Tuesday, 5 April 2011



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.

Monday, 4 April 2011

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.