Media Cast Blog banners

For Task 3 of unit 19 we had to individually present at least three banner designs to the rest of the blog team to decide and choose one. These here are the ones I made. I was out of fresh ideas and inspiration is out of the question, I'm not that excited about this blog. What I mean here is that, Media Cast having a blog/site is a great idea and is actually needed, but I'm not interested to take responsibility for such a thing. Whatever the case these are the banners:

All I did in this one is took a picture of my camera, put it on a black background and added the title for the blog.

For these two I just kept the black, white and green theme and put the title in a sort of style but keeping it serious.

Origami Project Update

The pictures on the right are showing the first finished stage that I'll be using to present the animation on.  The first finished stage because this one was brutally attacked by one of my cats. Ok he only slept in the stage three times and broke down the green screen in the process. The second version is just the same thing with a darker green screen and stronger support.

Also the storyboard is ready with detailed instructions on what to do on stage whilst giving light to the story. Oh yes the title is the one written above the stage. I went with a free hand calligraphy just to make it more raw and simple. I know it's a long title but it's understandable.

On the 26th of April I began my first shooting day. Not everything went as smoothly as planned but it was fun. One of the draw backs would be the crappy and cheep tripod I used. You would do a smoother tilt hand held while tap dancing. The second draw back is more of a disappointing problem. The green screen didn't work out as panned. Due to lighting, shades and other small defects on the cardboard, the keying process couldn't work out well. On the bright side the animation is awesome and it's not half bad with just the green cardboard for background. I'll just think of something to make it more interesting for the rest of the scenes.

Giovan Out!

Introducing the Origami Project

The origami project consists of a short stop motion animation using origami characters to narrate the story. The story is planned to be not much longer than 3 minutes and will be presented on a small cardboard stage. It is about the tale of an origami duck's life adventures, and will be told by animated captions, the way characters interact with the environment and with a musical track. The track is a simple composition I made mostly on piano and was recorded on 8th April 2011.

The concept for this project has been running around in my ming for quite a while now. What made finally start working on it was the AEGEE-Valletta and CommA Short Film Festival. The funny part is when I was told about it, it was three weeks from the deadline (24th April 2011) and it's possible that I don't finish the job on time. This id due the fact that it my first time doing stop motion and because I have other stuff to do, like school assignments, which are a higher priority at this stage. Right now I only finished the track, a rough storyboard and the stage (which still needs some finishing touches).

Reaching the stated deadline or not I'm now all fired up to finish this project and will update more as I progress.

Giovan Out!

Promo Ideas

Being about Jazz, a musical genre not known by many today, and is also consider as something classic or old, my first idea for the promo was to deliver a sort of nostalgia of the said "old". To make this happen I was planning a sort of time changing sequence to show the days when Jazz was mainstream up to today when it is more classical, alternative and a good memory passed on by generations on vinyl. I imagined the commercial to start in the 1940s' with a band playing Jazz in a bar, then moves forward in time to the 60's-70's with a scene of a man listening to Jazz on vinyl with his son. Further in time comes a scene of another man (the grown up child of the last scene) finding his fathers' collection of records and plays them and reminisce about his childhood, looks at his old piano wanting to play Jazz. He is then presented with the product and that's that. all of this story would have been narrated by an accompanying voice over. Being complicated and quite expansive I scraped the idea especially after conducting research on the target audience.

The second concept was to make a story about a common person in search of an alternate music and finally finding Jazz and learning hot to play it on piano with the product. To tackle this concept I opted for a surrealistic approach. So I changed a little the final message and came with the concept of using a metaphorical corridor of musical genres and a person walking trough. Eventually he/she finds a door marked as Jazz and with the help of the product he/she menages to open it and play Jazz on a piano. The message behind this story is to not worry about following the alternative, specifically jazz, there's a solution to easily play it on piano with the book Jazz Piano from Scratch. The only problem is that because the message is presented metaphorically it can be easily not understood or worst; misleading.  If tackled delicately and with thought the idea can be enhanced for better understanding. This process will take place during the composition of the storyboard. 

Jazz, Piano from Scratch

Meeting Date: 04/Apr/2011
Locations:

• Corridor
• Room with piano

Talent:

• Actor / Actress

Props:

• Piano
• Book
• Small table
• Key
• Lables

Equipment:

• Tripod
• Camera
• Light for room
• Microphone

Mind map:

• Corridor
• School Corridor (after school hours)
• Hotel corridor

Storyboard to be provided
Script provided by Giovan
Shoot number 2 to be discussed (Green Screen)
Audio: Background effects / classic background Jazz music
Filming to be spilt with the group
Ideal shooting day: Wednesdays
Actor:
First Scenes:

• Relaxed, common person

End Scenes:

• Formal (suit)

Target Audience

After receiving enough feedback from a questionnaire I passed out on Facebook I could start to define a target audience for the book I chose (Jazz Piano from Scratch). Being an alternative genre the first audience to come in mind is small and most these are veterans in music playing, so the Jazz Piano from Scratch doesn’t appeal that much for them, except maybe for teaching. With this analysis the conclusion is to find a wider and more appropriate audience.

I passed the mentioned questionnaire to a wide variety of people with different life styles. Less than half of the people answered but I’ve got enough material to construct an audience profile. The questionnaire is on a separate page along with the results.

It is clear from the results that most people are not familiar with Jazz which is the main subject of the selected book. With that confirmed, it is also given that most of them show interest in the subject, some even said that they’re going to search about it (when asked what they’ll be doing after conducting the questionnaire). There were some others that although in the first question they chose that they prefer to stick to some genres, they still show interest in the alternative or at least became curious into what is Jazz in the first place. The questions regarding playing a musical instrument resulted in a 50/50 with a little advantage towards those that would like or already play an instrument. Most of the people that conducted the questionnaire confirmed they are open to music genre. This is an advantage when it comes to actually convincing that the product is something they should consider. For the second question I wanted to know the most popular medium people use to listen and/or discover there music. I asked this question to see how open the audience’s source when searching for music is, the most open currently being the internet (and the one mostly chosen). So it is safe to say that even though Jazz is not your everyday kind of music it’s still one step away of the audience reach.

In conclusion the target audience for this advert is especially those open to musical genres, use the internet as their source for music and ideally does not play any musical instrument but desire to do so. This combination is the most logically possible audience that would consider or even be convinced to buy the Jazz Piano from Scratch. Reason being, if someone already knows how to play an instrument - say the guitar, the odds of trying to learn Jazz on piano are near to none. Also those open to music genres have a more solid ear to appreciate the alternative, and with an open source like the internet it’s easy to say that a quick search on the subject would bring them more into the Jazz culture. A second kind of audience to target is those professional piano teachers that should find the book useful for their students when teaching Jazz and improvisations.

Questionnaire + results:

·        (1)Are you open to music genre or (2) do you stick to some specific genres?

Results: (1) = 12, (2) = 5

·        You find/search your music on (1) radio (2) TV (3) Internet (4) Other?

Results: (1) = 2, (2) = 0, (3) = 15, (4) = 6

·        Do you play or aspire to play a musical instrument?

Results: Y = 9, N = 8

·        Are you familiar with Jazz and its Culture?

Results: Y = 7, N = 10

·        Would you consider an interest in Jazz?

Results: Y = 11, N = 6

·         If you play or want to play a musical instrument would you try something different like Jazz?

Results: Y = 9, N = 8

·        After conducting this short questionnaire you'll;
(1) continue whatever you were doing and forget about this
(2) search something about Jazz
(3) contemplate on the time you wasted with this questionnaire
Results: (1) = 9, (2) = 7, (3) = 2

More Background Research

Technical Resources

For the camera and tripod  we'll be using the ones provided by the school (MCAST Institute of Art and Design). For the tracking shots, a steady-cam along with a small HD camera is required. These I'll provide them myself since I'm in possession of a steady-cam Merlin and a Sony HVR-A1E (HDV cam). Being HDV I tried compatability with the JVC HD cam from school during editing and it works fine. For a shot in the advert there's a possible need of a green/blue screen. This could also be provided by the school but we still have to discuss the scene/shot carfully before we book the green/blue screen.

Budget


Apart from buying the actual product and transport, there isn't much expense to budget for. The equipment to be used during production is provided by the school (Camera and tripod) and other equipment that I already have in my possession.

Regulation


The promo is to be suitable for every age, sex and race. Hence it follows an Everyone regulation.

Deadline


Hand in date of the final promotional video is on the 23rd of May 2011.