Evaluation

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?  
Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts ?





Q3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

 

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

Task: Create a video presentation which discusses the technologies you used at each stage of the project. This video needs to be different from the Director’s commentary in terms of its presentation and content ie. Presented as a ‘How to use…’/ Teaching (in character?) style of video that could then be used as a future teaching aid. For homework for wednesday, you need to write the script for this and try to collect relevant screen grab images. Choose 3 technologies that you used and explain how you used them or you can 

SCRIPT Research:
Actor 1: I am going to answer the question; How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stage? 
Actor 2: But how are you going to answer the question? 
Actor 1: I am going to look back at four things: Research, Planning, Construction and the Evaluation.
Actor 2: Sounds great! Tell me about the Research process.
Actor 1: During lesson, i used the Apple Mac for research where as at home i used Windows 7. On the Mac i was able to use different softwares such as Safari. 
Actor 2: Safari? what did you use that for?
Actor 1: I used Safari for internet surfing. On the internet i used google search to do a lot of my research such as to search conventions of hip-hop and rap, as well as researching into the art of dance, urban style and the lyrics of our song choice I then uploaded any evidence of research onto a Google owned website; Blogger. Another google software i used for research was Youtube.
Actor 2: YouTube? What is that and why did you use it?
Actor 1: Youtube is a popular site people use to upload and watch different videos. It was significant to my research as i used it to listen to different songs and watch different music videos with the same Hip-hop/Rap genre as my product in order to understand various conventions and how artists develop and challenge them.
Actor 2: Ahhh, i understand how you researched now. But that still doesnt answer the question in the aspect of Planning.

Planning:
Actor 1: Again for our planning we used Blogger to show the stages. From the research on Andrew Goodwin's, as a group we were able to plan a structure for our music video in relation  to the key features. We were then able to plan a location, time and date for our filming. To make filming day easier and more organized we sketched out a storyboard of key shots and angles in correct order.
Actor 2: Did the research help your planning then?
Actor 1: Yes! The research was very helpful as it gave me an understanding of what shots/angles to include in the music video and the amount of them. Goodwin suggests that quick cuts is key in music video's to keep the viewer watching and there should be at least 7 different locations/shots. Before arriving at each location, we also had to plan what day is best to shoot depending on the weather and risk assessment.
Actor 2: From all this research and planning; how did you then construct the music video and ancillary products?

Construction:
Actor 1: The first step of construction was to film. While filming i learnt to use different equipment such as the sony camera, lighting for a brighter appearance and a tripod to keep the camera still and focused. With the camera we were able to get different shots/angles such as; birds eye, high angle, mid shot, long shot, hand held and close ups.
Actor 2: What did you do with the footage?
Actor 1: With the footage I began to edit using Final Cut on the Mac computer. I found this challenging but was able to learn quickly. Firstly, i listened to the music and marked key vocal points on the sound track and did the same to the video in order to make the lip syncing smooth and professional. After choosing which clips we needed and were we needed them, i placed them onto the timeline and began to create slit screens with some. This idea of split screens came from the music video called 'hey there delilah'. to make a split screen  firstly had to make a white solid background then scale and crop. To make some clips more interesting such as the last clip, i added the effect called earthquake which gave a shaky feel on the beat of the song. I found this by going into effects then video filters and then in distort. I also added a reverse speed to the same earthquake clips by going into modify clicking speed then clicking reverse.
Actor 2: Did you edit to change the lighting of clips even though you had planned to film in dark locations?
Actor 1: After the video was complete, i found that there was a significant difference in the lighting/brightness of the clips and so the solution was to colour correct. Colour correction allowed me to change the mid whites, saturation and brightness of certain clips. I found this by going into effects, then video filters and clicking colour correction.
Actor 2: Did you use Final Cut for your evaluation?
Actor 1: Yes i did. One new thing i learnt was how to minimize a clip placing it in the left hand corner while another clip is present. I did this by changing the basic motion. This included making the scale 25 and making the centre 519.64 and -389.9.
Actor 2: That all sounds complicated but impressive. Did you use any other software of the Mac?
Actor 1: Of course i did. I used Photoshop to create our ancillary products. This is a software i was familiar with but not so skilled with. Although, like final cut, i was able to learn quickly. In order to make our artist appear to have tattoos we downloaded tattoo templates and painted them on to the image of our artist and adjusted the colour t0 make the stamp realistic and not so harsh. To remove spots on our artist we used the clone stamp tool. Another tool i used was the magic pen tool. I used this to crop out a bit from an image and the drag and drop in onto another. This came in handy when i wanted to use the image of our artist but did not want the background. 

 Evaluation:
Actor 2: What was the forth and last thing you were going to look back at, again?
Actor 1: My evaluation. I did most of it on my laptop using Windows 7. I was able to use software such as Microsoft, Prezi Desktop and Google chrome. I used Microsoft for two things; Power point and Word. On Powerpoint i was able to make slideshow presentations which allowed to answer evaluation questions in depth as i could back statements with an image and annotate along side it. I used word to edit images by cropping and adding boarders. I then copied and paste them into powerpoint.
Actor 2: How did you view your powerpoint on blogger and did you use anyother software at home on your laptop?
Actor 1: In order to view my powerpoint on the blog i had to upload it onto Slideshare then paste the URL onto link. Prezi desktop is a step up from powerpoint as it allows you to place powerpoint' into your Prezi file and it includes great designs and it is more interactive in the way that you view the presentation. I uploaded my Prezi by copy and paste the html code into the HTML bit of the post then when i changed it to Compose, i was able to view the Prezi. A knew software i have learnt to use during the evaluation process is Xtranormal. I used this by choosing Actors, a scene and sounds. I then added my script into the storytelling. To make the presentation more interesting i was able to change the camera angles, motions, pauses, sound, image, faces, points and look-ats. 
Actor 2: That was very intriguing 
Actor 1: Thank-you for listening, i hope you have learnt something new. 

Xtranormal Presentation:

Evaluation Questions Andrew Carolan

In what way does your media product use from drewcarolan25

Homeboyz Movie
by: drewcarolan25

Alexandria Hasler - Evaluation

Q1 for evalutation from ajhasler

Q4: Evaluation
by: ajhasler

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

Research
Actor 1: So, how did new media technologies help you with your research for the project?
Actor 2: To start with, all of my research was done by using the internet, so I used safari on the Apple Mac at college and Mozilla Fire Fox at home on my PC. I used Google to research the typical conventions of a Rap/Hip-Hop video along with other things.
Actor 1: What else did you use Google for?
Actor 2: Well, I also used it to search for the lyrics of the song 'My House' so that I'd be able to know the lyrics and their meaning better. I also used it to search for Blogger and Youtube.
Actor 1: And how did Blogger and Youtube come into play?
Actor 2: I used Blogger to upload my research and also used Youtube to look at videos for songs and artists of the same genre.
Actor 1: And what did you gain from watching videos from the same genre?
Actor 2: It just allowed me to have a better knowledge of what is expected in a Rap video. This also gave me the inspiration to maybe take what they have achieved further and develop some of the typical conventions which have already been shown.
Actor 1: Okay, that sounds like you've really thought about it.

Planning
Actor 1: So what did you use to help you plan the shoot?
Actor 2: As a group we already had a brief idea of what we wanted to do, so it didn't really take much planning. We drew up a story board and put it on the blog firstly...
Actor 1: What programme did you use to do that?
Actor 2: Well, we decided that it would be easier to draw it by hand, so we drew it onto paper and took a photo of it using iPhoto so that we could still upload it to the blog.
Actor 1: And what is iPhoto?
Actor 2: iPhoto is an application on the Mac which basically uses the webcam above the screen to capture an image.
Actor 1: That sounds like a good idea! What else did you do?
Actor 2: Well, although we already knew what we wanted to do for our video, we still needed to plan it out, so I did a location list.
Actor 1: A location list?
Actor 2: Basically listing possible locations and saying if there are any limitations...
Actor 1: And were there?
Actor 2: Well there were a few possible limitations, we did our filming in urban areas so there was always going to be a danger of the public disturbing the filming.
Actor 1: And did the public cause any problems?
Actor 2: At times, yes. But when this happened we just filmed again.
Actor 1: So did your research help you when planning your shoot?
Actor 2: Yes, we had a blog post on Goodwins' Theory which helped us model our video on those key features. It also made filming go much smoother as we already had planned exactly what we wanted to do and how we would achieve it, we also considered everything which could go wrong, such as weather, risks, so that we were well prepared if anything were to go wrong.
Actor 1: How did you then move onto the construction?

Construction
Actor 2: The main thing was to actually film the footage. From doing this I refreshed my knowledge on how to use the Sony camera with the tripod to get steady shots and also learnt how to use a torch to create professional looking lighting using a reflective material. We experimented with the camera using different shots and angles, one being a high angle shot looking down at the artist which I think looked very interesting.
Actor 1: And what was the next step?
Actor 2: Next we took the camera back and uploaded the footage onto our Mac. We then opened this into Final Cut Express. We also had to add the music track into the sequence and delete all background music that came with the footage. We then had to sync the audio with the visual which is difficult but gets easier when you know what you're doing.
Actor 1: And how do you do that?
Actor 2: Listen to the music and mark on key vocal points onto the audio track. Then do the same on the footage and match the markings up. After that it was just about the cuts and making things look more professional and enjoyable to watch.
Actor 1: And how did you do that?
Actor 2: Well we needed to use different shot types and locations so I put in the different shots and matched it up to the audio again.
Actor 1: What else did you do to the footage?
Actor 2: Well the last clip was really long and in Goodwins' Theory it says that short quick clips are more interesting for the viewers, so we decided to cut the clip on every beat and added an effect called earthquake onto one and a reverese speed onto the next. We also had to change the brightness on some clips as they were filmed in different locations so had different lighting.
Actor 1: How did you do this?
Actor 2: We achieved this by colour correcting the footage. We changed the mid-whites, saturation and brightness on a selection of clips. This is found by going to effects, video filters and clicking on colour correction.
Actor 1: Was any other software apart from Final Cut Express used for the construction?
Actor 2: Yes, I used Photoshop to create both of our ancillary products. I have this software at home too so am quite familiar with it. We wanted to give our artist tattoos so did it on Photoshop.
Actor 1: And how did you give your artist tattoos?
Actor 2: Well we downloaded a tattoo stamp package and stamped them onto the image of our artist and rubbed out any of the tattoo which went further than the artists arms. We also used these stamps in the design of the cover.

Evaluation
Actor 1: And finally, your evaluation. How did you use technologies to help you with that?
Actor 2: Well, all of my evaluation was either done at home on my PC or at college on the college PC. I used Microsoft Office (Powerpoint), Slideshare, Prezi, Xtranormal and Mozilla Firefox.
Actor 1: What did you use those programmes for?
Actor 2: On Powerpoint I created a slideshow presentation answering the first question of my evaluation. I liked using powerpoint as it allowed me the use print screening to add an image of the music video to illustrate my point.
Actor 1: And Slideshare?
Actor 2: I used Slideshare to upload my Powerpoint and this allowed me to get the html code and paste it into Blogger.
Actor 1: And what did you use Prezi for?
Actor 2: I used Prezi in the same way that I used Powerpoint only to answer question three. It is also a more interactive way to do a slideshow. I then copied the html code and again pasted it onto Blogger.
Actor 1: And what is Xtranormal?
Actor 2: Xtranormal is a programme in which you can create characters and make them say things. Which is what I am doing this script for!

Twitter Page

I decided to make a twitter page seem like it was popular, as it is hard to receive lots of followers on twitter I thought I should do some photoshop. I think our Star would use twitter to keep in contact with his fans and to make it seem personal, he would promote his music and let fans get closer to his personal life. Many celebrities use twitter to get close to fans and to show the real them, not what the press would portray of them. I think more Celebrities use twitter rather than Facebook mainly because how easy it is compared, for example, following your favorite celebrity can be done with a click.

Profile Screenshot

A Tweet

Analysis of magazine advert

I think that are magazine advert really fits are genre and star persona. I think that this advert will really appeal to are target audience. this is advert i not like anything i have really seen before and that is why it think it appeals to me so much. i think that this ad would be very effective in promoting legacy's new album "Back on the Scene". when creating this advert we were undisive on the text  but now looking at it i think it realy suits the advert.

Analysis of real magazine Advert

The advert on the left is for swedish house mafia new song greyhound. This ad is very effective, however now sedish house mafia are so famous they don't really have to advertise the song any more. this ad is very simple and plain however this works very well. The Ad on the right is swedish house mafia and absoulte vodka, these two were working together as in swedish house mafia new single "Greyhounds" Video they advertise Absoulute Vodka a lot.
.

Analysis of Real DIgipak

This is Swedish house Mafia deluxe edition album "Until Now". The wanted to to be an album to remeber as this would be there second form last album so they wanted there fans to be pleased with the music that they where producing for this album. With this deluxe album you get more than just extra songs you also get the vinyl copy as well as the CD and free downloadable album also. 

Swedish house mafia have also produced a DVD witch comes free in this deluxe album, with messages form each star, live performances and behind the scene at live shows.

This Deluxe Album does stand out from others as you very rarely get vinyl records any more especially  form world famous artists such as Swedish house Mafia. You also get a lot of bonus tracks and remixs as they are world famous DJ's.

Analysis of Student Magazine Advert

 

This is a good example of a Student magazine advert. The artist is called Autumn and although it may not be an original idea or a massive breakthrough but by the using leafs as the back ground and one big leaf for her tour details is very effective and it seems to really suit the artist and they genre and style. It is also very effective that they have have added a website for there artist on the bottom of the advert, this would be helpful for the audience as she is also trying to sell tickets to see her live on tour around the UK.

Analysis of Stundent Digipak

This is a digipak made for a deluxe album  this is an example of the digipaks made by students. Although the genre of music for this digipak is Indie/Rock, this is still very helpful for when designing are digipak. This Digipak has a good layout, i like where the have put the CD, as this is not a usual place for the CD. this is re-enforcing that this is an alternative genre of music. I also like how there is not to much imagery on the album, the consistent theme of fire in each segment. The way the have kept the digipak is very effective, i think that this looks alot better than if the had tried to fill up all 6 segmants, as this would start to bore the audience as the informaation out on would become less relevant.

Evaluation Max Carter

Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 

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

Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

Script For ExtraNormal: 

Character One: Just Answer The Question 

Character Two: Ok Sorry, What was the question again? 

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

Character Two:Well The first new technique I learnt was using After Effects CS6. I wanted to try out the 3D camera tracker. It was a lot of trial and error at first, but I got the hang of it. I wanted to use the camera tracker to try a new technique that I haven't tried before, it will create text in 3D space, and when the camera moves that text will stay in it's current position in relation with the scene. This new technology has helped me develop my skill in after effects, It also looked pretty sick. How about you? 

Character One:Well, taking influence from the music video for Hey There Deliah I wanted to incorporate A split into the video. I did this through Final Cut. First of all I create a white solid, this was going to be used as the background. Next I needed to scale and crop the clips I wanted to use until we managed to create something which resembles a split. I did this so the star was able to be shown a lot more. You Must have something else to say... 

Character Two:Yes I do, Some of our scenes were a little dark due to the lighting conditions. SO we had to colour correct slightly, Although not much as the darker scenes go with the Urban feel we were trying to create. Say one more thing before we go. 

Character One: Ok, I also used photoshop to create the advert and digi pack. I wanted to give our star tattoos, so i downloaded a tattoo brush template, it was a little tricky but i managed to make them look fairly real. I had the paint the tattoos on and then rub out around the arm so they didn't overlap.

Character Two: And the most important technology we used was the camera, we were able to film our music video with, we also made some use of the lighting equipment when we did our photoshoot, the camera we used for that was a Canon eleven hundred D, which allowed us to get High Res images to work with. What about research? 

Character One:Well I made good use of Safari and Google Chrome to help me with my research, I used Safari when I was using the Macs and Google Chrome when I was at home. Using these browsers we were able to find a lot of the information we needed, such as the conventions of Hip-Hop and Rap, Dance Styles and the lyrics to our song. I also used YouTube to help find Hip Hop videos to help with some inspiration, such as Macklemore. Using these browsers also helped me make good use of our blog, using blogger. the blog is where we put all our research onto and helped us plan a lot of our work. The blog is where all our research and planning is present. Got anything on evaluating? 

Character Two: Of course, for question 1 I used powerpoint to answer the question. After I created the powerpoint I went onto a website called slideshare, i was able to import my powerpoint into it, this allowed me to embed my powerpoint into a post on blogger.

Character One:Any other browser software you had to use? 

Character Two:Yep, I used Prezi to answer question 2, Prezi is slightly similar to powerpoint, but it allows you to be a lot more creative, I've used prezi before so I was familiar to it, in Prezi you are able to create different shapes and images, and some mad transitions. I also had to embed this into my blog. Oh and I'm also using some browser software right now! 

Character One:Shut Up 

Character Two:Nope i'm using xtranormal to answer this question, It isn't very difficult to use, and after some playing around you are able to get used to it, its similar to filming, as you are able to direct the actors and choose different camera angles, you also have the ability to make the actors say whatever you want. this will also have to be embedded. 

Character One: Well that's creepy, anyway. We also used final cut one more time to answer question 3. I also learnt a new technique while answering question 3, it was to shrink the video of us talking to the camera and to put it into the top right corner. I did this by scaling the clip and moving it into position. We did this so it was clearer who was talking. We also did another split screen so we were able to show the before and after on certain clips. 

Character Two:Overall I developed my skills using after effects with the 3D camera tracker and photoshop with different ways to colour correct, and adding the tattoos. I have also got a lot more comfortable using Final cut and prezi, I believe using all these techniques and technologies we were able to complete the goals and create an urban atmosphere.

Evaluation Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Script For Feedback Video

Max
We have learnt a lot from our audience feedback by looking at written comments, as well as the video feedback. These are the parts that our audience enjoyed and suggested we could keep.
First of all, a lot of people of people enjoyed the text effects at the beginning of the video, they found it to look professional and sick, it was also unique, as no one else had attempted this.
Next they thought the costume changes were a key aspect to the music video and it follows the conventions of a hip-hop/ rap video, it kept it fresh as the artist continuously changed clothes, it also showed the star's sense of style.
Keeping the location at the car park added to the theme of the music video, which was to create a street/urban atmosphere.
We added different shot types which they liked as it went with the tempo, the shot types helped us make a good use of our location.
Another unique idea that they liked was the split screens with the clip, it helped us sell the artist more, as we were able to show him a lot more.
They were also fond on the dancing that was included in the video, firstly they enjoyed drews dancing and found it entertaining, next we had a choreographed dance routine, which also follows the conventions of some hip-hop/rap music video. We then had the star breakdancing in the car park, which again helps with the street/urban feel.

Kisu
Although there was a lot the audience enjoyed about our rough cut, there were also some suggested improvements that needed to be made. One thing that people noticed was that some clips were a lot darker than others. This was mostly because we filmed at different times and some scenes were out side compared to others inside and so resulted in different lighting.
Another comment was that there was not enough quick cuts between shots and so some clips were getting too long. we needed to change this as the audience would get bored of watching the same long clip. The last clip was the longest clip that the audience suggested changing as it was just the artist walking up to the camera. The suggestions were that we needed to make it more interesting somehow.

Allie
We took on board every improvement as well as all the criticism we received from the feedback in order to improve our final music video.
One clear improvement was the colour correction. We increased the Mid Whites, brightness and saturation so that all clips had similar lighting. This made the video look professional rather than amateur.
We also added more quick cuts as this was a suggestion most people made. By doing this it made the music video much more interesting to watch.
The last clip of the music video was a long shot of our artist walking towards the camera. This shot was very boring to watch and so we needed to change in in order to keep the audience engaged through out. We did this by cutting the long clip on every bit that the beat changed. After the clip was cut, we added a reverse speed effect on selected clips as well as an earthquake effect on the other cut clips. This resulted in the effect that the screen was shaking on the beat and also emphasized the beat of the song which would leave the tune in the audience' mind.
At the end of the rough cut there was a long blackness with no music or visual on show. We removed this as it was not needed and only made the video appear longer.

Planning Notes For Task 3

Feedback

Before:
What people enjoyed watching and wanted to keep

• Drew's dancing
• The use of break dancing and Kisu's and Alyshas choreography 
• Costume Changes
• Theme, car park
• Text at the start
• Screen Splits
• Location/Shots.

Things that need to be improved

• Some clips were too dark
• long clips and the end of max walking down the car park was too long and boring
• Need more cuts
• darkness at the end for 2 minutes.

After:

We took onboard every criticism we recieved in order to improve our music video

• Colour Corrected
• Added more cuts
• Added reverse speed to some bits to the last clip, in order to make it less boring and long, also added an earthquake effect which moved to the beat
• removed the dark 2 minutes at the end.

Extra Content For Digipak

To keep to the theme of the Digipak and the message inside it. We would also add an exclusive backstage CD coverage of Legacy in the process of Producing his album and music video. A chance to get to know the  artist in depth a bit more.

This would be the Edited image used for the CD. It keeps to the theme of our Digipak.

Possible Extra Content For Digipack

Taking idea's from Macklemore's deluxe album, I think it would be nice to include photo's from the artist, such as behind the scenes photos, with little messages from the artist. It will make it seem more personal between the fans and the artist.
I created three free images on Photoshop which could be included in our album.

Finishing Digipack

The next step was to add some labels, so we added the barcode which is seen on all items, so it was important to place. Next was to add a Parental Advisory sticker because our artist is a rapper and many rap song's contain explicit lyrics. And next was the record label, we decided to use Death Row Records as they are know for signing rappers such as Snoop Dog, Dr Dre and Tu Pac, So it would look good if our artist was signed for a big rapping label. In the above picture you can see we started to fill in the gaps, we thought as our artist is showing of the tattoo's it would be good to carry on the theme.

And so we did, I used the same brush template on Photoshop that I used to create the tattoos on the artist, At first they were black but the colour looked to strong, so we changed the colour to the more dark brown to go with the colour of the artists tattoo.

Next we added the track listing, as it was a deluxe album it contained 3 extra songs not found on the normal album, and a message from the artist. 

We then added the lyrics from the artists No.1 song and the personal message from him.

Digipack Album Cover

Completed 

Last Lesson

This is our Final Magazine Ad:

We decided to keep it simple by not adding too much information. From analyzing other Magazine Ads we concluded that it was more eye catching to add less information and only whats need such as the date of release, deluxe name and artist name. We also kept it simple by keeping to a colour them of three colours; gold, white and black in different shades. Simplicity allowed us to sell the deluxe Digipak without distracting or confusing the audience. With just a glance they will be able to recognize the artist and know when the Digipak is out.

Magazine Advert

This is our final Magazine Advert.

Extra Content for the Digipak

From looking at Rihanna's LOUD deluxe edition album, I could see that included in the album was a DVD. However there could be much more included in the album.
I think that we could add a few posters, and maybe a competition on getting VIP tickets and meet-and-greet tickets for his next tour.

Magazine Advert Possibilities

I think that this image would be most appropriate for our magazine advert as there is quite a lot of space around the artist to add all the information that is needed. It is also quite an eye-catching image, and can be a sign for him having everything in his reach. The image would obviously have to either be cut down or blown up so that it would fit on an a4 piece of paper.

Jay Z Magazine Advert

Jay Z- The Blueprint 3 Advert

This is the advert for Jay Z's album The Blueprint 3, It is advertised in XXL which is a popular Hip Hop magazine. He is there front and back cover, the advert being the back cover. The picture of Jay Z goes well with the sub title "Is Jay Z Bigger Than Hip-Hop?" seeing that he is pictured as a giant as he is towering over the Empire State building and the Chrysler building, It is also reference of his past, as he was born in New York, and it was in New York where the Hip Hop scene first started and blew up. The advert itself is quite smart, but basic. The image is of lots of instruments and other recording devices crunched up into a ball, not sure what it represents, It's a simplistic white colour, with Jay-Z slapped up top. There is also three red lines, obviously representing that this is 'Blueprint 3'  The album name and the date is also printed at the bottom. It's interesting because each piece of writing is a different font and boldness, 'Jay-Z' is the bigger and bolder of the three. I think I would like the implement the simplistic style of the advert, as our album is simplistic yet effective. 

Magazine Advert Photo

We have decided to use this photo for our magazine advert. We will convert it into A4 insted of landscape so that it fits better. Orginally we were going to use this for our front of the digipak however, it was too simlar to our music video and so we thought it was best to do a seperate photoshoot for that. The font on this image stand out too much and so we are definatly going to edit that differently. We are yet to add importance information such as our artists website, ratings by a magazine, the top singles from the digipak and a bonus track as well as the album name.

Digipak Posibilities

I like this because the eye contact is quite engaging. It looks as though the star is actually looking at the audience. It also goes with the colours in the image below with the words 'the Studio' in the background. The only thing is that a drawback of this image is that the background does cover the whole image however this can be easilly corrected on photoshop.

  I really like the lighting in this image. It also looks really relaxed and makes the artist look more personable.Something I don't like about the image is that his face is partly shadowed, however that could add to the stereotype as it could connote that the star has something to hide, making him more mysterious.

I like this image the most as it seems to follow the typical conventions of a rap artist best.

Macklemore The Heist- Deluxe Edition

Macklemore The Heist- Deluxe Edition

This is Macklemore's Deluxe Edition for his new album 'The Heist', He wanted to give his music a personality and style, he liked how you used to be able to take it out of it's cover and learn about the artist, who they were, their friends, who produced this and that song. He say's now it's just a download. So they created a box, the box is created out of alligator, inside the box under the gold foil there is 18 individual pieces of art one for each track, they are designed by Photographers, Graphic Designers and artists, the cards are of their interpretations on how they heard the song. The song also contain's three bonus tracks, which aren't on the ordinary album. It also contains a thank you card from Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, which says "YOU GUYS ARE FUCKING AWESOME,WE LOVE YOU, BEN & RYAN" 

He also released a video explaining the details of the Deluxe Edition:

This deluxe edition is very different to others, especially because of the alligator skinned case, but I feel that it is very personal towards his fans, as a fan of Macklemore it sure feels that way. It isn't only for the fans, but also for the people who helped create the album. I like the idea of having art designed on the artists interpretations of how they heard the song, it's a clever and a unique idea. The bonus tracks seem to be the norm for deluxe editions. I think the thing that stands out the most about this Album is how much effort Macklemore put in to make it like the old days, where you had a physical copy of the music and that you felt like you know more about the artist.

Magazine Advert Analysis

Analysis of Students Magazine Advert

This is an example of a students magazine advert for The XX. I have chosen to analyse this as I find it quite interesting to look at. At first glance the background image does not say much about the album and the font used is quite plain. However, using an abandoned space as the background image can actually say a lot about the genre. For example the music might be quite urban and not very commercial. Also the font may not be that inspiring, but ignoring that and looking at the content, there are reviews from Jonathon Ross, Q Magazine and Metro Magazine, which shows that it must be good and some consumers could buy the album just on this basis. It also says it’s release date and where you can buy it from- amazon.com. Unfortunately there is no image of how the album looks so would be hard for consumers to actually find it in a store.

Analysis of Students Digipak

This is an example of a student’s digipak called Reverse by a band named Distorture. I chose to analyse this digipak because I thought it was the most eye-catching and well-put-together. Again, I do not want us to model our own digipak on this as it looks too gothic and more suited to the rock/indie genre so would not be suited to our album. The overall theme of the digipak seems to be blood, as the only colour, aside from black and white, is red. Also the images used are all of blood, whether there is blood in someones hands or blood soaking into white fabric. This adds to the gothic theme. Red is the boldest colour so would really catch peoples eyes in shops. The white is used to break up all the red and I think connotes purity and shows that something can be very dark but also have a good side which may link to the sort of music that Distorture make.

Analysis of Real Magazine Advert

This is a real magazine advert for Rihanna's 'LOUD' album. I have chosen to analyse this magazine advert because I also looked at Rihanna's digipak for the 'LOUD' album and thought it would make sense to look at the sdame artist and same albuym to see how the digipak relates to the magazine advert. It turns out that the magazine advert and the digipak are very similar. The magazine advert shows the front of the CD cover in the bottom right hand corner, this is so the audience reading the magazine, if interested, already know what the front cover looks like, so can simply go into a store and pick it out without any trouble. The colour scheme is the same that is used in the digipak, only I think that the colours are a bit softer on the digipak. I think that the red may have been more of a feature in the magazine as it is more important foir it to stand out more. In all images on both digipak and magazine advert, Rihanna is shown to be looking away which gives her a more vulnerable edge, which seems to tone down the blow of the red.

Analysis for Real Digipak

This is a real digipak for Rihanna's 'LOUD' album. I have chosen to analyse this digipak not because we would model our own on it, but because Rihanna is such an iconic and successful artist, there must be something in her digipak which can aid to her triumph.

I like the use of colour in Rihanna's digipak. Although red is a very striking colour, it is very muted and when teamed with pinks and nudes, gives a more romantic feel to it. Which is further reinforced by the roses and also the way in which she has been styled.

Her hair is an extremely shocking colour, however is made to look feminine when styled in loose, romantic curls. Similarly to her make-up; red lips and black eye-liner could look quite harsh and trashy, but5 teamed with the colour sceme used just adds to the feminine yet confident look. I think the red gives a passionate feel and the pink shows her femininity.

The back cover is the only panel which doesn't have the bold red, possibly to show the vulnerable and exposed side of the star.

 

 

Editing our Digipak on Photoshop

The first thing we did was add a filter to the photo that Max edited. We added a tint of blue, green and red using curve found by going into image then clicking...
Allie then chose a font that we felt went well with our Music video. It was called Urban... And had the effect of a city landscape which is similar to our magazine advert. To make sure the font stood out but still linked with everything on the front of the deluxe digipak, we matched the font colour to the colour of the tattoo's.

Because we choose to make our artist have tattoo's in one picture, it was important to do the same in all pictures we use that show his arms. We also made sure that they were in the same position as the first photo in order to make them look real.

After we edited the tattoo's we placed the image into our template by holding the shift button to keep... and then making it fit perfectly the way we wanted. We kept a theme of a grey/blue tint background for the whole of the outside of the deluxe cover.

After we had finished editing the outside of the deluxe cover, we began on the inside. The theme of the inside  was pink as we felt it would stand out and bring a fun aspect to the digipak. We chose this photo for the actual CD which we later on added the artists name 'Legacy' to so that it is obvious who the artist of CD is. Before placing the image into the template we edited Max's spots out to give him flawless skin. We also made the image brighter to bring out the strong colours.

We did the same to this photo; removed any spots and made the image brighter. We are planned on using the image as the background for our artists personal letter to his fans with a signature to conclude.

We then edited Max out of the image bellow this one onto a pink background similar to the background used for the artists personal letter to his fans. This was so that we could keep to the pink theme.

We then placed the image on the left inside the template. We are going to add the lyrics of the song in Music Video.

This is how our Digipak looks so far. The last thing we did was write Legacy onto the CD in the same font used on the front cover.

Final Video

                                                This is are final video uploaded to Youtube.

Track Idea's

These are some track ideas which could go into our deluxe digipak. The idea is to choose 12 songs that would have been on our previous album and so the deluxe digipak includes 4 bonus tracks:

1. Backseat
2. Hustlin'
3. Cali Life
4. Roots
5. Backstage Lingo
6. Get Drunk
7. Reem Queen
8. Shaun the lama
9. Hespena 
10. Skinny Jeans and a Mic
11. Tough Kids 
12. Jerkin and Durty Wining
13. Tourin'
14. Snapbacks with Freestyles
15. Studio DNA
16. Obey My Stage
17. Renaisance
18. Click it

Tattoo's

We thought It would suit our star if he had tattoo's, as a lot of rap/hip hop star's have lots of tattoo's covering them so I thought I would give it a go.

I used this photo to put tattoo's on, I also like this for the front cover of the digi-pack.

I download a tattoo sleeve brush template onto photoshop.

At first i attempted it on my left arm, and rubbed out any overlapping my arm. also had to rotate and resize the brush to make sure it fitted.

I then placed the second one on my right arm, once again rubbing out any going over, so far it was looking good, but I wanted my upper arm to be covered otherwise it would like bare.

I managed to place one that fitted with the previous tattoo, and once more had to rub out any overlapping, especially with the previous tattoo. Throughout all the tattoo's I had to play with opacity and size to make sure it fitted my arm.

And here's the final picture,I think it worked and looks fairly realistic, and I hope we can use this as our front cover of our digipack.

Photoshoot for digipak

These are our Top 24 photos out of the 215 we took today. We are going to Photoshop a few of these to then finally pick 3 to go on our deluxe digipac. The main focus of the Photo Shoot was to sell our Artist and so we left the background very basic. 

Roles of the day:

Photographer: Kisu

Light director: Drew

Model (artist): Max 

Our Top 24 Photo's: