Sunday 8 December 2013

Changing Our Products After Feedback Session….

We changed our T-Shirts after the audience said they were not fond of our last ones…. We put a picture of Fen on the tops because our audience said that is what most artists did. We changed our font to make it fit better with our website fonts so the T-Shirts are no longer different to everything else.


The audience did not like the music page because they thought the title of the page "music music music" did not fit the country style. We have now changed the tile to just "music" which fits in with the rest of the titles. The audience also said they wanted to see a theme running through the website so we decided to use polaroid pictures on some of the website's pages. 
The audience also said they did not like the fact that there were to many fonts on the website so we changed it by just having two fonts which works well because now we have a nice theme running through the website.


http://madelainesalvage.wix.com/fenxanadu - The website has now been finished and is now live online...

Saturday 7 December 2013

ALBUM ARTWORK…
At first we wanted to have this picture as the album cover because most of the artists we looked at had their album cover as the artist looking downwards. When we showed an audience this they said it looked more singer/songwriter rather than country. They said to make it more country maybe we should add a guitar. The picture bellow is the album cover. 

Before we had leaves surrounding the title (tying in the leaves in the music video) but the audience said they looked a bit tacky and homemade. The font was originally to different to the website font so we have changed it to make it the same as the website. The font is called Amatic SC. We got rid of the leaves which I think was a good decision because now it looks more professional.
 When brainstorming the ideas for the album artwork we decided we wanted to use the photos from the suitcase(storyline section - the photos darcy throws off the bridge) because we felt this would connect with the video. Originally in the music video we wanted to have the photos falling from the bridge into water, so we decided that the inside cover of the album could be of the pictures in the water but in the end we could not film the scene in the water so we decided that the inside picture of the album should be the photos on the ground covered by leaves.

The back cover of the album cover is of a close up on some guitar wood which we felt fitted nicely with the guitar on the front cover…We were going to have a picture of a guitar on the back cover but felt there would be to many guitars therefore, we had a close up on the wood of the guitar instead. We thought this would be a nice effect because its not that obvious at first but when you really look at you will realise its the wood from the guitar… 


Audience Feedback

Today we showed a group of people our three products(video, album cover and website) because we wanted feedback on them. We wanted to know if they could tell what kind of artist she was and whether or not all three products linked together.

All together they felt the three products fitted together but there were a few things which they felt we could change to make them even better.
They liked the website because they felt the front page fitted really well with the album cover - They both had homemade arty qualities about them - The selotape over the Twitter and Facebook   

gave it a handmade look which worked well with the leaves on the album cover which looked like they had been stuck on. They said we should keep a theme running through the website because the homemade look is only on the first page.
The music page title needs to change. At the moment it says MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC but the audience said that that didn't seem appropriate(felt like that would be on pop website) so we changed the title to just 'Music'.  

The audience felt like there were too many fonts on the website. They said we should stick to two fonts so that the website feels like one website rather than being a bit disjointed.

The audience said they did not like the T-Shirts because the design felt completely different from everything else. If we changed the font of the T-Shirt then that would better(the font at the moment was a bit big and bold) They said maybe put a picture of Fen on the T-Shirt because that's what lots of artists.

They loved the front of the album cover but were not to keen on the leaf title. After seeing the music video which they loved(they said it was what they expected)they said the water on the album cover did not fit in with the rest of the products. 

Thursday 5 December 2013

Second shoot evaluation:

We arrived in the studio the day before the shoot so that we could set up.  The backdrop had been painted for us but we needed to get all the props. We had bought lots of real flowers which we put into vases and placed them around the set as well as some artificial flowers which we placed on the piano and in the drum kit to make it look colourful and more fun. We set up the drum kit and the piano in the right place and scattered leaves all over the place to give it that outdoor country feel. We then spotted this Astroturf grass carpet which we felt would be nice for two reasons. The first is that it adds to the outside look and adds colour to the set. The second is that we could extend the set if we added the carpet on which meant Fen could stand in front of everyone else instead of being cramped in next to the drums(this allowed her to move it little whilst performing).

We next day we arrived and we had a little panic because no one was there except for the drummer and guitarist.....Our pianist had an acting lesson which she had to go to for an hour so we panicked that we would miss an hour of shooting but luckily setting up the cameras and a quick rehearsal took an hour so she was back in time(our main artist Fen had arrived within that time) and we could start.
The set looked great, the actors looked great! All we had to do now was shooooot!  

 
We started by filming still shots. We started by filming a few  wide shots of the whole set which went really well except our drummer looked a bit uncomfortable to start with but he soon eased into it. 
We then did a few close ups on Fen which started of not being amazing because she wasn't smiling as much as we wanted her too but it was because she was just getting used to performing in front of the camera.
We then did close ups and medium shots of the guitarist and the pianist which went really well - They were both really comfortable in front of the camera and did a few smiles at each other which made the band look like a real band.
 
After about an hour everyone was comfortable in front of the camera - Fen was smiling and dancing and the other band members were doing well. ONE BIG PROBLEM we faced was that we realised the drummer was out of time with the music which looked awful but we filmed him anyway and tried to get him in time with the beat but we came to realise that he wasn't a very good drummer so we couldn't do too much with him. However he did have a good vibe and he became much more confident as the shoot went on and he smiled at the camera and occasionally winked at the camera which worked well.               
 
 
After lunch we got the track out and did some tracking shots. These were my favourite shots of the day because the still shots become a bit repetitive after a while and it is nice to have shots which moves - It brings energy and lets the artist move a bit more and allows them to follow the camera with their body instead of standing still in the same place for still shots. I felt this was when Fen was at her best. She really connected with the camera and was able to dance a little as the camera moved around her. 
 
We all took turns filming and doing playback. I filmed most of the still shots whilst my other team members filmed the tracking shots whilst I did playback and held the lead so that it didn't get stuck under the camera. I loved the tracking section of filming the best but found filming the most fun because I was able to control the camera and watch the live action as well as seeing it through the camera.

We all worked well together and were able to swap jobs easily. We listened to each other and helped each other when we got stuck. The main thing I learned was to take lots of shots because when it comes to editing the more shots you have to choose from the better.