MYSPACE

Preview of our final Myspace!

ALBUM COVER

Above is our final album cover!

Reflections of our evaluation

The video evaluation we did the other day was a new experience for me, as I had never done one before. I am so use to having to write an essay and be marked on that, that the concept of a video evaluation was all very new to me.
        At first I thought it was going to be horrific as I dislike public speaking a lot and the thought of having to sit there and talk to a camera really scared me.
I didn't stop complaining, wishing miss had just given us an essay to write instead!


However... having completed it I don't even know why i was worrying so much. It was much easier to begin the discussions than I first thought. And with the experience of having done it once, im pretty sure I would feel much more confident doing it again.
      I think it's a great way to evaluate our work as some things are hard to say in words, this way we were able to discuss our point, analyse it with suitable references and then evaluate it as a group.


Take back asking for an essay now!
It was funnnnn :)

Evaluation (4)

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

 

Above is a clip of our question 4 evaluation in full. I think we answered this question well, the use of technologies was and still is a major aspect for completing our three media products.

Above are two picture of my group and I with all the technology we used when constructing our project. As you can see we didn't use much equipment when out filming, this is because we went for natural light and also as we were travelling around quite a lot we decided to try and be as lightweight as possible.

Question 4, here we spoke about the techonologies that we used throughout our project. Without these techonologies we would've found it extremely hard, if not, impossible to construct our project. The interenet was a main component when researching our videos, myspace and song. Without it we wouldn't have been able to look up conventions and analyse numerous other album covers, it was a great help that we could because it meant we were able to include all the specific conventions that are needed to make good ancillary texts.

Some technologies we used:

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  Internet- google, youtube
  
  
  
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  Sony Digital SLR
  
  
  
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  Tripod
  
  
  
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  Song HDD camcorder
  
  
  
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  Adobe Photoshop CS3
  
  
  
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  Adobe Permier pro CS3
  
  
  
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  Myspace
  
  
  
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  Blogger
  
  
  

Evaluation (3)

Audience Feedback



For our audience feedback we decided the best way to get data from them and find out what they really think is to put a questionnaire together and ask relevant questions.
As shown in a post below, there is my reflections on what i think of our audiences feedback.

When discussing this question I think we did it very well, because we were all happy with the outcome of the audience feedback we were able to talk for a while on our screening. The feedback session was really good and we managed to get some really good answers.
Above is a clip of our evaluation for this question in full!

Evaluation (2)

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

This question was one of mine that I had to plan for. At first I found it quite hard to think of what to write, however after a while i realised that the common features between the three products are actually what makes our combination work effectively.

Again, we all spoke about the sections equally, I probably spoke most about the myspace and how the colours between all three work really well with eachother and it is this that promotes Skye's image and branding.

I am happy with this question, but do think we could've answered it better. Firstly, we didn't actually have the album cover up ready to make reference too which made it much more difficult when trying to discuss it. Therefore meant we ended up wasting time trying to find it and losing our focus on the question slightly.

Secondly, I think here we seemed to repeat ourselves numerously, instead we could have perhaps made our point quicker and saved ourselves time for other questions.

As you can see above, this is a clip of our actual evaluation and what we discussed in detail.

Evaluation (1)

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

In question 1, we all split up the planning of each media product (myspace, album cover, music video), this meant that whoever did what factor would start the discussion of that media product. Here we spoke about what conventions we used for each media product and how we may have developed them or challenged ourselves.


Above is a small clip of our question one, however you can find the full version of this on our GROUP BLOG!
I was to do the planning for the Myspace, and it was my task to talk about how we developed, used or challenged the conventions for this. I started off the question and think we answered it well, for our planning we had all written seperate sheets on each topic for planning. And so even though we did our individual planning we had bullet pointed numerous points in order to make it easier to prompt each other on what to say.
We did this with all sections of question one. I think we answered the question well and included all the components of the question successfully. I think because as a group we picked out points to say seperately, we all equally spoke about whether or not we followed the conventions.

Overall, i think we did our evaluation well and covered all the points that needed to be.
In a couple of posts below you will be able to see our planning for this question.
Below is a clip of our evaluation....

Here we made reference to numerous items.

Crying Blood- VV Brown, Empire state of mind- Jay Z, Charlotte Church- Moodswings

Below is Empire state of mind- one of our few examples.

Also, for Goodwins theory of the notion of looking we made reference to our reaction shots and a frame within a frame shot of Sian.

Additionally to Goodwin's theory we made references to the use of musics and visuals, we used this lots thoroughout our video. Below is a short example of the theory lyrics to visuals, where Skye is wiping away a heart on a steamed window, implying a broken heart and lostlove.



Also through editing we changed the speed of numerous shots in order to make them work well with the beat of the music.

A few album covers we looked at where The Saturdays, VV Brown, Lily Allen
As shown below...

Myspace

As we need to do a website as part of our project we decided to make a band Myspace. I haven't used Myspace in quite a while and especially not band websites so i decided to look up a couple that are most relevant to our artist and look at the style and layout of their sites.

Two that I tended to get quite a lot of inspiration from where Katy Perry and Lily Allen :)

• http://www.myspace.com/katyperry
• http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic

Common things:
* black background
*banner to promote album
*numerous MV streamed
*bright colours from pictures
*blog entries

Bearing that in mind, we tried to incorporate as many of these conventions as possible because our artist is too a female solo artist.

Editing: 21/11/09

A quick update on my editing is going. I think we have done some really good progress, we have now finished our sequence, well we filled in all the shots anyway .

Need to do:

• Get miss to give feedback on our project
• Grading all the shots
• Change the contrast of them all

Also, whilst we are finishing off the small touches to the video we were also starting up our website (Myspace) and also starting the album cover (digipak).

As there are 3 of us in our group we thought it would be a good idea to split up these 3 tasks to do;
Tom- because he is more experience at Photoshop started the Album cover
Hannah and I- then alternated between doing the Myspace and carrying on with editing on the Video.

This makes it easier to make sure everything is atleast practically finished before the deadline.

Editing

The editing is going really, we have a few gaps left now but haven't quite decided what shots we are going to put where.
Having so much footage and so many takes made it a lot harder to pick a couple of shots that we liked and edit them in, because there were many that we really liked.

Also, in our music there are numerous parts where there are 3 quick beats.
So we decided to write down how often and where these came in.
We thought this was the best way to go through our footage and find the shots we are looking for.

This is when we edited the 3 fast tight cut shots of Sian in the pink jumper.
And after getting our feedback it was a shot that many of our target audience liked!

Evaluation- 9.12.09

On the 9th december we did our evaluation, i think it went really well, we managed to discuss the questions for a significant amount of time. I think all factors that needed to be covered were, we split up the roles equally and nobody seemed to talk over anyone throughout the filming which was good. We all managed to discuss roughly an equaly amount and decided that individually we should rate each part of the project; myspace, music video and album cover.
We then at the end gave our individual mark and opinion on how we thought the overall project went.

All in all, im glad the evaluation is finally finished and we can now move on the finishing up our last minute notes and putting everything together.

Evaluation

As we are doing our evaluation in a couple of days, we know we need to start planning for it and making sure we are all aware of what content to say. To ensure we had all the information covered we split up different sections between the three of us. We all took either questions 2, 3 or 4 and with the first question we split it up between Music video, Myspace & Album cover.
This made things much easier and meant we didn't all have to complete everything. Once we finished all the sections and  typed them up, we then printed them all off and looked through the questions. This was so we all had a rough idea of what needs to be said and to make sure as a group we are covering all aspects that need to be.
On the 9th we have numerous frees/ lesson, which gives us time eaith individually or as a group to run through everything and feel a bit more relaxed for when it comes.

Audience Feedback

After looking through all 19 questionnaires (14 girls&5 boys) we wrote up what we got from them and how they helped us. The range of question we asked were good because it allowed us to know straight up who liked it and who didn't, and why they had their reasons.

(1) Everybody we asked said the video looked proffessional.
Many of the reasons for this were:

• The changing clothes
• effects
• the fact there was so much going on
• it was eye catching
• quirky
• fun
• bright colours

(3) Strangely, in reference to question 3, two music videos that came up were Kesha- Tik Tok and Duffy- Warwick Avenue. This was good because these were definitely two references that we had considered when choosing effects (black&white) and deciding on our narrative (taxi).

(4) The majority of our audience seemed to understand that our music video was performance and concept based.  People identified the themes of our video being; lost love- break up, London, femininity and youth, independance and fun.
    
(5) It was really good that they got the genre. Some even specified retro pop/alternative pop. This is good it meant we successfully put our genre across.

(6) words that came up frequently when talking about Skye's identity were quirky, likeable, young, pretty, individual, appealing, fun to watch, original, fashionable, flirty/sexy

(7) They listed a lot of mainstream music channels that it would be shown on such as 4music, MTV, The Box, TMF, The Hits, MTV hits, NME, Q

(8) They listed a lot of mainstream magazines that it would be reviewed in such as Time Out, Smash hits, mainstream music, NME, Glamour

(9) When asked if they wanted to watch it several times over 74% said yes, 10% said no, 16% said maybe – which I think are pretty good results.

(10) About half of our audience said they would spend money to download the single

(11) Some of our audiences favourite moments included the clothes changing, the split screens, the end shots, a lot of people liked the reaction shots, and loads of people loved it when Skye danced with the random guy.

(12) When asked for criticisms people noticed that some of it was out of sync, they thought the change from b&w to colour was too sudden, they wanted more retro clothes, more random people in the video and one person didn’t like Sian’s green lips on the album cover.

(13) Everyone said they liked the album cover and MySpace and that it fitted well with the video. They said it fits perfectly. It glamorous, it looks very professional and the SKYE cover is great.


I think our audience feedback session was a great success, we got some really good comments back, and the criticisms were things we were either aware of already or weren't too hard to change.

Audience Feedback

Now our main product and ancillary texts are completed, the final thing we need to do is get our target audience in for a screening and get their views on all 3 products :)

In order to know what our audience really think, we decided to make a questionnaire, this way we could work out the common comments/criticisms that occured and know what needs changing.

1) Does the video look like a music video - if so in what way



2) Does it entertain you - if so how


3) What other music videos would you compare it to


4) Can you describe the narrative, theme or concept of the video


5) What is the genre of this music video


6) Can you tell us anything about the identity of the artist AND do you find her appealing…if so, why


7) Which music channel would you expect to see this playing on


8) Which music magazine might it be reviewed in


9) Would you want to watch it several times over


10) Would you be willing to spend money to download this single


11) What was your favourite moment in the video


12) Do you have any criticisms – (be honest)


13) Do you like the look of the Album cover and Myspace – do they fit with the video

We booked our screening with the teacher yesterday lunchtime, and it was a great success as we managed to get 19 questionnaires filled in which was a sufficient amount of people because it meant we have more data to work with.

Question 2 planning

It was one of my tasks to plan for question 2 and so I did some research back into all three products.

Ok so for our project we had to produce a main product (music video) along side a website (Myspace) and an album cover (digipak). Having finished all three products it is evident that work very well together, from the colour schemes to the way Skye is presented in all three.
From looking over the video I realised the constant bright colours in the costumes and graffiti around Bricklane, we thought it would be ideal to incorporate both aspects in the ancillary texts. This way Skye has a constant image and branding, which fans will remember and associate with her.

The video, shows Skye as a fun, young, quirky female who enjoys being independent, and by dancing round London shows she is able to move on from things and enjoy herself. They will see it and think if she can do it then so can we, this image of Skye really helps when trying to appeal to or female target audience. Additionally, although we didn't try and put across a voyeuristic image, we managed to anyway because she is an attractive female.
Myspace, again has all the bright colours and artwork from the album cover, this is working alongside the album cover because both products include this image. The pictures uploaded onto her page work with the promotion of her new single because people with see the images from the shoot, see how exciting it looks and therefore go and download her single.
The album cover has numerous images of Vinyl records on it which promotes the genre of the song.

Overall, I think our combination is very effective because they all portray a strong brand and image of Skye. The Myspace gives a bit more depth into her personal life, however has the artwork from the album and has the music video streamed onto it. The album cover shows an image of her on her shoot as well as 4 completely different images of her on the front cover, which show many different components of her personality to the audience. Finally, the music video portrays her as a young female who is outgoing and wants to go out and have fun. Swinging round lampposts and dancing down Bricklane, isn't a usual activity for people to do and so people like watching it because it makes them laugh and some part of them wishes they had the confidence to do it too. One part of our video that our target audience seemed to really enjoy was when she starts singing with the guy in the road; this was completely spontaneous which is why it works so much better.

Question 1

Myspace
Here we looked through numerous other solo female artists and compared them. This way we were able to pick out the common conventions and use them when constructing our Band Myspace. I think here we used the forms and conventions well, and don't think we developed or challenged them in any way, this was mainly because a Myspace can't be a differentiated as a music video because the website needs to include specific information such as; videos, gig dates, photos, blog entries and a paragraph about herself.
Our Myspace is again very distinctive with Skye's personal style and image. We decided to put our front cover artwork as our banner on the website, this was because it not only looks good but it plays a part in promoting Skye's new album release. This way helping with the cross platform marketing strategy, all media products help to promote each other in different ways and all do the same job of selling Skye's branding and identity. We also put a personalised headline banner in which promotes her single 'Chick Habit', it is orange and flashes, therefore immediately attracting the viewers eye. Because of the use of numerous bright colours, we thought the background will need to contrast with all the colours which is why we chose a simple black background.

We even added personal pictures of Skye's everyday activities, this way it is letting her fans keep an update on what she is doing, it is so so important to keep the fans updated and letting them know what Skye is getting up to, because it is them that are going to spend money on her products. If they are't happy then Skye can't do well, so her label need to make sure they are pleasing the fans and giving them what they want. Additionally, we added in a paragraph saying a little bit about herself and also a blog entry which talks about her day of shooting 'Chick Habit'. We also added in a few of upcoming gigs, as to let the fans know where she's going to be and when. The venues where Skye is performing really suits her image and the genre she sings, she will be performing in small bar places such as, Camden's KOKO.

Below are a couple of female artist's Myspace's we looked at for inspiration:

http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic

http://www.myspace.com/katyperry

http://www.myspace.com/vvbrown

Music Video
We spoke about how we decided to use performance and concept throughout the video specifically. We thought we would challenge the conventions by only including a short narrative sequence at the beginning of the sequence. Many videos we looked at, incorporated a narrative throughout their video. However we decided against that because our song was very repetitive in the first place, it meant we would have to have a great narrative. And unless it was worthy enough, it could ruin our video. The narrative at the beginning also gives the audience something to draw into, they want to see more cos the narrative brings the audiences to asking questions, 'who is the woman?'. 'Why is she in a taxi?', it is these questions that keep the audience intrigued.

When we first chose our song we new because it was repetitive we will need to do something unique and upbeat in order to keep the audiences interests going. Therefore, we came up with the pitch of having a young blonde female dancing/running around London. We thought this was a really good idea as it wont be the same throughout the video and it means we can choose a couple of hot spot areas (Carnaby street, Bricklane, Liverpool Street). Using areas such as these is good because they are areas that London residents would definitely know about, and when your audience can relate the the surroundings they will fell more involved and therefore want to keep watching to find out where Skye is going/what she's going to do next. As shown with the audience feedback, we managed to do this extremely well, our audience constantly felt involved and the majority of them said they would watch it again because there was so much going and therefore will not get bored as easily.

I think that we definitely used the conventions of Diegesis in our video as actions are not completely as although she is walking around London a lot you never see her get to the end of a road or turn a corner, so there are gaps in the audiences understanding of her movements. Furthermore there are many repetitions, in the outfits and locations, and our artist definitely moves to the music.
Unlike a lot of videos we do not have an explicit link between lyrics and visuals, so I think here we have challenged the conventions. For example in the video clip we showed of Lily Allen when she sings ‘sun is in the sky’ it really is! The only bit in our video that I can think of is when she draws a heart and then wipes it away, this is the only section of our video that implies a break up or a relationship going wrong. However I think our video follows far more Goodwins theory of a strong relationship between music and visual, as we have edited to the beat a lot of the time, we see editing and cutting to the beat in almost every music video.

Below is an example of Empire State of Mind- Jay Z- the beginning few seconds are a perfect example of Goodwins theory.



Finally I think with Goodwin’s ‘the notion of looking’ I believe we have definitely challenged this because our video is not scopophilic like many solo female artist’s music videos are, and she is not dressed in a provocative way yet she is still sexy and cute and appealing to guys, as well as promoting a strong, independent image to her female fans.
Vernallis theory includes not always including a narrative which we follwed completely as we only used a 20sec narrative at the beginning to create enigma for the audience, arising questions to get them more interested in watching more. Also, Vernallis says a music video needs something to drive it, with our video it is Sian's performance that does it. Finally Vernallis says the video is a visual response to music, which our video is based on. We used our music to base what e would edit and where.
Album Cover

I think our cover definitely stuck to most of the forms and conventions. We included the majority of conventions like; record label, song choices, recording information, image of Skye.

However, in the end we decided on having a self titled album, mainly because Skye's branding is so strong we didn't think we needed an album name. Also, most album covers we had looked at of female solo artists were a single image of them on the front, trying to sell their image and identity.

Where as we challenged this by using 4 different images as the font cover, as a group we really liked this idea because he doesn't portray Sian as being self-centered. And with the 4 images, it gives more of a sense she is innocence and merely a young teenage artist. The use of the vinyl records allows people to immediately realise Skye's retro pop genre. Additionally, one of the images of our inside sleeve is a CU image of Skye, the image is actually an edited version of a still from our music video. I think the four different sides of the album cover work really well, because unlike others there aren't just lots of 'in your face' images of Skye, which personally i think is much better than included lots of shots of her. I think this is good because from the inside sleeve they can see her on her new single 'Chick Habit's' shoot and from the front they can look at four different images of her that all show a different side to her personality; fun, quirky, outgoing and young.

Skye's branding

Unlike most music videos of solo female artists, we decided we didn't want to make our video scopophilic. Mainly because we see Skye as a young outgoing person who doesn't need to be voyeuristic in order to draw in her audiences. We liked the idea of keeping Skye's image innocent and give the impression of young girl who likes to go out and have fun.
Even though we drifted from this image, looking back on our feedback people said they would watch it again because she was good looking and that interested them in the video.

I think leaning away from the sexy, voyeuristic image is a much more effective way of getting peoples attentions because from experience, watching Mariah Carey's videos, i become disinterested almost immediately. I think this is purely because although she has an incredible voice, the majority of her videos are of her in skimpy dresses whilst looking into the camera at all times, and yes this may appeal to the boys much more, but therefore if the girls dislike it then she is still losing a major target audience.

Even from the image above, it is sexy, where as with Skye we tried to spur away from that and use images that were her casual self and showed of her kooky side without her having to flaunt herself.

This definitely works much better because all three products bounce off each other and all three shows off the same impersonation of her as an audience we view her. None of the products show her as anything but a young female who just wants to have fun, and that image is much more innocent and is what is drawing in our main target audiences.

Artist name

We were having slight trouble when trying to think of an artist name for Sian.

We came up with a few:

Sapphire
Skye
Sparky

we really couldn't think of whether we wanted either only a first name or a second name too.
It was so hard trying to find a name, we were just thinking of perhaps keeping her name.

We decided on doing a vote, and asking numerous people what they thought would best suit her image/style!

The results came back that 60% really liked SKYE and a close 40% liked Sapphire, however noone seemed to like the idea of Sparky.
We tried to ask as many of our target audience what they thought too, as this is essentially who we are trying to attract and so their opinion is valued.

Inspiration

For our music video we got a lot of inspiration from the 'Next' Autumn advert, we found this advert and as soon as we watched it we realised it is exactly the effect we wanted for our own video. We really liked the transitions between black and white, and how her costumes change too, just as either a bus passes or she walks past a lamppost. This was the general effect we were trying to create for ours.

At 0.06, where the shot moves from colour to white&black, this is the look we were going for, we also wanted to get footage of some of the signs arounds London so we could do a cut away to them allowing the audience to easily understand the location. At 0.08, I really like this shot where she changes from a dress to a coat this it what we were trying to create when we made our lamppost change. Additionally, we did try to do this with a revolving door, however it didn't work well because the speed didn't seem right.


Above is Kesha- Tik Tok video was also a good video that we took inspiration from, again because of the nice quick transitions between black&white and colour. At 1.34, while she is in the car with the guy there are some really nice tight changes between the colours. I like this very much because the transitions are very subtle and the fact that there are lots but quick, it has more of an effect.

Shooting- 8/11/09

Yesterday we did the Bricklane shoot which was scheduled to have been done couple of weeks ago, however due to unfortunate weather we were uanble to shoot.

We started our shoot at 10 and finished near enough 4.30, it was a long and cold day but we managed to work through it and come out with some amazing footage we can work with.

Our actress was amazing, we were standing there cold with about 5 layers on, where as she was barely in an outfit and had to put up with being directed and doing take after take. We are very thankful she was able to take time out to help us with our project.

We have now finished our london shoot and only have a performance shoot to do which i think should take max 10mins. We would like to take atleast 3 takes of her performing infront of the green screen, because to be honest we have so much footage already we really only need the performance shots to break up the london sequences we have already.

Shooting

We have another shoot booked with Sian on the upcoming Sunday.
As we did so well on our last shoot I'm not too worried about this one, we seem to be much more prepared and are hoping to get everything done much quicker and more efficiently.

Things we have:
- Shot List
- Prop List

The shot list is vital, because a few of the shots we actually practiced at school, such as, person changing clothes walking past a lampost & person walking past and changing clothes, we managed to forget to shoot on the Saturday.
Therefore we have finalised the shots we definitely want and need, but are intending on experimenting again when we get to Bricklane.
In Bricklane, there is so much going on, and so many variations of scenery that we can use to our advantage and gain some really nice footage.

We have a change of shoes for sian, some shots in her little black heels and some in dresses and plimsoles. And after miss. B's feeback i'm feeling more confident in filming more flirtatious and voyeuristic shots.

Shooting

Ok so we had a scheduled shoot for 31st Oct and 1st Nov.
We managed to have a really good day of shooting on the 31st, however due to torrential rain on the sunday we were unable to shoot.
We cancelled the shoot purely because we knew that even if we did go to Bricklane and film, we would only be travelling home wet and upset with our footage as rain doesn't look good on film.
Therefore we have decided to re-schedule for either saturday 7th or sunday 8th.
Depending on weather and timings of cast and crew.

31st October

We met at 10 at Starbucks in Carnaby, however with having to sort out make-up and costume we didnt start filming until 11.30.

Admittedly, the beginning of the day seemed to drone on, purely because I dont think we planned ourselves well enough and writing up a much more detailed shooting schedule would have really helped us. However, saying this, we managed to get some really nice shots in some great locations.

We did forget to do atleast 5 shots of which we had already done in a test shoot, but i'm not too worried about this as it can be done on our Bricklane shoot.

Sian our actress did really well i thought, considering the amount of people out in london on the day. She managed to perform well and keep her cool. Although, as we drew nearer to 4 o'clock it was obvious herself, along with the rest of the group were getting tired. We had been shooting from 10-4 with a small lunch break in between.

We managed to shoot in both Carnaby and Soho which was really good. And decided we were going to experiment greatly with trying out lots of different shots with the scenery.

Album covers

What are the typical features of an album cover?

• Album name
• Band name
• Main image- generally of the band/artist
• Colour scheme that follows both back & front
• Institutional logos/name
  
• Track listings
• Bar codes
• Parental Advisory
• Price labels
• Top chart stickers
• No.1 notifications
• Names of all producers and people in the making
• Interlinking images on both front and back
  

How would you categorize album covers?

• Genre
• Release date
• Style
• Image type
• Audience
• Year of band
• Artist
• Band
• Number of albums
  

What are the purposes of album covers?

• Show genre
• Allow information of the track
• Promote the artist
• Word of mouth
• Create and identity for the band/artist
• Inform audience

Album cover analysis

Razorlight 'Up all night'

Again I do not know much about this band however, i was drawn to it. I think I'm drawn to the covers where the artists/bands aren't shown. i think it is more of a cover when you should know which band it is without having to see a visual of them.
This album cover is very retro and i like it, there is so much going on in a very simple way it makes you want to look at it carefully just so you can actually see whats there.


Front Cover:

• 'Razorlight Up all night' black bold font
• old fashioned TV top right of cover
• many different images and objects scattered across cover
• white background image of razorlight top
• vinyls
• keys to room at fowley Cornwall
• postcards
• swipe card
• paper with notes on

Spine:

• black background
• white text writing
• Razorlight in caps and large font
• 'up all night' in white print
• reference code
  
• hand written notes in black
  
• white background

Back Cover:

• white margin
• rest is white with black dots on it
• two strips of paper: white and red
• white has song titles:
• black bold font, different letters are different fonts and sizes
• left of is quotes 'to be played at maximum volume'
• red strip has the information of production/recording companies
• bar code underneath white piece of paper
• logo at bottom

Again, this album cover really appealed to me, i seem to like the ones that are different and with no artist on the cover.
The back cover on this is very different to any i have seen, in that the information and bar code are usually printed across the bottom in small print, however here it has been printed next to the song titles. Therefore neither are domination, and expressing both are just as important.

Album cover analysis

The Lemonheads 'All of these things sank'

I've decided to analyse this album cover, to be fair i do not know anything about this band but found the cover lurking my house and it really caught my eye.
A slight description of who they actually are, well, they are an American alternatice rockband formed in 1986 formed by singer/guitarist Evan Dando, who has been the bands only constant member.

I chose this band purely because out of the majority of them it was the most different and has something obviously strange about it that draws you to want to pick it up- which i think is needed in an Album cover.

The front:

• A childish looking cover
• background of a roughly coloured in piece of paper
• tatty white piece of paper stuck over
• dead space between images and writing
  
• 4 random images drawn like a toddler would've drawn them; car, button, 2p & cloth
• ^ car, button, cloth is the name of the album
  
• name of band written in red at the very bottom
• a brown 2p
• blue car
• yellow cloth with dots in
• red button
• all writing exc. name of band is black
• Name of band is in red

Spine:

• inside has alternating drawings of a van and a spikey dog thing
• lemonheads in pink
• car button cloth in white
• black background
• TAG recordings
• reference code

Back cover:

• 13 songs in black
• very small song titles left of side
• 3 cut out pictures of car cloth and button stuck acros the back
• big bold cartoon dog dominating the cover
• rough brown background
• bar code bottom left
• bottom right the information of production of the cover
• bottom centre logos
• 'produced by Bryce Goggin' small bottom of cover
  

Overall, the album cover follows the majority of the conventions and to me is a very well thought cover. It is different, easy and moreover very simplistic.
As they say 'little is more'

Progress

OK, we have now as a group finished a storyboard,
It has been colour co-ordinated; pink= narrative, yellow&green=London settings and blue= performance.

I am pleased with the overall storyboard and happy with the shots we have decided to draw in, however there doesn't seem many there, this is because as a group we love to experiment with different shots once we are actually in our location.

Therefore are going to give ourselves a bit of extra time to test out some challenging and different shots that may not be used so frequently. We think this will add a slight uniqueness to our video and really draw in audiences.

ALSO, we have scheduled to do a location recee sunday 18th.
This is mainly in aid of choosing our exact roads and surroundings to film in, because we obviously do not want our actor having to wait around alot for us to actually get organised.
We are planning on doing at least a whole day of shooting as we want our video to start from morning to evening, therefore we cannot afford to waste anytime faffing around that is unnecessary.

One day this week we are also planning on going to Sian's house and rading her wardrobe to find the costume we would like to use, then anything we do not have by next week we will have time to either buy or borrow off friends.

Hannah is in charge of make-up and hair and so we possibly may need to test out some different patterns before we shoot, however if this becomes too time consuming we will keep it minimal.

We have also now decided on definitely having a narrative, it is simple and will give us the added time we need!

The 4 p's

a) What band/artist related products can the audiences buy?
Cd's (albums/singles), artists products (merchandise)

b) Where can audiences buy/listen to music/merchandise/hardware?
Band sites, gigs, festivals, radio, television, their myspace/facebook pages, downloading sites, internet.

c) give 2 or 3 examples of paid-for/subscription based and free products.
Examples of paid-for products are CD's bought on the net or in store, merchandise from sites or stores and magazines which specialise for music.
Examples of free products are music downloads, free concert tickets/gigs.

d) list between 5 and 10 examples of creative music marketing strategies.
Mika- he has a loyalty scheme on his main website and he has a trade points system for whenever you download, therefore to encourage audiences to download more.
Muse- they released a new single that was about the world emerging and world unity and so the listeners had to find different pieces of the dong around the world.
Numerous bands- They send out messages inviting viewers and fans to go and be in their music video, this way they are really satisfying their fans as a major fan of a band would love to go and start in one of their favorite bands videos. They also send out messages and bulletins to their fans.

e) who is frukt uk and what is their mission statement/company ethos?
They are a music marketing agency who use music to market products. For instance on their site they are selling merchandise like Lady Gaga headphones. They only deal with music and use both online and offline ways to market their products.

Costume

This image is one of my favorite out of all of them just because it looks really good and i like the idea of keeping some colour constant through the video even if we do decide to do some shots in black and white, then portraying the difference between being overally bright and bold to being black and white.

The picture was done for one of my friends art projects, it was very well thought through because she looks like an upper class girl in a posh red frock posing on a park bench in the middle of Edmonton green. And I like the contrasting storyline to the picture, it really makes you want to look at it.

Which is why i really think it will be good for our video because of course what we want to do its keep the audience engaged.

Actress

Ok so I recently asked our choice of actress whether she is willing to star in our music video, and at first she wasn't too happy about it but once i played her the song and she heard about our treatment she was beginning to really like the idea of it.

Actress- Sian Parkinson
She is a blonde female aged 17, who is very petite and quirky.
I think she is perfect for the part because although she may not be an amazing performer she is very stylish and so will feel comfortable wearing the outfits we have for her. Sian has her own unique style, and doesn't always tend to follow the new modern 'it' fashion trends- this is absolutely perfect for our video and we too are looking for the 1960's fashion and she is very much so into that era!

Above are just a few pictures I have found that not only best explain her but also give the group a sense of her style and what best suits her!

Meetings

As you know we did our pitch to our class last Thursday.
We introduced our song, played it half way through, explained our treatment & then played the rest of the song. This way people were able to base our treatment to the song after hearing it.

I think it went really well, everyone seemed to like our treatment and thought it would suit the song we are doing, very well. There wasn't any criticism giving, just a lot of helpful feedback.

Feedback:
Our idea of a blank set could work, altohugh miss suggested using a green screen and then putting in the white background, however this will have to be tested a couple of times before actually following it through, therefore being able to alter anything needed to.

Our main location- if only location- will be London itself, therefore we may have the drawback of having to ask permission to film. However because we are not planning on filming in the same spot for the whole day we think it would be easy to get all equipment and run if need be. So we could work around not asking for permission very easily.

Many people in the class asked 'what if it's crowded?', to be honest the more crowded the better. This will add to our idea of a busy London a lot more. & therefore meaning our actress would look much more colourful around a crowded London or business workers in suits and smart clothing.

Reference: Gorilla Video done a couple of years ago.

Initial Ideas

A major video that has inspired me has been the 'Next advert- from September 2009'.
There are many different still shots within the video that have really helped me when thinking up our treatment. Firstly there are the split screens which i am really keen about, i find the normal 2 split scene quite boring and think a split screen with about 3 or 4 different screens will have a much better effect. Imagining each shot is something different; either our actress dancing around london streets, london phone boxes, lamposts and just the general environment.


Additionally, after our feedback session with Miss.Blackborow she also thought a cut away to many different signs around London would look effective, Mainly of the most popular signs around London. E.g. Fashion centrals, Bricklane, Bond Street, Notting Hill and perhaps Carnaby Street.
Images of the shop fronts would be good.

Below is the Youtube link to the advert.
At 0.07- the reference for signs.
From 0.12-0.17 is the reference for the split scenes
From 0.20- is our group idea of a studio set except we would like ours to be without colour, & a plain white background.



Also thorughout the video it changes in and out from colour to black and white, I think this, if done well, can look really good.

Rihanna - Unfaithful

Charlotte Church - Moodswings (To Come At Me Like That)

VV Brown - Crying Blood

meetings

Thursday is our presentation and as a group we still need to come up with an appropriate treatment, it doesn't have to be finalised but atleast a draft version that we can pitch to the rest of the class.
Hannah and I are going to have a meeting period 2+3 to think up a treatment and then Tom will meet us at break and give his feedback on it.
If need be we are going to stay thorugh lunck until our treatment is complete.
Our target is to have a final treatment by the end of the day so we can crack on with the planning for our presentation thursday.

Once all the above is complete then we will have to break up who is doing what for our presentation. Individually we should have ready different things and then during the presentation we pitch the idea and song together and according to what you had to research you can talk about it to the rest of the group.

TO DO LIST:
1. The track itself
2. What you know about the track, and the original band/artist
3. The genre of the music and the signifiers of this
4. The target audience you intend to appeal to
5. Your treatment for the video which should include visual references (stills and video)
6. Your treatment should give a strong sense of the overall style, mise-en-scene, mood and theme of your idea.
7. You should be able to discuss in terms of Goodwins questions on B2 (using B7 to help you)

Final song idea

hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll be alone in a quick
hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll never get another fix

i'm telling you it's not a trick
pay attention, don't be thick
or you're liable to get licked

you're gonna see the reason why
when they're spitting in your eye
they'll be spitting in your eye

hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
a girl's not a tonic or a pill
hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
you're just jonesing for a spill

oh, how your bubble's gonna burst
when you meet another nurse
she'll be driving in a hearse

you're gonna need a heap of glue
when they all catch up with you
and they cut you up in two

now your ears are ringing
the birds have stopped their singing
everything is turning grey

no candy in your till
no cutie left to thrill
you're alone on a tuesday

hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll be alone in a quick
hang up the chick habit
hang it up, daddy,
or you'll never get another fix

i'm telling you it's not a trick
pay attention, don't be thick
or you're liable to get licked

you're gonna see the reason why
when they're spitting in your eye
they'll be spitting in your eye

Brainstorms

Before our meeting with the teacher, Hannah and I decided to jot a few ideas down in the form of a brainstorm.
I think this is the easiest way to get lots of ideas because once we started writing things down more ideas start to come to mind. When i start my treatment im going to try and draw as mant brainstorms as possible because they are a rough but yet a really good way to remember things you may have thought about hours ago.



Above is one just on our overall ideas, we jotted down anything we liked the sound on.
Then below, we decided to specify a bit more on things such as location and costume.
We still haven't completely thought things through, just suggestions.

Group meeting number 3

Friday 18/09/09
On friday we had our meeting with Miss.
The first thing we had to do was show miss the song we chose, and her feedback was:

She immediately loved the song and thought it was a really good choice. Earlier that day Hannah and I had done a few brainstorms and so we talked through them to Tom and miss.
We spoke about how we could imagine a lot of quick paced shots, something with a retro vintage theme to it.
A few things we all really liked the idea of were, a sequence of shots where her outfits are going to change numerous times (ref: 'Moodswings'- Charlotte Church), also a fade in fade out shot (ref: 'Unfaithful' - Rihanna) we thought this would look very effective while she is walking down london streets early evening.

Miss then showed us a video that was made in 2003, 'i believe' - joGo, the whole video wasn't much based on the lyrics but on the style and performance which is exactly what we want.


Above is the video, the changing constume throughout the video is really effective and is the sort of thing we thought would suit our song. We would rather it not be continuously but instead intercut with a slight narrative.


Additionally, because the song we've chosen is a just over 2minutes, we thought - again relating to Rihanna's 'Unfaithful'- we would include an intro and outro, this will consist of a 20sec narrative at the beginning with no music and again at the end. Not only does it help us with the short track issues but it also really helps with the idea we have because we don't want to have a full on narrative, therefore including it at the start and end it will look much more effective.

Overall, I am very happy that miss has agreed to our choice of song because it means we dont have to waste anymore of our precious time picking another tune we all agree on. In addition, the fact she likes our ideas is even better cos it means we're on the same level.

To be done for monday:
we each need to come prepared to our meeting with a treatment and then from there we can pick out our favorite parts from each and piece together the perfect treatment.

Group meetings

Our first group meeting was on wednesday 16/09/09-

This meeting didn't go too well, we only accomplished choosing a genre. We were hoping to have a track and treatment by today but that didn't happen. As we we adament we needed a a track by the end of the week in order to start planning our pitch for next thursday.

Therefore, we arranged another meeting for thursday.



Our second meeting was on 17/09/09-

This meeting was much more successful as we managed to start our group blog and we found a song at which we all really like. Yesterday we also arranged a meeting to see Miss.Blackborow friday lunchtime. So we're hoping that she likes the song too and so we can get on with making up a treatment and starting our presentation.

I'm really happy we've now made a start on things and then once a treatment is made we will spend to next following weeks editing it until we are completely happy with it and ready for shooting.

Our initial song is April March- Chick Habit


When listening to this song i can imagine there being lots of girl actors and a few sequences of fast paced shots. I have an image of watching the artist singing and then cutting away to girls dancing in the street, looking very happy and quirky.
This song is very contradicting, if you were to just listen to the tune you would expect this song to be accompanied with cheerful lyrics, however looking at the lyrics they aren't as lovely as you would expect. I really like this, i think it gives something unique and really makes an audience want to listen to over and over again. Because if you do the sterotypical sad song with a sad track then people will become bored of it much more easily.


Our next meeting is today at lunchtime with miss, to decide whether our chosen track is worthy enough or not.

Initial song ideas

Above is 'One A' by Ill Scarlett.
I really like this song because right from the very beginning it starts off on an upbeat and you can tell the mood of the song will be happy:]
Because the lyrics are quite repetative it means a narrative isn't needed but instead we could incorporate the idea of fast cut shots between a band playing to people going mad on streets/or dancing.
At 2.54 the pace begins to quicken even more with a clear drum roll, here you can really feel a build up to louder and stronger playing on the instruments.
I could really picture doing a video to a track just like this, although like i said the lyrics are very repetative, it just seems to be a great tune to be able to dance to. This is a song that not many people listen to and dont shake to the beat. Additionally, i dont think people would get very bored by it. Its too upbeat, which is very contrasting because the song is about wanting to get away from himself and taking drugs is the first way to do it, but yet the music would incinuate that the song would be happy.
However, this song's lyrics do involve a lot on the subject of drugs, therefore probably isn't the best choice of songs. But i just wanted to give my group an idea of what sort of tempo/tune and style of track i would love to do a music video to.

Marketing Strategies

We were given a list of bands/artists to choose from and analyse 5 questions on them.

Me and Arti chose Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, a 24 year old singer, formerly known as Katy Perry:

1/ Summarise the changing image of the band/artist as it has developed over time. It might also be useful to summarise the music genre also.
Katy perry started off much more casually dressed but over time she has turned into a new fashion icon with her uniqueness and her confidence to wear extravagant clothing. When she released her first single 'Ur so gay' in 2003 her outfits still being quite over the top where still not as extrvagent as her styler to this day. It seems nowadays that Katy Perry, Lilly Allen and Lady GaGa seem to be competing in what they choose to wear. Their ourfits are unique and stylized, they tend to be outfits you would wear only if you had the confidence to pull them off. People are now beginning to watch their music videos alot more not only for their music but also to see what new and wild costumes they are wearing. Katy Perry also started of blonde, but over the years began to change her hair colour until now finally stopping at brunette. The new dyed hair makes her look much more sophisticated and more of a pop idol.

2. Who are the fans? Do you have any sense of how the music companies have segmented the audiences? To what extent has the branding of a band been linked to target audience?
I would suggest that her fans base and dominately teenage girls, based on what her official website looks like. Her website has a lot of pink images and some of the links to it are very girly such as 'dear diary'. Also doing along her unique fashion and style we would assume she is trying to target the females. Her website also has a 'store' link which is online shopping of her merchandise- they sell girls tops and underwear- again suggesting her fans are female.
She also draws in all pop music fans in general, her secodnary audience: Gay & lesbian. We can think this from a couple of her singles, 'ur so gay' and 'i kissed a girl'.

Her album covers:
Ur so gay- this could target both boys and girls because she is doing a cheek pose and isn't dressed up in either really girly or boyish clothing.
one of the boys- where as this album cover is much more girlier, with her nice outfits and lots of pink.

3. What marketing strategies can you identify? What kinds of stategies can you list?(above/below-the line? unexpected promo stunts? etc). List any examples of the use of synergy with other industries to promote other media/products in connection with a band/artist.

• Katy Perry has her own official myspace page and official website(http://www.katyperry.com/)
• She was the female vicalist for The Matrix which is promoting her widely.
• She made cameo appearances in Gym Class Heroes single, along with starring in the ABC family tv serios 'wildfire'- episode 'Life's too short'
• She had reviews on magazines uch as NME and newspapers.
• Her tour starting in January also promoted her as an artist.
  

Her marketing and advertising is above the line strategies because they are things that have to be budgeted, however her below the line strategies are the cameo appearances and reviews in the press, all things in which she doesn't have to pay for.

A quote made by Katy Perry herself, 'some songs are meant to make you cry, but there are others to make youd ance and sing'- This could be focused at girls because they're much more emotinal than boys.