Music Video Draft 3

This is another draft of my music video. From my previous draft, I have continued to make changes to and edit my green screen scenes. I have now positioned my model on the left or right of the screen, rather than in the middle of the shot so the footage behind of the flashbacks can be easily seen by the viewers. As these flashback scenes are important in my video to help tell the narrative I believe this change was necessary. I have also made my artist in colour so this contrast more with the ‘flashback’ scenes and lets the viewer know these are too separate shots. Moreover, I have altered the transparency and opacity tools, so my artist doesn’t fade in the shot and she is clearly the main part of the scene. I feel my music video is now looking more professional, however I still have some changes to make in terms of brightness and I would also like to include a wider range of shots if possible.

Actors

Actors

Evaluation Question 2 Draft

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

For my A2 Media Coursework, I was required to create a music video as my main product along with my other ancillary tasks: the magazine album advert and the digipak. To make the combination of these tasks effective, I wanted to keep a similar theme and house style in order to make it clear that each product is promoting the same artist and also to suit my chosen music genre: rock.

The purpose of my main task is to promote the single as well as to help the fans connect to the band, whereas existing fans will continue to idolise the main female singer. Using a heartbreak narrative along with close-up shots of the artist displaying her sad emotions will give the fans more of an insight to the song yet the fans will also expect a typical rock artist appearance, as the song is by a rock band. In my music video, I presented my model as a typical female rock artist – this included her wearing a typical rock outfit such as a skull vest top with shorts, black tights and black biker boots. She also wore heavy dark make-up and the colours I included in my video were also quite dull, giving an overall dark theme. For example my time lapse in London was taken in the dark at a later time in the day. I feel this highlighted a sad theme within my video, therefore linked to the narrative. Dull colours are also quite common to find in rock music videos, as opposed to bright colours which will normally you would be expected to find in a pop music video. Red was also a main colour within my video as the painting scenes included many close-up shots of a rose, an iconic romance prop. For my album advert poster and digipak I also used dark colours such as black and dark red to link to the theme and start to create a particular house style. Using this type of lighting within my video as well as these particular colours within my main task and my ancillary tasks also helps portray the rock music genre.

I believe the main role of my magazine album advert is to stand out to the reader, and instantly give off the impression that it is advertising a rock music album. It will also need to include relevant information such as the release date, the platforms it is available on and reviews from respectable and trustworthy music magazines like The Rolling Stone and Mojo. I feel my poster serves these purposes as it includes an intriguing image of a rose/photo on fire which instantly links to the tile of the album ‘Light Me Up’. This image is also quite unique, in the sense it is not simply an image of the artist, which many album posters are, but rather an interesting object. This is also a concept quite commonly used for rock genre advertisements as the band’s appearance and how attractive they are normally isn’t important. I have also used fire in other images which appear on my digipak to highlight that these products are all promoting the same album. As well as similar images, I have also used the same fonts to again display a particular house style.

In my opinion consumers who purchase digipaks are normally dedicated fans of the artist, especially as today most music is normally purchased online, therefore I believe the digipak should be more personal but still include typical rock genre conventions. For my digipak I have included images of the main female artist as I believe she will be a main selling point in regards to the band. In these images my model is also wearing the same outfit she wore for the music video, linking both tasks together and highlighting the rock image. Many of these images are also in black and white, as from previous research into the rock genre products including past digipaks from the actual band The Pretty Reckless, many of them use black and white photos. I have therefore edited pictures of my model in black and white, however I have also included other significant images of other objects, for example a rose. This combines all of my tasks effectively as close-up shots of a rose have also been used in my music video. Referring back to the personal aspects of digipaks, I have also included a message for the fans on the inside of the digipak. This is a typical convention of digipaks for all types of music genre and the font that I have used, especially on the cover of my digipak, are the same fonts presented on my poster.

Therefore I think the combination of my music video along with my ancillary tasks are effective as they all work well together and it is clear they all belong to the same band by the house style, including the same fonts and the same colour scheme. They also give off the impression that they belong to the rock genre because many rock genre products use dark colours, images of women normally wearing quite controversial outfits to appeal to the male fans and relevant and appropriate props on their digipaks and posters, rather than images of the band themselves.

Overall, I believe both my main and my ancillary tasks portray a particular genre by the type of style they present through the selection of images, colours and fonts.

Anamatic

This is the anamatic for my music video. To create my anamatic I used my storyboard by cropping the storyboard into separate images for each shot and then importing this into premiere Pro. I made sure I kept to the information I had previously written on my storyboard, for example how long a particular shot would last. I feel the anamatic gives a more realistic and vivid interpretation of what my music video will look like, compared to my storyboard.

Editing Software

Adobe Premiere Pro

I have used this software to edit my footage, using a wide range of tools that are available on the programme. Premiere Pro has been very useful when it came down to my editing process, as it allowed me to use different layers for different sections of my music video. For example, when I had to remove the green background from my green screen shots I had to use  different layers as well as other tools including the 'eight.Garbage matte' tool, the ultra key effect and the shadow and soften tools. These are new tools I have learnt about during my A2 coursework, highlighting how I am constantly learning new skills and how to effectively work with the programme. I was also able to change my footage to black and white by selecting one of the video effects. Thanks to the type of tools I had access to from this editing software, it made my work process easier to manage, however as I am still improving my music video, there are still more tools and fucntions left to discover - especially to do with the lightning.

Adobe Photoshop

I am currently using Photoshop to edit the photos I am using for my magazine advert and digipak. As I am already familiar with this software from AS, I feel as though Photoshop is an effective programme to use as it includes a wide range of tools such as the magic wand tool to remove backgrounds and the clipping and cropping tools. I have recently been working with the eraser tool after changing my images to back and white to keep some of the image in colour. I believe this will make my the photos on my digipak/advert stand out more, and look more interesting than a simple black and white photo. Photoshop will also be useful when I do touch ups on my photos, before placing them into Indesign where I will create the structure and overall layout of my two ancillary tasks - my magazine advert and my digipak.

Adobe InDesign

This is another programme I am familiar with from AS, perhaps even more so than Photoshop as this is where I spent most of my time creating my music magazine for my coursework therefore I am familiar with many of the tools. I am currently using InDesign to create the template for my digipak as well as import photos I have previously edited from Photoshop. I am also using InDesign to create my magazine advert. In both of my ancillary tasks, I have found the texts tools very useful as I can choose an appropriate font as well as use the tracking tool to space the characters out so they look effective on the product. I will also be able to wrap the text around any images in this programme using the text wrap tool, and I am hoping to use this for the back cover of my digipak where the songs from the album will be listed.

I believe this post will continue to help me with all of my tasks by reminding me of the tools I will be able to use in order to improve my work. This post also highlights the ways I have already used these programmes at this stage of my coursework.

Contact with the Band/Artist

This is the email I sent to the record label 'Interscope' which currently manages the band 'The Pretty Reckless'. As I have used their song in my music video, I am required to ask permission in order to use this particular song in my own work. In the email I have simply stated that the song will appear in my own production work as part of my A2 Coursework.

Photographs of Chosen Locations

This is one of the media classrooms at my school where I was able to film the green screen scenes using this equipment. Here I filmed my actor performing in front of the green screen. When I came to the editing process, I made another layer of the flashbacks of the couple for the background - this would go behind my actor's performance.

These are the fields situated near to my house where I filmed the flashbacks of the couple. These involved both of my actors acting like a typical couple, and the filming took place on all different sections of the field.

This is a photograph of the a section of the living room in my house and how I set it up for the painting scenes. This is also where I filmed my actor against the wall and was able to create the shadow effect with the help of the lights.