Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 3

What Have You Learnt From Your Audience Research?

Throughout the process of making my music video and digipak I have continuously obtained audience feedback from my target audience using Survey Monkey. Survey Monkey is a website that allows you to create your own surveys and questionnaires and share them with whoever you would like.

Target Audience
From my audience research already knew that my primary target audience was going to be females aged between 16 and 24. However, I also had a secondary target audience of all genders aged between 30 and over. I aimed to get my research from mainly my primary target audience, whilst also attempting to gain some knowledge about my secondary target audience's views as well.

Music Video
100% of the respondents of my questionnaires were in my target audience age range 50% were female and 50% were male. Therefore all were viable respondents for my research.

The way I decided to choose what kind of music video to do, I first analysed the preferred music genre of all my respondents. A total of 80% of respondents chose either Rock or Pop music and the cross over between the combination of the two and the song I chose had many similarities. All of the respondents were aware of the combination of narrative and concept in my music video and  all of them understood the narrative fully and one highlighted that the concept in the nature shots linked well with the previous me videos she had seen before. However, one did not fully understand why the nature shots and described them as "random". This wasn't the case from the rough cuts though, when I did my first questionnaire for the first rough cut some people did not fully understand the narrative. I was having a conversation with one of the respondents and they were saying that they did not pick up that these two people really had a relationship and loved each other because there was no evidence of that. I went out and did extra filming with my actor to film us having fun as you would see in home footage of a relationship and it proved to work. Further feedback from the first few rough cuts were that they felt like the last section with the guitar dragged on. I decided I should be more creative with that section. First I added the over layered clips over the top but the response was that it had improved but it still wasn't as climactic as they expected it to be - and to be honest it wasn't as climactic as I intended it to be. This was when I got the idea to add a strobe effect that could be seen in Moose Blood's live shows when they play this particular song. This links back to my audience research where I discovered that the audience enjoy live performance not only in the music videos but also going to live gigs.

Ancillary Products
I did not receive as much feedback as I would like to have done on my ancillary products as I spent a lot of the time on detail rather than checking for feedback along the way. However, all the feedback I did receive regarding my ancillary products revealed that both my magazine advert and my digipak were very minimalistic. One female respondent who was a fan of Moose Blood picked out the lyrics on the inside cover of my digipak and thought it was really interesting and creative to see the lyrics of each song printed out on a product. Furthermore, that same respondent recognised 'Rocksound Magazine' and thought that the addition of brands recognisable in the punk community made the advert appear to be genuine. Another respondent appreciated the clear link between the digipak and magazine ad in terms of colours and the logo. They said "at a glance it looks like a side project of the band." Considering I was influenced by previous projects from the band and the trends of other bands, this was a compliment to the professional minimalistic look I wanted each product to display. I asked one person who was part of my secondary target audience what they thought of the products. They much preferred the aesthetic of the digipak as it looked more 'old school' punk from the colourful themes with the use of dark images to contrast this. However, there was only colour in the magazine advert and it felt too "Poppy". Conversely, they did like the retro feel it had to it. Luckily, this was the American direction I wanted to take the magazine advert because it appealed to the younger primary target audience respondents I spoke to. One thing I now retrospectively wish I had asked my audience is "what do the products most make you think of?" in the hope I could have had a much better idea of whether or not I achieved the 50's American theme.

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 4

Final Cut

Final Cut

The final cut had a major change in the structure of the video after I had feedback that the narrative wasn't clear. Also, another reasoning for this was that the video appeared to be split up from narrative and aesthetic shots and therefore I attempted to intertwine the two by putting the 'walking down the cobbled street' part in the second time the lyric appeared. Finally, I also added branding to the video as I added text of Moose Blood in a typical font that they have previously used in 3 different colours that appeared on top of different backgrounds during the final section of the strobe effect.

YouTube to Dropbox

All my videos were originally uploaded to YouTube as I felt that was the best platform to display my work in terms of accessibility for the audience, feedback from the audience and management of the videos for me. However, all my videos that contained the audio for the song I was using got blocked worldwide by Hopeless Records. I had sent many emails and tweets to Hopeless Records in an attempt to get the rights to the song but I had no replies. After trying many methods such as: attempting to claim copyrights and setting the videos to private - none of these worked. To combat this I decided to create a Dropbox account and have my videos on there because I could share the files from Dropbox to my blog.

Rough Cut 5

Rough Cut 5

In this rough cut I further focused on the ending. I did another few swap rounds of the overlaying clips but I also added a different structure to the strobe effects nearer the end that I felt matched the music more than what I currently had. I also re-synced the second lip-sync clip because I had feedback that suggested it was not quite synched properly.

Rough Cut 4

Rough Cut 4

In this rough cut, I focused on the ending of my video. When I added the strobe effect I also wanted to change the overlaying clips to clips that were more appropriate. I experimented with many clips until I found the clips that I felt represented a relationship as I intended.

Rough Cut 3

Rough Cut 3

Rough Cut 2

Rough Cut 2

Rough Cut 1

Rough Cut 1

Production Diary

08/03
I set up with my Canon 70D with a fig rig at home with the intention of filming a panning sunset from my the roof of my house. I was successful and managed to get 2 minutes of footage to edit down. In the end I chose 4 seconds of that footage to use as the opening shot.

09/03
Today I spent 2 hours filming around Ilkley Moor. I went up with the intention of getting footage that I can use as 'filler' footage because I had come to the conclusion that the shots I had already used were too long as the average length of the shots were around 6 seconds. I started at 'The Tarn' and shot close-up panning shots of the water ripples and natural imagery such as the ducks. As I walked round 'The Tarn' I also managed to get a lens flare through the trees. But unfortunately even though I was using a fig rig, my footage was too shaky when I came to edit it. I carried on round 'The Tarn' and took a still image for my digipak as it would be higher quality than filming it. However, I then also filmed the same shot so I could relate my music video to my digipak directly. Then we headed up towards the moor. The shots on the way up did not have the vibrant colours that I intended them to have and I therefore did not use them. As we got further up the moor I continued to take shots but due to the weather and conditions of the ground, it was too slippy and uneven to have many stable and usable shots. Finally, we got to a second tarn and I took a secondary lens flare shot. Also, because the song name is 'Shimmer', I got more shots of the sun reflecting off of the water, one was intended to be a 'filler' shot and the other was the final shot of the video. I am unsure on the lens flare shot, however, the shimmer shot turned out really clear.

12/03
At around 5pm, just as the sun was getting low, I took my filming equipment up to Burley-in-Wharfedale's Nature Reserve: Canon 70D, fig rig and a tripod. I set my Canon 70D on the fig rig and took shots of the sunlight coming through the trees on the way in to the Nature Reserve to get a few lens flare shots. I stopped at a few locations to get theses lens flare shots but I did not use them all. I was walking up to the bench at which I filmed my actor and I saw some flowers that were perfectly positioned facing slightly away from the sun so I could get a panning shot with the sun behind them. I eventually got to the bench and set my camera up on the tripod and attempted filming my original plan of filming a medium shot of me sat on the bench lip-synching. But in reality it did not look the same as I imagined so I zoomed in closer and had a medium close-up of me lip-synching on the bench (also in the first third of the frame). Finally, just before sun (my only source of light) went behind the trees I took an extreme close-up shot of the barley that was growing near the bench, blowing in the wind and with the sun in the background.

21/03
I began my filming in my house where I got push focus shots of fairly lights set up on a large mirror.  I then filmed the horizontal medium shot of me lip-synching on the sofa. I did not use any natural lighting as I wanted it to have the effect of being in the evening. That night I took the Canon 70D and a tripod out to the location of the 'cobbled street' but there weren't any suitable local cobbled streets so I settled for a regular paved street that was well lit with street lights. I filmed a few shots, the first being the close-up of my feet walking from left to right across the frame. Then across the same location I shot medium to long shot walking down the road and then a different angle of a long to medium shot walking up the road. After this, I moved to a wall that was lit by multiple high angle white lights. Here I shot a medium shot where the focus was me in the final third of the frame looking pensive, smoking a cigarette. Finally, the most difficult shot was a lip-synching shot that involved smoke. I shot my mouth at an extreme close-up attempting to lip-sync while the smoke slowly flows out of my mouth. But instead I may change the shot to slow motion of the smoke leaving my mouth without the lip-synching depending on how it appears in post production.

04/04
To finalise my production process, my actress and I went to the Cow and Calf car park at 9 o'clock on a clear night. I faced my car towards any light to make sure there was no light behind it and therefore the silhouetted effect would appear much clearer. I set up my tripod around 10m away from the car to make sure it was a long shot and got my whole body in the shot. Then I set the camera on auto focus so when I moved around in the dark, it would perform a push pull focus effect. I placed my amp on the ground and plugged my guitar into it and did a few test shots to make sure it was framed right and to view the lighting. I shot it twice, once with fog lights and headlights, and one with just the headlights. I decided to go with the one with only the headlights as they projected more light and was therefore better for a silhouette.

Magazine Advert

The colour scheme of the magazine advert correlates directly with the digipak's colour scheme. The background is minimalistic using only three alternating colours in text and no image of the band. But instead shows the band logo as the focal point of the advert - this is the same in the digipak. Other magazine adverts have done something similar, for example, punk rock band 'Green Day' and also 'Foo Fighters'. Conventionally, I have also made the name of the band the biggest text on the advert and the name of the album underneath the band in a smaller font. As I have seen on other magazine adverts in a similar genre (Biffy Clyro - Mountains). The information about the date of release was found in the bottom half of the advert, along with the possible ways of accessing the music. Furthermore, I also decided to use another magazine advert convention of having the record label displayed somewhere on the advert, either by name or logo. Finally, I added the website for the band/record label in a white font that contrasted to the colour scheme that I was using throughout.

Digpak Process

Original Digipak Template

I downloaded a standard digipak template and imported it into Adobe Illustrator.

Digipak With Background

I then created a square using the Rectangle Tool and filled it in with the pink colour I wanted by using a Digital Colour Meter and adjusting the colours on the RGB scale.

Album Title and Band name (Front Panel)

I went on to dafont.com and found two fonts that I felt fit the theme of my digipak. The album title 'Blush' is in a bold font that stands out and compliments the pink background. It could be classified as  an American style stencil font as 60's America was an inspiration for the design. The band name 'Moose Blood' is in the same vein, I used a light blue in contrasting gentle, handwritten font that reflects a font that the band used to use on their merchandise.

Track List (Reverse Panel)

On the reverse panel I have the track list in black and in the same font as the band name down the centre of the panel. I did this using the Type Tool, and the Fill Tool to colour the text.

Band Logo Added (Front Panel)

Using the Line Tool I traced the band logo for the straight lines. However, I had to use the Ellipse Tool to do the teardrop shape. From there, I edited an image of a live performance of the band on Adobe Photoshop and imported it to Adobe Illustrator. I used the hollow logo to use as a stencil to cut out from the image and leave me with a filled in logo using my image.

Band Logo Added (Reverse Panel)

I simply copy and pasted my previously created outline of my logo onto the reverse panel and adjusted the scale.

Licensing Information and Barcode Added (Reverse Panel)

I found a .png image of Moose Blood's record label 'Hopeless Records' and imported it into Adobe Illustrator and using conventions I had researched I placed it on the left of the licensing information (that I also based upon research I had done of other licensing information). Finally, I found a font that creates barcodes with text and used a band themed barcode.

Spine of Digipak

I created another rectangle using the Rectangle Tool and used the Fill Tool to make it black. From here I used the Type Tool to create text and adjusted the text's RGB scale to be the same blue as the blue in the band name on the front panel. I placed the text to be able to read when the album is face up as I had read that this was the true way to place text on a spine.

Inside Panels of Digipak

I researched all the lyrics of the songs on the album and wrote them out in the another font that I found on dafont.com that fit the gentle theme of the digipak.

Full Basic Digipak

Full Digipak Without Inside Panel Details

During filming I took a still image of a shot that I had just finished shooting. I then took this image and edited it on Adobe Photoshop to make it black and white and using the colour guide I made sure that the black was absolute black and that the white was absolute white. I then imported the image from Photoshop and on to Adobe Illustrator to take the place of the black background I had previously.

Complete Inside Digipak

I then brought the text layer forward so it was on top of the image.

Complete Full Digipak

Shooting Schedule

I made my shooting schedule for my production using the Calendar app on my phone (Samsung)

All March Filming Dates

All April Filming Dates

Digipak Ideas

I took initial inspiration from the band's most recent album's colour scheme and also the colour scheme from a recent EP 'Stay Beautiful'

Moose Blood - Blush, Album Cover

Moose Blood - Stay Beautiful EP Cover

I began with the idea of making a black digipak with the pink/purple details, but the text did not stand out as I had liked, also another issue was also the .png image of the record label could not be accessed in another colour other than black, thus making it not visible. I know I want to make it minimalistic and simple with not many details such as New Found Glory's 'Resurrection Ascension'. 

New Found Glory - Resurrection Ascension, Album Front Cover

I found in many products that lyrics of the songs were found on either a pull out or on the inside cover of the digipak. This translated over many genres from Indie Rock, Singer/Songwriter and Punk. That's where I came up with the idea of having the lyrics somewhere on the digipak.

I don't want to use fonts that can be found on previous digipaks but instead fonts that have been used on merchandise.

Test Footage 1

Test Footage

Organisation

Conversation taken from Snapchat with my actress

Copyright Request

Conventions of a Music Video

Conventions of a narrative music video

• A music video generally can be a non-linear or a linear narrative. 
• A music video can also be closed or open.
• With a narrative there is a beginning, middle and an end.
• The events must make sense to the audience 
• It must be suggestive or at least imply what the intended reading is

Conventions of a group performance music video

• Generally there is a performance in the music video, where the audience sees the band either lip syncing or we see them on stage performing. 
• Mimed playing of instruments 
• Close-up shots of the singers face and the instruments being played
• Unusual camera shots; for example low close angles of the instruments 
• Crane shots over the audience 

Conventions of a solo performance music video

• Close-ups of the singer; emphasising them and that they are the main focus of the video

• A dance routine involved to bring the audience's attention

• First person mode of address so that the audience feels a connection with he singer and gets involved

• Often cutting between performance and narrative so that the audience want to keep watching

Star image 

• Certain profit stars will be selected and manufactured for the record label. 
• We are able to connote the meta narrative in music videos - this is where we are able to identify a stars personality and apply it to the music video. 
• stars such as; Madonna and Micheal Jackson were manufactured to be marketed in a certain way so that their record label could gain a profit

Magazine Album Advert Analysis

All Time Low 'Nothing Personal' Kerrang Magazine Advert

• Artist name large font, centre, top of the page
• Social media link in a smaller font underneath the band name
• Album name highlighted in contrasting colour to the background and other text
• Album name in a smaller font to the band name with a more simple font of the date of release centrally beneath that
• Iconography, featuring band members, outlined with they yellow colour scheme
• Album cover also displayed small, next to band members
• The advert follows the same aesthetic of the album cover, yellow, album name with the same yellow highlight and the band have the same font and relatively same size font compared to album name
• Contains record label twice
• Also has the store where you can buy the album, with extra information of a digital download

Biffy Clyro 'Mountains' Kerrang Magazine Advert

• The magazine advert is identical to the album artwork
• Band name and album name font made much larger and placed in the lower half of the advert
• Font size appears to be in descending order, all having a cold blue and white colour scheme
• Information for date of release
• Information about contents of what you will receive when buying the album
• Band website
• At the bottom of the advert is their record label '14th Floor'

Moose Blood 'Blush' Social Media Promotional Tour and Album Advert

I was unable to find a magazine advert for Moose Blood's most current album 'Blush' online. However, I have found this promotional UK & Europe Tour that also promotes their album. I can at least take inspiration from the aesthetic of the band.

• The scheme is constant throughout, sticking to black and white, pastel pink and baby blue.
• Band name in hollow, capitalised, italic font
• Split the band name with pastel pink line and baby blue stars, contrasting with the white fonts for the other band names
• Back to the pastel pink on a black background, split the different dates with the different colours. (Europe in pink, UK in blue)
• Band website underneath all the dates, following colour scheme
• Record label and production companies beneath the sign
• Actual album advertisement bottom right with the name of the album in the same font as the band name, date of release smaller underneath
• The whole advert is very Americanised with that American aesthetic, can be seen with the 60's American Diner-esque sign that it has been made to look like.
• The actual image behind the sign appears to have been taken in L.A, California.

The 1975 'I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It' Promotional Image - 'Somebody Else'

The 1975 'I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It' Promotional Image - 'This Must Be My Dream'

 This is not a magazine advert, however I would like to take inspiration from this. I would like to have teaser advertisements for the album by having songs from the album displayed with my own photography. Although, neon lighting would be extremely expensive so I would have it digitally imposed onto my photography. The photography may be still images from the video, or simply photos of locations within the video.

Digipak Conventions

Genre Related Digipaks

Moose Blood Digipak

Moose Blood 'IKYIM' Digipak Front Cover

• Simple range of colours
• Minimalistic image
• Warm but dark colours
• Simple band name in relatively small capitalised font
• Same font album name underneath band name, split with simple line.
• No iconography

Moose Blood 'IKYIM' Inside Cover

• Reoccurring theme of the fire
• Album name split between each side of the cover "I'll Keep You In Mind" "From Time to Time"
• Track list shown horizontally across cover, underlined by same line on front cover
• Lyrics of each track shown under each relating track name
• Credits at the bottom, band members, producers, engineers, assistant engineers, programming, location of recording, photographers, layout and design company.

Moose Blood 'IKYIM' Back Cover

• Warm fire theme again
• Band logo at the top
• Central vertical tracklist
• Record label information and copyright information in the bottom left
• Barcode in the bottom right

Taking Back Sunday Digipak

Taking Back Sunday 'New Again' Digipak Front Cover

• It has been given an aged, distressed appearance
• Light colours, contrasting with the red interior of the car
• 90's punk band with a vintage aesthetic, verisimilitude with the car and the outfit of the woman
• Contents of digipak displayed with a rustic sticker
• Trigger warning in the bottom left

Taking Back Sunday 'New Again' Digipak Inside Cover

• Track list underneath the album name (same font but a different colour)
• DVD credits on right hand side of the cover.
• Left side of the cover has credits for the album, including: producer, engineers, additional producers and engineers, mixers, recording studio and location, assistants, additional recording studio and location, publisher, band members, art design and band photographer, manager, lawyer, agency, business management, executing producer, marketeers, copyright information with record label, and finally band website.
• With the credits they also had mentions such as: family, friends and products that they used to make the album.

Neck Deep Digipak

Neck Deep 'Life's Not Out To Get You' Digipak Front Cover

• Vibrant, abstract artwork
• Related to the album title, events that you meet along the way in life
• Hand drawn fonts and pictures
• Band name at the top off-centre in red, on a contrasting yellow
• Album name at the bottom with a simple black on white 

Neck Deep 'Life's Not Out To Get You' Digipak Back Cover

• Similar hand drawn artwork
• Same font used for the track list as it was for the album name on the front
• Appears to symbolise a cartoon, mythical map that depicts the journey of the album, following on the theme of a journey from the front cover