Production Diary

9th July - Today was the first A2 lesson. We discussed what we will be covering throughout the duration of the year and what we will need to do. We were given a task to write a 2000 answer to the question: 'Music videos have changed drastically over time and are now unrecognisable from their historical counterparts'. This task was fairly interesting and fun as you could see clearly how music videos have progressed over the years; from the first ever music video to be aired to the most recent videos. From doing this research, I concluded that music videos have changed over time but not drastically. It depends purely on the artist which type of music video will be shown, for example Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj are all most likely to create a music video which is very abstract where as bands like One Republic and 1975 still make videos purely of them performing like the historical videos. I felt that this essay went really well and I managed to complete it before the deadline. I was good with my time and started it the day it was set. This is how I would like to complete all of my work this year.

10th July - Today we had two lessons. The first lesson we were set a task where we had to create a display board of symbolic music videos from the 60's to the present day. We were split into groups so everyone had a different decade to research. My group were set the 60's and we were very excited to research this decade. We looked into the biggest names in this era for example The Beatles and Queen. We found this relatively easy as we were familiar with the names but also interesting as although we knew the songs, we had never seen the music videos. Everyone in our group produced a piece of work so overall we worked well together.

-- 2nd lesson: In this lesson, we were given our Preliminary Task. This was to re-create the music video 'Hit Me Baby One More Time by Britney Spears'. The class was then sectioned into two groups: we needed the groups to be quite large as there was a lot of roles to play within the music videos. Our group worked well together and started planning straight away. We watched the music video and took screenshots of each shot and wrote down the duration of the shot. We also took note on how many people were in the shot , the camera shot,  the costumes used and the location. By planning this in depth it made it very easy for us to start filming next lesson. We managed to get all the filming done in just over a week. We then started editing the video on Adobe Premiere Pro. We have used this software before so it was easy for us to crack on quickly. Everyone within the group had a chance to edit the Britney video so that it would refresh their memory of how the software works. By completing this preliminary task, it made it very clear to us how hard it is going to be when we start our own video. This was just to remake the video but lip syncing and fitting each shot in the designated area was very difficult.



3rd September - Today was our first lesson back from the Summer Holiday. We were given a task to complete an essay about analysing a music video of our choice. The points that we needed to include were:
- Compare it to a theory
- What genre is it?
- How did it fit in with the conventions of the same genre?
- How do the lyrics fit in with the music?
- Stereotypes of the people within the music video
- Iconography
- Camera Work
- Mise En Scene
- Editing
- How it relates to the artist
- What it the purpose?

After a long time deciding, I finally picked 'California Gurls by Katy Perry' . I chose this song as it was out of my comfort zone - being a genre I rarely listen to. This video was very concept and narrative based which is what I had in mind for my own music video therefore it gave me many ideas. This genre of music we mostly always be narrative and concept based and rarely will they ever have a performance based video. I felt this piece of work went quite well but could of been improved given I managed my time better. I could of compared it to other videos of the same genre to see if there was any similarities between them.

4th September - In today's lesson, we learnt about the 'Theory of Andrew Goodwin' . A famous quote of his is 'Music video is not primarily a commodity form, but a promotional one'. I agree with this quote as artists will always be promoting something whether it be themselves or a product even if they don't mean to. This has shown me that the choice of shots used will link to the image of the artist.

8th September - Today's lesson we looked at a Star Image. Artists develop these traits over a period of time which audiences like. We discussed certain traits that we think a celebrity should have:
- Popular
- Talented
- Influential
- Longevity
- Charismatic
- Unique/Own appearance

We then discussed which artists would fit into these categories, these were:
- Rihanna
- Miley Cyrus
- Madonna
- Beyonce
- Lady GaGa
- Michael Jackson
- Ed Sheeran
- Justin Timberlake

I found this task fun as we got to see how artists had changed throughout time. When it comes to creating my artist, I will need to think about all these different traits.

15th September - Today we were set a task to lip sync to a song of our choice. This was a struggle for me as I lacked confidence skills. I was too embarrassed to 'pretend sing' in front of people so I decided to film on my own. This helped me boost my self confidence as when I played back my footage, I realised that I didn't look as silly as I thought I did. Something else that was hard was making the audience believe that it was really you singing. Although I knew myself that that was not my real voice, I had to make it convincing enough. This made me realise that our final music video would not be as easy as I had thought.

22nd September - Today's lesson we were given a task to research into Digipaks. This was the first time that I had ever heard of them so it was interesting to learn what they were and what they were used for. A digipak is the fold out piece of paper that is inside the CD containing the song list and the album name. They are less common to be found as recent CDs have a booklet. By looking at other digipaks, it helped me understand everything that needed to be included for example images which represent the artist and which way round the pictures had to be to ensure that you could see them properly when they were folded. We decided for the theme of our digipak that we would link it with the design of our website but also with other pictures that represent our artist,

25th September - Today we had two lessons. We were set a task that covered both lessons. This was to complete an assessment. We had to write an essay which reflected on our AS work and what we felt our strengths and weaknesses were. This helped a lot as we took the time the remember everything that we had done in AS and it made me think of how I can achieve a better grade for A2.

30th September - Today's task was to remake an artist's digipak. I researched different digipaks so that we could choose which one we wanted to use. We were looking for a challenging digipak which tested our skills but nothing that was too unrealistic to complete. We finally decided on Rihanna's Talk That Talk. The camera shots were easy to copy but we felt that the backgrounds would hard to copy. For example there is a picture of Rihanna laying upside down on a bed but with patterned bed sheets which would be hard to find. The photos are close ups and mid shots. Another challenging picture would be the close up of Rihanna blowing smoke out of her mouth therefore we would need to edit this in the picture so that it looks realistic. We would also need to add a filter of black and white. We only managed to plan where and when we would shoot the pictures. This means that next lesson we can start straight away, allowing us to manage our time better.

1st October - Today I experimented with Abode Premiere Pro. I used this software in my productions last year but I only knew how to use the basic skills for example how to cut shots and and add musics and transitions. When it comes to editing my music video I will need more advanced skills to ensure I fit in to the conventions. I found different videos for example swimming underwater and experimented by reversing the video so that they swim backwards. This could look effective in our video if we was sharing a memory and then rewinding it back to where it started. We also wanted to learn how to speed up the videos really fast so that it created a 'Time Lapse' effect. We discovered how to do this as it was in the same place as the reverse tool. This was a very productive lesson and has helped me a lot as it has refreshed my memory of the software.

10th October - We had made an audience questionnaire to help us figure what genre and artist they would prefer. From looking at the results that we gathered, we found that for people in the age range 11-20, their favourite genre of music was pop. We predicted that this would happen as most radio stations play pop music therefore people will listen to this music more. This was reassuring as the genre of our song is alternative pop which means that we have an understanding of who is going to be watching our video. The majority of people prefer a solo artist rather than a group therefore this made our decision final. We decided to make another questionnaire involving the appearance of the artist. We asked questions such as 'What colour hair do you prefer?' and 'What do you look for in an artist's personality?'. The responses that we received helped us to determine which one of us (Me or Poppy) would be the actress. The preferred personality traits were very bubbly and excitable which related to both of us but then the preferred height and hair colour (tall+blonde) related to me. We wanted to ensure that we met our audiences demands therefore we decided that I would be the actress.

--2nd Lesson - In this lesson we analysed the lyrics to our song 'Change' by Banks. I found this really interesting as when you listen to a song, you don't really take notice of the meaning of the lyrics. There wasn't much background to research about as this was most probably from a personal experience. We researched into words such a 'Investigator' and 'Self-Incriminate' to get the bases of what this song was about. We discovered that she is in either a physically or verbally (or even both of them) abusive relationship with her boyfriend and wants to leave him but every time she tries to, he says the same words every time "Baby, don't go, I didn't know, I'll change I swear, I'll change I swear" which she believes and then continues to stay with him, allowing him to repeat this all over again. 

17th October - We decided that we should do a lip sync with the actress and our song. We felt that this was a good idea as it gives the actress a feel for the song and time to get used to it, learn the lyrics and the beat. This helped us realise what I needed to work on before we started our filming. This will ensure that the filming will go well on the day and we will have no interruptions or mistakes. By doing this, I realised that I was not as confident in front of the camera and felt very uncomfortable. We concluded that I shouldn't be the actress and that Poppy was much more comfortable in front of the camera. Although this is going against our audience feedback, we felt that this could work as she is different therefore it would appeal to people being unique.

22nd October - Today we focused on what to include in our music video. We found various effects that would be good to use but we had to be realistic. We wanted to include a 'Time-Lapse' effect and 'Reverse' effect. 'The Scientist by Coldplay' uses a 'Time-Lapse' effect but instead of the common way it is used (fast forward at speed)  it was backwards, sharing his journey back to the beginning. We also like the idea of a home video, Beyonce's and Jay Z's music video shows this. It would be very effective within our video as it would be good to show the contrast of the relationship between the two people. It would show the audience the good times and the bad times.

3rd November - In this lesson, we focused on inspiration for our artist. We discovered artists like Lana Del Ray and Taylor Swift create alternative pop songs aswell. We watched both of the artists music videos and we strongly liked Lana Del Ray as she was very sophisticated and classy. Lana Del Ray is less mainstream and fits with the genre alternative pop more than Taylor Swift. We also discovered Rihanna's video 'We found love' and liked the video as it has the same meaning as our song. 

11th November - Today we focused on our star image. We chose the name 'Piper Young' by creating a questionnaire and asking our peers. We decided that she would be 21 years old and originally from New York. We made up a Facebook, Twitter and Instagram page for her to make it more realistic. We also planned when we would film and where.

23rd November - Today we published our first draft to our music video. We edited all of the shots that we had so far. It still has a lot of blank spaces left but we had a plan on when and where we was next going to film. We also have a lot more ideas for the music video.

5th January - In the last week of school and over the Christmas break we filmed more footage for our music video. We have been editing the footage and sorting out our website. We have finished our home page, completing it with a red rose and an extra picture of our artist. We have linked all of our ancillary text with each other by using black smoke and red lips.

10th January - This week we posted our 3rd draft. I felt very confident with how the video was going and was looking forward to see the final product. It was a huge improvement from the 1st and 2nd draft that we had posted as there is much more footage, meaning less blanks to fill. We scrapped footage such as the artist sitting down in a garage as we didn't think that it fit the song. However, we still have a bit of filming to complete and finish taking photos. Our final job will be to complete the evaluation questions. 

21st January - Today we took some more photos of our artist. We were able to show our high level of editing with these photos as we found a website called 'Fotor'. It allows us the edit and beautify the photos. It was fun to use and made our photos look very professional. 

3rd February - Today I decided to organise my blog. I wanted to ensure that I was up to date with everything and was not missing anything. The more research and planning the better is something that I have learnt this year. 

20th February - For the next few weeks I will be focusing on my evaluation questions and ensuring that they are done. I want them to be perfect and get the best possible grade I can achieve. Me and Poppy will share them out equally so that we are both doing the work. We want them to have a lot of detail in and show our ancillary tasks. We started planning the questions together to make sure that we were prepared.

31st March - This week we finished our second Evaluation question. We used Powtoon to create the question. The reason for use choosing this programme was so that we could present it through different multimedia programmes. We also got given feedback for the digipak and found that we need to replace a couple of pictures so we plan on taking more pictures for the digipak.