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

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

Creating a brand

Although Kanye West, a male rap artist isn't in our genre- he knows how important it is to create a brand. His teddy bear logo has been featured on every single one of his albums to date, on merchandise and even on limited edition Bape trainers. This means that we can immediately associate the teddy bear with Kanye West- increasing his popularity and making his presence felt in all aspects of life. In our questionnaire from last week, we found out that our target audience believed that a cake should be our 'Kanye West teddy bear' and although this seemed a little odd- we took on the challenge and sought to find a cake to represent the KIRA KITSON brand!

Luckily it didn't take us long, and whilst popping to the shops before a Media lesson- we managed to pick up this beauty!



It was perfect! A traditional Belgian bun- it had something very retro about it, which is a common convention of both the female solo artist genre and indie music. White and red was a colour scheme that we would like to follow. Immediately we could see that with a little bit of editing, we could easily incorporate this bun into the ancillary tasks and music video to make a consistent link throughout the entire project. The cherry on top also led to us deciding that red was going to be Kira's colour, and her name would always be written in red font on album covers and the colour of her lipstick in the music video- red was also found to be the popular colour with our target audience. We've also decided that a very pristine, Stepford Wives feel for an album cover would really tie with the genre and appeal to our audience!

Just finding our logo, the Belgian bun- sparked off many other ideas in regards to giving Kira more of an identity, and now we have a lot more to work with within the creative process.

EDIT: Also, Katy Perry wears a set of them in her video for 'California Gurls'!
My analysis can be found here :)

Risk Assessment

What is a risk assessment?
When filming, especially in the music industry- risk assessments are very important to ensure that if an accident occurs- you would have previous assessed the risk and tried to your best to prevent it, making claiming insurance easier! However, this does not apply so much for an A-level Media Studies music video- but we have tried our best to scale down the process to get a feel for what real music producers have to do when producing a music video.

Risk assessment is the process where you:

Identify hazards.
Analyze or evaluate the risk associated with that hazard.
Determine appropriate ways to eliminate or control the hazard.
In practical terms, a risk assessment is a thorough look at your workplace to identify those things, situations, processes, etc that may cause harm, particularly to people. After identification is made, you evaluate how likely and severe the risk is, and then decide what measures should be in place to effectively prevent or control the harm from happening.

Why is risk assessment important?
Risk assessments are very important as they form an integral part of a good occupational health and safety management plan. They help to:

Create awareness of hazards and risks.
Identify who may be at risk (employees, cleaners, visitors, contractors, the public, etc).
Determine if existing control measures are adequate or if more should be done.
Prevent injuries or illnesses when done at the design or planning stage.
Prioritize hazards and control measures.

What is the goal of risk assessment?
The aim of the risk assessment process is to remove a hazard or reduce the level of its risk by adding precautions or control measures, as necessary. By doing so, you have created a safer and healthier workplace.



Risk Assessment

Mis-en-Scene Questionnaire!

How was everyone's Christmas?! Now the festive season is over, Parisienne Records is back with a survey into mis-en-scene. Being in a college made up of 16-19 year olds, and approximately 50% of us girls- we are very lucky to be surrounded with our target audience. I created this short survey to try and get a feel for what our target audience likes to see in a music video in regards to colour and even other celebrity influences and compiled them into a graph on Microsoft Excel to see what appeals to them in a more easy to read format.

I asked...What colour would you like to see used in mostly in a Kate Nash music video?

As we probably guessed, from asking teenage girls- colours like pink and red came out on top with no one choosing beige as the idea colour. From this, we can tell that our target audience would be attracted by brighter, feminine colours and we need to take this into consideration when creating our ancillary pieces and the final production.

I asked...What type of scenario would you prefer in a Kate Nash music video?

From the look of the results, it's apparent that serious subject matter à la Christina Aguilera but something silly and little bit more light-hearted that will make people laugh! We are pleased with this result as we hurried into making a humorous narrative, and it is one thing less to worry about as we know this will please our audience.

I asked...What artists should we look to for inspiration who you admire the most?

Katy Perry came out on top for this one, and we were again very pleased by this as we had already done a lot of research into her album covers and music videos- this shows that both me and Dora know our target audience very well (perhaps this is to do with us being members of our own target audience?!). This makes it clear that we need to delve further into what makes Katy Perry so appealing by researching a few more of her music videos and looking at her own personal conventions- as this is clearly a sure fire way to appeal to our target audience. Ellie Goulding came second, and this was expected as she is, like Kate Nash- more indie/pop so we need to see how she balances the two genres and perhaps try to emulate that in our own project.

I asked...What do you think should be the 'symbol' of the artist 'Kira Kitson'?

We thought this was a slightly odd result as we thought perhaps sweets or stars would be the most popular with our target audience, but they seemed to be quite adamant that cakes would be the best logo when it came to creating a KIRA KITSON brand. Obviously, we want to appeal to them and make something that they will like- so we will endeavor to try and use a cake as our logo!

CASE STUDY: Documentary shoot with MA Film and TV Production students at the University of Bristol

In my AS year- we didn't really work as a production company or have separate roles, however for A2, it's detrimental to our project to know exactly what we're doing when creating a media production.

Last year, I assisted a group of MA students film a 3 minute documentary focusing on the questions 'What did you want to be when you grew up?' and 'What do you do now?'. Though I obviously didn't get involved in the technical side of filming and directing- it was my job to stroll about with a sign and encourage people to be a part of the film. However simple my job was that day, watching the others certainly gave me a great insight into what goes into producing good footage and how to get the best shots possible. Prior to the shoot that day- the students I worked with visited all the locations with a camera and took a picture of the exact shots that they wanted to get, just how it would look on film. I realise that this prevented them from wasting precious time and I should certainly employ this technique when it comes to making our film opening.

Something else I learned was incorporating the use of masking tape to make sure everyone who was in the shot was positioned properly, ensuring they weren't cut off or with light on their faces. This also made each shot look consistent- creating a very professional feel overall. Also, I got a feel of what it was like to work in a team, where each person had their own job; director, editor, producer, sound operator...rather than just using whoever is available at the time. On the more technical side, I encountered some of the most advanced equipment I've ever seen close up such as boom microphones and professional cameras. Also, I had the chance to meet the tutor of the course and take a look around the the Drama department of the University of Bristol!

I believe my time spent with the Film & TV Production students was a very worthwhile experience as I have learnt some particularly good skills in both film and organisation. Furthermore, just meeting and getting to know these people (apart from my manager, who I am already quite acquainted with, as he got me in on the task) was particularly beneficial as I have a network of people to talk to when it comes to making our music video. Despite that they were making a documentary- which is completely different to our project, I learnt a wealth of valuable and transferable skills that will Parisienne Records.

Ellie Goulding- 'Your Song': analysing existing media texts

In the video for Ellie Goulding's song, 'Your Song'- it's simplicity is what makes it beautiful. I've tried my best to analyse very different music videos, and this is unlike anything that I've ever seen before. It has a muted colour palette of soft beiges and greens from the trees, and a bokeh effect has been used on the footage to give it a dreamlike feel.

There is no set narrative to the music video, it features Ellie in situations with her friends and family (walks in the park, playing on a piano, on a train) but the bokeh effect, but this is interjected with a scene of her in the woods on her own- much sharper in effect than any other scene in the music video. This suggests that she is reminiscing of a time in the past.

'Your Song' is very ballad-like and slow in comparison to the other songs I have analysed, 'California Gurls' and 'Foundations' and therefore the conventions most likely wouldn't apply to our video for 'Pumpkin Soup' but something we could take from the video is the use of close ups- as they were especially effective at drawing us into Ellie's story, and the indie styling in terms of clothes and hair- as we can't forget about about the indie half of Kate Nash's music.