Re-shoot 2 - 28/02/14

Lip syncing

Today, we filmed some performance and lip syncing footage.
   Firstly, we shot in a studio-like location, at an auctioneers. For this location, we wore blue dresses. It worked well, as the background was plain white, and so the blue dresses were more prominent and stood out more. The location enabled us to shoot professional looking footage for our low budget, and to also take an opportunity to take some photos for the digipak and magazine ad. We didn't have long to shoot here as the room we were using was only free for an hour, so we tried to get as much lip syncing footage as possible.
   After this, we went up to the moors and changed into our 'hippy' outfits. Here, we shot more individual and group lip syncing shots, incorporating the nature into the hippy theme of the performance footage. We shot a substantial amount of footage to work with, from various angles using the rocks around us. After a while, it began to rain so we had to cut the shoot short, as continuing would have disrupted the continuity of the footage and therefore the editing.
   However, we have a 3rd shoot planned for Monday, where we intend on shooting in another outfit and location, as well as any extra footage that we need from these two locations used today.

Taking photos for the mag ad/digipak

Re-shoot 1 - 22/02/14

Romantic meal set up

On Saturday we met with Jess and Freddie, the couple for the narrative section. We shot as planned, beginning in the house then going outside to finish up. Because we had planned the shoot in detail before, it made obtaining the shots easier as we knew exactly what we needed to shoot.

   One thing we wanted to anchor was the relative love theme of the song. We bought some roses which are a common signifier of love, and had Freddie give them to Jess. Once we had shot this and were happy with it, we used the petals of the roses to lay out onto a white cloth on the dining table along with tea lights, to signify further the romantic element of the video. This worked really well, as we made the room darker and so the tea lights created a romantic ambience, which is what we wanted to achieve.

   Jess and Freddie were really cooperative and did what we wanted them to without fussing or getting embarrassed in front of the camera. Because they are actually a couple and are both performers, this made the acting more realistic, so hopefully this will come across in the video to achieve verisimilitude.

Filming the romantic meal set up

Filming Jess and Freddie on the sofa

Re-shoot 2 - Planning TBC

Our second shoot is planned for the performance footage. We intend to follow typical boy band conventions and shoot our footage in rural areas, as it is easier to achieve good shots and the locations are more readily available to us.
   Locations that we intend to use are the moors, a woodland and a plain white backdrop. The white backdrop will allow us to shoot some more professional looking footage, on top of the rural areas. Atomic Kitten's video for Whole Again solely features the 3 girls in front of a plain background too, so we have taken on this idea on a small scale for intertextuality. The wooded area and moorland will act as an alternative to the beach scene used in the original video. A common girl group convention is using urban and gritty areas, however we feel that for a romantic song, rural areas will work more effectively, and they are also easier to get to with our resources and budget.
   After looking at the original video, we noticed that they were all wearing similar colours and similar styles of clothing, yet they weren't exactly the same. We plan on using 3 costumes for the performance sections. Because the original video is shot at a beach location, the girls are wearing beige colours and bikinis with floaty tops. Because we do not have access to a beach, we are going to use a wooded and moorland area, with 'hippy' costumes. We will wear shorts and jeans and floaty tops similar to those in the video, which is intertextuality from the original video. The second outfit is going to be black dresses and heels for the other outside performance shots. This follows a common girl group convention, again using the same colour scheme with different styles. The third outfit will be used for the 'studio' footage. For these shots, we will again be using the colour scheme of blue yet we will all be wearing different styles of dresses. A common convention used by many girl groups such as Girls Aloud or The Saturdays is to each have an individual colour. We aren't entirely challenging this convention in the sense that the styles are different, we are simply using the same colour scheme rather than different colours, which is infact done by Atomic Kitten and the Sugababes in some of their videos. Our dresses will also be objectifying, to attract a male audience, following Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory.

Re-shoot 1 - Planning TBC

After we decided upon a completely new idea, we began to extensively plan our re-shoot. Because time and, therefore cast, are limited, we have planned 3 shoots in the next 2 weeks.
   We came up with a clear narrative idea and planned a consecutive turn of events from which we could easily follow, so that when we come to shooting the footage, it makes sense and will hopefully enable us to spend less time working out what we need to do. We then brainstormed good framing opportunities that may be available on the day, to make our footage appear more professional.
   Our first hurdle in planning the first shoot was cast. Because Atomic Kitten are a group of 3, we already had that covered, as we plan on being the group ourselves, with one of us filming. This meant that we only needed a couple for the narrative. We managed to find some friends who were willing to do it, and they are a couple which we anticipate will be more effective and less awkward on screen than if two separate people were thrown together. This will help us to achieve verisimilitude, and the audience will feel more comfortable watching the video.
   For costumes, we decided that they should be casual, to, again, achieve verisimilitude. Having the couple dressed in everyday clothes such as a shirt and jeans for the boy and a skirt and top for the girl means that the audience will be able to relate to them, as it is most likely what our target audience wear on a daily basis. We have asked them to bring 3 outfits too, one for the present and 2 for the different occasions in the past. We also asked the girl to come with her hair natural and makeup natural (yet visible to the camera), to create a normative representation of typical teenage girls.
   The locations we have chosen are both indoors and outdoors. We are going to shoot the narrative footage in a rural village, so the first half of the shoot we will shoot inside, using a living room, bedroom and dining room, then we plan to go outside on a dog walk, down a little lane and along to a duck pond. Scenes in the dining room will be created to anchor the love theme of the song, i.e. with the use of candles and roses, and the bedroom we will be using is purple and girly, anchoring the stereotype of a teenage girl and her bedroom. These locations should work effectively as they are everyday normal locations, which again is a normative representation of the audience's lives.

Set Up Ideas

After choosing our new track and revising our idea, we set upon camoing up with set ideas for our planned shoot on Saturday the 22nd feb. We are shooting the narrative section of the video, so our set up ideas will involve the flashback and present day shots. These set ups will signify the stereotypical romantic scenes associated with couples and break ups.
There will be 18 set ups in total:

• Dog walk
• Stream/bridge
• Feeding ducks
• Ringing door bell holding flowers
• Romantic meal
• Watching a film on the sofa
• Baking
• Looking at holidays online
• Dancing
• On the phone to each other
• Girl finds a text on boys phone from another girl
• Throwing clothes out of the window
• Looking through photos
• Looking through a box of memories
• Picking petals
• Sitting on the bed
• Looking through the window

Track Timing Sheet

New Idea Feedback

We pitched our new idea to the class and this video shows them giving us new ideas in response to our own ideas and their thoughts about what to include/not include in the video.

Re-pitch Video - New Idea

The track we have chose to do is 'It's Ok' by Atomic Kitten. It's a pop song, and the lyrics talk about a break up, which we plan to reflect in our video. We plan to use a mixture of narrative and performance. The narrative part of the video involves a couple breaking up with flash backs to when they were happy and in love. The performance section will be the three members of the girl group lip syncing and doing some basic dancing.
   The couple will be wearing 3 different outfit to help show the difference between the flashbacks and the current day. Their outfits will be casual and will change with the different situation they are in, from a romantic dinner to walking the dog.
   The girl group will also be wearing a number of outfits as this is a common convention in girl group videos. These outfits will not be the same for every member but will differ in either style or colour, but they will be recognisably similar. You can see this concept portrayed in The Saturdays videos where they have individual colours for the different colours. We also wish to use The Spice Girls as inspiration on their image as they still have clear individualities and their personalities are still projected through what they are wearing.
   The couples location will be mainly set in a house, but also the countryside as this will create interesting shots, backgrounds and framing opportunities. The performance location will also be partly be in a rural setting but also a studio type setting with a plain background. Atomic Kitten have done this a number of times with a plain white or black backdrop.

PP - Teaser Mag Ads Improved

Following on from feedback we decided to make a few changes to the teaser mag ads. Firstly, we have changed the colour of 'coming soon' to match the lipstick on the mirror. We have also taken off the twitter and instagram and just included the QR code to add more mystery as they are just initial teasers. I also edited out some of the dust and marks on the dressing table picture to make it look neater and more professional.

PP - Teaser Mag Ad - Dress Experimentation

Another teaser mag ad idea we had was to show the girls dresses. When editing the picture with all the colours shown in the dresses we became unsure about the appropriate font colour to choose. We are going to put this to our audience and get feedback from them. We plan to ask people as well as putting the post on fan forums and the pics on instagram to get as much feedback as possible. By doing this we are also giving our audience hints into what we are planning.


Here are some of our colour options:

yellow - no outline

pink

white

purple 

PP - Teaser Mag Ad 3

This is the 3rd teaser mag ad, we also plan to do one with the girls dresses hung up in a row. This one anchors how the younger girls want to be famous by putting make up on. Again the song is written on the mirror in lipstick. When editing I used effects such as brightening and contrast to make the colours, especially the written lipstick, stand out. I also made the edges fade to make the picture look less harsh.

PP - Teaser Mag Ad 2

This is our second teaser mag ad, made in the same way as the previous one. In this one we reveal more information by the song name being written in lipstick on the mirror. There are also signifiers of the younger girls in the video from the mise-en-scene, for examples the jewellery box and tiara.

PP - Teaser Mag Ad 1

We decided that we would release a number of magazine ads, starting with 'teaser' ads and gradually adding more information until our final mag ad with tour dates on and all the info.

Here is a trial example. These are just sample shoes used as we would want to show the PCD individual colours here but this is an idea we can get feedback from our target audience on. To make this I used picture editing software and the font that the PCD use to help hint to the audience.

trial ad

We have included a QR code here leading to MKTP productions blog and twitter and blogger icons so the audience can search for us on social media.

PP - Set Dressing for Teaser Mag Ads

For the teaser mag ad we had to set dress the room we used to make it look effective as possible. This involved taking down pictures that were in the reflection of any mirrors, as well as removing excess items so that the the pictures didn't look cluttered. We also then carefully chose what we wanted in shot and positioned them to make the framing look effective and also give subtle hints about the song and album. We did this through displaying tiaras, shoes and other signifiers along with writing on the mirrors in lipstick.

Here are some pictures of before and after we set dressed the room:

after

before

after

before

Twitter

Our profile

We update our twitter account regularly so that fans and followers can be constantly updated on our progress. To gain feedback, we have tweeted links to our rough cuts on YouTube asking for feedback, and we have retweeted these tweets onto our personal twitter accounts, so that more people can see it.

  Using twitter makes gaining audience feedback easier to obtain, and promoting our product is easy too. The audience can reply to, retweet or favourite our tweets, meaning we can personally see what they have written or that they have acknowledged the tweet, and they can then share the tweet with their followers, promoting the product to a wider audience. It has been very useful and easy.

Fan interaction and comments