Contents Page

Group

FINAL VIDEO
PRINT PRODUCTION
CALL SHEET/ RISK ASSESSMENT
ANIMATIC
PITCH

Candidate 8841

EVALUATION 1
EVALUATION 2
EVALUATION 3
EVALUATION 4
VIDEO ANALYSIS
FIRST INSPIRATION
ALBUM COVER ANALYSIS
DIGIPAK DISCUSSION

Yazmin- 8843

EVALUATION 1
EVALUATION 2
EVALUATION 3
EVALUATION 4
VIDEO ANALYSIS
ALBUM COVER ANALYSIS
INITIAL DIGIPAK SKETCH
REFLECTION ON TECHNICAL DECONSTRUCTION
INITIAL INSPIRATION

Group - Evaluation 3

Testing the concept


Testing a concept before we did our pitch meant that we could get some general feedback on the ideas that we already had. We did this with a survey using Survey Monkey and the general consensus was that people liked our idea, with many people agreeing on what we had to say about the track. 
The graph below shows from 1-10 how much people enjoyed the track. It is clear the majority of respondees enjoyed the track and supported our decision to use it.

From this initial research into our track and ideas we established that people found the track fun, upbeat and carefree, exactly what we hoped to convey in the music video.
Some of the words we received to describe the track include:

• Upbeat
• Christmassy
• Freedom
• Interesting
• Funky 
• Sixties
• Carefree
• Feelgood 
• Retro

We also found that most people thought that an urban environment would be most suited to the track, another idea we were already fixed on.

We were given feedback on what an audience thought would suit our chosen song, and fortunately they agreed with what we thought:

• 55% of respondees preferred a casual look in terms of costume
• 55% surveyed imagined bright colours and fun shots
• 73% of people got a retro feel/atmosphere from the track
• 73% pictured the band to have facial hair- (something we were intially keen on but proved to be too difficult).

To help us make some final decisions about the music video we wanted an insight into what emotions and moods were evoked within them while they were listening to the track.  The majority of people were very positive with their feedback and gave answers that we were hoping for:

This aided us in our final pitch because in order to get greenlighted we needed to show that our concept would be successful.


To get the best response from our respondees, we asked them to tick boxes or use a scale to convey their thoughts and opinions to us.  This is because from our experiences last year, we learnt that long, open questions usually do not provide a realistic, reliable response that we can analyse. 

Testing the rough cut and printwork


When we had all of our footage filmed we could begin to start editing. After doing an animatic we were able to place bits of footage into an organised order and cut it accordingly. 


This, of course, turned into a rough cut where we had about 30 seconds of properly cut footage. Initial feedback was from a class of 11 people who said:

• We had done what we had outlined in our pitch
• We captured the essence of the song in our footage
• And we were told to improve by:
• Making the cuts a lot faster
• Making the shots shorter and more varied
• Reshoot the studio shots in order to get better framing and lighting

This helped us to fine tune our footage so that we only selected the best framed shots and made a fast paced video that would amplify the pace and mood of the song.

In reference to the printwork we tested that to the same group of people as the rough cut and got the responses that our first print ideas were reflective of the band and of the song, but that we might want to consider putting an image of the band on the digipak.

We decided to take this advice as we believed listening to your audience is the best way to build a fanbase so we included band images on the inside panes of the digipak so as not to disrupt the continuity through the three products.  This is what we showed in terms of our rough-cut print work:

And this is the final print work that was adjusted after this feedback to impress an indie audience:

These objective viewing helped give us perspective on our work as we had upto this point no outside help or opinions on where we were going with this printwork so an audiences perspective opened our eyes as the stronger and weaker areas of our print media texts.

Testing the final cut


After the completion of our music video and print media texts, we then tested all our final products to an audience, specifically targeting fans of the indie genre.


We created a survey via SurveyMonkey and both ask people personally to complete it- these were the people that were more fans of the genre; we also posted the survey to Facebook and Twitter to gain a wider perspective of an audiences view on our media texts.


All the answers we received were well thought out and taken seriously, this means that the results we have acquired are reliable and can be analysed and used trustingly.


In terms of results, in answer to our first question: 'What are your first impressions of the music video?' All the replies were positive and what we were hoping to achieve. The results were:

• 'Fun and Lighthearted'
• 'An exploration of London with friends, having a good time and messing around'
• 'I thought it was fun and well made'
• 'Fun'
• 'It's fun and colourful as well as being serious'
• The video is really cheery and has quite a fast pace to it'
• 'Fun'
• 'Fun and enjoyable'

These are all responses that we would personally label our video with and so the first question has proved to be a success.


The second question we asked was 'What images from the video are most memorable?'  Answers for this varied in depth.  Our answers included:

• 'The colourful split screens'
• 'Josh and the railings'
• 'The stop motion section, plus the black and white because it creates a sense of nostalgia so it seems to be more memorable that the rest'
• 'Colours and transitions'
• 'I liked the transitions and when the band are together as a group'
• 'The ending- the boys walking away. And dancing with the m&m'
• 'Colours and transitions'
• 'I really liked the transitions and colour backgrounds'

Again, the question was well answered and the answers provided us with relief knowing that the elements we intended to stand out the most were the shots that the majority of respondees noted in this question.


The third question we asked relates to one we asked in our initial audience research survey to try and gage the emotions and moods people were feeling while watching this.  Our answers included:

• 'Happiness'
• 'Joy'
• 'The humorous 'skit's' and colourful backgrounds makes me feel nothing more than happy and along with the music, both parts go hand in hand'
• 'Optimism and happiness'
• 'Happiness'
• 'Happiness, it makes me smile'
• 'Joy, optimism'
• 'Happiness, Joy and optimism'

This questions was really helpful because it confirmed that we had accomplished what we set out to do in making people smile and feel happy through making a feel-good music video.  It is also interesting how more people found the track happy and joyful after putting our video to the music track than they did initially when they only just listened to the track.

Next, we asked the respondees to describe the narrative of the video in their own words so we could gain an insight as to whether we had made our narrative clear enough, or whether people didn't realise there was even a narrative present.

100% of those surveyed recognised the narrative as being a group of 'lads' having a day out in the city. 

This is further emphasis on the success of our video standing up to what we originally wanted it to be.

For question 5, we asked those taking the survey what genre of music they felt Creaky Boards are classed as after watching the video along to the track.

As you can see, 100% of people recognised Creaky Boards to be an indie band, meaning we must have conformed to enough conventions of the genre.  Two people labelled the band indie rock, instead of indie pop but seeing as the conventions between the two are so similar we still believed this question as well as our video, was a success.

We embedded links for the respondees to take a look at our print work and simply answer a 'yes' or 'no' as to whether the three products create a cohesive band image.

We received 100% 'yes' answers on this question, showing how our decision not to display an image of the band on our print media texts was the correct decision. 

The final question asked the audience whether they believed any stereotypes were being challenged or conformed in the music video.  Our responses included:

• 'It conforms to the light-hearted tone of indie pop music'
• 'It conforms to the ideology of youth- having a good time, not taking anything seriously'
• 'It conforms a lot but there are not major challenges, except maybe the choice of costume doesn't seem to conform to stereotypical 'indie' clothes'
• 'Challenges the usual 'indie' stereotype a bit through the choice of costume on two of the actors'
• 'The general appearance of the band conforms to the indie genre'
• 'Hegemonic masculinity'

This question was well answered and provided us with the knowledge that we had ultimately conformed to the indie genre however, some decisions we made appeared to be challenging this, though it didn't seem to make much difference in the respondees fitting the track into a genre.

Our sample included everyone we personally know to be a fan of indie music so that we can get a real sense of what an indie audience thought of the music video.  We also enlarged our sample by asking fellow media studies students to shed their views and opinions on it as well as posting it on web 2.0 applications such as Facebook and Twitter to gain an idea what people who are of other genres of music thought.

Overall, I think this final research task was the most successful as it was taken very seriously by all those who took it and therefore made the results very reliable and easy for us to analyse.  The research and results show that the majority of people agreed with the preferred reading, with only one or two responses indicating that they agreed more with a negotiated reading of the video.  I believe that our video was very successful in terms of what we initially set out to achieve, supported with these answers as they are proof that the audience has decoded the video the way we wanted them to. The fact that there was no oppositional readings for the music video put forward, it is fair to say this video is successful.

How was you video meant to be consumed?

Our video was made to be consumed by a niche audience of fans of the indie genre.  Therefore it would not feature on mainstream music channels such as MTV and Kiss, but more channels such as MusicBox which caters to a more specific audience.  

This means our video is more to be consumed through a focused viewing as viewers of these music channels would have tuned in especially because they are fans of the genre and therefore want to watch and engage with the music rather than have it as background noise to be consumed ambiently.  

YM- Evaluation Questions 1, 2 and 4

AP - Evaluation 1, 2 and 4

Group - Final Printwork

This is my final advert which is to be a page spread in  NME magazine. It has the correct dimensions so that it is the same size as a page in the magazine.

This is Yazmin's final digipak design.

Yazmin changed the font and the papyrus background for the font, which is now a stencil found on photoshop.

She has also moved the name of the album from under 'Creaky Boards' to across the bus as this is a unique idea and also continues to emulate the sense of fun we are aiming to create.
She has also decided to include two pictures of the band so that the audience can identify with them. However she placed these images on the inside sleeves so as not to disrupt the continuity between the digipak design and the poster advertisment.

AP - Audience Research - Survey

This is a survey made to get feedback about our music video. 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XVRQPBR

Group- Final Music Video

Creaky Boards, 'Now I'm In The City'

YM- Production Log 5/12/2011

Today I have applied the final effects to finish our video.  This included:

• Applying the blue screen chroma key to several studio shots that had not been fixed yet
• Also applying and adjusting the brightness and contrast and the Red, Green, Blue effect
• Applying the colour mattes
• Adding transitions on the colour mattes and occasionally on the actor in the shot
• Ensuring no shot was too long and that all the london footage was in the black and white filter.

YM- Production Log 2/12/2011

Today we faced the challenged of ensuring that all our footage was carefully cut to the beat of the music as well as cleverly intercut to successfully explain our narrative. 
We faced a problem after cutting our footage when we realised that we were suddenly short of footage last minute.  To solve this problem, we reviewed all the footage we had on the datadisk and carefully selected more studio shots to use as filler shots in amongst all the London footage.

YM- Production Log 1/12/2011

Today, as we now have a complete timeline full of all the footage we want to use, all of it cut into short shots and having had the black and white filter, brightness and contrast and rbg effects applied, we were ready to really get down to the finally part of the editing. 

To go about this, we decided to work from the beginning, moving through the video gradually.  As we did this, we tried to perfect each shot, both visually and in terms of the cutting rate- making sure it cuts in time to the beat.  

We also did the split screens as we went through, adding the colour matte's and transitions, which compromised quite a lot of time. 

We had an idea for one of the studio shots to layer Henry singing 3 times, so it appears them singing together, and to have them slide in one after the other. Again, syncing the three tracks was time consuming, we then had to add the colour matte's and transitions to make the shot the quirky, fun mood we have constantly been trying to create.

We managed to get about half the song completely edited today, leaving us the final day to finish.  This is a tight deadline and tomorrow will be very tight.

We have had a couple of problems with premiere: firstly it runs very slowly, however we are aware this is because of the amount of video layers we are using: all needed due to the split screen effects and colour matte's.  The second issue we have been having is the juddering, causing us to need to render sections almost each time we make a cut as it is impossible to view the footage realistically until we do.