Kate's Blog

Monday, 10 November 2014

New Prop List: For Studio

New Prop List: For Studio

Slashed mattress

Broken picture frames – pictures of the couple

Bed frame on its side/ broken

Duvet and pillows on the floor/slashed – feathers spilling out

Broken lamp

Single lamp bulb hanging from ceiling

Fairy lights

Bullet holes in the wall

Clothes spilling out of a chest of drawers

Wall paper ripped

Light bulb from ceiling

Monday, 3 November 2014

Unfortunately, we did another smoke test but with a few smoke bombs at the same time, and the result was that our school kitchen was filled with smoke. As a result, we will not be able to use the smoke bombs as it would be a hazard to us and those around us. Having discussed our options as a group, we have decided to start afresh, and pick a whole new song and idea.

We firstly began by narrowing the genre of music down. We decided to have a ‘rock type band’, as if the worst comes to the worst we can always rely on having a good performance element for our video. Having contemplated numerous songs, we finally decided on Elbow’s song, ‘Grounds for Divorce’. The song has a good solid beat, and numerous instrumental interludes which will enable us to have a good performance element and a narrative element.

As we did not have a lot of time to come up with an idea, we immediately fixated upon the idea of ‘divorce’, and heightening it into something dramatic and visually exciting. Therefore, we decided to use a couple in our narrative section who are having a physical fight that progresses into a gun fight. By having the couple running through a woods, we will be able to use a variety of shots, especially fast paced hand held ones, thus will add an edgier side to the video. We do not want the video to be realistic, but instead we want it to be an exaggerated form of a love fight, so that it portrays the link between passion and violence. In keeping with this idea, we decided to place the band in a torn apart bedroom, in order to convey to the impression that the couple had just had a fight in the bedroom and then had taken it outside. We decided that the lead singer of the band should also play the boy’s part in the narrative, as it will create an intimate link between the actors and the song.

We are focusing on the stereotypical image of a rock band, but using inspirations from bands like Kodaline and The 1975 to make the band more current and ‘indie’. Therefore, our star image is one that is slightly absent from audiences, but provides a cool edgy look that many of the audience members will aspire too. We want the band to infer a ‘bad-boy’ type look, thus we picked the members of the band who had a different style and look but were also attractive.

Here is some images that we took for inspiration:

Sunday, 26 October 2014

Screen Test: Smoke Bomb

Screen Test: Smoke Bomb

As smoke is such a large part of our video, we needed to ensure that the smoke bombs that we had bought were effective. Therefore, we tested them in the studio that we are going to use so that we can see if there are any complications that we need to sort out before the shoot day. Also, we found a tube that we could use to see if the smoke would travel through it effectively, however we will use transparent tubes in the real video.

Through testing the smoke bombs, we learnt several things. Firstly, that at the start the smoke is thin and wispy, therefore we will need to cut out the beginning in editing, so that it looks thick throughout. However, it looks good coming through the tube, and will look even better when we use transparent tubes. Also, we realised that we would need to have multiple fans next to the tubes in order to bring the smoke through the tubes more effectively. Similarly, we will need fans to clear the studio, as the smoke lingers for around 10-15 minutes per bomb and we will need to ensure that there is no residue from the previous bomb when we start filming again. This may prove a problem, as we have a tight time schedule and may not have time to wait for the smoke to clear. As a result, we will have to organise the shoot, so that we do all the sections without smoke beforehand and then do the smoke filled ones as it will be less noticeable if there is a tiny bit of smoke left over. Moreover, we are going to need to buy some gas masks as the smoke produces a rather noxious smell that in an enclosed space will become horrible to work in. Overall, we were really happy with the smoke bombs and look forward to using them in the video.

Screen Test:

Screen Test:

We decided to screen test the boy we are going to use, in order to ensure that he fitted the part. We needed to make sure that he could lip sync effectively, as well as perform on camera. The boy in our video needs to ooze confidence and arrogance, therefore his performance needs to reflect his cool cocky star image.

We picked this actor (Ben), as he embodied this look and we knew that he had a background in singing/dancing/acting. These combined will hopefully mean that his performance will be interesting, and he will embody the star image we have created.

We had not previously rehearsed with our actor (Ben), but he quickly picked up the lyrics. However, his performance seems rather awkward, but we put this down to the circumstances - not really knowing the song and performing without the location/atmosphere. Overall though, we believe that he will do the job well.

Also, as we want the boy in the video to do various tricks, we asked him to showcase one of them so we could see how it would look on camera. We were very happy with the result and hopefully it will look as good when combined with the coloured smoke and song.

Thursday, 23 October 2014

Copyright Permission

Copyright Permission

The whole album "True" by Avicii, including the track "Liar, Liar", which we are using for our music video, is owned by Universal Island Records. This is the copy of an e-mail we sent to Universal Island Records to obtain permission to actually use the track.

To Universal Island Records
We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualification in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track as part of this project:

Avicii – Liar, Liar

With your permission the track would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. The video will be viewed only by members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board.

The artist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognised in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We can also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself.

Yours sincerely

Archie Repin, Kate Douetil, Melissa Maden, Megan Havard
Hurtwood House School

Website and Artwork Inspirations:

Website and Artwork Inspirations:

In order to begin planning our album artwork and website for our artist, we looked into the work of similar artists to get some inspiration for our own. We looked mainly at prominent female artists today, who have a similar star image to our artist; Leah. In our album artwork, we want to create an intrigue for or artist by having a vibrant and enticing image of her as the main feature. We also want to have her name in a clear font, that allows the audience to recognize the artist whilst also engaging potential consumers. For our website, we wanted it to represent and reflect her girlishness as well as the 60s theme were are incorporating. However, we want it to have a current edge, thus to have various pictures of her that show she documents every moment of her life. This will create an intimate link between her and her fans, thus coincide with Dyers paradox of being simultaneously present and absent.

Our main influence was Ariana Grande, whose image strongly reflects her girlishness but that through her fashion choices, portrays her to be slightly edgy as well. Moreover, her outfits often have a 60s twist that coincide with her 'naughty cute girl' star image. This is reflected in her website and artwork.

Both images used convey her star image, and the use of black and white adds an old fashioned twist to the images. The album artwork focuses entirely on her, and this is what we want to reflect in our artist as it immediately captures the consumers attention. Moreover, the use of album artwork as the opening image of the website is a useful marketing tool, as it promotes her music as well as her star image. The combination of black, white, pink, and purple is interesting as it depicts a soft tone that is not always reflected in her music. Therefore, we want to use more vibrant colours in our website and artwork as it reflects are artist more.

Another inspiration for us, is Ellie Goulding, who also has a girlishness about her that is combined with a more rocky side. However, Ellie uses more energetic colours that entice the audience as they are more exciting.

The exotic colours on the album artwork immediately attract the consumer, and as we are focusing on colour in our video this is something we want to portray in our artwork. Additionally, the use of photos from different moments of her day to day life is something we want to incorporate, as it creates that necessary link between artist and fan. This is combined with promotional images thus is marketing her as an artist as well as adding another dimension to the website. This is something we want to use in our website as we do not just want to focus on her music, but her entire life.

Additionally, we looked at Taylor Swift, because although she focuses on her country style, the girlishness she depicts through album artwork and on her website, is something we would like to create.

The album artwork and website seem to contrast here, and this is because Speak Now was a far earlier album than the 1989. The pure outburst of colour on the album cover is something we would like to achieve, but instead to focus more on her face. Also, we want to use more block lettering that is shown on the website, as it seems more edgy and accessible to the consumer. The website has a completely different tone to the artwork, as it uses softer colours and focuses entirely on the face. However, again the idea of promoting the latest album and what she has been doing is something we want to re-create as it establishes an intrigue for the consumer.

Another artist we looked at was Selena Gomez, as her album artwork is similar to Ariana Grande's, thus uses the mixture of black and white and pink to combine girlishness with edginess.

The focus on her face is something we want to re-create as the idea of having her looking direct at the camera is striking. Moreover, the balance between the image and the text is something we want to use as it promotes both star image and the music. The use of interesting features on her face is also intriguing as it creates another dimension that adds to the star image.

Furthermore, we took inspiration from Demi Lovato as she has altered her extremely girly image into an edgier more mature image. We want to convey both sides in our artist, therefore we want to find a middle ground between it.

The album artwork here is something we want to create, as the contrast between skin and colour is extremely poignant. We want to use more primary colours, but the idea of it coating it on her skin is similar. As well as this, the idea of having smaller print compared to the image is something that influenced us. We liked the idea of having a clean white background for our website, but we want the font to be in brighter colours and there to be more images. Overall, we want the image on the artwork to be striking, and convey an explosion of colour.