HELLO EXAMINER

Welcome to my A2 Media Blog, which consists of- research, planning, production and My Final Product(s). The post below shows my final products that include: My Music Video, My Magazine Advert and my Digi-Pack. Finally My Evaluation Questions are on separate pages, situated on the top of my Blog.

Alex Atkinson 9000

OCR A2 Media Studies

September 2011-April 2012

Video Brief:

To create a music video along with its ancillary products.

MY FINAL PRODUCTS

MUSIC VIDEO FINAL

                 
                                                  DIGI-PACK FINAL

                                                  MAGAZINE ADVERT FINAL                                    

FINAL MAGAZINE WITH ALBUM

CALL SHEET FOR BALOON SHOOT

Balloon shoot

View more presentations from Alex Atkinson.

DIGIPACK

FEEDBACK FOR THE MAGAZINE COVER

MAGAZINE PLANNING

Conventional magazine adverts tend to use the album cover artwork, this builds consumer recognition of the item being promoted - the album. Therefore I will follow the convention and use a variation of my digipak front cover to maintain continuity.

Other conventions can include:

• record label information
• album release date
• list of hit singles
• band website details
• press reviews

A new convention across a wide platform of medium is to include a qr code - this clever piece of technology allows anyone who owns a smartphone to scan this 'logo' which will feed them to further information about the subject.

I will need to use the following images when constructing my cover:

SONY RECORDS:

QR CODE:

COLUMBIA RECORDS:

HERE IS A PLAN OF MY PLAN FOR THE LAYOUT AND DESIGN OF MY MAGAZINE COVER:

PRELIMARY MAGAZINE COVER DESIGN CONSTRUCTION

INSPIRATION FOR MAGAZINE COVER

I feel the album cover for Pink Floyd's album, Ummagumma has had a major influence on my album cover when comparing the actually image with Floyds album.


The featuring of the band on the album is very conventional however i wanted to feature the band on my magazine ad to show audiences their representation.
















As I compare the two I feel the composition of the band members are very similar in some sense from the way they are represented being very aware of the camera pointing at the them to portray some arrogance and strong style in both.

CHOSEN FINAL FONT

Based on the feedback given from our media class, the majority preferred our third font choice, 'Cookies'. This was actually our peronal favourite as well which is ideal for all of us. So it is going to feature on both my magazine ad and digipack.

DRAFT 1 DIGIPACK

This is my first attempt at the Digipak front cover, in my personal opinion, I believe that more could be done to the vinyl player itself to make it look more arty or professional! However, i must work on audience feedback before making further changes!!

The vinyl shot circled in orange is the one that my partner and I decided to use as the front cover of the digipak as it is the closest to a crane shot. It presented the best angle to use in photoshop.

BAND SHOT

DESIGNING OUR LOMOGRAPHY IMAGES

Today I worked with the tutorial I had obtained from http://tutorialblog.org/photoshop-tutorial-getting-that-great-x-promo-look/. We wanted to create a vintage look and the possibility of our image cover appearing like an old film camera.

There is growing trend for 'Lomography' and seeing our band, Foster The People are a modern enterprising indie tronica trio band. We felt this effect would lend itself very well on our album cover because it is stylish, and it clearly outlines a trend for a target audience.

I felt the Lomography effect really enhanced the image quality and colours.

LOMOGRAPHY TUTORIAL

For long as I can remember, I have love photography. When I was elementary school (1980s) (Yes I am getting old) I remember always having an old 35mm camera or an a disposal camera with me up until high school. Then towards the end of the year I got my first SLR camera. From there, I shot mostly in my SLRs and digital cameras.

But I have always love the vintage look and the possibility what the pictures will look like with an old film camera. But with modern digital cameras, you know what the picture looks like. If you are good, then the picture will come out looking great and have no issues.

But there is a growing trend that likes the vintage look or the images with a defective look. That style is Lomography. Lomography uses film cameras that are vintage, toy and have plastic lenses.

But for those that don’t have a vintage camera or even a film camera, they can’t get that look even if they wanted it. The only way to create that effect is with Photoshop.

A USEFUL METHOD FOR REMEMBERING TIPS ON AFTER EFFECTS- GRID EFFECT

After consulting a colleague who had great experience in using 'After Effects' we wanted to find out how we could form a grid effect on our music video to portray 4 moving images in 1 shot to emphasise the rhythm at that point with the guitars.

I discovered that using an 'Apple Macbook Pro' I have the function to 'screen record' with Quicktime meaning that I could remember how to do something and always refer back with a screen record. I was fortunate enough to receive my colleague's expertise on how to produce a grid on after effects and provide this screen record so that I can refer back to it:

CHOOSING A FONT FOR OUR BAND TITLE: 'FOSTER THE PEOPLE"

My partner used dafont.com to find a font that will be used as the production for both the digipak and the magazine advert. Dafont provides me and my partner with the choice to find an exciting font that we struggled to find a good font in photoshop. dafont.com, is a website that can provide thousands of different design fonts, easily downloadable to use in photoshop, word etc.

Here are some of the fonts that we have narrowed to be used on our digipak and magazine cover:

We are looking for an ideal font that would be arty but also bold enough to stand out, so that it will be an iconic thought to the consumer. My partner took the lead role in searching for a variety of fonts to test for feedback. The font with most favoured will be chosen for our digipak and magazine cover.

NEW EQUIPMENT FOR FILMING

Today the media department received a new Digital SLR camera that I am going to use to film some of my footage on. I am particular excited as this new camera : 'Canon EOS 550d' has the function to work on time lapse which my own camera (Nikon D3100) does not have the function to do. This has brought forward the idea of trying out and experimenting with some potential extra footage to add into our music video.

AFTER EFFECTS

We used After Effects during the edit to draw out the cycling footage and enhance the colours to give a more 'psychedelic' feel and give a more aesthetically pleasing scene to view as I don't feel it is exciting enough for now!

The screenshot taken here was using After Effects to alter the colours and saturation on the clip and to enhance the lighting.

VIDEO COPILOT

Video Copilot is a website that provides you with free After Effects tutorials, I have found this particularly useful as I have had no experience with the software in the past. For example I learnt how to adjust lighting setting on some of my footage as evident to the screenshot below:

INSPIRATION FOR MUSIC VIDEO OPENING

To further enhance the look and style of our music video we wanted to replicate a 'plastic lens' effect in the edit similar to the images I drew upon from the photographic company 'Lomography'.

PLANNING OF THE DIGIPACK

There are two options for digipaks: 6 panels or 4. I weighed up the options and decided that my design worked better with 4 panels rather than 6. For 6 panels, I felt I was including unnecessary artwork and it looked contrived. There is only one disc in this Digipak so the extra fold seemed surplus to - to be environmentally friendly, you shouldn't include more packaging than is neccessary for the product. I considered adding a fold-out leaflet of song lyrics but again this would involve more paper which is not only environmentally unacceptable for today's consumer but also increases the costs of production. The target market for this cd would find the lyrics and other information on the internet rather than read a small print fold-out. I believe that most single cds wil revert to this format of packaging in the near future for these very reasons. requirements

1. Cover
- Album name: Mind Games - We made a team decision that I felt we both very happen with to call our album: 'Mind Games'. I felt the idea was sparked from our music video and the games that feature. The Boggle and the Scrabble letters and the video itself plays games with the mind of the viewer, as well as the actors.
- Scrabble letters printed ontop of vinyl spelling out Foster The People: We chose to use Scrabble letters to continue the theme from the video, the current trend in retroism drew us to the idea of mixing old with new: an old vinyl player with very modern Indietronica music. Also, there is currently a trend for scrabble to be used: in adverts, on mugs, in home and kitchenware etc.

2/3. Double Spread Inside cover: Band members information as this is very typical for an indie album as in this foldout by The Strokes (Is This It).

4. Back Cover - to feature barcorde, record label information, tracklisting and links to the online institutions (label, band etc). Needs to include an image and incorperate elements of Indietronica, our video and the Front cover.

ARTICLE FROM CREATIVE REVIEW- CHANGES IN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

RESEARCH FOR DIGIPACK - CREATIVE REVIEW

I found an interest article in 'Creative Review' magazine on the 'creative side' of album/digipack. It was very interesting to take in and I felt it has been very useful in generating ideas for our digipack!