Evaluation Question 4: What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Feedback?

Question 3: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Question 2 Evaluation: How Effective is the combination of your main product (Video) and ancillary texts (Digipak and Advertisement)?

Question 1 Evaluation: In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Why Did We Choose The Roundhouse?

Personally, I think we chose the Roundhouse because it was an easily accessible place for us to film in and they provided all of the instruments for us (Except the blue insulation tape) and they didn’t mind us filming there. Also, the Roundhouse gave a feel of “We’re an emerging band, so this is where we’ll start, because it’s cheap and everything is given to us” which is what most band start out like; they have no money to buy their own instruments, but save up for them by borrowing as much as possible, but also knowing the right people.

Reflection on Digipak and Advert.

After taking some time and re looking at my mock up, I realised that some changes needed to be made. For example, I re-looked at the font and thought that the font wasn’t Indie Rock/Punk pop enough. I had a rummage around in my CD collection and found an album cover with a hand written scratched/scrawl type font that drew me right in. This was from Paramore’s 2007 RIOT! album and it looked like it would fit on my digipak straight away. So I edited the font on Photoshop and found that with the Scrawl font, it looked so much more eye catching that I decided to completely change the whole set of fonts used originally for my digipak and advert to this font. Also, the idea for the digipak to be a 2 disc special edition came when I realised that I didn’t want to make the CD with just 2 members of the band when there is 4, so I came up with this idea and the second disc being an acoustic CD of all of their album’s songs in the exact same order, just acoustically.

Also, my advert had to be changed completely. It was a mess with a big white blob of space in the centre; which didn’t look appealing/eye catching. So once again I changed the fonts and moved stuff around, and I think I came out with a better looking advert for a magazine, than one that would be placed on a billboard when know no one knows who RunRate are; they’re not the Rolling Stones/Paramore/Florence + The Machine.

Production: Digipak and Advert

Yay! : )

Advert Mock Up.

This is my Advert mock up. This will be heavily changed when putting it altogether. Alot of the things here arent in place correctly as i don't think i'd have enough space to put it all on a portrait (A4) piece of paper. This all needs to be shrunk and I need to try and fit it on to an A4 piece of paper in portrait (Magazine) as opposed to landscape (Billboard).

Planning: Digipak Mock up.

This is my Digipak mock up. i want to create a Four panel, Two Disc edition digipak. The front cover is a rough image but will look better when created for the final piece. I'm hopefully going to keep the 3 colour Blue, black and white scheme and possibly use different images when deciding for a final time, but because it is a rough idea of what i'll create, it will be open to change. I am DEFINITELY keeping the back panel as it is the most original idea i've had about creating digipaks and being an avid music fan, i've never seen it done before. Black and White is certainely something that is "very in" in the Indie Rock genre but the blue makes it stand out so it becomes more eye catching.

Planning: Shortlist of Photos

These are the main photos i'd like to use in my Digipak and I am going to make them all black and white. Also, with a bit more eidting and touching up here and there i can make them look good in the digipak!

 

Planning: Do's and Don'ts of digipak design

In order for us to create a Professional, genuine styled Digipak, we were given some guidelines to help us create our work in this manner:

Do:

• Use clear fonts and photos in an appropriate size/shape.
• Use a layout that follows the rule of thirds for composition.
• Appropriate font that follows genre conventions; position text to conform to conventions
• Follow the three colour rule and choose colours that are appropriate for images, font and backgrounds.
• Think carefully about how you use and intergrate images, font, text and language. (anchoring meaning putting images with text)
•  Use approprate industry logos, conventions properly positioned. 

Dont:

• Stretch images.
• Use Layer styles.
• Use effects that do not fit the genre.
• Place text across artists face.
• Use a font because you 'like it'
• Feel the need to use separate images on each panel.

Personally, I think this has helped because I can now structure my work professionally and hopefully get top marks for my creative work. I think was also really helps is that the guidelines really have a clear focus on how you should produce your work which helps to strengthen your work because you can take a basic, structured idea, and develop it into something that you can be proud of.

Planning: Shortlist of colours, fonts, layout and design ideas.

Colours: For my colours, im going to select 3 of them that fit my genre and style of digipak and advert. Ideally two bright colours and one dark.

Fonts: Usually fonts on indie rock digipaks are very basic and use minimalistic styling, with the band name/ Artist's name being alot bigger than the album title. Belwo are some of the fonts i think fit the Indie Rock Genre and will therefore be one of my fonts.

Layout: I want the layout to be a simple image with the person on the front cover to be tied up a la Hayley Williams 'Ignorance' Syle. also, i want it to be a four panel digipak with and image acroos two panels on the inside where the CD's would go.

Research: Digipak Analysis

For us to be able to create a professional, genuine digipak, in class we were asked to analyse so of out genres style of digipaks and creative ideas.

'Lungs' by Florence + The Machine is an ideal style of Digipak for our genre because it keeps with the dark theme throughout the cover and as you listen to the album, the cover and pullouts really begin to relate to each other. The front cover really gives a feel of what kind of music we would be listening to when we play the CD; kind of dark style of indie music, but also some brigter parts too, with the cover having some colour on it. As you open it, you really begin to see the darker side to the lyrics and the overall creativity of the band, the the same re-occuring scheme continues throughout the digipak.


'The Final RIOT!' is a 2 Disc digipak special edition of Paramore's Final Riot tour in 2008 throughout the United States and was Recorded in Chicago. It features all of the live tracks from the night and a DVD of the performance on the 2nd Disc. The front cover shows who is in the band and what instrument they play and gives a clear indication of the genre that it was created for; indie rock/punk pop. The digipak uses a simple colour scheme; Black, white and red. Also, the inside pf the digipak is images taken of the band on the nigh of the recorded performance and this also gives us some similarities in a way; we all play instruments and they're important indicator in our music video, which is also the case here.



You Me At Six's 'Take Off Your Colours' appeals alot to fans of our genre because our genre is most aimed towards teenagers as the digipak cover is brightly coloured, with a rainbow of colours plashed around the cover to symbolise the album name.
The inside pullouts are pictures of the band and random images that are suited for the genre. It is a very simple design and i think that will suit our genre the most.

Planning: Describe your initial ideas for the visual style and graphics of your digipak and advertisements. Describe your initial ideas for the visual style and graphics of your digipak and advertisements.

From the start of the year, I've had initial ideas for digipaks that suit the ideal style of my music genre, which i always wanted to be indie rock. I wanted to create something along the lines of Paramore's Ignorance style of video, but had to tone it down with the pace of the song as my mind was running wild with ideas. Ideally, i want to create a style of Digipak that my audience can relate to - simply because i know what it is like to follow a band in a kind of religious way; for example buying merchandise items/memorabilia of the band. This is why I am creating a Four panel digipak which will have pictures, posters and stickers of the band on the inside pullout. However i want to keep the colour scheme simple and relate it to one item that a band member will be holding; a guitar, drumsticks or a microphone.

For my advert, i want there to be alot of information on it that somebody can read, but not only that, i want it to be eye catching; so that it will stand out in a magazine. Specifically, i want there to be tour dates on it so people are more likely to buy the album and then go out on the tour to see them.

Filming

Filming this year was so much more fun to do! Day one consitisted of the Roundhouse, which was excellent, (Kirsty is an amzing director/camera woman) and we produced some amazing shots. On the downside, all the shots were really staic due the the small natue of the room. Still i had an amazing time filming and i wanna do it again! :)

Day 2 was the JAM at my house! ^____^
The good thing about this was that it was all handheld, which gave a really home movie kind of effect on the video, which is what we were going for. Also, we intended to make all the shots black and white for the "behind the scenes" footage and keep the performance in colour. The only slight downside was that i think i was annoying everone with my singing, But oh well, That just me trying to be a tiny bit famous. But what can you do eh?

Peace,
Mikey

Reflection on lip synch tutorial.

the lip synch tutorial was fun, but i found it hard as i barely knew the song and found it embarrassing as it was my first time in front of the camera singing. it was hard to try and get everything in synch, but it began to get easier. I'm glad we had a practice before doing the real thing because I'd have probably got it all wrong.

Production: Final Edit.

Production: Rough Cut.

 

There are a few things that we need to change in terms of editing from the feedback given by the teachers. These are:

1. Keeping the same transitions constant, at various points there are fades from black where there  shouldn't be. 

2. Some clips need to be cut a few seconds earlier as they begin to zoom in at times. 

3. A fade should be used to start and finish the music video.

4. In some shots the instruments aren't in time with the music or they aren't being played at all, they need to be put in sync.

Audience Task

Dylan is a seventeen year old white British male from Islington, London. He is a college student and has a part time job in a store in Westfield, London after college. He usually shops in Tesco and Sainsburys for food and in stores like Hollister co., H&M and Topman for style. In his spare time he plays guitar and sings vocals for a band at college. At the weekends, he likes to socialise with his friends, go to parties, drink and go to gigs. He usually reads the Metro or the evening standard papers; as they are free, and tends to read Kerrang or NME for his latest news on his favorite bands, what gigs are coming up and for the posters; so he can put them up in his room. He has a white iPhone 3Gs and a Macbook (He got it with his first 2 months paycheck). His favourite places to shop are in Westfield, Oxford street, Brent Cross, Covent Garden and Camden Town. If he is drinking alcohol, his favourite is Cider and if just normal fizzy drinks, its Relentless INFERNO. He also likes to go on holiday in America (If he can) but usually goes on UK domestic hoildays to places like Reading/Leeds during the summer to visit the festival. Dylan likes this Genre the most because it fits in with his style and he can connect with it.

Production: Filiming Day One.

 

Our first filming day went really well, we filmed all shots and angles that we felt would do the performance aspect of the music video justice. Even though the performance space was on the small side, we thought that it still looked pretty effective and puts the band where it is at in the world of music - forthcoming. Without having looked back at the footage, the only problem we have encountered so far was the dropping out of the drummer at the very last minute, and so we had to get George to play the drums with no experience. Above are a few of the photos we took while on shoot. some could possibly be used in digipaks and adverts.