Getting a start on the digi-pak

Monday 28th November 2011...

Today's lesson we discussed the second part to our coursework (Digi-pak)...
Before summer we used the skills we had learnt about digi-paks and photoshop to create our own digi-paks



 With our own group digi-pak I will have to think efficiently about how to promote and display the Album...
things I have to keep in mind:

• How the image connect with the album and genre 
• How coulours reflect the connotation of the mood of our Album and present the image
• What image the colours connote
• How the colours will connect with the target audince 
• Graphics- How they link with the genre 
• Image mise en scene... Effective use to present something that will appeal to the target audience

From what i have seen in the past... Our genre (Dubstep) is very futuristic and colourful...
The mix in colour and graphics creating an image which can be connoted as 'Loud' and 'Fun'...
The dubstep album digi-paks I have seen have very urban and futuristic...

Examples of Dubstep digi-pak covers...




Something else that could also help in the production is analysing our original artist's own digi-paks...
'Example' creates music of the dubstep genre and addresses some of our audience, By analsysing hos digi-paks i will be able to compare and gain the form and conventions of a digi-pak in the Dubstep genre.

  

I will also need to understand the type of graphics that are associated with Dubstep...

Production: Skills development: Editing skills

I was very keen on editing, I have an interest in it. Finding ways to make it look good, waiting on the outcome to see what how it would be and what other people would think about it.
So getting down to the editing, these are some of the skills I learnt.
Lip syncing:
 First we layed down all the base tracks that we had and then we had to match it up to the song so that it would be in sync. To do this we found the start of the lyrics of the song and when we found that we put a marker by pushing "M" on the keyboard, then we went to one of the base tracks and had to find the exact same point of the song and pushed "M" again to add another marker, after doing this we went onto the timeline and matched the markers up so they were in line. This is how we did the lip syncing.
Changing scenes:
To do this we would cut every base track to the beat. Then we would use the razor tool and hold down "Shift" and click on where we would want to cut it, by holding down shift it would cut every base track so we wouldn't have to do it one by one. Then to get the scene you wanted to show, it would be which ever one is on top, so if we wanted the second scene we would have to delete the first base track.
Changing faces:
For this we had to get lots of different girls to stand in the same spot for 5 seconds while we record them, after we did this we imported it onto Final Cut Pro and imported the song too. In our song there is a specific point where the beat drops at 41 seconds. We wanted each beat to be a girls face, so we had to cut the clips down to size and get it to match up with the beat, we didn't record enough girls so we had to use to same girls again to make up the rest of the beat as it lasted long. 
Slow motion: 
This was pretty simple, to do this we imported a clip, then clicked on it. We went to modify at the top, then change speed, then it says rate 100%, to make it go slower we had to lower the rate, we choose 40% and vice versa to speed it up you increase the rate. 
Black and White effect:
To do this we had to import a clip, click on it then go to effects, then video filters, image control and then desaturate. 

Production: Skills development: how I approached planning differently to AS

This year, the music video task was much harder than last year's thriller opening task. For the thriller opening we had a solid idea that we would stick with, after we knew the story we would be doing, we immediately came up with the location we would choose, the props we would use, the costumes that would be used and who would be starring in it. Once we had all of this we quickly picked up the pace and began filming straight away, we went to our location, set up the equipment and started filming, granted we wasn't that experienced in any of this, it was the first time doing any of this, the acting in front of the camera, getting all the right shots, making sure that everything was in frame. After our first day, we got back to college and started editing, we did find a few things that we needed to fix, so we went back and re-filmed it and everything was done, we just edited it and finished.
This year on the other hand I found it difficult, we had to pick out a song to use, we were struggling with that, after looking through many different songs, one of the people in our group (Joe) stumbled upon one (Skream ft Example - Shot Yourself in the Foot Again), everyone in the group listened to it and thought that it would be an excellent choice as it was a dubstep genre and would be different to everyone elses. Our group came up with several ideas on to what the music video would be about and we were struggling on picking out one. We had to send out emails to the artists to try and gain copyright permissions to use the song. We then came to a conlusion on what the story of the music video would be and we booked the equipment and began filming. This year we had gained experience so we knew how to use the equipment, how to set it up, how the frame the shot etc. After two days of filming we went back to college and started to edit, we were getting the hang of this as we had learnt how to do it before we had breaken up for summer holiday's.
Again we found little problems, we got feedback from the teachers and needed to go back and re-film, this happened again and we went back a second time to re-film. This time we were in luck and everything was all right, now editing needed to be done, we researched on which effects to use, looked at different music videos, looked at the original and how we would make it different to that.

Some of the editing process and using Final Cut Pro

Importing files into Final Cut Pro

The many effects and video filters we could use for our music video

Showing how to export the music video so it could be watched or converted to be put onto blogger.

Showing how to render the music video when "Cmd + R" wasn't working.

One of the effects we used to make the clips merge over each other.

Production: Feedback from teacher

Points our teachers (Tony & Dan) made about our rough cut:

• At 15 seconds Joe's feet are not in the shot as we wanted to film the background behind him so we faced the camera up a little. Tony said it looked unprofessional as it was only our second shot of the whole music video, Dan said it looked Ok and for us to keep it like that. But we wanted it to look perfect, so we went back to Brick Lane to re-film the shot and make sure that his feet were showing.
• At 33 seconds a car drove by while Joe was lip syncing and ruined the whole scene, so we decided to use another base track we filmed instead when we was going to correct it.

Other song's from the Artist's we chose

Looking at Artist's digipak's

Planning: Artist's background

Looking at skream's myspace page, where it gives general information about him. There is also links to his music, photos, shows, blog etc.

Looking at the wikipedia page about him, finding out his real name, age, where he was born etc.

Skream's soundcloud where his fans can listen to a little preview of the future songs he will be releasing.

Research: Skills audit, how much skills in researching have developed.

This year my research skills have improved a lot.
 Last year for the AS thriller task to research I used to go online looking at different clips and how they used camera, mise en scene, edits, sound etc. Looking online to see how they promoted there films.
This year I looked at many different music videos, seeing the storyline behind them, looking at the locations picked, listening to the lyrics of the song. Even when not at college, when I'm at home watching music videos on the TV, I look at how they edit, when they cut to the beat. I go onto the artist's website to see how they promote their songs using social network sites such as facebook, twitter. I research how to use final cut pro, looking at specific effects and how it would be relevant to editing our music video.

Research: Summarise what I have learnt about the state of the music industry in 2012

The music industry is going downhill, many people are now illegally downloading music instead of going out and buying it. Altough there are companies that try to prevent piracy by allowing you to buy the albums/songs online instead of going to the shop and buying it, the majority of the people choose not to. They think about getting it "free" instead.

Sites like iTunes allowing you to purchase the music, starting from a price of 99p for a song or £9.99 for an album.

Sites like spotify, alowing you to listen to music for FREE by streaming it or offering you a price plan to purchase any number of albums you like for £9.99 a month and putting it directly onto your phone or media device. That sounds like a fair deal to me £9.99 a month for all the music you want LEGALLY!

Planning: Moodboard

Getting feedback on rough cut

I have just posted a link on facebook to our rough cut of the music video for my family and friends to give feedback on it and say what they think about it whether it is good or not, any improvements needed.

Planning: 3 Music videos that have influenced final planning decisions

This music video influenced us because of the scene where it has the changing of faces, we thought it would be a good idea to use that style to show that our character is cheating on her with many different girls.

Yet again in this music video it has the same thing, the changing of the girls faces. 

In this video, it shows the kind of storyline we used in our music video, where the boy is cheating on a girl with many other girls.

Planning: Examine the Artist's website

Click the photo above to see my annotations of the webpage.

Tour dates of his UK tour next year.

This shows his behind the scenes of his new song "Midnight Run", also it has links to pre-order it on iTunes and a link to get tickets.

His facebook feed where his fans follow him and he posts about what he is doing and sometimes even promotes his songs.

His twitter feed where he interacts with fans, communicates with them, promotes his music.

Example new song Midnight Run

Planning: How our music video will differ from the original

Throughout this video we can tell that it is shot in only one time of the day whereas in comparison to our one we shot it a many different times, so the lighting changes between colours. Also in the original it shows the man cheating on his girlfriend with another girl in a club, in our video the storyline is different. We use flashbacks to recreate the moments our character had with his girlfriend, but we show the faces of the many other girls he cheated with. We also use many slow motion shots when our character is walking to emphasise how lonely he has become.

We filmed all our footage in Brick Lane but at various locations for our base tracks.

Teacher feedback

What did the teacher feedback!

Kudiwa and Demi

Final!!!!

Silly blog but yull love it

Big Blue house goodbye song

so after soo much filming so much editing...Me and Demi decided we owed you a song :) thats how much we love you BLOGGER...Enjoy...

Kudiwa's fixing the problem

EDITING! 

So there was a problem with our sound...  where the sound was only playing out of one side of the headphones...I've uploaded a video of how i fixed this problem with the help of micky...this is for future reference :)

Feedback- Audience reaction

Fatama...

Julien...

Samarge...

Final Outcome of the Feedback:

Positives :

Faces edit 

Storyline 

Good locations 

Edits to the beat 

Negatives:

no emotion on the singers face 

Not enough lighting on one of the shots 

We have fixed some of the negatives the best way possible...in terms of the Lighting we have brightened it up now :) 

Deadline

Kudiwaaaa Says: 

Okay sooo i have soo much on my mind right now...Main thing would be trying to finish our final video! The first thing that was on my mind when i woke up today was the deadline...

When i came in today demi was already editing..She showed me the  video and told me that we already had positive feedback but today i hope to completely finish the music video before i leave college today.

Its clear to see that everyone is scared and stressed about meeting the deadline but our group is taking the laid back approach because we have completed our work at a goood time....with time to spare and time to perfect before tomorrow! :) 

Kudiwa and Demi

So today we came in once again to finish up the finishing touches to our video. Its finished but not to perfection....We hope that we get the grade we want because we worked very very very hard to get where we are right now! 

Kudiwa and Demi signing off! :) 

Editing early on a Thurs morn!