4.02.2010

Today we mainly focused on putting what we have of the video together, CD art work and fitting the video to the storyboard.

This morning I took photographs of the props such as the yellow pencil, ruler and paintbrush so that we have the photos for our CD art work. I started putting this together on PhotoShop but I did not have much success so I did not complete anything. To complete the CD cover we need to find the right dimensions and create the Polaroid photographs to finish off the design.

I also created the video of the pencil drawing two stick figures on paper that we had previously shot. This was quite successful in that it was easy to put together but the quality of the shoot was not very good because it is quite jumpy and the people are difficult to see on the pink paper. If  we get time we are going to re-shoot this section and draw the characters in pen so that they are seen easier when created into the video.

We had to consult our storyboard quite a lot today so that we got the videos into the right places in the song. I realised that we should have been more thorough with out plan because it is quite hard to follow where the different sections start and stop.

Next lesson we plan to have all of the stop motion parts complete and start making the CD cover again. We want to wait for a day with nice weather before we take the videos but as we are running out of time we will just have to do them when it is convenient.

Since we started filming till….28.01.2010

Since November we have been very busy filming some of our music video. So far we have shot the beginning, the end, and part of the middle. We uploaded these to a Mac and started fitting some the scenes together with the music to test out how they fitted together and to see what needed to be improved.

We created the desk scene using a pencil storage pot, a desk lamp and desk. We used a yellow pencil, two paintbrushes, a straight ruler, blue tack and a paint tube in the first initial scene, these were located in the pencil pot. Also in the first scene there is a scrap book. We took some time creating a real scrap book by gluing in relevant photographs and pictures. We also printed out a dinner receipt and cinema ticket to show that a date had already taken place. The first movement in the scene is of someone turning on the desk lamp and moving some papers around on the desk; this reveals divorce documents and therefore foreshadows the ending of the song.

A couple of lessons ago Holly and I started putting the videos to music to see how well they fit. This process took some time because we have to sort out the settings that Final Cut Pro and work out how to enter the pictures. This was quite time consuming because we have had only basic teaching on how to use the software. Although this was difficult I found this interesting and a learning curve because now I know for the future how to do some specific things such as: enter the folders of photograph, change the speed of frames per second and fit music to photographs/videos. Still we are finding it hard to match the amount of photographs to the right speed so that it looks seamless and professional. Also fitting it with the music has proved slightly harder than we hoped.

These are 3 of the videos we have made. I also made another one where I attempted to fit what we had to the music but this did not save.

Beginning of our video:

End of the video:

Final bit of the end with the robot:

26.11.09

Today we went round our focus group that is within the age of our target audience (14-22 years), and asked them to choose from our seven designs what one they preferred. This was the results:

Design 1:      5 votes

Design 2:      2 votes

Design 3:      4 votes

Design 4:      0 votes

Design 5:      0 votes

Design 6:      0 votes

Design 7:      0 votes

From these results we can see that Design 1 was the CD cover that was most liked by our focus group. The Design that came second was Design 3 and then Design 2 came third.

we also received feedback from a few people from the focus group:

• ‘I like the idea of the Polaroids’
• ‘The pictures should be from the video’

This is positive feedback because it lets us know that our design ideas are liked and how to improve them. What our designs did not show our focus group was that we were already thinking about using pictures from the video for our advertisement.

Next week we plan to start filming on Thursday. We will all bring in our equipment that we decided on before and set up the room upstairs in L building. If everything goes ok with the lighting and setting up hopefully we will be starting to film and get through about 30seconds of our music video once we have done some test shots.

CD cover design

In today’s morning lesson we decided to individually create designs for a CD cover for our music video. We thought about what we wanted individually and designed them on paper. Once we had created at least one design each we showed them too each other. We decided that we liked the idea of Polaroids on our cover that Jasmin had come up with. Holly and I then designed two more covers that incorporated the idea of Polaroid pictures.

Next week we will combine our ideas to create a final design. This will be hand drawn and scanned into the computer. I will also complete all of the research for the magazine advert.

Today I also found these pictures of Magazine adverts for newly released albums. These are research for our advert for our music video.

12.11.09

Today Holly and I completed the storyboard for our music video. We managed to plan it all out and work out the timing of the shots. The only problem we have is trying to work out how many shots we will need per second. Usually stopmotion videos are about 24 or 25 pictures per second but that is hard to work out when actually shooting accurately. I like that we have finally finished our storyboard because now we can get on with finding props and actually starting the video production.

Next lesson we will finalise all of the pre documents needed before we start filming and also bring in all of the props that we need so that we can set up our first scene ready for shooting in the lesson after.

I will be bringing in two paintbrushes, coloured plastercene and the camera

Holly will be bringing in Blue tac, White card and a tripod

Jasmin will be bringing in a bendy ruler, a yellow pencil, and desk lamp.

I will also be creating more information about CD covers and Magazine adverts so that when we get to making the CD cover and Magazine advert we will have the information and style models.

05.11.09 Afternoon

We received an email back form XL recordings.

We replied with the information needed by the company and we are now awaiting another reply.

 

 

This is the reply she gave us . We must now contact someone else.

 

05.11.09

Today we searched for the contact details of who we should as for permission for the use of the song ‘Have I been a Fool’ by Jack Penate. We looked up the recording company that he records with and have written them a letter:

Sarah Taylor
4 Bynghams
Harlow
Essex
CM19 5NR
05.11.09

To whom it may concern of XL Recordings,
We are students of Harlow college studying A2 Media. Our project this year is to create a music video of our choice. We have to choose the music, settings, actors and actually create the video. We have decided that we would create a stop-motion animation to the song of Jack Penate -  ‘Have I Been a Fool’. We ask if you could please allow us permission to use this song. It will be used only for our media project purposes and it will explain that we did not create the song but in fact it is Jack Penate’s.
We hope that you can get back to us soon. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

Yours Sincerely

Sarah Taylor        Holly Miller         Jasmin Bice

The address that we will be sending this letter to is :

One Codrington Mews,

London,

W11 2EH

We also sent this letter in an email directly from their website inquiries. We have decided to contact them in more than one way so that if they do not get one method of communication for any reason (such as postal strike) then they will still receive the other.

03.11.09

This is some research on music CD covers. For our project we have to create a CD cover for our Music Video. I have decided to look at many different styles of CD cover so that they can stimulate different creative ideas that we could use.

22.10.09

Today we chose the song that we are going to use for our video it is Have I Been A Fool by Jack Penate

We chose this song because there  is a bold story line that is interesting and easy to work with. Also it has quite upbeat poppy music with interesting lyrics.

Choosing the song made it easier for us to create the story board. I was mainly Holly and I who created and came up with ideas for the storyboard. We planned the different stages around the different parts of the music such as the verses and chorus. We visualised how the video would go and how long each frame would take along with the music. We managed to plan out half the stopmotion to suit the lyrics but we need to complete the storyboard, this will be done in the next lesson.

We also need to write to the producers of the song to try and get permission to use it for our video. To do this we will email and write letters to a variety of sources that are involved in the production of the song including the record label and band. I also need to research CD covers and magazine features that will be similar to the one that we will produce to advertise our music video.

Horizontal and Vertical Synergy

Film: New Moon

• First promotional poster released 19th May 2009
• First Trialer released 31st May 2009
• Two scenes from the film were presented at tehe 2009 San Duego Comic-Con
• Second trailer released online 12th Auguse 2009
• Theater showings sold out two months prior to teh relase date
• Twlight: gross over $350 Million
• New Moon $50 million budget
• Summit Entertainment
• Biggest selling childrens paperback of 2008 selling over 5.3 million copies
• Soundtrack can be bought for around $9.99

Summit Entertainment

• Independent American film studio headquatered in Santa Monica, California with two offices in London
• Founded originally in 1990s Launched in 1996 by Patric Wachsberger, Bob Hayward and David Garrett under the name Summit Entertainment LP as a distribution and sales organisation
• April 2007 became fully independant film studio
• Added production, acquisitions, marketing and distribution

 

 

 

 

An interesting website :

http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#5pB6ui/moviefill.com/news/Pixar-vs-the-Rest/16999//