Magazine Draft

DigiPak Draft

Magazine Advert Decision

I have decided that for my magazine advert, I will be producing a page that is advertising the tour of Tavonga's new album "So Sick". To look further into this I will be looking closely at existing advertisements which are for the same purpose. I have already had some experience in this field as I have done a similar task for the music promotion task at GCSE media. However, I am hoping to improve further on both skills and presentation to create a  more thorough professional look to the print.

Focus Group

Now that we have finished our music video, we decided to carryout a focus group with our peers by showing them our music video and also asking them questions afer to prompt feedback. The main questions we will be asking are those as follows:

-What did you think of the matching up of the lyrics to the lip syncing? Did tou think that this was successful?
-Would  have you suggested any other songs that would have gone with Tavonga's costume and appearance?
-What was the strength of the music video and why?
-What would you change and how?
-Would you change anything about Tavonga's appearance?
-Within the music video, we used glasses to make Tavonga recognisable just like how Ne-Yo is recognisable for his hats, do you think this was revealed well or would you suggest him being in glasses more?
-Did the transitions work well, if not why and what would you do to change this?
-Did you find the settings relatable to the storyline?
-Did you understand the narrative of the storyline and was it easy to follow?
-Is there anything you would change in the storyline to make it more obvious to you as an audience?
-Did you think the idea of using Tavonga against the wall for the chorus was a successful? Did you find it gave some continuity to the music video?

We decided to carryout the focus group so that it would allow us to see what other people thought our strengths and weaknesses were and also what we could improve on if we were to make another music video.

Font research

For my Digipak and Magazine research, I have decided to research font types in order to help me with my drafts and final designs for the ancillary tasks. Here I have attached the photos of the research I have done,

Ancillary Task - Digipak Research

Digipak research from bethanysymonds24

Final Music Video

Focus Group

Today, we carried out our focus group for our final video, this was so that we could gain some feedback on our final product. We did this with some students in our sixth form, half of which take Media Studies and the other half who don't. This however was very difficult as we had to find a lesson where everyone was able to take part and didn't have any other commitments. whilst in there we had some trouble with the projector and so they had to watch it on the laptop.
We asked them to sit down and watch the video, once this had finished, myself, Eboni and Adam began asking them questions from a questionnaire we created. The response that we got from them were on a whole very positive, however we did also get some very useful advice on what we could do next time.
GOOD: Match up from audio of the song to the visuals and Tavonga's singing. This was something we were very pleased with as we found this the most challenging during editing.
Good transitions, very effective.
Video would look good with other R&B songs.
Good range of camera shots.
Good setting, very realistic.
Good use of prop (from one member of the group), said that it was good how we dropped the glass and the rose in the same place.
NEXT TIME: In terms of constructive , they said that it would be better if the flashbacks were made clearer that they were flashbacks and perhaps do this by dressing Tavonga differently and also maybe make it clearer that they had split up at the end of the narrative.

Uploading footage

Today, we spent the morning uploading our footage to YouTube. We tried to do this firstly by ourselves, but after still being unable to locate the footage in Final Cut Pro X, we got help from the IT Technician who was able to transfer the media directly from the desktop to the editing software.

Although this meant that we had to replace the footage in the timeline which was already there, as we had done it before, myself and Eboni would quickly and effectively replace these clips to make it just how it was before.

Once we had done this we published it to YouTube but as we both had classes next lesson we had to leave it uploading and will return tomorrow to make sure that it had uploaded online as it takes a long time to process.

Upload of footage trouble

Today I went back after school to give the music video a run-through checking that it was final to put on the internet. When I arrived, Adam also came with me for the start of the session and then left due to other commitments. Firstly we watched it through and saw no faults and so when he left I proceeded to upload it onto YouTube. However, it wasn't that easy.

Due to the fact that the project was relying on my phone to play, whenever I unplugged it, the image "missing camera" showed up on certain clips. I tried to upload it with my phone plugged in, however when I did this, the message came up saying that it couldn't if it were relying on my phone.

To work around this I decided to upload my footage onto the Mac and save it on the desktop however when I tried to reimport this media, the folder wasn't able to locate in Final Cut Pro X.

Tomorrow I will ask the computer technician to help locate these files and hopefully the upload to YouTube will be successful.

Editing Session Six

Today was our final full editing session.We had no timing restrictions as we stayed after school, this meant that we could take our time and not have any pressure due to time restrictions and allowed us to edit a high quality video.

The first thing that I did was upload the footage from our final filming session to the computer, I did this by importing the media through the USB when I plugged my phone in onto the Mac. Once imported, we were able to choose which parts of the song we wanted to use the solo by Tavonga with. We decided that we would use these parts whenever the chorus came up as many other music videos do when the chorus is playing. We also decided that it would be shown in minority parts of the music video where it isn't the chorus but looked well. This was an extremely hard task to do as we had to match up the lyrics and the sound of the song to the visuals of Tavonga singing to make it match up and look like it is him singing it. As it was a very difficult job myself and Eboni took turns in deleting and cropping the clips making them adjusted to fit perfectly with the visuals. This was stressful as it had to be perfect as a couple of seconds can put off the whole visuals and wouldn't match up and so we zoomed in closely on a lot of the clips to get the accuracy. This matches up to Andrew Goodwin's theory of music video's which states that when the lyrics and the visuals match up it makes it easier for the audience to understand.

As all of the footage was placed in the right order from last editing session in preparation for this session it was easy to place in Tavonga's solo performance where we needed it - however, it wasn't easy as we had to sync the lyrics with the visuals. To do this, when I was editing, I turned down the diegetic music and then turned the volume of the non-diegetic music so that we could listen to where abouts in the song it is and then switch the volumes round to match it up. Once this was roughly done, it was easier as we were a few seconds in roughly and could then begin moving the clips forward or backwards to fit with the visuals. This has been the hardest bit of editing so far as it took lots of concentration and a long amount of time ( about and hour) to do a small task. However, once this had been done the video matched up perfectly and looked to the professional standard we were aiming for.

The final thing which we did was transitions which we left until last. We made sure to include transitions as if we hadn't, the whole video would have jumped between shots and therefore looked unprofessional. The two that we used the most were "cross-dissolve" and "fade to clear" as they looked professional and didn't take away too much of the audiences attention from the narrative of the video. We placed the transitions in the places where we thought the mood or the scene changed to allow the audience to follow the narrative more clearly and show that there is a change in mood or setting to cause little confusion. I did this by clicking the transition and dragging them in the relevant places which was a quick and effective job.

Editing Session Five

Today we went to do our fifth editing session for our music video. However, it wasn't a very long session as it was during lunch when the class where the iMacs was empty, this meant we only had around 40 minutes to edit. We uploaded the remainder of the footage so that we had all that we needed to make the music video for us on the Macs and could finally complete the video. All of the footage was not landscape which matched up as last time we had both landscape an portrait which didn't flow and looked extremely unprofessional. Most of this editing session was placing the footage in order and cutting them so that they weren't too long and could cut out the bits which we didn't want in the video, we did this by using the blade tool on the editing software. I did the most of this as I am fast with using the blade tool and was able to quickly crop the clips and drag them in an order to which I knew they needed to be in with the help from Eboni and Adam.

The second thing that we did was take out the volume of all the footage. The reason that we did this was because if we had left them on then we would have been able to hear it and it would have clashed with the non-diagetic music which we had placed in. We did this by dragging down the volume on the bottom of all the footage clips.

Editing Session Four

Today, we went back to edit our existing material at lunch so that when we upload our next set of material we will only have to edit that.

First of all, we rearranged the footage to make sure that it was all in the right order as some of it wasn't where it should have been.

We then edited the bit where Eboni and Tavonga are arguing and Eboni smashes the glass, she then walks out the door and Tavonga follows. I took the lead in editing this part and so first of all I gathered all of the shots we had from the different angles and suggested that we use both for the argument scene from behind Tavonga's shoulder and also a two shot. I then began cutting these two pieces of footage in half so that we could use both perspectives and also matched them up at the exact point they needed to be to flow properly. I did this using the blade feature of the editing software. I then cut the smashed glass footage which was in slow motion as we had to wait too long for the glass to smash meaning it didn't match up to the argument.

After doing this, I then looked at the footage of them both running out the door which me and Eboni had previously looked at briefly in editing session three. To edit this, we used more than one perspective and identified which bits of which angles we wanted to include where. Once decided, I used the blade feature again and cut the clips in the relevant places to make sure that, when in order they matched up to run smoothly when played at normal speed. This was done successfully and is now fully edited.

The next thing we discussed was moving the song. As the intro was very long but we wanted to include it for definite and also because we couldn't film at the Christmas markets so we had more of the song to fill up so we decided that instead of doing the intro silent, we would include this within the song and when we trialed this, we were very happy with how it looked.

Lastly, we uploaded the time-lapse I took earlier that day to the start of the video which will set the mood and also remain silent to keep some sort of an intro within the music video.

Time Lapse

Today in school, myself and Eboni saw an opportunity for filming when looking out the window. For the fist time since we started filming there was a blue sky with few clouds. We thought this would be a great introduction for our music video and so set up the time lapse looking out the window of school.
Here is is:

Problems with filming

Due to Tavonga's extremely busy schedule, we weren't able to film yesterday which leaves us behind schedule. However, we are able to film all afternoon and evening today which should allow us to get all of our filming completed and ready to edit on the Macs for a finished product.

Editing Session Three

Today, Eboni and I decided that we would edit our existing material in a free lesson we both had, unfortunately Adam couldn't make it as he was busy.

The first thing we did was watch the material we had already uploaded onto the Macs and place these into a proper order as last time we did this it was only rough.

I then added my time-lapses into the folder which I filmed this morning which will be added into the project when and if needed.
We then played it through to see which bits we may want to cut and delete completely.

We then found what we had already learnt in the previous lesson that a lot of the footage we couldn't use because it appeared as "missing camera" in the imported media folder. As we have already discussed, we will be refilming these parts that were done on the iPad anyway and do it on Adams phone so that the size and the quality of the camera are consistent throughout. Also, with it on the iphone, we had no problems uploading the material onto the iMacs.

The last thing we did was edit the volume of the footage uploaded. This was so it would be ready to put the music over when we join them and also so we would have less to do when we upload the other footage.






Here is a time-lapse of a bit of our editing session:

Filming Day Four

Tonight we did our last pieces of filming which was Tavonga's performance singing the whole song which was done in a car park in Hale village and also the scene with Tavonga and Eboni which we filmed in John Leigh Park where they were walking and on the bench and swings etc. As Eboni was in the filming for the park scene, the camera work was mostly myself and Adam.

The first thing we did when we were all in the car was drive to John Leigh Park. Here we filmed Tavonga and Eboni when they were happy which is a flashback to the happy times as a couple. However, as it was a week day so we all had to go home from sixth form first and then get ready to film, once we had all been picked up and reached the park, it was extremely dark as it was winter. This meant that we had to improvise with lighting.
When we had Eboni and Tavonga in place, Adam made sure that the camera had them featured in it and then filming began but as it was extremely dark we had to use artificial lighting. To do this, myself and a friend who was with us held a spotlight on wither side of the swings and then as it was still too dark, I used my phone and balanced it on the tripod so there was also light facing straight on underneath the camera. This created enough light to film and the shots were ok.
Next in the park, we filmed the next bit of the flashback which was on the bench where I took over filming. I used a low angle shot on the tripod to look up at the couple whilst I told them to talk about anything so it looked natural. Again, artificial lighting was used here and so Adam helped with the spotlighting. I took more than one shot here so we had some to choose from if they looked more natural than others, this was a good idea as when looking back, one of the last shots included Eboni laughing which set the mood for the happy flashback. I made sure that more than one shot was used here as I wanted to make it look as professional as possible so when I had the low angle shot, I moved to the side of them and got a close-up two shot which worked well with the head on one.
We then filmed the last part of the scene in the park which I also directed primarily and filmed which was Eboni and Tavonga holding hands. When there I had the idea to use a still camera and have Tavonga and Eboni hold hands and walk towards the camera and straight past it which looked extremely good and fitted with the romantic nature of the video very well. It was also a good variation from normal as it was the first static camera shot included. We then did this of them walking away from the camera too to end this flashback of them walking away.

The second place we went to film was a car park in Hale, we decided to film here as there was a brick wall which we thought looked professional and knew would fit in with the nature of the song. It was easier for us to film here as it already had some lighting from the shops and also we could use the car headlights to shine on Tavonga and light up the whole of the image in the camera. To film, we played the song on the phone so that Tavonga could sing along to it and get perfect timing to fit with the song uploaded on the Macs and then we could turn the volume off the footage so that the songs wouldn't clash. ( Turn down the diagetic music and overlap with non-diagetic audio of song downloaded. I was in charge of the filming in this location as I set up the tripod with Eboni and then positioned the camera and held it for the whole performance.










Here is a short time-lapse of us setting up for filming:

Problems with footage

When we got into school on Monday, we uploaded our new film material to the Macs. When we uploaded the material, we put it into order and then found that they weren't all the same size image as we had filmed about 40% of the material portrait way instead of landscape. This means that we will have to re-film these parts on our next filming session on Tuesday 12th January. This shouldn't be a problem as we will already be out filming so it just means we can go to Adams after this and quickly recapture the shots we made a mistake with.

Filming Day Three

This morning I filmed part of the music video from home.
As my road is usually busy in the mornings, I thought it would be a good idea to set up a time lapse from my bedroom window when I woke up and leave it for a while.
I deleted lots of files on my phone to make sure that I could do this.

Last night I decided to trial this, however I didn't do it directly from my phone. I decided to research apps on the internet which would be good for time lapses and found that the app "Hyperlapse" would be a good one to use and so I downloaded the app on both my phone and Ipad and tested this out of the back window overlooking fields. However, when I tried this, it turned out that despite the good reviews the quality was extremely poor on the app and even worse when the ipad camera was worked.

In the morning I was going to leave the camera on my phone on the window and speed it up to make it a time-lapse on the Macs, however when I was swiping through the platforms on my phone (camer, video, panorama etc) and saw that I had a time-lapse update on my phone and so was able to film it.

I left my phone for around five minutes and came back to a notification saying "low storage" which had stopped the filming, however I still had enough for the video and tried it again when it was slightly lighter and more busy so we have two pieces of footage to film with.

I then filmed another extremely short time-lapse on my way to sixth form in the car whilst going over a bridge which may be something to include in the music video for a "filler" if we need one at any point in the video.

Here are the two time-lapses I took from my window:






Here is the time-lapse I took from another window which didn't work out so well:

Filming Day Two

Today, we re-filmed the parts in the intro where Tavonga and Eboni are in the kitchen.
The reason we are re-filming this is either because it was filmed portrait and so not the right size for the music video, or it was done on the iPad and so it wasn't good enough quality to use for the video. Eboni had the portrait footage on her phone which made it easy to film as we knew exactly what we needed to re-film and also so it was quick and easy to do as we didn't want to keep Tavonga for too long due to the fact that he will also be filming on Thursday with us.

Firstly, Eboni got ready exactly how she did on the last filming session wearing the same heels, pencil skirt and shirt with similar make-up and hair which will match up to the other shots from the original filming session.

The first shot we did was the one to the left. It is when the phone is placed in the glass cupboard which Eboni walks over to and gets the wine glasses out of. We had to re-film this shot as last time it was done portrait instead of landscape and so it wasn't the right size for the music video. We did this easily and so that the audience could explore more locations in the setting rather than just long shots from a distance.

The next shot which we filmed and I took charge in directing was when Eboni walks in the door and throws her keys and bag onto the table. I took this shot as it was my idea when we did the original filming. When placing the camera to get the right angle and focus, I found that on the trial run it looked good with the blurry effect and so when I was focusing in on the screen I made sure to blur out the background and focus on the table immediately infront of the camera which I thought gave it an extremely professional look:




The next shot that we filmed was the arguing scene. This was done through two differing
perspectives, each filmed by myself and Adam. Adam filmed Eboni walking in, getting the glasses and putting them down on the kitchen surface next to Tavonga who was angrily stood there on his phone. I filmed this scene from an extremely high angle shot on my own phone. I did this by standing on a chair and raising my arms as high as I could to capture a very high angle shot.

The last piece of filming we did was something which we didn't do in the original filming but something that was to be included in the video that we forgot. This was the door scene which was when Eboni walks out the front door of the house and then turns back and they are both facing the door (facing each other). I mainly directed this as it was my idea to do it on the storyboard so I went on the stairs to get an elevated view of Eboni walking out the door and Tavonga placing himself against it after. I then did the close-ups separately and went outside with Eboni to film her going back and leaning on the door from the action shot and then also a close-up and then went back inside to film Tavonga's close up on the door to ensure we have as many different angles as we possibly can use to match up to make it as professional as possible.

Talent Release Form

In order to maintain our standard of professionalism in the production of our music video, it is vital that we go through the relevant procedures that any other music video production would do so. As Eboni and Tavonga have agreed to take part in our filming, the permission to be posted online and feature in a video is important. It is because of this that they were asked to sign a Talent Release Form confirming this information.

Digipak Template

Before I start my ideas and drafts for the digipak, I decided to make a template for the product. To do this I researched the layout and structure of digipaks as you can see in my previous blogpost and then researched them on the internet. I have come up with this template below by looking at previous blogs from the year above and then covering the boxes with plain white spaces ready for me to put mine in.

Uploading Footage (Editing Session Two)

Today we went to the Macs and uploaded material into our folder on Final Cut Pro X.
We uploaded material from both Adam's phone and Ebonis iPad. This was alright, however when we tried to disconnect Eboni's phone from the Macs it came up with a red image saying "missing camera" which meant that we couldn't access this material unless the phone was plugged in to the computer.
We then briefly placed them into a rough order on the timeline in chronological order to allow us to see if we had everything we needed so far.

Digi Pak Planning

Tonight, I will be spending my time planning my Digipak.
First of all, I will printout existing digipaks relevant to our genre ( R&B ) and particularly some of Ne-Yo's album covers so that I can grasp the sort of conventions that this genre conforms to when marketing. I can then decide whether I also want to conform this or challenge it.

I will also plan it around Tavonga and his sense of style and personality as he is after all the artist and the brad in himself.

Filming Day One

On Saturday night, we started our filming. This was the first time that Tavonga and the rest of us have been available to film these holidays. We rang our friend who came and collected us all and picked up Tavonga and we then drove to Adam's house to begin filming.

When we arrived at Adams house, I thought it would be a good idea to film selected parts of the video that we may not have necessarily included in the storyboard but we could use as fillers, for example; the pan of the bottle of wine on the side of the kitchen unit. It is shots like these that should gain us marks for creativity and different shot types that we can experiment with during the editing process.

A slight problem with this filming session was that we didn't have a tri-pod or anything for the phones to stand on so that we could get a nice and steady shot, instead we just had to make sure that we could keep as still as possible, and at times place the phones and ipads on flat surfaces. We checked every shot we got straight away as we got them to ensure that they were adequate and if not, we would re-shoot them.

We filmed in chronological order. We thought this would be the best as the part of the video we were filming was the narrative bit at the start with no music to set the scene. Chronological order worked really well as we could ensure that we got every single shot that we needed and also we could add in some new shots if we saw a good opportunity to do so. For example, I suggested that we place the camera inside the cupboard when Eboni is walking through the kitchen so that it would be a good POV shot from inside when Eboni was opening it and taking the glass out as we hadn't included a point of view shot as of yet. So, after we got the initial over the shoulder shot, I told her to do it again after I had placed the phone upright in the cupboard and pressed film.

Another idea that I posed was to have Eboni come into the kitchen and fling her keys and bag on the table, however this wasn't just a long shot with a steady camera, I decided to see what it would look like if it were placed on the actual table and the keys were thrown towards it making it a low angle shot. This worked extremely well.

When filming, Eboni was acting for the majority and so she couldn't do much filming, this left the work to myself and Adam. During the first filming session, Adam did quite a few of the slow motion shots as it was on his phone that we were able to do that, however, this meant that I was in charge of capturing the shots from other angles. I made it a priority to not use the same sort of shots in all the parts, for example, when Tavonga is stood against the surface I took a chair against the door and lifted the camera to my height to form a good quality high angle shot which portrayed the emotion he was feeling at this point in time, low and small.

The only concern I have with this filming session was that it was all done using both an ipad and an iPhone and last time we mixed platforms for filming we had to re-film due to the fact that the frames were different sizes on the iphones.

Change of location

Due to the fact that we couldn't get hold of Max on the day of filming, we had to decide on a new location to film the intro in.
Adam messaged Eboni and I and said that his kitchen would be available to use for when we needed it, this was a good idea as Adam has a very modern kitchen and it fitted well with the status and the style of the couple featuring in the music video.

Rose motif

Before we started filming, we had to find a rose for the motif in the music video.
First, we went to tesco to find one, however, there was an extremely small collection and so we thought that we would buy a full set with a rose in it. When we decided to do that however, there were no roses and so I decided to ring a friend who I thought may have one.
It turned out that they did in fact have one and so we drove to pick it up and then the filming started.

Filming

Due to the fact that Tavonga has been extremely busy away from home lately and in the past week, we have had to postpone filming until the last weekend of the Christmas holidays.
Tavonga has just arrived home and so this means that tonight we will film the kitchen scene (intro) where the glass is smashed and there is arguing etc.
This will be the start of our filming and we will hopefully carry on tomorrow day or a full day of filming.

Tavongas Profile

I decided that I would have a look at Tavonga's social media so that I could form a more rounded view of Tavonga not only as a normal teenager but as an artist.

In the music video, just as we have done with Eboni with the female role we will be altering Tavonga's identity in the music video too.

Name: Tavonga Dzawo

Age: 17

Location: Manchester

Education: Xaverian College, Manchester - Music

Likes: Music, dancing, playing guitar, singing, fashion, socialising

In the music video however, this is how we would like Tavonga to be presented:

Name:
Age: 20
Location: London
Education: Not in education, working highly paid job
Likes: wealth, high class value, fashion, dancing/singing