Music Video (Final Version)

Here is the final cut to the music video for 'Thin Blue Line'.

CD Digipak (Final Version)

This is the final version of the digipak for 'Thin Blue Line'. 

Band Website (Final Version)

Here is the link to our final website version for 'Thin Blue Line'.

Evaluation Question 4- Conclusion

By using digital technology, I have managed to not only create, but also successfully research, plan and share an entire music promotional package, using the conventions of the Punk genre. My use of Google's Blogger, I was able to document my research that I found using websites such as YouTube and BPI (British Phonographic Industry). I also used the 'Black Magic' camera to record my footage, using the state of the art 4K resolution to gain the highest quality possible, while using Adobe Premier Pro to edit the clips in a professional manner, placing me in the category of 'Prosumer'. The use of Premier Pro has allowed me to become far more proficient in the craft of editing software and in organizing footage to adhere or subvert the conventions of a specific genre. I have also learnt the importance of audience feedback, and the benefits that a product can have from simply taking audience suggestions and experimenting with them. Using technologies such as Survey Monkey I was able to collect information regarding my product, and edit it accordingly.
As Henry Jenkins has often referred to, the 'Participatory Culture' of the 21st Century has encouraged audiences to create their own material, which is exactly what I have done with my Music Video. I have, in essence, become a prosumer in an online age.

Evaluation Task 4- How Did You Use New Media Technologies In The Construction, Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

http://www.gomoodboard.com/boards/RBySXF2d/share 

Above is a link to a moodboard I created, in order to reflect on the Media Technologies that I have used within my A2 Media Course.

Evaluation Question 4- Directors Commentary

Evaluation Question 4- Directors Commentary Transcript.

For our evaluation question 4, we all assigned various parts of the production process to write about, I decided to choose the editing process and the script for this segment of the commentary follows:

OTHER TECHNOLOGIES.

Joel: We successfully implemented a lip sync by using technologies such as the iPad, which acted as a digital clapper used in the shot to establish the exact moment that the footage started.

Tom: Another piece of technology we used was our mobile phones. We decided to create a Facebook group chat so that the entire group could interact and convene regarding details and reminders for each other.

Angel: This was a creative and important decision as, without the Facebook group, vital things would have been forgotten, such as the camera equipment, and Joel's posters for the props.

Nikita: Another technology used was email. Email was essential for contacting Ben from Ben's Collector's Records, organising a good day for us to shoot in his shop and the times in which we could do so.

Joel: We also used the website 'Open Table' to book a table in the cafe next door to Ben's Collector's Record Store, and without this our cast would have had to wait in the cold, and considering that this was a day shoot, it also gave them the opportunity to stay refreshed and energized in order to shoot at any time.

CAMERA.

Nikita: We used Blackmagic Production Camera 4k to film our music video. We thought that it would be preferable to Sony FS100 as it has much higher bitrate of 225 Mbits/sec compare to just 28 Mbits/sec of Sony.

Joel: This makes the image look much crispier and more realistic. Also, the maximum colour depth of FS100 is just 8 bit, while it is 12 for the Blackmagic. This difference gave us a much precise picture which was really helpful during post-production as it made it easier to colour correct.

Tom: Even though we were shooting in colour profile simulator Rec.709 colour space, not the Blackmagic Film one, we still had 10 bit of colour depth as the advantage. As for lenses, we had a choice between the full range of Carl Zeiss Distragons and for the performance part we used just them.

Angel: However when we were shooting inside the records shop, we decided to change the lens to Canon 50mm 1.4 as it was more suitable for the darker environments because of its wider aperture.

EDITING.

Tom: To create a successful, professional product, for our A2 Coursework, we had to be proficient in our knowledge of various editing software. Primarily, Adobe Premier Pro. After filming our A2 Music video, we uploaded our footage from a memory card to the Apple Mac Pro computers in the editing studio, which included Premier Pro, which we would use to edit our footage.

Angel: Once we had imported our footage, we decided to make bins for our clips immediately, naming the various folders after specific shots. This gave us the organisation that we needed to sort our our clips neatly, in order to prevent our interface from becoming overcrowded.

Nikita: We then placed all of our useful clips onto a timeline a used markers to point out where any obvious faults were in the footage, before placing an audio track of the song we were using over the sequence.

Joel: Due to it's status as a professional editing software, Premier Pro offered us plenty of tools that we could use to create a professional product. The most prevalent of these was the 'blade' tool, which we used to cut the clips where we wanted.

Tom: We also needed to utilise the 'Video transitions' tool to add a fade to black at the end of our video, as we felt that the sense of closure added by a fade out was what our video required.

Angel: We also used the 'Colour grade' tool to emphasise a certain atmosphere to our video, using the SpeedGrade feature to set the desired colour to our video. We wanted to chose an autumn orange colour as we felt that it made our video more appealing. After we had chosen our colour grade, we then sent our SpeedGrade footage back to Premier Pro and used it as our final edit.

Nikita: The Adobe Premier Pro software was very useful, as it offered us features from the professional industry, allowing us to edit to the quality of a genuine product. After we had finished our edit and were pleased with our result, we uploaded our footage to the online distributions service YouTube.

Evaluation Question 3- What Have You Learned From Audience Feedback

Evaluation Question 3 - Kizoa Online Movie Maker

Audience Feedback- Focus Group

Audience Feedback- YouTube Statistics

After reviewing our music video after 2 months of it being uploaded to YouTube, we have had 751 views. And from these views, we aim to determine the audience feedback and evaluate if our audience profiling was successful in determining who our video would appeal to.

Judging by the first selection of statistics, our predictions on location and gender were fairly accurate. Imagining our video to be popular in the UK and Italy, where the punk/mod style is popular, however, despite being male dominated, almost half of our views were female which we were not expecting.

The geographies of our video were somewhat expected. The video was popular within the UK and Italy, both cultures have been influenced by the 'Mod' and 'Punk' fashions, As our video revolved heavily around retro vintage culture, it was interesting to see the affect on our views. 

Evaluation Question 2- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Album Digipack- Thin Blue Line

FRONT ALBUM COVER

ALBUM BOOKLET

TRACK LIST

 ALBUM INLAY

Music Campaign Website

Here is the link to our band, Thin Blue Line's website. We have tried to adhere to various conventions as well as subvert some cliches to keep the band's image interesting.

http://straud-96.wix.com/memories

Band's Name

We have decided on a band name for our group, after pooling some ideas for band names, we decided that we wanted something rebellious, to exemplify the punk attitudes and ideologies of the group. After researching some slang words for police men I found Thin Blue Line. We instantly liked this name, and got to work on creating a logo. We felt that the name suggested crossing the line, while also connoting the police, all suggests a sense of rebellion.

Request For Photo Shoot

In order to give our website a level of personality, we need to have photos available for depth in the star image we are trying to create. We need Sam to pose for some photos, and we are planning a shoot today in Cranleigh, using an alleyway and a yellow line, which we would turn blue to represent the band's name 'Thin Blue Line'.
Here is a confirmation email sent to Sam:

Evaluation Task 1- In What Ways Do Your Media Products Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

To solidify the presentation and star image of our band, we developed and produced several pieces of media, starting with a completed music video, as well as a band website and a CD digipack. While creating each of these examples, we experimented with the use of media convention and stereotype.

Our Music Video:

While filming our music video, we wanted to incorporate various punk/garage rock conventions into the filming and style of the video. For example, we aimed to stay within convention by making our video 3 minutes long, comparing our video with classic punk bands such as 'The Damned', we can see that shorted songs are far more popular in the punk genre, therefore, our video immediately matches this genre criteria.

While filming our performance element, we were convinced that we wanted to adhere to the punk conventions of a rough, messy image. With various shaky camera shots of  our band members performing. Taking inspirations from conventions set by classic punk bands such as The Sex Pistols.
I have created two GIF files to demonstrate examples of each of the close ups of our band members compared to the members of The Sex Pistols.

As you can see, there are very particular similarities between our band and The Sex Pistols, such as the dress sense, the interesting set, and the sens of enjoyment and unity that both bands are having while within the performance element of the video.





However, within our video, we decided to subvert convention by incorporating a narrative into our video, looking at The Sex Pistols video for 'God Save The Queen', they only have a performance element present in the video, we thought that we would subvert the stereotypical video and give our band a narrative concerning how they became a band, while demonstrating their inspirations. We felt that the use of the record store narrative gave the video a more interesting selling point to an audience.

Our Digipak and Website

 Once again, comparing the rest of our music promo package with existing bands from the Punk genre we examined the Punk band 'Slaves' and the contexts within their star image, and compared them to 'Thin Blue Line'. We examined the website for 'Slaves' and looked at the conventions that a modern day Punk band adhere to. We noticed a predominately black back ground, with dashes of bright colours. With their latest music video playing within entry of the website. We also chose to add our music video into our website, and programmed it to play within entry to the page. We thought that using this feature was striking, as an audience member would be instantly greeted by the band's music.


However, I also chose to include a second video on the music page of the website, names 'Filming of Memories' which contained a time lapse of the filming process of the video. I felt that this added an extra, exclusive feature to the website, offering the audience a chance to witness some special content, showing them performing in a professional environment. It also gave the website a special feature that I did not see in the websites that I researched. I felt that this added a Unique Selling Point to the band, and presented them as considerate towards their audience, and not afraid to share their work, whether it be polished or not.

Now, examining the digipak element of the music promotional package, I am comparing the two Punk bands 'Thin Blue Line' and 'The Damned'. As you can see, with our band, we have focused on the lead singer and his star image of the band, which subvert common punk conventions of having the entire band in the focus of the album cover, apparent in 'The Damned's' album cover, convention of punk albums is to either include the entire band together, to signify the unity of the band, however, we decided to have Sam using a hand gesture commonly associated with the punk/rock genre to demonstrate the passion and the focus of the actual style of music throughout the album. With various critics stating that 'Punk is dead' we wanted to employ our band as one of those who are keeping the sub-culture alive. 

Also, when comparing our track list to that of 'The Sex Pistols', one of the most renowned Punk bands, there are various similarities between the names of our tracks and theirs. Furthermore, as you can see from the pictures on the back of the albums, we have both included typical British scenery as our pictures. While the Sex Pistols have included the use of Beefeater guards, a typical sight in London, we have included a typical rural setting on our album, again to encapsulate British life and environment, adhering to the convention of national pride that is prevalent throughout British punk music.  If you also compare the tracks of the two albums, there are obvious similarities in chosen conventions with both of the band, for example, the track 'Pretty Vacant' by the Sex Pistols is similar to 'Pretty Dreadful', although this was also a reference to the TV show 'Penny Dreadful' which gave the band some more context for fans to search up.
Also, with 'Thin Blue Line' the convention of rebellion is adhered with the track 'Gumshoe Fuzz' and 'Babylon Bears' which are slang names for the Police, which solidifies the punk image, deep into the band's ideologies.