Advertisement Draft 4

This was going to be the final version of the advertisement for our band's new album until we found just a few more flaws with it. Just as with the digipak and with the video, this page also has a mostly purplish colour theme.

Since the last draft, the image has been changed to one we thought better suited the overall look of the advertisement. Other than that, not much has changed other than the extra added detail here and there.

Final Digipak

This is the completed version of our digipak. As you can see, our digipak is not a standard four-sided case, but a six sided one. The top three images are upside-down so that, when printed they will fold in the correct way. The sides (In order from top-left to bottom-right) are:

Inside-left cover, disk image, inside-right cover, outside-extra, outside-rear, outside-front.

We are rather proud of our finished product as we think the purple colour-theme and the various themes used reflect out music video and our message really well.

Music Video - Almost Final

This here is the very last draft of our group's music video. Only a few more tweaks are needed

Digipak Template

While thinking of ideas to help improve our work, our group had the excellent idea of turning our digipak from a standard album layout to a six-sided album. The image below is the template that our digipak will be designed on from now on.

Music Video - Rough Cut 3

This is the third rough cut of our music video. At this point our music video was near completion, with just over two minutes of the three-and-a-half minute song complete.

Group Meetings

Every Sunday after filming is when we planned to have a group meeting and discuss the production and what is changing as we don't have much time to discuss and have a group meeting inside college...

9/11/2014:

Today we reviewed our music production so far and decided we needed to focus more on performance as a lot of the storyboard and planning has been put into this and we have less of an opportunity to film in this part of the Media Project because of timings and when we are allowed to film in college etc. Most of our efforts are going into the capturing and making sure we get each shot just right so the quality doesn't suffer.

16/11/2014:

We both discussed our opinions on receiving peer feedback both of us agreed that although we had the quality for good feedback so far, we didn't have the quantity of clips so we started thinking of prioritising, capturing more clips in a shorter amount of time to make a stable progression which we can keep track of to the final product and deadline day.

23/11/2014

This discussion was mainly our thoughts on the second rough cut and the fact that our editing was a great asset we should take advantage of in the production as this makes the music video a lot more dynamic and interesting as opposed to regular clips were we do not apply shakes and grainy effects and adds to the overall dark tone.

7/12/2014

This discussion was prioritising that we need to start getting more clips as the deadline day is far too close and we need to focus on getting the clips onto final cut and editing as we simply do not have enough time to be filming after next Friday so we're going to do as much as we can.

Music Video - Rough Cut 2

This is our second rough cut for our music video. More of the actual footage has been added, and previous footage and effects have been improved since the last rough cut.

Digipak Draft 3

This is the third draft of our album's digipak and is likely going to be very similar to the final design. Even with all of these improvements, we still do not have a design for the thin side label of the album yet. Also, we have designed an extra two sides as we decided that our album is going to be a six-sided album. 

Advertisment Draft 3

After a lot more improvements, the advertisement ended up looking like this. The plain purple background image was given a texture to help the advert to not look so boring. The size of the image was also reduced and more text was added to the bottom of the page. This text is fairly large and a bright white colour to stand out from the dark background image. This is to make the text stand out and catch peoples eyes when they look at the image so that they read it. The image was finally added in too.

Draft Digipak 2

This is the second version of our album's front cover, not much has changed other than a few small edits. The colour of the album's title has changed and the record label has been added to the top left corner.

The second draft of our album's rear cover is pretty similar to the original except that the list of songs has been moved to the top of the image and the record label has been removed.

 Our second disk cover has changed pretty drastically from the original. The disk changes colour from bright orange to purple from the centre outwards and the band name and album title have been added on the left and right sides of the disk. This version is a pretty drastic improvement from the original

This is the inside cover for our album, this image is what you will see on the left side when you open up the album. It just has a distorted texture on it and a mix of purple, black, red and white with the record label in the very centre.

Even with all of these improvements, we still do not have a design for the thin sides of the album cover yet.

Draft Digipak 1

These images here are our very first drafts for our album's digipak. It is not yet completed and only contains the disk, front cover and rear cover. Other covers will be added later and the current ones will most likely be tweaked.

This is the first version of our disk. As you can see it has no text on it yet but it has an image of all three band members playing which we thought was quite effective. The image has been given a slightly purple tint and an effect overlay around the edges.

This image is out very first front album cover. It contains the name of the band and of the album over a modified image. The image here is a purple background with red blood spots and a white coffee stain effect around the text. This looks quite good as it highlights the text and brings attention to it.

This is the first rear cover for our album. It is an image of all three band members posing, covered by a purple tint and a black coffee stain overlay. Our record label is in the top right corner and a list of songs in the album is listed vertically on the left side of the image.

Music Video - Rough Cut 1

This here is the first rough cut for our group's music video. Please keep in mind that it is a VERY rough cut, fonts and effects will most likely be changed in the end video. Although this video is over three minutes long, there is actually only video for about thirty seconds, the remaining length is just the music.

Advertisement Draft 2

After a bit more designing, the main frame for our advertisement turned into the image below. As you can see, the song and album titles were moved to the top of the page. The blood drip image was also moved to the top of the page to give the effect of blood dripping over the image of the band.

Advertisement Draft 1

While designing the advertisement for out album/song, we went through multiple stages where we changed ideas multiple times. Pretty quickly, we decided that the basic frame for our advertisement would be this image here. Even though this will probably be changed, it will probably still be similar to our final product.

Testing Fonts

Testing the variety of fonts available through Photoshop such as Arial, Arial Bold, Cambria for the Digipak and Advert, which proved to be difficult in making a decision as they are mostly plain and do not really suit the dark theme of our brand and products. So some researching online for different fonts was carried out in order to find a new one which would be suitable to use for both the Advert and Digipak, establishing further brand identity through the use of the same font on all products.

Upon further research, it was agreed that the Chiller font (Found here) was suitable for our Digipak and Advert as it looks like an interesting font which can catch the eye and go well alongside a dark theme and colours.

An example of the font we are going to use

Choosing the song

When me and Dan were choosing the song for our media project, the decision was not an easy one. Initially (As evidenced by some of my early posts on this blog) we were going to do the song 'One Week' by the 'Barenaked Ladies', though we ultimately decided against this to go with our current (and final) song 'I'll sleep when I'm dead' by 'Set It Off'. We changed our mind because when planning our video for One Week, we realised that creating a contextual music video for a happy, fast-paced song whose lyrics make no sense and follow no pattern is extremely difficult.

When deciding initially, we really wanted to do a very happy song. And when we decided to change songs, we still really wanted to do a happy song. Though unfortunately, none of us could think of a happy song that would be within our capabilities.

Eventually, Dan thought of the song 'I'll sleep when I'm dead' and we both agreed that it would definitely be within our capabilities (As a two-man group with our creative abilities) to make a music video for. Even though it is not particularly agreeable with either of our music tastes, we are both thoroughly enjoying the creative process.

Casting

Choosing a cast took a lot of time and effort, both the contacts Daniel and Sam were to contact were few and between especially with the requirements for the music video. 

Daniel's first go-to choice for casting was Thomas as he presented a talent in already playing the guitar. This would help a lot with the process as he was willing to learn the song and what the actual guitar playing looks like when playing. Contacting Tom was easy since he is in the same Media lesson, so he was simply approached and asked if he would partake in our Media project. He accepted and we had him give us a demonstration of his acting in the performance sense as we needed to see if he could express himself and move around a lot. So overall Tom was ready to be the guitarist in the performance part of the video.

The second choice for casting was Will as he was also a musician, into playing guitar and bass so we figured his talents could be useful. This went well in the initial stages with him agreeing to take part and perform in our music video, however he eventually became more busy and it was for the benefit of the production that we decided to hire someone else who could be more consistent and show up.

The third choice for casting was Alex who was also a Media student and close friend of Tom and Dan so the loyalty and consistency to him showing up wasn't really a problem in this sense and he seemed willing to perform in this production. We did see how well he could perform as he doesn't play any instruments in real life so putting him on the drums was an obvious choice for us as we could simply have him match the beat and not have to worry about the details quite as much.

Daniel volunteered to play two major roles, being the singer and the main character in the narrative as it is very easy for Daniel too act expressively and perform when singing and has already had practise with the lip syncing videos. This also allowed for the narrative to be filmed at Daniel's house so we had easy access to film after college in our spare time. We had the idea that I go through several shots too see how well I can perform as these two roles and it went well.

Animatic

This is the animatic for our music video. Please keep in mind that although this is a rough plan which we will attempt to follow but is not set in stone. During filming we may get new ideas which will cause us to change the actual music video.

Storyboard

*Note, due to the loss of the first two pages of the storyboard, they have been revised on Photoshop.

Call Sheets

These are just a few call sheets for our first few filming times, we will not be doing call sheets for every single time we film

First Call Sheet
The first call sheet is for Monday the 20th of October. On this date Dan and I will be filming some scenes for the narrative section of our music video at his house.


Second Call Sheet:
The second call sheet is for Tuesday the 21st of October. On this date Dan and I will be filming scenes for the narrative section of our music video at his house.


Third Call Sheet:
The third call sheet is for Wednesday the 22nd of October. On this date Dan and I will be filming scenes for the narrative section of our music video at his house.

Risk Assessment/Recce Report

Props List

14th October 2014:
For our music video, there are multiple things that our group is needing to buy in order to make our music video stand out. The first things we bought were:

• Coleman CPX 6 4D Ultra High LED Spotlight
• Traditional Alarm Clock - Silver - 13cm 32376
• Smiffy's Guy Wig (Black)

18th October 2014:
Today we bought a few more things for our music video:

• 4 Packs of ASDA fake blood
• 2 Packs of ASDA Paracetamol tablets
• 2 Packs of ASDA Ibuprofen caplets 

Foo Fighters - Advert Analysis

You Me at Six - Digipak Analysis

Bowling For Soup - Detailed Music Video Analysis

Audience Profile

Audience Profile

From our audience research survey, we got a pretty good idea of our target audience. We didn’t get a whole lot of replies, but the ones we did get absolutely did follow a trend. Our research seemed to show that:

• It is mostly males who enjoy this kind of music.
• A large amount of our audience is in the ‘teen’ age range (Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen) although there were a few entries between thirty-one and forty-four. This shows that our genre of music appeals to a large range of groups, but is definitely more common among teens.
• Most of the people who like our song seem to have common interests in the genres of Dubstep, Rave, Metal and Blues.

Judging from these results and other information that we have gathered, our average audience member seems to be a teen male who listens to a rather large amount of music. Our audience seems to like fast-paced, high-impact music with a fast beat and an exciting tone.

This is a description of Bob, our average audience member; He is seventeen years old and spends most of his time either at college or at home. When he is at college he tends to hang out with his friends, most of which have similar interests to him and when he is at home he spends most of his time listening to music or playing video games. In his bedroom, Bob has adorned his walls with posters of his favourite bands and albums. Bob’s favourite bands are Set It Off, Avenged Sevenfold, Thirty Seconds To Mars and Mayday Parade, posters of these bands and their albums adorn his walls, covering almost every inch. The video games he likes to play are mostly violent video games like shooters or action games. At college, the subjects he takes are Photography, Music and Media Studies.

 Here is a list of Bob’s favourite songs:

‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead’ By ‘Set It Off’

‘I’d Rather Drown’ By ‘Set It Off’

‘Miserable At Best’ By ‘Mayday Parade’

‘The Kill’ By ‘Thirty Seconds To Mars’

‘Attack’ By ‘Thirty Seconds To Mars’

Audience Research Survey

Treatment Sheet

Lyrics Breakdown

Initial Ideas Mood Board

Created with Padlet

Oasis Advertisement Analysis

Oasis Advertisement Analysis from Sammeh

Permission Request

The Gaslight Anthem Advert Analysis

Advert analysis, the gaslight anthem from g321danielhutchinson

Kings of Leon Digipak Analysis

Digipak analysis – kings of leon from g321danielhutchinson

Buddy Holly Video Analysis

Odds Are Music Video Analysis

Imagine Dragons Digipak Analysis

Radiohead Advertisement Analysis

Radiohead Advertisement Analysis from Sammeh

Smash Mouth - Nine Frame Analysis

30 Seconds to Mars - Nine Frame Analysis

Just click near the text on the Prezi if you can't read the text properly or go full screen.

Shot Count

For the shot count analysis, I chose the song 'One Week' by Barenaked Ladies. This is a very fast paced song and because of this has a large amount of camera shots. Upon analysing the video, I counted that the music video for this song has 150+ different shots, all of varying types. This music video has an insanely wide variety of shots in such a short amount of time, but more than anything it seems to have a lot of close-up shots. Lots of frantic close-ups give the video a very frantic and sporadic look.

This is the video that my group are doing a music video for, and we've learnt anything from the official music video for it is that we cannot be lazy, it cannot be slow paced, it must be very fast.

Personal Skills Audit

Personal Skills Audit                                             Name: Samuel Steven Neesam

	Skills acquired	How did these skills contribute to the creation of your product?	How will you develop these skills during the A2 project?
Digital technology -       What equipment/software packages did you use to produce your production?	When doing work for my blog, I learnt how to use the website ‘Slideshare’ to try to make my blog a tad more visual. For the creation of our short movie, I learnt how to use the video editing software ‘Adobe Final Cut’. I also learnt how to use some basic functions of Photoshop they were not used at any point during production.	If I didn’t learn how to use Adobe Final Cut, I would have had to use another video editing program to edit our short movie. Slideshare helped make my blog a bit more varied, and Photoshop didn’t contribute to anything.	If needed, I will continue to use those programs for my A2 project and will continue to learn more about them.
Post production -       What software did you use to create your production? -       Discuss specific features of the software.	In post production, the only software I really used was Adobe Final Cut to continue to edit our short film.	If I didn’t know how to use Adobe Final Cut, I would have had to use another video editing program to edit our short film.	If needed, I will continue to use Adobe Final Cut during my A2 project and will continue to develop my skills with it.
Research and Planning -       What tasks did you complete when preparing to film your sequence? -       How did your planning help the smooth progression of your film?	Before starting our film, we did a lot of research particularly on camera angles and music. We tried to learn what kind of music and camera angles would be the most suitable for our film. The planning itself was actually quite scattered and production started without much planning.	The research on Camera angles really helped, if anything it made us realise we needed a broad range of shots in our short film. Without doing much camera research I suspect our movie will have been very bland.	When creating our music video, I’ll have to use a video camera to film that. I’m sure that during the time I use it I’ll continue to develop more skills with it.
Using conventions of real media texts -       Which texts did you analyse? -       Did you take any inspiration from the conventions found from your research?	As a group we analysed the opening sequences of multiple movies, but no research was taken that really helped with our product at all. The only thing we really learned was what kind of music would be suitable for our short film.	We were able to choose a suitable piece of music for our short film.	For my A2 project, I will definitely have to do a lot more research of other music videos to assist in the creation of ours.
Creativity - Were your ideas for your portfolio imaginative and unique or did you adhere to conventions?	We had a couple unique ideas, such as that the movie was filmed in mostly a first-person perspective	Making our short film mostly from a first-person perspective really helped to make it unique and have a very different feeling from other more conventional horror films.	In our A2 project, I am sure we will try hard to come up with some more unique ideas in an attempt to make our music video stand out.