Finally

All is done and I think we have created a decent product that will give us good marks whilst also looking like a professional music video. I have enjoyed the majority of this task; although it has been very stressful at sometimes.
I am happy that it is now done and hope you enjoy reading my blog and watching the video too.
All the best Jake  :)

Last bit of my evaluation

How effective is combination of the main text and ancillary texts?

I have tried to give my artist more of an image in my ancillary texts. The whole idea of the St Georges day flag gives the impression that she is a a patriotic fans giving her a bigger fan base. I have tried to keep the emotions on the face similar throughout the images to make her seen happy without being over the top. As the song is a love song i thought her being happy in the other photos would led to people feeling a strong connections with her. The ancillary texts only work with each other especially the advert. However looking back, when we did the photo shoot I didn't tack any photos in foresty areas. This would of made more sense due to the fact that much of the video was in a forest and then would have combined them better. however the texts are completely different. The actress was the same in both texts.

What would I have done differently?

Although I worked in a group I feel that it would have been more beneficial to the group as a whole if I did some  filming by myself with the artist as i felt i was the main person in the group who wanted to do well.

Becca did not want to be in the music video as the main actor and this was reasonable however we should of understood this and done a male song rather than having to find an artist who wasn't doing media and therefore not always available. 

I think it would have been beneficial if we chose a more upbeat song as therefore we would have been able to do more effects and probably have got a better mark on it.

I would have enjoyed working by myself instead of a group. I think this would of allowed me to of got things done quicker as i could of done filming without trying to organise a day when everyone is available.

Advertisment.

In order to make are artist successful I needed to make an advert that would be in a magazine!

This advertisement would cost less as it would only fill up half a page. Many adverts now are only half a page as prices for adverts in mags are massively expensive.

When making the practice album artwork i realised that i wanted to make my artist patriotic. I therefore used a great Britain flag to show this and instead of showing a lot of white i put the album artwork in each box so people would know what the album looked like. At first i didn't use show any white and just had the red cross however i soon realised that it then didn't look like the St George's flag. I therefore put a bit on each. So the red and white of the flag mixed better together i added a diffuse to the st george flag layer. like this:

I also thought that if the colour of the red was quite dark and mysterious then we should make the album a bit darker than what it actually is like. I used a special tool for this as well called vignette.

Notes

We also broke the 180 degree rule on a couple of occasions. This is something that is done in a music video however not ever really done in many other media products. It also creates confusion something we wanted to do when Sam was with the other girl.


One of the main things we were worried about when making the music video was that we didn't want to use many additional effects as in these sorts of videos most of the time there aren't many. However we realised that we would probably be marked on using them. we therefore used a couple such as the fading out and the bluryness to relate to the lyrics of the song.

Evaluation

This is are actress singing into the camera this is called direct address. This is normally one of the main times in a music video when the artist looks straight into the camera on purpose.

This is a post modern technique where the camera goes past an object blocking out what is happening for a couple of seconds. This means the audience is aware of the camera work and therefore takes them out of the video world and makes them realise it isn't real life.

This is an establishing shot of the pub. Establishing shots are used in most videos so the audience can realise where the people are.

The close up on the hands is used to show that he is in a (secret) relationship with the woman and isn't just doing business with her. We made the two look formal on purpose as it makes him look like he has to sneak around whilst at work to see this mystery lover; however we were aware that this may make it look like he was in work with her; therefore we tried to empthaise the relationship with things such as this close up and the two laughing together

The close up on Sam's face is a common convention of music videos showing the emotion of the actors. This has to be done as you can't have words in a music video as the song is the main sounds.

We used another establishing shot of the house.

This is a point of view shot. The camera is what Ashlee (Jessie J) is seeing. This is a common convention in all sorts of music genres. We added it in as we thought it gave the film a more dramatic edge.

Inbetween these two shots there was about half a second of black between the two. At first this was done by accident however when looking at it both Sam and I thought it looked very good. We thought it made the shot look as if because they were both so angry, they almost blacked out and don't remember what happened. This made even more sense as it was a point of view shot. This shot is an other the shoulder shot. therefore showing what Ashlee was seeing again without it actually being a point of view shot.

In this bit of the song the words are "So baby let me be your soldier" we thought that the lights on the left hand side are quite warrioresque and worked well with the words solider.

This shot between the bars has two reasons. First it is a close up on the feet of the two main actors to show they are walking down the stairs. The other is that it is meant to show the relationship as a prision. As the bars looks like it is hard to escape from. This idea was taken from Eminem love the way you lie when everything is dark suggesting the relationship is dead and dull.

We also used a reference of the lyrics on this bit of the video. At this point the lyrics go "Just hold my hand"  although we get a close up on the hand it is actually the opposite to what she wants him to do as he is using his hand to leave.

 

We used two types of fades in are music video. We used these two show how without the man the woman is alone. There was also an idea used that she missed the man so much that she went back to the place they spent time together by herself. Therefore making it a happy ending at the end when they walk off together.

This is kind of a dolly shot. However due to the fact we didn't have a track or anything we had to make do with it being handheld. This unfortunatly made it look a bit more unprofessional however we still believed it was good enough to put in the video.

When we filmed this Sam walked towards Ashlee too quickly. We edited this by making the clip at 80% of the real time. This worked well and made it look more affectionate as at first it just looked like he was headbutting her!!

The shot of the two cups of tea is used so we see that Ashlee is clearing waiting for somebody and she is not just there by herself and Sam walking in is not a just a coinsident

This is another shot of Ashlee singing. In this one we got her not to sing as much into the camera in order to make it look like she was reflecting on life and being thoughtful

This shot is used just to break up the narrative and change the focus keeping the audience interested.

we used shot a,b, c and d. one after another. This is a convention used in practically all music videos. A constant change of shot between close ups and long shots and other scenes makes the audience have to constantly think and stay focused.





a.

b.






c.

  d.

The final shot of  the music video. The narrative shot finishes and is faded out to black. This is used in in nearly every music video no matter what genre.

Add caption

Initial Storyboard

making these storyboards although allowed us to come up with some ideas from this to are final video there is a complete contrast between what we is were and what is not. Many of the ideas are there such as the cafe, the woods, direct address and the flower. However we didn't use other either because it would have been impossible or we felt we had come up with a better idea. This storyboard was just done on post it notes and we thought this would then allow us to move pictures around quickly if we came up with a new idea half way through!

Edit 5

With the time coming very close I felt that there was no other alternative but to work by myself. Sam and Becca were in the room (doing other coursework) so when I wasn't sure if I had made the right decisions i would call them other. Sam often helped me making sure that i had the lip sync on time something i struggled with very much.
I have now managed to finish the editing of the video and it is complete. I have shown the full copy to Sam and Becca however John wasn't around and said what he saw was fine and therefore we believed that it would be fine to leave as are completed version. I much preferred when Sam was in control of the editing and I was there to suggest ideas and tell him roughly how long shots should be there for rather than actually using final cut express myself as it something i have not used many times. However i still am happy with the final result especially as some times i thought we were never going to get there.

Making my album art.

Are group all took photos of Ashlee and decided that we could all use each other photos. This picture I used was also used by Sam, however this does not matter as we have done still made two very different album arts. I have chosen to make mine very simple and without much effects as if you look at singers who sing songs like casualty of love, such as Adele and Corine Bailey Ray they have very simple album covers there selves.
I used pixlr and online phot editing system in order to make my album artwork. Although the picture was very good I still felt it would be better if I made dulled it down and changed it took make it look more professional i did this by changing the hue, saturation and lightness:

As i hadn't use pixlr before I did a practice album art. I used a grainey filter to prove that i can use different methods however just thought I shouldn't for this artwork, for reasons already explained.

I liked this as I thought it should that she was proud of what country she comes from and the summery dress gives the appearance that she is a happy optimistic girl.

This was my final Album artwork:

I believe the face Ashlee is using makes her attractive towards the audience, it also shows that she is friendly and easy to talk to therefore making her popular. I was not sure what to call the album however decide in the end i should call it "The Start" as it is her first album therefore she is just starting. I used a simple colour scheme of blacks and grey which contrast with the smiley face and also suggest that she isn't overly happy.

The black bits on the back of the album are following on from the front of the album where it has the title of the singer and the album. I have added a price tag and a barcode as these are common conventions of album artwork. The picture on the back is of Ashlee wearing the same clothes but a different photo she is a lot more happy now once again showing her fans she is optimistic and welcoming. The songs names are all in a handwritten style which is done to make it look like it is written by the artist as she wants to personally deliver it and also as if because this is her first album she doesn't have the money to get them printed.

Filming

Due to the fact I didn't film in one of the days i completely forgot to include it in my blog. I organised Ashlee to meet us in are media room where all of us have are lesson last Wednesday. At first we were all going to go out and watch the filming, however I realised that it would just be a waste of time having us all there as we had already discussed they we just wanted Ashlee to lip sync the whole song in several different locations. As Sam and I are the main two editors I asked if Becca and John were willing to film Ashlee whilst Same and I were editing. They were both happy with this and I asked if they could get a shot which involved some kind of woodland or garden and her singing infront of a white wall and make it this one a close up. I felt comfortable leaving Becca and John by there selves to film Ashlee as they are both very creative.

When John came back i looked at the lip synching shots and instead of a white wall he used a normal brick wall, this still looked very nice and when i asked him out of interest why he had changed from using the white wall he told me it was because the white wall was old and was losing and gaining different colours. I have since looked at the wall and have seen that John was right and he had done very well to use a different wall. Small things like that make a video that looked home made look a lot more professional.

Edit 4

I came up to media to see John and Sam working on are project they had separated some of the video up with different shots of are artist doing different things and singing to the camera. This has increased the quality of are music video my only worry is that no one else is willing to stay after school and means that we are running out of time as i do not feel confident enough to edit by myself and also think it would be unfair on the group if I was to make mass changes by myself without asking them. Saying this however afterwards Sam and Becca and I did carry on with the video and make some more seconds up.

Third day of filming

The third day of filming was done on Wednesday morning in one of are media lessons. Ashlee told us she was no longer available for filming due to other commitments that had come out of the blue. However we knew that there needed to be a reason for the argument without being able to use Ashlee. I came up with the idea that instead of having Ashlee walking past and seeing Sam (are actor( and him not seeing her. Instead we would have close ups on Sams face expressing stress and worrying at something he had seen (which was Ashlee walking past), whilst Sam was at the pub with another girl. I put this to Sam who made a few changes to what i had drawn and told the rest of the group who agreed it was a good idea.
This filming went very well and took only about 30 minutes to do. I did most of the camera work and directing. My main problem was that i wanted Sam to look like he was not meant to be with the women i think this worked well with the close ups.
This is all are filming done now and all we need to do is finishing editing and then the video will be done.

Video Showcase

Are teacher organised are whole class to watch films and fill in pieces of paper in order to see what they thought of it. Overall we got very promising signs even though are video wasn't fully complete. They did however say that the direct address sometimes didn't use as much emphasis as it should have done and also sometimes the film used up to many shots of one specific area without it changing leading to boredom in the audience we therefore have decided to change this slightly and John and Sam have told me they will start tomorrow period 1 and then i will come up and see period 2 and 3 as unfortunately have another lesson period .

EDITING BAD NEWS

We left are computer on whilst we went to break and came back to find that the bit that Sam worked on so hard has been moved by somebody! He has had to redo it wasting precious time. He has once again done a very good job, however not as good as he had done before!

Although very annoying it has taught us a very important lesson that we must remember to save are work as younger children can always go into the media lessons and ruin your work.

Editing two.

I felt that we were falling a bit behind and wanted to edit more. However at first Sam wasn't happy with this as he wanted to edit in order as we didn't know exactly where that bit should start. Normally I would of agreed with him but as we are on a short time scale I persuaded him to start now. We put the argument on with Sam doing the majority of work and then asking for my opinion as to what we should or checking that he was doing it right. I am happy with the final product and so is the rest of the group!

Second day of filming

We have had to cancel two days of filming already due to the fact one day Ashlee was Ill and another because two of are group realised they were unable to flim on the day I had organised and confirmed with them. This is why it was so important to film today. I had made sure my house was free, however Ashlee offered to use her house; we decided to take her up on this generous offer as in music videos like this the house are normally grander and Ashlee lives in a very nice detached house whilst mine is a council house.
Bad news was that Sam found at he was working at half 4 and therefore meant we only had an hour and a half to film the shots of the argument. At first we worked very hard and Ashlee and Sam were acting very well; however after a while it became tedious and the actors were making mistakes so we kept on having to re-film bits. However on the whole we felt the acting was of a very good happy and we were finished well before half 4.