Risk assessment

when filming we had to think of some hazards for example one was when i hopped over the fence on the park that i didn't fall or get my foot caught and injure my self, another would be whilst filming in the car that i didn't have the engine running or tried to drive as i have not passed my test and could of been a hazard on the road.
We also had to make sure that Megan was sensible on the swing so there was no injury, when taking the pictures that were on the car seat of me and Megan sitting on a railing we had to make sure that we didn't fall off backwards.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

From looking at my research on the kanye west homecoming video which was in black and white, Filming our video in black and white makes it seem more effective to the song by it being an aged song and black and white generally means its old so we used that to our advantage also in the kanye west video he films a mirror and you can see him in the reflection of the mirror so that is how we used me lip syncing to see that it works to more of a effective way. Also in music video's you see pictures being used so we decided to use that as well especially in a love video which we turned ours into, also during the video we used some general media conventions like when i hop the fence and Megan gets of the swing we both have our head down which in love stories and you are shy you try to hide your feelings, when we meet in the middle of the picture we hug which shows a sign of 'love' as well and after we walk off holding hands showing we 'have found the heart of Saturday night' because we have met and found our love so the 'heart' of the Saturday night. The lip syncing that we did in our video was hard to try and fit in because how i said the lyrics 'looking for the heart of Saturday night' didn't look like i was actually saying it so we had to try n just fit some of the lyrics in and then just carry on the video with the end of the lyrics in another shot, so we understood that it was not the best lip syncing but we tried to fit it in as best as possible but for the real production we would take more care into the timing of the words and practise the song before just filming it straight the way because we was rushing for time a bit after not being able to find the right type of shots for the song itself.

how effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? (poster etc)

For our digi pack we thought of some pictures that would look good and effective to the front cover so we decided to take the main character in the video and put him into a good scenery and make a thinking pose, and placed the guitar against the fence to show he's musical with the title of the song and the name of the artist, our inside second picture is in colour which is different to the other 3 that are in black and white we decided to do this because it shows that the swings are in colour so its playful and youthful and when it gets to the black and white its more grown up and mature because when you have a relationship its supposed to mature. The picture where the CD would be placed is of where we filmed and took the pictures for the cover, we chose this because we thought it fitted as looking into research a lot of artist put the place where they filmed like Duffy for example. The back of the cover we did as it the back and the end we picked a picture at the end of the song and walking off so into the heart of the night, with the the songs listed on the CD. I think that our poster is quite a good attraction product by having a young male with attractive clothing and looks fashionable we put the title of the song on his again and the artist also a tag line that would hopefully attract audience to buy the album and a website so they ca get a download for itunes and get a free signed poster form artist. This fits well i think with the main product because it all just looks fitted in and thought over to try and make the best out of the song the pictures wasn't at the best of quality but we had to use a video cam,era and use grab on the macs because there wasn't any digital camera's left, but overall i think that the digi pack and video fit together because the both have synergy between them.

props for filming and digi pack

The props that we used to for filming where a guitar for the fact there is a guitar instrumental in the song, another prop we used was the swings on the park for Megan to swing on as park of the filming also the fence surrounding the park was used at one point during the filming for me to hop over, also another prop we used was the car that fits the sound of the song because there is a car horn in there.
The props that we used for the digi pack where the swings and the fence again for me to lean on and the guitar as well on the front of the album cover and the poster.

Ancillary texts

This is our album cover we decided to use most of these pictures because they featured in the video except the Oliver park sign but that is the place where we filmed our production so we decided to add this as one of the pictures on the over where the CD would fit in.

This is our poster we used for our digi pack we used a picture of me at the park where we filmed it because we thought it would fit the with the tree's in the back ground and with the guitar next to the fence where i am standing would look effective.

planning for production

For our planning we had to pitch some ideas to see if we could get the song and we ended up not getting the song we pitched for so we had to change all of our ideas and planning, as we got given a song which didn't really fit the people that we are and we couldn't think of any ideas to start off with, so we had to think about it and adopt our personalities to the song and try and make it in our own way not fit it in to originally with the song.
also we was not aloud to use a car to its full potential so we had to just sit in it and film as we wasn't aloud to drive it and thought it would be to difficult to try fit green screening it with the car and thought it would spoil the video by not looking realistic.
when we wanted to film though some of the people in our group was absent or not able to make an after school session for filming because we needed to use places out of the school area, also a member of our group left during the production so we had to try and work things around that as we changed a bit of our filming because she was not here to do the filming we intended on doing we had to work around it.

filming and editing

In the filming in our film fitted in well because we got our planning done early and had some good ideas which would fit the type of song we had been given. The filming that we did was at Oliver park in whetstone which we did on the Monday.
We thought that we would use this place because how the beat of the song was fitted to the scene on the park quite relaxing and nice scenery. also we took pictures of me and Megan for part of our filming to show that we have had history before i met her on the park, we manged to film most of our video all in one day except one shot.
To make the editing easy we did lots of different types of shots but made them all good so that we only had to pick out the best one to fit the scene, editing we did quite quickly as well between the 3 of us and after not having much experience on the mac found it quite easy to figure out.
when filming the lip syncing how i said the words looked like not proper on the mac so we had to try and slow it down to fit with the song and eventually made it fit.
when we did the digi pack we just took some pictures on the park and we didn't really need much planning for this as it was just off the top of the head and the poster was just the main picture on the front of the CD cover but just in colour.

For my research on an album cover, poster and the song i have chosen Kanye west the graduation, this album was his third album of his music career involving most of his well known songs like for e.g. stronger, champion, homecoming, flashing lights and touch the sky, along with all of the other songs on the album.

The song i will be focusing on and analysing is "homecoming" which i think relates to the album name 'graduation' the most for the fact its from his school experiences and university when he comes home and how he got into the music business.

Analysis on the album cover and poster

The album cover is a purple night sky background with a bunch of animals dressed in gowns and there graduation hats are being thrown up in the air, the animals are cats and rabbits and there out side which is supposed to symbolise a university.

The picture is almost surreal of how it is like a moon which has a face and a weird shooting beam as its mouth and this is where the teddy bear (kanye west) is being fired out of with his 'swag' on the colours that are used are extremely bright to catch the consumers eyes to attract to it.

The way how he is being fired out in the sky is showing him like finishing university and that he's done his 'learning' of life and he is now out to live his music career. it the poster which is in the album is the same as the front cover of the album. The reasons for why he chose to have such a surreal futuristic theme was that he wanted to show other than he lyrical side to his career but also his imaginative side of design so he linked in with a surreal artist called Takashi Murakami which over there in japan is known as 'Warhol of japan' Murakami said what inspired about working with kanye and why he chose to do such a piece of art "The cover is based on kanye's theme of student life, a place to have dreams and fun, his music is like sandpaper you need to use it aggressively to get a good final product"

The back of the album cover is just the same picture but from the other side and showing the back of the teddy bear being launched up into the sky.

Some of the songs also that Mr west uses in this album reflect the cover and poster for example 'touch the sky' as on the cover he is reaching for the sky as he gets launched up in the sky by the surreal moon almost, and the song that i will look at called 'homecoming' which is enthusing coming home so back from his gradation at university and all he studied for is all paying off.

The inside pictures on the album is one of the teddy (kanye west) in his graduation clothes and hat looking mean and angry and also the picture it self is more darker than the other's with the surreal mushroom glaring at him with soppy eyes, this would enthuses some of the songs on his album as well like 'stronger' saying hes got to be stronger, another would be 'you cant tell me nothing' this song was a strong meaningful song about people trying to guide him in life and he guided himself and it worked. The other side of the picture is the whole group of students but as animals as you can see the giraffe and a goose, which looks like kanye is telling them something and there is a few strokes of rain in the top left corner and and to the right its more light saying that it the good side with the university building surrounding all of graduates.

Analysis of the song 'homecoming'

The song homecoming starts off with a good mood sound to it with it being a good thing about him coming home, this is meant in several ways in the song the first bit is when he talks about his 'girl' who he met from a young age of 3 he has pushed him this far and encourages him to go further telling him to keep bringing it home meaning the songs and the money.

The second part to the song after the chorus is about how he left her to do what he wanted and she just talks about the bad times, then he gets passionate about the songs and tells his 'girls' name. The last part to the song is just bits of the chorus and how he ends the song 'maybe we can start again' saying about his homecoming hes a new man. This relates to the album cover and poster by how the fact he has left and now has got so much in life like his riches and fame so his decision that he made to go for his 'dream' was the correct thing to do.

The video its self is in black and white in a chi city in Chicago and talks about lake Michigan as he raps on like a moving float going through the streets on chi city with mirrors all around him and he keeps going back like rewinding in the song just him walking round 'chi city' with Chris Martin singing the chorus and then he also gets green screened as well. with fire works in lake Michigan and he keeps just raping around 'chi city'