Precise Timings for filming

Public Liability Insurance

Within our permission to film within the Grafton Centre in Cambridge we needed to provide proof of Public Liability insurance; these are the photos of the letter recieved and what was sent to the Manager of the Grafton Centre.

Progress Report - 30th October

We have started to record footage, today the two actors came to my house and I filmed them, the other two members of my group were unable to make the filming session, yet all footage was taken succcessfully. I managed to get all footage that we planned for, and took some practise shots before hand; this means that the 'flashback' section of our narrative in our music video is completely filmed and we can start editing it. We plan to film the rest at the beginning of next week.

Similar Products

 Ed Sheeran

When considering some similar products to our artist, some clear similarities would be Ed sheeran, a young and new 'face' into the music world. He released his first public single early this year, making him a 'new artist'; he became so popular that his single 'A team' was made the 'single of the year' and reached number 3 in the itunes charts the week it came out. Ed Sheeran Wikipedia. Ed Sheeran's music style and genre is closely related to our artist of Lewis Mokler, he has the overall image and idea of presence in the music industry that our artist is aiming for. When considering music, the style is very similar, both artists songs consist mainly of guitar as the instrument alongside the main singer; their careers are very similar, Ed Sheeran broke into the music industry through playing at small concerts and selling his own CD's, he developed a dedicated audience and when he was signed by a record label released his own single, from here his number of fans multiplexed as he had his original fans and his new audience members whilst released nationally. Ed Sheeran's music video for Lego House had a large influence upon our music video as we developed conventions and frames within his music video, therefore Ed Sheeran is considered a similar product.



Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman is another example of a 'similar product' to Lewis Mokler, as a musician she became known within the music industry by writing her own music and performing regularly, being a passion of hers, she was signed with Elektra records and released her album. Similar to Lewis Mokler she had a hit single 'Fast Car' which is written and performed with guitar and vocals, she is well known for her easy listening but passionate music, she transformed from a nieche audience to becoming well known world wide for her singer songwriter status. Her song which mostly links to Lewis Mokler as a similar product is Fast Car.




Joshua Radin
Joshua Radin is another similar product, although his career as an artist is different to Lewis Mokler, he broke into the music industry through film and television music, his compositions became well known, and therefore he falls into the genre of singer songwriter; Joshua Radin is now developed and known globally as a famous singer songwriter musician; as a product, Joshua Radin is one step ahead of Lewis Mokler in his music career as he is now considered by the mass audience and has crossed all types of media platforms. His music is incredibly similar to Lewis Mokler as he uses guitars and vocals, although his music videos and albums are more developed towards the mass audience. When we make our digipak we intend to use ideas from his albums, using themes and clothing styles to portray the artist as a developing musician.




Joe Brooks

Joe Brooks is another young singer songwriter from England, again similar to Lewis Mokler he toured the country, using youtube to publicise himself and gain a wider audience, when he was more developed he was signed by a record label and released his own composition of 'SuperMan', he toured at national festivals such as V festival, Glastonbury and Reading, developing himself as an artist to a variety of audiences. Joe is a similar product as his career and development in music is very similar to our artist of Lewis Mokler.



James Morrison

James Morrison is now very famous, his music and compositions are very similar to Lewis Mokler, he was signed by multiple record labels such as CUSTARD and ROCKET which are off branches of bigger music companies such as UNIVERSAL, these links allowed him to develop as an artist and join the 'mass audience', when we create our digipak we will use his albums as influence as he has developed into the artist that he wants to be, therefore James Morrison is considered a similar product and an artist which Lewis Mokler can take influence from.

Change of plan again...

Unfortunatley due to family poblems the 2 people who will be the artist and character are unable to film today, similarly dan has responded to me saying that he also can't make filming today. Unfortunatly due to these circumstances I have had to postpone the filming until sunday afternoon at approximatley 2pm. I am going away tomorow to Aldeburgh until sunday, as there is no telephone or internet signal I have aleady prearranged this meeting to film. I am emailing the Grafton centre to let them know that the changes have happened.

Digipack Conventions

When creating and producing a Digipack it is important to notice all elements involved within the production, the 2 main parts of the digipack are the front cover and the back cover. These are the first things that the audience member sees. Below are 3 front covers of albums, all male artists in the genre of singer songwriter and one back cover of a singer songwriter female artist.

The 3 covers have one main thing in common, the artist is clearly taking over the majority of the frame, making the artist itself clear and prominent being the first thing that is looked at. The font of the artists name and album name is placed together, the name of the artist above album name as the most important element of the album is 'who' is the artist. The font is clear, using creative stypes and colours to make the text look more interesting. Each artist has a different theme occuring in the cover, some effective use of editing is used to lower all colours except from red, repeat the layer of image of the artist in different locations and colours, and to blut out the background of the image, making the artist itself more prominent.

The back cover is equally as important as the front cover, this is used mainly for song titles nd any bonus features, this use of space is used to  draw attention to established songs and advertise any special features to persuade the audience to buy the album. For Adele's back cover, everything is in black and white except from the green to show the numbers and special features. The image of her face, showing a clear eye line towards the camera creates a link between the audience and the artist. At the bottom of the back cover is the barcode, allowing the audience to buy the album. The use of small print at the bottom of the back cover is to advertise any copyright laws and represent the music and record label, here there is legal details and any websites linking to more information of the artist. Finally it is important to notice the spine of the album, this is very simple, it uses the same font and colour scheme as the rest of the album and has a code at the bottom, for recognition of the product.

Ideas from this research which can be applied to our digipak planning are:

• colour schemes
• bar codes
• effective use of editing
• small print and legal jargon
• labels and logos of the record and music companies
• remember the spine!
• font and placement of the name of artist and album name.

Dates for Filming

As we have a deadline closley coming, we have planed that on the tuesday of half term, the 25th of october  we will be filming in the Grafton centre in Cambridge and our outside shots by the benches. These shots will be just us, India, Dan, Emily and Will; we will all travel together via car, and then travel back together. When Luke returns from his holiday we will film on the 1st November at my house in thaxed aftershool, we have all agreed this date but if it is unable then we will film on the 3rd, thursday. These dates have been planned and prepared for, we will just have to wait until they are filmed now.

Clothes and Props

Clothes to wear for filming in Cambridge


Male

Jean trousers
• long sleeved top/polo
• baggy style clothes
• fleece/jumper
• converse/plimpsoles shoes
• accoustic guitar

Female

• Jean trousers
• grey/dark top
• cardigan
• scarf
• fluffy hat
• ugg boots
• small bag

Clothes to wear for filming in Thaxted

Male

• Jean trousers
• plain white t shirt
• scruffy hair
• socks, no shoes
• knitted fleece

Female

• leggins
• baggy long top/fleece
• bracelett
• socks

We decided that these items of clothing would look suitable for our music video because these are the types of clothes found in similar music videos to singer songwriter or indie. The fashion and representation of the actors and artist in the music video is very imporant as it may influence the audiences clothes choice, similarly the artist has to represent the conventional clothing styles to fit into their intended music genre.

Conventions of a Digipak

 Some important elements to consider when creating our own digipak are certain elements which are essential to be included within the digipak. Some of these features are always found, others are ones which I plan to involve in ours:

-The name of the Artist

- The name of the Album
- Tracklist
- bonus features and use of extra's such as 'behind the scenes' and/or 'making of'
- Website and Myspace addresses
- Record Label branding
- Bonus Video
- Discount if you buy with... vouchers to advertise the product more
- Pictures of the artist and relevant visual imagery to sell the band- Website
- Credits
- ratings and opinions
- any potential titles recieved ' artist of the year'
- Recording information, producer,
- Composer
- Logo
- Barcode
- DVD logo
- CD logo
- Website banner
- Blackberry tags
- Editing of some form
- Colour schemes and themes occuring throughout the digipak

These features are essential, and we will make sure that these are included within our digipak.

Research and Planning - Fonts

In preparation for creating our digipak, it is important to be prepared with the different themes we want to accur throughout all of our products, creating a direct link between them all. For this, we used a website which we found useful for our AS media coursework, http://www.dafont.com/, the website itself is purely dedicated to downloading lots of different fonts. We researched other music albums within a similar genre to Singer Songwriter, and decided that a clear block font will look effective against the digipak photos and that it will fit in with the usual conventions of a singer songwriter album. When looking, we found a variety of different suitable fonts, here are some examples of the fonts we found:

When comparing the different fonts, we decided that the fonts Sketch Block and Universal College were the two most suitable for the theme and style we wanted to create throughout our digipaks and advert. We will use the Sketch Block font on our digipack, and combine the 2 fonts on our advert.

Genre research Prezi

Genre on Prezi

A prezi dedicaed to show our research and development of understanding into the genre of music we plan to create a music video for.

Music advertisments - genre relevance

When researching music adverts I thought it would be important to stick to the genre of music we have chosen, for this I found music adverts advertising James Morrison and Jack Johnson. When looking at the first advert - James Morrison, it is clear that there is no evidence of the album, although the photo used as the page cover is also the album cover. There is very little text, all placed in the bottom left hand corner of the page. The font is used for the name of the artist and album name, a different font is used for text related towards the 'business' side of the advert. There a small amount of text on the page, the text is purely there to state when the album is ready for sale, and advertise some special features. The bottom of the advert shows different web addresses to find information on the artist. When considering the editing, there is a clear use of contrast and a pale filter over the image itself, the framing of the artist in proportion to the camera takes the central focus and the eyeline is avoiding the camera, these are all important elements of production that are important to consider when we produce our own advert.

The second advert is of Jack Johnson, another artist which is closely related to our created artist of Lewis Mokler, both artists are singer songwriters, so this advert would be useful to analyse and to draw ideas for our advert together. This advert has been divided into two main parts, the top being the image of the artist and name, clearly showing who the advert is representing. The photo of the artist shows the man sitting playing his guitar infront of a recording microphone, this emphasises his musical skills alongside writing music. The editing used has applied a colour filter over the image, creating a contrast from red, whites and blacks.The bottom half of the advert has a navy background, with light blue and white font used to stand out from the rest of the advert. One font has been used for all informative writing, the alignment is to the right, creating contrast from the 'normal' convention of music adverts where the writing is either placed in the centre or the left. The use of colours with the text is used to emphasise the important names, the names of the song and album are in light blue to stand out from other details; there is a small image of the album itself, which is a normal convention of music adverts as it makes the product clearer to find to the audience. Other than the ovbious, there are examples of the record labels and relative companies represented on the advert at the bottom in smaller print, also showing examples of websites to locate more information on the artist.

Some ideas that I have gained from this research:

• Using a clear photo that has relevance to the digipak itself
• use language to emphasise the special features
• different font for the artist and album name to the rest of the 'business' related language
• show a clear photo of the digipak itself
• write when the digipak is released clearly
• use small print to show how the audience can find out more

Audience Research Analysis

Its clear to see that by question one there is more males than females, althought the total sample size is relativley small, consisting of only 9 people, there is more males, 5, than females, 4, this could imply that the results will be more gender biased.

The sample for age is very small, consisting of only people aged between 16-20, as a group we planned to do a physical interview also but the results were not valid and reliable so we will use these only. When comparing question 1 and 2 it is evident that there has been a problem with the collection of results, as question one has 9 answers, and the rest throughout the survey only have 8. This shows that the results could be unreliable. The fact that the sample of participants were aged between 16 and 20 is very biased against the mass audience, although it is useful towards our research as our music genre is 'Singer songwriter' the target audience for this genre is roughly between 16 to mid 30's, so our results will be useful to us.

The majority of the results in this question is a very strong answer to yes, the majority showing yes to having an income, this implites that the participants spend their money on specific things.

From the comments shown below it is ovbious that the participants do not buy their music,only a small majority of the participants use itunes to buy the music, this shows that the principles that come with buying music have altered over time as it is easier to download them for free. This implies that when we create our artist and song we need to advertise something more, to make them want to spend their money on music legally.

Looking at these results it is clear that accoustic is a very popular type of music genre, proving that all participants except from 2 liked listening to it, this is a good use of results as our music is similar to this; allowing the results to be used when creating our product. The least common type of music listened to is metal, with only 1 person voting for it.

Ed sheeran is a very popular artist, looking though the results it shows that 7 people voted that they listen to him, he is a very similar product to Lewis Mokler, their music is very simila and they ae similar products. When comparing, it is clear that Ed sheeran often influences Lewis Mokler's music.

Youtube and facebook are very popular websites, showing that almost everyone who answered had these websites, in relation to music youtube and soundcloud are forms of websites to listen to music, these are also popular. This indicates to us that we should adertise our product and artist on yourube and soundcloud; to create a direct link between audience and artist.

4 out of 8 people said that they have an interest in music, this shows that 50% of participants are likely to give useful advice and help us as artists to improve and stay with what the audience wants.

Change of Plans

As we have been planning our music video we have reallised that it is almost impossible to have Lewis Mokler himself in our music video, he has a very busy schedule and we have to stick to our A level deadlines. Luke is going on holiday in the october half term, and we only have selcet days to film, we are planning to film this friday after school or another time this week at my house to film the flashback scenes, then in half term, either on monday or tuesday Dan and I will go to Cambridge and film the other shots.

Another downside of this lack of time left to film is that we have no similar times to Lewis Mokler and the woman we agreed to film with. As we cannot use Lewis anymore, we had to find back up characters who would also be able to perform the song to the same capability. For this, we decided to use Will Mannings and Emily Abrey. This is a photo of emily and will, who will be the actors in our music video.

Practise Shots and Permission updates

Today Luke and I drove to Cambridge to get some practise shots and plan exactly where we would shoot the clips for the music video; as Luke is absent on holiday in october half term Dan and I will be going to Cambridge with the artist to film the shots. From today we managed to speak to the manager and director of the Grafton centre as we had recieved no physical copy of approval to film; when we saw him we discussed our plans, and talked dates and information. He has agreed to let us film, just making sure we dont film the front or inside of a shop!

From today, we chose to take a variety of photos showing what the content and angle of the shots will look like; here are the photos.

1 - These are shots from an elevated strip of path looking downwards onto a small area with no shops.

These are shots from a level slightly lower from the first, and from a different angle showing a different content of shot.

This is a lower angle, the same level as the singer, and it is the left angle, slightly behind.

An oppositte angle, showing the artist face on at the same level.

Photoss outside of the Grafton centre:

We found that taking these shots allowed us to create an image of what the overall video will look like, taking these photos allowed us to eliminate certain areas and locations from our planning list; this will make our filming and editing more efficient and good quality.

Risk assestment Cambridge

We plan to film the majority of our music video in the centre of Cambridge and within the Grafton centre, we have asked for permission, and agreed with the Grafton centre the days we can come and film. It is important that we take note of any potential risks or problems that could occur whilst we are filming, these are the risks and precatuions we will take to prevent or solve them:

- Getting hassled when filming - work in groups precicley and make sure our work is clearly organised to avoid any problems with other people.
- Since Dan has epilepsy, there is a chance that he may have a seizure, although hopefully this won't happen - to prevent this we will make sure we stay away from anything that could potentially induce a seizure. Although, should this happen we will have emergency contact with teachers to inform them, and call an ambulance for official help.
- Damaging or losing any cameras/props/guitar  - make sure we make a check list of all the items we bring with us, and assure that we look after them at all times. To avoid loosing anything we will make sure we have everything we arrived with before we leave.
- Getting lost, to avoid this we will take a map or get a guide to Grafton Centre
- If we film during a school week, we will only film when we have free periods or media lessons

Risk Assestment - Thaxted

For one element within the music video we are filming a flashback in my house, in thaxted. In order to do this we need to make a risk assestment for our filming.

We need to make sure that when filming in the house we use all the equipment properly and sensibly, assuring that no breakage or damage is caused.

We will not miss any scheduled lessons at school to avoid truency; so we will warn teachers of our lack of presence at school during study periods.

When travelling to my house, we will travel all together if possible, if not we will preplan times and certain ways of travel.

When using any household items we will make sure we are all sensible, for instance the kettle to make sure nobody gets burnt or harmed. Similar to all items to be used we will preplan all usages.

As luke is allergic to cats, when filming we will make sure that all cats are not around, assuring that no allergic reaction can be induced.

As dan has epilepsy we will make sure that there will be no flashing or bright lights and take all precautions to avoid triggering anything.

Prop List

There are certain elements within the lyrics and video that need to be included, for this we are making sure that we have a selective prop list, these are the things we need to include within our video:

When filming at my house for the flashback:

• A jar of nutella
• A wii
• mario cart
• sugar
• teabags
• general kitchen area
• lounge
• sofas
• the outfits of the characters

When filming in cambridge:

• A guitar
• shopping bags potentially
• shoes
• Phone x2
• Postit notes

With these props they will fit into our plans and enable us to make our music video and the shot contents look more realistic and authentic.

Planning

We put our plan / storyboard on the main whiteboard so it would be easier to see; we planned that the top half of the line would be the narrative elements of the video and the notes below the performance. Here is the photo of our work, we decided to take the photo and post it onto blogger to make our work look more presentable.

STEP Flow model

In our media lessons we study different theories and their relevance to our present coursework, the theory based on the STEP flow model is something very useful, so I have put it on blogger so that it can be applied to my work. Here is the STEP flow model:
style
topic
exploraion
production

Terminology to learn and Apply

Audience Engagement - Describes how an audience interacts with a media text; different people react in different ways to the same text.

Audience Expectations - The audience advance ideas an audience may have about a text; this particularly applies to genre pieces. Dont forget that producers often play with or deliberatly shatter audience expectations.

Audience foreknowledge -  definate information (rather than vague expectations) which an audience bring to a media product.


Audience identification- this is the way in which audience members feel themselves conected to a particular media text, in that they feel it direectly expresses their attitude or lifestyle.

Audience placement - the range of strategies media producers use to directly target a particular audience and make them feel that the media text is specifically for them.

Audience research - measuring an audience is very important to all media institutions. Research is done in all stages of production of media text, and, once produces, audience will be monitored.

Genre and Video Analysis

Youtube is an incredibly useful resource; it provides all the types of videos and information we could want to look for, suggests similar videos and also supplies the user with statistical information which is very useful when considering the other people who have watched the same video. From the music video of Lewis Mokler playing Nutella there are 219 views, from this statistical breakdown it is clear that the majority of views are from the UK, although there are some other international views. Similarly there is no negative feedback left on the video, leaving only positive likes and comments.

Having these statistics gives us an insight to how large and spread out his audience it; we know we need to aim for UK based audience members, although the element of being international is important. Using these statistics we can help influence the production of our music video and grow with our understanding of audience, artist and genre research.

Contact with Grafton Centre

We plan to be able to film some of our music video within the Grafton Centre, in order to do this we have to ask permission from the company to be able to film inside. We had to let them know what we intended to do, Luke emailed the company and we are awaiting a reply.

List of Different shots for the music video

As we are a the stage of planning and research, we realise it is important to keep updated with our ideas, these are some of our plans and shots to involve within the music video of Nutella.

Postit notes on walls, showing certain lyrics
Live performance of him playing in Grafton Centre
Live performance of him playing alone in a bedroom or private room
Live performance of him playing on a bench by a tree with a jar of nutella.
A girl, following his postit notes
Segmented shots - similar to Hey there delilah
Photos of the artist and girl in the video
Close ups of playing - guitar, eyes, mouth, hands
Jar of nutella
Old fashioned film reel
Still shots in segment with camera footage

Digipak analysis.

This is an audio recording of Luke and I analysing our digipak that we created as preparation towards our second year of Media A level, the task was to create our own digipak according to a genre we were given, we recieved Hip Hop/ R&B, for this we created an artist called BJB, and created the suitable Digipak. This recording plays our evaluation answering questions from the teacher and classmembers, also pointing out some good elements of the digipak.

 

Digipak Analysis

I decided to video my digipak analysis so that my speech and actions can be described and noted properly, according to what I am mentioning. Choosing the video allows me to point to certain elemmts clearer, although I did mention CD or Album instead of Digipak regularly. The digipak I chose to analyse was Chris Brown, Forever edition; he is one of my favourite artists, and I find this digipak particularly interesting as there is a lot of intertextuality and occuring themes throughout the layout.

Ideal Audience Member

For the purpose of this post i=I am going to call my ideal audience member Max.


Max would be a snappy dressing popular kid within in group of friends, he most likely going to be around the age of 19 and would have just started at uni, we think he would be doing something quite cultural, he would be studying English. He will know pretty much everything that a normal teenager would, but would know more. He would be the type of person people would go to for the latest trends. He will dress in all the new trends, and will always be trying to keep up to date. This would make him the first to get things in his group of friends, which would make others be envious of him, and make him someone that people could copy. But at the same time, it would look like he didn't really take much notice of what he wore, which would give him the rugged look.
His knowledge of the music industry would be deep, and he would know all the bands that most other people wouldn't. So in this case he would know Lewis Mokler.

He would be going to small gigs with all small named artists and would make it a regular thing, making sure that he was up to date with everything, and he would play the new artists hes friends didn't know in his car to make him seem a little more educated that he is.

I dont think he and his family would have alot of money, so that is why he got into indie music as he cant afford to go to the big gigs, so he has to make do with the small local gigs.

Music Survey

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Music Video Plan

This is a photo of the planning and presentation we did as a group in our lesson yesterday, this is a spider diagram representing all the ideas we have for our music video. In the key it shows that the boxes in blue are related to performance, green narrative and red for detail or camera shots.