Location Shoots

As I learned from working with the University of Bristol students, it is really important to plan exactly where you are going to be filming so you can ensure perfect continuity when you are actually in the production stage.

location shoots

Ancillary Test Shots

A2 Media Studies.: Test Anciliary Shots.

Here is a link to a blog post by my partner Dora Lynn, it displays our ancillary test shots that we took to get a feel for the album cover and poster and to give us inspiration for the main ancillary tasks- we thought they were very conventional of Kate Nash.

A2 Media Studies.: Target Audience Case Study - Sidonie

A2 Media Studies.: Target Audience Case Study - Sidonie:

Here is a link to my partner, Dora Lynn's blog where she closely examined a member of her target audience for research purposes.

Ancillary Drafts

Here are the drafts of our ancillary tasks- we took the photos at the 'Studio' shoot yesterday where we decided that we would select the options of a digipak for a CD and a poster. Dora's main role within the group is to be in control of editing and cinematography- and mine is to create the ancillary tasks, act in the video and try and lead the group in terms of research, therefore it was up to me to draft the ancillary tasks.

For the poster I played with a range of colours before I settled on a colour scheme of pink and red- I felt that the contrast between baby pink and bright red added a retro feel to the poster and also complimented the belgian bun motif that would be a consistent theme throughout our video. I paticularly liked the use of red because it matched the make up we used in the video and the cherry on the bun- making it have a pop art feel, which gave the ancillary task and the video a feeling of continuity. Also- I liked the idea of cutting out a picture of a belgian bun and having it dotted around the poster. Kate Nash herself rarely includes herself on the poster- favouring illustrations and cartoons, but we can managed to find a poster where she incorperated herself (LINK) into her poster along with shapes superimposed onto her in different colours- so I thought this was a very good idea as we could keep to her indie pop conventions yet add our own element to it.


Again, I tried to keep to the same theme when creating the front cover of the digipack- I haven't done the inside of the booklet yet as I merely wanted to get a feel about what I'm going to do as I'm going to start doing the final drafts of the ancillary tasks in a few days. I used a photo from the same photoshoot as the video and poster so this 'look' can be associated with Kira Kitson's era of music- creating a brand. In the poster I used a google image picture of a belgian bun and cut it out on Photoshop, however for the digipak I used a real belgian bun to make it look it more aethentic and pleasing. I also think it will be best to repeat this design and use a close up because it played to the typical conventions of the female solo artist- we looked at this genre here---> LINK. I felt that this was quite important as consumers like repetition, so this more traditional CD cover would be more appealing the consumer on the shelf of HMV. I followed suit in terms of the poster by using increasing the saturation to make the red brighter.


I think I have made a very good start- and the final ancillary task will be up soon.

ONE: 'Studio' scenes & Ancillary Shoot

Me and Dora booked out the school's photography studio in order to create a really professional effect for both our music video and the ancillary tasks. To ensure that we had a sense of continuity, a link, if you will- between the ancillary tasks and the music video- we decided to do capture both on the same day, using the same props and styling.

In order to achieve a perfect sync when editing the footage- I had to sing aloud to an MP3 of Kate Nash's 'Pumpkin Soup'! I felt really stupid as the photography studio is in a classroom, which was full of people- but I tried to treat it like a drama performance and after that I realised that people were more so watching me than laughing at me, and this gave me the confidence to perform more. Singers like Kate Nash are really gutsy performers who show a lot of emotion with their faces and bodies so I tried to give a very energetic performance that would be entertaining to watch as part of a music video.

When we had finished filming that section (and I was very tired from by the ends of it!) we moved onto taking pictures for our digipak and poster. This time we brought in props of cakes and biscuits to make it a little bit more interesting- especially the Belgian bun that we decided would be KIRA KITSON's logo. I really enjoyed that part of the shoot as I spent an hour posing and eating cakes- and the fact that I was enjoying what I was doing came across really well in the photos. We were so pleased with them, and the footage itself- just from playing it back on the camera...it's clear that the filming we have done this afternoon has very much fitted the conventions but also seems very unique.

Filming Log

As a group, we have left our filming quite late and mainly focused on research. Our reasons for this is because didn't want to do our filming in dregs, as we'd experience continuity errors and a lack of creativity as we started too early!

As a result, I drew up this 9 week filming plan, that should end about 2 weeks before final hand in. We will be shooting the studio scenes as soon as this blog entry is published so we're determined to stick to it. Unfortunately, there is a school holiday that sets us back a week- but this is a perfect opportunity to catch up on filming logs and any extra research.

Click to enlarge :)

*Studio = The 'Studio' scenes, where Kira is on her own on a white backdrop, singing to the camera. We will also use this as an opportunity to take pictures for the ancillary tasks.

*Research= This is time we will use to dedicate to our blogs.

*Geek= The scenes were Kira is being wooed by a bespectacled genius.

*Hunk= _____________________________ hunky gym fanatic.

*Bohemian- _________________________ an artistic gent who is the one taking pictures of her in the studio.

*Rough cut= In this week we will assemble the main rough cut of footage.

*Final tweaks= If a scene isn't working, this week is dedicated to sorting it out.

*Final edit= Editing the final piece.

*Evaluation= Time to tie up any loose ends and work on our evaluations.

Plans for the digipack

This is a brief plan for the positioning of texts and images on my cd cover/digipack. I thought this was quite important to plan because good planning will ensure that my digipack will be the best that it can be

plansss