Columbia Records Email

In order to ensure that I would not be breaching copyright rules, I contacted the band to let them know that I would be using their song, but only for coursework, and asked if this would be okay.

At first I attempted to contact Columbia Records, who produce CAKE's music, but I struggled to find an email address. When looking at CAKE's website, I found that they have an advice page where people email them with dilemmas and CAKE try and help them out. I used this email address because the page states, "All questions cannot be answered, but all mail will be read," so I knew that even if I did not receive a response, at least the email would be read.

Here is a print screen of the email I sent. I tried to make it clear that I would only use their song for school work, so that they would be aware that I'm not going to make a profit from it. I am still awaiting a reply, which I will post on here if received.

Diary Post Sixteen

Now that I have screened my first draft to my classmates, I discussed with my two teachers how they thought it was looking so far. We decided that my video needed an extra narrative to make it more interesting to watch, and so that the video progresses as the song does, rather than repeating itself. I am planning to re-shoot on 2nd April, this time using three male actors appearing as a band. The narrative, which will be entirely in black-and-white and once again in extreme close-up, will follow them setting up for a performance: tuning guitars, testing microphones, doing their hair, etc. I will intersperse this footage with my existing video, replacing the old shots that I am not happy with, so that although the video begins with the girls, it will gradually become more and more about the boys until the middle instrumental, which will all be the black-and-white narrative. Then, in the final instrumental, I will replay the  black-and-white narrative, sped-up. The video will end on a long shot of the band about to play the first note of the song, but before they begin, it cuts to black.

Audience Feedback

After screening my first draft music video (see below) to my fellow classmates, I filmed a few of them giving me some feedback. They all fit into my secondary target audience. Here are the results...

Music Video Draft

This is my first draft for my music video. I am still in the stage of editing in Adobe Premiere Pro currently, so there are no filters on this and I have not yet got to the stage of blemish removal or perfecting the appearance of all the clips. There are a few changes that I plan to make before I export it to be edited in Adobe After Effects, including re-exporting the final reverse sequence at a higher quality and replacing the one I have temporarily in at the moment. I am planning to screen this draft to my peer members next week, and then I will use their feedback to make any changes before I start working on After Effects. As it is hosted by YouTube it is of a lower quality.

Magazine Advert Second Draft

After receiving feedback on my first draft magazine advert, I have tweaked it slightly for this second draft. I changed the fourth photo down as I noticed that it was slightly out of focus and I wanted my advert to look as professional as possible. I also decided to add the 'limited edition red vinyl' and 'available on itunes' text as it conveys that the album is available on several platforms, as most currently are, and the mention of vinyl makes reference to the fact that vinyls have come back in fashion, particularly in the indie music genre. Hence my magazine advert is continuing the generic conventions established in the music video. Once I have completed my final digipack front cover, I will add a small image of that in the middle strip, between the band and album names.