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Anthony Luongo

Music Video (Final)

Magazine Advert

Digipak

4.How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

To help me through my research, planning and prodution I used many different types of new media. New media is a form of electronic communication which allows one to transfer in digital techniques, computerised systems and data networks. Below are a list of programs I had used to help me to make my products.

Blogger:

I used blogger to post all of my coursework on. I find that using blogger was very interactive because it is very visual that allows you to present your work in the way you wish. Blogger contains connection to may different features which are beneficial to me and the way my work will be laid out, for example, Blogger allows you to get images straight off your computer to provide a visual aspect to your work or you could publish videos straight from YouTube via the embed code on the YouTube, this provides a direct link to the video to give the user another dimension of presentation.



Prezi:

I used Prezi for a couple of my tasks and this is a program which allows you to create a presentation in a more diverse whether with many different transitions and design, this is a contrast to straightforward and basic Microsoft power point. Prezi is very similar to blogger as it had many features that allowed you to provide visuals for the reader as it allowed you to take images directly from google and also allowed you to add videos directly from YouTube which again provides the user with another aspect of presentation.



YouTube:

YouTube has been a great invention for many reasons, not only for entertainment reasons, but also for educational and work purposes. I used YouTube the post a draft copy and the final copy of my music video, as well posting other blog posts I needed to post. Furthermore, I also used YouTube as a source where I could find inspiration before producing my music video. I was also able to extract the song from YouTube using a converter so that I was able to add it as part of my music video.
Premiere Pro:

Premiere Pro was the program we had used to edit our music video. The features within the program were of high quality and allowed us to create high quality music videos. It allows you to upload the clips you wish and once you have your clips, it allows you to use the cut tool to cut and move clips around and ensure that the lip syncing is accurate. It also allowed us to add effects such as fading and changing the brightness. All these features allowed us to come out with a perfect final product which the group was very pleased with.



Photoshop:

When creating my digipak and advert, I used Photoshop and this is a program which is highly effective to use in this area of production. The reason I chose to use Photoshop was because it possessed a wide variety of tools and features that allowed me to produce high quality pieces of work. Photoshop allowed my to tweak the brightness and colour saturation on my artist when designing my advert and it also allowed me to create small lights on my fonts to make them seem like they were reflecting light. One very essential feature of Photoshop is the fact that you can download fonts for the program to expand your variety on your design and the user can find specific fonts which are appropriate for their work.
PowerPoint:

This is another program is had used to present my work and it was effective as this is a program which is designed to present work for different circumstances, whether it is for business or school. PowerPoint is a good way to illustrate your work visually as it has many features to make your presentation look and furthermore, an advantage to using PowerPoint is that it is very user friendly therefore many different people can use it. In addition, if a user has an account on Microsoft products like PowerPoint then they will be able to put there PowerPoint through embed URL's on OneDrive, similarly to slide share.


Nikon D3100 Digital Camera:

When filming my music video, we used a Nikon D3100 to film and this camera allowed us to produce to quality footage. This camera possessed many features and one feature was advanced zoom which benefited us when filming some establishing shots as zooming allowed to emphasis our location. Furthermore, this camera had many other features, for example lighting adjustments which benefited us due to the constant change of lighting. In addition, the camera fitted on a tri-pod which allowed us to produce stable shots. Using this camera was essential because a group member already had this camera and therefore there were no costs and furthermore we were able to produce a good music video of the highest standard.

iMac Computer:

The iMac is an extremely beneficial device as this is the device that I completed all of my work on. The Mac had very good processing power and very good memory therefore it could hold many different programs for me to use and it could also hold many different files as well as being able to run very fast. It had programs such as Premiere Pro to edit the music video and Safari which I used to do my research and access all of the online programs, especially my blog.





Google & Safari:

Google was main source behind everything.To access any online programs such as Prezi or Blogger I went through Google as this is a search engine which is highly used by many users. Google also allowed me to do my research for my research and planning tasks as well as finding inspiration for my ancillary tasks. This was the same for Safari which is similar to Google, the only downside to Safari is that not many people use this Web Browser as much as Google.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

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

Music Video (Draft)

Audience Feedback- Advert

By looking at the feedback above, it is clear that the audience like this poster as the design and layout suits the genre. The class vote on the side indicates that my audience preferred this advert to the previous advert I had created which lacked many features. The small feedback which I needed to take into consideration were feedback such as changing some words that made more sense such as 'Album' rather than 'Tickets' and other changes like adding my record label at the top and adding in usernames for social network sites at the bottom.

Audience Feedback- Digipak

Compared to my poster, the feedback on this album cover is far more negative. There are some positive feedback on my album cover, for example the neon lines on the back are very eye catching and good, I had added a nice effect on the artist on the front. On the other hand, there were many negatives such as inconsistency on the font effects, the colour was completely different to my advert and someone stated to change the colour to a sandy like colour which I embraced and used. In addition, the negative feedback allowed me to think back over some ideas and change round my digipak. 

Below is the inside cover and disk of my digipak and the feedback on these are very similar to the front cover, the colours are inconsistant and need to be the same as my poster.

Audience Feedback- Editing

Below is a table of results showing the results from a questionnaire that I devised. I had asked 100 people and here are the results:

Questions	Answer
	Yes	No
Question 1	45	6	51
Question 2	10	2	12
Question 3	36	1	37
Total	91	9	100

From the results, it shows that our editing was good and it had small amount of faults. The audience that I had asked believed the editing fitted both the situation in the narrative and the song. They felt that the faded effects when the male was on his own portrayed a real sense of sadness as we had overlaid the scene with the lip syncing and because this part was slow it had added effect. Furthermore, the audience felt that our editing was convention as we used some quick cuts when the beat built up which is something that can be seen in many other songs in house/dance music.

Audience Feedback- Mise En Scene

Below is a print screen of the questions that I have asked my audience:

I asked 100 people to answer these questions and below are the results of the questionnaire:

Questions	Answer
	Yes	No
Question 1	45	6	51
Question 2	10	2	12
Question 3	30	7	37
Total			100

From reviewing the questionnaire above, it is evident that the are which the audience disagree with is the costume worn by the actors as some feel that it is not appropriate to the genre. Some of the audience feel that maybe the costume worn should have been more summery and more revealing, for example they should have worn swimming costumes to fit in with the time of year and the location. However, the way the film had panned out and the idea of the narrative, it would not have suited.

Audience Feedback- Costume

Below is a print screen of the questions that I have asked my audience:

I asked 100 people to answers these questions and below are the results of the questionnaire:

Questions	Answer
	Yes	No
Question 1	30	7	37
Question 2	45	6	51
Question 3	7	5	12
Total	82	18	100

From reviewing the questionnaire, it is evident that the area which the audience disagree with me the most is whether the costume worn by the artist is appropriate to the house/dance genre. However, because so little people disagree with the costume we used within our video, there would be no necessary reason to change the costume. This is also relevant to the two other questions that I had asked my audience.

Production Log - Editing Ancillary Task

Originally I was on schedule with my ancillary task as I had one set idea and that was the idea which I stuck by throughout the production of my digipak. The screenshot below shows my original idea which I had begun with.

I was on schedule when producing this digipak as everything I needed was available for me. For example the galaxy brush which I used to produce the neon cloud effect behind the singer was easily accessible on the internet, as well as the fonts which were available for me to access on Dafont.com.

The difficulties that I encountered were firstly trying to come up with a good idea and the types of images to use as originally the image I had taken did not fit the digipak above, although the image shown above fitted on both the digipak that I have shown above and my final digipak design. Another difficulty that I encountered was trying to execute the effects seen on both of my digipak ideas, the digipak shown above and the digipak shown below. They both have distinct effects, for example, the digipak above has cloud neon lights on the front image with a cloud on the front, whilst the back has strips of neon lights all over the back. Trying to create the effects took some time because I was using YouTube to help me to create these effects therefore I was going step-by-step to create each individual piece of neon seen on the digipak above.

The second digipak seen below took me less time because there are less effects on the cover. The only effect that I placed on the front cover was the bright lights seen on the word WAVES. This took me less time to do, although I still had to use YouTube to help me through step-by-step.

To create these digipak designs I used photoshop and this program is the best and most effective program to use when creating professional looking posters or digipaks as the tools within the program allow for this to occur.
There are many advantages to using photoshop. The first advantage is that photoshop allows you to edit photos that you are displeased with and change it to make it the way you wish it to be to make it look better and more professional. Another advantage of using photoshop is that there are a range of different tools which one can use in order to create different effects on an image, for example, the magic wand tool or blending options.
On the other hand, there are disadvantages to using photoshop. A disadvantage of using photoshop is  that the program is quite advanced and therefore it has taken me some time to get used to the different tools and how to do things, furthermore, because it is so advanced I sometimes forget how to do some effects like clipping masks.

My chosen font for my final digipak was called Intro (used for the artist name and songs on the back cover) and Intro Inline (used for the song name). I was able to access this font from the internet from a website called Dafont.com, this website has many different fonts from a variety of genres to allow users to pick which font works best with their design. I chose to use this font because I felt it suited the genre of the song as well as making my digipak look professional, furthermore, the colour worked well with the background and made the words stand out, therefore this is why I chose to use this colour.    

Production Log - Editing Music Video

How did editing go?

The editing process in general is a long process for us. We had many different clips to cut together and some clips did not have the right lighting therefore required some brightening and some addition filters to make some colours vibrant. However, everything has gone well and the video is beginning to take shape. We have added some effects which make our video stand out and makes our video stand out to others, for example, throughout the performance our artist is in black and white, however his cap is the only piece of clothing in colour.
The biggest difficulty we encountered is editing the performance. The lip syncing was easy to line up and make sure it is on point, the only thing that we struggled on in the music video was getting the performance scenes black and white. This required a lot of time and good vision as the sometimes there were masks that did not line up and revealed our artists' natural colour and therefore we had to constantly go back over and fix the errors. 

The program we had used for editing was Adobe Premiere Pro which is a very good and professional to use when editing video like ours. Similarly to many programs, Adobe Premiere Pro has its advantages and disadvantages and they are as follows. An  advantage to Premiere Pro is the many different video and audio layers that one can have. This allows the user to align clips easier and overlap clips to add effect such as flickering scenes in quick succession. Another advantage is the colour correction tool, this allows the user to change the colour of any scene which they feel may not be correct or may add some colour for effect, this is something we would use as there are some scenes which we need to brighten up. Another advantage is that Premiere Pro is very professional and allows user to produce professional looking work compared to iMovie which is far more basic and user friendly.

On the other hand, a disadvantage to using Premiere Pro is the fact that it can be confusing to use for some people, especially when it is their first time. Premiere Pro possesses many different shortcuts that make the program easier to use for the user, however it is understanding these shortcuts which could be a hassle for the user. Furthermore, the amount of tools and features within Premiere Pro may confuse users when using the program. 

Production Log - Filming

How did filming go?

As a whole the filming went according to plan because we had planned everything we needed to do before we had gone to Brighton. The tickets were paid off approximately 1 week before we had left so that had given us more time to plan any other areas we needed to sort out like a schedule for the day. 

The biggest difficulty that we encountered was the people at Brighton, because there were so many people at Brighton due to Brighton Pride being on at the same time, this did slow down our production process as many different people were getting in the way of the camera and therefore we had to constantly reshoot a scene.

In terms of filming, we were on schedule with the narrative as we filmed in the allocated time we were given, although the lip syncing part of our video causes some disruption as we had to change the day we had to film around 6 times due to uncontrollable circumstances. Another downside to filming the lip syncing scene was the location, we orginally planned to film in a record studio, but again due to not being able to get to the recording studio so we changed to an area which was easily accessible.

20.Equipment

Tripod:
                                

A key piece of equipment we will use will be a tripod. The tripod will allow use to create more stable shots and therefore resulting in a more professional looking shot rather than a messy and very shaking shot that can be seen when not using a tripod. The tripod will also allow use to produce much smoother pan and tilt shots as well as producing some stable long, medium and close up shots when needed and also allow us to produce some stable zoom shots if necessary.

Nikon D3100:
                                   
This is a key piece of equipment for our music video as without this there would be no music video. Furthermore having this type of camera would mean the quality of the footage would be of high standard therefore making our video look more professional

19.Costumes

Plain Tee Shirt:
                                
Jeans (Mens):
                                               

Trainers:

                                             

The costume seen above for a male is quite a conventional outfit as this type of costume can been seen in many house videos, for example singer like Calvin Harris. Furthermore, this outfit is also quite a fashionable costume as this is the current trend with teenagers and young outfits therefore choosing this outfit would allow the viewers to relate to the main character. 

Women Top:

            

Jeans (Women):

                                           

Sandals (Women):

                           

The costume seen above for a female is quite a conventional outfit as this type of costume can been seen by many females during the summer because it is quite a summer outfit. Furthermore, any females that view this video could relate to do the outfit worn by our female actress.

18.Props

Phone:

                                  

I have chosen to use an iPhone in our music video, this is because an iPhone is a very popular and desirable phone and many viewers who view our video will be able to relate, furthermore it is important that the actors use this phone as it is up to date with the current trend and does not make them look old fashioned. The phone will used as a music player for the couple when they are listening to music together and will also be used when they are taking selfies. 

Earphones:

                                                  

The earphones will be used for the narrative when the couple and sitting together enjoying some music. By doing this it can project an image of togetherness as they are sitting next to each other enjoying the same music where by many viewers can relate to the same situation seen in our music video.

Beach Towel:

This prop was used to make the scene look realistic. When at the beach someone tends to bring a beach towel with them to lie on and therefore this is why we decided to use a beach towel, so that our scene looked realistic

Microphone:

This is another prop which we used to make the scene look realistic and this was also used because it is a conventional piece of equipment in a music studio. This prop will be used within our lip syncing scene.

Headphones:

                                         

This prop is another conventional piece of equipment found in a music studio and is another piece of equipment which we have decided to use within the lip syncing scene because it will enable the scene to look more realistic.

17.Locations

Brighton

Beach:

We chose the beach as one of our locations because we felt it linked with the song title, 'Waves'. We also felt the beach was the best location as it fitted in well with the narrative and the whole idea behind the story, an idea of a couple having fun and then contrasted by them arguing.

                      

Brighton Pier:

This was used to continue the narrative on as we filmed scenes of the couple having fun as the pier was filled with many different rides that can be used to have fun, for example we used wooden cut out boards as an example in our video and we also filmed the couple on dodgems having fun.

                        

Royal Pavilion:

The royal pavilion was another area which we used to continue our narrative as the area was filled with many tourists therefore indicated that it was a highly visited place in Brighton and therefore showed us that this would be a very good spot to film. 

In conclusion, due to the choice of genre, our music video did not require specific locations therefore this gave us a chance to explore and use many different areas of Brighton to film and make our music video the best possible. The three chosen location are all areas of Brighton that are visited the most and therefore film in these areas would provide our video with life.

16.Casting/Actors

Littorio Luongo:

A key convention within house/dance music videos is that the  main actor tends to quite buff and good looking and therefore by choosing Littorio Luongo to be our main actor we have been able to stick by this convention that can be seen in other house/dance music videos.

Millie Colletta:
                                     

A convention of many dance/house music videos is good looking female actresses and by choosing Millie to act in our music we have fulfilled this convention. Another key reason we have chosen Millie to feature in our video is because our narrative is based around a couple and therefore we need a actress to be able to complete the duo as we had already decided who our male actor would be.

15. Shooting Schedule

23/08/2014:
Shot 1:
Location: Train Station
Characters: Littorio & Millie
Shot Length: Long Shot

Shot 2:
Location: Inside the train
Characters: Littorio & Millie
Shot Length: Tilted medium shot

Shot 3,4,5,6,7:
Location: Beach
Characters: Littorio & Millie and two scenes with Littorio on his own.
Shot Length: Long shot

Shot 8,9:
Location: Brighton Pier
Characters: Littorio & Millie
Shot Length: Long Shot

Shot 10,11:
Location: Brighton Pavilion
Characters: Littorio & Millie
Shot Length: Long Shot

Shot 12:
Location: Train Station
Characters: Littorio
Shot Length: Tracking long shot with a zoom towards end of shot

22/09/2014 (Lip-syncing):
Shot 1,2,3,4:
Location: Music Studio
Characters: Kyle
Shot Length: Close up, Low angle close angle, High angle close up and Ariel view shot

14. Storyboard

13.Magazine Advert Planning

12.Digipack Planning

 Digipack 1

Digipack 2