Video of the week

My video of the week is by Clean Bandit & Jess Glynne. I think the stage performance clips are typical of the genre and create a professional music video. 

  

Target Audience Feedback

Rough Cut

Here is our indie music video rough cut, to the song of Alex Megan - Try

Time Management Update

Video of the week

My video of the week is by British singer Ella Henderson. I like the use of montage clips for a music video, and the retro 'lense' which has been used looks unique and different. 

Planning for production: costumes for my digipak

Planning for production: Locations and lighting for my digipak and print advert

Locations and Lighting

In order to create a digipak, I will need to have four images in order to fill the four panes of my digipak. Before I can take these images, I will need to plan for production before hand, in order to ensure I collate sufficient/useful images. This is a blog post on possible locations (and the types of lighhting) to shoot my images for my digipak.

• Forest (as featured in music video, creates continuity)
• River (as featured in music video, creates continuity)
• Steps leading to forest
• White background (found in college, creates a professional, sleek looking image)
• Archway by castle

Here I have taken stills from our music video in order to highlight my chosen locations for my digipak:

River

Forest

Steps

In terms of the type of lighting used for my digipak, I will be shooting the majority of my pictures outside, so therefore I will be featuring naturalistic lighting which is a redundant feature within indie digipaks.

Mock ups of digipak and print advert

Digipak mock up 1:

Here is my first mock up of my digipak for my indie artist Alex Megan. I have chosen here to use outdoor locations, and ones which are featured in the music video for 'Try'. The front cover has the ludlow bridge featured in the background, which is where performance and narrative parts of our music video have taken place. Also, the bottom two pictures feature the artist in a forest location, as seen in the music video, which creates continuity and a link between the music video and the digipak. I have tried to replicate similar fonts that I will also be using.

Alternate front cover for digipak mock up:

I have been experimenting with different front digipak covers as I feel that too many photos focused around the music video will not look as good. I have tried to emulate my chosen font which is featured in my experimentation with fonts blog post below. Therefore, I created this more simplistic front cover:

    Print advert mock up 1:
Upon looking at other print adverts from artists within the same genre, I have decided to feature a close up image of the artist, as I have seen that this is a redundant and common feature of indie print adverts.

Experimentation with colour schemes for my digipak

Experimentation with fonts for my digipak

Filming Progress - Time Management Update

Inspirations for print work

Video of the week

My video of the week this week is by British indie rock band The 1975. I have chosen this song in particular as the video is quite stereotypical of the indie rock genre, featuring the playing of instruments. 

Analysis of print adverts

Analysis of Digipaks

What is a Digipak?

Template of a Digipak:

Why is it important for artists to create Digipaks as part of a marketing package despite the fact that the majority of people now download music and do their reading online?
It is important for artists to create Digipaks (and print adverts) as part of a marketing package as they create continuity and a brand identity for the artist, creating and reinforcing their star image and making them easily recognizable to audiences. 

Changes to our music video - time management update

Tuesday 2nd of November 2014

TIME MANAGEMENT UPDATE

After creating a rough cut of our music video, it was clear that our performance sections that we had filmed were not good enough quality for us to use in our music video. So, we decided that instead we are going to completely re-film all of the performance scenes. In addition to this, we decided to change the location of our performance scenes, as when referring back to our research into the indie music genre and indie music videos it was clear to us that none of them featured stage performances. Therefore, we have chosen to film outside in the following locations: Whitcliffe, by the castle and the river
We decided that upon looking at our footage, it was clear that Hollie (our artist) was struggling to pretend to play guitar as she does not know how to play it, therefore we decided it was best to get rid of the guitar all together. We've decided that we will have Hollie doing some sort of movements, opposed to being stationary at all times. These will include: walking, moving her hands, swaying and leaning against objects such as trees.
We have also made changes to our narrative due to the changes made to our performance. We are now no longer featured the male love interest walking in at the end of the video, as we came to the consensus that the footage we had taken was not good enough.

In terms of my own personal work, I need to complete:

• Analysis of Digipaks
• Analysis of Print Adverts
• Begin thinking about images to use for my Digipak

I am to post my analysis of digipaks by Wednesday 3rd December, and to post my analysis of print adverts by Friday 5th December.

Video of the week

My video of the week is by British artist Sam Smith called 'Restart'. I have chosen this video as the entire video is made up of montage clips, which I think is effective and unique.

Time Management Update

Photos from our filming session on Tuesday 25th November:

...

Video of the week

My video of the week is by British boyband One Direction 

I have chosen this music video as I think it is unique to others that I have seen before. One Direction are part of the pop genre, and this music video reflects that. I think it is interesting how they have filmed the video from the perspective of the girl who is the 'date'.

Filming Progress

Unfortunately, we are not able to film today on Saturday 22nd of November as Aaron, (the male love interest) had to change his plans and is now busy. Subsequently, we are now filming our remaining narrative scenes on Tuesday the 25th of November during lesson time. 

Scenes we aim to film:

• Jewellery shop scene
• Bus scene (couple break up)
• Poster scenes
• Castle scene
• Whitcliffe flashback

We did however film some more performance sections of our music video on Tuesday, the 18th of November.

Photos from our filming session:

Hollie practising the lyrics:

Filming the close up shots (referencing to the use of Andrew Goodwins theory, and his argument that the artist has many close up, full frontal shots of themself:

Hopefully, we aim to finish the majority of filming on Tuesday, however we will still need to film outside of lesson time to ensure we have a sufficient amount of footage.

Time Management Update

Time Management Update from indiajonesmedia

I am also going to ask for permission to use the drama studio during lesson time tomorrow. Hopefully, as it is almost always free this will not be a problem. 

This is the poster that I have created in order to 'promote' Hollie as the artist during the narrative, highlighting her upcoming show.

We have made a few changes to the narrative of our music video, which are as follows:

• The ending and break up of the relationship will be signified by Aaron (the love interest) waiting at the bus stop for his bus to University, thus meaning the relationship has to end. 
• To show that Aaron (the love interest) knows about Hollie's show, we have encorporated a narrative scene where by Hollie and Aaron will be seen putting up posters promoting her show.
• This then links to Aaron (the love interest) walking into Hollie's show at the end of the video, even though the couple have broken up.

Video of the week

My video of the week is by the artist Ed Sheeran called 'One'

I have chosen this video as whilst the entire video is performance, I think for our own music video we are aiming to film similar performance shots, including the close ups and medium shots.

Peer Review

We also conducted a peer review where by another group in our class viewed some of the footage we had taken on Tuesday 11th of November.

Here are the questions that were asked and also the responses on good aspects of our clips and also ways to improve:

Question 1: Were our performers convincing? Why?

Question 2: Did the narrative relationship look believable? Why?

Question 3: Do you think we have used a variety of shot types? Is this effective?

From this I have learnt that our actors in our music video looked believable, (e.g, looked happy, in love, a convincing couple) however an area to improve may be to focus on taking some more extreme close ups and close up shots of the couple.

Performers and Casting

Performers and casting from indiajonesmedia

Filming Progress

1.  Friday the 14th of November 2014

My group and I have planned to film during lesson time, however, through our Facebook chat group Louise has said she is unable to come in tomorrow to film as she has a cold. As a result of this, I will be filming the majority of the performance scenes shot in the college drama studio. This may be a challenge for us as it may be harder to fix lighting, prop and location aspects of the scenes as well as filming.

Time Management

Preparing To Film

My group and I are preparing to film during our Media Studies lesson tomorrow on Tuesday the 11th of November 2014. We are also scheduled to film on Friday during lesson time and we have also arranged to meet in Ludlow on Saturday 22nd in order to continue filming, as lesson time will not be enough.

We have been using our Facebook chat group in order to communicate and ensure all participants are available to film.

However, we have encountered a problem as Aaron, who is scheduled to play the role of the male love interest has been injured, but we are hoping he will be able to participate tomorrow.

We have arranged to meet on Saturday 22nd of November in order to film some more scenes.

Test Shots

A video of Hollie, who is acting as the artist in our music video practising lip syncing:

Time Management Update

My group and I have finished and posted our animatic, and I have finished and posted my blog post on locations today. I aim to post my blog post on costumes, props, hair and makeup on Monday, thus leading us to be ready to start filming on Tuesday. 

We also created a Facebook group between the three of us, in order to be able to communicate and manage our time better.

Locations and Health & Safety

Here is a collection of photographs we have taken around Ludlow, highlighting our chosen outdoor locations:

Urban/town location:
We chose to use a town location, including backdrops of scenic houses as a basis for some of our flashback scenes as from our research into similar indie music videos, such as Nina Nesbitt - Stay Out and Way In The World we found that a town location was often used. The use of the town location, in our case, Ludlow is ideal as it is easy to get to and is also quite a a nice background to feature in our music video. One issue which may arise when filming within the town may be the amount of people, perhaps filming without getting in people's way may prove difficult.

Around the castle:
We have chosen to use the surrounding area to the castle as one of our locations as it is full of greenery and it looks aesthetically pleasing.

Colourful houses:
We think these houses (and similar) will look nice as a back drop to our music video, and may also reflect the happier times of the couple as these will be featured during the flashback scenes.

Jewellery Shop: 
Couple seen walking past shop and looking in during flashback/memories scenes.

~ RISK ASSESSMENT ~
We decided that in order to create a professional, well thought our music video we would need to conduct a risk assessment of the locations that we would be using in our music video.

Behind the castle:
Behind the castle there is a pathway which we will be featuring during the narrative sections of our music video. The couple will be seen walking, talking and laughing. The pathway itself is narrow, covered in greenery and also it is situated next to a steep hill, which drops down a considerable depth. We needed to do a risk assessment on this location as if anyone in our group or our actors featured in the video were not looking there is a risk of falling down the bank. To combat this we are going to ensure that everyone in the group acts sensibly and walks with caution.

Plants/thistles: 
Around the area there are many thistles which may cause harm to participants if touched.

Town:

We visited the jewellery shop in which we intend to film at during our narrative scenes, and realised that it is situated next to a busy road. Therefore, we will need to be extra careful when filming so as to not get in anyone's way and also be conscious of cars. 

Houses:

We will be filming next to these coloured houses, which are again situated next to a busy road. During our risk assessment we noted that we will need to ensure we do not get in the way of cars/obstruct pedestrians whilst using our filming equipment.

Front of the castle:

Whilst there are no major risks evident when filming in front of the castle, we will need to take into consideration other people passing by and to not obstruct them. 

Archway behind the castle:

From doing our risk assessment we noted that the area is fairly steep, thus meaning carrying heavy camera equipment such as a tripod may result in slips/trips. To avoid this we will ensure to walk slowly and carefully.

Drama Studio:

Whilst the college drama studio is a large, open space during our risk assessment we realised that a potential risk would be tripping over loose cables/wiring which are found in conjunction with the lighting apparatus. Another potential risk/hazard we found whilst using the drama studio is the use of the stage - actors may slip/trip.