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.