Research - Ancillary Products: Digipack and Advertisement

Research - Ancillary Products: Discussion from First Lesson

During our first lesson we discussed what we will be doing in order to produce a high standard ancillary work. Some questions we discussed includes:

1) Why are CD covers still used despite CD sales dropping?
- For visual benefit tot he fans
- value for money
- to reach digital immigrant
- sells unique selling point
- still need artwork with a digital download
- provide a physical experience for the fans
- additional information and behind the scene images and bonus tracks
- there is a tradition for some genres to sell predominantly through CD/digital for example 'Showtunes'.

2) How important are ancillary products to the artist and the industry?
- important for superfans as it creates a deep connection between the artist and themselves
- face of the artist becomes more familiar with the audience especially for new artists
- promotes and advertises the artist
- digipacks costs more to make resulting in making more money for the industry
- HOWEVER, we could argue that it is decreasingly important as the image of the artist can be promoted in other ways

3) How significant is 'the music video' in today's market?
- one of the most important things as it provides a visual experience for the audience
- for entertainment purposes
- sets trends in society
- promotes the artist: big advertisements
- generates online discussion which can attract more fans
- more engaging and intersting for audience
- reaches out more to the current genertation as internet has become an essential aspect
- teaser trailer for music video
- promoting awareness

Researching Ancilliary Products - Photoshop

 

These images were taken during my first attempt at using photoshop in our first lesson. We were introduced to photoshop as we will be using this to create our ancilliary work. The basics were taught such as how to use the magic wand to cut an image out, how layering of pages work, how to add text, how to crop, colour and etc. However, I will need to develope my skills with photoshop in order to produce a high quality ancillary work. 

Production - Skills Development

One Thing I Think We Should Have Done

One thing i think me and my group should have done was to ............ do more shots for the night scene of our video. I thought that we should have taken more shots for our night scene because we didnt have much shots that was at a good quality which made it harder for us to edit the second part of the video. The first half of our video (the day time scene) was more versatile because we have more variety of shots in different location which gave us more options.

Production - Skills development (Planning)

The planning of the music video and AS thriller opening have several similarities. The main difference was researching into a whole new convention. The planning stages was not drastically different but there were things that we did differently for the music video. 

Production - Skills development

Although last year we used Final Cut Pro to edit our thriller openings. This year was quite different in the editing suite, I think it was a lot harder than last years thriller opening (as expected).  One major difference that I noticed was laying down the different base tracks which was really confusing but it got easier after a lot of practise.

I learned a lot about marking the base tracks to make editing much easier when it came to cutting to the beat as our music video has a rapid pace. As you can see in the image below, we had several markers. In conjunction with the markers, we also had a pen and paper at hand to write down which words in the song we cut to, which then helped us for the second half of the song as we aimed to mirror the first half with the second half of the song.

I learned how to manipulate shots to match them to the rapid beat that we have in our music video. I also learned how to include transitions, change the opacity of a shot, change the pace and fade in and out. I learned about choosing the most appropriate clips for the music video.