Our Audience's Media Habits

According to a survey from the American Press Institute published in the spring of 2010, teenagers have changed drastically in their media content over the last few years. These graphs show just how some teenagers chose to spend their media time.

This graph shows the change in the number of hours teenagers spend on various media products. The graph shows the change between the ages of 8 to 18 which is slightly below the age of our intended audience, from 2004 to 2009, on a typical day. The main rise has been in audio/music content with a rise of +47 hours. This is good for us as our medium for our project is a music video, however this graph is unclear about whether this is listening to music or viewing music videos as well as listening to the songs.



 

This graph shows the percentage of teens between the ages of 12-17, an ideal age range for our video, of whom use their media devices to access online content. 93% of those surveyed said that they used a laptop or desktop computer to access online applications.

 

This rise in ownership of media platforms between the ages of 8-18, which is again slightly lower in age range to our intended audience, with most owning a MP3 player or iPod. Although all have increased since 2004, laptop has increased the lowest. This is possibly due to the large technological development in MP3 players and phones in the 5 year period.

 



The second largest media time spent by 8-18 year olds was music and/or audio. Although again this is slightly out of our target audience age range, it shows that people still enjoy listening to music and this is good news for our project of a music video.

 

It was from the following web address that I found this survey and its results:

http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/docs/foundation/research/fitting_into_their_lives.pdf

Key Locations of our Video

In our music video the key location for us was bedroom where the sisters had a safe haven. Many films have used a bedroom as a key location, and a bed as a key prop. 

One key scene which involves the use of a bedroom is Katy Perry's music video for her song 'Friday Night'. Although most of the action takes place at the house next door, the video begins and ends with the bedroom, it shows it to be a key location. 

Another key film which uses the bedroom as a key scene is 'Misery' staring Kathy Bates. The film itself is based in a bedroom and this therefore adds to the location being a key scene. 

Second Cut of Music Video

After showing the second cut of our music video to my mum, she gave us some positive feedback, and some criticism. She said that overall the video was good and it had a good and clear storyline, however some of the shots we had filmed showed Libby smiling when she should have been sad, and at some points both Libby and myself were looking at the camera. We have decided to re-film the ending, to show the idea of the running away being a dream, and also to re-film Libby's lip-syncing as she smiled when we filmed it the first time. 

Comparing our video to Colbie Caillat's

Another country artist who we wanted to influence our video was Colbie Caillat. She is like Taylor Swift, in which she also plays the guitar and is a country singer. Her video 'Bubbly' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWGqoCNbsvM) also links in with Taylor Swift's as most of her videos are about relationships and often they end with a happily ever after. 

Like Taylor Swift, Caillat's video for 'Bubbly' includes a few close ups of her. We haven't used many close ups in our video, and the only time your really see the face of the sisters, is when we added the green screening image to the image of the sister sleeping. 

Like Taylor Swift, Colbie Caillat uses the idea of bright and vivid colours, which we again used in our video. The use of bright and vivid colours helps to emphasis the happiness and tone of the video, however in ours it is only there to show happier times. 

Comparing our video to Taylor Swift's

Our song we have chosen is 'Safe and Sound' by Taylor Swift. She has also made many other music videos for her songs. Mainly she sticks with the country genre to her music and most of her songs involve a guitar being one of the main instruments.

For example her song, 'Our Song' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb2stN7kH28) involves a jazzy and upbeat guitar solo to begin the song. However unlike our video Taylor Swift's are normally more upbeat and lively. In her video she is in bright colours which match the theme of the song. In the shot below she is dressed in bright colours and surrounded by brightly coloured petals.

We chose to add in a splash of colour into our video for the flashbacks. Although in our video this is to show a happier memory for the sisters, it still links in with the original ideas from Taylor Swift's videos.

Also in the video for her song 'Back To December', (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eocfbbyIUn8&feature=relmfu) she plays on the idea of reality and dreams, by having snow appear in doors. Although in our video we haven't gone that far and that dramatic, we have used the idea of what is real and what is just a dream. 

Techniques in our video and other films

In our video we use the Black and White colour effect tool to make our video seem more depressing. The 1993 film 'Schindler's List' is completely in black and white. Although the film itself was based on the second world war which gives a sense of depression to its self to begin with, by using the black and white colour effect the depression and isolation of the Jews, is felt more by the audience.

The Michael Jackson 'Thriller' video uses a collection of dull colours when we see the zombies, yet when we see Michael Jackson himself, he is dressed in a bright red suit, which makes him the main focus of the video. In our video we use the bright colours only once, and that is when we show our flashbacks. In the flashbacks the sisters are wearing brightly coloured clothing which adds to the idea of them being happier.

In our video we have used the idea of split screening, to show the parents arguing and the sisters trying to forget the arguing by playing with the little sisters hair. This adds to the idea of the relationship between the sisters. In films the most common use of split screening is for filming one actor or actress who has been cast in the role of identical twins. For example in the 1998 remake of the 1961 film 'The Parent Trap', Lindsey Lohan played the roles of identical twins Hallie and Annie. The film used split screening to be able to cast the actress as both twins. Although this is completely the opposite of our reason for using split screen, the film does show a very close relationship between the two sisters.

Dreams and Reality and how this links to our video

In our video we play on the idea of the sisters dreaming of a better life, and yet how all they get is the reality of a war at home. Dreams and reality can often become twisted in films and TV series. In our video we plan to shot a final scene showing that the sisters running away is actually just a dream that the little sister had thought up. Dreams play a big part in the 2010 thriller film 'Shutter Island'.

In the film the main character Edward "Teddy" Daniels, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, has a dream sequence concerning his dead wife Dolores. The whole film itself is a psychological thriller, which plays on the concepts of dreams and reality, which leaves the reader confused as to what is real and what is not.

We have chosen to add this concept to our video by the use of colour changing effects. We have used flashbacks to show happier times for the sisters, and this is to give the impression of something being almost to good to be real, considering the situation the sisters find themselves in now. This we will also be playing with when we shoot our final scene with Libby waking up, to prove the running away was all a dream, and they are stuck in the warring reality.

Broken Homes and how this links to our video

In our video we are using the idea of a broken family and a broken home. This idea has been used in many films and TV programs before. They use many features that we have also used in our video. In our video we have many shots of the two parents arguing. 

The 1979 film 'Kramer vs Kramer' deals with a similar topic to ours. The films stars Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as two parents who are in the middle of a divorce. In the middle of the warring parents is their son Billy. This links in with our story idea as in our video the sisters are caught between the parents arguments. 

These two shots (the top from our video, the bottom from Kramer vs Kramer) show two ideas of how arguing is shown in films. In both shots one character is pointing their finger at the other. This is a typical gesture when someone is in an argument. 

 

The TV series 'Body of Proof' also deals with the idea of an already broken up home, which has resulted in divorce. Although in this TV series the married couple has already divorce, they have a child together who is caught between her parents (left and far right) arguments (mainly over the husbands new girlfriend, middle) In the series although they are both civil to each other, there is still a sense of hostility towards one anther. 

Editing 9th November

With the filming we had done over the half term holiday we used this to continue our editing, working from the points we had been given before the half term to make our video better. Also we had a conversation with our media teacher about our ending. We decided that the idea of leaving in the car didn't seem to fit with our video, so we decided to change our idea slightly. Instead of the children leaving in the car, we are going to change it so that we see the children running down the street looking as if they are heading for a better life (which means we can use the packing filming we have already filmed) but instead of cutting it there, we are going to include a shot at the end of the video of the sisters waking up, showing that the whole running away to a better life, was just a dream and in actual fact the sisters are still trapped with their warring parents. 

Half Term Re-Shoot 29th October

For our re-shoot we decided on the 29th of October due to other commitments and actors only being available on certain an specific days. Using the pick-ups and points our teacher helped to pick out during our last lesson before half term, we decided that we needed to re-film parts of the argument as they seemed to un-realistic and so therefore we filmed an extra shot of Joe walking out of the room to add to the idea of arguments, and also when we see the flashbacks in our current version of our video, we cut straight to the sisters packing and leaving. We also used more violence in the arguing such as Karen pushing Joe as our teacher helped us to figure out that there was too much finger waving and pointing in our current arguing. This didn't seem right as why would they leave if we had just viewed happier times. For the scene when Libby goes back for the teddy bear, we decided that we would make this longer so we filmed the sisters leaving through the front door, then having Libby go back for the teddy bear, this means that we will have longer shots to work with and it makes the teddy seem more important. Likewise with the teddy we also re-filmed Libby hugging the teddy as in the previous shot my hand was on her shoulder, but in the shot with her hugging the bear, it had disappeared. The book itself we decided would be easier to edit the writing onto if it was an image, so we photographed the book and plan to edit later. We also added in a few extra positioned shots of the packing to add time, and make it more believable. 

First Cut

The Audience for our video

Since our video was used in the film 'The Hunger Games' our target audience is aimed to link into the target audience for the film. Another key audience for our video is those who are fans of Taylor Swift, the artist who made the song.

For our audience demigraphic we have chosen to aim for a teenage audience, who have a like for Taylor Swift and songs with a meaning.

Media Lesson - 24th October

During todays lesson we finished our editing of out first draft of the video. After a quick feedback with our teacher, we came across a lot of shots that we need to either re-film, or just edit differently. This is a list of the Pick Ups we need to complete for our next video draft.

 

This is our plan schedule for the re-shoot we plan to complete over half term. We plan to re-film some shots and film some other shots which we could use a fillers during the video.

Media Lesson - 19th October

During the lesson, we continued our editing of our Music Video. During the editing we came across a problem. In our video we want to put in video clips which will be viewed as flashbacks to happier times. This came as a problem for us, as we had trouble with the videos. The original videos had too bright a colour contrast to our other videos we had changed to black and white. So we decided that we would try to dull down the colour, which gave us our problem. After trying to find a effect which would dull down the video, we came across the tint effect. This meant we could create an orange background to put on the video and we dulled this down to dull our colour down. We also used the roughen edges effect to create a border around the top and bottom of the video, to give the illusion of a memory. This is a before and after shot of our original video (on the left) and our dulled down video (on the right).

 

 

We also planned a quick film shooting, as during our filming day, we had forgotten one shot. We needed Nicola to film the outside of her house when it was dark, and then we would edit this into our video with one of the lights turning off in the background.

 





Editing

These are a few print screens of our editing line, at different points of our editing.

 

This is the first editing we did. We changed the colour of the filming to black and white in our editing, and we have also zoomed in on the shot.

This print screen shows how we have gone from our background being a green-screen, to having a video we recorded as our background. To do this, we needed to first film me lip-syncing the song with a green-screen as the background, and we also needed to film the actual background we were going to use which in this case, is a sun set. Once we had filmed that we put both of the videos into Premier and placed them on our editing line. We then clicked on VIDEO EFFECTS, KEYING, CHROMA KEY and then drag onto the screen the shot we want to change. The click EFFECTS CONTROL in the SOURCE window and select CHROMA KEY. We then pick up the colour green with the COLOUR PICKER TOOL, and play with the SIMILARITY and SMOOTHING tools to get rid of all the green.

This shows us more developed in our editing. We are currently working on the second verse of our song 'Safe and Sound'.

Filming - 7th October

We began our filming this weekend for our video. During our production filming we encountered a few problems such as getting Libby's reflection in the window, so to combat our problem we filmed Libby looking out of the window and we filmed it so she was in the corner of the frame, with Joe (actor) holding the hose pipe outside the window to create the desired rain. We couldn't get the focusing on the camera to work during our parents arguing scene, so that shot was just filmed with myself and Libby looking sad in the middle of the argument. We also decided to not film the train station, so we opted instead to film the children being driven away in a car to show the idea of them being rescued by social services. We asked Libby's dad to drive the car, as neither myself or Nicola can drive. These are the pictures we took whilst we were filming.

 

Green Screen Shoot - 3rd October

During todays lesson we filmed a green screen version of our song 'Safe and Sound'. Through-out over video we are going to be using the green screened image of me, for example when we decay our grass, my image will be in the corner lip-syncing. We found an empty classroom where we set up the green screen and using my laptop to play the song, I lip-sync the whole song, with my partner Nicola recording it.

Production Schedule

This is a copy of the production schedule that both me and my partner Nicola and our media teacher have agreed on. We aim to stick to this schedule as much as possible and only go off schedule if it is absolutely necessary. Due to my weekend job, and the fact that our other actress is still in school from 9 till 3, we have little time in which we can film. We plan to film the blulk of our video on the weekend of the 6th October, and then when we have finished our first cut, anything that needs to be re-filmed, we will do over the half term week when we all are free. We also green-screened the song today, so we have that completed as we need to 'paste' myself lip-syncing onto some parts of the video, which means we don't have to do that at a later date. The boxes coloured green are things that we have done so far.



Start of Production

For our prodcution we have split our partnership into our roles. Nicola will be filming, whilst I will be acting along side Libby, Karen and Joe, and also helping with props.

Our key prop - The Book

In our production we have decided to use a book as a key prop. The book will be used by myself when I will be reading to Libby. This shows the idea of innocence and childhood. We are planning on naming the book 'Safe and Sound' which is the title of our song, and use a disney style writing font to create the idea of childhood and the idea of a fairy tale. At the end of the video we will have the book appearing again, with the words 'Happily Ever After' appearing to show the idea of the children being happy now they have escaped. This is slightly cliche, but we believe it will work with our childish idea. An example of our font is pictured below.

Influential Styles

For our video we have decided to focus on the idea of sisterly relationships, and the idea of a warring family. One song which deals with the relationships between sisters is 'I'm Missing You' by Brandy. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYGGY014UzQ - Song Link
Although the songs is about one sister singing about another after she has died, it still keeps with the main concept of the relationship between two sisters. 

Another relationship about two sisters, and how one would do anything to keep the other safe, is the story/film 'My Sister's Keeper'. Although this story is about a child being born only so she can save the life of her older sister, it shows the relationship between the sisters, and eventually the older sister dies but she tells her younger sister that she wanted to die. This shows just how strong a bond can be between two sisters, and this is what we want to portray in our video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWGqoCNbsvM - Song Link
Our song is by Taylor Swift who is a country singer. Another singer who shares a similar style to Taylor Swift, is Colbie Caillat. Her song 'Bubbly' is set with the same song style as 'Safe and Sound' and we mentioned her in our pitch as a stylistic influence. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yERDDbP53Sw - Song Link
Another aspect of our video, is the idea of parents fighting. 'Broken Home' by Papa Roach is a example of another song which deals with the idea of fighting parents. The song is sung from the point of view of the child, and he sings about how he is always stuck in the middle of his parents arguments. This is again what we wanted to show with our video, as the children in our video are stuck in the middle of their parents arguing. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CbRwC7ByiU - Song Link
This song 'Runaway' by Avril Lavigne, is also slightly stylistic for us, as at the end of our video, we are going to have the children running away to start a better life. Although it isn't in the same style as our song, our song is a country song, 'Runaway' is a rock/pop song, the main concept is still there; the idea of home life being bad, and running away to get a better life. 

Actors/Actresses

These are the actors/actresses who will be appearing in our music video.

This is me. I will be playing the older sister.

This is Karen, who will be playing the arguing mother.

This is Joe, who will be playing the arguing father.

This is Libby who will be playing the younger sister.

Location Shots

These are shots of all the locations we will be filming at.

This is Nicola's driveway, where we will be filming the sisters leaving.

This is outside Nicola's house on the pathment, this will be for when the sisters leave.

This is Nicola's back garden where we will be filming the happy memories, and we will also being using camera shots to show the grass decaying over time.

This is Nicola's bedroom, where we will be filming the majority of the video, as it is the safe place for the two sisters.

This is Nicola's front room, where we will film the parents arguing and also one of the happy memories.