Evaluation 4

Throughout the process of research, planning, constructing and evaluation stages we used various different media technologies in order to help us create our music video.


We had to start with research and planning:

We used the internet to research for our music video, we looked at other videos to see what conventions pop videos had, this helped us as it gave us ideas for what we needed to put in our music video.
This allowed us to be creative as we could each research the different ideas that we had for the music video and then discuss our separate ideas and combine them.

We also used the internet to plan our music video once we had ideas for music video. We had to research where we wanted to film our video, the internet helped us as it gave us quick access to different website of places where we could film. We could then contact the places in various ways, either emailing or calling them.

To document our entire process of making our music video, we had to make a blog - the blog contains everything we have done separately and in a group from the beginning of the project. 
We all add to the blog, and because it is on the internet, we can all access it from home, this contributes to the final product as we can quickly and easily refer back to the work we have previously done.








Once we had done this we moved onto the production stages of the process. We used different technologies here too:

We used the camera's and tripod in order to film our music video, this contributed to our final product as it helped us film the shots we needed.

Whilst filming in our drama studio the technician gave us a wire which allowed us to use Bijal's iPod from the studio floor when he was up in the technician's room. By doing this is gave us control of the sound, it helped us as we can quickly and easily forward/rewind the song to where we wanted it. This especially helped the actors when it came to lip syncing as they could sing along with the exact song. It also helped us as it made sure the lip syncing was tighter as they sang along to the song.

This is a shot of Evie filming and Louise helping her, we all took turns when filming, as all of us were participating in the video therefore we all filmed. We had to continuously check that the lighting effects that we wanted, came across on the camera. Sometimes we had to turn down the lighting as the actors faces were too bright on the screen. 










After this we had to edit our music video, for this we needed to use the computer again:

 For the editing process of the music video we used iMovie HD, we used this because last year we also used this product and we all knew our way around it, we had the choice of using iMovie HD and iMovie.
Using iMovie allowed us to play around with different cuts and effects to see what looked best and the most professional. We could creatively change around the shots that we had to fit to the song. We didn't stick to the original plan, but since we knew how to use the product it was easy to do.

By making sure we could all use this product it meant that we could come in separately and work on the final music video in order to meet our deadline but overall Louise did the majority of the editing through out the process of making our music video, but she still included all the groups thoughts and ideas. 












Finally the evaluation stages of process:


The final evaluation stages consisted of four different evaluation tasks, for this we we used several different technologies - 

Firstly we used Youtube allowed us to post our media product for everyone to see, in the evaluation tasks we needed to annotate our video and show the conventions we used. 

Pages allowed us to complete evaluation 2, we had to annotate the ancillary task. It was easier to use pages than word and word has restrictions on where we could place certain things, therefore pages was more appropriate to us.

In Evaluation 3 we had to film others and their thoughts on our final music video. For this we used a camera and a tripod, uploaded to youtube and then posted it on our blog. By doing this we could review our music video from not only our point of view, but from others.
















Finally for this last evaluation we used the blog and a camera to take pictures of the processes we have been doing along the way. 

Final Digi-pak and Magazine Advert

Magazine Advert

Outside of the CD Digi-pak

Inside of the Digi-pak

Evaluation Activity 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

The combination of our main product and ancillary tasks are very effective - this is because they both compliment each other very well. They all follow the same themes throughout, whether this is colour, or characters, you can see that they are all connected in some way.

They connect with each other as images from the main product are used in the ancillary task, for example the image on the front of our digi-pack is of the main character who is seen throughout our main product, strongly combining the main product and the ancillary task. The back of the digi-pak shows an image of the rolling stones logo, not only does this relate to Mick Jagger, but we also made a backdrop of this for our main product and this image is shown frequently within the music video. The inside left of the digi-pak is also of our main character, and the in side right shows a combination of the peace signs we used as backdrops in our music video. 

The magazine advert, also used our main character to connect the ancillary task to the main product. On the advert it shows a small picture of the digi-pak as a form of promotion. 

This screenshot from the final music video, shows how the music video and ancillary task are connected, the rolling stones flag is shown in the background and then again used in the CD Digi-pak. The colour themes of red, black and white are also shown in this screenshot connecting the three products together.

The screenshot shows our main character in the music video, we also used his face in both our magazine advert and our CD Digi-pak instantly combining the three products together. By using his face in all three it creates a recognisable image for the audience as they can see his face in three product and connect them together. 

Evaluation task 3

We interviewed 4 other groups and asked them for feedback on our video. The questions we ask them were;

1. what were the positive parts to our video
2. where are areas of improvement
3. how does it show typical conventions of a music video
4. how professional is our music video in terms of cinematography/editing/mise-en-scene
5. how suited is the style of the video to target audience/style of music/ artist or band
6. how effective if the combination of the main product and ancillary task

The majority of the audience feedback was good apart from the fact that the lip-syncing was out of time but we managed to fix this problem before we posted the video to youtube for our final music video. Also some people couldn't understand the narrative and as a group we can see where we have gone wrong in this sense, it can be unclear to some people as the Covent Garden scenes don't completely link to the begin the way we planned them to. This was because we lost our footage along the process of filming and had to change our ideas. However overall, most people understood the narrative and how it worked with the performance part of the video.




Louise: By getting audience feedback it allowed us as a group to find out the positive parts, and the areas for improvement within our music video
Bijal: In terms of audience feedback i think we can all agree with all of the comments we received. The costumes and characters that we chose for our music video we were very happy with and also feel that they fit with the style of the video. We think that they worked well in order to reach the narrative and attract the target audience. 
Stephanie:The style of our music was a pop genre and therefore the music video had to be fun and lively, the audience feedback showed that they thought we achieved this within our music video.
Louise:The audience feedback showed that overall they thought the video looked quite professional through the use of cinematography, editing and mise-en-scene. We tried our best to make the video look as professional as we could, by filming a whole variety of shots and then cutting the video to fit to the beat of the song.
Stephanie:The audience thought that we needed make our lip syncing tighter, however this was quickly amended as the music video they saw wasn’t the final edit.
Bijal:As a group we would agree that the thing that we would change was to stick to the plan better than we did, we made various changes allow the way of the filming process which ended up making it more complicated for us however we are all happy with the final product.


Evie: Due to still not being in school I was unable to partake in the audience feedback video, however fortunately I was in for the audience feedback lesson so I was able to take notes of how to improve our video and what worked well in our music video;
On Monday 28th November we dedicated our lesson to showing eachother our music video's and giving strengths improvements and the recognisable conventions. Our music video was the second video to get shown, and while watching the video we realised that our video was slightly out of time with the music as we had had difficulty when editing that when putting clips in place then the other clips which were in place would move slightly. This was unfortunate as we had our video perfect and it was definitely noticeable when the lipsyncing was out of place. However, we knew that once we had shown the audience that we would be able to put the clips back in to place.

The feedback we received was very positive which was really good as we wasn't sure how well it would be received, the strengths that the class commented was on was the performance aspect, which was good as  most of our film was based around performance, the performance was our main strength due to our cast as they were very enthusiastic and fitted the roles perfectly. Other strengths that the audience picked up on was the fast paced editing, we really worked hard on making sure we had enough shots so that we could use quick shots to edit in as we were using a fast paced song and the main convention we wanted to follow was the 'cut to the beat.' Another strength was the mise-en-scene elements, such as the costumes and the settings, we were really happy that these were noticed as we worked hard on buying the right outfits and finding the right outfits and also even though we had a couple of troubles with the locations, we overcame these problems and the locations we used was perfect for our type of music video. Also the lighting was commented on with how effective it looked, this was a bonus for us as we were lucky enough to have professional lights in the drama studio to make it look as professional as we could.

Areas for development that was commented on was the lip syncing as some of it was out of time, however we knew that we could fix this in which we did straight away once we received the audience feedback. Also another area for development that was mentioned was the quality of the shots, we used two different cameras from the school however we realised our mistake once we uploaded the footage as the quality was extremely noticeable. However, we were unable to change this as we would have to go back and re-film and it still wouldn't be guaranteed quality.

Stephanie: In today's lesson everybody showed their music videos so we could complete our audience feedback task. We talked a little about our videos before we played them, as Mr Sears asked a few questions, and then we showed them to the rest of the class - they then gave us some feedback. Our feedback was given in three separate categories: strengths, developments/improvements and how it is recognisable as a music video/conventions.

Our group was second to show our music video. The first category the class gave us feedback on was ‘strengths’ – we had a big range of features that people commented on. Our opening received a lot of good comments, as they liked the first few opening shots of the character, this was because it gave a big build up to the start of the song. The class liked the lips whistling to the music at the beginning as well, as they said it was unique and many of them hadn't seen this before.We were told that our settings were very good, especially the Covent Garden scenes - they liked that we had normal people walking around in the background, compared to actual cast; nevertheless everybody seemed to like the drama studio setting, as it had good lighting and created a fun atmosphere. Our casting received good comments, as they thought we picked it very well and that they all had a lot of enthusiasm whilst filming. Editing and framing was also a positive, Mr Sears said he really liked the group shots of the guitarist with all of the girls surrounding him, as it really went with the theme of the song - the pace of the shots was also good as we cut the images to the beat of the song.

Improvements are something that we really listened to, as we would like to improve our work as best as we can. One of the main improvements that kept coming up was lip syncing, this was because in certain places some of the actors weren't in time with the music. As a group we agreed with these comments, from lunch time and in Friday's lesson we added in the last final shots, which put a lot of the lip syncing out of place - after 5 hours of editing, we decided that it was time to go home and try and sort it out on Monday before showing the class. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to fix all of it, so some parts especially the sections with our lead female singer wasn't in sync - luckily after the audience feedback was finished, we made a few slight changes and got all of the lip syncing back in time. Although the class liked our introduction, some thought that it dragged on for a little to long and was silent for quite a long time - after thinking about it, we realised we could have maybe sped these clips up, but we still liked the original idea. One other point that was brought up from a member of the class was that they didn't understand the narrative - she went on to explain the bits she didn't understand. This was the scenes where 'Mick Jagger' is being chased and caught by the group of girls, this was our fault as we didn't plan this part carefully enough, as it should have been closer to the beginning.

Conventions were the last part to be given feedback on. The class all agreed that our music video followed most conventions, this includes having a performance and narrative, lip syncing and our editing - cutting the clips to the beat of the song.

Overall, the class seemed to like our video as it was comical and light hearted - our strengths definately outweighed our improvements which is a big positive. We took note on our improvements as we all want to make sure our work is at it's best.

Louise:This was the lesson we received all our audience feedback. We let our class watch our video. and they generated the positives of our video, areas of improvement and conventions of a typical music video. The feedback we received was really good, people found our video funny and loved all the costumes and the enthusiasm of the actors. They thought the editing was great and fast paced.

The areas of improvement they pointed out were the lip-syncing was out of time, but we were aware of this. Also some people couldn't understand the narrative in parts, such as the groupie part in covent garden so we all thought that would be an area of improvement.

Some of the conventions that were pointed out include; lip-syncing, fast paced editing, cut to the beat of the song, performance and narrative and all these were included in our music video. which showed that we tended to use the conventions a music video needed to make it recognizable.

The second part of the lesson entailed us recording each groups audience feedback, this was also part 3 of the evaluation task, I went round and filmed different groups answering a series of questions i put to them about our video. Evie and Stephanie had to be filmed by other groups, giving them feedback. After all the feedback was collected I edited it all together so i could put it on the blog.

 Bijal: Unfortunately I missed the lesson when we showed our class our our videos in order to receive audience feedback from them - their thoughts and ideas on our final piece. Luckily we filmed each groups separate feedback in detail (shown above). This allowed me to see what was said in this lesson even though I couldn't actually be there. Feedback was given in three different categories: strengths, developments/improvements and the recognisable music video conventions.

The first category was 'strengths', luckily the class seemed to like t he video as much as we did, and they saw the idea we wanted the video to portray, for example most of the class understood how the narrative worked in the with the performance parts of the video.We had many strengths that people commented on, firstly the beginning, they liked the quick introduction before the song started, as it fit in with the narrative and it gave a good build up to the start of the song. Our settings were one of the features of our music video which received good feedback, the audience liked the drama studio settings, and said it was appropriate for performance scenes and allowed us to create a fun atmosphere, the Covent Garden scenes were liked as they said that our cast in with the general public as it also created a funny atmosphere - which is what we tried to achieve. Another strength the class thought we had was our casting, they thought that we picked an appropriate cast since it fit in with the genre of our music video and they created lots of energy for the music video, their outfits and mise-en-scene also helped to create this effect.

Improvements was the next category of audience feedback - this aspect of the feedback is something we as a group focused on, as we want our video to be the best it could be, and be as professional as we could make it. The main improvement that the class agreed on, was the lip syncing on the video, from a certain point in the video, the lip syncing was slightly off, this is something we spent a long time in editing working on, and we agreed with the comments received from the class, and when we looked at our video in iMovie HD, we realised the exact point that the lip syncing was out, and we quickly made adjustments to make sure the lip syncing was tighter, and fit perfectly with the song. Another part that could have been improved were some clips in the music video dragged on for longer than they should. For a fast paced pop song, the clips should be quick and fit to the beat of the music, most clips did, however the audience thought that some clips could have been shortened, and I agree with this, we could of made the certain clips shorter in order to make the entire video fast paced. 

Finally conventions was the last category, the class in general identified most of the music conventions in our music video, they all agreed that we included conventions such as lip syncing, performance, narrative, that generally our editing was cut to the beat of the music, one person was the main character throughout, different setting, a variety of shots were used and at the end of the music video the song faded out.

Overall the class enjoyed our music video and liked it, they saw the comical, fun, light-hearted effect we were going for and tried hard to create and show through our music video. Our strengths greatly outweighed our improvements and even though we were very grateful of this, we took on the improvements and mentioned and analysed them in our evaluation tasks.

Weekly Log - 2/12/11

From 2nd December I have been unable to attend lessons due to having an operation (a bilatral osteotomy) and so therefore I am not allowed to return for 6 weeks. This has caused a great inconvenience as I have been unable to complete much work due to a very long recovery process. Fortunately we were able to complete all parts of the practical tasks, however I haven't been able to give my input in to the final decisions of the digipak, however I really like the development and how it is going, before my operation Stephanie showed me some of the potential photographs that could be used for the magazine advert, and I gave my input in to what I thought would work the best. I am communicating through to my group and they know that I will still try to do as much as I can so that I am up to date with what is going on.

Music Video Pitch

Evaluation Activity 1

Our music video had to fit the conventions of other real music videos, and when we were planning our video, we tried to incorporate as many of the typical music conventions as we could.
Firstly we had one main character, he was the centre of most of the lip syncing and the narrative. 

The style of the video that we aimed for was a fun upbeat music video to fit the genre of the music and the image of the band. This screenshot shows our characters in the music video having fun, dancing around and enjoying themselves which is what we wanted to achieve.

style of music video

In the video, we used a different variety of settings to make sure that the video wasn't boring and kept the audience entertained throughout the whole of the music video. This is a typical convention that many music videos use in order to keep their audiences interested.

the first setting that we used was in the drama studio, we used this setting for most of the performance section as we could use the lighting to the settings we wanted in order to get the best quality to make it seem as professional as we possibly could.

setting 1

The second setting we used was in Covent Garden, this is where we filmed the narrative and some lip syncing, this not only fit in with the narrative, but also kept the audience interested in the music video as they weren't constantly looking at one setting.

setting 2

The costumes are an important part of our music video as they set up the narrative to show that the main character is obsessed with the singer - Mick Jagger. It also fits with the song and the genre of the music.

For the main character we had one constant outfit for him throughout the video, it was important that every time he wore the same outfit in order to maintain consistency in our video. His outfit was carefully selected by us as a group as we had an image in our minds what we wanted him to look like.

Costumes - main character

The second costume that was important was of the co-star of the music video, as the song isn't just of the band Maroon 5 it features the artist  Christina Aguilera. The outfit we wanted for this character we weren't exactly sure of, but when we went out looking for costumes, we came across a dress which we feel fitted perfectly with the genre and the song.

Costumes - co-star

Finally the outfits of the extra's, we had images in our heads, but they weren't as important as the main character and the co star, therefore we just told our extras what type of outfits we were looking for and asked them to bring in their own. The look we wanted them to have was a hippy look or a rock chick look. Eventually we had a big pile of clothes and combined several different outfits to get our final costumes.

Costumes - extras

Editing was a large factor of our music video, in order for our video to fit the typical conventions of a music video he editing had to make sure that the video was cut to the beat of the song. Our song is an upbeat fast paced song and therefore the editing should reflect this. We cut the video making sure that clips weren't generally longer 2 seconds, with a maximum of 3 seconds. Another factor of editing was lip syncing we had to make sure that the lip syncing we recorded fit the song. Lip syncing is a convention that shows how music videos can be easily separated from a short film since the artist sings the lyrics directly to the camera. We used this convention in our music video.

Lip syncing

Performance was a strong part of our music video. The beginning mainly shows performance. Usually music videos combine a combination of performance and narrative, and we used this convention in our music video too. The performance was mostly lip syncing and this was all filmed in the drama studio as this allowed us to control the light settings. Narrative ties the whole video together as it gives the audience a story to follow.

Performance - lip syncing 

Performance

Narrative

Narrative

For our video genre of the song is a large factor of the video. We tried to suggest the genre through the fun lively performance and the light hearted amusing narrative. The fast paced editing also suggest the lively upbeat genre of the track as it was cut to the beat of the song. The dance scenes show the genre the most as they show the characters enjoying themselves and having a good time, keeping the atmosphere of the video upbeat.

Genre

Our video also reflects the research we did in terms of other artists with the same genre of music as we released in order to make a successful pop video it needed to be lively, interesting, colourful and fast paced. We used the typical music conventions in order to do this. For example for research we used an aspect of Cher Lloyd's video for the beginning of our music video, however this screenshot of a pop video that is full of life shown through dancing which is something we also used in our dance parts of the music video:

Cher Lloyd - Swagger Jagger

The artist Maroon 5, their video also reflect the music genre, they are full of colour and liveliness. The narrative is fun and amusing, for example the video for 'Misery' is very amusing meaning that the audience just cannot possibly take the artist seriously. Which is obviously the effect they wanted to go for. We tried to reflect this image that the band created in our music video.

Maroon 5 - Misery

Maroon 5 - Misery

Moves Like Jagger - Final Music Video

Weekly Log - 25/11/11

This was our last week of filming and editing and we still had a long way to go. We needed to re film the start of the music video due to the fact that the footage was lost. We also needed to re film part of the lipsyncing as it wasn't in time with the music so we needed to go back in to the drama room and also we needed to film the Covent Garden scenes. We decided to cut out the Southbank scene as we didnt have enough time to film this part, also we could include these shots in the Covent Garden scene.

MONDAY
On Monday, we carried on with the ancillary tasks and the editing of the drama studio the first time -this worked well as we split in to two groups so we can use our time more effectively.
However, we also worked out that during the week due to other filming commitments we wouldnt be able to re film the start of the music video so we had to film it that day. We rang up Redbridge drama centre and found that we could only use it till 1 o clock so at 11:30 we rushed down there and got the filming done. This worked well however we were quite rushed so it didnt work out as good as it had previously. At lunch time me and Bijal uploaded the footage however we were unable to start editing due to the fact that converting the file to iMovie HD would take 30 minutes and there was another class waiting to come in.

TUESDAY
On Tuesday, at lunch time me and Louise started to edit and we cut down the shots and put them in place, this was quick to do as it was only a few shots and even though that all the shots got moved down slightly we remembered where they were placed.
On Tuesday after school, Me, Louise and Bijal filmed the lipsyncing in the drama room and also the Christina Aguilera shots, we had a few people helping us out which was good, however the main people we needed was Mick Jagger and Christina Aguilera. We re-filmed the shots that went a bit dodgy the first time round so that they would be more effective in the video. I starred in the film however I also filmed shots and decided the angle they would be placed at; this worked well however it was very stressful.

WEDNESDAY
On Wednesday, me and Louise came in to upload the footage previously shot, again this took a while to convert so we were unable to get much editing done. However, Bijal and Stephanie were coming in in the afternoon to carry on editing.

THURSDAY
On Thursday, as Bijal, Stephanie and Louise all had a free day the plan for them was to go filming in Covent Garden, I however couldn't attend as I had work commitments that I was unable to get out off. However, this was the only day that most of us could do so they had to go without me.

FRIDAY
On Friday, we came in at lunch to upload the footage and also take more pictures for the ancillary task. Louise carried on with the editing as she had a plan of where everything was meant to go, while the three of us took pictures. During period 3 we waited for the rest of the footage to convert so that we could continue editing. In total, we edited for 5 hours that day and then finally we had finished the music video!

PICTURES FROM THE WEEK:

 This is where we were waiting for the project to export so we could start to edit in iMovie HD.

This is the paper copies of some of our ideas for the digipaks. 

 This is our main character dressed in his costume

 This is a paper copy of the idea of the magazine advert that I drew up to get a rough idea of the information we wanted to include. 

CD Digipak Planning stages

We started to plan our CD digipak on paper, as this was an easier way to plan our ideas and brainstorm. We started with the inside right covers  - this is where the CD gets placed, once the CD is removed then behind will be an image of a bright pink peace sign - this relates to our music video, as we have a flag with this image on it.

The spine was the next thing we planned, as this was the next easiest thing to plan. It was pretty simple, all that needed to be on it was writing, stating the title of the song, the artist name and the logo of the record company.

Then we did the back cover - this required a track list, we decided to use a black background, and simply place the rolling stones symbol on the right hand side, this also relates to our video as we have a flag with this image on it. At the bottom there are the typical conventions of a CD digipak - there is a bar code, the record company information, the record company logo, and a promotional advert saying how 'outstanding' the CD is.

The inside left was next to plan, usually there is a booklet in the inside of the cover, however we are not making a booklet but decided to use the space as if we were, and the image on the inside cover would be what the booklet would have if it was there. It is going to be a simple image of the main character of our music video form his neck to his hips, wearing the t-shirt that he is wearing in the background, it is extremely simple but relates to our video.
Lastly we started deciding on what we wanted our front cover to be, this took the most time as it was difficult to come to a joint decision that we were all happy and content with. As our artist is a pop band and follows a pop genre this had to reflect on the cover of the CD digipak, it has to attract our target audience at the same time. We all had different ideas, from using one simple image, to using a mosaic of images all on the front. We googled different CD covers, and saw that artists such as MIKA used a computer to make a completely cartoonised cover, it was full of bright colours and attracted the eye, this was something we wanted our cover to do, however we thought that a picture should be used also, and found Eliza Dolittle's album cover which used both photography and computer elements, and thought this was maybe something we wanted to do.

Eventually we came to the joint decision that we would use an image of our main character, however only from the neck up, his face covered in different coloured lipsticks, this is not only slightly cheeky which represents the song and bands image but also represents our video as part of the video we have a flash of extreme close ups where the audience can see multi coloured lips. 


PLANNING OF CD DIGIPAK:

The Style of Maroon 5

Maroon 5 have a very unique style of music of pop rock, this may be the reason why they are so popular as not many artists still play this genre of music. Maroon 5 are also known to have release 'She will be loved' in 2002, this is still pop/rock however it is not as recognisable as it is a slow song.


Artists over the years that have included this genre of rock/pop in their songs include
McFly



Avril Lavigne 



Pink




The Beatles 


The Conventions of a Pop/Rock Music Video

• Bright colours
• Fast paced editing 
• Busy environment 
• Storyline
• Include instruments 
• Colourful clothes 
• Eccentric ideas

Conventions of a Magazine Music Advert

There are a variety of conventions used on a magazine advert. These creators have to be careful as they want it to relate in some way to the album they are releasing. The conventions a magazine advert include:

• A photograph of the artist -  this should in some way be similar to the photograph on the front cover of the album, so this shows that this is the same album. They could be similar through the mise-en-scene aspects such as the setting, costume, props etc. 
• The name of the album -  so that if the audience would like to find out information on the album on the internet then they would know what album name to look up. 
• The name of the artist - this is so it is instantly recognisable to the audience so that they don't just have the picture of the artist as the audience may not recognise them in the picture. 
• Date of release - This is essential so that the target audience will know when to download it, if they didnt know when to download it then they may have problem trying to find the date, this will increase sales on the actual day which may influence the sales of the week when the album will chart. 
• Ratings - this is essential however, most magazine adverts have ratings from businesses such as Newspapers which will help sell the album. 
• Colour scheme to match album - This is very closely linked to the photograph idea of relating the album photo and magazine photo together, this is the same as the colour scheme, so again it is all closely related, it will also be a good idea to keep to one font for both the album and the magazine. 
• Record company name or logo - This is a good idea to have the company name or logo on the advertisement as this may influence the audience to go and look at other artists who come from this record company. 

Weekly Log - 14th November

On the 14th of November unfortunately, we were unable to use the computers as the server was down so we were unable to edit, so we focused on the ancillary tasks. We researched into music adverts within magazines and also CD digipaks, this gave us an insight in to the conventions involved that will help us within the process of making our very own magazine music advert and CD digipak. We each annotated one of each and put it on the blog. There was a few problems due to the computers being very temporary so when I annotated using Microsoft Word I was going to print screen the page and so I would be able to upload the image, however I was unable to do this as the computer wouldn't save the print screen so I ended up having to email it to Bijal so that she could upload the image on her computer as her computer was working fine. Once we overcame this problem we continued to research different magazine adverts, this really influenced me to start thinking creatively to what we could include in our magazine advert and CD Digipak

Weekly Log - November 11th

On friday, we had a dilemma as there was only me and Bijal in, the plan was that we were going to continue editing however due to the computers server not working we were unable to log on to our computer so we decided to start preparing for the ancillary tasks. Me and Bijal researched some examples of the music album adverts and then used Gwen Steffani's advert as a good example to follow and look at the conventions that it used. this advert really helped us and we started to decide on the type of font we want, however we couldn't decide on the picture as they were on Bijal's computer at home that we took while filming.
I had to leave half way through the lesson so I left Bijal working on researching music adverts.

Editing Day One

We started our editing the monday after filming the backdrop scene. Bijal previously uploaded the footage so that we could straight away start with the editing, however with the camera we were using we had to edit in iMovie where we didn't feel as comfortable as we did with iMovie HD, however, we were able to convert the format so that we could edit in iMovie HD. As we had 13 minutes of footage we had to wait for a while for it to convert. Once it was converted it was all in one long shot so we had to split the shots up and then get rid of the shots that we didn't need. In some of the shots we had people standing in the background so straight away we got rid of these shots. Splitting up this 13 minute clip took ages as we had to figure out and cut the shot extremely accurately so that we didn't miss any important clips out and get rid of it accidently. As our song is extremely fast paced we need to have loads of shots so we are aiming to get quick shots so we had to edit very carefully as these shots can be useful. Overall, it took 1 hour to edit 3 minutes worth of footage, so it will be a long process, however we want to make sure it is perfect and that nothing else goes wrong so we will put the time and effort in to make sure the editing is up to standard.

Beyonce's Digipak

This is Beyonce's 2005 album 'B'day' this follows most of the conventions of a traditional digipak. The conventions it includes is artist imagery, information about the artist, the tracklist on the CD, the artists name and album title on the front cover and the record label printed on to the CD. The artist imagery is shown on the inside sleeve of the cover, it shows four images of Beyonce so that straight away when people pick up the CD they can see that it is Beyonce's CD. The information on the artist is a lengthy paragraph so that people can relate and find out more about Beyonce and the album. The tracklist is on one of the CD's so this could also engage the audience if they already know and like a few of her songs. The artist name and album title on the front cover will capture the audiences attention. The artists name is in big writing so this will target the audience as they wont have to search for whose cd it is. However the front image of Beyonce is the main focus, capturing the audience and drawing their attention. 

Coldplay Magazine Advert

I analysed Coldplays magazine advert of their album X and Y. I chose this advert as it was a perfect example of how the advert reflects Coldplay's style of music and the type of artist they are. The advert includes all key information including the bands name, the album title, the record label, the date of release etc. This fits all of the conventions for a music magazine advert.

Second Day Of Filming

For our second day of filming we had booked in the drama studio in our school. We had booked this in 3 weeks before so it was definite that we would be able to film in there. We wanted to be able to start filming as soon as possible so in our lunch time we went to the drama studio and we worked out how we will put up our backdrop. We worked out that it would be best to pin the backdrops on to the curtain. Once this was done, we rang our cast, however due to some of our cast being unable to make it, we had to quickly ring round and see who would be able to dance. While everyone was preparing to film me and Louise went to go and pick up Christian's guitar as this would add to the 'rock' effect.
Louise then dropped me off at my house and I raided my wardrobe to get as many clothes I could that would relate to the music video. I also remembered that we needed a microphone so I grabbed that and then went to pick up my friend who said would be in our music video.
When we got to school we all changed and done our makeup and hair and was finally prepared to film!

The filming went quite smoothly, we all took turns in filming even though three of us were also dancers in the video we all had a share. My input involved me putting the camera at another angle so that we could create more variety in the shots and that all the shots werent just 'face-on.' During the filming, we recognised that one of the cast, Jess, had American flag converse on, this was not planned however fitted with the theme perfectly! We decided to use these shoes in a shot of their own, however the shot I wanted to capture showed the shadow of the camera, however we finally found a shot that could work effectively.

After 2 hours of filming we decided that we had more than enough shots and we all got ready while Bijal went to upload the footage. Once all ready, we went in to the media suite and saw some of our work, we were very impressed with it and felt we had a very productive day.

Emailing The Record Label

In order to be abke to put the music video on to YouTube we do not want to risk the video being taken off the site as the music may be copyrighted. We were advised to either email or write a letter to the record label to gain the rights to use the track. As the record label is based in America, I felt it would be easier to email the label so that if they did reply we would be able to get the approval fast so we could continue with the filming and editing process. I had to go to a variety of steps in order to complete this.

To start off with, I typed in to wikipedia 'maroon 5' and on the right hand side it had the record label that the band were currently signed with.

Secondly, I then went on to the record labels wikipedia page in order to hopefully find the email adress however that cannot be found.

I then went on to the record labels actual website and clicked on 'contact' and straight away there was the email address.

Once knowing the email address I was able to draft the email, I thoughht carefully of how to phrase it.

I then sent the email and hopefully I will get an email back in the near futute.