Wednesday 17 April 2013
Friday 12 April 2013
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
We decided to use an advert and digi-pak that we combined with our music video, we thought this would be the best combination within our product as it was the initial products that we saw within our research that other artists in the indie pop genre used. There a clear links between the all three products for the whole of the artists brand, all sharing the same colour scheme, main character and most obviously the iconic image of the red balloon which is seen throughout the music video and print products. The initial idea we had was to use the red balloon as the iconic image that would be used throughout the print products and music videos and because we have used this throughout it has become the recognisable that is related to our artist, and the concept of the balloon was how we planned the narrative and idea of the music video and also including the character of the artist we wanted to portray as it was the most striking aspect of the whole product and the meaning of the balloon. T Within the digi-pak we continued the same theme of the beach and nature which is seen in the music video and was also the front cover for our album where the girl is holding the red balloon, I think the fact we used the images of the beach and the location of where we filmed the music video, continues the mood of isolation and romance throughout the whole album, as the beach becomes a isolated and reflective place for the character in the video but the use of the 'early bird' effect makes it link to the romance and love theme that is seen in the music video but also the conventions of what the indie pop genre. But the picture are very effective as they are striking and instantly grab the audiences attention, including the effect of 'early bird' that we used throughout the digi-pak and the back and front cover also links the print products together.
But of course the obvious link is the image of the girl holding the balloon, even though we used the black and white effect with the effect of only having the balloon in red still continues the link within the print products, I think this is the most effective part of our product as it is the iconic image that will be linked instantly to the artist, the balloon signifies the concept of the whole album and the message it obtains to the target audience, even though the artist is male we found through research that indie pop genre artist normally have another character within the music genre that becomes the main focus of the music video and this is what we followed through within our music video as well as print products and the male character in the video can easily be linked to the artist as in the genres music videos the artist is sometimes within the storyline.
The same typography was used throughout the print products, even though the poster shows a different effect as we used 'bold' and 'shadowed' to make it stand out more, the same font was used to keep the same professional look by using the typography that was used in both front/back cover and also the digi-pak. The least effective part of our project is the poster as even though we used the image from the front cover, it doesn't give off the same striking and eye catching effect as the other parts of the product did, as we wanted the balloons to grab the audiences attention we dulled down the stauration of the image but unfortunatley this effect didnt turn out the way we wanted to as doesnt look as professional as the others, even though we used the typically conventions of this genres posters, with the use of the nature theme continuously and what we had to include and also the placing of the writing and reviews of the page the image of the girl holding the balloon lets down the overall view of the poster.
Overall i think the combination of all the products work well together as there is a clear link throughout all of them to be regosniable for this artist. The theme of the beach and the balloon made the whole aspect work well together and I believe if we didnt have the photographs of the beach the digi-pak and music video would of never linked well together and also the fact we have the image of the girl holding balloon running throughout all the products makes an evident link throughout and sets a story and understanding of what the album is about and what the artist is also like as singer.
But of course the obvious link is the image of the girl holding the balloon, even though we used the black and white effect with the effect of only having the balloon in red still continues the link within the print products, I think this is the most effective part of our product as it is the iconic image that will be linked instantly to the artist, the balloon signifies the concept of the whole album and the message it obtains to the target audience, even though the artist is male we found through research that indie pop genre artist normally have another character within the music genre that becomes the main focus of the music video and this is what we followed through within our music video as well as print products and the male character in the video can easily be linked to the artist as in the genres music videos the artist is sometimes within the storyline.
The same typography was used throughout the print products, even though the poster shows a different effect as we used 'bold' and 'shadowed' to make it stand out more, the same font was used to keep the same professional look by using the typography that was used in both front/back cover and also the digi-pak. The least effective part of our project is the poster as even though we used the image from the front cover, it doesn't give off the same striking and eye catching effect as the other parts of the product did, as we wanted the balloons to grab the audiences attention we dulled down the stauration of the image but unfortunatley this effect didnt turn out the way we wanted to as doesnt look as professional as the others, even though we used the typically conventions of this genres posters, with the use of the nature theme continuously and what we had to include and also the placing of the writing and reviews of the page the image of the girl holding the balloon lets down the overall view of the poster.
Overall i think the combination of all the products work well together as there is a clear link throughout all of them to be regosniable for this artist. The theme of the beach and the balloon made the whole aspect work well together and I believe if we didnt have the photographs of the beach the digi-pak and music video would of never linked well together and also the fact we have the image of the girl holding balloon running throughout all the products makes an evident link throughout and sets a story and understanding of what the album is about and what the artist is also like as singer.
Tuesday 2 April 2013
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
throughout our project we used a variety of different technologies and programmes to help develop and challenge ideas for our music video, print products and also research. The research consisted me of finding out the typical conventions of an indie pop genre, and what we would need to include within our product to make it appeal as this type of genre and also to the target audience of the indie pop genre. So we looked at various different artists and also bands to see what were the typical conventions within their music videos, which allowed us to plan easier as we knew what codes and conventions we had to include and to develop ideas further, and found that nature was a vital part of this genre of music which developed our ideas in locations and setting for the music video. eg. beach/fields. which then allowed us to plan our storyboard of the narrative. when filming the storyboard allowed to get the shots we needed and planned but also on the spot if we saw shots that worked well the fact we had two different cameras helped us get the extra shots we thought we could use. When introducing the idea of having the red balloon against the black and white coloured shots we practised the editing process of the colouring effect by using matte, on previously shots we had in a preliminary task, however we found the wind in the shots made it harder for us to get the colour accurate and we needed to use a higher quality programme to develop this idea to a professional standard, so by using premier we got James to use the shots from the beach to editing the colouring of the balloon step by step. Even though it was very time consuming but by using the editing process going frame by frame it created a much more professional looking effect other than matte.
we used photoshop to help the us for the album cover, to get the same effect of the
photoshop
using the magic wand the balloon was highlighted by pressing the alt button down
then clicked refine edge
we made the balloon less harsh around the edges by using the feathering tool, and made sure the balloons were equally even. Then we were able to change the colour of the balloon to a much more brighter red but still made the colour natural so it didnt look too cartoon like.
We then went on image > adjustments > Hue and saturation to change the colour.
then the lighting, saturation and hue of the colouring was changed to make sure we got the best outcome of the red balloon, making it look as natural as we could
this was the final outcome which we used for both the album cover and poster
To get the original effect for our album cover we used the app 'instagram' this allowed us to play around with different effects that looked best for our album cover, we used the colouring of 'early bird' which was the effect we continued through within our digi-pak and back cover to show a continuous link throughout the print products.
By using the different programmes and ranging our technology we were able to develop our original ideas in different ways to see which would be the best outcome, this has definitely improved the finalised print products and also our music video as we developed our knowledge and techniques using the editing programme premiere from our previous AS project, by making the editing more clean cut and run more with the music and actions on the screen which was a criticism in our last project. The red balloon has showed how we have developed our skills more as a group, and making our initial idea come to life and shows how we have grown into the skills of using this editing programme to create a more technical effect in the music video and also in photoshop, which previously in our AS project this technical and more higher standard of editing wasn't seen.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
When practising our shots and movements we shot some scenes in the outdoors ie. field and railway track, which we think worked well as the weather of the day and lighting worked well and what we saw within our research. The preliminary task helped us create the main concept of the colour contrasting, as you can see the colouring of the video has changed and all the colours contrast against their original, which I don't think worked particularly well as it didn't look realistic, but worked with the concept of the festival/summer feel of the video as it made the video very warm and summer like but allowed us to develop the idea of the 'red balloon'.
Through trail and error we trailed different contrasting colours and found the black and white colour contrast the best to work well with the concept of our video and the way we wanted to use present filming and past filming of the couple. We researched into the indie pop genre and found that it was common for this genre of music to use black and white colour effects in the video. In the Vaccines 'No Hope' is where we took inspiration from to put in our music video.
The black and white effect gives a dull and depressing effect because of the darkness yet still give a realistic effect because of the natural lighting and scenery. The shot still use the conventions of an indie pop genre with the use of outdoor scenery and nature which instantly connotes to the audience that the music video is off an indie pop band. Which is what we wanted to use within our video of the scenery and also the black and white colouring to creates a depressing and sad atmosphere for the girl walking alone on the beach. Having only one person in the shot also creates isolation which is something that we needed to incorupt into our music video to imply the loneliness of the girl in the narrative as she looking back onto the relationship she previously had. We also saw within the research of our genre that the music video focused either on a band or a narrative, as we didn't have a full band we decided that the narrative would be the better approach to the song as well as the music video to make it a more personal scene for the audience to look upon, as it directly links to a story of someone, and makes them more engaged with how the music video ends and the story of this girl on the screen.
We made sure we used the traditional conventions of the indie pop genre, to make it recognisable as this particular genre, we did this by the choice of shots using the natural scenery and also the camera movements and angles where in the research we found they used a lot of establishing, extreme long shots, and also close ups of both the characters and scenery to show the setting of the music video as this was seen as the main focal point to make an indie pop music video iconic.
However we wanted to make our music video unique by challenging and expanding the conventions and this was shown by the different uses of effect and the two different narratives linked into one another to make one narrative as a whole, and also the use of the imagery of the red balloon which is the main impact of the music video and what stands out the most.The idea of the two narractives together came from the Ellie Goulding music video- Your Song. This video both used the home video effect and also the standard filming shot, it gave us insipiration as we believed it gave a more personal message to the video, which we also thought would work well within the concept of our music video as it shows the realtionship between two people which is an intimate and personal subject.
The home videoing in the Ellie Goulding video is very warm and intimate, the effect creates a comforting atmosphere, and shows the character which is Ellie Goulding in our own surroundings which again draws the audience in as it at a more personal level with the song and also artist and this type of atmosphere and mood is something that would work well within our music video as it is showing the happiness of the character in the past of her realtionship which would contrast with the unhappy and depressing atmosphere with the use of the main girl on the screen on her own reflecting into the past and also the contrast of colour imagery from the home video to the black and white effect to emphasise the unhappiness of the character.
Ellie Goulding-Your Song
The contrast between the black and white colour imagery to the colour of the home video shows the concept of the narrative of the video, I think it worked well as it is a combination of a variety of other indie pop genre music videos with the use of the black and white imagery from 'The Vaccines' video and also the different type of effects of videoing in the 'Ellie Goulding' music video. This combination helped us build a narrative around the song, and I think by using the combination helped form the bases of what our whole artist and helped us develop the ideas for our poster and digi-pak. By the screen grabs it is clear that the inspiration for the split narrative came from the Ellie Goulding music video, we used different saturations and contrast to create the home video effect and also made the shot pixalated to emphaise the effect of the home video. I think this effect that we did looks professional as it is so similar to the Ellie Goulding clip and fits within the concept of our music video and song of the artist.
PRINT PRODUCTS
the print productions we took inspiration from 'mumford and sons', 'lana del rey', 'colplay' and 'noah and the whale', and is evident when comparing our print material to theirs. The digi-pak and album cover our are strongest piece throughout the whole product, we used the image of the girl holding the balloon- which has become the iconic image for the artist and whole product, as it is a image that is shown throughout the music video and album cover. The album cover was our own idea, with the use of composition and colour effect (use of instagram) to make it a high quality image. However we used the album of 'lana del rey' for the inspiration of our back cover. The spacing of the song titles we thought would work well in the style of lana del rey's as it was simple yet effective as the boldness with the use of the capital letters stood out against the background and also using a contrasting colour to the background where lana has used white against red, whereas we have used a light colouring in the background against the harshness of the black font. We used the bold effect on the second word of titles to again make the writing stand out and catch the eye of the target audience. We carried on the nature theme that is an evident convention in the indie genre, but also the imagery of the beach is a constant feature throughout our product and links both the music video and print products together.
Within the digi-pak we took inspiration from coldplay and in way the image inside was effected or dulled down from the information that was needed to go inside e.g. name of songs, production names etc. The images in the coldplay showed the consistent theme that in shown in the whole album artwork which again we carried throughout ours when using the images we used on location scouting and also pictures we took when shooting which links all the products together. We thought by adding lyrics on the digi-pak as well added a more personal level to the album and make the audience have an insight into what the album was about, the different colours of font was used keep within the colour saturation of the image so the image still has a striking effect to the audience and both writing and image stand out against one another. We again used the same colouring effect of 'early bird' that we used on front cover and back cover to keep them linked well together and also same typography was used to emphasise this.
the thing that was obviously challenged that wasn't conventionally seen in the indie pop genre was the concept of the red balloon, which was the main focus of our music video. The red balloon is what stands out the most within our music and is the iconic image that is related to our artist as it is the most eye catching thing that stands outs, we used this image for the front cover of our album as well, to make the striking link between the print products and the music video. It worked well as the front cover image the girl that is in the music video as well is holding two balloon representing the relationship of both her and her loved one, suggesting the concept of the album and what is it about and then in the music video you see her with only one and in the end letting go of that balloon which represents her loved one.
The poster again links all the print products and music video together as the same image that is seen throughout all texts are seen, with the girl and the red balloon which is the iconic image of this artist and how this album will be recognised. The poster took inspiration from 'noah and the whale' poster, we found through research they typically used the nature theme which is a typical convention of the indie genre, and also they use the same image from the album cover in which they use the same again on the poster advert, showing how it is important to link all the products together and make an iconic image for that album. Also within the poster they focused on making sure their album is made out to be good by using the stars and critic reviews which is also something we introduced within our advert to promote it.
Through trail and error we trailed different contrasting colours and found the black and white colour contrast the best to work well with the concept of our video and the way we wanted to use present filming and past filming of the couple. We researched into the indie pop genre and found that it was common for this genre of music to use black and white colour effects in the video. In the Vaccines 'No Hope' is where we took inspiration from to put in our music video.
The black and white effect gives a dull and depressing effect because of the darkness yet still give a realistic effect because of the natural lighting and scenery. The shot still use the conventions of an indie pop genre with the use of outdoor scenery and nature which instantly connotes to the audience that the music video is off an indie pop band. Which is what we wanted to use within our video of the scenery and also the black and white colouring to creates a depressing and sad atmosphere for the girl walking alone on the beach. Having only one person in the shot also creates isolation which is something that we needed to incorupt into our music video to imply the loneliness of the girl in the narrative as she looking back onto the relationship she previously had. We also saw within the research of our genre that the music video focused either on a band or a narrative, as we didn't have a full band we decided that the narrative would be the better approach to the song as well as the music video to make it a more personal scene for the audience to look upon, as it directly links to a story of someone, and makes them more engaged with how the music video ends and the story of this girl on the screen.
We made sure we used the traditional conventions of the indie pop genre, to make it recognisable as this particular genre, we did this by the choice of shots using the natural scenery and also the camera movements and angles where in the research we found they used a lot of establishing, extreme long shots, and also close ups of both the characters and scenery to show the setting of the music video as this was seen as the main focal point to make an indie pop music video iconic.
However we wanted to make our music video unique by challenging and expanding the conventions and this was shown by the different uses of effect and the two different narratives linked into one another to make one narrative as a whole, and also the use of the imagery of the red balloon which is the main impact of the music video and what stands out the most.The idea of the two narractives together came from the Ellie Goulding music video- Your Song. This video both used the home video effect and also the standard filming shot, it gave us insipiration as we believed it gave a more personal message to the video, which we also thought would work well within the concept of our music video as it shows the realtionship between two people which is an intimate and personal subject.
The home videoing in the Ellie Goulding video is very warm and intimate, the effect creates a comforting atmosphere, and shows the character which is Ellie Goulding in our own surroundings which again draws the audience in as it at a more personal level with the song and also artist and this type of atmosphere and mood is something that would work well within our music video as it is showing the happiness of the character in the past of her realtionship which would contrast with the unhappy and depressing atmosphere with the use of the main girl on the screen on her own reflecting into the past and also the contrast of colour imagery from the home video to the black and white effect to emphasise the unhappiness of the character.
Ellie Goulding-Your Song
Elliot Guy- Lover's Eyes
The contrast between the black and white colour imagery to the colour of the home video shows the concept of the narrative of the video, I think it worked well as it is a combination of a variety of other indie pop genre music videos with the use of the black and white imagery from 'The Vaccines' video and also the different type of effects of videoing in the 'Ellie Goulding' music video. This combination helped us build a narrative around the song, and I think by using the combination helped form the bases of what our whole artist and helped us develop the ideas for our poster and digi-pak. By the screen grabs it is clear that the inspiration for the split narrative came from the Ellie Goulding music video, we used different saturations and contrast to create the home video effect and also made the shot pixalated to emphaise the effect of the home video. I think this effect that we did looks professional as it is so similar to the Ellie Goulding clip and fits within the concept of our music video and song of the artist.
PRINT PRODUCTS
the print productions we took inspiration from 'mumford and sons', 'lana del rey', 'colplay' and 'noah and the whale', and is evident when comparing our print material to theirs. The digi-pak and album cover our are strongest piece throughout the whole product, we used the image of the girl holding the balloon- which has become the iconic image for the artist and whole product, as it is a image that is shown throughout the music video and album cover. The album cover was our own idea, with the use of composition and colour effect (use of instagram) to make it a high quality image. However we used the album of 'lana del rey' for the inspiration of our back cover. The spacing of the song titles we thought would work well in the style of lana del rey's as it was simple yet effective as the boldness with the use of the capital letters stood out against the background and also using a contrasting colour to the background where lana has used white against red, whereas we have used a light colouring in the background against the harshness of the black font. We used the bold effect on the second word of titles to again make the writing stand out and catch the eye of the target audience. We carried on the nature theme that is an evident convention in the indie genre, but also the imagery of the beach is a constant feature throughout our product and links both the music video and print products together.
Within the digi-pak we took inspiration from coldplay and in way the image inside was effected or dulled down from the information that was needed to go inside e.g. name of songs, production names etc. The images in the coldplay showed the consistent theme that in shown in the whole album artwork which again we carried throughout ours when using the images we used on location scouting and also pictures we took when shooting which links all the products together. We thought by adding lyrics on the digi-pak as well added a more personal level to the album and make the audience have an insight into what the album was about, the different colours of font was used keep within the colour saturation of the image so the image still has a striking effect to the audience and both writing and image stand out against one another. We again used the same colouring effect of 'early bird' that we used on front cover and back cover to keep them linked well together and also same typography was used to emphasise this.
the thing that was obviously challenged that wasn't conventionally seen in the indie pop genre was the concept of the red balloon, which was the main focus of our music video. The red balloon is what stands out the most within our music and is the iconic image that is related to our artist as it is the most eye catching thing that stands outs, we used this image for the front cover of our album as well, to make the striking link between the print products and the music video. It worked well as the front cover image the girl that is in the music video as well is holding two balloon representing the relationship of both her and her loved one, suggesting the concept of the album and what is it about and then in the music video you see her with only one and in the end letting go of that balloon which represents her loved one.
The poster again links all the print products and music video together as the same image that is seen throughout all texts are seen, with the girl and the red balloon which is the iconic image of this artist and how this album will be recognised. The poster took inspiration from 'noah and the whale' poster, we found through research they typically used the nature theme which is a typical convention of the indie genre, and also they use the same image from the album cover in which they use the same again on the poster advert, showing how it is important to link all the products together and make an iconic image for that album. Also within the poster they focused on making sure their album is made out to be good by using the stars and critic reviews which is also something we introduced within our advert to promote it.
audience feedback
we received positive feedback from our target audience, and highly praised our print products which was also what we thought was the best aspect of our whole products as what was said in the audience feedback was "professional" which was also what we thought. They all understood the links between the print products and the music video with the symbolism and image of the red balloon which is something we thought was the most important link to connect the artist to their products. They liked the idea of the two different narratives combined together as one, and how the use of the black and white signified the present and then the coloured/home videoing effect represented the past and this was clearly evident and put across in the music video. Other things that were commented on was that the song fitted in with the atmosphere and mood of the music video and the narrative that was used which fitted within the lyrics of the video as well, so overall the whole song and idea of the music video with the use of slowing down shots and transitions fitted well together, and said it was clear this was part of the music genre. Throughout the editing we were told that are narrative wasn't clear enough to the audience, but when getting back the feedback from the audience, it showed us that the audience did understand the narrative but believed that there should of been more home videoing shots other than being in one location to give an overall representative of the relationship between the two characters. Some shots which to us and also the audience were shaking but overall they said the home videoing shots were effective and showed off the relationship between the two characters well as it was intimate and personal towards the audience, and also the blacks and white shots showed the conventions of the genre of music with the use of nature shots that were seen consistently throughout the music video and said the overall shooting was composed well and we used a various shots and camera angles.
The main thing we wanted the audience to understand was the concept of the red balloon which was shown throughout all the print product and music videos, and we were praised for the use of editing and how the redness of the balloon stood out against the black and white shots, and how the audience did understand how the balloon represented the love of her past partner and the eventually letting it go by the end of the music video which also fitted with the lyrics of the actual song, however some criticised the balloon as being too cartoon like.
in this interview we were most critisised for the narrative of the music video, and said that the story was "repetitive" and "out of place" yet the black and white shots were the most effective part of the music video. We had a good range of shots and the tranisitions from each stories was effective and fitted well wit the style of the song and mood, as it had an "artistic" feel to it as they see the typical convetions that we have used that are in indie pop genre musice videos of the the scenery and nature shots. Yet even though it was "out of place" it was clear to them that the home videoing was in the past and it was clearly evident that there was two stories that are within the music video, but unlike the black and white shots the home videoing was repeitive, as the black and white showed a different shot each time the tranisitions came, but due to complications when shooting we were unable t use different locations which were planning to use orginally. But again highly praised for the red balloon and the concept of the balloon was understood fully, and also for the digi-pak and would be easily seen in stores and because of the red balloon in the music video and print productions it would be easily recogonisable for that artist.
When looking upon the feedback we received we found that the criticism if the same that we thought we needed to improve within our music video mainly, with the shakiness of shots and sometimes the lack of shots within the home videoing where we should of included other settings between the two characters together. But found that our digi-pak was our strongest aspect of the whole project as it was the most professional looking and would been seen as a selling album pak on the selves in music shops, and is our favourite part of the product. Even though our print products were the most professional looking part of our product the advert wasnt up to the same standard compared to the advert, even though audience feedback had no complaints about it the dullness of the image make it lose the quality of the picture as a whole as we tried to make the balloon stand out by changing the saturation of the image as a whole to make the iconic image of the artist stand out, but overall this loss the effectiveness of the image quality.
Wednesday 27 March 2013
Wednesday 6 March 2013
Audience Feedback Questions
For our audience feedback evaluation we will be showing our music video to a set of 12 people, where individually we will ask them a set of questions that would give us feedback in what worked within our music video and what didnt, and how we could improve next time.
1. What do you think about the storyline? And do you think the song fits with the tone and
atmosphere of the song?
2. What do you think about the tranisitions to black and white from colour? Do you think it is clear the coloured shots are looking back into the past?
3. What do you believe the concept of the red balloon is?
4. Based on the video do you think our product is at a professional-standard?
5. What could we improve about our video if they arent at a professional-standard?
6. Where do you think you might see the music video?
7. Based on the music video would you buy an album from this artist?
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