Props

Due to filming in a plain white studio we need to use eye catching and fun props that fit with the narrative. Today we have spoken to the drama department for their ideas and to see if they have any props we could use, but due to the pantomime that is taken place this week we have confirmed to have a look through the props next tuesday. Here are a few ideas of what we could use in our video. We thought by stripping everything back in the video to just the artist and the puppet, it would look effective if we only use one interesting prop. But for it not to look boring we need to add a lot of different types of props as well as different costumes.

Miley Cyrus - 7 Things Analysis

We have chosen to analyse this music video because we wanted to look into the different types of pop and in this case it is rock-pop. One of the characteristics of rock pop artists is usually the artists are playing instruments and putting emphasis into their movements. There is a clear relationship between the lyrics and the visuals as Miley is singing about the 7 things she hates/like and the camera movements adjust quickly showing her emotion and feelings towards them. Looking at this video and seeing that it uses a plain white background has inspired us as it still looks interesting even though their is no setting however since there is a band playing throughout her video it has something there for us to look at other than just her. Therefore when we film in a white studio we need to make sure that we have replacements and something which will keep then audience interested such as big props. Furthermore there are many interesting camera shots that also fit with the lyrics such as low angle shots which have been used to represent Miley as dominant and strong. The other long shots and close up shots have been very creatively done to make the video look interesting and lively. The editing shows reference to the genre of rock-pop seeing that there are a lot of camera quick and sharp movements reflecting the fast pace of the song. The use of this white background makes the different colour in the outfits chosen to be worn stand out as well as making Miley, the star stand outby wearing a muticoloured long waistecoat.

Shot List For New Video

1. Long shots which shows a great deal of background, be it the set, the landscape or the venue. Long shots are essential to establish the scene for the viewer and to put the rest of the music video into context. (full body length, far away distances)
2. Mid shots showing some part of the subject in more detail while still giving an impression of the whole subject. (half body shots of our artist 'Milly Evans')
3. Close ups which is a certain feature or part of the subject takes up the whole frame. (face close ups to show bold strong facial features and eye makeup, may use prop zooms possibly to add camera movement within our music video)
4. Extreme close ups which gets right in and shows extreme detail. (bright coloured eyes to show a strong feature in the video emphasising 'Milly' her as she is the only artist member)

5. May use low angle where the camera looks up at the subject. Use these shots when you want to make your subject appear larger, imposing, or more important to the viewer. (use when 'Milly' is acting like the boss telling 'Alfie' what to do) 6. May use high angle where the camera looks down on the subject making it appear smaller and less important. High angle shots are often used to make a person appear vulnerable. (putting into our video we would use these when showing 'Alfie' as he is the teenager e.g. that needs to get a job and feel really small and useless as he doesn't have one)

Studio Update

After researching a variety of different places and getting feedback from them weither we are allowed to borrow their studios or not our final outcome has been successful after asking many different places we got a positive reply from Leicester Colleges 'Paul O'Leary' who is their 'Programme Leader FD Photography & Video' he managed to supply us with a date to borrow his studio and we have yet to confirm this date with our artist to check she is able to do this date. If not we will dicuss a time with Paul in order for us to move the dates around, enabling our artist to make it. Below is 2 images of the different studios that are at Leicester College and that we will be using to complete our video.

Finding a Studio

To use this new idea of a plain white studio, like Jessie J's video 'Price Tag' and Miley Cyrus' video '7 Things I Hate About You' we both need to find an appropriate studio that is nearby so that we can easily get there. We have therefore emailed photography studios in Lutterworth/ Rugby and Leicester. So far we have emailed 7 photographers asking to use their studio, 2 have replied saying they are fully booked and too busy up to Christmas so we are now waiting on replies from the 5 others. Using a white studio will completely strip back the video and will make it look more simplistic. As the basic narrative has already been done in a house (Lilly Allen's video) we thought that using a plain background would work well and would emphasise the bright bold colours used and would give it more of a ‘pop’ look.

Location Change Idea

From looking at our new ideas we have came to a conclusion on the basis of a studio giving us access and permission we will use their facilities. The new idea is to film our 'Alfie' song as normal and instead of location shots, setting and what is in the shots being the 'mood' and theme maker, we are now instead going to use a white studio. Below is a video called 'Price Tag' by Jessie J that has inspired us to do this.
 
We think that by doing this it will make us able to use bright colors better in what 'Milly' wears and the props that we decide to use and involve with the video. These will play a big part within the video as the setting/white background will be very boring therefore everything else within the video needs to stand out and get a clear idea through of the pop feel we want to get.

New Ideas For Remaking The Video

From recieving feedback of our music video we have been advised to change a fair few parts of our video such as creating and coming up with a better way to use our 'Alfie' puppet or having different scenes and locations. After having conversations and discussing what ways we are able to do this, we managed to come up with some ideas, these ideas are as followed.

1. We could use a young boy around age 9 which would completly change our idea of the puppet however would still create a good effect which would tie in with the video and the puppet scenes as we wouldnt have used someone older, which could hold the potential of taking the comedy effect away as it wouldn't portrait a realistic sense within the video of a young boy needing a job etc. An example of this which inspired us with this idea is

2. Take off the puppets head and replace it with another real life boys head which would mean that our video would still include the puppet sense, just have another comedy side to it by using another head which could potentially be really good as it would enable us to give the puppet real facial expressions rather than just the same face which it does now. This could also add to our video maintaing a comedy feel. An example of this which has inspired us is this

3. Change the location and use more of a 'doll house' which would emphasise the bright colours and 'plastic' look of everything. This therefore would mean that we still would hold a strong looking video that would stand out the puppet and add a clearer effect of what style our video which is mean't to be 'puppet like' and 'fake'. An example of this idea that has inspired us is this

4. Use the idea of having a puppet set up such as red/black curtains and act out pupet scenes through that during the video to emphasise and develop the idea of using the puppet in the first place to make it clear of the idea and portrait a strong theme throughout the video making it interesting and different.

Filming Progression

When fiming our video we had some difficulties as our location which was my house, we had the cleaner come to the house and we had to hurry up with some of our clips in order to get out of her way this unfortunately happened coninidently on both the days we decided to film. With better organisation we could have re-arranged a day where the cleaner was not there. Aswell as this when we did our first filming session the lightint from outside was a lot darker than the second time we filmed this therefore mean't that in some of the clips the lighting may appear different to other clips.  Also our choice of character became really hard to be able to get Meg (our artist) again to be able to film without her being busy, at college or unable to get to the location. Therefore to overcome this I had to pick her up and bring her back to the location in order to be able to film. With all of these factors combined we had slightly fallen behind with our schedule and missed out some filming of clips meaning we had gaps in our draft which we still need to film. For our final one I think we will refilm certain clips of the video to get our ideal lighting and do the bits we have missed out.

Progress With Digipak

As the digipack deadline is now on Friday it seems that I am slightly behind on track to getting my final digipack in for the deadline. After being given feedback from my first draft, I have started to make these changes and continue with putting it together. I have made changes which surrounds font sizes, texts, logos and image editing. Lastly, all I have left to complete is to complete one of the inside pages of the digipack. I have scheduled today to complete this inside page and fill it with text such as 'credits' or infomation about the album.. Once I have chose to put there, I will then be able to go ahead and start planning how to present and what font/sizes etc I will use into the pack. Similar to how I had done for my draft. Overall, everything seems to be coming in place nicely surrounding the completion of the digipack and advert.

Props

The props and equipment that we need to be able to use and
have access to whilst filming our music video is

- Themed cups and kettle (Vintage)
- Ironing board
- Male suit
- Alfie puppet
- Camera
- Tripod
- Kitchen utensils
- Play station
- Alcohol bottles
- Breakfast items such as milk, bread and jam
- Table
- Chairs
- American Fridge

Draft Magazine Advert

Alfie Music Video Draft 2

Final Magazine Advert

Final Digipak

More Milly Evans Photos

Milly Evans, a set on Flickr.

Final Digipak

To improve my draft digipak it was stated that I need to take more pictures of my artist Milly Evans wearing something plainer such as a black top. As we both struggled to get the same days free, I have not yet taken any more pictures of her. However due to re-filming her today I am will be able to take my pictures and will have them uploaded onto my digipak as soon as possible. Despite replacing the pictures, I have not made many changes to the other pages on my digipak due to my feedback being positive. However it looks a lot less pixelated to my draft and the information is clearer. Here is my final digipak without the two images of Milly Evans.

Improvements

After making our draft video we have noticed that there are many ways that we can improve on. We have therefore made a list of what needs to be changed when re shooting bits of our video.

List of things we need to improve:

·         Lighting needs to be altered – The left hand side is a lot brighter

·         Mise-en-scene – we can make the house look a lot tidier

·         More interesting angles can be used on our artist.  A lot of it seems to be repetitive and standard shots are used

·         We need to be more careful when filming the puppet- there were shots where our arms were visible

Today we have decided to reshoot parts of our video as there are parts that are missing and some that didn’t turn out very well. We will make sure that each of the points listed above are achieved.

Editing our video

When editing our video we had a couple of difficulties, one being that we couldn’t upload the footage onto the school computers easily which resulted in us taking a little longer to make the video. We eventually got the clips working on Livs mac which made it simpler for us as the software that was provided (iMovie) was very straightforward. The other being that we had realised that we had missed some shots and therefore had to add in the spoofs to fill in the missing shots. The shots of our artist worked okay but we both feel that they could have turned out a lot better so we will therefore have to reshoot certain parts. This makes it more difficult for us both as we have to make sure our artist is dressed exactly the same and will have to make her hair and makeup identical to how it was when we filmed it the first time.
As our video is based on a narrative, Milly is singing and acting out the words throughout. This made it very difficult to get the lip syncing accurate. There are parts in the draft where it is clear than it needs to be re-edited. Despite this we feel that we have developed our skills and are quite proud of our draft.

Alfie Animatic

Alfie Music Video Draft

Draft Digipak

Feedback

After handing in my draft digipak and advert I have received positive feedback. Overall my digipak and advert looks quite professional and the position of the text works well on each page. However I could improve the digipak and advert by using different images styling my artist in a different way. Maybe dressing her in something plainer such as a simple black top or jumper would go with the black and white contrast theme a lot better and will make her stand out more. Furthermore, my pictures will come across more expert if I edit them with the tools provided on photoshop; I could airbrush, smooth down her hair and remove the shine from her face. On the advert I need to consider adding a record company logo and a website. I could also add ratings from music magazines to help with attracting her audience.  

Draft Advert

Draft Digipak

Magazine Advert Analysis

This album advertisement of Lily Allen stood out to me from the rest due to the black and white effect. As both of these colours contrast each other it makes every detail stand out, especially her name. This black and white style has particularly inspired me for my own advertisement as I think it will work well with my artist as she has a similar look to Lily Allen. The music genre is also the same and wouldn’t cause confusion to the audience. This advert could also work with simplistic and limited text as the image of the artist is strong by itself due to the black and white editing. Furthermore, this advert doesn’t follow the usual style of music advertisements as most are edited to portrait. Due to this powerful image of Lily Allen being landscape I don’t think it would have worked as well on a portrait advert. I would like to use this style for my advert because of the similar image I have taken of my artist and because it is different from other adverts.  

Researching particular album magazine adverts has given me a lot of inspiration. This advert of Mumford & Sons has a simplistic style and is straight to the point as shown by the limited text. This is the type of look I would like to go for as it conveys that the album is a must buy as nothing else on the page needs to persuade the audience to buy the album. This particular album has gone for a different approach of promoting the album by simply calling it ‘The album’. This comes across as it’s the only album out in the market and that it must be brought.  Even though this is a very interesting approach I think I will go down the ordinary route by displaying the album name. The image on this advert portrays the bands genre ‘indie/alternative’ as the image isn’t of what you’d normally see walking past a shop window; it is very interesting and appealing. The band and their instruments and shown in the image which connotes that the band write and play their own music.

This magazine advert of Laura Marling has followed the usual conventions of alternative music magazine adverts as an abstract image has been used. This is disjunctive as the image doesn't seem to have anything to do with the album name 'Cross your fingers/crawled out of the sea' unless here is reference to other songs on the album. This makes this advert look interesting as the audience will want to know more about the image itself. This image is a drawing of natural forms as leaves and tree figures are shown and in the centre there is a colour flower which could be symbolic to the album. I think that the neutral colour scheme works well with the genre and also compliments the image colours and the orange text by contrasting against them. This makes the information stand out (name of the artist and name of the album). I like how the font style and orange colour work well with the image as it is quite feminine and shows that it is a female artist clearly. When looking through the magazine adverts this one stood out to me as the basic layout makes the advert more aesthetically pleasing due to the image and text being centralised. I would like to used this type of symplicity in my magazine advert as I think more people will want to look and read it. Having a powerful image on the advert will make it more visual and more eye catching.

Album Lyrics

DON’T BE SHY DON’T BE SHY JUST LET YOUR FEELINGS ROLL ON BY/DON’T WEAR FEAR OR NOBODY WILL KNOW YOUR THERE/ JUST LIFT YOUR HEAD AND LET YOUR FEELINGS OUT INSTEAD AND DON’T BE SHY JUST LET YOUR FEELINGS ROLL ON BY/ YOU KNOW LOVE IT BETTER THAN A SONG/ LOVE IS WHERE ALL OF US BELONG/ SO DON’T BE DHY JUST LET YOUR FEELING ROLL ON BY/ DON’T WEAR FEAR OR NOBODY WILL KNOE YOUR THERE ALFIE OOH DEARY ME/ MY LITTLE BROTHER'S IN HIS BEDROOM SMOKING WEED/ I TELL HIM HE SHOULD GET UP ‘CAUSE IT'S NEARLY HALF PAST THREE/ HE CAN'T BE BOTHERED ‘CAUSE HE'S HIGH ON THC/ I ASK HIM VERY NICELY IF HE'D LIKE A CUP OF TEA/ I CAN'T EVEN SEE HIM ‘CAUSE HIS ROOM IS SO SMOKY/ DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW ONE CAN WATCH SO MUCH TV/ MY BABY BROTHER ALFIE HOW I WISH THAT YOU COULD SEE/ I ONLY SAY IT ‘CAUSE I CARE/ SO PLEASE CAN YOU STOP PULLING MY HAIR?/ NOW THERE'S NO NEED TO SWEAR/ PLEASE DON’T DESPAIR MY DEAR MON FRERE LITTLE THINGS THE LITTLE THINGS YOU DO TO MEARE TAKING ME OVER/ I WANNA SHOW YA/ EVERYTHING INSIDE OF ME LIKE A NERVOUS HEART THAT IS CRAZY BEATING/MY FEAT ARE STUCK HERE AGAINST THE PAVEMENT/I WANNA BREAK FREE/ I WANNA MAKE IT CLOSER TO YOUR EYES/ GET YOUR ATTENTION BEFORE YOU PASS ME BY WAKE UP DARLING SOMETHING FILLED UP MY HEART WITH NOTHING/SOMEONE TOLD ME NOT TO CRY/BUT NOW THAT IM OLDER MY HEARTS COLDER AND I CAN THAT IT’S A LIE/ CHILDREN WAY UP/HOLD YOUR MISTAKE UP/BEFORE THEY TURN THE SUMMER INTO DUST/ IF THE CHILDREN DON’T GROW UP OUR BODIES GET BIGGER BUT OUT HEARTS GET TORN UP/ WE’RE JUST A MILLIOON LITTLE GODS CAUSING RAIN STORMS TURNING EVERY THING TO RUST/I GUESS WE’LL JUST HAVE TO AJUST ON MY OWN IM ALWAYS UP LATE THINGING MAYBE/COULD THIS BE A BIG MISTAKE/HAVE I MADE THE WRONG DECISION/ IS THIS THE RIGHT ROAD TO TAKE/ I COULD HAVE HAD A 9-5 OR FINISH SCHOOL JUST LIKE MY PARENTS WANTED  BUT NOW IM FEELING SO ALIVE I FOUND THE SUNSHINE IM NO LONGER WANTIN/ AND I FEEL THE FIRE BURNING DEEP WITHIN MY SOUL STRUGGLING FOR PERFECTION/ WHEN I REACH IT LET ME KNOW/ AND I FEEL I NEED SOME GUIDANCE BUT MY PRIDE WONT LET IT SHOW AND ALTHOUGH THE ROAD IS FRIGHTENING IM GONNA MAKE IT ON MY OWN SECRET DOOR FOOLS ON PARADE CAVOT AND CARRY ON FOR WAITING EYES/ THAT YOU WOULD RATHER BE BESIDE THAT INFRONT OF/THE SECRET DOOR SWINGS BEHIND US/ SAYING NOTHING JUST GIGGLING ALONG/ EVEN IF THEY WERE TO FIND US I WOULDN’T NOTICE/ IM COMPLETELY OCCUPIED EVERYTHING  YOU’RE NOT YOUR DAKNESS WAS MY WEAKNESS BUT IT TURNS OUT THAT IT ONLY WENT SO DEEP/ A MEANINGLESS DIVERSION/ THAT IS ALL THAT YOU EVER MEANT TO ME/ AND I AM DONE WITH YOUR TWISTED SYMPHONY/ THE WORDS THAT HAD ME SOUND LIKE STOLEN POETRY/ I TORE THE PAGES AND I CAN FINALLY BREATHE/ NEVER WANT TO FEEL LIKE THIS AGAIN SACRIFICE COLD COLD HEART/ HARD DONE BY YOU/SOMETHINGS LOOK BETTER BABY JUST PASSING THROUGH AND ITS NO SACRIFICE JUST A SIMPLE WORD/ ITS TWO HEARTS LIVING IN TWO SEPARATE WORLDS BUT ITS NO SACRIFICE/ NO SACRIFICE/ITS NO SACRIFICE AT ALL/MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING AFTER THE FACT SENSITIVITY BUILDS A PRISON IN THE FINAL ACT/WE LOSE DIRECTION/NO STONE UNTURNED NO TEARS TO DAMN YOU WHEN JEALOUSY BURNS

Record Label

 Sony Music Entertainment is the second largest music corporation in the world and was founded in 1929 as the American Record Corporation through the merger if several smaller record companies. It is owned and controlled  by Sony Corporation of America. I have chosen for Milly Evans to be signed by this company because the artists that they have signed fit in with the same genre as Milly Evans. The artists that Sony has signed are Alicia Keys, Rebecca Ferguson, Rita Ora, Labrinth, Ke$ha and Paloma Faith. Another reason why I have chosen this company is because Sony is a well established and internationally known which will widen the target audience for Milly Evans. 

Credits

On one of the pages of my digipak I am including the credits. I know that some digipaks do not include this but I though it would be effective and proffesional if I did. I have therefore used other credits by different artists as a guide for mine as shown below.

ALL SONGS WRITTEN BY MILLY EVANS EXEPT ‘SACRIFICE’ WRITTEN BY MELANIE WOOD BY RIBBON MUSIC CO.LTD/PRODUCED BY MILLY EVANS AND JASON DEACON/ ENGINEERED BY JASON DEACON AND DAN ROME/ASSISTANT ENGINEER HARRY COOPER ON ‘USA’ AND ‘PRETTY BOY’/RECORDED AT PIZZAZZ STUDIOS BALTIMORE, SILVER SPRING, HOUSE O’MEARA, ANNEX/MIXED BY JASON DEACON AND MILLY EVANS AT MISTLETONE STUDIOS, MELBOURNE/MASTERED BY JAMES HEYWORTH AUDIO MASTERING, UK/ PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAMANTHA JAMES/DESIGN BY SAMANTHA JAMES

MY SINCEREST THANKS TO MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS FOR THEIR SUPPORT AND INSPIRATION

Change of Idea

Beforehand my inspiration was Yasmin's album with the coloured paintbrush effect. However I spent a lot of time trying to find a font and realised that none worked well against the pictures I had taken of my artist. I have therefore researched into a similar artist, Jessie Ware, and have found that her style is much more appealing and fits with the same genre as mine. She has used only black and white throughout the digipak which gives off a professional look. I like how the cover is quite simplistic by just stating the name of the artist and the name of the album and the fact that the image of Jessie has been edited to show that there is light up towards her face. The image makes her look very sophisticated, and would even work well standing alone on the cover. The back of the album follows the same theme of simplicity as the track list is listed centrally in a clear bold font with a thick white border around it. This makes her album look well-structured which gives a good impression of her as an artist.

 After searching through the fonts on Microsoft Word I found a similar font to Jessie Ware's called 'Letter Gothic Std' as shown below. I think this works well with the name Milly Evans and could be used as a running theme throughout the digipak.

MILLY EVANS

 
After finding this font I thought it would be appropriate to make a draft album cover to see if the font and the image work well together. It has proved to be successful and I will therefore use this in my digipak.

Black and White

After researching Yamin's album I thought it would be appropriate to edit my photos in black and white so I can get a clear view of how my pictures would turn out. Here I have chosen four photos of my artist Milly Evans that I would work well on the cover of the album and for the other pages of my digipak.

Now my photos have been edited in black and white I have researched more black and white album covers and have decided to use black and white as a my colour theme throughout my digipak and advert. The album covers below show how these pop artists can become more eye catching once the photo is edited in black and white. This is because the colours contrast each other which makes every detail become bolder.

Milly Evans - Photos

Milly Evans, a set on Flickr.