Blog 16- Advert

For this part of the blog, we had to analyse two adverts from our chosen artist or artists from a similar genre. This is the first advert that I found for Florence and the Machine.

The advert is promoting Florence and the Machine for the store HMV. The advert talks about what her inspiration is for her song "You've got the love". The advert is effective because it is all done in black and white apart from the statement pink for the

HMV logo. The photo of Florence is a mid- close up shot, and is effective as she is looking at the audience and therefore connecting with them. I like this idea and therefore might use it in my own advert. It also looks like she is singing, and this is reinstated with some of the lyrics that are flashed across the page. The white font also stands out against the black and white background.

The second advert that I analysed was that of the Friendly Fires advert for their UK tour, as they fall into the same 'indie' genre as Florence and the Machine.

The advert is effective as it uses quite simple colours, for example the black background with the white writing. The main picture is effective as it is quite ambiguous however it gives the impression of shattered glass and also makes me think of the human eye. The overall effect is quite quirky and would be something that Florence and the Mac

hine may possibly use in her own adverts.

After looking at both the adverts, I would like to have a simple black and white main picture mixed with some greens and browns to match the theme of the forest in our video. I would either like the photo of Florence to be a close up like the HMV advert where she is connecting with the audience or for Florence to be shown in floaty clothing pictured dancing in the forest with cinematography of a long shot.

These are my flat plans for the advertisement.

My first flat plan design includes a tree and a small coffin in the background. I chose the tree as it looks quite simple on the page and I liked the idea of the titles to be running down the branches of the tree. The plan follows my idea about having continuation with the music video which is why I have incorporated the tree as the majority of our video is filmed in the woods. The coffin is included as it fits with the title "My Boy Builds Coffins."

My second flat plan design follows my idea about a long shot of the forest and Florence shown dancing within the shot. I chose to make the advert landscape as you will be able to fit more of the landscape into the advert. The text would be at the side of the advert so that you can clearly see Florence and so that it does not follow the easy planning of running along the top. The browns and greens give the advert a woodland theme and the black font stands out well against it. I want the font for "Florence and the Machine" to be curly as after looking at her website, I feel this is a font type that would capture her style well.

This is a screen shot of the font that is used on Florence and the Machine's website. It has a curly font and I want to capture this on my advert also.

This is my third digipack flat plan. From looking at the previous adverts I tried one with a mid shot of Florence. She has her eyes shut, almost as if she is sleeping or in a coffin.

This is my finished advert:

To view it bigger, this is the link for Google documents.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0DnGj06WOfoZjA0Zjk0OTktYjlmMy00OTA5LTg1MzAtNGQxZmIyNWVlYThk&hl=en

I decided to go for my flat plan that depicts Florence standing at an extreme long shot in the centre of the forest. Mise en scene shows her to be wearing black which shows continuation with the music video and the digipack, as it connotes death. I chose to keep the colour scheme with greens and brown as it represents the woodland that she is standing in and would also appeal to both males and females of a more mature age group which is what I am targeting with my demographical audience. I am really pleased with the outcome of this advertisement as I feel that it stands out as Florence/Lucy is not easily recognisable to begin with.

Feedback I got was that I hadn't actually included that it was advertising a digipack, so I recently included the text reading "IN EXCLUSIVE DIGIPACK FORMAT" so that onlookers are sure about what is being advertised and maybe tempted to go out and buy the digipack.

If I was to change anything about this advert, I would probably lighten the contrast a little more on the background picture so that I could make my text white so as to match the digipack rather than it being yellow. I would also learn a few more skills on Photoshop so that I could do something like edit in some birds flying out of Lucy/Florence, representing Freedom as it is something that comes across in many of her other music videos. It would also look quite effective.

In conclusion, I feel like I have learnt many new things from learning how to use Adobe Photoshop and my skills have definitely improved since using it last year for my college magazine. By using these skills on Photoshop I now know how to do things that I wanted to achieve, for example changing the font colour, adding text and changing contrast etc.

Blog 12- Health and Safety

We learned about the precautions needed to ensure cast and crew are safe when filming the video. By law, you are expected to adopt risk management techniques to ensure everyone is safe at all times. Before we started filming, we had to go out to our location and do a 'reccy' to ensure that where we wanted to film would be safe. A systematic approach meant that we walked round all the areas we were thinking of filming at and decided what risks were present. We had to think about what kind of hazards may become a problem, work out who may be harmed and the think of ways to overcome these risks.

Risks that may occur when filming:

- The un-even ground in the woodland may cause accidents due to tripping or falling

- The camera may not be correctly connected to the tripod and joined with the problem of un-even ground this could lead to the camera falling off of the tripod and breaking.

Problems that may affect filming:

- As the video is being filmed outside, bad weather conditions such as rain could make it impossible to film due to the camera getting wet and breaking.

- Since everyone in our group has jobs and our college timetables are very different, it may be hard to find a day when we can all get together and film.

When filming in the studio, we also had to be careful about any trailing wires that you could trip up on. We were also using lighting which got especially hot. If we wanted to change the angle of the head of the lamp, we had to wear gloves so that we did not burn our hands.

Blog 7- Copying an existing video

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0DnGj06WOfoNGUyYjRmYTUtZGFmZC00NGJiLWIzM2MtNGYxODBhOTJjNDE3&hl=en

This is my groups version of the Teenage Dirtbag video by Wheatus. Here is a link for the original video:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/sy-1761951110/wheatus_teenage_dirtbag_official_music_video/

This is a picture of the shooting script that we put together for our Teenage Dirtbag video. The shooting script was used when filming and allowed us to set up a schedule for the filming and included a list of shots that we intended to film. It also meant we could log what shots were good and what shots weren't, and this saved time when editing. We will be using a shooting script for our own music video as it allows for an organised and detailed plan for shooting and will make it much easier for us when it comes to editing.

When making this video, I learnt a lot about how to use the camera and about successfully putting together the scenes to make up the video. We were shown what buttons to use to change the light and contrast on the camera and how to zoom in and out.

We were also shown how helpful using clapper boards are as when it came to editing the video we were sure on where each scene needed to go. This is something we will be using in shooting for our final video.

Doing this preliminary short video also taught us some skills about how to use the editing equipment on the Macbooks. We were taught basic skills such as how to cut out takes we didn't want to use, using the razor tool and then other skills such as fading out a take. These are all things that we will want to know when it comes to editing our final filming. In lesson we learnt how to correctly use the recording camera that we will be using to shoot our music videos and how to use the tripod that the camera sits on. By learning this we now know how to safely use the equipment and how to steer clear of breakages.

We were shown the on/off button, how to change white balance and exposure and how to zoom in and out. We were also shown how to fix the camera onto the tripod using the screw on plates and how to adjust the tripod in height and also so that it will give the camera a different tilt and panning speed.

We also learnt how to use a shooting script. A shooting script is a version of the screenplay that is used to assist the directors, camera-workers and actors etc on how to produce the scene. The shooting script can be used to determine whether a take was successful or not and can speed up editing when used alongside a clapper board during filming which can tell you which takes are being filmed. We were taught how important communication is on set, a clapper board is also important as it enables you to log the amount of takes you take to get the correct shot that you want. It will also help when editing as you will know what shots were good and what ones were not.

We were taught about: White Balance and the 4 different settings;

- Automatic White Balance (AMB) - Which can prove unreliable

- Indoor Setting - Picture of a lightbulb -

Outdoor Setting - Picture of a sun

- Manual Setting Exposure;

- Shutter speed - 1/12, 1/50 & 1/1000 - (This is the fastest)

How to use the controls;

- Press the middle button 3 times = Automatic White Balance

- Use controls to select setting

- Bottom button = Shutter Speed

We were taught how to edit our shot in Final Cut Pro and how to connect the camera to the laptop using a FIREWIRE cable. The camera connection was recognised by changing the setting to VCR/Playback.

In this country, we were taught that the PAL (Phase Alternating Line) should be set to 24 frames per second. We were also taught about Scratch Disks and their use, this is te destination for all captured footage.

We also learnt that we can actually control the camera via the computer through 'Device Contol'.

When editing, it was important to distinguish which shots were good enough to include in the final edit. The shots that we didn't want to use could be removed using the 'Razor' tool. An 'Assembly edit' could also be used to seperate the poor shots from the good ones.

We also learnt some creative camera use like how to execute a Timelapse shoot. This is something that our group is interested in using as it fits in well with the idea of a lifetime in a day and so could show how quickly the days go past. Here was the result of our Timelapse shooting: