Task 3 Questionaire

Feedback questionaire

- Paula, Leyla, Helena, Grace

Dear respondent,

Having just seen our music video, please will in the following questionnaire, as honestly and complete as possible, according to your opinion. This would be very helpful to us as an A2 media group because we need some constructive criticism and feedback on our product.

About you:

☐ Female      ☐ Male

Age:

Nationality:

What’s your favorite music style?

Do you prefer....

☐ live peformances

☐  music via iPod/TV

☐ clubbing

1) Did you enjoy watching the video, or did you find it boring? If so – at what points did you lose your interest?
2) Did you think the video is too abstract or absurd? Yes or no?

3) If you could identify a narrative within, what was it?

4) What are the video’s strengths that would make it successful in the real indie-music industry?

5) What do you think about the artist? Do you sympathize with him? Would you like to see more of him and his work?
6) Is there anything in the video you would have liked to see? E.g. more performance, more fast paced shots, more naked skin??;)
7) What was your favorite moment?
8) Please circle on the number which most closely reflects your opinion of the artist:

Vulnerable	1	2	3	4	5	Strong
Introvert	1	2	3	4	5	Confident
Creative	1	2	3	4	5	Boring
Ambiguous	1	2	3	4	5	Masculine
Serious	1	2	3	4	5	Boring
Depressive	1	2	3	4	5	Happy
Mysterious	1	2	3	4	5	Stereotype
Mad	1	2	3	4	5	Funny

EVALUATION Task 4 - Director's Commentry: How did you use new technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The script:

In our music video we shot on two locations, one of them, and the first one you will see was shot in the studio.
The studio setting of our music video was filmed in a warmly lit environment, and when we got around to editing the video we realised that we didn’t like how orange the footage had come out. In order to change this we used a programme called ‘Color’ to pull down the amount of reds in the footage leaving it with the cool blue colouring. This gives a similar atmosphere to the other examples of indie films we had watched, from artists like Bright Eyes and Patrick Wolf that we looked at on online sources such as YouTube, MySPace, google, soundcloud, iTunes and official websites to make research into the indie music industry to collect inspiration and knowledge about existing artists and especially their music videos which contributed to some stylistic ideas of our video. 
For most shots in the studio we used a Sony F3 camera with a prime lens as it is very useful for so called beauty shots (For smooth skin etc.). For the focus pulls we had to change the lens as you cannot zoom with it.

When changing our location to the house we noticed that the lighting was quite warm again and therefore we put some blue tones on top of the lights to make the images look colder. Again we used the Sony F3 camera, because of its clarity and amount of details when having a close ups. When shooting the ballerina we took the Sony NX5 camera, which does not have the same quality like the Sony F3 one but it was useful for us because we were shooting two scenes at a time in order to get more material done in less time. So while one part of our group was shooting Peter, the other group was shooting the ballerina dance sequence. This time we did not have the equipment of a CD player so that we had to use our phones in order to make use of a playback. 

For the special effects when bringing the flowers back to life we used After Effects in Final Cut Pro which allowed us to cut out Peter and arrange the background so that it the fading into the live flowers look ‘natural’ to us. We put everything back in place and created a change that look ‘right’ for our eyes. In order to lead the viewers look we made use of a zoom as well. This process is called Masking.
After this scene we had another bit where we made use of after effects. That was when he is finding the Polaroid picture between the books which is then starting to move. In order to create the impression of a moving image we had to do a similar thing to the still image in After Effects. We used an empty Polaroid so that we were able to cut out the black bit and place the video clip into the empty frame. 
Even though Peter tried to be still, his hand was still moving a bit, therefore we had to freeze the image (his hand) and only have the inserted clip moving. The interest of the audience will be focused on the clip so that they may not notice the fact that we froze the other image. Over all we had to images in one. 

Looking at the very last bit of our video you might notice that we had to slow him down a bit when walking out of the door. Again we did that with the help of Final Cut Pro. (Slowmotion)
Still of digipak:
We wanted to repeat the theme of having a Polaroid in the Digi pack, because we thought it could be one of his trademarks that is going to be repeated throughout his image. Therefore we took a photograph of him wearing a wolf hat and change the colours in Photoshop so that it had a vintage style to it. After having turned the photograph into an old fashioned picture we inserted the image into a digital Polaroid frame. On the front cover we decided to leave it with a Blanc front cover with nothing on it but the Polaroid and on the back we did the same thing but with the back of a Polaroid. On the back we had written the tracks of the CD in his handwriting. The inside included lots of his personal writings that were thanking the people that supported him. In order to make it personal we had him coming in again and he had to write some the track list and the tank you … list. After he had written all that we scanned it into the computer so that we were able to work on it digitally and insert all the letters etc. into the Digi pack. On the other side of the cover, as well as on the CD itself we put in the wallpaper of the house setting. We took a picture with a Canon camera beforehand and then we did some colour changes as well in order to create this vintage look. In this case we made use of Lightroom which helped to change and contrast Hue and Saturation as well as the colour settings. 

Show video diary:
On the set, we also made a short video diary t5o show some behind the scenes footage. We filmed this with an iPhone 4S and cut it on iMovie on a Mac.

Onto blog 
• Pre-production: When we discovered… 
• Onlining/offlining process
• Evaluation process and used technologies

Evaluation of the Day: The house

I really enjoyed shooting in the house. The house has got this certain kind of atmosphere and you feel different from the moment you enter it. I hope you will be able to see the beauty of this place in the video. Shooting on the second floor was quite hard and difficult for us because we wanted track ‘Peter’ down the corridor. The first difficulty was to bring all the material up and the second was that the carpet wasn’t flat so that when we were moving the camera on the tracks the shots weren’t steady and they were shaking. It was also hard to squeeze everybody into the corridor. Therefore we had to use some tricks in order to make it work. Grace for example had to stand behind a door and on a piece of string she was able to pull the door open through with ‘Peter’ was going through. ‘Peter’ had to turn his body a bit when passing the camera so that he didn’t touch it when going out. All in all this shot was probably the most difficult but apart from that we had a lot of fun shooting and discovering new angles that we haven’t thought of before. The shot where he is standing on a window and looking out was really nice, I think. We had to climb out in order to get this nice effect that we finally got. Because of the window reflection you are able to see the beautiful landscape of the area around Leathill and ‘Peter’s face at the same time. It looks really good and I am glad that we dared to try something new. Also the shots of him picking up the book were quite experimental. This time we had a helper with the camera who was filming from blow. Every time we shot a certain scene we discovered that we could do something else as well, for example the singing element in front of the wallpaper. At first we only planned to shot everything in only one angle but then we discovered that if we shoot it in another angle with the right lighting it looks even better. Really the shooting day shouldn’t be time where you start experimenting but I am glad that we did it.

Again I thought we did really good teamwork on that day. While one group was shooting ‘Peter’ singing the other group was shooting the ballerina. It is great when you know you can do that because you trust the others are going to do ir good. It also gives the opportunity to be able to take over certain roles like doing camera or directing more intensively rather than doing it with the whole cast. The work was more intense and focused than it was when shooting in the studio. Taymour was also more relaxed and now that we all got to know each other there was no need to be scared anymore. He opened up more and trusted us; therefore working with him was easier and quicker.

At the end of the day I think each of us had done a great job and now the only thing that has yet to come is editing everything down, but that shouldn’t be too difficult.

Evaluation of the Day: Studio

All in all I am very happy with the result that we got form that day. We managed to get a lot done and the only thing left to do is shooting in the house on another day. Each of us had a go at everything and I think the work amount was well balanced. Even though some of us were having some problems concentration after a while but I was quite happy with myself because that gave me the opportunity to take over more. Therefore I did directing and the camera work most of the time. It is really tough and you are very tired at the end of the day but you also feel like you have achieved a lot and that again makes you think about more thinks you could have done etc.

I have quite happy that we chose Taymour for our cast, because he really suited the character I was thinking of. The fact that he was so nervous was only supporting the effect I wanted. He looked fragile and uncomfortable. I thought that this was great but apparently I was the only one who thought that way. The only negative thing I could say about him was that he was chewing gum all the time and no matter how often I asked him to spit it out the next second he was chewing again. That was a bit difficult to cope with. Because he was so nervous he brought a friend to support him and every time even when we were shooting he was leering at him.

Sadly, because we ran out of time a bit we couldn’t do the ‘throwing paint at him’. And because there were suddenly some confusion within the group Luke just cancelled it for us.