Planning for Filming - 17/11/15

When filming on Tuesday, we will need the following;

• Cameras
• Studio Lights
• Green Screen
• Tripod
• Laptop/iPad/phone playing the song
• Printed Song Lyrics
• Performer's costumes

We agreed that to make the lip syncing seem realistic, our performers would have to actually sing the words to the song.  The performers are not natural singers so my co-director and I agreed to sing along with them so they don't feel embarrassed - this doesn't effect the footage as we will mute the sound of the clips anyway.

For costumes, we told the three performers if they owned any clothes that could be put together to create a 'geeky' outfit. We agreed to style Imogen's hair in a low ponytail, Alicia will have bunches and Emma will have a low plait. We also want Imogen to be wearing glasses. 

Filming - 17/11/15

We have finally decided on a day where we can film with some our performers. We decided after school on Tuesday 17th November. My co-director and I decided to film all our green screen shots on Tuesday meaning we only need Alicia, Imogen and Emma. The green screen shots being filmed are the ones where Imogen is still 'geeky'. We aim to film the girls individually for the 9 shot scene like our storyboard;

We also want to film the whole song with the girls singing and dancing using the green screen. This is so we can use this when editing and can add the shots of the girls singing in between the narrative story. Filming the whole song ensures all the shots look similar as they have been filmed on the same day, using the same camera, same costumes and same natural lighting. Also, filming this all now will save time later when editing if we come across a part in the music video where we wanted shots of the girls singing and dancing in front of the green screen.

Artist's Website Research - Mobile View

Whilst researching the artist's website, I came to the realisation that most of the websites seemed as if they worked best when being used on a smartphone. I thought this because of the simplistic layout and the landscape format was designed to fill a computer screen but can be easily adapted into a portrait view for phones. I think more and more websites are becoming mobile friendly due to the rise in people using their mobile phones to browse online, 63% of mobile phone owners use the internet on their phone.

I looked at the same websites on my phone to show the difference when viewed in a portrait format. Here is the result:

When looking at Adele's website on a desktop computer, the page for purchasing her new album shows the album cover on the left and then the links on the right. However, on the mobile version her album cover is above and the links are beneath.

Using this as research, my co-director and I should aim to make our artist's website compatible for mobile phones.

Artist's Website Research

As part of our Ancillary Task, my co-director and I have to create a website for our artist/girlband. Again, to ensure we follow conventions, I have done some research looking at other artist's websites before creating my own.

1.  The first artist I looked at Adele's website and I really liked the simplicity and monochrome colours. This is the first thing you see when visiting www.adele.com.

Following the release of her new 'come-back' single 'Hello', this welcome page is heavily promoting this, providing links to where you can purchase the single. After you have seen this page there is a 'Enter Website' button that takes you onto the main website, where you can view; tour dates, videos etc.

This website was easy to use and the colours worked well together and very pleasing to the eye.

2. The second artist's website was Taylor Swift's. Below is the page you are greeted with;

The front page promotes her new single and music video 'Wildest Dreams' and provides a link directly to the video. There is a menu pane with links for news, tours, and merchandise. Below the advertisement for her music is a unique feature of using a banner in the style of a slideshow to show a collage of pictures from live shows and backstage at concerts.

3. Lastly, I looked at a girl group's website as this would help me relate my ideas for our girlband's website. Little Mix's homepage looks like this;

Unlike the other websites, this is the only screen visible, if you scroll down there is nothing else to see. The menu tabs are accessible through the universally recognised menu icon. This then opens a new window displaying the tabs for their social media links, tour dates, the band members, merchandise etc. This is the menu window that appears;

In conclusion, the main convention for an artist's website seems to be a simplistic design and simple colours. The website must be easy to use with information under obvious tab titles. Using this research I aim to create a mock website for my made up artist. 

Album Cover Magazine Research

For our Ancillary Task we have to produce a magazine advert and a website promoting both, the artist and their new album. To make sure our magazine advert looks similar to others and professional, my co director and I have been looking at magazine adverts that are out at the moment and looking at the typical conventions used.

I created a powerpoint presentation and uploaded it to SlideShare to show some of the magazine adverts I have found and created a word mind map of all the conventions used for most/all the adverts I had found.

I wanted to use a programme called 'Wordle' for my mind map but the software was not compatible with my laptop. To overcome this issue I researched into websites that offered a similar service and stumbled across worditout.com. This allowed me to create a collage of all the different conventions used.

Here is my presentation on SlideShare.

Photoshop Experimentation

After researching into magazine advertisements for artist's and their albums, my co director and I thought that we would experiment using Adobe Photoshop to create a mock advert. Neither of us had ever used photoshop before and it was definitely an experience! We decided to do this task separately so we could experiment and show each other how to do things the other hadn't discovered when creating our girl band's advert.

This is the advert I created:

I had to come up with the artist's name, album name and a release date. I also thought it would be good to link the artist's website so readers can find more information online if they want to.

I wanted the advert  to be simple and without much going on. The simple black font stands out and is easy to read. However, I wanted the artist's name 'Forever Lily' to be a larger font size and a thicker outline of the letters. I found that once I had typed what I needed and clicked off, you could not go back and edit what you have previously typed. I am sure this is possible and I will carry on experimenting with Photoshop to ensure that my co-director and I produce an advert of high quality that can be printed in magazines.

Filming Set Backs

Unfortunately, due to our (quite) big cast we couldn't all meet on the decided date to film as some people had made other arrangements prior to agreeing a date. This has set us back slightly but we aim to have our video filmed and edited by December. This extra time allows us to plan more precisely and plan the exact shots we want to feature.