Ancillary Task

Digipack Design

How effective is the combination of your product and ancillary tasks?

My project was a music video for Damien Rice's song; 9 Crimes. Damien Rice is an acoustic singer/songwriter who has had slight mainstream success but has a rather smaller and direct audience, thus it is easier to tune his promotion towards his target audience.

I would say there is a slight match between my Music Video and both of my Ancillary Task pieces, however their is a strong link between the two ancillary tasks. I feel this is how the project should be approached so not to over-saturate the viewer with one aspect of your sales pitch. The music video features on the insides of the digipack so as to continue a style and theme, however the front and back are entirely hand-drawn by me and are hardly connected to the music video at all, which I strongly believe is the right way to go about it. The magazine advert is similar to the digipack as it's entirely hand=drawn and in a similar style, this will help the viewer relate the release of the song to the cover of the digipack when they see it, creating a link between knowing it's for sale and seeing the product itself.

A good comparison of the two could be the overall mise en-scene of the pieces, chilled and calm, along with their lacking of colour. I feel I can implement this as generally the target audience know what they're looking for and who Damien Rice is, and if the music video were to connect any new fans they would pick up on the overall image and intimacy of my pieces.

Another comparison of the pieces could be the real attention to detail throughout my pieces. My whole music video is shot in HD and the shots are all manually focused and I spent a long time adjusting them afterwards in post to get them exactly as I wished. This can be matched with the incredibly fine detailing in my hand drawn digipack covers, which each took well over

8 hours to complete.

The first and most obvious difference between the pieces is that the ancillaries are hand drawn and the music video is not an animation and is shot true. This provides a great chance for the audience to try and bridge a gap between realities using their imaginations, which is to be encouraged! Say a fan buys the digipack and is watching the music video, they are going to pick up on the eyes, the rain drops as performance starts, the puddles, rain and splashes later on in the fast editing where the car drives along and when will walks past another puddle with large rain drops hitting it. They are going to pick up on the wetness of will's eye as he looks out of the window nearer the end. Now they've picked all this up they are going to try and subconsciously relate this to the product, the ocean, the clouds, the rain drop shaped paisley patterns, and the calm section of ocean over on the back of the cover. Who knows what memories will bridge that gap for them but it's sure to help them relate back to the products and the artist in the future. The calm after the storm scene on the back of the digipack could also be related to the passing of the story i.e. will and anna both accepting the horrible things they did to each other in the music video. The clouds clearing away and the calm section of ocean help re-inforce this and represent each other characters.

Overall I feel the combination of my product and ancillary task is very effective, it brings the audience into it as part of itself and helps connect them and the artist through their own experiences and imagination.

In what ways does your Media Product use, develop or challenge conventions of real Media Products?

What have you learned from your Audience Feedback?

Pros:

Mise En Scene

-'Visually Pleasing, even in B&W'

-Silhouettes

-'Shots repeated, but don't get old'

-Will's posture whilst playing piano

Editing

-'Flows superbly'

-Focusing on shower head and piano keys

-'Sound to Image matching - Very Good'

-Piano & Singing parts cut in 'cleverly' and 'remind that it's a music video'

Camerawork

-Good variety of shots

-Shot clarity (HD Focusing)

-'Great' Camera angles

-Shot Framing

Acting

-Well received in general

Cons:

2 of my 25 feedback sheets commented that the final sequence dragged on too long

Several people commented on the 2/3 shakey shots (although one single person commented saying that they thought it worked rather well in one of the parts)

Another couple of people commented saying they actors should have worn different clothes for the flashbacks

3 people commented on too much shot repetition

Criticisms:

"Emotional story line"(Suggests immediate understanding of the characters and what is going on)

"Brave to carry on the story line, but it works"

"Captures viewers"

"Silhouette carry mood well"

"Good song choice, fits narrative" (Suggests some people are so engrossed in the narrative that they have forgotten that the film they are watching is promoting the film. Does this take away from the film or prove to give a memorable film which helps raise the song's profile?)

"Top Class Editing - Outstanding!"

"Emotions shown through eyes. You see emotions through the girls eyes at the beginning and through the boy's at the end, brilliant!" (This comment made me smile the most as this is something I had wanted to include in the film the whole way through and hoped it would be the key to provoking emotion, that fact that somebody picked up on my little subconscious clue meant the world to me)

"Powerful images that move"

Out of my 25 feedback sheets 23 people gave me a medium Lv. 4 mark and 2 people gave me a high Lv. 3 mark.

Also from reading my feedback sheets I got the distinct impression that as all the basics of the film are so well covered (minus the shakey section of film that I loathe and drives me crazy) and the quality of the HD recordings is so professional-grade, people expect a lot higher quality standard from what they are watching and forget that they are in fact just watching a student film and I feel this leads to some of the harsher criticisms I received. The shakey section of the one part of the film I would give my arm to change, it annoys me to such an extent. If I could go back to re-do the filming from what I have learned, I would have gotten a wider variety of shots of Will playing Piano, bigger variety of shots of them as a couple and in different clothes and made ABSOLUTELY sure that there were NO shakey shots. I have to say I do agree with all of my audience feedback and is all completely fair and am still pleased with the vast majority of it all.

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

In the research stages I used a plethora of media technologies to help me capture the idea of my work. For my music video I frequently used YouTube. First of all I used to it to view the original video for the song I had chosen, not something I would really do but I had been told by a friend it was quite an interesting and unique/controversial video and thought it well worth a quick watch, which it was. I also used YouTube to re-watch certain parts of 'Control' a black and white feature length film about the life of Ian Curtis, the film was a massive influence on my piece and it was handy to be able to go back and look at key parts of it such as CU of eye's and so on and how they bridge an emotional gap. I also used my family's Sky+ to record a documentary on the top 10 music videos of all time, which was running on VH1. I found watching this and the behind the scenes footage and interviews with directors to be very helpful towards thinking about planning ahead much further in advance than I usually do, which resulted in a higher standard of work. The other internet based media technology I used was Google along with GoogleImages. I used google to search for the lyrics to 9 Crimes which helped me in coming up with a basic storyline for my music video to revolve around. I recieved one comment on how the story line made it almost sort of feel like a short film, whilst not taking away from the performance or the overall music aspect, which was very pleasing to find out. I used google images to search for and collect other hand drawn album covers/digipacks to help me brainstorm ideas for my own digipack. I found this to be incredibly helpful drawing a large influence from a Thom Yorke solo album cover entitled 'The Eraser'. I would never have found influence from this album cover without this resource what with music downloading becoming the major way of acquiring music nowadays.

In the Planning stages I used a fair selection of technologies to help me, although mostly mainly for my Music Video as my ancillary task planning came about mostly from sketching and practicing my drawings for my final piece. To star out with I used E-Mail to communicate with Damien Rice's Record Label, 'Vector Records', however I received no reply. I also used FaceBook to organise and confirm my actors, this was so helpful as my mobile phone at the time was barely capable of sending a texts to one person let alone 3 or 4! I then used my MacBook to watch the start of Pulp Fiction on DVD to help me come up with a story structure for my piece, which prompted me to begin the music video with part of the storyline from the very ending, but not quite all of it, just a we see in Pulp Fiction. I also used popular website Blogger.com to help me track my progress and give myself targets and list of things to do for certain days to try and keep in due with my deadlines and responsibilities. FInally I have also used my iPhone to take a picture of how went about my planning for writing this, which is a big mess on a large sketchpad basically.





For the Construction stage I believe the technologies available to me to help me do this were undeniably key to the high quality outcome of my film, without them my project have been incapable of some of the stunning Super-CU's on the eyes and and depth of field focusing. For the filming part of the construction we were trusted with Cannon HD, FlashDrive Cameras with the all important manual focus ability. Whilst filming I used my MacBook to play the song as playback for Will as he had to mimic a performance of the piece and sing along, this was very helpful in the editing stages as in some parts I could simply match the background audio with the track audio. To edit I used the iMovie software that came as standard on my MacBook. The software is brilliantly intuitive and respectfully powerful for it's nothing cost. A good knowledge of the software and a combination of persistence and patience resulted in the fine detailed and very fast paced editing sequences of my music video. For my ancillary task I used a software called 'LiveScan' that works as part of an industrial photocopier/scanner in the Art department. This software brilliantly scanned in my drawings and used a precision grid like software to help reproduce my drawing in as higher detail as possible, I was overly pleased with the result. I then used PhotoShop to organise all of my drawing on to a template for my digipack that I had downloaded from a quick Google search before hand.


For my Evaluation I used a plethora of computer based technologies to obtain audience feedback to help fuel my evaluation. I started of Uploading my video to YouTube and receiving a few comments there from friends and receiving a good rating. I then posted the link to it on my FaceBook and asked for people to comment on it to help me in my coursework, which many people happily did. On top of this I also exported my music video to a QuickTime file and displayed from a projector on to a large screen in class and asked a large selection of my peers to fill out audience feedback questionnaires on my behalf.

Ancillary Covers

These are the covers for my Ancillary Task. The front and back covers of the digipack. The rest is to follow.

Audience Feedback Evaluation

Based on the analysis of your audience feedback, is there a consensus on how effective your work is? Do the replies pick out similar things to comment on? Do you accept the comments of your audience or would you want to challenge them?

Throughout my audience feedback people commented on a well chosen use black & white, continuing on the narrative, leaving the 'look' at the end a little bit long, shots of eyes, water and fingers. This was all brilliant news as these are all the things I set out to try and show in the first place in order to achieve an amotive response from the audience and when not watching with a critical perspective these factors add up to draw out an emotional response. I accept all the Comments made about my film. I know where I went wrong and would love to do it again without making the same mistake i.e. shaky shots, not enough footage.

If you were able to re-visit your work and develop it further which aspects would you focus on the improve the piece. Try and explain why you would make the changes.

Wider variety of shots of the couple. More of the girl after the attack. More Stable shots. More shots of the girl with the boy on the side. More depth of field shots.

Music Video - Final Cut

DigiPack

For my CD Cover design I will hand draw the design the scan it into photoshop to add colours to it and refine any lose ends and also make it looks sharper and add contrast to make it look like it wasnt jsut drawn on a piece of paper then cut out and put in the CD case.


(Original Album Cover for the Album the song is from, above.)









The Advertisement will probably have a smaller version of the digipack in the corner but the main will probably be a high-quality picture blending into a black background with maybe some white stripes braking it up.

Movement

Looking into sad/moving media texts and they tend to use a lot of close up shots of eyes, mouths, fingers, quivering lips, close-up shots of a tear moving very slowly down the face, downwards looking and very smooth shots, however the edit is still quickly cut.
I'm going to include these shots as I feel they're important in trying to evoke an emotional response from the audience.
Also I think it could be good to include shots of water related scenes i.e rain, overflowing gutters, dripping, bleak taps and still water.
The sequences of water shots could come before the quick shots of the black and white background story of the guy remembering what he'd done. The video would start with a fading in shot of the guy playing the piano, then we would follow this as the main narrative and this would be them man who performs, putting a lot of energy and passion into this song and as it comes back down we see his quivering fingers on the piano keys, and soft rolling tears down his cheeks. To his left is a window with rain splashing down the glass. On key chord changes it would go the the flashbacks of him and his girlfriend. The next set of flashbacks would be her cheating on him. The next set would be him attacking her. The next set would be him realising what he had done. After each flashback his face will clench up in regret. Also whilst the girl is singing at the start of the song we see her sitting in the dark and we will see the quivering fingers and so on with her aswell. A close up shot of a detail of some blood on her hand will be seen and at the end of the song her hand will appear on the guys shoulders with the same detail, then he looks at it, then as he turns round expecting to see her she is gone.

I can never seem to be able to get the actors on time or reliably and so I am going to do something simpler with a different song which I hope will draw a more emotional response from the audience as apposed to just something to watch with the video. This does mean using a different song which will be 9 Crimes by Damien Rice. It's a similar pace/genre to Atmosphere however the lyrics are around a different topic. I read into them as a woman cheating on her boyfriend and him taking harsh revenge and then seriously regretting it afterwards. For this song I will subtly follow the lyrics, as I think, for this piece, it will achieve a better response.

Lyrics:


Leave me out with the waste
This is not what I'd do
It's the wrong kind of place
To be thinking of you
It's the wrong time
For somebody new
It's a small crime
And I've got no excuse

Is that alright with you?
Give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that alright with you?
If you don't shoot it how am I supposed to hold it
Is that alright with you?
Give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that alright
With you?

Leave me out with the waste
This is not what I'd do
It's the wrong kind of place
To be cheating on you
It's the wrong time
She's pulling me through
It's a small crime
And I've got no excuse

Is that alright with you?
Give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that alright with you?
If you dont shoot it, how am I supposed to hold it
Is that alright with you?
If I give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that alright
Is that alright with you?

Is that alright with you?
If I give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that alright with you?
If you don't shoot it, how am I supposed to hold it
Is that alright with you?
If I give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that alright
Is that alright with you?

Is that alright?
Is that alright?
Is that alright?
Is that alright?
Is that alright?
Is that alright with you?

No...

How did your research into audience contribute to your production work at both As and A2?

How did your research into audience contribute to your production work at both AS and A2?

Research into my target audience contributed to my AS and A2 Level Production work in various ways.
At AS my target audience was around the same as me, i.e. 16-21, Student, Music Fan/Musician. Obviously I know what I like and how I like to see things, but I thought it important to grasp a greater understanding of how others percieve media and film. So I Conducted a Video Questionaire, interviewing people on what they picked up on and liked about the opening of films. It was also an interesting way to determine how important the opening of a film actually is to a person not sutdying Media, to see if it made as much of an impact on them as the rest of the film all together or at all. The Overall outcome of my research was that, generally speaking, the opening of a film isn't overly important apart from jsut settling down the audience itno what they are about to watch. Unless, of course, the opening of a film makes very good sense after having watched the film the whole way through, such as in Pulp Fiction. This also made me udnerstand that jsut seeing a film opening on it's own could not realy make for a fantastic film opening with out becoming more of a trailer, especially if the film opening is only 2 minutes. It would have to have an incredible story line laid down within just 2 minutes to keep you really hooked on the film. Most film openings are just an interesting way of telling you which actors are in it, who directed and produced it and a few other key production team members' names, all while having a design/theme relative to the film opening.
This helped me produce my piece with as I then understood that in the very first two minutes of the film I didn't have to give away any story, or show any of the characters, I could actually start in a montage style relative to the rest of the film's genre/theme and it would work well as the film opening (such as in Napoleon Dynamite). Looking back however I would have liked to have had a couple more minutes for my film opening so my audience could have understood it a bit better. If I had had a couple more minutes I would have started into the story line. I think really a film opening should be the first 4/5minutes, honestly I think a 2 minute film opening ,even being done at AS Level, is not very realistic.
So my research contributed to my final production by enforcing my idea that I could do a montage style opening aslong as it was themed to the film's overall story/genre but that it would have been better to have more time to open the story a little bit.

At A2 level my Audience Research has helped contribute to my music video planning in various ways. From a few short questionaires I have learnt that audiences tend to like faster editing, something away from the lyrics that is changes through te video, so as to keep them interested the whole way through also that the band does not have to be in the music video at all. Also though that a music video of the band playing the song live at an interesting venue with an new event taking place at some point through out is also enough to keep a person watching. The Audience for my piece is around 17/27, will know a bit more about music than an average person and is not keen on chart music also they will be slightly artistic or appreciate art.

Original Video for Atmosphere

The original was released with the re-release of the song in 1988 and was directed by Anton Corbijn.

Joy Division - Atmosphere from Wes Dorris on Vimeo.

In this video there are men in gowns across a strange landscape moving things around, including large canvas prints of famous pictures of Joy Division and Ian Curtis. It would be good to use a small part of this, in a differnt way, in my video. Probably a shot of a field or something equally obscure where the picture is resting on the floor and there are men in the same gowns who appear to be arguing over a map between them, i.e. they're lost (another emotion frequently put accross in Ian's songs).

I think my video is going to be alot different to the original which is a good thing in my mind.