Evaluation - Magazine Advert and Digipak Draft

Magazine and Digipak Evaluation by Vicky Maskell

Draft - Digipak

Draft - Magazine Advert

Construction - Editing Day 3 (Magazine and Digipak)

The next session that I had was the final one that I used before completing the magazine and digipak draft. In this time I managed to get the last little things complete which was:

• The final little images to the back
• Cropping Emilia out of the image
• Adding text to the background
• Adding the text to the front cover 
• Creating the side of the digipak 
• Creating the CD 

The first thing that I spent a little bit of time completing was adding the information to the back of the digipak. The information that I added was the Barcode, Sony Logo, and Copyright Information. This is an important step in creating the digipak as it makes it look more like the typical digipak that would be seen on the shelf at a shop.

After quickly completing the back of the digipak, I started on the front cover. The front cover of the digipak took a lot longer to complete. The reason for this is because I was trying to add the song lyrics to be behind Emilia sat on the tree. The way in which I had to do this was by cropping out Emilia in the image that I am using, and add it as another layer on top of the background and text. By adding it as the top layer it meant that the information song lyrics were able to go on top of the background image, without covering the part of Emilia. After doing this I decided to add the importat text to the cover like: The artist and album name.

Looking at the final draft of the front cover, I can see that this is not the finish that I was aiming for. The reason for this is becuase I had to add yellow shapes to go behind the text that I was using to allow the important information to stand out, rather than it blending in. When I make changes to the front cover of the digipak, I will be changing the text layer into an image as you are able to rub that out and get rid of it from the background near the other text.

The next thing that I had to do after the front of the digipak was the side and the CD part. These two parts were the easist to complete as their was not much detail required for them. For the side of the digipk, it was a case of changing the colour of the background and adding the text to it. The text that was added was the album name. After quickly completed this I then added the image to CD. The image that I added was a picture of a ribbon which is in a pile of leaves. The reason that I chose to use this image is because it incorporates the ribbon, as well as being in an outside location to to match the main theme of the tree. 

Construction - Editing Day 2 (Magazine and Digipak)

In this session, I spend the majority of the time spent on the magazine. During this time I was adding all of the different text to make it look more like a magazine advert. The type of text that I was adding was including the information of which included:

• Artist
• Song
• Rating
• Website

The reason that I made sure that I included this information was due to the reason that this would not look like a magazine advert without it as this is the typical information that gets included. Adding on to this, I firstly added the information, and then changed the font. I used this order to do this as I could see which font worked best for each piece of information. The fonts that I used were:

• Orator Std for The words Tony Orlando featuring Dawn
• Myriad Pro for the words: New Album and the Website at the bottom
• Segoe Print for Tie a yellow ribbon round
•  Onyx for Out Now
• Tekton Pro for The words in the black bubble of which say featuring tie a yellow ribbon round the ole oak tree 

After adding the different fonts to the magazine, this then meant that this draft was then done. I can see that the magazine has a lot of work to be done as it doesnt look to the best standard. The next thing I did was start on the digipak. The thing that I was able to get done for the digipak was the adding of the image's to the background and I added the different song's in the album to the back of the digipak.

Construction - Editing Day 1 (Magazine and Digipak)

Today was the first session that I used to start putting together my other ancilarry texts. The first one that I decided to focus on was the magazine. The reason that I chose to do this one first is becuase I had the images in mind of what I was going to use and what type of text I needed to make sure that I included. To start of I had to create the different photoshop pages that I was going to be using, to ensure that they were the right size and had any images on that I needed to use as a guide. For example I had to set up with CD template to have the shape of a CD on it, to allow me to use it as a guide to which part of the image is going to be on the CD.

After setting up the document, I used a bit of time to go through the images that I had taken, to see what was useable, what I was going to use and if their was any images that I needed to retake. From doing this, I realised that I didnt have enough images for the digipak, as the image type that I was
wanting was just an individual one of the ribbon. Instead of
 thinking to take a new image, I decided to try and edit the background out of one of the ribbon images I had already taken. This was something that I did not end up using due to the reason that I thought it looked very messy and had a fake look about it when it was placed on the template. 

Once I had chosen not to use the ribbon image that I had, I went onto the creating of the magazine. The first thing that I did with this was add the focus image to photoshop. The main image of this is the back of the girls hair, with the ribbons in it. The image that I orignally had chosen to use, was one that was a lot brighter which looked a lot nicer, however it didnt have the main location in the background. After changing the image, which looked a lot better, I was able to add different shapes. The reason that I added the different shapes is because they are going to be the background of the important text that I am going to be using, as otherwise it would easily blend in with the background of the image.

Evaluation - Music Video

Music Video Evaluation by Vicky Maskell

Draft - Music Video

Construction - Editing Day 3

Today was the final time that I had before the draft of the video needed to be complete. This time was spent making sure that I had no blank parts in the video, and filling it with the shots of Luke. This was something that took a lot of time, as I needed to make sure that the lip singing was in time with the song. I think that the song was in time, but the clips that were filmed weren't the best to show this as the performer's lips were not showing what he was meant to be saying in a couple of clips. The reason that this might of happened was because their was one point in the song that he didn't know some of the words to, so he tried to make it look like he knew what he was doing. When I am re-editing and re-filming, before the final video needs to be handed in, I am going to make this a priority and either re-film the parts where the singing doesn't look very good or re-film the entire performer role and use a different person.



After I added the shots of the performer into the video, I decided to watch it a couple of times just to make sure that their was no blanks, the song was roughly in time with the performer and the video clips looked alright with the lyrics that they were being used with. Once I had made sure that the video was finished, I then exported it and uploaded it to YouTube. Uploading to YouTube was something that I needed to make sure that I did as that is the only way I am able to get the video onto my blog.

Construction - Filming Day 2

The second day of filming, was the filming of the performer. Filming the performer was a lot easier as I was only needing to use one person, with a location that was easier to get to. For the performer I used the studio to film in as I wanted the location to stand out and look very different next to the other clips that were using the tree location.

When filming the performer it went well, apart from two things. One thing that was making things difficult was the camera that was being used, as it would randomly go in and out of focus. This was a problem that I dealt with when filming, and can probably be fixed when it comes to the editing as I can choose the clips that are in focus. The second thing that made it take longer to film was the idea that I had to film on multiple SD cards as they all seemed to be full. This meant that the majority of clips were all over the place, and it got confusing figuring out which one had been used. Apart from these two minor problems, the filming went smoothly and it didn't take too long for it to be done, as Luke knew majority of the song already and was already wearing the appropriate costume.

Construction - Editing Day 2

Today's session of editing was more productive then yesterday. The reason for this was because I had a memory stick with the song on, and was able to add it to the video. This was helpful as it meant that I was able to put the video clips to the music. By being able to do this it made me more aware of how long the video is going to be, and what clips I am wanting to fill the space with. Adding on to this, even though I had the song for this editing session, it was still difficult to know where I wanted to add the performer clips during the video.

Once the song had been added to the video, I then decided to reordered the video clips that I had already added of the two youngest couples. When reordering the video clips, I also used this time to add more clips to fill out some of the empty space.

After reordering the clips, I then added the final shots of the oldest woman in the video. The reason I decided to add her last was because I was just doing it in order of who is going to appear in the video. When adding the final woman to the video, I found that I was just find the right placement of when she should appear, as I was unsure whether or not I should have added her at the beginning and then, go back to her at the end or her just appear. After editing I decided to start of with her in the beginning reading a letter. The reason I decided to do this was to then match the video to the lyrics at the point in time, as people like the idea of the two linking to one another.

The final thing that I did in the time that I had was adding a couple of different editing effects. The editing effects that I added to the video, was slow motion. I decided that I was going to use slow motion on the youngest couple in the video, when they are running up to the tree, and running around the tree. The reason I decided to do this is because most people usually change the speed by making it quicker, however people usually forget about the idea of slowing down the video. Overall, I think that this works well, as it fits with the timing of the video and makes the video look more interesting.

Construction - Editing Day 1

In the the time that I had today, I managed to use it to start the editing process of the video. The first couple of things that I had to do was the setting up of the video and transport the videos from the SD card into a separate folder, to allow them to be stored on the computer. This was beneficial as it meant that I was able to film on any SD card, and not have to think about where all the footage is as it can all be put in one place on the computer.

After moving the video clips into the folder, I used the remainder of the time to start looking at the clips I had filmed, to see if any of it was usable and then from that I came up with some sort of an order that I wanted the clips to be in. The drawbacks of doing this was the idea that I did not have the song with me on the first day of editing, which caused a problem as I wasn't sure on how long my video needed to be. As well as not having the song with me, I also hadn't managed to film the performer. Not having these two things made it more difficult as spacing was not going to be the same with the song, as the lyrics and the video need to match with one another.

The first day of editing, was the shortest period of time that I used, which meant that it was used as a time to get things sorted and make sure that I was going to have each thing I needed the next time I was going to edit, otherwise it would then become time where I am unable to be productive and get the editing of the video done, in order to meet the deadline for the first draft.

Construction - Filming day 1

Today was the first full day that I used to film the music video and to take more pictures for the magazine and digipak. Filming the music video, was a lot less stressful then I was expecting and a big relief to have it complete. The reason that I am relieved to have managed to get the filming done was due to a number of different reasons. The first reason was the idea that the weather was forcast to rain all day. This was going to be a big problem if it had happened as the location I was going to be using to film was outside. Having an outside location is risky in the first place as at this time of the year you can never predict what is going to happen. The second reason that I am relieved to have managed to get the filming done was due to the idea that I had to organise to get five different people in the same location at the same time. This was a big task as I was working with two people of the age of nine that needed adult supervision.

When filming the different shots, I started off filming Katie and Ashley because they had more shots to be completed, and the youngest girl had not arrived yet to allow me to film the younger couple. Filming these two first went smoothly as they cooperated well with what I was asking them to do and they also gave me suggestions of extra shots that I was able to film, incase I wanted to add them to the video.

The next two people I filmed was Tia and Matthew. The reason I decided to do them next was due to the idea that I was then able to use the tree, without having to add extra ribbon for the final women at the end. When filming the two younger ones, I did have a couple of different challenges when it came to asking them to do different shots. The problem was down to the idea that Tia is far from the sterotypical girl, asshe wore for the video were out of her comfort zone which is why I did not force her to wear the dress that I had planned in the beginning. However it did cause problems as she was very desperate to get changed, instead of cooperating with the different shot types that I was asking for.

The final person that I filmed was the oldest women who was played by Carroll. Carroll was one of the best people to work with as it was only going to be one person in the shots. The only thing that caused delay when filming her was the idea that we needed to add extra ribbon to the tree, and had to go round and tie it to the end of the branches.

After the filming, I used this as an opportunity to take more pictures for the magazine and digipak. The reason I did this was because I was already in the location, with people who were willing to be in the images. The reason that I decided to take more images, was to allow myself more of a variety to choose from. Take the images was very easy as I got locatiom shots and used only one model, which meant that it was easier to ask them to do different things for the pictures.