Our final products

Here is a link to Our website

Our Album Cover

 

Our Music Video

Our Director's Commentary

“All You need is Now” Task 4 - Script

Hello I’m Liza

I’m Ottavia

I’m Genevieve

And I’m Tilly

And this is our music video

Liza: At the very beginning we were fascinated by creating an 80s style music video. This lead us to lookup 80s bands on YouTube. This is how we discovered Robert Palmer’s video addicted to love which was a major influence on us as one of the main themes in both of our music videos is voyeurism. We also found the song all you need is now from the latest album of Duran Duran. We loved it’s 80s pop sound and thought it would be perfect for our concept. However we knew it would be challenging to create as it is a 3min song.

Ottavia: Every stage of production for our music video has involved many different media technologies. During the production of our video we filmed with the Sony (FS100) which is a professional level camera that allowed us to create a filmic crisp bright image, to create a very professional quality to our product. We used Zeiss prime lenses with no zoom of 18 mm for wide shots, 25mm for medium and 50 mm for close-up and extreme close up shots. We also used full HD footage which made our product very high quality and stand out as a professional video.

Genvieve: In this opening sequence we have set the scene by using a variety of the modelling shots, as part of our overall narrative of the bands glamorous life. We then used a variety of shots, such as close ups of all the band members to introduce them to the audience, and play on the sexuality of the females through features of the male gaze and voyeurism which are also present in Robert Palmer’s “addicted to love” and Duran Duran “Girls on film” music videos. These two different scenes juxtapose each other as it shows their individuality and their uniformity as part of the band.  

Tilly: In the post production process we used Final cut pro on the Apple Mac system to edit our shots together. Being equip to use this technology  allowed us to be able to experiment in the early stages with our footage, enabling us to create a more individual, unique and professional looking video.

Liza: We used tools such as label logging to navigate through our footage in a much more organised and efficient way, and the razor tool to manipulate the shots and make them the exact length that we needed.

Ottavia: A key aspect to the post production involves lip syncing the visual footage to and matching this to the audio music track behind it. Through doing this we create a fluid and coherent media text where the actors actually appear to be performing the song which is essential for the band’s credibility.  

Genevieve: Combining the wav file, the music with the mov file, the shots is a form of  convergence has only been made recently possible by digital technologies. This is one of many examples of how digital technologies enabled us to be more creative in the production of our product

Tilly: The overall feel of the video is very bright, glamorous and free, using the beauty of the band members to inspire our audiences to feel better about themselves. We created this through upping the exposure of our shots in a piece of software called ‘colour’ this was done when we had finished editing all the shots, so each shot would be the same colour keeping the continuity to our piece and this also removed the creases on the white backdrop. This also reflects the happy bright images of the band

Liza: The idea which our video wants to communicate, and especially part of the makeup removal, has been interpreted differently by the members of the audience, which suggests that our product is polesymic. We collected feedback though variety of technologies like YouTube, Survey Monkey, online questionnaires and a digitally recorded focus  groups.

Ottavia: During the all refrain’s part of the song we edited the photo-shoot video in order for the video to be less chaotic, and have some sort of the repetitiveness, which appeals to the audience.

Genevieve: The photoshoot part of our music video was filmed with Canon 5D camera, which was easy to film with as a handheld camera to create the full effect of the photoshoot taking place and show the girls in action ‘posing’ and looking straight at the camera to create the engagement with the audience.

 

 

CD diggi pack

For the front cover we chose to use a classy photograph with the girls dressed in fashionable clothes. We edited the photograph with spot removal, and used various layers to improve the photograph. For the band name we used a font called apple cherry. We chose to use a different one for the album name as it is conventional for the band  to have it's own signature font. For the album name we used a font called courier new. To give it a 3D effect we used tools such as bevel and emboss.

For the back cover I used a black and white photo and added on it the photograph of some fabric which I then edited to make it pink. On it I wrote the names of different songs that are in the album, using courier new to conform to the traditional format of album covers where all the fonts related to the album are the same. I also used bevel and emboss on the fonts to make them appear to be 3D.
I challenged the conventions of traditional album covers by having the righting on the side bar vertical instead of horizontal. I did this to give our band a slightly less mainstream image and make them more interesting.

For the inside left I used a photograph taken from the band shots in the music video as the song All you need is now is the hit single of my band. I then edited the photo to make it more pink/purple and thus fit in better with the theme colour of the album. I also put in the name of all the band members on top of their photograph to present them to the audience (as it is a new band) and the name of the song.

For the CD slide I chose to place a photograph of the lens of a camera where the CD will be to insist on the fashion side of our band's star image and the theme of voyeurism. I cropped this off a photo of a camera that we took on the day of the shoot of our music video so that you can slightly see the stage reflected in the lens. I placed it on a pink/purple background that I edited using the texture tool on Photoshop to make it more fun, vibrant and girly thus reaching to our target audience.

What I have learned from my audience feedback

Preparing task 4 - explain how we used digital technologies in the construction and research

In A2 I learned how to use a variety of new technologies in a more creative way. I learned how to lip-synch my music video and use after effects to over-expose the white backdrop to eliminate the creases. By mastering the use of final cut pro I was able to use it more creatively and do faster cuts to the beat of the music.
In A2 I used online technologies to plan my music video and ancillary tasks in a much more sophisticated. I used online shopping to research and bye the costumes for the music video so that all the band members would have the same costumes.

 I used you-tube to research similar music videos such as Robert Palmer’s music video addicted to love.

I also used the internet tools such as Google to research similar bands to ours such as The Saturdays and Little Mix to find out how they were promoted and then use similar strategies to promote my band.

Saturdays website

Little Mix music video

I created a twitter account for Reportage (my band) and then put live twitter feeds from them on the website I created to promote it. I did this because media convergence is very important in our days to help the audience connect better with artists. Furthermore according to the media theorist Jenkins, audiences in the online age want to interact more with the artists. So by putting live twitter feeds in our website we are responding to the demands of the audience to interact better with our artist. Therefor the use of technology allowed me to connect better with my audience.

I learned to use Photoshop to create an interesting album cover. As Reportage is a girl band it is very important that all of the members of the band look very attractive; so I used Photoshop to manipulate their photo on the album cover to make them look even more attractive. The use of this software enabled me to further reach out to my target audience.



First draft of our album cover

 This is just the first draft of our album cover. In the final album cover I used tools to also manipulate the font using a tool called bevel and emboss, this gives the text a 3D feel which makes it more interesting then one used in this draft.

I used final cut pro to edit my music video in a sophisticated way. To make the editing process more fast I started by creating 5 bins and labelled them accordingly, Full makeup, Lipstick No makeup, Photo shoot, Close ups. In the 'Close ups bin' we put the shots that were of close ups of parts of the girls bodies where you could not see their heads (e.g. CU of shoes, hands...) and so it doesn't matter in what section of the music video they are, the names of the other sections are self-explanatory. Doing this truly helped us as our video is in a way separated in 3 parts and if we hadn't done this editing would have been an extremely annoying and long process. 



Using  final cut pro enabled me to work with different timelines which is very useful when editing a music video as you can keep all of you footage and just drag it and cut it so that the shot is the length that you need it to be without losing the lip-sink.

We used Wix to create our website. This online tool helps us to create a stronger link to our audience and allows them to get involved with our band as they can find out exactly what our band is doing on the go thanks to live twitter feeds and the fact that we post the latest news about the band on the home page of the website.

Our website

Latest news on our website

I also kept an online diary of my production using blogger, so that  I would be able to remember every single step it took me to produce my music video and ancillary tasks.

 

I think that all of the new technologies that were available to me enabled me to be much more creative with my product. Without them it would have been much more difficult to research, plan and create our products. I believe that all these new technologies give us more possibilities to be more creative with them.  

Focus groups

A focus group is a group that is representative of your target audience. You can use a focus group to ask them questions about what they think of your music video or products to make sure you are meeting their needs. You can also observe your focus groups reactions to your product to find out how to advertise it better. This can be seen in the focus group used in mad men to research a way to advertise lipstick.

 

We used a focus group to get feedback from our music video.