December 2014

Throughout the whole of December, we filmed more and more for our video. We filmed the band shots that we needs for our video. By filming these band shots to put into our video, this helped us to promote our band more throughout the video. We were told to make this change to make the video more effective, for the same reason, to promote our band. This made the video better in the sense that it felt more of a band video rather than the one or two singers. We then added in the band shots into the video along with any other lip syncing and misc shots that we have used. We added in misc shots because that was the image of our band. We didn't want the video to make sense and we wanted the band image to be about having fun. This was the draft from adding the band shots. 

There are many differences between our previous drafts and this is due to the band shots being added. This adds more to the video as it isn't just a mix of shots and the video now has much more structure to it.

We then started to make our ancillary products, our Digipak and website. We started to make the website on wix.com however i was stuck with where to begin because we had to have photos that featured our band. We knew then to take photos that would feature on a band website. We looked at other websites that suited our genre, for example, Gotye. We saw that they mostly used pictures of there band together. We knew to take photos of our band. We also used shots from the Digipak and from our video. This is because we wanted a link to each media related to the band. 

I also found a way to add a video into the home page. Although this is only a draft, by experimenting with the software it helped me to understand how the website creator works and create the best possible website.

let loose story board vs video

Let Loose Draft 2

November 2014

Week 1 -2 
This was the time where we filmed most of our shots and most of the editing took place. We found it better to spend most of this time editing our video. Through doing this, we had more time to add to it as we knew now exactly what shots fitted best in the video, although some were very different to our storyboard. This was because some of the shots that we had planned to do were too hard for us to film, or we had tested the shot against the music and incorporated it in the video and found that it didn't work as well as other shots or ideas that we had. This was were we spent time tweaking the video. We wanted a first draft to be completed by the week after. 

This week we made our band social media. We had to make Facebook and Instagram profiles for each member of our group. This was to connect the members to our audience. This is a presentation of what we made:




Week 3 
By this time we had created the first rough draft of our video. We had made a title page and edited the basic shots. This draft is extremely basic and we had received feedback already as to what to change.

This is our first draft: 

We are very new to editing music videos and this is shown. Also feedback from our class and respondents of an interview said that our main singer should be more confident with lip syncing. This is what we have to alter in our next time filming and editing. 

We also had to develop our research. We looked at research on props and location to find where we wanted to film and what we should wear and use. We looked at similar genres of our video and used this as inspiration for our video.
Last week of November
With my class we went on a trip to the BFI, where we learnt how to make an effective music video. This helped my group and I make our video as good as possible. We had to go to London for this trip, this gave us the opportunity to film some shots in London as we didn't have a lot of time to get up to London to film. The shots were filmed on London Southbank, during the Christmas season and they fitted well within our video.

We then started to film our video. We had a challenge as it was hard to film the shots that we wanted to do were based around the summer and due to it becoming winter. With the weather changing we had to use the last bits of sunlight 

Risk assessment

What would you like us to assess next?

I would like you to analyse my drafts of my video and the research that goes with it. Also look at my production diary to check whether I have completed it up to date.

What are you current targets to improve?

I need to complete my production diary. This will help me to track where I have been and what I am going to do next. I also need to put all my research onto my blog. This will show the reasons as to why I have chosen specific things, rather than them being a spontaneous decision.

 

What have you done to address points from your recent assessment?

I was given feedback to show my audience reactions and feedback to our music video pitch. After hearing this, we completed an audience questionnaire and we also conducted interviews about our song to get the audiences response as to what they think would be in a video that matched our chosen song.

 Another piece of feedback was to take media theories and relate them back to relevant music videos. When analysing the conventions of alternative rock I linked the music video “Girls” By the 1975 to the Male Gaze. This helped me to decide how I wanted my video to be and whether I wanted to make sure that I link my music video to the male gaze.

 

 

Research on Props

I wanted my music video to be the best I can make it. I had to research as much as I can as to what props I want to use. On our moodboard, we decided what props we could use to make the video effective to my genre. We found the following props that suit the genre conventions.
- Smoke bombs

- Powder Paint

- Fireworks

- 'Selfie Stick'

 

 

- Flowers

- Guitars

- Balloons

These props suited our genre of music. As they are all seen as things that people will enjoy and that make people happy. I felt that these were effective as they broadcasted effectively our message that we wanted to portray which was happiness and having fun.

Camera Shots

To find out what best suited our genre, I researched camera effects. This means that we can use these to reflect our genre in the best possible ways. 

The first effect that we used was to create a vinigette filter on one of the shots. I had to play around with the effects on Adobe Premiere Pro and i found it extremely easy to place a simple filter on the shot. 

This is how the shot turned out:

I used an effect on Premiere Pro called 'circle'. I used this to create a focal point of the shot on the girl walking through the doors. I then used contrast to make the shot more defined. 

The second effect that we used was called 'Fast Colour Correcter'. We used this to change the colour of the shots so that it changed colour with every change of beat. 

This is how the shot turned out:

This is effective as the atlas changes with the shot and every thing is different colour. This adds to the happy mood of the song and makes it upbeat.

Band Social Media

Let loose First draft - The Nightshades

Conventions of Alternative Rock

Audience Questionnaire

Audience Questionnaire

What is your favourite genre of music?

Pop                        Rock                      Indie                      Punk                      Folk                        Other

What genres do you listen to regularly?

Pop                        Rock                      Indie                      Punk                      Folk                        Other

What do you expect to get from a music video?

.................................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................................. ..................................................................................................................................................................

Do you regularly watch music videos?

                Yes                                         No

If so how do you access them?

....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

How do you regularly listen to music?

                ITunes                                  YouTube                              Spotify                                 

Other

.......................................................................................................

How often to you listen to music a week?

                Once a week                      Twice a week                                     Every Day                            Other

Do you think that music videos are important for a song and why?

                Yes                                         No

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

October 2014

Lesson 1 
This month we had to start thinking more about our song and what we wanted to do with it. I then started to look at Adobe Premiere pro and the effects that I could use. I never really had the chance to experiment with the effects during AS, i only learnt the basic of what to do and how to use it. Through doing this I taught myself how to create some of the effects that I used in my music video. I created this video:

Through doing this I started to understand the software more and more and the techniques that we were using became more advanced and look much more professional.


Lesson 2 
We also had to pitch our final song. We had to state why we wanted to use this song and what we would do with it. We also had to say why we chose this song over our other songs. This was the hardest part because all the songs that we chose had their benefits and could all work with what we wanted to achieve out of our music video. This was done in front of our teacher and our class. This helped us to look at our overall idea and to also gain valuable feedback from what is our target audience (young people). This is where we made slight changes to our idea before we started to produce the real thing.

Lesson 3 
We then went to get audience feedback. We did this in a form of an interview and also in a questionnaire. We filmed the interviews in order to put this on our blog for us to then late use and analyse to make improvements on our final video. The questionnaire enabled us to look at peoples views on paper and make the changes later on to ensure that our video suited our target audience. We asked for feedback on our song and other songs that we could use. the song 'Let Loose' was the song that out target audience was most impressed with and it seemed to be the easiest song to think of effective ideas that would work for our video. 

Lesson 4
This lesson we took our song lyrics and analysed them to suit our video. We had to look for the underlying message in the video. We had to take the lyrics and then plan what shots we wanted to place with the lyrics. This meant looking for the themes related to the song and deciding if the shots from out moodboard fitted with the certain lyrics. Through doing this, it enabled me to understand my song better and this meant that I knew the lyrics when it came to lip-syncing the song during filming. This also meant that we could storyboard the shots that we wanted to use. 

We also created a moodboard to find the best things to add to our video, and to give us inspiration for the shots that we can use.

This enabled us to see the type of shots that we wanted to do for our video. We looked at the pictures and saw what was best suited to our song. 
Lesson 5 
We then analysed the results of our audience questionnaire. It was found that this song came on top due to it being 'more suited to a younger audience'. We then took this feedback and asked our target audience questions about the song lyrics. We wanted our audience to tell us what they thought of the lyrics and what they could imagine for a video when they closed their eyes. Through doing this, it helped us to storyboard our song as our target audience was giving us ideas. These ideas were extremely valuable because they were from the point of view of our target audience.

Lesson 6 
This was the lesson that we started to put our shot list together. This would help us later on when we started the filming for our video. This also enabled us to get an idea of what the finished video would look like. Even though it was a rough sketch it helped us to realise what could be done with our video, also this gave us the opportunity to change what we didn't think fitted with our video.

Lesson 7 - End of October
This was the week that we started to film footage. We went to my friends house to film some of the balloon shots, however we mostly used places that were easy for us to access during school time, and these shots turned out to be effective for our video. 

Costume ideas

MoodBoard

Analysis of Song Lyrics

Our song 'Let Loose' by Bora York, doesn't have very many lyrics so this makes it a challenge for us to think of ideas to match the song lyrics. What I found when analysing the song lyrics was that throughout there are connotations of escape and breaking free. This to me is seen as rebellion and youth breaking the rules. The chorus of the song is repeated through the song 5 times, this means that as a group we will have to think of ideas to differentiate the choruses. The first verse could be seen as more relating to the audience as the use of imperatives and the first line could bee seen as comforting. The last line of the first verse has brief connotations of love. This means that we could incorporate a love story somewhere into our video. Also, the line 'Summer nights under the city lights' this gave me the image of a shot of the skyline of London. Connotations of youth are seen throughout the lyrics and this is what I want the audience to feel when they hear the song as well as a sense of escapism. 'Daring heights' 'As free as eternity' these lyrics all relate to youth and breaking rules and rebellion.

Audience Reactions Chloe and Ryan

Teacher assessment - general

A Level Media Progress Check - Ryan
NSE - Teacher
Focus of assessment	General
Relevant assessment criteria	Planning and research evidence will be complete and detailed.
Evidence of progress/ evidence of meeting criteria	Good start to your blog. You have some of the key work on there.
Areas to work on next/ ideas to consider	Ensure you have started your production diary, incorporating this feedback. Ensure you complete as much individual research/planning as you can, to show the moderator your individual talent.  Reflect on every single post and ensure you use as many web 2.0 tools as possible.
Additional comments

Teacher assessment - film pitch

A Level Media Progress Check - Ryan
	Assessed by		NSE - Teacher
Focus of assessment		Music video pitch
Relevant assessment criteria		There is excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience.
Evidence of progress/ evidence of meeting criteria		Detailed discussion into what song you are pitching for and why.
Areas to work on next/ ideas to consider		If you could identify audience feedback and how this has influenced your choices.
Additional comments

Music Video Full Pitch

Bora York - Let Loose

Teacher assessment - digipak recreation

A Level Media Progress Check - Ryan
	Assessed by		NSE - Teacher
Focus of assessment		digipak recreation
Relevant assessment criteria		There is excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience.
Evidence of progress/ evidence of meeting criteria		You have recreated the digipak, following the key layout and design features from the original.
Areas to work on next/ ideas to consider		Could you make each frame bigger, as it is difficult to see what you have done to it. Also, could you clearly explain the editing process you took and evidence this, to show how you created your final images.
Additional comments

Digipak Trial

Media A2 Playing with music video editing

To help us later in the production process we decided that it would be best for myself and my partner to play around with the editing software so that in the end we could create a music video that would enable us to get a good grade at the end of the year. I found it very helpful as last year we never really got the chance to look at effects and speed that we could change in Adobe Premiere Pro so making this video helped me personally to get to know the software that I have to use late on in the year.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Teacher assessment - Goodwin

A Level Media Progress Check - Ryan
	Assessed by		NSE - Teacher
Focus of assessment		Andrew Goodwin
Relevant assessment criteria		There is excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience.
Evidence of progress/ evidence of meeting criteria		Clear understanding of his theory and you have been able to apply this to real videos, at a basic level.
Areas to work on next/ ideas to consider		If you could be much more specific and precise about what you have found in the videos, linked to Goodwin. Compare between videos and consider genre, audience and purpose. How will you use this in your own planning?
Additional comments

Theories relating to Music Videos

Andrew Goodwin

"Music video is not primarily a commodity form, but a promotional one."

What is it promoting?

- Artist/Band - creating interest

- that particular song 

- other products by artists - Album/merchandise/website/anything associated with artist

- Location 

- Promoting a film where song appears

OPPOSING THEORY

Music appears as an art form
- Exists as an untouched art form


Laura Mulvey

"Visual Pleasure and narrative cinema"

What is the Gaze?

The concept of the gaze is one that deals with how an audience views the people is presented.

Feminists view this in 3 different ways :

- How men look at women 

- How women look at themselves 

- How women look at other women

Laura Mulver invented the term 'The Male Gaze' in 1975 and she believes that media is produced in the view from the perspective of a heterosexual male.

Features of the Male Gaze

Camera lingers on the curves if the females body and events that follow a presented based on the males reaction to these events.

Use of the theory in everyday life

Some theorists have noticed the sexualizing of the female body even in situations where the sexualizing of females has nothing to do with the product being advertised.

Criticism of Theory 

- Beauty Pageants 

- Can be directed towards members of the same gender, such as comparison of body image and/or clothing. 

Categorizing Facial Expressions 

Women 

- Chocolate Box (Giving expression)

- Invitational (Welcoming)

- Super Smiler 

- Romantic/Sexual

Majorie Fegurson (1980)

Men 

- Carefree

- Practical 

- Seductive 

- Comic 

- Catalogue (blank expression)

Trevor Millum (1975)

Key Theorists beliefs 

Johnathon Schroeder (1998) "To gaze implies more than a look - it signifies psychological relationship of power in which the gaze is superior to the object of the gaze

Research on Digipaks

What is a digipak?

A digipak is a type of marketing that is often used in the front of the artists CD. A digipak usually folds out into six different section. Digipaks were first made by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, the format of a digipak became so popular many manufacturers have taken the idea to use for their own. 

Digipak's are become increasingly less popular due to the recent change in technology, with sites like iTunes and Spotify taking over the original CD.

What is the benefit does a Digipak have on the artist?

The artist will have input on the digipak and it will contain aspects that reflect their personality or their reputation. It will also reflect the genre. The artist can add their own touch to their album. This keeps the connection between the artist and the fan stronger as they feel that the artist has a larger input into their album and leaves them with a personal touch rather than the artist only having input into the songs.

Music Website Analysis

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September 2014

Theory
This was the start of the year in media. In the first few weeks of September we was introduced to our main task that we would have to produce for the end of the year. 
We started to learn about media theories that relate to music videos and how we will apply them to analysis of music videos that we will have to produce in the next few weeks. We learnt about Laura Mulvey's theory of the Male Gaze, and how that applies to music videos. This was easy as we used Mulvey last year and used this to link to film openings, so it made it easier for me to use this theory and link it to music videos. We also looked at Andrew Goodwin and how his theories link to videos, and how he stated that music videos have three types, concept, performance and narrative. I then looked at music videos and analysed them from this perspective, and decided what type of music video suits them. These theories made it easier for me to analyse music videos as I could see what they were doing from a different perspective.

From this I have learnt how to analyse music videos using media theories to back it up. For example, when looking at videos such as Nicki Minaj's videos, the male gaze is seen by feminists, as the way men look at women, women look at themselves and how other women look at women. Nicki Minaj's videos focus on a woman's figure and a dance move called 'Twerking', where the focal point is mainly on a woman's bottom. This could also be linked to Andrew Goodwin's theory of music video being used for promotional purposes, as Nicki Minaj often promotes products in her videos, for example, Beats speakers. 


Essay task

We was then given an essay task to analyse a music video of our choice. All the points that we had to include were:
- Comparing it to a theory
- The genre of the song
- How does the song fit into the conventions?
- Stereotypes
- Whether it is Narrative, performance or concept
- Analysis of the Lyrics
- Iconography 
- Mise en scene
- Camera work 
- Editing 
- Relation back to the artist
- The main purpose of the video.

I chose to analyse the music video "Girls" by The 1975. I chose this because i am a fan of the band in general and I know that the video includes many shots of girls and this would be effective because I could easily link this back to Mulvey's theory of the Male Gaze. I understood the genre of the song and i could easily determine whether this was narrative, performance or concept, for example this is mainly performance and some concept.. Analysing the camera work and editing was easier as we had looked at that in the previous year so I just had to apply that knowledge to this year. 
To improve, I would have liked to have gone more in depth with linking it back to the theory or pick a song where i could link one or two theories to the song. 

Star Image

The focus of the lesson was on Star Image and artists that have been in the spotlight for many years, for example, The Killers or Beyonce. We saw how artists grow and how they develop characteristics that make them a star. 
For example they have to be popular, talented, influential, over the top, charismatic and have their own appearance.

We was given a task to make a presentation on the artists life and how they rose to fame. This was interesting to see many different artists lives and the differences in how they rose to fame. 

Lip Syncing

We was given the task of lip syncing. This meant that we had to find a song and lip sync to the song and put that onto our blogs. We had to do a solo song and a group lip sync. I chose to do Nelly - Ride Wit Me. This is one of my favourite songs and I fortunately knew all the words to sing to. I found this embarrassing at first to lip sync in front of the camera, as i suddenly became very aware of what I was doing, however with practise this became easier and easier. I found it a lot easier if you went more over the top, this makes it look like you are singing it! Our group lip sync was a little less embarrassing as we was all doing it together. We did mess up the words at first as the song that we chose we are doing for our final piece and we didn't seem to know all the words at this stage. This showed us that we need to learn the song back to front and really study the lyrics. We done the lip sync together to make us look like a band for the final video. When we watched the lip sync back we saw that the song had harmonies that we missed, this taught us that we have to learn where the harmonies are and lip sync them to make it look like we ar singing.

The hardest part is editing the lip sync over the base song. Early on, we came across the challenges of editing the lip sync and the song together. This was helpful as we learnt in the very early stages how to overcome these issues and got the practice of matching them up.

Choosing a song

We then had the opportunity to research what songs we could do for out final piece. Initially, we looked at songs that were already in the charts and we realised that they already have music videos made for them and also using the song would be copyright. We started to then find songs that weren't well known that would work for a music video. We found a song called Let Loose, by Bora York. As a group, we really liked this song as it was upbeat and lively. We had to chose between three songs to choose from and this one came out on top. We had to story board the three songs as it was hard for us to pick the right song. We had storyboarded each song and we decided that Let Loose was the best song for us to do as we were passionate about what we could create about the song. 


We decided what song we wanted to do, we then had to email the artist to request permission to make a music video for the song. Fortunately, the artist got back to us very quickly and gave us the permission we needed for the video as long as we send them a copy of the video once we have finished.

Digipaks

In lesson, we was given a task to research digipaks and the typical conventions that a digipak follows, and then recreate the digipak. We found a simple digipak for us to understand the whole concept, and then this would help us to follow the typical conventions of digipaks. I researched what the typical things you would find in digipaks for example, messages from the artists, track lists etc. This helped me to understand the layout of a digipak.  We chose to re-create the Kings of Leon digipak. This mainly consists of close ups and extreme close ups. We also had to tint the shots green, as this is the dominant colour of the digipak. We had to tweak some aspects as we couldn't get the exact shots that replicated the digipak, but we chose shots that followed the same concept of the band. Through recreating a digipak this helped me to make my own digipak from scratch and deciding what we wanted ours to look like. We had to think about our digipak in relation to our target audience, children and teenagers. We want to make our digipak colourful and more attractive to the younger audience. 

Conventions of Music Videos 

Independently, I took the time to research the conventions of music videos in relation to my genre. I looked at videos that had a similar genre to mine, such as The 1975, The Killers and Gotye. They all fall under the alternative rock genre. Looking at these videos helped me to understand the genre that our final product was going to be. 

Assessment 

It was assessment week at school, and during this we was given an essay to reflect on what we did at AS level and how we could apply what we have learnt to our A2 coursework.  This used my analytical skills to evaluate what i done at AS and realise my mistakes and what inprovments that i could make to make my coursework the best it could be. This also showed me what I done well and what was very effective in terms of editing and effects. Although a music video and a film opening are very different, through doing this task it helped me to understand what techniques, such as camera angles and edting effects, I used to make my AS coursework appeal to my target audience.