Thursday, 12 April 2012
12th April 2012 - YouTube Monetization Offer
Within 2 weeks of uploading the music video we had over 1000 views. YouTube took notice to that and sent this email:
This email said that our music video had become popular in a short time. They offered to place adverts within and around the video. In effect for each viewing of the advert, we would be eligible to receive some money. This email and the update of statistics show that our video became quite popular within a short period of time. It also proved our music video to be profitable.
Thursday, 5 April 2012
Ancillary Products - Album Work - Final
Below are pictures of the album work in an actual CD jewel case:
5th April 2012 - End of Evaluation and Project
Now I finished all stages of the coursework. After all the ups and downs that I have endured alone and with my group I have realised the many skills and tools that are needed to produce album work and music video for an artist. In addition I have also learned the way the audience and media industry works. These ancillary texts and music video together have proved to be methods of promotion of an artist's work and how important these media texts have to be in order for an artist to become successful.
Q4 - Using New Media Technologies
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Q3 - Learning from Audience Feedback
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I conducted a one-on-one interview with a friend of mines. I had given him the ancillary products beforehand for him to have a look at. After observing the work we had created, he then expressed his views using an instant messaging service known as Windows Live Messenger.Audience Feedback Survey
The template survey shown above is what I used at a viewing of our video. We collected a group of people to come and see the music video. After the viewing had finished, I handed them this survey. The results of this survey is shown in the slideshow below.
I used a feature that was available on YouTube known as Analytics. This feature allows the owner to view statistics about a particular video or even their own page (channel). I learned that the music video was quick in picking up views in such a short space of time (4 days). Although most of the views were from the UK, the video had reached a global audience. This indicates that YouTube is similar to social networking sites as news can travel across the world in a very short period of time (in our case, 4 days).
The music video’s demographic shows that almost two thirds of the viewers were females whereas the last third of the viewers were males. We anticipated that the video would receive views from both genders but did not foresee that the majority of them would be females (our target audience includes both males and females members) It seems to be that the music video had attracted the attention of the young audience as most the viewers were between the ages 13 and 24. The age range of our selected target audience (16-25) almost fits the statistics. The video has targeted the young audience, as intended.
Although most of the views took place on the YouTube page, we were quite surprised at the number of views the music video had using mobile phones. With the availability of smart phones, people have the ability to do many things on the move, including the viewing of YouTube videos. A handful of the views came from mobile applications. With stores like the Apple Store, Blackberry App World and the Google Play Store, there are a wide variety of apps available that allow users to view YouTube videos. In addition, it seems to be that social networking has also played a big role in the distributing of our music video. Both Facebook and Twitter have contributed to the views of the music video. It seems to be that social networking sites, along with YouTube, have a big part to play in the distribution and promotion of any music video.
From the comments we can tell that the YouTube audience were impressed with the video (the use of camera angles seemed to be the main praise). Another comment that I found intriguing was when one of the viewers expected a parody to be made. Parodies are usually made by taking pre-existing, famous successful videos (Weird Al Yankovic’s ‘Fat’ is a parody of Michael Jackson’s music video ‘Bad’). This comment is very interesting.
Using the survey template shown above, I collected all the results after the viewing. The sample consisted of an equal mix of males and females at ages 17 and 18 years old (our own age). I thought it would be interesting to see what the audience, of such a narrow age range, thought of the music video. Almost all the sample members felt that the completely and successfully met the brief and that the music video had a plenty of creativity and imagination. They felt that technical skills were well employed and that conventions were used. However the average ratings for the degree of finish did drop slightly. I feel that it may have been because of the lighting issue that we had during the burning letter scene.
The audio vox pox has informed me that the audience like imaginative editing and dramatic scenes as well as the music video being shot at several, different locations. The range of camera shots and the acting were also praised. The audience had issues with the lighting of the burning letter scene (as mentioned before). The close up of the phone have been identified as being ‘too long’, although our intention was to get product placement across (the use of the HTC Desire S smartphone). The audience also felt that the narrative is too complex. This could indicate the audience do not like using their mind a lot to understand the plot and would rather prefer simple, straight-forward narratives. We felt that it would be interesting to have the audience have a bigger role than usual – giving them the chance to think for themselves. One person also commented on having some element of performance, although we did have break dancers in one of the scenes and the stop motion part of the video was choreographed by me and my group.
The audience felt that overall the CD album work looked appealing and professional. They found that inlays were made well, especially the quote. One person saw social networking as a promotional tool. However the audience found that using the same font throughout the work was a little ‘boring’. We did intend to maintain consistency with the font. They also felt that the background clashed with the typography, making it a little hard to read. One person felt that along with social networking links, there should have been a link to identify the existence of a YouTube channel.
The audience felt that the cartoon effect used was good and that the artist name on the telephone box was ‘clever’. We were hoping that this would catch our audiences’ attention and it has done so successfully. However they felt that it does not really link to the CD work. Although the same font was used as the CD work, the audience felt that it looked different. In addition one person mentioned the album name should have been incorporated into magazine more. They may have felt it to be a weak link between the CD work and the magazine advert work.
The music video’s demographic shows that almost two thirds of the viewers were females whereas the last third of the viewers were males. We anticipated that the video would receive views from both genders but did not foresee that the majority of them would be females (our target audience includes both males and females members) It seems to be that the music video had attracted the attention of the young audience as most the viewers were between the ages 13 and 24. The age range of our selected target audience (16-25) almost fits the statistics. The video has targeted the young audience, as intended.
Although most of the views took place on the YouTube page, we were quite surprised at the number of views the music video had using mobile phones. With the availability of smart phones, people have the ability to do many things on the move, including the viewing of YouTube videos. A handful of the views came from mobile applications. With stores like the Apple Store, Blackberry App World and the Google Play Store, there are a wide variety of apps available that allow users to view YouTube videos. In addition, it seems to be that social networking has also played a big role in the distributing of our music video. Both Facebook and Twitter have contributed to the views of the music video. It seems to be that social networking sites, along with YouTube, have a big part to play in the distribution and promotion of any music video.
From the comments we can tell that the YouTube audience were impressed with the video (the use of camera angles seemed to be the main praise). Another comment that I found intriguing was when one of the viewers expected a parody to be made. Parodies are usually made by taking pre-existing, famous successful videos (Weird Al Yankovic’s ‘Fat’ is a parody of Michael Jackson’s music video ‘Bad’). This comment is very interesting.
Using the survey template shown above, I collected all the results after the viewing. The sample consisted of an equal mix of males and females at ages 17 and 18 years old (our own age). I thought it would be interesting to see what the audience, of such a narrow age range, thought of the music video. Almost all the sample members felt that the completely and successfully met the brief and that the music video had a plenty of creativity and imagination. They felt that technical skills were well employed and that conventions were used. However the average ratings for the degree of finish did drop slightly. I feel that it may have been because of the lighting issue that we had during the burning letter scene.
The audio vox pox has informed me that the audience like imaginative editing and dramatic scenes as well as the music video being shot at several, different locations. The range of camera shots and the acting were also praised. The audience had issues with the lighting of the burning letter scene (as mentioned before). The close up of the phone have been identified as being ‘too long’, although our intention was to get product placement across (the use of the HTC Desire S smartphone). The audience also felt that the narrative is too complex. This could indicate the audience do not like using their mind a lot to understand the plot and would rather prefer simple, straight-forward narratives. We felt that it would be interesting to have the audience have a bigger role than usual – giving them the chance to think for themselves. One person also commented on having some element of performance, although we did have break dancers in one of the scenes and the stop motion part of the video was choreographed by me and my group.
The audience felt that overall the CD album work looked appealing and professional. They found that inlays were made well, especially the quote. One person saw social networking as a promotional tool. However the audience found that using the same font throughout the work was a little ‘boring’. We did intend to maintain consistency with the font. They also felt that the background clashed with the typography, making it a little hard to read. One person felt that along with social networking links, there should have been a link to identify the existence of a YouTube channel.
The audience felt that the cartoon effect used was good and that the artist name on the telephone box was ‘clever’. We were hoping that this would catch our audiences’ attention and it has done so successfully. However they felt that it does not really link to the CD work. Although the same font was used as the CD work, the audience felt that it looked different. In addition one person mentioned the album name should have been incorporated into magazine more. They may have felt it to be a weak link between the CD work and the magazine advert work.
Q1 - Using, Developing and Challenging Real Media Product Conventions/Forms
1st April 2012 - End of Practical Production and Start of Evaluation
Today we have completely finished all stages of practical production. Overall it was has been a long and stressful part of the project. One of the key skills that I learnt was to look for small mistakes in the footage so that we could get our music video as close to perfection as possible. The same applies to the ancillary texts. We had undergo so many drafts of the CD and magazine advert work. At the end of the production of the music video we had realised what it takes to make real media products. For us gigabytes work of footage are reduced to a 150 megabyte music video and 12 hours worth of footage are reduced to a 4 minute long music video. Hundreds of pictures are reduced to 5 edited images. We had also thought about the amount of costs we had to incur including travel.
Now that the production part is over, I must now move onto evaluating the work we did.
Now that the production part is over, I must now move onto evaluating the work we did.
Monday, 2 April 2012
Construction of the CD Front and Back Covers (Adobe Photoshop CS5)
Here is a video of how we constructed the CD front and back covers. We decided to build both front and back cover on one canvas to allow the background image to flow from front to back. We later split up the front from the back.
Stop Motion/Moving Picture Editing - Adobe After Effects CS5
We used Adobe After Effects to implement the stop motion/moving picture effect that we had planned for our music video. Prior to this, we had to sequence the JPEG images that we took during the filming of the memory scene at Wembley Arena. We used Adobe Premiere Pro to sequence the images, setting them really short durations, not long enough to make them look choppy and not short enough to make it too fluent. We have already shown proof that it is possible to create this effect previously, in the experimental footage shown earlier. The skills that we had to use were motion tracking. In addition masking and frame-by-frame editing were also used with this software. Although I had used frame-by-frame editing before, masking was a new thing to me that I had not used before and was not sure how to use it. I overcame this problem by experimentation and with trial and error. Eventually after getting the grasp of the general concept of masking, I created the stop motion effect.
SA - Tell Me You're Sorry - Music Video 3rd/Final Cut (HD)
Changes we made from 2nd cut to 3rd cut:
- Sandhya shutting the door on Zein scene (shot composition was changed - jump cut was removed and splitscreen effect was shortened)
- Graphic match between Sandhya's bedroom to Zein writing the letter was shortened
- Harrow revisited scene - Nikhil's face was too small so we zoomed into his and Sandhya's face, making it easier to identify Nikhil as not being Zein
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