We did our photos for our digipak and our magazine ad. We thought about our ideas which we had originally planned and thought that if it was on a magazine in an advert then it may confuse people if they had not seen the actual video. Therefore we decided to just do a few photos of just me. This is because it is more relevant to the indie based genre and it would also look good if you were just flicking through a magazine and see it. However we didnt just want to have a plain face on shot so we decided to get an interesting shot with a different background to that you might expect.
Today we finished all our ancillary tasks, this was our magazine advert and our digipak. Above is our magazine advert, we are proud with what we achieved and think its a good advert that will stand out if people see it in a magazine.
On behalf of our group I (Alex) am writing to apologise to the media teachers and staff and the other media students for our behaviour last lesson (Monday 23rd November).
We used a college camera inappropriately in a moment of idiocy and we all feel really sorry about it.
I hope that this post conveys at least some of our shame for our actions.
Idea 1: The front cover of our Digipak will be our main character, John, leaning against a wall, down the centre of him there will be a white line. On one side of the line John will be wearing the "cool" clothes from the music video i.e. Hat, bright t-shirt, jeans. On the other half of the line John will wear the "normal" clothes (grey shirt, glasses etc) so the two images will blend into each other. Above John's head we will put the album and artist's name. Along the bottom we will put the stock symbols such as the record label and we will put a parental guidance symbol as the song contains naughty language.
Along the spine will be the artist's name and the album name.
The back cover will be on a similar theme to the front cover. The background will be an ordinary table again with a split down the middle. Down the centre we will have the song titles. Again, one side will have "cool" items - like sunglasses, ipod etc - and the other side will have "normal" items - like a calculator and textbooks.
Idea 2: Our second idea is that we make a play on the song title that we chose. The front cover will feature John fully dressed in his "cool" clothes against a background of a wall. As in idea 1 above John's head we will put the album and artist's name. Along the bottom we will put the stock symbols & parental guidance symbol.
The back cover will be the same wall but with only the hat John was wearing in front of it and nothing else. The song list would be on the wall above the hat.
Today we had a meeting within our group about when we can take the stills camera out next and what date we could do the pictures for our digipak and magazine ad. We have come to a conclusion that we are going to take the stills camera out next Monday and do the photos during the lesson time. So for the lesson we need to bring in all the props which we need eg; hat, clothes etc. We also thought of ideas on where we could do the photos. We originally thought about doing some of the shots around Cambourne. However we had a look around college and we have found a few areas that have the right feel about them and can help to make our pictures look even better. They give the right image to the indie genre and will go well with our other work.
For our ancillary task we need to get some proper photographs so next lesson we will be doing a proper photo-shoot. These photos that we need to take are going to be used in our digipak and for our magazine advert. We need to take the photos as we looked at the possible stills from our video and we couldn't us them as they would be blurry images and they would not be good quality at all. For this we need:
Hologram picture mixing nerd character face with the wannabe, popular face. Depending which way you turn it will depend which picture you see.
Entry into competition where you can win a chance to live the life of the popular character for a weekend.
Free invitation to go to the release party of the song where you get to hang out with the band members.
Picture on the front of the case will be a full body split between the cool character and the nerdy one.
The back of the case will be the track list in the middle of the page. Either side of the list will be the contrast of each side of his life, with his belongings. The wannabe life will once again be in bright colours, contrasting with the nerdy possessions eg; calculator, glasses etc.
Some "institutional" information such as the record label and a parental guidance logo as the single contains some swearing.
I think this picture could be used in our digipak or as our magazine advert. It would be a good picture to use as it shows the artist by himself and it also sticks to the indie genre of the song with the hat and the guitar. This also links well to the main parts of the mise-en-scene in the video with the hat, the guitar and the brightened up shot of his clothes and the background. It is also a good picture that could be used because it is a completely different shot to any that ive seen on a cover or advert.
I think this picture will appeal to the audience quite well as it is a bright image and if it had other effects/writing it could make a good cover or back for a digipak.
I think this would be a good Digipack/Magazine picture because it is visually interesting. This would make the person looking at it want to know more without any further things added.
The mise-en-scene is in a brightly lit room which is painted in light colours. John is wearing colourful clothes and holding a guitar. This all points towards him seeming happy, upbeat and generally 'cool'. This is the steriotypical successful musician image.
I think this would make a good shot as it clearly shows the artist and his 'i don't care' attitude that goes with the genre. Also the whole mise on scene works well as it has clothes that fit with the genre and a good location.
This Digipak is by the indie band 'Mansun'. The front cover of the digipak is a sort of collage with pictures of the different band members both individually and as a group on a background which is two different shades of yellow and some red. The pictures are the colour of the background.
The back cover features a track list for both the CD and the DVD and includes a list of the extras (entitled "Plus"). The back features several conventions such as the record label, the type of disks included, the running time etc.
On the top and bottom sleeves of the cover is the name of the album and the record labels again.
Inside the case there is a fold out section with the CD on one side and the DVD on the other side.
The cover fits the genre (indie) as it is quite quirky and slightly abstract without being too different. The quirky theme is something repeated in most of the band's album covers in the past.
It is a good digipak as it features:
live footage of the band playing
A documentary about the bad
A montage
Access to download a previous song demo which cannot be seen normally
We seem to have done, "A Falklands" and managed to patch it all together despite the odds and difficulties we have faced this past week.
Andrea is watching it through and we are waiting to see what she thinks before we do any final adjustments or, if we are lucky, get to upload it as our final version!
Today we are doing the final edit and touches to our music video. Due to me (Alex) being away and John being ill for much of this week this is a rather hectic session, however, we are working at full pace to try to get our project done in time and looking good.
Fingers crossed is all I can add at this point......
On Wednesday morning (11th November) John and Marvin did some extra filming for our music video. They focused on some specific things that we believed we needed, that Andrea had highlighted and things that people had suggested during the group feedback sessions. Our primary aim, however, was to add some more lip-syncing as this was the main thing people felt we needed more of in our video. The lip-syncing which John and Marvin managed to get was good quality and we feel that it is only going to make our work of better standard.
John and Marvin did a good job and we now have plenty of extra footage and lip-syncing that we can add into our video during this lesson (Friday 13th).
In today's lesson Andrea had another look at our work we've done, she has suggested that we should make the color filters more obvious and make a much clearer split between the 2 characters so that people who don't know our initial story are more able to understand what we plan the audience to see. She has also suggested that we either remove the shot of the 2 people chasing the main character or change it so its sped up and reversed to make it seem to have more of a comedy value to it.
I also phoned Marvin during the lesson today as he was not in. We have decided that me and him will come in early tomorrow morning so that we can film some extra footage as it is a must if we are to get a good mark and improve our project. We now need to decide whether to come in after college on wednesday or thursday to add in the new footage which we are going to get and then edit it in with the parts of the video which we have done already.
In today's lesson I was the only person from our group who was in college. Therefore there was not much work that I could complete as we have not done any additional footage and we have done all the cutting and editing for our original footage already. Therefore the only work that I could do was to polish the video up a little bit and do some minor changes.
I thought I could use the time to smarten up our blog a little bit and to make it of better quality and make it more presentable as we haven't spent many lessons recently focusing on our blog and sharpening it up.
Today was a bad day. We were planning on filming the rest of our video today, however, John is ill and as I (Alex) am away for Tuesday & Wednesday this will make finishing the video very hard as John plays the main character.
This has limited what we have been able to achieve in the lesson as we feel we have hit a wall with editing and we need more footage.
Because of this we are going to have to change our plans for the week and hope to be able to book the camera out for Wed/Thurs night to film but need to know if John will be able to film then.
We plan to re-film some areas, particularly: Adding some more lip-syncing and filming some more live performance of the main character singing. By having more of these shots we will also be able to get rid of some of the hat filler shots which we have too much of at the moment. Re-filming the 'fight' scene so that you can see it easier and can see more of what is actually happening in the clip. Re-filming of the scene in which the main character gets followed by those 2 strangers. We could re film this shot so that there are more people following him as it looks a bit empty as it is, and maybe have a group of girls following so it seems like the main artist is more popular.
You might want to include an alarm sound at the beginning of the video to improve continuity. On the subject of continuity there needs to be an address to the current lack of continuity in the video, your original idea is currently not effectively communicated. Perhaps you could think about the inclusion of filters to make it clear the differences between the characters. Also the scene towards to beginning where the character is being chased appears to be irrelevant... There definitely needs to be more lip synching and close-ups, remember that the point of a music video is to 'sell' the artist and this can't be achieved if you don't see enough of them. Currently the hat scenes are the best thing about this video, the rest needs some major work. Are you using your storyboard to guide your editing? I suggest you think about addressing the current lack of continuity as a priority. Lastly, the ending is out of time as the artist claps before the clapping in the song, that needs sorting out too. Take a look at this video to get ideas on how to make a professional looking video rather than one that looks like students larking around, use it as a basis to improve your video.
As a group we are pleased with the overall response to our roughcut video. We are glad that people have picked up on some of the key things we put in such as wearing clothes that suit the genre, some of the visuals matching the lyrics at some points etc.
We also thought that we might need to do some more lip-syncing and, as many other people agreed, then we think that we are going to work on this aspect of the video.
S1-23 - a variety of locations will help boost the narrative and give it more interesting. Maybe if some girls chased him rather than boys it would work well so more actors on scene would help. Some of the shots need to be refilmed - the hate shot works really well but unfortunately you can see how it's happening, you maybe able to stretch it on final cut. Fits well with the genre and is fun and witty.
Artist representation - presented really well as the lead singer is the only person featured in the footage apart form extras, a large usage of lip syncing and performance .
Shaun, Ruth, Emily & Ruth - Group 19 Lyrics & Visuals: The quote 'I remember my first beer to' is a good match from the lyrics to the visuals, when the milk changes to a pint of beer. The lyrics 'you look like you got nothing better to do' link with the visuals as the male actually looks like he has nothing better to do in the way he is just walking around, playing guitar, drinking beer etc
Music and visual relation is good. The beginning shots are cut to the beat and when Jon walks down the stairs it is to the beat and looks very good. However there is a section where there is no singing but you can see the artist miming, this looks a little strange but is only a minor problem. I like the instruments used as it looks like performance. The video doesn't contain much lip syncing and could do with a little more but the story is clearly shown.
It is an indie song and they have used instruments and the correct clothing for the genre such as the main artist wears a trilby hat and quite casual clothing and plays an acoustic guitar which adds to the indie effect. They also show the artist having fun which would make it appeal to people.
We have one criticism where their is no band performance for the video which is unusual for a indie/band video genre. There are to many shots with the hat which did not link with the lyrics i.e its not a ski cap.
The camera shots worked with the genre. They were quite quirky and new, like how indie music videos are an example of this is where they change the colouring on the screen.
