Music A2 Advanced Portfolio Evaluation

  

This is my Media A2 Advanced Portfolio Evaluation (created on Premiere Pro), I have made this YouTube video which demonstrates my progress, challenges, developments from my A2 experience.

Ancillary Task 2 - Print Advert

This is my Final Print Advert, I am very pleased how it has come out and I think it is rather captivating to say the least. To do this particular task I used the programme (photoshop) which was to begin with challenging as I forgot some of the steps. By watching Youtube tutorial clips it allowed me to familiarise myself with the programme again.

I looked at many print ad's which at first I found it hard to find via the internet as many artists have stop using them for promotional purposes. I came across some from my chosen artist Lana Del Rey.

(As shown below)

From these particular examples I noticed they were very plain, which I believe I embodied in my particular ad, as I did not want to add too much things such as social networking site logo's (Facebook, Twitter) and so on.

Here is my initial idea behind my print advert:

This was my initial idea for the print advert, I felt it was effective, and when showing some of my target audience they also felt it was striking. However some feedback I gained was that the photo was capturing but the rest of the layout doesn't make it pop as it should do. My media teacher felt that the red did not work in this particular case whereas it worked well for my digipak.

He also felt that much text was not need, he also brought to my attention that I used the wrong iTunes label, as I felt it worked well due to the whiteness of it which I felt correlated well with the font colour.

With taking all the comments on board, I felt I did exactly what was needed, I changed the positioning of the artist's name and also the colour of the title, I felt the white popped out and was eye catching which essentially is a good thing as you would want the audience to be drawn to it. 

When showing my teacher this version he liked some aspects of it but still thought I needed to make some changes such as dragging the photo of Chisara Duru (my actress) right to the top of the page, and change the star colours to a gold or yellow. He also wanted me to put more social networking logo's but when in the processes of making the changes it looked too cluttered.

I felt I made the right changes which highlighted in the end result of my print advert which I find to be very effective and eye capturing.

Research - Into Print Adverts for a CD album release

Advertising research - is a specialised form of marketing research conducted to improve the efficiency of advertising.

There are two types of research, customised and syndicated. Customised research is conducted for a specific client to address that client’s needs. Only that client has access to the results of the research. Syndicated research is a single research study conducted by a research company with its results available, for sale, to multiple companies. Pre-market research can be conducted to optimize advertisements for any medium: radio, television, print (magazine, newspaper or direct mail), outdoor billboard (highway, bus, or train), or Internet. 

Different methods would be applied to gather the necessary data appropriately. Post-testing is conducted after the advertising, either a single ad or an entire multimedia campaign has been run in-market. The focus is on what the advertising has done for the brand, for example increasing brand awareness, trial, frequency of purchasing.

The adverts main target is to attract the audience’s attention, so using an image of the artist/band acknowledges the reader to what the advert is selling Information on what is so different about this special edition album – list bonus features The advert needs to be aesthetically pleasing, this way the reader is reeled in and therefore more interested in the advert Quotes from the artist – generally getting to the point and exciting the reader so they don’t just ignore the advert.A strong interesting image is intended to grab the reader’s attention, this can be the artist themselves or an image that represents the band – this is also so that the advert is recognisable to the audience.

Just an image of the artist would for the ‘die hard’ fans as this is easily recognisable to them and they instantly know that their favourite band/artist is releasing a special edition album Adding information about the digipak is the main seller, as this is why the album is different as it has a variety of bonus features that the plain album doesn’t, so the reader is more intrigued to buy it.

Here are examples of successful Print Adverts:

Coldplay (left)

Florence & the Machine (right)

Jessie J (left)

 

Ellie Goulding (right)

Ancillary Task 1 - Final Updated Digipak

This is my updated final digipak, I felt the other digipaks i created were fine, however by getting some feedback from my audience most of them pointed out I had the incorrect font style. 

To get the same style of Lana Del Rey's album 'Born To Die' I simple went on a font website called 'dafont' which had a range of fonts. I found the one that matched the best with the original album 'Born To Die' font was called 'Steelfish'

Here's a image of the website and font I used:

I then downloaded the font and used it for my digipak, I believe it fits perfectly and I am very happy with the end result of it.

Also my Media Teacher highlighted to me that it is in fact suppose to be a album cover not a single, which I then changed. As before hand I only had the title of the song and no other songs on the back. He also gave me some good constructive criticism which I took on board as I want the best results out of this.

The changes which were needed were the: font size on the back of the album cover, having additional writing under the barcode, having a continuity of the inside right and inside left cover and so on. These little things I then added (as you can see from the above image of the digipak) made such a big difference.

At first I was a bit thrown off by what my teacher said, I did not no exactly where I went wrong, however by looking at Lana Del Rey's album cover again, allowed me to critically analyse my digipak.

Here below is the album:

Although I am happy with the end result of my updated digipak I did have some trouble whilst editing it on Photoshop. I particularly was getting frustrated by this as I believe I am good at using photoshop as I have used it whilst doing photography and so forth. As soon as I thought I created an effective digipak, and getting positive feedback, when showing my teacher he highlighted some errors which I still managed to encounter.

Here is an example of my initial final digipak:

I was very pleased with this particular digipak after making the changes which were required, however despite getting positive feedback from my target audience my teacher spotted some errors. Such as the barcode being in the incorrect place (although I felt I was being conventional to the artist as this is seen on her album cover). 

However with that being said I did move the barcode and resize it as it was far too big after critically analysing it myself. Also my teacher pointed the both the inside left and right images were stretched out, also the front cover image was slightly stretched and needed to be moved slightly to its left.

We both noticed that the text on the front cover was slightly difficult to read, this then led me to make the changes.

I found it easy resizing the barcode, and also altering the front cover. However when trying to figure out how to make the text on the front cover readable, I was stuck. Luckily a fellow Media Student (Marianne) showed me different techniques which allowed me to put a shadow effect on the text.

Down below is the before and after whilst editing the words 'Serial Killer':

As you can see I used 'layout style', which had a range of font styles. The best one which suited my font was 'Drop Shadow' this made my font more bold and could be easily read, which I was very happy with the result.

I found trying to resize my images from the inside left and right was extremely difficult for me, I tried everything in order for the images to not look stretched out but everything I seemed to do did not work for me. At that point I really wanted to give up and just leave it, however I did not do that as I want to make sure I achieve level 4 band for my digipak.

After giving myself a break from trying to edit this on photoshop I looked at other images I captured whilst doing the digipak shoot. I remembered that at all times I should be selling my artist, which meant I should possibly use a close up photo which enable's to sell my artist.

I then picked a particular captivating image I felt would be very effective.

As shown below:

To make sure I do not have a stretched out image I had to crop the bottom half of the image.

As shown below:

I then selected  small section of the image which I then copied on the actual digipak for the  'inside right' which I also did for the 'side right'.

I was very pleased of how the images looked, I also change the side of the images so they could mirror each other when imagining the digipak to be jointed together.

I felt that the images were very strong, however I wanted these particular images to correspond to my

music video, which meant I used a red filter.

 Here is the image with the red filter:

Also I think by the theme of my video being mysterious, and the different red filters throughout the video, is why I wanted to embody this within my digipak, which will make them collectively work together, and echo the dark nature of the song title 'Serial Killer'

This was the process of making my final digipak and as a result I am very pleased with the outcome of it (shown at the begin post of final digipak)

Digipak

After doing rough samples of my digipak here is one I have developed. I took on board some of the comments which I gained from my samples.

Comments:

This comment indicated some changes which could be made which I did such as putting a image in the inside right as I assumed it could be plain. However I did not change the bold writing as I felt it suited best and is quite conventional to the artist. 

Rough Samples - Digipak

Here is three samples of me testing out ideas for my digipak. 
I felt this was a great way to explore different images and see which particular images work and what does not work. 

Sample 1)

Sample 2)

Sample 3)

After gaining feedback from my rough samples it brought to my attention that I in fact need to put a image on the inside right, as I assumed it could stay plain. This is why I am glad I did rough samples, as I already had many errors which then helped me when I actually was creating my actual digipak.

Ideas for Digipak Front Cover

This image of Lana Del Rey creates such an impact

as for it being a close up, the contradiction of having 

a smile, with smudged mascara, almost creates a 

mystery, which makes the smile more sinister 

than happy. Also the lighting contributes

to the mysteriousness of this image. which i 

want to portray as the song title 'Serial Killer'

would suit such image. 

Looking into indie artist I came across James Blake, I
was intrigued by this image as it looks very abstract
in the way of the distortion of the face, it also
creates a vintage outlook of the use of blues,
this goes in favour of my chosen artist Lana Del Rey
as her videos are vintage and she is also
an indie artist. 

Another photo CD cover i looked at of my artist

is again creating a mystery thrill to it

with the flower cover the mouth makes this

image seem as a surrealism piece of art, which

has some characteristics of the famous painting ''The Son of Man''

by Rene Magritte.

It also makes it seem she is hiding something and by

having a red rose symbolises blood, love etc, which

creates suspense in which I've portrayed in my music video and also

want this same effect for my digipak front cover.

I was drawn to the use of red font, I feel it will really depict  

the song title 'Serial Killer' with the use of red and potentially 

having my actress with red lipstick will collectively work

together and come across effectively. 

Research - Analysing CD Album Covers

What is the purpose for album covers?


An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially-released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers, or the front-facing panel of a CD package, and, increasingly, the primary image accompanying a digital download of the album, or of its individual tracks.

The cover serves three main purposes:

1. To advertise and identify the contents of the music product.
2. To convey the artistic aspirations of the original artists
3. In reproductions of the artwork, to serve as a primary image in the promotional efforts surrounding the product, as an identifiable image associated with it’  

EXAMPLES:

From looking at these particular examples of album covers it highlighted the different essence of how the artist is selling the actual CD. For example by looking at the artist Jay-z' Blueprint 3 captured a different approach, as the actual images sells the artist in a different way - the image itself is very capturing and artistic, which breaks the conventions of the genre of rap. This indicated by Jay-z being such a successful artist he did not need to have a image of his actual face for it to sell, as he is well established and has a high range of target audience which would regardless purchase the album.

This differs from the actual image which is on the cover of Kelly Rowland Here I AM  as this picture is a close up of the artist. I believe this was due not having a high volume of success which is why they need to sell the artist. This is what I took on board as my artist although very successful, she is still a fairly new artist which is why I have to sell the artist meaning use an image my actual actress in order to sell the artist.

Updated Final Cut of Music Video

Updated Final Cut of Music Video 'Serial Killer' by Lana Del Rey from SMC on Vimeo.


Here is my updated final music video, I have made the changes which my media teacher felt were necessary such as adding more lip-syncing and taking out the clips of the ducks (which he felt looked out of place).

I believe this is now a more successful video, yet still screams out LANA DEL REY and is up for the audience discussion of how they interoperate the video which I aimed to do. I am very pleased with my video, as it has been both enjoyable and stressful to say the least, but I feel all that stress made me work even harder this year and that is why my video editing skills have developed and just the overall concept is extremely strong.

I am glad that my target audience are also happy with the end result of my music video, as they are the people which I find have the most important say as it is them that I am selling the product to, this is why I felt it was essential to take on board any comments they felt I should do in order to create an effective video.

I gained many positive feedback which indicated my aims and intentions were shown through my music video. 

Comments from Target audience:

Final Cut of Music Video 'Serial Killer'

Untitled from SMC on Vimeo.

Here is my Final Cut of my music video, which has received high volumes of positive feedback which I am currently still gaining.

I chose to upload it on Vimeo due to the quality of how it shows my video was shot with a high quality camera which in full screen it plays it in HD.

I am very happy with the outcome of my final cut as I took all the comments on board from my rough cut, which then created an effective end result which I find is extremely good, and I am proud of my progress which has been developed upon my AS to A2 as I find I've used much more technical aspects within the programme premiere pro and capturing different shots which is illustrated through my music video. 

Rough Cut of Music Video with Feedback

This is my Rough Cut of my music video 'Serial Killer'

Music Video Serial Killer from SMC on Vimeo.

Here below is some feedback I have received:

Twitter

Vimeo

Changes made after feedback

After posting my Rough Cut for my Music Video, I received a lot of positive feedback, for example comments such as "This is a really excellent vintage style of the video epitomise the style of Lana Del Rey". illustrated that I achieve one of my initial aims of making the video vintage, which will keep it conventional to the artist.

Also another member said "I like that fact that the video is shot in the same but you still made it interesting by using various camera shots and filters". This to me indicates how I effectively achieved another aim of mine, as using the same location was a risk for the audience potentially not being captivated by the video, this highlights that I was still able to draw in a audience.

Overall doing my music video allowed me to enhance my technical skills such as using different video effects e.g three-wheel colour corrector, and video transitions e.g cross dissolve. I also believe whilst shooting the video, I made sure I used a range of shoots such as mid-shots, panning shots, long shots and mainly close up shots which is a great way to sell the artist.

By putting up a Rough Cut was very beneficial although I gained positive feedback I also gained constructive feedback which i find very useful. For example a member said "My only concern is that the lip-syncing is not accurate in most scenes" "I noticed you edited most of your footage....some are left out., especially at 3:11-3:14. Comments such as these allowed me to then go back and make further changes, such as to make the lip-syncing more accurate I changed the speed duration which then allowed it to match up accordingly. I also made sure all the clips had filters on it which I changed on video effects.

As those were the only comments regarding to make changes I watched my rough cut for a long period of time and analysed it in depth. This then allowed me to make some critical changes which I felt was needed, for example from 0:26-0:30 where there is a panning shot which captures the mise en scene, I wanted it to flow better and look more daunting. This was done by speeding up the speed durations and changing the filter of the red. I also wanted another panning shots of the trees, as I felt I had too much shots of my actress walking, this was changed at 0:59-1:02 where it was a mid shot of my actress walking, I then chose another shot of the trees with a reddish filter. I noticed from the dancing clip at 1:51-1:59 the framing of the arms and head come out of the actual frame, due to my actress putting her arms up and the close up shot. I then used another clip of the dancing scene which was in the correct framing which came out effectively.

How To Match Lip-sycing

To match up lip-syncing was a vital process as it is a key thing which is demonstrated from many music videos which present good lip-sycing which makes the video more believable, when a performance based video.

Here's examples:

These are a few music video I find the lip-syncing is very accurate, also the reason why I looked at these particular songs is because of the pace of the songs ate much like ballads likewise my song has a slow face. The videos are also not performance based throughout as my video will only have slight performances.


From watching this I also looked at an example of someone matching up lip-syncing on which was benefical as it helped to understand what I may have to do in order it matches well.

Heres the link:

In order to match up my lip-syncing I had to be use some formats on premiere pro in order to do so.

Such as the speed duration, some clips my actress sang it faster than the actual song, so I had to make the speed duration slower.

Here's an example:

                                       
























Changing the duration enabled the clips to match the music.

First 10 secs of Music Video

Music Video 1 from SMC on Vimeo.

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