My Evaluation

Media Evaluation on Prezi

Our finished music video

Here is our music video to eliza Dootlitle "Moneybox", I hope that you enjoy it.

Mind of ideas

MindMap of my music video ideas on Prezi

Minor song choice problems

We really wanted to pick the cover of "Everybody's changing- Keane" by Lily Allen, but as she is a very big star there will be an immediate preconsumption of what a Lily Allen music video will be like. Because of this we decided not to use this song as we didn't want to pick a song which has too much heavy meaning to it, we also didn't want to make a music video of our choice which didn't suit this very well known song

The second song that we were thinking of picking was the cover of "Sheila- Jamie T" by Leddra Chapman, this song felt completely perfect but after listening to the song properly we noticed that because the music video and only recording of the song is set outside their is atmospheric sound in the background which we weren't sure if we could edit out. In order to divert a possible big problem we decided to go for another choice of song.

Our chosen song

2nd choice of song

3rd choice of music video

Website

Here are pictures of each page of our our website.

Homepage

Merchandise

Tour Dates

Videos

Contact

Website Analysis

Today the website for our star was made. This was made on www.Wix.com. The caused a lot of problems and resulted in making 3 websites, the first website made wasn't saved before being saved,the second was on a template that once we started going with it, felt like there wasn't space to put any of the information that would be relevant for a singers website, therefore having to create a third and final product which came out perfectly (If I say so myself) not only does the colour scheme fit our themes, but they are also the same colours used for the "Moneybox" lyrics cover, this was done to show the continuity of the two. For a singer to go to such depths to advertise one song is not unusual in the music worlds, some stars change there whole image to convey a song e.g. Rihanna- Disturbia and even relate a whole marketing campaign to song e.g. Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" themed nail varnish range for O.P.I.

The normal conventions of a singers website consists of Tour dates/Merchandising/Gallery/Contact Info/Videos and a homepage. As we felt these were the most important things to include in a website these were what we added.

Our merchandising page includes the price of upcoming singles/albums/posters/Apps

The gallery page which is situated on the homepage is a compilation of pictures of our star.

As our star isn't an international star, we decided to add a "Contact info" page, this makes it easy for clients to book our star for gigs, appearances etc.

The video page was very important as this is the page that we include our own music video. Most people go onto stars websites in seek of new official videos to watch.

Here is the link to our website: http://www.wix.com/robinarchard/eviexoxo#!

Reflective of process of making artwork: Digi-Pack

For the digi-pack we used Photoshop, the reason we used this software is because I am semi capable of using it because of using it for a previous assignment and I am aware of their fantastic editing program.

This turned out to be a lot harder than expected when making our digi-pack as it is difficult to freely move things around, once placed onto the page, because of Photoshop's interesting "Layering" technique, this took some serious getting use to, meaning that myself and my group had to play around with the software in order to get use to it and although this felt like a complete burden it was a gateway to find out some of its qualities that we didn't know. We also faced problems like saving files as particular things e.g. JPEG. This task in itself proved to be challenging but we also knew that if we couldn't save it in a this particular format then we would screen shot the pictures, this would bring down the quality of the picture but was the only way we could think of. This problem was resolved and the digi-pack was successfully saved as a JPEG image. Making the digi-pack and choosing songs to be on the lyric pages was not difficult as we knew that the best artists songs to use would be who other than Eliza Dootlittle! We then carefully picked the songs that we thought were most significant therefore earning a place on a lyric page.

Digi-Pack analysis

Our album is named "Wild Fire" we decided to make the font black, to stand out, this is very important information and we wanted it to stand out in contrast to the lively coloured background. The album that what we have created for our digi-pack is very brightly coloured, we decided to do this to show the colourful side of our star. This was all created by altering the exposure of our original picture similar to the over expostion process of our music video. We also altered the hue, saturation and brightness of it until we got to our desired colour. This album cover shows the star exactly how we want her to be portrayed, if someone saw this album cover you would automaticaly think fun and playfullness, this is the idea we wanted. The reason for all of these bright different colours on the same picture is to unify the rest of the pictures in the album as they are all altered to one immediate colour.

This lyrics page has been coloured in a bright green to again show the persona of our star. The pose inwhich our star is in, linked with the colour of green gives of a witch like sense, which was to show the star in different moods/characters. The shape of the picture and the size meant that we had to place it on the bottom therefore putting the lyrics on top of the picture, which is not usaully seen in albums, so we thought this would give a unique element to this particular page. We did have some difficulty splitting the lyrics up into equal or appropriate parts on top of the picture, but after trial and error we found a layout that worked.

This is our third page, on this we decided to make it bright purple, this was to clash with the two covers before this, colour clashing (Blocking) is extremley fashionable right now and thus leading us to think of colour blocking when decided the colours for each picture that we used.
The position that she is in shows her having fun in a strange pose. This was done to exaggerate her uniqueness as a person, which reflects through this picture.

This contrasting colour scheme that we have chosen is both for colour and purpose as it links our colour blocking system and it doesn't seem out of place as the effect that we have put on the picture of our star is in the same colour scheme, along with the colour of her lips and the title of the song "Mr. Medicine" standing out. Even though we edited the lips of this picture it still links to our hair and make-up ideas as this is a bright lip colour which is something our star will usually wear.

As this is our music video song we decided to give this picture a lot of attention, meaning that the layout is complelty different to any other one that we have done. The teal colour that shows throughout this picture is similiar to the one we used in the last picture (Mr. Medicine) to link the two and this also has a two toned colour effect to it, showing both baby pink and teal. This close up shot shows the stars playful facial expresssion that doesnt imeaditaly link to the name of the song or our music video but this was because her random free spirit needed to be shown.






This long shot of the star is to show the outfit that she is wearing as I have mentioned the importance of her style considering her target audience, it was important that we added shots of her outfit, which is what we did. As this song was particularly long we thought it would be a good idea to split our lyrics into two paragraphs and have our star in the center. All though this is not an immediately bright colour we have exaggerated the brightness of her skin colour and outfit, this makes her colourful shorts seem brighter than they are, again thinking to our brightly coloured album theme.

The is a medium-long shot of our star in an interesting position, we wanted the album to have a vary of shot sizes and shapes, so for the lyric page of "Rollerblade's" we have chosen to show Evie's most active pose, where she is sitting with an innocent facial expression, in this shot Evie is clearly wearing "Nike" trainers, this was included to show her more active side. This can also leave space for possible advertisement deals that our star could be approached by, considering her fashion credibility.

The last picture we used for our digi-pack was very intentional, as the denotations of our stars actions show that this is the end, as in a "All gone" gesture. This relates to it being the last lyrics page. We have decided to go for a long shot to show her outfit which links again to the outfits seen in our music video and that was discussed in our group blog (Floral patterned skirt).

This is the back cover of our album. This page is very important to advertising the star as this is were we all of her details e.g. her record company, who is involved in the making of her music etc. Because of the detail that would go into this information we decided no to go into depths of her associates and just put her record company down. The different coloured fonts that we used for the names of each song are in different colours to again show our theme, the picture of our star has been altered slightly to brighten up the natural colours of the jumper. The way that our stars eyes are directed to draws attention to the names of the song lyrics, many album cover do this as the first thing you will look at when seeing this page is the star, then the positioning, then the way her body/eyes are facing. In complete contrast, the album name has been written in white differenlty to the album cover where it is coloured in black, this was an initial design idea. We have also included a QRR scan code which can be scanned by smartphones which takes you to the our stars website
http://www.wix.com/robinarchard/evie, this was included to relate to our target audience who are big users of smart phones, therefore making it easier to advertise our stars website. We added a barcode for authenticy, this makes the back of the album seem like a purchasable product.

Digi-Pack

Music Video analysis: Katy Perry- A part of me

This music video by Katy Perry, shows very heavy use of narrative, this being that a tainted relationship that has always made her not do what she wanted to do in life and held her back is finally over, by her accord, thus helping her grown stronger and then committing her life to the marines. As the video begins the use of diegetic sound is a radio station in which people are calling it and talking about their relationship issues:
Presenter: "So why you still with him then?" Distressed woman: "He says that one day he wants to have kids with me, and that he
hates travelling and being away from me". Presenter: "So whats the problem?" Distressed woman: "How come it takes him like two hours to call me back, I just think that's shady." as this is happening we see Katy Perry who plays the main character looking at a locket and at a man kissing a attractive blonde woman at a work environment. This is interesting at just by this 25 second extract of the music video we as a viewer already understand what is happening in the world of the music video and that the main female character is at breaking point of being disrespected in her relationship. As the female lead confronts her spouse and tells him there relationship is over the music begins. This was to show the importance of this part of the video, it was important that the viewer understood this part of the narrative.

As the main character goes into a shop and sees an advertisement for the marines saying "All women are created equal, then some become marines" this is a slight foreshadowing of the events to come, she then abruptly goes into the toilets and in a very distressing scene she cuts off all of her hair whilst crying, this shows the extent in which she is going, to rid herself of all of the thoughts of her ex-spouse. As she is getting ready to go to the marine camp, she also wraps her bust in bandage to hide her womanly parts, her cutting of her hair and covering her cleavage shows her striving to become seen as equal, not as a woman but as a equal human being. As the story progresses we see her using a memory of her and her spouse at a fun fair playing a game with a fake gun targeting an object, which she uses to her advantage when practicing to shoot targets with real guns in a drill.

Throughout the video Katy Perry is acting as this strong female in the marines, but occasionally singing parts of the song to show that this is still a music video, there is also a main singing part of the music video were Katy Perry is slightly acting out of character as herself singing and dancing in the army uniform, she also seems slightly more done up make up wise and seems to be smiling and seems free which is not seen at any other time in the music video. The music video ends in a highly interesting shot of the main character staring intensely into the camera with a sense of anger and full camouflage make-up .

Music video analysis: Kanye West ft T-Pain- Goodlife

As the music video starts we see the main star (Kanye West) writing words with a black marker, this helps the rest of the music video be layed out as Kanye West writing this, although as the video progresses he is not writing with a pen anymore we know all of these words and pictures seen are a part of Kanye's thoughts. This music video relies on the use of writing and animations. The music video pictures are also linked to the words said in the dong for example, when Kanye West says “I go to shine” this is what is said in thick black writing next to him, as if it is some type of speech bubble of words written in thick black writing. This use of constant animated writing on the screen makes the viewer seem as if what we are watching is in fact a diary of what he is saying. Kanye West has also added advertisement of his own into the music video as someone who is a fan will notice these two connotations of Kanye West as an artist; 1. Being the sunglasses that he made fashionable and 2. The use of teddy bears dressed as jock, which was seen as his mascot. As viewers we know that these animations are not real, but in one part of the music video Kanye West seems to be sitting on a flashy car which is an animation.

As this genre of music is hip hop/rap it was only conventional that scantly clad women are seen in the music video, not only is their a real women seen to be Kanye's love interest but there is also several semi dressed animated women throughout the music video. The use of one particular part of writing covering a derogatory word that cannot be shown was interesting, these words are normal to hip hop/rap genre music, meaning 

these words are inevitable and had to be dodged and were dodged cleverly without being blatant and without offending anyone. There is no narrative in this music video, apart from the fact that we know Kanye West and T-Pain are companions and the woman in video is Kanye Wests love interest because of the interaction between the characters and their facial expressions wee know as a viewer that this is a light hearted video which is to be taken as fun. Kanye West, T-Pain and the leading lady are also only seen in black and white, with bold bright colours seen behind them, I believe this was done to highlight the writing and the animations, not the characters.

Editing problems

Once me and my group had finished editing our music we were told we should then over expose our music video which seemed odd at first but we still went with it. As we finished completely editing our video we were then told that we would have to edit each cut scene one by one, meaning that it would take a very long time to have our whole music video over exposed as we couldn't over expose it as a whole, each tiny scene had to be individually edited. This starting fleshing red lights in all of our eyes as this is a highly time consuming job. It wasn't even a choice to not over expose our video as this was something we were heavily relying on to make put music video how we wanted it to be. At the end of the day we have now learnt to NEVER do this again and we are going, and if anyone every has queries on over editing that they over expose before cutting everything to save valuable time.

Casting discussions

Because of our choice of star (Eliza Doolittle) and the type of character that she portrays it was highly important that we casted the perfect girl who could, believably mime the words of Eliza Dootlittle and for it to look like that particular voice was truly coming out of the actresses mouth. For this we casted Emma Byrne, but after serious consideration consulting time and when we could film, we decided to change our main star to Robyn Archard who is also in my group meaning that having our main star a person who is in the group, there will be less reasons for not having filmed considering the main star would also want to have a good amount of footage. Our main star being a part of our group made the filming process much easier. She also fitted what we wanted our main star role main more than our first choice. We knew that we would only need one star in our music video, no extras or anything, so picking a main star was the most important decision we had to make when casting was the subject.

Analysis of previous student work

As a group that this music video was very impressive and would say this was also one of our inspirations of making our own music video in accordance to the use of over exposing, which is what we used for our own music video. I thought that the use of the words spelt out on the fridge with fridge magnets was a cool quirky way of showing the words of the song, also the use of the pictures of the main star on the fridge was a good way of the music video seem like real life, as people usually stick pictures of themselves up on fridges, this also shows the work that they had to apart from filming e.g taking pictures to put onto the fridge. The fact that they also have a main star singing in front of a white background shows that they have researched the codes and conventions of a pop/indie music video which this song seems to be. The narrative of the music video is very clever, I love the thought that throughout the whole music video the girl is waiting for her loved one to return to her, whilst trying to pass the time she is playing several different games, which links to out music video of playing with toys and games.

The use of balloons towards the end of the music video is a fun way of subliminally showing that it was near the end of of the video. There is also a good shot of the star laying in the balloons which is seen heavily in music videos were the main star is seen laying in a bed of sweets, diamonds etc. At the end of the music video as the door opens and the main star looks out of the window this is a good in conclusive finish which keeps the audience thinking about whether or not the person who opened the door is the person she has been waiting for, we as a viewer feel like we are on a journey with the main star.

Digi pack analysis: Katy Perry

 Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" digipack shows the theme of sweets, with pink being the main colour seen throughout.The front cover of the album when opened up so you can see both the back page and front page connects to make one large picture which is an extension of the picture of Katy Perry naked embedded in a cloud of candy floss, this immediately shows the interest in sweets, which links to the design seen on the CD's.One is designed to look like the red and white stripes seen on a holiday candy cane and the other to look like a sugary doughnut. The colour of the font used used a liquorice red, and every time the letter "o" is used the letter is replaced with a small circle that looks similar to the candy striped CD. The large picture inside the digipack shows Katy Perry again with pink and pastel coloured props, in front of a black background, I believe that the black background was used to show make the pastel colours seem more vivid.

Another picture seen in the digipack is one which is similar to the album cover shot but a close up to show the  stars face as a long shot for a album cover is very rarely seen, so to show a close up from a shot taken on probably taken on the same day shows Katy Perry up close. Not only does this show the stars face at close range but it shows her nudity up close as because of the canted angle of the shot the only thing covering one of Katy Perry's breasts is her hand. A clever marketing technique was the fact that this album cover smelt of Candy floss, once unwrapped the paper inserted into the album cover smelt of candy floss once rubbed. This was done to trigger the nostalgia nature of smelling candy floss at a fun fair as a teenager with your loved one, hence the name "Teenage Dream".

Digi pack analysis: Britney Spears

Britney's Spears' album for Femme Fatale showed feminine gold and yellow colour with the main font colour being black or gold. The words "Femme Fatale" written in large lightning still letters on the album cover shows strength as it dominates the page, "Britney Spears" written under that shows her name as the artist. Interestingly the album name is on top of the artist name which shows the importance of it. This is used regularly on film posters when they use "Over the title actors" which means the stars name is shown on top of the product, this thought has been reversed putting the album name on top, Considering the stars face is large on the front cover the name of the star is pretty much irrelevant as Britney spears is a world renown artist. 

The inside of the digipack has less pictures inside than a conventional digipack, this only containing on center picture of Britney Spears in a vulnerable position. This pictures main colouring is black and gold which shows continuity between the colours of the main album art. Black is seen as an elegant colour especially with regal gold hues, meaning that the reasons for the choice of colours was to convey a classy/elegant look for a album.

The picture on the back page of the album cover shows a picture of Britney Spears looking sideways as if she is looking out of the window as if she is looking at the names of the songs in her album, this draws attention to the text because of the way in which her body is diverted to. again the main colours seen in this picture are yellow, gold, white and black.

Website Analysis

This is Katy Perry's official international website. Not only does this website make it easier for her audience to talk to her and give her feedback on her work but they also have a gallery of her photos, a place in which they can watch her music videos, a shop where they can purchase Katy Perry's official merchandise and countdowns to her up coming albums, singles and videos.  

On this website there is feature where you can register to be a "Katy Kat" on her fan forum which is the name of Katy Perry's devoted fans, on this you can talk to other "Katy Kats" about her new videos, share your thoughts and even leave Katy Perry some ideas on what they will feel is a good idea for her future or if they would like more tour dates etc. This fan forum is not on Katy Perry's website but will be forwarded to it when you press the "Fan forum" button on the man large tool bar on the main page of the site. 

To create excitement towards Katy Perry's fans their is a "Countdown" on the main page of the website, because of this her fans will know exactly when Katy Perry's most highly anticipated music videos ,merchandise and albums will be released because of this fun way of telling the audience release dates.

On this site you are able to retrieve all of Katy Perrys music via download, not only can you listen to clips of Katy Perry's music but you can also watch her full music videos as well, which works as her own intimate Youtube, meaning that if you wanted to watch Katy Perry's videos it would probably be easier to watch them on her site because you will not be interrupted by any unwanted advertisement apart from ones which will have to do with Katy Perry, which is already seen as an interest as you are already on her website. This is also a good way of her fans being able to be sure that the music video that they are about to watch on her site is going to be a real official music video, not a cover of someone else singing it or a lyrics video or something that is not was intended to be clicked on which is a large problem in the media of video sharing. On this you can see all of her music videos new and old.

Advertisement seen on this website is all based on Katy Perry, which is a good way of advertising her products which might not have been seen by her fans because it doesn't have to do with music, e.g her line of nail varnish for O.P.I nail wear in the theme of her "Teenage Dream" album or her ad campaign with GHD hair straighteners. This banner can be clicked on and links you to the appropriate site.