Media Evaluation - Question 4

Due to difficulties with embedded this answer, the link below should take you to my answer for question four.
https://www.canva.com/design/DAByLuPjCac/Lp-0P9lWmtzvQi1xvsrT9g/view?utm_content=DAByLuPjCac&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton

Media Evaluation- Question 3

Media Evaluation - Question 2

Media Evaluation- Question 1

MEDIA EVALUATION QUESTION ONE from EmJanBick123

Shooting Schedule

Below is a picture of the shooting schedule my partner and I created together. It identifies the date, time and location, who is involved with the filming, what equipment was used, what costumes were worn and at the bottom what shots we aimed to achieved on particular days.

Adele's Official Website

As part of our ancillary tasks, we had to create an official website for the artist we had used for our music video. We recreated Adele's 'When We Were Young' and designed a website of information about the artist, up and coming tour dates, pictures and videos. The link is below:
http://adeleofficialwebsite.weebly.com/

Ancillary Task: CD Case and Insert Booklet

Below are pictures of our completed CD case along with the insert booklet. After weeks of working out how to use the editing software and different templates we have a finished product which would be used to sell of the album along with the single we created a music video for.

 This is the front of the insert booklet, we decided to keep it the same as the front cover of the CD case so it continues a similar theme.

 This is back cover of the album. It has a list of the songs from the album and the background is a significant screen grab from the music video for 'When We Were Young'.

This is the album cover, we decided to use of shot of the 'artist' so the audience would able to engage with who the album belonged to.

 This is the back of the insert booklet, we thought this would look quite effective as it is a shot from behind and it represents the love that we want to convey in the music video.

 This is the inside of the insert booklet, the background is photos of the artist and it includes credits to the people who made the album happen.

Finally, this is the spine of the album case, it simply says the name of the artist and the name of the album which is '25'.

Final CD Cover and Insert Booklet

 This is the front of our CD cover. It has the name of the artist and the title of the album.

This is the back of our CD cover which states all of the songs of the album.

This is the insert booklet for the CD cover which has all of the credits to people who were able to make the album possible.

This is the front and back cover of the insert booklet.

Finished Product

After weeks and weeks of filming and editing, we have completed our music video of Adele's 'When We Were Young'.

(A video will be posted shortly once we have resolved the issue of copyright and YouTube allows us to upload it)

Difficulties When Filming...

With our music video being close to being completed and a lot of editing taking place, it has definitely not been the smoothest creation of a music video. My partner and I definitely faced some challenges, and I think we were both shocked at how hard it is to make a music video.

After deciding on our initial ideas, we soon realised that this would not be enough to fill the four and half minute song that we had decided to go with. Therefore, on several occasions we had to hire out more and equipment and film more footage. Having to continue filming on the week leading up to our deadline definitely panicked us and was not something we had originally planned to do, but we have pulled it off, and are now focusing on getting the editing finished in the last few days we have left.

Managing the time and having a free schedule the same as my partner was a challenge as we both have different commitments and jobs etc... meant that we on multiple occasions we had to go home or to the location we filmed at alone, and film parts of our music video on our own with help from family members. However we managed to complete our music video by doing this and our own unique skills are included within the product.  

From what we have edited so far, I am very proud with the outcome. It is not perfect and still requires a few extra touches to make it more effective, but I definitely excited about what me and my partner have produced.

A blog post with the finished video will be posted shortly.

Editing Update- Beginning the filming process

This week, we have started filming our music video, after weeks of preparation, it is finally going to come to life and be something we can watch in a few weeks time.

We decided to start off by filming a few shots of myself, who will be acting as Adele in the music video, just to see what looks good and to get an idea of how we should film the performance parts of our music video. After this session of filming, we decided that none of the shots are what we are looking for, and that a different idea will need to be used. But this experience was useful to kick start the process and to become creative with our initial ideas.

Therefore, I am going to take a camera and other pieces of filming equipment home with me over the weekend to film the performance pieces which will fit throughout different points of the video. It is important that these pieces are shot properly so they look effective and look realistic as if I am Adele singing the song herself. At this point, my partner and I will have to film at different times and in many cases, solo due to busy schedules, but we will rejoin to view the footage together and to edit the video as a pair too.

More updates are to follow.

Defining our Audience

Defining our audience from EmJanBick123

Risk Assessment

Here are the photos for our risk assessment form, my partner and I created a joint risk assessment form as it applies to our work that we did as a group.

 It highlights all relevant information about our filming and what could be a possible risk for myself or any other people who we have asked to film with.

Story Board

When we started our story board for our music video, we already had an initial idea that we wanted to include. We always liked the idea of including lots of different old photos, especially of grandparents as a young couple and old fashioned baby photos. We feel like it will give the video a positive message for anybody that wants to watch it, because it highlights the importance of family and memories that have been shared. 

However, we understand the importance of including footage of the 'performer' so the audience know where the song is coming from and so they can recognise the song with the artist. Therefore, we have 15 bars, at the beginning of the video of performance, where I will be stood lip syncing to the song and acting as Adele. Story boarding has been effective as now we have a clear schedule on what to film and where, it gives us an indication on where shots should be placed, and for how long they should be filmed. This is also useful as our song is so long- never realising that we would have to work with a 4 and half minute song, planning is definitely a significant factor for us. 

In contrast, we are still unsure on the video as a whole, so far the story board we have created, which we will continue to work on will give us a strong starting point when it comes to filming. 

We know that we want to include a range of different camera angles which can be effective when it comes to editing, as it always gives an alternative view when watching the video and can make it more interesting. We definitely want to include an over the shoulder shot where photos are being viewed, maybe with grandparents, to capture a natural sense for the video. 

Song Choice and Ideas

After changing our song idea we have decided that, finally, the song, my partner and I have decided to do for our music video is, When We Were Young by Adele. We both love this song and feel like we can be very creative with ideas and how the video should look. Adele is still yet to make a video for this song so this is an advantage on our part as we have free range on what we can do with the song. Since Adele is such a well respected artist and very well known around the world, we figured, to take the safer option and opt for a song that she has not yet released with a video. The only video we have access to is her live recorded version that is available on YouTube where she has filmed in a studio, and is she still only stood singing with a microphone. Therefore, we still have a lot of opportunity to make this video unique.

Throughout the process of planning this music video, my partner and I have decided that we should take our own representation of the song and use that to create our music video. In our opinion, apart from the song being centered around love, we feel that the song is all about remembering the past and capturing moments that you'd like to hold onto forever. This is quite an emotional song which we hope to capture when we begin filming. 

One idea we have come up with is to include my partners grandparents; they will be looking through old photos of them when they were a young couple, reminiscing about the old times and we will really try to capture the natural quality this idea brings. Mise en scene for this video will be VERY important and will be effective if we chose this aspect wisely. However, there will be a mixture of different time periods throughout, so it will keep changing from modern to years gone by.

The main idea of this video is to give it a family sense which will be quite sentimental. We are going to include various shots of old photos of us when we were younger and when our grandparents were younger. We feel like this idea for the video will be effective as we want it to revolve around people looking back on memories they shared.

We have decided together that I will take role of 'Adele' and I will lip sync to the song as though I am the artist. This will bring a new generation feel to the video and how things can change over time. I am really excited to get started on filming this video and can not wait to see the finished product in a few weeks time.

This is the YouTube video of Adele's 'When We Were Young':

AMY

Recently, my media group and I made a trip to Sheffield Cinema Theater to view the documentary about the late music star, Amy Winehouse. Personally I loved Amy as an artist previously and am a big fan of the songs she has released. The image below is of Amy before the fame got too much for her and she went into a downwards spiral of drugs and alcohol. She was very naturally beautiful.

I was looking forward to seeing this documentary which allows viewers to see pieces of her life which were not necessarily emphasised by the media. The audience has access to footage of her starting out in the music industry and her attending her first meetings with her manager, just as a regular girl from Southgate. The documentary follows her through her career up until she dies, unfortunately, on the 23rd of July 2011 at the young age of 27.

Honestly, I was not entirely sure what to expect going to see the documentary about the troubled star as the media can play a bit part in an individuals opinions so I was not prepared for the way the TV production team were going to portray her as a star. What I was able to take away from the documentary was that she was a lot different in person to what people had her labelled as, and through what people had witnessed of her behaviour in the media, all situations were over emphaised, definitely.

She was just a normal, working class, London girl who loved to sing Jazz and write songs about her life experiences. In my opinion, she got involved with the wrong people and I believe that her husband, Blake, was no good for her; without blaming him directly for her death, I think if she had walked away and got herself some help to over come the drugs then there would've been a very different outcome. However, it is not possible to predict these things, and it is just my opinion. Doing research, in an article provided by the Guardian, Blake states: 'I find it disrespectful to imply I was some machiavellian puppet master'. However, he was the person to introduce her hard drugs such as heroin and crack, which he has had a history of being dependent on.

My overall thoughts about her life is that she was very misunderstood and she got involved within the wrong crowd of people. Her true passion was to make meaningful music about the things she wanted to write about but instead the fame got too much for her, and she could not deal with the pressure of being in the public eye 24/7. I don't think she ever realised how big she would be and how much of an iconic musician she'd become- she became an idol for other aspiring artists and this was a huge responsibility.
It may sound naive but the individuals surrounding her did not provide positive influences and I strongly believe that she was blinded by the love she had for Blake and she was willing to try hard drugs because its what he was addicted to.

In relation to her songs and listening to her lyrics, they definitely apply to her life and you can gain an understanding to her relationship with Blake and the experience of her life. She was a fantastic song writer and knew exactly how to write a good song- she would use her guitar to create a sound for her songs and was very good at doing a lot of the producing herself. She was a very talented young singer. You can tell that she was very much allowed to have full rein on her music and her music videos specifically, as she represents herself as a person and her management team never tried to take that image away from her. They never attempted to mold her into a perfect pop star, it is not Amy's image and from watching the documentary, she would not all let others change the woman she was.

She was only 27 years old when she died but due to the extreme amount of alcohol and drugs in her system, she looked like a 50 year old. It was very upsetting to witness her become out of control of her own life and she became stuck in a rut which she was unable to get out of. I feel like now she is at peace and she is in a much happier place where she is away from the fame and from the stresses of her very public life. She still lives on as a music legend and her songs are still being played today and is still being nominated for awards. She created music genius and it will live on for a long long time.

Richard Dyer's Star Theory

Star Theory from embicknell

The Pitch; for our Music Video

This is the notes me and partner have created, which we will use to present our pitch about the music video we wish to do to our teacher. A video of this pitch will be added when it has been filmed. 

'The song we have chosen to do is ‘Beautifully Unfinished’ by Ella Henderson. The video will appeal to the female population more than the male as it will be from a female’s perspective and the emotions that a woman feel throughout love and heartbreak.

It is suitable for the artist as her songs are quite emotional and meaningful therefore showing the video through a woman’s perspective is better as it is a female singer.

Our production company is called BH Productions. We are good time keepers because on a previous task we thought we’d have difficulty to complete the task within the allocated time due to busy schedules but managed to produce a finished product on the deadline as we used the time that we had effectively.

We are also good team workers as we both put forward ideas and put the same amount of effort in as one another which is useful so it’s not just one of us working hard and the other doing nothing.

The equipment we will need for our music video is a DSLR (or a good quality camera similar to this one), a tripod, we will experiment with different lights, we will also experiment with the shoulder mount tripod.

We are still unsure where we intend to film our video but will soon decide in the story board and planning process as it is essential based on the weather and times we need to go out and film etc.

We had the idea to edit the video and change it to black and white which is similar to Ella Henderson’s ‘Yours’. However, we don’t want to look like we are copying that video so this is only an idea and not definite.

Emily is going to be miming to the lyrics and she’ll be wearing simple light clothing to blend in with the mood of the song. Charlotte will be acting in the video but her outfit is still undecided but will be similar probably'.

The Male Gaze Theory

Iconic CD Covers

This shows some of the most iconic CD covers of all time. There are countless iconic CD covers but these are some that have created change within the music industry and become popular trademarks for fans all over the world.