Time Management

These tables were produced so that if me and Lucy had either booked a camera or needed to ask any of our actors a question we would be able to easily know whether they would be free. For filming, as we all finish early on a Wednesday this has been the best day for filming. For photography we have been quite lucky in that during the last week of term some lessons had been cancelled. This enabled us to have more free time so that we could go into the wood and also into the photography suite and get some good group photos.

I think that having time management is really important, and the use of these tables have been extremely useful. I was able to take this from my AS Media project, as we didnt have this it was difficult. This is something which I will be able to use in the future also for my next projects.

Digipak Research- Similar Genre Covers

Here is the Album cover of 'The Script'. There are bright colours and a variety of thoughts and images from this. Building rooftops and smoke coming from chimneys almost gives it a grungey look, with what seems to be a cardboard cut out hand holding two people with what seems to be a rainbow. The fact that there are so many confusing ideas on this one album cover suggests that the album has variety on it... I like this album cover quite a lot even though it is confusing.

Here is the album cover of 'Scouting for Girls'. I realy like the font and the use of colour on this album cover. 'Scouting' suggests they are looking or in search of something, and with the characters here on the boat almost in search of something reflects the title. The sepia effect I think works well, however it doesnt seem to reflect to me what the content is like, (even though it is a good album... there are many songs which seem similar, this may reflect the one event happening on the cover.

Here is the album cover for 'Lights and Sounds' (an unsigned band). This is the current album cover where I picked the music from for my Music Video. Currently it is very plain, and therefore for me the main thing i want to change is the brightness. As I wish for my album cover to reflect the content, like 'The Script' I need to have a lot more colour on it so that people can believe it is full of life. I really like the font of this... I may try and produce my own so that I do not completely take the bands current indentity away.

Effects Research and Uses of Gratification

Effects Research
Effects research is the idea that audiences can differ depending on what type of person they are, or how they are at that moment in time, these perceptions are made by the effects researchers. An audience member is seen to be either Passive, Active or the same. A passive member of the audience is someone who is not really thinking but infact they are just there and seem as though they are involved. An Active member of the audience is therefore the opposite- someone who is highly involved and participating. Effects researchers presumed that all audiences are the same and that they all would have the same response to a media text no matter what their background who what they have seen previously. However this was challenged by researchers such as 'Blumler and Katz (1974)' who believed that audiences do not do what the media wants, but infact the audience decide what they want to do with the Media- uses and gratifications.

Uses and Gratifications

Research For DigiPak

This will be the style of digipak I will be using. I will be designing for sides: front, back and the two inside sides which one will be behind the CD.

Here is the digipak template to show the panels and where they are when i will print it out. I may use a website which allows you to trial their printing and print one CD for free as the trial.

First Day of Production

First day of production opened my eyes tremendously... I didnt realise that at 2.30 on a wednesday afternoon on the edge of town one street so could be so busy!! Luckily i was able to take some photos which I would be able to include in my photostory board. Unfortunately not all of the actors were able to attend, so I only have a few of the cast in the photos, but we were able to see whether they desired camera angles were achievable with our location and college equipment.

If you are able to wait between shots you are able to get the street empty. I still have faith in our idea, and im excited about shooting it!

The Lyrics and Analysis

(Verse 1)
Today I'm on my own again
But when you're here it all keeps coming back and I don't know how to act
When I see you there I don't know what to do
Because I think so fast and I don't know which way to choose
You make me feel so good but you're hardly ever here and I still want you it's true

(Chorus)
So take me out please darling cos I've been waiting all my life
For this feeling, we have wasted so much time
So let's go, tonight we'll be together and
We'll float right up to the sky and fly around the world

(Verse 2)
The days go by and the sun still shines
I long for you and everything you do
My world falls down around you
When I see you there I don't know what to do
Because I think so fast and I don't know which way to choose
It feels so good I hope you feel it too

And I still want you..just you

(Chorus)
So take me out please darling cos I've been waiting all my life
For this feeling, we have wasted so much time
So let's go, tonight we'll be together and
We'll float right up to the sky and fly around the world

(Bridge)
Speak up, shout out, come on woah
Speak up, shout out, come on woah
Make me believe that you are my home
Waiting for you to save my soul

Discussions with our Group

Here is my conversation between the band, starting with asking for permission to use their music to being given the lyrics.

----------------- Original Message -----------------

From: .~*Fallen Angel*~. (lolilol@myspace.com)
To: LIGHTS AND SOUNDS (ACOUSTIC SHOW - 27th SEPT) (lightsandsoundsmusic@myspace.com)
Date: 18 Sep 2009, 15:43
Subject:




Dear Lights and Sounds,

We are Lucy and Lauren and we are currently at a sixth form college in Worcester, England. One of our recent projects is to create a music video that includes a track of our choice. This is the difficult part... We have searched Myspace and have come across you. Your music is really remarkable and we would be honoured to be able to feature any of your music in our music video.

The music video we produce will only be used for classroom purposes and to be sent off for evaluation by an exam board; unless you would like it to be shown elsewhere for advertisement.

We would really appreciate it if you could get back to us asap so that we can begin production soon as we have deadlines to meet.

Even if we are unfortunate and do not get the go ahead to use your music, we would just like to say what a great artist you are, and keep up the good work!

From,

Lucy and Lauren

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: LIGHTS AND SOUNDS (ACOUSTIC SHOW - 27th SEPT) (lightsandsoundsmusic@myspace.com)
To: .~*Fallen Angel*~. (lolilol@myspace.com)
Date: 18 Sep 2009, 17:31
Subject: RE:

Hey this is absolutely fine :) which song have you chosen? x

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: .~*Fallen Angel*~. (lolilol@myspace.com)
To: LIGHTS AND SOUNDS (ACOUSTIC SHOW - 27th SEPT) (lightsandsoundsmusic@myspace.com)
Date: 22 Sep 2009, 10:53
Subject: RE:



YAYYYYY :D

Thank you for getting back in touch... we had surprisingly quite a few replies, but in our opinion your music was the best! Congratulations :P

Our FAVOURITE song is 'feel alive' however as you already seem to have a music video for this, we were thinking possibly 'fly around the world' unless you have any other songs not on your myspace which have a similar sound to 'feel alive'.

Where are you all based?

If you have any ideas of things that you may like to see, or any general ideas which may be of use, please feel free to get in touch. The next step for us is planning a video that will compliment your music.

Thanks again, Speak Soon,

Lucy and Lauren


----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: LIGHTS AND SOUNDS (ACOUSTIC SHOW - 27th SEPT) (lightsandsoundsmusic@myspace.com)
To: .~*Fallen Angel*~. (lolilol@myspace.com)
Date: 23 Sep 2009, 16:15
Subject: RE:



Hey that's top news!!

"Fly Around The World" would be great to have a vid for. We say go for it. If you need more info about the song for ideas let us know, but to be honest it's pretty clear from the lyrics what it's all about. We're just soppy romantics!

Please keep us updated with it all. Thanks and speak soon

ALex x

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: .~*Fallen Angel*~. (lolilol@myspace.com)
To: LIGHTS AND SOUNDS (JACK WILLS TOUR DATES UP) (lightsandsoundsmusic@myspace.com)
Date: 24 Sep 2009, 10:38
Subject: RE:


Great! Information on the song would be great, maybe the story behind it? Being soppy is not always a bad thing haha! Could we please be sent the song lyrics so we can have a look at them, just so we're clear on the messages your sending out?

We'll keep you posted :) We just need to pitch our idea to the class, we're sure they'll love you.

Thanks again,

Lucy and Lauren xx

Hi Again,

Any chance on those lyrics? Our pitch had the green light so now we need to think about making a start on production. We are currently in the process of our logistical arrangements and we're making the finishing touches to our research and planning. Any background information on the song would be brilliant.

Hopefully hear from you soon,

Lucy and Lauren

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: LIGHTS AND SOUNDS (ACOUSTIC SHOW - 27th SEPT) (lightsandsoundsmusic@myspace.com)
To: .~*Fallen Angel*~. (lolilol@myspace.com)
Date: 6th Oct 2009, 23.06
Subject: RE:

Hey girls,
Yeah no problem. The song's about a loving someone and getting them to take a chance on you basically. The flying around the world represents that feeling of invincibility you get when you're in love...like you can do anything.
Lyrics are
Today I'm on my own again
But when you're here it all keeps coming back and I don't know how to act
When I see you there I don't know what to do
Because I think so fast and I don't know which way to choose
You make me feel so good but you're hardly ever here and I still want you it's true
So take me out please darling cos I've been waiting all my life
For this feeling, we have wasted so much time
So let's go, tonight we'll be together and
We'll float right up to the sky and fly around the world
The days go by and the sun still shines
I long for you and everything you do
My world falls down around you
When I see you there I don't know what to do
Because I think so fast and I don't know which way to choose
It feels so good I hope you feel it too
And I still want you..just you
Speak up, shout out, come on woah
Speak up, shout out, come on woah
Make me believe that you are my home
Waiting for you to save my soul
Hope that helps...looking forward to seeing it :) good luck xxx

Skills building in 'Technical Week'

A week was put aside by our teacher, where we could pick out several things which we thought may cause complications when either filming or editing.

My worries were:

• Not being able to use the QuarkExpress software, as i mainly use Photoshop.


• Not knowing how to alter the features onthe cameras. E.g. being able to adjust the iris on the cameras or adjust the focus.


• Having no idea how to produce picture in picture with the adobe Premier Pro editing software.

Here is evidence of us achieving a good result with Adobe Premier Pro editing software to produce picture in picture:

Here is a print screen of our footage in the software. You are able to see that all of our clips are at the same time in the timeline however they are on different layers. We managed to do this by clicking on footage on the screen in the top right corner and then being able to drag them and resize them. This meant that I was able to readjust the slips so that they were beside one another rather on top of eachother.

Here is the clip that we produced with our footage:

I was really happy with what we had produced. During the production of this clip we realised that for us to have enough footage we needed to film a lot more than we had originally thought. Having four clips happening at once means that the amount of time our footage covers will decrease. I am glad that we did this test run so that we could have found this out before we came to film it.

Preparing where to shoot our footage...

Before we could begin shooting our music video we needed to make sure we had locations to film, therefore we sent several emails to both odeon and gala bingo, located in worcester to ask if we would be able to film parts of our music video just inside the doorways of both places.

Here is the email that we sent:

Dear ........,

We are Lucy and Lauren and we are currently at a sixth form college in Worcester, England. One of our recent projects is to create a music video, we have control over where we film and we had the entrance of ................ in mind.

Our plan is not to actually film inside, but just the outside and entrance. We require your written permission in order to go ahead with this.

We would be really grateful if we could get a reply as soon as possible.

If this is not possible thank you for your time anyway.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks, Lauren and Lucy


Our reply from Odeon was:

Hi Lauren & Lucy

I can't see this being a problem. What time and when will you be doing the filming :-)

Regards

Paul Castle
Cinema Manager
ODEON Worcester

Our reply from Gala Bingo was:

Hi Lucy

You will need to give me more detail about the purpose of the filming and what it will be used for

Regards Mike
Worcester's Management team:-

Mike Lewis - General Manager
Pete Reeves - COM Operations
Pat Lane - COM Gaming

Representation

A representation can be defined in many ways. It can either be thought of as being an image of a group of members in a culture or group or predictions about strangers due to their religion, race, culture or ethnicity.

You can portray these representations in media through several things. Mise en scene is in my opinion the main way of showing representations of groups. Costume is a main way of representation a person who is in a particular group for example, someone who is a 'chav' will be clothed in tracksuits, hoodies, caps and 'blinged' up with jewellery (as seen in Kidulthood below).

In my AS coursework we had a 'stalker' in our media production. Therefore we wanted him to seem quite mysterious. To represent him as a 'stalker' we requested that he wore a black jacket and black jeans and the shirt he wore was red and white checked shirt- The red was to resemble blood. I felt that if the audience saw a character in very dark clothing it was connote that the character was quite dark and mysterious. Hopefully this worked well.

For my A2 coursework although we will still be having our actors wearing 'indie' clothing similarly to the band we will be representing the group (to appeal to the audience) through the uses of locations. We will be using shots from locations which our audience should be able to relate to. The locations we will be using are: town, bars and the cinema. As our target audience are late teens it is likely that they will have been to all of these locations therefore they will be able to relate and enjoy the music video because it seems more like real life to them.

Narration Within My Music Video

There are several sections to my music video which include: Narration and Performance.

Within my music video the narrative theory that will be used is Todorov's theory. Todorov's basic structure for narratives will apply to my music video. The beginning will begin with an equilibrium, a calm period where the female character is walking down the road. Then agents of disruption will cause disequilibrium which in this case will be when the boy band see her and decide to try and fight for her love. This will then be followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the video where the boy band go on dates with the girl and eventually one of the band members will win her. Therefore the chaos comes to an end.

Narrative and Narration

Here is the way in which I would describe what narrative is:

• It is the structure of a story which pieces together events.

There are three narrative models which you can use to piece together events; Todorov, Propp and Levi Strauss.

For my AS production the narrative model which I seemed to use was Propp. In the opening sequence you are introduced to the two main characters: the villain and the female character would be the princess, as at the end of the film she would be the reward for whoever saved her from the villain.

The reasons why I did not use Todorov is because the first few clips show a complication and then further complications on the jump forward in time. Rather than Todorovs view of: Equilibrium, Disequilibrium (cause by an agent of disruption) and Re-Equilibrium.

My A2 production will contain the final narrative model of Levi Strauss. As my story line will contain several boys after one girl there will be quite a lot of rivallry between the boys (Hate) whereas they all are in love with the girl (Love). Todorov's theory is that narrative is motivated by a struggle between Binary Opposites, where one side of the story will represent 'right' and be the side in which the audience will identify and support.

Question 1b: Media Language and Audience

What was my target Audience at AS?

Our target audience for our AS media product are teens/late teens, who are C2 and watch mainstream films as we wanted to target a mainstream audience with a rating of '15'.

How did i manage to target my audience through the uses of sound?

When me and Sophie (Partner at AS) picked sound we wanted to pick something which could not be linked to anything else, because I find as a late teen that when I hear music or sound in a media product i try to link it to another piece of sound i have heard before. For this we wanted our media product to contain unique music which we were able to produce through a friend who allowed us to produce our own music. This way we were able to include different tempo music which we thought would work well with the images.

Did my target audience influence how I used colour throughout my media product?

I did not specifically use particular colours to use in my media product which I thought would have an inflence from my target audience. The way in which we chose colour was to make sure that we used similar colours to real media products. For the titles we used white at first which connotes purity which then changed to red which connotes danger.

We thought that as these colours are used quite a lot within real media texts our audience who watched these real media texts would be able to notice these comparisons with our media production. However even though we thought that our audience would be looking for quite gory films, the majority of our opening sequence was highly lit. Therefore this is why we needed to make sure that there was a part of our media production that was very dark, connoting danger.

Redundancy and Entropy

Redundancy

In my opinion redundancy is the word given to conventions of media texts which are seen as being predictable.

In our music video we are hoping to include redundancy so that our target audience are able to relate to the video and feel comfortable watching it. They should be able to pick out the redundant elements from our music video which our audience have seen in similar real media texts. For example: Girls Aloud 'I'll Stand By You.'

Entropy therefore is the opposite of redundancy. Entropy is the word given to conventions of real media texts which are seen as unpredictable in that particular genre.

Entropy is a way of adding uniqueness to a media text. We may include several entropic conventions within our music video however they will be minute.

A disjunctive music video is an example of an entropic media text, as they music video has unexpected concepts that are not necessarily narrating the lyrics or music. For example: Daft Punk- Da Funk is an example of this.

Story Boards

Locations

For our music video we were hoping to do our filming in Worcester, Down the A38. If all goes to plan we will still be using this as our location. The reasons why we have chosen this as our location is because of what is situated on that road. There are several bars/pubs and even a cinema, and as our music video will include several couples going on dates we thought this would be ideal!

Treatment

Fly Around the World

Concept
The concept for my music video is to produce a real life production which can compliment the up beat romantic music, using specific lighting and locations which can represent dates.
The band ‘lights and sounds’ that we have chosen to use has given their interpretation of the song, ‘fly around the world’ and that is:
‘The song's about loving someone and getting them to take a chance on you basically. The flying around the world represents that feeling of invincibility you get when you're in love...like you can do anything.’

The purposes for the music video
To help compliment the music itself by making sure the music video is well suited to the ‘indie’ genre. To attract the specific audience and to make our music video well remembered by them.
Develop brand image.

Desired Outcome
My desired outcome would be that our music video works well in co-ordination with the music and that the audience enjoy watching it. Hopefully, as long as there are no problems with production and everything works out well, the outcome of our media product should be a professional style video that would be admired.

Audience
Our target audience are late teenagers who are aspirers (at college/university) who enjoy going to watch small bands in their local pub/club. The band lights and sounds have recently had gigs at university balls, this could be a good way of attracting their audience.

Similar texts which we have been influenced by
There are several texts which we have already been influenced by. We watched a music video which our artists have already produced for one of our other songs. The song in which they have added a video to is ‘feel alive’ and in this music video they have narrative and performance. We believed that the parallel action worked well for this music style. After watching similar music genre’s videos we discovered that many music videos for the ‘indie’ genre do contain narrative and performance. The two music videos in particular that we looked at were: jack penate- have I been a fool and scouting for girls- heartbeat.

How we want our text to be different
In both of these music videos the narrative and the performance have a link, instead of a video like jonas brothers- paranoid where the performance is not connected to the narrative. As we wish for our music video to have similar conventions of other ‘indie’ genre music videos, we will be including narrative and performance in our music video. At first it will seem as though the performance has no link to the narration however at the end the two sections will join.
Another element or editing technique we would like to use is picture in picture. This is after watching a particular video we liked ‘hey there delilah’. This works well with it being a slow paced song so we thought we may not be able to do it for our song as it has a faster tempo. However we managed to find a music video by Plastiscines with the song ‘Barcelona’ which is very fast paced.

What sort of technology do you think will be involved?
We will be using a digital video camera to film our footage and then we will be editing it with adobe premier pro.

What sort of personnel will be involved?
We will need 6 actors in total. We need 5 male characters for the band and 1 female character for the boys to follow.

Dates and Provisional Schedule
Filming- 2nd November- 23rd November
Editing- 23rd – 7th December

Likely Problems
Some problems which may occur include:
Making sure that the editing blends well when we are having the male characters change.
If we use a green screen we need to make sure that it works before we film it so that there are no problems with that.
Making sure that the surroundings are quiet enough when we film so that pedestrians are traffic do not cause us problems.

Possible Costs- Financial
Petrol for transportation of actors and equipment
Costs of costume
Transport Issues

Making sure we can access the settings and transport equipment easily.

Health and Safety Issues
Making sure there are no accidents as we will be filming near the city centre near a road.

Pitch Feedback

Pitch

Here are my 5 slides that helped me to produce my pitch. Although there seems to be quite a lot od text on the slides, this was altered before the class saw it. This however is what we said:

Research and Planning- Similar Media Products

As we were starting to think of ideas for our music video we thought that it would be a good idea to think of music videos that already existed and to try and compare our ideas to real media products.

This music video is Jack Penate- have i been a fool. In this music video there is one male character and he is on a date with what at first seems to be one girl. The girl switches in most scenes so you see he is in fact on different dates doing the same thing. This is what we are hoping to achieve with our music video. Therefore this is an example of a real media text which we are taking notes from.

Here are some print screens of certain clips in the music video which we thought were reasons why Jack Penate- Have I Been A Fool would be a similar media product. As i said above there is one male character on dates with several girls. I think it is really clever how the filming is done so the girl changes rapidly between shots but Jack Penate doesnt move or jump. Here are screen shots of the dates:






The mise en scene in this music video is something which I wish to encorporate into my music video. The setting is an every day place which will show how the entropy within music videos is possible. The target audience for Jack Penate and our band 'Lights and Sounds' should be quite similar- late teen females. This is why this particular setting would be ideal so that the target audience are able to relate to the setting.

The clothing of the actors and singer in 'Have I Been A Fool' is casual. It seems quite typical attire for a follower of an indie band. I believe that what the characters are wearing will be an important factor of the music video, I will need to pay attention to detail if I want my music video to include conventions of a real life media text.

When Jack Penate is running down the road there is quite a lot of match on action between several shots. This is something which is extremely important.

John Legend - Save Room

John Legend Save Room
Uploaded by avajra. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

The conventions i liked in this music video is the use of depth of field so that the audience are shown the important elements of each clip. Again this video contains a storyline where John Legend is with several girls and who the girl is changes frequently. I have noticed that this storyline seems to work well for my specific target audience of teens/late teens therefore believe it to be an ideal storyline to use.

Plasticines

When watching this music video I really liked how picture in picture was used and the variation in colours.



The thing I like best in this music video is the editing. The music and the editing is done so well that when there is a beat or a change in tempo there is a cut. As this music video is a performance we would like to use these conventions in our music video. I thought that picture in picture would be really hard to achieve, however in technical week I was able to explore this and realised that with the right footage it can be very successful. The fast paced music works well with the picture in picture editing therefore we wanted to know whether we would get the same professional look with a slower paced song. Therefore we looked at the music video 'Hey There Delilah'.

Hey There Delilah

This music video showed us how effective certain effects can be with the uses of different clips. I really liked the use of picture in picture in this music video too showing that it also works well with slower paced songs.

Hey There Delilah
Uploaded by SanAndreas88. - Independent web videos.

There are almost two parts to this video. The performance with the singer sat in a room playing his guitar and also the clips where there is a girl walking through the streets. We will be including two parts to our music video. The narrative and performance within our text will hopefully add more entertainment value, and hopefully encourage to watch it more.

My Project Has Been Picked...

For my A2 Media coursework I have decided to produce a music video. The reasons behind this are that to produce a children's TV drama you are quite restricted with what you can do, and the locations you can use. The majority of childrens TV dramas are based in realistic settings e.g. school, home or park. I wanted to have the chance to be more experimental with my project therefore music video is for me.

Firstly my partner and I needed to decide what music to use as our song. We went onto Myspace and found several unsigned artists whose music we liked. Therefore as we had found several songs we liked we emailed the artists.

This was our email:

Dear .....................,

We are Lucy and Lauren and we are currently at a sixth form college in Worcester, England. One of our recent projects is to create a music video that includes a track of our choice. This is the difficult part... We have searched Myspace and have come across you. Your music is really remarkable and we would be honoured to be able to feature any of your music in our music video. The music video we produce will only be used for classroom purposes and to be sent off for evaluation by an exam board; unless you would like it to be shown elsewhere for advertisement. We would really appreciate it if you could get back to us asap so that we can begin production soon as we have deadlines to meet.

Even if we are unfortunate and do not get the go ahead to use your music, we would just like to say what a great artist you are, and keep up the good work!

From, Lucy and Lauren



After sending this email we recieved several responses, all saying YES! One of the artists we had responded to our email was a female artist called Hashell and she had even contacted her manager to already produce a contract. We thought that there was a lot of extra work needed to use one of her songs, and she seemed to be signed.

The best way to decide who we would use was to pick a song from each group and listen to them several times. Lucy and I were both coming up with ideas instantly while listening to the songs. We found it very difficult to think of appealing ideas for Hashell therefore her among others were rejected. Luckily we found a band called Lights and Sounds, who had up beat music that we both liked.

Our chosen artist: Lights and Sounds
Our chosen song: Fly Around The World.

www.myspace.com/lightsandsoundsmusic

My Project Skills

http://laurensprojectskills.blogspot.com/