Final Products

Fly for a fly final cut from rosie-beth hickling on Vimeo.

Click on images to enlarge :)

Audience Feedback

I would of gladly received some negative feedback which would of helped me change and go over some mistakes that people may find, but after letting my biggest critics (Media class and teachers) watch my final promo music video most of it was positive. Although my teacher thought that there still wasn't enough of the promotion going on. So I decided to lengthen the time that the promotion texts and images at the end of the video. Also some tweaks to the editing and beat had to be done but in the end it was a-ok :) They agreed that the intentional amateur look did give the video the whimsical and folksy look I was going for.

Combination of your main product and ancillary texts

I think the combination of the three products work well to compliment each other. I have made sure to use the same colour scheme, font and theme though out. As the 'girl figure' of my band I made sure she was on the digi-pak cover and I used the same actress as my model for the magazine advert. An image of a park scene is also seen on the back of the digi-pak referring to the girls location in the promo video. Inside the pak is the image of the radio which is featured in the video. I felt like the radio represented something a little bit deeper, almost like the girls heart. At the end of the video there is a shot of the radio being left behind is almost like she's given up or maybe doesn't care anymore about love? I wanted this shot to be 'iconic' and this is why I put it in the digi-pak hoping people would recognise it. Also I chose to use the font May Queen as I thought this was a very free hand styled font and thought it suited the style of my band. I think that a customer could become aware of the song/band though any of the 3 medias and know that they were all the same product. I.e. if a consumer saw the music video, they would know that it was the same product as the digi-pack on the

shelve in the record shop as well as the advert in a magazine.

Uses Of Conventions

I wanted to make a music video that reflected the style and genre of the actually bands music as the brief was to promote. I wanted to create a whimsical and dreamy feel to the video. From looking at music videos such as 'Bright Eyes-Bowl of Oranges' and 'Grizzly Bear-Ready, able' was was able to take inspiration on the types of style. However from most of the promotion videos I found on YouTube, the videos all features shots of the band. This was the first step to challenging the conventions. I wanted to make a promotional video, which made people actually appreciate the music more rather then just the visual of the band.

So I started looking at bands which use a 'face' or 'figure' to represent there band and the biggest example I found was the Gorillaz. They are a 'virtual' band which are composed of 2D animated characters. So from looking at the lyrics of the song I made a narrative structure of a lonely girl riding her bike which contrasts with a montage of shots of different couples. I feel like not having the band actually in the video wasn't a problem and I think the overall footage and video worked. Although I felt that I could of given the band more promotion. I was going to use a voice over like in a TV ad, but I decided that my video was to be on the bands website and felt like after a 3 min video a voice over maybe seem out of place.

New Technology

Research and Planning

During the duration of my advanced production I have used many different pieces of computer software and equipment to help me to produce my final products.
During the research stage I used the Internet looking in certain websites which I thought relevant to my project. Although the main problem with using this secondary source for information is that its not always reliable this is the fact that people can edit and change information on sites. Especially wikipedia were i got most of my information, if I did the Internet research again I would probably made sure I used official websites and made sure the information was correct. Although the use of Youtube and researching music videos helped greatly, I was able to search for any video and analyse them. This helped me to get some inspiration on the style of my video and also look at different filming techniques.
I also interviewed the band which helped to get to know the band a little better and ask them about there style. I used a hand-held Dictaphone to record the interview with the pupils which allowed me to make notes as well as being able to review my interview later on. I didn't really finds this research very helpful as the bands response to the questions were quite poor. This was not my fault as I conducted the interview in a serious manner and the band members didn't really take it seriously.

Construction

During the construction of my main and ancillary products I again used various pieces of software and equipment; some that I was familiar with and others not so. In AS I had chosen a brief that only required me to use software which lets me create print media. So when I decided to choose a brief which asked me to make a music video, I was a little nervous about using the new technology's. However in the end the video camera was very simple to use and I took a portable tripod around with me on my filming locations. I also used the camera to capture and animation which was also used in my promo video. Using a hand-held camcorder on a tripod I was able to capture the still images using the Mac programme I Can Animate. This allowed me to construct the moving image.

Although I had quite an easy time filming, I did have a problem when it came to editing. I was using iMovie, which is something I'm not familiar using and I had done most of my editing but for some unexplained reason it brought back all my deleted item. This meant that alot of time was wasted and I had to take time out again to redo all the editing.

When finally finishing my product I used iDVD to make a menu for my promotional video. This programme was easy to use and helped me achieve a professional look which I wanted, as If I wanted to promote my band and send this video to potential record labels that would be the look I would want. Also the design for the menu also acted as the design for the bands website. The programme allowed me to use all the same fonts, pictures and colour schemes that I had been using in my other products. This made sure all my products were intertextual .

When creating my ancillary products I felt more comfortable as I used software which I use quite a lot. My magazine cover was made using a online photo editing site called Picnik I was still able to use my pictures in which were taken while filming on Brandon Hill and the same fonts. Although I used Photoshop to made my digipak, which was more complexed but still had no really bad problems.