First Full Draft

This is the first full draft of my video that I have edited together, which I have made in Final Cut Pro. I already had a basic understanding of this program and was therefore able to understand the tools without having any tutorials. I am overall quite pleased with how this draft has turned out, I used my storyboard to guide me through the editing however I have already made a few changes to my originally planned order of shots.

I have however spotted some mistakes and changes that I plan to change from this draft, one of these is that in several of the shots you can see the corner of the green screen in the background, which I can change by re-positioning the clip in the frame. I have also spotted several moments where the lip-syncing clips are out of time with the music, which I will be able to fix by editing each individual clip more closely.

The Conventions of a DigiPak and Magazine Advert

Possible Places My Video May Be Featured

The genre of my chosen song is a mix between Pop and Jazz, both of these are always very popular in the music charts and get a lot of publicity. One of the main ways people can now consume music video is through YouTube, may signed artists will have an official YouTube channel such as a Vevo one, as a way to upload their music videos. This is especially popular for independent labels as anyone can make a channel for free and can therefore upload their videos to the public themselves, before the internet the only way for music videos to be consumed was through the T.V. This will be a place that my music video will be featured as I can easily upload it onto YouTube through my Google account, it also allows anyone with the internet to access it globally.


One of the most popular ways for videos to be available to the public is through T.V music channels, some of the more well known ones are VIVA and 4Music. A drawback of this however is that only signed artists to major record labels such as Sony or Universal will have their videos featured. One of the reasons behind this is that these T.V channels are owned by mass media organisations that wither also own or are partnered with music labels.

Viva for example is owned by Viacom which is an American global mass media company that works with cable television, broadcasting and radio, in terms of revenue it is the sixth largest broadcasting and cable company. 4Music is owned by the Channel Four Television Corporation and is a music and entertainment channel in the UK, the most common shows broadcasted are "Your official top 20" and "Today's 4Music top 10", they are also known to cover music festivals such as the V festival and T4 on the beach.

Second Day Of Filming

The second location I decided to use for my music video was my college green room. I had originally planned to use the green screen as a way to select a more creative backdrop for the singer, however after some consideration and research I decided using a white backdrop would be a better decision. This is because I was struggling to find a suitable image to use as the backdrop in contrast to my first location, as that one was very detailed and colourful I thought another busy backdrop would be too much.

I plan to change the lighting effects of the footage whilst editing, I will experiment with the brightness, contrast and also any filters than can add a nice vintage effect. I only wanted one prop to be used in these shots and this was a microphone, I was aloud to borrow a vintage style microphone from my colleges music department which I thought really helped set the scene. Most of the shots from this location were lip-sync shots so I wanted to have the feel that the actress is performing as oppose to just simply lip-syncing.

This filming day overall went according to plan, I managed to get all of the shots I wished and was happy with the overall look of the scenes. I did however forget to bring speakers for my iPod which meant the music was being played very quietly making it harder for the model to keep in time.

Unlike in my first location where my model was wearing more of an every day 1940's style dress, I wanted a more formal look for these second load of shots. I decided in the end that she would wear a deep red patterned dress which fits the typical style of the 40's and 50's, this has a belt that ties around the waist and has a fuller skirt. Her hair was styled so that it was curly unlike from the first day of filming, I think this helps separate the looks more from one another.

I am now looking forward to uploading all this footage onto a MAC so that I can view it properly and begin editing it together with my current draft in order to create my first full draft of the video.

Research For Ancillary Texts

As part of my coursework I will also be creating 2 ancillary texts to help promote my music video, I decided at the start of the project that these two will be a a magazine advertisement and a CD cover in the form of a digipak. 

CD Cover

I began by researching some existing CD album art to see what techniques are most commonly used. Many of these CD covers feature a mixture of photographs and graphic design elements, whilst others feature only artwork. I also saw that each album cover has a minimal amount of text by only listing the artist and the albums name, this seems to be so that the main focus is on the imagery itself.

Digipaks are created as a way to promote a new album or single, they are made up of a CD case that also folds out to show a range of different images, album information, or song lyrics. The dimensions for digipaks can differ depending on your chosen size and the way in which you want it to fold out, the image above shows the dimensions needed for a 6 panel digipak, however they can also be made with 4 or 8 panels. 

Magazine Advertisement

When an artist releases a new album or single they will commonly place advertisements in magazines as a way to promote the product further. These are often made with the same or similar style to the album art itself as a way to make it recognisable to customers through continuity. I researched some existing magazine adverts for CD's and they are all portrait sized as they are specifically deigned to be on a magazine page, this artwork is also often used on billboards because of the similar dimensions.

First Music Video Draft

This is the first draft of my music video that I have created for my mock exam, I am overall very happy with how it has turned out so far even though I do plan to make many further improvements over time. I am very pleased with my choice of location as I really think it has successfully set the scene for the video, I added an effect within the editing which has given the footage more of an olden time look to them which I thought worked well. All of the blank areas will feature footage from my second filming location which has not yet been filmed.

First Day Of Filming

After my filming date once again did not go to plan, I contacted the location to see if I could possibly schedule a second filming date the following week. Thankfully they understood the situation and said that I can choose a day that's convenient to me, so it was decided it would be Wednesday the 17th of December.

I then contacted my friend who would be starring in the video before confirming the filming date with the location, I sent her a copy of the email so she had all the information needed and thankfully was free on that day. My other friend who I had planned to help me out on the day by operating the music and guiding me through my storyboard was also free to come and help out.

 

Whilst on location we managed to film all of the scenes I had originally planned out in my storyboard, apart from the ones of the model sitting on board of the tram. The seating area was sadly closed off to visitors which i was unaware of, however we were allowed to get the shots of her stood in the entrance of the tram. I also got some inspiration for extra shots whilst at the location which I thought would work as great replacements and also allows me to have more options of footage to use when editing.

The museum itself was quiet due to it being around Christmas time which allowed us to not cause a disturbance and also meant we did not have to time the filming for when people were not in the area of the shot. I also took some photos that I plan to later use for my ancillary texts, however we had some difficulties with the camera. There seemed to be a strong yellow tint to all of the images being taken and they also appeared to be blurry no matter how steady I kept the camera when taking the pictures. There seemed to be no effects or setting changed on the camera as it was on default, we attempted to change the settings ourselves to see if this made a difference but the results were the same. The camera screen itself was already a little damaged so in the end we hoped they would appear normal when uploaded onto the computer.

Sadly even on the computer the yellow tint still remains, when on the location I also used my phone to take some images just in case however these will not be of the best quality. I plan to see if I can use Photoshop to edit either of the images closer to the time and hope I can fix the colour and quality, if not I will have to take images during my second day of filming which will sadly not be at the first location.

I now plan to complete my first music video draft before Christmas as my mock exam, this will not feature all of the clips due to me not getting all of the footage yet. I plan to film the other shots I need at some point in January which will be in the green screen room at my college.