Transition from AS

For our As work, we were asked to create an opening for a film, this was nothing compared to the challenges we faced in the A2 production, first of all, when creating a music video, there is not as much range and use of imagination compared to creating an opening to a film, You always have to consider how the shot will fit into the video and if it will work with the other shots you have created. You also have to take lip-syncing into account, which made the editing more difficult as well. This meant we needed a lot more planning and we couldn’t have as strict a shot list as it was subject to change a lot more than a simple narrative video. Another challenge we faced is that the music video is longer than the opening to the film, so we needed to be out filming as much as we possibly could as insufficient film was not acceptable as we needed over an hour of film to make sure we had enough film to edit down to three minutes. In the A2 project, I have realised that you are more advanced on your shot taking skills so there are more challenging angles used. For example we attempted a birds eye shot of the star but found it was not very effective.

Some of the things we learnt to do at AS were not necessary for A2 for example the 180 degree rule, as continuity is not as important in a quick cut music video. In the A2 video we also attempted some freehand shots that we didn’t even attempt during AS however they didn’t work brilliantly and so we decided to leave them out. The tripod is a big help as we can create many different heights and pans using it. During the AS project we did use a lot more close ups than we did in the A2 project. The editing process of the A2 work is so much more challenging, as you have to edit and match the lip syncing to the correct millisecond in the song, this was redeemed as very challenging task for the group as it made us change other sections in the video to make sure the video has good continuity and a smooth transition, The film in As had a lot of challenges which included getting the balance of dialog and a non-diagetic score panned correctly, where in A2, no dialog is used so we were rest assured by that fact. Another daunting task we have to complete in A2 in which we did not in AS is to create a poster and C.D cover for the song, this challenge was completed after the cameras stopped rolling.

Planning for the directors interview

Goodwin's characteristics

Judging from Goodwin’s ideas on the key characteristics of a music video, our piece displays 4 of his key ideas. Our music video demonstrates genre characteristics. For our genre of video the characteristics are fast edits and lots of effects and we used these, we used the stereotypes mainly so our audience would be able to relate to our video. We tried to get the visuals to match up with the music we chose. For example when the beat is broken up or repetitive we match our images to the beat. I found that this was effective as it made the video simple and look just like one of this genre would. We used a lot of close up shots on her lips and then added effects to adapt the colours this was used repetitively which would allow the artist to use this as her motif. We used some references to other videos for example some of our inspiration was from the original Keyshawn video, as we wanted to stay true to her style and maintain her image.

Toni Mckinlays Departure

As a group of four we were always occupied with a task each to do! We worked as a team and found ourselves always busy wether it was filming, creating props, designing or improvising. As the main character in the music video I found it would be more realistic and fun if my friends were also involved with me, to create a more uplifting atmosphere. Around 6 weeks into the project unfortunatley Toni Mckinlay left due to not enjoying college life and finding an aprentership elsewhere which suited her career that she wished to persue in the future.
This put a strain on the group drastically, with footage already,we were not able to use it due to the fact she wouldnt be in the future footage as it would look extremely odd. Toni was unreliable to the group however we dont blame her for her choices. In fact we still used some of the footage she was in, and it looks incredible but it did lead to Me Molly and Kiera doing alot more filming than we would have origionally intended to do.

Leah Fraser

Back Cover Experimentation

Once we had decided on a layout for the back cover it was simple as we just experimented with different effects. The text was from the original Kreayshawn CD as we decided it would give the most authentic look. We added different filters and found the most effective was the line pencil filter as it gave it a simple look which we decided we would want to use the most.

Final Photographs

Once we decided on the theme for our digipak we decided to take some photos of the main character in an arcade and other photos that will work within the theme. We may also use the other images of the main character.

Leah Fraser Molly Clements Kiera Molloy

New Idea

We worked on the CD case a lot but while i was taking pictures for the digipak i got a new idea that i thought would look more effective. One of our scenes is in an arcade, i thought this would be a nice theme for the CD as it is colourful and has a lot more conventions that we could manipulate to work with our genre of music. The front will be an image of the main singer in the arcade and the other images will be of designs or games that can be found in arcades. I then decided to look into if any artists had used this theme before, i found the Katy Perry, waking up in Vegas single would have this theme and so i went and bought it to try get some inspiration. We found that what could be a good idea is using aspects of the games you stereotypically find in an arcade as themes running throughout the digipak. The research we did earlier in the project has still been helpful because it will allow us to decide the way we use the games.

Experimentation

We were unable to decide what we wanted to use for the front of our CD case and so i did some experimentation with the images we took.





I also did some experimentation for the advertisement but decided they weren't to a good enough standard.

Digipak pictures

After doing lots of research of real CDs we were inspired by The simplicity of the Dido album and the use of props as a theme running through by Shakira. These are the images we could use:

Digipak research

We have had real trouble deciding the other three panels for the CD digipak. Some ideas we had were some images of the top the artist is wearing in the front panel. Another idea was to use lips with different coloured lipsticks and designs. i got several CD albums to find some inspirations. i looked at the Shakira, Oral Fixation album and i found we could use a prop as a continues element throughout the digipak. I also liked the simplicity on the Dido, no angel, i found it would be easy to make look professional. The pink, i'm not dead album could also have aspects we could use, for example a pattern as a theme running throughout.

Photos for front of digipak

We took a lot of photos in order to create some experimentation CD digipaks and adverts. We knew we wanted to have the cover an image of the main singer but we have not yet decided what the rest of the digipak will consist of.

Images we're most likely to use:

Kiera Molloy Molly Cements Leah Fraser

Photoshop Cs4

When creating and editing the digipak I will use the computer software called 'Adobe Photoshop'. This piece of software will allow me to resize and crop images and change the colour of various different fonts and shapes as well as change any backgrounds. All these features within photoshop will help me to create the digipak to best of the groups ability.

Questionnaire Results

By handing out 15 questionnaires to both males and females within our media group this would give fair and unbiased results. Each student chose two fonts. After receiving all the questionnaires back the results were as followed.

Bullpen 3D - 6

Hang the DJ - 3

Katy Berry - 11

Badaboom - 2

Damn Noisy Kids - 5

United - 3

And so we decided to go with Katy Berry for the text on our CD cover

Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire we used to make our decision of fonts, we then asked 15 members of our target audience, which font they thought suited the genre and the characteristics of the artist the best.

The Questionnaire:

CD Cover font choices

When creating the digipak we will need to find an appropriate font which will represent 'Kreayshawn' , we feel a font which is unique, creative and new.

We looked at specialised fonts on a website to try find the perfect one, we then managed to narrow it down to 6. we could not come to an agreement on which to use so we asked 15 people who fit into our target audience.

CD Cover Introduction

In order to get some inspiration for our CD, we decided to look at some previous artwork Kreayshawn has produced. She has only one album cover, we were inspired by the use of colour and black and white edits.

Kreayshawn is seen as an outrageous and bright character, we want to reflect this in our artwork because we have also used in within the video. The words are in a block font and the clearest part of the image, they are sharp and bold, which again reflects the style that is related to the artist.

Final cut pro

Once we have finished filming we will begin to edit our video, we will use the software final cut pro and so we decided to do some research on it. We found that it would makes editing easier because you are able to have several screens at once and the timeline is easy to change. the only downside we found is you have to constantly save your work incase it unexpectedly quits.

CD cover analysis -Niki Minaj

There has been an argument recently that Hip-hop and R&B has lost its origionality. However aparently not according to Niki Minaj's 'pink friday' albumn cover. The long shot captures Niki Minaj in full view. Center of the cover she is the audieces main attraction. Sitting upright, with an eerie blank facial expression she is armless and dressed extravagantly from head to toe in pink portraying the 'Barbie Doll' look. The cover expresses a magical atmosphere as if sugesting the content of the albumn takes you to another world, fantasy-like. The word 'pink' is emphasised with the symbolic trade mark Barbie doll font, now this maybe copying however not many rappers do you see aspiring to be a childs toy. Officially catering a unique style with a pink wig and stilted heels she is thriving of her bizzare imitation as an eye catching artist. The albumn cover sets a particular audience which would be females, teenage years assumingly. Its ironic that although the CD cover is pretty and pink with a sense of suttleness and feminism that we see a parents advisory sighn in the right hand corner, which signifies there is more to niki minaj's character to be revealed-as though this look is only a snippet of what she is all about. This could be saught as intreiguing to the audience, as i am officially left wondering how her songs sound and what they consist of lyrically. Toning down the colour scheme, her name is in thin Silver capital letters, emphasising her importance and standing out as the artist of the albumn.


Kreayshawn has little relation to niki minaj's CD cover however, a comparison which is similar- is there extraudinary style. They are both very unique and abstract with there hair/clothes and infact this is proven to syncronise with there music which is also very different.


Hopefully our CD cover will represent kreayshawns attitude and style to the fullest unlike Niki who has just portrayed a snippet of her character.


Leah Fraser

In contrast to the reviewed album covers, they all interlink with each other for instance, each cover has a bold, stylized font, which is catchy to the market audience. In reflection to this, each artist releases energetic and enthusiastic songs however, they had to find a way to relate their personal music back to the album cover. For instance mikas’ album cover ‘Life in cartoon motion’ planned his cover in an artistic cartooned affect. Keyshawn’s’ cover on the other hand shows her music through the bold contracting colures and the photography. The covers will help us to relate and plan our cover with different ideas and colours to represent the music piece. Our video is very energetic and enjoyable to watch, in order to keep up with the vibrant mood on the audience we have to plan our album cover that relates back to our video and music. It is also important that we keep our edge, as we can see if ‘The one that got away’ by Katy Perry, we can see the more serious side of the album yet by using bright and contrasting colors it retains her uniqueness. Analyzing covers has helped us incredibly to design and plan our cover beforehand. It had given us a sense of the fancy bold font, along with font size and colors involving this. It also very important as established that we have to relate our song and video back to the cover.

Kiera Molloy

On the other hand, we can see ‘The one that got away’ shows an emotional side from the slightly degraded font and the close up on her face, instantly showing emotion from her eyes. The cover however doesn’t completely take its edge away as we can see the colours are bright and contrasting, which reflects back to her more happier and vibrant side of an artist. The album suggests to the audience ‘The one that got away’ is a much more grounded and serious album as her facial expression is much more photographed in a professional and serious way, other than ‘I kissed a girl’ we can see it is rather animated to the name of the cover. This is important for our planning and organisation. When we plan our cover as we have to take into account the difference between the realism and the serious side of the song to the fun and energetic side.

Kiera Molloy

Katy Perry is known for her over the top, enthusiastic music and her uniqueness as a musician. Her album covers are always very eye-catching to the audience which again relates back to her music genre; pop/dance. Previously ‘I kissed a girl’ her album cover was very animated for instance, the font is overly bold and bright colours along with poker dotted effects. This was used on a slight angle to again relate back the individuality of her work. The colour blue has always been associated with a 'male’. As we can see on this album the contrast between the blue and pink is purposely used. This is because in general girls mainly kiss boys, whereas the cover is playing around with the name of the album and the colours represented to each gender.


Kiera Molloy

Analysation of CD case.

Here is Rhiannas Talk That Talk ,the new albumn is relentless and catchy and consists of a muddle of upbeat enthusiasstic songs. The ferociouse Rhianna has a large army behind her of fans which are the majority, teenage girls inspired by her looks but also as an artist. As we all know she is famous for her uniquness and drive. The cover represents an 'i dont care' attitutde with bright orange lips and a tattoo, her toungue out reveals a cheeky and fun persona and this realy relates to many of her songs one being Track Five -Cockiness (Love It). To maintain her world title of one of sexiest women, her eyes appear seductive and appealing.

Another image within the albumn, is a black and white photograph of rhianna, although it is a suttle picture that is quite natural she includes that rebbelliouse attitude and repents as she blows out smoke from her mouth. Her cool character is shown through Talk That Talk and through those words we understand she does not care what others have to say about her, this aspires her fans to think in that same mentality.
This albumn actually relates to Kreayshawn's single which is called 'gucci gucci' Bold colours and animations reveal a fun uplifting persona just like Rhinanna. Fun makeup , geek glasses, gold earings and a lollypop ,Kreayshawn realy clashes in her appearence to percieve a 'Gangster' attitude which her songs maintain.

Our CD cover will hopefully represent an enthusiastic exuberant attitude also, revealing the lively passion we had when making our music video!

Leah Fraser

Here we can see the planning and ideas Mika has used to get to his final album cover. I found this very helpful as it shown it has a meaning to his music and he took time in his thoughts to try and combined it with his work.

I have chosen to research the album cover from Mika, who illustrates his songs through his drawing. The cover is very fun and colorful which relates back to his catchy and artistic song that combines them both together. The drawing were originally designed and drawn by Mika himself, later into planning his album cover these ideas were then developed and expanded and repainted by DaWack. Together they created the magical world that you see on the different releases and posters. We can see that in relation to the other album covers, the writing is very bold and noticeable which relates back to the fun, energetic and vibrant music.

Album review

This is the hit single album cover taken from the song ‘Gucci Gucci’. The song was written itself by Kreayshawn in relation to her self-written ‘bumpin bumpin’. Additionally, I thought it would have been a good aspect for us to research her album cover to give us a sense of her style and to see if it relates back to her upbeat-stylized music. The cover consists of very bold contracting colures, which generally can clash. The lime green on fuchsia pink is used in a way to reflect her joyful and bubbly personality. The cover is seen as apiece if art as more colors are involved rather than props. The photography is also very animated for instance, it isn’t showing the audience her more glamorous side, it is showing the audience her cheeky and enteric side. You can see this from her over sized geek glasses and over sized gold earrings. We can also see she has used bold oversized graphic designed font, which is an excellent way for the audience to quickly identify her work, but is also a way to reflect her lively music.

Technology used during filming

The main piece of technology we have used is a digital camcorder, we found this to be an easy piece of equipment as it has instant feedback, which allows us to see if we have the shot right or if we need to reshoot. The memory card is a lot easier to use than film as it is cheaper and portable, memory cards make it a lot easier to transfer images to computers in order to edit. digital camcorders make it easier for us to film because we don't have to worry about carrying anything too heavy. other than the tripod. the only real problem we have found with using a digital camera is the battery life, we have to be very careful how long we spend between filming shots as the battery goes relatively quickly.

We also used some more complex technology. We used studio lights and a vision mixing desk to edit 'live' cutting between cameras. These have helped our production look polished and professional. It was a helpful experience for us personally as well since we were able to see what kind of things would be used in the professional studios.

While editing we used both final cut pro and motion editor. Final Cut Pro was effective because; it allowed us to create an effective time line easily. We had previously used final cut pro and so all knew how to use it correctly in order to create ann effective piece of work. Motion was a knew programme that we learnt to use for this project but it was easy to get to grips with quickly. We used motion to add to our studio shots as they were slightly out of focus and so we were able to fix this by adding lighting and colouring.

Our creative process

The inspiration for our ideas came majoratively from other music videos for example the Dizzee Rascal video we analysed inspired our editing style, using different colours and fast paced play backs. The narrative of our video came from the original Kreayshawn video, in the original it was just block clips of performances by her and that's how we tried to portray our video. The costumes and props were again inspired by Kreayshawn because she has a style that is a stereotype of her and so we wanted to keep this style in order to appeal to our target audience who would expect certain things.

We did a lot of our planning in our initial meeting, these ideas were made between all of us original ideas would be developed into something we use. When we went out to film we had enough ideas to make a video however a lot of our ideas continued to develop during the filming process we also came up with plenty of new ideas plus we just set up shots and decided if they looked good. We broke the lyrics down to see if we could use anything literal in the video, we then found that the lyrics were mostly about drugs and clubbing so we found that we could do a shots that were like a club scene however most of the lyrical interpretation will come in with filming. Our locations were always carefully planned out before we went filming but the costumes were usually made up at each location, we all decided which ones would look best in each location. Our main inspiration was the original video for this song but we also got a lot of ideas from the stereotypes of the genre. Any original ideas we had we stuck to except for a few which the group built on.