This is a development screenshot of how we have developed our font/colour ideas on Photoshop. We used Photoshop in AS level, so we had good knowledge already on what colour scheme to choose.
This is also some of our construction work, we have developed from AS with the use of technology we have used. We used a professional camera and Tripod which we hadn't used before. Using this new technology gave us a professional outcome to making our product. This is our special effects research, we had not covered anything like this in AS level. Researching Green screen, Slow motion and backgrounds gave us an idea of how to make our product looking professional using different technology. In A2 we had to really think about and discuss what worked and what didn't work when thinking about background, colour and setting.
From the audience feedback from teachers within the school, I learnt that our music video appeals to the correct target audience (teenage girls) and is about a break up with the girl showing her courage to break free from it and her build of becoming stronger. However, I learnt from it that the dancing could be better choreographed and the lip syncing could be improved in some parts but not all places. It is also mentioned how the jar smashing is too violent for the bridge part of the strong but I think that this works well to show how she is innocent but she can stand up for herself and is becoming the bigger person.
Part two of question three
After completing the music video task, I decided to publish a survey on my Facebook to get friends to complete a few questions regarding the music video. The reason I did this is because we both have a wide variety of Facebook friends considering we have family, school friends, work friends and family friends on our Facebook friends list meaning we would have a wide sample size to answer our survey. However, only 12 people took time to complete the survey but it was enough for us to get feedback.
From this, it is clear that the majority of our friends who answered our survey were female and were between the ages of 18-29 which is slightly sample bias as there wasn't an equal split between male and female and ages. However, we did get people from different ages responding to our survey.
The first question that we asked was When you watched the music video, what stood out to you the most?
The answers that we got the editing was good, professionalism, lighting changes, monotone effect, main character shows a lot of emotion and is very good at her lip syncing, jar smashing and the choreography.
The second question was In a short summary, what would you say the storyline for the music video is?
The answers that we got were a boy has played the girls around and has broken their hearts but the main character has suffered in particular with this and shows how she can over come it, heartbreak, the end of a relationship, "a small mouse has ran into the cage of a lioness" and a broken love story.
The third question was Do you think that the storyline links to the song lyrics?
Out of 12, 9 of the respondents said yes and the other 3 said no.
The fourth question was Do you think that the actors used within the music video fit the genre and suited the song?
Every respondent of the survey said yes.
The fifth question was Do you think that the camera angles worked well? If yes, why?
The answers that we got were yes but there could've been more involved, they showed a lot of different emotions, they showed different aspects of the dancers which worked well and they were soft which matched the song and made it professional.
The sixth question was Do you think that this is a typical music video that you'd see for a pop song? Why?
The answers that we got were yes because it had dancers which is a typical code and convention for pop songs, and a lot of pop songs involve a girl and a boy.
The seventh question was Looking at the lighting, angles and transitions within the video, do you think that they work well and why?
The answers that we got were yes because they are in pace with the song, fit the emotion, create a sense of relief when the lighting changes to indicate her strength compared to his.
The final question we asked was If you could make the video better, what would you change?
The reason that we asked this was because we found that it would be interesting to see what others would change if they were in control of our music video. The answers that we got were have some parts in colour, more effects and backgrounds, lip syncing and maybe the lighting could be lighter.
In conclusion to this, I do agree with a lot of the comments said in the survey. In regards to the improvements that could be addressed, I believe that the lighting could be lighter but it fits with the lyrics and story lines. In the video, we made the lighting brighter on two occasions when the lyrics and video indicated that the main character was the bigger person in the scenario.
We have created a poster promoting our artists tour which would have been found around cities, for example, on the underground on bus signs. We've decided to keep the poster minimal as we compared it to artists posters such as Beyoncé. We've kept it simple without giving out too much information to keep the fans engaged with the artist for the tour. We have used a big and bold font to draw attention of fans and other people who enjoy the genre but may not have heard of our artist.
I used the video filters to put my video into black and white effect using the desaturate tool.
After making the video clips black and white, I had to render each section, transition and filter. I feel like rendering wasted a lot of time.
After I rendered for the black and white, I decided that it was a lot darker than the footage looked on the camera. I had to repair this by using a brightness and contrast filter. This only worked a little bit as the beginning is still quite dark but I feel as if the darkness fits in well with the attitude and energy coming from the lyrics.
The cross fades that I used were 3 seconds long to make sure that they show a nice dissolve between two images.
Between the jar smashing, each fade in fade out I did, I set as 3 seconds long to make sure that there is a dramatic long pause between each jar smash to build up tension.
For each cross dissolve between the ending chorus, I set as two seconds long so that there is elegant changes between them. I think that these worked well because it made it feel like a memory within the video.
I have put a 3 second cross dissolve between the dancers to create an elegant transition and have both dancing footage on one screen for three seconds which is really effective as it makes the video look innocent and elegant.
I have changed my final digipak to improve it. I removed the album name to fit typical codes and conventions of a pop digipak as typically most pop digipaks don't have the album name on the back cover and it is usually just on the front cover. I replaced the album name on the back cover by placing a barcode, record label logo and the name of the record label as it fits the typical codes and conventions of a stereotypical pop digipak.
The main costume that will be seen in the music video is this dress which will be worn with white heels by Alanis. We chose a white dress because it indicates her purity and honesty regardless of what she has been put through. The cut out waist shows that she has a different side to her innocent self as she is revealing skin which can be seen as being promiscuous. The flowers on the bottom of the dress symbolise her innocence as sweetness as flowers often have a sweet scent which are always appreciated by people.
The three dancers will wear white tops and black leggings. The idea of this is that the girls dancing are past victims of the love interest (Charlie) in the video so the white indicates their innocence and purity which is contrasted by the black which indicates that they have been played and it has changed their lives for the worse.
Charlie wears a black top with black trousers which indicates that he is the bad person with lots of bad morals within the story line. He is the dark one and the black contrasts with the girls who are all in light colours to indicate that he is turning them bad which is portrayed with the use of black leggings and the black dress.
For sections of the video, Alanis will wear a black dress to show how Charlie has taken the good out of her and she is now someone who can't go back to her complete pure self as she been put through so much by someone who plays girls off each other. However, when Alanis wears the black dress, the setting will be white to indicate that no matter how she is feeling, she will always be her innocent, pure and honest self deep down.
We are going to use two cameras to film. These are both DSLR cameras from Nikon and Canon. The reason for using two cameras is so that we can get as much footage as we can so that we can select the best bits, best angles and have the benefit of lots of bloopers!
We are going to use a tripod for the video so that we can make sure that the camera isn't having camera shake and we can direct the cast more as we won't have to focus as much on the positioning of the camera.
For parts of the video, we're going to have several jars similar to this which will smash or be carried. This is a good way of linking the music video to the lyrics.
This jar is decorated with hearts and lights. This is the object that we will use to be the jar of hearts. For the video, we plan to experiment between the fairly lights in the jar or a candle to express that although the hearts have been taken and jarred, there is still enough love and life in them to still be alive which is represented by the light.
Name: Alanis Lazaro Age: 20 Contact details: 07577449001 Role: Main artist
Alanis Lazaro is a singer/songwriter. She is known for touring with major artists such as Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. She has always had a passion for singing and has always looked up to pop artists.
Name: Charlie Hart Age: 19 Contact details: 07853994542 Role: Love interest
Charlie has been acting for several years, performing in many school productions and has always been interested in featuring in a music video. He believes that featuring in the music video could open up doors for him in the future.
Maisie Tarling is a young aspiring dancer who has enjoyed this as a hobby for about 2 years. She is very happy with the opportunity of being in a music video so that she can show off all her hard dancing work.
Name: Esmee Whitfield
Age: 17
Contact details: 07845523863
Role: Dancer
Esmee Whitfield is a young dancer who has featured in many plays where she has had the opportunity to perform. Likewise to Maisie, she is very excited to be in a music video!
The photo that I have chosen for the front cover of the digipak is this image of Alanis as she looks professional, elegant, sophisticated and fierce. The angle used is a low to mid angle. However, I plan to zoom into a close up for the actual digipak photo as the typical code and convention for a pop digipak is to have the artist in a close up photo.
I used dafont to choose a font for the artist name on the digipak. I decided that I wanted a curly font as they look handwritten, popular which fits the genre and is also a stereotypical font type to use on pop digipaks.
I decided to make the album title 'Love Story' as I think that Alanis' music is going to be a wide variety of happy love songs and sad love songs. Love Story fits well as in real life, peoples relationships are a mixture of happy and sad times.
I have experimented with three different pinks for the artist title.
This pink worked well because it is a bold pink which represents Alanis' personality.
The problem with this colour pink is that it is dull and boring.
I like this colour because it is girly, innocent and professional. I think that this applies to Alanis' personality.
This front cover works well but I decided that the album title needs to be on the bottom of the frame and the artist name needs to bigger than the album name.
In response to creating the website for Alanis - our artist, I sent out a short survey which just asked for a few positive and negatives of the website and how it could be changed.
Media Photoshoot - Alanis on PhotoPeach
When I started the photo shoot, I experimented with the use of flash photography. However, it made the model look yellow as well as the white background. Also, the shadow looked unprofessional and I decided that it'd be better to experiment with taking the flash off. We also got the model to experiment with her clothing choice, meaning we had some photos with accessories such as her sunglasses and hat and then other photos she had a coat on and a white top whereas in others she didn't which makes the series of images look more interesting and gives us a vast variety of photos to work with.
We have created a Facebook page for our artist for her fans to see what she is up to by seeing her frequent statuses as well as pictures and check ins to various locations. We have met some of the typical codes and conventions of an artists Facebook page as we have included a cover photo and profile picture which features the artist to emphasise her importance and illustrate that the page is primarily about her.
I have gone through the different timetables of everyone who is involved in the video (Laura, Lauren and Alanis - main casting). I have selected similar frees where we can film and also have scheduled time for after school where we can film with the other actors/dancers.
This is our special effects research, we had not covered anything like this in AS level. Researching Green screen, Slow motion and backgrounds gave us an idea of how to make our product looking professional using different technology. In A2 we had to really think about and discuss what worked and what didn't work when thinking about background, colour and setting. 
The main costume that will be seen in the music video is this dress which will be worn with white heels by Alanis. We chose a white dress because it indicates her purity and honesty regardless of what she has been put through. The cut out waist shows that she has a different side to her innocent self as she is revealing skin which can be seen as being promiscuous. The flowers on the bottom of the dress symbolise her innocence as sweetness as flowers often have a sweet scent which are always appreciated by people.
We are going to use two cameras to film. These are both DSLR cameras from Nikon and Canon. The reason for using two cameras is so that we can get as much footage as we can so that we can select the best bits, best angles and have the benefit of lots of bloopers!
