Update 19/12/13

Today I managed to upload a draft of my music video. It took me longer than I expected as I wanted to export it with high quality. It took me five tries to get it right, because when I uploaded it to youtube the quality of the video was rubbish. But with only 30 minutes of the lesson left I FINALLY got it to work :D

After uploading my video, I decided to start taking pictures for my digi pack booklet. I'm hoping on taking more pictures tomorrow, hopefully one of the dog for both the digi pack and poster.

Music Video Draft

Please leave me comments!! :)

Designing A Magazine Advert

This is my first rough draft of how my magazine advert could look like.

Further design for CD cover

To create this, I'm going to have to take an extremely clear photo of the dog close up and looking directly at the camera. It would have to be taken in good light for me to whiting the image without it losing quality. on photoshop I will have to select only the eyes to put on a white background, and whiten it to make it seem 'natural'. I will have to layer an image of the coyote dancer on the eyes and tint it yellow (as coyotes have yellow eyes). The text would be small and centred below the eyes, keeping it formal and professional.

Brainstorming

Update 18/12/13

In today's lesson, I did some brainstorming for my digi pack and magazine advert. I also did a quick sketch of the layout of the magazine advert, making notes on adjustments that I need to make. Tomorrow, I am hoping on uploading a draft of my music video onto the blog. 

Analysing Student Work - Magazine Advert

This magazine advert has a warm, welcoming design with basic effects and fonts over the top of the image. The image is casual and simple but stands out strongly, with a centred long shot of the actors in their music video.  It doesn't seem that a lot of thought was put in this poster, as it is all very basic and unprofessional without adjustments and filters over the image to make it seem less homemade. However, this could of been their aim as the song and music video didn't use any colour correction or fancy effects. In addition, I still believe more should have been done, for instance blurring and whitening the edges (quite like how the fog blurs out the buildings). 

The title 'The Hush Sound' is white and large covering the top of the tree making it easy to read against the green. However the website addresses are more difficult to see as the sky is shown though the gaps of the tree. The title of the album 'We Intertwined' is at the bottom of the advert in a different font to the rest of the text, suggesting the importance of it as it is separated from the rest. 

There are only two other features included on the magazine advert: the record label and a QR code at the bottom of the page. The record label is needed on the advert to show the institution the artist/group is supported by. The QR code however is a more newer form of getting the audience involved: they would scan the code using a device such as a mobile which would lead them to their website. This would be best used on adverts that are aimed at young teenage audiences who like latest technologies. 

Research on my Digi Pack

http://jasonmraz.com/ - Official Mraz website

Here is just some basic research towards my digi pack. It's more information gathering than a brainstorm :)

CD cover designs

After looking at some of the previous designs of Mraz's CD covers, I decided to create some of my own influenced by the simple style of less-is-more. Out of the two designs however, my favourite is the coyote eyes that show the reflection of a coyote dancer. This is because it is very empty and clear like the 'Love' album cover.

Analysing Student Work - Digi Pack

The overall template of this digi pack is very plain: you fold it horizontally then vertically. It doesn't include a booklet like the digi packs that I've looked at, and belongs either in a very thin case or the whole thing could be made out of cardboard.

This students digi pack reminds me of the Madness digi pack, because of the montage of photographs. The CD of this digi pack is plain and simple with clear black writing on white. It is rather contrasting against the montage of photos for the front cover, but it suggests that they didn't want anything flashy - the photos seem down to Earth and the CD isn't anything special.

The album title 'Crash' is in block capital letters diagonally across the front cover, with a scratched up appearance. It is the main focus and the obscured effect makes it seem as though it is being pushed outwards, like a 'crash'. The band name 'You Me At Six' is in the same font as the album title, but is made a lot smaller and put in the bottom left hand corner. This usually suggests that the band is either not well known or very well known - like how on Mraz's CD covers his name is usually small or not even on there.

The back cover of this design (bottom left square) includes the typical layout of the back covers I've analysed: Numbered list of the songs on the disc, lightened image as a background, barcode, record labels, social websites and official band website. It is a clear layout with similar colours used to the front cover, such as the white writing and hazy browns and greens in the image.



The inside image is the same design to the front cover, but isn't blurred and darkened. Some digi packs do reuse images, like the Christmas one - it reuses the same image from the front cover on the background of the disc.

Overall the design this student has created fits in with the typical design of real digi packs - a creative front cover and a clear back cover, with the whole design colour coordinated and professionally finished.

Update 11/12/13

Today in class I went back to editing my video. It's pretty much complete now, it just needs polishing. I hoping that for the rest of the week I'll be able to do some more research on Digi packs and magazine adverts. I did try and find some magazine adverts in magazines, but I wasn't able to come across any yet. I may need to go in a shop and search for magazines to buy. 

Analysing Digi Packs - Madness

This digi pack is for an older pop band (1970s-1990s) called Madness. The front cover of the CD has the entire group posing, with a plain white background behind them and the title 'Complete Madness'. The clothing the Madness group are wearing is old fashioned suiting the era they are from:Tartan influenced by the punks, rounded old fashioned glasses, a red leather jacket, and a turtle neck jumper worn under a cream suit. The image was most likely taken 20 years ago as the group look young.

The back cover is decorated with a montage of photographs, sketches/doodles and objects. It holds a busy personalised style, again fitting punk. Punk fashion was a social art movement in the late 70s and 80s, where people would personalise and redesign their clothing to fit them as an individual. Like the Christmas digi pack and also any other typical CD cover, there is a list of songs which are included in the album in a column on the left. The back cover also mentions how it includes a '12 page full colour booklet' with comments from the group. Like other back covers to CD's, it includes a barcode, the record labels and copyrights.

Inside the Digi pack, it's CD on the right and booklet on the left like most Digi packs. Like the Christmas album however, the front cover is part of the booklet instead of being separate.

The disc design reflects upon the title of the album and group name 'Complete Madness' (The group name is Madness, and the 'complete ' before it refers to how the album has their greatest hits and also how it means the phrase 'complete madness'). It reflects the title as the string puppets are tangled together from being controlled by the group at the top. It is chaotic and unclear. Behind the disc, there is a montage of photos, doodles and objects again like the back cover.

The booklet inside is just like what the back cover said: 'includes 12 page full colour booklet with comments on each track from Madness'. The layout of each page is again montages of photos, doodles and objects. The inside from the back of the booklet includes a lift of the album songs again, but with extra information such as record labels and publishers. The back of the booklet includes quotes from the group in small writing. It is tricky to read and feels a bit pointless of being there when it is that small.

Analysing digi packs - Christmas CD

This CD is from a group of CD's - 'CD one'. This is shown clearly on the front cover at the bottom centre. The title of the CD is at the top centre of the cover in larger red lettering. The red stands out well against the white clouds of the image - we assume it is Wales in the snow - and suggests a festive style. 'Christmas' is larger than the rest of the title, emphasising the fact that it is a Christmas CD. There are links to the title through imagery, such as the the Welsh dragon at the top and the snowy mountains.

The back cover of the CD has a list of the songs included on the disc in a numbered order, in a column. It is mostly white but shows part of an image from the front cover. Theres a barcode on the bottom right hand corner and the record label on the left. These are what usually are found on the back of albums. It also includes a website, which helps promote the group.


















The CD is red and silver, keeping to the colour scheme of the cover. A close up of the Welsh dragon covers the disc, referring to the fact that the group is a choir of Welsh men. The red has a festive appearance, but it is used because the Welsh dragon is red.













The inside of the case is like any other: Booklet of the left, CD on the right. The booklet is part of the front cover, and has glossy pages - a professional finish.











On the back of the booklet there is the list of songs and inside there is a double page of suggested albums from the record label. There isn't much information given to the owners, as it is kept simple and clear. However, on the back of the booklet with the list of songs, there is additional information about the artists next to the songs (for instance what company they are from). There is also a 'Total Playing Time' at the bottom of the page.





Behind the disc there is an image of snowy mountains again. This shows that behind the disc it is not as important and only uses an image to fill up space.

When I create my digi pack, I'm going to keep it plain and simple, following Mraz's typical 'less-is-more' style.

Analysing Student Work - Website

http://musicmakesmonet.wix.com/vivabrother

This students website has a professional finish and many pages to keep it's audience interested and entertained. 

On the home page, there is an image of the group, with the lead singer in the centre and more in front of the others (in bands the singer is usually made to be seen as more important and gets more screen time than the others). It has the typical style of a website of having the menu of links across the top of the page and the name of the band in the corner. A feature that I quite liked of the website, is the music video he created playing automatically in the corner of the page - it pushes the audience to pay attention to it. However, what I would improve of this layout, is if everything was more centered instead of being  a bit off to one side. 

He included links to advertise to the audience to follow/subscribe to the group on social websites.

The home page also includes clips of information, to gain their audiences attention to read more.

The layout of the 'Releases' page is simple yet effective; The album covers are put in order of newest at the top, with the latest double the size filling up one row. To make this page a bit better for the audience, there should be links next to the album covers to the best shops that would sell them. Also it is a bit difficult to read the album title off the album cover, so there should be the name next to each of the images. 

The 'Store' page is again simple and clear, and very easy to follow. You are able to click on the images to see details and then use the arrows to view the next product. There is also typical features of an online store, such as the 'Add to Cart button'.

The 'Gallery' link includes a bunch of images of the group, which have been colour manipulated. A decent camera had been used, as they are of a high quality, making the website seem a lot more professional. The images are also different sizes and overlap into each others row/column, giving it a slight mood board appearance. 

Christmas mood board with similar style to 'Gallery'

The 'Contacts' page isn't as clear or professional as the rest of the website, but the image used portrays the band as one who cares about performance. The contacts aren't that clear as they don't stand out well against the image.

The overall colour scheme of the website is very dark, brown and grey: The basic background is black.

Update 5/12/13

Today I've just been doing more research on websites, magazine adverts and CD covers. It helped quite a bit as I now have a few more ideas to what I could do. This week (or weekend) I am hoping on doing some more research by looking in magazines and finding digipacks to analysis.

Controversial Music Video - Blurred Lines

Blurred lines by Robin Thicke has caused a lot of uproar this year, because of its rape based lyrics and the indecent video presenting women as brainless objects.



There are two views on this video and song: one being the 'feminist' view where people are outraged and believe that the song has too many connotations to rape and 'grooming', and the other view is how Thicke is very respectable to women and how the song "doesn't" encourage rape culture.

Robin Thicke has hit back at student leaders over claims his worldwide No1 Blurred Lines is part of “rape culture”.

But he has dismissed the students’ stance as “ridiculous” – and insisted that he wrote the song for his wife.
(What even?)

The music video suggests sexist stereotypes of how women should dress (in other words have no clothes on) for men's pleasure, and also by having the men fully dressed in suits suggests their power over the women.

The events in the video also suggests a man's bar as there are women strutting about for the men but not enjoying themselves: there is a scene with one of the models coughing because of Thicke smoking and also another model looking in the camera bored.

There is also a scene in the music video where Thicke pays another man. This suggests that he is paying for a woman, like the another man owns a whore house. This again shows how the video and song is disrespectful to women and shows how they are just for pleasure.

Even though the creators of this song says that it is not rape based, the costumes in this video fits well with the fact of it being rape based. For instance in the clean version, the women are wearing white suggesting innocence. However the style of there clothes are sexual, but suggests how rapists tell the courts that the victims were dressed teasingly. The nude one could also suggest innocence as they are not wearing anything sexual: they are more pure and simple. There are two men in this music video who wear black suits and sun glasses. The colour black holds its typical connotations of 'bad guy', in this case referring to rapists. The sunglasses make them seem like they are hiding - used as a disguise. But they also suggest that the singers are trying to be 'cool' - being cool gets the girl.

Some of the audience believes that the song is more about how the girls boyfriend is trying to control her and that the singer wants her to cheat on him:

This is a good point, but in general there are more people who believe this song is very rape based. For instance a lot of people pick up on the lyrics 'Give you something big enough to tear your ass in two' and 'He don't smack that ass and pull your hair for you'. 

An article comparing lines from the song to what rapists have said to there victims

Worth the read, but I'm a bit disturbed by it :(

http://www.psmag.com/culture/mouths-rapists-lyrics-robin-thickes-blurred-lines-66569/

There has been many parodies made to this song, all agreeing that Blurred Lines is sexist and disgusting:

This parody purely takes the mick out of the song, video and singers.



This version however focuses more on making a serious point to how the original song is extremely offensive to women.



Even though there has been many bad things said about the music video and song it has gone viral on the internet because of people always wanting to make fun of it.

Ancillary Tasks - Analysing Magazine Adverts: Jessie J

An A4 sized advert that covers the whole page. Everything is  centered, even the artist. It's main focus is the artist Jessie J, situated in the top centre of the page. It is a straight on close up of the artist, allowing the viewers to recognise her. Jessie J's pose and appearance in this poster suggests that she is feisty, rebellious and doesn't care (attitude). 

The colour scheme is very basic and nearly monochrome; White background, black and grey clothes and very whitened skin. Golden writing is used on the magazine advert, contrasting against the black and white. It has a metallic shine suggesting a rather 'chavy' style. Also to support this, the 'Jessie J' title is on her neck, reminding me of a large piece of jewelry.  

The Jessie J website is included on the advert to help promote interaction with the audience - view news on the artist and buy merchandise. Sponsors and labels are included in the bottom corners in white, as they want the logos to by noticed but not the focus.

The design of the advert is from the album cover it's self. This could be to help the audience recognise the album cover if they wish to purchase it.

http://www.jessiejofficial.com/

Her website also has a theme of black and white. However it suggest purity than her being rebellious (the website is newer than the magazine advert I've just looked at - new album).

It has a soft and delicate atmosphere: The artist isn't wearing black like in the cd cover design and when you scroll down the page she fades and disappears.