Explaining costume choices

Communication

Good communication is key whilst completing coursework as you need to keep up to date with what eachother is doing and arranging to meet up and do blog posts together. Me and Charlotte have been good at communicating so far in our coursework and have always stuck to plans made and do what we have to do in the time we have.

Filming Diary- Day 4

Choosing projector videos

We decided to have a location where our artist would be lip syncing in front of a projector screen. For this to look as best as it could we wanted different videos playing in the background.
We searched on YouTube for cool effect videos. As our song is called "Glitterball" we wanted videos that resembled something sparkly and glittery, which would also look good against the sparkly top that we have chosen for our artist to wear. We then made a playlist on YouTube so that we could easily access all the videos we wanted.



We also used some of our own videos that we already had such as Bry and her boyfriend. This would go along with our concept and theme of love throughout the music video.

Added location

We decided to add another location as we were unsure whether after filming at all three of our locations we would have enough miming footage. We decided that we would add in an extra location where Bryony can mime in front of a projector screen whilst videos are playing. This then ensures we have more than enough footage that we can use to quickly edit different parts together. We thought as well this is a common feature in music videos to have a location where you can just see the artists miming and so would make ours look more realistic. As well this is easy for us as we can just do this in school as it would be difficult to find extra time out of school when we are both available. We added this to our shooting schedule so we know when to film. This will be referred to as shoot day 4 which we will do on the 26th of November and will be our fourth day of shooting.

Risk Assessment for Winter Wonderland

Risk Assessment Day 3

Change of location

Due to the time of year that we are filming, unfortunately Adventure Island in Southend is closed for the season. We researched other places that have fun fairs in November -which are extremely rare due to weather conditions- but came across Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park in London. In fact we were happy with the location change as the fun fair will be busier and look a lot more festive and therefore probably better in our video. It also gives us an opportunity to experiment in other small locations that we might want to film along the way such as train stations, Oxford Street lights etc. We have also decided to change the props that we use at this location, to just a cosy bobble hat so we blend in with the location. Whereas we were meant to film on Sunday the 22nd we have rescheduled to just two days later. Everything else such as props, and kind of shots that we want to take will stay the same. We added our changes to the shooting schedule that we have kept up in the sixth form office to help us keep on track. 

Prelim 2

As we are now half way through filming and have downloaded the editing software (   ) that we intend to use for the real music video, we decided to have a play around to see how our footage was looking and also to test out how good the software was. This allowed us to practice getting the lip syncing in time with the song, practice cropping the videos and seeing what looked good next to each other. We found that most of our clips we will have to be divided up, as they are actually really long but we can separate it into chunks and use throughout the song in different places. As well, we found that having two clips in the same location or of similar angles and lighting does not look as effective as showing quick costume changes etc. Doing this as well allowed us to test out more advance features of the new software such as the slow motion effect. Seeing a small part put together got us really excited as we were really happy with how our footage turned out. We look forward to the rest of filming!

Choosing an editing software

http://video-editing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

Props for Adventure Island filming

For day 3 of filming we plan to go to adventure island at Southend when it's dark and also get a few shots on the beach next to it in the dark, where we wanted to use a couple of props.

As the song "glitterball" is primarily about love we've tried to show this theme in some of our footage such as drawing hearts in the sand and Bryony making heart shapes with her hands.

Using this idea and taking inspiration from Rihanna's "we found love" where she uses a sparkler to write "yours", we wanted to use sparklers to create a heart on the beach in the dark. As the time we are planning to film is around bonfire night sparklers were widely available to buy and so we purchased some from pound land.

Another prop we wanted to use came from inspiration from Beyonce's video "XO" as this also takes place in a theme park. We liked the idea of the bunny ears as a concept that represents fun and sexiness.

View on Flipagram

Artist Fan Message

Designing Merchandise

Blogger App

Filter experimenting

The image of Ella in her album cover has been edited with a sepia filter. As an artist this shows she is a bit vintage and original as well as her music being old school. I also think a filter is used to connect with her audience and represent her as an artist. Instagram is a very popular social network where images are posted and filters are used so Ella doing this creates rapport with them and shows her audience she is up to date with technology and she also filters her images. This empowers women. For our digipak or advert image we will use a filter to help present what we are about as an artist. I chose this image to play around with as the woman looks very natural and beautiful and glowing which is what we are going for for our image. My favourite filter is the centre one "X-Pro II" as it really enhances her beauty and her facial features.

Using twitter

Social networks bring our world together, they are the glue of communication and allow us all to interact and share media in a quick and easy way. Magazines are published daily, weekly or monthly meaning they are slightly outdated once they are on the shelves. Social networks and the Internet allow us to keep as up to date with what's happening as possible. As soon as something occurs in the media it is posted on the World Wide Web visible for us all to see. Twitter is one of the newest social networks and the majority of users are teenagers and young adults, therefore we thought Twitter was the best social network, along with Instagram, in which we communicate with our target audience.

Here is Ella Henderson's verified Twitter in which she posts pictures, videos and general tweets. She does this to allow her fans to interact with her and feel apart of her world whilst also promoting herself as an artist. This method of communication allows fans around the globe to see what's going on with Ella and her music it also means that Ella's fans can reply and comment and voice themselves by "quote tweeting" "liking" or "retweeting" her tweets or simply just replying to them. 

On our Twitter account I update regularly in order to keep our fans and followers up to date with our progress. It is important to let our target audience in ok what's going on as it keeps them engaged and interested in us as a recording label. Using images and videos caters to our audiences needs as it provides them with visuals allowing them to not only read what's going on but also see it with their own eyes, consequently making them feel involved and apart of the process. 

Using Instagram

Instagram can be used for more than just posting photos for our fans to see. So we can use the app/social media site to its full potential we followed a range of different accounts to help with further research into music videos, music companies and artists.

It was important to follow artists who are similar to Ella Henderson and Sigma so that we could see how they target audiences similar to us. This would help us see how to create a star image and brand.

We followed Justin beiber who is a prime example of how to use Instagram for promotion. We used other famous people such as Ben Stiller to promote his album, as the primary audience of Ben Stiller is not the same as Beiber, but if he likes it then they probably would too increasing Beiber's fan base. Hashtags are also used for interactivity as you can see who else is posting with that tag, this again increases the amount of people who see it. 

We also followed some of the most popular celebrity accounts in general such as Kendall Jenner, to see how she has gained so many followers. We saw how her whole page has a similar theme in terms of colours and edits, so that it is pleasing to the eye and decided we needed to do this too by using a range of different apps to edit our photos such as squaready and photo collage makers.

Other important accounts to follow were music labels, both independent and the big conglomerates. We found that not many of the larger companies eg universal music group had an Instagram page, just mainly posted on Twitter. This showed us a gap in the music industry that diamond cut records to use to an advantage, as Instagram is becoming increasingly popular and so can use it more than other companies do.

Filming Diary- Day 2

Risk assessment for Thorpe Bay beach

Risk Assessment Day 2

Instagram page

To further help diamond cut records make their mark on the music industry I created an Instagram page to represent them. Along with the Twitter account this can be used to keep fans updated on the work we are doing such as behind the scenes filming posts and further promotion. We also included what would be the companies website on the Instagram page if people wanted to find out more.