Posters, Digipak + Music Video

Learning from Evaluation

From completely my evaluation I have discovered things about my music video that I lack or my music video doesn't have enough of. I wanted to increase the amount of performance my music video held, and also find a new location to record filler shots other than the park or forest.

Evaluation Question 4

On the stage of research and planning I utilised many different forms of media to create my blog as it is, and to also help influence the work that I produced, one of the platforms I used was Tumblr, In my opinion Tumblr was a very useful platform when it came to the aspects of design, as you type in a generalisation of what you’re interested in looking for and a large variety of GIFs and pictures come up. I was searching for bands that would be relative to mine and around 90% of the content that arose were fan-made, I believe this is a very good source of influence for poster designs, album designs, as the colours and the way in which each design is done, there is a lot of careful consideration to each one. Also as hashtags are used to display the pictures, I uploaded images of my band to further promote myself as other users are able to share the content I have uploaded. Also on my tumblr profile I had the slogan of the band which was “Witness the Rebirth”, which was also used in other ways to promote the band. #WTR

This is also the reason as to why I used instagram, as you can search for content and this will aid in the promotion of my band, I made a series of images that would state when the music video was due to be released and posted them on instragram, this was in order to build moral and popularity before it was released, I also held a competition where people would share an image on their profile in the chance to win merchandise from my band.

I’ve used SoundCloud to upload teasers of my song to, where people would be able to listen to parts of the song before the entire video was released, although SoundCloud doesn’t allow video as it’s an audio only website, I was allowed to further endure the mystery of the song and video.

This project was a solo project done by me but I also had a lot of help from other people, because taking on a task like this completely by myself would have been stressful and challenging, I used the social media of Facebook to keep in contact with other people to help organise events to take place such as filming, as I required people to be in my project and for someone to aid me in using the camera.

The hardware that I used was:

Canon XA25 as it was an advanced HD camera to get a crisp and clear picture, I also used boxed lighting to apply and change the brightness of each shot, and for backup lighting I also used phone cameras, the reason I chose to use these cameras wasn’t due to me running out of lighting equipment, it was because the lights that are used in phones are actually small floodlights, as I was not able to get a hole of floodlighting the phones were an ideal choice.

To edit together the opening I downloaded Adobe After Effects, I imported my footage and used helpful tutorials online on the Adobe website in order to learn how to use the program effectively, this was how I was able to place the text and make it fit nicely with the smoke. For the entirety of the project I switched to Sony Vegas to edit, as I found this a lot easier than other software as I’d previously used it. Sony Vegas allowed beat marks which aided in the editing process, as well as my footage having an entire playthrough via each clip where all I had to do was place one over the other on the program, which made the editing faster than expected. After the editing process I uploaded my footage to YouTube, I chose to use YouTube over websites such as Vimeo and Flickr due to the popularity of YouTube, which would help my music video be seen more and reach the public eye better, as the general majority of the public are familiar with YouTube. YouTube also contains compressed links where you can

share YouTube videos to facebook and other websites with mere clicks.

I created a survey by using SurveyMonkey to get responses on what people thought of my music video, I then sent this out via facebook to people who I felt would be responsible and willing to answer it for me, I then compiled the results.

To create the digipak and the poster I used Adobe Photoshop, this is due to because I am also a graphics student and I am very familiar with this program, I find it easy and entertaining to play around on photoshop and make things to the best of my ability.

Evaluation Question 3 Part 4

New Video First Cut

Evaluation Question 3 Part 3

1) Are you Male or Female?

2) What is your age?

3) What is your preferred genre of music?

4) What do you believe worked well in this video?

5) What do you believe could have been improved?

6)Would you listen to the artist outside of the survey?

7) Would you recommend this artist to a friend or family member?

8) Does the artist look appropriate for the music video?

I used Surveymonkey to create a survey, the program itself was very useful and easy to use and serve its purpose. Once I created the survey I sent it to people who I believed what be interested in taking it, I also posted it online in multiple places for the public to view it. In total I got 13 replies from the survey which I believe to be a decent result.

The first two questions are based on the audience, I wanted to address them first to understand what people listen to the artists music. The results compiled to 8 males and 5 females who took the survey.

Question 3 was to see what genre of music people preferred and if I was drawing in the correct people who are in my audience, the results were accurate to my specification. Most of the recipients listened to the genre of music, or a sub-genre of music.

Question 4 and 5 were specific questions about the video, and I picked out the more relevant answers to the question (answers that weren't basic and useless)
- Q5
- "The transitions between the editing was synced very well with the music. There were also very good camera angles which displayed the talent taken to make not only play the song but also make the video."
-  "The way it bounces back and forth from two different settings and has well suited characters to their roles."
- "Mise en scene was well put together and on best editing was nice"
- "The way that there is a very ominous background when there is a group shot with the fog, the trees and the sky. The way that the video is synced is very well done as well."
- "The transitions from different shots worked well, it gave off a professional atmosphere"
- "The clothing was fitting to the video"
- Q6
- "Not much room for improvement but probably just include some more filler shots to mix up the video more (different environments to watch out for in the video)"
- "Add a little more funny parts, similar to the part when Danny is tapping away at the end with a drink in his hand"
- "the editing was a bit fast but there's not much room for improvement"
From looking at these results of what people think of my video, I can see that the video I have created serves well for the purpose and focus, as I wanted to make sure that the video was fit for the audience. Although I have noticed that I would need a lot of improvements when it comes to footage, as I would need more filler shots in a variation of locations to make my music video more entertaining. If I were to go back onto my music video editing I would definitely change some of the shots that I have used.

For question 7 I added if the person would listen to the artist after the survey, and for question 8 I asked if they would recommend the artist? This was from the basis of the song as well as the music video, as if scenes and artists in the video fit and matched (which according to the audience they did) I would be able to market my artist via the communication of other people as well as the self promotion. These questions are also a kickstart in the brain to remember and possibly do as the questions are suggesting.

Evaluation Question 3 Part 1

From looking at the comments that I have recieved from my music video I can see a range of feedback that will enable me to view the positives of my music video, but also the negatives which will help me improve. From the feedback given I can see that the start of the music video was the part people liked most, as they were very quick to mention the typography and editing of it. People also enjoyed the editing and the song itself as an instrumental, as well as the actors in the video being able to play the song. However they didn't mention anything about the misc-en-scene, the location of the music video, costumes and so forth. This can lead me to believe that theses are all points on which I need to improve. Where to shoot more filler shots with different more interesting locations, and to also improve the misc-en-scene in a few shots.

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Music video update

After looking over my music video I wanted to add a small touch of performance into it. I also edited the song and made it a little longer to add a voice note in.

The poster 2

I created this poster in the process of promotion only, I have made this the bands slogan on which the band would be recognised by, and associated with the band and the music video, I also had the hastag there in order to people to be able to share via social media and popularise the material.

The poster 1

I took more photos of myself to create this poster design. The reason I decided to place the banner over my eyes with the title of of the song was because I didn't want to completely reveal the artist, I wanted to make a sense of mystery as this could possibly aid in promotion, this would make the audience to the poster want to see the music video if they were interested in seeing what the full extent of the artist looked like.

Template layout designs for magazine poster

I drew some very quick and basic sketches for a layout idea for my poster design, this was just for me to understand that when I was designing it of where to place all the items and information of the poster in the release of my music video. I then just allowed myself to design and place whatever I felt necessary in the process, and play around with different effects.

Analysis of different images of stars

Merchandising

My digipak

Creating the outside for the digipak

I also wanted to use planets as my main theme, I placed multiple planets close together in a small cluster, this was because I feel as if it represents the community of music as a whole in the local scene where everyone is tightly packed together in a bond where everyone is connected via the same thing. In the case of the album the thing that ties everyone together would be gravity, and in this case gravity is the metaphor for the music that is being created.

Creating the inside for my digipak

Looking for fonts to use in my design

Editing my photographs for my cover

My own photographs

Setting up the photoshoot

My digipak layout

Different album layout designs

Proliferation of Promotion

Musicians don't make their money as much by record sales anymore, due to online downloading and such, ways in which they make their money is from going on tour and selling merchandise. At 1:34, the vocalist of this band is asked a question about if he prefers CD's or Merchandise, and he states that although he loves CD's, the merchandise is the thing that creates the money, although this isn't just specifically in this genre and covers a wider range around music, but specifically in metal bands produce new merchandise nearly weekly, and produce a mass amount of new merchandise for a record when they're releasing to boost the amount of money that can be generated by selling it in bundles. As the fan base for this genre is a lot smaller than mainstream music, merchandise is where the majority of the money that's generated comes from, rather than tours.

Xisforeyes are a good example of ways to generate more money when it comes to releasing an album, they're currently selling their album with bundles containing different variations of merchandise, if you want a specific piece of merchandise you'll have to pay the required money, as you cannot just buy the album on its own, this is a good marketing strategy and is used by multiple different bands in the scene.

Album cover analysis

Re-creating an existing digipak

Final

Inspiration for digipak #3

I really liked the ideal of this shot because it focuses on the costume and the instrument, the instrument especially, as an instrument can define a genre that the musician plays, as well as the clothing that he/she wears.

Inspiration for digipak #2

I enjoy looking at things that portray a fantasy or a mystery in things, and this sort of thing fits perfectly.

Inspiration for digipak #1

I like the overlay of noise that they use, as well as the block colours and gradients that are used to create the shape and the dimensions of the sphere, there is also a sci-fi feel to this album over in a sort of fantasy reality. The colours used are all warm and connected colours, orange, green and yellow with touches of blue portray to clean and fantasy atmosphere due to them giving off an unworldly colour pallet, I also like that they've used the tree at the bottom to display the size of the sphere at the top, as we can all understand the size of a tree from natural thought, but as the sphere is fiction, the tree gives us a better understanding of the size of everything.

Shooting a new angle

On our way to film

Vlog of new ideas for video

Target Audience Feedback

I asked Sam to review my current music video