First draft feedback

Today we showed our first draft to our class and teachers so they could watch it and give us feedback on how to improve it. As a whole, there were lots of ways we could improve it. One of the most common themes was the cinematography. A lot of the outside shots were shaky as we were doing them handheld because of issues with the ground and the dolly. A lot of our classmates and teachers felt that we would need to re-do these shots using either a dolly, tripod, steadicam or shoulder mount to make it much more stable. We as a group already decided that we would do this after we completed our first draft. Another common theme was to change the ending of the video. The video ends in the recording studio and seems very anti-climatic and slightly boring as there are quite a few of these recording studio shots in the video at the moment. Again we had decided already that we wanted to film at one of the locations we went to for our photo-shoot and include it towards the end. A few of the positives included the performance and lip singing of our main artist. This is something that we noticed, however a few times (especially towards the beginning of shooting) we felt that Jacob didn't know all the words and sometimes wasn't performing them well enough so that the audience would be able to understand what he was saying.

Digipak updated

This is my updated digipak. Its not completely final but its an update to say the least. i have changed the main font for King J and made some of the white text bolder so it can stand out more. I also changed the font on the competition panel for the social media links. Furthermore I have changed the background of the bonus disk to black and white like I did with the main CD. I felt that this makes it look better as originally the main CD stood out and looked out of place compared to the bonus disk.

I have also kept working on my magazine advert.


I have changed this heavily. I changed the main picture to the one it is now and included the front cover of my digipak in the right hand corner. I also included social media links and streaming sites where the album is going to be available.

Plans to re-shoot

As a group we have already decided that we will begin to re-shoot some scenes for our music video. We decided that we should start re-filming in the Christmas holiday as it would give us a lot more time to analyse the scenes we re-film and change it if we need to. We also decided that we will be keeping the party scene as we all agree it looks very good and realistic so there is no need to re-shoot this. However, quite a few of the outside shots are shaky as we were only using the camera handheld as we rushed the first draft slightly. This means we will need to refilm all of these with either a steadicam, shoulder cam, tripod or dolly. We also wanted to add in some additional scenes at one of the locations that we shot our photoshoot at in Thamesmead. This was a big hill that overlooked a lot of the city. We felt this was a very appropriate setting and we really want to use this towards the end of our video.

Reflecting on our first draft

In combination of the feedback from our class and teachers, I felt it would also be good to reflect on our first draft with my own opinion. I felt that our first draft was successful in creating a frame for our group to work on. A lot of the shots were rough shots of what we want the video to look like. As we were also pushed for time, we decided to not focus on the quality of these shots just so that we had the basis of a music video to show our class to get feedback. The only shots our group intend on keeping are the party shots as they came out very well and look very realistic. They were also praised in the feedback. This first draft has been useful for us as it has showed us the importance of scheduling shoots and deciding what equipment we will be using before the day of these shoots.

Music video first draft

This our first draft for our music video. There are many shots that we will come to re film for our final draft but for now we feel this is a good stage to be at.

Production Log Entry 6

Today we filmed the final scene for our first draft. This consisted of a short close up of the same girl who was in the party scene. This shot fits into the lyrics of the song where King J is talking about "the girl he wants". The shot was relatively successful and we will add it into our first draft. When we went back to class we put it all together in our edit and finalised our first draft. We feel quite happy with our first draft but we know there are lots of improvements to be made such as refilming and additional shots. We will start this after we show our first draft to our class.

Digipak fonts

For my digipak I chose a few key fonts which I used. The first was City life which I used on one of my extra panels. The second was Vintage College which I used as my main artist logo font. However this one might change as I continue with my digipak. The last one was City Burn which I used for the majority of my text. I am happy with all of these fonts, however my teachers have told me that the vintage college one might not suit the genre.

Chosen pictures for my digipak and magazine advert

Here are the photos that I have chosen to use for my digipak and magazine advert. These were all taken on the same day when we all went to Thamesmead for our photoshoot.

Photoshop work

During class whenever we haven't been filming I have been working on my digipak on Photoshop. So far I have got all of my digipak done as well as my magazine advert and am now waiting for feedback to improve it.

Production schedule

In a way to keep ourselves organised we have drawn up a production schedule. This holds all of the dates that we are filming, where we are filming and what we are filming. This is very helpful as it allows us all to agree on a date when we are all available to film. As you can see all of these dates are filming dates for our first edit. Once we finish this first edit and have feedback from our class and teacher will we begin our final edit. For this we will create a new production schedule.

Production Log Entry 5

Today our group filmed the starting scenes for our video. We enlisted the help of an extra from our Sixth Form to help with the gang member scene. We felt that the shots were good only we should have used a steadi cam or shoulder cam as we only used it handheld. Because of this the shots were a bit shaky and we will need to refilm these after our first edit. Other than this we had some good ideas and the shots were good, we only need to sort out the shakiness and these shots should be fine to include on the video. We were able to film in the local chip shop as well for one of the scenes in return for promotion of the shop in our video. We made an arrangement with the owner of the shop to promote his shop in return for unlimited filming time there.

Production Log Entry 4

Today we filmed a scene of our artist in a recording studio. We decided to use the music recording studio because it was very realistic and easy to get hold of to film in. Once we got permission from the teachers we set up our camera on a tripod and a studio light. We then turned the main lights off to just keep the separate light on King J to emphasise who the focus is on. We then filmed King J singing the song as if he was recording it. We decided to do this so that if the concert scene doesn't go to plan we have a backup idea. We felt that the shots were good in terms of lighting, however we are having some problems with the lip singing of the song. We keep finding that our performer is often out of time with the actual song and sometimes even forgets the lyrics. This means that a lot of our performance shots will have to be redone because the performer is out of time with the actual music.

Equipment and props we will use for our music video

To film the video we have decided to use Ghanshyam's camera as we feel it has a better quality and focus than the school provided ones. His camera is a Canon SX710 HS.

We will also use standard equipment such as dollys, tripods and shoulder mounts to help with the filming when needed.

In terms of props and clothing, we have made some clear decisions on how we want our artist to look. We want King J to look wealthy. In order to do this we have decided we want him to wear designer clothes and jewellery. However, we would also like to mix this with his past which would consist of track suits and snapbacks. We are undecided on whether to keep shots of him wearing track suits and we will discuss and make a decision on this at a later date.

For our party scene we will also need a smoke machine and party lights. This will help us to create a realistic and conventional looking party scene. We will also possibly need glass bottles and cups to make it look slightly more realistic.

Production Log Entry 3

Today all of our group went to Thamesmead during our 2 hour media lesson to film some more scenes for our video. We shot one of the scenes that comes in between the concert shots towards the end of the video. We felt these shots were good as we experimented with different ways of filming it. However, we originally intended to use a dolly so that the camera could follow King J when he was walking. We found that the ground was too uneven and it wouldn't have been possible to get one long smooth shot by using the dolly as it was getting stuck on the pavement. We instead decided to use the camera handheld to follow King J. Although this was quite shaky we decided we would stabilise it in Final Cut when it comes to editing. If it remains shaky we will have to reshoot with a dolly in some other way. We also shot a short scene of King J standing in front of a car and some extra shots of the car and the surrounding area. These shots weren't particularly necessary but they will useful to fill any gaps if there are any in the video.

Digipak first draft

This is the first draft of my digipak. I am yet to do the spines which I will complete in my next lesson but the 6 main panels for the digipak are done. My teacher had a look at my digipak so far and gave me some feedback on how to improve it. First she said that the "King J" font should stand out more seeing as it is the artist logo. She also told me to reduce the size of the tracklist, remove the album name from the left hand corner of that panel and take the background out of the Tri-Angle logo. Moving on to the far left extra panel she said to remove "King J" from  the right hand corner and just leave the picture. For the bonus disk she recommended removing all the text apart from "Bonus Disk". She also said to take the colour away from the image to make it black and white. Finally for the last extra panel in the top right she suggested to remove a lot of the font so to not over complicate the panel. I have made these improvements to my digipak now and will begin improving my magazine advert too.

Production Log Entry 2

Today our group filmed the party scene for our music video. We used a room in the drama department which we were able to book out for 2 hours in order to complete this. We then moved all of the tables and chairs and brought in our own props to make it look like a real party. We used different coloured lighting, sofas, casual clothes and a smoke machine to make it look realistic.The shoot was relatively successful, however in hindsight we could have got more people to have extra shots. Also we could have used more lighting to make King J stand out more, especially in the shots where it is supposed to look like he isn't enjoying himself whilst everyone else parties around him. Despite this we got quite a few good shots which we will use in the video, some may even make it into the final edit after we re-shoot some this scene.

Location scouting

Over the past few weeks our group has been discussing and visiting places that we could film our music video in. Our photoshoot was a good opportunity to do this and we went to several places in Thamesmead that will be very suitable locations for our actual video. We also visited Greenwich, around the university and the Cutty Sark, which is also a definite location that we will use. These locations will be used for the final edit of our video as our group has decided in order to save time we will shoot our first draft around the local area. This is to create a rough edit that people can give feedback on.

Digipak plan

A few weeks ago in class we started to plan our digipak and what we are going to put on all 6 panels.


As you can see I have my 6 panels planned out. For the front cover (bottom left) I ideally wanted a shot of the main artist himself in front of some sort of city background. However, when it came to our photoshoot we were quite limited for time so we weren't able to get this kind of picture. Instead I have decided to use a different kind of shot. On the left of the front cover we have the back cover where the track listing will be. For this I was looking for a more plain background with just the track listing. To the left of this is one of the inside panels. This and the panel on the top right are extra panels which I decided to use pictures we took on our photoshoot for. This one in the bottom left was purely a picture of our artist in some sort of setting or location. The one on the top right was supposed to be an extra panel which promotes some sort of exclusive competition for people who have bought the digipak. This is accompanied by a shot of the artist doing his "triangle" logo with his hands. The two panels to the left of this are the CD panels, one being the actual CD and one being an extra CD which shows a behind the scenes of the making of this album. This is included as another exclusive for those people who have actually bought this digipak. When it comes to actually making my digipak I will probably find that the finished product will look different to my plan as I may encounter issues or just favour a different method. However, this gives me a rough plan of what I want my digipak to look like and I will try to follow this as closely as possible.

Choice of costume for our artist

In terms of costume for our artist we wanted to have him wear a mixture of designer and expensive clothing with a more hip hop style of clothing such as tracksuits and snap backs. As a result of this we have pinpointed a few key costumes for him to wear. In a few of the outside and performance shots he wears a tracksuit with a snapback. For the party scene he was wearing a more expensive designer outfit.

Production Log Entry 1

Today our group all met up for our digipak photo-shoot. We decided to do this in Thamesmead as we felt that this location suited our genre well. We shot at 3 different locations and made sure we had a variety of different pictures which we could choose from. Overall we felt that this shoot was successful as we managed to capture many different pictures of our artist which we felt suited the genre. Here are some of our location shots from our photoshoot:

Narrative for our music video

In the past few weeks our group has come up with a clear narrative that we want our music video to follow. There will essentially be a few key scenarios going on at the same time.

The first is that our artist is running away from his troubled past which included being part of a gang. This scenario will include a group of men who are supposed to be the gang members which King J once was a part of. Many of these shots for this scenario will include King J referencing his attempted escape from this group and will even feature a shot of him running away from them, only to find they're waiting for him around the corner. This portrays how difficult it is to escape from these gangs especially for young people.

The second scenario will be how lonely King J is. In his attempt to escape his past life he fled to England. However, this left him isolated from the rest of the crowd which can be clearly seen in the party scene where he is sat on his own looking at everyone else having a good time.

Thirdly, our music video will contain a love interest for King J. In the party scene and in future scenes the focus will be put on a girl that King J obviously likes. However, it becomes apparent that she is completely ignoring him, adding to this sense of loneliness that builds up not only by the shots we take but also the lyrics.

These 3 scenarios play out throughout the whole music video and take turns in developing as the video goes on. The overall narrative is that King J is lonely and hurting from a very troubled past which he just cant escape from.

Animatic

This is our animatic for our music video. It aimed to show off all the different shots that we wish to take in order to make our music video. When we presented this to our class however, many suggested that it was confusing and didn't portray the narrative of our video clearly enough. For us this wasn't a problem as we had written underneath each shot to describe each one. We should have perhaps shown this on the actual animatic.

Artist pitch

Pitch from James Covill

This is our artist pitch for King J. We presented this as a group to our class in yesterday's lesson. Looking back on feedback from our class, this pitch was quite successful. The only development that was suggested was the animatic as it didn't show off the narrative clearly and it was quite confusing for some people to follow.

Audience profile

As part of our preparation for creating our music video we were tasked to create an audience profile to portray who our audience would be and what their hobbies and interests would be. We decided that whilst others got on with other tasks, I would make this on my own for our group.

Adorno and Horkheimer

Theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer came up with the theory of a "culture industry" in their 1944 book Dialectic of Enlightenment.


The theory states that media corporations mass produce products in order to suit the wants and needs of mass audiences. Essentially these products are constantly produced by corporations in order to suit the wants of people who will consistently keep buying these products almost as a part of their own character.


These ideas have spread to different parts of the media, including the music industry. Many artists these days are very similar and share many characteristics which makes them popular amongst audiences. As a result of this, more of these artists are essentially produced in order to keep pleasing audiences.


The whole theory wouldn't be valid if advertising wasn't used as much as it is. Products are forced into the public domain via adverts which many corporations spend millions on every year. These adverts will often show off how unique and good their products are compared to others, encouraging audiences to buy these products over rival products. Advertising plays a crucial role in controlling what kind of culture people endorse themselves in.


Adorno and Horkheimer have criticised this culture industry for essentially producing a culture of conformity which limits freedom and individuality. Personalities are basically forged by companies selling their products to audiences and consistently producing very similar products with minor differences in the future which people still buy.