Music Video Final

Freddie Sayer Final video from Caroline Birks on Vimeo.

Inside Panels

Here are the pictures that I wish to use for the inside pannels of my digipak. Again of course I am aiming for simplicity so I thought the picture of a guitar would relate to my genre of music.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The internet was a very useful research tool when learning the layouts and characteristics of real media products. I was able to research example such as the Coldyplay album so that I could get an understanding of where the logos should be placed and the overall layout of the image. However I also used solid copies as examples such as digipacks of real artists.
Final Cut Pro was the software I used to edit my footage. I simply loaded what I had onto a project list and selected the clips that I needed. I found the trimming of footage easy and flexible which allowed by to pick out unnecessary and unwanted parts.
I used a Sony a290 to take recce photos of where I wished to film. Using such a high quality camera proved useful as I was able to capture images which proved useful for the setting of the music video.
I used a Panasonic SDR-s26 for filming purposes. Ideally I would use a better camera in order to capture better quality shots. However this camera fulfilled its purpose and I was able to film with ease. The best characteristic of this camera would probably be the zoom. This proved useful for zoom in longshots of the character walking across the field. Zooming was also effortless so there was little camera movement.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The combination of my ancillary texts and my music video work very well. The music video has the country up-beat feel and the ancillary texts support this by portraying the sub-urban setting and the lone artist. I think the combination of ancillary texts and my media product is effective. Both my ancillary products and my media product share the same charactertistics in terms of simplicity and genre. My music video revolves around the narrative of a single character, who simply decides to sing the song around his sub-urban home town. There narrative is simple to follow, there are no catches before or at the end of the video and in the beginning the audience is fully aware of the main characters situation. This simplicity is duplicated in the ancillary texts by the layout of the digipaks and the digipak advert. I made sure that my background for both of them was a simple picture of my main artist whose face remained hidden to give the character a mysterious effect. The genre of my music fits that of my music video and my ancillary products making them an effective combination and recognisable/relatable media products.

What have I learned from my audience feedback?

The audience feedback has been useful with forming my media product. After having a dilemma with the female character, I took to taking advice from the audience feedback of the first video and saw that the audience do not see enough of her to establish her as a character in the music video and instead she was seen rather more as an anomaly. Audience feedback also showed me that the audience were not comfortable with some of the lip syncing in the video. I took concern over the certain parts pointed out and tried to fix them as best as I could. My audience also made me aware that some clips of the video would be better somewhere else, for example at the end of my video I was told that the sequence in which the video ends would be better if the close-ups of the guitar on the floor were before the medium shot of the artist looking towards the trees so that it looked as if the artist had left his guitar behind and walked away, giving room for the song to end.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product focuses round the genre of Irish cultural pop music. My music video has used the same editing and filming techniques of that of bands such as Mumford and Son’s Little Lion Man and The Cave. There are short and snappy editing techniques that I have used to exploit the liveliness of the song and there are also extended clips that fit in with the rather emotional stages of the song. The setting of my music video also fits the genre of music that I am trying to relate to, it is set in the sub-urban along with large fields to really fit the country feel of the music. The way that my music video challenges the conventions of actual media products is the way that there is no use of slow motion effects that at some points calm the speed of the video, this would be because there was no effective tool on Final Cut Pro which would allow fluid visual movement. My music video also has only one musician playing and singing in it, this does not challenge the conventions of this kind of genre as much although, with this kind of Irish Cultural Music there are more than one person playing in the music video.
My album advert does not challenge the conventions of other media products that much at all. I have kept the large open space at the top of the advert so that I have made plenty of room for the image of my artist. The only challenge to conventions I have with my advert is that my character/artist is hidden by the dust/scratch effect I have used using Photoshop. Most artists of this genre usually have themselves on their advert, usually to gain a visual reputation.
My digipack like the album advert challenges the forms and conventions of its real media products disallowing the audience to see the face of the singer/artist. However the layout of the covers resemble that of its real media products. I have kept the front as simple as possible whilst keeping the back more detailed yet spaciously laid out.

Digipak Front Final

I have left the previous draft of my digipak because I feel that if I make anymore changes then it would effect my theme of simplicity. I feel that it still stands out and relates to my genre of music.

Digipak Back Final

In this the final copy of my digipak back cover. I have fixed the issue with the faded text due to sun rays in my picture. I have done this by creating a new layer and paint filling it white. I then changed the opacity so that it created a new shade layer so that my text could be easily visible on it. I have also created a glassy effect on the text by over lapping a bronze coloured text with a black coloured text.

Album Advert

This is a my final version of my album advert. I have tried to keep it relatively simple. I have used a "cut and scratch" effect on my main picture background. Getting the picture to fit an A4 format proved difficult as I had trouble spreading it over what room I had. However I feel that I have prevailed seeing as I have used the parts of the picture I wanted effectively.

Advert Example

Hereis an example of a music advert. It may not be in the same format as the advert I wish to create however it does give me some pretty good ideas to what an album cover should include such as the logos, and positioning of text. What I have learned from looking at album adverts is that the majority of them have their text and logos far at the bottom, leaving plenty of space for the main image either of the artist ir band or any picture they have wished to put there. As I am focusing on simplicity I wish to exploit this main idea.

Digipak Front Cover draft

This is a draft image of the front cover of the digipack. I have tried to keep it as simple as possible however hopefully I have given it the epic country effect I have wanted.

Potential Digipak Backgrounds

These are some potential photographs for by Digipak front cover. My main concern is to avoid the same problem where the sun rays effect the viewers ability to read the text. I think all these pictures suit the genre of my music. I want to capture the green fields and the sun to match the Irish Pop culture theme.

Digipak Back Cover

This is a draft copy of my Digipak back cover. I am currently having a problem changing the text colour so that it is clearly visible, however due to the variety of bright and dark colours, caused by the trees and the sun it is hard to get a font that will work. Other than that I am happy with the layout and the design however if I can not fix the text colour I may have to re-design the layout so the text can cover a more solid background where it can me seen.

Music Video First Draft

Freddie rough cut from Caroline Birks on Vimeo.

Digipak planning

I am currently concentrating on the Digipak cover. Here is the layout of what I would prefer it to look, a four sided cover. Having a four sided cover would simplify the layout of the digipak cover. This is a good thing because I was the front side of the digipak to be as simple as possible, perhaps with just a picture of my character with his name and album name. The back cover however is going to be more developed, obviously because I would need the DVD content, the song list and all the copyright features. 

                                                                                                                                          

Digipak examples

Here is an example of what the front and back cover of a digipak. The front cover resembles the theme of simplicity that I would like to have in my front cover. There is plently of space in the picture as well that has made room for the titles to seem isolated.

The back cover is an urban theme. In my back cover I wish to expoit both the country theme and the urban theme. I will still try to use the theme of simplicity however because it is a back cover of a four-sided digipak it would need elements such as soung list, dvd explanation, copyright infringement statement as well as the various logos.