The image i have chosen to use for the front cover is the image shown below. I chose this image as the positioning of the actress is central, she is making direct eye contact with the camera and is posing using her arms therefore showing off the coat we wished for her to wear.
Throughout the process of shooting our images, we managed to take around 80 images, this allowed us to pick from a variety of styles and angles to ensure we had the strongest images possible in our final piece. Below are the contact sheets from our shoot, all including the main actress in the video and the main artist in our production, Bella.
For the ancillary images we used the same canon EOS 7D that we used to film the main production task as to keep the quality consistent across the media texts. We also used the white photography screen we also used whilst filming in order to get a white background with limited shadowing and maximum light reflection to ensure our images look professional. The image below shows Bella on the white screen pre-photographing our images.
This fits with the background we planned when planning the images, and also will make it easier for us to edit in the editing process as we will not have to add our own background, nor will we have to alter one. Bella featured as the model for this photo shoot, as she is the main actress in the production, and also the target audience questionnaire indicated that the artist as the main feature of the album cover and magazine article would be preferred. When shooting, we took a lot of varied shot images, angles and poses in order to have choice when it came to selecting the images we would use in the final ancillary production, and also gave us back-ups if anything did not go as planned with certain images, for example, if one was out of focus.
Throughout the filming and editing experience, there were parts of our original storyboards that we had to edit or change in order to make the narrative more clear, or simply because we were unable to film the scenes.
The video below shows examples of what was changed in the music video and also what has been added or removed from the story line compared to the original plan:
In our experience with final cut pro, we experienced many glitches and problems in which we could not overcome. For example, final cut pro somehow edited our audio clip so that half way through the music, the sound increased in volume and this could not be corrected without making the song jumpy or removing lyrics, therefore we had to keep the volume louder.
As well as this, the majority of our editing time had to be devoted to waiting for our clips to render, which was very time consuming and could also not be avoided.
However, with final cut pro we could still use the effects that we wanted to use, such as slow motion and the kaleidoscope effect which was useful.
However, final cut pro also reduced the quality of our footage which was irreversible and we could not find a way around this without starting the whole production again which we were unable to do due to time limits.
Below is a video (available in 720HD) is an example of the quality of an original clip, this proves that our final film COULD have been better quality, however this was not possible due to the software that we used.
For audience feedback, I asked a range of people ages 16+ what they thought of the images shown to them from the drafts, the above text is all of the words which were collected in my answers. Most of the feedback was positive such as unique, colourful and that they would buy the album if it was a real album. The negative feedback was words such as blurry and low-quality however this was expected as the quality is lower than we will use for the main images as we could not at the time access a high quality camera. So far i would suggest that this is an overall positive outlook on our draft and we should continue the final piece in the same style.
This is the completed mock for the ancillary task of magazine image, in the final piece we plan to make this image of better quality and more posed, as well as this, we plan to add more realistic parts to the tour poster such as record label details etc.
The image above, is a mock/draft of the front cover of our digipack, the white background in this image is not a natural background and is edited into the image which is something we shall avoid in our main photographs. However, the prominent, yet small font is relative to the target audience questionnaire along with the glamourous shoot. However, we made sure that Bella did not look too different in these images as she did in the video so that audiences can still recognise her as the artist.
The quality of these images are also low which we shall also avoid in the main images by using a higher quality camera in a more natural light.
The image above is a draft edit of the back cover of our digipack, this image is also of lower quality however it sticks to the conventions of what we would need to put within our main/final image. However, we used a tracklist, the chosen font, a barcode, record label and parental advisory sticker as these are all features which are likely to be included in a real album cover. We also made sure that we maintained eye contact in the image as this is something we would like to include within the front and back cover but not necessarily the insert images.
The image above, is a mock example that we have edited, of Bella, our main actress. In the insert images we plan to take a range of images ranging from coloured kaleidoscope images, to match the scenes in our music video, to black and white images of Bella in different posed positions which do not necessarily need to contain eye contact as this is maintained within the front and back cover of the album.
The image above, is a mock example of the kaleidoscope images that we will include within the insert of the digipack, we plan to do these images in colour, however not the conventional colours or original colours from the shot, we will edit them slightly to look more colourful and unnatural to match the dance/alternative target audience we are aiming for.
On the image below, i am using the black and white tool on photoshop to change the levels of colours in the original image so that no sections appear too white or dark or over exposed, along with making her eyes and lips more prominent.
In the image below, i am editing the amount of shadows/highlights in the image as the image has too many highlights on the eyes an hair which makes her features less easy to see.
In this image below, i am using the selective colour tool to edit the colours within the image to give it an unrealistic/trance like colour effect so that the images fit more with the genre.
After thorough research into the fonts we may wish to use for the main font in our ancillary tasks, we chose the font below as the final one we wish to use. We chose this font as it is black and white, bold and also has a glamorous theme to it which could fit into our target audience of people who listen to dance music and the image of glamour we are trying to produce.
This font will be used in the draft, and final versions of the ancillary tasks that we produce, and we hope that it should suit the target audience desires and we shall test this through audience feedback from our first drafts.
For our ancillary tasks, we have been researching different font styles and colours, as our colour scheme is likely to be black and white, we have decided that our font shall also use this colour scheme. Below are some of the fonts that we have shortlisted, so far our favourite is the top font (prisma) however we will still continue to research into fonts and styles for our production.
All of the fonts below were sourced from font website: dafont.com
Once we have chosen our final font, we shall download the font from this website and use it in photoshop.
