Ancillary Research: Conventions of magazine adverts

This is an example of a conventional advert for an album release advertisement that would be found in a magazine:

Conventions of a magazine advert include:

• Name of artist/band towards the top of the page

• Name of album they are releasing near the artist/bands name

• The main image for the magazine advert will usually be the same as the image on the album cover to ensure brand identity and further promote the digipak - the audience should be able to make a link and identify the advert to/with the digipak.

• Some artists have a specific logo or symbol they use throughout their products. For example, AC/DC also have a specific logo with a lightening bolt in between AC and DC. This allows their fans to easily recognise the band's merchandise from others.

• The record label that the artist belongs to will have its own logo on the advert. This can usually be found at the bottom of the page and will be fairly small in comparison to everything else.

• Artist and label websites, like the record label, will be found on the magazine advert, usually small and near the bottom.

• The release date of the album will always be on the magazine advert because that is its purpose; to inform audiences when they can buy the album. Otherwise, it will say ‘Out Now’ - insinuating that the reader can buy the album anywhere from when the magazine is printed and sold. Sometimes the magazine advert will say something along the lines of ‘includes the single...’ or ‘featuring...’. This is typically used to mention one of the artists best known song to further promote the artist. 

• Reviews - on magazine adverts there will be sometimes a rating or review from different companies to show how others rate the album. 

• Available at...’ - on some of the magazine adverts it will say ‘available now on iTunes’ or ‘available at (store name)’. This is done to inform the audience of where they can perchance the album. These details are normally found in smaller writing towards the bottom as it would be additional information that the audience needs to be left thinking about once they have read about the album name and release date. 

Planning: Digipak Photos

These are some of the pictures that I took of the actor in various positions, with the idea in mind that I would transform these into digital art for the digipak and magazine advert. I made sure that the subject(s) were central to the frame so that outlining them would be easier than if the subject ran over the edge of the frame.

Research: Converntions of a Digipak

Front - The front of the album cover will be likely to include the artists name and the name of the album. The album cover will either have an illustration that links it with the artist or a picture of the artist/band. This will serve the purpose of making the album recognisable, distinguishing it from other artists albums. The album cover above follows the codes and conventions of a Digipak as it has an image of the artist on the front in order for the artists target audience to know that it is Katy Perry's album. This digipak is made up of a certain colour pallet. The pastel pink, blues and reds are used throughout the product, thereby coordinating the contents together in an aesthetically appealing way. These colours have been used to reflect the intended target audience of females, as they are stereotypically feminine. 

Spine -  The spine of the cover includes the artists name and the name of the album in the same font and colour. It also shows the format of the disk inside of the album case. It will show a DVD logo and a serial code which would define it from every other CD. The spine is necessary for the digipak to be formatted to be wide enough to hold a CD in. The spine can include information about the artist, such as their name, record label, name of the album/single and important dates.

Back - The back of the album cover will include a bar code which can be found on all CD's. This is typically found in the bottom left hand corner but can e placed anywhere on the back as long as it's functional. A parental explicit logo will also be found on the back of the cover, sometimes located on the front, dependant on the location of the other graphics. This will be included if the language is inappropriate, to give a warning to parents and people who buy the product so that they are aware  that the language may be explicit/inappropriate for some people. It's used as a type of age restriction logo and will sometimes display which specific songs are explicit. I would need to include this on my own digipak as the song includes explicit language. Additionally, the back of the cover may include a list on the songs on the CD(s), although this is typically only found on full albums and not on singles.  

Inside Flaps - The inside will show two or three compartments displaying images of the artist, using the same theme and colours as the front and back of the album cover. In some instances, the cover will depict illustrations that relate to the music itself or the genre in general. The first compartment will contain a booklet of more images of the artist again using the same colours, themes and illustrations. The booklet sometimes includes lyrics, the song titles, who wrote them and information about the music company the artist belongs to. The middle compartment known as the second compartment is usually used to hold the disk which holds all the music. The disk will usually display the same colours and themes as the album cover may have the albums title on it and the artist name.

Planning: Shot list and filming days

In order to organise the filming days further than the call sheets and booking equipment, I decided to create a shot list. A shot list is a document that reflects what has been drawn up in the story boards in a written format. I used the shot list to categorise the types of shots that I wanted to film in each location/scene. I included information such as: who would be in each shot, directions for how they should perform and notes for myself to refer to as the camera and lighting operator. Additionally, I included a page describing what the shot lists purpose is and how to use it effectively so that any actors looking at it would have a better understanding of how they should use it.

For the filming days, I printed off a few copies of the shot list to provide to the various actors. They all agreed that this resource made it much easier for them to follow the narrative and obtain a better understanding of what it was that I wanted them to do. We often referred to the shot list on set to ensure that everyone knew what it was that we would be filming next. Overall, the shot list made the filming days run much more smoothly that they did in my AS production where I didn't create or use a shot list. There was noticeably less confusion about what it was that we needed to achieve on each day, which meant that the filming days were more productive and I could spend more time on editing the finalised film.

Planning: Shot List

Research: Digipak Analysis #3

This is the front cover of a single by VARSITY called Cult of Personality. The design follows a similar style to what I want to achieve. It uses pastel colours alongside bright ones to highlight certain aspects of the drawings. The title of the album and artists name are central to the design, meaning that anyone who looks at it will quickly be drawn to reading this. Likewise, the entire design is central to the frame, which proves to be aesthetically pleasing. It's likely that this was a conscious decision on behalf of the design team - for the purpose of attracting an audience. The text that they have used for the title is fitting with the grunge theme as it appears to be hand written. It's also capitalised - something which I have seen in a lot of alternative/grunge album covers and advertisement. This works to stand out to the audience and add to the aesthetic. 

Then, the drawing itself looks hand drawn. Digital artwork such as this is typically made using software such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. Typically, a photo will be imported to this software and then drawn over using the tools within the software. I like this style of cover art as it can easily be personalised to fit any one theme or idea. For example, a music video about drug addiction could use images of pills or needles to incorporate some of the lyrics into the visuals provided with the marketing of the product. There is a lot of designer control with digital art like this as any image can be made into this style of work and it is up to the creator to make it look however they like. 

Moreover, this digipak features a background graphic with the teabag. The purpose of this is to draw attention to the central subject whilst also adding more colouration to make the design more interesting. This would have likely been made using Photoshop and the layering system that that provides. The picture of the clouds itself would likely have been taken by the creator and imported onto the software that they used where it was cropped to the sixe of the teabag.

Overall, the design of this digipak is very simplistic yet meets a lot of the criteria needed to market an album successfully. It has the name of the band; album title and includes artwork that would appeal to a certain target audience. The colours used would make the cover stand out in a music shop and the style of the artwork is interesting to look at and offers something different from other cover arts. I will use aspects of this digipak as inspiration for my own work when considering colour schemes and styles of design to appeal to a grunge/alternative audience.

Production: Film draft

Production: Reverse effect

For my A level music video, I want to include a wider variety of shot types in order to develop my editing skills to create a more varied and interesting piece of work. 

This video was created by Messe Kopp and it is a perfect example of how backwards video techniques have evolved over recent years. It uses all the things that you would normally see in a backwards video and contains a very interesting narrative that is easy to follow. I also find that the backwards technique adds a complete new dynamic to the video as well so it really is interesting and appeasing to watch. The whole scene works really well to develop a narrative and create something different to other music videos so you can already start to see how the backwards technique is becoming more and more prominent in today's industry. I have seen other music videos that use this same technique in only a few scenes. Using this in parts as apposed to the entire music video still holds onto the interesting look and creates more depth for the visual. 

I decided to replicate this editing technique, but instead of doing so throughout, I would select appropriate clips for a purpose. This purpose is to show the passing of time in an interesting way. I have applied this technique to for different clips. These all follow the same pattern where the character walks in through the front door in one outfit (in forward effect), the same shot in reversed so that they go back out of the door, and then another clip is shown directly after of him coming in and reversing out in another outfit (to show how its a different day). I kept the continuity in these clips by applying the same speed duration to each cli so that he moves in and out at the same speed, I cut all the clips so that they are the same length and kept the camera in exactly the same position for each shot. This makes the shots seem more unified, despite being shot separately. The audience will be able to easily recognise that these two shots are meant to work together to create a symbolism of the passing of time. 

I started by cutting the clips:

Then I altered the speed and duration using the option bar on right click. I sped the clips up by 140% and reversed the duplicate clips: