LB: Advert Design 4

Stage 4

NME: 242X300(mm)

A4

• On this stage of my print product, I have two variations of the final product. One is a standard size for an A4 print, where as the second is designed for the correct dimensions for an NME full page, which currently measures  242mm by 300mm. However, the resultant printed version of the artwork had to remain as A4 due to technical issues with the large gloss print printer.
• In stage 4, I made numerous changes and alterations to the final product aside from modifying the dimensions. Firstly, I decided to include the addition of a link to Bloc Party's official website, centred at the bottom of the page as a final addition for the reader.
• One other alteration I decide upon was change the positioning and direction of the rubix cube as well as increase the number of cubes used from three to five. Instead of showing the cubes as if they're were a tower, I chose to show them as if they were tumbling down the print work about to fall out the page instead after some feedback from other members of my group and teachers as it looked more professional. As well as this, once again I edited the opacity levels of the cube to various levels to suit their position on the page, but also by rotating the image from it's original position, it helped to connote the tumbling effect.
• One final addition I made was to add a drop shadow to both the title and the release date to lift the text from the page.

LB:Advert Design 3

Stage 3

• In this section, I made numerous altercations and as well as additions to improve the final production. To start with, the background image seemed to simplistic for the piece making it look unprofessional and tacky. I decide upon using another design in the gradient tool, which gave a solid colour, then segmented sections across the page. I repeated this a few times as well as positioned one area where the background was solid underneath the title, thus amplifying the section, but also, rather than using black, I used a colour of grey near to black as not to overpower the other layers.
• Another modification I made was to the title. In keeping with many of Bloc Party's styles, I changed the top line of text to a lighter grey than the background, in addition to changing the second line of text to with, to help separate the two lines of text.
• Another addition I decided upon was firstly, to use multiple rubix cubes. I wanted to give the image a 3D effect as it the cubes where climbing out of the page in a tower formation. As well as that, I also used some image modifications such as the 'soft edges' or 'harsh edges' in addition to adjusting the opacity of each cube.
• Lastly, I added in the release date of the single, in the bottom right hand corner as this was where the print had little detail, but also this is where the print drew the readers eye.

RB: Advert Design 5

In what ways does you print product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of other similar products?

• When making my advert, I found and used the font 'Gill Sans' which is used for the official Bloc Party logo. By sticking to this font, the poster looked conventional of Bloc Party and as though it could be a product created by the band.
• By using a full page picture as the background for my advert, I made it look conventional for the product and genre. However, most Bloc Party adverts use smaller images, for example, each single from their second album 'Weekend In The City' use similar style photos to the album cover in a strip across the advert against a black background. Since these are the same style as the single covers, I chose to make my advert a similar style to our digipak cover.
• After researching the product by looking at other adverts by Bloc Party and bands of a similar genre, I noticed certain pieces of information are regularly included on these products. Some examples of these that I have included on my poster are name of the album it is from and the band's website. I think this information makes the advert conventional as it fulfills the consumer's expectations and gives the information they would need if they had a proper look at the advert.

How does your product link to the other print and moving image products your group has constructed?

• The background of my advert, a picture of a chess board, links to the video as there are shots of the lead singer/main male character looking at a chess board and later, knocking the chess pieces of the board. Although these shots are shown quickly in the video, I have taken the theme and used it to appeal to fans of the band who would recognise the image from the video and associate it with the song.
• The digipak for the single also follows a chess board theme. This is conventional of Bloc Party (as well as many other bands) as it creates a distinct relationship between the two products which is recognisable by the consumers.
• The other advert carries similar themes to my advert, for example, they have a similar colour scheme and are both full page sized adverts. The use of a chess board and rubik's cubes on our posters connote the problems the couple in the narrative are having in their relationship. For example, the protagonist staring at the chess board at several points throughout the video suggests that he is stuck or does not know what to do in the relationship. This is followed by him knocking the chess pieces off the board onto the floor at the end of the video connoting that he is finished with the relationship.
• The two pictures on the adverts have link together because of the similar style and the black and white squares which make them recognisable as advertising the same product.

RB: Advert Design 4

• I used Photoshop to apply similar effects to the new photo to make it black and white. I did this on Photoshop rather than the software I had been using before as I felt this would give better results and keep it at a good quality.
• I did this by increasing the brightness and contrast of the photo which made the chess pieces stand out better against the background.


• I then turned it into black and white using an adjustment layer. After having a go at altering the image by manually adjusting the colour levels and looking at the filters, I decided to use the green filter as it created a contrast between the different colours without distorting the image. After choosing this filter, I adjusted the colour levels to make the shadows of the chess pieces less visible.
• I also used the Blending Options to create the gradient on the bottom of the picture as I had done before.
• I had thought about the text I would include on my advert and after researching similar products, the order it would go in and what size each piece of text would be. I also found that the font used for the Bloc Party logo was Gill Sans MD which I will also use to make it conventional of the product.
• As the band name and title are the main pieces of information on the advert, I put them in the largest font and at the top of the page. After looking at past album covers and adverts by Bloc Party, I noticed that this information is usually on the left hand side of the page. I followed this convention for my poster and put the text in a similar position.

• I also decided to add information such as the release date, the band website and song information on the advert. I thought about the order they would appear and the size of each piece of text.
• As the advert would be featured in a magazine, it is important that certain pieces of information are easily visible to the audience, even if they don't give the advert a proper look. I think that these most important pieces of information are the album title and band name and the release date. For this reason, I put these pieces of information in the largest font.
• I felt that information such as the album the song is from and reviews should be in a large enough font to be read easily by someone looking at the advert, but not as large as the information about the title and band name.
• I put the band website at the bottom of the advert in a much smaller font. This would only be looked at by consumers who are looking closely at the advert and are interested in the band and single.

• After reviewing this poster, I felt that there was too much information on the bottom half of the page. I was also advised to decrease the size of the band and album name and change the word 'Truth' to grey to seperate it from the band name.
• I re-formatted the information at the bottom of the page so that it was only visible over the black area of the advert rather than covering up part of the picture.
• Although I had changed the font size of some lines of text, I still made sure that the most important pieces of information were the largest.



• Finally, I added a Bevel effect to some of the text at the bottom of the advert as well as the stars in the reviews. This made the text stand out makes it noticable against the background and the rest of the text.
• This screenshot shows the exact alterations I made to the text and starts to achieve the desired effect.

LB: Advert Design 2

Stage 2

• After altering the rubix cube, I began by creating the desired template I wanted on Photoshop as shown on the left hand side. I did this by using gradient tool to achieve a fade to black. This fade to black had to have enough depth, however not over power the rest of the design.

• After this, I simply added in the text, the title of the band and single, in the font "Gill Sans" which can be found throughout Bloc Party's own print work.

• Once I had the text title positioned, I moved onto the rubix cube by dragging and dropping the image onto a new layer. In this instance, using the magnetic lasso tool to select areas around the cube, I removed any image of the background from the initial photo, and used the eraser tool to remove any small sections of the original photo that the magnetic lasso failed to select.

• As you may notice, the rubix cube looks used and worn out after hours of use, with the labels beginning to peel off. To correct this, I utilised the clone tool to replace areas of the image using sections where the image is already correct. For example, the square in the bottom right corner is still a little too grey from the colour adjustment. After using the cloning tool, I replace this colour with the same image as in the middle square on the same side of the cube; As well as where any section of the image where the label began to peel  away, I followed the same process.

LB: Advert Design 1

Stage 1

• When developing the advert, we decided upon designing a pre-release and post-release advert to go along with the digipack. The adverts would then be positioned as a full page advert in NME in the first few pages of the magazine. This was due to the fact that NME is often regarded as an indie magazine with some coverage of other genres as well. But also, we considered from our research, that Bloc Party were a relatively well known, and well followed band.

• My initial concept for my advert design was to use a rubix cube in black and white as if it was being thrown across an open area, whilst below, there being a fade to black.

• In using both black and white as well as the chequered effect of the rubix cube, it would allow my advert to tie in with the other advert as well as the digipak produced.

• To begin with, I began by photographing the rubix cube in a propped position then selecting the best image for the print work. Once on Photoshop CS3, I create a new file for the rubix cube, and using an option in the adjustments, opened up the black and white scale of each colour field for the image layer.

• Once I had found the right level of each colour, I applied the changes to the image. However I still need to remove and correct any inconsistencies in the image.

G7: Concept Development - 28/11/12

• In the past few lessons I have continued to edit our music video. We have looked at the footage and how it looks together with the narrative.
• I have had difficulties when cutting between shots of individual band members and whole band shots as the band members often change position. We did not considered this when filming, but as we have at least one shot of each band member we can usually overcome this problem by selecting an appropriate shot and cutting at the right time.

• After recieveing feedback from Mrs Fernandez, we have thought of ways we can make the narrative look more interesting and started to increase the cutting rate.

MS: Digipak Design 3

 On Wednesday 28th November, I began to develop a front cover font and back cover track listing. The font used was "Gills Sans" and is the actually font that the band use in all of their work, making it ideal for our digiak. Here are my screenshots.



I managed to find the correct band font.



This is going to be the Single (EP) name. Note that it is Dark Grey as opposed to black, this diffrerentiates it from the other songs and titles.

By using a greyscale colour scheme I have been able to create a realistic EP tracklisting effect, whereby the track colous fade.

"Truth" being the single, in dark grey and the first track. "Real Talk" is another strong song on the album, and a fan favourite. "Mean" is a bonus track of the same album, which commonly feature on singles and EP's. "Kettling" is one of the previously released tracks on the album, but this version is live, which would attract more listeneers tot the new single, knowing that their is existing material on it.

Our digipak will consist of 4 sides, as opposed to 6. Here is the pack layout prior to being assembled. The top left is where the CD will be placed. The top right is going to be the inside cover, perhaps containing the track listing again. The bottom left is the back cover, and the bottom right is the front cover.

MS: Digipak Design 2

I began editing photos on Adobe Photoshop CS3. After a lot of trial and error I found an effect that makes photos look like drawings called "Sketch". The sketch feature was approved by the group and gave a homemade feel to the Digipak artwork.

I removed the colour and lowered contrast, whilst hightening brightness of the photos. This process allowed me to create an album with photos that look like rough sketches on plain paper, different to our original ideas.



This is the album cover photo prior to any photoshop effects.



This is the sketch effect in use. It has also had a crop setting of 600x540. That of most digipaks.



This photo became the inside cover. This is ther original.



This is the current cropped and edited version of the inside cover.

This photo became a centrepiece of the album artwork. This was the original.

After many filter effects were applied, such as decolouring, adjusting brightness and contrast and adding strength to black; sketch was applied and transformed this to the following photo.

From here I cropped out the pawn and square and moved it to the right to allow space for track listing.

This photo became the finished back cover. (Minus the tracklisting)

This photo was the same as the previous, with the same effects, but with addition black and enhanced black shadows. I then zoomed in and cropped it at an angle to create this image. The CD will sit on top of this shot as there is less to focus on in comparison the  front, back and inside left covers.

G7: Concept Development - Review

After have having a lengthy discussion whilst looking over our current footage, we decided that all shots in the narrative in black and white, whilst using high contrast. As well as this, we also concluded that no footage or clips can last longer than 1 second. Additionally, we noticed we needed some other camera shots including 360 pans, plenty more CUs, an eyelash shot, among others such as low angles or having the actor looking upwards.

We also each got individual feedback on our Advert and Digi-pack designs. As we are at different stages, we were given advice on how to improve and expand our ideas and what we could do to make our products more conventional of the brand.

G7: Filming Shoot 22/11/12

On our filming shoot, 22/11/12, we filmed the sequence where both our actors, were walking down the same road at a similar time, however we wanted to show their separation, yet show them in the same location, as if it were a coincidence. A few things we had to deal with, were firstly, the quickly fading light meant we had to film in a well lit area in order to get the detail we needed for our video. As well as this, we also had to factor in members of the public as well as vehicals. The final issue we had to deal with was we had to be very careful of the uneven pavement whilst walking with the camera backwards. Nevertheless, the overall finish of the shoot went very well and we achieved all the shots we had wanted.

RB: Advert Design 3

• Before opening my chosen photograph in Photoshop, I used Publisher to make sure it was the right size (A4). I had to stretch it slightly to make it fit properly but this was not noticable.
• Using different tools on Photoshop, I attempted to create a fade to black at the bottom of the picture. I first tried to create this effect using the 'burn tool' by making the image darker as it got nearer to the bottom. However, this did not work well as the lines I drew with the tool were very noticable.

• I then created a new layer and drew a black rectangle taking up the area I wanted the fade to be. I used the 'Blending Options' to make the colour of the rectangle fade from light gray to black by ajusting the Opacity of the layer as well as the Gradient Style, Scale and Opacity of the fade using the Gradient Overlay.

• However, I found that this was also unsuccessful. Although the fade between the colours I created on the second layer looked good, I was unable to merge the two layers without the shape of the rectangle being apparent.
• I tried using a similar techniques to a rectangle taking up the entire second layer but found that this was also unsuccessful as a low opacity of the layer meant that the fade could not be seen above the main image. I also found a high opacity darkened the colour of the upper part of the image and and made the whole image less clear.
• After this, I found that using only the layer showing the image and ajusting the gradient on that would be the best way of achieving the fading effect.

• After discussing the ideas for the printwork with the other members of the group, I decided that I would make the advert for the single (Truth) rather than the album (Four). This is because the digi-pack artwork (also for the single) is uses such similar pictures that it would be more appropriate considering Bloc Party usually have a similar themes running throughout their singles and albums, but not as similar as we have made it.

• At this stage, I was advised to change to use a different photo for the background because of the composition of the chess pieces and the focus of the photo. I chose a different photo from the last shoot which I had taken against a black background with a less shallow depth of field.
• When I put this picture into Photoshop, I noticed that I had framed it so there was no room above the chess pieces for the band and album title. Because of this I cropped the bottom of the photo out and added a new layer in Photoshop of a plain black rectangle. This fit in with the black background in the photo and is not noticeable in the picture.

RB: Advert Design 2

Original Photographs

• Before thinking about the final picture I would use on my advert, I practiced taking some photographs of the chessboard and editing it using Windows Live Photo Gallery. I wanted the chessboard to appear black and white in the advert, but the chessboard I was using was yellow and brown. For this reason I wanted to practice ajusting the colour to make it look black and white.
• This is an example of one of the shots I took:

and after I had edited the picture by decreasing the brightness and increasing the contrast as well as adjusting the colour settings and applying a red filter to the image to further increase the contrast.

• When I was taking these photos, I had to be careful to insure that no light was reflecting off the board. I also had to make sure the room was well lit enough that I would not need to use the flash on the camera as this would also refelct off the board.
• However, I found that the photos looked good enough to use after they had been digitally altered. I began to think about how I would lay out the final image and whether I would have to make any ajustments based on the first set of pictures.
• After thinking about my original design idea, I decided to change to the idea of the picture fading out to black rather than having a hand in the bottom corner. I thought this would be more typical of Bloc Party's past adverts.
• I did another shoot of the chessboard with chess pieces on the board. Although I did not use flash, the chess pieces also reflected light which caused more problems when editing. I attempted to remove this using the (?) on Windows Live Photo Gallery but found it did not work very well and that it would be easier if I reduced the reflection when taking the photo.
• This is an example of an original photo I took in this shoot:

and after I digitally altered it using similar techniques than before, such as increasing the brightness and decreasing the colour temperature and tint of the image.



•  After altering some of these pictures I noticed that I should not have placed the black chess pieces on the black squares on the board. I realised that it was difficult to see these pieces so I would have to do another shoot and either place the black chess pieces on white squares so they are more visable, or position the camera at a lower level so that the chess pieces are backed with a wall rather than the chessboard.
• When doing the third shoot, I kept the past shoots in mind to advoid making the same mistakes. I used a white wall as the background as the chess pieces would be clearly visable against it and it would not reflect light. I also thought about the positioning of the chess pieces and made sure that the black pieces were in positions where they would be clearly visable.
• This shoot was more successful than the previous two and I managed to get several shots I was happy with. I digitally altered these shots until I was happy with the composition and quality.

• After looking through the photos and thinking about my design, I decided that this would be the best picture for my advertisement as the chess pieces leave room for the the text and because of the low angle, I can easily fade the picture out at the bottom of the page.

                                                

G7: Concept Development - 21/11/12

• After coming up with the chess board idea for our digi-pack and adverts, we decided to reference this idea in our music video. We have decided that our music video will include shots showing a chess board, such as shots of the male character smashing the board in frustration to emphasise the growing tension between the couple as their arugement escalates.
• This could be similar to a scene in the music video of Mr. Brightside by The Killers (Muller, 2003) where the two male rivals (one of which is the lead singer) are shown playing chess before the lead singer throws the board of the table in anger after loosing. As the song is about a woman being unfaithful in a relationship, this scene reinforces the rivalry between the two characters in the same way ours will emphasise the tensions growing between the couple.
• This is the video for Mr. Brightside. The scene is shown from 2:57 - 3:12.

• In the lessons, we have finished getting rid of all unusable footage from our performance. This picture shows how we have faded out any footage we don't want to use in our music video due to too much camera movement or badly framed shots.

• We will begin to edit the performance and narrative and continue to shoot the remainder of our narrative footage. This picture shows some of the shots taken in the performance and on one of our narrative shoots in Premiere. We are going to look at our storyboard and animatic when editing as we felt that this gave us a good idea of how much performance and narrative our video should include.

G7: Concept Development - 19/11/12

• After shooting our performance, we reviewed the footage we had taken and used Premiere to sync the footage to the song. We found that although the footage was often unsteady, we had plenty of shots we would be able to use.
• After syncing the footage, we went through each shot and worked out which bits would be usable in our music video and which bits we would have to cut out.
• We then began to go through the footage on Premeier and using the fade function, got rid of shots we didn't want to include. We did this rather than deleating sections as we did not want the videos to fill the empty gaps on the timeline.
• When we have finished doing this, we will edit the performance properly by selecting which shots we want to include and editing it to the cutting rate. We will then put the narrative in to the performance.
• We have also started work on our print products and  have thought about the pictures used and how it will be layed out. We have also looked at techniques we can use on Photoshop to improve our products.

G7: Third Shoot (Drama Studio)

Where, When, Who, What and How Long was it?

- Our third shoot was filmed in the Drama Studio at school between the hours of 3:30pm and 6:30pm, of which we filmed aproximately 30 minutes worth of footage.

- The footage was of the "Band Performance" part of our music video. It consisted of a Singer/Guitarist, Lead Guitarist, Bassist and Drummer.

What did you achieve?

- We achieved a lot of filming and plenty of usable footage was recorded, we also experimented with handicam and track & dolly shots, which proved to be successful.

What problems/obsticles did you encounter?

- We didn't encounter as many problems as forcasted. However the lack of a bassist meant that Laurence had to step in, but despite this we pulled of a good performance.

- Syncing errors did occur due to the drumming from Elliot blocking out the sound of the music in the background, meaning that certain parts of the song we in and out of time.

- However, in post-production this will be far less noticable due to cutting between shots at different speeds.

What did you learn that you can take to your next shoot?

- We learnt that handicam shots using a steadicam, can look far better than shots where the camera is still on a tri-pod.

MS: Digipak Design 1

At the beginning of November we began planning the album cover, first developments were going to be related to the album "Four" and it's artwork. However after looking at the simplicity it lacked anything to add interest. I decided to look for minimalist photos and techniques, finding the chess set idea.

Bloc Party's album "Four"

Bloc Party's single "Octopus" from the album "Four".

On 09.11.12, I planned a Digipak Photoshoot, whereby I took the preliminary ideas of using a chessboard and pieces, to imitate the couple from our video. I took inspiration from both the simplicity of Bloc Party's first album called Silent Alarm, and combined it with a minimalist photograph of a chess piece. Here are the inspirations:



The Simple black & white design.



Here is the photo that I took inspiration from.


Here are the photos form the shoot:


The king and queen idea, a possibility for the album/single cover.



The Pawns with halos was an accidental shoot that works to a good effect when successfully edited.



A cover idea, cropped and edited later on Photoshop.




The focus on the dominant white pawn, representing the girl in the music video.