A2 MEDIA STUDIES

ADVANCED PORTFOLIO

RESEARCH & PLANNING

CENTRE NO: 11049

ST FRANCIS XAVIER COLLEGE

My name is: Biancha Rollock

Candidate No: 8399

Digipak advertisementDigipak – CD cover

My main portfolio project is:My main portfolio project is:

Music Video Music Video with 2 ancillary projects:with 2 ancillary projects:

The genre of my main project is:

Genre: Soca / Calypso

and the title is: Battle zone

History of Steel Pan/Calypso The pan is a chromatically pitched percussion instrument (although some toy or novelty steel pans are tuned

diatonically), made from 55 gallon drums that usually store oil. In fact, drum refers to the steel drum containers from which the pans are made; the steel drum is correctly called a steel pan or pan as it falls into the idiophone family of instruments, and is not technically regarded as a drum or membranophone. The pan is struck by a pair of straight sticks tipped with rubber; the size and type of rubber tip is unique to the class of pan being played. Some musicians use four pan sticks, holding two in each hand. This skill and performance has been conclusively shown to have grown out of Trinidad and Tobago's early 20th century Carnival percussion groups known as Tamboo Bamboo. Pan is the National Instrument of Trinidad and Tobago.

Every year Steel Bands compete in a worldwide competition known as Panorama, where they play a 10 minute song which they take a Soca or calypso song and make it their own by adding variations to extend the original 3 minute song.

London All stars won the first UK National steel Band Festival Championships, in which Frank Rollock founded and arranged the number. In 1956, at the age of seventeen, Frank and his brother Roy founded their own orchestra called Modernaires for whom Frank compiled a book of arrangements through the inspiration of the famous Trinidad All Stars whom he greatly admired.

In 1959, whilst preparing for a steel band music festival with Merry Stars Metronomes whose leader Kenrick Thomas later became his brother-in-law, Frank made a conscious decision to migrate to the UK. He brought some pans with him and in February 1960, Frank, Roy and some friends took to the streets of Brixton to celebrate Carnival. Their actions were noted as the first time pan was played in Brixton Road and the initiation of the Brixton Carnival. Frank remembers his fellow West Indians joining in with their bottles and spoons and the amazed look on the faces of Britons. In the late sixties he played the sax with the Tony Morgan Road Show and the bass guitar with Rudy Jones and the Ambassadors, they toured Germany and played at most of the clubs in the West End around the same time the Beatles were making their mark in the music industry.

There are many different instruments and variations making up the family of steel band instruments:

Tenor

Double Tenor

Double Second

Double Guitar Tenor

Quadrophonic (four pans)

Triple Guitar

Cello

Triple Tenor

Bass

So I have researched as follows:

Model 1: Machel Montano- Wild Antz

Model 2: Destra Garcia-Max

it up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_palTY3Rb4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOwztdSKKaE

What I learned from this was….. Design aspect 1 I learnt that you can be very literate

with the meaning of the song, hence Machel Montano going with his theme to dress up as “wild Ants”. This was a clever idea because I felt as though he tried to explore a different way in portraying his music video. In my opinion he doesn’t use the typical conventions of a music video because he clearly has a little story to the song, and was very creative with it. As far as camera shots and editing, the piece follows the typical conventions of a music video. I noticed that the aspect of the video is very simple and so it uses a basic amount of camera shots like medium shots, wide shots, close ups etc.

Design aspect 2 I learnt from this video that

most West Indian videos capture the fact that they love to have a good time, they show this through, giving a sense of tradition through their videos e.g. The use of MAS Costumes. As far as camera shots and editing, the piece follows the typical conventions of a music video. I noticed that the aspect of the video is very simple and so it uses a basic amount of camera shots like medium shots, wide shots, close ups etc.

For my main project….

The target audience is: West Indians mainly because that’s their native music which is highly respected in the West Indies, but can be targeted at everyone of any class, because it is a universal type of music that anyone can like depending on your taste of music. It would suit anyone of any age because it will be a diverse piece of music.

Its pleasures are: That our audience will receive good quality live music that they can enjoy at any time. We also intend to use some sort of pyrotechnic effects to engage our audience deeper.

Target Audience

Here is an image of how I imagine a typical member of my target audience.

Their characteristics are: They are of any

nationality Like to have a good time Any Race and Gender

I know that my audience will be anyone of any age and gender mainly because the song I and my partner chose is a very uplifting song which doesn’t have a negative message, so it can be listened to by anyone who would like to listen to song.

Image of target audience

Here are original photographs for the storyboard……

I modified each photograph; here is the original next to the final version: Raw 1 Final 1

Here is how I changed the photograph and why: To change these 6 images I went into Photoshop and used the polygon lasso tool to

go around each image, once I had done that I feathered each image when the images were highlighted and then pasted them on to a new layer. I then placed each image in the place I wanted them to go and saved the image as one. I did this to the images because I wanted them all grouped together as one, so it looks more like a close up group image. This image probably took the longest to edit because it was more than one picture I was editing but I feel as though it came out good in the end. the longest to end.

And the second one: Raw 2 Final 2

Here is how I changed the photograph and why Here I used the same processes as the first image, used

the polygon lasso tool to go around the areas I wanted to use then feathered the image by 3. I then opened a new layer and pasted it there. I edited out the background because I didn’t want the sky and balloons in the background I only wanted the main features within the image.

And the third one: Raw 3 Final 3

Here is how I changed the photograph and why Here I used the same processes as the first image, used the polygon lasso tool to go

around the areas I wanted to use then feathered the image by 3. I then opened a new layer and pasted it there. I edited out the background because I didn’t want the sky and balloons in the background I only wanted the main features within the image. In my opinion this was the trickiest photo I had to outline because there was a lot of intricate areas that I wanted to keep and because the image wasn’t very clear I has to ensure I was concentrating properly so that I didn’t cut out areas I wanted in the long run.

And the last one: Raw 4 Final 4

Here is how I changed the photograph and why Here I used the same processes as the first and second images, used the

polygon lasso tool to go around the areas I wanted to use then feathered the image by 3. I then opened a new layer and pasted it there. I edited out the background because I didn’t want them, I only wanted the main features within the image. In my opinion this was the trickiest photo and because of the different light balances in the background the image looks a bit distorted.

These are the key concepts or theories behind my project The key concept of the music video is to move people, it’s the type of music

that you can jam to and just have a good time, its quite uplifting so enables you to feel good, and we intend to put that across through the ways in which the players play the song and interact with each other when playing the song.

The chosen Genre is Calypso, our audience is everyone on a whole because it is the type of music that everyone can vibe to, depending on the type of music you like to listen to, it’s a very diverse Genre but if I had to pick a particular audience I would say mainly people of a West Indian background because this genre is within their roots so will be able to relate more.

The video will be representing West Indian people on a whole seeing as Steel Pan is exceedingly familiar in these countries and is known to be a well respected instrument in countries such as Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, st. Lucia, Guyana etc.

These have all shaped our planning, because it has given us an all round feel of what we need to include within our music video, we know that the music video will be based primarily around the playing of the instrument because that’s most important, and is what is usually shown within these types of videos, but we want to also show more so the vibe let off by the players while playing.

StoryBoardThis week we worked on

our storyboard . This included us collecting a series of images which would be used within our Music Video, we had to ensure the images were of relevance and could be linked into each other through the use of transitions .

Within our storyboard we were able to note down the camera shots and angles we were going to use and why we used that technique.

Here are a few pages from my storyboard, you can see I have discussed the camera angles, shots etc.

This is my ancillary project 1

This is my ancillary project 2 (print or hyperlink)

My Poster appeals to my target audience because you get a atmosphere of the song, and you can also distinguish the Trinidadian flag in the background. I feel the colours used also appeal to the target audience because you have some bright and dark colours which definitely give a sense of a unisex audience.

What I learned from audience feedback about my Main TaskFrom the feedback given to me and my

partner concerning our Main Task we found that we should add more transition in some areas to help certain areas of the video flow more we also were told that we should show the enjoyment of playing the instrument a little more so we decided that we were going to have a clip which showed a member of the band dancing so it gives you a sense of the atmosphere developed when playing steel pans.

What I learned from audience feedback about ancillary task 1From ancillary task 1, I learnt that, in order to enhance the

look of my font on each page to a precise and clear quality when being viewed, I have to make sure I write out all lyrics in in design and not in photoshop because once it has been exported into In design the quality of the font drops, so gives a blurry look.

I also learnt that when producing a Music Cover I have to ensure it is of relevance to the artist and the song and can be linked to any other forms of advertisement that may be produced with it, so you have to pay close attention to the colours used and your typefaces.

What I learned from audience feedback about ancillary task 2From audience feedback for my second ancillary task I found

that most people liked the overall look of the poster, they felt it was quite different because it isn't like normal conventional posters which feature the artist on the page then their song title.

My ancillary task two is mostly picture based and simple entitles the bands name and the title of the song with a image on the bottom, the reason why I chose not to highlight the whole band was because the band consists of over 20 players so it wouldn’t fit on the page if I was to highlight each player on the page so I decided to keep the poster quite simple but still promote the band and song at the same time.

I felt it wasn’t necessary to have the artist on the page because from research I found a few posters which didn’t have the artist faces on the page so I felt because of the size of the band I would go down this route.

Changes made in the re-draft of main taskThere were a lot of changes that took place with my main task.

One of the most obvious I would say is the scenes we used because we felt from our first draft some areas were repetitive so we adding in more clips to create more of a variety to look at for our montage styled video. Once we had changed reoccurring clips and replaced them with new clips we felt that enhanced the video.

We originally had no transitions within our video because we felt our video naturally had transitions, but the more we watched it the more we felt using a few transitions such as cross dissolves will enhance the look of the video and smoothen the transitions to each clip.

We also added titles at the beginning and end of the video which give you a little information about the band and the song, that is on a black screen which fades in and out of the beginning and end of the song.

Changes made in the re-draft of ancillary task 1The changes I made to my first ancillary task I have

discussed earlier in the presentation and that was my font, again because the font looked very blurry once I had exported my completed pages into Indesign I had to deleted the original fonts off of each page and write them out in in design in order for my text to look clear and readable.

I also felt the background of each page was quite boring so to enhance the look of each page I added lines in different areas of the page and coloured them in my chosen themed colours to make each page look more appealing.

Changes made in the re-draft of ancillary task 1 You can see

clearly here how my original ancillary task’s font is very blurry, in comparison to the revised version where I had written out my lyrics on Indesign instead of Photoshop and exporting it over.

This was a good decision as the lyrics are now clean and precise on each page, so it is readable for the audience.

I have only pasted one page of the CD Cover to give you an idea of how it looked before and after.

Re-DraftedOriginal

You can clearly see that the left images font is barely visible and is of a lower quality in colour in comparison to the image on the right.

Changes made in the re-draft of ancillary task 2I made slight modifications to my second ancillary task

mainly because I wanted to play around with colour slightly to try and enhance the overall look of the poster.

I opened back up my original creation on Photoshop and began playing with the colour balance, brightness and contrast of the image I used, this began to make my image a brown colour which gave it a old rustic feel to it like it had been battered I liked this effect o chose to keep it and it also went with the colour of my font in the background which was also a brown colour, However the more I compare the two side by side the more I like my original Poster for my second ancillary task so I have decided to go with my first attempt as it is more appealing to the eye.

Changes made in the re-draft of ancillary task 2 Here you can

clearly see the changes I made to my ancillary task 2, judging from the small modifications you can see which one looks better in terms of visual appeal, and I think it is quite evident why I chose to go with my original attempt of this ancillary task.

Original Re-Drafted

This is how all three components are linked together…. All three of my components link together because they

are all about the same genre and feature my chosen artists. I feel I have adopted the atmosphere of my music video within my digi-pak advertisement and CD Cover effectively so you constantly get a feel of the atmosphere they are trying to deliver to their targeted audience, which is uplifting music that makes you want to move.

I have also followed the colour scheme of the bands shirts for both my digipak advertisement and CD Cover because they are colours that not only distinguish the band but the country they come from as well, which is effective in getting a representation of the band.

How my 3 products work together to appeal to target audience Target audience (reception theory) Generic characteristics Narrative structure Representational issues (gender, age, etc)I feel all three of my products work together in order to appeal to my target audience because they

all link in many ways. E.G. my colour scheme is followed throughout all three tasks, which was developed from the colours on the bands t-shirts, the fun passionate atmosphere is shown in my main task and is exactly what a steel band lover would expect and more from a Music video which shows a journey through the growth of the band in a montage style.

My CD Cover and Poster definitely have qualities of linking because of the colour scheme used, I believe that I have added all the correct elements on both tasks to make you see they belong together e.g. the song name and the concept of the battle zone image on the poster.

I don’t feel as though I will be faced with any representational issues because all three elements were created in a way that it is obviously a unisex piece, the colours used do not define femininity or masculinity , because there is a mixture of colour on the page and as far as age because it is a genre that can be liked by anyone there isn't a age restriction either because the song doesn’t highlight any sort of violence or disrespect towards a targeted audience, it is feel good music which can be listened to by anyone of any age.

I have already explained that our main task is following a montage style in my blog so as far as a narrative you see a collection of memories from the fast to the present but also see some sections which correlate with the song being played, so there is a slight structure to the music video.

Links back to evaluation and blog

http://biancharollock.blogspot.com/