Script used for Evaluation Question 1

this is the script I used in my directors cut video

In this video, I will be discussing in what ways my media product uses, develops or challenges forms and conventions of real media products.

We chose the song “Its Time” by Jamie Mcdell as it fitted into our desired genre of Indie pop. It was also the most popular song choice chosen by our intended target audience of 15-18 white female girls. Our music video was targeted towards being extremely conceptual, so we had to use a variety of different editing techniques to fulfil audience expectations. Our video shows the artist reminiscing about her past lover and how he broke her heart. The video shows her moving on and developing as a person in a deeply conceptual way. Due to this, our video follows the theory of Carol Vernallis as the video seems disjointed due to our editing. 

IN the first shot, we follow Goodwin’s Rule of there being an established link between the visuals and music. This is shown through the guitar intro.

At the start of the video there is a contrast between the light and dark lighting, this is a recurring theme throughout and it links with the concept of binary opposites. We used the different lighting levels to show the artists transition between happiness and sadness as she tries to move on from her heartbreak.

Our main props used is the necklace the artist wears as well as the ribbon shown in some of our greenscreen shots.  This necklace has significant meaning as it triggers flashbacks. This follows typical real-life media conventions as Taylor Swift’s mine uses the same concept. However we also use petals and candles as part our mise en scene which met our audiences expectations that they have of romance and love. 

We used a plethora of different locations, ranging from large open fields to enclosed spaces, 

Due to us using a range of locations, we challenged typical media conventions. Most real-life media products in the indie pop genre use large open spaces with the artist in the centre shot, this is shown in Khalid’s Coaster.

Due to us having lots of using many close ups of our artist This follows Goodwin’s rule of how the record label will demand lots of close ups of the artist.

We used a range of editing techniques in our video, such as colour isolation, green screening, layering and speeding up and reversing lyrics. This challenges typical media conventions as there is not usually this many editing techniques shown in the indie pop genre.  However, this fulfils our audience’s expectations due to our video being in the conceptual. 

We follow Goodwin’s rule of there being an established link between the lyrics and the visuals firstly through the lyrics “you’re my one addiction” during this scene flashbacks of the artist and her boyfriend appear on screen. We do this again when the artist sings “now the silver linings turn a darker grey” during these lyrics, we have a shot of some square boxes emitting silver light go out of focus

We also follow Goodwin’s rule of there being reference to notion of looking due to the artist looking into the mirror frequently 

Again, we followed Goodwin’s rule of there being a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals as in the final shot, a candle is shown being blown out with ties in with the lyrics “burning out tonight” 

Due to our friend and group member sadly passing away, we included multiple tributes throughout our video. Firstly through the use of roses and petals as well as a panning shot of the tribute tree dedicated to Rose.

Our digipack uses conventions of real life media products, for example, Taylor swift’s album Red. Typically, in the indie pop genre, the artists focus on selling their music, not the artist themselves. Also, most album digipacks in this genre follow the same colour scheme throughout, we also followed this real-life convention with ours.

Lastly, for our magazine advert, we also followed real life conventions by not sexualising our artist, keeping the colours neutral and making the artist the centre of attention. We took inspiration from Lana Del Reys magazine advert for her album born to die

Work In Progress - Front Cover for Digipack

 The first draft for our digipack front cover is the top picture, we then decided to play around with the amount of lines of light that we could see on the front,  and after changing the look on our magazine advert I think that the lines would look better if they were slightly thinner in order to emphasise the aspect of the Fine Lines between holding on to something and moving on.
We carried on with the idea of the pink which has the connotations of romance as well as a connotation of being sweet and charming, and it's associated with flowers which represent new life.

Magazine ad - work in progress

This is our first draft of our magazine advert. We were trying to incorporate a gobos lighting effect into our advert, however, we struggled to get this done effectively.


What went well? - The original record label is incorporated nicely into the advert.
                            - The font fits well with the theme of the advert.
                         
Even better if? - The gobos lighting was incorporated better and worked well with the theme.
                        - The black box looks unnatural and doesn't fit the theme as its too harsh.
                        - If the font was perfectly central
                        - If the the whole title was readable. Currently half the title is behind the white background making it impossible to read.
                        - The font type is difficult to read and some letters overlap each other.
                        -  The iTunes label and the record label aren't aligned properly making the advert look unprofessional.

Magazine Ad draft

Work in progress - Digipack

This is the back of our digipack so far. I think that the song names reflect the genre and i also think they link with our concept of change and moving on. I also think that the background reflects the title of the album fine lines with the different uses of lines. To make sure that the colours fit with the colour scheme of blackened white the background will be edited to black and white with the pink possibly being colour isolated to show the breakthrough in realising change is good and for the better. The pink will represent the change.

Discussion of magazine advert

Digipack Title Ideas

These are some of the title ideas that we came up with as a group, we are going to ask some of members of the target audience what they think the title of the album should be and make a final decision regarding the feedback.

Brand identity - Digipack

These questions will help us to gain an understanding of how we want our digipack to be perceived, it will allow us to create a strong brand identity that is represented through all of our ancillary products.


Name of the artist?


The name of the artist will be her real name, Holly Bennett. We think this will help people see that she is real and the things portrayed in the music video and through the album is all real and all her.


Colour decision?


The colour combinations will be silver, grey and a light pink. This is to make reference to both the song lyrics and the name of the album. The colour pink adds a brighter colour and a element of femininity.


An idea on the overall concept - What is the album about? How will we show this?


The album will be about the ability to change and having the ability to move on. The colours we have chosen should help to get this across with the grey turning silver be a reference to this. We also want to include a soft pink to emphasise the femininity of the actress.

How does this link to the audience?
This links to the audience as it allows them to move on and the album will allow the audience to reflect on how they could change like the girl has, the names of the songs in the album will take the audience on a journey and help them to relate to the songs and the album as a whole.

Final idea for the Digipack

This is our final idea for the CD digipack. We have chosen the name fine lines as we feel that this best represents the line between the past and the present and also the line between choosing to move on and be happy and choosing to do nothing to change yourself. We want our album cover to link with the change and the moving on through the intertextualisty and the continued binary opposite theme that is shown in the music video.

Discussion on digipack ideas

Brand identity - Magazine

Name of the artist?
In the magazine advert, Holly's name will be in the form of a signature, this is because we feel having her full name on the magazine advert is unnecessary.


Decision on colours?
The colours of the magazine advert will be black and white, with the different tones and contrast changes to achieve the right black and white look on the image.


An idea on the overall concept - What is the album about? How will we show this?


The advert will be about the ability to change and having the ability to move on. The colours we have chosen should help to get this across with the grey turning silver be a reference to this. We also want to include a soft pink to emphasise the femininity of the actress.

How does this link to the audience?This links to the audience as it allows them to move on and the advert will allow the audience to reflect on how they could change like the girl has, the names of the songs in the album will take the audience on a journey and help them to relate to the songs and the album as a whole.

Word Cloud

After listening to the song again I decided to create a word cloud to see which words reflected the song more to come up with a concept for the Digipack.
I can see that it's about changing, the idea that things change in life but you can't let it bring you down, rather it should help build you up into a better person.

Magazine Advert - Ideas

My idea for the magazine advert was to keep it simple, this is because I wanted to highlight who the artist is rather than have the audience focused on what is going on in the background. This is important because magazine adverts are trying to sell either the artistic qualities of the music or the person itself as someone who the target audience can relate to.

Digipack Planning

After listening to the song again and picking out words that stood out to me, and the other members of my group, we have come to the conclusion that we think that the digipack should represent something that helps people realise that if the artist can move on from something that happened to her in the past then they can too, representing the way love can change you and how love can help you find yourself, we want to incorporate grey, silver and pink into the digipack as well as the rose petals that we used in the music video and the guitar.

Digipack Ideas

I wanted the Digipack to still have a romantic feel to it but with the sense of the album being about reminiscing a lost love, and trying to move on, so an isolated colour red with Holly in the foreground in a black and white style, this is because red was one of the colours that were most dominant in the music video because of the rose petals so I felt like that would help to link the two things together.

Ideas for the digipack

This is my idea for the digipack ideas, I think the ideas would work as they fit the typical codes and conventions for our genre of music and they also fit with the typical codes and conventions of a CD pack. The grey colouring in the CD case, fits with the reference of this colour in the main song that will be on the album. The light pink reflects the purity of the girl and also is a typical code that you would expect to see on a female artists album cover. The title of the album that I have chosen is "silly little things" this is taken and adapted from the repeated line in the song which is "my silly little dream" I think this will work as it reflects both the main song and the overall theme of the album with I hope will come across as things changing for the better and I hope that the album can teach young girls that they can move on with their lives after bad things happen. The front of the case also reflects Levi and Strauss binary opposite theory that I used throughout my music video.

 

Digipack planning - brain dump of ideas

these are my ideas for the didipac, I listened to the song and picked out the key codes and conventions that I thought jumped out to me throughout the song. I also picked out key phrases and colour references that I thought would be good to use as part of the case, including the references to silver and grey. I also liked the idea of using the phrase silly little dream within the title of the album.

Technical Issues

While filming, we could encounter a plethora of technical issues.

Firstly, we could have issues with the cameras themselves. Battery life is always a worrying factor while filming and due to my previous experience while filming, it would be worthwhile to make sure we have a spare battery available to avoid losing any footage or wasting time.

We will also have to make sure the SD card in the camera is constantly free of enough storage allowing us to film in big chunks. Previously, we have run out of storage space while filming without realising, meaning we spent extra time filming scenes however they weren't being saved, meaning we had to reshoot said scenes. Also, due to us using multiple cameras at the same time to get different shots, we will have to be aware of both cameras running out of storage as well as battery space.

We are editing on the iMacs provided to us by the school, the program we're using is called Final Cut Pro. We will have to make sure we back up our work to make sure we don't encounter any problems while editing resulting in us losing our work.

Final Cut Pro is not the most reliable editing software. It is known to crash as well as not save your work. We will have to be aware of this and make sure that we constantly save our work as well as back up our files to negate any chance of this happening to us.

Editing schedule

Timeglider of storyboard