Distribution of Ancillary Tasks

Myself and work partner Chloe decided to work collaboratively to produce our ancillary texts of a digipak for The 1975 album and a poster to market this. Chloe and I decided to plan our texts together and worked towards creating drafts before finalising our products. In order to split tasks and work to our individual strengths. Below are the tasks we allocated :

Digipak : Photography - Megan
          Graphics - Megan
          Fonts - Megan
          Colour Choice - Decided Together
          Photo Editing - Chloe
          Print - Chloe
          Layout - Decided together  

Poster : Photography - Chloe
         Photo Editing - Megan
         Fonts and colour choice - Decided together 
         Graphics and print - Megan  
         Layout - Decided together  

Though we planned a basic design together but the production will be split equally with responsibilty shared for each task and we both will take on the finalising of editing 3 digipak panels each. Overall, we will share responsibility and still consult each other when each significant edits have been made. 

Update Post Anicallry Production, I finalised and produced the lyric panel,front cover and CD design with input from Chloe who completed the production of the remaning.See below :

 

Props list

We have created a list of props that we will be using in our music video, here is an inforgraphic to explain which props will be used and why. This may develop during production based upon the narrative and any changes. 

    

Risk assessment

Chloe and I decided to take a session of planning to assess the risks we may face when filming in our chosen locations. As we have decided to utilise many public, outdoor locations we believe it is important to check which possible risks can occur as we want to protect our cast and make sure filming environments are effective and the best quality possible.

 

Location recee shots

We found during audience research that urban locations were popular among our target audience, a range of other locations also scored well in the questionnaire which has impacted our location choices. As our narrative follows teenagers we want our locations to reflect the type of places teenagers will visit in reality, because of this careful consideration allowed us to finalise our choices of locations which we have receed.

Locations we will use :

-Teen bedroom
-University open day
-Local fields 
-Museum/art gallery 
-Local town 
-Canal/nature reserve 
- Film in living room

Location by Megan Russell

Storyboard

Chloe and I decided to take a two hour session to evaluate our narrative and scene ideas which then allowed us to transfer our ideas into a storyboard which provides an outline of scenes which will be edited in sequence. We understand we will include many more individual frames when producing our music video but decided to stick to base scene content as we will be sticking to a number of scenes and putting these into varying sequences to give a narrative with mixed tenses and order. The basic list of scenes will be as followed :

-The scrapbook
-The flower
-The bike ride
-The open day
-The art gallery
-The film night
-The goodbye
-The performer

Here are the storyboard documents :

Costume shots

We have previously explored our characters and have sinced planned costumes for each actor which we will be using during filming to give an authentic and effective narrative. 


 CHARACTER         COSTUMES                               

Protagnist        Check shirt, band tee, ripped jeans            
'Emo'        

Best Friend       Tye-dye top, bright colour, jeans
Artsy       

Friend 1          Joggers, cycling shirt,trainers      
Sporty        

Friend 2          Hat, hoodie, glasses and jeans      
Nerdy        

Friend 3          Pink vest, blue jeans, trainers      
Girly         

Friend 4          Docs, jeans, jumper


Boyfriend         Jeans and shirt       
Dominant      

Performer        Dark jeans and jumper   


We have decided to create a character profile with costume and information on representation which will feature in our music video.      

Filming schedule

We have devised this filming schedule based upon our casting and narrative, this may not be a strict timetable as we are unsure which memebers of our cast will be available. The schedule will be a rough outline which we will refer to during our filming period and will be sent to all involved.

Characters and casting

Our narrative will be focused around a female protaganist and her friends, particullarly her best friends. The group will all represent various personalities and seterotypes , because of this we will be casting the protaganists and minor characters to ensure the narrative is realistic and reletable for our young target audience. 


CHARACTER ---  NAME ---- STEREOTYPE --- ACTOR 

Protagnist     Rosie      Emo           Chloe

Best Friend    Gemma      Artsy         Csenge

Friend 1       Karen      Sporty        Sophie

Friend 2       Lucy       Nerdy         Amelia

Friend 3       Lily       Girly         Ellie

Friend 4       Storm      Music fan     Megan

Boyfriend      Gareth     Dominant      Ben 

Performer       Matty      Cool         James

Audience feedback analysis

From previous audience questionnaires I have analysed some results to ensure I can understand the preferences of my target audience before creating my own music video. Below are findings I believe are important and will impact my music video creation. 

        

Draft of magazine advert and digipak

Draft of magazine advert with internet images :



Photography we will need to complete :
Mid-shot portrait with flower props

Draft of digipak :





Photography we will need to complete :
Still life, arial shot of flowers and book pages

Feedback has been collected in a focus group, these findings have been uploaded previously. 

Feedback for mockups

Chloe and I decided to hold a focus group with some people who fit our target audience to see what kind of reaction the digipak and magazine advert design would receive. Our findings allowed us to evaluate our next steps and are below :

Mock up - Digipak

Chloe and I began to discuss and plan our digital and magazine advert which we will be creating alongside our music video as features in our marketing package. We firstly decided on a fake album name and which elements of our narrative we want to incorporate from our music video into our marketing package. 

We decided to produce mock ups which give a simple indication to our designs and annotations to illustrate our ideas further. We came up with an idea each and drafted these out together before incorporating the elements that worked best into our final mock ups. 

DRAFTS

Here are our drafts for our digipak with annotations, we decided utilise an aesthetic we know is successful within our target audience whilst featuring props which are relevant to our narrative. An example is the use of flowers and photographs which are items we wish to utilise in our music video to reinforce the romantic and nostalgic theme. 

We both believed colour and images to be the best way to incorporate the band's style and include conventional use of still life images that relate to our narrative, the band's star image and audience appeal. Like the digipaks created for The 1975 both of our drafts do not feature images of the band which we believe attracts the audience and will work well in our product. We knew we would design our back cover and spine once our final piece was completed.
                                                   

FINAL

This is our final design for our digipak, we decided to utilise contemporary colours and boarders in the design as it reflects the style of The 1975 our music video. As for colours we have labelled pink and blue as our chosen theme as we believe these colours will compliment the style of the band and our marketing package. The use of an open book with flowers laying on top is an effective use on conventional still life images whilst remaining unique and in keeping with the star image of absence. 

The spine and back cover for the digipak are also minimal as the focal point of the back cover is the song title list and the minimal petal design which creates continuity in the design.
Colours will also create continuity in the design and the conventional use of numbers, legal ownership information and barcodes etc have been featured to indicate the overall layout. 


Feedback :
To be collected in focus group

Mock up - Magazine advert

After completing mock ups and designs for our digipak Chloe and I moved on to addressing our magazine advert designs. We worked in a similar way producing ideas for magazine adverts and creating a draft each before creating a final piece together with our favourite elements and conventions. We decided to take inspiration from our digipaks and music video narrative and then worked on our layout and final designs.


DRAFT
These are the annotated drafts we produced for our music magazine advert, we reassessed our previous research into magazine adverts for album releases and incorporated our narrative and digipak design. We both decided that the protagonists from our music video and significant symbols should be utilised to interest our target audience. The colours have not yet been decided as we would like to trial different uses of colour though we do know pink and blue hues will be found in our other products. 

The conventions for music magazines were also considered when making our drafts with the placing of ratings, reviews, titles etc but we have decided to produce a minimal composition with the main photography as our key focal point.

FINAL

The use of flowers and our protagonist is key in our magazine advert as we want to pull in our target audience through aesthetic and intrigue. 
 We utilised the band title, album title, release date and rating in the poster design as these conventions attract our target audience as discussed in a focus group format. Overall, we agreed the photography to be key in our magazine advert and favoured this design in our final piece as it is both relevant and effective.

FEEDBACK:

To be collected in focus group 

Pitch - Delevering in class 12/09/17

I will be delivering a presentation with my team partner Chloe to our class in school time in order to provide feedback from our peers regarding our initial plans, song choice and development. The presentation can be seen below




We have also provided feedback sheets to the class to provide us with information based on their thoughts towards the information provided in our presentation. These results will be show in a new post with analysed feedback. 

Lyric analysis

Chloe and I decided to sit down and analyse the lyrics to the song 'Paris' by The 1975 so we could ensure our narrative will be relevant to the lyrical content as our target audience enjoy a music video which correspond with lyrical content. We listened to the song and then printed a lyric copy to analyse, we decided to analyse the lyrics with our own understanding and then decided to look into interviews with the musician and lyricist Matty Healy to consolidate the meaning he wished to convey in his lyrics. Below is the analysis we completed

Initial Ideas

So far myself and Chloe have produced initial brainstorms to produce ideas for our narrative. We are currently working on details for our narrative we have chosen and are working together to plan detailed aspects like costume, characters, shot plans etc. Below are plans we have created together from initial ideas which we will be adding to when we have solidified our ideas further.

 

 

 

Pinterest Inspiration Page

Mood board

Below is a moodboard that explores images releated to the theme of the music video myself and Chloe are planning. As we are using the song by the band 'The 1975' we decided to take inspiration from their aesthetic and their target audience. Because of this our music video will be focusing around young adults and having an aesthetic which is inkeeping with the 'indie'/ 'alternative' style. 

Producing the moodboard was helpful in the brainstorming aspect of planning as many ideas were explored and have sparked ideas for further development. 

Permission Letter

We decided to create a draft of the email that we are going to send to the record company, which is Dirtyhit Records. We will be sending this email to the DirtyHit record company to ensure we can use the track under the Creative Commons Law as part of our education due to publishing issues on YouTube. With the permission of the company we will avoid any licensing or copyright issues regarding ownership and monetary gain.



Dear Sir/Madam,

My peer and I are year 13 , A level students currently studying Media studies at George Spencer Academy sixth form. As part of our course, the Media Studies syllabus requires us to produce a music video and we have chosen the song 'Paris' by The 1975.  We will make our own original music video for this track before publishing drafts and the final product onto Youtube in order to provide access to the examiner for moderation. The video will be embedded into our coursework blogs with a link to the video on Youtube as this is a sutiable platform that will not provide monitary profit for us. We would like to request your permission to use this song before proceeding with our coursework.

Your signature below, under “confirmed by,” will indicate that you will agree to permit this use without a fee.  Feel free to provide any questions conerning the use of this song and our course. Please update us as soon as possible if this song cannot be licensed so that we can change our plans and it will not impact our media course timeline. 

Thank you for your help with this matter and we look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely, 

Megan Russell and Chloe Spencer

Confirmed by:

_________________________

[Name of the Music Publisher]

Theorist - Goodwin

Goodwin identifies five key aspects of music videos that the audience and those producing critical analyses should identify. These are :

- Star image
- Technical aspects 
- Narratives and performance 
- The relation of music and lyrical content to visuals 
- Thought beats ('seeing the sound')


Goodwin believes star image to play a vital part in the production and development of music videos, the theory suggests the star is utilised to appeal to an audience through their unique portrayal in music videos. Both the public presentation of their star and their individual style aid the promotion of the video whilst cementing their presence in the public eye.




In terms of technical aspects, Goodwin focuses on camera movements, angles, mise-en-scene and editing. Goodwin believes the beat of the song and audio layers will drive the editing to meet audience pleasures. Goodwin continues to suggest mise-en-scene achieves the final level of professionalism and aesthetic value in music videos with lighting and colour setting the atmosphere and emphasising dramatic value.

Narrative is believed to require repetability by Goodwin who focuses on the adveritising value of music videos. To retain repetability Goodwin suggests narrative and performance must blend together and capture the attention of a new and established audience to ensure they will watch the music video multiple times without lacking interest. Music videos that utilise the artist as performer and a narrative character become authentic to the audience as the core lip syncing performance seems realistic when paired with the base narrative. 

Goodwin identifies three ways that music and lyrical content are related to visual content in music videos. The video may illustrate the lyrical meaning and musical genre through the series of images and shots or the meanings are amplified through manipulation of images which are constantly thrown into the eye of the audience. Goodwin also suggests some music videos utilise disjuncture of the audio meaning by ignoring the content of the song completely. 


         



Lastly, Goodwin suggests there are three steps which the audience takes in order to identify thought beats and 'see the sound'. 
1. Identify song structure e.g. chorus, bridge, verse
2. Identifying the artists vocals and trademark quirks like the   grain, expression, tone and associations of their voice
3. Evaluating the mode of address, e.g. a song in which the artist is narrating their story making the music video a communication of the story making the audience listen to the narrative


Moving on from this, Goodwin then looks into form ; identifying key features found in music videos. 

1. Particular genres introduce their own music video style, icnography and semiotics. An example being stage perfomance in rock music videos and dance routines in girl or boy band music videos


2.  A Relationship between lyricals and visuals (previously mentioned)

3. A Relationship between music and visuals (previously mentioned)

4. The record label requirements will include close-ups of performers/artists with the artist sometimes developing motifs and star iconography which will reoccur in future works to emphasise their star image




5. There are frequent references to the notion of looking and vouyeristic treatment of the female body found in shots like female dance sequences or a screen within screen set up


6. Intertextual references are commonly found in the music videos like simillar costumes and locations found in films, television programmes past music videos etc.