Question 2

Thankyou and Goodbye!

Thank you very much for following us on our journey. It has been a roller coaster but we are really happy with the overall music video, digipak and advert that we have produced. We hope that you like them to! We have had many highs and lows in the project with locations cancelling on us and actors and actresses not turning up to shoots, however overall it has been very successful and an emotional journey of self discovery. Friends for life.

                                                                            XOXO, Utopia 

Day Before The Ultimate Deadline Day

Today we have been adding the finishing touches to the evaluation and the blog. This includes finishing off Questions 4 and 3. We still have some video footage to add to the green screen bits of question 3. We also have some expanding to do on some of our blog posts such as analysis and adding the videos we have took of audience research from the beginning of the project. After that we we hopefully be done, lucky we all have around 4 hours of frees on deadline day and therefore will be spending them making everything a good standard of work.

Evaluation Filming - Question 1

For question 1 we did a Christmas themed party. We would pick something off the tree  and on it would be a use convention, then we pulled a cracker which would have a develop convention inside that we would develop. Then inside the stocking would be a challenge convention that we would explain in further detail.

We had 3 facts for each of the music video, advert and digipak that we would develop and explain on these.

We have had a very successful shoot and tried to play around with camera shots so the evaluation can look at professional as possible. We also for our mise-en-scene had matching Christmas jumpers to stick to the Christmas theme of the evaluation.
Here are some photos from the shoot:

                                         

Evaluation Filming - Question 4

For question 4 we created a show called 'At home with Dave'. In this show all of us get interviewed by Dave (Emily's dad).
Sophie talks about the technologies that we used to plan, such as the blog, youtube, survey monkey etc. Over Sophie speaking we are going to do some quick shoots of showing all the things she mentions.
 Next is Abby and she talks about what Adobe premier and what tools and technologies we used to edit. Whilst Abby talks we have put some footage of how she does this, we show a piece of footage being edited with a purple tint.
 Emily is next to talk and talks about the construction of the digipak and advert, with the use of photoshop and indesign. Whilst she speaks we show a small bit of footage over the top to show how we used photoshop and indesign.
Lastly is Iona, she talks about the construction of the music video, and how we used cameras and all the other equipment such as the crane. Over the top of this we have shown clips of our music video to show how this was done.

Blog diary: Week 13

This week we have been concentrating on the evaluation questions.

In this time we have gone in to depth on the question answers, making sure that the content is their before we decide what creative take we would like to do. 

After getting the answers down we turned to making sure the evaluation was creative like the exam specification requested.

We came up with many ideas for each questions such as deal or no deal, big brother, interviews, news round and more.

Eventually we decided on the these sketches:

Question 1: to be christmas themes, divided into three themes of christmas to answer the three parts of the question. This includes christmas crackers, advent calanders and a game of monopoly. Since this question requires more detail and attention we decided to keep the delivery of the question relatively simple so that people would be able to understand our answers.

Question 2: is a big brother layout, with emily, Sophie and Iona starring in it and Abby being the big brother voice over and cameraman. In this we discuss how effective our main product and archillary texts were in a creative and hopefully comedic way. This week we also filmed is question and began editing it. The filming didn't take very long and we were able to get different shots such as long shots, close ups and mid shots. However today we decided that it may not be completely clear when answering the questions, because of this we have decided to add a summary section after which will summarise our effectiveness with this question, this will be filmed Monday. 

Questions 3: we have done this in the style of 'Pimp my ride' instead Pimp my music video. In this Emily presents the show and we all come on and discuss a point that our rough cut feedback thought should be improved. We have decided to do this on green screen, so we can should improves we have made as we explain how we did them. This was a successfully filmed on Thursday after school, with the filming taking 45 minutes and the editing being started on Friday.

Question 4: for this we created a show called 'Dave's life stories' in which each of us are guests on the show and we discuss our own areas of expertise in terms of the project. For it Abby discusses editing and evaluation, Iona discusses construction , Emily discusses digipak and Sophie discusses research and planning. We filmed this scene on Tuesday, with the answers planned out ready for us to say. 

When editing on Friday we noticed that we had to much footage to squeeze in to the 3 min time gap of questions 2,3 and 4. For this we have had to cut out certain answers and stick to our better answers, however we see this as a good thing as it gives us the freedom to determine what answers we want to include in the evaluation video. 

We have planned filming the final question on Monday and having and having and editing day on Tuesday in order to beat the deadline. 

Friday Drop Down Day

This drop down day we had around 3 hours each to dedicate to media. For this time we decided to start editing the evaluation questions. This mainly revolved around the green screen editing of question 3. However we have already finished filming questions 2 and 4 as well. We also planned for question 1 which we have decided if possible to film in Sunday with a Christmas theme. In this planning we made labels for present tags, monopoly cards and cracker jokes all to demonstrate the use, develop and challenge question.

We also decided that in some of the questions which we tired to answer creative may not be clear, and with some time available after the big brother sketch and the life stories sketch, we decided to add a new report after highlighting what we have done to make it easier for markers to see. During our f

Three hours we planned out these scripts and plan on doing them on the green screen on Monday. 

Since questions 2 and 4 are predominately edited and nearly ready to be exported except from the summaries at the end, thus means that we only need to edit questions 1 and 3, we have decide to dedicate our Tuesday 12:30 - school closing to finishing off evaluation and blog ready for the deadline Wednesday so where not panicking at half 4. 

Evaluation Filming - Question 3

We used the theme of Pimp My Ride for Question 3 and turn it into Pimp My Music Video. Emily was the host and Iona, Abby and Sophie were the concerned target audience giving feedback from the rough cut, with an extra Abby.

Iona spoke about how she didn't understand the use of the cage and how people got there. Emily pimped the music by having add more cage footage and showing how the culperates were led to the cage.

Sophie spoke about how she didn't think the protagonist was very psychotic. Emily changed this by having falshing lights while she was having an outburst and having the purple tint to create an uncomfortable tone.

Abbie spoke about how she didn't understand the narrative. Emily made this more clear by having writing on the scrap book explaining why she wanted to capture these people and put them in the cage.

Abby spoke about the band performance and how it was spaced out, they didnt really look like a band. How the floor didnt go well with the tone of song or genre. Emily sorted this out by having leaves all over the floor so it wasnt visable and brought the outside in, relating to the cage. Emily also changed the band around and made them close together, again fitting the genre. She also changed the band around making them more suitable for the different instruments.

Plan for Question 4

Here is a script that we used in helping us answer question four.
We divided the question in to four parts so that each of us could answer. We have decided to film this question at my house and set it out chat show style.

Script:

Dave’s Life Stories: Making behind Utopia

Abby questions:

How did you make the main protagonist psychotic through the use of editing?

-          Using Adobe Premier Pro – Sharp editing to the beat (conventional)
Filters  (purple tint)
Green screen (evaluation)

-          Edited an animatic to plan filled with story boards of original story line

Soph:

What technologies did you use to planning?
 - Blogger

What did you use to research media constructions?
-YouTube for analysis and research
-TV shows such as American Horror Story, Gossip Girl
- Survey monkey to for the questionnaire
- Word excel to interoperate the data.

-Texts to plan with each other when we are filming and ideas.


Iona:
Construction of the music video?
- Use of Nikon DX camera
- we also used tripod, Crane, dolly and shoulder mount – include examples of shots where we used them. – band scene for dolly and crane.
- for lightning in dark places – LEDs – cage scene and Abby in the dark scene

Emily:

Construction for digipak and advert?
- Use of adobe Photoshop to create band logo and edit photos.
- Use of InDesign to create template

Evaluation Filming - Question 2

For question 2 we have done a Big Brother theme. This was the plan for it:

Iona: I don't get it

Soph: How can you not get it? *speaking about the light and dark of the music video and what it represents*

Emily: *speaks about the representation of the colour scheme*

Iona: *I don't get it*

Abby is the voice over for this question and pretends to be big brother.

For the first bit we are having a debate in the front room of the house and when Emily walks out it changes to the diary room of big brother. We wanted this to be creative and fun for people to watch but we made sure that we answered the question correctly.

We have also decided to add a summary to this video to ensure that people watching understand the points that we made and that they are put clear and concise to the audience.

Evaluation planning

Today we are planning each question for our evaluation, we are planning our answers to the questions and are thinking of ideas for each one. We have decided on doing a big brother theme for question 2 and Pimp my ride for question 3, we think that we may use the green screen for this question. We are still to think of ideas for question 1 and 4, but have planned out the answers and have decided who will say what.

Blog diary: Week 12

This week we had the deadline for the digipak and adverts on Wednesday 3rd December. We finished well before deadline as we have been planning our digipak and adverts well before the music video deadline. We used the deadline day in order to make specific finishIng touches. However We encountered a few problems with getting the band photos. After asking in advanced we had planned on getting the photos on the tuesday, a day for deadline day. This was the only date that the whole band were available due to work and other commitments. However we had already decided we wanted a band photo with Lauren at the front colourfully dresses and with red lips. On the Tuesday though only two of the band members turned up and the others became difficult to get a hold of. Due to this we had to make a decision to just get photos of Lauren that day, with a mid shot and some long shots of her. We then took photos of the other 3 band members on Wednesday in our free time, since we had done the rest of the digipak apart from the photos.

Both of these photo shoots had gone successfully, even if we weren't able to get a whole band photo. We did have to change our advert layout completely because of this, however it worked out successfully due to the advert reflecting more of the alternative rock style of the band, through the use of four separate images. 

After deadline day passed we starting writing out our evaluation answers, after receiving the questions I'm Friday's lessons. We have decided to write out the answers first and then write out the scripts for how we are going to present them. We also have decided filming day with questions 2 and 4 being filmed on Tuesday at Emily's house. 

Final Advert

Here is the final Advert we have created. We kept the colour scheme of black red and white, that has been the same throughout the whole project. The colour red stands out against the white and black and represents love and blood throughout the music video, we have brought this convention into the advert.

The band members are all in different boxes to show their individuality as a band. Also having the photos in black and white, but the boys photos are lighter than the female singer. We have done this to show the audience that she is the main singer and the audience will understand this by having Laurens photo in the darker black and white, also having her lips red which is the only colour in both 4 photos, again showing the target audience that Lauren is the lead singer. We have placed the 'x' in the middle of the poster to bring the use of elimination from the music video to the advert, as all the band are in individual photos.

We have used notable magazines for star ratings on the advert such as NME and Q. These were chosen because our music is in this genre of alternative rock and our band would be featured in these magazines.

We used the convention of a wesbite subtly as from our reasearch and target audience feedback we found that our alternative rock genre more often than not, have websites featured on their adverts. Also we have used the conventions of having won a Brit award to show how popular our band is and that it's a typical British rock/indie band that would be linked with BBC and radio 1 such as Florence and the Machine.

Having the Evoluation of Us was chosen through our target audience. We had a survey with 3+ different names and Evoluation of Us was chosen. We decided to put it in between 2 lines for sophistication and give an understanding that Utopia isn't a childrens band, the target audience are teens/young adults. Also to make the readers eyes be drawn so they know what album it is, and to keep it simple.

Final Digipak Design

Here is the final digipak we have created. After audience feedback we decided not to use the X on the front of the Digipak due to it looking to much like style models such as Ed Sheeran 'X' and The XX, which both have a large X on certain albums to represent the band and album name. Instead we used this large X on the content page as we felt that it reflected the bands logo and also the alternative rock genre of the band. The X is a large part in the music video, as it reflected the bands house style within the music video and this has been incorporated into the digipak. The album name 'evolution of us' is to reflect the debut album of the band, as it is about the audience of the band following there journey. Sticking to the regulations expected we have added the 'deluxe edition' to the front cover and the CD to show this includes the bonus feature of live performances and the music video. 

Throughout the digipak we use the colour scheme of Red, black and white. These colours were chosen as the Red stands out against the black and white and sticks to the overall dark colours that are most likely to be reflected in the bands songs and the music video. On the front of the digipak we have added border around the singer, we did this as we thought it made the digipak look more sophisticated, and this reflects the band, as they are not strictly rock but alternative rock so there music has different elements to it. 

The use of the leaves on the background of the CD Shows the nature side of the band and could also reflect songs on the album. The leaves also reflecting something new, such as the band being relatively new as this would be there debut album. The image of the lead singer is something we decided to do as it was conventional from the bands we analysed such as Florence and the machine and Marina and the diamonds. The dominant image of the singer which the red lips not only reflect the colour scheme, but also shows the darkness of the band the album with the dark background the lead singer is on, we did this to try and represent the bands house style. The image of the three other band members has been edited to make it look darker to continue the dark themes of the band house style. Since the band is not completely a rock band we haven't dressed the band all in black and stuck to typical rock genres. Instead to show the alternative side of the band the members are dressed in quirky 

/ indie style clothes, linking the band and lead singer photo through the fence. 

Sticking to conventions of digipak we analysed, we added our label which we decided to be Atlantic records. Showing the label we put the logo of Atlantic records on the content page, spine and on the CD. The barcode and the copyright at the bottom of the content page which is a convention of all CDs. The terms and conditions is also on the CD, with us adding the Utopia X at the end. 

Digipak & Advert band photos

These were some of the photos that were taking for our digipak and the advert, these are the 3 lads from our band. Unfortunatly we could not get a full band photo, but will ensure that our digipak and advert make it look like they are in a band. We have an idea for the advert, to put a photo of every individual of the band in separate photos but in a square to show that they are a band. The photos of the 3 lads together will be used for inside of the digipak.

Digipak and advert editing

We decided for the advert to have separate pictures of the band and change them to black and white. On photoshop we decided to change Lauren's lips to red to add the idea of seductiveness and also have it as a statement the band makes, as the red lips are dominant in the music video and the digipak. The band looking up at Lauren shows her as the lead in the band and the black and white pictures continue with the colour scheme and band style.

In order to achieve the Atlantic records label we had to crop the label. After noticing the label was in black writing we decided to create a white background, and to make it stand out rub around the White to create a white border around the 'Atlantic', instead of a block white background the outline of the Atlantic to make it stand out from the black background and show audiences who is producers of the song. Overall this has looked effective on our finial digipak and made the overall digipak look professional

Possible photo for advert or digipak, we decided this shows Lauren (the lead singer) by the fire which reflects the bands alternative rock genre. In order to make the image look dark and stick to the colour scheme we change things such as the hue and saturation, and also added a red tint to the image as this is part of our colour scheme. The mise-en-scene including the clothes Lauren is wearing shows an element of sophistication and a white dress which subverts the rock genre showing Lauren as angelic, showing a contrast with the dark background and red tint. 

Back of Digipak 'X'

After target research many people said they wanted an X on the back of the digipak. For the X we created an effect around the outside of it to make it look like it has been spray painted on and hand done adding a more personally touch to the back of the digipak. For the digipak we also added a transparent effect so that the album track names could be seen on the back and not over done by the bright red colour X. 

To avoid comparison to the XX and Ed Sheeran's new album we created a different style of X. With this one being long and a lot skinnier. We hope by adding the effect on aswell this will make the X be more distinguishable between us and other artists. However our X is not a reflection of the album name or the name of the band, instead it is something that represent the bands genre of music and their own house style. 

Digipak photo ideas

Today we have thought of some ideas for our digipak, we went straight out with a camera to create these idea. We felt that the red cross was used to much throughout the digipak so we though that doing it with leaves would make it more creative.

The photos of Lauren, who is the lead singer in our band, were taken at Ionas house. Unfortunatley we were unable to get the whole band together to take a band photo which meant we were taking photos of the main singer on her own and then the rest of the band the day after. We tried many different poses and locations within the space we had. We believe we got a great close up of the main singer on her own that can be used for the front cover of the digipak. We decided to take some photos of the apple to show sin which is reflected in the music video, and also sticks to the alternative rock genre. We decided to turn the leaves in to an X as it is part of the bands logo, and we thought this could be part of the digipak. We thought the photos of Lauren by the fire reflected a dark edgy photo something which reflects the bands house style. In terms of Lauren's make up we wanted her to have the signature red lips as this reflect many thing of the band such as the colour scheme and in the music video.

Digipak and Advert- Audience Feedback

 After getting 15 people to take the online survey, here is the results of the survey. Since this is from the perspective of the target audience we will be taking this feedback seriously and will consider all of it when creating the digipak and advert.

As you can see many of the target audiences wanted to see the lead singer on the front of the Digipak. This resembling bands like Florence and the Machine and Marina and the Diamonds. For our digipak and advert shoot we are going to take photos of the band and of the singer individually and see what looks best after the Photoshop process. However we are going to take into consideration that the key demographic want the lead singer, therefore we will do more research in to shots of lead singers and how we can take the photo of the lead singer to look dominant and a key figure in the band.

Majority of the target audience wanted the logo on the top of the advert. We have many ideas drawn out for the advert with different scenarios of where the logos are. However many people like to stick to the convention of the logo on the top of the page. We will definitely consider this when it comes to creating the final draft of the digipak, as we haven't decided if we want to stick to conventions for challenge them in this part of the advert. 

Many people think black and white images for an alternative rock band would look very effective on the advert. We thought this to as the black and white reflects the rock genre rather well and can also reflect a sense of mystery of that the band and sticks to the dark theme that we are portraying. We will definitely consider this for when we make the final advert as the target audience has requested this. 

Overall the names were rather split between the target audience. Evolution of Us was an overall favourite however it was close behind by all the names. As a team we like best the Evolution of Us as we feel this reflects the bands evolution which could be in music style of there own life, as the music will reflect this and also reflect the bands debut album. We feel the other names reflect more of a rock genre and not the alternative side to it which is why we have decided to call the album 'Evolution of Us' as we feel this reflects the bands house style well. 

Majority of the target audience thinks that the band should be included in the advert. We as a group agree and want to show the whole band on the front of the advert. We aren't sure how we are going to picture the band yet and which location we should take them, however us and the target audience agree that the whole band should be introduced in the advert. 

Our key demographic have agreed that the colours Black. white and red should be used throughout the digipak and advert. A lot of the target audience we asked have all ready seen the music video and therefore have recognised the key colours used in it, which are Red, black and white. We feel these colours show the rock side to the band and using them throughout will mean the colours become more associated with the band. 

Finally a considerable amount of the target audience thought that a red cross should be shown on the back of the content page. Originally wanting to put this on the front of the digipak we had t change our ideas fast due to the release of Ed Sheeran's album entitles 'X'. Because of comparisons to this and the XX we wanted to move the X, a key part of our music video and the bands logo, to the back instead meaning that the band can still be represented through the X and not have as many comparisons to the other artists. 

Advert Designs

After drawing these advert designs out we showed them to out target audience and got their feedback on which one was their favourite. From the feedback we found that the most popular by nearly everyone was the advert with the 4 swore are images at the top of the page. We will use this as a style model for our final product.

Music Video Editing // Making Abby Look Psychotic

We finally finished the music video. After looking though about 1 hours worth of footage and cutting it down into 3 mins 10 seconds was a lot of hard work. Having to cut 3 mins into 1 seconds worth of footage was very stressful but made the video up beat and exciting.

One thing I challenged was to use a purple tint over the top of the footage of the main character walking through a forest to reach the cage.

This created a sense of edge to make it look out of the norm. It highlights that fact that the main girl is very psychotic and out of place in the real word.   

I also wanted this scene to reflect the attitude of the main girl and the cage. We had filmed a part of the main girl sitting in the cage, kicking and screaming. I knew it didn't fit in well with the beat of the music so I sped up the footage, to again bring that feat factor to the video. 

 This added a personality to the girl and made the story line more clear for the audience.

These a two screen grabs from the video that I used to speed up. 

Another technique we agreed on and also used in our rough cut, is switching between the main girl laughing and crying in the slower part of the song.

These clips were placed when the song builds up from slow back up to fast. The main girl is spinning around which gives a sense of madness.

popping in clips of her laughing emphasises the psychotic side of the girl. And her mad/deranged mind.  

Blog Diary: Week 11

This week we have been editing tirelessly in preparation for deadline day. However we have soon realised how much we needed to edit, as a lot of our shots are only 1-2 seconds long. Meaning we have a lot of footage to rifle through and determine what would look best in the final music video. On Tuesday we pulled a 6 hour shift of editing, with Abby being the head editor and the rest of us pitching in ideas of where we think things should go and what footage looks best.

On deadline day we had already edited around half of the video, however we underestimated just how long it would take us to edit the other half as we raced against the deadline all day to the finish the video. Our main priorities was making sure that the video went with the beat of the music, expressed it's creepy narrative and was in focus. We feel we have reached these targets for the videos and we hope that people enjoy what we have created.

On Thursday we looked more into our digipak and advert and decided where we wanted to take the photos - which is Iona's back garden. We want the digipak and advert to reflect the alternative rock that our bands music is and also the bands house style. We have decided to incorporate leaves into the digipak, as these reflect something old and fallen but re grow into something new, which could be reflecting the music that will be on the album and how we are introducing a new band.

We have had a problem organising when we can take photos of the band as there availability for all of them together is becoming difficult to organise. However we have decided on Tuesday, which is last minute due to the deadline, however we know what we want the photos to look like and the templates are finished, so we hope that it is just a case of editing the photos and placing them in the correct space.  

We also have been planning our evaluation, which we have decided to make fun and creative relating music to it through out. We are still in the process of writing out the answers in detail, as we do want them to be intelligent responses about our video. 

Target Audience Research: Digipak and Advert

Due to the success of our online survey which we used for the music video, we also decided to use this survey to gain ideas from our target audience on what should be included in the digipak and advert. We will be analysing this data in a few days time and see what our prime demographic want to see in an alternative rock digipak and advert,

Here is the survey link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WB57GXL

Make Up

For us our mise-en-scene was important as it needed to reflect the characters in the music video in order for the audience to determine if they were good or bad straight away. We kept an eye for detail when it came to the main protagonists making sure that props, clothes and makeup all reflected the dark side to her personality.

Here is a video we made that shows the process of doing Abby's make up. 

https://vine.co/v/Og55ZMhMgtt

Final Cut

The Final Touches For Music Video

Today is deadline day for the music video, we are planning on spending the full day editing. We have loads of new footage to add in. We are making sure that our narrative makes sense and sticks to the beat of the music. For the band footage we are editing this well to get the right instrument parts to go with the right bit of song. This includes a range of shots and angles to show the whole band and show them as individuals. Our deadline is 4:30 so we will ensure the editing is completely done by 4 o'clock to have a spare half an hour to convert the video and put it in the Hand in Folder, ready for the teachers to watch.
Here are some photos...

The Day Before Deadline Day

Today is the day before deadline day! Today is being well spent with Abby editing, Iona designing the Advert, Emily designing the Digipak and Sophie doing the blog. Although we need photos of our band for the advert and digipak the girls are still able to design the layout, colours and text for both of these, the deadline for these are not till next week. We will carry on doing these all day today to ensure we have enough time to finish the editing tomorrow for it to be handed in on time

Filming Done and Dusted!

Last night was our last time of filming footage for our music video. We filmed the cage scene at the quarry and Abbys bit at Iona's. This went really well as we captured some good scary cage scenes as it was really dark when we filmed this. We made sure we had plenty LEDS to use as it was pitch black. This time we included Abby in this scene, which is something we didn't do in our rough cut, this enables the audience to understand that she is the one behind the cage and is doing this to the people she hates. At Ionas, we decided to take the scene away from her home and do it in her garden, this was a good setting as it was dark, but we had the LEDS for light and a fire. We also had Abby ripping up her scrapbook she made of all the people she hate like she does in the rough cut of our video but we thought we needed something more to this, so after she rips up the scrapbook we see her throwing it into the fire. Our target audience loved the candle bits within the rough cut so we made sure that we did this little scene again to include in our final cut. They also loved the part where Abby is crying and laughing which makes her like really insane, we also made sure that we got footage for this bit too. One of our new ideas for the ending of the music video, is for Abby to spray paint an X over the camera, but we ensured that we put clingfilm over the camera to do this on. we thought that it made it look like Abby is coming for the audience and they are her next victim, the red X plays a big part throughout the whole music video as it represents the band as this is their logo. We made sure that we had a backup plan if this idea did not succeed so we put the front cover of Abby's ripped up scrap book, which is designed with a red X, into the fire and filmed it being burnt. We are relieved that all footage for the video is now done as the deadline is one day away!