My Timescales

Date and Time Plan


10th September  - Given Brief

15th September -  Began planning and researching

28th October -  First video shoot – filming Emily in country park. 10am - 3pm

10th November -  Begin editing

8th December -  Finished editing my footage – gaps need to be filled

6th February -  Second video shoot – with all three characters. In country park. 12pm - 2pm

9th February -  Capture new footage and begin editing

2nd March -  Finish video promo

9th March -  Begin on supporting products

Contribution to other groups

Although I produced my media piece as an individual candidate throughout the entire media course I have taken part and given ideas to other students within my class. It was nice to be involved in other creations and having an influence over others work. I also thought it was a good way to develop other skills.

I helped by playing various roles in Meeghan Stevensons work. I was the bride character, the teen love character and the character for lonely. I also helped with camera distances and lighting in some parts.

I also helped Joshua Cox in the cermatory scene. I offered ideas and helped with directing.

As well as my class i also helped a group from Wilmington Grammer School. I played a part within there party scene.

Final Magazine Advertisement

Final Piece

                     

How I got there...

Firstly I opened photoshop and picked a document size of A4. Then added a black border using the shape tool. Then I edited it to make the line thick. Once this was done I opened my image in a separate page. With this image I put on a large square shape in an opaque beige colour at the bottom. With this colour I then used the erase tool and add a torn edge effect to my photo.  I then dragged this over into my bordered page. 

 

Once I had dragged it over I began adding design to the page. Firstly I dragged in the heart shaped and transformed then to the correct size and position. I then added the F letter (for Florence) in the top and bottom corners as this is what is found on cards. I then began on editing the text, adding drop shadows, changing the sizes, and positioning. Once this was complete, I made a block red shape, and added a torn paper look using the ease tool. I put this under the Band title to make it stand out from the page. This gives a statement look to the page.

I then began adding black box shapes. I kept these without effects as i wanted them bold but sharp on the page. With these boxes i changed the positioning and rotated them. Then put on the important text in white (contrasting colour) The image below shows a top hat slightly opaque in the corner. This was an experiment I tried but decided it was to much on the page and took focus away from the main image. 

After this I came to my final piece which is shown at the top of the page. For this I added another black strip saying "Bonus Tracks" to fill in the large space. Then a faded white heart in the bottom corner with a slight drop shadow to make it stand out from the background. I found this was a simple effect but added depth to the advertisement. 

Magazine Advertisement Influence

Before i began developing my own Magazine Advertisement I looked at a variety of magazines with Existing products. From these i took ideas, and developed my own. I found it a good way to see the relevant information and how a page can look successful. Below are scanned copies of the few I found most helpful.

Final DigiPak

Final Piece

Here is my final digipak. Here you can see what it would look like if i folded it out. I have included the CD itself, followed by the three outside pages, then the three inside pages. 

My page ideas were (left to right) :

Outside fold - Thank you from artist. Limited addition version (would not be found on normal album)

Front cover  - Capturing image.

Back page - Track listing

Inside page - Picture collage of the artist.

CD page - Showing where the CD will be positioned with a simple border

Inside fold - The lyrics of one song. This is the feature song on the limited Edition Version. This would not be found in normal album. 

Planning

Here is my planning for the final digipak. I found drawing it out gave me something to work from and develop. I didn't keep to all the ideas, it was just a basic outline of what I wanted to include.

How I Edited...

This is what the CD itself will look like. I took a Cd shape found online and began editing it using photoshop. The two diagonal black lines were made using auto-shapes. They fit in the with the background on the album itself to give the look of a playing card. I then added a large heart shaped taken from the back page. I changed the opacity so that the shape looked blocked then took out a circle shape from the middle using the erase tool. From here i just added text, using the style as i have used on all other products and pages. 

This is my fold out page. It is what you will see when you open the album. I wanted this to be quite plan as the opposite page (collage) is very busy. I took an image taken by myself and changed the opacity. I then dragged across the torn strip from my poster to keep an ongoing theme. On this I added formal text as it is details of production. I wanted this page to be a "Thank You" from the artist, so used a more handwritten font as if she had written it herself followed by her Autograph hand written using the paint brush tool. This gave it a personal and individual look.

This is my back page. I wanted the focus of this to be on the tracks. I used the same style text and had it in white to stand out against the background. I then took the black strips from the poster to put under various titles, to give it an edgy look. I then added a large heart shape, (edited to size in other window) with this i changed the opacity so that it didn't take attention away. This is a shape used to identify with Alice in Wonderland. From here i used the barcode font and moved it to an appropriate position. The page still looked rather empty, so i took the image from the front cover opened it in a separate window and lowered the opacity, and size. I then dragged this layer over multiple times to get this background.

This is my Front Cover. I followed the same idea as my magazine advertisement, just in a different size and different central image. I also took over the same red torn paper, black block, and main text. This was very easy to develop after making my poster. I Wanted it to be quite plain but effective and i think this was successful.

Here is my collage page which will be on the left hand side as you open the album. I took varies images of emily that i had take over the previous months on different occasions. I knew that i wanted one of my pages t be a collage so this images were a build up. I opened each image in a different window adding effects to each and changing the sizes. I then dragged them into the actual window and positioned them accordingly. I found this gave a personal touch to the album and gave he artist a identity. I then added small red harts to keep the theme.

This is the page where my CD will be placed. I Wanted this to be very basic but keep the theme. I took the playing card idea but created the shape myself using the shape tools. I then rotated it all so that it was coming off of the edges. I thought the black white and red together looked effective. With the CD also in the picture i feel it will look very professional.

This is the inside page of the fold out. I wanted this to be quite bold so used the dark background. I then kept to the colour scheme using rd text and white strips. The white strips were a copy from the poster, changed with the colour fill tool. I then added red hearts to match the opposite page (collage). These lyris were the only ones included in the digipak and they are the from the song i used and the song which has brought on this Limited Edition Version.

First attempt at DigiPak

This was my first attempt at a final album cover. In this pictures I used the subject I have in my video. The pictures were taken at the same setting as the video was recorded. I liked the sunset theme and used appropriate font and text colour to follow this lighting. I think this album cover looks professional, but isn't enough to draw attention to the public. An album needs to be individual and have something special. As these thoughts have occurred I have decided to give another attempt to see if I can bring something more original to the table.

Practice for Digipak

Mood Board
Here is a mood board i created with some current album covers. From these i can see what looks successful and professional and see what doesnt work well. I could also use these album covers fpr ideas of my own.

Practice For Digipak 

Before i started developing the photos i had taken into a album cover i decided to try out different tools on PhotoShop to see what works well. I looked at the different effects and filters that are available and other tools that change a photos appearance. Below is a screen shot of the different photos i edited and the tools i used:

By experimenting with these tools I then moved on to practice album covers, using the bands name. To do this I used images from the internet, my own images and different font styles. I experimented with different lighting and different actions when taking my photos, which led to me having photos that were far to dark and others over exposed. Although by making some of these mistakes I have expanded my knowledge on editing. Here are my four initial ideas:

Fonts
By doing these practice covers it made me think about what font styles work well with albumn covers. The font is an important part as it will be used on the supporting products bringing links between the two. When looking at the font styles i had to think what style the music and see if there were fonts to match. The bands music is seen by others as soul inspired indie, so using dafont.com i found the fonts below:

Presentation Evening

Since we have now finished producing our films, our school decided to put on a presentation evening for parents and other visitors to come and watch all the A-level Students work.

The presentation evening was held on Wednesday 10th March 2010 and was very successful. We had around 40 viewers and was able to get some appropriate feedback. Each student produced there own questionnaire with questions that would benefit there individual work. This idea so was that we could then take this criticism and praise and use it in our evaluation and see areas we would change if we were to re-make our videos.

I personally found the evening very informative and enjoyed showing the work i had created to others.

Final Film

Below is my final edited Music Promo
- Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up) by Florence and the machine.
I hope you enjoy it...

Editing my Video

After i had all the footage i needed for my video it was time to capture it on to the computer and then start editing.To edit our footage we used the program 'Premier Pro' as this is what the school provides. I found the program difficult to start with but once i knew where the tools were, editing the video went smoothly.

Below are screen shots an explanations taking you through key parts of my video, and highlighting the areas with most effects used.

This sequence can be seen at the beginning of my video. The editing technique I used here was just a simple cross dissolve. I used this same technique a number of times throughout my video as well as dissolve to black/white. This is a way to take one clip to another smoothly rather than short cuts from one to another.

The technique I used here is a basic 3D. With this tool you have no decide yourself where you want it to move by choosing when it twirls, the distance it moves to and how far it tilts. It was hard to use at first but once you get the hang of it you simply plot on a editing graph where you want each bit to change and then preview until its what you want. 

Here i used a simple strobe lighting technique. When i first edited this clip the strobe covered the photo but i changed the opacity and now with each flash you can still see the underlining image. I feel this strobe was a light cover and matched the build up of music. 

When editing this clip i used a filter to change the whole clip to black and white, even before i began cropping. Once i had cropped the clip i cut it just before she throws her leaves. Where i cut the clip i then put a slower speed on the second half as the leaves fall. This added a dramatic feel to the clip.

This is taken from one of the 'other world' scenes. On all of those scenes I changed the brightness and contrast to show the difference. I think that this effect gave the clips a dream like look as well as mysterious. 

This was the mirror scene. This was the hardest part of editing I did in my video. I had to separately film daisy and emily from the same angel but think about where I was framing them with the mirror. I started with the complete clip of emily looking at herself in the mirror. Then halfway through the clip i cropped the mirror of emily to one side and added the clip of Daisy's reflection in that gap. This gave the view that emily was looking at herself then sees a different reflection (that of the rabbit). On both the clips i put changed the brightness and contrast. 

Shooting the Video 2

As I had decided on this new idea I then had to film again on the 6th February. This time I using my whole cast. They all worked very well together and I found that they were very open to all my ideas. The conditions on this day wern't what I had hoped, but as two of my cast do live in Brighton I had to accept these conditions and just work around them . My cast managed to get very involved and were really helpful which gave me a boost.

I found it harder working with more than one person, however having others there to support one another made there performances more convincing.

This day was all focused on the "other world" so costumes, and make-up was important (shown below). I used the same country park for this filming, but different areas. Although this filming was done much later on, I don't think this will be noticeable throughout my video.

Shot List

Since filming i have made a shot list showing how I would like my shots to flow and in what order. This is a development from my storboard as not everything has turned out the initial way I had planned. As i Edited there may well be mroe changes made but this is the rough cut of how I would like it to progress.

Shot 1 - Close up os artists eye. Begin shut, then open when music starts
Shot 2 - Wide shot to inform viewers of the artist.
Shot 3 - A shot of my artist spinning in a big open space
Shot 4 - New setting, focus on artist
Shot 5 - Close up of artist, either end of framing
Shot 6 - Other world shot - mad hatter, introduction to his character.
Shot 7 - Artist on a bench in countrypark
Shot 8 - Other world shot - Rabbit, introduction to her character, welcoming her to the world
Shot 9 - Other world shot - Through the trees, sunlight.
Shot 10 - Artist running through woods
Shot 11 - Back to artist singing
Shot 12 - Throwing leaves in the air and at the camera
Shot 13 - Other world shot - following through trees, sunshine, quicker shots.
Shot 14 - Mirror shot - emily looking in the mirrow, then emily looking at daisy in the mirror
Shot 15 - Bath shot, to add a peacefullness
Shot 16 - Other world shot - emily confused, rabbit getting closer
Shot 17 - Other world shot - the King Card
Shot 18 - Other world shot - rabbit, showing the 'clock' (quick cut shots)
Shot 19 - Artist singing
Shot 20 - Other world shot - the Joker Card
Shot 21 - Artist singing - Close up and direct to finish the song
Shot 22 - artist gasping for breath out of bath

Influences

When i began looking for a new edge to my video and was looking at how i could use the words to transform a new theme. From the number of ideas i decided on taking my protagonist to a new world, with confusion. When i had decided this was the theme i would develop i looked for inspiration on how it would work. Below are two videos, with an Alice in Wonderland theme, where i gained understanding and ideas:

Gwen Stefani - "What you waiting for"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlAzyj_qPAY 

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Don't come around here no more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0JvF9vpqx8 

One of the first things that gave me my "other world" theme was a new make-up set released by the company URBAN DECAY. They did all the make-up for the new film and so released a Limited Edition make-up set, with the colours. This gave me a good set up for my theme as i could go on the basis that my song was to be used for the new film, so my theme needed to represent this.

Urban Decay -  Limited Edition Alice in Wonderland Set

This was a later picture I discovered and I have decided to use its Idea through my supporting Products. The card theme matches in well with "Alice in Wonderland".

Joker From "Batman - The Dark Knight
      

Adding to my Idea

When I started filming for my music video, I found that it is hard to get a clip to look exactly how you wanted it. This being said when I captured my footage onto the computer I was very happy with how it turned out. Using this footage I then cropped down each of the clips as I was putting it together and found that it all worked very well.

As I was coming to the end of my editing I noticed that as I watched it through, there seemed to be something missing... I also noticed that there were a few gaps, with no footage to fill them. With these problems I then had to go back to the planning board and think of some ides on how to make my video feel and look complete. I brainstormed a few ideas, looking into the meanings of the song.

I came up with three ideas with are:

- Drug use

- Paparazzi 

- Other World alice in wonderland)

With these ideas in mind I asked for feedback from other classmates and with there comments I decided to go with the Alice in Wonderland Theme. This would be taking my artist to a new world in a short few clips, with a rabbit and a mad Hatter. With these clips I could use different effects and lighting to show the difference. This will bring in a storyline to my video, rather than it just being my artist singing.  This idea however caused me to have a second day of filming and to introduces two new actors to my cast. I also feel that with these new ideas I can bring a whole new feel to my supporting products, making my entire piece much stronger.

When I had decided on the idea I also thought that the release of the new ‘Alice in Wonderland’ film would be of benefit to my video. I could use it as a reason for the song.