Feedback on Director's Commentary

Affi

Hector, Jake Karis and MiMi

Sound and considerate understanding of the technologies used in production of the video, for example in terms of set design quality and the use of FCP to create ‘earthquake’ effects.

There are evident links between creative decision making and use of technology on both productions of the video using professional digital cameras and in the post production editing process – in discussion of match of action, lip syncing and graphic matching – in glitch effects and blinder lights in production. This is sustained and thorough and accurate in discussion of the branded themes of the MV of urbanism and a social realist feel.

The commentary shows a discrete awareness of the use of new media technology and uses discriminating examples really well, particularly to selection and construction of narrative, using masks and editing techniques, such as cross cutting and the pacing used. Excellent command of terminology and well presented – understands and discusses convergence really well if implied in the commentary.

There is sustained justified decision making links between the technologies used the product and audience reception in terms of the Grime genre. Recognises the need to account for errors in the post production stage.

This is a well considered documentary, well done and Well presented work.

Evalution Task 4 - Pre production

Media technology was an important part of all processes within my media production, in particular in pre production.

We used the internet as a search engine to gather information to create our characters and also get an idea of what we wanted for our set. We used the internet tremendous amounts when researching the grime genre and the look we wanted for our character. Without the internet it would have been very difficult to find the look we were trying to portray and how we would market/sell our product.

We also used eblogger which is pratically and online diary. It allows us blog posts about what we have been doing, therefore keeping a diary of what we have done throughout the week. Blogging helped us keep organised and also allowed us  to know what else had to be done and what we had completed.

On the day of filming our music video we used our mobile phones to take photos, the reason i used my mobile is because although it wasnt a proper camera it allowed me to upload them straight to my blogger, there and then.

Evaluation Task 1. Powerpoint

What have you learnt from your audience feeback?

How did you gather your audience feedback?

To gather audience feedback i did a questtionare. The questtionaire consisted of questions asking the students to comment on all three of our products and say what they thought was successful and what needed improving. We also asked them questions about the artist himself to see if the way we tried to portray him came across to the audience.

What were the advantages and disadvantages of using these sources?

The advantage of using a questtionaire is that we get a huge variety of opinions and from a variety of people. It also means we can ask the students exactly the questions we want. The disadvantage of using one is that we dont get to ask the students there opinions and hear them in person. Overall i feel that using a questtionaire was very successful because it was a quick way of gathering information and was also fair.

What strengths did the feedback indicate in your music video?

The feedback on the music video was mostly very positive. Alot of the students mentioned the use of lighting and effects used throughout the music video. From the feedback it was clear that the biggest strength in our music video was in fact the strong lighting and the use of the earthquake effect.

What weaknesses did the feedback indicate in your music video?

Screenshots of summary from questionnaire

Feedback -evaluation Task Three

This is really good so far - but can you post more over the weekend please?

Evaluation Task 3- Youtube video comments

Below are a number of comments from Youtube subscribers. There are a variety of comments that give us constructive critisism and also some positive feddback about the music video.

Focus group-

A focus group is a form of qualitative research which is used to get feed back from people who have watched our video. Follow the link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_group

Evaluation Task 2 - Presentation

Teacher Feedback

A creative and imaginative way to present the conventions of the music video. However I feel that further evaluation is needed to assess how you have used those conventions.  You can do this by further post entries which:
1. Make more explicit the conventions of music video's and CD digipaks
2. Use of a wider range of examples - linked to real media
3. Fuller evaluation - what have you used and developed/ challenged.

Can you please extend evaluation task 1 to add more detail to your response.

Forms and Conventions- Task 1.

Evaluation of CD digipak & music poster.

Once we had finished filming our music video and it was going through the editing process we also had to create a CD digipak & music poster to promote and sell our product. This task was just as time consuming as the editing of the music video as it took care, concerntration and lots of creative ideas that we could sieve through to accomplish a eye catching final product.

The process of making a digipak and poster included lots of mini taks that would need to be carried out in order to help us create both of these. Firstly we set up a photo shoot in the photography studio with our main character 'Affi' so we had some plain photos to work with and edit. We took a variety of photos

Final poster and digipak

Feedback

Clever and creative post - but lacking detail in analysis and evaluation of what you were trying to achieve!

In the making of a Digipak & poster. The photo shoot.

In the Making of a Digipak & Poster

Feedback

Excellent blogging, fully reflective and knowledgeable of the production shoot, well done.  Try to consider further, any decision making that was made for key shots and themes in the video.  Well done.

Evaluation of shoot!

Evaluation of Shoot

Last friday, the 4th of november we shot our music video for our media coursework. The day before we had been into the media studio to create our set ready to film. The building of our set was reasonably simple yet it took time and care to arrange. We had stars leading up to a very royal red looking thrown. On the steps we stappled red carpet onto them to make them look more grand and also link in with the thrown. Either side of the steps we had two Ionic Columns. The reasons we used these is because it balanced the set out and also allowed us to place objects on top of them. On one of the columns we placed a stack of Flat Caps, we choose to do this because it gave the set a slight twist and also juztaposed the 'Kingly' image. Although we had a shooting schedule we didn't stick to it maybe as much as we should of. We decided to have 3 different sets, these included two in the studio and one in guildford. Because we had such a variation of all three sets and also the weather becoming a concern we couldnt follow the shooting schedule because it meant we would have to come up with more shots to film so we would have a back up if the weather stopped us from filming in Guildford. As a result we ended up filming a huge variety of creative shots in the studio and not heading to Guildford until the late afternoon. 



Our first Set Design



Affi & Georgie were both asked to come to the studio for 9am ready to start shooting, but we soon realised that we only needed Affi for the morning as he was to play the main character and singer. Georgie stayed to watch so she could get prepared for the role she was playing later on in the shoot. One problem was that Affi was not as prepared as we would of hoped. The lyrics are hard to learn and are sang quickly therfore this meant Affi struggled with quite a few of the verses. We gave him many run throughs to allow him to become comfortable with the set and the camera. The last few verses Affi found particulary difficult so we had to let him take time out to read over the lyrics and go back and film it gradually. As a result of Affi not being familiar enough with the words we had to do more wider shots instead of the up closes of his face because otherwise you would of been able to see that he wasnt singing the words right.



Lighting effects


We had a variety of shots which we alternated between. These included :

• Extreme close ups
• Tracking shots
• Establishing shot
• Extreme close ups of different parts of his face
• Shutter Shots
• Side shots of the side of his face
• Shaking effect shots

We had not decided before hand that we were going to use all of the above shots but on the day because we had the worry of the weather we decided to be creative and find more shots we could include that we could use as back ups.

Tricky Shots -
Above is a photograph of Hector using the dolly. The dolly helps you to film a tracking shot and keep it stready. Without the dolly all our shots wouild be fuzzy and wobbly. We had to place the tubing that the dolly ran along all around the set and make sure that there were no tangles or bumps because otherwise the dolly would not run smoothly. Whilst on the dolly you also had to make sure that you kept a steady hand and kept slowly turning the camera the way the dolly was being pushed. Overall i feel the tracking shots looked really professional, i watched them on the television screen and they all ran smoothy.

To get the shaky effect  camera shots we had to slightly shift the camera side to side when we were recording. This proved difficult at times because it was hard to shift the camera side to side quickly, therefore the shaking effect would stall and we would have to record again. We had to find the right balance between the spoeed of the shaking. After a few trials we decided that instead of having the whole shot very shaky we would alternately have the occasional shake. I feel this looked much better as you could actually make out what was being filmed but there was still a little shaking and movement to it.

As i said previously our group decided that we wanted to film with three different sets. Two were in the studio, and the other in Guildford. We wanted a variation of different sets so we could really show the contrast between both characters. We had Affi in the 'Royal' set which included the thrown and red carpet and then had Georgie in the streets of Guildford. This symbolised that 'Affi' had power over 'Georgie' and was almost looking down on her.

Apart from the king themed set we also had a set that consisted of just lights. These lights are called blinder lights. There were three rows of six blinder lights. We had rather a few so when turned on it was incredibly bright. The image we wanted to achieve was to have the lights over powering our characters so we simply could just see their silhouette and the rest would be beams of light.

The weather was going to be an issue when it came to filming in Guildford but we decided to take a risk. Luckily the weather was fine but because we left filming until the afternoon we were loosing light quickly. We chose to film along a river bank that had buildings either side. We wanted it to look secluded and barren. Originally we had only selected a few specific shots that involved 1) an establishing shot & 2) a few shots of Georgia walking towards the camera. To make use of the time we came up with a number of different shots. My favourite was the fast tracking one of Georgia, it involved one of us holding the camera and walking backwards as Georgie walked towards the camera. This did prove difficult because it was hard to keep the camera steady and at the same time see where you were walking. It got dark quickly so we only got an hour and a half to get a collection of shots that our group could bring back to the editing suite, although it was limited time i feel that the group managed to get some really creative and professional looking footage that we could potentially use in the final cut video.

To finish with i thoroughly enjoyed our media shoot day. It was tough at times because there was alot to concerntrate on and also balancing the work between each of the group members but overall it was great fun. I was very nervous about how the shoot would go before we had set up our set but once we got into the studio and started filming everything came together and it all ran smoothly.



Letter of Permission to 'The movement'

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