Production Diary

Before the summer we had already done some tasks which have been put on my blog, such as the Britney preliminary task planning, what music meant to me and music through the years.

Wednesday 4th September-This was our first lesson back from after summer and so we re-focused our ideas and were also put into groups. My group consists of myself and Paige Woolf. I was very happy with this as I know we will both work well together.

Thursday 5th September- This lesson I did a star profile, my artist is Rihanna, from doing a star profile I learnt how artists evolve and change with the time. Rihanna was a particulary interesting singer to do as she has changed so dramatically.

Monday 9th September- Laura Mulvey theory- I learnt about the Laura Mulvey theory in this lesson. I feel from learning this I now have a better understanding of music videos and the effects they create.

Tuesday 10th September- Today I analysed the scouting for girls music video, Jennifer Lopez video and a Kylie Minogue music video using the Laura Mulvey and seeing if the videos go with or against the theory.

Wednesday 11th-analysing own music video, I chose to anaylse Nelly Furtado- Maneater against the Laura Mulvey theory.

Friday 13th-Today we went through our top three songs, choosing our final one. This helped as we showed our teacher all three songs, he brought up points about each of the songs, one of them being that one of the songs was too slow and so cuts would be long and this wouldn't show our skills.

Wednesday 18th September-Today we went through the lyrics to our chosen song to brainstorm shots that we will be doing.

Thursday 19th September-Today I have prepared our presentation ready to show the class what it is we are going to be doing with our music video.

Wednesday 25th September-Today I went through the lyrics again to decide on what we will be doing and also I did Andrew Goodwins theory against a Backstreet boys music video.

Wednesday 2nd October-Today I did my lip synching task with my group member Paige. At first we tried lip synching while singing but it didnt look as effective as just fake singing.

Monday 7th October- Today I tried to export an after effects file which I edited, using some of the video from the lip sync task to practice editing for the real thing. I couldn't figure out how to export it so I had to watch a few tutorial videos on YouTube. Yet this still didn't seem to work.

Tuesday 8th October- Today Paige and I sat together and talked through the target audience for the treatment. We thought about creating a questionnaire for boys and girls but then we started to devise the questions, we decided that we didn't need to do 2 separate ones. We also decided that we are going to film certain individuals and ask them on their opinion of our ideas etc. We decided that the filming of the target audience (although part of the treatment) will be a continuous thing. We will film the same people, at the beginning of our production, during the production and when the production is finished.

Wednesday 9th October- In this lesson, Paige and I filmed our target audience giving us feedback on our choice of song and their opinions. We also gave people an attatched questionnaire to fill out containing questions of music video's in general. We found this really helpful because we found patterns in prefrence and gender, for example, boys prefer sex appeal and girls prefer vocal ability when they see a female artist. I then spent the lesson editing the video format feedback, we asked the students 3 questions each and the editing was done so that all the replys to the first question was put all together and the same was done for the next 2 questions also.

Friday 11th October-In todays lesson I did some treatment work and also updated bits of my blog.

Wednesday 16th October -Today we did a test to check on our progress with the current course, I got 15/19. Paige and I then carried on with treatment work, focusing on what we want the artist to look like and her attitudes. We also came up with the name 'Rae' for our artist, we narrowed it down from Riley, Romy, Briany. We felt that Rae suited our actress (Paige) and that also it portrayed the type of character we want to create with our artist.

Thursday 17th October-Today we finished off our treatment and then went on to start our storyboard. By writing out which shot we want at each precise second we managed to fix certain things about our video that don't make sense/wouldn't work. We changed the opening in the process of writing out the story board before we drew it all out specifically.

Monday 21st October-Today I peer assessed Frankies blog, after this I then made a peer assessment post and copied out everything I have been assessed on. This helps as I get an understanding of where I am at and also where the rest of the class is at.

Half Term-Filming of the projection shots in the school sports hall.We spoke to the site team and the technicians before hand and had it all set up. We had a screen put up and then a projector with a laptop and we projected images on the screen then to film Paige being the artist. For the shadow shot we filmed her shadow, then put it on the laptop and then from that projected it then filmed Paige with her shadow. Making it look like there were two of her.

Tuesday 5th November-Started editing the footage which we filmed in the half term

Wednesday 6th November-Blog work such as uploading photos and talking about our filming day 1. I also edited what we edited yesterday further, ensuring that everything was perfect before we filmed/edited any more. After this I put together the practice footage that we filmed, being the shots that didn't go so well and so we wont be using for our final video. After editing all the practice shots together I then put this on YouTube and analysed what we did. I also edited together a video which features good shots compared to bad shots, this way we were able to see what went well and what didn't.

Thursday 7th November- Today we have continued with story board work.

Monday and Tuesday 11th and 12th November- Paige and I spent today preparing the things we need for our second day of filming on Wednesday the 13th. We reprinted out the lyrics so when we film we know the parts we need to actually sing. We also did a shot list in chronological order of the song so when we get there we can shoot more of the artist in an organised way. We also want to prepare the camera and SD cards and tripods so that we are ready for tomorrow. Paige and I also came up with a 3rd location for the artist as we feel that just 2 location is not enough and will get very repetitive for the viewer. We've also came up with a back location in case Elliot's nightclub doesn't work out how we would like to. We also started filling in a health  risk assessment sheet in order to keep on top of the risks we face from the beginning.

Wednesday 13th November- Today Paige and I done our second day of filming. We firstly went to a location that was an overpass in Harold wood. We started to film and found the setting was not ideal and the artist looked uncomfortable and looked very amateur. We found it difficult to get any good shots or angles that was effective and because of the time of day and place, the lip syncing was ineffective. We then filmed at another setting of south Weald. This was much more effective as we had planned the shots a lot more precisely so when we arrived at the destination we knew exactly what we had to film. We filmed the mostly on the parts which was mostly brick work and less woodland. This was because the long shots with foliage in the background made the shots looked less effective. We then went to abandoned nightclub Elliot's. We arrived at this destination at about 2 o'clock which meant we were running out of natural lighting but the lighting we had at that time was really complimentary of the artist. We didn't want to make the shots repetitive of just having the artist in front of a graffiti wall, so we had one verse of the artist on some tyres.

Thursday 14th November- Today Paige and I spent uploading and editing the shots we had shot the previous day. We formed the beginning and the end of the music video, by adding in the tilt from the sky down to the artist. The end was a collection of shots that we used whilst filming. This was more shots of just the camera following the artist during the production of their music video. These shots worked really well at the end of the video as it rounded the video nicely on a high which also conformed to the conventions of the genre of the music.

Tuesday 19th November- Today was spent filming feedback from our production so far. We filmed a mixture of boys and girls and asked them to view our video what we've filmed so far. We struggled to find enough people for our feedback because we were filming them airing their thoughts. This was really useful as Paige and I got the encouragement we needed from people to carry on getting the shots we needed. The improvements that were said were also good because we were able to identity the flaws so far. For example, a person said that the continuity at the beginning was hard to keep up with.

Wednesday 20th November- Today we looked at last years blog and looked at their planning and research. We found this useful because we realised the strengths and weakness' of our own blogs. For example, Paige and I have a lot of detail in all of our posts and have explained step by the step the actions we have taken. However, we realised that we lack in a range of technology we used. We found that one of the girls from the previous year had used a slideshow of still images called Picasa. We decided we will be able to use that in order to put together all the pictures we have taken during filming.

Thursday 21st November- Today I uploaded the feedback we received half way through our production. This was found really helpful because Paige and I have decided to change our opening scene. We are still having our opening shot that establishes the setting and the artist from the back but for the first verse we now would like to have an close up of the artist. This is because form the feedback, someone said that the opening at the moment was confusing and hard to follow.

Monday 25th November- Today we had a Premier Pro and After Effects specialist come in and speak to the media class about editing and process we should think about/routes we should take when creating a music video. Our teacher agreed with Connell by saying our song is less upbeat than what our images portray and we need to make the artist less happy in order for it to stop subverting the conventions of our song genre. (We showed him the same production that we showed our half way through evaluation people). He spoke to Paige and I saying that we need to show the emotional journey our artists' take and that has to be really clear to the viewer. This meant that Paige and I are now planning to re-shoot most of the beginning of our production, therefore when we get to the drop of our song, we can clearly show the emotional change the artist has gone through throughout the song.

Tuesday 26th November- Today Paige and I started to plan the beginning of our production so that we are ready for filming tomorrow. Originally Paige and I said how we wanted to keep our video all outside as inside a bedroom etc can look unprofessional. However, after speaking to the specialist Connell yesterday, we decided that the setting of the shot only matters depending on the shot. For an extreme Close Up the setting of the entire room doesn't matter, its what the viewer see's of the shot that matters, therefore we've decided we can now shoot some scenes inside and that Paige and I should focus more on lighting.

Wednesday 27th November- Today we filmed more of our music video. We started out at my house and decided to play with lighting and also effective backgrounds so that the vocal point of the shots was Paige lip syncing instead of everything being busy around her. We also did shots of her in a bath to make the video more emotive. We found that although difficult to do this shot is very effective. This gives more of a range of shots in our video, making it much more exciting for the audience.

Tuesday 3rd December- Today I sat and edited our new footage, some was a lot stronger than others but we managed to get a strong variety of shots which makes me feel much better about the music video. I managed to get quite alot done today.

Wednesday 4th December- Today we continued editing our music video, we made quite a few tweaks which we found to be very effective. Near the end of the lesson we showed our progress to our teacher to get some feedback before we continued filming/editing. We were told that we need to play with the editing more (which we will for the concept parts of the video) but the rest of our feedback was positive.

Thursday 5th December- Today we started filming our conceptual ideas as we knew there was a big chunk where we the tempo of the music changes and its much slower so we therefore knew we could start to film that. We got to our location and the temperature was very cold and therefore created difficulty when wanting to film. It was very useful because when we originally wanted for that section in the song (slow motion of me spinning round) might not work and will be harder than what we thought to create.

Wednesday 11th December- Today Paige and I started our filming of conceptual ideas. We decided to film a 180 degree shot of me blowing out smoke and then into the camera. The shots that we got of me came out really well but we decided that we are going have my face within the shot, as before we decided that we didn't want to have any shots of my face to stop any confusion for the viewer but when we started to film it was less effective and more confusion because it was hard to establish the difference between myself and Paige. We also asked for permission from the artists today by tweeting them.

Friday 13th December- We started to edit the shots of me. We have decided that we want to edit  with after effects of the shots of me This is because the shots of the artist needs to be clear and consistent but the shots of the conceptual character can be varied and diverse.

Tuesday 17th December- Today we talked about the beginning of our digipack. Our first ideas for the digipack was to have different poses of the artist against the background of different colours. This will mean that the consumer will get to see all the different layers and sides the artist can have. We also decided that inbetween clapping, we was going to have conceptual images for me however when we came to edit the shots were too short to establish any conceptual so we had to lengthen it.

Wednesday 18th- Today we spent some time updating our blogs and start perfecting the shots we have already made. For example, when at the beginning of our video, we establish the artist from all different angles walking towards the club. We did have the artist at a standstill and the started walking, however we changed it so it looked as though it was filmed from loads of cameras that focused of different aspects of the artist, filming the artist walking just once, when in reality, we had to film the walk lots of times and just moved the positioning and focus of the camera with each take.

Tuesday 6th December- Today I  looked at after affects for her conceptual parts within the video. We realised that we do not have a consistent colour scheme like our inspirations such as Lana Del Ray (who uses pastel colours to promote herself) and Rihanna, who has a passionate a vibrant red. Our colour scheme is bright however there isn't a reoccurring colour that you could attach to our artist. Due to this, Paige and I  found an accessory on after affects which made one our conceptual images flash in different colour but not compromising out image. Today Paige spent researching our 3 main musical inspirations for our artist Rai. These were the previous 2 artists' mentioned along with the artist of our original song, Warm Water, we looked at Banks.
Friday 10th December-  Today I continued editing whilst Paige started our website, I had to focus on after effects and making the conceptual pieces look more effective. At first I found this quite difficult but after watching some youtube channels I became quite familiar with the software.

Monday 13th December- Today Paige and I discussed what we liked through our video as it stood and discussed what we thought the strengths and weakness's were of the video and we decided that some parts weren't as on point and on time as what we would like it to be. We replaced some shots with a complete different scene and we changed the ending shots as it didn't match the "happy ending" we had created.

Wednesday 15th December- Today was spent the time working on a blog and editing our production.

Thursday 16th December- Today in the morning we took some photos of Paige for the Digipack, we used our media room but covered all the windows so that it was pitch black, we then used the professional light to create the mood we wanted to. Sat by traditional parts of the room and with the filters on my Pentax camera the shots came out really effective. Later on in the day we discussed our plan of action and then took more photos of Paige for the Digipack and website, this includes in our main hall, the 'cage' and the quad. The photos came out beautifully.

Monday 20th January-Today I edited the 'drop' of our song and also shots of my eye dilating. By using After effects I was able to change the colours of the shot which made it much more effective. I used a '4-colour gradient'. I will be using this throughout the concept shots to make them very visual.

Tuesday 28th January- Today I worked on touching up the final production. And Paige spent today updating the risk assessment we created for when we filmed our production. This made us realise that for our next future plan to film, we will be more precocious. With the touching up of the final production I ensured that all lip syncing matched up, I also started putting in more footage which would cut up the performance shots as some were too long in comparison with the others. This made it look both more effective and professional.

Monday 3rd February-Today we were able to export and upload our video! After putting it on YouTube I then helped Paige film one of the evaluation questions, we gathered an audience and played them our video, after this we asked for their feedback. I then filmed Paige talking about the feedback, what she thought, and explaining why we did what we did at certain parts.

Wednesday 5th February- Today I started my evaluation question, I have started a Prezi explaining how we used technologies to help us through our research, planning, construction and evaluation.

Tuesday 11th February- Today I started editing the target audience feedback. I found that this task easier than what I thought it would be. As we filmed myself commenting on the target audience feedback it was easy to cut the commentary after a comment was made

Friday 14th February- Today Paige and I decided to add in parts of the actual production whilst people were giving feedback to show a clear example of what people were talking about. The outcome of our target audience feedback was really effective and made it easier to make a clear comparison to what we've changed along the way

Monday 17th February-Today I made a start on my evaluation question, starting a Prezi for the question 'How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?' I used print screens of everything we have done from planning to construction. I also went into high detail about the construction,there was alot to write as I used premier pro and after effects to edit the footage we had.

Tuesday 18th February- During half term, Paige and I used an old plan of our first day of shooting and used this to start our storyboard. We've decided that we will include the first minute of the song, as we originally planned to have multiple shots covering up the artists of many people listing to our song in their head phones, which obviously had been modified since then. We are also using a middle 30 seconds of the plan when the beat drops as we originally was going to have some sort of explosion of powder paint or mud/water being thrown.

Wednesday 19th February- Today I started one of my evaluation questions 'How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? I did this on powerpoint as there was alot to write about and so I wanted to include alot of detail. I feel like I have alot to say about this as throughout the course we have tried to create a strong brand which is not only effective but also realistic, and so from all I have learnt throughout we have managed to progress in that our brand got stronger.

Wednesday 26th February- Today I continued with my evaluation questions, I wanted to spend alot of time on these to ensure that they were not only done to the highest of my ability but also I got my points across clearly.

Thursday 27th February- Paige and I worked together on finalising the target audience feedback evaluation question and the effectiveness of our products and ancillary texts. This was helpful as we were both able to see what improvements can be made and if either of us had missed anything out that should have been included, we were able to feedback to each other before we exported and uploaded anything to our blogs.

Tuesday 4th March- Today I continued with my evaluation questions, going into more detail on each one.This was on a prezi and a powerpoint.

Wednesday 5th March- Today I had both my evaluation questions finished and put up onto my blog. By finishing my evaluation questions I felt positive about the whole project, by reflecting on where we started to where we ended I think we definitely improved alot.

Tuesday 9th March- Today we went through bulking up our blog with analysis.