Twitter Feed: Promoting

I have posted my draft poster on the bands twitter feed to attract the attention of the perceived following they have. This way the followers/audience will start to gain more interest in the band as they know the debut album will be released. Furthermore it is a useful way to advertise the album to promote sales, decent bands use a similar process to promote their album/merchandise.

Draft Digipak/Poster Feedback

Draft Digipak Feedback

After receiving feedback for my digipak drafts I have found a few areas, which can be improved in order to help me gain full marks in this area. I scored 7/10 for my digipak and 9/10 for my poster. To begin with one of my feedback comments was to change my inside cover of my digipak to the waved line pattern I have used in my poster. This was suggested to show even more continuity throughout each of my pieces of work. I have tried this for my final digipak and it looks a lot better, beforehand the inside cover was too plain (even though I want a simplistic look) and the waved parallel lines are more suited to the cover. This leads me to another piece of feedback I have taken into consideration; I was told to change the name of my album to something, which suited the pattern I was using, so that they could connate. Therefore I have changed the name to ‘Parallel Waves’. I believe this name is effective because it can connate with the pattern I am using of two parallel lines. This way the audience can instantly understand the album cover better than before.

To continue on my poster an improvement was suggested, this was to change the date of the album release to a Monday (the beginning of the week). I have now changed the date to 18/11/13. Overall my poster was to high standard and the layout I have used looked professional and didn’t need any alterations or modifications.

Draft Plan

Filming Date: 31/10/13

Filming Expectations: we are expecting to get all of the shots on our storyboard completed for our draft deadline on Friday. We have a total of 79 shots on our storyboard, which we will replicate to our best abilities in such a short amount of time.

Filming Time Schedule: We are expecting to be able to get all of the shots done in around 4 hours. This should give us enough time to complete editing on the Friday. Thankfully Reece and myself have only two lessons on Friday; therefore we can use our study periods and focus on completing the editing.

Filming Locations: Because our filming will take place after school, in the draft we wont be able to include all of the locations we want to use, this is because it will get to dark, thus a Saturday would be a more suited day to film on while we can use the natural light to full potential. One of our band members Dad’s has a small room, which he has all the equipment and props that we need to film in, therefore we will be able to use this room.

Location Problems: The issue we are facing with the room we our using for the draft is quite small and with a camera/tripod set up it would be a struggle fitting in all of the band and a relevant mise en scene. This is something we will have to work around on the date. Furthermore the mise en scene on the room doesn’t real suite the genre of our band, this is because it has heavy-rock genre posters around the room, therefore we will allow ourselves time before filming to clear out some of the posters and other elements of the room that don’t suit our genre and make it more conventional/suited. There is also a possibility that we will use a lot more narrative in the draft in contrast to our final piece due to the location issue. 

Draft Filming Update

We are hoping to start filming tomorrow for our draft. However there has been a twist in our filing preparation; unfortunately the camera we are supposed to be borrowing of our friend for the filming has broken, and is currently being fixed. The camera will still be available for the filming of our final video but we need to find an alternative camera for tomorrow and thursday, which is showing to be a bit of a struggle. If worst comes to worst, an iPhone 5s will have to be used to film the draft. (which actually shoots in 1080p HD)

Draft Digipak & Poster

After extensive research into minimalist digipak and album cover designs, I have decided to adopt a similar design for my digipak using one image on the front cover as the main focus then linking the other panels to this using various different methods. The image on the front cover of the digipak is an photograph I took whilst at Leeds Festival whilst a flare was illuminating part of the crowd I was in. I believe this photograph is effective for use on an album cover as it quite striking, original and will catch the target audiences eye amongst other albums. Also, the majority of the photo is blank which allows room for the band and album name to be placed onto the photograph, transforming it into an simplistic album cover (after editing). I have then tried to design the other 3 panels of the digipak to flow on from this to give a sense of continuity throughout. On the inside left panel I incorporated a zoomed in (and edited) image of the red smoke from the flare therefore creating a sense of continuity by adhering to the colour scheme. The back cover/track list is very conventional containing all the necessary information such as legal wording, barcode and record label logo. The layout of the back panel is extremely simple, maintaining a minimalist look, whilst also adhering to the colour scheme once again.

In the creation of this poster I have tried to maintain the style I used throughout the digipak of simplistic and minimal in order to achieve an effective design that stands out. Using the same image from the front album cover allows the CD to be easily recognised for those who have seen the poster and will stand out (even subconsciously) as they have seen the image somewhere before. I have again adhered to the colour scheme of my digipak to create a uniform feel between the products as this is a very common convention where a product range maintains the same colour scheme throughout all its products created. 

Digipak And Advert/Poster Draft

This is my completed final draft digipak. In this digipak I have included a catalogue code at the bottom of the spine, I have included this because it is a unique code, which is used for practically all CD’s made to distinguish it. I have also spent care into lining up borders and texts to give a more accurate look. I have decided to stick with a simplistic look because I used this look for the band during my AS level coursework. The simplistic look suited the band and also can be seen to follow conventions within the genre and similar genres too. The features involved are also minimalistic for the same reason. Bands like Foals, The Vaccines and The Black Keys all follow this method, although they have used images, I felt it would be hard to use an image, which is suitable to the band and works perfectly with the cover, especially with the time we have. I would want to put a lot care and precision into an image, which is very time consuming.

To continue I have included the colour scheme used with our logo in the digipak. This is so the audience can make connotations between the colours and our band, which can be seen as a useful technique. However I have added white into the colour scheme to make a Teal, Black and White three-way colour scheme. Furthermore I have used the font ‘Bebas Neue’ instead of the original creations where I used ‘Century’. This is because the font is thicker which works better with the thick underline used on the cover, and as borders in contrast to the thinner font and thus creates a more professional look. The borders have been used throughout each slide to add a sense of continuity to the digipak.

I have followed similar conventions for my music advert/poster. I have kept a minimalistic look; this can show more continuity throughout the two pieces, which can be seen as an important feature for a band to have. Yet again I have involved the colour scheme we created for the band in my advert. I have used the teal to highlight important information that will intrigue the audience, for example the album name. I decided to use waved lines like Swim Deep have in their simplistic album covers and posters. However I do not own this image and therefore in my final piece I will take time in creating a similar pattern so I can include it. I have used our band logo at the top of the poster to portray the bands name; yet again the audience can then make connotations with the band and the colour scheme used. Yet again I have used the photo ‘Bebas Neue’, the bold capital writing suits the cover. This is the only font I have used to keep a professional look throughout both pieces. Furthermore I believe the lines I have included above and below the key information in the last third of the poster are effective, they add emphasis on the information provided inside. I chose to include the key information in the final third of the cover, as I believe it looks most satisfying to the eye here. After seeing our logo the audience will instantly be lured in and study the whole poster, the teal writing in ‘Troubled Town’ does enough in itself to draw the audiences attention to that and the information around it.