Final Production

MUSIC VIDEO

DIGIPAK 

FRONT COVER

INSIDE COVER

BACK COVER

MAGAZINE ADVERT

EVAULATION

Teacher's Comments

Abstract vs Narrative Visuals

After my focus group were shown the first draft, I had to reevaluate the direction of the music video, and this included deciding if I wanted a narrative featured in the video. My first thoughts when creating the video and choosing the song, On My Mind, were centred around sticking to the lyrics of the song, and have my video feature a narrative, following Imogen leaving some sort of relationship toxic partnership, and now being fine and free. However, after watching my first draft of the video with my focus group, it was clear that despite my intentions begin to reflect the lyrics, I was actually not really presenting them clearly through my visuals. After deciding to change my song to a more abstract, alternative and laid back song by FKJ, I decided to commit to the idea of using abstract visuals as opposed to a clear and structured narrative.

I explored and analysed both types of videos, and found some of the common conventions in abstract music videos were:
- more experimental
-more visually captivating? than a narrative?
-creates a feeling or mood that enhances the listening experience, rather than taking away their attention from it

So, by rejecting the traditional narrative idea seen in Goodwin's theory, I am conforming to the disjuncture-visuals concept, where the shots aren't used to illustrate/ explain the lyrics- they ignore the song and focus more on the mood/ atmosphere that the song provides.

Feedback from Second Draft

Feedback from Video


After showing my second draft to my focus group I asked them to feedback what they thought about the new cut.
They preferred the new song as it fitted much better with the visuals. They also liked the overlays I used as they represented the past of the couple being watched back on a VHS player or as a video, and that made the home- footage feel of some shots really come together.
However they didint like how I kept switching between two overlays for that narrative of the story, as it didn't feel like one was being committed to.
They preferred the softer one that says 'play' to the cleaner, tidier overlay that looked as though you were looking at the shots through a camera, not watching it back.
They also pointed out that song of the lip-synching was not in time with the music for the first part of the song.
They liked the shot of the girls with the iPhone overlay as it switched things up to front-camera, and gave the video an even more personal touch, so suggested that I include more of those.
The added animations went down really well, and the focus group liked how the titles were now established & defined with the animations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pARTZcWiPY

New Music Video Breakdown

My goal for the new video: take a more of an abstract design , using visuals and only having an implied narrative, as opposed to an explicit storyline.

Genre: the song does not conform to a particular genre, but the hybrid genres it at times conformed to would be Alternative/ Chill Funk

Location: I chose to use the same footage from my first draft,keeping the locations of the beach and bed, however I also added scenes in the bath, which added another dimension and lighting style in the video.

Casting : Imogen , my main model, is LUNA for this production. Her girlfriend, Lydia, is her girlfriend in the music video.


Mis-en-scene: I wanted to create a mis en scene that included contrasting warm and cool tones, and the general colours used are purple (her hair, the bath water) yellow/ orange (lanterns, titles), grey (the cliffs & the overlays used)
The lighting between the shots were quite consistent, however I purposely used different lighting for the 'flashback' scenes.;

Teaser Trailer

I also edited the footage from Imogen's music video, to make a teaser trailer for the music video. Often, artists will release teaser trailers for the release of an album or video, and it often contains similar themes and hints at what the content will be like once it is released.

Music Video First Draft & Focus Group Feedback

This is my first full draft of the music video.

I showed my focus group and the response was incredibly useful and constructive. The main thing they addressed was the lack of clear narrative in the video. There is a lack of commitment to either abstract visuals or an actual storyline that is explored.
This is an obvious problem in the video, going hand in hand with the recognized lack of connection with the video and the song lyrics. Although the shots are nice and the visuals work together, there isn't a clear link between the theme of the two, so I am now thinking of the option of changing the song.

Some more minor criticism were:

• The shots start feeling a bit "samey" after a while. Although of course the overall look of the video should look the same, the feedback is right in saying that a few of the sequences I have put together in the video begin to look a bit repetitive and an interest is lost from the audience. 
• There is a sequence with the ocean where I have attempted to use editing techniques to reverse the sea and forward it again, to the time of the beat. My audience would like this to be refined and explored more, as having it halfheartedly done just once doesn't use it to it's full potential 
• The shots of the lanterns over Imogen's hair should be explored and used more 
• There was a suggestion to merge two shots, an ink one and a beach shot, combining the two and maybe some others could help bring the different type of shots together 

I came to the conclusion that the lack of a relationship between the video and music was a very detrimental factor of the video, so decided that a different song might work better with the type of footage I had collected.

FINAL MAGAZINE

Vining out with (((o))) lyrics

Sittin’ in your vibe and you be stylin’ out too quickly
Man it's just the way you do it when you move so swiftly
Vibin’ out to you, it makin’ me too human
Smokin' out the way I feel emotion
Emotion
So good, it's so bad, it’s so bad, it’s so new
I’m wishin’ at the end of June

Clouds in my shroud in my vision grow clearly
Can’t see ahead if I’m fine when I leave me
What is the sayin' when you should let go
What is so impossible?
Do me like that with a smile, with a smack
With a you nose, you know me, no you know me better

No rainy, no windy, no sun
Just music and just with the one
I’m fine like that, fine like that, fine
I never be losin’, I’ve won every time

No, you know knows me no better like that
Fittin’ in, your styling out too quickly
Man it’s in the way you do when you move so swiftly
Vibin’ out to you make me too human
Smokin’ out the way I feel emotion
It’s so good it’s so bad, it’s so bad it’s so new
Wishin’ at the end of June

Clouds in my shroud in my vision grow clearly
Can’t see ahead if I’m fine when I be leavin' me
What is the sayin’ when you let go
What is so impossible though?
Do me like that with a smile, with a smack
With all your nose you know better like that
When we be on the scene when ya gottem
Wingin’ me weather

No rainy, no windy, no sun
Just music and just with the one
I’m fine like, that fine like that, fine
I never be losin’, I've won every time


The lyrics to this song don't carry a particular narrative. They are written poetically but disorded, but paired with the  peaceful and melodic instrumental and airy voice they sound deliberate and harmonious.
This means that the visuals are able to be abstract/ carry a narrative without having to follow a particular theme from the song. 

Thought Beats - Goodwin's Theory

Music Video Theorist, Andrew Goodwin has condensed the codes and conventions of a music video into 5 ideas. One of them is Thought Beats.
Thought beats is the idea that the audience can see the song in the video. Music videos and narrative ideas are correlated to the beat, rhythm and tempo of the song through the use of cuts, editing to the beat and repeating shot taking. The structure of the song, the speed of the beats in the song and the voice of the artist are all aspects to be considered and explored when creating the visuals.

Goodwin also explores the relationship between the Music and the Visuals used.
He believes you can:

Illustrate= the video uses images and ideas to illustrate the meaning of the song.

Amplify= atmosphere and deeper meanings of the tracks re repeated to keep a particular idea in the audiences mind- without the emphasis or acting of lyrics

Disjuncture= the meaning of the song is ignored and the visuals are totally abstract.

Focus Group

When a company want to test how their product will be received by the public, they often test it out on a small group of people in a controlled environment to see what the reaction is likely to be. Audience testing is important because:

• When you have worked on a product which you care about, it is easy to be biased yourself and a fresh perspective can often help to point out flaws which you didn't see yourself.

• You may be making a product designed for an audience which you do not belong to. This means that feedback from members of your target audience are more valuable as they understand the genre better.

I collected my focus group as young adults from my school to gather opinions, as they are my demographic for my production, in the ages 16-25, and HipHop RnB are popular types of music among my social groups.

My focus group consisted of:
Owen (age 17)
Melodie (aged 18)
Rob (aged 23)
Toby (aged 25)
Shonah (16)
Matt (19)
Mabel (18)
Henry (21)
Megan (19)
Lydia (16)
Anoushka (18)
Thabo (20)

Magazine Progress & Focus Group Feedback

I had 3 mock ups of my magazine advert for my album, and I asked my focus group which was their favorite.

I liked this one as it featured the album cover and the deep purple of the jellyfish is dark and moody, contrasting the light cover and smile on her face.

I used the reviews at the bottom as that is a common convention of album promotion.

For the next two, my main image was Imogen, and I used the same tagline 'brand new self titled album:'
I also liked the use of the release date being so bright and the symbols of apple music and spotify.

The focus group response came back with mixed responses. I asked some candidates the things they liked and disliked and I eventually came up with this design. 

I chose the same photo used for the digipak and enlarged it, keeping with the colour themes used on the other aspects of the brand. I also adapted the reviews and symbols of the music platforms, adding more of a range of listening platforms.




After showing this one to my focus group the feedback was very useful and precise:

• Make LUNA bigger
• Swap the 6th September and the 'worldwide hit'
• Put the platform symbols in a less evasive position. 
  I corrected this feedback and I think the response was very constructive for my magazine advert. I made LUNA much bigger, and to link the magazine advert to the digipak, I added jellyfish in her sunglasses, as seen on the cover. I also rearranged the reviews to make them more symmetrically positioned. I also emphasized the word ALBUM at the top of the page.
  
  
  
  
  

Digipak Production Progress : Back Cover

I made the set list based off the kind of song titles I think my artist would name them. I found it was conventional for digipaks to have a barcode and compact disc symbol on the back cover, as well as the copyright information and the record label.

However, after continuing some research of digipaks, I found that it isn't always conventional for the artist to be featured on the back cover, and often the track list will just be layerd over an animation, a setting or often just a solid cover. I wanted to keep with the theme of jellyfish though, so I layered jellyfish over each other and coloured it to match the deep purple/ blue theme. 

I also experimented with the positioning of trackless, barcode and copyright information on the cover. I asked my focus group what they preferred.

My focus group responded with the best back cover having the track list in the middle.

Digipak Production Progress : Cover

Below are my digipak cover ideas that I played around with first. I collected my focus group as young adults from my school to gather opinions, as they are my demographic for my production, in the ages 16-25, and HipHop RnB are popular types of music among my social groups.



I liked the use of the clouds, 
giving the album an airy ambience and feeling,and this font of LUNA I think works really well on all these covers. 
My focus group feedback gave the general consensus that having 'Luna' on the cover was more interesting to look at and would create more of an incentive to buy the album. 

Although they liked the font and theme of Jellyfish in cover 2, 
they preferred to see her face. 

Which made me create cover 3. I liked the use of jellyfish in the sunglasses, and my focus group said that they enjoyed the idea but they were a bit too bright and took the audience attention away form the model, the main focus of the cover.

Finally, with the feedback from my focus group, I merged the ideas together. I put the clouds behind the model, made her larger to bring focus to her and dimmed the jellyfish to not distract the attention from her. 

I contacted my focus group again and the new album design was the most popular.

Set Location

My first set that I am using is my bedroom. I want to shoot in the morning and evening for my "flashback" scenes. The bedroom scenes are going to have two contrasting atmospheres, one in the early scenes of the relationship, with the couple in love, and then during the collapse of their time together, with the coldness and loneliness.



My second set is the beach, where I am going to film the scenes for my artist walking away (being freed from what has hurt her in the past). The beach is a great setting for a video like this as it's natural and undomesticated environment, which I think is perfect for this part of the video as it replicates her facial expressions and how she feels being liberated.

Digipak Design

I decided to sketch some very rough drafts of my idea for digipak. I wanted to include a photo of Imogen on my cover of the digipak, but was torn between a back cover featuring her too or just the track list. I will wait and see what the designs look like once I begin production of this ancillary task, and decide then which cover suits the album best.

Text on Video

From my research and planning, I knew I wanted to include titles over the video, displaying the artist and the song title. To do this, I created a font on PicMonkey.com and green screened the letter so that they had a white background but the moving image could still be seen in the letters.




















However, I also wanted to try having just the text on screen, so I reversed this process and trialed out a new font. Upon asking my focus group, it was found that they preferred the second option as they like the whole shot being able to be seen. They preferred the second font fit with the music genre better and was more exciting and different.

Editing Practice

To practice putting music to videos, I cut up three music videos from the artist Stefflon Don. I imaged that I was making an advert for the clothing line asos, and cut the videos down with the clips I wanted to put into the advert.
This task was incredibly helpful as it made me condense 12+ minutes worth of footage into 30 seconds, and made me think about editing my footage to match the beat of the song (cutting ton the beat) I chose the song "Money" by Leikeli47.