The use of social networking sites were highly important in the planning stages of our coursework. Firstly, this is the medium of contact we used to gain permission form our chosen artist, after using music streaming websites such as Myspace and Last.fm to find songs that we felt we could work well with to produce our music video and ancillary texts. Having previously sent a number of emails to a few record labels of signed artists in order to receive permission to use their tracks in our coursework but failing to hear any responses, we decided to find a band or artist of a more low-key status, who would be more inclined to allow us to use their song. I personally contacted a number of bands through websites such as Myspace and Facebook, and we contacted our particular chosen artist as a group, through the question and answer website, Formspring.me. Although a long and frustrating process, it eventually ended up being relatively straightforward, at the website does not necessarily require you to register or log in in order to ask questions, and allows instantaneous anonymous posting. As Gabrielle Aplin is an extremely small scale artist, she is quite reliant on the internet as a promotional tool for her music, as is conventional of low-key artists in the early stages of their musical career, providing a cheap and quick marketing method. This meant that we received her consent within hours, and could immediately begin planning the creation of our product.
Facebook was also a key factor throughout the duration of our coursework, serving as a quick, free and easy method of communication, allowing us to plan and prepare as a group, outside of the lesson setting. This is also how we arranged and contacted our actors and locations, as it allowed us to relay more information to them than perhaps a quick text message would have permitted. I felt that this was an effective form of communication, as text message communication alone was starting to become costly, and we were all sending the same ideas to each other simultaneously, perhaps wasting time that could have been put tot better effect. As soon as we began to use Facebook as a method of communication, it seemed as though we put our views across in a much easier quicker and easier fashion.
Due to complications in the beginning of our filming process, we had more time to devise a more detailed storyboard. To document this process and record all of our ideas, we constructed a number of mind-maps and rough story board sketches, which we then used a still camera to document in order to collate all of our rough ideas together to form our main products. We also used the camera to capture shots of potential locations, which we then shared with the rest of the group, allowing us full visualisation of the shots we were hoping to achieve, instead of having to risk turning up on the day and sacrificing the quality of the visuals due to unthorough preparation.
We created a textual questionnaire, which we then distributed to people of a variety of ages and backgrounds, in order to draw a representative selection of society, which would then influence the ideas for our main product of the music video, and the ancillary texts of our CD cover and magazine advert. This was crucial, as there would be no purpose to making a product of this sort if it was of no appeal to anybody. Additionally, such products are viewed as a marketing tool for the music of the band or artist, and if we created a product that failed to register interest then we would have not achieve any success with the whole purpose of the product.
In this stage, we looked a fair deal into previous products the artist had already produced, in order to determine common conventions and themes that she included, which would then have obvious impact on our own work. Although we had decided to go for an unconventional approach to the video, we felt it was still necessary to include some of the ideas behind Gabrielle Aplin's own products in some matter - for example the representation of the young, pretty girl, and so researched these images in order to incorporate the themes into our own work in some way, creating a loose connection and synergy to previous products that would perhaps serve to make our own product as something that could be visibly associated with the artist.
The use of naturalistic lighting and bright, sunny weather was quite an important factor in preparation for the filming of our happier flashback scenes. Ideally, we would have hoped for the weather to be idyllic through the whole of the filming period, but due to the typical British seasons, we accepted this as a relative impossibility. We often checked the weather forecast using websites such as that of the BBC to predict the forecast and therefore the most suitable times for filming. I feel that the poorer weather in the modern day, unhappier shots actually worked in our favour, as I think it served to effectively accentuate the feeling of gloominess and misery that we were hoping to convey through the narrative.
We continued to document the entire process on our blogs, which allowed for us to make reference to it at a later date, such as now, and also to coordinate our ideas to create our products.
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