Digipak inspiration

We have been looking at google finding inspiration and ideas.  We want to do something simple but effective and so far have though of doing melted crayons but in a silhouette shape so it's not too in your face.

We are planing on doing this on Friday.  We need a canvas, crayons and some masking tape to do this.  

The Final Cut of our Music Video

This is the final cut of our music video. We are extremely grateful for our actors, Ellie and Chris, and our band: Callum, Julia and Jasmine. Enjoy!

What’s Next

Since we have finished our final cut of our music video, we are now working towards our digipak and advert of our album. Which the deadline is for 8th of December.

We plan to make a rough digipack each and advent and pick out the best qualities of each, to make the best design we can that matches our theme. We know we want a design or a photo that does not  features the band since it doesn’t fit the indie genre to have the band on the front cover of the album. We want to expirement with patterns and the use of colour, as it brings attention to our theme of using psychology references and terms such as our band name ‘SUPEREGO’.

For our advert we will have the band feature on the advert poster. We are going to follow a basic template of having the band name at the top with the release date underneath. Then having the photo of the band underneath the title and release. Then having the rest of the information underneath the photo or super imposed on the bottom of the poster advert, such as where the album is available, the album name and possible some star ratings as well.

Deadline Day

It's deadline day.  We are just doing finishing touches and making sure everything is okay.  We have to fill in a couple gaps as well and make sure everything's edited on the beat but it's all good.  It needs to be finished for 4:30 today but we are aiming to get it done for 12:30 so aren't stressed later.

The Argument

We took inspiration form the Radiohead video 'Just'.  We took their idea of not knowing why something's happened.  In are video, you never find out what they're arguing about.  This is to relate to the audience to make them have a connection with the video.  It creates an empathetic symbiotic relationship with the audience engaging them even more.  As well as this, a lot of our audience will know of this video so will relate to it there as well. 

Editing Progress

We have taken turns editing the footage, with each person editing individually in each lesson, free, or using our spare time after school.

This has been an effective method, as we are getting around 20-30 seconds edited in one hour, which is a much more efficient work/time scale than our rough cut. Looking at our timeline, it looks like we have editing about 70% of our footage, and if we continue with this rate, we will definitely be able to hand our final cut in for tomorrow.

Starting our Advert: Frames

We will create our advert using Adobe InDesign. To start this process, we will need to use frames. Like most desktop publishing programs, Adobe InDesign uses boxes, called frames, to hold the content on each page of the document. Once created frames can be resized and arranged on the page and you can add or edit the content. You create text frames manually in InDesign with the Text tool, then type or copy and paste text into the frame. Graphics frames are automatically created when you import a graphic file into your InDesign document. 

Using the template that Jaclyn designed earlier, I will get rid of the fonts in the frames, and then start to build up our advert, starting with the fonts, then the image, then the filter and then we will edit the poster until we feel it looks conventional.

Edits we want to use: Fade to Black

FADE TO BLACK
We are going to use a fade to black at the end of the video.

A fade to black occurs when the preceding shot fades into a black screen.  We wanted to use this to match the decrescendo (the music getting quieter) of our song. It gradually fades out, matching the volume of the song, rather than just cutting to a black screen.

Catastrophe 3

Our drummer, Jasmine, who was in our music video is now refusing to come back so we can take photos for our digipak.  We didn't take take photos during filming because of time and people needed to go home as we were running late.  We don't have enough time to re film everything with a new drummer and have limited options.  We are going to speak to our teacher to find out what to do now as we don't have many options.

Edits we want to use: Shot Reverse-Shot

SHOT REVERSE-SHOT
We used this editing technique to establish that where, in most relationships, there would be a conversation, but instead it is just Ellie's character yelling at Chris' character. This symbolizes that their relationship is not in balance- its not right or conventional. Chris' character's voice is lost in the conversation, and he isn't being heard by Ellie's character.

Edits we want to use: Action Match

ACTION MATCH

We are going to use an action match when Ellie pushes Chris' feet off the coffee table, to establish how important the action is- it makes the audience register that everything Chris' character does irritates Ellie's character.

Edits that we want to use: Jump Cuts

JUMP CUTS
We want to use a jump cut when our actors, Ellie and Chris, are 'growing apart' from each other. They start off close to each other, looking happy. Then, we will include the fast paced takes of them walking away each other, cutting out the bits of footage so it looks like they are being pushed away from each other. this edit will represent a shift in their relationship and a change in dynamic/narrative.

Questionnaire

Create your own user feedback survey

This is our questionnaire, which we have advertised on our blog, and my twitter and Facebook, to get a wider audience and hopefully more responses. I decided on the following questions:

Do you think that our digipak (advert + album cover) should use similar colours to the ones in our music video?

What type of fonts do you think we should use for our digipak?

Should our advert include a picture of our band?

If we do use the band for our digipak, who should be the first person people see? 

What colour do you think our headline font should be?

What graphic/imagery do you most relate to 

our band's name, Superego?

I chose a wide range of questions to get a good idea of what our demographic wants to look at, and how our digipak should look.

Digipak Ideas: Fonts

For our font, we wanted something that reflected our music video's theme and the name of our band. For these reasons, we decided to choose a modern font, that is bold and eye-catching.

I went on dafont.com and looked under Techno > Various, and found the font 'forte', which I felt fit the feel of our band the most.

I saved the font to the computer, and I think that we will use it in our digipak, but I realise that we need a range of similar fonts, so we can write less important things in a lowercase, less formal manner.

I chose these two, modern and similar fonts. I couldn't decide which I preferred, so I downloaded both.

Editing Our Final Cut

Since we've finished filming our narrative and performance footage, all we have to do now is edit the music video to a finish product. Our plan is to finish editing the narrative section of our music video, since we filmed some sections of our narrative earlier on in the project. So after filming the rest of our narrative and our performance footage. We decided to finish editing the narrative section of our music video, then with the gaps we have we'll place the performance footage cater to what is needed, such as having certain instruments on screen when necessary such as when we hear guitar, we'll edit in our guitarist in that section.

On editing responsibilities we've agreed that we would alternate every lesson, so everyone has an input of editing the final cut of our music video. Along with having open communication with each other, asking for a second opinion or having a little help of someone else so it matches musically with the song.

Digipak Ideas

This moodboard includes the themes that Sarah and I discussed. Contrasting themes like water and fire, urban landscapes and nature, and two sides of the same person fighting for power (the id and the ego relates to the red and the blue, which is the lighting for our performance).

Advert ideas

I've been looking at several different album adverts and found that not many of them have a photo of the band on but they have graphics on and different images on which looks good.  I like the Coldplay advert a lot and think that would look good for our advert and I also like the simplicity of the Bombay Bicycle Club advert as that would also look good for our advert.  The others look good as well but given the time, I think it would b hard to do graphics like these as we don't know how and we don't have the resources/time.

New Performance Footage

We had a couple of major set backs yesterday, which led to us filming with a trio instead of a quartet, which wasn't ideal, and filming in the school hall instead of the drama studio. Luckily, our guitarist Callum agreed to learn the lyrics. He only had 15 minutes to do it, and we really appreciated him trying so hard, especially in such a short amount of time, as our original lead singer had cancelled one hour before we were scheduled to film. We only had 2 hours to film, as the school hall had been booked out for 5:30, so we tried to be very efficient.

Our school's media technician, Mr Convery, turned the red and blue lights on for us, as we wanted to recreate the lighting we had used in our rough cut. When we turned the lights on, it looked a lot better than we were first expecting, and after all the problems we had had that day, this reassured us a little. We managed to get 22 shots/angles of our three musicians, which, for the time limit that we had, we
 feel is enough to get some good edits.

We know that our footage could have been a lot better if we had not have had so many issues, and this is very frustrating. To fix this, we are going to have to A LOT of editing, to make it look more professional and not like it was pulled together last minute.

Just When you Thought it Couldn't get any Worse

We were supposed to film in our drama studio as it looked good last time and the lighting was perfect for what we were trying to portray.  However, the drama studio was double booked even though we booked it out two weeks ago and we were kicked out and had a mad rush trying to find somewhere else to film so we had to eventually film on the school stage which wasn't ideal but we had no other choice.

Catastrophe number 2

1 hour before filming we got this message.  He was the lead singer.  We had no one else and this was the only day people were free to film so we had no other option but to have a three man because every other singer we had has let us down.  No one else that we know was able to do it with such short notice

New narrative footage

We have potentially finished filming our narrative.  We went out last night to Tynemouth to film there as well as David's house.  We have tried to film everything so we wouldn't have to make our actors come out again.  We filmed more of them as a relationship and then them breaking up after an argument.  Hopefully, we now have everything for narrative and we are filming performance tonight.

Filming Our Narrative

We took our actors, Ellie and Chris to Tynemouth Pier, and filmed some footage that establishes their relationship. David filmed a sequence of them walking away from each other, which we will edit in a jump cut to show the audience that they are growing away from each other.
     We also got some footage of them on a 'date' at Collingwood Monument.

Later, we went to Davids house and filmed the break up scene. We got a few really good shots of each action that we deemed to be important, and they all establish what is happening really well.

Re-encrypting

We had another catastrophe.  I was reorganizing the folders and it turns out you're not supposed to as it will mess with adobe but now we are re-encrypting our footage as it wasn't working before.  but it will be all good.

Catastrophe

Last night, 48 hours before filming our lead singer told us he couldn't do the performance filming for no reason.  We then had to go on a frantic search today to find someone to be our lead singer for tomorrow.  We found someone called Ethan who said he would do it but we were very apologetic to him for the late notice. 

Planning for shoots: Narrative

Planning for shoots: Narrative

We will go down to Collingwood Monument, and film some more relationship establishing shots of the couple looking out towards the sea.

This is a really picturesque locations and I think we can get some very aesthetically pleasing shots.


Then, we will go to Sarah's house to film the relationship falling apart, along with some arguments and the antagonist storming out.

Basic Advert Layout

I have designed a basic layout of what our advert will look like. I have looked at all of the research that we have done and found out that the basic layout for most bands/solo artists album adverts are like this.

I decided to put the name of the band at the very top of the page as it's what the audience would see first, and the fact that most adverts include this. Then including the name of the song underneath the name of the band, again establishing it easily and clearly. I just feel that this is sticking with the conventions, meaning it's simple yet it would work well together.

Then having a large image of the band altogether in the very centre of the page so that the audience will be able to get a clear view and idea of who the band is and who creates the music. I feel as though we will have the whole image across the advert, we just need to make sure that we have space above the band members, so that we can fit the name of the band and the title of the song. 

Then, underneath the image, there is going to be the release date and the standard 'Out Now'. Then underneath the release date there is going to be the featuring singles, so the songs that we have come up with for the album. This is something thatI researched in previous advert covers, as most of them provide it. Then finally, we are going to have the promotion for the advert on social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook which will provide the links to the album, as well as having their own Spotify.

This is just an idea for a layout. We may not go with it for the final design for the advert, but then we might just re-arrange everything around so that they are in different places. I have just stuck with the conventions and previous adverts so therefore it's the same just with our band and such.

Music video inspiration

While watching a music video about relationships by Coldplay, i found inspiration from Fix You where there was a couple who clearly had tension between them which was shown well.  We want to do something similar but would need to stay consistent with lighting so would have to do it  little different but the idea is good for our video as it clearly shows tension between them.

Music video inspiration

I had some inspiration last night while watching some music videos,  I was watching a Taylor Swift video which I found some inspiration from as it had a sunset near some water with people looking at it.  So for our music video, we will film next to the beach watching the sunrise.  We are going to film this Friday morning with the lighthouse in the background.

Editing our Footage: Time Lapse

We created a time lapse with our sunrise footage, by changing the speed and duration from 100% to 3500%. This shortened the footage massively whilst still making it look smooth.

There were some people on the beach when we were filming, so there are some people walking across the shots, which just adds to the illusion of time passing quickly.

New Footage

We got some new footage of the sunrise this morning.  We filmed it so the sun came up over the sea which looked very good. We are thinking of putting this near the start of the video as it would make chronological scene.

This is Cora filming the sunrise this morning opposite a cafe on the beach

New guitarist for our band.

We have a guitarist for our band now and just need a bassist and lead singer.  Our guitarist is a girl from the year below who normally plays acoustic guitar but has learnt the song on electric guitar for the music video.  We need a male singer for the music video as the song is sung by males.  Our new guitarist is called Julia and looks the part for the band.

Clothing Inspiration - Performance

  

 For one of the main aspects of our band members, which is their clothes, they need to be suitable for our genre which is an Indie/ Pop mix. We decided as a group that as we are having a couple female people in our band that we need to kind of have quite similar choices in clothing. So, for our female drummer and guitarist, we have planned to keep it quite simple with just a flannel with a white top underneath as well as black jeans. Having researched some previous girl Indie/Pop bands, we found out that most of them wear collared dresses and that kind of thing. So we took inspiration from that and decided to just go with a flannel and black jeans as this just makes them look more laid back and chill, yet looking professional in the process.

However, for our male people in the band, we decided to keep it similar to the female clothing but kept it all one colour as this way it seems quite normal. Having previously looked up male singers/band members from Indie/Pop bands, I discovered that many of them all wear one colour, such as black. Black is such a dominating colour so we feel that this is a good outfit for the lead singer of the band, as it really shows that, that person is the one in charge. However, for out other male bassist, we decided to just keep it roughly the same but just to change the colour of the flannel/shirt. Both images above are just examples and a rough guide to what we plan them to look like, doesn't mean that we will completely copy them. 

New Singer

We have finally got a full band who can play and sing well.  Our new singer is called Cameron and is from our year.  He is already in a band and is the singer of it so already can sing.  We are filing next Wednesday so he will have to learn the lyrics by then but it should okay.

New Bassist

We managed to bribe our friend Callum to be the bassist in our video, and he is available for when we planned our shoot with Jasmine, Julia and Cameron.

Planning for shoots: Sunrise Establishing Shots

Me and Sarah have decided to make the most out of our local beach, and wake up super early on friday morning, drive down to Whitley Bay beach, and film some establishing shots.

We live in a beautiful area, and we thought we could use this (even for a few seconds) to create a visual of a calm before the storm type of narrative.

We will also get a McDonald's breakfast whilst we are out, just to ease the agony of having to wake up an hour and a half earlier.

We have a band

After searching and searching, we have finally found some people who are willing to be in the performance side of our music video. These are all people who have experience with the instruments meaning that we're not going to have a repeat of what happened in the rough cut. We definitely feel as though these people have potential as our lead singer is in a band and knows the song quite well. However, both our guitarist and drummer play these instruments, therefore meaning that they can play properly and not just hit the drums like our previous drummer for our rough cut. In addition, our bassist doesn't really have experience with this instrument so we are going to teach him the basics and see if he can do that, then we will determine whether he is good enough for our video.

These are the people for our band:
Cameron Butler as the lead singer
Callum Tuff as the bassist
Julia Rogers as the guitarist
Jasmine Nelson as the drummer

We will be filming the performance on Wednesday 22nd of November in the drama studio after school. We will be using the same lighting as we did for our rough cut, hence the reason why we are using the drama studio again, as we feel as though this is a more easier place to film as transporting the instruments is quite a heavy task.

Music Video Inspiration: Emily's Army: Ammonia and Bleach*

We were discussing how we could give the impression that the couple we are showing in our video aren't right for each other, either with them arguing or some visual metaphors (the clock). When looking at videos that have similar themes as ours, I came across Emily's Army's Ammonia and Bleach music video.

Whilst, overall, the music video defies convention and is not something we can emulate (only has narrative, takes are too long etc.), there is an interesting section from 2.25- 3.05.

There are some really cool shots, and the inserts/cutaways of other people staring at the couple as they have an argument really suggests to the audience that this couple is having a lot of problems. I feel that this is something that we can emulate in our own footage, hopefully in a similar setting like a library or a cafe.

Filming Locations: First batch of narrative filming

David, Jaclyn, and I took the camera, and our actors Ellie and Chris out to the sea front, where we managed to get a lot of really cool shots.

LOCATIONS:
Whitley Bay Plaza

We chose to film here as it is quite a well lit area (we were filming at night), and not too many people were around. We had to frame the shots so that the hotel and building work in the background were not visible.

TJ's Arcade, Whitley Bay

The Amusements is an iconic setting in our town, and at night, when the neon signs are on, it looks really aesthetically pleasing. We filmed Ellie and Chris in here playing a piano game, and also walking down the street outside the Arcade.

Tyne Tees Entertainment, Whitley Bay

We really liked filming in the first arcade, but we couldnt find many games that allowed two players. We walked down the street to Tyne Tees Entertainment, and filmed Ellie and Chris playing space invaders. The classic game had been projected on a LCD screen, which made our footage look good as you could clearly see what was happening. We really liked the retro vibe this setting created.

Tracks For The Album

Since we're making an advert and a digipak for an album. I decided to write titles for the tracks except for 'Knee Socks' which is the song we using for our music video, so it'll be on the album without question. So I wrote 30 track titles which I'll narrow down to 12 to 14. Then there will be bonus tracks where we've discussed we will have a Christmas song as we're going to have a release date near Christmas or early December. So here are 30 track titles I've came up with;

1.Knee Socks
2.My Bitter Valentine
3.Midnight
4.King of The Hill
5.Not All Roses Have Thorns
6.3 Digit Number
7.Traffic Lights
8.Lies Are Comfort
9.Honey
10.Turn To Stone(Medusa)
11.Motion Sickness
12.Sneezing
13.Fish Out of Water
14.Subway
15.Killer
16.Acrylic Nails
17.Evolutionary
18.Daisys
19.Hepburn
20.Super Market Drugs
21.Love Is A Broken Record
22.Mirror Passion
23.Lost Engagement
24.Lets Rob The Bank, Sweetheart
25.After Shave
26.Retirement
27.Money Is What Makes You Ugly
28.Play Boy
29.Cigars
30.Judge,Jury and Excecutioner

Advert Analysis: Marina And The Diamonds 'The Family Jewels'

 Here is the advert for Marina And The Diamonds debut album 'The Family Jewels'.

Now looking at the advert we can see that it is the same with album cover. This was done so it makes the album more obvious to spot when people are going to buy the album.

But it has a lot more vertical space so they can fit the extra information. So they placed it at the bottom. 

We can see that they placed the information below her face. And they use a different font as it's more serious as it's her singles which have been successful. Then having the latest single 'Shampain' in a bright pink version of the font of the album and her name.

With the single sleeve also on the cover to show that the song is available on its own. So if they don't like many songs it is available by itself .                         

Advert Analysis: Lorde 'Pure Heroine'

Here is an advert for Lorde's debut album 'Pure Heroine'.

The Layout of the advert is very simplistic, by having a plain font which is very clear to read. Having her name at the top then the album title underneath. The advert also features a picture of Lorde herself. Underneath the picture the advert features reviews of the album to make the public buy the record. Then at the very bottom stating the album is available now.

The advert has also gone with a black and white theme, so it stands out as many artists use colour so by using black and white it creates attention to itself for sales.

Along with being a recent album it doesn't mention where it's available since there are so many way, it's like she's giving the public the choice of listening to the album either buy streaming, buying on iTunes or buying the CD/vinyl. Giving flexibility to the new generation of consumer.

Also this a signed advert, so Lorde used a blue pen to make it stand out more than using black as it would fade into the advert and it would look messy, so using an alternative colour makes the advert sticking out as we normally assign autographs with black sharpie and not another colour. 

Advert Analysis: Coldplay 'X and Y'

Here is the poster advert for Coldplay's third studio album 'X and Y'.                                                                         
Lets start with the placement of the  picture used on the advert by  placing the band on the top behind    them with their instruments, to show that they never stop working and that they're serious about the  music they make.                                                               

Then having the floor in the picture  to place all the information that the  public needs to know about the album. The only information they  have highlighted is the band name,  album title and release date.

They also placed the album cover on the advert too. So the public know what the album looks like so they know what to buy when it's released. Since it came out in 2005, they were selling CDs and not streaming music online where people can search for the album and it would be there. 

It does reference the bands website however since it was 2005 the website would be very valuable as it would give updates on the album. But like I said it was 2005 so it wouldn't be that great even if it was professional as internet shopping or use was still very limited.    

        

                                                   

                                  

Advert Analysis: Kaiser Chiefs 'Yours Truly, Angry Mob'

This is the advert for the Kaiser Chiefs second studio album 'Yours Truly, Angry Mob'.

The advert has gone with a very simple design of having only the band at the bottom and only have necessary information, which is the band name, album title and release date. This follows the basic format of band shots by having the lead singer in the centre of the photo used, especially since they're a five piece band.

The use of grey scale makes a strong effect by having the band in black and grey and then the background being a light grey. So the title and band name stand out at the top with the black font on the grey background. But the strongest is the release date by being on the actual band in white so it stands out. And the location of the release date is very cleverly placed on the band where majority of people will look at the band. So it'll leave a lasting impression upon the public.

Since it was 2007, streaming such as Spotify or ITunes weren't as popular as they are now, so this advert would be very important to make record sales. ITunes was around however it wasn't common, so it was about CD sales back in 2007.                                                                               

Advert Analysis: Kings of Leon - Only by the night

By having the bands name right across the top of the advert, it allows the audience to get a firm idea of who the band is,therefore meaning that they know what kind of genre it is. However, the font used is quite basic and modern, meaning that it's easy to read, catching the eye quicker. The use of the underscore puts a define space between the words, creating a big gap and making the title easier to read. This seems to be an effective technique as it has been used again for the title of the song. I have also recognized that the colour of the underscore is a different colour to the writing of the naming of the band. This could be so that it also catches the eye and so that we can differentiate the name of the band from the name of the song, as the name of the song is all one colour, including the underscores.

The colour scheme used for this advert seems to be quite dark and mysterious. Just like a lot of other bands, who like to consider themselves as dark and mysterious, have darker colours to represent them as a whole, they do this as it comes off as quite effective.

The image is one which has been put together using 4 separate photos of the band members individually, they then added the picture of the owl to represent the night vision colours, as well as the 'night' from the title of the song. All of these clues have been put like this so that they link. This makes the whole advert seem quite unique and well thought out. 
I think that the use of putting 4 images together then putting an Owl over the top is a really nice idea and it links really well within the title of the song and the colour scheme used. This just proves that they have thought a lot about what kind of song they wanted and the name of it. 

On the other hand, the use of the 'Out now' which is in red, seems to be quite catchy, therefore meaning that it stands out against the dull, black background, contrasting well with each other. I really like this as it adds to the advert, it gives it the right amount of colour to take the eye away from the image.