Final cut

We have finally exported our final cut. However, our documentary was too long to upload in one part so we had to split the video up into two parts.

 

 

 

 



Magazine article

I experimented with Microsoft Publisher 2003 to create a magazine interview with 'Drew Taylor.' As part of our production we created album covers and one of the titles we came up with was 'Autumn Leaves' which Dan created. Here is a print screen of the document.

Here is a close of the writing: 

• I used different colour fonts to signify the answer to the questions and to make a distinction between who was speaking in the interview 

 Some photos I used: 

• I used her album cover photo as the article is supposed to promote the album in the way the documentary does. The article also promotes her as a product in a similar way that Taylor Swift magazine articles ect. do. 

Taylor Swift magazine cover 

Last filming session

Dan managed to re-film the interview with Drew's manager with Matt, who worked with us outside the group. We got feedback from our teacher to include different angles to make the interview more interesting. 

Also, we changed the background to make the scene more vibrant in comparrison to having a plain white background. I found that the background change was significant as it reflected the character of Patrice who is French. Apart from Patrice himself, arguably the main subject in the scene is the bottle of wine which is supposed to reflect his nationality which is French. 

• During this scene we have also included yet more photos of Drew Taylor from when she was younger to remind the audience of the purpose that this documentary serves. This is to get to know the star and her life before she was famous. 

New Ideas

I suggested that instead of the clip being a whole documentary we only make it the first section just so that it doesn't look compact and so it fits the requirements of the coursework production, which is a scene from a documentary. To achieve this look, at the end of the scene we have the main title and then added font saying 'Part One' closing off the first section. Therefore, we have also removed the end credits. Although the titles were professional looking they did not fit in with the overall structure of our documentary scene. I have found after researching different documentaries-particularly TV documentaries-that using titles to end sections is a convention of documentary.

A2 Production Diary 10

Over the last few weeks we have made progress filming a new video to feature in our documentary for the Drew Taylor song 'Fearless.' The song is actually written by Taylor Swift. We wanted it to feature a romance so Dan and Gemma kindly said that they would act as the boyfriend and girlfriend. We filmed this section in two sections 

Firstly, we filmed in 'the priory' a few shots of Gemma acting as Drew on the bridge gazing into the distance, supposedly thinking about her boyfriend. Secondly, we filmed some shots outside our school of Drew and her boyfriend walking down a path holding hand. A lot of inspiration for this music video shoot has been drawn from Taylor Swift videos such as 'Love Story' which has a romantic story line at it's core. 

Here are some pictures from the photo shoot 

• This is from the first section of the 'Fearless' video 

• And this is the second section where the boyfriend character is introduced 

Target Audience

Our A2 Production Documentary is based in the fictional film star 'Drew Taylor.' We have based Drew largely around the famous American country singer Taylor Swift. Our target audience is very similar to the likes of Taylor Swift.

Age 

• I believe that our product will be aimed at the age group between 13-19. Stars similar to Taylor Swift often write songs about boys and high school therefore their music is more relatable to people who fit in the teenage age group 

Gender 

• Drew Taylor generally appears to girls mainly because a lot of her songs deal with boy issues and boys will find it harder to relate to her music, thus our documentary appeals to her largely female fan base

Ethnicity 

• I believe that our documentary will appear mainly to the western world, mainly people who are white/black American or British. However, Drew is said to have international fans in the documentary this there is a wide range of ethnicity's 

In Depth Product Analysis

Our group our focusing on a documentary for our A2 Production, particularly music documentaries. For my in depth analysis I have chosen to look at 'Iron Maiden: Flight 666' a documentary about the famous metal band 'Iron Maiden.' 

General information

‘Iron Maiden: Flight 666’ is a concert documentary film staring the famous British heavy metal band ‘Iron Maiden.’ The film follows the group on the first leg of their ‘Somewhere Back in Time World Tour.’ The documentary was directed by Scott McFayden and Sam Dun (the narrator). The documentary is co-produced by Banger Films, Inc and Rush: Beyond the lighted stage. Banger Films, Inc are known for music based documentaries such as ‘Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey’ and ‘Global Metal.’ The documentary was distributed by EMI and Universal Music Group. The film was realised on the 21^st of April 2009.

Media forms and conventions

Concert Clips

The documentary features lots of concert clips from shows all around the world. The impact that this has on the audience is that you get to see how different cultures react to ‘Iron Maiden’s music. Concert clips are a common feature of concert documentaries. I believe their purpose to create the illusion that you are at one of their concerts.

Interviews

With the band

Each of the band members are interviewed about certain aspects of band life including being on tour, what they think of other members in the band, their thoughts on the music process and life in general. These interviews make the audience feel closer with the band as you begin to learn their outlook in life

With the crew

The interviews with the crew are important to making the audience aware of what goes into putting a world tour together. They put everything into perspective for the audience

With the fans

Possibly the most significant interviews featured in the documentary as this gives the audience awareness of how important the band are to others and what effect their music has on people.

Interview with fan in India 

Archived footage

There is use of archived footage in the documentary often to enrich the audiences knowledge on the band’s history. For example, whilst Maiden are in Brazil they show a clip of them performing at ‘Rock In Rio’ during the 80s.

Voice over

Sam Dun, one of the directors narrates the documentary taking the audience through the different stages of the world tour.

Use of text

The documentary often uses text. Most noticeably, every time there is a shot of ‘Ed Force One’ landing on the ground there is always white text with the name of the place and however many miles they have travelled.

Representation

The documentary represents life on tour for the band with its highs and lows. For example, a low point on tour is travelling to places where they are not necessarily welcome by the authority. For example, whilst they are in South America in one of the destinations the crowd queuing outside are controlled by the police during this time. The band state that this is an attitude they disagree with and that the people who are queuing up to see their concert are not trying to start any kind of revelation like the government might think but they are there for the sole purpose to see a heavy metal show. Whereas a high point would be that they get to travel to destinations that they otherwise wouldn’t see such as Japan and Australia. The documentary also represents other cultures from around the world. From outside Maiden shows we see the individual personalities of the countries including their accents/languages, the scenery and different customs. However, during their concerts there is the same passion for the band and their music in all Maiden fans all over the world and suggests a one world philosophy. Lastly, I think the documentary portrays the heavy metal community as a whole firstly because Iron Maiden are one of the most iconic bands in the genre’s history and because of the representation of the fans. This documentary would be evidence of the argument that heavy metal has the most passionate fan base in the world.

Audience

I think that the target audience is most obviously Iron Maiden fans but also heavy metal fans as a whole. I think that the multicultural aspect of the documentary implies that this documentary is suited for all cultures and ethnicities. The documentary also demonstrates the large age range of Maiden fans therefore suggest that there is no age limit for this documentary.

A2 Production Diary 9

On Sunday 20th October Dan, Lucy, Tom, Gemma and I went out to film for a music video of Taylor Swift's song 'Fearless' that we are going to use for our documentary. However, once we got to hertford and where we wanted to film it started to rain and didn't stop for the majority of the afternoon so no filming took place. Here are some photos from the day:

A2 Production Diary 8

Today Dan and I spent a few hours in the media room editing for our first draft which is due in tomorrow. He edited the majority of the first part of the sequence at home which includes a montage of Drew when she was younger, what is supposed to be an old video clip of Drew singing in her room and an interview with Drew about her time at school and also the titles. There is also voice over included and 'You belong with Me' by Taylor Swift plays in the background. 

Today we edited the second part of our production together. We used footage from an old media production members of our group created. The footage was of a music video for Taylor Swift's song 'Fifteen.' We then had a video of Drew talking about why she wrote fifteen. 

Lastly we changed the beginning slightly. Instead of having the montage at the very beginning we have a clip of Drew playing the guitar with the sound muted on the clip, and instead have replaced the sound with a sound effect of a crowd cheering. We are also going to have audio clips of her fans reminising over their love for Drew Taylor. 

A2 Production Diary 7

During our lesson today we filmed interviews with me acting as Drew's best friend, and a fan portrayed by Lucy. In this filming session we used green screen to have the same background during these interviews. We also came up with some new ideas for the direction of the documentary. We decided that we would use it to promote he 'Autumn Leaves' world tour that we have spawned. Here is a tour poster that Dan has created: 

I have also created a tour poster which I uploaded on a previous blog.

Here is the current edit of our documentary 

A2 Production Diary 6

Today, Lucy, Dan, Tom and I filmed at Gemma's house. We used her bedroom for the set. Firstly, we filmed a sequence which is supposed to be an old video of Drew singing in her bedroom when she was younger. Secondly, we filmed an interview with her which was in the same room. Here are some photos from today. 

Potential Tour Posters

As I mentioned I was planning to make a tour poster for Drew and I have decided that I am going to experiment with a few. The first one I have made was with an image from our photoshoot on the 10th of October and to make this I used Microsoft word. I am not sure if I like it, I have spoken to other members of the group and they have said they think it looks good. However, I think it doesn't look glamorous enough especially for an arena tour.

Potential CD Covers

In a previous blog I noted that we all met up to go out on a photoshoot with Gemma. Dan managed to take some of the photos that he and I took and make potential CD covers. We have used Taylor Swift's albums as the main inspiration for this. 

My personal favourite is the autumn leaves album cover and I'm going to use the album title as the tour name for the promotional tour poster. 

A2 Production Diary 5

Today, Lucy, Dan, Tom and Gemma met up for a days worth of shooting. In the morning we managed to film some footage for the music video clips. Then in the afternoon we used the fields near Fanhamns Hall in Ware and Dan and I managed to take some photos for a CD Cover. 

For this particular photo shoot we wanted naturalistic scenery. In the end we chose an area where there were woods. It was a very pretty location that had a long winding path secluded by trees of which the leafs were beginning to fall. So the photo shoot had an autumn feel to it. We also were lucky to be taking pictures just as the sun began to set. 

In terms of the photos we took in Gemma's house, we used a dark coloured rug as a background and Gemma sat on the floor looking up at the camera. We tried having her lying down on the rug but we did not produce any flattering photos and one of the point of a photo shoot is to make the star look their best. 

Inspiration 

I did some research before our photo shoot and looked at similar artists to Drew Taylor such as Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift. As we planned to use naturalistic scenery I only looked at photos taken outside. 

• Nina Nesbitt's 'The Apple Tree' EP cover this was where the idea for having Gemma lying in the floor came from. Although we practised that idea inside
• I looked at a photos hoot that was taken in 2012 for the release of Taylor Swift's third album 'Red.' This photo shoot is taken is set primarily in an outside setting. It is clearly taken in autumn too with leafs on the ground
• I also looked at a Carrie Underwood photo shoot that was set in fields 

Nina Nesbitt: The Apple Tree EP Album cover

Taylor Swift 'Red' photoshoot

• This photo shoot was to promote Taylor's 2012 album release for 'Red' 

Carrie Underwood photoshoot

• The naturistic background for this photoshoot inspired our own 

Here are some of the best photos we took that day 

• We took the following photos at Gemma's house using her floor rug as the background

• The next photos we took in a field near wareside a long a wooded path 

• The last two photos on this blog I took though there were many more left out as they weren't good enough 

• This is a close up of Drew and is my favourite photo we took that day 

Merchandise ideas

We have decided to make merchandise some of which will be included in our final documentary. I myself am a huge fan of merchandise and enjoy collecting posters, wristbands and t-shirts. I have come up with some ideas for merchandise ideas that we can use.

Ideas

•  T-shirts, fan made?
• Wrist bands
• Cosmetic brand
• Posters

Inspiration
As Taylor Swift is our main inspiritation I researched some of her merchandise. This helped me come up with product designs for our own merchandise as she has the same age demographic as Drew does which is teenagers, particularly teenage girls

I am now going to design products for Drew Taylor focussing on her Autumn Leaves Tour.



A2 Production Diary 4

Dan and Tom managed to complete a lot of editing on Chauncy School open evening. So far we have managed to complete the photo montage at the beginning, the audition scene, an interview with Drew and we have included an older media product for the Taylor Swift Music Video 'Fifteen.' 

Here are some screen shots of our current production process