Here is a Link to my AS Blog

http://poppyscottmedia.blogspot.co.uk/

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

The feedback I gained shown above I was very pleased with. The majority of the people understood what the message was, was going on and why we did what we did for our video and the ancillary task.

The two people I recorded were actually out of our target audience range but they did seem to connect with it in some way. However, when one of them said they didn’t understand why we had gold roses at the front of our album, this shows that she doesn’t really listen to a lot of R&B music or realise that they all use gold a lot in their videos. I also now understand what they were saying when they said they thought the scene of Connor lying on the sofa didn’t really fit in the video was because of the colours and the lighting. The rest of the video has dark lighting and dark colours apart from the new scenes and, therefore, they didn’t really seem to fit in.

The feedback we gained from the social networking sites were from people of the age of our target audience. They all seemed to like the way the products were laid out and they like what the video contained. They seemed to like it more than the other two because they understood more about it as they are more likely to listen to R&B music. However, the other two were amazed at how it was all put together.

Overall, I am extremely happy with the feedback I gained from the public as there was little criticism.

Evaluation Question 4

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

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks

I realised through my research of the music video and album from the same artist is connected in many ways. This is important because the target audience need to be attracted to both the video and the album. The most important features that need to be taken into consideration, when making the two so they are connected, are the colour schemes, the font of the writing and mise-en-scene. The outcome of these features will create the tone of the products. For example, if you use dark colours with thick writing and dark objects, this will create a gloomy mood, like our video. However, if you use bright colours with fun font and bright objects, this will create a happy, exciting tone.

Mise-en-scene:

We thought very carefully into the mise-en-scene as this is what creates the correct mood. We decided to use a wine bottle in the picture on our CD cover due to the fact the video is about alcoholism. This, therefore, then links our video to our album. We also use alcohol bottles throughout the video so it is clear to the audience that Connor is a victim of alcohol abuse. We also used a candle on out pamphlet and the back of our CD which relates to Connors burning of the pictures and the smoke we use on our CD and the CD holder. On the front of our CD cover we decided to cut Lily’s head out of the picture because this then adds mystery to the picture. This links with our video due to the fact that there is a whole mystery of who Lily is, what happened to her, what was their relationship and more.

Font:

We decided to use the same font throughout our products. We used Birch STD as we felt this was the most appropriate font for our products. This is because this font is very thick and sharp which we felt would set the correct mood. For example, if we used a font like Aristocrat SF, this would give off a more relaxed feeling which is not what we wanted.

Colour Scheme:

The main colours we use are gold, black, white and reds.

We use gold in some parts of our video, including Connor’s gold watch and the writing at the beginning of the video. We mainly use gold on our ancillary task for the writing. The reason for why we have chosen gold as one of our main colours is because in our research, we noticed that the artists of our genre (R&B) uses a lot of gold to show off their wealth. No matter if they have depression or a drinking problem, they always have money.

We use white in our video mainly on lily to show her innocence and purity as that is what white represents. On our pamphlet, we use white candles to represent Connor, when he was once pure, Lily and hope. On our poster we chose to have some of the writing white to make it stand out on the poster, yet still keeping within our chosen colours.

We use a black and white picture on the front of our CD case and on our poster as that creates the mood we want to set. This is the same for our video as we ask Connor to put on a black shirt in some parts to show when he is at his worse. Black is the colour used to represent depression and a dark feeling, which is the mood we want for our video and, therefore, our ancillary task as they connect.

Lastly, we mainly use the colour red to represent danger. At the back of our CD case we have a red rose. This can mean two things to the audience. Some of the audience will think that the red rose is connected to the relationship between Connor and Lily, romance. However, others may connect it with the colour and realise the danger behind it. We also have Lily wearing red nail varnish throughout the video and the audience is able to see this when the camera zooms to her hand in the bath scenes.

Emotional Content:

Emotional content is another way of how our products are unified. To create the correct tone for the products we had to create an emotion for the audience to follow. Again, by doing this involved the colour scheme and mise-en-scene. However, emotional contents also involve the way the actor acts in the video and the way he is presented on the album and poster. In the video we make sure that our model isn’t smiling once, he is constantly looking sad and depressed which created a gloomy emotion. The only time we have one of our models smiling is when we have the close-up shot of lily which seems to create a creepy effect, or that Connor may be remembering that time from previous experiences or maybe she could be happy wherever she is. Also when Connor is burning the pictures he’s burning pictures of them smiling which created a sad emotion. On the ancillary task, where we used dark colours, this created a deep dark emotion to the audience. The use of the bottle does this also sue to the fact that that is the only colour in the picture, showing that that is what his life is about now and not Lily, because her head is removed. The overall emotional content is the same throughout all the products, creating a sad, gloomy emotion.

The R&B Look:

Overall we wanted to create an R&B look due to our song being from an R&B genre. We did this trying to use the same colour schemes as they did, using to gold to show their wealth and the fact that R&B song involve gangs which have a lot to do with alcohol and partying. However, in some ways this does not completely unify our products due to the fact that, even though the emotion is the same throughout, our ancillary task seems to link to a more emotional album rather than a fun R&B album. Even though this is the emotion throughout the song, through the song we added a beat and some scenes to make it more R&B.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Additional Information:

·         Another example of an artist that has narrative based video is Beyonce’s song ‘If I Were a Boy’. This song is also an emotional song with a story of a woman who believes that her boyfriend is cheating on her and at the start it’s the story of her acting like a boy, doing what he does to her to see how he feels about it.

·         When considering film language, it is important to have a lot of special effects to keep the audience interested. For example, we used a backward effect in the video to create an interesting effect to keep the audience interested. In our video we added the backward affect as well as all of the other effects to show his insanity. Thinking of Lily and the drink is driving him mad.

·         Talking about the formal aspects of the products. The reason for why we had blocky writing on our products is because of the tone we wanted to set. If we had swirly writing this wouldn’t create the correct tone. Also due to it being from an R&B genre it has to be thick and hard like the people who represent the music. We have the writing in the angle on our poster because during our research, we found that this was the most eye-catching and, therefore, attract the public. We placed the rose on our product to represent the love between Connor and Lily, but also the colour red to represent danger.

Final CD Holder

FInal CD

Final Digipak

FInal Poster

Final Gatefold

Final Album Cover

Due to the gold roses at the bottom of the cover not being our own photo, even though we gained permission from the owners, we were told we still need to use our own photo so we did and this is the result:

Final Album Back

FInal Video

Refined Research for the Back of the CD

DRAKE

Font:

For the font of our CD, we researched the type of font artists used similar to our genre. One we found was the album above as it uses serifs which makes the writing masculine and gothic which matches the moody tone of our music video and our ancillary task must match our video. Also we need a font that will match the the names of our songs, for example, we can’t have delicate writing when the name of the song is disturbia.

Layout:

The layout of this album is different to the way we would want our album to look. We want the name of our songs on the left side and the writing of the executive producers will revolve around an image, whereas this background doesn’t have an image. This album also uses information to add a feature to the back. By doing this it doesn’t make the back so plain. The bar code and the record label logos and information are rotated to fill the side of the album so it is then not left empty. We will not be using this type of layout as it doesn’t match how we would like ours to look.

The colour scheme:

The colour scheme on this album is similar to what we will use. We are planning on using two colours, black and gold. The black to create a dark, depressing effect and the gold give a sense if wealth to the artist which most hip hop artist represent.

RIHANNA

Font:

The font used on this album doesn’t stand out as much as we would like ours to. This is because the picture behind the writing blends in with the colour and font of the writing. however, the layout and design of the whole cd fits our idea more than the previous album background disregarding the fact that the writing is hard to read.

Layout: 

The layout of the cd fits our idea more than the previous cd. The singles are shown down the left side of the cd which most cds tend to do. This makes the back look neat and leaves enough room to add more writing about the producers and enough room to add a picture. All the writing about the executive producers and about the record labels are all written underneath the singles which is a good location as it is all written together. However, due to the picture of this cd if different to our, we have decided to have the executive producers written at the bottom and the information about the label written in the right side of our image. On either side of this cd back, there is a dotted line to signify the spine of the cd case. We have decided to do this to show what the whole of the cd would look like placed together.

Colour scheme:

Similar to the other cds, is it clear that it is good to use two dominant colours instead of using many different types of colours. This makes it eye-catching, however, instead of using black and white we’re using black and gold.

Barcode:

When making the cd back, I have decided that the barcode would look better upright as it looks more professional.

Nicknames:

I got the idea of having nicknames written within the executive producers from this case. This adds a fun feature to the cd case to show the connection between the producers and the artist.

KENDRICK LAMAR

This is the back of the cd for Kendrick Lamar, the artist of our song. Due to the song being by this artist, we thought it would be best to collect the correct information from this cd. However, this cd is very bare which we do not want our cd back to look like. We want to add for features to our back to so our editing skill, and it would also be more eye-catching.

Font:

The font of this album is very small which makes it difficult to read. We are going to have the writing of the singles bigger than the album above; however, we will have the same size writing of the executive producers.

Record logos:

Due to using the same artist, it is important that we use the same record label logos. They also have to be clear enough for the audience to see it but small enough so it doesn’t distract the audience from the more important features.

Colour Scheme:

The text stands out better on this album than the Rihanna album due to the colour of the background and the colour of the writing. this makes it so the writing is easier to read. Again we will use different colours to this. Instead of using black and white we will be using black and gold.

Creating the New CD Cover

Our main research which influenced us:

Creating our new front CD cover:

We created this background using the same image that is used on our Cd and Cd holder to ensure each feature relates and corresponds with each other so that this image becomes iconic and can be related to our album so that people recognise it due to a main design being featured on many products. We created the background  by placing it on photoshop and re-sizing it to fill the album space enough to show up behind the image that will be placed in the middle. 

We then added the image into the middle of the CD as this is what is on our research, and it will enable the rest of our text and images to line up with it so that it looks symmetrical and professional.

We then added the rest of the features from the previous CD cover that I had originally made. The gold boarder relates to our research as TheWeeknd uses a white border: we chose gold to symbolise wealth and fit with the R&B genre. This border was hard to create as I had to make each line the same width and then make sure they were the same colour tones, I then had to place them around the image making sure they line up. This was very time consuming but improved our front cover visually.  We then added the name of the album and the artistes name from the previous album cover. I made it the same font yet made it a smaller so that the album title stands out. This makes it look professional as it is clear the artist doesn't need to make his name clear as people recognise him. I increased the width space to line up evenly with the word 'Troubled' and also be in the centre of the image. We then added the three roses in, again, from the previous album cover that I created. We were going to try photograph our own this was unsuccessful.

Cally’s rose photography:

 

These weren't very successful as the lighting was wrong. Cally found this too difficult. However, this wasn't too much of a problem as we were given permission to use the original rose image we edited.

Our final front of our CD case:

Creating the Gatefold

The pamphlet is the booklet which goes at the front of a CD case, the front of the pamphlet is the front cover of the CD and the back is what is on the left of the CD and the CD holder. It normally has an image with a small amount of writing.

Our main research which will influence our own design:

image and colour scheme of this will influence the design of our pamphlet despite it being a front cover. We chose this as it will relate to our tone and mood of our music video and will fit with the design we had planned for our CD and CD holder. We wanted to use the one candle to represent the hope of the artist as he is going through hard times as shown on the music video, but then we realised it too much like this one, therefore we decided to have it similar but more unique.

Creating our own pamphlet:

From Callys research we decided on a candle, nevertheless, I chose to photograph 3 candles at different levels to develop our own idea and make it clear how we had changed our idea to incorporate our research without completely copying it. Cally chose to photograph 3 candles as it would take up more room and create bigger feature that would catch the audience’s attention. We decided that the 3 candles can represent Connor, Lilly and the alcohol as this is the focus of the whole video as these 3 variables are never changed throughout the music video therefore using 3 candles responds to our music videos message.

The Pictures Cally Took:

Cally took a variety of images with different angles, different light and with different objects. This enabled us a group to decide which would look best on our pamphlet. She did this successfully as she created the correct mood that we want on our pamphlet in all of the pictures. Firstly we eliminated the pictures of the single candle on its own as this would be too close to our research. We decided that we liked the pictures of the three candles the most due to what they would represent.

Our chosen image:

We chose this image as the candles positions are even and the camera angle allows a dark cloud to surround the top of the candles and the area at the bottom of the image. The area at both sides of the candles is even which is successful as the candles are perfectly positioned in the middle. The flames clarity is successful as they aren't overexposed and the candle light is illuminating the props in the image professionally.

Creating the pamphlet on Photoshop:

We placed the image into Photoshop and filled our canvas size with the image by making it fill the space completely. 

At first, the executive producer’s information was at the bottom yet we changed this after we decided to put the least amount of information at the bottom as we had two lots of text to add to our pamphlet. The record label information looked better in the bottom corner as the small gap between the end candle and the side of the pamphlet was the perfect gap for the record number to go and the length of the sentences started at the beginning of the middle candle and finishes at the end, therefore it fitted better visually in this bottom right hand corner. 

At first we had the parental advisory in the top right hand corner yet when we looked at our research we saw it was in the bottom right hand corner. Because some of our text was there we chose to try it in the left hand corner. This looked better than the top corner as the logo and text works together to frame the candles. 

Final Pamphlet:

The Final Original Back of our CD

After I made this CD back, everyone was happy with the way it turned out. However, after we spoke to our teachers, I explained how I completely edited and changed the rose and the bottle to create my own picture to use on the back and they said that this cannot be done. They explained that due to the original pictures not being ones I photographed myself, they cannot be used even though I edited them to create my own idea. Therefore, we had to go back to the drawing board and create a new CD back.

Creating the New CD Back

Drawing our plans:

These drawings helped us as it allowed us to visualise our ideas and create a back of the CD which includes our favourite things from each drawing. By drawing out our plans and ideas it helps us see how they will look so that we don't waste time trying things we now know we don't like through our drawings. 

Second Draft:

As we liked our first draft we chose to try and keep most of the variables of our original idea the same by putting the writing at the side of the image. We felt that the space looks too cramped and the whole CD looks quite unprofessional as it is too full of text. This is unsuccessful as the text for the songs is too big and the space it is being put in is too small. The text is touching the spine which looks unprofessional. We tried to keep most of the design the same from our original idea however with the new layout and images it doesn't work as well therefore it needed to be changed to improve it visually.

The research that helped us change our design:

Creating our Final Product:

We moved the image up so that it would be in the centre like TheWeeknd's had on their album. It is very similar in terms of the background and the features being illuminated by a single light so that they are visually engulfed in darkness in certain areas. This makes it look quite eerie and depressing which links to our tone and message of our music video and the rest of our Digipak. 

When adding the text it was too close to the spine therefore we had to move it other to cover some of the candle, we was worried about this as our gold font might clash with the candle colour, however it had to be gold as our planning incorporated this throughout as gold is a sign of wealth which most artists in the R&B genre use in their products.

This is our design once the text has been moved over to be further away from the spine. The spacing is much better now as there is less information and text on the CD case as we decided the executive producer information wouldn't fit without making it look overcrowded therefore we just used the record label information and ensured we used the executive information on the rest of the Digipak products.

Final back of our CD: