Account of filming "Famous"

Despite the idea that this was all fine and dandy as well as the fact that we did obtain some good shots, we also encountered a few issues during the filming process. 

We first filmed on Friday 9th December and due to the fact that we needed a large space in which to film these auditions, which this day focussed on as our video would dwell on them for the greatest length throughout the video, we managed to secure use of the school hall. I initially created an order in which the auditions would be filmed in, taking into consideration that people would need time to get changed between acts - some were in two or three different acts. However, as soon as filming began this order "went out the window" as various people needed to leave a certain times, therefore the order needed to be tweaked so they could get done what was needed. People were also arriving at different times so the idea of organisation also "went out the window" and this meant that we didn't start filming until about 40 minutes after we arrived in the hall.

On this day we only got half of the filming done that we wanted to do, and so we had to set another date in which to finish off the bits we hadn't done and even now we are still lacking some bits of footage.

The next date we set to do the remainder of the filming was Thursday 15th december. On this day we filmed four aspects of our music video: The poses, stop motion, the cardboard flip and, as we found it highly comica,l the Cha Cha slide. All of our act were highly co-operative once we took the basketballs away... we were filming in the school gym, as the hall was in use, and they were just laying around so naturally the acts decided to try and have a game. First we did the poses, in which we got both the acts and the judges to do them, but it did take them a while to get into it and let loose. We then did the cardboard flip, which basically consists of  in which we stood on a piece of gym equipment to do it from a high angle. This shot was initially supposed be be not just a high angle shot but and aerial shot, well as shot fom directly above it. It was difficult to put together as we found that due to the different heights of people and the conidtion of some of the bits of cardboard, one of which had broken in half. After doing this the camera remained on this high piece of equipment and we filmed the stop motion in which the acts were all located. The idea was to start with all of the acts and then in each image one person disappear so we would be left with the band who would make their way towards the camera and put on sunglasses on the way. From this we got what we wanted. We then got the acts to do the Cha Cha slide which was highly amusing, particularly when they forgot which way they were going. For this the camera still stayed in the same place which I believe was due to the heights of people, couldn't get everyone in for all of it. However, the acts did as they were told and it was far more organised than the last filming attempt.

We still need to film the judges into the hall and re film the intro of our video, due to lighting issues. We also need to do the judges generally as we do not have all of the shots that we need.

Despite the stressful nature of this filming process we did gain some absoloutely hilarious footage...

... which largely upholds the ideals of comical effect throughout our video, especially as we intend to increase its speed. We are all therefore truly grateful to everyone who helped us with the filming and to all of our acts who despite not being able to sit still gave us some great footage.

Photoshop Tutorial We Used For Help - 2

Photoshop Tutorial We Used For Help - 1

Some Of The Editing Websites Used

http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=115&page=2

www.brusheezy.com

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/41-nicest-photoshop-photo-effects-photoshop-tutorials/

Practicing The Album Cover 5

Practicing The Album Cover 4

Practicing The Album Cover 3

Practicing The Album Cover 2

Practicing The Album Cover 1

This is what we began with - a photograph taken of a pair of black sunglasses on a white piece of plain paper.

Messing around with Photoshop 2

These are some of the brushes we downloaded from 'brusheezy.com'. 

Filming on Thursday the 15th of December

On Thursday, our group filmed the rest of the sequences needed for our music video. The location of our sequences was in our schools gym:


We organised to film 3 main extracts of our music video. The first extract we filmed was 'the poses'. This consisted of the judges posing to their stereotypical representations i.e. the chav pouting, the rocker head banging, the gorilla growling and the mad scientist looking geeky. To ensure that we could film it all effectively, we decided to discretely tape positions on the floor to enable the judges to walk into the frame, pose and then walk out of the frame. Firstly, we had the 4 judge’s queue up behind a white line in the gym. Each judge then had to walk across to the green line which was at the centre of the frame; as directly opposite this was where we had situated the camera. The judge then posed into the camera. After this the judge had to walk onto the yellow line which captured the judge walking out of the frame. Then as the existing judge reached this point, the next judge would walk into the frame and repeat the same process. The judges would then run around the back of the camera and replicate the shot with a different pose.
First

Messing around with Photoshop 1

Filming on Friday 9th December 2011

On Friday, as a group we stayed behind afterschool from 3:30pm for 2 hours until about 5:30pm. During the first 30 minutes, we decided to brief the people that had arrived to take part in our music video. We explained that for our filming to be successful, the individuals would have to remain patient and calm and most importantly do as they are told. The actors agreed to our conditions and we were ready to hand over all the items of clothing the actors were expected to wear. As we had made a list previously of all the auditions in a chronological order of when each act is filmed, the group understood what we are filming and when. First of all, we began filming the band performing on stage. We had borrowed instruments such as a drum kit from the music department and an electric guitar was provided by one of the actors. Once we were satisfied with the extract we had filmed, we moved onto recording the judges. We had to set out two table and 4 chairs so the set appeared similar to what is seen on shows such as the X-factor or Britain’s Got Talent. This ensures that the audience recognise that the 4 characters on the judging panel, which are scoring each audition. The judges were told to pull different expressions such as boredom, happiness, or confused so that each emotion can be displayed according to the acts they have seen. The next act we filmed was the romance shared between Romeo and Juliet. They danced on stage similar to what is scene in old-fashioned romantic movies, such as Romeo and Juliet. After this, we decided to film the scene involving chaos between 2 bananas and a gorilla. We filmed using a variety of a tracking shot by holding the camera, and also steady filming with the aid of the tripod. When we had finished filming this comical scene, we decided to film the dancer of stage. We had provided music to enable the dancer to dance easier (as she had a beat to dance to). She performed dance moves such as the running man and other various cheesy moves. Next on the stage was the clown, which was performing by bouncing a ping-pong ball onto a bat and other moves. The final act we filmed was consisting of the cadet boys exercising on stage by doing press ups. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to film the old aged spice girl’s scene, the cardboard flip and the scene, which takes place in the canteen. We have scheduled another filming date, which will be held on Wednesday 14^th December 2011 and we will hopefully finish all the filming needed for our music video so we can focus on editing the sequence. 

My role as Audrey Hepburn

I played the role of Audrey Hepburn in our music video.  The lines ‘Forget Audrey Hepburn, Forget Betty Davis, I want to be known, Just for being famous’ is the lines where we will use the extract I am in for our music video. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being an actor. I had to do various shots, such as lying across the sofa smiling, to holding a glass of wine and saying ‘cheers’ to the camera. I decided to dress similar to Audrey Hepburn so the audience are aware of the character I am in the sequence. To do this, I wore an elegant long black dress, a big crystal encrusted necklace and a diamante tiara. I also made my one cigar (using a paintbrush and tissue), which Audrey is iconic for posing with. For my makeup, I kept it simple and elegant by put on foundation as the base to give me flawless skin, some blusher across my cheeks, rosy lips by applying a rosy pink lipstick and a thin line of eyeliner just on my upper eyelid. I also put my hair in a high bun, similar to how Audrey Hepburn wore her hair as her role in 'Breakfast in Tiffanys'. Below is an image that I used as my Inspiration to try and achieve the ‘Audrey Hepburn’ look. 

Meeting 12

This meeting was taken place one day prior to filming. We discussed all of the aspects of the filming to ensure everything ran effortlessly and according to plan. All group members brought in all their costumes and props, which we needed, and we made a checklist. We ticked of all the things we had, to enable us to have an understanding of what we still didn’t have. Thankfully due to our organisational skills, and with a combined effort from each person in the group, we had all the costumes we had planned for our filming. The next task we approached was to make sure we had three tripods and fully charged camcorders for the next day. We asked our media teacher for these items and we provided the equipment. We also decided to reconfirm our booking of the hall to ensure that were no misunderstandings of our group filming our music video the following day. The person in charge of the hall said that we had permission to film the next day. As a group, we contacted all the actors that were in our auditions so they understood that their time was needed for filming on Friday afterschool. Due to a notice that was given 2 weeks prior to filming, they all agreed to come and take part in our music video.

Magazine Advert Analysis

CD Cover Analysis

Here I looked at... Mumford & Sons - Sigh No more

Album Cover Inspiration

This album cover represents bands everywhere. When making an album cover most bands are on the front somehow. Here we can see that this is common as all members of Take That are shown in this image meaning that it follows typical conventions. For our album cover we want to make sure we follow these conventions and have our band on the front. Also notice in this image the bands name is written large on the front, this follows the conventions of a typical album cover. The band members are all hiding their faces, apart from the singer on the left, this creates a mysterious atmosphere and gives the album that mysterious vibe as well. Also i think the way the rain falls through the people is very cleaver and makes the CD Cover more appling to the audience. 

Magazine Advert Cover Analysis

Here I looked at...

CD cover sketch 1

Magazine Advert Cover Analysis

Here i analysed a magazine advert that shows advertisment for 'Mika'....

CD Cover Analysis

Here i analysed my CD cover and looked at differnt sections of the covers. I looked at the Front and the Back of 'The Black Eyed Peas' album cover 'The End'...

Page 1 ------>

Page 2 ------>

Meeting 11

Using the correct tools can help to bring our concept to life, which is why we have now edited our digital/animatic storyboard using Final Cut Express. We then uploaded it onto Youtube in order to be able to upload it on our blog.
We wanted to maximise our visuals as much as we could. Therefore, we mapped out our idea's by creating the storyboard into moving images through technological innovation. This allowed us to envisage our final production through drawing our imagination onto pieces of paper. This will help us to be very time efficient and will increase our organisation - all leading to creating a top standard music video in the end. We will be able to get on with our shooting straight away when we can see our storyboard as pictures on posit notes and then as moving images on the computer. We can put our imagination into action much easily by previsualising it all. This has all helped to ensure as a group we know what and when certain characters will be involved, the camera angles we will use for each scene, what props we will need and basically what will be in the frame.
In other words, our music video has been created now through this digital storyboard. Now we must put it all in action.

Mini Questionnaire

We carried out a mini questionnaire involving 10 randomly selected people. They were randomly selected through a hat which contained 40 people who would potentially be our demographics. This will allow us to gain further knowledge for our production process.
Once I had received all the results, I added them all up and found out the mean score for each question's answer. The questionnaire was not multiple choice as I did not want to limit the answers.

The Questions:

1) Where would you most likely find out about a new song and music video? - On the internet - social network sites.


This will give us knowledge of where to advertise and music video. Since it is social networks, we will be able to respond in this positively as it will be either very cheap or even free to do.


2) When you watch music videos, what do you prefer them to be/have - conceptual, narrative or/and performance? - Narrative and performance.


This will enable us to produce our music video according to their needs, therefore, we will now try to make sure it is highly narrative and includes some performance.


3) Are you only notified about a song once you have witnessed the music video? - Yes.


This reminds us of how crucial music videos are to our audience.


4)  Are you fond of complex music videos? - No, music videos which explain the concept clearly and vividly are more enjoyable and mind-relaxing to watch.


We wish to be as market orientated as possible, thus, ensuring our product is not too mind boggling and has parallel visuals to the lyrics to make it lucid.

Inspiration for Album Cover

Dirty Dancing is a very famous theatre production. This is the main poster for it. I found the font of this very intriguing as it is very eye-catchy and yet still simple. This links in with our idea very well. I like the style of the font and have found it inspirational to do for our title name style on the album cover. 

Since our title is "Famous", this style of writing will intertwine with our concept very well. It almost looks like an autograph being written, which links in with our notion highly. 

Our album title will be written on the sunglasses, thus, will look like we have signed it ourselves like an autograph. 

Cardboard Flip

For our music video we needed to make something that had a TV on it and our logo on something else. We thought of something we like to call a cardboard flip. We had a TV drawn on one side and our logo drawn on the other side. We created this as a means of mirroring teh concept of everybody wanting to be on TV. This took Hayley roughly a week to create. Below are the pictures of our final product.

This is the side with the TV on ...

This is the side with our logo on ...

Album Cover Inspiration

This album explores the realms of colour. The use of this allows for an attractive cover for fans and acts as an interesting piece of art work. We hope to incorporate this into the production of our album cover as we want to ensure that fans will find it both appealing and interesting, therefore making them more adverse to purchasing such a piece. On the album cover we will be producing we are toying with differentiating and so contrasting colours. We thought of combining a black and white base image with brightly coloured lips or glasses, creating emphasis on them as well as the idea of creating this sense of interest and intrigue.  

Costume for the Army boys

We also need to research the clothing for the Army people. Below we have found the outfit that they will be wearing. 

This helps the viewing audience to see that they are from the army and in the music video, they are exercising like army guys should. We use them a few times in our film because they are professional yet at times we are going to make them funny so we have a contrast between them.

Costume and Make Up for Audrey Hepburn

For one of our scenes within our music video we are having a dream sequence that involves Audrey Hepburn. For our character playing Audrey Hepburn we wanted them to look like her so the viewing audience would be able to make the link with the lyrics and the visuals. Which follows Andrew Goodwin's 6 point analysis theory. We researched her make up and look, as this is what we found...

Here we can see that she has a big necklace which stands out and a silk dress with gloves. She also has a very stylish hairdo that is high and common for them times. Her make up is not very out there. She has eye liner on and red lipstick and some foundation but she hasnt got a lot on. 

Animatic Storyboard

Here we made a storyboard out of posit notes and planned out every little bit of our music video. We worked together to design different sections of the storyboard, this got us working together as a group more and gave us a better understanding of the music video layout. This story board shows the new perspective every-time the camera angle changes/moves position. This animatic is linked in with the music as well, to show exactly when the shot will change and that is timed to perfection. 

Inspiration

Besides, Ed Sheeran being an amazing singer and songwriter, he does in fact have some of the most interesting and unique music videos I have beared witness to. Lego House for example explores the idea of deception as we firstly find the actor Rupert Grint to be playing the part of Ed Sheeran when later we find him to be a fan and a bit of a stalker. In this video we also see a clear link between visuals and audio as lego is of a constant use and so we do find his videos to follow some conventions, if not down to the letter. These unique qualities of his music videos are inspirational as it is found that such elements create a great sense of interest as well as a buzz about them. These videos definitely reflect Ed as an artist and so this notion of reflecting the artist will hopefully be conveyed in our music video. However, in our video it will be largely conveying our senses of humor as opposed to our musical skills. This means that our video is likely to be a reflection of us.

Lip Art: Viva La Diva

I researched on  Youtube to find a video to show how to apply rhinostones onto lips. This is the best video I managed to find.

1. Moisturise lips
2. Apply lipstick
3. Blot lips
4. Apply eyelash adhesive onto rhinestone
5. Using a cotton bud apply the rhinesone onto lips
6. Once dry, apply clear lipgloss onto the cupids bow and the lower lip

Inspiration: Crystal Lips Magazine Cover

Katy Perry’s face dazzled the December issue of the American Fashion magazine, Harper’s Bazaar. Katy simply did not look like Katy but more like the iconic artistic image of Marilyn Monroe, shown below:

Katy’s lips were covered in 150 Swarovski crystals for the cover, shot by Alexi Lubomirski. The close-up photo uses intertexuality as it resembles the iconic January 1950 Vogue cover, featuring Jean Patchett photographed by Erwin Blumenfeld.

Inspiration: Crystal Lips

For our album cover, we may have a close up of a girl wearing sunglasses with the title ‘Famous’ either scratched or painted on one glass diagonally. The image will be black and white; however we will have the title of the album and the lips in cover. The lips will be a bright colour such as red or pink, with encrusted with gems and crystals. This is a trendy look which is fashionable at the moment and conveys a bold statement of modern elegance and a feisty attitude.

Artists such as Jessie J have sported this look. An image from her video ‘Do it Like A Dude’ is shown below:

However Jessie J took the punk/rockish look with full black lips and black gems, with silver lipstick and her lips outlined with black spikes. However our look will be more playful and subtle, which will fall under the conventions of the pop genre.

What is a digipak?

Digipacks are a type of CD packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipacks can flip open like a book, or it can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the center portion. Usually, the portion of the digipack that hold the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background.

Digipacks were first created by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, as the format became more popular and began to be used by more manufacturers, the generic "digipack" came to be used to describe all soft CD packaging.

Digipacks have pros and cons:

·         They look nice, and many bands and labels like to use them for aesthetic reasons. The three section digipack sleeves opens up more design options because there is more room. However, they're more expensive than traditional liner notes and jewel cases.

·         Digipaks don't crack like jewel cases do, but they will rip and eventually the paper begins to peel apart and separate.

·         The trays in digipacks break much more often then in jewel cases. There's not as much protection since the outer portion of made of paper, so the teeth that hold the CD in place crack and fall out easily.

·         When the teeth of the tray does break in a digipack, the CD falls out of the bottom of the digipack, because unlike jewel cases, there is nothing to hold it in.

·         Digipacks can be more environmentally friendly than jewel cases because they can be made of recycled paper - however, they aren't always in fact made in this way.

Digipacks look great, but if you're just starting out and money is tight, looking for ways to cut your manufacturing costs is important. Stretching your budget to because you like digipacks aesthetically is not a good investment.

Tasks

Basic Album Cover Comparison For Different Genres