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.

YM- Production Log 28/11/2011

Today I spent some time with Abbi reviewing what we have so far on our timeline and discussing what else needs to be done.
After that, I spent several hours completing the digipak to accompany the music video.  I worked alongside the advert that Abbi has designed to show continuity through our artwork. I used photos we took on our London recce of iconic London sights to relate to both the album title and the music video. I used a 'posterised' filter over the entire digipak for a more fun mood presented.

YM- Question on Connotations in Artwork 1

In What Way Is Your Construction/Printwork Rich in Connotation

Our music video construction and my digipak artwork is rich in connotation through Barthes visual signifiers that are present.  The iconic landmarks and objects in our video, such as the London Eye, Covent Garden, London Underground and the red telephone box are all cultural codes allowing the audience to instantly recognise the 'city' the band is singing in. 


[INSERT IMAGES]


The band image we have constructed through the music video, showing the band out together enjoying a day out in the city presents band authenticity making it more intimate for the audience to watch, and this makes it easier for them to relate.  This band authenticity relates to Dyer's paradox 2 where the artist is simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary: while their star image is extraordinary, the lyrics and music video's narrative presents a very ordinary depiction of a young persons life, allowing their target audience to connect with them.


[INSERT IMAGES]


The fun, easy-going atmosphere of the video challenges the dominant ideology that lyrics relating to relationships are all serious.  The majority of artists' music video's portray a very solemn mood, using dull colours to connote a negative mood to relate to the lyrics- conforming to stereotypes.  However Creaky Boards' 'Now I'm In The City' twists a seemingly negative concept to become more optimistic, and the bouncy rhythm supports this.  Due to this, we have used bright colours, to connote happiness and included as many quirky shots as possible, while directing our actors to constantly smile and have fun.


[INSERT IMAGES]


Our video also challenges the hegemonic masculinity that is seen in society.  Stereotypically, men are meant to be tall and strong, often seen in music videos through Goffman, Jhally and Kilbourne's ritualisation of subordination, to show their superior role in society to women.  However in our music video, the males are shown to be 'indie' and not particularly strong or typically good looking to give a more ordinary look to the video, which further links to the meaning of the song: a scenario many young men face in their life. 


[INSERT IMAGES]

YM- Questions on Band Representation 1

How Are You Representing Your Artist Through The Printwork?

To help me design the digipak for 'Now I'm In The City' by American indie band I researched the band's previous album and single for ideas to show continuity from their version to mine. Here is the previous covers I have found for Creaky Boards:

These covers show that Creaky Boards tend to lean towards the animated covers, avoiding images of themselves.  This relates to Dyer's Paradox where the artist is both absent and present because while their image is absent the continuity in all their artwork shows them as present as they are easily recognisable.

There are several conventions evident in these covers: firstly, the name of the band and album name is always in the top right hand corner.  The font is also the same across all the covers, showing continuity across the Creaky Boards products meaning that although there is no image of the band for the audience to see, an image is constructed through this continuity as it allows the niche audience to recognise the band's products.

Using these examples, I decided to follow the theme of animated album covers to help their target audience identify with the band.  I also placed the band's name in the same corner it appears on the previous artwork for Creaky Boards.  This is a further representation of the band.

Due to the unknown status of the band, and therefore there only being a few album/singles covers to use, I had more room for creativity in the production of the digipak.

In terms of techniques used in my printwork to construct band image, I applied the 'posterised' filter to the entire digipak to give a sketchy look to it.  This helps present the fun, easy-going feel I wanted to convey.  I also layered the images slightly over one another to give a montage feel, to try and represent their day in the city- referring back to the title of the album. 

Overall, I believe that I represent the artist in my printwork through using the conventions Creaky Boards have laid out for themselves by avoiding band images and instead contructing an image of the band by showing continuity among all their artwork.

Group - Experimenting with Colours

These are print screens from a website we used to help us select our colour schemes for the colour matte's for the background of our studio shots.

We chose these colours because each pair of colours are complimentary and therefore work well together.  Also, we chose to use these bolder, brighter colours instead of more pastel-y shades because of our decision to use a black and white filter on our studio footage too. The colours now stand out more and highlight the transitions as well as a fun atmosphere.

AP - How are you representing your artist across the printwork?

In my advert I wanted to convey the idea that Creaky Boards are a down to earth kind of band  that care more about their music making talents rather than being superficial and appealing to the mass pop culture audience. 

Because Creaky Boards are a rather obscure band they do not have many album covers or adverts. This has enabled me to be more creative when designing my advert as it means I haven't been obliged to stick to a particular theme. However, from the album Brooklyn Is Love I have gained an insight into what this theme could be. I have used a 'posterise' effect to create a sketchy cartoon look which gives a sense of surrealism and a retro feel which Creaky Boards exudes as a band. 
Similarly to the album cover, I have put the band name on a black background so that it stands out and grabs the reader's eye and also creates a sense of continuity for the handful of people who may have come across them. 
I have tried to represent the band as 'indie' through the use of a papyrus coloured background and sketchy writing with a few bold colours. This is a common theme in indie printwork as they use more earthy and natural colours.

AP - Production Log 25/11/11

Today I spent an hour adding more footage to our timeline and cutting it so that we can fill our timeline to make our final editing process next week easier. I managed to do this successfully as well as putting some effects in place. Next week I plan on finishing my advert and to pay more attention to the stop motion we have recorded as it is important to get this done as soon as possible because it is a relatively time consuming process. In addition to this we only have a week left to fully complete the whole video.

YM- Studio Shoot 2 Reflection

On 22nd November we did our final shoot in the studio.  This rounded off all our filming.
We found this shoot incredibly successful, re-filming shots that didn't work in our previous studio shoot; filler shots in the case that we need more footage; and all the boys singing the entire track so it is easier for us to cut performance into the music video. 


We initially had trouble with the lighting.  We set the white balance for added help, but we found that shadows were obvious on the blue screen, and the bright lights caused the actors to look either very yellow or blue.  As a solution to this problem, we did some practise shots before the shoot, then uploaded the shots to premiere on the computer to review them on the screen as we found the camera moniter to be slightly deceiving.  This action allowed us to gain an idea of what we need to do to change the lighting in our favour. After going through this process several times we managed to find good enough lighting that would be easy to work with in premiere during the editing process. We left the studio set up in the exact way in before the shoot began.

YM- Production Log 22/11/11

Today Abbi and I both played around with the editing process, I focused on editing some of our footage from the Dunorlan Park shoot to make it look quirky, and tried to play around with transitions for the split screen effect. 
We also got some feedback on the bright colours we are using: while we like these colours, as do many others, we were told that pastel colours may look better, and this is something we will experiment with in our next lesson.
Finally, we finished our filming today, shooting the shots that needed re-shooting in the studio after school.

YM- Final Shoot

We have planned to re-shoot our studio shots that were unusable on 22/11/2011.
On this shoot we need to re-film:

• The stop animation shots: henry's moustache and the bus/statue of liberty shot
• All the boys singing the entire song- to help us edit in what we want
• Josh's split screen shot, as the lighting and shadowing was far too difficult to work with

As well as this we would also like to get some band shots, and lots of stills of them as a band too, which will keep several ideas open to us as well as ensure band authenticity.

We will endevour to keep an extremely close eye on the lighting and shadows, by testing shots before we begin our actual filming. 
We also want to make sure that we pay more attention to framing, as many shots proved to not be framed well in our last studio shoot.

AP - Production Log 21/11/11

Today Yazmin and I shared the editing of the footage. I focused on cutting a lot of the footage that we do not have on our timeline yet. I feel I have made a lot of progress with our video by doing this as our focus has been quite concentrated on the beginning of the song rather than footage that we haven't used yet.
I also have been working on my advert in trying to find a font that would be visible on the background and would go with the font used to write the band name.

YM- Production Log 21/11/11

Today, we decided on the date when we will re-film the studio footage that we discovered was unuseable.
We were also shown how to set the white balance on the camera to hopefully prevent the same problem occuring. 
In terms of editing progress today, I play around with split screen effects and colour matte effects for the studio shots, and had a look at the London footage with a black and white filter over it, which we have decided to use to show authenticity.  We think the black and white filter will work because we plan on having a lot of studio shots, all of which will be brightly coloured and slightly crazy.

AP - Advert Ideas 2

YM- Production Log 18/11/2011

Today I continued with editing sequences together for our music video, with a primary focus of ensuring the cutting rate is extremely quick, and continues through the video. 
I planned to have a go at capturing stop motion animation for a couple of sequences in our video however, when I went to do this, we found that we could not find our SD card.  Luckily, all our footage is backed up on the datadisk so we haven't lost anything, however we do need to refilm the shots for our stop motion idea.

YM- Production Log 17/11/2011

Today our main aim was to review the footage from our studio shoot yesterday and ensure it was usable.  We came across a problem in our footage whereby the contrast was all off because we did not set the white balance before we began the filming.  We didn't notice any issues with lighting and shadows while we were filming so this proved to be a disappointment.  
After reviewing the footage, we played around with it in premiere, putting effects on it to adjust the lighting to make it look better.  We went to 'edit' in premiere then 'effects' before applying the Brightness and Contrast, Blue Chroma Key, RGB and finally cropped the shot.  This allowed us to make the shot look more realistic and presentable.
Due to this, we didn't get as much editing done as we would have hoped however, we feel we did make progress and now feel more confident for the duration of this project.

YM- Reflection of Studio Shoot

On 16/11/2011 we spent roughly around 5 hours in the studio shooting our final shots for our music video ready to complete the editing process after.  
In many ways this shoot was a great success:

• We got footage to use as stop animation to add more variety and a more urgent sense of fun and enjoyability to our video. 
• We got a range of close-ups and mid shots to make the video seem more like a music video rather than a short film.
• We managed to shoot our actors singing to the track allowing us to have lip-syncing in the video: something we didn't initially think we'd do.

However, we did encounter some problems during and after the shoot:

• The shooting took longer than we initially intended as we chose to shoot all our actors seperately so we could use the footage with effects, such as split screens and stop animation.  The stop animation footage definitely took a lot of time.
• We didn't set the white balance before we began shooting and therefore when we uploaded our footage to premiere, the lighting and shadow was all wrong, some shots were even unusable which means we will now have to re-shoot those particular shots. 

However, I believe this shoot was successful overall.

AP - Reflection of Studio Shoot

On the 16/11/11 we did our last shoot in the Drama studio so that we could get some close-up shots of our band members either doing quirky things or lip-syncing.

We had to set up the lighting so that it was bright and there were no shadows reflected onto the blue screen which we also used. By using the blue screen we can take the blue out and after we're left with a band member which we will put over a coloured background and then possibly add a few effects.

In our 'quirky' and 'fun' shots we used iconography such as a London bus and a minature Statue of Liberty to be visual signifiers that relate to world cities.

Another shot we got were the ones that we are going to use in a split screen. This went quite well as we only needed to get separate shots of the band members. However, we will see how this works when we experiment in Premier.

AP - Rough Cut Feedback

In our lesson on the 15/11/11 we tested out a rough cut on the rest of the class. We had about 50 seconds of footage and this was some of the feedback we received from the class:

Initial reactions were that it made the audience smile and accurately showed a band of four lads having a fun day out which was a key element in our pitch. Other comments made were that it was authentic.

The advice that we were given from our peers was that we needed a range of shots i.e. more close-ups and some p.o.v shots.

In addition to this it was suggested that we have more static shots and a faster cutting rate. These things we were aware of before we showed the rough cut and we plan to address these in our studio shoot and, of course, by editing.

AP - Advert Ideas 1

This is my first attempt at doing a magazine advert promoting Creaky Boards. Using the effect 'posterise' on a picture of a London street has given more cartoon and sketchy look which is what I am aiming for after having looked at previous album cover themes of Creaky Boards.

AP - Production Log 14/11/11

In today's lesson we had to focus on doing our rough cut. However, we also had to upload the footage from the Dunorlan shoot that Yazmin did on the weekend.
So far we have approximately 1 minute of footage that we can use as our rough cut but, ideally, we would like to get some of the Dunorlan footage in there too. As a result of this, today we will focus on watching and selecting appropriate footage from Dunorlan before we export a rough cut which we intend to finish tomorrow.

CF - feedback planning

Abby/Yasmin - 4-

Well done - this is a consistent document of your planning, research and production process. Research is underpinned by critical theory and you use this to make relevant and useful observations on similar texts.

To secure a L4, you do now need to be very reflective on your production process and use ICT to communicate ideas - screenshots, before/after images. You need to reflect on the animatic process more specifically too.

YM- Dunorlan Park Shoot, 12/11/2011

On Saturday 12th November, we took our actors to Dunorlan Park to re-shoot some shots that we filmed in London that were technically incorrect.  Specifically, we had to use the tripod for each shot to ensure that we have plenty of static shots to use in our music video.

Our actors wore the same costume as they wore for the shoot in London which will help show the continuity in the video as we cut between locations. 

We did however face some problems on the day:

Firstly, the weather wasn't as bright as was forecast and therefore this may affect the mood/atmosphere portrayed in our video as the sky was very misty and grey unlike the footage from London where the sun was shining for the majority of the time.  The best proposition for a solution to this is to play around with the brightness/contrast and the saturation to use help us brighten the footage up.

Another problem we encountered was one of our actors unable to make the shoot at the very last minute.  This was a problem because it left us unable to shoot the band shots we had planned to, meaning there is now more pressure on us to get these shots in our final shoot in the studio.  As we were at the location with the equipment and actors we decided to go ahead with the shoot but improvised with creative shots that when cut into our music video with the fast cutting rate will not be too noticeable that one member is missing.  Luckily for us, the actor that didn't turn up was the member of the band that appears the least in the London footage and therefore it shouldn't be too obvious. 

Overall, I believe the shoot was successful because the actors followed our instructions well and we were able to re-shoot all the shots we wanted to as well as experiment and film shots that are different and fun, therefore fitting with our track.  The only shots we didn't get we wanted to was the band shots, however we still have the chance to overcome this issue.