Digipack draft

Front Cover

Inside cover right

 Back cover

The CD

Magazine Advertisment

Audience feedback video

(filming this weekend to be uploaded soon)

Audience Polls Feedback

Animatic movie

Media Production Schedule

June-September:    Planning work -

• Analysis of Music Video x3, DigiPack covers x3 and Magazine feature x3
• Iconic Stills
• Reverse Storyboard
• Audience Research
• Song Lyric Analysis

September-November:  Drafting work and Production-

• Proposal
• Designs for Print work
• Design Inspirations
• Music Video Storyboard
• Animatic (music video storyboard in animated format)
• Photoshoot and Music Video Filming should have begun
• Paperwork also including but not restricted to permission forms etc

November-December:  Last pieces of Drafting work, Finishing Production and starting Editing-

• Photoshoot/Music Video filming
• Photoshoot/Music Video editing
• Digipack/Magazine feature/Music Video first drafts must all be completed by 16th December
• Re-drafting of Storyboard if necessary

December-February half-term:  Last-minute Production and Editing with any Post-production

• Last minute filming or photoshoots
• Editing
• Completion of any second drafts
• Final completion of entire Project

Model Release Form

(photoshoot is this weekend)

Music Video Storyboard Design

Actor release form

location release form

Magazine feature design

Digipack designs Draft

Design inspirations

Risk Assessment sheet

Risk Assessment

Call Sheets

Call Sheet

Audience Poll feedback

My First Music Video Shoot

I had my first Music Video shoot today where I filmed all the people with the smallest appearances. It proved slightly difficult as some of my actors fell ill and could not make it to the shoot, whilst others had last minute revision sessions which meant they clashed with the shoot date. One actor did not turn up and as a result I have removed them from the call list.

Here is a clip of some of the footage I shot:
(insert file)

Weekly Diary Post 14

I did my first bit of filming today for the first half of my split screen footage and some preliminary footage of my main actress. I used the ............... camera and switched its settings to HD so that the image will vbe sharper and clearer than it would have been on normal settings. There were some difficulties at first mainly to do with my actors as there was some school photographers around which made it slightly awkward for them as they felt shy whilst being watched. However we managed to overcome this and finished shooting in less time than I'd planned.

This week was mainly catching up on any work that I had not yet completed or uploaded onto my blog, I had to go back and complete items where I had not finsihed or uploaded them to my blog. This was important as it helped me to keep upto date with my plan

Weekly Diary 13

Anjli's screen test

This is the Screen Test for my main actor, who will play the role of the Artist. Her Screen Test has been done to Katy Perry's song Last Friday night

Weekly Diary 12

Now that my Test Shots have been finished I uploaded them with an explanation of each shot on Wednesday. I then went back to storyboarding, my Digi-pack and any other related work. I also put up a poll on my blog to gather information for my Audience Profile. These questions will help me to find out more about my audience and what they would like to see in my Final Products.

I even used social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to advertise the polls so as many people as possible would answer them.

Music Video Tester shots

Weekly Diary 11

Finally, I managed to completely finish off the editing for the Test Shots this Wednesday. I had a bit of a problem as the file wouldn't export but I managed to fix that as well. Here's the end result ----->


(upload video)

Weekly Diary 10

I finished filming the Test Shots for my Music Video during our double lesson this week and have started to edit them now. Alot of the shots we took last week weren't good enough so we decided, as a group, to scrap the shots taken last week and take some new ones.Hopefully, I should be finished editing them by our next double lesson.

Weekly Diary 9

This week we decided to focus a bit more on production skills, so we tried out different types of shots we could use in our Music Videos. We also learnt how to edit them and create special effects e.g changing the tint, focus, speed or even duplicating people on-screen.


I also managed to get some more work done on my second draft for my Music Video storyboard.

Weekly Diary 8

Okay, so last week I received 3 pieces of feedback on my Proposal :

1. To be more precise,
2. Elaborate more on chosen platforms and
3. Stick to the word count!

I took these all into account and made the relevant changes for homework and uploaded the renewed version later that day.


This week I began looking at Design Inspirations for the Music Video and started to storyboard my official ideas for the Music Video. These will later be placed into Windows Moviemaker to create an Animated Storyboard. There was also some mind-mapping for the images I would use on my Digi-pack cover.

Weekly Diary 7

This week I published my Song Lyrics analysis to my blog as a Slideshare and began writing my Proposal for the Music Video I want to produce. In my Proposal I addressed issues such as what my concept is as well as what I will do to try and reduce any forseeable problems. Furthermore I looked at the kinds of platforms I would want to showcase my music video.

My A2 Music Video Proposal

I will be making a Music Video on Natasha Bedingfield’s song Strip Me. My Music Video will be aimed at young women aged 16-30 predominantly, as they may be able to relate to the artist through experiences of their own. The secondary audience will be males aged 16-25 as less males are likely to listen to this artist.

My concept for the Music Video is mainly to do with performance and green screen scenes which will be shot on Studio Locations. These will then be cut according to the lyrics so that they flow in according to Goodwin’s view that lyrics and visuals are made to relate to one another.

The riff notes are sung one note per person and as the number of people increases so will the divisions in the screen. The screens will be limited to the person’s head in a close up. These will then switch to lyrics on-screen. The square with the artist’s face will be zoomed into until the artist a pull the screen towards them. When the words ‘strip me’ are said the artist could start undressing to reveal a variety of different costumes underneath with footage sped up. The second verse will show the artist speaking into a micro/megaphone which they chuck to the side and do a performance without.

I will use young people aged 17-18 years of age to communicate and create a relationship with the main target audience.

In order to prove this plan foolproof I would need to take a number of steps/precautions to try and avoid this. Firstly I will draw up a time-plan stating how long I intend to take on filming my Music Video and then how long I intend on taking to edit it. Next my chosen actors will need to sign a contract agreeing to meet at the times or locations specified on the time sheet if they do not comply they will be dropped from the project. Any costume/design ideas will be mind mapped originally by me and then feedback will be taken from those involved in the production of the music video to see if they agree or even if they have any ideas of their own. This will be important as it could potentially lead to good ideas and shows a sense of responsibility to the audience in that you are trying to produce a Music Video of as high quality as possible.

I would like to air my music video on the MTV music channels primarily and secondarily on KISS and Smash Hits as they are widely viewed around the world and have their own personal companies through which it could even distribute the song. For example MTV owns Rhaphsody and Lyricsmode.com; this is important as Rhaphsody is available on mobiles using Android, IOS and Blackberry OS therefore this could boost song sales. Lastly I would like to do a premier of the music video on YouTube which as a global platform and 3^rd most visited site will definitely spread awareness.

Weekly Diary 6

This is the first diary since summer so its not as jampacked as the others. This week I just went over all the work I did over the summer holidays and looked at any adjustments that needed to be made. Right now I'm just fixing up my Song Lyrics analysis to make it a bit more informative/explanatory. I also double checked all the links and pages on my blog to make sure they were working correctly.

Location Recce

In my Location Recce I took pictures of places/locations where I thought I could shoot my Music Video.

 The first place I thought of was School. If I need to shoot using a green screen and professional lighting this would be the best place to do it.

The next few places I thought of  were Shopping Centres  because shopping centres can be very scenic places to shoot with lots of good colours and eycatching/interesting things going on.Up above I took pictures of Westfield in Central London, The Chimes in Uxbridge, St George's and St.Anns Shopping Centres in Harrow and lastly Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurock. However the last one would probably be a difficult to use because it's so far away.

The next place I thought of was one of the many places in Central London. Its very busy and exciting and there are many interesting places to shoot a video .

Train Stations can be situated in very scenic places and moving shots from a Train after a bit of editing can also look very impressive.

Iconic Music Video Stills

In order to make a successful music video it's important to know what kind of music videos have been successful till date. Here below I have made a Slideshow of Iconic Music Video Stills.

Iconic stills

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Reverse Storyboard

Reverse Storyboard

Holiday post

During the summer I managed to get a bit of work done. Firstly I completed my Iconic music video stills and these have now been presented as a slideshare presentation. These are important as they will play a huge influence to the song I choose and the ideas I come up with.
Next I uploaded my Reverse storyboard as a complete Scribd document.This was interesting to do as I learnt more about cameras, depth-of-field and how to change focus from an object in the foreground to the background.
After this was done, I analysed the lyrics of the song I would like to use for my Music Video and this has raised more questions as to how I will carry out certain tasks and what ideas would look best.
Lastly, I uploaded the images for my Locations Recce. This helped me to understand the wide variety of loactions I have at my disposal and this is critical to the ideas/concepts I come up with. 

Equipment For Production!

Last Friday we managed to get a look at all the equipment the department has for us to use in our production for Music Videos.

1.Cameras

The media department manage to get a good amount of funding so we're lucky enough to have roughly 5 different cameras to choose from :)

Firstly we have your average hand-held digital camera this is very basic and produces very low quality footage as its not very proffessional. The sound and visuals are both of a low quality as the microphone is quite small and the lense doesn't really pick-up on every aspect of 'light', this means that footage produced will look very grainy and unclear.

Next we have the Cannon 550D its small and therefore easily transported but not so small that you can lose it. Its good for changing the depth of field of a shot or even trying to capture a shallow focus shot. By using this camera it is very easy for one to imagine each shot as a single photograph as it IS primarily a camera not a video camera

The Cannon XM2 is one of the more proffessional cameras as it can be used in low key lighting situations and still produce excellent quality footage and the large microphone also ensures that all sound is picked up. Not to mention that the camera shoots in HD so footage quality will be just that more better.

2.Lighting

Fill Lights are extremely bright and strong and are similar to the kinds of lights you would find at a concert,lighting up the stage. These need to be used with a bit of caution because you wouldn't want your actors/tresses going blind.You can also use these to change the background colour by covering them with coloured gel sheets.

The second type of light we have is more commonly known as the spotlight. It's main aim is to highlight the artist/model in question. It can also change the colour of a room/area using coloured gel sheets.

3.Other

Camera Support

There are two types of Tripods, the first of which is a standard Tripod, it can be adjusted to fit the level of shot needed and is portable making it easy to carry around.However it is stationary and therefore cannot be used for tracking shots.

This is a Dolly Tripod, its ideal for Dolly/Tracking shots where its difficult to carry a camera and keep it steady.The Tripod can simply be pushed along, having said that the Dolly Tripod works best on smooth surfaces as uneven surfaces may create uneccesary background noise.

The crane is very good for overhead shits where you want a downward tilt on your actors/models/artists. The hight of the crane can be easily adjusted and is easy to use.

Extras

The Autocue is useful when shooting with dialogue and is most commonly used by News Channels so that the presenter can keep looking at the audience whilst speaking, maintaining eye-contact and holding their audience's interest.

The last item in this list is used alongside Cameras, The Visual Switcher enables one to link a number of Cameras to the device so that during a production you can switch to different views of the same shot. This is mostly used in Live productions on TV however in Music videos this is useful as you can form your narrative based on the different shots you see on the screen of the Switcher.

Weekly diary 4...

I began my Reverse Storyboard on Rihanna and Eminems's Love the way You lie. In this I analysed the most interesting shots for all the characteristics and terms I have learnt about, including those on Friday the week before. Through the use of this storyboard I understood how the range of shots, their diferent depths of field and various other characteristics could effects the way a Video presents itself. I also analysed the Mis-en-scene in correlation to these various features with reference to Andrew Goodwin's theory on Music Video Genres. The Reverse storyboard will be posted shortly.

Weekly Diary 3...

So this week I finished off analysing the rest of my music videos using key theorists and I also had a look at the different types of equipment I could use in the production of my Music Video. I learnt about the different effects I could use on a camera to make shots more interesting e.g lots of extremem close-ups/shallow focus/changing the depth of field etc

Weekly Diary 2...

This week I began analysing products for the research and planning of my own product/project. I analysed 3 Digipack covers and also drew a second storyboard for ideas. The analysis of the Digipacks allowed me to understand that although Artists aim to do the same thing-boost their populaity in order to sell music, each one does it in different styles accoriding to the genre they fit into. Paramore is a Indie/Rock band therefore their album covers fixate on deep, thought provoking meanings instead of the artist. i also analysed my first Music video in accordance to the theories of Propp, Goodwin and Goffman.

Analysing a Music Video

Outkast's Hey Ya: The song opens with an intro, providing the audience with a narrative and a context by which the song follows. it is told in Linear narrative making it easieer for the audience to establish where the Todorov's Equilibrium, Disequilibrium and New Equilibrium are found respectively.

The costume worn by the actors and the old-fashioned cameras used to record the 'live show' suggests it is set in the late 50s or early 60s a period where most of the artist performed live on television and became world-class legends e.g Elvis and The Beatles. Therefore this may be a connotation as to how the artist would like to be rememberedor sees themself as - a Legend. The artist is replicated 8 times in 8 different alter-egos thus conveying to his audience the different parts to his personality-he is cool, sweet, shy and sexy all at the same time.

The crowd is made up entirely of women and strongly follows the patriarchal views of society. Women are highly sexualised objects in this video with the phrase 'shake it' making refrence to the body nd the intertextual refrence to Beyonce suggesting they shake their own 'booties'.

Dev's Booty Bounce: This music video is very much bland in its narrative: nothing seems to happen apart from the artist's change of clothes and her occasional dance-step. This makes the visual narrative quite monotonous and boring to look at also the speed at which the costume changes can start to hurt the audience's eyes after a while.


The main narrative is probably found within the lyrics and unlike Goodwin's theory there is no correlation between the visuals and the lyrics, however the change in costume does match the rhythm and beat of the song-if it speeds up so does the change in costume if it slows down so does the change.There are a few intertextual references made most of which are to other songs e.g Far East Movement's G6.


The constant change of clothing may be seen an example of the artists wide range of 'talent' or even their different personalities. Although the fades aren't cuts they are vaguely similar to the way a flashback may occur.

Analysing Music Advertisments...

You can also find this presentation on prezi.com :)

Analysis of a Music Video

The Music video Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F) by Katy Perry utilises, Flashbacks, Dream sequences and Different POVs in order to fully convey the complications of teenage relationships. The Music video has a clip before and after the actual music video in order to provide insight/context to the video's narrative/story. The narrative itself is told in a retrospective manner, similar to an Episodic narrative, as the main character 'Kathy' re-lives the events of the previous night.


Katy’s character is the stereotypical geek who goes through an amazing makeover allowing her to gain the attention of her ‘Jock super-crush’, thus following elements of an American teen-romance, this establishes the Disequilibrium. The 'Geeky' boy is in love with Katy and at the end of the narrative, as is the typical cliché; he turns out to be the better option for her hence the restoration of a new equilibrium, in the ending clip, much similar to the first.

The Dream sequences are told from his POV with the costumes emphasising their positions for comedic effect, whereas the rest of the video is told from Katy’s perspective.  The memorable and well-known American teen party-next-door atmosphere is satisfied in the form of Rebecca Black who takes on the role of the ‘popular girl’ who using Propp’s Character theory serves as the Donor, Helper and the Dispatcher. However in reference to Goffman's character theory she would be named more appropriately as a 'Deuteragonist' (secondary character).


The constant Media references within the video work as forms of Intertextuality; Black’s song 'Friday' has been named one of the worst songs and the term T.G.I.F is a world-renowned phrase/abbreviation for 'Thank God Its Friday'. The Music Video will serve as a means to raise awareness of both artists, as well as boost the sales of their music individually.

Analysis of CD Covers...

The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night (1964):  The Beatles are one of the most iconic bands of the Music industry and although this was not one of their most iconic album covers, I think it was still one of the most interesting. A Hard Day’s Night is the third Beatle album and the first of which was published in the year of 1964.

Each band member was their own personality despite the way they were always grouped together. This Album cover strives to emphasise this fact by showing each member in a series of different moods. John Lennon is seriously mocking throughout his photographs, which is how many of his colleagues remembered him. Paul McCartney is shown to be the joker of the band whilst Ringo comes across as more pensive. George Harrison however is the most interesting as he is blacked out in the third picture and shown smoking in the fifth. This may be due to the fact that George was the youngest member of the band and wanted to be portray the band as most young people are: as rebellious. The blacked out image may be in reference to his mysterious/hidden side as not many people knew how spiritual he was at the time and this conflicted with his rock star image.

The different images were imperative to the way The Beatles were viewed, it showed that The Beatles were able to have fun and let loose rather than becoming uptight and/or overconfident, and this stressed on their humble origins as average boys from Liverpool. The images are in black and white which is the way most people saw The Beatles: they either loved them or hated them, not to mention that the two colours give a classic appeal to the band suggesting they were there to stay and make an impact.

The cover is also an example of how far the industry has come and how music business has evolved in the last 40 years or so. The album cover advertises not only the band but their Label as well. No special editing has been used on this cover as such software was not available at the time.

Paramore's Brand New Eyes (2010): Paramore’s Brand new eyes album cover is very much different to that of their previous album Riot. To begin with the imagery is a lot simpler to look at in comparison as the Riot cover was much busier and more monotone to look at. The colour coordination of this cover is brighter and cleaner in comparison suggesting that the ‘new eyes’ of the band is a metaphor for the bands’ new, fresh start. These connotations are very important to the history of the band as during 2010 there were many rumours surrounding the possible break-up of the band; not to mention that by this time they knew that the Farro brothers would be leaving and that this was their last album together as a band.

The butterfly may be significant of their relationship with one another, which –as symbolised by the torn right wing, may be quite fragile, but equally beautiful. The separation of parts once again is iconic of the hardships each member faced together as a band resulting in the isolation they all felt. The colours of the butterfly hold their own significance, as black is representatitive of their musical genre and the ‘dark’ period they faced as a band. The plain and simple background has been utilised deliberately in order to draw attention to the butterfly thus, making the cover all the more effective.

Madonna's Confessions on the Dance floor (2005):

Research into Music Videos

Research into music videos

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Weekly Diary 1

This week I started formulating ideas and plans for my music video. I drew a storyboard for potential songs and the concepts I came up with and I will upload this soon.
My resource audit and first stage of research have both been completed also but I'll be adding to them as I go on in case I have something new and interesting which I feel would be important to the project.
The Resource audit was a list of possible resources I had or could use within my music video and this will help me to maximise the potential concept of my idea. The First Stage of Research however was done to get me to understand the importance,development and the history of music videos.

Resource Audit

My resource audit is basically a list of all th possible resources I have or that I could use for my music video.


People: Pryal, Avni, Camille, Damini, Sneh, Kavita, Sara, Arti, Anjli, Anisa, Danielle, Aidan, Stephen and Parveen.


Crew: Aidan, Danielle, Stephen and Parveen


Possible Settings/Places: Venue 5, Central, Uxbridge, Ruislip Lido, Harrow, Someone’s house, School.


Software/Technology: Digital Cameras, Video cameras, Green Screen, Adobe Premier, Adobe After Effects.


Possible Songs: Naa Rakiye-Jassi Sidhu, Last Friday Night Katy Perry, Lets Dance-Juggy D Jay Sean Rishi rich, Lazy Song- Bruno Mars.

Media Project Brief

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:
· a website homepage for the band;
· a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package);
· a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).

I have chosen this Brief for my A2 project because I believe it will be an interesting experience for me both as a student and an individual. As a Student I've never had the chance to make a music video before so it will be an educational experience which will allow me todevelop my skills as a media student. I also think that personally, it will be fun to make a music video :)

Looking at the length and size of the task I do anticipate some problems (mainly the maintenance and upkeeping of my Blog and learning to handle the technical side of Production.) However I do believe the creative aspects of the project will present an easier target for me to reach.