Jack Snelling's evaluation Question 4.

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

In our initial research stage we simply used sites like YouTube to look at videos that we liked and analyse what it was that made them successful. With this and Blogger we were able to embed each video into our portfolio so that we could constantly reference back to each video and had a clear log of our process. Other sites we used were Social Networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook. We could see who was following or friends with the artist that we had chosen and then from that find a demographic which we could aim our product at.

When looking at new ways of marketing our product we looked at the rise of Spotify and it's effectiveness in promoting artists. We looked at how the adverts were laid out and what the average Spotify advert sounded like and created our own in response this popular new platform.

For our ancillary texts we used Adobe Photoshop to create all of our promotional artwork, in order to give high quality photo's a vintage look and finish to follow the genre's general aesthetic. This was much easier and reliable than taking actual Polaroid photographs and altering them so they looked vintage, and also wouldn't of been feasible in the time we had.

We used the same program to create our magazine advert, in order to give it that professional high gloss look as if it was actually from a magazine.

In our main product we used many different technologies together to create the effects that we wanted. Using Final Cut Pro we were able to change our HD filmed vintage cinema scene into an olden time silent movie by changing the hue of the footage and also speed it up to add to it's comedic effect. We were also able to use a green-screen to create a realistic looking newsroom without having to leave the actual college. This was extremely useful to us, as it saved us having to find a large space and decorating it to make it look official.

Finally in the heavy metal scene we utilized steadicam to keep as much of the footagee in focus as we could, as this was a scene with last of fast pans and cuts.

Jack Snelling's evaluation Question 3.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When pitching our basic idea to the class we wanted as much feedback as we could we could alter or manage our idea's so that it was as good as it could be and manageable in the time we had.

Initially one thing that did seem to be a potential pitfall was the time constraints put on our slightly ambitious idea.

"You have set yourselves a lot of work to do but it is achievable if the right planning and preparation is made."

"I would think about cutting down the amount of scenes you have as you have a lot to do!"

This made us really think about how we were going to set up each scene, how long each one was going to last, and how many different scenes we were going to do. Later while filming we set up production plans so that we could be as efficient as possible with he time we had. Here is an example of one of them, http://thestentor.blogspot.com/2010/11/251110-production-planning-and-schedule.html.

After producing a rough cut of our music video we showed it to our class as well as other classes to gain a wider scope of feedback and ways to improve. People said that it was difficult to understand the idea of changing television channels and that it did not flow as well as it could. We responded to this by adding a crackle effect between scene changes, which added to it aesthetically as well as making the changes more distinguishable. It also helped people understand what the video was trying to achieve as before it wasn't entirely clear. We also added a short "opening" to the video, of a young boy pointing a remote at the camera so that it was instantly obvious what the concept of the video was.

Jack Snelling's evaluation Question 2.

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

Jack Snelling's evaluation Question 1.

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

There are obvious limitations that we were presented when choosing the song for which we wanted to make a music video. For example, the technology we used was not industry standard and high quality that is now used by most popular recording artists. We realized that we had to make the best of what we had, so making a low quality video for a song by someone like Lady Gaga for instance would look somewhat ridiculous and ineffective as audiences now expect these artists to have high quality professionally made videos. With this in mind we chose a band that weren't massively successful but still had a strong cult following. This level of recognition with an artists married perfectly with our initial pitch of a series of pastiches of popular television shows, coming from the independent music scene, Good Shoes have to have a very strong DIY ethic like most indie bands, so that they can be heard by the widest audience possible with the minimal budget that they have, so audiences will expect to see the sort of quality of our music video.

In our music video however we wanted to focus more on presenting the band themselves as opposed to the song, where most independent artists early videos feature simple live performance e.g. Japanese Voyeurs

we wanted to present the band as people. Not that there is anything wrong with live performance video's but it just felt like the "safe" option, and not something that would make our video particularly stand out. We wanted to be present our group as fun and approachable much like the band Weezer, who we researched initially, and not make a serious music video that almost puts them on a pedestal. By doing this we have already separated our group from the rest of the pack.

Our video relies on the audience to be able to loosely interpret every show that it makes light of, and is a music video that belongs firmly in the 21st century or the "digital age" because it takes existing products and to a certain degree changes them or edits them to fit the needs of the new product, in this sense our video is "postmodern".

Construction.

Animation Sequence

Here is a pitcure of our animation sequence, each character can be freely moved around, this is so we can take many picture of the them moving their arms and ones mouth to produce the animation.

27/01/11 Production Plan- Re-filming Childrens Television Sequence

Today we intended to finish all filming by re-shooting our failed kids tv show scene and lost scene during our college lesson, while later on in the day Will and Jack would film the remaining slot of a babestation replacement and film the intro and outro to this music video ( a young boy turning the TV on and off).

However,due to extreme restraints on the ability to film the lost section(extremely difficult weather conditions,causing the filming to look to amateur and all round feeling that this section would be way too difficult to produce correctly) We decided this section would be replaced with a stop motion animation style sequence. We also decided that the replacement for the babestation section (this was cancelled as the member willing to do this scene quit mid filming),would be a top gear style driving show.

9:00am- Due to a change in band member, we have decided to re-film the Children's Television Sequence. We have chosen to use a plain background as the previous one was too noisy and drew attention away from the actors. We also used a puppet to ensure that it was clear it was a children's television programme.

9:30am- we had completed the kids scene section and decided to move onto the animation section we have decided to use instead of our proposed 'lost' sequence.

10:00am- We began to prepare our cutouts and backdrop for our animation.

1:00pm- We started filming our animation. This took some time as we needed to make it look semi-fluent so it will be easier to sync in editing.

3:00pm- We had captured all the images we needed for the animation. We then edited them into our final sequence.

4:00pm- After college,we went to wills house and with the use of his car were able to film a short 'top gear' style short as a quick replacement to babe station, this sequence was very simple to do as in terms of costume,only smart casual clothes were required and the only prop was simply the car.

4:30pm- We then used Will's brother and living room for the shooting of the intro and outro scenes,these were shot fairly quickly also due to the simplicity in the nature of each shot.

(Single angle continuous shot of both the boy sitting down and turning the TV on and then turning the TV off and walking out the room) The outro was adapted last minute to include the boy to say 'Mum i want good shoes new single! Mum' this speech was used at the end as a pun on promotion and the usage of music video in terms of music sales.

(These last two sections were then edited into our final cut the next day,leaving only minor adjustments needed such as the channel logos in the top of the screen and small parts of lip syncing to be edited to create the final cut in the next week)

Scene Change.

Due to time constraints, and members of our group being unavailable, we have to decided to change our "Lost scene", which will most likely be the hardest to film, into a "South Park-esque" animation, with stop motion and cut-outs. This will be easier and quicker to make, and possibly more effective in our music video.

Rough Cut Feedback

(Additional Notes:Upon uploading the video to this post we noticed that our video now includes

'Contains content from PIAS' and an itunes link to Good Shoes' 'ice age'

This is positive as it shows their distribution has allowed our video online,and are using it as promotion for the song.)

We shown our unfinished rough cut to other groups to get feedback on the current status of our video.

The overall reaction was positive but we received a lot of criticism around the theme,as many people didn't understand some of the ideas of the channels being changed. But this is due to the fact it is unfinished without the Tv static cuts and Logos/Graphics on each page.

This is a scanned version of all of our feedback from the lesson.

INSERT SCAN

We will also ask people to comment on our youtube video for extra feedback and post when complete.

Rough Cut

Production plan 20th January

Today we intend on shooting our black and white vintage cinema piece, which has now turned into a chaplin esque slapstick silent film due to filming restraints.

10:00- We began the day by changing into our costumes to look more appropriate for the silent 1930s film style.

10:30- We then chose a close location to college due to wanting to shoot this quickly to finish editing our final piece.

11:00- We shot our sequence close by,taking various takes of each shot to ensure we get a perfect scene. We used two bananas as props,one as the eating banana,one as the throwing banana. We also used a financial times as a prop as we needed to use a paper that will look more 1930's than something like the sun or daily star.

11:15- We ended this section with shooting various running away scenes,this is as we had multiples ideas on how to end this scene,but were unsure,so we shot them all and intend to pick the final one as we begin editing.

Tuesday January 18th production plan.

Today we all intend to top up and finish all existing incomplete blog posts and begin to edit in our footage filmed last thursday into our final cut,ready to film the final three scenes next week.

Thursday 13th January Production Plan

On Thursday we plan to film a considerable portion of our music video. The scenes we intend to film are:

• QVC scene
• Babe station scene
• Big Brother scene
• Music Channel scene
• Introduction scene

10:30- We arrived at our location and set up the first scene we intended to film.

We chose to film the big brother diary room scenes in jacks house as opposed to holly's due tofilming restraints.

We filmed Jack,Kane and Joe's scene shorty after.

(jack and will stayed in normal clothes so GIFs are not required)

10:45- We came across a major problem in our filming as Sam our second guitarist sadly had to quit filming due to other commitments. We decided to replace him with out group member Will,and shot his scene in the big brother diary room. We will now how to re film the Children's show due to the fact this was the only scene Sam had been in so far.

This has also put us in a predicament in terms of the Babe station scene as Sam was the only one who was willing to do this scene,so we have decided to cut this and replace it with a short Superhero film style shot.

11:15- We decided to shoot our lost practise shots by strapping a video camera to the front of a bike and do various speeds of running practises.

(BIKE PHOTOS)

11:25- Following this we used this technique to film a short Superhero scene with Jack and Joestarring. Only a small amount of this will be used in the final sequence.

(Joe used the same outfit to this as the big brother scene,hence the same GIF)

11:45- We have now began to prepare for our ending pastiche metal scene,we have a pile of various 'metal' and 'punk' pieces of clothing to get into costume and will be using thick make up to go for a style similar to 80s glam rock and death metal.

14.00- We decided the final piece of filming we would do today would be the QVC introduction and the band playing at the start of the video. this was filmed reletively quickly with Will acting as the presenter and a member of the band. We attempted the final scene of each member playing the final chord but this didn't really work out,so the end of our video will now consist of the end of the 'metal' music programme going into a tv fuzz and cutting out.

(INSERT WILL GIF)

(INSERT BAND PHOTO)

16.00- Will will film the introduction and outro with his brother at home at a later date this week as we didn't have a good cast type to portray this character.

Our final scenes (vintage cinema and lost) will be filmed next week on tuesday or thursday.

Final filming plans

Kids TV show costume inspiration.

For our kids TV show we wanted it to be instantly recognisable as a childrens show, so we made the two members ofour band, costumes that were based on popular childrens shows,

- Noddy

-Sporticus

We used the "Noddy" rosy cheeks and scarf, and used the stylised moustache and hat of "Sporticus".

7/12/10 Children's Television Show Production Plan

2.00pm- We are preparing our children's television show scene today. We need a set that we can turn into our studio for filming.

2.05pm- We have decided to use a spare computer room within the college to film. We will use the images that we created in a previous lesson as the back drop.

(INSERT IMAGE)

2.30pm- The backdrop has now been put up and we are ready to get our actor's into costume and begin filming.

INSERT SAM AND JACK GIFS

3.10pm- We have now successfully captured the footage we need, we had to shoot the particular scene as there was a choreographed dance routine that needed a few attempts to get right.

3.30pm- The footage has now been logged and captured onto the computer and added to our master template ready for final editing.

Childrens TV show backdrop reseach.

For our children's TV show, we had to think of an idea for the set that would make it reasonably obvious as to what it was and realistic to make as many Children's shows today are bombastic and exuberant. We considered the idea of making a whole set and toyed with the idea of puppets, much like popular TV show "Yo Gabba Gabba," however in the end we thought that this would not be time or cost effective as it involve a lot of preparation and space to able to pull it off while looking good. If it didn't look realistic it would bring down the whole standard of the music video.

We then reflected on our own childhood and looked at presenter-based children programs, such as Milkshake or CITV. These sets were much simpler in design as the backdrops were usually mad out of drawings and pictures sent in by children, as well as the camera rarely moving, incorporating one shot for the entire time of filming. This would be much easier to produce and would look much more realistic with the technology we have available.

We produced our own imitations of children's drawings.

25/11/10 Wildlife Scene Production Plan

9:00am- Today we are working on the Wildlife documentary scene. We shall do a few practice shots and the final sequence. We are still filming this in Will's back garden , this is no different to what we originally planned.

10:00am- We got our actor into costume ready to be our documentary presenter:

10.30- We arrived at our location ready to film when disaster struck! The camera we were using was not charged up so we had roughly 5 minutes to film. We shot the establishing shot for this scene, however, as it was rushed we may considering re shooting this. We came back inside so we can charge the battery. In the meantime we posted this and we are going to prepare the rest of today's events after this set back.

11.00- After discussions, we decided that the battery was charged up enough to capture the footage we needed. We went out and followed our storyboard roughly but had to make a few minor changes as we weren't able to keep the chickens under control or in one place for too long.

12.00- We have now finished capturing our footage and we are happy with how it looks on the camera. We will not be editing the footage today, however we will add it to the master template.

Moving camera: Dolly test

We created three videos using a dolly, each featuring the subjects at different speeds.

We found that using the dolly wasn't great on the concrete surface as there is little suspension and hard wheels so the result is a very wobbly image.

Change in pace:

Walking:

Running:

Master Template

As we are filming sections of the film in different sections, as if they were mini movies in themselves, we decided to create a master template on Final Cut Pro to add each individual movie.