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

During the construction of our music video we used new media technologies to help produce, edit and showcase our video. The software we used most was as expected our editing software Apples Final Cut Express. This is the first time we have had to use Final Cut Express as in last years project we used more basic software called Imovie. At first final cut express seemed to over complicated and we found it very frustrating to use, however the frustrating period didn't last long as Warren became confident and capable with the software. Warren also studies Film Studies so he has had to use the software much more than me and Ryan so because of this Warren generally did most of the editing. As well as the new software we have used this year we have had the chance to use high definition cameras which has dramatically improved the quality of our film. To get used to the new software we had to produce a mock music video using songs the school had been given permission to use, our song was I Need Your Pain and was lip synced by Warren . After we finished editing the preliminary exercises we uploaded the short clip to YouTube, the Internets most popular video website. There is a link to our preliminary exercise below.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdkZd1K-IGs&feature=player_embedded)


As for research I created a survey using http://www.surveymonkey.com/ which is a great free website which allows you to create impressive quality surveys without paying a subscription fee. I created a survey to find out some key information about the music video market to find out what appeals to today's audience and who we are most likely to target with out music video. My survey consisted of only five questions but I made sure they were sufficient enough to retrieve the information we needed, I tried not to ask closed questions such as "do you like watching music videos" because we would not benefit from a question which would obviously be answered yes by the music video enthusiasts we ask. I also created a survey which I asked 15 people to take part in after we had finished our video to see how our video affected its viewers. Survey Monkey was a very useful tool that allowed us to retrieve feedback on what we had produced and give us information and the criteria we needed to attract our key audience.

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

I think that our ancillary texts: our Poster and our Digipak create a brand identity for Tweed. Having our poster and album front and back cover the same simple tweed material makes people who have heard of Tweed instantly recognise any of their other material. An example of an artist who has a brand identity is Mike Skinner from The Streets. For his first two albums Mike Skinner kept the CD design very plain with just the title and the Streets lighter which is instantly recognisable not just because of the name. The choice of a lighter can also be related to The Streets as his first album Original Pirate Material had heavy influences from drugs and the youth drugs culture. When the album was released it wasn't an instant success and after time it became highly praised by surprisingly older audiences and was popular with people from all classes. Original Pirate Material was voted album of the 21st century by The Guardians Ben Thompson which is an impressive feat for a debut album.

As for the rest of our digipak I am very pleased with how the other images compliment each other. We have the powerful image of Ryan in the rear view mirror which is located on the inside cover as you open the CD case. If you unfold the slip in the inside cover we have the images of the forest where we filmed the car scenes with the Tweed logo and the track list. At first we found it difficult to select what would go in the digipak however after a few lessons of brainstorming while editing we decided that using the images of the forest in the digipak would be suitable. We decided on the images of the forest because of the common things associated with forests such as murderous activities and bodies being found by joggers and so on. The link may be over exaggerated however it does link in the subjective storyline of our music video, it can be seen as he may have ran her over and disposed of her in the forest. A very dramatic link but a significant one.

As I said before we wanted to make Tweed an instantly recognisable brand and I am really pleased by our poster. Most of the time adverts and posters for bands are egotistic or trying to create an over artistic impression of the band, like the image on the right for a group I have never heard of. The image for The King Blues tries to show the group in a way which is appealing to a young audience, however the simple shot of the band may attract some consumers but it is more likely to have the opposite effect with the majority of consumers. Trying to show a band in a "cool" way is risky, modern day examples are Lady Gaga who has pulled it off with her odd sense of fashion and attention seeking acts. An example of a group who failed to pull the "cool" look of are The Kooks, The Kooks achieved relative success with singles such as "Niave" and "She Moves In Her Own Way" in the UK music industry however they have came across some harsh press such as Simon Amstell (Never Mind The Buzzcocks) calling them "Brit School rock star wannabees". So by deciding to keep the poster simple and not trying to show Tweed in a "cool" way if our production was to be released on the market it would be hard to find any attacking comments about Tweed in the press. Our poster is a neutral inviting advert for consumers to make their opinions of the band after they have heard the music, whether positive or not after they have purchased the album the advert has achieved what it had set out to.

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

Our music video is about relationships. Most conventional music videos about relationships are about the woman seeking revenge for issues caused by the man in the relationship, however the male in our video has more serious thoughts than just seeking revenge. The title of the song I RanYou Down immediately gives the audience and idea about the story line of the video. We used the songs lyrics to our advantage to create a red herring whether he actually did run over his girlfriend. The storyline and message of our music video is subjective, there is no definite ending, at first we wanted to create three endings and let a focus group decide which one was most effective. However one we began filming we realised we didn't have appropriate material and locations to film all three.
While we were researching successful music videos in class we came across My Favourite Game by The Cardigans, at first the videodidn't seem to make much sense, but after a while i grew too like it. I had never seen the video before but had heard the song. The video was produced and directed by Jonas Akerlund over three days in the Mojave desert in California, and was rumoured to have cost £220,000. The video shows the bands lead singer Nina Persson recklessly driving an old car through the desert trying to make other cars crash. At the start of the video she is trying to find a suitable rock to keep the accelerator onto make sure the car will continue if she jumps out. So at the very start of the video we know she has plans to crash the car, the title My Favourite Game gives makesyou believe she is playing sort of Russian Roulette . The video created some controversy when it was first released in 1998, the video was consequently banned or an edited version shown where all of the crashes and the dangerous driving were taken out. Jonas Akerlund knew the video would cause some controversy so he created five different versions with varying degrees of violence and blood. Many European channels including MTV UK only played an edited version of the version of the video because they believed it would cause and increase in "joyriding" and cause car accidents amongst teenage drivers. The video achieved substantially success and was placed at 95 on channel 4's 100 greatest music video.

We watched this video a few times before filming the car scenes to give us some ideas about different angels we could use, at first the carscenes were very difficult to plan. After watching the video we discovered some easy and effective shots, however once in the car on the day we found it difficult to replicate the angels we had seen. We managed to replicate a few of the angels in the Cardigans video, the image on the left shows one of our basic angels the "rear mirror view". What we aimed to do was take some of the aggressive driving seen in My Favourite Game but do it in a controlled way which was safe but looked realistic in order to produce the red herring; was she run over or not?

Also the most obvious convention our music video uses is the band scene. Music videos are used to showcase and promote the artist or band and in most videos today band scenes are a main component. We filmed the band scene in our schools drama studio using the lighting to shift the focus of the scene on to the lead singer with the two guitarist in the background. In the music video industry today it is mostly rock bands which use band scenes in their videos, as in pop most of the artist do not produce or play the instruments that feature in there songs.

Other than a band scene and a car scene the other conventions we have used in our video are romance and lip syncing. Our video doesn't challenge media conventions just uses them to create a story.

Tweed- I Ran you Down Final Production

Editing

Today while editing our music video we came across an effect which would create some good contrast in our black and white car scenes. While filming we covered the road with leaves and as the car drove past the leaves were sent flying by the wind. We decided to keep the leaves their original colour of golden brown and leave the rest of the scene in black and white. The effect was simple to edit, however after trying different colours and shades we were unable to make all the leaves in the scene orange. In the scene there are patches of leaves in black and white however a majority of the leaves are colour golden brown how we wanted them, and because the scene is only a second or two we were confident it wouldn't be noticed.