Wordle

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.





These are the many words that I have used from blog and as you can the words that stick out the most are music, video, used, audience etc.

Evaluation

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

My media product uses and challanges different forms and convetions of real media products. When I was planning my music video my intial inspiration was the song Eamon-I dont want you back as this song and theColours song "Tonight I let you go" I thought had similar meanings and so i wanted my music video to be similar to the music video to the song. There are similarities between the two music videos for example in my music video where the two are arguging by the bench is similar to Eamon's "i dont want you back" music video as they can be seen arguing but not by a bench but instead outside a pizza restaraunt sitting by the table.


















These two scenes are similar as they both show the same state of each relationship of them both arguing and not being happy with each other the problems may be different but what is taking place on screen is similar. The reason I chose this music video as inspiration is because they both songs have the same meaning of depression and betrayl and I thought this video was best in terms of telling narrative as I was initially unclear of what the narrative should be on screen.

My music video also brings more to the table when showing emotions of characters on screen as the different colours help bring something fresh that isn't used much in music videos. For examples changing the normal colour on screen to green to show envy and to red to show anger and love at the same time. These effects make easier for the audience to understand what is happening on screen and how they should be feeling towards certain characters at that current time.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts (DVD digipak, Magazine advert)?

I think that the combination of my main product and ancillary texts are effective. I think that they are effective because i feel that my musiv video matches the magazine advert and particularly the DVD digipak. My music video has this feeling of depression, anger and loneliness and I feel that my magaizine advert and digipak captures this feeling as well. To capture the same feeling as the music video I needed a good programm that would dark colours effectively i tried to use Photoshop but had real difficulties with this so I used Picnik instead. Below is how I created my digipak using Picknik:














Using Exposure and contrast was very helpful when editing designing this picture as it turned the picture from it looking sunny to looking dark as if it was night time, this helped fit the overally image of my music video. With the magazine advert I used similar colours to make it match the image of my music video but used a posterize effect to make me look more dark and lonely like I was in the music video and this helped bring the same image of the music video and the digipak, below is my magazine advert and digipak.












































What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I have learnt a lot of things from my audience feedback thangs to the survey i created on surveymonkey.com. A total of 20 people took my survey 12 males and 8 females and answered a total of 10 questions and all watched the music video and answered questions about it. This survey helped as i got opinions from the audience on who they thought the music video was aimed at, if the music video made sense, if they liked the song I chose for the music video and more. Below is a screen shot of the survey results:
























From the results of the survey the music video is targeted at male teenagers and most 17 out 20 people liked the song I used for my music video and feel that music videos help add value to a song. 18 out of 20 people also found the music video easy to understand, and learned that the same 18 out 20 like watching music videos and most download their songs from iTunes and most of the people that too the survey like listening to Rap with Dance music coming in 2nd.

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

I used alot of new media technologies in order to construct, research and plan and evaluate. Firstly I learned how to take still images from my music video to use for evualtion to see certain of the music video that I am talking about I also used these still images to make my magazine advertisement, this helped me analze more and made it easier to explain things and make it easier for the read to know what I am talking about for example I used the pictures from above to show the similarities in the music video.

I also did research before I was given permission by theColours to use the song I started thinking about the narrative and where it could take place and who could be in the music video, but this is something I could have done more effectively as I found myself struggling to get people to appear in the music video. I had to email the group saying that I wanted to use their song for my music video and did this through yahoo below is the message I received from them saying that I could use the music video.















Furthermore Picknik and digital cameras were used to create the magazine advertisement and the digipak. I had difficulties creating the magazine advert and digipak in Photoshop as I had problems creating things in Photoshop so I decided to use Picknik instead and found this a lot easier to use than Photoshop. Picknik had features that Photoshop didn't have such as changing the sharpness, the contrast and the exposure of pictures and effects to the pictures that Photoshop couldn't do and helped capture the similar image of the music video. The digital cameras where used to take the actual pictures and put them on the computer. The internet was also used for gaining audience feedback for example using surveymonkey to create my survey and get responses back from the audience of what they think about the music video, below is the link to take my survey. These links were also sent out to friends on Facebook asking them to take part in the survey that I created.

Click here to take survey

Analysis of Finished Video-Mise en Scene

Mise en scene means "what is in the frame" and what is usually in the frame is settings and props, lighting and colour, body language and facial expression, costume hair and makeup and positioning within the frame.

With settings and props I had always wanted the setting to be in Central Park as this was the best place to capture what I wanted in the music video. Central Park has a lot of trees and open space and I thought that this would help show the emotions of the characters the distance between the two. I also think that it helped me as I was lipsyncing the scenery helped show that I looked the part for the music video. I think that the park also has a sense a peace and quiet making a good place for both the man and women to discuss there situation as there are not many people at the park so people will not see them arguing in the park. The narrative takes place in a particular in central park where they are coloured benches and this way used to show flashbacks of when they where a happy couple and had a healthy relationship, i also used this place to show there present status that it is not a happy relationship anymore and that they are having problems.

There is not so many facial expressions shown close up except when the male character shows a face of shock and anger at the same when he sees his girlfriend with another man. When they are flashbacks shown the facial expressions of the characters are face of joy and happiness as they are happy with one another. The facial expression of the the man that was talking with the girl while being interrupted by the girl is confusion as he has no idea what is going on and is simply confused, body language is also is seen in my music video. When the two are seen arguing by the bench their body expressions are that they are both becoming annoyed with each other and fed up with each other. Body expressions help show how characters are feeling at that moment in time.

Positioning of characters in frame
The various ways to use positioning of characters or objects with a frame wheter doing a music video doing an actual movie. For example a moving body or object placed against a stationary background will immediately draw our attention as it would in real life. In my music video I used postioning of characters to indicate the current status of the relationship between the two. When they are seen arguing on the bench at this point they are positioned close together to show the physical anger between the two and are late seen not talking to each other looking away from each from each other from two ends of the bench showing the distance between the two.

Colour
The colour in the music video changes as the music video progresses a good of the changes of colour is the scene where the two are arguing by the yellow bench. The scene where they were arguing was a bit long and was suggested that I add colours to it to give different effects, at one point the colour changes to green and this was used to show envy and also changes to red to show anger but love at the same time. I used the colour red a few times in the music video to give the same effect of love and war when he notices his girlfriend with another man and right afterwards when he confronts her about what is going on. Black and white colours where also used to show flash backs of when they where both happy and in love in their relationship.

Special effects
When I had intially finished the editing of my video it was seen as having too long of shots where nothing exciting was happening on screen, just the narrative so I had to add special effects to the music video to make it look more attractive. One of the effects I used in the music video was an effect known as a "push" where it moves one out of the frame and brings in another and was used to help the narrative of the story. Other effects that where used was on me the lipsyncer and was an effect called "N-Square" and basically made mutiple pictures of me lipsyncing this was not intended to help the narrative of the music video but rather to make me look interesting on screen and make me look the part. Other effects where also used to give the same effect of the N square as well.

Analysis of Finished Video- Editing

Editing took a long time to do but as you can see i was able to get it done and used different editing techniques. At the start my video contained too many straight cuts and looked pretty much dull, so i added in transitions to make the straight cuts more smooth, I also used overlaps to not only do the purpose of the transition and make the cuts more smoother but to help to tell the story as this effect is used on TV and Hollywood film. My video also had a graphic match in the video the scene where the character catches his girlfriend with another man and the over the should shot goes red to show the anger of the male protagonist is similar to when he confronts his girlfriend as the colours are exactly the same and both represent the same thing anger.

Fade in and fade out to black were used to show the start and the end of the music video. I also used fast shots towards the end of the music video to show the past of their relationship the good and bad not as if his life was flashing before his eyes but that his relationship with his girlfriend was over and that he had enough and was ready to break up with her. I used a slow motion right at the part when the male character pretty much says its over but the action he uses to do it is done in a slow motion to give a nice effect to the video. There wasn't really any jump cuts or montage used in my music video or an action match as there wasn't any physical action in my music video but below my graphic match can be seen.

Digipak Cover

Analysis of Finished Video-Camerawork

When i was filming I did a lot of different camera shots from close ups to mid shots to help explain the story going on in the music video. There were a lot that I didnt end up using in the actual finished product, for example the original plan in the music video was for me to be like a ghost as the story tells and i am just there watching it all unforld but decided to take a different approach instead.

I used close ups to show the shock on the male character's face as he sees his girlfriend with another guy an point of view shot to show it from his point of view. I also used extreme close up to show the emotions of the characters as they both think about calling each other.
















Most of the close ups i used was to show the facial experessions of the characters. Alot of mid shots where used in the music video with the main purpose of telling the story in the music video, what is happening and what is going to happen. There wasn't really any long estabilishing shots except to set the scene of the music video.

Feminism- Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey's feminism theory suggests that within film the gaze of the camera is the male gaze, the male gaze is active whereas the female gaze is passive. Within the narrative male character direct their gaze towards the female character. the spectator is made to identify with the male look, because the camera films from the optical, as well as libidinal, point of view of the male character. Her theory also states that in classical Hollywood cinema the male protagonist has agency and is active and powerful whereas the female character is passive and powerless, she is the object of erotic desire for the protagonist and the audience. This theory somewhat applies to my music video as the protagonist makes the decision to break up with his girlfriend and you see through his eyes when he discovers that his girlfriend has been cheating on her.

Critical Theory-Narrative

Tzvetan Todorov created a theory that suggests that stories that of with an equilibrium where everything is perfect and fine and then there is a distrubtion that causes the equilibrium to break leading to a resolution that helps break the distruption leading to new equilbrium being being made it may not neccessarily be as perfect as the one in the start but still an equilibrium none the less. This theory somewhat applies to my music video in a way but not completely. The start is not an equilibrium as the two characters are arguing right from the start and there difficulties are shown right at the start of the video, the video however is very narrative and tells a story and is very linear. When the male character (protagonist) is sees that his on and off girlfriend is seen with another person is somewhat the disruption and when the protaginist decides that he has had enough and leaves her is somewhat the resolution and creates an equilbrium in the process.












Vladimir Propp's theory suggested that in folk stories and film they are eight key characters throughout the story:
1)The Hero (Protagonist)
2)The Villian (Antagonist)
3)The Donor
4)The Helper (gives the hero a magic item)
5)The Father
6)The Dispatcher (sends the hero on his mission)
7)The Princess
8)The False Hero

This theory doesnt really follow my music video as it is a music video and not a film but the male character is a protagonist and his on and off girlfriend becomes somewhat of a villian towards the end of the music video.



















Levi Strauss argued that a structure of narratives was a dependance on binary oppositions, a conflict between two qualities or terms. These binary oppositions can come from the basic of narratives. This theory somewhat applies to my music video as the two oppositions in the video are Male and Female.

Finished Pictures for Digipak

Survey

I have completed the survey on surveymonkey.com and here is the link i will put results of the survey in my evaluation:

Click here to take survey

Pictures for Digipack

I have been taking still images for my digipack and they are looking really good here are some of the images

Final Magazine Advert

Here is the final finised magazine advert
in stores now

Magazine Advert

I am currently working on my magazine advert right and have used a still image from the music video itself i plan on taking more pictures tomorrow for when i do my digipack advertisement here is the image that i am using for magazine advertisement

Animatic

Its taken a long time but here is my animatic

Music Video

Finally finished my music video here it is