For our music video task we chose the song An Oak Tree by Get Cape Wear Cape Fly. We chose this song because it immediately stood out to us because we had already discussed ideas for our music video. We decided to do an animation music video straight away because we thought this would be a great way to develop our computer skills and try something different. Once deciding on animation we then had to choose a song, we chose this song because once listening to it we thought it would link well with our original ideas. We also thought, because we would use graphic style on all three of our products, this would make our Digi Pack and Magazine advert stand out.
By looking at other media products we discovered conventions of other media products. For the music video, we watched a lot of animated music videos and adverts such as the Ben and Jerry’s adverts and Car Wash by Christina Aguilera. Both of these included some non animated features, however in our music video we chose to have the whole thing animation. By deciding on animation in our music video this challenges the convention of a music video because after looking at some music videos there was a small percentage that were animation. In the video we chose to link the music and the visuals because this would give more of an impact and the animated visuals would explain to the audience what the song is about. The song is fast paced however we chose to make the visuals slowly flow together because we thought this would be more effective. For the Digi Pack, we looked at a lot of famous artists DVD covers such as Madonna, Michael Jackson and Beyonce to see what their covers included. We found them to include a barcode, DVD logo, running time, track list, a production logo and a lot of colour. To follow the conventions, we used these on our Digi Pack. On our Digi Pack we used the font Biro in black; we thought this font looked good because it looked more like an indie Digi Pack, than just looking like something for a child. The image of the band on the font of our Digi Pack is a photo which has been adapted to look like a tree, this was done on paint. By making the image look half drawn it shows what to expect in the music video, and that because the song is called An Oak Tree by creating the image to look like an oak tree it shows that our video is going to be linked to the lyrics of the song. For the Magazine advert, we again looked at other magazine adverts to get an idea of what to include in ours if we were to follow conventions. By looking at other magazine adverts we found them to include a source for more information, a quote from an artist or newspaper, large bold font and a lot of different colours, other than the majority of magazine adverts were very different. To follow the conventions we decided to use most of the things a magazine advert would include. We used a quote from a radio station, large, bold font to show that the video is out now and a website for people who wanted more information. For the images on the front of the advert we used an image of the band and some drawn animals. By using the animals created on Photoshop again we created the graphic style to the advert.
The genre of the song is indie so by doing something different and not something you would expect to find in an indie video we would expect the video to appeal to a wider audience. A lot of indie music videos are of the band performing and there is a lot going on, however to challenge conventions we chose to use a simple idea and not include the band in the video at all. In our video we created a nostalgic feeling for the audience so that our video would not only appeal to indie music fans but to people who liked the video.
By making all of our media products similar it links them all and makes it obvious what the song is and promotes a clear identity of the band. Our song is called An Oak Tree and the video we created included an oak tree, so by using an earthy colour scheme on the ancillary texts all three products are related to each other. To link the ancillary texts we used the same image on both, however by having one original image and one image that has been transformed, it makes the ancillary texts look abstract and surreal. Drawn animals used on the front of the magazine advert were originally used in the video and the background of the Digi Pack was also originally used in the video. On the two ancillary products a similar font was used, this may be the typical font for the band so that the band is recognised or it could be just the font of the three products for the song An Oak Tree, therefore either the song or the band is identified. By using the same or similar features on the three products it makes it easy for the audience to distinguish An Oak Tree by Get Cape Wear Cape Fly next to other artists. The audience also may recognise characteristics from the products such as seeing the animals on the magazine advert and then seeing them in the video.
From other people watching and looking at our products throughout the construction stages and the final pieces we received a lot of feedback. Feedback can distinguish between success and failure. Creating a music video which attracts an audience is essential. Whether the target audience likes or dislikes the products is the most important factor because if the target audience doesn’t like the products then the products will not be successful. For our music video and ancillary products we received very helpful feedback because it included positive comments but also some constructive criticism. Throughout the construction stages whenever get received feedback we would take what the audience had said on board and adapt our products. We received feedback on our final music video, magazine advert, digi pack, rough-cut video and blog. Feedback on the blog was especially important because our planning stages were included on here and our main ideas so by getting feedback on this we could modify our plans to the audience’s preferences. After the final products were completed there was a range of feedback. Positive comments were that its unique, stands out over other music videos, the visuals matched the lyrics and the ancillary products tie in well with the video. We did receive some negative feedback which was that we should have used the image from the music video of the oak tree on the two ancillary products and the font should have been the same on the two ancillary products. If we had more time we would have used these negative comments to change our products. Feedback is really important in this kind of industry, market testing takes place before the video and ancillary products are released so that it can be determined whether the products are going to be successful, or a failure. After market testing, if the products do not appeal to the target audience then construction stages will have to commence to get the video to appeal to the target audience.
There are a range of new media technologies now available, however this was not always so. Anyone now can make a music video using the different technologies and they have been designed to be democratic so it wouldn’t take long for beginners to learn. The advantages of having new media technologies is that anyone who has a limited or a lot of knowledge of computers would be able to use the applications without much of a struggle. Also there is now a lot more you can do on these technologies than you could do 20 years ago, such as make an animated video using an application called Final Cut Express. However the disadvantages of new media products are that it’s quite hard to access of computers which have these technologies and buying a new computer with these new applications could become expensive.
When producing our music video we used Final Cut Express and Photoshop. We created the individual images on Photoshop and then imported them onto Final Cut Express to fit them together and animate them. Animating out images was the most time consuming part of creating all three of our products, this was because once animating these images we then had to wait for our video to render so that we could watch the animation to see if it looked good.
As a group didn’t really have a wide knowledge of how to use the new media technologies so in the planning stages of our products we put some time aside to develop our skills on the media technologies we were planning to use so that time wouldn’t be wasted on struggling to produce each media product, however at this point we did not realise how much time we would need to render the video because it was animation. Throughout the construction stages of our video a lot of the time was spent waiting for the video to render so that we could watch it. The longest time needed to render was 4 hours. However we discovered that you can render the video in a poorer quality which was quicker so less time was wasted and then when converting the video into QuickTime it would automatically render our video in a better quality. We used the internet to research our band and the conventions of other media products. A lot of information can be retrieved from the internet so this was helpful in the research stages. To get more information about the band we e-mailed them however disappointingly they didn’t reply, but we hope that they enjoy our products.
Overall, the planning and constructing of all three of our media products went as well as it could have gone considering the amount of time we had. If we were to do this task again I think that we would think more about the time needed to create and render an animated music video. Also I think if we had known that it would take a long time to render our video we would have used this time more efficiently creating our ancillary products. If we had more time then we would have made sure our music video was as good as it could have been by rendering the final piece so that we could check it instead of rushing and just Quick Timing it without watching it first. Animation and creating a graphic effect was a challenging task for us but as a group we are happy with our final products which we had put a lot of time and effort into.
By looking at other media products we discovered conventions of other media products. For the music video, we watched a lot of animated music videos and adverts such as the Ben and Jerry’s adverts and Car Wash by Christina Aguilera. Both of these included some non animated features, however in our music video we chose to have the whole thing animation. By deciding on animation in our music video this challenges the convention of a music video because after looking at some music videos there was a small percentage that were animation. In the video we chose to link the music and the visuals because this would give more of an impact and the animated visuals would explain to the audience what the song is about. The song is fast paced however we chose to make the visuals slowly flow together because we thought this would be more effective. For the Digi Pack, we looked at a lot of famous artists DVD covers such as Madonna, Michael Jackson and Beyonce to see what their covers included. We found them to include a barcode, DVD logo, running time, track list, a production logo and a lot of colour. To follow the conventions, we used these on our Digi Pack. On our Digi Pack we used the font Biro in black; we thought this font looked good because it looked more like an indie Digi Pack, than just looking like something for a child. The image of the band on the font of our Digi Pack is a photo which has been adapted to look like a tree, this was done on paint. By making the image look half drawn it shows what to expect in the music video, and that because the song is called An Oak Tree by creating the image to look like an oak tree it shows that our video is going to be linked to the lyrics of the song. For the Magazine advert, we again looked at other magazine adverts to get an idea of what to include in ours if we were to follow conventions. By looking at other magazine adverts we found them to include a source for more information, a quote from an artist or newspaper, large bold font and a lot of different colours, other than the majority of magazine adverts were very different. To follow the conventions we decided to use most of the things a magazine advert would include. We used a quote from a radio station, large, bold font to show that the video is out now and a website for people who wanted more information. For the images on the front of the advert we used an image of the band and some drawn animals. By using the animals created on Photoshop again we created the graphic style to the advert.
The genre of the song is indie so by doing something different and not something you would expect to find in an indie video we would expect the video to appeal to a wider audience. A lot of indie music videos are of the band performing and there is a lot going on, however to challenge conventions we chose to use a simple idea and not include the band in the video at all. In our video we created a nostalgic feeling for the audience so that our video would not only appeal to indie music fans but to people who liked the video.
By making all of our media products similar it links them all and makes it obvious what the song is and promotes a clear identity of the band. Our song is called An Oak Tree and the video we created included an oak tree, so by using an earthy colour scheme on the ancillary texts all three products are related to each other. To link the ancillary texts we used the same image on both, however by having one original image and one image that has been transformed, it makes the ancillary texts look abstract and surreal. Drawn animals used on the front of the magazine advert were originally used in the video and the background of the Digi Pack was also originally used in the video. On the two ancillary products a similar font was used, this may be the typical font for the band so that the band is recognised or it could be just the font of the three products for the song An Oak Tree, therefore either the song or the band is identified. By using the same or similar features on the three products it makes it easy for the audience to distinguish An Oak Tree by Get Cape Wear Cape Fly next to other artists. The audience also may recognise characteristics from the products such as seeing the animals on the magazine advert and then seeing them in the video.
From other people watching and looking at our products throughout the construction stages and the final pieces we received a lot of feedback. Feedback can distinguish between success and failure. Creating a music video which attracts an audience is essential. Whether the target audience likes or dislikes the products is the most important factor because if the target audience doesn’t like the products then the products will not be successful. For our music video and ancillary products we received very helpful feedback because it included positive comments but also some constructive criticism. Throughout the construction stages whenever get received feedback we would take what the audience had said on board and adapt our products. We received feedback on our final music video, magazine advert, digi pack, rough-cut video and blog. Feedback on the blog was especially important because our planning stages were included on here and our main ideas so by getting feedback on this we could modify our plans to the audience’s preferences. After the final products were completed there was a range of feedback. Positive comments were that its unique, stands out over other music videos, the visuals matched the lyrics and the ancillary products tie in well with the video. We did receive some negative feedback which was that we should have used the image from the music video of the oak tree on the two ancillary products and the font should have been the same on the two ancillary products. If we had more time we would have used these negative comments to change our products. Feedback is really important in this kind of industry, market testing takes place before the video and ancillary products are released so that it can be determined whether the products are going to be successful, or a failure. After market testing, if the products do not appeal to the target audience then construction stages will have to commence to get the video to appeal to the target audience.
There are a range of new media technologies now available, however this was not always so. Anyone now can make a music video using the different technologies and they have been designed to be democratic so it wouldn’t take long for beginners to learn. The advantages of having new media technologies is that anyone who has a limited or a lot of knowledge of computers would be able to use the applications without much of a struggle. Also there is now a lot more you can do on these technologies than you could do 20 years ago, such as make an animated video using an application called Final Cut Express. However the disadvantages of new media products are that it’s quite hard to access of computers which have these technologies and buying a new computer with these new applications could become expensive.
When producing our music video we used Final Cut Express and Photoshop. We created the individual images on Photoshop and then imported them onto Final Cut Express to fit them together and animate them. Animating out images was the most time consuming part of creating all three of our products, this was because once animating these images we then had to wait for our video to render so that we could watch the animation to see if it looked good.
As a group didn’t really have a wide knowledge of how to use the new media technologies so in the planning stages of our products we put some time aside to develop our skills on the media technologies we were planning to use so that time wouldn’t be wasted on struggling to produce each media product, however at this point we did not realise how much time we would need to render the video because it was animation. Throughout the construction stages of our video a lot of the time was spent waiting for the video to render so that we could watch it. The longest time needed to render was 4 hours. However we discovered that you can render the video in a poorer quality which was quicker so less time was wasted and then when converting the video into QuickTime it would automatically render our video in a better quality. We used the internet to research our band and the conventions of other media products. A lot of information can be retrieved from the internet so this was helpful in the research stages. To get more information about the band we e-mailed them however disappointingly they didn’t reply, but we hope that they enjoy our products.
Overall, the planning and constructing of all three of our media products went as well as it could have gone considering the amount of time we had. If we were to do this task again I think that we would think more about the time needed to create and render an animated music video. Also I think if we had known that it would take a long time to render our video we would have used this time more efficiently creating our ancillary products. If we had more time then we would have made sure our music video was as good as it could have been by rendering the final piece so that we could check it instead of rushing and just Quick Timing it without watching it first. Animation and creating a graphic effect was a challenging task for us but as a group we are happy with our final products which we had put a lot of time and effort into.
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