Update on Blogging, Filming and Editing

I have spent my study period today watching two past student examples in order to be able to analyse and put my analysis up on my blog soon! I have already analysed the 'Viva Brothers' video and my blog post for that is already up! However, today I watched the 'Crash' and a student example from another school. I plan to have both posts up about these videos within the next few days. 

After I have completed these, I am moving onto analysing past student auxiliary tasks, I realise I am a bit far behind with these, however, I have finished both of my tasks and the website is up on the blog already. My poster is pretty much finished I just need to get a few more images and change a few bits around and that should be up within a few days too! My website is as finished as it can be, as we have not yet finished filming our music video; I cannot put the finished video up on the website; but, I have included a draft video and as soon as we have completed editing and filming, I will change the draft video on the website to the finished one and re post it on the blog. 

In terms of filming and editing updates, we plan to film some more scenes within the next week and hopefully have them all edited very soon. So expect some updated footage very soon!

Moving onto my evaluation. I have started to answer some of the questions but will still need a bit more time to develop my answers, and will hopefully have them all drafted by next Friday, watch this space!

Past Student Examples - Viva Brothers

Analysis: Past Students Axillary Tasks

Example

The first analysis is going to be of a digi pack done for the artist Example.

This digipack is good in the fact the colours and background are re occurring. This makes the album digipack flow much more and its not as disjointed. It is clear who the artist is as he appears in every part of the cd booklet. The booklet contains pages with lyrics which is very stereotypical of a digipack as it gives the audience/purchaser the opportunity to learn the lyrics so they can sing along with the songs. It also contains photos of the artist, which are not usually accessible anywhere else unless you actually purchase the cd. 

The cons of this digipack is that it is very basic. The editing is basic as all they have done is put text over images. They haven't used many of the conventions such as putting the record label or a barcode. These are the general conventions which make the digipack more professional. The text used is very basic but it is reoccurring throughout. There is one photo in the digipack which is of a completely new person so it makes it really rather confusing to figure out who it is. 

Overall, I feel this person has got the basics of the digipack however for me, to make it more professional I would include more effects to make the digipack look more advanced and include more of the codes and conventions such as record labels. 

Noah and The Whale 

This is the front and back cover of the digipack. I find these very well thought out and the colours link to the music video very well also these colours are recurring throughout all her axillary tasks including the website. The photos on both the covers like to clips within the music video. It gives a clear link between the artist and his music. The only con I find with this is that the cover and back cover are very different which disrupts the continuous flow that you want with a professional digipack. 

Inside the digipack the pamphlet is brilliant. The fonts used are the same so helps with the flow but also they have included photos of both people that appear in the music video. It makes it clear who the artist and performers are. Like the previous example they have included lyrics within the pamphlet giving the audience a more personal experience with the artist and album if these are included. 

This is the CD design, it is simplistic yet effective as the colours again continue with the conventions and continuality of the whole digipack. The whales are used in the pamphlet and cd design which makes you relate the cartoon almost like a logo to this artist.

Overall I feel lots of time and effort went into this digipack, and because of this it makes it look professional whilst fitting the style of the artist.

Daughter

I am also going to analyse some website designs. This is one of the most recent artist websites that have been created by students at my school so I thought it would be good to compare as I plan to a website for my artist. The pros of this website is that it is very music video orientated, the music video is the first thing you see on a website, this fits the codes and conventions of publicising the music video. The artists name is clearly stated in big bold writing on the top of the page. They have access to all social media pages clearly shown on their home page and even have a news feed in a side bar to keep the fans up to date with what is happening. 

Although it links to the video, the background I feel is quite disjointed, to make it look professionally thy should have used just one image to show a more pleasing aesthetic. Also there isn't an info page on the artist which I think is very important within the codes and conventions for an artist website. All of the other pages are quite basic so I feel to improve they could have gone into more depth about the artist just to give it a more personal experience for the audience.

Regina Spektor

I chose to analyse this website as the music video has aspects of it that are similar to mine. 

I love how minimalistic yet effective this website is, there are multiple pages which means that the information is evenly distributed and their is much more content to explore on this website than the other one, new music video is advertised on the home page. The colour scheme is plain and the text is the same throughout. The photos displayed on the home page are linked to the newly released music video which is the main convention of an artists website - to publicise their latest work. 

Pages such as the shop have been very well thought out with detailing going into the products. This makes the website look even more professional as it doesn't look like its just been thrown together. It even has links to the iTunes store where you can purchase her album. 

The only criticism I have is that the size of each of the web pages is very small. which means that the space is very constricted to what information you can put in it. 

I kissed a girl

I am analysing this poster as I am creating one myself. I like how she's put the title behind the artists head, but it is still visible. Also the fact that the text colour is all bright colours makes it stand out. Having the tour dates of the artist down the side is a good idea as it is a code and convention to advertise as much as possible and get lots of publicity. Again going with publicity she has included a website link within the advert to make it easy to track down the artist and for the audience to discover more about them. 

However in this advert I feel there are some improvements that could be made. For example most of the text is so small that it is very hard to read. Although the artist and song name is larger than everything else it is not big enough to grab the readers attention. The tour dates are extremely small and although its a good idea to have them on the advert you need them big enough for the reader to want to read and find out where they are. Also, the background of the main photo is very basic, it does not make anything stand out and is not very aesthetically pleasing. 

Viva Brothers

This is one of the best examples I have found of past student examples when it comes to promotional posters. 

It is extremely professional looking with a clear theme shown throughout, the band name is very clear and the sponsors of the release show are clearly stated making it look well thought out. The fact he has included all different sorts of music record companies shows that he has a clear understanding of the music business. The date and time are clearly shown and it also includes places where to get tickets from. 

Personally I cannot think of anything to fault this promotional poster on, except maybe the title of the album which is quite an important part of the advertisement as although we have the bands name we don't know what we are buying tickets for except that its an album release show.

Research: Final Cut Lessons - Split Screen

For my split screen I worked with Jack, we decided to recreate Examples - Kickstarts as this is is a perfect example of split screen here are some screenshots showing how many different ways he incorporated split screen:

The one we used the most is bottom left, we got 4 different people to sing the lyrics and then dance at the chorus. 

I didn't realise how easy it was to create a split screen, all you have to do is put two video clips on top of each other and then change the size of both clips so they fit the screen! 

I also learnt how easy it was to do a green screen. You put the clip with the green screen and the background on top of each other and then apply the 'keyer' effect which removes the green screen and puts your chosen clip in its place.

Storyboard: Demons

Slideshares didn't work when uploading this so I had to use the good old screen shots. So this is our storyboard, give or take a few shots! 

Axillary Task: Website - Contact Us

This is my Contact page:

This is the final page on my website, the background is also the background used in my magazine advert. I feel the use of the deep red and mustard colour really come together on this page. It gives you all the information needed to get in contact with Hattie and even has a message box for fans to message her. There is also a photo of Hattie playing the piano and again it has a filter over it so it doesn't take your attention away from the background. Personally I cannot think of anything else I need to add so any feedback would be more than welcome.

Axillary Task: Website - Gigs

This is my Gig page:

I don't know how disjointed these photos are going to look stitched together so I apologise. In this page there is a lot going on, again an autumnal theme. This page is mainly for people looking to book Hattie as it gives them a taste of the music genres that she sings. You have a most popular section of the songs often sung at weddings as up until recently this is what Hattie is most usually booked for. Then you have the songs sung at both festivals which are much more upbeat and fit the festival genre. I have also designed it so that Hattie's recent release 'Demons' is the song sung last regardless of what sort of gig she is doing. At the bottom you have sound cloud links to Hattie's music to give people a taster of what she sounds like (I stole a friends sound cloud clips as funnily enough there is nobody called Hattie Chadwick on sound cloud.. oops)
Please feel free to ignore the rather random looking couple down the side of the page, this is going to be replaced with a photo of Hattie asap but for now, they can stay.

Axillary Task: Website - Gallery

Here is my Gallery page:

Please for the love of God just ignore my selfie for the minute, I haven't had a chance to get any proper photos of 'Hattie' so I just stuck a selfie in there for the time being. My friends mum is a photographer so I am going over hers tonight to get some portfolio style shots to put in to make them look more professional. I chose to put all festival style images into the 'Image Gallery' however I am considering changing it to 'Event Gallery' to make it more fitting. I wanted festival photos as for our age range and target audience we go to many of these so they can relate to the photos. Also having them on Hattie's page shows that she is 'performing' at the events fitting with the target audience. I also included a Ginger girl looking away as though it actually is Hattie and making it look more realistic. 

Some of the photos however were chosen purely because they were pretty and I couldn't think of any other types of photos to include in the gallery page as I somehow don't think people would appreciate 12 photos of me ;) 

Auxillary Task: Website - About Hattie

This is my 'About Hattie' page:

Again going with the autumnal theme (the background moves as you scroll which is why the photo looks disjointed). I found it very difficult to find things to talk about in the 'About Me' paragraph as trying to make an artist up when you have no musical knowledge is more challenging than I thought. I found a picture on tumblr which is linked to the music video, however I thought a black and white photo would look out of place on this page against the background. I didn't want the photo to take away from the colourful background so I chose a photo with a grunge type effect over the top so it is a very subtle photo and not in your face. The bar with all the contact info is still in the bottom as I wanted to create a professional theme throughout. I found having to put text in quite hard as against the background there wasn't many colours that would be seen so I gave it a subtle highlight so you can read the text but doesn't draw away from the background. I might go into more detail for the 'About Hattie' section however I might do some research into what other real artists have written before I do this.

Auxillary Task: Website - Homepage

Today I continued with editing my website for Hattie Chadwick, I had already started and done the basics so now all I have to do is adjust each page to make sure they are perfect.

This is my home page, unfortunately it doesn't quite fit on the screen so you have to scroll down to see the bottom :

I have managed to place it so you can see the whole home page, there isn't the gap at the bottom its just so the scale was the same and they would stitch together properly. As you can see I have gone for an autumnal background, this is because there is a flash back in my music video where they are in a park during autumn and leaves are dominant during those clips. My main image focus is on the magazine advert which is advertising the music video in a release show. Again this fits in with the autumnal background rather well. There is the quote 'Bring Music To Life' throughout this page as this is Hattie's slogan and we want to make this known. Towards the bottom of the page there are 3 photos from festivals as though Hattie has been performing at them and her photographer has taken these photos. 

Finally at the bottom of the page you have a bar along the bottom, this includes Hattie's name, slogan, logo and booking information along with the different social medias you can reach Hattie on. 

Overall I like this as a homepage, however when viewing on a Mac such as the ones in the media room, the sides feel very empty. However when looking at it on my laptop the scale ratio seems perfect so I am not sure what to do about this. 

Audience Research Analysis

After having to wait a long time for enough responses, I am finally able to analyse the research I have gathered, after a lot of pestering friends to help me out! Here are the results I gathered from my survey that I created using Survey Monkey. I wanted to find out what sort of music people our age listen to, how they listen to it and how often; this is so I know how the best way to market and adverise our video is towards our target audience.

There were a few mixed opinions and the repsonses were much more diverse than I first thought they would be. Especially the range of genre of music that people listen to. Also, the difference in the types of all time favourite videos shocked me too as I thought many of them would be modern videos but I had artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Queen and Michael Jackson in there.