Final Cut!

This is our final final final video. We hope that you enjoy it and we are pretty pleased with the outcome. Phewwwf.

Genuine Digipak

Although I have already displayed our final digipak design, I felt that it would be a lot more effective to place it in a realistic looking layout. Because of this we have placed the images to look as though they are a genuine CD case cover. Overall, we really like the digipak design. My favourite aspect of the entire thing is the contrast between the front and the back. The front is simple and soft, whereas the back is loud and busy and confusing. This digipak has turned out better than I could have imagined!

Evaluation Question Four.

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

Software and hardware used:

The InternetFinal Cut ExpressAdobe PhotoShop CS4Sony Handy CamSony Cyber-ShotBlogger.com

The Apple Mac has become an absolute treasure. I do not know how anybody could cope with this course without the software that I have thankfully had the opportunity to use. Becoming familiar with the Adobe Suite last year was one of the best things about the AS Course. I felt capable of using Photoshop and even Indesign (at a push) but learning that we would need to use an entirely new software was daunting. Even the name Final Cut Express filled me with fear. However, after beginning to experiment with the software I realised that it wasn't actually that bad and the more comfortable I got with it, the more I enjoyed discovering new tricks to do with it and the bigger the sense of achievement I gained.

The camera that we used for our filming was a Sony Handy-Cam which enabled us to get a good quality picture while being as portable as possible. This camera was so lightweight and elegant, we could carry it around for such lengths of time and not feel burdened.

The camera itself was interchangeable however as all of the school's cameras are of the same make and model, it was the tape with which our footage was filmed on that was the one thing that could not be changed or swapped. We guarded it with our lives. The camera was accompanied by a tripod to ensure stability with each shot, and also a charger because the battery is rechargeable. We found the battery to charge surprisingly fast which was good because we could do some filming, top up the battery whilst discussing what next to film and by the time we had done this the battery life would already be a lot longer. Other than that we only needed a DV Cable to get the footage off of the camera and onto Final Cut Express, ready to be edited. Uploading the footage from the tape to the Mac was really fast using the DV Cable. Half an hour of footage could be uploaded within a minute, ready for editing.

Without access to each and every one of these products our video could not have become even a fraction of the quality that it is now. If we had not have been given access to a tripod our video would have looked shocking. Despite the tripod not being technological as such, it was absolutely incredible for our video-making. Without the use of our tripod, our shots would be blurred, jolty and clumsy as each movement of the hand is magnified when the footage is watched back. Only a tiny minority of songs would be appropriate to be filmed using no tripod and ours was without a doubt not one of them.

The Internet has been absolutely vital throughout the entire planning process. Initially, we found potential songs to create a music video for using Safari. In particular, YouTube was pinnacle to finding a song choice. The brilliance of YouTube is that it automatically gives a list of suggestions to similar song choices down the side of the webpage as you listen to a song or watch a music video. This meant that once we had found a genre that we all appreciated, we could just explore all of the given automatic suggestions.

Once we had found and all agreed on our song choice, the Internet became our key to researching the target market and the likely listeners to songs of that caliber. Using the UK Tribes website, we began to understand the likely audience. UK Tribes is a brilliant website. It is potentially controversial due to its labelling nature but that is definitely a huge advantage when using it for the purpose I have been!

We then found ourselves interpreting the lyrics of the song, especially trying to learn the potential meanings behind the conceptual lines. We obviously grasped the not so subtle idea of the song being based upon death, due to the song title of 'The Funeral'. We then began constructing a storyline of a young girl, driven to suicide somehow.

By researching on the Internet the issues from cyber bullying we found a quotation that inspired the making of our video. 'Depression is the inability to construct a future'.

This quotation, however simple it may be, really did influence the way we went about creating this video. For us, a large part of knowing what shots we were going to do was based upon us imagining we were in the character's footsteps, experiencing exactly the same things. We had to understand how depression affects the lives of the sufferers and how they would see the world during such a horrible time. The use of the words 'inability to construct a future' really affected me as the thought of not seeing a future, not seeing a life any more and not aspire to be anything or anyone any more is horrible. A life without ambition is senseless.

Depression however, was merely the beginning of the brutal suicidal adventure that the lead character was taken on.

Anyway, more about the technologies we used. Final Cut Express was the software that we used to do the editing of our video. The complexity of this software is insane, there is so much film technology at your fingertips it becomes overwhelming at times. Each portion of the footage from our tape was captured and placed within the window on the top left-hand side of the screen. Final Cut Express is so clever that it provides an image of what the footage within that shortcut looks like. So despite the disorganised appearance, we knew exactly where each piece of footage was kept.

By double-clicking on each shortcut within this window, you can view the clip within the central browser screen. Then it is vital to set the 'In' and 'Out' points of the segment of the footage that you would like to take down to your timeline. The timeline is where all of the editing takes place. Here, all of the transitions and effects can be added to make the video look more and more like a professional music video. Here is a screen grab of our music video when our video was nearing completion:

Above is a list of the transitions available and the ones that we used within the creation process of our music video. The transitions between each clip are what boost the impressiveness of the overall video. Obviously effects and transitions should not be constantly used as the viewer would become desensitised by them and begin to resent them. There is a fine balance between impressing the viewer with post-production effects and losing all meaning to the video by overusing techniques.



Overlaying footage allowed us to show two happenings at one given time. This example shown above complements one another as both shots show a harmonious atmosphere- one in motion and one still. It is also very apparent that the two characters within the overlay are the same person which is extremely important for this particular clip.

Overlays are quite commonly used in music videos as they are brilliant at creating a euphoric confusion in fast-paced songs and adding harmonious feelings in slow-paced songs.
This is one of the overlays used within Scarlett Johannson's video for her song 'Falling Down':

This particular overlay is used to show her thoughts and desires. Her want to break free from all things hectic and take time to see the things that she longs to see.

Below is the result of the chroma key function:

The chroma key allows a desaturated image to appear to have one element or object with colour, normally an illuminous colour. It does this by creating a duplicate layer of the image and dragging it into the row above the editing row upon the timeline. Then by selecting the range of hue that is necessary (in this case reds) a 'magic wand' style tool appears allowing the user to select whereabouts within the shot they would like the colour to appear. This leaves the copy of the footage on the bottom row of the timeline fully desaturated and effectively the chroma key tool has cut out a hole the shape of the coloured object allowing that to overcome the desaturated background.
This tool worked really well within our video and it really helped to emphasise the importance of the rose without wasting more screen time on shots of purely the rose flower.


Using the chroma key tool was reasonably risky as not many music videos are suited to using such a tool. However, we thought we should experiment with it and ended up liking the result.


In the 'Take On Me' music video by A-Ha, they use a tool of a similar caliber which gives almost the opposite result:

The hand in the centre of the frame is in black and white and glows against the colour nature of the remains of the frame. It has a similar effect to the chroma key tool, yet gives the exact opposite result.

In the evaluation stages of our group's music video, we have used the Sony Handy-Cam to film students giving us feedback on our final cut of the music video. This adds both interactivity and detailed answers to our feedback. We also tried to cover as many mediums as possible on our feedback by photographing written notes from our peers about our rough cut. Clips and screen grabs from Youtube have enriched our research and so I felt it necessary to provide these within my evaluation to show the extent of research that was paramount to have been done.

I have also created a PowerPoint presentation to give detailed explanations of certain shots within our video. I uploaded this presentation to Blogger by using www.slideshare.com which is a brilliant website for quickly and flawlessly placing powerpoint files upon a blog.

Evaluation Question Three. (video was done as a group)

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To gain feedback from our rough cut of the video, we got our peers to watch the video from start to finish and rite down their comments. This helped us to receive a lot of constructive criticisms that we could then alter and improve. Here is the feedback that we gained:

We decided to make a feedback video based on our final cut, in response to this question, hoping that it felt more like an informal interview than a formal interrogation. We added relevant clips from our music video at specific points throughout the feedback video in order to remind the viewer of the parts of the video that the recipient is referring to. We had a number of set questions to ask each member of the target audience that was interviewed and improvised the rest.

The general feedback that we received about our video was very much positive. A lot of people felt impacted by such a harrowing topic and felt moved and inspired to help prevent it. They feel that we really understood the timings of the song and used the cross dissolve transitions appropriately and accurately. The majority of our interviewees agreed that they would have liked to have seen more of the graveyard scenes the most. The audience enjoyed the dramatic parts of the video the most- the pill-taking scenes and the chase scenes. I believe this could be due to the thrillseeking nature of our target audience in present times. The youth of this century have been so desensitised by watching mediums compete to receive the biggest reactions that they have grown accustom to all genres of shocking footage. To 'shock' the viewers using our video we tried to portray both the physical and mental effects of heartbreak. The desire to run away and punish yourself physically are both forms of trying to lose yourself and escape the pain that you are preventing yourself from feeling by bottling up emotion. The natural human desire to not let your emotions escape has really affected us as a society. For example, studies have shown that humans are much more likely to cry at a film when they are alone. We aimed to make the audience feel moved and have understanding for Claire's character's actions, whether or not the audience do feel moved emotionally or not depends on their own emotions and how stubborn they are when it comes to showing them.

Untitled from Alysha Bennett on Vimeo.

The thought process between the want for more graveyard scenes falls the viewer's thirst and excitement for all things morbid. As humans, we are naturally drawn to dramatic happenings. Everybody would like to put this video to the emotional limit, emphasising on the death and the general melancholy tone. I think that it is only naturally to want more of the graveyard scenes due to the emotions that those scenes provoke and if I were to restart this task then I think I would probably have quite a lot more graveyard footage.

We also posted the final video on the most popular social networking site, Facebook, as it is an easy way to gain feedback from an audience our age. As the users have to comment on the video, it also meant that we had written evidence of what each person really thought about our video.

To get feedback from our ancillary tasks we have created a booklet with spaces for the audience to give detail to their opinions of each of the tasks. We got many people to complete this booklet with their thoughts and ideas to ensure that this evaluative process was as thorough as possible. We also did not just stick to the target audience of being under 25, it was intriguing to get feedback from people older than this age because it showed a much vaster range of feedback due to their contradicting ideas. By using an unrestrained area, it meant that the feedback was not limited, and by not using set questions, instead simply asking for feedback, it meant that the audience did not feel obliged to fabricate their opinion, they were free to write their honest thoughts.

Magazine Feedback:

• In my opinion I feel that the way there are logos and representations of other companies on the magazine give it a very realisitic feel. Alongside his I would also say that the use of colours make the adertisement stand out. The text is very easy to read and the advert gives a lot of information without using a mass amount of text, keeping it simple was a very good idea.
• The magazine advert goes well with the CD cover. I like the way both images are quite dark and shady. I like the way the reviews lie (ie. star ratings) are below the images
• The magazine advert is similar to the CD cover, which creates synergy within the campaign. THe images are well edited and the text is easy on the eye.
• The layout is very professinal and the colours, fonts and lighting match the digipak creating a strong house theme. The professional touches such as the itunes and hmv logo work very well.
• I like the combingation f the dark background, suble images + light, clear, easy to read writing.
• Beautiful images, the upside down rose is distinctive and symbolic
• Maybe pictures better aligned.
  
  
  Digipak Feedback:
  
  
• The digipak almost tells a story through the pictures used, I would say this is very good as it clearly builds from the music video. Again the use of logos make it look realistic and credible. It is kept very simple but at the same time very eye catching for the buyers. It definatley looks like an album to buy and keep.
• I like the saturation - could possibly edit further?
• The dark imagery gives a hint as to the lyrical themes of the video. The sense of foreboding is conveyed through the open gates and tree shapes.
• Dark contrast makes it seem very gloomy and mysterious. I like the barcode positioned at the bottom right.
• The gothic theme indicates what the genre of the music will be.
• The use of dark low key ighting is amazing, the saturation of the pictures and lighting emphasise the message and tone of your vdeo. The front image works really well as it is a scene from the video and entices viewers as it does not give too much away. Also love the continual symbolism created by the rose.
• I like how dramatic the pictures are. The front picture has mysterious elements that draws in audiences.
• The lighting makes it very atmospheric. The open gate draws you into the picture making you wonder what will happen next.
• Atmospheric - sets a sombre tone. Pictues are excellent, perhaps bottom right could have zoomed in on graves a bit more to distinguish it from bottom left.

Evaluation Question Two.

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

The kind of image we were hoping to create was a solemn and serious one. Our topic throughout our entire three tasks is not one of jest or one to be taken lightly, it is a fabricated tale of realistic goings on in recent times. We knew that we needed our ancillary tasks to also reflect this and so the idea of darkness has to overpower each of our products.

By researching the target market very carefully we deciphered that there is a clear interest in videos with a dark emotional flicker. The more relatable that the storyline is, the more the audience can connect with it and find it emotionally moving. Relationships between two people begin at different ages for every individual, yet due to the media's portrayal, even despite actually being within a relationship a person knows the physical attachment that takes place. This meant for us that no matter how old the viewer may be they will understand the connection that is gained and lost between the two characters within the video and to some extent be able to relate to that bond.

The still used for the front cover of the digipak was a scene from the music video where the female character's shadow can be seen plucking petals from a rose. The thought process behind this image has two significant meanings- the plucking of the rose could easily be interpreted as a 'he loves me, he loves me not' action, whilst also could represent the erosion of the happy relationship the characters once had (as it is clear that the rose becomes symbollic of their happiness from previous scenes in the video).

The magazine advertisement was the first of the three tasks to be completed. With all of our filming done, we had enough stills from the video and photographs that had been taken during filming to begin to edit some of them and place them onto a dark background. For the creation of the magazine advert, we used Photoshop which enabled us to alter the opacity to give the impression of eeriness and mystery around the character. We decided to use Claire on both the magazine advert and for the video because we want the continuity between all three platforms to be apparent to the viewer. Claire was perfect for the role within our video as her physical appearance could transform from happy and angellic to lonely and depressed depending on the way her hair was styled, her make-up and her clothing. Eye contact is a very vital element to creating such a magazine advert. We decided that although she may have her eyes open within some of the shots, she should not be looking directly into the camera or in the camera's general direction. This is to add an air of mystery about the character and advertisement in general, as within a portrait, eye contact is the most necessary component. The blurred face at the bottom right-hand side represents anger and fury which completely contradict the calm and collected faces that surround the image. This was intentionally placed to add life and movement into the canvas.

The mode of address of this task is reasonably casual as the font choice suggests. The font was chosen particularly for its versatility. The font has a slight 'hand-written' appearance to it which really intrigued us. We experimented with the font before commiting to it as we needed to make sure that it looked decent regardless of the font size. Using the same font across the entire poster enables the house style to become stronger, as it creates a better foundation for the remaining ancillary task to be built upon. The target market would generally prefer to be addressed informally as it is a lot more personal.

The images used within this magazine advertisement's opacities were changed because it creates immediate connotations to the cross-dissolves used within the music video. During a cross-dissolve within a moving image, the two clips merge by fading the opacity of the first clip and overriding it with a second. We have taken this idea and merged it into our advert. This forms a greater sense of a house style amongst the three tasks.

The digipak cover was chosen because of its soft and gently saddening effects. The cover is a black and white image, which seamlessly blends into the music video. The front cover image was also a clip that we used in our video of Claire's character plucking petals one at a time off of a rose flower. The symbollic nature of this leaves the mind questioning just exactly why she would be doing so. This can be answered within our music video, showing that the two tasks are strongly connected. This forms a definite brand identity and the use of the same font as the magazine advert only furthers this.

If I were to do any of these tasks again, I would definitely have began by taking more photographs during filming. By doing so, we could have had a much better range of photographs to begin our ancillary tasks with. I am overall really happy with our ancillary tasks, as I think that they all link really nicely and obviously. I just wish I had contributed more with the photography aspect of the project.

Evaluation Question One.

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

ANDREW GOODWIN’S THEORY

• Visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music
• Genres often have their own music style/iconography
• Close-ups should always be included
• The artist/band might want to develop their own star iconography, which becomes their star image
• Voyeurism is a common theme within music videos
• Intertextual references are also popular
• Goodwin argues that the female performer is frequently objectified principally for display purposes, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star.

STEVE ARCHER’S THEORY

• There needs to be a strong and coherent relationship between narrative and performance in music promos.
• Music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band
• A carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor.

JOHN STEWART’S THEORY

• The music video has the aesthetics of a TV commercial, with lots of close-ups and lighting being used to focus on the star’s face.
• He sees visual reference in music video as coming from a range of sources, although the three most frequent are perhaps cinema, fashion and art photography.
• Stewart’s description of the music video as ‘incorporating, raiding and reconstructing’ is essentially the essence of Intertextuality, using something with which the audience may be familiar, to generate both nostalgic associations and new meanings.
• The video allows more access to the performer than a stage performance can. The mise-en-scene, in particular, can be used to emphasise an aspirational lifestyle.

This is the dress that Claire wears for the rare jolly scenes of the video. There is an angelic flair about it and she looks radiant in every shot she is in wearing this garment. The Mise-en-scene was a constant worry in our heads- how each outfit or item of clothing can affect the overall subliminal message of each shot. If the outfits and physical appearance were not thought about so carefully then the video would have a lot less of an impact upon the viewer and would be a lot less convincing when taken as a whole.

This is the outfit that Claire wore for the majority of the video. The colour black holds many obvious connotations to death and morbid topics which were necessary for creating such a video as we did. We felt that she should be dressed very demurely and 'normally', with tights and a skirt of reasonable length so that the viewer can fully absorb what is taking place within the shot as opposed to being sidetracked by the character's clothing.

Here is an analysis of a number of carefully selected shots from our final video and the reasoning behind them:

(by clicking on 'menu' and 'full screen' you can read all of the text)

Question 1

Walking through Southwark train station I suddenly noticed a poster advertisment of Ellie Goulding's album 'Bright Lights'. If this poster were to appear as a single page spread in a magazine then it would be classified as a magazine advertisement. I felt that we could really take aspects of this poster and work it into our magazine advert design.

Taking inspiration from existing primary sources is a very useful way of managing to achieve a plausibly professional final product. It also means that you are forced to loosely follow guidelines set by real adverts so the product you end up with will never look too foreign or random.

The main influence Ellie Goulding's poster had upon our design was the text content and positioning. She provoked us to include quotations and really to emphasise the band's name.

Many of our shots were desaturated during the editing process. The thought process behind it being, trying to differentiate the past from the present. As to add depth to the music video, we shifted between tenses regularly. This added a sense of confusion and disorientation to the video.

A lot of music videos use desaturation for a number of reasons.

In this video, desaturation is used to portray the journey in which the character is going through. The video becomes a lot darker, with a lot more negative space, and the darkness within the shots begins to swallow the character. The darkness in itself is used to tell a story.

The use of desaturation within the music video for Falling Down is pinnacle to the video in order to represent the tiring nature of the actress' daily routine. The desaturation emphasises the nighttime backdrop and casts the character's face in shadow.

Amy Winehouse's music video for 'Back to Black' bases itself upon a very similar subject as our video. Both emphasise death using a combination of morbid activity and graveyards. Although the use of black and white is constant throughout this video, there does not need to be any differentiation between the happiness and the present because there are no happy times within the video. The entire video's tone is melancholic (which is reflected in the constant desaturation).

In the video for 'I'm Your Baby Tonight' by Whitney Houston black and white is used unconventionally. The video flashes from colour to black and white while she is dancing. I believe this is due to the power of the song that she is singing. Both the vocals and the lyrics are very strong and at times overwhelming. The black and white flashes are used to simply add interest to the video, to add a twist to a conventional dance video.

Final Digipak Cover!

This is our final digipak design! YAY! We are all very excited! WELL DONE ALYSHA