Evaluation - Questions 1-3

http://ellabaker94.wix.com/evaluation

Evaluation - Question 4

The sizing of these glogs, is an issue with Glogster that I could not fix.

Images on my website

Because Malory is a real artist, we have used this to our advantage whilst using photos. As well as the photo shoots that we set up and the pictures that we took whilst on shoot, we have used photos that we have taken at Malory's gigs although we did not set them up the photos are our own.

Website backgrounds

Here are some of the background ideas for my website...

I chose these images because they are natural and fit with Lolas artist image of natural and earthy.

Final Digipak

Front cover 

                 Inside page                                      Back page                                   Front page    

      Inside pages

More digipak changes

I originally decided to change the image to the image below. However because this image is in black and white I feel that it doesn't match the other images of the album colour as they should all carry a continuing colour therefore I have changed this image to black and white as well. 

This picture in black and white however takes away from the naturalistic image that I am trying to portray of my artist. 

I don't like this image in black and white and also it doesn't fit with the rest of the album pictures, therefore I have decided to use the original of this picture and the image below as the album front cover. 

I chose this image because I think that it looks very natural and portrays the image that we want to give about our artist. It is a friendly picture and the effect on it adds to the vintage natural style of the artist. 

Digipak changes

I'm not happy with the front cover of my didgipak as I think it's quite boring. My original idea was not have have an image of the artist of the front as I wanted her to be recognised by her style as much as her face. However being such a small artist I'm not sure if this is such a god idea. Therefore I took some new pictures to make new front covers to the album. These are a few that I have made to chose from for the front cover. 

DigiPak

Lucy Rose website analysis

Finished website

http://ellabaker94.wix.com/lolaleyland

Ed Sheeran website analysis

Website analysissss from ellabakermedia

Website fonts

Here are some font ideas that I have found for my website. I want to use a font that is quite fun and will fit with her image and her website. Therefore I want to use use thats quite informal and handwritten. 

Reading a website

Social networking

In preparation for the website I have made Lola Leyland (Malory) a twitter and an Instagram while other members of my group have made a Facebook fan page and a tumblr. This is so that on the website there will be linked to these sites for our audience to contact her through. It also means that we can create a small fan base for our artist, tweeting about when the video is released etc. it is quite exciting doing this because it makes it feel real but at the same time it feels strange tweeting pretending to be someone else and using someone else pictures to set up all these sites. We have checked with Malory and got her permission to use these pictures and to use her stage name.

Editing SEVEN

It was suggested that some of the shots were really nice but needed to be cut up so there were more shots within one line so it created pace for the video. As a group, we agreed with this therefore today we went through these shots and found more footage that we could use within these shots.
We had a bit of a problem with whether our shots cut to the beat or to the lyrics. We watched it over and over trying to focus more on the music. We found that we had cut the shots to the lyrics rather than the beat because the film illustrated the lyrics really. We didn't feel it would be right to cut the footage on the beat because it wasn't the same the whole way through and would throw our whole sequence. We decided that we would leave it as it was. 

Editing SIX

Today we finished the montage of our video which means we have a rough cut of the whole video! To do the montage, we split it between the line 'Life happens' and the lines inbetween. For the 'Life happens' lines we used footage of Malory singing the line and inbetween we used footage that related to the lyrics even if it was quite subtly. For example 'When you're dancing in the dark' we have footage of Malory and Matt dancing. Some of the footage we used for these lines were not ones that we had planned, it's footage that we took of Matt and Malory messing around but this actually turned out to be the most natural footage which is what we wanted.
The original idea was to have the montage play back the shots that we had already used but we had so many nice shots that we hadn't used yet we decided to use them instead.

Looking at the whole video I am really pleased and proud of what we have done, especially the montage part.

Next, we plan to go through the video step by step making sure it is all in sync and collect audience feedback to see what needs to be improved.

Editing FIVE

We managed to get a rough cut of our video today, the only thing left was the montage. This felt really exciting because we felt as though we were nearly there. But then we had a problem. When trying to show it on another computer the file got corrupted and we were unable to open it again. This was really worrying because we thought that we had lost our whole video. Luckily we had backed it up this morning and so we were able to get it back that way, I't obviously didn't have the changes that we had made that day but that was a lot better than losing the whole video.

Editing FOUR

We are working really well as a group, we are all on the same page with the same view of the video. I think this is why we have worked though it so quickly. The disagreements that we do have only lead to improvement of the video.
We sometimes have a problem with the lipsyncing of the video. What looks perfect to one member of the group looks off sync to another. It takes time to think whether the footage is too fast or too slow or whether Malory is just singing the wrong words or whether that line was repeated at another part of the song but at a different tone or speed to the sync is different.
What we are finding very time consuming and frustrating is when we put a clip onto the timeline it cuts the music and put s the whole video out of sync. We have to put the clip on the very top line of the timeline, lock it, scroll back down, delete the music and then slot the shot into the right place. It doesn't sound like much but when we have to do it for every shot it gets annoying.

Editing THREE

Using the storyboard and animatic we are working verse by verse to put the shots on the timeline. So far we had stuck to our storyboard almost completely, however extra shots that we took that we had not storyboarded often looked better than the ones we had storyboarded. We had stuck to the storyboard as in which verse is what but some individual shots are slightly different.

Editing TWO

We decided that the easiest way to edit was to choose the clips that we wanted and place them on the timeline per verse of the song and roughly edit to fit. We started with the beginning of the song finding clips of Malory in her house singing. We had lots of shots to chose from as we had filmed each verse from three different angles at the same time. Looking back, this was a really good idea because it really helped with continuity.
We found it quite easy to chose the shots we wanted as the three of us had similar ideas and a similar image of the video.

Meeting Nine

We uploaded test footage that we had taken from the night before. This enabled us to test out effects that we could put on the video. This did not look as good as we expected and so by doing this we have changed the idea for now not to have home video effect on the video, however we may play around with our actual footage when it is finished.

We also made origami boats in preparation for filming on Sunday. 

Meeting Eight

Finished storyboard in preparation for Sundays filming

Meeting Six

Today as a group we started storyboarding the shots that we had decided on.We decided that we definitley wanted a guy in our film and stroyboarding him in to our video. I was very pleased that we decided to include a guy in our film because I think it gives us more options of shots and story. Since the decision of having half of the video in home video style had been made, it made it easier to spark ideas of shots and loations that I had previously struggled to think of. The home video is her looking back on how her life used to be with this guy.

Animatic

Audience feedback

 As we had a first rough cut of our video we decided to get some audience feedback from other members of the class and external students. This enabled us to take onboard comments so that we could improve the video. For us, the video makes sense, but to other people who don't know the concept behind it, they may not and so this feedback illustrates this for us. Whether they like it or not will also demonstrate to us whether it is reaching our target audience. 
The comments that we got for our video were hugely positive. It was good to get a mix of media students, who were more likely to see technical problems and non media students who watch it from an entertainment point of view. 

Comments/Feedback 
The comments that we had got given were as follows:

• a good variety of shots/angles
• great use of different locations
• Good performance
• Natural chemistry between actors
• Like the simplicity 

A comment was made on the consistent performance of the artist and the natural chemistry between the artist and the character. These were two aspects of the video that were very important to us when making and filming. This was because the editing and concept was simple so the performance and acting was to be of a good, high, solid standard.

Improvements that we can make

• To finish the video- this was something that we were obviously aware of as the montage at the end of the video had not been done at that moment in time.

Red Light Management

'Red Light Management is one of the most innovative artist management companies in the industry'

Red Light manage Brandon and Leah and similar, small, upcoming artist such as Hayley Sales, Dierks Bentley, Ella Mae Bowen and Crocodiles along with slightly bigger names like Miley Cyrus, Natasha Beddingfield and Franz Ferdinand. 

The company lead the artists through development, touring, festivals, licensing, and branded entertainment. 

Storyboard

Using post-it notes we drew out the story board. We each took a different verse that we had a vision for and drew each shot. We then discussed these shots and put them into a sequence. We were able to swap around some of the shots to include all of our ideas. Below are some images of our progress.

Album poster

The eye catching image of this poster is the same as the album cover. This makes the album recognisable to the audience. It contains important graphical and textual information to make the audeince want to buy the album; artist image, album name, release date and artists name. These are all important elements that I will take into account when making my own poster for the CD.