Note To Moderator.

I have blogged my journey from start to finish, how other products influenced my creativity and the ways my ideas developed over time. In total I have 101 posts.  44 are research posts, 49 are planning and drafting posts and the remainder are drafts, final copies and answers to the evaluation questions. I have tried to make it clear which were group posts and which were individual. For some tasks we worked together equally.

(Group Post) - Evaluation Question 1.

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

L = Alisha Evans

B = Rebecca Reynolds

(Group Post) - Evaluation Question 2.

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

When creating our ancillary products we wanted to ensure we had synergy between them and the music video. To do this we used stills from our video in our ancillary products. We did this so our target audience would instantly recognise that all of the products belonged to the same artist (Morgan).

 Digipak

 The digipak we have created for our artist contains many similarities with our video:

Our video and digipak feature the same actress (Morgan). She can be seen throughout the video and digipak, therefore our target audience will automatically make connections between the two.

We have a picture page in our digipak which is commonly found in digipaks of this genre (see research). The pictures we have chosen to use are in a mixture of locations and some are stills from the music video, again helping our target audience make connections between them. The photographs we chose to use are mainly performance photographs which are in our video too so again our audience are able to make connections between the two.

We wanted the front cover of the digipak to really reflect the video so we chose a still from the music video. We chose this shot because she looks happy and youthful which represents our target audience. We used photo shop to enhance the light of this photograph and make the powder paint brighter. We also had to enhance her eyes because they were very dark, we know to draw our audience in she needs to be looking in to camera which she is doing.  

On our front cover we used a font called ‘Simply Glamorous’ for both the artist name and the album name. We picked this font because it is similar to the start of the video when we have a hand writing ‘Little Black Dress’ on the mirror. Underneath ‘Morgan’ we found a pink paint smudge (like the Troye Sivan album cover – see digipak planning) from this we took the opacity down so it didn’t look as ‘stuck on’, we also took the opacity down on the writing to make it look less fake on the front of the digipak.

The back of our digipak is a photograph of Morgan we took while shooting in the studio, we cut her out so we could put her on a powder paint background – which is a still from the music video. The photograph we picked is a slightly lower angle, to make her look empowered, which is also the concept behind our song Little Black Dress. 

The powder paint on the back of the digipak is pastel colours, which contrasts with the front cover but works with all the other photographs because she has a pastel pink dress on. Although the song is about a little black dress we wanted our target audience to see that she isn’t formal all the time. She is also youthful and girly.

The background of the lyrics pages is photograph from the behind the scenes. It is the floor after we had finished filming the powder paint fight. Again our audience will recognise the powder paint from the video. We chose the font for the lyrics because it is cohesive with our album cover, which in turn creates synergy with our video.

Behind where the CD goes we have a red lipstick stain. We chose to do this because she has red lipstick on for the album cover, she is also wearing red lipstick in the video and this is again because we are created synergy between the two.

   

    

Album Advert/Tour Advert

The album advert we have created contains similarities to our digipak and video.

The photograph we have used is the same as on the back of the digipak, creating synergy between the two. We also have a very similar background on it, just slightly toned down. This gives cohesion with our video because it is a still from the powder paint fight.

We used the same font for her name as her name on the album cover. We have chosen white writing with a black outline as Morgan’s logo because it is simple, which is one of the connotations of a little black dress. Although this writing doesn’t look like the writing we have in our video we have chosen it because it looks young and fun, like the video. This is her brand identiy.

For the name of the album on this advert we used a font called ‘Penelope Anne’. We also used this font for the website links on our digipak, and also at the bottom of this advert. This creates synergy with our video because it is the same font as the credits at the end.
Underneath this we have put the album cover, this gives a definite connection between the two for our target audience.

‘The next big pop star’ is writing in a font called ‘KB Sunshine bold’. This is the same font we have on our digipak for our track list. We have chosen the same fonts for our digipak and advert because our audience will recognise them no matter where they are.

For the tour advert we have kept the album cover on it to keep it connected to the digipak. We have also kept the blue writing, but changed the font to ‘Penelope Anne’; this creates a connection to our album advert.

    

  

(Group Post) - Evaluation Question 3.

What have you learned from your target audience feedback?

Q3evaluation updated from lishagallagher

(Group Post) - Evaluation Question 4.

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

This is a screen recording of how we put a vignette on our adverts. We chose to put on a vignette on the advert because we think it draws it all together, it also directs our target audiences attention to the photograph of Morgan which makes her more recognisable.

This screen recording of us using the spot healing tool. Although we didn't have to use it a great deal it played an important part in getting rid of unwanted objets in the background of photographs. We did use it to get rid of a few blemishes on her face to give her that flawless pop star image.

This is a screen recording of us using the pencil tool to fix her eyes. A lot of the photographs on our digipak are stills from the video, we did this to create synergy. But because of this some of them were not particularly good quality, as we learned in AS the audience are more drawn to something if they have eye contact. So we chose this shot as our album cover but edited her eyes slightly by colour picking the right shade of blue and taking the opacity right down, then doing the same for the black and then the white. Being able to see the white light in her eyes more makes them stand out and will in turn draw our target audience in more.

This screen recording is of us putting a transition on part of our video, we used a few transitions but for our genre we thought that cuts work better. There is a lot of quick beats in the song and it looked better if it was just a sharp cut. We have used transitions during the slower part of the song because it slows the video down to match the pace of the song.

 

These recordings is are how we cut shots and fixed the colour on them. The first video is how we colour corrected the first shot, but from this (second video) we could just copy and past the attributes of a shot, making all our performance shots the same colours. This was quite a challenge because we had 3 different cameras recording the performance shots and from different angles the lighting was different, it was difficult to get them all looking the same like conventional music videos.

This screen recording was of the most difficult part in our video, making day into night for the party scene. For this we used a 'spot' filter and make it dark and put a lot of contrast on it. If we could reshoot one thing in our video this would be it because it would look better if we filmed it at night, but then you would not be able to see the powder paint as well.

Final Music Video.

Finished MV

(Group Post) - Final Digipak.

Final Digipak and CD

This is our finished digipak. We have kept with the powder paint theme from the video and used stills from the video to create synergy between the two. 

(Group Post) - Final Adverts.

Final Album and Tour Adverts.

These are our two finished adverts. We chose to create an advert advertising her album and digipak and a tour advert for her because it is conventional for artists to have both things advertised at the same time. You can see our progression through making these adverts in our drafts. We chose to add a vignette on the advert because it draws your attention to the centre and to her.

(Group Post) - Merchandise (Clothing).

Tshirts

 These are two different designs of t-shirt we could include as part of Morgan's promotion package. By giving fans the opportunity to buy clothing with her name on, not only will it produce more money but also make Morgan more well known. Clothing and other merchandising products would be sold on her website. On the designs we have tried to keep the colours and fonts synergetic with the video and digipak.

Video Rough Cut 2.

Rough Cut of Video

This is our second rough cut of our video. We have almost finished it, we have a few shots to change and we would like to put a few more performance shots in to shorten some of the longer shots.

(Group Post) - Advert Idea 2 Draft 2.

Advert 2 - Draft 2

We have added the digipak cover to our advert to create synergy between the two products. We also changed her name from black to white so it matches the digipak cover. All of her social networking links have also been added because our target audience are very internet based - hence mentioning iTunes too.

(Group Post) - CD for Digipak.

Digipak CD.

This is our CD, this will go in our final digipak.

(Group Post) - Digipak Idea 2 Draft 3

Digipak 2 - Draft 3

This is our 3rd draft for our 2nd digipak. I think this is almost finished, we just need to create a CD for it too. I think this flows with the video because of all the powder paint, also the front cover is a still from the video. 

(Group Post) - Digipak Idea 2 Draft 2.

Digipak 2 - Draft 2

We have developed our second idea further and incorporated ideas from the first idea too. We changed the red lipstick smudge to pink so it would fit in with the pink powder paint on her face. 

(Group Post) - Digipak Idea 1 Draft 3.

Digipak 1 - Draft 3

(Group Post) - Digipak Idea 2 Draft 1.

Digipak 2 - Draft 1

This is the unfinished draft of the second idea of our digipak.

(Group Post) - Digipak Idea 1 Draft 2.

Digipak 1 - Draft 2

This is the second draft for the digipak, as you can see we changed the background of the track listing to powder paint, and put a banner of photographs on it because digipaks conventionally have a lot of photographs in them. We have used the same powder paints behind the lyrics so it all flows together, we still need to sort the front cover out.

(Group Post) - Digipak Idea 1 Draft 1.

Digipak 1 - Draft 1

This is our first draft for the digipak. We have tried to stick to our plan (See previous post) but a few bits have been changed, like having a picture behind the writing. I think that the front cover needs to be changed because it is her debut album, the audience are unable to see her eyes which makes them less engaged to it. I also think that the picture behind the track list is too much.

(Group Post) - Planning the Digipak.

Digipak

We have done the first very very rough copy of an idea for the digipak.

On the front cover of the cd this was one idea. We could get a shot similar to the one Becky got last year (see screenshot) only more recent and hopefully better quality now that we have developed our photography skills. 

We were thinking that one look that is quite new and fresh is the look of having the artist's name printed across their eyes which we like because it could have so many different connotations. To show a more professional idea of what we mean we have managed to find another photo similar.

This is a photo by Troye Sivan which sprang to mind when this idea came to us. I think we will take a different look but it will be inspired by this photograph

We are following the conventions on the back cover by including a track list. Becky made up some song titles just for this draft so they may change. We are also thinking of having a banner across the top with different shots of Morgan on set.

On in the inside we would have the lyrics to Little Black Dress because that's the headlining track. Again, I think it could look quite effective having a banner with photographs of Morgan. 

We need to do a photo-shoot to get photos for the digipak. On the side that the CD goes on one idea is that we could include a red lip stain on a black background as this links to the lyrics of Little Black Dress and it is feminine but also fits the indie-pop genre.

(Group Post) - Advert Idea 2 Draft 1.

Advert 2 - Draft 1

This is another advert draft we made. It is very simplistic and the cutting out hasn't been done very carefully. We like the idea of the powder paint shot from the music video behind her is this is likely to be used in our final advert. The colours all compliment each other and they create synergy with the music video which would make people more likely to purchase the album.

(Group Post) - Advert Idea 1 Draft 1.

Advert 1 - Draft 1

This is our first draft of an advert for our new star. It is very basic at this point but it is the rough idea of what we are going to do for our final advert.

(Group Post) - Planning The Advert.

Advert Plan

This is the first hand drawn draft of a promotional advert that would be in another magazine. We are going to copy this onto Adobe Elements 11 with a photo of Morgan.