As we need to do a website as part of our project we decided to make a band Myspace. I haven't used Myspace in quite a while and especially not band websites so i decided to look up a couple that are most relevant to our artist and look at the style and layout of their sites.
Two that I tended to get quite a lot of inspiration from where Katy Perry and Lily Allen :)
A quick update on my editing is going.I think we have done some really good progress, we have now finished our sequence, well we filled in all the shots anyway .
Need to do:
Get miss to give feedback on our project
Grading all the shots
Change the contrast of them all
Also, whilst we are finishing off the small touches to the video we were also starting up our website (Myspace) and also starting the album cover (digipak).
As there are 3 of us in our group we thought it would be a good idea to split up these 3 tasks to do; Tom- because he is more experience at Photoshop started the Album cover Hannah and I- then alternated between doing the Myspace and carrying on with editing on the Video.
This makes it easier to make sure everything is atleast practically finished before the deadline.
The editing is going really, we have a few gaps left now but haven't quite decided what shots we are going to put where.
Having so much footage and so many takes made it a lot harder to pick a couple of shots that we liked and edit them in, because there were many that we really liked.
Also, in our music there are numerous parts where there are 3 quick beats.
So we decided to write down how often and where these came in.
We thought this was the best way to go through our footage and find the shots we are looking for.
This is when we edited the 3 fast tight cut shots of Sian in the pink jumper.
And after getting our feedback it was a shot that many of our target audience liked!
As we are doing our evaluation in a couple of days, we know we need to start planning for it and making sure we are all aware of what content to say. To ensure we had all the information covered we split up different sections between the three of us. We all took either questions 2, 3 or 4 and with the first question we split it up between Music video, Myspace & Album cover.
This made things much easier and meant we didn't all have to complete everything. Once we finished all the sections and typed them up, we then printed them all off and looked through the questions. This was so we all had a rough idea of what needs to be said and to make sure as a group we are covering all aspects that need to be.
On the 9th we have numerous frees/ lesson, which gives us time eaith individually or as a group to run through everything and feel a bit more relaxed for when it comes.
Now our main product and ancillary texts are completed, the final thing we need to do is get our target audience in for a screening and get their views on all 3 products :)
In order to know what our audience really think, we decided to make a questionnaire, this way we could work out the common comments/criticisms that occured and know what needs changing.
1) Does the video look like a music video - if so in what way
2) Does it entertain you - if so how
3) What other music videos would you compare it to
4) Can you describe the narrative, theme or concept of the video
5) What is the genre of this music video
6) Can you tell us anything about the identity of the artist AND do you find her appealing…if so, why
7) Which music channel would you expect to see this playing on
8) Which music magazine might it be reviewed in
9) Would you want to watch it several times over
10) Would you be willing to spend money to download this single
11) What was your favourite moment in the video
12) Do you have any criticisms – (be honest)
13) Do you like the look of the Album cover and Myspace – do they fit with the video
We booked our screening with the teacher yesterday lunchtime, and it was a great success as we managed to get 19 questionnaires filled in which was a sufficient amount of people because it meant we have more data to work with.
It was one of my tasks to plan for question 2 and so I did some research back into all three products.
Ok so for our project we had to produce a main product (music video) along side a website (Myspace) and an album cover (digipak). Having finished all three products it is evident that work very well together, from the colour schemes to the way Skye is presented in all three.
From looking over the video I realised the constant bright colours in the costumes and graffiti around Bricklane, we thought it would be ideal to incorporate both aspects in the ancillary texts. This way Skye has a constant image and branding, which fans will remember and associate with her.
The video, shows Skye as a fun, young, quirky female who enjoys being independent, and by dancing round London shows she is able to move on from things and enjoy herself. They will see it and think if she can do it then so can we, this image of Skye really helps when trying to appeal to or female target audience. Additionally, although we didn't try and put across a voyeuristic image, we managed to anyway because she is an attractive female.
Myspace, again has all the bright colours and artwork from the album cover, this is working alongside the album cover because both products include this image. The pictures uploaded onto her page work with the promotion of her new single because people with see the images from the shoot, see how exciting it looks and therefore go and download her single.
The album cover has numerous images of Vinyl records on it which promotes the genre of the song.
Overall, I think our combination is very effective because they all portray a strong brand and image of Skye. The Myspace gives a bit more depth into her personal life, however has the artwork from the album and has the music video streamed onto it. The album cover shows an image of her on her shoot as well as 4 completely different images of her on the front cover, which show many different components of her personality to the audience. Finally, the music video portrays her as a young female who is outgoing and wants to go out and have fun. Swinging round lampposts and dancing down Bricklane, isn't a usual activity for people to do and so people like watching it because it makes them laugh and some part of them wishes they had the confidence to do it too. One part of our video that our target audience seemed to really enjoy was when she starts singing with the guy in the road; this was completely spontaneous which is why it works so much better.
Myspace
Here we looked through numerous other solo female artists and compared them. This way we were able to pick out the common conventions and use them when constructing our Band Myspace. I think here we used the forms and conventions well, and don't think we developed or challenged them in any way, this was mainly because a Myspace can't be a differentiated as a music video because the website needs to include specific information such as; videos, gig dates, photos, blog entries and a paragraph about herself.
Our Myspace is again very distinctive with Skye's personal style and image. We decided to put our front cover artwork as our banner on the website, this was because it not only looks good but it plays a part in promoting Skye's new album release. This way helping with the cross platform marketing strategy, all media products help to promote each other in different ways and all do the same job of selling Skye's branding and identity. We also put a personalised headline banner in which promotes her single 'Chick Habit', it is orange and flashes, therefore immediately attracting the viewers eye. Because of the use of numerous bright colours, we thought the background will need to contrast with all the colours which is why we chose a simple black background.
We even added personal pictures of Skye's everyday activities, this way it is letting her fans keep an update on what she is doing, it is so so important to keep the fans updated and letting them know what Skye is getting up to, because it is them that are going to spend money on her products. If they are't happy then Skye can't do well, so her label need to make sure they are pleasing the fans and giving them what they want. Additionally, we added in a paragraph saying a little bit about herself and also a blog entry which talks about her day of shooting 'Chick Habit'. We also added in a few of upcoming gigs, as to let the fans know where she's going to be and when. The venues where Skye is performing really suits her image and the genre she sings, she will be performing in small bar places such as, Camden's KOKO.
Below are a couple of female artist's Myspace's we looked at for inspiration:
Music Video
We spoke about how we decided to use performance and concept throughout the video specifically. We thought we would challenge the conventions by only including a short narrative sequence at the beginning of the sequence. Many videos we looked at, incorporated a narrative throughout their video. However we decided against that because our song was very repetitive in the first place, it meant we would have to have a great narrative. And unless it was worthy enough, it could ruin our video. The narrative at the beginning also gives the audience something to draw into, they want to see more cos the narrative brings the audiences to asking questions, 'who is the woman?'. 'Why is she in a taxi?', it is these questions that keep the audience intrigued.
When we first chose our song we new because it was repetitive we will need to do something unique and upbeat in order to keep the audiences interests going. Therefore, we came up with the pitch of having a young blonde female dancing/running around London. We thought this was a really good idea as it wont be the same throughout the video and it means we can choose a couple of hot spot areas (Carnaby street, Bricklane, Liverpool Street). Using areas such as these is good because they are areas that London residents would definitely know about, and when your audience can relate the the surroundings they will fell more involved and therefore want to keep watching to find out where Skye is going/what she's going to do next. As shown with the audience feedback, we managed to do this extremely well, our audience constantly felt involved and the majority of them said they would watch it again because there was so much going and therefore will not get bored as easily.
I think that we definitely used the conventions of Diegesis in our video as actions are not completely as although she is walking around London a lot you never see her get to the end of a road or turn a corner, so there are gaps in the audiences understanding of her movements. Furthermore there are many repetitions, in the outfits and locations, and our artist definitely moves to the music.
Unlike a lot of videos we do not have an explicit link between lyrics and visuals, so I think here we have challenged the conventions. For example in the video clip we showed of Lily Allen when she sings ‘sun is in the sky’ it really is! The only bit in our video that I can think of is when she draws a heart and then wipes it away, this is the only section of our video that implies a break up or a relationship going wrong. However I think our video follows far more Goodwins theory of a strong relationship between music and visual, as we have edited to the beat a lot of the time, we see editing and cutting to the beat in almost every music video.
Below is an example of Empire State of Mind- Jay Z- the beginning few seconds are a perfect example of Goodwins theory.
Finally I think with Goodwin’s ‘the notion of looking’ I believe we have definitely challenged this because our video is not scopophilic like many solo female artist’s music videos are, and she is not dressed in a provocative way yet she is still sexy and cute and appealing to guys, as well as promoting a strong, independent image to her female fans.
Vernallis theory includes not always including a narrative which we follwed completely as we only used a 20sec narrative at the beginning to create enigma for the audience, arising questions to get them more interested in watching more. Also, Vernallis says a music video needs something to drive it, with our video it is Sian's performance that does it. Finally Vernallis says the video is a visual response to music, which our video is based on. We used our music to base what e would edit and where. Album Cover
I think our cover definitely stuck to most of the forms and conventions. We included the majority of conventions like; record label, song choices, recording information, image of Skye.
However, in the end we decided on having a self titled album, mainly because Skye's branding is so strong we didn't think we needed an album name. Also, most album covers we had looked at of female solo artists were a single image of them on the front, trying to sell their image and identity.
Where as we challenged this by using 4 different images as the font cover, as a group we really liked this idea because he doesn't portray Sian as being self-centered. And with the 4 images, it gives more of a sense she is innocence and merely a young teenage artist. The use of the vinyl records allows people to immediately realise Skye's retro pop genre. Additionally, one of the images of our inside sleeve is a CU image of Skye, the image is actually an edited version of a still from our music video. I think the four different sides of the album cover work really well, because unlike others there aren't just lots of 'in your face' images of Skye, which personally i think is much better than included lots of shots of her. I think this is good because from the inside sleeve they can see her on her new single 'Chick Habit's' shoot and from the front they can look at four different images of her that all show a different side to her personality; fun, quirky, outgoing and young.
Unlike most music videos of solo female artists, we decided we didn't want to make our video scopophilic. Mainly because we see Skye as a young outgoing person who doesn't need to be voyeuristic in order to draw in her audiences. We liked the idea of keeping Skye's image innocent and give the impression of young girl who likes to go out and have fun.
Even though we drifted from this image, looking back on our feedback people said they would watch it again because she was good looking and that interested them in the video.
I think leaning away from the sexy, voyeuristic image is a much more effective way of getting peoples attentions because from experience, watching Mariah Carey's videos, i become disinterested almost immediately. I think this is purely because although she has an incredible voice, the majority of her videos are of her in skimpy dresses whilst looking into the camera at all times, and yes this may appeal to the boys much more, but therefore if the girls dislike it then she is still losing a major target audience.
Even from the image above, it is sexy, where as with Skye we tried to spur away from that and use images that were her casual self and showed of her kooky side without her having to flaunt herself.
This definitely works much better because all three products bounce off each other and all three shows off the same impersonation of her as an audience we view her. None of the products show her as anything but a young female who just wants to have fun, and that image is much more innocent and is what is drawing in our main target audiences.
We were having slight trouble when trying to think of an artist name for Sian.
We came up with a few:
Sapphire Skye Sparky
we really couldn't think of whether we wanted either only a first name or a second name too.
It was so hard trying to find a name, we were just thinking of perhaps keeping her name.
We decided on doing a vote, and asking numerous people what they thought would best suit her image/style!
The results came back that 60% really liked SKYE and a close 40% liked Sapphire, however noone seemed to like the idea of Sparky.
We tried to ask as many of our target audience what they thought too, as this is essentially who we are trying to attract and so their opinion is valued.
For our music video we got a lot of inspiration from the 'Next' Autumn advert, we found this advert and as soon as we watched it we realised it is exactly the effect we wanted for our own video. We really liked the transitions between black and white, and how her costumes change too, just as either a bus passes or she walks past a lamppost. This was the general effect we were trying to create for ours.
At 0.06, where the shot moves from colour to white&black, this is the look we were going for, we also wanted to get footage of some of the signs arounds London so we could do a cut away to them allowing the audience to easily understand the location. At 0.08, I really like this shot where she changes from a dress to a coat this it what we were trying to create when we made our lamppost change. Additionally, we did try to do this with a revolving door, however it didn't work well because the speed didn't seem right.
Above is Kesha- Tik Tok video was also a good video that we took inspiration from, again because of the nice quick transitions between black&white and colour. At 1.34, while she is in the car with the guy there are some really nice tight changes between the colours. I like this very much because the transitions are very subtle and the fact that there are lots but quick, it has more of an effect.
Yesterday we did the Bricklane shoot which was scheduled to have been done couple of weeks ago, however due to unfortunate weather we were uanble to shoot.
We started our shoot at 10 and finished near enough 4.30, it was a long and cold day but we managed to work through it and come out with some amazing footage we can work with.
Our actress was amazing, we were standing there cold with about 5 layers on, where as she was barely in an outfit and had to put up with being directed and doing take after take. We are very thankful she was able to take time out to help us with our project.
We have now finished our london shoot and only have a performance shoot to do which i think should take max 10mins. We would like to take atleast 3 takes of her performing infront of the green screen, because to be honest we have so much footage already we really only need the performance shots to break up the london sequences we have already.
We have another shoot booked with Sian on the upcoming Sunday. As we did so well on our last shoot I'm not too worried about this one, we seem to be much more prepared and are hoping to get everything done much quicker and more efficiently.
Things we have: - Shot List - Prop List
The shot list is vital, because a few of the shots we actually practiced at school, such as, person changing clothes walking past a lampost & person walking past and changing clothes, we managed to forget to shoot on the Saturday. Therefore we have finalised the shots we definitely want and need, but are intending on experimenting again when we get to Bricklane. In Bricklane, there is so much going on, and so many variations of scenery that we can use to our advantage and gain some really nice footage.
We have a change of shoes for sian, some shots in her little black heels and some in dresses and plimsoles. And after miss. B's feeback i'm feeling more confident in filming more flirtatious and voyeuristic shots.
Ok so we had a scheduled shoot for 31st Oct and 1st Nov. We managed to have a really good day of shooting on the 31st, however due to torrential rain on the sunday we were unable to shoot. We cancelled the shoot purely because we knew that even if we did go to Bricklane and film, we would only be travelling home wet and upset with our footage as rain doesn't look good on film. Therefore we have decided to re-schedule for either saturday 7th or sunday 8th.
Depending on weather and timings of cast and crew.
31st October
We met at 10 at Starbucks in Carnaby, however with having to sort out make-up and costume we didnt start filming until 11.30.
Admittedly, the beginning of the day seemed to drone on, purely because I dont think we planned ourselves well enough and writing up a much more detailed shooting schedule would have really helped us. However, saying this, we managed to get some really nice shots in some great locations.
We did forget to do atleast 5 shots of which we had already done in a test shoot, but i'm not too worried about this as it can be done on our Bricklane shoot.
Sian our actress did really well i thought, considering the amount of people out in london on the day. She managed to perform well and keep her cool. Although, as we drew nearer to 4 o'clock it was obvious herself, along with the rest of the group were getting tired. We had been shooting from 10-4 with a small lunch break in between.
We managed to shoot in both Carnaby and Soho which was really good. And decided we were going to experiment greatly with trying out lots of different shots with the scenery.
OK, we have now as a group finished a storyboard,
It has been colour co-ordinated; pink= narrative, yellow&green=London settings and blue= performance.
I am pleased with the overall storyboard and happy with the shots we have decided to draw in, however there doesn't seem many there, this is because as a group we love to experiment with different shots once we are actually in our location.
Therefore are going to give ourselves a bit of extra time to test out some challenging and different shots that may not be used so frequently. We think this will add a slight uniqueness to our video and really draw in audiences.
ALSO, we have scheduled to do a location recee sunday 18th.
This is mainly in aid of choosing our exact roads and surroundings to film in, because we obviously do not want our actor having to wait around alot for us to actually get organised.
We are planning on doing at least a whole day of shooting as we want our video to start from morning to evening, therefore we cannot afford to waste anytime faffing around that is unnecessary.
One day this week we are also planning on going to Sian's house and rading her wardrobe to find the costume we would like to use, then anything we do not have by next week we will have time to either buy or borrow off friends.
Hannah is in charge of make-up and hair and so we possibly may need to test out some different patterns before we shoot, however if this becomes too time consuming we will keep it minimal.
We have also now decided on definitely having a narrative, it is simple and will give us the added time we need!
This image is one of my favorite out of all of them just because it looks really good and i like the idea of keeping some colour constant through the video even if we do decide to do some shots in black and white, then portraying the difference between being overally bright and bold to being black and white.
The picture was done for one of my friends art projects, it was very well thought through because she looks like an upper class girl in a posh red frock posing on a park bench in the middle of Edmonton green. And I like the contrasting storyline to the picture, it really makes you want to look at it.
Which is why i really think it will be good for our video because of course what we want to do its keep the audience engaged.
Ok so I recently asked our choice of actress whether she is willing to star in our music video, and at first she wasn't too happy about it but once i played her the song and she heard about our treatment she was beginning to really like the idea of it.
Actress- Sian Parkinson
She is a blonde female aged 17, who is very petite and quirky.
I think she is perfect for the part because although she may not be an amazing performer she is very stylish and so will feel comfortable wearing the outfits we have for her. Sian has her own unique style, and doesn't always tend to follow the new modern 'it' fashion trends- this is absolutely perfect for our video and we too are looking for the 1960's fashion and she is very much so into that era!
Above are just a few pictures I have found that not only best explain her but also give the group a sense of her style and what best suits her!
As you know we did our pitch to our class last Thursday.
We introduced our song, played it half way through, explained our treatment & then played the rest of the song. This way people were able to base our treatment to the song after hearing it.
I think it went really well, everyone seemed to like our treatment and thought it would suit the song we are doing, very well. There wasn't any criticism giving, just a lot of helpful feedback.
Feedback:
Our idea of a blank set could work, altohugh miss suggested using a green screen and then putting in the white background, however this will have to be tested a couple of times before actually following it through, therefore being able to alter anything needed to.
Our main location- if only location- will be London itself, therefore we may have the drawback of having to ask permission to film. However because we are not planning on filming in the same spot for the whole day we think it would be easy to get all equipment and run if need be. So we could work around not asking for permission very easily.
Many people in the class asked 'what if it's crowded?', to be honest the more crowded the better. This will add to our idea of a busy London a lot more. & therefore meaning our actress would look much more colourful around a crowded London or business workers in suits and smart clothing.
Reference: Gorilla Video done a couple of years ago.
A major video that has inspired me has been the 'Next advert- from September 2009'.
There are many different still shots within the video that have really helped me when thinking up our treatment. Firstly there are the split screens which i am really keen about, i find the normal 2 split scene quite boring and think a split screen with about 3 or 4 different screens will have a much better effect. Imagining each shot is something different; either our actress dancing around london streets, london phone boxes, lamposts and just the general environment.
Additionally, after our feedback session with Miss.Blackborow she also thought a cut away to many different signs around London would look effective, Mainly of the most popular signs around London. E.g. Fashion centrals, Bricklane, Bond Street, Notting Hill and perhaps Carnaby Street.
Images of the shop fronts would be good.
Below is the Youtube link to the advert.
At 0.07- the reference for signs.
From 0.12-0.17 is the reference for the split scenes
From 0.20- is our group idea of a studio set except we would like ours to be without colour, & a plain white background.
Also thorughout the video it changes in and out from colour to black and white, I think this, if done well, can look really good.
Thursday is our presentation and as a group we still need to come up with an appropriate treatment, it doesn't have to be finalised but atleast a draft version that we can pitch to the rest of the class.
Hannah and I are going to have a meeting period 2+3 to think up a treatment and then Tom will meet us at break and give his feedback on it.
If need be we are going to stay thorugh lunck until our treatment is complete.
Our target is to have a final treatment by the end of the day so we can crack on with the planning for our presentation thursday.
Once all the above is complete then we will have to break up who is doing what for our presentation. Individually we should have ready different things and then during the presentation we pitch the idea and song together and according to what you had to research you can talk about it to the rest of the group.
TO DO LIST:
1. The track itself
2. What you know about the track, and the original band/artist
3. The genre of the music and the signifiers of this
4. The target audience you intend to appeal to
5. Your treatment for the video which should include visual references (stills and video)
6. Your treatment should give a strong sense of the overall style, mise-en-scene, mood and theme of your idea.
7. You should be able to discuss in terms of Goodwins questions on B2 (using B7 to help you)
