Elle Lefant Music Video

Final Magazine Advert

This is the final version of our magazine advert, after a few draft versions we finally settled for this one. We used the magazine advert research to look at the generic conventions of magazine adverts and tried to follow these conventions. We decided to use an image of our artist as the backdrop to make her a focal point as this is her debut album. We also put an image of the album on the advert to make it easier for our target audience to link the album to the artist. We used star ratings from The Guardian a respectable newspaper to entice our audience to purchase the album.

Final Digipak Designs

This is the front cover of the album.

This is the back of the album. We played around with the shadows and kept the same styled font throughout so that our audience can recognise the artist through the same styled text.

This is the inside panel of the album. We used acknowledgements for this panel, a common convention of albums.

This is the second inside panel. We decided to put an image of the artist and fade it out a little because this is where the CD will sit.

Evaluation

Evaluation Task

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media product?
When planning for our music video, we decided to rule out the songs in the genre of Pop and RnB because we wanted to try something we were not so familiar to. Jamendo is a music website  where unknown artists broadcasts their song. It is a free arts license website providing free downloads, distributing and copying.We used this site to find our chosen song 'Runaways'. After deciding on the indie pop genre and chosen song, we looked at artists in that genre. e.g. Lily Allen, Eliza Dolittle, The ting tings. An occuring thing that came up when watching these music videos were that they all had a narrative and  used studio shots. Colours were also used.
We conformed to the idea of using a narrative which most indie pop artists use. But also the narrative went in line with the lyrics as it helped to explain the lyrics. We also used varaiation of colours through costume and by filming during mid day.
However, we subverted the idea of using studio shots as all filming were done on location.
We chose to use a performing arts student as the actor as she is confident and familiar with being on stage or being recorded. Again, using the performer
Location was very important to us because we wanted to show a variety of shots to cover our backs and some cutaways when needed. Also deciding to include a narrative meant that we had to use a varitey of locations because the lyric "run to the nearest exit" allowed us to be creative and move unto a different location. Also symbolically, the locations we used showed was meant to show freedom.
We decided our target audience would be girls within the age group of 12-19. Taking this to mind, we ued certain things that would attract them such as clothing e.g. bangles, dresses. Also on our blog we used collages of items and prodcuts they would own or like so that the target audience can feel that they are being reflected in the music video.


How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
We looked at several magazine adverts which conformed to our genre


What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Before we went to film we went to the other class and asked them questions on what they things they would expect to see in the genre inde pop. They mentioned that a beach side would be a realli good idea to show a person over coming a relationship. This really helped us because we wasn't even thinking about using that. Again another audience feedback we got was to go back to Trafagular square and reshoot again as we hadn't used an establishing shots to

Evaluation- questions

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.

-research on Jamendo, a copyright free music website which helped us decide our song and music genre (indie pop).  We went through many of the songs and music genres on this website such as R&B, Rap, Pop etc
-researched other videos and music magazine and CD covers of our same music genre indie pop and found many results such as Lily Allen, Adele, Eliza Dolittle and the Ting Tings
-we conformed to the conventions of similar indie pop songs such as the narrative and the many locations
-our group did not use a studio to record any clips as the video was recorded in many outside locations
-choice of actor very easy to decide as Sonia was already a performing arts student who was very confident in front of the camera
-A variety of locations were necessary to ensure we had enough shots to keep it interesting for the audience as well as to make sure we weren't reusing any of the clips. Our narrative also meant our character was at different locations
-for the ancillary task we researched several magazine covers, eventually taking some of the ideas and inputting them onto our own covers (such as the layout, social network websites like facebook and twitter, sponsors and where to purchase the album from such as amazon and HMV)
-researched on digipaks and found they gave special offers and things like exclusivity when purchasing albums rather than downloading

How effective is the combination of your main product annd ancillary texts?

-posted a poll on the blog giving people options to choose what our music genre should be and how our artist should look
-researched on other artists like Diana Vickers and chose to follow a costume or dress sense like hers
-evidence of our feedback recorded on a camera of our group going to the other media class and asking them questions of what they thought about our choice of song and music genre and opinions on how our artist should look as well as the locations
-the audience should understand the narrative as it is fairly simple and that it is a indie pop song as we conformed to the conventions of and indie pop song (like the costume, colours, mise-en-scene)

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

-we received feedback for our opening scene as it was too dull and that it did not have enough lighting
-received feedback halfway through our editing as we required more clips as we didn't have enough to make up for the duration of the song
-after receiving feedback we went back to locactions such as Trafalgar square and recorded more clips as we needed some more establishing shots and we also went to a different location as part of our narrative. we reshot the opening scene and took some lights with us
-we were told to try and get shots of the artist singing in the studio however we were unable to as we had already enough clips for our edit
-the most helpful advice we got was from the feedback we got from the other class and miss about needing a variety of locations and going to Leigh on Sea as it was a very good place to shoot our music video
-for the ancillary task, specifically the digipak we had strong ideas about the front and back cover of the digipak however we were struggling with what to put on the inside, we researched other digipak covers like Leona Lewis and found ideas that help attract audiences into buying the albums such as giving special offers and exclusivity
-from other feedback we received, many people wanted us to give special offers like prices off concert tickets but miss didn't like it so we chose not to do that

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stage?

-we used the internet mainly by going onto websites such as youtube to listen and watch other music videos on indie pop artists
-we went onto google to download examples of music covers and magazine cover (evidence of this is on the blog as we have Lily Allen and Adele album covers on the blog)
-Jamendo was used to download the song and helped us choose a suitable copyright free song
-we used blogger as another source of research as we created polls for the audiences to help give us an idea what the audience would expect from a song of our chosen music genre
-we also used mobile phones to help play the song whilke recording our video to make it easier for sonia sing along to the song
-we also used lighting for some of the clips and for images for the magzines and digipaks
-we used photoshop which was very key as it helped us make our magazine covers and digipaks as it was a software which helped add effects and transform our normal images into a appropriate one that would suit a magazine or digipak
-we did rough cuts/ practices so that we can get feedback on it and make the necessary chages required
-the images of other album covers were downloaded and posted on the blog from home
- we also used the internet to find logos of social network sites where people can follow the artist and shops they can purchase the album from (HMV, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter were downloaded from google images)

Final Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

• When thinking about the genre to choose, we knew we didn’t want to do Rap/RnB we decided to try something different that we didn’t really listen to.
• We used Jamendo to research different genres as it has a broad range of uncopyrighted artists.
• Using Jamendo really helped because we had never heard of most of the artists on there, this allowed us to make our artist whoever we wanted them to be because we wouldn't be basing decisions for costume and artist image on that of the real artist.
• Chose Indie Pop, began researching artists such as Adele, Lily Allen, Eliza Doolittle and The Tings Tings.
• Common for an indie pop music video to contain narrative, conformed to this convention in using narrative to depict the story we felt the lyrics were trying to convey. 
• Also common for indie pop to use bright colours and daytime, conformed to this in using bright colours in our artist costume and shooting the video during the day. 
• Our video seems to evolve as it begins quite enclosed in the house scene and gradually moves on to more open spaces until it concludes at a beach, one of the most open space. This  effectively depicts the character's journey to freedom.    
• Needed to ensure that our actor was confident in front of the camera so when it came to lipsynching we were weren't struggling to get our actor to sing.
• Chose Sonia because as a performing arts student, performance and being in the spotlight is something that came easy to her. 
• Used a vast variety of locations because of our narrative but also to have things to cutaway to when editing, in order to maintain the audience's interest. 
• Ancillary task - researched different magazine adverts and album covers using similar conventions on our magazine advert and digipak. The main things we used from our research was the star rating, putting an image of the album onto the advert so that our audience could make the link as this is her debut album, logos of social networking sites and where the album can be bought. Also gave us ideas of ways to ensure that our audience buy the CD and not just download the album.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

• Audience feedback has been very beneficial, when first deciding on the song we went to the other media class and had them listen to the song. Gave us ideas of what they thought the video should be like.
• When we first began brainstorming we hadn't even thought of using a beach, came about as a result of audience feedback and I think this location made our video even better. Also gave us ideas for costume and what they saw the artist looking like.
• When were ready to go to Leigh on Sea, we were advised to check the tide clocks to ensure that when we were filming the tide wouldn't be far out.
• When we first filmed the house scene and uploaded the footage, we thought the lighting wasn't too great, we put a poll on our blog to see if our audience felt we needed to reshoot the scene with more light and a vast majority of them said yes. This was helpful the second time shooting was much better.
• When we first filmed in Trafalgar Square, we recieved feedback that we didn't get many establishing shots and it wasn't very obvious that we were in Trafalgar Square so from this we went back to reshoot.
•  
•   
• -the most helpful advice we got was from the feedback we got from the other class and miss about needing a variety of locations and going to Leigh on Sea as it was a very good place to shoot our music video
  -for the ancillary task, specifically the digipak we had strong ideas about the front and back cover of the digipak however we were struggling with what to put on the inside, we researched other digipak covers like Leona Lewis and found ideas that help attract audiences into buying the albums such as giving special offers and exclusivity
  -from other feedback we received, many people wanted us to give special offers like prices off concert tickets but miss didn't like it so we chose not to do that
  
  How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stage?
  
  -we used the Internet mainly by going onto websites such as YouTube to listen and watch other music videos on indie pop artists
  -we went onto google to download examples of music covers and magazine cover (evidence of this is on the blog as we have Lily Allen and Adele album covers on the blog)
  -Jamendo was used to download the song and helped us choose a suitable copyright free song
  -we used blogger as another source of research as we created polls for the audiences to help give us an idea what the audience would expect from a song of our chosen music genre
  -we also used mobile phones to help play the song whilke recording our video to make it easier for sonia sing along to the song
  -we also used lighting for some of the clips and for images for the magzines and digipaks
  -we used photoshop which was very key as it helped us make our magazine covers and digipaks as it was a software which helped add effects and transform our normal images into a appropriate one that would suit a magazine or digipak
  -we did rough cuts/ practices so that we can get feedback on it and make the necessary chages required
  -the images of other album covers were downloaded and posted on the blog from home
  - we also used the internet to find logos of social network sites where people can follow the artist and shops they can purchase the album from (HMV, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter were downloaded from google images)

Audience Feedback: Music Video + Ancillary Tasks

Both A2 Media classes gathered for a showing of everyone's music videos. The feedback that we got for our music video was very good. Everyone understood the narrative and liked the way our narrative fit in with the lyrics of the song. They felt that there were a variety of camera angles which made the video interesting to watch. They also liked our ancillary tasks but felt that one of the panels needed to link in with the other three which had gold and orange hues on them. They felt that this panel was too different from the rest.

They particulary liked our magazine advert and liked the fact that we placed an image of the album on it to allow the audience to recognise the album in stores.

Draft Version: 4 Panel Digipak

After the photoshop workshop, we had really strong ideas for the front and back panels of our digipak, but we were a little stuck when it came to the last two panels. These were some of our original ideas, however after receiving feedback from our peers and teacher we have decided to develop them. 

 

 

This was an idea which we really liked because we are trying to promote our artist so pictures would help to make the artists more recognisable. This would be where the CD would sit.

This was another one of our ideas. Acknowledgements are common in albums and so we also wanted to use this in our digipak.

Lyrics are also common in albums and we wanted to incorporate this in our digipak, however from audience feedback we realised that unless we were going to have a lyric book, it wouldn't really make sense to have the lyrics for just one song on the album. 

We wanted to have some sort of promotional offer in our digipak, that would act as an added incentive to buy the CD and not just download the album. So we came up with the idea of a discounted priced ticket for Elle Lefant's tour. 

Magazine Advert Draft Designs

This is our first draft magazine cover. We used a similar layout to the Hawksley Workman magazine advert from our research in making the image of the artist the background and having the artist name going across the middle. We still need to play around with the colours and sizes and add some more features common to a magazine advert e.g star ratings.

This is similar to the advert above but we thought adding colour to the artist name would make the advert better.
















This is another draft we felt that there was too much text on the advert so we moved things around and changed the text because we felt that the text in previous drafts didn't really suit the artist. We also added an image of the album as we had seen this on other magazine ads and thought it was important to do this because this is her debut album. We cut down the text by adding logos and made the text vertical in an attempt to make the image a focal point.

Editing

We have finally started editing the final version of our music video. We couldn't begin editing properly until we had re-filmed the house scene which is the first scene. If we hadn't have waited, everything we had edited would just have become out of sync when we slotted the new footage in. After doing our rough cut, we have found editing much easier as we are putting shots in the same sequence as they were before and then going over them more finely afterwards. We have found editing to be much quicker that way.

Day 7 of Shooting

Yesterday, we refilmed the house scene with more lighting. It was pretty much the same as before only this time we had to hold up a halogen lamp to the ceiling to give the room a better light. It went really well and because we had done it before, so we knew what we were doing and the shoot was much quicker. Now that we have done this we can begin editing properly.   

Problems with the FlipVid

As mentioned in a previous post about our disaster at Leigh on Sea, we were forced to film with a Flip Video camera. The only problem with this is that it films in widescreen, so any footage filmed with it will have a letterbox effect on it. We now have to put the letterbox effect on the rest of our footage when editing so our music video will look like a movie. This isn't ideal but we have no choice.  

Day 6 of Shooting

Today we went to film the scene outside the house where our artist is singing the chorus. We took a variety of shots so that we have a some clips to cut to if we don't have enough footage. We used two flip cameras as one was running out of battery but it was useful having two as we decided to film the same scene from several angles. We are hoping to film the house scene on Thursday as we didn't have good enough lighting so this time we will be using extra lighting.

Review of Footage So Far

Having edited a rough cut of our footage and posted it on our blog, we have got some feedback from our audience. The general comments we got were very positive so we know we're on the right track in terms of editing.

We are happy with our footage so far its helpful seeing it all together as we are better able to spot things we made need to reshoot. For example, after uploading the footage from the house scene we can see that we may need to refilm it because of the poor lighting. We have added a poll onto our blog to get audience feedback on this.

Posted by Maria Grillo