Wednesday, 2 April 2014

Message to Moderator

Hello Moderator. My name is Liam Pearson and this is my blog; it contains all of the work undertaken as part of the G324 A2 Coursework Portfolio Unit within the OCR CGE course in Media Studies.

I chose to work in a group with Michael Rowell and Laura Davies on the track "Brennisteinn" by Icelandic band Sigur Ros. I work on the project commenced in June 2013 and ended in April/ March. I hope you enjoy my work and find it both successful in its aims.

Please use the navigation bar above to access my work, as organized into the five stages; Research (including progression tasks), Planning, Construction, Final Products and the Evaluation.

yours thankfully,

Liam Pearson

Tuesday, 1 April 2014

Final Advert

This is the final advert, it has been given a change of colour to match our brand identity. Some of the audience feedback also mentioned that the advert needed something other than a plain back ground so I decided to add a tit dye over lay on Pixlr.
I found that the 'Grape' overlay fit with our brand image, it gives a nature feeling alongside an eery dark presence of the mask.

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

Advert Design 1

This is the first design our group decided to go with, it has an interesting colour pallet with the silhouetted horse we see in the video. The use of the desaturation tool in Photoshop allowed me to get the steady decay of gray to blend into the lime scale sky. the issue with this image was the positioning with the reviews and the lack of a professional feel. The still from the video itself is landscape and transferring it to portrait for the poster resulted in cropping.  

Advert Design 2

Our advert for our single keeps with some of the conventions of we found in the early research period. The use of the graphic mask will hopefully catch the viewers eye. As far as the graphological features of this advert are concerned the font is styled in a free flowing calligraphic way, it has connotations of freedom and a lack of standardization.

Wednesday, 19 March 2014

Link to Wix: Evaluation One to Four

http://liampearso8.wix.com/question-3-

This is a link to our complied finished evaluation questions, simply follow the buttons at the bottom

Audience Profile


Audience Profile


After conducting initial audience research and collecting answers from our survey questions we are able to put together an audience profile that will give us an insight to the typical type of person that we will be aiming our product(s) at.

From our results we have found this:
  • ·      Typically 60/40 male-female ratio
  • ·      Favourite genres of music include: rock, post-rock, alternative, indie.
  • ·      Reasons for watching music videos are for entertainment, to observe the artist, and reflect on narrative.
  • ·      Age ranges from 18-30 (typically).


We can confirm that some of the people in our survey had knowledge of Sigur Ros and claim them to be stylistically different and alternative. Therefore this is what we will base our product(s) around when constructing them.

Audience profile

 This is Michael. He is 21 and studies at Teeside university. He is a really big fan of post-rock music which makes him a primary target audience member. He uses websites such as last.fm to listen to music and discover new artists through similar genres. His knowledge of music is very wide and already listens to Sigur Ros and other similar artists such as Mogwai and 65daysofstatic. Following the post-rock and alternative scene Michael says that he enjoys the stylistic conventions of music genres. He said that he enjoys very visual music videos with ambient and instrumental parts.

Because of this information we have gathered we can confirm that Michael is the type of person that we are going to aim our product(s) at. Also from our survey results we can now start planning further into our project as we now know what the audience requirements are. 

Question 4 Notes

Question 4 Notes In order to plan our answer for question 4, me and my group have produced a mind map that explores all the different media technologies that we have used throughout this project. To do this we looked back in our work in detail and analysed all the different programmes we have used, whether it be editing software, or physical technologies such as cameras. We are going to use this mind map to produce an answer in the form of a video presentation. We may use Powerpoint to make a slideshow or we may use this to put together a script to product the answer in video format.

Evaluation Question 2 Notes


Evaluation Question 2 Notes


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

As a group we have decided to present question 2 of the evaluation interactively online. This is different than producing a script and footage of the directors views in response to the evaluation questions set. 

The image below shows some notes that I have made on answering question 2. I have brainstormed the conventions that our media texts use and bullet pointed some ideas that can be elaborated upon in the final presentation of the answer. 

To present this in its final form we have decided on using a website to create an interactive, creative way of showing it. We have discussed using Prezi but after using that software in the past we came to the conclusion that Glogster will be more effective to use. 

Evaluation Question 1 Notes


Evaluation Question 1 Notes


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

Our final media product has come a long way from the planning stage that we embarked upon many months ago. We chose to produce a video for the song Brennisteinn, by the Icelandic post-rock group Sigur Ros. As a whole our chosen song belonged to the alternative rock genre, and post-rock as a subgenre of that. You could argue that our chosen genre is not among the more popular chart genres, we simply chose this genre to cooperate with our own music interests and tastes.

When conducting initial research of our chosen genre we decided as a group that we are going to challenge some of the conventions of the genre as well as keep some things similar in our final product(s). We found that the chosen genre was typically ‘arty’ and very stylistic with an alternative take on things, this suited our initial ideas really well as we wanted to create a final video that is artfully different from the norm as well as to stand out for our target audience. Also we believe that there is a gap in the market of this genre to incorporate a post-rock video that is creatively different.

In the research phase of our project we researched key media concepts, which included some media theories that we were prepared to challenge. For example when researching the genre of our project we explored Goodwin’s theory of star image. Goodwin suggests that music companies demand a lot of close ups and shots of the “star” in the band or the band as a whole. We decided to challenge this by not including the band in our final video at all. This was a bold move as it goes against typical audience expectations, however when further researching into the post-rock genre we found that this is not unusual in this style of music. When we conducted further audience research to build a profile for the typical audience member for our final product we found that not having shots of the band in the music video does in fact meet the audiences expectations.

Researching genre also gave us Jason Mitell’s theory that industries use genre to sell products to companies. As much as our group completely agreed with this statement we decided to challenge it slightly by going against some of the typical traits of alternative rock music in our final product(s). We didn’t change it too much however; we still made sure that our video fit into the alternative rock/post-rock genre, as it was what our target audience was looking for in our product.

When exploring other real media products that are related to our genre, for example when analyzing some of Radiohead’s music videos, we found that the alternative rock genre uses a variety of camera angles such as high, low and cantered angles to make the video more alternative. We also found that low key lighting is stereotypically used in these videos to further incorporate the genre. In this case, we abided by the ‘rules’ of the genre here by using varied shots in our final product as well as all of our band footage being shot in low key lighting. We believe that this makes the final product look very ‘arty’ which is what we were aiming to do from the planning stage of the project. Furthermore, we wanted to challenge some media conventions of the genre we selected but not completely go against it. When watching and researching some typical alternative rock and post-rock music videos we found that they were all different in their own way so we deduced that the genre covers a variety of styles and what classes as alternative-rock is indeed alternative in that sense as many of the videos cover a broad range of different stylistic elements. This contrasts other music genres for example pop music – were different artists videos look practically the same and do tend to follow a certain, distinctive pattern.

In terms of media language, we believe that our final media product does incorporate typical conventions of real media products. For example, Goodwin stated that performers and objects move in time with the music in music videos. In the editing phase of our project we took exceptional care to ensure that the characters in the video moved in time with the music as well as the overall flow of the video. An example of this can be seen in our video at 02:02 where the screen splits into vertical columns of the male character. The columns appear on screen at the same pace as the music flows which results in the final scene looking visually dynamic as well as incorporating conventions of other real media products. This also links in with Vernallis’ theory of the camera moving in time with the music.

Goodwin’s theory of thought beats is perhaps the most important in our final media product. As a group we decided that using thought beats will be the making of the final product. This is because of the drums in our chosen song. Brennisteinn features drums that are instantly recognizable, and frame the song if you like. After listening to the track several times we decided that we can use the drums to our advantage by using thought beats and changing the scene, or something changing in the scene when the drums are sounded in the song. When looking back to our final product we believe that this has been a definite success and again makes our final video very visual and keeps the audience entertained.

When exploring the convetions of represention in the search phase we decided to use the lyrics to propose a narrative in the video. Obviously this was difficult at first as the band we chose are Icelandic, we therefore had to translate the lyrics and compose a lyric breakdown were we analysed the meaning of the lyrics to come up with a narrative. After we had completed this task we found that the song had a romance storyline to it in which two lovers were kept separated. We decided to build upon the foundations of this idea but change it slightly to create a different take on things. In the end our video followed the storyline of having 2 characters that have indeed being kept separate – to further use the idea of separation this is why we had the idea of using different locations to show this. When the 2 characters were reunited however we decided to twist the storyline so that the male character turns against the female. We didn’t want to make this too clear in the video as we wanted to keep an unresolved ending. Tis idea again, uses typical real life media conventions as we found that similar bands of our chosen genre do this quite frequently in their music videos. The ending of our music video proposes that the male has killed the female but it is open to question by the audience – we aimed to keep it vague and slightly unclear to keep the audience guessing. This backs up Vernallis’ theory of keeping the narrative fragmented. 

Evaluation Question 4


Evaluation Q4 from Laura Davies

The above slideshare shows our final answer for the evaluation question 4. We have compiled a slideshow that states how we have used media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages.

Tuesday, 18 March 2014

Question 2



This is our question two presentation, it contains information on all of our auxiliary tasks, from digipak to poster.

Question 1



This evaluation question 1 of our music video. It goes into our stylistic choices and reasons behind our elliptical narrative as well as our notions towards convention and genre.

Evaluation Question 4 - Draft Answers


Evaluation Question 4 - Draft Answers




Question 4 Draft: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?


Throughout the year our group has relied on many various forms of media technology to produce our product. These technologies and techniques have not just been applied to the construction of the product, but have been used extensively throughout the research, planning and evaluation stages.

During our research stage of developing our music video, we used mainly Microsoft office programs (uploaded via slideshare) to showcase our research findings. We found during our research that Microsoft Office programs, such as word and powerpoint were industry standard and popular. We also found them simple to use and they allowed us to easily document our findings in a way so that anyone could easily interpret or examine. All of these individual elements of our Media Portfolio we found could be best kept in the form of a blog. We used a website called Blogger, a user friendly and free blogging site that we were all comfortable using. This technique of having our work on blog format allowed us to easily keep track of all our documents and to organise them efficiently into the categories they fall under. These categories are research, planning, construction and evaluation.

During the planning stage of our music video, we realised that relying on Microsoft office tools alone would simply not be the best way to get across our vision of what we wanted in our video. We began to look and search for new programs, tools and techniques to showcase our planning ideas. One of the new ways we used media technologies in our portfolio was the use of the video hosting website Youtube. Youtube is easily the most popular and largest hosting website in the world, leading to us using it to publically post videos of us testing out various different cameras, studio/location testing and our storyboard animatic. We realised this was the best way as the videos could be simply embedded into our blog and were accessible to anyone who viewed it.

During this stage, our group created many props and costume ideas for our video, along with a storyboard. As these were all physical elements as opposed to digital, we figured the best way to show them would be to take pictures of them using a camera followed uploading them directly the blog. The camera we used was a Canon 650d provided by one of our group members, which we thought captured, the props, especially the masks, with enough detail to seem clear to anyone viewing it. This ultimately became the camera we filmed our video with. Before coming to the conclusion that we wanted to use the Canon DSLR camera we tried out another camera. The camera we tried initially was a Panasonic HC-V110 camcorder provided by the college. Whilst testing this camera our group realised that the camera failed to work well in low light, which played an important factor in our video, specifically the band shots. This camera also failed to capture video with the quality we desired, which we discovered was achievable with the canon.

Once we felt we had planned our video to a certain extent, we moved on with the construction of our Music Video, Digipak and Poster. Our first move was to film the footage we needed (in accordance with our shooting schedule) to be edited. Using our chosen camera, we also hired out a track/dolly, tripod and zoom lens. These 3 pieces of equipment widened our range of different filming techniques, giving us more choices on which shots to use. Once we had the footage that we needed, we had to choose video editing software. The editing software we had chosen was Final Cut Pro. Our decision to use this program was based primarily on how we could access it easily during lessons. This made it so that we could edit during lesson as well as outside, and that everyone in our group had a chance to edit the video as opposed to just having one member edit the whole thing. Another reason our group chose this piece of software was that everyone in our group had used it before at one point, ultimately allowing us to save time learning the program from scratch prior to editing.

Tuesday, 11 March 2014

Final Digipak


This is the final version of our digipak. As you can see it contains all the finalised panes, the CD art, spines, track listing, company logo and barcode. These elements make the final version more professional. 

Friday, 28 February 2014

Final Cut

This is our final product, it contains all of the colour correcting we agreed upon and also has extra 'Lava Lamp' footage. We kept the death of Lauras character more symbolic in the end, we found that this ending meets the conventions of the genre.

Friday, 21 February 2014

Advert Moodboard



This Moodboard showcases some various examples of Album Adverts from various genres of music, ranging from Arctic Monkeys to Marina and the Diamonds. Each of these adverts are eye catching, and are produced specifically to attract the magazine readers attention. The posters often work with the colour schemes and artistic of the actual album it is selling, so that people will immediately know they are related.

Thursday, 6 February 2014

Digipak Construction - Mock fold

Digipak Construction - Mock Fold


Using the digipak template that i downloaded from the Internet i have tried adding the images that me and the group have created for the final panes of the digipak. I have then printed it out to create a mock fold-up to give us an insight to what the final product will look like.
Please note - this is a mock fold up and tweaks still need to be applied, for example finishing the spines, adding track titles, barcode, and company logo, as well as adding the disk and having the disk image on it. 

Digipak Construction 3

Digipak Construction 3

 

 
The images below show the stages of progression of images for our digipak. In this case we have again used an image of the female character from the video and combined it with industrial elements to relate to the narrative in the video. I have then experimented in photoshop adding noise to give a grainy appearence as well as darkening the edges to give it a film look - this fits in with the stylistic conventions of our chosen genre. I have then tried various techniques including adding different textures to make the image more experimental - again reflecting our chosen genre. 







Monday, 3 February 2014

Digi Photos


These images will be used as out front cover and extra panel. They fit with the conventions of alternative rock as it shows very symbolic images.

Friday, 10 January 2014

Notes on Digipack + Advert ideas

Here are some of the early notes taken on how we can create our digi pack. It mentions how we would use silhouettes and overlay them with nature images.

Album Artwork Mood Board


When thinking about producing our digipak we need to use creative ideas that we have been inspired by and influenced by from other various alternative rock artists. The album artwork will be the most important part of the digipak as it will give the band identity as well as be noticed by the target audience. In order to give me and the rest of my group some ideas I have put together a mood good of different rock bands album cover artwork. 

Researching a lot of digipaks and artwork in addition to those above it has become apparent that a lot of post-rock/alternative-rock bands have a very arty approach to the album artwork. For example none of the above artwork features the band or band members - it is all artwork, or characters that feature in a music video of the singles from the album. The Bon Iver and Arcade Fire albums do not even feature the bands name or the album title either. From this research we have agreed that we want to keep our cover of the digipak as minimal as possible and include some artwork instead of having the band featured. This also fits in with the stylistic "arty" conventions of our chosen music genre. 
The bands identity can be presented on the front of the digipak to strike the target audience straight away, rather than them having to physically look and explore the digipak to realise who the album is by. Bands such as Bon Iver and Arcade Fire can get away with not including the name of the band on the cover as the target audience will most likely already know what the front cover will look like from various advertisements and fan-base. 
The other digipaks include the bands name which is in a font that the target audience will recognise. It has become clear to us how important the typeface we use won our digipak will be as it gives the band a brand identity as well as meeting the audiences expectations. 
It is interesting that only the Daughter album has the text centred on the front of the digipak. M83, Mogwai and Mono also have centred text, but positioned in the top third of the frame. The Sigur Ros typeface is really small and quite hard to read at a distance - this strikes me as being deliberate so that the audience take care to see what the album is. Fleet Foxes and The National have their text in the top corners of the image. This results in the primary focus of the audience being on the image on the front cover of the digipak. 
From analysing these covers we have come to the conclusion that our digipak will be mainly artwork based, with scenery images that have been experimented with to create an arty film look. We have also decided to have the characters from the music video we have planned to feature somewhere on the digipak to contrast the landscape images. 

Music Video Trends


I have created the prezi which can be seen blow in order to explore and research some rock music video trends. This research will help me and my group when it comes to the planning stage of our project as it will give us initial ideas and remind us of the style of rock music videos so that we stick to the conventions of our chosen genre.