Journal - Location test shots

We decided that it would be wise to test out where we wanted to shoot our video. We knew that we wanted bright lights and for it to look like a fair of some sort and we wanted it to look youthful and fun. We went to Winter Wonderland at the weekend and took some test shots to see how it would look for the video we plan to shoot in a week's time. Although we saw that it was quite Christmassy and more festive than we planned, which we aren't too keen on. We planned for our video to be fun and youthful rather than based around Christmas. It's not a Christmas song at all so we can't make it look too festive.

Music video: Post Production - Part 1

This is a prezi showing how we found editing our music video so far and it includes the challenges we faced and also new skills we have learned. It explains why and how we made certain choices and have done what we have. It also vaguely explains what we plan to do next.

Journal - Video clips

In today's media lesson we began and finished converting our video files so that they would be usable on Final Cut Pro. This is a skill we have learned in the past and we knew how to do it correctly and quickly.

The photos above are all of our video files from the first shoot, some shots took a long time to get right (as you can see in the multiple same shots) but we converted them all just in case we needed extra footage.

Music Video shooting - Part One

Today we filmed the inside shots of our music video. We took some photos on set to show on our blogs to explain our decisions. 

This is where we shot most of the clips for our video. It is in my bedroom, mainly on my bed. We wanted these shots to be very intimate with the audience and let them see our artist in her room, in a place she feels comfortable. I also think it adds to the indie element of our artist's image because it really shows how independent she is and how she likes to stay inside on her own sometimes. Also the use of white and stylish bed frame can contribute to that image. We chose to open the curtains to give more light to have a better contrast clip overall.

This is a photo of me trying to do some of the writing shots of our video. We had a clear idea to write "Isla Harris" and "Youth Knows No Pain" and to then overlap them with other shots. However, these shots came out extremely bad due to both of our handwritings not being good enough for our standards. Looking back, we should have practised more and used a better pen and thought more about materials and framing. We decided to forget the idea of having writing in our video, or if we did to get someone else to do it for us.

These are all of our video files as a whole. 

Journal - Music video preparation

For months now we've loved the idea of using polaroids in either our digipak or music video. Due to us not being able to use them in our digipaks we decided they would add a nice touch to our music video which could be used as a useful and attractive prop for the inside shots of our video. We thought carefully about how we wanted our artist to come across. We wanted her to be very social and also artistic. We think that our choice of photographs successfully show this part of her character and would really relate to our target audience; letting them know that our artist is independent and someone who they can idolise.  Below are the polaroids we created in photoshop. We think that they really represent the indie pop genre and allows our artist to be seen as a fun, exciting person. This also links to the song choice of ours "Youth Knows No Pain". We carefully chose the photos in order to show that she is youthful and has no worries or cares.

Digipak Advert

For my digipak advert, after analysing other published ones, I knew that I had to use a close up of my artist. I knew that the image had to match the digipak to an extent so I continued with the theme of a pink tint and a lens flare. I made the font exactly the same as the digipak font in order to keep a strong link between the two and I used a photo for the main advert to one fairly similar to the digipak cover.

Usually I would do more than one draft of this but I really liked the outcome and think that it was good enough. I think that my advert both draws attention and fits in with all the requirements for a digipak advert I found during research. I gave the album in the corner a drop shadow/outer glow to make it look almost 3D and inviting to viewers.

Finished Digipak

Music video shooting plans

We've decided to start shooting on Monday 9th December 2013 because we've completely finished researching and planning for our music video. We decided that it would be sensible to do the easier shots first as they only take place in one main location and they don't require any costume changes or any reliant on the weather. The shots we plan to do first include bed shots, mirror shots, close ups, and laying down shots. Generally all inside shots which we decided to shoot in my house and my bedroom. 

The other shots we plan to do all involve going into inner London and using the surroundings. We plan to do these shots as soon as everyone is available to do so. So far we have had difficulty getting all the actors together. We know that we will definitely have finished shooting the whole music video in a matter of weeks and will be in heavy post production in January.  

This is the production plan we created for our first day of production which shows a clear aim and plan. 

Production plan from Kerry Costello


The costume mentioned in the production plan above is shown below.

Digipak feedback

This is an audio clip of the feedback Sinead gave me on my digipak. It involves us discussing the changes I could and should make to my digipak which I will proceed in doing.

CD designs

This is the design I have decided on for my CD. It's the same background as our logo and my spine on my digipak. However I put on a gradient effect of light pink and cream. I made the image matte also to make it seem a bit more indie and unique. I really like this design because whilst it's girly, it's quite alternative by being a bit darker and matte. The first CD will go in front of one of my panels, the one with her hands and jewellery on show and it will reveal that when the CD is taken out. My second CD will go inside a flap in my digipak behind the panel of Isla by the wall. I think that these CDs really work well with the digipak as a whole and I think that they are simple enough and still attractive.

Keeping in mind that our target audience are very much based on ourselves, I personally think that these CDs look really good and I really like the idea. Whilst the font is quite minimal, I think it works with the overall image. I like the fact that it's matte too, I think that it makes it stand out from others I've seen around and I would think that our target audience would agree.

Journal- most recent version of my digipak

This is the most recent and updated version of my digipak. Overall I think the improvements I have made were worth it because looking back, the other panels I had done were unattractive, blurry and too young for my artist and target audience. I much prefer my new cover and certain panels. I think that they really help bring everything together and make it look more like a professional digipak. I think that it follows a strong theme of indie pop throughout. I placed them in the correct order in which I wanted and I made the inside panels go upside down at the top as if to see that they are going to be folded and put in the inside of the digipak.

Journal - Digipak spine

           

I put in some spines on my digipak, I made them the same floral design as I've used throughout and I made it darker and with higher contrast than last time to make sure it came across as alternative. When designing my digipak I had Lana Del Rey in mind because she is the main person we wanted our artist to be like. I really like Lana Del Rey's image so I tried to make it similar without completely copying her layout and designs.

I think that adding the spines really made my digipak look a lot more professional and it helped me finish off my last draft. I decided to use the same font I used on my main cover for my digipak and I added a black outer glow around it to make it look bolder. I really like the font and think it really shows off our artist's image and represents how she is girly but at the same time alternative. The darker flowers in the background also contribute to this factor. I made the spine by simply resizing and cropping the floral background so it was clear and the correct size, I then zoomed in to do the text and to make sure it was completely clear and easy to read. The picture included in this text post doesn't do the spine justice and makes it less clear to see but that it because it has been stretched bigger than it was designed to be and therefore became blurry. However, on the digipak itself, the spine is correctly sized, clear and appropriate.

Journal: Updated panels

This is my new album cover for my digipak. I think that it is an improvement on the previous one and I think that it suits my artist and my image a lot more. Instead of having the overly-pop visuals on the previous one with different colours and fonts, I have made it a lot more simple and made the colours to fit in with the rest of the digipak, continuing the hint of pink theme. 

I saw that a lot of my previous drafts of my panels were extremely pixelated and they didn't look good at all. Therefore I went back and changed this panel to make it less girly, more alternative, and mostly - a clearer photo altogether. This panel of her hair everywhere was edited better this time, I made sure that it was clear, sized correctly and was still clear to see the content. I also took away the lens flare because I thought it made it look a bit too fake and girly. 

Digipak Second Draft

After receiving feedback on my digipak, I decided that I definitely needed to make some improvements to my panels. So far I have changed three, the tracklisting and also two of the inside panels.

This is my new tracklisting panel. I have resized it and made it non-pixelated which make it look increasingly better. I also changed the font to make it easier to read and instead of having the tracklisting sideways, I thought that it would look nicer simpler and going down, positioned to the right.

This is one of my new inside panels, I have changed it by taking out the girly specks effect and also making it less pink. I think it looks better now that it's more subtle. 

This is another inside panel I have changed, I have taken out the specks effect and put in a lens flare. I have also changed how strong the pink is, I made the opacity less. I also added a circle to show where my CD will go. I think this image looks better than it did before because I kept the natural sharpness to the image and made it less girly.

Digipak presentation and feedback

These are the feedback sheets I got back after presenting my digipak first draft presentation to the class. I think we all agreed that I needed to work on my tracklisting because the font was a little unclear and I also need to go back and edit the CD panel because it is quite unclear that I plan to put a CD on there. Other than that, my feedback was mainly positive and I am happy with the responses. People acknowledged my hard work on photoshop and they liked my ideas.

Production plan

This is our production plan for when we plan to shoot our music video and what we need to remember. Whilst we haven't decided some things, such as the outfit choices due to the weather changes, we are quite eager and think we are ready to start shooting our video during December. We need to make some decisions about hair and make up still, but again, it depends on the weather and the outfit choices.  We made this production plan in order to make sure that we are completely organised and have a good plan for our music video shoot. I think that we are lucky to have similar locations for most of our video so we won't need to travel too much - making it more of a reasonable shoot to go through with. 

Journal - More digipak editing

These are my final versions of my digipak photos. I am really happy with how they turned out and I don't think there would be anything I could do to make them look better. I struggled with trying to make all of the photos link with each other because of how different they all were, but I am quite proud of my decisions to overlap the images with a colour and change the opacity to give it a more coloured, matte finish. I think that by doing this on all my photos it really ties them all together really well and it allows the audience to know that she is a female artist and has a main target audience of females. However I do think that my photos also show the alternative side of our artist because some of them are lit quite darkly and they also have a different look to them than you would expect from a female solo pop artist. 

Journal - Feedback from our animatic

Animatic

This is our finished animatic in which we coupled our storyboards and our chosen song "Youth Knows No Pain", we feel fairly confident with our choices and we think that it will look really good when we come to shooting it. The only thing we fall down on is our drawings but all we need is a clear plan in our heads in order to make a successful music video. We're very eager and confident with our vision and plan for our video.

Journal: Making the Animatic

When making our animatic, we photographed each and every shot on our storyboards and them edited them on Final Cut Pro to go with the music which we have chosen for our music video. I have included some of the printscreens taken whilst making our animatic to show what it looked like when we made it. It took us a while to fully finish the animatic because we had so many shots and we wanted to make sure that each shot was perfectly framed and went in time with the beats and lyrics of the music. Whilst making the animatic, we had Goodwin's Analysis in mind and we made sure to stick with the rules. We are really happy with our animatic and we think that it couldn't have gone better.

Final Storyboards

After many weeks of working, we finally finished our storyboards. We thoroughly thought out the overall theme of our video and what we wanted it to look like and we began to discuss ideas a few weeks back. We would sit down with the sheets, pencils ready to draw and write and listen to the song over and over again until more interesting ideas came to mind, we also had the lyrics handy so we could think about Goodwin's theory of having a strong relationship between music/lyrics and visuals. Now that we've finished, we're extremely happy with the result and are eager to start filming our video.

In the photos in which there is a colourful background we decided to have a graffiti background to make it look more interesting and more urban.