Evaluation of Advanced Production

Evaluation

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Ancillary task - Website homepage

The second ancillary task we decided on at the beginning was a website homepage. This has been left right until the end as we knew that the production and the digipak would need a lot more time spent on them as they needed original images and editing. I created the website homepage in Photoshop as it didn't need to be a functioning site, and Photoshop is a good piece of software to used for designing. I took inspiration for this site from the PowerPoint i created before we started and looked at the sites I had looked at such as Foals and Kasabian. From these sites I decided on keeping it simple, as it nowadays it seems to be "less is more". I made the colour scheme a sort of burgundy red as I believed this stood out but didn't look to stupid and basic. I applied the same colour to a pair of suspenders I found on the internet and then added to it so the suspender looked like the letter "A". This then became the title. I believe this is much more interesting looking than just a plain title. The links used the same burgundy and then I changed some to a darker a milder looking blue, just so that everything wasn't the same colour. I then made a sort of "Flashbanner" advertisement to advertise to site viewers the new bands music video (our production). I took some interesting stills from our music video and formed them into a banner, then put a link to the music video underneath. Most bands seem to do this as it is an effective way to get people listening to a bands music. I then added tour dates and locations, which I researched instead of making them up, as this is often the only reason fans visit the sites of their favourite bands so it made sense to put this on the homepage. Then in the top left corner I put links to the bands social network pages. This is a key feature most band websites contain nowadays as it is the easiest way for bands to communicate to their fans and update them on their latest songs and upcoming tours. I was quite happy with the websites design over all as I believe it contains all the key features a modern bands website should contain.

Below is the finished website homepage for our band Attitude Suspenders.

Final cut of "Stranger Things Have Happened" music video

Production progress - Final filming for music video

Taking into account the feedback our teacher gave us we decided to go ahead and spend one more afternoon re-filming shots that weren't very clear or that were unstable and also shoot two more new scenes, the scene by the river and the car crash scene.

This afternoon was very productive. We spent to Ashley's house, where the waking up scene was originally filmed, and re-shot the wake up scene as the scene we had was wobbly. This scene took a few attempts to do as it was in a bed and therefore very hard to get a steady shot, but we eventually achieved it. We then re-shot the scene with the paper, this time using black paper and a new angle so that the heart rate monitor added in post production would appear clearer. We then went to the nearby river and shot a few basic shots of Ashley looking out to the river. We chose to add this so that I could mess around with it's colours and perspective in post production to add another layer of surrealism. We did think about filming a scene where Ashley would walk through a graveyard and discover his own gravestone. However, we decided this would be making the fact that he was dead at the end of the music video far to obvious to the viewer and therefore the video would lose it's subtlety. Finally, we went and shot a new car crash scene. We chose a better location this time where we would be able to take our time shooting the scene. We chose a lane where that was surrounded by trees and where only a few people lived so it wasn't busy. The scene we shot was of James (the faceless man) reacting in the car as if he had hit something and then all in one shot him getting out and having a look at what he hit. The camera was then leaned over his shoulder to see Ashley laying on the floor. We shot this handheld to make the scene frantic and chaotic looking.

Below is an image of Ashley and I discussing how to shoot the scene of the car crash.

Final digipak ancilery task

Digipak

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Production - Final version feedback

This was the final version of our production. We showed it to the teacher for what is probably the last time and again we were given feedback on what she thought of it. Here is what she said:

Holding shot steady; "Basic"

Opening zoom.

• Closing zoom.

Framing a shot; "Basic"

• Pictures on stairway not clear enough.
• Turn monitor shot to over the shoulder.

Appropriate material; "Proficient"

• Good choice of unsettling images.

Selecting mise en scene; "Basic"

• Black paper better for heart monitor shot.
• Make pictures on landing look genuine.

Editing for meaning; "Basic"

• Inter-cutting after the crash.

Varied shot transitions, caption and other FX; "Proficient"

• Time echo.
• Aeroplane effect.
• Colour saturation.

Use of sound with images/ editing; "Basic & Proficient"

• Make more of the beep in the corridor or change it to screeching car.
• Sound effects - crash, monitor bleep.

Ancillary task - Digipak feedback

Once our digipak was completed we presented the final product (1st version) to our teacher. She studied it and then gave us some feedback. This is what she said:


Photographic images; framing, focus, camera angle, lighting, colour, background and mise en scene

• Sharp, well lit and well framed image - the headless model in keeping with the "indie" genre.
• Interesting mix of props - wealth vs. low life brick wall background.
• Strong colour.

Typography and text; choice of fonts, sizing, layout, colour, readibility, language register and content

• Font appropriate
• Size and layout are okay.

Layout decisions; rule of thirds, text positioning, sizing, balance of image and text and focus of attention

• All good - figure and braces succeed in drawing the viewers attentiom.

Genre codes and indicators of audience targetting

• Style and choice of track names suggest an "indie" audience, young male?

Overall impact; what works and what can be improved

• Strong impact from cover.
• Inside faces lack detail - add track lyrics etc...

Ancillary task - Digipak production

One the day we had planned to carry out the taking of the pictures for the digipak I was unfortunately ill so the others decided to carry out the task anyways as time was always running out. There had been problems with ordering the suspenders and delivery which is why it took so long to carry this task out. At this point, we know had two pairs of suspenders. As Ashley volunteered to wear the suspenders, he went to try them on and they actually broke due to him being to big for them. Luckily, we had another pair from the delivery problems so all was well. James now volunteered to be the person in the photo and suited the suspenders just right. The photos below are the final pictures used in the digipak

For the picture of the cigar, the other two came up with a great idea. The ground happened to have a covering of snow from the previous night so they decided to put the cigar on a dense patch to make it appear as though it had been dropped. The final result was really good (pictured below)

Ancillary task - Digipak production plan

Before going out and taking picture for our digipak, we had to come up with some ideas as to where and how to take them. We went around our school looking for some good walls we could have in the background and taking pictures with Ashley in front of them. Below are the pictures we took. Picture 2 is the wall we decided on as it looks quite harsh and "rock" related whereas the other wall was too bright and soft looking.

At this point in production planning we also ordered our suspenders from Amazon. 

Ancillary task - Digipak

The other ancillary task we decided to do to complication our music video is a digipak. Digipaks are commonly used in the music industry to get bands songs out there in the music industry/market. Although the internet is the most commonly used platform to buy music from, there is a still a large percentage of people who buy digipaks. For our digipak, we wanted it to show what sort of genre of music the band played (attitude suspends). To do this, we wanted to make it clear but without making it too obvious. After a group meeting we eventually decided on taking a picture of a man from mouth down to about waist wearing suspenders so it link back to the bands name and smoking a cigar. He would also be standing in front of a typical brown brick wall. We decided on all of these things as it shows that this bands are obviously a rock band, maybe even indie. We then thought we would have a picture of the cigar on the floor inside the case and then on the back we would have the back of the guy. The colours on would later be enhanced so that the reds would stand out the most on the suspenders.

Production progress - 2nd cut music video

This is a copy of our second cut. However this isn't the exact second cut as we had yet more problems to do with editing and lost our proper second cut. This is more like a 1.5 cut of our production as it has some of the additions and changes made but is missing some visual effects shots.

Production progress - 2nd cut feedback

Once we has shown our 2nd cut of our music video, we received a 2nd sheet from the teacher with feedback of how we did and what we could do to improve

Here is the feedback:

- Stabilizing the first bed shot, removing the jerk on the zooming out phase.

- Walking down the stair scene - re shoot scene getting in three different shots including close ups of the framed pictures.

- Include lip syncing or show someone playing the guitar. We came up with the idea if a busker playing the guitar in the street, but without any strings on his instrument.

- The freeze frame of the character being run over could replace the looking through the window scene, working well with the sound of the car crash.

- Instead of using the car crash incident from the television show Skins, we could film our own and have it being played on the television.

- We found a potential of applying the heartbeat monitor lines onto the blank piece of paper, making the scene more interesting and weird.

- Shorten screaming, chiaroscuro scenes as they lose their effect as we've played them too long.

- Needing to change the car park setting as it means there are people around, getting the total opposite effect and meaning we are going for.

- Add a scene of the driver getting out of the car earlier in the production, building a story for the viewer.

- Applying a red sky effect to the walking across the Mead's scene. The red sky will darken as he gets closer to the building, walking towards death or danger?

- Remove the laying on the ground scene inside the house from the rewind sequence as it doesn't relate to the story what so ever.

Ancillary progress - 19th Jan

For the last 2-3 weeks, we have no begun working on our ancillary tasks. After a small discussion, we all decided on doing a website homepage for the band and a digi pack for the bands cd. We chose the website as it is a good way to get creative for promoting our made up band and I have recently been learning about website construction in my ICT studies. We went with digi pack also as it is a chance to design a sort of album cover and make a song list.

Today, I carried out some website research. I did this by going through my iPod and picking out bands to look at on the internet. I then looked up their official sites and put a print screen of their homepages onto a powerpoint. In total, I researched around 10-12 band sites. Once I had them in a power point, I analysed and annotated each the homepages picking out unique and interesting features of the site to possibly take inspiration from at a later date.

I got some interteresting ideas from carrying out this research such as:

- simple backgrounds
- links to their pages on social networks such as twitter, facebook etc
- interactive buttons
- animated logos
- buttons or backgrounds that change when the mouse is hovered over the something
- a constantly changing background
- latest news feeds

and many more.

Here is my website research powerpoint.

Website research

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Production progress

13th December

As the 15th was the date Miss wanted us to show our production to her and the class, I decided to do as much as I could with the extra visual effects we wanted for thursday. First of all, I tried out the idea of adding a heart rate monitor onto the scene with the blank piece of paper. This was tricky as the heart rate monitor was part of an actual video from youtube. I used the same technique as I would with a green screen and selected the colours I wanted to get rid of such as the blacks of the screen. After a lot of refinement, I had a transparent heart rate monitor which only showed the details from the screen. I then put this onto the scene with a piece of paper. I tried motion tracking this scene so that I could easily put the monitor on but there was no obvious point in the scene i could motion track. This is when i decided to go through the scene frame by frame and resize the monitor so that it appeared to be part of the paper. I was happy with the result however it is a tiny bit jerky. When I next have a moment I will refine this scene further.

Another scene I worked on was the sky. The sky scene was originally filmed to add in two moons but that proved to be too surreal. The new idea was to make the sky gradually turn red to show that the main characters time was almost over. I have again only done a rough version of what I hope the final scene will look like, but this is because I only had a short time in which to experiment and try out a few effects. I used a simple filter which allowed you to change the colour of the scene in a certain amount of time. The end result did look quite good, but like I said before need refining.

I also tried adding birds to the red sky scene, just to add to the surrealism. I got the birds from a website that offers free stock green screen footage and did the same as I did with the Heart Rate monitor. The effect doesn't run as smoothly as I had hoped. I will probably leave it out but I will give it one more go before the final deadline.

Production progress

12th December

This was the day Ashley wasn't in school so me and James decided to go over our production and pick out areas of improvement and discuss what could be added to push the production towards higher marks. We spent almost two hours just discussing this and going through it. Here is the list: