Section A - Digital Technologies

View my prezi here:

http://prezi.com/w-3tsrro4ken/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

MAX LOGO

My artists current logo(s):

These were found on his website, single cover and online store. They all carry the same brand identity of:
. simple lettering and font through use of only straight lines and wide width.
. dark colours (black or grey) with one colour standing out (red)
. one letter (A) with a certain edge to it, the letter A has no middle line
.capitals

For my own logo, there are some things I want to take from his existing logo:
. simple lettering and straight lines, I am using a bold, thick font on Photoshop to
. one letter that is different to the other letters, I am changing the colour of the A
.capitals, I want the name MAX to stand out against any other artists name

However I am going to completely revert his brand identity here that seems to be quite dark, and introduce bright colours, greens and blues. I do not want the background to be dark, I am going to have it colourful with  lot of changes in colour, so that when the logo is placed on top, the bold thickness of it will make it stand out. I am doing this so that my branding matches the uplifting tones of my music video and so that it attracts a young audience.

Here are some examples of which font I will use that I created on word:

POPLAR STD

:

Digipak Planning

After doing  some rough trials on Photoshop using colour and real images, I decided that I needed to start basic in order to know exactly what I want my digipak to look like. I have put together a plan of where I want each other the objects to be placed on the digipak using Microsoft Paint.
This is only an incredibly brief, non-detailed plan, however it is essential for to know exactly what I need to start planning in terms of font, colour, images and design,

Album Advert Magazine

After looking at a wide range of album adverts for magazines, I have come to a conclusion of the conventions of a album advert.

-As seen above. the name of the artist is the biggest (if not second biggest) focal point of the advert. For Olly Murs, Madonna and You Me At Six, their names are the place the consumers eyes will look first.
- Once the consumer has then established the artist, they then are drawn to the colour scheme mixed with the other images in the advert. For Olly Murs it is the repeated image of himself in the middle of the page, which has now helped the consumer understand who the artist is if they were unsure before. If they knew fully well who it was, the image of the artist may encourage them to read the advert. This would often be the case when voyeurism is used, for both males and females. The artists are dressed up in attractive and fashionable clothing to lure in the attention of the consumer.For Coldplay and YMAS it is the assortment of colours behind the text that catches the eye here.
-Then, the consumer is fully engaged with the advert and (hopefully) wants to find out the details of this advert such as the release date, the name of the album and where they can buy it from. For Olly, Coldplay and YMAS, the date of release takes up a large amount of area on the page, which can be argued to be the third most important piece of information, as this is when the consumer will be able to do what they do best, consume, and give money to the artist, which is exactly what the advert is trying to achieve.
- It is often that the colour scheme, typography or images are similar or even exactly the same to the other promotional pieces of media made by the record company to ensure a brand identity is made.E.g the YMAS image is the same as the image on the front of the album cover.
- Another part of a music advert is the mention of certain songs that will be heard in the album. This is done so that the consumer can connect their past experiences of the single they heard on the radio with the musis advert, which will encourage them further to buy the album and anticipate its release.

These conventions form the basis of what I will create on Photoshop for MAX's album: Pull My Strings, Including hit single: Shot Of Pure Gold.

Editing Update

So, I'm almost at the end of the song! I can only edit during lesson time as I don't have the software to at home. However, when I can edit, I am quite quick and I work effectively. 

I am just in the process of putting all the shots in the right place and then I will move on to changing the colours and brightness. 

After this, I will go through the video again and tighten up any bits to make sure it flows properly. 

Problems I have encountered: 

- I have a lot of footage that I want to include of Ben in the different places but not enough space to put them in. This meant I had to select my favourite clips and edit them in as much as I could, enough to avoid making it look like I am overloading it with footage. 

- I can't find the footage from the music rooms shoot on the hard drive. This is a minor set back as it means I have to upload them off the camera again. 

Section A - Research and Planning

This is my second installment for the prezi's I will be creating regarding my exam.

Watch here:

http://prezi.com/sqjozk0ixp7d/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Performance Footage?

It has been suggested to me that I film some performance footage of Ben singing to the song as just the artist in a stage like set up.
I had decided that I would not include any separate footage of the artist singing due to the fact that I feel this would make the video too disjointed and break it away from the narrative of the boy and the girl. I think it would take away from the narrative.
I have however included a type of performance footage, when Ben is sat by himself signing the lyrics to his own song, which will be edited in after the Christmas holidays.
I have chosen not to include stage performance footage for the reason that I feel it would look too disjointed.

I have filmed some performance footage to see what it would look like when put to my music:

I have decided not to use this footage in my video as I think that it will take away from the concept of the video.
I understand that this subverts a very arguably important part of genre theory, however I purposely wanted to subvert boundaries and expectations in order to present MAX as a unique, new and individual artist as this would appeal to my target audience.
performance footage.prproj from Elleah Stanton on Vimeo.

Audience Feedback

After uploading my second rough cut, I have now decided to get some audience feedback on my video so far.
I have sent messages on Facebook to six people within my target audience asking for three things they think I should add or take out of my rough cut.

"Could you watch this and give me three things you think I need to add in or take out? (this is only my second rough cut, its only half finished and there are parts missing). Thankyou! https://vimeo.com/149257870"

Person No.1:

"use as much of that doll placement/Ben placement concept as well as you can"
"more contrast"
"play around with transitions"

Person No.2:

" if you were to add anything it would be an effect that make the colours really pop, so that it's really vibrant "
"I don't think anything really needs taking out, I think it's great. I like the storyline and it flows well"

Person no.3: 

"Erm I think if anything needs taking out its the close ups of Rachel's mouth etc. I get you're trying to make her look manipulative with that but I just feel it's space filler so maybe cut that unless you disagree"

Person no.4:

"It's a really cool concept and I'm not sure what I'd change about it, the pace was a tad too fast for me but if you're cutting to a song beat then there's not really much you can do about that"

So to conclude, the changes that I will make to my rough cut are: 

-play around with the contrast and the transitioning 

-replace some of the close up shots of Rachel 

Editing So Far

Rough Cut 2 from Elleah Stanton on Vimeo.

This video is what I have done so far in the editing process, it only half of the video but I will be completing the rest after the Christmas holiday.

Sorting Through New Footage

Today, I uploaded all the footage that I filmed of Ben for the starting scenes of him sat on the sofa. There is certainly a lot of footage there that I will be able to use to introduce him earlier in the video.

After watching all of them through, all but one or two will be able to be used in the video. I wont need anywhere near this much of footage but it is a good feeling to have enough footage that I can choose from so that I get the most perfect shots.
This is the last time (hopefully) that I will be filming these scenes, so now I need to start editing them into my existing rough cut on Premier Pro. I had planned to do that today however for some reason my Premier Pro is being incredibly slow and not loading any of my footage. I will have to pick back up with editing after the Christmas holidays where I will be completing lots of blog posts on the exam and branding.
I am hoping to export whatever I have edited up to now so that you can see what stage I am at in the editing process. I will be uploading it to Vimeo.

Section A - Creativity

I have put together a Prezi presentation looking at the first question of Section A in my exam, since it is based around my coursework from over the past two years.
I am planning on making this kind of plan for each of the other aspects the exam could ask me about including:

Research and planning

Using conventions from real media texts

 Digital Technology

 Post Production

View it here:

http://prezi.com/3irgagntk2_9/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Filming!

So, I filmed the starting shots of Ben again for the third time now, so hopefully they will be okay this time! 

I have filmed Ben dancing to him self and singing the lyrics to the start of the song. To do this I just played the song to him a few times and after a while he started to know the words and feel familiar with the song, meaning that his dancing is natural and believable. 

I think using this to introduce him earlier in the video will make it a lot clearer to the viewer the story that I am trying to put across. 

Reshooting

After starting to edit in the clips of Ben on the sofa getting his limbs pulled up by Rachel, I realised that I need to introduce Ben a bit earlier in the montage as he comes in quite abruptly. I don't have enough footage already filmed to put in so I am going to have to reshoot. I will film Ben in the same place on the sofa but I will have him singing along to the song as if he is just singing them to himself and nobody is watching. I will have to edit this in properly so that it doesn't ruin the other editing that I've already done. 

Rehearsing editing I've moved on for now to the parts where Ben is starting to get put in different locations. I have done the first and the school one so far which look pretty good, I'm very pleased with how they look. 

I will be reshooting the starting shots this Saturday, ready to edit in next week. 

I don't think that I am going to get the whole thing editors before the end of this term, so my editing will have to leak into the start of next year, unless I can get premier pro on my laptop at home so that I can do it over the Christmas holidays.

Artist Name

I have seen that usually, on this course students have created a new name for their artist instead of keeping the name of the artist of the song they chose.
However, I have decided to keep the name MAX due to the fact that he is quite an unknown artist. I also decided this because I really like the simplicity of the name as it allows me to play around with it's lettering and size as if it is more of an image than a word.

Mannequin Photography Update

I have just played around with pixlr editor and pixlr express to edit one of my photos for an album advertisement. I wanted to make the colours quite bright and 'groovy'. In pixlr editor I took the image and got rid of the date across the bottom using a white paintbrush and smudge tool/ I then posterised it, making it look less realistic and more fantasy like.

I then took the image over to pixlr express and added some filters and changed the colours to make it look more pop arty and brightly coloured, taking inspiration from my research where I found that my target audience preferred the cooler colours to the warmer colours.

Photography

So today I have taken some photos for ideas for my digi-pak and advertisement. I put my two mannequins that I used for filming in front of two lit candles. I wanted to create a romantic scene between the two mannequins as they represent the couple in the music video.
After taking the photos I then realised that the date is printed over the top of them which is incredibly annoying. I will just take more photos another time and set up the scenario a bit more tighter and with more care.
Here are the some of the photos:

Branding Update

I realise it has been a while since I have addressed the branding half of this project, however now I wanted to update you withy my feelings towards my print products and what they might look like after a bit of audience feedback and starting the editing of my final video.

After conducting some research among 46 students in my Sixth Form (who fall into my target audience of 16-20 year olds), I found that they preferred the blue and green colour scheme as opposed to the pink and red colours. When I conducted this, which was very close to the beginning of the project, I had in my head that the song I would be using would be darker (Puppeteer) than Shot of Pure Gold which I am using now. Therefore when testing my print products, I went for the slightly darker look with a black background and colourful hints in it to fit in with my research about pop branding.

However, now after changing my song to something with a happier, more fun tone, I think I will need to change my print ideas slightly so that they too are bright and match the music video. My music video will be full of colour with lots of shots outside with bright lighting, and shots containing colourful art supplies, with not much darkness in it so in order to complete my brand, the print products need to look a lot more colourful and bright.
I will however keep in mind the fact that my audience voted more heavily for the green and blue cool colours rather than the warmer ones. I will be producing some more samples, hopefully using my own photography and a wider range of colours with no dark background. I hope to take some photos of Ben tonight, and I am considering taking some photos of my two mannequins that I used in my music video because I think they look quite interesting stood together.
I could put them in different comical positions where the girl mannequin is manipulating the male one with strings, or something along those lines. I will play around with this idea at the weekend in my spare time.
In the mean time, today I will be editing some more of my video in my frees.

Editing Update No.1

The editing has begun!

So far I have edited the first 20 seconds (approximately) and its going pretty smoothly. I spent one hour the other day editing 7 seconds worth of footage for the part when she is piling up the backgrounds she had made. I wanted them to be put down on the beat then off the beat then back on the beat so that it was very fast pace in order to heighten the fun atmosphere . I finally managed to do it and I am really happy with how it has turned out. 

I feel 100% more confident using Premier Pro this time around. In AS I was quite hesitant to use it and I was not completely sure what to do. With my 'The Art of Madness' final piece for example, the footage was not cut with regard to the music, so the cuts are not on the beat or the sounds of the piano.I feel very knowledgeable in how to use it accurately and how to get the best out of its features. For now I am only concentrating on ordering and cutting the clips to the beat. After I have completed the whole video, I will then look at how I can change the colours in the footage using the brightness and contrast tools.