Dear Moderator...

Dear Moderator,

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. I hope that you are able to see the progress I have made throughout my journey in Media Studies and that you enjoy watching my music video as much as I enjoyed creating it.

'Better Off With Out You' by Ivy Hicks - Final Music Video

Website

http://georgiaamass1997.wix.com/hicksivy 

Final Digipak

Here is our final digipak. Due to feedback we have improved it again, we have decided to re-position the title at the top of the cover and change the text colour to red in order for it to stand out more. We have also changed the front cover "Ivy Hicks" writing so it appears to correspond with the writing on our website, it is suppose to mimic Ivy's autograph. We also completely changed the CD as we wanted it to be more eye catching and relate to our concept. Placing an interesting background of lights behind the CD draws viewers in and changing the colour of the CD to dark grey allows for the colour of the lip prints to stand out more. Lastly we added writing to one of the images as feedback revealed the background was too plain, we added the phrase "Awake your inner wild side" linking to our album title.



Front Cover Panel:

Personally this was one of my favourite images my group and I took for our digipak. I love the idea as it links in so well to our concept within our video and had become our artist trademark (her lips and colour). In terms of editing we didn't do much to this as the lighting was already to a high quality, meaning the face of our artist really stood out well. My group and I edited my skin in this photo, making it appear to be soft and clear, like artists of today that look airbrushed in their photographs. To allow colour and the lip prints to be a main focus of the image and overall front cover we used the tool 'Eye Pop' to exaggerate the colour. Lastly with editing we put and effect over the entity of the image, giving it a washout look and therefore bringing out the colour in more depth than we had already tried to do. Costume wasn't a big factor when creating this shot as we knew we wanted the main focus to be on our artist, what she was about and what she represented, personality wise. The shadow in this image plays a big part in relating to the title of our album, 'Awakening'. Half of Ivy's body is in the shadow and the other half is coming into the light, as if her true inner self is being awaken and she is seeing a whole other side to life, which also related to many of her track titles on the back of the CD cover. Ivy is looking down on something and we as audience member cannot see this. We want this to appear as if Ivy is looking down on the old her and her old life, moving on and being awoke. When researching into relate-able artists album covers we saw that having the title of the album placed at the very top of the panel was very common. We also found we preferred album covers that incorporated this feature. We chose to have the title in red as that is a common colour within our video and on our website. It is also the most common lip colour worn within our video and by other artists we had researched in relation to our genre and artist. The hand writing 'Ivy Hick x' is to represent Ivy's autograph and personalizes the CD cover. We also added this 'autograph' onto our 'Tour' page of our website as Ivy singing live will be her stripped down to her true vocals; this represents trust with her fans. The fact Ivy is positioned looking In the direction of her name draws attention to it, which is what we wanted to do. Overall my group and I are very pleased with our final album cover and the improvements made looking back on our first draft.

Inside Left Panel:

This was one of our more creative images, incorporating shots that took a lot of time and preparation to get right. Again with this image not a lot of editing was involved. All that was really done was the brightening of the shot and using 'Eye Pop' to again exaggerate the use of colour used in the shot e.g Lip stick, eye shadow and decorated flower props. The position of me in this shot is interesting and catches the readers eyes. From feedback it was wondered if I was sleeping or daydreaming. The plainness of this shot is really powerful in the sense of relating to our album title. It could be seen as Ivy daydreaming about the 'Next Chapter' in her life (one of the songs on Ivy's track-list) or Ivy sleeping peacefully, needing to be awoken. The daisy's in her hair add a sense of surrealism and appeals to the younger generation of our target audience. This photo is one of the photos in our digipak pack that is centered, however leaves a lot of white space within the picture. This gives our digipak variety and makes the overall look of our digipak more appealing to the eyes of our audience members as not everything looks the same.

Middle Panel:

This is our CD cover and was one of the most time consuming images to create due to the detailing and positioning of all the lip prints. Although this image relates a lot to the first released song on Ivy's album, due to the music video that supports it, it also relates to the whole album as lips are Ivy's trade mark and what we imagine her to be most recognised for. This is one of the reasons my group and I like the design of the CD cover as it is so representative of Ivy herself and her look. Having the CD a dark grey allowed for the colour of the design to, again, be the focus. We also incorporated these lip prints onto our website to have a recognisable feature for our audience. Although this design was very time consuming it is probably the most simple image within our entire digipak. The background of the CD cover also links to our website as our background on most of our pages is mostly faded lights in a gold colour. We decided to have a similar background however, darker for the back of our CD cover due to the overall darkness of our digipak. The background almost has an underlying meaning in relation to the album title, 'Awakening' . The darkness represents a deep sleep and the past, whilst the bright lights shinning through represent a brighter future and new chapter in Ivy's life.

Back Panel:

Creating the back panel of the digipak was probably the most difficult part as finding an intriguing picture with enough space for writing. The picture also had to be powerful enough not to get taken over by the writing. It was hard to find a picture that the writing really stood out well on. When taking pictures for our digipak not only was this shoot one of my favorites, it produced my favorite image of the entire photography process. I like the lighting in this picture and think the writing stands out really well on the dark background. Neither image or writing over powers the other in this shot, which is what we aimed for. I thought not having our artists face in this would be interesting for the audience as most other shots reveal our artists face, therefore this shot focuses primarily on the concept of our products and artist herself. There is a lot of shadow in this image which allows for my chest area to be seen better and therefore the lip prints. The song 'Better Off Without You' is positioned in the middle of the track-list and is right by the lighting of my body and the colour of the lip prints. As this is my favorite photo my group and I took, I am very pleased with the way our back panel looks and feel along with the front cover of our album it is the most successful look of our digipak.

Inside Right Panel:


Here is one of our photos from the glitter shoot. We chose a mid shot for this panel as it showed off the clothing and brought attention to the artist more than we felt a close-up would have. This is our only shot that contains eye contact with the audience members, which is why i thought it was such a good choice to include in the digipak. This photo really draws audience members into Ivy's eyes and plays a part in the artist and fan relationship being built throughout Ivy's 'career'. The red writing links well with the lip stick and also helps draw attention to our artists lips and therefore lip colour which further helps viewers recognise our concept. The dark background allows for our artist to stand out and be noticed more, along with the writing in the shot. This photo was edited on a website called 'Fotor', where we worked on the background and shadows, blending them out so our artist was the main focus. We also edited our artists skin, aiming to give her a flawless completion.

Bottom Left Panel:

Here we have used an extreme close-up of our artists face, focusing mainly on her eye, however, her make-up as well. This shot shows her make-up off extremely well as the glitter hits the light; her eye also does this. We wanted to glitter to represent fun. From audience feedback we found that this was most peoples favourite shot as they thought it looked really professional and linked well with our album. The link we made here was that as Ivy is looking into the the distance. We wanted people to think she was either looking back on her past and moving on or looking into her bright future. Both these ideas link to the title of our album as it is called awakening. Ivy in this picture is either looking at her past and realising its time to let go and move on, or looking happily into her exciting future. We gave this picture two ideas as we wanted our audience to perceive it how they personally wanted to. Although some audience feedback members didn't pick up on these ideas straight away, once we had explained to them they fully understood.

Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 4

Filming Costume

Narrative Actress Costuming:

 This was a versatile outfit that we've used throughout our video, we wanted her to be dressed in something quite casual so in this outfit was one we put together for the video. We chose to put her in converse with this outfit as it made the outfit casual and quite young as that was our main aim. Also by using using a kimono it added something to the outfit which would be colourful but also, it allowed us to use it in our black and white shots where she is walking. This outfit is featured in the beginning walking shots, train and shisha shots. 

We thought this was an outfit which reflected our narrative just being at home and relaxing as its simply just a dressing gown but we used a leopard print one to show some colour and pattern still even though these shots were only used to add a little more to the story line. This outfit is obviously only shown in the getting ready shots. 

This outfit we also wanted to be casual as she was just out with her friends so she didn't need to make the effort but it was still well put together. This outfit is shown through the trolley, bowling and arcade shots, Also, it is shown in the swing shot however, she has a bright red checked shirt over the top of her t-shirt to add more colour and stand out from the surrounding background. 

Artist Costuming:

We used the same backdrop from other lip syncing shots but this time we dressed her all in black with a statement necklace which still had a edge vibe to it but still was plain as we were going to play with editing more in these shots for example we were having her dancing more and then fading the shots in to one another. 

We decided to dress her in a more bright outfit this time for the brick wall lip syncing shots as we felt she would contrast against the background but also, it would tie more in with our theme of colour and vibrancy.

As we had used quite a bright and distracting background we felt that our artist should be dressed quite plain and simple therefore, she is wearing ripped skinny jeans and a black high neck crop top which we felt would show a casual but more relaxed side and would appeal more to the younger audience side. We also decided to put on a statement necklace to become the focal part of the outfit but also, we dressed her in red converse so there was still an element of colour to the shots.

This is the same top from before however, due to our change of shot it means that the audience is only able to see the top half of our artist but by giving her a plain outfit it meant that she wasn't to distracting from the smoke/projector shots. Also, by giving her a bright red lip it carries on our lip theme but again keeps attention to her face and lips more importantly to show the level of lip syncing that our artist was capable of. 

This outfit was one that was more off the cuff when we were filming as we were waiting for the sun to set for filming in the fountains however, it was getting a little colder so one of our group members just used their scarf to wrap around our artist whilst we were waiting but in the end we felt it worked and that it tied in with the background we had used which was full with buildings. 

As we were in quite a bright setting with the yellow tables and chairs but also when filming, the lights reflected upon the trees which were quite a yellow green also. We thought we would keep it quite simple with a black crop top and patterned black and white trousers. We decided to do this as it still made our artist look quirky and young but gave a different vibe with our setting.

Filming Make-up

The majority of our artists make-up was simple with a bright lip and we decided to do this as it would fit with our theme of lips which is carried throughout but also, it would draw attention to her lip syncing so then the audience would be able to tell the lyrics. On the other hand, Ellie (narrative actor) just had very plain and understated make-up so the audience would be able to really establish the difference between the artist and the narrative actors. 

Production Diary

Week 11:

We thought it would be a good idea to get some concept shots of boys skateboarding, to add to the adventurous side of our video. Whilst we were waiting for our friend to meet us in order to get the skateboarding shots, we asked two random boys that were already in the skate-park if they didn't mind us filming them performing some tricks. Luckily they were open to this and allowed us to film them for a bit. After filming the skate board tricks from the volunteers we headed over to the park to try and get as many shots of our narrative actress and her friends having fun as possible, I filmed these shots as I didn't need to be in them. As we had two cameras with us, to avoid one running out whilst waiting for our friend I decided to take the camera we had just shot on  back to school to begin editing the footage we had taken in the skate-park and park. I really enjoyed editing our skate boarding shots as they fitted in really well with our video, I added a tint over them to allow them to fit in with our colour theme. The park shots, once put into the video, didn't work as well as we had hoped, we decided to scrap them.

Production Diary

Week 10:

• This week we did more lip syncing shots, we tried them in front of various backgrounds, at first this didn't work so we re-tried them using lighting and different backgrounds, we then found these shots were more successful and once we took these shots we edited them into the video.
• This week we took shots of the narrative, we tried these in a park to create a more child like theme. We also found a sign in the skate park with "keep out" on it which we edited in the section "danger zone" so that the shots would reflect the song. After watching these shots back on the computer we found that they had come out a little childish which is something that we didn't want in our video therefore, we didn't use any of them. 

Production Diary

Week 9:

• This week we didn't film anything, we just began to think about our digipak that we had to create for our artist. We wasn't too sure at the beginning but after looking at previous years and on google for some inspiration we decided to sketch out some of our plans and discussed how they would link to our video and our artist in general. By drawing them it helped us see them more visually and give us a vague idea as to what it may actually look like. We came up with two rough ideas however, the one we preferred was more based upon the photobooth idea and showed images of us all messing around with our artist also in the photobooth this time, we were also going to follow the generic layout of a photobooth picture with the skinny vertical row of images

Production Diary

Week 8:

• We then started to edit our shots that we had taken in London. Our main editing was changing the brightness and contrast on our shots so the colour would stand out more to the audience and relate to our use of colour throughout, which worked well with our song as its upbeat and happy. However, after editing all these shots we realized we needed far more lip syncing shots so they didn't get too boring so we started to brainstorm more local areas but also, with the same urban feel to them. 
• We also re-filmed our photo-shoot shots with different people this time, they came out better than the practice shots but after asking for feedback, many people said that the quality of them wasn't as good therefore, we are going to re-film them again but we played around with the editing on them and cut them to the beat.
• This week we also took more shots of our narrative and this was more based upon her partying with her friends. Since watching these shots back we have decided not to use them. We realized these narrative shots were looking at the camera too much, this again made it confusing with the artist and who was who. Also the lighting was very dark and dim which didn't fit in with our bright theme we have used throughout. We also decided that partying showed an older angle of our narrative so decided to make her do more teen activities.

Production Diary

Week 7:

• This week was our first week of filming where we were going to start our actual music video but before doing this we felt that we should take some practice shots. We started off with the 'photo-booth' shoots that we wanted in our video and from shooting these we realized that we couldn't have our artist and actors in the same shots as it would become difficult for the audience to establish the difference between to artist and the main narrative character. We also felt that these shots would look better if there were more of us in them which wasn't a problem as we could ask our own friends and plan to do it in a lunch or a free available study period. 
• We then began to film our actual music video which we had planned to do around London, we aimed to get quite a lot of lip syncing done that day as our artist is supposed to be quite urban which meant it was easy for us to do so. When filming we shot some of the artist in front of a graffiti wall, on a rooftop, in a small enclosed area surrounded by trees and tables, fountains etc. However, we filmed some of our narrative in these areas which we didn't use in the end due to it being too confusing for the audience and then decided we wanted the shots of the narrative to be in a variety of different places. During the day we faced many problems, the majority being, filming in a busy place but also, due to us filming for most of the day our camera had ran out of battery and memory. Luckily we were near a Starbucks which meant we could charge the camera and there was a lot of old work which we could delete off the camera therefore, our problems didn't last too long. 

Digipack Draw-ups

Here are our first digipak ideas, we have taken inspiration from the photo shoot shots we have already taken. On the first one we have taken shots from that using artist and her friends with the props. We have reflected on these and think that these may become confusing again between star and narrative. We also think that the focus needs to be mainly of the star and not her friends, which I think is lost in our first idea.

Our second idea we have tried to use the same look of a photo shoot but in more of a focus on the star, therefore we have different shots of her in locations used in the video, such as graffiti wall and the bridge. We have also changed the main photo shoot idea of just the artist not with friends, but we have left one with friends but think we could have the friends in black and white and her in colour to make her stand out more. 

Digipak Photos

Digipak Feedback

At this point we chose to get feedback on our 3 digipak drafts to see what our target audience thought of our digipak so that we could be sure they agreed with us.

From our feedback we found that our audience liked the close up a lot. We decided it would be good to keep variation of shots anyway so are going to use this. For the front cover we found that the kisses and the flowers are the most popular panels. We have chosen to use the kiss shot as we think there is more room to display the title to the left where she is looking.

                                

Behind The Scenes Of Our Music Video

This video will be used on our website, as a treat for the fans of Ivy Hicks. It shows them shots that were not used and also reveals our artists personality. When watching they can see the journey of Ivy and her crew and the progression of the video its self.

Second Day Filming

This footage took place during lesson time in an empty classroom. We used a white background to allow the colours of the props to shine through and stand out, being the main focus and relating to our narrative of Ellie (our actress) having a good time with her friends. This specific footage of the actors in what is suppose to resemble a photo booth was one of our first ideas when annotating the lyrics to our chosen song. The lyrics in relation to this footage are "Freeze frame, I dodged that shot". We incorporated visuals linking with lyrics a few times within our video.

Digipak - Draft 8

Since my previous draft I have added the album name on in a similar font to the title so it easy and clear to read. For the CD I looked at real life ones and saw they was more of a logo than a photo. I therefore used the logo and animations of lips to keep it flowing and also flashes of paint so that it flows with the website.

Digipak - Draft 7

Here is the 7th draft of our digi pack, we decided to try to put a picture of lips over the CD so that we could continue the flow of lips. Although I think the lips look slightly distorted, I have also found it hard to find lips that are the right proportion. I also tried a less italic font so that it is more clear.

Digipak - Draft 6

Once we had chosen the pictures we wanted I began to put it into a layout of a real life digi pack. This meant turning the photos so that they could fold properly. Also we found out that the CD would have to be in the top middle so we couldn't have the photo over two slots, although once we turned them the double picture didn't look right. On this draft I also added the production stuff at the back of the CD cover to ensure it looks professional.

Digipak - Draft 5

In my previous draft I didn't like the font in the middle, I have therefore tried it to the side and I think it looks much more professional. I chose the italic font as I think it reflected the feminine look of the woman especially as she has her shoulders on show.

Digipak - Draft 4

Now we have decided the layout of our digipak, we have begun experimenting with adding a title on to the front cover.I first tried it over the top of the model body but have found that it was lost slightly into the kisses on the body.

Digipak - Draft 3

Here we have adapted the parts of the first 2 digipaks that we liked, we chose to have them all in colour so they would flow well. Also we chose too use the close up and have the floral shot across two photos so that we could show a wide variation of shots to make it look more interesting.

Digipak - Draft 2

Here is my second draft, we therefore added a close up of our star's eye so that we could range our shots more, we had a long shot, mid shot, a more zoomed in mid shot and a close up. We chose a different front cover without black and white as although it showed another skill and variation it didn't seem to match with the remainder of the shots. At this point we has decided we liked the front cover not in black and white as the rest seemed to flow very nicely but was still unsure on if we watched the floral photo to reach one or two parts of the digipak.

Digipak - Draft 1

Here is the first draft from out digipak, we started by choosing one picture from each of the styled photo shoots we had done before. We tried to use a range of shots from mid shot, close up and long shot. We also chose a range of effect from black and white, added shadows and adding pictures onto it. Although we had used a range of shots we felt as if there was more photos we that could show off our skills, model and styling. Therefore we decided to look back at our photos and consider adding a close-up. We also wasn't sure if a picture across too sides worked well or not, so decided we would try a a draft without it and ask out target audience for feedback on which they preferred.