Weather Forecast

Filming tomorrow!

I decided to get an update of tomorrows weather forecast and for the rest of the week as well, since it is this week that most (if not all) our filming will be complete! The weather for tomorrow seems to be looking fine, I will keep checking for updates for the rest of the week just to be on the safe side.

Quick Planning

This is just some quick planning we did with our teacher Dan last lesson, who helped us think about the sorts of shots we will be filming!

Production Schedule

A change to our production schedule:
After considering that there are two people in our group who both work, we had a group discussion and figured out which days to go out and film, at which locations and what time to meet and roughly how long we will take, which would be best suitable for every member in the group!

Working Schedule

We had a group diccussion about what days we were going to go out and film, and came across a potential problem, myself and Farha both work and so I decided to write out our working schedules and see what days would be best to go out and film which wouldn't clash with our working days.

Location change

I went out and took some pictures of where our group initially wanted to film at Canary Wharf outside the station, where the clocks were but later we were informed that Canary Wharf is private property and that it is hard to gain filming consent. The reason why we wanted one of our base tracks to be at this location was because it was near a station, which is where we would have had the mystery man searching for our artist. Furthermore because the song refers to the time and we wanted to have a shot of the clock in fast forward, which would have been made an excellent editing shot. We was thinking of shooting Big Ben for the clock scene but our teacher suggested that if we needed to film near a station and somewhere that had a clock we could consider Kings cross square.

 

Risk assessment

Outfit ideas

I was searching online and I've put together 3 outfit ideas that I would think our artist would wear. These are just rough ideas of outfits and not the final outfit choices. This could give my groups some ideas on what type of style or artist has and what items we should buy.

The record company

Choosing a record label is important because this would decide how the album would be produced and distributed. To start the search for a record label I looked at what label the original artists was signed to.
Alesha dixon was signed to Polydor Records for a year and then she was signed by Asylum Records and Atlantic Records until 2011. After researching into all 3 labels I decided that Polydor Records would be best for our artist, but when I was reading further into the label I discovered that in 2006 they launched a new record label that would be dedicated to pop music.

Fascination Records:

• It is a UK based record company that focuses on a relatively small number of pop artists
• Signed artist such as: The Saturdays and Cheryl Cole (someone that our artist would be similar to)
• Handles the UK release of American artists such as: Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus

I believe that this label would be good for our artist because it is UK based and as our artist is an up and coming new British artist. It is unlikely for her to be signed to a major international record label such as Sony BMG music entertainment or Universal music group.  

http://www.fascinationrecords.com/

Brand image

It's important to create a brand image so that people are able to recognise the artist. A brand image can be anything that people would associate the artist is. I was searching online for artists brand image and I decided to create a collage of some example.

Disclosure:
They are known for having a while outline of their faces. On their album cover it is a picture of two boys with a white outline on their face. These boys are suppose to represent a younger version of them. On their advertisement products (such as posters and single album covers) there is just a picture of this white outline and their name. This is because people would straight away be able to distinguish that the advertisement is for Disclosure. They created a song with Eliza Doolittle and there is also a picture of her with a white outline on her face. In their music video there are numerous flashes of this outlined face and they have even created a "Disclosure your face" app, where their fans can add this "mask" to their faces. In an online article of them where they are describing the boys' image they also include this iconic face outline in their description of them.

Ariana Grande:
Ariana is mostly seen wearing her half up-do with curls hairstyle. Occasionally when she is out on a normal day she would let her hair out or tie it up but for events and interviews we always see her with this type of hairstyle. She is also seen pairing her hairdo with a bow. Her clothing consists of crop tops with a matching skirt or sometimes shorts. Even in an interview, the interviewer pointed out that she is always seen sporting the bralet.

Synergy

To incorporate synergy into all 3 of our products we decided to use the lights as our main focus. The song is called The lights and within the lyrics there are references to lights and the idea of shining bright so we wanted to play on this idea and amplify it. In the music video our artist would be singing in different location during the day and night so that we are able to have the city lights in the background. For our poster and Digi pack we wanted to have a picture of our artist standing in front of some city lights. We may use the same location as our music video. 

We could also use the same font and colour scheme for our text on the Digi pack and poster. An example is this one from Alesha Dixon's cover picture. The golden colour or white would be good to use as it could be seen as representing the lights. Our artist would be wearing the same or similar clothing in all 3 products and their would be a clear image of her so that people would be able to recognise her without having to read the text.

Feedback and Changes

We have received feedback from our teachers on many occasions which has helped us to make changes and improve our planning for our music video.

Location:

We originally wanted to film at Canary Wharf outside the station, where the clocks were but was informed that it is private property and that it is hard to gain filming permission. The reason why we wanted one of our base tracks to be there was because it was near a station, which is where we would of had the mystery man come out of in search for our artist. Also because the song refers to the time and we wanted to have a shot of the clock in fast forward. We was thinking of shooting Big Ben for the clock scene but our teacher suggested that if we needed to film near a station and somewhere that had a clock we could consider Kings cross square.

We was also informed that we had to request permission to film in the tube station. When we looked on the TFL website we found out that there was a charge of £50 for a student filming permit. We wanted try and gain permission to film at Angel tube station by asking the security guards that work there. If we cannot film in the tube station then we decided to change our ideas to have the mystery man walk around London on his search.

Feedback - slideshows

Animatic: 

From our animatic our teacher pointed out that we kept one shot on the screen for too long and suggested that we planned a variety of different shot types in the same location so that we would have a range of clips to use. When re-planing our teacher told us to create a list of all the different shot types we would film for one location and repeat them in all our location so that when it came to editing we would have a wide range of clips to choose from.

Draft storyboard 2

I created a second storyboard in more detail than the first one, I listed to the song and looked through our location choices. I started planning which location we should use for different verses and what shot types we should use. Here is just a rough draft of what I came up with:

I then used a printed storyboard to draw my ideas down to get a rough idea of what it would look like. I created one for the artist and one for our character (the mystery man).

Audience profile

I have created a profile for a typical target audience of our artist which includes our audiences' age, hobbies, music genres and more general information. Below I have analyse a few of our audience's information and have stated why this links to our artist and our target audience.

Reflection On Progress

In my "reflection on progress" planning blog these are the three things i hoped to improve: 

• To make sure i am using a variety of ICT to present my work 
• Add videos to my work to make it look visually better
• Use more screen grabs when explaining my points - just to add more detail 

Have i made these improvements?
I feel i am progressing each week more and more, i have tried to use more ICT for example instead of just blogging directly from the blog i have used Prezzie and Time-Toast to present my work. I have also used various photo programmes to make my work look better for example, instead of just uploading normal photos i've used photobucket for my mood board and Picasa to present other picture's throughout my blogs. I also feel i have used more screen grabs to explain to my viewers what i'm writing about so instead of them just reading what i'm writing about they can also see it, i've shown examples of this through the blogs i did about Alesha Dixon's fanpage, Myspace and Facebook. I have also embedded many music videos throughout my blogs an example of this is when i am explaining what existing music video's have influenced my ideas.

Three more targets i've decided to set myself are:

• Keep organised
• Keep up with the blogging, try to blog at least 8 blogs a week!
• Keep using more ICT technologies

For my reflection on progress planning blogs i gave myself a mark of = 12/20 my update mark is now = 15/20.

Risk Assessment

What is the risk?	What are the effects of this risk?	What is the solution to our risk?
Filming on a day when it’s raining.	May be unprepared and come without umbrella’s which may delay filming time, as it would be wrong to film on a rainy day without umbrella’s – this could damage the equipment.	Make sure the weather forecast is checked the day before filming time to be prepared.
Forgetting the filming equipment on public transport.	This would delay filming and also cause trouble for the whole group as the equipment is very important and needs to be taken care of at all times.	Make sure you keep all the filming equipments with you when out filming at all times.
Falling over the into the train tracks.	As one of our locations will be to film at a tube station, our safety is very important; falling over the train tracks is dangerous and can result in terrible consequences.	Stand well behind the yellow line to ensure we are safe, as well as to make sure the filming equipment isn’t dropped over the train tracks.
Artist not turning up on filming day.	It will delay the filming and take up a lot of time rescheduling another day; other group members may be busy on the other days which may result in not enough footage.	Try and stick to your scheduled filming days, if a group member or the artist cannot make it on that day they should let the others know immediately.
Camera not charged.	May not be able to film what was planned, the group will have to reschedule to another day which may cause problems.	Fully charge the camera the day before your filming day and be sure to double check it.

Pitch Review

Pitch Feedback!

Our Pitch went well altogether, it was really helpful because we had an audience who could tell us what they love about our idea and what they think would work, however they could also give us positive criticism, if theres something the audience thought wouldn't work we took that into account as well. 

What went well?
We introduced our concept and explained how it fits in with our chosen song and our audience liked the idea and thought it would work well, with this we clearly explained our initial ideas for our video and where they came from by showing which existing videos influenced us the most.
Our audience was thought through carefully so this made it easy for us to explain to our teacher and peers who exactly our music video audience is and in what ways our video will appeal to them. 

Improvements?
After a discussion about our setting and location, as a group we decided to change one of our location which was to film in Angel at a road crossing because we decided this wouldn't work as the area will be busy at all times with students from nearby colleges going to college and home, not to mention the busy roads. We also need to think about adding more locations to our video, just to make it more interesting. 
Another important improvement we need to make as a group is our animatic storyboard because it wasn't clear enough to our audience, they didn't understand our locations properly and were unsure of where our artist will be singing. 
We also have decided to change the costume of our artist and mystery man from casual wear to something more smart just to add a sense of realism to the music video. 

Pitch

Production Schedule

Animatic Storyboard

Photo Storyboard

This is the pictures that Umar drew of our different locations and a few of the shots we will be filming for our music video. We also used these images in our animatic storyboard.

Draft Storyboard

First verse:

• Close up shot of a clock
• Wide shot of the location 
• Medium shot to introduce the artist

Chorus:

• "Let the light that you're needing light up"
• The artist would be standing in front of lit buildings at night
• Shows extreme closeup of a mystery person travelling 

Ending: 

• Constant jump cuts between the mystery man and the artist
• The person is finally revealed 
• Medium shot of the artist singing, a person walks in front of the camera, the artist disappears and the man takes her place and is looking around for her. 

Audience

This is a profile of my average audience member, check it out!

Audience Research

Pixie Lott - Fan page

http://pixieweb.org/

 

Pixie Lott is a British pop artist who is similar to my chosen artist, before I could actually find out who my average audience member is I decided to conduct some research by visiting Pixie Lott's fan page and finding out about the sort of people who listen to her music.

I found out that the audience targetted here are people who follow the lives of their faviourte artists, people that love to hear the latest news and gossip. On Pixie Lotts fan page as you can see there are dircect interviews with Pixie Lott that the audience can view where they can find out about her personal life, about her hobbies and about her syles and many more genral facts about her. An audience who love to read is being targetted here too, people who are entertained by what they read. For example in one of Pixie Lott's interviews shes asked who she last kissed, when she last got drunk, when she last cried and when she last did something illigal. It sounds here like young teenage females are being targetted because these are the kind of things young females love to read about in magazines and online, they love to feel like they can somehow relate to their favourite artist. Young teenage females also love to read qoutes, again, so they can relate to them, to feel like the same thing happen to them, or they feel the same way. Pixie Lott has many qoutes written by herself to engage with her audience directly.

Synergy

To incorporate synergy into all 3 of our products we decided to use the lights as our main focus, not only because we live in a big beautiful city and during the night the lights that surround London constantly make everything look more amazing, but also because the song is called "The lights" and within the lyrics there are references to lights and the idea of shining bright for example, "let the light that your needing light up, when you can't escape, let it lead you higher, yeah yeah" so we wanted to play on this idea and amplify it. In the music video our artist would be singing in different location during the day and night so that we are able to have the city lights in the background. For our poster and Digi pack we wanted to have a picture of our artist standing in front of some city lights. We may use the same location as our music video.

We could also use the same font and colour scheme for our text on the Digipak and poster, as you see in the example below which is from Alesha Dixon's cover picture, the golden colour or white would be good to use as it could be seen as representing the lights, the colours are also simplistic but at the same time stand out. Our artist would be wearing the same or similar clothing in all 3 products and their would be a clear image of her so that people would be able to recognise her without having to read the text.

Artist's Facebook

Alesha Dixon's Facebook Page

The following key features creates Alesha Dixon's brand image: Her long black hair (which is sometimes big/puffy and curly or sometimes just kept simple and straight) also the way her eye makeup is done in all her photo's with thick black eye liner. 

Artist's Myspace

Alesha Dixon's MySpace

https://myspace.com/aleshamusic

Alesha Dixon uses myspace to promote all her songs, this is a brilliant way because viewers are able to hear all her albums and find out which songs are on which albums, as well as hear her latest releases, the date the songs were posted and how popular the song is by looking at the amount of plays in the last column.
  

On Alesha Dixon's myspace you can also view her latest music videos and also her upcoming events for example tour dates and her newest photos and styles. 

Artist's Website

ALESHAWORLD

Website: http://aleshaworld.com

At the top of the webpage is an introduction to the website telling the viewer what the website is actually for in this case finding out the latest news about Alesha Dixon weather its about her singing, dancing, acting or tv presenting career. It also shows Alesha Dixon's latest music video releases and photo shoots. 

The website promotes the artist in several ways, firstly, it includes the artist's videos and songs from several different albums. This makes it easier for the viewers to listen to Alesha Dixon's songs of her albums, that may or may not yet be singles, before buying them.

On the webpage there is a list of events and celebrities Alesha Dixon has been associated with so the viewers are able to follow the shows she stars in, for example Britain's Got Talent. 

She also has a direct link to her Twitter page, this an important aspect of promotion because the viewers are able to follow her and keep up to date with her life. 

Costumes and Locations

Mood Board

Influenced Decisions

"To Love Again" by Alesha Dixon is the first video that has influenced our final planning decision, the shots shown above are the ideas we have decided to adapt for our production. We will have our artist standing alone in a wide shot singing directly to the camera. When our mystery character is shown during the end he will be shown in a crowd of people and then he will disappear when our artist spots him. 

"Tonight" by Pixie Lott is the second music video that has influenced our final planning decision, the shots shown above are the ideas we want to use for our production. As you can clearly see there are shots of the city surrounded by beautiful lights which create a mystery feel, and this is why this idea interest us. We will shown London city in between shots of our artist singing during the night.

"What's My Name" by Rihanna featuring Drake, relates to our music video because there are different shots of the artist singing on the street, also people living their normal day to day lives are shown which is an idea that we have decided to adapt in our production. 

Original artists website

Website: http://aleshaworld.com

Content: 

    

• An introduction to the website 
• A banner of the artist
• Music videos + songs
• Pictures

How does this promote the artist?

• The website includes recent tweets from the artist and the artists twitter name so that people are able to follow her and keep up to date with her life. 

• Includes videos of the artists music videos and songs from the album, this promotes the artist because it creates an easier way to listen to the songs of the album (that are not made into singles)  before buying them. 
• There is a section on the side which lists all the events/people that the artist has recently been associated with so that people can watch the shows she has been on, for example Britain's got talent. 
• The website also contains information about recent single releases, albums and tour dates as well as lyrics to her songs so that the audience can learn her lyrics.

Copyright Clearance

Final Song Choice

This is our final chosen song: 

The reason we picked this song is because we liked the idea of lights in the lyrics and we wanted to use amplification by Goodwin. We also like the idea that the song doesn't really have a story so we could use our imagination and our creativity, and also focus on the artist instead of the narration of the music video. We also like the idea that this song is a type of song where the audience can relate to the song lyrics. 

Potential Song Choices

This is a list of six potential songs we could chose from:

Alesha Dixon-The Light

Pixie Lott-Catching Snow Flakes

Ellie Golding-This Love

Cheryl Cole-A Million Lights

Birdy-Heart Of Gold

Katy B-Why You Always Here

Teacher feedback

Hello group 8
Here is feedback from me (Rebecca) for Shpresa and Jenny (who I am monitoring).

Shpresa: you have completed the research, which is great, but I would like to see better use of ICT in your blog posts.  There are some that don't contain any ICT at all - for example, the blog looking at the appeal of music videos to audiences.  Remember that each post must include some form of ICT.  Try not to rely too heavily on embedded videos - if you do find yourself embedding a video make sure that you put the timings of the clip that want us to focus on (or better still use Camtasia to grab the bit of the video you are looking at).  You research on Goodwin and Vernallis is really good - I'm please particularly with these blogs.
I would now like to see blogging around the planning - there's nothing this week posted!

Jenny: Try to blog off the task sheet more - remember the guide on the front that says in order to get a really high mark you need to blog off task.  Again - make sure that if you are embedding videos that we are directed to which bit of the video you want us to watch, rather than just bunging in a whole video.  
There isn't any planning blogged yet - remember that you should be blogging every week....

Keep up the great work.

Umar and Farha - Dan will give you your feedback - just ask.

Rebecca

Summary Of Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory 1993

To summaries Andrew Goodwin's theory on music is that he feel hat traditional narrative analyses don't really apply to pop videos because they approach narrative from a different angle to films and novels, according to Goodwin this is due to a number of reasons

1. Pop videos are built around song, and usually songs do not create traditional narrative structures.
2. In pop videos the singer us used as narrator as well as character
3. The singer often looks directly into the character in order to engage and relate to the audience and trying to involve the viewer within the performance.

pop videos often rely on repetition. the video usually repeats images in the way the song repeats choruses or lines. The repetition in songs of parts or rhythm of other songs allows the audience to become familiar with the genre therefore developing a certain expectation that the artist has to remain.


The visualization of a song may go beyond the original meaning, some videos can be autonomous from the music they come from.
sometimes many videos can provide a visual pleasure that encourages repeated viewing which therefore promotes the music.

It can be said that there are three types of relations between songs and videos

• Illustration 
• amplification
• disjuncture

Here is some evidence supporting Andrew Goodwin's theory on the different types of relation between songs and videos.

This is an example of Illustration this when the video tell the story of the lyrics, such as in this music video La La La by Naughty Boy, the lyrics 'covering my ears like a kid' are illustrated when the little boy and also the other characters cover their ears and say La La La.

The next eample is to for Amplification, this is occurs when the the videos introduce new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers to the meaning. This Video Same love by Macklemore 

is trying to put forward a message and meaning through the lyrics as well as the video, about same sex marriage but also about issues with discrimination as a whole. Which supports the idea of amplification. 

The last example is for Disjuncture, this where there is no connection or little connection between the video and lyrics or perhaps where the video contradicts the lyrics. This is Rudeboy by Rihanna which supports Disjuncture as the  video doesn't relate to the lyrics being sung, it is more about the performance of the artist.

Functions Of A Music Video

http://prezi.com/1azvcsd_7tnh/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Skills audit

Reflecting back on the AS year, i think my research skills has developed and improved a lot more because I'm making sure i spend time on my research and carefully going through the research i carried out, this allows me to have a lot more solid and in depth research which will help me through out the project
I am also making sure that research i carry out is relevant and organised which will benefit me when thinking about my own music video.
I have realized that if you don't carry out the best research it will delay the planning for the video, in order to produce a successful video I will need to make sure I've done productive research, it will allow my knowledge to develop also as i will learn new things 

Reflection

Reflection on progress

I think that I'm progressing well with my blogging better than last year as I'm trying to achieve a lot more blogs this year compared to last and use more range of ICT in my work, however i feel that i should be focusing more on completing my blogs more on time and meet the deadlines quicker, i also think that my blogging is much more detailed than last which is an improvement as i am trying to spend more time on them. I need to ensure that i blog more often and regularly which will allow me too keep up with my blogging.

Copyright Clearance

80 Dereham road Barking Essex IG11 9EY

Rocnation

Dear sir/Madam

I would like to request for Copyright permission to use part of or the whole of: Rita Ora-

I am a student of A level Media studies and for my advanced portfolio I’m going to be working with a group to a promotional package for the release of a music video. I would like to ask for permission to use this song in order to for this project to succeed.

The finished product of the music video will not be available publicly and will only solely used for coursework purposes only. The holder of the original copyright will be fully acknowledged in the finished project.

However if you do not hold the rights to this song, I would appreciate it if you can pass this request on to that person or return it back to me with details of how I can contact this person myself.

Yours sincerely,

Farha Osmani

Farha.osmani@hotmail.com 

Independent Synergy research

This Katy Perrys Album cover, from the album cover I identified that the cover was very colorful with vibrant bold colors
I was also able to identify similarities in her music videos such as California Girls.

In this video we can see how she also uses bright vibrant colors, also the fact shes wearing a bright colored wig which is also used in her album cover also in other videos, because these characteristics are used in many of Katy Perrys music videos and album covers we can identify who the artist is easier.

She also uses the same style in her magazine advert for her album

The bright colors which are all similar shades, also the bright colored wigs and outfits are identifies who the artist because this style is repeated in her music 

Reflection on progress

Compared to last year, my blogging has improved drastically as I have kept to the blogging deadlines and managed to post everything that I needed to. I believe that I have put more effort into researching additional information instead of just copying what was taught in lesson and give on the worksheets. I have included more visuals in my blog posts compared to last year and I have started to use technology when I can, as last year the majority of my different technology used was during the evaluation stage. To improve I could use a wider range of different technology (e.g. Prezi) and start posting extra blogs that are not on the blogging check list but is still relevant to the coursework.

Skills audit

I believe my researching skills have improved over the last year as I have become more experienced in using the resources I have available to me to obtain the information needed to help me with my coursework. In my first year I felt I was less experienced and unable to find what I needed quickly as I did not have a good strategy plan in searching the internet. I know now what key words to search, the best places to find information and to use my own knowledge where appropriate. Using my researching methods I have saved time that I would have wasted searching for something that I might not have even used and I was able to find items/information that were linked to my blog post instead of something that was vaguely related.

Skills learnt in AS

In my AS year i learnt many different useful skills, Some of these technical skills that I learn in the AS year were:

• Editing with Final cut pro

• Sound track pro

• Filming skills e.g different shot types

• Camtasia 

• Prezi

• Blogger

New skills on how to use different equipment such as 

• Flip cameras, Still cameras, Video camera 
• Fig rig 
• Different lighting techniques 

This picture is showing how I used lighting equipment in my AS film