Further Researching An Artist - Lily Allen

Below is a video that was shown on Sky Arts 1. It is a one-to-one interview with Laurie Taylor about the life of Lily Allen and how she has grown up wanting to be a singer. She also discusses the lyrics in some of her songs and how she uses some of her personal life and issues in some of her lyrics and her music videos.

Half Term

Unfortunately during half term I was away and therefore we did not have the opportunity to film more of the narrative or the performance. Tomorrow we will be discussing what we can next shot and also look back at some of the clips we have already edited and our storyboards.

My Website

Below is a download link if you wish to view my website in it's full multimedia form. I have uploaded it as a .zip file as I was unable to upload the HTML to a proper internet server for a number of reasons.


My website is full of multimedia that I have created myself and uploaded to the website. The process I took to make all the parts of the website can be seen earlier in the blog.

Steps when downloading the website:

• After downloading the file it will be a .zip file
• You will then need to double click this to unzip the folder
• A new folder will be displayed
• To view the website, double click on the PRESS ME.html file

Download My Website!

Putting Together The Website

I knew before I started making the website home page that I wanted to make a multimedia website that takes advantage of all the elements: text, images, videos, and audio. Below are the parts of the website that I have uploaded to the website which you can see live soon.

Above is the video which is in the website. I wanted to add a video to the website to make it much more interesting and eye-catching for the audience.

This is the title that is placed on the top of my website. It fades in and out and also flickers slightly as I believe this makes it a lot more suitable for the website and the whole product set.


I also have a large selection of images that are placed around the website. Plus an MP3 of the song that plays automatically when you enter the site, this also has an option to be turned off and on using a player bar situated underneath a small thumbnail of the album cover.

Editing The Music Video

Today we played about with the narrative clips and video transitions with the audio clip of 'Bring Me To Life'. We looked at the storyboards we have created and placed some of the narrative clips onto the Final Cut Express timeline. Overall we managed to put together approximately 20 seconds of the music video finished with video transitions and speed changes. Video transitions we used were a 'cross dissolve' as we believe it fitted well with the beat of the song and exaggerate the distressing nature of the narrative. We also made some of the clips run at 50% of the speed for the same reasons.

Meeting

Today Elliot was still unwell so both Faye and I decided to continue to convert the MP4 files to MOV in order for them to be ready for editing in Final Cut Express. We wanted to have all the narrative clips converted by the end of the week so we could focus on the filming, converting and editing of the performance clips next week.

Meeting

Today I do not have a media lesson, however I decided to go to media during my free period and start converting some of the narrative clips we had from an MP4 file to a MOV. This needed to be done so the clips will not need to be rendered as often when we edit the footage as a group in Final Cut Express. Tomorrow Faye, Elliot and I will be converting the rest of the narrative clips and also be further planning for the next shooting, the performance, which will be filmed sometime next week.

Meeting

Today we planned to have a meeting, however Faye had to go for drama rehearsals and Elliot was ill. Therefore I have decided that I will organise the clips we currently have and have a look through the storyboards we have created to see how we can use our clips with our plans.

Evaluation Of Our Day Of Filming

Earlier both Elliot and I met Faye at her house and filmed parts of our narrative. We looked through our storyboards and filmed what we needed. We decided to give each clip an extra three seconds either side so we would have more to edit with and if some of our timings in the initial storyboards were not correct we would be penalised when editing all the footage.

Today we managed to film all the house footage and also had time to film the forest scenes as we were very close to Claybury Park.

Some of the video we filmed was the bathroom scene, bedroom scene, receiving the text message and the depression scene. In total we had a lot more footage than we would use. This was purposely done so we had more footage to look through and play with when building the music video.

Filming finished at approximately 6:30. After this I took the footage home and transferred it onto a USB which I will take to school tomorrow and give to both Elliot and Faye so they can have a copy of all the clips.

Overall today was very successful and I believe we should be able to use a lot of the footage we have captured to produce a professional looking and successful music video.

Next we need to plan and shot the performance of the band. We will then use both the performance and narrative footage to create the finished music video using Final Cut Express.

Equipment used:

• Xacti Full HD Camera

Places filmed at:

• Faye's House
• Claybury Park

Day Of Filming

Earlier in the week we decided that Sunday we would film some of the narrative for our music video. Looking back at our storyboards we have decided that we will film the house scenes of the narrative and we would do in Faye's house. We decided to meet at Faye's house at 3:00pm.

BBC Three - Music, Money And Hip-Hop Honeys

Yesterday on BBC Three at 9:00pm was the program called 'Music, Money and Hip-Hop Honeys'. I decided to watch this as I thought it would help me understand the music industry more and maybe learn some more techniques I could use when I come to creating my own music video.

This programs focus was about the controversial world of music videos and about the girls who dream of dancing in them. Them spend time with girls who are on the path to success, but also learns about the dark side of an industry where dancers chasing fame can leave themselves open to financial and sexual exploitation.

I found the program knowledgeable however not entirely helpful for the music video we are creating, however it was very interesting to watch and discover more about the history and behind-the-scenes of music videos and the music industry.