Photos for Album Cover

Jess and I have decided for the Album photos we will use pictures from our video and in the studio to use in the pamphlet with the lyrics next to each photo. We are going to use the black and white theme throughout most of the photos to create a theme throughout. This is an example of what some of the photos will look like, we have changed saturation, contrast, brightness and exposure levels to create this look. This is the look we will hope to create for all of the photos in the pamphlet:

We have used this black and white effect as it is a common convention of Kook products and we have then developed this convention by over exposing the image. This makes the image look edgy and different the theme that we want our digi pack to portray, by doing this we hope to met our audiences needs but also add something which is creative but different.

Taking Photos for Poster

Today we are going to shoot the photos for the poster and the front and cover of the CD.

The poster we are going to have all the band members sitting on a bench, we hope to change the image to black and white and chrome key certain parts such as the shoes or clothes in colour to fit in with similar Kooks posters. We will then use the a bright colour to use in the title and for the tour dates, this will hopefully create a theme and also look like proffessional poster in keeping with previous Kooks videos. We are taking inspiration from this poster -


for the front and back cover of the CD we are going to have the band in a woodland area looking and standing in various poistions and looking in different ways. For the back cover we hope to achieve the same picture but the band members have moved or are in a different poistion. We have got inspiration from this Kook album cover -

How Ancillary task photographing went...

Today we shot many photographs for our Ancillary task. We met the band at 4.30pm before it became to dark to shoot. We first of all got the band together on the bench located at:

 this is in Great Dunmow, Essex 

 just behind the trees is the bench that we used

We took photos of the band member on the bench moving them around making sure they were in different poses and positions on the bench we also tried to keep them entertained by talking to them so that when photos were taken they looked natural and not staged so that they fitted with out products in the indie genre.  Whilst they were on the bench we also took photos of their feet as we believe that we can use these on our digi-pack.

We then took the same arrangement but moved the band to a wooded area just left of the bench. 

We managed to take the photos in a hour and a half before it got dark so all the photos that were taken were useable. We hope to upload the photos tomorrow and be able to choose our final photos from them. 

Adobe Photoshop Workshop

Today at lunch time we had a photoshop workshop in which we watched an expert show some key moves and tricks that we may want to use. This included how to layer certain images over others to create a more detailed picture, changing the colour levels increasing a certain colour more than others to change the tone and atmosphere of the photo, how edit effects onto text.

I found this highly useful and it has given me ideas that I can now use on my ancillary task.

Split screen example

Here is an example of the first split that we have managed to create, while creating this split screen we wanted to make it interesting so what we have done is introduce the clips at different times on the beat also to make our piece look professional we have tried hard to keep the border the same width between all clips.

Research into album covers

In order to meet my audiences needs and expectations I need to make sure that my digi pack is effective and fits into the genre correctly, in order to do this I have got CD covers of similar bands to see what are common conventions so that I can either use, develop or challenge these.

Here are CD covers of the Kooks -

Here are also Cd covers from One night only -

From my research I have found that CD covers in the indie genre often have the whole band on the cover and also often there is some manipulation of colour for example there have been some changes to saturation levels, sepia levels and enhancing of brighter colours also. I will try to use these conventions in my CD cover to meet the audiences needs and make my digi pack effective.

Research into posters of indie bands

In order for our ancillary task to meet the needs, expectations and demands of our target audience we need to thoroughly research bands of the same genre and look at how they advertise themselves in their posters so we can use some key conventions they use for example, manipulation of colour, setting or mise en scene. This will make my poster more effective as a whole.

Here are posters from the Kooks -

Here are posters for the Arctic Monkeys -

Here are posters for You me at six -

From researching posters of bands that are in the same genre as the Kooks I have found that common conventions of colour are either harsh black and white images that You me at six have shown, or bright injections of colours shown by the Kooks and Arctic Monkeys this is something I will need to take into consideration and possibly combine to meet my audiences needs. Another convention is that you see the band members in part of the poster or somehting that resembles the band.



How The Kooks advertise

In order to achieve the right digi pack and poster for The Kooks they need to be in a similar context, here is some research of album covers of The Kooks.

 

After researching album covers that The Kooks have already produced there is a clear pattern in which they all follow, most of them include all the members of the band and then other key features are the focus on black and white images with specific parts that are coloured (the colour red appears a lot). When I produce my digi pack I will need to take these key features into consideration and use them so that the poster is that similar to these.

The common conventions that I will need to consider are - 

• pictures of the band members 
• pictures of the instruments  
• manipulation of colour in editing to suite to colder and harsher tones
• Large title as a focus
• saturation of images to black and white with a particular part injected with a harsher colour such as red

If I can apply some of these common conventions found in Kook products this will mean that my product as whole will stay within the correct theme and genre and also will meet the audiences needs and expectations as we have used common conventions so our product will look like that of a real indie media text. This will please both the audience and institution.

Editing split screen

Me and Jess have decided to split up images in our video and leave borders between them, we have decided to do this as from our research and planning we have found that in the indie pop genre they try and separate themselves from mainstream media where it is polished studio shots. So in order to do this we have used our creativity and decided to create a literal split that adds not only interest to our piece but reflects the audiences desire to be isolated from main stream media. I believe that this will meet the audiences needs but also the institutions.

Editing Continued

Today we have put all of our footage into the time line all the clips are were we want them to be. Now that we have passed this stage we are able to look at effects, transitions, and colouring edits of our clips. Once we have reached a basic first stage edit of our video we will get our focus group who are teenagers both male and female to watch our video and comment on how to improve the video and if they feel its fits in the genre correctly or not .

Editing used in The Kooks video

Jess and I have decided that our video should follow the same feel and atmosphere as Kooks and similar videos. After researching multiple videos we found that the colours are often saturated, or colour effects such as black and white is often used. This is what we will aim to use in our video, we will avoid using harsh colouring and change clips to have a warmer or colder feel by changing colour saturation or specific colour levels. For example, to make clips have a warmer look increase the red in the colour.

Here are snap shots of examples of editing used in the 'Always where i need to be' The Kooks  -

Editing Started

Today we started to edit our music video. We will be following our story board so that we achieve correct timings and that our music video makes sense in terms of narrative and editing. This also enables Jess and I to allow a lot of time dedicated to editing techniques such as saturating the colours, black and white, sepia and transitions between clips to add a more professional feel to our video.