Audience Response

Anthony Cleary - I think that while the video overall is good, it does feels repetitive and the shake at the start when you hit the high note doesn't look that great but it's still a good video nonetheless.

Hollie Robinson - How was the camera work in the music video? 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 you're singing the high notes. I like that most of the setting is set in town and in a park with all the trees. I did liked the costumes because you reminded me of Ne-Yo particularly in your performance. I can clearly see that the video is supposed to be aimed towards young adults as that what R&B videos generally are aimed towards. I think that it could have been improved because at one point I could see that the girl was laughing at a point where she shouldn't have been so it would have been better if there her performance was a lot more serious. I like 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 and what not. My favourite scene was where the two main characters are walking and there is a different filter on.

Paul Higginson - Well everyone in the video to me looked like they were uncomfortable which reminded me of the scene in Twilight where Edward and Bella met. Everyone just seems too awkward, especially the girl. Maybe more effects would improve the video like maybe flash backs to multiple and different images and not just flicking from scene to scene.

Emad Islam - 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. No offence but I think that Kyle is over exaggerating the performance particularly with the lip syncing which if this was changed it would have made the video better. My favorite scene was the part on the escalator. Another thing is that it could have gone a bit better with the beat but I suppose that would mean that they would have to have more shots. Also I think that the period of 1:46-2:10 was too long and would have been better if it was a lot shorter. Don't take anything away from it I did like it overall.

Jodie Wexler - I think the video was good but the shaking wasnt really needed. I liked the video in general. The setting is good and not too over the top. The costume is different which makes it a lot better. I think that the video was aimed towards any of the fans of Chris Brown or anyone that is a fan of R&B. I think that the video could have been better if there was some more drama and more and better effects being used. I do enjoy the video. 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 good job.

Luke Meakin - I think camera work was good and I liked the black and white shots and the ones with the filters. I thought that the setting was alright and the costume fits well. The target audience was probably towards girls who enjoy Chris Brown's music. I think that the dubbing could have been improved because at times I thought that it was a bit out of time but only slightly but I noticed it. My favorite scene is when it gets to the word 'Superhuman' and it had the shaking effect on it. I think the video could have been improved if there was a better chemistry between the two main characters.

David Petty - The camera work was good. Elements that I like was the shake/rumble effect. 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 did enjoy the video and my favourite scene was the part where you stand up and walk off in a mood. Overall I think that the video is good but could be improved on by the video quaility and that the shake effect was used a bit too much so could have been scaled down. 

Thomas McGlone - The camera work is fine. I liked that you got into character which made it feel more realistic. The setting is good aswell as the costumes. The target audience is anyone that listens to Chris Brown or R&B in general. It could have been improved in the scene where she goes to slap you but she is smiling when in the scene she is supposed to be angry after getting in the argument. Whilst I don't like R&B and I seriously hate Chris Brown I did think that you did well performance wise. 

Kate Gair - 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 café, and some of that staging in the park was really effective. Clips you shot in town were also beautiful. 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. Considering the music genre (pop), I can assume it’s targeted to a mainstream, young audience. Perhaps leaning towards a more female audience. To improve it 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. And some of the clips were too long and a bit uninteresting. I did enjoy the video, I thought it was good. I liked the ending in particular. It demonstrated the feelings of the male lead very well, emotionally invoking. Also your singing amused me greatly.

Below is our finished version of the CD Cover. We were inspired by other covers from artists such as Chris Brown, Ne-Yo and Cee-Lo Green and how they have theirs designed, such as where the text goes and what sort of image we should use and where it should be placed. Although they can be very complicated to make, most R&B CD covers do generally look the same which did make it easier to sort of mimic them as the CD covers above all include an image and the name of the album.

These are some of the posters that we looked at as a way of inspiring our own. They helped us massively as it gave us an idea when it came to themes, colours and styles. The way Chris Brown is posed in the picture below is from the actual Superhuman music video, which gave us the idea for our poster. We also thought that the gray scale effect would be very effective on the poster as it makes the rest of the text and images stand out. We took the picture in the snow as the weather was horrible whilst we were going to make the magazine advert however we overcome this by de-saturating the background. We then added the recording label and where the event would be held to give off that professional feel to it so people when they saw it would actually believe that it was a real advertisement.

What have you learned from your audience feeback?

To gain some audience feedback we created a questionnaire for the viewers to fill in. We gained some comments that helped us understand what we could improve and do better next time. From our feedback we learned that our music video, CD cover and magazine article were all appealing to our target audience. However there were several people that didn't really like it for reasons such as its confusing and quite muddled up.

We were told that people like the story that goes on around the music performance and how it links in with the lyrics. We found that the rest of the viewers enjoyed the emotional meaning behind each shot and others said that the scenes were carefully planned out.

When it came to the magazine advert a lot of people said it looked a lot like the real advert by the artist and didn't feel we were creative enough to create our own version and style, they commented also that we did exceed expectations as it looked like the real thing. On the other hand our feedback was positive overall and if we were to do this video again we would take into account what the people have said as its extremely important to make sure the audience are happy with our product. We are really pleased with out results and believe that the audience feedback shows that we pulled it off in the end.

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

We used new technologies in all stages of our production,including the planning, production and editing parts of our work. Media technologies are increasingly important in todays media industry because without the technology it would have been hard to construct and plan our media project.

Firstly, we used the blogs for planning the music video, advert and CD cover. Using the blog made it easy to plan out what we were going to do step by step, such as which locations we would use and what the actors needed to do what. The blog was also used to upload our location shots and shooting schedules. We also used it to blog our entries which can be edited at different times during the whole production process so if we change our mind on anything we could easily just re-write it.

Another technology that we found useful were the websites Muzu.tv and YouTube. We used these websites to go through and research the popular music videos that are out at the time and decide which we were going to do. We also learnt some specific conventions such as representation and narrative and learnt some other genres that we did not know about, including the genre of our product. On this music website there was also a commenting system where we could see other peoples opinions and what they thought about the videos that we researched. This helped us a lot and we based our decision on what we thought would be the best for our target audience.

The construction of our media product was completed using the Final Cut Pro editing programme. This is where we cut, lengthened faded and used transitions for the video. We also used video filters to make sure it was appealing and it matched the storyline. Using Final Cut Pro is much easier than using other programmes such as Windows Movie Maker because it is faster and provides a variety of options particularly the video effects and filters which gives any production that extra spark.

We used a small good quality camera which allowed us to create a music video without a huge cost. We had to make sure the camera work had improved, managing our time and being efficient was crucial for us to meet the deadline.

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

Whilst searching through many different music videos, our group was divided on what kind of song we should do. We eventually discussed and decided to have the video involving both male and female instead of just one gender. Our music video was inspired by Drake - Find Your Love and Cheryl Cole - Fight For This Love. We feel that this song represents both of these songs that inspired our decision as they were both of the same genre and had the same theme flowing through them.

When comparing our video to these other music videos it can be noticed that we made have recreated similar scenes to try to appeal to those who liked the original video and those who follow that sort of music and watch those types of videos. Some conventions that were different from the original video and other videos are that there was no dancing whereas in other ones there are dancing in it. The reason behind us not having any dancing is because we wanted our audience to connect more with the story. As it is supposed to be a love song it didn't really seem really appropriate to have dancers or any dancing scenes. We wanted to challenge the convention of having an acted video as we believed the song lyrics and beat were telling a story. As well as having the actors sing some parts of the song, we wanted our video to flow seamlessly without anything random being put in distracting the audience so we made sure it stuck to one storyline that we knew the target audience would be interested in and watch.

In our music video we wanted to create an illusion that it was showing the past so we had to film in the same locations but making sure the actors had changed their outfits then cut them all together, adding a filter and using slow motion at times as well to set the mood.

Survey on our video

Q1)How was the camera work in the music video?


Q2)What elements do you like from the video?


Q3)Do you think the setting is appropriate?


Q4) Do think the costume links in well with the video?


Q5)who do you think the intended target audience is?


Q6) How could we improve the video?


Q7) Did you enjoy and like the music video you just witnessed?


Q8) What was your most favourite scene?


08) Any other comments?

18/11/10

Today we went to Saint Ann's Square in Manchester Town.We filmed quite a lot around this area,were Umar and Zainab would be walking down this street then half way through Kyle and Zainab would walk down this part could be edited in final cut pro with the dissolve tool which would show time passing. Also, the use of filters shows that the time passes by or the past flashing in front of Kyle's eyes of when he was happy etc.