Audience Feedback, Further Editing

Upon completing our rough cut of the video, we decided to start getting some audience feedback on the work. We asked our classmates to watch the video and provide their feedback in the form of "Likes" and "Dislikes". This allowed us to work out which parts of the video we needed to work on. This was helpful because we found that by working on it constantly for so long it became difficult to see which were the weaker parts and which were stronger. Obviously we already had an idea but with the audience feedback we were able to agree as a group on what we needed to change.

We were now able to enter our final stage of editing, bringing us closer to our final product. Jacob came into his own here, and showed how well he could use the Final Cut programme. He was also able to provide some screen grabs of the editing in progress. We had agreed that he could work on the editing as much as he wanted while the rest of the group worked on the ancillary tasks.

We all suggested a kind of overlaying affect across the whole video, possibly a slight red, to go with our running theme. Jacob also achieved this on top of the other editing work.

Before:


After:


As you can see the difference wasn't massive but it was enough to fit in with our running theme, and add a level of professionalism. Here is the way Jacob configured the effect:

Ancillary Task Development

After looking at the practice piece I had made for the magazine advertisement, the rest of the group commented that it would perhaps be good enough to use as our final piece. Obviously it would need some changes, but otherwise the idea was good. We looked at what we needed to change and chose:

- The main font; it needed to be more in touch with the Foo Fighters brand
- The amount of writing on the page; it looked to cluttered
- The logos at the bottom needed to show where the album could be bought
- The title of the album didn't neccessarily need to be shown on the poster, it was available on the cover of the artwork. This was visible on the advert.

So after some modification from me and Jake, the advert went from this:


To this:



We felt that our modified piece was sufficient quality to be included as our final piece.

The font we used was in fact the same font used by Foo Fighters in some promotional material:

Rough Cut

After tireless editing and reworking we finally managed to get a rough cut of our video completed. It was by no means a total success, because there were several mistakes and weak points. The good point was that we had enough of a structure to go on, and we now had a solid base to build the rest of our video on. We asked some friends to watch the video so we could get some audience feedback, which was extremely helpful. Below is the rough cut of the video

Rough Cut from Jake Clements on Vimeo.

Practice Magazine Advert

In preparation for the final piece of our ancillary task I decided to make a practice magazine advertisement, just so I could get a feel for the way in which we would have to make it. My work is below:

Editing Progress and Ancillary Task

Editing is coming along nicely, and we are all happy with the progress being made. This time we have enough good quality footage to be working with and the video is working well. However, we have all been putting increased effort into making progress on our ancillary tasks. We have made practice pieces and such, all in preparation for the final pieces. Below is the album front cover Tom has been working on.

Ancillary Task - Magazine Ad

I have decided to take a look at the kind of area our magazine advert would be featured, and I thought that the rock magazine "Kerrang!" would be most likely. So it was this magazine I decided to take a closer look at.

The magazine was introduced as a paper supplement in 1981, and it was initially devoted to the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal" (NWOBHM), along with other hard rock acts. On it's first cover was the Australian band AC/DC. The name was derived from the sound when playing a power chord on an electric guitar, and was an onomatopoeic representation of this.

Throughout it's first 20 years the magazine published more glam and heavy rock acts (I.e. Slayer, Bon Jovi, Poison, Venom). However the turn of the millennium bought a new editor and a new era for Kerrang!. It started to feature more mainstream influential bands without straying from it's original purpose. It was around this time that the Foo Fighters were becoming popular and it wasn't long before they were featured on the cover, as can be seen above. In fact, they were featured in a "Legends" Special Edition, emphasising their growing fame.

The magazine is a reliable source of information for the hard rock scene in today's society and this is reflected in its audience figures. The magazine is published by the Bauer Media Group, with regular circulation of 52,272 as of December 2008. Originally the magazine's audience was primarily an age 18-25 category C demographic. However, more recently the primary readership age has dropped to 14-17. Obviously, these wouldn't be the ONLY readers. We will need to keep this in mind when making our advertisement.

Editing

After looking at our final day of filming, we can see that what we have is enough to have a real go at editing. My personal favourite parts are our ending shots, which we have a variety of. Not only that, but they are particularly strong and interesting. We decided to make the section more intense with closer shots and maybe some softer lighting. This would go with the music, which drops pace significantly, and this needs to be reflected in the editing. A good idea was also be cross fades and fades to black, which would slow the pace of editing more than simple cuts.

For the editing, we need to work together more than ever before. Everybody needs to take up their own workload of the editing in order to get it done, because time is still an issue. Admittedly, not everyone would be as good as others in their editing skill, but as long as everyone makes an effort it should be fine.

To make sure we get it done, we have donated time outside or media lessons to work on the video. We have all used study periods and after school sessions to edit, and this has helped us greatly. It means we have been able to get a lot more done in a shorter period of time. Pictures of our progress will be uploaded shortly.