Some of the comments i recieved were positive, however another made me think about choosing one of the images for my magazine advertisement.

To begin with the posititve comments  people said ‘ The image is very effective, and you can really see that there is a constant theme throughout all three, being able to link them together without using the same image for all of them – which prevents boredom as all of the images are not exactly identical.’  ‘ Just from looking at the album artwork, it give you an insight of what the song may be about – love. Also, as there is a continuous link between all three, it is obvious that the same couple for each must be in your music video, and it really works!’  

The less negative comment which i did recieve, i cannot decide wether i should take it as negative or not. Three people on different occasions said to me ‘ Kelsie, did you realise that the image looks alot like Slumdog Millionaires Poster’ No i didnt, not that its a bad thing, but it didnt even cross my mind. Wether or not this would be to its advantage and make connections to both images thus remembering what the album looks like – not forgetting about it. Or people viewing the advertisment and thinking ‘ well they’ve copied the idea of slumdog millionare’  Well whatever people think it didnt cross my mind, and below is the comparison of the two.

Okay you can see the similarities, but i  wouldnt say there alike, the only thing keeping them also similar is the confetti, but apart from that – i wish it was even more so – simply because The slumdog one is  incredible. Booyah.

some said looked like slum dog poster good or bad?!

So with the Editing of the music video pretty much done, its time to to crack on with creating my Magazine advertisement, and CD / Digpak artwork. After having done some research into both magazines and CD artwork.

First things first was to get over the biggest hurdle of all. PHOTOSHOP. That really isnt my kind of thing, or my fortay for that. But i wasnt going to give up on a challenge, and i knew it had to be done, so i got cracking. With a little bit of help to get me started on the ol’ photoshop, but after that first hurdle it was time to run away with it.

I thought i would begin with looking through my music video footage, and screenshotting any images which might be possible to use for either
A) The front cover of the Album
B) The back cover of the album
C) The insides of the case
D) The magazine advertisment.

Below is a basic outline of what i wanted to do orgionally for my Digipak design

However, after i drew this up i realised that i wanted to use one of the photos from my footage.. so heres how the process began…

So the first thing i did was find the images which i could use, the most powerful predominant images and open them up on Photoshop. This images i had to make the choce between were as follows:

When looking at the photos, i recieved some audience feedback to find out which of the images people thought would be most effective to use – as a basic guidline.
The photo which tha majority of people said was the first photo – However this killed two birds with one stone, as i found that people reccommended the other photo to be used for the back cover, which i hadnt even thought about AT ALL. This just shows how useful it is to get audience feedback, as from here i had a head start with that idea.

When deciding on the image for the front cover, i feel the reason in which i decided to use this was because it connotes not only the song – about love and relationships as you can see a couple walk past, it also matches with the music video – the same people in it, AND the writing of starry eyed is in the confetti which is constant throughout the music video, so the continuity of it is apparent.

So i started off trying to use the Lassoo tool to go around the outline of the ‘starry Eyed’ words that are arranged on the floor out of the coloured paper, howeverm after doing this, i realised that maybe it would just look better to leave it how it is, and use the image as it is. So it literally is simple, how i wanted it to be – to make it look effective and not over done. 

The next thing which i had to do to finish my front cover was to add Text  of ‘Ellie Goulding’ The artists of the album.  This appears to be much harder than i originally thought it would be. I found that on photoshop- there was a vast selection – however not enough of the type of font which i wanted to use. It was either too fancy, or too plain. But in the end, i realised it wouldnt look good to over do it and try and have too much of a snazzy font, as it may take it away from the simplicity and effectiveness off the cover. You can see to the left a few of the fonts i had to choose from. One of them which i tried to use was the ‘Scogin’ the second one down, i thought it looked good at the time, just for the album cover but as soon as i continued on and made the back cover, i realised the font looked too much for the text on the back over a larger area of font, and made it look too fussy and was hard to tell what was going on.
Then it comes down to Font colour. Wether to choose just white, black or a colour will make all of the difference. I thought as there is lots of colour going on in the artwork itself, maybe it would be best to keep it simple and stick to white, where it can be illuminated, and stand out- without being too much &  too bright.

After Settling on a simple font of trebuchet, all i needed to do was add Ellie Goulding onto the front cover, and that was finished. Trebuchet font is below. I thought it is simply, but at the same time isnt too plain and boring. I did however choose to write ‘Ellie Goulding’ in capital letters to make it look more bold, and as if it holds more importance than it would look if in lowercase .

After Adding the text the front cover is done.  and here it is!

The Back cover took more effort to create though, as the lasso tool came in very handy. I  drew around the outline for thie first picture- the couple standing ‘kissing’ so i could then delete the back ground. Once getting rid of the background it was then time to make the decision of having the couple placed on a white background, a black background, or to use a colour. First things first i ruled out the use of colour, as which the confetti falling, i think colour would make the image look too confusing, and then needing to have the text over the top with the tacklisting- it may make it very hard to read. So it was down to black and white.
In the end i decided to go against the white, as white would have  next to none effect of making the artwork look different and unique, as anyone oculd have pasted the picture onto a white background and added the text in, via a word document or somthing. I thought the black made the couple stand out, and would make it look more effective which adding more confetti ( bright colours) and the font also.

The next stage for the back cover was to create more confetti. To add mroe confetti, i had to go through the same process using the lasso tool on photoshop, but using a different photo, of simply just the paper on the ground.
Once outlining some of the paper i wanted to use, i then deleted the background, and added a new layer onto the back cover image. However, i made sure that i placed the position of the layer with the new confetti underneath the picture of the couple, so the confetti wouldnt affect the image, just add to the amount of confetti in the back ground. I did this by copying the image onto a new layer untill i thought there was a sufficient amount of confetti fo the back cover.

This is the image i used the lasso tool for t outline the confetti:

After i was happy with the amount, it was time to add the text onto the back to create the tracklisting. As i had already decided on the font type, all i hasd to do was to add text  and type the song titles, and make clear that it was a digipak.  I had to state that there was a Disc1 with a simple tracklisting of the songs, and Disc 2 where my music video for starry eyed would be. To begin with, i chose the font to be white to match the front cover of the digipak. However, i didnt like it one bit. The font looked washed out, and didnt fit with the image at all, so i decided to match it to one of the colours of the confetti. At first i tried the bright pink colour- but it looked far to bright and in your face, and in a way it took a way from the look of the confetti and made it look confusing. Next i tried the green – but not as flourescent as in the image – but this also looked too bright, and in your face, it made it look very tacky. So the last colour i tried was the light turquoise colour- which i think looks very effective, and i bright & stands out, but at the same time doesnt look at all tacky.

However, because of the change of colour in font on the back, I then had to change the front cover text colour- so it is a continuous match of text and font type and colour – if not it would looke like a mix-match of images thrown together.
Another element i had to consider before finally finishing the back, was because i had added more confetti onto the back of the digipak, it made it very difficult to read the writing, as there was so much going on. So to overcome this problem, all i had to do was to click on the layer where the new confetti was added, and use the rubber tool and rub out the colour to black, and removing some of the confetti pieces. I then merged the existsing confetti with the plain black area where the text is  so it didnt look ike just a block of black had been added and text had placed on top of it.  by shading the background and the confetti together, it looked as if the text was emerging, instead of just being placed onto the back.

Below is the final back cover:

To create the insides of the digipak, i used the cut out confetti alone from the previous image for the back cover, and simple placed it onto a new layer. I used a black background, to keep the colour scheme the same, and pasted the confetti over the top.  I did this until i thought there was enough confetti to make a sufficient effect- without looking too over the top. I thought that if i was to keep a continuous theme throughout the artwork, then it would look as if it all fits together- and doesn’t look like i havnt even thought about the inside of the cover, still making an effort where people wouldnt normally look.  Both insides of the digipak differ slightly, but both consist of confetti and a black background, however are positions a little bit different to the other. Below are both of the insides of my digipak:

When getting the correct sizes to create the digipak, it was important that i used the right sizes to create it. There are univeral sizing for CD cases and covers- each the same for digipaks also. The dimensions were 142mm width by 125mm height, to get the information for the digipak size i used a website called www.technologystudent.com,

To do my second ancillary task, it was time to start looking for images to use for my Magazine advertisement. From the research i have carried out, it has been said that the image used for the magazine advertisement is the same used for the CD artwork. As much as i would like to have followed this convention, i feel that although the front cover is effective for the CD, it wouldnt be powerful enough for the magazine advertisment. However, i do feel the back image of my digipak is more effective, and would fit the A4 size of the advertisement better. Having decided that this is the image i want to use, it was time to resize the background to a4, and paste the lasso’d cut out onto a new layer. I did the exact same process by adding more confetti to add to the texture and brightness of the advertisement.

After having the image sorted, i decided to use one element from the front cover on the magazine advertisement so i was combining the front and back aspects onto one single image. To do this, i used the ‘starry eyed’ arrangement of paper on the floor by cutting it out with the lasso tool again and deleteing the grass background. After this, i added the cut out onto a new layer and placed it over the top of the image at the top – creating a title for my advertisement.

Once adding that on, the next thing i had to do was create some sort of review- as if it had been rated by an existing music magazine- where their voice will be appreciated, and people would listen to it. When trying to come up with a review to put on my mag-ad, i had to think really precisely about who my target audience is, and who would be seeing this advertisement. Being a fairly non-commercial song/ remix, it isnt the type of music which would be in a normal NME magazine. Thus meaning that i will be targetting those of a more eccentric music taste and not necissaruly those who read magazine. An audience who may read Q magazine, The guardian or the fly, would be the audience i would be aiming for, however at the same time, to those who would listen to catchy pop/ electro esque music of a younger 16-22 generation. This is due to remixes like this song will generally be played in clubs or on a night out- it isnt a commercial remix of a song which would be played on the radio- thus having to target those who may be more aware of this type of music, than a commercial magazine like NME.

I chose to do my review from The fly magazine-  www.the-fly.co.uk an online free magazine, where there are constant updates and  reviews of new bands and music are stated. Which being an unsigned band doing the remix of the song, is where the advert would want to be.

Here are a few of the reviews in which i came up with that could be put on my Magazine advertisement :

Electro/pop cultivates youth – bottled & shaken, enriched with infinite beauty.

The beautifully orchestrated London Superstar muse over the complexities of heartbreak and synthesisers.

Ellie Goulding capturing hearts with catchy electro/pop melodies and bringing bac lo-fi with avengance.

After recieveing audience feedback of these three reviews- it tends to be that people have said the first one  is the most effective however i feel that i do not like the ‘ infinite beauty’ at the end, so i decided to merge two together

My final review is ‘Electro/pop cultivates youth – bottled & shaken, enriched with the complexities of heartbreak and synthesisers.’

After having the review sorted, it was just to add the finished touches onto the magazine advertisement.   By Adding on what the Digipak will include it gives the audience an idea of what they will be getting if there were to buy the album, and also add a little more information about what tracks will be on the album, and that it does actually include the DVD music video. Also by adding in that how the digipak is available to be purchased, which is obviously very important information when trying to advertise a CD.

The other piece of information which i have placed onto the magazine advertisement is elliegouldings myspace address. This is very important, as i feel that it gives the audience / reader a chance to check out the artist for free, giving them an advantage to gain a fan and realising they like the music before going to purchase the Digpak- ensureing that it is a good purchase for them.

Below is all of the elements of the magazine advertisements put together as the final image:

As the song is a very atmospheric and holds elements of innocence and magic. In my music video i treid to portray these elements through the video. I managed to do this by adding a number of effects onto different shots.

The opening of the music is very etherial, and atmospheric, i wanted to create an effect on the shots, which show the image, and introduce, but at the same time doesnt give everything away, much like the tone of the song. After about 30 seconds of the song, it then breaks into a heavier bassy beat, which is where i wanted to introduce and make the shot clear, that way it fits with the mood of the song.

The effect in which i used is called Min/max. You can see on the picture below, the normal shot on the left hand side, and the min/max effect on the right hand side. The effect creates a more blurry, pixelated effect, which i feel imitates the atmosphere and mood of the song.

As well as using the min max effect throughout the whole music video, i edited the shots by sharpening them all. This increased the intensity of each of the shots, and added  some what of a more ‘unnatural’ feel about the shots – resembling the atmosphere in the music. 

Also more or less through out the whole video,  i have added an effect in called the ‘strobe’ effect. This strobe effect acts as a kind if delay on the shot to look as if there is a ‘stop motion’ esque effect occuring. This effect is used to make the video look somewhat magical like, and give an edgey effect.

After getting to this point where i have added some of the effects on to my footage, 1 crazy little advert that i had seen on TV. The Vera Wang – Princess advert is one what keeps popping up wherever i look, and there is an element on it which i tried so hard to find an effect for to add onto my music video. I LOVED IT.

If you watch the video, you can see the over laying of the bright light spots over the image. Wether its due to reflections of light, sunspots or some kind of effect over the top.
I tried for ages and went through every single effect on the video transitions and couldnt find anything of the sort, so gave up on that idea.  I was gutted, but this spurred me on to add another effect instead to bring the colour to life in the music video.

The Bloom effect on Final cut is one where it emphasises any colour and makes it really bright, and in a sense creates a dazzle effect, and illuminates the image. This bloom effect is put on towards the end of the music video, where both Amy and James are on the verge of meeting eachother. This enhances the image, and makes the video look somewhat more magical and really adds an edgy element to the music video- right at the end.

Also where the bloom effect has been used, the Trail effect is also in use, which creates a sense of delay, creating a ‘ghost trail’ adding to the ethereal effect which the song gives to the images matching the image with the sound. This effect adds more movement onto the image.  Not only to create this effect of more movement did i add the trail effect, but i copied one of the ending images where the confetti was being thrown, and overlayed it above the existing shot making one more opaque than the other., but timed it a little bit behind, so it looked as if  more confetti was being thrown than origially did.

One of the last effects which i added were positioned and timed almost perfectly to where the heavier dubstep basslines emerged. You can tell the difference between the style of music within the song, so as the bassline increased, this is where i made the climax to start to build up. As the climax builds, the blink effect is introduced onto the shots. This is where to each beat of the bass in the music, the screen black out for just a split second, so create a flash / blink effect – hense why it’s called blink. This builds up tension, and links with the tone of the music, representing the song building up to it’s climax.

Speaking of a climax…

When looking at the narrative theory, there are a few major ones which need to be considered.

ARISTOTLE’S UNITIES – Perhaps the first ‘narrative theory’ as such. A narrative should be created within a ‘unity’ of time, place and action – that is, it should all take place in the same location, in real time, and with all action moving towards a logical (and moral) conclusion.

TODOROV’S THEORY – Todorov proposed a basic structure for all narratives. He stated that films and programmes begin with an equilibrium, a calm period. Then agents of disruption cause disequilibrium, a period of unsettlement and disquiet. This is then followed by a renewed state of peace and harmony for the protagonists and a new equilibrium brings the chaos to an end. The simplest form of narrative (sometimes referred to as ‘Classic’ or ‘Hollywood’ narrative).

PROPP’S THEORY –Vladimir Propp’s theory was formed in the early twentieth Century. He studies Russian fairytales and discovered that in stories there were always 8 types of characters evident. These are: the hero, the villain, the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero, the helper, the princess and her father. He did not state these characters were all separate people e.g. the provider could also be the helper. There are only 8 different character types and only 31 things they ever do. Once you have identified the character type (e.g., the hero) it’s easy to guess what they will do (save the maiden, defeat the villain, marry the maiden or whatever) because each character has a SPHERE OF ACTION. This is easily relatable to films and programmes today.

BARTHES’ ENIGMA CODE – The narrative will establish enigmas or mysteries as it goes along. Essentially, the narrative functions to establish and then solve these mysteries.

I feel that both Todorov and Barthes’ theories are ones which apply to my music video, as there is an equilibrium to begin with, then in the middle a little bit of a disruption, when you realise James is following Amy, and then appears to be a climax at the end of the video, where Amy and James finally meet on the bridge.

The enigma codes at the beginining of my music video will flying, due to a lack of knowledge of what is actually going on. This tends to keep the audience watching, as they want to now what happens next / later on in the video.

There was one problem which i did encounter evey time i opened up Fina Cut, this was  that it made me re-render everything before i could even watch the video / continue to edit it again. Thus everytime reopening it, it stopped me from being able to do anything for about 30 minutes. Creating a barrier for me to crack on and finish.

When arranging the clips, it is vital that they go into the right order to keep the continuity correct, if not it will look like random clips put together to make a jumbled mess.

The first thing i did was select the clips which i wanted to begin the music video with, the clips of Amy bending down and picking up the coloured paper, which meant then she sould start to leave the trail – This is vital as if it isnt effective enough viewers wouldnt have a clue what is going on.

After i had the beginning section down, i then jumped to the final footage of the music video, to ensure the ending fitted in with the pace and timing of the song – this way when the beggining and end of the music video is correct, all that is left to do then is to fill in the gaps with the correct footage, and altering it ever so slightly order wise to make the video look effective.

However, one of the problems i faced after sorting the opening footage and the ending footage into the correct order and to be in tim with the music, i found i had a VERY large gap in the middle where the rest of the footage to fill up.
I made a rather drastic decision when it came to this and decided to cut the song. I cut the song using garage band, as this way i can change the layout of the song where you can see the beats, which meant when cutting it, it would be in time and not too jumpy.

 You can see right at the bottom of the picture that you can see the beats – this is the way i got the editing to perfect timing.

But goodness me this took AGES and had to do it to perfection as if not you would notice the cuts in between the origional parts of the  song when playing it in full. In total i removed about a minute and a half of the song, and cut a middle section out, to ensure the beginning and the end still fitted to the footage which i had already corrected & placed in an order i was happy with.

The reason why i cut the song to a shorter length was because I felt that if i as going to try and fill up 4 minutes then the video itself would  have looked dragged out, and randomly put together resulting in a  messy looking unfinished. This way with a shorter song i can ensure i only put in the vital shots which are needed into my music video.

After shortening the song, it left less time to fill up with shots. This made it very easy for me to simply place in the shots where i wanted, how i wanted and then to crop them and edit them to the correct timings to add to the effect wanted to meet the pace of the song.

For each of the clips, i have made them very short and brief clips- unless needed other wise. This is to mathc the mood of the song, and to keep the pace fast, and upbeat. If i didnt keep up the pace – it becomes apparent that not much is actually happening in the video- therefore create a very slow movement effect – emphasising this.

Throughout the song there are fast paced parts, slow paced parts and remixed dubstep sections. For each section i attempted throughout to add a different image / style of effect for each part. I especially ensured that if there was a beat to the song, then an image would either change or connote the beat. For example, towards the final section of the song, it is three short sharp shots in a row, and there are three beats continuously, each matching the beat. Also, during the middle section, as James places his Blue handprint onto Amys red handprint, the lyrics say ‘ next thing we’re touching..’ so the images matches what we are hearing in the song.

And so to jazz….

So As the filmings done, inserting the memory card reader into the macs and then open i-movie, it will bring up all of the footage filmed & in the order in which you have filmed.
After this has occurred, its time to put the footgae into Final Cut to start the lengthy editing proccess. How i love to edit!

Above is the layout of  Final Cut, and which each section of the programe does what.

On the friday morning, we headed down towards the abbey gardens, and parked up. Walking through the abbey gardens, it was much busier than i would have hoped, with tourists ans familys taking photos so we walked towards the back of the abbey gardens where there is a path which leads into a forest type of thing. This path also lead to a bridge where i thought that it would be perfect for the couple to eventually meet, so i worked around this.

Starting off around the corner, where Amy began and picked up the coloured paper from the ground, it was obvious that she then head to walk by dropping the paper towards the bridge. This went to plan, and i had her dropping them, and filming a number of shots, close ups, long shots, Point of view shots, all to get across my idea of the image that she was leaving the trail. I then filmed her with paint on her hands, leaving her mark on a post – a handprint, which became relevant later on in the music video. after getting to this point, it was time to focus on James, and his journey to finding the paper.

Filming James of a very long shot gave the effect of him being far away, and then skipped to the shots of him coming closer. I also filmed him picking up a piece of paper- Which when the editing happens, will result in a match on action effect. James then had blue paint on his hands, which was printed over the top of Amy’s red hand print, and again when edited will match with the lyrics of ‘Next thing wer’re touching..’ which i feel will work very well.

After this point for both characters, then tension does start to build, as james is becoming ever so much closer to amy, in which you can see him behind her in the shots. As Amy reached the corner to turn to go onto the bridge, James was only a few metres behind her, showing the inevitbale stage which they will meet. And then eventually filming them meeting, and these coloured paper pieces flying everywhere, as if confetti and an explosion of colour.

Problems When filming

I would say i was wuite lucky with my filming, as i managed to get it all done within about 3 hours, just one morning was needed as it all went to plan. However, the day chosen to film the weather acted as a barrier to a certain extent. It was rather windy and VERY cold. Each of out hands were like icecubes, and this did force a sense of rushing to my filming, as i just wanted to get it done, and go back to school to warm up – as did Amy and James. However, saying that, as the ground was a little bit damp, this mean the paper trail stuck to the ground, so when the wind did blow, they didnt fly everywhere- which could have been disasterous.  The wind did pick up on a few occasions, but not so much that it ruined my filming – Thank goodness!

As it was a public footpath in which we filmed, there were a few dogwalkers and couples going for a stroll which did interfere with our filming, but not so much that it ruined it. If anything, if gave us a break, where i could look over filming, see what i had done, and what else i had to do- so really it had a positive effect.

For the shot at the end, of the couple on the bridge meeting at last, it was tricky to find the right camera angle to fit them in the shot, and at the same time, for me to press record, and position myself where i could then throw the paper to look as if confetti was falling- an explosion. I had to physically climb onto the edge of the bridge handle, and stand there to throw it, whilst worrying rather excessivly that i was going to fall into the river on a freezing cold day. As amusing as it would have been, i didnt, and had to try had to keep myself out of shot – refilming it numerous times.

After filming was completed, the next thign we has to do was go back and pick up every single bit of mess we had made. And this was the tedious bit. It would have been extremely unethical if we were to leave any of the paper on the ground, and as people walked by we reassured them that we would pick up the mess – which we did. Every last piece.

The next thing to do was back to school, clean up, and load the footage onto I-movie & get ready to crack on with the lengthy editing procedure…

I need to come up with a location of where i need to film, and at the same time decide who i want to have in my music video, and when i need to film it.

Location

Town Centre – Film in the town, having the gril drop coloured paper, the guy follows – see peoples reaction around them, make it looke really bright in comparison of the grey of the town.

Advantages:
1) Would stand out from the town itself, and ephasise the colourfulness.
2) you would be able to film/ see reactions of passer-bys.
3) Make it look much more realistic, in the sense they are in a normal day to day place

Disadvantages:
1) Need to get permission from bury council to allow me to film in town cetre.
2) Have to recieve permission from passer-bys if anyone gets in camera shot
3) Will create a huge mess, which residents / people will not be impressed with – Even though clean would be carried out.
4) the grey of the town, may look too block colour, and although make the coloured paper stand out, it still isnt a very interesting vibrat place.
5) The town isnt very ‘magical’ in the sense that it does not connote the song – you need somewhere a little more ‘Out of the box’
6) if lots of people are in the surroundings, it take away from the story line you want to pursue itself, and lose focus to the people around.

After weighing up the pros and cons of The town centre to be the location, i feel that i will rule against the town, as there are more bad points than good points, and thats never what you really want!

Abbey Gardens / Forest- To film where there is much more greenery, out the way of people, it will be quiet, and have a real edgy look, due to the coloured paper on the ground, and creates a more magical feel.

Advantages:
1) Forests and old paths hold some kind of mystery
2) contrast between grass and colour will be much more vibrant
3) Will be quiet, dont have the risk of people ruining footage due to noise
4) people would not get in the way and can focus on the couple in the video
5) Will not need to gain permission from anyone to film there.
6) Can clean up after all the footage has been made, instead of stopping and starting as we go along.

Disadvantages:
1) Need to be careful of light, as in a forest, sometims trees block out the light.
2) ensure that you use the same place for all shots needed, as if not it will break continuity.

I feel that i want to film around the back of Abbey Gardens, where there are less people and more mystery, instead of being in a busy town, where filming could be interupted.

So with the Location sorted now, i need to decide when i want to film and who.

From filming in the afternoon previous to the task, i have decided to try and avoid filming in the afternoon- especially in winter.

This is because the nights draw in much quicker, and you start filming at say, two colock, by an hour or two later it is already darker than it was, and adding on another hour of filming it is dark. And as it gets darker, the shots dont match up, when trying to edit them, and look like you’ve filmed it at all different times, not keeping the continuity the same.

Because of this, i have decided to film in the morning, where there isnt much chance of it getting dark at about 11, this way avoiding that problem. I will also film as soon as possible, when both of my characters are free for  the morning / part of the afternoon.

Speaking of characters, i orgionally was going to use One male and One female, whom i thought had lots of free time due to taking year of after school, before going to uni. However, i was wrong, very wrong. Both Libby and Nathan were constantly busy, which left me to have to find another couple who would be able to do it.

After looking through my free periods in school time, i thought it would be best to do it on a Wednesday or a Friday, as i have two frees on both days in the morning. After realising this, i found that there are a number of people with the same frees as me, and this would be brilliant if i could get someone who does have these frees so i will not be interupting anyones lessons.

Amy and James both had frees when i did, and agreed to film for me.

So with location – Check, Characters -check, and timeing- check… i’m ready to get the ball rolling.

So looking at my animatic, i’ve realised, in all honesty- it looks RUBBISH. Which calls for a major change of mind, and rethinking of what i want to do for my music video instead.

As i have chosen a remix of the song ‘Starry Eyed’ i thought by listening to the origional version, and looking at the lyrics then this might help my process and let imagination run free - well to an extent.

Here are a few of the lines from ‘Starry Eyed’ which i thought i might be able to incorporate into my music video.

So we burst into colors, colors and carousels,
Fall head first like paper planes in playground games

Next thing we’re touching
You look at me it’s like you hit me with lightning

The line which involves the colours made me think, that this is something that would be very effective, as i feel it would connote the song, and link with the mood of the song – uplifting and ‘out there’.

So knowing i want to include some sort or colourful element, the next direction i took was the narrative- what is going to happen in my music video?
The song is about love- a relationship- a couple reuniteing.

So i was trying to come up with some kind of ‘cool’ ‘epic’ story line, below is a mind map which i made to help narrow down my ideas.

So to narrow down even further, i receieved some audience feedback.  By playing the song to people who would fit into my target audience and by showing them my mind map, they told me which would be the most effective, and why.

The information i recieved from people was-

Meet at a party – see them throughout the night, go home together!? connotes the lyrics & tone of the song
-> although this could be a good idea, it’s like a stuck record, as this is where my idea started at the beginning of this project which i ruled out in the first place, so this i rejected.

Follow a Trail-  a number of people said they like this idea,but in different ways. One person stated that there could be a girl dropping a trail or somthing, and a guy follows the tril, and they end up together at the end. Another stated that they could both be following messages written on walls- notes being passed around, and then end up together also. Someone also did say they could follow arrows on the ground, both starting at different places, and ending up in the same place as if it was ‘Fate’.
-> When looking at these three suggestions, i feel all of them could be effective, however, i feel the arrows on the ground is all a little bit ‘cliche’ and wouldnt want to do that. As for the second  one, where they follow messages, this is also evry similar to an idea which i had earlier on in the idea process, where i saw the sign on the wall saying ‘ I’ll give you my heart for a while, if you let others borrow it too’. As much as i liked this idea, it would be very challenging, and somewhat impossible to try and make locations have these messages all the same, and to gain permission to do so- as if would be a form of graffitting.
As for the first suggestion, when i heard this  alarm bells rang. To me, by the girl leaving a trail, and a guy following, links with the song really well, and can work with the lyrics of ‘next thing we’re touching’ really effectively.
So with a rough idea of a boy picking up/ seeing something which a girl is dropping and following the trail, all i need to do now is incorporate my other idea of colour.

Then it hit me, Confetti like. So a girl could be dropping small pieces of brightly coloured paper, he follows the trail, picks up a few pieces along the way, and bam, he catches up and they meet. BOOM BOOM BOOM. Change of idea at the ready. Ode to Filming…