FINAL SEND OFF

This is the end of my blogging, it has been a long and stressful journey but I managed in the end.
I hope you enjoy my posts and acknowledge all the hard work I have put in, thank you for taking the time to look over my blogs.

ENJOY! and farewell!

Evaluation Question 3

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

USING ADOBE PHOTOSHOP

Creating the logo for front panel work

USING EDITS IN FINAL CUT PRO

Evaluation Question 4

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 

Evaluation Question 2

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

In order for a music video to become successful, it is vital to highlight clear visual links between it and it's own ancillary products being the digipak and advertisment.  To begin with, the first step in creating my ancillary work was the production of my front/back panels for my album cover of Sylvie Gray. Like the video itself, it is vibrant, edgy and feminine which is what myself and my group hoped to achieve for our artist's most critical consumers, their target audience. As for the artists image, their appearance plays a vital role in selling their music to their fans. We kept the image of Sylvie Gray from the video into the ancillary products in order  to create a 'signature look' for herself making her appearance as a pop artist more noticable and above all distinct. Through the concept of keeping a 'signature look', it allows the artist to sell themselves and become recognised within the music industry for their sense of physical attraction i.e. dresses and bangs (hairstyle).

Examples from video below:

 Moreover, the most clear visual link for my group's music video and my ancillary products would be the image selling for the artist.

The key item of clothing would be the distinctive shoes Sylvie is wearing in both the album cover photos as well as in the music video itself. This shows a strong link to the artist herself linking back to the idea of a 'signature look'.

As for the advertisement and digipak, the similarities between both are significant. Parallel to the font styles, I made sure that the font style of 'Edo SZ' was used throughout both ancillary products. It is vital that I kept the font style consistent for the audiences to witness Sylvie Gray as the artist she is.

HOW SUCCESSFUL DO YOU THINK YOUR ANCILLARY TEXTS ARE?

The strongest factor of my ancillary work would be the distinct link between both digipak and advertisement through the creation of the artist's logo. The theme of black, gray and hues of red appears to be a simultaneous with both products. The image selection worked particularly well as the clothing of the red rose dress and graphics of the cross 'x' link together as well as the music video as a similar colour scheme was used throughout the segment. The distinction of the artists image with the use of dresses are both incorporated in the music video and the digipak itself. Linking back to the 'signature look' for my chosen artist, I believe this has benefitted the relation between all three products. The symbolism of Sylvie's dress displays the femininity of her image and ultimately appeals to her target audience of young teenage girls aged between 16-19. 

DOES YOUR ANCILLARY PRODUCTS APPEAL TO YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE?

Through the use of creating a distinctive look being achieved through the use of mise en scene, (dresses) she is easily recognisable for her target audience. The same concept is applied to the advertisement and digipak, my group decided on keeping her image simple and the image selection is highlighted with the same requirement of poses (looking down, smiling). Moreover,  the logo holds a strong representation of who Sylvie Gray is, her 'rebellious' persona is emphasised through the text with its raw, edgy feel. Thus, her image presents a strong parallel to her target audience and her the advantage to be recognisable within the music industry. 

Evaluation Question 1

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

EVALUATION - USING SURVEY MONKEY FOR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

In order to improve our music video, it is vital to record data from our target audience's who have seen the music video and give us back critical feed back. By doing so, I have conducted a short survey with 7 questions that relate to the succession of my music video through the use of Survey Monkey.
Below is a screen shot of the survey itself which has been handed out to audiences for a reaction and summary of it's progress.

THE RESULTS:

QUESTION 1:

• 4/9 people ranked the usefulness of the music video appealing to their age group as '7'
• 2/9 people ranked it 8 
• 3/9 people ranked it 6

QUESTION 2:

• Majority of the responses said that they enjoyed the lighting effects which were used in Platform, and one respondent put down "the colour scheme ranged well  - purple, blue and red all merged together made the video look like a party scene and fit well with the tempo of the song."

QUESTION 3:

• In relation  to ancillary products, the following question had an interesting poll of votes for the persuasion of buying the artist's products:
• 6/9 people ranked 4 in the questionnaire
• 2/9 people ranked 5
• 1/9 people ranked 2

QUESTION 4:

• 7/9 people said camerawork
• 2/9 said mise en scene

QUESTION 5:

• 2/9 people said performance
• 1/9 people said camerawork
• 6/9 people said editing

QUESTION 6:

• 5\9 people said good
• 4/9 people said average

QUESTION 7:

• Majority of the responses stated that the editing of the video needed to be a little more improved with the beat of the song, more base tracks. As well as this, the mise en scene needed to be stronger. 

COMPLETED ADVERTISEMENT

COMPLETED DIGIPAK

FRONT/BACK PANELS

INSIDE PANELS

Editing process for ancillary digipak

ADDING TEXT/FONT TO ALBUM ARTWORK

FONT

Using the desired fonts taken from my mock up, I did a little experimentation with the different varieties of font to see which best suited to the artist and genre. Above is a font (Brain flower) I'm not particularly a fan of but I had thought this worked in regards to the layout of the album being simple and easy to read. However, after comparing two fonts (Brain flower and Edo SZ) I came to the conclusion that Edo SZ proved to suit my artist better than the other as it is more gritty and has a sense of attitude although is also easy to read.

FINAL OUTCOME:

Creating the logo for the artist

Above is a screen casting of the process in which I created Sylvie's logo from using Adobe Photoshop.

Creating a 'special edition' sticker

Based on my final stages of editing, I thought it would be useful to take another look at current digipaks out in the market which contain 'deluxe edition' stickers. Many of the digipaks I have come across contain a sticker to act as a promotion pusher for the desired artist. A usual sticker would contain the following:

1. Number one hits that have made it into the music charts
2. several well known songs that have already been released by the artist
3. Added note on extra merchandise/CD if the digipak contains this
4. May also contain a rating by a well established music institution i.e. "5 stars kiss FM"

CREATING THE 'STICKER'

Editing process for ancillary digipak

FINAL IMAGES AND CD CUT OUT PLACEMENTS

(Front/back panels)

I decided to keep the front cover image in a mid shot of Sylvie as it proves to be a striking image which may appeal better to the audiences as she is directly looking into the camera lens. As for the back panels, I made slight alterations and came to the decision to get rid of the mid shot of Sylvie looking down but to replace it with two full body shots, one in a standing position whilst the other is sitting down/laying to one side. The reason I combined both images was to make the album cover look more dynamic and to interest the consumer which portrays her persona/character being quite rebellious, in two minds. 

Editing process for ancillary digipak

RE EDITING AND MAKING UPDATED CHANGES

Looking over the DO's and DON'Ts of creating a digipak, I came to the realisation that the images I had chosen first time round didn't really fit in regards to sizing and camera shot (with both being mid shots). With both images being taken as a mid shot, the back cover in particular doesn't seem to comply or fit in with the front, there is something missing and the layout caused me to change my ideas and stick with a wide shot/long shot of the artist to create more spacing and room for improvement in producing the digipak. 

As there are room for improvements, I hope to use much more of a wider shot of Sylvie to enable more spacing for the song titles and additional information to be placed instead of overlaying her with text and filling every white gap causing it to look overcrowded.

Planning: Mock up of advertisement

Editing process for Ancillary digipak

CHOOSING THE PHOTOS

With regards to the limited amount of time given individually for us to take photos of Sylvie, below are 18 shots (mid, close up and landscape shots) taken to produce my digipak, front/back, inside panels as well as my advertisement promoting the artist's work.

Carefully comparing my mock up of my front/back panels, I decided to keep the idea of Sylvie in a mid/close up to let her audience acknowledge who she is as an artist as well as herself being an upcoming act in the music industry. Thus it is vital that the image of the artist is recognisable in order for fans/audiences to distinguish between her image and other pop genre artists out there.

FRONT/BACK PANELS

Using the template (above) I will aim to produce my digipak album artwork on here through editing software Adobe Photoshop. The final images I have chosen to appear in my final piece are as follows:

(Front cover)

This will be cut and cropped to fit a cube squared shape as displayed on a CD cover in a close up/mid shot of Sylvie.

(Back cover)

This will aimed to be used for the back cover moved slightly to the right to provide spacing for graphics, song titles and important details regarding the record companies and promotion of the artist.

Editing process for ancillary digipak

EDITING THE INSIDE PANELS/ CD CUTOUT

Influential Album Artwork

OLLY MURS 'RIGHT PLACE RIGHT TIME'

 The album artwork used for this particular is simple yet effective. The colour scheme varies from white, blue, black and red which is consistent throughout the digipak design. One aspect of this album artwork that has caught my attention most respectively would be the font used as a backdrop/background around Olly Murs to make the cover appeal to the genre of his music (pop) whilst keeping originality with the different fonts and angles positioned around his body. 

With this being said, I would like to further establish a similar concept of the 'font background design' Murs has used to be in my own ancillary product to capture the rawness of my artist Sylvie Gray and make the white background appear more appealing to its audience/consumers. 

 

Planning: Mock-up of digipak

Considered fonts for front/back panels (Artist name + Album title)

Front/back panels

Inside Panels

Final Video

28. Katie Kensit, Mark Mouna, Sylvie Wilcock, Zubier Bheekharry from 283goswell on Vimeo.

DO's & DONT's of creating digipaks

Practice for ancillary album artwork

Before I plan and create my digipak, it is important to note how to conduct a digipak beforehand as a way of practise and development of skills.

Below is the outcome although not completely done, of a cover alternative from Lana Del Rey's 'Born To Die'. I chose this image (above) as it uses a mid close up of her which is acceptable in terms of an album cover. Taking on board her previous album covers, many of them have a basic colour scheme and I wanted to keep her image by sticking to colours of black, grey and white depicted initially from the original image. Overlaying this onto Photoshop, I extended the background to fit onto the digipak template and then imported it into Quark Express.

Using text, I chose 'A series of unfortunate events' to keep it bold and edgy which is based on her trademark image as an artist. As well as this, I wanted the tattoo displayed in the picture to resemble the font used to make it consist. In regards to the song titles, I moved some left/right to make the album artwork more dynamic as the background is plain and simple but through the font style, I wanted to achieve a sharp but clear text which ultimately stands out to the consumer.