A2 Media Studies

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Final Draft: Music Video

After showing my peers and teachers my third draft, I received a few pointers that could improve it. this involved fixing the timing of some clips and adding a stabilisation effect. I also considered using filters in some of my video clips, but after experimenting with them, I realised none of them fit with my genre of music video, country. Country music videos are full of nature, the outdoors and vibrant colours, and using a filter would take that away. Although I did use two filters in separate parts of the video because they enhanced it. The first was 'cold steel' which I used on the first two clips of the music video which represented a dull setting, but I bring back the full colour once the fire is lit, adding a dark and mysterious tone. The other filter I used was 'glory' which I added to various sequences in the graveyard when my actress was standing in front of the sun, which created a dark silhouette. 'Glory' enhanced this footage by fixing the exposure and giving it a very supernatural tone. Finally, I added a text shot to be inserted at the beginning of the video, which featured all of the details required for the examiners when marking (my name, college, board etc). With this done, I am pleased to say that this is my final draft as both my peers and my teachers agree that it is perfect and does not need any improvement. This means I can move onto my evaluation in which I will receive audience feedback.

Friday 4 April 2014

Final Draft: DigiPak/Ancillary text

After receiving some feedback from my teachers from peers on the first draft of my digipak, I decided to apply these suggestions in order to improve my product.

The first suggestion was to completely change the concept of my front cover of the digipak. I picked up on this earlier when I completed the first draft. I noted in my earlier blog post that I felt it looked out of place and wasn't conventional to my genre of country music, it reminded me much more of a rock or heavy metal album cover. While looking at some more country album covers, I was unable to find one that I could take inspiration from and duplicate, so I decided to extend my research into the folk genre.

One front cover I really felt was effective and conventional to the folk genre was Gabrielle Aplin's English Rain. I felt it was simple, yet complex in its attention to detail. I decided to take inspiration from this album cover and duplicate it the best I can. I used an image I took from my third filming session to do this, I altered the brightness making it very vintage and old fashioned looking and applied the text (album name and artist's name) in the same style as English Rain. I am very happy with this finished front cover as I feel it says a lot in a simple way.

Improved front cover:

As for the back cover, my feedback indicated that it didn't need much alteration at all. The only critique that I picked out is that the first couple of song titles in the track list are difficult to see. To improve this, I quickly increased the brightness and saturation, making the text more visible as well as making the cover more vibrant and colourful.

Improved back cover:

My feedback indicated that the back left and inside left covers did not require any alteration as they're conventional to my genre and they compliment the digipak in its entirety. So I've left them as they were before.

Back Left:

Inside Left:

As for the inside centre of the digipak, my feedback concluded that along with the front cover, it looked very unconventional and was reminiscent of a rock or heavy metal album. After hearing this feedback I decided to replace the burning field with an image I took at the church in my third filming session. In my video, the church section in the bridge is the most vital component in my opinion. So I feel it important to include an image from this scene. I touched up the image a little to make it look more vibrant and supernatural, and I split it in half so it would fit in the two disc sections in my digipak.

Inside Centre Left and Right (split):

After showing this final draft of my digipak to my teachers and peers, they agreed that it need no more alterations to improve it. So with my digipak complete I can begin to collect audience feedback for my evaluation.

Thursday 3 April 2014

Final Draft: Promotion Poster

After researching and looking at some earlier drafts of my poster design, I came to the conclusion that I needed to make the image the focal point of the poster. This is a common convention as seen in many other country music posters (shown in my research) so I decided following this convention would be the most appropriate for my genre. I made the image the focal point by moving all of the text into a translucent black box at the bottom page. Keeping all the information in different text formats in one area made my poster a lot easier to read and look at, and the image pulls in my audience which is my clear objective. After showing this to my peers and teachers they were very pleased with it and stated it would fit in perfectly to a music magazine. So with all my ancillary texts completed, I am now able to begin receiving my audience feedback.