Kate Kestell A2 Project

My audience feedback was primarily positive reviews, and this may be down to my biased focus group, as I only shared my video with close friends and family. J. Willgoose, the writer of the song I used, sent me a lengthy email encouraging my work with an anecdote on Tolstoy and how he felt ashamed of his work 'Anna Karenina', a famed and iconic novel. Alas he thought my video was 'pretty good'. And I appreciate his time and effort into the response he gave me. Many of the comments I received as feedback focused on the colours and cinematography of the video. When taking my work to teachers and friends during the editing process of post-production, most gave advice on how to colour correct and what would suit the aesthetic of my video. My ex-music teacher, Mr Norman advised me to crop images of instrumental shots down more concisely to fit with the conventions of real media products, and add blue filters so that they matched the rest of the footage in the vi...

Here is my grid of nine frames from my video that represent some conventional features of music videos. Some of these features include intertextuality, lighting, mise en scene, genre, camerawork and lyrics. I have chosen these frames as I feel they represent my video in the best light as a creative means of exploring 'B Roll' type footage and 'comedic seriousness'. Above is a variety of frames from a range of music videos. Artists include: Foster The People, The Killers, The Strokes, Public Service Broadcasting, Walk The Moon, Charli XCX, and The 1975. I have chosen these screen grabs because I think they accurately pair with the frames I have chosen from my own video. For example;  A shot that shows a link between lyrics and/or music and visuals.  The song I chose to do my video is more spoken word, and didn't particularly have many lyrics, and so one of the few scenes that show a link between lyrics and visuals is the chorus in the shouted word 'G...

Let's Talk Daggers is an indie/alternative three piece band. Their digipak for their album 'winter' features a matte black sleeve with their band name cut out in a bold 'army print' font. Through this design, you can see the light turquoise of their lyric booklet cover, which features a sketch of a baby being lifted upwards.  The bold stencil font goes well with the harsh and blunt title of 'let's talk daggers', which heavily connotes violence and warfare. This stencil font is popularly used in the military to label weapon luggage. It juxtaposes with the interior artwork of a baby, and the soft blue colours, as well as the soft title, 'winter'. This may have been done on purpose as an artistic device.  To the audience, this would have created an impact of curiosity as the juxtaposition of band name and album title, and outside sleeve with inside booklet cover is so harsh and un-explainable. The intended audience, most likely young adults fr...

I was heavily inspired by the concept of cutting and optical illusions in packaging. I used pinterest as a tool to discover album designs that interpreted the method of cutting, with holes and cut out designs working with internal art to create cool effects and illusions. 

This is the first draft cover for my digipak. I created it using Adobe Fireworks. I processed and colour corrected the image to make it more vibrant, and chose a bold 'bell gothic std' font, inspired by the real album cover, which uses a sans serif font.      I chose an image from the shooting day that didn't feature any of the young talents as the band themselves don't generally contribute to the idea of 'star image'. Their own album cover is a landscape, with no presence of humans.     I feel that this image represents the video nicely, a cardboard robot instead of real humans adds a sense of anonymity, as well as various props highlighting the absence of humanity, like space.  This is another potential idea for a digipak cover. I thought the boy running went well visually with the bold statement of 'race'.    The bold title of the album is in your face and spaced out in a way that sticks in the readers mind, it is an eye c...

A digipak is the packaging and information that comes with a physical CD copy. They are usually between four and eight panels, the front cover, inside cover and lyric/information booklet, second inside cover and the back with a spine.  Digipaks were typically paper or card and used to hold a single CD, nowadays jewel cases made of plastic are very popular. Paper packaging still holds most options in regards to creative opportunities, as it can be folded in a variety of creative manners.  The same way people judge books from their covers, digipaks and album covers are huge factors influencing consumerist decisions. I have personally bought CDs because I know the digipak is cool or I like the album cover art. They are a huge reflection of the artist. 

I shared the link to my video with friends and family, as well as J. Willgoose, the writer of the song. These were the comments they made: