Evaluation- Safwana

https://www.powtoon.com/show/eNQK0zLwX1j/in-what-ways-does-your-media-product-use/#/
 

Evaluation - Yagmur

FINAL POSTER - Safwana and Yagmur

This is our final copy of our music poster. We used black ink photography to give the poster texture and 'Hazy' look. We created a double exposure effect by overlaying the texture over the image of the protagonist and her friend. Also, we added aspects of nature onto our poster as we have also done with our CD cover and music video to represent the realism of the video and the natural occurrence of death. We have added conventions of real music promotional posters such as the release date. However, our poster is very simplistic as it goes with the theme of our music video.

More practice Magazine Ads for the digipak - Safwana

These are some practice posters I have created, they're very simple and look aesthetically pleasing. The reason for this is because our music video, as well as our digipack are also very simple and minimalistic. It only made sense to have this go across all of our products emphasising the relationship between them.

The black ink photography really adds to the look of the poster, as a texture it looks very pleasing to the eye. I decided to create a double exposure effect to add more meaning, first with the use of manikin dolls, which reference the music video where we show two dolls and then one to signify loss.

Then I decided to take an image of the protagonist and the friend and created a double exposure with that. I used nature to show the realism of the music video, and to show nature is one thing that cannot be changed, death is inevitable, it is the cycle of life. Therefore the posters main image would be a double exposure of the two friends with images of nature.

The next few posters show just progress, and positioning of the logo and album name. The album name changed a lot from the first attempt. I played around with the soft light which makes the text enhance the image in the background, this gave it a really textured feel. 

Then I felt the colours were a little bland, so I enhanced the black and white using the levels on photoshop, and enhancing the black in the ink. However the cover still looked dull, so I experimented with different colours, however this did not go with the style of genre, and music video.

Finally I felt that the protagonist did not stand out enough, as the double exposure effect removes anything below a white background and enhances anything against a black, thus I rubbed off the ink where the face would be with the feathered rubber so it was no too sharp and then I achieved a more visible double exposure effect.

Magazine/Ad production - Safwana and Yagmur

This is our first attempt of doing our poster. We took a picture of the protagonist's friend in the video as it's based around their friendship. We wanted to add a double exposure effect with branches covering her face to show the reality of nature and the cycle of life and that death is inevitable. However the double exposure did not work out as we hoped and we didn't like the final outcome. Therefore we attempted a second draft.

This is our second draft. We achieved the double exposure effect, but didn't like the positioning of the logo at the top of the image. Although the faded effect is aesthetically pleasing and fits our 'Haze' house style, the use of branches made it too crowded. The whole idea of our music video to be simplistic and this poster didn't fit the concept. 

FINAL music video - Safwana and Yagmur

We hope you enjoy it! 

Old drafts of practice CD covers - Yagmur

All images used are taken by us.

 We went around Shoreditch and took a range of pictures which we didn't plan out. We wanted the shoot to be spontaneous, just to see if we would be inspired by anything we saw outside. We thought that taking pictures of the protagonist in the hoodie that she wears in the music video is quite symbolic of her being isolated. We found grafitti on a wall which was a short poem about 'hugs and friendship' which is a significant theme we have in our video. For the back, we took a picture of a plant pot which had a wooden texture. We liked the way it looked so we did an extreme close up and edited it as black and white to make it more grunge-like. We also placed a picture on the front of paintings on a wall to show her interest in art, but we found this to be irrelevant with the rest of the images.

For this cover, we used more images of nature. The front cover shows an image of a path in a park, which looks quite isolated. We made it black and white but played around with the exposure and contrast to make it more grey, faded and 'hazy' looking. We also used a similar image of branches for the inside cover with the quote 'Head in the clouds, but my gravity's centered'. This is a song lyric from one of The Neighbourhood's songs which signifies being a dreamer. We used blurry lights for where the CD is actually placed. However, we found this to be quite boring so we decided to do another draft. We also struggled to find any images which would go with this entire album.

For this cover, we used the same elements from the other covers such as the inner cover with the quote and the front. On the back, we used the back cover from the first draft. On the inside, we used a long image of branches which cover 2 of the pages. We thought that this gave it quite a dark feeling which goes with the theme of our video. However, this also felt slightly too dull as we already had lots of images of branches. For the CD, we put a big 'A' to signify 'alleyways' and it's also the exact font of the a from the Haze logo.

We didn't proceed further with any of these drafts and created a brand new one as shown in a previous blog post with the final product. We did use elements from these drafts but we didn't feel satisfied enough with any of them to use.

Conventions of CD cover - Safwana

 THE CONVENTIONS OF CD COVERS INCLUDE:

Front Cover

• A simplistic colour scheme and design
• Few or no characters
• Use of a different colour for the band name compared to the rest of the cover
• Hidden meanings
• A title that explains to the audience what the album will be about
• Bold, simple fonts for the band name
• Similar or entirely opposite font for the album title 

We have a simplistic colour scheme and design going through our CD cover. The colour is black and white, more towards the grey shades, as it reflects our music video. The design is very simple and is mainly full of texture and nature to symbolise realism.
The band name 'HAZE' is in white, making it stand out from the grey background, I did not want to go for colour as it would not suit our music video.
The hidden meaning behind out front cover is that the image shows a journey, you can see a long path that fades away, this reflects the life and journey of the protagonist with her friend. The image is empty with just nature, I did not want people on the front cover, as the story is about emptiness and loss, thus the image explains to the audience what the album will be about.

Back Cover

• Band name at very top
• Name of album beneath this
• List of song titles, usually centered
• Barcode in bottom right hand corner
• Name of record company
• Copyright and year
• Who owns the copyrighted material
• Who the album has been distributed by

The back cover follows majority of the conventions of the CD cover. The band name is not at the top, instead I decided to have it on the spines and on the CD itself, as the band name would be in too many places making it a little uncomfortable. We have a list of the song titles on the back in the center with the times in which they start. Below we have a banner which has the company name, the label 'Colombia' we have the barcode in the right hand corner and the producer and distributer information to give it a professional feel.

 

Insides

• Colour scheme that is the same as the rest of album
• Blank, plain background
• No characters
• Few or no text 

The Insides follow the same colour scheme, however the rest of the conventions have been ignored. I decided to have the background a little busy but I put the opacity down enough so you are able to read the text, we have a reoccurring image of branches and leaves (nature). Also I went for more text rather than non, as I wanted the digipack to be personal, I wanted to make it worth the money, as those buying the digipack are expecting something different from the digital copy, thus by having lyrics of the movie gives the digipack a interacting feel, the target audience can sing or read along, also the CD Cover looks aesthetically pleasing, which could be used as a asset in ones room.
 
 
 
 

Spines

• Name of the record company in its recognised font, or logo
• Name of band
• Name of album
• Both in the same simplistic fonts
• Code linking to the record company

The spine has the original NBHD name, with the issue number, in very simplistic font and a code linking to the record company.
 

CD COVER DIGIPACK - Safwana

More cd cover inspiration - Safwana

Here I have found some CD cover inspiration, these are modern day covers, the previous Cd covers I looked at were out of date and old, so I wanted to find some modern examples and find inspiration.
The template for these Cd covers are the same as the one we have chosen, I wanted to see what was written or what images were placed on the different sides. I noticed it was very image based with very little text, however I wanted to move away from this convention and have more text as in contemporary society it is uncommon for the target audience to go and purchase a digipack, thus I felt by having text and some form of reading in the CD cover would potentially fulfill the fans needs. Only fans would purchase a digipack, as they would want a hard copy of the product instead of listening to it on a device, or on an app for example spotify. Therefore it was important for the digipack to interact with the target audience and make it worth the price.

With this example you can see a colour scheme throughout the CD cover, this is important as too many colour would make it confusing and uncomfortable to look at, this however is a different situation if it was a different genre for example Pop. Also what I found very interesting was the actual CD section, the CD cover has a different image and when you remove it, the background is of Lady Gaga. Originally I had not thought about this, and while creating the CD cover I took this into consideration.

This CD cover is similar to our own, it is simplistic and is focused around nature, the pop of colour is the red petals. Our CD cover will be all black and white as majority of our music video is in black and white. We will adjust the colours to be more Grey rather than black and white.

The 3 CD covers above are much modern, and are very artist focused, with lots of close up shots of the artist. Rihanna's Loud CD cover has a bleeding image of Rihanna, which carries on for 3 sections, this looks aesthetically pleasing. However with our music video we want to have some text to interact with the audience and make it feel worth the money. As having a hard copy is different from an digital, I feel it is necessary to have text in the hard copy to show the difference from an hard copy in comparison to a digital copy and its significance. The target audience are paying more to get a hard copy, thus we must fulfill their expectations.

Light Flares and Leaks- Safwana

Double Exposure - Safwana

Feedback from Year 10 - Yagmur

As our music video is aimed at a niche audience, we knew that it wouldn't be to everyone's taste or that some people may not even understand the deeper meaning/symbols in the video. Our media teacher suggested showing our video (which is almost finished) to a year 10 group to see their reactions and what they thought of the video. Even though they're not our target audience, it was interesting to hear their opinions which is beneficial to us as we can make some minor changes.

Person 1 - They found the song boring and the video slow pace and that they prefer Pop/R&B.

Person 2 - It's not for our age group.

Person 3 - The part of the song that says "Back in 1991" has the reverse shot of the friends jumping which is quite good.

Person 4 - The video is about two best friends.

Person 5 - The girl lost her friend because some shots shows them together whereas others show the girl by herself.

Person 6 - The friend died because of the shots of her walking into a graveyard.

Person 7 - There was a book of memories.

Person 8 - There is no friend and that she is actually imaginary.

Person 9 - The scrapbook is left in the graveyard, which must mean that she died.

Person 10 - The shadow/silhouette of the guy singing is really good.

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Below are some post it notes which the students wrote their initial ideas of the video before they gave the feedback in the video.

Framing, composition and lighting - Yagmur

This shot is framed quite well as we used the rule of thirds. The two friends aren't directly on the right and are closer to the middle so we still focus on them.

The lighting in this shot is quite dull and we may need to adjust this because it's hard to tell what is actually going on in the shot.

Similarly, the lighting also needs to be slightly brighter in this shot because as we filmed it at night, it's quite grainy and dull so it needs to be brighter.

This is one of our favourite shots because of how it fits in the frame. The windows are directly in the centre with the protagonist on the side and a plane flying out of the shot on the right.

This is also a good shot because of how it's framed. The trees/flowers all around the frame make us focus on the two friends more because they're directly in the middle.