Evaluation Question 1

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

Lyrics and Visuals
(1-6 left - right)

The first still shows the voodoo doll which is heavily featured in the video perched amount some plants and a flow of water pouring out next to the doll but not quite reaching the voodoo doll. The reason I did this was due to the lyrics at that point in the song. The lyrics state 'Holy water cannot save you now'. I made use of the voodoo doll because a voodoo doll is known to represent the evil within magic as in many cases on TV or in film a voodoo doll is seen hanging or placed near someone who is being controlled by the voodoo doll. The person copies the movements of the voodoo doll; for example, if someone is connected to a voodoo doll, and the person who has initiated the connection stabs the dolls arm, the person in question would feel the same stabbing pain on their arm. Due to this notion, in popular culture, the voodoo doll is seen as a sign of control, generally seen being 'summoned' or used by a character wanting to inflict pain. To show that the water is in fact holy, the next scene on screen shows a religious figure with a candle lighting the presence of the figure.
The Second still shows a river with the lead artist singing over the river. This shows the river flowing with a tinted colour filter. The filter was to enhance the essence of dark magic centred around my lead artist. My artists face in the middle of the stream shows the sheer amount of control the artist possess over the other character (her good side) and how the strength of the flow of the river cannot stop her from achieving what she wants. Another reason for this shot was the accompanying lyric which states 'and no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out' which also leads on to the next scene and the still seen here. 
The Third still leads on from the previous still as the lyric is the same but more to reference the latter half of the lyric stating 'put the fire out' hence the reason for the candle overlaying the river and not the other way around. The candle over the river shows the power of the candle over the water when in actual reality, water would extinguish the fire. The fact that the candle has out powered the river, once again shows the sheer strength 'evil Paige' has over the better/ non evil self. The light from the candle also takes over the entire screen to show the power of fire when ignited with dark magic.
The Fourth still shows the evil side to my lead artist poised in beginnings of performing a ritual. The mis en scen shows the voodoo doll leaning against a black cauldron. The reason for the cauldron was to highlight the uses of magic in popular TV programmes and Films. The candle next to the other two items is also regularly seen around witch craft and rituals in the media today. The chalk on the floor is actually a pentragram which is a well known symbol associated with witch craft. The scene shows Paige picking up two crystals which are also widely used with rituals in around popular media. The Crystals used were of a specific colour, I found the types required through researching on websites and forums dedicated to witch craft. All of this combined together is to illustrate the lyric behind this scene which states ' I'm going to raise the stakes I'm going to burn you out' the raising of the stakes is raising the crystals (picking them up).
The Fifth still shows a crystal light with colour changing lamps. Hanging off one of the lamps is a skellington. The skellington is not clearly seen but can be seen over ever so slightly in front of the purple lamp. The reason for the purple lamp with the skellington is because the crystal used is also purple. The lyric coupled with this scene states 'I'll be dead before the day is done'.
The Sixth still here shows Paige drawing blood from her finger in order to complete the ritual. The inspiration for this aspect came from a TV show called 'The Secret Circle' in which blood was drawn to start a memory spell. The reason for placing this footage here was because of the lyrics stating 'all your love will be exorcised'. Drawing blood would be a form of exorcism, however instead of a battle against evil, this exorcism would be used to assist the evil in ridding the good. 

The use of lyrics to inspire the footage seen is also present in real media texts such as this new video.

  This still comes from the new video by AC/DC for their song 'Play Ball'. Just as Brian Johnson sings 'lets play ball' this footage comes up of a few ladies bouncing basketballs around in front of them'

Music and Visuals.
( 1-3 Left - Right)

The First still shows an upward tilt showing the length and size of the vase and the leaves in the vase. At this point in the song, the instrumental begins to lead toward a crushendo. At this point in the track, flutes and breakables can be heard starting out quiet leading to more volume coming from the hi-hats. This movement justifies the music as the camera moves along with the music.
The Second still shown here shows two voodoo dolls with a ref filter. The colour red is to portray the evil within the dolls. This shot shows the doll taking control as there are two dolls which lead to more power. The pitch of the music at this point decreases by 4 notes on the music scale. The lower pitch of the music further references the dark magic as lower registers are usually in use to accompany dark defying atmospheres. The scene changes in time to the snare of the drum in the song, the effect of the visual changing in time to the beat further enhances the effect it has on the consumer.
The Third still is from the ritual carried out, during this section of the song there are lyrics present, however, the reason for using this represent music and visuals is because Paige moves her hands in time to the beat of the song. This enhances the effect and atmosphere surrounding the ritual. The movements and beat working together provide more entertainment for the enjoyment of the consumer of the products.

The use of the beat within a song when editing a video has been used many times before. An example of this would be the video for the song 'Elastic Heart' by Sia

At 2:34 in this video, the angle of the shot changes when the beat can be heard, this enhances the effect of the choreography.

Genre Specific Visuals
The orginial artist - Florence and The Machine can be defined as alternative (as classified by ITunes). Within the genre of alternative there can be many sub-genres, going from the sound of her voice and the tempo of her songs I thought Florence in terms of genre would fit in between Evanescence, Marina And The Diamonds and Birdy.
Below are music videos from those three artists.

The first set of stills here show a screeshot an Evanescence video, here Amy Lee can be seen singing, the shot type is a profile shot, I also have a profile shot of Paige singing along to the song 'Seven Devils.



The Second set of stills show a scene from the video for Wings by Birdy. As you can see the shots are very similar with the sun shinning through the trees. The difference lies with the extras in shot. In the video of Wings, someone can be seen doing a somersault whereas with mine, you can simply see the sun breaking through the trees.

This last set of stills show the effects of playing with different lighting. This still comes from Immortal by Marina and The Diamonds. As seen, light also plays a large factor in my music video with light reflecting next to a metal skull. I achieved this effect by placing a torch behind a transparent vase made out glass. 



Close ups of the Lead

To the left there are 3 stills from my music video showing close ups of the lead artist.
The first shows Paige singing in a profile shot. In this close up, only parts of her face can be seen this is because I wanted the majority of the video to show the ambiguity of not knowing who the person after 'Good Paige' was.
The second still shows her entire face and can be seen during the chorus. The reason for only showing her face during the chorus was because it was here where her 'Good side' is seen mainly due to the lyrics stating 'Seven Devils all around you'. The only construction in the way  of seeing her face is the plant in front of her.
The third still shows a shot that is featured quite regularly. This too is a close up and comes in short bursts throughout the video and is finally seen in full at the end.
The close ups here show Paige as quite an interesting or mysterious character, this helps to market Paige as a brand by suggesting she is more part of a subculture than mainstream life or mainstream music. With the music of the current day, having an artist who is seen as more 'mysterious' keeps the consumers wanting more and therefore the companies behind Paige can market her to a better extent.

With the original artist, Florence and The Machine, Florence herself also as close ups in music videos. 
The following showcase some close ups, the songs are as follows, Shake it out, Dog Days Are Over and No Light No Light

The stills to the left are from the above videos. The first still shows Florence mid song during 'Shake It Out'. The second still shows Florence looking down during the video for their song 'No Light No Light' and the third shows a still of a close up from their song 'Dog Days Are Over'. 
 In all videos referenced of Florence And The Machine and in my media creation, the lead artist is the main focus. In my video, 'Paige' is the only person seen in the video, no one else is seen at any point. In the reference videos of Florence, there are other people seen but she is the main person to be seen in the video.







Inter-textual references
Within my video, there are no inter-textual references to any other song or video or item. The entire video is contained within itself. The references are conventions of music videos however, I have not followed them for certain reasons. I did not want this video to be a link to something else as this song on the album is listed as a cover of Florence and The Machine because Paige is said to be heavily influenced by the Florence and The Machine.

Evaluation Question 2

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

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Digi-pak

                                                                                                                            

 This is the first draft of my digipak with my own pictures. I was advised by my peers to either make all writing white or make all writing red to ensure there is continuation with the theme of red and black as the main colours. prior to this, my disk tray was of a crystal ball. However, a peer suggested changing this because the crystal ball looked more like tin foil as the entire crystal ball could not be seen. I was also advised by another peer to edit the front panel to make it look bigger as it currently looks like there is a boarder of some sort around my artists' face. I took the advice received on board.

This is another version of my digi pak. Here I have changed the colour of the text to ensure there is a clear colour scheme of red and black. I also changed the positioning of the tracklist on the rear panel. In terms of my front panel I discarded the boarder around my artists' face. A piece of advice was a change I had overlooked. I had changed the label from ConeHead to Republic, but had not changed the copyright notice from ConeHead to Republic.

This is the result of the changes made through the pieces of advice received. I have changed the front panel to make the look more consistent with the rest of the digipak. I smoothed over the edges and included in the red specs seen on the other panels. I also included the red specs on the two panels furthest to the left, to continue with the theme. Looking through the previous versions of my digi-pak I find I have made the appropriate changes to incorporate the themes I wanted.

Magazine Ad/Poster:

This is the Magazine Advert/poster I created originally, it consists of the same picture as the front panel of the digi-pak. The feedback I received was to change the colour to either show white text and white leaves or to have red text and red leaves to continue with consistency with the music video and the digipak. Another piece of advice was to change the release date to a numerical form to ensure someone would catch the release date when walking past.

This is the second draft of my poster. Here I have changed the colour scheme of the poster for it to be black and red in keeping with the digipak and ambiance of the music video. I also changed the date to a numerical form as advised by a peer. For this version, the feedback I received was to smooth over the edges of my artists face as the outer edge is very rough. Also to include some red specs to ensure consistency with the digipak as the front panel is the same as the main image for this poster.

This is the final version of my magazine advert/poster. As you can see I have taken on all feedback received to improve my poster/magazine advert. I used photoshop to smooth over the edges of artists face and I have included the red specs around the leaves in keeping with the theme and layout/look of the digipak. This has been done in keeping with the ambiance of the music video. I feel this version has best layout/design and is in keeping with the other products.

Video

This is a version of my music video. I've had to use the in YouTube editor due to final cut changing the coding during export leaving the image to appear washed out. In terms of improvements, I was advised to add in more quick 1 second shots of the singer and to ensure fewer shots of the pentagram as it was said appear too many times and therefore was not as effective. As well as this I was advised to include more of the lip sync and to also soften the lip sync with the side profile as the edges around my artists face were fairly rough. On the topic of colouring, I was told there is possibly too much colour with the night scenes being blue jumping to orange/red infused ritualistic scenes, the change was a bit too much and didn't quite sit well. 



This is another version where I have made said amendments. In addition I was advised to change the ending with the two lip syncs to a shot of the singer finally making eye contact to ensure full ambiance. I was also advised change the footage with the spiders to something else as they did not properly fit in with the rest of the video. Furthermore, I was told to edit to the beat as some parts are simply a mili-second off beat. However, I did not change the colouring to make the changes smoother as the comment suggested the colours didn't sit well and made it slightly confusing to watch - this is something I was aiming to achieve with this video and therefore I have not changed the colouring!




This is the final copy of my video. As advised to, I have changed the ending to show the final shot being of the artist finally making eye contact with the viewers. In place of the spiders I have included more of a lip sync and more iconography and edited the song more to the beat. This is the feedback I received for this video:

In response to the suggestion for smoother transitions, the reason for rough jump cuts is to make the viewer somewhat uncomfortable about the essence of the video.

Evaluation Question 4

How did you use technologies in the construction, research and planning and evaluative stages? 
*Click images to enlarge*

Final DIGIPAK - improved

Final Music Video

This is my final draft of my music video for 'Seven Devils' by 'Paige Cavern' Originally by Florence + The Machine.

The reason this is a copy is due to the video needing to be enhanced on YouTube due to the colours washing out and becoming much brighter on during the export process on Final Cut. To achieve the colour required, I have increased the saturation by 2 on YouTube.

Magazine Advert - Final!

For this products, I used the same picture as the front cover of the album to show a link between the products. The shadows on my artists' face have been included for two reasons. One being purely because the name of the album is 'Shadows' and another reason is for slight gratification if anyone can spot it - the triangle around my artists' eye.

near final Magazine Advert

PNG

SREENSHOT

WITH SMUDGE

Improved Mag Ad

The feedback I received from my peers and teachers was to change the format of the date stating when the album is to released. From 'OUT 21st MARCH' I have now changed it to '21.03.15'.

Magazine Ad: a version

first mag ad

Digipak!

This is s version of my digipak. I have only used two photos of my artist, this is ensure the colour scheme is obvious. For nearly every panel I used the Smudge tool in Photoshop to create certain effects to make the picture look more misty. 

The shadows on my artists' face have been included for two reasons. One being purely because the name of the album is 'Shadows' and another reason is for slight gratification if anyone can spot it - the triangle around my artists' eye.

Video update: near completion

This is the video near completion. I exported it to show progress and to see the colour, however, final cut has changed the coding during exporting again! The colour still looks washed out and really is not pleasing to watch. Although some of the footage looks somewhat similar to final cut such as the doll near the black pot in pentagram, other clips look completely different, such as the clip with the purple vase and metal skull. Rather than change it all again in Final Cut, I decided to try  to edit the washed out footage on Youtube itslef. This is the result of the in 'YouTube editing'.

  

From simply looking at the thumbnail you can clearly see the difference the in YouTube editing made. To achieve this effect I increased the saturation on the video by 2; and left the contrast and temperature the same.

This screenshot shows the different with Youtube showing the original and the preview of the clip. In terms of this clip, I prefer the preview version. Not only does it look better lit but it also expresses the atmosphere of candles much better than the washed out original. Although with the preview version is does not actually look natural and the colour correcting is obvious. Despite this, it does look better than the original. 

However, with this clip, I prefer the original because the original emphasises the ghost like charm of 'Paige cavern'. The lips in the original also look better as the look darker and more maroon whereas the preview looks more bright. with the preview, 'Paiges' face is also seems a shade darker, which takes away from the ghost like charm. Also, in the preview, her hair is clearly defined, whereas with the original it looks more blurred out and really pushes to show a pale, ghostly face.


Although it works on some clips better than others, the preview version still looks better with the majority of the video so I will be keeping that.



I also experimented with changing the contrast while keeping the saturation.

As you can see, the preview looks more red and it is darker, emitting more of a fiery red look. Although, on paper, it should fit the theme,  I think here it looks too over done, also this level red did not sit well with the rest of the video. Also the black out looks less defined as the rim towards the bottom of the screen is not lit as well as the rim directly opposite.

 This shows the contrast at 0 with a saturation of 2 as you can see, the bottom of the '7' is not clear at all as the light seems to bright.

This shows the video with a contrast on 1 and saturation of 2. The colour looks overly intense here, even though the 7 is more visible I will stick to 0 contrast.

Digipak (colour test - no spines)

These are the panels on my digipak. Although I have not included in the spines, this is because I simply placed the panels together to ensure they looked good together and that the colour scheme was apparent.

Update

Music Video:

for my music video, I was told to spread out the lip synch a little more as it was all clustered towards the beginning. Another piece of feedback was to either take out or do something else with the spiders. This is because it looks slightly random as it comes from nowhere and does not link in with the rest of the video. I was also told to recheck the shots cut to the beat as not all of them were exactly on point.

Digipak:

for the digipak I was advised to change the disk tray. The disk tray was supposed to show a crystal ball, however when in with the disk tray, a peer told me it looked more like tin foil as the entire ball could not be seen.

Mag ad:

for the magazine ad, I was advised to make the picture a little darker as it did't seem to fit in with the rest because of the dark colour scheme.

Feedback From Video

The feedback I received was to add in the quick shots of my actress looking up on a regular basis rather than just 3 times. I was also told the birds eye view shot of the pentagram along with the voodoo doll in the middle of the pentagram was seen too many times. Another piece of advice I received was to include more of the lipsync and to soften the lip sync with the side profile. On the topic of the colouring, it was suggested there is possibly too much colour with the blue for the chasing the scenes and the orange/red for the ritualistic scenes.

General photos

Weird stuff