Director's Commentary

Images for evaluation

Todays plan

Today we will edit the directors commentry we filmed in Friday's lesson. We will see which sections answer the questions best, and try and piece them together to get an estimate of a 2.00 minute commentry.

evaluation

1.In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge the conventions of real media products?
        When starting our music video project, we learned about genre conventions and Goodwin’s points for a successful music video. Once we had learned this, we had to make our music video challenge or develop the norms of a music video. I believe our group both followed and challenged the norms in a music video. I believe we followed the conventions when we included seeing the Artist and seeing the artists lip syncing.  We researched both Adele and Kanye West’s previous music videos and built up an overview of their character, which led to our group using similar costumes for Adele as we believed we should follow a similar theme throughout her videos.  Our song ‘Melt my heart into stone’ was an R+B song. We portrayed this by the choice of acting styles and costume. We chose to use a dramatic break up scene in our video which is also seen in other videos from other artists in the same genre. We also chose to lip sync most parts of the song in the video, which again most videos in the R+B genre do. Although, we lip sync through most of the song, which could also be seen as challenging the norms as not many videos nowadays lip sync throughout the song. Lip syncing proved to be difficult for my role as Kanye West as the rapping section was quite hard to learn. We researched Kanye West’s and Adele’s previous music videos and in most cases for Adele and  some of Kanye West songs lip syncing occurred, and this therefore shows that we chose to lip sync because the majority of their videos did so, which showed we were sticking to the norms. Also, it was essential that we sold the artist through the narrative of the song. Adele’s previous songs did this extremely well, and showed her emotions very successfully; therefore we needed to film a realistic scene of an argument to portray the emotion and to keep the story flowing rather than having random shots. The lip syncing has a direct link to one of Goodwin’s points about Visuals and Lyrics, as our lyrics are very closely intertwined with the visuals, and what is being said is shown in the emotions of the character. The hotel location for the first section of our music video also followed the typical conventions for an Adele music video. In many of her previous videos, she is shown sitting either in a room or just sitting on her own. We then used the hotel room to show the argument scene as we believed this looked the most professional, and was easier to control the lighting and was easier to film. The use of artificial lighting also helped significantly as we were able to create an image that we would not have been able to do outside, and added to the professionalism of our project.

2.       How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary products?

 I believe that our Ancillary Products are reasonably successful in combination with our main product. I believe this for a number of different reasons, firstly Kanye West and Adele appear in the media product and both the DVD and the magazine advert. This therefore shows that the ancillary products are combining well with the main product as there is a direct link between the 3 as the artists are visual in the ancillary products and the video.  Also, the dark coloured attire in the music video is replicated in both ancillary products to give the whole project a memorable theme. The ancillary products are based around a black background, which allows the target audience to recognise the product and link it to the specific music video. Also I believe they are very successful in attracting the target audience as you see both characters on the ancillary products, therefore fans from both Adele and Kanye West would be interested in purchasing this album. The smart look of the products also matches the songs Adele sings. This is because there are not many upbeat, jolly songs made by Adele, and for this reason it was appropriate to make the products much darker and sophisticated, rather than colourful. Selecting certain pictures was also important as this captured the emotion in the Album/song.  There is a particular focus on Adele in the ancillary products as this is her Album and only one song features Kanye West, therefore we chose to make the ancillary products more shadowed than a Kanye West product. A key aspect of the ancillary products is that the characters Adele and Kanye West are wearing the same costumes in the pictures as the song we made a video for. This portrays the album as serious, and emotional. The link between the hotel scene and the cover is very important as it is capturing the emotion of the album/song and shows that this album contains songs that are meaningful. The dark looking products link directly to the hotel scene in the video, and links to the deep emotion in the album. When looking at previous ancillary products from Adele, we noticed that there was little emphasis placed on text, although there is a similar font in each of her previous albums. Seeing this we researched what font we could use and found a similar font which links very well to her previous albums. It is key that after looking at her previous products, there needed to be a particular focus on the character as this is what happened in previous products. The choice of picture was vital as we had to capture the emotion and still make the album look exciting, rather than dull. Linking back to Adele’s previous products also enables us to keep the same target audience as it is very recognizably Adele’s product so many of her fans would buy the album, and for Kanye West fans as he is still on the cover for the album. 

3.     What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

  When we made our initial pitch, we were asked a number of questions on cost, costume, time and acting. This enabled us to develop ideas answering these questions and to face any problems that may have arisen at a later stage earlier because the feedback had told us the problems they noticed. After our initial plan had been discussed, we then developed a rough cut of our video. We received a number of different comments from the audience that we could work on for our final product. These included comments about needing more of the argument scene, quicker shots of the male character and more variety in camera angles. As the rapping scene was weaker than the hotel scene, we needed to make it more exciting by using quicker shot types and varying between lip syncing and not to make the video look more effective for example the use of a split screen in the latter stages of the video. When not lip syncing in the video we chose to move between the Adele character and the kanye West character, this again linked to the narrative and showed more clearly to the audience that they had had an argument and that it was a very emotional time. We chose to not lip sync when the lip syncing didn’t seem to work or where the rapping section was very hard, this therefore helped our group keep professionalism as we didn’t have someone lip syncing the wrong words in our video which helped keep our music video successful.

From this we knew that we had a number of things we could work on to drastically improve our video. Using this feedback we then worked on our final product and presented this to the class. We received great feedback from the audience and this was mainly due to the improvements we had made from the audience feedback from the rough cut video. We still had a small issue with the lip syncing in the video but this is only a tiny section of the video.  Audience feedback is very important and was essential to us completing our video with minimal errors and looking as professional as possible.  Teacher comments were also very important, for example we had a comment that said we could improve the last section of the video to make them more exciting as it seemed to tail off. We then improved this by including a flashback effect of the argument scene which played underneath the footage near the end of the video. This helped increase the level of professionalism in the video and helped make our video unique. I believe that the vary in slow shot types at the beginning of the video and fast with the rap was very effective in creating the atmosphere of the argument. I believe that if we had stuck to one way of editing, the argument scene would not have looked as effective and maybe would have confused the audience.

4.How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used many different types of software to help us construct and plan our product. For example we used Blogger to plan our music video, and to post any research we did on the project on to the blog. Blogger was essential to us finishing the project as everyone in our group could see what work needed to be done and what everyone else was doing in the lesson. The internet was vital in researching and watching previous videos from Adele and Kanye West , without the internet we would not have been able to research in the excessive detail we did for our project which would have led to a weaker music video as we would have had no influences and no clue about Adele and Kanye West themselves.  Final cut was used for editing the footage we had filmed. This is the most important piece of software we used and enabled us to make a professional looking music video. One key aspect of final cut is that it enabled us to make a flashback scene very successfully, and this worked very well within our video as it made our video look more complex and unique. Final cut also allowed us to insert the dark blue tint across our hotel scene, this was important as it added to the footage and made it more interesting as well as showing the emotion. We used light room to edit the photos we had taken which we would then use in our ancillary products to make them look more effective and more presentable to the real world. We also used Photoshop to make our ancillary products. This was in my opinion the hardest piece of software to use, and it enabled us to make ancillary products to the best of our ability. I believe it is the hardest as there are so many things that could be done to do the same thing on Photoshop, which was very confusing for me personally to use but in the end it proved to be very successful in changing font types and generally making our ancillary products look very catching and memorable for the target audience.  We filmed using a HD camera and this offered a high quality, professional looking image when filming. The high resolution camera, enabled us to look at shots we had made in high detail and then see if they were effective, and due to the image being much clearer it was easier to tell if something had gone wrong or if something was just not quite right. We thought about using a dolly in our music video for the tracking shots, but after looking at our location we realised that there was a minimal amount of flat flooring for us to use the dolly as it would have looked tacky and unprofessional as it would have been extremely wobbly. Sam used a extremely good camera to take the photos for our ancillary products. This was very well done and helped make our ancillary products look very professional.

Director's Commentary: Script

Directors Commentary script - Group 13S1-28

- Hello I’m George Adamson,
- Daisy Cookson
- Nick Griggs
- Sam Payne

All four of us have been working together over the past couple of months to create a music video for “Melt my heart to stone” by Adele (featuring Kanye West)

Question 1

One of the first things we did when we were given the task of creating a music video for this song was to research Adele’s and Kanye West’s previous music videos using YouTube and VEVO. This was so that we could get an idea of the style the performers are usually presented in. From this we were also able to learn more about the genre conventions of the music videos for their particular styles of music.
We decided that the song “Melt my heart to stone” best suited the slow R&B genre because it contains both singing and rapping. The conventions for this particular genre of music videos often shows a rapper showing off His “wealth”,“lavish” lifestyle and the women which are surrounding him in this music video. The music videos usually include a lot of intertextuality for example the artist may be seen wearing an expensive branded watch, this advertises the product and makes the artist seem wealthy.
We decided to challenge these conventions, since the song seems to focus on both artists equally, we decide that out music video should do the same instead of following one artist and having the other in the side-lines appearing at off points throughout the music video which is the usual convention for music videos.
We again decide to challenge the conventions of a music video because the way we use and strong narrative and strong use of lip-syncing performance in our music video. The usual conventions are either that you have a strong narrative and the lip-syncing is put to the side (shown in The Beastie Boy’s video “Make some noise” also known as Fight for your right - revisited video, where the music video is more similar to a short-film than a music video) or a strong lip-sync performance video such as Adele’s Rolling in the deep music video where the video Focuses more on her performance than a narrative.
One of the conventions we decided to challenge is the use of costume change within a music video. Our original outfits for the artists followed conventions; smart and classy, however the artist stays in these costumes throughout the video, this challenges the conventions because usually the artist will have a number of costume changes in one music video.

Question 2

One of the ways that we have used our main product and ancillary texts is the consistent look of both items. One of the ways we gave each item a look was the way we used lighting effectively in the creation of our music video and our Ancillary product photo-shoot. We set up lighting in the hotel scene to look quite moody and theatrical. These enables the market audience to identify the Ancillary texts and the Main music video together so it would be recognisable to the buyer when they purchase the digi-pack package.
We also applied a colour tint to both the music video (Main product) and the ancillary texts to the same effect we desired with the use of lighting. For the Hotel scene we used Final Cut Express to add a light-blue tint with a high contrast to the video and used Adobe Light-room for the same light-blue effect to make the mood of the scene more moody and emotional. This makes the Main product and ancillary text look like a more complete product.
The images used in the ancillary texts and the image the artists are presented in the main product creates a mature and attractive image though the use of costume for both artists which helps to sell the artists well. The Costumes; the black dress which “Adele” and the Suit which Kanye West wears makes both characters look attractive and sophisticated.

We used the same font in both items in the ancillary texts the posters and the digi-pack cover because We thought that a recognisable familiarity would benefit our product on the market. We chose a white font because of the way it stands out against the light blue image.

Question 3

The feedback we received for our pitch was positive, both our teachers and our peers agreed that our group had organised the technical elements such as narrative and lighting. We discussed the ideas on our locations and actors which were not finalised and received quite a positive response to our ideas.

The feedback we received for our rough-cut was mostly positive, Our peers and teachers said we had lip-synced well and followed common conventions of a music video in-terms of goodwins points and our peers and teachers were impressed with the use of lighting in the ‘hotel scene’.

However one of the problems with the feedback from our rough-cut was that we did not have a full rough-cut. We feel that if we had been able to show a complete rough cut, the feedback would have been more beneficial to the editing of the final cut.
The feedback which we received for our final edit was mostly positive. The majority of our peers and our teachers have said we have used macro and micro elements such as our narrative and the use of mise-en scene (for example the costumes and the lighting) in our music video. However one of the major criticisms we received was that we didn’t have a varied amount of shot-types in our final cut.

Question 4
One of the pieces of new media technology we used was the internet (more specifically YouTube) to research conventions of popular music videos and which conventions were not being used. We also used YouTube to research cinematographic techniques, editing techniques and for learning how to set up lighting effectively for a music video.
Another pieces of internet technology which we used in our project is “Blogger” which we used to organise our whole project. This was effective in enabling all members of our group access to information about our project such as our storyboard and shot-list, so we could continue with our work if another member of our group was absent.

We used HD Camcorders to record our footage for our music video. The footage from these cameras looked professional and the built in hard-drive enabled us to take multiple takes of shots for use in editing.

Another piece of technology which we used is Final Cut Express. This is semi-professional editing software which we used to apply professional editing techniques to our music video such as the split-screen and the colour-adjustment effects. This made our music video look professional. The editing also helps the audience to understand the narrative by keeping the continuity consistent.

We also used a DSLR camera for the photo-shoot for our ancillary texts. Using this enabled us to capture high-quality professional looking images for use in our magazine advert and our digi-pack cover. Lightroom was used to give the photos the effect similar to the effect applied in the main product, which we believed a consistency throughout our product would help to market our product.
Another piece of technology we used was a camera tripod which we used to keep our shots steady. We also used a dolly which we used for smooth tracking shots in our music video. We also used two lights to make our music video look more theatrical and professional.

Final Ancillary Product: Magazine Advert

Ancillary Products - 21/11/11

Today we began to experiment with the images in Photoshop. We have decided that all the images used should have a consistent blue tint, this will also work well with our music video which has uses a blue filter. We also feel that this colour reflects the mood of the characters and will create a 'moody' atmosphere in the photos that are used. This would be particularly beneficial in the real-world, it would create an emotive response from the audience and draw their attention.

Of-course the magazine cover will be an A4 shape, which is fairly basic to create in Photoshop. However, we have two options for the digipack, a standard DVD shape or a Gatefold shape. The gatefold is more common with CD covers, although it does offer very original approach to the digipack. The DVD shape will work with a lighter photo on the front cover, and the darker silhouette photo on the back, this effect would give the product depth and another visual dimension.

Standard DVD shape

Gatefold shape

I have done some further editing in Adobe Lightroom, this is because we wanted the 'Cyanotype B&W' effect on all our photos. After deciding on the three strongest photos, I edited them with this effect and then began to use the adjustment brush to 'dodge & burn' specific areas of them. Below is a screenshot showing the adjustments which can be made with the brush, alongside this is part of a photo with the dots which signify the adjustment areas.

Adjustment brush example

One photo was well composed and was very dramatic but the Adele character's face was very harshly lit. I wanted to change this, so I used the adjustment brush again. You can see the change in the screenshots below, the exposure here is far better. You will also notice the dot which signifies the point where the adjustment brush was used.

Adjustment brush example

After editing the three photos in Lightroom, I believe I have create some 'moody', consistent images which will work well in both our products. I have added them all below.

Analysis: Mary J Blige Album Cover

We have decided to assess a number of different album covers to gain ideas and inspiration for what may work well for our own digipack cover and which links well with our music video. Here is the album cover for Mary J Blige's album; the breakthrough. The front cover image is a good representative of the theme of the album because it is a close up of her face, where she is looking meaningful and innocent. The front cover of the album is in black and out however the back image is in colour, but the main colour theme remains black and white, with sky blue writing. There is a similar font used on the front, back and spine of the album cover however it is not exactly the same font. The same picture from the front cover is also used on the spine but obviously a lot smaller.
We could use this album cover theme for our own, perhaps with a picture of our female singer on the front and with the male rapper image on the back of the album. We would probably use a black background rather than white because most of Adele's album covers have a black background and we would like to continue this theme. Also, black would give a sadder theme which would match in with our music video better.

Inside the CD cover, the theme is the same as the outside, with a close up image of Mary J Blige's face from a side angle. There is also a faded face of her on the book that comes with the Case, this again is the same theme as the other images.

Blog response

I am happy with the comments we recieved from the other groups in our class. The main criticisms of our video is that the acting isn't great or that it seems to drag on. In response to this, I believe that it was a hard video to act as it is very emotional at the start and more upbeat in the second half, and the changing tempo was hard to adapt to. The dragging of the video may seem to be there but i belive that we couldn't keep changing the location and costume and other things as this would have diverted the attention away from the storyline and this therefore would have made our music video unsuccessful. Overall, i am very happy with the mu video and the comments are good about our lyp syncing overall and the video as a whole.

Final Music Video Feedback

Group 27:
We all thoroughly enjoyed the music video. The whole concept of the video was very well executed, and we liked it.

Did the piece meet the genre conventions?
We found that the video met the conventions of the genre very well, having a video as slow and sad as the song itself.

Did the piece use editting techniques well?
There was a wide variety of editing techniques used in the video - all of which we thought were well implemented, uses such as the split screen and light filters were well executed.

Does the piece sell or promote the video well?
Yes. The video follows the lyrics of the song very well and the video looks mature and professional.


Does the piece use effective camera angles?
The video uses a wide variety of camera angles all of which make it look unique and professional.

Some bits could be better lip synced as sometimes it looks a bit off time (on the bridge when Nick is rapping)


Group 26:
Genre conventions - we believed that the clip represented the genre well because the narrative fit into the genre type e.g. the slow pace, which was reflected through the slow cuts and clips especially at the start.

Editing techniques - the split screen technique was very effective, and allowed the audience to keep track of both artists and to see both characters point of views as well as their emotions at the same time. Also, the lighting was really well done.

Camera angles - they used a variety of camera angles, such as using props to create the angles like a mirror, which worked really well. however, more shot types could've been used to add another dimension to the storyline.

Sell or promote the video - the costumes sells the artist, e.g. the color represents the male


Group 25:
Really good lip syncing, aswell as storyline. Costumes were appropriate and fitted well.
very good editing techniques used like the flashback scene in the background to clearly represent the storyline to the audience.
cheesy ending let it down Nick.....
very beautiful and photogenic choice of actors
very

Group 30:
Very stereotypical video for the song and this seems to be the trend for slow hip hop video. The footage and lipsyncing also worked very well and look quite proffesional. The choice of shots was quite small and was generally filmed from a eye level and made watching it quite boring. The footage represented the genre well and stayed true to the conventions. The editing was done well with clear thought put into it and the montage that was emposed in the background worked well. started off really well but after that i lost all interest and it become a drag. this is a shame as it had high potential and better acting was needed and more tohught into the video as a whole.

Group 29:
Genre conventions:
We think this music video follows all the genre conventions. A very good use of costumes, props, lighting, costumes etc..
Editing:
We thought the editing was really good, The lip syncing was spot on and the use of effects was great.
The rap scene and some of the other scenes could have been edited a bit more with some more shots as some of these scenes lasted too long.

Final Music Video

Here is the final edit of the music video.

Editing Diary - Last Lesson

Today, it is the second last day of editing, therefore we will be trying to perfect our video as much as possible. We are missing two members of our group, so Sam will continue to edit as much as he can, whilst i will continue the research into the Ancillary products. George not being here is a little bit of a problem as he knows lots about final cut, so we are limited to what we can do until monday where he can add some finishing touches.

Feedback Evaluation: Media Studies Teachers

We thought it would help us to get some feedback from our teachers and the course team leader. This will enable us to achieve a better music video, that is more successful, enjoyable and meets the marking criteria more strongly.

The general feedback was that the hotel scenes were strong, and that the artificial lighting had defintely assisted this. However, the rap scenes are weaker and reminiscent of "home movies". This is partly due to the natural lighting, the performance and the flat effect of some of the shots. But we have been given some advice that can greatly improve this.

We were shown Beyonce's new music video "Countdown", which has a very simple narrative yet is still engaging for the audience. You can see that the quick cuts, and the effect of returning to similar shots gives the video variety. The production team have also decided to use a wide range of special effects and transitions to break up the footage. Split screens, wipes, fades and other transitions all give the video variety.

After looking at this video we are able to see how a video can be made more engaging. If we can make our cuts quicker then this will give the video more pace and action. As we have a clear narrative we can use split screens to illustrate parallel events, this is an example of parallel editing. Even simple effects such as dissolves and fades will improve the general delivery of the piece. We have also been advised to use the colour wheels and hues to adjust the colours, this both improving the "home movie" effect which we have, and also giving some depth.

One area of improvement is the long note from Adele before the instrumental. We are currently just showing one shot of the Adele actress on the fencing, this is quite bland. George had the idea that we could do a flashback or rewind effect, where everything that has happened before this note will be shown in a quick rewind effect. This will give the impression that Adele is thinking over the argument and will link in well with the narrative, it also shows our editing skills as we will both use speed and rewind tools to create this effect. This flashback section could be in black and white, like earlier flashback clips. Below is a screenshot of this long note, to show how we will improve it.

Plan - 07/11/11

Today, we will continue to edit the video so that it will be completed for our deadline. By the end of the lesson, we will only have a small section of the video to complete. We are trying to edit the sections in the track where the lip syncing did not work so well and sections where there are no lyrics at all. We will do this by using little clips of adele and kanye west on there own in the seperate locations so the song is still following the storyline.

Notes after lesson:
We have now completed cutting the video, and have begun to experiment with some colour correction filters. These will be details in a post soon. We still need to improve the rap parts as this the weaker part of our music video, this can be achieved with some colour correction and adjusting the order of the shots.

Plan - 04/11/11

Today is one of the last lessons we will have to edit our video, we are currently cutting and placing our video clips. We have a lesson on Monday, Tuesdsay and an hour of the lesson on Friday to finish off our video. We plan to make sure that all of our clips are in the correct place by the end of Mondays lesson and then on Tuesday and Fridays lesson we will add in effects and make the final touches to the video.

Rough Cut Feedback

Positive feedback

• Lip syncing was good
• Really well thought out locations
• Great outfits and varied shots
• Great editing
• lighting is really good
• Good selection of mise-en-scene
• Acting was brilliant
• Good character choices
• Good variety of shots
• Good continuity

Constructive feedback

• Quicker shots needed of the male singer?
• Kanye West part needs more action?
• Lip synching could be slightly more emphasized?
• Need to make more of the argument flashbacks?
• Rap part at the end goes on too long in comparison to the beginning of the video.
• More variety of camera angles?

In order to overcome the feedback, we need to edit the shots of the rapping to make each shot a bit shorter, and more dramatic, we also need to edit the rest of our shots to fill the whole music video and use a variety of shot types we filmed. We will see if we can change the other feedback points and see if it makes our video more effective, if not we will keep it the same.

Rough Cut Video

ideas for ancillary products

 Melt my heart into stone - Adele feat Kanye West

Release date: 21st July 2011

• Review of song
• Review of Adele
• Information on song e.g. track duration
• Da font title?

Filming Update

Toady we will film the second part of the music video. We decided that Nick, Sam and George to leave at 3.30 so we could get as much done as possible before the light started to fade. Daisy, whilst we were doing this would wait for Emily who has to finish her lesson before coming to film her part as Adele. We planned to travel to the location by car, however there was a lack of petrol, so we have to get the bus which has consequently affected our time sheet.
We plan to film the rest of the film which includes Nick's part as Kanye and some of the storyline. we thought that this would look more effective in the daylight rather than in the dark.

Fact File: Kanye West

Kanye West songs usually include vocal samples from soul songs incorporated with his own drums and instrumentals. Influences include 70s R&B, baroque pop, trip hop, arena rock, alternative, electronica, synth-pop and classic music.

His debut album "The College Dropout" was released in 2004, followed by "Late Registration" in 2005. The third albm "Graduation" saw the start of his mainstream success, with songs such as "Stronger" being popular worldwide. Since then two more albums have been released "808s & Heartbreak" and "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" which have both gone to #1 in the US. In August 2011 a collaboration album with Jay-Z was released "Watch The Throne".

Kanye has received many awards including 14 Grammy Awards. This is due to his overwhelming sales, his top five tracks have sold 18.1 million, which places him at third most digitally downloaded over the past decade.

Kanye now owns his own record label "GOOD Music" with artists such as John Ledgend, Common and Kid Cudi. He is known for his logo of the "Dropout Bear", a bear which has appeared on the covers of three of his five albums as well as several single covers and music videos.