Exam Prep

T- Terminology
E- Example
A- Analysis


http://tvdrama.posterous.com/

http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/type/gce/amlw/media_studies/documents/index.html

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  Unit G322 Exemplar answers june 2010 scripts

http://collectiveidentity.posterous.com/

Evaluation

One

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? The task is to take 9 key frames from our videos and to put them into a grid.

1. a shot that shows a link between lyrics and/or music and visuals

2. a shot that typifies the way a record company would want their artist to be represented 3. a shot that illustrates how your video uses music genre 4. a shot that shows an intertextual reference 5. a shot that demonstrates your use of camera 6. a shot that demonstrates your use of lighting 7. a shot that demonstrates your use of mise-en-scene 8/9. Two shots which you feel demonstrate something which shows you have watched other music videos

Picture One is a shot that shows a link between lyrics and music visuals, if you cant see the picture clearly, it is a ring hanging on a branch, as this shot is in the video the lyrics being sung over is: if I'm falling, falling apart for you! These lyrics relate to the visual as she is saying she is falling apart for this boy and she's giving up on him, so she is throwing his ring away. 

Picture Two is a shot that typifies the way a record company would want their artists to be represented, this shot is a long shot of the band, you can see each of us clearly and you can recognize what each of the members do in the band. In a lot of band music video's there are a lot of shots of the whole band performing together in different locations which is why we used the idea to have shots of all the performers in a location which fits the genre of music.

Picture Three is a shot that shows we have illustrated how our music video uses the music genre, this shot is a close up of the guitar I was playing, alternative rock is all about live music with drums, electric guitars and bass guitars, a close up of me playing the guitar strongly illustrates we have thought about what shots we have used in the video to fit the music genre. Also in a lot of Rock/Alternative rock bands they like to use the woods/forest quiet places where they can make as much noise as they want, in our music video we have the band performing in the forest and shots of the lead singer in the forest.

Picture Five is a shot that demonstrates our use of camera, it is an over the shoulder shot of Leanne the lead singer sitting by the river folding up her love note, this shows we have thought about our use of camera as if we done a straight on mid-shot you wouldn't be able to see what was written on the piece of paper Leanne was holding, we wanted the viewer to know what was written on the paper and what she putting into the river, what she was letting go off.

Picture Six is a shot that demonstrates our use of lighting, this shot is a mid-shot of the left side of Leanne sitting by the river folding up the love note,  the lighting is natural, it was a beautiful warm Friday afternoon and the sun was shining down on the river and onto Leanne's glossy hair to make it look real shiny blonde at the bottom, we had been checking the weather and hoping the weather was going to be warm and sunny, but the weather is unpredictable, luckily luck was on our side we wanted to add some summer into the video as a lot of the shots as quite gloomy and dingy, the song is called homecoming in the lyrics she says: Homecoming, I’m coming, My sweet mistake, Summer’s over, hope it’s not too late. The shot in the video relates to the lyrics: Summer's over, as you can see the sun shining down, bit it doesn't look like a July summers day more like a end of august sunny day, august is the end of the summer. 

Picture Seven is a shot that demonstrates the use of mise-en-scene, picture seven is a mid shot slightly to the right of Leanne sitting on her bed in her bedroom cuddling a medium sized teddy bear singing, A bedroom is a typical location you would find an upset girl, the teddy bear shows she is vulnerable and needs something to hold on to, I think we have used the mise-en-scene really well in this shot as I think it represents a teenage girl coping with her emotions.

Picture Eight and Nine are shots that show we have watched other music videos, Picture Eight is a close up of the left side of Leanne face she is looking slightly up and singing, this is also shown in other music videos such as:

Picture Nine is a over the shoulder shot, Leanne is sitting in front of a mirror in her bedroom so it's Leanne's reflection you see, this is used in other music video's such as:

Ke$ha's TiK ToK music video :

Christina Aguilera's Beautiful music video:

Two

I think that my main product and ancillary texts are pretty effective, On my digipak I have given an idea of school dance and a lonely girl, I think that my digipak relates to the video as the girl in the video is singing about being alone, and that her boyfriend has left her, on the back of my digipak there is a silhouette of a girl slumped against a wall, this shows that she is lonely and upset. In many of the shots the girl is alone, so this reflects on the digipak. I also think that the darkness of the digipak and the night sky connects with the video as the weather is pretty glum and overcast, so many of the shots are quite dark.  

Three

The feedback we got from the class and teachers about our initial treatment was good, they all thought our idea's about the forest and underground garages were good and thought that they would connect with the lyrics and with the basic idea of the video. We had an idea of using the train station as a location but many people said that they didn't think it was a good idea as it would be too busy and it wouldn't look right with so much going on in the frame. 

We also made a Facebook page where we posted our video on there and asked our friends to leave comments, these are a few: 

-I thought the locations were great, although the performance needs to be a bit more realistic in the Forest bit :)

-nice locations-It's nice need to see more of Leanne face, a part from that it works well with the genre ♥

-Personally, I think it's hard to stay interested at the start of the video, it needs more angles and different shots other than the side of Leanne and this lasts for 42 seconds :/ it needs something else thrown in whilst Leanne is walking around. I would suggest bringing the band in earlier by making them set up the equipment on camera with close ups and extreme close ups (so you can know what's happening, but you don't have the full picture) and then reveal the complete set of equipment towards the end of that sequence and then have the band start playing at the point they are now. But you need to do something. Holly said "need to see more of Leanne face" which we took in to account and searched through our footage and saw that the mirror shots were the best as I was singing in to camera. Another class mate Scott mentioned that the beginning of the rough cut was hard to keep interested so when we changed the beginning I put effects to make it a lot more interesting with out it being over the top for the tiny bit of gentle of song. Tom said " the performance needs to be a bit more realistic in the forest bit", we could not re shoot however through quick editing it made it look more exciting and grabbing the less static shots. 

So we got quite a lot of feedback so we could work on our video some more. After finishing the full video it was shown to the class again, here is the feedback we got from the final version: 

- Looks like you've put a lot of effort into it. i think the best part was when u had the drums and guitar and in the woody bit. it kind of looked like a real music video, also good choice of music.

- the story line fits in well with what the song is about without being to literal :) very good guys, the performance is done very well, especially when the ambulance goes past.
- I like the camera angles and the way the camera isn't just fixed in one place.
and - Really like the scenes by the river, the clothing styles match the music well, Looks like a lot of work has gone into this video, couldn't of planned the ambulance! got to be one of my fav accidents that worked well.

Four


To create the video we used mac books, we also used a number of different programs on the laptops. For all the research on different bands and genres we used many different websites. For the filming of the video we used a canon camera, we also had a stills camera to take pictures of us working and of the locations we were using. I used Photoshop to create my digipak and also to do a mockup of the costumes the actors would be wearing. For the editing of the video we used final cut. And for feedback we used Facebook to create a page, we posted the video and asked for feedback.

Friday 25th

We have two lessons today before we can go out to film, the night before Leanne had tried on costumes and took pictures and uploaded them too Facebook, we had a discussion about what shoes would go with what outfit, after about 20 minutes we came to a decision what outfits would be worn.

This is the outfit Leanne is wearing for the river shoot.               This is the outfit Leanne is wearing for the forest shoot













In class we made sure everything was packed for us to go off filming, we checked all the equipment like camera batteries and props and everything. Before setting of for Chesterton we had to do a little more filming in the forest, we thought that we could have Leanne walking away from the camera dropping daffodils on the floor, the camera would be sat on the floor at a canted angle, we also filmed an over the shoulder shot of Leanne picking the leave off the daffodil. It was also Sophies last day with us before she went off to New York for the week, so we oganised a little piknik for a sending away. Travelling is a big issue, as we are filming in chesterton its quite away away, Leanne had biked to college I get a lift and Sophie gets a train, we decided we would all walk up there together with Leanne and her bike to carry all the equipment in. We would film at the river and then we would walk sophie to a bus stop and she would catch a bus to the train station and then get on the train home, Leanne would simply bike home as she lives in chesterton and I would walk home to arbury. It took us about 1-1 and a half hours to walk up to the green dragon bridge by the river, we were all absolutly nakered, the filming took us about 40 - 50 minutes and we was finished by 4 o clock.

Thursday 24th

Today we were planning for tomorrows filming, making props and sorting out which jewellery Leanne would be wearing, we decided not to create a love letter but to have two names in a heart shape, with little hearts around the page. We would then use this piece of paper to create the origami swan. First of all I got a piece of paper and and cut it down into a reasonable size square, I then drew a heart in pencil and wrote Leanne & Tom in the heart, I then coloured it in with pencil colours and went around the outline with a black felt tip to make it look bolder, I then drew some little hearts around it too make it look romantic. I was going too make the origami swan out of the paper that I had drawn on, I have never tried origami and so I thought it would be best too find a tutorial on the internet so I don't mess it up. Christian saw what I was doing and came over to help me, working together we figured it out and made a lovely origami swan. It was quite complicated as you had to create so many folds and remember which way you had to fold them. For filming Leanne would have the piece of paper in her hands looking at the heart and then she would fold it into the swan and sail it down the river, so Leanne would also have to learn how to fold it all together, she got the hang of it and we was set to start filming the next day. 

Wednesday 23rd

Leanne had already started editing the new video at home the night before so we had a bit of a head start, she had basically finished the rough cut and I thought it was looking pretty good, we showed Steve our rough cut and he gave us some advice on certain clips, Steve said that the clips where we have shot in the garage locations with the graffitied walls didn't fit in with the rest of the footage and it didn't really connect with the song. Steve saying that made us take a massive chunk out of our music video, he gave us some idea's on what we could do instead, he suggested maybe abstract shots. So Leanne, Sophie and I had another discussion on what to do next, we would have to go out filming again. We decided that the locations we would use were the forest again, and down by the river. For the forest we would have Leanne walking away from the camera and dropping daffodils, we would have the camera on the floor so you can only see Leanne's feet at the beginning and as she walks away you can see all of her. For the river, we are going to make props, we were going to make a love letter, and get a picture of a boy which we was going to burn. We would start making props thursday morning the day before we would be filming.

Photo's

This photo is of when we were in the garages opposite Grafton center, We were trying to figure out where Leanne would stop walking to perform into the camera.

This was the setup for a long shot/ mid shot of Leanne walking towards the camera.

                                                                                                                                                                                        

Bottom of car park.

Leanne doing her make up.

And again.

Our guitars and amps ready to be used.

and again.

Me doing sophie's make up.

and again.

Camera and instruments set up.

 Drum kit.

 

Tuesday 22nd

Leanne, Sophie and I had a discussion on what we should do about the video and final cut, Leanne said she didn't mind starting again and that it wouldn't take her too long. Instead of just importing the clips straight into final cut, we decided to export the clips into quicktime and then we imported them into final cut, Leanne dragged the clips into the timeline and when they had to rendered they took no time at all, and Leanne was ready to start editing! We had over 50 clips so we had our work cut out for us, but we were positive and didn't moan that we had to start again.

Class Feedback

This morning our rough cut video was shown too the class and a few people had a sheet of paper with questions on it, they would then watch the video and fill out the sheet with positive or negative feedback.
First sheet of feedback:


What are the strongest parts of the video and why?
- Good locations,
- Leanne looks appropriately styled,
- Handheld shots were effective


Which bits of the video do you believe need improving and why?
- More angles and cuts in performance section


Do you have any suggestions on how they could be improved?
- Video the performance at different angles


How appropriate do you believe the video is to the genre of the music? Is there anything that could be described as unconventional?
- The location fits the genre and the style of the video fits.

Friday 18th

We were still having problems with final cut and the rendering so we got Amar the media technician to come and have a look, Amar couldn't figure out why final cut was taking so long to render, the only thing he could suggest was to keep trying, and to do as much as we could. As our video was taking so long to get done dave allowed Leanne to take the laptop home to try and get a bit more done for mondays feedback lesson. 

Thankyou Millers Music

Wednesday 16Th

So we have filmed all our shots and we are ready to import and start editing, importing the footage was the easy part, Final cut decided to be difficult for us and start to play up. We had all the the clips on the time line ready to be cut and put in place. While we were moving the clips about final cut kept saying we needed to render the clips each time we moved them, this was fine but the first clip that we rendered took about 30 minutes, when it should really take about 5 mins, we decided to just carry on even though it was taking hours, while waiting for the clips to be rendered we tried to figure out what clip would be used for particular parts of the song. It was coming to the end of the day and final cut wasn't getting anywhere, we decided to retire for the day and try again tomorrow.

Tuesday 15th

Today was the big day to get the rest of our filming done, we had planned to film in the forest/woods area on Long Road site, we had lent our drum kit to Nathan's group and they had set it up on the stage in the main hall. After lunch Sophie, Leanne and I dismantled most of the drum kit and carried it out of the hall to the lift that goes down to the reception, we had to do it bit by bit as the lift can't carry a lot of weight. After getting it to the reception we then had to carry it outside to the woods, luckily just as we was about to start moving it all Steve appeared and offered too help carry the equipment out to the area. 

We set up the drum kit and the camera for a long shot of us performing, after doing that shot, we changed the camera set up to a mid shot of us performing, after performing for the mid shot we thought we could do some mid shots from other angles. After experimenting with the other angles we decided to film some close ups of Sophie playing the drums, Leanne singing and me playing the guitar, we didn't use a tri-pod we filmed them hand held to give a better effect. We got some really good close ups, even if it did take us a bit of time. We had another brainwave for another shot, 

we thought that Leanne and I could be walking down the forest path while Leanne would be singing and I would be rocking out on my guitar, Sophie would be walking slowly backwards while recording us walking towards her, we had quite a lot of fun with this shot, and had to try and keep a straight face through out it. Leanne had another idea for a shot, it was getting to the end of the day and we were all knackered from filming for the past 3 hours, this shot would just include Leanne this meant that one of us could film the last shot of Leanne and one of us could start packing up all the instruments and props, I would be filming Leanne and Sophie would start packing up all our equipment. The shot took 5 minutes to film and then we were off too help Sophie with the equipment, we had to dismantle the drum kit again, luckily this was the last time we would be doing this as we had finished using it, we took the drum kit to B102 were it would stay until it got picked up.

Miller's Music

For our music video, we needed a drum kit and a microphone to complete the Alternative Rock Band image. We thought we would be able to use the college's equipment but realised a lot of people wanted to use it and wasn't sure if it would be free to use when we needed to film. So Sophie and I looked through a few music shop websites and emailed a few asking if we could rent/borrow a drum kit and a microphone. We found Miller's Music which looked promising too us, we got an email back from them saying it would be fine to borrow the drum kit. They said they would deliver it to the college today (Friday 11th) in the morning, but we are still waiting for the phone call for it to be delivered. 

Wednesday 9th

As we had Tuesday off college, we were a little behind on our schedule, we decided to go ahead with the filming at the garages opposite the Grafton centre, we all made our own way to the Grafton  as we were all coming from different areas, we didn't have any speakers to play the music track from so we went to poundland where we found speakers which you can plug into your mobile phone/ iPod, we tried them out and unfortunately they weren't that great and you couldn't evan hear the sound coming out from them, we thought we could use my phone but from where Leanne was standing at the top of the road of the garages, so we had to improvise and just had to use Leanne's iPod headphones, so the camera couldn't hear the music, we would just have to lip sync it up to Leanne's voice. After going to the Grafton toilets to do Leanne's hair and make-up we headed over to the garages, we had a walk around the garages as there is 3 floors to find the best/most suitable place to perform. We obviously was aware that cars could be using the garages at any times, but luckily it's not a very popular car park so we didn't get disturbed too much there was a couple of cars but they didn't need interfere with our filming. First we used the second floor as there a perfect little place where Leanne could stand and look over a half wall, as she needed the words for the song we had to find a way she could look at the words without the camera seeing the sheet. 



















We first thought that if Sophie stood outside on the ground and held the words up so Leanne could read them while we was recording, but Leanne couldn't read the words from that far away, so we had to think of something else. we come up with the idea that Leanne could have a note book in front of her too make it look like she was writing in it or something and then she could have the words in the note book, we tried it out and checked you wouldn't be able to see it on camera. We recorded it through the whole song three times too make sure we got the shot we wanted. We then moved onto our next location in the garages which was a sloped road that goes around a corner, on all the walls there is graffiti which gave it a rough look which is what we was going for. 




















We set up the camera for a long shot at the bottom of the slopped road and figured out where Leanne would stop in front of the camera. Leanne would start at the top around the corner out of sight, then she would slowly walk around the corner singing and carry on walking un till she got to a certain spot which we had marked out and then she would stand there and finish the rest of the song. After these shot we decided we would do a couple more before we froze to death, The next shot we planned to do is a tracking shot of Leanne walking beside the graffitied walls, we had a few complications, Sophie was walking along side of Leanne with the camera sometimes Sophie would end up walking in front of Leanne as she was walking to fast or the other way round, finally we got the right pace and that was a wrap for the day.

Music Video Treatment

A music video treatment is when the production companies/directors work with the artist to decide on what they want to happen in the music video, it outlines the information needed to make the music video. The music video treatment tells the reader what the music video is about and tells you the main concept.

There are three main concepts:

* Performing to a live audience- or performing alone - talent focused.

* A Story Line- certain events - certain situations.

* Experimental- random images - compliment the music.

The music video treatment should include:

Location,

Situation,

Stories/Narrative,

Look and Feel,

Tone,

Pace,

Colour.

The concept we are using for our music video is performing to a live audience, and a story line, we have a rough idea on what we are going to for the concepts. For the story line concept we will be telling the story of a breakup. The story line concept will allow us to tell the story through the performers point of view. 

Today...

For our first lesson we made time lines of our music videos, we marked on when each verse/chorus/instrumental starts and ends to help us plan how we would film and edit our music video. In our second lesson we finished our time line and started on our schedule for the next two weeks, Leanne, Sophie and I discussed what we should do on each day and how to manage our time and picked a few locations where we would film. While Sophie and I was finishing off the time line Leanne was using her photo shop skills creating an animation of herself wearing the costume she will be using for the music video performance.

Music Video Schedule

Wednesday 2nd- Timeline-DONE

                           Pick locations

                           Create Performers Costume on photoshop

                           Mind Maps

                           Blog Update

Thursday 3rd- Take Pictures Of Locations

2 lessons.        Sort Extras e.g Props

                       Blog Update

Friday 4th- Create Other Performers Costumes

2 lessons.    Location Setup

                   Back Up Locations

                   Sort Out Lights

Monday 7th- Get Cameras, Props, Costumes,

1 lesson.        Get Everything Ready To Start Filming

Tuesday 8th- OFF

Wednesday 9th- Am- Filming In Forest

2 lessons.           Pm- Filming Off College Sight

Thursday 10th- Filming

2 lessons.

Friday 11th- Filming

2/3 lessons.

Locations: Forest/Woods, Car Park Opposite Grafton, Train station, Town.

Final Cut Task

                            

The task was to make a music video on final cut using certain clips from another music video and sound clips from different songs, we used final cut to create the music video. We had a folder on our laptops which contained clips of a music video and different clips of songs. We picked a song and dragged the file into the time line, I then dragged a few of the video files and used the cut tool to cut the clips up into bits of them I wanted to use and then deleted the one I didn't want. I then started to arrange the bits of clips in the order I wanted them to play with the music. It was a fun task which I enjoyed exploring my final cut skills.

Feedback on digi pack

We recorded ourselves answering questions about our digi packs, here is mine:

And then we got feedback from another group:

Finished DigiPak

This is my finished front cover for my digipak, I used a tutorial to learn how to make a spotlight effect, so it looks like they're dancing underneath a spotlight on a dance floor. I stuck with my original idea for the colour scheme which was red, black and white. I think the colours work well together and don't clash, or stand out too much. I think my design is eye catching and goes well with the name of the song and band.

The back of my digi pak is simular I have used the same colours and used another sillhuette I created. The sillhuette which I created is Sophie sitting against a wall, her body language tells you that she is upset, which is what I wanted as the song is based on a break up. I added a barcode which I got from Google images, and the logo next to it and the copy right is from Hey Mondays Official Website. 

Overall I think I done a good job creating my digi pak, im pleased with the finished result, I don't think I made it too dramatic or too simple.