Magazine Advertisement

For my magazine add i need 3 catchy quotes to go on the front as reviews from magazines. This comes from my initial sketch and i wanted to improve upon my idea. I decided to pick 3 well known magazines/newspapers to be a reliable and trustworthy source. I chose these as The Guardian, a well known newspaper brand which would expand the audience, NME, a well known music magazine brand which would target our main audience, and Q another music magazine but is more expensive an a luxury product. 

Here are some ideas for quotes

• 'Best Album of the year!'
• 'Best Debut Album of 2014'
• 'Great Band, Better Songs'
• 'Great Band, Great Songs'
• 'New, Incredible Music'
• 'Brilliant Album'
• New, Inventive Music

My Completed Digipak

Here is my finished digipak with all the panels combined.

Magazine Advertisement

I have already created a draft paper version of what i hope my magazine advertisement will look like but i wanted to do some further research into how i could build upon these initial ideas and see what conventional magazine advertisements look like.

Here are a few examples of different adverts:

 As you can see this advert includes the album artwork, as most do. It also inlcudes some of the most famous songs and the record label which represent the artist.

 This one is slightly different as they have basically used the whole of the album cover in the poster. It includes the release date, the artist and album names. This one also includes the artist label.

This one again is a blown up version of the album artwork which makes the album instantly recogniseable. It includes the release date and where to buy it.

 Conventions to use:

• Album artwork incorporated
• Release date
• Famous songs on the album
• Where to buy
• Record label icon

Final Digipak Panel

The final panel to finish before my digipak's completion is the CD panel. I wanted to do a simple CD itself so it could contrast against the patterns on the different panels.

I also wanted it to match the spines on the CD case itself so they wouldn't look out of place. I have also put the song list on the CD itself which i have seen on a few style models i have looked at.

Monday Meeting

In our monday meeting we discussed our next steps and how we're going to keep progressing with our video and filming. As kyle has started editing the opening scene of our music video we are happy to continue on filming and have decided that our next step is to film close ups of the band members.

This is fairly straight forward as we know the shots we want to produce and they are going to be quite artistic and unusual to add some flair to our video. This will be organised in a few weeks to enable us to continue moving forward. Until then we are still able to continue post-production and creating anxilary tasks.

Steps to next film shoot:

• Continue with anxilary tasks( Magazine Ad)
• Get in contact with the Music department and organise a time and date we will be able to shoot.
• Get in contact with the musicians/actors and inform them of the current situation and how we will be needing them in the upcoming weeks

Keeping in touch

As we have quite sporadic time tables and we don't come together in school that often, besides media lessons we have decided to set up a Facebook group message where we can have discussions about what is going to happen in the commencing weeks and talk about filming and getting actors ready. This has been extremely useful and we are able to keep in touch constantly and we are able to help each other out if needed. 

Editing

Now i have begun to edit parts of the video we have filmed to try and begin the post production process, this will contribute to the end product were me, Max and Kyle will put forward our best finished scenes and combine them to create the best video we can.

For now we have 2 or 3 more scenes to shoot, not including one re-shoot of the postcard scene.

First scene to be shot :

• Close ups of all the instruments being played to allow for more angles in the editing process

Second Scene(s):

• Miscellaneous scenes such as skyline, driving scene etc to fill film space and to create a better overall story.

Re-shoot:

• As our first shoot of the postcards didnt turn out quite as we planned and as we want the shots to be closer we have decided to shoot these again. 

Review of second film

Our second shoot went a lot better and we got some really good shots to work with. Firstly we decided to not use the tripod and do all the filming free hand which makes it more casual and free flowing. We also wanted to do close up shots so we could maybe use them as an insert shots. 

Here are some screen shots from our second shoot:

As you can see these shots are a lot more close up and show the postcards off well. We will film some more shots like this so that we have more film to work with when it comes to our post production. 

Digipak Continuation

Here are the rest of the pages for the digipak. I have taken inspiration from the album name itself and a new album that has recently come out called Asymmetry by Mallory Knox as this album uses lyrics on all of their digipak panels rather than images which i really liked.

The other inspiration was the band name itself "People & Things" this was really interesting to me as i wanted to take people and trace a hand gesture of some sort and put it onto one of the panels and i wanted to do  a group of everyday objects that we used and make them into different graphics. 

Here are the pages i created.

As you can see with all the pages so far i have used the same pattern in the background to keep a common theme in the digipak in its entirety. 

Digipak Back Cover

The back cover of a digipak is a bit more complicated to do, as all the legal information is printed on there such as the record label, the artists manager, music label. For this information i used several style models in order to re-create this aspect of the digipak. 

Here are two style models i used in the creation of my digipak. as you can see they both have information on the back about their label, music company etc.

And i have re-created this information on the back on my digipak, as well as the song list, the bands name, the album name, barcode and the Irwin Media Logo. 

I have also used the same background as the front cover to give the band an identity so its easily recognisable.

Here are the sony and def jam records logo's i used in my digipak

Film shoot prep

Here are the preparation photographs from out video shoot earlier this week. 

As you can see there is an example of our costume and actor we wanted to see in the video next you can see two of the final set up. This was set up quite easily as we had permission to use the stands in the drama studio which we just put together as they were already at the location, there was also the musical instruments and amps. This was slightly more difficult as we had to lend the moving trolly from the caretaker(which we had arranged before hand) go upto the music department and set up all the equipment on the trolly and transport that upto the drama studio via the elevator.

Video Shoot Review

Our first main shoot went well and we got plenty of footage to work with but we will definitely need to shoot another music scene to ensure we have enough footage to fill the music video. We firstly did two takes of the entire song even though this didn't go perfectly we got plenty of video to be able to cut some of the parts out, we also got a few extra scenes of just the chorus of the song this way we have more variety of film. 

The next stage we hope to achieve by next week is to get some more close ups of the instruments being played, particularly the drums as we saw a video by Mallory Knox called "Shout at the moon" were they do a lot of close ups of just the instruments being played separately which we really like so decided to incorporate something similar into our film.

Digipak

So i have decided to start on one of the added tasks to go with our music video. This is the digipak i have started creating which is to promote the band which song we have chosen to do in our music video Jack's Mannequin.
I decided to do a six panel digipak so that it would be more than just an average CD case and so i could convey more information on there.

In the template i had found earlier and posted on here there were clear measurement and guidelines to use for my six panel digipak.

So for my digipak i would need

• A front cover showcasing the band and album name.
• A back cover showing all the songs featured on the album, all the legal documentation, from the music label to the recording label.
• A CD case holder and CD cover
• Three extra panels to show a more creative aspect of the album.

Here is my finished front cover

As you can see i have used very bright and vibrant colours this is to get the attention of the audience and make them want to look at the cover and attract them. I have contrasted this colour with clear and pure white to again be more eye catching and to make it stand out more. 

Review of first film

Last week we filmed our first scene, this didn't turn out quite as we expected so we decided to use this as a practice scene to base our actual film shoot off of. As you can see there is a problem with the different heights of the people and how close we were to them. Here are some screen shots of our first shoot.

Looking back on this task we can improve it in several ways, such as making sure the height of the postcards stay the same throughout and continue to use rule of thirds effectively. We can also move the camera a lot closer to them to make it more clear what the postcards are and make it easier for us to edit. 

Changing video plans

Due to some equipment restrictions we have had to change some aspects of our music video shoot. This is nothing major we have just had to find a singer to be the lead vocalist of our band and have a bass and guitar player instead of a pianist. We are now all okay to go ahead with the shoot on Wednesday 12th of November and have ensured that all available equipment and actors are ready and know the song. We have booked out the cameras and tripods to ensure we can shoot our video adequately.

Magazine Advertisement

Another one of the added tasks is to create a magazine advertisement, i had drawn up a quick sketch of what this ad might look like, as you can see i have used the same cover as i had drawn in the digipak sketch and used some well known music magazines which we had research in AS, such as NME, Q and Kerrang which is a typical convention of magazine advertisements as they want people to know how good this album is from reliable sources.

Health & Safety

For our upcoming shoot our most important thing to consider is definitely health and safety. We take this role very seriously and want to act  as professional as we can whilst doing this video shoot. 

When filming there is a lot of things going on in our mind e.g rushing and watching for hazards. Meaning the risk can increase. To ensure we follow health and safety procedures there are three steps we need to process through. 

• Identify all the hazards
• Evaluate the risks
• Identify measures to control the risks

Second Shoot Review

Our second shoot was alot more casual as we didnt need as many actors as we were doing close ups. The shoot overall when well and we got alot of film to use in our music video. 

The most important thing to do now is to make sure that we set an official time and date for our first band shoot. This is a vital part of our film and we need to ensure we plan it sufficiently so that all goes well. We have told and prepared the musicians to be ready by this week so that they know the music and lyrics well enough to perform. 

We have certain tasks we need to ensure are done by tomorrow so that we are ready to go ahead with our shoot.

• Arrange studio time that works for all of us so we can all be there to shoot
• Arrange to borrow music equipment for the allotted time

Following Shoots

We have also organised some other film shoots to be going ahead with within the next few weeks.

Firstly a scene we really want to do is one on the New Brighton prom, this is a great location as it gets lots of light and brightness but also you can see the Liverpool Cityscape in the background which would be a great accompaniment to the shot. 

We would also like to film a second music shoot just to get some extra shots to make the video a lot more interesting, we were thinking an outside shoot as this would be a good contrast to our studio shoot. Locations for this could be our school field as there is lots of open space and is quite bright. 

Second Shoot

For our second shoot we wanted to do close ups of the postcards rather than people holding them. This gives us more footage to work with. We also think this is a nice idea to really emphasise the images on the cards. Having more footage to work with is good as you are able to really experiment and play with the film more, you are less limited to what you can do

Organising filming shoot

So we are organising our third photo shoot, this photo shoot will be our main musical scene of the band actually playing and singing the song. 

We have already asked the actors and musicians who are going to be in our photo shoot and they are free when we want to shoot, we have also discussed the time and date with both the music department and drama department so we can use their space and equipment.


Shoot: 

• Time:  1:15pm - 3:00pm, This gives us plenty of time to set up before the shoot to get the set properly organised and readied.
• Date: 12/11/2014
• Location: The location is our drama studio as there is lots of light equipment and space to shoot the scene adequately and play around with some effects we like. 
• Actors Ready?: Actors are ready and know the song enough to film, we have also organised a time that works for both the location and the actors
• Equipment Ready?: The equipment is ready to be borrowed from the music department for our organised time and date. 
• Costume: The costumes we have organised with the actors as being T-shirt and Jeans we like this look as it is quite casual and makes it seem like a real shoot. 

Practising time-lapse using After Effects

For this project I really wanted to do a time lapse to show the skills we have in using camera equipment. I put forward my thoughts on this to the group and Max and Kyle both really liked the idea and decided that it would look good in the video. As the song is about dark blue we decided to do a time-lapse of the sky, either a sunrise, sunset or just a change in time from the clouds and sky. This is so it relates to the song. As I, or any of the group had done this kind of thing before I decided to go on YouTube to look at how-to videos. Here is the one I found most helpful. 

I decided to take a sequence of shots from out my bedroom window of the trees and sky, this was to give me some images to work with to practise my technique. 

So after i had imported my images into the program you firstly have to select all the images and drag them onto the film icon underneath the project menu. This compacts the images into one sequence in which you can determine the length of each still image. You then have to Right click on the source name, i called mine "Original" and select time and then enable time remapping, this enables you to change the length of time of the sequence. 

Asking For Permission

To use certain equipment from our music department we needed to ask for permission from the head of the music department in school. We had to do this to ensure that we had followed the correct procedures to borrow the equipment for our music shoot. Here is the letter we have created to ask for permission to use the music equipment.

Researching techniques

We researched into some techniques that we liked. One that really stood out was the "stop motion" use in Adam's Song by Blink 182, where you go into a picture and everything is slowed down and took with singular shots then put together to make a good effect.
Here is the video:

Equipment

We are going to need to borrow equipment in order to film our band music scene. To do this we have asked permission from our schools music teacher to borrow the equipment for our specific time and date of our shoot. Depending on availability it will either be Wednesday the 5th or Friday the 7th of November. 

Filming our first scene

Today we finished filming the first scene of our music video. This was the postcard scene. As Kyle was in a meeting me and max were in charge of the shoot. We filmed on the gardens outside of school, so we could get alot of natural light, we also filmed extra shots to ensure we would have enough film to play around with.

Costumes

For our music video we have decided that Kyle would be best to organise the costumes and props, as he is connected to the drama department and knows due to his drama skills how to properly pick and design a good set. We all discussed how we wanted our actors to look and what effect this brings. We final decided on a casual look as we want it to look very realistic. So, we chose a band tee a very casual look which many artists use in their videos. We also chose jeans and smart shoes, a common look which many people wear and can relate to. 

Our first shoot

Today we organised our first photoshoot, as we recently printed out the postcards to use in our video we decided to film the scenes of people holding our cards tomorrow. This is going to take place from 12:15 to 1:15. We have discussed renting the camera out for that hour and borrowing the tripod to use. We have also agreed with all our extras that are available during that time when they are going to film and where. 

Practising Time-Lapse

As in my earlier posts i had been practicing time-lapsing and watching revision videos to help improve my skills.

Here is the first version of the video i managed to create:

Obviously this video is not finished and i need to practice more using the software but i feel like this is a good start and i have learnt a lot in this process. I hopefully will take a time-lapse using my camera of the Liverpool skyline for sunset to use in our music video. 

Our first storyboard

We needed a storyboard to show what scenes we were going to do and what locations. We also needed a list of people who were willing to participate in our work as extras so we wrote a list of names and ticked them off as they agreed. 

Rule of Thirds

During our AS studies we researched the rule of thirds in relation to our music magazine photoshoot. But now we can apply our knowledge to filming.

Here is an example of how you could use rule of thirds for a shot. 

This keeps everything in proportion for the shot. It works as imaginary lines drawn into the shot which split the frame into thirds. 

Creating Postcards

For our music video we decided to create some postcards to get people to hold up as insert shots. We saw this on a video and we really liked the effect  as it felt more real. Here are some of the postcards we created. As i had the most experience in editing the group put me in charge of the project and they consulted me on what designs they thought were best.

Magazine Advertisements

For our brief we also have to produce a magazine advertisement for the bands digipak. Here are some examples i found:

As you can see all the ads feature the album cover, this is a good feature as they know what to look out for if they want to buy it. Also, most of the ads feature examples of the songs from the album, this is useful to show the audience some of the more well known songs from that artist. They also all feature the date the album comes out.

Our Logo

We wanted to make a brand for our company to really encompass it as a whole. 

Here is the logo we created. 

Digipak Sketch

As we have to do two more tasks to go with the music video I decided to draw up a sketch of what is like my digipak to look like