Ancillary Tasks: Digi Pack Specific Research (Front Cover)

For our group specific research, We decided to follow the same pattern of artists and looking into the same genre of song as our music video. Birdy, the artist of our song, is an indie singer/ songwriter so we looked specifically into this for our digi pack. 

The material of their clothing is quite plain, light, smooth and bright; reflects the genre of music (indie). Female indie artists, such as Lorde, follow similar traits in clothing, which is why we aim to base our photo-shoots for our digipack with the key characteristics of smooth, earthy, feminine attire. The hair is normally natural, in keeping with the theme of the song, usually with some form of wave or curl. As we have used curly hair in our music video we will keep with this decision as this is also supported by our research rather than the straight, more plastic or superficial hair styles. Curls also allow a halo of light to be captured as shown in the Lorde image. 

• These four examples are all example of close up shots used of the front cover, very common with digipacks.
• In terms of makeup/ styling, we can note that in all 4 cases they have strong/ striking eyes with quite simplistic makeup on the remainder of the face. Hair is styled in a manner which makes it stand out, typically with a natural wave. In 3 out of 4 of these covers, a hand is also present in the shot as a means of posing. This is something to consider during our own photoshoot although we wish to remain natural and not too stilted in terms of posing.
• The name of the artist is presented in uppercase font, generally at the top of the CD cover, along with the album/ single title although we will do specific research into that.
• Lastly, we can also note that both black and white and colour images can be used which is in fitting with our music video.

As a group, we decided to have a close up of the model's face for our CD cover. As the image will simply capture her face, styling for an outfit didn’t need a great deal of thought. We drew inspiration from the Pixie Lott album cover, liked the idea of Katie wearing a shirt, so a collar is visible in the shot. We also liked the use of hair accessories on the Pixie Lott album cover. We decided that it would be of good use to have some sort of floral headwear, to make her look more “earthy/ indie”, our ultimate aim.

Ancillary Tasks: Gaia Earth Child Research

As we intend to keep our music video and digipack following the same theme, ie an earth goddess, we have researched further into the overall look of this. Although gaining inspiration from previous digipacks, we looked into the artistic representation of an Earth Gaia. 

 Typically, an earth goddess, the look we are trying to achieve in the music video, has long curly hair, flowing clothes, pale skin with neutral make up. The overall look is extremely natural. A sort of floral crown is also used. This is a look we wish to recreate. 

We have already used the earth crown in the music video with the use of the outside, although in our music video this is focused more on the urban areas before moving to a pleasanter view. We will be looking to shoot our images for the digipack outside, incorporating the use of nature as shown, particularly in a grassy areas with trees etc. 


(Research by Hannah)

Ancillary Tasks: Initial CD Cover Makeup Test Shots

We began to test with some ideas we had for our digipack photoshoot as we were unsure whether we wanted to stick to the curly hair, soft eyes and natural looking persona and instead try a bolder look as sometimes music videos do not necessarily match the digipack. 

We decided to test both and see which we preferred. We decided to try a stark contrast between our video and have our model with straight hair, dark smokey eyes and bold red lips. 

This provoked a mixed reaction and after a group discussion we decided that all a good look for a more 'plastic' video, this did not fit to the genre of music we were going for and looked odd. This look would be more suited to a pop video. 

For this analysis we decided to conduct further research into the earth Gaia look we have decided for the music video as this ruled out any 'plastic' mis en scene.  

Ancillary Tasks: DigiPack General Research

It is very common for the track list to be placed upon the back cover of the digipack.

As a group, we decided it would be wise to follow this trend. We are yet to decide upon the particular look of the back cover in terms of colours, images, layout etc

.

As we can see, some back covers are simply just the track list, whilst other consist of images. We particularly like the use of nature in our music video so may use this as our back image for the digi pack. 

(Research by Danielle)

Ancillary Tasks: Poster Research (General)

(Research by Katie)

First Draft of Whole Video

This is the first full draft of our music video, featuring filming that we have gained from all of our filming sessions. Whilst there are many strong point throughout our video, such as the handheld camera movements when filming the natural elements at the beginning and when filming the people, we still have many points to improve on.

Weakness':
- It appears she is walking to much. We need to try to make it seem as she is walking for a purpose. The purpose is of course to get to the field and perform the last section of the song. But this does not come across very well.
- At the first section of our music video where she is singing into the camera it does not give the right feel we were going for. We aimed to make it seem as she is singing aimlessly, almost mumbling but it is very clear she is singing out and performing. Because of this we will re-film but from a slightly different angle so that the camera is further behind her but can still see her lips moving.

- In the intro when the film cuts between close ups of flowers. It works well but when it starts to cut between the waterfall we see the same effect and it starts to become tedious. Because of this we will try to find something else to be here
-Since filming the dancers we have really sat down and worked out how to film them properly. This includes almost filming move by move to make sure we get good cuts. This has all steamed from the poor quality of the filming we currently have of them.
- We also need to think about introducing the dancers earlier in the video to make them fit better, we are considering seeing them physically bump into the lead.
- In the final section of the video we see the lead singing into the camera. This is framed completely wrong and will need to rethought.

Strength's
- Good Continuity
- The shaking at the start of the music video and the clips of the everyday people link well.
- Rule of thirds used well throughout apart from final section. 
- The introduction of color as the music volume increases is good.
-The tracking shot of the normal, everyday people works really well. It was filmed while being on a bus so we plan to alter the technique slightly so we can control how fast we go by using a car instead.

(Comments by Rosie)

Planning: Progress Update

After having the Christmas holidays, where we were unable to film due the the extreme weather, we had a team meeting in order to discuss our progress and deadlines to set ourselves. These are both personal and group deadlines, however the group deadlines (which everyone is aware of) are as follows:

End of January: The first full draft of our music video must be completed. Whilst this video may have areas that need reshooting or editing more, the video should be made to run fluidly and feature no gaps.

End of February: Our music video must be completed by this stage, with any parts which needed reshooting or editing to be done and completed. However, there may be time at a later date to revisit the video and edit any parts which we feel aren't working for the video.

End of March: The ancillary tasks (DigiPack and Poster) must be completed so that we are able to analyse them.

End of April: During April we plan to complete our evaluation questions and if these are completed rather quickly, we will be able to revist our music video and edit any parts which we do not feel happy with.