1. We first found the song ‘Young Love’ on an iPod belonging to a member of our group, liking the song we began researching ‘The Mystery Jets’ and their original video. We found them to be young, fun and quirky and so tried to incorporate these concepts in our own video. When on location we used a Sony PD 170 camera to film the stop motion shots that involved food, and of the feedback we received the most positive was in reference to the stop motion filming. This type of animation has been in use since 1898 and is created by making an object appear to move on its own by physically manipulating it by small increments between individually photographed frames. It creates a fun quirky atmosphere and is in some ways a hermeneutic code.
On the shoot day we used playback in the studio for the band to play along to whilst we watched them on an LCD TV monitor. This technology was put in place in order for us to maintain correct framing while shooting and for the band to be able to hear the song clearly. The lighting director controlled our pink “mover” lights in the studio using an app on his iPhone connected to the Chansys Magic Q lighting desk in the studio. In order to capture this lighting we brought photographers in on the day to take images of the band in action; this was also because we intended to use these pictures for our ancillary products.
2. To edit we used a programme called Final Cut Pro on G5 Macs in the edit suite, here we created our timeline by layering a series of sequences on top of a main wide shot sequence individually. Because we had two very different locations and we wanted to make sure our band appeared organically made, we had to cut between the two locations as equally as possible. We also cut down our song that was too long, using a programme called Wave pad so as to give the video a clean finish.
In the editing programme; After Effects we coloured and graded our finished piece to give it a more professional look, we also tried to create a split screen sequence with a ‘falling hearts’ backdrop but this was not possible in the end. When creating our poster and Digipak cover we used the Adobe CS2 Version of Photoshop on ----- computers. Here we used the healing brush, clone tool and blur tool among others to give our band member’s a slight make over so as to attract more audience members.
3. We then uploaded our finished product to internet social networking sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Blogger in order to receive useful feedback. We also analysed our work by creating a focus group and setting up a showing of our video using an interactive board and an over-head projector. We also gave the group questionnaires to fill out for feedback purposes. Overall we feel that our end product was successful in using digital technology that was not commonly used 10 years ago, however, if we were to film the video again we would definitely use more stop motion filming because our audience feedback suggested that this was the most successful part of our video.
Monday, 14 March 2011
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Task 3 - What have learned from our audience feedback
1. What sorts of audience research have you carried out?
We as a group created a questionnaire full of questions that we wanted to be answered about our music video to reach a understanding of our target audience. We played our music video to a group of AS students and asked them if they would please complete the questionnaire for our audience research. We used a combination of structured interview and postal questionnaire. We started with the interview and in general it appeared to be useful, however if we had the chance to redo it we would do the postal questionnaire first and afterwards the interview as it appeared to be a problem that some people might be influenced by other’s opinions. In our questionnaire we asked questions such as their gender, if they likes the music video, what in there opinion could have been improved upon, what they thought the meaning of the video was, what sort of music they listened to etc. The audience feedback we got had some similarities to our view of our product. This audience was in the age 15-18 and therefore our target audience. The video we posted up on You Tube to our school account and invited people to make comments and give us some relevant audience feed back.
2. How did the research reflect your views of the strength of the product?
In our questionnaire we received lots of positive feed back. All of the people who took part in answering the questionnaire said that they liked the video, regardless of if they listened to the genre of music or if they thought we could make some changes to make it stronger. All of the candidates also answered that they liked the stop motion element of the video writing comments such as “makes the video and the story interesting” and “cute“ in general, which was one of the effects we had hoped to achieve. We also got positive feed back from the comments left on You Tube about the set up of the studio with the hearts and the pink lighting as it suits the narrative of the video. The body language that we read from our focus group was very positive smiling and looking interested and focused throughout watching the video.
3. How did the research reflect your views of the weaknesses of the product?
However we also got some critics as most of the audience agreed that the band was not playing the instruments. These comments highlighted the weaknesses we had due to the actors not learning the song properly, which clearly showed that we should have be more asure about if the actors could actually play their instruments. One of the weaknesses that were also pointed out in our survey was the lighting in one scene (Mimi sitting on the floor, in the corner) could have been a bit lighter so she didn’t look as trapped. Some of the focus group also mentioned the drummer’s and base guitarist’s problem with playing the song correctly.
4. Explain the encoding-decoding model
The encoding-decoding model derives from the work of Stuart Hall and this theoretical model, which is based upon the notion that the audience do not act as a ‘mass’, but rather as a collection of smaller groups defined by social and ideological elements like gender, race, class and age. The media texts are ‘encoding’ with the values of their producers, however, the audience is not made up exclusively of these groups and different groups are likely to ‘read’ the next indifferent ways. This mainly means that in the encoding process the values go into the text when it’s created. The decoding process has three possible outcomes which are texts we are reading or watching. A preferred reading are the values which are understand and agreed with an identified text, while a negotiated reading some values are understood but one doesn’t relate to ideas and the characters. The oppositional reading is no acceptance of the encoded values and there is not pleasure or identification.
1. Examples of preferred readings you received
We were as a group happy with our audience feed back during the focus group because when we asked what they thought the narrative of the video showed a boy in love after one night of “love” making breakfast for his one-night-stand, as to the lyrics, which was our intentional interpretation. This was very pleasing for us to know that although members of the group thought that we could have made this interpretation more clearer and put more stop motion in to give the whole video even a more ‘cuteness’ effect, the majority still understood which we believe to be a success. Also all of the people who filled out our questionnaire put that the stop motion element of the video was the best part, which suggests that love element even more.
2. Examples of negotiated readings you received
Some of the students taking part in our questionnaire and focus group voiced the opinion that though they understood the idea of the one-night-stand, they see the breakfast as symbol for a long term relationship as the protagonist is pulling up all the love hearts and sweetness.
3. Examples of oppositional readings you received
When reading the question air there was one person who didn’t seem to understand the concept of our video completely and had the thought that the video was him, the protagonist, could be a serial sex offender who is keeping her as a prisoner locked in a cellar as when she started singing she seemed trapped in the corner, as it was filmed from a higher angle and gave the viewer a feeling of superiority. This suggestion was a helpful one to us because it alerted us to the way in which some of people may view our video. All of the oppositional readings were very helpful to us when discovering the strengths and weakness to our video
4. Conclusion
It was very encouraging that so many of the people we questioned understood the video quickly and extremely well, which showed us that we actually made a good job. For those who were confused about it, if given the chance again we may consider using more stop motion as it is considered to be the best bit of our video. We also would make sure that the band knew the music well enough to show a clear understanding of the music and the instruments to alert the opinion that the video showed a serial sex offender or similar ideas. Overall we were happy with the feedback we received and our happy with our end product.
We as a group created a questionnaire full of questions that we wanted to be answered about our music video to reach a understanding of our target audience. We played our music video to a group of AS students and asked them if they would please complete the questionnaire for our audience research. We used a combination of structured interview and postal questionnaire. We started with the interview and in general it appeared to be useful, however if we had the chance to redo it we would do the postal questionnaire first and afterwards the interview as it appeared to be a problem that some people might be influenced by other’s opinions. In our questionnaire we asked questions such as their gender, if they likes the music video, what in there opinion could have been improved upon, what they thought the meaning of the video was, what sort of music they listened to etc. The audience feedback we got had some similarities to our view of our product. This audience was in the age 15-18 and therefore our target audience. The video we posted up on You Tube to our school account and invited people to make comments and give us some relevant audience feed back.
2. How did the research reflect your views of the strength of the product?
In our questionnaire we received lots of positive feed back. All of the people who took part in answering the questionnaire said that they liked the video, regardless of if they listened to the genre of music or if they thought we could make some changes to make it stronger. All of the candidates also answered that they liked the stop motion element of the video writing comments such as “makes the video and the story interesting” and “cute“ in general, which was one of the effects we had hoped to achieve. We also got positive feed back from the comments left on You Tube about the set up of the studio with the hearts and the pink lighting as it suits the narrative of the video. The body language that we read from our focus group was very positive smiling and looking interested and focused throughout watching the video.
3. How did the research reflect your views of the weaknesses of the product?
However we also got some critics as most of the audience agreed that the band was not playing the instruments. These comments highlighted the weaknesses we had due to the actors not learning the song properly, which clearly showed that we should have be more asure about if the actors could actually play their instruments. One of the weaknesses that were also pointed out in our survey was the lighting in one scene (Mimi sitting on the floor, in the corner) could have been a bit lighter so she didn’t look as trapped. Some of the focus group also mentioned the drummer’s and base guitarist’s problem with playing the song correctly.
4. Explain the encoding-decoding model
The encoding-decoding model derives from the work of Stuart Hall and this theoretical model, which is based upon the notion that the audience do not act as a ‘mass’, but rather as a collection of smaller groups defined by social and ideological elements like gender, race, class and age. The media texts are ‘encoding’ with the values of their producers, however, the audience is not made up exclusively of these groups and different groups are likely to ‘read’ the next indifferent ways. This mainly means that in the encoding process the values go into the text when it’s created. The decoding process has three possible outcomes which are texts we are reading or watching. A preferred reading are the values which are understand and agreed with an identified text, while a negotiated reading some values are understood but one doesn’t relate to ideas and the characters. The oppositional reading is no acceptance of the encoded values and there is not pleasure or identification.
1. Examples of preferred readings you received
We were as a group happy with our audience feed back during the focus group because when we asked what they thought the narrative of the video showed a boy in love after one night of “love” making breakfast for his one-night-stand, as to the lyrics, which was our intentional interpretation. This was very pleasing for us to know that although members of the group thought that we could have made this interpretation more clearer and put more stop motion in to give the whole video even a more ‘cuteness’ effect, the majority still understood which we believe to be a success. Also all of the people who filled out our questionnaire put that the stop motion element of the video was the best part, which suggests that love element even more.
2. Examples of negotiated readings you received
Some of the students taking part in our questionnaire and focus group voiced the opinion that though they understood the idea of the one-night-stand, they see the breakfast as symbol for a long term relationship as the protagonist is pulling up all the love hearts and sweetness.
3. Examples of oppositional readings you received
When reading the question air there was one person who didn’t seem to understand the concept of our video completely and had the thought that the video was him, the protagonist, could be a serial sex offender who is keeping her as a prisoner locked in a cellar as when she started singing she seemed trapped in the corner, as it was filmed from a higher angle and gave the viewer a feeling of superiority. This suggestion was a helpful one to us because it alerted us to the way in which some of people may view our video. All of the oppositional readings were very helpful to us when discovering the strengths and weakness to our video
4. Conclusion
It was very encouraging that so many of the people we questioned understood the video quickly and extremely well, which showed us that we actually made a good job. For those who were confused about it, if given the chance again we may consider using more stop motion as it is considered to be the best bit of our video. We also would make sure that the band knew the music well enough to show a clear understanding of the music and the instruments to alert the opinion that the video showed a serial sex offender or similar ideas. Overall we were happy with the feedback we received and our happy with our end product.
Thursday, 10 March 2011
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Task 1 - Screengrabs
1. The screen grab of the love letters is a thematic element. The song consists of love and the letters are a symbol for the lyrics. In general our music video is an image of relationship between young people and the clear image of young love. This would be marketed as an album which is about love and their positive and negative experiences with it.
2. The performance element is shown in the screen grab of the band thatis not typic
al boy band material but a band who is aiming for a target audience of 13-18 year olds. The marketing of this band would consist of the normal boys who just live for making music and showing their passion through no major focus on dress code and looking but on how they present themselves and their songs.
3. The kitchen screen grab with Jack's body shows the sexual content and the narrative
3. The kitchen screen grab with Jack's body shows the sexual content and the narrative content because the band's name is 'The Paper Hearts' and love is the main theme of the music video and their band image. The showing of his body would represent that this band is not a boy band who is just talking about the “cute love” like holding hands but having sex the night before and now realizing there could be more.
4. The close ups on the instruments show the skills of the musicians and their attitude tow
4. The close ups on the instruments show the skills of the musicians and their attitude towards the musical and performance element. This music video would be marketed as a performance of an album and the background of the band would be based on their experience in love and relationship represented in their songs and videos.
5. My screen grab of the female singer Mimi who is a guest vocalist shows the thematic and symbolic element because the band that consists only of boys but singing a love song about a relationship needs a girl with in it. The marketing of this duet would show that the band is trying to get into various markets with it and achieve various audiences.
6. The final frame shows the relationship between lead singer Jack and guest vocalist Mimi. This is a clear symbolic element of the sexual content in the scene of him serving breakfast to her in bed however this video would not be too sexual to show it in i.e. MTV because the scenes shown are based on the faces of both of them and the narrative standing behind this scene.
5. My screen grab of the female singer Mimi who is a guest vocalist shows the thematic and symbolic element because the band that consists only of boys but singing a love song about a relationship needs a girl with in it. The marketing of this duet would show that the band is trying to get into various markets with it and achieve various audiences.6. The final frame shows the relationship between lead singer Jack and guest vocalist Mimi. This is a clear symbolic element of the sexual content in the scene of him serving breakfast to her in bed however this video would not be too sexual to show it in i.e. MTV because the scenes shown are based on the faces of both of them and the narrative standing behind this scene.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
The Digipak - Final
This is the inside of the digipack with the band's handwriting and images of origami to their 'old school' appeal.
This is the album's front cover, with images as if taken in a photo booth in keeping with the youthful aspect of our band.
This is the album's front cover, with images as if taken in a photo booth in keeping with the youthful aspect of our band.
Monday, 7 February 2011
CD digipak draft
Our front cover shows the band in photo stripes and the paper in the back symbolises their band name. The back page is the two hands holding a heart where we are going to put the titels of the other songs in handwriting of one of our group. 
The inside cover represents the band in poleroids and photo stripes with origami which give a young feeling. The handwriting is supposed to be all over the place and very funny.
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