Photoshoot - Miss Geourgiou

I have taken a selection of pictures to use for my magazine advert and digipak. These will promote and advertise the artist to her audience so will need to portray her in a light that will be conventional to her and the genre as well as appealing to the audience. It is important to include a variety of pictures so there are a lot to choose from when editing.

The first few pictures I took where of my artist standing against a brick wall looking up to the side and looking down.I chose to take these pictures because the artist looking away from the camera which creates an effect that she is reflecting and reminiscing on her life. This is typical of the indie genre because indie artists tend to write their own music about personal subjects and so singing them would be a way to reflect. This will help the audience build a relationship with the artist because they will develop a level of trust and closeness through the artist sharing their personal experiences with them. I intend to use this image on my digipak front cover because I think a mid shot will work well here as the audience can see the artist at closer detail than they will in the advert whereby the image will be more of a long shot. However, because the artist is looking away she is not directly addressing the audience. This means that there is more to her that she is not revealing which will make her appear mysterious and the audience want to find out more about her.

ADD OTHER BRICK PICTURE

On the same day I also took this picture of my artist standing against the fence in her back garden with leaves wrapped around the wood. This is be a mid shot and so allows the audience to see the artists entire costume which allows the artists indie style to come across. This will also portray the artist as both down to earth and natural. Indie artists typically have a natural and stripped back style as they are not dressed up as much as artists in mainstream genres such as pop. Having a natural setting puts emphasise on this as well as the fact that the artist is down to earth and laid back.  This allows the audience to build a relationship with the artist as they believe that she is being herself and remaining modest despite her fame which makes her likeable, I am considering using this image on my magazine advert as it is simple and so will not be too busy paired with the writing on the advert.

ADD PICTURE

These picture were taken on the same day at the local fields. One is of the artist walking across a bridge and the other shows her sitting by a tree. I like these pictures because they continue the natural connotations. The natural background of the greenery further highlights how the artist is very natural and down to earth. I will use these pictures in my digipak as an inside image. They will appear very simplistic as there will be no writing over the images and so the audiences focus will be directed onto the image itself and its connotations.

ADD PICTURES

I found it very useful organising days in which I would take the photographs as it meant I could organise my thoughts and get as many of my ideas turned into pictures at once. Therefore I had the majority of my photographs relatively early on in editing and so was able to incorporate them into my magazine advert and digipak.

Meetings & Discussions

It is important to meet regularly with your group so you can discuss and share ideas as well as making sure that every member understands the aims and how everybody in the group is going to achieve them. My group organised our time to fit around lesson times. Each lesson we would discuss our music video, what we had to redo and film next.

Date	Action	To be done by	By whom	Discussions
15.09.14	To decide on an artist and a song	15.09.14	All group members	Various ideas were discussed and a mindmap was created by the group. Eventually we decided on creating a music video by Gabrielle Aplinand the song panic cord
16/09/14	Applying for music copyrights	16/09/14	By All group members	We were asked to find out the contact details of our artists record label and email them asking for permission to use the song in our music video to prevent us breaching the copyright act
22/09/14	Lyric Analysis	22/09/14	All group members	We were asked to analyse the lyrics of the song we are using ‘panic cord’ and incorporate it into the video we are using, this allowed us to have ideas that related to the lyrics and truly understand what the artist meant by the song
23/09/14	Planning Mise-en-Scene	23/09/14	All group members	For this lesson we was made to plan the mise en scene we was going to use in our video (eg. Character positioning, camera shots, setting, costume, facial expression/body language) this allowed us to plan for our video and make sure we do not miss out planning any key details.
25/09/14	Planning Cinematography	25/09/14	All group members	For this we decided which camera shots we would use, for example we will use lots of close ups to show off the artist and help the audience memorise her face and therefore help her create a relationship with her audience. We will also use long shots to show what is happening in the scene and show the surroundings of her, showing she has nothing to hide.
29/09/14	Planning Artist Image	29/09/14	All group members	We want our artist to be represented in a way which will make her seem more down to earth and likeable to our audience, this will help her create a relationship with them, this will be based off artists like Nina Nesbitt and Gabrielle Aplin
30/09/14	Planning editing Styles	30/09/14	All group members	For editing styles we decided that we would use fast editing for filler shots when the speed of the music increases, these intrigues the audience and keeps them engaged due to the change in tempo, exciting the audience as they are used to the slow tempo of the song. Also we will use shot reverse shot when the boyfriend and artist are talking to each other, this allows the audience to see the artist and boyfriends emotions during the scenes, allowing the audience to see what the mood of the scene is and be able to relate to the artist as they feel they know her better due to being able to tell what she is feeling without her speaking
13/10/14	Group Storyboards	13/10/14	All group members	For the storyboard we all got together and discussed how long each shot would be, the editing style and camera shot that would be used and drew a rough image of it, this allowed us to all understand what we needed to do for filming and help us all know what is next to film and make the video feel more professional as it was sorted what was coming after what, helping us know what needed as a group
14/10/14	Filming Schedule	14/10/14	All group members	The filming schedule allowed us to know what days were being used to film what and who would be able to make it, by doing this we was able to keep certain days free and make the filming more efficient and organised between us
16/10/14	Risk Assessment	16/10/14	All group members	We got together and created a risk assessment to make sure that the public and filming crew were all safe from harm, we covered all possible risks, from low impact to high, allowing us to prepare for our video and film in a safe environment where we knew what to do to prevent possible injuries
28/09/14-17/10/14	Filming Music Video	17/10/14	All group members	Our group filmed different scenes for our music video to edit in lesson, we tried filming mostly in rural locations although we did mix it up and do shots in London as well, preventing the audience from getting too bored of the same setting constantly.
11/11/14	Photoshoot	11/11/14	All group members	The photoshoot was used to get photos for our digipak, we done this by going to a field and taking different shots from different angles and areas, allowing us to get multiple pictures for our digipak.
15/12/14	Music Video Rough Cut	15/12/14	All group members	The rough cut was made to help us briefly understand what was needed within our music video and if we needed anymore shots to help it be more conventional to the indie genre and therefore appeal more to our target audience

I believe that my group did work well together because we all contributed different ideas and played different roles in filming and editing. It was beneficial to keep track of what was discussed at each meeting because it prevented us from forgetting any ideas and allowed us to plan what to work on next.

Individual Magazine Advert Analysis - Miss Georgiou

I have created a magazine advert for my artist to promote her and her upcoming album. The advert allows me to create connotations about the artist so the audience will have an idea of what the artists music style is and know what to expect from the album.

I have decided to keep my advert mostly black and white because it is very simplistic so will not give too much away to the audience so will leave them wanting to know more. Simplicity is also conventional to the indie genre because artists tend to have very simple and natural images and stripped back acoustic music. Indie artists do not wear bright and bold colours like those in mainstream music genres such as pop. Instead they wear simplistic yet quirky clothes which is what I am trying to get across in my advert. It also makes the small use of colour stand out. I only subtly used one colour. I have used blue for the background of my advert which is of clouds. The clouds create connotations of the artists mind being muddled and confused which suggests she does not know what she wants.This is conventional because it is the subject matter for my chosen song. 

The opacity of the blue is turned down so it blends in with the black and white and does not stand out too much. Blue has connotations of sadness which is relevant to the theme of my chosen song as it is about breakups. It also portrays loneliness which will link in with the clouds of the background as it suggest that the artist may feel lonely due to her confusion and alone in her thoughts. I have also used mostly simple fonts to make the advert clear and bold for the audience so the advert is easy to interpret as a whole as it is not too busy or complicated. I used one image on my advert. The image is of the artist looking up to the side which is conventional to the indie genre as artists are often seen as reflective and reminiscent. This is because artists of this music genre commonly song write about their own personal experiences as a way to reflect on their lives and learn.

Overall, I think my advert has conformed to the conventions of the indie genre as it holds many connotations about the artists life and that is the main focus rather than what the artist looks like or is wearing like that of mainstream genres. Instead this advert has been kept single and you cannot see the artists full body and she is not placed in the centre of the advert but top the side. She is looking up to the side which directs the audience to see what she is looking about and wonder why she is looking up. The audience may also wonder what the significance of the clouds are and so their attention is focused on the connotations created.

I used Photoshop to create this advert which I found both useful and difficult. I struggled with cutting and blending images because it was hard to make it look realistic. I cut around the image of the artist to paste it onto the background of clouds.When doing this at first the picture of the artist looked unevenly cut and I had to use the blending tool to make it look as though it was one picture. I found this difficult because it was time consuming and still did not look realistic. After a few attempts though, I managed to blur the images together evenly.The easier tools on Photoshop include the layering and colour effects. It did not take long to change the colours, opacity and to layer the images. This was useful because it made up the majority of my advert.

I think my advert conforms to my genres conventions because it has many connotations and it has been kept simple. As my chosen artist is in the indie genre it is assumed that she is relatively unknown. Therefore her audience will not know much about her and so this advert appeals to them because it does not give much away and will make them want to find out more.