Final Music Video

Our finished music video..

Evaluation Questions 3+4

Evaluation Questions 1+2

Audience response and changes made

We have made a first draft of our music video and got our peers to watch it and we watched theirs. Most of our feedback was positive This feedback was massively useful as it lead us in the right direction to finish our video to perfection. The main criticism was that it was out of sync, and this was easily fixed. One of the comments was that they liked how the pace of cuts reflected the pace of the music and so we did more of this. Other people commented on silly mistakes we hadn't noticed, for instance you could see unwanted objests in the background, and to fix this we just zoomed in on the shot even more. Overall, most people enjoyed our video and this has pleased us greatly!

Digipack Analysis

This is our front cover. We named our album 'wild fire' as we feel it represented the freedom, and youth of the star we had created. The main focus in the picture is the medium close up of Evie pouting, which again shows her youth and fun loving nature. This is conitnued throuh the multicoloured theme of the cover, as we made her have pink hair, and blue lips which is quite fashionable in the current market with artists such as Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry. The black bold font is a generic convention of album covers, and so stands out to a musical audience.

This is the first page of our digipack. It keeps in with the colour theme, but instead uses a black background, in order to show some differentiation from the front cover. We used a close up as we thought it would entice the audience on the first page of the digipack. The artist is posing in a quirky style which fits in with her indie look and we wanted to keep this look between all her multi modal platforms. The neon green is vibrant and thus reflects her personality, and the vibrant colour scheme is used through all her work.

We chose to use this image on the third page of the digipack as it meant it would be on a facing page to the above image and the two colours would clash. Colour blocking and clashing is fashionable at the moment and so this would represent Evie as the fashion icon we want. We wanted the pose of shouting to be a recurring motif for the star, similar to Jessie J's eye pose. This pose is thus used again on her website. This is one of my favourite picture as i think it shows the artist fun and lively persona.

Contrastingly, this is one of my least favoutite images in our digipack. We had some trouble editing the fonts using photoshop and therefore there is a slight difference between the two columns of lyrics. However, the clashing colours are used again, as red and green aren't traditionally seen together, and this suggests our artist will be breaking traditions! The trainers Evie is wearing here have been used in a few images and so again creates a motif for our star, similar to that of Eliza Doolittle and her high top trainers.

This is the image we want to use for the 'Moneybox track' as we felt it used similar colours we used in the music video for 'Moneybox'. The blue/green colour is also used on her website and and so the audience can draw links. The close up varies with some of the long shots we used, and we think this variation reflects a professional artist, as they would also use a variety. The pose Evie is pulling is different to other stars as she isn't trying to look glamourous, and this suggest that she is a new and different kind of artist.

This is the most neutral toned image in the whole of our digipack. We decided to edit it like this as it mirrors the mood of the song. This song is one of the slowest on her album and so by using a less overt image it suggests to an audience that Evie is an rounded performer. Again, the trainers are shown and this repeats the motif we have created for Evie. The star is posing in a way that could be viewed voyeuristically and this is therefore similar to most other artists in the market.

 This was the first image we created using photoshop and we were really proud of the colur as it is vibrant and similarly neon to the other colours used. Block colouring is another trend that we show her, and so the fashionable artist is reflected again. This image is a bit different as the artist is less outgoing and lively than the other pictures, and this could again show she is a rounded performer.


This is the last image in the digipack, excluding the back cover and this is reflected by the pose which seems to suggest the end. In all of the images we placed lyrics next to a picture of the star, so we showed continuity. In most professional digipacks that I analysed, I found that lyrics were used and so by doing this our digipack is more realistic and shows great authenticity. In some digipacks, I found there was a message from the artist of who she would thank etc, but as this is Evie's first album we felt she didn't have enough status to send thankyou's an appreciations out.

This is the back cover to our digpack. We chose this picture because it looks as if the artist is whispering and thought it suited being at the back. We colour coded the list of songs with the colours we had used for the lyrics and pictures on their individual pages. We didnt change the colour of the artist in this image, but we enhanced the picture. We added a bar code so that it looked realistic, and also decided to add a QR code, to make our artist connected with early adopters and digital natives.

Website

Today I created the 2nd ancilliary task of a website. I used Wix.com to make the website and found it simple to use, however, it caused me much trouble and I ended up making 3 websites. On the first website I made, I forgot to save and lost all of it :( Then I started to make the second one, but used a template which I felt restricted me and decided to start again. I am extremely pleased with the final product, and feel that it looks professional and suits the genre of our artist. I created 5 pages on the website including, homepage, merchandise, tour, videos and contact. I can now fully understand why artists creat websites as it allows more platforms to sell themselves from. For example, now Evie can make money through her merchandise such as albums, posters and apps, and also shows links for her fans to purchase tour tickets on. Fans are also able to subscribe to Evie's newsletter to keep them up to date with the artist, and this creates a relationship between the star and audience.  

 

Above is the homepage. I used a picture of Evie as the background as this is what I had seen on most professional artist's websites, for example Beyonce. The colour scheme is continuous throughout the website and this creates motif for the artist. Similarly on the merchandise page shown below, the album cover is shown, and the single cover is shown for two of her tracks, which we also used in the digipack. To make our page more appealable to early adopter's we used a QR code, which smartphone users could scan and recieve a free Evie app. This also appeals to Evie's target audience, who are of a younger demographic and therefore digital natives.

On the rest of the site you can see Evie's tour dates, her latest videos, including 'Moneybox' and subscribe to her newsletter. 

Here is a link to our website, I hope you enjoy ...

http://www.wix.com/robinarchard/eviexoxo

We also made a twitter account...

https://twitter.com/#!/Evieoxoxo

Digipack

 

 

                                      

Problems with Digipack

Finally, we have completed our digipack and are really pleased with the pictures. We used photoshop elements to edit them however, there is now way to get them into a jpeg style format, and so I have having great difficulty to get them onto blogger.

Artist Choice- Eliza Doolittle

After much consideration we have chosen to use Eliza Doolittle as the artist, and her song 'Moneybox'. Eliza Doolittle comes from a musical background and is granddaughter of Sylvia young.  Eliza has two top 25 hits, including "Skinny Genes" and "Pack Up", which debuted within the top 5 on the UK Singles Chart. However, 'Moneybox' is one of her least known on the album and doesn't even have a video. She is an Indie/Pop singer and song writer and is really talented. We really like the way she dresses and the way she presents herself, and she is a big inspiration for our work. However, we feel like we still have enough scope to create our own star image without copying Eliza Doolittle. 

Diary Entry- Filming Disaster

Yesterday we wanted to film our white room scene. We planned to do this in the photography room in the art department. We thought that they had the equipment to make the whole room white, but when we got up there it was a lot smaller than we had first thought. Additionally, they didn't have the white backdrops available, they only had black, and we didn't think this was right for the theme of our video. However, as we didn't want to waste a whole day, we took the black backdrop to our advantage and used it to take photos of Emma that we will use for our digipack and website.

Diary Entry- Casting Issues

When planning our video we chose my friend Emma Byrne, as we thought she had a unique look and was very good on camera. However, one of the reasons it has taken us so long to start filming is because she is quite unreliable, and we found it difficult to find a time that suits all of us. Therefore, we have decided to re-cast and I have volunteered as it will be much easier using someone from our group because then we can film during media lessons. However, this is very annoying because Emma would have been great because she is very pretty and very photogenic.

Diary Entry- Finishing editing!

Finally we have finished editing!! We are all extremely pleased with the outcome and the first responses from our audience are good. When we had the editing disaster with the over exposing effect, we literally thought our video was ruined. However, amazingly, Chloe was able to turn it completely around and now it looks really great! The video has reached my expectations and although it isn't perfect I am really pleased. We now need to upload it to our blog and write our evaluations.

Diary Entry- Editing- DISASTER!

Today me and Libby faced a distaster when editing!! We have now finished the rough cut of the music video, and were told by the media technician at the beginning to leave the over exposing until last and do it altogether. When going to over expose, we realised this was the wrong idea! All our clips our disjunctive, meaning we have to individually colour correct them, rather than doing them all at once. I have now realised we could have even changed the setting on the camera to film it with an over exposed effect, which would have saved us from all the problems we are now facing. Basically, all the clips look different as the lighting is dissimilar on each one, and some of the clips go yellowy, whereas some go dark and we feel like our music video is ruined!! We don't know how we will overcome this and are even questioning whether we will have to make everything black and white which is very upsetting! We hope that when Chloe edits with us tomorrow she might be able to fix it.

Diary Entry- Editing

Today we have uploaded all of our footage onto Final Cut, and also imported the song 'Moneybox'. I can now understand how useful our storyboarding will be as it will give us some direction. However, we could have storyboarded in more detail and not all of our shots match the ones we have filmed. I think this will be easy to overcome as we have masses of footage and are all excited to get into the editing process.

Diary Entry- Editing Day 1

Even though we haven't finished filming yet, we can't complete it till next week so in todays lesson we uploaded the stuff we shot in the white room, to test it over exposed. We didn't get chance to see what it looks like as it took the whole hour to upload our footage as there were a few difficulties to start with. However, I am happy we have uploaded the footage as it will save time in the future.

Diary Entry- Filming Day 4

Yesterday we filmed the final part we need to create our music video. This was located at Harry Moppet's house, as we asked him if we could film there as he has a really antiquey/ cute style home which fits in with the theme of our music video well. It was a really long day, and felt exhausting, especially as we only plan to use the footage for a small part of the video. The reason I think it took so long is because we weren't 100% sure on our plans for the shoot so it took longer than needed. We filmed me eating a banana, reading a book, and drinking tea, and this footage will mostly be used for cut ins throughout the video.

Diary Entry- Filming Day 3

Today, we went back to The Hamptons to complete our bike scene. Overall it was a really great day as we have got some great footage, and I had fun in the sun riding my bike :) We asked our friend Sonia to bring her car and this meant Libby and Chloe could stick the camera out of the window and film me riding on the bike. We had some very creative ideas, for example Sonia would drive and Libby stuck the camera out of the sun roof and this created a low angle tracking shot. We drove around the Hamptons, and found some beautiful scenery, for instance a fountain which looked really nice in the sunlight, and I am excited to put this in our music video. It was cold at the beginning but I soon warmed up, and the day was a real success, unlike last week!

Diary Entry- Filming Day 2

Today we went to film the second part we need for our video at the beautiful location of The Hamptons. We drove there, looked around and set the camera up, and then realised we had forgotten the tape !! This was extremely infuriating as we didn't have enough time to go back and get it and then come back, so we are planning to shoot this scene next week instead. However, even though we were completely unsucessful we realised that we will be unable to complete the shoot without another car to follow me on the bike, as I am the only one who can drive.

Diary Entry- Filming Day 1

Today, after much wait, we have filmed the majority of our music video. This is set in a white room, which we will over expose when we come to edit. We set up the white room in my living room, using white sheets of paper stuck to the walls and floor. We then set up our set of three lights and put the two cameras in place. I was the performer and found this very tiring, as I had to repeatedly sing the song, to make sure we had enough footage. We used 5 costume changes, and many props, including a large teddy bear, monopoly board, a piggy bank and a hammer. Although today was extremely tiring we had fun and it was good to put our creative minds to use, as a lot of our ideas were spontaneous. As I had to perform it was quite a nerve racking experience as I am quite shy, and I think when we come to edit you might be able to see that I was lower in confidence at the beginning. I am really pleased we have the majority of our video filmed. :)

Specific Album Art Analysis- Black Eyed Peas

This is The Black Eyed Peas album cover to their 5th album 'The End' released in 2009. The overall sound of the album has a more electro hop beat rather than the usual hip pop/R&B feeling of their previous albums and this can be shown through the electrified album cover. The dark green and black show off the electric genre, and the feeling given off is much more serious as none of the band members are seen. The robot figure continues the serious electric atmosphere, as it has no eyes and could even suggest a more sinister style of music. 


This album cover is different from any of their previous covers and this signifies the change in their genre of music. 
For example this album elephunk was released in 2003, was their first major album release and differs dramatically with their album 'The End'. The clothing and pose of all the band members shows their R&B/ Hip Hop genre. The blue colour scheme is a lot lighter than the album cover to 'The End' however, you can still see their more urban style. 
As a group, we haven't found any inspiration from these album covers, as they have a completely different style to that of our artist, but it is useful to understand more clearly the codes and conventions of album artwork. 

Specific Album Analysis- Lily Allen

This is Lily Allen's first album cover; 'Alright Still'. The album reflects Lily's unique genre of music, as she has many different styles, merged together. The black and white suggest a jazzy style, however also create an urban image, and both of these genres are certainly visible in her first album. Similarly, in both top corners there are hands, one doing a peace sign, and the other doing a rock sign. This gives off more ideas of Lily's genre of music and her music agrees with both the rock and more hippie genres of music. The cartoon images portray that the star is in a world of her own, and is playful and imaginative. This is very similar to her video LDN, where a cartoon effect is used. The album cover contains many random images and this mirrors Lily's quirky personality and fashion, for example, the cat, goat and the taxi. 

The back of the digipack continues the random quirkiness seen on the front, which is visible through the numerous fonts and the multi use of shapes. The punching hands signify Lily's at time aggressive personality which is also shown through some of her lyrics, for example "Fuck you very much". 

Lily's album cover has really inspired us for our's because we feel our music is of a similar genre. We like the idea of using a black and white background and filling it with colour.  

Music Website Analysis- Eliza Doolittle

Eliza Doolittle's professional website really helps the public gain a closer relationship with her as an artist, and her on a more personal level. http://www.elizadoolittle.com/

The website is highly interactive, and from the first page you can find links to games, video, shop, gallery, news, blog and live. There a buttons that allow you to change the colour of the screen, and when you hover over the pictures they move. The picture above is similar to the picture she used on her first album cover and this creates a motif for Eliza Doolittle.

There are two games available to play which both feature her songs which is a convergent way of marketing as there are numerous things you can do from her multi modal website. At the top of the website there is a live news feed. This shows posts from her personal twitter, whilst also showing announcements, such as 'Eliza confimed to play at Children Things Event'. By having her twitter posted on her website, fans can find even more ways to connect with her. 

On the blog section of her website she updates her fans with videos of covers, and videos of other stars she admire, which helps develop her as a musical intellect. She also posts pictures of what she is doing, for example visiting art galleries abroad, or sunbathing in L.A. This helps build a relationship and the audience feel like they know eliza on a more personal level. 

The shop section of her website allows her to sell merchandise, giving her more platforms to make profit from. On her merchandise she continues to use her many recognised motifs, for example, dice and the font. The bright colours represent her lively personality and this is a similar image we would like to give off when we create our own website.    

Album Cover Research

Album covers have typical features across most genres. Generally they feature a picture of the artist, which is normally a close up for single, or a long shot for groups. They will also include the artist name and the title of the album. Here are some typical examples...

Through seeing Adele's album cover you could guess the genre of her music, as the depressive picture and the black and white effect illustrates her mellow love songs. The font and title of her album coincide with her previous album '19', and this creates a motif for her as an artist. The close up of Adele looking down represents her as a soulful artist and signifies her style of music which are all low tempo and sad.

JLS's album cover is a typical pop bands cover. All of the members are
wearing similar clothes and looking into the camera, which would please their fans. They are showing some  flesh by not wearing t-shirts under their blazers, which differs from adele, who doesn't show off her body at all. This suggests that JLS are  not based purely on their singing, whereas Adele is sold completely for her musical talent. The logo of the band is used for recognition,  as it is used for all other merchandise. The dark background is used to show them as a 'boyband' and the bright light and arguably cheesy photo lets the audience know they are very mainstream pop. 

However, the genre of an artist definitely determines the style of their album cover. Indie and Rock artists have somewhat a different style. Generally they may not show a picture of the artist, instead showing a pattern or trying to portray a message or narrative. For example, Kate Bush, Blur and Biffy Clyro...

     

However, other than generically, you could categorise album covers by the gender of the artist, for example the differences between these two album covers... 

 

Furthermore, album covers hold many purposes. They allow the artist to portray their musical ego and represent with one image their style and genre of music. For many customers who still purchase CD's, the album cover is very important when purchasing music. A good album cover sell's the artist and also allows another platform besides video, music, poster etc to represent themselves with. 

Analysis of Music Video: Jessie J- 'Price Tag'

I have chosen to analyse this video as it deeply influenced some of our main ideas. In our music video, we plan to use a white room for the performance and want lots of colours, and a fun atmosphere, which is similar to the one given off in Jessie's video. Her video is directed by Emil Nava and was premiered on 30 January 2011. Her music is mainstream pop, and the video coincides with this as it is shallow and has no deep narrative. 
Throughout the whole video the lyrics are illustrated and amplified by the visuals. For example, the lyric 'sale' shows a price tag, 'shades on your eyes' shows men with sunglasses, and heels to high features Jessie kicking her high heel in the air. In fact Jessie exaggerates the illustration of the lyrics by acting out almost every line in the whole song. The camera even illustrates the lyrics given, for example, pans to the left along with the lyric: 'everybody look to left', and the same to the right. 
Furthermore, the music does cut to the beat but doesn't show this explicitly. For example at 2:41, the video cuts in time with the tune. The video does change pace with the music, for example at the end when the song slows down, the cuts become less frequent and less obvious.    
The video regularly shows close ups of Jessie J and the rapper star B.o.B. who is featured. Jessie is portrayed as a quirky pop star with extravagant tastes and this is similar to all her other videos, as most are performance based, showing of the star's talents. This was one of her first hits and starts some of the motifs she is recognised for. For example at 2:59 she shows her outrageous lips which is one of her reoccurring 
                                                  
 There is certainly a reference to looking throughout her whole video with a recurring motif of eyes, and she is at times voyeuristically displayed.

For example, licking her lips. The costumes Jessie wears portray her in a sexual way, with short shorts and see through tops, however compared to some current artists, for example R&B videos, Jessie is dressed modestly, and this may represent some of her own personal opinions.
The whole video is performance based, and there is no narrative. This is one of the main things we liked about her video as we plan to include no narrative in ours as we think this illustrates current music videos  more accurately. We plan to keep an up beat performance similar to Jessie, and have considered using some of the same props, for example teddy bears, fake money and dolls. This video was definitely one of our most inspiring.