4)How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

3)What have you learned from your audience feedback?

2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Final Music Video

16/03/15

Aaron and Hayley, today morning, finished off editing the music video by adding various transitions. They experimented with adding filters to the performance part as it was a bit dull however when doing this they felt that the overall performance being in colour does not work well at all. This is due to the lighting being odd making the hues on the clips look tacky and unprofessional. Therefore, the idea of having the performance in colour and narrative in monochrome was changed to having the whole music video be in monochrome.

This is our final Music Video:

After screening and presenting our final music video, the feedbacks we got were fairly positive. Everyone in our class felt that by doing a reshoot on the performance really made our music video, as a whole, look stronger and more professional. Although Jess is not conventional in illustrating the stereotypical pop star look her performance really stood out making our video not be entirely conventional but still illustrating the pop genre.

Performance Shoot with Jess

12/03/15

Today Megan, Aaron and I stayed behind to do the performance shoot with Jess. I think the shoot today worked really well as we got lots of various shots from different camera angles of Jess singing which looked amazing. Her performance was superb as she was actually singing along to the song amplifying her emotions to connote the lyrics. In some sections of the song she was forgetting the lyrics, however when editing we will not include these errors. She also brought along various dresses of the colours: white to connote peace and elegance, red to connote danger and love and dark navy to connote the idea of darkness. I liked how from the beginning to the middle Jess's style and outfit is subtle until the end ,where the music picks up more beat and gets aggressive, having a dark style. We kept the source of light, white studio lights, being the same and used the fan however didn't use the prop of a micro-phone as it meant that Jess would be limited to showing her emotions through body language. 

As our music video has to be handed in on Monday, Aaron will take a macbook home and will start constructing our final music video using the footage we got today.

Re-casting of Isabel Beau

11/03/15

Due to the performance being carried out by our actress, Alex, was not to the high standard which everyone was expecting to see in the music video, we decided to re-cast.Alex's 

From the constructive criticism feedback we got from our music video we have decided to have Jess, who is a singer and performer, act as our artist. By having Jess play Isabel's role I feel the performance will look much more stronger and natural due to it being realistic as she will sing and perform as if it is her songs.

Although this is the third time we are changing our actress for the role of Isabel Beau, our digi-packs and poster will still remain the same of them being of poppy. 

                               

Third Screening of Music video

11/03/15
After adding the new shots we took last night, replacing all the performance scenes, we constructed our music video to be ready to screen to the classroom. This is going to be the last screen in which we can get feedbacks on and a chance to do any refinements as the deadline is next week.

The feedback we got from the class was that our music video is really strong in the sense that the narrative is really beautiful and the narrative scenes are filmed gorgeously, however the performance scenes are not working well and is letting our entire video down. The performance, everyone felt, looked really fake and tacky due to the lighting, cinematography and costume of the artist. The performance of Aleks singing doesn't look realistic either which brings down the quality of this music video.

After having a discussion with Sinead, Shaun and our group we have decided upon the idea of doing another final re-shoot where this time we will use another actress to play the role of Isabel Beau. 

Reshoot on Alex's Performance

10/03/15

As Alex's performance was not right from the shoot Hayley and I did at Danson park, the group and I decided to do a re-shoot however this time making it seem like alive performance in the drama room using low key lighting. The Danson park shoot, we feel, didn't look right due to the scenery being out of place from the narrative and gallery shots. Also the costume she had on didn't quite illustrate the pop genre vibe however I feel that her hair being out and the wind blowing it onto her face created a great impact; connoted the sense of annoyance and aggressiveness reflecting upon her emotions and lyrics.

When doing our re-shoot in the drama room, we set up white studio lights so that the lighting is different from the lighting used in the ballet scenes. Alex's costume here was of Hayley's prom dress and her make-up was light to give that elegant natural beauty vibe. As Hayley and I liked the idea of Alex's hair blowing, we used a fan in some of the shots to create the build up of tension which is heard through the fast pace music towards the end. A prop of a micro-phone was also used to give the sense of the performance being sung live. When filming we used two cameras in which one was purely tripod based getting wide angles from each side and the other being hand-held getting the close-ups and mid-shots. We also used a crane to give a great impact to the part in the song where there is a high-pitch.

I think that some of the shots we got today were really good. Especially the ones where Alex was leaning on the wall as it gave that voyeuristic image of her which most pop music videos to to grab male attention as well female.

Danson Park Performance Re-shoot

06/03/15

Today Hayley and I went to film the out door scene of Alex singing while Megan and Aaron were editing indoors. The footage we got, I felt, was pretty good due to it being filmed in different angles and being filmed in a park with open space. In some of the scenes the sun was shinning and beaming towards Alex's face which I felt went really well along with the song as it connotes that she has overcome the battlefield of love; the scene being greenery and of open space contributed to this. We tried using the crane when filming however it was difficult to deal with so we just decided to film free handed.

Now looking through all the shots, all we need to do is now film the final scenes of Grace and Alex being together and just construct everything in chronological order reflecting our storyboards. After having all the editing done and finished our music video will be completed and handed over for the teachers to mark.

Ballet Reshoot

02/03/15

Today we shot Graces ballet dancing scenes in another drama room using the drama lighting so that we get a mixture of ballet scenes for different settings. I think the shoot went pretty well as the angles in which we filmed from and the lighting we used really gave that performance vibe. Also experimenting with different techniques and cinematography positions conveyed the professional filming side in our clips. My favourite part was when we filmed grace dancing in a circular motion following the camera as it created tension in which the song builds up in the song. I think when we add these shots in our edits it will fill in the missing gaps in our music video making it more structured and interesting.