This is my A2 media coursework blog. I will be creating a music video for the song 'Confessions' by 'We Are The Ocean'. The project also involves creating a digipak album and a magazine advert for the digipak.

I am working in a group with:

Sunday 23 January 2011

Treatment

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Standard Definition and High Definition Comparison

Me and Chris took some sample footage to look and compare the footage that the SD camera takes and the footage that the HD camera takes. From this small video you can really see the difference between the two and this is really going to help us in producing our music video.


Saturday 22 January 2011

Company Names

We have decided as a group to use "Crossbeck Media" as our production company name, and below is a draft of the company ident that we are thinking of using..

We have also created an email account for our production company so people such as actors etc can easily contact us.The address is:   crossbeckmedia@hotmail.co.uk

Recreating Britney Spears Classic

Earlier this year we set the near impossible task of recreating a classic Britney Spears music video. It was a bit task with over 100 shots to re-create from the original and we only had a day to film at all locations just using the two A2  media classes. We provided all the props and came up with the dance moves ourselves and it really helped us to get to grips with creating a music video and being under a very tight time schedule. We all definitely learnt a lot from taking part in this task and any problems that we encountered helped us to prepare for our A2 coursework and many of the skills can also be applied.

My role within the project was to act and appear in the video as an extra, help to direct the gym scene (which was especially hard because of the choreographed dancing that appears in the original music video) and also to help with the pre-prodution and to plan all of the shots that we needed re-create and catalogue them into a call sheet.


We received some very good feedback from people that watched the video and it has received over 800 views on the IGS Media Studies youtube account! Please feel free to comment and leave your own feedback on this!

Joint Podcast

We joined with Alex and Jonny's production company (JAX Productions)  to produce a joint podcast where both of the production company's talked about and discussed their plans and ideas for creating their music video, digipak and promotional magazine advert for the digipak..

Alex's Blog
Jonny's Blog
Their Youtube account

Thursday 20 January 2011

Looking At Other Bands From The Same Genre

Band Table

Assessment Criteria

Basic marks breakdown:

Research and planning 20 %

Production:     60%
  • Music video 40%
  • Digipak 10%
  • Digipak magazine advert 10% 
Evaluation 20%

The Task Itself

I will be producing a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following options:

1. a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package);
2. a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).
You’re producing a promotional package. All three texts are interlinked. The brief requires you to showcase skills in both print and video production; photography and cinematography.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Feedback From The Sample Footage Screening

These are some of the comments and advice that we received from screening our sample screening..
    The photos that the protagonist looks at in the bedroom need to either be shown in a separate shot so the audience know what she is looking at or just taken out all together
  • The whole music video could possibly be in reverse to what we have, faster cuts were when the slow music was and slow cuts were with the faster music, didn't really make sense and was a little bit confusing, the pace will complement the audio/visual the other way round.
  • The actor needs to do more, they said she was too boring and dull to look at, she needs to do different moves and not just have her head in her hands all the time.
  • More locations need to be included.
  • There needs to  be more depth to it all, and the context of why all of it is happening.
  • The panning from behind when Emily was on the wall worked really well and created a nice effect.
  • The eposing of the cameraman (was accidental and we did it to save time during the shoot becuase it was really cold and we didn't have much time) actually worked quite well and would have made this video 'different', this also could of been an intertextual reference to the Guns N' Roses video for Sweet Child Of Mine [watch it here].
  • Our audience (of teenagers that were 16,17,18) told us that it could of been watched by the main target audience and it is stereotypical to the genre (post-hardcore and alternative rock).
  • The central protagonist journey throughout the video didn't last for very long and they also said that there was too much repetition so more locations were needed.
  • Flashbacks could also be used when she goes to visit the different locations, they bring back good/ bad memories to her.
  • There could be a page from a newspaper with "MISSING GIRL" on it that blows past her as she is walking along the street.
  • There needed to be a lot more depth featured throughout the video.
  • Using interesting and creative shots filmed through the railing and at strange angles (Hitchcock/dutch angle) and breaking the 180°rule would all create disorientation and a feeling of isolation for the audience.

Sunday 16 January 2011

Digipak Vodcast

To add to the research that I have already done on digipak's I recorded a vodcast with me talking through a few examples of digipak's and the content of them.

I also scanned the digipak's that I'm talking about in the video so you can see them in a little bit more detail..
Digipak Cover Scans

Thursday 13 January 2011

Sample Footage

This is some sample footage that we took to see how certain shots, locations and editing effects etc that we had ideas for would work or not work and also it gave us a chance to work with our chosen actor to get some practice at directing her in the way we wanted her to act.


Some feedback on this would be gratefully received..


Our First Podcast

This is our first podcast just describing what we have been working on so far and our next steps that we are going to take. It also includes some clips of sample footage that we filmed. 


Friday 7 January 2011

Digipak Research

[information taken and edited from the digipak wikipedia page.]
  • Digipak is a patented (registered to AGI Media) style of CD or DVD packaging.
  • Typically, it includes a 'gatefold' book style paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays for CD/ DVD's. 
  • They were some of the first alternatives to 'jewel cases' which were used by major record label companies. 
  • The digipak style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of albums, and DVD digipak is used as a  premium DVD package and sets. 
  • They gained recognition with record labels and artists in the early 2000's and ever since then they have been gaining more and more popularity.
  • They tend to be less resistant to abrasion and damage than jewel cases which is a negative to using this style of packaging. 
  • However they are good for the environment and are manufactured using materials that reduce environmental impact, they are more recyclable than  most other methods of casing. They use materials such as recycled bottles for the plastic trays and many printers use recycled or sustainable material for the paper boards. 
  •  Originally digipak was only available in large quantities however, AGI have introduced a different method for the consumer market. 


  • Someone from 'WEWOW' (a local media packaging solutions company) came and gave us a talk about what they do, these are a few notes about them...
  • Polycarbonate (which they make jewel cases from) is too expensive and also download is taking over so this is why digipak's are produced. 
  • They are currently working on producing a disk that reduces the impact to the environment, this should be in use within the next couple of years, they are always thinking and working on new ideas that are getting better for the environment and by 2013 they want to have vastly reduced their carbon emissions. 
  • Shipping is the biggest costing for them and it’s considerably more than the production of the packages themselves. 
  • They have their own in house design team to talk about the product that they are producing for the band. However, bands normally come to them with their own design already planned out and usually it just needs a bit of tweaking before it can be made. 
  • They have also started to use and include ‘QR code's' on their packaging, these can be used with smart phones and can link people to a bands website or Facebook/ Myspace/ Twitter page etc. 
  • People are very interested in trying new things and buying something different and they have come up with a spiral shaped idea for packaging (“wowspiral”) this doesn’t use any glue and it’s fun and easy to use. 
  • Keane’ a British alternative rock band asked them to produce several thousand jewel case and also a few digipak’s as well so they could be part of a special limited edition and more people would want to buy them. 
  • They also recommended that the cover flows from front to back and right through the middle of it, so there should be a common theme that connects each side of the digipak

WEWOW's website - http://wewow.co.uk/


Typical items to be found on a digipak case..
  • Lots of high quality pictures
  • Band name/ logo
  • Record label (possibly their logo)
  • 1 or more slots for the CD's or DVD's
  • Booklet
  • Lyrics (quite often creatively shown, e.g. maybe to look like it's someone's handwriting).
  • Thank you's/ credits to family, friends and people that have helped them to create the product.
  • Track-listing (possibly with the timings) 
  • A Barcode
  • The record label's/ band's website and fan pages
  • Copyright notices
  • Publishing/ releasing codes
  • Possibly a poster.