All- Inside Digipak

Here are the first ideas for the inside panels of the digipak. We plan to get feedback on these and then improve on images.

ALL- Rough cut 2

This is our second rough cut. In this one wee have changed the performance footage over to the new boy band line up.

ALL- Roughcut

Magazine Ad Draft 2

Eval 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research and planning and evaluation stages?

During the research and planning i used different internet based sites such as blogger and scribd. Blogger is the site we have used to present this years and last years coursework. There are many different tools available to use on blogger. I have used ones such as 

• Links lists
• Hyperlinks
• Polls
• RSS Feeds
• MP3s and Podcasts embedded

Things like the poll allowed me get some basic audience feedback when choosing the song

(show screengrabs on how to make gadgets)

Photoshop was used when creating our digipak and magazine adverts. It is used to change and add features such as text.

(Show uneditied picture then change to edited and say how this was done)

Do the same for magazine advert

Final Cut

Final cut express is a non-linear video editing application created by Apple Inc. It is designed for advanced editing of digital video as well as high-definition video, which is used by many amateur and professional videographers. Last year we used imovie to construct our videos and final cut gave us the ability to do more things. 

(Add picture of final cut screen)

I used final cut to edit my video. Also to split clips, and effects such as desaturate- which is changing it to black and white or vignette (shot of vignette being used) which we used.

In the evaluation stage I used all of the tools I previously used to the research and planning and construction stage. 

Eval 3

What have you learnt from audience feedback?


N'sync were an American boy band who were formed in Orlando, Florida in 1995. The group consisted of 5 male members  JC Chasez,Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone, & Chris Kirkpatrick. They split in 2002. At this time they had fans ranging from 10-30 but their primary target audience is 15-24 females. Currently the age of the band members range from 31-40. A secondary audience would be people ranging from 25-34 as they would ave been that primary target audience at the time of the song. Another secondary audience could be a gay male audience as they boy band is relatively attractive so appeal to a male audience.


We gathered our feedback in numerous ways;

1. Interviewing our class after watching the video- this was very helpful as unlike when we got feedback from other students the media students could give us feedback that they knew would be achievable as we are all working with he same equipment and have the same budget.
2. Feedback from our media teacher- this we found the most helpful as he knew has a deep knowledge of music videos and what looks good and able to give us really detailed feedback rather than 'it was good'
3. Posting on youtube and getting comments- this was good as we could get people not exclusively from Ilkley Grammar to give their views.
4. We also used sites such as facebook for feedback on our digipak pictures. 

For our magazine advert we simply asked people and wrote down their feedback. 

MA- Draft Evaluation 2

How effective is the combination of your main media product and ancillary texts? 


Our brief was to create a promotion package for the release of an album, including a music promo video, together with a cover for its release as part of an album digipak and a magazine advertisement for the digipak.
It is important to note that in many cases not all digipaks and magazine adverts directly link to just one music video. This is because a digipak has many songs on it and therefore has to link to them all and the magazine advert is there to promote the digipak so also will not just tie into one specific video. 
Although this is slightly different for us as we have only created one video and used the shots taken separately for our digipak. Also some digipak/albums have more then one video for the same song an example of this would be U2. 
Another reason for why all 3 texts are more tightly linked would be that in real life example the artwork or shoots for the digipak and magazine advert would be out sourced to separate advertising companies.


A real example of a company that would produce our music video would be.                                                                                                   


In our own work we have some aspects that tie them together;

• The locations used in the mag and digipak are the same as the video
• Titles of Digipak and Mag Ad link together - "New Generation" 
• Same front in mag ad and digipak
• Layering is used in digipak and video
• Boy band present in all 3 texts
• The boyband wearing the same clothes in all 3 texts

Differences

• Digipak is in black and white, where as the mag ad will be in colour 
• The narrative is not included in the mag ad
• Style of the font used for digipak and mag ad are not the same 
• Black font colour on the Digipak and White on the mad ad
• some of the locations are different 

MA- Draft Evaluation1- In what ways does your media product use, challenge or develop forms and conventions of real media products?

Video
Goodwin said that there are 3 main types of music video;
Narrative- where the lyric of the song directly relate to what we see on screen
Performance- where the artist or band are performing in the video, although it doesn't always have to be the actual artist it could be actors, an example of this is Nickleback-Rockstar 
Concept- where the video doesn't relate to the lyrics


There are several common conventions in music videos;

• Main focus is the artist or band
• There is fast paced editing
• Part of the video is cut to the beat of the track
• Contains one of the three types of music video, having more than one type is very common
• Lip-syncing used in part or all of video
• Shot variation
• Variety of locations
• Linear concept
• Non- linear concept
• Layering
• Special effects
• Titles
• Props
• Diagetic intro
• Bright/ artificial lighting
• Heterosexual relationship portrayed as normative
• Sexual theme
• Male and/or Female gaze
• Dancing/ Choreography
• Costumes
• Glamour

Genre specific conventions pop/boyband;

• Lead member is focused on
• Clothing that is modern/ on trend * say how old clothing 1990s has changed from new boyband 2012. (more trendy
• Clothing of each member that all ties in together
• Choreography ranging from simple to complex
• Locations used usually a mix of studio and outside locations such as cliff tops, rivers, parks.
• Black and white shots combined with colour to create effects or show a change in time eg past and present
• The use of a female as a love interest
• Expensive cars
• Having texts in the shots- this could be the lyrics as they are being sung. eg Rhianna-You da one
• Water is often used to give a soft feel to the videos, and to appeal to females

The conventions we used in our video

• In our video we used the conventions of lip-syncing. We have lip-syncing in nearly all of our performance shots. 
• We also used props in our video, we used a bouquet a pink flowers, a bottle of whiskey and an Iphone to name a few. 
• We used a heterosexual relationship in our video between the boy and girl in the narrative side of our video. We showed the relationship by having them with their arms around each other and trying to signify that they lived together. 
• We also used a combination of black and white shots and colour shots to signify a difference in time, for the flashbacks we used an effect called vignette where the outer edge of the frame is blurred and we took the blurred colour to black and white to the the only colour was focused right on the centre of the frame were the couple is.
•  We also took the convention of modern clothing, we asked the boys to wear relatively plain clothing, mostly dark colours such as grey and brown. we took our clothing ideas from current bands eg jls, one direction.
• Shot variation, we used the Ilkley Moor, the River Wharfe, a house, the cemetery, the park
• We used layering and special effect in our video. 
• We have one singer playing the lead.
• We included a small diagetic introduction- a shot of Charlie look at a picture of Sophie on his Iphone.

Some of the conventions we couldn't use such as high key lighting as we don't have access to that type of equipment. Also the use of expensive cars as our budget was practically non existent.
Other conventions we challenged was fast paced editing, we have keep our editing slower than some because we want it to reflect the mood of the song, the song itself is slow and about a broken relationship. We also did not use any choreography because we didn't feel it would fit with the song. We didn't place any text in the video as we felt it may cheapen to look of our product.


Digipak
Digipaks are a paperboard case that allows space for a CD (in a plastic tray) and an information booklet about the artist or the tracks.They are used because a number of images and text can be printed onto every panel which is perfect for a special edition CD or DVD.  A digipak is a recyclable form a cd packaging. Digipaks are not as common as jewel case. A digipak consists of;

• Front panel
• Back panel
• 2 inner panels
• spine

Common conventions of Digipak

The front cover of the digipaks can contain;

• Artist shot
• Name and Album name
• Sticker showing DVD bonus
• Sticker showing leading singles contained- these are used to get the audiences attention and highlight what is on the digipak.

Back Cover;

• Track listings and timings
• Bar code
• QR Code
• Website URL
• Logos eg production and record company

The advantages of a Digipak;

• Recyclable as its made from card
• Lower in weight so reduces distribution
• Thinner cases- can fit more on the shelve
• Some resemblance to a LP
• More collectible than a jewel case

Other features;

• Spine- small details such as catalogue number this can either be a different colour or image to other panels or the picture front the front or back can be continued over the spine
• Inside design
• Removable lyrics sheet
• Distinct colour scheme

Some existing digipaks are very simple for example Take That- Beautiful World whereas others are a lot more complex.

The example we used in our digipak;

• Including a image of the band and making in the focal point of the front.
• Have the relationship bewteen the front and back cover- we used the same pose for the boys but took it front the back.
• Sticker
• Logos
• Social Networking images
• Track listing and times
• Production company URL
• Relationship between front and back panel.

Magazine Ad

Our target audience is 15-24 females, a secondary audience is an older audience of 25-35 because the they would of been 15-245 when the NSYNC track was released. Another secondary audience could be gay males of the same age.

It is possible for us to use slightly different adverts to appeal to a slightly different audience for example for a younger audience who read magazines such as 'Sugar' we could use larger texts and have more focus on cute and happy pictures of the boy band whereas for a older female or gay male audience who would read 'more' or 'heat' we could use slightly more seductive pictures of our boy band.

Conventions used in our Mag Ad.

• Artist name
• Album name
• Release date
• Production company url
• Image of band
• Small amount of text
• Font variation

ALL- Digipak Draft 3

In this edit we used a effect to make 4 different square colours. The feedback from this was this is didn't fit with our genre.It would be more suited to a indie genre.

EF- Changes to be made in coursework

Recently Mel and I made the mistake of unfortunately not backing up our work, on the editing we had done with our footage, which resulted in us loosing our editing when the Lacie drive on the mac broke. This has meant we have had to transfer everything back on to Final Cut and re-edit our work. 


Music Video 


We are going to have to hand a final cut to be marked roughly on Friday this week, however the footage we are going to be handing in will not show the true potential of our performance, as we have not yet been able to re-film our previous performance, as we have had problems with casting, however we have now got a full cast and we know this is cutting it fine but we are hopefully filming our performance either Monday or Tuesday next week. 


So the performance in our cut we are giving in on Friday will not be the performance we are going to use for the Complete Final cut, but will show the locations we are going to use so far however we have decided to use one other location when we re-film. The clothes are going to be different, and more sophisticated as we have added more control to our part in this production now, and our new cast members will be taking the shot more seriously. There will be some more group shots for the performance, and some more camera angles and shots both for the narrative and performance. 


Unfortunately in the ending to our video has not yet been filmed, we are planning on using a final part of the narrative as our ending which is the grave scene, where we are hinting the girls death from the narrative as our ending. So the ending for the cut getting handed in will not be our actual ending.  There will also be another narrative flashback in our complete piece which will be a scene where our couple are feeding the ducks.  We are also filming this next week. 


We are going to be using more layering techniques in our complete final cut, than what will be shown in the cut handed in on Friday. We have done a section of layering for our bathroom, mirror scene to show what we are hoping to place in the complete cut. There will also be more  effects added in our complete cut. 


Digipak 


As for the Digipak being handed in, this will be our rough idea but the band members and pictures used will clearly be different in our final digipak. As we have changed the cast since this picture was taken. The back picture will be different, we are going to have the back panel as the band with there backs to us, however this will not be shown in the rough one handed in on Friday, as we forgot to take the pictures of there back to us when filming our previous performance. 


Mag Ad. 


We are going to use a water scene for the Mag Ad but this picture has not yet been taken so will not be present on the one handed in on Friday. We are hoping to show a generation change, through the water, with the reflection being either the new generation or the previous generation from when N'SYNC were first around, we have not yet decided on this. As we are going to have a 10 year reunion Mag Ad, showing a new generation advertising our digipak maybe. 

ALL- Digipak Draft 2

In this draft we used an effect the grey the picture and make it look like its heavy rain.

When we go audience feedback on this people said they didnt like the look of it. They said that it was making the picture look poor, like it was pix-elated. So we have decided to look at other options.

ALL- Signifiers in still image from music video

Signifiers in this pictures include :

• The hair style, long styled into a slight quiff could signify him being from a upper/middle class, and that he is of a sophisticated manner. 
• The direction of his eyes, his gaze out of the frame, not looking directly at the camera, could signify he is looking or longing for someone else from the distance, this is the preferred reading we have hoped to give across to the audience. 
• The Misc-en-scene of the location being a  rural area, surrounding him could signify loneliness. However the metal railings could give of an oppositional reading, as the railings are maybe hinting a footpath, which shows there will be people walking through this area. 
• The white top, could signify purity and innocence, also the white pale complexion could help signify this more, with the rosy cheeks. 
• Also the white v neck top is open a little bit at the top, maybe signifying sexual connotations. 

All- Mag Ad Draft

This is the 1st draft for our magazine advert.

We have used this picture but it isn't going to be the one we use in our final draft. We chose white text to stand out against the dark background colours. We chose to include the date of release and where the digipak is available so the audience know when and where the came purchase it. 

The words 'New Generation' have been used to show the new boyband.

All- Mag Advert Teaser

Here you will see a teaser for our magazine advert. We decided to do this because it was originally a draft and teasers are a thing that are common in magzines.

We have done a teaser. We found that some artists to this before releasing their magazine adverts. We would publish this in the similar magazine to the advert. Such as Q magazine, which is a music focused on music, mainly indie/ rock scene but does feature other genres for example boyband and rap.

EF- Target Audience

When talking about it, me and Mel, basically come to the conclusion that the male sex would definitely not be the target audience we are trying to attract. It seems clear that we are most likely to be attracting the female audience, with this age 17-18 being the medium age, to show this target audience we are using cast members of a similar age who are going to be of course male. 

By re-releasing a song released originally in 2001 we could be attracting audiences of around 20 - 25 who were say 12 at that age, as N'sync would of originally attracted that age with it being the pop genre. 

Also by using a female in our narrative you could also argue that male gaze theory could be present, which could then attract male audiences.

MA- Cast Updates

Originally our boy band consisted of 4 members. Temour, James. Matt and Jack. As previously said in our audience feedback we were advised to re-shoot our performance, this was due to many reasons for example the boys clothing could of been better and more of a typical boy band and one of the members didn't seem to be taking it seriously and it was therefore bringing the performance down.

The prospect of re-shooting has meant that some of our original cast members cant continue because they have commitments  so we have recruited two new members form our 6th form.






















We will still be using our original footage using the two actors in our narrative. Sophie and Charlie. 

Charlie

Sophie

We now have to re-shoot everything rather than just get more footage, we understand that this is going to take more time.

All- Digipak Draft 1

Back Panel

Front Panel

EF- Magazine Research

Q Magazine 

Q is a music magazine which is published monthly in the United Kingdom. The magazine has an extensive review section, featuring: new releases from music , reissues of music, music compilations, film and live concert reviews, as well as radio and television reviews. The website for Q magazine has a poll questionnaire on the right hand side on the front page, with questions such as Which is Noal Gallagers Best Album? indicating a focus on Oasis straight away.

The website also offers a subscription to Q magazine monthly which is a good marketing technique. You can also sign up to a Q newsletter via the website. It also compiles a list of approximately eight albums, which it classes as the best new releases of the last three months. Most of the magazine is devoted to interviews with popular musical artists. 

Such as Cheryl Cole , Professor Green and Noel Gallagher. Q magazine monthly features well known artists/bands normally about something which has happened that month. Previous covers in 2012 have included Florence and The Machine  in 2011 interviews included Jessi J and Muse, and Adele . The first ever Q magazine published in 1986 cover featured the likes of Paul Mccartney, Rod Stewart and Elton John . 

The only boy band however who was big in the 90's to be on the cover of Q was Take That, who even though N'sync were not on the front cover, Take That were still very popular and still are. 

OK Magazine

OK Magazine is mainly a celebrity and gossip magazine mainly aimed at women, where as Q is I would say mainly directed at males. However they sometimes appear to have interviews with bands/artists about their up-coming songs/albums such as Joe McElderry .

They have also conducted an interview with Westlife who are a popular boy band who were trying to sell their new album, this interview basically marketing the album and single.

A magazine like this would be good to include our magazine add, as it it a magazine with the main audience being between  16+ to around 40 I would say, also fitting our secondary audience. 

MA-NSYNC Magazine Covers

It has been quite hard to find magazine adverts online for NSYNC. Im not really sure why this is but i think it may be because they broke up in 2002. However i have found a few magazine covers and i think these will help us when looking for ideas for our magazine advert. Here are some examples.

As you can see there some common aspects in these pictures. For example the members of NSYNC all wear clothing that ties in together. This was very common of the 'boyband' era. Also they all pose together, they are not about looking individual. Another point is that even though Justin Timberlake is clearly the lead singer (this became more obvious in the later NSYNC songs) he is not standing in the front in every picture, nobody is made to stand out. 

We want to use these examples to influence our own image for our mag ad. We want to use the idea of having the band pose as a close group. It was said in our feedback of our first performance footage that the band should be wearing more similar clothing to help create a cohesive image.

EF- Filming Update

After gaining some vital audience feedback from a 1.00 minute sample we put together for our class to view, we realised we had some changed to make especially to the performance as one of our original members did not appear to take the filming seriously and let the rest of our members down for the boy band this then effectively ruined the whole of the performance we filmed for our music video.

Some people also said we could have done with some more movement and emotion from our boy band members due to the nature of our song being a love song about a break up, the emotion just wasn't shown there. We were also told we could need more behind the scenes footage for our whole music video, but mainly performance.

We were also told that we could make our boy band look more together and as one, rather than separate like they were looking in our original sample. To do this we could increase the costume demand we place on them and insist the wear the same clothes, and also we need more costume changes and maybe more locations.

This has obviously resulted in us having to re-film our performance which we are hoping to do on friday this week.

MA- Nsync CD Covers

These are a few examples of covers we have been looking at as research for our own digipak.

We we found from the research is that the conventions of Nsync. The boy band are always all present on the cover. It is quite common for the boys to be stood in a line. The boys seem to switch position which is surprising because Justin Timberlake is the lead singer but if we look at the last 3 covers these were towards the finals years of NSYNC and you can see that Justin is centre in all of them. 
Also the text placed on the picture the band name NSYNC is always in bold and large font with the single or album name in smaller size. The covers overall see to be rather plain without much image manipulation, something which we may challenge in our own digipak cover.

ALL- Audience Feedback of Sample

Audience Feeback


We put together a opening sequence for our music vid during last week which lasted approximately a minuet and will be uploaded very shortly. 
Below is our audience feedback : 

• Members of our class said we had zero camera movement so this could be improved in our re-shoot of performance
• We need to re-rip MP3 and re-lay audio track 
• We could start with a group shot and then individually introduce members of the band.
• For our mirror shot for the narrative, we could maybe play around with layering. 
• Opening scene is maybe a bit to long for the narrative so cut this down a little bit.
• Overall we need faster paced editing, maybe some jump cuts.
• Bed shot - Multilayering and fade Sophie out.
• Additional behind the scenes footage of the band. 
• Costumes more together, more white colours - white t-shirts etc, bringing the group together more by having them wear the similar things
• Simple Choreography for the boyband.
• Dont introduce boyband straight away.
• Dont need all of the shots of the main boy in narrative.
• More signifiers of relationship needed for the narrative in misc-en-scene.
• For the narrative we could have Car Keys - bottle of drink to signify guilt maybe? 
• Ducks and bread for a romantic scene in narrative.
• Do want some skin showing, not just buttoned up.

Over all we have taken this feedback into consideration and are organising a re-shoot.