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