Diary 18

Diary 17

In the past week I have been focusing on editing my music video. I have had to overcome certain problems as I discovered that some of the footage that I shot was portrait rather than landscape. This has lead to me having to rotate certain clips and resize them to fit the screen. Additionally, some shots are stopped too early so I have not been able to include them. This has made the editing process a lot harder as I am having to adjust most of the shots that I am using, rather than just selecting 'fit to screen' on Premier. Nonetheless, the editing is vastly underway and I am almost at the stage of completion. However I felt that it was necessary to log this problem that I was faced with during the process and how I have managed to overcome it. 

Diary 16

Diary 16 

Diary 15

In the past couple of weeks I have been able to complete my whole digipak successfuly to a standard that I am happy with. I also made some alterations to the design after revcieving some feedback from a member of my target audience. I then went on to creating my magazine advert for which I have been able to produce a first draft. I pasted an image of my draft design to powerpoint before asking random members of my taregt audience to comment on what they feels works well and what I could to to improve the design. I am not completely happy with the design as it stands now and I will employ the feedback that I recieved in order to make it better. Next week I will work on improving my magazine advert and hopefully the final design will be up next week. I am also starting to spend time outside of class to edit my music video so that I am able to finish it by the end of the month.

Diary 14

In the past few days I have spent my lesson time sorting through all of the raw footage that I took on the day of my video shoot. I have started to think about what shots fit in best with the timeline that I originally proposed and how I can change the shots in programes such as After Effects. Additionally, I have been working on my digipak and I have been creating my back cover. I have completed my two inner pages and will start creating my magazine advert after my digipak is completed. Finally, I have also created a quick draft of my magazine advert using PowerPoint. I did this because I wanted to see what the image would look like with the layout that I had in mind and found completing this stage to be very helpful.

Diary 13

In the past week, I have been working on the rest of my digipak. I have managed to create the two inside pages that are going to accomodate the CD and the booklet that will come with the digipak to include the lyrics of the songs and some images of my artist. The reason why I have decided to include the booklet is because I want memberes of my audience that will buy the digipak to feel as if tyhey are getting more for buying a hard copy of it, rather than just downloading it. The digipack has been designed to look visually pleasing and I have chosen to include a running black and white colour scheme throughout the product.

Additonally, this week I was able to film my music video alongside the filming scheduale that I produced for myself and I took some images of the mise-en-scene that I created to use in the digipak. These are the images that I chose:

Diary 12

Over Christmas I have been working on my digipak cover. I have completed the front cover now and I am about to begin the back cover. I think that the front cover is similar to what I thought it would turn out like and I am happy with the end result. I did find that I had to edit it quite a lot to ensure that all the darker areas of my face were pure white and that my features such as eyes and lips were really black and stood out on the white background.

I am happy that the design I chose first of all was a success and I am excited to go on and create the rest of the digipak.

This is the finished product:

Diary 11

In the past couple of lessons I have been looking at completing  all the planning tasks that I was given. These tasks have included analysing adverts in existing magazines similar to my own, planning for my digipak and magazine advert such as creating a proposed layout and writing a written structure of my music video. These planning tasks are essential in order for me to complete my construction tasks so I am not completely overwhelmed when I have to create the actual thing, using Photoshop and Adobe.

Although I still have a couple of planning tasks, such as photographs and raw footage of my location to complete, I am going to go on to creating my digipak now as I believe that this is a good way to be spending my time in lesson. I have already taken the images that I need for my front cover close up shot this lesson, so I will begin to put that together in the following lesson that I have.

Diary 10

In recent weeks I have been extremely busy with the production part of my coursework. I started off by holding a photoshoot in which I took pictures of myself to be used on my digipak front cover. I then went on to creating, and finishing the front and back covers of my digipak's first draft. I am however waiting to hold my actual video shoot to take the remaining photos that I need. Additionally, I have been working on my magazine advert on Photoshop and trying to make visual links between the two products.


I feel that I have defined the style of the artist by choosing what fonts and colour schemes will be present throughout my work. Furthermore, I have a day in mind this week for filming my video as I was unable to do so last week, due to the poor weather conditions. Although this was a risk that I took into consideration during my risk assessment that could halt the production of my video.

Diary 9

Over the past couple of weeks I have been extremely busy with posting on my blog. I am starting to get into my planning posts now and I have just created my animatic after earlier creating my storyboard. The difference between the two is that the animatic is a moving sequence that plays the pictures that I drew for my storyboard with the music of the song that I have chosen. I really enjoyed creating this as I am starting to really imagine where I can place certain shots to fit in with the beat of the song and what the actual video might look like. 

I have also recently been researching into the equipment that I will need for my shoot as well as the props that I will need to collect. Additionally, I have analysed the lyrics to my song to broaden my understanding of their meaning and to help me interpret them in my own video. I have finally tried to contact my artist's record label to try and gain the right to use the song in my video. I am aware that the chance of getting a reply is slim but I also know that this form of address is essential in the music industry as the material that I plan to use does have copyright laws placed upon it.

Diary 8

In the past couple of weeks, I have been focusing on my planning work in class. So far I have created my initial planning ideas on a video that I need to upload to my blog and I have now started working on my storyboard and the animatic that follows that. I am also now using any free time at home and at school to complete my research tasks and I am hoping that I will fly through the majority of the planning tasks. I have just researched into a previous student's A2 coursework from my school last year and I found this to be very insightful and helpful as I have now begun to think of how I want my digipak and magazine advert to look and how I am going to link it to the pop genre and with the ideology of the artist that I have chosen.

Diary 7

During the previous week, I have begun looking at producing some research into my target audience. To do this, I produced a mood board of their hobbies, interests and overall style as well as calculating their demographics and phycographics. This will help me to design my initial ideas for my music video as I have a better understanding of the needs of my audience and how to market my video effectively through the magazine advert, as well as having some ideas of what to include in my digipak. I have also created another mood board that promotes the general tone and theme of my music video. I chose to include images of possible locations, props and colour schemes as well as some lighting effects that I could use.

Additionally, I have recently designed a rough idea for the costume of my model as well as the make up that I intend to use. I have also just finished one of the last few research tasks that I have to complete. I have looked at how my artist is represented across a variaty of differing magazines and this has proved helpful as I have developed an understanding of how I want to represent my artist and how I can go about doing so effectively.

Diary 6

This week I have expanded on my research of music videos and pop music in general by looking at videos that influence me or inspire me, tracking a pop artist throughout their career and analysing existing digipaks. Looking at videos that influence me really helped me to come up with even more creative ideas that I could incorporate into my own video, such as using some animated creatures in some woodland shots as I saw in Of Monsters and Men’s ‘Little Talks’ video. Also, by looking at specific shots that I personally love, I have thought of more creative ones that I could adapt myself.

I decided to research Demi Lovato when tracking an artist throughout their career as I knew that she had started in the industry from an early age and has dealt with various, personal struggles. I was keen to see how she overcame this and has now become a role model as well as being an award-winning pop artist.

               

Lastly, I analysed three existing digipaks. From this research, I was able to take into account certain conventions that are normally found within digipaks as well as looking at how the style changes throughout the different genres. I looked mainly at pop music digipaks including Katy Perry and Rihanna as I will be producing one for a pop artist myself. I found that they are very bright and consist mainly of images of the artist in various settings along with a leaflet from the artist including lyrics to their songs and a ‘thank you’ message, as well as additional images. In general, I believe that I have has a productive week.

Diary 5

Over the past couple of days I have been working really hard to make sure that I can realistically reach the deadline for my coursework. I have completed research into the codes and conventions of music video which I will use to apply to my own as well as looking at different music channels and their role in the development on the pop music culture. I then continued to look at the influences the pop music has on society and vice versa before analysing a variety of videos from the same pop genre. All of this research will help me when I produced my own video as I have a broader understanding of pop music as a genre, as well as knowledge of typical shots and edits that I could use.

Diary 4

Diary Entry 3

Diary Entry 2

During the past couple of lessons, I have begun my research in to the history of the music video. I started by gathering a few major stages that impacted the way we make music videos today such as the introduction of 'talkies' and 'promotional clips' and the development of music television in different countries along with the significance of online streaming sites like 'YouTube' and 'VEVO'.

Doing this research has given me a greater understanding of how music videos started and what they have undergone to get the the stage that they are at now, where they are not solely made for promotional terms in countries where the artists isn't as well known, but they are a now seen as a necessary component for any single produced by any artist. I have also been able to gain some inspiration from the videos I have watched both old and new. I think that the research has also opened my eyes to the wide range of possibilities that are available when producing my own music video. I have also looked at different after-effects that I could possibly use and I am thinking of adapting Onerepublic's 'Good Life' music video for the performance side of my own video where the clip is made to look like a lot of different images moving quickly together:



By looking at the development of music videos, I have also looked at how the quality of the image has developed due to the vast growth in technology. For example from 'Surf City' by Dan & Jean (1963) to Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' (1984) and 'Kings and Queens' by 30 Seconds to Mars (2009).

Diary Entry 1

In the past couple of weeks I have been introduced to the A2 media coursework brief and I have begun to watch a variety of different music videos and think about why certain camera angles and shots have been used to create a certain tone how they complement the music. I have looked at coursework pieces from past years and the grades that they achieved whilst searching YouTube for established artists to get inspiration for my own idea. This week however, I am making a start on my research evidence tasks whilst include looking in to the conventions of music videos, the history and different genres. I am going to start by looking at the history of the music video and I think that this will expand my knowledge of how technology and society has developed and how the expectations of videos have become more and more extreme.