Evaluation Task 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

During the past months I have used many digital technologies such as Google, YouTube, emails etc.. These digital technologies allowed us to experiment in different ways and were essential in the creation of our products. From the research of envisaging what we wanted our product to look like all the way to the post production technologies that enabled us to actually create this product - digital technologies were a key aid of letting us be creative and able to make the product that we wanted to.

Research and planning

   The internet was one of the main digital technologies that we used for the research of our product. We used Google to look up similar artists to the one we were creating. This was a female artist who was a singer/songwriter but had an edge. At first we found Adele, but then we got artists like Delilah and Ellie Goulding which had this coolness about them and were less classical (something that we wanted our artist to be like). Once we had found these artists who were in the same genre to our artist we researched into social networks which allowed us to see the target audience of these similar artists to our own. These social networks not only enabled us to see who the target audience were for similar artists but we also looked into individual fans to see what their interests are as an individual - this provided us with a deeper understanding as to what the audiences are about and what makes them like the artist. By looking into the fans of the artists we found that the target audience was predominately females. This technology really enabled us to get a deeper understanding into what makes these artists fans like them specifically. They were also of an older audience than teenagers – mainly 17-24 year olds which shows there should be an element of maturity of the artist, not really girly and quite ‘cool’. The way that we wanted to create this was by making her artwork on the website and Digipak quite artistic yet still have a bit of a singer/songwriter feel. We also looked at demographics on YouTube to increase our understanding of who our audience would be. (Above is a print screen shot of what we found).

This showed us again that the main fanbase for artists like Delilah and Ellie Goulding are females aged 18-24. One way which we wanted to reach out to this (same) audience was by making the three actors in the video girls of the same age to this audience as this would make them relatable to our audience. To get an even greater understanding of what these artists are about I researched into their homepages. which became useful when creating our website as we wanted to take conventions from these artists as they have obviously been successful in communicating with the same fanbase. Also by the song that we picked being quite sophisticated and deep it means that this music is more meaningful and has messages instead of teenager songs being about a boy (a lovey dovey song). The internet enabled us to look onto YouTube where there are millions of different songs to find one that is specifically what we are looking for.

Early on me and my group produced PowerPoint’s of our concepts of some of our ideas of what our video could be about. By using PowerPoint it enabled us to be able to pitch to our class what our ideas were in a way that was visual and clear to them. It made it more relevant to the group by presenting them with something right infront of them as they could grasp a deeper understanding by seeing exactly what we mean rather than us speaking and them having to imagine it. This makes the idea more real and shows how it can be achieved as we are backing it up with (photographic) evidence. Although some of the ideas presented were not used – for example our main idea at this point was doing a teenage pool party with a girl going underwater and finding this magical world below the water, however in our feedback the group said that the idea of a teenage pool party contrasted with dreamy underwater shots was a bit of a clash and led us to go down the route of a singer/songwriter yet trip-hop track. This technology enabled us to get feedback from the group and they steered us in the direction of something else which allowed us to change the idea and move on. For looking at existing products YouTube was a great place for us to research. Not only were we able to find similar artists music videos but we were able to find videos which we could use to inspire us – having the same themes in their video to our idea. Once we had decided to do a video underwater we typed into YouTube ‘Underwater Dance’ to see what would come up. After scrolling and watching many we came across one which looked spectacular and magical – both aspects we wanted in our video. This video had effects layered on top which is something we wanted to also experiment with. We then found other separate videos showing how this video was achieved and YouTube gave us the platform to look into videos similar to this so we could create a product as effective. This not only showed us that we could do it but it was also a great influence that provided us with confidence and motivation to get a product as amazing looking as the one that we found.

We also used YouTube to look at the artists similar to ours videos. For example we looked at Ellie Gouldings. But we also looked at Cheryl Cole – who is a female artist with a similar target audience to ours (although her music might be very different). In her music video ‘The Flood’ it explored a similar theme to ours – water. Because of this video being kind of like a dream as many shots are taken of her in her bed – we decided to make ours dream-like. Although we discussed the idea of having the bed at the beginning and end of our music video we wanted to make it a bit more open ended for the audience and more abstract so decided to not show these shots. Also by looking at this video we saw a shot that we really wanted to echo. This was of two hands (below is a picture we took experimenting with this idea from Cheryl music video). We used this as an influence of how the singer could enter the water with the other two girls. Although we might not have used it exactly in the same way it definitely gave us the idea of having the singer enter in a way which brings all of the girls together.

To get in contact with our actors I used different digital technologies. I used mainly texting as it was quick and easy and I knew that all of them would check their phones before they checked their emails. Also I knew that if they replied I would get their message straight away therefore if there were any problems we would know. Also texting was a way to communicate with my group when we were apart – this was for example when we were thinking about our schedule and what time we should bring the girls in. We also created a WhatsApp group so that we could have group discussions together about the shoot day, actors or anything that we wanted to talk to each other about concerning our products. This was quicker than sending emails and it made sure that we were all in the loop. I feel that this digital technology that we used was very beneficial as it really enabled us to have good team work.

For the production of our video we used an FS100 for test shots of the two underwater girls. This was to see how the slow motion on the camera worked and to get our actors comfortable with the movements that we wanted them to do. By using the slow motion setting we saw how we could only film in 6 second chunks - then we would have to wait for a few seconds for the clips to transfer into slow motion. This was good for us as directors as it enabled us to be able to be specific in the movements that we told the girls to do - there wouldn't be a moment where they would be like 'oh god, i don't know what to do next' which is something we wanted as we needed their faces throughout to be neutral because if they showed hesitation or any uncertain expression on their face it would be shown in the slow motion setting as everything is seen in such detail. The quality of the FS100 over using a mobile phone for example really helped us envisage what we could make our product look like and how good it would come out. After we had filmed the girls we used Final Cut Pro to edit the movements together onto the track. This was a software we were all familiar with as we used it in the course last year. This technology made it easy for us to view all of the shots that we took quickly. We also used this software when editing our animatic. For our animatic we drew and coloured a very large storyboard. (Here's a picture of me and my group with our large storyboard).

We used the NX5 camera to film the storyboard. After we had filmed each shot for 15 seconds we edited it on Final Cut Pro and adjusted the lengths of each shot to the time of the music we wanted. By being able to create this animatic through these technologies it enabled us to get a feel of what our music video is going to look like. It was good for us to be able to see it visually (in the same way as we are going to be seeing out music video). Doing the tests shots gave an opportunity to experiment in recreating the underwater effect with the fans and get it right for the shoot day. Also by using the technologies it got us even more confident on using them. It was useful to see what specific shot types we liked - which looked good on the animatic. By seeing the shots in time with the music too it showed us just how important it was that each shot fitted together nicely and that the colours all complimented each other. It showed also the importance of the theme of water throughout and how our video is really about the quality of beautiful shots rather than a narrative or performance element.

For the post production of our video we used Final Cut Pro which was a piece of computer software that we used in the AS course to cut our thriller video. On this we firstly created ‘bins’ for each of our shots. For example we had a bin for ‘lip syncs’, for ‘2 girls underwater’ etc.. This enabled us to quickly see each of these specific shots and not get confused. We decided to start with a shot from outside of the water which we took by the pond. We didn’t know whether to change this shot to slow motion but decided not to because this would make the slow motion shots of the girls more significant. By having this technology not only could we organise our files really clearly but also we could watch over any changes we had done whether that being every time we added a shot to our timeline. We used the blade tool, we made sure that the shots connected with each other and one way that we did this was using cross dissolves for the transitions between shots. The cross dissolves creates the illusion of floating between the shots. We didn’t do this every time because we didn’t want it to look like a slideshow. However this technology allowed us to create a really magical effect. In aftereffects we added particles and bubbles to the mouths of our girls. This was so that our video really looked like it was filmed underwater. By added these subtle yet powerful aftereffects it completely transformed our product and really added to the dreamlike effect that we wanted throughout the video. 

We used aftereffects, the programme we used was called 'Motion'. This enabled us to add particles in the background, lighting which looked like reflections from the sky, but most importantly it was used for bubbles - which made it look like it was underwater. This allowed us to completely transform the video from an visual video to an underwater visual video.

For research and planning of the Digipak we looked at similar artists to see what conventions were used in the artwork of artists who have a similar fanbase to ours. We looked at artists such as Ellie Goulding and Delilah. During the planning for the artwork we had a brainstorm of the words that we wanted our album cover to convey. We wrote these out on the board and I took a picture on my phone so that I could look and see the words at all times so that whenever I thought of a photo shoot idea for the artist I could see if it really went well with the words that we came up with. These were ‘sophisticated, modern, cool, thoughtful, mature, edgy’. Having this image on my phone was significant as this technology enabled me to (at the photo shoots and planning for them) keep focused on exactly what photos we are all looking for for this product. For the production of the artwork I did two photo shoots with Georgie. The first was on our shoot day - when Georgie wasn’t needed me and her had a photo shoot. I kept her in front of the fans and took different photos – some natural looking, some posed. I decided whilst taking pictures and looking at them on my camera (Nikon D3100) that the more natural (less posed) photos were more affective so this allowed me to quickly make her do the more natural looking photos instead of wasting time by taking photos that wouldn’t be used. The second photo-shoot I set up in the studio a white backdrop as this created a totally white background. After taking some standing up ones I decided to get Georgie lying down. The post production was where these images turned from an ‘ok photo’ to two really cool images that go together to make the panels inside of the DigiPak. I used PhotoShop and Picasa3 to edit my photos from both of the shoots. From the shoot 1 images I created the album front and back. For the back image I got a photo of Georgie that I cropped the hair out of so that it was the size of the back of the Digipak – this was because hair was an important element of our video so had a link with that, but also it created the illusion along with the front cover that it was all one image. This added texture to the back of the cover. After it had been cropped on Photoshop to size, I saved it and edited it in Picasa3. By using this editing programme I firstly changed the colour to black and white changed the contrast and brightness as we wanted the colours to be a bit more edgy and dark but still having the shadows visible. After I had done this I opened this file onto the Digipak template that I had on Photoshop. I added the track list onto a layer on top of this using the Text tool – when using this I created a box to write inside of which enabled me to make the font bigger and smaller but keep the same proportions (e.g not make the writing flatten). Initially this writing was white but after the feedback session we had everyone said that it would look more affective if the writing was blue as it is more modern and less classical and serious and it also went with the ‘underwater feel’ of the video. Photoshop was great because of the layers which meant that I could save the image as a Photoshop document so that the next time I wanted to go onto the file I could make changes I could without having to start again (this is instead of saving as a Jpeg which wouldn’t allow you to make changes to it). This made it very easy and quick to make changes when we wanted to change the product in any way. Then for the front cover I only used Photoshop. Once we had decided which photo to use I edited it to black and white. Unlike the back cover process - for this I didn’t use a ‘one click solution’ to get black and white, instead I used a tool which enabled me to change the tones of each colour in the photo to black and white – this tool is under adjustments named ‘Black and White’.

After doing this I then wanted to make Georgie's skin look flawless. I used a retouching tool called the ‘spot healing brush tool’ and ‘clone stamp tool’ to do this. These are both very easy to use, all I had to do was make a mark where I wanted the retouch to work and it did it in one click. I then like the back cover adjusted the brightness and contrast to match it. The text on this particular image was the hardest because of the complexity of it. After looking at Ellie Gouldings album covers we saw that she had writing that glowed. This was something we wanted an element of on our front cover. The way that I could do this was firstly typing out the writing that we wanted on the front – also making it the write font, size and colour. Once this was done I duplicated the layer three times. The first duplication layer I left (didn’t move or change is anyway) so this made the font a bit more prominent. The second duplication layer I blurred – using the ‘blur tool’ which is in the toolbar to the left of Photoshop and has a teardrop as the icon but I also moved this layer slightly to the left of the other layers so that this created an almost side shadow. The third duplication layer I added the glow affect to which was a tool that I found  under filters called ‘neon glow’. Before using this I ‘rasterized the text’ which turned it from a bit of text to more of an image which can be edited on. After the font was done.

For the two inside panels I used a bit of both – Picasa3 and Photoshop. Firstly I used Picasa to edit the image. I firstly change the image to black and white, then adjusted the brightness so that it made the background very white and then I added shadows with the contrast to make quite an impressionistic image. I then opened this image in Photoshop after I had saved it (as a different Jpeg so that I kept the original just in case we later decided we didn’t like the changes I made to it). In Photoshop I cropped the image into a square – this changed the image dramatically as I only focused on the face and hair (getting rid of any of her body). I then decided to open up another Photoshop document with a blank template on it so that I could layer this image onto it. After doing this I decided to mirror the image so that it went across two panels. The way that I mirrored the image was by opening up the image in another document and clicking on image/image rotation, and using the tool ‘flip canvas vertical’, followed by ‘flip canvas horizontal’, then ‘flip canvas vertical’. This created a mirror image of the original cropped image. Once I had done this I realised that the two images together actually created a heart with her hair due to the position of it. This worked really well surprisingly and created an interested two panel spread. Although this may sound like quite a confusing process it was pretty simple because of the technology that I had to create it. Without Photoshop and Picasa I wouldn’t have been able to change the original images into something expressionist. This wouldn’t have been as affective as it meant that I had no manipulation apart from the way that I were to take the photo. This meant that if we wanted it to be black and white it was very easy to do but just as easy to undo (by saving different files).

The album cover

I schedueled a photoshoot with Georgie. For this I went to the photography studio to get images against a white screen - the white was on the floor aswell as the sides which created the illusion that she was surrounded by white. I took images from the side and from above. In these photos I wanted them to be quite artistic and for it to all be about the hair. The reason that I wanted it to be all about the hair is because this made all for images link together nicely to create on product. I had already thought of the idea of having one long image which would cover both sides of the inside of the DigiPak. I didn't know whether this would be achieved at the shoot but I still wanted to take som visually impressive photography which were quite naturally beautiful. Here are some of the images I took:

 

I prefer the ones from above because it is more about the hair and they are prettier than the ones from the side. I knew that these had some potential if I cropped it to the right side and really edited them well. In these photos all I did was change it to black and white in one click but for the real album cover I would use Photoshop to make sure that all the tones are changed to make a more beautiful image. Here below is the photo that I edited and put together to make the inside of the Digipak. The way that I managed to get this image was by firstly editing it to the right black and white which had contrast and brightness, I then cropped the image to look like the left side of the image. I then duplicated the layer and flipped it (this was all done on photoshop). This looked really cool as it almost looked like a heart because of the mirroring at the top of her hair.

 

I liked this and then added it onto the template I had created with the album back and front. So this is what the Digipak looked like. I added a little bit of glow to the writing on the front cover but toned down the blue a bit so it was a bit lighter. I feel that this is a good Digipak which goes with our artist. I also changed the track name for track 5 to numb the original version as this is usually what you find on an album - that the remixed version has an original version.

 

 

 

 

 

Working on the Digipak

Here I have added a glow to the writing. The way that I did this was duplicating the layer, I then blurred and smudged the added layer to create a glowing affect but also a shadowing affect. My group and I had discussed this idea and we all liked it. I think that it makes the name stand out a bit more which is what we wanted - we wanted there to be more colour. It is quite a subtle change but we all think that it works for our product.

Also thinking about one of the panels which has the CD on we thought that this image would be underneath a CD which is black with Lola Mae's logo on it. This is quite simple but we think it will look more affective than having a picture of her printed onto the CD. It's more sophisticated and again goes with our main idea of it being 'about the quality of the music' instead of just the artists beauty. This image is very glamourous and pretty which goes with our star image. This is a more posed photograph compared to the album cover - and compared to the other photo in the Digipak which will be her in a recording studio.

Here is what the Digipak looks like so far. I have made the black CD opacity low so that you are able to see the image underneath - and to see if it works. I think it does as the images are totally different but still have the same 'vibe' to them, and show the same sort of artist - sophisticated, cool and modern. We all think that the black and white works as it makes all of the images link - by adding a colourful photo it might not go with the theme of the whole Digipak. However I am going to experiment after the photoshoot in the recording studio to see if a bit of colour adds or takes away from the whole product.

Editing

During the past two lessons my group and I have been working together to edit our music video. This is because we all want an input into this product and we wanted to make sure that we all had the same idea for what we want the music video to finally end up like. After the feedback we got from the focus group we had a chat about the narrative and we decided that we should start our edit again. This will enable us to make sure that the narrative is clear and that the main singer is clearly the only singer (which is something the focus group picked up on). We made 'bins' of all of the different shots that we wanted to use and labelled them 'lip sync blue', 'underwater dance (2 girls)', 'close ups of Georgie' etc.. This made the editing process a lot more managable as we were able to look through all of the footage and decide which shots work and which don't (because we had quite a lot). This way of editing was very confusing and hard for us because we wanted it to be quite continous - the only way we could achieve this was by going to a lip-sync inbetween shots of the dance because otherwise we would have jumpcut shots which we didn't want. This made most of the video be lipsync which is definitely not what we wanted as the dance bits were the best part of the video and really wanted to draw them out and use lots of them because of how beautiful they look. However we realised that it should be more abstract than that and it didn't have to be a continous video. We cut some of the video - using blue lip syncs as we decided to not use the orange ones as they aren't very elegant even if the colours were changed. Here is picture showing how the timeline of this version of our video.

After doing this for a day we came up with the idea of getting shots of the underwater dance and dissolving them one after another. This would create a base to which we would add the pond shots and the lip-syncs onto. To do this we first organised on the timeline all of the shots we wanted to use. We split them into seperate catergories e.g Sasha alone dancing, close-up shots of Georgie, the girl dancers together, material shots etc.. This way we got rid of some of the shots that were really similar to eachother and kept the shots that were more affective. This narrowed it down which we needed as we had so much footage. Having looked and sorted out the shots we have seen how a lot of the underwater shots are really elegant - this is something we aimed to capture and by us having so many we wanted to devise a way that would show more of these instead of more of lip-sync shots of Georgie as this isn't very interesting to watch over and over again. Here is an image showing the way that we organised the shots. We have moved them to the right hand side of the timeline so that we can drag them to the part of the song. The reason we have done it this way is because we don't repeat any shots and also so we can compare each similar shot to eachother quickly.

During editing we can see how this has already created a visually beautiful video and we are able to see which particular dance shots match which parts of the music. This is a less confusing way of working because before we were worried about jump-cutting but this abstract way of creating our video allows us to place shots which are different next to eachother and it still looks affective. It also makes it more about the shots instead of the narrative which also draws you to the song as we have edited them in a way that they fit with the music. By fading the shots in and out it creates a magical effect which really goes with the music and the shots. We haven't finished this edit yet as we haven't put the lip syncs up, but we are all working on it so that we all get an input and so that the final product is something we are all happy with!

After the feedback..

After the feedback session we decided to change the template of our website as we decided that this one was a bit more interesting as a homepage as it had more information about the artist on it. We changed the picture from the picture which was considered classical to one which is a bit more modern - also she doesn't look sad in it which is something we wanted to make sure wasn't an element of the photo. Although black and white is the main theme, the colour light blue as the title works as it adds a bit of colour - along with the pictures which also create a more exciting look to the homepage. We will have the track from soundcloud playing as it will be her 'newest track'. Some of the photos will be more personal whereas others will be studio shots.

One idea I have had for a photo shoot is to take Georgie to the recording studio at school and make it look like this is where she recorded her album (the track). I feel that if we got a good one this could be one of the two images in the Digipak and also can feature on her website as many artists have these kinds of photos. Here are two pictures showing two female artists from different genres both in recording studios - the reason I have shown both is because I aim to get photos similar to both - one where she is posing, one where she is actually singing. I will make the singing one look realistic by getting her to actually sing.

For the Digipak I have edited the writing to make it blue like the website. I spoke to the other girls in my group and we decided that the writing would be blue for the artists name and track list. Here is what it now looks like:

Feedback

Here is a video showing a focus group that are students studying media giving us feedback on our rough cuts. We have edited it so that there are only clips showing their feedback and making it a bit more affective as a video.



Some of the feedback we got about the rough cut.

• Unsure whether it was a band of three girls or one girl.

This taught us that the shots that we used need to be shown in such a way that makes it clear that the underwater girls are just for in the video and that the main girl is the singer. We should use less close ups of the girls underwater as this makes the audience able to see them in detail - therefore they recognise them as different girls - whereas they should only really be focusing on the artist. This makes the editing process a key to the affectiveness of our video. It should be clear that the song is just one singer and the other girls aren't part of her act. This is definitely a point that we have taken on board and are going to adjust our editing accordingly as it is so important that it is clear who our artist is.

• The narrative was a bit confusing as some of the underwater shots of the singer were at the beginning before she went in.

This is important because we want people to want to watch the video again. Sometimes when the narrative picks up questions for the audience it makes people watch it more than once - one example of this is one of Two Door Cinema Clubs music videos 'I Can Talk' and fans liked the confusion of this video - however ours is different as we want our audience to focus on the beauty of the video and the song. (Our artist is a completely different genre to Two Door Cinema Club which is a quirky boy band). If our narrative is confusing and doesn't make sense at all then this won't attract people to watch it as they will think that the editing was done in a bad way - instead of it supposed to be looking confusing and a bit odd (like 'I Can Talk'). We do want there to be a dreamlike affect to the video but also for the audience to understand that it is underwater and that the singer is getting beckoned in by the other girls.

• The shots in slow motion of the dancers looked really amazing.

This is important feedback because it shows us that something is really working in the music video. Also it's good that it is appealing to females of the age of 17-18 which were the ages and gender of our focus group. We were glad that the slow motion was picked out on and this is something we want our video to mostly consist of because a whole song of lipsync will not create an interesting video. We want there to be a 'wow' factor to the slow motion shots as they are stunning and an element of questioning - 'how did they do that?'

• Some shots were too long.

This again is something we need to look at when editing. Because we do have some stunning shots we want to drag some of them out but others - such as the beginning when she walks - shouldn't be slow motion as there needs to be a differentiation between some of the speeds of the shoots. We knew when looking at the beginning that it was more affective at normal speed.

• The shot over the shoulder in the middle of the song stood out and didn't work because of the difference in lighting and the colour (being really white).

We are going to get rid of this shot as it clearly doesn't work. Not all of our group had as much input into the roughcut because of the fact that we all were working on different products. This made us have a product we weren't all 100% happy with. After seeing it and talking about it together we have decided to all really work as a team to create a product we are all happy with!

• Bit too many lip syncs.

After watching it with the focus group we agreed with this point made. Although it should be focused on the singer, we can do it in other ways than making the video mostly lip sync - for example making her enter the water a bit earlier so we can use more of her beautiful underwater shots - or even just less close ups of the other girls faces so that we don't need to use as much lipsyncs to make sure that the audience understand who the artist is.

• Sometimes the lip syncs and shots jump cutted.

One thing we took away from this feedback was that it shouldn't be a continous video - it should be a bit more abstract. The shots do need to link and be smooth but they don't need to make perfect sense next to eachother. One way that we could get over this is by editing it less like a film and possibly using fade in and outs to make it more of an artistic video.

• The make-up (glittery lips) and costumes looked really good.

It was good that they commented on the costumes as it was something we took a lot of time perfecting. The make-up also added a girly element to the video as when the girls were dancing or the singer singing you could see their lips glistening which again added a bit more of a magical effect. Also this is something that will appeal to the artists female audience as they might want to follow this trend as a lot of girls want to be like female artists.

• However because the make-up and costume were so similar with all of the girls it needs to be clearer as to who the singer is.

We did want the girls to look similar so that they all looked good together and that tehre was no clashes with the singer and other girls - as this goes with the narration as we didn't want her to be seen as being left out. Obviously thinking about this point it might have been a little clearer if there was something different to the girls - however the white coloured material worked well on both, the hair really added some depth to the shots - so by getting rid of an element which was so important in our video it might have made it less affective visually but more clear with the narrative. So this is definitely something we have been thinking about as there are positives and negatives with the feedback that we got. Also this is not something we can change - whereas the editing can be adjusted.

Website feedback.

• Linked very well to other products.

This is really important because if the products didn't go together then it might not be clear who our artist is. Also it is good for us because it shows that we each know who our artist is - what sort of music they sell, what their stage image is and who their audience are. Its imporant that each of the products go well together and don't clash because its easier for their audience to recognise who they are - also it makes them more memorable.

• The picture used as the homepage made the artist look like a classical singer.
• Looks like an artists website who is similar to Adele (sad songs), which doesn't go with the Numb track.

The first comment was from one of the girls in the focus group which was something we had never thought of - it is quite a classical picture which doesn't go with our artist. This is something we have thought about and we are going to change the homepage image to make sure that it fits with what sort of music our artist produces. The second comment is similar to the other one but it is more about the link with the song that we have used. Its important that each product looks like from the same genre so that the artist is understood by their fans but also by people who have never heard of them so that they get an understanding of whether they will appeal to them. Our song that we used for our music video is a 'remix' on the album but you can still hear in her voice in it - she is less depressing than Adele and bit more modern like Ellie Goulding. This should come across in the artwork, website and all of the products.

• Black and white theme is nice as its sophisticated but the light blue really works as it brings out a bit of colour.

Black and white is quite Adele - which is more classical music than what our artist produces. We do like the black and white but by adding some colour shows that she has an edge to her. We had already thought about this and by everyone saying this as feedback we have realised that it is definitely something we should keep.

Digipak feedback.

• Black and white looks good but make writing light blue like the website.

This would really work as it would link the website with the album cover which would really make all of the products work together which is something an artist needs. By adding a bit of colour (like the website) it shows that she is less classical, and is a bit more 'cooler'. We want to steer away from the 'Adele' impression that a few of the focus group got from initially looking at the Digipak and website. One of my group members and I had already spoken about the idea of adding the light blue writing but decided to show the black and white to see if any of the focus group picked up on it - by them picking up on this point it definitely showed us that we should change it to the light blue as it would make all of our products go well together.

• Looks quite depressing music (like Adele).

Again by adding the light blue writing it will modernise it and get rid of the 'depressing song' impression. Which is what the focus group also said after speaking about the writing colour. The picture looks good as it shows she looks like a singer/songwriter. However the whole black and white feel makes it very much look like an artist similar to 'Adele' whereas ours has an edge - and colour will bring that out.  

• Looks like a singer/song writer

This is something we wanted our artist to look like - so by having the focus group picking up on that it shows that we have created the impression of the artist that we wanted. They said this was shown through the photograph of her looking down as it shows its not all about the look of the artist but actually also the quality of the music - it also gives a 'home' feel which shows that she writes her own songs. Also by her being a singer/songwriter it shows that she isn't just a pretty face but is actually a talented musician - and this again is something the image gives.

• Looks like an organic artist - not manufactured.

This feedback also draws upon the kind of artist we wanted to create. We wanted the artist to be a singer/songwriter who is modern and cool. By them saying that she looks like a organic artist goes with the idea of her being a singer/songwriter as she makes her own material - she isn't given all of the songs. This creates a more thoughtful artist which is something that we wanted.

'The Making Of Our Video'

Here is a video that we have edited together of clips taken throughout the day showing the making of our video. We all had the camera we created this on at certain points in the day so that we all got to be shown in the video and had a chance to document the shoot day. This will be able to be used on the website to show the artists 'Making of Numb'. Because this is behind the scenes footage fans will be interested to see shots of the artist when she is getting shot - but with the cameras that we were shooting on being visible. This makes the audience feel like they are there with her therefore they feel that they know the artist just that little bit better. This gives them also a bit more knowledge as to how this visually beautiful video was created.

Some shots show the actors being themselves and having a laugh showing that they are having fun with it and enjoying making this video - showing the artist to be a normal down to earth girl who doesn't take herself too seriously (same with the other girls too). This makes the people watching more able to identify with the girls as they are shown to have personalities. It also shows at the end of the 'making of video' that some of it was shot in a pool - this shows how much time and effort went into it but also how if some of the artists fans were intrigued or wanted to do something similar themselves (to copy the artist) they would be able to.

If I could make this video again I would have photographed Georgie getting ready and have clips of her sitting on the side waiting or her actually shooting something. We didn't spend much time making this whereas if we had thought about how great this would have been then we could have shot something really great. We could have commentated on it which would have made it more affective as it would be a real diary account of the day and how it was progressing. Fans would love to watch this as they see the artist being herself and get a glimpse into her life- which they may aspire to be like her. I looked on YouTube to find some and a lot of the big artists have them - Beyonce, Katy Perry etc.. I have embedded Katy Perrys one for 'The One That Got Away' because I feel that this one is good - it has a lot of clips of Katy Perry but also took us through the days events and we get to see a lot of how it was created - which is something we don't get from the music video itself.




As you can see this video has had 2,420,667 views which shows that it is something that fans of Katy Perrys want to see. Although this is a lot of views - her actual music video got a staggering 147,634,121 views. This shows how the 'making of' isn't as important as the official video. But it definitely does add something -and fans love to see it.

Editing photos for our products

At home I decided to edit the photo that we have on the album cover at the moment. Although we aren't sure whether we will use this picture or not I feel that it was worth editing as it would probably be shown on the website in the gallery of pictures. I don't have Photoshop at home, but I do have Picasa which is another photo editing programme. I used this to edit her skin as I find it easy to do. The way you do this was by getting the original image into Picasa. (print screen below)

 

I then changed this to black and white, and edited the shadows and brightness. This made sure that the shadow on her face was still visible and also that each ripple in the hair could be seen. And I then retouchesd the skin to make her skin look perfect - without any spots or skin that wasn't smooth. This is what the image ended up looking like which I am happy with as it still has shadows, the hair is floaty, and the whole image looks soft. However it might be a bit too similar to an artist like Adele which is the not what our artist is about - it might be a bit too depressing looking which is not something that we want. We want it to be thoughtful but also quite 'cool'. Here is the image that I edited.

 

 

Another image that I have been editing is one that might be used as our homepage on our artists website. I did the same as the image before - changing it to black and white, shadows and contrasts and then editing out the imperfections. Here is a print screen of doing the retouching to get rid of the crinkles on her forehead, and the spots around her face.

 

 

Here is the image that I ended up with after the editing process. This is a lot better because of the smooth skin and our artist would be happy with this being shown whereas the one before with the creases on her forehead and spots she would have been less confident as having that one uploaded to the website.

 

 

Another photo that Evie decided to put as the homepage on the website was this photo which I decided to edit to get the skin flawless, get rid of the hair on the sides of her face and just to make the image a bit more imroved. This is something all artists similar to ours have done - eg. Ellie Gouldings images always make her skin look perfect!

 

 

Digipak

Here I have put the two images onto a Digipak template that I got off of the internet. This was to get a rough idea of what it would look like as an album. I did this in Photoshop because I find Photoshop easy to add text onto images - its easy to change fonts - add lots of layers which this did involve. Its also where I edited the image as it isn't just a one click black and white tool that I used as this creates a dull image which has no depth, but I adjusted the tones and colours to make it impressionistic and added shadows and brightness to accentuate her check bones.

One of the most unique and beautiful aspects about both of these covers is the hair, its subtle but I wanted to make sure that it was visible - which was something I had to make sure I didn't overdo (e.g the shadows weren't too dark). The hair on the back of the album cover is subtle but definitely adds something. Also the sparkles on her lips was something I wanted to make sure was something we could see as it added that touch of her being girly. I have decided that our Digipak will have 4 sides - front cover, back cover and two inside. This is something I have to think about photography wise. We do have some images from the photoshoot that I could use but I am also going to make sure that I take others- so I will scheduele a photoshoot with Georgie sometime and have a think about how I want to photograph her.

Album back

Today I have been working on the album cover back. I have had ideas for the front but need to make sure that the back ties with it well. We decided that the track numb would be our 12th track on the album as it is a remix. Here is a print screen of the tracklist that me and my group came up with:

In photoshop I have been creating album back covers. I started off with a black square which I then cropped the image of Georgies hair swishing in the wind to cover the square. I then wrote out the tracklist onto it, and the credits at the bottom. By looking at similar artists I experimented with the positioning of the track list. Here are two print screens of the backs I came up with in Photoshop. The first of them has the tracklist central (below).

Then to the side. (below). I did like both of these, but I prefered the central because it was a bit different and also looked quite girly as girls are stereotyped as perfectionist, and with it being bam right in the centre it shows this perfection going into the product. I added the things that are essential to album covers (bar code, copyrights etc..) to all of these.

I also decided to add track numbers because I thought that this is helpful to the audience because they can immediately see which song is what number without having to go down counting them. I am really happy with this one. Obviously it could change but by me making these just as ideas it is really bringing our product together. Also the website is very much black and white which is why I made sure the album colour followed that look. Its feminine, understated and sophisticated which is something we want for all of our products.

Website

We talked about taking some natural photos for the website. Looking at artists similar to ours on their websites they have photos that they took on Instagram. Here are a few photos that I took of Georgie (with friends in some of them). I sat there with a camera when she was with friends and took some of her really laughing - these looked like spontaneous laughing photos which are quite natural. I then edited all of these as the colours of them were quite orangey which was not what we wanted as we wanted them to look really pretty and also mature photographs. A few of them I got them to pose in which I haven't uploaded because they didn't work. However the one with her boy thats a friend makes quite a nice photo as it is showing her as a real down to earth person. These photos contrast with all of the artwork as they are not posed, we did not put make-up on our artist or dress her - it was totally just her being herself. Only a few of these can be used but I feel that they are nice photographs but not all of them work for our artist as some of tehm are quite young looking which is not what we want.

This one is my favourite because her smile is just beaming and she looks so natural and happy which is something people that listen to her music will like to see as they can identify with her as she looks normal and friendly.

Album Cover

Today I have been thinking about the album cover for our artist. I am doing a shoot with her hopefully later today but have decided to just create some experiments with the pictures I took and edited. One of the main things to get right is the font for her name and the albums name. This is something I have been working at in PhotoShop. When going through different fonts I have realised some are really not the sort of thing we are looking for (like this below).

This font looks childish (the bubble writing), too girly (the hearts) and is really wrong for our artist as she is trying to be cool but mature. I have decided for this experimentation for our artists album name to be 'Behind the Key' as it sounds like a song name of what someone like our artist would sing. I am also thinking of having the font white - or a pale grey as this is sophistecated next to the black and white of the image.

This was the first album cover idea that I made. There was something about this photo that I was immediately drawn to - especially after I had edited it. I made the font on this look almost hand-written as I thought that this went with the star image of this artist being a singer/songwritter and someone who girls inparticular can relate to. The one problem with this photo is because of the soft effect that it has most of the photo isn't actually in focus - this actually I think is what makes it such a beautiful photo - however this wouldn't work for an album cover I don't think becuase of the lack of focus. I liked this however I wanted to see what other images looked like too.

This is another album cover I played about with. I changed the font to see what it would look like. I however do not like the font as it seems too sharp and not very friendly. I will use a photo that I have edited out the creases in her forehead if we do use this photo as this will make the photo more affective and I'm not sure that the artist would be happy them showing. I like the hair a lot as I think that the shadows make it really interesting. However the eyes looking into the camera might be a bit too intense for our artist.

Here you can see a print screen of me working in photoshop. I firstly edited the photo from colour to black and white changing the tones and shadows. I wanted it to have contrast so that you could see the hair but also be bright enough to see the light and dark shadows on her face. I really like this image because it is thoughtful and mature which is something our artist is. It's also girly, and has an impression of being a singer/songwritte cover because of the eyes being down (this shows that its about the quality of music as well as her beauty). This is the strongest album cover I think I have created so far.