Evaluation

Q.3) What have you learnt from your audience feedback? By Lorna

Feedback

Comment No 1.
Positives: Setting and location was appropriate, good shot of camera coming round the tree, good lip syncing.
Negatives: Shaky camera work

Comment No 2. 
Positives: Good use of red string, nice setting, good costumes
Negatives: Wobbly camera focus, not a clear narrative, reverse goes too fast towards the end, too slow during bridge

Comment No 3. 
Positives: Good setting, aesthetically pleasing costumes, good lighting- reflects appropriate mood, appropriate casting
Negatives: Bad camera quality, too shaky at times, unclear use of red string, unclear narrative, too fast furing rewind, inappropriate use of jump cuts and pacing too quick at times.


Comment No 4. 
Positives: Structured well, movement in camera work appropriate for song, clear message, satisfying ending
Negatives: Bad lip syncing, too repetitive, locations too different, quite boring- no build-up.

Comment No 5. 
Positives: Good setting, good narrative, good lyrics, realistic, good build up towards the end, warm and natural, flowed with the lyrics
Negatives: Scene does not suit music, different range of settings, camera is too unsteady, bad lip syncing, message wasn't clear

Comment No. 6
Positives: Clear narrative, great use of magazines- complimented the lyrics
Negatives: Unclear metaphor behind string, camera was bad quality, message unclear

I posted the video on the popular social networking site and this is some of the feedback I got:

We felt that one of the most talked about points from our audience feed back was the middle section that we like to call the bridge of the song and the pacing of the visuals. Many people thought that this section should have a faster pace to match the tempo of the song. We chose to put a long slow motion clip of our protagonist walking through the forest. At that point in the music, everything sort of slowed down in terms of the instruments and all the singing and notes were held on for longer. We wanted to reflect this in the visuals and so chose that certain clip to portray that section. However people still disagreed saying that it was too slow and the clip was too long compared to the rest of the song.

We thought that the combination of the two was nice and they complemented each other. Occasionally in the music video conventions the contrast in pacing of visuals and sounds deliberately because it is aesthetically pleasing. This is something we also felt, even though we had the opportunity to change it we wanted to keep it the same because it felt right to us and it just worked. Unfortunately the audience did not see from our point of view and we now fell that if we could have edited again, that is the main section that we would have chosen to improve in terms of audience feedback.

The next section that we felt was talked about quite a lot was the reverse sequence. Many people didn't think that the reverse sequence fit the genre, or didn't look right in that certain place, or didn't match the sound of the song. I think the issue was that as the song slowed down after the massive climax at the end, the reversing should have stopped. We wanted to carry it on so that it would stop on the phrase "to me" to act as a rounding off point, and to convey that the protagonist is reversing her journey back to the beginning to start again and to show the true meaning of beauty was inside herself all along. We wanted this change of journey and direction to be seen though the visuals, and that is why we chose to have the reversing sequence. We felt that this challenged our conventions slightly but helped us get our message across to the audience.

Most of our feedback from the year nine class consisted of the narrative not being easy to follow. We understand that it is not easy to follow, but our demographic was actually supposed to be the age of sixteen and over,and the fact that the ear nines didn't get it, shows us that we had a more selective demographic than we originally thought. Because they didn't understand our easy to follow narrative made us feel that they actually didn't take the lyrics into account when watching the music video. This means that thy were just looking at the visuals and sounds, which proves that this generation is more visual based, and that they would rather view a video than read an article. We feel that if they had listened to the lyrics they would have had more of a connection with the video. Adding to this point, Amanda Rogers writes all her own songs so the lyrics are so important and is something that we strongly had to take into account when producing our music video.

Staying on this point of narrative, when I posted the video onto the social networking site Facebook, we had more positive comments and all the people that commented were in our age demographic. This made us feel that this video had a more personal response on them than it did to the year nine's. Because this audience is older, they have had a chance to go though this journey that almost every teenage girl would have gone through; the feeling of not fitting in, wanting to be like the airbrushed models in magazines and the pressure of beauty as a whole. We felt that being a younger age such as fourteen, they wouldn't of had the chance, and because they are a younger generation they probably look at media in a different way and think that an air brushed perfect model is normal and being yourself isn't.

A few point were made about the lighting of the music video and the unsteady use of the camera. Some of these points such as lighting we could not help due to the location and the conditions in which we chose to shoot in. The lighting when shooting was very temperamental and we could never get the same exact lighting in every single shot. And due to the time of year we were shooting, we did not get a lot of time in the day to get what we wanted before it got too dark. We felt that shooting on two different days meant that the lighting on the two days were completely different, and if we could redo it all, we would start earlier and try to get everything done in one whole day to reduce the risk of different lighting. However, the use of natural lighting can not be predicted. Furthermore, the fact that the end shots are done at the end of the day when the sun is setting gives off the effect that the video is coming to an end just like the end of the day. We also did a lot of colour grading in a programme called colour to even out the lighting in our shots better. Instead of just putting a filter on our video like we did for the film opening, we went through and edited every single clip to make sure it was the best that we could have got it.

Most of the year audience feedback commented saying that the camera wasn't very steady. This was due to the fact that we were low on time, so we didn't get to shoot every single shot 5000 times to get it perfect. Most of the shaky shots were tracking shots, and we wanted to give a realistic feel that the audience is actually tracking her in real life. We wanted our protagonist to seem attainable unlike the air-brushed models in media, we felt that the use of shaky-cam helped with the realism of the music video, and to create a real role model that people can aspire to be like.

Overall we leant a lot from the different types of feedback that we got (positive and negative.) We learnt that the key things such as pacing, lyrics, sound, instruments etc... that are going on at the time in the music, will be what the visuals will have to follow.

Q.1) How has your media product conformed or contrasted conventional media products? By Cary

The idea that I would argue is that there are never set genres and the conventions will continue to change so this could be more related to the idea of all music videos collectively. Not just conventions of one.

There were many factors that contributed to the overall production of the music video which we created. This includes mise en scene, camera, editing and sounds.

Mise en scene

Location: 

Nature is a largely used convention within music videos of the Indie genre as it reflect a natural and raw feel that tends to accompany the natural lighting and the clothing. The artist is also featured in a confined area, yet has freedom, they have the woods to themselves which could create a sense of isolation by at the same time shows the idea that they are almost at one with nature. One idea that is used in music videos of this genre is the use of rooms such as The Lumineers 'Ho Hey' music video. We had an idea to take a room and cover it in the colour of magazines whilst having the artist in black and white. As the music video progresses and she realises that true beauty is within, she become colour and tears down the images - making them reveal the black and white newspapers. 

this was set in the woods and forest which reflects the natural and raw sound that Amanda Rogers music is all about. Keeley made a good point that her genre is not confined to a typical genre as she has so many influences, but it was suggested that the natural language and themes that are used within her music could be her own genre of 'nature'.

The natural imagery shows the idea that real beauty is found in nature and this is the idea that the song This Beauty is trying to convey - perfection is not within magazines - we should find beauty within ourselves and within nature. There are several shots which depict this idea, especially as the shots begin to change in time to the drum beat, this shows the predominance of the theme behind the music and lyrics, furthering the meaning of beauty and colour in relation to nature.

The location further takes away from the star image, as she tends to represent nature but the clothing which she wears does not overshadow the fact that nature is the largest part of the music video and the lyrics. This is also the way in which Amanda Roger's appears too, in many of her images and the singular video featured for one of her songs, she is place within a woods and tends to walk within the confines of this. 

Lighting: 

A largely used convention of Indie music videos is the idea that raw and natural lighting is used to keep the natural and almost DIY convention to the music video. This is one of the reasons why we tended to have me shakicam, because it reflects the idea that she is creating it herself and the journey is being followed by the audience in a real fashion because it appears as though they are taking the journey with her. The lighting used is typically very dark in the first verse, representing the opening to the song which talks about the façade that accompanies magazines through the 'thinly to peel' the idea that people can see through the typical media representations and she can reveal the real beauty within herself. The second verse begins to take on a lighter role in which she sings to the audience in a close up and the colours and lighting were much brighter. And finally, as the song comes to an end, the lighting takes on more prominent role through the shots that are in time with the drum of the song and we represent nature's role within beauty and finding yourself. The final shot leaves the audience with a bright and clear image of the heart.

Colour: 

Colour is used to represent the innocence and natural portrayals if the artist. For example, the clothes that the artist wears are very neutral whites and nude colours. This could reinforce her role as an individual who is virtuous and pure - also similar to the demographic within audience research - perhaps they want to see more women who are portrayed in a less sexual light through the male gaze as Laura Mulvey suggested. The innocent female representation is unconventional of a music video, as teens are seen partying and getting drunk which sets our music video apart from others. 

As I mentioned in the previous section of Colour, the idea that the light gets brighter as the song progresses also applies to the colour as the colours become more brighter and striking. Especially so within the nature shots with the red thread being featured towards the end. The final shot is of a bright red heart being held and this represents the passion that she feels towards true beauty. 

Costume: 

The way in which we represented Rogers was in a very feminine manner, as opposed to the 'gender neutral' way in which women can be portrayed in Indie music videos. In many music videos of this genre, women are shown to wear flowing and natural style dresses which connote the idea of being within nature and like the wind, this is similar to the final dress that is used in the music video when she runs and lets her arms out to the wind.

The costume is a remind of the natural and elemental features of the song. We also didn't want the outfits to overshadow the nature featured because that is a key element of the lyrics to the song.

Sound:

Typically within music videos of the Indie genre, they tend to use diegetic on-screen sounds which create the idea that the Audience is there with the artist and following their journey. It creates a real effect to the music video. This creates a stronger connection between the audience and the artist.

Furthermore, we had to match the visuals to the sound as opposed to last year in which we had to apply the right sounds to the product. This means that there will be more lyrical links to the video. One example of this is the lyric "silver lining" in which there is a shot featured of the camera in a high angle shot pointing to the silver lining of the clouds that were featured. The idea of "tear[ing] the pages of the magazines" is reinforced later on in the music video in the sequence where the performer tears down the images of 'perfection' from the trees. This is iconic because it creates the idea that she will no longer be dominated by the media and she can look to herself and nature for true beauty. Matching lyrics to visuals is a key convention of any music video. Further to this, there are many other areas in this project that we link the visuals and lyrics together to create the sense of intertwining narratives and ideas between the song and the video.

 

Camera: 

Camera is a key part of any music video - what music video doesn't use a camera in some way to portray their ideas?

The shots which were used were shakicam, as I said before this is due to the DIY effect that is used within music videos of the genre because it makes it more relatable to the audience and they can feel as though they are there with the artist. 

The high angle shots represent empowerment of women and trying to connote positive ideas with beauty inside and nature. This reinforces the idea that true beauty inside an individual leads to empowerment and perhaps more confidence, as you stop comparing yourself to others and find that you are enough. 

Initially, we did not have many close ups as we began to edit and this posed a problem because this is key to creating a music video and a connection between the audience and the artist. So we went out and filmed more sequences, in which she sings directly to the audience, in a tracking shot, to convey the idea that she is trying to represent telling them directly to find beauty inside of themselves. This also create the idea that they are following her journey. This could be linked to the ancillary task as the shot of Amanda looking backwards to the camera connotes the idea that she is asking the audience to come with her on the journey that is ahead of her, connoted by the path the precedes her. 

The long shots towards the climax of the song create a distance between her and the audience as she runs away from the conventional idea of beauty and tries to find it herself.

Editing:

This was a crucial part of trying to get the idea of the music video across to an audience. The pace within the first verse of the music video is very simple and calm, suggesting that Rogers is trying to cope with being dominated by the media, however, as the chorus begins to take place, the pace speeds up and the drum beat become extremely predominant, this creates the idea that she is trying to run away and immerse herself in nature. The idea that it is an extreme close up creates the idea that the audience is following her walking in time to the beat, again, creating a journey.

The pace is relatively fast for the second verse and chorus. As the bridge brings to take place it is slowed down and the singular shot almost gives time for the audience to calm down and contrast the rest of the music video before the sudden tempo picks up. This is the only point in the music video where Amanda Rogers' song slows down, so we decided that it would be one of the perfect opportunities to slow it down, as it gives the audience time to think over the previous themes  conveyed and then ready to pick up the pace once more. The idea of pace slowing down during the bridge is a typical convention of any music video, as it slows down the pace - a whole music video set at a really fast pace would be exhausting and tiring, so this could be the reason why they are used as a prime moment to slow the song and pace down. It contrasts the rest of the song significantly and this is the reason why we chose to use this convention.

The shots after this feature her running and tearing the images down eventually, these shots of the images were edited in order to match the beat of the drum because we thought that it would create a sudden and almost angry effect that the song suggests about beauty within the media. 

One other thing that we were told about was the use of pace in relation to the music at the end of the sequence, due to the fact that the music slows down before we finish reversing the video to follow the journey of beauty to the Heartwood tree. This was kept the same throughout because we cleansed the idea of the pace to end at the point in which she says "to me" where it suddenly changes the song to a personal level and create a the idea that she is talking about beauty and the ways in which it is important to her. This pace, we thought, was ideal because the music doesn't officially finish until she sings the "to me" line. 

Conventionally, the shots would be around the 40-60 marks for an Indie music video, due to the idea of the songs being calmer, but the fact that our genre crossed over into the pop category meant that we had more shots than that of a typical Indie genre music video. I think it was around 130 or more, this meant that we contradicted the typical genre conventions due to the idea that we have had too many shots than typical. This also meant that we had to do a lot more editing due to the fact that there were more shot than that of our previous project and other Indie products. This meant that our skills developed in terms of editing because of this very fact. The idea that we have also edited some areas more suddenly, meant that we had to look more in depth the shots and depict the areas in which we had a quick transition.

 Q.2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks? By Keeley

The first thing we considered when beginning our ancillary product production was the examples of existing products. In this case, we looked at album covers and their cases, and the promotional posters and magazine adverts that went with them to first define the typical conventions of the formats. We quickly noticed that they all had to be intrinsically linked in order for the identity of the artist and the music to be displayed to prospective listeners. In particular, took a great deal of inspiration from Indie artist Gabrielle Aplin first full length album, "English Rain", as we believed it provided as with an excellent genre based example to gives us some idea of what we could do.

When first drafting our initial ideas, everyone in the group became highly concerned with the representation of our artist and, in particular, our music video. The music video, for us as well as the industry as a general rule, is a crucial part of the representation of our artist. It accompanies the lead single from the album, the one song that is meant to give a taster for the rest of the album and present the best of what is to come. Therefore, we knew we had to tie this into the major themes of our video and specifically, it's narrative of finding inner beauty.

Q 4: 

How have you used new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?  By Vicky

New media technologies have played a major role throughout the production and distribution of our music video as we have employed them throughout each stage of this project. The research, being the initial step in the creation of our video was conducted almost entirely using social networking. The variety of music video genres available on the internet allowed us to get a broader understanding of conventions of music video, which we chose and applied suitably. The niche genre of our chosen song naturally meant the music videos we would mostly be researching would be smaller-budget, less institutionalised music videos. Had it not been for the accessibility of the internet, it wouldn't have been possible to conduct our research thoroughly. As we mentioned in the video, Amanda Rogers herself is a niche artist who mainly uses social networking websites to market her music, therefore meaning that nearly all the information acquired about our chosen artist was conducted through new media technologies. Likewise, the distribution of our music video would not have been possible without the platform of social networks. This not only enabled our audience and artist to watch our video but also respond to it instantaneously through the comments on YouTube.

Finally, new media technologies played an absolutely crucial role in the production and post production of our music video. Having used a camcorder for our preliminary task last year, we were able to appreciate the possibilities that came with using a DSLR  for our next project; the most obvious and important difference being the quality of the image. As mentioned in the evaluation above our low light conditions meant the camera would pick up on less detail in the frame. However, the DSLR made this possible, with the varied ISO settings. The high quality of the image also meant a more professional looking music video, which allows viewers to become more immersed in the music video. In addition to this, the high quality allowed us to produce a music video of the same professional level as our chosen artist, resulting in a more believable representation. The adjustable frame rate was also crucial in the production of this project as it gave us the opportunity to use slow motion. We established early on in our research, that slow motion is arguably the most important convention in music videos that is not specific to necessarily one genre. We used the adjustable frame rate to ensure that when we applied the slow motion to our rushes, the viewing experience wouldn't be worsened by the jolting of images. Instead, the FPS meant a smoother and more professional viewing experience. Close up shots were another convention we established through our research, allowing a closer relationship between the musical artist and the viewers. The variety of lenses that came with the cameras allowed us to include a variety of shots in our music video, especially close up shots which would not be possible on an non-adjustable camcorder.

In the post-production stages of our project, we employed new media technologies throughout the editing of our video. The variety of professional editing techniques and equipment available on Final Cut Pro meant that, again, our project could be put on a par with existing media products. We were also able to add a logo and letter-boxing to complete the look of professionalism and make it as close as possible to existing media products. We also used the colour alteration software "Color" to address the problem of vastly varied lighting. One of the most important lessons learned through this experience was how drastically lighting can affect the final media product. Even having adjusted lighting and colour to the best potential in post-production, our audience feedback proved that it was still a noticeable issue. The low light conditions lessened the detail picked up by the camera in a shot, meaning that even when we adjusted the lighting in Color, the software couldn't fill in the missing detail in the frame. As a result I think a couple of our shots were a little grainy and blurred, however as Keeley mentions in our video it is a lesson only understood through experience. Were we to redo this music video again, we would perhaps employ the use of filler lights during the filming to ensure the scene would be as brightly lit as possible.

During the designing stages of our ancillary products, we used professional software programs such as Photoshop to achieve a more professional looking product. Specifically, this provided us with the opportunity to create our own font and import it into our final poster design. Whilst many would argue that software such as Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and Color has been available for a long time and therefore cannot be classified as "new," it's important to note that audience accessibility to these products is a recent occurrence. The rise in audience use of final cut pro and Photoshop and even use of DSLR's has developed the "prosumer" movement, of which our production group is a part of. As we were conscious of this, we made informed and specific choices of how we would use this professional software and took advantage of the possibilities now available to us.

To conclude, the new media technologies we used ultimately allowed us to attain a professional level of production as well as meet many of the conventions of the genre.

Ancillary Task - Final Album Artwork

Our front cover pretty much sticks to our original idea in our sketches and discussions worst from the fact that the Amanda Rogers red string worth is no longer at the bottom of the album. We decided not to use it here because we felt that it didn't look right and needed to have a more focused and different approach. So we went for Amanda's name underneath the Heartwood Typology with a different font and some spacing in between the letters so it is as long as the Heartwood sign. Initially we really like the new change and decided to keep it like that as we felt it reflected the album well.

Our back cover was completely different to our initial design and after looking at he images we created for the back we felt that it would be better to go for the bird house. This was a smart choice as it reflects the first few seconds of the the beginning track as you hear the sounds of birds calling and cheeping. We really like this idea and typology on the back is the same as the Heartwood font as we wanted a theme going on between the whole album.

The inside left cover was meant to be a flower, but unfortunately we could not find the right flower and so we had to change the idea. The idea we went for was the headband in a circle on the wood. We decided to go for this idea because the headband relates to the music video and still relates to our old sketches with the flower. Concluding it up we really like this idea and it turned out to go very well [the picture is out of dimension and will be fixed soon]

The inside right cover we decided to have Amanda, we wanted this because we felt that we needed Amanda somewhere on the album artwork so the audience can create that connection with Amanda and also r recognise her. We also wants some relations between the poster and the album artwork which we felt was key. In conclusion we felt that this location that we used mad a connection with the music video and the image was perfect for the position we gave it.

Ancillary task -Final Poster

This is our final poster for the ancillary task. As you can see, we didn't use the red thread on the front cover so we decided to use it on the poster. We also change the poster idea as originally it was going to be Amanda holding the heart to have a relation between the poster and the album art work. We thought that the idea that we have used works better as it grabs your attention more. For the typography we wanted to use plain colours and then obviously the red string to make it pop and stand out the the audience.
We put a picture of the album in the poster so that they could know what to look for when seeking the album. In terms of the pose in the poster, we wanted a as strong pose to reflect Amanda's strong personality and to show that she is empowered and affectively knows who she is. The Amanda Rogers red string is bigger than any other text followed by Heartwood. This is so the audience catches this first and recognises it. The 'out June 23' is written in red so that it stands out and they can see and remember when it comes out.

THIS BEAUTY - AMANDA ROGERS MUSIC VIDEO

Title: This Beauty

Aritst: Amanda Rogers

Director+Editor: VKLC

Record Label: DIT Records

 

 

Well this is it. The moment we have waited so long to see, our music video published and ready to be viewed by the world. We had success with Amanda liking it and even posting it on her website!

We are totally happy with the way it turned out and wouldnt change a thing!

 



This Beauty - Music Video confirmation

We emailed Amanda as we have finally finished and the deal was we would send it to her and she would confirm whether we can put it public or not. Here are the emails that have been sent back and forth:

We were even lucky enough to get her sharing our video on her socail network sites such as her official website and Facebook which we were very happy about!

Editing Journel - FINSHED!!

WE HAVE FINALLY FINISHED THE POST-PRODUCTION PART OF OUR MUSIC VIDEO!! We are very happy with the results that we have made and i'm sad and glad that this part of the proccess is over.

Overall i felt that we stuck to the conventions well and created a very believeable music video that we think shows Amanda's personality and sells her as an artist. The next part of our mission is to start the Ancillary task which we are excited to take on as a team.

Editing Journel - Day Seven

When we thought we were fully finished with the editing of the music video, we gave it to our teachers to look at. this resulted in them giving us a few pointers to make it the best it can be.

The first point explaned that the bridge did not fit with the rest of the pace of our editing and song - We decided to keep the bridge the same as we felt that the change of pace was needed with the song, and it would fit in conventions better as the genre of our song usually has slow motion somehwere to expand the pace of the song and make a nice contrast.

The second point was that the songs pace before the second chorus was abit behind the pace of the song and we needed to build this up.
-We saw this problem and got staright to editing adding in small choppy shots that changed to the beat of the music. Overall we thought this was better than we previously had, and we were glad that they pointed it out.

The last point was that the reversing sequence that the end goes on too long and should have faded out sooner as the paace drops sooner.
-We decided to keep this as it was because we thought it was more effective that we usedit our way. This is because the reversing finishes on the last lyric "To me" which is when it goes back into real time. We wanted to get throught to the audience that she is realising what true beauty is at that exact moment that the reversing stops.


This was also the session where decided to letterbox our musc video. We had a disccuision whether we would letterbox it or not because Amanda is not as well known as other artists, so we diden't know whether we wanted to use this effect. In the end we did use it as it gave a more professional effect onto our video and made look better.

After letterboxing, the final thing we had to do was add the logo onto our music video. As we had a wide genre we didnt't know which of the MTV logos we would use, as there are so many. But thinking further into it, we deiced to use a VEVO logo that is used on official YouTube music videos. We made this decision purely because we wanted to remind the audience that our artist Amanda Rogers is seen in the 'niche' section in the music world as her songs arnt't mainstream enough. putting the logo on didn't seem to be a probelm and getting the sizing and postioning right didn't take long either which we were happy about. Overall, I think our choice to out on the VEVO logo was accruate based on the genre of the Artist and how well-known to the public eye she is.

Editing Journel - Day Six

We have finally reached the stage where we have finished our music video, and are happy with our shots which is the good news.

We have made sure that everything is in sync with the music and the lip-syncing looks believeable and looks like a real music video which is also good news!

 The bad news is that we have the reached the stage where we need to colour grade it, which means many ours of frustation and panicking ahead!

For our colour grading we used a programme that was designed for mac's simply called 'Colour'. Our frist session in colour was all just trial and error, working out which lighting that we thought gave a better overall effect to our music video.

A key thing that we had to concentrate on was making the really dark clips (which we had shot on a different ay to the rest of the clips) lighter and to match the same colour as the reast of our sequnce. This proved out to be harder than we thought as we saved many colour templates, with niether of them being the right colour. After many attempts we finally got the right colour and lighting that we wanted and we felt that this affected massively in a positive way to our music video.

We also wanted to put a total mask of colour onto the whole of our music video to give it a warm feeling but decided against that as it was just fine the way it was.

After we had finished editing the colour grading, we saved it and put it back into colour to give it the last final touches, but the video importing back into FCP with load of gaps in the video and clips missing. We realised this, and began fixing it straight away. Thinking that it was just a one off glitch, we imported it again to see if it would wok but it did exactly the same thing which really bugged us! In the end we had to copy over individual sections of the song to get it all in and make our colour grading successful.

Artists, Album Covers, And Their Posters

Gabrielle Aplin

Gabrielle Aplin is an arotist that I think is very similar to Amanda in ceratin ways. The plain colours that she uses and then a sudden burst of colour reminds me of the red string in ours which I thought was very effective.

Here is a picture of her front cover which shows dim colours which connotes with the title of 'English Rain' because when is rains, the sky is all grey and horrible. I really like the type font that she uses in this, and also reminds me of the font that Amanda uses for her website. The burst of colour that is used for the umbrella is very significant is is like the heart in our music video. This is one of her symbols and I think she uses it well. The use of her and the umbrella being in colour and  the beach in black and white is very effective and hints to the audience that she is like 'sunshine on a rainy day'. having herself in colour makes her the centre of attention and almost like the sun in a way.

The other aspects of the CD pack include booklet that you can pull out to the side and two CD's. One with her umbrella and one with baloons. These two objects represent her and stand for bright personality. Having the use of the balloons and umbrellas a continuous theme through-out the album gives it a bright edge to the plain backround. The use of having the hand-written signiture in the booklet gives the audience that personal connection with her and automatically already sets out her music to relate to her listeners. The round shapes of the umbrella and baloons create perfect disc covers because they are already round and make the CD look more interesting.

The posters resemble the front of the album lcover as to keep that iconic theme running alll the way through the certain genre of songs. The writing and information at the bottom of the page is in the same text as the name title as to not confuse the audience with too many type fonts. The writing never overlays the image of Gabielle so the audience can still see her and recognise her. The umbrella sort of has the same effect as the McDonalds 'M' sign and people will know it is Aplin when you see the umbrella which is the effect that she is going for. She is still the centre of the poster and the only colour on there to drag the audience to her and make her stand out. This is the ultimate effect we want with out ancillary task.



Missy Higgins

Missy Higgins is another  artist that is very similar to Amanda and follows the same niche style that she does. I came across Missy in about year 9 when I heard her song 'Secret' and have liked her ever since.

This is the album cover for the sound of white album that she wrote. Being that the album is black and white there is not a lot to work with in terms of colour, which is exactly why the name of her stands out because it is the only colour on there. This then obviously attracts the audience and makes her name stand out. The type font is used is very simple yet effective like Amanda's.  feel that I am beginning to see a theme in typography for this certain niche genre. The fact that mainly all the album is white and only a tine fragment is a picture of her gives off that's its all about the music and not really about her, and the way its blurred at the side gives the effect that its like a curtain just about to close or open and gives that mysterious effect. Because the album is piercing white, it will stand out from the rest and therefore making her album more successful than the rest.

 

This is the inside of the album and as it can be seen, the black an white is continued and orange and brown theme. There is also a signed pull out poster in the CD pack which gives the listener that real connection, the same with Aplin's. The inside doesn't really strike me, but something that I do find useful is the track list on the CD. As a person who uses CD's often, I find this a very useful thing. For me this CD cover from a first glance looks like it has too much writing on it and that would personally distract me from reading it all. The whole album had a very vintage feel and I think that works well in its favour.





Even though the image is slightly blurry, here is Missy's poster for her 'Sound Of White' album. I think that sticking to the same colour scheme works effectively, and people will recognise her face from the poster or album which creates that connection between the two. The same tpe font is used and the album is also advertised on the bottom of the poster so people know where to buy her from and what it looks like. Her name and the picture of her is the biggest thing on the poster which obvioulsy gets poeple to remember her name and what she looks like. Having the typology the same for every single one of her alvums in the same position helps too because then you make that ultimate connection between them.

Devin K

Devin K is another niche artist that isn't very heard of. His songs have a pop song vibe with some california edge. I cam across this artist about a year ago when I walking through Hollister and had to find out what the name of a certain one of his songs is.



 

This is his single album cover as he has not yet released  a full album. I like the semetrical look of this album cover and the way he is in the centre of the road is like he is the centre of attention. The name noce and big and very easy to read this helps in out because as he is a new up coming aritst, poeple are going to remember his name better if it is plastered in big letters everywhere. I really like the typ font for the song title and I feel the simple text just gives off a californian vibe along with the colour choices. Having a side profile of the actual artist could be fatal because they are not making eye contact with the audience and that could somewhat distnace himself from them. But in this case it works giving him this cool not bothered look thaty works for the album.

The poster's really advertise Devin well and I think they display his quirky style, and as he is a new-comer he needs to make a statement as first impretions are everything. You can see from the tour poster that eventhough he is on tour with someone else, he is still the centre of this poster. The poster on the left ios a bit different form his usual style as it is found on his offical website, he does't need to display his name because its already on the site. This can of course cause a problem, but the other poster advertisises him well and you can also get an essence of his fashion and how it matches his niche marketing.

Birdy

Birdy started off as a youtube sensation, the same with many other stars today and rose to the top with her cover of 'Skinny Love'. Her hit single was no.1 in the charts at some stage, but since then no-one has really heard of her.

This is Birdy's self titled album. As I mentioned before the self title album will help boost her in the public eye. Having her in the centre of the frame really captures her and her personality.You can see that she fits into the niche fashion with her old clothes. The album cover has an English feel to it with the walls and the style which sets her iconography already. The font is plain and simple nothing too fancy to get across that the music is the main part of the album. The choice of the colour palette that is used in this cover works perfectly and suits Birdy and her personality.

 This is Birdy's poster for her tour. As you can see, the writing is a lot bigger than the album. Being that she is popular enough to have a tour, she will be well known enough for people to recognise her name. Having a one word name is at her advantage here because you can remember it more.The typography used for the other writing is very simple and mimics her minimalistic style fore this certain self name album. The poster used the same photo from the album so the two have e a connection and people will know what to expect from the concert if they have listened to the album.

 John Mayer

John Mayer is an American recording artist that writes his own songs. His genre of songs is usually folk or country, and I feel that he is in the same sort of genre as Amanda which is why I am analysing his album and poster work.

I really like this album work in particular, because it is very different with the writing going up the side of the cover. The black and white with the red is something that we were looking very closely at in doing for our album cover. I like the use of the exposed white background which makes Mayer stand out even more. The intense look to the side gives off a mysterious feel about this artist and the angle is good for him.

This is is his poster for the 'Battle Studies' album and as you can see there is a common theme with all of the artist that I have researched that the image is exactly the same, its just the lay-out that is different. Having the writing at the bottom in big bold letters lets the audience know who it is immediately from a distance. The red font stuck out more on the album for me but when this is printed out bigger, it will look better and more recognisable.

Ancillary Task - Typography and Ideas

This is an idea that Keeley came up with, it is meant to represent the red string that was used as a mcguffin in our music video. We really like this idea and it is looking very likely to appear somewhere on our CD pack. We wanted the string to carry off the page so it could link to the red string that would be going around the CD at the back. We thought that this was a clever idea and something that we wnated to put into action.

 

This is the Initials of Amanda and we thought that we could use this somewhere on the CD. I certainly like this use of the black and red, and cruly typography suits the feel of this Heartwood album. The scribbles in the background is meant to represent looking up into the inside of a tree (even though it looks nothing like it!) looking up and seeing the dappled sunlight shine through the leaves and branches.

 

Another idea that we had was a picture of the woods covered in red string, and Amanda stadning behind the middle tree with some red string tied round her finger. The font at the top eventhough I really like it, is taken from her main website so we couldn't use this idea for the main cover. T feel that this idea is very effective and the use of the needle with the thread going through it just under her name is very effective.