Tester Shots

We spent a double lesson on Wednesday filming and editing our tester shots. We planned on using the school grounds as a set for some our shots and as it was a fairly impromptu activity, we worked with what we had and filmed a couple of the planned shots for that location.

When editing, I just took clips of the film and cut them using the blade tool to obtain the most relevant and useful footage.

I also added titles to explain the different shots and experimented with a range of effects we might consider using in our video. For example, our group had toyed around with the idea of adding a visual effect to the footage, and so I took the same clip and repeated it x5 but with different effects on each such as "Day to Night", "Dry heat" and "Gaussian". 

I also worked with effects like changing the tempo and running of the clip. I took a clip of Jason walking and switched it so that it recorded backwards, giving the perception that he was walking backwards. I also sped up close-ups of him walking and slowed them down as well.

Idea! Digipacks

I had an idea to design, on the front panel, the material to be raised in a droplet-fashion, so that when felt, it was like droplets of the front cover. This would relate the digipack back to the name of Cara May Smith's début album, "Water On Glass". However, this modification would be much easier applied on plastic, and I'm not sure if it can be applied to reinforced cardboard. I'll have to ask Sir.

Delegating

Website
Today, we worked at the roles each of us would perform at this stage in pre-production. Kirsty, having a background in ICT A Level, offered to make the website for our artist.

Kirsty first began by registering herself on wix.com - the current address for our website being kirstyanneheiss.wix.com. Although the layout on wix.com is fairly generic, aspects of our website were inspired by Katy Perry's official website, such as the centre position of the information and nature-themed background picture.

Constructing the website began by looking at background's of water on glass, as we wanted the website to directly relate to the artist's work: the album "Water On Glass". This would create an automatic relationship between the website, the artist and her debut album, and encourage the visitor to the website to listen and buy the album advertised. Kirsty google imaged pictures of 'water on glass' to use as background and she initially found a black-and-white, moving-image picture of rain falling against a window. Although the background was sophisticated and engaging, we thought it was very busy and distracted visitors from the information on display as well as give them a headache if on the page for too long.

 

With this in mind, we chose to adjust the picture, still with the 'water on glass' them but a still rather than moving. We found a dark, edgy picture of similar nature to the previous, as Sir aptly put it "Dark colouring is sophisticated" and installed that instead.

The font of the title initially was a swirly, girly affair which although was fun, didn't quite work in terms of the sophisticated image we wanted to portray about Cara as an artist. Kirsty decided to change it to a straight, classy font which gave a more mature, established-artist-feel to her, particularly paired with the background image.

The gallery has also been started. Casually sifting through Phoebe T's Facebook pictures, Kirsty picked out a range of shots of Phoebe, some with her friends we renamed as 'fans' on the website, some with Jason we renamed as 'actor-artist hanging out' and some at festivals or music events which added to this image of her being an established artist with a love of music. These were all imported into the gallery and set on a rotating frame both on the gallery page and strip on the homepage.

This is the website so far

Digipack

I, having worked in the team creating the Year 11 yearbook, was keen to create the Digipack for our album: "Water on Glass". I have experience designing promotional material and representing people and companies, and was interested in further contributing to my team's final product by taking the wheel regarding the making of the digipack.

Social Networking

Phoebe T began creating the social networking aspect of Cara's career. She started by creating a hotmail.co.uk account for Cara which would allow her to sign our artist up to both a Twitter account and Facebook page.

This would allow fans to follow and keep up-to-date with news about Cara's tour dates as well as her life and day-to-day activities. A link to both the Twitter account and Facebook page would be posted on her website so that the fans visiting the website would have easy access to both forms of social network and join each without having too much trouble doing so.

Presenting: Cara Smith

Our artist: Cara Smith

*Picture of Cara Smith*

Genre: Indie pop

Age: 21, 14th July 1992

Biography: Cara is a new artist, breaking into the indie pop music genre. Born and raised in Carlisle, she's got a celtic background and love for all things retro. Her style is 90's fashion but has an affinity with nature, as Cara, growing up, made regular trips to the Lake District. Hobbies include immersing herself in music, listening to favourites such as Nina Nesbitt and Belle & Sebastian. She takes inspiration from the likes of Joni Mitchell, Sandi Shaw, The Zutons, and "The Runaways" and "Coyote Ugly" (film).

Her debut album is called "Water On Glass" and will feature the hit single "Is he really coming home?" as well as the bonus track, "Lucky 13".

Track List: 

1) Your Girl, 2) Shallow, 3) Water On Glass, 4) Is he really coming home?, 5) Your not that great, 6) Soft Light, 7) The Spell, 8) Birds, 9) Tough Leather Boots, 10) (It's the) Funniest Thing, 11) Wonderland, 12) Next Station, 13) Lucky 13, 14) Is he really coming home? (Acoustic version)   

Bit of EXTRA Research

When researching Indie-Pop Artists, there was an aspect of their character's repeated: they were all white. Although there are artists non-white who's music genre is in Indie-Pop, the majority is white e.g. The Pierces, Lana Del Rey, Nina Nesbitt and Eliza Doolittle. More Pop inclined artists such as Katy Perry, and Taylor Swift are also white regarding skin colour.

This means that by casting Phoebe as our artist, Cara May Smith, we are using a convention of the Indie-Pop genre.

This is an article discussing the convention in more detail which was very interesting to read, and verifies that the pattern is something noticed by the public in general.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2011/jan/04/ask-indie-professor 

Music Video Analysis (according to Goodwin theory)

This is my analysis of 2 music videos, according to Goodwin's 7-idea-theory.

The first is Katy Perry's "Thinking of You", and I chose to analyse this music video due to the major similarities the music video has with our coursework ideas, such as the plot line of a couple separated when the man is called away to war and the addition of a "new lover" in the artist's character's life. Our version of the plot will be modernised but both our music video and "Thinking of You" are narrative-ased but interspersed with performance shots of the artist. This music video will play a major role in inspiring aspects of our own video.

Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” is of a similar genre to our chosen track, “Is he really coming home?”, although it is Indie Rock rather than Indie Pop. By analysing the video, we can get a feel for what Indie-genre music videos feature and use. We can use aspects of the video for inspiration or mimic them in our own video, and identify generic conventions of Indie-genre music videos popular with the target audience.


I also chose to analyse the music video because the tone of the video will be a great source of inspiration as both tracks have a theme of loss which is symbolised in Del Rey’s morose, sad voice.
The visual effects and lighting use din the video is also something I’m interested in exploring and testing on our footage, as well as Del Rey’s vintage, naturalised appearance we are eager for our artist to replicate.

Lastly, I chose to analyse The Pierces' "You'll Be Mine" because the genre of the track is Indie-Pop, identical to our song's genre, and heavily features abstract nature shots to fill-out the music video, a technique we want to mimic in our music video which we could get inspiration from. The music video also uses effects on its footage, which we are considering using as well. As a result, this music video will be ideal for inspiration and giving us ideas about what to do and how to do it for our A Level piece.

Our Target Audience

How our target audience is being addressed?

Our artist is female and of the target market's age group or a little older, at 21. This allows her to act as a role model/icon for the target audience with whom they can also identify with and relate as well as look up to. Our artist has a taste for fashion and following trends, a similar trait our target audience shares and her style is floral and vintage, a popular trend currently.

Her Instagram account, as well as her Twitter and Facebook pages allow her to connect and have a relationship with her fans but also remind them that she is a young person as well, who likes a lot of the same things they do and have much in common with.

We have adapted our music video to suit our target audience's preference. Our target audience is primarily female and our research has shown that there is a liking for romance, not as a key theme, but aspects of it. Our plot line in the music video is about a couple torn apart by war and looking to rekindle the relationship. The actors used are male and will appeal to the majority female audience, particularly the actor playing the soldier who, by adapting that persona, will be recognised as the hero and supported by the audience, according to Claude Levi-Strauss' theory.

The setting and costume of the artist in the video is of the popular style currently and so will be liked by the audience. The song for Cara's début album is twee-pop, which is well-liked by our audience also works to address their tastes.