Final Music Video

Due to the technical issues we experienced when using FCP and Compressor to convert our music video, we had intended to use Screen Toaster to capture the video but the quality of the .mov file was not acceptable. The next best solution was to film our screen using the DV camera, capture the footage into FCP and compress it down into a suitable format for Blogger.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the video being a film of the screen some colours are distorted and a lot darker in places. However, considering the circumstances I believe the video accurately reflects out music video to a standard I am happy with.

Music Video Evaluation

To complement my evaluation I recorded a video evaluation so that I could explain the narrative and talk about some of my editing decisions. I did this whilst the audio and video were playing to help the audience's understanding.

Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The main generic convention to which we adhered in the music video was the use of a narrative device. It is a proven method in which to gain an audiences attention and keep it. However, our research on similar artists to Lawrence King taught us that narrative is not typical in these genres, thus furthering our reasons to use a narrative and be innovative. The content of our narrative did challenge the cultural hegemony of a heterosexual relationship being the norm. The every day style of the costume and make-up also presented us normal girls not the stereotypical 'butch' lesbians. We used the convention of colourful mise en scene from other electronic music videos we researched. The bar scene looks fun with vibrant pillows and decor, whilst the costumes has flashes of bright colours. In the album cover and magazine ad we also used flashes of bright colour through the lights of the traffic. The increased exposure time resulted in a laser light effect whilst the saturation on the sunset on the front of the album cover really emphasises the reds and oranges. The use of experimental cinematography and fast paced editing reflecting the rhythm of the music also stuck closely to genre conventions.

I think one way in which we broke mainstream Pop Promo conventions was the omittance of the artist in the video. Typically a record company would demand a large amount of close up shot to promote the artist and help in the creation of star image. Ultimately it was a controversial decision but our research showed us that you rarely find an electronic artist staring in his own music video- the face and image is just not important in this genre.

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

We wanted to get a city vibe in our music video without feeling too urban, and we did this by choosing pleasant central locations around Ipswich. We encroached onto middle class territory with the use of a sophisticated bar and stylish outfits. We also wanted to give across messages about speed and time through the time lapse sequence; the way in which coincidences and crossed paths happen in everyday life while we let life flash pass us unaware.
I believe all these elements were carried across to our digipack and magazine advertisement design extremely well. The inside cover of the digipack uses sub-urban houses to relate to the middle class city feel of the video and the blurred lights directly link with the sense of speed and traffic within the time lapse scenes. The mystery guy across the street supports the sense of anonymity we gave Lawrence King in the video and on the magazine ad- backed up by the type writer style typography of the digipack and magazine ad. The same courier style font was used throughout for continuity. On the front cover the saturated sunset gives a feeling of electronic nature, something that can definitely be heard on the track itself, and also matches the themes of day turning into night in the music video.

Verisimilitude is definitely achieved throughout; all locations are accessible and the narrative feature nothing out of the ordinary. The mise en scene reflected everyday life for most people... pedestrian crossings, coat and jeans, laid back bar and homely bedrooms. Similarly, the print designs feature traffic a road and a house which adds to the feel of realism. Through this we show are ideology that material possessions are not important- amazing things happen in ordinary life to anybody regardless of wealth, sexual orientation and gender.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Our target audience was 16-25 year old male and females, typically students or young professionals, who have the time and to want to discover and explore new artists within the fairly niche electronic/ambient music genre. In our questionnaire we discovered that generally 80% of our target audience rarely or never liked music without lyrics, to combat this we used a narrative device which we discovered 75% or our target audience enjoyed.

We screened our music video and promotional package to the class who all fell into our target audience. On the whole we received positive response with the audience particularly liking the narrative and the 'rewind' feature that re-ordered the chronology. The audience felt mise en scene and editing was used well to focus the attention on the two main characters, such as Jessica's bright pink mac and the pauses on the two characters in the time lapse scene. Cinematography used interesting and inventive shots, like the shot behind the wire chair and the camera being used as a mirror. Mise en scene was also strong with the colourful bar being a favourite location and the moody scenes in my bedroom. The audience felt editing showed a high standard of skill and the video transitions (dissolve, fade etc) were used appropriately and the video didn't look amateur.We were criticised for the poor lighting in Nicola's bedroom scene, in contrast to the good lighting in my bedroom scene. Nicola appears very dim in her shots often making it hard to see exactly what she is doing. Due to bad planning we didn't have the lighting equipment on this day and the difference really shows. The class agreed the video was suitable for the genre of music but they felt showing the DJ would help. In retrospect based upon the feedback I think maybe we should have included a little footage of a DJ, maybe during the bar scenes so that it came across in an understated way. We learnt that we created both emotional and visceral pleasures for our audience. Emotional pleasures were created by the formation of a relationship in the narrative whilst visceral pleasures were created through the re-ordered chronology; Nicola and myself waiting for a call from each other appears at the start but we then rewind through the day to see exactly what happened between the two. There could undoubtedly be an element of voyeurism for some- will they get close? will they kiss?

The class felt the music video, album cover and magazine ad worked strongly as a package due to the linking elements of nature, traffic, time, suburban and city life. They like the high quality images that were shot by Nicola and the high standard on editing in Photoshop. Once criticism was that some of the text on the magazine ad could have been different colours instead of just black. We did experiment with different colours but had problems with visibility due to the mixed colours of the background image. To rectify this we could have changed the colours or tones in the background image so that we were more free to have coloured text on top of it.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used blogger.com to create my blog on which I presented all stages on my coursework. The concept of creating quick multi-media entries on a regular basis that can be viewed by all really worked effectively as a basis for my coursework. For my research into music videos the Internet held a hive of information; Youtube hosts practically all music videos, Wikipedia contains much to do with history whilst print designs are easily accessible through artist's websites. I also found the digital library in the Learning Curve useful as it stocked a range of DVD's on the more high profile music video directors.
Facebook proved very useful as a communication tool in both the planning and production phase because as a team player its essential to know how your other group members are progressing. We shared research and treatments through a thread in the messaging facility and used the calendar to remind us of filming dates during production. To film the music video we used a Canon HV30 DV camcorder on a Velbon DV-7000 tri-pod, which we were comfortable with using as we had already had practice in our AS year, although we did need a refresher course on exposure settings. The only scenes that required us to use extra lighting were the bedroom scenes where we used a high voltage lamp to produce key lighting. For the magazine ad and the digipack designs I first shot original images using a Fuji FinePix 10mp camera (Nicolas used a digital SLR to get her higher quality images) then uploaded them to Adobe Photoshop CS4 for editing. I had to re-size the image and the canvas to the required dimensions for the digipack. The layers element of Photoshop made it easy for me to change background colour/text types quickly without effecting the image as a whole. During editing I often used the magic wand tool to separate items in the foreground from the background and of course the text tool to apply artist name etc.
As my editing software in post-production I used the powerful Final Cut Pro(FCP). The firewire cable enabled me to capture footage quickly from the camcorder and import into FCP to be edited. FCP puts great ease upon adding effects such as cross dissolves and fades. To speed up the footage for the time lapse scenes was relatively simple as I just had to select the required clip and press change speed. I used Compressor to convert my practice time lapse sequence into a smaller file more suitable to be uploaded to blogger whilst for my final video I used http://www.screentoaster.com/ to capture my video. Due to errors whilst converting my final edit into a .mov file to send to Compressor, we had no other choice but to use this unusual method but it was essential that we got our music video onto blogs for marking. The website saved it as a .mov file for us and then we used the Compressor software to make it a suitable size for our blogs.

Complete Music Video

Will be uploaded Monday. Please check your emails for further information Jon.

Production Meeting 8

The promotional package has been finished and presented to the class. We gained valuable feedback (see previous entries) and we will all now individually begin to concentrate on our evaluation. Jess has made some last minute edits to the the music video based upon feedback to improve the video further. Unfortunately we have hit some technical errors when trying to compress the video from Final Cut Pro into a Quicktime .Mov file. Our lecturer is looking into these problems and we hope to have a final version of our video up on the blog asap.

Editing Update

After the feedback I received from the class I have a small window in which to make a few quick changes to the music video. This is the following feedback I received and how I developed the video

Use of Editing

• Too much time lapse in big block, could get boring- I cut the amount down slightly to allow me to edit onto a certain beat (see below) Although I was restricted too how much I could cut it down at this point.
  
• Could of included a few more shots in the bar scenes? - I increased the amount of bar scenes and variety of shots. Adding a Mid-shot of us talking.
  
• Missed some opportunities to edit onto the beat- The class pointed out there was a change in the music just after I crossed the road where it would have been nice to see the timelapse stop and rest of the narrative begin. I shortened the time lapse scene so that when the music changes its cuts to Nicola on her walk home. I also noticed a Sharp harsh sound in the music while me and Nicola were getting dressed to go out, so I though it would be nice to rearrange the footage so that this sound coincides with change in narrative between getting ready and the bar scenes.
  
• In the bar scenes close up show you the couple just drinking or looking about- is anyone actually talking? - Once this had been brought to my attention this mistake was obvious... the couple are not really shown talking! I changed the shots I used and added one where we are both talking an laughing. This helps create more tension between us above and give the effect that we are flirting.

I also altered part of the rewind scene. One of the clips saw me waiting at the traffic lights but on second consideration I felt that this doesn't really serve the rewind scene very well as it only shows me standing still. So I changed it for a clip where I was crossing the road- so when rewound it quite obviously shows backward movement and a change in the pattern of time.

Class Feedback of our Promotional Package

Having completed our music video and print ads, we screened them to our Media Studies class who gave us lots of valuable feedback and constructive criticism. This information was excellent for finding out what the strengths and weaknesses were of our production and will really help when we evaluate our work.

MUSIC VIDEO

Initial Impressions: Positive Feedback

• Video clearly focused on the main characters, easy to understand who it was we were ment to be watching.


• Time lapsed traffic was in time with the tempo of the music.


• Liked the make up shots, giving the effect the camera was a mirror.


• Interesting narrative effect with the "rewind" through the day at the start.

Initial Impressions: Criticism

• Not enough light in the bedroom scene, too dark.


• Artist not included in the video.


• Too much time lapsed footage, got a bit boring.


• Could of used more shots to keep engaging the audiences interest.

Use of Cinematography

• Liked the use of experimental use of cinematography, particularly the make up shots and the shots through the metal chair in the bar scene.


• Shots well framed and panning shots were smooth.


• Good variety of shot sizes.


• Bedroom shots could of been more detailed?

Use of Mise-En-Scene

• Nice and colourful shots throughout.
• Bar environment looked sophisticated and classy.
• Good use of props - mobile phones etc.
• Characters dressed appropriately throughout.
• Lighting on Nicola in the bedroom scene could of been improved.

Use of Editing

• Shots used worked well with the timing of the music.
• Looked professional, no amateur effects used etc.
• Could of included a few more shots in the bar scenes?
• Missed some oppertunities to edit onto the beat

Suitability of Visuals to the Music

• Overall, worked well throughout.
• Could of included artist in the video, or perhaps shots of a DJ to make it more performance as well as narrative based.

Response to Brief

• More reference needed to Lawrence King - too distanced.

Production values and Technical Ability

• Effects used were good throughout.
• Some lighting issues, mostly in the bedroom scenes.

Suitability to the Genre of Music

• Ambient music, not too stressful or too much action.
• Made everyday scenes look a bit different.
• Overall, was defiantly suitable to the genre.

Suitability of Creating a Bands/Artist Image (Representation)

• Representations in the video included - nature, movements, relationships, intellectual, perhaps quite middle class?
• No representation of Lawrence King in the video.

Suitability for Target Audience

• Worked well at targeting our audience.

CD COVER AND MAGAZINE ADVERT

Initial Impressions: Positive Feedback

• Clever use of typography.
• Time & nature reflected well (which were strong elements in the music video aswell, helps to bring the 3 pieces together to create a promotional package).
• Suburbia and middle class represented (the house on the inside cover etc) - audience can relate.
• Suitable typefaces used.
• Photo used on inside cover very nice.
• Contrast between nature and urban environments apparent - worked well.

Initial Impressions: Criticism

• Some of the writing on the magazine advert could of been in a different colour to make it a little clearer to read, but no major criticisms overall.

Use of Images

• Linked to music video, mysterious.
• Middle class suburbia.
• Piece's connected as well as contrsated.
• Inside image tinted slightly yellow, nice effect.
• Magazine advert image was abstract, looked very good.

Use of Mise-En-Scene

• Good use of lighting, all the images well lit.
• Lawrence King dressed appropriately in the inside cover image - looked dark and mysterious.

Use of Fonts & Typography

• Clever use of "Night".
• Font used was sort of electronic/futuristic/like a typewriter font.

Use of Colour

• All images nice and colourful
• Perhaps more of the writing could of been in white?

Use of Layout & Overall Design

• Successfully created aesthetically pleasing print advert designs that worked effectively.

Production Values & Technical Ability

• Good technique
• Images used were of very high quality/high resolution.
• Demonstrated good photography skills (credit goes to Nicola for the images!) :)

Suitability of Creating a Bands/Artist Image (Representation)

• Lawrence King represented in the inside image of the CD Cover, shown as mysterious and anonymous.

Suitability for Target Audience

• Targeted a young audience with an interest in ambient music well.

Suitability and combination of all 3 promo package elements for Target Audience

• Good overall promotional package, elements followed through (nature vs. urban, movement, time).

Editing Techniques

This year I will be editing on a Mac Pro using Final Cut Pro software. I used a variety of editing techniques to produce the effects within the pop promo.

• Video Transition, Cross Dissolve- A dissolve allows me to essentially mix two separate piece of footage so that there is no fade in/fadeout. This was useful in the traffic scenes at the pedestrian crossing.
• Video Transition, Non-additive dissolve- Compares the pixels in the two clips and displays the lighter of the two as the first clip fades out and the second fades in. I used this when changing into different parts of the narrative to show a change in time.
• Video Transition, Fade In/ Fade Out- Fades in the incoming clip as the Outgoing clip fades out. This helps to show a more definite passing of time and I used this on the pop promo first draft between the bar scenes and bedroom scenes.
  
• Audio Transitions, Cross Fade (0 dB)- I used this at the beginning and end of the audio track. We had to clip either end of the audio track due it being nearly 5 minutes in length.
• Video Speed- The video speed function allowed me to create the time lapse scene at the pedestrian crossing. I sped the footage up approximately 2000% to give it the correct pace to the music.
  
• Video Speed, Reverse- To create the rewind scenes I selected random clips of the video as a whole, placed them backwards of the timeline then selected approximately 800% speed in reverse. This made it clear to the viewer that we are going back in time during the day.

On final completion of the pop promo I will convert it in to a .mov file so that i can play it using Quicktime. I will use the Compressor software with in Final Cut Studio to convert the pop promo to a lower res format so that it is more suitable to upload to my blog.

Final Digi-Pack and Print Ad Designs

Nicola has completed her work on Photoshop and we have decided on the final designs.

I was extremely please with Nicola's photography skills and the final designs. Here is my evaluation the final designs.

Album Cover and Reverse

We decided to use this particular nature shot as it shows beautiful colour at that certain point of dusk- The day is just becoming night (relating to the album name). Nicola saturated and changed some of the colour of the photo in Photoshop to enhance the silhouette of the trees and beauty of the colours. It almost looks like a digital sunset, and links in with Lawrence's style of digital music. White was the most appropriate text colour for the track listings as it stood out around all the darker colours. Although we originally had the album name in 'Night' in black, we decided to change it to white as it made the play on words more obvious.

Inside Covers

A clever image taken by Nicola on a street near her house on the outskirts of town. A suburban street was suitable because Lawrence's music is not particularly gritty or grimy so would not justify a bustling city street. The inclusion on the guy in the background introduces the artist but still gives his actual face relative anonymity. The blurring of the lights links well with the traffic scenes in our music video. To create this effect Nicola decreased the shutter speed and therefore increasing exposure time, showing the blurring of the car lights. The text we included in Lawrence's thank yous, something we feel is appropriate for an artist for his first album.

Magazine Ad

Nicola again played about with shutter speed to gain this great image. The blurring of the lights directly connects it with the Digi-pack creating continuity within the package as a whole and therefore a product with greater marketing power. The text was tilted so that it looked parallel to the blurred lights. We would have liked to have changed the colour of some of the text in the bottom left hand corner but the colour of the background meant that it was often hard to read in any other colour but black.

Production Meeting 7

Learning to use Photoshop was frustrating but we eventually discovered that it was a very powerful tool when harnessed properly. Nicola had now complete the first draft of our album cover using both images of nature and city life. We wanted to create a link between the video and the album design and the inclusion of lights and traffics helps with this. The nature image on the front has had the colours altered to appear artificial and more 'electronic'. For the inside image Nicola experimented with exposure time. Using a busy road she increased the exposure time to create the blurring of the lights which give the appearance of fast moving traffic. We are particularly happy with this.

Editing of the pop promo is nearing completion but has hit some errors. A problem with the Macs effected the whole class and resulted in some footage dropping frames or footage becoming jerky and clipped. Unfortunately we do not have the original footage to re-capture to resolve this problem, but as explained it is through no fault of our own. We will try and reduce the damage caused by using alternative footage that is unaffected. Luckily Maya shot quite a few take of the same scenes so we should be able to find some footage that is good to use.

Feedback: Lawrence King

We sent Lawrence the a copy of the music video (albeit the one with technical errors) and a copy of the digipack and print ad design. We conducted the following interview over Facebook to get some feedback.

Hi Lawrence, We sent you a rough draft of the video, what do you think about it?

I think its very good! I know you said there were some issues with this version of the video but Igot the general feel of it.

What in particular do you like about the video?

I enjoyed the fast motion [time lapse] scenes, I think its suits the pace of the track well. I'm also glad you decided to uphold my anonymity. Also the concept of crossed paths and a relationship forming. Most electronic artist I follow also do something different in their videos, not just a band playing in a pub or girls dancing in aclub like you find in most pop videos.

What would you change about the video?

Probably would have put a few more of those fast motion scenes in there, maybe at a nightclub? And I'd like to have seen the track at its complete length, but I know you had restrictions and all that.

Moving on to the album design and magazine advert, how do you think we did?

REALLY really good, the cover has a nature feel to it but kinda enhanced nature- which i like. In the inside cover and on the ad I like the feeling of speed or moving that you captured. Looks kinda urban aswell. The bloke standing across the road is a nice touch, like its ment to be me, but its not clear enough to really know.

Thanks for your time Lawrence!

Individual Ideas- Album Cover/ Print Ad Nicola

Nicola's Entry

Digipack

My initial ideas for the digipack were to show the contrast betweet nature and urban life. I took various photos of sunsets and then used photo shop to contrast the colours to make the sunset stand out, for the urban photos i changed the shutter speed on my camera to create the effect of rushing traffic.

Original Image

For this Digipack design i used a computer style font to show the electronica side of the music and i used the sunset picture to show the nature influences that inspire Lawrence.

I decide that night would look good in white and i placed it on the black part of the digipack, i later decided that it didn't look right her so i moved it to fit in with Lawrence's name.


I then tried out a different font to see if this worked better i decided against it as i didn't feel that it worked as well as the original font, i also moved the album name into the artist name and i felt this gave a good look and feel to the digipack.

With this digipack i tried changing the colours to see is they would stand out more and i tried bue and as you can see it blends into the background.

This was my last idea but i still wasn't happy as although i liked the way the album title and artist name are positioned i still felt that the album name need to stand out more. I put the copyright information in white on the black part of the background as it made it stand out and i used white for the song tracks as this went with the style that i was going for and i didn't want to overload the digipack with colours.

Print Ad Ideas

Original Image
I took lots of photos for the print ad and i thought this one may be nice to use as it shows the artist is a anonymous way which fits in with our genre as the artists are usually faceless, this photo also has the rushing traffic which ties in with the themes of your pop promo and didipack. I decided to use the same font as the digipack to help tie the two together and i used the same arrangement of "Lawrence King" and "night" to again tie the print ad to the digipack. I found that with the text on top of this picture the print ad became to busy and i decided it would be nicer to use a simpler image.

Original Image

I then found this picture which i thought summed up my idea as it was abstract like other album covers in this genre but it also had the traffic theme that follows through the promo and the digipack. After this i started to change the font colours to see which looked best, black stands out the most in some places for example in the album/artist title some white was need to make it pop. i tried other colours such as bright green to give a computer theme to it and i also tried red to go with the colour of the rushing traffic but they got lost against the background.

As you can see from this example i was trying out different colours and her i was trying our green and i didn't work as it didn't fit in with the print ad at all. i was also experimenting with the text placement here,i knew i wanted the date in the bottom left corner and the album/artist title in the top right corner but i was trying to figure out the best places to put the quotes from magazines and celebrities i wanted them to go along with the traffic but be cause of the colour they didn't fit.

As you can see from this idea, i changed the font to red and this still didn't pop so i decided against this font,

Individual Ideas- Album Cover Maya

Maya's entry

For my idea for our album cover, I wanted to go with the theme of the artist being unknown (so no photos of him etc), and also with the theme of having an abstract design, like artists of a similar genre of music to ours have done in the past such as Boards of Canada that I researched previously. Building on this idea, I had the thought of incorporating newspaper clippings of letters to spell out the name "Lawrence King" and maybe the album name, and also perhaps incorporating the themes of traffic and traffic lights that is present in our pop promo, with the time-lapsed cars stopping and starting at traffic lights as the tempo of the music changes.

One thing I was sure of when I started trying out designs for it was that I wanted to have simple, clutter free design, using very high quality images to give a professional and sophisticated look.

Front cover ideas:

The image below is my favorate cover design from the ones I created. The typeface and images I used make it immediatly obvious who's album it is. The photo I took of a red trafficlight (which is internationally recognisable as the colour which means stop), and the newspaper clippings that spell out the word stop, were very large high quality images at about 3000 x 1000 pixels. I then resized these down (whilst constraining the proportions so they remained the right shape) so that they were the right size for the CD cover. This image has multiple layers for each image and text, so it was easy for me to edit a particular object without effecting the whole image. I then used the "stroke" effect (in the Blending Options menu) to give a black outline 2 pixels wide around the image to make it look neat and professional.

Back cover:


If we were to go with my CD Cover design for our final piece and made a magazine cover for it, I would want to have a very similar design to the CD cover, but instead in an A5 size, with a longer quote at the bottom from a music magazine or similar giving praise to Lawrence King or the album, as well as a release date for the album.

Individual Ideas- Print Ad

The following are my rough attempts at designing a print ad to promote Lawrence's album, Including the original image.

I used the image from my 2nd album design as I felt it was easier to make into a print advert. I purposely had the background a slightly different colour from the album cover background to promote the actual image of the album. However I did use the soften tool on Photoshop around the edges of the album design to make it blend into the print ad better. I wanted to keep Lawrence name dead centre and obvious because as a new artist his name needs to be projected and remembered. I put the quote in a central position at the top as I believe a great majority of consumers will by an album based on critics responses.

After Maya commented that maybe the text was too bold and contrasted with the softness of the images I decided to have a play with font styles. I changed font colour to purple and changed it to italics- this looks a lot softer and quite understated but still manages to stands out from the background. I also added an embossed grey border to look like the advert is raised from the page and make it look a bit more classy.

Individual Ideas- Album Cover

As editor I'm pretty busy right now and I don't have too much time to experiment with Photoshop and create a whole digi-pack idea. However, Ive had a few goes creating just a rough album cover. By doing so it means that I am in a better position to support Nicola with the final designs should she need it. Please ignore any borders or mistakes around edges of the design- I saved screenshots in .tiff on the Mac and had to convert them to .jpeg on windows to upload to blogger and this has meant a few errors occurred.

Whilst Nicola and Maya are concentrating on Urban and outdoor shots, I decided to go a little 'crazier'. I shot a series of photographs using nature but tyring to bring in fun elements, after being inspired by Four Tet's album designs. The above picture is a leaf of a rubber plant with strategically place smarties!

Firstly I used the Magic Wand tool on Photoshop to cut out the grey background as it was quite dull. I also decided to flip the leaf as i thought it was more logical for the leaf to be that way around. I put on the text that I would need,- artist name and album name. I use the text bend tool to fit 'From the Earth' around the leaf.

To further progress the design I used the magic want tool and eraser tool to make a better cut-out around the leaf as the 1st edit still had some of the grey background remaining. I also changed the background colour to a subtle cream- many brighter colour didn't work and made it look quite amateur. I decided to move the text onto the leaf and changed the font style as I believe the 2 font styles were too conflicting before. If i were to complete this idea I would look into font styles more and add bar codes, copyrights and promotional stickers etc.

Another design I played around with was just the smarties on their own. I think the concept is eye catching and something that would make you pick the album up- and also remember it. The original photograph was the similar to the finished design but I just had to alter image size and canvas size to make it an appropriate size for the album cover. If I had more time I would have cut the background out- however this proved too problematic when I first tried- and added logos etc.

Production Meeting 6

Editing is now coming along well and the timeline on Final Cut Pro is now beginning to fill up. Jess has decided to drop the footage of herself on the beach as she doesn't think it fits properly. Her character is shown in a city environment at the beginning of the promo and to show her then suddenly on a beach may prove confusing.

Nicola and Maya are both going to shoot some photographs around town in the next couple of weeks for inspiration for the album cover and advertisement, whilst Jess will focus on more fun nature-ish shots. We have a lesson next week introducing us to Photoshop on the Macs, and we will begin creating some rough ideas. We will all design album covers and advertisements but Nicola will be producing the final piece. We feel that if we all have a go at designing it will help us aid Nicola in producing a great final piece.

Homosexuality Within Music Videos

Our narratives centres around Girl A and Girl B who cross paths and begin a relationship. Although we originally intended for the relationship to form between a girl and boy, the availability of actors has meant we had to consider other alternatives. However, this has gave us the opportunity to venture into raising issues through our music video, i.e the acceptability of homosexuality within the music industry. Although socially homosexuality is now widely accepted, its is still not seen often in music videos. I feel the decision to go ahead with this narrative within our music video is in-line with the progressive thinking that I discovered in my research for electronic music videos.

History

In 1981 after the emergence of MTV the popularity and volume of music videos increased drastically. At this time homosexuality in music videos was few and far between. However a growing number of artists sporting the androgynous image such as Annie Lennox and openly gay artists such as Boy George introduced the issue into their music videos. However this did not represent the average homosexual person as the character were often over dramatized.



One exception was Bruce Springsteen. The video above was for his track Tougher than the Rest. Couples are shown kissing throughout the video, with gay and lesbian couples featured alongside heterosexual couples and this projects the correct image of homosexual relationships- no different from all the rest! Many Rock 'n' Roll artists used lesbianism in a derogatory way in the late 80's/90's. Instead of promoting sexual differences positively they were often glorified and for entertainment purposes. Women often shown stripping, kissing and getting intimate featured strongly and a feminist reading of this is that it is purely for a mans entertainment.



The emergence of t.A.T.u (Russian short hand for this girl loves that girl) glamorised lesbianism in a way that some may criticise as not being beneficial to the cause. The above video is for their no.1 hit All The Things She Said and features the romance of 2 girls and kissing throughout. Some praised the video for putting lesbians into the mainstream, and the cinematography of the video- showing girls behind bars etc- accurately portrayed the struggle of lesbian couples. However the video also received a huge backlash as the girls are in school uniform and the fact that the are both heterosexual in real life means that the video was just to entertain the male population. More recently artists such as Lady GaGa have fought for equal rights for homosexual and transgendered couple as displayed in her video for Telephone.

Planning: Digi-Pack and Print Ad

What do we need on the Digi-Pack?

This varies from artist to artist but includes the following..

• Artist name
• Album title
• Background images/ artist image
  
• Parental advisory if necessary
• Promotional stickers
• Audio formats
• Record label
• Track listings
• Website
• Artist management
• System requirements for disc
• Legal disclaimers
• Bar code
• Trademarks

What do we need on the print ad?

On the print ad we will be promoting the album as opposed to just one single or a tour. Again this varies from artist to artist...

• Background images/ Album Image
• Artist name
• Album title
• Release date
• Website links
• Where you can buy it from
• Trademarks
  

Production Meeting 5

Shooting is now complete and Jess is beggining to capture footage and getting to grips with Final Cut Pro. Although we are all excited about having Macs this year it does mean we all have to learn how to use a completely new piece of software. We have decided that Nicola concentrate on the album cover and album advertisment, and Maya will help Jess with the editing.

We were not able to shoot some of the shots on Maya's storyboard due to our conflicting time schedules and accessibilty of locations. We had planned to shoot in a record shop but the only times we were allowed to shoot in there were times when at least one of us were unable to do so. However we are confident that the footage that we do have will prove adequate.