Friday, 7 May 2010
Final Music Video
Final Music Video
Due to the technical issues we experienced when using FCP and Compressor to convert our music video, we had intended to use Screen Toaster to capture the video but the quality of the .mov file was not acceptable. The next best solution was to film our screen using the DV camera, capture the footage into FCP and compress it down into a suitable format for Blogger.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to the video being a film of the screen some colours are distorted and a lot darker in places. However, considering the circumstances I believe the video accurately reflects out music video to a standard I am happy with.
Evaluation of our Promotional Package
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Like many pop promos we have used a narrative and our pop promo tells a story, this is used in many pop promos to attract the audiences attention and then keep hold of that attention of they watch the whole music video. We challenged mainstream pop promos, who chose to show of the artist by using close up shots and revolving the whole music video on them to construct a star image, by choosing to not include our artist in our pop promo, we created a mysterious star image. Although some bands similar to ours don't always show their artists explicitly they usually have a cameo role like Fat boy Slim does in some of his videos whereas we chose to not represent an artist at all, This was critiqued by out lecturer and classmates as they felt it would have been nice include maybe a DJ set or even the artists name on an iPod or CD cover just to break up the narrative a little bit.
Our narrative broke the conventions of typical pop promos because in stead of using a heterosexual couple we decided to use a homosexual couple this helped to break down common boundaries and prejudice in the media.
How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?
Our Promo, Digipack and Print Ad are all linked by common themes,.
In all three the idea of rushing traffic is present with the time lapse footage in pop promo, and the blurred rushing traffic photos in the inside cover of the digipack and the print ad. Our Print Ad and Digipack are also linked with the type of font we used, the computer style font runs through both texts this helps to link them together giving the maximum marketing potential. We also used saturated bright colours in our Print Ad and Digipack this is also apparent in the pop promo with the use of bright costumes and scenery especially the coloured cushions in the bar scene. The Digipack design contrast nature and urban moods with the use of sunset versus traffic and our pop promo also does this with the rushing traffic contrasting against and ambient song.
Our artist is a mystery across all three of our texts, as he is not in the print had or the pop promo, although he does appear in the inside cover of the digipack, his face is blurred so there fore he is still cloaked in mystery, we chose to do this create suspicion and rumour about who the artist is and we thought it would be a nice homage to other bands of the same genre.
We decided to use a homosexual relationship in our pop promo but we strayed away from using the stereotypes of lesbians, we used normal girls to portray them this helped to create the representation that homosexuality is normal and everywhere you look, you just have to notice it.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
The typical audience for our pop promo would be 18-25 year olds as our music has quite a niche audience although younger people may finding it appealing as well, the average age of the participants of our questionnaire was 19, I don't believe that there is any gender preference for our genre of music and in our research we found that 45% of females and 55% of males like electronic ambient music, although there is a slight increase towards males its not significant enough, I feel our audience would be more middle class because of the genre of music and the settings in the pop promo I.e. the university and the modern bar.
When we viewed our pop promo in class we good both good and bad feedback, everybody understood the message we were trying to put across with the idea of both characters being in same place and the randomness of being in the same bar but they all said they wished there had of been more “almost meetings” with the characters. People also commented on the amount of time lapse this worked for some people and other people said their was too much of it.
The class also said that it was easy to follow the characters and it was the narrative was clear throughout, everybody said that they understood what was happening and the relationship between the two characters was clear.
We got good feedback on our experimental use of cinematography in particular the use of the camera as a mirror, the time lapsed traffic scenes and the use of a good variety of shots.
In regards to mise en scene, the feedback showed that the audience liked the use of colour in Jessica's characters clothing and in the bar scene they said that it worked well with the song and the bright colours really helped to make the scene stand out but I feel that Nicola's character could have been wearing more colours in the everyday scene as her costume didn't stand out as well as Jessica's character.
Our final edit works well with the music and the pace of the song, the edits change with the beat of the music and the action is timed to the beat of the music for example when Nicola's character taps her fingers on her leg when she is in the bar. I feel that the locations in our pop promo are good as they reflect a modern life, the university building is new and the bar is vibrant and fits in well with the song, the bar was a more suitable chose that a club as we felt we were creating a representation of more middle class people and they would be more likely to hang out in a wine bar than go to club and this also helps appeal to a slightly older audience.
I particularly like the shots we used in the bedroom scenes of the characters putting on the belts and the graphic match we used from on character to the other and this is the same for the make up shots we did where the camera acts as the mirror and I feel that the shots are framed well. Although if I could go back I would have lit the bedroom scenes with Nicola's character better as they were slightly too dark.
The audience reacted well to the print ad and digipack designs, the feedback we got (which can be seen in previous entry) shows that they felt that they linked well with the use of the same font and the idea of nature and traffic, they like the fact that the rushing traffic theme flowed from the digipack through to the print as and they felt that this connected the two texts rather than them being two separate texts. The layout of the text was well received by the audience and the word arrangement of the album name and artist name was particularly well received although some felt that the text didn't stand out enough. The use of colour was also liked by the audience and the saturation of the colours in the digipack helped the picture to stand out. As a whole the audience feedback suggests that our promotional package works well together because of the linking themes in all three elements, the rushing traffic, urban feel to the setting in bother the digipack print ad and pop promo and the use of bright colour. If we were to be advertising this album in real life I would probably use the internet and forums to display the advert as this is what other bands of the genre have done, as their audiences use the internet a lot. I feel the 3 elements of our promotional package would appeal to the target audience as it uses abstract ideas and concepts and is a bit intriguing. I feel our target audience would react well to the digipack and print as design because they make the ordinary look extraordinary.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
During the research stages of my project I used the internet to help find out about similar bands, the history of pop promos and in finding out which Lawrence King song to use. I found that bands how are similar to Lawrence use the internet to promote their music and albums therefore the internet was a very valuable tool in helping my research, websites such as You tube helped me to find the music videos I need to research pop promo. Lawrence King also uses a site called “last FM” where he posts songs he has made for the public to listen to this was really helpful when it came to choosing a song for our promo.
In the planning stages I used blogger to publish all my research and planning this helped to keep track of all the work I had done and made it easy to reference the research in my planning, on here we also posted out storyboards which were scanned into the computer, I also used photoshop to create a mood board for our project, this helped me to create a visual representation of what I wanted to tone of our promo to be and it also helped to highlight which types of costumes and props I wanted to use,
In production we used a Canon HV30 DV Camcorder to film all the footage we needed, using this camera I have learnt how to manually focus to create effect. We also used a Velbon DV-700 tri-pod to keep the camera steady while filming. To gain the photos I need for the digipack and print ad I used an SLR camera and I decreased the shutter speed to allow more light in creating the traffic blurs in those texts. We then captured our footage into Final Cut pro editing software were we edited our captured footage to create our pop promo, during the edit we increased the speed of the footage to create the rushing traffic time lapse effect we also reversed some of the footage and sped it up to create the effect of going back in time. Photoshop was used to enhance the picture I took on the SLR camera to create the print ad and digipack, after enhancing the colour I cropped the pictures to the size I wanted, I also added the correct text need to make it look like a digipack and a print ad.
Like many pop promos we have used a narrative and our pop promo tells a story, this is used in many pop promos to attract the audiences attention and then keep hold of that attention of they watch the whole music video. We challenged mainstream pop promos, who chose to show of the artist by using close up shots and revolving the whole music video on them to construct a star image, by choosing to not include our artist in our pop promo, we created a mysterious star image. Although some bands similar to ours don't always show their artists explicitly they usually have a cameo role like Fat boy Slim does in some of his videos whereas we chose to not represent an artist at all, This was critiqued by out lecturer and classmates as they felt it would have been nice include maybe a DJ set or even the artists name on an iPod or CD cover just to break up the narrative a little bit.
Our narrative broke the conventions of typical pop promos because in stead of using a heterosexual couple we decided to use a homosexual couple this helped to break down common boundaries and prejudice in the media.
How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?
Our Promo, Digipack and Print Ad are all linked by common themes,.
In all three the idea of rushing traffic is present with the time lapse footage in pop promo, and the blurred rushing traffic photos in the inside cover of the digipack and the print ad. Our Print Ad and Digipack are also linked with the type of font we used, the computer style font runs through both texts this helps to link them together giving the maximum marketing potential. We also used saturated bright colours in our Print Ad and Digipack this is also apparent in the pop promo with the use of bright costumes and scenery especially the coloured cushions in the bar scene. The Digipack design contrast nature and urban moods with the use of sunset versus traffic and our pop promo also does this with the rushing traffic contrasting against and ambient song.
Our artist is a mystery across all three of our texts, as he is not in the print had or the pop promo, although he does appear in the inside cover of the digipack, his face is blurred so there fore he is still cloaked in mystery, we chose to do this create suspicion and rumour about who the artist is and we thought it would be a nice homage to other bands of the same genre.
We decided to use a homosexual relationship in our pop promo but we strayed away from using the stereotypes of lesbians, we used normal girls to portray them this helped to create the representation that homosexuality is normal and everywhere you look, you just have to notice it.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
The typical audience for our pop promo would be 18-25 year olds as our music has quite a niche audience although younger people may finding it appealing as well, the average age of the participants of our questionnaire was 19, I don't believe that there is any gender preference for our genre of music and in our research we found that 45% of females and 55% of males like electronic ambient music, although there is a slight increase towards males its not significant enough, I feel our audience would be more middle class because of the genre of music and the settings in the pop promo I.e. the university and the modern bar.
When we viewed our pop promo in class we good both good and bad feedback, everybody understood the message we were trying to put across with the idea of both characters being in same place and the randomness of being in the same bar but they all said they wished there had of been more “almost meetings” with the characters. People also commented on the amount of time lapse this worked for some people and other people said their was too much of it.
The class also said that it was easy to follow the characters and it was the narrative was clear throughout, everybody said that they understood what was happening and the relationship between the two characters was clear.
We got good feedback on our experimental use of cinematography in particular the use of the camera as a mirror, the time lapsed traffic scenes and the use of a good variety of shots.
In regards to mise en scene, the feedback showed that the audience liked the use of colour in Jessica's characters clothing and in the bar scene they said that it worked well with the song and the bright colours really helped to make the scene stand out but I feel that Nicola's character could have been wearing more colours in the everyday scene as her costume didn't stand out as well as Jessica's character.
Our final edit works well with the music and the pace of the song, the edits change with the beat of the music and the action is timed to the beat of the music for example when Nicola's character taps her fingers on her leg when she is in the bar. I feel that the locations in our pop promo are good as they reflect a modern life, the university building is new and the bar is vibrant and fits in well with the song, the bar was a more suitable chose that a club as we felt we were creating a representation of more middle class people and they would be more likely to hang out in a wine bar than go to club and this also helps appeal to a slightly older audience.
I particularly like the shots we used in the bedroom scenes of the characters putting on the belts and the graphic match we used from on character to the other and this is the same for the make up shots we did where the camera acts as the mirror and I feel that the shots are framed well. Although if I could go back I would have lit the bedroom scenes with Nicola's character better as they were slightly too dark.
The audience reacted well to the print ad and digipack designs, the feedback we got (which can be seen in previous entry) shows that they felt that they linked well with the use of the same font and the idea of nature and traffic, they like the fact that the rushing traffic theme flowed from the digipack through to the print as and they felt that this connected the two texts rather than them being two separate texts. The layout of the text was well received by the audience and the word arrangement of the album name and artist name was particularly well received although some felt that the text didn't stand out enough. The use of colour was also liked by the audience and the saturation of the colours in the digipack helped the picture to stand out. As a whole the audience feedback suggests that our promotional package works well together because of the linking themes in all three elements, the rushing traffic, urban feel to the setting in bother the digipack print ad and pop promo and the use of bright colour. If we were to be advertising this album in real life I would probably use the internet and forums to display the advert as this is what other bands of the genre have done, as their audiences use the internet a lot. I feel the 3 elements of our promotional package would appeal to the target audience as it uses abstract ideas and concepts and is a bit intriguing. I feel our target audience would react well to the digipack and print as design because they make the ordinary look extraordinary.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
During the research stages of my project I used the internet to help find out about similar bands, the history of pop promos and in finding out which Lawrence King song to use. I found that bands how are similar to Lawrence use the internet to promote their music and albums therefore the internet was a very valuable tool in helping my research, websites such as You tube helped me to find the music videos I need to research pop promo. Lawrence King also uses a site called “last FM” where he posts songs he has made for the public to listen to this was really helpful when it came to choosing a song for our promo.
In the planning stages I used blogger to publish all my research and planning this helped to keep track of all the work I had done and made it easy to reference the research in my planning, on here we also posted out storyboards which were scanned into the computer, I also used photoshop to create a mood board for our project, this helped me to create a visual representation of what I wanted to tone of our promo to be and it also helped to highlight which types of costumes and props I wanted to use,
In production we used a Canon HV30 DV Camcorder to film all the footage we needed, using this camera I have learnt how to manually focus to create effect. We also used a Velbon DV-700 tri-pod to keep the camera steady while filming. To gain the photos I need for the digipack and print ad I used an SLR camera and I decreased the shutter speed to allow more light in creating the traffic blurs in those texts. We then captured our footage into Final Cut pro editing software were we edited our captured footage to create our pop promo, during the edit we increased the speed of the footage to create the rushing traffic time lapse effect we also reversed some of the footage and sped it up to create the effect of going back in time. Photoshop was used to enhance the picture I took on the SLR camera to create the print ad and digipack, after enhancing the colour I cropped the pictures to the size I wanted, I also added the correct text need to make it look like a digipack and a print ad.
Lawrence's View on the Promotional Package
We sent Lawrence the a copy of the music video (albeit the one with technical errors) and a copy of the digipack and print ad design. We conducted the following interview over Facebook to get some feedback.
Hi Lawrence, We sent you a rough draft of the video, what do you think about it?
I think its very good! I know you said there were some issues with this version of the video but Igot the general feel of it.
What in particular do you like about the video?
I enjoyed the fast motion [time lapse] scenes, I think its suits the pace of the track well. I'm also glad you decided to uphold my anonymity. Also the concept of crossed paths and a relationship forming. Most electronic artist I follow also do something different in their videos, not just a band playing in a pub or girls dancing in aclub like you find in most pop videos.
What would you change about the video?
Probably would have put a few more of those fast motion scenes in there, maybe at a nightclub? And I'd like to have seen the track at its complete length, but I know you had restrictions and all that.
Moving on to the album design and magazine advert, how do you think we did?
REALLY really good, the cover has a nature feel to it but kinda enhanced nature- which i like. In the inside cover and on the ad I like the feeling of speed or moving that you captured. Looks kinda urban aswell. The bloke standing across the road is a nice touch, like its ment to be me, but its not clear enough to really know.
Thanks for your time Lawrence!
Final Pop Promo Edit
Due to technical issues beyond our control the music video we created for 'Gravity and Habit' (Lawrence King) cannot be uploaded to blogger. Issues within either Final Cut Pro or the Compressor software are causing substantial errors to our final edit. These errors are so substantial that we cannot post the video that has been compressed as it does not reflect our final edit to an acceptable standard.
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Production Meeting 8
The promotional package has been finishes and presented to the class. We gained valuable feedback (see previous entries) and we will all now individually begin to concentrate on our evaluation. Jess has made some last minute edits to the the music video based upon feedback to improve the video further. Unfortunately we have hit some technical errors when trying to compress the video from Final Cut Pro into a Quicktime .Mov file. Our lecturer is looking into these problems and we hope to have a final version of our video up on the blog asap.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Final Digipack and Print Ad Designs
These are the final designs for the digipack and print ad.
We decided to use this dusky sunset picture to help connect to Lawrence's influences, I then contrasted the colours the help exaggerate the silhouettes of the trees and bushes, we chose the picture on the sunset to tie in with the album name which is night. We decided to use a computer style font to tie in with the electronic style of music that Lawrence produces, originally the album title was in black but we decided to change this to white for two reasons, the first was to help it stand out in the crossword style arrangement we went for and the second was to help it tie in with the text on the back cover.
To obtain this picture I used an SLR camera, I then increased the length of time the shutter was open for, this in turn lets more light in creating the blurred traffic effect, i wanted to create this effect to help tie in with the time lapse footage in the pop promo and by doing so linking the promotional package together. I used a male actor for the inside cover but kept him at a distance so the audience can not see his face this helps create the illusion of the artist but still keeps him anonymous, this idea came from the fact that Lawrence wanted to remain anonymous and that in this genre of music the artist is generally faceless and mysterious. A suburban street was used because as a group we decided this would be more suitable than a busy city as Lawrence's much has a ambient feel. We also used the same font for the thank yous at the bottom of the inside cover, we felt we should include thank you;s as this is Lawrence's first album and by using the same font the digipack ties together nicely.
I used the same technique with the SLR camera to achieve this photo for the print ad, we felt that using another traffic image would really help to tie the promotional package together and give it excellent marketing power. We used that same font to also aid this,. We then placed to quotes on the slant in conjunction with the blurred traffic to help capture the audiences eye, we originally wanted the text to be in white but this didn't stand out as well as the black text. We also included a web address on the print ad so that fan or interested consumers could contact Lawrence or preview his work.
We decided to use this dusky sunset picture to help connect to Lawrence's influences, I then contrasted the colours the help exaggerate the silhouettes of the trees and bushes, we chose the picture on the sunset to tie in with the album name which is night. We decided to use a computer style font to tie in with the electronic style of music that Lawrence produces, originally the album title was in black but we decided to change this to white for two reasons, the first was to help it stand out in the crossword style arrangement we went for and the second was to help it tie in with the text on the back cover.
To obtain this picture I used an SLR camera, I then increased the length of time the shutter was open for, this in turn lets more light in creating the blurred traffic effect, i wanted to create this effect to help tie in with the time lapse footage in the pop promo and by doing so linking the promotional package together. I used a male actor for the inside cover but kept him at a distance so the audience can not see his face this helps create the illusion of the artist but still keeps him anonymous, this idea came from the fact that Lawrence wanted to remain anonymous and that in this genre of music the artist is generally faceless and mysterious. A suburban street was used because as a group we decided this would be more suitable than a busy city as Lawrence's much has a ambient feel. We also used the same font for the thank yous at the bottom of the inside cover, we felt we should include thank you;s as this is Lawrence's first album and by using the same font the digipack ties together nicely.
I used the same technique with the SLR camera to achieve this photo for the print ad, we felt that using another traffic image would really help to tie the promotional package together and give it excellent marketing power. We used that same font to also aid this,. We then placed to quotes on the slant in conjunction with the blurred traffic to help capture the audiences eye, we originally wanted the text to be in white but this didn't stand out as well as the black text. We also included a web address on the print ad so that fan or interested consumers could contact Lawrence or preview his work.
Class Feedback of our Promotional Package
Having completed our music video and print ads, we screened them to our Media Studies class who gave us lots of valuable feedback and constructive criticism. This information was excellent for finding out what the strengths and weaknesses were of our production and will really help when we evaluate our work.
MUSIC VIDEO
Initial Impressions: Positive Feedback
- Video clearly focused on the main characters, easy to understand who it was we were ment to be watching.
- Time lapsed traffic was in time with the tempo of the music
- Liked the make up shots, giving the effect the camera was a mirror.
- Interesting narrative effect with the "rewind" through the day at the start.
- Not enough light in the bedroom scenes, too dark.
- Artist not included in the video.
- Too much time lapsed footage, got a bit boring.
- Could of used more shots to keep engaging the audiences interest.
- Liked the use of experimental use of cinematography, particularly the make up shots and the shots through the metal chair in the bar scene.
- Shots well framed and panning shots were smooth.
- Good variety of shot sizes.
- Bedroom shots could of been more detailed?
- Nice and colourful shots throughout.
- Bar environment looked sophisticated and classy.
- Good use of props - mobile phones etc.
- Characters dressed appropriately throughout.
- Lighting on Nicola in the bedroom scene could of been improved.
- Shots used worked well with the timing of the music.
- Looked professional, no amateur effects used etc.
- Could of included a few more shots in the bar scenes?
- Overall, worked well throughout.
- Could of included artist in the video, or perhaps shots of a DJ to make it more performance as well as narrative based.
- More reference needed to Lawrence King - too distanced.
- Effects used were good throughout.
- Some lighting issues, mostly in the bedroom scenes.
- Ambient music, not too stressful or too much action.
- Made everyday scenes look a bit different.
- Overall, was defiantly suitable to the genre.
- Representations in the video included - nature, movements, relationships, intellectual, perhaps quite middle class?
- No representation of Lawrence King in the video.
- Worked well at targeting our audience.
Initial Impressions: Positive Feedback
- Clever use of typography.
- Time & nature reflected well (which were strong elements in the music video aswell, helps to bring the 3 pieces together to create a promotional package).
- Suburbia and middle class represented (the house on the inside cover etc) - audience can relate.
- Suitable typefaces used.
- Photo used on inside cover very nice.
- Contrast between nature and urban environments apparent - worked well.
- Some of the writing on the magazine advert could of been in a different colour to make it a little clearer to read, but no major criticisms overall.
- Linked to music video, mysterious.
- Middle class suburbia.
- Piece's connected as well as contrasted.
- Inside image tinted slightly yellow, nice effect.
- Magazine advert image was abstract, looked very good.
- Good use of lighting, all the images well lit.
- Lawrence King dressed appropriately in the inside cover image - looked dark and mysterious.
- Clever use of "Night".
- Font used was sort of electronic/futuristic/like a typewriter font.
- All images nice and colourful
- Perhaps more of the writing could of been in white?
- Successfully created aesthetically pleasing print advert designs that worked effectively.
- Good technique
- Images used were of very high quality/high resolution.
- Demonstrated good photography skills (credit goes to Nicola for the images!) :)
- Lawrence King represented in the inside image of the CD Cover, shown as mysterious and anonymous.
- Targeted a young audience with an interest in ambient music well.
- Good overall promotional package, elements followed through (nature vs. urban, movement, time).
Monday, 26 April 2010
Jessica's Individual Ideas or Digipack and Print Ad
As editor I'm pretty busy right now and I don't have too much time to experiment with Photoshop and create a whole digi-pack idea. However, Ive had a few goes creating just a rough album cover. By doing so it means that I am in a better position to support Nicola with the final designs should she need it. Please ignore any borders or mistakes around edges of the design- I saved screenshots in .tiff on the Mac and had to convert them to .jpeg on windows to upload to blogger and this has meant a few errors occurred.
Whilst Nicola and Maya are concentrating on Urban and outdoor shots, I decided to go a little 'crazier'. I shot a series of photographs using nature but tyring to bring in fun elements, after being inspired by Four Tet's album designs. The above picture is a leaf of a rubber plant with strategically place smarties!
Firstly I used the Magic Wand tool on Photoshop to cut out the grey background as it was quite dull. I also decided to flip the leaf as i thought it was more logical for the leaf to be that way around. I put on the text that I would need,- artist name and album name. I use the text bend tool to fit 'From the Earth' around the leaf.
To further progress the design I used the magic want tool and eraser tool to make a better cut-out around the leaf as the 1st edit still had some of the grey background remaining. I also changed the background colour to a subtle cream- many brighter colour didn't work and made it look quite amateur. I decided to move the text onto the leaf and changed the font style as I believe the 2 font styles were too conflicting before. If i were to complete this idea I would look into font styles more and add bar codes, copyrights and promotional stickers etc.
Another design I played around with was just the smarties on their own. I think the concept is eye catching and something that would make you pick the album up- and also remember it. The original photograph was the similar to the finished design but I just had to alter image size and canvas size to make it an appropriate size for the album cover. If I had more time I would have cut the background out- however this proved too problematic when I first tried- and added logos etc.
The following are my rough attempts at designing a print ad to promote Lawrence's album, Including the original image.
I used the image from my 2nd album design as I felt it was easier to make into a print advert. I purposely had the background a slightly different colour from the album cover background to promote the actual image of the album. However I did use the soften tool on Photoshop around the edges of the album design to make it blend into the print ad better. I wanted to keep Lawrence name dead centre and obvious because as a new artist his name needs to be projected and remembered. I put the quote in a central position at the top as I believe a great majority of consumers will by an album based on critics responses.
After Maya commented that maybe the text was too bold and contrasted with the softness of the images I decided to have a play with font styles. I changed font colour to purple and changed it to italics- this looks a lot softer and quite understated but still manages to stands out from the background. I also added an embossed grey border to look like the advert is raised from the page and make it look a bit more classy.
Maya's Individual Digipack and Print ad
For my idea for our album cover, I wanted to go with the theme of the artist being unknown (so no photos of him etc), and also with the theme of having an abstract design, like artists of a similar genre of music to ours have done in the past such as Boards of Canada that I researched previously. Building on this idea, I had the thought of incorporating newspaper clippings of letters to spell out the name "Lawrence King" and maybe the album name, and also perhaps incorporating the themes of traffic and traffic lights that is present in our pop promo, with the time-lapsed cars stopping and starting at traffic lights as the tempo of the music changes.
One thing I was sure of when I started trying out designs for it was that I wanted to have simple, clutter free design, using very high quality images to give a professional and sophisticated look.
Front cover ideas:
The image below is my favorate cover design from the ones I created. The typeface and images I used make it immediatly obvious who's album it is. The photo I took of a red trafficlight (which is internationally recognisable as the colour which means stop), and the newspaper clippings that spell out the word stop, were very large high quality images at about 3000 x 1000 pixels. I then resized these down (whilst constraining the proportions so they remained the right shape) so that they were the right size for the CD cover. This image has multiple layers for each image and text, so it was easy for me to edit a particular object without effecting the whole image. I then used the "stroke" effect (in the Blending Options menu) to give a black outline 2 pixels wide around the image to make it look neat and professional.
Back cover:
If we were to go with my CD Cover design for our final piece and made a magazine cover for it, I would want to have a very similar design to the CD cover, but instead in an A5 size, with a longer quote at the bottom from a music magazine or similar giving praise to Lawrence King or the album, as well as a release date for the album.
One thing I was sure of when I started trying out designs for it was that I wanted to have simple, clutter free design, using very high quality images to give a professional and sophisticated look.
Front cover ideas:
The image below is my favorate cover design from the ones I created. The typeface and images I used make it immediatly obvious who's album it is. The photo I took of a red trafficlight (which is internationally recognisable as the colour which means stop), and the newspaper clippings that spell out the word stop, were very large high quality images at about 3000 x 1000 pixels. I then resized these down (whilst constraining the proportions so they remained the right shape) so that they were the right size for the CD cover. This image has multiple layers for each image and text, so it was easy for me to edit a particular object without effecting the whole image. I then used the "stroke" effect (in the Blending Options menu) to give a black outline 2 pixels wide around the image to make it look neat and professional.
Back cover:
If we were to go with my CD Cover design for our final piece and made a magazine cover for it, I would want to have a very similar design to the CD cover, but instead in an A5 size, with a longer quote at the bottom from a music magazine or similar giving praise to Lawrence King or the album, as well as a release date for the album.
My Ideas for Digipack and Print Ad
My initial ideas for the digipack were to show the contrast betweet nature and urban life. I took various photos of sunsets and then used photo shop to contrast the colours to make the sunset stand out, for the urban photos i changed the shutter speed on my camera to create the effect of rushing traffic.
Original Image
For this Digipack design i used a computer style font to show the electronica side of the music and i used the sunset picture to show the nature influences that inspire Lawrence.
I decide that night would look good in white and i placed it on the black part of the digipack, i later decided that it didn't look right her so i moved it to fit in with Lawrence's name.
I then tried out a different font to see if this worked better i decided against it as i didn't feel that it worked as well as the original font, i also moved the album name into the artist name and i felt this gave a good look and feel to the digipack.
With this digipack i tried changing the colours to see is they would stand out more and i tried bue and as you can see it blends into the background.
Print Ad Ideas
Original Image
I took lots of photos for the print ad and i thought this one may be nice to use as it shows the artist is a anonymous way which fits in with our genre as the artists are usually faceless, this photo also has the rushing traffic which ties in with the themes of your pop promo and didipack.I decided to use the same font as the digipack to help tie the two together and i used the same arrangement of "Lawrence King" and "night" to again tie the print ad to the digipack. I found that with the text on top of this picture the print ad became to busy and i decided it would be nicer to use a simpler image.
Original Image
I then found this picture which i thought summed up my idea as it was abstract like other album covers in this genre but it also had the traffic theme that follows through the promo and the digipack. After this i started to change the font colours to see which looked best, black stands out the most in some places for example in the album/artist title some white was need to make it pop. i tried other colours such as bright green to give a computer theme to it and i also tried red to go with the colour of the rushing traffic but they got lost against the background.
As you can see from this example i was trying out different colours and her i was trying our green and i didn't work as it didn't fit in with the print ad at all. i was also experimenting with the text placement here,i knew i wanted the date in the bottom left corner and the album/artist title in the top right corner but i was trying to figure out the best places to put the quotes from magazines and celebrities i wanted them to go along with the traffic but be cause of the colour they didn't fit.
As you can see from this idea, i changed the font to red and this still didn't pop so i decided against this font,
Production Meeting 7
Learning to use Photoshop was frustrating but we eventually discovered that it was a very powerful tool when harnessed properly. Nicola had now complete the first draft of our album cover using both images of nature and city life. We wanted to create a link between the video and the album design and the inclusion of lights and traffics helps with this. The nature image on the front has had the colours altered to appear artificial and more 'electronic'. For the inside image Nicola experimented with exposure time. Using a busy road she increased the exposure time to create the blurring of the lights which give the appearance of fast moving traffic. We are particularly happy with this.
Editing of the pop promo is nearing completion but has hit some errors. A problem with the Macs effected the whole class and resulted in some footage dropping frames or footage becoming jerky and clipped. Unfortunately we do not have the original footage to re-capture to resolve this problem, but as explained it is through no fault of our own. We will try and reduce the damage caused by using alternative footage that is unaffected. Luckily Maya shot quite a few take of the same scenes so we should be able to find some footage that is good to use.
Editing of the pop promo is nearing completion but has hit some errors. A problem with the Macs effected the whole class and resulted in some footage dropping frames or footage becoming jerky and clipped. Unfortunately we do not have the original footage to re-capture to resolve this problem, but as explained it is through no fault of our own. We will try and reduce the damage caused by using alternative footage that is unaffected. Luckily Maya shot quite a few take of the same scenes so we should be able to find some footage that is good to use.
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Production Meeting 6
Editing is now coming along well and the timeline on Final Cut Pro is now beginning to fill up. Jess has decided to drop the footage of herself on the beach as she doesn't think it fits properly. Her character is shown in a city environment at the beginning of the promo and to show her then suddenly on a beach may prove confusing.
Nicola and Maya are both going to shoot some photographs around town in the next couple of weeks for inspiration for the album cover and advertisement, whilst Jess will focus on more fun nature-ish shots. We have a lesson next week introducing us to Photoshop on the Macs, and we will begin creating some rough ideas. We will all design album covers and advertisements but Nicola will be producing the final piece. We feel that if we all have a go at designing it will help us aid Nicola in producing a great final piece.
Nicola and Maya are both going to shoot some photographs around town in the next couple of weeks for inspiration for the album cover and advertisement, whilst Jess will focus on more fun nature-ish shots. We have a lesson next week introducing us to Photoshop on the Macs, and we will begin creating some rough ideas. We will all design album covers and advertisements but Nicola will be producing the final piece. We feel that if we all have a go at designing it will help us aid Nicola in producing a great final piece.
Production Meeting 5
Shooting is now complete and Jess is beggining to capture footage and getting to grips with Final Cut Pro. Although we are all excited about having Macs this year it does mean we all have to learn how to use a completely new piece of software. We have decided that Nicola concentrate on the album cover and album advertisment, and Maya will help Jess with the editing.
We were not able to shoot some of the shots on Maya's storyboard due to our conflicting time schedules and accessibilty of locations. We had planned to shoot in a record shop but the only times we were allowed to shoot in there were times when at least one of us were unable to do so. However we are confident that the footage that we do have will prove adequate.
We were not able to shoot some of the shots on Maya's storyboard due to our conflicting time schedules and accessibilty of locations. We had planned to shoot in a record shop but the only times we were allowed to shoot in there were times when at least one of us were unable to do so. However we are confident that the footage that we do have will prove adequate.
Mood Board
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