Sunday, December 18, 2011

Evaluation

Setting and Locations- The first location that appears as part of our media music video is the Bedroom of the female character. We wanted to show the female character in her bedroom to show she is an average normal teenage girl and this makes her more relate-able for the audience. We wanted the room to look individual and unique to represent the character of the female, and also represent the overall theme of Kate Nash and her music. I think this was a good choice of location to portray the females individual personality.
The next location we used was the dining room we wanted the dining room to look fairly bland and dull to reflect the crumbling relationship of the female character and the male character. ultimately the females costume is the only bright thing in shot to reflect her vibrancy over her dull relationship which could also show a positive outlook on life.

Titles font ans style of the opening- We had a difficult time choosing the font for our music video for the beginning title and the credits. Unfortunately we were unable to find a font that we deemed suitable due to the lack of choice available on the editing equipment we used if we could choose any font we would use the same as the font used on our digi pac as we feel this suits better the style and genre of Kate Nash and would look more professional that what we settled for.

Costumes and props- For our music video we all felt as if the costumes and props of the video was very important as the quirky style of Kate Nash always coincides with interesting and unusual outfits and objects. We felt by using the range of unusual costumes such as the bright flowery dress and The polka dot dress allowed us to portray the same unusual costume choices that fans usually associate with Kate Nash Music videos. Furthermore i think the props we used were extremely effective at representing the pop genre as we using bright colours and unusual looking props (such as the watering can bag but also used everyday props that viewers would be able to recognise and relate to such as the 'Ben ans Jerrys' ice cream featured at the beginning of the video.Furthermore we tried to contradict this during the second half of the video when the lyrics read 'we are not the people that we turned out to be' the character is supposed to be portrayed as ide if time had passed between the couple and she has in fact grown not only older but also wiser we tried to tone down the costumes to show a less childlike more mature character showing personal growth from her previous personality. Furthermore we did try to dress her as if she were older than her years to maintain a humorous element within the video.

How characters are introduced- The first full shot of both character comes from only a short shot of the female character walking away from the male this is done to create an enigma among the audience leaving them to ponder questions such as why did she walk away? who upset who? are the a couple?. We wanted the story to develop throughout the video so including this shot allowed us to pave the way into revealing more about the characters and their relationship.The Next time the female character is in shot is when she is sitting alone on her bed we did this to make her relatable to the audience and many people from our audience feedback said they were able to relate to the character more by showing her in a normal bedroom environment as it immediately means the viewer is able to identify similarities between them and the character meaning they can feel more sympathy towards the character and overall have more interest in the videos narrative and outcome.


Narrative and how it represented- After analysing the lyrics of the song the songs underlying meaning was quite obvious and we were able to follow them to develop a successful narrative that followed the audio. Lyrics such as 'dancing at discos eating cheese on toast' Were fairly clear and to steer away from such a obvious lyric would have look very unprofessional. So instead we tried to think of less obvious was of representing what could have been a very restricting set of lyrics eg by not not on making cheese on toast but using stop motion animation but also writing the next line of merry happy on to each piece. This meant that the narrative was more interesting for the viewer and hopefully portrayed a fun quirky take on the lyrics making it more representative of Kate Nashs' current pop videos. Furthermore the song is about the breakup of 2 people we did not want to make the video a cliche love story so we tried not to show scenes that revealed detailed fact about the relationship eg the reasons for why they may have split up instead we wanted to leave this to the audience allowing them to engage with the video in order to find out more about the relationship. We did this by including only small teasers such as the male leaving the front door and the female packing her bags.When the major details are never revealed the audience is able to draw their own conclusions which could mean they are more likely to discuss the enigma with others and audience for our Media product may grow.

Camerawork and editing-
During our music video we attempted to use various different types of camera shots. Most shots were medium close ups as we wanted to use stop motion animation which meant we needed a clear view of the object keeping the camera in the same position at all times.Furthermore we used long shots to make the female character seem venerable and isolated to the audience encouraging them to be sympathetic towards her. Long shots such as that of the females teddy bear picnic are used to make her seem alone and childlike but the lyrics say 'i can be alone' Which contradicts the on screen imagery. This means the audience are able to except the fact that the female is better alone and that it is in fact in her childlike personality that she enjoys time alone.We used close ups in some cases to emphasise lip movement while the female is singing meaning the audience is better able to focus on the dialogue which was important within the songs narrative. We also used closeups on the females eyed to emphasise her feeling at that point for example when she is waiting for the male character to come to the restaurant we did this to show that the female was in frustration about the fact he had not turned up leading the audience to sympathise further with her and become more aware of her emotions at that point.

Monday, November 28, 2011

What magazine would you advertise in and why?

When considering what magazine to advertise in we need to ensure that the magazine we choose suits the theme and genre of our music and artist to ensure that we are reaching our target audience. Our chosen artist (Kate Nash) has a niche market and when considering the genre that Kate Nash falls within, which is pop/indie and so we feel that the best magazine suitable to promote our advertisement would be NME.  NME describe the magazine as "a weekly magazine that's a must for right–thinking music fans. And very wrong–thinking music fans. We have the best access to your favourite bands. We have the greatest music writing and photography. We're the ultimate source for discovering the best new music first."  Whilst covering articles featuring heavy band bands such as You Me At Six, The Darkness and Black Veil Brides, they also distribute many issues headlining softer indie/pop bands like Bombay Bicycle Club, Two Door Cinema Club, Florence and the Machine and many more. We feel that this magazine is perfect for us to promote our advertisement as the style of the magazine suits our advert




Sunday, November 27, 2011

Analysis of Digipak

Lady GaGa's Digipak is completely opposite to our initial idea.  It is dark and gloomy, it features a crucafix which could represent the main theme portrayed throughout the music video of this song. Also there are pictures within the digipak that show the artist as the main feature, the pictures portray the artist to be vulnerable. In the picture on the front cover the artist covers her mouth and only bares certain parts of her face which give off a sense that she wants to be hidden.  Furthermore, the image on the inside of the digipakreveals the artist to be naked with her hair covering her body parts, the position her body is in is also one which represents vulnerability.  We feel the idea of featuring the artist as a focus point for the digipak works really well and that we could incorporate it within our own digipak.  However, it will be difficult to make this work for our digipak as the theme which runs dominantly throughout our video is one completely different to the theme portrayed in Lady Gaga's digipak.  Moreover, we like to challenge ourselves and hope to bring some originality to our digipak.  



  This Digipak  has two clear main colours which feature throughout, one of which resembles the theme of vulnerability portrayed through the images which appear within this digipak.  The colour white is associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity and virginity, it is considered to be the colour of perfection; it also means safety, purity and cleanliness.  As apposed to black which is a mysterious colour associated with the fear of the unknown.  It usually has a negative connotation (blacklist, black humour, 'black death').  Black denotes strength and authority; it is considered to be a very formal, elegant and prestigious colour (black tie). In heraldry, black is the symbol of grief.  These two colours compliment and contrast each other perfectly and this is one of the reasons why this particular digipak has been successfully produced.




This Digipak has given us a lot of inspiration.  Although it is completely the opposite of the type of digipak we aim to design, it has given us several ideas of where to start and the type of things to include, for instance the continuous theme running throughout the digipak and having colours which also represent the theme whilst having there own connotations. 

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Photoshoot for Didgipak

































As a group we decided to use our double media lesson on Monday to go and take pictures for our didgipak.  I decided to take pictures on my iPhone along side the ones that were being taken on a proper camera which we are to use for our didgipak, above are some pictures of the actual shots we are going to use and there are also osome other pictures of the photos being taken.


magazine advert ideas

Photos we will be using for digipak

Front cover


Front cover on lyric book pullout

Inside pannel photo for digipac

Another inside picture for digipac
Back cover

Inside pannel

This is the final design for are digipak we have created for Kate Nashs'  greatest hits album that includes some of her most famous singles.Using the photographs we had taken from the photo shoots we completed together we edited our chosen images.We tried to keep the photographs and editing style consistent throughout so we used the same font on every panel and edited the photos in the same style.We also tried to make all of the imagery link together with the music video showing imagery from the environment and flowers.

The front cover of our digipac shows the imagery of the female character. We used the record that can be seen up in the females room in the video so the audience is able to make a link between both the video and the digipac. We wanted to use the glitter and sparkly background to show the character looking very glamorous instead of the usual childlike persona suit the codes on conventions of a typical pop album cover.

The next picture we took the next picture of the female jumping to represent her personality and the indie pop genre of Kate Nashs' music. Imagery used eg the flowery dress also are used in the video meaning the audience can link together the video with the greatest hit album.Furthermore we brightened this picture to portray further the bright summery theme of the video.

The next picture again we wanted to show a close up of the female as we rarely used closeups within our film again we wanted to portray a different more mature side to the female character but still used elements of our music video so by using the flowers as makeup for the eyes we still used themes from our music video but developed them to suit the digi pac.

The next picture we took so that the tree framed the shot as the composition would be affective we had the female character stand against it in the same dress as the video to show she can be alone and still portraying the childlike summery style of the music video.We also tried to frame the female to the right side of the shot so we had plenty of blank space in which to write the track names on.

The next image again features the glamourous eye makeup and glittery background just again to represent a glamorous feel to the female and the digipack

The next picture again we wanted just to show a close up of the female wearing minimal amounts of makeup to show her natural beauty and as the music video often shows natural environments again we wanted the female to be outdoors and by holding on to the red rose it represents again the floral theme but also represent the loss of love the red rose represents love and the way the female holds onto it show how she is having to hold on to a lost relationship.

Furthermore to make the digipac consistent we used the same font throughout we chose this font as we felt it suited the childlike personality of our female character as the font looks very handwritten and messy, also Kate Nash often uses a similar font style within her work that has begun to be associated with her work by her fans. We wanted to use a similar font to represent the genre of Kate Nashs' music fun laid back indie pop.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Analysis of 2 Digipak's

Rihanna's Digipak is similar to our initial idea as it features the flower on the disk and this fits in with the themes in the video. Also the pictures on the case show the artist as the main feature and we feel this idea would work well, but as it would be hard to make the cover original we are trying to think of other ways we can make the cover more original but still with the artist as the main focus.


  This Digipak also has a clear main colour matching with the artists hair. The colour red is also a connotation of sexy so it appeals to her male audience. The digipak also features lighter shades of pink so whilst being sexy its also feminine appealing to young girls. 
This Digipak has given us a lot of inspiration as in the video we featured sweets and love hearts and similarly Katy Perry has the theme of sweets throughout her Teenage Dreams digipak.
Both digipak's feature light pink colours to appeal to a young girlie audience but also feature the artist being sexy to attract the male audience.

Magazine advert of inspiration

Advertising posters are used to advertise a new cd or tour of a particular artist usually the adverts are place in a magazine that would appeal to the artists main target audience. Magazine adverts usually coincide with imagery used in the artists music videos or their cd publications so the audience is able to recognise the themes of the  artist.In this example quen steffani uses close up imagery of herself  which is the same as that on her album cover and the 'Gwen Stefani' font is quite an old fashioned style but the gold colouring makes the advert stand out and appeal to readers furthermore the font is regularly used by Gwen Steffani so fans begin to make an association.This really inspired us, we like the idea of the distorted background that aims to make Gwen stand out and readers instantly recognise her. Furthermore we will be using an interesting font that we will use throughout the publications we make so that all that we produce goes together as a set.


This is another advert that has inspired us in terms of our magazine advert we think that the imagery used the bright colours the blue sky and the overall theme are similar to that of what we are wanting to create.Furthermore we like the idea of using similar imagery for both our cover and our magazine advert but photographing the female in different poses or using varying props but remaining in the same enviroment.   So the audience is still able to recognise the links between the album and magazine ad but the same image can become boring. Furthermore we like the way the font goes with the personality of the artist the bubble writing and pink font reflect her feminine personality.The fact that she uses her very successful ' I Kissed a Girl' single to sell the album means the audience will recognise the song and be more likely to buy it given that that single was something they enjoyed this is something we are thinking of including and will we mention her successful single 'Merry Happy' in the hope it will entice the audiecne to buy and listen to the rest of her greatest hits.