Evaluation: Question 4

Question 4: How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages? 



Throughout the coursework process we have used several different forms of media technology that impacted our work at various stages in the process. These technologies varied from simplistic use of Mobile Phones to more complex use of Adobe After Effects.  


Internet 


The main use throughout all stages of the production task was the use of the internet and more primarily, Media 2.0. I used sites like YouTube and Facebook in both the research and evaluation stages. I also used sites like Powtoon, Timetoast and Blogger in order to put across my ideas and have them as a record. I even used the screen capture software, Screencast-O-Matic to get the footage for this question.


Production


The main use of technology was in the actual Production task where I used both physical technology like cameras and also software like Photoshop and Premiere Pro.


Adobe Photoshop -
For the print-production task, I used Photoshop in order to create the album cover and the promotional advert. Below is a video showcasing the way in which i used the airbrushing technique to create a more polished look on the photos I used -






Adobe Premiere Pro -
The software I used to edit my video together, aside from the base cutting and trimming the clips etc. I used Keyframes in order to slow blend in a blur effect and the video below showcases how I did this -






Adobe After Effects -
I used After Effects in order to apply some extra VFX to my video in order to amplify the exposure, brightness, contrast and even to add some colour based effects. The video below shows how I did this -


 



Through the use of Media 2.0 technologies it enabled me to quite easily find my research and to get my required feedback from my audience. This allowed me to engage with a more active audience as opposed to a passive one, who had the ability to provide constructive feedback and get fully involved in the full project. Also the ease of using Adobe software after learning how to do it, significantly helped as opposed to having to doing all of the post-production manually before digital software came along.

Evaluation - Question 3

Question 3: What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?


For the audience feedback I set aside five technical terms to categorise the response; Lip-Sync, Editing, Cinematography, Lighting and how the visuals reflect the audio.



Lip-Sync: In general people said the Lip-Sync was decent and did flow with the video. However they did say that in some certain areas of the video the sync was clearly off. They put this down to the fact that the language of the video is Korean, which may or may not be true as it might just simply be a mistake in the editing process. From this I learnt the importance of the effect of lip-sync on a video and how it can make it or break it, I will bear this in mind when I come to lip-sync again as it is such an important process.  




Editing: People said overall for the editing was fast enough that the video actually appeared to be like a conventional music video. The cuts were quick enough and on time with the music that nobody could see an obvious "dodgy cut", which I'm pleased with since a an off beat cut can really ruin a music video. Some people said how the video could of been cut even a bit faster, so I will bear this in mind when I come to edit using music again and see how I can attempt to make the video faster without making it too jarring so the audience doesn't have a negative reaction/response to the video.




Cinematography: In general people said that the cinematography used was good and that it reflected the "fun" theme that I was going for. On a downside some of the feedback suggested that I could of used more experimental camera angles and shot types instead of  standard static shots with several close-ups. On the topic of the location, many people didn't like the location chosen. They said that it was too simplistic and rather boring. I agree with this response as I was originally going to use green screen as a backdrop, then in the editing process use the Chroma Key to remove it and replace it with a more exotic backdrop. But as another member of the class hadn't returned the green screen, I had to use the white and black backdrops you see which of course weren't ideal. In a future process I'll learn to be more experimental with my use of the camera, especially since it was K-Pop, which does demand a certain level of unique, experimentation with its video.




Lighting: In general people said the lighting was off and could of been a much bigger influence in the video. I agree with this statement as due to a technical issue I could only use one light in the process instead of the two that I wanted. This did impact the video but not in such a way where it was ruined, something that I intend to focus on in the future as lighting is such a integral point in a music video, especially in K-Pop where you can argue that lighting is somewhat overused in order to create that bright, vibrant and over-exposed look.




How the visuals reflect the audio: For the most part the feedback suggested that the visuals in the video reflected the music that I used. The fast, upbeat K-Pop track did flow alongside the "fun", "jokey"  atmosphere that I was going for in the video. Some of the feedback suggested that the video could have been a bit less plain, they didn't really go into detail as to how, but reflecting on the overall look of my music video I can see how I could in the future, add to the look of the video making it a bit lively and giving it a final, professional touch to it. From this process I learned on how important the visuals are when alongside the audio.



Also for my feedback I decided to have a Media 2.0 approach too and use a group chat on Facebook to obtain some feedback from an audience who don't hold the same cultural capital that the group above did. I chose to ask the following questions;

1 1. What do you think happens in the narrative?

2 2.  Do you think the performances are convincing?

3 3. Does the video remind you of anything you've seen before?

4 4. Would you ever consider being friends with the performers in the video?

5 5. What genre do you think the video belongs too?

   6. If you had total control over the video what would you change/not change? 

From this feedback from someone who has no prior knowledge to how the music industry works, I have learned that in general, people believe my video to remain within the genre constraints of K-Pop. She also said of how the video was easy to follow, no over-complicated narrative or technical issues that ruined the video. She also mentioned on the fact that she would watch the video through if it appeared on a music channel, this shows me that I have created an engaging video via the use of the visuals that has proven to keep an audience interested in the video.  

Overall from my qualitative feedback I have discovered an audiences' approach to a media text is what defines their preferred reading of it. I believe that my audience for my video are mainly passive as they are taking in the video and all of its visual aspects rather than questioning what actually goes on in the video itself. Although I can see how some members of my intended audience, due to their cultural capital, will be more interested in what my video is trying to represent through the cinematography, lighting, editing etc. when in a matter of fact all I tried to represent overall was a group of girls having fun in a very genre constrained video that doesn't challenge any ideological beliefs whatsoever and goes for a totally relaxed and fun scopophilia.

Evaluation - Question 2

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



For question two I decided to use the online PowerPoint software, "PowToon" in order to conduct my analysis.

Evaluation - Question 1

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




What did I use? 

Korean Pop is a relatively convention driven genre and I stuck to the redundancy of this genre when I made my music video. Everything down from the editing to the cinematography and even the performance is what drives the conventions to make it a redundant media text.

Technical Conventions -
The mise-en-scene in a K-Pop video is one of its central aspects as it is so crucial in setting the tone of the video. This is usually seen in the lighting as a video is typically over-exposed and filled with various bright, vibrant colours like blues, greens, pinks etc. In my video I attempted to re-create this over-exposed look and to experiment with the colours too.

   













As you can see from the two screenshots above I went for more warmer colours than the bright, dazzling colours that you usually see.

Editing is another key ingredient into making a music video and as such I took time to make sure that my editing was as up to scratch as possible, while managing to stick to the main convention of the cuts being precisely on time with the beat of the music, as that is what usually gives a viewing audience more viewing pleasure. I mainly stuck to conventional continuity editing and didn't branch off and attempt any Dziga Vertov style of editing. K-Pop videos tend to be cut within convention too and not do anything to unexpected with its videos.    



What did I develop? 

Throughout the production task I had to adapt many of the previous ideas that I had developed through my research and planning, this was mainly down to the fact that there weren't realistic in terms of time and production costs for my coursework. The main one of these was the fact that I wanted to originally have my performers perform the video on a large, open set stage as that is convention of a K-Pop video as the screenshot below shows -

 But I soon found that this wasn't really possible in the time frame we had, so I settled for something slightly more reasonable.





What did I challenge?

I suppose a main convention that I challenged was that my video didn't actually have any Korean performers in, this was an decision that I didn't even consider until this evaluation task. A factor that I intentionally challenged was toning down the choreography since its conventional in a K-Pop video fir it to be filled with over dramatic, cheesy and sometimes odd dance movement. I toned down on this as I believed that since it's culture centered, my targeted audience may not understand and might be confused or even put off by the over the top choreography. I suppose this was quite an entropic aspect to my video as many people would probably expected to see the cheesy dance moves.    

A2 Music Video - Girls' Generation: "Talk Talk"

Music Video Tests - After Effects Title

A brief look at what I hope to create in Adobe After Effects for the title of my music video... This is only a rough example that I achieved by using the pen tool to create masks on each letter and then using keyframes to create the transition. The finalised version I hope will be more professional looking and work with the video.

Print Production - Album Cover & Advert

Here's my album cover for my music video -

And here's my music advert -