PRODUCTION: Filming Day 2 - 30/10/13

We decided to book the camera equipment over half term because we felt that it would be more convenient as we would have more time on or hands as Richmond is far away.
We  had establishing the times of when we were free so we could use that time to film.

We decided to film at the cafe location and we managed to get all the base tracks which were needed and a few extra shots. Overall, the day was a success and w are almost finished with filming.

Here's a presentation about what we did on our second day of filming:

 

PRODUCTION: Filming Day 1 - 25/10/13

We were all very excited about filming for the first time and we made sure to keep to our schedule whilst we were there. Everything went according to plan apart from being slightly late on getting back to college...

Here's a presentation about what we did on our first day of filming:

Production: Filming - Day 1.

25th October 2013.

                               

   FILMING DAY 1 - BASETRACK 1

  We was both apprehensive and excited about shooting for the first time! So we started the production very carefully paying reminders to how we had planned the video to be in the beginning planning process. It all went absolutely fine & you can see (with pictures) how our group made the most of the first productional day in the presentation below. EXCITING!
                              

  From kelliemedia

Location: Richmond Bridge.

Costume: Jumper, Jeans, Pastel Colour Jacket, Dark coloured boots.

Time of day: Midday (Arrived at 1:30pm)

Song Part: Opening Verse 1

Planning/Production: Recce 22nd October

Exploring the external location - getting to know Richmond before we film.  

To see what progress we made from our reccee day watch my vlog below:

(Music included in this video is all royalty free and therefore there are no copyright issues)

            

Planning- recce

Exploring location...

we decided our to go to Richmond and make sure we are completely organised and know exactly where we will be filming. This was a really productive day and we know exactly where to go for every visit. We also made a slight change in our plans whilst on our visit. We noticed that there was a vast amount of leaves in the park and instead of filming near flowers, we should use leaves. This will match our autumn theme more! We also took photos of our location so we have a clear plan for future filming. We really got to know the location today! 

PRODUCTION: Recce - 22/10/13

We decided to just finalise our specific locations within our location. We did this by taking lots of test shots to see what it would look on a picture. We've decided to use Richmond bridge for the first verse, the cafe for the second verse, the guitar scene for the chorus in the fields and the bridge and any other cutaways in Richmond Hill and the green park area. We decided to change the scene with the flowers to leaves because it's more practical and fitting to the season.

Here's a little video I made showing the pictures we took:



PRODUCTION: Skills development

Planning our music video in A2 was more detailed than the planning we did for our thriller opening in AS.

This is because we looked more into the different theories in music videos and decided if we wanted to apply those theories to our video or not. Also we looked at conventions of typical videos within a genre. 

Another thing we had to keep in mind was what we wanted to use throughout all our media products for it to synergize. We had to think about this carefully and logically so it looks it together instead of randomly shoved together.

Last year, all we did was look into our target audience. This year we had to think more into it and see how we could make our video appeal to our core audience as well as our wider audience. 

Also this year we made an animatic for our song, which we have never done before. Last year for our thriller we had just made a storyboard of what we wanted our opening to be like. 

 

PLANNING: Reflection on Progress

REFLECTION 2

 
Looking back at the targets I set for the last reflection, I would say that I have achieved them to the best of my ability. This is because I have started to make it look more nicer, use more technologies and make my own blog posts that haven't been listed. 

Two targets that I have that could improve my blog even more is to:

- Expand the technology I use instead of using the stuff I know e.g. learning new ways of posting pictures, creat animations etc.

- Another is to blog regularly and keep it interesting. 

Overall, I would give my blog a 17/20 so far. 

Research- the appeal of music videos

How do music videos appeal to their audience?

Reflection On Progress No.2

Although it hasn't been a long period of time, I feel that I have in fact improved since the last time I logged my blogging progression. 

I think that one of my objectives I have definitely met is the aim to use more ICT, even I have realised how much more interesting it makes the blog! It's entertaining just as any piece of media should be. I even ENJOYED incorporating different technologies into the blog as I learnt how to use a variety of different sources and ICT production softwares.

 I included things such as camtasia videos, recorded screenshots, time toast, prezi, slideshare, video gifs and many more! 

Another one of my targets was to express my ideas more through both images and explanatory text in the blog, thankfully I believe I've been able to do so  because the planning process involves a lot more creative thinking and personal opinions on things compared to research, so I feel since starting the planning process, my blogs have conveyed my ideas and imaginations relatively well. 

I have noticed a progression, however there is always room for improvement! I know that there are more things I can work on and it is easier to achieve something when you have something to work towards. So these are the 2 goals I have given myself to meet & grow:

1. Blog more shorter & compact posts. rather than large singular posts packed with information. 

2. Be more consistent with blogs - organise allocated days to post. 

Planning: Risk Assessment

There are many risks we could face while we are filming: 

- the weather conditions might not be great so if it's raining it may cause us to have problems. Another problem with the weather is that it may not be the same on the days we are filming so it could cause a problem with the consistency of it all

- make sure someone doesn't have to carry equipment by themselves just so it is safe and not prone to get stolen

- don't leave any equipment unattended while filming because it is very expensive and could be at risk of being stolen

- make sure everyone turns up especially the person performing as they have the central role throughout the production stage

- make sure they wear the right costumes for the location otherwise it wouldn't match what we are trying to do 

- people looking into the camera would ruin the video as it wouldn't have the same effect of a real one. To fix this problem we could re-shoot those scenes until we get it right

- if the equipment isn't working, it could create a big problem as our location is quite far away. If we realise these problems on location, it would take a while to get back to fix it. To avoid this problem we could get everything checked out before we leave to go on location

Planning: Production Schedule

To fit in editing and post-processes, we must have quite a structured schedule for production, especially filming. When the dates of filming and editing were finalised I constructed a timeline so that it is easy to follow and so that we can produce a successful piece of media by the deadline (which real music video producers have to do).

Here is our production schedule simplified on a timeline:

Planning: Permission to film inside a Cafe

Our music video will be based outside and we therefore did not have 

to gain permission to film in an open area park, however we conjured 

the idea of a cafe scene and as this is in somoeone else's property we 

need to gain permission before filming footage inside.

We found a cute little cafe near Richmond Park that suited our girly vintage theme, so I sent them an email in a bid to gain filming permission. 

I located their website and contacted them via email, here is what I sent...

                                                   

Planning: Synergy of our artist's products.

Eva Ellis is an artist that we are going to create from scratch, and she will have a complete brand image from colours & costume style, to fonts and themes. As almost every artist does, we plan to keep re-occurring things through the different media texts we produce, making the artist recognisable and unique to themselves.

The things that we are going to inkeep with synergy are:

Guitar prop.

As I have noticed and stated many times previously, an instrument compliments the artist's talents and promotes their upkeep with the competitive music industry. A guitar will feature in Eva Ellis' music video, on her CD digipak, and all other images of promotion both online and off. This way, Eva will not just be known as 'a singer' but as 'a young musician' - Wherever Eva is promoted, the guitar will standby and become a recognisable trait of her.

Makeup: Red Lipstick

Our initial reason for having Eva Ellis wear red lipstick was to attract the male gaze in the video (because we have a female core audience) - and now we have decided to keep this appearance of a red lip consistent in the image of Eva. It will be used because it will not only continuously grab more male's attention through different medias (e.g. TV, digipaks, magazine ad) - but as it is a bold colour, we figured it would be memorable and give a bold statement making the audience remember the artist for a certain appearance aswell as a certain style of music. It will make even Eva's face stand out, without having to see a large billboard consisting of her entire brand image, people would recognize it's her from little things like this.

Text font: Handwritten style.

We have chosen this really pretty text style to include on Nina's album artwork, beginning of music videos, and magazine adverts. It is simplistic (again reinforcing the fact that Eva doesn't need to try too hard to be successful/pretty) - The handwritten effect makes promotion appear as a direct message from Eva herself, and the handwriting is very feminine. It also fits in with the vintage theme that we have in the brand image.

Video/Image effects: Vintage filter.

Because we feel that the vintage theme goes very well with indie pop genre'd music, and we want our artist to appear very feminine (both to inspire other young girls, and to attract the male gaze) - we will be adding a vintage effect onto all visual products of Eva Ellis. We will do this by controlling the colour  and enhancing all of the yellow-tones, on softwares such as Final Cut Pro. The vintage effect creates a really pretty image overall and softens the mood which is suitable for the artist's song concepts of love.

Planning: Our choice of setting, location and props.

First and foremost - We have decided to set our video outside in an EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT.
Looking at the conventions of indie-pop videos and artist's that we aspire Eva Ellis to reflect, most are located outdoors and are in some way in touch with nature.

Click links to view other indie pop videos:

It is rare to find amazing natural places in London, but we thought of a place that we could travel to that would be the PERFECT setting for 'Just Before Goodbye'

RICHMOND PARK.
Not only is this location the perfect on screen visual of nature and femininity that we desire, but another good reason to film here is that there are various small areas compacted into the one big space such as lakes, bridges, flower beds etc. 
Therefore we can gain a variety of base tracks under the same theme but with slightly different surroundings to keep engagement ongoing for the audience throughout.

The  first part of Richmond park we will film in is...
Richmond bridge.

Our video structure is disjuncture, so we are simply going to use this bridge for our artist to both perform the song on and also just to show her walking through (to make the video have SOME amplification and not just completely random) showing a journey of her day. We will be able to use tracking shots for this part and also eyeline-match cuts of the artist admiring from up on the bridge, conveying her emotions and hindsight of a relationship (relevant to the lyrics). Water also has many associated connotations with emotions, life, and tears etc so it is a very calm and suitable location.

 

Our main basetrack for the chorus & more will be filmed inside Richmond park in flowerbeds&grass.

 The artist will perform (with & without instrument) in the grass and flowers which will enhance her beauty and create an overall sense of womanity and again reinforce the indie pop natural vibe. Moreover, as the artist is in such a wide opened space, it will emphasise how passive and ladylike she is (male gaze) - Making the audience focus on only her as there will be no other big features or distractions such as london transport going past or crowds of people. It is quite a secluded area so much area to film in which will enable us to use the biggest variety of shots as possible. There won't be many hazardous or attention-grabbing objects around to deter that.

The last location we plan to have our artist perform in is a Cafe.

This will link to her walking 'somewhere' across the bridge and is somewhere that she can sit down with the props and be the actor in the music video rather than the narrator as she will be in the chorus scene. The shots of her in the cafe will de-glamourise the video and not come across too out of reach for the audience. Whilst Eva Ellis is performing to her song 'Just before goodbye' this location will allow her to act which will show more personality and market her overall brand image, rather than simply promoting the performance of the song.

 

                           

Planning: Our Audience

Once we decided on the song, and checked many others out of the same genre, we were able to come up with a specific ordeal of what our core audience would be. We are branding Eva Ellis around this audience's likes.

We visited fansites for existing artists such as Katy Perry, Jessie J, Ellie Goulding and Lilly Allen, of which most of the fans were young teenage girls. As our artist is also going to be in this pop industry, we decided to go for the same core audience. 

Here is a profile I made up showing exactly the type of people we expect Eva Ellis' products to appeal to.

The psychographic profile of our audience member is both a mixture of an aspirer and a mainstreamer. As she enjoys pop (short for popular) music as do many others, but she also has aspirations to develop like these role models with makeup and clothing etc.

Planning- Synergy

How can Eva Ellis use synergy?

When researching other artists, I came to the realisation that they often use synergy to enable the audience to notice a connection between certain products and an artist. We want our artist to be as successful as some of the ones I researched such as Daft Punk and Emile Sande. This is why we are going to keep three things consistent...

1.Guitar

2. Font

3. Artists style (red or pink lipstick & wavey hair)

Using this synergy will make Eva more recognisable!

Planning- Social networking

How can social media help our artist?

Well, Nina Nesbitt has used different social networking websites to help promote herself as an artist can communicate with her fans. She has used Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

We have a similar target audience and feel it would be helpful for our artist to create accounts on the same websites. These social media websites are the most popular among 15-23 year old females, this is perfect for Eva Ellis and her audience! 

This is a collage of Nina Nesbitts social media websites, she has shown her personality through her Instagram and twitter, whilst also answering fans and stating dates of gigs. The Facebook page is a 'like' page which isn't Nina directly speaking, but it is a page dedicated to her, we also have one of these for Eva.

Planning- Record company

Which record label is most suited to our artist?

We decided that the best way to find our ideal record company would be to research similar artists, and the companies used for their first albums. This is because our artist is new to the industry, as they would have been when releasing their debut album.

The artists we researched were Gabrielle Aplin, Lilly Allen, Ed Sheeran and Eliza Doolittle. The most common record label we found between these, was Parlophone Records. We decided to choose this record company, it suits our genre and the stage our artist is at in her music career.

Internet download/CD release!

Eva Ellis is a young female artist who has a target audience of young females. We are aware that our target audience will be regular users of online networking. For this reason, Eva's music will be available for internet download on iTunes, Souncloud, Spotify etc. A CD release will also take place as we don't want too keep our audience too secluded, we would like to reach out to a wider audience.

A variety of ways to hear Eva Ellis
will entitle a more varied audience.

Planning: Our choice of costume & Makeup

Eva Ellis is the artist that we have created, and her brand image has been built upon inspiration from artists like Taylor Swift, Ellie Goulding, and other indie pop females. Having carried out research from various music videos and artist brands, we have finally been able to use mise en scene to create Eva Ellis' brand image.

COSTUME:

Initially, as the main aspect we are highlighting of our artist is femininity, we agreed on very summery, simplistic, light flowing dresses/skirts etc with a lot of pastel colours. We wanted a bright and girly soft atmosphere to the video, making Eva seem passive (Carol Vernallis Theory) and appeal to a YOUNG audience with the colours.

Here are some outfit images I looked at for inspiration and ideas.

HOWEVER, we stumbled across a big problem... *drumrolls* - the dates we planned to film on were during autumn, the weather would be much colder than we realised and not only would it not be easy for the performer to perform in a small summer dress whilst out in the cold, but also it wouldn't visually look right on screen if Eva was dressed in summer clothing with an autumnal theme and background.

This is a big worry for us as we'd planned so much on the pretty little flowing summer outfits, but we have found a way to still input a lot of femininity into autumn season clothing and we actually feel that slightly more snug and thicker clothing can convey our lyrics of heartbreak and how the artist needs comforting. 

I searched through magazines and online wesbites to find the latest autumn trends, we are going to have:

Look 1. Petite feminine dress with jacket - Winged eyeliner & Red lipstick.

This first look will be very autumnal & set the theme going well with other aspects of the video from the start.

Look 3 - Casual but pretty. Small jumper with jeans and boots.  Makeup - Light with coral lips.

This look will keep Eva Ellis in touch with reality and her audience, not making her seem like a product but a real person that can relate to other teenage girls her age. Also making her seem naturally beautiful without too much effort - therefore marketing her image :)

Costume 3 - Vintage-feel dress (maybe accompanied with knit cardigan) - complimented by loose curled wavy hair.

Planning: Analysing ICT on the website of original artist

The whole point of us making a music video is to create our

 artist's brand image & promote both her & her products. 

So... as 2013 is such a technological-dependant time, with marketing, audience viewing, and purchasing able to be done through the web, one of the best combinations to have along with a fresh artist is a website (especially when you have a teenage core audience who are said to spend the most time on the internet! - It's a great stategy)

Therefore, what better insight about the use of websites to promote artists than visiting the original artist's website of our chosen song - Nina Nesbitt. I headed over to her site and had a browse of the promotional strategies.

This quick vlog/gif shows me being nosey having a little scroll through :)

Ways that the website promotes her brand image + songs.

 

Other clever little features on the website that promote Nina...

 

PLANNING: Pitch Feedback

Here is the feedback we received from the class after we presented our pitch to them for 'Just Before Goodbye'

Overall, the feedback was good. We had to make it clear why we were going to use Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze in our video and how it had any relevance to our intended target audience or wider audience. Apart from that everything else went fine. 

Planning: Analysis of videos that have influenced us.

We are VERY grateful being able to easily access such amazing music videos of professional 

artists similar to the one we are branding. In the Prezi below I explain all there is to know about

what aspects have caught our eye from existing videos and how we will in-cooperate similar features into our Eva Ellis - Just Before Goodbye video. Take a look...

Planning: Analysis of 'Just Before Goodbye' original video

Although we will be producing a video for the exact same song, we plan to make our video differ in MANY ways compared to the original. The most noticeable and relevant things such as location, costume, props, and the overall concept of our video will be very different and market our artist differently by using more thoughtful technical skills (e.g. edits) and specific synergy appearance style of our artist.

Here is the original promotional video for 'Just Before Goodbye' with some analysis from myself explaining aspects that I think could show more relevancy & how we are going to do that ourselves :)

Original location (Internal - Music Studio)

Location we plan to film at (External - Nature) Richmond Park.

 

 

Nina Nesbitt's costume (Casual, dark colours, no costume changes)

Our artist Eva Ellis' costume choices. (More feminine, light pastel colours, 2-3 costume changes)

Props featured in the original video - Just instruments (guitar - drums - michrophone) creating atmosphere of a live performance.

 







The everyday props that we'll include in our video to give it more of a reality feel of heartbreak & visual story of to entertain. (Coffee & a diary). Also, we'll include an instrument (guitar) to showcase our artist's talents.