Magazine Advert Video =]

Here is the video me and Elliot made were we spoke about our magazine advert and the reasons for the specific font, how it was edited etc. However after the feedback our peers we will probably make some positive changes to the advert.

Mood Board =]

This is the mood board we created to use as inspiration for our music video. We incorporated words that were key to our video as well as visual images we found that relate to our video's concept. We also added the song lyrics from our music video to create an atmosphere. This dark theme is what we want our music video to feel like and to create an indie rock atmosphere for our target audiences to engage with. We culminated our findings and edited them on Photoshop. Using an amalgamation of text and images creates a strong bold and intense mood board to help us keep to the genre of our music video.

Magazine Advert =]

Here is our first attempt of our poster we created as a group on Photoshop using our favourite photo we took during the photo shoot. We used various affects and me and Elliot filmed a short discussion of us explaining our reasoning for why it looks this way.

After finishing the poster we asked our fellow classmates to give us some feedback to what they thought of our poster in relation to target audience and customer satisfaction. We got given constructive critisism from the group about the layout and fonts we had used. After looking at our poster on a big screen, we could see that these improvements were needed. 

We were told to remove the quotation marks as it seemed too gramaticially correct and formal and doesn't relate to the teenage market. We realised removing them would be the best idea idea.

Next the group felt we had too much writing between the pictures and they thought it appeared more like an advertisment for a new film or a theatre performance. This was understandable. We discovered that our slogan 'Dont miss your latest dose of rivalry' sounds childish and immature, if we got rid of this writing and bought our 'out now' writing down it would look simple and not so tacky.

Finally, our logo of 'Rivals' (the name of our band) placed at the bottom of the magazine advert looked very similar to the 'Barbie' brand signature, which we had never realised, so we were glad they pointed this out as that is definitely not the look we were aiming for.

Our Media Group suggested we change the font to something more striking such as an italic, swirly font, to look less girly and more edgy and prominant and so all font matches. We feel the overall feeback was very positive and we agree with the small critisism and will make the nessecary adjustments to improve our advert to the best it can be.

Photoshoot =]

We decided to do a photoshoot of Me and Emily to use for our digipack and poster, then we could finish our ancillary tasks using pictures of our actual actors for the video and tried to create atmospheric photos to show the mood of our video. We also started editing the photos to try out what effects might work or look interesting on a poster or catch an audiences attention on a CD cover. 

Here, Emily is in the forefront as she is the mean sister, yet you can still see the slight outline of me in the back looking unhappy as i am frightened of her. She is the powerful one. 

This is an edited version of Emily, it looks quite alien and i don't think it works for our theme, but we might try it on me as it will make me look more ghostly.

This photo doesn't look very intense and we didn't like the front on image. We edited it to look like a cartoon. We thought my face worked better in this photo as it makes me look really pale, but if we want a more realistic look we won't use an effect like this.

I like the drawn white and grey effect where there is a definite outline, i like how Emily looks straight at the camera, it shows she is the dominant character. yet again i think this effect could work for the CD cover but not for the magazine cover.

These two reflection photos will look good once they are further edited, we don't like how we can see the equipment in the background but if we can edit one sister showing the reflection of the other sister in the mirror we think this would look really effective.

This is similar to an earlier photo, but i like how i am staring at Emily, yet i don't like how you can see the light in the background.

Before

After. This is an image of Emily being the superior character and i think this would be a good photo for a front poster. I like how the effect has emphasised the lighting and still outlines us in a cartoon fashion.

The same photo has been edited again with a neon glow, this also looks effective as it just shows a bold outline of us, and uses black as the main colour this makes it look slick and modern and shows distinctive characteristics of the two sisters

This is the final edited image where i hold my head in my hands from where i may have just been hit, i like the use of the shadows and its modern look yet i still think this may look better in black and white so it fits with the theme of the video.

Below are two recent edits by Elliot. I really like the cracked mirror one and if we were to do the digipack again, we may have thought about adding that image onto it.

Storyboard cont. =]

We have nearly finished our storyboard and this is what we have so far. We The storyboard is nearly finished for our music video. Elliot has started an animatic on Premier Pro, and has started to scan in the other storyboard images. We still have 8 shots to do, and we have decided to end the video with an attempted suicide, where the younger sister will end lying down on the floor with the horrid sister, has a single tear wipes it away quickly and leaves the room. This will leave the audience wondering if she has actually overdosed or she is just asleep and the horrid sister realises what she has done. Now these storyboards have been scanned in so the animatic can get finished.
Here are the first 40 shots, which will probably develop once we start filming;

We have 16 shots left, were the music crescendo's so we need the narrative to become more intense where we have a significant ending of the abused sister lying on the floor and the mean one wiping away a tear. We want to suggest a suicide but leave the audience on a cliffhanger.

Actors =]

Unfortunately our actors poster didn't attract much attention so we had to look for actors by ourselves.
Thankfully my friend Emily Brooks was happy to participate in our filming. We realised that we aren't able to finish our poster or digipack until we have done a photoshoot of our actors. We have decided it is easier for me and Lucy to be in parts of the music video as this gives us more available timings to film, as we can film in lessons and Emily has the same frees as me. Emily and Me will be the siblings in the video, and Lucy will play her guitar. Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to do a photoshoot in the photography studio of me and Emily dressed in black with small matching flowers in our hair as this will unite us, yet the cream and red colours will contrast our personalities. Emily has red hair which is quite a rebel, rock image which will help keep the image of a dark, rock video as well as being the abusive sister.

For the shoot we will keep our hair and makeup simple with just adding eyeliner to darken our eyes and enhancing the indie rock image. When we start filming the video Lucy has some ideas of the make up she wants us to have, but keep our hair simple with the flowers to coontrast with bolder make up. This will show the artistic flare of the indie rock image, which will be similar to the image Florence + the machine portray.

Actor's Poster =]

Using Photoshop, Elliot has created a Poster for us to put up around school, asking for two female actors who can play the sisters in our video. Hopefully it will attract some attention and we can find some reliable actors to be in our video. Here is an image of the poster; as you can see we have kept to the style of the video by putting it in black and white, showing an image from our didpack and using the same font as the digipack.

Storyboard =]

We have started to storyboard our music video using a bedroom as our main location. We made it using a USB tablet attached to a Mac, where you can use a pen to draw straight onto Photoshop, we found this was easier to edit our shots and quicker as we can just copy and paste the same background into each box, we need to vary our shots more otherwise it will become very boring, however this will be a guide storyboard and parts will probably change when we start shooting.

We are going to change the scenes by having parts of the narrative contrasted with shots of the a band, we are going to try and edit this so all you can see is a guitar and the fingers playing it, then just the lips and eyes of the girl singing will be seen.

PJ Harvey =]

We researched PJ Harvey as she has a similar genre of music and lyrics, to the song we are using, 'Girl with one eye.' This is her official website. She writes her own song lyrics which are quite dark and serious. This is very similar to Florence + the machine.

 

 

 

 

THE DEVIL

As soon as I am left alone
the Devil wanders into my soul
and I pretend to myself.
I pretend to myself.
I go out to the old mile-stone
insanely expecting

you to come there, knowing

that I wait for you there.

That I wait for you there.

Come, come

come here at once!

Come, come

on a night with no moon,

because

all of my being is now in pining.

What formerly cheered me,

now seems insignificant.

Insignificant.

Here are the lyrics to one of her songs, they show a dark and moving song, similar to Florence, as they both write their own music. They have similar vibes and interesting music, and the instruments add to the effect of the song with guitars and drums. Her album covers are really original, and she is also has a split screen shot one which is the type of effect we want as the back cover to our digipack. Both have the same genre of music and just listening to their lyrics means you can create images in your mind as it was easy for us to analyse Florence's lyrics and create a narrative for the music video.

This is an album cover from PJ Harvey. This is where we got the idea of having a split shot, although hers is of the same person in different colours, it gave us the idea to split our album cover having a split screen of the two sisters. However instead of using this idea for the digipack it has now been used for our poster, making it look like a torn picture instead of just a split screen.

 

Photoshop Eyes =]

After researching images of eyes, we decided to take pictures of our own eyes to edit on Photoshop to use in our Digipack. We took photos in the Photography studio so we could use bright lights. Elliot is now editing our eyes in black and white, and taking out the pupils etc, but me and Lucy also started to experiment on Photoshop editing the eyes with different colours and making them look grainy or painted and cartooned.

The first eye is Lucy's where she edited her eye so that it was still quite natural but the colours are contrasting, with the warmth of the red and the darkness underneath the eye, we wanted it to look like she had a black eye to show the abuse, it looks scarier as its very bold and the light just catches the side of the eye showing almost how she could be crying as the eye looks wet.

The second eye is mine, and i edited it by contrastinf the colours to give it an abstract feel, it looks like the eye is no longer part of the face which is a very artistic and striking look but i don't think it would work for us as it is too bright, but i still like the experimental look and if we had a really abstract video with no narrative then this may have worked better.

The third eye is also mine and i edited it so it was black and white, and i used the artistic grain affect. I thought this cover is the most effective of the three as it relates to our video the most, yet i don't think the grain works as it needs to look more naturalistic. But i still thought it was an interesting affect to use.

Group Changes =]

We have decided to merge our group together, so Me and Lucy are now working with Elliot to, as this will make it easier for us to split tasks between the three of us. Elliot is also has good skills for editing and Photoshop which will be useful when making our digi pack.

Album Cover Ideas =]

This image was edited on Photoshop, we used the background of an eye from Photovault and added another layer of a dolls face over the top to create it. Our friend Louis helped us create this image of Photoshop.

This is a collection of Indie Rock album cover, they are quite artistic and and bold colours, we have made our digipack distinctive with the use of eyes and images from our photo shoot, using the actors that will be in the video. Our Digipack is different to the original Florence + the machine album cover, yet it is still mainly black and white which gives us that rebellious look that relates to our main target audience

Analysis of Lyrics =]

Music Video Concepts

Lyrics to Girl With One Eye :
She told me not to step on the cracks[At1] 
I told her not to fuss and relax[At2] 
Well, her pretty little face stopped me in my tracks[At3] 
But now she sleeps with one eye open[At4] 
That's the price she paid[At5] 

I took a knife and cut out her eye
I took it home and watched it wither and die[At6] 
Well, she's lucky that I didn't slip her a smile[At7] 
That's why she sleeps with one eye open
That's the price she paid

I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie[At8] 
I said, hey, girl with one eyeI'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry[At9] 

I slipped my hand under her skirt[At10] 
I said don't worry, it's not gonna hurt
Oh, my reputation's kinda clouded with dirt[At11] 
That's why you sleep with one eye open
That's the price you paid

I said, hey, girl with one eyeGet your filthy fingers out of my pie[At12] 
I said, hey, girl with one eye
I'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cryYou made me cry
You made me cry
You made me cry[At13] 

I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out of my pie
I said, hey, girl with one eye
Get your filthy fingers out my pie[At14] 
I said, hey, girl with one eyeGet your filthy fingers out of my pie[At15] 
I said, hey, girl with one eyeI'll cut your little heart out cause you made me cry[At16] 

(Narrative shows to interpretations of this story of the siblings. Both of the sisters mime separate lyrics to express different feelings and issues) 

 [At1]Mental and physical abuse from sibling. These lyrics could insinuate the real her underneath.

 [At2]Physical abuse.

 [At3]Jealousy and Sibling rivalry. The mean, controlling sister pulls an innocent face with horrid intentions and stops the other sibling in her tracks leaving her room perhaps.

 [At4]Sister cut the dolls eye out which is symbolising the other sibling. So now the doll sleeps with one eye open.

 [At5]Depressed look upon her face. Whilst the doll is on the shelf looking towards the girl with one eye.

 [At6]Takes knife and cuts out the dolls eye. The horrid sibling keeps the eye in her room and watches it wither and die, suggesting her sister.

 [At7]The horrid sister walks up to the sibling and wipes her lipstick from her lips across her mouth to suggest a smile. (The joker inspired type image)

 [At8]This could be suggesting to die. Maybe the lyrics ‘pie’ symbolise life.

 [At9]Nightmare- Older sibling cutting her heart out and terrorising her.

 [At10]The horrid sister slips her hand under the dolls skirt and breaks one of the legs off violently.

 [At11]Close up shot of the horrid sisters face miming the lyrics nastily. Something suggesting her past.

 [At12]The horrid sister slaps sibling across the face for leaving her room or doing something she didn’t like e.g.: stealing her doll back.

 [At13]The terrorised sibling cries with her back leaning against her door and slides down, breaking down in tears.  Self-harming, drug abuse or alcohol.

 [At14]To the beat of the music have one girl being hit across the face repeatedly.

 [At15]Other sibling ends being a heap on the floor maybe to signify suicide.

 [At16]Horrid sister has the last word. One tear runs down her face and she wipes it away briskly as quickly as she can as if she’s ashamed of crying.

---

Concepts for the Video =]

Girl imitating guitar at beginning and mouthing lyrics when they start. Mouth lyrics.

Girl winks to suggest one eye theme.

Then walking. Show effects. Showing cracks in the walls and a creepy atmosphere.

Girl sleeping restlessly then when lyrics sing ‘girl with one eye’ she opens one eye.

Show money to link with lyrics ‘that’s the price she’ll pay’ and have her pleading with money for example.

Show knives to suggest cutting her eye out. Then show an eye in a jar of water floating around, and then shrivelling up in an empty jar.

Girl crying.

Slip hand under skirt to suggest sexual abuse.

When the music gets more upbeat with drums and base… imitate people playing instruments on stage with girl singing. Rock image.

Girl crying, tears running down her face, showing make up running for dramatic effect. One girl going mental and really acting.

Show the girl with her hands in a pie.

Basically a girl is being terrorised and bullied repulsively throughout certain shots. The video can suggest sexuality as well. Maybe this is why the victim is being terrorised by the other girl.

Get pigs eyes and heart to use as props.

Maybe show drug abuse.

Costume

Rock, punk image. Leather and black. Dark make up. scars.

              

Research Task =]

I have chosen the music genre which is made apparent through the key concepts. The genre of the music video is love, which can be seen through the choice of shots, locations, character, facial expressions and the actual song.
I have chosen Taylor Swifts video ‘Love story’ which portrays the classic story of Romeo and Juliet. The narrative works by mixing a modern day high school scene with the olden day Castle where supposed Juliet (Taylor) lives, at the high school two students first meet (love at first sight) Taylor and boy, which then cuts to her being Juliet and meeting Romeo at the royal dance, not knowing who he is till after, creating the concept of forbidden love, and that they are both young. Obviously the song ends with her last verse stating that Romeo asks to marry her,
yet then Taylor comes back from her fairy-tale ending back in high school where she starts talking to the boy that she has just met, it shows the love can be seen as a fairy tale and most girls can relate to these situations when they are young and fall in love for the first time. The ideology shows the story of Romeo and Juliet, every relationships has its ups and downs. People fall in love and someone is always against it or they supposedly live happily ever after in the end.
The main target audience for Taylor Swift would be teenagers to young adults, predominantly female. This is because most of her songs are based upon adolescent memories and previous boyfriend relationships. Representation is used in the video through the characters and location. The song is called ‘Love Story’ therefore the audience would realize before even watching the video that a love story would be represented in the video. In this aspect the video shows the representation of a stereotypical High School scene
  
with a young adolescent boy and girl, it then stereotypes the traditional setting of romantic scenes of a castle and forestry with the use of Shakespearean dresses and menswear this shows a typical young girl fantasy of love. The use of the Shakespearean play Romeo and Juliet is what teenagers would study at school and a play that is well-known to most. It uses the connotations of betrayal, forbidden romance and rebellion, which can still be seen in schools today on a much smaller scale. The old castle is a beautiful romantic location to set a love story, and many can relate to this fantasy and its every young girls dream to live happily ever after.

The video has a linear narrative, with an intertextual reference to Shakespeare. The beginning of the song has them meet at a party in the first verse. The second verse where she has snuck out to the garden to see him “We keep quiet ’cause we’re dead if they knew” seems to imply that something is going on. In the very next bridge she refers to herself as a scarlet letter, which could easily imply that she’s pregnant. When they finally meet on the outskirts of town and he tells her that he has spoken to her father, and he has apparently consented to the marriage. One good reason for this quick turnaround may be to save the shame of a baby out of wedlock. If this is the case though, there is a very ironic suggestion to “pick out a white dress,” though this could be intentional to keep up her image of virginity. This has the potential to be a very ironic representation of a girl’s infatuation with a guy, which leads to an unfortunate marriage of necessity. Also it is perhaps a satire of how people always seem to believe that their own romances are worthy of Romeo and Juliet (which we all know does not end that well) and are always blinded by their position within their own relationships. At the end the song returns to present day where she goes and talks to the guy for the first time, showing the audience that this could be the beginning of the fantasy she has just imagined in her head. The Shakespearean references could be used to over dramatize the narrative, and as we all know they die in the end, instead of living happily ever after. However the ‘scarlet letter’ reference could also show her desirability but that she is off limits as seen in the video at the grand ball.
This is the foundation of Swift’s lyric–that any ‘love story’ is rife with complications, peaks and valleys, extreme joy and unbearable heartache. And by comparing the song’s characters to Shakespeare’s, she’s simply alluding to the idea that all love stories are fundamentally the same, regardless of their origin or outcome. There is a relationship between lyrics, visual and the music. There is also lots of close ups of the artist as she is the main character in the video. The institution of a music video would be the record label, company as they have the main role of making the music video promoting the artist to their audience and fan base. The video helps market the artist and wants to create the most profit, as videos can cost an extortionate amount of money. “Love Story” was first released as the debut single off Swift’s second album, Fearless, in 2008. In an article for Billboard, Swift described “Love Story” as “a love that you’ve got to hide because for whatever reason it wouldn’t go over well. I spun it in the direction of Romeo and Juliet; our parents are fighting. I relate to it more as a love that you cannot really elaborate on — a love that maybe society wouldn’t accept or maybe your friends wouldn’t accept.”

The language used in the video is modern day love lyrics except for the use of ‘Scarlet Letter’ in the lyrics, the narrator alludes to Romeo and Juliet and The Scarlet Letter to describe a lover whom her father will not let her see. In the end, however, the father reconciles and the lover proposes to the female narrator. The proposal is accompanied by a key change.

The camera is constantly moving to show that the narrative is always moving on to something new. It keeps the audience entertained with a quicker paceas the audience become more excited of how the characters relationships evolve throughout the video. The camera angles change as they like to show different perspectives of the narative. They use closeups of Taylor and the Boys faces, to see their emotion by making it vey intimate to eachother and for the audience to be involved with that intimacy. There are also tracking and establishing shots of places and people. And this is a birdseye view of the dancing to make vary the shots to make them more interesting and enjoyable for the audience. The music directly correlates at time with the footage. As the song progresses the editing gets quicker as the shots cut from her on the balcony, to a close up of them holding hands, to the forest back to the balcony.

Here Taylor is in the forest as she has seceretly come to find Romeo. The camera likes to zoom into the action and focus in on Taylors facial expressions. It brings in the songs lyrics ‘we’d be dead if they knew’ showing how they cant be seen together so the mise-en-scene of the forest, night time and the lantern emphasises the secret love they share.
A white horse is shown in the video obviously the one the man rode to see her on, the use of an animal shows the gentleness and romantic nature of the video. The shots are repetative but put into different orders. When she is on the balcony she engages with the audience by looking directly into the camera as if she is telling you this stoy of her love personally just to you.
This shot is just after she has seen him running to her balcony, she smiles and then there is a typical dramatic almost slow motion running scene, where they run to eachother and have a full on romantic kiss scene.
I like this image as it shows the secretness of their relationship and that the audience is involved in this secret. It uses iconogaphy of being quiet by putting a finger to his lips. So that nobody hear them, and setting their meeting in the dead of night shows the exciting and typical routine of secret meetings. This single part of the video links eveything together by showing the fairytale she dreams of and the love she has for him.

This is the final shot, where she comes back to reality, where in her fantasy she thinks he asks her to marry her, to her real life where this guy actually comes up to talk to her instead, the scene then goes to a black out as the music fades.