Ancillary Tasks

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

My music video and ancillary tasks are very much a deliberate look at the same theme. All three have war imagery combined with subversive anti-commercial content and mode of display. I feel my combination of ancillary and main task is especially effective in terms of my target audience and genre. All fit into audience likes and desires in products. The appearance of bucking the trend may well be appealing to the band's following. The band often use stories as lyrics rather than introspective lyrics often found in music. This story led ethos means creating a world within the listeners head. I feel my products help to achieve this.

The encroaching dark at the bottom of my magazine advert gives a hint towards the darker feel of the video. The Russian theme can be found in the lyrics the font of the album cover and advert. Red is another prominent factor, it has obvious connotations of blood and violence. It can be found as the background of my album and of the set. I think the strong red and grim imagery will make the album striking on the shelves of a music store. My entire colour scheme of all three pieces in essentially red, yellow and black, grey and white. No greens or blue or vibrant colours are used. This helps to achieve the sombre atmosphere around my pieces. My magazine advert is one of the stop motion frames from my video so has a very strong link. The grain is a reoccurring motif, essential for the band to remain in the forefront of the viewers mind by heavily associating them with a symbol. I thought the grain symbol appropriate as it is in the lyrics and fits in with the band's other work which include many pastoral themes. Another motif i would've liked to have universal across the products is barbed wire. I think it looks very effective on the album cover and could've easily been incorporated into the advert. Real barbed wire would've made an sinister and effective prop for my video. Military symbols were however used, in my advert the soldier, my album cover barbed wire and my video there are numerous references including: soldiers, drums and skulls. All three pieces have a old feel to them, this adds interest as well as unity. It fits well with the theme and the band's ethos of being interested in history. The pieces also feel 'rustic' clinical modern sharp lines and metal surfaces are far removed from my products. I also used the same two fonts in advert and album cover. The Russian title font, which i thought was striking. I imagine it is an image rarely seen in magazines and therefore be memorable. I also used a 'olde worlde' font for the smaller pieces of text. I think my album over is fairly
minimal which would also stand out against other covers.

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

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

i didn't make the story readable enough, the lyrics and pictures dont state clearly enough the Russian part.



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mise en scene
set
props
didnt get tedious
stop motion went down well
pins
head out of grain
creative
'obscure'
flames
red lighting
relevant but not typical
steady and flowing
lyrics and content match well
symbolism
interesting gripping
different time effort
powerful
storyline

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repetitive
drags on a bit
drums not in synch
shakey
what is with the peanuts
"not much of an obvious story line but parts of the video matched the lyrics"
'couldnt see soldiers in one shot'

Of the 20 odd evaluation sheets i had about 17 were level 4 and 3 were level 3. Most found it on the whole effective, though many found the end of the video failed to keep the audiences attention. Many said the ideas were imaginative and a good sense of mise en scene.

Feedback i received from a friends as i edited resulted in several changes in my piece, bit he didn't like were pointed out and addressed. For example continuity errors such as the head having red in it mouth before what shouldve been a shot of the initial dribble.

Do you accept the comments of your audience or would you want to challenge them?

I would challenge those commenting on the pace, mainly as they are not my target audience. My piece is not a standard piece for the music industry as a whole. It is very much niche and aimed at an audience who are interested in more arty conceptual pieces. I would challenge those who said the story didnt make sense as there isn't really a story just images that i felt related to the feel and message of the song. My piece conforms to the work of the decemberists.

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

conforms to 'indie' but against video 'norm' no band shots not particularly related to lyrics, stop motion, budget, however there is a linear normal narrative, no people, pace, art, conforms to hazards of love visualised-an album long music video for the decemberists. The video uses a slow pace and also doesn't include any real people, drawn animation, stop animation dominate the video, however hands are used in conjunction with a model set, much like in my video. Though in mine they are real hands doing real things kind of 'diagetic' if i can use that word. Where as in the hazards of love they act as trees. It terms of the band's musical genre the video conforms to an indie/folk look.

Me and a friends facebook discussion abnout my work

do you think it is worth re doing the drum shot at a nicer angle and with slightly more realistic playing?

Harry O'Callaghan: yeah, maybe a shot similar to the one you had and an HD close up of the tips hitting the skin
btw i love the bit when the head comes out of the grains i also when you make it go all red like 2/3 in i think you should keep it for the lighter shots?

Jack Sauverin: yeaboy that is the best shot. have you noticed where it flicks to a pic of my bro in the same pose as the head?

Harry O'Callaghan: HAHA! no?! defo searching it for that now :P

Jack Sauverin: the red shots thougharent post producion it was using a red light so i would mean redoingthe shot and some cant redone as it was a one off thing, like burning shit or the blood and it is the last frame of the head coming from grain stop motin sequence

Harry O'Callaghan: AH I SAW IT. its awesome.
you could add that red in post though?

Jack Sauverin: yea i could but not in shitty movie maker. and i dont want to re make the whole thing in another program but i could take the clips i wanted red and redify them in a program save tem and then put them into my moviemaker file.
Harry O'Callaghan: could export the whole finished thing then jsut select where you wanted red. i think you can do that in the school whats it called. i cant remember.

Jack Sauverin: really i thought it might not be able to do that ad it would be saved as a continuous clip rather than scenes. but i suppose i can cut it up it might just be tricky. i could also reshoot some of the slightly out of focus shots and a few where you can see my shadow
another thing movie maker wouldnt let me do is put any effects on the pictures so they are all too bright. and i couldnt be arsed to photoshop everysingle one. ug i thought i was finished but i realised i have loads more to do. but i actually find it fun so i dont mind

Two working progress cuts of my media.

Editing

One thing i had to consider was, where to put the climax of my video. The lyric that corresponded to the shot was too early in the video. So i had to put it in later though it didn't fit i think it was necessary for the video to have an interesting pace. Also the final couple of minutes drag on but this is due to the length of the song. I used windows moviemaker as the school laptops sucked. This meant i couldn't add effects to the pictures so they don't really keep with the mise en scene of my piece. I also couldn't add the red effect i achieved using a red light in post production, as i wanted more shots to have it.

Another issue was effects. i really like the 'old film' grainy flickery effect on some shots and not others. it has been very difficult to choose whether to go all effect free, all grainy or a mix. I settled on a mix, removing the effect on the shots which i thought looked better without. Those were the flame and blood shots as those shots were vivid and the grain dulled the colour and the sharpness of the focus. I don't think the grainy/non-grainy differences between shots was noticable. but the gainy shots gave the piece a olde worlde feel which was my aim, and the non grainy shots gave the piece added visual appeal.

Adding movement to the soldiers

i tried to add flexible joints to the soldiers.
firstly i tried heating the shaft of a drawing pin. and i then inserted it into the soldiers arm sockets. this worked however the shaft quickly lost heat and i couldn't afix the arm in time. i then tried using a small drill piece and then a heated pin to create a hole. However the hole was too small to fit onto the drawing pin shaft. With the drill piece i managed to make it fit but the arm and torso had warped with heat so the movement was poor. I think that it would perhaps be worth making a few pieces slightly more animatable. I also tried removing the limbs and using bluetac but that looked pretty messy.

Editing thoughts

i think my piece will have a natural home-made olde worlde feel which is in keeping with the artist and the song content. However i may add a grainy film effect over the top (but not the imovie one as it looks naff). I also feel adding some shots between the main storyline such as my planned shot of a drum etc will help to keep the audience engaged.

Some of my pictures from the stop motion have slightly different lighting between stills, some have a red/yellow/blue tinge. When i watched the pictures put together for the first time it seemed jumpy and flickery, at the time i felt this detracted from the piece but maybe in the context of the rest of my footage it may look better. I could however edit the odd photos in photoshop. i will leave them until i have a final-ish cut and see what i think and what the audience thinks.

I used a frame rate of 25 fps and 12.5 fps the difference wasn't huge, as there is a fair jump in movement between frames speeding up the movement doesn't really add to the smoothness. So a slower frame rate makes my footage go further. The fast frame rate made the shots too quick but i am worried the slower frame rate which looks better may bore the audince, so i may intersperse the shots with other images.

Some stills

One issue with the images is the slight differences in lighting and therefore mise-en-scene. However i think this might have been an unintentional good move, as i want to contrast 'happy' and 'sad' moments in the piece and a change in mise en scene can help to achieve this. Some of my shots a brightly lit and predominately yellow, others dim and red. The yellow has connotations of happiness, the floor of grain shows a prosperous time. the red has connotations of violence and death and the low key lighting help create a sombre atmosphere.

Filming

I have been doing some filming over the last few weeks, i have completed several shots. I have also found as i did last year that many new ideas come into your head as you film. A few of my new ideas include:
-The head rising on a pile of grain
-A shot which follows a ripple in the grain 'sea' - i can either do this shot by attaching the hd camera to a tray and pointing it at a ripple also on the tray and moving the whole tray so it looks like the ripple is moving but the camera and ripple kept the same distance between each other (which is what i want), however the grain wave would be stationary, if i did it in stop motion which would obviously take longer i could slightly adjust the wave between shots to give it more life.
-cutting from the foam head's eyes to real eyes.

First draft of poster

Possible inside panels Ancillary 1

shot ideas
spears against backwall
drum stuff
zoom out
Also i think i should add some wire joints to my army pieces to add a bit more life to them.

More set

Set

Here are some pictures of my on going set construction.

More Prop stuff

Here is a photos of some of the props I will be using. They are toy soldiers fit in with the song's theme and they are small. This means they will be dwarfed by the polysterene head which will act as an imposing government figure.

Right I have kind of started filming now, I have done a little piece of i am not sure what, blog work but not for my final piece. (results will be up sometime during the week) I was going to do the real thing but i encountered some issues i had overlooked. I have dismssed some locations as i need access to a power source for lighting, though i could cut that piece, and i need a very long time on the location. using somewhere around my house would allow me to work when ever i wanted.

garden
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lighting during day would be good and even and at night i could bring out an extension cable to do the red scenes.

- it would very much look like a garden

attic
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looks quite cool beams cobwebs etc

- looks like an attic

i can overcome these issues hopefully as i will be working zoomed in to small objects, the background hopefully will lack focus and i will do my best to keep unsightly things out of shot.

an alternative location i could use is my grandad shed, id need to clear it out and i could run and extension cord out, it looks really cool and the shed spins for some reason, which woul dbe a cool shot.

I think i shouldve found a cool location first and then created something to fit it like i did last year. rather than creating something and then looking for a location.

Right after all that i have decided

i am making a set in the study, it will be like my orignal vision, floorboards olde worlde look. It will be practical and good looking. It should be ready for use mid next week. :D until then i will carry on with some stuff for my blog.

Shooting Order

There are a shortage of HD cameras at school and i dont want to work in low def. However there is an SLR available. I can use the SLR to create the stop motion aspects of my video. The issue is that some of the shots will include me destroying or tarnishing things so i cant do those shots first and then repair the objects to then shoot the HD shots.

Due to the shortage i wasn't able to get a camera over the winter holidays this was when i planned to do most of my filming. Stop motion is a very lengthy process and adding more real time footage may well be necessary, especially considering the length of the song. I plan to capture as much stop motion as i can, and if last year was anything to go by ideas will spring to mind during the process. Hopefully these ideas can be shot in real time. Also i have kind of assumed that the combonation of the two (real and stop motion) will look fine. I may have to add an entire alternative narrative to my piece, for example band shots.

Stop motion shot i can take.

Opening- grain growing shots.
Moving head
pattern crystal fighters inspired part

Cant do the paint shot or the burning/melting

might be able to do the pins shot.