Storyboard For Phone Scene

I have planned out the phone scene which I am planning to film over the next week using storyboard's and at the end when I show the CU of the phone, I can't decide whether to have the mother ringing the phone as she is sat on the bed and show it ringing on silent underneath the desk, so that the audience know that it's there, yet the mother doesn't, acting as a piece of narrative which will draw the audience in, allowing them to empathise with the mother. I also have the idea of just showing the phones missed calls as I show the CU of the phone, or just show that the phone is there with a blank screen, which I think will be the best option and the most realistic.

I may also have the mother cuddling a pillow which belongs to her daughter, to give her a reason for being in her bedroom. This could act as a really good piece of narrative within the storyline, allowing the audience to understand why the mother seems to be 'shutting her daughter out' at the end. According to the mother, her daughter is just ignoring her phone calls.

Here is what I am planning:

I am planning to film this scene over the next week and will keep you updated with rough footage.

Digipack

Recently, I have been progressing well with my digipack and I have got the album cover made and nearly four inside pages finished which I am extremely pleased with. During the process of making the back page of the album cover, I was findnig it hard to show the names of the songs clearly against the background image, so I decided to draw out a black box, change the opacity of it to blend in more with the background image and I then placed the white song titles onto it. Once I had done this, I rubbed out the visible outline of the black boxm to make it look like nothing was there, just showing the words much clearer. This is what I achieved:

 

 

Obviously the image quality of the above images aren't the best because they have just been screen-shot; however they look much better on the photoshop document. As you can see, the words show up much clearer than they did before:



 

This was what I had produced previously and as you can see, the lyrics are no where near as clear as they are now that I have added the black box behind them. I have also adjusted the image colour and settings on the front cover, which is shown in the first picture above on the current version, by warming up the colours to give it more definition and it to blend it more with the colour of the background.

 

These are my inside booklets so far (they're double pages):

 

Solid Plans For Digipak and Album

After gathering my audience feedback on my album cover, I have chosen to go with the colour version as the majority of the people that I asked went for colour, rather than black and white, which I will reflect within my final product.

In terms of the digipak, I am going with a mixture between Gabrielle and Taylor's booklets (Taylor's Digipak and Gabrielle's Booklet) as Taylor uses mainly one image spread across both pages which links to both songs and Gabrielle has a few songs to page, with a nature like background, which links to some of music videos and then has a black box over the top with the opacity turned down to show the background coming through and then the lyrics are placed on top of the box. In terms fo the text, Taylor varies the text of the song title and then the lyrics, depending on what the style of song is; however Gabrielle uses the same text for both and this is the same text as she uses for the title of her album on her front cover.

After conducting a range of research, these are the artists that i've chosen to focuses mainly on and I am varying my digipak accordingly to reflect my research in my choices.

I am going to change the font type of the title of the song and also the lyrics of the song, which will also link together with my image behind the lyrics - this is from Taylor's influence. In terms of Gabrielle's influence, I will have the nature shot with the black box over the top; however instead of just using the same font, I may vary it accordingly and I might just put one song per page instead of a few. I also might put a few more songs to a page and vary the text.

This is what I am working on at the moment:

Action Plan

I have put together an action plan to help myself plan out what I will be doing for the next 6 weeks. 

Every Thursday I am going to spend an hour-an hour and a half doing exam work, such as answering mock questions, answering evaluation questions, reflecting from AS to A2 etc. and post my answers on my blog.

In terms of the digipak and the magazine advert, I am well underway with the digipak and the mock up's that I have completed so far are extremely detailed and I just need to add to them and make some more pages for it to be complete. Up until January 31st, I will work on my digipak during lesson time, as I need to use photoshop and on the weekend of February 2nd, I will show a detailed comparison of the digipak which I have produced and how it compares to my research and also link it with my research that I conducted during AS, showing links for the exam. 

After this, up until February 14th, I will work on my magazine advert during lesson time, as I feel that this won't take as long as my digipak. 

In terms of my music video, I will continue adding to my editing in my own time outside of lessons and I am also planning to film some more footage to make the 'phone scene' more apparent, so that the Mother enters the teenagers room and sits on her bed in despair, wondering where she is and the camera shows that her phone is actually underneath her desk, yet the Mother doesn't know that and just thinks that she is ignoring her phone calls. I would film Stephanie realising that she hasn't got her phone at some point; however I am unable to as Stephanie has other commitments and is unable to film anymore. Although I can't film all of the parts that I wanted to, I will storyboard those to give you a clearer idea of what I had planned.

On reflection, the digipak will work best in colour as the audience feedback which I gathered swayed much more towards colour rather than black and white and by having the album cover in colour, it will link extremely well with the music video as the parts where the artist is singing is in colour, so there will be a clear link between the two.

Now, it is just a case on carrying out my action plan and completing what I have planned out above. I will keep you updated on my progress. 

Feedback for Rough Cut

I have received one piece of feedback from the email that I send out yesterday with the link of my rough cut attached:

Although this feedback is brief, it is extremely positive and shows that what I have produced meets the needs of part of my target audience which is a great sign, showing that I am going in the right direction with my editing.

I am not waiting for some more feedback regarding my rough cut and I will keep you posted with what else I receive. 

Today's Rough Cut

I have just finished off editing my rough cut which I said that I would post today. I think this rough cut is a high-end rough cut, meaning that hopefully my audience feedback will be positive and that there won't be much more to chance for my final piece.

I have taken on board the various feedback that I have been given, such as not holding certain shots for too long, showing the best pieces of footage in the woods (unfortunately I had to miss out the whisky part as I haven't included much footage as there is limited time for that scene; however I still feel it works well), I have varied the shots that I have used throughout, used some cross-faes, got rid of the zoom in the bus part and also used the singer as a counter-point to narrative.

When the actress is in the woods, I have used the singer as a contradiction, so that the audience realise that the teenager in the woods who is seen to be having a bad time, is clearly in a bad way due to the black and white effect, as the singer is shown in colour and there is a bright background, emphasising the teenagers unhappiness. I feel that this works extremely well.

Also, when the actress is shown to walk under the bridge, "trust in me" is played which suggests that she is finally realising that she needs to reflect on her actions of running away from home and I feel like this part of the narrative is a turning point, as if she enters the unexpected at the other side of the bridge because when she comes out the other side, the sun is shining and her face is lit up by the light, suggesting that she has had some form of realisation. After this happens, she goes into the woods to reflect and realises that she needs to go home to try and make things better; however when she returns home, things don't go as planned.  

Overall, I think that the music video has worked extremely well and I feel like everything has gone to plan like I wanted. In terms of the narrative, the audience are left with an enigma at the end which I think is really effective as it is not what they expect and it leaves them wanting more, wondering what will happen next, linking to Barthes' narrative theory. 

Let me know what you think of the rough cut - feedback is extremely helpful:

Rough Cut

I have also sent out my video to a sample of my target audience to receive their thoughts too, which will be extremely helpful:

Christmas Holidays

For the Christmas holidays, I had some suggestions that I should re-shoot the dark parts of the footage which I filmed in the woods to try and improve the quality of it; however my actress hasn't been able to film due to personal circumstances and thus as a result I have been able to re-shoot that piece.

Overall, I do have enough footage which I now need to play around with and put together another rough cut with the audience's feedback included, so the black and white and also the narrative and singing parts included.

I will post a rough cut of what I have so far later today.