Andy Watts evaluation

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

In this video I am explaining how we have used, developed and challenged conventions in our media product.


What have you learned from audience feedback?


in this video we have annotated it with comments and information about our feedback.



This tells us overall that the video was successful in the areas we aimed for such as the authentic feel using black and white image processing and playing instruments on a stage which is common in our genre range. Unfortunately most of the answers we received did not contain reasons as to why they picked these answers.

They understood that we couldn't do a real stage performance due to our limits i.e not having a willing audience available to film. They did however say that it would be better with a live audience.


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


In this video I take you through the software, hardware and freeware used in the overall production of the video.




How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?


This is a meeting between me and jack talking about what connections were between our digipak and video

COMPLETED DIGIPACK & WEBSITE

DIGIPACK

At long last we have finished our digipack. Will made the back cover, and half the front cover, and Jack finished the front cover and made the inlay. This was all done using Photoshop.

Front Cover:

Back cover:

Opened up inlay:

Back of inlay:

WEBSITE

Here is our website located at http://www.thecroft.co.cc

The domain is blocked on our school network, so if it doesn't work, here are shots of the website:

Album front cover

After looking at a few different album covers of a similar genre to ours we discovered alot of the album covers had motifs or designs rather than photos of the band or a fantasy style photo of the band.

We looked at several foofighters covers and all of them had pictures rather than photos and andy analysed the cover.

We designed a few different covers one we took silhouette photos of a guitarist drummer and bassist and then put on a split black and white back ground the top half white bottom half black using a bold outline.

After much discussion we decided that the front cover looked to 'pop' almost we chose a different design going with a back ground of a cobbled road we tinted it green.

We added the name of the band which is essential and the album name again is also essential we used photoshop to edit the text in using a translucent text with an obvious outline.

Most recent update - 12/11

We felt our video didn't have a proper ending, which was also felt by our audience, so me (Jack), Andy and Will quickly today went and filmed an appropriate ending of us three (the band) walking down a ramp as if we were exiting a building. There is also a rock star attitude of Andy giving a rude gesture, and me and Will laughing.

We then uploaded this footage to the mac and Andy took charge in editing. He inserted the ending and added a fade effect.

As we speak we're pretty much refining our video, and touching up on anything that needs touching up.

MASSIVE UPDATE PART 2 - 11/11

This post will be about what we achieved today on the 11th November.

Firstly at 9am we borrowed equipment and set up our band on the stage in the hall. We borrowed a drum kit and a bass guitar from the music suite and spent the entirety of first period filming performance from various angles and catching different bits of playing. This was to be the live performance part of our film, although we no longer intend to convey the impression of performing to an actual audience. The video is pretty much strictly rehearsals and band shenanigans. The few hours after this was spent putting the footage from the two cameras we used up onto the MAC and deciding which of it could actually be used to a practical degree. After chopping down our footage we put together our clips and edited our piece. Much of the editing we've been doing has involved making sure that a majority of the camera cuts are on the beat, syncing lyrics and instrumental shots to the music and making sure that we didn't re-use footage inappropriately. We also added transitions to subtly link/join clips however we didn't use them too much, as we feel it will make the video repetitive. The most recent decision we made was to put the entire video in black and white to give it a more authentic feel. Research has proven that a lot of band montages, tour videos and backstage logs are filmed in black and white according to the band's artistic preferences.

MASSIVE UPDATE PART 1

Where do we start. The blogging we haven't done has left a huge whole in our blog, and what we're doing now/have done is very different to what our blog suggests.

Band

We've converted the band to a 3 piece band consisting of Andy as the lead singer and guitarist, Will as the drummer and Jack as the bassist. This is because we had troubles securing externals to be in our band. This made things easier as we are all reliable and were able to succesfully film with no "hiccups".

Narrative

Our music video is now based on a "behind-the-scenes-band-on-tour" theme inviting viewers backstage seeing what the band members get up to and see them pre-performance and also rehearse. The video introduces the band members one by one, and also shows clips of us altogether. It works up to the live rehearsal. Before you see the band behind the stage, briefly practising and generally mucking about as you'd expect a rock band to do. Then you follow them up to the stage where you see them perform a rehearsal of the song.

Okay, So...

We had the hall booked, but we weren't allowed in because apparently the lights were being fixed and as such we werent' allowed in for the entire day, as well as omnday and tuesday.  As such, we've had to COMPLETELY re-do our piece and cut out most live performance footage.  Instead we are now aiming for the "band on tour" look, with the video playing over the music

Digipack planning

Tomorrow during our footage shooting we will be taking still images of the band and its members. We will experiment with angles and shots etc, and then when we come to creating the digipack we will have numerous images that we can incorporate into the digipack.

Planning for the live performance

Andy will bring:  Electric guitar, appropriate clothing, Drumsticks, Ipod

Will is going to bring: Electric guitar, appropriate clothing, Bass guitar, Speakers

Jack is going to bring: The camera, Tripod, extention lead,

Nikki may not be present as she is currently suffering from a virus.

Costume for filming

The band

Andy is going to be the guitarist and lead singer
Will Shaw is going to be the drummer and Will Mannings is going to help us out and play guitar.

Costume

Jack is going to go and buy some Tattoo sleeves that Andy and Will are going to wear during the performance.

Andy - Black tank top, Standard dark grey jeans, slip ons.
Will - Slightly rolled up blue skinny jeans, Vintage levi shirt, slip ons

Dominated.

We finally have the hall booked for friday, 2nd and 3d period. Filming shall commence then, and then the narrative will be done on sunday.

Digipack Group Meeting

22/10/2010 - Group Meeting on Digipack ideas

Group Meeting - 20/10/2010

Group discussion about Album name

Group Meeting

Today we had a group meeting to talk about the digipack and the album name.
we recorded this conversation on wills blackberry and it will be uploaded asap
in the end after much discussion we have decided on "adherence"
it means 'adhere - stand by: be loyal to;'
which carries the theme of loyalty and such which feature within quite a few of the songs aswell as the song we have chosen for the video.

Digipack Songs and Album name

Songs

Everything's Undone
Darlin'
Apocalypse
Time To Waste
Seek The Truth
To Break A Freak's Heart
Last Goodbye
You Played Us For Blind

Album Name
The black genesis of sabbath lightning nails really sharp.
Sleeping Awake
Power puff boys
Harry Potter and the Croft Of Power
Les temps changent

tonight

Nikki will now write up all ideas in the oder that they're going to happen between the narrative and the live performance.  Andy will talk to the band and find out when they are free to film.  Will is going to write up his ideas and see when the drama studio is available.  Jack is going to make our blog look a bit more up to scratch, as well as uploading the song to the blog, along with the lyrics.

Storyboaring

We've begun a storyboard of the narrative part of our production.Two to three storyboards will be written for the whole thing, depending on length of narrative and one for the live performance section.

Blog update

The blog was looking very minimal and boring so we decided upon a theme we liked and applied it. It makes the blog easier to look at and navigate with good-looking orange links to click.

Storyline 2

Matt (Lead Singer), is performing acoustically in a british pub to an audience of 4 and completely not interested in matts performance. Matt introduces himself. Matt then closes his eyes and there's an extreme closeup of his eyes as they shut.  When they open the camera zooms out from his eyes and the rest of his band is behind him as the music starts and he begins playing guitar.

Filming pictures

Will and Andy went to the drama studio to take some pictures of the stage, and what could be a potential performance area.

I (Jack) then created a slideshow using final cut express, and uploaded it to YouTube. I then annotated the video with some notes.