Directors Commentary

This is our Directors Commentary, we spoke about the shots and scenes that we have used in the video, we explained why we thought each shot was effective and the reasons behind each scene and location.

CD - Digipak

Our digipak design was inspired by the music video we had originally created. We chose the colour pink which was used throughout the digi pack design as it symbolises the artists name. We also tried to keep an urban style for the front cover especially as it is a picture of the performer sat on railings in front of a brick wall. This is also seen in aspects of our music video, For example the performance scenes where there is graffiti in the back ground.
We also wanted the digi pack to look eye catching and appealing, as in the real world it would be used to draw in customers which would then be the ones to actually buy the CD. We tried to be much more creative at the back and link the song in with the cover. We did this by using a glass of water with a dissolving “pill” in it. We used photo shop to make the pill look pink, with a broken heart in the middle of it which also relates to the song and music video which has a narrative about a breakup.
The back cover has bar code art the bottom which also makes the digipak look realistic. It also contains music labels which would be used on the real "Pink" CD cover, which also makes it look like a real CD cover.
For the insides of the cover we added lyrics from the song, which is very simplistic but we didn’t want the inside to look to busy. We added a picture of the performer with the same costume on as the front cover so it would flow nicely from the outside to the inside. The same kinds of dark and florescent pink colours were used throughout, along with black and white as our main theme colours again to help the digi pack flow.

Front Cover

Inside Left

Inside Right

Back Cover

Advert

We designed an advert for the song by Pink – Just like a Pill, we wanted to create a eye catching colourful and fun advert. We linked in the colour pink to symbolise the artist as well having pictures of pills in the back ground to link in the song. We added in a star rating by NME a popular music magazine to make the advert seem more realistic as this is a property of many music adverts. We added logos of places where the song can be downloaded or bought. We also made up a official pink website where the song can be downloaded. For the writting we used a big bold font which is clear and readable as well as attractive combined with bright florescent colours for a more fun look. We feel all these factors combined helped to create a advert that is similar to real music adverts as it possesses many of the same properties.

Here is a final draft of our advert, the size needs changing as it should be an A4 size and this is not an A4.

Alternative Scenes

Whilst filming there were a few scenes we couldnt use as they were slight errors which didnt look professional or that we didnt feel were effective as others. We also had other ideas for some scenes, here is a short film which shows which scenes we either didnt use or were changed slightly for the music video.




Green Screen Shots : As you can see from the short film, there were many different backgrounds that we were going to use for the green screen performance shots. We wanted to find a picture that looked realistic but that was also eye catching. Whist out filming we couldn’t find any locations which we could have taken a picture of or filmed to then add to the green screen. Therefore we searched the internet and found the pink graffiti eye which is what we used. There we many other suggestions for the back ground such as, Pills which would have related to the song, skyline views which would have matched the scenes which where the performer is singing in the rain but we couldn’t find one that looked realistic as they were still images or just didn’t look right as the background. We didn't use some of the footage filmed in front of a green screen as we felt it didn’t look right. Some looked slightly silly and were not appropriate for the song. Our initial idea behind the running in front of the green screen was to put a back ground, either still or moving to look as if the performer was running from one scene to another either front left to right across the scene or towards the camera with a moving image behind. However we didn’t particularly like these scenes and decided not to use them in our video.

The scene outside on the roof with the performer looking back was meant to be part of a eye line match scene in the music video. However, due to the heavy rain and wind the camera lens had rain droplets on it, causing the footage to look smudged and blurry. We were disappointed as we lost a fair amount of footage die to the same problems which were noticed when we uploaded the footage onto the computer. We did manage to use some of the footage where the water on the lens wasn’t as noticeable.

We had an idea of filming the mobile phone with a line of the lyrics “Cant stay on your life support.” Witten on it like a text but realized until we uploaded the footage, that unfortunately you could see the reflection of the camera on the mobile phone. This was quite noticeable and wouldn’t have been professional if we had used it. We were quite disappointed with this as we thought it was a clever idea, which could have been placed near the conversation of the performer singing down the phone.

What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Overall Impression

When we asked a group of to watch our video and give us any feedback, the over all response was relatively positive and everyone liked the music video to some degree. There were many mixed reviews on particular areas of the music video from both groups interviewed.

Below, we have some filmed responses from people representing our target audience. They were asked what they liked and disliked about the music video and this is what we found.

Positive Points

There were comments on the green screen shots with the graffiti wall background which were very positive. They were particular comments on it looked quite realistic and the fact that it stands out was liked by our target audience.

Our target audience also liked the narrative behind the music video and felt it was appropriate for the song lyrics. We are please with this comment as when planning the music video we decided to have an amplification narrative which we now feel has worked well judging from the feedback received.

One comment in particular was on the effects used throughout the music video. We used very simplistic effects which weren’t too outlandish, for example the slight orange on the flash back scenes to separate them from the present were effective. Also one audience member particularly liked the shot with the male performer. We changed the brightness and contrast on the shot so only his face was visible and he was fading into the clouds. This would support our assumption that more subtle effects were more effective and our audience seemed to respond well to this.

We received feedback on the music video looking like a video they would assume the artist “Pink” would have for one of her songs. We are very pleased to hear such positive feedback as we wanted the video to reflect styles of the artist and fit in with the song.

Areas of improvement

There was one comment on the two shots in the music video which an audience member felt was to full on. They commented on it being rather confusing especially in the argument scene. We tried to eliminate any confusion whilst filming the music video as we wanted the audience to establish that the video was about a break up and the extra male performer was the “ex- boyfriend”, perhaps we should have made this more obvious from the start by maybe introducing the character in a simpler way. It was also made more confusing as there was a two shot with a lot of fast movement in short a scene which may have made it hard to see what was going on. We could have done this scene differently by filming the arguments from point of view shots with only one performer in the shot at any one time.

There was also a comment on their being too many running scenes. This may have made the music video seem very repetitive. This may have made the music video seem slightly boring in certain parts of it, which was definitely not the desired effect we wanted the music video to have on the audience. We could improve this area by adding in new and different shots in more locations which could have made the video seem more interesting, or expanded on the narrative.

One audience member advised us to cut more specifically on the beat of the music we could have done this by maybe making sure to cut only on prominent drum beats. This could ensure a smoother cutting between shots as well as making it seem more dramatic and interesting for the viewers, as one audience member felt there were a few slightly irregular cuts between some shots.

Analysis of technical areas

Camerawork

Feedback on the different camera angles especially on the close – up shots of the feet running down the stairs scene were noted as positives by the audience. They feel the mixture of shots such as close ups, mid - shots and long – shots as well as high angle shots all worked well together.

We tried to work in a variety of different shots and are happy to see that this was noticed by the audience.

Mise en scene

There were comments made on the continuity within the music video being rather good as the performer wore different costumes in each different locations. We tried to keep a casual yet rock chick look; keeping costumes generally black for example black skinny jeans which are associated with the “rock” style of clothing.

There were comments on the scene where the performer is singing down the mobile phone. One performer picked up on the narrative story line and linked the phone call being to the male performer within the music video.

Editing

The audience gave positive feedback on other aspects of the music video like the “P!nk” title. They commented on it being a property of a real music video, which in essence was what we were trying to achieve and also felt it was quite effective.

One aspect of the video we initially struggled with whilst editing our music video was the lip syncing. This came through the audience feedback as there were many different opinions from the audience as some felt the lip sinc was rather acculturate, however as you can see from the videoed interviews one person felt the lip sinc was a little off. We tried to get the lip sinc as accurate as possible however we think the problem occurred during filming some scenes where the performer was a little slow whilst singing particular parts of the song.

There were particular comments on the smooth cutting of the music video. Whilst editing we tried to make the music video have relatively fast cutting especially when the song speeded up during the chorus. We did this by using short scenes and used lots of them in a short period of time in the music video. We are happy that this looked smooth to our audience as we used effects before and after some scenes to give it a smooth finish.

How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

We were able to use the internet effectively in the research of our video. It enabled us to research similar genre of videos and the video by Pink for our chosen song. We looked at in particular the song by Tine Tempah and Eric Turner – Written in the stars.

We were able to research the types of shots that are regularly used in music videos especially those in pop / rock music videos which is the genre of our chosen song and see why they were affective in attracting their target audience. We were able to use our research to produce a unique video that was different to the original yet still reflects the song lyrics and the artists unique style.

We were able to research possible locations via the internet using the Google map. We used it to plan where we were going to shoot it and enabled us to plan in advance which camera shots we were going to use and what scenes we were going to film. As initially did all the planning for the first song choice Professor Green – Just be good to green we ere fortunate to find that we were still able to use some of the same locations for the new song choice Pink – Just like a pill. Planning ahead was also beneficial as it kept u from falling behind even further when we changed the song choice shortly after filming for the first song.

To make the video look similar to real music video’s we used various editing tools on Final Cut Pro, such as transitions to make the video look more interesting and flow continuously through so there weren’t any obvious gaps. We filmed in the media editing suite where were able to switch from three different cameras to get different shots from different angles. We filmed this in front of a green screen where we added pictures of graffiti art in the background which we also got from the internet to create a unique image. The green screen’s we used enabled us to create different scenes such as the performance elements within the music video, these we very eye catching and attractive grabbing the audiences attention with the bright vibrant colours which contrasted nicely with the more subtle argument scenes between the two performers.

We were able to use the editing software Final Cut Pro to get screen grabs of our music video. This allowed us to give a visual example which helped to emphasize and explain points made during the evaluation stage. The screen grabs enabled us to refer back to specific parts of the video and expand fully on what we were trying to do and the effect we wanted. They also let us show why we used specific shots and why they were effective in our video. Reviews which we got our audience feed back from. We also used Final Cut Pro to make a short video of some of the interviews we had taken from our target audience. This was very helpful as it allowed us to look back over and evaluate the audiences feed back on our video. Which lead us to expanding on what we could have done to improve our music video, reflect on mistakes made during filming and editing as well as review positive comments which came up during the interview stage.

We did a director’s commentary over our music video by recording the groups thoughts, ideas and opinions on the finished music video, by speaking over the music video and deleting the music on it to show what the group as a whole thought of our video and why we chose to create it the way we did.

Overall we tried to use the wide range of technology available to our advantage as we were able to use it to plan, research, create, edit and give demonstrations of how we made the music video which was extremely helpful.

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

I believe that our video is similar to those video’s produced by the music artists. The shots we have used, I believe, show the quality of shots that are used in real music videos. The shots we have chosen show the emotions the performer is experiencing and gives the audience an idea of the history between the two performers. I think our music video conveys a story which can be seen in many music videos that are created by many artists such as in the video "Pink - Please don`t leave me" there is also a second male performer and they are shown arguing / fighting similar to our music video, however ours is a much more conventional, stereotypical style of a couple breaking up. I believe this gives our music video a sense of reality.

We were also inspired by the songs " wriiten in the stars by Tinie Tempah & Eric Turner. There is a particular performance on the roof of a building with the skyline visible at the top. This is reflected in our music video as our music videos main location is on a roof where in many shots the skyline is visible. Looking back at the video, we also noticed that in both music videos the performer is playing on the piano, which is our opening scene. This was purely coincidence, but shows us that aspects of our video reflect those of real, professional music videos.

The green screen shots we have used can be seen in a variety of music videos with similar and different genre’s to our music video. As we have used the green screen shots for performance scene’s it enabled us to create a background that didn’t have anything to do with the story that unfolds throughout the video but also doesn’t make it look like it doesn’t fit. We used two different background’s; one for each outfit our performer wears. This gave the video a sense of continuity as there aren’t different background’s for every green screen we used, but also a break from the story and gives it a sense of a real video as many have performance scene’s within them. I believe the backgrounds we have chosen to use fit within the genre of song we have chosen as; the two pictures we have chosen are graffiti and one of them contains the colour pink. The background containing the colour pink also fits in with our idea of a CD cover.

I believe the transition’s we have used throughout the video also reflect those that are used in real music videos. The transitions we have used enabled the video to flow continuously and like a real video it makes it more interesting for the audience to watch. At the beginning and end of the music video we have added text boxes which inform the audience the title of the song and the artist. We believe, that this gives our video a sense of a real video produced by professionals.