Final Music Video!

This is our completed music video which we have uploaded onto YouTube!

Final Magazine Advert

Final Digi Pack

     

 Front Cover & Spine.

                                               Back Cover.

Disc.

 Disc background/inlay, inlay booklet front cover, inlay pouch.

Final Inlay Booklet

   

Magazine Advert Editing

 - 1. Uploaded the selected image (from back of digipak) onto Photoshop.

 - 2. Then adding a blue filter and a cream filter made the image have a vintage effect.

 - 3. After placing the filter over the top, we increased the contrast and brightness of the image and created two orange/red gradients. One coming from the corner and the other as a line down the centre.

 - 4. We then created a soft toned boarder around where the digipak is placed.

 - 5. We then added the text, 'Mike Dignam' which is in the same font as the song list on the back of the album; 'Debut Album' and 'Out Now' is also in the same font but has been put in a linear light. 'I'll Lie Here' is in the same font as on the front digipak cover.

 - 6. An Itunes logo has been added but faded slightly and a new boarder created.

 - 7. Inside the boarder, star ratings have been added in the linear light again.

 - 8. To finish it off, music magazine ratings have been added to the stars, creating an attraction. Mike Dignam's website and twitter have also been written underneath.

Magazine Advert Ideas & Conventions

For our magazine advert to look as professional and authentic as it could be our group decided that we need to incorporate the following into it; the title of the album, the image of the album, reviews, the Artists website, a design similar to the Album, links to purchases places, ratings, an image of the artist, CD logo and a selection of cross media platforms. These are the common features of all magazine adverts.

The common conventions of Indie Adverts are normally that they have the appearance of being designed with a vintage feel and artistically which overall tends to be quite simple but creative. I believe that an image such as a photo of the artist with a vintage tint would really show that it is from this genre, which is used mostly in Indie. There is often a link to the Artists website or their twitter accounts so they can be easily connected with the artist. 

The two types of magazine advert are either artist or album focused adverts; meaning as our artist is still not hugely well known and is still very independently run, our advert will be artist focused. Our advert must link with the Digi pack and relate to each other, at best they can.When choosing the right image, font and content for our magazine advert, it is important we include and take into account the content above.

Inlay Photo Edits

Meeting 5/11/2013

Today we discussed the location, evaluation of our practice filming and updating our blogs with more gadgets/widgets to provide viewers with more satisfaction of our blogs.

Having already created a Twitter account for the media group, we were able to provide our blogs with a Twitter widget which updates and presents any tweets that have been made such as, about the progress of our music videos, and any inspirational tweets that we may retweet or comments we have made. On Twitter we have followed some artists that we think can relate to our chosen singer/songwriter, various artists include; Jason Mraz, Ben Howard, Ed Sheeran, John Mayer. Another few accounts that we think were worth following were Radio 1's Twitter profile and various DJs that are involved in that area. This gives us updates on our Twitter Feed of any new and upcoming music that we may be interested in and relate to Mike Dignam. In relation to Mike, we have followed him on Twitter which allows us to become updated on tour dates and any comments, personal updates from him that could link to our music video narrative.

In the lesson today, we also talked about the final location dates as all members of the media group were in the lesson. Locations finalised included, a Train Station (perhaps situated in Newport, Essex), a photo booth (although this could be known as a prop), a calm and collected forest type scene (perhaps a Bluebell woods or something similar). I think all these locations would be great when filming as they will give us some fantastic shots, also filming in Cambridge would be a good idea as it will give some great shots of the Urban environment in comparison to the natural/rural scenes of a forest.

Digi Pack Font Research

From research I have noticed that many Indie/Indie acoustic digi packs consist of a lot of capitals, or none at all which shows that a lot of Indie artists tend to go for an extreme approach of a particular style or provide a more laid back look to their genre but are never in the middle. The importance for the correct font to use on our digi pack is very high, so we need to think of the pro's and con's of each that we like to look of. The perfect font for our digi pack needs to match the genre and represent the personality slightly of the chosen artist. The chosen font also needs to be easy to read and simplistic, whilst also attracting the audience by being pleasing to the eye; below are some potential fonts, which resemble those criteria's.

Storyboard Part I

Above shows our first few scenes up to 1:35 of our chosen song 'I'll Lie Here'. We have presented our storyline in separate parts as the whiteboard wasn't big enough to have the whole storyboard on there and we have limited time before our markings are rubbed off.

Number of seconds on each shot:

1. 0:00-0:03 secs
2. 0:03-0:05
3. 0:05-0:07
4. 0:07-0:09
5. 0:09-0:11
6. 0:11-0:13
7. 0:13-0:15
8. 0:15-0:18
9. 0:18-0:26
10. 0:26-0:30
11. 0:30-0:36
12. 0:36-0:42
13. 0:42-0:48
14. 0:48-0:54
15. 0:54-1:00
16. 1:00-1:03
17. 1:03-1:16
18. 1:16-1:19
19. 1:19-1:21
20. 1:21-1:26
21. 1:26-1:31
22. 1:31-1:35

Final Idea For Our Music Video

Deciding on our final idea for our music video was a difficult decision to make, for example how and which effects we would use such as the god like figure (as explained previously http://nfgsannahigginson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/god-figure-idea.html ) or we use the singer as one of the character in the relationship. However we decided to not use the singer as the omniscient narrator but use him as the main male character who is demonstrated through the relationship with the girl and through lip syncing. I think this approach will work well especially as we can use the effect of the overlay of scenes as the singer is shown in the past and the present of the narrative.

I created this Prezi myself to make it more clear as to how the storyline will develop throughout the music video and how the techniques used will evolve.

Male/Artist's Costume Ideas

Within my group, we started to think and research different clothing ideas for our music video. We intend to go down the Indie route for the male as it will match the genre (acoustic indie) of the song. Below demonstrates some ideas we researched on sites such as www.asos.com and on google images where different outfits have been shown in a 'Look Book' on various websites. 

This outfit above establishes the typical indie look with the all buttoned up shirt, the black skinny jeans and the black vans. Because on Asos it showed full male outfits, we didn't like the top half as much as the bottom half or vice versa, therefore we had to screenshot the top half (for example) and select a different bottom half that we thought would look more appropriate for our music video. I think the black skinny jeans work well as you see generally in the Indie genre artists wearing this sort of outfit but with a baggy or long top such as a shirt as we have shown. I also think that this outfit could be seen well with an acoustic guitar which we are including in our video.

Another outfit we thought worked well together was the one shown above, with the navy blue skinny jeans, brogues and a t shirt with a parker coat over the top, it represents again the
indie genre with a skinny bottom half and a baggy outfit on the top. I think the brogues work really well with the skinny jeans and due to research I found out that trends these days in mens clothing are very popular. I also researched various Indie artists such as Bastille (which is a indie rock group) who wear brogues sometimes when performing, doing interviews, photo shoots etc. As our artist is called Mike Dignam, I looked at his style to help ideas to incorporate together as he is an important part because his style will match his style and genre of music. I noticed from this research that he wears a lot of denim (e.g a denim jacket) and he goes for the all buttoned up shirt, sometimes short sleeved or rolled up sleeved.

<--Short sleeved all buttoned up shirt

Denim jacket used with indie acoustic guitar -->

 Brogues -->

Horton & Wohl's Theory

Horton and Wohl developed the para-social theory where characteristics of the mass media (television, radio, movies) tend to give the illusion of a face-to-face relationship with the performer from the viewers/listeners. This is the idea that fans have a para-social relationship with the artists they like particularly when they use direct address, real names and cultivate fan appreciation.

Some of the influence of this may be due to the creation of Web 2.0, as it allows the fans to interact with their favourite artists and idols personally through social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, MySpace. Especially Twitter where fans can follow their idols and tweet them so that the artists can occasionally see what they have tweeted. Also the statuses that popular artists make tend to provide their audience with a personal viewing of them, such as when Katy Perry tweets about her personal experiences or writes about her fans, this builds up the para-social relationship with the artist.
An example of Katy Perry's tweets is:

"For that I say THANK YOU. I hope you are enjoying all the colors #PRISM has to offer. I promise to continue to give back.. tour next year..."

From looking at this theory of Horton and Wohl's, I can clarify that we as a group HAVE to know what our fans of the chosen artist expect but also attract a new audience and people into the genre of Indie.

God Figure Idea

Omniscience is known as a micro element for music videos/media; it means 'having total knowledge' of the situation, therefore in the scenes of a music video the omniscient narrator will know whats going on in the narrative and tell the story through lyrics.

One of the ideas my group and I had in mind for our music video was to use the effect of omniscience or a God like figure. The way in which we would use this in our video would be to have the singer as the narrator of the narrative but the characters involved would act as if he is not there.

An example of a music video where this is used is in Daniel Powter's 'Bad Day' where him the singer is the narrative of the love story.

One of the main features of the music video above that we liked the look of is the editing technique of a  cut between the narrative and the performance in the same location. This involved the singer and the characters on the same train but made the video seem as though the narrator was singing  non diagetically but to the audience's point of view they know the lyrics are relating to the couple and the situation.

In relation to our music video, we would like to include this aspect of Daniel Powter's video during the start of the song near lyrics of 'Go to sleep my love, I'll watch over us'. This will help introduce the idea of the narrator being separated from the narrative of the video but showing he has the knowledge of the story through the lyrics and use of lip syncing. 

Lyric Analysis

(Artist as omnipotent narrative)