Evaluation-Question 4

 

For our fourth evaluation question we decided to record a video of ourselves covering all aspects of the questions. We have also placed reference images and videos to the left

Evaluation-Question 3

Evaluation-Question 3 on Prezi

Evaluation-Question 2

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

Throughout the course of creating our main product and ancillary tasks, we have intentionally tried to keep a consistent style. The most noticeable consistency is one of the locations used; the seating in Starbucks located next to a window so of course, involved a windowsill. This location is used in all products and can be seen in the picture above. The website used a photograph of this windowsill as the background, the video featured the location a lot throughout the course of the video and the digipak is completely based around the windowsill.

Another similarity within all three products is the font; Helvetica with slight italics. We decided to keep the font the same to provide consistency through the products and as a way of minor association between the products.

Another aspect we used throughout development of the three products was to make effective use of colour. For example in the photographs featured in the digipak and the website background, through the use ‘bokeh’ we could provide vibrant yet subtle colour at the same time as one another. Colour played a big part in the video, such as clothing, using bright and dull colours to represent different things, de-saturating footage to help the audience understand meaning, etc.

A similarity between the Digi Pak and the video is props. The coffee cups and the lone flower are featured in both. We chose to contain these two props within the digi pak so that they carry association with the video and the audience is immediately able to associate the digi pak with the video just by looking at the image. The props are featured on the website, however on the ‘Gallery’ page as photographs.
The Digi Pak and the website do carry a strong link however in that the background image for the website is the same image as on the back cover of the digi pak. We didn’t include a prop image as we felt it would be too distracting to the eye for viewers of the website.

There is a common theme running through all three products and that is the location of the windowsill featured in all three products. We feel that through the choices we made combining the products together through similarity’s has worked effectively.

Evaluation-Question 1

We have decided to present our evaluation question one through a video. The video covers all aspects of the question

Brand Identity

For our Brand Identity we didn't choose to design a logo as such, but keep the same theme running through our Video, Website and Digi-pak based on our chosen song 'Windowsill'. Our Video, Website and Digi-pak all include a windowsill in them, there is also the coffee cups, with the purple writing and the flower which is included in all three media products. The coffee cups that feature in the video are in front picture and are carried though the Digi-Pak, the same images are used on the Website. For the Digi-pak i created myself, i have still included the windowsill and the coffee cups. This has kept a brand identity form the song though out both our main products and ancillary texts. The same colours are also used, and in the video the CD they have in the car also has the purple writing on it which keeps a common theme throughout and keeps it so they are easily relate together.

Final Video

Above is our final cut of our music video production.


The video opens with a scene of 'The Girl' played by Zarina Rogalla and 'The New Guy' Played by Liam meeting up, they then enter a car. This is to establish that they are together/familiar with one another. This also acts as an establishing shot/introduction.
We then cut to a shot of a CD labeled with "Mixy - Windowsill" into a CD Player, and this is where the music starts.
A film burn transition then follows into the introduction sequence of the characters. 'The New Guy' and 'The Girl' are introduced within the same car together, driving. This is to keep continuity as they was previously seen entering the car. The character of 'The Ex' is then introduced. In this shot he is seen smoking and with an angry look on his face, this was done to fit in with the fact he is the ex and is hurt/angry by what has happened. Thanks to these titles and what is contained within the shots, the audience can immediately grasp what the narrative is going to be about.
The track is introduced not by a title but by the name of the song written onto a coffee cup in a location where a lot of the later shots happen. This is because the coffee cup is featured highly throughout the video and carries significance. 
We move onto another shot of 'The New Guy' and 'The Girl' together. They are seen smiling walking out of a lift and 'The New Guy' has his arm around 'The Girl' This is to further show that they are together and happy. 
We cut into a shot edited with de-saturation to provide a washed out look of 'The Ex' smiling with an un-seen character, this creates enigma. He is also seen to be pointing to the sky, this links the lyrics in with the video due to the lyric saying "There was a time when our limit was the sky". This also provides suggestions as to who the person he is with might be. It then immediately cuts to Mixy to establish that he is the person singing.


The video fades to white here in an attempt to show that the de-saturated footage is memories. We see a shot of 'The Ex' and 'The Girl' together picking out some flowers. This cuts in and out of colour and them being together and the 'The Ex' being on his own. The shot of 'The Ex' purchasing the flowers is there to represent that due to the couple sharing a moment (shown in one of the clips) with these flowers he is longing to go back to that moment.
The footage moves onto 'The New Guy' and 'The Girl' walking together. 'The ex' however is standing in the background and both characters are oblivious to this. He is seen holding the flowers but once the characters walk past he lowers them, representing how his emotions just dropped.
More memory footage occurs of 'The Ex' and 'The Girl' together. The shots are linked in with the lyrics such as “Text your number and you came for a drink call it a date we sat down had a chat and it was great in the quiet little place I grew accustomed to your face” we used footage of ‘The Ex’ and ‘The Girl’ sat together in starbucks, coffee cups visible, talking, smiling and having a nice time. Also for the “grew accustomed to your face” we had a close up on ‘The Girl’s face. All this was done to develop more memory scenes between the two characters and to link the lyrics in with the video.  All this is mixed in with shots of Mixy singing to show that Connor playing ‘The Ex’ is symbolising Mixy.

Returning to where ‘The Ex’ saw the other two characters walk by together, we switch to a shot from behind ‘The Ex’ and see him walk away. There is a low down shot of ‘The Ex’ walking away throwing the flowers towards the ground and since the flowers were symbolising a moment between ‘The ex’ and ‘The Girl’, throwing the flowers to the ground represents the rejection and loss he has just experienced.
We now move to a long sequence of clips featuring Mixy rapping. This was to spotlight him as an artist and his talent. It mainly focuses on showing off his ‘flow’ in his words. This is following the codes and conventions of a standard music video by showing off the star.
He also says the lyrics “finger-tips slip on the glass”, for this we had Mixy gently run his fingers across the glass of the window he is sat next too, to link the lyrics in with the video again.


There is a shot of ‘The Ex’ in the same location that him and ‘The Girl’ had been sat in the memory scene only this time he is by himself. This shows how he is reminiscing about the past and how he yearns for them times back. He is seen twiddling a flower. This was placed as we intended for the flower to carry the representation of their relationship. He gently caresses the flower as if it was the girl. This links back to the scene of them together in the coffee shop when he caresses her face.  The footage pans up to ‘The Ex’ as he takes a drink of his coffee. This then fades into a shot of Mixy finishing off the exact same action. This is to further show how Connor playing ‘The Ex’ is representing Mixy throughout the video.


The end of the video comes to footage of The Ex’ walking aggressively towards the edge of a roof, suggesting that he’s given up and is going to jump and end his life. When he reaches the railings however, we cut to Mixy in the same position. He twiddles the flower over the edge as the song draws to a close. Diegetic sound fades in as the flower is dropped from the roof, signifying the end of the song and since the flower carried the representation of the relationship, the end of that too. The use of diegetic sound for this part of the clip was to add to the feeling of everything being over.


A title sequence of credits begins whilst the track is re-started to play over them. Since the intro of the track is purely instrumental it was perfect to use. Stereotypically music videos don’t tend to include credits on the end, so by doing this we have challenged the codes and conventions. An influencing factor on challenging the codes and conventions by doing this stemmed from the fact that since our music video was following a narrative throughout that it was going to be treated more like a short film.


Overall all we are very pleased with our final product; by taking into account all feedback we have received we have tailored the video to receive nothing but positive comments!

Risk Assesement

We have decided to post our up a risk assessment, answering the problems that we had and how we prepared for them before the shoot.


Our first area to asses was the location - the way we went about making sure that our location was use able was to call up Starbucks and ask permission in advance. This meant that if they denied us access then we could ask another coffee shop. Luckily they gave us permission and informed us on the lest busy day, this would hope fully allow us to get the seats that we needed to film. we also planed a back up seating location should our ideal seats become occupied. - On arrival to Starbucks (shoot day) our ideal seat were taken, we decide that we would wait for them to become free. this gave us time to set up our gear, talk to the staff about getting filmed, and discuss shot between group members. we then decided an hour and a coffee and a half each later that we would resort to our back up, we ended up finding that the backup seats offered nicer framing, allowing us to use the railings to frame the scenes. It also tied in quite nicely with the song title and lyrics due to there being a window and sill.


The second area was actors/actresses - we had learned from our mistakes last year and decided to come up with a set of substitutes, in the event that one actor or actress was unavailable, ill or otherwise preoccupied. We considered many candidates and the main issue that cropped up was getting a real couple, who looked comfortable together and wouldn't mind kissing when necessary. There was also another issue that we faced, being that we needed to find a couple that didn't look too young. Due to the time restrictions, the only couple that we could find in with that notice that fulfilled the previous requirements, was Connor and his girl friend Zarina Rogalla. They stepped into Mine and Ralph's shoes and kept the rolls and a majority of the shots from the rough cut the same (we still used Liam as the new guy).


Equipment failure - we are highly reliant on the equipment we are using mainly the camera. the worse thing that could happen whilst filming would be a camera error of some sort, for example: battery, memory, technical, damage, etc. We made sure to take all of these possible failures into consideration, one way we made sure that these errors wouldn't happen was by carrying a battery charger with us at all time and a spare fully charged battery. to deal with the memory issue, we carried a box of spare cards, this meant that if we ran out of room on one card we could replace it with a blank card. to cover us in the unlikely, but possible situation that something were to go wrong with the camera, i.e. accidental damage, or even if any of the above precautions were to fail we kept a plan b. this plan b was to take Liam's D90 (a back up camera that shoots film), although not as powerful it would still be a great asset in an emergency.


Camera man - we had to take into consider all possible errors. We also made sure that there would be a secondary camera man at all shoots; whether it were Liam, Cameron or Connor. this meant that we could have someone recording behind the scenes, or even have someone to talk to about technical issues and camera settings (aperture, shutter speed, ISO, lens choice). This proved to be a very good risk assessment as we had to activate our substitutes for actors and actresses, this meant that connor was unable to film a majority of the narrative; deploying one of our back up camera men to take over.


Weather - we had to take into consideration what the weather might be like on the day of the shoot. unfortunately the weather can never be definite; when we began filming for example the weather was nice, a clear day with sun and few clouds. however, whilst filming through the day the weather took a turn for the worse, as it began to rain. to try and help us avoid being caught of guard we checked the weather schedules, which stated that it was going to be a clear day, with the chance of it becoming overcast later. we deemed this to be good conditions, as the clouds would add a natural soft box, creating soft light for the shots. However, halfway through shooting the havens opened; this would have ruined our filing however, we took it in our stride making it work for us. Filming outside when it was nice weather and shooting inside Starbucks when the rain was too heavy. luckily we filmed most of the present shots in the dry and when it came to the memories we managed to shoot them out in the rain making them look like it was two different day.