Filming the music video

Filming the music video was a difficult and time consuming process. this was because it is hard to create a good music video that includes key conventions. We also had to overcome things such as weather and lighting difficulties as well as travelling to locations at a convenient time for everyone.

We also had to take in consideration how congested the place was as we didn't want random members of the public in our shots. Another difficulty was transporting the camera equipment, as we were travelling on crowded buses it became a nuisance to try and keep things such as the tripod out of peoples was.

The filming process was made a bit simpler by the use of high quality cameras and basic camera accessories such as a tripod, this guaranteed steady shots that would have been otherwise impossible. Even though we got good shots when we got to the editing stage we found that we did not have enough shot variation. This meant we had to go out again to get more footage in more locations, When we came to uploading our new footage we found that the camera didn't catch any of the footage, we later found that it was because the camera had ran our of storage however we didn't get no warning message so all of the footage from that day was lost. At this point we had no more time to film so had to use the footage we did have to the best of our abilities, this can be seen as our video has some repeated shots, mainly band room footage.

Below is an image of the group members just before filming commenced.

A problem we had whilst filming outside was the noise level, as we were playing the song in order for me to lip sync the sound became unhearable which meant I had to learn the song word for word and time it perfectly. The inside shots, the band scene, was much easier as it was a quiet environment with loud speakers.

Before creating our final piece we made a rough cut and showed it to a small audience, the feedback informed us that overall our video was good however they didn't like the video transitions and effects that we had on as it made it look more like a story instead of a music video. soin our final piece we had to video transitions, this gave our product a faster pace and look more convincing as a real music video.

Below is the rough cut;

Overall the shots we got were good thanks to a high quality camera and some smart camera positioning, this gave us the ability to create a quite convincing music video. We also knew that any problems we had with the footage could later be fixed during the editing stage, such as poor lighting.

Below is our final product.

Editing the music video

Editing the music video was a long and tedious process. This was because we had to have so many cuts in order to fit the pacing of our song. This was okay it was just our lack of shots that made it difficult to stick to this fast pacing, because of this you do see some repeated shots in the finished products but we got away with it a little bit due to the repeated shots being mainly band room footage so it still looks natural.

Below is a photo of one of my team mates doing the music video editing.

When editing the video we had a play around with transitions and video effects to try and make our footage look a little more interesting, however when showing this to a small audience nobody liked the transitions and it looked as if it slowed down the pace of the editing whilst the some was very fast paced. We therefor decided that in our final piece we would have no video transitions or effects at all, this made our music video look a lot faster and more convincing as a music video.

Whilst editing our video I got a lot better at using the editing software which made the video look a lot smoother, this is because I learnt how to use all of the things that Adobe Premier Pro had to offer.
As a result I feel that the music video is very good and is the best product that I have made including last years thriller.

Overall I feel that our final product was very good, this is down to good shots and good editing. The music video would have been a lot better if we had more shot variation however this was not possible due to camera issues when filming and lack of time. If we had more time our final product could have been even better with a wide range of locations and more creativity, this had to be limited to to time and location constraints.

The video editing software that we used was Adobe Premier Pro, Below is screenshots from video editing.

Below is my finished music video.

Constructing the advert

Constructing the advert was a long process that we found quite difficult. This was because we had very limited Photoshop skills, to fix this we needed to go back to it multiple times in order to get it to a reasonable standard and learn how to use Photoshop on the Macs.

To get inspiration for my magazine advert I looked at real adverts and the adverts from previous year groups. I saw that all of the adverts featured a qr code and a website, which mine did not so it looked unprofessional.
To make the advert better me and my group went and took some group photos for the main advert image, we then removed the background and placed the image onto a backdrop that matched the theme of the song. I then created a qr code and added a website to make it look like a REAL advert.

Overall I feel that the magazine advert is okay. The band shot shows that the band doesn't take itself too seriously in contrast the background shows that the song covers a serious topic. There is an iTunes advertisement, QR code and a website link. If I were to do it again I would use a better font and maybe use a better band shot just to make it look more professional and change the layout of writing and logos. We decided to improve our magazine by changing the background and a different image but we took the image out to leave the silhouette which we thought looked good. Also we improved the images and writing we added to our magazine by changing where they were so we put all the logos for where to get the song at the bottom and the website at the side also added rating the companies had given the song. Below is our final piece:  

                                          

 

 

 

 

audience feedback

After we had finished our music video we asked a few people to take our survey after watching the music video and asked them what they thought of it and how it could be improved.

Constructing the digipack

One of the problems that we came across was when we were using photoshop on the mac we couldn't use photoshop as it was very difficult to get use to on the computer. So what we did is we went next door to the windows and worked on the digipack in there which was much easier to use. When deciding on how our digipack should look the person working on photoshop was messing around and changed the colour of the image and when the group saw it we all decided that it look good and would work as our digipack images. This is what our digipack looked like when we were finished:  

   

While we were researching some digipacks we came across this digipack which looked very similar to our digipack in the way that they have images of the band in different colours and used very simplistic images. 

Rough cut

Magazine advert

Filming progress

We planned to film our music video project over the christmas holiday. However due to various circumstance, with recurring themes. However, we have managed finally to get some filming done, however, we have not been able to get as diverse an area or as much filming as we would like. however, we have managed to find some symbolism within our shots, making the best of a bad situation.

Our decisions were limited by time and locations, due to members of our team not having a lot of transportation outside of walking, and and a looming deadline assured that we had to take whatever footage we could grab, and worry about the quality of which later.

 On day 1 of filming we went over Hanault forest. however, due to our mistakes, instead of lip synching the full song, we only got about a minutes worth of footage per time. This means that although we got some decent footage whilst we was out, we had to go and get some more. This was fine as we had to go out and get some urban shots. There we got some shots of walking from different angles, to fit with the general theme of the song.

To finish the first bout of filming, we went and got some shots of us in the band room, to imitate the look of people playing instruments. however, due to a minor mix up between shots,  two of the members swapped instruments, and due a filming taking place at a later date, there was a sudden change of clothing halfway through.

Then we came to our first editing session. We were struggling to put together a coherent piece with accurate lip synching, so we had to go out and get more footage, especially of the band, since our current produce was disappointing with neither the lip synching or instrument playing being any good. However after we re-did the shots, it came out looking much better.

We needed some more shots to amplify the feel of the music, so we went out to Valence park, and did some recording there, namely on the different pieces of equipment.  Some of this was removed from the final product for looking too out of place.

Album art exercise

To this image I used many different tools and effects to improve the image. Some of the effects i used was changing the brightness making it brighter. Many of the other effects I used just didn't work with this image.   

Digipack

What is a Digipack?

Digipaks typically consist of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside. It means the cd comes in a cardboard flip-out case rather than a standard plastic hinged case.

Digipak-style packaging is often used for CD singles or special editions of CD albums and the tall DVD Digipak (DVDigipak) is used as a premium package for DVDs and DVD sets.

Whats on a digipack?

Six panels
spine
barcode
track list
Disk impression
memebership postcard/ flier
Band info section
free image/ poster

Here is an example of a digipack

potential songs

07-seven days- Don't give up (band-rock)
A little of you time: My destiny
We choose these songs because they were easy to lip sync too unlike rap, techno. Also they fit into the genres that we were given. Both of these songs were good as they were slow so it would be easier to lip sync to and easy to get the lyrics. In the end we choose 07-seven days don't give up as we thought that it was the best of the potential tracks.