Ancillary Task Research - CD Covers - Laura Marling

Laura Marling is an indie acoustic singer, which fits with my songs musical genre. I think this cover meets audience needs because it's eye-catching, the desaturated background and image contrasts with the small snippets of colour in the typography, drawing the eye to the singer's name. I think the way Laura has been placed off centre also draws attention to her as it's not a typical convention of album covers. For my own CD cover, I really like the idea of mixing saturated images with black and white to create an interesting, counter-typical look.

Ancillary Task Research - CD Covers - The Kinks

The kinks are an old English rock band, who released their 2nd album 'give the people what they want' in 1982. Although they are now broken up, I think this cover meets audience needs in many ways. Firstly because of the bold typography at the top in red, drawing in audience attention. I also thought the layout was really clever, the title looks handwritten - adding a feel of anarchy and rebellion, attracting and meeting audience needs. The placement of the figure within the frame is un-conventional but works well as it gives the effect of him running away from something - again adding to the angst ridden feel of the album.

Editing - Final Rough Cut

Here is my final rough cut, complete with letterboxing. As previously stated, I am really happy with how it looks so far.



For the remainder of the week, I will show the rough cut to my target audience for ideas and opinions of the basic narrative structure and the proportion of narrative to performance. I like how I've changed the motion and colouring of clips to add audience interest, and I am especially pleased with the letterboxing and overlaying clips used as well as my lip-syncing (although Youtube has made it slightly off). However, I am slightly unsure as to whether the audience will 'understand' the concept of the sepia clips being 'expectations' or 'flashbacks' contrasting with the 'reality' of the full coloured ones.
I will make sure this is one of the questions I ask my surveyed audience.

The next two weeks will involve me acting upon my audience feedback, and generally 'polishing' the final video. Then, I'll be ready to start my ancillary tasks.

Editing - Exporting my Rough Cut to Youtube

In order to effectively export my footage to youtube so I can get my feedback, I had to convert the clips to H.256 format as opposed to .MOV files. I did this via MPEG Streamclip.

Editing - Rough Cut Done (without letterboxing)

Over the past few days, I have been putting together a rough cut of my music video so I can show it to my target audience in order to gain feedback from them. However, on this cut, I have not yet 'letterboxed' my spilt screens, which I am currently doing. I will post this after it's been done.
Overall I am pleased with my outcome, I feel it reflects the idea of being trapped in a routine of relationships, and obviously, when I've finished the editing and polishing of my film, I think it will look effective.