Evaluation

For my A2 media coursework I chose the brief which was to create a promotional package for the release of an album, to include the main product of a music promo video and two subsidiary products, a cover for its release on CD and a magazine advertisement for the CD. I chose the song Magnificent by U2 for my work because I love this song and I absolutely love the band, plus I wanted to make a scenic video which I thought would work well with Magnificent.

I began by researching music videos and analysing some already existing ones to find out which features they commonly share to determine their conventions. I also analysed the lyrics of Magnificent to find out what the song is about. I used the internet for this; I used Wikipedia to gather information as well as U2.com to find information about the band and my chosen song. I also browsed some U2 fan forums to find out what U2 fans think of the song and how they interpret the lyrics. I looked through some magazines too, such as Q where I found an article about U2’s latest album No Line On The Horizon where I gathered some more information about Magnificent. I used YouTube to view U2 videos and chose three to analyse to help get ideas for my video and to find the conventions of music videos. I posted the links to these videos on my blog, and I took screenshots to illustrate some of my points made about them. I also carried out audience research to look at U2’s large, mainstream audience and how they interact with and keep their fans happy. I thoroughly enjoyed the research stage of my coursework, since the subject of my work is my favourite band and therefore I got through this part fairly quickly because I found it fun.

I started thinking of ideas for my music video as soon as the research had been completed. I thought about what locations I could use that would suit the song and who I could get to be in it. I planned out the opening sequence of the song with a storyboard and listing the shots I thought would be the most effective. However, when it came to filming my video, I had to switch to my back-up idea when I was met with a fresh layer of snow covering the ground on the day I had planned to go out filming. Weather conditions posed the biggest problem for my video, because previously when I had wanted to get the filming done in the Christmas holiday, I couldn’t because there was a lot of snow around at that time which didn’t clear up for a week or so.

I filmed my music video during February half term, using my first idea, to film in the woodland near the Humber Bridge, as I thought this location would look good in the snowy conditions where as the beach setting I had been hoping to film at wouldn’t have looked as good. I tried to stick to my original plan of camera shots and I think I managed this well. I got plenty of location shots as well as some wildlife shots as I had planned, to intersperse with shots of the performer singing. This brings me to a second problem I faced when filming the video. I had been unable to find anyone willing to be the performer and lip sync along to the song, so I had to do it myself. I enlisted the help of my brother, Alex, to be my camera operator to film shots of me. However, the lip syncing shots were just too embarrassing to do in front of him, or anyone for that matter, so I set up the camera and filmed myself. The clothes I chose to wear for the video was a long black coat, dark jeans and boots. I had already decided that I wanted my performer to be dressed in dark clothing to contrast with the location, which previously would have been the beach setting but black obviously made an even better contrast with the snow. This was to show the contrast between human beings and nature. Overall, the filming went quite well and we got some nice shots out of it. I was happy that we had managed to get it all done within a day and it was a relief to have got it done, since at this point there wasn’t very long left to complete the coursework. For the filming, I used my own Sony camcorder, recording the footage on a miniDV tape which records in a digital format, and I also used a tripod which I borrowed from my dad to keep the camera steady for still shots and pans. I also took my digital camera out on this day too, to take some pictures which I could use for my subsidiary products, the CD cover and the advertisement. I took some pictures of the location and I got my brother to take a few of me.

On my first day back at college after half term, I took my camcorder in along with all the cables to link it up to the computer. Ray helped me to import my footage onto one of the editing computers and he also showed me a few things that I could do on the program. I already had some experience with using Adobe Premiere Pro but it was a good help to be reminded of the functions that I could use. As it went in, the footage was split up into individual clips and when all of it had been imported, I went through the clips and decided which ones I wanted to keep and which ones could be deleted. I didn’t actually start editing my video on this day, because I had not brought my song in and without it I would not be able to edit clips to the music, which is a conventional feature of music videos. I brought my song in on my memory stick the following day, imported it into Adobe Premiere Pro and placed it on the timeline. I then began editing my video, which included cutting the clips to the right duration and using the pen tool to create fades at the beginning and ends of clips. I used location shots to establish the setting at the beginning of the video, and then introduced the performer. Wildlife shots are present throughout the video, with the robin being used as a motif. I added slow motion effects to some of clips, for example the ones where the performer is running across the snowy field. I did this simply by altering the speed of the clip, decreasing the percentage to get the clip as slow as I wanted it. I also added titles at the end of my video, crediting myself and my brother for the work and U2 for the song.

After finishing my video, I moved onto my subsidiary products. I began by researching and looking at already existing CD covers and advertisements, keeping with my U2 theme. I enjoyed this research as I found out some things which I hadn’t known about the U2 album covers that I chose to look at. I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 to create my own CD cover and advertisement. I produced the advertisement first, using a picture of the performer at the music video location. I edited the image by adding various effects, such as the brush strokes and lighting, and then I added text over the image giving information about the new CD, for example when it was going to be released and in what formats. Another thing I had to do was think up a corporate identity for my performer because using the actual artist of the song was not allowed. I used a lyric from the U2 song Ultraviolet for my name, “Light My Way”, because I really like this song at the moment and I think that it makes a good name because music can guide people and light their way. This name was also placed upon the image in a fancy font called Vivaldi which I used for all the text on the advertisement. I also used it on my CD cover, but only for the artists name and song title so that I could use a different font to give the work some variation.

My CD cover comes in three parts; there’s the front cover, the back cover and an inside cover. The front cover is a simple image of the location, the snowy field that the performer runs across in the video. I added brush stroke effects to this image and also darkened it and I think the outcome of this looks very effective. The only text present on this cover is the name of the artist and the name of the song. I wrote the artists name in a larger font because, even though the CD covers I looked at in my research didn’t do this, I have seen a great deal of covers which use this technique because fans of the artist will instantly notice the name. Moving onto the back cover, I used the same font for the artist name and song title again, but this time I made all the text the same size and placed it in the centre of the cover. I did this because these aren’t as important on the back cover as they are on the front. In a different font, I wrote the track listings in the top right corner of the cover, where it will be easily seen, and at the bottom of the page I wrote production information and also a warning against copyright, which I noticed on an album I have at home. Finally, I added the conventional bar code and record label icon. I created this record label myself, since the use of existing record labels wasn’t allowed. Star Records is the name of my label, featuring a simple black star as the image. Although it is very simple, I think it works as a record label because having one with too much detail would be a bit pointless since record labels on CD covers are fairly small. The image of the back cover itself features a different snowy field but the picture has been taken so that branches of a nearby tree infiltrate this background and I thought this was a nice effect. I also like the fact that there a footprints all over the field because I think this is very effective too. I added a number of different effects to the image to get to it’s finished state. I was very happy and satisfied with how it looked upon completion and thought it looked quite professional.

Finally, I created my inside cover for the CD package. I used the same image as I used for the advertisement, but cropped it and added many different effects. The brush strokes and the lighting, for example, are very different to that of the advertisement. I added two pieces of text in another different font, but I chose one that was similar to Vivaldi so that there wouldn’t be too much of a contrast. These pieces of text are lyrics from the chorus of my chosen song, Magnificent. “Only love, only love can leave such a mark…” is positioned in the top left corner of the page in a white font so that it stands out over the black background and “But only love, only love can heal such a scar…” is positioned in the bottom right corner in a black font to stand out over the white. The lighting effect that I added illuminates the text and the performer which I think looks really effective. After completing this page, I realised I would also have to create a spine for the CD package. I used CS3 for this too, simply importing another image and cropping it to the size that a spine would be. I added some effects to it, so that it is not even clear what the photo was of. I mainly just wanted it to share the same colour scheme as the rest of the product, which it does. I placed the artist name, song title and record company along with the logo on the spine in the same text as I used for the track listing on the back cover.

Upon completing my music video and subsidiary products, I added a few poll questions to my blog to see what people thought of my work. I told friends and other media students to vote in the polls and looking at the results of these, I can see that most of them liked my video and thought that I used conventions well. They also liked my subsidiary products, particularly the CD package. I think that this is good feedback and shows that my work has had quite a good reception and has been enjoyed by these people. I think if I had got more votes on the polls that the data would have been more reliable, but I received good feedback from those who did vote which I am happy about.

Using blogger to present my work was good because I like the layout of the website and the fact that it is quite easy to use. It is easy to look back at previous posts and edit them if needed and it is also easy to add images to posts. I enjoyed using blogger for my AS media work too, so I was glad that I was able to present my work in this way again for A2.

Overall, I fully enjoyed doing this coursework and I am happy with the result. I am pleased with the way my video turned out, even if some parts are a bit embarrassing to watch, but only because of the fact that I’m in it. I tried my best to be the performer though, and the lip syncing fits the song pretty much perfectly, which I was pleased with. I think that if I had been able to get someone else to perform for me then the video could have turned out better because I would have been able to get a range of different shot types rather than just to set the camera up and record all in the same shot. However, there are many shots that I think work well in the video too, the first walking shot of myself for example, which I was quite surprised but very pleased that it just seemed to fit perfectly with the music, and I also quite like the running shots which also fit the music well. I also think I used conventions well in my video, with the establishing shots at the beginning for example and making eye contact with the camera, however I did not have many close ups in my video which was one of the most important conventions. Having the shots and transitions matching the music worked well though, which is another one of the most important conventions when it comes to making a successful music video so I was pleased with how well this worked out. One thing I think I should have done, since I couldn't get anyone else to be my performer and which could have improved my work a lot, would have been to film myself lip syncing to the full song again, but in front of a plain white background in a close up or medium shot because interspersing shots from this with lip syncing shots on the location would have given more variety to the video, by having a different shot type as well as a change in setting. As for my subsidiary products, I really like my CD cover package because I think it looks quite professional and effective. However, I am not as pleased with how my advertisement turned out and if I had more time I would definitely make some changes to it. I think the background image itself works well as an advertisement, but I think it is the text that spoils it a bit because it is all done in the same font and I think it would have looked much better if the bits of information had been done in a different font. However, I think that my three products link together well due to the snowy theme and colour scheme. I also used similar effects in CS3 on the images I used which added to this similarity. Also the font I continually used for the artist name and the other similar fonts aided this further. If I was to do this A2 media coursework again, I think I would probably choose a different U2 song because it would be interesting to make a video in a different style and to a different piece of music. Beautiful Day, Ultraviolet or I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For would be good songs to try out, I think.