Lucy Armsby

Because for our advanced portfolio we had to use an unsigned artist, who in this case was Christian Smith, we had to create a digipak and magazine advert. The digipak and magazine advert would be used to help promote the unsigned artist, which is key especially when they are unknown and art just getting into the music industry.
To make our digipak and magazine advert look very professional and of quality we had to make sure that we edited the music video, digipak and magazine advert in a highly accurate way. To do this we used Sony Vegas pro 11 and Pic Monkey to edit the different elements, to make them look professional. We wanted to stick with a running theme throughout all the elements, meaning we stuck with using the same filter, which was a combination of a black and white filter mixed with some sepia tones. I think the combination of all the different elements within our music video are all linked because of this similar colouring and the use of fonts which we decided would be a handwriting effect, linking with the genre we chose which was acoustic singer songwriter. I think all these similar links made gave some synergy between all the different elements bringing together the music video, and promoting Christian Smith as an artist.

 

The music video itself is a mixture of performance and narrative, with the main focus being seen mainly on the flashbacks within the video. These flashbacks were using the same kind of black and white filter with the sepia tone, also with some film burns used to give the flashbacks an old feel about them, making them look aged and as though the memories are fading. We concentrated heavily on making the music video look like a journey, showing the relationship deteriorating, from a good relationship to start with showing the couple on dates at the bowling alley, and at the beach, going into the arcade. However throughout the flashbacks you see the relationship get a lot worse, with the couple arguing constantly, for example in the bowling alley, where Ryan sees the messages Ruby has been sending, he then leaves the bowling alley, dropping the phone behind him. Editing was highly important when it came to editing all three elements because we wanted to keep them all similar, linking them all together.

One of the main elements we decided to keep the same within the music video is mise en scene. We decided to keep Ryan’s costume very similar throughout the music video and the ancillary tasks, keeping him in a smart casual type of outfit. The digipak shows Ryan wearing a smart black coat with dark blue jeans. The magazine advert also shows the same outfit, creating some synergy between the two and the music video where this outfit is also included. One of the main props which is featured throughout all the ancillary tasks and the music video was the acoustic guitar. We decided as a group that we wanted the guitar featured in the ancillary tasks because we felt like it really shows the genre of music off, making audiences familiar with the concept. The guitar also gave the digipak a raw feel, especially with the naturist backgrounds such as grassy fields like the How dale which we used and the natural lighting used within all the pictures for the magazine advert and the digipak. Within the music video the guitar was also used during the lip syncing elements, the guitar was to show that Ryan was playing the instrumental elements of the song as well as singing the lyrical elements. The guitar also keeps the target audience familiar with Christian Smith, therefore linking him with that one guitar, making it a familiar item within his work and would be something which his target audience looks out for, especially when seeing his magazine advert and digipak. Some of the locations were also kept the same within our work, linking together the magazine advert, digipak and music video. The main location was that we kept the pictures within the same town of Downham Market, with one of the main areas being the How dale. Some examples of pictures within the How dale include the back panel of the digipak showing the bench within the cemetery, and the picture of Ryan sitting on the wall, with his shoes being the main focus, as well as the picture of Ryan holding the guitar leaning up against some iron gates, this was also taken in the cemetery, very close to where the picture of the bench was taken. This allowed us to keep some similarity between all the elements of the project, not just concentrating on keeping the colour filters the same. The picture of Ryan sitting on the bench was also taken within Downham market, as well as all the other photos, which were taken during the two photoshoot days, because of our limited time we had to concentrate on keeping these within the town centre and surrounding areas.

 

The font and typography was a very important element within the whole music video, digipak and magazine advert. Originally we took a lot of inspiration from already existing acoustic artists such as George Ezra who at the start of a lot of his videos always starts with his name appearing on the screen in a thin white font. We wanted to use something similar so we concentrated on making our font also thin as well as making it white. We wanted white also because we felt it was not too harsh on the eye, and gave a light hearted feel to the appearance of the video, however we did not want it to be boring or plain which some people might feel like it might be. In the end we decided to use a font which resembles handwriting, which in this case was Lucinda Calligraphy because it resembles handwriting whilst also being easy to read compared to some other fonts which we found and tried. Throughout all the 3 different elements of the project we used the same font, creating some synergy once again keeping the elements familiar to the target audience. We felt like we accurately portrayed Christian Smith as an artist, even without any help from the artist himself, which may have made the whole process a lot easier, however I felt we made good quality elements which all linked together well, with many different familiar resemblances.

 

In conclusion I believe all the elements of our music video, digipak and magazine advert all flow together very well, with there being many intertextual links which I have just mentioned with the mise and scene and typography. I think we made something which was very conventional to the genre we was aiming for, creating elements which would appeal to our target age group, and would be something they would pick up if in a store, wanting to know more about the artist because of the interesting elements we included such as the pictures and the lyrics on the digipak.