Ancillary Task

Although I am doing my main task, I still need to work on my ancillary task so I am doing some research into famous album covers.

My favourite of the three is 'Horses' because it's quite simple but memorable and it isn't as well known as the other two which have already been copied countless times. All three of these album covers use simple images and text layouts which is what makes them effective.

Stop motion guide

I found a step by step guide on the internet on how to create stop motion in Adobe Premier Pro.

http://craigbaldwin.com/blog/2009/04/making-stop-motion-animation-adobe-premiere-pro/


It was very helpfull when editing my work, I had some trouble with the size of my photos but it can be easily solved by right clicking on the clip and pressing Scale to frame size.

Filming plans

I have finished my research and planning and will be doing my filming over the next two days, the 9th and 10th November.

Shot breakdown

1. The characters jacket, tie and shoes put themselves on him and he moves his arms into position as if he was holding a guitar.


2. A guitar appears in the characters hands and he starts to play.


3. When the singing comes in, the characters shoes untie themselves and take themselves off, another pair comes along to replace them.


4. The same happens with the characters tie.


5. His hairstyle gradually changes.


6. Just before the chorus comes in, the character takes the guitar and holds it beside him, it then dissapears as the chorus kicks in.

7. All of the characters clothes begin to change.

8.After the chorus, the character dissapears and reappears in different places around the room in time with the guitar. The last time he appears he is holding a guitar.

9. The second verse starts with the character playing the song.

10. There is a zoom in to a close up of the characters face then the shot zooms back out showing the character in a completely different location and costume.

11,12,13,14. Shot number 10 is repeated 4 times, each time showing a different location and costume, the last time, it changes back to the same location and costume as before the first chorus. The locations will be different rooms around a house.

15. The chorus is repeated.

16. After the chorus the character is seen standing still whilst all of his clothes and the location surrounding him constantly change, this is cut together with other shots from the chorus and previous verses until he eventually ends up in exactly the same position as he started in.

Research into my song

'Hardest Button to button' is the third single from the White Stripes album, 'Elephant'. The single was released on December 9th 2003.






Jack White, the lead singer of the band said 'that the song is about a child trying to find his place in a dysfunctional family when a new baby comes'. This idea is reflected in my music video through the idea of constant change.

The original video uses stop motion in the same way that I'm going to use it, with real actors instead of animated characters. The theme of the video is also very similar but I have changed the context quite a lot. The colour scheme is also very noticeable, the red, black and white colour scheme is a trademark of the white stripes and in almost all of their videos and album covers they are wearing these colours, I may try to include this in my video.

Copyrighting

Most songs nowadays are copyrighted by the record companies, so I have E-mailed XL recordings to ask permission to use the song:

Hopefully I will get a reply which I can post on my blog.

Magazine adverts

The second part of my ancillary task is to create a magazine advert for my song. I have looked at some general magazine adverts before looking specifically at adverts for music.

The main feature of this advert is the photograph which stands out and catches the eye, there is only writing on the bottom section of the advert. The car is a lot brighter than the background so it stands out well, and the box with the text in is orange so it is highlighted as important.

This advert is also mainly dominated by the picture but the text is placed around the picture. This also uses the technique of having a brightly coloured picture against a blank background, and there is a bold headline to catch peoples attention.

This advert has more text and factual content than the other two but is again dominated by the picture which stands out from the background.