Its All Done & Dusted!

I can't believe the time has come, but this is literally my last post for this year in media. It's gone fast, I've learnt sooo much (I even started my OWN blog because of it!) and I've had a ridiculously fun time. Even with deadline stress and weather problems when trying to shoot; this course has been very influential on the way I see things, people, how I present my work and how I see myself -  It's one of those things that you'll always remember, because it helped shaped you.

I wanna say a big THANK YOU to all of the Media teachers for putting up with my sometimes high-maintainance demands and trusting me to do what I do best. AND OF COURSE A HUGE THANKS TO ALL MY MEDIA BUDDIES THROUGHOUT THE YEARS...

Group 29 (AS)

Taija Clarke and Romy Deighton, you girls were the best in the world

to work with, so focused and so determined to do well and create

the best content, I couldn't have asked for a better team!

I missed working as a unit even this year during A2, 

Love you girls x

Group 21 (A2)

Luke Zelkowicz, Andreia Loureiro Cardoso and (once again!) Romy Deighton.

Gosh, you guys have got to be some of the MOST EFFICIENT teenagers in

the world, we bounced off each other well and we made something truly

amazing together. I like to feel like we bonded in the extensive time we spent

together (lol) and I really hope we stay in contact for future awesome projects to be made!

And so this concludes my final post. Aaah, its a bittersweet moment; but at least now I won't be waking up at 3.00am on a Sunday morning and wondering if I've blogged enough for the week!

Its been fun, and so - for the last time (no tears, no tears!), This Khadeeja Paul - Signing off x

(Okay I lied, plenty of tears)

synergy stuff

Evaluation Question 4

For the fourth and final evaluation question:

"What have you learned from your audience feedback?"

I developed an interactive documentary on youtube in which you can click through to watch and view opinions, reactions and my take on audience feedback. Start here:

TO BEGIN

 -->> CLICK THROUGH THE VIDEOS ->>
(Pitch > Rough Cut > Premiere > Ancillary) 

Evaluation Question 3

For the third evaluation question:

"How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?"

I put created a website to clearly demonstrate how useful I found technologies to be when developing my media products, please click the link below.

Evaluation Question 2

For the second evaluation question:

"How effective is the combination of your main product (Music Video) and ancillary texts (digipack and advertisements)?"

I put together a two-part answer. Please press play on the sound cloud file and click next on the slideshow when prompted.

Evaluation Question 1

For the first evaluation question:

"In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"

I put together an e-publication summing up the ideas behind the music video and my ancillary, and how it relates to forms and conventions within its genre as a pop music video.

Reflection on My Progress... Part IV

The epic conclusion to all of my progress reviews! Enjoy! 

VIDEO HERE

Did My Ancillary Work Do What It Was Supposed To Do?

Before beginning research and before planning my digipack and advertisements I set myself some goals or requirements that I wanted the finished piece to have. The group also devised a list of things that wee were to share on our ancillary products so using this checklist I will determine what I've kept and what I deviated from…

This blog and This blog are where the initial challenges were set.

ALL FINISHED!

Here are the final mock-ups of my digipack and advertisements;

Digipack

(Slip cover and six panel sleeve; inside and out)

Advertisements

(A5 Newspaper advert and Concert date advert)

Layer by Layer Ancillary Construction

Here is a video showing layer by layer how I made my digipack (thumbs up);

Why Only 6 Songs?!

The Pièce de Résistance...

As part of my digipack there is a booklet of photographs featuring Romy, without further ado - here it is!

Working on my Ancillary Sturff

So I began work on my digipack almost immediately after mapping out the general look (mostly out of excitement but partly because leaving things in media is a BAD idea). I began work on the finished project in Photoshop as follows:

The Settings...

I start by choosing the settings for the project. I choose a basic shape (A3 Sheet of paper) because I know an actual digipack would fit onto the size of an A3 sheet. I name the project something suitable. I change the colour mode to CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and K for Black) because it is the colour mode you use for printed documents, and a digipack is printed. I make the project 16bit to increase the quality and i stop photoshop from colour managing so that they don't mess around with my chosen colours (photoshop likes to do that).

The Guidelines

I continued to create guidelines for where the digipack would go. I made the dimensions 13cm by 13cm to give the digipack a little room with a 6mm spine for the slip cover. The slip cover has two panels and the inside digipack has 3 panels because it flips outwards.

The Photos

As we all know, famous pop stars and movie stars get 'photoshopped', especially for posters and album covers. Romy, being the superstar she is, receives the exact same treatment. Using a tool called 'liquify' I slim down some of Romy's proportions and smooth over some of her blemishes (simply for the digipack - Romy is beautiful the way she is). I then went to her hair and thickened the ends out a little more using the clone stamp tool. I also highlighted some of her roots and made them more blonde-like using the brush tool (set to the overlay feature).

 More Details…

One of my favourite colouring tools in Photoshop is 'Adjust Curves'. It brings up a colouring map where you can drag the colour curve to achieve darker or lighter images. It does much more than the brightness and contrast slider and does it naturally so that the image looks like it was actually taken at that lighting. Using such a life saving tool I lightened Romy's image for CD cover quality.

Once I began creating the actual digipack nothing could stop me. I was a graphic designer on wheels! (I was also listening to a very inspirational album that helped me along quite a bit). I went on to create the rest of the slip cover using a triangle pattern I made myself after being inspired by Romy's top. I also added a barcode, copyright information and company logo's to give the Digipack an official look.

Other Images:

After beginning work I am feeling very confident in the overall design idea I had to start with. I feel my digipack looks professional and very appropriate for the genre it is meant to represent. I look forward to creating the rest of my ancillary work with the same enthusiastic attitude!

Plans for my Digipack

FRONT PANEL OF DIGIPACK

Here is the limited edition slip cover for the digipack. It will be mostly monochrome with pops of colour, mainly coming from Romy and small accents.

INSIDE PANELS (3 PANELS: BOTH SIDES)

The inside will follow the same theme as the outer slip cover with the colour scheme etc. However the inside panels will encourage more spontaneous pops of colour imitating the colour on Romy's top (she is wearing a multicoloured top in the photos and I will use the eyedropper tool to select the colours).

 ANCILLARY WORK: POSTER

The poster will follow the same theme colour wise (mainly for consistency and the development of a house style). It will feature ratings from music magazines and appropriate information for the target audience (release date and available for digital download on iTunes). I may also include google play as a download source and a QR code because of easy accessibility.

Thoughts on the 4th Evaluation Question…

The fourth evaluation question requires us to consider audience feedback, with this in mind, on the day of the music video premiere I went prepared with a flip cam to document some feedback. Here are my raw findings and some initial thoughts on them…

I Went To A Premiere!

Well… a music video premiere for all the A2 students and their music videos (but it still counts). Here's a video documenting all the fun!

Initial Ideas on Ancillary Work...

So I started thinking a lot about the possible outcome of my digipack etc. and so I decided to think of some definite ideas that would be congruent throughout my ancillary work as a way to give myself a working frame and a good direction towards my final product;

Some of my ideas...

Looking Into Digipacks in Detail

I looked into some pop artists and elctro-pop artists to see how the market ed themselves within there ancillary work. I chose the artists because of the genre they come from, the fact they are female and because I find their digipacks and posters to be designed well.

Ellie Goulding

Ellie Goulding has the most ancillary work to look into. She has a front cover and inside panels with a double collection CD as well as a limited edition slip cover and two posters (one for her album the other for her tour dates). I find her psychedelic use of colour to be perfectly synonymous with her album's electro-pop feel. Her positioning of text is simple and unclouded. I feel her ancillary work to be inspirational to me in its simplistic but eye-catching design.

Katy Perry

Katy Perry's album design also features a 'special edition' slip cover. It also favours simplicity over fancy or overtly detailed fonts and so that is something to keep in mind when designing my ancillary work. She also makes use of a logo for her album title which is used throughout all of her ancillary items. Her creative choices for the album also tie in with the albums' theme and name 'prism' -  this is something I will further when developing ideas for my digipack.

Little Mix

Little Mix develop their ancillary work in a similar fashion as they also have a limited edition slip cover for their album. Their tour posters host the same image as their album image and to their use of synergy across their ancillary products is one I aim to emulate. They stay true to their colour schemes and also have a specific logo for their band (something that ROMY also has). I find that their approach to ancillary work is very conventional for the pop genre.

Past Student Work...

Practice Makes Perfect!

Creating a Digipack from a2set52013