Ancillay Task Construction

The conventions of DigiPaks:

A digi pak is a patented style of CD or DVD packaging.

• They normally have a gate fold like a book 
• The outer packaging is made of card/paper and the inner packaging is made of plastic
• They are normally used on special editions and albums 
• More vulnerable and likely to wear than average cases
• They became popular with artists and record labels in the early 2000s

The front:

• The front of DigiPaks tend to have a large eye-catching picture on them 
• The picture illustrated o the front panels tend to have some relation to the songs or the artist
• The song/album title is also found on the front panel

The back: 

• the back usually includes: the track list, album artwork, record label, artist name, bar code, and extra information

The inside:

•  Inside the of Digi Pak's you can find the plastic holder for the actual CD itself. A lot of plastic holders nowadays are see-through with another piece of album artwork behind which goes with the rest of the packaging.

DigiPaks come in so many different styles and designs, like shown below. 

Conventions for an album poster: 

Poster conventions in general include,,, 

• Coming soon or release date
• Icons of social media etc 
• A large title of the album
• A hashtag

Our ideas:

The two posters above are brief drawings of the two ideas we had in mind for our Fix You poster. 

• The first picture - The idea here is to print out lots of plain white t shirts, cut and stick on a piece of card so they they overlap each other, then splatter pain all over the t shirts but cover up certain parts of the t shirts so that they don't get paint on, and once pealed of will say 'Fix You' 'Cold Play'. This idea link with our music video as the main idea on the music video is that the characters wear plan white t shirts with paint on, and the paint represents the depression affecting the charters.
• The second picture - This poster shows a noose tied  to a tree with a plain white t-shit danging from it. We thought of using a plain white t shirt rather than a colourful one as we wanted to show that from the public's point of view you cannot see the depression an individual may be feeling and from the outside they look as though they are functioning normally, despite the fact they're dying inside.

Our final Decision and why:

• After a group discussion we decided to go with poster one. We felt that the second image was maybe a bit too dark and morbid for our music video as we were trying to focus on the happy parts of the music video such as at the end when Charlie and Annabel meet and the depression decreases. Like in the music video we wanted to show that mental health issues can be helped and seem like less of an issue over time rather than resulting in a form of suicide. 
• 

The images above are a rough template of what we want our digipak to look like. The idea for our digipak is to have it mainly plain white with nothing but the a few paint splatters and the album title and the song names on the back. The idea of having it white is so the person who has purchased the album can colour the album in themselves however their heart desires. We thought this was a cool idea as art such as colouring is often used as a form of therapy for mental health issues such as depression. 

Images taken whilst making the poster: 

Above are images I have taken during the construction of our poster. He you can see what use paint brushes to flick the paint onto the tshirts, The final picture was taken just after the poster had dried and we had taken of the black letters that covered up the words 'Fix you' and 'Cold Play'.

I then took a picture of the the cardboard and uploaded the picture to Photoshop where I cropped out all the grey background, used a brightening affect to make the paint stand out and I also added added some text and images to the poster. 

Characters and Casting

Originally we looked at using one male character and one female character for our media product as we felt this would help reach out to the target audience as people are often interested in a media product especially if there is the opportunity for a romantic storyline to be created. However, when we looked into the issues of mental health more and we thought about the idea with more depth we decided that we wanted to use two male characters as the lead roles because we were made aware that it is males who are more likely to suffer from depression and keep it from their friends and family. Our media group wanted to raise awareness to this and we felt that by using two male characters who would then open up to each other about how they are feeling it would help approach the target audience in a way that they would also become educated about the situation.

Character Profiles:

Name: Charlie Frazer
Age: 18
Why we chose him: Charlie has a lot of acting experience and isn't shy on camera and this means that it is easier for our final media product to look more professional. He also attends the same sixth from as us, studying drama, and this meant that it was easy to sort out a time for us to film and will be easy to pick him up and get him to the location we wish to film.

Name: Callum O'Brien
Age: 17
Why we chose him: Callum is a student at a performing arts college which proves that he is a good performer and we hope this will increase the professional look of our music video. Once again he also lives fairly local to the members of our media group and this makes it practical for him to be in our music video.


 Costumes and their meaning:

The main aspect of our idea for the music video is that we want the characters to be wearing white t-shirts and then there will be brightly coloured paint thrown onto the t-shirts to represent the depression and mental illness. Some days there will be more paint as part of the costume and other days there will be less paint as part of the costume and this symbolises how people with mental illnesses have some days where there feel worse than others. We are also looking at having the bottom half of their clothing dark colours, black, so that the white top and the paint stands out.

How will we source the costumes?

Each media group was giving an allowance to buy whatever they needed in order to make their idea for the media product work. As a result of this we were able to buy 10 adult sized white t-shirts and all of the brightly coloured paint with our allowance.

Final Locations

This is a picture of Wymondham town centre, this is where we will film our time lapses, we are going to pick a busy time and day such as when the market is on as we will get more people in our time lapse which will look more effective and will mean we don't have to film for quite so long. We will effectively create an effective mise-en-scene if we get the right weather (hopefully quite bright) and also lots of people empathise that despite the many people around the characters they both feel so isolated and lonely.

This three pictures are taken in Annie's house which is the location where we will be filming Charlie's part. The house is currently being redecorated but I think the rundown house will will symbolise Charlies life, the unkept look of the house relates so Charlies illness how he hasn't got the energy to do everyday task such as tidy and decorate the house (fatigue and lack of motivation are side effects of depression). 

This scruffy house will be a great contrast to the other location where the girl will live, the house we are using for that footage is not under reconstruction so looks more normal. We are hoping that it suggests to the audience that mental health issues can effect anyone despite the fact their life may seem perfect to everyone else on the outside. 

These three images are taken from inside my house where we are hoping to film the female part. Both my house and Annie's house are not overly busy homes; there is not too much decor or bright colours which would take away from the message and concept we are trying to portray which is good. 

Update

We have had to adapt our idea recently as have fallen slightly behind on the time schedule. The last time we filmed it was dark and cold, with the weather conditions affecting the camera, the footage we managed to get looks amateur and so therefore we will need to try again. Instead of basing our idea on a romantic relationship between man and woman, we will focus on a friendship between two men based on the actors we can get hold of at such short notice. Also, instead of going into Norwich to film we will film in local areas such as Wymondham and Attleborough because the time it takes to get to Norwich takes up valuable filming time. We will try filming again early next week hopefully to be finished by Friday and then we have one week to edit before the deadline.

Chronological Key History Of Music Video

• 1930 - Music started to be used in films which made the experience of watching the film more enjoyable, this was the first sort of music videos that where seen, however they were very different to the music videos that we have become used to today.
  
• 1940 - Short clips with music were showed on TV that featured jazz bands of the time, this was the first live performance style music video that was shown and could be an inspiration for the music videos we see today.

• 1965 - The beetles began to release promotional music videos before they released the song/album to help promote sales of the album. This is an early example of how extra ways such as shooting a video can help to increase the profits from an album and that success isn't solely about the music or performance. 

• 1974 - MTV was introduced, the first time a channel solely dedicated to just showing music videos was on television and at the time was the only way that people could watch a music video, this allowed people to be introduced to more genres of music.

• 1983 - One of the earliest narrative music videos was released; Michael Jackson's Thriller  - one of the longest music videos that has ever been made to date and was and is still incredibly popular.

• 2005 - Developments in technology led to the invention of online sites such as YouTube and iTunes where people were able to stream music videos fro free or have them on their personal devices. These are now the most common ways to watch a music video.

Consumption Of Music Video

The impact of modern technology especially the internet has greatly impacted the way people consumer music videos. there are now more platforms to watch videos due to the inventions of smart phones, tablets and laptops which can be used constantly on the go. Most people in the United Kingdom own some kind of portable device that allows them to watch videos for free whilst connected to the internet via WiFi or wireless internet, people no longer have to make time to watch music videos on television as they can easily watch them anywhere they go.

There are many ways nowadays to consumer music videos such as, purchasing them through the apple store or other music stores, music channels on the TV, or on the internet through websites such as YouTube. YouTube is currently the most popular way to consumer music videos. This is because it is cheap and an easy way to get hold of a music video just through the click of a button. YouTube also comes up with suggests of familiar genre music videos it also shows the current trending music videos which gets viewers hooked into watching music videos. 

Success Of Music Video

What constitutes 'success' for a particular media ext in music videos?
There is such a variety of music videos out there for everyone to consume and  I don't think there is a certain area of success that constitutes a good music video, however, the most successful music videos all seem to share similar aspects.

• Inclusion of a linear narrative - This is very common in music videos often when coincided with  a live band. A music videos usually involves a short film within the videos. This gives the audience and understanding of the meaning behind the lyrics and also helps the viewer to gain an emotional attachment to the song, both of these points help make the song become more memorable to the viewer.
• Inclusion of a band performance - This often coincides with the linear narrative. It helps to fill in empty spaces in the narrative to let the viewers mind wander to interpret the music video as they wish.  Having a live band helps keep the audience engages. With this engagement it can seem like a live performance with inclusion of a band. 
• The length/duration of a music video - On average a music video lasts aorund 2-4 minutes, this time is just long enough to keep the viewer engaged, any longer and the viewer may get bored and switch to another song. On the other hand, if the song is too short the viewer may not fully grasp an understanding on the song and may get confused with the video and equally not listen to the song again so it's all about getting the right balance.

Filming review 1 video

Location Research

Here are photos of some location ideas around Wymondham where we could film. Our idea at the moment  has some places where the character is walking alone, so we looked at some walking routes and scenic places in Wymondham we could potentially use.

Attleborough -

Here are some other options for places we will film. We are undecided whether to film in Attleborough or Wymondham or a combination of both.

I have considered weather conditions preferably we want to film on bright days so that the paint seems more bright and visible, however even if it is a rainy day I think it would emphasis the dullness of Charlies and Annie's lives as they walk down the roads, the rain could symbolise the issues raining down on them all the time. However 50% of the music video will be filmed inside a house and inside a pub so even if the weather it really bad and we are unable to film we can film the outside parts on separate days when the whether is nicer. Also, for the end scene where Callum and Charlie are walking down the road we would like it to be sunny to represent the happiness and fresh start of their lives. 

We have emailed a few pubs in Wymondham to ask for their permission to film in their pubs and to film from behind their bar so hopefully one will get back to us giving us permission, if not we will have to rethink our idea slightly. 

We have chosen to film in Wymondham and Attleborough as both our actors have easy access to these locations such as a bus or walking as Callum, Charlie, Annie, Molly all live around these areas. 

Casting

For our music video we need a boy and girl around the age of 18. We thought this is a good age because Mental health issues such as depression are becoming increasingly popular in teenagers. Our music video is going to target teens and hopefully by using teenagers as our actors the viewers may be able to relate to the video and understand they're not alone. 


We have got in touch with two actors who are wiling to be the characters in our music video. Callum O'brian and Chloe Diggines. Callum is 18 and does performing arts at college and has preformed at a range of different locations including the West end and The Norwich Theatre Royal and Chloe is 17 and does drama as an a level, due to these reasons we thought they would be able to create believable characters for our music video.