Final digipak

This is the group's final digipak that Alysha and Charlotte have produced together, i love the continuity between each panel, for example the use of the rose and the black and white theme! For the inside two panels we decided to use the graveyard, we originally wanted a really wide shot of the graveyard stretched across the two panels, but we couldn't get the right shot to fit in well enough, we decided to stick with the gates to the entry of the graveyard, the gates are a significant part in our video so I think this equally work's very well.

Links to the creators of the digipak's blog are below.

Alysha Bennett

Charlotte Bailey

Too many tutorials..

Myself and the group really wanted an effect that we have seen in many video's on the television. We wanted to make the whole of the clip black and white apart from one thing in the clip. The dying ambition for where we wanted this to happen was with the rose, we thought the dark black and white background in contrast to the luscious red rose would look outstanding! My self and Claire got onto YouTube to find a way of doing this in our video, we were looking for a straight forward video to guide us to this effect. What we found and used is below!

Magazine advertisement research

The parts of this advertisement i like is how the images match the text, for example "Written in the stars" matched with the galaxy of multi coloured starts around the artist. I also enjoy how the text keeps its continuity through out the advert with the Tinie Tempah and Disc - Overy in the same font, this adds to the brand identity that the record company are trying to create.

I also like the main image in the advert, the big bold picture of the artist is something i think really works, after all the advert is trying to promote and then eventually self the artist to the target market, i think this effect of presenting the artists in a big bold way is something we should consider during the production of our advert in the future.

The release date of the advert is very big and clear for the audience to see, this works on many levels, the whole purpose of the advert is to sell the artist and his new album to the target market, the release dates have to be big and bold for the market to see, this has to be a key area that we should reflect in our advert, it will add to the authenticity.

Magazine advertisement research

It is a very important process to look at existing media products to get some sort of idea to how we can influence ours to make it look as authentic as possible. This magazine advertisement is from Basement Jaxx which is a typical band that our target market listen to. The main things i like about this advertisement is the different types of fonts used through out the advert, the straight smart layout of "Congress Theater" and also "Friday November 6th 2009" adds a simplistic and stylish touch to this very busy advert.

I also like the main image in the advert, if you look closely it is a classic record with the main Basement Jaxx image in the middle of the record. There is a lot of colour in the main image which represents the type of up beat and disco vibe that their music has.

To make our advert look authentic as possible we must use some of the characteristics that this advert has used, what i mean by this is to use record label companies, their websites and also logos of the companies.

Risk assessment

This is the group's risk assessment that we have put together, we have identified the potential hazards in our locations and a way round it. Although we only film in about five or six locations the risk assessment is obviously still very important for the safety of the group and myself. However the potential risks that are in our specific locations are quite large.

Digipak planning

Charlotte and Alysha have taken the role to produce the digipak together, by producing two panels each. The rose in our video really is the focal point to our story, in our video Claire the loves and nourishes the rose, but after the brake up she uses the rose to symbolize her emotions against me, by ripping it up and throwing it on the floor! So myself and the group have decided that we need the rose in more than one panel.

So far so good in terms of putting together the panels, Alysha has worked her magic again on Adobe Photoshop by creating the front and the back panels. Below is what she has come up with so far.

The back:

I love the authenticity that Alysha has managed to produce on the two panels. Especially the one above, the Mercury Prize award and the Columbia Records emblem makes this panel look outstandingly professional. The band's website and the record label's website is something you would see on a real album! The background of the hundreds of roses is actually just picture of a bunch of roses scattered on to the floor, which Alysha has then duplicated in photoshop around 50 times. It has made an outstanding effect.

The front:

The initial idea of Claire holding the rose an then eventually picking the rose petals off and dropping them onto the floor was my idea. We were filming Claire when she had to be isolated and in distress, we shone a bright light to the left of her in a dark room, with a white background behind her and it created this fantastic clear shadow! Alysha the group's photographer was obviously inspired by this image and it has turned out to be a great photo, with the necessary editing done to it in Adobe Photoshop.

To edit the original photo Alysha used a small amount of tools in Photoshop, she simply brought the contrast up and the brightness down. She then used the eraser tool to blur the edges around the pictures. She then added the text in the bottom corner, the same font and size that she used in the advert, it is vital that we have this continuity running through out our ancillary tasks!

The front of our digipak:

Final digipak:

Below is a link to Alysha's blog.

Alysha Bennett's blog.

Production of the advert!

Alysha and Charlotte are producing the group's two ancillary tasks, the magazine advert and the digipak. Myself and Claire haven't worked on the two tasks at all but we have obviously given our ideas for how to improve it.

The whole feel to our video is a dark one with an aery edge to it. It was very important for our group that our video matched up with the two ancillary tasks, so we decided to have as the main house style through out it all as black and red, the black really enforces the meaning of our song, The Funeral, and also the red represents the rose in our video which is a big part! However, with the advert and digipak we had to incorporate Claire.

Originally the picture below was going to be the main advert, obviously changed with Alysha brilliant editing skills in Adobe Photoshop. Every time she made a new advert, which was quite a lot, she always asked for mine and Claire's feedback, and i think by doing this we grew as a group and so did our advert. As you will see later in this posting our final advert did include the rose draped down, but not Claire in this picture.

Alysha took the original picture above and transformed it to something brilliant in my opinion using Adobe Photoshop. By making everything black and white apart from the rose it makes the rose look beautifully crisp and really natural! She then tided up the whole picture using the photo edges filter tool, then simply cut out the part she wanted to use, by using the magic wand tool. She then desaturated the whole image and used the history brush to colour the rose back in to it's normal colours!

She then cut the rose out, and placed four images around Claire that we took of her when we were filming. The images are all of Claire looking in distress apart from the one in the bottom corner. The one in the corner almost looks like she has two faces and two sides to her. In the video she is almost two different people, very happy enjoying life and then suddenly i crush her back down so i think alysha has done very well capturing those sides!

Below is the stages that are music video advert took during it's production, the group all had input into what we wanted to see in the advert and how it could be improved.

Below is our finished advert for our music video, as you can see our last picture in our development of the advert is different from the final advert. We all agreed we needed a fourth picture and when we found the blurry almost two faced one of Claire we knew it would work well with our concept. So below is our music video advert!

Below is a link to Alysha's blog

Alysha Bennet's blog