Developed Second Draft

23/11/14
                    

I developed on my digipak, for a start, by changing the background. The previous background i felt looked terrible as the colours and the patterns were clashing with my images and making it look really clutter and unrealistic. I completely deleted the background and started from scratch by creating my own. I did this by downloading various brushes , mainly flower based, and installing them onto photoshop where i started to use them. When using the brushes i made sure the opacity was changing each time i changed the brush or colour so that it looks smooth and subtle. I also tried to use as much soft and light colours i could so that it flows with the digipak and genre. I altered the colour of one of the cd's so that you can see that they are both different and therefore that one cd(pink rose) has the tracklist tracks where as the other(blue) has the bonus tracks. By downloading the fonts i chose from daft i replaced some of the typefaces and made my own barcode via dafont.

By making these small changes has given a greater impact, when comparing to the previous digipak. This development has been highly successful as looking at the digipak i can see it building up and resolving into an amazing final digipak. The background being changed has given a brighter feminine side to the digipak amplifying the pop genre.

Second Digipak Draft

21/11/14

I decided to change the colours around as i want my digipak to be different and not typical. I altered the image on the cd of the rose by changing the hue and saturation so that the hue is blue rather than pink. By changing the hue of the image,i feel has given a greater impact as the cd's look more professional and original due to the rose being blue. Along with changing the hue's i altered the levels so that the image is more bold and captivating. However i am not entirely sure about the background on the digipak. I am not too sure whether it works as i feel it looks a bit too clutter and clashy due to the blue cd's. The photos that i have selected of our artist i think work extremely well due to the artists nature and style being portrayed clearly; sweet, innocent and girly as well as having that edge sexy look to her. The cover photo looks really good due to it following the pop genre conventions of an extreme close-up and the idea of male gaze is also demonstrated as the red lips and the extreme close-up shot provoke this. The convention of voyeristic image is shown on the third panel on the top row as the artist here has posed in a seductive way attracting men as well as her target audience. I really want to go along with the voueyristic and seductive side to Isabel Beau as this is what many Pop artists (female) are portrayed as in the media to appeal to the vast range of audience.

Second Shoot

18/11/14

Today we did our second shoot for our digipak. Due to the gallery not being available we used the media rooms and set up our own little setting having the white screens and lightings on the sides. The shoot went really well as the artist looked more pop due to the vibrant colours of make-up and the subtle stylish costumes along with accessories. Having the white screens being used was great advantage as we can change the backgrounds by having floral or plain coloured back grounds due to it being easier to edit. In this reshoot we captured lots of different shots which is a great advantage as we will now have lots to choose from. There are now more than enough photoshoot photos for our digipak. The only photos now we have to take is with the coloured houses in the background. But due to the dull weather during this week the shoot will not take place.

       

             

Second Shoot Planning

17/11/14

We have decided to do a reshoot of Poppy for our digipaks. This is because i think a change in the costume and make-up style will make our digipaks look more professional and realistic. When planning for the shoot we contacted each other via Facebook Messenger. Here we planned when we will carry the shoot out and also the costume in which we want our artist to be in. For the costume we planned Poppy to wear a white lace top with a raspberry leather skirt. I think that the costume that we have planned will be much better than before due to it being light and trendy representing the pop genre.The setting will be the same, at the gallery, as the white background worked really well in all the shots as well as the lighting there. 

                                      

Gallery Shoot

14/11/14

Today we did a shoot in the gallery of Poppy; our new model to represent our artist. The shoot went well as we got all the equipment ready on time;lighting, camera and setting. However the costume and the make-up that we used on Poppy was not ideal due to it being more indie than pop. However the photos we got were exactly the way i intended them to be. We got various shots like close-up, extreme close-up, mid- shots and long shots however i feel that the long shots didn't work too well due to the pipes in the lower wall being shown in the background. But all the other shots came out really beautifully. As most the shots came out really beautifully, i will select the ones i want to use and play around with editing the clothes so that its not too dark.

               

First Digipak Draft

14/11/14

I have developed on my first draft of my digipak by replacing the old photos with new photos of the new artist. I have added typography so that a rough idea is seen of what my digipak is intended to look like. The fonts that are used are only temporarily, as i have chosen the font style for the artist and album name on Dafont. However due to there being an issue in getting the fonts onto photoshop, for the time being, i am using photoshop fonts that are similar to the ones i have selected. The typography that will be used for the rest of the text, excluding the artist's name, will be very plain and simple as i don't want the type to be too fancy and clashing with the imagery. The artist's name will be fancy so that it is recognisable due to it being consistent in all her albums.

I also edited the photos of Poppy so that they are refined to give that finish photoshop look, which many artists do in their album covers and posters. I was also experimenting with the frames, cropping a range of sizes to see which looks better. I think the extreme close-up(last cropped shot) works really well due to it being a real close-up shot showing the artists emotions and feelings reflecting on her album(uncovered).

   

I think i need to experiment more with the colours. Maybe instead of pink being the main colour have something like turquoise or teal. I think more experiments need to be made with the typography colour too as i don't feel that it works too well. However, i am beginning to really like my digipak as it is starting to look professional and conventional of the pop genre. The ideas that are developing within the digipak is clearly shown due to the gradual development and improvements being made.

Digipak CD's

Here are some examples of pop artist album cd's that i looked at. They are all very simple in that the imagery/pattern/background used is plain. The typography of the artist and album name is the key as they have been represented largely and clearly compared to the other typography. I really like the idea of having the artist and album name in the centre with the extra information surrounding the outline of the cd. I think that looks really classy and professional. The record logo in Elli Goulding'd 'Bright Lights' has been placed at the bottom centre of the cd which makes the cd look neat and clean. I will take in to consideration all these ideas and influences of these cd's when it comes to designing my cd's as part of my digipaks.

Gallery Shoot planning

We are planning on doing a reshoot for our digipak photos on this following Friday in the school Art gallery. We need to do a reshoot as the artist has now changed to Poppy and we need some photos of her that we can include as part as our digipak. We contacted Poppy through Megan's Facebook asking which days she was available and told her to take some photos of costumes that will be well suited for this type of genre and artist.    

                            

                           

As we are also planning on doing a shoot at Notting Hill with the coloured houses in the background the white background photos from the gallery will work well together on one digipak. From the first test shoot we can use some of the photos that we took of nature. For example the leaves from the trees being the cover of the CD.

Pitch presentation

10/11/14

Today my group and i presented our pitch to the whole classroom. While doing our presentation we were being recorded by Sean. By recording us presenting our pitch was useful as it gave us an idea on what we are like when it comes to presentation and how to improve for when doing a pitch next time. Watching our presentation, i think, we were all organised in knowing what to do and say and we were all explaining the areas clearly. By having the handouts to the classmates, it think was pretty handy as they got an idea on what we are looking into.

     

Digipak Plan

07/11/14

Today i started to create my first digipak draft. I did this by gathering all the photos we took from the first test shoot and selecting my favourite ones and the ones that i feel will follow the pop convention. I then downloaded a digipak template off the internet, opened it up on photoshop and started to construct my digipak by adding photos.

I have decided not to have my digipak consistent to the music video as through my digipak i want to show the artist being represented as a conventional pop artist. Through my digipak i want to show the artist as herself with bright colours and stylish clothes so that it is clear to the target audience of what type of genre this artist and album is based around. I also don't want to give away the narrative of the music video away to easily to the audience. By keeping the album simple will draw the audience into consuming it and finding out about the songs and their music videos. Although some artist have their album consistent to there music video, like Katy Perry, mine will not be.

Although none of these images will be part of my final digipak, due to the artist being changed, by creating this draft gave me a vague idea on what type of shots i want taken of the artist where and in what angle. I started off creating my cd  with an image of leaves but then developed it into having a rose which i cropped and brightened the tone. I think the rose cd works much better as it give that beautiful, girly pop vibe. I also feel that it will work really well along with the photos we will take of Poppy at Notting Hill.

Reshoot at another location

Originally we were all planning to do a shoot, at Notting Hill, sometime next week. However  due to it being 1hr and 30mins away from us we felt that it will be  a mission getting there and back travelling with the whole group carrying the tripod and the DSLR. The main reason why we wanted to take photos there was because of the coloured houses. By having the background of the setting being bright will amplify the pop genre in our digipaks. We spoke to Sean and he mentioned Dacre Park, in Blackheath, which also has a few coloured houses.

I researched into Dacre Park finding out how far it was and what type of coloured houses there were. As its only in BlackHeath, which is 20mins away, doing a shoot there will efficient as it won't take long to get there. Although there isn't many coloured houses or brightly coloured houses i think this setting is pretty suitable and efficient. I think when it comes to refining the photos i will just changing the contrasting and brightness so that the coloured houses look bright and bold. We haven't fixed a day yet on when we exactly want to film due to the weather; we want to be filming on a sunny bright day, like on the first shoot, so that the photos come out really clear and bright.

If the photos don't come out that well in Blackheath, we will go to a place in Greenwich near the orthodontist practise and take some photos there. There are a few coloured houses there, but there is a house with a bright red door which really stands out and will look nice as a background.

                              

Developed presentation

From going through the feedback of our pitch we developed our presentation slightly by adding slides for our storyboard and mood board and changing parts of it.
             

Pitch Feedback

The positive feedbacks we got was that our music video has potential, the artist appearance is clear and the use of terminology was good. The bad points about our pitch mainly was that people were confused with the narrative slightly due to there not being any storyboards presented or animatics. After completing the pitch we then realised and remembered that we forgot to present our storyboards and mood boards tot the class. By having the class and teacher giving us feedback on our pitch was really useful as it made us aware of things we didn't notice and gave us ideas on how we can improve and develop on it. These are all the feedback sheets we got from Sean and the class. 

 

Change in Narrative

From one of the feedbacks on our pitch we got was that the narrative was a bit difficult to understand in that of the young girl growing up throughout the video and how it will relate to the family problems. My group and i had a discussion on whether to still continue with this idea or not. We came upon a decision of changing our narrative slightly so that it is a bit more simple and easier to understand. The narrative will now be of a young girl doing ballet dancing as an escapism from her home where here parent are constantly arguing and fighting.The narrative will convey the message of the girl dancing to keep her away from family problems and will also express her feeling and emotions of feeling lonely and fed up of her parents always arguing. 

When it comes to editing the music video, we will experiment with having all the narrative in black and white and the scenes showing Isabel Beau in colour. The whole black and white concept will be used to show the difference between the narrative and the artist singing so that the audience don't get confused. By having the narrative in black and white will connote the idea of the storyline being emotional, serious and upsetting.

     

Typography of Album Name 'Uncovered'

From the feedback i got from Sinead, i started to look on www.Dafont.com for some font styles for our album name 'Uncovered'. As we all felt that the album name being quite simple would look professional and classy along with the fancy artist name typography, i researched into the Basic fonts. Researching into pop artist albums, many of their typography font styles are very basic and simple. They don't even consist of logo's due to their name being consistent in every album and being recognisable. Therefore i think there will be no need of us creating a Logo as most Pop artists don't have one as they have their name being as a trademark. 

I found a range of fonts that we quite liked and created a questionnaire on which one was the best for our album. I gave the questionnaire out in our Media Mac room as here there will be media students and will have a greater understanding of typography and genre's and which is well suited for each genre. The questionnaire was handed out to 16 people between the ages of 16 and 25. We recorded the results in a tally chart and it made it easier for us to conclude which font style is better.

From the results we found that the Roboto by Google Android Design was the best font style for our pop genre album. Megan and Hayley agreed with this font working well and suiting our genre and music album. However Aaron and i feel that the Futurist fixed-width by WSI font looks better and gives a greater impact due to the spacing. I told Sinead about this and she said its fine if some of us prefer a different font to another in our group as we will all design our digipaks differently due to them being constructed individually.

I really like the first font style as i feel that the spacing looks really classy and professional and expresses the pop genre. It also reminds me of Rihanna's album 'Loud'.

Megan came up of an idea of the 'U' and the 'C' in 'Uncovered' being capital letters would look good, so i experimented with this style of type on both of our preferred font style. However i don't feel like it works well as it looks a bit odd and strange giving the title a French element which will confuse our target audience.