Thursday, 10 November 2011
Plans for Digipak
Plans For Digipak
Digipak Front Cover:
This was our initial idea for the front cover of the digipak. We thought it would be a nice idea to make a collage of Kate Nash in the centre and to put different objects around her as it represents her free spirit and the things she likes. We wanted to keep the background plain and simple as it makes the artist stand out more.
This was our initial idea for the front cover of the digipak. We thought it would be a nice idea to make a collage of Kate Nash in the centre and to put different objects around her as it represents her free spirit and the things she likes. We wanted to keep the background plain and simple as it makes the artist stand out more.
Digipak Back:
This is our plan for the back of our digipak. It is fairly simple, just like the front of the digipak and it involves a list of the songs in the album as well as decorations from the front of the digipak.
Digipak Centre:
We decided to carry on with the idea of simplicity for the centre of the digipak and what we did was use the front cover collage picture of Kate Nash that we did earlier on and adapt it to the actual CD. I think this is a good idea because it keeps the whole thing looking effortless and it links to the other two sides of the digipak.
A different version of our digipak cover:
Another version that we came up with for the digipak cover is using a brick backgroumd. We thought the idea was good because it links to our song title and also looks more bold and daring. The colours of the brick wall are similar to some of the objects in the picture, such as the phone, and if we decide to go with this digipak design, we can edit the colours so they dont't cancel each other out.
Saturday, 5 November 2011
Digipak examples and ideas
This is a short post which is about a digipak that I have found and enjoyed very much. This digipak can help us gather ideas for our final digipak, even though our song has a different mood. What I liked about this digipak was that it shows emotions such as love and passion as well as strong female presense. This digipak heavily relies on a colour palette that primarily involves colours like orange and black. Another aspects of it include pictures that show the female artist as a strong individual, which is underlined by some of the flames we can see in the background of the sides of the digipak.
Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Song Permission
In order to be able to use Kate Nash's song 'Merry Happy' we sent an e-mail to Paul Epworth from 'Empire Management' hoping to let us use this song for non-profitable purposes.
Here is a screen shot of the e-mail that we sent:
Here is a screen shot of the e-mail that we sent:
Initial Plans for Album Digipak
Front cover and back covers for our album digipak:
These are the flat plans that we have done to give us a brief idea of what our final digipak will look like. These will help us work towards making a good digipak as they outline the key charateristics of a digipak front and back cover and also they show the layout towards which we are aiming.
Other things that we are planning to include in our final digipak, but could not include in the flat plans are features such as a variety of colours (which will be linked to the mood of the album and the artists' personality) as well as fonts and special effects (editing) which will contribute to the digipak looking proficient.
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| Front cover |
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| Back cover |
These are the flat plans that we have done to give us a brief idea of what our final digipak will look like. These will help us work towards making a good digipak as they outline the key charateristics of a digipak front and back cover and also they show the layout towards which we are aiming.
Other things that we are planning to include in our final digipak, but could not include in the flat plans are features such as a variety of colours (which will be linked to the mood of the album and the artists' personality) as well as fonts and special effects (editing) which will contribute to the digipak looking proficient.
15/11/11 Filming Day 2
This was the last day that we were allowed to film so we had to make sure that everything goes to plan and we had our shots sorted. We met in college at 10:00 am to pick up our equipment as our location was unavailable until 11:00 am. When we arrived there we went to the vintage shop which we expected to be open today and found that it was. The man who owned the shop allowed us to take pictures inside and offered us some advice on what kind of things we could photograph for our vintage music video.
After we did this we finished all of the final shots that needed to be done, uploaded them on a laptop and watched them in order to make sure we had everything we needed and there weren't any errors. We also saved them on a memory stick to prevent the chance of losing them.
When all of this was done we re-filmed the shots of the stop motion that we had done the day before as we thought it didn't look as good as it could be and it ended up looking a lot more professional. When we got everything done we decided that we could finish the day early and went back to college to drop off equipment at 3:00 pm.
After we did this we finished all of the final shots that needed to be done, uploaded them on a laptop and watched them in order to make sure we had everything we needed and there weren't any errors. We also saved them on a memory stick to prevent the chance of losing them.
When all of this was done we re-filmed the shots of the stop motion that we had done the day before as we thought it didn't look as good as it could be and it ended up looking a lot more professional. When we got everything done we decided that we could finish the day early and went back to college to drop off equipment at 3:00 pm.
14/11/11 Filming Day 1
A few days before the start of filming we found out that our main character for the video had other responsibilities and couldn't be in our video. We lost our original location too, as we were planning to film the video in her house and in a park in her area. This was slightly stressful as we hadn't predicted it would happen but fortunately we had two back-ups who were prepared to be in our video and they did extremely well. They are both performing arts students who have a lot of experience in acting and singing which was tremendously helpful. The female performer is called Aimee Sullivan and the male performer is Reuben Jones.
The problem for our location was solved by one of the members of my group who suggested that we use her auntie's house which was very suitable for the video we wanted to make. As Aimee and Reuben didn't finish college until 12:00 o'clock that day we had to wait for them to arrive after we picked up the equipment we needed from college and arrived on set. Meanwhile we went to a charity shop nearby and had a look around to see if there was anything else we could use in our video. Luckily, we found a pearl necklace which was very useful and was featured in our video. The next thing we did was going to a vintage shop where we intended to take pictures of objects that we could use for our digipak and advert. Unfortunately the shop wasn't open and we found that we couldn't photograph from outside as the light was reflecting in the window and the pictures wouldn't have been of great quality.
When Aimee and Reuben arrived we picked up our equipment and filmed all of the park scenes which only left us the house scenes to do. The beginning stages of filming went smoothly although we did have some technical issues with the tripod, which we easily resolved. When we went back to the house we filmed all of the shots from the storyboard and also we decided to film Aimee singing the song from different places in the house which was a back up in case we didn't like any of the scenes we had filmed. This was really useful as while editing we found that we used them a lot and they made the whole video look better.
All of the shots with Reuben had to be filmed on the first day because he was unable to take time of college the next day, so we made sure that we had filmed the scenes involving him first. We tried to stick to the storyboard but we also had a lot of good ideas that came from the cast and ourselves that we decided we should include in our video. I think this was a good thing because it made it more varied and the cast felt like their opinion was taken into account too.
The day finished at 4:00 pm as we had to make sure we brought back the equipment that we had borrowed back to college. Most of the scenes were filmed and we had a clear plan outlined for the next one which made everything less worrying.
The problem for our location was solved by one of the members of my group who suggested that we use her auntie's house which was very suitable for the video we wanted to make. As Aimee and Reuben didn't finish college until 12:00 o'clock that day we had to wait for them to arrive after we picked up the equipment we needed from college and arrived on set. Meanwhile we went to a charity shop nearby and had a look around to see if there was anything else we could use in our video. Luckily, we found a pearl necklace which was very useful and was featured in our video. The next thing we did was going to a vintage shop where we intended to take pictures of objects that we could use for our digipak and advert. Unfortunately the shop wasn't open and we found that we couldn't photograph from outside as the light was reflecting in the window and the pictures wouldn't have been of great quality.
When Aimee and Reuben arrived we picked up our equipment and filmed all of the park scenes which only left us the house scenes to do. The beginning stages of filming went smoothly although we did have some technical issues with the tripod, which we easily resolved. When we went back to the house we filmed all of the shots from the storyboard and also we decided to film Aimee singing the song from different places in the house which was a back up in case we didn't like any of the scenes we had filmed. This was really useful as while editing we found that we used them a lot and they made the whole video look better.
All of the shots with Reuben had to be filmed on the first day because he was unable to take time of college the next day, so we made sure that we had filmed the scenes involving him first. We tried to stick to the storyboard but we also had a lot of good ideas that came from the cast and ourselves that we decided we should include in our video. I think this was a good thing because it made it more varied and the cast felt like their opinion was taken into account too.
The day finished at 4:00 pm as we had to make sure we brought back the equipment that we had borrowed back to college. Most of the scenes were filmed and we had a clear plan outlined for the next one which made everything less worrying.
Monday, 17 October 2011
Shooting Schedule
This is our shooting schedule for 14/11/11 and 15/11/11. These are the dates that were given to us to film our video. We think that this shooting schedule is going to help us be more organised and save us a lot of time. By sticking to it we will have a clear idea of what to do and where we need to be at all times.
Shot list
Shot List
This is our shot list of all the shots we are going to need to create our music video. We have decided that we need 25 shots that need to make up our music video, however we have decided that we are going to take a few extra shots of where our character is singing the song into the camera, as well as some additional shots of the sunset that we can use in case something goes wrong, or in case we don't like any of the shots. This will let us have a variety of shots that we can choose the best one from and therefore make our video better. This gives us room for errors and mistakes and will allow us to easily fix any unnecessary problems.
1. Mid-shot - Artist walking down the street towards the camera.
2. Mid-shot - Male character walking down the street towards the camera.
3. Long Shot - Side view to reveal the male character is walking behind the artist.
4. Long Shot - Shot from behind the cast to reveal the male character following the artist.
5. Midshot - Artist singing to the camera.
6. Midshot - Guy catches eye of camera and looks down shyly.
7. Close up - Artists in mirror takes off necklace and places it on the table.
8. Long Shot - Several shots of pearls moving off the edge of the table.
9. Close up - Inside the bin with pearls and scrunched up ‘love you’ note.
10. Midshot - Looking to the side and walks off singing to the camera.
11. POV Shot - Artist and male character making jelly babies dance.
12. Midshot - Shot reverse shot, POV of Artist then male character.
13. Two Shot - Artist and male character side by side.
14. Close up - Artists sat on her own in bedroom, zooms out.
15. Mid close up - Artist looking out of window, shot of side of face.
16. Close up - Artist singing to the camera.
17. High Angle Shot - Artist and male character at dinner table.
18. Over The Shoulder Shot - Artists watching the scene= Flashback.
19. POV (Point of View Shot) - Pictures on laptop screen.
20. Mid-shot - Side view of artist on the phone.
21. Mid-shot - Artist happily watering flowers.
22. Close up - Artists singing to camera.
23. Long shot - Artists stood without the male character at her side.
24. Long Shot - Artists dance down the street.
25. Extreme Long Shot - Sunset.
3. Long Shot - Side view to reveal the male character is walking behind the artist.
4. Long Shot - Shot from behind the cast to reveal the male character following the artist.
5. Midshot - Artist singing to the camera.
6. Midshot - Guy catches eye of camera and looks down shyly.
7. Close up - Artists in mirror takes off necklace and places it on the table.
8. Long Shot - Several shots of pearls moving off the edge of the table.
9. Close up - Inside the bin with pearls and scrunched up ‘love you’ note.
10. Midshot - Looking to the side and walks off singing to the camera.
11. POV Shot - Artist and male character making jelly babies dance.
12. Midshot - Shot reverse shot, POV of Artist then male character.
13. Two Shot - Artist and male character side by side.
14. Close up - Artists sat on her own in bedroom, zooms out.
15. Mid close up - Artist looking out of window, shot of side of face.
16. Close up - Artist singing to the camera.
17. High Angle Shot - Artist and male character at dinner table.
18. Over The Shoulder Shot - Artists watching the scene= Flashback.
19. POV (Point of View Shot) - Pictures on laptop screen.
20. Mid-shot - Side view of artist on the phone.
21. Mid-shot - Artist happily watering flowers.
22. Close up - Artists singing to camera.
23. Long shot - Artists stood without the male character at her side.
24. Long Shot - Artists dance down the street.
25. Extreme Long Shot - Sunset.
Storyboard
This is the story board we have created for our music video. It consists of 26 shots taken both outside and inside at different locations. This is going to help us get different lighting for different parts of the video which will have a good effect on the video's overall quality as it will make it look more interesting and exciting. This story board is going to help us keep track of the 'story' that we have come up with for the video and also show us where everything needs to be and what props we need to use, for example in shot 10 we will be needing a bin, a pearl necklace and a note saying 'I love you'. We will get a hold of these props before we film the video in order to make sure that everything goes to plan and there are no last minute problems and confusions.
Friday, 14 October 2011
Audience Research
This is the questionnaire we created in order to get responses from people and find out what Kate Nash fans are like and what they like about her. It is a piece of primary research, because we wanted the answers to be relevant to what we are doing and suit our needs. This was better than carrying out a secondary research, because the results that we would have got then may have been out of date and unrelated to our research.
www.surveymonkey.com/s/vz6bvmj
By the questions we have asked you can see that we have tried to get to know people's personalities and the things they like. We were hoping to get a pattern in results, which would lead to us knowing more things about Kate's audience and therefore make a better video suited for them. A pattern will also show us that what we've been doing was right and that we have asked the right people, the right questions. On the other hand, if we get responses that are all over the place and a bit hard to comprehend this would be a sign that we haven't done a good job with the questions. We spent quite a bit of time doing this survey, so we are all thinking that the responses we get will be structured and well-presented.
Most of the questions in the survey (1-7,10) have multiple choice answers where you can only pick one answer. We thought that it would be easier for the people who are doing the survey to pick one answer, instead of having to tick more. This will also help us get more relevant results.
For question 8 - 'How would you describe your personality?' we also had multiple choice answers, however people could pick as many answers as they like. This was done because it is quite difficult to describe yourself in one word and also, we will get a better picture of the person's individuality this way.
Question 9 was an unusual one as the answer had to be written by the respondents themselves. This gives them freedom to put down and artist/bands they like, without them having any restrictions whatsoever. This is good because it makes the survey more personal, and gets the audience more involved with it.
We sent this survey out to Kate Nash forums, fan pages, people on youtube, and we posted it on videos on youtube (as a comment) in order to collect more responses from targetted Kate fans.
These are some of the places we sent this survey link to:
Kate Nash's YouTube channel
www.surveymonkey.com/s/vz6bvmj
By the questions we have asked you can see that we have tried to get to know people's personalities and the things they like. We were hoping to get a pattern in results, which would lead to us knowing more things about Kate's audience and therefore make a better video suited for them. A pattern will also show us that what we've been doing was right and that we have asked the right people, the right questions. On the other hand, if we get responses that are all over the place and a bit hard to comprehend this would be a sign that we haven't done a good job with the questions. We spent quite a bit of time doing this survey, so we are all thinking that the responses we get will be structured and well-presented.
Most of the questions in the survey (1-7,10) have multiple choice answers where you can only pick one answer. We thought that it would be easier for the people who are doing the survey to pick one answer, instead of having to tick more. This will also help us get more relevant results.
For question 8 - 'How would you describe your personality?' we also had multiple choice answers, however people could pick as many answers as they like. This was done because it is quite difficult to describe yourself in one word and also, we will get a better picture of the person's individuality this way.
Question 9 was an unusual one as the answer had to be written by the respondents themselves. This gives them freedom to put down and artist/bands they like, without them having any restrictions whatsoever. This is good because it makes the survey more personal, and gets the audience more involved with it.
We sent this survey out to Kate Nash forums, fan pages, people on youtube, and we posted it on videos on youtube (as a comment) in order to collect more responses from targetted Kate fans.
These are some of the places we sent this survey link to:
Kate Nash's YouTube channel
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Audience Research
We created a questionnaire on surveymonkey which you can find here: www.surveymonkey.com/s/vz6bvmj
We managed to find 12 fans of Kate Nash to fill out this questionnaire and having done this we think we have gained a good idea of what they are like, what they like doing in their spare time and what they like about the artist and the type of music.
Here are the questions and the responses that we collected:
We managed to find 12 fans of Kate Nash to fill out this questionnaire and having done this we think we have gained a good idea of what they are like, what they like doing in their spare time and what they like about the artist and the type of music.
Here are the questions and the responses that we collected:
'Made of Bricks' Review
This is another review of Kate's album 'Made of Bricks' that I found on Amazon. I thought it was worth looking at as it was different than the one I had seen before, which wasn't quite as sympathetic and it was written by someone who had a critical opinion on Kate's music.
What I enjoyed about this review was that the person who wrote it heard a song on the radio and liked it, so they went and bought the album. This tells me that Kate's songs appeal to a certain audience and people who like this type of music are interested in her as a person. One of the songs that 'makes' the album for that customer was Merry Happy, which means that people who like Kate's music are likely to enjoy and be familiar with this song already. This is good, because it shows us that the song we've picked is catchy and isn't left unnoticed by her fans.
What I enjoyed about this review was that the person who wrote it heard a song on the radio and liked it, so they went and bought the album. This tells me that Kate's songs appeal to a certain audience and people who like this type of music are interested in her as a person. One of the songs that 'makes' the album for that customer was Merry Happy, which means that people who like Kate's music are likely to enjoy and be familiar with this song already. This is good, because it shows us that the song we've picked is catchy and isn't left unnoticed by her fans.
Kate Nash Album Reviews
The first review I found interesting was on the BBC website
( http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/nbvr ) which contained some positive and some negative comments regarding her album:
What I liked about this review was that clearly it wasn't written by a fan of Kate, which means that we could get an honest opinion, which isn't biased. Although there are some harsh comments regarding the album and the artist, such as 'disaster written all over it' and 'wannabe stage school girl', there are some positive comments as well which helped me see both sides of the person's opinion. Later on in the review Roman says that the album has 'surprising verve and variety'. This is good to hear, as the reason we chose Kate's song was because we thought she was a dynamic artist and brings a lot of energy into her songs, and it is nice to see that other people share our opinion.
Another thing this person doesn't like about some of the songs like 'Nicest thing' is that it is too personal and it reminds him of a diary. In my opinion, Kate does express some personal stories in her lyrics, which may not be something that everyone likes and we need to bear that in mind. The song that we have picked to make a video of 'Merry Happy' is quite personal and some of the characters might be linked to her life. This may not appeal to everyone, but it will appear to her existing fans who already like her music.
At the end of the review Roman actually tells us that she deserves 'to be praised' for the choice of people that she has worked with on creating the album, and admits that although the album has 'its flaws' it is 'one of this year's more interesting offerings'. This review gave me a better understanding of what people like and dislike about our artist and also showed me what people are going to like and dislike in our video. Me and my group are going to concentrate on the things that people enjoy about her videos and try to recreate that using our own imagination and knowledge.
It is also worth looking at the song titles of her songs in this album as they are quite explicit and show the artist's personality.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Music Video Planning
Music Video Planning
Description of performance: As for the performance we are going to have the artist singing into the camera, with her movements being tracked by the camera.
Reasons for choices: We decided to go with this idea because we noticed that there were a number of videos by Kate where she was singing at the camera. We spotted this effect not in her videos only, but in videos such as ‘Smile’ by Lily Allen and other indie pop artists.
Description of story: We decided to relate the narrative of the story with the lyrics, interpreting the lyrics in our own way. We are going to recreate the story by sticking to what the lyrics say, but not making it too obvious.
Reasons for choices: Kate doesn’t particularly like to perform in her videos, and she chooses to act instead. That is the reason why we decided to do a video with more narrative and less performance, rather than the other way around.
Reasons for choices: Kate doesn’t particularly like to perform in her videos, and she chooses to act instead. That is the reason why we decided to do a video with more narrative and less performance, rather than the other way around.
Description of locations: The locations we are going to use are pretty realistic. The first and the second verse are going to be set in a park. This works well because the first verse is about how they meet for the first time, which would be a good place for them to meet.
The third and fourth verse are going to be located in a cafe/restaurant. This would be a representation of the time wonderful time they spend together on their first date. This scene is going to be filmed from inside and outside of the cafe, in order to get different points of view of the couple. This also relates to the lyrics of the song: ‘sitting in restaurants’. We thought that maybe later on in the video we could have a flashback from that restaurant/cafe. This would be done to represent the fact that Kate misses him and wishes he would come back, however this is only an idea that we had and we need to discuss whether this scene will feature in our video or not.
The final location that we have is Kate’s bedroom. We have decided that it needs to be quite girly, but also vintage and having its’ own unique style. Her bedroom will say a lot about her character and that’s why we need to make sure that it is a reflection of her personality and the things she likes.
Reasons for choices: We chose these locations because they are quite realistic which is typical for indie pop videos and Kate’s videos. Another reason, however was that we found that we could actually get a hold of these locations, which would be hard to do if we chose to film in an unusual setting.
Set in a house.
Description of characters:
· ‘Girl’ – Kate Nash
· ‘Boy’ – Admirer
The girl is the main character in our video. She needs to be quite feminine, girly, have a good sense of humour and wear vintage clothes, which show off her unique dress style. She is going to be wearing flat pumps and a pretty dress in the beginning of the video. Later on in the video, she could possibly wear a pair of high heels, that aren’t too tall. Her hair is wavy and quite messy – we want her to look casual, as a typical teenage girl. Our character is quite sarcastic, and she has a cheeky sense of humour :
‘Don't tell me that you didn't try and check out my bum
Cause I know that you did’
Cause I know that you did’
The boy is the only other character in the video. He is wearing skinny jeans and a checked shirt/casual t-shirt. In the beginning of the video, while he is admiring Kate, he wears geeky black glasses. This will make him look more innocent. Towards the middle of the video he gets more cocky, so he doesn’t wear glasses anymore.
Reasons for choices: Kate Nash has a vintage dress style and in many of her videos she is wearing a dress. This would also represent her personality and tell the audience that she is quite girly and pretty.
The dress style of the guy will represent the storyline and they way his character changes throughout the song. A lot of her videos have at least one guy in them, e.g. ‘Pumpkin Soup’, ‘Foundations’, Kiss That Grrrl’.
Description of performers including costumer: We have decided not to use any performers, apart from the main characters, who will be acting and singing into the camera.
Reasons for choices: Kate Nash doesn’t normally have people performing in her videos, apart from the ones in the video ‘Pumpkin Soup’ dressed in full costumes, such as the fluffy cats in ‘Pumpkin Soup’.
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