Directors Commentary:

Directors Commentary Script: Matrix – “The Reason”:

Directors Commentary Script: Matrix – “The Reason”:

Freddy - Every stage of production in this music video has involved a range of different digital media technologies, for example Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and green screen technology.

Tom – During our media shoot we used a Sony FS 100 camera, which allowed us to create a cinematic, shallow depth of focus image, which consisted of HD footage. This created a professional look to our music video with the use of prime lenses.

Freddy –We matched editing to the pace of the song building in pace from the beginning. We did this to build a conventional representation of a nightclub using a range of camera and editing skills.

Merlin - This technology helped us in post-production as it allowed us to represent a highly sexualized set and seedy nightclub atmosphere.

Tom –Final cut pro gave us freedom to manipulate the pace of our video to not only build a conventional dance genre video but build into our concept. This allowed us to create narrative and enigma to represent our sexually suggestive concept.

Freddy - This was to sell the image of the agent dominatrix in the Video. The Sony FS 100 camera allowed us to capture the detail and definition required in suggestive shots.

Merlin – We constantly wanted to keep our audience on edge by showing explicit glimpses of the dancers. We did this to reinforce our concept of suggestion of sexuality by setting a tone within the music video which the audience could pursue using their imagination.

Freddy –We created this suggestive sexual concept by shooting close ups of their face and body and then cutting back to our Two Man Ray actors. This was the foreshadow of enigma.

Merlin - We therefore changed the camera lens to have a clear image when doing close ups and long shots. We used long shots to establish the seedy sexualized night club set.

Tom – With our editing, we were able to really bring out the representation of sexual suggestion, as we were able to pick and choose with what we thought was best to perfect our concept.

Merlin - We tried to make our editing as smooth as possible, by cutting on the beat, cutting in direct movement of the camera and cutting on lighting flares that blinded the camera.

Freddy – We used Photoshop to change the green screen technology that we used, into different images of Man Ray photographs. This allowed us to emphasize a concept of voyeurism through the two boys by editing in shot reverse shots and eye line matches.

Tom - This added to an overall encoding of sexual suppression that interlinked with our sexually suggestive concept.

Freddy - Using convergent technology we were able to use the captured Man Ray images and use them not only for our music video, but also for our CD digipak and Website.

Merlin – With all of our hard work we put in, we felt we successfully accomplished our main aim and to make our music video as professional and realistic as possible.

Tom - After the music video progression we felt we had successfully created a professional media product that conformed to music videos in the dance genre whilst also subverting some conventions through concept and narrative.

Task 4 - How did we use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluating stages?

Pre-Production: 

In the pre-production process I used several different media technologies which allowed me to prepare for the music video.

 I used the Internet for research and planning preparation with the use of Google search engine to aid me. It allowed me to learn more about Maetrick (Matrix), his music, the label he was signed to and even view and listen to his work on other media tools such as YouTube. I.E. His other songs. We also used YouTube to gain a higher knowledge of other artists' Music Videos in the Techno genre, to see how we could make our Video as professional and realistic as possible. Additionally, in the pre-production process I created an animatic storyboard whereby I used Final Cut Pro software to piece together my animation and all the shots. I used a soundtrack software on Final Cut Pro to paste sound over the animation.

Post-Production:

In the post-production process I used several different media technologies which allowed me to finalise the release of our music video.

In our post production process we created a digipak cover and poster with by using a software called Photoshop. This media software allowed us to manipulate images to suit the style of the package promotion. I also used an online powerpoint website, called Prezi which was another media tool software I used to present my powerpointed work onto blogger. We also used an online software called Wix, where we created a webpage for our artist, as part of the whole release of him and his music video. We synergised twitter on our bloggers so that his fans could follow him on twitter via our blogs. This was part of marketing our artist and using synergysing new media technologies. Throughout the whole production we used Blogger to show people our progress of creating, filming and finishing this Music Video.

Whilst shooting our Music Video we used a Canon X5 camera to take automatic pictures of what we were doing every 30 seconds. This was to have a full account of the whole of our shoot.

Decision making with digital technology during our post-production allowed us to pick and choose what we wanted in our Music Video. Therefore enabling us to make a professional and creative Music Video, to highlight our initial concept.

Focus Group Video 4:

Focus Group Video 3:

Focus Group Video 2:

Focus Group Video 1:

Prezi - Task 3

Photos from Focus Group Discussion:

Survey Monkey Questionnaire for our Music Video:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/analyze/?survey_id=38250065&OPT=NEW Survey Page 1

http://www.surveymonkey.com/analyze/?survey_id=38270215&OPT=NEW Survey Page 2

http://www.surveymonkey.com/analyze/?survey_id=38271753&OPT=NEW Survey Page 3

In what ways does our album back cover conform and contrast conventions of a real media product?

The back cover of our digipack conforms to the obvious conventions of having a list of songs which it shares with both examples as well as having a barcode and record label logo. The record label logo in particular works as a marketing and publicity tool for our label and artist as the consumer can look into the label if they like the music we produce. Although the two examples don’t share this it is quite conventional to have a close up picture on the back like we have which allows us to directly influence the consumers mind set when looking through a listening to songs, which provides the right situation for them to accept the connotations that we’re attempting to get across.

However our back cover is relatively unconventional primarily through its connotations. The image we’ve selected to use is a Man Ray image which holds ambiguous sexual connotations, this allows our album to expand its audience and appeal to wider range of sexualities, allowing us to access a variety of niche and alternative audiences. 

In what ways does our album front cover challenge conventions of real media products?

Our album cover shares similarities to that of Stephan Bodzins, above, particularly in the unconventional use of strong contrasting colours. The difference however is our cover is colourfully confusing and almost looks like a clown and holds intertextual references to the Joker from Batman. These two aspects work well with our artists calm collected look to raise questions about his sanity beneath his cool façade which ultimately works as a marketing tool as it not only makes the cover interesting but on first sight presents an enigma that the consumer becomes interested in. In Comparison the Stephan Bodzin uses colour in a different manner as the colours blend into each other and look smoother however they both correspond to the high energy aspect of dance music and create an unconventional looking front cover to our digipack. The name of our artist adds to the complex nature of our front cover as the name Matrix has connotations of something that is intricate and complex. Our album cover and the Stephan Bodzin album cover share unconventional similarities such as the way the artist is pictured off centre to the side, In contrast the Carl Cox album cover is much more conventional with the artist picture directly centre. Another difference between the conventional Carl Cox album and our album cover is the horizontal square on titles contrasting with our choice to put the title down the side.

Task 2

Media studies-task-2 from freddymcgaw