Kieran Morris said that the variety of shots works well within the genre, that the narrative is clear, well thought out and engaging, and that the instrument syncing is done well. He said that he really liked the elliptical edit at 2:06, and the shots that go from 2:38 to 3:05 as they work very well with the music and look nice. He finished by saying that the final shot (p.o.v of the cookie monster getting caught in the net) was unique, well thought out and a good way of ending the song.

Andy Naisbitt said that the video was great, although the lip syncing was off at the start, all of the instruments were synced; this shows that you have to make sure your lead singer is good at singing/mouthing the words at the correct pace, as well as making sure you can edit the footage perfectly to the music. Being successful at both of these can prove difficult. He also said that the cookie monster was great; this shows that he enjoyed the costume and the humorous side of the narrative that this particular character brought out.

Helen Dawber said that the lip syncing is of a good standard and has been edited in time with the song (this contrasts with our last piece of feedback, which shows that it is always good to gain feedback from more than one person, this will improve the validity.) There is alot of meat shots of the lead singer (this was intentional and i'm glad that it has been noticed by an audience member as it is a convention of most music videos.) However, she also pointed out that the camera lacks movement and can make the video seem quite dull. After looking back at our footage, we realised that this was an issue, however we did not have time to book out more cameras and do it again, so we decided to make the best of the shots available.

Daniel Scott said that there was a good use of thought beat within the intro of the song. This was something we worked hard on Perfecting and i am glad that it is a part that stands out to our audience members. He said that we had a good storyline that kept him intrigued throughout, this shows again that our narrative was amusing and gripped the audience. However, he also said that the shot of the cookie monster running away was too long and could be broken down with some band shots which is a fair point as that is the longest shot in the video. He finished by saying that the effects used are really good; this could refer to the thought beats used and the speech bubble that has been edited onto the video.

Daman Dixon said that there was good syncing on the instruments; this point has been brought up before, meaning that the good instrument syncing must be a part of the video that stands out. He also said that there was an effective use of shot reverse shot at 2:52, aswell as matching some jump cuts at 2:06. He said that the narrative was very amusing and suited the song well, this was the intention we made the video with, so it's good that the audience definitely agree with our dominant reading.

Lois Burke said that there is a wide range of shots and you can tell a lot of time and effort has gone into making it, yet the end result looks effortless. This means that the video has been well-received by the audience and looks professional. By saying that the video is amusing and kept her attention again supports the fact that the audience agree with our dominant reading by understanding the humorous narrative that connects with the song lyrics. Her one criticism is that the shots of us preparing to ambush the cookie monster are too dark. This shows that we could have re-shot more shots than we did to improve the audience viewing pleasure.

The feedback shows that most of the audience members enjoyed the video and therefore agree with our dominant reading, however, there are some improvements that could be made. Getting feedback from our target audience has improved our knowledge on producing music videos and what is expected from this particular genre; it has came to my attention that the key aspects people look out for are costume, props, setting, and lip and instrument syncing.

Band Merchandise

This is our band merchandise and has come in the form of a band t-shirt, using the theme colour blue of our company logo and the wanted poster of our music video of the cookie monster i have created a t-shirt to with our album and advert It will be on a white and black t-shirts so its a variety. It will go on sale shortly and will be disputed to the UK from 1st March, it is a leading song from the Automatic's recent album 'Monster' which is called Monster to co-inside with the album and music video. This is only a release of the t-shirt and only will be on sale for a limited time only.