Last edit of music video

Newest edit of music video

Amendments to website

I decided to change a few things to my website to make it look more polished. Firstly, I changed the background colour so that it didn't look too plain.

I also added in Twitter and Facebook links as it makes more audience interaction as this is typical was for young people to keep up to date with the artist.

To make this more effective, I added actual links to the thumbnails so that it would open in a different page:

By having this tool, my audience will now be able to follow Beyonce's movements. 

Amendments to music video

After I had everything on my timeline, my media teacher gave me an extension so I could make some changes to my music video as it was too 'plain'. From her feedback I decided to do various things, with her help. Firstly in the beginning as the alarm rings, the image gets bigger as the alarm gets louder

Secondly, I did a lot more split screen effects, cutting to the beat. This made my music video look like it had a lot more movement without having to film anything new.
Lastly, I experimented with an effect that will show two scenes at once, but they both look 'see-through'. This worked well for the line 'And the thought of you just touching her' as it looked more like a memory.

To do this effect I used this button:

After I pushed this, lines came up on all of my frames and allowed me to adjust the contrast

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

After carrying out this feedback, I then slotted my audience into a catergory. I chose to label them as 'aspirers', an audience who want to be like my artist with regards to her status in society, clothing and protection. All pretty much agreed as Beyonce as a whole brand is someone who a lot of people look up to. The evidence may also have leaned towards this as I did ask a lot of females about their own feelings towards Beyonce and they all feel as if she embodies the role of a strong, independent woman and that this is a very successful brand to have attatched to yourself.

Evaluation Question 1 & 2

Question 2

Music Video

This is my finished music video, however there are still alterations that I may make due to some of my audience feedback

Music Video - Animatic Version

This is the animated storyboard for my music video. However, there were a lot of limitations with the software therefore many frames got deleted in the beginning and the middle.

Final Digipak

This is the ending product of my digipak. The main colours are red to correspond with the angry nature of the song. It also links in with both my video and website as the red theme flows within all of them

Feedback Form

Feedback from video

1. Gender (circle):  Male              Female

2. What age range do you fall in to? (Circle):      11-15     16-19     20+

3. What music genre do you usually listen to? (Circle more than one if necessary):    R ‘n’ B      Hip Hop      Pop       Rock       Indie     Funky     Other

4. Do you prefer to buy/download legally your music or illegally download it? (Circle):   Buy/download                 illegally download

5. Do you enjoy watching music videos? (Circle):  Yes              No

6. Did you enjoy my music video? (Circle): Yes                  No

7. What did you enjoy the most about my own music video?

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8. What do you think was the main emotion running throughout my video? Do you think the actor portrayed this well?

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9. If you had any improvements to make, what would they be?

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This form will be filled out by 20 people after they  watch my music video. They will be the ones who I get my figures from to complete an audience feedback graph.

Website Link

This is the link to my website: http://www.wix.com/celinemcintosh/beyonceofficial#!

Website Design

We used Wix to create our website.
To begin we had a template, from this we would build our websites until they were complete. My original template looked like this:

I changed a lot when designing my webpage. Firstly the colour scheme was changed to red, and some of the upper navigation keys headings were changed, along with the font. I did this because it linked in with my digipak design, therefore creating a flow between projects. this is what my navigation bar looks like now:

Once this was complete, I changed the pictures to what I had previously taken (some duplicate that on my digipak). I slowly built my website until it was finished.

Website Planning - Analysis of different sites

This is a table showing the three different websites that I analysed. I chose artists that were similar to see if there were similarities or differences. Many things ran parallel with each other such as navigation bars and the fact that there were main colours that flowed through the sites. The pink highlights show the things that I would want to put in my own website as this was a recurring theme in all the sites that I had looked at

Website Planning

One of the tasks we had to do to help plan to create our website was to get a model and annotate it. The picture below shows how we did this:

The text in lighter red points out the 'obvious' and the things that mostly stand out. The text in darker red show how and why this is helpful. 

This task helped when designing our own websites as we were able to see how a successful website should be made. We were also able to see the negatives such as if a page was too busy, this might take away the attention from the artist. Pinpointing the negatives made sure that when creating our website, the same mistakes would not be made.

Website Planning

Our next project is to make a website. Prior to when we design it, the class did a research and planning lesson. This allowed us to get a sense of what 'typical' websites look like and could be our basis of when creating our own. I looked a JLS's webpage: http://www.jlsofficial.com/gb/home/ . From analysing this I made a table and then compared and contrasted it with other websites.

Progress Report

I am still currently behind with work, however filming for my music video is now finished and photos and a sketch of my digipak is now complete. This week I hope to have everything completed and on my blog.

Creating digipak

Lunapic is the site that I edited my pictures on. I kept it quite simple as Beyonce's actual CD covers are not that busy. The original front cover looked like this:

After I added text it looked like this:

I decided to make the B different from the rest of the text as this is the logo that Beyonce is famous for.

The back of the digipak originally looked like this:

 

After editing it now looks like this: 

I stuck to my original idea and left the flame in focus while everything else is left blurry

Compared to other digipaks, mine is quite simple. This is simply because I took inspiration from Beyonce's actual CD covers and made mine similar. Most of the time she only has a picture of herself and the title of the album therefore I did the same thing.

Examples of Beyonce's CD covers:

Photos/Intentions for digipak

Now that my music video is recorded, I have decided to progress with my digipak. I did it this way because  while filming, I would get inspired to take a picture of where ever we were filming and then I could decide whether it will fit into my digipak. Here's a picture I have taken for the front cover:

This was taken after doing my first filming session and I found that the red light work well to connote anger. The same sort of image will be for the back of the digipak. The image that I may use for this is:

 

I chose this image as it links with the music video, (there is a scene when she sets fire to some clothes in a bath). however, there is a lot of extra space in the image that I will crop. 

As I decided to use Lunapic for my editing process of the digipak I thought about adding an effect to it, so I may blur the image, but leave the flame in focus. The track listing will be above her head.

For the panels, I will take still images from the music video or take more photographs. 

Digipak Research/Planning

At the beginning of the course, we were shown different digipak templates by our teacher. They all opened out and were appealing to the audiences that they were aimed at. The digipak that was assigned to us was 'The Lemonheads' (shown in posts below). When I was designing my digipak, I referred back to this so I made sure the template was correct and I looked at the text and images to see the positioning of them to make sure that nothing was too obscure. Doing this also allowed me to see what I could make better. One of the ideas that influenced my own digipak was the colour scheme. The digipak for 'The Lemonheads' doesn't use that many colours, this keeps simplicity and doesn't make the digipak look too busy; because of this I have made the main colours of my digipak red, black and white. It is capturing and doesn't make the audience's eyes dart around so much.

Editorial Policy

Site Purpose:
There are various types of purposes for creating our webpage. These include:
1. Promote the artist
2. Make it easy for web users to navigate around the website
3. Provide enough information so that the user isn't left clueless
4. Promote the current releases such as the digipak and music video.
5. Design the webpage so it appeals to people who like the genre of music that I have chosen.

Site Audience:
The main audience that I want to attract are female teenagers (maybe about 14) to those who are older (up or even just after 35) this is because they are the ages that tend to listen and download to music more. The reason why I want to appeal more to women is because Beyonce is a female artist to instantly connects with women rather than males, her music is unisex but some of her songs are female empowering.

Music Video Report

So far I'm behind with filming. This isn't good as my deadline is Friday. However, I am scheduled to film in a couple days and therefore I should then be finished recording my footage. Editing will then follow but hopefully after a lot of work being put in, I should be finished by the deadline.

Focus Group Feedback

As a class we came together to give feedback to the footage that we have shot and edited for our music video. Prior to this I hadn't started to edit anything, so I had to show the class different shots that were taken. After they had seen a few clips a couple of students gave me ideas that can improve my work. Firstly, someone said to make the main girl in my video seem as if she is in a mental home/padded room i should tie her with rope and having hanging from somewhere out of shot. This will be very useful to me as I would try & boost my grade with any given suggestion.
For my own personal evaluation, the next step I need to do would be to start editing, as this will tell me what position I'm at and how much more needs to be done.

Conventions Of A Music Video

As a class, we came up with a brainstorm about all the different conventions that appear in a music video. This took much debate, but after a while we agreed on the following things:

1. All music videos try to convey emotion, especially if it deals with a sad situation. To do this, when editing people usually use slow motion. This emphasises the just shown event that is meant to have an effect on us. Slow motion allows our minds to catch up with whatever has happened.

2. The use of as-live and narrative: This is always used in every music video, however sometimes there can be more narrative or vice versa. There can be incomplete narratives where the audience is left with a cliffhanger, making music videos similar to TV dramas. This could be because of the rise in people watching music videos due to the internet and increasing number of music channels. Therefore, the pressure to make an entertaining is getting higher.

3. The rise in sex: Many music videos today contain sex/minimal clothing. Women artists now flaunt their bodies much more as how they did before and male artists usually get a very attractive woman in their videos if there is a love scene etc.

Representational Ideas (digipak)

I want my digipak to mainly appeal to the teenage and adult audiences. Since the artist that I've chosen is a woman (Beyonce) there will automatically be attraction from the female market. The overall message that I want my digipak to portray is that of a strong, independent woman. To do this the first thing I would do is create a bold logo and use bold fonts. For example, Beyonce's usual logo is something like this:









The logo almost seems like it is written in a vintage font, mainly how royals used to have their names written. This makes all women feel as if they are royal. To make that feeling come out even more, I'm thinking of putting a crown on top of the B. 
Due to the fact that my song, Ring The Alarm, is one of an angry nature, I want the main colours to be red, which is always a sign of danger and warnings. This will also be a main feature colour for my music video, however there will also be the contrasting colour of blue, when the bridge of the song comes in and the mood changes from angry to sad.
The covering font for my digipak will look something like this: 

I chose this font because it resembles the Beyonce logo, with the regal text. Apart from the 'flowing' first letter of each word, the letters that follow are sturdy and have that royal look to it, appealing to girls. 

Synergy between all of my projects

For the last part of our coursework, we will be creating a website. There are various ways in which you can create links between the site, digipak and music video. Firstly, when creating the webpage, you can insert a hyperlink that will take you to Youtube where you'll be able to watch the music video that I have created. We can also insert another hyperlink that will take you to a music distributer like HMV. From here you can purchase the CD. If people want an alternative place to buy the digipak, there will also be a link from the music video which will give you a lot of different sources as to where you can download the song.

Progress Report

So far, I haven't been able to film scenes for my video. This is because of the lack of locations on offer. However, after a talk with my teacher, we have now come to a conclusion of what to do for the next week. The earlier part of next week I will be filming so that most, if not all of my footage will be complete by Friday. This will then give me time to complete my digipak that was due a while ago. I have decided to do it after as still images from my video will be put into the inner panels and for the front cover.