The group blog can be accessed by clicking on this - LINK
Tuesday 12 May 2015
Tuesday 5 May 2015
Evaluation Question 4
Here is my final part of my evaluation -
Sunday 3 May 2015
Wednesday 29 April 2015
Evaluation Question 2
I originally had a Hardwell track as the music background but due to copyright claims it was took down, I have replaced the track with one that youtube allows me to.
Wednesday 1 April 2015
Evaluation question 1
I have been struggling to upload my evaluation through the software of prezi due to technical difficulties on my desktop computer, I will be transferring the evaluations onto the powerpoint software for the time being until I can upload through prezi. I should have this problem fixed within the next few days.
This is my first question -
Blog Update Process
Over the past few months I have been concentrating on other pieces of coursework and exam prep, because of this I have not updated my blog frequently enough. I will be revisiting my past blog posts and updating them to a higher standard and follow the advice and feedback that I have been given. After this process my blog will contain no spelling or grammar mistakes and I will gave more information and insight into each post.
Jacob
Monday 16 February 2015
Completed DigiPack
This is my finished DigiPack it contains my CD cover, Album Packaging, Music Video and Poster -
Monday 9 February 2015
Tour Poster
Tour Poster
To create this poster I have used the software Photoshop as this is the best image editing software that is currently available to me. I also have used photoshop in the past so I have prior knowledge with the software. A poster is typically on A4 or A3 sized paper, we have decided to used A3 sized paper for our tour poster since this is an appropriate size. Layout is important for a tour poster since you have to balance the elements of image and information. In my poster I have split the page between text and image. I have tried to create a balance between both as this is an ideal layout for any poster. A typical poster would have the heading of the poster followed by text/image split either side by side or top and bottom, I have decided to split it left and right while keeping the heading at the top of the page but it is aligned slightly to the right. This is a conventional poster layout, as a group we wanted to create a simple poster but keep it eye catching at the same time. I thought it was best to keep a conventional layout rather than create something extreme or irrelevant.
I have tried to stay relevant to my target audience which is at the dance music audience by using bright colours that connote bright lights and visual effects which are relevant towards the genre of dance. Our artists logo and face are both included in the poster to instantly make the aware of who's poster it is. The text in the poster is edited with a light outer glow and are all different colours in different shades, I wanted our poster to be as eye-catchign as possible and using bright colours on a dark background seemed to work well. As with my posters I have used an image of our artist, but the image is a close up shot of him. I decided to use a close up shot since I want the audience to be aware of who's poster it is. The image of our artist has been faded using the fade tool. I have faded the image so another image can overlap without it looking cramped and unprofessional. The overlap or fade has no real ideology behind it, the purpose was just to include more image and make the poster more attractive. An image of John of his skateboard was also implanted into the poster, this was to create more of an appealing poster. At first we had no effects on this photo but Liam was able to include a drop shadow effect on this image which makes it look even better and professional.
The only mise-en-scene in this poster is the images of Liam and John, I would of liked to use a more creative background than just the colour black but I struggled to find a suitable background that worked well with our house style. If I had more time i would of created the poster with a better background. The images used are relevant to our video and poster since they are both characters in the video. The two shots of the images are a close up and a medium shot, These shots work well when combined in the same product. Overall I believe I could of created a better poster but I worked with what we had, the strengths of the poster are the editing of images and creativeness behind them. The weaknesses of this poster is the lack of background and the poster is not as attractive as it could be. The text used is also very bland and could be improved.
Sunday 8 February 2015
Album Cover Review
Album Cover
Above is my album cover for my digipack. To create this I used the software photoshop since it is the best software to use for this type of work. Photoshop offers many options of effects and editing so it was the software I stuck with. Firstly I had researched album covers in one of my previous posts and it gave me a great insight of how to go about creating a conventional and attractive album cover. A album cover is around 4.7 inches wide and 5.5 inches high, this is the size I followed when creating it in photoshop. The layout was important for the album cover since it contributes to the success of the album, I decided it was best to stick to a conventional layout which was - Heading top, Image centred and logo bottom right/left. I had chosen this layout since all the covers I had previously looked into followed this layout and I wanted to follow the most successful layout.
The text on the album cover is our artists logo, I had created this beforehand and given them the effects of a inner glow. Once i selected the inner glow effect I made it precise and set the spread to 2pt. This gave the text a black outline. I believe this effect worked well on the text since it helps it stand out better against the colourful background. The text and logo follow a house style of black and white. Once the text was created the background was inserted.
After looking over many album covers I found a trend of backgrounds always being colourful or designed in weird ways. I wanted to follow this trend of creating a eye-catching or unconventional background so I decided to use one of the images we had taken on Jamaica Street, the street was full of wall art and crazy designs so I had many pictures of them. After selecting a image that I thought would work well due to its colour and design I finally had to pick a relevant image for the cover. I wanted to choose a image of our artist since he is a new artist he needs his face to be spread across his work so this was a great opportunity to spread the artists face.
A close up shot of out artist was perfect for the album cover since it fitted into the open space in the cover and it gave off a very professional look. The image of our artist is edited as the skin on the artist has been manipulated to seem more clear and looks as it is glowing. This was Liam's idea he thought it would make the artist more attractive and therefore making the whole album more attractive. By using the effects above I created a album cover that was conventional and professional.
Before selecting any image for our cover, me and Liam went through our contact sheets deciding on which images we thought would be best for the album cover. My job in the creation of the album cover was positioning the cover together and making sure the layout was how we planned, Liam added the effects and gave the cover an extra push of attractiveness. I am very pleased with how the album cover has ended up. I would not change much about our cover since it ticks all the boxes.
Tuesday 3 February 2015
Music Video Filming
My role in the creation of our video was director and camera man. I decided this would be the best role for me since I have previous experience with camera work. I had completed a short film studies course in the FACT cinema last year so this experience was key in the creation of our music video.
Firstly when I came up with the idea of time lapses in the video we questioned as a group how we would go about creating them since we did not have the equipment or experience to create them. My first initial idea was to research this, I had found many different varieties of how to film time lapses or make still video into a time lapse. Most of the methods required high end softwares which we did not have a disposal. This was an annoying problem as in our planning time lapses became a big part of our video.
I decided to ask my cousin who is in her third year of media at Hope University for help around the situation, she then told us she had access to a tripod and go-pro camera from her university. This was a big help and I do not think we would of been able to create the time lapses we did without this equipment. The tripod was used in most of our shots and this is why our shots in the video are extremely steady and give off a very professional aspect. The very beginning scene in our video was shot on the beach in new brighton, I had to get up at 5am to film this shot and the tripod was very handy for this situation as it would of looked awful with a handheld shot.
As the director of the music video it was my job to make sure our shots were perfect and professional. We had filmed the same parts of the video in many different locations and then narrowed it down to what location looked best and relevant.
Firstly when I came up with the idea of time lapses in the video we questioned as a group how we would go about creating them since we did not have the equipment or experience to create them. My first initial idea was to research this, I had found many different varieties of how to film time lapses or make still video into a time lapse. Most of the methods required high end softwares which we did not have a disposal. This was an annoying problem as in our planning time lapses became a big part of our video.
I decided to ask my cousin who is in her third year of media at Hope University for help around the situation, she then told us she had access to a tripod and go-pro camera from her university. This was a big help and I do not think we would of been able to create the time lapses we did without this equipment. The tripod was used in most of our shots and this is why our shots in the video are extremely steady and give off a very professional aspect. The very beginning scene in our video was shot on the beach in new brighton, I had to get up at 5am to film this shot and the tripod was very handy for this situation as it would of looked awful with a handheld shot.
As the director of the music video it was my job to make sure our shots were perfect and professional. We had filmed the same parts of the video in many different locations and then narrowed it down to what location looked best and relevant.
Sunday 1 February 2015
CD Packaging
We wanted our album to be eye catching so we used the background of one of the shots in our video as the pattern of the background was great on the eye it was also quite bizarre which was another thing that we liked about it. I decided it was best to use the traditional CD packaging as this is what I was familiar with the most.
While filming we had already had the album packaging in mind so I took many pictures of Liam and John beforehand, this gave us a lot to work with when deciding how to go about creating our album package. I personally wanted to go with the images below for our album cover and packaging but Liam thought the close ups of the artist were a better idea. After feedback and discussion we finally agreed that his idea was better as they were more relevant and easier to work with when editing,
After selecting two images for our album packaging the editing process began in which Liam took control of since his photoshop skills are far superior than mine. I was with Liam the whole time of editing and gave him my opinions on certain effects and positioning, He took my feedback very seriously and worked around what I thought looked better. My role in the creation of the packaging was essentially to give solid feedback to push our work to the next level and improve it. With my feedback and Liams skills on photoshop we created a very eye-catching package which I am proud of. This is our finished product -
Saturday 31 January 2015
Social Network Pages
Social Media is one of the biggest forms of media nowadays if not the biggest. Social media is a great and free way to promote anything. We have decided to create a Twitter and Facebook page for our artist. Currently the page is small and lacks followers but we hope to increase the size of our fans.
I created our twitter page which can be found by searching @RMasters_Music on Twitter -
Twitter works by giving you the option to follow other people to keep updated on them and what that are doing on a daily basis, this gives fans more interaction with there fans. Our artist is up and coming so it is crucial that he keeps interactive with his fans and updates them with his work.
The second social media we have created for out artist was the Facebook page which Liam has created. This is similar to the twitter page but Facebook has more registered users and the fans can comment on videos, pictures and voice their opinion by commenting on what the artist uploads. We have created this so we can get feedback off our fans.
Saturday 24 January 2015
Contact Sheets
During my planning of the digipack I created a contact sheet to determine what photos could be used for my poster and CD cover. I made the images in thumbnail icons and printed them out to view them all quick and easy. I highlighted the photos I thought would be good for my digipack. I decided what photos 'looked good' by the angle of the shot and the contents of the image. Here is the contact sheets I used -
Wednesday 14 January 2015
Album Covers
Our next task is to create an album cover for our artist. Before I start to work on our album cover I will be looking at other artists in my genre and see how they display their album covers. Since dance music is not popular for albums it is hard to compare album covers. The dance music genre artists mainly produce singles rather than albums but I have come across a few albums I can take inspiration off.
One of the first things I have come across is that dance music albums dont tend to sell well as a hardback copy as the main source of selling is on Beatport and iTunes, this is for different reasons. Firstly the online downloadable versions are cheaper and easier to get than going out and buying a hardback copy. Another reason is the fact the genre does not have many artists producing albums but rather singles.
The first album cover I have looked at is our songs original artist Hardwell. This is the album cover for his album that is due to be released on the 23rd of January 2015, it is titled 'United we are'.
This is one of the most basic album covers i have come across, it is a basic background that supports the title name of 'Motion' as it is some sort of object moving. Then just the title of the artist and album in white bold text. I would want to avoid an album cover like this as its to basic in my opinion. I believe he has choose a basic cover for the same reason as Hardwell.
Calvin Harris does not need an amazing album cover to sell it as he is well known and will sell his album based on his name and not the cover. I think I would have to create a eye catching album cover since my artist is not well known and would not sell his album based off his 'name'.
The purpose of an album cover is to entertain the audience member visually and then draw them into buying the album. The Users and gratifications theory asks how and why media audiences will consistently seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs. The idea behind the theory asks “Why do people use the media and what do they use them for?”, and it discusses as to how the users choose media to satisfy specific needs on a social basis, relaxation basis, or even a basis to escape from reality itself. This theory can be applied to album covers as it covers all of the users and gratification's, for example people may see this album and begin using it as a social talk point. This theory says the audience is active and intercepts media in there own way and questioning it rather than being passive and accepting the forced ideology behind it.
One of the first things I have come across is that dance music albums dont tend to sell well as a hardback copy as the main source of selling is on Beatport and iTunes, this is for different reasons. Firstly the online downloadable versions are cheaper and easier to get than going out and buying a hardback copy. Another reason is the fact the genre does not have many artists producing albums but rather singles.
The first album cover I have looked at is our songs original artist Hardwell. This is the album cover for his album that is due to be released on the 23rd of January 2015, it is titled 'United we are'.
This album cover is very nice on the eye, it contains a mix of of colours in the background which work very well with the image of the artist. The album cover seems very basic but I think because Hardwell is the biggest artist in his genre he does not have to produce an exciting album cover since its going to sell no matter what the cover looks like.
The thing I would take from this album is the simplicity of having the artist in the centre of the cover and a background to compliment what he is wearing (Colours matching). The artists picture has clearly been edited for him to look better and a bit cartoonish, I would take this into account when creating my own and maybe edit our artists picture with some sort of effect.
The second album I am going to look at is Calvin Harris's 'Motion'. Calvin Harris is the most popular DJ and producer in the UK. This album debuted on the UK charts at number 2 and sold over 35,000 copies in its first week. This is what the album cover looks like -
This is one of the most basic album covers i have come across, it is a basic background that supports the title name of 'Motion' as it is some sort of object moving. Then just the title of the artist and album in white bold text. I would want to avoid an album cover like this as its to basic in my opinion. I believe he has choose a basic cover for the same reason as Hardwell. Calvin Harris does not need an amazing album cover to sell it as he is well known and will sell his album based on his name and not the cover. I think I would have to create a eye catching album cover since my artist is not well known and would not sell his album based off his 'name'.
The purpose of an album cover is to entertain the audience member visually and then draw them into buying the album. The Users and gratifications theory asks how and why media audiences will consistently seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs. The idea behind the theory asks “Why do people use the media and what do they use them for?”, and it discusses as to how the users choose media to satisfy specific needs on a social basis, relaxation basis, or even a basis to escape from reality itself. This theory can be applied to album covers as it covers all of the users and gratification's, for example people may see this album and begin using it as a social talk point. This theory says the audience is active and intercepts media in there own way and questioning it rather than being passive and accepting the forced ideology behind it.
Album Review - Borgore - The Buygore Album
Today one of my favourite artists released his new 2015 album which is titled the Buygore Album. As its rare for dance music artists to release albums this was quite exciting and I had been looking forward to this album for quite some time. I purchased the album off iTunes for £5.00, it contains eight songs in total. The genre of this album is Electro house music/Dubstep and Big room house music (all sub-genres of Dance music).
Borgore (Asaf Borger) is an Israeli producer and DJ who in the last five years has pushed and broken the boundaries of dance music as we know it successfully creating his own self titled genre of hard house, Gorestep. Borgore destroys dancefloors with his heavy bass and dirty lyrics that keep his consistently sold out shows in a state of energy and sweat. Borgore knows how to bring out the fun, crazy and wild partier in all of us, and he does it without the violent and dark thrasher lyrics typically heard from his predecessors in heavy metal and rock groups.
Borgore might be one of the craziest live acts in the EDM scene right now, but he’s also known by those close to him as one of the hardest working producers, constantly trying new things and working on fresh music to push the boundaries of his genre and dance music even further.
Borgore is known for his unique sounds and being one of the most individual artists in his genre, this album only makes this argument stronger. This type of album is directed towards the american dance culture as this type of music is not very popular in europe. This is the second album of Borgore I have ever purchased and I was not disappointed with what I received. Each song is energetic, unique and great in their own ways.
The complete track listing for BORGORE's The Buygore Album is:
1. BLVKSTAR & Ookay - Blow Your Mind Ft. Borgore
2. Borgore & Jauz - Lindsay Lohan
3. Borgore - Cant Squad With Us
4. Borgore & Dan Farber - Dolphin Attack
5. Borgore & Dotcom - Nope Ft Shay Gray
6. Borgore & Sikdope - Space Kitten Invasion
7. Borgore & Riggi & Piros - D.A.R.E.
8. Borgore - Set Free Ft Yael
I have already recommended this album to my friends who also like this genre of music. My favourite song off this album would be 'D.A.R.E'. Overall this album is great and another step into the unexplored parts of dance music and I believe the dance music scene will profit from this album and encourage more artists to start creating more uncommon and less generic music.
Borgore (Asaf Borger) is an Israeli producer and DJ who in the last five years has pushed and broken the boundaries of dance music as we know it successfully creating his own self titled genre of hard house, Gorestep. Borgore destroys dancefloors with his heavy bass and dirty lyrics that keep his consistently sold out shows in a state of energy and sweat. Borgore knows how to bring out the fun, crazy and wild partier in all of us, and he does it without the violent and dark thrasher lyrics typically heard from his predecessors in heavy metal and rock groups.
Borgore might be one of the craziest live acts in the EDM scene right now, but he’s also known by those close to him as one of the hardest working producers, constantly trying new things and working on fresh music to push the boundaries of his genre and dance music even further.
Borgore is known for his unique sounds and being one of the most individual artists in his genre, this album only makes this argument stronger. This type of album is directed towards the american dance culture as this type of music is not very popular in europe. This is the second album of Borgore I have ever purchased and I was not disappointed with what I received. Each song is energetic, unique and great in their own ways.
The complete track listing for BORGORE's The Buygore Album is:
1. BLVKSTAR & Ookay - Blow Your Mind Ft. Borgore
2. Borgore & Jauz - Lindsay Lohan
3. Borgore - Cant Squad With Us
4. Borgore & Dan Farber - Dolphin Attack
5. Borgore & Dotcom - Nope Ft Shay Gray
6. Borgore & Sikdope - Space Kitten Invasion
7. Borgore & Riggi & Piros - D.A.R.E.
8. Borgore - Set Free Ft Yael
I have already recommended this album to my friends who also like this genre of music. My favourite song off this album would be 'D.A.R.E'. Overall this album is great and another step into the unexplored parts of dance music and I believe the dance music scene will profit from this album and encourage more artists to start creating more uncommon and less generic music.
Tuesday 13 January 2015
Final draft of music video
This is our final draft for our music video, It has took it many hours of filming and editing to create this video and we are very proud with the outcome. This video is all three of us combined we each edited different parts of the video.
Social Network Safety
As our group will be creating two different social network accounts for our artist we will need to go over social network safety as social network can be very dangerously used to attack, harass and hack people. It can lead to peoples personal information being stolen and their contact information being leaked. Their is also lots of viruses that people can trick you into clicking and downloading through social networks. I will be going over the best ways to stay safe on social network. Hopefully this will help our group stay clear of any trouble on our accounts. The following is a guide on steps to take to stay safe.
1. Don’t click on unknown links.
Sharing links via Facebook or Twitter is a common act, but avoid clicking on links where the destination website cannot be seen in the URL (as is increasingly common with URL-shortening applications such as bit.ly). These links can open you up to malicious attacks and place sensitive company data in a vulnerable position
2. Don’t share personal information.
Avoid including personally identifiable information when communicating online, such as date of birth, postal address, and certainly not bank details. Savvy online criminals can piece together information from different sites in order to steal individual identities and run up massive bills on company credit cards, or even create a fake passport in an employee’s name.
3. Set strong passwords.
Simple acts, such as developing strong passwords that are changed at least every 45-60 days, can dramatically improve IT security with minimal intrusion on time. Encourage employees not to save passwords on default settings when using the internet, as anyone who misplaces their laptop can make it very easy for the unscrupulous to access sensitive data.
4. Beware fake friends - Cat-fishing.
A common phishing attack that users are seeing occurs when criminals hijack social networking accounts and distribute messages to all the contacts in that individual’s contact book. Clicking on a message from a ‘fake friend’ such as this can lead to an external site that allows malicious code to enter your computer system. If you receive a message that seems out of character, always confirm who the sender is before opening to ensure this is really the person sending you the link.
5. Invest in security software.
Don’t cut corners when it comes to anti-virus software. You might think you’re being economical in the short term by simply downloading some free software online but once a malicious piece of software manages to enter your computer, it can cost a fortune to fix, and that £60 can start to feel like a bargain. There are also many free trails of software which can help out for months.
Friday 9 January 2015
Artist Logo
Me and John had the task of creating the Artist logo, Firstly we looked at other major artists logos to get inspiration such as these:
As you can see the logos are not very thrilling and do not stand out much, the only thing that separates most of the logos is the font of the text and a few added effects. We took this into account and began drafting our first logo on photoshop, John came up with this logo as our first draft:
We tried to keep the logo simple, but with its own type of style. After reviewing this with each other we decided to create another logo to see if we could create anything better. After another attempt we came up with this logo which was inspired from the hardwell logo. This is our official artist logo -
We have used a simple style with our logo, we have kept the font consistent and the colour of the logo black. We decided to underline the logo with a line that comes from the beginning letter to give a nice effect to text.
Social Network
We have to set up two social networks for our artist to promote him and his new music video. In order to create an effective social network I am going to look at some of the same types of artists social networks and take ideas from theirs as this will inspire me when creating my own.
I will be looking at the artists - Martin Garrix, Hardwell and Armin Van Buuren social networks to get ideas for creating my own.
Martin Garrix's facebook page is very informative of his current goings on. He has a header of himself performing at EDC Las Vegas which is one of the biggest festivals in the world. This facebook page offers the user to view all of Martins photos and updates that he is posting. This page is very well done and gives everything the viewer needs. I would use our artists social network similar and update all of the fans of the current goings on and share photos.
The first artist's social network I am looking at is Martin Garrix's Facebook page -
Martin Garrix's facebook page is very informative of his current goings on. He has a header of himself performing at EDC Las Vegas which is one of the biggest festivals in the world. This facebook page offers the user to view all of Martins photos and updates that he is posting. This page is very well done and gives everything the viewer needs. I would use our artists social network similar and update all of the fans of the current goings on and share photos.
Thursday 1 January 2015
Thumb Nails
I have created thumbnails for my Digi-pack, this includes my CD cover/Album cover and tour poster.
Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words.
Here is the thumbnail for my Album cover, this includes my CD cover -
The reason I did not sketch my thumbnails on paper is because I am much more comfortable using online drawing since I am more suited to using technology. I do not like sketching on paper since I am a bad drawer so I prefer to use computer technology for any sketches I create.
Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index does for words.
Here is the thumbnail for my Album cover, this includes my CD cover -
The reason I did not sketch my thumbnails on paper is because I am much more comfortable using online drawing since I am more suited to using technology. I do not like sketching on paper since I am a bad drawer so I prefer to use computer technology for any sketches I create.
Music video planning - Storyboards
As part of our groups planning we created storyboards to help plan our music video. Our storyboard should contain some of the following information: What characters are in the frame, and how are they moving? What are the characters saying to each other, if anything? How much time has passed between the last frame of the storyboard and the current one? Where the "camera" is in the scene? Close or far away? Is the camera moving?
Last year I did not create a storyboard for my video and this meant when it came to filming our video it was very chaotic and improvised, this time I have planned every scene out with the correct timings in sync with the song. When it comes to filming the video I may change some shots or scenes but these will be minor tweaks. Below are the first set of storyboards I have created -
EDIT: I have finished filming of my music video. When following the storyboard I encountered some problems with shots and our actor John left the group so as a group we could not carry on with the narrative we planned out. I improvised some scenes in the video with feedback from my teacher who gave us advise on the ideas. My cousin who is studying media helped us out with the storyboard as she had lots of ideas that improved our video.