Ancillary Task 2, Second Ideas

 

 

We have taken on board, the feedback we recieved about our first ideas, and we have completely changed the layout, pictures, text, fonts, entirely. We have chosen to use the same picture as our CD cover to show a clear link between the two products and make it recognisable to our audience. We used photoshop to create our advertisement, by adding layers and text centrally descending. We also decided to get two signatures of other famous artists whom are similar to our artist in genre, and used the crop and magic wand tool, to clear their orginal backgrounds and then overlay them onto our advertisement. We feel this adds a professional look to our advertisement. We are planning to add more changes to it and get audience feedback on this so far.

 

 

 

 

Ancillary Task 2, 3rd Ideas

So after the feedback on our first ideas,we decided to completely scratch the whole document and start over. We chose a photo that we previously hadn't decided to pick as an option, but after we used some editing tools on photo-shop, duplicated it and used the layering tool, to overlay them, we decided that this photograph was a good decision. We have now started to add text, dates, borders and bevelling techniques to enhance the font to improve the task. However, we are going to get our audience to feedback to us on what they think so far, incase we will have to start again.

Audience Feedback on Ancillary Task 2 Ideas

We have shown our ideas to a group of girls in our target audience and asked what they thought and the feedback we got was mainly negative. We anticipated this would be the case, as we didn't like it our selves. What we were trying to do was make our magazine advertisement colourful rather than, black and white similarly to our CD Cover, however from the comments we recieved we have changed our mind.

Negative Comments: Her name overlaps her head and doesn't look good
                                   The colours don't work you can't read the font clearly
                                   The dress is unflattering
                                   She looks really pale
                                   There's not enough text
                                   The page doesn't look proportions

Audience Feedback

In my previous post, I had made some questions I was going to ask our target audience and reflect on the results we recieve. Me and my partner showed a group of 25, 15 year old girls

We had mixed feedback on which CD cover they liked the most, they seemed to like them both but the overall verdict by one or two opinions was the 1st cover.

What they thought was sellable about the albums were:

positive comments: It's plain yet effective

                                It's different and has a strong impact on the audience

                                The mirror effect is powerful

                                It's appealing to the eye

                                The mirroring effect and the overlaping looks professional

                                It's emotive and not over done with words and colour

The final question we asked was 'what do they think a catchy name is in 'one word?'

Comments: Momentum
                   Moving On
                   The Other Side
                   Over You
                   Love Died

                   

Choosing our Album Name

We needed to choose an album name, that will match our Music Video and which is catchy in one word. We asked in our previous audience research for some ideas and the results we got were: momentum, Moving On, The Other Side, Over You and Love Died. However the only one we liked was Momentum, as we felt that it really reflects the theme of our video. Momentum means moving quickly, and this emulates the narrative of our video. (Which we are re-editing now) Our artist starts the video upset about her relationship and looking back on it, and as it progresses she realises quickly how bad their relationship really was and how she is going to move on now. So we feel Momentum, fits our song to our music video and also links to our choice of how we designed our CD Cover.

Target Audience Feedback

We are planning to show a group from our target audience, two of our ideas for our Album Front Cover, we want to know:

 

 Which one they prefer?

Why?

What it is they think is sellable about the album?

and

What do they think a catchy album name is in 'one' word which reflects the narrative of the video?

 

 

 

Ancillary Task 2- 1st Draft

 

These are just drafts/mock ups of some ideas for our magazine advertisent, we wanted to include our artists name at the top, in the same font asour CD cover to show a link to the audience, we also used the overlaying tools for our text so it blends with the colours of the picture. These are just some initial ideas but I'm not sure whether I like this so far as it is so different to our current draft of our CD Cover.

New CD Cover Ideas 2

 

We have researched some more CD Covers and we really like when album covers are in black and white, with the idea that 'the more simplistic the more effective' it is. We really like how Miley Cyrus' album cover just has a capital 'M' overlaying the image but also with a transparent effect so it doesn't blank out the image. We are going to try this with out photos and also try flipping the photo so it doubles up the picture. For example: (see below)

 

 

 

 

We think this is really effective as our narrative begins with our model being sad about her relationship and the way it is but as she goes through the song she sees how negative it actually is and she begins to become happy as she know's she is better without him. So this photo emulates this perfectly, the first picture facing the left shows her looking back at her relationship and then the second picture facing the right is her looking forward towards a better life, and we can see a slight smile on the models face. The effect is really powerful towards the audience and the faded effect shows a passing in time.

 

Using Photoshop me and my partner have started designing new cover ideas using the research above. Therefore we have started to use the layering tools to overlay text onto our picture. We have also used the blending tool to merge the two together and picmonkey.com to add effects over the top such as sun rays and the 'bokeh' effect to make our artist look like an icon/ star. We think these ideas are our strongest so far, we have also flipped the 'A' backwards and placed two next to eachother to create symmetry and patterns in the frame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have just created a possible inside left hand cover for our CD, I have chosen one of our favourite images from our photoshoot, and manipulated it by adding the lyrics to our music video onto it. I think the black and white font blends well with the image and the photograph is so powerful with our models eye contact straight at the audience and the atmosphere it creates is effective.

Feedback -Target Audience

We have again shown our 1st draft of our video to another group of girls this time aged 17-18, so a year or two older than our last target audience group and we asked them what their thoughts were. What was interesting, compared to the other focus group was the different type of feedback we recieved. For example a lot of their comments were a lot more critical and useful in order to help improve our videos understanding, rather than minor adjustments, they said:

What Went Well: the slow motion effect
                               good use of guitar
                               lovely scenery
                               laughing scenes are very atmospheric
                               good miming
                               the video suits the song

Even Better If's: mix of emotions (make the narrative clearer)
                             timing of some shots to improve the lip syncing

Compared to out last focus group, these peole thought we needed a clearer narrative as the lyrics weren't always clear with the types of shots we included. Therfore, we plan to clearly start the video with sadded slow motion shots, to emphasise she's looking back on her relationship/past and then as the video continues we show a gradual tansition into happier shots which portray her looking forward to her future without the negativity and without him.

Change of Artist Name

We have decided to change our artists name from Lola-Marie to Ava Marie, partly because we think Lola-Marie is too long when we want to add text and change the effects and also because with the new photos we've taken we think an 'A' will work really well with the layout of the image.

Ancillary Task 1- Audience Feedback

Expect to see:

 Picture of Artist (close-up or mid-shot)

Name of Artist

 Eye-catching colours
Special Effects

 

Colour Scheme: Black and White
or

pale pastel colours to compliment outdoor scenery in video clips

 

How should the Artists name be on the cover:

Central at the top
Central at the bottom

Diagonal across the top corner

 

What do they want from it:

Eye-catching that makes your Artist stand out
Simplicity
Not too busy, so there is too many distractions from the product itself

 

We are going to ask our target audience:

 

What they expect from to see on our Cover?

 

What colour scheme do they want after seeing our photos?

  

How should we have our Artists name on the cover?

 

What do they want from it?



 

New CD Cover Ideas

We have chosen our favourite image from our photo-shoot in the studio, and cropped it in a way that allows room for manipulation, we also think by cropping off her shoulder we get an effective composition which is pleasing to the eye. We have decided to change the quality to black and white to emphasise our models natural beauty and make her appealing to the audience. We have chosen this photo, because the lighting is strong and creates powerful tonal contrasts with her skin and the monotone effect. We have chosen this photo because as her eyes are closed as it links to the lyrics and it connotes the momentary pause before her emotional feelings saying 'just before goodbye'. However we don't think the photograph is powerful is enough to connect to her audience and the font we have chosen which has been flipped sideways, doesn't fit the Z effect and look right to the audience's eyeline. Also it isn't big enough, the 'IT' is lost into her hair and the colour doesn't look right.

Photo-shoot for CD cover and Magazine Advertisement

Yesterday, me and my partner Laura, used a white backdrop and studio lighting to create our photoshoot for our Ancillary Tasks. We got our model composed centrally within the frame, or slightly to one side, which in turn leaves us space around her for our manipulations. We styled our model with loose, natural, wavey hair to connote an effortless appearance, red lipstick which connotes femininity, and also an alluring aura to attract a male audience. We chose two, outfits one a pinky/red dress with a jewelled necklace and the other a burgandy/red jumper with a jewelled collar. We wanted to stick to a similar colour theme throughout so both our Ancillary tasks link and show a connection between our products to our audience.

 

 

 

For these two images, we composed our model into an uposed posture with a natural open mouth pose. We want to convey a simple, natural appearance to our audience which we think suits best to our country/pop genre. We have chosen bright coloured lipstick and clothing which can be linked to the over accentuated associations with pop, but wavey hair amd simplistic poses which give a calming aesthetic quality to the images. This can be linked to the laid back associations with country music. 

 

We also used the monotone effect for some of our photographs to empahsise the natural raw beauty of the model. However, I don't like the photo above because I feel it is too blurry and the lighting wasn't bright enough to be edited fully. I do like the model's composition within the frame and the laughter because it shows her as a happy role model.

 

I really like both of these photographs both in black and white and colour because our model has a fixed gaze directly to the audience, to engage them with her product.

The two photographs are two of my favourites from the shoot, as my model beholds an alluring facial expression attracting her audience. I like the central position in the frame as it is the main focal point and allows space to manipulate them with text for trial cd covers. I love the sharp detail throughout the picture (below) and the strong eye contact the model has with us. I think this is one of our most successful photos from the shoot with the most professional appearance.

 

 

 

I like the bright colours from her dress and necklace which compliment with her dark hair. I chose to leave this photograph in colour because I feel it has strong tonal contrasts and the models facial expression is really powerful adressing the audience. The lighting is really bright against her face and the backdrop which creates an aesthetic quality to the image.

 

I think this photograph could work quite well as the CD cover because the colours are strong and also she is smiling which completely changes the feeling of the viewers point of view. It interacts positively with the audience giving off a relaxed appearance which with the colours fits with our country/pop theme. 

 

For these two pictures we changed our models clothing to a burgandy/red jumper with a jewelled collar. We chose to stick to red because when choosing one for our cd cover and one for our magazine advertisement it will show a connection between the two products. I don't think our models facial expression works very well as she seems a bit confused, but I really love the photo below because I think with her eyes closed it is a really different composition and it seems like she is making a wish which could reflect the audience wanting to have the album.

 

Audience Feedback for our First Draft of our Music Video

We have now shown our first final music video to a group of 15-17 year old females, in our target audience, we have recieved their feedback and plan to take their advice and improve as much as possible in our video to what they have said.

This chart shows the four main ideas given in our feedback, our audience felt the the black trainer socks did not look good, some of the lip syncing was out of time with the music, some of the scenes looked like she wasn't playing the guitar properly and the dress could be twirlier when she is spinning.

Some of these ideas can be improved on, for example, we are re-editing some of our scenes to crop out the black socks whilst she spins, however we cannot re-film to put her in a bigger dress as the weather is no longer good enough to be outside. We are trying to edit out timings so the lip syncing is in sync more noticably and the we have cropped some guitar scenes where it looks as if she isn't playing it realistically.

CD cover production ideas

I have print-screened our process of creating our first ideas for our Front cover of our CD Digipack. We have used one of the pictures from our second stage of filming, and used photo-shop to enhance the image, adding a green filter and a subdued tint. We chose one of the fonts from dafont.com that we liked the most, and manipulated the text on photoshop by using the 'magic wand' tool to get rid of the background so the text was transparent over the picture, and changed the colour of the font to white. We are going to test a lot of the pictures we took from our filming but we also plan to take a photo-shoot in the studio against a white backdrop, to create a professional look. As we don't like the angle the photo was taken from as we feel it's unflattering to the model and we also don't like the large gap between the text.

This printscreen shows, I have started to test the layer style, by manipulating the contours, blending options and shadows, I feel this is going to start creating a proffesional appeal, by adding 3dimensional effects.

 

This is our second CD cover idea, we have chosen this picture as we feel it posesses an atmospheric quality with the sunlight on the water and trees in the background, and the bright glow from the models skin and hair. We have cropped this photo from its original size to fit the dimensions of the square cover. I have added another layer to insert the text, however for this one we have changed the font and kept the colour black, however we feel the black doesn't stand out against the trees and we will need to change it to a brighter colour to entice the audience.

Test Font for CD Digipack

 

 

We have started choosing possible fonts for our CD Digipack, and have used www.dafont.com to pick some. We want a thin width and a quirky style font in order to portray our country/pop theme. We have looked at some of these fonts above and decided we do not want a thick font because it looks to bulky for our genre, a bulky font would suit a R&B genre.

Fonts Research for CD Digipack

 

We are researching CD Cover fonts, for different genres of music to get the right idea of fonts to use. We have looked at R&B fonts which tend to be large, often in capital letters, bulky, and with sharp 3d edges. We do not like this appeal and feel it isn't suitable for our country pop genre as we want a thin, delicate/quirky font.

 

 

Katy Perry is a pop music artist, and I have noticed the trend for Pop music covers is curly font, bright lettering/ colours that fit the artist's music. We like the bright colours and the thin font, however we want less of a curly font and more unique to a typical girly font. The covers tend to give a basic idea about what music to expect, but they mainly reflect the artist's personality. The most effective covers have a main image which fills the whole cover with a simplistic font overlaying the image.

 

 

 

Nina Nesbitt is a country/pop artist, and the style of her music covers with a patterned background and simplistic, thin font is the type of cover we want to make ours like. We want plain colours and catchy font but an effective image, to really sell our product and artist.

 

Conventions for CD Digipack