Planning : Introduction to Digipaks

During our lesson we were shown how to use photoshop software. We were also introduced to  QuarkXpress, both had different effects but i decided i would rather use photoshop seeing as i had used it before.

It was an exciting task trying to make a digipak for who was our artist Dan, firstly i had to chose the right picture to make a successful front cover. The layout was important, the composition of the images, text, titles and names all had to be taken into consideration and i did some research in order to see digipaks in the music industry.

The tutorial and muck about proved successful, there were many options that made them prime editing programs to make a digipaks. These were some of the editing tools that could be used to edit the digipak.

The effects bar was easy to use, simply dragging these effects onto the layer, it would change its appearance according to the  effect you use. The layers toolbar was easy to use, by clicking the button that looks like an eye makes a layer visible or not, this helped to quickly see whether certain parts of the digipak should be removed or not. The toolbar at the top of photoshop can be used to open files, save, edit text etc.The toolbar on the left was used to select, drag, crop, add shapes etc. 

Introduction to Digipaks : (planning)

For my first lesson after producing my music video, I was introduced to the functions of making a digipak for a music artist using two graphic design programmes given which were QuarkExpress and Photoshop. After given an hour to design a quick sample of a CD front and back cover using photos of the teacher which were on the computer, I designed an Album called 'The Beginning' which I felt suited the genre of Pop/Indie Rock.

Artist:
- Mid shot frame ( allowed me to use crop tool to make it a close up shot / Model stood centre of frame )
- Watercolour filter ( Adds more imagination and bold / Suits the genre more e.g. Calvin Harris style )
- Shadow ( Adding this effect makes the artist the focal point with a thick bold outline )


Layout:
- Split screen ( Splitting the artist's face so half was on each side makes it more of a retro style and it stands out more )
- Logo (Inspired by 'The Jackson 5' album I created a lable using colours black and white with a logo picture and named it Chrisom Records. The white text draws attention to the viewer. )
- Barcode ( Placed on the back cover making it more professional )


Font/Text:
- Artist Name ( Extra bold and big text using specific layout )
- Album Name ( 3x smaller thanartist's name with a faint shadow )
- Tracks List ( Same font as album name / text is spread out to take up space and easy to read )

Personally I am absolutely pleased with the work produced within an hour although this is an activity I do within my spare time so I feel this task will be quite an easy ride for me. I must say that using Photoshop was very difficult as I use a different programme which is Photoimpact 10 but QuarkExpress was really god for my layout and quite straightforward once you get the hang of it.

The strengths of this piece of work would be the layout and colours used since they draw so much attention to the eye. I also kept to minimum choice of colours and effects used.

The one weakness I would say is the fact that I had missed out all the credits and record labels on the back cover which was meant to be done in fineprint next to the barcode. I never had a chance to create the inside covers due to the amount of time given but come to think of it, I don't know what background I would have done anyway.

Improvement and Progress

In our video, there was one particular scene which was our romance scene in a bedroom which we had to re-shoot because of poor lighting. In the video below, it cuts forward and back to show to the difference of lighting between the shots we filmed. There is quite a huge difference and make the video even more effective!

Final Video - Never Be Your Woman

Photos from filming sessions

Filming: 20th November

With only the meeting point between the two characters and the last two remaining chorus' which both take place at twilight, we all met up at the Embankment at 2:30pm to finally finish all work and be freed from stress.

    Exactly like the previous time we waited until a darker setting in the sky as we wanted the footage lighting to fit the previous footage at twlight with the male character. This then took an hour before we actually started to film. Since I had to attend work for 5pm, I filmed by chorus' first and left the rest of filming in charge with Miguel Carrillo which was a difficult job for me as I wouldn't be there to correct any shots. As this was the last day for filming, I had to hope for the best and put my trust in him.

    It took me 20mins to film my part and we were surprisingly accompanied by a set of boys who were filming a video directly opposite to us for Channel AKA which is a UK British music channel for new talent. In comparison to us, they were using a digital camera to film there footage of which only used one continuous shot and a portable CD player. Whereas on the other hand our group was using a professional camera suited for filming, a lighting kit and the chosen song played from a mobile phone.

Filming: 19th November

Our second to last piece of filming was the Male Singer 'Y.Shocker' which should had been done from the start. He introduced us to a secret area near the MI5 building in Vauxhall where there was a beautiful view of the buildings from the bridge. We automatically fell in love with the location and decided to get the shooting over and done with at this time we should had been close to finishing our edits.  

I found it absolutely fun to work with the Male Singer as we gave a positive vibe and was easy to work with. One thing he did which was helpful was to repeat the same line rehearsed 5 times in a row using different styles of movement and vocal which helped us pick out our favourite. However it was easy to edit the ones we liked since he would say these lines very quick. But overall, it was a great day to film and only approximately took 1-2 hours long.

No more filming!

Finally we have finished filming! It took a while to get there but we made it eventually. After having a few diffiulties finding a person to play 'wiley' in our video we managed to get Dennetta's cousin which was interesting to film! We also had to redo our saucy bedroom scene as our previous footage was out of focus, again we had difficulties filming our former actress Hakeena as she was unavaliable on the day meaning....me in a dusty wig! It was awful but i had to think about my grade. We done all the important bits in on day and we felt very happy that we had a lot of work done.

The last day of filming felt good! I was happy i never had to wear the same outfit again!

Teacher Feedback

Hello group 7
I can see that you've 'saved' a blog entry for your rough cut - however, you must actually upload it!  You should also post a brief summary of the feedback that you got from your teacher (me...) and say how you intend to act upon this feedback.

Rough Cut Video

Due to a lack of work done by the group, we did not have a solid rough cut video where there were enough pieces of work to give a good mark. All we had were bits of the female's journey, all of our male actor's journey, none of both vocalist's camerawork and the meeting point had not been filmed. This was quite a disaster and we had realised that we needed to get work done ASAP.


Feedback from our teachers were: 'Unorganised and need to get work finished immediately or you will not meet the deadline.' From this we have learnt that you mostly need to have group motivation and work together to achieve good work.

Up to date on Editing: Planning

Editing this music video is like an everyday job to me. I do not find it extremely difficult at all since I use programmes like Final Cut Pro to make mixes for parties as a part-time DJ. However it is just the patience that I need to have. So far so good our editing is looking fantastic because it is fast paced and keeps the spectator tuned in.


I have shown very few people my work and feedback has been given which is more footage and to keep it at the same light ambience but the editing is very good and on point with the music. This shows that my editing skills have been used effectively and hopefully by the Rough Cut deadline, it will be a positive view from my teachers.


Unfortunately due to lack of footage, we are missing the most important role of our video which is the rapper Wiley. This is not very wise at the late time but we are still hunting for a male to take the role who also fits the part. Both actor's journeys have been completed yet still we need to film our meeting point at twilight on Hungerford Bridge which should be the duration of a couple hours on an evening.


I hope to have all filming finished by Friday 19th November and all editing to be completed by 23rd November the latest as I don't want the stress of rushing my work which leads to complete failure !

Photos from filming sessions

Filming Sessions

The images above are pictures we took while doing the most fun part of the media video, filming. The image most to the left is of the night scene on the bridge, this image is significant, we couldn't actually film any footage at the time on the bridge because the sun had completely settled. We returned on another day to re shoot the 'Night' scene but came at twilight in order for us to be able to actually se footage once it was time to edit again. The shot in the middle is of the journey part of our male character. the image most to the right is of who would be our male artist, he performed his part perfectly and had the look of the music genre we were making a video to. 

The filming of the male artist took us quite some time to get, many of our volunteers dropped out for various reasons therefore the male artist sequence was one of the last pieces of footage filmed. Our eventual artist 'y.shocker' turned out to be the perfect candidate for our part. 

Test shots for lighting & mise-en-scene

Lighting Error

After having filmed our outside shots, we needed to film the indoor sequence. We gathered the participating actors and went to Fabian's house for the bedroom scene, we re sited our storyboard in order to keep the shots that we planned in order and easily get through our shots. After a long day of filming we went home. The next day at the editing suite we put our shots onto final cup pro. There was a clear visible error with the lighting, we consulted our media teacher to See if there was anything we could do and weather    they could also see the lack of light. Unfortunately we came to the conclusion that the shots were unusable, it was clearly visible and the contrast between the rest of the sequence was clearly noticeable. We quickly tried to fix this error but then hit another problem, the girl we had used didn't want to re-do her part in the sequence, this though was quickly fixed by placing a wig on one of our group members in order to disguise what was going to be a woman simply lying on a bed next to the male character. When recording our video we were given two tips:

• Use all available lighting
• Use the Indoor/Outdoor setting

The indoor/outdoor setting on the camera was a simple setting that we used accordingly seeing as the indoor mode captured even the minimal rays of light ensuring we got all the light we needed.

Mise-en-scene

During our outdoor shots we took plenty of journey shots seeing as one of the main parts of our video was the male and the female meeting up on a bridge. We took precaution while taking shots making sure we got many of the same shots seeing as people in the background could ruin the footage, being it by simple doing things out of the normal but more commonly by looking straight into the camera lens. After having taken various shots of the journey, we came back into the media suite for editing and realised there was a small error one of our shots. the mise-en-scene in any video is important and we realised that on one of the shots on our male character was that in the background a 'Safety First' sign was clearly visible on every shot we shot. We needed to take a similar sort of shot for this when going back to go filming because although we had taken various shots of this part of the sequence the safety signs an inappropriate Mise-en-scene was obvious.

Filming: 9th November

For our bedroom scene during the beginning of the music video, we had a fellow friend to help us out and act as our male actor's secret love affair. I think that all of our shots were very effective with the specific angles and the idea we were trying to give to the audience but our lighting was our downfall as you can see below in the following scene shots. We wanted the seen to look lustful and romantic but we felt it was too dark to use in the real video as the lighting was very binary to the lighting using during the journey. This then took a lot of thought and re-planning to film the same scene. 

Filming: 2nd November

I felt this day was quite disastrous due to the lack of footage and not having a good plan. Once again we all met to film the female character's scene which went very well around Embankment and Vauxhall. We had finished our daytime filming too early so then waited for a later time for a twilight atmosphere but we timed it too late.

As you can see below one of the shots are completely black due to the darkness forming too quickly and our head-top light was very dim. But at least we had daytime footage ready to edit. 

Filming: 25th October

We had arranged to meet up in the afternoon to discuss our filming plans. However we then shot our male character's journey which took place around Angel, Mayfair, Trafalgar Square and Picadilly Circus. Luckily enough we managed to film his twilight scene on time before darkness

In my opinion I think we did great work that day and built a lot of footage to edit. Unfortunately we were unable to film the meeting point between the male and female since she was not able to attend but we felt we had more than plenty of time for filming. 

Below are a screen shots taken from our footage using different techniques:

Below is a few pieces of camerawork in various places we had filmed that day:

Location Pictures

To start off our journey finding locations to shoot our music video, we used a Bus Tour map which gave us a more detailed and larger view of tourist attractions such as 'The Embankment' and potential locations we would be interested in shooting. Also using a marker we then decided that we would start at two opposite sides of the map and make both actors gradually make their way to Hungerford Bridge which was the meeting point. Fortunately, it was a well thought out plan but yet it could take ages to do especially when our filming was in rival against the time of day since we had to be at the meeting point by twilight.

During class time, we hopped on a bus outside our college and stopped at random areas that looked attractive to us. (e.g. below we took pictures in Chinatown) We felt this would be a good place to shoot because it is well known and the idea of many people visiting and shopping around would make the video more real.

Our first location chosen was around the areas of a University nearby our college where two sets of open staircases looked appropriate to do stunts e.g. sliding down the rail banister (as seen below) The idea of beige/brown shade buildings behind behind the action looked quite effective since the sunlight hit the buildings in a nice way.

This is the view of the Embankment and the London Eye from the Hungerford Bridge which we felt would be a good landscape view for our female singer to look out to.

Pitch: (Planning)

Below shown is our Powerpoint presentation we pitched to our teachers about our ideas of concept, camera shots at mise-en-scene for our music video.

Personally our teachers were very keen on our concept which was a journey between two people where they meet at Hungerford Bridge. The one piece of useful advice that inspired us was to have both characters walk opposite ways across the screen which makes it more real that they are meeting together from two different places. 

Animatic Storyboard

Dennetta: Below is our group's animatic which I had patiently taken my time to create using programme Final Cut Pro which I found as a hard task. Using a mixture of medias such as photo still shots from a digital camera and hand-drawn pictures of our camera shots, I had put them together in sequence on a timeline bearing in mind that our group were not still 100% sure about our concept. I think this work really did pay off as it was '...very detailed and showed good thought of technique through the concept' according to my Media teacher. Other pupils in the class also claimed it was a great piece of work of which they were longinh to see in full completetion.

Filming

The bedroom scene was an important part of our video, this little sequence brings a theme to the video in the sense that the male character is waking up next to a woman while on his way to meet another, unfortunately i was not able to attend this filming session.

Plan B

Disaster strikes as look through some of the footage we have shot and put it together as a match cut, it looks a mess! Or so me and Denneetta think. But not to worry as we have moved on to plan B which only existed as of last week when we decided to make do with what we have until the rough cut deadline and then re- film the entire scenes all over again on the same day, and not use as many locations making it look confusing. We hope that this looks as good as our animatic as we had a certain image in mind that we want to carry out but so far it has not happened.