CD Cover Blank Mock-Up

 

We have used Adobe Illustrator to create a blank template for the front and back of our CD cover. We have looked up some examples to guide us, and we have found that the majority of covers are quite simplistic and iconic as the artists have established themselves enough for the audience to recognise them from the photograph alone.

 

 

These are two examples of simplistic yet effective CD covers.

The first cover is clever in the way that 'Rhianna' is so iconic herself that she hasnt even included

her name, just the letter 'R' as the audience will recognise her just from the image alone.

 

Editing

http://collegefilmandmediastudies.com/editing/

When editing our music video we need to think about the shots we are putting together, for example: high angle, low angle, establishing and pan shots and how the scenes tranisition between the different shots and the effects they create. We want to keep our audience enganged and understanding of the narrative of the video, whilst also creating a professional look. 

Photos and Clips from Filming

PHOTOS

Whilst filming we took some photos of our model in different positions and locations. We are pleased with these outcomes, but we are undecided weather to use them for our ancillary task products so we are going to do a separate photo-shoot with our model against a white backdrop with studio lighting, to give a chance at it looking more professional. 

I really like this photograph as the lighting is shining behind our model, connoting a positive ambiance to our model.

I feel like this photo is too posed

This is my favourite photograph as the lighting looks natural against the models face, and you can see the sunlight shining on the water through the trees.

I dont like my models facial expression, as I feel it is quite serious. However I do like the lighting against my models skin and the brightness of the colours.

I like the lighting in this image as it is bright and accentuates all the colours but the model is looking down and I feel it makes her look sad.

The lighting is too bright in the background of this image and the model looks in an uncomtfortable posture.

I really like this photo, however the quality of it is not so good as it appears blurry.

 

CLIPS

 

These are some clips from our first part of filming, they are undedited and still have the orignial sound to them. When editing we are going to remove the sound from the video's so that you can't hear the surroundings, talking and music we played during filming.

 

 

 

We liked this video as our model portrays a happy role model figure but during editing we will crop the clip down to be percieved as memories rather than dragging it out.

 

 

After reflecting on this video, we felt the lighting was too harsh and bright against our models face and chose not to include it as part of our video. However, we did like how the models hair blows in the wind creating a natural, calm, atmosphere which is what we want to put across in our video.

 

 

Watching this clip we notice our models lip syncing was not in time with the music at all, and therefore for the next stages of filming we need her to learn the words off by heart, to look proffessional.

 

Reflection after first stage of filming

Me and my partner Laura have completed one stage of filming for our video now. We went to our first location which is the Meadows and began to shoot our music video. Firstly, we chose our models outfit which was a yellow and white lace knit jumper and blue scalloped shorts which we decided look very quirky and vintage which is the look we are aiming for. We also put red lipstick on our model to make her appeal to a wide audience, red is a bright colour which connotes confidence and passion which we want to show as good qualities for girls to have, but it can also come across as a sultry, provocative colour which will attract the male audience. We then positioned our model in different settings and body language positions and began filming. Some of our scenes when looking back have turned out well with good camera angles, lighting and miming. However, some of our clips, have turned out blurry, shaky and the lighting is either too dim, due to a sudden change in weather or too bright causing a flare against our models skin. For our next stage of filming we plan to use a tripod to allow no shaking from the handheld and we have decided that we will use two cameras so we have a wide range of angles incase one side appears better than the other. We are also going to keep the weather in consideration, so if the sun goes in or it begins to rain we will stop filming until it improves, to allow for the best quality we can achieve. 

StoryBoard

This is our storyboard, which we have created to follow when filming. We plan to start our music video with an establishing shot, to set the scene and mood of our genre of music and theme to our video. Next, we want to alternate between different location scenes of our model, paying the guitar and miming the song. The types of shots we are going to try and take are: establishing shot, high angle, low angle, close-up, extreme close-up, long shot and pan. 

Preparing for Filming

This is the model, Chloe, we have chosen to be our artist in the music video. We decided to use her because she has a unique quirky style that fits well with our country pop genre. She wears florals, knitted jumpers, blouses/shirts and skirts which suits our target audience and is the type of clothing associated with country pop. We further decided to use this model as our actor as she has quite a natural look about her and that is what we want to convey in our video. 

This is the camera me and my partner Laura plan to use to film our music video and to take the photos of our model for our poster advertisement and our CD digipak. It is a Nikon D3100 and is a proffesional SLR camera. We are going to use this to make our photographs look as proffessional as possible.

We plan to have our model's hair in different hairstyles throughout filming and in the photographs for our ancillary tasks. So we are going to use straighteners and curlers to create different hairstyles for our model. However we want to maintain a natural look throughout. Creating naturally tousled hair, straight and curly.

We are using this guitar as our man prop in our music video as it is the instrument most often associated with country pop. We want to use the guitar in many ways, such as being played by our model, set against a tree in the background, or loose across our models shoulder. We want to portray an effortless manner when our model is using this prop.

These are the clothes we have chosen to use in our music video. We have chosen a floral skirt, denim pinafore, polka dot shirt, yellow and white lace jumper, scalloped pastel shorts, check shirt, tube skirt, necklace and floral wristbands. We have chosen these clothes as we think they are quirky, colourful, and fit well with the type of audience who listen to this genre of music. 

This is one of our locations, five arches meadows, by my house. We have chosen this as our main location because we feel it really accentuates our country pop theme. We are going to film our model at this location, walking through the trees on the riverside, sitting on the bridge, with her guitar to try and make a quirky vibe.

Ideas for Filming (using lyrics) and Audience Feedback

I asked a 17 year old in my class, what she thought of these ideas for filming

 and her response was: I like the idea of fading the scenes together when editing,

to create smooth transitions between the different scenes. I like how your using the

lyrics to define what your scenes will have in them. However, I feel you need to

make it really clear to the audience what has happened in this girls relationship, as

your not having a male character in your video.

Music Video Planning

 

For mine and Laura's music video, we have planned to film it in a natural environment to really capture the 'country' element to our video. As the song involves acoustic instruments, we are going to use a guitar as our main instrument and get our model to act as if she's playing it while she mimes the lyrics. We are going to film our video in two or three different locations such as the meadows/woods, a pub and a bedroom. The song is quite reflective of memories so we plan to fade our scenes together; some will include her just singing with the guitar and others will be as a narrative.

  

 

Resarch into Industry and Practice

The music industry "consists of companies and individuals that make money by creating and selling music".
A record label is "a brand or trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music video". Within the music industry most recording artists have become reliant upon the record labels to widen their consumer base, market their products, and promote them on portable devices, radio, and television. Marketing their merchandise, and making it available in stores and other media platforms.

Record labels generate revenue by entering recording contracts with artists. The record label funds, markets, produces and distributes and in return recieves royalties when an artist sells their music.
Record Labels, can be small, localized and independent but more recently reffered to as 'major labels' Some major labels consist of: