Independent working

Throughout the 'Construction' and 'Evaluation' stages I have decided to carry on my A2 Music Video project independently due to work previously not being equally shared out between my previous group and I which would ultimately affect my grade. Therefore this blog is purely dedicated to my Construction and Evaluation stages independently whilst my Research and Planning stages is on my previous group blog to which I worked as a group in. 

Final Edit

Editing Evidence

Music Video development

As well as the digipak and the website, I wanted to make sure that my brand identity of my artist was identified by my target audience; poetic, charismatic, sentimental, artistic bohemian. 

Throughout the process of creating my music video, I had to keep in mind a few essential priorities in order to achieve a successful finish. For example:

.synched lip singing

.conform to Goodwin's theory of music/visuals linking and lyrics/visuals linking.

.shots cut to the neat of the song.

.the transition of shots presents my concept clearly. 

.show a variety of editing visual effects however not too much that it is overdone and appears unprofessional. 

.use a variety of shot angles.

.Colour grading appears of a tinted green/gray tone through hyper real world to express a monotone yet vividly grungy.

.present many shots of the artists guitar to reinforce artistic and creative image.

At the beggining of the music video, I wanted the viewpoint of the dining scene to be from Simon's spectatorship and focus on his humdrum surroundings, in order for the audience to see the contrast between the protagonist isolated reality and liberating hyper real world later in the music video. I feel that what made the introductory dining scene appear visually professional was the smooth continuity and the antique/rustic 'old film' effect I overlayed on the black and white colour grading; this reinforced the protagonists dull lifestyle. The well synched transitions that followed to the changing beat of the audio conformed to Goodwin's "music and visuals" theory as different shots of the scene would change due to the change of every beat, creating smooth continuity. For the effect of the 'old film' antique effect on the dining scene, I uploaded my video on to another laptop to use the more updated version of Final Cut: 'Final Cut Pro' which provided me with a variety of effects, this one in particular. Initially, there was an effect called 'Subway' which gave a overlay of flashing white fadings to the scene, however this was too intense for my liking, so I downloaded the "Old Film" effect to which gave me the look that I wanted to achieve. 

On the long shot of my music where we see Simon on the bridge, colour grading was important to focus on as the different tones of the natural aspects of the location would all have to blend together for that grungy yet clarified image of the beach. I wanted to make sure that this grungy, green and mellow tone was followed throughout the entire music video, especially the shots with a large amount of natural background. 

A effect that was used a fair bit within my music video was the 'Cross Dissolve' fading effect. I used this within the long shot of Simon walking towards the camera on the bridge bay to then when it fades to a medium shot of the artist lip synching. Due to the beginning of the song being calming and slow, I therefore used a effect to link with the music (Goodwin's theory of music and visuals). Along with the relaxing imagery of the location and colour grading, the cross dissolve effect from medium shot to long shot of the artist reinforces the starting gloomy mood of the song. 

Problems Managed

Problems Managed 

Problem: Male actor to play the part of the father dropped out. Reserved actor for the part was not available.

How the problem was managed: The character of the Dad was quite a significant part of the music video throughout, therefore I had to think of an alternative option that would be successful. Therefore, I thought of the idea that with careful application of make up, stick on facial hair, and the correct use of costume, I will transform myself into the character of the dad. This was a challenge but the final result seemed successful. However, we did buy a bald cap at the local fancy dress store but this form of costume did not apply well due to the bald cap breaking during application.

Problem: Due to confusion, all of the props that were needed weren't brought to set.

How the problem was managed: This was probably one of the most stressful situations to managed as this was all last minute. Therefore, although we all had to meet at Goals for 8am that morning to start shooting, I therefore had to explore through my house for suitable props. When I arrived to Goals, I told the team that we now had to travel to Eltham to my aunts house and pick up a table and religious decor for the dining scene. After our trip to Eltham, we were back on track and ready to set dress the location. 

Problem: The actor for the little girl could not turn up on the day of the shoot as she had school commitments. Moreover, we understood that this could be a obstacle from the start.

How the problem was managed: We deliberately did not involve the young girl as a major character to the story, therefore it was easy enough to cut the young girl character out of the narrative completely. 

Problem: The bathroom was extremely small for the large camera equipment. 

How the problem was manage: In order to avoid injuries and possible damage to the equipment, I decided to move out certain large objects out of the bathroom to create more space to film.

Problem: Confusion between Staff and Actors on shooting timetable.

How it was managed: Some members of the staff told a different timing to shoot to the actor of the mother whilst she thought we told her another time. Due to the actress being confused and already making other commitments, due to it being our responsibility, we filmed her parts in the morning, and allowed her to drive home after her parts were done so she could continue with her other commitments. A problem through miscommunication, 

Problem: Camera battery was not fully charged on the day of shooting. 

How the problem was managed: We estimated how long each shot would take on the day, filmed those shots, and then planned to come back the next day with fully charged batteries to shoot the rest of the music video.

Problem: The weather was causing the cast/crew difficulties to film.

How the problem was managed: On the third day of shooting, the weather was immensely windy and extremely cold making it hard for all members of the music video shooting hard to concentrate. To managed this problem as best as we could, we allowed the actors to shoot a shot, then we constantly put their coats back on and the crew wore many layers of clothing. This was a difficult problem to manage.

Rough Cut and Audince Feedback

Insert Rough Cut Video

In order for us as a group to achieve a successful end result for our music video, it was crucial for us to gain some beneficial feedback on our rough cut edit. This is significant as we would then be able to identify our strength, our weaknesses, and the improvements that will be needed to achieve a successful music video that would communicate strongly with our target audience.

Therefore, each member of the group personally shared our rough cut edit virally on a variety of social media resources, targeting the feedback from our target audience in particular. 

For instance, I've personally shared the rough cut edit of our music video through the social movements that include Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Soundcloud, and YouTube. Moreover, using social networking is a extremely efficient way for media industries to communicate and advertise with their target audience as hopefully, once we share our music video with individuals that we know, they will pass it on to their friends, creating a large chain and hopefully a large audience. 

Furthermore, we have also undertook in creating a questionnaire on www.surveymonkey.com to which I have also posted an link to where the music video is posted.

Moreover, another beneficial method I thought that would allow for us to obtain some helpful feedback was to interview members of our target audience after they have watch the rough edit of our music video whilst filming the process for evidence. However, I felt that it would be a good idea to not include the fact that the music video is apart of my work till after the interview as I may not of achieved a honest piece of feedback.

Insert video

Additionally, another significant piece of audience feedback that would contribute to the final edit of the music video would be through contacting our client, as they could also possibly compare their imagery/target audience to the one that we have created through our rough cut edit therefore Rosie sent a tweet to Simon to hopefully receive his feedback an this is what she got.

A piece of feedback that we achieved straight away was from our media teacher; Mr Barton. He stated that the certain shots of the music video went on for far too long that it didn't convey the narrative correctly, to switch certain shots around to convey our narrative better, and to cut enlongated shots down. He praised us on our cinematography techniques, colour grading, and continuity. 

Evidence: 

Facebook

Final Website

Website Address:  http://laylar1.wix.com/standcloselaylaas2

Final Digipak

Development of my Website

Development of my Digipak

Throughout the process of creating my digipak, it was essential for me to keep in mind the two important factors; all the slates must link together (front has a match with the back) and to make sure that the digipak reinforces the image of my artists campaign. Brand identity and target audience establishing is essential within all three products of my campaign; music video, website and digipak. 

After watching my music video, I felt that a large majority of they shots used had he involvement of my artist playing the guitar, which reinforces the artistic and authentinicity of my artist, therefore this image was important to communicate to our creativively poetic and uniquely bohemian target audience therefore I wanted to interpret the use of the guitar within the digipak and not go down the route of using a "Star in Text" method as I felt that this would decrease the image of my artists musical authenicity and reinforce a artificial image.

Moreover I came across on the internet a image of Oasis's "Acoustic Radio Sampler Volume VIII" digipak and it inspired me revolve the main basis of my digipak theme around the different fragments of a guitar. 

My Brand Identity to fit my target audience:

Bohemian 

Authentic

Poetic

Artistic

Creative

Emotional 

Grungers 

Sentimental 

FRONT COVER

It was important and sensible for me to start my digipak process with the front cover as the remaining slates would then have to follow the theme ran by the front cover, slightly giving me a starting point.

I initially thought of the idea of writing the title of the song on a close up shot of an guitar pick, however I didn't feel that this had a strong link to my music video. I also thought about writing the title of the song and the artist's name on a notebook as if it was a songwriting book to add a personal touch to the album, however I felt that this could be perceived as too "girly" and once again this had no involvement to my music video. Therefore, I converged my stubborn idea of having some sort of rough "doodling" writing on the front cover and got my male friend (as I needed masculine looking hands) to pretend he was playing the guitar, and wrote the title of the song on his hand with a marker whilst I would write the artist name in a clearer font using a font software later within the process.

I took a variety of shots for the front cover, to ensure that I had a choice. 

In the end I decided to choose the shot below as I felt that is the most central shot that presented the writing clearly: 

I went through the editing process by using the photo editing software BeFunky which allowed me to heighten and decrease visual aspects such as sharpening, contrast, temperature, hue, etc. 

Below is my process of my front cover step by step: 

I decreased the beautify option to crate a duller look rather than a vibrant orange tone.

I intensely decreased the brightness of the picture in order to start the process of the grungy image and to heighten the clarity of the dark details of the image, for example the marker written text is darkened and clearer. 

In addition to my last editing technique, by heighteningt eh contrast option on the front cover, this allowed for the dark details of the image to be presented in mor detail and created a rustic vintage look as it reinforced the fridges, scratches,etc of the guitar to give off bat authentic image I wanted to achieve. 

I slightly increased the level of exposure to create a imagery of a natural lighting rather than a orange tone that didn't give off a vintage, bohemian image. 

I increased the hue of the image as it gave off a slightly green tint to the image which reinforced the imagery of a grungy colouring and a vitage atmosphere. 

A effect that I felt really made a huge impact into the final result of my front cover was the decreased level of saturation on the image. By decreasing the saturation, I gave the image a gray, dull tone rather than a warm colouring.

However, although one of my main priories was to obtain a dull tone, by slightly heightening the temperature, this showed a different between the tone of the guitar and the artists hand, whilst additionally giving the image a overall more professional look. 

The use of sharpening on the front cover I felt gave the image of a oil painting slightly, reinforcing the factors of my brand identity being artistic and rustic.

 The shadow effect created a intense focus not the centre of the vignette framing, involving the last part of the editing process of the front cover to make that final professional touch to the front cover.

To write the artist's name on the front, Inused the software 'InstaText' which was a quick and easy process, and provided me with the correct font that I desired. 

Below are a few of the initial font ideas that I previously thought about using: 

Overall, the font that I used in the end was perfect for my front cover as it linked in well with the writing on the hand, it looked very professional and not fake, as well as the font choice mixed in with my previous desire of wanting it to be of a doodled style to create a personal feeling to the album to which I think this album cover certainly does! 

CD SLATE

From the very start, I wanted to interpret the idea of the centre of the guitar body as a close up, as the background of my CD slate, with the additional idea of the CD playing the part of the hole within the guitar and when you take out the CD, the background, but of a slightly smaller size will be behind the CD. 

Like with the other digipak slates, I took a variety of shots of the centre of my guitar: 

However, in the end, after asking from general feedback, I chose the following shot as it followed the rule of thirds the most whilst being the most central with the hole of the guitar.

I then contied with process of editing ( mainly involved within the colour grading sector) of the CD slate through using the BeFunky software. 

BACK COVER

It was essential to make sure that the front cover linked with the back cover as well as the rest of the digipak. Therefore, I made sure that this was a priority of mine, but I also thought that it would be a interesting idea to have the CD slate majorly link in with the back cover as the on either side to each other. Therefore I decided that the CD slate would be the front of the guitar, whilst the back cover would be the back of the guitar, creating a nice link.

Once again, I started off by taking a variety of shots:

In the end, I decided on this shot, purely because it was the most central image of the guitar. 

I then edited the image through the BeFunky software: 

 

I then used the software InstaText to involve the writing of the track listing on the back of the guitar.