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Dear Moderator,

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. I hope that you are able to see the progress I have made throughout my journey in Media Studies and that you enjoy watching my music video as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Final Video Version

Final Digipak Version

Here is our final digipak. Due to feedback we have improved it again, we have decided to re-position the title at the top of the cover and change the text colour to red in order for it to stand out more. We have also changed the front cover "Ivy Hicks" writing so it appears to correspond with the writing on our website, it is suppose to mimic Ivy's autograph. We also completely changed the CD as we wanted it to be more eye catching and relate to our concept. Placing an interesting background of lights behind the CD draws viewers in and changing the colour of the CD to dark grey allows for the colour of the lip prints to stand out more. Lastly we added writing to one of the images as feedback revealed the background was too plain, we added the phrase "Awake your inner wild side" linking to our album title.

Front Cover Panel:

Personally this was one of my favourite images my group and I took for our digipak. I love the idea as it links in so well to our concept within our video and had become our artist trademark (her lips and colour). In terms of editing we didn't do much to this as the lighting was already to a high quality, meaning the face of our artist really stood out well. My group and I edited my skin in this photo, making it appear to be soft and clear, like artists of today that look airbrushed in their photographs. To allow colour and the lip prints to be a main focus of the image and overall front cover we used the tool 'Eye Pop' to exaggerate the colour. Lastly with editing we put and effect over the entity of the image, giving it a washout look and therefore bringing out the colour in more depth than we had already tried to do. Costume wasn't a big factor when creating this shot as we knew we wanted the main focus to be on our artist, what she was about and what she represented, personality wise. The shadow in this image plays a big part in relating to the title of our album, 'Awakening'. Half of Ivy's body is in the shadow and the other half is coming into the light, as if her true inner self is being awaken and she is seeing a whole other side to life, which also related to many of her track titles on the back of the CD cover. Ivy is looking down on something and we as audience member cannot see this. We want this to appear as if Ivy is looking down on the old her and her old life, moving on and being awoke. When researching into relate-able artists album covers we saw that having the title of the album placed at the very top of the panel was very common. We also found we preferred album covers that incorporated this feature. We chose to have the title in red as that is a common colour within our video and on our website. It is also the most common lip colour worn within our video and by other artists we had researched in relation to our genre and artist. The hand writing 'Ivy Hick x' is to represent Ivy's autograph and personalizes the CD cover. We also added this 'autograph' onto our 'Tour' page of our website as Ivy singing live will be her stripped down to her true vocals; this represents trust with her fans. The fact Ivy is positioned looking In the direction of her name draws attention to it, which is what we wanted to do. Overall my group and I are very pleased with our final album cover and the improvements made looking back on our first draft.

Inside Left Panel:

This was one of our more creative images, incorporating shots that took a lot of time and preparation to get right. Again with this image not a lot of editing was involved. All that was really done was the brightening of the shot and using 'Eye Pop' to again exaggerate the use of colour used in the shot e.g Lip stick, eye shadow and decorated flower props. The position of me in this shot is interesting and catches the readers eyes. From feedback it was wondered if I was sleeping or daydreaming. The plainness of this shot is really powerful in the sense of relating to our album title. It could be seen as Ivy daydreaming about the 'Next Chapter' in her life (one of the songs on Ivy's track-list) or Ivy sleeping peacefully, needing to be awoken. The daisy's in her hair add a sense of surrealism and appeals to the younger generation of our target audience. This photo is one of the photos in our digipak pack that is centered, however leaves a lot of white space within the picture. This gives our digipak variety and makes the overall look of our digipak more appealing to the eyes of our audience members as not everything looks the same.

Middle Panel:

This is our CD cover and was one of the most time consuming images to create due to the detailing and positioning of all the lip prints. Although this image relates a lot to the first released song on Ivy's album, due to the music video that supports it, it also relates to the whole album as lips are Ivy's trade mark and what we imagine her to be most recognised for. This is one of the reasons my group and I like the design of the CD cover as it is so representative of Ivy herself and her look. Having the CD a dark grey allowed for the colour of the design to, again, be the focus. We also incorporated these lip prints onto our website to have a recognisable feature for our audience. Although this design was very time consuming it is probably the most simple image within our entire digipak. The background of the CD cover also links to our website as our background on most of our pages is mostly faded lights in a gold colour. We decided to have a similar background however, darker for the back of our CD cover due to the overall darkness of our digipak. The background almost has an underlying meaning in relation to the album title, 'Awakening' . The darkness represents a deep sleep and the past, whilst the bright lights shinning through represent a brighter future and new chapter in Ivy's life.

Back Panel:

Creating the back panel of the digipak was probably the most difficult part as finding an intriguing picture with enough space for writing. The picture also had to be powerful enough not to get taken over by the writing. It was hard to find a picture that the writing really stood out well on. When taking pictures for our digipak not only was this shoot one of my favorites, it produced my favorite image of the entire photography process. I like the lighting in this picture and think the writing stands out really well on the dark background. Neither image or writing over powers the other in this shot, which is what we aimed for. I thought not having our artists face in this would be interesting for the audience as most other shots reveal our artists face, therefore this shot focuses primarily on the concept of our products and artist herself. There is a lot of shadow in this image which allows for my chest area to be seen better and therefore the lip prints. The song 'Better Off Without You' is positioned in the middle of the track-list and is right by the lighting of my body and the colour of the lip prints. As this is my favorite photo my group and I took, I am very pleased with the way our back panel looks and feel along with the front cover of our album it is the most successful look of our digipak.

Inside Right Panel:

Here is one of our photos from the glitter shoot. We chose a mid shot for this panel as it showed off the clothing and brought attention to the artist more than we felt a close-up would have. This is our only shot that contains eye contact with the audience members, which is why i thought it was such a good choice to include in the digipak. This photo really draws audience members into Ivy's eyes and plays a part in the artist and fan relationship being built throughout Ivy's 'career'. The red writing links well with the lip stick and also helps draw attention to our artists lips and therefore lip colour which further helps viewers recognise our concept. The dark background allows for our artist to stand out and be noticed more, along with the writing in the shot. This photo was edited on a website called 'Fotor', where we worked on the background and shadows, blending them out so our artist was the main focus. We also edited our artists skin, aiming to give her a flawless completion.

Bottom Left Panel

Here we have used an extreme close-up of our artists face, focusing mainly on her eye, however, her make-up as well. This shot shows her make-up off extremely well as the glitter hits the light; her eye also does this. We wanted to glitter to represent fun. From audience feedback we found that this was most peoples favourite shot as they thought it looked really professional and linked well with our album. The link we made here was that as Ivy is looking into the the distance. We wanted people to think she was either looking back on her past and moving on or looking into her bright future. Both these ideas link to the title of our album as it is called awakening. Ivy in this picture is either looking at her past and realising its time to let go and move on, or looking happily into her exciting future. We gave this picture two ideas as we wanted our audience to perceive it how they personally wanted to. Although some audience feedback members didn't pick up on these ideas straight away, once we had explained to them they fully understood.

Website

http://georgiaamass1997.wix.com/hicksivy

Filming - Makeup

The majority of our artists makeup was simple with a bright lip and we decided to do this as it would fit with our theme of lips which is carried throughout but also, it would draw attention to her lip syncing so then the audience would be able to tell the lyrics. On the other hand, Ellie (narrative actor) just had very plain and understated makeup so the audience would be able to really establish the difference between the artist and the narrative actors. 

Filming - Costume

Ellie (Narrative):

Outfit One

 This was a versatile outfit that we've used throughout our video, we wanted her to be dressed in something quite casual so in this outfit was one we put together for the video. We chose to put her in converse with this outfit as it made the outfit casual and quite young as that was our main aim. Also by using using a kimono it added something to the outfit which would be colourful but also, it allowed us to use it in our black and white shots where she is walking. This outfit is featured in the beginning walking shots, train and shisha shots. 

Outfit Two:

We thought this was an outfit which reflected our narrative just being at home and relaxing as its simply just a dressing gown but we used a leopard print one to show some colour and pattern still even though these shots were only used to add a little more to the story line. This outfit is obviously only shown in the getting ready shots. 

Outfit Three:

This outfit we also wanted to be casual as she was just out with her friends so she didn't need to make the effort but it was still well put together. This outfit is shown through the trolley, bowling and arcade shots, Also, it is shown in the swing shot however, she has a bright red checked shirt over the top of her tshirt to add more colour and stand out from the surrounding background. 

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Georgia (Artist):

Outfit One:

We used the same backdrop from other lip syncing shots but this time we dressed her all in black with a statement necklace which still had a edge vibe to it but still was plain as we were going to play with editing more in these shots for example we were having her dancing more and then fading the shots in to one another. 

Outfit Two:

We decided to dress her in a more bright outfit this time for the brick wall lip syncing shots as we felt she would contrast against the background but also, it would tie more in with our theme of colour and vibrancy. 

Outfit Three:

As we had used quite a bright and distracting background we felt that our artist should be dressed quite plain and simple therefore, she is wearing ripped skinny jeans and a black high neck crop top which we felt would show a casual but more relaxed side and would appeal more to the younger audience side. We also decided to put on a statement necklace to become the focal part of the outfit but also, we dressed her in red converse so there was still an element of colour to the shots,

Outfit Four:

This is the same top from before however, due to our change of shot it means that the audience is only able to see the top half of our artist but by giving her a plain outfit it meant that she wasn't to distracting from the smoke/projector shots. Also, by giving her a bright red lip it carries on our lip theme but again keeps attention to her face and lips more importantly to show the level of lip syncing that our artist was capable of. 

Outfit Five: 

This outfit was one that was more off the cuff when we were filming as we were waiting for the sun to set for filming in the fountains however, it was getting a little colder so one of our group members just used their scarf to wrap around our artist whilst we were waiting but in the end we felt it worked and that it tied in with the background we had used which was full with buildings. 

Outfit Six:

As we were in quite a bright setting with the yellow tables and chairs but also when filming, the lights reflected upon the trees which were quite a yellow green also. We thought we would keep it quite simple with a black crop top and patterned black and white trousers. We decided to do this as it still made our artist look quirky and young but gave a different vibe with our setting.

Evaluation Question 1