Learning to use Photoshop was frustrating but we eventually discovered that it was a very powerful tool when harnessed properly. Nicola had now complete the first draft of our album cover using both images of nature and city life. We wanted to create a link between the video and the album design and the inclusion of lights and traffics helps with this. The nature image on the front has had the colours altered to appear artificial and more 'electronic'. For the inside image Nicola experimented with exposure time. Using a busy road she increased the exposure time to create the blurring of the lights which give the appearance of fast moving traffic. We are particularly happy with this.
Editing of the pop promo is nearing completion but has hit some errors. A problem with the Macs effected the whole class and resulted in some footage dropping frames or footage becoming jerky and clipped. Unfortunately we do not have the original footage to re-capture to resolve this problem, but as explained it is through no fault of our own. We will try and reduce the damage caused by using alternative footage that is unaffected. Luckily Maya shot quite a few take of the same scenes so we should be able to find some footage that is good to use.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Saturday, 13 March 2010
Features of A CD Cover
Here are the features that may be included on a CD Cover:
Front Cover...
Band name
Album/song name
Promotional stickers
Back Cover...
Track listing
Barcode
Web address
Record company name
Trademarks
Digital technology logos
Front Cover...
Band name
Album/song name
Promotional stickers
Back Cover...
Track listing
Barcode
Web address
Record company name
Trademarks
Digital technology logos
Friday, 12 March 2010
Factors To Consider When Developing Our Print Advert and Album Cover
Title & Typeface
The title often dominates for obvious reasons. But we should also consider the type/style of the typeface and font, and the colours used for it.
Tag-lines often accompany adverts or copywriting for products. They may also have acclaim and reviews on albums or products. There might also be a website address so you can find out more about the product.
Who is featured in the text? Are they well known stars? Are they a key selling point for the text? We should also consider representation of the people featured in the text. Look for archetypes, stereotypes and generic types, and any attempts at realism. Remember who your target audience are and the representations need to appeal to them. Consider age, gender, class, race, and media forms & language used to create representations and the values that are attached to these representations.
Genre
We must consider whether our advert suggests a genre of music, as this will help us to define the target audience of the industry behind the adverts. Also, we should decide how clear the genre is going to be in the text and what generic elements we will use.
Narrative
Will the text contain a suggested storyline, sometimes known as a narrative image, that will draw the audience's interest to the text? Sometimes the text will tease us with questions creating a mystery or an enigma. This image may be backed or aided by a tagline or some copywriting such as "just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water."
Institution
The institution behind the band needs to be considered. Are they on a huge label and trying to sell the artist to the widest possible audience or a tiny independent label where the band will have more control?
Ideology
What is the ideology and the messages and values we want to project? This could be the idea of the hero, good versus evil, capitalism, true love, ideas towards the typical family, youth and vibrancy etc. Audience A very important part of developing our print pieces are who our target audience are, and profile them and give reasons for the decisions we make on our target audience. We must think about demographics, socio-economics, VALS, labels, and also our audience size and how we will appeal to them using media language.
The title often dominates for obvious reasons. But we should also consider the type/style of the typeface and font, and the colours used for it.
- Title or main font and typeface on the text.
- Size(s) of the text • Positioning of the font and typeface
- Type of font and typeface used
- Colour(s) of the typeface(s)
- Any logos or distinctive graphics used
Tag-lines often accompany adverts or copywriting for products. They may also have acclaim and reviews on albums or products. There might also be a website address so you can find out more about the product.
- Any prominent tags or slogans and your interpretation of these
- What is the layout/format of the text? • Consider MES: Lighting, props, costume, performance.posture, location.
- Image photography. Consider framing, camera angle, shot size, MS, CU etc
- Any intertextuality in the images(s). Borrowings from other media texts.
Who is featured in the text? Are they well known stars? Are they a key selling point for the text? We should also consider representation of the people featured in the text. Look for archetypes, stereotypes and generic types, and any attempts at realism. Remember who your target audience are and the representations need to appeal to them. Consider age, gender, class, race, and media forms & language used to create representations and the values that are attached to these representations.
Genre
We must consider whether our advert suggests a genre of music, as this will help us to define the target audience of the industry behind the adverts. Also, we should decide how clear the genre is going to be in the text and what generic elements we will use.
Narrative
Will the text contain a suggested storyline, sometimes known as a narrative image, that will draw the audience's interest to the text? Sometimes the text will tease us with questions creating a mystery or an enigma. This image may be backed or aided by a tagline or some copywriting such as "just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water."
Institution
The institution behind the band needs to be considered. Are they on a huge label and trying to sell the artist to the widest possible audience or a tiny independent label where the band will have more control?
Ideology
What is the ideology and the messages and values we want to project? This could be the idea of the hero, good versus evil, capitalism, true love, ideas towards the typical family, youth and vibrancy etc. Audience A very important part of developing our print pieces are who our target audience are, and profile them and give reasons for the decisions we make on our target audience. We must think about demographics, socio-economics, VALS, labels, and also our audience size and how we will appeal to them using media language.
Monday, 1 March 2010
Homosexuality in Music Videos
Jessica researched the subject of homosexuality in music videos:
Our narratives centres around Girl A and Girl B who cross paths and begin a relationship. Although we originally intended for the relationship to form between a girl and boy, the availability of actors has meant we had to consider other alternatives. However, this has gave us the opportunity to venture into raising issues through our music video, i.e the acceptability of homosexuality within the music industry. Although socially homosexuality is now widely accepted, its is still not seen often in music videos. I feel the decision to go ahead with this narrative within our music video is in-line with the progressive thinking that I discovered in my research for electronic music videos.
History
In 1981 after the emergence of MTV the popularity and volume of music videos increased drastically. At this time homosexuality in music videos was few and far between. However a growing number of artists sporting the androgynous image such as Annie Lennox and openly gay artists such as Boy George introduced the issue into their music videos. However this did not represent the average homosexual person as the character were often over dramatized.
One exception was Bruce Springsteen. The video above was for his track Tougher than the Rest. Couples are shown kissing throughout the video, with gay and lesbian couples featured alongside heterosexual couples and this projects the correct image of homosexual relationships- no different from all the rest! Many Rock 'n' Roll artists used lesbianism in a derogatory way in the late 80's/90's. Instead of promoting sexual differences positively they were often glorified and for entertainment purposes. Women often shown stripping, kissing and getting intimate featured strongly and a feminist reading of this is that it is purely for a mans entertainment.
The emergence of t.A.T.u (Russian short hand for this girl loves that girl) glamorised lesbianism in a way that some may criticise as not being beneficial to the cause. The above video is for their no.1 hit All The Things She Said and features the romance of 2 girls and kissing throughout. Some praised the video for putting lesbians into the mainstream, and the cinematography of the video- showing girls behind bars etc- accurately portrayed the struggle of lesbian couples. However the video also received a huge backlash as the girls are in school uniform and the fact that the are both heterosexual in real life means that the video was just to entertain the male population. More recently artists such as Lady GaGa have fought for equal rights for homosexual and transgendered couple as displayed in her video for Telephone.
Our narratives centres around Girl A and Girl B who cross paths and begin a relationship. Although we originally intended for the relationship to form between a girl and boy, the availability of actors has meant we had to consider other alternatives. However, this has gave us the opportunity to venture into raising issues through our music video, i.e the acceptability of homosexuality within the music industry. Although socially homosexuality is now widely accepted, its is still not seen often in music videos. I feel the decision to go ahead with this narrative within our music video is in-line with the progressive thinking that I discovered in my research for electronic music videos.
History
In 1981 after the emergence of MTV the popularity and volume of music videos increased drastically. At this time homosexuality in music videos was few and far between. However a growing number of artists sporting the androgynous image such as Annie Lennox and openly gay artists such as Boy George introduced the issue into their music videos. However this did not represent the average homosexual person as the character were often over dramatized.
One exception was Bruce Springsteen. The video above was for his track Tougher than the Rest. Couples are shown kissing throughout the video, with gay and lesbian couples featured alongside heterosexual couples and this projects the correct image of homosexual relationships- no different from all the rest! Many Rock 'n' Roll artists used lesbianism in a derogatory way in the late 80's/90's. Instead of promoting sexual differences positively they were often glorified and for entertainment purposes. Women often shown stripping, kissing and getting intimate featured strongly and a feminist reading of this is that it is purely for a mans entertainment.
The emergence of t.A.T.u (Russian short hand for this girl loves that girl) glamorised lesbianism in a way that some may criticise as not being beneficial to the cause. The above video is for their no.1 hit All The Things She Said and features the romance of 2 girls and kissing throughout. Some praised the video for putting lesbians into the mainstream, and the cinematography of the video- showing girls behind bars etc- accurately portrayed the struggle of lesbian couples. However the video also received a huge backlash as the girls are in school uniform and the fact that the are both heterosexual in real life means that the video was just to entertain the male population. More recently artists such as Lady GaGa have fought for equal rights for homosexual and transgendered couple as displayed in her video for Telephone.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Develop Own Individual Idea for CD Cover & Magazine Advert
My individual idea for our CD cover and magazine advert is to use the theme of cars and traffic lights in an urban area, because timelapse of cars going past on a road and stopping at traffic lights features alot in our pop promo.
We need to consider the look and feel of the whole package and make sure that it is a promotional package and not 3 entirely separate pieces of promotions, and that is why i'd like to have a linking theme of traffic in an urban area featuring in all three pieces. I think it would work well as the movement off the traffic stopping and starting at traffic lights relates to the change in tempo of our song.
I have browsed the photo sharing website flickr.com and gathered a selection of images that are inspiration to the type of image CD Cover I would like to create.
We need to consider the look and feel of the whole package and make sure that it is a promotional package and not 3 entirely separate pieces of promotions, and that is why i'd like to have a linking theme of traffic in an urban area featuring in all three pieces. I think it would work well as the movement off the traffic stopping and starting at traffic lights relates to the change in tempo of our song.
I have browsed the photo sharing website flickr.com and gathered a selection of images that are inspiration to the type of image CD Cover I would like to create.
Source - http://www.flickr.com/photos/judybaxter/45638349/
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Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/magdalengreen/336816866/
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Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11689793@N03/1351332693/
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Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/judybaxter/45638349/
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Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/harrivayrynen/3213509470/
Monday, 1 February 2010
Develop Own Individual Idea For Pop Promo
Synopsis
- The contrast between an urban environment and a rural environment
- A woman who lives in the countryside, and we follow her driving through a peaceful rural environment into a city
- A man is shown going about his day to day life in a bustling city in the daytime
- They then meet coincidentally at a location in the evening such as a bar and it indicated that they are attracted to each other
- Theme of traffic in the urban environment
- Theme of nature in countryside
Treatment
- Traffic theme - lights changing from red to green, people crossing busy roads, busy and conjested, timelapsed shots of cars driving along roads
- Theme of nature in countryside - timelapsed shots of clouds, wildlife etc
- Woman in the countryside dressed in stereotypical countryside clothes - tweed, wellies?
- Man in the city dressed in business atire - suit, briefcase etc
- Close ups of their faces as they first see each other to show their immediate reactions (they fancy each other)
- Diagetic sounds from the environment (city/countryside) and enhanced sounds (where you take a sound in the background and make it louder than it actually is) to reinforce to the audience the environment that the characters are in
- Shots timelapsed slightly or slowed down depending on the tempo of the music at different points throughout the track
- Bright, vivid colours in the countryside eg bright green grass, colourful flowers, blue sky (so we will have to pick a nice day to film!)
- Tint the urban environment shots with a slightly blueish tint to give a cold and slightly depressive feel (like they do in the BBC drama "Spooks" set in central London)
Production Meeting 6
Editing is now coming along well and the timeline on Final Cut Pro is now beginning to fill up. Jess has decided to drop the footage of herself on the beach as she doesn't think it fits properly. Her character is shown in a city environment at the beginning of the promo and to show her then suddenly on a beach may prove confusing.
Nicola and Maya are both going to shoot some photographs around town in the next couple of weeks for inspiration for the album cover and advertisement, whilst Jess will focus on more fun nature-ish shots. We have a lesson next week introducing us to Photoshop on the Macs, and we will begin creating some rough ideas. We will all design album covers and advertisements but Nicola will be producing the final piece. We feel that if we all have a go at designing it will help us aid Nicola in producing a great final piece.
Nicola and Maya are both going to shoot some photographs around town in the next couple of weeks for inspiration for the album cover and advertisement, whilst Jess will focus on more fun nature-ish shots. We have a lesson next week introducing us to Photoshop on the Macs, and we will begin creating some rough ideas. We will all design album covers and advertisements but Nicola will be producing the final piece. We feel that if we all have a go at designing it will help us aid Nicola in producing a great final piece.
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