Lauren Quinn Evaluation

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Final Cut Music Video

Ancillary Text

This is my final choice designs for my ancillary text. I feel they give the good impression of the bands image, they look professional and work well together.

Digipack final design

POSTER

These are my choice of designs for the magazine poster as part of my ancillary text. The Last two were my favourite choices but i asked five other media student which one caught their eye. The poster below was most popular as everyone thought the texture in the background was grunge and juxtaposed with the light. Two people felt the piano poster was very effective which is also a favorite of mine but i thought it wouldn't represent their genre best, as they're more like You Me At Six, alternative rock not alternative post- brit pop like Coldplay. I have picked aspects from my digipack design to keep synergy such as the title, the fonts, the snake textures and the light patterns. After experimenting on Photoshop with the composition and layering by taking inspiration from The Verve's (an english rock band) poster i previously analyzed. They made the title clear and large a the top of the post making the photography the focus point, while adding the important information such as date release, what form of media it comes in and where you can find out more information while keeping the text small at the bottom to minimize distraction and keeping it to the point.

trial and error

I have looked at the bands preivous album covers to get a better feel of thier brand image. I noticed they maily consist of photography, symetry and a slight bit of texture. Personally i dont feel they represent what the band sounds like as the photos have vintage simple effect giving the impression they are going to sound light and classic. Although their single 'Boy' is asoft acoustic simpkle song, the rest of the album i have chosen to put together is more indie rock.

Francesqa

Sine my last few ideas hadn't worked to plan, i have re-designed my storyboard to suit me more so i can film at school. This means i am able to use actors around in their free lessons to shoot my video. I have selected a few people who are taking AS music so they can imitate the bands actions and mouth the words. I have changed the song to a similar local band who i already got permission to use their song for as i feel this suits the black and white effect i am going for better. 

After effects

After cutting and editing my attempt of the start of my music video, I decided turning it black and white would look effective as it does in videos such as Canterbury's video i analyzed, gloria. To do this, on premier pro i dragged video effects onto each clip, changing in to monochrome, and editing the lightness and contrast of the grays to make the image appear sharper and give it deep blacks so it's got an atmospheric appearance. 

Filming

On Tuesday 22nd I set out to film my origional plan that i drew in a storyboard with two of my actors, Chris and Charlie. My new selected location, Denham country park is a great place to shoot as it has a river and fields that are ideal to shoot different scenes in and only 20 minutes away. I made the paper boats out of love letters so she could send it down the river, organised their out fits:

Chris outfit 1: Jeans, plain top, smart jacket
outfit 2: trousers sleeveless top, cardigain (& wellies)
Charlie outfit 1: dark jeans, plain top, knitwear
Charlie outfit 2: long dress, over the top long cardigain

I had planned to shoot 9.30-12.30, but the actors weren;t ready which set us back over an hour. I compramised and re-designed the opening scene to a break-up between these two characters. It turned out ok, i achieved many different shots to edit, hoping to change the colours and add flashes of lights like many other music videos do to add a surreal effect that the viewer knows its fiction or fairytale.

This is my edited version of my digi-pack. I have made many changes to it's appearance so it looks professional and appropriate to this acoustic indie band. I have a few things left to do, such as the binding with the bands name and album title. I have also slightly edited the front cover so the text 'IN GRATITUDE' is blended into the silhouette of the flowers.

This is a template of the type of digipack i am designing around. It's given me a good indication of how many photo's i need to use and the composition they should be placed in so when made into the cover, everything fits correctly and is up the right way.

This is an example of some who has used the same template. From looking at this i can see that the front and back cover need to be next to each other and the inside images of the CD should be upside down so when folder, are up the right way. I must decide where the bar code, copyright and record label information should be placed discreetly to not ruin the effect of the images.

CD cover Back design

I chose these two album designs to look at because they are both sub-genres of rock bands. They are similar to my design idea as i am going to use my own photography. These front and back covers shows continuity throughout the album using the same style, subject and colours in the photos. I am focusing on the back covers here to figure out my own composition of the text, song titles, and copyright record details. It also helps me figure out where to discretely place the bar code without ruining the aesthetics.

ALBUM COVER

This is the first practice of composition using the bands name and album title which i feel was a good start but the text is to formal and tacky. I want to give a professional look to the digi-pack and feel i need to go and take a wider variety of photos to represent the bands particular sound better. I increased the tones of pink to symbolised love as this is the main subject behind the bands songs.

I started to edit the colours and though these purple and blues accompanied each-other well to fit the mood of the sad songs in the EP. The subject of the padlock and chain is usually associated with someones heart or a forbidden relationship so i chose this cold image to symbolise the troubles in teenagers relationship to reinforce the bands lyrics. I decided this wasn't quite right for this band because the song i have chosen is acoustic and the image feels to sharp. On Photoshop I edited the levels of contrast and colour increasing the amount of greens and blues then reduced the saturation so it wasn't too bold.


This is the first photograph of mine i chose to use as the album cover to the digi-pack i am designing. Even though i have changed my choice of band and song, they're genre and style is similar so my original designs would still work well. Rock is a heavy style of music so this padlock and chain symbolizes that so the audience know what sounds to expect. The natural wood grain contrasts with the frosted metal to show that they are a softer sub-genre of indie rock. I removed the colour to see if it would look any better but decided after looking back at the album i've analysed, this isn't a conventional style of image to have on an album cover.

Magazine Adverts

This is the poster magazine advert for The Verve's first single from the album Fourth. The photography, even through slightly different works together nicely, changing the colours slightly to depict the feel of that particular song. Their album cover captures clouds with effects of different colours making the album feel relaxing but possibly a little bit trippy. The audience can expect epic, anthemic moments throughout. The magazine advert uses the same photo as the singles artwork as it's background so immediately the audience know what to look out for and recognize it in the stores. They use the same text as on the album artwork on the poster, keeping the information simple. Its informative by stating it THE SINGLE, its avaylable to download and buy on c.d./vinyl, then includes their website and producers logo. I think this is eye catching because the horizon draws the viewers attention aswell as telling them the release date.

video responce

" good shots but perhaps a bit more of a variety. At 00:20 when she's walking you could speed it up as its quite slow. I really like the shot of the car and headlights as the girl is walking towards the camera, this is a good effect. The fades between the tree shots are good too." - Louise (Media Student)

I agree with the comment that the shot of her walking in the distance is too slow tempo and the shot is too long with the slow music, when i re-shoot i will consider doing more close up shots of the character as thats a convention that most indie rock music videos follow. As this was a first attempt i only organized to use one model, but by using two this will give me a wider variety of shots and add performance into the video not just narrative alone.

I also think that the headlight effect accompanies the lyrics "light burns within" well and i will be using this same effect in the final video. This shot works together with the use of the torch so i think using light in interesting ways will be a major part of the video.

As the beginning of the song starts slow i think i will use the fade effect more frequently before the tempo picks up towards the middle.

Another opinion

"A few things I would look at or try

- more than one person. the torch sequence may look more effective with more people, the sequence with the car headlights that may also look effective with more than one person?

- 0:46 i like this as one person

- The fade from her face to the tree/moon i like

- are we ment to see the torch in her hand as it comes away from her?

- maybe try and get a field if that is where you want where there is less background i for one got pretty distracted by it.

Overall i think this looked like a worthwhile practice, Check out the editing pace and style, the bit going from the dark torch to the car was very quick i don't know wheher thats the ffect you were after though. maybe bring the car bt in when the singing restarts as i think i heard as 'as the light still burns within' which may make the footage more relevent?

The change in colour tone from 0:45 onwards i think is effective.

the shadow created on her face is nice,

Just an idea, after the shot of the tree maybe the next shot more people come in to the next shot so after the tree at 0:53 the next one is of the group.?

I think silhouettes will work well with the tone of the music. " - Mairead (Media Student)

I am glad someone responded to the colour editing of the piece. I tried different tones and shadows and highlights in the video to enhance the visual aspects and get a colour theme of dark blue and light orange and reds to symbolize the sad aspects of the music and to show its a story about two broken lovers who are confused about where they stand, hence the title 'delirious'.

As responded by these two viewers, they likes the light, shadow and silhouette effects rather then trying to follow a distinctive narrative which is the contemporary approach i was aiming for. To improve on this I will shoot more in the day light and use these dark and light effects towards the end of the song to keep continuity. I am going to introduce more characters and maybe even a large group of people to keep the viewers focused on the visual aesthetics rather than following a storyline.