Ancillary task process

Over the past few weeks or so I have began to create my ancillary tasks for my music video which entails a digi pak and a poster advertisement.

This is the process of my digi pak so far:

I decided to use a textured pink background because I feel like the colour would attract my intended target audience of young teenage girls. I undertook some research into existing digi paks and discovered that a number of pop artists have similar backgrounds like mine used on their products.I was inspired by Niki Minajs digi paks as she has colourful and unique backgrounds which stand out and I believe I could adapt her ideas to when I produce my ancillary tasks. 

Front cover of my digi pak

I believe that this image works well for the front cover because it clearly shows who the artist is allowing the audience to identify the product easily through the close up shot. The facial expression enhances the artist's personality as fun and bubbly which could give the audience an idea on the overall feel of the album. 

Next I have inserted the font. I have used the font 'MS Mincho' to present the artists name. This is enhanced by the letter 'L' which is the first letter of her name 'Lola'. I believe that placing this in the top left corner is very effective and explores her star image. It makes the digi pak appear elegant and simplistic. For the album name I have used the font 'My Lucky Penny' I believe that this appropriate for the album as it clearly shows that the album is aimed towards girls due to the font being girly due to the italic style. The colours of the font are also feminine which adheres to a young female audience. 

Poster advertisement

I have chosen to use four different images on my poster advertisement which I believe makes it more interesting and entertaining to look at. I have used the same images which feature on my digi pak which shows the consistency of the product, This allows the audience to easily identify the artist and the album which she has brought out. The images are fun and quirky and explores the characters personality, it further gives an insight in what is included in the album. 

I have now added my chosen font. I have used the same font which appears on my digi pak which again shows the products consistency, however I have used a different colour for the artists name because I feel that the baby blue colour works well with the colour of the artists top which appears in the images above. I have chosen to stick with a bold sans serif font for the date, reviews and website to make sure it stands out but at the same time to ensure that it doesn't make the poster look too overcrowded, hence if I had used the same style of font for the name of the album 'It's a girl thing...'. 

I have began to add the other elements to my poster advertisements including reviews, the artists email and the record company logo. These are important conventions to a poster advertisements so its crucial I incorporate these features onto my poster. 

I have attached the rest of the text and essential logos to my poster advertisement. These include two reviews from a newspaper company and also the pop radio station Capital FM. I have put the colour of the stars in black to stand out so the audience would be allured to discover the success of the song/album. I have also placed the social networking sites Twitter and Facebook at the bottom right corner of the poster. This is so the audience are able to follow the artist on these sites which are used by the audience especially a young teenage audience. This will enable them to follow and keep up to date with the latest news and events about the artist and her album. 

Inside cover:

I have begun to create the inside cover for my digi pak. I have decided to use a image of the artist which is similar to the one which features on the front cover but instead she is pulling a different facial expression. I decreased the opacity level on this image to make it look effective. But I intended to do this for other reasons. 

The reason why I decided to decrease the opacity levels in order for the image to be lighter was so the lyrics would stand out and be easy to read for the audience. I decided to use the same font for the lyrics as I have done for the album name 'My Lucky Penny' to show the products consistency. The colours are in pink and purple which would attract the target audience as young female girls stereotypically like these colours. I have decided to include the lyrics to the featured song 'We are never ever getting back together'. At the moment I have positioned the lyrics on the left side of the cover to make it easy for the audience to read and follow. I have used two separate colours to make it more effective and further keeps in with the consistency of my ancillary tasks.

Spine:

The artists and the album name is essential to include in the spine because it is how the audience will be informed on what the album is and who has brought out the album. This is due to how they are normally positioned on the shelves in a shop. The artists name and album name are in the same font and colour like the rest of my digi pak and poster advertisement which shows their regularity. 

I thought it would be a good idea to add an image of a heart to add to the spine of my digi pak. I believe that this gives my digi pak a feminine touch and clearly shows it's aimed towards a young teenage audience. 

I have added the same background colour which I have used for my poster advertisement 'pink' which would attract a young female audience. I am not to sure whether I am going to keep this as it is or change it to white or another plain colour. From my research into the spine of other existing digi paks I discovered that it is common that the spine is a different colour, usually one plain colour e.g. white or black.This could be because it would be a lot clearer and easier for the audience to notice and read which artist the album belongs to especially the way the product is positioned on the shelf. 

I have inserted the record label onto the spine so the audience are aware of her company name and also the albums reference code for legal purposes. The image of the heart also gives the album a feminine touch and shows it links the cd disc as these hearts are featured on there. 

Back cover:

For the back cover I have decided to use the same style of image as I have done for the previous images used on my digi pak but instead I have the artist pulling a different facial expression. I believe that this image clearly gives an idea of the basic idea of the album and relates to the featured song 'We are never ever getting  back together'. I denotes the artist looking angry and stressed which gives an impression its because of a boy. Again I have used the same colours and style of the font the same to show the continuity of the album. 

Here I have included other essential elements to a digi pak including social media site access, twitter and facebook logos.  Also, there is the copyright information which is placed right at the bottom in small writing. This is a common convention of digi paks and they are in a smaller font to the rest of the text because it is not the first thing the audience would necessarily look at, although it can be useful for them to read. Additionally, I have rotated the song names to make it more appealing and effective. 

CD disc

This is the first draft of my CD disc. I have decided to use images of love hearts to add the feminine touch to the product and I also feel like its quite effective as the colours work well together. I am not too sure whether I want to add a background colour. If I did it would be a very pale faint colour because I do not want a strong bold colour to take away the essence of the fonts and hearts. 

I have decided to change the background colour of the cd disc to make it more attractive. I have also added her record company logo and copy right information at the bottom of the disc as during my research I found this to be a common convention on cd discs. I have also moved the artists name and album name to the left as I believe it flows nicer and also the audience are most likely to follow the 'rule of thirds' (left to right). I have still kept the idea of the hearts the same but I have took some away to make it look less crowded. 

music video feedback

I am going to ask a focus group of teenage girls aged 12+ to watch my music video so far and I hope to receive some useful feedback to find out if there is anything I need to improve on to make it better and also if there is any positives from the music video, if there is anything significant which they like about it.

Here is the feedback below:

 

 

 

 



 

After looking through the feedback from my focus group on my music video so far, I have decided take some of the points into consideration when I continue to produce my music video. Most people said that they thought the chorus scene where Lola and her boyfriend were arguing were too long and repetitive. So, Instead of using these clips for the chorus I have decided to use a completely different clip. On the first day of filming back in October I filmed Sarah standing in front of a plain white wall with her lip synching to the whole song. This is a common feature of most pop music videos. I was inspired by Beyonce’s Listen video where in the majority of the video she is standing in front of a white wall singing directly into the camera.

So, I believe I am meeting the conventions of other pop music videos. By Sarah singing directly into the camera, especially during the chorus I think that she is creating a close personal connection with the audience. This is due to the strong emotional lyrics which she expresses through her facial expressions and hand gestures.

Most people also said that they liked the black and white effect used for the flashback scene. From this positive feedback I have decided to keep this video affect.

 

Editing my music video

I have started to edit my music video on the media programme Adobe Premier Pro CS4.I am a little familar with using this media programme  as we have had lessons before for example edited Disney film trailers so I had some insight on how to use some of the features which are entailed on Premier.

At the moment I have uploaded all of my footage onto Premier and have started to edit. It is going quite smoothly at the moment with no problems or confusions.

This is what I have done so far in my editing process. I have managed to upload all of the footage for my music video in the right order whilst reffering to my storyboard throughout. This is to ensure the footage is in the correct order so the narrative would make sense when I replay it.

Next I need to start editing the footage by cutting out certain clips and making sure the scenes flow smoothly ensuring it stays proffesional at all times.

Over the past week or so have continued to edit my music video. I have cut the clips to make them shorter so they flow smoothly. I have also experimented with some of the video transitions and video affects.

Here is what I have done so far.

Analysis of my music video

 

I have added some video transitions into my music video which meets the conventions of other pop music videos. I have included a video transition before each of the chorus scenes. I believe that this shows the continuity of the video. I have also used a black and white video effect for when she has a flashback to when they were together. The connotations of this shows the past is

 

My music video is a circular narrative this is because the music video ends to where the music video first began.This summarises the fact that Lola's relationship with her ex-boyfriend is defiantly over this is because right at the end she rips up the polaroid images of the two of them.This could signify that the memories of them are now long forgotton and he is no longer a part of her life. It furthur empathises she no longer wants to be with him because of the way she engages the audience by looking directly towards the camera and then lip syncing the last lyrics of the song indictaing that she truly means it when she says 'never getting back together'.

 

 

 

The locations

The location is crucial to any music video. Mise en scene is one of the main elements as it helps to set the scene for the audience and it also helps to create a relationship with the audience and the genre of the song. The location helps the audience to understand the genre and further sets the mood of the song which would help them understand what it is about.

Location one:

This location is Lola’s bedroom. I feel that this location denotes the mise en scene of the actress because it shows her personality through the colours and props used around the bed, for example the floral bed cover and films and books shown on the shelf. I feel that this would relate to my target audience of young teenage girls because it shows a typical girly girl which is who my audience are intended to be as they would stereo-typically like flowers and watching films and bright feminine colours. 

Location two:

This location shows the balcony which is located outside Lola’s bedroom. In this scene of the music video Sarah is going to rip up the Polaroid pictures of her and James and throw them outside. I believe that this location is a major safety hazard because there is no barrier to stop me or Sarah from falling and also the equipment falling and being damaged. To prevent this from happening we will both have to be extra careful when filming.

Location three:

This location is in New Eltham Park. This location will appear in the music video when there is a flashback to when they were in a relationship being happy and in love. I believe that this location is very suitable as whilst I was planning which locations to use I needed to ensure that all of my locations were fairly local as I needed to make certain that my actors would be able to get to the locations easily, especially if I need to re film. As New Eltham Park is just around the corner from Sarah’s house she already knows where it is so wouldn't be confused on how to get there. It also takes less than ten minutes to walk there so it wouldn't be time consuming. I hope to film in this location when it is a typical autumnal day with plenty of leaves on the floor, this is because I would like my actors to be playing around in the leaves having fun. I feel that if it rains on the day I plan to film it could ruin the overall outlook on how I want this scene to look. It could also be a safety hazard because my actors may slip over whilst running around in the leaves. This means I need to ensure I check the weather forecast prior to filming in this location. 

Location four:

This location denotes Lola’s house. I believe that this is a very welcoming and typical family home. This is where most of the scenes in my music video will be taking place. 

Location five:

This location is in the street. This location will appear in my music video when Lola and James were together but things were becoming to become a problem, this is due to what is portrayed in the scene. They both will be walking down the street but they will appear to look very distant from each other with James on his phone and Sarah walking next to him looking annoyed and upset. The connotations of using this location and their relationship falling apart is significant because you would imagine that a healthy couple would look happy whilst holding hands and both looking like they want to be with each other. Whereas, in this scene James will come across as being rude as he will not be giving any attention to Lola and instead looking at his phone. I hope that when I film in this location that the street will be quiet and we will not be interrupted a lot by any people walking along the street whilst filming. To ensure this doesn't happen I will film at a time of day where the traffic will not be that busy and also when not a lot of people will be around. I believe that this will be mid-afternoon as most people will be at work and also children will just be leaving school so they will not yet make an appearance. There is a train station very local to this street so I will have to make sure I do not filming during the hours of 5-7pm because I already know that it gets extremely busy with people walking home from work. This will mean it would become very hard to film the shots which I need. 

Analysis of video footage

I have uploaded some of the footage which I took for my music video onto my blog. Some of the clips I will be including in my video but some I may not. I have analysed what I like about the footage and what I dislike.



 

 

I intend to use this clip at the beginning of the song. I like the way Sarah is singing and looking directly into the camera which maintains the audience’s attention as it enhances the fact that she is singing to them when she is actually singing about her ex-boyfriend. The close up shot captures her facial expressions and her thoughts and feelings which are further enhanced through her body language. An example of this is when she throws the Polaroid pictures away connoting that she doesn’t want anything to do with that him anymore.

 

 

 

This clip denotes James turning up at Sarah’s house and through his body language it shows that he is begging her to see if they will be able to sort their relationship out. I like the way you cannot see Sarah’s face in this image as it concentrates and focuses more on James point of view and how he feels. It leaves the audience to think and question what Sarah might be feeling at this point and what her next action might be. This makes the clip enticing and would lead the audience to want to know what happens next.

 

 

 

 

 

In this clip Sarah is singing directly into the camera drawing the audience’s attention to make sure the audience are focusing on her and the lyrics which she is singing. I like the way this is a close up shot of Sarah as this enables the audience to understand her true feelings and emotions through her facial expressions easily. However, I do not like how James is not visible in the background. This is because in this part of the song the lyrics entail how she thought that their relationship was going to last and I think it would be necessary to have him appear in the clip as she is singing about him.  When he does make an appearance towards the end of the clip he looks quite confused and out of place. It kind of gives an impression that he didn’t realise we were filming as he doesn’t look prepared. Due to this problem I am not going to be using this clip in the music video.

 

 

 

 

This clip shows Sarah and James arguing in Sarah’s bedroom after they have just come back from a party. This clip is intended to portray that something had happened at the party and that they had some sort of disagreement which led Sarah to be upset and angry with her boyfriend. James is attempting to comfort her and calm her down but Sarah is rejecting him and eventually tells him to go away. I believe that this clip would be good to use in my music video as I feel it is quite dramatic and the acting skills are fairly good as they both show depict there true feelings in the situation which they are both in.

Reflection

So, last Friday was my first day of filming and it went very well. I stuck to my planning schedule and this allowed filming to go smoothly and at a steady pace. I finished filming at around 6:30/7:00pm and was happy with the amount of which I filmed.

I have learnt from filming that I need to make sure that when I film again that I have plenty of time that day and I need to inform my actors that it may take longer and we may also need to book more days to film. This was due to the fact that after 3-4 hours of filming it was only 1 minute into the song! I was quite surprised by this because of the amount of filming that we did and how long we spent doing it for I assumed that I filmed more into the song. Besides from this it was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed ourselves with plenty of bloopers.

As I was no where near finished filming the whole music video I am going to have to film again which is not a problem. I do not want to rush anything because I want my video to be the best it can be and look professional at all times.
I have organised a day with my actors for when I am going to film again which is on Friday 24th October. I still need to film in two more locations and hopefully once these are filmed up to the right standards I can begin editing. I am going to make another schedule for filming table prior to this day. I found this table very helpful and kept me on track when we were filming.

I have a week from now to when I am going to film the rest of my music video. During this week I am going to focus on my ancillary tasks which is also part of what my coursework entails. I have already received some great audience feedback from survey monkey which has helped me for when I make my ancillary tasks. I am going to start to produce some rough drafts of the digi pak and poster advertisements and will ask for some more audience feedback to see what they think of my ideas.

 

 

 

Filming evaluation

After two days of filming for my music video I believe that I have completed all of the scenes and shots which needed to be filmed. If I find in the editing process that I need to re film again or add any more scenes this can easily be done.

Below is the evaluation of how the filming went over the two days including any issues and successful areas.

Issues

Overall I didn’t feel like there were any major issues during filming and the issues which I did have were dealt with without any problems.

Whilst I was filming one particular scene, halfway through the shot a message appeared on the camera stating that there was'nt enough storage left to film. At first I panicked because I thought that I would have to put filming on hold for that day so I could go home and upload the existing scenes from the camera onto my laptop so they would be saved. This meant I could delete what I had done on the camera. However, this would have been annoying because I still had a lot to film for that day and I may not have found another day during that week to film which would mean I would be behind on my work.
SOLUTION
To come to an appropiate solution to this problem I spent five to ten minutes going through some of the scenes which I had filmed and deleted the ones which I defiantly would not use in my music video e.g. scenes which consisted of a lot of bloopers. By doing this I had plenty of storage to film for the rest of the day and this problem did not arise again.
 
In one of the last scenes for my music video Sarah had to throw the ripped up Polaroid pictures outside her bedroom so they would fall onto the ground. I believed that this would be quite effective on camera and I had ideas to edit this scene to make it into slow motion. However, it did not plan out how I wanted it to. One of the reasons was due to there not being much wind so the pictures did not move in the direction I imagined them to and instead just fell to the ground. I also found this quite hard to film as it was difficult to capture all of the ripped up pictures in one shot as they fell quickly.
SOLUTION
After doing this scene over ten times I think I caught something promising which I could use. I filmed this shot from a number of angles so I can see the scene from a range of views which may be better than others. We also tried to time when the wind was going to be the strongest; this would allow the pictures to move swiftly in the wind instead of just falling to ground giving no emotional and dramatic effect.

Successes

I do believe that filming went very well. I thought it was a lot of fun and not as stressful as I predicted it to be.

I was very happy with the actress and actor whom I used for my music video. They are close friends of mine which was a bonus as it was great to work with them and was comftable for all of us as neither of us felt awkward. At times I had to come across as quite stern and bossy when i felt like a scene wasn’t going the way I wanted it to and at times they weren’t meeting the expectations. But once I told them what they were doing wrong, they didn’t take it personally and instead listened to me and acted upon the critique and the scene turned out how I wanted it to. I did not feel that they were nervous at all and i believe that they looked quite professional on camera which is what I anticipated. My actors were very dedicated and enthusiastic during filming which was great because it made it worthwhile and also a lot of fun at the same time.

I feel that the time management went extremely well in filming and this was one of the areas which I was most happy about. I believe that producing a time management table prior to filming was a very sensible idea as it allowed me to keep to the times efficiently and not fall behind which could have an effect on my work and lead to a lot of problems. I believe that the preparations for filming were vital because without it I would’ve been lost and confused on what and when to do certain things. During filming I was not in any rush to get the work done and it went at a positive steady pace.

One of the main problems which I thought would emerge was the battery on the camera. However, the camera did not run out of battery at all and a message didn’t even appear on the camera to inform me that it was running low. This was due to the preparations which I had as I ensured that the camera was charged to the max the night before.  

Outfit changes
I decided to change some of the outfits when I arrived at Sarah’s house because when we were preparing to film I went through Sarah’s wardrobe and found some clothes which I thought Sarah could wear. I asked her to try on some possible outfits, some worked well and some didn’t. I was happy with the amount of outfit changes that Sarah and also James had throughout the video as it meets the conventions of a Pop music video as the artists have a number of outfit changes.

Ancillary task photoshoot

The photo shoot for my ancillary tasks went well. I was happy with the number of outfit changes and also the different locations which I used and I believe that the pictures came out good. Some of the images didn't turn out how I wanted them to especially the images which we took outside. This was due to the fact that the weather was quite cloudy so the photos appeared dark and gloomy but I will be able to edit these in photo shop so they will look like how I want them to be.

Below are the photos which I took in each location:

I have picked out some photos from each location which I think would be best for both my digi pak and poster advertisements and have analysed them. I think that further on in the process I will need to receive some audience feedback on which images they prefer. But this will be when I start to construct the products as we will be able to have a better idea if they work well when placed on the outline of the digi pak and poster.

I particularly like the fact that this image is a side view of Sarah and this was the reason why I have picked this image to analyse. I like the way in which she is holding the balloons as I believe that she looks relaxed and it doesn't make the picture appear too forced.









In this photo Sarah is holding the balloons far away from her face and her facial expression is cute and sweet. I believe that this photo is fun and enhances her personality. I like using the balloons as a prop as I feel that this relates to the ancillary tasks message because its about looking up on life and having positive and happy thoughts about the future.

I like the connotations which this image portrays because of the way she is throwing the pictures towards the camera implying that she is throwing her relationship away and doesn’t care anymore. I am not to sure that I like the fact that you cant see much of Sarah's face in this image. However, the main focus is on the pictures as they give the message of a broken down relationship.

This image links to the music video because of the use of the polaroid pictures as a prop which feature in the video. I like the way Sarah Is looking directly into the camera drawing the audiences attention. The fact that she is biting one of the photos shows that she is has negative feelings towards her relationship and is somewhat happy that it is over as she gives the impression that she doesn’t really care about what happens to the pictures.

The main idea of these images of Sarah having ice cream is its commonly known for girls to have comfort food in the result of a break up. As most of the songs in the album are base on boys, love and life I thought it would be a good idea to use this prop as it is something typical which most girls have and this would enable them to be able to relate to the artist.

I like the mise en scene of this image as she is in her homely environment of her bedroom. She has fairy lights and floral bedding connoting a very feminine personality. The clothes which she is wearing are relaxed and comfortable which implies that during a break up she would just want to have comfort.

This image of Sarah accentuates that she has been given an array of roses from her boyfriend but she doesn’t want them which is clearly identified through her facial expressions of frustration. It is also enhanced through the way she is holding the flowers. In the image her head/body is slanted to one side and the flowers are faced downwards. Sarah is trying to give a message through this image that she is not going to get back with her boyfriend and flowers defiantly aren’t going to persuade her.

This image is distinctively different to the previous photos I have analysed. This is a close up shot of Sarah just showing the top half of her body. The facial expressions in these photos are fun and are intended to reveal her personality as bubbly and energizing. 

Process of my digi pak

First draft of my digi pak

Second draft of my digi pak



Spine

I like the way that my second draft of my digi pak has been laid out. I have decided to use images of the artist for inside of the digi pak because from my survey results most people said that they would like to see images of the artist. I am also going to put the lyrics of the song 'We are never ever getting back together in the inside of the album next to the images. I feel like this is a good way to promote the song and it gives the audience something interesting and entertaining to look at rather than there just being information about the artist which sometimes people aren't that interested in and also hardly anyone said that they would like to see this from the results of my survey. So, I am acting on my audience feedback which should hopefully mean that my final product will be successful.

Third draft of my digi pak



This is the third draft of my digi pak. I have made some slight changes to my digi pak espicially the inside cover page. I have decided just to use on image instead of four, this is to make the overall appearance look less crowded and allows the audience to concentrate on the lyrics more. I have also decided to move the artists name on the front cover to the left top side of the page to make the front cover appear more sophisticated and elegant.