Music Video Poster

Culminating Poster and Campaign - Written Reflection

   The following poster is for my music video.  My music video was for the song Royals by Lorde.  My poster is a shot of the model that I used in my video.  It is a photo from one of the shots that was in the video.  I used this image for my poster because the model represents the whole videos purpose.  The video was planned out to start off very plain and boring meaning the model is suppose to show that she is bored.  As the video progresses, it gets more fancier and shots of more rich and royal things are put in.  She gets happier and happier as the fancier things are shown to her.  The model was one of the main focuses of the video which is why she is the face of my poster.  I wanted the poster to have a very simple theme.  I used the simple color scheme of brown, black and white.  For a contrast from the darker tones, I had her wear red lipstick and paint her nails red to avoid losing the life of the poster.   The darker tones were also used to match the slower speed and mood of the video and song.  The elements and principles of design that I used are emphasis, color and balance for the poster and the choices I made for it.  I used a simple font and made it white for the relaxed, slower mood.  Some of the text is on the top left hand side of the poster because I wanted to balance the image.  I highlighted the word “queen”  and made it bigger because being royal and being rich is a very big part of the message in my video.  My secondary forms of campaigning are posting the poster image to instagram and posting up billboards up in popular places such as Yonge-Dundas Square.  I will put the poster on instagram because it is a very popular social media site for both adults and adolescents.  The poster will be up on Yonge-Dundas Square and other popular places because a lot of people will see it when they pass by or attend an event there.

  In my poster, there is no specific symbolism behind it but there is meaning.  The meaning behind it is to represent the main meaning of my video.  The model was used in my poster because she is the main focus of my video.  The model would be considered the main meaning because she shows keeps the video progressing.  I wanted to keep the mood of the poster very calm and relaxed by using calming tones so people can connect and get the idea that is a slower song.

 To make this poster, I took a photo of my model in a more calming, straight face mood.  I took the Adobe photoshop and played around with the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, curves and cropping of the photo.  I tried a few different combinations until I got my final result.  To get to my final result, I increased the brightness and contrast to brighten the photo a little bit.  Then I lowered the saturation to make it almost as if she is faded, but she still has some color.  I did this to make the photo more relaxed and calm instead of using a brighter option.  The only technical difficulty that was encountered was trying to blur out the text of the instagram poster, but I overcame it by playing around with the features of Adobe photoshop and help from only resources.

 Overall, I am quite satisfied with the final product.  It was definitely not how I planned it at all, but it was completed.  There were many changes conceptually.  I believe that my poster is effective because it gives you the relaxed, calm vibe that it is suppose to send to you.  I think that my campaign can be 
very successful because the poster is exposed to open places where people are sure not to miss it.  In 
the end, both my music video and poster turned out different than how I planned, but I am proud of my final result.

Music Video Assignment

This is a music video I made for the song "Royals" by Lorde. 

Music Video Project - Written Reflection

  For this assignment, I made a music video for the song Royals by Lorde.  In my video, I wanted to keep a very simple yet rich and fancy theme to it.  The song “Royals” by Lorde talks about everything that she wants but can’t have.  In my video, I took that main idea of not being able to have everything and made my video based on that.  I started my video off with a plain, white sheet with nothing on top of it to represent that feeling of emptiness.  The model in my video is featured about 6-8 times.  Every time she is featured, she starts off with no emotion and as the video progresses she becomes more happier and happier.  The reason for this is because everything in the video becomes more and more luxurious and fancy.  The happier the model is the more she has, which is the exact meaning of Lorde’s song.  The pace of my video is a lot slower.  The transitions in my video were In each of the scenes, I slowed them down and let them play for longer because of the pace of the song.  I wanted them to match based on the pace of the music.

 In my video, I feel like I did achieve unity and continuity because I kept the common theme going throughout my video.  The clips I shot all were off jewelry, landscapes, lights at night and people around the city.  I decided to film these things because it matched with the theme and message I wanted to show in my video.  While filming my video, I had some technical difficulties when it came to filming actual scenes.  I had some problems shooting lights and focusing on them. Especially if they were at night.  I overcame this by lowering the amount of light entering in the shot and increased the shutter speed so I could immediately get the shot.  Something new I learned while filming this video was how to hold your camera steady so it doesn’t shake if a tripod isn’t with you.  For example, the scene where it has the ferris wheel at night with blurred lights was shot without a tripod but I used my technique to keep the camera steady and stable as possible.  That turned out into a success.

The music video that I filmed was nothing like the storyboard I originally designed.  There were some similarities but mainly everything changed.  In my storyboard, I didn’t have the idea of the model being in the video and getting happier every time she sees something classified as “royal”.  I added it as I began filming because I thought it was a better way to represent the meaning behind the video.  I met my expectations in terms of how the video turned out.  It was a video that showed what it was like to be royal and have everything and be happy about it.  In some areas, I see room for improvement.  For next time, I want to focus on following the plan on my storyboard, rather than having a plan, but freestyling the video.  Overall, I am very satisfied with my final product.

By Basma

  

Katie Walker - Furniture Designer Prezi

https://prezi.com/g4zebysjmahx/katie-walker-furniture-designer/

Pinterest Portrait Photography Link

https://www.pinterest.com/basmasaeed34/portrait-photography/

Music Videos Over The Last 3 Decades - Part 2

Adele - Send My Love (To Your New Lover)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk4BbF7B29w

1) In this music video, I really enjoyed the simplicity of it. The lighting was very dim and relaxing. It puts you in a calm mood. I liked how Adele was put behind a black background, right in the center, that also contributed to how simple the video was. Since the song doesn't have that party beat that makes you want to dance, the dimness and black background made the song feel and sound better. I liked how she was dressed in different colours and she didn't change her clothes in any of the scenes. It made it seem as if their was barely any editing in the video and made it look more natural and it also looked like it was all one scene. In the video, throughout it, Adele had floating lights of her reflection around her. The colour choice of the lights were good because they used very relaxing shades every colour. Overall, I enjoyed the music video and the song. It was simple but very creative.

2) The music video's lighting, placement, editing of the music video all contributed to the final product and how Adele's song was portrayed. I think that the simplicity of the song really delivered her emotional message to the audience watching. The floating lights of her reflection symbolize her love floating to her ex-man's new lover, but she stays in the same place throughout the whole video. It is very creative because their could have been many other ways in showing that specific part of the video, but she chose a simple but creative and meaningful idea that really symbolizes and definitely sends the message she wants to convey. 

Music Videos Over The Last 3 Decades - Part 1

1) I watched 9 different music videos from different decades to inspire the one I am going to make. What I learned from watching them is that all music videos are different and have their own unique style to them. Some of the older videos that I watched have very different technology offered to them compared to the newer ones. For example, in older music videos, the quality of the filmed video wasn't as clean as newer videos because of the difference in technology. Another thing I noticed was in the older videos, their were a lot less lights, props etc. to add more decoration into the music video, it was a lot simpler than newer ones today. Although each music video from any generation has a different style to it, something that inspired me actually ties all the music videos from any generation to one place, they all share a story. That's what I want in my music video.

2) I considered the music video, Runaway by Kanye West as a work of art. I consider this a work of art because the video was 35 minutes of absolute talent. Kanye West directed and starred in the work of art. He sang, dance and played different roles in different situations through out the video. Kanye's music emphasizes and makes the scenes in the video more powerful because of how strong his lyrics are. He sings from the heart and displays how he feels in the 35 minutes of pure talent. For example, closer to the end at about 20 minutes into the video, he sings and has ballet dancers display his feelings. The ballet dancers are soft and emotional as they dance and this emphasizes and really makes you understand how Kanye feels and the message he conveys in his work of art and his music video.

3) There are lots of changes between older videos and newer ones in terms of lighting, editing and sophistication. For example, in older videos, the lighting is a lot more dim and calm so you can focus on the music in the video rather than the distracting lights (colour, flashes). In older videos and newer videos, editing changes a lot. In older ones, the editing is a lot less. You feel as if nothing is edited because the editors want you to feel like the video is real and less edits. In terms of sophistication, the difference between older and newer videos is huge. In older videos, people are a lot more sophisticated. They are respectful towards how they dress (covering clothing) and how they speak (less swearing). In newer videos, you would see less sophisticated people. More intimate scenes with lots of explicit language.

4) The Arcade Fire video compares to the older decades because its similar to the older ones. It has audience interaction and is filmed in populated areas, like a neighbourhood filled with people living there. The lighting is very dim and creates are simple tone.

5) In my opinion, I think music videos will eventually go back to the more sophisticated tone. I think there will be an artist that eventually decides that having more intimate music videos, or videos with people doing drugs will think that it isn't right to expose these things to viewers. That artist will not fully go back to the original music video from older decades, but maybe will combine both new and old with an appropriate taste.

Final Themed Portrait Photographs

Disgust

Anger

Joy

Fear

Sadness

 
     For my final themed photographs that I took, my theme was the 5 emotions from the Disney movie, "Inside Out". The 5 emotions that I used in my photos were: Disgust, Fear, Sadness, Joy and Anger. I chose this theme because in the movie, it shows how these 5 emotions build character in a person. In these photographs, the different expressions on the model's face show how character and personality in humans are shown.  To take these photos, I had my model sit in front of a light coloured chair that contrasted with the black background so the photo didn't look too dark. The chair the model is sitting on is arms length away from the background. I did this so there was a depth in the background. For lighting, I used the big light and placed it in the safe zone so I had some shadows on her face. I did not use a reflector for lighting of the photo. In photoshop, I edited some features in her face. I increased the brightness, contrast and vibrance. I increased those things to make her look more full of life. I used the same settings for all 5 photos. The only difference in my photos were the models's facial expression. Overall I am very proud of everything I learned in the photography unit and I look forward to adding everything I learned in this unit to my future photos as I did to these ones.