Monday, 25 February 2013
Saturday, 16 February 2013
Media Evaluation Question 2
To meet the objective of promoting the band Good Charlotte’s new album to existing fans and potential new fans (the target audience) I had to create a package of promotional materials that would complement each other and reinforce the Good Charlotte brand.
I therefore did a combination of three media products: a digipak design, a music video, and a website for the band. Each media product is supposed to, to a point, advertise the other media product so I utilised every opportunity to cross-link. The black and pink colour scheme I have chosen is very distinctive, and has been transferred across all the promotional pieces. The typeface and style of font is also consistent throughout, which helps to make everything instantly recognisable as the Good Charlotte brand. If we look at the website first, we can see what makes it effective as a promotional piece in its own right as well as achieving synergy with the other pieces.
Within the website, there are lots of devices used to draw fans into the site and get them involved with every aspect of the band. For example, I’ve got an advert right at the start promoting the digipak. The slider then moves on to advertise tour dates, apps, and a fan based club. I’ve also got a store where fans can buy promotional clothing, a calendar to show exactly when the band may be playing near the fans, and most importantly in the modern age, I have included links to the band’s social networking pages in order to create discussion and build community within the fanbase. All these are designed to get fans talking and raise awareness of the new album. The website comes over to the fans as slightly gothic, with the heavy use of black, but a bit of punk colour thrown in for good measure. The cover photos are also distorted to give the impression of dark mystique. I particularly enjoyed designing the website as I feel there was lots of potential to be creative and demonstrate my design skills.
The video is the most visually engaging piece in my opinion, with a few subtle hints to a gig, and a gig poster advertising the band in front of the grammar school gates, which is later seen on the intro page to the website. The song itself is from the new album, and serves as a taster of more to come. I used some jump cuts and cut to the beat, especially with a throw and catch of a drumstick, to draw the fans in more and get them talking about “what they did” in the music video. Another example would be the thriller aspect of the storyline. The video starts with a text conversation with someone we don’t know about. In the bridge, it says “It’s Ovr”. We’re left asking ourselves who said it, why and what happened? We then see the person deleting images and ‘unfriending’ on facebook. This cunningly uses modern technology and social networking to enhance the video’s themes of love and the betrayal. It’s only at the very end of the video, that we can see clearly who the supposed “girlfriend” was. The fire used to burn the photo shows us the sort of image the band want to promote, that they are not afraid to be threatening and dangerous when they want to be. This would fit with the punk rock genre, punk being the constant yelling and criticising of the government, and authorities. Good Charlotte also show this in other songs: In “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” for example, the lyrics include “Money, is that your problem?” and something about solving the problem by robbing ‘them’. There is a certain edginess in the lyrics and this is mirrored stylistically, in my colour scheme and the style of all my promotional materials.
The third piece of media I created is a digipak where I have continued the punk feel, by simply adding thresh hold to a photo, (which turns the image black and white) and then replaced the white with bubblegum pink. In terms of the text on the digipak for the front cover I used a couple of fonts downloaded from Dafont, called “Jenna Sue” and “Olde English” to give the consistent Good Charlotte logo look.
When we look at the combination of my three promotional pieces, there is a clear mise-en-scene that I have constructed through my use of the gothic/punk genres, (colour scheme, typography) and the strong attitude messaging. In my opinion, this creates the desired synergy and a strong branding for Good Charlotte. I think fans of Good Charlotte would definitely be interested in buying the album. Therefore, I believe the promotional package is fit for purpose and would achieve its objective of appealing to and engaging the fans (target audience), both at the time of, and way beyond, the release of the album.
I therefore did a combination of three media products: a digipak design, a music video, and a website for the band. Each media product is supposed to, to a point, advertise the other media product so I utilised every opportunity to cross-link. The black and pink colour scheme I have chosen is very distinctive, and has been transferred across all the promotional pieces. The typeface and style of font is also consistent throughout, which helps to make everything instantly recognisable as the Good Charlotte brand. If we look at the website first, we can see what makes it effective as a promotional piece in its own right as well as achieving synergy with the other pieces.
Within the website, there are lots of devices used to draw fans into the site and get them involved with every aspect of the band. For example, I’ve got an advert right at the start promoting the digipak. The slider then moves on to advertise tour dates, apps, and a fan based club. I’ve also got a store where fans can buy promotional clothing, a calendar to show exactly when the band may be playing near the fans, and most importantly in the modern age, I have included links to the band’s social networking pages in order to create discussion and build community within the fanbase. All these are designed to get fans talking and raise awareness of the new album. The website comes over to the fans as slightly gothic, with the heavy use of black, but a bit of punk colour thrown in for good measure. The cover photos are also distorted to give the impression of dark mystique. I particularly enjoyed designing the website as I feel there was lots of potential to be creative and demonstrate my design skills.
The video is the most visually engaging piece in my opinion, with a few subtle hints to a gig, and a gig poster advertising the band in front of the grammar school gates, which is later seen on the intro page to the website. The song itself is from the new album, and serves as a taster of more to come. I used some jump cuts and cut to the beat, especially with a throw and catch of a drumstick, to draw the fans in more and get them talking about “what they did” in the music video. Another example would be the thriller aspect of the storyline. The video starts with a text conversation with someone we don’t know about. In the bridge, it says “It’s Ovr”. We’re left asking ourselves who said it, why and what happened? We then see the person deleting images and ‘unfriending’ on facebook. This cunningly uses modern technology and social networking to enhance the video’s themes of love and the betrayal. It’s only at the very end of the video, that we can see clearly who the supposed “girlfriend” was. The fire used to burn the photo shows us the sort of image the band want to promote, that they are not afraid to be threatening and dangerous when they want to be. This would fit with the punk rock genre, punk being the constant yelling and criticising of the government, and authorities. Good Charlotte also show this in other songs: In “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” for example, the lyrics include “Money, is that your problem?” and something about solving the problem by robbing ‘them’. There is a certain edginess in the lyrics and this is mirrored stylistically, in my colour scheme and the style of all my promotional materials.
The third piece of media I created is a digipak where I have continued the punk feel, by simply adding thresh hold to a photo, (which turns the image black and white) and then replaced the white with bubblegum pink. In terms of the text on the digipak for the front cover I used a couple of fonts downloaded from Dafont, called “Jenna Sue” and “Olde English” to give the consistent Good Charlotte logo look.
When we look at the combination of my three promotional pieces, there is a clear mise-en-scene that I have constructed through my use of the gothic/punk genres, (colour scheme, typography) and the strong attitude messaging. In my opinion, this creates the desired synergy and a strong branding for Good Charlotte. I think fans of Good Charlotte would definitely be interested in buying the album. Therefore, I believe the promotional package is fit for purpose and would achieve its objective of appealing to and engaging the fans (target audience), both at the time of, and way beyond, the release of the album.
Wednesday, 6 February 2013
Media Evaluation Question 3
Evaluation Question 3
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?Profile of the audience - how do you go about finding this and what did you find?
The audience for my products listen to punk and alternative rock, artists such as Limp Bizkit,
Papa Roach
Linkin Park
Green Day
These peope are the average age of 25, and they live and breathe rock music: it informs their choice of friends, their hobbies, leisure time, attitudes, fashion sense and lifestyle. Above all they are fanatical about THEIR choice of music. They engage with music 24/7, from the minute they wake up until the minute they fall asleep: when they are not listening to music or watching music TV, they are talking to their friends about music, attending gigs or playing instruments and dreaming about rock stardom. They are plugged in, sharp, have a strong moral code and rejoice in their individuality. they are fashion trend setters in their peer group but are heavily influenced by musical icons and scenes. Like the bands they support they are extremely loyal to the brands they trust. The way they look and the clothes they wear is integral to communicating ‘their identity’ to the world.
How do your audience primarily communicate?
The main channels of communication for the Good Charlotte audience are social networking sites such as Facebook
Myspace,
Twitter,
Blogs
and Youtube.
There is evidence of this throughout the Good Charlotte publication machine. We can see this on their official website, merchandise, and cd digipak.
Blogs
and Youtube.
There is evidence of this throughout the Good Charlotte publication machine. We can see this on their official website, merchandise, and cd digipak.
The main channels I have linked to are Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Blogs and Youtube
How was feedback used in the planning and construction of your products?
Through all my research in the planning and construction stages I relied on the use of feedback to improve all of the further production of my products. A particular example would be comments on my facebook status, which hyperlinks to the music video.
Other feedback that I gathered was from peers within the group, and other subjects, including mixed audiences. I used advice from the media tutor when I attempted to interleave an interest with the music video, this being iPhone 4 footage of an Arriva midlands livery Optare Versa Hybrid - The local 511 service from Shrewsbury to Whitchurch:
This was not the ideal focus of the video, as most people, and definitely not the target audience would not find this interesting. Instead, I continued in a sly manner, using cuts to the beat, and a pleasing pan. I used feedback from other peers to get the heads up, and the no go, as due to my obsession in every type of transport, I would happily have had cars pulling into the carpark, with the band getting out of the car, getting their gear out of a van, taking the bus, taking the train, and playing in the aisle of the train. Realising no-one would really get the transport theme, I decided to base the video more back street and keep the inclusion of transport down to a minimum.
I developed a questionaire about the media products, mostly the digipak, and asked for people's feedback. The results of the feedback are in the table below:
How was feedback used in the planning and construction of your products?
Through all my research in the planning and construction stages I relied on the use of feedback to improve all of the further production of my products. A particular example would be comments on my facebook status, which hyperlinks to the music video.
Other feedback that I gathered was from peers within the group, and other subjects, including mixed audiences. I used advice from the media tutor when I attempted to interleave an interest with the music video, this being iPhone 4 footage of an Arriva midlands livery Optare Versa Hybrid - The local 511 service from Shrewsbury to Whitchurch:
This was not the ideal focus of the video, as most people, and definitely not the target audience would not find this interesting. Instead, I continued in a sly manner, using cuts to the beat, and a pleasing pan. I used feedback from other peers to get the heads up, and the no go, as due to my obsession in every type of transport, I would happily have had cars pulling into the carpark, with the band getting out of the car, getting their gear out of a van, taking the bus, taking the train, and playing in the aisle of the train. Realising no-one would really get the transport theme, I decided to base the video more back street and keep the inclusion of transport down to a minimum.
I developed a questionaire about the media products, mostly the digipak, and asked for people's feedback. The results of the feedback are in the table below:
Conclusion of feedback
I have learnt that all of the people I interviewed liked the digipak because it was eye catching, simple and it was not over crowded. Although they did not like the fact that both the artist's name and album name was not on the front cover, they understood the emphasis of the simple pictures and colours. One person would have preferred to change the colour from bubblegum pink the light green and felt that the cover was more feminine, however the reason I chose the pink was because it was very effective at standing out and the other people I interviewed agreed with this. I have not added the artist and album name to the front cover because I was following the conventions of Linkin Park's new album "A Thousand Suns":
I then added the particular punk feel to the cover, but also added a "copy" on another panel, this time with the artist and album name. I did not include the titles on the front cover for the other reason of it seeming overcrowded. Also, I hoped the mention of drugs would not just say "drugs" to the viewer, but it would make them think. Why are there drugs on the cover? What does smoking cause? Why has the whole pack got an "empty" feel? The answer to these questions is the album name: "Anxiety". Then, you understand why the images have been used. You could also look at the new album cover by Linkin Park, and question why it looks "radiant, blurred, and contrasting." This is reflected in their songs on the album: "The Radiance, The Requiem, etc" The track listing also appears to relate to the album artwork.
Following the feedback, the improvements I would make would be to make the track listing bold, or a better colour, as it is hard to read in places, particularly around the cigarette and boundaries of the smoke. I would also possibly invert the colours of the digipak, as I think the black background would fit more with the style of Good Charlotte, referring to the theme of the album covers, particularly "Greatest Remixes", which uses the "GC" instead of "Good Charlotte", track 2 is called "Anxiety", and track 13 is called "The Young and The Hopeless", however, this particular song has been remixed by Mr Hahn, who is currently the band DJ for Linkin Park. These facts emphasise that Good Charlotte share the same genre as Linkin Park, and also shows a good reason for creating the digipak album name "Anxiety".
Friday, 1 February 2013
Media Evaluation Question 4
The research and creation of my digipak, website and music video was pretty much centered around two machines:- A macbook, and an iMac.
(A MacBook)
The starting point for my research was the internet. I listened to a few tracks on my iTunes library, before deciding on a song. When I had decided on the song, I researched the band and song on the internet, mainly through google, youtube, the band website, and other videos and websites of the same genre. These include Papa Roach and Linkin Park. The research for the making of my website was carried out using the google, Good Charlotte website and other band websites in order to get a feel of the layout and pages included. I did the same for finding out information on digipaks and then screenshot images of the websites, digipaks etc and uploaded these to my blog. I embedded from youtube music videos from the same genre as my song choice onto my course blog.
In the making of my digipak I then used my iphone to gather together images that I would use in the draft copy of my digipak. I used a screenshot of the music video, and photoshopped it to black and white, and a kind-of rough feel.
I searched for an image of an ashtray on the internet, but added the same effects as I had added to the screenshot, I took a picture of my friend smoking outside our boarding school, having asked for his permission beforehand. He contributed by exhaling more smoke than a normal smoke would have been, and this worked brilliantly for the final image that I effected with black and bubblegum pink, and used for the back panel. I used another image from the internet, this being a pill bottle, but effected this with white and bubblegum pink beyond original recognition. I quickly realised the official Good Charlotte font, and downloaded “Olde English” from Dafont. I then downloaded a second font for the handwritten feel, as I was originally going to attempt to “print” it onto the actual pill bottle. This font was also downloaded from Dafont, and is called “Jenna Sue”. The last font I used was for the “Good Charlotte is” and track listing. This font was downloaded from the same website, and is called “Print Clearly”. For the last panel, I simply typed the word “Anxiety” into the mac Dictionary app, and copied the definition onto the panel. I took this idea from the video “Estranged” by Guns n’ Roses, where the video opens up with the definition of “illusion”:
I was originally going to find a web based barcode generator, but after a firm shake of the head from the Media teacher, I resorted to the internet again. I created most of the effects by adding “Thresh-hold” this plunges the picture into black and white, and you can decide between a harsh contrast either way, or how much detail you want in black and white. However, for the smoker picture, I did effect the photo with “Thresh-hold”, but also adjusted the hue to bubblegum pink, changing the colour of the only light shade, being white. I had two options for this method: I could have used “Magic Wand” to select all of one colour in the entire picture, or adjusted the hue. I decided to adjust the hue because when I used the magic wand tool, I could still see some white, due to trying to change the colour of the smoke, which would obviously eventually blend into nothing.
For the website, I used a recce shot of the Grammer School gates. I used the same method of Thresh hold, but decided to use the previously mentioned magic wand tool. I found out very quickly that if I instantly replaced the white with pink, there would be a lime green border between the black and pink, even if I tried on different layers. The only way to get past this problem was to delete the black, and then replace the white with pink, and put the black back in. This eventually worked, and I was left with the next part. On the gates, the original photo says “Grammer School”. A simple filled rectangle of pink soon blotted out the incorrect title, and I used “Copperplate Bold” to type “Good Charlotte”. I adjusted the size to a realistic copy of the size of the original title, and carefully aligned the new title onto the gates. I then simply loaded it as the background for my starter page, inserted a text button saying “Click Here” and normal text saying “To Enter”. I adjusted the settings for the page for the starter page not to appear on the navigation tabs, so you have to click in the desired place to get to the homepage.
I used the same “Olde English” font for the similar trademark of Good Charlotte, and put this at the top of the page. I then added a navigation bar for listed: MAIN - TOUR - BAND - GCTV - SNAPS - STORE. I named the fourth page GCTV, keeping up with the style of the official Good Charlotte website. I named the fifth page SNAPS to create a more casual idea of photos, more the band mucking around rather than playing live.
I used the simple idea of an automated slideshow to show four banners I had designed in photoshop, and cunningly used a screenshot method to calculate the borders of the intended space: pressing “cmd”, shift, and “4” usually brings up a crosshair, with which then you can draw a rectangle around what you want to screenshot. It also has two numbers underneath that start at “0” and eventually get to something like “640-320” this is telling you how many pixels your screenshot is. I then entered the correct information to get a blank canvas in Photoshop, and this was the basic measurement for my adverts.
The first banner I designed was advertising the album, and I took great care to ensure the “bonus” tracks promoted were “Anxiety” and “Broken Hearts Parade.” I also slipped in an invented track, just to even out the balance. I included the famous suggestion in most adverts “Pre-order now on iTunes!” and the iTunes logo. I also included a screenshot of the front cover of the digipak.
The second banner I designed was a trial at photoshopping into technology: I used internet images of an artist’s impression of the iPhone 6, the Samsung Galaxy Note, and a Macbook Pro. I simply changed the perspective of the pink and black image of the band for the three items, firstly taking great care to remove the desktop background/lock screens to show plain black. I then changed the perspective of three individual words “Good” “Charlotte” and “Club”. This gives the idea that the club is popular, already being on three personal items, and the mention of expensive and well known phone/computer models shows that it may be a mainstream club, that everyone can access. It also draws your eye to the computer/phones because they are in the market. Lastly I just put a simple command at the far left “Join the GC Club” and go on to say how much the MINIMUM fee would be, very much like the market of today. I also put the dollar sign to show Good Charlotte as American, as they came from Maryland, on the East Coast of U.S.A.
The third banner I had really run out of ideas to do, so I photoshopped a image of the lead singer of Good Charlotte taken from the internet, and just put a few simple lines, remembering to name the tour “Anxiety” to link to the video and digipak. I also changed the colour in “Live !!!” to emphasise this is not just the new album or small contribution usually made. I picked the 02/Millenium Dome on purpose, as I have previously stayed at a flat just opposite, also it brings Good Charlotte to England, making it more possible for the music video to have been shot somewhere in England. The date also reflects the real dates we were actually filming (to be checked)
For the last banner, I took a screenshot of my iPhone home screen by pressing the home button and the lock button at the same time. I then loaded this into the computer, and into Photoshop. Next, I selected the picture of an app (I used the camera app), and copied and pasted into a new document. I then deleted detail to be left with the shape of the iPhone app, and designed it bubblegum pink with the silhouette of the band in black. I then used gradient near the bottom to give the “app” an authentic look. Next, all there was to do was to load the image into another document, with the correct width and height for the banner, and add a lot of text boasting about the app, shaded all different shades of pink. I also resized a few lines to make different lines stand out. I used a white line to be read first “get the official Good Charlotte app now!”
For the “Main” page, I decided to try copying as close to the official site as I dared. I did this by trying to insert a blog into the main page. Unfortunately, the first time I tried, I used a HTML box to put the blog into. It looked great, but the title of the blog was compromising the title of the website, and I soon found myself scrolling left, right, up, down, diagonal... So the idea soon got scrapped.
It was then suggested to take a screenshot of the blog, but I decided there was a way past this. Sure enough, I soon found the “Blogger Post” app in the Wix app market. All I had to do was sign in, tell the app what blog I wanted shown, and the job was done.
To the right of the blog, I inserted a copy image of the previously mentioned “Good Charlotte app” with text saying more or less the same thing. This was actually taken from the Good Charlotte website, as they advertise their app in the right hand side of their website.
On the left hand side of the blog, I put two external website addresses, suggesting Good Charlotte were in partnership with this other band.
For the “Tour” page, I went back to the Wix app market, and soon inserted an app for Google Calendars. For the right hand side to be exactly the same, I had to painstakingly copy every word, and shift it into the exact position as before. I had to do this because I had come up with the idea of the intro site. This meant I couldn’t click “Show on every page” for any recurring pictures or text. This included the slideshow.
For the “Band” page, I simply added thresh-hold to three pose photos, and changed the black and white to pink and black, again bumping into the same green boundary problem as before. I then inserted a simple gallery of three photos, subtitled each as a link to their blogs, and linked the photos to blogs.
For the “Videos” page, I embedded the correct url for the music video to play on the website, with a simple line of text explaining lightly what the video is.
For “Snaps” we racked our brains for funny poses, and I just took a picture of anything the “band” came up with. I then loaded the images into a gallery on the page.
The last page, “Store” is really a Wix default. It asks you if you want an online Store or not.
For this page, I took images from the official Good Charlotte website, and loaded them into the appropriate place. I then adjusted the price to say the equivalent to £25 in dollars, and added a simple title of the product in question. I then changed the box colour at the bottom of each product to a pink similar to the background.
In the making of the music video I used the internet for researching into the band, and then wrote a shot list and filming schedule. I started filming the footage with a Sony Handycam DCR-SX30E, and used my iPhone 4 to record in between footage. I used a tripod to steady the camera, and filmed the band shots.
For the menu the character is handed in the video, I actually did a slight bit of research on a local pub to me: The Westleton White Horse. After starting to wish I was at the pub due to the menu looking so good, I mixed and matched: dishes like Spaghetti Bolognese, and the cotrast between a Sirloin Steak or Steak and Kidney pie. I eventually came up with starters that sounded mouth-watering, main courses, and desserts. Interested in what the results might be, I asked a few people to name the most tasty looking dish, and actually had it when I went back: The salmon and prawn fishcakes.
I did not shoot the footage in order, instead I took advantage of the locations, making sure I didn’t have to go back again. Occasionally, I handheld the video camera, for shots like the opening guitar, some snare drum shots, and when the camera had to track something. I used a dark corner in one of the demountables where I filmed ambient footage of the window, bookcases, and my phone. I actually used a different camera for this, which ran on tape instead of card.
One of the more fun shots I came up with, was handheld lip-syncing. This involved Scott having to know his words, and hold the camera pointing at him from approximately one or two feet away. I used my camera for this (the DCR-X) and this was where I was starting to find problems with the camera. There is supposed to be one last take, which was done brilliantly, but when I imported the correct footage, the good take was unreadable, so I had to make do with the previous take. The handheld method was extremely effective when Scott starts to rotate on the spot, the camera tracking him, with the background whirling around.
I tried to stage a “fight” scene, for when the main character has lost the plot with everyone ignoring him, but a lot of people have said it isn’t shown very clearly. The next clips are supposed to show another person saying something like “hey! There’s a band outside!” The main character goes outside, and it cuts to the bus stop, waiting for the bus.
I filmed the bus and other interval shots with my phone.
I carried out a lot of experimentation during the preparation for the filming, and at one point filmed someone standing by the roadside at Harlescott, getting on the bus that pulls up. Luckily, the driver didn’t charge us, because we were using the bus as a prop. I filmed the bus, even though it was the wrong bus and wrong location, to calculate the speed of the bus, and ensure it would not take me so many takes to film the desired bus passing, which I did with the tripod and handycam. Other “filling” footage I took was of the correct bus approaching (luckily someone wanted the bus as I was filming) and of the bus leaving. Unfortunately, this was the last piece of footage my camera took, and I realised something was wrong with it. I stopped using my camera, and switched to school’s cameras and my phone.
The bus stopping part was done in about five takes: Take 1 was filming Luke at the bus stop Take 2 was a close up of Luke checking his watch, and his expression of “Oh no, I have to wait.” Take 3 was when I saw the bus pulling in, and hurriedly pulled out my phone before the holiday. Take 4 was when I stood at the roadside with camera and tripod, waiting patiently for the bus (capturing the bus side) and take 5 was deciding to film the bus pulling away, immediately after take 3.
I used Final Cut Pro for editing the footage and have always loved syncing actions to the beat, I showed this by cleverly editing someone playing the snare drum, throwing the drumstick in the air, and someone else catches it. This took about 6 takes, as there was a lot of stuff to go wrong. The first two takes were trying to perfect the timing of the throwing of the stick, the next two takes were trying to perfect the throw, so it would go straight up, and then straight down, and the next two or three takes were of the other person throwing the stick in the air, and trying to catch it one handed. Eventually we got it right!
I filmed a lot of synced and non synced footage of the band playing their instruments, and in some places, may have used these shots a bit too frequently, for example, when the clips revert from the guitarist and bass guitarist, to the band in a circle and back again.
For the bridge, I originally just said what I could see happening in my head, and this was somewhere near where I was smoking because of a few issues in life. I then realised what I’d said, and stood there like an idiot. Luckily, Luke actually rolled and lit a roll-up, pretending to smoke it for the video. We also asked the pub we were filming at for something that looked like alcohol, and they gave us a lime cordial mix. for the takes, Luke sent himself the planned texts, and then I told him to play some games, and then he gets bored, and locks the phone.
For the photo burning, I was trusted with my lighter to burn the paper, but we did it in a controlled environment. I originally tried to burn a photo-sized piece of paper outside, but the wind kept blowing the lighter’s flame out.
I used my phone for the intro video, and deleting the picture. The picture that you can quickly glimpse before the facebook scene, is of my dog Molly, in Scotland.
For the facebook scene, I used a 30 second free trial of Screenium installed on my macbook. I had previously created the Facebook account “Annabel Hanson” and had help coming up with the name. I then tried to get as many friends as I could, and posted frequently to the wall, up to the part where I had to film the unfriending. I used my personal Facebook account to unfriend the fake one.
Lastly, I synced the guitarist and bass guitarist clapping to the beat, over-cranked the bass guitarist at the bass slide in the song, put a rather hyper part of footage from Luke for the ending chorus, and reversed the burning of the photo, freezing the frame on the last frame of the video, and fading out slowly. My music video was uploaded to youtube, which in turn was embedded into my blog and the website. My digipak image was uploaded to the blog.
I used a phone and text to communicate with one of my filming partners, and used email to communicate with my media teacher. I also conducted interviews on Facebook and with email.
(A MacBook)
The starting point for my research was the internet. I listened to a few tracks on my iTunes library, before deciding on a song. When I had decided on the song, I researched the band and song on the internet, mainly through google, youtube, the band website, and other videos and websites of the same genre. These include Papa Roach and Linkin Park. The research for the making of my website was carried out using the google, Good Charlotte website and other band websites in order to get a feel of the layout and pages included. I did the same for finding out information on digipaks and then screenshot images of the websites, digipaks etc and uploaded these to my blog. I embedded from youtube music videos from the same genre as my song choice onto my course blog.
In the making of my digipak I then used my iphone to gather together images that I would use in the draft copy of my digipak. I used a screenshot of the music video, and photoshopped it to black and white, and a kind-of rough feel.
I searched for an image of an ashtray on the internet, but added the same effects as I had added to the screenshot, I took a picture of my friend smoking outside our boarding school, having asked for his permission beforehand. He contributed by exhaling more smoke than a normal smoke would have been, and this worked brilliantly for the final image that I effected with black and bubblegum pink, and used for the back panel. I used another image from the internet, this being a pill bottle, but effected this with white and bubblegum pink beyond original recognition. I quickly realised the official Good Charlotte font, and downloaded “Olde English” from Dafont. I then downloaded a second font for the handwritten feel, as I was originally going to attempt to “print” it onto the actual pill bottle. This font was also downloaded from Dafont, and is called “Jenna Sue”. The last font I used was for the “Good Charlotte is” and track listing. This font was downloaded from the same website, and is called “Print Clearly”. For the last panel, I simply typed the word “Anxiety” into the mac Dictionary app, and copied the definition onto the panel. I took this idea from the video “Estranged” by Guns n’ Roses, where the video opens up with the definition of “illusion”:
I was originally going to find a web based barcode generator, but after a firm shake of the head from the Media teacher, I resorted to the internet again. I created most of the effects by adding “Thresh-hold” this plunges the picture into black and white, and you can decide between a harsh contrast either way, or how much detail you want in black and white. However, for the smoker picture, I did effect the photo with “Thresh-hold”, but also adjusted the hue to bubblegum pink, changing the colour of the only light shade, being white. I had two options for this method: I could have used “Magic Wand” to select all of one colour in the entire picture, or adjusted the hue. I decided to adjust the hue because when I used the magic wand tool, I could still see some white, due to trying to change the colour of the smoke, which would obviously eventually blend into nothing.
For the website, I used a recce shot of the Grammer School gates. I used the same method of Thresh hold, but decided to use the previously mentioned magic wand tool. I found out very quickly that if I instantly replaced the white with pink, there would be a lime green border between the black and pink, even if I tried on different layers. The only way to get past this problem was to delete the black, and then replace the white with pink, and put the black back in. This eventually worked, and I was left with the next part. On the gates, the original photo says “Grammer School”. A simple filled rectangle of pink soon blotted out the incorrect title, and I used “Copperplate Bold” to type “Good Charlotte”. I adjusted the size to a realistic copy of the size of the original title, and carefully aligned the new title onto the gates. I then simply loaded it as the background for my starter page, inserted a text button saying “Click Here” and normal text saying “To Enter”. I adjusted the settings for the page for the starter page not to appear on the navigation tabs, so you have to click in the desired place to get to the homepage.
I used the same “Olde English” font for the similar trademark of Good Charlotte, and put this at the top of the page. I then added a navigation bar for listed: MAIN - TOUR - BAND - GCTV - SNAPS - STORE. I named the fourth page GCTV, keeping up with the style of the official Good Charlotte website. I named the fifth page SNAPS to create a more casual idea of photos, more the band mucking around rather than playing live.
I used the simple idea of an automated slideshow to show four banners I had designed in photoshop, and cunningly used a screenshot method to calculate the borders of the intended space: pressing “cmd”, shift, and “4” usually brings up a crosshair, with which then you can draw a rectangle around what you want to screenshot. It also has two numbers underneath that start at “0” and eventually get to something like “640-320” this is telling you how many pixels your screenshot is. I then entered the correct information to get a blank canvas in Photoshop, and this was the basic measurement for my adverts.
The first banner I designed was advertising the album, and I took great care to ensure the “bonus” tracks promoted were “Anxiety” and “Broken Hearts Parade.” I also slipped in an invented track, just to even out the balance. I included the famous suggestion in most adverts “Pre-order now on iTunes!” and the iTunes logo. I also included a screenshot of the front cover of the digipak.
The second banner I designed was a trial at photoshopping into technology: I used internet images of an artist’s impression of the iPhone 6, the Samsung Galaxy Note, and a Macbook Pro. I simply changed the perspective of the pink and black image of the band for the three items, firstly taking great care to remove the desktop background/lock screens to show plain black. I then changed the perspective of three individual words “Good” “Charlotte” and “Club”. This gives the idea that the club is popular, already being on three personal items, and the mention of expensive and well known phone/computer models shows that it may be a mainstream club, that everyone can access. It also draws your eye to the computer/phones because they are in the market. Lastly I just put a simple command at the far left “Join the GC Club” and go on to say how much the MINIMUM fee would be, very much like the market of today. I also put the dollar sign to show Good Charlotte as American, as they came from Maryland, on the East Coast of U.S.A.
The third banner I had really run out of ideas to do, so I photoshopped a image of the lead singer of Good Charlotte taken from the internet, and just put a few simple lines, remembering to name the tour “Anxiety” to link to the video and digipak. I also changed the colour in “Live !!!” to emphasise this is not just the new album or small contribution usually made. I picked the 02/Millenium Dome on purpose, as I have previously stayed at a flat just opposite, also it brings Good Charlotte to England, making it more possible for the music video to have been shot somewhere in England. The date also reflects the real dates we were actually filming (to be checked)
For the last banner, I took a screenshot of my iPhone home screen by pressing the home button and the lock button at the same time. I then loaded this into the computer, and into Photoshop. Next, I selected the picture of an app (I used the camera app), and copied and pasted into a new document. I then deleted detail to be left with the shape of the iPhone app, and designed it bubblegum pink with the silhouette of the band in black. I then used gradient near the bottom to give the “app” an authentic look. Next, all there was to do was to load the image into another document, with the correct width and height for the banner, and add a lot of text boasting about the app, shaded all different shades of pink. I also resized a few lines to make different lines stand out. I used a white line to be read first “get the official Good Charlotte app now!”
For the “Main” page, I decided to try copying as close to the official site as I dared. I did this by trying to insert a blog into the main page. Unfortunately, the first time I tried, I used a HTML box to put the blog into. It looked great, but the title of the blog was compromising the title of the website, and I soon found myself scrolling left, right, up, down, diagonal... So the idea soon got scrapped.
It was then suggested to take a screenshot of the blog, but I decided there was a way past this. Sure enough, I soon found the “Blogger Post” app in the Wix app market. All I had to do was sign in, tell the app what blog I wanted shown, and the job was done.
To the right of the blog, I inserted a copy image of the previously mentioned “Good Charlotte app” with text saying more or less the same thing. This was actually taken from the Good Charlotte website, as they advertise their app in the right hand side of their website.
On the left hand side of the blog, I put two external website addresses, suggesting Good Charlotte were in partnership with this other band.
For the “Tour” page, I went back to the Wix app market, and soon inserted an app for Google Calendars. For the right hand side to be exactly the same, I had to painstakingly copy every word, and shift it into the exact position as before. I had to do this because I had come up with the idea of the intro site. This meant I couldn’t click “Show on every page” for any recurring pictures or text. This included the slideshow.
For the “Band” page, I simply added thresh-hold to three pose photos, and changed the black and white to pink and black, again bumping into the same green boundary problem as before. I then inserted a simple gallery of three photos, subtitled each as a link to their blogs, and linked the photos to blogs.
For the “Videos” page, I embedded the correct url for the music video to play on the website, with a simple line of text explaining lightly what the video is.
For “Snaps” we racked our brains for funny poses, and I just took a picture of anything the “band” came up with. I then loaded the images into a gallery on the page.
The last page, “Store” is really a Wix default. It asks you if you want an online Store or not.
For this page, I took images from the official Good Charlotte website, and loaded them into the appropriate place. I then adjusted the price to say the equivalent to £25 in dollars, and added a simple title of the product in question. I then changed the box colour at the bottom of each product to a pink similar to the background.
In the making of the music video I used the internet for researching into the band, and then wrote a shot list and filming schedule. I started filming the footage with a Sony Handycam DCR-SX30E, and used my iPhone 4 to record in between footage. I used a tripod to steady the camera, and filmed the band shots.
For the menu the character is handed in the video, I actually did a slight bit of research on a local pub to me: The Westleton White Horse. After starting to wish I was at the pub due to the menu looking so good, I mixed and matched: dishes like Spaghetti Bolognese, and the cotrast between a Sirloin Steak or Steak and Kidney pie. I eventually came up with starters that sounded mouth-watering, main courses, and desserts. Interested in what the results might be, I asked a few people to name the most tasty looking dish, and actually had it when I went back: The salmon and prawn fishcakes.
I did not shoot the footage in order, instead I took advantage of the locations, making sure I didn’t have to go back again. Occasionally, I handheld the video camera, for shots like the opening guitar, some snare drum shots, and when the camera had to track something. I used a dark corner in one of the demountables where I filmed ambient footage of the window, bookcases, and my phone. I actually used a different camera for this, which ran on tape instead of card.
One of the more fun shots I came up with, was handheld lip-syncing. This involved Scott having to know his words, and hold the camera pointing at him from approximately one or two feet away. I used my camera for this (the DCR-X) and this was where I was starting to find problems with the camera. There is supposed to be one last take, which was done brilliantly, but when I imported the correct footage, the good take was unreadable, so I had to make do with the previous take. The handheld method was extremely effective when Scott starts to rotate on the spot, the camera tracking him, with the background whirling around.
I tried to stage a “fight” scene, for when the main character has lost the plot with everyone ignoring him, but a lot of people have said it isn’t shown very clearly. The next clips are supposed to show another person saying something like “hey! There’s a band outside!” The main character goes outside, and it cuts to the bus stop, waiting for the bus.
I filmed the bus and other interval shots with my phone.
I carried out a lot of experimentation during the preparation for the filming, and at one point filmed someone standing by the roadside at Harlescott, getting on the bus that pulls up. Luckily, the driver didn’t charge us, because we were using the bus as a prop. I filmed the bus, even though it was the wrong bus and wrong location, to calculate the speed of the bus, and ensure it would not take me so many takes to film the desired bus passing, which I did with the tripod and handycam. Other “filling” footage I took was of the correct bus approaching (luckily someone wanted the bus as I was filming) and of the bus leaving. Unfortunately, this was the last piece of footage my camera took, and I realised something was wrong with it. I stopped using my camera, and switched to school’s cameras and my phone.
The bus stopping part was done in about five takes: Take 1 was filming Luke at the bus stop Take 2 was a close up of Luke checking his watch, and his expression of “Oh no, I have to wait.” Take 3 was when I saw the bus pulling in, and hurriedly pulled out my phone before the holiday. Take 4 was when I stood at the roadside with camera and tripod, waiting patiently for the bus (capturing the bus side) and take 5 was deciding to film the bus pulling away, immediately after take 3.
I used Final Cut Pro for editing the footage and have always loved syncing actions to the beat, I showed this by cleverly editing someone playing the snare drum, throwing the drumstick in the air, and someone else catches it. This took about 6 takes, as there was a lot of stuff to go wrong. The first two takes were trying to perfect the timing of the throwing of the stick, the next two takes were trying to perfect the throw, so it would go straight up, and then straight down, and the next two or three takes were of the other person throwing the stick in the air, and trying to catch it one handed. Eventually we got it right!
I filmed a lot of synced and non synced footage of the band playing their instruments, and in some places, may have used these shots a bit too frequently, for example, when the clips revert from the guitarist and bass guitarist, to the band in a circle and back again.
For the bridge, I originally just said what I could see happening in my head, and this was somewhere near where I was smoking because of a few issues in life. I then realised what I’d said, and stood there like an idiot. Luckily, Luke actually rolled and lit a roll-up, pretending to smoke it for the video. We also asked the pub we were filming at for something that looked like alcohol, and they gave us a lime cordial mix. for the takes, Luke sent himself the planned texts, and then I told him to play some games, and then he gets bored, and locks the phone.
For the photo burning, I was trusted with my lighter to burn the paper, but we did it in a controlled environment. I originally tried to burn a photo-sized piece of paper outside, but the wind kept blowing the lighter’s flame out.
I used my phone for the intro video, and deleting the picture. The picture that you can quickly glimpse before the facebook scene, is of my dog Molly, in Scotland.
For the facebook scene, I used a 30 second free trial of Screenium installed on my macbook. I had previously created the Facebook account “Annabel Hanson” and had help coming up with the name. I then tried to get as many friends as I could, and posted frequently to the wall, up to the part where I had to film the unfriending. I used my personal Facebook account to unfriend the fake one.
Lastly, I synced the guitarist and bass guitarist clapping to the beat, over-cranked the bass guitarist at the bass slide in the song, put a rather hyper part of footage from Luke for the ending chorus, and reversed the burning of the photo, freezing the frame on the last frame of the video, and fading out slowly. My music video was uploaded to youtube, which in turn was embedded into my blog and the website. My digipak image was uploaded to the blog.
I used a phone and text to communicate with one of my filming partners, and used email to communicate with my media teacher. I also conducted interviews on Facebook and with email.
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