Strenghts & Weaknesses

Strengths

Throughout the production of our music video we believe that one of our strengths was that we kept up to date with the blog. When something went wrong or right we blogged about it, and posts were continueisly added. Aswell as this the group worked well together and were reliable when we needed to be. Another strength would be our experience with the camera. As we had alot of practise with the camera, the shots and angles that we used in our music video were to a high level. We also were able to edit quickly and efficiently due to the use with had of the program from previous media projects.

Weaknesses

Aswell as strenghts there were also weaknesses within the group. The main weakness would be that we spent so much time planning there was only little time to film. So therefore refilming was not an option but luckiy this was not needed as the footage that we did have was perfect. Lip syncing in our music video was also a weakness because after we came to edit it did not match the song as we wanted it to and therefore did not look professional. From this we decided not to actually use the lip syncing as it did not work for our group on this particular task.

By Sarah Panzetta

Iconography

Iconography can be seen as one of the most important aspects of any media relation production. It's important as every artist has a certain style that makes them original.

Lily Allen the artist we chose to use is known for her bright happy music video's. She is also known for having messages in her music which are shown subtly in her video's. She's always been known for having a different take on the fame side to the music industry than most celebrities.

Another example of someone who's music video's can be identified easily by iconography is Lady Gaga. She is known for her crazy fashion statements and mad music video's wich can often appear not to make much sense.

By Georgia Angove

Weather Issues

Through out our filming process we had to make sure that we got it done as soon as possible. As we had originally planned to film some of our music video in London, in particular Leicester Square. We had originally chose this as it is the spot where film premiers take place. On the day we had chosen to film we were greeted by an incredible amount of snow, leaving it impossible for us to travel to Brentwood let alone London!

When the snow finally cleared there was still a great risk that it could snow again at any time so we re-thought our idea of London and decided to film more locally in Brentwood. We decided that the contrast of the dark dreary weather outside with Leila's smart/happy outfit would fit well with Lily Allen's style. Luckily with what we filmed, we managed to use the shots in a slightly different way that what we had initially planned, which we now believe work a lot better.

By Georgia Angove

Methods of Marketing our Music Video

During the filming and editing of our music video, the group discussed in which ways we could market our music video. We came up with the following ideas to market our music video and these consisted of Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Myspace.

Youtube

We could create a youtube channel and then this would enable us to upload our music video, then we could advertise our Youtube channel on such things as Facebook and Twitter. This would then mean people could view our music video, rate, comment and embed it. Aswell as this Youtube has global reach therefore everyone anywhere wqho has acces to the internet can view it.

Faceboook

In addition to this we could also design a Facebook page in which we could upload the video on to. Therefore anyone who has Facebook can view our video, like, comment and become facebook friends with our page so that they can keep uptodate with any new videos added.

Twitter

Finally we could create a twitter account which would allow us to link our music video to people that follow us on twitter. Then our fellow followers could retweet our music video to other people which would increase intrest for our music video.

By Sarah Panzetta

Focus Group Findings

Introduction to Digipaks

Digipacks are a type of packaging for CD's. The main difference is the packaging, being made out of card rather than plastic. They are also a lot more spacious and give you more room to design an album cover on..

Digipacks have been established through out the digital revolution as a way to boost record sales by introducting a unique selling point to the customer. They were a licensed product privately owned by an American packaging company called 'MeadWestvaco' in 2000. The company sold their designs and trademark to manufatures worldwide.

There are many different ways a digipak can be layed out. Some digipaks may only hold 1 CD whilst other packs can hold up to 3 CD’s`. This is created by a series of folds and a long strip of card.
By Georgia Angove

Editing Software

Our choice of editing software is Pinnacle Studio's. This allows us to edit and create video's to then burn them onto a DVD without any additional software needed.

Its features include capturing the video straight from the camera, dragging and editing - editing including dragging, cutting, fast forward / slow down, cropping etc, motion titling, title designs, adding music / sound effects and many more.

It creates a very professional looking film and is easy for us to use.

By Leila Robertson

Editing Diary

Wednesday 5th January
I uploaded all of the video we'd captured over the holidays which took about fifteen minutes. Once it had uploaded to Pinnacle Studio's, I watched all the clips we had deciding which order to put them in. I started with the introduction of the song, which I used a special tool on Pinnacle to slow down, as we wanted the effect of money falling down slowly past the camera. I put the clips in the correct order to go with the lyrics, however I had a problem with the song. When I tried putting my MP4 track of "The Fear" onto Pinnacle Studio's, it wasn't recognising the file. I soon realised it's because the music track needs to be MP3 for it to work on Pinnacle. For the rest of the editing session, I had to play the song through my iPod to check I was matching the clips up on time with the music. It was quite hard but it was the only way I could carry on editing, I spent 2 hours in the editing suite and would hopefully sort out the music for the next day.

Thursday 6th January
I tried to upload the music track again as a MP3 file, but for an unknown reason it wasn't dragging onto the Pinnacle software again. I had to carry on with the editing regardless of the music situation as there was still more to be done. I changed a lot of the music video today, I cut down a lot more clips so that there's more fast and quick cuts and I added more of a range of different shot angles. The hardest thing today was having to play the music seperately from the video again yet still trying to match up the video to the lyrics and beat of the song. We're all much happier with how the video looks after today's session.


By Leila Robertson

Reshooting and Editing

Whilst we were editing the music video, it came to our attention that some of the shots did not appear as they did on the camera. For example when we just wanted a plain background you could see the light switch but we did not realise this untill we came to edit. Aswell as this in  some of the mirror shots you could see the person who was filming in the reflection of the mirror.

With some of the shots we decided to crop out what we didn't want to be seen on the music video, which saved us time by not having to reshoot. However, with some of the shots this was not possible and meant that we had to refilm. Although this was not crucial, we found it necessary to make our music video look more professional and to the highest standard that we could make it. 

By Sarah Panzetta

Lily Allen, 'The Fear'

Lily Allen's, 'The Fear' was released January 26th 2009, from her album "It's Not Me, It's You". The video cost £50,000 to film and was filmed in Wrest Park, Bedfordshire. 'The Fear', which was produced by Mark Ronson, hit the top twenty of the charts in most European countries and Australia, where as in the UK, it stayed in the UK Single Charts for four consecutive weeks. 'The Fear' was awarded the Best Track prize at the 2009 Q Awards and also won Lily Allen two Ivor Novello Awards in 2010, for best song musically and lyrically.


By Leila Robertson

Filming Problems

The group had planned to film on Thursday 2nd December but when we came to film we realised the camera did not have enough battery to film for all the shots that were necessary, and due to the lack of chargers we were not equipped with one that day. Therefore we used our time that day to plan in detail exactly what shots we were going to film and where and also made a list of all the necessary props and costumes that we would need the following day. Aswell as this we had a run through with leila on exactly what she would be doing in the shots, so that when we came to film the next day everyone knew exactly what they were doing and we would not waste anytime. From this we learnt to be prepared and check that the camera was fully charged before filming and that we always have a charger on us incase its not.

By Sarah Panzetta

Changes To Props And Costumes

Red Carpet - Due to terrible weather conditions we were not able to fim in London so had to re-think our idea of a red carpet and used shots of Leila walking around Brentwood instead,

The Mirror - We had originally thought that the line 'I looked in the mirror' was about a glass mirror. It wasn't until we looked into the lyrics more that we realised she was referring to the news paper.

Prom Dress - We changed the idea of a purple prom dress to a more modern but still equally smart black dress.

Changes to Locations and Settings

Due to the adverse weather conditions over the period that we had planned to film, changes had to be made to our locations and settings. Originally we had planned to film at Lecister Square in London as this would have been our ideal location. We also wanted to film landmarks in London such as the London Eye, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliment.

However as the trains were not running when we had planned to film we had to reconsider our original locations.

In the end we decided to film at Leilas house and just used different parts of the house which were suitable to fit the style of our music video. Aswell as this we also filmed Leila (our main character in the music video) walking up the road and walking along Brentwood highstreet. We also filmed Leila eating a burger in McDonalds which we will be editing and adding to our music video.

Although it was a dissapointment that we could not use our original Locations and Settings we believe that the Locations and Settings we chose in the end were appropriate for our music video.

By Sarah Panzetta

Ancillary Task - Digipak

the front cover

the middle (left)

the middle (right)

the back

I've used black and white pictures to keep it simple against the bright pink layout. I've put a picture of Leila on the front so people would recognise it straight away, and hopefully the colour coding of pink will attract the target audience of females (aged between 16 - late 20's). I think it's more effective having the same layout on each page and the same style pictures. The middle (right) page is an image of where the video of 'The Fear' is set. 

I've also linked the digipak with the magazine advert (the same image) so if people see the advertisement they'll recognise the same image and know what to look for when puchasing the digipak / album / single.

By Leila Robertson

Ancillary Task - Magazine Poster

I created this poster for magazine advertising. I chose girly colours to attract the target audience and used bold, striking text to get the readers attention. There's a large image of Leila behind a guitar, which links into the music genre and the fans would recognise who it is. It gives information of when the single is available too. I think Lily Allen would be advertised in magazines such as Heat, Hello, Now, More, Cosmo etc. Perhaps in younger magazines too.


By Leila Robertson

Diary Of Shooting

Unfortunately our filming was seriously delayed due to snowy conditions we had during late November and throughout December. Also, with train disruptions it wasn't possible for us to travel to London to film in Leicester Square like we had planned to, instead we had to film locally, which was disappointing but we knew we had to get our filming done as soon as possible.


Friday 3rd December 2010
We filmed the first of our scenes at Leila's house today, we didn't have much time so we did as much as we could. We filmed her walking up the road and walking along Brentwood highstreet. She was also filmed eating a BigMac from McDonalds which is seen in the music video. Sarah, Georgia Angove and I filmed this in Brentwood high street.


Monday 20th December 2010
The rest of our filming was completed today, it was supposed to be done at an earlier date however we had to rearrange because of the snow throughout earlier December. There's still some snow on the ground today but all the filming we had to do was inside Leila's house.


By Leila Robertson