Evaluation
For our evaluation, we were open minded about everything.
I looked through some A grade examples; one featured a group discussion, another had an interactive powerpoint, one had a powerpoint presentation with a voice over and one more consisted of drawn images.

During period one today, I made rough key notes for each question of our evaluation and jotted them down.

During period two, I edited the rest of yesterday's material. This took the entire hour as there was a lot to do.

Then, in period three I went through each edit and colour corrected it all, mainly by warming the colours and adding more in the way of brightness and saturation. This gave it more of the intended summer tone.

There were two parts I wasn't happy with, so having conferred with Amy I deleted these entirely - they were unsaveable - and replaced them with other material.

Some parts could do with some effects, so I added "strobe lighting" to a performance part, and cut up a running part into three sections. One; played as normal. The next piece I put in reverse, by putting -100 in the speed editing box. The final piece I cut again, and added the last bit in so that my character jump cuts to the foreground of the screen. This makes the running part more postmodern, and interesting to watch. It also compliments the song's pace better.

I've just updated our "Emma Lang's" Myspace page.
http://www.myspace.com/565126799
I added more to my personal information; my bio and influences, for instance, and I also changed the entire graphology whilst keeping the discourse structure the same.
The background image is floral and features the artist. This is an allusion to Emma Lang being a more country genred singer, which would be subliminally decoded before any potential fan begins to read the page.
The brown and beiges also enhance the country, western theme and aid in constructed the preferred image for Emma Lang.
The fonts have been kept simple and not too modern.abstact, as our targeted audience are more matched to clean cut fonts that do the job, as opposed to postmodern ones to stand out and  be unique.

FRONT COVER TO SCALE 

BACK COVER TO SCALE

Having decided that my first set of album cover designs were too busy and not realistic-looking, I decided to take a more conventional approach to my album artwork. I used the previous image in new ways, and compared them to real Taylor Swift album covers. The one with a lavender background didn't really match Taylor's iconic profile so I decided to take some images outdoors with nice scenery - an look some of Taylor's other albums have. These can also be seen above. Although these were definitely a step in the right direction; they still weren't quite meeting the purpose and targeted audience's requirements and criteria, and therefore wouldn't be successful.

The design I have chosen to go for is the final one. It focuses more on the artist - Taylor's main and emphasised part to her album covers. I made sure to still achieve something a little bit different at least, so I added a granulated effect. I also used an unusual way to present the artist's name; leaving the buyer with something more interesting to look at and work out. This should gain more attention and respect, and ultimately please more fans = more customers. The title stands out, with a bold, yet more fancy font at the bottom of the cover, so that if a buyer is focused on the album's title, they don't want to be spending a long time searching for it; it's plain and simple to read. The artist's name would not have worked in this position very well. It would have looked odd, by extension; as if the artist almost had a name tag! This would be far too simple for a twenty first century album cover.

Today we filmed the revised fight, walking to the prom, and the prom scene itself.

I worked on my evaluation and album artwork all morning, then went in for period four, where me and Amy refilmed the fight. I managed to get my friend Becca involved in stageing the fight, to make it as realistic and dramatic as possible; her being a drama and E15 student. She also worked the camera (in the way that I told her), after giving her a tutorial in using it. Sophie was in a lesson at the time and so couldn't make it, she said we should do it without her though as we're running out of time.

We experimented with a variety of ideas, and filmed them all so that we could watch back a vast selection, and select parts from that. This, we figured was the best way to approach it, as at least some of it should be convincing!

This is the unfinished version with poorer quality that we used for our class showcase. As you can see, parts weren't in sync and the picture quality itself was a bit blurred in places with lines across the screen, and parts jolt and jump which isn't how it is in the higher quality we've been working on. Our final copy will be top quality so this shouldn't be an issue.

Update: Rhys can only take part in our filming session tonight or tomorrow lunchtime and period five, before the deadline, because he's going to Wales after school tomorrow. It's Amy's birthday today so she doesn't want to film tonight, and it's unlikely we'd convince people to help us during their lunch break, so we're filming the prom during period 5 tomorrow.

Due to a lack of time, I've decided that it would be best to scrap the taxi idea. I figured it's not a vital part of our storyline, and it would take more effort than we can give, so our time would be better spent on something else. I shared this view with Amy and Sophie, and they agreed.

Tomorrow morning, period one, me and Amy have a free lesson, so we're going (to continue in my case), to prepare points of discussion for our evaluation.

Periods two and three we have media studies. Sophie offered to continue with our evaluation notes whilst I edit, and Amy wants to put an input in on what I do.

Then, period five, me and Sophie are free so we'll continue with our evaluation notes, and prepare ourselves for recording our discussions after school time. Our teacher said that we can stay until 5:30pm; when she leaves.

Period one then on Thursday, we'll put together our evaluation recordings and combine it with Powerpoint slides and footage from our videos to illustrate our discussions with examples. As long as I manage to get my album artwork completed at home, and when I've had more of an input on our webpage (Myspace page), - everything should then be ready!

I'm incredibly unhappy with this set of designs. The more I rearrange parts, alter colouring and add new artwork; the more cluttered and childish it becomes. It isn't even close to what I'd originally pictured in my head. Eventually I even managed to make a rough capital E, for Emma Lang, although it still looks awful. I plan to start afresh, and go for a more conventional design. It seems conventions really are there for a reason!

Text/fonts

Merging the images together to form the cover

I googled the average album cover scale today, some sites said 4"by4" for the front and 4"by4.25" for the back cover. However one with a net that reoccured is that shown below. I plan to use this one as it seems more common, plus cms are easier for me to work with as I use the metric system. I'll be able to put these measurements into Photoshop or Word to set the appropriate dimensions to fit my album case.



This evening I filmed the "in the taxi" scene, without Amy or Sophie, but; with their approval.
To make this as good as it could be, I firstly considered the costume I'd wear. I knew it had to be a prom/party/evening dress to make our narrative cohesive; so I looked through what I had. I thought I should be wearing a bright one to stand out as the central focus when it comes to the final scene as the prom/party. A blue ASOS dress I have was suitable. Although I'd be seated in the car, I wore tights just incase my legs were visible, but shoes really didn't matter.

Next, my hair. Our narrative transforms me from being a composed and tidy character, into a messy, almost dirty one. So - I knew my hair had to match this. My hair was relitively straight from school, so I curled parts of it and backcombed others, to give me a ragged, run-down look. It should be decoded as my characters feels that everything is getting out of her control, and she's suffering as a result. She's changing as a person.


Then the make-up. This quite simply had to be a mess. I thought it would be good by this point for me to be/have been crying in the narrative, so I tried to match this. I applied heavy make-up, badly, as before. I made sure that it exactly matched how it had been when I put make-up on in the music video previously, so that it was also cohesive. I then added more eyeliner and mascara to smudge down my face. This looked a bit hard, and block-like, so I poured water down my face! I also took a bottle of water with me in the car to dab around my eyes if needed, as my "acting skills" aren't quite good enough to get me to stage real tears!


Camera angles. I got someone to film me firstly from the front passenger seat at a slight high angle, then from the passenger seat next to me in the back, finally followed by me holding the camera dirctly infront of my face for a full-on close up. This wide range gave us plenty of variety considering we only needed this part for a line/possibly two lines.

This was filmed whilst the car was in regular motion, otherwise it would be very confusing for the audience to comprehend that this is my character actually transferring locations.


Finally, my facial expressions. During this part of the music video my mood begins to change, as my anger transforms more into a drunken sadness. I made sure that I gave the impression that I was and had been crying, and conveyed the transfer from anger and agression so sadness and self-pity; perhaps with some regret too.

Overall, I think that even though this is a very small percentage of our overall video, the detail and attention I gave to it didn't allow for any glitches. It all ran smoothly. The lighting isn't great, but this can be fixed via Final Cut in school.

When I came home from school, I took photographs of my sister (pretending she was Amy Rushmer); to use as a part of my album cover - as Amy was unavailable.

I found a plain cream coloured wall as it is the easiest to edit I find, and arranged my sister's body language.

I forgot put the memory card in! - So the only images that saved were these:

Today our teacher told us that our final deadline is Thursday.


By then we have to have ready to hand in:
- our completed video
- our completed album artwork
- a link to our completed myspace page
- a link to our individual blogs
- a link to our group blog, and
- our completed evaluation


We've nearly completed all of these, however we haven't even thought about our evaluation! We'd all thought that we had until the end of this term to complete everything, and the the few weeks after for our evaluation, but no, it's due Thursday. So, we had a bit of a panic and I decided to write a list, firstly of what we have left to do - followed by when we could do it. Here is my timetable for up until the deadline:


MONDAY
-(after school)

Me - film "in taxi"

TUESDAY
-(periods 2 and 3)

Me, Sophie and Kelsie film"getting into taxi"
-(period 4)
Me and Amy film revised "fight scene"

-(after school)
Me and Amy film down the road "come on!"

Me, Amy, Rhys and extras film "prom"

Me and Amy - film Amy’s "stairs + door scene"

WEDNESDAY

-(periods two and three)
Editing
-(after school)
Record evaluation video

Album cover - every evening in free time!

Notes, tomorrow:
Curl hair

Bring fight clothes

Bring prom clothes

+ make-up

Yesterday, our teacher arranged for our class to showcase our music videos so far, to each other and some extra peers who happened to have a free period at the time. During period two we compressed and transferred our video so that our teacher could access it on her computer. Most of our class conversely, didn't manage to do this in time for period three, so our showcase began about half an hour late, causing it to run into our lunch hour. This didn't affect the quality of our discussions and evaluations though.


Although our teacher had been keeping an eye on the progression of our music video throughout the editing process, this was an opportunity for her to summarise her opinions and advice for us. Her comments, in her exact words, were:
- Love the baseball reaction
- Not sure about "fight"
- The syncing was mostly perfect
- Matches the style
- It's INTERESTING - you keep the variety going
- Seems that the style matches Taylor Swift
- Performance is really good and convincing
- Lighting on the dart board is perfect!
- The spinning looks like perfect space
- Did people get your narrative?
- Emma does evil/disgust well.. !
- Like the red lighting when singing into the camera


It was good listening to other people's reactions to parts of our video, that hadn't been watching the progression in composing it. This gave us an insight into how our targeted audience would perceive it, which we no longer have ourselves. Personally, I had been worried that outsiders wouldn't be able to follow the narrative, perhaps at all, due to the heavy number of locations featured throughout. The showcase fotunately, disproved this as everybody followed it "easily" and knew exactly what the narrative was.

The evaluation sheets involved completing a bipolar chart to begin:

Followed by the questions:
-What was especially GOOD about the music video?
- Would you watch this again? If yes, why? If no, why not? and,
- Did you notice any serious issues such as continuity errors, strange edits, did anything not make sense to you?

The bipolar results convey that generally our audience enjoyed each aspect of our music video, though perhaps we need to fine-tune our synchronising and camerawork a little.
Having read through the other questions on my own, the main aspects that people liked, involved:
- The lighting
- The performance itself
- The close-ups
- The mixture of performance and narrative
- The pace - "doesn't get boring"
- Funny at some points
- Believable miming and acting
- Strong narrative
- Story made sense
- Very much like a real music video
- The ending - lights out
- "Fantabulous" edits and effects!
- Seemed professional
- Variety in costume

Every person that took the time to evaluate said they'd like/love to watch our music video again. The recurring reason was that it's "entertaining"/"interesting".

There was some constructive criticism, which is arguably more helpful than anything else. Here are all of the issues from our pilot audience's perspectives:
- Some parts were out of sync
- "A form of revenge would be nice to see"
- "Didn't really get the fight"
- Amy laughs when I push her face in the dirt
- Brief black flashes
- Emma's face is a bit too comical at times!
- "wuh-ooh" - cut a bit shorter?
- Emma coming out of the car is odd
- Use more effects

A lot of this comes from our video still being incomplete. (Every other group's incomplete too, not just ours.) Some parts being out of sync, the black flashes and lacking a bit in effects is down to this.

HOWEVER,

The fight scene seems to have been highlighted as being too friendly and not fitting in with the video. A few people also stated that Amy laughs whilst I'm pushing her face into the dirt. I know Amy really well, so I know that when she's scared, she does look like she's laughing. Our audience of course don't know her, so it looks like we will have to refilm this part. Whether we scrap the original material completely or just add in another camera angle on the laughing part to cover it up - we'll have to see.

The "wuh-ooh" being too long with the suggestion of 'cutting it shorter' can't really be done as that would involve making actual changes to the audio track itself which wouldn't be right. We've taken this onboard though and might try to involve another camera angle to give the illusion of cutting down the length of this part.

"Emma coming out of the car is odd" we don't agree with. Every consumer is different, so although we don't agree with this opinion we have respected it and taken it into consideration, but seeing as only one person has said this, we're going to put the thought to one side.

"Emma's face is a bit too comical at times!". There is one part I could understand that my face looks comical, but it does still fit in with the overall video and genre. Also, multiple people complimented the fact that there are funny parts throughout the video, so we plan to keep it.

OVERALL,

I've found that showcasing our work has not only reassured me that our video is of good quality, it has also highlighted aspects that could potentially be issues that we had overlooked. Being able to watch and reflect off of other groups' videos also helped for me to compare and contrast and feel more comfortable with our video and where it fits in.

During period two today I converted what Sophie and I recorded on Monday outside and imported it to Final Cut. I then cut up and edited the new material to our video and compressed and converted it. Part way through period three, our class took part in showcasing each group's work to; the rest of our class, our teacher, another teacher and other random students who gave up their time. I'll write in more detail tomorrow when I have all of the evaluations miss collected in!

We decided to cancel today's filming due to rain, and also Amy hurt her back. Tomorrow we can edit what we recorded yesterday, and then compress and share our video so far with our teacher, to then add it to our class showcase for evaluation. We'll also discuss when to reschedual our filming for.

In class today I confirmed tomorrows plans with Amy, Sophie and Kelsie and answered questions about details I'd thought about and worked out at home. Everything is good to go! We just need to collect the camera tomorrow, I need to sort out my costume tonight so that it's ready to put on and go through exactly which parts we need to film.

This lesson we also looked through our video so far and tried to add a bit. None of the footage so far had an ideal clip for the extended "woah" before the final chorus, so I suggested filming a close up/extreme close up there and then in the lesson so that we'd have that and nobody would know that it was spontaneous as my uniform wont show if done correctly.

I went to the technicians and asked for a camera, they then refered me back to my teacher who needed the camera for ten minutes so we started to set up our Myspace page. When she'd finished with the camera me and Sophie took it outside whilst Amy chose to continue with our Myspace page. I grabbed my iPod from my car so that anything I'd mime would be in time with the actual music, guessing the timing probably wouldn't be a very good idea and would be difficult/verging on impossible to get insync when editing. Sophie asked if we should go to find a spare classroom, which we could have done, but I figured that it would be time consuming. The weather was idealic and we were surrounded by greenary so I suggested that the mise-en-scene would be more interesting and suited to our genre where we were. So, we settled on some green bushes which could be decoded subconciously by our audience as jealousy. I then said that perhaps we should record the entire song incase any other lines haven't worked out for us so we did this. I had a bright blue, summery scarf on so i wrapped this around my school shirt's collar to make sure that it wasn't showing. I checked with Sophie that the shot was close enough for it to not notice and she reassured me. We then recorded the whole song, including the "woah" part three times to be safe.

Finally we went up to our classroom and transfered the videos to our 'editing station' whilst Amy showed us what she'd done to our Myspace page. She didn't know how to edit the profile as it has all changed since we used to use the site, but I managed to work it out quite quickly and showed her how to do it. We then watched through a tiny bit of the footage me and Sophie had produced. The colouring was very bright and summery, with well-suited mise-en-scene and animated facial expressions, however I'm worried that the filming wasn't zoomed in quite enough and some of my uniform shows. It does seem quite subtle though, so we can study this in more detail in Wednesday's first lesson.

Today we found out that instead of Friday as our showcase deadline, it would in fact be Wednesday period three, so we only have the one hour on Wednesday to edit! I plan to ask Amy to simply transfer whatever we record tomorrow onto our computer during her morning registration to save time, and I might try to work on editing throughout my period one free, depending on how the room is being used.

Once I got home today I got stuck into editing my album artwork straight away. I completed what I set our to do on Picnik and added a black "wall" in Paint - which goes with the diary/girly/animated theme I'm going for luckily. (Finished image: right)

This is of course not the completed album cover, I have to add the other half first, as well as the text and the diary/cartoon style scribbles. It will also have to be the correct size of an actual album cover, and I'm going to have to design the back cover and an optional spine too.

This lesson I also found out roughly from Sophie and more acurately from my teacher, that the album cover is not supposed to be for Taylor Swift, but in fact for our fictional singer's name, which we hadn't realised at all. This entire time we had been pretending that I was Taylor Swift. Luckily nothing has to be changed, other than my name in the album artwork and Myspace page. My actual name is Emma Langschied, which is quite long, complicated and in no way catchy, so we've decided to shorten it to Emma Lang. This is the new name we'll refer to the music artist as.

I focused on my album artwork again today and decided to get the ball rolling.

Firstly, I put on heavy makeup and the white dress I'd bought previously for Taylor's iconic look, and found my camera. I found a large heart shaped velvet box and some large scissors with orange handles - the closest to red that we had which I'm sure I can alter the colour of when it comes to editing. I found a plain cream wall in my mum's room (closest to white, again; I can edit this), and sat in the position I'd planned in my rough drawing designed in Paint.

I couldn't take the pictures of myself as it's supposed to be a mid-shot, so I got my sister to help me. I explained to her in detail what I was after, and after roughly a hundred attempts, gradually adapting the body language and facial expressions, we found the ideal one. I then uploaded this to our home computer and began to edit it in a free online programme called Picnik, as I don't have Photoshop at home unfortunately so I had to make do. It's now getting late, so I'm going to continue editing tomorrow.

I went through what we need to film on Tuesday, making notes, so that I feel more organised and I know what we're doing. I know that Amy and Sophie like to turn up on the day and improvise, which I'm sure works but I like to plan to feel like I know what I'm doing and to make sure that we get everything done in time!

Today we discussed when to film the prom and taxi scenes. I suggested Monday after school as Wednesday's double lessons we'd need to edit, but Amy works Mondays and Sophie has psychology revision, so I suggested Tuesday after school; we can all make this so it's been decided. All three of us have our media theory lesson last period on a Tuesday, so we're going to leave straight after this together, either I or Amy will drive Sophie to Kelsie's where her dad's taxi is available (I'd previously checked with her). I'm going to prepare my costume and plan my makeup Monday night so that we're all good to go on Tuesday, and it's not all a last minute rush like last time!

Update: I managed to talk to Amy, however I didn't see Sophie all day. I told her about next week's deadline and she said that it's okay as we'd planned to film next Wednesday anyway. I highlighted the fact that we'd need that time to edit the newest footage in time for Friday because I can't keep using frees for editing, she agreed and said we'll get together with Sophie in Thursday's lesson and discuss our next and final(hopefully) two filming sessions, maybe for during Monday's lesson.

Today neither Amy or Sophie were in our lesson, so I planned to play around with Photoshop to practice for my album cover. However, our teacher told us that next Friday our entire video needs to be completed (roughly), all the way through without gaps. So, I decided to go through our music video instead to see what needed doing, and although Amy had said that we have nothing left to do until we next film, there were plenty of lines I could still fill in, so I did. I didn't change anything we'd previously done, except the timing on one part because it was approximately one frame out of sync, I just added fresh new bits to it. This made quite a difference with few gaps left up until closer to the prom scenes that we haven't filmed yet. I did also add an effect to a new "live" performance piece I added - strobe lighting. It kept coming up as unrendered, but each time I rendered it, it would work so hopefully it shouldn't be a problem.

Due to acedemic review day on Wednesday, we said that we couldn't film until next Wednesday during our double free, all together. However, with the firm deadline being Friday, and us being physically unable to film everything in one day, we're going to have to film before this, and probably even use the double lesson on Wednesday for editing the new footage in time for Friday's deadline. This does probably mean that we won't all be able to record together, though I'll do everything I can to make sure that we're all present at the final few filming sessions. We also have to bare in mind that the closer we get to the deadline, the more booked up the cameras will be, and as we've been using the new cameras, there are only two to choose from. Assuming Amy and/or Sophie are in school tomorrow, I'll be able to talk to them both togther in our period five theory class to get them thinking about it, and to get the ball rolling once again.

This, I think, is my best draft so far. I've made the changes I said I would - enlarged Taylor and kept Amy small - and I made the wall black as opposed to the background which is now white - illiminating the rock/horror codes. It still seemed too dark to me, so I changed the red colouring to pink - making it able to be read as more girly, like a girl's diary. This suits Taylor Swift far better. It also seems quite minimal which is of course important having studied her iconic image.

This cover involves Taylor cutting up a heart with a twisted smile for a facial expression, implying that it's been designed after the song - after she's had her revenge and now she's moving on by getting rid of any evidence of her relationship with Guy, and is happy about moving on. The contrast in sizes between her and Amy conveys the sense that Taylor feels that she's been successful, she's won by conquering what she said out to do - get revenge. Although both characters will be photos, everything else is in the style of a girl's diary, which is unique and post-modern, expanding Taylor's diversity and hopefully the interest of her fans.

I've thought of a way to transform my last album artwork idea into an image that's more "Taylor". If I make sure that I (ie Taylor) is much larger, becoming the main image on the cover, and I make Amy smaller on the other side of the wall. This focuses the audience's attention on the artist, the artist's name and the title of the album as opposed to an entire scene taking place. It could work as it's from Taylor's perspective so she'd like to see herself as the bigger person, and Amy as a minor obstacle in her way. The black is a bit heavy, so perhaps I could make the wall black instead and the main background white - most of Taylors backgrounds have been white/light pastel colours before.

I've experimented with a few more things. I don't have Photoshop at home, so I've been trying to use Paint to create rough album artwork, which isn't going very well.

I tried getting rid of the wooden floor background, ultimately to make it grass instead. However I only got as far as making the background white, plus as the picture is merely a printscreen of a moving image the quality is pretty poor too, so to cut out a lot of hard work for primarily bad results I'll have to really ask someone to take a photograph of me lying on some grass.

Next, I tried experimenting yet again. The style below will be replaced by photographed images if I decide on this for the album cover. The red scribbling is then supposed to have been Taylor's character scribbling over photographs in anger; comparing Amy to the devil for instance. Again, it's not really Taylor's style, but neither is this song! Perhaps it needs a new style to suit the new tone of song? I'll remain in the planning stage for now.

A newer, lighter idea I'v had is to feature just "Taylor"'s eyes, looking deviously down at her diary, which states the title of the song as well as her name, and a montage of images.

This involves the three main conventions - the artist, artist name and song title, as well as being unique and having the key colours for revenge - red and black.

It will be quite complicated to make, and will perhaps be too busy to be oneof her album covers; so I'll keep planning.

Today during period one and after school I have been looking more into album artwork and experimenting with designing, I don't plan to use any of the designs I have made, it was merely to see what I could do.

I came to the conclusion that although the song revolves around revenge, all three of these covers are too dark for Taylor's genre so I'd have to rethink the entire style and tone of the covers in order to make the end result appear to be realistic. Also, I didn't think that all of these covers suited having both the title and artist name on the cover, however Taylor's album artwork always strictly follows conventions so I'll have to.

 

Today we have a double lesson and had planned to film the taxi scene at Kelsie's, and some of the prom scenes if we had time left over and people available, however the weather is misty and grey - not at all appropriate for what we need, so we're postponing this filming session. We've discussed when we can do it, and decided that people are more likely to participate during their free periods rather than time outside of school, so during our double media lesson would be ideal. Next Wednesday unfortunately is Academic Review Day so we're off timetable and can't really organise filming as everybody's appointments are at different times, so, our next available slot will be the Wednesday after next which is the 30th of March. I'm thinking of creating a Facebook message because people our age check it regularly, to alert them of this new date and ask for them to get involved. If this isn't successful I'll bribe them with free pizza or something! 

I missed today's media lesson as I had a hospital appointment, so I'll have to catch up with Amy and Sophie tomorrow. Also, I think I might call Amy later on tonight to ask if we could use Kelsie's taxi, and if we can see if we could film the taxi scene tomorrow and maybe the prom scenes too, to try to get everything filmed and sorted because we've come to a bit of a halt and its on my mind!

Today instead of editing, me and Amy went through each section of the video and print screened it, so that I could email the still images to myself and look through them properly, checking and analysing the mise-en-scene and colouring, to see if it all gives off the desired effect. Sophie worked on her blog during class, so I'm about to add to the group blog tonight to update it a bit.

Having thought through my original idea a lot, I've come to the conclusion that it is too busy and postmodern for a Taylor Swift album cover, considering how plain and conventional her covers are. So, instead, I've composed a new idea.

It will primarily follow the conventions kept on her other album covers - the artist as the main feature, artist name at the top and title lower down, however I've decided to make it more interesting and ultimately different.

The artist will be lying down on grass (high angle shot from directly above), and certain props used in the video that represent revenge will be dotted around in the grass. It should be subtle yet effective. And the word "revenge" will be drawn across both pages of the diary in red ink, representing the obvious anger, passion, violence and danger. This will have to stand out as it is a part of the title, but in the image itself. The entire cover should all be bright - it's meant to be summer after all, as a juxtaposition, and the costume I will carefully consider and plan at a later date.

Again, me and Amy continued editing today. We managed to master colour correcting so we went through - mainly the parts in Amy's bedroom - and colour corrected that so that everything from each location matched. We're still going to go through and brighten the saturation of everything, but at the end or we'd probably be wasting our time if we did it now. We also began to look through crucial effects to link the fight scene - me pushing Amy into a pile of dirt - to me then waking up from my dream "She had to know the pain was beating on me like a drum", to make it obvious that the fight was in my dream and not real. After several effects and having trouble rendering, we still didn't find the ideal one, so we're going to come back to it.

Today me and Amy continued editing whilst Sophie added to the group blog. We're definitely getting there, over half of the song has footage cut and placed roughly correctly. It's definitely going to need a lot of tweaking to get parts dead in sync, and the colouring right, and we'd like to use obvious effects to make the audience conscious that they're watching a music video as opposed to any other text. But first, we need to continue to get everything roughly in place before we can make things work.

Album Cover Planning
Having researched, examined and analysed various pieces of album artwork; including all those available by Taylor Swift, I decided to compile a few rough ideas to gain a better, more visual and realistic picture of what mine could look like.

I found from looking at Taylor Swift's album covers, that they are all very simple and extremely conventional. They have the artist, artist name and album/single name on the cover, and with a plain background.

I however, want to alter this, though in a way that could still be realsticly a Taylor Swift cover. I'd like to make it busier and more interesting to look at, with more of an insight into the pragmatics of the song and style of the video, but in order to do this I have to emphasise the traditional conventions.

I plan to have the artists name at the top, in Taylor Swift's writing:

And the single name: Better Than Revenge, to the bottom-right corner - following traditional Western culture.

"Revenge" I've planned to have in red, to make it stand out as it really is the key word and idea for fans to consider and understand when listening to this song and watching the video. I'm also considering having it overlap the image of the artist's face to emphasise that importance even more.

The main image of the artist itself will be a close-up of her face. She will have reasonably heavy make-up, the iconic curled hair and a straw hat as featured in the video. Her facial expression should be decoded as angry, resentful, hurt - all linking to revenge, and there should be some strong red colouring in this image - whether it's lipstick or possibly I might be able to work some more red in there somewhere. Maybe a part of her pupils, although this may be too postmodern for Taylor Swift, I'd have to experiment.

The background image should consist of bright green grass, and a pale yet bright blue sky to juxtapose the darker 'revenge' storyline. It will play with the ideology of there being a superficial modern society - that although everything is perfect on the outside, there is a lot more depth to things, and breaking the stereotype that females are weak. They can be strong yet still feminine.

To work more into the cover, I'm thinking of involving a picnic bench which was used for a small fraction of the music video. It's outdoors so it will still be able to convey summer, and has built relevence to the song. The plan is to have multiple images of the artist using different uses of body language to convey a sense of anger and plotting. I might try to blur these images slightly to create a sense of desperation and francticness - insecurity, again to build up an insight to the storyline, or maybe not, again; I'll have to experiment.

I found that designing even this extremely rough outline in Paint was difficult, as I hadn't fully pictured every detail in my head - where exactly the text would be placed for example, not to mention that personally I have no idea how to merge multiple images into one image, so I'll have to do more research to look into this to see if it's realistic. If it is, I'll probably have to have a few trials to perfect it - and if not, I'll have to adapt or entirely change my first idea.

I've watched back what we recorded yesterday on the mac, and I am truly amazed at how professional the "live" performance looks! Apart from some of the low angle shots it looks like a genuine stage performance. One part entirely down to Amy was her incredible idea of having the camera as a member of the audience at the front, up against the stage. She told me to sing into the camera as if i were singing a line to a fan, so I did and it looks so good! The way the red lighting and spotlight look behind my head is so different and looks amazing - well done Amy!

Filming Session 4
During period one today, me and Amy both had a free so I went to find her to discuss plans for the day's filming. I pointed out that the weather wasn't at all suitable for filming the fields scenes - which is what we had planned to do today - so I suggested a rethink. I logged onto a computer and onto my blog and printed off a few copies of the lists I made the other day, stating what we had left to film still. I crossed off fields and the prom, as the weather wasn't right for it, then thought through the rest. I then told Amy what I'd come up with. We thought of doing the "live" performance in the drama studio, as they have professional lighting, so we went to the drama department to find a drama teacher to ask for permission for a time slot - preferably today. We didn't find a teacher, so we went to student reception to ask whether the studio was free period 3 or 4. They said it was free during period 4, and that we should find a teacher at breaktime. With this knowledge, we went back to the study centre to continue planning. I thought of a short task we could fit in an hour (period 2), so that we could be back in time for break. We figured that filming the last few lines in Amy's room would fit - it would be tight but possible. We planned to drive back to school for break, ask permission to use the drama studio throughout period 4, then to drive back and film in Kelsie's dad's taxi, then to drive back for period 4. With the plan sorted, all we had to do was wait for Sophie, so we started to do that. After a while I thought that seeing as me and Amy both drive, maybe I should get a head start and drive home to get changed in time for when Amy and Sophie get to Amy's, so having explained to Amy I left to get changed, and asked Amy to call me as she left. I then got changed into the red/cream jacket and jeans I wore previously, and tried to match the look exactly so that the clips could be seamless. I then ran around trying to find a costume for the "live" performance as we hadn't planned what I'd be wearing because we weren't expecting to be doing it today! I also located the dress I'd wear in the taxi scenes - which i was aware had to match the prom scene.

Amy then called me to say that she was on her way back, and that she'd pick me up on the way to save time, so I agglomerated everything we needed that I had, ready to jump in the car to go to hers. She got to mine much quicker than expected, it turns out she wasn't at school when she'd phoned, they'd stopped off at a local Sainsbury's, so we left in a rush. As we got to hers, I began explaining my storyboard to Amy as everyone got settled, then I realised I'd left the camera at my house, so I literally ran home to get it and back again. As they were eating an early lunch I was thinking through every detail I could, to figure out how to make it run as smoothly as possible. I mentioned curling my hair a few times as Amy curled my hair last time and she does it differently to how I do it, but no one was really listening. I checked the time, and it was 10 minutes before the start of breaktime - and it takes around 15 minutes to drive to school, so we left then to ask for permission. I said that we don't all need to go, but Sophie wanted to go to media and blog instead of filming, Amy wanted me to go to drama with her and Kelsie didn't want to be left at Amy's alone, so we all went back to school - me fully costumed.

We made it to school mid-break, and went to the drama office. The teachers said that we could use the big drama studio with the proper lighting during period 4, and said that they'd show us how to use the lights, as none of us had ever done drama at our current school. We thanked them, then me, Amy and Kelsie set off back to Amy's. When we got back Amy curled my hair to match how it was before, then we filmed the opening line "now go stand in the corner", seeing as it had messed up before. We did the shot as me looking down into the camera - an extreme low angle shot! My hair was covering around a third of my face, and I looked as angry as possible, and slightly insane; to give the video a strong start. We recorded about 8 attempts - only one matched what we'd pictured, though I believe it will need the colour restoring - but we can see to that later.

Next, I got out my storyboard and explained it to save Amy reading it. As it had been planned out in such fine detail, it was so easy to record and took no time at all! The extreme close-ups where supposed to be in the same location as the other shots, but our teacher had said to us before that she adored the shots we composed previously in the other room, so we tried to do a bit more intimate camera work in there instead. It's hard to see how any of this went until we watch it back. If it needs re-doing, it's not the end of the world, it won't take long.

Period 4 - Drama studio"live" performance

We don't have much of a budget at all so we made full use of the school's facilities - including stage lighting and a black backdrop/curtain for the limted time of an hour. Whilst in the drama studio we recorded my miming to the entire track from five different angles, so that we could pick the best of each line we need, and fill in any unplanned gaps in our video. It took quite a while to figure out the lighting and get me stood in the most ideal places to make the best use of what we had, and to make the end result believable.

It was just me and Amy so we couldn't have Amy operating the lights at the same time as filming so we have to make use of the spotlight. We also kept the red lighting on as it's obviously code for anger, revenge and passion - all things that the song focuses on.

As Amy's form room is our media class, she used the 20 minutes to transfer the day's filming to our designated mac to save us time next lesson.

Once I'd arrived home from school, the weather was extremely sunny - though quite cold, so I called Amy. I asked if she wanted to film the field part today seeing as the weather had been grey and wet recently and we may not get another oppertunity. She said yes and that she'd hang onto the camera, and we arranged to meet at 3:30. I'm not sure if Amy told Sophie our plans or not, I think she did, but Sophie has said before that she cannot film after school as she lives quite far away and can't travel that far, and we'd filmed the rest without her too. I got changed into the white dress, the same necklace Amy had leant me for the "live" performance to introduce a bit of subtle cohesion, and re-did my makeup. At the last minute I remembered that we needed a diary, so I found a book and wrote typical diary notes down - being sure to reference parts from the song, so match the line "she thinks I'm psycho 'cause I like to rhyme her name with things". I also grabbed the straw hat from before to enhance the mise-en-scene.

 

At 3:30 on the dot, Amy knocked for me and I showed her the 'diary' as we walked over to our local fields. The ground was extremely muddy, and I was dressed in white! - but we had to make do with what we had. I pointed out that we could always re-film it if things don't look right. I had pictured this with me sitting cross-legged on the grass, daisy chains, sunny, bright saturation - all with a summer tone, however we had to try to recreate this as best we could. I ended up sitting and posing on a graffittied, modern blue bench in the middle of the muddy field. It was extremely cold, around 3 degrees, but hopefully this won't be decoded as it's definitely not the intended, preferred reading.

Near-Future Plans

• Tomorrow we plan to get to Kelsie's for 8am to spend period one's media lesson filming the taxi scene in Kelsie's dad's taxi. Kelsie also has a free here so that's no problem.
• Amy will then upload the footage from the fields yesterday, and the taxi videos during registration.
• After school we're considering recording the prom scenes to get it all done in one day, this wasn't made a solid plan though and as it will involve organising other people I doubt it will happen tomorrow.

Having checked the weather forecast earlier, me and Amy have discussed filming the in the fields location tomorrow to make full use of it being bright and hopefully dry. We didn't see Sophie at school so we're going to have to talk to her in the first media lesson tomorrow about it.

Album Artwork Research: Taylor Swift

I edited in the other lesson
- in sync again
- new chair bit
- bed bit
- not happy with that

Tomorrow I have a free period at the same time the other A2 media studies class has their lesson. Apparently, the editing station I use is always vacant during this time so I might go to their lesson and edit a couple of things and try to get the odd frame more in sync, as although Amy and Sophie think it's fine as it is, I still think it's a little bit out. I won't change much, and I'll make sure I remember what I've changed in case Sophie or Amy don't like the alterations. I might also try to experiment with new transitions and effects as we've been purely altering the speed of clips so far, and cutting.

We edited stufff lol

As we got to class today our editing station mac had "don't touch" on it, so we weren't allowed to use it for fifteen minutes due to other groups converting files. Amy and Sophie began logging onto their blogs, but it was taking a long time to load, so I suggested quickly asking to borrow a picture camera, and walk around to locations we shot in last week to take still images to add to our blogs. We also took a group photograph so that you can see who we are and a photograph of Rhys. We're now waiting for them to transfer from the memory card, before spending the next hour and a half editing new footage.

Today I found Amy period one which we both have free, to discuss today's filmings. Yesterday she had said that we might as well get some filming done, so I brought in the list of what we have left to do. I ruled out anything outdoors as the weather was bad, we couldn't do the band or corridor things, so that left just the rest to film in the bedroom. We agreed to do it at a later date though as Amy had a history test to revise for and therefore didn't want to give up today's frees as she needed them for revision, so we decided to use the time to catch up on editing instead.

In order to keep track of what we have done so far and what we have left still to shoot, I went through my notes and higlighted the lines we haven't recorded anything for yet. I then categorised the lines into location categories. This way I can comprehend easier roughly how long each section should take, and therefore which sections will take an entire filming session and which we can combine. Doing this also showed that we have a lot more to do.

Bedroom
"Won't make you many friends" - sat at a desk screwing up paper into balls and throwing them at a caged, already-full bin
"I'm just another thing for you to roll your eyes at honey,you might have him, but I always get the last word" - (see storyboard for details)

Diary
"The story starts when it was hor and it was summer and, I had it all I had him right there where I wanted him" - High angle in field, inventive camera work - a mix-match of shots
"I never saw it coming"
"Soon she's gunna find"
"And, she thinks I'm psycho cos I like to rhyme her name with things" - Wide eyes, camera revolved around her head and focuses on the writing on the diary pages. Possible jump cuts here?
"Soon she's gunna find" - looking up from the diary
"She took him faster than you can say sabotage" - Slam diary shut, looking more upset and tearful than angry

Band
"Nor did I suspected it"
"She's not a saint"
"Oh they don't teach you that in prep school"
"She's not a saint, and she's not what you think"
"There is nothing I do better than revenge"
"Woah" (after "but I always get the last word")
"On the playground"
"There is nothing I do better than"
"Let's hear the applause"
"Cos you're so much better"

Taxi
"Revenge" - Getting into taxi, very drunk
"Cause I don't think you do" - blurred - sped up footage from out the window (dark, lights) Zooms out to reveal my face
"Oh" - Jump cut
"Do you still feel like you know what you're doing" - Face-on to camera, singing into the lens, clear that she's drunk
"I don't think you do, I don't think you do" - Looks down, still miming, nearly crying/crying

Prom
"C'mon show me how much better you are" - Walking behind Amy "COME ON!"
"See you deserve some applause" - Face on tp Tayler, clapping, aggressive
Turns up at the prom, completely drunk, a mess. Rhys looks concerned, feeling guilty. Blackout as a door slams - The end

Corridor
"She lives her life like it's a party and she's on the list" - either at a real party, or we'll compose one in a concrete, indoor school corridor to imitate one