Magazine Cover 1st draft

This is our first draft of our magazine cover, at first we screen grabbed the image of the fish from our video but it came out very pixelated when enlarging the image on the screen. So to improve it we used original photography and took a different image of the fish to make the fous point (the fish) fully in focus.

Front Cover

This is our final draft for our SBTRKT CD Digi-pack front cover, I captured this

Inside Cover Left

This is another picture taken after we shot the video of the finger walking. To keep it consistent and simple I kept it black and white keeping the same fingers and using one of the same back drops as our music video. I also coloured a little bit of red in similar to the other covers.

Inside Cover Right

For our inside right cover we decided to have an extremely simple design, to match the front and back covers with the graffiti like splatters, making the the cd very similar keeping the same red colour and simple design. Usually you don't see much detail on the cd disc  it just has the band's name, record label's name and copy right writing. I kept this style because one of the main aspects of these different covers is that they are consistent.

Back Cover

This is our final draft of our CD digi-pack back cover. We wanted to keep the background images completely relevant to our music video but still make it look realistic so we took more images of the finger character walking after shooting the video. The genre of the song was quite quirky so we edited the covers to have a very simple but different effect. I wanted to put most of the emphasis on the song list which was very difficult to do because all the writing is in black and white as well as the background so I blurred the background while keeping the clock and fingers in as much focus as possible.

costume props and casting

For our video the Mise en scene was key to make the visuals on screen match the lyrics of the song, and to make our video look professional.
The props we used in our video were important and difficult to chose; they had to be something that we could have

Digi-pack research 2

The CD Digi-pack is a modern, stylist alternative to the normal CD case. Digi-packs are a custom printed card packaging that can hold one or more CD’s which are held in place with plastic trays which are glued into the pack. They are especially popular in the music industry for CD albums as well as multiple CD disc sets.

I have chosen to look at this Schoolboy Q’s ‘Habits and Contradictions’ Digi-pack , by looking at front cover we know exactly what he looks like which takes up a large percentage of the front cover. We know just by looking at the front cover exactly what genre or type of music he makes because of his appearance, his tattoos and the extra woman licking his face wearing a balaclava and a chunky ring. We can also see his name at the top clearly written in white. By having Schoolboy Q written clearly on the front cover and a portrait of the rapper himself it is very effective for a number of reasons. A few being...

1.   We as an audience are able to clearly see who he is and what he looks like.

2.   We can gather a specific genre of music from this.

3.   The colors used have created a particular mood for the audience, may be the album has a meaning for example Schoolboy Q may have written the album on his past personal life.

4.   The audience may be able to relate a portrait to a song they have heard before.

All of these aspects stand out which is important, especially as this is one of the few albums he has released.

Second album cover idea

We were given a task to create our own album cover with a random artist name and image, the aim of the task was to experiment with our skills on Photoshop and see what we can create using the name and picture. For my album cover I decided to use the 'opacity' tool making the portrait of the artist fading into the background.

Looking at the background (image I got given) it defiantly looks like it from a festival so to keep the whole image relevant and for it to match picked a portrait of a young artist so it relates to the audience. I also used an Island record label at the bottom right corner to make the album cover look realistic.      

problems with reshooting

After we re-shot the video, we had some issues with putting the clips onto final cut pro. We had to use the program iMovie to edit the music video. 

The camera we used to shoot this was tricky as it went in and out of focus quite a lot, this would cause us to loose marks. 

However this shoot did help us to finally be able to see where we wanted the video to go. A final reshoot of some of the clips was necessary to make our video really tight and professional. 

magazine advert research

I chose to analyse this magazine advert, I think that it does well to advertise the artist through its layout and simplicity. The colour scheme of this advert is a classic red, white and black. The white background makes the black font really stand out and shows the viewer the name of the artist (JAY-Z) and the name of the album that it is advertising (THE BLUEPRINT 3). The artist name and album name are featured at the very top middle of the advert in a serif font for the artist name, and a sans-serif font for the album name. The positioning of this text and the font chosen for it shows the viewer its importance. The artist name in the larger, serif font making it really stand out, followed by the album name in the smaller font, this may be because as JAY-Z is an extremely famous artist people would be drawn in by his name before the album name. Also the fact that it is positioned at the top and is the first thing seen by the viewer really highlights its importance.
Below this text is the main focus of the album, a collection of instruments and musical items coloured completely white with three red stripes over it. This surreal image also conveys the albums logo to the viewer, and the inclusion of instruments also shows the viewer that although the genre is rap music - a genre generally considered to be less technical - a great deal of musical effort has been put into the production of the album. Also the positioning of this - in the centre of the advert emphasises its importance.
The logo, coloured red featured in the middle of the advert is the only element of the advert coloured red, making it stand out hugely on the advert. This would make it stick in the mind of the viewer and when seen again may would be easily remembered and is a clever advertising technique as it is such a simple yet effective logo.

Below the logo and collection of instruments there is a list of hit singles that the album includes this shows the viewer that the album includes the singles released earlier in the year and reminds them of this making the viewer more inclined to purchase the album. Also it shows the album release dates, below this there is the recording company logo and the artist's official website.


Overall this magazine advertisement shows that although very simplistic it can achieve success through its use of colour and the positioning of the elements of the magazine advert. I would consider using techniques featured on this poster in our magazine advert for instance using font size and type to signify importance, and a simple yet memorable colour scheme to stick in the mind of the viewer.

digipak analysis 1

This is the first digipak that we chose to analyse. It is the digipak for the band "GREEN DAY" and the album titled "greatest hits. A digipak is a form of CD packaging typically used when there is bonus content included or when the release is a limited edition. It normally contains one or two discs, and shows album art on the front, back and inside covers.  

This digipak contains a few key elements; 

• The front cover containing, including a parental advisory label, and recording company information, the album art, the band name and album name. 
• the inside covers containing the discs and behind, showing some extra artwork featuring pictures of the band members, the song lists and other information about the content. 

This digipak does well to sell an image of the band, this is achieved through a simple yet effective colour scheme of black, white and green. The green clearly chosen because of the band's name but also when combined with the black gives the digipak a grimy, underground feel, which is mirrored by the rock or metal music that they play. This shows their target audience that although this is a greatest hits album and that is something that would possibly be a, the band are still playing the same music and have the same image as they did when they first set out.
The font used on this digipak also adds to the underground feel of the band, it looks like graffiti stencils or something similar and has parts of the letters chipped off to make it look as though it has been worn away. The band's name is written in white, which makes it stand out clearly against the green background and the black writing and black picture on the cover. The black writing also adds to the underground feel of the band, showing the target audience that they are still making the same kind of music that they always have. Also the picture of the New York skyline would make this digipak appeal to people from the USA and also people who fall under the psycho-graphic of aspirers and explorers as the city skyline represents somewhere new to explore and somewhere that this group of people would love to be.
The positioning of the lettering on the front cover of the digipak is important in advertising the band, the band's name is positioned in the top left corner in larger font than the rest of the digipak to clearly show the customer what band it is from. The album name, positioned in the top right corner, in a smaller font, this may be because when the band's name is advertised the album name becomes less important. Also there is the parental advisory label in the bottom left hand corner. We will need to use labelling similar to this and the recording company information to make our digipak look realistic and authentic. We should also adopt a similar technique for displaying the band and album name, using different sized fonts to emphasise the importance of each. 

The inside cover of the digipak continues to conform to the green, white and black colour scheme, it has a green background with a black Green Day band logo featured in the middle, over the top of this logo is a list of the songs featured on both discs that this digipak includes. There is also a list of all the albums that the band has ever released. Next to this on the right there is more recording information. The words on this panel are all picked out in white font, although small this colour makes it very easy to read for the customer.
The discs on the inside of the digipak are made to look like real vinyl records, the covers also has the name of the band and the album name on the top, copyright and recording information at the bottom and the band logo in the middle. This attempt to make the CD's look like vinyl records may have been done to show the customer that the band are still serious artists.
Behind the CD's there are two pictures of the band, again keeping to the colour scheme, and showing the artists playing instruments, this shows the customer that they are still a real band and are still making their own music which may not be the case for other artists releasing greatest hits albums.  

Location and filming ideas

After getting about halfway through the editing of our video, we came to the conclusion that the locations and the general mise en scene that we had used did not do a good job of representing SBTRKT. With some help and discussion we decided that we needed to change our locations first and foremost.
This was because we didn't have much in the way of costume in our video as the main character is just a hand, we decided however to use a hand that had no rings or bracelets, keeping it simple and making the viewer focus more on what the hand was doing and where it was doing these actions, rather than become distracted by rings and bracelets.

The locations are a huge part of the video idea, as the hand only takes up the foreground of each frame we had a lot of space to consider when choosing the new locations. We wanted to choose locations that were more in keeping with the genre of music we had chosen but still making each individual backgrounds different and weird. We decided to film the whole video in Simon's house, where we can control the lighting and change/move from each background easily and quickly, also we discovered that some of the lyrics in particular "rushing in the night like a shark babe" match some of the backdrops we initially had in mind to use such as the finger character walking past a fish tank.

We chose to re-shoot the video taking more care over what we showed in the background. We undertook a few changes in the way we filmed also.

We changed;

• the camera we filmed with - we changed camera to one with a higher resolution so that our video was filmed in higher quality and look much more professional. 
• we changed the location of filming - we chose to film purely in Simon's house taking great care of what was shown in the background of the shots. This would add consistency to our video and make it seem less random. 
• the way the fingers moved through the shot - we chose to keep the movement of the subject consistent throughout, having the fingers walking from left to right through the frame. 
• The backgrounds of the shots are generally chosen to match the lyrics, but during our first edit we came to the conclusion that if we took more time over each clip it would make more sense to the viewer. This left us with some space in between clips that needed to be filled. So we decided to show the fingers walking past some random backgrounds that you would expect to find in the home, some quite quirky but we think that it really gives the video a down-to-earth feel and would help the audience to identify with the music.  

Script

clips of hand walking along surfaces, fade to black, more clips. inter-cut with black background and white, sans serif text of artists name, song name and charlie lavender and simon wykes. 

i could bet all the riches that i ever had - hand plays with fruit machine, coins fall, wallet goes into pocket.

rushing the night like a shark babe - close up of fish in fish tank, fish swims close to camera 

would it be bad - fish flicks its tail and shoots away from the camera

if i had to set the alarm - hand walks past ringing alarm clock

cus those thrills that run up my back - hand and fingers running up Cameron's back 

you are my star nothing else could leave me off track - view of moon in the sky followed by fingers running along a banister/walking past pages of sheet music

hey - queue to fade from black to shot of hand holding lighter

you're like a wildfire - hand flicks lighter

you got me rising high - hand rises up through the frame

your innocence whose the brave - hand goes from palm open to raised, clenched fist

drowning in - hand on side of sink, slips in sink

would you save me - another hand grabs and pulls out of the sink - covered in bubbles

it's a crime - 

if you don't - 

you're the spy - shot of bottom half of Simon's face and neck

by the throat - hand enters frame and grabs Simon's throat.

second half of video features real footage inter-cut with footage of the band playing live to add a performance element, there will also be some continued footage from the first half of the song

i could bet all the riches that i ever had - 

rushing the night like a shark babe - 

would it be bad - 

if i had to set the alarm - 

cus those thrills that run up my back - 

you are my star - 

nothing else can leave me off track - 

hey - 

you're like a wildfire - 

you got me rising high - 

your innocence - 

whose the brave - 

drowning in - 

would you save me - 

its a crime - 

if you dont - 

you're the spy - 

by the throat -