Idea's for magazine advert (Group)

Idea's for magazine advert 

We have many different idea's for our Magazine advert that we want to include. We want to make it

Joe Fisher's idea:

I wanted to keep it simplistic but also retain a professional look. I got my inspiration from art processes which i like to do at home (Ink in water) and decided to represent the fire and flames from the two colours which are commonly associated with it, red and yellow. There are a few differentiation's from the first idea to the second idea, this was not a response to feedback by just remembering what i had to add. I added star rating symbols that have a tint of yellow with a quote beneath it from the times, as well as this, i placed in the to bottom corners places where to buy the single from. i wanted to put them side by side to see what i liked most here, and i think the developments on advert 2 make the focal point of the advert a bit more obvious. I also took in to account many design choices, such as magazine adverts are usually transformed in to buy-able posters, and i can definitely imagine this being a poster to promote Bastille. i also included their signature triangle instead of the A for the extra authenticity and image promotion. I will take in to account these ideas when designing a mock digipak as well, as the two's designs tend to relate somewhat as part of a package.

(Kierann Hills)

When creating the magazine poster I considered three things. Genre, links to the artist and relation to the target audience. The location is what I first considered as it is the body of the advert. I needed to find a location which was both relevant to Indie-pop and the narrative of the music video as links to the products and the music video are essential. In the music video we film in a wooded area as well as a field. Places in which you can see a lot of nature. These locations are commonly used in Indie-pop music video all of the time as they create a mysterious feel to the music video. So for the magazine advert I chose the location to be the background as it is both viewed in the music video as well as a generic convention of Indie-pop. In Indie-pop products as a whole you usually don’t see the artist/s in them or if they are they are usually not fully seen. This is for two reasons, the first is that they don’t promote themselves as much as mainstream artists and also adds to the mysterious vibe which is frequently used in indie-pop. With links to the artist, in the other product I produced, the digipak, I have used the same text. This is to create intertextuality and show that when the audience sees the text they will know it’s from my artist. I have also used the same image in the digipak. This is to create a bond between the products so that the audience know that they are both promoting the same product as well as themselves. The font of the artists is bigger than any other text on the magazine advert. This is so that it is the first thing the audience’s eyes see. This means that if they only briefly see the magazine advert they’ll know that it was from Bastille. For relating the magazine poster to the target audience I have added an image of a young man who is supposed to be portraying the lead singer of the band.  He is purposely young for the reason that the target audience is also young. This means that the target audience will be able to connect to the artist more. I have also used the Spotify and apple music icon in both bottom corners, so that I can relate to the target audience even further. Spotify and apple music are two common platforms in which young people view their music. These are the platforms in which are target audience use.

By all of our group members participating in this activity, it has given us a variety of ideas for what our actual product may look like in the near future. 

(Joe French) 

I chose to use this photo of a bonfire in order for it to be relatable to the title of the song, it makes more sense to have this kind of image. I then added the text and chose this font because it is very simple and that is something that is a generic convention of the indie rock genre. They have very low budget and simple things in the genres art and videos so i wanted to make something similar to that in order to relate to the generic conventions. I also added the twitter and website link because that is what is included in a lot of magazine adverts and i wanted to make it look as authentic as possible. 

(Chris)

For my magazine advert i wanted to make sure that we had a strong link of fire on the advert. 

Ideas for digipack (Group) (Kierann)

Ideas For Digipak

Joe Fisher's idea

How i made it

Transferring the original ideas from the magazine advert to the digipak, i used the same methods (eg. ink in water, ash background) to make the two relate as a package. I made this come out of parts of the Bastille logo to make it fit. I lowered the opacity of the ashen floor background to make it fit with the colours of these inks in the water.

The spine of the case inverts the colours of the Bastille logo, making it stand out against a black background. As i didn't want the background to just be a plain black, i decided to get another image asset of ink in water and darken the colours of it using tools in Photoshop to do so. I then spliced the Bastille image from the front of the digipak in to two sections, one being the song name, and the other being the artists tag name.

With the colour picker tool on the back of the digipak, i coloured the lettering to abide to more of a colour scheme. As the Bastille font is custom created, i could not use it. instead i used something similar, a font called "Avantegarde MD". It gave the lettering the same rounded effect . I then added the Bastille name under these lyrics from the song, but made sure it was centred so it was appealing to the eye. Because i used the same background again for the back and it gradually gets darker towards the bottom, i made a "Taurus records" logo, from the star sign of the Taurus, along with the text and shape tool. I typed Taurus Records in a 36font size, rubbed out a straight line from the Taurus symbol, and made a sense of underlining by using the shape tools and put it underneath the text.

The bar-code is also associated with digipaks

I put the Bastille website in the bottom right to promote it, it's small and has less opacity compared to the other layers but it still fits. I didnt want to make it too bright so i lowered the opacity so that it didnt become the focal point, this would have happened because it would have contrasted against the dark background, and so the eye would go towards there rather than the Bastille logo and Taurus Productions

Flipping it over, the panel on the left side uses an image of Bastille from the internet. I edited the image to make it a silhouette by going image > adjustments > posterize. Next i added the defining rectangle on the panel. This would create a horizon line but would also come in handy when talking about the next panel. I highlighted this rectangle with the magic wand tool, duplicated the ashen floor background, selected this duplicate layer, right clicked, select inverse, and then deleted the rest of the image. I then changed the colour of the rectangle to a dark grey, and then seriously lowered the opacity on the background, giving the rectangle a texture to it. I then gathered some more assets of ink falling in water and placed it at the top, duplicated this layer, and then placed it over certain parts whilst also rubbing parts out. This made it look so that the ink was going up the page in a rather explosive manner, whilst the image didn't re-use assets to create this effect. I put the silhouettes over the "horizon line" to make it look like they're blended with it. This means that star images are placed on the digipak and this is essential.

The triangle on both pages was created using the same method as the rectangle. I then put lines between it to make the image of the triangle not fully there, so it looks optically illusive.

The horizon line created an opportunity for a pocket slot for the CD, rather than a clip in slot attached to the back of the case, hence why only half the CD is visible because it represents it being in the pocket.

It kept the same base layout as the panel next to it as it wouldn't really be visible for most of the time because a cd will be in there. I also done this because, looking at other designs, they either re-use a background, or just use a plain colour on the CD holding panel.

I also included the triangle commonly associated with Bastille again on this panel

I used colours such as black and white because it gives the most contrast it possibly can, so the Bastille name would stand out. It also allowed for a lot of versatility when selecting from the ink in water images as i could just turn them to black and white. My only problems with this is that it has no colour, and it has no copyright / legal text on the back panel, but i would add this at a later date seems as this is only initial ideas.

(Joe French) For the front cover i decided to add an image of the campfire burning that is going to appear throughout our music video in order for it to link together. I added some small drawings of pieces of paper flying into the fire which represents the things that they lost in the fire which links to the name of the song and has some good connotations and deeper meanings which Bastille like to do with their artwork on their albums. You can also see the name of the band and the name of the song in smaller font. I made the name of the band bigger in terms of size because i feel that the name of the band is more important if they are trying to advertise themselves and get album sales. For the back chose to use a picture of the main character standing in front of his bed with his phone in his hand and a pile of books/paper. This is to represent the story during the scene in which he goes over all of their memories and love letters and notes. This links to the music video which is something else that Bastille like to do with their music videos and album covers. You can also see the bar code and indications of the logo of our record label and production credits. I feel like these should be in there in order for it to be more realistic because all album covers have the record label names on there somewhere along with production credits. For the inside cover i decided to have a page with the lyrics on them with the main character standing next to the fire in the background, i like this idea because having the lyrics inside the CD is a common thing for artists to do and i think it would intrigue the audience more if they see that it has bonus features inside of the album. The picture of the main character links to the music video because there is few scenes where the main character is standing near/in front of the fire. For the CD holder ive chosen a picture of a matchstick on fire which represents the relationship on fire and getting heated etc. This is a good thing to add because a lot of artists add images behind the CD when the disc has been taken out.   

(Kierann Hills) For the digipak I initially stuck with two themes. The first being the fire. For the majority of the inside of the digipak is a continuous image of people surrounding a bonfire. The justification for the continuous image is that it is popular with the indie market as it is unique and looks very attractive. The other theme is in the woods. This is to directly connect with the generic conventions for our genre, Indie. The woods creates a mysterious vibe, one which we want to create. To build on this idea, the only view of the artist is from behind him. This is popular in indie products as they don’t personally advertise themselves as much as mainstream artists. The front cover and the other image in the woods is in daylight and the remaining images are in the dead of night. This is to reflect on our music video. The start of the music video starts about mid-day when the sun is out then gradually it becomes darker. The text is in a cartoon looking font. This is to link more towards the indie market. The age of all of the people in my digipak is the same age as my demographic. This is so that there is a stronger relationship between the music video products and the audience so that they become connected to it. To make our digipak more professional and more like it was from an actual artist, the font I have used, replaces the dot of the “i” with a triangle. This is something which is the artists own kind of signature in which the audience knows is from my artist.

(Kierann)

We have decided as a group that we will take the idea from the last digipak of having six areas. This is because the majority of digipaks have more than four sides so in order for our digipak to be presented as professional it was key that we used more than four sides. From the third digipak we are also going to take the idea of a continuous image spread across three areas. This is because we think that it presents our groups creativeness and how we stand out from the crowd which the indie genre is all about. From the first digipak we will take the chorus on the back of the digipak into consideration as it gives the customer an insight into the song which will entice them into buying the digipak. We will also use the large text with the unique text into consideration. This is because when we as a group were looking at each digipak the bold text caught our eye instantly, this is what we want the audience to feel when they see our product as it’ll both promote the artist and song with the slightest glimpse. This activity has helped us a lot in the development of our digipak. It has made us consider what we need to do to make our digipak relevant to our artist and genre.

Location Scouting (Chris)

Location Scouting

When it comes to our music video, it is a little harder to find locations. This is due to the fact that we are wanting to light a fire, which most places wont allow due to it being unsafe. When we were brainstorming ideas for locations we came up with the idea that we needed a field to film in. This is because we liked the idea of their being a fire with plenty of room for the artist to move about, sing and dance. It would also look good if we were to get the sky in the background as well as the fire - which is why we needed the bigger field so we have lots of room to get the shots we want. we also wanted trees in the background so that it will block out any buildings in the background. The reason for this is that we want to make sure that the scene looks like its away from everything.

To make our music video look more professional we want to make sure that we have multiple locations in our music video. This is because we believe that it will help us when it comes to telling the story and again making it look more professional. So we have decided that we are going to have it in two bedrooms. These are going to be in two different houses to make sure that we are keeping the locations different and that it would give each room different looks and features. We are going to have one scene shot in a boys room and another in a girls room to help show the distance of the two characters and how far apart they are from each other.

There are other small details in the mise that we are focusing on to make sure that our music video looks professional. We need to take pictures of our two actors to make it look like they once were in a relationship. This means that we have to meet up with both actors and find different locations for them to be in to take the pictures. We need to have multiple different locations to have both the actors in to make it look more realistic. If we just took a lot of pictures of the two actors in the same setting it would look like they have only ever been in one location - which would make the video look rushed and not realistic. As we are taking pictures of  the couple in different locations it looks like they have been around together a lot which makes the video and theme of the pictures more realistic.

We are also considering having the actors go to a park. The reason that we are doing this is to mimic what normal couples do. If we can get the video to look lifelike and to make it look more realistic then it will make the whole piece overall look more realistic. This would be shown in the piece when the girl has moved on from the main character and is with a new man. This is when we would show her doing all of these new things with the new man making it look as if she has moved on - something that is necessary with the narrative and story of the video.

Overall making sure that we have multiple locations in the piece will better off help make the video look more professional and a whole lot more entertaining to watch for the viewers. 

Prop Information (Chris)

Prop Information

To make sure that our music video looks professional and is more entertaining we need to make sure that we have come up with a set list of props that we need in our piece. These props would be used to further help tell our story and to add cool effects to the video.

The first prop that we came up with was pictures of the couple when they were together. We want to make it clear to our audience that The couple have broken up and that he is missing her. This is why we need to make sure that the audience sees that they were once were together. we are then going to use pictures later on in the video being burned in the fire to represent that all of their memories and his love for her had been lost. Getting pictures for the video isn't very hard and we feel that it would add something extra to our work. We are going to be able to get these pictures by getting the main characters (the girl and boy) together in different locations and taking pictures of them. Later on in the week one of our group members will get them printed off professionally. The reason that we are going to get the pictures printed off professionally and not just printing them off by a standard printer is that it wont make the piece look very good and would defeat the purpose of the pictures in the first place. Real couples wouldn't print pictures of themselves out on a home printer, they would get them done professionally so they can frame them. We want to make sure that we do this so it doesn't look tacky and unrealistic. 

The second prop that we have decided that we are going to use in the piece is the most important and it links in to the third prop. We need to make sure that we have a fire in our piece. The reason for this is that it is going to be used to represent his feelings and his love for the female character in the video. With fire there comes danger and we are going to take every measure to make sure that everyone is safe when they are around a fire. Firstly we have permission from the land owner to make the fire and that they are going to be checking to make sure everything is ok and to recommend changes to make sure that it safe. we are going to be doing it on a concrete floor in a field, this means that there is less chance of anything catching fire and it will overall make it safer. We are finally going to be bringing a fire extinguisher with us just to make sure that if something bad was to happen we have a way of putting it out. 

Our third prop that we are going to be needing is a candle. The reason for this is that it is going to be used to represent his love at the very end. The fire was meant to show that he has a lot of love left for her, and at the end when it is almost all gone, its just a tiny flame that he is going to put out. We thought that this would look cool and would add a good effect to our piece. 

Finally we are just going to be needing a few small props like a phone to take pictures on so the main character can look at them. This is only a small prop and something that we wont find hard to get. 

Costumes information (Kierann)

Costume Ideas

For the first half of the music video the male protagonist’s clothes will be mostly black. He will wear black jeans, black converse shoes, a black trench coat and a white shirt, however the white shirt will be covered up by the trench coat. The reason why I have chosen black is because it is the usual clothing in which someone would wear to a funeral or when they are grieving over the death of a loved one. Stereotypically worn by a widow. Even though his ex-partner hasn’t died, too him she has and the only thing he wants is for her to come back. However, towards the end of the song I perceived that he had now had lost all feelings towards her which he once had. Here he will get rid of the trench coat and reveal his white shirt, which represents that he is no longer depressed due to her and that he has unleashed himself from her grip, bringing back into his life. The jeans will be ripped; this is to relate to the trends of our audience which will make the music video more relatable. The shoes will be black converse as converses are typically worn by Dan Smith the lead singer

For the first half of the music video the female character’s clothes will consist of a red jumper, blue jeans and white converses. The purpose of her clothing at the start is to be completely different to the protagonist as the clothing is supposed to represent their inner feelings towards their breakup. She feels fine about it and has moved on. That explains her bright and comfortable. While the male protagonist’s clothes are dark and uncomfortable. The red jumper symbolises her guilt sin as she has immediately after the relationship, has found herself in another one without considering the protagonist’s feelings. Both the female and the protagonist will where converses. This is to connote that they had and still have a bond between each over which is still ongoing. Towards the end of the music video we will have her in a different costume. The jeans and converses will stay the same but instead of wearing a red jumper she will swap to a black one. The black jumper will connote that she is now grieving over their old relationship as she has had a change of mind about her moving on to quick.

We have come to the conclusion that the female character will wear two different costumes. This is to create the feel that time has gone by since she was in a relationship with the artist and additionally that she has moved on from him. The change in costume from the female character will also show the change in mind she about her old relationship.

Draft Filming / Editing schedule (Joe Fisher

This post should give a general insight as to how we will be structuring the upcoming weeks in terms of a filming and editing schedule. This has been discussed by all members within our group and so we should be able to stick to this. This will show the most efficient way we can get our work done in the time that we got, to make sure all of the work required of us is completed to a good standard. Amongst these times listed on the schedule (up to the 30th) we'll be working on this group blog as well.

21st - 22nd: First weekend filming / First draft creation
We have all decided we want to film our music video first draft over one weekend. If we do get all the footage we need, we will then need to edit. In terms of editing times, it will take Monday and Tuesday to assemble the footage, compose it, and lip sync it accordingly. Getting this completed during the week means we'll be able get feedback on our video. Seems as we have a week off on this week, we'll be able to film any extra footage if we need to respond to the feedback.

23rd - 28th: Editing / Extra footage time
I have a feeling that editing will take a much longer time than filming would, so it's a good time to get a complete first draft done whilst we all have a week off. If we were to E-mail our subject teachers asking for feedback it will mean we'll be able to start on our Blog posts about responding to the feedback that is sent, and filming more if it is required for specific reasons, e.g. there might be a shaky camera in one shot, or it might have been filmed from an angle which is not optimal.

30th - 5th: Responding to feedback / Second draft
We should have an archive of footage by this point, and should be able to edit and re-edit according to several bits of feedback without a problem as we would have a large selection of footage to choose from. We will have a 2nd piece of feedback to respond to and make a blog post about at this point.

6th - 12th: Responding to feedback / third draft
If none of our footage is suitable after two lots of feedback, then we should have time during this week to re-shoot. If we cannot all get back to the original location we could probably record on different sets - OR - replace the footage with a different set for that scene. This will mean that our third responding to feedback post will be completed at this point.

13th - : Creation of the final music video
Once three drafts (or more) have been submitted and we generally believe we have done all that we can to improve the drafts, we'll start refining and tweaking the music video, making sure that everything is lip synced, the scenes look okay, any filters / effects added to enhance the the general looks, etc.

Planning our moves according to a schedule and to when everyone is free means we'll get our work done efficiently and effectively. Having good communication between team members is key as we learnt last year.

Rough Plan for our music video (Chris)

Rough Plan for our music video 

It is important that we create a rough plan for our music video to make sure that it is shot just the way we want it to make the narrative clear to our target audience. If we weren't to plan the music video then on the day we will be making up idea's to try and make it look good however it will just make the end product look less professional and overall less enjoyable for the audience.

The narrative behind our video is that a boy (our main actor) had recently broken up with his girlfriend. She had then moved on to another man and he is singing about how their relationship had been lost. The main point behind the video is that it shows the progression of the males feeling for his ex and how her feeling change too. At the beginning of the piece we wanted to show that the male was still in love with her and couldn't get over her. We visually represent this with the fire that we created and is shown throughout the video. During the piece you would notice that the fire will get smaller and smaller. The reason that we wanted to do this was that it shows how his love for the girl gets smaller and smaller until at the end its nothing but a flame on a candle and he puts it out. We try to show how the girl was feeling too. In the piece we thought that it would show her as she had moved on. This would be through clips of her with her new boyfriend doing things together. However this changes throughout the piece as she starts to miss him. You can see when she starts to do this as the roles start to change. She is then left looking at pictures of him.

The way that we need to represent this piece we thought would be a challenge however once we had analysed the lyrics of the piece we had concluded that it would be best if we represented his love for the girl as a fire. We realised that the main chorus of the song was talking about how they had lost everything in the fire, which is why we are going to represent his love as a literal fire and how he has lost all of his emotions and how she is starting to gain hers back. We are going to be filming this in a field during the afternoon/late evening to try to get a sunset. The reason for this is that we wanted this was that it shows as the light is falling the love is also falling.

Other ways in which we are going to shoot the video is through the use of phones. we thought that a cool scene that we could use would be showing the woman and her new boyfriend would be through social media. As our target audience is young they would spend a lot of time on social media and most of them should have experienced seeing an ex with a new person before. This makes it more relatable for our target audience and should help them get into the video a lot more. we are going to shoot this through the use of an over the shoulder shot of the main character looking at his phone of a video of the new couple. This should help the target audience feel for the main character.

The way that we are going to edit this is slow. we are going to keep around 3-4 seconds per shot expet a few where the beat builds up. The reason that we have done this is because after doing some research into our chosen artist we have found out that most of his songs are shot with quite long scenes in. We wanted to continue with this and relate our music video to the common themes that are included in our chosen artists video's.

Draft Storyboards (Joe Fisher)

 In this storyboard we were discussing location. We need to find a field with a relatively small hill so that we can pick some low angle shots where we can see the smoke from the fire and the person walking, but not the fire itself. We were also experimenting with ideas of moving the camera to shoot, such as the camera going upwards or going downwards, showing the establishing shot and then falls down right to the persons feet when he's walking. The field we have in mind when filming is fairly large also, so we're open to the ideas of long shots / more establishing shots. If we can find a large pole in which we can attach the camera to, it would make everything easier and we'll get high quality shots as it: would get rid of a lot of background noise, e.g. cameraman breathing, allow us to film from higher and lower angles. The second part of the page shows examples of camera work up against the flame set for the re-occurring chorus of the song. These angles allow us to get a number of shots and assets to edit in.

This is the beginning of the draft storyboard, showing the key points within the songs music video. When the music video opens up for the first 18 / 19 seconds, we'll be using long and establishing shots, as well as other camera techniques to aid the opening. After this, opening, when the singing starts, we will be taking multiple shots of the fire which we will prepare before shooting. Afterwards, the camera will show a close up shot of a burnt photo which has been burnt. he will then stuff it in his pocket OR leave it on the ground, and then walk up to the fire. These shots will occur during the first couple of verses until it reaches the chorus. When it does reach the chorus, we'll throw some more logs and stick in to the flame making it erupt, so that the visuals respond to the music seamlessly. It will then show a shot of the artist sitting on a log, it will then cut to a close up of the artists face, the light of the flame showing on his face. It will then cut to a different setting, one of a room this time., holding a note whilst the artist sits on the bed, it's the same picture from the beginning of the scene. The focus of the shot will be on the note, and it will be highlighted as the background will be blurred. 8 shows the multiple follow up shots from the beginning of this scene , represented by the squares as well as how it is drawn. Our initial ideas for this shot was to have a birds-eye-view within the room looking down on the person on the bed looking at the note. We also then thought of a panning shot which focuses and tracks on the person sitting on the bed. Not only this, but a medium shot from behind, showing the back of the persons head. It will then show this person (which is the artist) on his phone looking at a picture of his ex-partner with another person. The flames are shown to be dieing out at this point, and as though the music video reacts to the beat, a match will be sparked and thrown in to the bundle, re-igniting the flame. After this re-ignition, a lot of notes will start falling from the sky and falling in and past the flame. It will then cut to a different scene which actually shows his ex this time, looking at a picture of the artist and being visually sad because she is regretful.

The fire is fading once again and more notes are still falling. To react to the build up of the final chorus, a lot of different shots of the several different notes which are lying on the ground are taken, then the chorus unfolds (referring to the first sheet showing all the different camera angles of the artist near the fire.) After this, once the pace begins to die down a little more, it will show a candlelit room with other notes or dust falling to show that the flame of their relationship has dwindled down to that of a candle and it's about to come to an end. It will then cut to a close up shot of the candle being extinguished and the screen turning dark, ending the video.

Shots we need to think about when filming.
-Shots which show both the woman and the new boyfriend
-Shots in new locations, such as forests and town centres
We will be filming these on Thursday, and to combine these two concepts together, we'll be filming these in a town centre and possibly a woodland area to maintain the expectations and generic conventions of an indie music video.

-Filler shots
These can be filmed whilst we're filming the music video as a whole, and will extend the time of the visible music video. This can be added to the video through editing to make sure we have enough time to cover the whole song with a music video.

-Shots for our music video and digipak
These can also be shot whilst filming, and would be useful as it would show correlations between our music video and the products we make regarding it. We may also need different assets depending on what design we pick from the four each of us will create

Taking all of this in to account will help us create a visual plan of basis needs within our music video. Not all shots can be planned, but the key points within the music video can be accounted for, and then from that, we will take various shots which fit in with the scene afterwards.