Evaluation #4 - Technology

A prezi to show the Technology we used

Evaluation Task 3 - Feedback on Video

Above we have class mates who have given us their opinion on our video. We have learned that our lip syncing was very good, and that the various different shots we used were liked. They also liked the words and fonts we used for the lyrics in the video. The cutting was appreciated. Some downsides were that in some places the editing needed to be faster. 

Below are the analytics of our Youtube channel. These show the statistics of our film. The statistics include the number of views, minutes watched, demographics, top traffic sources and playback location. 

Evaluation #2 - Links between digipak, video and advert

Evaluation Task 1

1. The opening shot of our video is a close up of Tamzene playing the piano with a microphone. We also changed this to black and white. This shot establishes that the video is about a singer who plays the piano. Many other music videos open with a shot that gives the audience an idea of what the video is about.

2. This is a shot of Tamzene walking and we have given it an effect of using a smoke machine to create a mysterious effect that is meant to make it look like mist. Throughout the filming we haven't used many special effects that aren't done in the editing, so we thought we'd include this. In most professional music videos they use props and special effects to create a setting they want.

3. In this clip we have the producer and Tamzene making the song. We use the synthesizer a 'make the music'. The synthesizer is a Yamaha produce. This is produce placement. Now a days, produce placement is used nearly every music video that has a successful song. Produce placement is useful because the music artist's are role models to so many people and their audience want to be like them and copy what they wear, or equipment they own.

4. In major film productions, they use different types of lighting. You can light up the shots with lighting when getting the raw footage, or you can edit the colours. In this clip, we got red lights to shine on her. This is to lighten up her face in a different way and makes it look more professional.

5. In this clip this is Tamzene singing. In the clip we wanted to get wind blown on her face so her hair was moving around. In major music video productions they have wind machines, we don't have one of those, so we had to wait for a windy day so we could film her.

6. Again in this clip this is produce placement using the Yamaha synthesizer and having an over the shoulder shot of the producer in the foreground and Tamzene in the background.

7. Throughout the music video, we have created lyrics that flash up on the screen. These lyrics are very short and in time with the words, they also are very bright. We made them big, bright and flashing because of the lyrics 'lights and action' and 'afterglow'. We got some inspiration from the music video 'All of the Lights' by Kanye West

8. Many times in the video we have this word 'Afterglow' in big bold letters. This word doesn't flash whereas most of the other lyrics do. We have it in the same font every time. In this font you can see there are famous buildings and monuments to do with major cities of the world. We put this in to attract our city type of audience.

9. This clip is iconic because she is going on a walk to think about her song writing. This helps tell the story as there are other shots of her writing music and making the music with the producer. This is a mid shot and an establishing shot as you can see her upper body in the foreground and a picutresque setting in the background where we have lightened up the colours of the sky as when we filmed it was quite dark as the sun was setting

Digipak Advertisment #6 - Final Advertisment

Digipak Advertisment #4 - Mock up Advert

Digipak #3 - Flat Plan

Although the main photo does not follow the conventions of normal CD Advertisement, we have chosen to only have the name of the Album and Artist because it follows the conventions of CD cases for the genre we have chosen, Drum and Bass. 

Digipak Advertisement - Print Promotion

Although online promotion is important, and can be found on sites like Youtube, Facebook, other social networking sites, and the artists websites, it is also important to be published in print. The printed versions found in magazines and news articles can be highly detailed and can often include a review or criticism about the song. Magazines are read by a lot of young fans, and get passed around to all their friends, reaching  a large fan base.  Advertisements can be kept for weeks or months at a time, and can be read and re-read. Not only this, but the 'limited edition products', like pens, magnets and posters encourage the consumer to purchase the magazine. These products tend to last a long time, making sure that the name of the artist is not forgotten easily. 





Print can also include Biographies written by artists to tell the story of how they came to fame:

Digipak Advertisement #1 - Conventions of CD Advertisement

After researching the conventions, we found that we need to include the following on the advert:

1. Name of the Artist
2. Name of the Album
3. Release date
4. Main image
5. Artist website
6. Artist logo
7. Record Label Logo
8. Possible slogan 

As we can see, all the adverts above contain minimal text. They have one image in the background covering the entire page, a photo of the artist. The name of the artist and album is bold, and astounding, making it eye catching. They contain the website address of the artist. Along with he address is often the most popular song named on the front, allowing people who to associate it with that song. 

Ancillary Task #9 Audience Feedback

This is us asking friends on facebook what they thought of our digipak and the responses they gave us.

Ancillary Task #8 - Mock Digipak

We had to make a 6 side’s digipak for our album 'Afterglow'

The front cover is in big green letters 'Afterglow' the letters are done in green/yellow with a city themed background, attracting our audience. This front cover is a shot from our film. The letters are in big bold that take up the majority of the front cover to make it stand out, and we used a black background to also make the green/yellow letters. 

On the second page is a photo of Tamzene, our singer (Wilkinsons singer). She is the actress in the video also. We used that photo of her, because it is in a cool effect, and she is sitting at a piano with a microphone, which is what we have her doing in the video, this will appeal to an audience who will potentially buy the digipak album, and watch the video, and it gives then someone to relate to. As Wilkinson are an up and coming  band, audiences like to have a face that they can remember, Tamzene being in the digipak cover and in the video gives the audience something to remember them buy. 

We put a sparkler in there because the title of the Album and our song is 'Afterglow' and in the lyrics mentions glow/lights. This gives the audience something that makes the main single of the album memorable.

We used the Turntable (DJ system), in one of the pages in our digipak. This is to remind the audience that Wilkinson isn't just a singing band; Wilkinson is primarily a drum & bass band that make their own music and songs.

For the back cover. This is a track list. The front and back cover is the first thing people look at when they pick up a digipak album. To make it reasonably similar, we used the same green/yellow colours. We used different font for the back cover as we need it smaller, a bit more sophisticated and to give it panache. We used the logo tags at the bottom of the back cover, because these are companies that associate themselves with the band Wilkinson. Vevo are a company that associate themselves with youtube, one of the biggest websites used. Vevo promote music videos online, especially through youtube. This is Vevo’s link with Wilkinson on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/WilkinsonVEVO

We took a random barcode of the internet, every digipak has a barcode for obvious reasons with buying in shops, so we thought we needed one on our digipak. Ram records are a company that strongly link themselves with the band Wilkinson. Ram records are primarily a drum & bass record company, you can find Wilkinson’s link with Ram records here : https://www.ramrecords.com/search/wilkinson

Itunes is probably the biggest digital way of buying music. You can buy Wilkinson songs and albums on Itunes, this is Wilkinson's link with Itunes:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/artist/wilkinson/id3075647

This is the template we used to help create our digipak:

Ancillary Task #7 - Flat Plan Mock Up

This is a flat plan of our digipak

Ancillary Task 6 - CD Sales

Ancillary Task 6 - CD Sales

Over the past five years, CD sales have reduced by approximately 60% from around 750 million sales to 250 million sales a year. The invention of Apples famous internet store, iTunes and other download sites, are allowing people buy 'Singles' which has killed the music industry. It has allowed people to buy a song they want, instead of an entire album. Other applications like Spotify and SoundCloud have also contributed to the damage of the music industry. Not all downloads are legal. With easier and more reliable access to the internet, it has allowed 'Pirates' to illegally download songs, stealing from the pockets of the music artists.

Nowadays, artists are relying on platforms like Spotify and iTunes to exhibit their songs for them, while they take a percentage of the profits. This means that the advertising costs are reduced because the platforms will market it in some form, or it may even reach a 'Top 100' list.

Downloading music can be seen as a more convenient and environmentally friendly way of accessing music. It saves the company money, as they don't need to provide CD's and cases, however they need to maintain their sites. It also means that space doesn't need to do taken up for storage of CD's. Transportation costs and damage to the environment are reduced significantly as the product doesn't need to be transported to the purchaser.

Vinyls are coming back into fashion, in a small way. Recently within the last 10 years, the increased sales of vinyls has occurred. Moreover, classics like the Beetles. 

Final Edit - Afterglow

This is the final edit of the video 'Afterglow' we have added some more shots from the rough edit, we have also changed some of the colours in to black and white when appropriate, and we have made more lyrics flashing up.

Task 27 - Rough Edit

These are photos of us editing our video.

 This is a rough edit of our film. It is nearly complete, but we need to move a few shots around and add in some more lyrics and maybe film one of two more filling shots.

Ancillary Task 6 - Investigation of sales of CD's have gone down

Among music buyers in general, teenagers just aren’t the force they used to be.

As a group, 13 to 17-year-olds have plummeted to a mere 7% of the CD-buying population, down from 14.9% in 2004. Their share of digital purchases, either singles or albums, is also down a healthy 12 percentage points — to just 13% — as downloading has become more mainstream among older demographics.

Ancillary Task 5 - Digipak Re-Make

We took the Viva La Vida by Coldplay Digipak and we made our own version. We did this by taking the same sort or font and taking the photo that they have in the background.

Ancillary Task 4 - Star Image

For my music video, we want the image of our lead singer, Tamzene on the front. However, for my genre, drum and bass,  a lot of the CD covers that are created consist of bright colours with bold text of the title of the album. This is striking, however it doesn't give us a representation of how your 'Star Image' looks like. They often include images of speakers, images of dancers or even associated images with a 'alien' theme. 

I think for our 'Star Image', we shall navigate away from the mainstream way of digipak and CD case covers and focus on how the image of Tamezene is depicted by others. 

Rules for my Star Image:

1. Have a undeniably memorable image of Tamzene.
2. Create a photo which is different from other mainstream covers of a similar genre. 
3. Ensure the image is relevant to our story or neutral. 
4. Create emotion through the body language. 
5. Add a message with the colours we use and what they are trying to express or represent. 

Ancillary Task 3 - Digipak & CD's

A digipak is a certain type of CD case. It is a plastic tray disk that has been glued inside a cardboard case. The benefit of this is that it is more environmentally friendly than a CD case and cheaper to make. They have not been very popular as they tear easily and water gets through easily. As the digipak has 6 sides, this allows more opportunity to show off the artist in visible art work or information that can promote the artist such as possible previous awards, who they are signed for, previous singles, etc... This opens up the types of audiences that there are for buying the disk than using a CD case with 3 sides. The information on a digipak is easily accessible and can be used also as a collectors item, whereas on a CD case, the paper with information can be easily removed and makes it invaluable for a collector.


A CD case are made of complete plastic but with printed off paper stuck inside. These are usually 3 sided whereas the digipak can be 6 sided. These are popular because they are reasonably sturdy but can crack easily.


Potential information to include in a digipak: name of artist, name of main song/s, album name, list of all songs, record company, album credits, copyright label, album artwork, barcode, disk holder, lyrics, music video pictures- actress/actors and photo of artist/band



This is an example of the 'Arctic Monkeys' digipak cover:




This is an example of a CD case:

Ancillary Task 2 - Choosing Fonts

 These are the different fonts we are considering for our song title 'Wilkinson'

Afterglow

Afterglow

Afterglow

Afterglow

Afterglow

Afterglow

Afterglow

Afterglow

Afterglow

Afterglow

Afterglow

Afterglow

Ancillary Task 1 - Music Promotion

This is the 'promo news' page. This page promotes music artists and their videos. It gives you a brief synopsis of the video and tells you who was involved with the making of the video.


Below is the album cover for the single, 'Afterglow'. This album cover is very simple and did not involve a lot of money to make as they have done it on computer and as an up and coming artist this is good because they won't have masses of money to spend on things like an digipak album cover. They have just chosen a font and written 'Wilkinson Afterglow'. The cover is very eye catching as there is a contrast between the fire like orange/yellow on the black background which makes the title stand out


As you can see on the bottom left 'Ram Records' are involved in the making and production and distribution of the single.