Evaluation Q2:Combination of products

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Evaluation Q2:Combination of products from Ashleighhh-x

 

Edit:

As well as continuity, the fonts I have used (Diamond SF and Devil Breeze) are well suited to my genre in that they look simple and modern, reflecting the more electronic elements of my given song.

 

The use of “star image” I found was important in all aspect of media as it makes the product more memorable. Similarly, in hindsight , if I could change anything about my texts now, I would add an image of my actor to the digipak art, layered in to also fit with the theme of the video and advert (behind the fence).

On each of my products, Warp records is mentioned; with the logo on the digipak and advert, and then the name written in the indent added to the music video intro. The importance of this lies within the marketing and distribution, to make sure the label was added to the texts to keep within a contract the band would have. 

 

Audience Feedback and Research

As well as looking into genre conventions, looking into audience research and target audiences has influenced how I have planned and produced my video and ancillary texts. Within audience research I have relied on both primary (research, surveys, feedback, and focus groups, and secondary sources (statistics, surveys held by other people).

I looked at the genres and similar bands through websites such as last.fm and the Facebook statistics of liked pages to find that a large proportion of both the fans are artists are males usually 21+, for this reason I chose my actor who is mid twenties and suited to the part, rather than a person from sixthform to be my artist.

To ensure my ancillary tasks suit my target audience I have constructed a survey on SurveyMonkey of which have 39 responses as of yet; I'm still waiting on more results, then taking their feedback will attempt to edit my texts slightly if I need to, and hopefully make and inforgraphic on my responses.

In responses many have expressed their interest in buying/listening to the music I portrayed through my advertisement and digipak. Some feedback so far has been helpful regarding if the texts match and other ideas:

 

In response to " Is there anything you dislike about the two images? " (some peopole didn't answer or just answered 'no'; I've mainly just included the feedback I got otherwise.)

 Fill in my survey here!
 

 

New Videos

Both of these videos have been recently released and have a (kind of) similar aesthetic to what I would like for part of my video. :)

Digipak Research II

Stuck on where to start for the planning of my digipak, I looked at apparently the only one I own - I don't buy music :( -The Horrors, We Are The Horrors EP.

 

         

Also, in better detail, the legal/extra information. This includes the record label names/logos, both the band and label's websites, the certification mark of the company which formatted the CD and the copyright and anti-piracy information.

I'm now starting on planning my digipak properly now. :)

Magazine Advert III

I've made some slight changes to my magazine advert, this is the most up to date one.

 

I've make the quotes slightly smaller as they seemed to be taking the focus away from the band/album's name. I also added the website and changed an error with the review bit - it had four star ratings and only three names..

Magazine Advert Draft II

As well as correcting my spelling on the advert, as a part of audience feedback I asks members of my family and some people online what they though of my first draft. Though it was mainly positive feedback, the reoccuring answer was mainly regarding the lightness of my advert and how it should be darker, so I used curves to darken the picture, making the text easier to read. I also changed the order of the "reviews" as people said the BBC Music one would be the most eye catching.

Magazine Advert Draft

I've been trying some things out on Photoshop regarding my magazine advert, though I originally thought I wouldn't want a picture of my artist, I found the gaussian blur effect and noise, with the colour selection making it more blue and cyan to look kind of cool.

I tried out the font Mom's Typewriter and though it suits the genre conventions, it seemed a little overused and cliche, so instead I used the font Devil Breeze as it looks modern which sort of shows that the music isn't just industrial and also reminds me of the How To Destroy Angels font a little bit. Here is my first draft.

I think it might be a bit too basic looking at the moment, so I'm going to try a few more things this week beore the deadline. :)

edit: just realised I've spelt "fascinating" wrong, I'll change that next time D:.

My Artist's Logo

After looking into logos more, last week I went onto Dafont to look for fonts for my logo, just realised I forgot to upload it, I mainly looked in the sections Techo, Barcode and Typewriters: 

I really like most of these and think they fit into my genre, though I'm unsure on which would look best right now; I'll wait until I have a better idea of how I want the aesthetics of my advert and digipak to be. :)

Adventures on Private Property

A misunderstanding with when I was going to film, so we're going into Nottingham tomorrow to do the filming there. Though, looking for the "dark room" mentioned in other posts I was kind of out of ideas when my brother mentioned some abandoned warehouses/factories and places he used to hang out in, so we went to explore and take some pictures. 

The first place was locked up, but I took some pictures from outside.

The next place was really cool, after walking the muddiest path ever and thoroughly ruining my shoes (annoyingly we found a better way to get there after we'd left). We kind of crawled under a door and found really cool room, my brother filmed the majority of it, it's a reaaally wobbly, and our voices sound weird. 

We stopped filming in a rush as we heard someone outside and panicked, he was a bit scary and told us to leave. But still, hopefully, we'll be able to sneak in there again next Sunday to film my actor doing the vocals, it would definitely be better than my living room. :) 

Band/Song Name

For the name of the song I think I will just go with the obvious choice as a main lyric: "Strange Days".

I really really need to think of a name for the band to get on with both the advert and digipak. I wasn't certain on anything at the moment other than it being a one word name, so I asked some family members and friends to listen to the the song and look at the moodboard and tell me things it made them think of. All I have really gotten from them is that it would be modern sounding.. 

And so, I'll be looking into possible names in the next few days!

Moodboard

I collected images to help me map out ideas about my work, including locations, costume, adverts, album covers, actors and logos, I also added some general imagery for how I'd like aesthetics of my work to be:

(Click to enlarge)

Costumes/Make up in Videos

From what I've seen in similar music videos so far, the costumes aren't anything extravagant, but really simple: in most of these videos the vocalist, or any other character, is wearing dull colours, greys, blues, whites or darker shades. Usually just a long sleeve shirt or plain t shirt and straight legged jeans or trousers and maybe a leather jacket, shoes don't seem to be filmed all that much. 

(printscreens)

Depending on what the actors (sorting it out this week) will already own, I think I will keep it pretty simple in recreating that, no visible make up or maybe just natural if any blemishes or anything upon filming.  

Research into Band Logos

Not sure on what I had to research within band logos, I tried to look at them overall, then went in to focus on some similar to my genre/to what I want to create. 

Band Logos from Ashleighhh-x

I don't know what I will name "my" band yet so I don't know how much further I can go with looking into logos at the moment. Right now I'm thinking a colon in it would look cool, I think influenced by Global Communication's album 76:14, though I know that's not very related..

Lighting In Music Videos

Now I have a slightly better idea about my video I need to think in more depth about how I want each scene to look. From looking at some videos I've noticed that if the focus of the video is on the vocalist, they may be alone in a room, like what I've planned for mine, the idea of darkened rooms, shadows and silhouettes has interested me as I think it looks kind of personal and feel it kind of mirrors how the music feels in parts, dark and mysterious.

 

 

This particularly seems to be the case in the first forty seconds in the video for Massve Attack's Risingson and the first forty seconds of We're In This Together by NIN.  In fact the lighting in a lot of Massive Attack videos is pretty interesting, I'd like my video to be quite inspired by theirs as the sound really appears to be. :)

 

The effect of this is both done by outside lighting shining in, or high contrast and dark clothes. Also, keeping the room dark and only using the light to shine of certain parks might be hard to do subtly but I willl try to create this effect. Also, in looking at the first forty seconds or so of the NIN video is a good example of how I would like the intro for mine to be, with lots of close up images of parts of the face/hands etc.

 

 

Nine Inch Nails: We're In This Together (1999) from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

The use of screens, TV static and CCTV images




From Sonic Youth's Little Trouble Girl

I started to look at genre conventions in the videos, though it seems like a wide genre the videos usually had similar themes, I'll start looking into the idea of screens, TV static and CCTV-like footage because it seems to be a strangely prominant feature within a lot of the videos and possibly something I could do myself.

This could link to Goodwin's theory in music videos as it is a notion of looking and/or intra-intra diagetic gaze which gives an apparent sense of voyeurism and creepiness. This can be seen in Inertia Creeps by Massive Attack dir. "The Wiz", a person watching and rewatching a footage of a woman, and a few other people previously in what looks to be the same room as him. The idea of being watched and screens (also the male viewers smoking cigarettes cigarettes?) reminded me of the video to The Space Inbetween by How To Destroy Angels which made me think it might actually be a kind of prominant feature in these kind of music videos.

The video for Inertia Creeps uses this effect a lot

 

The of most the effects in this video I feel I could recreate quite easily, using televisions or computers to screen old film for someone to be watching -if I used an old, glass screen I could also get that flickery effect which might work well too-; if I could get some of my film on VHS or something that looks similar and TV static I could also get a similar effect. (Also, I found a website called DIYmusicvideo which looks as though it might be really helpful later on in the production of my final product with offering tutorials, ideas etc.)
 

The Get Out Clause promoted themselves through the novelty of their video Paper in which they actually performed in the streets, and using the Data Protection Act, requested copies of the CCTV tapes.