Website homepage

I am using Wix to create my website homepage for Jack's single, as one of my ancillary products. The brief states that I only need to create a website homepage, therefore none of the other pages will link to anything. In order to avoid it looking like I never finished, any page link will link to this blog post. I have linked the Vimeo button to my Vimeo account, and the blogger link to my blog, however all other buttons will just link to this post.

I have used Carly Rae's website for ideas on how to structure a pop artist website.

As you can see the tabs along the top take you to other sections of the website including tour, music, photos, videos, store etc. I have taken this and created buttons on my website linked to similar pages where the audience and fans can find out more about Jack and other content. However seen as I only have to create the homepage there is no other content. Sorry to all of Jack's fans. 

The image above is actually the news page of the website, the first page presented when you click on the website link is just an image. I assume this image changes from time to time. I have created a page which somewhat resembles this page, however I have combined some other elements into it seen as I am only creating one page, I need to squeeze more content in. I have taken the news feed idea because I think it's a good way of keeping fans up to date. Also my target audience (insert here) is technologically literate and will want to check the latest news, making it an important feature of the website. 

I also like the large image on the screen of Carly, just to remind you that you're on her website. I have used the album cover image of Jack for the background because similarly to the way Carly's website has an image which is updated as the first thing you see, I think that the release of his new album is the most important piece of new, therefore I have made the cover the actual background of the homepage. 

Here is a screenshot of the actual website published on the internet. Wix allows you to make changes and update the website as you go, so nothing has been finalised yet. 

This is the top of the page. You can see the tabs to other pages, links to social networking because the target audience of the pop genre are usually heavy users of social networks. There is a gap on the right, at first I saw this as empty space that needed to be filled, however once I changed the background I have changed my mind. I think it makes it clearer that the background is actually a feature of the website, it's like a window really. 

Here is a view lower down the page. 

The news feed is located on the left hand side of the screen. There are numerous posts about events in Jack's celebrity career. I chose to do this because pop artists tend to be in magazines and other media in the "gossip" section. The news about pop artists isn't usually news as much as it is gossip., hence my choice to style it in that way. 

On the right hand side are some tour dates and cities, so fans can see when he will be touring. Just below the tour dates is a link to the music video. I have embedded the video also however the HD version can only be watched on Vimeo. 

I was surprised looking through Carly's website as it appears to be heavily unformatted. 

Maybe I should send her a link to my website, see if she is interested in taking some ideas. 

Here is the link to my website: http://calman117.wix.com/officialjackramsey

Jenny's number

I doubt anyone will notice as it is somewhat hard to see but the post it note I hand to Holly has the number 8675309 on it, which is a direct reference to the song 867-5309/ Jenny by Tommy Tutone. The song doesn't really have any links to the video in any way, I just like it, and as it is a phone number I thought it'd be good to hand a post-it with a number on it.

This is something that happens in parody videos, the artist sometimes includes small intertextual references to their songs etc.

Mini evaluation

This post is just a quick list of things I like about my video or that I think went well, and a list of things I don't like or that could be better.

Pros

• It's funny- this is based upon the fact everyone I have shown has laughed, whether they know the people in it or not, or even know me
• It is clearly a parody of the original, not just a bad copy
• Everyone turned up when I needed them, more or less
• I can use Final Cut Pro efficiently, except that one time...
• It looks quite good, visually appealing, good camera angles
• The shot changes line up with the beats of the song, or at least where they do in the original

Cons

• I would've liked to re film, however the actors were not available and getting new actors on such short notice would've been impossible
• Deleting all of my work and essentially having to start again
• Actors could've been more professional, again re filming would've been good
• Lip sync isn't perfect, really the best I can do with Jack's face
• Continuity errors with lights being on then off, background props etc

Finally finished with Final Cut

My music video is now finished and fully edited, I will embed it below.




I think overall the production went very well. My piece resembles the original accurately, yet differently enough to let the audience know that it's a parody. As far as the comedy goes, I have showed the video to just under 20 people in my sixth form, not all of whom I am friends with to ensure that their review is fair, and also multiple media teachers to get their opinions. Just about everyone enjoyed the video and laughed at it, most of whom have never met Jack and are therefore laughing for the reasons I want them to laugh for. Not because they think Jack looks like a tit, but because I have parodied the original to make it funny, and that has been recognised.

Everything is okay now

I came into school for one day over the holiday and managed to re edit my entire production. All of the clips were still in the same place, however I was unable to line the music up with the clips perfectly which led me to editing the clips anyway. I then re edited Jack's voice back in the same as I had done before. I was able to edit his voice in somewhat faster than the first time as I now knew what I was doing, and was familiar with the process.

I immediately uploaded it to Vimeo to ensure that I have a version of it published where it can no longer be interfered with. I will embed the video below. It is the final version of my music video, though there are some things I would like to have changed, they would've required re filming which was not an potion without finding new actors.

It's the Final (Cut) countdown

As it turns out my latest version never uploaded to Vimeo, leaving me with an old version of my video. I still have evidence on my blog in previous posts showing that I edited Jack singing the song however I no longer have that version of the video. The latest backup is the version which is currently on Vimeo, there were some editing tweaks made after that, and mainly the singing and instrumental version of the song to remove Carly's voice and replace it with Jack's.

Final Cut No

Somehow I was able to wipe Final cut including my entire music video and that of two other media students on the same machine. I feel that is something that should not be possible to do by accident. Luckily I was able to get their work back with help from someone in my group. The macs at school do not have time machine set up properly so I was unable to use this to revert to before the accident.

By using a backup file within Final Cut I was able to get the timeline for their work back, which then required me to just re upload all of their clips and it automatically reformatted them to fit the timeline. I will attempt to fix mine as well in the same way, however I feel it is not as urgent because I have more or less finished my video and uploaded it to Vimeo.

Preliminary products

For my brief I need to make a magazine cover advertising the release of the album, and a website homepage advertising the band. I have mentioned how I will create each of these in an earlier post with research into magazine covers and digipaks. Now that I have more or less finished my main piece I have decided to focus on the preliminary products, as the deadline for completion is approaching.

White balance

Some shots of my video are very white. I attempted to fix this using the white balance however this just made the footage look terrible. The problem is the light exposure from outside, which I can't do too much about without making the entire shot darker. I played with the colour board and contrast settings on final cut and was able to make the shot less white, however I did not like the look of this.

This is the original footage with no filter. The sky is very bright however this is without the filter.

 This is the version from my video with the "artificial light" filter similar to the one used in the original video, giving it a yellowish hue.

This is what I managed to create using the contract controls on Final cut. The whites are slightly darker yet I think it looks too dark and yellow. I therefore have decided to stick with the middle option.

Class review

I showed the first edit of my music video to my A2 media class to get some feedback on how to improve. Just about everyone was able to enjoy it with plenty of laughs which is exactly what I wanted, even the people who don't know Jack so aren't just laughing at his misfortune. Everybody in my media group is between the ages of 17-19 which fits my target audience of young people aged from 13 to around 20.

The aim of making this video wasn't solely to appeal to people within that age bracket, but to entertain those who have seen the original and either didn't like it, or just find mine funny. I figured the original video would've been seen by young people aged around 13 because that's the age where teenagers start getting into their music therefore when the song was released it would've been very popular with that age group.

Similarly with older young people aged 20, they are internet conscious and listen to the latest songs in the charts, which Call Me Maybe would've been on when it was released. Therefore all the people within that age bracket should recognise that my video is a parody and can laugh at it. The response I got from my class shows that I have appealed to the right age bracket.

The feedback was mostly positive with some ideas on changes to make, as it was only the first edit. Unfortunately due to the unavailability of the actors I have used I was unable to re film, so all the changes suggested needed to take into account that I can only make changes post filming in the editing stage. Certain suggestions such as removing certain clips and replacing them with something slightly better were unfortunately not fulfilled as I have no footage I can replace them with. I have already used the best clips from all that we filmed which included one repeat of a shot, however it is very hard to notice.

I recorded the group giving me feedback and have uploaded it to Vimeo, I will put a link in this post. A popular idea was to record Jack singing the song and replace Carly's voice with his. I had already planned to do this therefore I removed the section from the video because most of it is me explaining how I intended to do it which I have covered in another blog post. Also I had to reduce the length of the video significantly as Vimeo only permits a certain amount of upload-able data to users.

Title of (Don't) Call Me Maybe

I decided to name my production (Don't) Call Me Maybe as it is a parody of the song "Call Me Maybe" however I removed the interest between the two main characters, eliminating the wanting to be called aspect. I am not yet certain as to whether to leave the "Don't" in brackets or not, whether that will make the title appear too similar to the original or not. The reason behind it being in brackets is because I haven't changed the lyrics therefore it isn't a new song exactly, if anything it could be considered a different version. Also having the title say "Don't" in front gives people a slight indication of how the video is going to be different, but they will still want to find out.

Final straw with Final Cut

I have experienced numerous issues with Final Cut which are solely down to the program or the Mac I am using being glitchy. The most common is un rendered footage/ audio in the editing timeline. This is a big problem with editing because I need to be able to see which clip I am editing to make it as accurate as possible.

In the past I have been able to fix it by moving to the unloaded clip and clicking on it, then waiting for it to buffer. However I did experience a large section of Jack's vocals being missing, even after I had closed and re opened the program multiple times.

As you can see in the image the audio appears to end, however it is still there as I could hear it when I played it. Although I knew it was there, I needed to be able to see the sound waves to be able to edit accurately. Eventually I managed to get it back by zooming all the way in on the footage, then by zooming back out again. I have no idea what caused this, perhaps the size of the file had caused the program to slow down.

More editing of vocals

As I have said in an earlier post the timing of the song I have used is not the same speed as the version Jack sang to, therefore I have had to edit Jack's singing in chunks speeding some sections up and slowing some down. I have cut in between certain lines and spaced them apart to replicate the song as well as I could.

Although I am doing a parody, I still want it to resemble the original where I deem necessary, and I think the more accurate the vocals are to the original the better. I feel tat having the timings off would just make the piece look lazy and unprofessional on my behalf.

Editing Jack's singing

I asked Jack to sing the song so I could replace Carly Rae's voice with his. Unfortunately Jack's singing talent isn't as good as I had hoped. He had the confidence to do so which made him a good candidate, however I would have preferred someone who could've produced a somewhat nicer to listen to version. Sorry Jack.

I did ask someone I know called Toby Watts who has performed in several drama productions, including the production of Grease at my school. He is a good singer, however he was unavailable when I needed him. Furthermore I wasn't sure if having someone looking dorky would go well with a talented singing voice. Conclusively I decided Jack singing as well as he could would be a good fit.

The downside of this is that the acting he did, and the editing I had done prior to recording his voice, was all synced with the original track. Regardless of Jack's voice not being that of an angel, he also wasn't able to exactly reproduce the song with all the perfect timings, not that I expected him to. In addition, the instrumental version I had downloaded was not the same length as the original, meaning it was slightly out of time. This led to a large task of re editing all of the audio for the video to line up with the footage. Unfortunately I was unable to fix the original lip sync issues with Jack's acting, and if anything they may be slightly worse with Jack's singing as well.

I can't re film now as Jack is unavailable for a time period I would need him for, and I cannot re film with someone else otherwise I would need to re film the entire video which would prevent me from meeting the deadline.

Voiceover

I recorded Jack singing the song on my iPhone using the voice memos app. From this app I was able to email them to myself, open the email on a computer and transfer it to a memory stick. I then transferred it from the memory stick into the mac and uploaded it to final cut pro. Finding a version of the original song without lyrics, an instrumental version, was rather challenging. I eventually managed to find a version on a website as a music video without singing, which I again emailed to myself thinking I could repeat the steps from before.

However it would not allow me to transfer the song from the email to the computer, so I had to take it a few steps further. I downloaded an app on my phone which converted videos into downloads. It took some effort and actually downloading two different apps but I eventually managed to get the song saved to my phone. From there I did the same using a memory stick on the computer and uploaded it to the mac.

I replaced the original video which I had been using to line up the lip sync to Jack, with the instrumental track. I detached the audio and deleted the footage leaving me with just the instrumental soundtrack. I then had to edit all of the audio from Jack's voice to line up with the music and the video.

Word/text effects

In the original video there is a scene in which Carly is in a "fairy-tale world" where the background is a pink sunset and both characters are dressed like a prince and princess. In this scene above their heads is the title of the song, and below is Carly's name. I attempted to recreate this through the use of text features on final cut, however there is one element I am not happy about. 

The original was undoubtedly created through the use of a green screen, meaning both the background and the text are behind the characters. Whereas I added the text in post production therefore it is over the heads of the characters. As far as I can tell there is no way I can edit the words to be behind the characters, not without using a green screen. 

Permission to use the song

In order to ensure I didn't violate any copyright issues, or just annoy the producers of Call Me Maybe I decided to email the record label. After finding the producer of the song (Josh Ramsay) but no way of contacting him, I then discovered the record label 604 Records was the label for the song. On their website I managed to find an email address hidden away with info in the title. Assuming this was the address most of their questions get asked I figured it made sense to send mine to that address. In the brief it states that providing I have evidence of contacting the producer of the song I can use it in my production.