1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Question 1 of My Evaluation, presented on Prezi

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? on Prezi

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

When looking at the combinations of my main products, branding can be seen through many different things such as images, typography, image motifs....

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To gain feedback from my target audience. Myself and Samiyah conducted a written survey given out to people in a screening of our music video and also and online survey which was through Survey monkey. Here are out results and what we found.

4. How did you use new media technologies in the contruction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

For my Last evaluation question I have used the Programme to present it. Please Press full screen to view better

Day 4 Filming!

Last Day of filming went extremely well as we made sure we filmed last bits of the lip syncing. We filmed footage of our actress blowing bubbles into the camera and blowing glitter into the camera as well, we had an idea to slow it down to create an emotive effect towards the audience.

Audiences and Institutions

Which institution may promote my artist/band’s music? on Prezi

I have explained what institution is more like to promote my artist's Music when looking at the genre and matching it with artists who are related to a paticular magazine. I have chosen NME.

Day 3 Filming

Today I was unable to help Sami film due to conflicts of events, Sami managed to shoot a good trombone shot and also a pan shot of our actress, and a lot of lip syncing, we feel this footage will help us to embrace our editing with for our final video.

Flatplan of Magazine advert

The second part of our Ancillary task is to design a Magazine advert, although my art is not up to any standard I hope this gives a clear idea of what I am going to produce. I hope to have the main image of the artist looking through a web and her eyes will look illuminous and stand out through the silver web lines. I feel this is a good idea as it uses direct address and also uses an image which links with the album title. I have also added a date which shows the release date. On other adverts like for an artist, it shows a social networking route which I have also added as it is the most popular way artists communicate to their fans - through twitter. Alongside I have also included a quote from the daily mail explaining how good the album is. By having this it shows that even the nations popular newspaper supports the album, this can create a nation support for the album.

Final Storyboard

CD cover pictures

On our filming day one. I took pictures for the CD cover. Because me and Samiyah are working together we are making different CD covers. My idea is apart of music to visuals. In the lyrics its says 'In the web I can see' Using the lyrics as a reference, I am going to have my actress stroking her fingers through a spiders web using Direct address and using her fingers like she is playing a guitar to also relate to the acoustic/indie feel of the album. Here are the pictures I have taken. They are 15 - 20 test shots.

Day 2 Filming

Due to time issues i was unable to attend the filming. We got a lot of filming done today as well which included the lamp post which we hope to edit as a transition of time. We have one more day left of filming which will finish up with the actress with her boyfriend.

Day one of filming

Me and Samiyah did have to start our filming again due to an illness our previous actress had. We felt our filming was definetly better this time and we felt like our previous filming was a trial and error. We did everything we did in our previous filming but we perfected it. We used more music to lyrics and also got the use of handheld camera in to suit the video appropriately. We did the make up a bit differently as we toned it down a bit due to the fact our actress's eyes are very  bright so the contrast wouldn't work as well. We also had a change of costume with the feet. Instead of the different shoes we are just sticking with the different dress as the shoes will not seem to register as the past as well as the dress. We are very confident with our footage and feel this time around it is much better.

Flat plan of CD cover (digipack)

As I am working in partners with someone, we are going to design different CD digipacks.

1.As you can see from the above, The four panels have a relationship together due to the house colours which we have chose. Our overall colours will be Black and Gold with Silver. On the front panel the background will be Black and the Gold will arise in the Logo of Alexa Povey and the album title. The silver will stick out in the image of eyes and The spider web I am including in my album cover which are included on the front panel and back and the inside as well. The back pannel where the track list will consist of, the font will also be Gold surfacing on a Black background hanging of a spiders web. Where the artwork/lyrics are included, it will also share these house colours along with the spine. The overall Theme will be a strong feminine Indie theme with soft images and serif font to show the femininity of the Album. Most images will include eyes. 

2. The choice of image relates back to our image motif of eyes, but my image will be a spiders web to link with the album title 'the haunted web'. The eyes of our actress will stand out as we will put heavy make up on to make the eyes look illuminous, the spiders web will be silver which will make it look unordinary and it will stand out. By using the image of eyes, It use direct address which can pull the audience into looking at the CD digipack. The colours of Black, Gold and Silver work well together as they compliment each other by looking traditional and moderate for an indie album.

3.We have decided to use a white space layout as we feel it is more appealing to our audience within our genre range. We want the audience to feel personal with the artist and by having a visual cluttered layout it comes across and too much and can feel very confusing for the audience whereas using white space can help the audience connect and understand easier. By using our 3 colours in a white space, it will stand out even more as it will not be cluttered so therefore makes it easier to see. 

4.the design is eye catching because of the image of the eyes. It will be using direct address which is known as an eye catching aspect. It is also desirerable as it is not visual clutter, it is more personal by using white space.

5.  The design definetly suggest the genre of the band by the colours. Most colours on Indie CD digipacks are blocked colours. The colours we chose are block colours. The typography is also suggesting the genre of indie (serif) as it is feminine and a traditional different look. 

6. The star image is the eyes. Our back pannel will feature a link of eyes to show a relationship and make the audience recognise our artists image motif. 

7.On the front panel, Industry information such as Name of the album and artist will be shown. The logo will also be placed on the front pannel as an association feature. On the back pannel will consist of the record label logo so the audience know where to find out information about the artist, and also the producer and social networking websites where you can have your say. On the spine of the CD pack will include the Arist name and Album name. 

 

Our video so far

This is what we have put together with various editing shots from using the macs.

Analysis of Magazine Adverts

I have annotated 3 magazine advert to show forms and conventions magazine adverts have to follow in order to be successful. I found this very useful and I can adapt from this task when designing my own.

Brand Identity

Change of Actress!

We were origionally using paige to be in our video, but due to an Illness we missed a lot of filming and decided to let her rest. We have now got a new actress to film with. She is Kim Brett, 17 and a student. We have made a new shooting schedule which will be seen below.

Editing Footage 14/10/11

When filming our footage we decided to start editing our footage and start putting together. Here is a rough draft of our music video. It includes the fade in transitions related with fast cut montage. Also includes a number shots including lip syncing and indirect and directs address. 

Day 4 of Filming

Samiyah was unable to attend this film so i had to proceed by myself and go by the notes we made together about what this filming day will consist of. The filming was only about 45 minutes as it was so film things which needed to be tweaked, for example, Paige sitting near in St Marys green opposite the fountain. this had to be improved due to poor light and other were in the shot frame which was not recommended. We also took this opportunity to shoot Paige in the white and blue outfit. Samiyah did her eye make up as she is more steady handed than i am! She used silver and blue eyes shadow to balance out the eyes and also stuck gems around Paige's eyes to create the image motif of her eyes standing out. This was not as heavy as last time but it still outlined Paige's blue eyes which is exactly what we wanted! This filming period was also a good accomplishment. 

Test Shot of 'The Haunted'

When after our second day of filming, We put together a test shot of our previous footage to see if it worked well of not. We decided it didn't fit in with the genre characteristics of video and song due to the irrelevance of the shot and we also had difficulties filming as a lot of people would stop and stare or stop and freeze as they didn't want to 'interfere' with the filming, we originally wanted the shot to look naturalistic but it failed to do so. With our new footage, we feel that the shot we have included are more relevant with the tone of the video.

Day 3 of filming

Due to conflicting circumstances, I could not join Samiyah when filming our footage but we planned what we were going to do before. The third day of filming consisted of filming Paige walking around in various directions and shot at different angles. The idea of filming for today to catch a variety of shots of Paige walking around so we could edit it into being fast cut montages shots. We also needed to film Paige going past the lamp post in her black dramatic outfit then also film her again going past a lamp post in her pastel and soft outfit to create a flashback effect, it could be seen as an indicator of the past due to her outfit change. Samiyah picked a great place to film as it was by a location with many green surroundings such as bushes and leafy trees. It created a commodious feeling which can be projected towards the audience.

Diary of filming day 2

The second day of filming was a great success as we felt that our first filming day didn't accomplish as much as we wanted. However due to weather we had limited time filming, we had to end as we felt like it would be a contradictory location as it would be normal weather in one shot then raining in the following shot. The filming today involved mostly the indoor shots, we filmed Paige in a black outfit with black heels and used the guitar prop. Her eye make up was again heavy, dramatic and symbolic to the tone of the song. This time we spent more time on her eyes as we felt we didn't put as much effort due to the make up difficulties so this time we used dark glitter and gems on fake eyelashes, this really enhanced with her eyes and made them stick out tremendously, this shows our following of our image motif. In the filming, we included direct and indirect address and we want to involve the audience with the direct address and then use indirect address to make sure the somber tone of song can create a real life situation for the viewers to recognize. Our location this time is different to what we intended for it to be. I will signify this after all filming is done. The location was ideal as we wanted a dark room to signify the mood at the beginning of the track. Lip syncing gradually came along and got better with the repetition of learning the lyrics. As we were filming, we used a lot of extreme close up including close ups of her feet. With the close up of the feet we wanted to fade the Black shoes with the tanned flat shoes together and also include it as a jump cut to signify the different time periods for example, the black costume will represent the period after the break up and the pale pastel colors with the tanned shoes will represent the happy time before the break up which will be represented in the video by a merging transition used from the Mac. We also did shots of Paige singing from a high angle to show the vulnerable and naive stage of her life at this moment in time. The extreme close up shots also consisted of a close up of the guitar Paige plays, We hope to bring in Goodwin's Principles here and use the Music to visuals by playing a guitar when the guitar sets off in the beginning of the track. The outcome of our filming day was great and we have had a successful attempt with editing.   

Audience Profile

Advertisers are keento define target audiences very carefully so they can establish the right ideology to make the target audience want/like the specific product and this helps to focus on a campaign advertistment in this case, for an artist. There are different ways of profiling such as Psychographics and Demographic.

Demograhic Profiling is the most basic form of indentification for target audiences. It defines an audience into groups such as age, gender, class, religion etc... It is a very simplistic way of grouping target audiences together as it assumes that everyones in a broad group has the same attitudes.

Psychographic featues market researchers catergorising audiences in terms of needs and motivation rather than simple demogrpahic factors. Consumers can be targeted directly through their needs and desires which is more effective for advertisers. Advertisers link the ideologies of the product to those of the consumer to generate a better empathy and bonding with the brand.
The four C's

• The four c's are Cross Cultural Consumer Characteristics categorise people in terms of their aspirations. This is one of the most popular ways of profiling audiences as it profiles the audiences through their wants and needs unlike typical demographic ways.
• Mainstreamers is the largest group. This is when they are concerned with security and stability, mainly buying well recognised brands and consuming mainstream texts. 
• Aspires are always seeking to imporve themselves. They define themselves as the high status brand names which they own and consume, absorbing the idealogies of the product  as their own and believing that their status is established by this conspicuous consumption. 
• Succeeders are the people who feel secure and in control generally, they are in the positions of power, although they may not be. They buy brands which reinforce their feelings of control and power.

Demographic Profiling for Alexa Povey

• Both Genders between the ages of 16 - 24.
• People who are interested in the indie music genre and fashion as well. 
• Possibily British people as the artist is british themselves
• Most likely to have a job
• In Full time education such as secondary school/University or Full time jobs.
• Interested in heavy eye make up (girls)
• Interested in music and social events with alcohol, could represent having a good time and the stereotypical version of young people today. 
• People who are interested in guitar or play guitar, emphasises the genre even more.

Psychographics Profiling for Alexa Povey

• The needs of the target audience may be that the music that alexa creates mirrors the emotions and matches the feelings of the individual. 
• Having a close personal relationship with the artist, so maybe reaching out to a fanbase by a personal blog. 
• The audience want to hear indie music, so it is vital that we give them the image of indie, not just an indie image from a fashion magazine. 

 

Costumes

When shooting a video, you need to take into mind every feature such as costumes is included. Me and Samiyah got Paige to try on a variety of outfits that we thought would work well. The 1st right didn't work as we thought it was too smark for the video, you would have to be careful with the colours as well as they are not contrasting so its harder to spot and stand out. The picture after that also didnt work as we though it was too casual and laidback for the video tone. The colours are also to matchy to work well together. Also the same with the 3rd picture featuting the blue satin top and blue shorts, the colours are overlapping eachother and just look boring. The last picture of the White and Blue dress is the main costume Paige will be wearing as it has very soft tones of white and blue which works with the soft and gentle tone of the song. Its also a very flowy dress which makes it work well with the rhythm of the song as well.

Draft Storyboard

Media Shots, a set on Flickr.

When planning for the video, you need to storyboard the video. When doing this it was a great help as it helps you as you go along filmimg. This is only a draft storyboard as we are trial and error with these shots

Diary of Filming Day one 1/10/11

Me and Samiyah went to film close ups of our main character, we used a fellow student called Paige. We went round Hitchin town where we took our location shots. We filmed for 4 hours as the weather was ideal for the shots and the mood of the part of the video. On our journey to town, we took a shot of Paige from a mid low angle walking, we used the tripod, we experimented with this shot 5 times as we noticed the sun was shining on her face several times. On the 5th take the shot was good as she went at a good speed which was in sync with the music and the lighting was good as it was natural. Our second stop was St Marys church. We took a longshot from the bridge opposite the church to capture an image of Paige alone with a slow medium close up, waiting for her boyfriend, this take was easy to film as we place the tripod in the perfect place which resticted the sunlight running across her face. After filming this take we took a wide shot, also a pan shot of Paige walking across the bridge, this took several takes as the lighting was a problem again as it kept going across her face and it looked unclear on the footage, eventually by changing the position of the camera and doing a little bit more of a close up, we ended the issue lighting. After shooting the St marys Shots, We moved onto the middle of town. We placed Paige in the middle of a busy crowd through town. During shooting this scene, we experienced the difficulty of loss of people and also people wondering what we were doing and worrying they were getting in our way. We were unsuccessful on this attempt but when we are due for out next filming, we are going to try and shoot from the opposite side of the road so we can see more of a crowd and this time Paige may be able to stand out more.

 We also took picture of possible costume ideas of what Paige could be wearing whilst shooting the scenes with her boyfriend which would be a happy moment in time. We mixed and matched different colour depending on recent fashion trends but then we decided to go with the first image of the white and blue dress. This is a good choice as the white and blue are very soft colours which can represent and show a soft tone in the video.

Shooting Schedule

We designed a shooting schedule to help us be prompt with our filming. It shows when we are doing our first shooting of the video. Here is a picture of it.

The Haunted pitch

To gain feedback on the ideas of our music video, Myself and Samiyah pitched our ideas to our Media studies class. We thought this was a good idea as they were our target audience. We got some feedback which will help us to improve our video. I have embedded a video of our pitch onto the blog.
 

 Good Feedback, What worked well...

- Location worked well with lyrics and the theme of the song

- Range of different shots, sound effective

- Camerawork/editing

- Good detail about location

- Creative ideas, speeding up time

- Location of the band stand is ideal

- Representing the lyrics in the visuals

- Use a variaty of shot types and distances

Improvements

- Check for pixalation for extreme close up on the eyes

- Include notion of looking

- Genre characteristics

- Lighting, props and costume

- Ensure location shots are well lit

- Test out shot of the eye

- Ensure editing effect will want to work

 - Explain an alternative if the close up of the eyes do not work.

How will I use this feedback?

• For checking the pixalation for the extreme close up of the eyes, I will test it out with my character and the camera. The theory i have is if i stand about a metre and a half away from my character the video of the eyes will not be as pixalated as it has more time to focus on the eye.Then, It needs to be uploaded to the AppleMAC and see if we can use the editting effect we want to do.
• I have uploaded pictures of the costumes we have looked at to use. We will only be using 2 costumes ideas and we want a directional storyline throughout the video. 
• If they eyes do not work, Then we will fast rewind the video to make it look like a flashback and end of the flashback will do a white fade out and back onto the character looking sombre.

Location Shots

To complement the narrative idea for our video, me and Samiyah have decided to film in a variety of locations for our music video within Hitchin Town.
These images will show the ideas of where we will shoots various shots for the video of 'Haunted'.
This first show is around my housing estate in St Ippolyts. Me and Samiyah thought this is a good location to shoot the character singing with direct address. The cluster of trees can could create a voyerustic effect as the character will be centred around the middle in costume which contrasting colours which will make it easy for the audience to see whilst doing a long shot. We were thinking of also doing a close up within this location as well.


This is an shot of an alley also around my housing estate. This location would be used as part of a tracking shot of the characters walking through it. this location shot is also ideal to film a low angle shot from the characters shoes and gradually working the camera up to a immediate close up. It can also be used for a high angle shot as the alley is built up on a hill, this can show the vunerability of the character during the song.


St Marys churchyard is also another location shot we took. We had an idea of using a long shot to show the whole of the church and then close up on one of the church doors which is indented in the wall, this would feature the artist looking at the camera and singing with a male character. The lighting will be natural light withn the early hours of the morning. This will also create a voyeuristic effect as the audience will want to look at the couples actions with eachother.

Contact with the artist

I contacted my artist through Facebook. I sent Alexa a message for getting consent/permission to use her track 'Haunted' for my Media A2 coursework. 

Haunted Lyrics annotated.

Editing and Camerawork

My Camerawork and Editing so far.

Camerawork ideas for my video :

- High angle shots to make the character look weak and shows supressed feeling. 

- Establishing shot to show the character looking isolated, in a dark house with a small room, field etc...

- Tracking the artist as they are moving? showing all different sides of them and edit them together.

- Close ups to show the experessions and to see the lip syncing, also to show the audience who the artist actually is.

Editing ideas for my video

- Fast cut montage ; fragmented shots of the chorus, this will make the chorus stick in the audiences head. 

- Enhancing colour with split screens/ colourisations - black and white, Grey.
- At the beginning of the video, Paige will be wearing a dark outfit to represent the situation she is in (going through a break up), She is walking through town singing

How will I use Goodwins Principles?

When looking at music videos, all of them have the features of Goodwins Principles. When making my video it is guranteed that these principles will be included. I need to state how I will use them in this post. 

Genre characteristics

By looking at the lyrics, the songs theme is very somber and full of heartbreak. The video would be a Narrative video. The music video will portray the genre as being indie, as the music and also with a variety of close up shots on the artist.

Relationship between Lyrics and Visuals. 

the lyrics of 'Haunted' are very visually imaginable which is lucky. The lyrics illustrate what the song is about so it is very easy to show the relationship between lyrics and visuals. For example 'This was the beginning of the fall', to emphasis this lyric line, a drop down shot could be used to show someone down a hole or on the ground. Another example would be 'Push me away
I don’t mind it
I’ll take it all
To be haunted by you' , this could be shown by shooting a long shot down a long dark corridor with the just the artist in it. Lyrics with visuals is a very good thing to have as it can show the audience the concept and set the tone of the video.

Relationship between music and visuals.

When watching a music video, it is very common to link the music to what is on the screen. Music with visuals has 3 categorys. Amplifies, Illustrates and Contradict. Amplifies means that the video is exaggerated compared to the music, Illustrates shows what it actually is and Contradict shows the opposite of what is being sung (contrast). When making 'Haunted'. Myself and my partner Samiyah Khair will choose to make the video as an Illustrated relationship between music and visuals as the Song is very emotional and deep so the audience may want to see the process of the song. 

Demands of the Record Label

A lot of record labels demand a lot of the charateristics in videos to make sure the artist has an image motif to go by for fans. The video we will be making will include a lot of close ups to show that the video is intimate between the audience and the artist. Also a lot of contrasting colours will be used such as Black on white, we may use black and white throughout the whole video to establish the emotion in the song.  

Notion of looking

Goodwin suggested in every music video there is some reference to the notion of looking. For example, screens within screens, telescopes - looking glass, eyes - indirect/direct address and voyeurism. In the process of making 'Haunted', voyeuristic features will be included such as direct address and indirect address and mirrors to emphasise an important bit of the video.

Intertexual reference 

Intertexual reference means a connection to something. Television is often a point of reference with intextual reference in music videos.For example The Beastie Boys. Also Games, this is more predominate for the younger audience with the more platicised look of characters emerging. There is also reference within fashion and photography,fashion sometimes takes the form of specific catwalk references and sometimes even uses supermodels. Our intextual reference will be referencing to film/tv. The setting is like the Adams family house, unlike the adams family series and movie, this video will not be comic, but the setting the video will resemble the setting in the adams family.

Goodwins principles

Goodwins Principles are based on 6 points which feature within a music video.

• Muisc videos demonstrate genre characteristics, for example, Stage performancses are regular in rock videos.
• Theres a relationship between lyrics and visuals
• There is a relationship between music and visuals - Amplifies, Illustrates and Contradict.
• The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artiist and the artist may develop motifs which reair across their work (a visual style).
• There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens, telescopes etc..) and paticulary voyeutristic treatment of the female body.
• There is often intertexual reference to films, TV programmes and other music videos etc..

Evaluation Of Practical Task

For the practical task in year 12, My media class and I recreated the Britney Spears music video 'Baby, One more time' as you can see below, we took sections of the video as a class and worked in groups to recreate our own section. The recreated sections have been joined together and the video is embedded below, my groups section is 0:00-0:30.

When filming, mirroring the shots for our section we had was used different camera shots for each scene so we could choose from a vairety. I  learnt how to use iMovie on the mac computers, and learnt the importance and how careful you have to be with editing.

When making the music video, I gained knowlodge of how to work a camera, how to use filming equipment such as a Tripod and also key skills of how to work in a group and edit with the precisions of lip syncing and timing. When filming our lip syncing scenes, we first just got our actress to mime the words, but that was particular difficult as we didn't have the guidence of the song. The second time around we used YouTube to listen to the song, but this time sing a long with it. We found that was much more effective when lip syncing and it doesn't look as fake when your miming. When editing our footage, it was particularly hard to work the lip syncing as many of us were not familiar with the iMove programme we were using. As a group we all had our say and input when editing, this made us work a lot better and we could understand each other if one person had an opinion about tweeking a shot.

Creating the music video was a very enjoyable task which helped me gain knowlegde on a production of a Music video and the props that you need as well as the equipment. I feel very confident during my A2 course of Media studies now as i've had experience which filming and editing.

7. Artist and Track

For my music video, I wanted to use a Niche artist. Alexa Povey is an unsigned Niche artist who has just started out her ambition to sing. I have chosen the song 'Haunted' which was written and sung by herself.

Lift the floor boards
To what we find
Are the cobwebs of what we left behind
In the web I could see
The remains of how we used to be

Remembered that time you lied
And you laughed
So did i
But your eyes said it all
This was the beginning of the fall

Chorus

Oh please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t
Put this all to rest
Cause I swear, I swear that I can I can I can
Live with this on my chest

While the corner embraced me and my
Tears chased me
Want to be close to you
My eyes were open, wide open
But I wanted to be blind for you


I never got to tell you how I really felt
Cause darkness was more enticing than the light had ever been
And what they said did come true
That he would lie, lie to you
But I don’t mind
I won’t find
A comparison that comes close to you


Chorus

Oh please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t
Put this all to rest
Cause I swear, I swear that I can I can I can
Live with this on my chest

While the corner embraced me and my
Tears chased me
Want to be close to you
My eyes were open, wide open
But I wanted to be blind for you

Oh you did save me
But you kill me
Always thrill me
Push me away
I don’t mind it
I’ll take it all
To be haunted by you

The song has also been recorded live by a Fan.

6.Magazine advertising

When looking to produce a music video, you need to think about promotional ideas for it. Many ways artist and label do this is magazine adverts, preferbaly in a magazine that their target audience follows. I have made notes on 3 magazine adverts and how they work well for the artist.

Magazine Advertising on Prezi

5. CD cover design

CD cover design on Prezi

I used Prezi to show my research on Cd cover designs and how they connote features such as images, colours and how the design attracts the audience.

4.Branding

When branding is used, it allows the artist to create an identity/trademark for themselves so they are easily recognised by the audience if they see a peice of Merchandise. I chose Katy Perry as she is a worldwide artist. Her brand identity is all set through her logo, her trademark is the quirky font on her logo. Her house colours recently have been baby blue and bubble gum pink. These go with the colour scheme of her latest album cover. She brands her merchandise with the girly image motif that she portrays in her music and her videos. Her logos are featured on her posters, CD albums and clothing merchandise. She will be recognised whenever someone will see her logo as it is offically her brand identity now. 

Having branding is hugely important for an artist to have as it gives the audience an image to match with the artist so it can be instantly recognisable.