poster for Lanmou

Use of technology and Photoshop in my Ancilliary tasks

Photoshop is a useful creative tool that I utilized to create the ancillary tasks for my A2 year. I used it to create an album digipak and a poster campaign advertising the band and their new album launch.

The Photoshop process was fun and incredibly creative, it allowed me to experiment and create a new media product.   To create this digipak I critically evaluated our band image and attempted to recreate this in a campaign whilst trying to stick to conventions of alternative music. To create an image suitable for this I altered pre-existing photos by adapting the contrast and then blurred the blobs. I then using layers on Photoshop added a cut out of a Photo that I took to layer over the blurred balls. Thi slayering process would not have been possible without the Photoshop technique.  It added a creative element to the process of production.

The next stage to creating the poster and digipak was creating the writing for the band, this is crucial as it is how the band name will be seen by all people.   To do this I experimented with different writing style and borders to the letter type, I even tried to draw out different ways of writing the name, in the end I turned to the group so that we could discuss what we wanted for the band and we decided that due to them being alternative that we would make it seem that they where trying to have a poke at a writing style that we see all the time, this came in the form of Time New Roman

[THIS WRITING STYLE]

The end product looked like this.

After having come up with this idea I experimented with the writing further taking it through different stages using thin and fat borders in an attempt to make it stand out further. In the end we decided to keep it as simple as possible as this kept to our idea of them making a stance against the normal by being normal.

To incorporate the band members I used photos that we had of them from the shoot day. To these I copied the original image several times over and placed them through a filter called “Threshold” this is an adaptable filter that I played with to create an easily recognizable “stencil” of all of our band members. What I did to create the stencils was copy the original four times. I then adapted the threshold of each image except the fourth. After having adapter the threshold of the first three I layered them one by one erasing through the top layer to reveal lower layers so as to keep parts that I wanted and remove the darkened areas that I had not wanted. After having layered the three layers with threshold adaptations I then looked at the original image to see if this was as close as I could get it whilst still maintaining a realistic stencil outline that and that is how I have come to creating these stencils.

[INSERT STENCIL FACES HERE]

This is how I have used Photoshop creatively in my media project.

Feedback

Excellent  considerate understanding of the technologies used in production of the video, for example in terms of set design quality and the use of FCP to create effective set design and mise en scene – the kiss represents the electric feel.

There are evident links between creative decision making and use of technology on both productions of the video using professional digital cameras and in the post production editing process – in discussion of match of action, lip syncing and graphic matching’.  This is sustained and thorough and accurate in discussion of the branded themes of an electric feel for example in discussion of the beat of the song and pacing of the cuts used in the editing process.  

The commentary shows a discrete awareness of the use of new media technology and uses discriminating examples really well, particularly to selection and construction of narrative, editing techniques, such as FCP Tools – such as glow in colour process.   Excellent command of terminology and understands and discusses convergence really well – this is impressive knowledge at times.

There is sustained justified decision making links between the technologies used the product and audience reception in terms of the creativity that the group used.  Recognises the need to account for errors in the post production stage and the importance of convergent technologies.  Well evaluated.

This is a well considered documentary

Evaluation Task 4

Task 4: pre production.

Before creating our products for this unit of media we had a lot of pre production work to do.

the first task was to find a track and an artist that we wanted to create a music video for and come up with an advertisement campaign. to do this we opened my laptop and went through my I-tunes, as well as youtube which is a new media technology. we decided to chose MGMT's track electric feel form their album Oracular Spectacular. 

The next task was to start to look into other bands with a similar style to come up with a campaign. such as Jimi Hendrix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix)

to do this, we used google as a search engine to find similar bands and styles that we wanted. all this research was then blogged using the online platform of Blogger. 

after having looked at many different styles and a few bands of similar genre as MGMT we had to decide upon a final look (Image to be read by audience) and an original name to be marketed under. to do this we used Google translate and typed in words such as 'Moon', 'love' and 'peace' in the end we chose the google translation for love in haitian. 

Amongst Having used GOOGLE for research in post production we also used:

Photoshop: CS5 extended version 12.0

we used photoshop to come up with concepts and ideas to our digipak and poster. We designed several different versions of the poster. I came up with the final design and was in charge of creating the digipak and poster.

Throughout the process of creating these products I:

• I merged layers.
• Created layers. 
• Blended layers.
• Adapted images within layers.
• Adapted the threshold of the faces, to create the final images of the band members, to do this I copied their faces 4 times each, I then went into my settings and posterised them to create the stencil effect.
• I added a colour boost to the background image to bring out more contrast.
• I blurred layers to make them all similar. 

Google(for these reasons):

to research different artists look. and bands that are similar to the one we where trying to create. as well as different styles and ideas for our music video. we used Google the online search engine. through using this technology we found images of the look that we wanted. 

also through using the internet and search engines we found stills of shot types that we wanted to use. 

YouTube: 

we used YouTube to search for many music videos so as to get more ideas for shot types that we wanted and more information on the look of other bands with a similar style. 

Still Camera(DSL):

we used a DSL camera to take pictures of the band so that we could create the digipak and poster using photoshop. 

Blogger:

I used blogger to blog all of the ideas, influences and information about what we did throughout the process. 

Animatic:

the animatic was a way of creating a simple story board to see how the video would work.
I did this by drawing out each shot type that we wanted and a rough version of the narrative. after all the corrections where made to the shots and narrative. we then stuck all the drawings/shot choices and filmed them each for 10 seconds and edited them to make an animatic shown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYDmaexVHic

task 3: what have you learnt from the audience feedback part 2

We gathered our audience feedback from YouTube comments and a focus group involving 5 students form our target age group, 2 boys and 3 girls.

What we learnt from this discussion was that they understood the video but all agreed that the narrative should have been more clear and extended. The comments on YouTube told us that the narrative needed to be more clear, that the online audience liked the dancers and that they enjoyed the retro 80’s feel to the video as well as the song choice but wanted to see more variation in shot choice.

We also heard what they thought of the digipak and poster and found that whilst it did stick to the ‘feel’ of the video they didn’t like the poster as it was to full and didn’t flow enough which I agree with as it was not complete, I will place the completed one up soon, none of them commented about the stencil being linked in the sense of rebellion.

The advantages of having used these sources to gather this information was that we could see where we went wrong in post production and editing of both music video and secondary tasks.  Having used a focus group helped us to see peoples reactions as they watched and real time answers of what they thought of the entire project. The disadvantage was that the YouTube comments could have been biased or unreal as people tend to feel protected and can say whatever they want from behind a computer, however this could come to an advantage as we had no damaging criticism to the video.

The feedback from the video showed us that people as a majority liked the dancers, the song and the style of the video as well as the colours; however it did bring to our attention that they did not like the way that we bolted through the narrative without much thought.

From feedback of our groups we found that what we had tried to encode into the video was read well, they understood that we where trying to show rebellion through teens drinking and smoking at a house party and they brought up the point that they did not find the band to be attractive, which was one of the points that we had discussed in our group to encode, this was done on purpose to display that they where sold on their musical skills as a band and not on the sexualized nature of them. This was evident when the girls in the focus group talked about how they didn’t find the band to be attractive but still said that they enjoyed the song.

We tried to encode into the video that the band are not sexualized and we did this by not shooting obviously sexualized shots like them thrusting their crotches at the camera but instead we focused more on them playing their instruments. 

task 3: what have you learnt from the audience feedback

 granted some of the comments that we received from youtube are similar but we have some that are constructive and one that comments on how we could improve. 

during our group crit I writ some of the points raised down so as to have written points to remember:

constructive/ liked: 

•                the colour scheme of the video along with that of the digipak

•                the neon feel

•                the dancers

•                they understood and read into the druggie/ experimental youth culture

•                to the question of wether they would like the band live they all answered that they would go see them at a festival live rather than in the video

•                they understood the look of indie ie. afros, clothes, instruments and neon light for the look. 

what they didn't really like/ understand: 

•                the narrative the thought needed to be extended and done more obviously. 

•                more band energy like they needed to seem more with one another and not like strangers.

•                some of the girls wanted a better looking band 

•                and some of the group wanted less drug culture influence in the video. 

this does however show us that they understood that the target audience was meant to be of youth experimental culture and the the band was not meant to be sexualised or even appear sexy but that we where selling them on the target audience and music.  

Feedback on Task Three

Can you please complete this evaluation task over the weekend.

Feedback on Evaluation Task 2

This is a proficient task which has been completed.  I do feel that the last two slides which need to be addressing the question more closely - offer evidence to support your arguments.
Also theory is loosely formulated with your response - ie Richard Dyer or a discussion of Kotler's marketing mix.
You have branded the act well , but fail to communicate this to the audience and across your campaign.
Finally you do need to sustain the analysis by linking your production to the theory used.

task 3: what have you learnt from the audience feedback

we had a group critical analysis session with five people and after having showed them the video we asked them several questions:

What is you opinion of our star?

What did you like about our video?

What don't you like about it?

What elements do you think we could improve in our campaign?

Was the narrative clear in the video? 

Did you pick up any hidden messages and meanings?

Would you bye this album?

Would you see this band at a music festival?

Does the star image suit the band?

Would this video appeal to your friends?

task 2

SOPA law

I found this interesting as it is a law that if passed will slow a lot of the Procumer activity seen on the internet such as reused jokes (EG. Fenton the Dog, LOLcats and many more)

newest poster

Feedback

What you blogged so far about the CD cover is good.  However the evaluation task is incomplete - in terms of evaluating the analysis of the music video.  Can you complete this evaluation exercise as soon as possible please.  Do also refer to the reading that we completed in class.

new poster and CD digipack

this is how through photoshop I created the stencils.

six pictures of the video and how they stick/ challenge conventions.

the classic band wide shot: 

This is one convention of the music video as this allows us to see the whole band.

Setting the Narrative:

This adheres to conventions as it sets the scene or setting in either a few shots or just one. We showed the setting to the narrative through several shots of people drinking, getting cigarettes out of packets and talking .

Close ups of performance:

as the picture and the name shot literally shots with close ups of the band performing.

Secondary Performance:

The secondary performance is important towards keeping the audience interested, in this case we had dancers performing a dance sequence that we shot form various angles and cut to create a dance sequence in the middle of the song.

Obscure shot that had no great importance to anything:

a shot that we placed in as a sort of reference to the 80's half feel to the music that we thought could be entertaining to some but had no great importance to the music video other than to say "look we've got a disco ball and lasers."is does however show that we know about the rule of thirds through the framing of the disco ball. 

Through Crowd Shot:

this was used as a sort of way to show that the band Lanmou was playing at the house party. We also showed that they where playing my using shots from the side of the band looking into the house party.

this shot was a track shot slightly low angle looking up onto them to give them godlike status. and make it clear that they where the star vehicle to this video. 

We decided to keep to the same feel of the video for all aspects of the advertising campaign as shown in the colour scheme and the rebellious nature of what is shown, mise en scene during the music video such as smoking and drinking amongst young teens and graffiti used for the album cover and poster.

one of the problems we encountered during the editing process was that we had messed up some of the shots and that large sections of the shots where unusable due to the footage being completely off time. we found whilst screening the raw footage that we had shots in which the framing was off for the most part, the set would cut off and so we could see lights exposed above the set. 

Music Video