These are some test shots of our band in regard to creating our digipak. We shot them with a green screen behind to allow us to have the option of generating a CGI background in the image, or to have the green background itself as it is dark, conventional to the music genre we conform to.
The photos we initially took for our band simply were not suitable and will not be used for our digipak and website for several reasons.
Firstly, they did not match the genre, having an indie rock as our genre, we want to encapsulate an image of a abandoned warehouse or something of similar connotation to evoke a sense of lostness to our audience in order to appeal to our target audience who are disengaged alienated youth members of society.
Secondly, they do not sell the artist or band. With the lead singer in mind, we also want to ensure that the band as a whole is well sold in order to reach out and sell our album to the alienated youth. The photos as shown are not even of the entirety of the band and as mentioned before, they do not sell the artist. We are glad we took these photos as we can now improve and take new ones which sells the band and lead singer so we can sell our band to the alienated and disengaged members of society.
Thirdly, the images we had taken are not well framed. With the images being the key focal point of the band, the smallest details can make a fundamental difference. The frame and angle of the images can also connote different things. A low angle shot looking up can give someone authority whilst a high angle looking down can connote weakness. We aim to encapsulate a mid shot of the entire band framed completely even in a more deserted location which will give a higher reach to the alienated youth that we are reaching out to.
These are the factors you must consider and it goes to any band in order to really sell the artist/band and reach out to the intended target audience.
This is the album cover of the 4th album from Black Sabbath. It is a picture of the singer Ozzy Osbourne in the middle surrounded by the name of the band and what number album it is. The background colour is black which connotes the rock genre of music. furthermore, this helps the image of the lead singer to pop out of the cover and highlights the peace pose of the singer which again was a theme of the rock genre that peace and expression of music. At first glance you would believe that of all genres this is clearly a rock genre album. The star image of the artists is rock 'n' roll, mental and freedom and these are all themes that will relate and resonate with their target audience. The writing is big and bold to stand out to sell the band who is performing as that is the name on the album. Also the colour is bland compared to the yellow of the picture which helps to further elevate the picture off the cover so people can see the message of what the band and album stand for.
Dressed to Kill is the third album for the American Hard rock band Kiss. Similarly to the last album the background of the album is black and the colour scheme is only black and whit which the dark and lack of colours is associated with the rock genre and their star image as a band. The picture of the band in the middle highlights their star image of being crazy, dangerous, mysterious and scary. The fans of hard rock music generally also attract to those themes of danger and being crazy so this attracts the specific hard rock fans who like this to the extreme to buy the album. The bands name Kiss is at the top in the brightest colours to highlight the band name, however it is also in a specific font where the 'SS' at the end of KISS are shaped like lighting bolts to connoted danger again highlighting their star image and what they represent. Lastly the album name is small, at the bottom and blends into the background and as the name is 'dressed to kill' which is already scary and mysterious and connotes danger again furthering what the band are trying to get across when selling this album.
Crime of the Century is the third studio album by English rock band Supertramp. Again as a rock band album cover the colour schemes are on the same lines and as this is a picture of space the background is predominantly black with white stars scattered round. The colours are what you would associate with a rock album cover dark and meaningful. The main picture is of hands clinging onto the bars of a floating prison cell. This is very mystery and can have lots of different meanings, things such as crime, mystery, danger, entrapment are all themes that are associated with rock genre and is how they are selling their star image to the target audience. The band name is the biggest on the album and is in a futuristic font and a smaller name of the album title underneath. The album cover as a whole is mysterious and lots of unanswered questions that will intrigue people to buy the album.
Road to Ruin is the fourth album by American Punk rock band the Ramones. Following the them of all these album covers of a black background that connotes the rock genre, with the brightness of the Band name as well as the album name to sell the band. The main picture is very colourful and clearly highlights a rock band. It is them in a cartoon form with all the generic rock equipment such as drums, guitars and the clothing. This highlights their star image to the the audience of a punk rock band it is simple and clear of what sort of music the play and what they are like as a band. This makes it easy for their target audience to relate to it as their isn't a coded message it is just a straight forward rock band and that will sell well with rock fans.
An album cover has to accompany the type of artist and music they produce with the art, packaging and advertising of the album cover. Julian house, a creative partner at The Intro Partnership in London, suggests that the vision for the album art should be inspired by the artist. This means it involves several sit down discussions where the artist proposes different ideas, which the creative designers then create drafts and models of what they interpreted from them. House further explains how the album cover is a portal of explanation into the artists world and ideals, providing an entry point into understanding and getting a taste for what the music contained in the album is like.
Album cover art can be different extremely depending on the artists image and genre of music this will be highlighted using photos, typography and graphics. When looking at album covers of several artists its important to answer the following questions; who made it, how they made it, for whom and for what purpose? Its important to consider who the audience is for the album and if they will respond or relate to the cover. While the immediate target audience is likely to be those who frequently buy music, especially those who are fans or specific bands, artists or genres, the artwork may be designed to attract a wider audience.
Another aspect of the album cover is associations and connotations. Connotations are meanings and associations the image may link to. E.g. an image that denotes a powerful looking car may have connotations of speed or power, but in conjunction with other elements making up the art it might also have connotations of escape or thrill-seeking. Furthermore the album cover has Signs, Symbols and Codes that maybe aren't as obvious at first glance. A sign is a representation that refers to something else and has meaning, such as the car. A code means the structure of how signs are organised into systems to make meaning. They are usually divided into the technical and the symbolic, there are also written codes that included the use of language and text layout.
Lastly Composition & Framing are another important part of an album cover. This mainly focuses on the construction of the album cover, like the importance of light, shadow and colour and how they play a part. We refer to conventions as established ways of doing things, in this case, established forms of presenting and image. It can be helpful to examine how closely any given image tracks the conventions you'd associate with it, for example a rock band might use dark colours and and smashing guitars such as the 'London Calling' album.
The name of this band is 'The Clash' and the genre of this album is Post-Punk, which is a broad type of rock music. At first the photographer who photographed the band did not want to use this photo as it was out of focus. But eventually they realised it would make a great album cover as it was said that 'it captures the ultimate rock'n'roll moment- total loss of control. The image is of the bassist smashing his guitar on the floor, this photo captures the star image of the band as rebellious and angry which are also connotations of the rock genre. The album cover was cover was voted the ninth best album cove of all time by Q magazine in 20001. This appeals to the target audience of rock'n'roll fans as the cover perfectly represents this genre. Also the picture of smashing a guitar shows rebellion and will attract rebellious and alienated teens. They are an organic rock band and they want their genre and what they represent to jump of the front cd cover. The colours of the background are black and white which represent the rock genre but further it helps the name of the album 'London Calling' which is in pink and green really stand out.
This album is by Nirvana and the genre is alternative rock, released in 1993. The album cover shows an image in the centre of a beige background with the band name and album name. The image portrayed on the album cover is a transparent anatomical mannequin with angel wings. The colours of the image are burgundy, which contrasts with the light cream and beige colours of the background. The star image is presented through the album cover by having such a surreal image of a mannequin being conveyed. This is incredibly important because it helps to highlight the organic image of the band due to the fact that they are covering themes that would not usually be presented by mainstream pop groups. The genre of the band is also conveyed through this album cover. This is because the surreal imagery presented on the cover helps to outline the basic themes of Grunge music. This is because the lyrics in Grunge songs often portray serious and often surreal issues such as social alienation and a desire for freedom. These messages will relate to their target audience of the rebellious rock fans or the alienated in society who will resonate with the messages they are trying to portray.
This was the album cover Queens second album. The band were upset with how the first album cover failed to attract peoples attention to the album. For this album they are photographed by Mick Rock who previously worked with David Bowie and Iggy Pop. The band are in a Diamond formation, with heads tilted back against a black background. The genre of the album is hard rock and the dark colours help relate to the genre. The star image of the band is centred around them and the lighting is on their faces showing them as the stars as there is complete focus on them. This picture is mysterious with only the focus on their faces and the rest completely blacked out this attracts people to the album. The name of the album cover is on there and as it has the bands name in, it promotes and brings attention to both the album and the band.
We will use this template to create our Digipak, it helps to keep the ratio of the images and the spines correct, while also helping us understand how a cd case is created.
These videos will all inform me on how to colour correct my images, and also included will be a video on how to create effective black and white filters as that is the desired effect that we want for our digipak:
This video has taught me what the blend mode difference means, which is where two images blend by subtracting their RGB values. In the context of colour correcting it is useful to use a grey filled image to blend with the original image through a difference blend, as this shows the part of the image which is closest to grey, shown as the darkest areas after the blend, which can then be colour corrected by adding a curves adjustment layer and then using the middle dropper tool to select this area. This tool acknowledges that the part you have clicked should be grey however has a different colour tint on it, and then it removes this tint by lowering the respective RGB levels or by increasing the opposite colours to balance it out. This will be useful to create a perfectly colour balanced image before applying a black and white tint to our image as it will mean that the black and white image won't be too dark as the unwanted coloured tint in the image created by things such as sunlight or the reflection in the camera will be removed.
This video has taught me how to use Hue/Saturation adjustment layers to manipulate an image into a black and white image, rather than use the black and white adjustment layer, as when the RGB sliders are pulled it affects all of the respective colours in the image. These adjustment layers, along with a grey scale (Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer with the saturation slider pulled all the way to the left), allow for certain elements of the image to be adjusted in terms of how potent the black and white effect is while the rest of the same colours in the image stay the same. To do this you create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, click on the hand slider icon, and then click on the area you want to adjust. You then slide the hue to the left and you then can adjust the two colour sliders at the bottom of the adjustment panel until only the area you want is highlighted, return the hue to the centre, and adjust the lightness slider to how dark or light you want the area to be. Any areas which have been leaked from the wanted areas can be masked by Ctrl+I/Cmd+I and then making sure the colour is on white you colour over the wanted area to reveal it from the mask. It also explains how to create vignettes by creating a levels adjustment layer and sliding the bottom slider to the left, creating a solid paint spot, then pressing Ctrl+D/Cmd+d to transform the circle which can then change how the light shows in the image.
These are two effects which will help make the image on our front cover be dramatic, eye-catching, and powerful, all while lacking colour.
To recreate this image i took this picture of an arm holding something circular to be reflected as holding the heart shaped bomb when adding other assets to the image.
I then used the bezier tool to trace the left part to capture the left part of the hand holding the bomb in the original image and i then made it white.
To capture the idea of the bomb being heart shaped i used the bezier tool to create the square shapes that are similar to the heart shaped bomb and rearranged them to be configured in a heart shape.
I then placed a black square behind this and wrote Green Day American Idiot
To recreate this image I took an image of Angelina Jolie into Photoshop, and croped the imaged to only have show her face.
I then changed the colours to only show black and white.
I then added an adjustment filter where I posterised the image so that the contrast was a lot higher to match the intensity of the white in the original cover image.
I then imported an image of blood dripping and changed the colour so that it matched that of the image
The next step was to create purple dots so i used the eclipse tool and changed their colour to purple, and turned the opacity down so that it was slightly see-through
I then copy and pasted the circle layers multiple times and re arranged it into a similar pattern as the original
I then copied the powder finger and found a similar font, placed it at the top of the image and changed the colour to match the original
We created a Surveymonkey questionnaire to accompany the release of our music video. This meant that after someone has watched the music video they could answer this questionnaire and we would receive effective feedback on crucial elements of our music video
From our Feedback
Strengths of our Music Video:
The visual effects such as the colour distortion
The lip syncing accuracy
The shot choices of the lead singer and the band performing
The effectiveness of the narrative conveying its strong message of rebellion and isolation
Weakness of our Music Video:
Whilst our narrative conveyed its message, it was unclear at points in the music video, and therefore could be improved upon
Some effects were unnecessary and ineffective
Some shots that had no effects seemed boring and they felt we should put effects over most of the video
How We Will Act Upon This Feedback
We will include a VHS effect on the lead singer and band shots as the chorus kicks in to enhance the narrative and make it clearer that it is the beginning of his drugged induced dream.
We will reduce some of the effects in our music video where they have little purpose, for example the over the top effect of the shaped vignettes around each band member.
This feedback was given after showing our class our near finished video. With everyone liking the video, we received a variety of feedback. One classmate believed we should not have had the white background however, he was disagreed by a fellow class members and the truth behind the white background was to simply show the audience that he is institutionalised. We felt that if we changed this it'd make the narrative less clear which would affect how well we can sell our star image to the isolated youth.
An interpretation behind the lead singer picking up the brain was to symbolise him in his fantasy world trying to actually see what is wrong with his brain himself and then near the end when he is reaching his back to reality stage, he simply throws his brain against the walls and it breaks to show he is mentally broken. The organic aspect of the band and generic conventions we used such as close ups and lip syncing allowed us to sell our star image to the disengaged youth of society and the hard rock fans. Overall from this feedback we wanted specifically to get what people thought the video was lacking and constructive criticism of the video for us to have a think about to improve the video. However, we got such positive feedback from the class and they all enjoyed the video and gave us lots of praise. These were the constructive criticism that were given received: 1. The white background doesn't match rest of video 2. A few effects were over the top specifically the wave transition and colour changes with band 3. Black bars at the top and bottom make them smaller 4 Brain aspect of the video unclear However, there were some contradictions with some people who disagreed with the criticism another classmate gave. For example one person didn't like the white background and said it didn't match the video while another who clearly understood the concept of a mental asylum understood that the whit aspect was vital to show this. So while we appreciate the feedback we believe that the white background is key aspect of the video that we do not wish to change.
This was very useful feedback and all of what was said has been considered as to how we can make it better.
Ben: First things first, I really like it. It holds a powerful emotional effect on the audience. It most certainly reaches out to your targeted audience being disengaged youth in society and has some great editing techniques that I felt brought it all together.
Me: Thanks Ben, is there anything we could improve on?
Ben: I suppose you could have done a few more different shot locations however, it is still great how it is. The colour schemes used were brilliant too in my opinion. Truthfully, I really liked the music video so well done.
The feedback received from our final was extremely useful as it allowed us to gather how clear our narrative is to people but also that the ideas from it that they liked. We take on board all positive and negative feedback and transfer it into our video to enable we sell our star image to our intended target audience being the disengaged youth of society. A lot of positive feedback was good to hear as it shows that hard work pays off!
They picked up on our clear narrative and also how we adhered to generic conventions such as close ups and lip syncing to help sell our star image to the isolated youth. Furthermore, we subverted our organic feel to our band through the use of instruments which again help sell our star image. Another thing was the use of dark colours to resemble anger and rebellion to allow us to reach out to the anti-authoritarian youth.
The feedback received from our final was extremely useful as it allowed us to gather how clear our narrative is to people but also that the ideas from it that they liked. We take on board all positive and negative feedback and transfer it into our video to enable we sell our star image to our intended target audience being the disengaged youth of society. A lot of positive feedback was good to hear as it shows that hard work pays off!
At first, we showed the first draft to one classmate as we weren't ready for a screening of our video. The video was at the point where there were many things that needed tweaking and the purpose of this feedback session was only really for any big changes we needed to make, for the small things such as lighting issues were all being changed anyway.
We received this email:
From this our actions are:
We agree with all the points Jason made in his replying email, therefore we will implement all of his ideas into our video
To explain however,
We will include more shots of lead singer and the band performing because it enhances the performance element of the music video and builds up the star image of a band. In addition this replaces the tunnel shots because they were too saturated in the music video and it diverts attention from our narrative
We will replace medium shots of the lead singer with closeups of the instruments being played because they work well with loud noises in the song, for example when the drums play they make the video more enjoyable to watch
Another element we will adjust is that we will include quick cuts during the chorus, while also implementing the technique of jump cuts as both these work well with faced paced songs and it makes the chorus more special and fun to watch
Lastly including more effects makes the video more interesting and enhances the narrative of our music video therefore they are always a good idea to implement into our video
One of the effects that we will apply to our music video using Adobe After Effects is cloning two characters into the same shot, a lot of the other effects can be done inside Adobe Premiere Pro. This video explains not only how to clone characters but also how to allow for seamless interaction between each character even though it is impossible in real life. This effect is achieved simply by filming multiple shots of the same actor, in a different position, however the camera angle and zoom remains the same, this makes it look like it is all in the same scene. Once the filming is done, you only have to import both/each shot into adobe after effects in the same composition, apply a mask over the top video, and then apply a feather to it which makes the mask line seamless and unnoticeable. To apply interaction includes some preemptive thinking and direction when filming each shot, and then the mask just needs to be adjusted in the frames of interaction so that it doesn't cut out any moving objects to reveal the mask nature of the clip.
