Final Cut

What will I do for my ancillary product?

After analysing a number of artist's CD covers/magazine adverts, I have found that the Metal genre focuses on artwork and the Folk genre focuses on picture image and/or the artist.
With this information I have an idea to mix the two conventions, on my CD cover I plan to not have the artists but also not have artwork, whilst retaining conventions of both genres. I will have a picture from the last moment of the music video as the front cover of the CD, as it links to the song and keeps with the conventions of both the genres. 

Ancillary Product Research - Magazine Advert Analysis (Joe Bugg)

The artist is the main focus in the shot, a convention in the folk genre. The background shows a row of old terrace houses and a narrow empty road, 

In the top right corner is the artists name, it is a very simple design - common with folk musicians as they rarely have extravagant artwork and prefer simpler designs.
On the poster is the album cover, this shows what the album looks like so people can clearly recognise it.

Ancillary Product Research - Magazine Advert Analysis (Metallica)

The advert shows the set list of the album on either side of the main artwork, this means that if anyone had heard a song at a live performance then they would be able to see that it is on the album.
The advert uses the artwork of the album, which will make it easier for the audience to find the CD when it is released, as well as being visually striking.
The bands name is shown in green to contrast to the background of the advert, this makes it stand out and easy to see.
The advert is entirely artwork and has no picture image or band members on it, this is a convention of the genre to focus more on artwork than picture image.

Ancillary Product Research - CD Cover Analysis (Seth Lakeman)

The artist is the focus of the CD cover, this is a common theme with a lot of folk music to have the artist or band on the cover. Another convention of the genre is to have countryside landscapes in the background or sometimes to be the main focus, this is shown in the cover above. The artists name and the title of the CD are in a simple font and in the corner, this contrasts with other genres which often have bold titles that take up a large amount of space and have more focus on them.

Ancillary Product Research - CD Cover Analysis (Metallica)

The dark colours used are a convention of the heavy metal genre. This is supported by the focus on the crosses, which have a strong connotation of death: another convention of heavy metal genre.

The common theme of white between the crosses and the band name suggest that they have religious themes in their music, as well as themes of death. These are both conventions of heavy metal.

The background could either be a sunrise or sunset, a beginning or an end. This could have a link to the lyrics in the title song, and would be aimed at the target audience (the fans of the band) who would pick up on this detail.

Ancillary Product Research - Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is a rule which states that an off-centre point of interest is more pleasing to the eye than if it was in the middle of the field of view. This is done by placing two horizontal lines and two vertical lines across the frame, creating nine equal size boxes. The rule states that if a point of interest is on one of the lines then it is more pleasing to the eye than if it was elsewhere, for example:

In the picture above the statue of liberty is lined up over the right side vertical line and the horizon is lined up over the lower horizontal line.

Positioning of information on a poster advert or magazine page can be aided by the Rule of Thirds. The place where the lines cross is called hotspots. Hotspots are areas where the audience looks more than most other areas, so these are the areas to put the most important information or images.

A good example of a poster using the rule of thirds is shown below.

It has positioned the main focus (in this case the firing target) over all of the four hotspots, with the centre of the main focus being in the middle of all of the hotspots. The red line indicates the general path of view of the audience. This can be important when placing important information such as titles, names, or in the case of my ancillary products, the title song.

Ancillary Product Plan

Before I start to create my ancillary products I am going to research what real artists have done for their album covers and their magazine adverts to find conventions of the genre and to get a general idea of what I will be aiming for.

Because my chosen song is a heavy metal cover of a traditional folk song I will look at examples from each genre for each ancillary product. This will hopefully allow me to create a hybrid album cover and a magazine advert that have conventions of both genres. 

First cut

Because of issues with exporting my first cut I will post my final cut and mention areas that where not completed or that I changed in my first cut.

• The shot of the guitar right at the end of the video was added after because I was not able to use the footage I had already filmed and I had to fill in the 5 second gap.
• The first cut was 5:05 and there was large gaps between shots, to make a better video with the footage and time I had at my disposal I chose to cut the video down to 3:23 instead.
• The solo section was incomplete because the guitarist who I was filming could not learn it in time so I used footage of the main character hitting Molly.
• I changed the effect from black and white on top of cool steel, to just cold steel, because on the scene at the start where the main character is walking up the hill the scene behind him in the shot was bright white and it was not possible to see the hills or the houses.

Editing Update 1

Filming Update 2

Filming Update

Risk Assessment

Here is my risk assessment for the filming of my A2 media project, there are only four incidents that have a reasonable chance to occur when filming my music video.

In the first section the risk priority is medium, because being hit by a car can result in death. However, we have specifically chosen a quiet road and have chosen to film during school hours. The road we will use is the road into the school and we had clear view all of the way down both roads for at least fifty metres, this would allow ample time to move out of the way safely if a car approaches us.

Detailed Planning - Location

Detailed Planning - Actors, Costume and Props

Final Song Choice

My final choice for the song I will use will be Metallica's version of ''Whiskey In The Jar''. I have chosen this because Metallica's music video had no reference to the lyrics of the song (Metallica's video below):

Because of this I believe it will be easy to avoid copying or seeming similar to their video, as my music video will have a strong link between the lyrics and the visuals.

Draft Shooting Script Feedback

This is the feedback I received for my draft shooting script, I will improve my final shooting script by using as much of the suggestions in my feedback as possible.

Shooting Script (Handwritten Draft)

This is the draft shooting script that I created with the intentions of getting feedback for my initial plan for the music video:

Artist Research

Permission Request: An Email To Metallica

Here is the email I sent to Metallica and the reply that I received, which confirmed I was allowed to use Metallica's song in my music video:

My first song choice

I have decided that my first choice of song is Metallica's cover of Whiskey In The Jar (below)

This is because all of the feedback I received during my potential ideas feedback said that this would be the best idea out of the four possible ideas I had pitched.

I personally thought that this was my weakest idea, however after receiving feedback for each of my pitches I found that Satellite and Whiskey In The Jar received the most positive comments.

Audience research

Here is the link to my survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/MPVY7Y3

I will use this survey to gather information about my target audience and make a post on the gathered results.

Potential ideas update and summary

From my potential ideas I have chosen to use my alternative song for the first band, Whiskey In The Jar by Metallica. I have chosen this song because the audience I presented my ideas to strongly recommended I used this song as it was my most developed idea and was the most promising.

Potential Ideas Feedback

Below is a picture of the rough notes that I took as I was gathering feedback on my potential ideas:

Potential Idea 1 (Alternative): Whiskey In the Jar

After I created my first potential idea post, I then found another song by the same artist which I thought would be an easier and better alternative.

Potential Idea 3: Satellite

Potential Idea 2: Forever

Potential Idea 1: Nothing Else Matters

Preparing for potential ideas

For my potential ideas I am planning to pick three different artists that I am familiar with and choose a song from each artist that I feel I will be able to create a product on.

I will then present each idea with the original music video to compare my ideas (showing differences and similarities between my ideas and the original) to an audience to gather feedback from a range of people. Each song and its presentation will have its own post on my blog.

The task so far

This is just a quick progress check to see how I am doing with the course.

How have you found your timekeeping and organisation?
In all honesty I could significantly improve my timekeeping, as I have noticed that I am not giving myself enough time to do tasks. I plan to improve on this by making sure that any posts I am given are started if not finished the night I am given them.

What have you leant that will help you plan your product?
I have learnt that I should plan around the resources and actors that I have at my disposal rather than a high concept idea. This will help me to get organised on what I have and what I need to get for my filming.

What research task do you think has been the most useful, and why?
I think that the Andrew Goodwin's theory research has been the most beneficial as it is something completely new to me that I did not know previous, whilst I knew a fair amount of information already on genre research and although I had not heard of the theories specifically I already knew the concept for Todorov and Barthes theories.

Todorov's Theory and Barthes Theory

Applying Goodwin's Theory: Rock

Applying Goodwin's Theory: Metal

Applying Goodwin's Theory: Pop

Genre Research: Pop and Rock

Andrew Goodwins Theory

Andrew Goodwin's theory is that music videos are a genre themselves, and that they usually follow six main characteristics (shown above).

Initial Thoughts

I am looking forward to creating my music video and it seems like it will be a rather enjoyable task, however, the editing and some of the more technical aspects of filming (cinematography and creating the correct representation of that genre) might cause some difficulty or make more time and effort have to be put into filming. I am rather anxious as this year I will be working on my own and the prospect of filming and editing a music video on my own is daunting. I will try my best to create a good product.

What Is To Come

Group or not to group? That is the question...

Reflecting On My AS Course