Insert Research

Within the prezi below, I have discussed different things you can get inside an album.




From this research we have decided to do a double page spread, one page being a 'Selfie' that Nova has taken and other being a thankyou page.

We chose to use a selfie as we feel that, not only is it up to date with a current trend that has taken the world by storm but, it also creates a sense of intimacy between Nova and her fans as they get to see an exclusive image of Nova.

We chose to do a thankyou page as we would like Nova to be seen as grateful for the opportunity she has been given, we also want her to come accross as humble and appreciative as we feel that these are qualities that someone who is in the public eye must have to be successful.

Poster Research

In order for us to create a successful promotional poster, we decided that we needed to do some research into posters that have already been made; as Lana Del Rey is our inspired artist we decided to look into her posters as they will give us the most relevant ideas...

This poster is advertising a single event that Lana is doing rather than a whole tour therefore, the information shown is her name, the venueand date, as well as other information. All elements on this poster are ones that we will need to include on ours, if we decide to advertise a whole tour obviously, we would have to include more than one date and venue. I persoanlly, like that the image used on this poster isn't one that is included in her 'Born To Die' digipack, this is because it allows her fans to see a different side to Lana as well as keeping them excited to the possibility of something different to what their used to; this is a good reason as to why we should have a different picture on our poster to our album cover, even thought 'Fragments' is Nova's debut album, it will still keep the audience interested in seeing multiple sides of Nova. Lana's trade mark logo has been cleverly placed on this poster as it is half way down the frame; this means that the audience can still see the image of Lana extremely clearly, which means their focus can be swapped between the image and the information, this is something that I feel we need to consider having our poster like as we want everything on our poster to be seen. This placement also breaks the typical convention of the poster being at the top of the page, which is something I quite like as Nova is meant to be a bit of a bad girl in the sense that she does what she likes without caring if other people judge her. Another element of this poster that I like is the fact that she has chosen to have her album adveritsed at the bottom of the frame, this allows her fans to know that her material has been released; it also allows people that haven't heard her music but are considering coming to the show to know that they can have a listen now.  

The actual image of Lana itself, is extremely edited, elemens of mist and a 'galaxy' effect have been implimented to entise the audience, making them want to come to the show. The editing has also been used to create a colour scheme, making sure that everything ties in nicely which is asthetically pleasing for the audience. 

All aspects of this poster are ones I feel we need to consider - do we want Nova to look heavily edited or natural? Are we going to advertise a tour, her album or both?

This is the tour poster for 'The Open Road Tour' which took place in January 2013, it was Lana's tour for her debut album 'Born To Die.' Lana has chosen to keep the layout on the poster the same as on her album cover, this is to keep her audience familiar to her as an artsit and for those who aren't sure who she is but like her music, they will be able to recognise that it is that album's tour. I like the fact that 'The Open Road' is in red writing as i feel that it stands out from the rest of the poster, this is important otherwise, at a first glance, the audience might think that the poster is promoting the album rather than a tour. The red letters being capitalised really grabs the audience's attention therefore, forcing them to read the poster. The image chosen is successful as it is prodominantly Lana's face, this is significant as it means that the audience can get to know her face. The use of the nautral colour white suggests innocence, which is something that Lana might have wanted to convey to her fans -  it also makes the attention go to Lana's face as the top isn't distracting. We have chosen to go for a white tshirt on our album cover, as shown in a previous blog post, and for this reason, we need to decide whether to stick with this and a busy background for our poster or to go for a busy outfit and a plain background. I think to show some continuity accross our porject, it is best for us to have elements of the album cover on our poster.

This poster is a promotional one for her album 'Ultraviolence.' This poster is extremely minimalistic in the sense that it literally has the image that appears on the album cover, her name, the album's name and the fact that it is already out. I like this poster as it shows continuity to her album; as this poster is more of a billboard, it shows the audience that the album is able to fit multiple mediums, suggesting that Lana can appeal to multiple people. The colours used are black and white, this is purely for no other reason than the fact that the album cover is in black and white however, I do like that the font is in white as I feel that this makes the text stand out, making it more accessible to the people that will see the poster. A downside to this is that is has very minimal information, this is because it is purely promoting the album and not a tour; this is something that I don't think we should do, I feel that we need to advertise a tour as well as the album as I feel that this gives the audience more to look forward too, the idea of a tour can lead the audience to buying the album as they want the whole experience.

From doing this research, we were able to think about different types of posters as well as what we actually want to advertise. In conclusion we have decided to advertise the album as well as a tour as we feel that this will appeal to our audience more.

Projection Testing

For our music video, we are wanting to do some projections, whether that be images, videos or both - for this reason, we decided to try some out before we started filming to see if we liked the overall look of them. We tried out images of sunsets, flowers and water - to create these projections we opened up the photos on photoshop and changed the brightness, then printed them on clear paper - this is so that we can use the projector without any hiccups. 

We liked the overall look of the projections however, we decided that for the image projections it would be better off if they were on a bare back, this is because the colours didn't pick up very well on a black or white t-shirt - the video projection will work with a while t-shirt as the colours are all over the place, rather than in one place. 

After this exercise, we decided that projections are defiantly something that we would like to incorporate into our video.

Digi-Pack Cover image selection

When discussing the look of our album we decided that it would be suitable to have a photoshoot so that we can get some pictures to consider for the front of the album. We have also said that the images that we do not use could be considered for other elements of our digi-pack such as the tour poster or the inserts to the album.

I was asked by my group, as I am portraying Nova,to bring a variety of outfits so that we can see what look we thought worked best for our album; we would also have a larger range of pictures to choose from. Similarly, the girls styled my hair in different ways to again, give us a large variety of pictures to choose from. We had over 100 pictures to look at therefore, we decided to cut it down to just five, the five that are placed below - the other pictures were either unsuccessful or extremely similar to the ones chosen .

Option 1

We liked this image as we felt that by having my hair up it exposed Nova a bit more, emphasising her sombre facial expression however, we felt that the position that I was sat in looks un-natural, this is something that we do not want for Nova as we want her to look comfortable with herself and her music, to show her passion.

Option 2

This is the second image that we looked into - I personally like this image as I feel that it looks like I am fairly regal however, the others in my group decided that the didn't like the angle that my head is positioned; they felt that the image wouldn't be very eye catching on the front of the album and for this sole reason, we decided to reject the image.

Option 3

This is the third option that came under the microscope. This image was under strong consideration due to us liking my shoulders being on show as well as the vacant look in my eye - I don't look over posed however, this look is a bit vague, this will stop the theme of our album being conveyed to our audience .

Option 4

This image is our least favourite out of the 5 options we have. We tried to make the image a little different by changing to a portrait frame, we liked the portrait as we feel that it brings more to the photograph however, we did not like it for this photo - it just didn't capture Nova how we wanted it to. We also didn't like it as the frame captures a large section of my body, which isn't posing, I am simply just standing there - this looks unprofessional, this is not how we want our target audience to view Nova. In addition, it takes away from Nova's face, which is one of the main elements to getting her out there and noticed in the industry.

Option 5 / Chosen Image

This is the fifth and final option for the album cover - this ended up being the image we chose. As previously mentioned, we liked how portrait frames work, and we feel that it worked well for this image. Another reason why we loved this image was due to the natural vibe it gave off, to me this photo looks effortless, this is a look that we want Nova to have - yes, I will admit, it does looked posed due to the hand position however, it isn't over-posed, this therefore, makes the image look more natural, my group members have said that I look 'subtly photogenic.'
Due to me having a relaxed stance, it enforces the idea of a chilled out state of mind, despite being through a breakup, suggesting that throughout the album Nova is collecting the fragments of her heart and placing them back together and eventually feels contempt with her life however, the vague facial expression leaves the option open for the audience to decided what the songs are about and what the overall message of the album is.

Now that we have chosen the image, we are going to start editing the album cover. 

Photoshoot For The Album Cover

After discussing what kind of images we want to take for the album cover, we went to the studio to begin shooting.

We decided to take a range of photographs (over 250 pictures were taken) so that we would have a large variety of images to choose from, this gave use the chance to be more creative when it comes to the shoot itself. A reason for wanting a larger variety was because, even though we had a rough idea, we still weren't 100% on what we actually wanted therefore, variety was a good thing to have. We also had to consider if any of these photos were to be used on the back cover or inside of our digipack.

To begin with, Tamzin was made stylist for Nova, due to her love for makeup, hair and fashion - She decided what outfits Nova should wear in this shoot as well as how she should have her hair and makeup - she decided to go for a subtle silver smokey eye as this looks glamorous as well as natural. Tamzin also thought that straight hair is a good option for the album cover as for most of the scenes in the video I have straight hair, this will show continuity within our work.

Once in the studio, we took advantage of the studio lights implemented in the area - these lights allowed us to not only control the light source but also, make our images look a lot more professional due to the colour and brightness being top of it's game. Shooting in a studio also allowed us to have a completely white backdrop, this was very helpful as it meant that we wouldn't have a distracting background that would take away from Nova.

In conclusion, I feel that this photoshoot was very successful as we gathered a lot of potential photogrpahs, this will allow us to have a larger variety of photogrpahs to chose from to be on our front cover; if they don't make the cover, it is possible that they will be in the digipack at some point.

Album Design

When discussing potential ideas, we seemed to be set on what we wanted straight away therefore, we came up with a sketch of what we roughly wanted our overall album to look like. Below I have inserted the sketches we came up with and annotated why we have made some of the decisions we've made ....

Album Name Ideas

Within this prezi we have discussed the names we came up with for our album and why we liked them, we also wrote about why we chose 'Fragments' to be the album name ...