A note from your favourite exam candidate (Formaly signing off)

Goodbye! I am surprisingly sad to say that the long, stressful and time consuming coursework period is over.  Thank you for going through my blog - I hope it was relatively interesting and that the effort I put into it shows through, so farewell! It has finally come to an end. I've really enjoyed being a part of this project and I'm so grateful for my group, who have been amazing throughout this process. Also thanks to the teachers and technicians that have had to put up with us.

Farewells

A final Blogger entry before the password is changed, I hope whoever is reading this has enjoyed the posts. I hope my writing was not too boring and you can see the knowledge sprouting out. My word mr examiner that is an awfully great tie you have on/ ms examiner, did you just get your hair done? You know Nathan would love full marks :). Special thanks to everyone who made this project excel from teachers to group members.

This is the conclusive blog, Farewell! 

Evaluation Question 4

4) What Have you learned from your audience feedback?

Over the course of these past few months, we as a group have received a high amount of audience feedback from the production of the video and my ancillary work. I stress that, a lot of what has been produced has been crafted by the viewers sitting around, dropping opinions and verdicts as the production was taking place so there was much positive feedback as to when it was shown in the cinema The Screen On The Green.

Here is a picture of me and group member Temi, as we sat to watch the A2 media music videos. Our music video, played near to the beginning and set the bar for audience cheers as many peers knew of the party and even attended so they all had high expectations for the final video. The audience enjoyed the scene where guest Diego has water thrown in his face, as many know who he is, people found it humorous as it was not expected. I also heard positive comments on my attire worn in the video, as we were one of the only groups that stepped out of the way to make our outfits stand out as you would on a night out. 

Facebook also allowed me to receive feedback on my media music video. People had been contacting me, asking when the video will be completed and what grade I have received for it. My auntie especially as the party was in her house and she wanted to be sure that this was even for my media work. So when I posted this on Facebook I was barraged with comments and likes expressing their views and opinions. Despite the short time it took to produce this music video, it surprisingly was not reflected in the comments section. However when speaking to my friend Shivz who makes music professionally, he did not like the superimposition used and argued that it was a bit too much, however the students at City and Islington enjoyed it as they said it conformed really well with the genre. 

Ethel's feedback proved to be a lot more judging which is what we need. The comments I received embraced the video and a lot of the comments were from people who have not done much media work so they're opinions would be very different as to someone who specializes in this field. Ethel's cousin left really good feedback and criticism noting the positive aspects but highlighting what could have been improved such as the lighting in the music video. Overall the feedback received from people on Facebook was generally positive.

In class feedback

Despite the combined efforts of my group I feel that we could have done a lot more to improve the final edit of our music video. Being a bit of a perfectionist, watching Nathan Miller Flashback a month after it had been up on Vimeo changed my views on it entirely. Of course it is a fine piece of student work but when I watch music videos now I pay very close attention as I produced one myself so I can't help but to compare and see what others have done and what we did not do or did not do as well. This led to more of a general discussion of the flaws of my music video rather than spot the errors, I knew what was wrong and many later feedback interviews proved the audience saw the same thing. 

The lighting was a key error in Nathan Miller Flashback not only wasting a lot of time having to re shoot but also putting us as a group at a disadvantage with dark clips. To get the night feel for a music video, what better way to do it then film in the evening. However this was against us as the light on the camera would flicker on and off at times. Making them too dark or just making the clips look silly. With having to film over and over again, we drew closer to the deadline than anticipated with only two days to come up with a finished piece of work. Taking this into consideration I feel we did a great job and this was noted in a lot of feedback received because peers knew our situation and how far behind we were with the actual finished product, which led to some favoritism with our work. But none the less the shots could have been enhanced and made a lot smoother had everything gone to plan in the beginning because it really was a race against time to get it finished so Flashback does not exert  an optimal piece of work. So first point being I would have ensured the lights were working before we went off to film.

The superimposition was used heavily in our music video. Despite having the initial plan to do so, it proved to not be as popular and perceived as we viewed it. The feedback from peers proved otherwise with many stating that the 'Loved the drunk effect' however this breaks down to who gave the feedback because upon speaking to someone who makes music video on a regular basis, many would say that it was stressed a bit too much, confusing the audience and to be fair I can partially agree. I as the planner of the music video know its true intent but asking someone out side of college and who specializes in the media field would state its not the greatest of effects. Instead when asking my friend Shivz his views on the music video, all he could state was the shots did not have a clear enough gradient (or something along those lines) which is now how I view our music video. Looking at any music videos on TV, you will notice how they look very clear. This is not always to do with the camera being used as told by the directors shooting Shivz - Refuge. Instead stating it relies heavily on the editing and what you can do with the shots that makes the difference. Looking at a professional level Shivz sent me the guidelines for posting a music video on TV and here they are :

'BROADCAST QUALITY

CHECK the picture and sound quality is of broadcast standard.

100% colour bars

Audio should peak at -6db and NO HIGHER

DOUBLE CHECK audio and pictures are in sync

AVOID the use of flashing images and regular patterns. (Flashing lights and certain types of regular visual patterns can cause problems for some viewers who have photosensitive epilepsy).

Please do NOT include any title on the actual video (e.g. artist name & track title these details will be added by Channel AKA).'

It varies on what you are trying to aim for with your music video to get the best feedback and I look at professional videos for guidelines, it is reflected in the attire worn really well ( as complimented by many who viewed Nathan Miller Flashback) but the editing and the sharp shots was not really there. But this of course breaks down to the fact that we were drawing closer and closer to the deadlines and just had to get it done.

My ancillary work was perceived far better than the media music video as this was the part of the course where audience feedback was constantly chipping to the finished product. My teacher Anabel stated she did not like my initial album cover saying it was too much which led to the class agreeing. Back to the drawing board I diluted it down and received much better feedback to the new product, however group member Temi stated that I should experiment with it because I may like the finished outcome so I made the digipak predominately black to reference to the music video. This received high appraisal by peers many stating that our group has the best album artwork and our genre electro pop allows for us to have very unique designs as mine was described with my back cover. Many thought I stole the show with my small but effective additional booklet signed by myself on photoshop. Many said it looked very professional. I did have a lot of negative reviews during the progression of my ancillary work but I ran with the feedback and in the end did not receive much negative views when asked what could I improve on.

In conclusion as photoshop is not my strongest feat I feel I did a really good job with it, creating a realistic piece of ancillary work. I also did not get to speak to anyone who uses photoshop professionally so I was absent with  the criticism, in my opinion not the best but very well done in relation to the genre and the general digipak and advertisement conventions. The video on the other hand is still a very good piece of work but not to my standard, if given a second chance i'd ensure the lights were used effectively and I could manipulate the colour and contrast of all the clips to make the shots look really sharp. Overall feedback concluded a great piece of work. 

(I had a video I wished to upload regarding positive feedback but the files became corrupted some how so many of the quotes have been referenced throughout this blog, and they will not essentially divert much from other group members as we all are in the same group at the end of the day so the video below has been created by Asilhan but expresses views that equally influence my perception on my music video)

Evaluation Question 4

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

After completing our video we were taken on a trip by the media department to The Screen on the Green cinema, where all the music videos from the entire A2 year would be showcased. In my opinion this was an invaluable experience, as we were able to see an audience's reaction to our music video and also faced with the possibility of receiving individual feedback.

The video below was recorded by one of my other group members Asilhan on the day of the screening. As you can see from the comments that were filmed, we were given great feedback. This was also consistently true for all the other feedback we have received throughout the editing process from our peers and online via Facebook.

Here is just a few of the comments we received on Facebook from when we all individually posted the link. As you can see most of the feedback was positive. However we did receive some constructive criticism in there as well, which I am quite pleased about. Because without constructive criticism it would be totally pointless of us putting the link to our video on Facebook other than to get an ego boost from people telling us our video was "Awesome" etc.

Below you can see an image I created using a brainstorm creation tool (bubbl.us) which compiles together several comments I received via Facebook in response to my ancillary work. Many positive things were said, but there were quite a few suggestions and things to think about too.

Click to enlarge.

In particular one comment got my attention "Maybe just one too many images of the artist used in the advert" this piece of criticism is correct in my opinion - I agree with this person. The only reason why there are 3 images of my artist on my advert is that on the right hand side there was a big black space, like to say something was missing. So to get rid of it I added an image of my artist face. Looking back on it i still would have done the same thing because in a way I am fulfilling a major convention of a digipak, which is to promote my artist and raise awareness about him or her.

Evaluation Question 3

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

First and foremost excluding the hardware, the level of research and planning would not have been as significant if it wasn't for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. I used Wikipedia when we as a group came to a conclusion with what song we was going to be doing. If we went with a rap/hip hop genre research I would not have to be as heavy on the research but as I knew little to nothing on our chosen genre. I felt it was relevant to do thorough research on it to get a good sense of what the characteristics are or were and who were the most popular. The research concluded with bright colours, sunglasses, suits and parties being characteristics of the genre. I also learnt that Electropop is or was only a sub name for the genre synthpop where the instrument synthesizer was dominant. Time moving on, conventions changed but I still got a lot of inspiration from the pioneers of the genre for a solid electropop feel.

Like last year, the macs were equally as vital and important this year. The process of getting screen grabs on a mac is far quicker and easier in comparison to a normal windows computer. By pressing ctrl shift 4, it allows to take a perfect screen grab of what is on screen. Regardless of the software, this little feature in my opinion is the most important feature to creating a blog because of the time being saved compared to a normal windows computer (taking a screen  shot and then putting it in MS paint and cropping). With the screen shots, our college installed a new software called Voila. I am not 100% sure as to everything you can do on it, as I only used it in my earlier stages but I was using it to highlight certain aspects of the screen shots that I was talking about this includes drawing shapes around them. When at home I was using MS paint to do so, equally the same process only when you screen shot it includes the html bar and start options etc. This just tampers with the resolution of the final image even after cropping as it is so big compared to the macs small precise screen shots. My favorite MS software to illustrate screen shots was MS Powerpoint. As I could put two or more images next to each other, scale them up and make annotations, it saves the over complicated process of using an unfamiliar software to do so. 

The internet played a major role during this project. The website Blogger was essential for the coursework, keeping a track record of research, planning and most importantly the progress of the candidates. Youtube remains another important website as expected, with the youtube channels in place the popular music channels VEVO helped to get a feel for the genre we was going to explore. VEVO included other songs from the artist and similar songs alike. Despite researching on Wikipedia, this allowed me to simply click songs at random and get a feel and inspiration from the music videos without having to do heavy research on who is and who isn't an electropop artist. Facebook equally proved to be as important for feedback and I also used it for the first time to create and plan an event (the party). It allowed for all guests to know what the plans were especially if there was a change of plan as there was (see above screen shot).  The Blackberry mobile device also ensured everything went to plan in terms of the party, allowing for guests to communicate with the hosts and broadcast messages (send one message to a number of selected people on your contact list).  Conforming to our earlier observations of the music industry in rapid decline of legal sells , I used youtube converter to get some suggested songs from guests for the party. (It was for educational purposes :D) I then just put these songs on my Ipod touch and connected it to the aux wire of the stereo at the party.

My Last Blog

This will be my very last blog !! :(

I've enjoyed this entire project, from the research and planning stages, to filming, to editing, etc and I am lucky to have been with such a fantastic group! We all contributed together and came out with a good video and great individual ancillary works.

I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to all the media teachers that has helped us and also thank you to the examiner reading this - I hope you have enjoyed my blogs!

GOODBYE!!!!

(This is me and my group helping ourselves to some cake - this was during our filming stages)

Formal Sign Off

ITS OVER!! Its been a wild few months with ups and downs but its been a fantastic experience. I'm very happy with my overall work and pleased to have been in a group with fantastic and talented people. As this is my final blog I would like to say goodbye to blogger, and now time for me to sign off :D BYEE!!!!

 An image taken of the whole group eating cakes together during our filming time :D

Evaluation, Question 4

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We have recieved quite a lot of feedback after the completion of our music video. I used social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to tell people about our video that we made. I put in the link on my statuses which allowed my friends to click on, which took them to our video on the Vimeo website. They then gave me some positive and negative feedback which I have shown below (feedback from Facebook friends).

I've summarised all the feedabck we recieved from people in my Prezi below, and included some short videos I made of people giving me feedback.

Summary of our feedback on Prezi

What I've learnt from our feedback....

Evaluation Question 2

2) How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement)?

Our media music video, conformed heavily to the 21st century revival of Electropop including the expected electro pop conventions. My ancillary work was inspired by the originators of electro pop, this includes using a lot of bright colours. However I  did use a series of more up to date element to my ancillary work for a step into the future. This allows for my artist to be very flexible with my target audience, appealing to "old school" fans of electro pop  and the "new school."

As I am the creator of these media products, I am expected to know the similarities. The audience is not going to be familiar with the aims and goals of the music video or the the ancillary products. However there are a few similarities that I feel the audience will definitely take note of. The most noticeable one in my opinion is the attire, the smart casual attire links really well with the interior panels of my digipak showing very  noticeable reference. This would also appeal to older fans of the genre as they will be able to note that the elecropop hasn't been "diluted" as time has progressed. Another notable feature is the colours used in the production of ancillary to the general lighting in the music video. On the other hand the darkness also has huge reference to the ancillary work, by turning a bad situation to a good one and reating the poor lighting to the nightlife. The ability to enhance clips of Final Cut Pro made them look very natural and hopefully the audience are not put off by the darkness and look beyond it to see the significant elements to it. 

I feel my media products were very well produced, very successful. If you refer back to previous blogs, paragraphs regarding how poor the lights performed and how dark our clips were. This led to us as a group having to re shoot more than once which led to a very short time to produce the timeline and edit the clips. The two days I spent editing and arranging the clips with assistance from my group proved very effective as many people thought it was a better music video than some that had been in production for weeks. It is safe to say that we were lucky to reach the deadline with a completed piece of work although it would have been far better if the shots were perfect from the beginning as we would have had a much longer time but we knew from the start what we wished to do and this was mirrored at the speed of editing our final video. This goes to be said about all of the ancillary work, from the beginning I had an idea of what elements I wished to include in my ancillary work and this led for a very straightforward process. The ancillary work was a walk in the park but equally as important as the music video, just mirroring many of the skills on photoshop across all ancillary products. It was very "rinse and repeat" this is not a negative speculation as looking at other artists ancillary work proved to have many of the same elements throughout. Overall, I feel all of my work was very successful, following the intricate research of my genre and opening my eyes as to what include in my ancillary and main texts.


I feel that my media texts would appeal to an audience of all ages, male and female. Primarily , electro pop being party music and there are no restrictions to parties and both sex's will attend so already building a relationship with a huge audience. The youth is captured in the music video in the sense that there are young people, alcohol and smiles all around. I feel that this will attract the younger audience and hopefully as I mentioned in evaluation question 1, make people wish they were there. The more old school fans of electro pop will be intrigued with the ancillary work as I really reflected my research by adding the traditional bright coloured and bizarre elements of electro pop as the Yellow Magic Orchestra proved in many of their music videos and posters. Overall, I believe both media texts have something for everyone whether it be reminiscing on past parties or enjoying the artwork and additional content of my digipak. The texts received feedback as progression occurred so the media texts partially have elements what the audience want in a digipak and electropop music video. 


A Wordle made from the text. Just to spruce it up... 

Evaluation Question 3

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

I think the importance of using media technologies for constuction and research is very high. Without it I doubt I would have been able to produce work of a high standard. When first researching for songs for our potential songs list, I used Youtube as my main source as well as listening to radio stations such as Choice FM. Websites such as Youtube, helped me gain a better understanding of my genre Electro-pop as a whole, as I was not quite familiar with it.

An example of YouTube doing this, is when you go on a song it automatically suggests to you other songs by similar artist or other song from the same genre. (Image on the left)


I found that looking back at some previous student work proved to be rather usefeul. To do this I used things such as Vimeo and Blogger.
Tools such as Google maps came in hand when we were reasearch how to get to possible filming locations and what th journey time would be. Also to take pictures of possible locations during the planning stages we used a Panasonic Lumix dumc-fs10 digital camera.


After the initial planning stages we went on to creat an animatic. Here is a reminder of what it looked like:

Here is a breif slide show I created:

Using PhotoShop:

Evaluation, Question 3

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

Throughout this entire project (planning,  researching, constructing our video, creating ancillary products etc) I have used many different technologies, and some have been new to me. Below is a little Worlde I created listing the different technolgies I have used.

I have made a little Prezi below briefly talking about how I have used each technology.

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

Evaluation Question 1

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

Nathan Miller - Flashback, underwent an intricate level of research and analysis to create the final products. The ancillary work derived from conventions of a traditional digipak and poster with a strong sense of our chosen genre: Electro pop. Throughout this blog I will explore the ways in which we were inspired to create and develop our media products, and challenge real forms and conventions of real media products.

Upon coming to the conclusion that we will use Calvin Harris Flashback for our music video. I analysed the original for a general sense of direction but to also interpret for general conventions of a music video...

Conforming to Carol Vernallis's interpretations of  the characteristics in a music video includes the very important discontinuity editing which allows for the fast rapid edits to entice the viewer and somewhat go with the beat varying on the pace and feel of the music video. Jump cuts allow for a speeded process, but also adds a strong sense of rigidity to the music video. As well as the ever important close ups which allows for the audience to identify who is the main character/artists dependent upon the narrative structure of the music video. The narrative structure of our music video as Andrew Goodwin put it, share the conventions of either an Illustrative, Amplification or Disjuncture style.

Eye contact and close ups were vital in the style music video we were trying to achieve. A lot of viewer interaction was in place in Calvin Harris's from the point of view camera shots to the eye contact used allowing for a visual connection to whoever was viewing the music video. With this in mind we reenacted many of the shots in our own interpretations from the real feel of a party to the drunk feel which is why our version of Flashback is very heavy on the superimposition:

At the beginning of the A2 year, I analysed the Calvin Harris Flashback music video and made bullet points in the way our own music video will differ from the original, here are those bullet points:

How ours will differ

• We will focusing on the night of three young males collectively rather than one individuals experience.
• Our cover will divert from the party and the liveliness when we shoot our street scenes whilst I am leaving the party to get a sense of emptiness and regret.
• Similar in concept but noticeable difference in the way it will be executed...

Laura Mulvey stressed on the fact that women are projected in music videos for visual pleasure for the male audience. We as a group wished to challenge her theory. I felt that this assumption varies from genre to genre for example in rap videos, women have become an expected convention of the genre in terms of the music video. Our genre electro pop rarely conforms to this, as the my detailed analysis of the genre proved to exhibit flashing light, clubs and sunglasses as opposed to women in bikinis . We did have a clip of a females legs walking into the kitchen part of the party but this was not stressed in the music video, not presenting this female as Laura Mulvey's notion stated. This bring us to our first bullet point: we stressed on the night for this three males as we felt we could create believable scenarios that the audience could relate to. The second bullet point explains our initial thoughts as to creating an after the party effect allowing for a sense of emptiness and regret within our artist which references to the original Flashback music video in a sense, going to a party/club and waking up alone and disappointed as Calvin Harris was on a sailing boat and I was in the heart of Barbican looking very vulnerable. This also suggests why my hand is occasionally on my face. The final bullet point, states that our video will have its similarities, but will not be identical as we as a group listen to different genre music so there will be a lot of intertextual references from different music videos in a variety of different genres, just as Electro Pop is...

One of the main intertextual features and just notable traits to our party is the conventional red party cups. These are usually associated with all American teenage parties, like ones in American pie for example. We looked at a wide range of media texts to get examples and inspiration for the use of the red party cups diverting into many different genres. Also making reference to the fact that Electro Pop over the years has had many different influences from different genres.

Here we see two screen shots from Lil Twist - New Money and two from Nathan Miller - Flashback. The pictures speak for themselves showing clear relation to each other as we see a female in Lil twist's music video and one in flashback drinking from the red party cups. The other two screen shots are to illustrate the number of red party cups in place at both parties. We had a huge number of clips with the party cups but the issue of the lighting rendered a lot of them useless but we can still see a clear relation none the less.

'On Thirsty Thursday and Tuesday Night Ice
And I can get pizza a dollar a slice' - quote from Asher Roth - I Love College

Sticking to the US party style music video, we incorporated another expected feature: pizza. During the week, I had collected a few pizza boxes to use in our music video keeping Asher Roth's I Love College music video in mind. Ordering pizza for the night was very unnecessary as our version of flashback is to dawn on the after effects of the party as well as the guys night out. Which is why, a member of the party was laying on top of the boxes, ironic as he almost fell asleep so it created a very authentic drunk feel.

In the following screen shots above, you see the Ciroc Vodka, P.Diddy's vodka. In his video Ciroc Star we can see a lower scale approach as I am holding the exact same Ciroc flavours as P.Diddy was in his Ciroc Star music video. During the beginning of both music videos the audience receive a lengthy view of the premium vodkas to establish a theme of partying. This is the main reason why we stressed on all of the bottles in our own party, I wanted the viewers to view Flashback and wish they were there.

The camera work in Calvin Harris Flashback acted as an inspiration for our climax to the music video. We can note the mid shots displaying both artists at the peak moment of the night as they are both smiling. We can also, see that they are engulfed by darkness but we can at least notice their facial expressions. The following below them are literally straight after the shots, showing a huge contrast from the climax of their wild nights concluding back to reality with straight faces, a sense of being lost.

In reference to the isolation and regret that I wished to be perceived from our music video I automatically thought of Barbican as it is just very vast and quite isolated when in the evening. I knew that Eliza Doolittle's Mr Medicine music video also shot in Barbican and I knew the location of the escalators so I aimed to get an identical or similar shot of me walking down the same escalators as she did. My two friends were trailing behind me as the Mr Medicine music video. The other screen shot shows the level of isolation as we are both wondering empty streets, I hope the audience picked up on the absence of pedestrians to reflect Nathan Miller's emotions.

The waking up scene was initially supposed to commence at the beginning of the music video, relating more heavily to Calvin Harris's Flashback video. However due to the quality of the recorded clips we had to scrap this idea and we placed it in a unusual way by reversing the clip to make it conclude with a level of serenity. A good example of the waking up scene we wished to achieve was with Asher Roth's I love College as he wakes up in the morning with females.

The quote at the beginning of our music video was essentially inspired by Wretch 32's Unorthodox, where we can see the video commencing with a similar style. This was due to the fact that Calvin Harris Flashback took very long before the song actually dropped. The quote we used derived from playing Call Of Duty the week before. All Call Of Duty games have a series of quotes that show when the player is killed in story mode.I screen shotted one for an example as to where our derived from with me changing the words slightly.

The attire worn in Nathan Miller Flashback has derived from the traditional electro pop attire. Despite swaying in the future to a more informal manner, I chose to keep it very original and precise to how it electro pop was perceived before the 21st century revival. This includes  modern up to date formal attire. In addition to the music videos, a sway in the right direction came from the modern GQ magazine which did a section on weekend wear at the high end designer spectrum. This being a magazine many classy people would read I took their advice as to 'not wear brown in town' despite having the notion of artists having a switch in clothes (which was resolved by simply taking off my blazer and revealing my shirt) and not to wear anything but dark colours with the typical blazer and jeans outfit for a night out. So despite having inspiration from the originators, this form of dress is forever in fashion, only getting more slim as time progresses. This conforms heavily to the genre.

I created this video to illustrate the inspiration for the rhythmic editing , which is the editing on the beat. As the song commences, we hear the beat sharply strike three times. Upon hearing the song I automatically thought to have the visuals of the video hit the beat creating a funky rhythmic structure. This short video has demonstrated how both are very similar hitting the beat with a slightly relevant clip and eventually coming around to the artist as the lyrics approach. This conforms to Carol Vernallis's observation that : 'edits may be really obvious to draw attention to themselves.'  This was noted by students and peers, most saying they particularly liked the way everything went to the beat.

Comedian Dave Chappelle's sketch of slow motion making everything a lot "cooler" relates to the music industry. He smartly states that any bad situation can be improved and made a lot more effective by adding slow motion, it makes the artist look important. I have included the only clip of this sketch so apologies for the poor quality but my point is clear. The video I have created illustrates some of the slow motion clips used. Notably the one in the party, because the full clip was less than useless as it was just too dark with only like three seconds of actually seeing the party with a bit of light.I had to slow this clip down to extend the time of it and this is my personal favorite part of the video because the clip was so bad before and it flowed well with the beat of the song. This conforms not only to Vernallis's theory but to Dave Chappelle's comedy sketch. Slow motion acted as a catalyst in successfully executing the jump cuts...

I quickly made this video to illustrate how the slow motion compliments the jump cuts in Nathan Miller Flashback. The number of dark clips led to most of the party shots being useless, only frequently when the lights decided to flicker on. This resulted on the vast majority of the clips being slowed down capture the moment but keep up to beat with the fast paced song, I dissected the clips into smaller segments then deleted the clips in between to make the clips seem as they are playing at a normal pace. This would be marked with the markings on the song making every sequence rhythmic. The most notable jump cut and slow motion combination was when group member Asilhan had his eyes shut at the kitchen with all of the drinks on display. Not only was the lighting perfect but we can highlight the fact that these two editing techniques were implicated together speeding up the process but looking "cool" at the same time relating further to Vernallis's observation that : 'Jump cuts are often used.'

To conclude, Nathan Miller - Flashback had a huge amount of inspiration from its stimulus music video Calvin Harris - Flashback. The structure of the music video, followed its steps by performing as an amplification style music video. With the lyrics having some relation to the visuals and editing in the music video, there is no strict narrative but there is a story to follow for the sharp viewer.Ethel (female singer) challenges Laura Mulvey's observations similar to Niki Minaj in super bass as she is also surrounded by males. We took a more down to earth approach, allowing for Ethel to have a roll on screen because in Calvin Harris's Flashback video the female singer was not endorsed in the video apart from the models slightly singing it. This gives the female a formal role disagreeing with Laura Mulvey's theories. The use of basetracks was mandatory for most music videos in particular ours, especially as our artist is relatively new. The superimposotion was used to compensate for the low lighted clips but to also accentuate a drunk feel to the music video, which was one of the main aims. Finally, referring back to Andrew Goodwin and his notion of different styles of music videos. We can see that Nathan Miller Flashback is a amplification style, not only as to the relevant props on screen (alcohol, girls etc.) but also in relation to the editing. The superimposition illustrated very well as to the reminiscent feel of the party. The slow motion visually informed the reader to make them feel and see how the artist is viewing things, with and impaired vision. This was executed well as most of the positive feedback remembered our music video as the "one that had the drunk effect."

The ancillary work derived heavily from the work of Calvin Harris as did the video, here is are the two pieces of album artwork exhibiting very close similarities in the leveling of the image and a similarity in the colour scheme;

This is also reflected in the CD itself showing clear relations to album's artwork;

Finally the poster exhibits all in all the same effects as Calvin Harris's poster during his release of his album I Created Disco:

Finished poster

Finished poster

Incorporating many of the same elements used in the production of my digipak, I am pleased to present my final poster. Including expected traits and what nots

Evaluation, Question 2

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

Music Video vs Ancillary work on Prezi



What about our target audience?

Additional content

Additional content 

In good spirit of digipaks I included an additional booklet combining behind the scenes images with the heads I wished to use in  the beginning of the production of my ancillary work and a signature which was re drafted over and over again on photo shop. 

This was primarily created due to the fact that digipaks are to entice the fans to purchase a little more for a little extra, so this booklet hopefully is appealing to the audience. It shares the same black, purple and green theme throughout the ancillary work 

My CD

My final CD

 This is the final version, of my CD. As the CD included many features from the outside panels it was not long to replicate and create my very own. I begun by drawing a circle in the centre of the panel using the grid tool to make sure it is accurate. I then replicated the colour of the CD by taking the colourful crosshatching and using the same technique on my own CD. This is evident as shown between Calvin Harris's CD and his album cover.

Here you can see, how both exterior covers have led to some inspiration to the final CD. This includes the same colour scheme and the same font. Looking at my front cover all I did was copy and paste the font, following the repertoire and necessity to keep a maximum of 3 fonts.Which I used 2. The borders on the CD was  used by adding an inner glow which makes it look as if the CD is shining. This also follows the same colour scheme. I included for smaller circles surrounding the CD to create a grip effect which makes it easier for the consumers to get a hold of the CD. An expected feature. I had alter the purple squares that sat behind my name and name of the CD as the colours clashed and made it a little unnoticeable.