Audience Feedback - CD Digipak cover

Once i had created the front page of our Cd Digipak using photoshop, i decided to seek some feedback from people as to what thy think is good about the cover and what they would like to change. This post shows the feedback i gained from a wide range of our audience and how i have acted on this feedback.

I decided it would be best to gain feedback from other members of my class aswell as my teachers. I did this by asking them to look at my completed front cover for the CD Digipak and asking:

1. What were their favourite features of the cover?
2. What would you change about the cover?







The main answer i recieved for question 1 was based around the fact that the car and people in the pictures were outlined in a bold black line whereas the surrondings and background in the image were not. This ledpeople to view the phot as unfinished as it looked like i had stopped outlining the picture halfway through. However once i pointed out the fact that i had done this to make the band members and car look animated and placedinto the real world to demonstrate that this genre ('indie')and itss fans are usually different and do not conform to the normal conventions within society, the viewers understood.





However after contemplating this point i decded to make another copy of the cover,  but this time outline everything, once i had done this i compared the two images closely and came to the conclusion that the original cover was better as it had a deep meaning which may be understood by the fans, this was a risk i was willing to take as i didnt want the cover to be boring and have no meaning.





After discovering this point made by my audience i decided to look more closely into certain aspects of my CD cover. Firstly i considered the Mise en scene which i was relatively happy with. The surrondings within the shot of a brick wall topped with barbed wire and dulll grey concrete contrasting againgst the blue paint of the car further emphasised the idea that fans of this genre and our band mebers dont really fit into society and are somehwhat seperate, in their own sub genre. I then took a closer look at the clothing of the band members, i was pleasd wit this as the indie genre isnt too strict when regarding clothing choices. One member was wearing a courduroy jacket and plain black jeans, whereas another was wearing boots, black jeans and a blue shirt, and the other: black jeans boots and a blue crew neck jumper. I was happy to discover that all three members pictured in the shot were wearing plain black jeans as this represented a form of synergy across all 3 people, suggessting we all belong to the 'indie' genre.

Small update

Filming


Firstly we had a discussion with all four members of our group in order to make a decision about our song choice we narrowed it down to a number of different options but in the end we decided to go with rat boy sign on.  Rat boy is an up and coming indie artist that dresses in quite a scruffy way and his music involves a lot of upbeat lyrics and a generally fun atmosphere. We chose this as our song as we though it would be quite a good song to make music video to as the lyrics are mostly quite literal but it talks about the problems of teenage life that us as a group can relate to. We believed if we could relate top the artist and the video we would enjoy filming it a lot more, and could put our own personal touches.


We have begun our filming, we plan to do some in our local town centre: Chesterfield and some in an abandoned warehouse to give the sense of an urban atmosphere and a scruffy mise en scene. We have completed a number of shots within the town centre and have begun editing using premier pro, some of the shots, in particularly the lip syncing shots will need to be redone as we are slightly out of time with the actual lyrics of the song. We plan to do a lot of short fast clips as our song is quite fast paced which involves a lot of work to get each small clip perfect. Although it is quite laborious I am thoroughly enjoying the filming so far , we all disscuss our own ideas and give our own viewpoints on certain shots, giving us full creative freedom, which I like.

Shot list

This is a shot list I created for the first minute of our video. This will help me to establish which shots will work well and also to take a step back and look at the sequence as a whole to determine whether it needs to be altered to change the flow of the video or to create a wider variety of shots.

Shot 1: For the first shot of the video that will last approximately 10 seconds we plan to start with a point of view shot, walking down a street at dusk: This will give quite a moody start to the video which will exaggerate and show a clear distinction to the happier more upbeat editing and shots we plan to use later on in the video. We aim to make this shot quite raw and let the camera move with the filmer as they are walking so the viewer will feel every step and the shadows that are evident at this time of day will help us to set the scene of a youngster just going out as the night begins, linking to the idea of rebellion and the nightlife atmosphere normally associated with this type of audience. To transfer to the next shot we plan to zoom in on a subject to maximum zoom until the screen is completely black and use a jump cut to the next shot.

Shot 2: For the second shot of our video we plan to show a series of photographs from urban and derelict locations, either as a fast paced slide show or use a transition to place the images on top of one another. By doing this it creates a variety of shot types within the video as a whole and to maintain the viewers full focus. As if we used the same shots with similar transitions throughout the entire video, the viewer would quickly lose focus and their overall perception of the video will deteriorate in quality. We plan to overlay the images on top of each other to maintain the fast paced editing, as well as portraying the idea of disorganisation which our teenage audience may be ableto o relate too.

Shot 3: For the third shot we planned to create a shot to adhere to the lyrics, 'nothing on the telly'. we came together as a group and came up with two ideas. The first idea was to show a television with the line of lyrics on the screen itself and then to smash the screen. We later decided against this idea as not only was it quite dangerous but we would only get one opportunity for the shot. These two factors combined deterred us away from this idea.

The second idea was to show one of our band members on the screen itself lip syncing to the lyrics, we decided to go with this idea as the other one was not viable. We preferred this idea as we believed it would create an interesting shot that makes the person appear like they are inside the television itself. We also believed this would help attract our audience as teenagers in this generation are very technology focussed and showing this technology within the video may appeal to the audience.

Shot 4: For the fourth shot we plan to record one of the actors standing at a cash machine checking their balance and walking away showing an annoyed/disgruntled expression. This is to match the lyric 'bank has hit zero' we hope this appeals to our teenage audience as i am a teenager myself and i am familiar with the feeling of having little or no money.