#evalutation

Although I think our group was successful in creating an Artists book linked to the Talbot Heath Nature Reserve, I think some aspects of this project was unsuccessful.

Even though this project was 4 weeks long, I found trouble communication with my group after the first week, as we had all returned home. This made it hard when experimenting because I was unable to get my groups opinions until a few days later. I also found that our group found it hard to work consistently because of existing plans and being home. This was quite frustrating as our schedules did not line up and meant that the majority of the calls were missing a person, who we then had to catch up later. Although we were successful in adapting to these situations it did get frustrating when trying to discuss ideas and scheduling calls.

Theistic Evolution: A Critical Evaluation

Over the course of exploring Time-based solutions, I have learnt various new techniques, that I can now add to my skills and use as opportunities to develop my skills further. 

At the beginning of this Unit, I was introduced to the different features of time-based solutions and media. For example; the production and use of Stop Motion, GIFs and Cinemagraphs. Once we knew the basic information of each of these time-based solutions, we were left to do our own research on producers of Time-based media, as well as other video and sound artworks. 

I experimented with producing each of these time-based solutions; which are posted below on my blog along with a brief description and evaluation of each one. 

I have compared and contrasted the advantages and disadvantages of each of the time-based solutions, and concluded that the GIF was the most easy to create and produce, whilst the stop-motion was the most satisfying but time consuming, and the cinemagraph was the most technically difficult for me. 

The biggest problem for me with each of these techniques was the processing through the computer software; rather than the actual shooting for each type of video. I found the navigation of the software difficult to adjust to, when I am only really used to producing work more ‘hands on’ with shooting on a digital or film camera; rather than processing through computer software. However, this unit has enabled my to further my skills with combining computer technique with camera shooting. I would definitely consider producing similar work in the future as this has boosted my confidence with using computer software. 

What I enjoyed and went well with this unit for me was being given the ability to combine my ideas and perspectives into a task I was given. For example, for each time-based video we were to produce; we could pick what we wanted to shoot, and, for our final piece; could choose whatever narrative we wanted as well. This added to the challenge, as the narrative had to be fairly obvious to an audience, but also made it more enjoyable for me.

This unit also allowed us as a class to take part in more practical group work; meaning people in different social groups had to cooperate with each other and produce successful work together; by overcoming any disagreements and putting the task first. This also created another challenge for when we had to work independently, meaning we all had to pull our own weight in order to have a successful outcome. 

Before creating our music video I thought that it would be important that we carried out some research into the things which we would need to know in order to be successful with the task. When doing this I knew i would have to look into the Pop Genre in the Music Industry and get some inspiration and see what techniques other producers have used in order to make their video - and what has made it successful. I also studied some Media Theorists such as Andrew Goodwin, Laura Mulvey, Stuart Hall and Richard Dyer in order to understand the importance of the techniques which I may or may not use when creating my music video.

From my research it became clear that there were two main paths of music videos, and the style in which I want to pick would completely depend on what I think best suits the song and what my music video was going to contain. One of the options was a performance music video - which was simply a video in which you would have your protagonist (usually the lead singer) preforming the song, therefore the video would have shots of them singing the song, dancing to the music and overall giving their audience a performance, sometimes like what you would see if you were in their live concert. You often see this in videos for songs in the Rock Genre, for instance artist 'P!NK' with her song 'Leave me alone I'm lonely' to mention one. The other type of video is conceptual - this is when a music video has a narrative, which can be of the following three (illustrative, amplification or disjuncture). Illustrative is when what is happening on screen is being told alongside the lyrics, Amplification is when the video expands on what is being said through the lyrics and Disjuncture is when the lyrics are in no way parallel to what is happening on screen.

In our music video we chose to go down the Conceptual route and we decided we would go with 'Amplification' - we didn't want to tell the story completely how it was being said through the song, but had a reference to it here and there and expanded on it with our own ideas. At one point in the song we had what was being said through the lyrics written on screen in a text in our music video, which made the link and after that we expanded the story to how we wanted it to be - which was a story of a heartbreak. When I was researching into the styles of music video I found that this was a common thing to be done in the pop genre, and we thought that going with a story line of a heartbreak would appeal and be relatable to the majority of our target audience - therefore we are sticking to the conventions of music videos within the genre we are in by having similar story lines to most. We considered having some lip-syncing and performance in our video which we often see in music videos, and we could've done this and mixed it with what we had planned, so have part narrative part performance, like in the music video 'Fancy' by Iggy Azalea - she is singing the song whilst telling the story around her and being the main character in the story which she is telling, but for our ideas it seemed to fit with the song better to have a complete narrative based video which would relate to some of our target audience which we had earlier identified.

The name of our song is 'How to save a life', which could mean anything to our audience, and we therefore have that appeal to the audience as they may want to find out what is going to happen in the video - for instance is the video going to be about someone saving someone's life literally etc. Some videos which are out there already which have been created by big producers have designed their videos in a way in which you want to watch them multiple times or share with friends and keep watching their other videos to get a sense of what is happening. Singer 'Basshunter' is commonly known for linking his music videos together, in one he meets the girl of his dreams, in another she has an accident and in another she is in hospital. This is a really powerful way of drawing in an audience as they may have to watch a video more than once to understand the context, and they are likely to watch the other videos - meaning they will listen to the song and the artist gains views, streams and potential sales too.

Although our song is in the pop genre - where most things are whacky and happy/positive and we see the latest trends in these videos, the song we picked isn't of the same type as others, and instead of being an upbeat and happy pop song its actually a slow and quite sad one, therefore we had to subvert the typical conventions which you might expect to see in pop genre music videos in order for the video to make sense and for it to pair together in a way in which would appeal to our audience and maximize profits. When we began planning our music video it was important to chose locations which would fit into the song and would be interesting for our target audience, we wanted to pick places which were visually nice to look at - for instance Dundry Viewpoint, Chew Valley Lake and Winford Stables, these were all places which had nice scenic views and linked to our song. We filmed on days in which the weather was fairly neutral to fit with the overall mood of our song, this paired with the black and white filter which appeared when the characters were thinking back to the days when they were still in their relationship helped to show the raw heartbreak as it allowed the audience to have a neutral feel too - which would then begin to feel slightly sad and down towards the end of the video when we understand what is really happening in the video.

Choosing weather when it was neither sunny or rainy meant that the audience could perceive our music video in any way they want, and could link it to the emotions that they may have felt when they had their heartbroken, if they have. A neutral mood links to heartbreaks as when you are in the middle of one you can feel neutral - for instance not wanting to sleep, not wanting to go out, not eating as you were before and you become like an empty shell - this is something in which we thought we could expand upon in our music video.

Pop music videos are renown for keeping up with the latest trends, as their target audience are of those who look at celebrities for their inspiration and create the trends themselves, therefore when we had to think of the mis-en-scene, costume and props involved we thought about what would appeal to us if we were watching the music video as we fall into our target audience category. This therefore meant we look at ourselves for inspiration of what the characters should be wearing in the video, and chose things which we see everyday on the street and reflected that into our video to make it more relatable - by doing this we were conforming to the conventions of music videos as this is what the big producers out there would also do in order to appeal to their audience and become relatable.

The story line of our music video is quite sad, and the song is slow in its pace therefore we have designed and edited the video to fit the pace of the song. If we had chosen an upbeat and quick song like we initially wanted to with 'MO - Final Song' then we therefore would've had a fast paced video, with bright colors, a quick moving story and an energetic feel in the video - ours contrasts with this in order to fit in with our story line and video.

Andrew Goodwin was really helpful to me when I was researching and planning my music video, his ideas on conventions helped me identify what I needed to do in order to produce a good music video. Through his theory I learned that not all music videos follow the same conventions - and that the different genres have different conventions in which they will develop or challenge. We followed the conventions of music videos and songs which are similar to ours by having the dark colors throughout and the slow moving pace video and didn't include any performance throughout the video. Andrew Goodwin also talks about the link between the visuals and what we re hearing, and this shows the importance of the editing with small things like cutting the video in time with the beat for example, small things like this make the video feel more professional overall and change the feel of the music video completely.

When creating a Digipak there were many things in which we had to take into consideration in order for it to fit nicely with everything and keep the theme throughout all of my work. By having the main character on the front of my digipak it allows the audience to recognize and identify what the digipak is for and would therefore more than likely attract an audience.

Digipak's normally have the singer/band on the front so that you can directly recognize who's digipak it is for, the bigger artists don't have to have their faces on their digipak because they have an audience who recognise them for other things - for instance Ed Sheeran's covers have all been mathematical things, with his first album being '+' in 2011, his second being 'x' in 2014 and his third being the divide symbol. I created my Digipaks and the Magazine Advert completely inspired by artists which i have seen before and therefore conformed to the conventions by including the same things - for instance; star ratings, where you can by the album, the name of the artist/song and links to the artists pages. I linked all of my things together - the video, the digipak and the digipak advert by including similar pictures and shots in all of them as a synergy technique which would be effective if i was trying to maximize a profit from the song and video. Throughout all of it i kept the fonts and colors all the same in order to make it look professional and create a running theme throughout to link them all together.