Group. Album Designs

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Design 4

Design 5

Group. Maxumi Advertisement Designs

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Design 4

Design 5

Group. Mixmag Advertisement Designs

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Design 4

Design 5

T.M. After Effects Poster

• Now that our timeline has all our footage in the right place, our final stages before the completion of our production involve implementing our 'fight for charity' poster around London using after effects. We want to do this so the trip to Southbank, Camden and Brick Lane is relevant to the paint fight event at the end of the narrative, as our intentions are the protagonists are inspired by the 'fight for charity' therefore decide to create their own event.  
• I ran into many difficulties when placing the posters on varies frames, mainly due to the movement of the camera being problematic.
• The poster image had to be fixed onto the screen and lined up perpendicularly to the other posters on the wall in this particular example above. The programme mocha had to be used for this due to attempts of reducing the wobble when the camera moved on after effects not working, so a path on the footage was created in mocha and transferred onto After Effects using a null to create a path.
• Once the image was fixed in place permanently throughout the frame, I adjusted the colour saturation and opacity in order to make the poster blend in with the wall better, so the poster didn't look like it had been edited in. However this was done with care as I still wanted the poster to stand out to the audience.   
• This process was repeated for two other frames, subtly on a bus stop window where two of our charity event goers are sitting, and noticeably on a wall in London.    

Group. Final Music Video

This is the rough cut we've put together for our music video.
All that's left to do, is put overlays of glares, and changing the opacity of the sun etc.. for the majority of our shots.

H.C. Editing progress in after effects.

Last week I began work in after effects to create moving graphic text bubbles for our video to improve the narrative. Tom came up with the idea after research from the video 'Down on my luck' by Vic Mensa. We decided as a group to put these effects in to progress our narrative and help to connote meaning and understanding of the narrative events.



This screenshot shows the after effects project I have been working on to create the text bubbles that are used to show our characters communicating and organising the paint fight.

 

To create the movement of the text bubbles in our visuals, I used the motion tracking tool and then applied a null on top of this to create a path on the footage. I then imported the text graphic on top of this footage and put a pickwicket between the null and the image, to aloow the constant movement of the bubble throughout the duration of the footage.

H.C. Progress update over week 1/12/14 - 5/12/14

This week I have taken a lead edit role and created a compartmental cut of our music video, with parts that we still need to finalise.



This image shows the timeline I have created this week through collaboration with the group.


As a group we collaborated and decided to cut our shots closely to the beat of the track. This gives a fast pace to the narrative and makes the visuals more interesting, hooking in the viewer. I have tried to create a focus on the two main characters in the video, making the lyrics more emotive.
There is an electronic warp beat through the track and in these parts I have made jump cuts, again enhancing the visual effect and anchoring the visuals to the music. 

J.R. Testing with Overlays

After our initial pitch for our music video we established as a group that we would want to include overlays in our footage which will enhance our footage. This idea originally sprung from the music video 'All I See' by Bondax, which include a variety of different overlays and colour grades in their footage to allow it to conform to the dance genre. From this we decided that the paint in water effect we had come up with for our music magazine concept we could use for these overlays, in addition to soft effect videos that we found on vimeo.



However as seen in this video we have put together testing the overlays the paint in water seems to be to dominant in colour and too 'blotchy', moreover we could experiment with the opacity levels to hopefully allow this overlays to be acceptable in this music video. This is due to the fact that we don't want the overlays to be too powerful taking away from the quality of our original footage. Furthermore in this video we used some soft effect videos found on vimeo, as an overlay, these can be seen nearer to the end of the video where a soft grainy effect is employed. We all believed that this created a very nice smooth finish and will be used more frequently when it comes to our final overlay edit.

Group. Build up to paint fight shoot.

During fifth period on the 3rd December 2014, we decided that some shots were vital in our production which we did not have.
This included the participants to the charity event receiving texts and as a result traveling to the location, in verisimilitude to Jack and myself traveling to the event as well.
These shots made our video flow better, as previously there was a sudden jump between the London trip and then the paint fight.
Furthermore the shots enabled us to implement a wider variety of camera techniques into our music video, for example through the tracker we used.

T.M. Potential 4 Pane Digipaks

 

DIGIPAK ALBUM COVER 1

• The concept behind the front cover for this potential album cover has already been discussed on the 'Digipak Mock Up' post.
• For the inside cover (left and right) we were favouring a double page spread of the paint fight because its a predominant feature in our music video. Furthermore the genre and the songs colourful and vibrant feel fits perfectly with the image from the bright orange powder accompanied by the piercing blue sky in the background.
• The back cover is an image of Jack and myself (the two protagonists in the narrative). Due to our role in the music video, I felt we had to be incorporated into the digipak, and this image worked well for a number of reasons, for example the sky in this image is ,again, a piercing blue , which therefore interlinks with the double page spread as well as the front cover where the blue sky is evident.

 

DIGIPAK ALBUM COVER 2

 

 

 

• The front cover for this potential digpak includes a conceptual image accompanied by a hand using a DJ deck. The idea stemmed from the frequent use of conceptual imagery that artists of the dance genre use in their productions, however the conceptual image of an eye is more relevant to our music video due to the subtle recurring theme of colour that runs throughout and results in the final paint fight at the end. Then the DJ deck idea had the intent of establishing the artists metanarrative.
• For the back cover,   

 

 

J.R. Paint in Water Test Shots

Through creating some inital designs regarding the Mixmag Magazine advertisement, we evaluated that out of all the ideas the paint in water was the most cutting edge and unique idea that we could bring to our concept. A synoptic link was made through our original concept idea of the powdered paint fight, experimenting with various colours in a variety of different ways to allow our genre of music to be shown through the visuals. 

To create this effect i used a variety of different diluted paints which i could then transfer into the water through small pipettes. When this was done i filmed the paint entering the water so that i would be able to take a variety of different screenshots from the moving image when it has been imported onto the computer to allow myself more choice in what stage of the paint effect i use. this would be opposed to using photos that have been taken. 

As see in test shot one the paint is smooth flowing something that i wish to re-create when i actually create this effect. Then on test shot two the use of two colours created a nice mystical sort of effect, subsequently becoming more visually pleasing for an audience or client. However from what we have seen in these two test shots there will be changes that have to be made to the way in which i construct this 'design project'. For example, in the second test shot we see that the two test shots do not particularly go together that well and that they are slightly transparent in colour, to resolve this problem careful consideration will have to be taken into account in the choice of colours planning whether or not they go or not. Additionally to resolve the colour density problem a stronger dilution of paint to water will have to be created to make the colours stand out more within the water. Finally we see a third problem arising in the second test shot with the way in which the paint enters the water, this is due to the fact that there is no smooth motion within the paint, more or less a stuttered motion which creates a less effective visual image. 

Group. Objectives for the week 1/12/2014

Our aims for the week are as follows:

• We are now under way with our editing, and our rough cut should be completed by tomorrow (2nd December).
• After our rough cut is completed, we aim to focus on perfecting our selected shots on the timeline, and then use after effects and other post production effects in premiere to enhance the visual style of our video with overlays, colour isolation, creating visuals and rewinds.
• At the same time we need be continuing with our print media tasks. We have experimented with shots pouring paint into water which we are thinking of using in our final piece as a visual link to the video of a paint fight at the end which we will use for the mixmag advert.
• We need to conduct another brief shoot for the second magazine advert, developing upon the initial designs made and experimenting with typeface and layout.

Meeting the Friday deadline is going to be a very big task however we are ensuring that we make every effort to meet it by staying in after school hours to develop our production.

T.M. Digipak Mock-Up

We have started our mock ups for our digipak design cover. We wanted to incorporate a screen grab directly from our shoot of Southbank  in order to create a link with our music video, as our music video is predominantly shot within this scene due to its urban environment and association with the younger generation. 
• Our focal point to the front cover of the digipak is the 'Break My Fall' title font. Conventionally to dance music album covers; the title of the song is often the central feature, therefore we have conformed to this on the mock up. 
• Furthermore the colour implemented in the title of the track relates to the powder paint event at the later stage of the narrative.  The colours in the title on this particular mock up are taken from a screen shot of when the paint had been thrown.  
• The conceptual theme that runs throughout our video is colour.  There is a subliminal connection to the colours seen at the end of the video and the build up to the scenes, therefore the paint aspect on our album cover as well as our location are key features in our production. 
• Finally the artists of the track are subtly placed at the bottom of our front cover, again conventional to the dance genre, due to its simplicity as well as its bold font.
• Therefore due to these factors, this digipak  front cover is our favourite choice thus far. 

J.R. Contribution to Production 27/11/14

Over the past couple of days I have helped out in the production of our text bubble idea which we wanted to include in our narrative. I have used the computer programme Photoshop to help me create these text icons and then embedded them into premiere (for more information visit the text bubble preview edit post). Additionally I have contributed to a section of the editing process which can be seen also on the blog in the rough cut post. Furthermore I have also had some verbal input into the production of the digital pack production. This is due to the fact that tom wanted to experiment with the transparent layer and text effect in a different way using the stills I have gathered from our footage. These stills will be suitable for the majority of our digital pack production (album artwork/magazine article).

Screen shots and further editing details regarding the production of the text bubbles will be uploaded at a later date.

Group. First Minute Editied (Rough Cut)

This is a preview of our first minute of our music video. This is only a rough cut therefore this may change dramatically over the next couple of days. The majority of the footage we are seen using in this initial minute is the London footage, as in this initial part of the video we are building up our narrative, leading onto the paint fight positioned at the end of the video.



In this short edit a variety of different edits are included such as slow motions and jump cuts in order to create an illustrative interpretation to bothethe lyrics and mostly the beat of the song.

J.R. Test Shoot of Text Bubbles

Today we decided that creating a test edit of the text bubbles would allow us to identify any problems that we may encounter earlier on opposed to later on in the editing stages when we could be limited with time. Overall the outcome of this edit surprised all three of us turning out better than excepted, however there were still some faults in the text bubble designs that could be amended for our final production.

After creating a simple range of shapes on Photoshop and merging the layers together we decided on a suitable rounded font which would be clear and easy to read as an audience would have to be able to read these text bubbles in the given time that the shot is shown in our final production. Furthermore this will result in us having to plan our shoots in regards to positioning of them in the timeline within the premiere file, and the dimensions of the text bubbles in correlation to the shot. Additionally the text must be planned out to support the narrative we are trying to create in our music video. Another feature which we have noticed in this preview edit is the fact that the green bubble is shown to be aimed in the opposite direction to the phone, therefore when creating this text we must ensure that the templates for the speech bubbles work co-excitingly with the props (phone in most case).

Moreover, to save some time in the Photoshop side of this design we will create several templates which will allow us to stick to a certain set of dimensions for the text bubbles and additionally using the colour code on the colour pallet we are able to ensure that there will be no colour difference in the variety of text bubbles.

H.C. Progress and mock ups lesson 26/11/2014

I spent today's lesson collecting the typefaces we plan to use in future on our print products, and then created four mock up ideas, mainly focusing on the text layout and the type of image that we will use for our background:

 

 

This is the initial idea I came up with, aiming for an illustrative style of cover - in this case a man breaking his fall into icy water. Tom and I came up with this first idea to break away from our colour theme in the narrative, to make sure there was also an extra visual link with our track. We are not likely to pursue this idea however, as the man in this photo is not young, so does not fit with the visuals conveyed in our track and with the genre and the positioning of the lettering looks clunky and too dominant on the page.

 

 

2.

For this second design, I have reverted to keeping with the idea of paint and bright colour, whilst maintaining a simple typeface. By positioning the type in the centre of the page and the name of the artists at the bottom of the image, I have created good spacing which breaks up the page into thirds well. The contrast between the colour and simple white typeface is effective in placing this ad in the dance genre.


3.

 
This design is an example of what we could produce for a two page spread. I have placed the type in the top and bottom thirds of the frame between the main colour source of the image, with the track title 'Break my fall' placed in generally black background. This adheres to the reading path around the page, with the eyes landing on the solitary title first and then being attracted to the colour below. By placing the title of the track on its own, this also singles it out as the most important part of the image and offers the information consumers will want.


4.



In this final design I inverted the text to make each word read down the page. This gives an alternative visual style and elongates the image, making it stand out more on the page. I think the simplicity of the font against the colourful background also conforms to the style of our genre. If I were to develop this design going forward, I would crop the image to fit an A4 page and stack each new word one line down, to create a trickling effect down the page, enhancing the final visual.


Manipulating image:

I created each of these designs using photos from google search and then placing text over the top in photoshop by using basic text tools. I enhanced the text to subtly lift it off the page and stand out against the colours in the background by using a 'stroke'. The images below show the process I used in premiere, selecting 'stroke' from the 'fx' menu, giving a light shadow underneath the text.



T.M. Progress Update 25/11/14

• Today my main focus was beginning the editing to our rough cut of our music production on Adobe Premier Software.
• Due to issues with finding the files containing our footage; all our clips were located on project.
• Therefore our footage had to be dragged onto the visual timeline from the footage found in project.
• The initial task when our opening footage was placed onto the timeline was to cut the ambient sound in audio from our clips in order to start placing the visuals with our track.
• When the audio from our footage was deleted, I began to cut our clips and place them in the correct part of the timeline relevant to the beat of the track to present an illustrative relationship. 
• For one of our shots; I experimented with a time stretch reducing it to 50% which connoted slowness at the beginning of the day that interlinked with the rising sun that comes just before.   

 

 

J.R. Progress in Print Design Work

Progression in Print Work

After constructing an inital range of designs regarding the mixmag magazine design work i reflected back to the group, discussing how we could implement any of these ideas into the album artwork. An idea still favored by all of us is the paint in water technique which expands upon our powdered paint idea found in our concept. Therefore after some development of the inital idea we came up with this inital design regarding the album front panel design.

For the majority of our design work we plan on using Photoshop as the final outcome will be more accurate, smooth and overall bring about a more professional feel to the designs. 

 

To create this effect on Photoshop I used the fx effect to enable me to produce a more transparent effect to our text, as it will work well with erased image placed as a top layer. Additionally I have used a second image to create this 'image text' effect showing the image through the text. this is something that we have previously thought about creating due to this effect being found in existing album artwork like 'majestic casual' who conform to the same genre of music as our track does.

 

 

 

The picture above is the initial edit testing this 'image text' effect.

 

H.C. Progress update 25/11/2014

During the course of the lesson today and extra time after I have completed the following tasks:

• During the lesson period - completed initial research of secondary magazine placement 'EDM Magazine' and uploaded post. Completed preliminary check of the blog, for any outstanding posts.
• After the lesson - Continued editing process on our main production piece, aiming to cut the clips to significant beats in the song and select our best shots working towards the rough cut deadline at the end of the week. 
• Finding different typefaces for possible use in our digipak in order to give our track a prominent visual appearance.

H.C. Possible typefaces

For our track's print products we would like to use a modern or futuristic typeface, as is common in the genre. Below are some examples of possible designs we may decide to use:

By using this style of typeface, we will be able to create a recognisable product within our genre as the dance genre tends to use basic and bold designs, which we found during our digipak analysis task. By emulating the same style we will create a product that our target market can visually associate with other products within the genre whilst avoiding directly copying as there is subtle diversity between each typeface, as can be seen above.

H.C. Further print research: EDM Magazine

After discussion in our group we decided to abandon the idea of using the online platform 'Maxumi' and use a more traditional style. After research I found 'EDM Magazine'. Although as the name suggests EDM has a strong focus on electronic music, however also branches out into house and dance music, giving us a solid ground to work from.

• EDM has a bi monthly publish which means there will be good exposure to our target audience.
• The magazine also has several other subsidiary events such as festivals and club nights, which could be used for publishing our advertisement.
• The magazine also has social media platforms and links to its website which provide exclusive content for readers, making this a hugely popular fold from which to launch our advertising campaign.
  

Group. Objective for the week

Due to delays regarding technical issues revolved around not being able to locate the files of our footage, we have finally started our editing this week (24th November).
Therefore our main objectives for the week will predominantly be the development of our production on the editing timeline.
However we will also be focusing on digipak research, and developing some initial ideas for the four panels. As well as working on the advancement of the advertisements for our chosen magazine 'Mixmag'.  

J.R. Initial Designs Mixmag Magazine

Initial Designs Mixmag Magazine

After looking into the adverts found within the mixmag magazine, i have produced a variety of different inital designs which should indicate the direction i want to go down when designing this advertisement page.

Firstly i generated some simple magazine cover ideas which were to be based upon the design and layout of the magazine, although not the task in hand, these designs allowed me to identify the common features found within the magazines and how i could integrated these common aspects into my own design work, ensuring that it is also relateable to the track being promoted.

Design 1&2

Design 3&4

As seen in the pictures above the designs that i have temporarily produced illustrate the way in which colour is a dominant aspect of the design found in this magazine, therefore i have made the link with our concept implanting our powdered paint into the colorful design scheme. Furthermore a dominant message is also produced through the way in which the text is designed and how it is positioned in the page. I have therefore experimented with this shown in the 4th design where i have rotated the challenging the normal horizontal design that most article conform to. 

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

Therefore after these first designs i then moved on to transform the conventions of this magazine i have previously looked into a apply them to a magazine article. The main difference is the fact that the relevant information are shown on these designs opposed to the first designs. By this i mean the only dominant message that needs to be portrayed in this advertisement page is the name of the track and the producers, in comparison to this and the magazine title itself. Shown in design one is an idea that i am particularly fond of, as it is quite a unique design which could be incorporated into our concept. The paint entering water can be related to our powdered paint idea, which could be further developed into the representing youth in a positive light. This may be produced through the inclusion of imagery a common aspect in these 'one off' advertisement pages. 

Therefore in design two i expanded upon this idea of using faces of young people covered in powdered paint, these images could be taken from our original footage gathered. In this design i have shown the 'text boxes' to spill into the image above, this is a design feature which i would be highly recommending for us to incorporated into our designs if we include a large number of imagery.

Finally in design 3 i have started to experiment in the way in which the text is displayed on the page, as relevant information like the release date and maybe some background information about the band will have to be shown in this advert therefore creating a variety of different shapes to shown this information will make the advert more interesting to read. Furthermore by adding dots and lines (although not shown in this design) a sense of texture will be created in the advert allow them to become more eye catching subsequently giving out the message in the advert more successfully.

Overall i believe that as our track is produced by a relatively low profile producer, it will be hard for us as a group to design an advert which incorporates their profiles into our work. Yet this allows us to really be experimental with our design work, and has allowed us to make interesting links with our original music video concept. This is something that has already been shown above.     

Group. Reflection of Shoot

J.R. Mixmag Magazine Research

After looking into existing music video magazines we as a group established that the mixmag magazine would be a ideal choice as it conforms to all the conventions which our found in the track which we are working with. Furthermore this magazine is dominantly based upon the Dance genre within the music industry, therefore using this specific media platform to advertise our track is the most ideal way to gather attention.

 

 

 



Through looking into existing music video advertisement pages we see that the common features employed into the design of the advertisements are usually bright and vibrant colours with a strong use of typography to reinforce the bands image or general promotion. Additionally this music magazine is predominately aimed at a younger audience meaning that they must apply to what the consumer wants to see. Therefore a higher level of imagery is used in comparison to the amount of written text included I the magazine, generally if the consumer wants to read more about the article/advertisement they can do so by following a link onto the mixmag website which consists of the whole article. Furthermore the text used in these advertisements must be simple and consists allow the consumer to sustain interest in the advertisement.

 

When observing the general layout of these advertisements we see tat  a white background is used as the base colour for the page, therefore black text is used with the imagery of the advertisement placed on top of this white back ground. Even if text is found to be placed over an image generally a white box will be created (like a text box) to allow consumers to be able to easily read the information being displayed. Expanding on the layout I must comment on the way in which the magazine layout has a variety of different setups, varying from a double page spread to a small advertisement taking up a third of an A4 page. As far as shape is concerned a variety of different shapes can be used to add a sense of texture to the advertisements, meaning they will be more interesting to the eye, opposed to sticking to a basic rectangular/square set out.   

H.C. Research into possible advertisement platforms

Maxumi Magazine:

• Maxumi is an online music magazine based in Brighton England that focuses generally on the dance/ house and drum and bass scene.
• "We take pride in the quality of the content, aiming to be a little more sophisticated then (than) other publishings, whilst keeping the tongue firmly in cheek." - From Maxumi.co.uk.
• "Maxumi also seeks to push forward the talented underground scene, and works with several high profile pr agencies to publish exclusive reviews, feature’s and more."
• Given the ethos and target market of the magazine, this platform would be suitable to advertise our track from, allowing it to stand out against the mass of material within this genre.
• The fact that Maxumi is also a digital based media is a strategic advantage for advertisement, as the dance genre is dominated by online download charts and other associated advertisement methods available through the interactivity of web 2.0 such as cookies.

Group. Band image - print

 Initial ideas for print:

• Our didgipak and associated advertisements require us to follow conventions of our genre and narrative of our video.
• We will include young people in the images for the prints with consideration between a group shot and using our main protagonists Jack and Tom.
• We will also consider absence for our image, using instead just the title of our track.
• Our initial concept is to make a link between our video and our image is to use the powdered paint as a visual motif. Our hope is that this will be bright and eye catching and the colours will stand as a visual representation for the vibrance of youth.
• Because of the genre of our track, our print advertisement will need to be targeted specifically at magazines that represent that genre. We have identified 'Mixmag' and 'Maxumi' as our intended platforms for advertisement. We will use these as a strategic medias for advertising our print as we will be able to access our audience best through this.

Group. Animatic

1. We divided our animatic up into 3 parts (beginning, middle and end of our narrative) so Jack, Harry and I could all simultaneously work on the task at different computers in order to speed the process up.
2. The animatic has helped us develop our concept in numerous ways. For example regarding camera work; although our narrative involves predominantly handi cams, we need a lot of movement and various angles. Editing; the animatic has shown the various after effects we plan of using, for instance the text message bubbles as well as the static fuzz.
3. The animatic has also developed our process as during the task we were able to acknowledge what particular shots we were missing, therefore we were able to implement these on our animatic before we went on our shoot.
4. This task differed from our animatic during AS because we were more understanding on how useful and necessary the animatic was for the development of our production.
5. The challenges we faced involved exporting each of our parts onto the same computer. Mainly due to the problems I had from saving the images onto my memory stick therefore when it came to exporting I had to save the images to the data disk first, this was very time consuming.   

Group. Plan of action for shoot 12/11/2014

Today we are going to carry out the shoot for the paint fight sequence at the end of our narrative. Below is the completed call sheet, with shot list and the risk assessment attached.

 
 



We will take a large volume of shots at varying angles and distances, as well as handi cam shots to give a first hand impression of the action. Tom and Jack will remain as the organisers of the event and main characters in our narrative. I (Harry) will be filming the action today and giving direction to achieve all the shots we have outlined. 

Group. Shooting Scheudule

Second & Third Media Shoot

After completing our initial shoot in London we have realised that we will need to re-shoot as we believe that the footage we have gathered was not as good as it could be. A main feature which we identified that we needed to improve was our plan of action for the day of our shoot, although we had some shot ideas that we wanted to create in our production it was nowhere near as many as we should have to achieve a high grade in our production. Therefore we returned to our initial research stages of our production looking again at the technical analysis, as through this we could recognise certain shots which work well in coexistence with each other. Furthermore this will help our main cameraman Harry in the direction stages of our production, as we will have a more detailed plan of action for our shoot.

The main characteristic that was lacking from this initial shoot was as follows;

• Camera movement
• Close ups
• Variety of different angles
• Dolly Shots
• Handicam
• And shots with the Cam frame

Realising that we didn't gain the best footage from our initial shoot up London we took this as a learning curve, and were able to plan for our powdered paint shoot more effectively. Once again camera movement was a key feature which we had identified as being a significant factor in our production, to relate to the upbeat style of our chosen track. Additionally we have created a sheet of visual imagery which we could use when shooting which would act as a visual aid in the direction of this sequence in our media production.

 

 

Date of shoots;

 

Paint Fight - Wednesday 12th November 2014

 

London Shoot 2 - Friday 14th November 2014

J.R. Contribution to Shoot

MY CONTRIBUTION

For our first shoot up in London, I have made the following contributions;

• Recording a list of shots that we needed to gain from our research
• Producing the poster prop we are using to anchor our concept
• Applying some camera input to harry the dominant cameraman in our shoot
• As our concept involved two youth characters myself and tom became the narrative's, therefore we were acting in this London shoot.

As far as direction and camera work is concerned I haven't had a large amount on input. This is mainly due to the fact that I will be completing a large amount of the editing within our music video production.

List of shots I made the night before the shoot. I made this on my phone that we were easily able to refer to it throughout the whole day.