For Your Love- Completed Music Video

Progress Feedback from Evaluation

For the evaluation Amber is well on the way to completing the table for Q1 of the evaluation for the blog. She is booked to do her directors commentary which she had prepared meticulously and times to the video.

Even better if
Be careful how you interpret the term challenge- I feel your pop video uses and definitely develops but doesn't necessarily challenge- but make sure you show that you understand this terminology.

Evaluation Q4- How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

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

I Have presented my answer using Prezi:
https://prezi.com/_ybgfv0tqyy9/how-did-you-use-media-technology-in-the-construction-resear/

Evaluation Q3- What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Q2- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Script:

• I feel as if I created synergy across my A2 Media Studies project really successfully. All 3 of my products linked really well and all represented the same main selling point. Overall, the synergy used really strengthens the campaign of selling my artist and his record. This will contribute to attracting my target audience of boys and girls aged 18-25. Both the music video and the ancillary texts had a strong genre of love through my brand image of simple contrasting colours and isolated images of the artist using direct modes of address.

• When designing the 3 products, I was very conscious of the themes and layouts I used. When taking the head shots of my artist for the ancillary texts, I made sure he was in the center of the lens and the mise en scene around him was simplistic, as I wanted him to be the main focus. I decided to have a black background as I thought this bought more attention to him and make the mood of the album and advert become more soft. I draped yellow fairy lights around him to accentuate the soft nature of the album and also to provide a glowing, angelic light around him. I wanted him to use a strong direct mode of address but not with a harsh expression. I told him to look ‘in love with the camera’ or to give a ‘confused puppy dog look’. When shooting the music video, I gave Luke similar instruction, this is how all 3 products managed to synergise well. I also ensured that the background of where Luke was lip singing was the same as the mise en scene of the album and advert artwork. I did this because I thought it would make it more recognisable to the audience.

• Through the use of the same image for my digipack and the advert and music video, makes the artist more recognisable to his audiences. It also represents him as the same kind natured guy in 3 different scenarios, which is also confirmed in the music video where we see him offering to dedicate his love to the girl he loves. Using a typical theme of love meant that my audience could really relate to the story I was trying to show, whether they had been through it themselves or had simply seen another loved one go through the same. As the uses and gratifications model would explain that they could interpret their own experience into my narrative based music video. The simple design of my ancillary texts could also illustrate how simple his emotions are to the girl. They texts and images are plain and straightforward, they are simple but not boring. The strong use of direct mode of address has been used in many love albums such as James Vincent McMorrow album covers.

• The theme through my products is focused more on emotion due to the emotive lyrics. I decided to focus on the fact that the male in the situation is very passionate for the girl, and the fact that he was so strong when he sang about it, it gave me the feeling that perhaps she did not feel the same or at least was unsure/didn’t feel as strongly. So when shooting my music video, I made sure that the male and female were never in the same shot. I also wanted to capture the passion in the singers facial expressions, so I asked him to sing the song as if he were pleading. The layout throughout my product was fairly simple, due to the fact that I wanted the album to look very pure and raw, rather than a brand image focused artist. 

• The colour scheme on the ancillary texts was simple. I wanted to recreate the lip singing scene from the music video, but make Luke, the singer, even more of the focal point. I did this but lowering the dimmed overhead lighting in the room and attaching fairy lights around his torso to create a softer up glow around him. This made him look as if he himself was glowing. I didn’t have to Photoshop the image much because the lighting I set up, created the mood of the image perfectly. The colour scheme in the music video was slightly different though. The parts that featured Luke were the same as on the ancillary texts, but slightly brighter, but the rest of the music video was set on a warm day so was reasonably bright. However, I editing the RGB balance of the footage to create an almost cold greeny-blue tinge to the footage. This was done to represent the tension between the girl and boy, and also to highlight their isolation.  

• The typography I chose was called “Blake”. I decided to use this font as it was not stereotypical of a love album font. I felt as if I was challenged when choosing the font of my ancillary texts because of the fact that my artist was male, I did not want to chose a font that was considered ‘too feminine’. I also did not want my ancillary texts to look as if he was being type casted, I wanted my album to show that he was not just a love song writer and that he does have other abilities, although he is primarily a love song writer. I believe the use of the different font is what attracts my audience further, due to them being intrigued by the uniqueness and the juxtaposition between the images and typography. The composition of all the text and image in the digipack and advert is centralised as we wanted it to stand out and be simplistic to again show the main importance is the music. The songs on the back of the album change in size, this was done to add character to the design so it wasn’t ‘boring’.

• The 3 products work well in targeting my audience as they are not gender specific but they do look mature. So this works well with my age group of 18-25 year olds, who are at the age where love is becoming a more important feature in their lives, so the stories told in song are more and more relatable, or if not relatable, they are fascinating.

Evaluation Q1- In what way does you're media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In what way does you're media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Throughout my music video, I used and developed all of the forms and conventions of a music video. However, I did not include much challenging. This was because I wanted to follow the typical conventions of a love genre music video. If I were to go back and challenge the conventions of my music video, I would have used juxtapositions such as death or violence to contrast the lyrics with the mise en scene.

Advert Feedback

I printed off a copy of my advert and carried round a colour version on my phone to show people my design. I then got feedback, from my target audience,which followed as:

Positive:

• Exciting but not over powering 
• Central picture is good and he uses a good direct mode of address
• Artist stands out against background
• Font is good, really original design
• Simple but effective in advertising what it is
• Simple design but looks really good
• Very specific to the artist. Proves effective in the main selling point
• Looks very professional. I like the lighting.

Negative:

• 'Groundbraking' is hard to read
• Too dark but works well for the genre of the album cover. Could be argued as triking due to the contrasting colours
• Flower lights might not symbolise love enough. If done again, maybe consider using heart lights or rose lights

Taking Your Origional Images

For my magazine advert, I have decided to use the same image as on the front of my album cover as i know this will be more recognisable to audiences and could potentially boost sales.

This is the image I  will be using:

How You Can Use Language To Address Your Audience

After researching album adverts with the same genre as mine, I have relaised that there are several pursuasive aspects to a magazine advert that mine should also include:

• iTunes logo- in order for people to purchase the album this must be included. The iTunes logo shows the audience that the product is availible to be purchased online. The logo is familiar to the general public, so therefore will increase the liklihood of it being purchased.
• Encouraging language- such as “buy now” or “availiable now in sotres and online” makes the audience feel almost rushed into buying the product, it creates a sense of urgency as if the product will run out. It also appeals to a range of age groups and abilities, i.e. if they are familiar with the internet or not.
• Ratings and quotes- from trustworthy companies are always useful in boosting sales as it gives a level of guarantee to the product being sold. Its almost confirming that the audience will enjoy the product. It imporves the reliability of the product being ‘5 star’
• Special features and bonus tracks included- this makes the purchase sound ‘more than worth its money’ because the audience are getting more out of the purchase than just the track/single.

Advert Sketches

Analysis and Annotation of a Magazine Advert

Conventions of a Magazine Advert

Main features of a magazine advert

The release date
-Needed for the audience to know when the album is actually being released.

Album/ song title
-This allows the audience to know what they are looking for if they had previously heard the single before, they now know what album it will be in and how to recognise it in the shops. 

Image of album cover
- The advert also needs to include the image of the album as it helps the audience recognise that this advert is for that album rather than a different one.

Availability in stores/online/price
- This makes it easier for the audience to know where they can purchase the album. The price is also needed to allow the audience to get an idea of whether or not it will be affordable for them. However, this is not necessary on the advert.

Record label
- The record label gives the audience a slight indication as to what type of artist they are and their style of music, the logo of the label also cements the professionalism of the advert. It will allow the audience to gage how famous or large the band/artist is.

A3 in size
- The sizing of the advert tends to be portrait and A3 in size as this allows it to be placed anywhere in shops, bus stops etc. It will also be big enough to be seen from a slight distance.

Special features
- The added use of special features could re-highlight the extras on the digipak and give the audience more information about the artist including things such as reviews of the album. Including features such as music videos may also help entice the audience into buying the full album rather than individual songs.

Digipak Feedback

After completing my digi-pack and poster for my album 'For Your Love', I received feedback from my teacher and target audience.

DIGIPACK

WHAT WENT WELL 

• Subtle images that grab the attention of the audience
• Likes how i have kept the image small and not tried to fill the screen with the image like most people have.
• The direct mode of address of the singer is very strong, powerful and effective
• Excellent use of black and white colours throughout the packaging
• Recognised that this is a digipack and not just a CD
• Recognisable identity imagry such as barcodes, iTunes logo and universal logo 
• Interesting use of effects 
• Good photoshopping around the image to create black screen, but keeps glow of the fairy lights 
• Really unique and effective font. Stand out and grabs attention
• Likes how titles of songs are of different sizes- very unique

EVEN BETTER IF

• CD inner is opaque- make one solid background to show what it is

POSTER

WHAT WENT WELL

• Excellent use of image and text
• Dates of digipack release are made clear
• Same font and colour scheme used throughout
• Important information is made clear to the audience by text size ect.
• Use of album cover as poster is effective as it creates a mental link between the album and the poster

EVEN BETTER IF

• You had more reviews of the album on the poster to take up the empty space near the release date of the album

Questions my teacher asked me about my Digipack and Poster

1) What media term explains the imagery of the artist looking into the camera/straight at the audience?

I used Direct Mode of Address for my images in my digipack because it was important to me that the audience felt an instant connection with the artist. I felt as if my singer (Luke) was not addressing the audience it would create a separation between the two and make it feel as if Luke did not want to connect with them and is if he thought he was 'better' than them. I asked Luke to look at the camera softly to illustrate the genre of his music through his eyes. It is an acoustic album, with mainly love music. This had to be portrayed through his body language and the fonts and styles used on my Digipack.

2) Explain what font I used- where is it from and why did you decide to use it?

I obtained my font from www.dafont.com and the name of my font is 'Blake'. I chose this font due to it not looking typically 'romantic', it can be seen as having a hard edge to it but also as being artistic. The length and skinniness of the font is almost representative of the artist himself, this also makes the font look more soft and loving. The dots inside of the letters and the dots used on letters such as 'E' or 'A' creates a harder exterior, suggesting that Lukes music is not one sided and he does have a versatile genre.

Digipak and Poster Screenshots

Back

Front

Lyric Book

CD Inner

Poster

Digipak Plan (Sketched Version)

Background will be black, with white writing.

Fairy lights around Luke and guitar

Digipak Research

As part of the marketing for my artist, we have to create a magazine advert and a CD design including a lyric book.

 Keaton Henson
Keaton Henson is an English folk rock musician, visual artist and poet from London. As a musician Henson usually sings and plays guitar. Henson suffers from serious stage fright and, as a result, he rarely plays concerts. This lack of self confidence is highly evident in Henson's album art, which rarely includes images of him. Alternatively, he uses draw/painted art, which sometimes includes a painting or drawing of himself. I feel as if this is highly effective as it allows the audience to feel as if their is some mystery about the artist. This also compliments his genre of music. However, for my album art, I would like to include an actual image of my artist. 

 James Vincent McMorrow
James Vincent McMorrow is an Irish singer and songwriter. I really like the use of transparency in his album covers. It helps join the mise en scene together and makes the image look more liquid. The use of blur and lighting in this image also creates a slightly angelic feel coming from the artist, maybe this has been done to hint the genre to the audience and to ruminate the artist himself  

 Laura Marling
Laura Beatrice Marling is a folk singer-songwriter and musician from Eversley, Hampshire, England. Similarly to Keaton Henson, Marling tends to to be in many of her album covers, she uses art as an alternative. In this album it looks more as if it could have been a photo with an edit on to make it look like a painting, or it is actually a painting. The black and white colours used in the image illustrate the raw simplicity and independence of her music. Her basic album cover also stops the audience from obsessing over artist images and makes them focus on the music.

 Tom Odell
 Thomas Peter Odell is an English singer-songwriter. He     released his debut extended play, Songs from Another Love, in 2012 and won the BRITs Critics' Choice Award in early 2013. A strong aspect of Odell's album, that none of the others i have analysed so far uses, is the use of direct mode of address. This is where the artist stares directly at the sense of the camera when the picture is being taken, to allow the audience to feel a connection with the artist. He is 'addressing' his audience with his eyes, making them feel included. I will be sure to use this in my album. The cobbled street background is also creative as it shows his heritage and nationality within the image.

Paloma Faith
Paloma Faith is a British singer, songwriter and actress, known for her retro and eccentric style. Faith released her debut album Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful? in 2009. Faith has a very obvious retro feel about her and her artwork, the use of technicolour and cinematography highlights this massively. Faith also uses direct mode of address to target her audience with. The simplicity of this album is incredibly intriguing, from the use of a plain background, to the lighting around her giving her an almost halo glow around her. 

Taking Your Original images

Today I have set out to take images for my Digipack and magazine advert. I have made sure my singer/male actor has worn the same clothes as he did in the music video and I have also made him wear the fairy lights as well. This is done not only for aesthetics, but also for lighting purposes.

These are the images that I took of Luke:

I was fairly confident when taking the images that I knew what I wanted to obtain by the end. Luke has also previously done some modelling so he was very easy to instruct. I managed to take my winning shot close to the beginning.

I then moved on to the other aspects of my digipack such as the back, inner and lyric book. I decided that I would probably want to use another shot of Luke himself on the back. However, on the inner parts I would want to use objects rather than him/another person.

Images of other objects:

After taking these images I liked the idea of using the guitar images as the lyric book, as a guitar would accompany vocals, and I liked the though of using some sort of chalkboard artwork as the CD inner underneath the CD. I would want this art to look romantic and as if its personal to the singer.