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.

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/

I find this particularly interesting as it connects with Jessica's abstract idea of using sweets such as Smarties or M&Ms on the front cover to perhaps spell out the name "Lawrence King", and perhaps we could incorporate this somehow into it, using a red, yellow and green sweet to represent a traffic light.

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.

Production Meeting 5

Shooting is now complete and Jess is beggining to capture footage and getting to grips with Final Cut Pro. Although we are all excited about having Macs this year it does mean we all have to learn how to use a completely new piece of software. We have decided that Nicola concentrate on the album cover and album advertisment, and Maya will help Jess with the editing.

We were not able to shoot some of the shots on Maya's storyboard due to our conflicting time schedules and accessibilty of locations. We had planned to shoot in a record shop but the only times we were allowed to shoot in there were times when at least one of us were unable to do so. However we are confident that the footage that we do have will prove adequate.

Storyboard

Below is the storyboard for our pop promo, please excuse the fact the drawings get the worse as it goes on!

Mood Board

Below is a mood board which Nicola made for our group, to give us visual inspiration for our pop promo:

Mise en Scene Treatment

Nicola's entry

Costumes/Make up

For Jessica's character I want her to be wearing a bright coat when moving around in the everyday scenes, this will make her stand out against the general public. In the everyday scenes I want Jessica to be wearing natural make up to show off natural beauty. In the bar scenes i want Jessica's character to be wearing a black dress that it tight fitting to show her femininity, I want her to accessorise this dress with a brightly coloured belt to carried on the theme from the other scenes. In the bar scenes i want Jessica's make up to be a bit more apparent with her wearing more mascara to emphasize her eyes. During the bedrooms scenes i want Jessica's character to be wearing Pajamas to show she is at home and in a relaxed environment, during all of Jessica's scenes i want her hair to be straight and blonde as this will contrast with Nicola's characters hair.

For Nicola's character i want her to be wearing a black coat and a brightly coloured scarf during the everyday scenes again the brightly coloured scarf will make her stand out. For the bar scene i was Nicola's character to be wearing more colour than usual, to do this i will dress her in a brightly coloured skirt and team this with a black top and a bright red belt, the use of colours will help her to seem confident.

For the bedroom scene i want Nicola's character to be in Pj's this will make her look comfortable i also want her to wrapped in a duvet this will give the impression that she is about to go to bed. I want Nicola's character to have curly brown hair this will contrast with Jessica's character and help the audience to distinguish between them.

Lighting

The everyday scenes are set outdoors and will be naturally lit as i don't want the promo to look too stylized whereas the bedroom scenes will be dimly lit with the focus of the light on the character to help them be the focus of the scene rather than their surroundings. During the make up scenes the focus of the light will be on the characters face as this is what we want the audience to look at.

Locations

We have a few different locations in our piece, we have the waterfront university building, the two bedrooms and the bar. I chose the waterfront building as it looks modern and artsy and i felt this would go with the tone and feel of our music, i also chose it because of the amount of traffic needed for the time lapse element of our promo. The bedrooms are dressed are differently as i wanted the two characters to have different personalities and tastes, Jessica's character has a printed wallpaper and a large bed with a candle lamp giving a hippy/oriental theme to the room whereas Nicola's character has a simple room. The bar is chose for the decor, it is bright and uses bold colours which i felt matched the tome of the promo. it looks modern and niche which i think would appeal to the audience of our music as they would most likely hang out in bars rather than clubs.

Props

For the props we need to mobile phones i decided to use smart-phones such as the blackberry phone in our promo to show modern technology.

Performance

The characters in our promo will be tackling the subject of homosexuality and in their performance they need to be flirty and attracted to each other without glamorizing lesbianism and making it look over the top. During the bar scene where the characters meet for the first time i want them to flirt with each other but smiling and touching each others arms or hair, then when Jessica's characters says goodbye and the characters kiss, i have decided that they will kiss on the cheek as a fully passionate kiss would be inappropriate and distract from the message we are trying to put across