Video analysis and final evaluation points

My video aims to entertain an audience much the same as Mindless Self Indulgence's usual crowd - fans of rock, metal and unique music in general. The characteristics of my video involve following the same ideas as MSI, and the loss of mentality theme runs throughout.

The masks on the band members is generic to hardcore rock band Slipknot, and so I used that idea to my advantage to enhance my desired "crazy" effect. The masks were used from Halloween so they could also be deemed scary however whilst not frightening the audience I was hoping for a freaked out reaction which I think was achieved.

Using Emma as a model meant that it was similar to artists such as Avenged Sevenfold and My Chemical Romance in the sense that she was not necessarily "done up pretty" but there was still a female present in the video. The use of different genders attracts different audience members and therefore extends the threshold.

The video promotes the artist successfully with many clips in it of the band. The masks are highly significant to my band's image and represent both the theme and the individuality they stand for. They appear on the CD and in the video. One criticism of my own work would be that I involved Emma too much as opposed to the band. I did not realise the extent to this until I reviewed all of my work as a final piece, however the fact she is a big part of all of the tasks means that there is continuity even if it is not of the band themselves. I have acknowledged this mistake and would know for future reference that the band would need more recognition over the actress in the task as a whole.

Overall the video promotes the artist extremely well with many close ups and mid-shots of them either individually or as a whole. The camera movement is minimal however the editing is sharp and to the beat in the majority of places which separates clips of the band and Emma, as well as splitting sections of the song. For example between the final two choruses is the middle eight in which I used many short clips of trees and Emma. The fast cuts that got quicker with the pace of the music fitted with the change of tempo and the change of voice on the track itself as the lyrics and tone altered. Certain clips of the band are longer than others, but this is because no editing was necessary as the whole clip fitted with the section of track. Also, clips of Emma saying the lyrics can be reasonably lengthy however this is only because the lyrics could not be split or else the effect would be lost so I am satisfied with that.

I feel the task as a whole fits together successfully, and that the ancillary tasks are well suited to the main task in the way they were designed and the images used. From both feedback and personal view I think that there are examples of continuity and that the theme shows through all aspects of the task.

Use of new media technologies

My two main achievements throughout the project (excluding the fact I actually managed to complete it on my own rather than a group which made me very proud!) were my use of iMovie on the Macs, and Macromedia Fireworks.



In the process of using iMovie for the first time, I learnt how to (amongst other things):

• Cut




• Add visual effects




• Overlap sound with visual




• Remove sound from clips




• Add transitions




• Add text to a slide




• Speed up and slow down clips



• Edit in general!

I needed Fireworks to edit my images taken, particularly of Emma. I learnt how to use curves to change the contrast of my pictures, as well as altering the saturation (on the advert picture).

I used a professional camera when shooting from the school's photography department, as well as the camcorder to shoot the video itself.

Examples of two images that I changed using Macromedia Fireworks are:

ORIGINALS ------------------- EDITS

Another form of technology used in all stages has been this blog. Processing everything digitally has meant that accessing and editing posts has been a lot easier, and all of my work has been laid out far clearer than if it was hand written. It is also more organised doing my evaluation on here than on a power point or podcast, and I feel I can give more detail on here.

Questionnaire

The questionnaire showed me that media students spot potential improvements and slip ups easier than those who have not studied the subject before. 4 out of the 23 given a questionnaire were currently or had been media students in the past, and said that the editing added to the theme of craziness, but that using Emma as the main focus rather than the band detracted from them being the main point and that using her as the poster image gave her more importance than them.

Nevertheless 18 responses came back as saying the video maintained their attention and that the colour scheme both caught the eye and continued throughout the tasks. This is boosting in the sense that it means my product displays continuity to both myself and a potential audience, hence it could survive as a legitimate product on sale and being advertised.

Other comments at the end of the questionnaire stated how the video's effects (particularly at the beginning with the black and white and towards the end with the trees) contributed to the desired theme as did the images that were used of Emma and the band. Furthermore the use of masks came back mainly as adding to the effect of the video which has pleased me as all of the research I had done showed me that this was very rare to have been done previously if at all in A Level videos. Evidently the method is most well known for being used by rock band Slipknot, and I felt that using the masks would contribute to my original idea greatly - I think that idea has paid off.

Evaluation 1

My original idea of studying a Mindless Self Indulgence song came from the basis that their music is renowned for its crazy effects, abnormal story lines in the videos, and for the pace of the songs themselves. Particularly for the last point, this made choosing one of their tracks simple because I feel that "Shut Me Up" had a strong enough beat to edit to, as well as allowing me to have band performance whilst involving an iconic female figure in the video too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxCPCteWZqw

My first ancillary uses the basic conventions of an advert for pop/rock/metal music song including block bold colours (majority bright on black or white on black), a major stand out picture, and headings that catch the eye. My picture could be classed as controversial however as there is a knife in the image; pictures such as these have caused controversy for celebrities in the past, but I felt that as the theme of the entire project was aimed at loss of mentality and general craziness that the image was appropriate.

The second ancillary used similar conventions with bold colours, eye catching images and Emma as a model for certain photos. The colour scheme remained near enough the same as my first ancillary and I also included a poster of the band members. I followed typical conventions involving one panel of the insert being a lyrics section, and a track list being on the back cover. I also followed the typical rock conventions in that many rock bands do not necessarily use the band as a cover image, particularly evident on the covers of Mindless Self Indulgence's own albums where they appear to characterize and use graphics more than actually photographic images to portray their album title and genre.

Mindless Self Indulgence own album covers - Evidence of preference to graphics as opposed to display of band.

The video itself follows many typical conventions involving cut editing and camera shots as i said previously, the beat of the song meant I was able to cut various effects (such as the black and white visual at the beginning) to the music itself. This effect is not necessarily conventional, nevertheless I felt it fitted well with the style of both the song itself and the way in which the rest of the video was edited. The breakdown towards the end of the track allowed me to experiment with short clips of both the female icon and shots of the woods in which the video was filmed, and whilst this may fit with the bands typical look of craziness and strange effects, elsewhere in the music industry this would not be typically used.

Evaluation 2 - Representation and continuity

The main product vastly connects to the ancillary tasks through Emma (the model/actress in both the ancillaries and the video). The majority of videos, particularly rock videos use a female to attract a wider audience, and as a result I chose to both challenge but also represent this convention at the same time. Typical representation would be a model-esque woman: perfect body, perfect hair and make up, perfect appearance overall. Using a female main character in the video meant conforming to the normal trend, however my choice to not put lots of make up on her and make her look flawless contributed to the main crazy theme continued throughout.

As I got further into the filming of the video I used a lot of shots of the band when I edited as they were to be the main focus. It then occurred that my ancillary tasks however may not have reflected that... It has become apparent that I should have focused more on involving images of the band as opposed to Emma. Yet once I pieced everything together I felt that the images I had taken and then photo shopped of her (particularly on the front of the cover and the advert) were better suited and I would have rushed any further pictures of the band making the project look untidy. Consequently I have opted to keep the images the same, keeping Emma depicting insanity rather than using the masked band as the focal point.

Final copy - Ancillary 2

Back cover final.

Poster insert final.

Lyrics insert final.

Front cover final.

Planning - Ancillary 2

This was the original idea for an insert with multiple images of the band and of the model, but this changed to a poster when I did my final copy.

This is the plan for the lyrics insert for the song in the video.

Back cover plan, left side having a picture of the band and the right side with the track list. Changed my final task from picture of band to picture of model.

Final plan for front cover. Picture remained the same, other graphics and effects changed by final piece.