Places of Publication: Ancillary Texts

I decided to create a slideshare of places that my ancillary texts could be published. I felt this would be beneficial in showing how they would be promoted. It also shows a process for how if this was real it would be good to think of options and try to actually sell a product.

Magazine Ad Mock-Up

The magazine advert mock up is quite simple yet effective. I think the only thing that will get changed when it comes to the official one is the middle photo as the quality of this one isn't very good. The font will stay the same as it's quite quirky and reflects the indie folk genre well. I like the style as it shows aspects of the music video and follows conventions.

Digipak Mock Process

These screenshots show a basic outline of how I created the digipak mock up. I only took screenshots of the main things as I will show the process in more detail when I create the final album cover. 

First I cropped the photo to size (this is the point where I decided I needed better photos and would just use this as a mock). This screenshot shows me scaling the photo to the size I wanted for the cover. 

I then added a black background behind the photo, to create the colour scheme and make it look more professional. 

I then used the website I found the chosen font on and saved it to my documents, then uploading it to the photoshop document. I positioned it in the style of a standard album cover.

Overall, this basic attempt shows what needs to be done, but I will be creating something much better and more professional when I can take better photos. 

Digipak Mock-Up

This is a first draft of my digipak. It's very basic and definitely not what the final product will look like. I plan on taking other photos as these were taken from filming itself and I want to take some in the green room so that the quality is better. I plan on using the same font and colour scheme as I like the quirkiness as well as the simplicity. 

Second Draft - L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N

Manpreet and I had an earlier deadline due to our college trips and we managed to meet it. There are some scenes that will need re-filming and re-editing, as they could be improved, but we intend to do this in half term, when we come back from our trips. Despite having to recast the main role I feel things went quite well and Ant is quite comfortable in front of the camera.

Screen Test

In a media lesson we were going through tips on how to improve our coursework and I came up with the idea to film a screen test of Ant and wrote it in my notebook so that I wouldn't forget it. I took inspiration from the Lynn Hirschberg's screen tests for W Magazine on YouTube.

Here's an example of the screen tests that she did with Jennifer Lawrence and it just shows how she reacts in front of a camera.

I will write out questions to prompt Ant into answering and reacting in front of the camera, but I will merge the whole interview together on iMovie to create a screen test.

Ancillary Text Inspiration: Digipak Ideas

I took photos of some albums I had for inspiration when creating my own digipak. I used a variety of artists/bands, including The Vaccines, Lana Del Rey, Miley Cyrus and Noah and the Whale. They were really helpful in generating some ideas as they were all unique and created a specific ideology for the artists.

Digipak & Magazine Ad Conventions

I made a prezi to show the conventions of a digipak and magazine advert. I used existing products to represent what my own digipak and ad will be based on and what conventions I will use in my own product.

Ancillary Text Colour Palettes

I decided to create three different colour palettes (left to right) to see if any particular colours stood out to me. I think Manpreet and I have decided to go for more of a black and white theme as it looks quite basic and is simple but has a great effect. I quite liked the idea of adding grey to it, just to add another colour.
I'm not particularly fond of the other colour ideas as I think sometimes adding too much colour can make it look tacky and unprofessional. It can also make it look like it belongs in the pop genre, as opposed to the indie folk genre that we want.

Themes

The main themes throughout the music video are hope and inspiration. These are portrayed through the narrative of Ant working hard to get noticed as a puppeteer. The themes of the visuals match the upbeat themes of the actual song itself and contain positive connotations. Using a unique storyline with a vintage doll reinforces the quirkiness of the song and shows the creativity.

Ancillary Text Font Ideas

I used the website Dafont.com to look for font ideas for my ancillary texts, because I feel Photoshop fonts are quite limited and not as fun. I found various different styles and thought they seemed quite quirky.
Two of my favourites were

but I feel the first one fit a lot more with the quirkiness of the music video and the indie folk genre. Despite these fonts being varied and different, I feel they're probably too flamboyant for the look we're going for, as both Manpreet and I like simplicity. 

This is the font that we have decided to use for our ancillary texts. We felt it reflected the indie folk genre to a great extent as it's quite quirky and cute. We also felt its uniqueness reflected that of the music video's narrative. 

Behind The Scenes

• Manpreet and I took it in turns to film and take behind the scenes photos.

• This photo shows how the puppet kept getting quite tangled and made filming quite difficult as we had to be careful with him, due to him being vintage and breakable. 

• There were roadworks on the road at Fruit, which made filming quite difficult.

• This photo shows Manpreet packing all the equipment away before we went to a coffee shop to warm up. 

• This video shows a little clip of behind the scenes, while Manpreet was filming Ant at Queen's Gardens. 

Weather Forecast 01/02/2015

I was quite nervous about the weather for today as when I woke up and as I drove to Ant's house it was raining quite heavily. After filming inside Ant's house the weather seemed to get quite fair and it didn't rain for the rest of the day. It was freezing cold though, which did affect all of us as the day came to an end, but we dressed for cold weather so it wasn't too bad. 

Filming Diary 01/02/2015

We all met at Ant's house at 11:30 to begin filming the indoor sequences of Ant waking up and getting ready for the day ahead. We then got a taxi into town (as the buses weren't running frequently enough for us to wait around) and walked to our first location to begin the performance aspect of the music video, where the puppeteer goes to find a crowd to perform in front of. We began at Queen's Gardens, then went to the Maritime Museum, then to Hull Marina and then to Fruit.

Whilst on our way to Fruit, we were stopped by a man who seemed intrigued by all our equipment and the puppet that Ant was carrying. He asked us if we were doing a puppet show and we explained about our media project. He seemed really nice and said that if we were still filming outside Fruit when he got back (in 15 minutes) that we could film in his vintage shop. We thought this would look really good and add to the quirkiness of the music video.

We finished up filming outside Fruit and decided to take a look around the vintage shop as we waited for the man to return. As we walked in we were stopped by a middle-aged couple and an elderly man who also asked us about our project and about what college we went to. We explained the music video and they went on to tell us about their son, Scott, who also studied media at Wyke.

We started to feel quite uncomfortable and awkward as these people didn't seem to leave us alone. We were already quite wary of the man from earlier, as his kindness seemed quite odd and Ant had already said he may have bad intentions. We went further into the vintage shop and the woman seemed to follow us around. We felt trapped at the back of the shop, as the man and woman were blocking our only exit and then the other man started to close the shutters.

Naturally, we started to panic as we didn't understand why they were shutting us in, and so we started to move towards the shutters and made the excuse that we had to film before it got too dark. When we got out of the shop (after practically running) we walked down the street to sort our equipment out. The man from earlier returned and asked us if we still wanted to film in his shop. We decided after that slight panic that we didn't really feel comfortable, so we explained that we were actually getting picked up.

Overall, the filming went really well and we got all the shots we needed in those specific locations. Ant did a really good job and seemed so natural in front of the camera.

Filming Plan 01/02/2015

We all plan to meet at Ant's house to begin filming at 11:30 on Sunday 1st February. We need to start the filming quite early so we have the whole day to film before it gets dark.
We'll then get the bus into to town to start filming at the other locations.
We also need to start early due to the buses back to my town being quite irregular on a Sunday.

Locations:

• Ant's House 
• In the taxi
• Queen's Gardens (to re-film due to the change in casting)
• Outside the Maritime Museum
• Hull Marina
• Outside Fruit

Equipment:

• Video Camera (booked out from college)
• Manpreet's digital camera to take behind the scenes photos
• Tripod (mine taken from home as there were none left at college)
• An SD card
• The storyboard 

Props: 

• Quentin, the marionette
• A bow tie (for Ant)
• A book (for Ant to be reading in one of the scenes)

Costume:

• Black jeans
• Striped shirt
• Blazer
• Bow tie
• Coat (if cold)

Recasting the Main Role

Unfortunately, Owen is no longer able to act as our main character in the music video. This is because he has a lot of performances coming up that will contribute to his applications for various drama schools. He sent me a message explaining everything and apologised for the inconvenience, but I understood that his application deadlines were looming and were very important to him.

Instead, we chose Ant O'Malley as the main character in our video, as he is a good friend of Owen's, with just as much quirkiness and interest in the video. He also has experience acting and performing, as he has been in a few performances at GCSE and enjoys singing and playing the guitar.

To make up for the work we have already done with Owen, we will film a full draft of the music video and produce ancillary texts with photos of Ant. These will need to be done before the week beginning 10th of February, as I will be going on the Film Studies trip to Berlin, and Manpreet will be going to New York on the Media Studies trip.

We intend to start filming scenes at home at Ant's house, and then we will go into town where we will film several scenes with the puppet. We will film any stage scenes at college and use someone else for the minor role at the end of the video.