Evaluation and Feedback of the Video

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Facebook Feedback

I posted the link to our video from Vimeo on my Facebook wall so that my friends could comment on their opinions on my video. I wrote a few ideas that they could comment on like the camera angling, cinematography, editing and who it compares to Lady Gaga's videos. I received some really useful and positive feedback from doing this. Positive comments - People commented on how the shots really fitted to the lyrics (close up shots of teeth), how it looks like something Gaga would produce, making you think that this would appeal to Lady Gaga's target audience, andalso that the editing is very well done. Criticisms we did receive was about it got slightly repetitive towards the end of the video, which I did agree with, but it doesn't make a huge difference to the overall effect look of the video and I think it does help the continuity more.

By posting the video on my Facebook I could make it accessible to everyone on my friends list. But the majority of my friends are around my age group give or take a few years. This means the video was only seen by a small selection of Lady Gaga's target audience. This is why I asked my mum if she too could post the video on my Facebook wall so it could be seen by anothergeneration of people, meaning it is seen by a larger selection of Lady Gaga's target audience.

The link below is a powerpoint with pictures of each questionnaire I gave out. Some I filled in myself by phoning the person and then writing exactly what they said. This is so that I could have them all completed faster. On the last couple of slides I have summarised the feedback I have received from my questionnaires.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BwxYNy6Gbf9BNjk0NTIyN2EtY2UxNC00ZWU0LThlODgtNjZhMmIyMzIwNjIy&authkey=CLix3ZQB&hl=en

I tried using varied methods of gaining feedback for my video. I think the easiest way of receiving the feedback was through Facebook. I managed to reach thousands of people and receive lots of good feedback from a wide range of people, including age groups in Lady Gaga's target audience. Im glad I postedthe video on my Facebook wall and my mums. It meant I could see the range of reception across age groups, and saw that it was a consistent good reception throughout. However, I am aware that people may have been scared or too nice to be nasty on Facebook and on my questionnaires that I had to fill out by phone call, but I did receive creative criticism as well. Facebook is a brilliant technique for receiving feedback as it is a social network site which is incredibly popular at the moment. If I had been doing this a couple of years ago Iwould have posted it on Myspace as that was the craze at the time. The internet is so usefulas you can connect to almost everyone and there is so many sites where you can post and review videos and photos so that almost anyone with internet access can access it. Questionnaires are less accessible and are harder to get filled in as you have to see people, get it all back and the questions are more selective so that it is easier to review the answers and present them in graphs or tables.

The feedback was very consistent. Most people commented on the editing, especially the close up shots of the singing. I put the Bad TV effect on these shots to emphasise the mouth, linking to the lyrics. People commented that these shots really workedwith the lyrics and kept the image of teeth in their brains. Another piece of positive feedback I received was about how this video looked like something Lady Gaga wouldproduce. It had a similar theme and punchiness likeGaga's other videos, with its fast pace and its quick transitioning between shots. I wasverypleased with this feedback as I was hoping for this reception, especially when peoplefrom thetarget audience commented with this. It shows that my video was an accurate reflection of the artists audience. The criticism I received was to do with the repetitiveness of the video towards the end. I agree with this comment as when I was editing I felt that I hadn't filmed enough footage for the video as I also felt that it got slightly repetitive (especially around 2 and a half minutes in).

If I was to make changes to the video I would:

1) Shoot double the amount of footage that I did shoot. I felt that although we did have a nice variety of shots, when we came to the end of our editing we had to start repeating parts. The main problem we had was that we didn't realise that we messed up some lyrics at points or sang the wrong part (not the main lyrics or the backing vocals), or laughed. Next time I will review the footage more before I start editing so I can re-film things on set whilst everyone is still in make up and costume.

2) Be more adventurous with the costume and make up. Because we were pushed for time during filming, we tried our best to achieve Gaga-esque costumes, but we needed things that would be quick to swap and change. In our preliminary thoughts for the video, we discussed using fabrics to cover the peoples eyes and emphasise the eyes. We did use black mesh in some parts, but I think the editing achieved this more so it didn't effect it too much by not using it. This use of covering the eyes is quite popular in Gaga's videos as well, so I would develop on it if I was to change the video.

(This is a still from Gaga's video Bad Romance. It shows lots of example of unusual and couture looking eyewear. i would replicate this if i was to make a change to my video).

3) I'd would like to have put a proper dance routine in the video. Although we had dancing it was all singular, and no group dancing like in a Lady Gaga video. We had choreographed a routine from watching Gaga's live performances on the internet but due to the times we could have the photography or film studio, it meant we couldn't get enough dancers. It was easier for me to film and my partner to dance. If I re-filmed I would love to film a proper dance routine with at least 4 or 5 dancers. I think this would just make the video perfect.

(This is also a still from Bad Romance but shows a typical dance routine that Gaga performs in her music videos. This dance routine being my favourite of her dance routines. Gaga stands out as she is dressed differently to her dancers. If we did a dance routine we wouldn't have a main dancer or a central character as we didn't want someone playing the role of Gaga, to be different.)

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

I created a power point to illustrate the differences and similarities between my video and Lady Gaga's videos and also how these videos compare to other music videos by artists of the similar genre.

This is the powerpoint presentation. (for some reason Google keeps making some of the writing disappear off the page, even though I have gone back and made it smaller or moved it.)

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BwxYNy6Gbf9BNTA0MjE4N2EtZmQxZi00NTUxLWI0MzktYWUyNmJiODgwNTYy&hl=en&authkey=CISu6js

I then presented this powerpoint to a mix group of people from the age of 12 - 60. Below is the link to the presentation.

The only way I could upload this was through google documents and you have to download it to see it as the file was too small to go on Vimeo and won't play on Google Documents.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BwxYNy6Gbf9BZTRlZDYxODUtNTgxYi00NGRlLWJjZGQtZTU3YTJiNWM4MmYz&hl=en&authkey=CPrp7swB

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

I believe my Digipack and advert work really well for their purpose. I tried hard to keep the images consistent throughout so that if someone saw the advert they would associate them with each other, but made differences so that I could experiment with Photoshop techniques and play with my skeletal theme.

I decided to make a powerpoint to analyse and answer the evaluative question above. (Some of the images are of poorer quality then they should be due to compatibility of my Mac and Google Documents.)

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BwxYNy6Gbf9BMjgxNDZjODEtMDk0Yy00Mzc2LWIwYzctZGU2MTU3MTljODAx&hl=en&authkey=CPGhvbYO

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planningandevaluation stages of all your products?

During this project I have used a number of programmes, software and equipment.

Photoshop

I used the Adobe programme, Photoshop, to make my Digipack and Advert. I used Photoshop in my Media coursework last year so I do have experience with the programme. I tried to teach myself some new techniques this year, by watching online tutorials for title effects e.t.c. Many people post tutorials online these days and there is a huge amount to look through. For themain title 'Teeth' I put a gradient overlay of quite golden and brown colours on it as it matched my colour choice of the main image. I saved this to my styles on Photoshop so I could use it for bothmy Digipack and advert. I also put some effects on the title including; drop shadow, beveland emboss and stroke. I am very pleased with how the title turned out. I think its eye catching and helps the title stand out more considering the complexity of the font of the title.

To create the image the way I did, I layered the two pictures and added a layer mask. A layer mask allows you to use the brush tool to delete one layer but not the underneath layer. If you paint on the object with black, it deletes the top layer, if you are then unhappy with how much you have taken you can paint back over it white and it brings back the image. This is a really useful tool and it gives you more control then the eraser or undoing what you've done previously.

Once I had made the image skeletal enough I played with the images hue and saturation options until it was how I like it. I wanted the image to match the title, so I kept the colours quite warm,making it a slightly orangey/yellow colour

Above shows how you make a layer mask for you image so that you can paint on it to delete and bring back the image.

These images show how you change the hue and saturation to change the colour of your image. You can also play with the lightness of the image. I made my image darker for my advert and Digipack.

There is a huge range of effects and options on Photoshop so I could really experiment before I chose what I wanted to do. Originally I had wanted my two texts completely in black and white, but because of all the options available to be I decided to try something a bit different, giving the pictures and titles glows and subtle, minimalistic colours. The use of the layer mask meant I could achieve a believable skeletal look and I feel it looks well done and not amateur at all. All these options really let me bring all my ideas together and gave me a really good finished product.

The Internet

The internet has been really useful for this coursework as it has abled me to show my finished video to many more people then I could personally. With social networking and online video sharing being made widely available and free it means almost anyone can access it if you make it available for public viewing. 10 years ago this would have been a lot harder as a very small percentage of people had internet or a computer, whereas almost everyone owns a computer and wireless internet nowadays. The internet also makes researching my chosen artist at lot easier. I could watch all of Lady Gaga's videos on her Youtube channel and take stills and ideas from this.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ladygagaofficial?blend=1&ob=5

Youtube also allowed me to review Lady Gaga's target audience with its useful option toview the video statistics. You can use the internet to review Lady Gaga's target audience through looking at how many people follow her on Twitter, Myspace and Facebook and also to look at how many hits her official website has received.

www.facebook.com and www.vimeo.com have both allowed me to post my video online and let people give me feedback for my evaluation. This has been a huge help, especially Facebook. I could create a Facebook group for my whole project and post pictures of my ancillary texts as well as post my video. It also gives you a chance to explain the task to others so that they cangive you the type of feedback you need.

Final cut Pro

This is the programme I used for the editing of my music video. I had never used the programme before I started this coursework and when we did our preliminary task I didn't experiment much and only learnt how to cut up bits of footage and place them on the timeline. When it came to editing our own video I decided to play around with the video effects. I tried many of them including, Bad Tv, Bad Film, Strobe, Mirror, Desaturation, Equalising, the Matrix Effect.

We experimented for most of the first editing lesson then narrowed it down to the few we wanted to use. We managed to find effects to fit our song, genre and artists really well and look creative at the same time. We also looked at video transition effects and used some fade ins and outs towards the beginning and end. We weren't keen on the other transitions as they were all quite blocky and reminded me of powerpoint presentation I used to make as a kid. Overall I foundFinal Cut really easy to use and easy to play around on. I have made a short video showing a couple of skills I learnt, here I show how to set up a video and explain how to capture back a video. I then show just a few effect skills I learn't as well. The video is in two parts because the programme I used to video what I am doing onscreen (Jing) only allows you to film five minutes at a time.

Part 1 (once again it wont actually preview these videos on Google Documents or Vimeo or Youtube but they are small files that you can download then they work)
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BwxYNy6Gbf9BYmMwZTczNmQtMThmZS00YmE4LTk0N2UtMTA0MGI2OGJkZTIz&hl=en&authkey=CKuQr80F

Part 2
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BwxYNy6Gbf9BNDVmM2YzYmYtN2I2ZC00YjI4LWI3OGUtMjk0NTc5NDI1YWUx&hl=en&authkey=CMjOx8cG

Finished Video

This is our finished video, I posted it on Vimeo instead of Google Documents because it gives you a better quality and looks os much nicer. Also on Google Documents it sometimes slows the video and you loose the quality even more. http://vimeo.com/22121473

I am really happy with the final video. It looks so good and I am so glad we filmed with a HD camera as it just gives it that something extra. We did face some problems when exporting the video like getting rid of the spare footage at the end and getting it online or on a USB stick. However we overcame it all easily. I am now going to post this video on my Facebook account and show it to family members, trying to reach a larger audience so that I can get much more varied feedback and will be more likely to find someone in Lady Gaga's target audience.

Creative Camera Use

When we were planning our video we had a few effects that we were sure we were going to use for our final video, but when using Final Cut Pro we discovered more effects that would give us the desired effect we wanted. One effect we wanted to use was a mirrored effect over some dancing and hair flicking. We thought this would fit our unusual theme for our video and gave us some odd body shapes. After making this decision, Lady Gaga released her new video, Born this way, and this video also uses the mirrored effect. Showing that this effect would appeal to her target audience.

(This is a still from our video showing the mirrored effect and how we used it for our dance routine.)

(The photo above shows Gaga's use of the mirrored effect in her video Born This Way.)

When we first started doing the video we wanted it all in black and white but looking into it, we thought that this might become a bit boring and have decided to use some use of colours in some parts of the video, but only minimalistic colours, keeping it as simple as possible. We put colour filters over our footage on Final Cut and also used Final Cut to make the footage we wanted into black and white instead of filming it in black and white. We decided to do it this way in case we decided we actually wanted a piece of footage in colour and we wouldn't have to go refilm it.

(This is an example of using the Desaturate tool on Final Cut Pro, making our footage black and white.)

Another effect we have used but weren't planning on using was the Bad film effect. This effect cuts your image into two and flips them. This really worked for our lip syncing footage. It splits the image so that the mouth was in one section and eyes in the other, with the mouth taking up the majority of the screen. This effect looks more effective when in colour as you can see the old TV look/graininess a lot better in colour.

(This is the Bad Film effect that we have used for our video in the lip syncing scenes.)

In our original planning for the video we wanted to place text over some of the footage either as a title scene or just through the video during the chorus. We chose to use the same font Gaga uses on her album cover as it is bold and dominates the picture, we also found this font in white works really well over the black and white parts of our video. Gaga has also used text in her videos for title sequences in her videos Telephone with Beyonce and Paparazzi, giving our video a likeness to hers.

(This is a still from our video where we have placed a text effect on top of our footage.)

(This is a still from Gaga's video Paparazzi. Where she uses text as a title sequence for the video.)

Rejected Footage

Most of our rejected footage is down to either a slip up in lyrics or laughing. The other footage we rejected was because we tried to film the whole song in every shot we were going to use, therefore we didn't need all the footage from each shot. But this gave us lots of footage to play around with. The down side of shooting this way was that editing look longer as we had more footage to look through, but our shooting scripts helped out here as we knew what was the best bit from each shot and could find it easier.

In this first piece of footage we were trying to achieve a spin and fall to place at the end of our video. The spinning was good and central but the fall looked clumsy and the person being filmed laughed afterwards. We may still cut out some of the spinning and use it elsewhere in the video. We chose to do a moving shot for this piece as our whole video is made up of static shots and we felt we needed a moving shot to make it more exciting.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BwxYNy6Gbf9BMTc5MjU3YTYtZWRiZi00ZDEzLTg2YWYtYzg3NzVmMTZlMjA4&hl=en

We rejected this piece of footage as as we started to film we realised the camera angle wasn't quite right and needed shifting.
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BwxYNy6Gbf9BN2MxYzVlMDgtZmMzYS00ZTc0LTk3NDktOWIyNjRhMGU2ZTc3&hl=en

Advert

This is my advert for my digipack. I have used the same same model for my digipack and advert to help continuity. The theme is also similar as I wanted the skeleton look to be consistent throughout.

For my advert I used the same title as the digipack and the same font and image, I thought this worked really for continuity. I also thought that this would mean that if you saw the advert or the Digipack you would immediately associate them with each other. On the advert I did the skeletal theme slightly differently, I didn't use the broken mirrored effect this time, instead I tried to make it look like her face was slowly morphing into a skull instead. Almost like a progression from the Digipack, her skeletal alter-ego coming out. I put a review on the advert as this is common on adverts for new albums as well as a release date. If I was to improve my advert I would maybe reconsider my font choice. Although it looks very good and works with the image, if this advert was on a billboard or a small version on a wall, you maybe wouldn't notice it if you were in a rush or in a car driving past.I also feel that this advert lacks some information, although I haven't had people say this in my feedback. I would maybe add another review from a magazine or more information about what songs are on the album.

I used Photoshop again to produce my Advert and progressed with my skills about using layering masks and showed that I developed my skills on editing photos and playing with text effects like the gradient of the title and putting drop shadows on writing.

To get feedback on my advert I made a Facebook group dedicated to my Digipack and Advert and interviewed someone in Lady Gaga's target audience which I worked outby looking at her video statistics from her Youtube channel, looking at her followers on Twitter, Myspace and Facebook.

Here is a picture of my Facebook group I made.

From making this group I received some good comments about my choice of fonts, the theme and its consistency through the digipack and the advert and also the colour choices. They have mentioned that the minimalistic colours work well with theme. I am very happy with this feedback and found I received good feedback through putting it on Facebook from Photography students who are used to looking at images done on Photoshop and other media students. I could also could get feedback from people who are in Lady Gaga's target audience or are fans of her.

Another way to get feedback for my advert was through a video interview with someone who is in Lady Gaga's target audience of males between the age of 35 and 44. This interview also talks about the digipack because I needed to talk about both in the interview to discuss continuity.

http://vimeo.com/22855678

Digipack

DIGIPACK FRONT AND BACK COVERS

This is my front cover for my Digipack and I am very happy with how it has ended up. I have strayed away from my original flat plan as I have chosen to incorporate colour into the cover instead of sticking to the black and white design. I think the colour choice i have used suits the dark theme of the Digipack. By making the image of the girl colour and the background image of a skeleton black and white, it defines the difference between the two images and makes the shattered mirror look, look more effective and eye catching.

The image of the skeleton I had to get from a free image site as I could not get hold of a skeleton model to photograph. The skeleton firstly had screws in the limbs and ribs, arms and was a much lighter picture on a white background, I used Photoshop to edit my images. I firstly changed the background to black and erased the arms. I then used the clone stamp tool on Photoshop to get rid of the screws on the skeleton and replace them with the colour of the bones. Then, by using the photo adjustment options, I played around with the Colour balance and the Brightness/Contrast to make the image darker and more shaded. The image was also slightly tilted to the left so I re sized it and rotated it until it was face on and matched up to my image of a girl. for the image of the girl, I played around with making it black and white, but instead decided to change the colour balance, making it more red, yellow and magenta then the original image. Once the images were the same size and in the same position I started to cut the pieces apart to create the broken mirror effect. I cut the images up using the Polygonal Lasso tool and copying and pasting each segment into a new layer and saving it. I made a trace of how I cut up one image so that when I cut up the second image it was identical. I research broken mirror images before cutting up my images so that I could make the effect look as realistic as possible. After this was all done I placed the segments I wanted back together to make the completed image, leaving black gaps between each segment.

For the title on my front cover I researched title effect tutorials for Photoshop on google and came across a tutorial to give me the main title. I have already chosen to use Edwardian Script ITC as my main font and had already put the Lady Gaga title at the bottom of the cover with a shadow round the writing to make the white stand out over the image of the skeleton.

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/text-effects-tutorials/how-to-create-a-gold-text-effect-in-photoshop/

This link shows the webiste tutorial I used for my main title. I didn't use the font they suggested because I had already chosen what font I wanted. I also didn't do Step 6, adding bevel and emboss as I didn't like how it looked. Im really happy with how it ended up and will probably use a similar text effect for my advert.

The back cover is simpler then my flat plan design. Originally I was going to use the image of a skeleton hand. I didn't want to use another free image so I had attempted drawing a hand and scanning/editing it. However it made my digipack look to busy and I thought it drew the attention away form the image on the front. I looks a lot better as a simple back cover. I have used the same font, in white (apart from a beige colour for the bonus DVD title.) Next to the barcode that I got from Google, I have written all the cd/dvd information that are on the back of Fame Monster (Gaga's real album) and I have added a DVD logo to the information as well and a running time. All this is written in the font Impact.

DIGIPACK INSIDE COVERS

I strayed from my flat plans for the inside cover quite a lot because I felt that the front cover of the Digipack was quite sophisticated and had a lot going on, that the inside didn't need to be very complicated. This image was taken at the same time as the front image to help continuity. I like how the girl is staring into the camera and gives the inside more impact. I still put a letter from Gaga but left out the banner. I thought the banner would make it a little tacky and would made it look a little amateur. I put a white ring round where the cd would be quite impactual. But if I was to go back and change the inside I would get rid of this white ring. I chose a different font then the front cover, I chose a font that looked more like handwriting so it looked like a personal message from Lady Gaga herself. I wrote it in the style of Lady Gaga as well.

FEEDBACK

I posted my digipack on Faceboook to recieve feedback from friends and family about the pros and cons of my Digipack. I then made a Facebook group about the Digipack and Advert together so they could give comparative feedback on both texts.

I received good feedback on the Digipack, saying that the image and theme worked really well and by using the same images but changing the way I used the skeletal theme showed my varied skills with Photoshop. There was also comments on how the minimalistic use of colour and how this worked and that people thought it looked professional. I also had good comments about the use of font. When I originally made the digipack I had used the font Impact for the spinal font because I thought it would stand out more on a shelf, but then I realised it looked odd on the Digipack as it was quite random and didn't fit in. I am very happy that I changed it to Edwardian Script like the rest of the Digipack.

I also interviewed someone who is in Lady Gaga's target audience, (a male aged between 35-44). I got this from looking through Gaga's video statistics from Youtube. In the interview I talk about both the Digipack and the Advert as I ask comparative questions.

http://vimeo.com/22855678

This interview shows that the feedback from Facebook is consistent with what other people think.