Update!

Due to the unfortunate circumstances of not being able to film within the train station, we have altered our storyline and changed the setting to a street. Whilst filming here we would need to ensure that we are stay fully aware of any approaching cars and the surroundings. We would also need to be sure that the local residents are happy for us to film on their street,

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Georgia Lateo, Alice Fortune and Zara Pearce for giving up their time to appear in our filming. Especially because the day we filmed was awful weather and they had to wear inappropriate clothing.

I would also like to thank Georgia's mum for allowing us to film within her house.

Finally, I would like to thank Tim; Zara's dad for granting us permission to film his offices even though people were still working at the time.

Question 4

Question 4

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Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is a vital part of any task as it allows you to identify both good and bad points to enable you to improve. We have got people to tell us their opinions of our products as we have been constructing them to ensure that the final product is perfect.

The first time that we required feedback was near the beginning of the project when we were brainstorming ideas.We explained to her our idea and she immediately liked the idea and thought that it would work with our song choice, however, she thought that something was missing.she felt that for the length of the song, we would not have enough of a storyline/shots to keep the viewers interesting and to actually make a good music video. She then suggested that the main male character could bump into other people that are in the woods but are dressed up in unusual clothing doing everyday things but only he is able to see them, they cant see him.

whilst we were filming, the other girls within our video gave us feedback throughout and shared their ideas of certain shots. This helped us greatly and gave us perspectives from different points of view.

Once we had finished filming and editing a rough cut, we showed this to our teacher and she gave us some useful feedback.

Unfortunately we were unable to film anymore footage because our main actress wasn't available at any time. Therefore we had to use what we already had and just edit it some more to make any possible improvements.



Digipak

Here is an image of our first draft of our digipak, along with audience feedback.

Website

TEACHER FEEDBACK

•likes the roll over images for the main navigational links on the page - however doesn't like them being pink, would prefer them to be blue
•doesn't like the pink used for some of the font - too many colours on the page, makes it look predominately for girls
•likes the idea of a user form
•like the rollover image of the album cover
•doesn't like the picture used for Georgia as it isn't cut out properly

CLASS FEEDBACK

•likes the header for the homepage
•likes the picture of the main male character in the top left corner of the page
•likes the idea of the user form
•doesn't like the main navigational links being pink

Having taken all of the feedback into account, we altered the website and this is the final product

Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?


Our brief was to produce a music video and two ancillary tasks. We chose to create a website homepage promoting the artist and a digipak for the latest album.

Video

'American Dream' Final cut from Daniel Jeffery on Vimeo

Webpages

Digipak

We made sure that there was a clear link between all 3 media products. We decided to use a shot from our video as our front cover of the digipak and on the inside we have used a montage of different shots extracted from the video to show consistency throughout. We have also linked the website and digipak by using bold fonts. As an artists, one thing that you hope to achieve is recognition by their products. They can achieve this by showing a clear link between their products.

Final cut

Here is the final cut of our video having retrieved audience feedback and taken it all into account

'American Dream' Final cut from Daniel Jeffery on Vimeo.

Question 1

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

For our media product we chose to use the song 'American Dream' by Jakatta which is of the dance/house genre. We chose this genre because it has a variety of music videos which would enable us freedom with our ideas. For our video we wanted to combine a range of conventions we have seen being used in existing dance videos and try to bring them across in our video. We decided that our video would tell a story. When it came to our video we didn't want our story to be too serious we wanted to add a playful twist to it. To explain how we did this, i am now going to analysis the general theory behind the forms and conventions of a music video and compare them with our music video.

Lyrics

There are very little lyrics in our chosen song; only of a couple of lines You cannot here them very well in the song, only the hushed voice of woman whispering in a seductive tone. However, there is one word that you can here quite clearly which is 'Overdrive'. The music picks up pace when this word is sung, therefore we edited the video to a fast cut too. There is a constant dream like feel to the song from the constant sighing and humming in the background which makes it work with the storyline of our music video.

Editing

In the general theory, the most common form of editing is fast-cut montage, rendering many of the images impossible to grasp on first viewing, so ensuring multiple viewing. However, we do not have any of this in our video as it wouldn't have gone with the storyline or even the song of our music video. Instead we have used effects such as a cross dissolves to make it flow in a dream-like way. We have also used dissolves with the change of scene and location. We also used blur effects for the going into and waking up from the dream. Without the blur effects, i feel that the video wouldn't have made sense because it would have been difficult for the viewer to establish that the character is in fact in a dream. Throughout the video we have used continuity editing to ensure that everything appears to follow on from each other as it would do in a story.

Music

The majority of the editing of our video was influenced and determined by the pace of the music. Throughout, we have tried to fit the different shots and scenes to the right parts of the music. An example of this is shown when the male character spots the other girls, he looks side to side. At this time the pace gets quicker and it adds suspense. As each new girl appears the more curious the music and video make the audience feel. Furthermore, when he begins to follow the main fantasy girl in his dream, the music quietens and it becomes more surreal and dream like as he wanders off to find her.

Digipak

Having researched album front covers, we found that the majority of covers include either a close up or a medium close up of the artist with a stern direct facial expression. When choosing an image for the front cover, we made sure that we took into account all the conventions. As a result, we chose to use a medium close up of Dan (our main character) with a direct expression. I feel that by using a direct expression it interacts the artist with the fan but also the seriousness of the expression makes them appear more superior.

Website

Here are screen shots of our two pages within our website promoting the artist; Jakatta.

The Homepage

Here is the same print screen but i have annotated it, describing the features used.

The video page

Website plan

Here is the plan that we made before making our website. We used the research that we had already found when looking into existing websites.

Exisiting websites

In order to gain an idea of what our artists website should look like, we researched into existing websites of music artists. One of the websites that we liked the look of was that of Taio Cruiz's. We liked the look of the home page of this site and therefore analysed it to see what looks good and what features we could include on our own homepage.

Other artist's websites that we looked on consisted of:

Rihanna

Tinie Tempah

Calvin Harris

Video rough cut

Here is the rough cut of our video. We played it to our classmates as well as our teacher to gather different feedback to enable us to improve it for a final cut.

'American Dream' Rough cut from Daniel Jeffery on Vimeo.

Here is the feedback from our classmates. We have taken into account that they have probably concentrated on the positives of our video to be nice. However, from all of the feedback that we retrieved, we came to the conclusion that the main improvements that needed to be made were the speed of certain clips needed to be quicker and some clips needed to be shorter in order to be more effective.

Day 4 of filming

Today's filming was the most important part for our video because it was the main event; the dream sequence set in a woodlands. The fact that it was the most important we ensured that we took a lot of footage from different angles. Today saw the introduction to two more actresses who were to play two mysterious girls within the woods.

The main problem that we encountered was that the weather was so cold that it affected the time that we could physically spend outside filming. We had to have breaks and go and sit in our cars to warm ourselves up. I am very proud and appreciate the girls dedication because they were still willing to continue with our video even though it wasn't their a-level at the end of the day. Also Dan did very well today because he was walking around in the wet and mud in only socks. He was frozen but didn't complain once.

Overall I am pleased with today's progress because I feel that we still managed to capture some really effective shots such as an establishing shot of the woodlands. I also liked an over the shoulder shot of Georgia looking at Dan. This is because it included both main characters and the setting in one shot, and it also informed the viewer that he is unaware of her presence.

Day 3 of filming

I wasn't actually available to film today but the rest of my group were able to so the filming went ahead without me. The part of the video that they filmed was the journey that Dan makes on his way home from work. This section is very important as it is the first sighting of Georgia; the leading actress. Therefore setting the correct scene and Dans reaction to her was vital. During this section, Georgia was supposed to disappear once Dan had spotted her. To achieve this, they asked a man if he would mind driving his van past to create the impression that Georgia disappeared.

Day 2 of filming

Today we filmed inside Zara's dad's offices. This is because we wanted a working environment and also wanted to portray Dan as a hard working middle classed man. I feel that we achieved this by the setting that we created and the clothing that we filmed him in; a suit. I am pleased with the filming that took place today as I feel that we took a lot of similar shots from different angles to enable us to edit the video to our full potential.

Day 1 of filming

Our first lot of filming was only of the main character; Dan. We filmed inside his apartment having been at work all day. Firstly we did shots of him sitting watching television and then we filmed the process of him falling asleep on the sofa to which the main plot of the video begins.














Due to the fact that it was our first day of filming, it took us longer than normal as we had to get used to setting the frames and making sure the lighting was sufficient. We began filming but found that the lighting wasn't bright enough, so we re-shot the scene with extra lighting.

Animatics of our video

Animatics from Lauren Jeffery on Vimeo.

Roles within our group

Here is a table of the different tasks that each individual within our group played a part of.

Digipak - 3D

This is our final digipak design in 3D view. To create this we uploaded a template off the Internet into the program Photoshop and used tools such as 'Magic wand' and 'Free transform'. Using the magic wand were able to delete the unwanted areas of the template and then with the free transform tool we changed the shape of our front cover and disc to fit the template. We also used the paint brush to make the background green. To ensure that the colours were the same throughout the products, we entered in the specific resolutions.

Digipak - final draft

This is the final design of our digipak.

We decided to design each panel with the same setting to show clear consistency throughout. Having consistency makes the digipak appear more professional.

I feel that the inside panel is the most effective out of the whole digipak. The image that we used is an establishing shot that we took while filming in the woodlands; were the majority of our filming took place. The text that we have included within that panel has been taken from the permission letter that the original record company of 'American Dream.' We wrote them a letter seeking permission to use their song for our project, to which they granted us permission to do so but asked if we would be able to display their credits somewhere.

We chose to use the image of the back of the main character for the back of the album as we felt it was effective representation. I feel that image we took was effective as it not only sets the scene but also gives the impression of being alone in the middle of nowhere, which is the effect we were portraying throughout the video. We have also included the record company's name (Rulin Records) in the bottom left corner, and a barcode in the right to make the digipak more realistic and as you would find them in the media world.

Having researched album front covers, we found that the majority of covers include either a close up or a medium close up of the artist with a stern direct facial expression. When choosing an image for the front cover, we made sure that we took into account all the conventions. As a result, we chose to use a medium close up of Dan (our main character) with a direct expression. I feel that by using a direct expression it interacts the artist with the fan but also the seriousness of the expression makes them appear more superior. The other image that we decided to include was of the other three characters. Using the gradient tool and colour contrast, we edited the image to give it a dreamy effect to be consistent with the plot of the video.

Overall I am pleased with our final product. I feel that it appears professional and could be seen in the real media world. We have managed to keep consistency throughout the project; between each panel and also between our main and ancillary tasks.

Digipak - 1st draft

Here is our first draft of our digipak which we made using Adobe Photoshop. We showed our teacher and fellow classmates our draft to which they gave us some very useful feedback to enable us to improve our design.





From this feedback we established that we needed to improve the overall look of the digipak by adding different images rather than just using the main character as it is too similar throughout. Also, we needed to make slight changes to the font for the panels apart from the main title 'Jakatta'. The positives to the digipak was that we wouldn't need to make any changes to the top right panel as it already appears professional and is simple yet effective.

Digipak

Initially I was unaware of what a digipak actually was. Having carried out some research I discovered that it is a product that I am familiar with, however I know it as being an 'album'.

In order for us to create our own digipak, we first needed to know the conventions. We found out that they were:

• usually a singular picture of either a logo, band member or actor on the front cover
• the name of the artist is clearly presented on the front cover
• most usually have the tracking list placed on the back of the digipak
• the same theme is carried throughout the front and back and also on the inside of the pack to show continuity
• a barcode is placed at the bottom.

Target audience

A key part to this project is finding out who would relate and appreciate our video, and who the video should be targeted to.

Uk Youth Of Today

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Editing our rough cut

Below are a few pictures of my group editing our video for our rough cut.When editing you have to consider many things. One thing is matching the shots and cuts to the music. This is a task that can be very challenging and time consuming. Other tasks involved are importing and rendering.




This picture shows us putting in a cross dissolve to our video. We did this because it creates an effortless flow between a clip. This is done by going onto effects and clicking dissolve and choosing cross dissolve. When placing a cross dissolve in you must make sure it is placed in the middle of both clips so the dissolve flows correctly.




This is a picture of us changing the speed of a clip. We did this so the clip would run in parallel with the music. By slowing down the clip it becomes bigger so it takes up more of the time sequence.

Problems so far

As the weeks have passed we have encountered a number of problems with our filming process.
We have a had a major problem with the weather and finding a day when it isn't raining and there is sufficient lighting to film.
Also finding a day where everybody included in the filming is available
When we looked over our initial footage we realised that we needed more shots than we had filmed, therefore we needed to go back to the same setting and film some more which is very frustrating and time consuming.
However when we went back to the train station to film some more, we were told that we weren't allowed to film there. Therefore we had to quickly find another spot to film without changing our whole video idea completely. We decided to film along a road as it would show the actor still on his journey going home.

Video Cast

Leading actor: Daniel Jeffery

Leading actress: Georgia Lateo

Actress: Zara Pearce

Actress: Alice Fortune

Response

Here is the response that we received from the record company whom we contacted for permission to use their song.

Song lyrics

Jakatta - American Dream

You bring new meaning to the word delicious,
You put me in overdrive

I like it when you do it like (moaning)

Our chosen song

We chose this song; American Dream by Jakatta, because we had decided to go with a mysterious fantasy like theme and we felt that this song portrayed this and would go well with the theme. As a group we could all picture our video idea as we played this song.

Copyright letter

Dear Copyright Holder, Rulin Records

We are A level students at Wilmington Grammar School for boys and we are writing to ask for your permission to use on of your tracks. The track that we would like to use is ‘American Dream’ by Jakatta.

If you were kind enough to let us use your track it will be used as the song for a video that we have to film for our A level Media coursework. We also have to produce an album cover and a magazine advert for the artist.

If we receive your permission, this track would ONLY be used in an educational context and be viewed by our media class, our teacher and the OCR exam board moderator. It would NOT be released to a large audience or uploaded to any public video websites.

The artist and your company would of course be fully recognised throughout production and the final video itself. A copyright notice, with wording supplied by you can be included in the records of the project. If this is required, please send full details.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
Daniel Jeffery, Chelsey Martin, Hannah Sealy