HH - preperation

Recently I have purchased 200 white feathers, 100 10 inch white balloons and 100 pink balloons, and one balloon pump :S. These props were bought from where most of my internet purchases are from… the amazing eBay! eBay the online market stall is a great place for finding random items you may need for cheap prices. The 100 pillow feathers cost merely £4.50, and the 200 balloons £12.99. Not bad seeing as they sell a pack of ten at Tesco for £1. The feathers will be used in the sleepover scene, some being put in pillows and slow motioned downed during the pillow fight scene. I also think a close up of feathers falling from the ceiling would also be a nice shot to include. Other shots included would be group shots of the girl members playing will the many fathers in the bedroom.

The 200 balloons will be inflated on the day and placed on top of each other in a small room. I wanted to hopefully borrow large studio lights to light the room. I will film each member of the band playing in the room full of balloons. As the balloons will be in a small room they will be piled on top of each other hopefully up to the artists wastes. I will also have one member of the band bursting a balloon full of glitter which will be put into slow motion.

I have acquired three large bottles of glitter two of blue and one of red. I think having a member of the band blowing the glitter into the camera would look visually very interesting. I think a close up of the falling glitter would also look great and be appropriate to the pop vibe of the music video.

HH - pop group reunions

Recently past pop group S Club 7 have been rumoured to be back for a reunion in 2012, and the pop group Steps have already formed a reunion and are touring the UK. The group steps have recently announced that they are continuing to embark on a their tour in 2012. All seven members of S Club 7 are hoping to reform after seeing how successful Steps reunion has been. Their representatives are trying to agree a deal with Simon Fuller, who still owns the S Club brand. 

Seeing these former pop groups reunite and the success of the Spice Girls reunite in 2007, other former groups are hoping to come back together in the present day. It is already rumoured that the girl band Girls Aloud have decided to plan a reunion tour in the back end of 2012. This will be a great chance for the girl band to promote there already produced albums and to earn even more cash with advertisements and promotions etc.

Lighting in music videos

The pop music video is notorious for the glamouress full beam bright lights which make the artists look flawless. My music video three out of five scenes are inside. I hope to borrow two set lights from my schools art department so I can get the bright light effect in the scenes. These lights will hopefully brighten the group member’s faces and also brighten the set. The lights being shone on the girls faces during medium close ups will make their skin pale and flawless, other pop artists us this lights such as Britney Spears or Katy Perry.

I also hope to lighten the scenes in editing to make them even brighter and as similar to pop music videos as I can. 

HH - Pointer sisters

The Pointer Sisters - orginal vid

The Pointer Sisters were the original girl band in 1983 to create the song Jump (for my love). The song was released prior to the 1984 Summer Olympics games, the song's video featured footage of athletes competing in track and field events. The song was the second of four Billboard Hot 100 top 10 singles in a row for the sisters in 1984; it peaked at #3 in July. It also appeared on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and reached the Top 10 in the UK, peaking at number six. The song also netted the group a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1985.

The song sang by the Pointer Sisters is the original and the music video was seen as quite visually impressive for the 80s. However I believe Girls Aloud gave the song a more modern factor which works better with the music video I wish to create and the vocals match the age of the group members a lot better. 

Animation 2 - bedroom scene

Animation 1 - snow scene

Brainstorm for music video - Girls Aloud Jump

FH making a digipak

How to Make a Digipak

Podcast 6 - reshooting of footage lost

Podcast 5 - the lost footage

FH- Digipak research - DIY, Wahol and Rhianna.

DIY

Digipaks typically are paperboard or card gatefolds, with plastic trays inside to hold a CD and sometimes also a DVD. They are a remake of dual cases, all plastic cases, and are more environmentally friendly, lighter and simply nicer to look at as they are not 'bulky'.

They became popular in the early 2000's because of this and are getting more and more popular. Many places use them for advertising such as a personal experience i had of walking through Leeds City centre and people were handing out digipaks to advertise the night club Oceana which consisted of a CD with a mix of music that is played and a DVD.

I have been researching into how we are going to make our digipak and so i went onto google images and found this instruction picture - this is the style of digipak we are going to be making.

Warhol

So far we have an idea of having a warhol effect on the cover of the digipak, there will be 5 images, one of each girl and they will be looking towards another band member in another image.

This is an example of a warhol effect on Maralyn Monroe but we will have five pictures, so one in the middle, and each girl will be in the pictures rather than a copy of one picture. This is only our first idea so we are hoping that we can come up with more different ideas for the cover, inside is going to be completely different though and we will have a different theme such as black and white with pictures of the girls in suits and hats - a bit of a 'mafia' look.

Just a quick look at Rhianna's Digipak...

This is Rhianna's recent album 'Loud' and this is her digipak for it - she has the same picture on the cover as she does on her jual case but her inside of the digipak is a lot more interesting and eye grabbing to people buying this product as there is an attractive picture on the inside of Rhianna and her CD's have a print of a rose on them. This is also a DVD which comes with the digipak so this also attracts people as they are getting more than just a CD in an environmental friendly, light case.

With this perticular digipak a poster was available which is a picture of the album's cover.

HH - charity shop scene

Charity shop scene

For one specific scene in our music video we are hoping to film in a charity shop, where the five different girls try on unusual outfits and costumes. I want this scene to be similar to one in the film Wild Child released in 2008 directed by Nick Moore. The scene consists of five girls looking for and trying on different clothes to buy for a party they are attending. There are a variety of transitions and shot types that make this scene look interesting. I wish to do my own rendition of the scene whilst trying out similar transitions that may work with my own music video.

These pictures show some of the camera angles and edited transitions that I wish to try and replicate.

HH - hit the lights - Selena Gomez

Hit the lights music video ideas

Hit the lights by Selena Gomez has a great music video that really inspired me for the production of my own music video. The large balloons bursting and Selena dancing in the room filled with pink balloons encouraged my desire to work with balloons in certain scenes of my music video. I have recently purchased 100 balloons which I intend to use on the sleepover scene of the music video. Slowing down footage of balloons floating and bursting really gives a good effect in music videos and along with the feathers I also intend to use the whole vibe to the music video will have a pop video look to it.

The song Jump that I am using for my video has some fast pace beats in the chorus and so I intend to use multiple jump cuts from different scenes such as the singers from my girl band dancing in a room of balloons and feathers. The music video for hit the lights, does this very well. I think that changing the colouring of the different shots in editing would also have a great effect.

I am also going to use multiple layering over some of the balloon scenes to give the scenes an artistic vibe. I was hoping to use either glitter, shots of feathers falling or popping balloons.

Podcast 4 - reschedule of filming

Meet our new Girls Aloud band members!

Ella – (Cheryl) Colour: Pink

The girly and slightly prissy member of the group wears a large amount of pink including a necklace that has the Barbie logo on it. This suggests that she is very feminine and youthful. She is the more moody member of the group. We have included shots of her looking unhappy at the sleepover scene when she is woken up and hit with pillows.

Luisa – (Nadine) Colour: Purple

Luisa is the sexier member of the group, wearing provocative clothing and dark, heavy makeup. In a particular scene she wears tight sequin leggings with an unbuttoned blazer. This would be seen as not appropriate for our genre, however a large percentage of artists aimed at a tweenage/teenage audience have outfits/ lack of clothing being displayed in their music videos. E.g. Katy Perry, Britney Spears. Luisa is a more daring and cheeky member of the group provoking her friends and causing chaos within the group.

Lily- (Kimberley) Colour: Green

The sweet and innocent member of the group wears minimal amounts of makeup. Lily has a country style with checked skirts, denim shorts and cowboy boots. She is a very friendly character and is constantly smiling and dancing and having a good time. She is much more forgiving than her best friend Ella and shrugs of any mischief that happens with group of girls.

Kate- (Sarah) Colour: Blue

The cute and sweet member of the girl band is petite with long, curly hair and is constantly smiling. She takes on the role as the little girl of the group as she still sleeps with her teddy etc. She is a lot smaller than the rest of the girls and is seen as the little sister and is sometimes bullied because of this. She is cheeky and is always involved with the activities taking place, she is very confident and wears a girly, glittery crop top and skinny jeans.

Molly- (Nicole) Colour: Red

Is another sweet member of the girl band but also has a mischievous side to her, often influenced by Luisa. She wears a 60s type of style with large, puffy skirts, long pearl necklaces and red lipstick. She has jet black hair with pale skin which also suits the 60s look. She is a confident member of the band and along with Luisa has a cheeky side to her that likes to cause mayhem.

Podcast 3 - Before bedroom scene

ALL - Genres and Directors

Genre and Directors powerpoint

This is the powerpoint that we made to teach the class about different genres and directors that link to that pertcular genre, it went well and everyone enjoyed us teaching them and found our points interesting and helpful.

Vodcast - sample footage

Untitled from Faye Higgins on Vimeo.

sample footage - behind the scenes

sample footage 1

Untitled from HarrietHarding on Vimeo.


This is our first sample fotage to show you how we intend on slowing down some things such as the bursting balloon which has glitter in it - this will look a lot better indoors as the wind blew the glitter in the wrong direction of us filming.
There is a vodcast to be uploaded asap for after we filmed this to tell you more as a group about our progess and intensions in future.

FH - Advertising my voting polls

This is my Facebook page - i made a post and link for all my facebook friends to come on the blog and vote for their favourite genre and the best girl band. So far i have had there abouts 20 people vote and am hoping to advertise my blog to other social sites such as myspace, twitter and msn.  

My wall post says -
"This is my blog, it is media coursework and i need you fabulous people to help!!! click this link and on the right hand side will be a votin poll, please please PLEASE vote!!! i need as many as possible and it will be very appreciated that you will spend 30seconds of your lives helping out :) do the right thing fellow facebookers!!! "
It is informal to relate to younger audiences as my friends on facebook are of a 15-25 age range.


This picture was taken on my Blackberry and sent to the computer via bluetooth.

FH - Treatment

Treatment - Faye

FH - My consumption of music videos

The website that keeps my sanity...


The way to free videos of ANYTHING!
i watch music videos on youtube on a daily basis, getting ready in a morning, relaxing at home on a night, even at parties to choose a song!
Youtube is amazing for finding music of any kind online within minuits. I no longer buy CD's because of this which has led me to no longer needing a CD player and i don't think i ever bought a music video DVD ! i have had a Girls Aloud tour DVD bought for me that i never watched because it took too much time and effort, plus they were live at a concert and were not the songs i wanted to hear there and then so i turned on my laptop, clicked youtube and typed in the song i wanted to hear and with no more than two blinks it was there ready to play in the quality i wanted!

Personally i think that websites such as youtube and vimeo are more and more popular, i also watch music videos on TV such as music chanels Fizz and Chanel U however i only flick through them when i am bored and nothing else is on... and usually it is not a song that i like so with websites such as youtube and minivids i am able to watch and listen to music i like in suitable time - no waiting.

I am able to acces websites on my phone as well as free download apps that allow me to get a track and its video onto my phone in seconds!


Youtube is one of the biggest websites for videos that anyone of any age can access and the videos are from home videos and music videos to film clips and clips from television! I can access music videos of all genres and from years and years back which is another amazing aspect of the website.

We use youtube in our media project as it allows us to upload our footage to get it onto our blog but we can only do this at home, so while i am at school we use vimeo which is basically another video uploader which is not blocked off our school system - they are both great quality too which is a bonus! Although i prefer uploading videos to my vimeo account as it is a lot quicker than youtube.

Podcast 2 - Playing with ideas/rough cut

FH - Style influences: Saturdays and Spice Girls

All the below are my idea of how our five girls are going to look within the video.

This is obviously a picture of five maxi dresses. Each dress as you can see is different, by color, pattern, strap/strapless etc. The Saturdays use the idea of wearing the same clothing but in a different colour which is where we have the idea of using 'different but still similar', this denotes that they are close as band members as they are all similar.  As you can see in this picture of The Saturdays each girl is wearing black but have different coloured tights, in the video they have objects to match each girls individual color which is an idea that we have bared in mind. e.g. watch, lipstick, nails, mobile etc.

 As you can see in this girl band each girl has different 'style, not as noticable as The Spice Girls style but they are all of different ethnicity, their hair is not the same color or style and the use of using black dresses, but different black dresses connotates that they are all individuals - the tights obviously connote this as well but these are the small things that not everybody notices. The Spice Girls on the other hand have a very noticable difference in individuality! They wear what i would describe as a 'costume' rather than a statement - they were over the top and did this to be noticed and different to other groups at the time bearing in mind it was the 90's. We are going to stick with the idea of each girl been different but we are swaying towards The Saturdays style rather than The Spice Girls! It's nothing personal girls! but i am sure we are wanting to be a bit more modern than the costume styles!

ALL - Production Company

Production Company 1^st idea:

Haye Fattie Productions

A Faye and Hattie production

Our first idea was to take the first letter from each of our names and switch them around and voila! It’s a Haye Fattie production.

This idea was thought up in a Eureka kind of moment. There are such bazaar production company names out there that really have no relevance, but our name does have some meaning and is does involve both the people in our groups name. 

Faye + Hattie

Switch around the F and the H

= Haye Fattie productions!

Postcast 1 - Filming ideas (glitter balloon)

HH - Girls Aloud promotions

Girls Aloud Promotions

Nintendo DS – In 2008 Nintendo signed Girls Aloud to front a series of TV ad campaigns. The ad includes the five singers playing games on the handheld Nintendo DS in the studio and as they relax at home.

'We all love our Nintendo DS’s…there’s always something to keep us laughing and entertained - the different DS colours mean we never get them mixed up too!” say the band.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1079083/At-home-Girls-Aloud-group-launch-Nintendo-games-console.html#ixzz1bo5alCVv

KitKat – in 2008 all five of the girl band members stared in an advertising campaign for KitKat, KitKat’s biggest product launch in nearly ten years. The ad includes the five members of the girl band walking down the red carpet being snapped by paparazzi and cheered by their fans. The girl band reportedly signed a million pound contract with Nestle to advertise the new KitKat Senses chocolate bar. The advert was made by JWT with media planning and buying handled by Mindshare. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/07/advertising

The KitKat advert

Girls Aloud have also have their own line of cosmetics such as false eyelashes sold in selected retail outlets. 
The eyelashes are styled to be as similar to each individual band member as possible. This way the consumer is buying the product under the impression that they can look like that particular singer if they buy their fake eyelashes. This is a great selling technique as young fans will buy the product wanting to look like their role models. 

Other promotions include calendars, Barbie dolls, and their very own make-up range.

It is clear from the promotions and campaigns that the girl band is focusing mainly on the younger female audience. With the main idea being used that if you buy this product you will look that these women.

FH - Pop Music notes

Abrieviated from word ‘popular’

Commercially recorded music – often aimed at youth audience.

Hatch & millward define pop as “body of music distinguishable from jazz and folk”

“pop song” was first recorded – 1926 and was a piece of music with a sinse of poularity.

In Britain it came around in the 1950’s – as a description for rock and roll with a mix of youth styles.

The beatles, abba, rolling stones etc

1960’s pop music was described as music with a beat.

Musicologists often identify the following characteristics as typical of the pop music genre:

Appealing to a genre audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture

Emphasis on recording, production, and technology, over live performance.

ALL - Brainstorm