Exploring Advert Designs

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Magazine Advert Analysis

Final Flatplan for Digipak

 

 

 

This is my final flat plan design. the top image shows the way it would appear when printed on one image, and the second showing the breakdown arrangement of my design. I decided to have the front cover displaying the clock with the two figures centred in the black darkness of the burn. Choosing this design for the cover displays the burning of time, burning the timescale this relationship  consists on, and therefore reveals the void behind in which the male and female stand together but not holding hands. As the clock and concept of time going in reverse is significant to the music video I have made, displaying the clock would only make sense. However the clock featuring in my video at the moment is not in the shape of the old traditional alarm clock I have featured on the cover. If I used the existing one the signs and codes telling the audience the object is a clock wouldn't be so clear, as the burn would remove most of the clock face and give the appearance of perhaps a magnifying glass. Therefore to keep this design for my digipak to still relate to my video, I have decided to go back and change clock within my video so it films a time laps of a clock similar to this design.

 

I have chosen to include the love equation on the middle opening panel. It consistently uses the same figures as the cover in a simple design relating to the breakdown of love. The colouring of the figures not only show the stereotypical colours relating to gender, but relate to the people they signify. The girl in red should convey passion and love, yet also demonstrate that she is the danger in the relationship, with her being the one causing the breakup in the video. The guy on the other hand conveys the blue emotion, feeling depressed and alone because of the girl.  This representation is also stereotypical of a heterosexual relationship, relating to the video and a selection of listeners.

 

For the insides I have included a burn circle where the CD will be placed, including a quote from the song chosen for my video. Again this relates to the male and female figures on the previous sides. It also appears to be the burn is revealing the downfall in the relationship, saying "she didn't say you were the first, she didn't say you were the last one tonight", referencing the destruction the girl gives the relationship.

 

For the rest I have followed conventions of digipak designs and related it to my genre. The back clearly displays song titles with logos and barcode placed at the bottom so the music is till the main attention. A clear title of the self-titled album is placed along the spine as well, making it visible what album it is at all angles. Overall my minimalist design will demonstrate the music of my indie band, having motifs that relate to the music video its trying to promote. Also the choice to have a sans serif font throughout the digipak and for the band logo will add to this simplicity. I think my research into indie album covers influenced me greatly for designing, choosing to go with something simple but effective that will still sell the band. 

Exploring Digipak Designs

Once I chose an idea from my first designs I decided to experiment with the way of presenting my favoured idea. I chose the clock face with the burnt face, yet still wasn't sure the ways in which to display it. On the image below I experimented with space, band logo position, and what would fill the black centre of the clock. One thing I wanted to particularly use was a small male and female figures within the image, referencing the couple present in my music video yet could also relate to any listener buying this album. With the bottom left design, I thought the repeated motive of the people became too busy as a front cover but could possibly work inside the digipak. The bottom right design was also interesting, as I thought I could influence another one of my first designs of the record with the paper chain figures to be visible through the burnt clock, as if the different flaps of the digipak could be viewed through the front cover.  However this seemed a little over complicated to what wanted. I finally decided on the bottom middle design, providing a simple but symbolic cover relating to my music video.

I then thought about different images I could place within my digipak; simple images that reflected key concepts and themes of the music video. Here were a few ideas and there relevance to the video:

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As I had all these ideas and still wasn't sure on which particular one to use, I thought I would experiment designing the whole digipak, influencing each design into each.

 

I finally created these four designs, each with different layouts inside and outside the digipak. I also added a basic colour scheme to the designs, giving a basic idea as to the simplicity of colours and design. I experimented with the previous images on each design, seeing which worked best against the rest of the cover:

 

I finally chose design 1, that would then become the basis of my flat plan.

Digipak First Ideas

Indie Album Design

Designing my Digipak: Indie album design

Digipak Analysis

Stay Awake: Second Edit

'Stay Awake' by The House Of The Old Boat: First Edit

Here is my first draft of the music video for Stay Awake by The House Of The Old Boat:



In terms of when my audiences watch this video, I want there to be an indirect effect on them and it to be their choice to watch this music video. As I'm basing it on an indie folk genre I expect this group of people to be the ones that make it their priority as an active audience, that use media to satisfy individual and group needs, to come and find this video rather than just force it upon them as passive audience. Like Bulmer & Katz theories of the 1970's suggests, I want them to use this video to not only entertain them, but use it as social solidarity and a form of reflecting on their identity through the use of micro elements such as costume and camera techniques that reflect who they are and their interests.

As I have created my video to have a strong narrative that shows the breakdown of a relationship in reverse, I would want my audience to have this as the preferred reading of the piece and be able to pick up the encoding I have included to show this intended idea (Stuart Hall, 1980). This way I would feel my music video has worked and been delivered successfully if my audience read it the way in which it was intended to from my perspective as the director. However how some people have described it so far, I am open to some elements of negotiated reading and that certain elements are read in different ways, as I think this still works with my genre being indie. My audience may read different parts differently as the way they read  it may reflect upon who they are as a person and their social and cultural backgrounds. Indie music is all about relating yourself to the lyrics within songs so I want to push this further and make people relate with the video too. Therefore I have aim for the main reading of my music video to show the deterioration of a relationship shown in reverse and the different events and elements that lead up to it, shown in the timescale of a music video and ending at the same place it started.

I would say through creating this video I have challenged the conventions of a indie folk music video, breaking the grand narrative of the normal timescale of a video and the world in which it takes place in, creating a post modern product. A modernist view on music videos would say the video must be structured of events taking place in order of time. However like Lyotard's theories of the breakdown in grand narratives, my video is postmodern as even thought the scenes are played in current time, the events happen in a reverse timeline of their relationship, therefore starting with the breakup and ending with them meeting. This format challenges the conventions of order and therefore makes my video stand out against others. It is also postmodern through the whole thing being a hyper reality (Baudrillard), that the audience are engrossed in as this is the soul purpose of the video. Everything within it appears so real and like any other relationship, yet these people are just characters and just appear as a story audiences can relate too. Moreover this video mainly challenges conventions of videos through its lack of performance parts. As part of the genre is folk which mainly is known for performance elements, now I have removed them the whole video becomes more of a hyper genre, with audiences not seeing what they would expect to see but still have something that suits their preferences.

Editing My Video: Stage 4

After gaining feedback about my video and its appearance it came to adapting some of my shots and including more footage. Instead of the initial long shot of the couple sitting on the bench I thought I would replace these with establishing shots of the surrounding area.t his included close ups of bushes and pathways that would give a general idea of the setting for the first scene. When taking these however, the weather conditions were the exact opposite to the rainy day the main scene was taken in, therefore me making sure I shot frames that didn't include direct sunlight that would be a noticeable in comparison to the other shots. However this meant I could also explore more into post editing of my footage to make it appear the right weather conditions, furthering my development skills. I also took close ups of my clock that I would then speed up to create a time laps, not only showing the passing of time but the idea of the narrative going in reverse. I filmed two different clocks to give variation and to see which would fit better.

Camera Rushes Log 4- Extra Footage

Now I had this footage it came to placing it in the video. There was one particular shot I wanted to use in the opening sequence that showed a tree swaying its branches in the wind, yet it had a clear blue background which I wanted to eliminate to make it appear cloudy and grey like the first day of filming.

To start I highlighted the sequence of footage I wanted to edit. Then selecting colour replace from the effects menu, I used the grab tool to highlight the colour I wanted to replace.

To change it to the grey miserable sky I wanted to achieve, I went on the colour picker and changed it to a grey that matched my previous footage.

Using the similarity tool, I could then determine how much the colour would be changed on the background, especially around the branches of the tree where some of the blue was still outlining the darker colours . Changing it to 43 gave a cleaner finish where no blue was then visibly outlining the branches, achieving the grey sky I wanted.

 

I finally wanted to remove the slight blue hue the colour replace tool gave the tree in the image, wanting it to look natural and an unedited shot. Using RGB curves let me change the colour balance individually and reduce the blues present to give the shot a natural appearance. Also this tool could make me lighten the shot so textures in the tree were more visible.

 

Doing this edit not only gave me a shot that would fit with the rest of the videos appearance, but develop my skills in editing that I could apply to future projects, knowing the functions that could create the image I wanted.

 

Further changing to this video was the removal of the performance shots. As my feedback suggested, it distracted the attention from the strong narrative and was unnecessary  and out of place, therefore replacing it with alternative footage.

 

A final edit I did from feedback was including a time laps of a clock moving in reverse. By adding this in at different times in the video I thought it would particularly illiterate the idea of the relationship being shown in reverse time.

 

To create this time laps I simply filmed my clock for 20 minutes and sped it up 10,000 times the speed it originally was. I then reversed the whole thing that would therefore make the whole shot run smoothly and show a clear passing of time.

 I also thought to include it over the top of the last three shots of the montage would be effective in showing the breakdown of the relationship. I achieved this through reducing the opacity of the layer of the clock and laying it over the other shots to create two images visible at once.

 

Adding the clock shots not only brought clarity in my narrative but added more technical elements and exploration into effects of post editing I could include within my video. now I had added and changed my video according to my feedback I could then upload it as my first draft to Youtube and then show it to my official focus group, who would give me more feedback as to my music video fitting with my chosen music genre and working as a professional product to promote the track.