Planning for evaluation

Question one

Question two

Question three

Question four

Over the past couple of days I've been conducting some research into each question of the evaluation. I decided to do a plan with a breakdown of each question and what I might want to include in my writing for each of them. I've also started to consider how I might present each question e.g prezi with voiceover/videos or just videos with inserts.

Evaluation help

I found this really useful presentation on slideshare that breaks down each of the evaluation questions and suggests a way to present each one.

Age restriction

We have spent some time thinking over the part in our video that features drug use. Seher and I didn't think it was too much of an issue to include it as we aren't glamourising drug use in any way, our character is quite clearly struggling with a problem! But just as a precaution we changed the age restriction on YouTube when we uploaded our music video. This means that no one under the age of 18 is able to watch our music video.

Evaluation

Now that we've finished our music video the time has come to start planning and writing out what I'm going to say in my evaluation videos. Here are the questions:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
• What have you learned from your audience feedback?
• How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

To begin my thought process I am going to watch other evaluation videos to see what people in previous years have mentioned. Then, I will make up a mind map for each question which will help me write my first draft for each question.

Ferdinand de Saussure

Ferdinand de Saussure

Here is the video for 'Scala & Kolacny Brothers - Use Somebody'. The video features many signs and signifiers, some of which include:

Key: Signifier

       Signified

The oxygen tube in the woman's nose brings about the idea that this woman is very ill and can't breathe for herself.

The man sitting in his underwear, with his hands on his knees, with lots of negative space around him provides the viewer with the idea that the man is very lonely.

A woman scantily dressed in a shop window with a red background is generally seen to be a prostitute.

We can see the woman from the start hugging herself with an empty seat next to her, this shows she is lonely and as we know she is ill (oxygen tube) we can now assume that she is dead, possibly a ghost.

We are shown a shot of the woman wiping away tears which shows that she is saddened by the fact the man has gone to see a prostitute.

From looking at the signifier and signified in this video it is quite easy to see why Ferdinand de Saussure's theory is so effective. The viewer of the music video is able to build up a much deeper meaning than we hear through the song lyrics through the connotations brought about by what we see. We took this into consideration and tried to use lots of signifiers in our own music video, some of these are:

The church windows bring about the idea of religion, and possibly Christianity as these windows wouldn't necessarily be seen in churches from other religions. 

When we see a person kneeling at a grave we are lead to think that they have lost a loved one.

A person holds their head in their hands when they are feeling negative emotions such as stress or sadness.

Needles, burnt out matches and a belt lead us to believe that this person is a heroin abuser.

The nearly-empty bottle of alcohol shows the viewer that this person may also have a drinking problem.

Final magazine advert

The final magazine advert!

Magazine advertisement

I have finished my magazine advert! I must admit it took a lot less time to make than the digipak because in making the digipak I had all of the pieces for my magazine advert and I just had to drag them onto a blank photoshop canvas. I looked up online the dimensions for a music magazine:

I decided to go with the page size that Rolling Stone Magazine uses as they are a reputable music magazine. I went into photoshop 7, created a new canvas, and changed the dimensions to the size I needed.

For my three images I ended up using the album cover as the main feature, the back panel for my digipak as the background of my advertisement, and the circles as a feature under the text. This will allow people to easily associate my digipak with my magazine advertisement.

In another document I created my album reviews: 

I found on google, and saved a .PNG version of the NME logo which meant it had no background which means it's much easier to work with in terms of dragging it onto my advertisement as it would blend in better. I created a little star using the pen tool:

Once I was happy with one star I duplicated the layer four more times so that I would be left with five stars. I linked all of the parts of the rating and dragged the whole thing onto my magazine advertisement. I used this process to make the Kerrang review and for the 'available on iTunes' logo.

(I'll put the finished product in another post so you don't have to scroll through all of this!)

FINAL VIDEO!!!!

WE HAVE FINISHED!!! Today Seher and I went over a few bits that I added in last lesson, then Miss Foster raised the issue that our instrumental circles might be a bit too long... So we cut the circles at each change, then added in the footage of the windows from the start. It was quite a stressful process trying to fit it all to the beat of the music, and every time we added or removed footage, everything else in front of it was put out of time, including the lip syncing! I'm glad we've finally finished now, and we're both very proud of our final outcome!

Magazine advert planning

Album advert

Album cover

Album advert

Album art

Album advert

Album art

I've found some examples of album adverts for magazines online and have found some common links between them:

• Band name in a larger font then album title in a smaller font underneath
• The same art work as the CD so that the CD is easily recognisable 
• Release date
• Where it's available to buy online e.g 'play.com' or 'iTunes'
• Record label
• Band website
• Reviews (Fleet Foxes and Stone Roses)

After considering all of these elements, I will include:

1. Front panel of the album

2. Record label

3. Possible design for release date (font)

4. 'Available on iTunes'

5. Possible design for web address (font)

6. Possible design for album ratings

Vlog on digipak

Here is a vlog discussing:

When I'm talking about the plastic tray behind the CD I'm not thinking about a Jewel Case (see picture), I'm talking about the plastic CD tray that holds the CD on many digipaks (see other pictures).

Jewel Case

What I actually meant...

Although when looking through the digipak collection in my house I found a minimalist way of holding the CD in place via a small circle of sticky foam. While this is environmentally friendly, and reduces the risk of a cracked CD tray, I don't think it's very sustainable as the foam would eventually lose stick and there would be nothing to hold the CD in place! 

...Final digipak part two

Here is the finishing product! The text is a bit too small to see in this image so see post below for a close up view of each panel! Now to start planning the magazine article...

Final digipak

I have finally finished my digipak woo!!! I told Seher about the idea I had for our song name today and she agreed it was a good choice, in her words "it sounds quite Latin", I'm not going to argue! Not sure if I've mentioned that this is how I found it:

Brilliant website that...

I decided to name my album 'State of Chaos', this was very late last night and I was half asleep so I can't really recall how I came up with this, I think originally it was going to be 'Chaos Theory' but I thought that would make me seem as though I'm a bit obsessed with 'The Butterfly Effect', I'm not... It's weird and a bit creepy. I decided to make my band name 'Fall Prey', this was once again a result of that brilliant random quotes website.

My record company name is 'Burn Up Records', I wasn't sure about this at first, but with the matches on the CD tray and all, it seemed like a good idea at the time! I got a bit bored with the standard fonts on photoshop so I found a font website and downloaded a few that I liked.

I used 'Spaced Out' for the band name, 'Dejarnatt' for the album title, 'Spill the Beans' for the spine and record label and I didn't end up using 'Hayley's Font'. For the song titles I just used the 'Candara' font that was already on photoshop. I added a parental advisory sticker to the front of the album because some of the songs mention drug use. Here are the separate sections of my digipak:

Front

Middle

CD tray and CD

Back

I know that the middle and cd/cd tray of my digipak look a bit odd upside down, but I had to edit them this way otherwise my digipak panels would all be upside down and back to front if it were printed and folded! I'll post the final digipak in a separate post so you don't have to scroll through all of this to find it :)

Digipak process

I have now taken the photos of my digipak and am in the process of putting it all together. I downloaded the Photoshop document template for my digipak here. The template is really good as you can delete the layers featuring the guidelines and text once you have added in your own design. The first photo is the original and the second photo is the edited version:

Original

Edit

This is the front panel of my cd, it started off as two separate photos which I dragged onto a new canvas and then stitched together. I used Photoshop 7 to edit it making certain areas darker, turning it black and white, and adding noise to make the photo look a bit more gritty.

Original

Edit

This is the back panel of my cd. In the end I sprinkled some bicarbonate of soda onto some black card rather than taking a photo of it drifting through the air as it was a lot less messy!

Original

Edit

This is the photo for the inside panel of my digipak. I was most pleased with the outcome of this image as it went exactly according to plan. It was a bit tricky to edit as I had taken the photo portrait rather than landscape. This meant that I couldn't stretch it into the right sized square otherwise I would've ended up with a contorted image. I dragged the original image onto a black canvas in Photoshop and neatened up the join first with the smudge tool, then with the burn tool.

Original

Edit

This wasn't originally in my digipak plan, but I decided the concentric circles in our music video would be a fantastic design for the actual CD. I print-screened a section of our music video and cropped it into the right sized circle in Photoshop.

Original

Edit

This is the image for the CD tray which sits underneath the CD. I spent a long time burning the matches and was quite pleased with the finished image, although I thought it was a bit too crisp, so I added a noise filter to fit with the theme of my digipak, making it look quite gritty.

This is the current state of my digipak, as you can see I have turned the top two panels upside down and back to front, and the bottom two panels back to front. This is so that all of the panels would be the right way up and in the right position if my digipak were to be folded. Both the front and back panels need a bit of work, I have chosen my ten song titles which I will list below, and hopefully Seher and I will come up with a song title for our song tomorrow. I also need to add the band name and album title to the spine, the bar code and record label to the back panel, and the album/band name to the front panel, no panic! 

After completing Pete's task I decided that the random quotes website would be a good place to get some inspiration for song titles, I spent a long time finding quotes and changing them around to make my song titles, here's my final tracklist:

1. Fellow
2. Great Mistake
3. A hostile person
4. Simple statement
5. No one wants to believe
6. Life before death
7. Suit of clothes
8. Two seasons
9. With a past
10. Adventure

I think the song names fit well with the images in my digipak and our dark-themed music video. We are unable to use the original title 'Full Circle' for our song name, so I spent some time searching other words for circle and came across 'parallel of latitude', I think it's quite a good option but I shall have to ask Seher as we both have to use the same song name! I've also been thinking about a name I could use for my album and quite liked 'State of Chaos'. I think it fits well with the idea that the character in our music video leads a chaotic and troubled life.