What we want our website to be like...

Editing the Title Sequence

Today, I have been editing the title sequence and it is hard work!
Our music starts of fast but with no beat, and then a few seconds into it, the beat drops and the music becomes very upbeat. So I had to make sure the shots complemented the music to make it flow.

For the beginning part I would like to have slower shots and establishing shots, establishing what our news channel is about and what news we present. I want a montage of shots building up to the beat dropping which is the climax of our title sequence. This is what many news title sequences do, as they build up to the climax with a montage of various shots.

When the beat drops, I want a significant visual to go along with it to really impact the viewer.

After the beat drops, I want much faster shots of things very specifically associated with music, like we got a shot of a DJ so I hope to fit that in somewhere.


This is just my brief plan, I have to see how well our footage works with the music!

#RG

EarMunch Website

http://earmunchnews.wix.com/earmunch#!home/mainPage 

FILMING

Today we went to Camden to film and we got some good shots!
We started off by going around Camden and finding some inspiration. Every time we walked by anything to do with music we tried to film it.
There were some issues with people not wanting us to film their stalls and shops, so we couldn't get some shots that we really wanted!
We filmed shots of t-shirts with music artists on it, panning and tilting shots of headphones and shots of the general people walking.

We wanted to make our vox pops targeted towards our target audience which is teenagers and young adults interested in music, so we wanted to film teenagers to talk to. However, we could not find that many teenagers on the road who were willing to be filmed and participate. This made it very difficult for us but we perserved! We tried to find many people and ended up persuading a couple of people to be interviewed.

#RG

Location

We have a variety of locations we would like to film at. We want to film our vox pops at different places to get diverse and varied opinions and to limit bias.

For our recording studio scene we have many locations we have to choose from and here are some examples:


Harrow Open Studios:
We chose this because it is easy to get to and it is a community studio

                   
                     Roundhouse Studios:

                This is a more professional.             

For our vox pops, we are deciding to film in Camden because when we went there to film our title sequence, we realised that there are many teenagers and young people there. As they are our target audience we thought it best to get their opinion on our story. 

#RG

New Logo

We all agreed that our current logo wasn't suitable as it had low quality and in general; it wasn't easy to manipulate, so I decided to generate a new logo via a logo generator website that I've used previously. To be honest, it didn't take too long, and it was much easier to create using the website than Photoshop. I couldn't really find a font similar to the one we have currently but the team felt the new logo was perfectly fine. This is it:

We all felt this is right for the new logo, so I've scrapped the other one; I added our Earmunch monster on top of the logo the incorporate our brand image:

This is the final logo, despite all the other times we've said "This is our final logo".. THIS.. THIS is the final logo. Now we just need to put it on our blog, website and opening sequence.

#AB

Facts and Statistics

Sequence of Shots

VOICEOVER AND FILLER SHOT OF ARTHUR --> INTERVIEW ARTIST WITH CUTAWAYS AND FILLER SHOTS OF WHAT ARTIST IS SAYING --> VOICEOVER OF FACTS AND STATS WITH FILLER SHOTS OF GOOGLE --> SECOND INTERVIEW MANAGER WITH CUTAWAYS AND FILLER SHOTS OF WHAT MANAGER IS SAYING --> VOICEOVER WITH FILLER SHOTS COMPLEMENTING VOICEOVER --> VOX POPS --> VOICEOVER TO SUMMARISE STORY.

Planning Our Production Schedule

We are hoping to film soon and we need to plan what we want to exactly film.

• Vox Pops
• Filler Shots e.g panning shots/establishing shots of location/people
• Formal Interview of a Record Label Manager and an Artist; hopefully in an recording studio
• Piece to camera

• Vox Pops = For our Vox Pops we would like to ask our target audience which are teenagers. SHOTS: All vox pops should be filmed at the same height so it looks continuous and not unprofessional. They should be no longer 10-15 seconds. We would like a variety of opinions e.g 4/5. We don't want the reporter on camera as we think that would not be beneficial to us. Snappy interviews with interesting dialogues. Variety of interviews with boys and girls to get different opinions to appeal to all our target market.
• Filler Shots = SHOTS: establishing shots of location e.g Roundhouse Studios in Camden. A voiceover will be playing on top of these filler shots. We want shots of people going onto Google to download music, different bands in Concert that are of different genres. The shots back up what the voiceover is saying. The shots we would like to get are: Arthur (the artist) working in the studio, the manager of the record label working in the studio, a band performing and a DJ at work.
• Formal Interview = Getting a more professional and insightful opinion on music downloads and this will help give substance and evidence to our story. By having a professional record label manager giving his views on our topic it will make the story more believable. This will be longer than the Vox Pops and they interviewee will answer many questions. SHOTS: Filming the manager in the studio to make location believable. He starts off talking and we see him and then we can transition into him working while his interview runs as a voiceover on top of the clip playing e.g working on editing music.
• Piece to camera = From the filler shot and voiceover we will transition to the piece to camera. We want to film Riya outside. We chose this because it is relevant to music and isn't something random. ALTHOUGH WE ARE CONTEMPLATING WHETHER OR NOT TO DO A PIECE TO CAMERA.
• Cutaways shots =different shots and angles of artist/manager such as close-up of hands.

#RG

Advance Production Portfolio: Television News Package Proposal

Group Names: 
We are Earmunch which consists of:

• Riya
• Arthur
• Nicky
• Kaira

Proposed Subject/Story: 

Our story is based on  illegally downloading music and looking at both sides as to why people do it and why others do not. We will also be looking at the affect this may have on artists and the music industry. We will include the view that people may download music illegally because they can and if one can get something for free why would they pay. However this may be contradicted with where is the line drawn as illegal downloads are increasing which is affecting artists in many ways. 

Proposed Interview: 

Within this package we will be interviewing a record label manager who will express his views on how he music industry is being affected especially their artists. We will also be briefly interviewing artists themselves in order to portray their views on their music being illegally downloaded. Finally we will be interviewing teenagers as this is our target audience, questioning their views on why people illegally download and whether they do it or not.

The Final Idea!

After reviewing and looking over the three ideas we were considering. We have decided that our story will be about illegally downloading music and the affect this may have on the music industry. 

This story stood out from the other two because we felt we can do a lot more with it in terms of the conventions of a news package.

The reason we choose this topic is because we had a decision about what we would do in order to follow the conventions and we were able to come up with good ideas for each common feature of a news package.

Here is what we came up with:

WHAT WE WANT TO INCLUDE?

The statement: 

 We can focus on the statement:                               

 The music industry vs. The internet. This will create a good discussion      
throughout the news package.  

    Voice over’s: 

This will be over filler shots or a montage, which will inform the audience more about the topic.

Vox pops:   

The voice of the people stating what they think about the topic. E.g. why they think people download. Most likely be teenagers (the voice of the target audience) stating what they think about the topic.

Interviews:

We could interview teenagers who are downloading and think it is okay and those who think it is not right. In addition to music industry experts such as a record label manger and artists. These interviews can be discussing both sides of the topic.

Location:                                             

Our location could be outside a studio which is related to the music industry.

Statistics and facts on screen:            

Such as the no. of illegal downloads against the number of album sells. We could include statistics on artists today that have had situations where their music is being continuously illegally downloaded. We can have statistics on up and coming artists and how they have not been able to make it further because of illegal downloads. These statistics can be coming up on a musical object e.g. a CD.

Filler shots:                                                                                                                        This could be of footage from concerts or music videos. We could also have filler shots of music being downloaded from Google showing how it is to access.

#NK

Interview/Vox Pops questions

Interview Questions for Artist:

1. What are your thoughts on illegal and free downloads? I can understand that if people can get their music for free then they won't pay for it, I mean when I was a teenager, I used to do it too but thats ok for the big artists. But for people like me, upcoming artists, it is hard if no-one's paying for your music and your spending money to make it. Until your in the position where people are not paying for your music you realise the effects it has on the artist. To be honest most of the big artists make most of their money from touring and appearances so musical sales aren't a big deal to them but for people like me who still have to make a name for ourselves, it does affect a lot. No ones to blame, it just happens and you have to live with it. Any job has its side effects, this is mine.

Interview Questions for Record Label Manager:

1. What kind of music does your record label produce? Our genre of music is RnB and Pop and we've produced the likes of Taio Cruz and Starboy Nathan.
2. What are your thoughts on the number of illegal downloads and how this has affected/affects your company? It makes it harder for new artists to gain success because people can just access their music for free very easily, this results in a decrease in the number of sales.

Generic Questions For Vox Pops

How do you download your music?

How often do you download music?

Do you buy CD's?
Do you think it is okay to illegally download music?

#RG

Analysis of BBC 'Music Piracy' News report

#KK

Research

I researched news articles on illegal downloads in order to see what has previously been said on the topic. Researching articles really helped as we could see the problems with the music industry and this gave us good information, facts, statistics and statements which we can use in our news package. 

Ideas for news story part 2

Our previous brainstorm ideas were mostly based on artists and an event occurring to do with this artist which could bring about debate. We thought some of these ideas would have made an interesting story as our target audience are teenagers. 
However we found many faults with trying to think of what we would include in those stories and the fact  that these stories may focus on one particular artist from one genre of music. So we have decided to open up the topic more. Therefore we have looked into topics that we can get a lot of information on and can still be a interesting topic for our target audience. Hopefully we will be able to pick one out of these that we feel is a relevant topic and is also engaging. 
#NK

                                        IDEA NUMBER ONE

                                               

                                          IDEA NUMBER TWO

                                           IDEA NUMBER THREE

MTV News analysis

Conventions of a news package

I have looked at a couple of news clip videos but in particular I focused on the 'How to report news' video. This focused on the key conventions/common features of a news clip,which we will have to use as our guide. These include: 

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

#NK

Updating the website

I've made a few more adjustments to the website. I've tried to make it look more appealing since the website looked a bit "boring" so I tried adding more purple in particular places as purple is the colour that represents our news channel.

#AB

Title Sequence Feedback

So...

We submitted the first draft of our title sequence before half term to give our teacher plenty of time to look at it and give us constructive criticism.

We were told that our title sequence was really good except our ending needs to be re-done. The constructive criticism we got was:

• Our logo doesn't look clear and it looks pixelated
• The Youtube, Facebook and Twitter links do not look professional/good on the end
• The non diegetic music needs to carry on for longer as it cuts off before our sequence finishes

To rectify these issues we are re-doing our logo, re-uploading it and making sure that it looks professional.
We wil get rid of the Youtube, Facebook and Twitter links as it does not look good.
Moreover, I will change the music and make it longer so that it covers the whole of the title sequence. 

#RG

Brainstorming ideas for News Story

Today we all started brainstorming news package story ideas. We thought of a number of stories; however some were better suited to music than others. As Earmunch is a music news channel we have to find the link between an engaging story which has to link to the music industry.

During this brainstorm we discussed aspects such as who we would interview for the particular story and how easy access would be. We also discussed if it was possible to find statistics or do vox pops on some ideas. This has now cancelled out some of the ideas we had thought of, but we are going to think of the right story for us that is engaging but at the same time a serious topic within the music industry.
 #NK

Final Logo

After editing this logo about 1020894739939289 times we finally cleaned it up and made it look more professional compared to this "crispy", "overcooked", "shabby" logo (Below). It has been EXTREMELY stressful having to re-edit the logo over and over but hopefully this is the final time. I guess it has to be done if we want to get top praise.
We also added "News" to the logo to add a bit more professionalism and after-all, we are a news channel so it's only appropriate to put it in.

#AB

Group Meeting

We have been rather stressed lately with regards to our logo and the way it looks on the website. Therefore it was time for a team meeting to occur. In this meeting we discussed if we would rather redo the logo altogether or change the colour of the logo which would therefore mean changing the colour theme of the website. We have been procrastinating with this logo and just hoping it will fix itself, so the decision had to be made. We concluded that we would like to keep our logo the way it is and we would just upload it in a different way, in order for it to look better. We are really hoping the outcome of uploading it again will make our logo look much cleaner.  #NK

Editing the Ending

We have reached the end of the Earmunch title sequence where our logo is going to appear. The Earmunch logo is currently on a black backgroup which we find very plain, therefore we need to come up with something else. 

 We have thought of putting icons to our social networking sites: Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. These have been uploaded and are going to be placed where we think would look best. This is good to end with as it is the last thing the audience see in the sequence.

 

We have decided that instead of just having the icons for Facebook, Youtuvbe and Twitter, with this we should also have what they are called. So therefore it is easier for the audience to access Earmunch, just by liking us on Facebook, Subscribing to EarMunchNews and Following @Earmunchnews.

These will appear one by one in a fade with a fade in effect.

  

 

 

 As we do not want our logo on a black backgroud as it seems to be disengaging and stops the flow of the sequence we have choosen to put our logo ontop of a shot of our footage. We have decided to go for a shot of records which will be frozen and then the logo will go ontop of it. Hopefully this will allow the flow better to the end of the sequence.

#NK

The 'Munch' Sound Effect

Heyhey!

I needed to find a 'munch' sound effect to put on our title sequence, but I couldn't find any good sound effects on the internet.
Then, we decided to record the munch sound effect because then we could have it exactly how we wanted it.
Soooo Kaira volunteered to do the 'munch' sound and we recorded it on a Mac on Garage Band and then saved it and now I'm just adding it into our title sequence and trying to find the right place to put it in.
I don't want to just cut off the soundtrack so I am thinking of slowly fading out the music and then adding the munch sound. Let's see how it goes!

Kaira recording the 'munch' sound effect.

#RG

Re-doing the logo

Once again I've had to make some changes on the logo. Today we placed the logo on the website and to put it bluntly, it looked rubbish. The quality was poor, there was white patches around it which we didn't want and it wasn't even the right shade of purple.

I spent some time this evening trying to make it look better and here's what I've done.

The team hasn't seen them yet but we'll discuss whether these are suitable or not. Hopefully when we try putting them on the website it will look better.

#AB