Hello Moderator. My name is Jamie Ingram and this is my blog which consists of mine and my partners, Chantelle Short's work; it contains all of the work undertaken as part of the G324 A2 Coursework Portfolio Unit within the OCR CGE course in Media Studies.

I chose to work with Chantelle to produce a music video to the track "My Heart is Broken" by "Evanescence". The project lasted four months, commencing in September 2013 and cumulating in February / March 2014. There were also three weeks of progression work in June 2013 following the completion of the AS course. This can be seen on the "Research" page. 

Please use the navigation bar on the left hand side of the page in order to access my work, as organised into the five stages: Research (including progression tasks), Planning, Construction, Final Products and the Evaluation. 

Your Thankfully

Jamie Ingram

Question 3 Draft

Q3

Audience feedback is key in the media, as the audience bring in the revenue and make a person’s work credible, it is also what makes a music video popular or not, the more people that enjoy a music video the more the message of it gets spread. The aim of an editor/director/producer is to please their audience. The audience is the reason for making a music videos/films, in some cases, however in short films and other various media products it is sometimes not about the money and number of people that would go and watch it but it is about expressing themselves or may be just a hobby rather than a business.

How we went about getting audience feedback:

Questionnaires - Our preferred use of getting audience feedback was through questionnaires as it does not put much pressure on the audience therefore results are more likely to be accurate and true, questionnaires can be designed by using closed questions with yes or no answers or open where the audience can comment on what their opinion is. We included a range of both types of questions, this was because as it is a closed question it was straight to the point and easier to analyse, however we did include open questions so that we could get more depth and it would also enable us to see why people made certain choices or have specific preferences. For example we asked what their favourite music video was and why, by asking an open question like this it enabled us to receive an answer with more depth, we could analyse the reasons why they like these videos. Some responses included “I liked the narrative as it revealed an interesting story” and “I liked the visuals because the song was like a live performance”. Therefore, by receiving these types of responses we were able to use these ideas and reasons why they like the music video to help influence ideas for our music video. As our film is not a Hollywood Blockbuster our scale of people we asked would be a lot smaller than a big film would go and get feedback from, we sent out a questionnaire which included eight questions to all of Hartlepool Sixth Form College which Chantelle and I attend.

Other options include test screenings; this is where an audience is asked to watch the film before it is released and they must comment on good and bad points, these points are then taken into account and the film may be re-edited, we used a similar technique to this but with our peers just to make a few comments on how we could improve our film from another perspective, unfortunately we never recorded this.
There is also the feedback which comes after a film has been made such as reviews, number of dvds sales, exit polls etc which can help the director build upon this in the next film so they do not make the same mistakes or try to include things which the last film have lacked. By gaining this post production feedback.

Throughout our A2 media project, Chantelle and I consistently received audience feedback to help us produce a media product that would be as successful as possible. In retrospect to this, if we can produce something that the audience ask for, then it is a certainty that the product will be a success.

Question 3

The video would not input into the Glogster, therefore we added it underneath.

Question 1 Draft

Question 1

Question 2

Question 4

Choice of Editing Software - Final Cut

Editing Software

Final cut Express will be used to edit my music videos. It's considered one of the most comprehensive and advanced pieces of semi-professional editing software. It is very nearly industry standard and offers a number of features such as: tracks, slicing (jump cuts), and the slug which will make the process of editing much more efficient and quick. These specific features will probably be explained in the Evaluation stages when the project is finished. The software also offers a number of high-quality visual filters, e.e. mirrors, changing the colour etc. which will make the video more interesting and dynamic, visually unique - but again very professional. it also  offers support for my HD-quality videos.

We have also experienced with the programme at AS for coursework and so editing should be ideally efficiently quick.  We are familiar with it's inference furthermore the "Test Editing" process will allow us to get back into using it before i begin any serious work that will actually be used in the best product.

Photoshop "Opie"

Because part of this portfolio will involve creating a digipak for a single release, including the album artwork, the purpose of this task, creating our own "Opies", was to develop our skills in the Adobe Photoshop package which we will probably use to design the album, and subsequent advert for it. 

My "Opie" can be seen below;

An "Opie" refers to the work of artist Julian Opie, who created the artwork to Blur's 2000 greatest hits album (see below). We thought it would be interesting to try and create our own to not only develop our creativity and Photoshop skills, but to get us to begin to think about the design of our own artwork - it needs to be as creative and innovative as possible to sell and stand as something representing a particular artist. I was inspired by the artwork as it is highly creative and therefore interesting - a must for album artwork! 

Blur's Greatest Hits Album Cover

I feel that the image turned out really successfully, matching quite well my appearance on the particular day. Because we used Photoshop quite at AS in order to produce our production company logo I was already familiar with its inference and so found the task quite easy. It involved taking a photo of myself via PhotoBooth and importing this onto a blank canvas. I drew around, using the lasso tool, a specific part of my face, e.g. the head, and copied this to a new layer. I then filled this section with a single colour representative of the area. This process was repeated until the original image was covered by the cartoon-like layers. Finally, the "Opie" was tidied up by erasing away the rough edges and adding shadow lines into my hair. 

I may look at this technique when I come to design my own artwork, depending on the song I chose and the visual style of the artist. 

Detailed Music Video Analysis

This a detailed music video analysis of the song "How to save a life" by The Fray. We analysed this video so we could use some of the ideas within it to inspire us on creating our own music video.

Nine Frame Analysis

Using a nine-frame analysis, I have analysed The Strokes - 'Juicebox', in terms of media theory (Genre, Media Language, Representation and Narrative). This allowed me to see how the conventions are being subverted and conformed to, but also to note the mise-en-scene, creativity and visual style that may influence my own work.

 

Editing Software for Magazine Advert

Photoshop was the software we used in the editing process of our magazine advert. We thought this was appropriate as it allows to do a whole range of things to enhance the look of our magazine and that it did.

Font Choice

We have the same font for a lot of the presentable things on our blogs, this font immediately caught our eye. Not only by the name 'Evanescence' but the genreal look. Now our artist will be known as just Emily, whenever her name is being presented we use this font as her star font. This website is named http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=405 and really helped us generate a look.

Magazine Advert Editing

When editing the pictures for the magazine advert, we came across a website that allowed us to play around with various effects. http://pixlr.com/o-matic/ this website enabled us to change the lighting, colour, effect, saturation and other things like that. It had different effets that suited different conventions.

This was the original image we started off with.

Before we began editing we had to crop out the date a that wouldn't look very professional on an magazine advert .
We both decided to use this image because of the shot. we particularly liked how good the lighting was on Emily and how dark it was around her. The trees in the background really emphasise and support our gothic rock genre. This picture was actually accidentally took and Emily's emotion is perfect. We liked how she wasn't frames centrally and thought it varied the frame.

 

After experimenting on the website we found, this is the concluding image we came up with.  We thought it was extremely clever how the red and orange 'cyborg' effect was based near her heart and ironic that the song it about that.

Final Magazine Advert

We carried on our Evanescence writing font as we just like the overal look of it and think it suits this genre. We got the star images and the bar code of google, copied and pasted them in so it looked like a real magazine advert. Looking other magazine some of them had quoted what a paper or tabloid had said about them and what they were rated.

Shooting Schedule

I will use the Shooting Schedule when filming the video in order to remind myself, in detail, of the shots that I need to produce in order to fulfil my vision. It includes a chronological list of the shots planned in the Storyboard; what type of shot this is, the camera movement (action), and the mise en scene within it, ensuring that I won't be making things up on the spot.

I will be able to film objectively, getting all the shots I need to and then experiment and introduce an element of spontaneity if time allows. I've presented the document using a table for extra clarity - I'll be able to print a copy out and tick things off whilst filming, adding notes to assist in the editing selection process. The actor will also be able to see what I require of her shot by shot, and I've adopted a typewriter-like font and used the record label logo to give a professional feel to document. I need to take this project seriously and hopefully this will encourage the actor to do the same.

 

Magazine Advert

Magazine Advert

Please find on this page the final magazine advert.

Risk Assessment

In this presentation we came up with some risks that need to be identified and taken in as they could cause harm to us as individuals or the project itself. It will be made sure that each person who takes part in our project will be aware of the risks to prevent them happening.

Evidence of Editing

This page contains a number of screenshots which evidence the process of using Photoshop to edit the images for the digipak and advert, as well as an example video taken from the Evaluation stage of the project. 

Synchronising footage with the music

Changing the effects

Processing each shot

Record Logo

This is the logo we created to professionally portray out music video. We thoroughly looked through different logos in different genres to just see how they vary. After looking, we came up with the logo shown before after altering it; playing round with colors and exploring different fonts. As a pair we wanted the final piece to look effective and aesthetically pleasing, so we stuck with the typical gothic black and white coloring and quite a simple yet effective plain theme. Cleverly, we found a font that was relatively similar to the Evanescence bands font that is presented on their albums, this was a cursive again gothic font in which we really though looked appealing. This logo is something that is representing us so we aimed for it to look eye-catching, interesting, different and also follow gothic conventions. We edited, created and recreated our logo on photoshop - this allowed us to play around with aspects such as: lighting, color, framing and a lot of different techniques which enabled us to come up with the logo shown below. It did take a few goes to perfect and develop however after 3 various developments and improvements, we finalized our music video logo with Anarchy Records!

Record Logo Research

To help think about brand identity, I created my own record label and its logo to use throughout the project and serve as the distributor and promoter of the video.As such, I began by creating a mood board of existing record company logos to inspire my design ideas. I looked at a whole range of record labels.This helped me develop a much more representative idea of the "genre" as a whole.

There is a clear trend in the design of the logos. By in large, the majority are black and white which helps them to stand out across a variety of mediums, e.g. CD labels, posters, and coloured backgrounds, etc. which is necessary in an increasingly multimedia industry.  Any use of colour in the examples I have picked is of a single primary colour, facilitating simplicity, sophistication and again boldness that creates a distinct brand identity. 

The designs of the logos are simple, helping to make the brand identity they create memorable, usually a single shape and/or symbol used - squares, circles, silhouetted people, globe. 

These are some of the ideas we looked at in the process of choosing our font.

 Supernatural Knight

Beyond Wonderful

Black Chancery

Fairydust

October Crow

Pieces of Eight

 These were all extremely good ideas that we both liked, however after variously looking we decided on this one because it fits the part and in our opinion shows gothic rock conventions.

We found these logos which and immediately loved it. All the different interpretations of it and recreations inspired us to recreate our own. The fact they look quite rock like and gothic, enhanced our creation more. We liked how each one had a different design but still looked equally as good! There was a current theme of black and white then occasionally just red and again this shows typical rock conventions and just looks stylish and sophisticated.

From this, we designed our logo with finally concluded to look like this! We are proud of our logo and think it represents out music video well.