Alternative advert versions

As our target audience thought we had used all the right conventions for our advert, we decided to make different versions and ask them which one they would prefer to see. We did this simply by rearranging the information the advert provided as the image we used was liked by our target audience.

These are the other versions we made of our advert:

 1.

 2.

 3.

Results:
1. 11
2. 6
3. 3

When we asked them why this was the one they preferred they told us it contained all the conventions of album adverts (artist and album name, release date, and review quote). They also said that they prefered the layout. Having the artist name and album name centred drew attention to it and therefore was the first bit they read which is the most important text. One of the crititcims of the thrid version was that the release date shouldn't be in the middle of the page. The main criticism of the second one was because the seperation of the artist name and album name.

Ancillary Products feedback

Our feedback was mainly positive for our ancillary products. One of the things that we were told to do with our digipak was to add a barcode, just so that it looked more realistic. Obviously for all products they legally have to have a barcode on them which is something that our target audience picked up on. We had really positive feedback for our advert, because we had followed the conventions of album adverts very closely.  The only thing we can think of doing is to experiment with repositioning the text and seeing what our audience prefer.

Digipak and Magazine advert

This is our final digipak folded out. We decided on the inside to have an artist profile, as Jack is a new artist so it gives the fans a bit of information about him. The CD will go in the middle. We kept to the main conventions of digipaks with the six fold and track list, but we made it a bit different by having just one images going across the inside rather than three separate ones. We felt that by doing this, not only would it be something a bit different, but is would help make the guitar an icon of the artist. The image on the CD would be the part of the guitar that it would be covering on the digipak, so that when the CD is in it just looks like one full image.

This is our magazine advert for the digipak.

We decided to keep the same photo as the album cover as then it is easier for people to relate it with our artist, particularly as he is a new artist. This was also quite common

 on existing adverts that I analysed, especially for newer artists. We kept the same font also for the same reason. We also noticed from our research into other digipaks that it is a convention to use the same font for all merchandise for an artist as it instantly relates to that artist. In a lot of cases we found that this would stay the same on a number of album  cycles. We stuck with the main conventions of digipaks by having the relase date and  a quote for the album.

Now we have finished these versions we are going to take them to our target audience to get their feedback and see what we can improve on both products. Once we have done the improvements to our rough cut next week we can start to focus on the ancillary products. These should be finished when we come back to school after Christmas.

Screen Shots from creating ancillary products

We managed to get a really good photo for our ancillary products when we were filming. The original photo was Jack standing in front of the sun with his guitar, so we edited it so that it was more of a silhouette. 

  We did this by changing the contrast and the brightness of the photo and changing the saturation of colours. We didn't really have too much of a plan in terms of the colours and the exact look of the cover, mainly because neither of us have used Photoshop a lot before, so we did a lot of experimenting first before we added things like text and dimensions.

We took some panorama shots too when we were filming that we thought we could use across two panels of the digipak. This was the first photo we tried editing for the back, but we found it difficult to get the same tone of colours as the front cover because of where the light was coming from in the photo.





This was the second photo we had for the back. We ended up going with this one, because the artist and ourselves preferred the lighting and the general proxemics of the photo. We edited this one in much the same way as the album cover so that they would have a similar colour palette.

This is the final image for the two back panels. The track list will go on the right half as this will be the middle panel. We tried to get the colours as similar as possible to those on the front cover.

This is the whole of our digipak. We decided to have just one image of Jack's guitar across all three parts of the inside of the digipak. We chose a simple serif font, because we felt it looked more professional that a san serif. We felt that the most successful digipaks we looked at were the ones with a simple font, rather than trying to be too fancy and being harder to read. 




From a marketing perspective we felt it would be better to have a font that is easier to see from a distance so that passers by take notice.

Ancillary Product photos

     

Original photos (back cover):

These photos are the originals taken for the back cover of the digipak. We decided to have one picture covering two panels on the back so that the photo continues on each panel. We took some panorama shots on an iPhone to see if they would work any better to go across more than one panel. 

Slightly Edited:

We have started to edit the photos here by putting on a higher contrast of colour. For both of us using Photoshop was a bit of a learning curve, because neither of us had used the programme in great detail before.

Original photos (second back cover):

This is the second idea we had for the back cover. We ended up going with this photo as it was the one the artist and ourselves preferred and decided to have it going across two of the outside panels.

This is the editing of the outside cover. (We had to change the dimensions of the photo so that it would fit onto a digipak.) We've changed the colour palette and contrast of colours to make it a bit more interesting than just the original photo.

Original album cover photo:

 Thanks to there being sun the day we filmed, we were able to do our silhouette idea and have Jack with his guitar facing the sun. This was the shot we got and were really pleased with it. We decided on this kind of shot, because it would represent Jack as a solo artist and show his genre. He doesn't use a lot of technology in his music so him being a part of nature in this photo shows that his music is natural.

This was how we first edited the photo, but we didn't really like the colours too much. However, we kept this as an option.

 This was the final edit of the front cover for the digipak before we added text. We also decided at this point to use it as the advert for the digipak as well. The colours for both the back and front cover of the digipak are very similar, as we felt that this way they would all link up and it would look a lot more professional.

Original inside photos:

         

  

These are just some of the original photos taken for the inside panels of the digipak. Again, we thought that we would take one photo of the guitar and have it going across all three of the inside panels. We chose the guitar, because we think it could be a good icon for Jack, especially with his type of music. 
(The edited version of this photo is too big a file to upload, but its the same one we used for the full digipak).
Considering this was our first time properly using Photoshop we are really pleased with the results of the images we got. Now we have to put them altogether to form the digipak which we will also be doing on Photoshop.

Digipak draft

This is our first draft for a digipak for Jack's album. We have gone with the conventional six sides as this is what people will be used to seeing from a digipak. All the outside images are going to be taken at Dasset Hills where we are filming the music video, so that it all links together. We have an idea of Jack on the front cover as a silhouette image with his guitar with a rural background. We chose this because it will connote a natural sound of Jack's music which we feel it is. The song 'One Side of The story' is an acoustic song. On the inside we have decided to put an artist profile of Jack. As he is a new artist we felt that it would be good for the audience/listener to know more about him. We have the picture of the guitar, because we feel that this would be an icon of Jack because of the type of music it is, much like it is for someone like Ed Sheeran or Ben Howard. A track listing will be on the back as this is a typical convention of all digipaks and gives relevant information to the listener. The first draft with actual photographs will be done after filming the video as we will take the pictures the same day we film. 

Comparing Editing

One of the main pieces of advise we got from our target audience in terms of improving it was the pace of editing. Therefore, I have decided to compare our rough cut to a real music video from our genre to specifically look at the pace of editing:

Ben Howard Keep Your Head Up:

 Total Edits: 119

First 10 seconds: 5

Middle 10 seconds: 8

End 10 seconds: 2

Kings Of Leon Back Down South:

 Total Edits: 143

First 10 seconds: 4

Middle 10 Seconds: 7

End 10 Seconds: 2

Jack Simmons One Side Of The Story:

 Total Edits 40

First 10 seconds: 2

Middle 10 seconds: 3

End 10 Seconds: 2

Comparison:
From looking at these two videos in comparison with our own, we now have a rough idea of how many edits a 3 and a half minute song should have. We need to at least double our total number of edits to meet the required pace. By comparing our video to existing ones it has definitely helped us to realise just how much editing goes on, because it never seems that much when you are just watching the video.

Rough Cut audience feedback

We showed our rough cut to the class and here is some of the feedback we got:

I like the wide shot of the sun set and the close ups of the guitar, nice variety of shots.

Maybe try to quicken the pace.

Guitar spine shot goes on too long.

Great lighting and location, continuity. Really well framed shots.

Lip syncing was a bit off at times.

The long shots worked well with the outline of people on the hill. 

Some shots too long.

Editing was good.

From this we have decided that the main parts to work on are the length of shots. We are going to think about cutting so of them down a bit and cutting between shots more frequently, especially at the beginning and the shot of the guitar spine. Most people were happy with the variety of shots that we had. We are also going to look at the lip syncing in some shots, because it was a bit out, but we may not be able to solve it all perfectly, because we think some of this was down to the artist not the placing of shots in the video. These are the main things we are going to focus on when we re-edit our rough cut. We shouldn't need to re-film anything, because we can just cut between different shots that we already have. We don't feel that making these changes will take too long. At the moment we think we can make all the necessary changes before term ends next Wednesday. 

Rough Cut: One Side Of The Story

This is our rough cut for the music video, One Side Of The Story:

Rough Cut Editing

After having the whole of Wednesday to edit, we have now done our rough cut of the music video for One Side of The Story. We were very pleased with the footage that we got from filming and it actually worked out better that we had the memory card issue the first week, because the weather was a lot nicer when we went back.

We stuck to conventions and did both performance and narrative in the video of the artist. We have intertwined both aspects throughout the video. 

The first part of editing encountered a problem, because the canvas window in Final Cut wasn't set up in HD, therefore we would lose a lot of the quality when we exported this. After trying to find a way around it we ended up having to start the editing agin, because you can't reset the video quality to clips you've already edited together. Luckily we had only done about 20 seconds when the problem was spotted and we were able to redo that bit fairly quickly. We just had to write down the points in which the original clips had been cut and find the same place in the clips imported to the new Final Cut file. Once that was sorted we didn't encounter any other problems and remembering how to use Final Cut Express wasn't too difficult, because we used it lot last year. 

Now we are working on our ancillary products for which we have decided to do a digipak and an advert for the digipak to go in the magazine. We took the photos for these whilst filming so we can start editing the images in Photoshop straight away.

Filming Report

The second time we went out filming went a lot better and we managed to get all our filming done. We decided to reshoot everything, because the weather was a lot different to when we went the week before and got a few shots. It turned out a better day to film anyway, because the sun was out and it gave us some really good shots as well as really good photos for our digipak. 

We spent a few ours at the location and got both performance and narrative shots of Jack. Although most of the shots were planned we got some other narrative shots that we thought would look good. For example, we set up the camera on the tripod facing the sun and left it there for over five minutes whilst we went to look for another place to film. Our plan is to speed this up in editing and use it, probably at the end of the video. 

We shouldn't need to go back and do more filming. We have a lot of footage to go through and decide what to use, so that shouldn't be an issue. Now we just need to start editing when we get back.

Weather forecast for filming (day 2)

This is the weather forecast for tomorrow when we are planning to film. The last couple of days has been torrential rain, but tomorrow should be dry and sunny, therefore filming is going ahead. It seems to be better weather than when we went last week, so hopefully we will get some good shots. The plan is to get all filming done tomorrow so next week can be fully dedicated to editing.

First Day of Filming

We started filming last Friday, but encountered problems when we came to it. Initially after struggling to find a time when we could do it, we settled on a Friday afternoon for a few hours before it got dark. However, we ran into problems just after we started to film. The memory cards we used had hidden footage on them that hadn't been deleted, because we couldn't see them on the camera. This meant that we couldn't do much filming before the cards had no memory left. We only managed to get three or four different shots. This has also meant that we haven't yet got the photographs we need for the digipak. So now we have to go back and film the rest this Friday and we can't do much editing this week. Once we figure out what shots we've got and what we have left to do we will probably spend the rest of this week doing planning for ancillary products. So far we just have a rough draft of a digipak and we haven't really thought about the advert yet. Next week we'll have to put in a lot of extra hours to make sure that the editing and rough cut are done  by the end of next week.

Risk Assessment

Call Sheet

Shot List

Costumes

We haven't given the artist any specific clothes that he needs to wear. Seeing as its an outside shoot in November we think it should just be practical. We have just said that whatever he's comfortable in is fine, because the target audience which primarily will be people of the same age will wear similar clothes anyway. 

New Storyboard

This is our new storyboard for our music video. We have gone with a mainly performance based video that will take place outside. We will intersperse performance of Jack and his guitar with more narrative shots of Jack walking through the location and similar ones. We won't need any extras or any props apart from Jack's guitar. This is so the focus is on the Jack and the music. 

Advert analysis

This advert was to advertise the new 30 Seconds To Mars album This Is War. The advert follows conventions by having the image on front of the CD cover on the advert so that it is easily recognisable for fans/viewers. The contrasting colour scheme of black, red and white is one that was used throughout the promotion of the album and so can be related to the band and this specific album, but has also been used on previous albums 30 Seconds to Mars and A Beautiful Lie. This colour scheme has therefore become an iconic feature of the band. The advert uses the star system by mentioning album collaborations with other artists, "Hurricane 2.0 featuring Kanye West". This could help get the record out to a new audience as Kanye West (hip hop/rap) is in a completely different genre to 30 Seconds To Mars (rock) and vice versa for Kanye West. This could also be said for the mention of the covers of big pop songs, "Bad Romance" and "Stronger". The advert also features symbols that relate to 30STM, like the triad symbol in the background and those underneath "out now".  This is a very conventional album advert, because everything that is done and used are things that can be related to the band already as they are already a well established band. 

Visually this advert is very different to the 30STM one and a lot of others I have looked at. This is a good thing as it means that it can be easily associated with the band, Coldplay. Again, iconography is used that can be linked to the band. For example, the font used and the block letters have been used throughout the album cycle, as has the bright colour scheme, which is even used on the instruments the band play to make them individual and unique. The title of the album is the largest text on the advert, to get the album title recognised and remembered by people who see it. Unlike the 30STM advert a star system isn't used, despite there being featured artists on the album like Rihanna who is a global star. This was probably a conscious decision by the marketing people, as Coldplay have been a global band for a while now and don't necessarily need other artists to put them at the forefront of music because they have already done that themselves, whereas 30STM, although established, are still quite reserved to the genre they're in. 

This is the only advert I've analysed that actually features the artist on the front. The image takes up the whole advert and the artist herself fills a lot of the page. This is a good marketing move, as this is to promote her debut album, therefore not a lot of people know who she is yet. Unlike both the other adverts which focus on the album title, this one has the artist name as the biggest text. This could be for the same reason as using an image of the artist for the advert. It gets the name recognised with the face of the artist. The font for the name and the album title is a simple san serif font, so that even at a glance it is easy to read and to know what the advert is about. The text also contrasts brightly against the background for the same reason, whereas I found the Coldplay one more difficult to read at a glance. 

Album cover analysis

The main conventions of album covers are to feature the artist or an image that can be associated with the band. The text on covers will be the album name and artist name. Usually the typography will be a font that has been used several times for the artist so that the font will be associated with the artist.

Both these album covers feature the artist. The Script's album cover follows convention by having the three members on the front, with two of them photoshopped so that they are on top on the lead singers image. This tells the audience who the lead is without hearing or knowing about the band. It also gives a feeling of togetherness to the band. The font used for 'The Script' has become a feature of the band, as the font has been used on previous albums and promotional material. This helps people to identify it easily with the band. The desaturation of colour and simple colour scheme gives the album a more sophisticated feel to it.  

Like the Scripts's album cover, the Ed Sheeran cover also features the artist on the cover. This is a good promotional move for the record label, as this is his first mainstream album. His image takes up the entire cover so that it is the only thing you see. This helps to get him recognised with the public. Unconventionally, the artist's name isn't featured on the cover, which for a relatively new artist isn't often done. The album name '+' is on the cover, very small in the corner. The use of the colour orange has become a trademark for Ed Sheeran, so using it on this album helps to promote this idea that orange is his colour. 

Magazine adverts for music

As well as a digipak, we are also making a magazine advert for it. Digipak adverts are mostly advertised in music magazines such as Kerrang! and NME, but can also be seen advertised on TV and a number of websites online. Youtube is one of these and is an example of media 2.0, as the audience generally has to go searching for it, much like a movie trailer. As well as this they will also be advertised before watching videos on Youtube. The digipak will also be advertised on the bands website to let the fans know when it will be released.

They are a useful tool for record companies to get their artists' recognised and their music and to get people to go and buy the album.  Like the Lana Del Ray one, they usually show the album cover with artist name and album title with a release date on top. There can also be quotes from magazines that have reviewed it to hype up the album.

Digipaks

These are some examples of the standard digipak. All digipaks will accommodate for the CD(s). Features of digipaks include a track listing of the songs on the album and a message from the artist to the fans thanking certain people. There will be a general thanks to all the producers, writers etc involved on one of the sides. Images of the artist will also appear not only of the front, but sometimes in the some of the other pages to make it more visual than just text. For albums that don't feature the artist on the front other symbolic images will be used that relate to the artist or album. 

The digipak above is how a lot of them are displayed, with it folding out to the sides. They have made the artist name stand out with the typography they have used and by putting bright colours on a dark background, creating contrast. The colour scheme matches on all sides so that they all link together. The image on the disk has also been used on one of the sides of the digipak.

The digipak below uses a different folding technique that isn't used on a lot of digipaks. This helps give it an appeal, because of the different style. They have featured each band member on each side that opens out. There is a lot less text on this one from what we can see, but there will probably be something on the back. Again, the use of bright colours on the artists pictures and the CD means that they stand out from the black background.

For our digipak we are thinking about doing the traditional style that is used in the top digipak. We will have the CD in the middle with a track listing on the side that is the back when folded. We will probably stick to convention and have information about the people involved and a message from the artist. 

Ancillary Products

For our two ancillary products we have decided to do a digi-pack and a magazine advert for the song and artist. Digi-paks usually have the CD and images of the artist, a track listing and 'thank-you's' to the people involved. These days digi-paks can also come as a free download with an album from iTunes, because people aren't buying as many physical CDs as they used to. 

 Typical digi-pak - this is for Oasis. They usually come in this form (six sides), with the CD inside. Interestingly this doesn't have the band on the front, but if this album was made after they had established themselves, then it is more likely for bands to do this.

To get people to buy the digi-pak it has to be promoted. It used to be that they would be advertised in magazines and newspapers, but now as well as this, they are also advertised online. We are going to produce a magazine advert for the digi-pak. A digi-pak advert would most commonly be seen in a music magazine like Kerrang! or NME. 

 Magazine advert for The Kooks (indie). Shows the whole band unlike the Oasis digi-pak to get the band recognition as they are not as big a band as Oasis.

Thoughts after test shots and animation

Despite the animation we did turning out well, we decided that it didn't fit with the genre the song is in, so we have decided to revisit a previous idea we had which was mainly based on performance. The new idea is to have the artist at an outside location and film him playing the song and also some narrative shots of the artist walking outside. We have decided on a rural location.

Changing the concept has meant we have had to redo the storyboard and relook at how the narrative and performance will work together. We felt that this idea would fit better for the song and the genre and is something a bit more conventional for the genre. We plan to film within the next two weeks.

Our Animation

This is our first go at using stop frame animation for our music video. Although we are really pleased with the results, we've decided that for the song we are using, animation doesn't create the right atmosphere. The song we are using has a more negative feel to it and the artist is keen to have that atmosphere for the video. 

Despite this, we are glad that we tested it out and is something that we have experimented with. This is definitely something to consider for future projects now that we know how it works.

In terms of where we go now, we have gone back to an early idea that we had of doing  mainly performance based video with cutaways to narrative. At the moment we are thinking of the artist in an outdoor, rural location.

Animation Update

As we were unable to acquire the lecture theatre for the whole day, we have had to change the location where we will film the animation. We now have two other options, both of which shouldn't come with any problems so the filming is still going to go ahead on Friday. We will be filming for the whole day so that the animation looks consistent. 

Test Film of Jack

Test shot video

These are some test shots we took today of our artist, Jack Simmons. We will probably film him in most of these shots when we come to film the real thing, as well as a long shot so that the animation can go on behind him as shown in the storyboard. This was just to get an idea of what it would look like. 

We hope to film the animation next week and then Jack the week after.

Testing Animation

Now we have decided to use animation we spent an hour testing out how it would work and talking out the sequence. We are definitely using post-its to do our animation and we have decided to use them to create images that reflect lyrics of the song. We will be showing them on a wall behind Jack, but we have also decided that we don't want Jack to be animated, because of the issue of lip-syncing. Therefore, we have decided to record him separately playing the song the whole way through in different shots, (ms,cu,ls) on a blue screen then doing the animation separately, again on a blue screen, then layering them in edit. That way it will look like the animation is happening on a wall behind him, but he will still be live action.

We have tested out animation using post-its on a fairly small space and now know that when we actually come to film it we will need a big floor space for the animation, because of the size of the post-its and the shapes that we want to make. So now we have to find a space, (which will probably the lecture theatre) where we can set up and film our animation. Hopefully, we will be able to get the room for an entire day so that we can do it all at the same time, so it all looks consistent and the post-its don't get moved.

The post-its will be done on the floor on some blue card (instead of blue screen, because it needs to be completely flat to work properly), as we feel that this is probably the easiest way to do this. Therefore, we need to get the camera up high, which hopefully won't be too difficult to do as we think we can get a tripod that will reach the height we need.

One of the next things we need to do is work out timings for each image and how long we need them to last in order for them to appear in the right part of the song. 

This is a tester we did:

From this we now know that when it comes to filming the actual animation parts, we will have to do it on a much bigger scale, because of the size of the post-it notes. For the tester we worked with two frames for each image and we think that this is the speed we need for the animation. Apart from this, we are fairly happy that the animation won't be too difficult to do once we figure out what colour post-its we want for each image and how the images will flow into one another. We may have to do a few more test shots before the filming of the actual animation just so we can work these things out properly.

Storyboard

This is our storyboard for our music video. Animation is going to be used for a majority of the video, and so will be one long continuous shot as the animation happens behind Jack. There will be long, medium and close up shots too of Jack so that the artist becomes recognisable. From a label's point of view this is one of the most important things because it gets the artist recognition, therefore makes this a convention of most music videos across genres.