production diary

1. FINAL MAJOR PROJECT:
Promotional campaign
for a music artist
Daily Production Diary

2.  On the first day, I started off by taking a few pictures of my musical artist for my promotional poster.
 In the beginning, I didn’t really know how to use the camera, so I wasn't able to focus the camera on the artist
properly. To solve this, I started practising while watching a YouTube tutorials then i took the final pictures
that ended up turning out pretty good.
 After taking the pictures indoors, we went out to Millfields Open Space and shot a few scenes for the first half of
the trailer. This was quite hard to record as it is a public park. Although a lot of people were there, it wasn’t
really a big issue as we managed to record enough footage for the video. However, the main issue in the
beginning was again, me not knowing how to properly use the camera. I wasn’t really paying any attention to the
different settings on the camera e.g ISO and Shutter speed, which then led to the footage looking very white
 After collecting enough footage in Millfields Open Space, I went to York university to shoot the other half of the
dance video. The shooting process went a lot faster as I started to manipulate the camera pretty well.
Week 1

3.  Once I collected enough footage in Millfields Open Space and York university, I decided to get started with the
editing process of the first half of the video in college. This process went pretty well at first as I managed to make
use of most of the footage, I shot last week and was able to match it with the upbeat royalty free music that I used.
 I made sure all the images were cut on the beat which helped the whole video flow nicely. However, once I finished
editing the small part of my video, I showed a few people and received feedback suggesting that:
 I should remove the parking lot and the bus stop at the back of the artist as it was not visually appealing
 I should add some close-up shots of the artists expressions as well as her dance moves as I did not include any
 I should make a close-up shot of the artist doing a cartwheel instead of keeping it in a wide shot
These are the points I received and will be addressing next week.
Week 2

4.  For the trailer, as planned, I used two royalty free sounds. However, in the
beginning, the two different tracks didn’t really blend in together, so I had to
think of a solution as soon as possible to make the whole video flow nicely.
To solve this is I decided to add an audio track where I will be promoting the
album verbally. I will be elaborating on this during the upcoming weeks as I don't
know what I will be saying yet.
 While editing the trailer video in college, at home I started editing the
promotional poster using the pictures I took during the first week of
production. Out of 8 different pictures I chose 3, being the ones where I
believed my Musical artist was posing the most appropriate for this poster.
Then I made the middle picture stand out by lowering the opacity of the two
other images.
Week 2

5.  After editing and laying out the pictures, towards the end of this
week I started working on the text effect for my font. First, I
created a text effect that included a colour gradient from dark
purple to light pink. Then, based on the font colours, I created a
similar gradient for the background. This did not turn out as
expected. I started to receive feedback from family and friends
pointing out the fact that the bright pink at the bottom of the
font was too bright, making the whole font not that readable
from afar.
 I took all the feedback I received into consideration and decided
to completely change the font colours into a purple that
gradually goes from dark to light.
 Once I figured out the new text effect, during the 4th week of
production I will be finishing off my poster.
Week 2
Before
After

6.  Before recording the second half of my video which will take place in my room. I first addressed the feedback I
received the week before by going back to Millfields Open Space and York university to reshoot some part of
the dance video focusing on the artist facial expression and the stair scene to cut out the part where we could
see the parking lot and the bus stop.
 The room shots were a lot easier than shooting the dance scene in the park as their were less to none
distractions which led us to finish in just under one hour. In the video, I decided to use multi-coloured led
light, however this wasn't really visible on the final footage as it just looked like a plane room light. To solve
this, I first colour graded the image which ended up making the pink colour stand out the most. This was
quite unexpected, however it did turn out looking pretty nice.
Week 3

7.  Since the end of the bedroom scene is my sister lying in bed, I thought I
would make use of that by adding some extra scenes that originally
weren't supposed to be in the video to make it seem like it’s a flashback
which I did by duplicating the video and putting it on top of each other
making one of them bigger and blurry.
 I added the channel blur effect mainly focusing on the red blurriness and
Alpha blurriness to really emphasise the illusion of it being a flashback.
 While editing the trailer in college, at home I’m finishing off my
promotional poster and slowly realising that I will need an Album cover.
Originally, the album cover wasn’t planned, I had no intention of adding
this to my project. However, as I looked at different music albums, I
realised that album covers are quite important for a successful music
album which I will be producing within the following weeks.
Week 3

8. Week 4
 The first few days of this week I decided to elaborate on the audio idea I mentioned during the second week of
production.
 I now figured out what to say for the verbal promotion. At the start of the video, I presented the album by
saying “Hope’s new album” then towards the middle of the video I said, “Available the 5th of July 2021” and
after that introduced the second track by saying “Including songs for whatever mood you’re in”. Then once I
recorded myself saying that I added the audio to the video.
 At first the volume didn’t really match the video as it first sounded way too loud. However, to solve this, I
reduced the volume using the emplifying audio effect.
 After working on the audio, I managed to finish editing the whole album trailer by the end of this week. Now I
only have to finish off my promotional poster and start my billboard poster.

9. § Throughout this week I spend most of my time finalising my
promotional poster. For the background I went for a purple
that gradually turns into pink, mainly to make the title stand
out but also because it looked pretty nice. I also added all the
essential elements that I talked about in my planning such
as: the release date, the "New Album" text and the Name of
the artist. Once I added those I finalised it by adding small
purple butterflies.
§ However, once I showed my final design to my classmates, my
teacher and my family members, I got advised to make the
"Hope Joanne" text a bit bigger as it is the Artist's name
which is supposed to be something that stands out a lot more
after the title and the image.
§ I finish this poster by the end of the week so I will be starting
my album cover next week
Week 5
Before After

10.  When producing my album cover, I decided to stick to the theme and create something similar to my
promotional poster. This made the whole process easier as I just had to change the picture and the font used
for the artist's name. This font is the font I originally wanted to use for my promotional poster however, when I
made the Artist's name bigger using this font on my promotional poster, it didn't really look appealing which is
why I used it in my Album cover instead.
 After finishing off the album cover which took me about 1-2 days, I started working on my billboard poster.
This was a bit harder as I was trying to create something simple, not flashy or extra while sticking to
the general purple and pink theme.
 This is when I decided to go for a lighter purple that gradually fades into white as it is still staying whithin the
purple theme without making it too bright.
Week 6

11.  Afterwards I added the artist's name using a bold font in a lighter purple to make it
stand out.
 Once I sorted out the title, I started looking at the different images I took during
the first week then picked out the most suitable one for this billboard poster. I
ended up with two final images that I couldn't decide on, so I placed both on
the poster and chose the best one. As you can see on the poster, there is one image
that is darker than the other which I first thought wouldn't be an issue as I was
planning on making the "New Album" text black aswell as the album name.
However, compared to the first poster, I think that the first picture is making the
whole poster a lot more put together and brighter.
 Finally, after adding the artist's picture (the first image), I added the Album title,
the release date and the "New album" text to the poster as that is what I am
promoting. I used the same font on all the texts and I added some butterflies
around the album title as this is something I have been doing on all the posters .
Week 6

12.  During this last week of production, as I already finished all my work the week before, I decided to
ask for feedback one last time from my family members and classmates. Most of them said that
everything was fine. However, one person pointed out the fact I didn't mention where the album
would be available (basically adding the spotify logo) which I forgot to do.
 Once I made those changes, I also decided to add Hope Joanne's social media on the billboard
and general poster. This ended up being a last-minute decision.
Week 7