Evaluation - Question 4

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

"The internet is a vital part of the construction and research. The internet allowed me to research into existing indie rock bands and the music videos they produce through websites such as Youtube. Youtube has helped research and construct my music video a lot; I was able to upload my own videos to youtube which allowed me and Liam to show other students our work for feedback.

Furthermore, our research would have been not as strong without the use of social media. The social media allowed us to see what our demographic would be and what methods there was on selling music and attracting an audience. I also gained unique selling points for my digipak through looking at bands on social media.

Without the use of looking at images online I would have struggled a lot with my Digipak, the internet allowed me to grab and use existing images to help make my digipak such as the template and the structure of it.

During production, we used a 1200D to film all our footage on. Having access to a good camera helped with making a successful and creative music video. I was also able to take professional looking photos when using the 1200d for my digipak."

The school also gave us access to final cut pro, an editing programme. The programme is simple but leaves shots cut together perfectly and looking as professional as the footage we took. We was able to make our video fast paced by using quick cuts which Final Cut enabled us to do this.

Evaluation - Question 3

Evaluation - Question 2

Evaluation - Question 1

The Final Cut

Digipak and Poster finals

Before my deadline I decided to get my teacher to quickly look at my final versions and see if there is anything I could do for last changes. She suggested that I should change the spines on my digipak so I changed the text on them so that when the digipak is folded the band name and album name will be clear all around the digipak. The other change I made was on the poster, I forgot to add my record label's logo to my poster so I decided to move the website more across to the social media and then add the record label to the right by itself so the label stands out on its own.

THE LAST LAST SHOOT: Oxleas 5

Unfortunately on the day we filmed all of our other final footage. We was unable to use the go-pro because the person who last used the extension which we lent out to another group last the screw which held the extension stiff whilst the camera is placed and stopped the camera from moving about.

Once again, Me and Liam came out of school at 9am to film again in Oxleas. It only took us about an hour to film as we was close to deadline and we wanted to make sure these go-pro shots would be perfect as we couldn't film it again. I really like how they turned out as Liam's facial expression fits the narrative as he looks angry whereas Aaron looks scared when the go-pro is strapped on his head. It was a relieving feeling finishing this shoot although it was our shortest one and less pressure as it did not require different shots and using a DSLR.

THE LAST SHOOT: Oxleas 4

After filming at my house, we headed back to Oxleas to film the final parts of the narrative which are when Brian is caught and beaten up by the boyfriend. The shots we filmed were:

• Brian punching the boyfriend in an attempt to escape
• Entering the woods from the street so there is clear understanding of location
• Boyfriend punching and dragging Brian
• Brian faint on the ground

Despite not feeling confident with the camera, I feel like I filmed some of my strongest stuff in these specific clips. I really like how the shot of Brian punching the boyfriend away went, it creates understanding to the go-pro shots and I feel like the violence shown in it is fairly realistic and gives clarity to the chase scenes we see before. I like the tight shots of Brian getting beaten up as it brings an ending to the narrative and it can make the audience feel uncomfortable as it looks professional and does not look as fake as it could have looked.

THE LAST SHOOT: My house 3

For the second half of the day, Aaron met us and we was able to finish off the narrative with him. The shots we filmed with him at my house was

• The boyfriend arriving to the house / walking down the road.
• Brian running down the stairs
• The boyfriend and Brian meeting at the door
• Both Brian and the boyfriend running back down the street to begin the chase
• The girl running down the stairs to see what's happened

For students that do not do any kind of drama or are in front of the camera often, I feel like me, Liam and Aaron acted out our narrative well and we was able to successfully create the narrative with serious tones rather than a more immature approach which could have been an easy flaw as we are all friends in school. I feel like the cuts of the boyfriend walking towards the door and Brian running down creates suspense. My favourite shot was the one of the boyfriend being shown through the glass of the door because it creates a thrill which we wanted to do. The most difficult shot, which is cut up in the music video is when Brian brushes past the boyfriend outside, the reason of this being difficult is because all of us needed to be in the scene so we had to leave the camera on the tripod and perform in front of it. Despite the shot being awkward to film I think it worked well and it's not suggested in the music that it was all from one long shot.

THE LAST SHOOT: Oxleas 3

At the start of the day me and Liam went to Oxleas in the morning without Aaron to film the footage we lost when we had Kameron as the boyfriend. This took longer than we expected but we was still able to get home and meet Aaron in time to film with him. I think Liam performed just as well or if not better than Kameron as he knew exactly how the character is supposed to be portrayed as. I had to film everything which I previously mentioned that I was not confident with and it was out of my comfort zone to be filming without relying on a tripod.

During the morning we did stumble through a problem which was that I did find it extremely difficult to run with the DSLR without making the camera shake as much as my body was moving. I also found it hard to run the same pace as Liam and also keep him in frame whilst filming. Despite these problems, we kept reshooting until we got effective footage which is where we lost time in the day but I feel like it was worth it rather than having footage that we wasn't comfortable with. The footage we got of Liam was a good start to the morning as I feel like we had shot stuff which could have been arguably better than when we used Kameron.

Poster Update

Sinead's feedback on the poster was very positive. She only told me to tweak a few things with the poster and I have done so. The first change I have made is changing the / between the numbers to dots because the dots are more fitting to the front that I decided to use for it. I agree entirely that the changing of a slash to a dot as made the poster look a lot better. Sinead also mentioned that the website is just tucked into the corner and should be brought out more as it is quite an empty poster so the website should not have to be tight. She thought my image on the poster was strong with the overlaying and I agreed, I find the overlapping of the images really effective and I feel like it fits the conventions of the genre well to selling the album.

Digipak Final Changes

I decided to get some more feedback from Sinead before handing in my final digipak. The feedback was helpful as I understood where Sinead was coming from when being critical about the digipak. The main thing she brought up was that the front panel is not as strong as the inside studio shots of the band members which I understood completely. I liked how the front and back panels were in colour as it brought some difference to the digipak rather to have it all black and white. I decided to keep the original images which were overlapped and duplicate them a few times so I could build up a unique design for the front panel. The front panel still has that ghostly effect but it has two images overlaying each other so it fills up the whole panel, I did not like before that the top quarter of the panel was just empty in comparison to the rest of the digipak being very full with images. I moved the band name and album name to the centre of the panel and I feel like it looks a lot better. 

I also included my CD design onto the digipak to demonstrate how it would look if it was to be produced. I also have a digipak design without it to show the studio image of Chris behind it. I really like how the disc is because the signatures on the drum skin brings a unique and collectable feel to it despite this being the band's first studio album.

Change of roles

Due to Liam becoming the new boyfriend for our music video, that left me to direct the rest of the music video. I was anxious about this decision as I feel like being behind the camera is not my strongest point and I was not as good as Liam is. I accepted to do it nevertheless as I strongly believed that in the position we was in that Liam would be the best actor we could get in our time and knew exactly what we needed for our music video.

Change of Cast

Due to Kameron cancelling on us numerous times and us coming closer to the deadline. Me and Liam decided to drop Kameron from the music video, the new Brian will be Liam due to the short amount of time left. I am disappointed that Kameron could not finish the music video with us because I thought that he fit the role well and he was also studying drama so he seemed passionate about what he was doing. Arguably we should have recasted sooner due to how awkward it was for all of us to meet up as Kameron was only frees at weekends, Liam worked all weekend and I was only free on the sunday.

I feel confident that Liam will play the part of the boyfriend well as he knows how the character should be and we have also watched Kameron do a good job at playing the character behind the camera. We decided using him would be the best idea as we don't want anyone else to let us down and we would not be sure on how the other person would act until we had finished filming if we recasted another person but we are running out of time to take the risk.

Schedule until deadline