Final Music Video - America

Final Digipack

Final Poster

Evaluation Q4

Evaluation Q3

Q3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback? from hannahwood88

Evaluation Q2

Evaluation Q1

Q1 - In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? from hannahwood88

Digipack - Construction

By using the image adjustments menu I added a linear inner glow to a photograph I took in New York giving a border effect to the image. I also edited the image into black and white to reach my desired dark tonal mise-en-scene. 

I added the track listing information using the same handwriting-style font as I used on the poster to make the campaign consistent and recognisable. I decided to place the track listing on the left of the page so that it does not interrupt the feature of the Chrysler building in the image which could also interfere with the text making it difficult to read. Another reason for this choice of placing is the inspiration I took from my existing product research by Amiee Mann. Finally I added a barcode and record company information to make my product appear more realistic and professional. 

Creating the inside image for my digipack was fairly easy. I took a simple headshot of our model Aidan who features in the video and is the main artist in order to continue the recognition and help publicise him. I edited him into black and white using the adjustment tools and made sure the image was exactly centred. I decided to keep a consistent style throughout all four pages of my digipack which is the dark linear inner glow therefore after adding this I was finished as I didn't want to make every page look extremely busy. 

I firstly made minor tweaks to a photograph I had taken in New York however I didn't want to over-edit it as I wanted to display the natural beauty and lighting. I simply added the inner glow one again to continue the house style of the digipack. 

The final thing to do on my digipack was to add the template for where a CD disk would be inserted making it appear more professional and realistic. 

Firstly I added the grid on my page due to the fact I want everything to be placed accurately and evenly. This front page is very linear and the squares had to be the same shape and exactly in place. I continued to use the muted black and white colours to sick with the tones used throughout the rest of my products yet I added a dirty yellow colour around the image to give a subtle pop of colour to make the imagery stand out. I ensured that the black border was the same size as the inner glow on the other three pages to make sure all of the digipack tied together. 

I added four images into the four squares; two candid shots of the artist and two shots taken in New York. I did this to summarise the leading song on the album 'America' which is the song we shot the video for and I think it provides to contrasting sides to the cover; human imagery and location photography. I also added the name of the artist onto the bottom of the page directly in the middle using the same font that I have used throughout. 

Finally all that was left to do was add all four pages onto a foldable digipack template. This meant I had to add a spine which has the artist's name printed on it and I had to flip the two inside pages upside down so that the document could be folded correctly. 

Poster - Construction

Firstly I decided to create the dominant image of the poster which is the image-merging headshot. I took a side-view photograph of our model Aidan and cropped it using the magnetic lasso tool. I then placed this over the top of a skyline image I took in New York and after selecting the skyline layer I again traced around the head so that I had cut out the exact same shape image as the head on the NYC photograph. I then placed the photo of NYC over the top of the headshot and began to use the rubber tool to gently remove parts of the picture to reveal the headshot underneath. I continued to rub out the image until I was satisfied and then merged the layers together to produce one photograph of the man. 

I played around with several different background colours including using more than one colour and splitting the page. I decided on a black background as the majority of the photograph has a light colour scheme therefore it stands out and is easily recognisable . I also adjusted the size of the photo various different times however decided that it looked the best when filling up most of the page and only leaving space for any additional text. I finally decided to place the image in the middle of the page as it is therefore straight to the point and with it being the only image on the page I wanted it to appear neat and uniform which i think is a style replicated from my existing product research as well as the linear style of my digipack cover. 

My final task when producing my promotional poster was to include the informative text, this being the artist name, minimum album information and record label logos. I chose a modern handwriting style font printed in white to standout on the black background and I think the natural style font is relatable with the audience. I didn't want to clutter the page with text therefore only included what I thought was necessary and I have placed it evenly spaced out in a clear font size. 

America - Bloopers

Filming Day 11

These are the new shots we've filmed in response to our target audience questionnaire feedback. They are to emphasise the fact that he is studying in Newcastle which will make the narrative slightly clearer. We also re-filmed some lip singing that we weren't satisfied with.

Draft 2 Questionnaire Feedback

We gave our Draft 2 Questionnaire to 30 A Level Students and a couple of students who are currently studying media at university. The dominant feedback we received is that the narrative is not clear enough. After watching our video many people asked us to clarify what the story was about and after we briefly explained they found the story did make sense. The answers to the 'is there anything you would change' question were all very similar. The feedback was to basically add some more footage to emphasise the face that the man is studying in Newcastle and that he misses home. To do this we plan to shoot another filming day at Newcastle University and feature signage and other obvious indicators that he is studying here.

Draft 2 Music Video - Audience Response - Questionnaire

Draft 2 Music Video - America

This is the second draft of our music video. We have applied changes that arose from the two interviews we conducted with two members of our target audience. These mainly included a couple of shot changes and timing issues.

Music Video Draft 2 - Focus Group 2

Music Video Draft 1 - Focus Group 1

Draft 1 Music Video - America

Music Video Editing - Session 7

As the instrumental comes to a close at 3:45 the tempo increases with a consistent beat being played at a higher volume. As a build up to the final chorus we have split a shot of the man walking down a back street with a contemporary shot of the empire state backwards and forwards five times in four seconds. This shows a split between the man and his dreams and the severity of his homesickness. At the beginning of the final chorus we have again illustrated the word 'America' by including a panning shot of a lit-up American flag as the word is sung at 3:55. The music video comes to a close with various inter-changing shots of both cities and is closed with two distinctive shots. The man is seen walking out of the end of the underpass, the same one he was filmed wandering through at the beginning which is followed by the final sped-up shot of an airplane taking off and flying over New York. I think this is a peaceful close to the video. 

Music Video Editing - Session 6

3:15 is the beginning of the instrumental section of the song. Whilst in New York I filmed some street performers: a man playing the saxophone, a man playing the drums and a man playing the guitar. After careful and difficult editing we have managed to fit the timings of these instruments visually being played in with the timing of the music soundtrack; this is a section we are very pleased with! In this instrumental we wanted to include footage from both Newcastle and New York along with frequent shots of the man to tie up the narrative of the video towards the end of the track. Lyrics are not present to potentially distract the audience from the video and consequently their full attention is on the shots which was conclude the point of the video; the man is studying in Newcastle and is dreaming about being home in New York City.

Music Video Editing - Session 5

At 2:31 the second chorus begins and we introduced this by using a fading transition to merge a shot of the Baltic building in Newcastle with the new World Trade Centre in New York. Before the tempo dramatically increases we included a cut to black to display a clear change in locations. When the lyrics say 'lift me up' we wanted to include worms eye view shots showing the scale of the city emphasising the height of the buildings. Within the chorus the word 'America' is repeated frequently and after playing with different timings on iMovie we decided to change each shot on the word America to make the video really fit with the song and flow with the phase and tempo of the song. These shots don't change dramatically on the word America, sometimes the same setting is shown just from a different angle. At the end of this section of the song are the lyrics 'give me strength to press on,' here we have included a shot I filmed from the Rockefeller Centre which shows the entire length of Central Park through to the other end of Uptown New York. This shot features miles of land which I think can be used as a visual metaphor of moving forward to 'press on.'