For my final draft, I colour corrected certain elements of my video using colour correcting tools of Premiere Pro. I felt that this gave my music video a more professional feel and also enhanced colours given off from the sunset throughout the video, which is a running theme and one in which I have payed close attention to.
Below you can see the difference in colour and contrast between screenshots taken from the third draft and then of my final draft.
Here is my final draft:
I created a website for my artist Jessica Garton to keep her fans up to date with information, such as when tickets for her tour come out and when new music and videos are being released.
Home Page:
I created my website with the free website creator Wix.com. After researching numerous real life artists website I found out about conventions and what I should include to make my website successful. I created six headings of: Home; What’s New; Listen Now; Shop; Tickets and Tour and Social Media.
What’s New:
On the ‘What’s New’ page I included a brief summary of what Jess is up to, to keep fans in the loop. I also used this page as an opportunity to promote her new music video and her social media. I decided to have the music video automatically play when people visited the site, so that fans were constantly exposed to the new material.
Listen Now:
I created a page titled ‘Listen Now’ which would link fans directly to Jessica’s music. The first link seen links to the youtube video of the song ‘Waking Up Slow’ which I believe is one of the easiest ways for everyone to access and enjoy Jessica’s music. Below, there is also an image of her new upcoming album, with the album art seen, along with a few songs listed to give fans an idea of what to except. There is also a link to buy and share the album, so the news gets out to everyone about her new music. The album is only £9.99, which I believe is a very reasonable price as Jessica is a fairly new artist and I’d like to believe that she cared more about the music than the money.
I also included a link to the lyric video of the song ‘Waking Up Slow’ and of course a link to the actual music video, so that fans are constantly exposed to it and therefore it would be seen be a greater audience.
Shop:
For the shop page within my website, I created two types of merch: a simple t-shirt and a phone case. As Jessica is a rather new artist, her fan base would not be huge and therefore merch would have only been a recent idea for her, but hopefully more merch would be created when her fan based expanded. I created my merch but designing the logo and then putting it onto a t-shirt and phone case. I knew I wanted to keep it relatively simple as this it the kind of vibe that I wanted to portray about my artist.
I then created a Tickets and Tour page with detailed information about the first leg of the tour which had just been announced. I also included links to buy tickets, so that they were easily accessible to fans and also a comment that more tour dates would be announced soon, so that fans were not disappointed if tickets sold out.
I then created a social media page with links to her Instagram, Twitter and Facebook pages, which would allow fans to follow Jess and keep up to date with her daily life.
This is a screenshot from the Instagram account that I created for her, promoting her new music and music video and also giving fans news about her day to day life.
I decided to create a business account for the Instagram, so that Jess could promote herself as an artist and really get her name out there. This also allowed her to see how many people had been visiting her profile, which may also indicate how many people are being exposed to her new music.
Here is the digi-pack I have made for my artist. I wanted to keep my digi-pack rather simple and not too elaborate, and so followed the simple design and running theme throughout of a sunset. I feel this is a typical convention of the indie/ acoustic music genre and so means that my artist fits the genre perfectly.
I edited my images on Photoshop, increasing the brightness and contrast and perfecting the colouring of the image, where I felt necessary. I used Photoshop to layer two images seen on the from cover, to achieve the effect of my artists head being seen on top of the font. I used two different layers to do this. I then used a dici-pack template that I was given by my teacher to make sure my dig-pack was the correct size and that all my text and important parts of my image were seen clearly.
Script:
I used multiple media technologies in the research, planning, construction and evaluation stages to help me achieve my final media production.
In the research stages I used Youtube to watch many music videos in the indie and acoustic music genre to help me understand the typical conventions of the genre, and gaining inspiration for my own music video. I then completed several research posts of existing music videos where I did a shot by shot analysis of each video, thinking again about conventions and ideas that i could use in my own production.
The task involved taking several screenshots of specific areas of the video that were significant or worth highlighting based on their importance to narrative, use of camera angles and performance aspects. I then used a pages document to import the screenshots and write up written analysis of each shot. I carried this out for every music video, commenting and analysing on what I thought was most significant and inspiring.
Within the planning stages of my music video, I created a ‘Target Audience Interview’ where I filmed six different people from my demographic, answering questions finding out more about the needs and wants of my target audience. This put the interviewees’ on the spot, and forced them to answer the questions truthfully and naturally. I also carried out some informal auditions so that I could decide on the artist for my video. After deciding on my specific actors and main artist, I created a shot list, deciding what would be shown in the music video for each lines of the song.
In the construction stage of my final music video I used a Nikon 1300d camera when filming and then imported my footage into Premiere Pro. To achieve the vhs effect on some of the videos, I downloaded the app Camcorder on my phone and then imported the footage to make the shots look older and then imply they happened in the past.
Premiere Pro was a crucial part in the construction of my final music video as it allowed me to edit all of my footage together and also so it was in time with the song. A feature I did use on premiere pro was that of interpreting the footage from 50 frames per second, in which it was filmed in, to 25 frames per second, to achieve effective slow mo within my video. I used this for some of the performance elements of my video, which meant that i had to film my singer singing at twice the speed. I downloaded the song I was using ‘Waking Up Slow’ off of Youtube and increased the speed to times two to achieve this. In terms of other equipment used, I also used a tripod to get steady shots during performance elements, although I felt the tripod was not always necessary.
As well as the construction of my actual music video, I also had to construct a digi-pack and website for my artist. To do this I photographed my artist on the same day as we filmed many performance elements of the music video, to show continuity and then I put the photos in Photoshop. Here I edited them accordingly and I also downloaded a font from 1001 fonts that I though was suitable for my artist and also fitted into the indie music video genre. As previously stated, I was inspired by Dua Lipa’s digipack to put the font behind my artists photo and so created a layer of the image of my artist and layered up the two images so the photo of my artist was now on top of the font. I also created a website on the free website maker Wix. Within my website, I have utilised a variety of social media platforms to advertise and promote my artist and her upcoming album. This proved to be extremely useful as it increased the awareness and image of my developing ‘artist’. Wix was essential in the creation of my own personalised website.
I uploaded all my progress to Vimeo, which was great for sharing my videos. In addition I presented all my research posts and progression of my advanced portfolio onto wordpress.com.
In conclusion, to create the evaluation questions I used quicktime screen recording to record my actions on the computer before uploading and editing them on Premier Pro.
Script:
I believe that my music video, digipak and website work well as a combination, as each of these products encompass the same theme and recurring location of a sunset, which is typically associated with the indie music genre.
On my Wix website, I have a variety of photos that all consist of content taken on the same day, with the backdrop of a sunset being the running theme throughout. The fact they are all from the same day of shooting for my digi-pack, website and actual music video, it demonstrates continuity and means that audiences are aware that each media product works together as a collection.
After having researched other already established artists, I saw that it is important for a style and brand identity to be established when trying to promote an album or single. For example Ed Sheehan’s digi-pack has a ‘homemade’ feel to it and he consistently uses this handwritten font throughout all his many digi-packs. This font is also seen on his website and so links these two media products in this way. Through researching numerous websites I decided to use the theme of a sunset in all my photos, but to keep the rest of the website quite plain and simple. I believe this is quite effective as it does not clutter the website in any way, and can also be seen on real artists website such as Adele and Dua Lipa.
Furthermore, the photo I used as the background of my website is another image of my artist against the sunset background, to compliment the theme established by my artist found within my digipak. On my website, there are there are also links to other web based ancillary’s such as Instagram and Twitter. I constructed these social media account for my artist ‘Jessica Garton’, which also features the recurring theme of the sunset that is seen on a variety of other ancillary texts; therefore continuing a consistent artist brand and continuity. On the Instagram account, I included posts about upcoming tour dates, the release date of her new album as well as just general photos of what the artist is up to. I believe it is important that I established a similar style and design throughout all my media products, which ultimately, I believe I achieved by using similar photos and colour schemes throughout them all.
For my final digipak, I incorporated four different photos that I captured during the filming of my final video that are also on all of my web based ancillaries. I put the images into Photoshop, where I edited them to enhance the vibrant colours of the sunset and also to insert font for my named artist, the title of the album and the list of songs on the back cover. After extensive research into existing digipak products of already established artists and trying to create my own personalised cover, it became evident that I defiantly preferred a more simple digipack and something that simply caught audiences eyes but not in an overcrowded way. More specifically I took inspiration from Dua Lips’s back cover of her digipack where the photograph of her actually appears in front of the text shown. I decided to use this idea for the front cover of my own digipack so created another layer of the image of my artist and placed it on top of the font. I believe this gives the front cover of the digipack a more professional feel as it is not simply a photograph taken in front of a nice sunset.
Script:
There are many aspects in my music video and other media products, such as my digipack and website, that can be considered as conventional and challenging to real media products.
One convention I believe is very typical of many media products in the indie music genre is using a love story as the plot of a music video. In my music video I feel that I followed many conventions that exist in real music videos. The first most obvious convention is that I used both a young female teenager as my main actress and artist and also a young male actor. This convention can be seen in Charlie Puth’s and Selena Gomez, music video “We Don’t Talk Anymore” as well as Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You”. I also chose to put my singer in normal casual clothes that I feel would not challenge the conventions of similar acoustic videos as it is nothing out of the ordinary.
Although my own music video shows videos of a happy couple, there is an underlying message throughout that the couple have now broken up. I suggest this, although never fully reveal it, through the use of photographs of the happy couple being taken down and the artist going from looking happy to sad. This is also suggested through the vhs effect being used on the videos of the couple, to convey that the memories took place in the past. I believe this narrative could be seen to challenge typical conventions of real media products as normally music videos would focus on a couple being together or already being broken up. Although my music video simply implies the breakup and then shows both sides of the story.
Another convention that can be seen in all of my media products is the use of the sunset, which is a typical feature of indie and acoustic music videos and can be seen in a lot of real media products such as Miley Cyrus’ music video ‘Malibu’. The sunset obviously makes the sky multiple different colours so it can be seen to give off quite a romantic feeling, which is why I believe it is so popular in a lot of indie music videos. I also used photographs I took of my artist and the sunset in both my digipack and website. The locations I used can also be considered conventional as in the existing indie and acoustic music videos that I researched during my research posts such of that of again Miley Cyrus ‘Malibu’ and also Ben Howards’s music video ‘Old Pine’. I chose to use the locations of the sand dunes and the beach in my music video as I feel they work well with the style of music, although I also filmed section in the singer’s house which is not really a typical convention of real media products as indie music videos tend to be based primarily outside.
A convention seen in many websites, which I researched, by real artists is that the tour dates are listed under their own subheading, for example, James Arthurs and The 1975’s pages. Furthermore, many websites incorporated pictures of their artists. This lead me to pick an image with a similar convention that most importantly complements my chosen genre and the style of my artist. As a result, just like my digipak, I continued the theme of using a sunset as a backdrop to the images used across my website. I believe the images I used work effectively with my chosen font style and colour, making important information stand out and catch the eye. However, on the other hand my website could be seen as challenging the conventions of real websites as mine features various tabs and links whereas real life websites often include a constant, free-flowing scrolling layout which requires little tabs or links. Although this did not fit existing conventions and ideas, I believe that my setup and layout is easier to navigate and more effective when needing to find information about my artist quickly.
In conclusion I feel that my media product is both a conventional and challenges conventions of real media products, however it can be seen as a lot more conventional to typical media products. I feel that during the construction of my digipack, website and music video I have made sure to take all my research that I had done into consideration in order to create a product that is both effective and is a convention of a typical music video.
Here is my first draft. Although I plan to film more clips of the couple together, but I have used clips that I probably won’t use in the final draft to fill up time and space!
