A2 Media - Hold On We're Going Home

(set quality to 720p to enjoy in HD)

After many weeks of filming and editing, even through trouble with the school Mac's and then having to transfer all the footage and edited it again from the begging we finally finalised the finished project and made a great narrative for the song "Hold On We're Going Home"

Final Digipak

As you can see we have changed it from our rough draft the front cover especially and we have made it more simple by removing the the colt around the artist and keeping the background a clear colour. We made the digipak a two panel digipak because we found it hard to create the most realistic bullet hole so we didn't create that specific panel in the end. But I think that the end result is amazing we really like it and we did post the outcome of the digipak and the advert on our social networks for feedback but haven't had any really.

           Back Cover                                                                                                            Front Cover 

Left Inside Panel                                                                                            Right Inside Panel & CD

The software we used to create the Digipak was Photoshop a well know software used to edit photographs. We started by using the template of a digipak and then went straight into creating the forst panel, we first started with our front cover then moved on to our back panel because these are the most important panel that contain the main information as I describe in my video when I analysis the many  digipaks. Ofc ourse the images used for the panels are photographs we took with a camera but because of the age and legal issue we had to use a image from another source when it came to the back cover because of the bullet and then edit it as much as we could to make it look as if it contained the same style as the other panels. There was a lot of time put into the digipak because we were not too familiar with the software and so we used many YouTube videos for help. Below I have placed the video we used when editing our digipak.

How to change the size of an image

Because we had many layers when creating our digipak we had some images larger than other and it was hard and confusing on how to get the right size so this video helped us know a quick and faster method to fix our problems. 

Typing in a circle

We also used another YouTube video so we could know how to write the copyright information that is found on the actual CD we used this video to help us know how to type in a circle.

The font that we used for the digipak is of "Da Font" and is called "Gunplay"

which is the same font we used for our magazine advert. Using this font helps give the audience an idea of what the album will be like and by using a stencil like army style font it will give off that impression. Below is a image of the font chosen.

Final Magazine Advert

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation question 4 "How did you use media technologies in the construction research, planning and evaluation stages" presented in Prezi.

Evaluation Question 3

The evaluation question number three is "What have you learned from your feedback" and I have presented this in a Prezi which contains a short video of us interviewing some of the audience.

Evaluation Question 2

I have made this prezi and talked about the Synergy between my main task and ancillary task. I have included combination such as; Color, Text, Artist, Costumes etc.

Evaluation Question 1

Our first evaluation question "In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge form or conventions of real media products? done in a Prezi presentation 

Final Magazine Advert - Colt : Black Reign

Feedback and Re-consideration

In relation with our digipak, the feedback we received  did not match our expectations which then made us re-considered making a new advert that will mainly follow the typical conventions of which a magazine advert would contain. Some of the feedback stated that they image of the artist look "unfinished" because a artist of this particular music genre would be much more polished and show of wealth. The image and the presentation was also said to be too cluttered as there was too much big information that was getting in the way with the actual image. The layout was also another issue it was pointed out to us that the main purpose of the advert would mean that the audience would know where to buy it so it would be appropriate to have the small icons of where the album can be purchased. 

Taking this feedback into account we went ahead a produce a new magazine advert that follow more the typical hip hop and rap conventions. By this we used another photograph of the artist another of him in a suit so that he does look wealthy and polished like a successful artist should be. The photograph that we used is now a mid shot showing off his suit and tie which he is adjusting in the shot. The layout is much less cluttered by just making the less important text smaller and just having the artist  and album name and the digipak cover the main and biggest priorities on the advert. Learning from the feedback although we had included icons where the audience can purchase the item we also used Napster which is a MP3 downloading site, but we also had added a few icon of social networking site with a tag of which the audience can promote the artist more amongst the media.

 Although the feedback said the font suited and compliment the digipak once we had changed the photograph to black and white effect we though that the orange on the digipak would make the digipak stand out so there was no need to steal away attention from the album cover.

Final Magazine Advert

The software we used in order to edit and make this magazine advert was the well known iPhoto and a app I had on my laptop called "Picture Collage Maker Lite"

The Picture Collage was tricky because I had never used it properly and so it was a lot of time just trying out different features and effects. We had the major problem of knowing how to get rid of the boarder when we down place an image whether form iPhoto or from the Internet without getting a white boarder around the image it took us a while to know how to get rid of it.

Below is a screenshot of what the software looks like with a few of the features is has 

The photo we used of Ahsan was edited before it was placed in the Picture Collage Maker because that type of editing couldn't be done on that program. Below is a screenshot of the editing in iPhoto.

Why we done held hand shot and Why we stabilized shot

The main feedback we received for our music video is that some scenes in the music video is shaky and that it needs to be fixed so that it can appear more professional so below I have explained why the shots are a bit shaky and how we fixed them but how now some shots have zoomed in a bit.

When making our music video we had a lot of hand held shots. Some of this fit in with the music video perfectly because of the fact that we wanted the home scene to feel like home videos but because of the difficult shots that some of the battle training had, we have to also use hand held shots for these which is while the music video is shaky in some areas. Now like I said before some are meant to be but for the battle scenes they are not meant to be shaky and so to fix this without re-filming we managed to stabilised the shot on iMovie and this did reduced the shakiness of the video however the method when stabilising the shot is that the shot is zoomed in slightly which has made a few scenes more zoomed in than we had planned.

Music Video Response

When we posted our music video on Facebook these were just a few comments the viewers had once watching Hold On We're Going Home. We thought that it would be useful and great to put on our blogs so that later on we could expand and evaluate on them a bit more.

These are some comments left on Facebook and by the result we gathered that the shot we filmed are really well done and that the twist of the two main protagonist is very popular with our audience which is what we had hope for.

Below the comments there are screenshots of text messages that we received from more of the audience after watching the music video that said that the narrative of the music video tie's really well with the lyrics of the song which is important to know because after all the main focus of a music video is to represent the lyrics of the song. The female also said that she very much liked the twist of the characters swapping roles at he end.

Of course for our evaluation question number 2 which is
"How effective is the combination of your main products and ancillary texts"
will want more feedback on the finished and finalised the music video and so when it comes to asking the actual target audience we are going to ask  more question than these and we will be asking them question such as:
1. What do you think the narrative of the music video is about?
2. Do you feel that the music video represents the lyrics well?
3. What do you think the genre of the music video is?
4.What is your favourite scene or part of the music video?
5. What is your least favourite scene or part of the music video?
6. Are there any improvements or anything you would change or do differently?

These are the question we will be asking our target audience around school.

Digipak Cover Responses

This is just some screenshots of the feedback we received when Aalisha posted a picture on instagram

And this is feedback is of what the public thought of all of the panel of the digipak that was posted on Facebook

We also had friends of our who are not on media social networks write down theirs opinions and send us a photograph. This person sent us a pages worth of feedback. She is answering the same questions that I posted on Facebook

The first side of paper

The second side of paper

Editing Software used for Advert

 After having the right amount of photograph that we thought we could work with we then place them all in iPhoto to fix any errors and edited them a bit before placing it on a portrait poster and editing on the titles etc on another software called "Picture Collage Maker Lite"

To the left is iPhoto and it is basically a great software that allowed us to "Retouch" the photo before saving it and then creating the advert. It allows us to change the colour of the image, add sharpness, adjust the shadows, definition even allows us to add a tint to the image. Which was a great advantage for us because we found Photoshop hard to use when making the digipak so we were glad of the result that these two software gave us. Below I have put some of the photos that we have edited and other we considered when choosing which one to use in a gif, Beside is the actual photo finished result once edited on iPhoto that we did use (after our draft of course).      

This is us testing out the features that iPhoto provides as you can see on the right hand side there is mulitple actions and three different tabs at the top each having a specific type of feature.

Final editing choice for magazine advert 

This software on the right is what allowed us to add all the writing and titles on the advert. It was the first time we were using this software but it was easy to learn as we went along and it was much easier than Photoshop. Picture Collage Maker Lite (pcml) allowed us to change the font, add shadow to the text and it was easier to place a image on top of an image (after figuring out how without replacing the main image).

This is what the PCML look like and as you can see it is similar to iPhoto the fact that it has the editing bar at the right hand side with subheadings of what you can change. Both these software were really easy to use and they have helped made a great and professional advert.

Below I have made a short video as to how we made our drafts and the final magazine.

                                                                                                                                               

Interview Questions for Digipak

Once we have a mock up of the digipak we will ask for feedback from our target audience which is young adult between the age of 16 to 23 years old which is why we are going to be asking our classmate for feedback for our digipak.

1) What attracts you to the album the most?
2) Do you think that the cover in within the same style of the song list?
3) What do you think of the album name?
5) What do you think of the artist name?
6) Do you think that the colour palette is appropriate for the alum?
7) Who do you think that the album is target at?Why?
8) What would you do you say is the best feature of the album?
9) what is the worst or something you would change of the album?Why?
10) Would you buy the album? Why?

Font and Colours for Digipak/Album

When deciding font for the advert we went on a website to find some different styles of font. Da Font is what we used last year for our AS horror opening and so we went to see if there was any more we could use. Luckily for us there was a whole section called "Stencil and Army" and of course because our video is army based we thought that would be a great theme to look under and below is just screenshots of some of the font they had under that heading,

we actually tried a few tester because the website allows you to sample the font before downloading the font so here are some samples we did.

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Once we tried these we then thought we then had to use the same font for our magazine advert and we also have to keep it orange as well which meant that we had to download the font and somehow transfer it to font panel which we could after a very long time and it looks like this.

Having the same font create synergy between our digipak and our magazine advert, it also follows the typical conventions.

Magazine Cover and Advert First Draft

These are a few rough drafts of our magazine advert  as you can see the first one is a magazine cover for a made up music featuring cover where we have placed the artist on the cover of the magazine to help promote his album and song"Hold On, We're Going Home".

Below is a our first advert that we made and it has all the vital information like the date release and the album name, the artist name, featuring artist and where the CD is available from to purchase. We chose a army background and tinted the image of the artist that was used a green. We used orange and white writing in order for it to stand out and to resemble the album cover because that also has the orange font. 

Magazine advert/cover Analysis

Along with our music video and creating our album cover we also have to produce a magazine advert. For this I have decided to search for some inspiration and searched for hip hop and some rap album advert that are seen in magazines.

This is an advert is promoting Jay-Z overall as an artist which will evidently promote his music. Jay-Z is on the front cover of the magazine and has a a long shot taken of the artist and has been placed in the centre of the magazine among a city but the proportion is off scale because the artist is much bigger than the skyscrapers also seen on the cover which help make the artist seem superior. The colour scheme used for this advert is mostly in black and white and the only colours that are vibrant is the artist and the magazine name and the artist name making those specifically stand out to catch the audience's attention. The cover also has subtitles in black and on the left and right hand side of the page. On the right we can also see another page that promotes the artist and the album. It is a image of many music equipment such as stereos and speaker etc. the artist name at the top of the page this time in black and at the bottom of the page underneath the image.

This is more of a page in a magazine to promote the new album that this artist has released. This advert has the artist at the focus of the advert. The advert also has him on facing away from the audience with a retro background that is more artistic than others. It has the name of the artist 'Wretch 32" and the album name on labels like font with a black background and a white font. the colour scheme are mostly blues light a dark blues. What I have noticed about this advert is the fact that the it has logo at the bottom right side of the places/store where the album can be purchased from and that on the left hand side it has the album cover which is something we will want on our advert because we are specifically promoting the album.

This is another advert but i think that this one is on a website because of the fact that it has click to download but the presentation and the layout of the advert is what I am looking at and i really like the fact that advert is similar to the album cover and that they follow the sam colour scheme of electric blue and black with red dashes also included. This advert like other has the same kind of layout with the artist name and the album name too is much bigger font and writing than other information such as the other artist the album is featuring.

 This is a magazine cover of the original artist with one of his song and they have kept it simple and have managed to have the artist sat  down making the artist come off more relaxed more chilled about the promotion. The artist Drake is wearing a silver shirt with white jeans and a black belt. The costume of the artist flows really well with the magazine scheme of the light blue, grey and black writing. Again in this cover the artist is looking straight at the audience and this is made to captivate the audience eye.

Below are some images of how we are going to try and plan out our advert we are going to be producing so we have planned to have a photo of Ahsan and then either below or underneath we will have the main information.

Artist name: Colt

Album name: Black Reign

Release date: 08.08.2014

Featuring artist: Romeo and Target

Quick TV Advert

This is just something that we out together with the shots, almost like a teaser for the target audience and just another way to promote the artist and the album/single

Rough Draft

This is our rough draft of our digipak so far we have a our CD cover but we are working on the inside panel by playing around with hand positions and colours.

This is the cover we have so far as you can see we have chosen to have Ahsan play our artist and on this cover we have him standing facing straight forward pointing the gun at the audience. The artist name is "Colt" we chose that name because it can mean both a group of people targeting the album at a specific market but colt also is another word of a type of gun which is appropriate to our army music video and the genre of the song and album.

We have chosen to follow on with our black and white them but have also included orange to make the main titles stand out for the audience. As you can tell the cover and the way the artist is standing when holding the gun is similar to the James Bond well known recognition stamp he has. This was not something we thought of but when designing we did realise that it looked like and was told it looked like it. I think another feature that makes our digipak remind people about James Bond would be the costume. On the cover we have Ahsan in a suit and tie which is what James Bond would also wear. Below I have also included some of the James Bond logo for comparison 

These are just some images of the James Bond well known images of him holding a gun and this was a big inspiration for our digipak as you can see we have the similar position but instead of blurring the gun we have blurred the artist because the gun will help create our title for our artist names as shown above.

Digipak Anaylsis Part 1 & 2

This is just a video in where I have discussed simple digipak, I have talked out the colour schemes, the house styles, images, fonts and the actual panel on the digipak. I have split the video into two parts because it was too long to upload on to youtube or even finalise properly on iMovie so that's why it split in two parts.

Brain Storms

Below are some images of some brain storms that we had when thinking about our album cover. We though of the album names and the artist names. We also had to make up a song list which were fiteen songs. Once this was we drew out a rough sketch of what the digipak will look like and we decided to use a three panel template for our digipak.

Once we had all the song titles we asked a few of our media classmates which song titles they like and which ones they didn't approve of. So the title with the ticks or a heart is the positive feedback and the crosses are the negative feedback if we had more than two crosses we would think of the a alternate title that we could use.

The front cover will be of our artist which we will be using Ahsan holding a gun. We will use a mid shot and have part of his body and his head in the shot along with a focus on the gun. We still do not know where we will place the album name and artist name but this is the final digipak cover we want to create. We are thinking to keep the image in black and white and the titles in colour but we don't know what colour yet. The point of the gun facing forward so that when it looks like he shot the gun when you open it up. Below is the inside of the digipak where we will have the gun powder and a crack hole as if the bullet when through the CD cover.

This is what the album will look like once opened, the main objective is to make it look like that the fired gun has made a bullet hole in the case and that it flows through all of panel in the CD case.

This is the CD once it is fully opened and the panel on the right is the one with the bullet hole in the image above. The middle panel is where the album CD will go and the far left is where the gun has fired.

This one is the back but it is missing the crack hole but it is the panel where the bullet will end. This back panel is where we will have the song list.

Now the main colours that we were thinking of was black and white because it is simple colours and they go with anything. When looking at other album work for this specific genre Hip/Hop & Rap they all follow a same theme and colours with the font and size which is why we have chosen to go with the most typical conventions by having mostly black and white theme through our CD album.  

Album Cover Anaysis

When designing the digipak there can be different types of covers that are both artistic and others that are photographed and of the artistic or related to the album.

Costume: Lady Gaga is wearing black leather and she is attached to the motorbike meaning that her hands are what attaches the front wheel to the bike. This photograph has obviously been photo edited and has a filter of black and white maybe to hide or confuse the audience with the image.

Hair & Makeup: On the album cover Lady Gaga has messy untamed hair and she is wearing eye make up such as eyeliner and mascara the only colour on this cover is her red lips which could be used to drawn attention to her face.

Lettering: the lettering on the album cover has been made to look like the pipes on the motorbike and has a gradient colour in where the colour fades to black going across the bottom of the page as if there was lighting from the top of the image.

Image representation: This album cover represents the artist as a wild and compulsive individual and it represents the 

 Costume: Ariana Grande is wearing a pink corset with pink stockings sat on a bed of pink roses. The cover is a photograph and the mis en scene could have been edited but it also could have been CGI.
Hair & Makeup: her make up is simple and plain with minimum make on. if you seen Ariana before you would know that this hairstyle is her typical up do she always wears.
Lettering: The lettering on this album cover is more feminine than the Lady Gaga. The lettering is in white and the font is more curly really helping make the point that the album is mainly targeted at females.
Image representation: The album represents the album and the artist as a helpless romantic her pose makes her look vulnerable and the album title "Yours Truly" implies that she could be in love.

The next two album covers I will examine are more artistic which could have been done because it best reflects the singles or the artist

 Costume: This album cover is more artistic than the previous covers and because it is just of what i assume is the artist face it does not have any costume. It theme i would say would be pop art because of the bold bright colours and the small images with in the face.
Hair & Makeup: The album cover could be taken from a photo and so the hair is just trussed back wards.

Lettering: The lettering is a normal but a bold font in purple which is a colour used a lot on this cover.

Image representation: Because the cover has more of an artistic perspective it sets of this more freedom aspect of the album. the small colour images with the persons face is a fun and imaginative creation setting the singles on the cover to follow the expectations.

Costume: This album has more of a graffiti style art go on suggesting a different target audience for this kind of music it could be more of a urban album which would explain the graffiti style on the cover.
Hair & Makeup: From what i can gather from the drawing this male artist has no facial hair or hair at all and because he is male and it is a drawing he is not wearing any make up. However other than makeup helping his features pop out by makeup the colour red has help pick out certain aspects of his face.
Lettering: The lettering of this album is in the same theme and style of the graffiti drawing following the same colours of black and red with a white background. The font is a big bold font that suit well with the urban theme and all words are in black except "Duets" which for the same reason would have be done in order to catch the audience eye.
Image representation: This presents the album as a street album that is full of hard songs about sex or money which is it has the Parental Advisory stamp on the front of the album. It represents that the album is urban music and that the artist is very serious about what he has on his album.