Green Eyed Monster - 1984 Music Video

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Digipak

Digipak Panels

This is the front cover for our digipak design, this is the album cover than in stores and online will be the thumbnail for our album. For our digipak we designed all on the images using Adobe Photoshop, the particular effect we used on the front cover of the album was called 'Cut Out'. This effect also disguises the identity of the wolf/human. We manipulated the image so that is is different to the rest of the digipak. For the text we decided to use green text as the song is song 'Green Eyed Monster', we used a darken green text colour as it emphasises the darkness of the background forest image. By placing the text in the centre of the album cover it means it catches the attention of the eye straight
away as it is big and very bold.

The back cover of the digipak is very similar to the front cover to keep with the theme of the digipak. We have used similar effects on both the front and the back cover, however the image on the front cover is just the wolf alone in the woods, whereas the back cover image is the Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood together in the woods. The image on the front cover is darker which shows evil and negativity as he is alone. The back cover image is brighter as it shows the wolf happier within himself as he is with the one that he loves. This correlates to the music video as the wolf is sad when he is alone but it happy when he is with Little Red Riding Hood.

Album Advert

This is the album cover that we created for the promotion of our album. We created this advert with the desire to use the same picture for both our advert and our album cover in order to gain brand recognition. We used this image as the cover of our advert because we thought it would appeal to our target audience demographic which is boys ged 14-18. we wanted to create an impression that our music would appeal to boys who were: individual, something of a loner, slightly rebellious, working class, casual is dress sense and with a zany sense of humour. The pose suggests confidence and slight aggrestion. This music is slightly 'in your face', and is individual and is unlike anything that you've ever heard before.

Most music at this age demographic is advertised in a gritty, urban environment. This is particularly true of rap music. We deliberatly chose a rural environment with trees in the background to show a degree of individuality and something that would grab the viewers attention.

The trees symbolise that fact that most people are not individuals and all dress, think, act and behave in that same manner. our artist and our public are not like that other 'trees', they are individuals who stand out and have the courage to be different.

Evaluation Question 4

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





Different Media Technologies

For Evaluation Question 4 we explained how we used different media technologies in the process of creating our music video from the beginning to the end of the making of the music video. These technologies also aided us in some parts of creating the music video. By using technological convergence we have merged different technologies together such as our smart phones and the computer to transfer images between them by bluetooth for example, we have used this for our benefit throughout the process of research, planning, construction and evaluation. These are all explained in the video. I also created a video using a website called 'Animoto', and this website allows you to make a 30 second video which including pictures and text. The video that I created shows the different equipment that we have used in all stages of our music video and also gives information about how we used them to our advantage for our project.

Some of the technologies that we used in the process of making our music video were;

• Camcorder
• Tripod
• Smartphones (iPhones)
• Photoshop
• Final cut Express
• Social Network (Twitter,Facebook)
• iMac
• Blogger
• Bluetooth
• Facebook
• Animoto
• Wordle
• X-Mini Speaker

Research

In the research stage in the beginning of our music video, we used a few different media technologies and social networks website to gain research for our project;

• Youtube 
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Survey Monkey

The most important website here was Youtube, as Youtube is a website where all music videos are uploaded for everyone to see. Because of this we could watch multiple music videos to get inspiration for what ideas we could incorporate into our music video. This allowed us to also see music video from a variety of different music video directors how will all have different ideas and visions. We studied the top 100 greatest music videos, this gained us a good insight into different music video allowing us to get ideas for what we wanted to do for our music video. In particular, we listening watched music videos from artists in the indie genre that we have chosen to do. By studying these videos, we could see how the music videos in this genre as made in terms of style and themes.

We also carried out a focus group and a vox pop to gain research from different people to what their opinions were on music videos. This was the best research we did as they could give us a honest opinion on their views on music videos. This is the most effective way to get ideas for our video by seeing what other people prefer in a music video it terms of ideas and styles.

Planning


When planning for our music video, we only used some of the technologies out of the ones that I listed above. The main ones were;

• Youtube
• iMac
• Smart phones

The most useful technology that we used through the planning stage was the iMacs. We used the iMacs for many different planning tasks. To prepare for our music video, we had to complete many planning sheets so that when we came to the construction part of the project, were completely clear on what we were doing so that we could efficiently record our music video. We also created an animatic, to do this we took pictures of each of the scenes on the storyboard that we had drawn and then used Bluetooth to transfer the images from our Smart phones to our the iMac. We then used Final Cut Express to edit the images together so that the animatic demonstrates the structure of our music video.

Construction

The construction of the video was the main part of the project as this was the part that involved making our music video. This is also the section of the project where we used the new media technologies as we incorporated them together for our benefit throughout the construction of the project. To record all off our music video the main piece of technology that we used was the digital camcorder, the tripod and a monopod. The digital camcorder that we used was not of the best quality but there were good features about it such as; it is very light so that when filming for hold periods of time it does not become tiring. It is also very easy to use so that when getting out the camera to record there was minimum preparation that was to undertake to begin recording. We used the tripod as much as possible throughout the filming of our video to try and obtain the steadiest shot possible. We also used it because we did not have a fourth member of our group so we used the tripod to hold itself up. However many shots we did we also used a monopod so that we could do moving shots, especially in some of the narrative sections of the music video.

Once we had recorded all the footage that we needed, we had to upload our footage from the camcorder onto the iMac that we were using. We imported the footage straight into the program, 'Final Cut Express, so that we could begin editing as soon as possible. Final Cut Express is a very advanced software program but with experience that we have gained over the last two years we had many ideas of things that we wanted to do with tour footage.

Once we had completed all the editing of our music video we then had to create a digipak and magazine advert. The digipak would be the 6-panel album which would include our CD as well as information and artwork by the band. The magazine advert would be a one-picture poster which would include reviews by a range of different prestigious music magazines and newspapers. To take the pictures for the digipak we simply used our Smartphones, and then used the Bluetooth features on both the Smartphone and iMac to transfer the images from our phones to the iMac to then begin editing. To make both the digipak and the magazine advert we used Adobe Photoshop on the iMac's. We used different effects for both the album digipak and the magazine advert so that they are not the exact same, however both the main album cover picture and the advert picture are the same.

Evaluation

For the evaluation section of the music video project, we did not use too many different media technologies as most of the evaluation stage involved writing on our blogs. However we did use some media websites which were beneficial to the evaluation of our music video project. We created images in Photoshop which explained the different conventions of our music video by also comparing them to other popular music videos, mostly videos in similar genres of music as ours. We also created a prezi using a website called 'prezi.com', were we showed how we used made the combination between our main project and our ancillary tasks. `

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from audience feedback?

This is a image that I created using a website called Wordle. To create this image we watched old research videos that we had created such as our ancillary tasks, vox pops and focus group. By watching them we picked out words that had been used in our videos and them imported them into the website. Words that had been used more frequently appear bigger on the image, as they are more popular. this allowed us to see what the people we used for our ancillary tasks preferring in music videos. So by using this picture we could include certain aspects and conventions from the image so that it could appeal to the widest demographic, which is what most artists would aim for and we have done that same.

These are screenshots from the vox pop we made back in October, for this vox pop we asked different people about their opinions on music videos. From this we got ideas on what type of ideas we should use when brainstorming trying to create an idea for our music video. By asking a variety of different people who all have different opinions, we were able to create a music video that would hopefully appeal to the widest audience possible. This is effective because it allowed us to see what different audience members prefer in a music video which affected the ideas that we came up with. 

Once we had filmed the vox pop, we were able to come up with possible music video ideas that we could then ask a focus group to find our their opinions on our ideas. 

This was our focus group where we asked these two students about their opinions on our music video ideas. In this video we demonstrated three ideas to them explaining the ideas, then would discuss on what their opinions were on our ideas. After demonstrating our ideas it was clear that the two students preferred our third idea which was the idea about creating a spin on Little Red Riding Hood. From this focus group we were clear on the final idea we were going to use for our music video. Although we tweaked the idea slightly after this focus group, the focus group was still useful to see what idea the students warmed to the most which gave us confidence in our idea. 

This was the audience feedback to the rough cut of our music video which we showed to a group of media students applying for higher level media studies. All the students had different capabilities and different ideas and views on our music video rough cut and this was the feedback that we got from that day. This feedback was the most useful as they criticised our music video by identifying the faults in our video so that we could correct them before creating a final cut of our video. By analysing this feedback we then knew what we had to do to improve our music video. 

Evaluation Question 2

How Effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks(DVD Digipak, magazine advert)?



There are distinct connections between our music video and our digipak and magazine advert, especially between our album digipak and album advert. This is because we have used the same image for both of them to gain brand recognition for our album. We have manipulated the album cover image using an effect on Photoshop so that although it is that same image as the album advert, it is a manipulated image. By doing this we created an image that will be recognised at being our particular brand. An artist that has recently done this is Pharrell, for his album cover and all his marketing adverts  he has used the same image to create a memorable album cover that people recognise because they see it in all types of media and the image becomes memorable in an audiences head. This was what we tried to aim for when designing our album cover.

Another similarity between the digipak and the advert is that the text colour scheme on both images are very similar and distinct. We did this to catch the attention of someone in a shop who sees our album cover or someone reading a newspaper or magazine who might be interested in our album due to the design of the album cover, this is what we hoped to achieve with our album cover.

We also filming much of our music video and took pictures for our digipak in the same location. This keeps the general theme of our digipak and music video the same so that they are both linked to each other so that someone who sees the digipak can see a constant theme throughout our digipak, advert and music video.

Our music video links well with our digipak and advert, there are many shots in our music video that are very similar to the framing on images within our digipak. In particular in the shots where the wolf is lip synching, in many of these shots they are shot as mid shot, which is how the album cover image is framed. Another link between the digipak and the video is the constant reappearing figure of Little Red Riding Hood throughout the digipak and video. This is another memorable aspects that is featured throughout our music video which allows an audience to relate the music video to the digipak.

Our digipak has a simple design and follows many conventions of album covers and digipaks within the same genre of indie music that our music fits into. Album covers of indie artists are normally quite plain, featuring single images of the band members, especially in the case of a debut album like ours. Our digipak includes pictures which introduce the members of the band with tags showing their names. Our digipak also features some information about the band such as Twitter and Facebook tags allowing people who like our music to follow us on social media websites.