Receiving Feedback (What have you learned from your audience feedback)

I posted a rough cut of our music video to our Youtube channel and linked it to my Facebook page to receive peer feedback. It was helpful to gain 'outsider perspective' from people who are not media students, for example Molly-May Frost said 'this is so good her brilliant dancing made me laugh'.This tells us that we have captured the up-beat tone of our song which is what we aimed to do.

It was equally as constructive to receive more technical feedback from fellow media students such as Jordan Barclay:

Being aware of which key parts we need to improve on  will help us plan what we need to re-film.

Performance Shots and Edit Experiment

I uploaded our first edit to my groups youtube channel. I hope to receive feekback from members of our targeted audience and other peers on improvements that can be made prier to our first screening in March.

Editing - Blending Options Experiment.

 Today I started putting our performance shots together. When looking at the close ups I thought it would be a good idea to experiment with blending options. I thought it would be an interested idea to make it look as though our artist was coming to life on a page linking them to our ideas for the digipak, billboard and poster.

Planning for the Ancillary Tasks

Jade and I sat and discussed possible layouts for our digipak and magazine advert. 
we talked about how we will be influenced by the lyric video. 

Meet The Cast.

Some of the cast.

We wanted to have a range of different characters represented through our cast members, we did this by asking our cast to wear clothes they felt had a reflection on their personality this way we are able to represent different types of people in this particular clip.I think that through doing this, we are gaining the interest of a more diverse audience.

First Day of Filming on Location.

Filming on Location from Parys Gardener

Poster Edges

I was looking at different ways in which I could 'cartoonise' the main image for our digipak. my partner and I decided that the second out come works more successfully in its attempt to resemble a sketch.

Official Lyric Video For Our Song.

We plan to take inspiration from the official lyric video for our album art work. My partner and I think that as we are looking at slightly re-branding our artiest/song to address a more British and contemporary audience, similar to what Taylor herself seems to be doing. To achieve this, I suggested that we take inspiration from the official lyric video which was released prior to the labels release of the video. I think that the sketch book / flip book style of the video makes it very different and resembles a dairy and this will give the digipak a more personal. 

Album Cover Analysis

First Shoot

Timeline

Textual Analysis

Textual an from Parys Gardener

By Parys Gardener

Storyboard

Storyboard by Parys and Jade

Checklist and Ideas for Digi-Pak

Jade Delaney JCA Media Studies A2: Ideas and Intial Plans for CD Cover

Location/ Test Shoot

Possible Classroom Location.

Shot / Angle 1

We think that a classroom setting would establish our school location best. We also think that this particular set up will allow our artist to interact with the background performer during our narrative shots. 

Shot / Angle 2

Location Shoot

Story Board Planning.

Second Photoshoot for Our Digipak

Second Photoshoot for Digipak

Recording Company - Big Machine Reconds

Taylor Swift belongs to the Big Machine recording company. They sponsor a variety of country artists and help them to brand themselves as an artiest and address their target audience. 

The company help new artiest to find there target audience and help them to work out ways in which it would be best to target their audience  this would include advise on advertising and publicity decisions.  

The company launched in 2005 by former DreamWorks Records executive Scott Borchetta.  Big Machine is based in Nashville, Tennessee, and is distributed by Universal Music Group. The label has six Grammy Awards, awarded to Taylor Swift.

Frist Photo Shoot

 Here are snaps from our first shoot for our Digipak, it shows how we experimented with lighting and shot types.

Advert Analysis

 by Parys Gardener

Encoding and Decoding

Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)

Encoding and Decoding

-Dominant ('hegemonic') reading theory:

When the targeted audience completely agrees with the view that the director is trying to convey.

- Negotiated reading theory: 

This is the idea what the targeted audience only partly agrees with the directors views. The theory that the targeted audience is in two minds and only partly agrees/disagrees with the directors ideas.

- Oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading theory:

this is when the targeted audience completely disagrees with the ideas which the director was trying to convey and are left with the opposite feeling. This is the worst possible outcome. 

Fashion and Music.

This is the advert for the latest women's range at high street store H&M. The advert features singer Lana Del Ray who they have chosen as she is trying to appeal to the same target audience as H&M and vise versa which helps to show the strong link between fashion and music and the effects it can have on the consumer. 

Researching the Lyrics.

Taylor Swift – We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together Lyrics

Audience Research: Questionnaire

Exploring Locations

My partner and I have been considering taking on board the idea of challenging the conventions of our chosen country pop genre through Mise en scene, and in particular, locations. Over the past couple of days, we have been thinking about producing a brand for our artist which will appeal to a more 'urban' and British target audience. This video shows the different inner city locations we chose to explore. 

Textual Analysis

by Parys Gardener

Shot Types

Looking at Shot Types

More PowerPoint presentations from Parys Gardener

Music videos are simply an extension of from Parys Gardener

Targeted Audience.

Interveiw With Member of Our Targeted Audience.

Story Boarding with Pixton

Jade and I have experimented with using different ways to illustrate our storyboards, and one technique we have used is making a cartoon strip on Pixton. Click here for a link to Jade's post.

Chosen Brief.

"A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

1 – A website homepage for the band:

2 – A cover for its release on DVD

3 – A magazine advertisement for the DVD"

Initial Ideas for A2 Project

Describing how my skills have improved during the AS

How have I improved so far and how I could improve further?

Research and Pre-Production
During the research and post productions stage of my AS project, I have both developed existing skills and acquired new ones. I have learnt how to complete a textual analyse of any given clip in relation to a given topic, I have further developed my knowledge on targeting specific audiences and how to go about it - one of the ways in which I have done this is by conducting focus groups and short surveys. I learnt how to compare films from the same genre, looking and codes and conventions for example, I looked at two very similar films 'mean girls' and 'st trinaians'. I compared them and explored ways in which we could possibly achieve a similar level of quality in our final outcome given our limited resources available. I also learnt how to identify the conventions of different film genres. 


Production
During the production of my AS project, I learnt about the how different elements of each shot can lead a character to being portrayed and represented in a certain way. Not only do I now know that the representation of each character is a crucial I have learnt how to control this, for example using low angled shots to create a sense of power around the character, or having a female character at the top of a power triangle in order to create a modern representation. I think one of the key improvements I could make when filming on location would be my organisation skills, one way in which I am to accomplish this is by making prop lists that I will bring with me each time I film. 



Post Production
I feel as though this was the area in my project that I was able to excel the most as it allowed me to bring in my graphic skills - I was able to create logo's and titles in Photoshop which I was able to then animate through Adobe Premier Pro, which I feel this is still a skill that I hope to develop during my time in A2.