Research and Planning : Digipack Designs

This is the example of the bands own CD digi pack design. I really love the simplicity of the CD, and I think its definitely something I want to incorporate in my own.




This is an example of a digipack design that I really liked that I found on the internet in a basic google search. I love the way it has a theme, for example the white faces on the poeople are continued throughout all of the pictures on the design. I think it looks more professional, and definatly a more eye catching tenchique. For my own design I'll definatly keep to one theme, for example keeping the pictures relevant.

Change of Song!

My original artist has proved difficult to properly get in touch with, as he promised to send me his mp3, and lyrics to the song I needed (Origami) As after many non-respondent emails have been sent from my end, I've chosen to cut my losses and change the song. This way I can finally create proper idea of what I need to do. My chosen song now is called 'Boy' and its by a band called Francesqa. This song is relatively similar to the concepts of the other song, and I can rearrange my old ideas into this.


http://lyrics.duble.com/boy-lyrics-francesqa.html
These are the lyrics

http://www.facebook.com/Francesqa
These are them on facebook

Research and Planning : Magazine Adverts

This is to show the type of information I would need to put on my advertisement. I'm going to need the release date, the name of the artist, the name of the song or album, promoting the music video, e.g. 'Origami' with music video, and also quotes from magazines.













This 'poster' is just an example of the kind of colours I would use for my advert. While its not very striking I think it looks stunning. I love the fonts used, and I like how they have used a logo as the source of colour.

Research and Planning : Digipack

This front cover is definitely the kind of image I want for my design. I like the use of the establishing shot to include more of the setting, and I love how the main characters face is hidden with his cap. I think though that if I used this type of design, then my main character would be way further back, and I wouldn't hide him with an object, I would use lighting to create a shadow across his face.



I found this image and thought that it was a really beautiful design for the back of a CD. I love how the guitar and rose almost seem intertwined and that the flowing font fits in well to the theme. The colours as well are really graceful and beautiful, and really represents what the band is about. If I were to take anything from this design it would be using the objects like the rose and the guitar to really represent my artist.



This is here just to show that the CD spine is not something in which everyone takes a lot of time to create. I like the simplicity of this design, and as its not something which will be taken notice of by a lot of buyers I would use the same simple approach.


This image is here just to show that the inside of a CD case is just as important as the outside. Its no good trying to catch the eye of the buyer with just the outside as you will loose their interest as soon as they open the CD. As you can see in this image they have kept a theme going through the inside, which I think works really well and is something I would incorporate too.

Research and Planning : Potential Cast

This person will be the main character in my video, and will do any lip syncing if needed. He is reliable because he is male, and this makes more sense as my artist is a male as well. He fits perfectly into my target audience, and I know that he will enjoy the type of video I want it to be. He is also an aspiring singer.






This person would play the female in my video, although in the idea I have I don't show much of her. So although this person wouldn't do an awful lot, she is still perfect for my character. She fits my target audience well and I know she would do the best job I would ask of her.

Role : Main Performer
Who? : Kiall Gormley
Contact Details : 07821001481

Role : Actor
Who? : Emily Probert
Contact Details : 07928414830

Role : Camera/editing/photographer
Who? : Amy Pates
Contact Details : 07530342691

On changing my song, and my idea's I realised it would become a problem to use these two people in my video, as I need the two main characters to look or at least resemble the two children I want to use. So upon thinking about this I've decided to ask other people to be in my video.

This girl is my little sister, Holly Pates. I use her in alot of the work I do, as she proves to listen to exactly what I say, and she likes the attention of a camera, whether it be still or moving. Shes a petite girl, and she has medium length blonde hair. She is the perfect type of girl I think to use in my video, as the girl has to be cute, but not in a baby kind of way. Another plus is that as she is my sister, I can control when she can be summoned to film, or photograph etc.

This is my brother, Brandon Pates. Again he is someone I use in alot of the work I do. He isn't as outgoing as my sister, but after he feels comfortable he will do what I ask him too. He is about 5ft 6 already at only age 13 and he has the right kind of figure I need, as he towers over my sister in a protective kind of way. Again I will be able to take control over when he can be filmed as I am responsible for him. (obviously if he gives me persmission)

Research and Planning : Print Work

These photographs of ruined interior are the types of setting I would want to have for my print work. In relation to my video I will need to use a lot of close ups to portray the emotion of the character, so in a slight contrast I want to use wide shots and establishing shots to just show in more depth the character and where he is. Also I think it would be a bit less mainstream to have a digipack where the main singer isn't the main focus. In my picture I want the character to be just as noticed as the setting.


When I came to do my print work, it was very, very difficult to find a place that look genuine and classy, instead the few places I could of used looked distasteful of photographs, so I changed my idea to their not really being a background, and just using the characters face, or bpdy as the main image.

Audience Feedback : Response to comments

Audience Feedback : Pitch Comments

Research and Planning : Pitch

Time Management

Audience Research

Put mood board onto Facebook to get feedback - 25/11/2010
Make any alterations to our ideas based on feedback - 28/11/2010

Print production

Analyse at least one Digipak/advert campaign - 23/11/2010
Do a brainstorm of ideas for the Digipak/advert - 25/11/2010
Pick the best ideas - 26/11/2010
Compile a minimum of three first drafts - 29/11/2010
Choose the best idea based on audience feedback - 1/12/2010
Blog why the best idea was the best - 5/12/2010
Photo shoot with the actor - 16/12/2010

Performers and Casting

Cast reliable performers for the video - 29/11/2010
Take photos of cast individually and blog - 30/11/2010
Blog why they are suitable for the video - 30/11/2010
Take photos of them in costume - 1/12/2010

Locations + health and safety

Find locations - 26/11/2010
Ask for permission to use the locations - 30/11/2010
Take test shots of the locations - 5/12/2010
Write down details of permission - 5/12/2010
Take photographs of the risks and dangers - 7/12/2010
Compile a risk assessment - 13/12/2010
Get it accepted by the college - 14/12/2010
Put that into our blog - 15/12/2010
Make sure that all cast/performers can get access to the locations - 7/12/2010

Costumes and props

Brainstorm all costume and props that we may want - 1/12/2010
Make a table of all the props/costumes that we need - 3/12/2010
Find the sources of the props/costumes - 10/12/2010
Work out the potential cost and budget - 11/12/2010
Take photos of some of the cast in costume - 14/12/2010
Take photos of costumes/props - 14/12/2010
Blog it - 16/12/2010

Choreography/movement and blocking

Work out all of the different shot types that we would like to use - 5/12/2010
Take test shots of the different shot types in chosen location - 7/12/2010
Plan camera movements - blocking - 6/12/2010
Plan performer positions - 26/12/2010
Take test shots of performers/cast positions - 27/11/2010

Shot lists and storyboarding

Draw an animatic - 15/12/2010
Put it onto youtube and include music - 16/12/2010
Upload to blog - 17/12/2010

Creativity

What is creativity?

Technology.

Research and Planning : Existing Products

Music Video and Narrative : Restricted and Omniscient

Restricted describes the parts in a music video where we are treated to clips where the narrative is only fixed on one character, and the audience can only see what they see, which can sometimes be something very confusing. For example, in this video the first few seconds are just close-ups of the man and womans face, and they show now difinitive emotion, and we know how they are related.
Omniscient describes the parts in a music video where the narrative is not tied to anything in particular in the video, and the camera lets the audience in to more than what the character can guess. For example, in this video, after the close ups of the man and women, we are given a long shot of the woman on the roof, and we suddenly realise she wants to commit suicide, and that the mans going to realise shes up there and save her, and although thats not a perfect recollection of the video, it is pretty much what happens.
Using restrictions in the video, creates a very suspensful type of story, and can maybe add a bit more drama into something in which might of been very boring otherwise. Saying that though, omniscient usage of camera shots and clips could also be used to create another type of tension, where the audience know exactly what is going on, and is dying for the character to find out too.

Music Video and Narrative: Propp

Using the propp narrative model, the audience could easily predict how a the narrative will work out. I think this is a very clear narrative, and I prefer it to the Todorov, as it concentrates more on the characters, rather than the scenes in the music video. I will again use the Artic Monkey video ( Leave before the lights come on) to demonstrate this narrative structure.



The character who is portrayed as the 'hero' in this video, is quite clearly the man who saved the woman from jumping off the building. The video then transpires from the fact he saved her, and now she takes a liking to him. Its quite an interesting character take if we use the structure Propp gives us, as in the beginning of the video, the woman to us is obviously a victim of some kind, but after she becomes stroppy and starts stalking the man she becomes a slight villian, as we see her become into an attention seeking, probably crazy lady. In a way, we could even say there is a dispatcher in this video, as the shoe, incidentily sent the man on his quest to save the woman, as without the shoe falling on the ground he would never of known she was up there, but then we remember that we know now that the women purposfully threw her shoe down, hoping someone would save her, so maybe she could be the dispatcher too.
Although its unclear as to which one of the 8 character functions we could place both the man and women in, the producer has made it very clear to identify which character function suits who. They have made it redundant aswell, which helps us even more to identify the fact that the hero is a stereotypical male, and something which we could predict.

Music video and Narrative : Todorov

An example which I can give of the todorov narrative model is a music video by the Artic Monkeys, and its called Leave before the lights come on.



Equilibrium: A man is walking down the street.
Disequilibrium: A woman is standing on the roof of a building and it appears like she is about to commit suicide
Recognition: She drops a shoe onto the floor, and the man picks it up and looks up. He sees what she appears about to do and runs up to stop her.
Reparation: He then takes her for a drink, where he leaves when she tries to kiss him. She tried to chase him but he shrugs her off, he gets angry and he has ago at her, where she runs off back to the buildings roof.
New Equilibrium: She waits for another man to pass, and she drops her shoe again.

Theorists: Micheal Shore

Micheal Shore was another theorist who provides us with a way to look at music videos. Some of his key features include:
: recycled styles
: Simulated experiences
: imformation overload
: image and style scavengers
: Vanity and the moment
: adolescent male fantasies
: speed, power, girls and wealth
: album art
: classic storyline motifs
: soft-core pornography
: clique imagery

An example which would provide us with an idea of what he means is Beyonce and Jay-Z's video - Bonnie and Clyde.

Theorists: Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin identified that there are several different key features in a music video
(in his opinion) These are:

: A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contrasting with the lyrics.

: Genre-related style and iconography present

: Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist/s

: Voyerism often plays a major part, especially in relation to females

: Intertextual references to other media texts may be present

A music video in which think relates to all of the features to Goodwins theory is The kill by 30 Seconds to Mars.

As is obvious, it provides us with an immediate intertextual reference to a well known film, The Shining.

In relation to this though, as I will discuss in more detail later on, this video also follows the sctructure of the film itself, this of course being a propp narrative. This is obvious to people who have actually watched the film, but even without it being a reflection of the film, people who hadn't watched it would still be able to follow what was going on, even though it is very entropic. The characters have been changed in the music video, as I think it would of been difficult to decide who would play what role, so instead of basing themselves on the characters of the film, they each took a part of the film and applied it for themselves. For example, the lead singer takes part of the lead character ( Jack Nicholls) and plays out the part of the film where he is sat in a bar. In relation to Goodwins theory though, i think that there are many examples that the lyrics have a clear relationship to the visuals; 'Come break me down, bury me, bury me, I am finished with you'. This begins to show as he is throwing a ball at the wall by himself, seemingly in a mad kind of way, so we get the impression that he is going insane, which aswell goes along with the narrative. The genre of the music is very 'emo' and dark, which I think fits Goodwins theory of genre-related style. The music video is very dark, and almost creepy, which definatly fits in well with the music. There is a touch of sexuality in the film, but interestingly not just linking into the voyeurism in relation to women. This is probably the only feature in his theory which the music video would not comply with completely, as there is a touch of homosexuality. But there is still a sexual relation to women though, as a women is in a bathroom with nothing but a bathrobe around her, and she and one of the band start kissing. There are many close ups to the main singer all throughout the video; at the beginning in the car, the middle while he throws the ball and goes wandering around the hotel, and at the end when he is on stage.

I think I agree with goodwins theory, although not all music videos I have researched or watched have intertextual references, and not always do the lyrics go well with the video.

Music videos and Auteurs

Spike Jonze

Music Videos and their Genres

Genre: Live Performance

Conventions: A live performance video is usually a video of the band or act doing a live set at a gig, or it is video footage at the band or act on tour, with a pre-recorded audio over the top. Usually there is footage of them backstage, or meet and greeting the fans.
Appeal to the audience?: The appeal of this is for fans who arn't interested in watching an over entropic video, and want to watch how the band or act handle being on stage, and it would be more for people who love live music. (i.e independant listeners)
Example: Lostprophets - Where we belong (This video was taken while they went on tour, after the release of their new album)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6CleYqU2_o&ob=av2n

Genre: Low-fi/Low-budget
Conventions: This type of video usually contains camera footage off a really low quality camera, and is usally home-made and produced by a band/act themselves. The act will probably be performing in somewhere low budget and not care so much for the aesthetics of the video but focus more on getting their music out there.
Appeal to the audience?: This is for people who love unsigned music, and would be for people who already know of that band, and love their live music.Example: Enter Shikari - Sorry your not a winner (This video was taken from their very first album, Take to the Skies)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wngyXhTx4pc

Genre: Sci-fi/animated
Conventions: An animated video usually shows signs of very entropic nature, and involves things that we would consider to be out of this world, and animated could be anything, but just in a cartoon like form.
Appeal to the audience?: The appeal would be for people who love animation, and listen to music which is very technical, like keyboard based music or c

omputer generated music.
Example: Crazy Frog - Axel F

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k85mRPqvMbE

Genre: Narrative
Conventions: A narrative video usually contains a storyline which will be followed throughout the video. For example, boy meets girl, they fall in love and then something which will happen in which they will be forced to question their love for each other. Sometimes a narrative video will contain things like a narrator, who will cut in during parts of the video where the song has been suspended, and we capture more and more of a storyline.
Appeal to the audience?: It generally depends on what the music is, as althought the genre is narrative, the genre of the music could be absolutly anything and narrative is a very popular typye of video to go with.
Example: Kids in Glass Houses - Matters at all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MRAc9-Q9C0&ob=av2e

Redundancy and Entropy

Redundancy and entropy are the things in a video which can determine how the video is presented. A high level of redundancy can really put the viewers off watching a video again and bore them, but at the same time high levels of entropy can really confuse us, and could put the successfulness of the video at stake. A good video in my opinion is one which has concentrated levels of each redundancy and entropy, and keeping everything very level, as then we don't have to be bored and we don't have to be confused.

In this presentation I have put forward four music videos, and analysed what I think makes them entropic or redundant.

Music video

View more presentations from Amy Pates.

Video Skills Audit

In this blog I will be listing around five skills I will need in the following year, and writing about what I can do to improve on them, and what I already know about that skill.

Research:
I think that my research skills aren't as good as they should be, due to the fact I become very distracted, and I don't kick myself into motivating and getting the research done. Research is a very important part of any task in any area, and without it you cannot hope to achieve anything that will be worth publishing/producing/making. I know what I have to do when it comes to research, and its not that I find it difficult, its that my brain is very over active and focuses on what I'd rather be doing; the production. Its in this sense that my skills on research aren't up to scratch, because I haven't allowed myself to do as much as I can to produce some excellent research material. So this year, I plan to and become determined to do all I can to ensure I do as much research as I possibly can. I think I can achieve this by doing the research in a more interesting way; rather than use the internet solely for my info, I will be able to use videos etc. to gain knowledge about what will make a good music video, I may even be able to go to gigs and concerts in an attempt to have an interview with some of the musicians available about what they think I should do in order to do as well as I can.

Development of Idea's:

For the task of creating a music video, I'm positive that I will need to have a range of different idea's, as there will be a chance the idea I want to use, will not work. And without a development of idea's I will not get the end result that I would of hoped for. To get a better development of ideas, research will need to present. So in order to get better ideas I need to make sure my research is up to scratch. At the moment, I believe I do create a good range of idea's, but I let myself down when it comes to documenting them, so I'll have an idea, but I won't be able to say where I got it from. This year I'll make sure that my research heavily influences my idea's, and I'll make sure that I document everything down.

Sets and Props:
Sets and props are going to be a very important part of any video I make this year, so I need to be able to take control of what happens with them. In past experiences I have had ideas of what we can do in relations to sets and props, but has never felt like I could express my idea's as it was always someone else in charge. Or we never used to have enough time to even think about including anything else to the video, just the bare minimum. But this year I'd like to think I will step up and make sure anything I can think of which I think will work really well, will be taking at least into consideration. Its not that I'm terrible at this skill, its just that I need to improve on how I use it.

Camera Skills:

In order for my video to look as proffesional as possible im going to need to make sure that i handle the camera to the best of my ability. The better the skills the better my video. I will need to make sure that I know exactly what I can do with the camera, including the angles, and different colour tones I can apply. The more i know the easier it will be for me to shoot, and the more I can do to make sure my video is exactly what I want.

Scripting:
For the production of my video I neede to be able to read and create a script, so my video can be planned properly, and on the day of the shooting i have a suitable scructure to go by. I will need to be able to create story boards and day plans aswell, in order to keep everything organised. Last year when we experimented slightly with the video cameras, I was able to get a taste of what a story board should look like and how you should make it, but I didn't use up too much time on it, and so this year, I will be presented with the chance to enhance my skills.

My Targets and how I met them

I set myself targets to acheive within the Video area of Media Production, I feel that working with video, whilst thinking about my targets iI was able to learn a lot more about Video production, including camera work, and editing.

Digital Technology.
Skill target: In order to be able to create mine and my partners short video i will need to practise my skills in a programme called Premiere Pro, focusing deeply on cutting, main aspects of editing, uploading the video, extracting bits of the video to work on etc. We will also need to learn how to upload videos to a websit called YouTube. This is where we will store our video.

How it was acheived: I acheived this very well I think, as my partner was off sick one of the days we had to work on it, so I took that oppurtunity to edit most of the video on Premiere Pro myself. I was able to pracise with 'capturing' and cutting the most, and it is with these two aspects of the programme I feel most confident doing. So in my main task, I will be able to do these bits of the video.

Creativity.

Skill target: I believe I am a very creative person when it comes down to things like photography, and drawing, but I've never really had the chance to do any serious recording of videos. So I need to be able to keep an open mind to my partners ideas, because she may have more experience when it comes to this, and i have to accept that I cannot take and use all the knowlodge i have from photography and art. So any ideas i may have, might not work.

How it was achieved: Using my partners idea's and inspiration from the original video itself, we were able to create something which was although not very original, we had definatly thought about what we had done, and created a video which we thought fit in with the song.

Research and Planning.

Skill target: When it came to deadlines last year, i was a bit slacking. So this year i will have to step up my game alot and make sure i get things done as quickly as they should be. I think I did good on the researching, so i should hope to keep it up and improve also. This year as i will be working with video, i will need to plan for video, and research in the video areas, instead of magazines. Therefore i aim to reasearch video and plan accordingly.

How it was achieved: We researched the video 'Tota Eclipse of the Heart' by Bonnie Tyler, and we watched how she performs in the video, and we took little bits of her act and used them in our video.

Post-Production.

Skill target: I need to be able to get the lip-synching of the video right, and I need to be able to make it look as professionally edited as i possibly can get it.

How it was achieved: Me and my partner practised lip synching together a few times, and I watching myself in the mirror to the song a couple of times, to make sure I would stay in time with the song and I could remember the lyrics. And I made sure it was a perfect as I could when i used the editing suite Premier Pro.

Using Convensions from Real Media Texts.

Skill target: Last year, my magazine was meant to be similar to my researcg magazines, and I think i manged that. I feel that this year with my Video production, originality is what will be needed, but yet not loosing the obvious things which will get me a good video, like using different aspects of shooting, and editing, to give the examiner something to mark. For my short video though, to help with the reality of the video and to go with the chosen song, I will need to look up my orginal video, so I can take inspiration from it.


How it was achieved: We didnt make the video original, we took aspects of the main video by Bonnie Tyler to create ours, as theyre was no point trying to make it look in a completely different theme to what the song was, i.e. we couldnt exactly act out partying, when the song is about a heartbroken women.

Lip Syncing Video

Since I focused on print production skills in AS level, I will now try my best to develop my video production skills for A2 level media studies. To help me gain the knowledge for my main task in A2, me and my partner (Lisa Gardiner), are aiming to create a video, in which we experiment with the skill of lip-synching, a editing feature they use in all music videos. We will also be experimenting with various programmes and websites.

Digital Technology.

Skill target: In order to be able to create mine and my partners short video i will need to practise my skills in a programme called Premiere Pro, focusing deeply on cutting, main aspects of editing, uploading the video, extracting bits of the video to work on etc. We will also need to learn how to upload videos to a websit called YouTube. This is where we will store our video.

How this will be acheived: Recording my video with my partner, and then taking it in turns to experiment with premiere pro, and all such websites.


Creativity.

Skill target: I believe I am a very creative person when it comes down to things like photography, and drawing, but I've never really had the chance to do any serious recording of videos. So I need to be able to keep an open mind to my partners ideas, because she may have more experience when it comes to this, and i have to accept that I cannot take and use all the knowlodge i have from photography and art. So any ideas i may have, might not work.

How this will be achieved: Me and my partner will sit down and discuss our video before we shoot it, we will also research into the original video of our song and see what inspiration we can use from that.

Research and Planning.

Skill target: When it came to deadlines last year, i was a bit slacking. So this year i will have to step up my game alot and make sure i get things done as quickly as they should be. I think I did good on the researching, so i should hope to keep it up and improve also. This year as i will be working with video, i will need to plan for video, and research in the video areas, instead of magazines. Therefore i aim to reasearch video and plan accordingly.

How this will be achieved: I will acheive this target by watching videos online, looking at current music videos/adverts on 'Youtube' and gaining the research i need for my video.

Post-Production.

Skill target: I need to be able to get the lip-synching of the video right, and I need to be able to make it look as professionally edited as i possibly can get it.

How this will be achieved: Using premiere pro i will have to gain help from my partner, and learn for myself, so i can put this into practise when i start to produce my main video.

Using Convensions from Real Media Texts.

Skill target: Last year, my magazine was meant to be similar to my researcg magazines, and I think i manged that. I feel that this year with my Video production, originality is what will be needed, but yet not loosing the obvious things which will get me a good video, like using different aspects of shooting, and editing, to give the examiner something to mark. For my short video though, to help with the reality of the video and to go with the chosen song, I will need to look up my orginal video, so I can take inspiration from it.

How this will be achieved: To achieve this i will need to look at the chosen songs video, and sit down with my partner and see what we can and cant reinterpret.