Mock ups

Today we took some more photo's of Liv as we felt the last photo's we took were to seductive and didn't give the right impression of Liv. So after taking some more here are a couple of mock up ideas i did.

Britney Spears - In The Zone

Media Album Analysis

Analysis of Katherine Jenkins- Believe

I have analysed this album cover and back to gather inspiration from the album. I love the colour scheme and I think we are going to use black white and grey as our colour scheme too. It looks very sophisticated and simple. I think black white and grey is a very modern colour scheme to use and always looks effective when used. i also like the nature of the images used for this, they are not too revealing and carry Ferguson's theory of the ' Chocolate Box' theory. She still looks very attractive in the images without looking over the top and inappropriate.

katherineee

Conventions

In the covers shown above, Natashas hair and make-up is very natural. I like this look as it looks simplistic and natural. I think this look would work well for 'Ashleigh' as her music is very soft, There's no tempo, electro beat etc there's just acoustic guitars and pianos. I also like the front cover because it looks different and is very creative. it is similar to the one i designed, and i think we could achieve this style of cover. I also like the way the front cover is very plain and then the back is more colourful and packed. Its different to usual digipaks as it lacks continuity.

digi pak cover.

Today me and Liv took plenty of photo's that we could then use for the digipak and poster. After looking through them i picked this one as i thought their are three elements i could pick out to add colour too. I also thought it was a good photo of Liv, and followed the 'naked' theme from our video. This is a first draft i have done for our digi pak cover! i liked this idea because it looks simplistic because of the black and white, plain close up shot, however adding hints of colour in has made the cover become more appealing. Our album name is Ashleigh as its her 'first album'. Therefore we dont need to add her album name on the cover as it is covered by her own artist name.

Make You Feel My Love - Draft

This is the video of our draft music video.

The feedback we got on this is on previous posts.

When watching back I have noticed how choppy it is and that it doesn't look very good or professional. Which is why we decided to do our final as one big clip.

Wednesday 24th November

Today our group split up to do separate bits, i finished editing the music video, burnt it onto a DVD, handed it in and uploaded both the draft and final video on YouTube to then put on our blog. Whilst i was doing this, Laura and Liv went back to Liv's to take pictures for the digipack and poster, we felt this was the best option as the final deadline is Friday.

I am currently waiting for YouTube to finish processing both the videos so i can upload them to the blog and analyse.

Final filming pictures

Here are some photo's from our final filming! Firstly weve got the set up of the room. We decided to use more lamps in order to create a brighter light and also try and reduce the shadowing behind Liv. I then took photos whilst filming in order to show our work in another way than just our video. Neither me or Jordan held the camera when filming, we used the tripod in order to keep the filming level.

Filming- Final Draft

Today we decided to film our final piece for media. Obviously we knew we had to make changes to the video. We decided we would have fairly natural makeup with red lipstick and hair scraped back into a bun with a headband and flower. This time we preferred the new look without so much makeup as it looked realistic and sophisticated. After finishing the makeup and hair we decided we would add earrings and we decided not to wear a necklace. In our draft I wore no nail polish but this time I decided it would look better if I wore a bright red polish to co-ordinate with my lipstick.

Once we were happy with the look, we started to practice the song as we filmed it all in one take so one small mistake would mean having to start from the beginning which could make it a fairly lengthy procedure. One of the difficulties was that we couldn't get the lighting right for a while as the three point lighting didn't work at first but after a bit of time and effort we managed to achieve this. This was important as we didn't want any shadows to be apparent. We had to practice a few times as we slightly changed the routine and did things in a different way. We also decided that I would amplify certain words and use actions to do so. We thought it would look better if we removed most of the makeup in the duration of the video so I had a mirror in front of me so I could see what areas of makeup needed taking off.

After the practices we then went for the real thing, in which a few times we had to stop and re-film as different things kept stopping me from carrying on. For example when untying my bobble my hair got stuck and we had to film again, and on another occasion my necklace would not unfasten so we decided to not use as we didn't like it that much in the end.
After filming the whole sequence a few times we were eventually satisfied with the finished product.

In conclusion I think it is good how you have a draft and then a final piece as there is always things you can improve and make your video look more professional and of a better quality. feedback certainly helped as we were able to clearly notice what needed to be changed and some points of where improvement was needed.

Feedback; Option 3

We have got feedback and grades from our teachers, and they have suggested 3 options we should think about.

The 3rd option we have been given is to keep our video pretty much the same but the idea is to have a lot less make-up and to have singing throughout the whole video. We were told that the narrative wasn't clear as to why the shots quickley cut from Liv having no make-up on, singing, to having heavy make-up on and not singing.

Audience feedback suggested that Liv sings throughout the whole video, both with make-up on and no make-up on because this would make the video have more narrative and fit together better, which then makes the transactions smoother.

We have chosen to do trial runs of all of the options and then pick the one that looks most effective, although our favourite idea is option number 1 because we feel it will look the most effective.

Feedback, Option 2

Option 2 is ' Cut away/ transition subtler, think about positions in frame between transitions.'

We decided not to do this as it will be too similar to a first idea and we want to change and improve it. We have realised that the transitions don't look very good unless we change the idea. So we have decided to film the video all in one and not cut out. This will look good but will bedifficult, so we will have practice a fair bit to get it right and make it look impressive.

Album Backs

I really like the back of the album 'Body Language' by Kylie Minogue. The writing in centre makes a straight line down the centre of the page, I think this looks really effective, and, even though its simply white text on a black background, looks really neat and complex. We are aiming to do the back of our digi pack similar to this. Because the song we are making our music video for, is quite mellow and down-tempo, we feel the digi pack and poster should reflect on that.


The album 'Out Of Control' by Girls Aloud has the same sort of font as the Kylie album. We like the spread out writing that isn't all one font size because it gives a relaxed feeling and makes the writing easier to read. I think the Girls Aloud album is a lot more simple than the Kylie one because it's simply just a list of songs, whereas the Kylie album has the song titles set out in a certain way. Although, 'Out Of Control' is more complex in the way it has colour and has numbered the sing titles, which 'Body Language' hasn't. Also, the whole page is covered in text whereas Kylie's album is only centred.

Final idea

We were given 3 ideas by our teachers that would help to improve and raise our final grade. We decided on the first idea, although its the hardest. We chose this idea over the other two as we felt it would be effective to just have one shot instead of cuts as it looks smoother. Also we felt we could achieve a higher grade with this idea as it is a lot harder to achieve than the other two. Now we have chosen this idea we need to re-film the whole video. We are going to have Liv (Ashleigh) lip syncing in the whole of the video, whilst taking her make-up off and crying etc. Its going to be one shot, with no cuts, and no transitions. Having Liv singing and playing her character at the same time is hard, however we are still going to attempt it. This should hopefully make the video look more slicker and smoother. Here is an example of a video where there is lip syncing the whole way out.

Name change

After making a few mock ups of our poster and digi-pak we have decided to change the name from Olivia to Ashleigh. When we wrote Olivia we didn't feel like it looked 'presentable'. Although its just a name it didn't write and look as nicely as we feel Ashleigh did. Also Olivia is quite a common name and we want her to be unique and individual. Ashleigh for a girls name is not very common so we thought this would fit our character.

CD Cover Example

Here is an example of a front cover, we will not be using this image or this layout but it was one idea of what we could achieve. As a group we have decided that we would like to use a close up shot for the front cover as we think this looks good and attractive to the audience. We are unsure of the colour scheme, but think we will want to use black and white with possibly a hint of red to add a dramatic effect. We will have to decide the type of font to use and make it relevant to the style of the cover.

Artist poster

Here are some ideas that i put together on Animoto that have inspired me for our poster,

I have created some examples for our poster.

With this first idea i like the pallette knife effect as it makes a picture which at first was so simple, into something with a little more detail. I also like the font used on 'Olivia'. I like this as it is simple and fits in with the style of the photo. Adele is known as a vocal artist, not a dance, heavy rock artist. Therefore her music is relaxing to listen to. If we designed a poster which was full of detail, colour and 'mess' then it wouldn't reflect her style of music.

I edited the lips on this so that the colour would match the writing. I think this had worked really well, as its a simple, yet effective look as it adds more detail in the picture. I used the magic wand on photoshop to help me create this look. I think this idea would work well for our poster as we wanted to create a simple look, however i feel with this we can make it look more creative and less boring.

Digipak Ideas 2

Although we have already looked at some CD covers we now need to limit them down slightly and annotate ones that are like the type we want to create, by picking out colour schemes, text and images.

I have realised the album covers are very important for an artist as, as soon as you look at the album you can normally decide whether your going to like the artist by looking at the cover. From my point of view if I look at an album cover and I don't like the image on it then it tends to not attract my attention and normally I find myself not attracted to the artist. This is why it is so important for the artist to present themselves and their music through promoting material.

I have been looking at various artists, and it seems that the genre of music affects the image of the artist presented. This also effects the album cover and merchandise. Artists that tend to sing emotional music tend to have more personal album covers and merchandise and therefore the album cover tends to just show their face. This connects with the audience as a "this is me" approach and allows a connection between the audience and artist. This gives onlookers an idea to what they will be recieving just by looking at the album cover as this represents the artists indentity. In contrast to this more fiery artists such as Lady Gaga tend to have more dramatic covers etc, to portray the content of their music.

Here are some examples...

I love the Ellie Goulding cover as I think the effects of the lights in her hair looks great. I like the way her name is presented and the title of the album is below it. I think the layout is good and I like the image of her. I like the way she is not looking directly at the camera as this gives a distance between her and the audience which I like.

I love this cover! I think Katherine looks beautiful on it, and the quality of the picture is very good. She looks perfect on this image and I like the posture of her face and windswept hair. I think this cover looks really smart and is still effective. I think her subtle makeup goes well with the cover and she doesn't look too made up.

I love the colours of this album cover from Gabrielle. The picture looks great as its really bright and sparkly to look at. I like the font they have used as it is large and simple. I like the way Gabrielle has her hands behind her head as it looks creative.
I love the style of this cover and the accessories on her head. I think this cover is really pretty to look at and the black and white colour scheme adds an elegance to it. I love the way her name and album title is written on her body like a tattoo, this is really unique and very imaginative.

This album cover of Britney is different as it has a blue colour scheme. I wouldn't say I liked this image as much as I like the overs and I think sepia or black and white colour schemes work well. I love the image of her face though, she looks very attractive on the image and I think it looks good how you can only see her face.

What I like most about this album cover is definetly the image as I think it represents Pixie Lott as being fun and I like the way her lips are parted to add a sexual appeal. The pink writing really stands out and draws your attention to her name straight away. I think the font looks really playful and almost like handwriting which adds a personal touch to the image.

I like how you can only see half of her face as I think the angle her face is at looks good and different to just a full face view. I like the colour scheme, I think sepia always tends to look good and add a softer look to the image and artist. I also like the font her name is in as it makes it almost look like a signature.

Conclusion

I like all the album covers above, most of them are either black and white or sepia. I think black and white and sepia colour schemes are really good as they are simple but I think they look sophisticated and attractive. I think a close up of the artists face is really powerful and I think it looks better than medium shot images.

DigiPak Ideas

The Digipak above is really creative and dramatic. The colour red is very prominent and symbolises various things which makes it a good colour to use. This is good for a Digipak as it attracts your eye and encourages you to look at it closer, and hopefully become more interested in looking at the cd. I like how they keep the colours limited and mainly use red and white. This keeps it simple looking but still appeals to the audience.

This Digipak inspires us as it's dark and stands out and it looks sophisticated and simple. For our Digipak we want it to be simple just like our video, and to represent the artist. I like black for the colour of the cd case as it attracts attention and is bold.

We are thinking of having a close up for the front cover of the Digipak to show the artists face and represent the emotion in the songs from the album. On the inside cover we plan to have other images taken from a medium shot to show the artist in full view. We are unsure at the moment of the colour scheme but are looking at other Digipaks for inspiration.

digipak

Definition of digipak: A style of compact disc or dvd packaging.

A digipak consists of a plastic cd tray, glued inside a folding cardboard cover. There tend to be 4 panels in a digipak. The front cover, Track List, Cd holder and an inside cover. In order for our digipak to follow the theme of our music video we need to keep it very simple. Our idea is to keep a simple, close up of Liv. This will follow the theme we have previously used in the video. We also want to follow the simplistic look for the poster as well. This will tie all three together.

storyboard!

This is our story board for our first draft. Our first storyboard is still on here too, the storyboards show how much our idea has changed as their is only 12 frames on our final first draft. This shows the simplicity of the video.

Animoto isn't processing my photo's so i'll have to put them on here and keep trying. Liv drew out the 12 frames in order for us to follow it when we were filming.







Liv with a full face of makeup on, hair up and looking in the mirror.










Liv with no makeup on singing to the song.










Liv taking her hair down and taking the headscalf, headband and flower off.












Liv singing to the song and beginning to cry.













Liv taking her makeup off and crying.












Liv singing.











Liv crying and wiping her makeup off with her hands. smudging lipstick etc.












Crying and singing to the song.












Crying and smudging makeup












Singing to the song













Crying taking her pearls off











Singing to the end of the song.







We cut from each of the shots by showing one shot of Liv with makeup on, and the next with no makeup on and singing. On the shots where Liv is wearing her makeup, she is seen taking her hair down and smudging her makeup and crying. We start the video with Liv wearing makeup, and we end it with her wearing none. The idea that shes taking her make up, whilst having bare shoulders and crying is suggesting she wants to reveal the real her. Hense the reason we end it on Liv singing, in her natural look. As she is expressing her feelings in the video it also relates to the underlying meaning of the song, that she is upset and fighting for a man.

The New Idea and Evaluation

After looking at our first draft there are some elements which we think need improvement, after analysing the feedback we had we realised one or two things needed to be changed (especially the make-up) when we did the final piece.

Here is the feedback;
"I think the makeup is slightly over the top, and doesn't look realistic for the video"
"I like the makeup and think the more dramatic for a music video the better"
"I don't think you need to wear the black scarf around your head you could just with the headband and scarf"
"I like all of your accessories and think you should keep them all"

As you can see we received a varied response but after much discussion we have decided to use less makeup but still keep the makeup dramatic. After some research I found some images of women in a magazine and was inspired by their makeup, the pictures are above. I like the dramatic makeup the lady is wearing and the way she has done her hair, I like the red lipstick and the sleek eyes. Hopefully we can make our makeup more subtle but still have a dramatic look.

Risk Assessment

When we filmed we had to consider possible risks that we were surrounded by, we had to consider risks such as:

Lights
· We wanted Liv to have a spotlight on her face, but the only lamp we had was an ordinary bedside lamp. The first time we filmed Laura had to hold it so she had to be careful not to burn herself. The second time we filmed we laid it down on Liv's bedside table so we had to be careful the tabel didn't burn or set alight.

The Door
· The first time we filmed Liv was sat against the door for both the lip-syncing and make-up scenes so we had to make sure Liv's mum Julie didn't walk in and bang the door into Liv or trap her fingers in it etc. The second time we filmed Liv was against her wall but it was still near the door so we hd to make sure Julie didnn't burst in the room and hit Liv.

Water
· Liv had a glass of water beside her that she used when she smudged her make-up so it smudged more effectively and because she couldn't cry proper tears she sprinkled water on her face, so we had to be careful no water was spilt or was near the camera.

Fake Eyelashes
· When putting Liv's fake eyelashes on, she had to make sure she didn't get any of the glue in her eye because it could have really hurt and stuck her eyelids together.

Jewellery Box
· We filmed an end scene where Liv opened a jewellery box and got an engagement ring out and put it on her finger, she had to be careful she didn't trap her fingers in the box when closing it and she also had to be careful the ring didn't get stuck on her finger.

Getting Up And Down
· Because Liv was filmed sitting on the floor she had to be careful not to put her back out when she got up and down.

Feedback

When editing, we picked up on things that we couldn't when filming, this is good though because it helps us with improvements and with this being our first draft, that's what it's for. We picked up on things like:

· Lighting
· Shadows
· Mise-en-scene
· Camera angles
· Movement/facial expressions

When Liv is singing with no make-up on there a really big, visible shadow behind her bedcasue we only had one spotligth and it was an angle. Miss Sutton then mentioned the 3-point-lighting technique, which is where you have 3 light; one directly infront, on to the left and one to the right, this then makes sure there are no shadows.


Another thing we had comments on was Liv's make-up. Mr Smith feels that when Liv has make-up on it is too much, doesn't make sense and isn't very realistic, whereas Mr Ford as said that he likes the idea of a lot of make-up because it shows the contrast between when liv does and doesn't have maek-up on, and it smudges more when she smudges it. Vicky, one of our peers said that wehn Liv is signing without any make-up on it's obvious she has foundation on to make her skin look better, and she encouraged us to film Liv without any make-up on because it would look better, so next time we film we are going to film Liv without make-up on and off and then when uploading on the mac see which looks better.

When watching footage back we decided that Liv needs to put a bit more emotion into her face when she sings and use her eyes more effectively i.e. looking at the camera at certain points.

When the music video was editing and complete, we wacthed it back and, although the emotional make-up bits are in slow motion, it looked a bit like a continuity error because it wasn't clear that it was a different time. SO, we have the idea that we will re-film and on the make-up scenes we will have a black background and a white background for the non make-up lip syncing scenes. The black background will look more effective because the colours in the make-up will stand out more. I also thought that because the video is about Liv stripping herself bare and showing her true self to the one she loves, that the black background is symbolic of evil and the opposite of pure, whereas the white background is symbolic of purity, which Liv is when she has no make-up on.

The beginning and end we filmed didn't look very good at all when we uploaded thr footage on the macs. So me and Liv decided that at the start we would have a black screen with a title int he corner, like other music videos, saying the name of the artistk, the song and the record label. The end was just faded out which also looked effective.

A theme that flows.

As our artist is featuring in many different advertisments, we have to keep a common theme in order for it to be successful. As our video is a very simple idea, and mainly features a close up of Liv, i think it would be a good idea to have the album cover a close up shot of Liv. I think it would work well if we took a very simple and dainty photo of Liv with the name of the artist in a very simple font at the bottom. I noticed the film case for The Duchess and loved the way it was presented...

I like the way Keira Knightly is presented in a simple yet realistic way. The look in her eyes conveys a lot of meaning and this is what i would like ours to be like. The song we are using is a sad song, and this could all be conveyed in Livs facial expression and the look in her eyes. Keira looks soft and pretty in her photo and i think it works really well in terms of attracting the audience. Its a bold, statement photo.












Beyonce also does the same thing on her album cover. She is wearing very little make-up, with no clothing and showing the natural her. I think this works really well as the album is called 'I am Sasha Fierce'. Her photo therefore relates to the title and also grabs the attention of customers. Its a bold photo, also in black and white which emphasises Beyonce's beauty. I think this would be a good theme to use for our cover. Its simple, yet effective.

Draft - Handed in!

After editing and completing our draft weve learnt what works and looks effective and what doesn't. Receiving feedback from Mr Smith and Mr Ford will help us to evaluate our first draft and work out how to improve it. Already i can see what needs improving. Firstly i was very happy with the lip syncing Liv did, however i feel there could have been more emotion put into it! As we are doing a sad song this gives us an option to communicate with the audience. If Liv was to put more emotion into the singing, for example looking away from the camera, and into it again creates tention and will have an effect on the audience. It will make them feel the sad and upset feeling that the character is showing. Also i think we could add more detail into the video. The simple idea that we are using is good, although little things within it, for example the make up could be altered. At the moment we are using very big and bold stage make-up but theres no reasoning behind using that style of make-up. So therefore changing the make-up to a more subtle style would look more effective and relate to the scenery and location etc. Over all, both me and the other girls are very pleased with our first draft, but feel we could improve it to achieve a higher grade.

Evaluating Our First Draft- Narrative

Today we discussed as a group the improvements we can make when we film the final draft. By watching back our first draft, we have decided between us, and with the opinion of others, that there needs to be more of a narrative to our music video. The reason for this is that it is not evident to why the character is at one point without makeup and the next shot she is wearing full makeup and is crying, wiping the makeup off. There seems to be no apparent link between the different shots and therefore we need more of a story.

As the song is about a relationship between two individuals, we thought it would be a good idea to show the character emotional to mirror the feelings of the character and to link in with the words. We feel we have not given the audience enough of a narrative for them to understand clearly why the character is upset and why she is crying. We considered having flashbacks incorporated into the video to make it more interesting and appealing to watch and to add variety to the simple camera shots we have used. In order to do this we will have to consider whether we want to create flashbacks or do we want another alternative to this to show a development of narrative as the video progresses. As the shots we have used for the without makeup face and the full made up face are simple, we want to make the video slightly more amusing to watch although we do like the simple aspect to it as we think it looks sophisticated.

After a lot of discussion we have also decided that we might not use as much makeup as we have, and may slightly lower the amount we use to make the video more realistic. As we were inspired by Natasha Bedingfield's video of "I Bruise Easily", we have understand the context and realized that although she does have a lot of makeup on which we were inspired by, she is in Japan in the video and is playing the part of a Geisha so therefore it is not seen as unusual for her to dress up in this manner, whereas for us, the makeup can look slightly dramatic for our surroundings.

We have a lot more to discuss before the final draft but by communicating as a group and by asking others for feedback we have a good set of ideas and a lot to work from.

First filming draft evaluation

We have now filmed our draft film two times due to the fact that when we first filmed, the frames weren't right. When we put the film onto the mac u could see more of the scene that you could on the camera. This meant door handles and flooring boards etc were in the shot. This made the shot look unproffessional and it didn't live up to expectations. However by filming this and getting it wrong it enabled us to improve and make the second filming easier to set. Although Liv was the cast in the film, she still contributed ideas and her opinion whilst filming. Jordan filmed and I directed. We split it so that we all had our own roles which made it alot easier. The second time round filming, it was a lot easier as we all knew what we were doing and which aspects would achieve which look. E.g the spotlight, the make-up etc. Keeping the storyboard very simple enabled us to concetrate on more detail within the film. For example certain aspects of how actions were done, e.g. eye contact with the audience. Here are some shots of Liv in the current film. Her make-up and hair is slightly different due to changes we made...















Our first draft isn't as good as we expected it to be, however we still have time to improve it which is when we will hopefully make it alot better. When filming we encounted a number of problems. Our first problem was the lighting. We didnt want to use natural light as it wasn't bright enough however using lamps were making the lighting to bright. To over come this we had to find a really small lamp that didn't produce much light. This spotlighted Livs face, and focused the attention on her. Another problem we encounted was when we were filming it was hard to find a plain white background. Using cloths and material were showing too many creases which made the film look tacky. But when we used a plain wall there was too many objects in the way. In the end we had to clear the wall in order to produce a completely plain blackground. This would make Liv stand out more and be the main feature of the video.