Target audience

To get the target audience opinion on my video, poster and digipak i uploaded them onto social networking sites such facebook, these are the responses i got.

Poster
" I really like it, the blue fire and all"
" Yeh this looks like something MGMT would release"
" Did you do this on photoshop? well good lol"
" I would buy it"

Digipak
" This is really weird"
" is that tidemills"
"really kl man nice one"
" I like the flower, generally a good idea"
"the back is kinda blank but the rest is good"
"the colour scheme of the front and middle are kinda off but i kinda like it"

Video
" What is this?? is this an official video?"
" this is well good, i can totally relate to it"
"this reminds me of so many nights i av had out"
"whats with all the effects? not my thing"
"WOH Trippy XD"
" Chorus is well weird lol"

I am very pleased with these responses from fans of MGMT, the majority saying they liked it shows that we connected well with the target audience.

What i would have done differently and what went wrong

Throughout this project i have had to compromise with my group when dealing with decision about camera work, story board, directing and so on, in some ways this has been useful, it has taught me to open my mind to other ideas and consepts and our project has developed and progressed because of this, but it has also been frustrating when your ideas are not put into action, even if in the long term it may have been a good thing.

Because of our timetables with other lessons and our personal lives it became an issue trying to get the four of us and actors together to get some filming done and a lot of the time at least one member of the group could not make the filming. it usually ended up with me and Will taking it in turns filming and directing. Because of this the filming did not come out as we originally planned in our animatic. parts of our story board (seen in the animatic) was scrapped, the overall storyline of a group of youth going out taking drugs and drinking heavily and having a very bewildering adventure and the camera techniques/editing we decided on doing such as the time laps and the first person filming were kept but a load of planned out sketches were not used and Props such as the glow in the dark paint was scrapped due to not being able to find the right type of paint for the job.

In the final edit of the video there is quite a bit i would change such as the end scene with the fps going up the stairs, i would have personally cut that and the time laps up and intertwined them together so the viewer would not get bored with the same shot being on for more than a 5seconds, the fps going up the stairs does not seem to work well with the upbeat music at the time either. I would have also decreased the amount of effects used in the FPS section in the second verse, at the moment the video makes the viewer feel nacious.

Originally the film was going to have a light blue and purple colour scheme to it but this was scrapped due to not having the right equipment to make this a reality, i personally feel that the video would of been better if we had managed to successfully carried out this colour scheme because the colours fit well with the song. I would have also put a filter over the whole of the first and second verses enhancing the contrast to give it a more atmospheric, trippy feeling to the however our group voted against this.

Putting into perspective everything that went wrong when producing this video i am pleased with the outcome. The general storyline is as good or better as the animatic and the chorus came out better that i expected it to. There are a lot of ideas and sketches that were not put into action which could have made it better, but in general i am pleased with the outcome.

First person shot
This shot was made to give the viewer the feeling of what it is like being a character in the video.
The shot was on auto focus so the camera man did not have worry about focusing whilst moving.
This was shot outside so the the white balance was set to outdoors.








Reverse shot (lead up to bridge)



This environment and angle has been used repeatedly throughout the video and is connected to character B because he is always the one in the layout. The Deph Of Field in this photograph is quite basic, B is in focus and the deep background is out of focus. B is the only one moving in this photograph and is the main focus in this video because of this. There is a lot of empty space in this scene which gives the sense of isolation however his body language is not showing any signs of sadness, this is because his intoxicated state has made him oblivious to his lonelyness .



A and D

This scene shows close alignment between the two characters because of how close they are physically and because the camera has caught only them two in the shot. A's hoody blends in with the ruins in the background due this the peach colour of his face makes it stand out. The contrast between D's clothing and the blue sky makes her stand out.


Rolling

In the rolling shot the D.O.F has been controlled so the foreground is in focus and the background is blurry. By doing this the hands rolling the paper and the paper itself are the main focus while the fur coat of C in the background does not catch the viewers attention. The colour of this shot is very important, the peach colour of Bs hands and the white of the paper contrast against the black leather jacket in the background. the greyness of the tobacco packet means that it is there without stealing the attention away from his hands.





Some of our ideas and sketches came out almost exactly how we wanted them to, as can be seen with the sketch to the left and the screen shot above.

Evaluation

The video opens with a close up shot of a wine bottle situated on the ground in a rural, natural environment, a hand appears and clumsily drags the bottle out of the shot, the motion of how he grabs the bottle and drags is done to mimics a stereotypical monster in a pre 1970s horror film. The close up shot of the wine bottle tells the audience that this video is going to have some context about alcohol. The body language was organised to symbolise, in a comedic way, the media representation of todays youth in England which links in with the alcoholic drink. The fact that it is a wine bottle, which symbolises culture, being dragged away by a student in a horror style manner is a metaphor for todays youth lifestyle, this metaphor is way meant to be seen in a humorous way and not taken too seriously which the general body language of the students grasp of the bottle specifies. The Camera was handheld when taking the shot because the opening shot was meant to summarise the atmosphere for the rest of the video, because of this a smooth and steady shot would not have been suitable.

To avoid confusion in this evaluation I am going to label the characters A B C and D. A is the male in a stripyhoody, the male in the leather jacket will be called B, the female with brown hair and fake fur will be called C and the girl in the hoody will be D. In the second shot the camera was mounted above A on a tripod to give a sense of weakness to the character, this weakness is enhanced by the posture and position of the character, he is slumped over and unconscious. The camera slowly zooms out to reveal the scenery where the characters adventure is taking place and his cramped, isolated situation, the idea of this shot was for the viewer to ask “how did he get into this situation?” The shot is split into two sections which are parted by a shot of B preparing to smoke cannabis back in time which begins to explain how B got into the situation he is in, the time travelling is shown by A smoking straight after it zooms out from him. The storyline of the video explains how A got into that situation.

Before the first chorus the characters are sitting down in a quite, calm manner smoking and laughing, we used no effects here until the last shot before the first chorus, we did this to divide this section and contrast it to the rest of the video where, because of the structure of the music, it becomes much more trippy and more video manipulation is introduced. The shots of the characters smoking are all close ups to introduce the characters, both these shots were taken without the actors knowing so there body language are naturally happy and calm. A B C and D all leave the area they were introduced in and stumble drunkenly through the ruins of a giant arch way, this was done to progress the story line. The camera pans round following B because he is the one leading the rest of them. Just before the chorus kicks in there is the shot of characters B and C smoking, it is the same shot as earlier but it is now in reverse, making it looking like the smoke is jumping back into Bs mouth, the abstract clip gives the viewer an insight of what is in store for the rest of the video.

For the chorus we filmed a friend of ours playing a series of different instruments used in the song in front of a green screen, then we put an effect called split screen in the background using video editing software. We originally planned to have all the shots as extreme close ups so the viewer would not be able to tell that the person singing and playing the instruments is not really a member of MGMT but after a few takes of the sequence we decided to shoot the shots in close up, but not extreme close up so we could see the singers eyes, this was because no matter how many attempts and angels we used in extreme close up we could not make the singer look like a member of MGMT, so admitting defeat we decided to have his eyes and hair in the shot, this seemed to work because he looked like someone listeners of MGMT could relate to. We used the effects in the background to keep with the “trippy” “hippy” theme we were going for in this video.

From the second verse onwards the song takes a more upbeat tone, lots of different instruments are introduced and the pace of the music is increased. We adapted to the change in the song by exaggerating the intoxicated state of our characters. To do this we made the cast stumble around a lot more, we shot a huge chunk of the rest of the video in first person, we added a lot of effects and we cut the film to make the pace of change between shots much faster.

The second verse opens with B walking through a gap in the ruins, as he jumps through light streams trail behind him, adding to the trippy atmosphere of the video. the character is by himself which follows the storyline of the characters becoming much more independent. The first person shots have been shot in a way to make it look like they are been seen through someone who is intoxicated, we have used an effect that a lot of directors and editors use when representing drunk people. This effect has been made by playing the footage then over lapping it with the same footage a split second later, making everything in the shots blurred with trails, giving a nortious effect, tv series’ such as skins and films such as The Big Lebowski have used this effect when portraying alcohol and drugs from a first person angle. The first person shots show the characters are further apart and are becoming more independent which is a contrast to the close alignment seen in the first verse. This is not due to them falling out or arguing but because the alcohol and drugs have separated each of them into their own intoxicated, bewildering, independent worlds. After the period of the first person footage the shot of B running out of the hole in the ruins is reversed and then the story line goes back in time to when A and D are sitting down smoking. The reverse of B jumping through the hole works as a bridge in between the two sections in time. The clip of A and D smoking has been heavily manipulated to represent the change between verse two and verse one. As the verse calms down before entering the bridge we cut in a clip of B staggering slowly backwards in reverse time, his slow movements and the lack of major effects gently easies the video from being very jumpy and energetic to quite calm in the process of the structure of the song.

At the end of the second chorus the song fades into another first person shot of a character running up a set of stairs in the ruins, at the end he looks over the environment and watched character C stagger away by herself. The difference between this shot and the other first person shots is that the contrast and brightness was tampered with to give it a different feel to the rest of the video which is in tune with the structure of the music. The shot also has hands in it to make the clip more personal. The video ends with a time laps of storm clouds heading over the horizon through a gap in the ruins, this symbolises the general story that has just taken place.

There are two ways in which we could of made the final timelaps for our music video. One was by repeatedly clicking the pause and play button on the camera while filming. We made an attempt at filming in this style of time laps which can be seen in the video above. The video came out quite successfully. The effect came out quite jumpy, which would of suited a more edgy, angrier video. The second way of shooting a time laps is by filming over a wide period of time and then changing the speed in editing. This gives a smoother outcome to the time laps which is more the style we want for our music video.

Flat plan 1: The main feature of this poster is the monitor, it will be luminous white and in front of a dark background to catch peoples attention. The MGMT font will be a light blue and white colour because the viewers would want to instantly see what is being advertised, for the same reason the writing "weekend wars" will be in the same kind of style. The font style will be quite "edgy" to symbolise the lyrics in the song. Reviews and rating would be placed on the left and right in a colour that would contrast the background making the font stand out more. In the top right corner there is a picture of the front cover of the album on which this song can be found, this promotes the album as well. To make this poster i would take a screen shot from a scene in the video where the characters stumble through a worn down archway, this is one of the most important shots from the video and the archway is generally quite large and architechually beautiful which, even though would not appeal directly to mgmt's audience, it can interest a new audience without scareing off the old one. By having a screenshot from the video the viewer will either remember to the video and think of mgmt or want to view the video themselves if they like the poster. the album art in the bottom right hand corner from the album will be in contrast to the background which will catch passes by attention. There is a moon in sky which is enhanced in size and glow, it is there to not just draw in passes by, the light moon against the dark blue sky, but it also gives a fairytale sense to it, which relates to the music, I would digitally edit the moon into the advertisement. The font is quite aggressive which will contradict the colours and composition of the advertisement, this would symbolise the general music style of mgmts aggressive lyrics but happy tunes.


This draft i have set out into 5 separate zones
1. The titles font simulates how fairytale style films are written, the font is placed in the centre of the page and just above the main part photograph
2. The fire will be digitally manipulated to look blue instead of orange and red, it will be like this to carry on the fairytale mood to the photograph, there will be lights in the trees, i can use glow sticks to make the glow and use photoshop to enhance the light to make the lights visible, the people in the photograph will be blurred to add to the general atmosphere of the advertisement, by shooting the photograph with a high shutter speed then i can make the blur.
3. There will be reviews and ratings on the side of the photograph in white next to the black background which will catch the viewers attention.
4. There is a picture of the front cover of the album on which this song can be found, this promotes the album as well as the song.
5. Legally copywrite information would be placed on the poster, because it is not important to the viewer this will be very small at the bottom of the page.