Music Video Titles

After receiving feedback on our final draft, we have corrected any lip-synching mistakes and are now happy with the finished result. This meant that that last thing to add before exporting the video was to add the song title and artist's name. We chose to use the same font that we used to write the artist's name on the front of our Digipak. This creates a link between the products and reinforces the artist's brand.

We chose to add the title in the bottom left-hand corner over the first shot. We chose to place it in the corner so as to not obscure the artist's face, again, emphasising the 'star image'. We also felt that the titles are not as important as the content of the music video, we didn't want to distract the audience from our shots, we therefore placed the title subtly.

The images below show our font, titled 'Birth of a Hero', appearing at the start of our music video (left) and on the front of our Digipak (right).

    

Magazine Advert Image Choices

Our initial idea for our magazine advert was to present the idea of duality, representing the two contrasting sides of our music video's protagonist - reckless yet sophisticated. This led to our first image choice:

Choice #1

We chose a close up shot of our artist to emphasise the idea of the 'star image', this also links to the front cover of our Digipak which is also a close-up shot. We experimented with the ideas of duality and a 'hidden identity' by editing the shot on Adobe Photoshop, overlaying a shot of graffiti from our Brick Lane location. We then erased most of the graffiti shot, just leaving a small section on the artist's face. We wanted to enhance the contrast between these two layered shots so we made the image of the artist black and white and left the graffiti in colour, this juxtaposition was to show the two sides of the protagonist. We also used a similar colour palette to our Digipak which also contained black and white images with one coloured section (the CD). We decided not to continue with this image as we felt that it was too similar to our Digipak, this would make the advert less unique and exciting for our audience, leading to less popularity.

Choice #2

After abandoning the first image, we found two interesting shots from our Brick Lane location, overlaying the two on Photoshop and changing the opacity to create a 'ghostly' figure on the left. This continued our idea of showing two sides of our protagonist. The 'ghost' figure also alludes to the protagonist's deteriorating mental state. We liked the bold colour palette of these shots as this would make the magazine advert more eye-catching. After looking at existing adverts, it became clear that the majority are portrait, this meant that our image was not suitable as it was landscape.

Choice #3 (chosen)

We finally decided to use this shot as it contained the bright colour palette that we liked from our previous image choice and could also be cropped easily to make it portrait. We found that this image was the most suitable as it represents the main theme of our music video - escapism, due to the artist being pictured walking away from the camera. We felt that the perspective of the shot, as the viewer looks down into the alleyway, makes the image more enticing as the audience is 'drawn in', this would make our advert more eye-catching and, therefore, more successful.

Editing Update

Whilst we were editing today, we realised that our music video is very performance based, this contradicts our initial plan of a narrative video with a few performance elements. Whilst there isn't a clear, single storyline, our video explores various themes, such as escapism and mental instability. I think that, moving forward, we should focus less on creating a strict narrative as it can be more beneficial to have a vague story as this allows room for interpretation by the audience, this would make our music video more relatable and, hopefully, more popular and successful. We are yet to film at our maze location which is a key part of our narrative as it makes the idea of feeling trapped more explicit. Hopefully once we have filmed at this location our narrative will become slightly clearer.

We also noticed that the drastic change in lighting between our locations could be quite jarring for the audience. For example, shots of Camden at night cut to Brick Lane during the day and then back again. This makes the video lose a sense of continuity as it doesn't follow a linear time-line. However, many music videos contain similar location changes without it appearing out-of-place. I think that the key to making the transition between day and night more seamless is to have good editing. I don't think that this will be a problem for our group as we can use match-cuts to create a visual link between different locations - this link being the performer.

Digipak Front Cover Drafts

We chose to desaturate our image as we wanted the front, back and inside covers to contrast the bright, colourful CD. We also wanted a monochrome colour palette due to the album title, 'Noir', meaning 'black'. This darker colour palette encapsulates the themes of the album and our music video, that looks at the deteriorating mental state of the protagonist. This dark theme is also typical of the indie genre. After cropping our image to size, we added text - the artist name at the top and the album title beneath it. We then experimented with different fonts.

   

We wanted two different fonts for the artist name and the album name to make the cover more interesting. We wanted to choose a font for the artist's name that could be used on a range of products in order to reinforce their brand. We narrowed this font down to the two examples shown above. We specifically looked for fonts that had a decayed look to create a link to the grungy locations of our music video, such as Camden and Brick Lane. The idea of decay also reflects the deteriorating mental state of the protagonist in our music video. We decided to use the font on the right-hand side, called 'Birth of a Hero', as we felt that the font on the left was too bold and didn't reflect the fragile persona that we tried to create within our music video.

   

We then changed the positioning of the album name to find a composition that we liked. We felt that it fit better on the right-hand side (shown in the image on the left) instead of being centralised (shown on the right). Having the album name appear on the right looked neater and more professional as the text fit neatly into the dark space in the top right-hand corner of the image.

   

Finally, we looked at fonts for the album name. We wanted something unique as this would help to make our product stand out. For this reason, we felt that the font shown on the right was too plain so we decided to use the font on the left, called 'Atlantic Cruise'.

Font Ideas - Digipak Back Cover

Today the group researched further into fonts for our Digipak, specifically for the track listing on the back cover. We used the website 'Da Font' to download different fonts as there was a large variety of different styles. We wanted a font that was unique to reflect our indie music video, however, we also need a practical, legible font as we needed our audience to be able to read the important information on our Digipak. We narrowed it down to the 6 fonts shown below-left, we tested each of them by typing out the name of one of our songs, 'Cerebellum', so that we could visualise what the Digipak would look like more easily.

We chose to use the font that is second from the bottom. We liked the slimline lettering as this was reminiscent of a fashion magazine, this would appeal to our younger, image-orientated audience.

Digipak Image Choices

We looked through our footage in order to find suitable still shots that we could use for our Digipak. We chose to use shots from our music video instead of taking new photographs as we wanted to create an obvious visual link across the two products, this would help to create a stronger brand and 'star image'. Below are the images that we chose:

Front Cover:

  

We Wanted to include the artist on the front cover to heighten the 'star image', we wanted the artist's image to be the audience's first impression of the Digipak. As we wanted the artist to be the focus we wanted to find a shot with a simple background, ruling out our bold Brick Lane location. We chose these two shots as they are close-ups, emphasising the artist. Ultimately, we chose the image on the left as the image on the right seemed too bland with just a plain black background. Our chosen image is more exciting due to a wider range of tones and textures, such as the brick wall on the right or the artist's denim jacket.

Back Cover:

   

For the back cover we chose two contrasting shots. By looking at existing products we noticed that Digipaks from the indie genre usually contain landscape shots, such as our river shot on the left, or images of the artist, like our shot on the right. We decided that the river shot would be better suited for the inside cover as we could stretch it across two panels to create a panoramic view, emphasising the scenic nature of the shot. We also thought that having a shot of the artist on the back cover would fit with the shot on the front cover, having the artist appear on both the front and back covers would create a stronger 'star image'.

Inside:

   

After deciding that the river shot would be suitable to use for the inside panels of the Digipak, we found a second shot of the opposite side of the river. We hope that when we put these two picture together, they will look as though they are one panoramic shot. We liked these shots as we wanted quite a simple image on the inside as we had planned to have a bold, colourful CD. We needed simple shots to allow the CD to remain the focus.

CD:

  

As we wanted a colourful CD we thought that our Brick Lane location would offer the bright colour palette that we were looking for. We found the graffiti shot shown on the left. However, we decided to use the ornate pattern, shown on the right, that we found in Camden. We chose it as the grandeur of its design perfectly contrasts the grungy style of our music video and other Digipak images. The circular pattern is also well suited to a CD.

Camden Costume Choices

For our first day of filming (studio shots), we did not place as much importance on a specific costume as we wanted something quite plain. We also hadn't planned on doing any mid-shots, we only filmed close-ups which meant that the costume couldn't really be seen. We had a rough idea of what we wanted - a dark top, so I chose one without much deliberating with the rest of the group.

However, the costume for our next filming location, Camden, is more important as we will have a variety of shots. As we have already brainstormed ideas for our music video's costumes, and even created moodboards, we had a plan of what we wanted. For Camden we had planned to have dark ripped jeans, an oversized denim jacket and a fairly 'dressy' crop top, all of which convey the 'grunge' style, reflecting our location. I thought that the easiest way to involve the group in this decision was to use the mobile applications 'Whatsapp' where you can use the 'group chat' feature to talk to all members of the group simultaneously. It is also easy to send photographs. I sent photographs of some clothing options so that we could decide as a group.


Our Whatsapp conversation

Here are the options that I sent:

      

We decided on the third (from left) option as it seemed more 'dressy' than the other options due to its pattern and slightly sparkly fabric. We also thought that it would look best on camera as it is more colourful whilst still maintaining our darker, indie-inspired colour palette.