The Power of Love Final Draft

This is my final draft of my music video. I realise I have some improvements to make like the audio at the beginning etc but these are minor changes.

Digipak Final Draft

These are the final drafts for my digipak design which I created using Adobe InDesign. The final adjustments I need to make is to fill in the polaroid photos in the inside cover and replace the front cover with my own photos of hands a flame but this should be very easy to do.

Digipak: The Draft

This is my draft of my digipak. I created this digipak in the same program as the magazine advert, Adobe InDesign because it has all the tools necessary, although I did utilize Adobe Photoshop CS6 to edit the picture of the fire in the palms of the hands. I decided to stick with the theme of the polaroid photos on the digipak and the advert because I think it will look more professional, and it will also allow the audience to make more connections with the artist so she will become recognizable by her vintage style. The three images in the digipak design are from Google Images as this is just a draft, but they will be replaced with my own images, however at the moment they are just used for placeholding and giving me an idea of location and size and scale etc.

I am pleased with this first draft of the digipak as it's not too difficult to create and I am fairly confident that I can make this without much altercations.

Music Video: 1st Draft

This is my first draft of my music video. It is not entirely finished yet but this first draft, created using Adobe Premiere gives me a good idea of timing of footage and narrative. The biggest issue with this video is definetely the timing - the song is shorter than I had first expected, and the rise in the chorus part is difficult to match the visuals to, but that is something to work on during the next draft. I would like to do several drafts in order to show you the progress I am making but also for myself to see what I need to do next. The aims for the next draft is to cut down the crying scene of Marcus, include more footage of Beth at the piano and sort out the lip synching as in places it is not quite right.

Marcus and William footage (rough edit)

 

This is some of the footage I got of my couple William (left) and Marcus (right). I wanted their story to be formed from a classic setting i.e. the falling of the books, looking into each other's eyes, falling in love convention. What some might notice as well is that I tried to make a connection with the two boys by having them both reading the same book - Virgil's 'The Aeneid' (this just happened to be the only book I had two copies of at the same time but actually it worked out well as it's a classic war/love story and fits in with the story). This is just a play around video, the actual video will consist of footage from Beth and Adam too. Also the tear video at the end is going to be reversed, so it looks like the tear is withdrawing back into his eye, however I can't do this on Windows Live Movie Maker, so it will have to wait till I am back in school to use Premiere Pro.

Ancillary Task 1: Magazine Advert DRAFT

These are my drafts for the magazine. I have done two because I am undecided whether to add the floral borders or not. I created this magazine using the program Adobe InDesign as I have used it before and therefore won't waste time in teaching myself how to use it, and also I think it is the best suited program for the job. I based the design on previous students' work and also my own imagination. I quite like this first draft however I don't like the typography of the 'includes the hit singles' and the & sign below, so that is something that I will need to work on. I think I prefer the 1st design to the second, because I think the floral borders, whilst they fit in with the boho style of the video and artist, make the poster look too busy and draw the attention away from the information, however I'm glad I created both in order to get a sense of variety.
My colour scheme is black, white and gold, to again reflect the artist's sophisticated musical style. I also tried to keep in continuity with the shapes e.g. the lines to separate the text, and the basic shapes e.g. squares, and circles, to make it easier to read and more appealing to look at. An audience won't be interested if a poster is too complex.
Though I have used the program before, there was one tool that I had not come across before and it's thanks to our teacher that we now all can draw stars equally and more than one at one time. In order to do this, you select the Polygon Tool and whilst still holding the mouse down, pressing the Space Bar and then the arrow keys will allow you to change how many points and edges the Polygon has, and how many of them you want. A simple technique, but one that significantly will improve any rating as the stars will now look the same and professionally done, rather than trying to replicate an already existing one over and over, or even copy and pasting a previous one as it may not be perfectly in line with the other one.
   Overall, I am pleased with this first draft and shall continue to improve on it.

Ancillary Task 1: Magazine Advert RESEARCH

Before going ahead and starting to create my magazine advert I decided to do a little bit of research and find out what it is that makes a really good magazine advert. I looked at various websites until I came across one that gave me a lot of good advice when thinking about design.

1. Understand Your Customer - the most crucial point.  If you don't know your audience, the psychographic, demographic etc, then you're probably going to create something entirely different from what they would be attracted to. The website suggested that I look into what media they would be more likely to use and to target them using these mediums.

2. Treat The Customer With Respect - they see so many adverts everywhere now, so don't do anything to annoy or irritate them in some way, and try and be original. The website advised:

Don't use false or outrageous claims. These may make a good headline and grab attention, but when you are discovered as a fraud, the resulting negative word of mouth will have the potential to destroy your brand.

Avoid clichés. These will cause the 'I've heard this before' reaction which will prevent any further message being absorbed.

Don't patronise your audience - they're smart and like to be treated that way.

Don't be aggressive in your style or techniques – this will only cause the audience to become.

3. Attracting Attention - the headline/masthead is the most important part of the whole article in a way, because it's the text that the audience will see first. It needs to sum up what the article is about, without telling the audience everything. The masthead/headline is like a movie trailer, whilst the article is the film itself. Though this point applies more to newspaper articles, some of the pointers below do have some impact on magazine adverts:

Make your audience feel:

• Intrigue
• Emotion
• Association
• Identify a problem
• Make a claim

4. And finally the other relevant point from the website was to make sure that the LAYOUT is appropriate and effective towards your audience. "People will make quick assumptions about your product and brand from the images you use in your adverts. Ensure the imagery used reflects your brand values - premium brands invest large sums of money grading and retouching images to ensure they give the right impression, but cheaper products can often get away with lower quality photography or video."