The Journey

To begin with, we had to choose our music wisely, there is a past blog about how we chose our music but to show the full journey I will be explaining again. We decided to search some websites that unsigned artists publish their music on, such as Unsigned.com, however we could not really navigate this website so we decided to search on Youtube. We looked up to 10 pages and we came across a British singer called Hope Murphy, she was a really good unsigned artist, however the pace of her music did not speed up in the way we liked. In the suggestion box on youtube, we came across a Swedish singer called Zara Larsson, her music is very good and we came across a song called 'uncover' it was very good but also the pace did not speed up, in which it would be hard for us to capture shots. We found another song called 'Carry You Home' which is very good as it starts off quite slow and then picks up the pace very much which we liked a lot. We decided to use this song because we believe it would be very good for our camera shots and to tell a story within it. 

Once we had our song sorted, we started to make a mind map of everything that we need to take into consideration, such as mise-en-scene, shot types, narrative and costumes. We thought hard about what the narrative of the music video will be because we did not want it too cheesy, but we wanted it to be like a fierce relationship where the man is to be seen the most dominant one. The narrative is going to be about a relationship between two, however the man becomes distant to his girlfriend due to his dedication to sport, he then gets injured but the woman still loves him in which she does all she can to help him. We chose this type of narrative because its based upon true events, things like this happen in reality and we wanted to show the power of love, however not in a cheesy way. 

Me and my partner started to properly plan out our music video, in which we completed all Treatment, Location, Risk Assessment, Costume/Props, Shot List and Shooting Schedule. When completing all of these sheets, we agreed together to create a vision of what we will expect for an outcome. We want to make the shots change with the speed of the music. We also want to get as many shot types within our music video as possible. The biggest threat that we have is when we get time to shoot as our main location is London and we both have weekend jobs. We both decided that we will try to take as many days off as possible to make this music video successful.

As a group, me and my partner arranged a date to meet the two actors we have asked to be in our music video, however the dates that they can do, we cant, so this became a huge problem for us. We decided to change the story line and start again that can not only fit around us, but to fit around the time schedule too. We came to a conclusion that I would lip synch for our music video and we would fit the music video around the beat of the music. As the music is very fast paced, we had an idea of filming a football match and capture as many shots as we possibly could. The storyline would still fit in to be a footballer having love and passion for his sport, where he loses a very big game of his. We decided to narrow down the story line as we wanted to focus on the shots more than anything. We looked up some adverts and music videos that may have used football within. We came across the Fifa 15 advert which we analysed and came to a conclusion that our music video would have to be very fast paced. We also looked at Grimes-Oblivion music video which gave us many ideas that we were inspired by and may add some of them into our music video. 

 

This was the day that we began filming. It was a very cold day but had a very nice sunset which is why we chose this specific location. We was able to get a few shots as the football match that we was filming was real and we was not able to interrupt to get the best shots we could have. We got very nice group shots, skills, meetings which would set the story line well. We tried many different angle and shot types and they were all very successful. Our next goal was to create our own football match where we was able to get involved ourselves. 

We arranged for a few people to come and play football for us to film, however not as many people turned up as we would have expected. Because of this we focused on one person who is very good at football and decided to make a story out of him. He was our main focus and captured many videos of his skills and we also used the GoPro camera to capture point of view shots. We also focused on getting as many singing shots as possible so we could fill up spaces if we needed to. We also got a lot of movement and reaction shots of the artist to also make a better storyline to our music video.

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Finished Music Video

   

Final Digipak

This is our final digipak, we remained with the theme of black, white and red. This being it represents secrecy, love, passion and mystery. We chose roses as we believe that roses can represent love as well as hate, it allows the audience to have their own view on the album overall. We decided to include many images of the singer which lets the audience know who the singer is and also promotes herself as an artist. We included a signature which was very iconic as it gives the audience a little gift for buying the CD. The triangle tattoo on her back is very unique and symbolises herself which people can then know who she is from this tattoo.

Final Advert

This is our final magazine advert, we have used a good knowledge of skills here. We have included a QR code, iTunes logo and Spotify logo to show where the song is available. We have also included five star ratings from popular pop genre magazines. The colour of text has been chosen wisely as it matches the colour of our digipak which links them together. The image chosen is very glamorous and looks like a classy, glamorous pop star. 

Music Video Rough Cut & Feedback

For our rough cut feedback, we made an online survey on Survey Monkey, our responses we got were what we expected and we was very pleased with. We also asked about our ancillary texts which also allowed us to gain opinions which we could take into consideration. The advantages of the music video answers were exactly what we hoped for and it shows that we got the message through to the audience. The main disadvantages were the blank spaces which was expected as it was a rough cut and was not finished. 

Filming The Music Video

Whilst filming our music video we thought it was a good idea to show proof of our locations and how we used certain equipment. Here is a video that was recorded on an Apple iPhone. Here is a scene of lip synching which we filmed, this is to show the locations we used and how we positioned the camera on the tripod. 

Constructing the Advert

I have spent a fair amount of time editing my image on Photoshop CS6 to make it look like a professional advert. Due to the image being very detailed, there is not a lot of room for information, that is why a border has been added. I have edited my skin to make it look for airbrushed, I have also cropped out and 'cloned' many unwanted items that were in the image. 

I have added in the artists name to the wall in the image, I believe that this gives it a nice, original look to the final image, it also allows more room for details on the border. The text added is the same text that will occur throughout the whole album including tracklist, its way it looks more professional. 

The text that has been shown on the advert is the same text as the artist name and tracklist. We decided to make the text pink due to the colour of the digipak. We wanted all the colours to link together so audiences will understand they they are linking together. 

Editing the Music Video

Before we put all of our clips together, we thought that the best idea would be to clean them up by changing the size, speed, contrast etc. This clip was shown to us that there was too much 'dead space' which was not needed. So for this, we simply used our Video Effects and changed the Position and Scale to make it fit perfectly and cut out the parts that were not necessary. 

Before: 

Editing technique:

After:    

We wanted to show our creativity skills as much as we could so we decided to attempt to create a 'double moving picture'. We done this by choosing two videos that would fit well together, cut different parts of the move out and place them on top of each other to create one whole film. It worked nicely and it is clear that we used our creative skills to do this within a music video. 

Constructing The Digipak

We started off by creating the tracklist of our digipak as we thought it would be better to leave the photographs to the Front and Inside of the digipak. We came to a decision that we were going to go for a more simple but professional design. We chose black, grey and mint green for our colour scheme as it is different but still gives it a bit of life. We did not want to use any bright colours as we believe that it could look messy and unprofessional. Instead of making our tracklist vertical like many original tracklists, we chose to go horizontal to show our creativity. We included the music production company and the barcode on the back cover so our design at the front can look professional, also many products show the barcode on the back. 

We went onto the website Dafont.com to find our font, we went on this site because the original texts on Photoshop are very popular and are used all of the time, most of them do not look professional. We used this website to search for a simple, but professional text. We came across this text and decided that we will try it out on photoshop, it came out very well and decided to go ahed with this text for our digipak.

Although we wanted our back cover to be plain, we thought that this one looked too plain. We added in an image of roses which represents love as well as secrecy, which links in with the song. I think this image matches well and makes it a lot more effective. 

Album Art Exercise

This is my Album Artwork before I changed the text as I believed that this text was too hard for the edited image. Once the photo was edited into a crystallized effect, I thought that the text should change to something soft and faded.

I changed the text and I thought this was much better than the first one as it suits the image much more and does not look like it has just been stuck on top of the image. I changed the opacity so that it looks more faded in and suits the colour of the background. I kept the text white and simple as I did not want to add a bright colour and ruin it. 

Animatic

Storyboard

A model of the media

Magazine Advert Analysis

As well as selling my CD, I thought that it would be a good idea to include a magazine advert/poster which could be included inside as a 'gift' for the audiences also for another form of promotion.

Beyonce:

This is Beyonce's poster/magazine advert which has been promoted for her new CD. The poster includes big dominant font which indicates she is a powerful person, in which the album is called "I Am...Sasha Fierce". There is a split picture showing the difference between herself and her alter ego "Sasha Fierce". Sasha Fierce is shown looking very powerful compared to her normal self. Sasha Fierce looks very "glam and gorgeous" and also gives out the "diva" effect. She is promoting the date of her album release which shows "Available November XVII". It also states what songs of hers can be found on the album, which have been big hits in the past which audiences would like to know. In the left hand corner it also promotes her other albums which is very useful and is further promoting.

Her other posters/magazine adverts act in the same way, which is very useful as many people can recognise her adverts more quickly.  The only difference is that the "Sasha Fierce" image is shown in colour which shows dominance and power over the other image, which is the message she wants to promote. She also includes a website for her fans to visit for more information etc. 

Example of other students magazine advert:

I find this magazine advert really effective due to all of the things included onto it. The Black and White effect of the overall image shows a good colour scheme and it is visually pleasing. The image of the artist connects well to the audience as straight, strong eye contact is made which shows that he is the centre of attention. The artists name is shown very clear, big and bold at the top of the poster which grabs the audience straight away of knowing who he is. It also has a clear sentence stating when the Album will be released. It also gives out more information stating that this is the "special edition digipack" including song titles and featured artists. An image of the digipack is shown to allow the audience to look out for it. He has included star ratings for many music industries which gives out a good impression for his audiences. He has added in the 'iTunes' and 'HMV' logos to allow the audience to know that they can find this CD there. Twitter profiles have been added so the audience can find out more of the artist, also a website is included where the audience can also go to find more information about the artist. 

The artists' production company have been included which shows what record company he belongs to, which is very vital to include. 

Other magazine adverts from female artists:

Many artist magazine adverts are very similar in the way they include the same information and display their adverts. The way that it is displayed such as the big,clear font and an image of the artist which a clear background which states that they are a solo artist.

Tips for my own Magazine Advert/Poster: 

1.Produce it in A4 or A5.
2. Include my own pictures of the artist, or pictures that relate to the album.
3. Include the name of the album, artist, release date, star rating, websites, social media.
4. Refer to availability – e.g. iTunes, HMV, Amazon etc. and import these company images/logos from Google.
5. Add my own QR code, I could also create my own link.

Creating my own digipak

I will be creating my own digipak as part of promoting my music video. My digipak is so the audience who likes the music video can now buy their own copy of the song. My digipak will need to include:

1) Track list on the back of the disk.
2) My own photographs which may include the artist or a scene that relates to the song/genre or music video.
3) The middle square on the digipak will have a disk impression which may be a circle over a background that shows where the disc will be, the design can be on the disc itself or behind as a background.
4) Barcodes, QR and a logo for the record company either on front or back of package.
5) Artist information such as name, instruments, copyright, year of release, other CDs.
6) Spine, so that each of the six boxes can be easily identified.

Also some things that I may want to include into my digipak are flyers/posters or stickers that the audience may appreciate. 

This is a diagram explaining how the CD will be structured from the inside:

On the front cover I will use an image of myself but with the name "Zara Larsson", I will also include the album name which will be the name of the song or may be another song by the same artist. In this case it will be "Carry You Home".

On Adele's Digipak she included a picture of herself onto the back cover next to the song titles, I like the way this is presented and this has inspired me to think of doing this myself. Displayed on the back cover of the CD is her record companies logo which is key to include, also there is a barcode which is also important to add onto the back cover.