Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

For Q4, I created a Canva in order to present the answer. Myself and the other group member both collaborated on this, as we both put our ideas together, enabling us to get a stronger, solid response to this question.

As part of our evaluation we annotated the final copy of our music video, exemplifying how we used Premiere Pro to construct our music video. This is discussed in more depth on my Canva.

(The blog post mentioned in the canva on slide 10 is this one, as the link wouldn't work on Canva)

Q3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Q2. How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary tasks?

Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

CD in the case.

I created a short video which contains a range of different shots of our CD insert and covers in a CD case. 

Final CD pack







Final Music Video

Ancillary task -Website

As part of our ancillaries, we had to create a website for our chosen artist. We went for a minimalistic yet effect scheme. We went mainly black and white, with bold letters, and ensured everything was easy to navigate and find, having different tabs at the top of the page for specific content. 

http://bastilleofficial.weebly.com/ 

Youtube Tutorial Help

We wanted to emphasise certain lyrics and therefore wanted to add a lyrical overlay. We were unsure of how to do this however, and therefore watched a youtube tutorial which led us through a step-by-step guide of how to do this. 

This was the end result of the lyrical overlay. We edited it so the lyrics only flashed up when certain lyrics were being sang, in order to keep it simple yet effective. 

When editing our music video, we decided we wanted to add a countdown, in order to emphasise the fact some of our music video was an audition. We added this at the beginning of our video, however initially we weren't sure how to do this, so we watched this tutorial: 

This was the result of adding in the countdown. We initially wanted it to countdown from 3 to 1, however when it reached 2 seconds, it cut out and went black. This however worked to our advantage, as we faded it out so the video ran smoothly. 

Editing Process.

To edit our music video, we are using Premiere Pro which is an editing software. This is extremely easy to use, and has a wide variety of tools, allowing us to manipulate our footage the way we want.

Within Premiere Pro, there's the options to add effects through pre-sets. This allows us to add video transitions, change the colour to black and white, and also allowing our footage to dip to black between shots.

CD pack - asking our audience.

I created a Canva which shows our audience's opinions on potential CD back covers and inserts. We intend to keep these opinions in mind when making our final CD package, as this way we will meet the expectation of the audience, while still sticking to the genre/theme of the artist. 
The Wordle below is a range of key terms which our audience used to describe our CD pack.

Filming update 2

It's about a week into filming now, and things aren't going as smoothly as we had hoped. While we created a shooting schedule in order to help with time management and organisation, some things meant we were interrupted and couldn't film as planned such as: 

• When we planned to film the outdoor shots, the weather wasn't what we needed, as it was either too bright which didn't fit out genre, or rained and therefore we couldn't film.
• On the day we planned to film the second audition, the person we had asked to be in it, unexpectedly wasn't in school that day, meaning we couldn't film as planned.
• When we planned to re-film some parts, the camera we used didn't work properly, meaning we couldn't film when we needed to, which meant we were behind again with filming. 

Even though these issues hindered our progression, the time wasn't wasted as we filmed other parts of the music video instead and came up with new ideas spontaneously, meaning our time was spent productively. 

Practice album covers

As part of our ancillary, we're asked to create an album cover for our chosen artist. 

My group and I have created a couple of practice album covers in preparation, while gaining experience and knowledge of the programmes, such as photoshop, used to create them. We used the font Bastille use on their existing albums, in order to get an idea of effect and a sense of theme, however we're changing the font for our final cover. For this cover, the font has been cut out, so a black and white image can be seen through the lettering. We decided however, that this didn't look right, and didn't fit the theme or genre of the artist. Following this, we created a second practice cover, adjusting the position of the words, while adjusting the opacity of the foreground, so the black and white image behind can be seen, while the lettering still stands out. 

Overall we decided the second cover was a lot better, and therefore we're aiming to create something similar for our final album. We will use a different image as the background, as the one we used for this was a practice and therefore the right clothes were not worn, and the framing isn't perfect. We're changing the font, however we still feel following the theme of chunky block lettering will work best with our chosen artist. 

CD covers and inserts

In order to gain an understanding of what was expected for CD inserts, I looked at some to find out what is likely to be included in an insert. I found that some included bright colours, images, a large amount of writing which included song lyrics, and some didn't have much writing at all. 
The ones which stood out the most to me, were the ones which were simple yet effective. The photo on the right on slide 4, stood out to me as the most effective. I felt this photo had a strong effect, was simple and followed the theme of the genre and the artist. We aim to follow this idea when creating our CD pack, and aim to have the same theme running throughout our ancillaries, creating a sense of synergy throughout.
The insert on slide 5 also stood out to me as effective. It captured my attention, as it's so simple, yet fits in with the whole theme throughout the CD insert. Again, I aim to create something simple yet effective when putting together the CD insert.  

Filming day 1

Today was our first day of shooting. We began with the first scene of our music video, which was pinning up the sign up sheet and the first audition. In the beginning this all went smoothly, as we found a camera which worked, and set up quickly. However due to where this was filmed (in a corridor), it was extremely difficult to not be interrupted. We thought that as we filmed during lesson time there would be less people around, we didn't take into consideration staff who weren't teaching, or students who weren't in lesson etc. This delayed our shooting time and meant we couldn't get as much done as we'd have hoped. 

Risk Assessment.

This part of the risk assessment includes vital information, including where people can be contacted, and who is involved. It also includes information on where shooting is taking place.This also includes a hazard risk, of which we have indicated what the potential hazards are while filming. The only hazards which are a risk during filming are falling from heights, as some shots are located at the top of a set off stairs. The other risk we have is disturbance of noise, as we are filming in a busy area.This risk matrix exemplifies the rate of the risk our actors and other members face while filming. 

Part B of the risk assessment explains who is at risk from the hazards previously mentioned. It also explains how these risks can be mitigated, and how likely they are to happen.








Part B of the risk assessment explains who is at risk from the hazards previously mentioned. It also explains how these risks can be mitigated, and how likely they are to happen.

In-depth shooting schedule

We made a basic shooting schedule before we began filming in order to keep track of what w were filming and when. On top of that, we also kept a more detailed shooting schedule, which we would use before each shoot. This allowed us to be efficient with our time, and kept us focused on what we were filming. It helped each shoot run smoothly. However, some shoot didn't go as planned, and therefore we didn't end up sticking to this schedule, due to interruptions when filming, or technical issues. For example, when we were trying to film an outdoor shot, the camera we used would only record for 11 seconds at a time before cutting out. Therefore this meant it took much longer to film anything, and our time wasn't used as efficiently as we originally planned. 

 

Shooting Schedule

In order to keep on track of timings and stay organised, we created a shooting schedule. We planned out roughly how long we thought we would need to shoot each scene, and planned to do this over a few days. However, we didn't stick to this that much, as sometimes it wasn't always possible to film when we had originally planned. 

We originally planned to film everything and then allow ourselves 3-4 weeks to edit so w had time to re-film anything we needed to. However, we found that we ended up editing whilst we filmed, and therefore the editing and filming merged into one, as filming took much longer than anticipated. We also felt editing while filming would be more efficient, as we weren't always able to film when we planned, due to weather issues or other commitments which gt in the way. 

Location Scouting.

As we went for an audition within our music video, we had to find the perfect location which gave the impression it was an audition. We wanted a white background, so the person auditioning was clearly seen and stood out to the audience. The white background would help emphasise the colour in the characters clothes, which helps the audience identify that they're the person auditioning.

For the audition scenes, we searched for a white background for a while, before finding a white wall in school. This meant we could film whenever needed, and was therefore convenient, as well as being suitable. While this did mean there was the noise of people in the background walking past us, we soon realised this wouldn't be an issue, as we were deleting the sound and replacing it with the song anyway.

For the filming of the music video scenes, we decided to film in front of a brick wall. We felt this fit with the simplistic theme we were going for throughout our video and with our digi-pack and website. We felt this gave our music video a sense of style, and was smooth all the way through.