Thursday, 29 March 2012

Final Music Video - Today I Cried



It had taken a lot of hard work and effort, but everything has really paid off and I'm really glad with the way this video has turned out. ENJOY!

Evaluation Question 4

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product. Click on the link to hear a voice recording of my answer
Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I personally went round and asked people in my class to have a look at the music video me and Adam had made.

One positive thing that came out of most peoples mouths was the locations we had filmed in. They complemented on how well we used Big Ben, the London Eye, as well as the Embankment to do our filming in. It has proven here that in order for a video to look good, you need a good looking location. All those trips into London every Sunday morning for about 4 weeks straight, rather than just filming it at our local park, had really paid off. It was also mentioned that the gloomy weather also helped the mood of the song. This also shows that you need that bit of luck with the whether if you want to make a video for a serious and emotional song.

A negative that came out of it though was my (Frasers) questionable lip singing skills. Adam was complemented by everyone for the way he performed the song, and the way he looks also made it seem as if he was actually rapping it. The differance was that he actually sang along to the words, whilst i did my bit quietly or just mimed it. This shows that you need to make sure that you have confident performers, somebody who isn't afraid to make a fool of themselves. You also need to make sure that your performer is the right look for it, for example you can't have a 12 year old white kid doing a 50 Cent song.

Another slight negative was that some people didn't really understand why clips from a Jim Carrey film were in the video. Whilst admitting that the clips we picked did suit the narrative of the lyrics, a few didn't understand in what ways the film was relevant to our song. Because of this we put a interview of Adam on the blog where he explains the similarities of the song Today I Cried and The Truman show, in that they are both self evaluations of one anothers lives. We put the interview clearly on the blog to help people understand the concept behind the video.

Evaluation Question 2

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

The combination of our video product and our ancillary texts work really well. We made the album cover and also the digipack in black and white in order to not contradict the mood of the song. It wouldn't of been a good move to have a all colourfull album cover when the song is a self evaluation about the whole artists career when despite admitting that he is doing well for himself, he still isn't quite satisfied and seems to have a gloomy and angry out look upon himself and the media world around him.

The way in which we used the Group Blog has also been effictive. We have made pages in which we give a whole fact file about the rapper, Noxious. You can find out where he grew up, what his influences are and what record label he is signed to. We got this idea by going on XL Recordings official website in which they do the same thing for their London bred sigings. The blog also has pages on how we portrayed the artist, theres a section solely set on hair and facial hair in which we made our decisions from. You also see why we chose Adam to be the rapper and me (Fraser) to be the chorus singer.

On the blog you also have videos. One video is of a interview in which Adam is answering as if he was actually Noxious. He speaks of why he wrote the song, his motive behind the video, why he chose Eric Jonsson as the singer and the reasons he has for having clips from The Truman Show in his video. We have directors journals in the blog, and you also have video journals, or behind the scenes clips with me, Adam and Alex. We talk about our difficulties with getting to locations and how much we had got through on that day. It is all relevant for anybody who is interested in finding out more about how the music video was made.

The website which we made for Noxious, which we made on Wix.com, would give a potential audience ideas on ways that the rapper would market himself. There is a link to the actual music video itself as well as the latest photo shoot in which the digpack was being done for.

Evaluation Question 1

What ways does your media use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I have recorded my answer on this memo which i did on my phone.
Memo

Album cover for Today I Cried


                                    Front


                          Back



We chose to have the albim cover in black and white because we didn't want to contradict the mood of the song. It is a serious song, a self evaluation about the artists life in which he has made it to stardom, but isn't satisfied or happy.

The brick wall could also show that he has hit a wall with his life, has hit a dead end.

We chose the name Oxymoron for the album name because it puts two different things together, for example a beautiful crash. It can be used for the song Today I Cried because although he talks about how he earned a hit here and there, his mood isn't what you'd expect it to be.

The XL Recordings tag and the bar code are there, as we wanted it to look more proffesional, like an actual album.

Link to website we created for artist

We went on Wix.com to make a website for Noxious. We did this to show a way in which the company would market itself to the audience. You can have a look at the photo shoot he did for the album, and the video itself.
http://www.wix.com/crompton_media/noxious