Shooting Script

This is a shooting script we prepared because it helped us to pair each verse of the song with the shots and different scenes we were using. We split it up into sections of the song by time for example 2.21 minutes - 3.10 minutes tells us that at this point there is specific shots that need to be in that section, this also helped us when syncing the song with the specific lyrics.

Final Advert design

Here is the final outcome of my advert, i produced this using Photoshop.

The final outcome of my advert is different to my chosen flatplan, this is because as i began making the advert i found the multicoloured lettering was more aimed at a young audience, however i still wanted a bright attractive title so i chose yellow and white which i new would stand out against the brick wall.

I also chose to use a font called Amsterdam graffiti front the website www.dafont.com instead as my orignal idea was to do it free hand using Paint, this was un neat and again very a very childish style.
I am happy with this advert and think if this was to be used, it would have a great effect on the target audience intended for, i also decided to use the same image as i did for the digipack inside panel, this is to make it easily recognisable and people will instantly associate it with the CD.

Editing Scedule

Week 1- Log and Capture

Week 2- Assembly edit - put everything in order

Week 3- Rough cut - Rough idea of whats to be achieved

Week 4- Special effects

Week 5- Final cut - Tweaking

Week 6- DEADLINE - hand in completed video and updated blog with all planning work

Final Music Video

Here is our final version of our music video for 'Everyones At It' by Lily Allen.

Because we changed the idea of our film recently. We didnt have anamatic to help us with the timing of shots or where to sync the sound, however we have managed very well and as you can see it has been done tothe best of our ability.

The start of the video shows a montage of cuts from throughout the video, these match the beat of the music and show what is to be expected later on, it also give you a feel for the narrative of the video. The first verse starts with Kelsey getting out of bed, the room is dark and gloomy, this connotes the time of day it is but also the lyrics to the verse that say, "its not just the sun that is hurting my head now". Kelsey then leaves her bedroom to find a drunk girl on the floor with a bottle of vodka in her hand, this is a back up of the lyrics to show that it does really happen, and that the lyrics are telling us something, she then enters the bathroom and is totally transformed with her hair and make up done, she has also changed costume into a glamerous top. This shot is a mid shot because that way the audience will focus on the change of costume and relate this to the text.

After a scene with Kelsey sitting on the stairs she walks down each step to the beat of the music as the song reads 'Everyones At It' three times, getting closer everytime. This scene is also edited into a montage clip of a close up with her face, we did this using the cropping tool in Final Cut Pro.

The next scene is Kelsey in the kitchen just sitting on the side, this is the first shot in which she is a character that isnt really there, the oher characters are carrying on as if she wasnt there, this is to give the effect that Kelsey is telling the story and not actually a character in the storyline.
The kitchen scene is very bright because we wanted it to contrast with the last line in the verse that she sings 'Little do you know she already takes crack' where the lighting is much darker because she is singing about the mother not knowing her daughter takes drugs, it is a mystery to her therefore we wanted to use the lighting to help get this across.
This is then cut to a cene where Kelsey is walking up a dingly looking alley way, this is the type of place you would expect to find teenagers with a lifestyle of drugs, again this is quite dull and there isnt much lighting accept natural lighting, this is wuite a long scene and if we were to do it again i would suggest cutting to different for interesting angles for example extreme close ups or a high angle shot.

The instrumental part of this song was quite long but the beat of the song meant we could experiement with again cutting frames to use for a montage edit, but this time we used shots more related to the scenery and the drugs lifestyle. There is a shot of a teenage drug user crouching down with just Kelseys legs walking through the frame this is because we wanted it to appear that Kelsey was not part of this scene in any way. But she was surrounded by it.

The end of the instrumental part is a lot slower so we decided to use special effects to makeit more interesting for the audience, this is my favourite part of the video as i think it works really well. The slow motion is timed perfectly to the timing of the music and quickly changes with the tempo on to a shot of Kelsey singing against a brick wall, which again is the part i am focussing on for my promopack.

There is then a shot of Kelsey crouching down against a metal backdrop of a shut down shop, this is a perfect example of the type of location a teenager would hangout.

We ended the video with a blurred vision as we decided that this was a good closing shot. It was very effective with the people of gave feedback on the video.

Editing

Throughout the whole piece of coursework editing has appeared to be the most challenging.



Once we had uploaded the video through a process called Log and Capture.

we needed to cut out all the shots we were not using for example, shots that had the wrong lighting or objects in the way.



The space bar is used to play and pause the video at any time, this helps to catch a specific moment on the timeline. This especially helped us when making a montage for the introduction of the video as we needed short clips to work in time with the beat of the music. We wanted a really effective beginning to catch the audiences attention.



Because we had a lot of footage to work with editing the video its self wasnt to hard, we managed to fit the clips in sync with the music.

Using the control plus/minus keys meant wewere able to zoom in and out of the timeline therefore when editing a clip by just couple of miliseconds we were able to zoom in to get it as close as possible which is why are video is so in sync.

We also used special effects in a section of it which is instrumental, thisturned out to be very effective, what we did was at first we had some more montage edits followed by kelsey walking across the screen side on in slow motion, we used tools from final cut pro to slow her walking down and keep the beat of the music fast, but still in time with the music.



I have learnt a lot using final cut pro as it is a very detailed program when you compare it to Windows Movie Maker and similar programmes.

Final digipack results

Here is the final result of my digipack made using Indesign. As you can see there is strong continuity throughout the digipack, i wanted to keep the writing the same two colours.

The outer front panel shows Kelsey standing alert and happy in the same costume as in the video, she is smiling and happy which shows is the complete opposite to the image of a drug user.

I decided at the last minute to change the font layout because as i began i realised having multi-coloured lettering like i first planned didnt look right and looked very childish which wouldnt appeal to the target audience.

The second image shows the inner left panel here i used rule of thrids which has shown to be very effective, although it is a simple image because of where i placed her in the frame it has change the perspective completely.

The outer back panel is as it was in the flatplan however i changed the colour ofthe font to keep the same as the front cover. this again is simple but because of the busy background of the bricks it doesnt look plain.

I have learnt many skills throughout this task,

Filming images and shots

We decided to get some images of us in action filming for the music video, lucy and both took it in turns to film different sections of the film, here i am filming the walls scenes that appear throughout the video at different times. As you can see we used a tripod to steady the camera and it really helped for the still shots such as this one.

I took these shots to have a range of images to use for my digipack and advert, however i decided not to use this image in particular because it is the wrong angle and there are two pipes running either side which arn't symmetrical.

This is me acting as a teenage drug user in the video this is quite effective as it is a real life example of what it is like to walk through streets that they are in, in the video Kelsey walks past with a side view of Kelseys legs with a mid/long shot of me smoking.

Evaluation

As part of a group of 4 I directed, shot footage for and edited a music video for a song of our choice. We also had to design a digipack for our artist and an advert. Part One Initially, once deciding on a song for the pop video promotion we sketched a number of possible ideas and concepts connecting to the narrative of the song.
Real media products have to make sure they follow certain conventions for specific purposes, film and TV genre products are governed by certain predictable narrative features, dress codes, lighting effects and special effects , this is the same with music videos.

If you compare my video to 'Another day in paradise' by Brandy and Ray-J http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWjNFC-FinU you can see that they are very similiar in terms of they both have a 'ghost' character/s that are acting as if they werent really there. This is quite common on music videos that have a strong sotryline to them. In this video they are also comparing two different lifestyles, which is obviously very simliar to our video.

My advert could be compared to the 'Bloodhound Gang' being advertised on Kerang, although these are completely different genres, just like my advert they have focused more onthe text than the artist/band itself.

The music video and promopack which includes the advert and the digipack are all very similar, i did this because i wanted to make them all to be easily recognisable to the audience, they all have a link between them, for the advert and the iside left panel i used the same image, i used the inside image as this meant they would be related but they wernt exactly the same as the outer cover of the digipack.
Because the advert is a way of promoting the song and video, it is important that the audience will be attracted to it instantly at a glance, this is easily done with my advert because they will link it to the video, the font also stands out because it is against a strong colour of the brick wall.

Here as you can see they have made the text stand out and the artists are at the bottom of the advert, this is because they want the audience to focus on what the text is telling them as opposed to the artists themselves.

I think this is a very effective way of promoting the video.

To gain feedback on my project i decided to put the video on my facebook page, this is because i alot of my friends are of the target audience our video is aimed that, this meant i could get a response via email about what they thought and how it would attract the target audience.

Here is an example of a reply i had concerning the video.

Music video ( via Facebook )‏
From:
ben lee (b.lee@hotmail.co.uk)
You may not know this sender.Mark as safeMark as junk
Sent:
31 March 2010 10:24:25
To:
superchick03@hotmail.com
.ExternalClass .ecxhmmessage P
{padding:0px;}
.ExternalClass body.ecxhmmessage
{font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana;}
Hi Charlotte,I have watched your video and i think there are some very positive points to be made,
The editing was well timed, the music was in sync with the vocalist, this made it look very professional.
The storyline matched the narrative and all of the scenes fitted in with the lyrics.
I think the way the video reaches out to the audience helps to reiterate the meaning of the song. I have seen the advert for this Video and i think it is a good way to promote the song because it matches many scenes from the video. You can also see that there is a link between the advert and the digipack.

However, i think the costume could have been more expressive in that it should have reflected her attitude which would also contrast against the theme of drugs.Overall i think this whole production is very effective in the lifestyle drugs portray.

Ben Lee

Receiving this feedback has helped me to view the video and the promotion pack, from the eyes of the audience, i am able to see how they would react to this video if it were real.

Although some of the feedback were in favour of the continuity in the advert and digipack i think if i were to do this task again i would vary them slightly but still keep some sort of link between them all. For example i may decide to keep the wall theme but change the images of Kelsey herself or keep the same images of Kelsey throughout but change the background.

I would also take more consideration into the mise-en-scene to make the video look more realistic, for example costume, although we tried our best to use the resources available to us i would have preferred to have more of a stronger image of each of the characters for example Kelsey should have been in bright colours to make a deeper contrast between her and the drug taking teenagers, this would make it easier for the audience to identify between the two extremes.

Media technology such as computers and cameras have been very useful throughout the whole production for many different reasons.
To video the production we used a CANON XM2 camera which at first we found difficult to use, we learnt ourselves how to work it and how to get the best of out it in terms of filming techniques, after all the filming was complete we used many different computer programs throughout the whole process, these included Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and Blogger.

Final Cut Pro was the first Computer Aided Program we needed to use, this was new to us therefore we experienced some difficulties, however, using this program to do the anamatic first meant that when it was time toedit we already had some skills needed for a successful project.

Throughout the process of the anamatic i had a great deal of control at this point and this meant i could help the other girls when it was their turn to practise using it.

The anamtic is used to indicate how your final edit will play back, this included the duration of each shot, when there are pans etc.

After completing the anamatic and we started filming we realised our original plan wasnt going to work, this meant that the anamatic as a whole didnt provide much information on our actual video but it did still give us the skills we needed to use Final Cut Pro.

We used Photoshop for every part of the promotional pack which meant that we also picked up many skills, i feel that i am now able to confidently use Photoshop with any task given to me.

The first stage of using this program was to upload the image you wantto use as a base, you do this by a tool called 'Place'. I decided not to use Photoshop to its full potential by experimenting with special effects as i felt it wouldnt match the type of advert i wanted. I then downloaded a font from www.dafont.com, which i used throughout the promopack, i kept the same font too, which was called 'Amsterdam Graffiti' i chose this because the background is a brick wall it work well with the theme. I also did simliar steps into making my digipack, they are both very similar which means they will be easily link to one another.

Overall i think this was a successful project which has given me many skills to use in the future, i feel confident that i could go on to produce further media products of many kinds.

Exploring artists adverts

This is an example from an advert for My Chemical Romance, although this band are a different genre of music i thought it would be a good idea to get as many ideas from other artists to compare to my own and get further inspiration. Here they have kept the background very plain and have kept to the colour sceme of black and red, including their outfits and the writing at the bottom, i think this is a good idea and it brings it all together and makes it stand out to the audience more. They have kept their signature look of particular make up used which means it is easily recognisable to the target audience.

This type of adert is likely to be seen in magazines such as NME or Kerrang. And in places such as typical 'gig' venues.

I can relate this to my own work as i want to to the same kind of idea which having quite a plain background to make Kelsey stand out. This is a simple but effective way to attract the audience.

This Ministry Of Sound advert is the complete opposite to the previous advert but is still very effective, they have chosen to have a very dark and mysterious image as the main picture but have bright writing to make a contrast, this makes it stand out and also connotes the party lifestyle that Ministry Of Stand aim to. This is likely to be found in 'mixmag' and simililar magazines.

Now i have looked at a couple of different adverts i can see that when designing my advert i need to take into consideration where my advert would be featured and the best way to attract my target audience according to the genre.

The target audience i am aiming at is mainly teenage girls between the ages of 14 to 19, this is because they music in this particular genre of pop can range from very upbeat songs with narrative lyrics, this would attract this particular group of people. However Lily Allen in particluar may concentrate on narrative songs that either have a meaning or tell a story but because of the content of the song they are usually aimed at older teens rather than younger teens, i need to take all of this in to consideration when design my advert.

I think i am going to design my advert similarly to my digipak as this means the audience it is aimed at will be able to easily recognise the link. They will instantly recognise the brick wall background and associate the two together.
I will also use the same font to keep continuity within the two.
I am going to choose a release date of later on in the year such as october/november as i dont think it is the type of song to be released in the summer.

Storyboards

Here we have drawn and detailed every shot in our video, having all this planned out means when we come to filming we will know exactly what we are doing.

Shot 1: Shot one an establishing shot which includes the whole classroom so it is easily recognised as a typical classroom, you can also see the teacher standing at the front discussing drugs. We decided this would be a good shot because the narrative is based on teenagers and young people that a school was the perfect location.

Shot 2: This is a close up of Lucys face, showing expressions of her being totally uninterested by the topic of drugs, this is a good shot because this is a typical reaction of a teenager when talking about drugs as they don't tend to worry about the consequences.

Shot 3: This is where the camera zooms into her eye, this shot is going to be used to introduce the next scene, this makes it more interesting than just cutting to the next shot, the camera will zoom through her eye, we will do this using editing techniques on Final Cut Pro.

Shot 4: Shows Lucy walking through a street as a long shot, the street is dark a dreary, this connotes the type of lifestyle of a drug addict. She however is dressed to stand out contrasting against the street in bright outfits looking healthy and happy.

Shot 5: This is a still mid shot of Lucy singing against a brick wall for the background, this will be a mid shot so the audience concentrate on her face and the lyrics being said. The idea of getting the message through to the audience.

Shot 6: This is just another link to the next scene, also known as a spin off.

Shot 7: This scene is showing teenagers taking drugs by the camera zooming from a long shot to a close up. Again this is another shot to show what teenagers are doing these days.

Shot 8: With shot 7 still there Lucy walks past the group of teenagers side on, this is a long shot to show the actions of Lucy and that she is not part of that group. This is to act as if Lucy is acting as a ghost and isn't really there.

Shot 9: This shot follows the lines "and it just doesn't feel right.." by showing a girl laying down past out after the effects drugs has had on her, she is looking ill and has no colour to her face. Again this contrasts with Lucy in the previous scene.

Shot 10: Lucy is walking through the street again and surrounded by people drinking and taking drugs, behaving in weird ways, this is a long shot to establish to the audience where she is and to fit in all the different situations.

Shot 11: As the lyrics read "everyones at it..." over and over, the camera zooms into a couple kissing, who have been taking drugs. This is obvious to the audience by their personal appearance, stance and so on.

Shot 12: this scene shows a druggie trying to pull Lucy in to their lifestyle of drug taking, this works along side the lyrics "I get involved but I'm not advocating....", this shows the likeliness teenagers experience of peer pressure.

Shot 13: This is a close up of a doctors hand, handing a prescription of drugs to a teenager, this fits the verse starting "You go to the doctor, you needs pills for sleeping...".

Shot 14: Again this is a long shot of a mum looking stressed out because of the actions of her daughter, she is standing in the kitchen where we will used props such as a microwave and a kettle to get the full effect of where she is so the audience know she is a mum.

Shot 15: Lucy is then sitting the kitchen but as a still mid shot, singing to the camera.

Shot 16: As the lines read "little do you know, she already takes crack". The daughter walks out the door and slams it in a fit of rage, this connotes her being angry and paranoid, which are common side effects of drugs.

Shot 17: This is an extreme close up of Lucy's lips singing the verse starting, "why cant we all, all just be honest". This again is another way to get the audience attention of the message because you have no choice but to read what she is saying.

Shot 18: Lucy is over looking a politicians office in this scene, they have clearly been taking drugs but are dressed in suits, this is because the lyrics read "from grown politicians".

Shot 19: This is another establishing of a drug counseling session with 5-6 members sitting in a circle, this is a wide angle shot. Lucy is then circling them and they are unaware of her presence.

Shot 20: This is the final scene showing drug abuse and Lucy is back walking down the street for the very last time, no one around her is doing drugs and the sun is shining, this is a major contrast with the other street scenes, it is to act as if throughout the song people have given up the drugs, this could be very effective for the audience and again has a deep narrative to it that people can change and don't need to be dependable on drugs to have a good time.

Shot 21: This shot is back to the beginning scene of Lucy sitting in the classroom singing this time, a mid shot.

Shot 22: The camera zooms in on Lucy until it is a extreme close up. Closely followed by shot 23.

Shot 23: Everybody in the classroom leaves walking out. This is a wide angle shot to show that they are actually leaving the room and the volume of people in the room.

Shot 24: Lucy is left in the room on her own again a wide angle shot to emphasise she is on her own, the camera then zooms in to Lucy smiling cheekily and satisfied.

-

Changes to the video

Our first obstacle during filming is that we decided Kelsey would suit the role of Lily Allen more and things seemed to work out better that way.

As we began filming our original idea we realised due to the weather and lack of suitable venues and characters that we needed to change our idea. So we began thinking about others ideas that would still fit in with the theme of the song 'Everyones at it'. In the end we came up with an idea we feel is a lot better and is a lot easier to film.


The idea is that the opening of the song is different montages of shots from throughout the video, this will give the audience an idea of the main theme of the song, the first verse goes into a mid shot of Kelsey in her bedroom having just woken up singing to the camera, the next shot follows the line 'It's meant to be fun, And this just doesn't feel right', where Kelsey opens her bedroom door to find a party goer (jade) on the floor clutching a bottle of vodka. This then pans up to a shot of Kelsey stepping over her and exiting left to the bathroom. A point of view shot shows the door being opened to find Kelsey all dressed up glamorously, in timing with the lines 'and it just doesn't feel right'.


We decided the scenes to cut out were the classroom scenes which have been swapped for the bedroom scenes, this has meant we were able to film in any conditions and found it actually worked out better as far as the story lines are concerned.


The next shot is a low angle shot from the bottom of the stairs as the chorus is playing of Kelsey walking round the corner and down the stairs, 5-6 stairs down she sits down and puts on a pair of black, paintent high heels, these connote sexiness and promiscuity. Through each beat of the song to follow Kelsey takes a step down the stairs until she reaches the bottom.


The next shot is a kitchen scene where theres a still mid shot of Kelsey sitting on the kitchen side with her mum and sister in the room totally oblivious of her, this quickly cuts to a shot of the mum and sister, where the mum is checking her head for a temperature and turns to get out some tablets which comes in time with the lyrics 'You go to the doctor, You need pills to sleep in. Well if you can convince him, Then I guess that's not cheating'. Again followed by another close up of Kelsey singing the lyrics 'So your daughter's depressed, We'll get her straight on the Prozac. But little do you know, She already takes crack.'. I think these lyrics fit perfectly with the shot intended.


For the new bedroom scene we chose to use a typical teenage girls bedroom however we didn't want to make it too girly as this wouldn't fit with the drugs theme to well. Kelsey is wearing grey pajamas and no make up to make it clear she has just got out of her bed. because there isn't a great deal of colour in the shot we kept the lighting quite bright as if the sun was shining in just as they lyrics state.

When Kelsey opens the door of the bathroom dressed for a party, there is a major contrast from before with bright red lipstick which has connotations of sexy and promiscuous. She is also wearing a silver glittery top to show that she is going to party with black slimming leggings.


Again the lighting is quite bright to show that she is alert and ready to go out and looking healthy.

The kitchen scene again has bright lighting, this is because we want it to have the effect that everything is bright and happy before she goes to the party where everyone is drinking and doing drugs.

The mother is wearing a dressing gown and we have positioned her to show status over her daughter, (Lilys 'Sister') so that the audience can easily spot the difference between them. It starts out with Kelsey sitting on the side singing acting as a gohst effect as if she isnt actually there, the daughter comes in to the kitchen with a headache clearly from drinking or taking drugs the previous night and her mum hands her some paracetamol. Throughout all this Kelsey is being totally ignored. She then gets up and walks towards the camera.

The following scenes we are keeping the same with cuts to still shots of Kelsey standing in front of a brick wall singing, this gives the impression of an urban enviroment.

We are much more happy with this idea and think the outcome will be a lot better.

Target Audience of Lily Allen And Similar Genres.

Lily Allen's genre is mainly known as pop, pop rock and electropop. This means her target audience tends to me young females between the ages of 14-20 years old. An example is Lily Allens single 'The Fear' which is about celebrity culture which of course young females are very interested, it was this single that was clased as Electropop and made it to number one for four weeks. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE51E1NR20090215
Similar to American pop star 'Pink'(who also has a target audience of Young females) , Lily Allen tries to write lyrics that can either relate to her specific target audience or interest them. She also goes through the problems that these young females may have. She talks in the language that young people of this generation use too, For example in hers single Smile;
'Whenever you see me you say that you want me back And I tell you it don't mean jack, no it don't mean jack'.
'Jack' is a word commonly used as a slang word for nothing. This was used to fit in more with today's generation.

Lily Allen has many fan based groups on social networking sites, this one on Facebook, Official Lily Allen Fan Group, has a large percentage of female fans, almost 3 times as many as male fans. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=88497275649&ref=search&sid=652705403.459956866..1

Powerpoint Presentation

This is the presentation we made as part of our pitch. It includes why we chose the song and a bit about the song its self, we also described a bit about Lily Allen herself including her record sales of what she has produced, we talking about the genre of music she mainly focuses on which is pop, we then mention our initial ideas with detailed analysis of location and props we could use.
Altogether this is a very interesting peice of work and really helps to discover a lot more about Lily Allen and help to produce a vdieo to suit her image and genre.



https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B-AD0iIIvtQbYTEzMDMxZWMtMWY2Zi00YzFhLWI4OTEtNjQyZWEwZGU0MWNi&hl=en

Practising With Camera Skills

During one of our lessons we were given the chance to go out and practise with different apertures and speed shutter settings to get different effects. This also helped us decide what would look best for different parts of our video for example we found that we will need a closed aperture on the parts where we want to give the effect of gloom and doom.


Experimenting with different shutter speeds also meant we could help change the focus and change what we wanted to be in focus from the front to the back.

We also experimented with different scenes, for example we shot a mobile phone conversation, a over the shoulder - shot reverse shot- then also focussed on composition and mise-en-scene.

Now that we have experimented with the camera i feel a lot more confident about starting to produce the video and think it could turn out to be very good.

Anamatic

During our lessons we produced a series of storyboards with detailed descriptions of how our music video was going to look. We then transferred these on to Macbook laptops and turned them into anamatics using 'Everyones at it' to show how the images would connect with the lyrics. We did this using Final cut Pro.

We encountered a few problems when doing this piece of work because when uploading all the images of each story board, for some reason not all pictures uploaded which meant everything was in the wrong order. We decided the option was to start again which seemed to work a lot better.

After uploading all the photos we had to make sure they fitted to the correct verse, this took some time but eventually everything came together.

Next we had to match the images to the music for the correct lyrics, this wasnt to hard and we managed to do this easily.

Here is the anamatic we produced.