Jack's Evaluation Package

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







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

When researching our artists image, we looked at the common trends and charecteristics of similar signed artists to Jose Vanders. We planned to use, develop and challenge certain things that we discovered from our research in our video. 

The images to the left show how we used a particular characteristic from Kate Nash's music video 'Foundations' in the mise-en-scene of our video.

As soon as we chose the song 'Faces Going Places' and after listening to the lyrics, we knew that we wanted to push the idea of showing the lyrics visually through our video and therefore, we had to stick to a very literal trend to our video. Many of Kate Nash's music videos, in particular 'Foundations', share this technique so we watched several of them to get inspiration and ideas. We decided to draw happy and sad faces on the eggs in the shot. 

The images to the right show how we used a particular characteristic from Vanessa Carlton's music video 'A Thousand Miles' for the camera movement/angles in our video.

    

We wanted to use similar camera angles and shots in our video to the ones in Vanessa Carlton's video because we felt it was a very effceive way of promoting our artist as sombody who really cares about music and is not just after money or stardom etc. Additionally, it shows that the artist is multi-talented - they can play their own instruments as well as sing well. We used both the bird’s eye view of the artist’s hands on the piano and a side angle which we used alternatively in the beginning sequence of our video.

The images below show how we used a particular characteristic from Roger Sanchez' music video 'Another Chance' for the mise-en-scene in our video. 

This again refers to the mise-en-scene of our video and is a great example of how we developed the literal, narrative focus of our video. This style of video helped to make our artist look different from others to the audience. We hoped that our audience would be attracted to the alterntive feel of our video. Also, it made our video fun for the viewer which meant it could appeal to a younger audience as well as our target audience.

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

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Magazine Advert

Digipack Planning

Below is a link to a 'mind map' of the groups original thoughts and ideas into our digipack.


Digipack planning

Planning for photo shoot

We took the time to create a time table which have a list of our frees and when our media lessons are so we can organise a time when we can take photos for the digipack. We have also spoken to the teacher responsible for the hall time table in order to book a slot in the next two weeks to take the pictures.

(we uploaded the pictures below by taking a picture from a blackberry, then uploaded to facebok and the transferred to the blog)

Themes of album

The theme that all of our smaller themes originate from is Great Britain.
From Britain we have taken the idea of cupcakes, tea & scones, the colours (red, white and blue), trains, Alice in Wonderland.
Our main colours that we have aimed for when finding the costumes for our music video and Digi pack are the red, white and blue.
We have a lot of cupcakes in our music video and we plan to carry that on in our digi pack.
We have incorporated links to Alice in Wonderland into our work. There are little links in our music video which aren't as obvious until you see the digi pack. In our video we have a cupcake and Alice eats a cupcake to make her smaller in the film. We also use a miniature railway station and train, this links to the miniature door that she must go through. Alice in wonderland has also been used by Gwen Stefani in 'What you waiting for' She uses the tea party, being bigger than her surroundings and the maze. We are using the eat me cake, drink me label on the bottle of pink lemonade, the mad hatter's hat and the stop watch. We are also talking together about ways of having the white bunny. however this may be too much and rather hard to do.
We are have planned for Ellie to have a picnic on the piano with tea and scones as it is very traditionally British.

Editing

We have attempted the idea we spoke about in the previous  post  about editing with the jump cuts on the meringue. unfortunately the close up image was unclear and pixelated .

   














We have now decided to reshoot a series of shots which will gradually jump and get closer to the meringues in order to get a clearer image.

Opening instrumental sequnce

We received audience feedback for our video and we got several comments about the beginning sequence regarding the number of shots of the artist playing the piano in the opening sequence. We added a high angled, over the shoulder shot but the audience still felt that their was too many shot of the artist playing the piano. Therefor we we though it would be a good idea to have a sequence of jump cuts zooming in to the meringue in the piano.

Organisation 05/11/10

We have edited the layout and appearance of our blog to make it more appealing.But we had a few problems trying to get an audio track on to the blog but we are going to seek assistance .

We are going to set up a you tube account and upload our rough cut so that we can get a variety of audience feedback and use their comments to see what we could possibly change before the final cut is submitted .

Group discussion

We have discussed with the other members of the group about the phrase 'group of sweaty girls' and whether to film a group of girls but  we have decided as we don't have long till the deadline we are going to have a close up of the artist singing to the camera. This will show the artists performance and facial expression.


We have all of the footage uploaded and are going through what we have and are making rough cuts to get they song in an order . We have also decided that when we cut from the station to the artist performing we are going to start with  close ups of the artists face and the gradually show more of the artist playing the piano. We are going to try this in our music video to see if it works, and then discuss when the whole group is here whether it works well .

We have also made a new sequence where we have the mp3 version of the original track which we uploaded from YouTube  to itunes then imported and rendered it in to a new sequence.

Organisation

We have finished filming the close up shots, and have got several shots of the artists hands and face. We also filmed a mid shot pan of the artist playing the piano and singing. We have discussed the scene including the sweaty girls, and think that it will be difficult to film this scene as we don't have any sweaty girls and very limited time. We feel as if we don't need to shoot the scene as we can use the shots of our artist singing the song instead to fill that gap. We need to discuss this with our other group member as she is absent, and once we do, unless she has a better idea herself, we can make this a final decision.

Planning

On the day of filming, we didn't have a group of sweaty girls and came to the conclusion that we could make the girls out of cardboard cut outs and film them another day. As it came closer to our filming deadline we realised this idea wasn't going to be as effective as we'd hoped and would be very difficult as we would have to learn how to use green screen. We have now decided to shoot at a similar location with girls from the school and we'll have them standing around our artist in school uniform and texting with our artist in the middle. We will be doing this tomorrow in our frees.

Editing organisation

We have grouped all of our shots in the 'scene bin ' according  to the sections of the video that we have planned. We planned using the chorus and verse sections of the lyrics.

Progress- 19-10-2010

We have uploaded all of the train station footage and in the process of making rough cuts and putting the clips in order, as we didn't shoot in order.

We are planing to do the second part of our music video ( with the grand piano) tomorrow , then upload that footage so we can see if we have enough footage or need more.

The shoot from the station went well as we managed to get all of the footage we needed and extra which we can use if we need to. The only problems we have seen so far when looking through the footage is that in some shots their are some shadows which will create a darker shadow, we will have to make the clip brighter so that when it is burnt to the CD it isn't to dark .

We have planned ahead for our digi pack as we took several pictures from a digital camera  when we were at the station so we have different pictures to whats in the footage so we wont have to take a clip from the video , but as they were taken at the station it still uses the same M-e-s as it has the station as its main background and the character in the same costume.

Piano/Keyboard Issue

As a group, we have decided that we are certain that we want to film using a grand piano, instead of a keyboard. This is because we feel using a keyboard doesn't create the same effect as a piano however, we are aware that using a keyboard is much more practical in terms of having time to film with our props. Also, it is a lot easier to organise the signing out of keyboards.

We really want a certain effect for the audience when filming our shots where the artist is playing her instrument and for this to be successful we feel it would be best to use a proper grand piano. We are looking into when we can use the piano on a number of occasions as of now.

We have uploaded some print screen shots  from when we filmed using a keyboard.

Test shots

We decided to test this shot as we were unsure on whether it would be as effective as we hoped. As long as the camera is kept steady at all times we think it will work well, we may need to use a number of tripods as some of them are broken.

Progress

We rang Audley end station and got permission to film at their miniature railway. On saturday the 16th .
we have organised what we are going to film at the station and what characters and props we are going to need . We need 9 people to play the characters in the song, we have decided that in the musical introduction of the song where she is clapping, we are going to introduce the characters.  Next lesson we are going to practice filming how the characters come in and find the best way to make it work so we can be efficient when filming at the station.

Location

We went to the miniature rail way at Audley End, and took some location photos.This would be the perfect location for our music video as it has the train and platform which we decided went well with the song . We are now waiting for a .reply from the station to see whether we can film here

The only parts of the train left out were the carriage, but we were already aware of what the whole train looked like from pictures displayed on the website for audley end miniature railway.

This picture above is of the platform, we would like to include this in the video and have people appearing on the platform at the beginning, one by one. We also though it might be an idea to use the bench, possibly for the part of the song when 'there's a boy with a smile'.

In this picture we can see all parts of the train station, we would like to make use of all the space and thought we could use the platform, train and bridge to film different sections on.

This would be a perfect angle to film a train coming in, with our artist sitting on it.

I decided to do some research into Kate Nash's recent album and single chart finishing positions to get an accurate understanding of just how popular our music genre is today. Kate Nash is very similar to the target artist image/music sound that we have in mind for our project. Therefore, this research could help help us to see how popular our artist would be or to, perhaps, see if the genre of music is getting increasing popular year by year.

However, this research is not fully reliable as this piece of information is anonymous as to where this chart comes from - is in a chart in a particular field or is it actually based on all genres across the board?

 http://www.freewebs.com/marthajonesfan/katenash.htm

Made Of Bricks

Released:  6/8/07Chart Position: #1Tracklisting:
1. Play
2. Foundations
3. Mouthwash
4. ****head
5. Birds
6. We Get On
7. Mariella
8. **** Song
9. Pumpkin Soup
10. Skeleton Song
11. Nicest Thing
12. Merry Happy
13. Little Red (Hidden Track)

My Best Friend Is You

Released: 19/4/10Chart Position: #8Tracklisting:1. Paris
2. Kiss That Grrrl
3. Don't You Want To Share The Guilt?
4. I Just Love You More
5. Do Wah Doo
6. Take Me To A Higher Plane
7. I've Got A Secret
8. Mansion Song
9. Early Christmas Present
10. Later On
11. Pickpocket
12. You Were So Far Away
13. I Hate Seagulls
14. My Best Friend Is You (Hidden Track)

Caroline's A Victim

Released: 5/2/07Chart Position: UNAVAILABLETracklisting:
A1. Caroline's A Victim
A2. Birds (Demo)

Foundations

Released: 15/6/07
Chart Position: #2
Tracklisting:
CD
1. Foundations
2. Habanera
Vinyl 1A1. Foundations
B1. Navy TaxiVinyl 2A1. Foundations
B1. Old Dances

Mouthwash

Released: 1/10/07
Chart Position: 23
Tracklisting:
CD1. Mouthwash
2. Stitching LeggingsVinyl 1
A1. Mouthwash
B1. Dirt (Demo From Iceland)
Vinyl 2
A1. Mouthwash
B1. Take 'Em Back (misprinted as Take 'Em Out)

Pumpkin Soup

Released: 17/12/07Chart Position: 23
Tracklisting:
CD
1. Pumpkin Soup2. Pistachio Nut (Poem)
Vinyl 1
A1. Pumpkin Soup
B1. Pumpkin Soup (Live at Cardiff Solus)
Vinyl 2A1. Pumpkin Soup
B. Etched Side

Merry Happy

Released: 24/3/08Chart Position: #116                  Tracklisting:
CD1. Merry Happy2. Model Behaviour
Vinyl 1
A1. Merry Happy
B1. The Lion, The Devil & The Spider
Vinyl 2
A1. Merry Happy
B1. Don't You Want To Share The Guilt? (later updated for My Best Friend Is You)

Do-Wah-Doo

Released: 12/4/10
Chart Position: #15
Tracklisting:
CD1. Do-Wah-Doo2. Do-Wah-Doo (Performed by Ryan Jarman)
Vinyl
A1. Do Wah Doo
B1. Grrrilla Munch
B2. R n B Side

Kiss That Grrrl

Released: 12/6/10
Chart Position: #201
Tracklisting:
CD1. Kiss That Grrrl2. Kiss That Grrrl (Performed by TrachtenBurg Family Slideshow Players)
Vinyl
A1. Kiss That Grrrl
B1. Great Big Kiss (with Billy Bragg)
B2. Song For Corrado

Where is our artist most likely to be heard?

To get an idea of where our artist is most likely to be listened to, i looked to see where similar artists are listened to. I used the 'Itunes' chart and the 'Radio 1' chart to establish whether they are more regularly listened to on the radio or if more of their audience actually purchase and download their music.



Number of  Single CD copies sold :- 60 000

“Foundations” reached No. 2 on the British charts despite the fact that it initially received almost no commercial radio airplay, although BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 did add the single to their playlists during the week of its release. ( Taken from  http://uk.askmen.com/celebs/women/singer_300/394_kate_nash.html )

Because of the indie fashion of this artist's many of the audience probably come from her 'MySpace' and 'Twitter' pages. Artists like this get less attention form the media like Radio coverage.

Genre Research - Devlin.

Devlin is a Grime MC/Rapper from Dagenham.



Devlin strongly portrays his image through his lyrics, because of the nature of them and he can easily express his feelings and opinions. However, many of his lyrics relate to certain situations in for example, everyday life and this can be very effectively shown in video. Devlin himself in represented in this video as a confident, intimidating type. He uses facial expression and body language to put this accross. His costume in the video is very fashionable and he wears expensive labels. This gives the audience something to relate to. Much about the genre of grime is very 'show off' like and this is obvious in his lyrics and videos. The reason for the setting of the video is much to do with the lyrics - the song portrays a message and for this to be effective the audience has to visualise what is being said in the song.


This is an image of an album cover of Devlin's. There is a bold title which will attract the audience's eye and it's plainness makes this album stand out form the rest in shops. Also the picture suggests hard work, passion and emotion.