Reflection on our story board

It was quite interesting to look back on our storyboard and see how much we stuck to it. The first few frames are the same as the storyboard - quite long shots of Alannah and Joe separately, establishing the scene. However, we added in the idea of using the mirror in the frame after we did our storyboard, after we watched Katy Perry's Thinking of You music video.
The majority of our past montage shots are also similar to our story board, except we added more of the handheld camera as once we started doing that, we really loved it so added much more than we originally planned we would.
We also added more shots such as Joe looking towards the door as he hears the knock, and the end shot which fades up into the sky, but overall we did stick to our storyboard quite well except for the addition of some new shots.

Editing Diaries (uploaded later)

Our editing has gone really well and we are all contributing new ideas and effects to help improve it.

ROUGH CUT EDITING
Wednesday 19th October:
Today we imported the song we're using into Final Cut, and loaded our shots. We've started the basic placing of our shots ready for our rough cut deadline, and added the whole shot of Joe singing the entire song on the timeline, so we can pick and choose what parts we want to show of that.

Thursday 20th October:

Using 'Color Corrector' to make a golden/pink hue

The outcome of our experimenting - the colouring we're using for our montages

Today we added more shots and started focusing on the colouring of our shots - we've started to experiment with the contrasts and brightness of the black and white shots. We also have decided on our golden/pink hue using colour corrector (shown above). We've also added most of our shots, except there is about a 15 second part where it is just Joe singing - we need to refine this.
We have received the feedback of our rough cut (blogged).

Wednesday 2nd November:
We blogged our rough cut, and organised our feedback which we also blogged.


FINAL CUT EDITING DIARY
Thursday 3rd November
After our feedback, we are experimenting with more effects and filters. We added in a cross dissolve to the start of the montages which creates a really nice effect as you see Joe singing on the left, as the couple bike into the shot from the right, creating a perfect framework.

Editing our piece - as you can see, we have perfected our golden tones and have organised our shots

Monday 7th November & Wednesday 9th November
We added more cross dissolves in the part where Alannah thinks about the memories as she reads the letter for the second time. This just creates a nice smooth effect for the transition from present to past and back again. We also added the vignette filter to the montages for the past, to add to the handheld-camera effect and to distinguish more the difference in past and present. We have also refined our shots and changed the order slightly, to make our lyrics and visuals relationship stronger. We feel as if our video is complete and will blog it next week.

Monday 14th November
Blogged our final piece

Analysis of previous students digipack

Here we have taken a previous students group's digipack and looked at some of the connections they have made between their advert and dvd cover. On the dvd cover they have used a similar font to ours with that swirly effect and the colours are quite bold in some areas to attract the audience. The back of the dvd cover is effective as they have used a close up image of the male artist playing the guitar and we can clearly tell that this is a solo artist. On the magazine advert they have used an image from their music video which is a strong image, however the advert comes across as more of a single than an album. From the use of colour on both of the products we can instantly see that the genre is rock, alternative as they have used the logo 'NME' which is for this particular genre. Overall this digipack is really effective and has worked well together and by looking at this digipack it helped us in terms of displaying images and the layout. 

Examples of directors commentary

We researched into other directors commentary from some films and we chose to look at a commentary from the film 'The Notebook'. From looking at this video it has helped us produce our commentary, as we looked at the style they presented it in and how long it lasted.
This commentary shows examples directly from the film itself which is something we would like to do with our music video, as it demonstrates the point perfectly.
The directors also use a natural, conversational tone which makes the whole thing much easier to watch and listen to.

Final Directors Commentary Part Two

Research into past students' work

We have chosen to analyse a previous students music video. This was also a love, romance alternative theme and there is a definite connection theme in this genre of music video. This music video is similar to ours in many areas such as the relationship between the couple and having a main male artist singing about their relationship. The pace of this music video is quite slow and has used soft colours which is the effect we used in our final video. The use of clips in the video show happy and sad memories between the couple and they have used many transitions such as soft fades to create that upsetting mood. The use of split screening that this group have used of the male and female is really effective as it is showing that the couple are in that same situation. The use of close up shot's are effective as the viewer can establish the emotion between the two leading roles. The use of colour scheme is similar to ours as whilst the video is showing the happy memories between the two couples the colours show a higher contrast and as soon as a sad memory is shown the colour's saturation fades into a darker colour so the viewer can connect with the mood they are feeling.

Timeline

This timeline will help us to keep track of our progress and help us plan.

Other inspirational music video's

This Katy Perry music video "Thinking Of You" was another big inspiration because it was a love song as well as having the colour scheme and idea's we were looking at from the beginning. It is also in the 40's genre and style which is what we initially wanted but decided it would be difficult to create and we did not want to copy the music video. We did however get some idea's from it such as the scene's shown above.

Director's Commentary Part Two

Director's Commentary Part 2

Deadlines

Editing Commentary - Wed 14th December
Improving individual evaluations - Monday 12th December
Blog work - Thursday 15th December

To do:

• More director's commentary research (past students' work)
• Evaluation of one of last year's music video
• Evaluation of our own commentary
• Upload: editing of our rough cut diary and final cut diary, analysis into digipaks/mag adverts from past students and real ones, inspiration from Katy Perry's 'Thinking of You' (saved on Word)

Music Video Director's Commentary Script

We want our commentary to look very natural and conversational, so we're going to focus on a few key points we want to make but not directly read from a script.

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

• love theme - through song and narrative, 
• inspirations - Enrique - colours, included in story. Adele - black and white. Katy Perry (thinking of you) - in the mirror, sadness in black clothes, memories of bikes and picnics (locations)
• technical elements: fades, vignette filter, handheld camera
• alternative endings
• mag advert: date, title, artist - rose
• digipak - inspired by Roxy Music - letter on back page for track list, rose

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

• all incorporate visual themes of love, love letters and the colours we used
• sensitive, romantic image of artist to attract female target audience (image of perfect lover) 
• rose  

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

• Our audience feedback was very valuable to us 
• initial feedback: helped us be more realistic (1940s theme & rain) 
• rough cut feedback: narrative easy to understand, convincing and adorable performance, needed better lip syncing, more effects, range of shots of Joe, visual+lyrics
• alternative ending
• positive final cut feedback: good use of colours/lighting to highlight emotions, good handheld camera, better visuals+lyrics

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

• Final Cut Express: helped create a productive, romantic music video (effects and filters)
• Photoshop: 3 photographers in group, photoshop good  to use layers in mag advert/digipak, letters + roses, to highlight theme of album
• blogger: helped to organise ideas and inspirations, and to recieve feedback
• dafont.com for fonts
• HD cameras: sharp, realistic footage

Magazine Cover ideas

Our Digipak

Magazine advert draft

This is the draft for our magazine advert. We have layered an image of a 'love letter' behind and above an image of our artist. We did not want to use many effects and graphics as we feel our image is a very strong, emotional one which did not need much editing. By rubbing out the writing on our artist's face, we made his face stand out more, giving a 3D effect. We used  a slight sepia tone in the image to keep with our visual theme of sepia vs black and white, and we used the image of the love letter to also link with our other visual theme of letters/love.
We need to add a website and a kind of record label. We have also decided to change the layout slightly by moving the title as we feel it takes the eyes away from the artist too much. We also are going to change the date to 'out now' and remove the 'hmv.com' and the shadowing as it doesn't fit in with the image.

Visual Themes

The visual theme amongst our products (Music Video, Magazine Cover and Digipak) is the contrast of colours, interchanging between black and white, and the warm, golden, summers day effect.  Both effects resemble different emotions displayed by the characters with the black and white representing the sad times, and the warm colours taking the form of the characters happy times through montages.

For our digipak the front cover consist of an image revealing the artist. We intend on scheduling a photo-shoot so that we can use professional shots for our cover.

Another one of the main themes of our video is, obviously, 'love'. This is shown in our video through the narrative, and the whole idea of the album will be that it is a romantic, loving album. We want to tastefully convey the idea of love, and are thinking about using images such as love letters, roses and shots of our artist showing emotion to convey this theme. We also are going to use colours such as red/green and black to keep fitting in with this idea of love.

Our Final Music Video!

We feel our music video was a great success and turned out better than we had hoped it would. Our initial ideas did not happen the way we wanted due to timing issues and money, however we were able to successfully adapt our ideas to suit the deadlines and create a moving piece. One of our most successful ideas came by accident; Joe accidentally filmed Alannah in our test shots shakily and it was actually really effective, so we came up with the idea of using handheld cameras, like home videos, in our memory montage. We also thought of an alternative ending, which was that Alannah was running to Joe's house and was dramatically hit by a car, and the letter blew away, so Joe would never know she was going back to him. Unfortunately, we could not film this because of time constraints, and we also felt that this ending would over-dramatize the video and would be too obvious, as it would have included more running shots to build the tension.

Feedback for our rough cut

1. Goodwin: Good narrative and easy to understand; slow paced editing fits in with genre; lyrics+visuals - some lyrics could be highlighted more; good use of invisible camerawork
We are glad we have achieved the effect we wanted; for the video's narrative to be easy to understand and to fit in with the genre.
2. Editing: Pace fits music and editing is very natural; use of black and white works well; fade works well and could use more; doesn't need much more editing to keep natural style.
We're going to look into using effects such as fading and cross dissolves. We don't want to add too many effects as we would like to keep the video natural and not distracting.
3. Camerawork: shots steady with shaky hand held camera being a good contrast; could have a bigger variety of types but not a necessity; overall very good and clever shots.
We feel our shots have a good amount of variety, and any more would distract from the narrative. But we will look into our clips and see if we have any more different shots to use, to see how they'd fit in.
4. Mise en scene: Bikes were a good prop to match summer season and the happiness; costume was related and casual which matched feel of the song; location matched the music as well because the happy points were always outside
We are happy that the audience feel the location and props fit in well, as these were inspirations from the film The Notebook, one of the most romantic films of all time, and we are happy they worked well.
5. Creativity and Performance: very well lip synced, roles very convincing and adorable; story line suited the song and was very clear.
We wanted to convey a deep, meaningful emotion and glad this came across tastefully.

Overall, our feedback was really successful. We have a few more shots to add in and will use the feedback's ideas of using more effects such as fading/dissolving. We will also think about different styles of shots to use for which we'll need the emergency filming day.

Rough Cut

Film Diary

First day of filming (Monday):
So far, our filming has gone really well and mostly as we planned. We have finished the shots of Alannah in her house and her walking/running shots. We also finished the shots of Alannah and Joe's 'memory montage', which was in the country park in Milton. The outside shots were a bit difficult as we had to wait for the public to walk past, but eventually our shots were finished and as we had hoped. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to finish the running shots outside (for when Alannah gets to Joe's house) as the light had gone, and to keep the continuity in our video we could not carry on, but will film these shots at the same time as to get the same light.

Second day of filming (Tuesday):
Today we finished filming all of our shots and we feel it was really successful. We finished the shots of Alannah running outside and they were succesful as the lighting was the same. Alannah also made sure to wear the same outfits, hair etc as to keep the continuity. The shots of Joe also went really well. We had to swap locations a few times in his house to get the right lighting but eventually we decided on the shots and framing, such as him on the sofa and by the window looking out into the distance, and these shots worked really well. We also finished the shots of Alannah and Joe's reunion, and decided the best ending would be the camera slowly moving upwards from Alannah and Joe hugging to the sky. After trying this a few times due to camera shake, the shot was eventually finished and was really effective. It was the perfect ending to our romantic video and we think our shooting was very successful, and hopefully we will not need any emergency filming.

Test Montage

We wanted to test our ideas out, so we used the college field to get an idea of what our framing and shots would be like. We feel the tests went really well, and are a perfect example of what we would like our final footage to be like, but more polished.
We also played around with the colours on Final Cut and, after this, have decided to do the present time in black and white, as black and white tones are quite melancholy, to fit in with the emotions of the song and video at that point in time. The memories and the final reunion will be in colour to represent happier times. The colour we have decided on is a desaturated tone with a gold/pink hue, as these colours represent happiness.