Final Adverts

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Final Cut

Final Digipak + Template

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

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

Throughout the project we used a large variety of new media technologies, As i have quoted before "New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the later part of the 20th century to encompass the amalgamation of traditional media such as film, images, music, spoken and written word, with the interactive power of computer and communications technology, computer-enabled consumer devices and most importantly the Internet."
They have become commonplace within today's post modern society and with that we have taken advantage of them in the construction, research and planning and evaluation stages of the project.

 Research & Planning

In the research & planning stage we used a few key new media's, the largest being Blogger, We used blogger to document our progress through the project, its is a online portfolio of all our work, from text to pictures to videos and a range of other multimedia. This form of presenting work has been a success because it has enabled me to work from anywhere with a internet connection and not have to worry about carrying all my work with me, its the perfect example of a new media which has enabled ease of use.
      The Internet is another huge part of the research and planning stage, I used it extensively to find out information on codes and conventions, on different technologies i was going to use, on locations and on pretty much everything. Using search engines such as Google i could find out anything i wanted. It has been brilliant in helping with in the project and once again this is a ideal example of new media technologies and ease of use. Pretty much instantly i can check news headlines, update the world on my doings, listening to music and buy a product, its a endless form of resources.
       Within the internet we used a forum (www.joydiv.org) to gain feedback (which is helpful in research, planning and the construction plus the evaluation stage). Using a email account we had created for our record label we created a account and use it to gain feedback on our ideas and our rough cuts.
       Lastly we used YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to look into Joy Divisions online communities as well as create our own accounts for showing our work and creating our own online communities. This enabled us to create a record label profile which is similar to those in the real world, most company's these days use the internet and the huge range of online social networking sites to advertise and this is what we were thinking when we created our own groups.

   
List of all New Media's used in R&P
  Blogger, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Megavideo, Amazon, Play.com, IMDB, Google,  The Guardian,  NME, Q, Mojo, Wikipedia, Scribd, Divvshare, External harddrive, Email, DV Video cameras, iMovie 06/08, 'Money For Nothing' book


Construction

Within the construction of our products we used a few new media technologies.
     For filming the majority of our music video we used a HD Camera, the quality of these cameras are a hundred times better then the quality of the standard DV tape cameras we used last year, Instead of the grainy shots we had last year we had footage that looked professional, something we were very happy with, we even filmed a identical film with both cameras to compare the difference. Both cameras had a variety of manual settings but the HD camera has a few more such as change shutter speed, all of which come in useful when trying to change the outcome of the filming, We experimented a lot before going into post production and we used many of the options to change outcome of the footage, for instance when filming the chroma key shot we changed the settings to allow maximum focus on the cigarette.
              As well as uses a SD card for saving the footage over using DV tapes, which saves a lot of hassle when it came to having a dv tape and looking after the tape. Now the SD card and a SD card reader go straight into the computer and upload though the uploading took a little bit longer then it did with tapes.



 We used Final Cut express this year for the video editing, this out shone the software we used last year which was IMovie, Final Cut is more advanced software, allowing greater control over the editing, many options for transitions and effects and layering. The Coen brothers' latest Oscar nominated film True Grit was edited on a version of Final Cut which shows how good the software is. The jump from iMovie to Final Cut seemed tricky at first but once we got the hang of it they weren't many problems.We ended up using a large variety of effects and tools on Final cut such as the following.

• Grey scale
• Layering
• Chroma Key
• Opacity

A lot of editing such as the split screen layering that we used towards to the end of the video which i believe is one of the better shots could not be possible to create using the old software so the jump to final cut was well worth the effort.

We had many problems with using final cut express, mainly because it was the first time we had used the program and we had to teach ourselves to use it. Some of these problems were trivial things such as some of the effects not working but through trail and error and a handy notebook to write everything we learnt down we slowly progressed toward creating our cuts. We also had huge problems exporting it at the end and we had to use a lot of trail and error.

Sony Vegas is another professional non-linear editing system, this program was used by all 3 members of the group for simple video editing at home, i downloaded the trail because its a very expensive program and it served its purpose, it is very much the final cut of windows.
It enabled us to do work at home such as video editing for the vodcasts and other smaller videos.

Lastly we used a IPhone 3, the IPhone is a modern smart phone, it comes with a built in camera and the option to download apps, this proved to be great once we found a 8mm app which we used for a couple of the shots in the music video, The quality of the shots were a lot higher than expected and therefore we had no hesitation in including them in our music video. This was an unexpected bonus of the project, this helped us to use a variety of tools and techniques in producing the video. The standard camera on the iPhone was also used for creating our Production Diary.

For the Digipak and the Adverts we used a SLR camera, these high quality professional cameras are great for photography, it uses a SD card to store the images and is 12 mega pixels. We took one to two of our shoots and took one out one day to take the front cover of the Digipak.

Adobe Photoshop is a graphic image editor. we used it for the Digipak images and for the net, and for the adverts. Both me and Johnny were no strangers to the program so we had no issues in using it and in fact we quite enjoyed it. The program gave us many different options when it came to the editing for example using text, filters. 



We even went as far as downloading and adding our own text font (Joy Division font). As well as Photoshop for other parts of the digipak and adverts we used other new medias. An example of new media used was the QR Code generator. QR Codes links to websites/offers which are linked when scanned using a piece of software often found on smart phones. We used a QR Code generator online to create a code which links you to the New Transmission Records blog. 


 
 When making our digipak we were given a template from the people at WeWow. We then added our own images and front cover/back cover. For the inside of the digipak, we also used my drawing tablet , which allowed us to draw on the tablet which went onto the screen so we could design  as if we were drawing it, this was helpful was Johnny who was our resident artist. We also used a A4 and A3 printer to print the adverts and the digipack. Scanners were also used at various times through the project.
4 Panel Paperfoam With Booklet Space

List of all New Media's used in Construction

DV cameras, high definition (HD) cameras, iMovie 06/08, Final Cut Express 4, Quicktime (media player), VLC Media Player, iTunes, digital SLR camera, Adobe Photoshop, Photocard, A3 printer. IPhone with 8mm App.


Evaluation

For the evaluation we used a few new medias, most of these are interlinked with blogger which we mentioned before, we used hyperlinks on the evaluation for example this hyperlink which goes to the wikipedia page for hyperlinks. Sites such as Scribd, Slideshare, Divshare, and Picasa were used for uploading different types of files. Scribd was used for MS Word documents, Slideshare for Powerpoint Presentations, Divshare for podcasts and Picasa for creating slideshows. This was mainly done so we could embed all of these type of files on our Blogger to evidence planning and research.

A lot of the above are mentioned in this video,



All of these new media tools have furthered the interactions on our blog and evaluation and make it much more user friendly and interesting.

List of all New Media's used in Evaluation

Video cameras, hyperlinks and pictures (to make a attractive blog), Youtube, Scribd, screen captures and other previously mentioned new medias.

Summary
New media technologies are a huge part of post modern life, within our group we were able to use them to create a company complete with its own style that is near identical to industry standard company's. New media also helped us actually exhibit our work to a world through websites such as Youtube, facebook. New medias have opened us to a greater degree of professionalism and quality in our work.





 

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?



I have collected audience feedback all the way through the project from a number of people and from a variety of sources.

We collected audience feedback on everything, each rough cut was screened and we recieved feedback, we looked for feedback on our digipaks as they were developed and on the adverts.

Audience feedback is perfect at having a new look at a piece of work or a idea from a difffernt perspective when our own thoughts are unclear. It gives us a direct look into the thoughts of our target audience and even people outside our target audience and how it effects them.

I have two different target audiences, a secondary and a primary,

• Core - The core audience is a more recent 16 - 25 audience who we are trying to introduce Joy Division too.
• Secondary - The secondary audience will simply be Joy Divisions orginal audience, the 15 - 25 year olds during the late 1970's. This audience would of grown up listening to the music and would of likely seen them tour and have their music played extensively on the radio and on TV.

we managed to get audience feedback from both types of audiences from a variety of different sources.

In Person

The first and main kind of feedback we got was first hand feedback on the advert, music video and the digipaks. We showed all of our rough cuts and stages of development of the digipak and adverts to our class who all fall under the core audience, we instructed them on what we wanted feedback on each time and they told us ideas and improvements which we took into consideration for the next cut or draft, from their feedback we could have a better understanding on how much the work appealed to them.

 Our teacher is also a fan of Joy Division so he can fall under the secondary audience. We noticed that the majority of feedback we gained from other students was never very critical at all and often we had to rely on feedback on our teacher on what we should actually do for the next cut.






YouTube & Facebook


Facebook is the perfect way of exhibiting work and its free to do so, this was ideal for the music video. Although its hard for the masses to find the video we could make it a little bit easier and we could try target a certain market through using tags though they don't help very much. But overall the video was accessable for all.

Facebook is a sociol networking site, these kind of websites are on the rise at the moment and they are becoming a major tool for bands/ companys to interact with fans. We felt that we needed to do this.
Each time we had completed a rough cut, we uploaded it to one of our YouTube accounts, this meant we could post and embed the video onto various websites to gain feedback. Anytime of the day anyone with a Internet connection could leave us feedback which meant we didn't have to be their to collect it. On YouTube we could collect feedback from both audiences which was great as well.
      We also often embedded the videos onto our Facebook accounts, this way we could get a lot of core audience feedback from all our friends. Unfortunately sometimes people made comments which were not what we were looking for as they were not really feedback comments.

 

This feedback was quite helpful but we noticed that the majority of it were comments such as "very good video", while we liked these comments they were not very helpful.

Internet Forum

The last way that i gained audience feedback was through the Internet forum on the website http://www.joydiv.org/. This website is a Joy Division website where you can find out anything about the band from history to releases. They is also a interactive area where you can create a login and join in on the forums.

      This is exactly what we did, i created a login and we posted our idea which we received a lot of feedback from, funnily enough all the feedback was from one person, his user name was Darkman and he was a recovering heroin addict which is what our idea is partly based on.

This video is me going over the website and beneath that is a word document with all the feedback we got from darkman.

Idea


We also posted our rough cut number 1 and 2 on here. One member gave us a very critical comment which we used.

 The members of this forum are mainly a much older audience so we managed to collect some secondary audience feedback here.



First Cut

If you compare our first and second rough cut you can see the extent audience feedback had on our work.






Final Cut




Also if you look at the ideas that we came up with for the video that we blogged on and then you look at our idea just before we started filming you noticed a huge change, all of this is down to the feedback we gained from the internet forum. So this just goes to show how important feedback was to us.


Summary
Overall from feedback we have learnt that feedback is perfect and needed to develop our ideas and we have learnt that feedback is a important aspect to any production. Although first hand feedback is great at getting rich qualative feedback, the uses of the web as a step into successfully exhibiting our work to masses was great at getting a wider set of feedback. We could get feedback from a variety of sources which led to a huge difference between the different stages on each stage of our project. We found the best feedback to be the feedback which was most critical of our work in the long run.

Stepping back from our work and seeing what other people thought of it was perfect at shaping our own view on the work.

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

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



Our brief was to create a promotional package for an album release, the package included three things, a music  music, a digipak and a magazine advert.
     We believed it was essential that all of our individual products worked well together as a complete package, the video and the adverts should work well to compliment the digipak and the package should establish a link between the products and the old style of Joy Division.
     All three of these products would be normally created by different media company's and agencies. A music video would be produced by a film production company such as Warp X though often music video are made by solo directors who take it upon themselves, an example of this would be Spike Jonze who often had worked on his own to create a music video.
     The digipak would be created by a graphics company such as WeWow, companies like these are given a brief and a idea and are paid to design and create digipaks for bands and for record labels. We created our own graphic company called "Limited Edition Graphics".

      Lastly the adverts can be created by a range of companies. Often digipak designs are similar to the design found on the artists adverts which could suggest that the same company that creates the digipak also creates the adverts. But looking at WeWow, they don't create adverts. From looking at the process of paying a magazine to put a advert in their magazine i came to the conclusion that often the band with the help of their record label will create the adverts (they may get help from professional photographers and advertisement company's) and then pass the adverts to a magazine.

All our work

     Overall a record label will arrange all of these. The record label will pay the costs of producing the music video, pay a company to design digipaks and adverts and to publish and distribute them. An example of a record label would be Favourite Gentleman Recordings  who released the debut album for the US band Manchester Orchestra. We created our own record label as well which we called New Transmission Records (after the Joy Division song Transmission).
      Quite often though a small upcoming band may decided to ignore the large costs of creating all these promotional package through other company's, in stead they will take it upon themselves to create a music video, and design their own albums. Then they pass these onto large company's who will show the video on their music channels and use their own YouTube accounts and Facebook account to distribute the video. This way will still cost a lot of money but will eliminate a lot of additional costs with companies.

 We believed that it was vital that all three of our products share similarities because when together they should form a package which shows Joy Divisions style and brand. We considered the idea of rebranding the band or if we straight out went into replicating there old work.
We noticed that past JD work shared common traits between them for instance nearly everything by JD was in greyscale. This is mainly due to JD working with certain photographers and film makers such as Kevin Cummings and Anton Corbijn both of which we research extensivly. Kevin was the main photographer for Joy Divison during there short span so it was easy to follow the way JD were portrayed and styled, we often used his work to influence our own work and we used resources such as "Joy Division" a self titled book showing a collection of his work.

 

 Across all the three products they are a few similarities which create a strong promotional package.

Grey scale

 We decided to follow this common code of Joy Divisions work in our promotional package from the very start of the project. Everything we have done is in grey scale, it helps to recreate the brand while also creating a brilliant piece of work. The grey scale is perfect at creating a urban feel. We used filters for the adverts and digipak to create the black and white look. On the double page advert we used a pink HMV font as this was the same colour scheme used on the adverts for the Ian Curtis biotic "Control.

Minimalism

Minimalism is  describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. With Joy Division they wasn't any over the top special effects, multiply overlays on images or vast amounts of text. We decided this was perfect for our idea and it was what Joy Division did in there prime and we wanted to continue with this. For instance our Vinyl only have the image on the front and back and no text, apart from on the inside and on the vinyl. Our adverts went down a minimalist route with us only putting on the most needed text such as artist name and album name, only on the double page spread did we add more text. The digipak is the same with only the main details given which is something which we noticed with Joy Divisions album "Unknown Pleasures". For the vinyl we opted to use stickers so that they was the necessary information but the owner of the vinyl could remove the stickers to go back to it being minimalistic. With the advert and the music video at times we experimented with the more complex designs but in the end through feedback and our own views we noticed that it didn't work as well as the simpler ideas did.

Too Much?

Same Character

Across everything we used the same character, this helped to make it seem like a combination of products and not just a music video, a advert and a digipak. He is dressed the same and acts the same across everything too. We felt to make the protagonist iconic we wanted the audience to relate the protag with Ian Curtis.
         Also we felt it was vital  to use the same characters across the digipak and music video so the consumers would draw clear comparisons and notice that the video is essentially a advert for the digipak.

Locations

With the locations we went to great lengths to find settings which suited the concept and style of the band, the video, album and adverts all really have the same concept so it made sense to link all three of these again to create a brand for the album that the consumer would remember. The locations also contained links to previous Joy Division artwork.

Font

 On the advert and digipak we used the same font that JD used on their old albums. We believed that using these on our digipak albums and advert was a great way of sticking to the bands style. We downloaded a free font add on for photoshop of the JD font. We created a video showing how we added it to photoshop.



All inspired by previous Joy Division work 

Nealy every piece of work we have done from the individual shots to the adverts and the digipak is inspired by previous Joy Division work. We have extensively researched films such as Control by Anton Corbijn, to the two Joy Division music videos, to photography and artwork.

By doing this we believe we have created a strong combination of the promo music video and the other promotional material, and even more we have managed to combine it with everything else by Joy Division.



Target Audience

 When it came to creating the promotional package we had to look at the target audience for the band and the core and secondary audience. We needed to make the production suitable for this audience. Our secondary and core audience are within the 15 - 55 age range so really our promotional package as a combination needs to appeal to this age range and it did.
       The images and themes within the combination can appeal to 15 to 55's though the themes may be more relevant to a older audience who understood Joy Division more. Though the themes may serve as a means of introducing the younger spectrum of the audience into Joy Divisions style and brand.

    We decided that in order for us to attract our target audiences we had to use ideas, text and imagery which complimented the bands original style but not copy.

Summary

Building a consistent concept was exactly what we wanted because we believe its what JD did during their run in the late 70s and early 80s.  As well as this when placed next to original imagery by Joy Division they will be a significant resemblance and they would be a large degree of intertexuality. For instance the bridge scene at the start which links to the Greatest Hits artwork.

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

nf1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?








My media product is split up into three different parts, the main music video and two ancillary products, which is a Digipak album and a magazine advert for the band. In addition to this we also created two more ancillary pieces to complete a even bigger package, these were a vinyl edition of the album and a company website. Each of these 3 different products contain forms and conventions which you expect to see when you see a real example of one of the products. An example being that you expect to see text on a advert for a band. Though being said often forms and conventions are challenged and you may find a advert which doesn't have text on it for example popular music band The XX advert which is a simple white X on a black background, this advert doesn't really explain anything but it does advertise the band and create hype.

Music Video

Music video is the primary product in the promotional package. Firstly music videos have their own set of codes and conventions, from the start of the project we have become aware of these codes and conventions. Music is no longer as easy to categorise with so many new and old bands falling into rapidly evolving and new genres and sub genres so it is being increasingly harder to work out the codes and conventions of these genres. Firstly though something that we can easily work out is that they are three types of videos;

1. Concept: These videos contain primarily a concept idea which really can be anything from a reoccurring clip to a animation or a simple idea. Examples being OK Go - This Too Shall Pass (YTB) and The Island part 1 (YTb) by Pendulum.
2. Performance: These videos will fully contain or contain aspects of performance from the music artists or others performing the song. E.g Biffy Clyro's 57 (YTB) and Metallica's Sad but true (YTB).
3. Narrative:  These videos consist of imagery usually relating to the narrative of the video. Some examples could be Wheatus - Teenage Dirtbag (YTB) and Fountains of Wayne - Stacy's Mom (YTB)

 Our music video falls between two of these video types. It is a narrative video to a extent because we decided to focus heavily on the theme of addiction though they is aspects of concept because they is no clear storyline in the video just slight signifiers to force the audience into interpreting the video in there own way. We believed that narrative enigma which is very often seen in music video will come into place with the audience repeating viewing to fully understand the concept.

They are also conventions of music videos which you will expect to see on the majority of music videos,

• Editing - Cut to beat. 
• Continuity editing - not always needed.
• Shot types and variation - Close ups, establishing shots, focus on lead singer
• Mise en scene - link to style and genre of the band
• Diegetic intros 

 Editing


Editing in film and television is much different to that found in music videos, in Tv and film eliptical editing is common, on the other hand music videos tend to be non - linear narratives so jump cuts become a essential piece of editing. Pacing is a huge page of music videos as well with the editing often reflecting on the pace of the track.

        Our music video contains many different types of editing, due to the nature of the video and the huge amount of locations, we experimented with different ways of putting the video together from scene to scene with transitions such as fade ins and fade outs. We selected shots that kept the pace of the video moving along with the track. We also experimented with cutting to the beat with one part mainly in the video which was the underpass scene. We also used few filters to change the colouring, we used a chroma key for one of the opening shots and grey scale, these really helped to convey Joy Divisions style in our own video.


Continuity editing


Continuity editing is another common form within music videos, though once again this is really down to the nature of the video. "The purpose of continuity editing is to smooth over the inherent discontinuity of the editing process and to establish a logical coherence between shots." taken from wikipedia.
      Our music video challenges this code and convention, in parts the video can seem linear but in other parts it doesn't.

Shot types and Variation 


In music videos you will see different shot types and shot variation, this is because they are key to creating a flowing interesting video. If you watch a video with one stationary shot then you will expect to be bored, but with many different shots it makes the video more interesting. Again this has been challenged by certain artists for instance by the band (The Drums) who's video (Let's go Surfing) is simply a man running along a beach with a constant shot.
       Our video contains nearly every kind of shot type and throughout the video they is plenty of shot variation. We used close ups to express emotions and used high angles and long shots to signify isolation and insignificance. We aimed to create a huge contrast between the close ups in the cold turkey scenes in the video and the extreme long shots in the outdoor locations at Malham and Leeds.

Mise en Scene


Correct mise en scene is very common in music videos, MES is a expression used to describe the design aspect in a film production. For instance in a music video about a teenage boy who plays in a football team you'd expect the MES in the boys room to relate to teenagers and a footballer, and this is show through objects, props and scenery. In music videos MES can really depend on the genre and the video type because someone may make a concept video where MES don't come into play.
       In our music video MES is a large aspect. We want the video to not look out of place within a 1980's setting and while we couldn't set dress outdoors where we filmed the majority of our video we did get to set dress one indoor location where we set it up appropriately. Instead we did cast and dress our protagonist very well and with great detail. We wanted to signify the protag as being similar to Ian Curtis so we used certain connotations that he was known for such as a large grey overcoat he often wore and cigarettes which he often smoked.

Diegetic Intros

This form and convention is probably the least common of the 5, Diegetic intros are when a music video will start with noise from the within the video. They are often very common within concept and narrative videos, an example of one is Mumford & Sons - The Cave.
       In our video we have used a diegetic opening where our character walks into view on a bridge over a highway, you can hear the cars driving past and the wind and then it goes into the song. It provides a interesting opening in a video instead of just jumping into the song.
       The same can be said for the end where we have brought diegetic sound back into the video to create a link between the visual and the shot as well as add some extra exposition to the video.



Music Track & Genre


 The music track featured in my video falls under the genre post punk. Post punk is a genre which is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental.

Camera Movement

To keep the video visually interesting, camera movement is often used for instance panning or zooming. We used a variation of camera movement featuring still shots, shots on the snorri cam and fast moving shots. It all conveys a socio - realist element to the music video. 

Lighting

Using correct lighting could potentially make or break a music video. Some genres use it extensively such as Dance and use strobes and flashing lights. Often keepping natural lighting throughout a video can have a good effect.

We have used a mixture of both, in our outdoor locations we opted for the natural light simply because its too hard to change it, and we have worked with the position of our camera to utilise light to its full extent. Within the indoor locations we started off using a strobe light to create a flashing effect but it didn't turn out as well as we hoped and instead we used a manual light with a crew member had to turn off and on while filming.

We had a problem when it came ot researching the codes and conventions of post punk videos and Joy Divisons videos, this was that JD had only released 2 music videos, one of which was while the band was still together and the second was after they split up. Instead we had to mainly look at the genre as a while to establish a clear set of codes and conventions. We looked at examples of post punk bands such as Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure, Depeche Mode.

From this research we concluded that within Post Punk videos, it is normal to see the follow codes and conventions.


- There is a lot of use of flashing imagery.
- Multi-layering is also used very often as is cross-fade transitions.
- Whilst the videos often use slow paced imagery, quick cutaways to close ups are used to keep the video flowing.
- Locations used are generally run-down or urban.
- Use of colour filters, especially black and white.
- Lots of camera movement to help keep the visuals interesting.
- Some sort of motif or theme is repeated through the video. This can sometimes link to the lyrics.
- An emphasise on the cold and dark to signify the mood of the band. Characters often seem very deadpan.

We have strongly used all these conventions in our video very well, apart from one.
We discovered that most of the post-punk videos are performance or concept or both. We did neither and stuck to a strong Narrative / Concept idea. We believed that a lot of the old post punk bands who we looked at stuck with their performance but because we were creating the video mainly for a modern audience we decided to challenge this form because we believe that a narrative /concept idea will strongly appeal to modern audience. Also we believe that our idea for the video is very much a mini insight into Joy Division's style and brand which is another reason behind us creating a narrative.


There is a lot of use of flashing imagery

We used flashing imagery in the cold turkey scenes as we felt it would help in creating disorientation which half signified Ian's epilepsy and the other half that the viewer could understand the confusion in the scenes.

Multi-layering is also used very often as is cross-fade transitions

Multi layering was a clever way of switching between locations in our video as well as showing the strange feelings that are going through the protagonist.


Whilst the videos often use slow paced imagery, quick cutaways to close ups are used to keep the video flowing

 After noticing this extensively within the genre we used this to mould our work. We used it to create contrasting emotions and scenes and to give the video a flowing pace that would interest a viewer.

Locations used are generally run-down or urban 

As well as following the code and using run down urban locations we challenged the code and went for some more rural locations such as Malham Cove. These helped to provide a extreme sense of isolation and linked to some Depeche Mode work. It also helped create a large range of emotions which is something that become a reoccurring pattern across all our work.

Use of colour filters, especially black and white 

This is something that is used across a lot of Joy Divisions work, Anton Corbijns work for JD and other Post Punk videos, so it seems fit that we used it for our video. We also used a Chroma Key effect on the embers of a cigarette to signify its importance within the video.

Some sort of motif or theme is repeated through the video. This can sometimes link to the lyric 

Before we selected the song we had the idea of addiction, so we used it as a reoccurring motif and theme in the video. The cigarette is a large part of showing this though it doesn't necessary say that the protag is addicted to cigarettes.

An emphasise on the cold and dark to signify the mood of the band. Characters often seem very deadpan

Once again this is heavily seen within the genre so we deemed it necessary that we worked with this in our video as its is very important for the genre and the style that we are conveying.




Digipak

Digipaks also have their own set of codes and conventions, Having researched them we settled on a series of Codes and Conventions which the majority of digipaks followed.

•                  Band name: On the front of the digipak in a prominent place, sometimes it can be inside the digipak though it is rare, if a band has one they may place the band logo on the front instead of a font name.
•                  Album Name: Second in importance after the band name, often smaller in text size then the band name.
•                  Track Listing:  Often on the back of the album though some bands have done it differently such as Linkin Parks - Meteora.
•                   Bar Code: Often in a out of the way location on the digipak but somewhere accessible, it is not common for it to be on a sticker on the front or back which can be removed.
•                    Record Label info and Copyright Info: Important information which is always on the albums for legal reasons, the record label info isn't as important but always on the digipak.
•                    A CD:  can be in a digipak in many different locations

We have used all of these codes and conventions by simply copying them and incorporating them into our design idea as really they are all essential for creating a digipak. The only way we have challenged a form is by adding the bar code as a sticker instead of being imposed onto the digi-paks. This way it still fulfills its purpose while keeping the digi-paks as minimal as possible which is what we wanted.
     We created the vinyl because we felt it was a great way of creating a product similar to the digipak but still got to challange the majority of the codes and conventions on the digipak.

We also produced a double sided posters because we felt it was a nice collectors alternative to the standard booklet with lyrics and pictures. They is also a bonus disk loaded with videos and pictures.




Adverts

Like the digipaks, adverts have their own set of codes and conventions, these usually are very relaxed though, we believe that they are as follow,

• Band Name - Largest font, often central on the image.
• Name of topic (Single, Album, Tour) - Usually second largest on the page.
• Date (tour dates, release date) - Usually smaller writing somewhere on advert but often bold to still stand out.
• Images (relevant to band) - of band, artwork, always relevant to the release in someway.
•  Record label
• Purchase information (stores/ websites/ box offices)
• Website

 Creating a advert for Joy Division was easy but there style is a very minimalistic style which wasn't hard to copy while still producing our own unique idea. We did try more complex adverts such as layering images but it didn't suit it in the end. We also lookeed at QR codes, this interesting new media uses a small image which went scanned by a smart phone, will take you to a webpage. We used this on our main advert to link the user to our website. We believed this would keep JD in with the modern growth in technology and attract a more modern audience.




We kept the adverts simple as overall as a package the three adverts create a campain style appeal. This is often seen by bands who are reforming or creating hype as it gives the readers little information and eggs them onto searching for more information themselves.

Smoking in the products

They is a issue around having smoking present in music videos and on images so Jonny made a short video talking about it.










Summary

Because our audience are both old and new, we had to be extra careful when working with codes and conventions because we wanted to maintain the old appeal for the older audience while appeal to a new younger audiences. We managed to do this very well though we believe as feedback suggests.

 

Fan Made Music Video

It is not uncommon for a song to have fan made music videos produced for it, and often these videos are low quality and do not have much effort put into producing the videos.
We decided that it would be fun and interesting to produce a fan made video using Photobooth and a series of backdrops.

Enjoy.



Keep an eye out for some of the production team in the video and for the intertexual reference to the dancing style often seen performed by Ian Curtis in his days.

Final Cut with Annotations

Finally, hope you enjoy our final cut with annotations.



We have received a lot of positive feedback from this cut and we didn't note any faults that we could iron out so we settled on this as the final cut. (comment taken from the final cut without annotations)

Rough Cut 5

This is the final rough cut of our music video. With just a few changes left to make, the video is nearly complete. After making the necessary changes after the last audience feedback session, the below video was the outcome.




AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
- The 8mm footage works very well now. Perhaps try swap the Malham 8mm footage with the previous shot from that section.
- As mentioned before, just look for little opportunities to cut the video to the beat or lyrics. For example bringing in the woods section when the vocals come in.
- Look at the transitions again, use more cross fade dissolves to allow the cold turkey scene to bleed into the other locations.
- Try slow-mo the shot of the protagonist falling to his knees.
- The cold turkey scenes work much better now they are less frantic. Overlay now works well.
- At 1.32 there is a echoing sound. Switch the following shot to sync with this sound.
- As the character climbs at 2.36 he grins. Though this was intentional to signify a sense of relief, the preferred reading was no followed so to avoid confusion, cut this slight grin out.

Following this advice, we are now ready to create our final cut of the video

Rough Cut 4

Not much in the way of feedback at this stage, just touching up on a few small issues such as shots that could lose a few seconds and shots which we could add a few seconds.

Rough Cut 3

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK:
-Experiment with more overlaying and inter-cutting in the cold turkey scenes to emphasise the distress. This could work especially well towards the end of the video.
- Don't forget the 8mm footage - it could work really well in certain scenes.
- Transitions work well. The ghosting style in to the car park scene could be extended to flash on screen 4 times rather than the current twice.
- The first cold turkey scene shot of the wall appears almost like the floor. Try overlaying a different shot from the scene or just remove it.
- Try to cut a few shots to match the music more. For example at 0.29 this shot could come in a few seconds earlier when there is a "whoosh" sound.
- Look at the underpass scene again and just tighten up some the cutting to the beat. Possibly inter-cut another shot too?

Editing Notes

Whilst we worked on the first 2 rough cuts, we used our trust blue diary to note down every step we took, how we did it, any problems and who did what. It was a helpful device at organising what we had done and were going to do and at referring back to. Because Final Cut was a new program for all of us it was great and writing down new tools so we could remember how to use them in future. 
The Diary was written up into a word doc to be uploaded to blogger (with the helpful aid of Scribd) 


Unfortunately we only documented the steps to creating rough cut 1 and 2.




Editing Diary

Rough Cut 1 + Feedback

Facebook Feedback

Our own:
Callum - We should remove quite a bit from the woods section to allow more time for other scenes at later points.

Audience Feedback:
- Train scene is good but perhaps cut a bit more distance between the position of the train.
- 8mm footage works well in wide open spaces, but not particularly in more confined locations i.e the woods.
- If possible try a shot filmed from on the train as you go past the car park. Unfortunately this shot isn't really achievable, but we will look at alternatives.
- In the bedroom scene (which is yet to be included) experiment with overlaying of the same character (or different) and use editing to "ghost" them.

Rough Cut 2 + Feedback

Facebook Feedback

 

Youtube Feedback

  

Cinematography, Lighting, Mise en scene

The screen grabs from our video have been added after to show some of the ideas talked about. 

Cinematography

The cinematography in the music video is hopefully going to be a strong point, we intend on having a variety of strong landscape shots at the malham and leeds location, as well as some excellently framed shots in the more confined locations. We are hoping for a strong establishing shot showing a road leading into the distance which the actor can walk into.
        We are hoping to make the video to the style of Anton Corbijn whose video are seen as highly sophisticated which is what we want to achieve, our

Quoted from Jonny's Blog
"Lens: We will experiment with the use of fish-eye lenses, as this is a quality often used by Corbijn. It creates a disorientated quality that would work well with our video.
Film Stock: Though our video is being filmed in HD, we also plan on using an 8mm iPhone app. This will take a bit of experimenting but could work very well (again it's a technique seen in Corbijn's work). It creates a gritty feel that we and Joy Division's music both signify. The 8mm look also gives it that indie film-maker appeal. The use of an iPhone shows a link between old and new media, which is vital for our work.
Filters: A black and white filter will be used. This signifies the work of both Corbijn and Joy Division. This has also been discussed in the previous post.
Snorricam: There's a whole post on this but I'll quickly recap it here. Auteurs such as director Darren Aronofsky are major fans of this film-making tool. It is essentially almost a reverse of a POV shot, looking back at the character's face directly. Again it creates a disorientating feel as well being great for capturing emotion.
Depth of field: We plan to vary the depth of field of shots in our video. Two of the key themes are confinement and isolation so clearly confinement is signified by tight framing in contrast to isolation being signified by wider framed shots. The use of both should create some striking visuals.
Camera movement: Again this is something that we will vary in the video. We plan some shots to be perfectly s
till whereas some more quick shots to be moving, and sometimes tracking the protagonist. Again this should keep the video interesting throughout. We also plan some shots to be hand-held which will again contrast, and are at this stage considering using a tripod dolly for certain scenes."

Lighting

We are hoping that the lighting will be very mixed during our video, during the majority of the music video they should be decent light because it's outside, though this light will fade a little due to the black and white filter we will be putting onto the video.
       The confined shots inside will be much darker, we are going to block all outside light for these scenes, instead we will use a flashing lamp to create a light and a floor lamp for the scenes in and around the bed.

Mise en scene 

Our video doesn't rely much on mise en scene, we want our video to not look out of place in a 1980's inner city area and it managed to achieve this very well with the setting but we never really set up a location and really relied on a already set up location. The same can be said for the most rural scenes.

      The shots indoors needed to be set dressed a little bit more though really we didn't. Within the cupboard they is nothing on the walls so it was fine anyway but in the medium shots in the bedroom you get a bigger picture of the mise en scenes, the bedroom we filmed in features a average medium bed and a bedside table. At first look it will be fine though if you inspect closely they are a few set items which do look out of place but they are not really noticeable. 

8mm Vintage Camera

One of our ideas was to use a old vintage camera for a few shots, unfortunately we shot our own idea down due to costs of getting one of the said camera. Luckily Joel one day brought his IPhone in and show us his most recent app purchase, 8mm Vintage Camera it was called. Priced at £1.79 it was a bargin and from the trailer video below, it shows how much of a good idea it was and how well it worked.





We have also put some of the footage together to show you what we recorded.

Technology + New Media

Throughout the project i have used a lot of pieces of technology as well as New Media's.

"New media is a broad term in Media Studies that emerged in the later part of the 20th century to encompass the amalgamation* of traditional media such as film, images, music, spoken and written word, with the interactive power of computer and communications technology, computer-enabled consumer devices and most importantly the Internet." quoted from Wikipedia.


* In general, amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form.


With filming, shooting and creating the music video and the promotional pieces i used the following.

• HD Video camera (add specific brand)
• Tripod
• Iphone with 8mm App
• Snorri Cam (home made)
• Fish eye lens (home made)
• SLR Canon Camera
• A3 colour printer
• A4 colour printer
• Photo paper

With editing the video as well as editing the promotional pieces i used the following.

• Final cut express
• Adobe photoshop CS4
• Song Vegas .10

For promoting the promotional package as well as creating parts of this blog i used the following.

• Blogger
• Scribd & Divshare
• Internet Forums
• Facebook
• Youtube
• Prezi

• HD Video camera (add specific brand)

The HD camera was the main piece of equipment i used, it was used for filming the majority of music video, it uses a SD card for storing clips and is very light and compact. It uses touchscreen technology and is packed full of different features, It creates .MP4 video files.

• Advantages: Very good quality footage. 

• Disadvantages: We had to book them out in advance because other groups wanted to use them and they was only a few between everyone.

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• Tripod

The tripod is used for simply creating still steady shots, its 3 legged and can be compressed down so its easier to carry. Any camera can be attached to the top so its securely in place. We used the tripod to create as many steady shots as possible, we took one every time we went filming and used it when ever possible.

• Advantages: Lightweight (depends on which brand) and useful.

• Disadvantages: Annoying to carry around

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• Iphone with 8mm App

The Iphone is one of the latest smart phones released, even though its a phone like most new phones these days it has a camera. But you have a HD camera you ask? well the IPhone comes with the ability to download apps, one of these apps is called  8mm(?), this apps means you can record a video using the camera but the footage will get a unique silent movie style edit to it. We used this at a few locations to collect some footage for the music video.

• • Advantages: Small, handy and comes with many features
  • Disadvantages: Expensive, the quality of the footage isn't to great though it is hidden behind the 8mm footage.

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• Snorri Cam (home made)

A Snorri cam is a mount for a camera which attaches to the body of the actor to create a weird look and style.
I did a whole post of Snorri cams so look here.

• • Advantages: Does its job at such a cheap price.
  • Disadvantages: Not too stable and a pain to make.

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• Fish eye lens (home made)

The fish eye lens was another interesting piece of equipment we used. You can buy fish eye lenses for your cameras but we didn't have a budget to do this so in the end we improvised, using a old glasses lens and a roll of Sellotape we managed to attach it to the camera and it worked to a extent. In the end we didn't use any of the footage in the video.

• • Advantages: Cheap once again
  • Disadvantages: Didn't work exactly how we wanted

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• SLR Canon Camera

For the Digipak and the Adverts we used a SLR camera, these high quality professional cameras are great for photography, it uses a SD card to store the images and is 12 mega pixels. We took one to two of our shoots and took one out one day to take the front cover of the Digipak.

• • Advantages: Professional and great quality images
  • Disadvantages: Expensive and like the camera we had to book them out.

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• A3 colour printer

We used a A3 colour printer to print out our Digipak onto card, as well as to print out the a3 advert.

• • Advantages: great prints
  • Disadvantages: had to ask to use them in the D.T department at school and they weren't too happy with us using their resources.

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• A4 colour printer

We used a A4 colour printer to print out some of our adverts.

• • Advantages: good prints
  • Disadvantages: sometimes they would be streaky lines down the page which wasted paper and ruined the image

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• Photo paper

Photo paper is a special kind of glossy paper which is ideal for printing out photographs, we used it for printing out the adverts.

• Advantages: great quality images

• Disadvantages: 10p per sheet
 

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• Final cut express

Final Cut Express is a non-linear video editing application created by Apple Inc. It is the consumer version of Final Cut Pro and is designed for advanced editing of digital video as well as high-definition video, which is used by many amateur and professional videographers. Final Cut Express is considered a "step" above iMovie in terms of capabilities, but a "step" underneath Final Cut Pro and its suite of applications.

      We used it for creating our music video, it proves to be very hard to use at first but once we learnt its ways it was all fine. We did have many problems with using it when it came to exporting our rough cuts and when it came to finding work which kept disappearing. This was the main program we used and we used it for editing all of the music video.

        This program could only be used on Mac OS so we had to use it in school.

• Advantages: Great piece of software, many different options for editing and is at a industry standard.

• Disadvantages: Very complicated at first.

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• Adobe photoshop CS4

Photoshop is a graphic image editor. we used it for the Digipak images and for the net, and for the adverts. Both me and Johnny were no strangers to the program so we had no issues in using it and in fact we quite enjoyed it. The program gave us many different options when it came to the editing for example using text, filters. We even went as far as downloading and adding our own text font (Joy Division font).

• Advantages: Great at photo editing

• Disadvantages: Not very good at drawing which is what we needed to do for the digipak

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• Song Vegas .10

Sony Vegas is another professional non-linear editing system, this program was used by all 3 members of the group for simple video editing at home, i downloaded the trail because its a very expensive program and it served its purpose, it is very much the final cut of windows.

• Advantages: final cut of windows, everything we wanted from it.

• Disadvantages: could only download a trail due to costs.

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• Blogger

This internet site is used to upload and showcast my work.

Blogger gave me the opportunity to smartly upload all my work, while adding links/pictures/ video clips.

Blogger has given me lots of options to improve my work with the ability to insert links, edit my posts by changing fonts/colours and font sizes. Aswell as adding photos from my folders or from the internet.

• Scribd & Divshare

Both these websites are used to upload and post my files and works.

 Both these websites give me the oppurtunity to upload my files and audio files and them embed them onto my blog, this means that i can show my work on my blog without turning it all into either movie files or jpeg files.

• Internet Forums

We used a internet forum to collect feedback and as a platform to show our work and get it around the web, we used joydiv.org which is a Joy Division fansite, we found a few very helpful members who gave us great feedback on our ideas and rough cuts.

• Facebook

Facebook is currently the world's largest social networking sight, on it through a profile you can share videos and pictures, this meant it was arguably the best place to collect feedback on every aspect of the project, unfortunately sometimes due to it being  a social networking site, we did received some irrelevant comments.

• Youtube

Youtube is one of the worlds largest video sharing sites, using a account and a joint account we were able to place our videos out their to collect feedback on our videos. Our biggest viewed video is currently at 250 hits.

• Prezi

Prezi is a zooming presentation website, it is used to create unique and interesting presentations which can embedded into my blog, i used it a few times to show developments of my adverts as well as my locations.