Ryan Star- Last Train Home Finished Product

Directors Commentary

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

Our music video uses techniques associated with successful popular music videos such as performance and narrative. However, we have also included our own original ideas perhaps not seen as often in other modern music videos to also challenge conventions of real media products.

We agreed as a group, that in order to achieve a good grade, we needed outstanding Mise en scene, great cinematography and an inspiring performance. We made sure we had a solid shot list to use on the video and used real media products such as final cut pro for our editing. We were prepared like any other media product

Like the majority of music videos, we have included close up shots of the performer's face and mouth to capture the lip syncing effectively. Lip syncing is often part of the post-production phase; real music videos include lip syncing to give the initial impression that the performer is singing live with their natural vocal ability. This is done to hide the fact that it is pre-recorded and edited to improve the sound quality. For our music video, we included lip syncing initially to make our performer look like he was the actual singer of the song, Ryan Star. We included lip syncing throughout the whole of the song so that we would have a substantial amount of shots that we could choose from, in case some areas weren't of a high enough performance standard. It made sense to choose sections from one whole length of lip syncing, as appose to having inadequate amounts of little short ones, with the chance of having to film again if we didn't like the shot. Also, this popular technique was included as it is a popular element used in all music videos. By including the celebrity performer it primarily promotes the artist and the song itself.

Particularly for lip syncing purposes, we decided further that we wanted to create a master performance of the lead singer in the video, like many other real media products have done, one of the most popular examples are, Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares to You, and the dance sequence from Beyonce - Single Ladies.

To achieve the best quality like other media products, we used the college’s studio so that we could capture the best definition of shots with the high tech cameras. Due to the song being a powerful soul rock ballad, we dimmed the lighting whilst creating some spot light effects. Handheld cameras were also included to capture the singer (me) lip syncing for the whole song, even in the areas we defiantly didn’t need.

Our media product can be linked to real media products because we also included narrative and performance within our finished product.

Below Insert: Halle Square inside Manchester Arndale was one of a number of areas where we were asked to stop filming due to no permission.

When producing our music video we faced many problems, mianly not allowed permission to fulm in private areas around Manchester.

We did not gain any planning permission as we only had a few weeks to film and it was not considered enough time to gain access to do what we ideally wanted to film. To overcome the problem, we still filmed in the locations we wanted, quickly and quietly, in some cases a one shot take had to be done as we were being moved on during the actual filming process. If we would have been a popular, professional media company we would not have faced these problems, as they are be able to pay to hire areas and have permission to film in places where we are most definitely not.

We challenged conventions of real media products through a variety of tripods shots. We were going to use a lot of hand held clips, to give a sense of a P.O.V shot of the audiences perception of the performer in the video, to make them feel more involved and included, instead of just a viewer.

Another way that we challenged media products was perhaps through the costume worn. Whereas most celebrities wear extravagant, expensive branded clothing, we decided to wear casual clothes. This was because our target audience was primarily students, because of ourselves being students, there would be an immediate connection. It is showed the performer to come across as a regular person, so that there would be a better link. The dress code can also be linked with other media products, as we are also stereotyping students by portraying them as dressing casually whilst still staying with the late fashion trend, but still looking slightly untidy.

To conclude, I feel that we managed to follow popular media guidelines to create a highly quality piece of work, worth a deserving good grade. I also feel that we added our own adopted techniques to the video to make it a totally unique one, whilst still adapting other successful elements, to make our media product look equally as professional.

By Michael and Bethan

Evaluation Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts (the magazine advert and CD digipak)?

In our group, we came to the conclusion that we created a successful combination of the music video and the ancillary text. Firstly, we decided to create a music video for Ryan Star’s- Last Train Home, the main genre for this song is soft rock, the song is redeemed as a somber, minor toned song as it has implied lyrics, “tears coming down” which reflect the depressive state of the performer in the video.
After creating the video, we decided that we needed to design a similar style for the C.D panels and the poster. We decided that we wanted to have the star performer on the C.D and poster cover as it would reflect onto the audiences who sings the song and how the power of the star image could attract a wider range of audiences, so we taken a still camera and we shot in the filming green screen suite in our college.

Left Insert: Poster was filtered in black and white, then added colour to Michael's shirt.

The reason why we used such and unoriginal destination was because we wanted to create a simple, plain image for the ancillary texts to reflect that the performer not happy and in a somber mood like it is reflected in the video. We taken many shot, the props we used in the design were vital as we introduced alcoholic substances which contends sadness due to the stereotype of him being a depressive drinker, we also included his guitar to indicate that he is also the performer in the video, the audience loves to see a versatile image in the media, they like to see the authenticity of having one sole person being used for the whole filming and distribution of the song.

Right Insert: Poster with the insert of text layers and imagery of the companies endorsing the artist.

After we decided on our shots we taken the pictures to Photo shop and played around with a few designs, at first we thought we could of created a blurred image to reflect the lack of clarity in the music video between the two performers, then we decided that we might as well created a similar style to the video, yet design the ancillary texts with a design not used in the video, so what we decided to do is created a black and white filter, just like one of the lip syncing clips in the video. We then had some time to reflect on our decision and we decided that we needed some colour to catch the audience’s attention, so what I decided to do was to create a red filter over the image, i coloured in every red area in so that the main colour scheme was gray and red, this then portrayed a bright red blur in the middle of the panel and poster which would be more attention grabbing with the induce of colour.

Right Insert: Original photograph for the front cover of the C.D case.

For the inside of the panel, we decided that we wanted to imprint the lyrics on the left hand side of the C.D so that the audience could perform the track themselves as many people prefer to sing ballad typed songs than any other genre, the right panel included a bio about Ryan Star, the reason behind this is because Ryan Star is not known as a fully established star so if the audience could be given better information about Ryan Star, it would be easier to indicate a product that he brings out at a later date.

Evaluation Question 3- What have we learned from audience Feedback

We asked a sample audience for there views on our music video and to give us some feedback. Below it shows the feedback we requested from our sample audience.

David Lloyd- The camera work was good. Elements that I like were the shaky effect where the boy was in the park and he was running and really drunk. I think that the settings are appropriate and the costumes link in well with the video. I think that the target audience is young teens to young adults. I particularly liked the lip-syncing, which was done by Michael in the studio I thought that was done very well. Overall I think that the video is good.

Maryam Ismail- I think the camera work fits well and particularly I liked the transitions that were between the shots. I think that the setting was very appropriate as it is a love story, again the costumes fit well as it is typical casual clothing that people of our age actually wear which makes it feel more realistic. The video is probably aimed towards teenagers and young adults. My favorite scenes are at the train station where the boy walks away because at the start of the video I thought the boy and the girl would get together but he walks away so its an interesting storyline through out the whole video.

Adam Smith - I think the video was good I liked the whole video in general I liked the ending in particular it demonstrated the feelings of the male lead very well, emotionally invoking. The settings of the scenes are good and not to over the top like many people have in there music videos. The camera work is really good as well and I liked the fact that both characters got into character and it feels more realistic.

Kate Blair- I think that the camera work was on and off, I could see some parts were rushed. But overall it was pretty good. I like the effects you put on the clips. It captured the emotion of the ballad style song. I particularly like the scenes shot in the park and you went back and forth showing emotions at “happy times”. I feel that you were efficient considering the resources you had. I liked the costume, I thought that it was nice and stylish, fitting in with the genre of the music and setting of the video. I think that the narrative needed to be stronger and apparent, it was rather vague. The story of about the relationship was unclear, why did they separate? It could have been structured better. I also think that the lip-syncing wasn’t in line with song.

Holly Atkinson –

I have to give credit to the camera work in it looked really professional and I liked how showed the emotions of the characters involved. I liked the different filters and effects like shaking off the camera when Michael was in the park and drunk. I like the fact that it didn't go with the majority of the types of videos that are on the music channels now that just feature guns, drugs and girls in bikinis. I also liked the fact that it wasn’t a “typical” love story music video.

Leah Andrew- I think the video was good I liked the video in general. The settings were good. I liked it, the use of ideas for example the idea of where the performer Michael was drunk and depressed and went rushing around Manchester looking for his girlfriend. The props that were used My favorite scene was at the end where the couple walked past giving it a great level of emotion. Overall I think you did a great job.After requesting feedback from a sample audience, our music video received really positive feedback.

A typical comment was that it was creative and the ideas for the storyline was really good. This storyline also related to some people’s lives and so this immediately interested them.

The audience’s overall response from the video was that we had used a wide range of different shots, from close up shots to location shots; to stimulate interest. The use of different types of shots encourages the audience watching the music video to perceive it in different ways, and also creates a successful and professional feel towards the music video.

Another strength that was given was the lip-syncing, which was done by Michael in the studio. A comment we received by the audience feedback was the lip-syncing was done in time and matched the lyric of the songs perfectly.

Not all music videos are made the way people want it. There are things within our music video which we could have improved on and made better.

The audience, which viewed our music video, felt some of the lip-syncing wasn’t in line with the song.

Another problem addressed was that the narrative needed to be stronger and apparent, it was rather vague. And the story should have been clearer about the relationship.

From our audience feedback we have learnt a lot, the audience feedback picks out both positives and negatives about the music video and it allows us to get an idea of what people think of it, and what can be done to make it better.

Evaluation Question 4-How did you use media technologies in construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Making a music video is impossible without technology; it's the most important tool in order to create a good one.

One of the first tasks we did as a group, was researching music videos. To do this, we used 'youtube' to find them to help us analyse the footage. We used some of the music videos as inspiration, showing us good techniques and effects that we may have also liked to include. Also, on the music videos, people are able to like or dislike the video, this enlightened us to which music videos were perhaps liked more than others and look into the reasons why, so that we could include essentially what the majority of people 'like' in our music video, to make it successful.

Another preparation task that we needed to decide as a group was the locations of our music video. To help us decide and locate suitable areas to film, we used 'google maps'. This gave us a chance to observe the place without us having to actually go there. We didn't want to waste time visiting a place that we decide we don't like when we get there, when we could have been filming somewhere else.

Throughout the course, we have primarily been using a hand held digital camera to collect all of our shots assisted with a tripod. Due to the quality of the camera, we avoided using certain functions such as zooming in and out, because compared to other music videos which we have analysed it didn't look professional enough.

After we finished filming, we collected all the footage onto a professional editing software called, "Final Cut Pro". With it being complex, it was equally as difficult to get use to the program again and all of its functions, but we had to discover even more effects to include to make the video look professional, and to show that we have put the effort in to make it appear as good as a modern music video. Constructing our music video was a challenge on the program; to search through the various effects to find the ones that we thought suited our music video and our desired concept best. The effects which were included were a light ray effect on the flashes of the memories when the couple were together, demonstrating their happiness together in the past. For the performance shots, we used a negative effect in contrast to the rest of the footage where it was in colour. It was intended to show the different time periods, as though a back flash of him performing.

To enforce the professional look of our music video, we used the studio and its professional equipment to shoot the performance side of the music video including lip syncing. Being in the studio enabled us to use better quality cameras to use close ups of the face, to focus on the mouth of the performer to establish that the lip syncing was in time with the music, as part of the criteria of the course. The high quality lighting in the studio also allowed us to establish the performer more, focusing the light primarily on his face so that he is more defined and recognised, rather than outside where the weather often disrupted the clarity of our shots. We weren't able to distinguish the character's expressions as clearly as we would have liked, which is important in demonstrating our concept and plot.

Adobe Photoshop was another technology that we used in order to create a professional CD cover and poster design to promote our music video and the single. It was initially difficult to get use to all the functions because we were not required to use the program last year. However, this program enabled us to include features associated with a professional CD cover, such as the barcode. Other features we included to influence people to buy the CD were putting logos up of awards, such as an 'MBE" therefore making it look worthy of buying because of all the awards that it looks like it has won. Another tool used was, 'blur'. This enabled us to combine two different images and merge them together. This would not have been possible on an amateur program. Moreover, when editing the original photo that we took, the picture was too large to be saved for the album cover. To fix the issue, we brushed over the guitar, to effectively make it look like the object was never there.

We also dominantly used black and white effects throughout the whole album, to establish the sad lyrics of the song, showing the audience the genre 'soft rock' as appose to a heavy metal example which would be loud and colourful to demonstrate the chaos and loud music. The black and white is also used to indicate the performer's state of mind, showing that he is not seeing things as brightly as he did when he was with his girlfriend. The dull colours should show the buyer that this is a sad song.

When evaluating our music video, we went into the studio for the final time, to record our overall outlook of our progress and discuss not only the challenges that we faced, but the main important techniques that we included that made our music video stand out and look professional. The studio was the best quality technology available so that when recording our voices, it was clear and you could understand the answers that were given from the evaluation.

Final Poster Design

This is our final poster design, the man features of our poster is the black and white filter, with the insert of a red colouring on Michael's t-shirt, this creates a somber, negative approach to the album, this is vital for the target audience as it is a soft, slow rock genre that we tried to promote during our advertisement of our music video. We then created a text layering informing the reader of who the artist is, what the album is called and the release date, we created a stroke boarder around the text to make the text more eye catching if the audience is walking past the poster, the border is also important as it creates a contrast in colours throughout the poster of three major colours, Red, Gray and the border Black.

We also inserted images of the record company for copyright issues and we also inserted two companies which sell the music for Ryan Star, Hmv and itunes, the reason why we chosen the these two companies was because they are major music record shops, so the target audience will be able to easily access the album from there desired company. We also inserted a unique item of an award nomination, this was an easy decision for us to insert the item as it would connote that the music is a award winning piece of music, so more people would be attracted towards buying the album.

By Michael Redmond

Album Cover Pictures

By Abdul

Album Cover

Front Album Cover

We decided to use this image for the front album cover as it was the best image we took and we thought that it would suite the album cover perfect. What i had to do was turn it balck and white as this album is more to do with sad songs so i thought that black and white is the best way to show what type of album this is. Before when i first made this front cover there was also a guitar on the side, but then sir said that album need to be 12 x 12 so thefore i had to remove the guitar picture using adobe photoshop. this had to be done with all the album picures.

Back Album Cover

The idea for this picture was taken from chris browns FAME album. I saw that he had a picture of his front body and then the songs on the right hand side. So i thought it would be good if we had an image of Micheals back and back it the back album cover. I had to research what recording label he was with which is 'Atlantic Records' and had to get the symbol and also the small writing about hwere it was produced etc. A barcode is also necessary because all purchase items need an barcode so that its sellable.

Right Inside Album Cover

The resaon why i chose this picture was ecuase, we wanted the inside to be nice and simple, with abit of biography about ho Ryan Star, became who he is now. I decided this picture of him lying down is best suited as he still thinks that all this is a dream, and he cant bleive hw much he has achieved in his life.

Inside CD Panel Cover

I decided to put the lyrics to his hit song 'The last Train Home' on the CD Album, so that people are able to sing along with the song. I decided to use this image as the backgroung as this image has got something to do with the music video for this song. I chose to do this, because i once brought an Album and it contained a little book with all the lyrics and i thought it was a good way for people to grasp the lyirics to the song easily.

Storyline of the Music Video

For our music video, we decided that we wanted to create a non-linear piece of work, the reason why is that it was easier and made more of an interesting storyline if there was parallel editing of a flash back within the video, the video starts with a performance start, it has the fist line lip synched by Michael, then the scene cuts to the narrative of Michael on the bench, in parallel editing terms, the areas where Michael is alone is continuity edited as it is a timeline of Michaels actions in the video, the clip with Michael and Bethan together are filtered to represent the change in time and manner in the video. The video is experimental as the last narrative clip in the video is Michael lying on the grass, this is taken from the filtered clip of Michael and Bethan together, this time Michael is on his own, and the reason for this is the mental image that he no longer has the person that he wants in the video.
By Michael Redmond

How does mise en scene and performance contribute to representations?

In our video, we carfully placed particular items and located mise- en- scene carefully to imply an amplified meaning, the first example of this is when michael wakes up the the park, the beer cans around him promote how he fell asleep on the bench due to being drunk, this connotes that he has been heavily drinking because he has a problem in his life which is later explained as the music video progresses.

His drunk state is then fully identified as he manages to fall over in the video, which represents how he can not stand on his own two feet due to him being dependant on the woman he loves.


Later in the video there is a extreme long shot of Michael on his own, this represents his lonely state as the street he is on is deserted and no one is on it, this represents that he is in his own world on his own and that no one is there for him.


There is then parallel editing as there is an image of Michael and Bethan together, the light filter creates as nostalgic representation that Michael was once happy and that it connotes why he is now upset, because he is on his own.


The video also inserts an implied meaning in the performance, there are frequent places where Michael is smiling throughout the performance which connotes that all in all, the storyline is fictional and the main protagonist is actually happy, this is important for the target audience as they would rather buy music of a positively influenced artist, rather than a negatively influenced artist.


Another shot of the performance is when Michael is in the red polo, he begins to use paralinguistic features to express his passion towards the song, this promotes that the artist is real and passionate in what his Career is.


There is then a sped up motion of Michael sat on the wall, this represents him wasting time due to not having anything important to do now that the one he loves has gone.


A image was then shown of Michael running frantically, this is evidence to needing the one he loves as he is using up all his energy to find the girl in the video.


There is then a shot of Michael looking back to see Bethan standing in front of him,there is also a long two shot of the two characters,the shocked look on his face represents that he is so surprised that he actually found the one that he loves after the split, it is almost a Hollywood styled happy ending set up which has been produced.



The defining image in the whole video is Michael walking away, this represents that he has had enough of feeling down and let down by the girl in the video, this is met by his power in walking away and understanding that there is a life after love.

There is then an image of Michael on grass opening his eyes, this represents that he is watching the clouds go by, he is happier with a simpler life.

The last image in the video is the light in the recording studio, this represents that there is always light at the end of a situation in life and that every bad aspect in life will one day be sorted out and we will all live peacefully.


By Michael Redmond

Notes on our initial planning and inspration for our music video

For our initial planning, we were always going to create a music video for a romantic setting, the reasons behind that we because, rather than editing a lot of special effects into our video, we wanted to create a clear cut product which the audience can enjoy and even relate to whilst watching the video.
Our inspiration for our planning came from music videos such as Rhianna- unfaithful and even a modern interpretation of Bon Jovi's - Always,
do create this we decided that we needed to create a music video for a soft rock artist or group who did not already have a music video for their song. Originally, we decided that we wanted to create an amplified narrative for U2- With or without you, as their original music video was a simple styled performance. After constant planning of our video we came to the conclusion that the video would start with an image of a guy and girl in love, then it will show that the girl had to go away, so the guy was going to get onto a train then and run away in the video, we decided that the whole video was going to be shot in black and white, in the end, we decided to reject this idea for the whole video as the colour of the parallel editing of Me and Bethan together would not be as significant if it was in a black and white filter, yet we did, in the end, decided to create some of the performance and one clip in black and white to keep to our original idea. we then decided that in the video, we were going to improvise and create Scenario’s which would make the main protagonist reflect the emotion that he feels out of place, then in the video, we were going to create a scene where he finds out his ex girlfriend has a new love,
this would upset him, yet throughout the video, there are images of people coming up to him and helping him out, they connote that people like him and how he is not on his own, yet he ignores all the help and walks away from the help, alone. There is then a cut scene to the protagonist in a deserted area holding a picture of the girl, who he once loved, the camera would then change focus from the shallow focus of the picture, to the deep focus of the girl standing right in front of him.
To create an original video, we then made the main protagonist walk away from the one he loves, this will represent his strength in life and how no one can ever become dependent on another person as they can always get over a tricky area in life.

In reality, our final draft of the video storyboard is similar to the original design, the reason for this is that we had a lot of different features that were entertaining and influential throughout the original storyboard planning, the main area we deleted in the original storyboard is the photograph being held by the main protagonist, the reason why we changed that was because we also decided that we wanted to change the song to the video, we decided that Ryan Star’s- Last Train Home was a more influential song for the style of video we were creating and we wanted to concentrate on having a scene on a platform throughout the video to illustrate the lyrics in the song.

By Michael Redmond

Copyright Issues

When we finally finished the editing process for our blog, we decided that for audience reaction on the video, we would post the video upon YouTube,the problem we faced with that is that we were breaking copyright grounds with WMG (Warner Music Group), because of this we were unable to embed the video on to the blog via embedding on YouTube and on a personal note, family members from around the world who wanted to see my final product were unable to easily access the video as they were no aloud to view it. To evade this problem we changed the format of the video from a quick time movie, to a MPEG-4 format, this compressed the mega bites and allowed it to be embedded through uploading it upon blogger itself.
By Michael Redmond

Shot List of a specific scene in our video

The shot list is from 02:56-04:04 in our music video, this part of the video is the most important part as the music reaches a climax and the narrative is about Michael actually coming into contact with his ex.

1- Extreme Long Shot - reflect his loneliness, he is on his own.

2. Medium Shot (performance)- The lip syncing represents his passion for the song.


3. Long Tracking shot- he walks onto the bus and the camera follows.

4. Long Shot of Michael running- at the bottom of the frame to represent how powerless he is no that he does not has his Ex.

5.Long Shot (Performance)- Shows the paralinguistic features as he lip sync's.

6.Long Shot- reverse zoom- creates an establishing shot to where he is, location wise.

7. Long shot (Performance)- slight low angle to show his dominant status in song.

8. Extreme long shot- establishes that his ex is walking upon the platform

9. Medium shot (performance)- closer shot reflects more performance emotion.

10. Long shot track to right- establishes Michael running onto the platform.

11.Extreme long shot- once again establishing his Ex getting closer towards the platform.

12.Long shot (Performance)- Paralinguistic features are still evident throughout the scene.

13. Medium Shot (Performance)- The change in length creates a greater development in identifying emotion in the performer.

14. Close up- (performance)- close up from the side to represent angled responses towards the audience.

15.Medium shot- the distant look on Michael's face connotes his fear.

16.Long two shot- The platform represent them meeting for the first time.

17. Medium Shot (Performance)- portraying emotion once again.

18.Long two shot- Represents the pause between one another.

19. Long shot track up- shows Michael's shaken state.

20. Long shot (Performance)- continuation of paralinguistic features.

21. Shot/reverse/ medium shot- represents Michael's and Ex's emotions towards one
another.

22.close up (Performance)-Reflects mass emotion in performer.

23. Long two shot- shot Michael walking towards ex, represent ending to video, vital moment.

24.Long shot (performance)-Calming down of emotion, represent ending of video.

25.Long two shot- Michael walking away represent his strength.

26. Medium shot of Michael lying on the grass, representing he is happier lone.

27.Long shot ( performance)- His sad look on Michael's face represent he is upset from the series of events.

28.close up (performance)- different angle to evident previous shot.

29. Establishing shot- of light to represent the cliche- light at the end of the tunnel.

By Michael Redmond

What is Goodwin's theory and how did we imply it into our music video ?

In our music videos, we attempted to imply Andrew Goodwin’s theory when creating our music video, his five areas that he concluded that the audience should look out for our:
-Thought beats – seeing the sound.

-Narrative and performance.
- Star Image
-Relation of visuals to song.
-Technical Aspects of a Music video.

Firstly, Goodwin’s fist aspect was creating a music video with “thought beats”, the implied meaning of this is to look into the structure and how it is set out to portray the star image of the performer or how it explains the narrative, an example of this theory in our music video is that when the song cut to the chorus, Michael (me), would be seen lip sync hing to the song, this reflects the power of the voice as for our genre of a soft rock ballad, the powerful voice and heart in the song is the most important aspect of the video to reflect the star image. Goodwin also portrayed the performer to be a storyteller of the narrative, that songs are stories, told by the artist, he says that a music video is a form of communication between the audience and the performer.
Goodwin’s second theory is that, a song fails to give a complete narrative and performance, because of the use of parallel editing music videos, it is only very rarely we see a full narrative or a full performance to a song, Goodwin also appraises that ignoring common narrative is important in their role of advertising the music to the target audience, examples of this in our music video is making Michael walk away from the girl at the end of the video, this is unorthodox and almost a juxtaposition compared to the lyrics and genre of the song. Goodwin says that the music video should have a repeatability factor which makes the target audience not become bored after repetitive viewing of the video, he also feels that including the star performer into the narrative structure of the video increases authenticity in the video and that creates a sense of realism among the audience along with a good use of lip syncing in the correct places.
Goodwin also believes that the star image has a major part to play in the music video, he feels that the star should show his development throughout the video, this would attract larger audiences, an example of this in our video is when in our music video, I have long hair through the narrative aspect, and my hair is cut throughout the performance, this could indicate that the performance is after the whole fiasco of the narrative and it reflects the star’s development of life through the video.
In the relations of visuals to the song, it is split into three categories within the narrative, Illustrate- which is setting images to compose along the lyrics of the video, Amplify- which means to have a style in your narrative which is similar to the lyrics and genre of the song, and Disjuncture- where the meaning of the song is completely ignored. Our video is mostly categorised as being Amplified, the reasons for this is the narrative is about the star performer looking for the girl in the video, it reflects how he is in love with the girl in the video, which is also apparent in the lyrics of the song as well, yet we did not mimic the actions of the narrative to the lyrics, an example of this would of been, if when the lyrics of “tears coming down”, if we were being illustrate, we would of had an image of him crying, we felt like this was insulting the intelligence of the audience as we feel like they would understand the narrative of our video without visual actions along with the lyrics.
The last aspect of Goodwin’s theory is the technical aspects of the video which fixes the video together, this can be throughout the camera work, movement, angle, Mise-en-scene, editing, sound and special effects. For the filming aspect of the course, we created long, medium speed cutting clips throughout the video to convey the slow ballad, yet compliment the powerful chorus; we had a lot of medium to long shots to engage the emotions of the performer to the audience along with the long shots to indicate what actions he is undertaking in the video. For the lighting and colour, we created a damp cloudy filter over the video to reflect the performers depression when not being with the girl in the video, we also included a bright ray filter when the performer was reminiscing over being together with the girl, this represented the areas in the video where the performer was once happy and now he is not. We also attempted to maintain a professional Mise-en-scene by making sure I wore the same clothes every time we filmed the narrative section, that is we were cutting a trimming videos, that a re-shoot of a particular shot was started in the same position the last clip ended, and the use of props, the microphone for the performance and the suitcase of the girl created authenticity within the video as it gave indication of what is happening through the narrative and performance of the video. We also used in some cases beats to cut to another clip in the video, this was usually done from the transfer of the narrative to the performance, evidence of this is to cut to the performance of the video as soon as the chorus began, this makes the video more entertaining for the audience as they have an overload of features used in the video to comment on and analyse.

Use of technology for communication purposes

Whilst filming for our music video, we decided that if we were going to work efficenly, we needed to cut out the via route
to Loreto College, so we deicided, that it was sensible to meet up in the locations we were filming in rather than all go as a group from college. The advance in technology made this process much more easier as we were able to instantly communicate with one another if any problems occured, a firm example of this is that once, we only decided where we were filming the night before the day we were actually filming, so we were all able to spread the word to one another instantly due to my smart phone, examples of this was i was inboxing Saba on facebook on the internet on my phone. I was then BlackBerry Messaging Abdul which is a unique feature of the actual BloackBerry company, and i was also using the "traditional" feature of texting Bethan, the use of my BlackBerry made the filming the process a lot more productive time as there was no albi to be late or lost as there was recorded Data then of where we were going to meet and what time.

By Michael Redmond

Equipment used throughout the course

P.C/ Apple Mac

The actual epicentre to our A2 media work !, these computer's and mac's main attributes to our workings were mainly for research, blogging and editing, these became very handy throughout the course as it made it so easy to blogg post anywhere and anytime and edit any where and anytime, they were hgihly efficent.

Still Camera

We used a still camera mainly to create our C.D panels and our poster for the song, this proved to be a high sucess due to the camera as with a still camera, we were able to take the perfectly framed and focused shot for our front cover.

Camera
Probably the most important piece of equipment we had was the actual camera, self explanitary really, we used it to shoot the whole enitre video, the college provided us with the camera so that we could keep perfect brightness and filter throughout the whole video that way.

Tripod
We decided to use a tirpod throughout our filming so that we could creat a smooth tilt and pan, and even keep shots steady through some rough weather, this proved to be very useful as there was no use in shake reduction as the tripod kep the shot still and clean.

Final Cut Pro (Apple Mac)

Final cut pro was our editing lifeline, we used this application for everything after the filming, As i did the editing, it was my favouite part of the course as it was made so much easier with this application, it allowed me to veiw a timeline of my editing progress and it plays the video at any moment I want, advantages of this is that it made it so much easier to reach correct timing on lip syncing.

Filming challenges and triumps.

Whilst filming the music video, we came across many challenges, for the first challenge, it was, "were do we actually start filming", we had a million and one ideas in our head and it was just where to start it which was the problem. We decided that maybe we should shoot the video in a chronological order of how it will look like at its finished state, so we decided to start filming in castlefield, that was a great start to our project, we got a lot of the opening to the video recorded and even some of the paraelle editing of when Michael (me) was happy with his partner.



We then faced another challenege when we filmed in the local shopping centre in Manchester, we did not have the permission to film there so we got asked to move one, the problem faced with this was we didnt get everything we wanted in the centre to use for the film, so we decided that we would only use small clippings from the centre and insert them around the film itself.












Then on the friday after we filmed in the Arndale, disaster struck again !, we spent hours on end filming in the local met stopy, filming the most important part of the vilm, the ending and as we had one more clip to film, the met police came and moved us on, we were distrought as we did not know what to do, so we phoned up the metrolink media gorup to ask for permission, the reason to get filming permission on the platform on the wednesday, yet wednesday came and no phone call came, so we took a risk, we got to the platform shortly after lunch and filmed as many clips as fast as we possibly could, and finally we had every platform clip we needed. It became clear that if we taken the risk in our film, we were only going to get the best results.

Yet on the positive side of the coin, we filmed a considerable amount of footage so it was easily acceptable to cut and paste certain areas together, keeping good continuity. In towards the end of the filming aspect of the course, we realised that we did not have an adiquette amount of perfomormance in our video, to resolve this we decided to have two master performances of me in the studio lip syncing the video, this proved to be highly sucessful as it given us the opotunity to base a narrative around a performance instead of a performance arount a narrative, which would of been much more challeging due to the timing of lip syncing and placing the performance in correct times.

Michael Redmond's- Personal Opinion of the filming aspect.

My personal opinion on the whole filming aspect of our course came to the conclusion is that is was difficult, it was cold,
sometimes it rained and we filmed in crowded areas and for me being claustrophobic, it was very uncomfortable, I had to constantly wear the same clothes almost everyday and people began to wonder did my wardrobe set a light or something, I also wore a t-shirt which was "childish" at best underneath my shirt so i was also the end of all running jokes, yet all the negative aside, some areas were good, we created a few laughs and even memories, my running in the video was humerus to some and also the pedestrian interaction put a brighter aspect on the filming days, although there are areas to improve on whilst filming , performance wise, I did all in all enjoy it even though i did find it challenging.
By Michael Redmond