Evaluation.

Poster Final

This is my final digipak. I have developed it from my draft by adding the picture of my album cover. This is so audiences know what they are looking for when they go to the store to find it. I also added the logo's of the music production companies at the bottom next to the websites to make it look more professional and more like a real poster. I thought the white title really worked well against the black background. So instead of changing it, I improved it by adding a red shadow to make it stand out even more. I think this makes the poster look more effective than just the plain writing. The red shadow also links with the main image - because of the colour of her lips. I think its important for the text to link with the main image because it makes the poster look real. 

Poster Draft

This is the draft on my music advert. I created this on Photoshop CS3. Using text I have downloaded from dafont.com for the artists name, album release date and 'available on'. This was simple and easy to put in, move about and resize to the correct size that was needed to make the poster look professional. I used google images to find logo's of stores that would 'sell' the CD. I pasted these logo's in and deleted the white background so it looked better visually. You can see these logo's very clearly which is important because this is where the audience would see where they can actually purchase this product. I then displayed the artists website which is also very important as it promotes the artist. Audiences can look up this website and find out more about the artist and artists album (if they don't already know). I really like the text used because it's the same as the text used on the digipak. I think that this is an important link because audiences can relate both ancillary texts together easily. I have put the artists name bigger than the rest of the text because I feel that this would grab peoples attention first. the second biggest is the date of release because this is the next important.

Inspirational Cover

This is where I got the idea of having the album name tattooed across the artists hand. Cheryl Cole is a popular artist who has the same target group as mine... I think Her album cover is very elegant even with the tattoo (as tattoo's may not come across as girly) I thought that if I used text like hers mine would also look effective.

Inspirational Cover

This is the album cover that inspired my album cover photo. I like the way she has her hands and nails in the photo, this is unusual as other artists haven't done this. I thought this was a good opportunity to link my video with the cover photo by the nail changing colour scene I did in the music video - therefore I edited her nails to different colours on Photoshop when making the cover. I also like the way this image is framed and wanted my cover to be similar.

What the album would look like on an iPod...

I put my CD cover onto an iPod to see what it would look like if someone was listening to it. I think that it looks really professional and possibly like a real one. I think this is an effective way to see how your target audience will see your cover if they bought it on iTunes ect...

My CD

I used Photoshop to make my cd. I used a lot of layers to create the cd. I also overlaid a image of a shiny surface to make the cd look real. It gives an idea to the audience what it would actually look like...

Final Digipak

Here is my final digipak. I decided to change the inside cover picture slightly because it looked like it needed something on the left side of the image to make it complete. I chose to use the peach colour because it goes with the image the best, after experimenting with different colours. It's also the same colour that has been used for the text on the album cover and CD so makes the whole digipak link. I really like my digipak.. I think the album cover and back of the cd is the most effective but think overall the whole thing looks professional and effective. I think I used appropriate images and colours to link with the genre of the music and also to link with the artists representation. I think the text really flows on the digipak.. I have used the same text on the front cover that says the artists name - then on the actual CD which says the album name. I also used the same text saying the album name on the cover to display to name of the songs included on the album, on the back of the digipak. 

variations of inside cover

I felt that there was negative space in the image on the inside cover. I've decided to add a strip of colour to the left so that the image looks more complete and not empty when displayed as a digipak. I have decided to use the peach strip of colour for my final inside image because the colour is more softer and goes with the colour of her skin tone, whereas the other colours are quite dominant and bold. Although I really liked the red as it went with the rose in her hair and her lips I thought that the peach colour linked more wit the digipak as a whole. 

Draft Digipack

I looked at more CD covers when I had my photo's to see how I could develop it. I think this digipack is really effective and I think that it fits with me genre, links with my video and would attract my target audience.. I used the same/similar text I used in my music video in the 'Vogue scenes' I wanted my CD cover to look like a magazine cover so it linked with the Vogue intertextual reference... but I didnt think this was effective. I like where the artists name is placed and also the album name which I got the idea off of Cheryl Coles album - Three Words where she has the album name as a tattoo on her shoulder, Also Rihanna's album - Talk That Talk is 'tattooed' on the side of her arm.

Ancillary Text Photo's

These are the images I took of my artist for my digipack and advert. The shots I used were thought out before I did them. I thought of the existing covers that I have analysed and looked at - so took close ups. I then took a variety for the rest of the digipack and advertisment. The second image is my favourite... Jessie J's Album - Who You Are inspired me to do this shot. Although it's not exactly the same I think It still has a similar feel and both photo's link.

Photoshop

I used photoshop to create the digipack for CD. Here I was editing the cover image. On the cover I airbrushed her face to make it have more of a 'glow' - I also think it makes it look more professional in terms of other artists album covers as there skin looks flawless all the time. I also made her eyes brighter, to catch peoples attention. I then changed each colour of her nails using the paint brush tool with a low opacity so it didn't look so bold and like i've just coloured them in so obviously. I made the overall image more saturated as it brings out the pinks in her cheeks, the blue in her eyes and the pink of ring ect.. The last picture is of the colour guide where you can pick and choose what colours you want to change the brush tool to. I used this to make her eyes brighter and her nails a different colour.

SurveyMonkey Feedback

Here's my SurveyMonkey Feedback. I posted the link to the survey on my blog and then tweeted the link on Twitter to ask if people could answer my survey in relation to my video. 12 People have answered so far with the majority of them Females aged 17 - 19. The feedback shows me that everyone who answered the survey knew that the genre was Pop and understood the Shopaholic reference. I asked them to rate my video out of 10 with 1 being the lowest. All the answers were from 8-11 which I was really pleased with! Everyone who answered the questionnaire said that they enjoyed watching my music video and would happily watch it more than once :) which is good as people usually watch real artists/bands videos more than once, whether it's on YouTube or music channels on the TV.

YouTube Feedback

So far my video has 567 views on YouTube with 6 Likes and 0 Dislikes. This is really good considering I only posted it over a week ago... I think it's a really good idea to post your work online, in terms of people seeing what you have created and the feedback that you receive from it. This sort of thing is called Web 2.0. This means that the web (internet) has developed to the point where us as consumers can produce and distribute things that we have made ourselves - showing it to millions of people on the internet. For example Youtube is a place on the internet where you can upload it and show it and share it with all the users. Youtube has an average of 490 million users - so everyone who uploads has a potential for all these users to see what they have uploaded. This is called the 'Longtail theory' by Chris Anderson. This basically means that us as consumers have a potential to reach more viewers than something like a big company like the BBC are showing.

Facebook Feedback

I posted my video on the social networking site Facebook. I thought this would be a great way to receive feedback from my target audience as a lot of my friends are aged 17 - 19 which are roughly the age of my target group. All of my feedback was positive, with 54 likes and over 18 comments. This was a much better way to receive overall feedback as not everyone who watched my video couldn't comment on YouTube as not everyone has a YouTube account, whereas the majority of people have a Facebook account. 

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Final Music Video

Intertextual References

Here are images from my music video which shows how they are referenced to the film Confessions of a Shopaholic. A lot of shots taken from my video are very similar to the ones in the film which were my intentions so that it was easier for the audience to point this intertextual reference out. 

I really liked this certain shot in the film of character Rebecca Bloomwood sorting out her wardrobe so I decided to recreate this scene for my music video, where the artist is sorting out her wardrobe too. To make the intertextual reference more noticeable to the target audience I have tied a silk band around the artists head, like Rebecca Bloomwood's. I also placed her on the right side of the frame (rule of thirds) exactly like the shot in the film. As you can see by looking at both of the photo's the reference is clear. 

The narrative of the song in the end is that she loses all her money. In the film she finds all her bills that she needs to pay, and theres a close up shot of her in the middle of the bill letters. I thought of a way that would be equivalent to this dilemma, but instead used money at the side of my artist, with the money going up.. then back down, with the artist showing different emotions to convey what she's feeling when theres more money beside her - then less money beside her. As you can see from the two images the intertextual reference is quite easy to recognise. I think this is playing on the idea in a funny way of the stereotype that women spend all their money.

The shot of Rebecca Bloomwood touching items of clothing in the film really shows the characters love for the clothes ect. So I wanted a similar shot in my music video to show the same thing. I got a variety of shots of the artists brushing through items of clothes, looking at certain items, and picking up clothes to purchase them, which gave the same 'I Love Clothes' feeling in my music video like in the Confessions of a Shopaholic film. This scene also emphasises the representation of women that love to shop, or have an 'obsession' with clothes. The way she's looking at the clothes reminds me of Laura Mulveys theory of the 'male gaze' which puts women in a position to be looked at my men. In this case I think Its changed to the 'female gaze' which is not women looking at men, but women looking at things they love for example clothes, which is quite humorous.

Like in the shot above, I wanted to show her love for shoes. So I took this memorable scene from the film and did it in my own way, where my artist grabs the shoes of the shelf. This also plays on the stereotypical female representation. 

I also wanted to create the same scene when she's in the shop surrounded by mannequins... I did this shot and as you can see it's easy to spot the intertextual reference. This scene really shows her in 'her own world' - almost like her fantasy world, full of clothes. I think these scenes makes it look like the character worships the mannequins surrounding her.. As it's almost as if they're looking down at her as theres so many of them, like an army of mannequins.

I wanted the narrative that she loses all her money to stand out, instead of the 'final notice' scene in the film I showed an empty bank out instead.. which has the same effect.

This is the same idea that the mannequins have control over the character 

Here are other music video's that have used magazines in a similar way that I have. The first one is in Pinks video Don't Let Me Get Me... and the second one is in Cher Lloyds video Want You Back. I think this is a good way of making an artist come across as glamourous and a typical popular cover girl - which is also a typical representation that we have of female artists. This representation is not just created by the knowledge that we have of magazines already ie; glamourous and model like.. It is represented also by the poses that they do. For example Cher Lloyd is sitting posing in an armchair and Pink is getting her hair and make up done - just like the artist in my music video - These are typical things that we relate to fame and our idea of models being 'perfect'.