Focus Group Questions

1) How old are you?

2) Does my music video match up to the indie folk genre?

3) What's your favourite aspect of my music video?

4) Is there anything you feel could be improved?

5) Do you feel the narrative works well with the song?

6) Would you watch my music video again?

Filming Diary & Behind the Scenes Pics - 15/03/2015

Today was our final day of filming all outside sequences. We didn't really have a large amount to re-film as we got a lot done the other week. We started the day at Ant's house, where we filmed the puppet in different positions, including on various steps, where we thought this would look good to match up to the beat. We also put the puppet in different positions, so it looked like it was alive.
We then got the bus to Queen's Gardens and re-filmed the spin and filmed the puppet dancing on different walls.
Then we walked to Hull marina and filmed Ant walking with the puppet, mainly focusing the camera on the puppet. We got various shots of this, from different angles. We wanted more of a focus on the puppet, as we felt our last draft didn't really do that.

We didn't really get many behind the scenes photos as it was quite cold and we were more focused on getting the filming done, so that we could edit it when we get back to college. 

Magazine Ad- Final

This is my magazine advert for the album. Inspiration was taken from many other adverts and it will be featured on an A4 size page in a music magazine (such as NME or Q), as a plain poster in shops, or on a billboard. 

Digipak - Final

This is my digipak, which includes a front cover, back cover, two side panels, two discs and spines. I followed conventions of a digipak and added unique style, which represents my artist and the indie folk genre. The style of my promotion package is cohesive and also matched the music video. I kept to the same colour scheme and themes. 

Re-filming Schedule - 15/03/2015

With two weeks left until the deadline, we decided to fit in a day to re-film all the aspects that we weren't too happy with. This gives us enough time to get what we need and also have an extra weekend, in case we don't get it all.

11:00 - Meet at Ant's house to re-film some aspects of him getting ready and to tidy the whole process up a little bit.
12:00 - Go into town and re-film the Queen's garden scene where the camera spins, as our first attempt was quite shaky.
12:30 - 1:30 - Focus the filming on the puppet and get more shots of him 'acting'.
1:30 - 3:00 - Get additional sequences that may be needed due to the fact we will need to cut our music video down to make some aspects less lengthy.

Digipak Process: Back Cover

After editing the photo for the back cover I used the text tool to type in the tracklist, 

I then used the text tool to add details such as the copyright print and website. I also saved a photo of a barcode from the internet and opened it onto my document.

Photoshop didn't have the American Typewriter Condensed font that I wanted to use for the record label logo, so I typed a generator into Google and found this. I screenshotted the text I needed and opened it onto my document.

Here's the font for the record label. 

I then decided to rescale everything so that it would fit perfectly and look in place.

Digipak Process: Front Cover

I first clicked 'file' and 'new' to create a new document to begin my digipak.

Then I set the sizing that I wanted the document to be, which was 5.531 inches by 5.531 inches, so that it would fit the digipak.

This is the new document.

I then clicked on the paint bucket to choose a colour to fill the background.

I went with black and then clicked 'file' then 'open' to open the photo document.

I went through my documents to find the right photo for the cover.

The photo was opened onto another document, so I had to drag it to my front cover. 

I clicked 'edit', then 'transform' and 'scale' to resize the photo. In Photoshop you hold the shit key down at the same time you rescale the photo so that it doesn't lose shape.

I then did the same to get the text onto my document. 

After resizing everything and putting it the the right place, I was left with this.

After adding the name of our record label to the bottom I decided the cover seemed a little bare and so used the line tool to create a white border around the photo, just to create a professional finish.

Photoshop: Editing a Photo

First I opened the photo I wanted to edit for my back cover by going to 'File' and 'Open', then searching my documents.

I then created a new layer so I could edit on that and not risk and further issues if I went wrong.

I then used the 'Magic Wand' tool and held down the shift key so I could grab certain aspects of Ant, without including the background.

Once I had grabbed as much of Ant as I could I went to 'Select' and clicked 'Invert' so that when it came to using paint, it would colour the background and not the subject. 

I then clicked on the paintbrush and chose white, to match my colour scheme.

I changed the size of the paintbrush so that colouring in the background would be quicker.

This shows the process of the colouring and how the magic wand tool makes sure I don't colour Ant in. 

This is the final edited photo. Obviously there are some parts that I missed with the paint, but this doesn't matter as I will be scaling it to fit the digipak size conventions and so the errors won't be visible. 

How I Came Up With The Tracklist

I browsed through my albums on iTunes and on Spotify to come up with ideas for my own tracklist. I took ideas from the song names to come up with my own and also took some of the names that I thought matched the indie folk genre.
L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N was an obvious choice for the album as that's our chosen song.
From the Jaws 'Milkshake - EP' I took Toucan Surf.
From The Front Bottoms' album 'Rose' I took 'Flying Model Rockets'.
From the 'Submarine - EP' I took Hiding Tonight.
I decided to take the name of the band Honeyblood and use that as a song name on my tracklist, as I felt it fit both rolls quite well.
I took Undercover Martyn from Two Door Cinema Club, Happy People from Peace, Stars Are Aligned from Darlia, Same Jeans from The View and We Can Do What We Want Drenge.
These are all bands/artists that appeal to me.

These photos show the process of deciding what songs to put on my tracklist, and how many I could have used as well. I felt some song names were inappropriate for my own album and for the indie folk genre as a whole. Fidlar's 'Cocaine' is an example of what definitely wouldn't suit the genre. Some of the bands/artists that I decided on wouldn't fit the genre, but the names seemed to suit. 

Changes to Music Video

Some of my music video needs re-filming because of various reasons such as the poor quality and poor planning. Not only do I need to re-film, but I need to re-edit and make the pace faster and match the beat more. I feel my first attempt at a full music video was successful, but could be improved a lot. Changes will include:

• More of a focus on the puppet: More close-ups of the puppet will be filmed, this will include making the puppet dance to the beat and creating a 'real life' effect, which includes making the puppet look up at its owner and develop more of it's own personality. 
• There will be less shots of Ant getting ready to leave, as this takes up a lot of time and loses an audiences attention.
• I'll tidy the area up more, as looking back on the video I've seen typical household items such as towels placed around the house we filmed in, which I didn't notice at the time. 
• When editing I will make the music video take advantage of the beat of the song more, as it's a good beat to combine image with. I'll will make the pace faster and attempt to make it more interesting for an audience to watch. 

Digipak Problems

We were originally going to use screenshots of our music video as photos for our digipak and magazine ad, but soon realised the quality wasn't good enough, so in half term we created mock ups using those photos instead and have recently taken new photos of Ant in the green room to use as they're a much better quality and will make the product look more professional.

We only managed to get a few behind the scenes photos of the shoot as we were in a rush. The first one shows Manpreet seeing if there were any props suitable to use, but we ended up going with none as they didn't really work out well for the look we were going for. Ant wore a shirt and blazer, to continue the ideology we have created for him and to represent the indie folk nature. 

New Ancillary Text Photos

Pros: It's a good central photo, that would look quite professional for the front cover of the digipak.

Con: It looks like this photo was rushed and so Ant doesn't look very comfortable.

This photo is similar to the first one, but from a different angle. The pros and cons are the same, but an additional con is the lighting of this particular photo as it looks quite dark. 

Pros: Nice medium close up.

Con: The photo seems blurry and looks accidental. 

Pro: Would work well for the back cover, as there's a large amount of space on the left.

Con: Ant is turned too far away from the camera and so it's mainly just his back. 

This photo doesn't really have any pros as it isn't a very good photo. The positioning and shot isn't very good and there's too much space around Ant. It also seems like the photo was taken before Ant was ready.

Pro: A really good central photo and Ant seems really relaxed, whilst looking straight into the camera.

Con: The only slight con is the lighting issue, but this can be adjusted on Photoshop.

Pro: Really good photo for the back cover as Ant is placed closer to the right, which means the tracklist will fit on the left. 

Con: Editing the background might be a bit difficult.

This photo is similar to the one above and so has the same pros and cons. 

I didn't take a large amount of photos for the ancillary texts as we only needed a few simple ones to create the look we want. The last two are taken with Ant standing at the side as we thought it would be a cool idea to put the tracklist on the left side of him. I think for the front cover photo we will use a central photo of Ant. This will also be used for the middle photo of the magazine ad.