20/01/11

After reading the feedback on our rough cut we posted on youtube, we have considered the opinions of the viewers and are now tweaking the first version. In todays lesson we experimented with colour. One particular comment was...

"It didn't come across as very emotional and think more effects may help with this, e.g. slow motion/black and white to set a more suitable mood."

We therefore decided to turn the performance shots into black and white and leave the narrative in colour. After trying this we noticed that the quality of the video was effected. Joanna's face and hair blurred into the dark background. After noticing this we decided it wasn't essential for it to be in black and white. Some acoustic music videos use this technique, others decide not to do so. Our next step was to see whether we could give it a retro/vintage colouring. We had some complications with this. The colour setting could not be applied to each individual clip, therefore each one would have slightly different colouring.

(High saturation)

(Black and White)


(High colour tempreture, high contrast. Favourite to be used.)

After discovering these complications regarding continuity in colour application, we have decided to concentrate on bringing the narrative in ealier and will do this in the next lesson. If we figure out a way to change the colour to the same balance for all clips we will complete this after our next few objectives in the post production process.

Audience feedback of In your bones Rough Cut

Here are a few of the comments we got about our rough cut of the music video after posting it on Youtube. The coments posted so far have come from Media students from Weston College, so we can rely on their comments maybe more than students or others who do not study Media, because they have been working on a similar product and know what to expect from a low budget video. However we will ask everyone we know so we can get a broad and varied opinions and will act on these when we edit our rough cut.

Opinions From Media Students...

• We understood the storyline, and liked the idea of the couple. It didn't come across as very emotional and think more effects may help with this, e.g. slow motion/black and white to set a more suitable mood. The effect at the end when she is with he guy, then it cuts to just her and her guitar worked really well. It could've done with more like this to set an ambiance.

• We like the use of the pavillion as the main setting, the audio & video synchronistic quality is great! the shots were framed well, and there are a few clever ideas in there. we particularly like the shot of the girl walking on her own on the beach.

• Good song and great performance shots, but.... repetitive footage, and the story is a bit confusing and comes in too late, oh and the water drops on the lens.
  

Quotes from people who have watched the video and looked at our digipak draft (non-media students)...


Positive
" The video fits well with the genre of music and its quite conventional. I like the feel of the beach setting and going back to the performance footage works well."-Sister (target audience age?)

" Good syncronisation/ lip syncing. Where the clips change quickly near the end looks effective and summarises the video well."-comment left on facebook mail

"The characters look suited to the music. The costumes are chosen well. The fur coat reminds me of the Laura Marling video when she's on the beach. Joannas acting skills are great too." -Friend

Negative

"Its a bit boring at the beginning, but gets more interesting the futher on. You should move the storyline of the boy and girl more to the beginning so engage the audience better." -Friend

"There's some blurs on the screen but the quality of the rest of the film looks great!" -Parents

"Cleverly put together, especially the fast edits towards the end, some clips get a bit 'same-y!'"

Update -25.1.11

Today me and emily spend the lesson taking images for the inside layers of our digipak.

We took images of the beach, the train station & Grove park. We took a guitar so we could have it in some of our images as it represents the traditional 'indie' music stereotype. Next, we are going to use photoshop to edit these images to create greater contrasts and change the focus in certain pictures, experimenting with depth of field.

We are then going to explore different presentation techniques for the inlay layers of our digipak and experiment with different ideas, which we will then present on our blog as a thought process.

Update- 25/01/11

Completed work:

• We have filmed everything we need for editing therefore we wont need to go out again for extra footage.
• The rough cut of the music video had been produced, this means theres a basic video incase of a accident E.g. The footage is lost.
• All the pictures have been taken for the digipak which means that can be finished.
• The back cover of the album and the poster for the album have both been produced and shouldn't need any changes.
• The logos of the two labels have been done and will be added to all the necessary pieces of work E.g. The poster.

Things left to complete:

1. Complete the final music video.
2. Finish the digipak.
3. Do the evaluation.
4. Complete the blog and make sure everyone is happy with the whole thing.

Rough Cut

This is the rough cut of 'In Your Bones' Music video by Joanna Mintern.

Editing stage

During the first half of the lesson I have created the first full draft of the music video. The main problem I've faced this year with editing is trying to keep the video and the music in sync, this is a problem that didn't occur last year.

Emily and Rosie have spent the lesson taking pictures so we can produce a good quality Digipak, this meant I had all lesson to produce a Rough cut.

In the rough cut I didn't use many effects on the video unlike last year when we played around with the different effects in the editing stage. This year I felt more comfortable because I knew the effects and knew I would only need one towards the end of the video and I feel like I picked the right effect to make the sequence look like a dream.

When editing the music video for a rough cut it didn't take as long as when we did our opening sequence for a film, I think this was because I was a lot more use to Final cut pro therefore I knew which tools I would use and how to use them.

Over all I think the rough cut is of good quality and gives us a good basic film to add and change if necessary.


We have uploaded this rough cut version onto you tube, in order to gather feedback from audiences, resulting in us being able to improve on issues and problems that we may not have noticed ourselves.

Noticeable problems we have already spotted

• The rain drops on camera lens
  
• Emily stood in the shot by accident on one part!

Editing

In todays lesson we used the log and transfer to upload all footage from the cameras onto the mac. We named all footage in the browser so we knew exactly what it was before we dragged it into the viewer. We imported the mp3 of 'In your Bones' and started to cut footage in time with the music.

We found it challenging trying to match the strumming of the guitar with the definite beats of the song. The computer also was running extremely slow so the audio was not matching the visual image, so it was very hard to edit accurately. Hopefuly next lesson the comptuters will not be running so slow. We have reviewed storyboard and mapped out where each individual clip will be placed in order. Viewing the clips of Joanna and James we haven't filmed many of them together, which means we are bringing in the narrative later than we would like. Next lesson we will try to correct this. If we can't find suitable material, we will have to re shoot a very small section.

With exams this week some of us have been absent from lessons at different times, which has meant the editing has been done without communicating with one another much. The lesson week 01/02/11, we will all be present so we can consult one another with the final editing.

Filming: 16/01/11

Order of filming

Beach-Scribbling in sand, long shots of Joanna walking with guitar. Me (Katrina) and James walking along together, Joanna following.Cafe- Over the shoulder shots, side shots of couple and Joanna side by side.
Park-Close ups, main performance, mid shots, profile shots(no establishing shot used)

Aspects unplanned for/ adjustments to story board
We excluded the pier promenade as a location to film as it started torain and a large amount of the public descended on the walk way, therefore it was impossible to frame Joanna and the couple without the distraction of members of the public.
We started filming on the beach, although it was raining and notideal conditions we didn't think it would effect the feel of the video too much, as filming in winter we were not anticipating sun. The miserable weather would act as a pathetic fallacy. We stuck to our ideas and filmed more than we needed so we had enough to edit at post production. We filmed some of Joanna lip syncing to the song.

We then went for a hunt for a suitable chip shop with seaside cafe vibes. The only places we like with booth seating were all extremely busy, due to the weather.We tried one aesthetically perfect location, we asked permissiong at the counter to film, however the cafe was so busy there was no adequate space to film at different angles and perspectives. We moved on to a cafe which had less of a seaside feel but still fitted in with the video, even though it was more upper class, coffee house. We were granted permission to film here and shot a number of times.

We were initially going to film at the bandstand, Grove park, however other members of the public were using it as rehearsal space. We negotiated with them to come back a little later. Once the area was free we cracked on with the performance aspect of the video. We filmed Joanna lip syncing the whole song at various areas on the bandstand. We wanted to frame her as she sat on the steps however it was heavily raining still at this point, therefore all the rain was pouring off the guttering which happened to be right above the steps! We may have to reshoot at this location because of the issue with weather. We abandoned the idea of the couple at the park, because realistically they wouldnt be looking happy and in love in the pouring rain outside! Howvere we had enough footage of the couple on the beach to compensate for this loss of footage.

Overall I Think the group worked well together and we got enough shots to produce a good quality music video. We were lucky because our artist Joanna and her partner who played the boy in the video were both very cooperative and were happy to do what we asked them. Even though filming would have been better if the weather was good we had a productive day and got everything we needed to carry on to the editing stages.

(Production images bandstand)

Seaside Vintage

Here is a collage I have created by using an online collage creater. These are images that sum up the vibe and imagery we are wanting to achieve.

Development of Ideas/ revision of plans before filming

After revising our storyboard and reviewing the related music videos we have researched, we have realised that we had no strategic planning of the order in which we are going to film. The Laura Marling video 'rambling man' has really inspired us, just a few days before filming. We will quickly re draft storyboard, so we have visual reminders to bring along with us filming. The idea of Joanna following the couple, especially the boy in all the different locations, will be exaggerated by a more thorough planning of the composition of her and the couple. Using point of view focus from each person and shooting in slightly different locations to enhance the vintage vibes.
We have established that we need more close up shots, to show the intensity we want to achieve.Here is the order of locations we will be filming on Sunday 16th.

Performance

We will have two cameras , one filming close up shots of her face to get the intensity of her emotions across and one filming mid shots. We don't think we need to film any establishing shots, as we are filming behind her as she sings, therefore can see the background then, i.e grass, benches. We need the guitar as focus, as she will not be playing the guitar in any of the other footage. We are going to use extreme close ups of her face.

The mid shots will be of her sat on the step with guitar.

Promenade (Pier)



After extensive re thinking, we believe Weston Grand Pier will play a significant role in our filming. We will film on the wooden floorboard promenade. This part of the pier has a vintage seaside feel, which will inkeep with the rest of the video. As the walk ways are wide and long it'll be easy to compose Joanna and the couple well, but keeping a distance between them. We will shoot the couple walking towards camera and then Joanna in background, an then from behind of Joanna with the couple further in the distance. We will inte

rtwine these locations with the footage from Performance parts shot on the bandstand , using the extreme close up throughout. We will also try filming at night when the neon lights are switched on, however we are unsure whether the lighting will be bright enough to capture Joanna's expressions.


Beach & Cafe

These are where the main narrative scenes will take place. In the shots we will mainly have close ups of them touching hands, stiring tea, having fun on the beach and showing feelings between them.

On the beach is where we will film Joanna walking towards the camera in a very angry and emotional way. We will film this by zooming out the camera while she walks towards us. She seems to be stalking the couple, but really just is always there at the wrong time.

Developing the Magazine Advert

1) Choosing an appropriate image to represent Joanna. We decided to use a photo of the artist, as this would be her first single released, we need to give her a strong identity. We had a number of potential photos we could use (shown below). However with the images below, we felt like they didn't portray the type of artist that Joanna is. As this will be the marketing face, the magazine advert needs to portray her genre of music to reach out at target audience.

The photo we decided on (the photo of Joanna with a side profile, with nature such as leaves and branches as a backdrop) Joanna appears thoughtful and expressive, which will be reflected in the music video. Also the backdrop fits in with the music videos' theme, of being in a park, singing and reflecting on nature. We looked at other singer/songwriters in the acoustic area. The comparison of images below show how we have opted for a photograph that fits in with conventional images you'd expect to see of such artist.

2. Layout and colour

Once we decided on the image, we could then see the points of focus (where the consumer will first look). Scientifically someone looking at a photo will work from the top left handside of the photograph and work round in a clockwise direction. Also attention will be drawn in in a particular order by the direction of lighter colours. We therefore chose to use the Joanna's name at the top left hand corner followed by the title of the album and release date.

We orignally wanted to have the chosen image of Joanna to be the whole entire background to the magazine advert, however because the colours around Joanna's body were dark it was hard to insert text which was visible with the colours. Also the clarity of the photograph blurred when it was fixed to the size of the photoshop canvas we needed to work with. We placed the photograph of Joanna in the middle and then planned to use the background filler to colour the rest.

I produced a rough draft of the advertisement, showing my intentions with the lay out and what i hope to achieve with Photoshop.

Finding the right background colour was challenging, so we used the colour grabbing tool on photoshop. We could use the exact same colouring from the photo of joanna in the background, so the colours would combine effectively. We chose a dark/green grey which

looked the most pleasent to the eye.

3. Looking at conventional features of all magazine advertisement
Although we need to potray Joanna as a singer song writer using a suitable image that fits with the theme of the video, we need to make sure that all conventional features of any type genre of music advertisement are used so the audience know we are advertising a musician not a film or other type of media form. We noticed that all music magazine adverts use the record labels logo and the independant logo too. These logos were mainly placed at the bottom of the advertisement. Eg. Razorlights shown below with the record label directly below the information

We then included the record label symbols we have designed and inserted them into the bottom

Following this process and adjusting text and layout resulted in this outcome, our magazine advert for Joanna promoting the album 'The Way I see It'.

Example Back Cover's

Here are some examples of Back Covers of various Artists that we like.

These artists are all the same genre as Joanna so these covers are the typical format for acoustic artists. When looking at these we realized that our back cover had to fit into these typical stereotypes. This ment that we had to use casual colors- nothing too bold or florescent, and that a standard white background would make the titles stand out. We also noticed that acoustic artists don't seem to use to many photographs in their covers, so we decided to keep it simple with just one image of joanna. We took these factors into consideration and found an image of joanna that we could possibly use for our back cover.

Possible Final Back Cover

Here i have created a possible design for our final back cover. When creating this i had to keep to the acoustic genre by using subtle colors, i also had to add all of the typical Digipak features that you would normally find, such as a barcode and publishing details.

I asked for feedback on whether it fitted the typical standards of a back cover, this is the response:

" The writing of the Titles could flow better with the image. The color could maybe match the hair color of the person in the photograph. But the record publishing information is good. "

After recieveing this feedback i went back over the image and made a few adjustments. I made the Title of the CD lower to reduce the amount of space and make the writting 'fit' together better. I also changed the color of the font to a darker tone to match the tones in the photograph better.

Final Magazine Advert Design

This is the final design for our magazine advert, for part of the digipak.

We feel that it was harder than needed to be. With Marks help we were able to add stars and group together the writing! Using simple tools, we were able to create this effective looking poster.

Magazine Advert

Todays lesson we have experimented with different layouts, designs and colours for our magazine advert. We have imported an image into Photoshop and then edited it using tools such as eye dropper, cropper, gradient and paint bucket tool.

Todays lesson.

Today we started on our final digipak, we took a photo of Joanna from her Myspace page and edited it. This is our front cover for the Digipak:

To create this we used photoshop, we used the Lasso Tool to select parts of the picture to be in black and white and purposely left the pillow in colour. We used the Eye dropper tool to make the font the same colour as the pillow. We chose the font from Dafont.com. We put the picture in Black and white because it fits with the theme of the video and enhances the colour title. The way Joanna is looking at the camera goes well with the title "the way I see it" because it looks like she's looking at the sky. The CD's in the picture show she's passionate about her music.

This is the original picture, before we edited it.