Music Video First Draft

The link below will take you to the music video uploaded on Youtube, however, unfortunately in the process of uploading the video, there were some compression issues that caused the video to become out of time with the music and so the music video is not in time on youtube. However, we have burnt the video to a disc, where it is in time.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SHLZQE_Q8w

Editing Weekend

This weekend, I have been given the MAC to take home with me so that I can get on with all the editing that there is left to do. With the quickening tempo, the scenes i have been including have been getting more violent. I felt this change in music would create emphasis on the drama of the scenes and increase the impact. I felt it would really build up the severity of the actions being portrayed in the clips of abuse.

Splitting the clips at the exact right moment to ensure that the lip synching is perfect is proving to be the most time consuming thing as it is a lengthy process that relies on trial and error until you get it completely right. It is a very important aspect of the video as if the timing is out, the credibility of the video is diminished and it becomes hard to take the whole video seriously as it makes it look amateur and unprofessional. Therefore I have made sure that I have spent a lot of time getting this right over the weekend of editing. It is also important that I have been arranging the clips in order to keep everything consistent and in time. If I go back over a clip, this will rearrange the rest of the clips that follow and they will then be out of sync.

I have been continuing to dim the lighting on the abusive husband scenes to establish the difference in mood and create the impact and tension that I hope to create. I have also now reached the flash back scene which I have edited and am very pleased with the outcome. I have compiled a number of clips of Eddie and Bethany arguing or fighting and have then including the "flash" effect so that each clip has a flash between. It is very dramatic and I feel looks very effective.

Something else which I have edited today is the scene where we see Eddie have a breakdown. Within this breakdown Eddie shakes his bottle, to spill the contents over the floor. I noticed when listening to the song that there is a part in the song where there is around 5 or 6 drum instrumental bangs. I decided to put his "bottle shake" clip with the drum sounds as every shake of the bottle has a dramatic beat behind it and I think it goes together perfectly. It is something that I really like about the video, and although it is only subtle and would probably go unnoticed by most viewers, I feel it is really effective and is my favorite part of the entire video. This part comes at 2 minutes 50 seconds into the video.

Today I managed to complete the editing for all of the video. We will now share this with our class and get their feedback. In a few months we will come back to our video and review some possible changes that we can make.

Editing Day 2

Carrying on with editing and implementing the same transitions and effects. Still continuing to try out all the different clips in order to find the best one.
However while editing I have faced some problems. A lot of our footage is fight scenes and I am finding it a little difficult to find a time that these dramatic scenes will fit in with the music. Because they create such an impact and the song is relatively mild tempered with a soft tempo right up until the end. I have used slow motion so the the clips will still create that impact but will be a little slower and will therefore go with the slower music a little better.

The fight scenes also need to be included in the flashback that takes place and so I am ensuring that I make a copy of each clip I use as I will need to use it once more.

Planning the flashback, we have decided that we will use around 5 or 6 very short clips of him abusing her and add the "flash" effect to it so that there are multiple flashes inbetween the clips. It dramatises the flashback and makes it more shocking. With every flash the abuse gets worse and it really drums this in to the viewer and makes it seem more real.

I haven't got to editing the flashback just yet however, I have edited to the end of the second verse. The tempo is beginning to pick up and so I think that I will begin using more of the fight scenes to fit this tempo increase.

Editing Day 1

Today I began editing the music video. We viewed all of the clips that we filmed the other day and they seem adequate. The group and myself are very happy with the way they have turned out. I began ordering the clips based on the storyboard I had created. When I was ordering the clips, I was conscious of making sure that the clip went in time with the music so that changes flowed nicely. That was something that I ensured I spent a lot of time getting right. Often, when placing the clips n the correct order I found that I had to change my original storyboard in order to keep the video playing consistently and on time. Therefore, my storyboard isn't completely accurate.

I began to try different clips out because we had a wide variety to choose from. Especially the clips of me, we filmed the song all the way through in three different areas so that we could have a varied assortment of clips. I was testing out each clip to see which one looked best and what went with the words better. This took a long time but it was worth it to see the video coming together and looking so well put together.

I edited the first verse ensuring that everything was in time with the music which was the main issue. I wanted the lip syncing to be perfectly in time with the music as this reflects professionalism and shows that we have taken our time to prove the credibility of the video. Correct and in time lip syncing will make the video more feasible to viewers.

Once I had edited the first verse, I then went back over it to see if there were any improvements I could make and also to add transitions and effects. Like I mentioned beforehand, I wanted to dim the lighting for the "abusive husband" scenes by lowering the saturation and I also wanted to add in the "fade in" transition so the clip always starts off in darkness. I thought this was an excellent way of establishing the mood and when I implemented these ideas, the group felt it looked really effective as it contrasted from the bright scenery in my clips which made it clear how different the two lifestyles were. I was freely out in the open on a very large field in brightness, and another poor woman was trapped indoors in darkness. It made the scenes feel claustrophobic which was what we were going for.

I then added the wash in transition to the scenes with Kelly (me) so that all of my clips started in lightness. It really created a dramatic contrast and we all agreed that this looked really good.

Myself and the team have been working really well together and have been listening to each others ideas. I woulod consider myself a good editor and so I like to take on the leading role n this however, the rest of the group do have their go also with the editing. When editing we are always looking for improvement and so gladly take on each others ideas.

This was as far as I was able to get during this lesson.

Above, are some images of myself editing during this lesson. We are using an Apple MAC. The software we are using is iMovieHD.

My Editing Ideas

Today we began editing our video. First, we needed to upload all of our clips and analyse which we felt we would use and would not. Previous to this lesson, I had been considering some different ideas that I felt would make the video more effective.

My ideas for editing:
For the dramatic and abusive husband scenes I want to slightly lower the saturation. I feel that this will create a subtle impact that will reflect the glumness and depressive state that they live in. A darker setting will reflect a darker mood and this could be taken from both points of view. Eddie has a "dark and evil mood and this could be one reason for lowering the saturation and Bethany is emotional and depressed and this could be another reason for lowering the saturation. Together, neither are happy or joyful and so a low saturation will darken the outlook of the scenes and will show reflect thier moods.

I then began considering transitions. I wanted the transitions to be subtle and so I began experimenting during our previous practice music video. I found that the "wash in", "wash out", "fade in" and "fade out" transitions were the most subtle and also allowed the scenes to flow evenly along. Therefore I began thinking of ways that I could use these to further reflect the feel of all the scenes. I decided that for the scenes with myself (as Kelly Clarkson) a "wash in" transition should be used. A wash in transition begins white and quickly fades to reveal the clip. It adds some light to the video but is very subtle and goes unnoticed. I felt this transition should be kept consistent throughout all of the scenes with myself as Kelly. To differentiate these scenes with the abusive husband scenes I needed to change the transition in to them. I decided to use a "fade in" transition. A fade in transition goes from black and also quickly fades to reveal the clip. The black and white contrast of both transitions will differ the two different clips and this will create an excellent contrast. It will really dramatise the abusive husband scenes and make them appear much darker and prominently dull in comparison to the Kelly Clarkson scenes.
I feel that this will help to establish the emotional vulnerability of Bethany's character.
Another editing trick I considered was using the "slow motion" effect. I feel as though this dramatises any fight scene as it really allows the viewer to see the raw emotion of fear or anger on the characters face. Putting a clip into slow motion can often change the entire feel of it. It can make a clip seem eerey as you can really feel as though you are able to understand their emotions.

After telling the group my ideas, they seemed happy to proceed with them and so you will find these ideas used in our final peice. I feel that my contribution here will improve the final outcome and will help to create an impact on the viewer.

Health and Safety Issues

Fire Safety-
In one clip, we have filmed Eddie going through a breakdown in whcih he contemplates setting the house alight. In this scene he lights a match. To ensure our safety, we had water buckets and blankets on the side, that that if the match was dropped or there were any other complications, these could be dealt with immediately. It assured the safety of us and the actors we were using. Previous to filming this scene, we had already considered the safety aspect of this and discussed safe ways that we could do it without endangering ourselves. We felt that we were prepared for any possible accidents, and these could be quickly resolved with the contigency plans we had in place.

Fight Scenes
Other scenes that may cause concern in terms of health and safety would be the multiple fight scenes that we have filmed. However, as our actors are well experienced, they are able to carry out these fight scenes without any physical contact and make it look real. It also took some clever camerawork with contrived angles to make these scenes look realistic. Nobody was harmed in the filming of these scenes.

Photos and Videos from Filming

The first image is our new actor who replaced Louise.

The second image was taken during a fight scene. In it you can see Eddie making physical contact with Bethany, however the scene this was taken from was reshot as Eddies body blocked a lot of the action taking place. We decided that Eddie strike her from a different angle so that it could be picked up by the camera much better and this way we could see the full extent of the fight.

The third image was taken from a low angle after Eddie has just push Bethany to the floor. The image reflects Eddies power and authority, and compliments his villian status.

This video shows the reshoot of the fight scene. Here you can see Eddie striking Bethany from a different angle which allows the camera to capture all the action.

We shot many scenes similar to this where Bethany is being physically abused by her boyfriend.

Filming and Justifications of Choices

Today we went back to our first location where we had previously shot scenes with Louise and Eddie. This time we were back with Eddie but we had bought Bethany along to replace Louise. Filming went ahead really well and we managed to gather a lot of different scenes that we will be able to use. In our video we will be including a flashback which will be many different short clips all played out with a quick flash of light between each. For this to be effective we will need a lot of very short clips that will fill a substancial amount of time. Therefore we took to the understanding that we would need as much footage as possible so that we could gather together the best clips for our music video. We spent around 2 and a half hours filming and managed to get a large variet of different fight scenes.

We got the initial set up filmed so that we could establish the setting and lifestyle that the two characters live. We wanted to film these scenes from Bethany’s point of view as we felt this would reflect her vulnerability and we wanted the viewers to be sympathetic with her story. We showed Bethany’s story by showing her home life to begin with. We did not show Eddies work life and did not shoot many scenes of Eddie on his own as we did not want viewers to fully understand this character. By doing this Eddie became an enigmatic character and people would then associate him with a stereotypical abusive boyfriend.

On the day of filming we managed to an evolving argument that begins at the dinner table when Eddie is unsatisfied with his dinner. He throws it on the floor and begins to shout in her face. While filming these scenes I began to think ahead to how I would edit this to make it even more dramatic. I considered implementing a slow motion effect on these fight scenes. I felt that this would really show the anger that was being portrayed by Eddies character. The fight scenes were very violent. We had Eddie slapping Bethany and knocking her to the ground, we also had him pulling her hair and once again knocking her onto the floor, we felt that this action showed Eddies authority over her. He was always pictured above her and this suggests superiority. Even during his apology scenes, Eddie is looking down at Bethany and once again stating his authority. I would like to mention here that no one was injured during the filming of our video. We used clever camera work and good acting to produce scenes that appeared to be more physical than they were.

We then shot Eddies breakdown scenes where he feels some remorse for his actions. He is aware that he has taken things too far and contemplates ending it all when he lights a match. He is drinking alcohol heavily which suggests that he is an alcoholic. We also shot Eddie with a drink at the dinner table to create some consistency in his alcoholism. We shot this scene from the same angle so that viewers would focus on the content of the scene rather than the angles changing. This way, we were able to capture this scene from the same viewpoint and this intensified the footage as you became drawn in to the scene.

After this we began filming Bethany’s breakdown, where we see her looking dolorous and depressed. She is crying. To show this on camera as often tears go unseen through the camera lens, we smudged black makeup over her face and then dabbed this with water to create the effect that her makeup had run due to excessive tears. This scene linked in with Eddies apology so we took it from a high angle that looked down on Bethany to keep consistency in the camera angles.

Camera angles-
We shot a low angle shot of Eddie that looked up at him to reflect his power and authority over Bethany. We shot close ups of both of their faces as this was important if we were to fully show their true emotions. We needed these close ups to show the dramatic contrast of fear and anger between the two characters.

Props-
Alcohol (Red Wine) Eddie is supposed to be an alcoholic and so we wanted to choose an alcoholic drink that is stereotypical of this. Initially when we shot the scenes with Louise, we used Smirnoff Ice (an Alco pop) We soon realised that this would not be acceptable and would appear comical that a grown man known to be an excessive drinker would be drinking Smirnoff Ice, a low alcohol drink associated with underage teenage drinkers. We decided red wine is a strong and powerful drink that suggests more about his addiction than a can of beer would, as stereotypically many men enjoy a can of beer. Eddie is seen throughout the filming (specifically the fight scenes) with his bottle of alcohol. It puts the idea at mind that he can't let go of it. During Eddies anger and violent behaviour, he always has his bottle at his side and some might suggest that it is to blame for his violent ways.
Eddies suit was also something we took into consideration. We wanted him to be wearing something that someone in a high up position at work would wear. We felt a suit suggested power and authority at work and also pressure. The suit reflected his work position and his stressful job that causes him to drink and to become violent. So to speak "he takes his frustrations from work out on his wife" The suit was the only way we could reflect this as we did not want to film any shots of Eddie at work as this would take the attention away from Bethany’s vulnerability and people may begin to sympathise with Eddies character which was not what we wanted at all.

Filming Day 2

Today we came to my house to film my scenes. This day was much more successful. It was just the three group members present, and I played the character of Kelly. We shot scenes on the common very near by to my house and in my garden. We also shot some filler clips. These were clips of me looking into the camera looking sad and clips of me walking towards the camera. These clips will be used to fill the instrumental parts of the song where Kelly does not sing. We did not gather all of the essential filming, and therefore we will need to come back another day to do this.

After looking back over the footage we shot on this day, I found that a lot of what we did took place outside and therefore we need to do some more filming in doors.

This day was much more successful than the previous. I am happy with the progress we are making.

Filming Day 1

Today myself, my group and the actors got together to film the abusive boyfriend scenes. We only had two hours to get to Kerstins house; the location for filming and to film and get back to school, which left us with very little time. Our ideas were put accross to the actors who played the part. On the day everything was very rushed and the realisation that the task was not as simple as we'd anticipated soon dawned on all of us in the group.

The images below were taken on the day:


This is an image taken from the shooting of the dinner scene where we see the arguement erupt between the pair.

This is the result of the arguement. Louises character ends up on the floor after being pushed. As you can see in this image, Louise is laughing. This was not part of the script, and was one of the contributing factors to why much of the filming was useless.

This is Eddie during his breakdown, this is where we see him feeling the guilt for his recent actions against his girlfriend. Eddie turns to drink.

This is where we see Louises character become very emotional. In this image I was applying the make up. I used a lot of black eye make up and then smudged this with water to make it look as though she has been crying.

This is the end result of the make up.

After watching back over the footage, as I mentioned before, much of it was useless. The main actor (Louise) seemed very evasive and unbothered by her role and this was shown in her performance. It lacked passion and she often giggled through scenes, which for the part she is playing as an abused girlfriend, is unsatisfactory.

After recent deliberations with the group, we have decided to re-shoot these scenes with a different actress playing Louises part. We will now be using Bethany for this part. She is someone who has taken acting lessons for a very long time and we have confidence that she will take the role much more seriously.

Actors

This post will explain the actors who will be used in our music video.


I have already explained that there will be a separate storyline which portrays the life of an abused girlfriend and then kelly singing in other locations.


The characters will be; the abusive boyfriend, the abbused girlfriend and Kelly. We wanted to keep the actors to a minimum as we wanted viewers to focus on the story. We also felt this would reflect the chlostrophobic lifestyle that Louises character leads, as though there was no escape.

This is the character who plays the abusive boyfriend. He has a lot of acting experience, and in the past has taken on many roles for our varous other media products.


This is the character who plays the abused girlfriend. She also has some acting experience and played Britney Spears in our practice music video where she did a very good job. She is a very petite girl and we felt this would suit her character as a vulnerable scared woman.

This is me. I am playing the main character as Kelly Clarkson. We thought that I fitted the look of a "pop/rock" singer. We also thought that if someone from the group played this part it would be more convenient as I am always available during media lessons.

Costume Choices

These are some outfit choices I have pulled together after the recent discussion I had with Natasha. I ensured that each outfit had at least one dark item of clothing to go with it to keep the rock theme consistent. I have also included the boots and denim shorts look that Pixie Lott wore as myself and Natasha both agreed this was a good look.

For Louises character (the abused girlfriend) we wanted her to be wearing all black. This dark colouring would reflect her state of depression.

For Eddie's character we wanted him to be wearing a suit. He is supposed to be someone who has a good job that causes him stress and this could be why he turns to drink and abuses his grilfriend. We thought the suit would suggest he demands authority in his job.

This was the costume we decided to go with in the end, The boots and shorts still in place however we changed to this top as we felt this baggy crop top look was very much in fashion at the moment.

Planning- Representing Genre Through the Artist (Establishing "the look")

Today during our double Media lesson, we looked in close detail at how we would represent the genre through the artist. Unfortunately Kerstin was absent for these lessons so it was just myself and Natasha present. We needed to strongly consider the costume choices for the character playing Kelly (myself). First we needed to establish the genre of Kelly and we settled on "pop/rock" genre. We felt that Kelly closely links the boundaries of both and we would need to represent this in the way she dresses.

Using the internet, we researched previous music videos by Kelly as well as multiple images in order to gain a better understanding of her representation in music.

We noted many common features that we recognised;

In this image, the colour scheme leans toward her rock reputation, however the overall look of the image conflicts with this statement. The blonde hair and pretty face links closer to her pop side. This is very typical of Kelly as she often combines the two genres together well to create a clever mix. The heavy eye makeup is something that caught my eye. It comes across very dramatic and is a key feature for creating the pop/rock look.



Once again we see the dramatic eye makeup, still consistently very dark. Something interesting to note about both of these images is Kelly's posture and facial expression. This goes beyond the external costume and make up choices. She appears to have attitude in both images. Her posture recalls that of someone considered to be feisty and extrovert. This, I believe is Kelly contradicting her pop image in order to be taken seriously as an artist. This is something we will definitely need to consider when creating the music video as well as the digipak and advert. This type of artist does not reflect the cheesy side of the pop genre. Another recurring feature is the dark clothing, we see here again a dark colour scheme implemented in order to reflect the rock side to this artist.



This image definitely reflects the rock side to Kelly and shows little trace of any pop influence. This image reminds me of something that could have been created for My Chemical Romance (a very rock oriented band.) It is very dark and very dramatic and it is very rock because of this. Once again we see dark clothing and a very mournful look has been created here. It is not a happy image which can be said for all three of the images I have spoken of.


We then discussed a look that we felt we could create for myself as the character of Kelly. We researched some more current artists who we felt fitted this same genre.

This is an image of Pixie Lott. We felt that she was a current artist who also fitted the look of a rock and pop artist. We analysed many of her outift choices and felt that we should style myself around this image. One thing that we liked was the boots and denim shorts. Being creative, I feel I am able to find outfits at my home that could create a similar look to this. However I will need multiple outfits throughout the music video which each express this genre.

Locations

During todays lesson we went out and took pictures of some possible locations that we could film at. We thought this would give us a good idea of what these locations would like on camera.

The acting scenes will take place at Kerstins house:


This house was chosen as Eddies character is supposed to have a good job which causes him a lot of stress. This will be portrayed when Eddie comes home from work dressed very smart in a suit. The house looks very presentable and as though it is in a nice area. This is why this house was chosen.







These images were taken in my garden. We wanted a nice greenery area and I proposed that we could film in my garden. I suggested that we could possibly film on the decking with the willow tree in the camera shot as this could create a pretty scene.

Utilising IT Resources

The conversation shown above is taken from Natashs's facebook page. As each of my group members has their own Facebook, we have been using this social networking site to communicate ideas and specify arrangements.

Audience Profile for "Because of You" Music Video

Age:
I would assume that the targeted age group for this music video would be 14-25 year olds. This is quite a wide range, however I feel that pop music is a well established institution and is therefore enjoyed by many. The video will have to cater to the entirety of this age group. For the older generation of the market, we will include "dark" scenes. These will be the abusive boyfriend scenes. The story which is played out through these scenes will shock this age group and captivate them. For the younger generation will be the numerous clips of the artists, as we would assume that is their main interest. Pop artists are idolised by many adoring young fans and we will have to ensure that the video issues enough clips of the artist to capture their interest and keep their attention.

Gender:
I think for this song and video, targeting females will be our focal point. The video will be shocking as we create the story of a young girls struggle to defeat her boyfriend, we hope to win the hearts of the viewer and allow them to sympathise with the character. Stereotypically, we would associate this emotion with females, and as the troubled character is female this emotion intensifies. I do think that males would listen to and enjoy this song, however the ratio of male viewers would be much smaller.

Income:
Income would be irrelevant as many of the viewers would still be in education. However those that do work, would be 9-5, Monday - Friday workers so that they have the time to spend watching music videos.

Interests:
Obviously the audience for this song would be pop music enthusiasts. Some other artists which they may be interested in would be Britney Spears or Katy Perry. Big name artists who are well known on a worldwide basis. They would own an ipod and have around 20 songs from these artists I have mentioned. They would watch films such as "Love Actually" and other Romantic Comedies. Hollywood gossip would be important to them and they may read magazines which feature a lot about "celebrity scandal". All in all, celebrities are their idols.

Discussing the Possibilities

Myself and Kerstin used Facebook to discuss possible camera shots that we could use to incorporate the piano. Our discussion is shown below;

The links that Kerstin was sending me are as follows;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM-FjQxA-fE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjlvNsyPapE&feature=related

My Own Ideas for the Music Video

Over the weekend I have been looking for inspiration for clips that we include in our music video. As a group we already mentioned that we would film a young girls struggle when dealing with her abusive boyfriend and Kerstin D'silva mentioned that we could film a scene where we see the boyfriend having a breakdown and showing him as an alcoholic/drug addict, however we needed some more ideas to be able to represent this story. I took it upon myself to do some outside research and began thinking about videos which have taken a similar path.
I found the video for "Love the way you lie" by Eminem and Rihanna, and felt that the "fight scene" from this video was very effective and that we could film something similar.
The link below will take you to this video;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uelHwf8o7_U&ob=nb_av2e

This sparked many more ideas and in my mind I began to create story with a beginning - to introduce/establish the story, a middle - to create impact on the viewer and catch their attention and an ending - to conclude the video and finalize the story.

My ideas are as follows;
Kelly looks into the camera (this will introduce the viewer to the artist.)
A clip of girlfriend on the bed and she hears that her boyfriend is home, she goes to look out of the window to check its him and she looks worried. (This should intrigue the viewer and when clip is cut back to Kelly singing, should leave them questioning why she is looking worried)
Back to a clip of Kelly singing (As this is a pop song, featuring the artist on multiple occasions is key, as this is what the younger viewer wants to see.)
Back to a clip of girlfriend pacing around her room looking anxious.
Clip of Kelly singing.
Back to girlfriend, and her boyfriend has come in and started an argument. This turn in to a fight where he becomes violent. I thought that maybe he could smash a glass or vase. (I thought that for this a slow motion effect would be really effective to show their emotions of fear in the girlfriend and anger in the boyfriend. Close up shots could also be done to show this.)
Kelly singing.
Clip of girlfriend crying on the floor with make up all over her face, looking very distressed. (Possible blood or injuries caused from the fight.)
Clip of boyfriend having a breakdown drinking alcohol, looks remorseful and so turns to drink.
Kelly singing.
Boyfriend apologizes to girlfriend, to which she reluctantly accepts. He hugs her and we see the girlfriend have a flash back to the fight they had earlier. This would be shot in a way that when the girlfriend is hugging her boyfriend we film a close up of her face/eye and use a "warp out effect" on iMovie HD which would follow on a clip of the fight that happened earlier. I thought something that would create a really good impact was if the broken glass/vase clip from the fight was shown in reverse so that we see the pieces come back together. It would be a subtle way of reflecting their relationship, that on the surface the pieces have been put back together, however we all know that this is a vicious circle and things this severe cannot be mended.
Kelly singing.
Clip of girlfriend leaving the house with her suitcase (I thought that the video needed an ending and so I came up with the idea of the girlfriend coming to the realization that things will not change and she must leave. It shows an act of bravery and concludes the video with a happy ending.
Final clip will be Kelly singing the final lyric "because of you" and then walking off or staring in to the camera.

The ideas that I have just written up are still very rough and I have not yet discussed them with my group, this is just my idea of how I think the video should take format and therefore, it is subject to change.

I am very keen on the success of this video, and therefore I am spending a lot of time researching and planning new ideas for scenes or effects. I am constantly looking for inspiration to spark an array of new ideas.

Planning and Research for Music Video

Today we had a double lesson which we spent researching and planning our music video. During this lesson, Natasha Breen was not present, so myself and Kerstin D'Silva took it upon ourselves to begin sharing our ideas and planning how we hope to produce the video.
The music video we will be creating is to a song by Kelly Clarkson called Because of you. This narrative song, needs a video which is as dramatic and effective as the lyrics and so we felt we would need to portray a story which would impact viewers with its raw honesty.
An idea that we liked was showing the struggle a young girl is going through dealing with an abusive boyfriend. The song is about Kelly reflecting on a past relationship that changed who she was and has left her feeling broken and insecure. We felt that the "abusive boyfriend" story would go hand in hand at reflecting the message of the song.

I thought it would be effective if the character who plays Kelly in the video, was not the person who acts out the story in the video. We thought we would have one character miming the lyrics in one place and completely separate settings and actors for the "abusive boyfriend" scenes. I felt that for our audience this would be appropriate as this song would be aimed at younger people, they would not want to see there favourite artist in a distressing condition. This is also something which is becoming very popular in recent videos as the following link will show you how Daniel Powter used this idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH476CxJxfg&ob=nb_av2e
Someone else, more recently who has used this idea are The Script in their new video "for the first time" the following link will take you to this video via youtube;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtCpC8jE_Cs&ob=nb_av2e

Previously, when we filmed our practice music video, we had many restrictions due to our chosen actors. It was very hard to find a time for filming that everybody was available and we therefore did not manage to get some filming shot, that we would have done otherwise. This time we felt it would be more efficient if one of the group members was to take on the lead role as "Kelly". I have put myself forward for this as I feel I will suit the "pop" image that we are looking for.

The other actors that we need are those who will play out the "abusive boyfriend" scenes.
So far I am under the impression that we will only need to other actors,this we will include the boyfriend and the girlfriend. I have arranged that Louise will be the character who will play the girlfriend. This is because she has previous acting experience and also she performed extremely well in our practice music video where she played Britney Spears. Currently, we are unsure of who will play the boyfriend in our video.

A2 Coursework Final Piece

We came back from our half term holidays and began the planning of our final coursework piece. As we have had more experience in the planning and production of music videos, we immediately chose this option. We then spent a short while brain storming some ideas for songs, actors, genres and story lines. We wanted to find a narrative song that we could capture a story from using the world of film.

My group consists of myself, Kerstin D'Silva and Natasha Breen. During this double lesson, Natasha Breen was absent for the most part and was therefore unable to contribute to alot of our ideas.






Above is the planning sheet we used to brain storm our ideas. I wrote in pink and Kerstin wrote on blue. We did this so that we would be able to present our own ideas individually rather than as a group.

Me and Kerstin (my group member) both have very different taste in music and we therefore had conflicting ideas about the music choice we faced. Kerstin would have preferred to do a rock song as this is the type of music she likes and feels she could portray well in her own music video, and I felt the same about pop music. Therefore we needed to begin searching for songs which loosely covered both genres, a song that could lie somewhere in between the boundaries of these two genres.

The songs we discussed were the following:

• Because of you - Kelly Clarkson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3D8J1rjGLg&ob=av2n

This song is more of a ballad, however as an artist Kelly Clarkson is known for her ability to mix pop and rock together in many of her songs. We felt that this song would be comparable to both genres and an equal compromise from both of us. We also both knew this song and felt we were able to contribute ideas to this dramatic and narrative song. Kelly Clarkson's "rock" reputation would allow us to portray this genre in the music video. We felt we could create a video from this song which would impact its viewers by creating dramatic scenes to go with the lyrics.

• Behind These Hazel Eyes - Kelly Clarkson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svxP2LjBg_4&NR=1

This song was less narrative but the video was inspirational. Once we had watched the video we felt that our abilities and resources were not able to live up to our expectations of the video we would hope to create. We both liked this song however we felt that the video would be too complicated to create. It also restricts our actor recruitment as we would need to find someone with hazel eyes.

• When You're Gone - Avril Lavigne

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R95CkWaLNo&ob=nb_av2e

This song was an idea I had come up with. I really liked this song and thought we could have created a very good video in the same style that Avril does, using multiple different situations or story lines that all have the same meaning. In the video you see a wife missing her husband who is out at war, you also see a husband missing his wife who has passed on. I felt we could have created something similar to this and could have used many ideas to fill the song. However, Kerstin was not as keen on this idea as I was as she was not a fan of Avril Lavigne as an artist. The song is very narrative and I felt that the emotion of the song could have been reflected through a well produced video.

By the end of the lesson we decided to go with Kelly Clarkson - Because of You video as this was one we both had ideas for and also both liked. Natasha came in toward the end of the lesson and also gave her verdict on the song, she seemed pleased with our choice and gave her ideas as to how we should present the video.

Representation in Music

Representation in music is how the media shows us things about society. This is through careful mediation; hence re-presentation. For representation to be meaningful there needs to be shared recognition of people, situations and ideas.

Ideology refers to a set of ideas which produces a partial and selective view of reality. They help to enforce widely held ideas or beliefs and eventually become seen as 'common sense'. This opinion was given to us from Tim O'Sullivan.

The Media's Role:
• Circulating and reinforcing dominant ideologies.
• Undermining and challenging ideologies(though this is less frequent)

Representation in Music Videos:
Representation in music videos actually provide identities or an ideology basis for fans.
Michael Maffesoli identified the idea of the "urban tribe" in 1985. This is where members of a small group tend to have similar dress styles and views and behaviors (also known as stereotypes) which leads to the decline of individualism.

However in a controversial twist, David Gauntl ett argues that "identity is complicated", stating that everybody thinks they have one. For instance, artist play with the idea of identity in modern society. Glee, an American TV sitcom based in a high school setting is something which uses identity frequently to establish the hierarchical structure within the school. This is done within the first episode where it becomes apparent very soon that the Glee club are considered to be t the bottom of this hierarchy.

Exploring Blogger

To make my Blog more appealing and presentable to my followers, I have changed the background image.
During my exploration of what Blogger has to offer, I stumbled accross some gadgets which I could add to my Blog. I felt that an internal search bar would be useful so that people can quickly find a specific post should they wish to.

Facing Problems with Blogging

My blog is having some problems showing the "Ancillary Music Video Planning and Preparation" post which was posted on 4th October. However the link for this post appears to be on the right hand side of the page, where all posts are listed in order of date. If the post is not showing up on my blog, use this link and the post should appear.

Practice Music Video- Completed Music Video

The following link will take you to my completed music video for "Sometimes" by Britney Spears, which I created by taking an active roll in the planning, filming, and editing of the entire production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbZouAjC3GY

Practice Music Video- Editing Part 2

After gathering the extra film which we filmed during our double lesson last Monday, we then began editing what we had, and reordering it to go in time with the lyrics. Matching the lip syncing to the song in the background, for me as the main editor has been the hardest task, as this takes a lot of concerntration and a few goes before a complete match can be achieved.

There was an instrumental section in this song which I used a compilation of shots of Louise walking toward or looking into the camera as well as Louise staring out into space "deep in thought" to fill this time. Some of these shots were not filmed for this purpose, for instance, during the interlude of music there is a clip of Louise sitting in the tree looking out into space. this shot, originally was filmed while Louise waited to sing her verse, it was very short, so I slowed it down using Video FX to create a clip long enough to fill a few seconds of film. I thought this was very effective and was followed with clips similar to it in different locations. It gave the video some diversification, and definitely made the video more interesting. To see an artist in the same location for even 10 seconds, which in reality does not seem like a long period of time, in the world of music video's this is and this makes the video tedious and seem dragged out. I wanted many clips so that the interest of the viewer was ongoing, and the change of scenery or camera angle achieved this.

Antoher thing that I tried to acheive during my editing, was exchanging the clips in time with the beat of the music. This was so that the music and video clips flowed well together, almost to the point where you do not notice any sudden changes and the clips roll into eachother to create subtlety in the clip changes. This was something I had noticed when analysing other pop music videos during my planning and preparation stages. It is very subtle and almost unnoticable unless it is done wrong, and then it becomes obvious that soemthing does not look right.

I also added transitions in between clips to create some fluency. I consistently used the "wash in" transition. It was subtle and so the focus was not pulled away from the content of the video it just assisted the clip changes in rolling into one and other.

The editing went ahead very well, however, during one editing session, I did not save what I had done and the Apple Mac crashed. Unfortunately all work was lost and I used my own time to catch up again. This was very disheartening, but is almost an inevitability when working with IT and computers, something often goes wrong as it is not an entirely dependable source. However, I managed to catch up well as I now knew exactly what needed to be done and so this time round the process was not as long. One of my team members; Natasha was not present for much of the editing stages due to illness and other commitments and so I took it upon myself to do all of the editing for this video. I fel it was a great way of practicing and developing my skills for my final task. I have learnt a lot and will take this knowledge of iMovie HD along with me in my final peice.

Practice Music Video- Filming Part 2

After coming to the realisation that we did not have sufficient amount of film to fill the entire song, we decided to go back out and do some more filming. We used our double media lesson and ran through break getting everything finished, however I now feel that we have enough film to carry us through.

We had planned much of what we hoped to film, however ideas were changed on the day and developed to suit the restraints we incurred. This was apparent when we needed to shoot the "date scene" it would be a short clip used as a flash back in the final video of Britney Spears on a date which is going wrong. We all assumed that this scene would be filmed in the cafe to create the impression that they were in a restaurant. However, in reality this setting did not live up to our expectations and so we moved on to a bench outside where we see this scene play out in a similar form. I actually preferred this outcome as the clip was much more lucid than the "date scene" we had originally planned.

We then went on to film some more flashbacks as well as the "filler clips" I spoke of before. These are clips where Britney will look into the camera etc, and these can be used to fill any gaps we may have.

We then needed to find three different settings to film the final chorus. This is the mian part of the song so we wanted to go somewhere that would reflect this. As it was a nice, sunny day we decided to go over to Netteswell Pond and film here. This turned out to be a great success and the three separate locations all worked out well.

In conclusion the day of filming was very productive and I feel we have finally finished filming for the video now. In my next lesson I hope to continue with editing the video so that we can complete this task adequately.

Urban Tribe Analysis

In groups we were set the task of analysing a chosen urban tribe and evaluating how music influences their style and behaviour. We chose the "indie" tribe and created a PowerPoint which explained who they were, what they wore and what artists influenced them.

Media Language

Today in class, we spoke all about media language. As an A2 Media Studies student, and someone who has been studying Media for the past four years, this is something I have been taught about many times and have referred to when creating my media projects, however it always good to go over crucial media aspects to keep them fresh in your mind.
Media Language constitutes the following categories;
- Mise en Scene
- Camerawork
- Editing
- Sound

Mise en Scene
Mise en scene constitutes the key aspect of the pre-production phase of film & can include production and design and cinematography. Mise en Scene creates a diagetic world (the fictional world where the story takes place)
Mise en Scene is the location, character, cinematography and layout/design.

Camerawork
-shot types
-composition
-Movements
-Angles

Editing
Editing is the post production phase. It is where filming is cut up and jumbled around to be put in the suitable order. Film is often not shot in chronological, but in a series of shots which are assembled during editing.
There are two types of editing;
-Continuity
e.g. established shot, 180 degree line rule, cut away, action match, shot reverse shot and eye line match. All of these editing and filming techniques are implemented to improve the fluency of the camera shots. For example; Television producers hire staff whose jobs are to check the continuity of the filming. This job entails things such like, checking the placement of actors clothing, making sure the time on the clock runs fluently etc.
-Non-continuity
This includes things such like montage sequences and flash backs.

Sound
-Diagetic
Located within that story world (dialogue, sound effects, music)
-Non-diagetic
Sounds which do not have an explained source within the story world (incidental music, voice-over, non diagetic sound effects)

Practice Music Video- Creating a Digipak and Magazine Advert

For the second part of this assignment we were given an ancillary task , we have been set the task of creating a digipak and an small magazine advert which should fill around one eighth of an A4 page for Britney Spears’ album. We are doing it for Britney Spears as we are creating a music video for a Britney Spears song ‘Sometimes’. To do this, I am using Photoshop Elements.

I began by creating the digipak. I decided I needed to set a colour scheme, and after trying out a few girly pinks and purples I settled on a bright peach colour, which I felt was both right for the target market as well as attractive to the eye. This was used for my background colours for the most part. I then needed to decide on a colour for the writing. After trying out black and other pinks, I then landed on white, which lightened up the CD cover and tied in with its girly theme. I felt this could be a little too simplistic and so began searching through the many tools of Photoshop to find something which would liven it up a bit. I then remembered the ‘gradient tool’ which was something I had used many times when creating my music magazine. Choosing the colour white and the gradient tool I started to experiment. I drew diamond shapes using this tool and used these to make the cover more interesting. After reflecting back on my work I noticed that the diamond shapes I had drawn slightly resembled the look of a spotlight hitting the CD and I really liked this look and so was pleased with the outcome.

I now needed to add images to the digipak. I looked through the images we took on our first day of filming and noticed that Louise, who plays Britney, is not smiling in any of them. This is something I feel does not match the expectation of the target audience. It also does not tie in well with the genre ‘pop’. We would expect the artist to be laughing or smiling and looking happy and this emotion was not captured in the images we shot and therefore the resembled a more ‘indie’ fell more than anything.

I have put my plans to add the images to my digipak on hold until our upcoming day of filming where I plan to take some more lively and fun images of the artist smiling and hopefully I can use these instead.



This is my digipak so far:

Practice Music Video- Editing

After my previous practice videos I have become very confident using iMovie HD, therefore I have taken on an active role in editing our music video. One member of my group was absent for the first day and I gladly took this opportunity to get on with doing the editing by myself. I got about one third of the video completed when I realised that there were some parts of the video which we did not have any film for. I did as much as I could and paid particular detail to matching the miming of my singer to the music of the song. This was often difficult and I found it took a few goes of splitting the clip and then putting little bits back in before it could be perfect. To find ways of elongating my clips I found myself browsing through the editing options and remembered that I could use a “slow motion” tool to do this. This created a brilliant effect when we see Louise looking into the camera walking along with her hand trailing along the wall behind her. This clip was originally filmed as a “filler” clip to be used if we did not have enough film to fill any part of the song, however it turned out to be a great scene in the video and fits in very well.

The editing can be extensive and takes a lot of your attention to complete successfully. I have put a lot of effort into the editing of this video so far and have been the main person within the group to do so. I am very happy to take care of much of the editing as I feel I am very competent in to this area and as I was absent for some of the planning and preparation lessons, I feel this should compensate for me not being there.

When we realised that there was not enough film for us to fill the entire song, we bought back in Louise, who plays Britney to do some more filming. However, our camera wouldn’t work and so we have re-scheduled a filming session for Monday 11th October during our double lesson.

Practice Music Video- Deadline moved

Our initial deadline was Friday, 8th October 2010. However, once we started our digipak design and magazine advert for the music video, it became apparent that this date would be an unrealistic deadline. At the pace we were working at, we would need an extra few weeks in order to create a professional piece. This will however mean that we are not given the opportunity to do an ancillary film trailer.
My group and I are currently working well towards the completion of this ancillary project.

Practice Music Video- Production & Filming

Certain restrictions became apparent due to bad weather conditions on the day of filming. It began to rain half way through filming and this became a danger to the technical equipment we were carrying (camera, music player). We had planned to film in the forest, but as our only way of transport was to walk, this idea was soon changed to filming at Netteswell Pond, a public pond very close to our Sixth Form. Thankfully this idea to improvise was successful and worked out well.

Once we had overcome this hurdle. We then had to get down to filming the scenes. We did not film the sequence in order. As our task is to also create a CD cover for a digipak, we took pictures throughout the filming stage, so that the images related to the music video. We did the most part of our filming outdoors at the pond in different areas, however we were once again forced to change our plans and improvise, when the rain became too heavy to stay outside. We ventured back into the school and decided to create a which took place in a location which was suppose to be a bedroom. Here, Louise comes home and is passionately singing along to the lyrics, where she sings into the camera. We thought this would engage the viewer. We also shot some scenes at a piano and in the Cathedral.

I then remembered my previous thought about the audience needs. I remembered that we would be needing to shoot a lot more footage and become a little worried that we would not have enough to fill the song. I then suggested we film some short scenes which I called “fillers”. These were short clips which we may or may not use to fill any gaps that we had missed in our filming process. This was a safe guard, we knew we could always have something to fall back on if needs be.

Practice Music Video Planning and Preparation

Out of the few options we were given, my group (Kerstin D'Silva, Natasha Breen) have decided to make a music video for Britney Spears' Sometimes.
It is a pop song and so we must consider the representation of pop through the eyes of the media when planning the video. When we think of Britney Spears’ late 90’s work, we immediately remember a time when “cheesy pop” was very much in fashion. The song is very suited to this era and is therefore very much dated. This will mean that our video will have to take the same form, with an element of innocence which we often associate with this type of music. It is aimed at a younger generation of 5-14 year olds and we will have to cater to this audience when creating the video. In my previous year studying Media Studies, I created a pop magazine. To do this, I researched my target audience in great detail and found that young people need a lot to catch their eye and keep their attention. We all know that children have a short attention span and so they need a continuous change of events to keep them interested. Therefore I have decided that the video will need to present itself in a similar way with different settings and a change of mise en scene to keep the audience viewing. This is something I have put forward as a basic plan for the video.
My group created storyboards for the video so that we had a plan to follow when it came to filming. Settings were then chosen and we decided on an opening monologue which would go with the instrumental section at the beginning of the song. We felt we had filled all of the song with scenes and planned to get a lot of footage so that we had enough to use in the event of any gaps. Due to illness, I missed some planning lessons, but caught up on my return to Sixth Form. I recruited our main character (Louise Lowe) to play Britney Spears in the video, while my group members found some extras to play their parts.

After researching previous pop video from this time, we noticed a pattern of a simple dance routine feature. We felt that this would fit in well with the theme of our video and so choreographed a dance which we felt captured the vibe of the song, upbeat and 'cheesy.'

The people featured in the video are as follows:
Actors:
Louise Lowe - main character (Britney Spears)
Eddie Njenga - Britney’s love interest
Kerstin D’Silva - featured in a flashback where Eddie is caught flirting with another girl
Michael Kieghly - featured in a flashback where Eddie is seen joking with his friends
James Wilson - featured in a flashback where Eddie is seen joking with his friends
Jodi Grundy - featured in a flashback comforting Britney Spears

Dancers:
Jodi Grundy
Natasha Breen
Daniel Valaitis
Cara Oldroyd-Jones


The following link will take you to the original "Sometimes" video by Britney Spears. During the planning and preparation stage we watched this video many times, looking for inspiration and an understanding of how to produce a successful music video for this song. We were also able to gage a better understanding of our target audience from the mise en scene and features in the original video. The dance routine was the main element which enabled us to classify this song/video as part of the "young pop" genre. There is a sense of naivity in the video which we felt would grab a younger generation, we felt this was portrayed in the regular innocent glances into the camera. This was soemthing we aim to incorporate into our own video as well as the dance routine segment. Also something which caught our eye, was the love story which was ongoing in the original video. this was something we felt would set the scene for our video as it gives it a story to follow as well as representing the lyrics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_eFU8uPaQo

Evaluation - How to Pull Video

Planning and Preparation
The purpose of any video will always be to either entertain, educate or inform, or sometimes a combination of the three. These three important factors were considered throughout the planning of this film. Our initial preparation began when we were told to research 'how to' videos and find one which we felt was efficient in fulfilling its aim. Whilst researching the videos I noted the features in which I thought would be useful for future reference. I analysed the videos, picking them apart to find things that I thought would be good for my own video. This was very useful when it came to filming as I had previously established my viewpoint on what I thought worked well and what didn't. It clarified my opinion and allowed me to go straight into filming without doubting or questioning my abilities.

We were then shown the 'how to' videos from the previous year in class. This allowed me the opportunity to see what level I should be aiming to work at. I was able to recognise camera angles and the structure of filming and consider incorporating these into my own how to film. I began to notice that all the how to videos followed a pattern of breaking the instructions up into stages or steps. All the videos had roughly 5 or 6 steps to fulfil before the task in practise could be completed. I thought this was a very good way of informing the viewer as it elucidated the process making it easy to follow and simple enough to understand.

When then had to brainstorm our own ideas for what our video was to be teaching. Taking into consideration that we needed an entertainment value, we felt a comical 'how to' video would be both informative as well as entertaining. We searched for ideas and stumbled across our final 'how to pull' suggestion. I immediately began thinking of many ways we could make this video humorous and informative to create a combination which was sure to make a good film.

Once our idea was set, we needed to plan the video. This meant, recruiting actors, preparing camera angles, creating a story board, writing the script and arranging time and space for filming. This all got off to a good start. We decided to set the film into five stages and to have a continuous narrative. I felt this would be essential if the video was to be successful in informing the viewer. We managed to plan the entire video extremely well and was well organised for the day of filming.

Filming
We used many different camera angles to establish characters and set the scene. We used long shots to display composure in a "cool and confident" walk. We used close ups to express emotion whether this be embarrassment or delight. We used high angle shots to undermine the character when he falls. My favourite shot took place in the bathroom where you see Eddie (the character who acts out the 5 steps of the how to video) preparing himself in the reflection of the mirror. It was a good use of camera trickery where we were able to position ourselves correctly so that we couldn’t be seen in the shot. We chose a corridor in the Sixth Form block as our setting. The corridor is often a place of study and we therefore assumed that this would be a quiet place to film in. However, on the day we had great difficulty hearing the actors speak over the noise in the background. We managed to work around the noise, often having to ask the people around to stay quiet while we filmed our short scenes. Another problem occurred from the setting, this was lighting. It is very hard to film indoors with limited lighting. In the shots we see of the different stages being acted out, the lighting is often very dim. This is mainly a problem when we are filming close up shots as it becomes very difficult to see the expression on the face which is portraying the emotion. Once filming this part of the video, we realised we could continue to film here, when it came to my own narrative part where I introduced the different stages of the film, we changed locations to a brighter and more quiet room. I feel this was very successful.

Editing
When it came to the editing part of creating this film, we realised that our attempts to quieten the crowd in the corridor where we shot had failed and we needed to re-film a scene which was inaudible due to the background noise. This put a big strain on us as a group as we were now working through our limited time to edit. We came back from this though and once the scene had been filmed we worked hard at editing our video effectively to intensify its entertainment and informative value. After arranging the clips in order and editing the timing to make it flow perfectly, we then decided that the video could be greatly improve if we were to add some background music to liven the video up and to entertain the viewer. We searched through hundreds of songs to find ones which we felt would be suitable for the purpose of the scene they were to accompany. I felt we found an eclectic range of songs which fitted there function appropriately.


To conclude, I felt the video was a great success and is something I am very proud of as I feel I contributed greatly to every element of creating this video. I was very much involved in the planning, filming, editing and even starred in the video as well. I am very proud of the outcome. If I were to change anything to improve the quality of this video it would be the setting. Though this problem was mostly overcome, there are still some minor setbacks because of it. I feel the video was very successful in fulfilling its aim and managed to entertain and inform along the way.

My "how to" Video- How To Pull

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onw0IqCZlk0
This link above will take you to the edited video I created for Media Studies. The Video is called How to Pull and was filmed, directed, edited and planeed by myself, Kerstin D'silva and Lysette Pilkington. Myself and Lysette also starred in the video.

"Urban Savannah" & "I Love my Nails"

Today in lesson we watched some video's and were told to look out for how they informed, educated and entertained. We were then told that these three functions were something to be considered when creating our own videos. We had to observe and take notes on the elements we felt we could incorporate into our own videos.

Urban Savannah
Urban Savannah was filmed in the UK in 2004 and directed by Matthew Cook and Vincent Lund. We watched this short ten minute film first. It used basic animal instincts and incorporated this into the lifestyles of modern teens and there opposing social status'. It was very much an observation film, where the camera went unnoticed throughout. I thought this was a very good way of showing modern day living as it allowed the characters to go about their day without the distraction or interference of the camera. It makes it all seem very lifelike, as though we were getting a discreet inside look at the lives of others.

The film was entertaining, educational and informative and covered these three main areas extremely well. The comedic element was what carried the entertainment factor. The smart wit was an exaggerated version of reality which was humorous to watch. Commentary ran throughout the film and this was a constant source of information and explanation. It also used familiar terms which we would most commonly hear when talking about wildlife such as "dominant male" this worked toward consolidating both the human lifestyle with animal instincts. The experts were brought in to add the educational factor and to fully explain the happenings of the film.

The only way I can think to describe the background to this film would be to say to used personification in reverse. Rather than giving something not human, human like qualities, it gave humans, animal qualities. It was a very clever way of combing humour and real life together to form a short film which was informative, educational and entertaining.

From this film I learnt how to use commentary successfully. I thought that for this film, it was a very good option as it went hand in hand with the observation filming. This combination is something I had not analysed previously, and so this was my first opportunity to look into how both work together.


I Love My Nails
I Love My Nails is a UK film made in 2000 and directed by Katherine Freeman.
This film was very different in many ways and I therefore learnt about a different side to the short film/documentary industry. Unlike the Urban Savannah, this film was very much dominated by the interference of the camera. Everything we saw was for the benefit of the camera, with people speaking to the camera throughout etc. Because of this it was more informal. We listened to personal opinions and general chat rather than scripted speeches.

In the lesson we learnt to look out for where the film was entertaining, informative and educational.
Entertaining; the sheer shock of the contents of the film was what carried its entertainment. I was constantly enthralled by what I was seeing to the extent that you didn't want to turn off.
Informative; throughout the film we were hearing about the lifestyles and opinions of the women and men in the nail salon, and this was where the information fed through as we learnt about people's reasons for there obsession with their nails.

I learn what works and what does not from watching existing films, from this film I learnt that it is best to stick to one theme. The majority of this film was very informal and chatty and had a very unscripted feel to it, however every now and then it would cut to a short scene which would may be two man dancing and showing off their nails etc. It just diminished the realism of the film as you then began to question whether the rest of the film was as set up as the short scenes. I felt the two contrasted each other and did not work well together.

"How to" Youtube Video Link

As preparation and research for our upcoming "How To" video, we were told to search for a how to video which we felt was adequate and suitable for its purpose. The link below is the "How To" video that I found;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py82bWcPa0Q&feature=channel

Filming and Editing Practice- The Phone Call

Before we begin our final piece, we need to gain as much practice in filming and editing. Both take much skill to master and so we have been set the task of creating a short running monologue of a phone call.

From this I learnt that the conversation at each end is filmed all in one take and then edited after by splitting the scenes and merging them together to show a conversation in sequence. This was not something I was aware of previously.

On the day of editing, my group was not in and I was left on my own to edit the video.
Surprisingly, I found this very easy to deal with and liked the solitude of being left to my own devices. I felt at ease implementing my own ideas and enjoyed working at my own pace.

The video was an overall success and I was pleased with the outcome. The link below will take you to “The Phone Call”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-5c_vRzgiM

Introduction into the Use of Video Cameras and Editing- Drink Adverts

We began the school year with an introductory lesson into Media editing and filming. We were told that we needed to being planning three separate videos which advertised a new drink of our choice. We decided to go with an energy drink called "Electric Shock" as we were immediately able to pitch ideas to each other about how to promote this drink. We were told the adverts needed to coincide with each other so that a consistent brand could become apparent to the viewer. We used story boards to plan and organise our filming schedule and script.

After discussing ideas of advertisement, we decided celebrity endorsement would suit our promotion technique adequately. After running through different well known names, we landed on Usain Bolt, a World Championships and Olympian record holder. I believed that his lively and prestigious character represented our drink in a positive and similar way.

In order to keep consistency and establish the brand we chose the slogan "Electric Shock, it's electrifying". This would be said in each advert by Usain Bolt. We had toyed with other slogan ideas such as; "The lightning bolt of electric shock" as we felt this closely linked in with the name of our celebrity which create a pun. However we found the slogan to be too extensive and not quick and catchy which was the aim.

Actors:
Eddie Njenga- Usain Bolt
James Wilson- Main character
Daniel Thomas- Runner 1
Kwabena- Runner 2
Liston- Runner 3

Advert 1
In the first advert, the characters are established. We have James Wilson's character running in a race looking weak and tired. Usain Bolt saves the day by telling him to drink "Electric Shock" and this gives him the energy to win the race. The advert is then closed with Usain Bolt smiling into the camera and saying the slogan with a wink. This advert simply explains the benefits of the drink and persuades you to buy one if you are in need of an energy boost.

Advert 2
The second advert has a slightly different feel. Now we would have expected people to understand that the drink was an energy enhancer and would be familiar with it. This advert shows its desirability. The short clip shows the same actors racing in slow motion in a battle against each other to reach the drink first. It creates the belief that this drink is sought after and desired. Once again the advert is concluded with Usain Bolt smiling into the camera, saying the logo with a signature wink.

Advert 3
This advert takes the same format as the first. We see James Wilsons character struggling in an exam. This is when Usain Bolt comes in and tells him to drink some "Electric Shock". When he does he has a brain wave and finishes the exam. He comes out dancing and looking happy at his achievement and this creates the impression that the drink has been a great help to him. Once again, Usain Bolt rounds up the advert by smiling into the camera, saying the slogan and winking.

The link below will take you to the adverts;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w18NYyB70I