Audience Feedback from Twitter- Catriona Morgan

In order to gain some more audience feedback, I uploaded our final music video to Twitter (as our potential target audience members tend to use Twitter.)

This is some of the feedback I received:

 As well as:

And finally:

These were very nice comments to receive as they were all positive and our audience members became active (following Bulmer and Katz's theory) by liking the conventions we purposefully added. For example the changing from fast to slow motion in time with the music and the varying locations.   

How Effective our Ideas Were

When storyboarding, we decided to use a studio with a white background so that the focus was on the artist and the lip-syncing. I think this was effective as not only does it contrast well with the other shots in our video (of Paris and the beach) but is also typical of the Drum and Bass genre when there are featuring artists on the track. I discovered this convention after doing some research into music videos of the Drum and Bass genre, finding that the focus in the videos was on the featuring artist, rather than the Drum and Bass artists themselves. (E.g. Zedd ft. Haley Williams- Stay the Night.) This could be considered as being successful as from receiving some audience feedback, it was said that they liked the focus on the artist, as you were able to concentrate on the meaning of the lyrics.

(Studio shot)

We also decided before doing much research that the video will be edited to be black and white, which we became more confident in doing after finding videos in our genre, also in black and white. However, there are some bursts of colour throughout, particularly when the beat drops and the chorus picks up, as well as when the clips of projections are used. I feel this is effective as the editing then matches the pace of the music, which is what is expected amongst our target audience. Additionally, the length of shots vary, from long length shots at the beginning when the music is slower, to shorter length shots when the beat picks up.

(Long length shot at the beginning- black and white)

(Shorter length shot- colour)

(Shorter length shot- colour)
I think the fact it's edited to be black and white is also effective because as the lyrics are: 'One day I'll bring you something more,' suggests the singer is reminiscing and thinking of the past, which could be why it's in black and white as she's thinking of memories from the past.

Even though we had initially planned to film in London, I believe the shots of Paris were effective as we were able to edit the visuals to match the lyrics. For example, when 'busy streets' is sung, the audience see a time-lapse of the busy streets of Paris, as well as 'never need the signs', with varying shots of different signs. 

Obviously we could have got these shots from anywhere, and to begin with we did record signs near and around our school as that is all that was available to us at the time. However, I feel that the shots of the city help to match the genre as it's an urban area and helps increase the quality of our video. (As well as the fact that it relates to our album title 'Urban Concepts'.) 

I additionally feel like the projections were very successful as, to begin with, we were very excited to use them, however struggled to find a way to get them to match what we'd already created. That's when we came up with the idea of using Anna's footage from Paris to project onto Izzy, as a way of making the projections link with the rest of the video, creating a continuity and incorporating everyone's ideas.

Technical Difficulties

We have used lots of different technological products when creating our music video.

such as :

 Steadicam, DSLR camera, tripod and GoPro.

When using the Steadicam to film, we needed to make to movement of the shot smooth, as although it makes the shot steady, it is dependent on the movement of the person using it. To resolve this, we used a chair with wheels on when doing moving shots to keep the shot steady.

 When filming using the DSLR camera and GoPro, we needed to make sue there was enough charge and space to film on both products. We brought back up memory cards just in case we needed more space to film.

Technical difficulties - Anna Hester

During our coursework we have come across many problems and issues when using technologie. 
The most common that we all had issues with was remembering to use a range of diffrent medias to produce our work; at the begining many of us used Prezi. This made the blog look very dull and did'nt fit the criteria. To resolove this problem we ended up using diffrent presentation websites and ways of recording reaserch, planning, analysis etc. This helped to make our blog look more intresting to look at, but it also helped to fit the criteria. 

Audienece Review (music video) - Anna Hester, Izzy Kelly, Catriona Morgan, Martha Ellison

                           

We played our music video to 5 people in our target audience range.
We asked constructive questions, where we wanted any ideas they had that might fit our music video and whether or not the video fitted the genre of drum and bass. The responses we got were good, and we have already started to add in some of their ideas, such as more projections.

Final magazine design - Anna Hester, Izzy Kelly

After creating this magazine advert and getting reviews and feedback from it we decided that this was not appropriate. Although it matches themes to the music video its hard to distinguish the genre of music and imagery of the singer doesn't represent the group that makes up Etherwood.

Magazine Analysis - Isobel Kelly

I created this annotation of a magazine cover on 'Szoter' to analyse the effect of branding and advertising on music artists.

Album Cover Analysis

Rudimental Album Cover

Rudimental's album cover clearly demonstrates the band's typical style and genre. The urban location featured in the shots is demonstrative of their drum and bass genre, with the white and black writing standing out among the busy background. Although the album cover does not feature an image of the band, their logo is recognizable for audiences who may go out looking to find or buy the album.

The capitalised song titles on the back cover reflect the band's logo, yet contrast the logos colour.

The mise en scene of the shots are symmetrical yet aesthetically pleasing,with the colour on the front centre of the album cover being the album's most stand-out element.

Reasons behind specific shots in our music video

Sea Images

We chose to include sea shots in our music video to create a contrast between the cities and the artist. We placed these shots in the slow motion section of our music video, which perfectly contrasts the other shot types. Like the song, we added a slow motion effect to the video. The shot alters on the beat of the music and we are really pleased with the effect of this shot in our music video. It also links to earlier lyrics 'Over mountains over sea'.

 

Lighting Shots

We added in shots of the artist singing surround by lights into the chorus, we did this to show a change in tempo as before the shot was the same shot of the artist at the start of the song, with no signalled change in song pace. The light in this shot adds to our drum and bass theme as it could reflect a 'club' like scene, and echoes the lyrics 'lights flashing by me'.

Dance Shots

 

Like the lighting shots, we added in dance shots of the artist to compliment the drum and bass genre. We have found these shots work w3ell in breaking up the slow paced elements of the song and the fast paced elements.

CD Presentation Analysis and Possible CD Design - Anna Hester

Possible Magazine AD Designs - Anna Hester

Digipack inspiration - Anna Hester, Izzy Kelly

 We chose these 3 album covers for their simplicity and originality. These album covers follow David Borwell's theory that the audience defines the genre. The covers don't reflect the genre or artists style, also following Mark Reid's theory that the genre changes based on what the audience are told. These album covers don't represent a particular genre, however when the audience know the artist or hear the music, the will apply a specific genre.

The colours in this album cover contrast well with the red standing out among the sepia. This binary opposite draws the audiences attention to the writing, which states the artist and its album name.
The uniformity does not represent the artists usual style, with the symmetrical buildings not reflecting the rock genre and style Led Zeplin is.

I think this style would be effective for our video as although the style doesn't relate to our genre, it reflects the style of our music video, and the uniform placement that is featured throughout the video .




The colours in this album cover perfectly represnts their genre of electronic music. The bright colours are reminisent of childrens toys and reflect the bands fast pace music style.


The artists electronic style is seen through their electronically created album cover. The graphics support the bands upbeat music

I think this style would be effective for our video because we could put little buildings in place of the shapes, to reflect souvenirs, which is the title of our song.






The bright colours on this album are reminiscent of the artists 'rock, house and disco' genre. The image could relate to sound waves, and the colours could reflect the atmosphere of lights in a disco or party, where the bands music is most popular.

I think this album cover would be effective with our video, as we used coloured projections on our artist, which we could manipulate to look like sound waves.




Here are our own interpretations of our inspiration of a music album cover. We realised that the buildings with yellow writing on worked well and reflected our music videos style well. However, the coloured Eiffel Towers, didn't work as well as at times in the video the location of Paris is not fully apparent. The warped colour image didn't work as well as expected, so we decided against that style

Font Analysis: Magazine Advert- Catriona

Font Analysis: DVD & Magazine Adverts.

The font used in both Chase and status' album and the tour poster, is the same, this is because they want to show the audience that they are the same band but they also want to further promotion for the band. the font is bold and in bright colour in order to stand out and be captivating.

The font used in both fall out boys tour post and album cover is again similar, this is again to reinforce the idea of the band, but to help to associate the audience with tis album being the main reason for the band touring. the band have chosen to use bold capital writing in white to help make the title stand out from the rest of the album which is more dark in colour.















The font used in both of clean bandits tour poster and album cover, is again the same, this is again to reinforce the band as a whole but to also remind the audience to associate that font with this band. they have gone for a clear black font which stands out infront of the image behind. they all have spaced the letters out evenly in order to make them more enticing.

CD Digipak Analysis

in this video i have include 3 different CD digipaks, they are by 3 different artists such as Chase and status, Rihanna and Katy Perry. these Digipaks all include, a CD but an additional booklet, these could contain things such as lyrics, or thank you notes to friends and family. these booklets sometimes contain posters, or photoshoots of the artist. all 3 have a booklet but some have extras such as a poster. this therefore would encourage more people to buy the bands CD if they would receive a special poster with it. when we make a Digipak, we will need to make sure to have the album cover and song list, but to also have extras this could be a poster, or even a photoshoot booklet form creating the video.

Magazine Advert Analysis:

Research into HMV of CD presentation.

CD Analysis- Catriona Morgan

I Googled the top 15 Drum and Bass Albums of 2015 and took screenshots of 5 randomly selected album covers which I will analyse below.

The first one I will be analysing is Tantrum Desire's 'Diversified' which came second in the top 15 Drum and Bass albums of 2015. The cover is very minimalistic, with clear titling for the artist, as well as contrasting fonts used between the name of the artist and the name of the album. As you can see, no bold colours were used, however the lilac sky subtly contrasts with the grey of the mountain. There is obviously no picture of the artist, which is common theme throughout Drum and Bass album covers. I think this cover has quite a futuristic feel to it, which is appropriate as the type of music the artist creates is quite manipulated. Additionally, there is a suggestion of a record label's logo at the bottom.

The second album cover I will be analysing is The Prototypes' 'City of Gold' (which came third.)It is quite similar to the cover of 'Diversified' in that the main focus is the name of the artist, as the audience's attention is drawn straight to the top of the cover. Again, the font used between the artist and album name is different, which helps the audience to differentiate between the two. The colours used are quite dark in comparison to my previous evaluation, which I like as I feel it draws more attention to the name of the artist, as a way of the audience to focus on it without there necessarily having to be a picture of them, as it isn't typical of the genre.

This is Bensley's 'Next Generation' album cover which came fourth in the top 15 Drum and Bass albums of 2015. I find it interesting as it uses similar colours as 'Diversified', with grey being the main focus, however there is a suggestion of colour towards the top, which could suggest that's what the type of music is like. For example, the songs could be meaningful, represented through the grey, but made interesting through the use of Drum and Bass, represented through the use of colour. Interestingly, the fonts used between the artist and the title aren't drastically different, however the size is obviously bigger for the artist, as the artist is being sold just as much as the music. There is also a suggestion of a record label's logo at the bottom.

This is Xanadu's 'Through the Oort Clouds' (which came eleventh.)  I find it interesting as it is completely contradictory to my previous research in terms of colour used. It also links with the title of 'Clouds' as it appears to be a seriously manipulated picture of clouds. Following closely to my previous research, the name of the artist is bigger than the title of the album. Again, there also appears to be a suggestion of a record label at the bottom.

Finally, this is Fred V & Grafix's 'Unrecognisable' (which was number 14.) I find this cover interesting as it has obviously been manipulated so much that it is 'unrecognisable', which fits nicely with the titling. I like the use of colours as it makes it interesting to look at and similar to 'Next Generation', the font of both the artist and the titling is the same, however the difference in colour helps the audience to distinguish which is the artist's name and which is the name of the album.  

I have found this research very beneficial as it has enabled me to discover common themes among Drum and Bass album covers, those being:

• No visuals of the artist
• (Mostly) different fonts between the artist's name and the album title. However this wasn't always the case, which is something we could consider when it comes to creating ours.
• The use of colour was mostly grey/neutral/ dark colours, however not always the case.
• Often there was a suggestion of a record label at the bottom.

As a majority of our video is black and white, I think we should stick to the common convention of using grey colours for our album cover.

We could then contrast this with bright colours for the titling, as this is common among the research I have done.

I think the change between fonts of the titling can be optional depending on the image we use, as it does not necessarily have to be different (however I feel it could be more effective to, to allow the audience to easily differentiate between the two.)

Finally, as unanimously there were no images of the artists for the covers, I think we should follow that convention and not include an image of the artist for the cover, as it is not typical of the genre.



Font analysis - Isobel Kelly

 Font is very important when selling a CD, they draw the audience eye towards the product and informs them who the product is by, and what specifically it is selling.
Here, Florence and the Machine has two contrasting fonts on her cover. The first, a thin, lower case font for the artist name, this swirly font reflects the singers style. With the capitalised title standing out to represent the songs name. The colour, gold also stands out among the black and represents fortune, winning and royalty, perhaps reflective of the song or artist.

 Bastille's album, 'Bad Blood' uses a black, bold, capitalised font that stands out amongst a neutral, light coloured background. The capitalisation is due to the artists theme and logo, with the triangular 'A', being the band's signature sign. The font is clear to read, therefore eye catching for anyone looking for this CD.

Rudimental's CD features the artists logo, of the name of the band written in a white rectangle. Although the white writing can be hard to read over the light background, as their logo is the bands name, they are easy to recognise for audience members looking for their CD. The white writing also contrasts the centre image of the CD design, which is colourful and central to the logo and cover.

Interim Evaluation

I found and booked the location of a studio at UCA Farnham to film our music video in. Then Anna, Cat and I went on 21/10/2015 to film. When we arrived, we all helped set up the studio and lighting and Anna and Cat who were cinematographers worked out suitable angles to film from whilst I worked out suitable angles for me (acting artist) to be located in. We then followed a table of shot types of the shots we needed and filmed everything within the 2 hour time slot that we had booked the studio for .
When we got back to school we uploaded the footage and Martha and Anna began editing in different ways to see which way could work best. Cat and I continued planning other film dates and shot types with the storyboard. 
I think we're working well as a group, but as we need to work individually to get the video done perfectly and quickly, it can be hard to translate ideas. So I think it would help if we come together as a group and look at the piece as a whole so that we can really re-evaluate what works and what doesn't.