This is our final advert design, I created this and am very proud of how far I have come with my photo shopping skills, considering at the start of the process I felt like just giving up due to how much I hated working with PhotoShop.
Again the thing I love the most about what I created is the synergy. Although seemingly subtle it has a very big impact on what we have created. The little fish doodles make the product seem very sweet and, as fitting with our other products, very much resonating with childhood as well as the font we have used for Robyn's name and the title which are the same as the digipak as well as the purply tones of the image that is very similar to the other image that we used for the front cover of our digipak.
Once again I am very happy with the product I have created and feel that I have not only gained new and important Photoshop skills but also gained more knowledge about persistence.
This is the final design that Kirsty and I created. We are so very proud of the work that we have created and feel that we have excelled our own expectations when it comes to the digipak.
I feel that we have done very well in all the aspects of this and I do not believe that there is much more that Kirsty or i could have improved. This was a joint effort from the both of us, where Kirsty edited the pictures then I created all the add on's and made it come together to look even more beautiful and like a proper digipak. My favourite part about this product is the synergy that we have upheld in this, using things like the little sweet doodle's in one of the fold out sections and the colour scheme that really presents the colours we have chosen to have throughout our products of Pastel pink, purple and blue as well as just the choice of our front cover which we have used in all of our products.
Over all I am overwhelmingly proud with what we have created.
For the final draft Kirsty decided that we must add doodles even if they are not the original ones we wanted. She only really added the effect in the home-video shots and I think it is brilliant and sweet, emphasising a childlike imagination.
She also included a small heart at the end, with the present day Arthur and Robyn which is just perfect and made the video feel complete. I am so proud with what Kirsty and I have produced and how far we have progressed since our first draft.
The feedback we got from this final focus group was extremely positive. They all really enjoyed it and could not pick out anything that they felt needed to be changed or altered. They were also a lot more specific with what they liked than the last group and I feel like they genuinely enjoyed the music video.
This gave Kirsty and I the confidence to decide that this was our final draft and that we did not have to do anymore editing, I think the focus groups we have done have been very beneficial throughout the editing process and our music video would not be as good as it is if we did not consult them.
In this focus group they all appeared to really enjoy the music video giving some feedback on what they really liked.
However, possible due to the loud environment they did not give us much feedback on what they liked or disliked - this caused Kirsty and I to feel unconfident with what we had produced so decided to film another one later that day.
The first thing I decided to do was put in the song list for the album, I did this in the back cover and in order to make the writing visible I had to blur the the background (but not Robyn and Arthur) - this was rather easy and with guidance from YouTube tutorials and a little bit of Kirsty I was able to get this done (however it did not make the text easier to read so I had to come back to it later). I then moved in to Robyn's name and the text, I already used a font I really liked on my tour poster so decided to use that, enhancing the synergy, I also made it the same colours as well. I then went back to the back cover and tried to change the colour of the image in order for the text to be readable, but there was nothing that I liked so went against it (coming back to the problem later). After that I put two different lyrics from our song 'Build a Boat' in the top left and right images, the left one saying 'and the building up the beautiful we'll be' and the right one saying 'what if we grow up without really growing down?', I feel the two of these fir with the images really well as the growing down one was with the children and the 'up' one was with the teenagers showing the beauty of their ageing and that they are growing together. Then it was into the CD. I honestly had no idea of what to do for this and came up with a few idea like having little fishes going on it or having the 'R+A=4EVA' on it like I did with my digipak idea but neither of these felt right. I then found an image of grass that looked similar to the one Robyn is laying on in he front cover and put the YOUTH lettering that Kirsty created over it, I was very happy with this in the end and Kirsty agreed that it was very good. I felt that i was nearly finished but then remembered that I needed to put in the fish. I tried to copy and paste the one that I made but it did not work so I made each one individually which I think added a uniqueness to each one. Finally I went back to the back cover, I decided to try the purple tint and see if I could get it to work (which I had failed to do with Photoshop previously). In the end after a playing around with it for a bit I landed on something that I was really happy with and then I finished the digipak.
Kirsty and I added in the lip-syncing at the beginning and began to feel like this was our final draft, we watched it again and again to see if there was anything we should consider changing or but at the moment we can not pick up on anything.
Both Kirsty and I have created a Digipak (kirsty more recently than mine) and I already knew before I looked at hers that it would be better than mine as she spent a lot more time than I.
My first thoughts of this digipak was that I loves the images, Kirsty and I selected the images together but she edited them giving them a vintage effect which I absolutely love. However, I also thought that even though the product is brilliant and vibrant, there is not added text which is a problem and needs to be altered, there is also no CD which also needs to be added.
So the decision to use Kirsty's digipak or my digipak was very obvious as her is genuinely a much better quality than mine but I decided that there was a lot that needed to be added before it is finished as have decided that I will do the final part of editing in order for it to be finished and of a good standard.
The only thing I changed for this draft was the colour, I made the product more of a purple colour which is more fitting with all the other images that Kirsty and I have edited for our other products. Once I got the colour i liked i then tried to type over the text but this did not work and would have taken too much time for something that will not make much of a difference.
I am really happy with what I have produced in comparison to the first draft of the advert I believe that i have create something to be really proud of and something that fits with all of our products.
Our focus group did not have much constructive feedback to give at this stage meaning that we are at our final stages of production.
The one thing the group felt we could change would be to add more lip-syncing at the beginning of our video as our artist is not seen within the first 30 seconds of the video and even though I do not want to put any lip-sync there, I cant help but agree.
When I started thinking about what we should create for our digipak although I was taking more of a backseat for this and Kirsty was going to be doing the bulk of the digipak creating (as I was doing the advert) I still created a digipak to have an idea of what it was like to make one.
I created this a very long time ago before we even started editing the main music video so I did not really have a idea of what theme we were going to be heading for.
This digipak is rather boring in my opinion so if we did decide to use this we would have to find a way to make it more lively than it is now. Some of the parts that I do like are the quotes from the song in a lot of the images as well as the little note from the artist in the fold out.
This is defiantly a work in progress and I feel like I can and will create something a lot better than this, I shall wait and see what Kirsty produces however.
This is the second draft of the tour poster/advert and I am very happy with what I have created. I love nearly everything about this product and am so very proud of what I have created so far. I love the placing of the text, the title and Robyn's name as everything stands out in its own way now and Robyn is not shadowed by Youth. I love the little doodles that I have put over the whole page as they link the poster back to youth and innocence making me love it even more and enhancing the synergy throughout our products.
However, I still feel like there was something missing so I spoke to Kirsty and a few other members of our focus group and they all said that it was brilliant but if there was a way to make the colour of the poster look more purple (like Kirsty's digipak front cover) then it would be perfect (and would create even more synergy), so this will be what I do next.
For this edit I took away the purple tint and moves the text. I also moved the Robyn down to the right side making it bigger and stand out more than previously. I then once again experimented with the purple tint but i decided that there I was not way I was going to like it so just took it out all together and moved the tour dates to they were more fitting. I also attempted with tinting the background a more purple colour but at that time I could not find one that I liked so took them all off. Finally I added little fish doodles going across the poster as well as little hearts surrounding Robyn and likes under and around the release date to accentuate it which all added synergy as we are going to do this throughout our music video and in the digipak.
I am so much happier with this edit (although I still feel there is something missing) and feel very proud that I continued to use Photoshop instead of giving up as i found it so very frustrating.
For the fourth draft I placed all the ocean backgrounds onto the green screen areas as well as the paper boats, in order to create continuity throughout the video. I personally really love the paper boats and feel they are really effective as they bring another dimension to the boring world of schoolwork and I think they look really cool. Overall I am very happy with what i created in these sections.
I also added in the interviews over the statue scene, I was rather pleased with the result of this in the end however it was not what we originally expected it to be. Firstly, I placed the clips in and played around with different audio editing software's to make the sound a lot clearer and get rid of as much of the background static as possible. This was as successful as it could be. However, after consulting with Kirsty we both decided that in order for the words to be properly understood they could not just be voice overs, I put back in the visual images of the people and moved them around so they did not obstruct the clips behind. After watching it back I was very happy with the work, they all looked sweet and innocent giving another layer of sweet vulnerability to the work.
After this I started the extremely time consuming job of going through the lined green screen footage, frame by frame, to get rid if the dark lines we have been seeing towards the end of the video. I did this using the blur tool across the green layer having to avoid Robyn and the wall (which annoying moves a lot). This took a very long time and there may have been a better way to go about fixing this, however I could not find any other way to do it better so in the end stuck with this and was very pleased with the outcome.
My first draft of the advert I do not believe went very well. I do not like this at all for many reasons. I do not like the purple and pink colours behind the text as well as the sizing of the of the tour dates which are stretched and ugly. I feel that 'The Youth Tour' is unnecessary as it would look a lot better if it was just 'Youth'.
The only things I like about this product are the background, the tour name and the font I used for Robyn - however, I feel like the name does not stand out enough and needs to be moved and made a lot bigger, as well as the colours of both.
I am rather disappointed with what I have produced here as it looks very unprofessional and not to the best of my abilities so I am going to go back and start nearly from the beginning to make something that I am proud of.
I was very happy to hear that the group liked the green screen background and I will get straight onto replacing all the other backgrounds, along with the little boats that I created! They also bought up some good points about the footage being too long with the statue so I will also start to put the interviews over the top to see if that makes it less boring and more entertaining.
So I started off making the grass background (see Initial Ideas post on how I did this) which I made slightly bigger this time around. Once this was created I took the Youth from Kirsty's edit of the digipak and put in on the poster. I then used our selected font and put Robyn's name slightly underneath it. I the started with the purple on top of the grass t make sure the tour dates are readable, but I made sure that Robyn's body was not covered in purple by cutting her out and placing her as a separate layer on top. Next I added in the tour dates which I would not get to fit properly so it took a while for me to make it all fit. I then added some other little bits such as a website and a release date as well as 'The' and 'Tour' with a pink tint behind them so they are also readable.
For the beginning of this draft Kirsty and I created the stop-motion. I suggested that we use an app that i have used in my other studies called 'StopMotion' as it would lightly show the last shot taken over the current one meaning that we would be able to get more of a cleaner finish. The app them put it together and created the stop motion. Kirsty then air-dropped it to the mac and edited it so that some of the clips lasted longer than others as it started out with being too fast for anyone to read properly. I am really happy with they two stop-motion animations that we created as they look very sweet and childlike Kirsty then also changed the dimensions of the flashback to make it smaller and more square as if it was a real home video. I was very pleased with this as i feel it is sufficiently different and east to tell the two separate time periods apart. Kirsty also colour corrected the school scenes with pinkie/blue times in an attempt to balance out the harsh tones and to create more of a sweet romantic atmosphere. I think Kirsty did brilliantly on this and I am very happy with the coloring. She then also corrected the London scenes with more saturation and green times to make the video brighter and more happy. Also in the gap since the previous draft I created a new idea for the green-screen. I drew waves and sweet little fishes which connote childhood, then put it as the green-screen for the stop motion (I will wait to see what the target audience say before I change all of the green-screen - which I do not like). As well as this we also filmed some footage in front of the green-screen of little paper boats being puppet-ed by revision resources. I feel this will be very effective to place in wioth the green-screen to make it all link back to revision (the main point of the song).
This short video is a compilation of the three ideas I have for the tour poster/advert.
The first one I rather liked, I isolated Robin's clothes from the grass and her body then places the background behind her (one that we are going to be using for our origination green screen background) and then took out the background as for some reason the colours were showing through slightly.
I rather like this idea and I feel that it could work really well, however at the same time I feel that it made be hard to find a background that would fit with her (the the one we have now also looks weird) and also there is not space to put any text. I feel that this it is really good but I am not sure if it is the best idea I have.
The second one i created by using the first image as a start, then I selected different parts of her clothing (jeans, top, jacket, shoes and wrist band) making them a block colour by eye dropping the main colour form the clothes and filling it in. I did this on every piece apart from the part of Robyn jacket that hard the tiger on it as this is a signature item that she wears all the time. I then found a temporary image to place being her (which I did not like at all).
I also really like this idea as it is once again different and more complex than a lot of adverts/tour posters I have seen.. However I felt that even though her tiger was still visible it was very east to tell it is Robyn, I also feel it would be very hard to find a background that would suite this, so therefore is not the best option to go for.
The third idea is my favourite of all three. I started off by getting the image of Robyn (which I used for the previous two), then duplicated the background to make the grass bigger. After exporting the image as a jpeg I started a new protect and merged the different grasses together to make them look like one. I then got rip of all the brown and it was finished. My idea is that we will have all of the information to the right of Robyn and the title at the very top.
I think our of all this is the best one I have come up with. It is very simple but at the same time will have a lot of impact. It also will not draw attention away from the information and you can very clearly see that it is Robyn. The only thing I will change when I begin to make the actual poster will be to make the background slightly bigger as I do not really like the sizing of it at them moment.
I believe that the poster I will be making will be the third one as it is the one that I feel will be most effective and I will be able to work with it more than the others.
In this focus group they once again picked our the points that Kirsty and I had already spoken about. They picked up on the colour correction and having more of a differentiation between the flashbacks and the present day scenes (which we had decided we will do with a change of dimension on the flashbacks).
However, it was also mentioned that we should put in an introduction. This is something that Kirsty and I had spoken about but forgot so we will add in a stop motion boat being built for the introduction and the ending.
We have finished our first draft of the music video and I am very happy with what we have achieved. Although there are so major improvements that I feel we need to make, we have done very well in sticking to our storyboards (but not so much that we have not left ourselves any leeway).
I edited the first part of the video which mainly included all the clips from the revision sections, involving the overlays and such which I found very easy and oddly fun to do, making me really excited to carry on with the editing process.
In this draft Kirsty experimented with different filter to seek a vintage effect on the home-video clips to differentiate between the flashbacks and present day. We both decided on the colours of the home-video being purple and red tones as it makes it look warmer and more homely. We also experimented with with a green/blue tone, however we decided that this made the footage look cold and unwelcoming so eventually decided against this.
I also decided to move around some of the clips slightly in the second half of the video as well as adding a few more clips such as Robyn lying in the grass (replacing the footage of Robyn behind the wall which I really disliked). and also the footage of Robyn carving her and Arthur's name into the bench (to replace the footage of Arthur looking like he is peeking up Robyn's skirt).
I also made sure that each of the "Lets build a..." had a clip of the children drawing the objects as i really loved each of those clips and wanted to make sure they were featured as it was the first idea we initially came up with (even though we did not carry on with the idea of using the drawing in the video i still believe we should use them in the video somehow).
For the next draft we have agreed that we should colour correct the rest of the footage to make it prettier and play around with the dimensions of the home-video clips to see whether we can make it look more old fashioned and vintage.
I created a side by side comparison of our animatic storyboard and the first draft of our music video. Looking at this I believe we have done rather well with keeping generally to the structure of the story board. However looking at this draft there is a lot that we need to change to make it of a more professional quality. Next Kirsty and I are going to start making our own changes to the music video that we did not put in the storyboard. I feel that this will be a good next step in order make the video look much better and more professional.
I found editing the static from the background of the clip rather difficult at first as I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and the version of the video that I was watching was a a earlier version. However I soon got the hang of it and I found it rather easy and it was just the case of playing around with it until it sounded normal. Overall I found that this was successful and I am really proud of my accomplishments when it comes to gaining in my editing skills. UPDATE - After looking over this footage we decided that it would probably be best to take the singing out as it is not good quality at all even after I changed it and there is nothing we can do to make it sound better, but I am still happy with the skill I have gained from attempting to fix this.
Our first focus group was really helpful and generally just confirmed the ideas we already had about our first draft of our video, such as the adjusting of certain lip-sync parts that are out of sync and stabilising the clip with Arthur falling. They also picked up on a clip that Kirsty and I had not picked up on which looked like Arthur was looking up Robyn's skirt (which we were very happy about as once you see it in that way it is impossible to un-see it). Additionally they suggested that we should cut the long scene of the statue during the bridge, however as we are planning on putting an interview over the top of this we decided that we would keep it like that for now until after we have added the interviews and then see what they think. They also picked up on the ugly lines across some of the green screen shots urging me to change this (however long it may take).
Social media is one of the main ways people can communicate and publicize their product for free. We decided that we should utilize this marketing tool so we made Robyn a professional Instagram page. Here we post pictures from the shoot and the music video and she promotes her album, music video and single 'Build a Boat'.
Even though we wanted to keep the page professional, we felt that in keeping with Robyn's personality we decided that her main feed should focus on publicity however, her stories could be used for whatever she pleases. This makes the audience feel they know her better and are somehow closer to her as they are able to see bits of her every day life and see that they are very similar to her in many different ways.
Also on social media we were able to gain lots of different types of feedback from a whole array of different people, not just our enclosed focus group, and although we should still focus on what our target audience want to see it is still a good idea to keep a wider audience in mind when making certain decisions.
Both Kirsty and I are really proud of our first draft. We both understand that there are a lot of improvements that we need to made and add a lot of things from our original idea and need to establish much more of a story line, but generally I feel we are off to a good start.
There are a few things that I believe we need to improve on:
Making the flashbacks more obvious with some kind of vintage filter (for a home video vibe).
Change the green screen background we I feel it does not really fit with our video (maybe child drawn sea will be better).
Some of the overlays are too faded so we should change the opacity.
The black lines on the green screen need to be adjusted.
Kirsty and I decided that we would take individual scenes and edit. This is the first set of things that i edited when it comes to the music video. I am very proud with how far I have come in terms of using the editing software. Generally I found this very challenging but enjoyable to edit and although there is a lot of blank screen I am excited to edit more.
I am so pleased with the filming days that we did and compared to last years filming days which were cold and damp and generally horrible these went so well.
There were only two major problems that I feel we encountered; one was the footage that we lost on the second filming day at Camden however we combated this by filming similar footage on the forth day at Little Venice and I feel that the footage was better then the stuff we got in Camden. The other problem was Arthur not being able to get to Gods Own Junkyard, this was really hard for us to decide to not film there in the end as Kirsty had her heart set on going there but I feel that is was the best decision timing wise to not go there in the end as it was rather unnecessary and time consuming to re-Schedule.
Apart from those two unavoidable and unfortunate problems everything else was very smooth sailing, we got all the footage we needed and much more leaving me feeling very calm and ready to start editing the first draft.
Filming Day five took place at Brentwood County High School, we decided to use a school because we wanted a place that had a lot of revision resources in the background and gave off a feeling of learning (and somewhat boredom).
I started the day filming Arthur in front of the green screen. I interviewed him and also set up for the rest of the day. When Kirsty arrived we decided to film Arthur lip-syncing some of the lyrics as we wanted him to seem like he is talking to Robyn and he is expressing how he feels about her. We also filmed him with different props such as feathers and apples;
Soon After this Robyn arrives and we were able to start the filming together. We got them both in front of the green screen to play around with some props together.
After this I went and set up the revision in a nearby English room and filmed Robyn doing a few lip-sync runs, while Kirsty did a photo shoot with Arthur with the different props. Robyn's revision and lip-sync turned out really well and I was very happy with it. Then once kirsty was finished with Arthur we bought him for a clip where he helps Robyn revise.
Then Arthur had to leave, we filmed the stop motion of the post-it notes and I tidied up the revision set up while Kirsty used Robyn for a photo shoot. Similar to The one with Arthur she let Robyn pick from all the different props she had in place and then let her pose with them.
After this we filmed the footage of Robyn breaking down the Jenga block wall with Youth on it and that concluded our filming.
Overall I feel our filming days have been very good, we generally kept on schedule and did not over work ourselves or our cast.
Just before we all planned to meet for the third day of filming at Gods Own Junkyard we encountered a problem. Arthur had some bad news and was not able to meet with us on that day which was very disappointing but there were understandable circumstances on Arthur's part.
This left to question when we should re-schedule or more importantly if we should re-schedule. I personally felt from the beginning that the atmosphere and colours of Gods Own Junkyard was not right for what we wanted for the video and it would be too much hassle to go there just to take pictures of Robyn that we likely will not even use. Additionally we were told that we would not be allowed to film in there just take pictures so this would make it hard for us to incorporate it into our music video to allow for the synergy. We also found it really difficult to find a time when we are all free to go there.
In the end I made the decision that we would not go and film in Gods Own Junkyard.
When filming on day on day 1 I asked Finlay and Isabelle to collectively draw some drawings that Kirsty and I are planning on superimposing into the video when editing to create the imaginary world that these children are playing in. With this task i gave the free reign to draw whatever they wanted trying to keep the ideas as realistic as possible to how childern's minds worked. I felt that this was important as i believe that it is something key in our music video.
Here are the pictures:
Here I asked them to draw a boat to link with the title and lyrics 'Let's build a boat'.
This is a castle linking with the lyrics 'Let;s build a castle, so we can rule is as we choose'.
Thirdly I asked them to draw a tree-house;
Linking to the lyrics 'Let's build a tree-house, so we can hide up there for hours'.
And finally I asked them to draw me how they would like to see themselves when their older and they came up with these;
Overall I feel that we succeeded in gaining the drawings and doodles that we wanted and I am very excited to see how they look in our music video.
I got a lot of good footage on this day and feel that I was very good at thinking on the spot to combat different problems and also to come up with different ideas of what to film from what we wanted originally.
EXAMPLES OF THE FOOTAGE:
When filming the cloud watching from the window I decided that is was not enough to just film from the inside so I went outside and filmed them from there as well as from the inside which I though was very pretty because I was able to get the sweet thatch of the cottage in the videos to add to the homie vibe to the clips. I also had a problem with the lighting from the inside as I did not have any lights with me and the footage was either too dark or too light, which made the then change the location to another window in the house which was slightly bigger and had more light in the room, I still had some problems however I decided that these could be easily fixed in post-production and moved on.
When filming the children playing and reading I made sure to take the footage from many different angels in order for us to have as much choice as possible when editing the footage. This was very easy and in some places I even moved around to create some very pretty smooth flowing shots. I also did this with the clips of the children drawing, however after watching back some of the moving clips I felt that it too away from the actual drawing and did not move much in the rest of the clips to keep full focus on the drawings.
When we went outside the weather was much better, however it was very damp on the ground so to make sure they children did not get wet I placed plastic bags in the floor and they laid on top, then I tucked it underneath. This made the filming of this scene a lot nicer for everyone and made sure that the children felt comfortable and could act to their best ability. After setting up the children paying on the ground I was able to get lots of footage of just them and of them looking up to the sky. Even though the weather was rubbish it did not effect the quality of the footage and I am very happy about that.
Also outside I was able to capture some really sweet footage of the children playing the the garden something that I associate greatly with childhood. The footage captures the innocence of what it is like to be a child and imagining a whole world to play in. To do this I just asked the kids to play whatever they wanted and then I filmed them when I though it was sweet and something that we could use in our video. Generally everything they did was great. I did at some points directed them with things to do such as chase each other around the tree or have Isabel run with Finlay to the bottom of the garden (which was personally my favourite shot from the garden).
Overall I am very happy with this filming day, there were no problems that I could not quickly fix and I got all the footage we needed and more (just in case). We only went over the schedule by a very small amount of time and everyone enjoyed the day a lot.
