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.

Editing Journel - Day Five

In this session we decided that we want to fill in any of the remaining gaps that we have yet to fill and to edit the bridge of the song adding in shots that we put down for the bridge and also using the most commontechnique in musc videos; slow motion.

So we have spent every hour of our free time to try and get our music video ready by the end of the deadline.

-We fixed the bridge of our song and have added in shots that we think expand the time of the song which include slow motion shots of Amanda walking through the trees dramtically. We thought that this would be a nice little change from the rest of our music video which has been fast paced to reflect the pop genre of the song and also reflct the sound of the music.

-As I was doing an editing session by myself in one of my free's, I had this break through idea to rip the photos in time with the quick drum just before the last chorus, and also thad the idea of shrinking time by doing a reverse sequence at the end. I wanted this to reflect our AS movie task and have the idea that opening of the song is actually the end, so explaining into more detail; at the end where it revereses the last clip is of her walking backwards to where she began at the start of the music video, it then plays the small first shot in the video, but carries on playing to show the auidence that she has found the heart. I wanted this to be a message that Amanda does not know what the true beauty is, which is what the song is about, and she goes on this amazing journey trying to find it. Sje then realises by the end that there was no need for searching as the true beauty wasin herself the whole time. Interpretating the idea of 'inner beauty'.

-In this session we realised that more threat shots were needed to help carry our narative throught the song and help it flow. We deicded to overlay clips in different layers in FCP (final cut pro) to see where the clips look best and then we can cut them in instead of moving whole sequences around. This worked well as we finally got what we needed and where we needed it!

So by the end of this session we have done the following:

-fixed the bridge of our song
-made the reverse sequence and cutting shots to fit the sounf of the music
-inputted more red thread shots to hep carry our nartive