Final video

Now that the project is finished, here is my final music video.

 

Final ancillary texts

CD front cover

CD back cover

Booklet page 1

Booklet page 2

Booklet page 3

Booklet page 4

Print advert

Progress on supporting materials

Today I’ve been making some changes to the CD material and have made a reasonable amount of progress with the print advert. I wasn’t happy with some of what I’d done for the CD booklet so I spent some time changing it. For page 1, the page for track 1, Unreal, I didn’t like the colour in the image because I didn’t think that it fit with the other images in the CD. I replaced it with something quite similar but with a bleaker tone, with less colour. While doing this, I also changed the text to Arial, which is the font that I’m using for the track information on each page. I am using two different fonts to distinguish between the lyrics, which are very much central to the E.P. and reflect its themes, and the track information, which is little more than small print giving credit to the creators and performers of each track. This is why I’ve used a special font for the lyrics, Letter Gothic Std, chosen because it fits well with the imagery I have used, as well as using a default font for the track information, which exists only to provide technical information and is not part of the narrative that exists within the E.P. and thus does not need to fit with the style of the E.P.

This is the shot I had before. While it is a very nice shot, it doesn’t go with the rest of the E.P. It stands out a little among all of the other images in respect to its colour palette.

This image, I feel, has a much better visual tone to it and sits more comfortably with the other images in the E.P. There is a hint of urban imagery which also helps it fit with the rest.

The second thing I did was changing page 3, Chaos, to move the track info. text to below the lyrics. This made it look a lot better because I think the info. text should be out of the way and not intrude upon the lyrics or image of each page.

This was page 3 before I changed it. I didn’t think that the track info. text worked well being at the top.

As the info. text is meant to simply be a note on who made the track, it shouldn’t take up a large part of the page but should, rather, be tucked away at the bottom.

Before I finalized the back cover, I tried moving stuff around to make sure I was happy with how it is looking. I think that I have the logos and such sorted out with suitable proportions and the text at the bottom displaying the copyright information etc. looks authentic. I’m very pleased with the back cover and am confident in saying that I now have it completed.

The barcode and logos

The text at the bottom of the back cover

I’ve also been putting in time for the print advert. I had decided to go for an A4-sized advert so I cropped the image accordingly. I have used the same image that I used for the E.P.’s back cover but I don’t think that this is a problem as many of the adverts I’ve looked at for research have used either identical or very similar images to their respective CDs. I’ve consciously tried to keep the advert quite simple; I don’t want it looking cluttered as this is not what I’ve gone for in my supporting materials. I’ve attempted to keep all my materials’ images somewhat minimalistic, both in terms of colour palette and in their composition. I added an ‘available on iTunes’ image onto it as I noticed this on a few CD adverts. I also played around with the positioning of the text and decided on keeping it central,as I felt that this, somehow, made it look more like an advert.

The print advert at the moment. I’m happy with the look of it and don’t think there’s much left to do to it.

At this moment in time I have the supporting materials very near to c0mpletion. All of the booklet pages have been finalized and the front and back covers are how I want them to be. After maybe just a little more playing around with the print advert, I will have that finished as well. Judging the ancillary texts as a whole, I think I’ve been successful in making sure that they both match the tone of the video and hold together in themselves as a package for promoting a CD.

Another CD cover update

Today I spent quite a bit of time working on both supporting materials. The back cover has now been finished, with the barcode and record labels sorted out. I’ve also completed, but would like to spend some more time on, the booklet pages. After working on the print advert, I’ve got a very basic prototype set up. The image I have used is likely to be replaced but I now have a general idea of what the advert’s going to look like. I’m going to try to keep it uncluttered as I think a more minimalist style will complement the underlying themes of the video.

This is what I have so far for the print advert. I’m planning on adding the release date under the ‘lonely soul’ text and putting some logos, perhaps an iTunes one, along the bottom of the image.

When it came to deciding which record companies to use, I initially went for a major label, along with division of that label that specialized in the genre of music that my track belongs to.  I chose Sony Music Entertainment for the first logo. Obviously, Sony is a big name but this doesn’t mean that they they don’t invest in non-mainstream media. I chose one of their subdivisions, Ultra Music, to appear alongside Sony‘s logo. Ultra Music much more suited to my E.P. than Sony‘s other labels, such as Sony Masterworks, which specializes in classical music, or Sony Music Nashville, which specializes in country music. After some consideration, I decided to change the labels to one’s that have been used on genuine releases by Unkle. Having logos that fit style and genre of the track is important so I thought that using the label Surrender All, which has been used on several of Unkle’s albums, would be a safe choice. For a distributor, I selected RED Distribution, which is a Sony-owned company that focuses on providing distribution for independent record labels, Surrender All being one of them.

I was able, today, to position the barcode and these labels on the back cover. After, I added some text along the bottom of the image, which included copyright information. I have seen this on every single CD I’ve looked at for research so it was definitely something I needed to include. I had also taken time to sort out the track list. I now have only four tracks on the E.P., a much more appropriate number, I think.

The back cover is now just about complete. All I have left to do is finalizing the text because I am not 100 per cent happy with it.

The front cover has, unfortunately, remained undeveloped since I last posted. I am still meaning to replace the image with something of higher quality. I think it’s wise, however, to leave it as it is at the moment while I get the rest of the CD package constructed. Once I have the whole thing more or less fleshed out, I can return to the front cover to perfect it.

I’ve been very pleased with what I’ve got done so far for the booklet. I only need five pages; there should be a page for each of the four tracks and an extra side for the back of the booklet (the front of the booklet is of course also the front cover). I’ve taken an image for each one and added the tracks details (writers, producers, vocalist etc.). The images I’ve used have been screenshots from the video but I’ve been careful to use ones that don’t exactly look like something taken from the video. For a couple, I’ve added some visual effects to stylize them. Below is page one, for the track Unreal.

There is colour on this image that I’m not sure fits with the other images. I may experiment with visual effects.

The second track is Lonely Soul. For this page, I took a screenshot of footage of birds that I had near the end of the video. To avoid it looking like a screenshot, I only used a very small part of the image, giving me a nice blurry still of a bird. I really like this because of its simplicity; the image is simply a bird frozen against a blank, colourless sky. I added the necessary track information and then filled the image with the song’s lyrics. The finished page, I think, looks very much like something from a genuine album insert and I doubt that I’ll be changing it.

I am very pleased with this shot. There is not too much going on visually, which is a good thing. It is the simplicity of the image that I think works particularly well.

The third song on the E.P. is Chaos, another lyric track. For this image, I took a screenshot of one of the places that I performed. A bit of visual tweaking left me with a very dark image with a single, strong source of light. I added some mild posterization, which is what has added the strange colour effect. I am a little divided as to whether the image works well. I like the obscure look of it but it may look a little messy to some.

Perhaps some further visual adjustment would make the image more obscure. What I want is a bright light shining, surrounded by darkness.

The final track, Be There, also has lyrics, which I overlaid onto an image of two birds. This was the same footage as that from which I sourced the image for Lonely Soul. It was from a different part of the footage and I inverted the colour and reversed the image so it doesn’t look too much like that image. Having two pages with the same visual subjects helps hold the booklet together, I think.

This image complements the one I have used for Lonely Soul. I think the colour inversion has worked well.

Video feedback

Today the A2 music videos were shown during assembly. I received 36 feedback sheets and have been processing them to learn from what people have thought of my video. Overall, the video was quite well received; I received no severely negative responses and most of the feedback indicates that I’ve made a solid piece of work. I apologize in advance for the plethora of graphs but they can explain things much better than words.

Out of all respondents, there were 14 males and 22 females, which isn’t too unbalanced. This divide looked like this.

Percentage of males and females

As all but one of those who filled in the sheets were students, there is a negligent age range and almost all of the respondents would be likely be considered teenagers. This is what the age make-up of the feedback looked like.

Age of respondents

My first question was ‘did you enjoy watching the video?’ As the below graph illustrates, most people seemed to like the video, which is reassuring. Most answered yes but as can be seen, some didn’t like it a great deal but thankfully no one hated it.

‘Did you enjoy watching the video?’

My second question asked people to say what genre they thought the song was. I included this question because the succeeding question asked if they thought the video fit the genre. I didn’t want responses to this question from people who couldn’t identify the genre correctly so question two was a filter to keep the feedback valid. In regards to the track fitting the genre, most people thought that it did. Nobody said that it didn’t and there was a handful who thought that my video adhered to the conventions of the genre particularly well. So far, so good.

‘Do you think the video fits the genre?’

The third question on the sheet asked people who they thought the video’s target audience is.  As the below chart shows, male teenagers were considered the main audience that the video would either attract or entertain. There is a very visible majority who felt that teenagers rather than adults would enjoy the video, going hand-in-hand with the recognition of teenage angst as one of the themes. Also, almost two thirds thought that the video was suited towards a male audience rather than a female one.

‘Whom, in your view, is the video aimed at, or, in other words, who is the target audience?’

Supporting this, it is also clear that out of all the respondents, the percentage of males who liked the video is higher than that of females who liked it. This shows that my video, as I had already known, has more appeal to the male audience.

Male

Female

Moving on, the fourth question asked people is they could sense some kind of narrative, even if only a vague, simple one. The response to this was a little less positive. A significant number thought that the narrative was only somewhat discernible. I had thought that this might be the case because I had been careful not to make the narrative too obvious as I planned it to function as a subtle force in the video to add a sense of progression to it. Clearly, I perhaps went a little too far and made it slightly obscured.

‘Could you discern a sense of narrative, even if it was a simple one?’

I received a similar response to question five, which asked whether the performance element of the video is clearly separate to the narrative. Again, most said that it was, but many appear to have been a little confused by this and didn’t think that the two were clearly separate. This had been a major concern for quite a while but I think it would have been worse if I hadn’t filmed several loads of performance footage, considering what I’ve explained before about the performance being tied to the world of the narrative.

‘Is it clear that the performance part is separate from the narrative (i.e. the performer is not a character within the narrative)?’

Encouragingly, the response to question six was very positive. When asked whether the people in the video looked right for the video, an overwhelming majority thought that they did. A substantial number said strongly agreed that they did, which implies that I cast the actors well and was successful in terms of costume. I felt that both of these considerations were important and would contribute to the authenticity of the video.

‘Do you think that the people in the video look right for the genre/feel/tone of the song (in terms of clothing and appearance)?’

The seventh question asked the respondents to tick the boxes for the themes they could see in the video. All of the themes I listed are things that I have, to varying degrees, tried to make visible in my video. Some are evidently more detectable than others. Most people listed loneliness and isolation as these were the most obvious, but many also ticked urban entrapment and teenage angst, which shows that a lot of what I’ve tried to present is visible in the video. Minor themes such as paranoia received fewer ticks, but this isn’t a problem as not everything I was putting into the video was a major part of it. I did, however, feel a little disappointed that there weren’t more people who could detect escapism as a theme. I had thought that this was quite tightly woven in with narrative but, as it appears, it was not an obvious theme.

‘Please tick the boxes for any themes you could see presented in the video.’

When asked whether they thought it looked like a real video, the response was very similar to the other questions. Most agreed that it did, with some thinking less so and some more so etc. I was pleased with the response to this as it’s obviously important that my video looks genuine.

‘Do you think the video looked like a real music video?’

For the questions on the quality of parts of the video, the responses were largely praiseful. In regard to the quality of the video as a whole, most people judged it to be good, with some others thinking it to be either excellent or average. Several people left comments saying how the lighting was especially well done, specifically on the parts with me performing at night. I had been very pleased myself with the footage and it’s nice to know that others like it. I also received comment on the opening shots, which I was told were very professional looking. The below are screenshots of the parts I suspect people were most impressed with.

Others commented on the locations used and how the video worked well with a strong urban presence. I think there may be a tendency for people in this part of the country to use rural locations a lot. I wanted to avoid this so I consciously strove to make sure my video had a clear urban setting. This definitely helped me construct a sense of entrapment, which was one of my major themes.

‘How would you regard the overall quality of the video?’

A question on the quality of the camerawork yielded positive responses, with most seeing the video as having very competent camerawork. The range of angles was specifically complimented, but I was conversely told that there was perhaps too little variety in terms of shots. Something that one person mentioned that I can’t disagree with is the lack of camera movement. I certainly feel that I should have implemented some, both for the sake of the final mark of the product and to add some life into the video. Someone believed that my video would have benefited aesthetically by higher-quality cameras. She said that the video had clearly been filmed with a school camera. I do agree but there was never a possibility of me having access to the kind of equipment used in major music videos.

‘How would you rate the quality of shots (in terms of shot composition and angle, range/variety, etc.)?’

Several comments were made on the night-time footage looking very nice. This shows that another decision I made paid off. I was wary of filming all of the footage during the day, as most students would probably find more practical, and instead made the decision to get lots of night-time filming, especially since darkness, both as a part of my intended colour palette and as an integral part of the tone of the video, would be so central to the finished product. Filming during darker hours additionally gave me the gift of very beautiful lighting, with me being especially happy with several dark shots with a glowing source of light, as I have mentioned before, akin to many Hopper paintings.

My editing was very well received, with a clear majority rating my work in this department as either good or excellent. The second half of the video is the part I’m particularly satisfied with. I believe that I rather skilfully controlled the pacing of the edits to complement the building intensity of the song.

‘How would you rate the quality of editing in the video?’

The quality of my lip-synching was not incredibly positive. A considerable number felt that it was only average and very few considered it excellent. This was admittedly quite disheartening as I had considered my lip-synching skills to be very competent. I knew that the standard of lip-synching would be appear to be lower when shown on a large screen but I honestly had been expecting a better reception in this respect.

‘How would you rate the standard of lip-synching in the video?’

Looking at some comments people left, it is clear that most of what I’ve talked about doing in the video has been noticed and appreciated. One respondent applauded the shots of the lyrics being written. I myself was very happy with these shots as not only did they supply the video with many close-ups but they also very much helped drive and conclude the narrative in the video. The writing of the song is the final stage in the character’s development within the video and the final line being written marks the end both of his personal progression and of the video itself. Another person singled out the ‘abstract shots’, which I take to refer to the shots of skies and the other shots of this nature. They were a feature I had planned to include since the very early stages of development so I am extremely glad they they have been appreciated. There was one person who thought that the shots of the character were well composed. This made me happy as the composition of the shots with Matt was one of the main things I was proud of doing well. I suspect that the shots also have appeal in the same way that the scenes in Hopper’s works do. I was trying to construct shots that would show the isolation of the character, much in the way that is done to the figures in said works.

Sunday (1926)

The feedback today has, ultimately, been very positive. I’ve been pleased with how much of what I’ve consciously put into the video has been picked up on and complimented. I’ve been given a great deal of reassurance in regard to the effectiveness of several parts of the video. My use of shots of skies and of other random things has proved worthwhile. I still believe that they work extremely well to make the video comprise more than solely narrative and performance. The lighting, the camerawork and the editing have all been highly rated by those who answered by questionnaire and this confirms what I had hoped; that I’ve made a very decent music video.

CD cover update

Having been working on the CD cover for the past few days, I’ve now got the front and back covers finished in terms of how they will look. I’ve decided on a font, Letter Gothic Std, and have decided to keep the back cover as it is and replace the front image with the same subject but taken as a still photograph.  It was the fact that the back image was a taken from moving footage that made it blurry and out of focus, which I like the look of. The front cover, however, benefits nothing from using the current screenshot as it of much lower quality than a photograph would be. I’m planning to take a camera out and replicate the image this weekend. While I do so, I’ll also see if I can get some more pictures that I can use for the booklet.

After I put the text ‘lonely soul’ onto the front cover (as I’ve decided to name the E.P. after the song that I used), I played around with the text size and tracking. I think the text looks much better if it is smaller than the text for the artist name.

The text in this example is the same size as the artist name and I don’t think it looks right.

Whereas this one looks a little too small. I think the artist name should be larger than the album name and this is what I’ve noticed when looking at other CD covers.

I settled on a size that is smaller than the artist name, a convention I’ve noticed in other CD covers and started experimenting with the tracking (spacing between characters). I think the text looked much better when spread out a little.

This was the size I decided to use.

I tried different degrees of tracking and this was the one that looked the best.

After a more work on the back cover, I’ve had quite a bit of progress. I still have to find a barcode and some logos and put them onto the image but as it stands, It is fairly complete. I’ve made the decision to keep the the image I am currently using as, to me, it works well and I think that it would be difficult to obtain something similar while simultaneously trying to keep image quality high. The blurred effect the image has is due to it being footage; I don’t think that I could get this with stationary photography. Also, in terms of colour and tone, it’s exactly what I’m looking for so I’m deciding to use it as the final image.

What I am presently thinking about is whether the tracks should be numbered. Of all the CDs I’ve looked at, I’ve seen quite an even divide between those that have a numbered list and those that don’t. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern in terms of musical genre so it seems like it is just done at the discretion of the artist and label. Personally, neither looks better than the other but I think that, given the simple, somewhat minimalist style I’m pursuing, I should use an unnumbered list for the sake of visual consistency. It will keep the image looking simple and uncluttered so is the more sensible choice.

The back image as it is at the moment. This is the numbered version.

This is the unnumbered version which I am fairly certain will be the one I use. The simplified presentation complements the aesthetic I am trying to achieve.

What I’ve decided to do for the inside booklet is pages with lyrics and track information. Lyrics are very common and I’ve looked at CDs that have details on each track such as whom it was written by, who performed it and copyright information. I’m planning to have images on each page with lyrics on top. Not all of the tracks on the E.P. I’m constructing have vocals so for them I’ll include only the track information. I need to make sure that the images that will have lyrics over them are suitable, i.e. they allow text to show up well on them. Going through my video and taking some screenshots has given me a few images that will do for now but will most likely be replaced with higher-quality ones when I get the chance.

This image will allow a lot of room for lyrics and I like it in itself. The colour and tone fit with the other imagery and I like the blur.

This is another image that is quite generous in terms of allowing text to be displayed clearly.

During filming for the video, I got a lot of nice shots like this. I want to avoid using too many sky shots, though.

What I would like to have within the booklet is an image such as this. Urban locations were a large part of my video so this should probably be followed through with the booklet images.

This is another shots from the video that I really like. There’s not a huge amount of room for lyrics so this might be one for a non-lyrical track.

I really like the images that I have at the moment but I’m conscious of re-using material and it does seem a little lazy to use stills from the video for the booklet images. Also, I don’t think it makes sense because the images would be reflective of the entire E.P., not just the eponymous track. Using screenshots from the track for the booklet doesn’t seem authentic. This shouldn’t mean that the images can’t be similar in tone and style to the video, though, as the track would carry the style of the E.P. What I am saying is that the images should be similar to the imagery of my track but shouldn’t be taken directly from it.

In relation to urban imagery, I’d like an image of somewhere urban, maybe shot from low down. In my mind, it’s similar to the cover image of Hammock’s Kenotic (2005).

Firstly, I really like the colour palette. There’s also a bit of a blurry thing going on which definitely goes with the tone. This is also what I envision when I talk about a low-down shot.

Ultimately, I want the imagery to be dissociated and possibly a little obscure. It is a little difficult to explain but what I want is a series of what might seem to be random images that visually bring to mind the video and carry some of its tone. They should all be disconnected from one another but conversely still fit together through a homogenized tone and style.

As a side note, I’m strongly considering reducing the track number to four as even after basic research, this seems to be the norm for an E.P. I’ll probably remove the ‘intro’ track as an E.P. wouldn’t be likely to have an intro track anyway, being a small grouping of tracks rather than the cohesive package an album can be. An album can have and intro and an outro track, as can be seen in Unkle’s Psyence Fiction (1997), the real album that my track is from, and can often have a running audial or narrative theme, such as in Green Day’s American Idiot (2004) which has a very strong cotinuing narrative throughout the album. An E.P., on the other hand, is just a small number of tracks with some semblance of a common style and tone.

The album is an example of a ‘rock opera’, with a narrative that develops through the album’s tracks.

Psyence Fiction has an ‘intro’ track and an ‘outro’ track, showing the self-contained, narrative-like characteristics of an album, which are not things I need to adhere to when constructing my E.P.

Progress on the CD cover

While working on my CD cover, I’ve been experimenting with different text styles to find the right one. I’ve been using screenshots from the video as placeholders for the images on the CD and I intend to take a camera and get some photos within the next two weeks. The screenshots have given me an idea of what the cover/back cover/booklet etc. will look like as they have the same visual tone as what I want to use. The images are quite dark and the placeholder for the cover has the glowing light effect that I want in the image. What I have been using as the back cover is also quite dark, without bright colours and has a little of the blurry lights thing I was thinking about using.

The first font I tried, Letter Gothic Std, is the one that I like the most and may well be the one I use. It is quite a slender font and with a little adjustment of the colour, transparency and definition, it looks very good. I’ve put ‘unkle’ (artist name) on the front cover in this font and it gives an indicator of what the image will look like. I also used it for the back, having put text in place of the track titles to see what the back image will look like.

A view of what the front cover could look like. I’d like to get a bit more blur on the text. I like how the light is in this image.

I really like the appearance of this font. I think the slender text helps it fit into the image, which is good because I don’t want the text looking out of place or cheaply stuck on.

This is how the back cover might be. I like this image because of the colour, tone and blur of the lights. The canted angle also adds something to it, I think.

The second font, Sathu, is somewhat similar to the first, being quite a clean sans serif style. It is a little bolder than the slender Letter Gothic Std and it’s a fairly standard text style, which possibly makes it look a little boring and basic, as if I’ve just used a default font. I doubt that I’ll be using this one.

This second font is quite basic and I have seen some text on CD covers that looks quite like it.

It does, however, have a very ‘stock-font’ look to it that might make it look less authentic.

American Typewriter Regular, the third font I tried out was a serif style and the only one of such that I thought looked all right. I’m not sure whether a serif font will look right on the image. Out of all the CD covers I’ve looked at, I can’t recall any that had a serif-style font for the text. I put the text in a few other serif fonts and there was definitely something off about them. To me, they look cheap and unconvincing as possible CD cover images, looking a little like something that has been sloppily made on Paint.

This serif font may look a little out of place.

I don’t think that it fits well with the image. I think the cover needs a neater, sans serif font.

The last font that I was considering, Bank Gothic is very modern looking and is an all-caps font. I have definitely seen this sort of thing on CD covers and I think that it would look right on the image. I don’t think that all of the characters being in upper case would be a problem and I do like the look it has.

The all-caps style of this font gives it a very different look to the other styles.

I’m quite sure that it fits with the image but I still prefer the first font, Letter Gothic Std.

I put some blank shapes onto the image so I would know roughly what it will look like with the barcode, record label logo and such. I am very happy with how the back cover is looking. I have been thinking that since it is probably more like what I am looking for than anything I will likely get from still photography, I should maybe use it for the final back cover image. The only concern I have is that the image may look quite grainy when made to fill the 15 square centimetres of the CD. I don’t mind the image being blurry; to some extent, that is what I would like. However, a grainy appearance will only look cheap and lazy.

This image here is not far off what the final one will look like. I’ll have to do some work in terms of creating a barcode and finding a label logo etc.

Letter Gothic Std is the font I will most likely be using. I’ll see what else I can do in terms blur and colour effects. I’m thinking that a bit of blur on the text will complement the glow of the light on the front image especially. The current front image is a good example of what I’m hoping to have. I would use it if not for the deteriorating effect making the image bigger has on the visual quality. I could very easily take a photo of the same location which would give me the same subject with a higher image quality. I’ve used three tracks on the back cover but this isn’t set yet. I may decide to have about five, roughly the size of an E.P., as opposed to the three I have at the moment, which perhaps straddles the size of a single and of an E.P. I’ll just use the titles of a few other tracks from the same album for these other songs. It would also make sense and eliminate confusion to name the E.P. after the song that I’ve done the video for.

Print advert first ideas

After doing a fair bit of research for the CD cover, I’ve decided that I should start thinking about the magazine advertisement. It is soon apparent after a few minutes of researching such advertisements what the differences between them and CD covers are. Firstly, the adverts are usually taller than wide, like an ordinary piece of A4 paper. This contrasts with the square shape of the CD covers. Secondly, the advert will possibly include other details about the album, such as the release date, available formats, included singles and upcoming tours. Additionally, the advert will appear to be an announcement of the album’s release, often with large, bold text displaying ‘Coming Soon’ or ‘Out Now’ etc.

This advert uses the same image as the one used on the album cover. Many adverts display similar text to this

They tend to be quite similar to the cover of the album they are promoting. The colour palette is usually the same and the imagery theme will most likely match. This is thus something that I should try to achieve in my advert. It is important that both the two supporting materials complement each other, as well as fitting with the feel of the video. I think that I’m on track for the album cover fitting with the video so now I have to ensure that the advert has a similar feel.

Album cover

This is the advert. It carries a similar style to that found on the CD cover

A lot of the adverts that I’ve seen use the same image that is on the album cover. This makes sense as audiences will recognize the image on the advert when they see it on the CD. Alternatively, some use a very similar image, possibly with the same colour palette etc., but with a different pose (if the artist is the subject of the image) or slight variation of the subject.

Album cover

For this album, the advert uses the same image as the album CD. People who have seen the advertisement will recognize the image when they see it on the CD

Some album covers are very minimalist and uncluttered. This makes them more effective as advertisement, as a passer-by can easily glance at the poster and take in the information quickly.

This poster is simple and uncluttered, displaying the artist, album and release date. It is effective as an advert

The poster also fits with the album cover (here), which also has a simple yet bold aesthetic

This alternative advert is more informative, presenting the artist, album, release date and the singles found on the album

A number of album adverts have an image of the album displayed somewhere on the poster. This is done for the same reason as using the same image: to help people recognize the album in shops.

This album is an example of such an advert. The CD cover is displayed within the advert so that people will recognize it on shelves

This advert uses near-identical imagery to the album cover. This is another advert will ‘Out Now’ displayed

The artist name on this is much more prominent than the album name. This might be found on big-name artists who can rely on their name to help sell, rather than using attractive artwork etc. This is another advert that presents a selection of singles from the album.

This is another example of an advert that uses imagery very similar to the album. It is also another that shows some of the singles included.

Here, the advert uses the same colours found in the album artwork, maintaining a common style.

The album cover

This uses the same image, as well as including the most famous single from the album. When an album has a certain artistic theme, it will be used in the advertising

Distinctive artwork found on album covers is often replicated for the advertisement so people will recognize the imagery. This album advert also displays the release date and the most famous single

The advertisement will usually display text in the same font and colour as that on the album cover, utilizing a common artistic style

Looking at quite a few adverts has given me some direction in thinking about mine. At the moment, things that I am definitely going to try to employ are:

• A common artistic style. The advert should be easily identifiable with the album cover. One thing I can do to help achieve this is for much of the advert’s text, using the same font and colour that I used on the album cover. I should also ensure that the colour palette matches the image on the CD cover.
• Necessary information. This is essential to making the advert look genuine. I will need to include the album’s release date, the singles featured on the album and any other information I think will help the authenticity of the image.
• Similar imagery. In attempting to create an advert that can, at a glance, inform audiences as to what it is promoting, I should use similar imagery that people will recognize from the CD cover. Having the two pieces of supporting media complement each other is what I should aim for.

Colour correction

Today I finally got around to sorting the colour on certain parts of my video. The footage was a little yellowy and didn’t fit aesthetically with the rest of the footage. I see it as important that the video has a consistent colour palette to help hold it together visually. I spent a bit of time experimenting with the colour settings on Final Cut to make the footage less yellow without making it look too washed out.

This load of footage, which I have used quite a lot, had a slight yellow tinge to it, as can be seen here.

For my video, I was hoping to use a consistent colour palette consisting of darker, colder tones. This looked too warm for me.

I am fairly pleased with the end result. The lighting in the room I used was very yellow so I could never have completely fixed it but I think I succeeded in making it fit a little better visually with the rest of the footage. The process was straightforward. I simply adjusted one segment of the footage, copied it and pasted the attributes on the other segments on the timeline.

This was what I ended up with after colour correction. I was able to strike a balance between reducing the yellowness and maintaining a coloration that wasn’t washed out.

I’m pleased with the look of these bits of footage now as they match the tone of the rest of the video much better.

I feel reasonably confident to say that, after having done this minor task, I have now finished the production of my music video. The timeline is completely filled, with all the footage segments sealed together, the ending is sorted (a sudden cut-off), everything is all synched-up and, after today, all finalized in terms of colour. I am very satisfied with what I’ve created and I think it’s turned out roughly how I planned it to. Looking at the finished video, it definitely has the feel I envisioned. I can call it a success and now concentrate on the additional materials.

Thinking more about the CD cover

Today in class I had a look at some CDs that were available to get some more inspiration for my CD cover. I’ve started to think about how I’m going to do the booklet in the CD as well as the front and back inserts. My first instinct was to use either stills from the video or take photos of a similar nature (taking stills from the video, to me, seems slightly cheap and lazy). I think I’ll include the lyrics as this seems to be a standard feature in the booklets and I think it’ll add to the package.

The first CD I looked at was Just Like Blood (2003) by Tom McRae. McRae is a solo singer-songwriter and the album artwork reflects this. A solo artist is almost universally the main focus of the front cover of an album. McRae is pictured alone in a cinema with, interestingly, his hand covering his face, which made me think about somehow using anonymity as a theme in the artwork. The front cover picture has a strong, red colour palette, which I think looks good but isn’t the right look for my artwork. The back image shows McRae standing half-silhouetted on a beach. This image has a very (purposefully and skilfully) limited colour palette, in contrast to the front cover’s bold red. The light areas of the image are used to background the track listing. The booklet features pictures of McRae along with the songs’ lyrics. One image is of McRae outside, out-of-focus city lights behind him, with darkness dominating most of the picture. Another picture spanning a double-page is of McRae sitting on a bench alongside other benches, slightly silhouetted against the sky. This is another image with a limited colour palette and I like the silhouette effect and the contrast between the lighter and the darker parts of the image. This picture was also used as the cover for the single Karaoke Soul.

Front cover

Back cover

Image used in booklet

 

Towards the end of the booklet, there are pictures of McRae and the album musicians in the studio. This I found interesting because it makes the album appear self-aware, as it is showing images of its production, referencing the fact that it is a constructed piece of media. I started thinking about whether this would be a good idea for my artwork. The track does not feature recorded instruments. Rather, it uses mostly studio-constructed sounds as the artist is not a musician or a singer. Shots of musicians in a studio would therefore be ruled out. I could, instead, have a person in a studio using the mixing equipment. Images of musicians, I’ve noticed, tend to be in black and white, usually in contrast to the other artwork on the CD. This creates a sense of division between the images of production and of the world of the song. This is quite similar to what I said before about the performance in my video. I had wanted there to be a division between the narrative and the performance in the video and had achieved this by filming the performance in different places, in order to avoid having the performance being identifiable with one location (the performance was not meant to be in the same universe as the narrative). I think I could maybe get access to a studio in order to take a photo if this is something I choose to pursue. If I do then it won’t be me in the picture. The reason for this is that although I am the performer in the video, I am not acting as if I were the artist that made the track. The singer in the song provided vocals but did not produce the track. Therefore, if I am the singer, I should not also be acting as the artist and I would have to get someone else to pose for this.

The studio image(s) could look similar to this

The second CD I looked at was R.E.M.’s Nightswimming (1993). The front cover is very obscure, featuring a blurry image of a face. The entire CD artwork has a very strong, green colour palette and this works with the obscure imagery to make a fairly unsettling set of artwork. The contents of the booklet are a few more blurry pictures like the front image and there are no lyrics included. I found this CD to be a very minimalist product and I think that if I were to do something like this, it could appear to be the product of laziness. I’m of the opinion that I can make something that is at once  both very visually impressive and able to reflect the tone and theme of my video.

Front cover

Back cover

The final CD that I had a look at today was A New Day at Midnight (2002) by David Gray. Gray is another solo artist and the artistic theme he  has gone for in the CD features a lot of images of skies at twilight. This is the basis for the front and back covers, with the same image spanning both sides. Such pictures comprise most of the booklet’s imagery as well. The booklet also includes the songs’ lyrics and some sepia-toned photographs of Gray. These photographs are mid-shots and close-ups and are, as with those in McRae’s Just Like Blood, differently coloured to show their separation from the other imagery. Gray subsequently went on to use more landscape imagery in his next album Life in Slow Motion (2005).

Front cover of A New Day at Midnight

Back cover of A New Day at Midnight

Front cover of Life in Slow Motion

 

Shots of skies were something I was thinking about including in the artwork, although I won’t use them to the extent that they are in this album. I’m considering having the booklet consist of pages of lyrics (white text on black), along with pages with images such as those below. I could take stills from the video and use them for this, although I imagine that that would come across as being a lazy way of doing it. I’d rather use a camera to take photos of what I need. This would give me something that I don’t have in the video already and would also mean that they’d be of a higher quality, as shots taken directly from the video are likely to be somewhat grainy and blurry, whereas photos taken with a proper camera will be very strong and distinct.

When made bigger, images such as these become very visually imperfect

With more professional photgraphic equipment, I can take photos of much better quality