Evaluation

This is the evaluation for our music video, answering questions in relation to how our pieces combine and relate to synergy:

Photos/images from filming!

Out-takes!

As said in the previous blog, we made various mistakes throughout our filming. Although some were actually released within our film, some were mistakes through production or a variation of shots which we felt necessary to repeat in order to match a perfect shot alongside our initial ideas and our film.
Below is a short video featuring some of these takes, to which we made for amusement, were entertaining due to being wrong on the day, or were in fact mistakes due to frustration.

Continuity errors/changes

Although we managed to stick to our original storyline to our storyboard, we had to make a few selected alternations to enable our editing and lip-syncing to work efficiently. We used video adjustments to alter the colours - such as presenting the first 'present' era as brightly, red filtered, whilst the old-fashioned style was in black and white - following by cropping shots when necessarily, such as focusing on Jess' lips when this was the core of the shot. The lip-syncing took management, but was positive in our output due to it matching the song perfectly. Also, we used an instrument of the guitar to open our shot to add a variation and twist from the typical girly, pop-music stereotype, with the artist strumming an instrument - also in time to the sound.
We are pleased with the editing - such as the cross blur edit from the opening guitar to the beat of the song, as this adds a 'pull' affect, alerting the audience into the music. We also repeated this edit to acknowledge a pull into the separate era again, as shown when the black-and-white follows. We conclude with a separate edit, concluding the video to 'fade to black' to show a finish. Other than this, we stay with cuts throughout, as we felt this played well alongside the bouncy beat.
Although we are pleased with the production of this music video, we made various errors throughout. Re-takes had to be taken - likewise in all productions - which can be shown in my next blog of 'out-takes'. However, continuity errors and mistakes that vary from are plans can be shown, which are of follows:

1. A blurry shot from the second cut (third frame) of Jess trying on necklaces. We inserted this shot spontaneously on the Monday of shooting, in case of our original plans not outlining properly. However, we wanted to focus in to this shot more thoroughly, so with the crop, a blur can be found.



2. Also in relation to our original ideas, we wanted synergy to be found with the guitar. We were going to achieve this through placing it next to the table on the day of shooting. However, due to rushing and too busy focusing on our shot, we forgot this insert.




3. A cut follows a hairbrush, to panning up to focus on Jess brushing her hair and lip syncing in the mirror. Although this worked quite well, we noticed through editing that another member of our group - Sophie - is in fact in the shot! She wasn't filming or working at this point, so she was sitting on the bed behind the table. However, a corner of her face can be seen slightly in the corner of the mirror. After talking to our teacher we decide to not re-shoot this small scene, due to this only being our preliminary task - therefore a practise. However, in our actual piece, we would have to overcome errors likewise to this.





4. Jess smiling/looking at the camera




5. Jess wearing plasters during the up-close, heel scene
   
6. A slight alteration in colour in the first 'era.' It is firstly quite light, and then turns more shaded in the last shot. We tried to over come this by gradually darkening the colour in the previous shots
   
7. Jess looking as though she's about to laugh


8. Within the old-fashioned scene (Sophie's kitchen) slight area's of the mise-en-scene don't add to the stereotypes of that time - e.g. a large fridge, a big light on the wall, etc... however, we aimed to keep this out of the shot and focus upon the 'bar area'.
   
9. Close-up shot of Jess' lips singing - very blurry shot through brightening up edit, as it was far too dark in comparison to the previous black-and-white shots


Obvious it's a kitchen - a plan/plug/cabinets can be seen during a quick cut of a dancing scene


We were unable to over come several of these errors through production, such as the setting being the only one available and similar to our needed scene. However, we made obvious errors in not putting the guitar in position, placing objects such as plants within a supposed 'bar' setting, and the actor's laughing - as well as us including this in the scene. However, we have selected the best possible video clips, and feel this is a good try for a first music video to include editing to the beat, as well as lip-syncing.

Music Video

After filming last Saturday late afternoon and Monday night, we felt that we had enough footage in relation to our initial ideas. This filming took approximately 3 hours in total, which we found worked quite well in relation to our schedule. The majority of our storyboard correlates alongside the footage below, paralleling the track 'In These Shoes' by Kirsty MacColl - our assigned track. We have achieved our main aims of lip-syncing and editing to the beat, therefore accomplishing our task. The video can be viewed below:

Props needed for filming!

As we are filming both tomorrow and Monday night, we need to prepare a series of essientials to fall alongside our initial plans. These range in props, which are very ideal to converge with our storyboard ideas, or else ours planning will not parallel our production.
Tomorrow night's props:

• Fur coat
• Flapper dress
• Red heels
• Beads
• Flesh-coloured tights
• Straighteners (to curl Jess' hair)
• Hair piece (my jewelled hair band) for Jess' hair
• Red lipstick
• A handbag
• Eyeliner for Jess' flicked eyes
• Tables/stools for the 'bar scene'
• Flashy lights for the bar scene
• Wine glasses/drink to add to the set?
• Red nail varnish
• Costumes - mainly old-fashioned dress' - for both myself and Sophie, so we play alongside the scene
• Camera/tripod/tripod wheel for filming
• Flashlights?

Monday night:

• Flower-styled dress
• Red heels
• Gold necklace
• Straighteners for straight hair
• Pink lipstick
• Hairbrush/desk/mirror/girly products/jewellery for table scene
• Coat
• Bag
• Keys
• Towels (for 'friend' in opening)
• Pink guitar
• Red nail varnish

Storyboard for our video

We haven't included all of the timings on our storyboards, as we are unsure how they will work alongside the music, timing wise. I was unable to access the song fully to make approximate timings throughout, apart from the occasional 0.5 seconds flash shot, so therefore it will be easier to access alongside the song on the day. We are filming tomorrow night at Sophie's house for the black and white scenes, has she has props such as disco lights and dark room. We will film the first half of the film on Monday at Jess' house, reflecting the present scene.

We were hoping to represent this blog as a small video on a flash-type video programme, although with our little time limit due to needing to focus on filming from now on and then onto editing, we were unable to complete this. However, onto next year's work, we will spend more time on each piece and present them in more complex formats, differing from one another.

However, here is a short video reflecting how far in production to ideas we are for our storyboard. Although it is blurry, you can recognize the main ideas/imagery/edits of the video:

Final Digital Booklet Ideas

Below is our final idea for the digital booklet. As you can see, there are many similarities between our pilot idea, although we made some changes through production:

1. As you can see, we have kept to the same template. The front cover shows the girl in the right hand corner again, with the corner of her head - her forehead and eye. However, we scrapped the idea for a cartoon brain as it made the cover appear too cluttered and overwhelming. Also, the colour's did not match the rest of the colour theme
2. The thunder bolts are still used on the cover, with flashy, brightly colours to add to a fun theme, complimenting the artist's personality and funky music. There are smaller thunder bolts in order to not stress the image, although we feel the larger one compliments the picture well.
3. In relation to this, this thunderbolt is a signal to the artists name. It directly points at it, giving an illusion of lighting it up. We have chosen the same fancy font for 'Kirsty MacColl', in order to stick to the same iconography. In relation to the font, the titles in the bubble are pink and shiny, to compliment the title as well as vary from the bleaker colours, so show a more girly, pop-music theme for the front cover
4. The background follows the synergy of the black-and-white polka dot theme, complimenting the girly motif. This can be recognised on both this and the poster, achieving our main goal of synergy.
5. The colours contrast on this, although it works well as it shows a range of the artist's music, showing a variation. However, they compliment girly stereotypes, falling well into pop music

The back cover includes:

1. The same motif black-and-white polka dot background
2. The use of the left and right images of the girl artist, as used on the poster. This shows a variation between her personalities. This falls alongside the use of the tracks in the centre of the case, with a grey block background and black font to avoid morphing into the all over black background. The titles and images fall well together, to show variation in music
3. We have, once again, used the same iconography for the artist's font on the back. We have used the same italic, red font to contrast with the background. The compliments the images on the background, with it being italic to add a twist, rebelling from the typical horizontal font. On top of this, we decided to use the lip print on the back cover again, although it was barely visible next to the title, so therefore we have placed it on the opposite side, although on a tilt. Therefore, everything on the back cover is in symmetry and works well together.
4. We have also placed the traditional bar code, as said, on the cover, to add to realistic CD covers.

The opposite cover:

1. This is dark grey, to contrast slightly from the black background. We used the same italic bold font for 'Thank You', although in pink to add to the pink lipstick colour, compared to the red colour used repeatedly in 'Kirsty MacColl'. We didn't have enough time to add a speech to the 'thank you' area, although we inserted a large lip mark to converge with the pop, girl-like theme.

The binder:

1. The binder features our original ideas of featuring the artist's name and title. We have displayed this in white font to contrast with the black background, as well as fall alongside the black and white, background theme.
   

Above is our inside ideas for our cover. These aren't as complex in ideas, but we have managed to stick to our original ideas:

1. The two left hand side covers of plain grey, due to a flap being made to cover these up, to reveal the 'thank you' on the opposite side
2. The right hand side reveals where the CD disk will be held. However, if you remove the disk, you can see an image of the trademark red heels, reflecting synergy between a single and the album that it is released from.
   

Digital booklet design

In relation to our music production synergy, part of our task is to produce a digital booklet for the CD for our single, 'Red Shoes'. We decided to produce an initial idea for Kirsty MacColl's album that features this single, titled 'Tropical Brainstorm', which we conducted over Tuesday and Wednesday's Media lessons. Therefore, we wanted to combine our ideas from our produced poster and our pilot ideas for our video, combined upon our CD.
Here is the front cover for our initial ideas:

1. The front cover shows our 'artist' in the bottom right hand corner, with a neon brain in their head, to add to a cartoon effect, hinting at the artist being fun. They have a speech bubble coming out of their head, with the words 'TROPICAL BRAINSTORM', in bold font. A thunderbolt is striking through the bubble, paralleling with the CD title, with synergy found in the background with black and white polka dots.
2. On the reverse cover - being of the back cover - showing synergy again with the same image of the artist in two eras shown. She has been placed on the right hand side and left hand side of the box, likewise to the poster. The same font as the poster representing her name 'Kirsty MacColl' also follows, in fancy italics, to emphasize a formal, jazz-like song. A kiss sign can be found next to the font, likewise to a lip print. This will be pink, to fall alongside to the similarity to the 'present-era' in the video. Therefore, a combination of both eras can be found on the CD's front. Synergy can also be found with the background, again shown as black and white polka dots, achieving our main goal of similarities between them music productions. To fall alongside the stereotype of CD covers, we aimed to include various other song titles, which fall between the two images of the artists, featuring approximately 13 tracks. These would be in clear, possibly fancy font, bold from the background. Also in relation to typical CD covers, we will include a bar code to make our digital booklet appear more realistic.
3. The binder of the CD is also typical of other CD packages, with the artist's title and the title of the album falling alongside the strip, being likewise to the font featured on the cover.
4. On the other strip - which would flap upwards and cover the opposite side of where the CD disk would be placed. This is also typical of digital booklets, which features a 'thank you' from the artist, being personal to them so that they can relate to the fans. This would be written in fancy font also, with the heading being bold to highlight it. Also, we would repeat the kiss print to add to synergy.
   
   
5. This is the reverse of the front case, when laid out. The two blank covers on the left would be black and white polka dot, with it folding up to add a unique twist to the CD. The 'thank you' would be revealed when this flap is revealed up.
6. The opposite side would be where the CD is held. Black and white polka dots would cover the background, emphasizing synergy. If this were a real case, when the CD is taken out, a photograph of a pair of heels would be revealed. This adds to the Kirsty's main single that we are focusing on 'In These Shoes' - as well as being the original heels that we will use within the video. Therefore, synergy can be found once more again.
7. On the binder of the inside of the CD, we have repeated the image of the lip print, in a small pattern over and over.

Overall, these images combine well, all being recognised upon the poster and our ideas for the video for the single 'In These Shoes' that we are to film tomorrow, over the weekend. We produced the final idea for this digital booklet yesterday, which is in the progress of being scanned now.