BLOGGER IS NOW CLOSED....

Now, as I have finished the course work- there is nothing more to write about except for saying big thank you :D

BYE 

Evaluation 4

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

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research from stanshirokiy

Evaluation 3

What have you learned from audience feedback?

   

Evaluation 2

Yourprezi from stanshirokiy

Evaluation 1

As part of the pre-production process, I have carried out a research for which I have recorded all of relevant on to my blog.  It was crucial to seek the conventions of real texts before actually producing my own video or other two products.

To start of with, I have made a mind map with all the possible genres, which brought me to evaluating three tracks in order to see which genre would suit the most with the ideas that I already had in mind. As the result, two detailed music videos analysis for the tracks ‘ Seek Bromance’ by Tim Berg and ‘Paradise’ by Coldplay had been carried out.  Furthermore, one more analysis for song ‘As long as you love me’ had been done during class time. This task was important to get a feeling how would want to pass on the message to the audience, as different aspects have different visual variations- including plot, colour scheme and dance moves. Looking at Justin Biebers new track, I have realized it would not work my idea of shooting from point of view for several reasons. Firstly, boy and girl relationship is not what I am interested in and secondly, I would not want to create the video that I, as an audience as well as the producer, would not enjoy! It had been a useful exercise, as I certainly would not include performance based video either a lot of close ups, which usually being done in Pop videos.  Next move, was that I looked in detail at the work of one of the most well-known directors- Spike Jonze. Some of the tracks that Spike Jonze directed include Weezer- Buddy Holy, Fatboy Slim- Praise You and Daft Punk- Da Funt. Similar, to the track ‘Seek Bromance’, the videos are story based, without the artist having to appear in the video, this was something that I had admired a lot. There are no common elements amongst the video that do not include the artists, which enabled me with a lot of opportunities and I was not limited how to pass the message to the audience.

The situation with the advert, is different. No matter in which genre the artist operate in there are set of boundaries and limitations for the adverts. I have looked at Lady Gaga’s ‘ The Fame Monster’,  ‘4’ by Beyonce and Jay Z’s ‘Blueprint 3’ . The conventions of the majority of the adverts, include a mid- close up of the artist, new album in bold and the release date. The colour scheme is similar to the personality of the artists, brand image and sense of synergy is being present. At the bottom left or right hand corner, extra information would be added including contact details and the record label logo.

Having been decided, which track I would use, I have analysed websites of the artists that operate in the same genre, as the track ‘Live Your Life’ by Erick Morillo. The layout of the websites are different, especially the proportion of text to image. Comparing Bob Sinclair’s main page to Timati’s, there could be seen that one website is more informative than the other. All of home pages include basic links, including photo’s , video’s, contact and news. However, some concentrate on the visual aspect that certainly creates a unique selling point. The homepage which I was mostly attracted was Bob Sinclairs, as the image is in the centre of attention and there is little text included. Some other aspects considered to be included were the Release Date of the new album and the Tour Dates.

As already mentioned previously, I have used the track ‘Live your Life’ by Erick Morillo. There is are some expectations within the House genre, however, I was more than confident that original and unique idea would be more than appreciated by the target audience. The most important aspect, is the use of bright colors, fast editing and ‘positive’ ending to the video, for which I have used Todorovs five- stage theory. I have decided, that my main color and orange through out the three products, which used for parallel promotion. By comparing the conventions of video for the track ‘Seek Bromance’- not much difference is present. As for different reasons, main character ends up with nothing, and it would finish in the positive way, as the story would be told in 3 minutes. I did not want to follow common conventions of most of House music video, as everything so similar- type of shots, lyrics and locations. Instead, I have decided shooting the video from point of view, increasing audience interactivity and certainly challenged forms and conventions of real media texts. The inspiration was by video by Doug Smith- My Day, using similar plot, I was able to express the message by POV effect.

I have followed the main conventions of advert and the advert, by including basic layout to the page. In the advert, key concentration to the eye was the name of the new album and the release date. Where as, on the website, same image was used but in color. For the coursework, one page was required to be made, however, I constantly updated music, comments and photos online. Same fonts had been used on the Advert and the Website, and similar layout was used. 

MUSIC VIDEO: FINAL

FINAL - WEBSITE

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO OPEN THE WEBSITE

Final Draft- Advert

2nd Draft- Advert

1st Draft- Advert

Home Page to the Website

Audience Feedback- 2nd Draft

I have asked couple of my friends to take a look at my second draft of the music video and I have received a mixed feedback. There were a lot of positive as well as negative comments, which certainly would help me to improve and create a better music video. Even though most of my friends enjoyed the video, I have only concentrated on the negative aspects and these were:

• There are bits missing in the middle of the music video 
• There is no ending to the storyline
• Some of the scenes could be cut out, especially the one with the teacher

There is not long to go and mot much work to be done, however, the final version is coming soon! 

2nd Draft- Music Video

Website- 2nd Draft

Even though only the front page would be marked- however, I created three more pages, as extra. May you give some feedback, how it can be improved. Thank you

Audience Feedback- Website 1st. Draft

I have asked five people to comment on the front page of the website that I have created in order to gain some positive as well as negative feedback. The key purpose is to improve the website in every possible way, in order to satisfy the needs of the audience.These are the comments that I have received:

Good aspects:

• strong image
• looks good in black and whote
• logo works well
• typeface clean and appropriate
• picture is 'classy' and unsual
• the font and the clothing is linked well with the genre of your song

How can it be improved?

• A bit bigger picture
• More Text
• Link to social media or performances
• Have the model looking in the camera
• Hyperlinks- be more creative eg. have images instead of text
• Remove shadows around edge of image
• more tabs are needed eg, shop, tour dates, press- sample song or video.
• odd capital letter in the contact box
• should there be some colour?

 

Website - 1st. Draft

As you can see, this is the first draft of my website. The layout is simple but I believe effective through the use of black and white. May you give some feedback on what aspects I can improve on, please. 

A worldwide collaboration with AVICII (interactivity)

 

From January 9 to February 26 people from all over the world collaborated in the world’s largest music collaboration! Together they contributed with melodies, basslines, beats, rhythms, breaks and effects. Check out the collaborators, explore the sound contributions on Avicii's official website or his youtube chanell.

Avicii x You aims to create a hit single out of the world’s largest music collaboration. The project will be run in five stages, where artists from around the world will have the chance to collaborate with Avicii. The final track will be released on February 26 and each week up until then will have two processes running simultaneously:

And this is the result:

 

 

This is something very unusual for the artist to do, by actually creating a piece of music with the audience rather than targeting at them. This is a very good example of interactivity that creates a certain buzz, as everyone's work could have been included in the track AVICC- 'X YOU'

Album Advert

• Artist name/logo
• Album cover as main image
• Album title
• Release date
• Singles that will be included
• How it is accessible
• Reviews
• Warning, if needed

Erick Morillo- Logo

This element would be seen in all three promotional tools- advert, website and the digi pack. After I finish the video itself, this label could be added at the end of the video. 

Brand Identification

Every artists had their own brand identification, when you see them on the magazine cover or on their website page. Brand Indetification could either be seen from the clothing, facial expressions, logo orr even type of text included.  For example, for David Guetta it would be ' F**k me,I'm Famous' whereas in my case, it would be a triangle with the initials of Erick Morillo inside the shape. Underneath, the moto of the artist could possible be added- Past Present Future.

 

Triangle

This is the kind of triangle I would include, and inside there would be the initials of artist- EM. Possibly. There are a huge variations in meaning of the shape, but the one I would include is - ' Past, Present, Future ' because it closely links in with the story and the meaning of the track as well as the video.

Triangle Symbolism/ Meaning

On my advert, website and a digi- pack, a triangle would be included as part of the brand recognition. I believe that triangle is much more than a basic shape of geometry. And below are some keywords, that are associated with triangle meaning:

• Creativity
• Harmony
• Proportion
• Ascension
• Gender
• Manifestation
• Illumination
• Integration
• Subjectivity
• Culmination

 

This sort of versatility is what captures themes of magic, wonder and creativity in the triangle meaning.

None of the other basic shapes offer this kind of inherent duplicity. When we turn a square on its side, the symbol meaning remains the same. Same with the circle - rolling it around, it's still a circle.

But the triangle proposes mammoth (polar even) variables in meanings when tipped top from bottom. To wit:

Female	Male
Lunar	Solar
Yoni	Lingam
Shakti	Shakta
Passive	Active
Cave	Mountain
Down	Up
Mother	Father

These are just a few examples of how a simple shift of this symbol can offer huge variations in meaning. I invite you to contemplate these and other similarities, as I believe pondering these solidifies the symbolic experience the triangle symbol has to share.

 

 

Consider just a few time-honored triads proposed by esoteric triangles:

 
• Spirit, Mind, Body
• Father, Son, Holy Ghost
• Mother, Father, Child
• Past, Present, Future
• Power, Intellect, Love
• Creator, Destroyer, Sustainer
• Creation, Preservation, Destruction
• Thought, Feeling, Emotion
• Mother, Maiden, Crone
• Love, Truth, Wisdom

The symbolic idea here, is that the vertical side represents one aspect, the horizontal side another aspect and the hypotenuse is offspring of the combining sides. The combination of one and another produces a new form of being altogether (a child, as it were).

This, among other complexities is where the triangle symbol meaning of creation/creativity is stemmed. Each side and corner sings out a melody, and their combination in form creates a marvelous harmonic orchestration.

To the Greeks, the triangle is seen as the delta glyph and is symbolic of a doorway. This really appeals to me because it revisits the combination of polarities to push out a new opening. For example, balancing thought and emotion would provide a doorway to higher wisdom (the hypotenuse).

Triangles are featured in Aristotle's conception of the five elements too (shown below). Why did he assign triangles to each of the elements? Why not circles or squares?

I contend that there is a deeper activity of creation inherent within each individual element. Certainly, combined these elements are the sum of infinite potential and Divine creativity. But individually they flicker their own creative sparks too.

 

Experimentation with effects

Not many effects are going to be used in the music video, however, it is not the case with the advert and the website that I am going to create, next week.  I am most likely going to use the picture in black and white, however, I have used the website Dafont.com in order to edit the original picture in order for it to look more interesting and creative. The first image is the original one , when the other three images had been edited one way or another. 

Advert Ideas

Even though I  creating a website rather than a digipack, I still need to include an image from the album on the advert. Below is the example, or what I am going to do- replacing the  reflection of the room in the shades with the image either of the crowd or flashback's of the music video. e.g photos of New York or school. I am in the process of deciding what to include, as this one is only one possibility. 

Photo shoot for the Advert

Ryan Gosling - GQ photoshoot

This is very helpful, as the photoshoot includes the shadow of another person. If I would include shadow, it would represent the past and future of myself rather than the narrative of the still image.

Research - Photoshoot Ideas

Over the course of next week, I need to do a photoshoot for my website and the advert. I have looked at David Guetta's previous photoshoot's for the last album 'Nothing but the beat'  and decided that most likely the images that I could potentially use would be in black and white rather than in color. 

Music Video Ideas

I might consider adding something new to the video- having flashes of myself. In order to so, I would need a blue or green screen to create this effect.

 

Fight Club" came out 10 years ago next month. I re-watched it this weekend and, like the great film that it is, it still holds up. It's as relevant today as it was a decade ago.

Yes, society's consciousness toward terrorism is different (and if the movie came out today, they'd probably go a different direction than having Project Mayhem blow up a bunch of financial buildings at the end). But the messages, the visuals, the story, the art of "Fight Club" -- all still perfect.

Another great part about re-watching it: The movie has so many subtle secrets going on in the background (most of which super-subtly foreshadow the huge twist) -- secrets you'd never pick up your first time through but notice more and more with every subsequent viewing.

Tyler flashes had been one of the 11 Hidden Secrets in the Movie.

1. The Tyler flashes. Before Tyler officially enters the Narrator's life when they're sitting together on the plane, he appears six times in the film. Once he's riding a moving walkway at the airport (that appearance isn't included on this list, since it's not hidden).
   
   Four of those times, Tyler appears as a subliminal flash that occurs when the Narrator has a moment of frustration or anger during his insomnia daze. These, of course, create the foundation for Tyler.
   
   Below are screen grabs of all four one-frame Tyler Durden appearances -- once when the Narrator is mindlessly making copies... once when he's leaving his doctor... once when he sees Marla leaving a therapy session... and once during his testicular cancer support group.
   
   Say what you will about Brad Pitt but he really looks like he's having fun in this movie. Sure, his shirtless scenes in "Fight Club" launched a thousand male eating disorders (both manorexia AND [if I may coin a new phrase] boylemia)... but seeing how gleeful he looks, even in one-second freeze frames, makes it hard to be mad at him.

Flat Plan: Advert

Flat Plan: Website

I have looked at different flat plans for the websites and their general layouts, and these three are the most interesting ones. May you help me to choose your favorite one- feedback needed!

Research- website and advert

I have decided that instead of creating a digipak, I would publish my own  website to promote the artist instead. So at the moment, I have nearly finished editing my video, and I have got two weeks to concentrate on creating an advert and the website. 

1st. Draft- Music Video

This is the first draft of the music video. There is much more work that needs to be done but it roughly outlined the timing of the shots. I will try to upload one draft per week in order to make the final video the best it can be. 

Change?

As I have started  to edit my music video, I find it very difficult to include all of the ideas that I originally thought of. As the result, there are two possible solutions: first one is to cut down on the number of shots or the second possibility would be to use the original mix of the songs which lasts six minutes instead of 4. What do you think?

More on editing

As most of the the video had been shot already , I am able to edit some of the footage. It was time consuming to go through all of the clips that I had filmed in New York. One problem was that, battery ran out in  GoPro camera and I was not able to film the sunset on Top of the Rock. That particular  scene was supposed to be used at the end of the video, which would create the contrast between the morning,  at the start of the video, and evening at the end. Now, I would have to think of alternative possibilities to finish the video. If you have any ideas, some comments and feedback  would be more than appreciated.

Things that I need to do:

- gain some feedback from the first draft
- film the scene with Mr. Robinson and Stacey 

Evidence of editing

In order to edit my music video, I had to upload all of the footage that I have shot in school and in New York, to Final Cut Pro. Initial idea was to use one of the school computers, however, due to high level of demand from other students, I have taken a copy from my older brother who uses the same programme on the frequent basis. On my MacBook, iMovie had been installed, however, Final Cut Pro is much simpler to me as previous projects had been done using the same programme. 

The more time that I have spend editing, more interesting ideas came to my head in order to pass the message to the audience about the plot of the music video. Even though, 1st Draft of the music video had been closely matched with the storyboard, small changes would still be made in order to make the product more interesting. Some extra bits had been added where as some bits had been taken out, as the time is very limited and alot of footage had to be used. For example, I was planning to include some fitness activity at the start, however, there is not enough time for everything. 

After New York trip I have uploaded all of the footage onto my computer, and it took me under two hours just to watch all of it!  Another hour had taken me to pick out and crop interesting bits that I might use. Hope the time and effort that I put would be worth it!  

Tape Log Sheet

I have dropped all of my footage on the logging sheet- that helped to me organised whilst editing the video. 

Actor

In my music video, I would only have one person that would be included in more than one scene- Stacey. Stacey would appear at the start of the video as well as the end, however, the circumstances change and relationship between two characters.

Todorov suggested that conventional narratives are structures in five stages, and Stacey would be included in a disruption of the equilibrium by some action and a reinstatement of the equilibrium. More posts would be followed up, but the key message was to show that everyone should hold on to the people that really matter to them, no matter how hard the circumstances are.