Ancillary Task ideas

Following our research into magazine adverts and digipacks, we have taken ideas which we believe will portray our main character in the correct way.

We have then planned some possible designs for either our magazine advert or digipacks; we will plan which we be more suitable. They are rough, however which means if we plan to use one as the digi-pak cover we we alter it so it is square, while we can also change the shape, for example making it landscape, for the magazine advert.

Here are four other designs; one copies the Kesha picture which is a close up, showing her attitude:

 while the others consist of either medium or long shots in locations linked to the film, this one shows other characters; the boy in the film and a girl. This idea therefore gives more of an insight into the music video but the magazine advert would more likely be aimed at advertising the singer and therefore, like the products we have researched, will only show the actress herself.



Planning our Ancillary Tasks

Towards making our ancillary tasks, I have carried out research into the poster's and digipacks of the artists who we have previously linked with both the style and appearance of our character.

Click the image to enlarge

In these anotated images, there are various different poses, angles and appearances but all present the artist in a similar way: wild, reckless and rebellious. These characteristics are shown through:

• Hair and Make-up; dark eye make up with back-combed or curled hair to make it appear volumised and not carefully done.
• Clothing; Indie clothing consisting of denim, quite basic but jewellery to make it less plain
• Poses; straight face, not smiling makes them seem quite attittudey.

In the Rihanna images she is also shown smoking a cigarette in a few of the pictures; this also adds to her rebellious image. In our filming, the actress is shown smoking a cigarette and so if we were to show this in the ancillary tasks it would give the products synergy, while creating a rebellious, wild character throughout. 

Problems Encountered During Editing

While editing the first two groups of filming clips, we did encounter some problems probably due to our unfamiliarity with Adobe Premiere.

Cutting up the Sound Track

Editing the film clips included splitting the clips to remove any unwanted filming and/ or to shorten the clips. However, while cutting these clips we firstly kept cutting the sound track too which removed parts of the song and forced us to undo the work to bring back the song. We later discovered that to avoid the problem we must ensure the video clip and not the entire timeline is selected (which meant everything in the timeline would also be split).

Speeding Clips up too Fast

The time stretch tool involves estimating the percentage we want the clip to be sped up at and therefore meant we had to use a trial and error method to get the clip into the correct time frame. However, after guessing a few different percentages, we managed to get the clips to the correct speed.

The program shutting down

Adobe Premiere itself caused my media group some problems as the programme shut itself down for unknown reasons. Everytime we made an adjustment to the film, the programme would close down without saving any changes. To address this problem we had to ask the IT technitions to fix the programme; though this delayed our progress at editing the music video, we overcame this problem and can now carry on, hopefully without this continuing.

Space on our users

On our school users, we had only 1GB of space and saving dozens of video clips, the song and various copies of the Adobe Premiere edit of our film to our documents meant we used up our space quite quickly. However, going to the IT technitions and asking them to increase the space on our users means we have room to add our newly filmed clips without worrying; in addition they can increase this space further if we request it.

Not being able to hear the Sound Track

The sound on Zoe's computer, which we were using to access Adobe Premiere and edit our film, would not allow sound to work and therefore caused problems. We could not hear the song and so could not place clips at the correct point; one clip involved the actress singing a line to the song, while another showed her writing out some of the lyrics and it was therefore vital to hear the music. By editing sound controls and using headphones, we managed to hear the music and so could fit in the clips accurately.

Editing our Film

After each day of filming we have done so far, we have spent the following media lessons editing the different clips and placing them together. This allows the film to come together and shows us where we need to add clips and if there are any that we need to re-film, due to problems such as:

• Lighting
• Cutting out parts of the actor
• Being able to see the filmers etc
• Clips being the wrong timing

We began editing by uploading the song to Adobe Premier and, after editing it, inserted all of the clips from the previous day of filming so they were ready to insert to the timeline. By having them uploaded ready it saved time on having to go through each of the clips individually to find the necessary one, making our editing time more organised. By importing the song to the program first, we could fit the clips to the correct times using the timeline we have previously made.

Uploaded videos

 We then began placing the clips in the timeline on Adobe Premiere in the correct order and then, using our timeline, cut them down to the correct times.

The timeline

This included removing any unwanted scenes in the clips, such as laughing or movement at the end. To do so we had to 'Split clip' at the point we wanted the clip to begin/end, which could be chosen by moving the red bar and then clicking the 'split clip' tool:

Splitting the Clip

 However, some of the time slots for parts of the video meant cutting down the clips considerably and so we used the time stretch tool to speed certain clips up and therefore fit them into shorter time frames, like we had planned on our timeline/ storyboard:

Speeding up clips

We then removed the audio clips from the filming we had done as we will be inserting a soundtrack to the song and therefore do not want added sound. To do so we right-clicked on the audio part of the clip in the timeline and chose to 'unlink audio and video' before deleting the audio part:

Unlinking Audio and Video

These steps have helped us to make a good start to the editing of our film while showing where we need to add the further clips we will obtain from filming and where we need to re-film.

Editing the Soundtrack

Before editing the clips we have filmed we thought it would be wise to import the song 'Ignorance' into Adobe Premiere. Our timeline shows we have made edits to the song, removing parts which we felt are unecessary and shortening it to just over 3 minutes.

The audio track after edited

After inserting the song to the timeline, we using the 'Split Clip' tool to cut out parts of the song and delete them from the audio section and ensured the newly cut soundtrack flowed well, making tweeks to improve this.

With our song edited we can now add the clips and fit them to our song with the help of the timeline we have previously made.

Inside Covers of CD's Research

Inside covers

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CD Research

Kesha, Animal CD

The above Kesha CD is quite basic. The background is a sandy colour with the artists name/ intials faintly printed in a recurring pattern, while in the foreground is the artists name in large, black text in her signature font. This therefore links the CD to the digi-pak well through using the same font. Having the larger text as well as that in the background is not too much as the background text is very faint. However, if it was darker then I believe there would be too much writing.

Rihanna, Rated R CD

Like with the Kesha CD, this one of Rihanna's include the 'R' which is seen almost as a logo on all of her products. The red stands out clearly against the black and blue background and will allow the audience to immediately recognise who's CD it is. There is more information above the R including the album and artists name.

Rihanna, Loud CD

This is another of Rihanna's albums CD's. It is clearly different to the previous as thought there is little text, it mainly consists of a rose which links to the rest of the 'Loud' album digi-pak also featuring roses:

Overall, I, along with the rest of my group like this approach to the CD, using a main focus of the front cover to use on the CD itself (in this case above being the rose) but also I like the simpleness of the Kesha CD which does not include other information on the making of the CD etc.



Time Changes in Music Videos

One of the main focuses of our music video is the fact that is flashbacks from the present to the past, showing two different times in the girls life. I have therefore thought of music videos which share this trait to see how the difference in time is shown, for example through colour or just appearances.

Katy Perry, The One That Got Away

The music video to 'The one that got away' shows the life of an old women reminising back to her past when she was young. This is shown in the video through changes in colour. The images below show two occasions in the video when it flashes between her current life and her as a teenager. The modern day is quite bright and white in colour, while the past is shown in an almost sepia tone which appears to be a warmer colour. However, there is not a large range of colour which shows it could be her memory fading slightly.

Kesha, Tik Tok

I have based a lot of my music video research on this song as it links very well to our own plan. The video shows a girl who is quite wild waking up after a night out; this is shown in very brief flashbacks reflecting her memories of the night. The flashbacks, as with Katy Perry's video, are shown in a different colour scheme, this time being black and white. This effectively separates the flashbacks from the main storyline, meaning the audience cannot get confused and shows that it has happened in the past.

Rihanna, We Found Love
This music video has also been referred to a lot during my research as the storyline is similar to our own, with a relationship breaking up. Like the above two music videos, this one uses flashbacks, showing the happy couple who have know become bored and separated. However, unlike the two above, this music video does not use a change in colour to show the contrast but instead shows the time changes just in the appearances of the couple. They look happy and relaxed in the past but in the present are depressed and looking dirty/ uncaring.

Filming Day 2

My group planned to film the next part of our music video over the christmas half term when we had a lot of free time. The location of these scenes is Eysnford at the remains of a castle which means the background is a stone wall and so not too busy to take the attention off the actress. Before we began we asked Ellie the actress to wear the same outfit as she had before as well as to make her hair look the same, to ensure continuity throughout the music video.

Props
We organised the props we needed for this day of filming before we set out; this consisted of an alcohol bottle (which we half filled with water), a cigarette for the actress to light and a photograph of the two actors involved, however, we were unable to get this and so used a temporary prop of a piece of paper for now. We will however re-shoot this so it looks realistic and is inkeeping with our storyboard.

The Location

Lighting

Before we began filming we had to find a suitable area where the light was not too bright to make the film unclear, this was hard as it was quite early morning and the sun was moving round. The following pictures show different areas by this wall when we tried to find ideal lighting:

In this area was either very bright sunlight or a dark shadow.

Here there is still a shadow along the bottom half of the wall.

This shows the final area we chose to film in where the lighting was fairly consistent.

Problems we encountered



One of the scenes we filmed included lighting a cigarette, while another clip shows the actress setting a piece of paper on fire. This, which can be seen the above pictures, proved quite difficult due to the wind which was strong, blowing out the flames whenever we lit a match. We managed to light the cigarette by shielding the wind with ourselves, however, this could not be done for the paper being lit and so we will shoot that clip at another time hopefully when there is less wind.

Back Cover and Spine of Digi-Pak Research

Rihanna Rated R back cover

(Click on the pictures to make them bigger)

The spine is also shown either side of this back cover; the main information shown on the spine is the artists name and album name, with these written in the same font and style as on the front cover.

Kesha, Animal cover

Once again, the spine's of the album above shows the artists name and album name in the centre of the spine, written vertically so it fits well and therefore the two most important pieces of information necessary on the spine are:

- Artist Name

-Album Name

However, other information includes the record label at the top of the spine and a code at the bottom. As we have not mentioned a record label throughout, we may just not include this piece of information on the spine, while a code would be added during distribution and not in the design.

The research above shows two fairly different looking back covers. However, using these we have decided features our own back covers should include to meet the sophisticated style of our digi-pak:

- An image similar to that on the front but probably slightly less obvious, for example the back of the artist or a partially hidden image, linking with that in the Rihanna back cover.

-A list of songs as this is easier for the audience to read

-Information about the record label

-Contact Information

-Barcode

Transitions in Music Videos

After researching into different types of cuts and transitions, I have looked at music vidoes to see the most commonly used ones. I have chosen to watch music videos from artists who could be linked with our actress' style and those with a similar story line as this will effect the cuts and transitions. For example, our video is fast paced so a slow song would most likely have different cuts to make it appear soothing and calm.

Kesha, We are who we are
We feel that Kesha links well with our actress and music video and I have therefore firstly looked at the music video for her song 'We r who we r'.

Parallel editing Cutting

Here is an example of parallel editing cutting which shows the same scenes but from a variety of shots, making it more exciting and interesting for the viewer. The cuts are quick and therefore makes the music video fast paced. The image shows 4 different cuts of the same scene, using a range of angles.

Here is another example. The left image shows a mid shot of the DJ's with the laptop, while the second is a close up of the laptop screen. The scene is the same but the shots are very different with a simple cut separating them.

Dissolve

The images above show the stages from a close up shot of the singer turning into a long shot of a group of people. A dissolve transition was used as the middle image shows the original picture fading and the last image coming into view. It does not go black in between however, showing it is not a fade.



This image also shows the dissolve transition being used, with a close up of the singer turning into a long shot of a tunnel. It effectively makes two very contrasting views link into one another.

Miley Cyrus, Party in the USA

Miley Cyrus, Party in the USA is a music video starring a young girl roughly the same age of our actress. Though the setting is quite different (in this it is hot and summer, while ours is set in the winter) it is the same sort of speed and therefore appropriate to look at.

Parallel Editing Cutting

Once again, this cutting technique has been used, showing the same scene but in a range of angles, meaning regular cuts.

This cut however, is less obvious in showing that the scene is the same.

Fade in/ out

Going from left to right, the above images show a sequence of how the music video uses the transition of fading to change shots. Between the two different scenes, the screen goes black briefly and then fades in as equally slowly as it faded out to the next scene.

Beyonce, Best Thing I Never Had

Beyonce's music video for 'Best thing I Never had' does not necessarily link to the style of our song or plan for the music video but is one of the few videos I can think of that includes a story in the present and then flashback to the past and so I wanted to see how this change was cut to show the time difference.

Despite thinking there would be a particular transition to show the flashback, the music video just cuts to this scene in a basic cut. The difference in time is consquently shown in the effects used rather than the transition, for example the past in this video is shown as if it was filmed on a video camera.

Copyright letter

On behalf of my group I wrote to the 'Warner Music Group' asking for permission to use the Paramore song, owned by them. Here is a print screen of the message:

The message cannot be fully seen so here it is in full:

Dear Warner Music Group

I am a Year 13 student at Wilmington Grammar School for Girls in England. I am writing to request your permission to use one track from Paramore’s album ‘Brand New Eyes’, called ‘Ignorance’. With your permission, along with the three other members of my group, I would like to use this track for my Year 13 Media Studies Coursework, which involves creating a music video with a popular and well-known song.

We will also be producing a digi-pack and magazine advertisement which will include the name of the song. If we receive your permission, this track will be used for educational purposes only and will only be viewed by my media class, teachers and the OCR exam board. However, to upload the music video to our coursework blogs we will require uploading the video to YouTube for a short period of time until the exam board has viewed it.

The artist and the company will be fully recognised throughout the pre-production and the music video and a copyright notice supplied by you can be included in the records of the project. If this is required please send full details.

Thank you for your time, we look forward to hearing from you soon,

Sarah Biswell

Zoe Richardson

Charlotte Coe

Sarah Brushett

Portrait or Landscape?

My initial research into magazine adverts showed their are two different ways of designing magazines adverts, either portrait or landscape. I have therefore selected the two paramore magazine adverts; one being portrait and one landscape. While the portrait one is more commonly seen I believe the landscape one is more interesting and attracts my attention more. I have therefore decided to look further into landscape magazine adverts.

Here is another landscape magazine advert, for Britney Spears. Like the above one, this would presumably cover either half an A4 page or a double page spread. The name of the album on this one, however, is the largest font, with the artists name being slightly smaller. This contrasts to the previous research I have found which all shows the artists name as the most obvious information.

Below shows one of Rihanna's magazine adverts for her latest album 'talk this talk'. This is also a landscape product and has Rihanna's image covering one half of the page with the information on the other. I think this is an effective way of designing a magazine advert as the image can be equally as large as the rest of the information and so will be seen immediately by magazine readers, telling them what is being promoted.

I, along with the rest of my group, therefore believe a landscape design will be the best idea for our own magazine advert.