Video production feedback

Effective opening with establishing shot evoking home with peaceful non diegetic music added to create the atmosphere of homeliness. A record scratch sound effect suggest the disturbance in the equilibrium and a link into the caption inside. An effective  range of shots show continuity in editing ina pre-song sequence evidencing dialogue and titles. This sequence is then repeated to bookend the video. A striking close up of a mouth links with the lyrics and lip synching is careful. A range of carefully orchestrated shots using effective mise-en-scene with the skeleton in a variety of situations adds humour and engages the audience. Costume is also used to add variety in branding the artist. One shot uses photographs  of the boyfriend and skeleton attached to the wall to add a layer of meaning.  An actress is well directed and the narrative is clearly storyboarded and well planned.  The performance element is filmed effectively in a studio and edited to aid pace and structure showing an awareness of the conventions of the medium. Level 4 is achieved through the range of shots which show creativity and imagination such as the party scene using a green screen to create an in camera effect. Two shots of shadows are filmed and key framed to merge them together.  There is lots of variety to the content showing imagination in the planning stage. A dream sequence is cleverly edited using dissolves and merging layers of video to create a surreal effect. The use of earphones on the actress creates a link with the audio in the video as we hear what she is hearing at points and the audio is edited accordingly.  The level of detail allows level 4 to be achieved despite some issues with white balancing and lighting issues that have been rectified somewhat in post-production. The video has been improved and layers added over a series of weeks which is evidenced in drafts and the web-log.  34/40

EVALUATION QUESTION THREE

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Final Product - Kate Nash The Skeleton Song

TASK 11 Finished Print Artefacts

Magazine  Advert

Album Cover

Inside Panels of  Album Cover

CD

Editing The Album Cover Print Artefact

Original Image

To begin with, I used a brightening tool on the editing software to lighten the bones of the skeleton, I also airbrushed the artists face to remove any shadows and blemishes.

Whitened Skeleton

I then began to experiment with the design of the album cover by layering different filters over the top to give them an indie/alternative design to match the genre of the music. A few examples of the designs I experimented with can be seen below.

Experiment With Filters

Applying Text and PAEC Logo

Next, I began to add the artists name and the album name to the front of the CD cover in order to brand the artist. I kept the same font that I used in the magazine advert in order to introduce a level of consistency which helps to brand the artist in the target audiences minds and make their 'logo' recognisable and more memorable. We also added a Parental Advisory Explicit Content logo in order to warn those planning on buying the CD that some of the songs contain explicit language that might not be suitable for young children or others who may not enjoy hearing expletives whilst listening to music.

Experimenting with different colours

Experimenting with different colours

I experimented with different coloured text and different filters on the central image in order to produce a few different front cover images which I could then show to my target audience and ask for their opinions. The majority of those asked said that they liked the first image, with the triangular design and turquoise font, as it looked bright and interesting and matched the genre of the music well, so we decided to proceed with that as our front cover of the album.

Adding Barcode

Next, I chose an image of the skeleton from our music video for the back of the album cover and edited it with the same design as the front cover. I then added a barcode and began to add text to it to make it look more professional by adding a barcode number and category number like you would see on real album covers produced by real record labels. 

Track-list and copyright information

I looked for the album cover of the real 'Made of Bricks' album by Kate Nash on the internet and after I located it, I was able to include the real copyright information above my barcode. In addition to this, I added the tracklist to the back of the album cover as this is a typical convention. 

Adding a QR Code and PAEC Logo

I decided to add a QR code to the album cover to make it more modern, as many companies do this now in order to make their product easily accessible. By doing this, people would be able to see my CD in stores and simply scan the QR code on their smart phone or any other smart device in order to be directed to a website that would allow them to purchase it online or download it straight to their device. I also added another Parental Advisory Explicit Content logo in order to clarify the explicit language once more.

Research into record labels

I then went onto google and decided to find out what record label has signed Kate Nash in order to be accurate whilst applying the company logos to my album cover. I found that both Fiction Records and Island Records had signed Kate Nash and therefore found their logos on the internet, edited them slightly to remove their backgrounds and then applied them to the bottom left corner of the album cover as seen below.

Applying record label logo

Editing the CD cover together

Finally, I created a spine for the CD cover and included the album name, artists name, category number and main record label on there as this is the information that was located on the original spine of the original Kate Nash album. I then edited the front and back cover together in order to create the full, completed album cover. 

First Draft And Audience Feedback

What have you learned from audience feedback?

Our Initial Critique:

• Our music video is still missing a lot of footage as we have not finished filming certain scenes and part of the lip syncing. 
• The footage has not been rendered so it is not very good quality at the moment
• The birthday party scene was filmed in low quality and to fix this, we aim to make it look like a home movie by applying a record and time effect, but this has not been completed yet.
• The narrative has not been made clear as we are missing the footage that explains what the skeleton is a metaphor for.

Questions for our audience:

• Do you think our video matches the genre of the music well?
• Do you understand the narrative?
• What type of audience do you think would like this video?
• Which channels do you think this video would be aired on?
• Can you tell that there are issues with white balancing in the video?
• Do you think we have incorporated our props effectively? i.e the skeleton
• Do you think we have used humour well in our video?
• What would you do to improve our video?
• Do you think the lip syncing looks natural in the video?
• What do you like about the video? What have we done well?