(Production) - Reflection blog week 12

This week

This week my partner and I have been continuing to edit our music video. We filmed some extra scenes for the narrative parts of our video, thought about how we could make are video more appealing to our young target audience and discussed how we could use synergy in our video.

Editing:

My partner and I are coming to the final stages of putting all the footage we have chosen for our video onto the Final Cut time line. Also, we are becoming more creative with effects and have begun writing a list of which effects we feel fit best for our style of video/music.

The list includes:
- Additive dissolve
- Cross dissolve
- Non-additive dissolve

(These three are the dissolves we feel work best)

Extra scenes:

My partner and I filmed some extra shots for the narrative scenes of our music video this week. We did so, because we felt that we could include some more emotional shots of our protagonist to help add emotional to the video.

Target audience:

 My partner and I had a discussing about how we could ensure that our music video would attract our TARGET AUDIENCE through our editing style. As we had talked about this in our pre-production stages, for example: what CLOTHES we wants our band members to wear, we felt that we should carry this on through our editing stages to make all aspects of our video fit together well.

My partner and I like the idea of using MONTAGES in our work, as we fell like this is quite a modern and young aspect to add to a music video. We will have a go at creating some different video montages on final cut to see if they work with our video next week.

Synergy:

We have decided that we would like to have some synergy in our music video and we feel that, as we our aiming our video towards a young audience and our protagonist in the video is a victim, we would like to incorporate SAMARITANS - a charity that helps people in distress - into our music video.

(Production) - Montage in the music video

My partner and I have been thinking about ways we can make our music video more young and contemporary. We think that one way we could do this by creating a montage.

Here are the kind of video shots we would use in our montage put in to pictures:

This montage is a still, rough draft of the kind of montage we would like to include in our music video. In our actually montage we would incorporate a background that adds to the verisimilitude of the video and will make the boarder of each picture more blurred, so to connect the pictures together.





We like the idea of adding a montage, also perhaps some other effects to our video, so that we can incorporate more close-ups of our band and connect the narrative and performance scenes together to make the whole music video flow together perfectly.

(Production) - Charity synergy in the music video

My partner and I have been discussing ideas of how to make our music video look realistic and fit music video conventions.
In our INITIAL MUSIC VIDEO the narrative scenes are are prominent and frequent than the performance scenes. Although my partner and I know that, as the band is up coming, we need to make sure that they stand out in their videos, the song we are creating a music video for has quite a sad, lonely tone and we feel that we could work together with different companies to give the song a true meaning. Therefore, we feel that we would like to make sure that the narrative scenes stand out more, for example having several close-ups of our main characters face, than the performance scenes so that the narrative stays in our audiences head. Also, we are only creating one song from the bands album and so if we were able to create several music videos for the band we would ensure that the rest of the videos we produced concentrated on the band and the feel of the band.


Samaritans

As the protagonist in the narrative is a victim of bullying and child abuse, we feel that it may be a good idea to advertise a charity that 'aims to provide emotional support to anyone in distress.' Particular as our TARGET AUDIENCE is teenagers, which are one of the highest age groups to be at risk of suicide.


Similar to X factor's charity single, but a bit less dramatic

Texts:

We would like Samaritans to only really appear in our music video as they will only really be working with them for one song and the other songs will concentrate on the band. Therefore, they most likely will not appear on either our digipak or magazine advert. Although, we may include them in the MESSAGE on the inside of our digipak.

why?

We have decided to do this because my partner and I are both teenagers so the narrative is quite close to our hearts i would say. Also, as we have made our narrative most prominent, we feel that we should give an explanation for this and working together with a charity, we think, helps give an explanation.



My partner and I are in the early stages of discussing this idea and will discuss this some more in our next meeting to see if it will work.

(Production) - Initial edit of Man on Fire music video

(Producion) - Reflection blog week 11

This week:

This week:

This week my partner and I have been continuing to edit our music video and having a look at different effects we can add to the video to make all the shots come together.

Helping each other:

Also this week my class mates and I had a look at each others music videos, to say what we liked about the video and what we thought could be change to make the video look more realistic.
My partner and I were pleased with the feedback we got from our peers, as most of the feedback we got was about the aspects of the video they liked and we feel that the constructive criticism we got will really help us to make are video fits the conventions of a music video and make it more authentic.

Next week:

My partner and I will work to complete adding scenes to the video timeline and will carry on adding effects to the video to make all the shots come together.
This week my partner and I will also have a discussion about what else we need to add or change to the latest designs of are digipak and magazine advert. As my partner and I felt that we gained really helpful feedback about are music video from are peers, we will probably ask are peers for some feedback on are latest designs to help us.

(Production) - Peer feedback for music video

My class and I have been giving feedback to each other on what we liked about each others videos and what we think could be improved.

Filming - Strengths and weaknesses:

(Framing, range of movement, creating meaning):

-The framing and almost all movement is perfect!

- Could use a few more shots

- Shot 00.53.10 is really nice

- Two narratives blend well

- I like the shot at the beginning with the Ipod

- I really like the shot of the sun shining on the singers in the forest

- I like the high angle used of Elise in the toilet

Summary of filming feedback:

Most feedback from this section was positive and my partner I will make sure to add more shots as we to feel that we need to add more shots to our video to ensure it fits the conventions of a music video.

Suggestions of improvement:

- Camera kept steady all the way through video

- Need some more close-ups

- More close-ups of Elise's face to show her expressions

- Think you need more shots of them singing from different angles

- Have a side angle shot of Elise crying in the toilet

Summary of improvements:

Mostly our improvements from this section we're to add more close-ups and to have a bigger variety of shots, which we will take on board.

Editing - Strengths and weaknesses:

(Pace, cutting to the beat, lip-syncing, transitions/effect)

- Pacing and cutting to the beat are extraordinary!

- Good soft fades

- 00.11 has a beautiful fade

- Lip syncing is at points a little off, but they may be due to the editing being incomplete

- The pace of the shot in the beginning is to long, have more cuts in forest

- Lip syncing well cut to shots

- Music starts on point at the beginning

- I like the fade at the beginning

- Toilet fades are really nice

Summary:

Our peers mostly liked the effects and pace of the video, but said that the lip syncing could be timed better.

Suggestions of improvement:

- maybe have Elise faded in the background for longer

- Lip syncing should be improved but I think once the editing is done it will be fine

Summary of improvements:

Fading and lip syncing could be improved.

                                                                                                                                    

Creativity and Conventions:

- The actors look like a real band

- I like the way the opening and end link, it adds to the story

- The lighting and the use of real locations adds to the verisimilitude

- I really like the shot of the singers playing with the leaves as the tempo starts getting faster

- I like how the song slowly comes to an end, the singers start walking down

- I like them throwing leaves to the camera at the end and the boy covers the camera with his hand
Summary: 
Our peers mostly liked the ending of our video.

Suggestions of improvements:

- Re-film Elise being shaken by her dad

- Why is there electric guitar?

- Man on left guitar strumming about to enthusiastically 

- More leaf throwing
Summary of improvements: 
The biggest improvement our peers told us about was the use of an electric guitar and the guitarist being a bit to over enthusiastic. We will change this when we re-film next week.

(Production) - Reflection blog week 10

Editing:

This week my teacher sat down with my partner and I to have a look at how our music video is coming along. We discussed the issue that we may not have enough close-ups in the performance scenes of our videos, e.g. close-ups of the instruments. To fix this my partner and I will, firstly, look through are footage to see how many close-ups we have token and, secondly, if we need to add more, we will film some more footage.

Pictures:

This week I had some trouble with some of the photos on my blog, because they were not showing up properly. My teacher showed me how to fix this though. I had to save the pictures from my blog, upload them on to Photo Bucket and then embed them onto the appropriate blog post. This took me a bit of time, however now I know how to fix this problem if it happens again and so it will take me very little time at all.

Extras for digipak and magazine:

This week, as my partner and I are pretty happy with are digipak and magazine designs, we have been discussing small adjustments we can make to them and extras that will make them stand out just that little bit more.

Magazine advert: For the magazine advert, my partner and I have been discussing how we can change its COLOUR AND CONTRAST to make it stand out more.

Paul Weller digipak from home

Digipak: My partner and I, this week, have begun to add some FEATURES to are digipak, which we fill make the digipak look more authentic. In this, we created some STICKER designs, which we think work quite well. However we still think we can make the final design sticker stand out more, for example, adding colour to the sticker. We have have also had an idea of creating an OUTER LAYER for our digipak, which well have the sticker on it. My partner and I got this idea from some digipaks I had at home and feel that it would be a good addition to our design, will keep the digipak looking new and, therefore, audiences may be more likely to buy a product which will last longer/hold together for longer.

Next week:

Editing music video:
My partner and I will continue and finish our initial edit for to our music video next week. My partner and I have already finished cropping all the shots we would look to use, so next week we can get on with putting all the pictures on the time line. This may take us a bit of time as we must make sure that in the performance scenes, where the band is singing, synchronizes with the singing in the song.



Magazine advert: 
Next week my partner will play around with the contract and brightness of our final magazine advert picture to see if we can make the picture pop more and contract against the white text.

 



Digipak:
As my partner and I are quite happy with our latest digipak design, we will concentrate on making final adjustments to it and making sure that it fits the usual conventions of a digipak, as well as making it stand out from other digipaks at the same time.

(Production) - Magazine picture adjustments

Final digipak picture

Picture:
Although this is our final digipak design, my partner and I feel there is still some adjustment we can do to make the picture stand out more. Next week we will play around with the contract and brightness of the picture to see if we can make the picture pop more and contract against the white text.

Text change

Text:

My partner and I have started to play around with different effects on Fireworks to make the text stand out more. We found that buy adding a white glow around the text, it stood out more in front of the image.













Symbols:

Alongside the Blackberry pin picture that we added early in production, my partner and I decided to add a HMV symbol and an ITunes symbol to the magazine advert. We feel that this makes the advert look more like a real advert, as we have looked back on our previous work, on MAGAZINE ANALYSIS, and found that these aspects were included in most magazine adverts.

(Production) - Second sticker for digipak

My partner and I added our second STICKER design to are digipak, replacing our first design. My partner and I like this sticker more than our first sticker, however we would still like to improve upon our design.

(Production) Final picture for magazine advert

Final picture:

My partner and I have looked through all of our initial designs, in order to help us decide which picture we want to use for our final magazine advert design. 

We looked at our magazine advert:

- FLAT PLAN

- INITIAL IDEAS 2

- MORE INITIAL IDEAS

- RECCI IMAGES

Final image

We have decided to use the above picture and layout for our final magazine advert. We choose this picture as we feel it gives an uplifting feel to the band and ensures the audience that the band's music does not all sound quite sad and emotional, like 'Man on Fire' does. Although this is our favourite picture and we feel it connotes the fun, young style we want for the band, we feel we could still improve it. 

Changes/additions to our final design:

- Quote from magazine about the band, e.g. 'BEST UPCOMING BAND OF 2011'

- Brightness and contrast of the photo, to make it stand out more

- HMV logo

We will only add these aspects, however, if they look right and does not make the magazine advert look to over crowded.

(Production) - Digipak sticker and outer layer

I found this digipak at home and my partner and I feel that a digipak plastic cover, similar to Paul Weller's one, would make a great addition to are final digipak. Paul's Weller's digipak plastic cover includes small text that says 'DELUXE EDITION' and the sticker is on the plastic cover, rather than the digipak itself. My partner and I like the idea of having a plastic cover on our digipak and, like Weller's digipak, having our digipak made out of cardboard, as we feel this helps give our band a more independent feel to it.

(Production) - Digipak with added features

Digipak with thank you message

Digipak with thank you message and sticker

My partner and I have decided to include a message from the band to thank everyone who helped to create the band's texts and everyone who has supported the band by buying their texts. We tried to make the message quite personal with sentences like "You rocked it!" to connote the young style of the band and make the audience feel as though they are talking directly to them.

The STICKER may partner and I created is also included in this version of our digipak, (second photo). My partner and I feel that the sticker helps the digipak fit the usual conventions of a digipak and provides necessary information for the audience very quickly.

My partner and I are happy with the improvements we have done to our digipak, however we know there are still small adjustments we can make to insure it looks authentic. For example, slightly adjusting the picture contrast to make it stand out more and adding colour to the sticker.

(Production) - More initial designs for the magazine advert

My partner and I have created some more designs for our magazine. 

We played around with the main image, changing it several times to choose the most appropriate picture for our magazine advert. My partner and I's person favourite is the image on the left and this image is probably the image we will use in our final magazine advert design. However, we do feel that the we could improve on the contrast of the image for our final design.
My partner and I added the blackberry pin sign, a Kerrang magazine advert and a Facebook URL for the band to make the magazine to make it suit our young target audience better. My partner and I choose to include the Kerrang rating as we feel that, by using a large company, that owns it's own magazine and radio station, our audience may be influenced to buy the album. Also, we felt this because the type of music Kerrang supports is similar to our own band's style of music.

(Production) - Digipak sticker designs.

My partner and I have decided to include a sticker to the front cover of our digipak, as our digipak includes one CD and one DVD, we want our audience to know exactly what they are cutting for their money.

These images of our initial ideas of our sticker for our digipak and, although my partner and I like these designs, we will improve on it to make it more authentic. For example, adding different colours to the sticker. 

Sticker design one

Sticker design two

Personal, I like the second sticker design the most, as I think having bigger writing on the sticker makes it more eye catching and easier to read.

(Production) - Reflection blog week 9

This week:

Me and my partner began editing our music video footage this week. We also created are second initial digipak designs and researched some more about digipaks in order to make are finally designs more realistic.

Editing our footage:

My partner and I found editing our footage quite difficult when we started, as we are using Final Cut. My partner and I have never used Final Cut before, so we are having to learn how to use it as we go along. When we started editing we had quite a bit of trouble using it, but after a few days of editing, we are getting used to it and being more experimental with effects.



Second initial designs:
This week we created our SECOND INITIAL DESIGNS for our digipak. Before creating our designs we had a discussing about what we needed to change from our INITIAL DESIGNS, in order to make our digipak more authentic.
We decided to change the pictures from our initial digipak, of leaves and trees, to pictures of our band mate in a similar location to our initial design pictures. We felt by doing this it would connect the digipak with the band more and make the digipak more recognizable to 50 Leaves's audiences.

Second initial digipak design

             

Initial digipak designs

Reseaching digipaks:
After creating our second initial designs, my partner and i had a discussion about what we liked about this updated design and what we still could improve on. We did some more RESEARCH on digipaks to find out what most digipaks include on them. We found that most digipaks include small print about the rights of the songs, e.g. 'all rights reserved'. Therefore, we have decided that this is a must have feature on our digipak, alongside other small print text, such as copy right text and text about who produced/marketed/distributed the digipak/songs.

(Production) - Aspects we need to add to our digipak

My partner and I have created a miniature print out version of our SECOND INITIAL DIGIPAK. After doing this, we looked at some actual digipaks to see what we need to add to our digipak to make it more realistic.

                     The digipaks we looked at were:

                              - Morissey - You are the Quarry

                              - Billy Bragg - Mr Love & Justice

                              - Arcade Fire - Funeral

                              - Radiohead - I might be wrong

Aspects we need to/may add:

                                                          Sticker:

Morissey's digipak - front cover

Morissey's digipak includes a sticker on it's front cover, telling the audience about the artist's single and what is included in the digipak. My partner and I feel that this is a good way to denote to the audience what the audience includes and will make our digipak look more authentic. On our digipak sticker we will include text about the band's new singe '50 Leaves' and will denote to the audience that the digipak includes a CD and DVD. My partner and I feel that this will help to connote to the audience the amount they are getting for their money.

Small print:

Morissey's digipak and most of the digipak's we have been looking at include information about:



Morrisey's digipak - back cover



                - who produced/distributed/marketed it

                - copyright

                - rights (e.g. 'All rights reserved')

                - who it was issued by

As my partner and I have found these features on most of the digipaks we have been looking at today and when ANALYSING DIGIPAKS in our past work, we feel that these aspects are one of the most important features of a digipak. Therefore, we will including some of them in our digipak.

In particular we found that every digipak we have looked at included text about the rights of the music, so we will add text about this to our digipak.

                                                                                                                                            

Radiohead's dgipak - back cover

 

Billy Bragg's digipak - back cover

willmost likely add this
My partner and I will most likely add this this information to the bottom centre of our digipak's back page, as this text is conventionally found here.

(Production) - Second initial edit of digipak

Changes:
After analysing our initial digipak and magazine advert designs we discussed what we needed to change and add to the texts. We created a second initial digipak and magazine advert to show our changes. In particular, we changed and added the images we wanted to use for our text. This is because, when we were filming the performance scenes of our music video, we took some recci pictures and feel that these images work much better than our original images. The new pictures are of the band in the forest, we feel that these pictures help connect the band and the autumnal, naturalistic theme we our running through the band's texts.


Digipak:

After creating our second initial digipak designs, we found that

there were still ASPECTS TO ADD to our digipak. My partner and I will be adding some details to our digipak, such as a sticker, to make our band's digipak more authentic.

My partner and also need to a picture to the back cover to the digipak, as well as a thank you message on an inside page of the digipak.

Magazine advert:

We added a picture to our magazine advert for our second initial designs. My partner and I feel this picture looks quite good. However, as the band is up coming, it may be best if the band's faces are shown in the image so that the band starts to become recognisable. In order to see what the audience wants to see in a magazine advert, my partner and I may conduct a focus group or give out a questionnaire other social networks.