Production Diary 11 - magazine advertisement initial design layout

This week we started to look at the digipak and magazine advertisement for the album.

We firstly looked through previous student’s work and picked out point which were good and parts which were not as good so we know what we should imitate and what we should avoid. For example, we found that the most successful ones were fairly simple which made it look professional. The less successful ones generally has a lot going on. I therefore learnt that I should keep my magazine advert and digipak design more simple to achieve a professional look.

Afterwards, we started to create our own magazine advertisement in InDesign. This was our very first version which is just a brief idea of what we plan to create. Some of the things we included on it were: artist and album name, reviews with stars and date of release.

After my teacher demonstrated to us I learnt how to create the stars for the reviews. This was interesting as it we usually use shapes to create each individual star but for this we quickly created consistent looking stars which looked professional.

I selected some fonts from dafont previously and I used them for the text I had added on the magazine advert. I decided to use 2 different fonts which matched well as this would give show a bit of variation on the advert yet it wouldn’t look like they don’t belong in one place.

I created a hierarchy for the text on my advert as it is important to make sure that the most important bit of text is much bigger. I made the artist name and album name the biggest and then the release date and finally the other information including the stars and reviews.

In progression of the making of my music video, I have made some of the props for my music video. For example I created “123” on some paper which I plan to hang on some string and film it using a pan shot. I also wrote some lyrics on an envelope and letter which I intend to use. To match the lyrics I also drew a picture of a boat and an anchor.

Magazine advertisement initial design layout

I managed to create a magazine advertisement brief layout idea on InDesign. I put all the important information which I am likely to include in the actual product. I have yet to decide on a colour scheme as I haven't got an image so it is quite difficult to choose one as the colour scheme is usually derived from the colours used in the image.

Production Diary 10 – storyboard, proposal

This week I carried on with some more of the planning tasks.

I started to do the storyboard for my music video. I sketched the rough look of each shot I plan to have and noted the edit, length of shot and type of shot. I listened to the song to know how long each shot would last for. I also gave some more details to make it clear what I am going to do for example some of the shots I plan to show the lyrics in the notebook so I noted that beside the shot. To do this task I used the ideas I had noted in the task where I analysed the lyrics of the song. This made it much easier to gather my ideas together and draw the storyboard.
I will carry on drawing the storyboard in my next lesson.

I also completed the proposal task. For this task I had to write the brief of the coursework and identify the aim and my intentions for the music video I am going to make. I briefly outlined the type of music video I wanted to create. I also had to write about my target audience and note any similar products.

Proposal

Proposal by Fiona

Production Diary 9 – influences of music styles and improved previous tasks

I had improved some tasks I did before because I did not get the highest score I could have. I added a few sentences describing what I had done for the contact artist task. I also added some images in the conventions of a music video task.

For homework I improved some of the previous research tasks: music label research, genre research and I also completed the influences of music styles task.

For the music label task I added in a few sentences summarising what I had researched and what I found out whilst doing the research.

Similarly for the genre research task I wrote a couple of sentences regarding how the task had help me in developing my music video.

For the influence of music styles task I researched the different kinds of pop music that exists and noted some of them such as pop rock, dance-pop and indie pop. I found the notable artists, some characteristics as well as a brief history of the genre. I also made a venn diagram to represent the instruments used in each of the 3 genres. This venn diagram showed the instruments which overlapped in the genres and instruments which were more distinct to one of the pop genres. I found this research task quite interesting as I found out that there were so many different types of pop genres which had developed. However, I found that most of these subgenres overlapped by quite a lot and it is possible quite hard to differentiate them as a lot of artists belong to more than one of those pop subgenres.

Influence of music styles

Influences of the pop genre

The pop genre has been dominated by the American and British music industries.

The pop genre has also made use of technological innovation. For example, in the 1940s improved microphone designed allowed a more intimate singing style.

There are many different types of pop for example, indie pop, pop rock and dance-pop.

Indie pop

§  It originated in the UK in the mid-1980s with its roots in Scottish post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label and the dominant independent band I the UK at the time: The Smiths.

§  Typical instruments in the genre include: guitar, bass, drums and vocals.

§  Power pop, punk and post-punk was a significant influence of indie pop.

§  Notable artists in the indie pop genre include: Marina & the Diamonds, Lana Del Rey, Bastille, Camera Obscura, Lykke Li etc.

§  NME released a compilation cassette called C81 and 5 years late released another one called C86. These cassettes featured a wide range of groups which reflected the different approaches of the immediate post-punk era. It is seen as the birth of “indie” in the UK.

Pop rock

§  Typical instruments include: electric guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, synthesizers, drums and vocals.

§  Pop rock music is used to describe the commercially more successful music that uses features of rock music. It has defined as an upbeat variety of rock.

§  The music genres pop and rock is argued to have a clearer distinction in the US than the UK as pop is rooted in white crooners whereas rock is rooted in African-American-influenced forms such as rock and roll.

Dance-pop

§  This genre of music originated in the early 1980s. It developed from post-disco and synthpop and is generally quite up-tempo music which ideally is for clubs as it intends to be danceable but also suitable for the contemporary hit radio.

§  Characteristics:

·          Strong beats

·          Up-tempo

·          Easy, uncomplicated song structures

·          Emphasising on the melody as well as catchy tunes like pop music

·          Prominent hooks

·          Simple lyrics

·          Polished productions

§  Typical instruments include: drum machine, synthesizers, keyboards and vocals.

§  Some notable dance-pop artists include: Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

§  Post-disco is a more modern variant of disco music which intends to be more experimental, electronic and producer/DJ-driven which often uses sequencers and synthesizers.

§  Dance-pop music was usually created, composed and produced by record producers who would then hire singers to perform the songs.

§  It became a major genre in pop music by the 1990s.

§  It was influenced by other genres such as contemporary R&B, house, synthpop and techno.

§  In the mid to late 2000s, new dance-pop artists were introduced such as Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Katy Perry. Some of their notable dance-pop songs include “Don’t Stop the Music” by Rihanna, “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga and “Hot N Cold” by Katy Perry.

Production Diary 8 - improvements to work: conventions, theory, ancillary tasks, work that I admire

This week’s classwork I set myself to improve some of the tasks I previously did. These include the moodboard and work that I admire.

I added in some more images for my moodboard. These images were more closely related to the kind of things I would include in my music video as previously I included a lot of images which were related to the audience. For example, I found an image of someone laying on the grass with a guitar which relates to my idea of having two people sitting on the grass with one playing the guitar and another lying down beside them.

For the work that I admire, I only analysed the videos and said what I liked about it. To improve it I talked about how it would influence the music video I make such adopting similar techniques such as having a bit of narrative in my video ad using similar transitions.

Another task I set myself was to find some fonts which I could use. This is an important task because my music video is going to be based on the lyrics of the song so I need to have a variety of suitable fonts that I can use for the lyrics that will be shown throughout the video.

The homework tasks I set myself last week were to improve the analysis of the ancillary tasks, music video theory and the conventions of a music video. To improve the analysis of the ancillary tasks I analysed another digipak and magazine advert as I previously analysed a website instead. I also added in a short paragraph on how the analysis has helped me to learn about what to do for my own product.

For the music video theory, I added in how I would apply each section (narrative, audience, media language and genre) to my own music video. For example I mentioned how I may create my music video so that it would suit the pop genre.

Finally for the conventions of a music video task, I also added in how I would apply certain conventions to my music video and others which were not necessary. For example, I would still use some camera movements e.g. pan but not some of the editing e.g. parallel editing.

Font ideas

I used the website dafont.com to find a range of different fonts which I think would be suitable for my music video. I chose to have a ones which are cartoon and school-like style because the theme of music video is based around school.