How effective is the combination of your main and ancillary tasks?

How effective is the combination of your main from HWillcocks

'Dirty Heart' Final Product.

This is the final draft of 'Dirty Heart' by The Machine Ate Florence. I cannot say that I am entirely unhappy with it because whenever you finish a media product, no matter how stressful it's been, you can't help but be proud of what you've done. And I am. If speaking from a non-biased point of view I would still say that it is a successful piece. There are still moments that now that I have been looking back through the music video should have been changed but we have no time to change. Things that I probably should have looked at earlier on such as the artificial lighting during Sarah's scene with Ben. The orange-y glow of their skin does not fit the tone of the scene though it could be argued (which I have in my 1st Evaluation Question) that the artificial lighting is to represent the lights turning on in Sarah's mind about Ben's suspicious ways.

I may have also have considered changing the black frame around the entire piece. For me personally it does not take on the effect I had hoped it would but this may only be because I have spent months of editing it together. The mise-en-scene works really well within the scenes. I especially love Livvy's use of the chocolate rose. Roland Barthes idea of Signs and Signifiers works nicely here. As well as Claude-Levi-Strauss's binary oppositions and Ferdinand Saussure's mythologies (mythology of roses being symbols of love and beauty which clearly this scene is not but it is representative of fairy tales and this fairy tale is being shattered). 

I think the performances shots being indispersed with 'playful' shots was a nice touch and will be satisfying for our demographic. This will remind them that although the narrative is quite serious, there is still a fun side to the band or 'youthful' side which will not only appeal to Pop genre fans but younger audiences as well. It also gives more symbolism in regards to the weather (happier weather, happier band members).

The editing of the phone sequence is professional looking. It took so long to edit each individual clip during that sequence so that they went in time with the song so I am ridiculously happy with how it has turned out. The fact that we managed to capture Sarah just after she had her individual shot of typing out the numbers is also, in my opinion, very good. I also like that each girl was filmed from a different angle.

All the text shots are clear and visible which was a a problem we were having during production as the camera kept blurring out the words. This is a success for me to see as it means we filmed at appropriate angles with the appropriate camera. Ralph of course is who we owe all of our success to.



Overall I am so chuffed with the final outcome. I hope you are too examiner and I really hope that you can forgive me for any slip ups you may find you notice. I don't see any but I know you, the examiner, are supposed to pick up on them. I look forward to receiving a grade from you.

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

This is the first evaluation question out of the four. The need to state this comes with the fact that I somehow managed to jumble all four of them up and post them in a strange order. So I am very sorry for that. In this question I am risking repeating a lot of the things that you, examiner, have already seen on my blog so apologies for that as well. This question will be focusing on the conventions of Pop music videos and how as a team (Sarah and I) we conformed or subverted these conventions.

Lighting

Throughout the course of the music video there is a variation of lighting used however the convention in regards to this for Pop music videos is that the music video consists of high key lighting. High key lighting is shown in the following scenes of our music video: 

1. Ben and I (Hannah) watching a film
2. Sarah and Ben fighting
3. The phone sequence
4. The performance shots
5. The conceptual shots

 
Instances where we have subverted the convention by using low key lighting is shown in the following:

1. The photobooth scene 
2. The confrontation
3. Livvy and Ben walking down the street
    

This is partially due to the fact that the scenes involving high key lighting were shot outside but also to represent how Ben (the boyfriend) is the (tacky as it sounds) light of the three girl's lives. He is the only thing that makes them happy. It is when he is gone and they realise what he is doing to them that the lighting goes from bright to dark as they have seen his true nature of being 'a monster'. 

The dark shots could also be reference to the lyrics of 'daddy i'm falling for a monster' as a monster has the archetype of being a 'baddie' or an 'evil' character and thus in most television programs/films/books etc monsters are shown in the dark or surrounded by darkness. As Ben's role in the music video is to be 'the baddie' he too brings with him a darkness. 

Even shots that I have listed within the high key lighting section could be used to establish Ben as a 'dark' character. One in particular would be the scene where Ben and Sarah are arguing. While filming these shots Sarah and I chose to use artificial lighting as the darkness outside (due to it being Winter) was making the original shots blurry but this could also be a representation of Sarah's eyes being opened to Ben's deceiving or the light being turned on in her head about Ben's suspicious behaviour. It is only when he leaves that the shot becomes slightly darker because Sarah he has left her with his betrayal.

Weather

As mentioned in a previous post you will have noticed that the weather changes quite drastically from shot to shot. This is because our music video was filmed over a long period of time (it took around 4 months) and during those 4 months the weather could not decide between whether it wanted to snow, to rain or to be sunny. The shots that were filmed most recently were the performance shots that are set in the sun. It is now approaching Summer so this was to be expected. However we have found that the change in weather works quite well during our music video as it conforms to (much like our lighting) the conventions of narrative based pop music videos.

In the first scene where Livvy and Ben are walking down the street we can see behind them that it has been snowing. This could be symbolising how cold Ben is towards Livvy or the coldness of his heart as he is 'Black Heart'. This cold weather is then shown twice more. Once during Ben's date with my character and once during his fight with Sarah. Another way in which we can safely establish that it is Winter during these scenes is the use of mise-en-scene. In both shots there are glimpses of Christmas trees in the room. Christmas trees = Winter = Cold. So not only is it symbolic of Ben's disloyalty to Livvy but it is symbolic of Ben's disloyalty to all three of the girl's. 

During the performance shots (shown during the chorus) the weather has gone from being dark and gloomy to being sunny and bright. This is conforming to the conventions of Pop music videos as it has the same effect on the au

dience as the lighting would have. The bright lighting also represents how much brighter (happier) they feel without Ben and when they are together. This could also subvert the convention of Pop music videos as it may show the girl's as co-dependent of each other and of Ben rather than independent which is what girl bands tend to represent for their audience.

Trend aware (?)

I have no idea how to word this point so do bear with me while I come to grips with it. As most pop artists of this generation are of a young age they tend to wear what is considered as 'fashionable' clothing. Now this may sound like i'm bragging about how trendy we are and I would like to clarify here that I really am not however I wouldn't say that we were dressed ghastly at all. We did choose clothes that we felt were appropriate for our age that were contemporary (modern). 

Clothing worn by the band: 

• 2 dresses (Sarah and I)
• 2 graphic t shirts (Livvy)
• 4 skirts (Livvy, Sarah and I)
• 1 plaid shirt (Sarah)
• 3 pairs of jeans (Livvy and Sarah)
• 1 blouse (Myself)
• 1 vest top (Livvy)

Clothing worn by Ben:

• 5 jeans
• 1 black jacket
• 3 shirts
• 1 blouse

These are all fairly fashionable items of clothing. Especially skater skirts as these are currently seen as the 'in thing' and we wore plenty of them between the three of us. Ben is obviously going to be dressed as stylish as he is the 'adonis' figure of the music video. Potentially used voyeuristically in order to reel the female audience in but there is no instances of Ben not wearing a shirt so I may be exaggerating.

Young actors

As the Pop music genre is dominated by young artists it would only make sense for the actors/models that they use within their music videos are young as well. This is a convention that we conformed to through our use of the actor Ben. Ben is 18 years old and therefore he classifies as a young male. The band themselves (Sarah, Livvy and I) are also classified as young females as two of us are 18 and one of us is 17. GUESS WHO?

Love Narratives (Or Narrative in general)

The narrative of our music video is very self explanatory but it does conform to this convention as it involves love. Three girls all in love with a boy who is cheating on all three of them. The cheating aspect of our music video is also commonly seen in music videos of the Pop genre as the artist's songs often involve some kind of heartbreak. An example of this would be the actual music video to 'Black Heart' by 'Stooshe' where one of the members is being cheated on during a production of a music video. Similarly all three members of our band are being cheated on.

The narrative is established without the need of speech. Shots that we used to establish the storyline are:

• Two shots
•  Over-the-shoulder shots
• Tracking shots
• Side shots
• Cut in (of the texts)

 

Other examples of Pop music videos that conform to this convention are Taylor Swift - Love Story and Carly Rae Jepsen - Gettin' over you.

Reference to the Artist's name or Song Title.

Now this was one of the only conventions within Pop that we chose not to conform to. This is partially due to the fact that we needed something to talk about during the exam that we had subverted rather than conformed but also due to the fact that we found it less attractive and more tacky. However we do understand why it is used in music videos. It is used to establish how 'big' an artist is in the music industry as their name becomes something of a 'signifier' for good music. An example being Olly Murs - Troublemaker and/or Maroon 5 - Moves like Jagger. This is to attract more people into their fanbase and to also inform their current fanbase that they have released a new song without their needing to be a big publicity stunt.

Performance

We chose to conform to this convention during the greenery/sunny shots (where you see us running around with sticks) because not only did the lyrics go with the narrative of the piece but it also meant that we could bring more aspects into our music video than simply a narrative. We wanted to use narrative and conceptual (which we did end up doing) but found that performance would tie the whole piece together quite nicely and so ended up filming some last minute performance shots. This is seen in many Pop music videos including Destiny's Child - Say My Name and One Direction - That's what makes you beautiful.

Synchronised Dancing

Another subverted convention in our music video is that of synchronised dancing. We did originally intend to come up with a small dance in order to conform to this convention but it soon became apparent that this was a bad idea as none of us can dance and we looked ridiculous. I would screencap but i'd rather be serious thankyou very much. It also would have made our music video seem a bit jumbled as we do have many aspects to it as it already is. With playful shots, performance, narrative and conceptual it would have seemed out of place. This is however a convention many pop videos conform to such as One way or Another - One Direction.

Analysis of my poster and digipak!

Theories in relation to my coursework

If you have seen my AS blog from last year you will have seen that a majority of my theorists consisted of people such as Claude Levi-Strauss, Vladimir Propp and Ferdinand DeSaussure. And though these theories can be applied to my A2 coursework there are plenty of other theorists who as of yet have not been mentioned or have been mentioned in quite a lot of detail but shall be reiterated during this post.

Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin, who will henceforth be known as Goodwin, is one of the main theorists I have been focusing on. He identified 6 conventions that apply to all music videos. These are also known as conventions. These conventions consist of a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, a relationship between the music and the visuals, genre-related conventions/iconography present, multiple close up shots of the artist in order to satisfy the needs of the institutions, voyeurism of the male or female form and intertextual references to other media texts are present. The conventions I conformed to are as follows:

Moments in which I conformed to these 5 conventions are:

• Links between lyrics and visuals: The narrative of the music video is based on the lyrics of the song. 'Daddy i'm falling for a monster. Somehow he's scaring me to death' The three girls are all in love with a 'player' who represents the 'monster' and they're all terrified that he's been cheating on them. 'Figure, figure there's no working you out whatsoever.' The girl (myself) stares at Ben curiously as he is hiding his phone. 'You got a black heart.' Ben looks down at his phone and see's a text saying: 'You got a black heart' etc.
• Links between the music and visuals: There are instances in which the clips needed to be timed properly in order to fit in with the music. Examples of this would be when the chorus starts, the beat changes and so does the shot. 'Figure, figure there's no working you out whatsoever. Only one way I can sum you up all together. You got a black heart!' The shot then rapidly cuts to a performance shot of the three girls standing in a field. The chorus commences.
• Genre related conventions: Our chosen genre was pop and therefore we had to conform to the conventions of pop. These conventions include things such as - bright lighting, costume on trend with the fashion hype, young artists, an element of love included in the narrative, references to the artist's song title and there tends to be intervals of synchronised dance routines.
  
• Multiple close ups of the artist: Throughout the course of our music video there are many close ups of the artists involved to satisfy the needs of the audience/institutions. These shots are included predominantly during the performance shots (The first chorus), the 'big reveal' scene (The final chorus) and during the photobooth sequence (The opening seconds).
• Intertextuality: Now the intertextuality in our music video isn't as noticeable as it should have been. These were subtle hints towards certain famous films. These three films were 'Lord of the Rings', 'Harry Potter' and 'Star Wars'. These all come together during one of the performance shots where Livvy and I were demonstrating the youthful side of pop by having a 'stick fight'. My character waves her stick as if it were a wand (Harry Potter), Livvy's character swings her stick as if it were a light saber (Star Wars) and Sarah chases us both us with her stick as a staff (Lord of the Rings).

Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes, who exactly like his neighbour Goodwin shall henceforth be referred to as Barthes, may strike you as familiar if you have viewed my blog last year. Roland Barthes was not only a media theorist but also a french literary theorist and philosopher. Barthes developed an idea on symbolism within all forms of visual media known as 'Signs and Signifiers'. In our music video we put a lot of emphasis on this idea of 'Signs and Signifiers' and made sure there was more than once shot that included symbolism.

Here are some of the signs and signifiers included within our music video:

• The cardboard figurines of the three girls holding matches in front of the house to indicate that later on in the music video they were going to set alight to Ben's house. Ben's house being symbolic of his 'black heart' in which he has kept them all trapped in. Although we have left the use of fire down to the audience's interpretation it could be argued that the use of fire is to represent the anger of which they all feel due to his actions (the colours in fire are often related to anger. Red being the colour of blood and therefore rage is related to being blood thisty a.k.a angry). It could also be argued that it is a clever way of linking the lyrics and the visuals together as in most fairytales the only way to destroy or kill a monster is to use fire. This is also shown in television programs such as Supernatural where in order to kill a ghost you must salt and burn the bones of the body in which the ghost once inhabited.
• The photos coming out of the photobooth. The most obvious point i'm about to make would be that this sequence of shots is representative of the nature of Ben's relationship with all three of these girls (essentially establishing Ben as the villain from the beginning) due to the closeness of each couple. Ben is leaning forward in the shot, taking up more of the room and therefore becoming the more dominant character in the shot. Again this establishes him as the 'oppressive male'. Another point I can make is that the photos that come out of the photobooth are foreshadowing Sarah's character's impending discovery of Ben having more than one girlfriend. It is through the use of the photo of my character and Ben's character that the argument between Sarah and Ben commences and the reveal of his real nature is made.
• The zooming in shots of Ben's/Hannah's phones could be to signify the phone conversation between the three girls that happens later. Ben's phone is one of the most important aspects of mise-en-scene within the music video as it is through the use of the phone that Ben communicates with all three of the girls, that Sarah then discovers the truth about him that she then passes on to the two others and provides links between the lyrics and the visuals. ('You got a black heart' text mentioned earlier).
• The weather changes between the narrative shots and the performance shots. Admittedly this is due to the fact that our music video was filmed during a long period of time so that three seasons passed (Winter, Spring and Summer.)but this can also be related back to symbolism. This is demonstrated during the first verse as Livvy and Ben are shown walking down the street with snow in the background so we can safely assume that it is Winter (this is then re-established through use of the Christmas tree in both the argument shots between Ben and Sarah and the date shots between Ben and myself) however when we watch the performance shots of all three of the girls it is bright and sunny so the audience knows that it's Summer. This is symbolic of how cold Ben is towards the girls during their lone scenes with him or in general. The cold weather is to show the misery that each girl feels in their relationship with Ben despite the fact that they 'love' him whereas when the girls are together performing the weather is summery because they are more confident without him and that the colour of their lives has been brought back so that they're happy.
• The black clothing worn in the performance shots. This is to symbolise Ben's lasting effect on them even though he is out of their lives. He who has the 'black heart' has now infected them and they wear black to show that they too now hold 'black hearts'. It could be interpreted by the audience as them taking on Ben's characteristics of being 'black hearted' and that the girl's will now go and repeat his actions within their next relationships because of the influence he had on their lives.
• The green clothing Livvy wears. The colour of Livvy's shirt in her lone shot with Ben is green to signify the emotion of jealousy as Livvy's character represents that emotion. She may not necessarily be an actual character but a personified emotion being played out during the music video coming from one girl. This is why Livvy's character is shown getting mad at Ben for 'checking out' Jess (the girl who walks past) as she is jealous of his behaviour.
• The red clothing Sarah wears. The colour of Sarah's plaid shirt is predominantly red and that is to signify the emotion of anger as Sarah's character represents that emotion. Again she may be a personification of one girl's emotions about her relationship with Ben but it is not established within the music video. This is why Sarah's character storms into the room screaming at Ben as she is angry at him for taking a picture with another girl. This is closely linked to jealousy.
• The blue clothing I myself wear. The colour of my dress is blue and that is to signify the emotion of sadness as my character represents that emotion. It has already been mentioned twice that we may be personifying these emotions within these shots of one girl in particular but it is not made clear. We could also be representing the stage of emotions that this 'one girl' is going through from jealousy to anger to sadness. This is why my character looks so distressed when she receives the phone call from Sarah about Ben's deceit. All three emotions are closely linked together.

Sven E Carlsson (Similar theories to Claude Levi-Strauss)

Sven E Carlsson, though I am tempted to call him Claude Levi-Strauss as their theories are very similar, is this man right here. I am going to assume he is a media theorist as his theory is mentioned on other slideshares so. There he is. With a fine looking beard. Don't say I didn't choose the best photos for you examiner because I did. He has been quoted saying: "That once you put everything into black and white boxes (in regards to film and music videos) then everything becomes the opposite of one another." This is, as mentioned above, almost symetrical to Claude Levi-Strauss's theory on binary opposites. Essentially he is saying that in music videos, television programes and films there is examples of opposites during the whole production.

Does this theory apply to our music video?

Yes, yes it does as shown above with some examples of the binary opposites that are included in our music video. One column represents Ben's character and the other represents the characters of the three girls. The seasons are on there to show when these characters are most dominant i.e Ben is more dominant in the Winter than in the Summer. Primarily because he isn't featured during the Summer shots but he is featured during the Winter shots and that is where he has the most influence over the girls.

The binary opposites in our music video is to show contrast between the characters and the situations. However there are moments of us subverting this theory. Obviously there are many opposites but there are also conventions of these opposites that we have subverted. As Ben is portraying 'the oppressive male' it would make sense for Ben to be featured more noticeably than the girls throughout the entire music video but as the music video's purpose is to show off the artists of the song we would have to show them more often. So symbolically it could be said that Ben is not more dominant and in that sense he is oppressed.

Another point you could make is that we subverted the theory by having our own characters wear dull colours later on and in that sense we have now gone against the binary oppositions as we did not maintain the opposite colours. 

Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall, we shall call him Hall (didn't you see that coming?), is the earliest link to the theory called 'Reception Theory'. This theory focuses around what audiences do to the media - the influence they hold and how they effect institutions decisions.  This is a media theory despite the fact that Hall himself is a sociologist. The two subjects do crossover quite often as demonstrated within this theory. How does this relate to my coursework?

During the pre-production process of our music video we had to undergo a few months of gathering research from our potential target audiences. I had planned for my demographic to consist of females within the age ranges of 10 - 25 so I collected all my research through social media networking sites such as facebook, twitter and tumblr. Later on I resorted to handing out questionnaires around the sixth form common room but only received 8 questions back. Originally I had intended to make a music video within the indie rock genre but unfortunately all the answers I received back seemed to indicate that my audience's preferred choice of genre was Pop. So, much like the theory, I had to put the needs of the audiences above my own. If this were a professional music video it would have been created by an institution with an audience that pander to Pop music videos. If they were to go against their research then they would risk dropping their numbers and losing money rather than gaining a profit.

So it was down to my research that 'Dirty Heart' by 'The Machine Ate Florence' was created.

Questionnaire answers on 'Black Heart' by 'Stooshe' - 

1. Do you like the song?

People who answered yes - 5

People who answered no - 3

2. If you answered yes please state why below.

1. It's quite happy and it makes me want to dance.

2. I love Stooshe. They're one of my faviroute bands.

3. I don't know. I just really like it.

4. It's not boring like rap is.

5. It's upbeat and peppy. (The music) I like the lyrics. I can relate.

3. If you answered no please state below why.

1. It's not my kind of music at all.

2. I prefer rock to pop.

3. It sounds like they're whining throughout.

4. What kind of music video would you expect of this song either:

a) A narrative (storyline) based music video?

b) A conceptual (symbolism) based music video?

c) A performance based music video? 

People who answered A - 4

People who answered B - 3

People who answered C - 1

These answers meant I had to make a Pop music video based on a narrative. 

As for theorists I think that's it. I hope this has been a very big eye opener for you examiner to the amount of work I put behind my research and such.

Evaluation Question 1.

Evaluation Question 4.

'Dirty Heart' Draft 2.5

This is our 3rd draft of 'Dirty Heart' but we have chosen to name it Draft 2.5 as not much as really been changed since the second draft. As you can tell we have chosen to keep the colour scheme we had going before after taking a consensus vote with the class. Our class of fully professional media students all decided that we should stick with the bright colouring so that our music video would attract a younger audience. Children usually prefer things to be quite colourful as it reminds them of crayons and drawing and fun or that is what I like to assume.

Still having no problems with the cinematography or the editing. The main problem I was would point out with this draft is the background noise that I can contiuously hear. I do not know if this is a problem that you, the examiner, have noticed but I have and therefore I will have to go back and change it.

I'm not too sure about the black frame around the music video. This was, despite what you may believe, a concious decision that Sarah and I made during the post production process. This was because we wanted to give our audience the feel of being in a cinema while watching our video. As if this were in fact a mini film as opposed to a music video because of the narrative. We wanted to replicate this sense of being in a cinema, excited to get past the adverts and onto the film itself. This is why there is a black frame encircling the video but I am unsure as to whether or not I like it. It may distract from the actual music video and make it look unaesthetically pleasing and/or unprofessional therefore quite tacky.

I shall post the finished draft soon.

Designing the 'Villains' cd

It's not the most visually appealing CD design or the most realistic but no one can say that I didn't link my Digipak to it because I did. You may (or may not) have noticed that I used the same text on my CD as I did one of the pages of my Digipak. This was because I wanted to make the CD different to the boring, plain silver one as shown in my Digipak drafting and because I wanted it to be relevent to my Digipak. And thus I created this design.

 

Isn't it swell?

Marketing Campaign Poster

 

It's not perfect and it most certainly isn't very professional but i've finally finished my final draft of my Marketing Campaign. I had to choose links between the poster, digipak and music video very carefully but I think I have succeeded in subtly bringing them all together. The 'black heart' figurine and black house is representative of the music video and the three superheroes are representative of my Digipak. I won't say that I am happy with the final thing because i'm not but I am happy that i've finished it in time.

 

If there are any last minute suggestions on things I could be able to improve on or add to it then please let me know below so that I can post an analysis of the final thing with my final digipak later this week and not have to go over it a few days before the deadline.

 

Feedback will be deeply appreciated.

Marketing campaign drafting.

 

 

Our Marketing campaigns must have links with our music video and our Digipaks. The first link I could come up with was the use of the superheroes in the Digipak as shown above and I do have an idea for how to link it to my music video. I would have immediately followed this idea up if I hadn't been in the common room where youtube is not allowed. I shall explain later but till then here is a 1st draft of sorts of my marketing campaign.

Star Image

Original Digipak Photography

What do you guys think?

I don't know what to think. I don't know if I like this for the final idea.

Two more pages of my digipak completed.

I wasn't sure as to whether or not I should decorate/design the CD or not but I decided to add some minor things to the CD to make it more visually attractive. As you can tell (or you may not be able to tell) the 1st page was not planned at all. I had hoped I had taken more original photography photos for my digipak to last the entire thing however after having sorted through those I couldn't use or were of no use I found that I had about 7 pictures left over and that means that I couldn't complete some of the ideas I had in mind. Bearing this in mind I improvised with the photos I had and a little website called fontmeme.com. Font meme has been an absolute life saver. I have forever in it's debt. I am now on the final page of my digipak and should hopefully be completing it by the end of the day.

I do need suggestions though. Any suggestions in the comment section would be most appreciated. :)

'Dirty Heart' Draft 2.

This is the finished second draft of our music video to 'Black Heart' by Stooshe. Now renamed 'Dirty Heart' by The Machine Ate Florence. These are the actual completed narrative shots that we intend to use for the final piece.

Speaking as analytically as possible about the piece I would have to say that there will need to be changes made to some of the shots in regards to mise-en-scene. Lighting, prop and costume may need to be attended to as each hold significance which (in my opinion) is not being made obvious. I may consider making the narrative shots black and white with only the respective emotion colours being shown however this may also take away from the symbolism of the shots to do with weather and lighting.

The lighting will need to be ammended as soon as possible. I hate that during Sarah and Ben's fighting scene there is yellow lighting. On the other hand a convention of Pop music videos is for everything to be bright and tampering with this may subvert that convention to a point where our audience will find it tedious, unappealing and/or boring.

Aesthetically I think the individual shots have been filmed quite well. There is no visible shakiness that I can see and shots seem to be appropriate for the lyrics and music. I love that we have tracked Ben walking up to the house during the slowest section of the song. This is almost as though time is running out for Ben and his power over the girl's is slowly diminishing with each step as the music is getting slower and slower. Then when the music picks up and he is the house it is apparent to the audience that he is about to be confronted and therefore the girl's gain all the power. This makes me very proud of the editing.

The editing so far is pleasing. I dislike how uninteresting my scene with Ben is (the scene where I cower into his shoulder) because the editing is almost too plain. I wish we could have found a more interesting way to display these shots.

An idea for my third digipak page.

I'm not sure if i'm going to continue with this idea but I thought I would put it up to ask for your opinions. Please note that my feelings will be bruised if you hate my editing.

A sneak peek of my Digipak.

Here are two sides of my Digipak design. The 1st image is my front cover and the 2nd image is the back page. Seeing them both together I have noticed that the change of background colouring may need to be sorted as it could potentially be marked as a theme continuity error. I also realise, now that i'm uploading these pictures, that this is the first that i've mentioned about my changing of the album's title.  Originally the album was going to be called: 'Monsters' because of a lyric in our song choice 'Black Heart' by Stooshe however after working so closely with Sarah on Digipak ideas I decided to take a different route so that the examiner could differentiate between her work and mine. My album is now called: 'Villains' hence the (awful) heroes costumes. My target audience for my digipak would be females within the age ranges of 13 - 19. If we look at the grander scheme of things I could also suggest that although my digipak is aimed at these particular ages that is not to say that it will not appeal to older generations. The potential for my digipak to expand to women in their early 20s is possible as showing young girls as indepedent 'super heroes' will appeal to feminists and single women. This is not to say that women in relationships will not buy the product but women who are single will relate to independence and therefore seek to see other women (in this case band members) being proud to be independent.

To round this post off for you examiner here is a little game. The name of the game is 'Guess the reference'. If you are an avid musical watcher then perhaps you have already guessed the references. If you haven't then here is the fun part. Each of the track names is a reference to a specific musical. There are two fairly obvious ones and nine fairly unobvious ones. Write below if you've guessed them all. Good luck.

Digipak updates.

So as of yet I haven't really talked about my digipak and this is for one simple reason - that we hadn't even begun to think about them until a month ago - so apologies on my behalf. However Sarah and I could recall discussing our ideas for our digipaks at the beginning of the year. Low and behold we found a list of mind boggling ideas in the back of her notebook and thus started on our journey to digipakdom.

These ideas all consisted of monster themes and characters as the name of our album is indeed 'Monsters' or was as recently, after having discussed with my teacher and a focus group, I have renamed my digipak 'Villains' so that I can go along the route of using a comic-strip theme. Sarah is sticking with the original name.

Later I shall post an image or slideshow depicting what I wish to do for my digipak and how I hope it will end up looking. Until then I shall give you a list of things that I will be requiring for the photography I intend to use:

1. Superhero costumes: Superwoman, Wonder Woman and Bat Girl. 
2. Three young gents to portray the villains
3. Three capes because capes are fab
4. Domestic settings

Learning about photoshop.

On Tuesday and Thursday of this week we have been, after months of saying that we'll get on with designing our Digipaks, learning how to use Photoshop. With help of Mr Nichola (our teacher who graciously took a photoshop course during his Christmas holidays.) we have now created mini masterpieces. Mine particularly masterful is the picture of a puppy running on pink diamonds. Then Sir took over and decided to make my puppies multi-coloured and shadowy and all sorts of effects that I have yet to grasp. However I am quite pleased with how well things have gone.

A rough edit of the first draft of Dirty Heart.

What you are currently seeing is a rough edit of some of the test shots we did over half term. Obviously we have quite a few kinks to work out of it but in the mean time we are quite pleased with what we have done. Yesterday (I shall dedicate a seperate post in regards to this so that I can fully explain what went on) we all got together to refilm for what we hope will be our final draft of the scenes between Ben and I and Ben and Sarah. Here are some of the issues we need to address:

• Cinematography - Although for the most part we were happy with what we had achieved with the cinematography in our first draft Sarah and I both agreed that we wanted to expand on our variation of shots and angles. While watching it over i've realised that a majority of the shots we've used consist of close ups and two shots but in order for us to get top marks this year we need to push the boundaries and use a wider range so one of the first things we'll be aiming to change from our first draft to our second is to use more shot types.
• The empty, black spaces in between shots - In our defence we had intended for them to be filled with performance shots that we were going to film in the hall however despite the fact that we had booked our school hall weeks in advance we were kicked out of there by a member of the P.E staff who will remain unnamed because his year 7 class was more important that our coursework. But be rest assured that there will be no black spaces in our final draft.
• Our shaky camera work - I would say that it isn't that noticeable but it is clear to you and I that it is very noticeable. During the first scene with Livvy and Ben, Sarah had to film while walking backwards and therefore she was quite nervous about falling over and kept turning to check if she was okay. Unfortunately this meant that every time she turned the camera would jerk. Thankfully we have worked out a resolution to this problem whilst filming our second draft. We will continue using the tracking shot but so that Sarah feels more at ease I shall walk behind her, steadying her and the camera.
• Length of the shots - Admittedly some of the shots do drag on and so we are planning on indispersing each scene with the same shot from various angles to keep the audience interested. This would also be helpful in regards to sticking with the conventions of pop music videos as they tend to use rapid cuts between different shots of the same scene (if the music video includes narrative) to go with the beat of the song.
• The phone section - The phone scene doesn't quite work as not everyone is miming in time and we all start at different points in the song hence the reason we shall be refilming it for our second draft.

Any other comments of constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated in the comments below as i'm not sure I have addressed all of them.