Magazine Advert - Ancillary (1)

This is our rough copy of the first ancillary task (the magazine advert). We will soon be getting student feedback from other people in our class to see what aspects of the magazine advert we need to change or keep the same. We won't be using the photos that we have used in the magazine advert, as we our booking to go to a modelling agency to get our main actress (Emma) to have photos taken for ancillary tasks. We are also getting props to take to the modelling agency to ensure that we get the right style of photos that relate to our theme for the song.

As you can see we have added aspects such as, magazine ratings and tour dates to make it look like a real magazine advert for the song. However, as it is a rough copy there are a lot of alterations necessary before we create the final copy of the magazine advert. We've kept the style related to the original styling of the Katy Perry song, for example, we have used candy floss for the background and bright colours for the titles. The photos, when we have them taken, will be fun and energetic with use of props like giant lollipops, glitter/confetti and bright coloured clothing.

Practise for Section of Music Video

Recently, we have been trying to practise for a section of our music video that we are wanting to do, including us being in the car and whilst driving filming us singing to our chosen song of 'California Gurls'. We got the inspiration for this part of the song from the song 'Mama Lover'. The music video for this song is three girls driving in a car, and we thought this would be a great aspect to include, to show the journey at the start of the video to ensure it stays consistent throughout. I have posted the video below, to provide our inspiration for this part of the music video. The video is quite explicit including the girls showing their underwear, however we will obviously not include these parts, and will make it relevant to our music video.



Below is a photo that we took of the equipment that we used whilst in the car including the camera and the tripod. We found it very difficult to create this part, and will need a few more attempts using different strategies, to ensure that the shot is clear and does not show 'shaking' of the camera, which has happened on all our attempts of trying to film.

Logo Ideas

As we are going to be making a logo for our ancillary tasks, we decided to look at different logos from artists that are currently popular. We also looked at artists that would link to our genre of video, and the type of artist that we are using. For example, Katy Perry uses a logo that includes 'girly' colours and fonts. This shows off her personality of being bold and confident.

 



Demi Lovato's logo is very simple, but we thought this was really effective. However, as you will notice it doesn't stand out as well as the Katy Perry logo, and also shows she is slightly less confident.

Lady Gaga's logo we decided, was a great contrasting logo as it shows her 'feisty' side and shows she is a lot more outgoing and individual compared to Demi Lovato. It is still very simple as it is just plain black, however it stands out a lot and shows off her personality.

Clothing Ideas for Dancers

Alice and I have used a site called 'Polyvore' to find a range of clothing and beauty ideas for the dancers in our music video to create a bright and colourful image, and give across a 'fun' look to the audience. Below is the collage that I have created to help us get some ideas for it. Alice has also created another on her blog site. As you can see, it includes crop tops, bright cami tops, glittery shorts and bralets and other bright beauty products, such as nail varnish and lipstick.

Location & Props for the Chorus

Today I have taken photographs of the location of where we will be filming the dance routine for the chorus of our music video. Currently it doesn't look related to our theme as the school is showing their Christmas production however, when we set up the location for the dress rehearsals and the filming for our music video, it will be decorated to our theme. Below you will see a panorama shot of the location and also a collage of individual shots. Obviously, the tables that you see in the photos will not be present, as the only part of the room we will be using is the stage, and this will be decorated, so that nobody will be able to tell that it is a school hall stage. 

 Here is a screen shot of the balloons we will be purchasing off of eBay for our decorations. We will be ordering 50 of these, and with that we recieve free curling ribbon, so we can either place the balloons in the floor or let them float around the dancers. We will also have the choice of filling them with helium or oxygen. We shall also be sourcing out a green screen to place behind the dancers with a simple shot projected on it. We also have this photo below as an idea (brighter in person).

Also, we will be sourcing something for the floor from the drama department at our school to link in with the theme of the pink clouds for the back drop, such as a white glittery material to give the impression of the dancers 'being on the clouds'. 

Letter for Year 11 Dancers

As we have decided for the chorus of our music video, we will be using a dance routine with the use of different backdrops and decorations, I have written a letter that we will be sending out to the Year 11 dance group to ask if they are interested in taking part. Below is a copy of the letter that we will be sending. We have put the school logo in the corner of the letter to make it look more formal.

 

Dear Year 11 Dancers,

We are currently creating our A2 Music video for our Media Studies Course, and would love to ask you if you would like to be involved in the making of it. We are using the song ‘California Gurls’ by Katy Perry and have already filmed certain parts of the music video. However, for the chorus of the song we came up with the idea of having a group of dancers wearing bright clothing, makeup etc., with an exciting background to relate to the original version on the music video.                                           

As the deadline for our music video is around the start of February, we would like to ask you if you would be available (if interested), just after we come back to school after the Christmas holidays. If you are interested, the task would involve creating a dance to the chorus of the song, which lasts around 25 seconds that we can then repeat for each chorus throughout the song. We thought the idea of using the original dance moves would be really clever for us to use, and also easier for you. Some of the year 13 dancers, will be helping us with the production of the dance, and we should be using the school hall to do this. If anyone has any bright, glittery or outgoing clothing it would be really helpful to fit with the genre of the song, and also we will be doing bright and glittery makeup on the day of filming, so it should be exciting!! There will be different back drops and decorations to deal with so please take this into account, and also it will involve staying after school to do ‘rehearsals’ and the actual filming of it. We hope that it won’t take too many attempts to record the actual footage, but we hope that you’ll be available on the days that we will be filming. It shouldn’t take too much of your time, and if you are not available on a certain day for filming we will be able to re-arrange.                                                                                                                          

We hope that you will all be interested; it is a great thing to put on CV’s and references, and will be a lot of help for us for our Media A-Level. If you are interested, please get in touch with Toniey at tonieysalt@hotmail.com and I will create a list of people who will be taking part. Once I know the numbers, I will give out a schedule of when we will be creating the dance, rehearsing and the actual filming.

Thank you we hope you will be interested,

Toniey, Alice and Amy.

Ancillary Task experiment (A2)

Originally, we were going to do a digi-pack and a magazine advert for our ancillary tasks. However, when doing some research for our ancillary tasks we were advised to look at a website called 'Wix' where people can make websites for basically anything. So we are currently experimenting with homepage templates on the website, to see if we would prefer to do this ancillary task instead of a magazine advert.

This is one of the templates that I quite liked the look of, and so have started to 'play' around with the editing features, to plan and research the different aspects that I can change on the website. Below is the practise/experimental piece I have created from the 'Wix' website (which is currently very basic), it is very 'girly' at the moment however, it links well with the song and the actress' personality. It includes aspects such as, social networking links which we will ensure link to a specific facebook and twitter page for our media, if we do create a website homepage for one of our ancillary tasks. It also has the 'download on iTunes' logo and if we use the website, we will have the song playing when the website is opened.