Evaluation Question 4

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

Research-Our use of media technologies have been greatly important and beneficial throughout each process of producing our three

promotional products, and have included the use of various different technologies and resources through our construction. However before I begin to evaluate my promotional products, research was vital. And I can say with certainty that without the technologies that we have today, the research in which I took would have been mere to impossible. I say that research cover would be mere to impossible as the use of the internet was a key source during my research stage. The reason for this is because I used a range of websites, to which included a media website called ‘Media Magazine’ which is used to analyse and outline archives of articles focusing on music videos, which by doing so was greatly helpful and relevant to my creative aspect of my work.

The reason why it was so greatly helpful to the construction of my creative side of work, is because of my reading of an article by Pete Fraser who wrote on “How to study music videos”. By looking at such a resource it helped me to develop my understanding on how I analyse and how I engage with a music video. What I mean by this is by watching the video and asking myself why have they used that, or what are they trying to portrayal and to outline key themes. By developing such skills like these it has helped me to understand how I can produce an effective and engaging, high quality piece of work that my target audience will appreciate.

Another research platform I used from the internet was YouTube which was the video resource throughout all research stages. The reason for this is because the website enabled me to be able to watch videos at ease and from this construct detailed analysis on each (evidence of which can be seen earlier in my blog). Without YouTube we would also not have come to the idea to concentrate on a main concept for our video, as by using this we recognised that we wanted to use Dance heavily throughout all products and without it we would have not seen the powder/flour aspect tutorials (which showed us how to produce this look and how to shoot it successfully).

YouTube was also vital for the selection of our chosen song and music video concept inspiration, as without it we would have not found such hipster concepts to include within our own video (bright colours and kaleidoscope effect from ‘Super love’ video) and also finding a new song after deciding to change our song would have become more challenging without the use of YouTube.

The less used internet source I used was Wikipedia, the reason for this is that Wikipedia-logo looking at resources and information that it provides I did have to consider its reliability. The reason for this consideration of mine is because content can sometimes by anonymously edited and therefore may not be fully true. However if I used Wikipedia in detail I could cross reference my information, to find out if the information it has provided is legitimate and reliable. Although because I did not use it as a main source for research I therefore had no need to cross reference my information, as I only used it for technical definitions and some research upon Magazines such as ‘Vibe’ and ‘MixMag’. On subject of music magazines such as ‘Vibe’ and ‘MaxMag’ I also used Google search engine to access their websites, while also using Google to look at artist’s album covers and their designs which was greatly easy and useful to use in terms of research.

Planning– Before any true planning could occur, our main priority was to choose a song we liked within our Dance genre. To which through the help of using YouTube we found our song ‘Silhouettes’ by Avicii, which caught our eye through its upbeat structure which included strong beat drops and rises, which fitted our want for a dance genre song perfectly! (said previously without media technologies such as YouTube, early planning/start to construction would have been impossible).

The next stage we took in planning was by using the media technology of my iPhone, which we used to plan meetings with other members of my group where we spoke about what locations would be suitable and dates/times. iPhone’s to us at this stage of planning was deeply important as we used an aspect provided by the iPhone called ‘iMessage’ which is a free way of texting to more than one person. In result to us as a group was greatly helpful as no expense was spared and it was a sufficient and quick easy way of planning, to which if such technologies were not around planning could have taken a lot longer and less sufficiently.

Another media technology we used we used within our planning was the Mac computers at school in which we worked on in our final stages of editing, were specific film-editing software known as ‘Final-Cut Pro’ was installed especially for media constructions such as this. The provident final cut pro logo of such editing software gave us confident in knowing that when it came to editing, it would be as high quality as it possibly could down to many designers also using this programme within the industry. Without such advanced technology such as ‘Final -cut pro’ provided on the Macs, when it would have come to editing we would have been stressed and more worried as no other editing software such as ‘iMovie’ is no where near technically available to produce our idea and concept.

The school’s ‘Media intranet’ (website) was also a very important technology in our planning steps, as it meant we could gain support from our media teachers about reliable sources, what we needed to include in our blogs, digi packs, posters and videos. While also providing us with a support area from other students where we could access and provide feedback on each others ideas that we wanted to pursue.

Construction- During construction was when media technologies became the most important to us, as this what we used was going to form our image/product. The first main technology which we used was that of my Cannon EOS 550D SLR camera, which consists of a high picture quality and provides a range of different settings that can change the IOS levels and filters upon the image etc. In result of filming using such a high quality camera it gave us the best possible results to our filming, and without it our work would have been poor quality which shows how vital technologies like this are in construction. Through construction of filming we also realised how reliable that we had become on such media technologies. For example with editing using the Mac computers we could straight away take the SD memory card from my camera and directly insert it into the computer, with no transfer before hand needed. Showing to us how media technologies have abled simplicity that otherwise if not would have been a tasking and longer process such as importing clips.

Then come onto what I feel is the most important technology that we had used throughout our journey, that of which was the editing software ‘Final-cut pro’. The reason being for this is that without it for editing, our work would have been no where near the quality that it is now. The reason for this is that by using other editing software it would not have provided us with the standard of editing or freedom that we required when it came to post production stages (editing). This creative freedom is extremely important in our regard, as our video is heavily reliant on editing to create our needed ideology and to capture our target audience. For example we used a variety of effects upon the editing of our clips including: ‘Cold steel’, ‘Kaleidoscope’, ‘Keyer’, ‘Luma Key’ ‘Bokeh-random’ and ‘Dazzle’. All of which contributed to the formation of our wanted aim for our video and the feelings we wanted to portrayal. ‘Final cut pro’ also more importantly allowed us to engage our galaxy backgrounds into our clips which is what made our video! It also allowed us to make use of different transitions such as ‘cross dissolve’ which made the clips flow more subtly and look professional, and also the insertion of our lyrics over the top. This editing software was also vital in terms of music editing, as it allowed us to edit the clips and song as one, while being able to cut certain bits out of the song, increasing or decreasing the volume and the ability to fade out the song. Overall this technology is so very important to our work as without it our video would be poor and lack from any of the ideology that we had aim to achieve, and the inspiration in which we wanted our video to look like. Which links to what John Fiske said “music videos foreground the signifier over the signified” as without editing we would not have a music video in relation to the standard that one should be.

Other editing software such ‘Adobe Fireworks’ was also greatly important as a technology, as this is what we used to construct and edit our promotion poster and digi pack. Using technology such as the ‘wand’ tool to remove backgrounds off the images and ‘skin touch up’ to dismisfireworks-logo1s impurities such as spots or marks. This editing technology also provided the ability to create links between both products creatively and to represent our artist in a professional and editorial way. The programme also allowed us to incorporate vital elements such as barcodes, logos and copyright policies, which were made easy by using such programme with its simple exporting process. In result using technology such as helped us to create our two ancillary texts to the highest standard that they could possibly be while also looking creatively/technically amazing.

Evaluation– Onto the last part of the process I also used a high amount of technology to produce my audience feedback from my peers. This was done through by filming the responses of our feedback in a style of an interview process, which when filmed was placed upon my YouTube channel which acts as a platform for extra feedback for us to receive. The ability to do record and upload our feedback video is extremely important, as without media technologies such as these there is no doubt that any of my final three products would have been to such a high level of quality. I also would have lacked from knowledge and research upon this subject field, which would have been troubling and would of weakened my coursework overall.

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your Audience feedback?

Our target audience for our three promotional products are fans of the dance genre of music, Avicii fans and people that enoy and appreciate technology creations and general fans of music videos, showing to us that we have a large target audience. In order to please our target audience, we always had them in mind through every aspect of our creation and production of our three promotional products. For example when we first began planning and constructing our music video we relied heavily on peer’s opinions in our year, as this age range is heavily a part of our target audience. We gained this feeback through the use of the student intranet at school and also word of mouth, so through talking and engaging others with our ideas. From this we learnt and got a back up opinion if the shots of Elle did work with the shots with Louise lip syncing. To which, like myself they agreed together they did not work and suggested to shoot Alice dancing instead, as this would fit our ideology much better and suit our genre and story line much better as it avioded confusion with the mash up of clips. Showing to us and higliting how important our feedback from our target audience was, as without gaining feedback our video would be incredibly less successful and engaging as the relationship/conept with Alice and Louise dancing is what makes our video what it is today. As with this audience feedback so early on in the process of constuction, it allowed us time to recognise and improve our technical weaknesses which the flow of clips and suitability of clips together is deeply important.

By letting us identify areas of narrative such as the combining of two contrasting clips together creating narrative and conceptual confusion, which while constructing a music video is deeply important to avoid as this would also affect the brand/image of our two ancillary texts. In result we scraped the filming of Ellie seen below, and replaced it with the filming of Alice showing our movement in tackling narrative and conceptual confusion Once our video was finally edited to its final effect after our audience feedback constructive feedback was taken into consideration, we wanted to gain audience feedback on a variety of questions that we wanted answering. In result we asked two peers within our year to take a short recorded interview with us, which evolved around two questions 1. “Did you think our video was effective/what aspects did you like?” and 2. “What could we have improved on?” The answers which they provided us can be seen in the video link below.

The use of this audience feedback was greatly helpful to us as a group as it highlighted to us about what we had produced through our promotional video, and it had effect on us to look at our video through an unbiased eye and to just analyse it as a video and to make no connection with it being our work. This was greatly important as I personally felt worried that we might not have fully aimed our video at our target audience, yet after hearing what our audience feedback said we had and in a highly effective and creative way! We also took audience feedback from our media teacher Mr Kennedy which was through conversation to which we asked the same two questions to him, to which he answered:  “your video is technically and visually amazing and fits your genre of dance and your target audience perfectly, but I found it towards the end to be quite repetitive but I personally, highly enjoy narrative music videos which I know yours was never from the start going to be as it is a concept based video.”
By gaining audience feedback from someone outside our main target audience, was greatly helpful as it shows to us that our video can even be attractive for people outside our audience to watch, which is a bonus and a higher success rate then we thought we would have ever gained! I have also learnt through my audience feedback how important our editing techniques and concepts where to our video and to fulfil the conventions of that of real music video, as without this appearance my music video would lack in quality and therefore lack in people’s expectations. In conclusion my creative work in all three promotional products has impacted my target audience and people outside of that, in a positive way and in result our video I feel has been a success!

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product & the two ancillary texts?

Commodification is when an artist or a band transform themselves into a product which technically is recognised as a commodity which is a marketable product. Which we personally have done so by an occurring theme throughout our products and identifying/presenting ourselves in a unique way which is seen throughout all aspects of our production. Synergy is a marketing strategy in which cross-media convergence of different media forms are used in order to sell a product, it can vary from advertisement to trailers. Such concepts to us have been central and incredibly important into the creation of not only our music video but also for our two ancillary texts (digi pack and advertisement). The reason for this importance is so that together they form a well rounded, define product which between them individually have relevant links to each other. To establish such importance was done through maintaining a consistent theme between all three products which to ours was the galaxy/hipster energetic feel. As by doing so aids the development of our identification as an artist/band while also to it’s record label which in our case is ‘Universal Records’, which by doing so creates and establishes a recognition for the consumers to engage and connect with.

The logo of an artist/band is a vital factor in creating the brand identity as it not only appears to the consumer as more professional as it shows that the brand is well established and respected. It also gives the consumer a guidance and support to buy into that artist/band as it shows that they are respected artists. On a more visual not the use of a logo links all of their creative work together simply, in a form almost like a stamp which will then be identified to the consumer and recognition is created. For example according to Al Ries, (the original branding expert): “Logos should be designed to fit the eyes. Both eyes. For maximum visual impact, a logotype should have the same shape as a windshield of an automobile, roughly two and one-fourth units wide by one unit high.“ Which reassures the importance that logos hold in tying in products to create a brand and product, which is why we have used our take on Avicii’s logo in as many aspects as we can including within our music video.

We decided to create a Logo as for ‘Avicii’ as we have not included a legitimate artist logo on our digi pack, advert or music video as his logo his purely his name. In result because of our concept convention video we decided to take our own take on this logo by just using the ‘AV’ from his name, yet still using the same font so his consumer audience could identify with our products

Our take on this can be seen to the screen shot of our digi pack photo on the right, showing our creation of his logo. With this identification created we have included this promotional image/logo on our digi pack, advert and his name within this font in our video itself. In result showing our applied concept of commodification to each of our products, by keeping a continuous and recognisable theme and logo throughout. Therefore linking all products together yet still allowing each product individually to have their own identities within their unique conventions, which is the start to producing a brand. For example this can be clearly see within the comparison of our digi pack and our promotion poster. In regards to our digi pack being individual it has to include a bar code and anti-piracy warnings, due to if they did not commodification would not be possible as consumers would not recognise the product as a legitimate product because of its lack of legal features stating otherwise. The concept of this can also be seen in regards to our promotion poster, on which we have also included our record label logo, social networking links, established brands such as ‘ITunes’ and established music magazines which are respected throughout the industry. As by including such things it provides recognition to the consumer by showing that it is a legitimate product, and is supported by other respected and established companies such as the ones shown on our promotion, which in result will make the consumer feel comfortable enough to buy into that artist and their brand.

Branding is key to the success of any product, especially when developing individual products to form one brand. It has been said by the American Marketing Association that they define a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them that are intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.” Branding all aspects of our products is important as a good successful brand delivers the message/genre/ideology /subculture clearly and confirms the respect and credibility of that artist to its consumers/possible consumers. In result marketing strategy is key like AMA said to be successful and therefore there has to be a key reoccurrence/theme throughout all products. I feel I have been successful in branding as I have understood how important it is to integrate the artist through an effective marketing synergy which can be seen by my promotional video, digi pack and my promotion advert. My method for my success of branding has been through the consistent use of our theme with all three of our promotional products which are: the bright colour scheme, use of same images, editing concepts/techniques and the reoccurring theme of galaxy and hipster throughout all. A key concept which we have included to brand our products is that of our record label logo, which is featured on both of my ancillary texts as they are more likely to be distributed more openly then our promotion video which does not include it as this is unnecessary to. The reason I feel this is that the promotion video is the focus for the artist and their song and not for their established place in their record label, therefore it was not needed. The logo to which Avicii’s record label is, can be seen here on the right. The use of this within our ancillary texts is deeply important visually as people instantly recognise it and associate with a well established group of artists. Through consistent use of this, our audience/consumer can link our two ancillary texts together to produce this high opinion of our artist making them more likely to spend and consume within our product and artist.

Through editing and design we used a specific colour scheme/theme of colours which was bright, energetic and galaxy schemes throughout each of our three promo products, with concentrated use of the bright blues, purples, pinks and greens.

By using the concentration of these colours throughout each of our promotion products it has allowed our target audience to establish a link and brand between the three yet still individually being identifiable. We chose to use these bright colours and galaxy themed background images as they are reflective of our dance genre and our concept composition (hipster/individual). As luminous and bright, energetic colours are be associated visually with nightlife and upbeat times such as our song. Which is portrayed in our music video with the colours reoccurring here also with club like dancing over the top, which correlates with what we were trying to display and portray to our target audience/consumer. In regards to our promotional poster and digi pack the consistency of the energetic colours and backgrounds are displayed here also as it allows the brand to expand as it represents our chosen ideology and genre of our music. For example in terms of our promotional poster we have used the same jumping image as this creates the ideology of our music being upbeat, energetic and sensual with the girls showing skin which links to the creation of sex appeal, which are all key to attracting our target audience.

Portraying symbolisation within all three of our products was key visually to our chosen ideology, as we wanted to represent our genre of song and the themes that from the start we had aim to portray throughout all of our products. The key concepts that achieved this for us was the following: incorporating the girl’s sex appeal/image into the dancing and lip syncing within our video, bright colours and fun editing, hipster aspects such as the use of the triangles and galaxy effect throughout as these are all connotations for fun and the dance, energy from our song.

The girl’s sex appeal/enhancing her natural image can see both upon all three of our products,

through the dancing and concentration of her lips in the video, and the showing of the girl’s legs and backs within our digi pack and that of our promotional poster. By incorporating this into a products it has helped us develop our ideology, as a high amount is commonly used within our genre of music in the industry and is visual recognition to our target audience to tell what genre are music is or to have some idea. The bright energising colours and galaxy backgrounds are used to great effect in our video, digi pack and promotional poster. By engaging this through all three of our products its appearance has helped verify our concept of synergy by acting as a brand through all three media products. The use of using symbols of our created theme of being individual/hipster can be seen throughout all three of products in incredibly heavy use, as without our work would have no basis or concept which is key when producing a concept based video and products that correlate with that.

 

 

So using images of triangles, Kaleidoscopes, bright colours, galaxy images and bright dance lights our aim ideology is created and by doing so will capture our target audience in to engage with all aspects of our brand, making our products successful and perfectly targeted to our right audience.

In result through applying and including concepts such as commodification, synergy and cross media convergence we have ensured that all three of our media products have been established as a brand with links between all three, yet still keeping their individual identities to fit in with the aim as that product. Which have hopefully successfully been represented through our colour scheme/occurring background images, portraying sex appeal, our chosen concept-hipster, the relevance to using certain factors to create our genre and the essential creation of our ideology which can be seen through all three products of ours. Therefore the combination of our promotional video being our main product and our two ancillary texts (digi pack and promotional poster), should together and individually look effective and show clear links to our target audience (young adult men, people who enjoy their night life and generally people who have a love for artistic features and concepts).

Evaluation Question 1

Editing (2)

Here started adding the dancing of Alice in a green Jumper and little shorts in which was filmed from the side, we did different angles of Alice dancing and did the same Tweeking to the things such as space like we did before!

Here you see Louise lip syncing from another angle also, we cropped and feathered it as usual, I liked the idea that we were using different angles of shots of each girls so it was not boring and repetitive throughout!

This is an iphone light being filmed which we did in the dance studio right infront of the camera! We thought it could come in handy for example if we wanted to put it into a Kaleidoscope, which we did here! And it does flashes of it throughout! Which was a great little extra that added effect to our music video!

Above, we chose another background for what we were replacing the green screen with! This was probably one of my favourite backgrounds, I really liked the idea of this purple part in the middle and the fact Alice looked as if she was in this purple hole dancing! This was a very climaxed part of the song so we made such the movement went well with it! Which it did! As you can see we also added Bokeh Random again which added to the disco/party effect we were trying to give out at this climax part!

On this particular clip of Louise lip syncing, we found it hard to blend her hair in to the green screen! It seemed a bit blocked so we added the feather affect more! And also changed the background once again!

Here we used the mirror effect and had to crop and change it around so it was more central and looked like she was looking at her own twin! And singing together! I really liked this idea and we took it a step further by adding lyrics in!

We added another fun background and added the text effect which was “glow” and kind of looked like the stars were making each lyric come forwards and glow which I thought combined with the clip so very well! Also, the choice in white I thought was a good idea because again it went with the stars!

We wanted to do something very distintive at this part! So we began to edit it as normal and choose a very bright background! Even brighter than before!

This was probably one of the brightest video with all the pink on there! We put it in slow motion but Alice did not seem to look right just on the left side, on her own dancing and we wanted this clip to stick out so we each shared our thoughts on what we could do!

At first we zoomed in on Alice to see how far we wanted her to be before we showed a really clever clip!

And this is when we got 3 of the same clip and put them one after another! So Alice was as a 3, starting one by one and this is probably my favourite bit of the music video! I thought it made it look so professional and something you would actually see in a dance music video, if not better!

We also put Louise in to the same effect we put Alice in, but in my personal opinion I did not think that using this setting for this particular clip matched it as well! But I think it still looks good but it does not look like is actually part of the purple hole!

 

This clip would be simple and just lyrics! Although we still had Bokeh random on and the lyrics were put quite big so it is easy to read. And we also used the glow text to make it look like the stars are sending out the words again!

At this point, the song is at it’s climax so we wanted the dancing to be very wild and fast! Along with being bright with the backgrounds used! Alice is in her strapless dress here again and the space affect looks like, lights beaming on her! We also put Bokeh random on a high amount so there was more little disco bubbles around!

 

 

Again we wanted to use lyrics! We had not had many lyrics in our video and I think it kind of completes it in a sense! We used the background which we had used before where Alice is coming out of it and it did not look as effective this time when she was not in the hole but it still looked great to me!

We had Louise and Alice over lap at some point which I thought was another one of the best parts of our music video! Because it would make sense to blend them because one is dancing and the other lip syncing which made a good mix!!

Unfortunately the MAC’s at school kept freezing, we would then have to quit and it lost our work, so we had to re-do the work we had done that day, which was quite a lot so it was a small setback we managed to overcome!

 

Here we were adding a triangle into our music video because our album cover has a lot of the triangles so we had to include it in to our music video, the space and the triangle relate a lot to the cover which is always good to relate back too! We had to keep playing around with the triangle because it did not always look right!

We used this logo on a flash effect at the start which I think looked incredibly good and professional, as if it was actually AVICII’s official video!

The start of the Editing process

Incredibly happy with the footage so far, so we thought it was time to start editing the footage to see what we could make of the shots we had. We decided to start with the footage of Elle in the dance studio, we knew the majority of making our music video what it was and how effective it was to our audience would be how we edited it to bring the feeling of the song into the actual music video.

Here we had a shot of Elle warming up, from a Long shot and the focus is on a Ballet bar, but you are still in sight of Ellie warming up out of focus which i thought looked incredibly unique and proffessional.

Here you see Ellie on the Laptop putting the Avicii song on which we planned on using at the beginning of the video to give the audience the idea that Elle was actually playing the music track , we got close ups of her choosing the song out, we had to re-time this section so it went faster and did not take too much time up of showing her going onto the laptop.

This shows the song which goes along the bottom of Final Cut Pro so we know where to place each clip to go with out song perfectly and also how long our song will take.

Here we took the shot of Louise singing(the not faded image) but because it was obviously a green background we had to use the Luma Keyer effect which made it so we could add the imaging to the background, we decided we were going to base the green screen affect on space, because then it matched with our album cover but at the same time we could use really bright vivid backgrounds that would stand out.

We had to fiddle about with the feather so the image did not look like it did not belong there and contrasted with the background. We then decided that it looked better  faded into the background, so it made it look like she was actually in space even thought she is not. We had to crop the image too and then transform the space image to then widen it on the screen!

By this time, we realized that we did not think this space idea we had would relate  to the story of Elle going into a dance studio, putting on the music and training because the dancing we got of Alice was completely different to the dancing Ellie was doing.  And then to flick between Louise lip sinking in space, Alice dancing in space and then Elle dancing in a dance studio did not make any sense and the two stories were two completely different things. We were going to try get Elle in to dance infront of the green screen so then we had more shots but unfortunately she was very busy and we had to get the filming out of the way and done so we could not film Elle and had to forget about the filming we did before, because we did not use the green screen we could not change the background in which Elle was performing in due to the colouring.

We had to make sure we had the lip lying exact when Louise was lip syncing so that mean listening to the song very carefully and then we would cut the clip to where she sang those lyrics, we used Bokeh Random to do this disco ball effect which we would use in and out of the video throughout, it added to the fact this song would be used in a club and it was exciting, also added more movement to our video, which it was full of! We could change the settings so there could be a few in one clip and then a lot more in the next clip.

We then changed the setting to Teal and Orange and messed around with things such as the shadows to make it look quite glamorous in my opinion. And gave a bit of a glow to her face! As you can see in the left corner are the clips of Louise we were choosing from and which clip would fit in best at each point!

 

We also used cold steel on that clip, this is normally used to dim the lighting, to make it more low-key lights which sometimes suggests bad things and negative but in this sense, we are using it as nightclubs are kind of dark, then we have the disco ball and dancing! So it seems to all fit!

Here we were playing about with the picture, cropping it and making it zoomed, to see how near we thought it looked best! We also added the “dazzle” effect, which made it more fluorescent.

We had to speed up this clip, so therefore the lyrics would match up more.

Here we had two very similar clips of Louise lip syncing, in the first one she did fine lip syncing but as the clip continues it looses the exactness so we had to get another clip and edit it precisely to where she starts to go a bit wrong on the lip syncing.

 

Above you can see we used a different space background for this clip. Which again we feathered, zoomed and cropped to what we thought looked best!

Filming (2) MORE IDEAS!

Finally come up with an idea which gave me butterflies and made me excited to film, all of the other idea were good and i thought worked well however as soon as we started to construct and make progress with the new idea, the video seemed to becoming more of a reality than before. One major factor which effected this was the new equipment that the media department had delivered yesterday included Green screen’s!!! We was so intrigued by the Green screening idea and wanted to experiment with using them so decided we really wanted to give this a try, but we did not know whether it would match in with our previous footage but we thought to go ahead with filming with the green screen anyway and if the dancing and lip syncing does not match up with the previous footage, we will decide which footage we think is the best but when using the green screen we will still use the idea of a girl dancing!

Our friends Alice Beavis  (who featured on the front cover of the album) and Louise Applegarth( who looked similar to the blonde character on the album cover) agreed to meet up with us after school and used the green screen that had been delivered to school that looked a lot like this one here.

The green screen is a new technique has been used heavily in many fields to remove a background from the subject of a photo or video – particularly the newscasting, motion picture and videogame industries. A colour range in the top layer is made transparent, revealing another image behind. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production.

We had a massive idea of how we could use the green screen to relate to our album cover and reflect our ideas into the music video, by adding things such as space/galaxy as the background which could a lot more interesting and distinctive feature rather than a simple dance studio background which then again goes with the idea and power of the lyrics. Also in the lyrics it refers to the world as becoming more futuristic which is reflected by the ‘space’ patterned background.

To start with we  got Alice to dance in front of the green screen, she did the kind of dancing you would probably see in a night club, so it went more with the music so therefore not the same kind of dancing we did in previous filming with Elle which was more choreographed, this was more unrehearsed and more ‘casual’.

Here is a picture of the costume we chose for alice, a velvet dress, quite dark colours so we could contrast this with the different coloured galaxy backgrounds.

Another outfit was small shorts and a Green jumper, which was very girly and still something you could wear to a party it was also quite similar to her outfit on the Digipack which is what we was trying to aim for.

Secondly for Louise, you would only see her head in the filming because she was more focused on Lip syncing rather than dancing. Her makeup was done and for her lips we used a very Pink, Barry M lipstick which would be what a girl would wear out to a party, and it made her lips more defined and attractive to the audience.

We filmed Her doing the song at different angles, we got her to lie down and sing the song and also standing up. Lying down looked great because her hair was above her head, which looked amazing.  With Alice, we just got her to dance standing up next to the green screen, we took many shots so we had a big choice when we came to editing.

 

Filming (1) The dead end

We  decided to give the powder/flour affect a try! We all met after school and I managed to get Elle to agree to come into school to help us film, w knew we needed a good dancer who knew what she was doing which is why i suggested using Elle because even though she is only out age she has been aspiring to be a dancer at such a young age and has committed to that throughout her life which I admire completely. Here’s a couple of images of us filming.

The dance studio provided us with lots of space, so Elle could dance, run and jump a lot, there was also mirror reflections, this gave the dance studio environment that realistic touch. Elle wore all black so therefore the flour would be more obvious and stand out on the camera, we decided not to use powder paints  because it was a lot more expensive and we would have to order lots of different colours online, so we stuck with simple flour from Sainsbury’s which would work just as well, and didn’t complicated the colours too much within the shot.

We started filming with Susannah’s Canon camera ’650D’ which is very high quality, 18 megapixel and full HD. We decided to use this camera over the school camera due to the better quality which would make our music video look more professional. We aslo used a Tripod provided by the school to steady the camera and capture some great shots which gave the shot a professionalism rather than quick, poor quality, shaky hand job.

We then began to put flower all over Elle, including her hair, shoulders, knees, legs, arms and everywhere possible! Here is a shot of me covering Elle with the powder. She wasn’t pleased at all which made it quite amusing to do.

As we began to film Elle doing different dance movements with flour whipping off her! It started to looked so great but then we had difficulties with the camera, it started to break so therefore we could not film Elle. We spent about an hour trying to figure out what was wrong with the camera and how we can fix it. In the mean time I tried a couple of shots with my ‘ iPhone’ which just didn’t have that same effect. We finally manged to fix the camera which allowed it to also have more memory, we considered doing stop-motion again, so we tried it out but like we predicted it was far too many photos which would be so time consuming. We stuck with filming Elle but we didn’t get enough footage for a whole music video. Looking back on the footage we did, it was really good but there wasn’t much else we could do, to fit in with the flour in the dance studio to make it much more exciting. The whole idea went to plan but after we got the shots we didn’t really know how we could fit this into the story line or perform it into the music video.

 

Filming for the new idea (1)

First things first we decided to construct and investigate into the risks of filming today

In the Dance studio, there are not many obvious risks because it is in a school which is assessed all the time and made as low risk as possible due to the protection of the children however because we was throwing another element into the mix by using flour in order to create the powder effect it could be Easy for Elle to slip on the flour which we needed to consider, so we decided when we film each sequence we will sweep it up after every shot we get so then in the next shot we film she will not slip and there would not be an excess of flour flying about the room which could even cause us to slip as we are filming . The floor is also wood in the dance studio which could be painful if Ellie was too slip so we needed to make sure in her dance routine was not too much her in too much danger if she was too fall. Also with Elle’s  feet being bare, there could be something sharp such as glass on the floor so we need to be certain to check around the studio to see if there is anything she could step on which could cause something to go into her feet or hand when dancing.

The Macbook will be connected to different things in the dance studio including the power AC source, the dance studio speakers and my phone so we needed to make sure she was not to trip over any of the wires that could be about, so before we would check around and make sure she was far away from dancing into them! And finally, we had a lot of media equipment so we needed to make sure we kept it safe at all times, when we were not use it we would put it in a case and when we were using it, the camera would be wrapped around our neck’s!

Constructing a new idea

Initially we have decided that we want a party, fun video which promotes the positive aspects of a teenage lifestyle. We did some research into the lyrics and video for Avicii and they were very powerful unique pieces of art. The lyrics being very powerful in the statement they make and the video being a very unique idea with a twist, and with our digipack and advert also following the unique approach rather than the usual plain average ideas we wanted to make the video unique as well to what people have made before. So we investigated into the connotations of the genre of the music which is Dance and funny enough the most obvious idea came to us, what if we did a performance based video of a Dancer. So Sinead Susannah and I sat down to think what we finally wanted our music video to be based around.

We thought of various ideas about using dancers, and what we could do. For example we could have a group of girls dancing, referring back to the album cover of the 3 girls. But then we were very unsure.

We thought that we could then do a music video of just a girl dancing in her dance studio, with the song. We also decided we could try this cool thing we saw when we were looking around on the internet! We thought it could look really effective and also it was a very inventive idea that I had not seen on a music video, the idea of using powders around the dancer to create an effect of dust as she danced we came up with idea of using powder paints to encoperate colour into video. I then rang my friend Elle Marriott who features in my AS coursework as well due to her amazing history in different types of Dance from contemporary to street she has been renouned for being incredibly flexible which is just the sort of person we looking for in order to make this idea successful.

Here is a short video of what we are trying to base our idea around…