Finished music video

Here is our finished music video to the song 'Fire + Bones' by the Midnight Heavy:

Magazine Advert : Complete

Here is the completed Magazine advert for the album cover :

It has a similar look and design to the digipak cover with the faded black and white and bold title. We also added the "available on iTunes" tag to the bottom of the advert which is usually at the bottom of an album advert.
To keep with the theme of the digipak somewhat, we kept the background black, which looks less 'tacky' compared to a brighter background plus it is easier to work with.

The digipak in the Template

Here is our completed digipak in our template:

Final Digipak, and reasons for the design.

Here are the individual sides to the Digipak:

Upon reflection, after doing some extended research into cover design. I decided to change the idea of the digipak to go with a more Minimalist approach than before. by doing so we appear to have a more professional looking product than before whilst also remaining eye catching due to the colour scheme and the sharp, small images on the design.
An example of a minimalist album cover is 'Suck it and see' by the Arctic Monkeys. Where they took this idea to an extreme by just having text on a blank background, as you can see:

Although we haven't gone to this length, we still took it into mind when creating the digipak and especially the front cover.

Another inspiration for our Digipak front cover gradient design is from looking at the poster for the Movie 'Moon'.

As you can see from the poster, the gradient circle in the middle draws you to look at the character in the Astronaut suit. We took this idea to mind and created a circle the gradients from Red to Yellow (To represent the colours of a fire). And then added black text going around in a circle so that it stands out more the further you go down the circle.

Evaluation Question 4

This evaluation question I answered using the Website 'SlideRocket', which is an internet based powerpoint system. Which allowed me to store it on an internet 'Cloud' and access and change anything I wanted to on most devices.




The Process of creating this was quick and easy to navigate. Allowing me to add videos and pictures to help back up my points. I never really had any trouble using the website other than one instance when the site crashed. Other than that I would recommend this to others in similar positions to me.

Evaluation Question 3 : What have you learned from your audiencefeedback?

For evaluation question 3, I am required to respond to some of the audience feedback we received as a result of them seeing all three of our Products. To present the results in a less fragmented way. I copied the results into the 'Textilus' app on iPad, which is like a Microsoft word app that is available on Apple products. It allows me to access my work from any apple device whilst also making it viewable on any platform. I then copied the text into this blogger format, after changing the reading format from Textilus:

DID YOU ENJOY THE VIDEO?:
-Yeh I suppose
-Sort of
-Yeh
-No
-It was alright

WHAT DID YOU ENJOY / IF ANYTHING ABOUT THE VIDEO?
-The lead singer was pretty good
-It was average
-It wasn't fast enough
-The Guy was okay
-It was somewhat Varied I suppose

WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE THE VIDEO OUT OF 10?
-7
-5
-8
-5
-6

WHAT WOULD YOU IMPROVE ABOUT THE VIDEO?
-The pace wasn't quick enough
-A lot
-Add more people in to create more energy
-Make sharper edits
-Just more of the same


As you can see from four example questions I gave the feedback wasn't all positive. This however doesn't mean it was bad. I suppose what we can take from this is the experience of knowing what to do in the future if we had to do this project.

Comparing what we made to the words stressed in a Previously made wordle, consisting of the answers we had from our original audience feedback:

You could say that we hit most of the words stressed in the results wordle. With the main being the instruments, locations and a distinctive beat. However, perhaps it's the words that we choose to miss out whilst filming that would of perhaps made the Music video that much more entertaining.
Extra's such as dancers, girls would have been useful to create more energy in the video, but perhaps wouldn't have fit with the style and pace of the video or the song itself.
If we had dancers in an Indie rock video it may not have fitted with the style, perhaps leading us to create something that doesn't fit the criteria needed to be a rock video.

From this wordle we can see that the people asked already had a pre-conceived notion about what should have been involved in our video. And by us ignoring them slightly we may have lead ourselves into a less positive reaction as they already may have known what they wanted.




Looking at the video now introspectively, the people we questioned in the first place were probably right in what they wanted to see. Perhaps we could have sacrificed some normality in exchange for more people enjoying or video.

If we had to do this project again, i would probably take the comments made more into actual production as the video is made to create attention for the video and the Album (Digipak).

Despite the video being somewhat of a success in my eyes, it is easy to when finished that the quality is perhaps not what it could have been, if however we had more people to work with. As we had many cancellations from people saying they would be in the video from other band members, we had to basically go with what we had in the one person mostly in different locations doing different things whether that be just standing, or even playing an instrument.

In summary I would say the video is in good enough shape to do well for our project, along with the Digipak and Magazine advert, they create a recognisable trio, as I have outlined in another evaluation question.

Evaluation Question 2 How effective is the cimbination of your mainproduct with your ancillary texts

Along with the main music video, we had to create a Magazine advert and a Digipak with six sides to accompany it. The idea was to create a trio of products that are recognisable as being together.

The video it self uses a contrast of bright and dark colour pallets to make the video appear to be changing as it goes along. Along with this style of colour, we tried to keep the overall 'feel' of the video in more of a 'Rock' style by keeping certain conventions the same as they would be in a usual Rock video. These include such things as clothing, the actions the lead singer makes in the video, even down to the inclusion of instrumental shots to add in to the video whilst the song has it's own instrumental sections.



Above is the digipak and all of it's six panels:

The challenge then was to create a Digipak and a Magazine advert that shared a similar approach to the video to make them easily relatable. But also to give them their own individuality and to make them stand out by them selves but also along with the rest of the product.

For the digipak, We thought we would use most obviously a different, brighter colour scheme than the video in order to make it stand out more upon first glance. With the Fire colours of Red, Orange and Yellow, it stays with the theme of the song but just has a different feel to the rest of the product. But stil remains with the darker backgrounds.

We did however go with a Minimalist approach with the design of the Digipak with the philosophy in mind that 'Less is more'. Looking at certain movie posters and other famous album covers we came up with the idea of the circles inflamed with the band's name along the inside, like a 'Controlled fire'. The simple design works well with the colours and is in part homage to covers like the Lips from a Rolling stones cover. Whilst also remaining similar to the rest of the products.

And finally as you can see above is the Magasine advert for the digipak. As you can see, we have stuck with the same darker background as the other two pieces share. However, in this ad, we used an actual screenshot of the Music video for the basis of the advert. This makes it instantly recognisable to the video as it shares the same main character on the front. The black and white style was used because of multiple reasons. Including the quality being much better in black and white. Plus makes the image looks less pixalated in Black and white.

the magazine advert fits in well with the trio as it takes in peices of the other two to create a seperate product in it's own right. Using the actual shot of the video along with a still surreal, aware of text image that it is means that it is recognisbale as being under the same creative umbrella.

As a result, we ended up creating a trio that I believe work really well together, with the Music video being it's own thing, with the eye catching nature of the digipak, and finally the blunt, straight forwardness of the magasine advert. They fit well and are all easily recognisable as being together.

Overall, I believe they are a success and they seem to do well next to each other, I dont feel I could have stretched the idea any further as it would have rendered them un-recognisable from each other, a line that I think we balanced well.

Evaluation Question 1

For this evaluation question I have used the website 'prezi.com' to create a response to the question:



Prezi is an interesting website to use as it is like a moving mind map. The work is saved on a cloud system that enables it to be edited from most devices including the ipad, making it available on a lot of different states and levels.

Shot list

Here is a sheet analysing some of the shots we have for the music video:

Digipak front cover : changing fonts

Here is a screen shot of our digipak as we attempt to change the font at the top and bottom of the front cover.

Magazine advert : First Attempt

Here is the first attempt at our magazine advert for our digipak, we have attempted to complete this in time with the digipak so that we keep the visual style similar for both the digipak ad the advert.

Constructing our Magazine advert

Here is a screenshot of Photoshop showing us constructing the first magazine advert attempt. As you can see we have a number of different layers and font sizes, that match that of the digipak's creation.

Costumes and Props

Here are two lists outlining the different Costumes and Props we used for our music video.

Digipak album cover : First go

Here is a screenshot of our first attempt at a digipak front cover.

After receiving some feedback from people we have decided to change :
The fonts at the top and bottom of the front cover to keep with the overall tone and style of the band.
Bring the fade in a bit more so we can see more of the bricks behind him.
improve the sharpness of the image in the middle.

Filming : Trying new shots

Here is a picture taken of our group filming new footage for our music video, showing how we tried to gain different angles and lengths on shots.

Production schedule / Location sheet

Here is our production schedule for our music video.

Treatment

Here is our treatment for our music video.

Magazine advert tips

Here are some tips for us to remember when creating the magazine advert for our digipak.

Shooting Schedule

Here is one of our shooting schedules for the music video detailing some of the days we were filming and what we were filming.

Music video treatment

Here is our music video treatment plan.

Risk assessment

Here is a document outlining the only risks we had to deal with whilst filming and making the magazine advert and digipak.

Contingency plan

Here is a screenshot of our contingency plan for our product and how we plan to deal with problems we may face.

Magazine Advert : Advise on a good advert

I've screen shotted some helpful advice that we should remember whilst creating the magazine advert.

Digipak analysis : What we've done so far

Since this is the base image for our digipak It's important to note some of the changes we've made to the image to make it look like an album cover.

1. Darkened the main image.

2. Increased the contrast so that the colours stand out more.

3. Burnt the edges out of the right side of the image so that it fades into black backgrounds in the next pages.

NEW IDEAS

1. Turning the contrast off, makes the images like the match brighter on the back.

2. Adding a bold title in some sort of blocky font, most likely red, then adding the name of the band at the bottom with a different font.

3. Adding the mask in black and white, looks more 'odd'.

Editing : still images

Here are a couple of still images that are taken from our editing footage, in this particular case, they focus on a closeups of our "lead singer" miming some of the lyrics of the song.

 Having shown a couple of minor varieties here, it is obvious that we are going for a centred, focus on the singer, with bright varying backgrounds behind him and others in the video. Which will become evident as the video is released.

Digipak creation : Using the footage

For our digipak we have used a still image from the footage that we have for our video. the reason we are doing this is so that we keep the continuity between all of our products but also allows us to change certain images to make them more dramatic.
Here is one of the stills:

With this image we are going to add certain images and possible effects for the digipak. Including ideas I have previously posted about such as darkening the edges of the image but increasing the contrast in order to enhance certain images.
Along with these we are adding titles of the song and the band along with other style additions that will be used to try and make the digipak more unique.

An example of a creative Magazine advert

A magazine advert needs to be unique or creative with an initial idea. A perfect idea of the latter is this magazine advert from Kasabian. 

As you can see the advert shows the album cover which is based on "King" playing card with quite a detailed image on the front.

This idea is important for us as we need to have a unique magazine advert that still refers to our digipak and our chosen style.

This magazine advert seemed to appear as a very unique one to me as i searched them on google, here is the results page that I was first presented with:

Well designed Digipaks

When creating our digipak, I looked at other album covers that utilised certain aspects we want to to have in ours.

For example :

As you can see from this image it is important have vibrant colours as the focal point of an album cover. This way the bright colours attract people's eyes to the middle of the cover or wherever the focus is put. In this example "The Beatles : Sgt. Peppers lonely hearts club band" we see a vast array of colours focusing specifically on the reef spelling "Beatles" and the four band members in their brightly coloured suits.

Final week plan

For the remainder of this week I have set a few tertiary tasks that I need to complete myself in order to finish the overall project, these are :
-Add the band images to the created background (Digipak)
-Change the brightness on the digipak and the contrast to put more emphasis on the fire.
-Complete the font over the image of the magazine advert.
-Add more overall detail to the magazine advert.
-Try to match the styles of the the two products so that they are easily recognisable as an overall product.

Final digipak sketch ideas

Here are a few sketches that outline our ideas for the digipak and all of it's 6 sides.

Using Technology - Making the digipak / Magazine advert

For the process of creating both the digipak and the magazine advert I will be most likely using Photoshop. The advantages of this are in the creation element itself. Being able to use separate layers to create one whole is advantageous to us as we can be specific in what we want from each layer. Such as having a separate layer for the digitalised mask and the un-tampered face. This is important for the quality of the product as we can have a clearer image.

Here is an example of a unique magazine advert for an album:

The Magazine Advert - Ideas 1

For the magazine advert we need to have an idea that stands out and is unique, similar to the digipak. The idea we have is to have a shot of our 'lead singer' , with the title of the song. But also adding a similar effect that we are going to use on the digipak. This way the consumer can identify the magazine advert with the digipak.

The Magazine Advert - The Album cover digipak First ideas 1

This weekend i am going to be finishing the album cover and digipak for our music video. The challenge with this is making the designs look relevant to the song whilst also making the design unique. To achieve this we went with a mixture of an '8-bit' design with elements of the song's title 'Fire + Bones'. By mixing the two to create a unique look to the digipak and magazine advert.

Here is the first rough idea of the sort of cover we are going for:

As you can see from this rough image. We have a rough idea of the style we are looking at achieving. The base idea of the pixelated mask will be kept but I will look to improve the 'Fire' background and make it more sharper and more pixelated in certain areas.

Filming record

A few days ago the two other members of our group went out and re-filmed one of the parts of the film but in better quality. Our main reason for doing this was to increase the main quality of our video. As some of the original cuts weren't up to the quality that we needed to get a good grade.