Video and evaluation.

Audience feedback: We uploaded our music video onto Youtube and put a link onto Facebook. Here are two screen shots from the page of comments people have made:









The Facebook comments are all praise which is really good but I felt that it was not in depth enough and didn't give anything constructive, so I have filmed a friend's reaction to the video. She fits in the audience criteria and already listens to Florence and the Machine's music. It was improvised and her words are her own I just asked her to comment on specific things before I filmed her. From this feedback I learned how important the use of different camera angles are. Also the way they fit with the music and and lyrics. On hearing this I felt that we could have perhaps done even more unusual low/high angle or short, quick shots. But the ones we did do work really well. Location also appears to play a great part in how the video comes together, as Ellen says she thinks it was good you could see the sea in the background as "the theme of the music video is swimming so it's very relevant". This simple and obvious location turned out to be quite effective to our audience. She said that the lip syncing wasn't always in time with the music, I agree. If I could do this again I would have less parts of her mouthing the words because in editing this was the most time consuming thing. Instead or next time I would like to spend more time on putting in special effects such as brightening certain parts or putting in blurs.

I think that our video/media product follows the conventions of real media products today. Although I can't think of any music videos which has a storyline that feature the transition from the woods to the sea, it does follow a basic storyline that relates to the lyrics and music. Many music videos do this, having a beginning, middle and an end, if it was performed directed and edited by professionals our storyline would not look out of place today. Although it is a very different song with a very different audience this music video by Mariah Carey has a storyline to it too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b8erWuBA44 this has had 36,610,483 hits on youtube alone so it is very popular. The ending of our music video is quite a cliche: that she wakes up and it's all a dream, but because it is ambiguous, it is not very clear it is a dream, it works with the genre. Something that challenges the usual conventions of this media product is that we filmed in quite natural, alternative locations where anyone could go, I think that our target audience would be able to relate to this. The fact we used longer shots, for example when she walks along the path towards the sea, is quite unusual for a music video. Similarly in Feist's music video, which I analysed, it is all filmed in one shot. Because our target audience is not seen as mainstream, this unconventional way of filming could interest them. As we used only one person in our video it is quite different from most mainstream videos today. I like just having the one person as all the attention is focused on her as she is the singer.

I think that the combination of all my media products together works well, there is a theme throughout. For example the book appears in all three products; at the beginning and the end of the video, on my advert and on the back and middle panel of my digipack. My intentions were to use the same person in all three but because the first girl dropped out and I had already done my front panel of the digipack, a different person is used. Considering this I think that it does tie in well as no one who I have showed has noticed she is different as they look similar. I have tried to include photos which relate to the video within my digipack and advert so that the audience will make a link between all three and recognise the band just from the photos. I perhaps could have had one more beach themed photo in my digipack though as the majority are set in the woods. I wanted some photos I took to look like stills of the video so in between filming certain parts I took a photo of our actress so our audience will see the video and relate it to the advert or digipack they have already seen.

One of the main media technologies we used for the construction of our video was final cut pro which enables you to cut and edit your footage in many different ways on the mac laptops at college during the editing process. We firstly (after capturing back the footage onto the laptop) got each of our shots into the right place on the time-line by cutting and dragging each shot. I think that this was probably the hardest part as we had to get each cut on the right beat to the music. But getting the lip syncing in time of the music was quite time consuming. I felt that I may have done most of this part especially towards the end, but we both played a big part in editing over all. To make each transition of cuts flow from one to the other we added fades. We mainly used fades to black as this seemed most effective. But at 1.35 minutes the background is very bright so we felt it necessary to put in a fade to white, I think that this also gave it a dream like effect which tied into our storyline. At the beginning I thought up the idea of having the faster shots, I think that it works really well as a way to set the scene as short establishing shots but in a secretive way as they are all extreme close-ups. The fast shots at the end which are two shots per second and last for nine seconds are very important to the look and the storyline of the whole video as the suggest that it was a dream or a story. To achieve this we cut one shot that would go with the music and then each shot after it ( going backwards in the storyline) we put on top of the first so it was in line and cut it to the same length. This was an effective and fast way of cutting our shots, instead of just working out the correct timings for each. There is a very high angle shot at the end so that we can see our actresse's facial expression when she wakes up we did this by bringing the tripod over her body so it could look strait down on her. The other high angle shot we used was towards the beginning of the video as a medium close-up but it was only slightly looking down on her.

Both Courtney and I shared the roles of directing and camera work but I did more camera work and Courtney did mor directing. I was filming for all of the shots we used during the beach scene but I found this quite hard as it was very windy and at points i could feel the camera wavering slightly.

Techniques: I have learned a number of different techniques during the filming process of this task. We have all learned to use the cameras and some of the settings on them in lesson we were taught how to make a narrow depth of field, this is when there is the main subject is in focus but the background is not. For example I used a narrow depth of field for my front panel of the digipack. To achieve the narrow depth of field you must set the manual settings on the camera. The shutter speed should be 1 over 50, the aperture set to 1.8 or to make the shot darker you can lower the aperture. Then to set up the shot a clapper board is ofter helpful to use if you want to know what number shot it is. We felt that we did not need to use one as we knew instantly which shot was which just from going back to look at the storyboards. I used a tripod as the camera needs to be still so that it doesn't move and adjust slightly. I filmed with depth of field successfully when filming our music video, for example 45 seconds into it there is a close up of her face which is in focus but the leaves behind her are slightly blurred and out of focus. This puts all the attention onto our singer to make a more interesting and dramatic effect.

I used different media technologies for aspects of the research and planning too such as; various websites featuring demographic tables and genre information (e.g. Wikipedia, IPCmedia.com and Florence and the machine's own band website), Youtube to watch other singer's music video's to gain knowledge of the conventions for our chosen genre and for ideas and research for our own video, Google images for pictures of locations and mise-en-scene, powerpoint to put our plans into process, my own drawings and scanner for mind maps, story boards and flat-plans, cameras to take our own photographs of the process and settings, the use of an animatic as a digital storyboard.

I have gained many skills during this task as stated above; using the camera and Final cut pro alongside various other media technologies. But I have also gained experience to working in a group and communicating which I have found very valuable as I did find it hard. There were some set backs such as the weather and one group member dropping out. But I feel we have both coped well under the circumstances.

Of course we filmed far more footage than we actually used so here is one outtake that we did not use: at the beginning of this clip it shows the end of another clip, but we cut this last of the clip out but used the rest. This is because we film more each time than we needed just in case we need a bit extra at the front or back to go in time. So that there are no gaps when we edit. Then the next clip we did not use as she looks quite awkward in the shot.