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, planning and evaluation stages?
(Radio Script)

Presenter: Hi again! I am now joined by Vicki, the dirctor of Crystal Castles and Robert Smiths new video 'Not in Love'. What sort of equipment did you use to actually film the video then?

Vicki: Well mainly I used an HD camera to film the video footage. The quality with this camera is very high; it made the video look more professional. Everything I wanted to stood out, for example, on the bridge the twigs were clearly shaped as a heart even though they were mixed in with lots of others.

Presenter: Yes exactly. I noticed at one point in the video that there seemed to be a heart just drawn in the darkness. Now how did you achieve that? I just can't work it out!

Vicki: Well that one took a lot of experimenting. I used a digital SLR camera to take an image. Putting it on a longer exposure; so the shutter stayed open for longer so the lens was exposed to more light so it could capture it all. It is a bit like film except all the frames are piled up on top of one another to make just one image. It took a lot of experimenting with different light sources and exposure lengths until I finally got it right. I used a phone light being moved in the shape a heart in front of the camera, instead of moving the camera on the tripod - which I did initially.


Presenter: Well it worked well, I must say. How did you bring it in all together then?

Vicki: Using Adobe Premiere Pro, I imported both my still images and the film footage to edit it all together. I used the programmes different features to develop it. The time/duration feature was a very useful tool. I was able to speed up/slow down differnt parts of the footage to help in fit to the song. This was a very important factor for me when creating the video as I wanted the songs stronger beats to be incorporated with what was being shown on screen and this enabled me to do so. The timeline along the bottom of the program was useful as it was incredibily easy just to drag and copy things along so I could get the repitition I wanted right. 

Presenter: And for your digipak, I noticed you used images that I recoginised from the video. What made you choose those?

Vicki: I used shots from my video, so that they were obviously linked and the theme ran through everything to bring them all together. I used Adobe Photoshop and InDesignto edit it things that may not have been noticable but would have been as an image on its own not moving. I was able to edit out the inperfections, such as people in the background and signage, using photoshop. Anything that would take the attention from what I wanted the audience to mainly look at. I was then able to import it into my finished indesign template. Another feature of photoshop that was very helpful in creating the finished product, was the effects you could create. I was able to take the photo of the girl with the balloon and make the background look handdrawn. I wanted the girl to stand out a lot more than the background and this effect enabled me to do so. It became fainter and left the balloon to be a lot bolder and one of the first things you noticed when looking at the image.

Presenter: Yes it definately was. Well thank you very much for your time today Vicki. I look forward to seeing your next video, hopefully in the near future!

Vicki: Thank you for having me on the show. I hope to be back again soon.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

20110426 203926 by user5990959

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

For both the front cover of my digipak and my magazine advert I used the same image. It was an image taken from the video itself; so they all linked in together. It wasn't as though one had nothing to do with the other. I chose to do this for that reason as much of the time the promotion products do not link with the music video. Conventionally they use pictures of the artist or an image of something entirely different e.g. The Beatles - Abbey Road, Nirvana - Nevermind; both of these albums follow this convention. I choose to use an image from the video as it made them more of a package that all come together, and partly to step away from the usual forms and conventions of what they should be.

I still decided to use the digipak and magazine advert as the same image because the advert is there to get people to buy the album and if they see the image in the magazine they are more likely to either pick it up because they recognise the image, or it would be less trouble for them to find as they would be able to just pick it out off the shelf due to recognition.  

From the digi-pak, as there is just one girl featured on it and she is always alone, people can see that this is probably what it is about and together with the hearts they can infer it is about a break up of a relationship. So this is effective when put together with the video. The only colour really bright on it is the red of the balloon which makes it stand out more also showing the theme. The checkerboard image behind the track listing, is like a snapshot summary of the music video so is very well linked to the video.

The magazine advert looks very similar to the digi-pak with the same image on the front. They 3 pieces all draw in nicely together to make each more effective with the help of the other. The font used is quite simple and plain, but also at the same time bold. This is quite like the video itself, as even though it is not what people would call 'eventful' it still puts a strong message across.

I think that the commbination of the ancillary tasks and the product is very effective. They fit in well all together and are easily recognised as one whole package. With the advery doingwhat is spposed to do - advertise the products as they can be easily recognised from it.

Directors Commentary

Evaluation Analysis

Based on the analysis of your audience feedback, is there a consensus on how effective your work is? Do the replies pick out similar things to comment on? Do you accept the comments of your audience or would you want to challenge them?

Most of the replies I got from my audience evaluations showed a general consensus that the theme of the video and use of hearts was good, although some did not like that as much as others. Responses showed that the music fitted well with the images; but sometimes the camera work was shakey. I think that most of the comments I got were valid, as I have discovered that watching my work on a bigger screen multiplies the size of the camera shakes, compared to what I saw when working on the video on a much smaller scale. However some people had conflicting views e.g. one person said the video had a confusing narrative but it was still easy to interpret; which is then a contradicting statement.

Digipak

I chose to use different images from the video mainly for the digipak, instead of just taking random pictures of my actor and using them; I think that this makes it link more to the video. All are different and mostly simple with not much going on; I did this so that it did not look too busy as I had the checkerboard collage for the back cover.

Magazine Advert

I used the same image from the front of my digipak as I did for the magazine advert, I think this is reasonable as the same is done with a lot of artists such as the example I looked at with British Sea Power. I think this happens mainly due to the fact hat if someone sees the advert, when they go to the shop they can easily recognise what they are looking for rather than having to search for it which would make them less likely to buy it. 

Speed/Duration

Timing is an important part of my video as I want lots of the editing of the video to fit in with the changes in the song. I think this will allow me to use harsher cutting with editing rather than transitional.
Especially as I use real people I don't want it to look like they are moving abnormally quickly or slowly.

I tested out different speed percentages to see what would fit in with the music but not look too unreal.
With the speed at 200% it did not look right at all, and then the speed at 45% looked too slow; I settled at 120% as then she was moving quickly but not soo quickly that the audience would question whether it was real or not. 

Untitled from vicki robbins on Vimeo.

Magazine adverts

After looking at different CD advertisments I have found that most keep it quite simple with the images not distracting from the text showing when it is on sale etc etc. They also resemble the front of the album cover perhaps so that it is easily recognisable from the origonal advert.

For example - British Sea Power's Valhalla Dancehall's LP advert is just the front cover of the album with some reviews at the bottom of the page and details of the sale.
Learning from this I think I may use the image from the front of my digipak of the shoes, chaging around the text making it slightly more eye-grabbing; and maybe add some comments about the song.

Album Cover

Magazine Advert

Digipak Analysis

While creating my own digipak I thought it best to look back what other artists have used for their own; looking at my own CDs I discovered that not many artists use the cardboard case, usually opting for the jewel case. But I did find actually that two of my favourite albums used a digipak; MGMT - Ocacular Spectacular and Arcade Fire - The Suburbs.
Both look asthetically different; with the MGMT album using images of the two frontmen on a bright cover to draw attention. While Arcade Fires members feature nowhere on the sleeve and drawings of cars and trees being the main focus of the front cover with only the bands name featuring in small text in the top right corner.


Arcade Fire Front Cover

The front cover of this album is very simple but the audience can tell that it fits in with the theme of the album 'Suburbs' you can see the family type car with a big white house and tree behind the fence. These things are all stereotypical things that you would find in the Suburbs. The fact that this picture looks to be hand drawn, makes it look even more different from what you usually see when looking at album covers. Usually they are photos of the artists themselves so that it is more recognisable. Especially as the name of the band is written quite small in the top corner. This shows how they want the album to be recognised due to the music not necessarily the name or the cover.

MGMT Front Cover

MGMTs cover is also quite simple but they follow more of the regular conventions; band members are featured on the front with just straight shots of them. The name of the album is not on the cover but in the centre is the name of the band; in a font that even though in plain colours is still eye-catching due to the fact is it different from what you would normally expect. I think that even though the two men are the main image and take up the majority of the cover space; you are still drawn to look at the background because of the different colours that make up the sky and the sea - you even notice the tiny details such as the moon in the background, even thought it would be tiny if you were looking from a distance.

Photoshopping for digipak

For the front of my digipak I chose to use one of the images I took while I was out filming the balloon floating away scene for my video. When I opened the image on the computer I noticed that there were a few imperfections in the background that I felt removing would make the image better.




Origonal Image

 





Photoshopped image

I then decided that if I changed the image entirely to make it different from the rest it would add to digipak making it different. So I then used a different image from the day - and made it into pencil crayons affect.



Photoshopped image 2

I like this image as the background is faded slightly which draws more attention to the girl and especially the balloon



Beach and Balloon problems

Two things that I thought would be easy making, making a stone heart and filming a heart shaped balloon  floating away, have turned out two be the trickiest things I have had to deal with when filming.

Wednesday 19th January -I checked the tide times for the local beach and found that the tide would be furthest out at 2.27 and as I wanted the waves to wash over the stones I wanted to get there before that. I set off from school at 11 thinking I would reach the beach by midday while the tide was still quite far in; due to unforeseen circumstances - mainly my mother and sister being slow to get ready- I did not get to the beach until 2.30 when the sea was as far out as it would be for the whole day. I then had to make the heart on an empty space of sand the closest one which I could was still quite a distance from the sea so there was unfortunately no chance of the waves washing it away. However I knew the audience would still be able to infer that eventually the sea would washing it away; carrying on the idea that the love does not always last forever.

Thursday 20th January - Today I headed into the city in the afternoon with my actor; to shoot one of the final scenes I needed for my video; the balloon floating away into the sky. I had thought that it would be difficult to find a heart shaped balloon and had even enlisted someone that was able to make balloon animals thinking that if needed she could fashion a heart out of one long thin balloon. After 30 mins of searching we found a small card shop that had some heart shaped balloons bought in for Valentines day - they were exactly what I had hoped for. We then went to the local park to take some photos I could use for my digipak or magazine article. This caused to be trickier than imagined as I had again forgot to think about the weather! The wind made it extremely difficult to catch the balloon staying in one particular place. It just would not stay still! Eventually after moving around to nearly every bench in the park we found one that had a tree slightly sheltering us from the wind, but still let through enough to have the balloon be blown slightly in the direction I wanted.

Hearts

As the song is about love I am going to draw on that and use different ways of making hearts to interject throughout the video. I think it will make the piece more abstract which is what I think the band and the song are.

I have thought of some that I am going to try and create. Many of the things that I am going to make or place them in are stereotypical things that a couple would do together or you would see on film them doing e.g. doing ot the beach, playing in the snow
1) heart made of footsteps in the snow
2) heart shaped balloon flying away
3) twigs in a shape of a heart pushed into the river
4) stones on a beach as the waves go back and leave them there
Another way I have seen which my friend enjoys doing is using the camera to spread the light. If it is dark and then there is just one light, such as a streetlamp or a car headlight, if you take a photo of it with the flash on and then move the camera in the shape you want while you take it, the light will spread make it look like the light was in that shape. However I think that this may be tricky and will take some practice as it doesn't work every time you try and making the heart shape in the air may not come out as expected making it look messy.

The Song

The song is 3.46 minutes long.
During the verses it is paced quite slowly with the fast underbeat; during the the chorus is is very fast paced as the backing starts to take over the vocals.
The first 15 seconds are of just synth noises with every 4 beats a stronger noise; I think that I will use this in my video and switch scenes then to make the cutting seem more edgy, stronger and abstract.
Lots of the song is just synth and noise with the vocals over the top there is not really a melody to follow. There is lots of beat repetitiion with the patterens reused throughout the song; I may use this to repeat different parts of the video - most likely to more abstract bits.

Actual Video

On Sunday 19th December 2010 I went out to start filming for my video even though it was around 5pm it was already very dark and with the street lighting in the area I was using I got the look that I had wanted. It had also been snowing in the days before so the remenants of it were on the ground. I thought this looked good and it also went with the snow footstep heart that I had made and filmed earlier in the week to go with the video so it would link the abstractness of it to the idea that maybe the girl had done it herself. It was a sucessfull start of shooting I felt as we left that evening despite the coldness. However when I watched it back I realised that there was continuity in the fact the girl had both checked her phone then used a pay phone. I think that it would look more realistic if she were to lok at her watch before using the payphone instead; as then the audience gets an idea that she is waiting for someone who she then finds out isn't coming.

So I planned to reshoot just that scene with my actor; but due to the change in time of year we will have to film later when it is dark. But the main problem is that now it had not been snowing the background will look completely different. So the option is now to leave in the continuity or completely refilm all those scenes and call that the practise run.

Shot List

Home
-Getting ready in room - mascara-close up, lip gloss, shoes
-Looking at a photo frame then putting it upside down on a table
-Picking up coat and leaving
-Using sparklers
-Pushing the rose petal heart off the table - shot from both the side and behind
Tombland
- Waiting at the bus stop and checking the time, before getting up and leaving - from the front, behind and then a facial close-up
- Going to telephone box and then storming out
- Running up the hill away from it all
Beach
-Picking up rocks to make the heart
-Throwing things into the ocean
-Walking along the shoreline
-Aerial shot of the heart
Bridge
-Making the twig heart before pushing it into the river
-Reading the letter before throwing that into the river as well - behind close-up
-Shot of the letter floating under the bridge and away
Chaplefield Gardens
-Sitting on the bench and letting the balloon float away
-Follow the balloon as it floats off into the trees
Miscellaneous
-Cars on the motorway
-Snow heart
-Light heart