Lily's A2 Media Blog

No changes have been made to the settings outlines since the planning stage so we are working from the settings outlines below.  SETTING Are you familiar with the term 'setting'?   I am familiar with the term setting and in my opinion, it means the place or type of surroundings where something is positioned or where an event takes place. So in our situation, the setting would be in a house near the beach. As that is where we are filming our music video.  What settings   do you consider 'setting' using in your music video? For our video we want to portray the present day, with a variety of shots in and out of a victorian beach house located in Lowestoft, Suffolk. The season will be winter as my group and I thought this time of year would compliment our ideas. This setting revolves around the idea that  these sisters on a road trip, doing what they want, when they want, and spending time with each other. Therefore, we want to focus on little ...

No changes have been made to the prop outlines since the planning stage so we are working from the prop outlines below.  PLANNING: PROPS We have no set props, but perhaps objects such as books, Kitchen utensils (such as mugs, teapots and so on) and items of clothing that will keep us warm, for example; gloves, hats and scarfs. These props will be used with certain scenes within the music video. For example the Kitchen utensils will be used within a scene that is located in the kitchen, whereas the items of clothing such as gloves, hats and scarfs will be used within the scenes that are shot outdoors. My group and I will not be buying any extra props as we have collected them as a group through family and friends. The images below are taken from google images to show what sort of props we want to use for our final music video cut. As I previously said, my group and I do not need to buy any props due to the fact we all have items we have collected from our homes, friends or...

No changes have been made to the Costume and Make-up plans since the planning stage so we are working from those Costume and Make-up outlines below. Definition  - ' a style of dress, including accessories and hairdos, especially that peculiar to a nation, region, group, or historical period. ... fashion of dress appropriate to a particular occasion or season: dancing  costume ; winter  costume .' The plan for our makeup and costume ideas are very similar. Because  we want the theme to be very natural and simplistic, it wouldn't make any sense to have any bright or glaring make-up or costume in the music video, especially because the two characters are going away, just them, and not any meeting people but spending time with each other and therefore wouldn't have a full face of make-up. Similarly, the two actors will be wearing natural costumes/clothes for it to fit in the setting. I also want for the two actors to b...

No changes have been made to the cast and character outlines since the planning stage so we are working from the cast and characters outlines below.  CAST AND CHARACTERS In our planning for cast and characters which we will be using in our media coursework we have narrowed it down to using Amelia (me) Daisy who are twin sisters in real life and in the music video which we will filming. We thought it would be a good idea to use real sisters rather than pretending to act that people are sisters so that the acting looks genuine and real rather than faking it. CHARACTER ONE: Name: Amelia Gilbert Age: 17 DOB: 10/01/00 Gender: Female CHARACTER TWO: Name: Daisy Gilbert Age: 17 DOB: 10/01/00 Gender: Female BELOW, AMELIA AND DAISY:   The characters that they will be playing is as similar to their normal life as possible. That they have a strong sisterly connection and are showing that through the filming techniques that we use...

No changes have been made to the s cript/ stage directions/ plot outlines since the planning stage so we are working from those s cript/ stage directions/ plot outlines . You can see those below: SCRIPT/ STAGE DIRECTIONS/PLOT OUTLINES Script To plan our script for our music video, we firstly had to, decide whether we want any dialogue, or narration before we decide on a script decisions. We think, having looked at and observed lots of music videos, those with a story have a couple of lines of dialogue before and after the actual music. We considered using this technique to add to the storyboard but think as our plan is to montage a sister road trip displaying their love for each other, it would be hard to add in dialogue that suits our plot, because it changes a lot from scene to scene. Therefore, unless we come up with some suitable dialogue on the day, or one of the shots contains some talking, then we don't plan on using any dialogue, and as a consequence, a script. Sta...

No changes have been made to the storyboards since the planning stage so we are working from the storyboards, below. STORYBOARDS These are the current plans and storyboards we are looking at turning into our music video. Our plot outline is rough as we plan to go away for the weekend, at our setting (a victorian beachouse in Lowestoft) to have two camera people filming pretty much everything the two actors do throughout the weekend. Then, edit everything we have/that happens into our music video so it looks autherntic and natural. However, we still have some plot points, some important and some details we hope to capture.  Here is a table from post 26, explaining these: Then, we turned these into our storyboards, showing a more dynamic and realistic view of what we mean/what we want it to look like, not just simple plot bullet points. I am not very good at drawing, but i think it gives the gist of what we have in mind: LR

FINAL IDEA Our final idea hasn't changed from our planning stage. This means that we haven't adapted or reordered anything from when we settled on our idea for our music video, a couple of months ago. Our final idea is two sisters, in fact 17-year old twins, going away to a beach house/holiday house. They want to spend time with each other, cooking, walking on the beach, reading in bed, board games, shopping and other, perhaps, menial tasks and hobbies, but meaningful to them because they're together. They want to get away/run away because they don't live together or speak much. They spend the time at a beach house that belongs to their friend, and don't spend time on their phones at all. There are lots of interesting and cosy rooms to explore with the girls where they can spend their time. The props are minimal, except everything they use in the rooms, e.g. kitchen utensils when cooking or bedding, when sleeping. At the moment, there is no dialogue but it will c...

CHECKPOINT ONE: PLANNING To review and evaluate our work at this point, we have to think how well our coursework is going so far, and which aspects we'd like to improve. However, instead of commenting on our own work which can be difficult to do, I have read and taken two other fellow students work to see what they have done well, what I would like to incorporate into my work and what they could improve (so they get constructive criticism and if they do the same as me, so do i). Below is the mark scheme for our coursework which will help me figure out what is successful and what isn't. MARK SCHEME: Level 3 12–15 marks Planning and research evidence will be complete. There is proficient research into similar products and a potential target audience. There is proficient work on shotlists, layouts, drafting, scripting or storyboarding. There is proficient organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props. Time management is good. There is proficient skill in the ...

ANCILLARY TASK 2 - POSTER We made survey about the 2nd ancillary task: a poster. I asked questions revolving around their thoughts on album posters and their look, the artist and social media. I think it's important to gather information on people's views, especially different people's views, of different genders and ages. Therefore, you can get a universal answer on how people like album posters and how we can answer/reflect that in our album poster. Here are some pictures of the surveys taken: WHAT WE FOUND: From completing these surveys we found nobody noticeably remembers any album posters. This may because they were forgettable or album posters aren't as common now that social media is so prevalent in promoting and advertising music, instead. Regarding how important a poster is, in deciding whether to buy the album isn't, to older people, but to a younger audience, it can be an important factor. For the respondents, a good poster needs s...

PLANNING: ANCILLARY TASK 1 - THE DIGIPAK 1. Are there any particular CD covers that you remember? For what reason do you remember these? Yes, there are certain CD covers that I remember such as Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. album. The reason this album cover is one that I remember is because of the colours, pictures and use of writing which is involved. The colours are vibrant, bright and well noticeable which helps the packaging stand out from those album cases which may be darker toned. I think the fact that Chris Browns face is in the centre of the album cover also helps me remember it because it makes me remember who he is for starters and then which songs are on the album. I think it also helps that I remember this album cover, because I really like the music which was on this album.  Another album cover I remember is  One Direction – Up all night.   One reason could be because it was their first ever album which was made once the X-Factor had sto...

PLANNING: REHERSAL FOOTAGE As part of our planning and practice for our real coursework, we decided to go and record some rehearsal of footage for our coursework. The idea is to get an idea of the kind of shots worked and didn't work. S o we went and filmed a few clips of us going on a walk at a local church in Wymondham called the Abbey.  The objective of this exercise was to practice how to get the best shots that could be used in the real coursework later on, so we are more prepared and can complete it in a smoother fashion. We also learnt a lot from it as we had some problems with the practical side. When we were filming, we brought two phones to record footage but within the first 10 minutes it died, so we learnt for our actual coursework to make sure all cameras are fully charged before we leave, as although this is simple it is something that can insure our actual filming day goes without any issues. The second phones cam...

DIRECTORIAL STYLE Is there a particular directing style you want to use? Considering a directorial style when thinking about our music video requires us to look at a lot of music videos and, essentially films. This is becuase to watch and analyse films makes us think  about previous directors, driectoral style, which ones we like and can incorporate and which ones we don't really think are viable to our project.  It also makes us think about our style, in general and how we plan to create it into our filming, camera angles, costume, make-up and editing. It's not very common for us to know directors of films, only the the actual film title or the actors/cast. So, we started to brainstorm movies that we know could be the kind of style we want to adopt into our music video or inspire us into that kind of approach we can absorb. Then, we found the director and discussed the key points of their style they used in their music videos. Are there particular directors you are insp...