Screen Grabs - Editing the Video




A screengrab from shooting the singer's solo scenes. Clearly you can see that the effects used are the compound blur, levels and brightness. This is done to enhance the quality of the image and to make the singer look more attractive as well as making the background more attractive. I believe this will appeal to the audience as a music video especially as it's visual so effects and attractiveness of singer and scenery is vital.

 

I have provided some before and after screen grabs of the editing I did on the video. It is rather common for people to shoot a scene or a video or even take pictures and think they look good in camera but once uploaded the picture or clip doesn't look good. It is important to either reshoot the scene or take the picture again, unfortunatley I could not reshoot the scenes due to busy schedules so I had to edit the scenes that didn't look good as best as I could more than all the other scenes.

First scene that didn't look good but was vital in the sequence was the intimate bedroom scene.

 BEFORE

 AFTER

As you can see before it was barely visible, everything was dark and the two actors could hardly be distinguished especially as it was filmed in a dark setting. What I decided to do was add a brightness effect (Brightness= 5 Mix= 42) so that the actors could become visible however this made the image come out very grainy and a terrible quality so I added a compound blur (Amount=4) This smoothed out the image a bit to give it a better quality as well as that 'dream' effect that all the narrative sequence maintains consistently throughout the video. Lastly I tinted the picture (Grey 44% and Amount 90) to give the effect of a dream or past reality that I had originally planned the whole narrative to contain. I did attempt to add other effects and brighten the picture further as best as I could unfortunately this was the best I could edit this shot due to the circumstances of the shot.

 BEFORE

AFTER

There was nothing wrong in this shot as the angle was correct and the quality was fine. I added a Grey tint 44% and a compound blur Amount 4 to keep the narrative efffect I mentioned earlier. I used this effect for a reason to create a dream like story for the narrative to not only seperate the narrative from the singer's solo scenes to avoid confusion but also create a more interesting visual for the narrative. The connotations of a tint on a narrative are that it does create either a surreal or alternate reality or even potrays the past. This was what I was trying to create a past tense narrative that that would also be an interesting thing to watch. This would keep the audience watching and listening thus marketing the product at the same time.


Here are some further edits made on the video for various different reasons.

BEFORE

AFTER



As you may see there wasnt much difference before and after the effects in these snapshots. That is because the effect was added just to create complete continuity with the whole sequence. This helped create a dark intimate setting with a hint of romance for a dark n romantic scene.

BEFORE

AFTER

There was an edit made on this scene because as mentioned earlier, the background and the whole shot seemed dull and therefore may have led to the audience not finding this scene attractive to watch. The following effects were added: Compound Blur= Amount  and Levels with a Gamma of 1. Unfortunatley with this effect and the sunlight on the actual day  affecting the shot, it created a shine on the singer's forehead. After a while trying various different effects I wasn't able to reduce the shine so I believe that this was the best effect for the shot as far as this shot could get.

Editing Progress

After a week of non stop Editing, the final product was finally finished yesterday. Today I will show one of my media teachers the final product and gather some comments from him. After showing the final product to my teacher I will show it to some members of both the  Stanmore College community as well as members of the general public mainly in the target audience and gather their opinions and comments too. Hopefully this will allow me to see what I need to improve or change in my video to fit the audience's expectations and needs. Thus improving the marketing of my video as the actual target audience have had some input in my video's creation.

Production Schedule Third shooting- Narrative Part 2

Time & Date:    25/01/11 (Morning)

Scenes:             Narrative Part 2(The Fight, The Break-up)

Locations:          3 Bampton Drive 

                         Mill Hill 

                         NW7 2AY

Equipment:        1 Canon Video Camera,1 battery charger and 1 Tripod.

Amanda: Director & Camera
Mia:  Production Manage& Choregrapher

Media Risk Assessment - Second & Third Shooting

RISK ASSESSMENT CARRIED OUT BY: Amanda Ganje                              PRODUCTION MANAGER: Amanda Ganjeh



ACTIVITY OR PROCESS:   BOOKING OUT KIT AND

 FILMING IN A HOUSE IN MILL HILL

SHOOT DATE:  24-25/12/2010 

DATE OF ASSESSMENT: 24/12/2010        

LOCATION:  3 Bampton Drive

Mill Hill

NW7 2AY

A:  HAZARDS		B:  DEGREE OF RISK (Refer to Risk Matrix)			C: PREVENTIVE MEASURES	D:  IF ACCIDENT OCCURS?
Nature of hazard	Person(s) at risk (See below)	Severity	Likelihood	Risk Rating	Measures in place aimed at reducing risk to minimum level?	Further necessary measures, involving whom and by when?
Tripping over the cables/ equipment	Cas/Cre/Fam	Minor	Possible	D	Make sure all cables and equipment are together and out of sight.	Incase of trip immediate assistance  given.

As you can see there aren't many risks found in the location making it an excellent location to film and safe for our cast and crew.

Second Shooting- Narrative Scene Part 1

Time& Date:    24/12/10 (pm-12am

Scenes:             Narrative Part 1(Getting ready scene, intimate scene,mirror contrast scene)

Locations:          3 Bampton Drive 

                         Mill Hill 

                         NW7 2AY

Equipment:        1 Canon Video Camera,1 battery charger and 1 Tripod.

The Crew (Left to Right): Nana Arthur- Female Actress, Gyles Bart Plange- Male Actress, Joseph Millwood- Extra

Nana Arthur- Chosen because of complexion, which challenges female actresses in videos who usually are of a lighter skintone even if they are supposed to represent African and Carribean people. 

Gyles Bart-Plange- Chosen because of challenging conventions unusual for two dark skinned couple to be on the narrative usually the female is of a lighter skin tone and even mixed race.

Great angle of the mirror reflection without showing the camera.

Intimate scene- everything needed, candles lights and a double bed for the stereotypical romantic night.

The shooting overall went very well. There was one problem, the camera started running out of battery and as it did we came to the realisation that we had been given the wrong battery charger therefore we had to rush our shooting a little. We managed to film some on the main narrative scenes of the video and even some more scenes that we could play around with on editing. I believe this shooting was successful indeed.

PEOPLE NOT USED

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Not used as they do not meet the genre specified. R'n'B usually tends to have African/Carribean  singers/actors as it originated from their culture therefore would not conform to the conventions of the Genre. Although they would make an interesting form of challenging the conventions of R'n'B it would not be appropriate to challenge the conventions to that extent as it may give off impressions of another genre and the audience may not expect or even like it. These are risks that are not to be taken all the time especially with an usigned artist who needs all the fans and awareness she can get.

Production Schedule Second shooting- Narrative Part 1

Time & Date:    24/12/10 (pm-12am

Scenes:             Narrative Part 1(Getting ready scene, intimate scene,mirror contrast scene)

Locations:          3 Bampton Drive 

                         Mill Hill 

                         NW7 2AY

Equipment:        1 Canon Video Camera,1 battery charger and 1 Tripod.


Amanda: Director & Camera
Mia:  Production Manage& Choregrapher

Marketing Aims- CD/DVD Cover & Magazine Advert

Target Consumer	Our primary target audience would consist of mostly females within the age range of 19-24, who are mostly students and unmarried. Our secondary target audience is would be males who are again within the age ranges of 12-18 or 25-30 who are employed. We found these results by conducting a questionnaire; the results are posted on our blogs (Under the heading -Demographics survey results). Furthermore we are aiming to create a crossover of target audiences as we are aspiring to target some people from America (USA) too.
Unique Selling Point	Firstly we will make Lizzie seem like someone young females will look up to and aspire to become like. This will be done by making her sexually appealing to the male audience so that the males will talk about her thus making the girls want to be like her, techniques such as the bare legs and the use of one leg tastefully raised. The same picture on the Digipack cover used on the magazine advert also creates a constant image of Lizzie making her instantly recognisable. These techniques will allow a steady fan base as Lizzie becomes a more recognised figure of the R'n'B society and creating a name and image for herself . Secondly the use of Lizzie’s sexual appeal will help broaden her fan base to a more male audience too allowing her to appeal to both genders and selling more of her product. Her British heritage will be the main unique selling point as many successful R’n’B singers are mainly American. Although it may be a challenge to make her appealing as a product in America it might prove successful as the USA are forever intrigued with British Artists. Having the British Heritage further allows her to appeal to a wider diaspera of people from a variety of cultures and countries.
Attention/Awareness	Due to the technological developments there are many ways to raise awareness about our unsigned artist for example the extremely popular website www.Facebook.com and www.Twitter.com where fans are able to 'follow' and add the artist, awareness of the artist herself will grow and more people will start curiously seeing what her product has to offer. Furthermore such social networking sites are perfect places for promotions thus allowing many advert, promotions of gigs etc to be posted directly through the internet were thousands of social networking site users are able to become either a part of the promotion or interested in buying the digipack or going to live events. Thanks to ongoing technoligical advancements these actions such as promotions and downloading of the song, video etc are able to be performed almost instantly to thousands if not millions of people.
Interest	Her image appeals to the target audience as she is dressed in the latest clothes fashions therefore young females will think that she is on the same level as them thus allowing the audience to relate to her. Her sexual appeal helps sell products because sex sells and as an upcoming artist she will need to perform any trick in the book to get her noticed and interesting. Her song and adverts raise interest through the mystery of her image, who is she? what has she got to say?
Desire	The sexual appeal throughout the digipack and advert will give the male or even female audience a desire to keep an eye out for her. The synergy throughout the digipack and advert will make her instantly recognisable wherever people go they will recognise the CD/DVD cover from the advert or vise versa, this might even create a desire for knowledge to see what her product is about and what she has to say.
Action	Already have posted the advert on networking sites such as www.facebook.com, we have provided some DJ's with a copy of the song to check it out and provided some copies of our adverts.
Product	CD/DVD covers features pictures of only the artist. She is the sole focus of the product and all attention must be drawn to her as she is a newcomer and not a recognisable celebrity yet therefore all effort must be made to drill images of our artists into the audience and members of the publics heads. Magazine Advert features the same picture of Lizzie from the cover as well as the CD/DVD digipack cover, this will again help the audience recognise her instantly from previous images thus building her status.  The themes throughout will be black and gold.
Price	The digipack will be £4.99 (inc. VAT) not too little that people will doubt the quality of her performance and her product and not to much that people will not buy it as not to 'risk it' incase they don't like it. Furthermore she is not a distinguished artist yet therefore we have to start slightly lower than all the other R'n'B stars and their products. Additionally we need to set a reasonable price so that our target audience are able to afford the products.
Place and Promotion	Digipacks will be firstly sold in independent music stores and advertised there to start off with. Slowly we will move onto the larger stores and promote the digipack there such as HMV.  However simultaneously we will be constantly promoting Lizzie on social networking sites and providing independent Dj's with copies off her album as well as small independent radio stations to start off with such as RadioBrunel then moving up to bigger mainstream radio stations such as CapitalFM and Choice

The Look Document- Magazine Advert

Costume	Pink dress, brown trench coat, black heels. Same as DVD/CD digipack as this creates synergy throughout the whole video, digipack advert process and helps audience recognise the artist and the theme easier. Pink has connotations of feminine and female power, heels reinforce sexuality and increase sex appeal while the trench coat once again creates a sense of mystery.
Set	The original picture was taken in a terrace in Barbican, London. This was done whilst onset of the video shoot for the artist’s solo scenes. I believe this not only allowed us to effectively do a photoshoot but saved us time. The connotations of the original set were to reinforce the stereotype that all R’n’B singers are rich and extravagant therefore we decided to take pictures rich and extravagant location. Unfortunatley the background was edited out in the advert and was replaced with a plain black background to once again reinforce syngery through the whole package.
Props	Just like the CD/DVD cover a bin was used to in the original picture to lean the foot on so that on the advert she can have her foot balancing on the CD/ DVD cover. Also a railing was used for the artist to rest her hand. All these props were edited out in the final cut as a plain black background was agreed upon to keep all focus on the upcoming artist.
Lighting	Natural lighting was used. Keeping everything natural helps the artist’s image by showing that she is a ‘real woman’ just how she was created, unlike many celebrities who have plastic surgery etc. This gives out a positive image to the female audience and helps show that females don’t need any plastic surgery etc to look attractive. On the final cut however the artist is edited out to look like a cartoon image to contrast the reality of her songs with her surreal cartoon image. This further reinforces the cartoon theory where ‘anything can happen’.
Colour Scheme	Pink and black. Due to the conventions of these colours I thought they would be the best as stated earlier pink has conventions of feminine and being a soft colour whereas black is more mysterious even slightly dangerous as it has conventions of unknown. This is great for the artist as she is unknown and it can portray she has a different side to being girly etc. Gold is also used throughout the digipack as well as the advert which has connotations of richness and being rare therefore represents Lizzie’s image rich in personality and finance as well as rare in talent and image. Portraying her as different from the other ‘mainstream’ artists.
Camera Style	Low angle looking up at Lizzie, reinforces the image of superiority and female power. Appealing to the female audience who will ‘look up to’ Lizzie. Furthermore this follows Maulvey’s theory of the ‘Male Gaze’ as the low angle shots provide a great shot for Lizzie’s legs to show in a flattering and tasteful angle for the male audience to enjoy as well.
Editing Style	Cut the background out of the picture and changed it to a black background. Glow on the picture of Lizzie and add a cartoon effect on her to make her look surreal and cartoon like.  Special FX Slight outer glow and satin as well as colour contrast. These resulted in the picture having a nice cartoon effect which is popular in many Kanye West albums and videos.

SUMMARY
I believe the fact that we emphasise on sex appeal works in the music and marketing industry especially as there have been countless amounts of evidence throughout the years that 'sex sells'. As an unsigned and unknown artist I believe it is crucial for us to do whatever we can to grab the audiences attention and gather a wider audience base. This will help her become wider recognised and in turn allowing her to be seen and even 'spotted' by a potential record label.