Farewell Earmunch..

So we are finally at the end of the road and we would all just like to say that we have enjoyed working on this project as a group very much. We will miss working with each other because we massively bonded.

From the debates to the technical difficulties we came out strong. We worked extremely hard on this and are very proud of Earmunch News and hope to achieve top grades ;)

Thank you for reading our blog.

Earmunch, signing out.

#RiyaArthurNickyKaira

Individual Contribution Vlog!!

EVALUATION

News Package finished

Today we added the final touches to our news package and were able to finally upload our finished News Package to the hub.

KK

Earmunch Contribution Individual Vlog RIYA

So now we have to each write what we have contributed towards this news package from the very beginning. There are so many things I decided that the best way to remember and include everything was to go on the blog and see what exactly I've done.

I wrote out each thing that I've done, big or small, as at the end of the day it all counts!

#RG

Final Touches

We are almost done!

However.. we noticed a few things wrong with the news package. The 'Courtesy of Columbia Records' was supposed to come on when Adele comes on, however it did not and came on later. We had to adjust that and also there was some issues with the screen jumping to a different position.

We fixed it though!

We also noticed that whilst watching the director's commentary of the news package that some clips weren't able to be viewed and had an error. Therefore, we had to re embed the clips and freeze frame them again. This took a long time but we did it!

Me and Kaira filmed the audience feedback of the news package and we got some interesting and positive feedback. Everybody thought it looked really professional and was very informative, which is what we were aiming for.

I uploaded the audience feedback clips from the Mac to the PC and edited them in Adobe Premier.

Our Evaluation is looking great and we just have to put some final things on it. To make our Evaluation power point look interesting and enjoyable to watch, I added transitions to the pictures and text. This took AGES because we have so many slides with so many different pictures and text. Some of the videos on the power point weren't playing so we had to fix it.

Now all we have to do is film the Individual Contribution vlogs and check everything and then we are done!

#RG

Director's Commentary: News Package

#AB

Directors Commentary

Today me (Riya) and Arthur recorded the Director's Commentary for the News Package. Since, I am the reporter and my voice is heard in the news package, we thought it fit if I record the director's commentary. We made sure we got all the details and Arthur had made a plan of what I had to say, it was just a matter of recording it.

Now that it is done, all that's left to do is edit it and we'll hopefully be done very soon!

#RG

Director's Commentary: News Package (Plan)

Introductory shot; 
A member of the public looking through records which compliments the voice over - this immediately introduces the topic of music and the public.

This shot is of a teenage girl downloading music on iTunes on her iPhone; this illustrates the fact that people can download music wherever they want via the internet. We also decided to use a teenage girl as our model since teenagers are our main target audience and she was a suitable representative.

Shot of hand handling CDs;
Emphasises the fact that CD sales have declined and seeing someone buy CDs is something we rarely see nowadays

Shot of iTunes;
Emphasises the increase in digital downloads as well as illustrating how digital downloads can be carried out

Found footage of Ed Sheeran and Adele;
This footage is complimented by the voiceover and gives the audience an idea of who these artists are as well as demonstrating artists that have been affected by illegal downloads

Cut to local artist (A.Star);
This shot introduces the artist just before the interview as well as reinforcing what the reporter has to say about upcoming artists "feeling the heat"

Interview with A.Star;
This interview gives us another perspective on the fundamentals of file sharing  It allows the audience to grasp a larger scope of the concept of illegal downloads by letting an upcoming artist share his view on the matter.
Framing was maintained in a way that the interviewee was seen in the right column and was not looking at the camera as this is a convention of a news package, and the subtitle is a visual aid for the audience to see who he is, we wanted it to enter and exit smoothly.
Cutaways of the artist in the studio gives the audience a larger idea of what he does as well as keeping attention.

Facts and statistics;
We included a black and white background so that the images in the back aren't to distracting. The background blurs when the text appears so that the text can be seen clearly. Parts of the text are highlighted purple to add emphasis as well as maintaining branding and consistency.

Shot of websites;
Illustrates how many websites there are where file sharing is possible as well as showing how easy it is to do so. These shots also demonstrate how internet plays a major role in the decline of CD sales and rise in illegal downloads.

Interview with record label manager;
The subtitle stripe enters and exits smoothly so that it doesn't interfere too much with the footage. The interviewee is positioned in the left frame and is not looking at the camera - this is to maintain professionalism. Cutaways are used before and during the interview initially to introduce the manager and show the audience what he does.

Shot of illegal downloads on Google;
This further illustrates how easy it is to download music illegally via the internet.

Vox pops;
These grant a broader scope on the debate about file sharing by getting thoughts and opinions from the public, this helps us to come to a finer conclusion on the general opinion of file sharing. We aimed to get young recipients as that is our target audience and their opinions are most valued.

Shot of Adele;
A filler shot to once again emphasise the kind of people that illegal downloading affects.

Shot of HMV;
This shows how jobs have been lost and stores have been closed because of the increase in digital downloads - this demonstrates that the internet is partially killing the music industry which is the point we are trying to make. We wanted these shots to be powerful so that the audience feel emphatic.

Shot going back to local artist;
This emphasises how upcoming artists work hard and are not able to progress because of how the internet is manipulated

Last shot;
A summary shot that gradually blurs out. It's as thought the last statement made by the reporter is targeted at the public.

Throughout the news package we kept the title of our news channel in the top left in order to maintain branding and we kept the "press red" button in the top right - these are often seen on news channels and adds professionalism.

#AB

Editing the News Package

We had many things we needed to do in order to reach our goal.
We had re-filmed the vox pops and luckily got some great answers!

Whilst editing we realised some of the answers were quite lengthy and had to cut them and make transitions between each vox pop to make sure it flowed properly.
We put in the right place of our news package and checked that it flowed correctly and it did.
I put a 'fade in audio and video' and a 'fade out audio and video' on each vox pop, however I noticed that the video fades out too early and the person is still speaking. I had to shorten each video fade. Then I realised that the audio was fading out too early and the ends of their sentences weren't being heard. As a result, I made the audio fade out much later so that the person could be heard properly.

There were some minor issues like there was a subtitle stripe coming up where it wasn't supposed to and the voice was cutting. Therefore, we solved these issues quite easily and tightened up the news package.

#RG

Changes to the News Package

In a previous blog I mentioned that we got some feedback and listed the changes I needed to make. We have tried to make all of the changes.   This is what we managed to do:

#NK

Director's Commentary: Opening Sequence

#AB

WhatsApp Group

Filming in Central

When we went to central london to film we knew we had to get many filler shots. We had a plan to visit many different locations e.g Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square and Covent Garden.

First, we visited Covent Garden but we could not find many music related shots. We found some singers singing in the square of Covent Garden but were not useful to us. We then filmed a shot of people walking past the camera. We put the camera in the middle and the people passed on either side. We filmed this for many minutes in order to speed it up when editing. 

Then we walked to Leicester Square and filmed in Trocadero. We got many shots of people dancing in a quiet low lit area. This provided us with a filler shot as it is associated with music. We took many shots e.g close-ups of peoples feet and hands, zooms of the dancers and pans of the dancers too.
Then we walked down and saw a HMV that was closing down. We decided to film this because it represents the fact that CD sales are declining due to the rise in illegal downloads. We took 4 different angles of this shop just to ensure that whilst editing we got the right shot. 

We then went to Piccadilly Circus and filmed the adverts and many panning shots.

We attempted to film some vox pops however there were not many people from our target audience and not many people were willing to stop as it was very cold.

#RG

Director's Commentary; Opening Sequence (Plan)

Establishing shot of the bus;
The initial shot of the bus is to set the location which is Camden Town. Our target audience is the youth culture there we decided to establish the setting in a location that is familiar to our target audience - Camden Town is renowned for being home to many markets that offer cheap products that appeal to youth. It is also popular for music and buskers and artists look to sell their music.

General shots of the public;
These shots further establish the location and the shots also suggest that our news can be reviewed by anyone, not just youth.

Long shot of musician;
Since our brand focuses on music, we decided to get a shot of a musician. This gives the audience a vague idea of what our brand is about; local, upcoming artists.

Tilt shot of headphones;
We are generally building up the opening sequence - initially we have generic shots. 
This shot of the headphones further suggest that our main focus is on music.

Rappers;
We have a brief montage of rappers that we were able to film on the street. By this point the audience should have an idea that our brand is about music.
The shots are fast to create a build up to the final clip before the beat "drops".
We hear a sound clip from one of the artists which "moulds" with the music.
It gives a snippet of the kind of artists we promote.

Music;
At this point the beat "drops". The music has a melody that people will remember as well as enjoy.

White transition as we enter the main part of the opening sequence.

Shot of equaliser, relates to music

Shot of dancers shadow;
Music is what people dance to and we decided to get a shot of the shadow rather than the person as it is more conceptual. We were inspired by the iTunes posters.

Shot of DJ on the decks;
DJ's manipulate music - throughout this opening scene we wanted to incorporate as many things as we could that relate to music.

Shot of strobe lights; our brand is "colourful and eccentric" and this is something we wanted to portray.

Shot of "stereo bags" - something that may appear to youths. It's fashionable and relates to our theme of music.

A montage; shots of decks, glow sticks and t shirts; these are fast to build up to the last scene.

Panning shots of record;
Records are what people used to use to listen to music. We want to show that we talk about all types of music since the genres shown on the records. We also wanted to show how music has evolved.

Last scene;
Zoom from a spinning record and the title fades on as well as the slogan and the scene fades to black. We wanted to last scene to be slow so that the audience can remember our title as well as slogan.

#AB

Working on the Evaluation Powerpoint

It's almost time to hand in all our work so we have started the Evaluation Powerpoint. We are all each working on different elements of it. So far I have done Key Elements of Title Sequences and News Packages and am just working on it to make it very detailed and with lots of pictures so that it isn't boring!

#RG

Our Main News Story

I have written out our main news story to do with illegal downloads.

Illegal Downloads are KILLING the music industry

By Riya Gaglani

Imagine spending blood, sweat, tears and a LOT of money into making your very own music track, and someone just downloads it for free. How would you feel?

This is exactly what is happening in this generation. Illegal downloads and file sharing has become a widespread trend which is only getting worse. It has become such a casual part of our lives that we don’t even realise the effects it has on the music industry. But frankly, does anyone care?

Realistically, if you can get something for free, then why should you pay for it? This is the mindset of today’s generation. If you can download an artist’s music for free, then why should you pay for it? But none of us think about the implications and consequences it has for the artist and their record label. Phil Sturridge, a local London Record Label Manager, said “Our profit margin is going out the window with the increase in illegal downloads. I think there should be monitoring put in place for such file sharing websites and my job shouldn't be hindered because of a fault in the system”. He describes how he has to constantly put money in with very little returns.

A.Star, an upcoming UK artist, said “I have to keep making free mix tapes to get myself out there and get myself heard. It’s okay for big artists because they make most of their money from touring and appearances but for people like me, small artists, we have nothing to fall back on.” Before A.Star was signed by a small music company, he was on the streets of Camden, selling his mix tapes for as little as £3 and sometimes giving them out for free. He also made a point that, “no ones to blame, every job has its side effects, this is mine.”

A study showed that most young adults and teenagers (64%) illegally download music through file sharing websites, so why isn't there any sort of regulation put on these websites? There are hundreds of these websites all over the internet but still there is nothing anyone is doing to stop this growth. Will this trend continue, or it will it be stopped? Only the future can tell.

#RG

Website Progression

#AB

Plan of re-fliming

We have to re-film as we realised we have not got enough relevant filler shots.

We are going to go to Covent Garden and other places like Leicester Square in hope of finding shots to do with music.

We also have to re-film our vox pops as they were too loud and the people did not give good quality answers. We hope to find people that will say a bit more and in more detail about illegal downloads. Fingers crosses we can find some people! 

We would like to get filler shots of:

Buskers

People walking by so we can speed it up for the end

Instruments

Music Stores

#RG

First Draft

Above is our first draft of our news package with our opening sequence. We got given a lot of feedback in terms of the changes we need to make to improve our news package.
       1)  The Earmunch logo and the press red sign are outside the frame and therefore cut off. Therefore this needs to be moved. 

2) Add cutaways of the Record Label Manager

3) Cut down the interview with the UK Artist 

4) The quality of the sound in the vox pops needs improvement along with the answers.

We have six people and we cut up some answers and put them separately, repeating the same person. There were not many quality answers and we need to reduce the amount of people to about four and have in depth answers.

5) Take out the filler shots at the end as they are of CD's which has been shown in the beginning. We need to get filler shots in relation to  the voice over.

6) Remove the last shot of an empty street and use another one preferably a more busy street. 

We hope to make all of these changes as soon as possible so that our news package can look more professional.

#NK

Filming A.Star's Interview

We went to Hertfordshire University to film in a recording studio as one of our interviews is of a young upcoming artist so we thought this would be the perfect location for it.

There were two rooms where we could film:

1) An empty room with a mic which is soundproof

2) A room with all the recording equipment and instruments e.g piano

We decided to film shots of A.Star rapping in the first room as we could use them as filler shots by turning the voice down. Also we decided to film shots of his hands and close ups of his face as we could use them as cutaways. Cutaways are a convention of a news package so we knew it would be good to film this. He sang and rapped and I filmed this from many different positions. One was from behind the glass to show that he was in a recording booth and one was from inside which was clearer and more closer.

We sat A.Star down and I positioned the camera and he spoke his part for the interview. We had to take many takes of this as he had a lot to speak and we wanted to make sure we got enough takes to choose from if one turned out not so great. I filmed him from different angles saying the same thing as we could use these as cutaways too. I also filmed his hands moving whilst he was delivering his interview.

I filmed shots of the recording studio, close ups of the mic, close ups of the door label which read 'Recording Studio 1'. I also filmed A.Star's fingers playing the piano from a side angle and him using the equipment to show him at work. I filmed all this in various angles so we had a wide variety to choose from. Some were panning shots, some were slowly zooming and others will still.

We obtained many good shots and cannot wait to edit them and put this news package together!

#RG

Research on interviews

#AB

Script

KK

Press Red

TITLE SEQUENCE OUT THE WAY!

We finally finished the title sequence and we improved it very much.
We changed the ending so that it flows better with the rest of the sequence. As our sequence consists of many fast cutting shots, a slow ending would not match. Therefore, we changed the ending to our news title coming on top of a spinning record which then fades to black. Our slogan fades in letter by letter in italics, 'It's music we feed you...' We got rid of the youtube, Facebook and twitter links at the end because it did not look professional and from looking at our research, no major news channels did not have that.

#RG

Progress Vlog

Screen Recording

Final ending for opening sequence

We have now decided that the pan which we used for the ending of the opening is not effective in the way we would like it to be.                
This is because the pan has no relevance to music and it is not as clean as we would like.
We therefore came to the conclusion that we would rather film a more significant location or we would choose another way of ending.

I therefore returned back to the record idea and this time went on Youtube to get a spinning record. When I found one that would work I embedding it to our sequence.

NK 

Script Draft

Opening Sequence
VISUALS: 1: FLICKING THROUGH RECRDS 2: SHOT OF CDS 3: SOMEONE ON ITUNES 4: FOUND FOOTAGE OF ED SHEERAN  5: ADELE
Voiceover
Reporter: 1. "Over the years the internet has played a major role with how music is distributed worldwide. 2. CD sales have gone down by 20% over the 5 last years 3. while digital download figures continue to rise. 4. Many popular UK artists such as Ed Sheeran and Adele have been victims of file sharing 5. and the number of illegal downloads keeps increasing. Although popular artists such as these aren't majorly affected, some record labels say illegal downloads are killing the music industry and UK artists that are trying to establish themselves really feel the heat."
[MUNCH SOUND]

Sound bridge to interview
A.Star: 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.

Voiceover: Worldwide the UK is second behind USA for having the most illegal downloads. Since 2006, album sales have declined from just over 600 million to just over 400 million.* In the first six months of 2013, there have been over 43 million illegal downloads*, this equates to £500 million lost in revenue.* A study showed that 28% of people illegally download music, 34% said they do so occasionally whereas 39% said they never download music illegally.* 


Record Label Manager: We work hard to make music that people want to listen to. It takes time and money to produce music and due to the increase in illegal downloads, our profit margin is decreasing. The internet has given consumers a platform where they can access the music for free and it is ridiculous that it's so easy nowadays to just type in a particular artist or song and download albums on albums. There should be some regulation or monitoring of such websites because at the end of the day we are losing out. 

Voice over with filler shots complementing interview

Thousands of people are losing jobs, due to the increase in illegal downloads.


Voice over to summarise story


Music piracy is an ongoing issue that has been problem for many years. A high percentage of people claim to download music occasionally if not frequently and the number will only rise unless stricter policies are put in place. Moral ideologies don't seem to play a major role in this battle against file sharing, although it's wrong, people still persist to exploit this flaw in the world of music with no regard to the effect it has on artists such as A.Star. Illegal downloads are on the rise, will it become a trend or will it be stopped, only the future can tell.

Changing the ending of the opening sequence

We have been looking at different ways to adjust the ending of the opening sequence as what we have at the moment does not flow to well with the rest of the sequence. 

We have therefore been thinking of different ways we can end the sequence to flow much better. We need our logo to appear on something that is still relatively moving fast like the rest of our footage. 

We tired: 

1) A record

2) A pan 

#NK 

Making The Title Stripe

I am creating the title stripe for Earrmunch News which will appear when the interview takes place with both artist and record label manager. This will appear on screen with their name and profession.

This is an example of BBC;s mew title sequence.

#NK