Lucy Barker - Making a twitter page for Grace

After researching similar product music videos I have found that stars need social networking sites in order to promote and contact their fans, so for Grace we are going to use a web link to Facebook in the ancillary tasks and we are also going to put a link in the music video published on youtube to twitter. We have created a twitter account for Grace. There will be a link to her music video here which will be an affective way of promoting it to our target audience who are the most common users of the internet and social networking sites.

Satire in modern music videos by Maddy Ryder

Our video faces the issue from two sides; on one hand we are commenting on the serious effects of materialism, showing how technology and the influence of the media causes even young children to ignore the world around them. A small child trying to walk in heels and another child with an 'I Love Shoes' bedroom decoration is a representation of the loss of innocence children face today as a result of these influences.



On the other hand, we are mocking the heavily-serious concept based music video which seeks to blame all the world's problems on a single issue - although technology does indeed have a huge effect on kids today, it does not turn them all into drooling, mindless zombies.



Satirical videos have become more popular in modern times, and the idea of satire as a whole is almost fashionable, especially among teenagers and young adults (you may have noticed an alarming increase in satirical t shirts)

 

 

An example of an already existing satirical music piece is Lily Allen's Hard Out There, which mocks the overly voyeuristic representations of women in the media 

The video shows her performing with scantily-clad dancers "twerking" and at one stage she eats a banana suggestively, which is a spoof of the way women are treated in music promos.

 

It begins with her lying on an operating table having liposuction to get herself back in shape for a pop career after she had a temporary retirement from the chart world, during which she launched a fashion business and became a mother.

An actor playing her agent asks: " How did someone let themselves get like this, huh?"

To which she replies: "Erm, I had two babies." This shows the high, often impossible standards women are held to, expected to have perfect bodies and unrealistic proportions.

 

The lyrics feature the lines "forget your b***s and grow a pair of t**s, it's hard, it's hard, it's hard out here for a b***h", which could be a spoof reference to Three 6 Mafia rap track Hard Out Here For A Pimp.

 

 

 

 

"Music videos thus turn out to be anything but

shallow post-modern strings without connection

or center, but on the contrary consist of an intricate

 pattern of representational and nonrepresentational signs"

 

- Heidi Peeters

 

 

 

 

...

TA feedback 1 By Lucy Barker

Our TA thought that the video was very funny, however the lighting at some points was too dark and at one point you couldn't see one of the party guests face because the shadows were too dark. This was easy to solve using the exposure.


Before:

 After:                          


We still wanted the shot to be quite dark but not as dark as the others, because at this point Grace has arrived and she is sharing her light with everyone about how to be happy and have fun.

It was also pointed out that the music was quieter in one shot than the rest - this is because we didn't disable the music when we were cutting the shots, and we have accidentally pulled down the volume line, which was easy to do. I have fixed this know so the music is at a more consistent volume.

We are still waiting for feedback on our polldaddy survey which will also help us out.

Target Audience Update by Lucy Barker

We have so far been successful at aiming our video at 16-18 and adults/parents who feel they can relate to the issue of technology, however we have recently discovered that our video is also standing out to younger audiences, even under 16. This is great because the wider the audience the better, because it means our star Grace stands out to even more people. The humour that we have ended up using in the video has helped us achieve this because it is entertaining and the message is still obvious.

The effects debate By Lucy Barker

The effects debate looks at the effects of media on its consumers in a negative way. For example violent video games are said to 'turn' kids to violence and in a way affect their personalities. However we are not portraying this in our music video, instead we are mocking the effects debate because we, and our star Grace believe that the idea that media is the only problem is ridiculous. The media is blaming the media, when other aspects are always involved.

The humour used in the video tackles this. Although we are saying that younger generations are getting too involved in technology and needing to be part of a 'common Ground' (Our title can suggest that everyone just wants to be the same as each other, finding therefore finding 'Common Ground' becomes difficult for our star) we are also saying that it isn't just media, by using shots such as the dog walking scene were one of our stars rival, the dog walker, isn't involved in any technology at all but is very grumpy and clearly thinks she is better than everyone else, but technology hasn't made her like that, although it does play a tiny part because she is involved in the gold party at the end of the video.

Ancillary Task Research - Posters by Maddy Ryder

For our posters of our star Grace, we wish to create a specific 'star image' for her. In order to keep with the personality we have given her in the video - a down to earth, unmaterialistic person - we will keep things such as makeup and costume minimalistic.

We realise that this will be breaking convention, as it is almost unheard of for a female singer in the public eye to go without makeup, as you can see from this picture:

The artist, Katy Perry, is described as having a "natural, dewy look" here, despite obvious makeup, because it is still a lot less compared to what her, and other stars, usually wear:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although it may seem like every female singer is 'all dolled up' these days, there are a few, especially the younger artists, who choose a more natural look:

 

 

 

 

 

These artists are all younger singers, between the ages of 16 and 20. This is perfect for us as Grace is also a teenager, so by following these examples and giving her a natural look, we are keeping in tune with our ideas for her star image while still somewhat following convention. Younger stars are often shown with less makeup, and in a less voyeuristic manner because people feel it is inappropriate to sexualise them. It is for this reason that artists such as Miley Cyrus are considered 'taboo' :



 

 

We would definitely like to avoid controversy such as this with our artist, another reason to display her in a more natural, more innocent manner.

 

 

 

 



TA Research 2 by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder

We are using Polldaddy again to carry out TA research.

13/12/2013 Re-Scheduling Of shoot - Lucy Barker

We have had to re-schedule the shoot to later on today. The shoot will involve performance clips of Grace at the piano, as we decided we needed more performance elements.

We were lucky enough to have the decision between using a grand piano and a normal one, and we decided using a normal, upright piano would be better because our star Grace, isn't very Grande, or the sort to show off. An upright piano will reflect her and her image much better.

3rd Rough Cut by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder

This is our 3rd rough cut and it's really starting to come along! We have really been precise in the length of the videos we have used and checking that the miming is in time with the music. Where the place holders are, is were we are going to put performance clips of Grace on the piano because we decided there weren't enough performance clips. We are going to do audience target research using this rough copy so that we know that what we have created will stand out to them, and if it doesn't we still have time to change it.

We have lowered the saturation in the clips involving the children to signify the lack of life in them; they are becoming obsessed with technology and materialistic pursuits, causing them to ignore and 'fade' from the world around them. This contrasts to clips involving our star, Grace, who is shown in a lot more colour as she is not materialistic and is very involved in 'real life'.

'Common Ground' First t-shirt idea by Maddy Ryder

Further research has shown that the most popular t shirt designs, especially for teenagers, are ones that include animals:

For that reason I have chosen this as the edited image which could be used as a 'Common Ground'       t-shirt design. It is simplistic, and the use the dog means that it is in line with current fashion

The t-shirt will be a light blue to tie in to the blue and white colour scheme we have used for Grace's costume in the music video.

This is what the final design would look like:

'Common Ground' Merchandise ideas by Maddy Ryder

 These are a few photographs taken from the music video which could be used as pictures on 'Common Ground' T shirts.

 This picture is good as animals are popular, and often found

on t-shirt designs. The image could be edited to appear more 

simplistic, to fit with our star image research.

This image is ideal as it is simplistic already, 

although the background would have to be edited 

out. A pair of trainers fits with our theme perfectly; 

it is simple, and shows Grace's personality as the

down-to-earth star we aim to present her as.

I like this picture because it has a humorous

element, which will especially appeal to

a younger audience, however I am unsure

about it as a t-shirt design; it is not as simple

as I'd like.

Star Image Research - Merchandise by Maddy Ryder

Merchandise is an incredibly successful way to make money from an artist or band, with the most popular merchandise sold today being accessories/clothing, most commonly t shirts. Researching similar products has shown us that it is the more simplistic designs that are currently in fashion:

So for our merchandise we will design a simplistic T shirt to promote our artist, Grace. This is ideal for us as we a promoting Grace as a more simplistic, down-to-earth artist. The design will also appeal to a teenage and young adult audience, who are a prime target when it comes to any form of modern fashion.

Similar Star Image research - Adele By Lucy Barker

Singer/Songwriters Katie Melua and Adele, shown above, both have the kind of look we want to give Grace for the ancillary tasks. Their make-up is simplistic and natural which is what we are going for. Most pictures of them are close ups of their face because the media is focussing on their beauty. We will take some shots like this, but we also want to try shots with Grace and an instrument to emphasise her talent as well as beauty. 

Plans for re-shooting by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder

We have decided that as some of the miming clips are out of time, we are going to add in some more performance clips of Grace on the piano. We are planning to film this on Wednesday and this will fill the places that we have - where we have cut out the out of time singing.

Editing the video 3 by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder

We have started to try and a black and white affect to the children to show that they are in the dark and are victims of consumerism. We learnt how to do this using a youtube tutorial. To do this we added a colour correction and then a shape mask which is the white circle surrounding our character in the picture below. We then shaped this circle desaturated it to make it the appropriate darkness.

We tried this, however we decided not to use it as because our shot is a pan the affect moves with the image and made parts of the shot that we wanted to keep bright, darker. Instead we decided to just keep the saturation low and then gradually wash her character out as each clip of her went by, showing that the materialism is washing her out. We also did this for the other children. 

Rough Cut 2 by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder

Our second rough cut makes more sense because we managed to get the dog walking scene finished, we had some problems with continuity and breaking 'the line' but we resolved this by reversing some of the clips. We still need to go over some of the mouthing to lyrics because it's not perfect yet, but we are proud of it so far!

We have a small amount of filming and re-filming to do which will take the place of the place holders. These will be short clips depicting our teenage boy actor (Alesi) playing video games and ignoring our actress (Meg), who will eventually have to take the game from him and physically drag him and the little girl (Amber) out of the door. The little girl will stay on her phone the whole time, ignoring what is happening around her. We aim to use this clip to show how technology is affecting children, and how they are losing touch with the real world.

Changing the artists name by Lucy Barker

Tatiana is the original artist and her song is copyright free, and we felt that her name didn't fit her image so we are going to create a star image for "Grace" and call the album "Common Ground".

Grace fits the name better because it has many meanings such as:

disposition to be generous or helpful; goodwill

This fits her songs from the album which are all about freeing us from the consequences of materialism and in a way this is her being helpful and doing a good deed.

The name Grace  is widely recognised, and everyone knows the meaning behind it, so it will be easy for the audience to associate it with her character, especially as she is seen as the 'hero', being good natured and down to earth in the face of materialism and snobbery.

A single syllable, simple name is also good as it fits the honest, simplistic nature that we are trying to give to our main character.

Editing the video 2 by Lucy Barker

We have had to film the remaining clips last night in order to meet our deadline. However this means that when we were filming it was dark outside so this has caused problems because we filmed our actress shoving the kids out the door to go to the party and as the door opened you could see the darkness outside.

This clip is going in the middle of the video, and the dog walking scene, which was filmed in the day, comes afterwards, so we were unsure as to whether the audience would understand that the dog walking scene was like a flashback 'earlier that day' kid of thing.

We decided to make the clips of the dog walking scene progressively darker, but not pitch black so you can still see whats going on. This looks natural because it's like the story is being told as the day goes on.

We used the colour scale and exposure to control the overall colour look to make it look like later on in the day.

So far the most difficult part of the editing process has been getting the mouthing of the lyrics to match the music, we just have to spend a lot of time on this to make it perfect.

Storyboarding by Lucy Barker and Maddy Ryder

Here are some examples of storyboards that we created.

Storyboarding became very useful for us because it gave us a baseline and a starting point to film from, we often changed the shots and they turned out different to how we planned, but we did this so it had a better affect. For example we planned to have a shot were a young hand grabs a phone after her older sister tells her to get ready for a party, but instead we replaced this shot with a shot of games being put quickly onto a pile and then being shoved off. We thought that this would be more symbolic of the lack of care that children have for possessions - video games often cause frustration, and a lack of empathy as the games themselves have no consequences; you can shoot people, steal, and commit various other crimes with no punishment. Kids learn that they can do what they like, and become aggressive when they cannot do the same in real life.

We counterbalanced this in the scene where the girl chases the boy for the controls. It is quite a humorous shot, making the point that although they have a negative effect, it is unlikely that every child will be turned into a violent criminal by playing a video game.

The collection of dog walking shots was planned out with storyboarding really well, we knew exactly what we were doing during the shoot, and I think this showed. It turned out to be the best part of the video and I think that we should have done even more storyboarding for the party scenes.

Editing the Video 1 by Lucy Barker

Now that we have most of our filming done and it is on the timeline in the right order we have started to edit. So far we have slowed down clips that wern't long enough so they fit but yesterday we were introduced to changing the colour of clips, using the flip tool and zooming in by          . He noticed that in some of the clips the lighting is different to the following clip which makes it look inconsistant, so we can change this using the bit which is highlighted in red.

We also needed to zoom in the clip shown above becuase it was filmed on a different setting. Although when you zoom in you loose the quality we had to becuase the clip stood out as there were black boxes either side. To do this we used the scroll bar showen highlighted in red and then we can drag the clip into position. 

Whilst editing I realised that some of the clips especially the ones were our actresses, Grace, is mouthing the lyrics, were out of time, so we organised to re-film the clips. This time we helped the actress to practise the lyrics and made her do it to the right point of the music. This looked much more proffessional.

To also make it look more proffessional we had to make sure it didnt look staged. For example there were points when the clip started to early and you could see that the actors were looking into the camera waiting for there cue. To solve this we simply made sure every clip started when the action started to make it look more natural.

We used the flip tool becuase at some points it looked as though we had 'crossed the line'.



It refers to an imaginary line which cuts through the middle of the scene, from side to side with respect to the camera. Crossing the line changes the viewer's perspective in such as way that it causes disorientation and confusion. For this reason, crossing the line is something to be avoided.

In the dog walking scene it looked as though we had crossed it, so we used the flip tool (shown below) which helped it look more coherent. To do this we just clicked and dragged onto the appropriate clip.