Digipak feedback



We presented our draft of our digipak design today to our media class so we could get feedback on what was good about it and constructive feedback on the elements we could improve.

Pros -

·         They really liked the front cover of our digipak, they liked how we used the two masks that we used whilst filming and had the black and white divide as the background. They thought it fit the theme we had for our music video well.

·         They also liked that we used the image of the candles going across the whole inside of the front cover.

·         Another positive was the colour we used throughout was quite dark and in some points quite monotone. They thought that it was good as it fit the theme of our music video.

·         They thought using the close up of the eye made it quite mysterious.

·         They also thought the image on the back cover was appropriate for the song and we had framed it well.

Cons -

·         It was commented on that our pictures were quite straight forward and it was suggested that we could play around with some of the photos and manipulate them. For example, manipulating the image of the eye to make it look like there is something inside it.

·         It was also suggested that that we play around with the font and colour of the word 'ILLUMINATED' on our inside cover.

·         We were also given different ideas of how to make the title 'HURTS' look on our front cover. It was suggested that we could outline it in black and have the inside transparent or smudge the edges to show the disturbance.

CD covers in our Genre

Our song Illuminated by Hurts falls into the genre of Synthpop.

The Hurts album covers usually are very monotone or black and white and usualy fetaure themselves as the artists on the cover. the Band name is usually always the focus and the album or single title is usually significantly smalelr but still noticeable to the audience.

The Killers also fall into the category of synthpop and their alums and unlike Hurts rarely feature themselves on the covers. Usual the band logo and name of the album is the center focus of the album cover. They also use black and white on there covers but also have quite a few in colour but they have a vintage, monotone tone to them. The look of their covers has an indie feel to them. 

Depeche mode are another band that fall into the category of synthpop and share some of the similar fatures with the previous two album covers. The mover is mostly greay and black without much colour and like The Killers rarely feature the actual band on the cover.

Planning for our digipak

Definition of a digipak
Digipaks are a patented style of DVD and CD packaging made out of heavy card or cardboard material. They can be divided up into portions of 3 or fold out in the style of a book and have one or more plastic trays inside for the CD's. This plastic trays are simply attatched to the card background.
Digipaks don't crack like the standard jewel cases.

What is the purpose of a digipak?
This style of packaging is usually used for special editions or a premium packaging for CD's of DVD's. They are also used as there is more space.

Brainstorm- What should our digipak include?

• Images - Masks, Forests, Feathers, Lights, Hands, Eyes, Cats eyes, Nature.
• Colours - Black and White, Dark, Blue tones, Sepia, Vintage colours.
• Text - Illuminated, Artist name. On the front cover.

What we filmed during the half term.

We were unfortunately left with a very limited amount of time to film what we wanted during the half term as I had to leave London for a week and my Partner had a university open day to go to so we only had 2 days to film.
As we had the whole day we decided to film at different points of the day to get different lighting and we also got the opportunity to film in the dark which gave us much more opportunity to play with light which is the main theme of our music video.

The main problem we face with having to film outside and deciding to have costumes was that the weather was much too cold so we couldn't stay filming one shot for too long, meaning the standard of the shots we got weren't as good as we would like them to be.

Feedback on rough cuts of our music video - Illuminated.

We showed a rough version of our music video to our media class to get some positive and constructive feedback on it so we could improve it.

Positive Feedback

• The positive feedback we received was that they liked how we had change the colour of some of the shots to gave the video a different feel and so the colour was not the same all the way through each shot.
• Our group really liked and enjoyed our shots where we played around with the candles and the lighting.
• We got positive feedback on our use of masks, saying it gave the video a unique feel and and good use of symbolism.

We also got some constructive feedback on what we could improve.

• It was commented that we needed some more action in our shots so not all our shots were static and still.
• We were also told to change the pace of our music video so that our shots would change at the right time with the beat and so they just didn't seem like continuous shots stacked on top of each other.
• Also some of our shots are a bit long or a bit shaky so we should shorten some of our shots.
• It was also suggested that we should have some sort of sound for the beginning of the intro rather than just silence. However, it was also said that they preferred the silence and thought it was a good opening. So we can play around with those two ideas and see which opening we think would be more successful.

Breakdown sheets for shooting

Feedback on animatic.

Above you can find the animatic that me and my partner Tania made for our music video, Illuminated by Hurts. We presented this to the class and got feedback from them.

The overall feedback was that they thought we used a variety of camera shots and angels and they liked our main ideas. We were asked to explain the concept and the story line of our video to make it a bit more clearer and clarify it as some of our shots were quite ambiguous.

We have a shot of a dandelion being blown away and it was asked what could we use when we were filming if dandelions aren't in season by the time we film. We overcame this idea by coming up with the idea of using lots of lit candles, then blowing them out and reversing this so it would give the same effect of a dandelion being blown out. 

Some of the feedback that we got was that some of our shots were too long so we went back and drew the movement that was going to be in them to show them why they would be that long. Also it was commented on that some of our shots were unclear so we went back and added detail and writing to show what the shot was and make it more clearer.

Survey

To find out what our audience would expect and like from a music video we created a survey for them to fill it out. We posted it on our social networking sites and blogs to try and get as many people to do it so we had a wide and reliable range of answers.

Overall 63 people answered my and these results show that people mostly prefer a mixture of moods, not just happy and not just dark but both. Majority of people would prefer to see the artist in the music video than not. Our audience prefer music videos that don't have dancing in them and most preferred there to be a story line to the music video.Also the Majority preffered the music videos they watched to have a hidden meaning to it and like both costumes and casual clothing. The one result that almost got equally chosen was what setting they would like, which was between natural an urban. Meanin we can make the final choice on what setting we have in our music video as the audience choces are mixed. Most people also din't mind if the actors were a similar age to them or not and they wouldn't mind watching a music video that is longer than 5 minutes.

Katy Perry - Firework

Did Katy Perry's firework deserve to win the music video of the year award?

I personally don't think the video for Katy Perry's firework deserved to win the video of the year award. Simply because it is mostly unoriginal and plays on the strong 'feel good' clichés which is an idea used in most pop videos today. Not only are the ideas very unoriginal but they are shown with very uninteresting camera angles, movements and not much change in lighting. At points the special effects for the fireworks coming out of the characters and Katys chest become a bit over done and repetitive, making it very boring for us to watch. Makeup and costume in the video appear to be fairly average at most and you get the feel that not much thought went into the general look and theme of the music video over all. The video also relies heavily on close up shots of Katy, this cheapens the what is left of the sentimental feeling of the video when you realise how much Katy is used as a brand for the way she looks rather than her talent. The video is a bullet proof sentimental pop song that doesn't push any boundaries like it could of done and this is why I think it didn't deserve to win the video of the year award.

Our Target Audience

• What music they listen to? Alternative, indie, rock, synth pop, electronic.
• What they do at the weekends? They go shopping around Central London and look for small shops and chartiy shops to look through. They also go out to take photos and meet up with friends and have a coffee. When they aren't going out they stay at home and read, or play video games and paint.
• What breakfast cereal they would choose? Corn flakes.
• What mode of transport? They are most likely to use bus and tube.
• Where/how they live? They live in suburban greater London in a quiet cul de sac.
• Their favourite drink? Cherry coke and Water.
• Their favourite TV shows? Dexter, Eastenders, Planet Dinosaur, Family Guy.
• Their favourite vegetable? Broccolli, sweet corn and peas.
• What sport they watch/play? Badminton and table tennis.
• Who would be their ideal partner? Someone with a creative, down to earth personality who shares similar interest in music, books and art.
• Where they go on holiday? Venice or Paris.
• What restaurants they go to? Pizza Express and small casual diners.
• What politcal party they would vote for? They don't care much about politics.

Copyright Letter

Music Video Survey

This is my music video survey to see what my target audience will expect from my music video. It consists of ten questions and will take less than 5 minutes to do.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MBPYNNQ

Music videos that I think are influential.

Coldplay - The Scientist

In this video we see Chris Martin (the frontman of Coldplay) go backwards in time through different English suburban streets, at the end revealing that he and his friend had been in a car crash. The reason I think this music video is influential is because of the unique concept, even though the whole video is in reverse the words are still lip synced with the song. Having the whole video going in reverse fits the lyrics "Lets go back to the start" perfectly, showing how he wished he could rewind everything and stop something bad from happening. 

Michael Jackson - Thriller

 

I think this is a influential music video because no one had quite done a music video that was very theatrical a more like a movie than a music video at that time. I also think it was very influential because of the costumes, each costume was different and looked very realistic making it scary for the audience and at the time I don't think many music videos had pushed the boundaries as far as Thriller had, given audiences around the world a completely new and unique viewing experience. Recent stars such as lady Gaga do similar theatrical/movie style based music videos usually lasting over 8 minutes which proves that music videos such as thriller probably influenced her to make music videos that pushed the boundaries even for modern pop today.

Johnny Cash - Hurt 

I think this is a very influential video because the use of the old black and white clips showing Johnny Cash's life in contrast to the shots of him in his current state at the time of filming this video portray a very powerful message alongside the lyrics and overall I think it is very moving for nearly everyone that watches. It is very influential because it has a lasting impact which makes it memorable, something that you want for a good music video. 

Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance

I think this music video is very influential because its very different to what you expect  a music video to be. It uses stop motion and the use of the camera at a birds eye view over the bed turns the bed into a canvas. Showing some of the lyrics through the stop motion like when she is supposed to be on a train they use bed sheets moving quickly paste her to make it look like a fast moving train. Not only does it play around with stop mtion but there are some changes in lighting to create a storm effect.

Mood Board for music video

I choose black white images and newspaper print as the main theme of my mood board because I felt it related to the indie music video I wanted to create.I had pictures of glamourous women and lace and diamonds to represent the glam rock feel of the music.

Evaluation Question 7

Establishing shot

For both shots we used an establishing shot to show where it was set and the location. For our prelimanary task we decided to pan around the classroom to show the whole setting. However we did not use a tripod. We filmed it by hand and this made it slightly shakey and less stable. However in the final product we used a similar shot panning the same way as we did in our preliinary task but this time we used a tripod so it was a lot more steady and looked more professional.

Close up

In the prelimanary task we did a close up to show the emotion on the characters face. When we came to do our final product we decided to use another close up but this time from a higher angle that made our victim look more vulnerable, we learnt that using different angles rather than a shot at normal level that is straight forward would give our final product a uniqueness and this helped us to come up with more original ideas.

Stairs

In both  shots we had to film our characters moving on stairs. In our prelimanary task we did not use a tripod and we didn't properly think about the framing of the shots, so when our character was going up the stairs it was very shakey and unstable and she didn't fit in the frame properly and the shot looked very basic. In our final product we used a tripod to make it more steady when we followed character and we also though about the framing so it looked more appealing.

Doorway

In both shots we see the characters go through a doorway. In our prelimanry task we filmed it from a high angle but in our final product we decided to use the 180 degree rule to follow her movement from the bed through the doorway. We also put it at a lower angle than the one we used in our prelimanary task so it felt like we standing in the corner of the room watching the girl.

Evaluation Question 4

A typical example of our target audience would be 18 year old males and females, but mainly targeted males due to the gore and horror in a our movie. They would probably dress fashionably and follow the latest trends. They would enjoy seeing their friends, going to the cinema regularly, going shopping, listening to music and looking after there aperance.

They would probably shop in New Look, River Island, H&M and Topshop.

Newlook Clothing for Men and Women

Most likely they would be interested in Horror movies and psychological thrillers but also the box office hits. Edward Scissor Hands, Nightmare before christmas, Shutter Island, Inception, Blair Witch Project, The Shining and Sweeney Todd.

Tv shows they would watch are Dexter, CSI,  Family Guy, American Dad, Peep show, True Blood, and Vampire Diaries.

They would mainly to Rock/Metal and Indie music such as Bullet for my Valentine, The clash, We are Scientists but also popular music that pushes boundaries such As Lady Gaga.

Our film would appeal to this type of audience because they could relate several aspects of their lifestyle to the aspects shown in our movie through characters, Mise-en scene, music and costume.  They are more likely to go to a mainstream cinema due to their age and if they saw our movie advertised as showing at this cinema it would appeal to them because they would see that the main characters (including the villain) are all a similar age to them.

It could also appeal to them because they like classic Horror films and our characters, sound are plot share similar conventions to well known classic Horror movies. The sound in are movie creates suspense and unease and this would appeal to our audience because there age and movie choice shows that they like thrills and exciting movie were suspense is made in scary ways.

Evaluation Question 6

My blog

This is where i can write about all my research, ideas, findings and feedback from people about my work in a text post and this allows me to add links, pictures and videos. Making my posts more visual and aesthetically pleasing. I also can follow other blogs and use them for research. 

Youtube

Youtube allows people to upload their own films and there are also mainstream movie clips on there. I used youtube to look for Horror movie openings so i could analyse them and put comparisons on my blog. It also help my blog to look more visual. 

Google

Google is probably one of the most popular and fast acting search engines on the world wide web. Google was a very helpful technology for me as it allowed me to research anything i needed or was unsure about. I used google mainly to find different Film festivals and Film distributors and this was helpful because at the beginning of this topic i had the least understanding about these.

Free Sound

Free sound is a site that people can upload their own sound clips on and others can use them without paying. Free sound was the key element for the sound in our film opening. We got sounds like, rain, wind, creaking, creepy music and heart beat and used them in our movie by downloading and importing them.

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation - Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

This shot shows our victim, she fits the social group of a teenager as we see her doing her hair and makeup in her bedroom which is dimly lit. This shows that like most female teenagers she cares about how she looks and how she is dressed and the makeup she is weaing suggests she is going to a halloween party.

During the movie she is looking for her mum but she becomes easily distracted by wanting to listen to music so she goes and finds her ipod, how easily she becomes distracted could fit the stereotype for most teenagers.

Her putting on her halloween makeup shows she must be going out to a halloween part and this represents a typicalteenagers lifestyle.

This shot shows our villain who is after our victim. It suits the typical stereotype of a villain as it is masked so we can not see his facial features and we can't tell who he is.

He also fits the social group of a male because of the way he is dressed, the apron and baggy clothes suggest he could be some sort of butcher and we usually associate butchers with men. His temprement also suggests he fits the male stereotype as he is violent  and he also has the strength to swing a bat at his victim and drag her to an unknown room. Suggesting to us he is more likey to be a female then a man even though we can not see his facial features.

Evaluation - Question 1

Our film opening "Balham Butcher" challenges and also conforms to the usual conventions of a horror opening sequence. Other films that share the same basis of our plot are such movies like "Scream" and "Halloween" which both contain masked villains that go after their victims in the safety and comfort of their own home.

These shots show a classic convention of horor movies which is the masked villain, the mask takes away any human emotion which goes well with the character as villains usually have no emotions or remorse for their victims and thats why they can kill and torture people so easily.

Frame 1
Our first frame is from our opening shot which is an establishing shot, it mainly conforms to conventions as you first see the bare tree's and the empty landscape, it is also raining heavily and another convention of a horror movie is to have bad weather such as a thunderstorms or snow. The streetlight is on which also indicates that night is coming. Night time in horror movies is usually when the characters are the least safe so this shot conforms to conventions of horror movies.

Frame 2

This is a point of view shot just after the girl (victim) is hit over the head with a baseball bat. With this shot we used a video effect that made it look like she was dizzy and very disoriented after she got hit on the head. A usual convention of horror movies is to have effects that make the character look disorientated or have it tilt with the character which we included in this shot.  However some horror movies would rather show the character falling then us see it from their point of view so we built upon these ideas and interpreted our own ways of creating disorientation,

Frame 3

I consider this shot to go against the conventions of a horror film as the framing is slightly different to how a clock would probably usually be filmed. When I have seen horror films if it does show a clock it sometimes just shows it from a typical straight on angle. I think by having the framing so that you cannot see the entire clock went against the conventions.
However I think the sounds in this shot does conform to the conventions, the clock has a slow eery tick to it suggesting there is only certain amount of time left till something happens.

Frame 4

In this shot we see the point of view of the villain who  goes after its victim, this is slightly unusual as we don’t normally get to be with the villain, usually it as is seen as something to be afraid off but this gives us the feeling that there could be a vulnerability to the villain and that he is more open to our perception than we probably should be allowed.

Frame 5

I think this shot is and unusual shot to see in a horror film, we can see the headphones which the girl is going to get and we see the villain coming out from behind the girl. Usually we would see the girl and see the villain come up behind her but we decided we wanted to use the headphones in the shot  so it is like we are far away hidden and we can’t help or warn the girl.

Frame 6

In terms of light this shot conforms to the usual conventions of a horror movie by being very dark, we cannot see the girl’s surroundings  or where she is being dragged to which is used in horror movies to create suspense and worry for the victim. Horror movies are all about the unknown so darkness and not being able to see beyond a point conveys this.

Frame 7

In this shot we see an empty hallway with the titles across the bottom, I think this conforms to the conventions because the shot shoes us that there is no one else in the house and the girl is all alone and the darkness makes it feel eery and like anything could come out of the shadows, which is usually conveyed in similar ways in horror movies.

Frame 8

The costume we use in our film and shots like these conform to the conventions of horror movies as a masked villain has been used in horror movies since the beginning of the genre. The mask creates an emotionless person that we know nothing about and we cannot make a judgement on them as they have no identity, and this unsettles the audience. There is also no voice to this character in tis shot which gives the character a creepier feel. All of this has been showed in masked character such as Michael Myers and we built a character upon these conventions of masked murderers 

Evaluation Question 3

“Balham Butcher” is a low budget British short film based on the psychological horror genre. It is most likely to start off being screened at a film festival such as the “Sundance Film Festival” which was established in 1981. The aim of the Sundance institute is to advance and promote film makers without any profit for themselves. Our work being screened at one of their film festivals would start to get our filmed introduced to a wider audience. 

http://www.sundance.org/

Another festival I found whilst researching was “The British Horror Film Festival” which would be excellent for our movie to be screened at because it will be shown to our exact target audience and is more likely to be successful due to this. This festival showcases British and world-wide independent horror films in unusual venues with the aim of getting the film makers work more well known to a specific audience

British Horror Film Festival

Our production company “Scribble Cat Productions” would seek to employ a good distributor for our short film such as “20^th Century Fox” who are distributing a psychological thriller this year called “Black Swan”. They have also distributed well known horror movies like "The Omen" 

http://www.fox.co.uk/

In the case of it being successful it could move on to being screened at mainstream cinemas such as Odeon, Cineworld and Vue most probably on their smaller screens.
As an independent short film it could also be shown at independent local cinemas to comply with its image, such as Curzon in Soho. This cinema offers a range of different movies therefore it could attract horror fans or people who usually wouldn’t watch a horror movie opening it up to a broader audience. 

Feedback on rough cuts of our opening scene

Things to improve on :
Our class told us that is was difficult to see our titles and what they said, so they gave us the suggestion that we chsanged the colour of the titles to something like white so we could see them better.

Positive feedback :
The class said that they liked our shots and that they thought that we used a variety of different shots which gave it a good effect.
They also said that we had goodframing like in such shots at the beginning with the clock.
Our lighting was also commented on, they said that they liked the use of light and how it is quite dark and dim.
We were told our sound was good and they liked how the steps faded out when we walked downstairs.

Sound in TV Drama

We were analysing the sound in different TV dramas and the effect they had.

Spooks
In the opening scene we see a woman being convicted and when she is convicted the camera zooms in on her face. When the camera zooms in there is a sound like air rushing past and this gives us the feel like we are actually moving towards her and invading her personal space to see her reaction to being sentenced.
When the woman is convicted the incidental music that has been playing gets sadder to show how sad and upset she must feel about being sentenced.
In the next seen we see two men talking and there is nearl no pauses between the two characters dialogue, this demonstrates the anger and the urgency, it seems to us that something needs to be done quickly.
Also one of the men slams his hand down on the table making a loud thud. this noise shows us the strength and therefore that the character is somewhat violent.

Bleak House
The music playing in the background gave us a sense of sadness in this scene but it was not always there, it came in and out at regular intervals and it usually came back in when something important was being sad.
When the man had said what he finally wanted to say the music changed, the pitch changed slightly giving a more happier feel showing us that was some sense of relief.

Eastenders
In this eastenders clip there was no incidental music. The silence throughout the whole clip created tension and enhanced the feeling of emptiness. I think the reason there was no music through out the clip was to make us focus on stacey sadness. The long pause after stacey kicked her mum out of the kitchen symbolized she was thinking and i ncreased the tension as the camera panned around to show sean.
We also can hear Stacey heavy breathing and the shakey nessof it enhancing the fear she feels and the realisticness of the sounds help us connect with the characters on a personal level.

Spooks
In this clip there was a flashback of what the man could remember from his past an  the music we heard at this point was quite sad and quiet to show how the man felt about this memory and how it had affected him

British Film Review

I decided to review Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Askaban

The plot of this movie carries on from the first 2 movies prior to this. This is Harry's third year at Hogwarts school and a new teacher called R J Lupin becomes the new Defence against the Dark arts teacher. Ron Harry and Hermione meet convicted murderer Sirius Black and learn how to handle a Hippogriff (Half horse/half eagle creature). We see the trio master the art of Divination and Harry faces having to withstand the soul-sucking dementors and the the truth is revealed about Harry's connection to Sirius and his family.

There are a wide range of camera shots in this movie and in my opinion the most predominant and stunning shots were the establishing shots. These shots allowed us to see the surroundings of such places like Hogwarts helping to create a magical feel of a place we would all loved to go. It is also shows us the main setting of most the movie and the place that means the most to Harry. Another main use of the establishing shot was showing the train go through the british countryside which is quite remote and the establishing shot shows us that the place is quite remote by having it quite far away so we can see lots of landscape but there are no houses or people, enhancing how secret the wizarding world is.

There is a shot in the beginning of the movie where a family member is mocking Harry's parents, this obviously infuriates Harry and he yells at her to be quiet, As he yells and his body tenses up the camera zooms in from a long shot to a mid shot so we can focus more on his frustration.

There is a mixture of high and low angle shots, the low angle shots are mostly used at points where harry has fallen over or is on the floor due to circumstances where he is in peril. So the low angle shots show the viewers that he is vulnerable at that  moment in time.

We hear a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds.
Non- Diegetic sounds.

• There is a lot of music played throughout the movie to enhance emotions

Diegetic sounds

• Rain
• Thunder
• Screams
• Footsteps
• The clock bell riniging
• The birds chirping

The lighting is dramatically different at night the it is during the day, there is a scene when Harry is exploring the castle late at night and he is using the light from his wand to see into the darkness and we as viewers can only see things in light surrounding the wand which doesn't reach far, there fore we cant see his surroundings or what is behind or in front of him which gives a slight eery feel with the added silence.

The lighting in the castle during the day is slightly dimmer than the normal daylight outside and this gives the effect of the castle being lit by candle light and fires, adding to the magical feel of this movie. 

The props in the film are all fairly unusual and things that we wouldn't come across in modern everyday "muggle" life. In certain scenes there are such props like big golden goblets, silver dinner platter, candles, wands and big ancient looking chests. All things that show the difference between wizard life and Normal human life. 

There are two main sets of costumes. The school uniform which consist of jumpers, robes and cloaks and there own clothes which are neutral in colour and would be possibly something we at that age would have worn making us able to relate to them