Final Video

So we've added a few shot so get more lip sink (to make seem more like a music video) and less 'samey'.

This is also the insert that went on the inside of our digipack, which we made to add more industrial information (like producers and copyright etc).

Audience Feedback - CD Album Cover

After I created the CD Album cover for Pixie Lotts single, 'Here We Go Again', i showed it to a number of people as a focus group to get some feedback on how it looked.

• Most agreed that they liked the style as it was a lot like Pixie's actual CD designs with the large white font in front of the her. This was what i based my idea around as i wanted to get it as close to the artist as possible, as well as reflecting our earlier work

• Some said that they would have preferred an actual plastic CD cover instead of a digipak, but liked the design that was printed. The digipak was easier to work with in terms of creation and getting the design to print onto it, however the plastic CD cover would probably have a longer life span that the card digipak, and might have appeared better quality.

• The back cover featuring the show was generally liked as it was similar to the party video, but said that they would have liked a different background, of maybe some bottles or "party mess", which were part of our other drafts for the album covers. I used the shoe so that it would fit the party genre and reflect the video that we have created so that our ancillary tasks and main tasks fit together as a collection. Though they weren't sure about it, the brick wall was used as a background because that was specifically used in one of Pixie Lott's CD covers 'Boys and Girls'. This was so we linked it to the original artist.

• Some noted that the front cover wasn't totally clear and a bit fuzzy, which didn't look as neat effective. This was a problem that i encountered on photoshop. When imported, the pictures were a smaller scale than ideal, so i had to stretch them slightly to make them fit the digipak measurements. Though fuzzy, i put up the contrast to try to stylise the product and get around the fuzz issue.

Evaluation!!

Its all edited and finished with examples, pictures and clips from the entire project. We also burned our DVD today and that will be in a case tomorrow to hand in. Its all coming together :)

A smaller version incase the top one doesn't work or crops the image.

Evaluation - Goodwin Six

Andrew Goodwin identified six features of a music video. This evaluation will look at how we have used these features in our own music video.

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band). - 'Here We Go Again' is a pop song. The videos for a pop song are usually quite relaxed and have a fun feel to them. Quite a lot of pop videos are party based, e.g. 'Boys and Girls' by Pixie Lott, 'Stomp' by Steps, 'I Kissed A Girl' by Katy Perry, etc. Our video is party based and has a fun, natural feel to it.



2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting). - The relationship between lyrics and visuals in our video is obvious when Lucy is singing to the camera. The idea that the she is at a party, then goes to bed and gets up the next day ready for another party fits in well with the lyrics "here we go again" because it is like an endless cycle. The party repeats itself and we wanted to give it the feel of, "here we go again". We also have a shot of an alarm clock as she sings "sleep through the alarm".



3. There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting). - The feel of the music at the beginning of the song seems like a carnival tune, which is why we put carnival masks into the video. The music is slower at the beginning of the song and at the end, so at those moments the editing isn't as rapid. In the middle it picks up speed and the shots are cut together much faster and the visuals give you a feel of a fast pace.



4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style). - There are a lot of close-ups of the actress we have portraying Pixie in the video. On many occasions she is the only person in the shot and at one point there are three of her in one shot.



5. There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc.) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body. - For Example the pan up from the feet at the beginning starts with just a shot of her feet and slowly encompasses her whole body, and close ups of her face help to create a story. But other than that it wasn't a major part of our work.


6. There is often intertextual references. - Our main use of intertextual references is to Lady Gaga's poker face with the two fingers over the eyes. This would be reference our audience could relate to and it would then feel as if Pixie was one of them.

Audience Feedback Evaluation

Last week we showed a focus group of the same girls we used before, our completed project. We asked them to write down what they liked about the video and what they thought could have been better.
A lot of people mentioned that they liked the contrast between the black and white shots and the colour ones. Some people commented that footage matched the beat of the music and liked that Lucy's miming fit in with the song. They were pleased that we had taken in to account their thoughts from the first focus group by incorporating aspects of "Carnival" by using the masks. They liked the use of "short snappy shots". A lot of people liked the ending, saying it was "a really cool effect". They thought the dancing looked natural and it made it look like a real party in the video. They liked the shot where there was multiple Lucy's and thought that it was a good piece of editing.
Some people wanted see some more shots of Lucy singing, however we felt that a performance based music video would look unnatural, especially if the actor didn't know the words to the song very well. A few people commented that it would have been better if there had been more people. We would have liked to have more partygoers in the video, but unfortunately things didn't ork out that way because it was very difficult to get lots of people together at the same time.

Filming the evaluation

Yesterday in the lesson we filmed our evaluation. We answered the following questions; In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? What have you learnt from the audience feedback? We gave detailed answers for the questions and the film will be put on the blog at a later date. We filmed the evaluation using a tripod and video camera. We used a mid-shot as we had to fit in all of us in the group.

Completed Video

Here is our finished video. We have got rid of the sound at the end and added in the title card.