Formal Sign Off.

This will be the last post of my blog.

When I first enrolled for Media, I was looking forward to being able to do a subject that sounded enjoyable - as someone who likes ICT and being creative, it seemed like a great course. When I chose the subject, I was told it was a "soft subject" and perhaps I should chose something else, but I really wanted to try Media for the first time.

As I approach the end of my two years doing Media A-Levels, I want to shake my head at the person who called this a soft subject. By far, this is the most challenging course I have taken, my other courses being English, Drama and Spanish. The work is not difficult to comprehend, but the commitment that goes into the course is phenomenal. It keeps you on your toes all the time, constantly asking for more and more attention and perfection. There is not a moment where I have found this course to not be a challenge.

Ironically, the hardest part has been the blogging. When I first found out we were required to blog our progress and follow a blogging checklist, I thought "hey, what a great and easy way to do work." HAH. Just keeping up a blog is very, very difficult. Even though there was a checklist, many of the blogs are extremely demanding, work-wise, and we are required to go up and beyond what is expected of us. I'm disappointed that I under-estimated the course, especially the blogging, at the start of last year, because I definitely feel I have not lived up to my potential and could have achieved more, but also should not have thought that this would be easy. It wasn't. I could say "were I to do it again I'd do this and this" and no doubt it would improve, but it would still be very difficult and time consuming. The amount of creativity and focus the course needs is humongous. 

I have enjoyed the course, but it definitely has been a struggle, however it's been worth it because I've taken away from it, many new skills and ideas, learning how to make movies, analyse media content, create a whole music video, make a digipak and an advert etc. I've learned shots, cameras, equipment, angles, and even remember how to use memory cards and battery packs which might seem like a simple task but we've run into times where we haven't checked the charge on a battery and run out of steam mid-shoot. There have been ups and downs and lows and highs but here in my last blog I can officially say I don't regret what I've seen and learned and hope I keep these skills with me for life.

- Tizzie Leitao. 

Question 4.

To view Question 4, click here.

Our Music Video upload.

Question 3.

Question 2.

Question 1.

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

In our video, we chose to focus on Andrew Goodwin's theory of "dysjuncture" and its conventions. Dysjuncture is where the music video has no relevance to the lyrics. We chose this because, as our song is dubstep, the listener is more interested in the music than the lyrics, and so we thought we'd have visuals that entertain, rather than tell a story as with Illustration, or bring for a contextual meaning like Amplification. 

Here is a link to a music video, Choose Me II - Xilent, that inspired me while I was researching for the video. This is an example of a dubstep video and as you can see it also follows dysjuncture, showing only people dancing - the dancers create an element of visual interest to go along with the music, without stealing interest from the actual beat. In our video, as the performer I too chose to dance as the main point of movement in the video.

A convention we chose to mimic was - given the visuals revolved around dancing - a long shot to show the body of the dancer. Here's one of Choose Me II's long shot against ours.

However, our long shot differs from Choose Me II's because their dance focus is the "shuffle" which focusses a lot on footwork, and so they've got the long shot showing their feet as well, where as our long shot focusses mostly on the hips as the artist is "grinding" so the feet were not necessary to include as the artist remained in the same place. 

We also followed Carol Vernallis' theory on "The Male Gaze" and chose to make our artist appealing in the male imagine, by the clothing, movements and shots we had in our video. There are very few dubstep music videos featuring females, but many songs with female vocals will have a sexual image while the video plays, which shows that most of the dubstep listeners tend to be males who enjoy this image, hence why we chose to do it as well. For example the female in this dubstep music video who is in a mid shot showing her body and a lot of cleavage. 

This is too much for an artist in our video as it still has to be PG, but we did include clothing like corsets that also included a decent amount of cleavage in order to follow Vernallis' theory.

In a similar way, my digipak and advert stuck with these conventions, as well as the conventions of ant digipak and advert.

Unlike the dubstep digipaks I researched, that don't have a specific artist, my digipak and advert have an image of the artist on the front, which is the convention for any music videos that want to promote artist image, as ours does. 

The digipak above does follow some conventions even while it doesn't have an artist to promote. It sticks to a color theme - green, grey, black and white, and has an urban theme, with the title visibly shown.

Below is my digipak, which also has an urban theme, sticks to the color theme of red, black, white and grey, and has the title and artist name visible. It also sticks to the digipak conventions by showing the artist clearly to promote her image. It also sticks to Vernallis' theory by having the artist with enhanced lips and a suggestive look.

My advert does the same thing - following the same conventions. It can be compared to dubstep artist Nero's advert - showing the artist's name, release dates, album cover and an urban theme.

My advert too, follows these conventions, sticking to the same theme and linking clearly with my digipak.

Progress Review: Ancillary Work.

Click here for a link to the Wix slideshow.

(unfortunately Wix don't allow embedding anymore.)

JPEG of Advert.

JPEG of DigiPak.

Screenshot of ancillary work in production on Photoshop.

Digipak and Advert - Finished.

Making the digipak and advert on photoshop was a fun and interesting task. I'm quite used to using photoshop which was lucky as the ancillary work could be made on either qwark, which I have never used, or photoshop. 

The mock up I made previously was extremely helpful, and I tried to follow it as carefully as I could. Using it while doing my work helped remind me what to put where, so I was never lost or stuck at any point. Unfortunately I couldn't find the mock-up for my advert so I had to do that from memory, but the advert was a lot easier to do than the digipaks, as once all the images and information was already there, putting it together didn't end up too difficult!

Here's how my work fared with my mock-up.

The outside of my mock up.

Although it's mostly in black and white, I labeled the edges to remember what colours and themes they would be. For example, I've stuck to a "grey, black, white and red" theme, as well as having a "stormy sky" effect feature alongside skyscrapers in the background, which both serve as consistent motifs.

Underneath is the outcome.

The inside was similar to the front, maintaining themes and colours.

Mock.

 Actual.

Here is my advert. I kept the same themes as on the digipak itself, which is a convention of the advertisement, even using the same inside picture displayed on the poster. On the poster, I showed the release date (out now) as well as some bonus tracks and where to buy the CD.

Where the ideas for my ancillary work came from.

When we were creating the music video, we wanted it to have an edgy, city feel to it. Originally we had planned to film in the centre of London, and have the skyscrapers feature in the background to really bring to life this "nightlife" essence, however the times the group was available clashed and we couldn't get any night time base tracks. Because of this, I wanted to have this "skyscraper" feature shown in my dikipak, so it prominently features behind the artist and song list on the front and back, as well as across the CD on the inside, as shown below.

As the advert must also strongly connect to the dikipak, the skyscraper theme stayed consistent in the advert as well, being displayed as a banner across the middle of it. 

Another idea that features throughout the three pieces is the red dotted border. Originally I had intended to make the lights on the skyscrapers red, but as I had used them in the background to create the "notion" of a city instead, I thought doing this would steal focus, and instead decided to turn the originally red dotted border into a border of red showlights. 

Making these lights were very simple - merely a red circle, followed by a small white circle on the side to create the illusion of shine. I was initially going to make these glow to make it clear that they are lights, but when I tried it, I felt it stole focus from the rest of the picture. This border goes around all of my work - The front, back, both inside panels and the advert, clearly linking all of my ancillary work together.

The last clear and consistent connection, besides colours, is the feature of the "grey sky". The only panel it doesn't feature on is the inside of the front. I used this sky effect because when we were planning the music video, we wanted the artist to have quite a moody look, and the picture I chose for the front of my digipak also follows this trend, and so I felt using a stormy grey sky would enhance this "mood".

Digipak Mock Up Done!

Today I finished my digipak mock up. I used inspiration from Olly Murrs and the dikipaks I've seen in class to create it.

Our album is called "Infinity" by our artist, "Ava Manhattan" (me) and our colours are red, white and black. I've used an "urban decay" theme and it links to the video because I'm using sky scrapers and London nightlife as the visual art (I don't want to make digital art since I'm more confident with a camera than digital art skills.) 

This is the front (right) and back (left) of my mock up. Around the titles will be a black dripping effect. The background shows the sky scrapers, and I will have a "grey cloudy sky" to go behind the sky scrapers. An image of my artist is on the front. Around the edges will be a border of red "lights" that will mimic the red lights on the sky scrapers. The back has the sound track in tilted writing, which is a common convention in urban decay.

This is the inside of the digipak. The CD will have the same sky scraper pattern as on the front and back, and behind the CD will be the cloudy sky. The border will also have the "red showlights". On the inside of the front will have an image of the artist, with the name of the album "Infinity" glowing in red lights behind. This was inspired from the Olly Murrs and Pink albums where they show the same thing.

Researching Adverts.

Digipak Inspiration.

Researching Digipaks for the genre.

As mentioned in a previous post, Digipaks are the digital art surrounding a CD. 

As the genre of our video is Dubstep, I've been researching what Dubstep ancillary work looks like.

Here's an example of a dubstep digipaks. Most of the time in dubstep, the artist is the least important thing, so it's quite normal when the artist is not shown on the digipaks. Instead, they seem to focus more on the digital art side, keeping the colours consistent, 

In this digipak, the colours are dark...black, red and white, and these are the same colours we want to use for our digipaks.

This is a digipak from Nero, who is a well known artist in the dubstep genre. As with the previous case, the colours are again dark, with blacks and whites shown, but again no artist is present.

Our's will follow most of these conventions, the only difference being that our artist, Ava Manhattan, is symbollic in our video as well as our album, and so we want her to feature on the front of the digipak, but similar to these digipaks, the visual art will be an important aspect.

Fixing up Dan's digipak.

In class, we began to start on actually creating a digipak. Many people were not very confident using photoshop, so they began to start on that, however I've been using photoshop for quite a while and know my way around it, so I found today's task quite fun and simple.

Rebecca gave us an example digipak to show us what NOT to do. The digipak was terrible, with poor framing, lack of conventions and just overall bad. She used Dan as an example artist, naming him "Dan London" with his album "It's my time". Our homework was to take the original photos and give Dan a proper  album. Here's what I came up with.

The colour scheme iss mostly blue and yellow, because the genre is Indie and these are accompanying colours. It's simple yet promotes the artist and gives necessary information. As is apparent, Dan London is signed to Sony music, in specific Indie Music Filter.

This was done quickly, just to get a feel of editing ancillary work, however when it comes to my actual work, the level of quality will be much higher.

Importance and Function of Digipaks.

The importance of Digipaks on Prezi

Progress Review Blog.

Done and Dusted!

- "Music video: done! The Friday gone by was the deadline of the music video, and it has officially been handed in. In all honesty, it was a lot more rushed than my blog makes it sound and it can be said that my blog does not detail the planning and construction of the video very well. There are big chunks in my blogging thus far which is indeed a shame, but honestly I was so busy with actually DOING it that I hadn't left myself much time to blog about it. It also felt at times that there was nothing really new to say..."been editing the video again today" would have been the most to blog about on some days. 

In terms of keeping up to my previously set targets, I think I could have done better. It's a lot harder to keep up a blog than one would assume...not just remembering to do it, but also to make the type of media of each post interesting and varied, as well as actually finding something substantial to talk about. At current, I have 65 blogs, which is easily on target for what I need to reach come the end of the course, and now that it's back to individual work, I feel it will be a lot easier for me to blog and track my own progress, rather than trying to log a group project. 

The blog I'm most proud of may very well be my most recent Prezi update. It's nothing particularly special, but I think it was really to the point and the information was clear and concise, as well as the Prezi being well organised and attractive to look at, which is why I'd say it's my favourite blog.

A post I wish I'd put more effort into was one that I posted up containing a column of pictures of our group editing on one of the last days before the deadline. I had been meaning to write something to accompany the pictures, but I was in such a rush that day I only managed to get the photos up, so it's an unexplained list of photos, which is a shame, hence why I'd like to have put more effort in."

All day edits!

Today was extremely tiring, as we were making up for lost time, and editing our video. We remained editing from class at 9am, all the way until 4:30, without even a single break, not even for lunch! 

 While today was very tiring, it was also very productive. One thing that I learned about was the importance of Rendering. Every single edit that was made required rending afterwards. This picture (left) shows a clip getting rendered. It was quite annoying to begin with, because we kept forgetting to render the footage and so it wouldn't show up, but now we've done it so much that it's become a habit!! 

 Another useful thing that I learned today was about using the Chroma Keyer. The Chroma Keyer is used to remove the green screen, and input the desired footage behind the artist. This is done by selecting the colour of the screen with the "dropper" icon, then changing the colour amounts on the line, as well as sliding the "thin edges" and "soften edges" tabs etc. around. The main problem that was encountered was when there was a shadow, it often blended onto the skin or clothing, and so parts of the actual artist were removed with the screen. I got around this by tweaking  all the tabs, until as much green as possible had disappeared, without losing  parts of the artist as well.

 (Above) The artist was originally laying in front of the green screen, however the footage shown behind is the super imposed footage. There is a slight part of the elbow that was taken out, because of the green screen reflecting onto the artist's skin, and thus getting removed with the Chroma Keyer. 

 Another thing I learned today was how to apply effects. It's not rocket science, but getting it to look good isn't easy, either. The picture above shows some effects we'd added to a shot. We enhanced the lighting, and used the "Glow" technique: Bloom. We then tweaked the effect to make the shot look as we wanted. However, we used effects on a lot of shots, and wanted to use the same effects on the same footage, but that appeared in different parts of the video, so in order to remember all the levels of each shot, we took pictures, as seen below. The effects really made a huge difference to the quality and entertainment of our footage, taking it from normal, student footage, and turning it into something that would be seen in a professional music video. Sometimes, the effects were used to even get a better marking for the specific footage. For example, the framing on one of our base tracks is slightly off, so we used an effect to make the background glow, thus making it hard to recognize the "top" and "bottom" of the frame, causing the framing error to become unnoticeable  It is in ways like this which we are manipulating our video, and making it into high quality work. 

We still have a lot to do, however, so we'll be editing right up until our deadline (finish before then, of course, just tweaking ;) )

Editing Update

Today was the most editing we have done. Me and Jayne have so far done 5.5 hours so far and counting! We are now basically going through and adding in any filters and working on the greenscreen. It is taking a while but i am sure we will get a lot done today. We also have scheduled to work through every lunchtime this week between us. So hopefully this will whip the editing into shape!