Formal Sign Off :)

Well it's been a long, emotional journey for the load of us and it's been a pleasure working with my group, we had our ups and downs but we pulled together and we got it done. This is my  final blog just to sign off for good, goodbye blogger. :)

EVALUATION Q4

The Audience feedback we got from viewers was very good in general. On the day of the screening I went out and recorded audience reactions to our Music video and asked them what they thought about it, the good points and the bad points. I gathered the information from the above clips and the good points were that we had a good motif, good effects and the artist was looking at the camera. Among other good points listed those were the most key features people pointed out, for the negative there wasn't much but the fact that the story was hard to follow, or the sequence of events although our video was disjuncture based and another point of improvement was the addition of the motif and what it's purpose was to do with the story and maybe more base tracks. 

In light of the response from the audience I can think about what kind of changes to make to my work. But first I want to analyze two responses, the first one said that the motif was something that they were not sure what it's purpose was. To answer that question I would say it was a random addition that we wanted to put into the video to make people think about, just a visual pre-occupation for the viewers who would wonder what it's purpose was, this way the video stays in their minds, somewhat a promotional tool. 

The second response is about the story line, we purposely wanted to have no story line because it's disjuncture and they don't have a linear story. Now to improve I think I would probably make sure that the motif's purpose was more obvious, maybe show them more often and let them have some type of part in the music video, that's one major improvement and something I learnt from the feedback, also I would try and make a music video with some type of story to keep the audience interested because it's something people like to be engaged.

 Overall I've learn a lot from the audience feedback and will make the improvements next time, I found their feedback very helpful and I learnt to make things in a video very clear so as to create no confusion for them.

EVALUATION Q3

I made a wordle on the internet to show all of the technology I used this year.

In media this year we used a range of technology to make our work come to life, for our music video we used the latest video cameras and recorded HD footage which would later be used for our music videos and bloopers, also for our test run. We recorded everything using memory cards that were also provided and then we put the files that we saved on to the Macs then started the editing process.

Technology Used on Prezi

This Prezi lists in a visual way all the technology I have used in the construction, research and planning stage of my work, individually I used all of them uniquely.

Windows 7: Most people used the Mac computers at college while I did the majority of my work at home on my PC and this technology was used because I was used to it already. I did most of my research on the internet at home as well as access all my other types of technology there too like websites for research and things of that nature, I also used Windows Live Movie maker on it and my webcam videos too.


Photoshop: I used Photoshop to edit my work mostly, my ancillary work was all done on this vital tool, it helped me edit all my pictures to get them to the right color balance and everything was done on there like font changing, color, and ever type of editing process was done on this program.


MAC & Handbrake: I used the macs at college to do the editing for my music videos using video editing tools and also a lot of my preparatory research as well as YouTube which I forgot to put on the picture but that was something that's obvious to me, for music video research purposes.


Blogger & Facebook: Blogger is probably the tool which was used by everyone in the class because it is something that was needed to put up all our research and findings as well as our own extra work, it was the most important piece of technology I used, and I am using it right now as I right this. Facebook is a social media outlet that helped me get feedback on my work which was very helpful.


Flip Cameras & Digital Cameras: The flip cameras were used to narrate the work progress as well as record audience feedback and the digital cameras were used to document every part of the music video process.


Final cut Pro & Prezi: Final cut pro was extremely important in the editing process, we used it to edit our music videos, from the lip syncing tutorial all the way to adding effects, final cut pro was the most important tool we used when it came to making our music video in combination with the cameras. 

 Youtube, I used this website to research music videos that would later inspire me.

 Example's official website, I used this site to gain information on our artist and build our own.

 Facebook, I used this website to look up my artists pictures and gain a better idea of him.

Mtv official website, I used this to look for hip-hop artists which is our genre.

Final cut pro extension: Me and my group used Final Cut Pro a lot to put our work together, we started off simple and then we all did some editing learning from our teachers. We learnt the lip sync tutorial at college and also at one point we were contemplating if we should use green screen but we then decided we didn't but we still practiced how to use and edit on green screen just in case. We played with the speed of our video to make it slow motion at certain parts using the timeline manipulate buttons and we also played with the lighting and contrast to give it a certain look and we chopped the scenes to make it fit together, it took an extremely long time to do this and we now know how to edit music videos.

Here is an image of Ivet pointing at a clip which we are about to chop up to put into the timeline at the bottom, it is visible on the picture how we've already cut most of the video up using the razor tool and also the music at the bottom in time.

This is our animatic that we made using final cut pro, it's our first edit video.

EVALUATION Q2

A short video which begins to explore some of the links between our music video and our later ancillary work and how our audience can make the links themselves through the visuals in the video and the pictures.

This is a collage I made to visually illustrate how the audience would see the artist as a whole, this is how they would think of C. MOORE the collage includes stills from the music video, these scenes will stick in their minds and the album cover will reinforce the image of the artist in their minds, it would appeal because his persona is one of a carefree person who has a lot of fun and this will appeal not only to hip-hop goers but music fans in general because it is paramount to have a good artist image when trying to market someone who is a new artist to the scene.

A final longer more detailed video that answers all the questions asked. Summary.

EVALUATION Q1

Music videos have a lot of forms and conventions that we tried to follow when making our own, we had a lot of inspiration from many other artists in our chose genre. We chose to do a disjuncture video, of which the conventions are that the song does not have to match the video as Goodwin highlighted. We followed most of the pop video conventions like repetition of shots and our artist also looks straight at the camera.

The above Prezi is of our three most influential videos put together on Prezi, it covers the most influential aspects of the chosen videos and how they came to together.

This video further explains what the Prezi touches on in much more detailed and also does some side to side comparisons of real media products next to our Music Video.

A scene from Nas' one mic that inspired our own video, the scene uses a person in the middle of the screen just like I am in the center and people running past him but in slow motion. We thought this was very powerful because it promotes the artist and it develops the conventions of real hip-hop videos.

The first image is the album cover of Tyler, the Creator's album Goblin, he is a relatively new artist just like our artist C.MOORE and they both work within the hip-hop genre. The reason the album cover appealed to me so much to me was because it was so simple yet so effective, the color purple really stood out and at the same time it didn't over power the artist himself so it was still promoting him. I think my work develops the conventions of standard hip-hop albums mainly because it promotes the artist and also is very eye-catching which is heavily necessary for a new artist especially in the hip-hop genre.

The first image is a real life advert made for the artist J. Cole who just released his debut album last year so he's a new artist just like C. MOORE, the two adverts have some similarities since they both heavily promote the artist, using pictures and big letters to show off the artist names. Mine is really simple just like the other one because it has the name of the artist in big bold letters and also has a picture of the artist as the main focal point of the whole advert, this is extremely conventional in Hip-Hop music and I chose to use that idea.

This is another advert used in real life that I got some inspiration from, the artist is a major player in the hip-hop game and he still uses the same types of advertising ventures as new artists like J. Cole and Tyler, the creator. The conventions of hip-hop advertising are that the artist name has to be very visible as well as the artist himself being a selling point and I think my work illustrates these conventions well because our artist is on the forefront of the advert and the digipak uses the same types of conventions present in contemporary hip-hop music.

Finally this is the bag cover of my digipak and it was majorly influenced by that of Big Sean who is also a new artist and they have some similarities, with the use of dull background colour which brings the artist out there a bit more and also the writing is conventional. I chose to challenge only certain aspects of this genre like not putting on jewellery and showing off, which has become a part of this genre in recent years as is evident on Big Sean's digipak picture above but altogether I chose to either use or develop the conventions of this genre like, advertising the artist and using eye-catching covers with names big.

These two images are here to show how the artist C.MOORE (bottom) & Example (top) have similarities the reason this is important is because this comes under mise-en-scene when looking at what links the music video and ancillary work. It is important that the artist dress according to the genre in which he exists so that's why it's a good thing for the audience because they can relate him to a certain type of genre. The significance of these images is that our artist and Example are both wearing checkered shirts, something very common in the UK hip-hop scene and something our audience will recognize straight away.

This is a music video that inspired me quite a bit only because the music video doesn't have much link to the album cover all except the fact that it is a means of promotion for the album and the single. The way it influenced my work was that we also chose to make the music video very promotional for the artist, so we had C.MOORE on every scene just like this video and also it looks similar to the album.

Then & Now

I posted this blog to highlight the major difference between my initial ideas and the end result. The reason I did this was because I wanted to show how my ideas developed due to some criticism from people which was very constructive because I think it helped my work become better, and now I am really happy with it.

Photoshop

In my work I chose to use photoshop that I have at home instead of the one at college, firstly because I was used to it and secondly I did most of my work at home. This is a video I found on youtube to learn the basics some of which I never knew before, so I would say this was the foundation of my work.

Inspiration

These two adverts were the biggest inspiration for my final work, because the second one advertises the album aswell as promoting the artist next to it too.

Audience Feedback

Final Advert

Final Digipak Front & Back Covers

Mock-ups Front Cover

This is the mock-up for my front cover, similar colours and picture is edited all the way. 

Mock-ups Advert

This is the mock-up for my advert, with similar pictures as the last ones and different colours.

Editing Advert Using Photoshop

This is the editing process that took place while editing my Advert, I had to take into account artist promotion so I made the picture of me the most obvious thing on screen. I used the same colours as my digipak so the fans could familiarize with the artist and I outlined some dates for the concerts that were being performed.

Photoshop Use

Right now I am learning to use Photoshop to edit all my photos and I have found it easier to use the one I have at home that's why I ended up doing the work at work instead of at college. I am experimenting with a lot of technology right now to see what it does to my pictures and this is some of the experimented photos I did.

Editing Process

This is two pictures of me in the editing process, the first picture was my first Idea for the front cover then I changed my mind, I changed the picture because I remembered that it has to be for promotional use and the close up is good because it has the artist on the front and the colour is to keep in line with conventions.

Do's & Dont's

This is the sheet of paper we got in class that highlight the Do's & Dont's of our task, I followed each one step by step including the three colour rule and the importance of genre conventions and the consumers in mind.

Shortlist of Pictures for Digipak and Advert

All these for pictures are going to be in the album cover all except the one of me standing up which is going to be for the advert. It took me a long time to come up with the short list and I finally did it and now I'm in the middle of editing them all. They are all good because they show the artist in his true form, promotional use.

Fonts, Colours, Layout & Design Ideas

After a lot of deliberation and a whole week of looking through fonts and ideas of colour I came up with the fonts and colors I'm gonna use. I'm gonna use AR JULIAN for the Artist name because I think it's nice and big also it looks good with the picture and it's going to be a drak purple to make it stand out most more than anything else. The album name is going to be in STENCIL which I thought is eye catching enough but won't take away from the artist name and it's going to be white not another strong colour which will be too much. The picture I chose is going to be black and white and is going to be an extreme close up with a light purple background which is perfect because it's not too mcuh in contrast with the other colours on the page.

Ideas for Digipak

I decided to do a standard four panel digipak, after looking at some good examples of past student work and other hip-hop artist albums, which I'm already used to since I listen to a lot of hip-hop music. I came up with a short list of the three or four most influential rap covers to me and I wanted to incorporate them in mine.

All four of these album covers was what I had in mind when making mine, mostly because I'm familiar with the content of all of them and that's helpful because we have to remember our audience which is hip-hop fans and they all had good covers. I chose to use the close up like in game's album, and I liked the big bold letters used on goblin. I wanted to have a low brightness background colour like Big Sean's finally famous and the type of picture which shows the whole face like Nas' Nastradamus which was good for artist promotion.