[ANCILLARY PLANNING] - Mock Up Advertisement

Mock Up Advertisement

Synergy: Same font and colours, Same images.

Include: Release date and information of where to purchase/download.

[ANCILLARY PLANNING] - Ancillary Production Pitch

Ancillary Production Pitch

[ANCILLARY PLANNING] - Mock Up of Digipak

Mock Up of Digipak

Inside panel will include a booklet of pictures of the artist

[PRODUCTION] - FINAL VIDEO

Yasmin Ally - High For This

28. Chenny, Nahida, Nicole, Yashima from 283goswell on Vimeo.

[REFLECTION] - Cinema Viewing of Music Video

Cinema Viewing of Music Video

Today, the media students all had the opportunity to watch all our music videos on a big screen at a cinema near by our college. It was great to watch other student's music videos and a photo montage of all our hard work put into them. The work produced was absolutely phenomenal and I was proud of myself and those in my year group. We also had the opportunity to gather some feedback which could come in handy for the evaluation process. 

Unfortunately the footage I gathered of the feedback wasn't great so I plan to get more for evaluation at the latter.

Here's a video of the LIVE reaction to our Music Video and also a few feedback notes. The reaction was amazing and uplifting. *Unfortunately you can't feel the outstanding atmosphere through the video*

[PRODUCTION & PLANNING] Being spontanous

From the first day of filming, we were very spontaneous about our decisions that we made. Even though we create a storyboard, we honestly didn't follow the story board. We only followed our story board on the first and second day of filming. The decisions we made were based on how we felt about the current footage he have so far and how what can we do now that would be efficient and easily accessible. So in this case there were times when for example on the second day of filming, we passed the thames, but on that day we didn't plan to film there but because of the good view and great weather, we all felt that we should film some shots of the location.

For a lot of video there we're a lot of things that we didn't plan but I guess it made our music video better because, at the beginning of the filming stages I personally didn't have a proper vision on how I wanted the music video to be but as we began filming more and more, I began to see how I wanted things to work and so whenever I felt something could be fit into the video I then thought we should try and incorporate it in.

Changed The Background!

Our old background was the default blue skies and clouds which wasn't exactly visually appealing nor relevant to our project as a group. So I thought to switch it up, using the cover art for Ellie Goulding's song High For This  as our new background (found it on google) which is indeed our chosen song and basically what we've been working with as a stimulus for the past few months. The greyscale of the cover art looks quite similar to some shots from our video aswell!  

[ANCILLARY RESEARCH + PLANNING] - My Ideas

My Ideas

So with the Music Video out the way, it is time to work on the Ancillary Products. We have the task to create 3 Ancillary Products - The Exterior and Interior of a digipak and a magazine advert to accompany it. So coming up with a digipak and advert is not the easiest thing in the world, in fact it is rather difficult, especially for a perfectionist like me. I have no clue as to what pictures I may want to use of what fonts will be best and so more research and shortlisting is needed. I know what feel I want to get from these ancillary product so I guess thats better than nothing. It's all a matter of knowing what you want and what you don't want and I am on my way getting there but it looks like I need to get inspiration and speed this process up. This is actually rather unusual, as I am a creative person and I can usually imagine what I want my final piece of work to look like but right now I am blank, with maybe a few specks of dust here and there. 

My first few thoughts when planning the digipak and advert. 

The Music Video has very simplistic theme to it, with the simple clothing and setting and this is what I hope to portray in the digipak and advert to ensure there is synergy through all the products. I also want to carry over the black and white theme with a hint of colour and so this led to me to want to use one of the smoke shots so I could use this repetitive colour separation edit which also has synergy elements with the Music Video.  Now down to researching, and shortlisting, Images & Fonts. 

Colours

Fonts

My initial idea for fonts is to use the maximum 2 instead of 1 as I want to make the artist name stand out as we are attempting to promote a new artist. For the artist name I want to use a signature, handwritten like font to give it a more personal and engaging feel to it, much like Jhene Aiko's debut album. I also like how she used a more standard, bold font and would also like to take inspiration from this idea. 

In order to find fonts that I could use I carried out some research on Font Book and DaFont to find 2 suitable fonts and shortlist them. 

Firstly these are the fonts I found on Font Book, which I think could be used. 

*annotated to show which ones I probably should cut as they don't exactly fit my own specifications*

Although I found some fonts I liked I didn't feel that they were as strong for the advert and digipak as would have wanted them to be. I then moved on to look for more fonts on DaFont.com. While browsing the website I came across some graffiti fonts which I could consider using to achieve the urban aspect of the digipak and advert. 

However I felt this could corrupt the simplistic theme I was hoping to achieve, so decided to scrap that idea. Besides they don't exactly look like they'll be easy on the eye.

Between both Font Book and DaFont I have narrowed down my fonts to the following...

Now it all depends on what suits the final digipak and advert and compliments it as a whole.

Pictures

*Made using Picasa*

Digipak Layout

Advert Design

Most of my inspiration for an advert was from The Weeknd, who is a PBRnB artist and so the simplicity of the Ad gave me ideas as to how I would approach creating my own.

However there were ideas of my own which I also implemented. This was just the base from a layout. Instead of making it an Ad with concert information I wanted to focus more on album release details as a way of promoting and branding our artist. The simple album cover, Artist name and album title at the top and, release details at the bottom. SIMPLE.

Now that I have complied my ideas together, I can now start working on my digipak and playing around with Photoshop elements until I achieve what I hope to. I hope I can closely follow the ideas I have whipped up together, but in the case that I cannot then I'm sure it would be at a high standard and just as effective. Here we go...

[ANCILLARY PLANNING] - Overview on Do's & Don'ts

Overview on 'Do's & Don'ts'

[ANCILLARY RESEARCH] - Digipak Design Activity

Digipak Design Activity

We were set the task to design a digipak using images given to us. 

If there's one thing I learnt from this lesson it would be SAVE along the way or screenshot my progress. 

Analysing Real Media Ancillary Texts

[ANCILLARY RESEARCH] - Analysis of Digipaks & Advertisements

 Analysis of Digipaks & Advertisements

Jhene Aiko - Sail  Out (Debut Album)

Unfortunately I could not find an advert for this album, but I would also imagine it to have the same imagery, the peace like logo and the same fonts.

The Weeknd - Trilogy

Ellie Goulding - Bright Lights

[ANCILLARY RESEARCH] - Introduction to Ancillary Products

Introduction to Ancillary Products

[ANCILLARY RESEARCH] - Previous Student Digipak Analysis

Previous Student Digipak Analysis

[REFLECTION] - Blogging Health Check 2

Blogging Health Check 2 

Reading this note on how my progress is going has been very satisfying and mood lifting. Knowing that I am now working at a grade more suited to my skills makes me very proud. But again I am confident that I can exceed this grade and do much much more. However I am still not motivated in this whole project. I feel that I have not had any fun in creating the music video and that all I have been in stressed and cannot wait for it to be over.

I have successfully taken on board the notes that Mary has given me and have worked accordingly. I have attempted to use a range of ICT technologies to make these blog posts much more enjoyable. I caught up on all the blogs that I was missing as fast as I could and have tried my best to put in as much detail as possible.

However I still feel as though I have gotten slightly behind on progress blog posts about how editing has been going as up until this Blogging Healthcheck Mary has found some gaps so I think a target here is to do the blog posts as soon as possible and not delay with my laziness. 

I have also worked towards my own targets such as that of getting organised and have also recorded how I have organised myself using lists and iPhone Apps. 

So from here on I will:

• Keep a high standard of detail in my Blog posts
• Keep up to date with my posts
• Carry on using different ICT technologies and possible add a post on the strengths and weakness of these applications/softwares as well as a post on research used to find these.
• Stay organised. 

[PRODUCTION] - FINALLY FINISHED MUSIC VIDEO

FINALLY FINISHED MUSIC VIDEO

[PRODUCTION] - Editing

Last Few days of Editing

created using keynote

[PRODUCTION] - Skills Development

Skills Development

One of the new skills I taught myself was the colour separation on the smoke in the clips we used. Here's a video which outlines the steps I took. 

1. Select the clip you want to work with 
2. Go to effects, video filters then Colour Correction, the Colour Corrector 3-Way
3. Then on the video, clip on the colour corrector 3-way Tab
4. At the bottom clip the drop down arrow on Limit effect
5.  Using the Eye Dropper, select the colour in the video which you want to separate i.e the colour of the smoke
6. Invert the selection and take the saturation down. 
7. Untick Sat and Luma
8. Then slide the limit effect colour bar slightly until you have the clip how you want it. 

New Location/Failed Filming Session

[PLANNING] On the hunt for a black studio

On the Hunt for a Black Studio 

After our last lesson on Friday, we submitted our rough cut and received feedback from Louisa. During that lesson me and Nicole went and did more filming for the music video as we needed to shoot some more shot. We initially wanted to find a black room as when we planned the music video we wanted to be in contrast with our white studio room that we had already filmed in. We used a class room in the college which has black curtains, we thought that it would be okay and would work with the footage we already got, but when we when reviewed the footage we could all see that the quality standard was not compared to what we filmed in the white studio. The lighting in classroom was far too yellow and grainy So we took into consideration to try find a black studio, even though it wasn't decided for definite whether we would need a black studio or not because our rough cut wasn't completed at the time. 

So as I took the responsibility to book the white studio room in Bethnal Green, I also took charge and said that I would try and to find a black studio. I again contacted Studio Space again, as they were the only studio I knew at that time which had a black studio. 

I received a reply, so now we just need to review the rough cut again, which can't determine whether we are going to re film or not. 

Costume @ The Studio!

Final Stages!

[PLANNING] Finding New Location

[PLANNING] Studio Location

[PRODUCTION] - Rough Cut Feedback

Rough Cut Feedback

Chenny and I (Nahida) were very stressed with what we had and were not happy with it. We felt as though we needed to reshoot some shots to make them stronger and pull the whole video together. However after the rough cut feedback we feel a little bit less stressed with it all. I think the comments were pretty good and the feedback we could definitely work on. 

Response to Feedback:

• There was a red tint on one clip however that was us experimenting on how we can fix our problem with the out of focus shots. The audience liked this, but we are still unsure on whether we want to add it in as it didn't really help with our out of focus shots. *If we do decide to use it, to make it more often.*
• Strengthen our chorus - so we could have the outside shots with the each smoke shot. 
• Change one of the sofa shots as the leg acts as a barrier
• Change some of the shots at the beginning to work around the focus shots - We've watched through all the footage with Louisa and identified which ones were out of focus and which ones we could use.
• Use the lamppost shots in reverse as well.
• Change the hair flick shot - either slow mo it to fit or have it on a beat
• One of the last Woaah oohh Shots out of sync so fix it up. 

So much to do but I think we can pull it off. 

Evaluation Question 1 [Notes]

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

Andrew Goodwin
- Amplification of lyrics; giving visual meaning to the word 'high'
- Yasmin breaks 4th wall
- Seductive behaviour portrays sexual behaviour described in the lyrics of the song 
- Similarities with the work of FKA Twigs and The Weeknd who's music is of the same genre as Yasmin's

Laura Mulvey
- Male Gaze: Revealing clothing, seductive body language, singing to a male counterpart 'trust me boy, you'll wanna get high for this'
- Similar to Beyonce's single ladies 
- Vulnerability portrayed through body language making the boy Yasmin is singing about/to immediately superior 

Carol Vernallis
- Colour separation; coloured smoke and black and white background (editing): similar to Chris Brown's 'Don't think they know' video