Liam Monks

Evaluation: http://liammonksmedia.tumblr.com/tagged/a2evaluation

Production: http://liammonksmedia.tumblr.com/tagged/a2production

Planning: http://liammonksmedia.tumblr.com/tagged/a2planning

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Overall it appeared that our technical skills when it came to software and editing were fine. Most people when asked had no idea the final scene had cgi until we told them. However, the green screen seems to be where we fell off as most people believed it to appear tacky and unnecessary. I think our biggest issue therefore is planning, if we had a good plan we likely could have made better use of the green screen as it may have fitted in slightly better. Other than issues with the green screen, software skills were highly praised.

The biggest issue people had with our video was that lighting. Some scenes half way through the film are extremely over exposed. This was simply an error with our filming abilities. We should have performed more practice shots and done much more research into how to work the camera in order to make the colours look perfect. Other than the colours, people had not criticism on our shots as they believed they were positioned well and the camera movement was reasonable.

Another problem people has was the length of some shots. Although this could have been an editing issue, i believe it came down to a lack of planning as we struggled to fill the time with enough footage. Better planning would have prepared for filling time and long shots of the main actor walking down a road would not have been necessary. This was likely an issue with our animatic as if this were more accurate we likely would not have had the problem of overly long scenes.

As our music video was an illustration, we had to create part of a story as the main source of entertainment. People thought that the ending of the story wasn't as good as it could have been which of course is a very important part of any film. We again should have planned for this ahead maybe using a survey to gather some ideas from viewers about what kind of climax a music video should come to.

Digipak

I designed a 6 panel digipak as a luxury promotion for the album. I split the 6 panels into 2 sets of 3 horizontal panels, the inside and outside. I then used each set of 3 panels and treated it as one to give a wide 3:1 aspect ratio for images over the 1:1 ratio that a panel on its own would provide. This was necessary to fit the art that I wanted onto the digipak. Next i decided upon the shots that I would later screenshot to be used as background art for each panel, this was important to keep the digipak relevant to the video. It was also necessary that these shots were taken from a long pan in order to make use of all 3 panels. This is because I would later be taking multiple screenshots throughout the pan, stitching each image together to provide a panorama shot. Only 2 of our shots really worked well with this idea so picking them out was easy, it was also helpful that the opening shot of the video was usable here as I believe this to be the shot that will be most remembered about the video and also looks the best. One of the panoramas featured a moving target, hear I kept the target in each shot and placed him once in each panel, I believes it correlates well to our main product as the video makes jump cuts across the pan, represented by the images that jump from panel to panel. Other than background art, it was important I chose the right font to represent our video. There was not any text used throughout the video so it was just a case of thinking what fits. First thoughts were to keep it modern as was our video, next we tried thinking of what our song made people feel, I believe the song felt powerful and therefore a strong powerful font was necessary. Something similar to a bold impact font would do the job although we were looking for something more unique, eventually we decided upon Sorren Black. Next we required a record label to be advertised on the digipak. As we had not yet discussed a record label we could choose one based on the design of their logo. After reviewing the look of many record labels, Island Records clearly stood out as something more modern that best fitted our main project. The font was similar enough to ours for it to fit in well so we decided to stretch the name of the label across the back of the digipak. As well as this, we placed a smaller logo of the same company on the bottom of the spine as something to see if the digipak were stored sideways. We also placed the name of the artist and album down the same spine in order for the digipak to be recognised when stored in such a way.

Magazine Advert

Props:

Props 1, 2 and 3 are all items of clothing used to represent our character. They provide a ‘streetwear’ style whilst the ripped jeans add a slightly scruffier look.

Locations:

1. A sunset over the fields behind Zack’s house, the shot looks appealing and will make for a good opener.

2. The lanes on a gloomier day, this better fits the theme of our song. Zack will be seen walking up these lanes into the distance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX3k_QDnzHE

Camera

The first scene begins with a close up tilting shot that defines the main actor who is a child wearing dull brown chinos and faded blue top, blending in the the run-down setting.

A panning shot then tracks the actor whilst also establishing the facility. Despite there being kids in the foreground of this shot they have very little movement to them, turning most of the viewers attention towards the child being tracked. This makes the story hard to figure out initially as it is easy to miss the foreground children performing ‘magic’. Eventually the camera provides a close-up on one of the children using telekinesis to solve a Rubik cube as it floats into the air, the camera tracks these floating objects. A quick pan over the top of a child, a zoom in on another child's face and finally an inverse orbit to reveal one more child is used to get across that mostly children are being kept in the building. These shots are then repeated again except this time the children’s eyes begin to glow and objects are taken control of to demonstrate their powers. An orbit of the main child in bed and a quick close up on his eyes opening reveal that he has just awoken. The camera then switched to an over the should shot focused on a door as it slowly zooms out to fully reveal the child. The camera flips 180 degrees to show the child’s eyes glowing yet again as the door is blown off its hinges. As the children run from the building, pans, orbits and tracks create a montage. Despite the fast beat of the song, camera movements during this montage feel more fitting with the smooth vocals as the video is extremely slow through both camera and editing.

Editing

Despite the fast beat of the song, the editing seems to follow the slower vocals instead. To go along with this, the editing is sure to rarely hit cuts on a beat, further distancing itself from the fast paced parts of the song. I believe this is due to how the music video is disjunct from the lyrics or meaning of the song. A slow fade to black is used at 40 seconds, further slowing the pace of the video whilst also giving the impression of time passing which is important for illustration purposes. The most important editing of this video is the special effects. Glowing eyes, floating objects and the sun being moved across the sky make the music video interesting whilst telling a story.

Mise-en-scene

Midnight City begins in a suburban area where the children escape from a run down, dusty, industrial building. The building contains technology from multiple eras with CRT TV’s alongside modern laptops, the floor is covered in thick cables providing a mild retro-futurism theme. The air appears musky as dust can be seen floating and sun rays cast across the room, telling us this is a place you would not want to be. As the children escape the building the air clears and we begin to see a large contrast with multiple nature shots and a lot more natural lighting. Suddenly the children seem a lot more free as they begin to explore suburban sites.

Digipaks are physical albums that commonly include 2 discs. They are considered exclusive items dedicated towards the bigger fans of the artist/band and are collected by some. As well as the 2 discs, digipaks are purchased for the art included on each side, overall there are 6 images (one per panel) although it seems common for 3 panels on each side to feature 1 stretched image.

Rihanna has a 6 panel digipak for her album ‘LOUD’. The digipak comes in a clear sleeve with the artists name and album title written on it. On the pack itself we see a close up on Rihanna’s face and inside she is spread out across 3 panels demonstrating voyeurism. There is a clear colour theme of a deep red such as her hair and roses and lighter colours such as skin and her white dress although a filter makes this appear more of a peach colour. The green of the bush behind her is darkened in order to not disturb this colour mix.

Concept videos don’t necessarily follow the lyrics to a song. They take one or more ideas such as an editing technique and have some fun creating their video to make it look interesting whilst ignoring the song (other than following rhythm and cuts on beats). Chris Cunningham directed Björk - All is Full of Love, this song genre is considered ‘concept’ as it hadn't been done before so Cunningham decided to create something special for the music video also. He made great use of CGI to demonstrate Björk’s love song by amplifying the meaning of the song using robots falling in love. The concept of this video was CGI robots and Cunningham produces it perfectly. Despite the video being disjunctured from Björk’s lyrics by using meaningless robots, Cunningham is able to amplify the meaning of love at the same time.

Performance videos like to show off the artist/band. Generally clips will be taken from a live show or concert that the band has been running and is then edited together to produce the music video, this is due to the high energy and adrenaline people feel when watching such a large performance. Green Day make use of this for American Idiot, however they stage their own performance in order to produce their video. The whole band stands in front of a green ‘bleeding’ american flag which relates to the lyrics, the rest of the song however consists of the band members signing and playing instruments relevant to the song.