Wednesday, 13 November 2013

Filming 13th November



Today we filmed about 4 bass tracks outside Angel station of Eloise Passey. As a group we learnt a lot from our first filming session as a lot of things went wrong with the filming. This time round we made sure that the camera was not in auto focus so that we could make sure Eloise Passey was in focus the whole time. We also made sure that we got various shot types and made it clear that Eloise Passey was the main focus. 

Tuesday, 12 November 2013

Digipak Research


Miley Cyrus' digipak for "Can't be tamed" is very much focused on the male gaze in order to promote the music. We could use this as inspiration in the sense that we didn't want to eliminate this feature from our video completely, we just didn't want to go over the top with it, the front cover for this digipak has the artist central to the area, she is breaking the forth wall which seems to be quite common among these covers, especially ones created for women. Some male digipaks for example Enrique Iglesias' album  entitled "7" doesn't break the forth wall entirely, this is in attempt to create a sense of mystery and lust for the consumer. this is apparent across a whole load of digipaks in this one included. but the approach is different. Enrique's are usually made up of mid shots because their aim is to attract women using only the most important features (eyes and torso) whereas the men are pulled in by majority of the body. Miley Cyrus is a perfect example of how this method is carried out. She is wearing black which suggests the death of her sweet and innocent counterpart, it also bring forth an aspect of formality which tells us that she wants to be take seriously, lack of clothing for sexual intrigue. I'd put the age range of the audience to about, 17-27 years because of her own age which puts a limit on the Target audience especially with an album of this sort.



I wouldn't say that this artist resembles the one we've created...or is similar to lily Allen in any way shape or form, and the reputation of the band has made it difficult if not impossible to find the CD artwork (other than the front cover) however I included this in my research because it demonstrates my ideas for my own digipack, in terms of how it isn't a photograph, but it's a cartoon and it uses an effective method of texture/patterns which is what I aim to do when we create our own. In terms of audience just based on the digipak I'd say that this album would appeal to an audience of about 18-34 years, someone who worked long hours and listens to music as a winding down activity as the art is soft and the use of white signifies peace, safety an a successful beginning. The deer is a mixture of blue, black and brown which suggests a spiritual connection. As brown means stability, comfort and is often associated w/ nature, blue connotates loyalty and respect and black, security. Deer and birds alike both represent animals of peace, and delicacy which is found within the music. 

Blogging Reflection

Filming update/ As Comparrison


Saturday, 9 November 2013

Filming Update

As a group we decided that some of the footage we got on our main day of filming was not good enough and felt we needed to improve on it. Thankfully, because we started filming early we have the time to film some more footage to replace the footage we disliked. We plan to film on Wednesday 13th November during our media lesson. As a group we decided on what we need to re-film:
  • Cut away of traffic (short time lapse)
  • Eloise at the bus stop singing as a bass track
  • Outside shot of girl and boy with cigarette (need to do this during the day so it is light)
  • Eloise sitting in bedroom singing as a bass track

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Presentation

Due to Technical malfunctions the software I use to edit all the videos used in my video blog posts doesn't play any sounds anymore so I couldn't hear the footage whilst editing.. and due to that way it was filmed I couldn't use our faces to figure out what was being said or by who So I had to look at the sounds shown on the bottom to identify where the louder sounds are played which I assumed to be where media was featured during our presentation. This proved to be rather successful, however  we had a few awkward moments where technology faltered slightly which resulted in lengthy pauses and not so subtle whisperers from both our group and fellow classmates due to the quietness of these parts of the audio they unfortunately didn't show up on the sound indicators so I couldn't point them out in the video so they had to stay.

I went back a few times to see if I could make a wild guess as to where these useless and slightly embarrassing moments were but in fear of cutting off important sentences and explanations  and potentially ruining the entire clip I decided that this probably wasn't the best way to solve our problem and left the constant erm, uhh and ah's in.  I also attempted to have music playing in the background as the video is roughly 16 minutes long and i felt like it would be easy to get bored, however due to issues with the sound I couldn't hear if the lyrics were overpowering us as we weren't exactly loud whilst speaking so I had some trouble leveling out the sound of the video and the ones from the mp3 placed over the footage, I ended up having to make 3 different versions of  the same video as the first one had no background what so ever and the second one was distracting as the songs drowned us out completely. the final one still has the music included however it's so low you can barely notice it, until the end when an animated image of us is used which is quite disappointing,  


Sunday, 20 October 2013

Reflection on Blogging Progress #2

Looking back at my last 'Reflection on Progress' blog, the things I'd identified that I needed to improve on were: 1) adding different/more imaginative technologies into my blog posts, 2) mapping out my thought processes more clearly by adding screen-grabs from videos I analyse, 3) adding more writing to my posts.

In relation to the first point, I have tried to incorporate more technologies into my posts, however I am struggling to find more different and imaginative ones other than gifs. It is something I still need to work on.


Secondly, I feel I have been mapping out my thought processes a bit more clearly with screengrabs and gifs.


Lastly, I have been adding more writing to my posts.

Thursday, 17 October 2013

Audience Research

We conducted research by asking questions to the specific target audience (Lily Allen Facebook page, interviews at college), the general audience (interviews on the streets) and people who know about music videos (media teachers and students). From this we gained helpful knowledge about what kind of things should be included in our music video in terms of location, setting, costume, props, storyline, shot types and editing.


Theory



In terms of Andrew Goodwin's theory, our video is an illustrative video. There will be some repetition of shots, like his theory states, and it will also have a strong form of closure and ending to match the song; it will gradually fade out like the song does.

In terms of Carol Vernalis' theory, we will use a few basetracks to give the video structure. At some points in the video, the camera will move in time to the music. There will be some very obvious edits; we will have lots of very fast jump-cuts to reflect the fast-paced party vibe of the video.

In terms of Laura Mulvey's theory, we will have some girls in skimpy clothing to represent the male gaze, especially for 'Girl #1' who is flirting with the man as we feel that this fits with her character and the vibe of the song in general.