Dolby

Max- you need to make the link to your website live so I can see it and the advert is also not allowing me to view so I can not comment on them.

First Website draft

Ancillary Website

First Front Pane of my Digipak

This is the first draft of my album cover to Sam Sparro's new single called Black and Gold. I am very happy with the way this front cover looks, its very modern, simple, classy and appealing. Underneath the main image of Eoghain is the writing Sam Sparro, the name is included on the front cover so that customers are aware of who's album cover they are looking at, the title is in gold because the colour is very classy and it relates to the lyrics of the song. I will tweak and improve this album cover but I don't think a lot needs changing. 

First draft - Music Video

As you can see from above this is our first draft of our music video - Black and Gold, Sam Sparro. Over the past couple of weeks we have been constructing and filming our music video, on tuesday we finally finished filming for our draft. Once we had gathered up all footage, Ruby then spent time going over the footage and edited for our final draft. In our music video so far there are some good bits, but we know that we are capable of a much higher standard piece of work, over the christmas holidays we will meet up and have a talk about the things we need to improve and how we can do so. Creating interesting, meaningful and fun scenes is what our group does really well, and I'm sure for our final piece we will improve on our first draft massively. Improvements we have noticed we need to make so far is making sure that the green screen is on a flat surface, resolving lighting and miss en scene issues and creating more of a narrative based music video, working on the relationship between Sam Sparro (Eoghain) and the girl in the music video which is Ruby.

Inside cover first four digipak ideas (18/12/14)

Digipak Inside Cover first 4 Ideas

Here are my first four inside cover digipak ideas. I have gone for a very simplistic approach to all four ideas. The top left picture is a mix between black and gold different patterns and colours which relates to the name of the song. I like the font in this inside album cover, it looks creative and classy giving off a unique approach as it attracts customers to read it. The top right album cover is a bit more exciting and creative, the name Sam Sparro and Black and gold is written vertically in fancy font, around the CD we have lots of stars in gold infront of a black background. This relates to the song black and gold because stars look classy and they are usually the colour gold, and behind the stars is black which relates to the night sky and the name of the song. I love the bottom right cover, its very simple yet very unique and appealing, the background looks amazing as it entices you in towards the CD. The font of the writing is very simple yet gives off a classy approach. We have a simple gold star underneath the music production name to make it look of a higher status. The CD cover on the bottom right image is my favorite design. I like the size and the font of the writing on this CD as it takes up the whole CD and underneath the writing we have a gold star in a white circle to make it look classy.

Progress update - 02/12/14

On Tuesday, after school we went to Christians house to film for our music video. We ended up with some better footage which we could work with, but the main issue was that the camera wasnt very still, instead of holding the camera in one place, we followed the actor and this meant that we got some wall in the background not the green screen.

Here are a few images I took whilst at Christians house. There is a picture of our green screen on the wall, where our artist will be singing in front of. The second image is of us looking at our storyboard trying to plan what we were going to film next.

Progress update - 28/11/14

On friday, we missed fifth period to go to Christians house to carry on filming for our music video. We felt like we needed to film a lot more footage so that when we bring the camera in on our next lesson to edit we actually had a lot more footage to work with. We experimented with a lot of different ideas, to see what worked well and what didnt, this helped us realise what we wanted to include and what we didnt. We ended up filming some ok footage but we werent very happy with what it turned out like.

Our Props list for our music video - 28/11/14

Our main character (Eoghain Kilbane) who will be portraying Sam Sparro will be seen in only one outfit throughout the whole of the video:

• Black suit trousers
• Black suit jacket
• White shirt
• Black tie
• Black smart shoes
• Slicked back, tidy hair
• Gold body paint (only at certain points in the video)
• No make up
• No jewellery

The mystery woman will also only be seen in one outfit:

• Gold dress
• Blonde/golden hair, neatly done up
• Gold shoes (heels)
• Gold body paint
• No jewellery
• Basic make up - face covered in gold paint

We will only be filming in one location, which will be a house. Other props include:

• Sparklers
• A bed
• Cup of water
• Gold paper stars
• Table

As we want our video to be as simple as possible, and we want the main focus to be on the two characters and their image/style, we're not going to use too many props that will make the video look too busy or steal the attention away.

Research into the Music Industry - 27/11/14

Progress update - 27/11/14

I am fully focusing on the construction side to the coursework now, but in my spare time im workin gon more detialed presentations that could possibly increase my coursework mark out of 20. I am trying to make around 3 more presentations and I will be uploading them as soon as I have completed them.

Progess update - 27/11/14

In todays lesson, we had a look at the footage and started to edit. The footage we filmed on friday was actually really good and were happy with it, however, their are lots of stuff we want to change and improve, In order to improve our footage in tommorows period 5 lesson we are going to Christians to film more.

Filming first draft - 21/11/14

On friday, we filmed the start of our music video. We filmed at Christians house and Eoghain was our main artist who pretended to be Sam Sparro. We filmed Eoghain infront of a green screen the whole time because we had some good ideas of what CGI we could include during the editing stage of our final music video. The filming location is approppriate and works well,  we have a good understanding of what mise en scene to include, such as clothes and props within our music video to improve the proffessionalism of the video.

Dolby

max- you need a much better log of your progress in this project so I can keep track and help support- please upload a progress/production log for this last week as well as any other work you have been doing on ancillaries or filming.

Progress update - 07/11/14

On friday period 5. Ruby and I went back to Christians house to analyse potential filming locations for our music video. Most of our video will be filmed infront of a green screen, therefore, we need a large plain wall where we can hang the green screen. Christians house had many potetional filming loactions and he had numerous large plain walls where we can hang the green screen.

Improvements to my coursework

Haven spoken to Mrs Dolby during one of our lessons, I recieved a list of improvments that I could add to my coursework to improve the amount of marks I achieve:

• I need to look at the industry and audience in more detail - potentially create to more presentations on prezi, as this is a good way of me presenting the research that I have put in. 
• I need to go over a couple of sections about the music industry and produce more presentations and blogs to show that I have put in effort to research more into the industry. 

Sam Sparro Digipak analysis

Focus Groups

In order to find out more about our focus group we arranged a meeting with a few people who fitted out target audience. We wanted to find out what our target audience wanted to see within the music video, for example, what they think the main actor should wear, who should be in the music video, where the music video should be shot etc. We found out that the actors, especially the main actor should wear either a black or gold suit to keep the music video sophisticated and classy. We found out that a plain studio to shoot our music video was the wrong location and our focus group thought the idea seemed to plain and a little boring. However, with computed generated images added to the music video our target audience would never know where we shot out music video. Our focus group all thought the idea of a black and white theme with added splashes of colors were a great idea, it sells the video as its unique selling point because it makes it interesting for the target audience. However, they said to much black and white the music video could become too boring and a little dated.


Overall, talking to our focus group has really helped us as a group to confirm what we want to include in our music video. We know what we have to include to make it appealing and interesting for our target audience and having completed lots of research on our real media artifacts,  we know  what makes a music video interesting to people.

Dolby

Things to do:
You need an empty post where the feedback by me can be uploaded.
The music video textual analysis is very vague, especially the parts on camera- you must say 'pace of editing' rather than the amount of shots- think about Goodwyn's theories on music matching visuals. Consider how La Roux's style links to genre but also the fact that it is branding an artist and giving them a USP.

Target audience questionnaire

Target audience questionnaire

1. How old are you?



2. What artist comes to mind when you think of the genre dance pop?



3. What colours, props, artists and settings do you think of when you think of dance pop?



4. What’s your favourite music video and why?



5. What gender are you?

   
          Male                         Female


6. What do you like about dance pop?




7. What do you like happening in a music video?



• The music being played in the background whilst a story relating to the lyrics is playing on          screen

• Just a video that focuses on the band members whilst they play


• None of the above


8. What’s your favourite genre of music?

Target audience feedback

Feedback on our proposal

Having just performed our proposal to Mrs Dolby, we recieved some very important feedback that can help us a lot. Mrs Dolby liked the idea of a performance based music video by Sam Sparro - Black and Gold. Mrs said that it would work well if we performed some of the video in black and white whilst also adding hints of gold and different colours to make the video look interesting. Mrs Dolby told us that we should now arrange a new meeting with our focus group to find out what our audience think of the lyrics and the visuals in the music video black and gold.

Music Video Analysis

The music video that I will be analysing is called Bulletproof by La Roux. The music genre for this song is 'Electro pop'. This song reached number one in the music charts and stayed there for some time. La roux is a solo singer that produces songs like no other, she promotes herself in a quirky and original way to attract a certain target audience and to intrigue others.







0:00 - From the very start of this music video you can tell that the atmosphere that is created is very fun and vibrant, there are lots of slow moving camera shots on oddly shaped colourful objects and we can see a close up of La roux's feet and shoes, the camera then zooms out a little and gradually zooms in towards her face, this is what a lot of music video directors do to attract the men to the video as its stereotyping the women singer in an appealing way. She has an interesting sense of fashion that may only appeal to a certain target market but this is what La Roux focuses on, she has a quirky personality and she forwards this into her music videos, this creates a sense of intrigue towards her.


0:20 - Shortly after, there is a close up shot on her face, we can see that she is wearing a lot of eye make up, lipstick and has her hair styled in a very unique way, this can relate to the quirky genre of electro pop and the funky side of fashion.


0:49 -  In the next section we see La Roux come on with a completely different costume. Her hair is a different colour but is again styled in a very unique and funky way, she has an interseting choice of colourful eye make up that attract viewers to her face and she is also wearing some brightly colour lipstick to show the funky side of electro pop. She is wearing a black blazer with large chains wrapped around her shoulders, with a funky animal patterned leggings. Again, creating her own sense of fashion and stereotyping the genre of electro pop. As La roux walks through the room there is a long shot of her, we can see that on the walls of the room there are large squares that pop up different colours after each beat, this creates a fast pace within the scene and the song relates to the genre of electro pop as it makes the song more funky and fun. the pace of editing really relates to the song in the scene because the pace of editing adds to the beat of the song.


0:50 - La roux looks into the camera at all times, this is because she wants to engage and interact with the audience, the singer wants to make the audience feel as if she is personally singing to them.


1:14 -  In the following scene La Roux comes out again but in a new costume, this time her face make up is the same but she is wearing a new coat, it looks like a large trench coat with lots of different colours on it, this may symbolise her personailty of being quite a fun and exciting person. In this scene the pace of the editing has sped up massively because there are a lot more camera shots used within the scene, every second there is a new camera shot used as the main singer is singing away, this makes it more interesting for the audience because they get to see the singer from different angles.


1:16 - Within this music video La Roux is the only singer, there are no backup singers or dancers in the production this is because the artist is trying to promote herslef as a solo artist.


1:20 - This singer doesnt relate to her lyrics to the visuals, this is because this music video is more performance based, the video is focused on the main artist, the whole video is focused on showing La roux from different angles to promote a certain image about her to try and attract her target audience. She may also want people to study and listen to the lyrics more closely rather than watching lyrics match with the actions on the screen.


1:29 -  However, at one stage during her song she said 'sit sit sit on the water' and on screen she was sitting down and as she finished her verse she stood up - this is the only stage were her lyrics matched her actions. La Rouxs song bulletproof is applied to Andrew Goodwins theory. Andrew goodwin said that the visuals in a song can relate to the lyrics or have a direct contrast and La Roux's visuals have a direct contrast to the lyrics in the song.


1:46 - La roux comes on for the third time in another outfit, there seems to be an order of camera shots within this music video; a long shot of La roux as she walks down a path, followed by close ups and medium shots of her face and her sitting down singing.


2:10 - 'This time baby I'll be bulletproof'' when La roux sings the chorus to this song there is  a high angle shot as the camera is pointing down at her, this shows that La roux is small and insecure about something, the fact that she says 'this time baby I'll be bulletproof' suggests that she may have been hurt in the past, so she wants to be stronger in certain situations next time.


2:15 - Also, the close ups of La roux markets the artist, it makes the audience aware of her face because it gets herself known. The fact that La roux has her own sense of fashion and promotes herself in a very original way makes this a special unique selling point for her.


2:20 - People will be attracted to the music video that La roux shot because the setting is like no other. La roux's music video is held in a very colorful room with many bright colors and large weirdly shaped objects that jump out at you, so there are many things that make this music video unique and interesting and I believe that many people would be intrigued and interested about la roux from this video.


2:59 - the shots of La roux through the bits of broken glass show images of her wearing all three of the different outfits that she has worn throughout this music video, the reason why she wore different outfits may have been to make it interesting for her target audience to see her in a different costumes, she may have also wanted to wear different clothes to promote her personality through the use of clothing.