On Sunday Andrea and I got some great footage, we filmed more than we needed to so that we have a lot to work with and choose from. First, we done our petal scene which goes with the second verse of our song, Andrea done the first verse so this time i done the second verse as we are taking things mainly in order. The petals look really pretty and we're glad that we chose to buy real petals rather than fake ones because this may have looked a little tacky and unprofessional.

After we completed filming our petal scene using different camera angles and shots so we have a vartiey we can work with we had a break whilst my camera charged and then we took my camera and tripod outside so we could get some shots in the snow. We filmed eachother and also set up the camera so we were both in the shot so we could get some scenes together. We particularly like the footage we got in the snow because it's natural and not staged like the first and second verse. This is good because it's the look we wanted in our chorus. Our chorus is about us having fun, being silly, girly and natural and the footage is exactly that.

In yesterdays lesson we uploaded all of our footage onto our iMAC with my camera SD card. It didn't take extremelly long to upload so we were able to play around with some of our footage in our Final Cut Express tutorial lesson. The main skill we wanted to learn was how to create a split screen effect. The visitor who came in talked us through how to use the software to create this effect. Andrea and I both experimented with the software and finally we managed to create an even split screen.

After the lesson we both stayed in the media room because we were really excited about our new footage and wanted to get some more editing done. We stayed through our frees and managed to get quite a lot done which we're really happy about. I think it looks really good so far!

I will be uploading our video so far on to YouTube in Friday's lesson after we show our teacher what we've done so far so we can redo or fix anything we haven't done.

Last lesson Andrea and I were preparing for our next filming day by making a plan of what we need and what day we will be available to film. We decided to get all our small scenes out of the way so we can concentrate  on the larger parts of our music video. Next, we are going to film our second verse which is supposed to be an overhead shot on a white background. So, we will be spreading a white sheet on the floor and spreading our dried rose petals around the artist (me). Last lesson i ordered the dried rose petals so i'm hoping i'll recieve them sometime this week so we can film on sunday.

The petal idea was inspired by the American Beauty rose petal scene, we were planning on just having the petals spread around but i really like the idea of having them falling so we migh have to try both and see which works best for us.

Here's the video:

Presenting Our Digipaks

In Friday's lesson we all had to present our digipaks to the class and talk about how we created it and how everything linked in with our music video. After presenting my digipak to the class i got some audience feedback from my class mates to see what they thought of it. One of my class mates pointed out the fact that i used 'Aly&Aj' in my links rather than 'The Capulets'. I'm glad that she pointed this out because I had not noticed this myself. Apart from that everything else seemed to be fine.

I had a close look at my previous digipak and decided that i wasn't so sure about whether i was happy with it so i created a new one from scratch using PhotoShop. I'm happy with how it looks and prefer it better to my previous design as i think my new one looks more professional and fits in better with our theme.

For my front cover I decided to use more laid back photos that we had taken on our days/nights out which fits in with our natural look. My previous digipak had photos of us which we had taken in the studio we had set up which didn't really go with our music video and the way we wanted to represent ourselves. I believe that this digipak design works better than the previous one because it's bold, more colourful

I decided to put our studio photos on the back cover and added a film strip effect with a gradient colour over them to make it look more quirky and fun. I didn't want to put these photos on the front cover of my digipak because they are more staged and not very natural looking compared to the ones on my front cover.

I've kept the same production company logo as before and have added fan page links for Facebook, Myspace and our music website all named TheCapulets. I've also used a girly font for our song titles in keeping with our feminine theme.

I decided to keep the CD design i previously made for my first digipak as I believe that it fits in well with my final digipak design and follows the same colour scheme.

For the inside left of my digipak I decided to include a 'book of lyrics & photos' section which would be a little book that you'd pull out with the lyrics of the songs on our CD and some photos of the artists. I chose to do this to make it more personal and because I have come across lyric books in digipaks before which i quite like. I tried to keep my digipak consistent with it's black and pink themed background. I added the same airbrush effect to the background by creating a messy zig zaggy look. I then added the photo of me that was taken whilst I was setting up the studio for our photoshoot. I was actually holding the blank board when the photo was taken, I did not add that in myself. I added a semi circle to the top of the board to make it look like a slot and also added the text on the front using a feminine font.

Finished Digipak

Here is my completed digipak

The top half of my digipak design is everything that will be seen on the outside when unfolded and the bottom row is what the inside of my digipak looks like. Starting from the top left image which is the front cover of my digipak, i decided to go against the normal idea of having a photo of the artists on the front cover because most artists seem to do that in order to be recongnised by their face and to become more familiar with audiences. However, I didn't want to do what is already really common and expected as most girl groups always tend to have a photo of themselves on the front cover, so do the artists we're looking at 'Aly&Aj'.

As you can see all I've put on my front cover is our band name/logo as this is what I would like everyone to recognise us by. Another reason to why I decided to keep my front cover logo based is because our logo is quite colourful and bold so i didn't want anything to take the attention away from that and didn't want it to look extremely busy. I also wrote 'Deluxe Edition' on the front to make it look and feel more professional and official.

This was my first digipak template and a rough idea of the look i was going for. But after i went back on it several times i came up with new ideas and decided to change/add different things to it. Below you will see the step by step development and changes of my digipak ideas.

List Of Song Ideas

Here are my list of song ideas for my didgipak, Andrea also came up with some ideas that are on her blog. We both want to use the same song titles to make it look more professional and make it feel like a real digipak. We will be having a discussion about both our ideas and will pick our favourites.

Live Laugh Love
Dear karma
Keep on wondering
Like the rest
Those were yesterdays feelings
Todays your day
What we love
Just wanna have fun
Only a matter of  time
We're young, wild & free
I'm done, have fun
Dream big
Nothing to lose
Come alive in the night time
Born to love

Below are the ones we came to the decision of using after collecting some audience feedback from students in our media class:

The Potential Breakup Song
Smile For Me
Stay Away Cupid
Those WereYesterday's Feelings
Dear Karma
We're Young Wild & Free
You're the Sun on a Cloudy Day
Live Laugh Love
Green Eye Envy
Watched Me Walk Away
Cross Your Heart
Born to Love

In today's lesson we manged to upload everything onto our mac. We had a look through most of our footage and everything looks good so far. We are hoping to spend Monday on editing what we've already got and the same afternoon we are meeting up in our free period to take some studio photos for our digipaks.

As a prefect i volunteered to help the Media Studies department during prospective post-16 evening. This presentation took place the night of the trip so i stayed the evening to help out. I provided parents with advice and information about the Media Studies course at Enfield County School and answered any questions they had by applying my past and current knowlege about this subject. I also showed parents and students previous music videos and film openings and talked them through the process of making these. I also informed them about the written part of the exam and gave advice for when it comes to revising and taking notes in class.

In our last lesson which was on Friday 9th September we were given the task of creating a treatment pitch in our groups for our music video. As we're knew to A2 media we were puzzled at what that meant but after out teacher explained it and showed us some examples we realised that it's not that hard at all. We basically done the same thing for our AS media film opening.

TASK: To research, write and present a treatment pitch for your music video


What is a treatment?

* A treatment is a short outline of a media production designed to give a client or production team an overview of what the production might include based on a brief.

* Treatments are written descriptions, but can also include sketches, mock-ups, images and other draft items designed to demonstrate the intention of a production.

* A treatment is often used to “sell” an idea to a client. There is no hard and fast way to produce a treatment, although it is an integral aspect of the preproduction process.

What our treatment needs to INCLUDE:

•      Background on song

•      What is the basic narrative or concept of your video? Are you creating a performance, narrative or concept and why? Link this to your lyrics

•      What ‘feel’ do you want to provide for your audience?

•      How will you achieve this?

•      What are the codes and conventions of your genre?

•      In what ways are you conforming to or subverting them?

•      What themes do you have running through your video?

•      How will you use costume and make up to convey your messages?

•      Where is your location and why?

•      Have you obtained the band’s permission?

•      Could use this opportunity to gain audience feedback…

Preliminary Video Choice

In this lesson we were asked to find a simple music video that we can copy just as a practice. We only have to make up to a minute of it. This will help us get into the mood of filming and editing again and will help us when we are making our actual music videos.

We have chosen to make about 30 seconds of this video as it i quite simple to do. We have chosen for me to be Lily Allen.

Here's the music video:



Here's our storyboard:

Shots for Smile - Lily Allen:

1.  Singer eating chocolate, mid - shot, panning into face/
2. Singer and guy on bed, lying on side, wider shot
3. Side shot with arms crossed, sitting up on bed, mid shot.
4. Close up from below, checking phone
5. Mid shot lying on side eating crisps
6. Same shot as 3., from sitting flops onto bed, mid shot
7. Head and shoulder shot from slightly below, looking up.
8. Panning shot with her and male on bed reading book
9. More of shot 5
10. Same as shot 1, finishing chocolate.
11. More of shots 9 and 5
12. wide shot showing her sitting on bed from front
13. Close up from her level of her looking into the camera
14. panning shot of her sitting on bed, panning as she sings 'When you first left me I was wanting more'
15. Mid shot of her sitting on bed, not singing
16. Similar to 13, but singing 'what dya do that for?'