Digipak - singular images of each part.

These are the singular images of each side of my digipak, this is to allow each side to be easier to view (and sides that are upside down on the net are far easier to read).

Digipak & poster analysis

Final Digipak and Poster.

Above are my final digipak and magazine poster. I've changed the placing of some images and text and also changed some fonts since I produced my drafts. I also printed off the final version of my digipak and to the left you can see how it looks once folded into the final product (minus the jewel case). I'm pleased with how it has come out and feel the simplistic designs work well with the genre.

First, very rough draft of my digipak and poster.

Digipak Planning

These images show my initial ideas in the format of a storyboard and my further development of my main ideas.

Final Music Video

I have now made the alterations stated in the previous post. 
0:36 - 0:51 have been edited. The girls close up eyes have been changed to a clip where they look sadder and a transition has been added to make the focus on the eyes smoother. I have also changed the two split screens so they no longer look stretched.
Also, 1:38 - 1:39 now has a transition as before you could notice an ever so slight jolt in the camera position (can't understand this as it was on a tripod...) so I added the effect as it fits with the effects that are around the same time and it's a nice soft one that flows well.

Analysis of my rough draft survey

Analysis

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Final draft...

Here is my completed draft of my music video:





Parts of the video that I think are particularly strong and weak are:


Strengths

• The use of split screens. I think they're generally quite effective, especially the one in which they're separated but then come together.
• Some of the night clips, they're not too dark which was an initial concern but I think they've turned out fairly well.
• Effects. I think I've used the effects fairly well and appropriately. Especially when the streetlight gets brighter and then fades out again.
• The cliffhanger. I like how the ending has been left on a cliffhanger, I know the first few people I showed this video to all asked 'was that him?' at the end which was my intention.

Weaknesses

• Too much walking around. I can't really do much about this now because I had a limited time frame in which to re-film but I can't shake the feeling it just looks like a girl walking around some fields.
• Acting. I'm now going to play the part of the terrible friend but I do feel as if the acting in this video isn't great... I used a real couple to try and capture real emotions but I think that they felt slightly awkward about filming when it came to it and those emotions didn't really prevail in front of the camera. I especially don't like the close up of the female characters face as it looks as if she's about to start laughing... which she was but I tried to pick clips in which she wasn't but it didn't work, obviously!
• No change of costume. I know this is getting really picky now but I don't like how they're wearing the same thing in the present and flashbacks... it gives it a lesser sense of realism. I don't want to keep blaming the shortened time period in which to film but in all honesty it did kind of effect what I was able and unable to do as a lot of it had to be filmed in bulk and costume changes weren't really able to happen.
• Inside shots, they look a bit simplistic and boring and like they've just been filmed one after the other... which they were but I was hoping it wouldn't be obvious.
• The second chorus. 'Under Streetlights, on long car rides...'. The visuals show EXACTLY this and I think it's a bit obvious and doesn't look quite right.
• Stretched split screens at around 00:43 seconds. I'm going to try and fix this though.

So, here is the survey for my video:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/32VCHKB

I'm hoping to get as many responses as possible to gain a wide range of feedback. I am going to email Brooke and ask if she'd mind distributing it on her Facebook page or somewhere where I can target her fans and try and get their responses also.

List of shots/scenes I need to film:

• surrounding shots for opening: e.g. showing the location. female character walking. different angles and POV. 23 seconds worth of awesome needed.
• alone shots for the first verse. female walking around, showing her isolation.when lyric 'thinking of you' have some close ups of face and eyes looking around.
• "i'll be there or you'll be here"... her walking towards, him walking away shot. to go next to one another.
• "talking with you..." doing similar things, different locations (like in 'Bad Day')
• chorus 1 shots: in car (if possible). can see streetlights from car. hopefully some shots of car from outside (looking in). male characters eyes in the mirror at 'i can't forget your eyes'. if possible "2 hours 'til sunrise" try and get some shots of them in still car as sun is coming up? (maybe at river...)
• musical bit inbetween chrous and verse 2: female in house, alone. looks dark and melancholy. 
• verse 2: around house, her walking and memories coming back. e.g. shot down a hallway... you see her walk down hall and out of camera shot and then it fades into them in the room down the hallway together (maybe warmer hue to image). also maybe POV shot of him in bed smiling (totally innocent shot may i just add) at 'i just want to see you smile'. lots of them as a couple... maybe her running downstairs, them both running back up. just showing a contrast and an emptiness. probably will not do images as originally planned as it's pretty time consuming.
• seconds chorus: probably same as above until the final instrumentally bit comes on... and then i'd like to do a close up of female person laying and smiling and then falling asleep and then waking alone and going downstairs... look out of front window and a car pulls up. this instigates hope and possible happiness.

Location, location, location.

So, slight change of plan... after talking to the two characters we have arranged to film tonight as it's more suitable for them. So, here are the locations I hope to be filming at...

There is a local road which is always reasonably quiet and has quite a few fields alongside it so I plan to film the alone shots of the female character here whilst it is still light. Here is a photo I recently took at this location with a different friend of mine who won't be in the video. I feel this gives it a little more context though...

The second location is a main road which in the evening won't be very busy but has a lot of streetlights. This will achieve the desired effect and hopefully I will be able to convince my boyfriend to lend his car for us to borrow for the car scenes... the male character is able to drive so safety shouldn't be an issue and I will make sure it is done on very quiet roads to ensure everything goes as planned.


I have spoken to both of the people in the video about costume and they have agreed to try and fit my description as closely as they can. There won't be any props being used really... apart from a car I guess? I think it's going to be very much down to what can be achieved in the time remaining. I will be using a Song HDR HC9 camera:

I decided this would be the best camera to use as before hand the other ones had been quite difficult to control and keep steady. Also, on the previous camera we had to use nightmode for the picture to be visible and it didn't turn out too well so hopefully without this image I won't be tempted to use this to compensate. 

So, the plan for this evening is:

3:15 - Meet actors at their house and walk to first destination. Film female actor alone shots and also some of them together. (Walking away and towards). Do this until dark.

4:45 - Expected sunset time according to 'timeanddate.com'. Hopefully will be able to film for a little longer and then once close to dark will move onto streetlight shots. 

6.00 - If car is available it will be at this time. I may re-meet with actors after they have had time to have food. Hopefully will get some shots of car from inside and outside (like in Lana Del Rey video). If one car is not available another might be so will have to see tonight. 

Plans for this weekend...

So, the plan for this weekend is to re-film everything. It has no longer become convenient to use the same two people in the music video so I shall be re-filming as much as I can before February half term. I have chosen the new couple.

I have chosen these two because one of them lives in my local area and the other is a good friend of mine who has transport to get to my local area. The fact they are an actual couple will ensure the chemistry between the pair is genuine. I will post photographs of the location shortly, here is an artistic reputation of what I would ideally like the pair to wear:

This is actually meant to represent the female wearing winter clothes (as she's walking around) and the male wearing jeans and a checked shirt. I understand this is a bit of a dodgy representation but yeah...

Inside Cover

This is a typographic portrait of Brooke Annibale. I layered up the words 'Brooke' 'Annibale' 'Under' & 'Streetlights'. I will be using an origincal image for the front image of my digipak but I thought this might be a nice inside cover with the track listing or a possible choice for the back. I feel this is an interesting and different approach and is an interesting effect. Below is the same image but with type to demonstrate where the track type would be.  

Digipak Ideas

Here is a few trials for ideas for promotonial work (in particular the digipaks) for our song. I done both very quickly and neither are finished fully. I really like the general idea and feel of them both so far though.

Album Covers

    Having previously looked at Newton Faulkner as another pop-folk artist I figured it would make sense to also look at his album artwork. He certainly seems to use a recurring house style of blue and white and also the same font. They vary in their themes though. I like how they're quite simple, bold and interesting. 

Also, whilst searching Google for Faulkner album artwork I came across this image:

The Magic Numbers are a slightly more rocky group in comparison to Brooke Annibale. Their appearance is quite similar and I really like their album artwork. It looks like vintage, like they've used traditional photography and that is something I'd certainly like to consider using. I like how the print is split into 4 different tones as well. I think the typography compliments the image as well. I'd quite like to see what it would look like if I edited the same image in 4 different ways and then ripped it into 4 different quarters and then re-assembled it. This would make it look a bit different and interesting but if done effectively would look really cool I think. certainly something to consider...

Footage so far...

This is the footage Katherine & I have captured so far and feel is going to work:





We feel we will need to shoot more footage, especially of Molly, and also some of inside shots so we can create the memory scenes we were hoping to.
We found that when we filmed last time it got dark a lot sooner than we had expected so we found ourselves using night-vision just so we could see what was happening. We found the footage was very green so then had to correct the colour of a lot of footage.
We've made quite a promising start though.

Digipak Planning

Over the Christmas period I did some rough planning of potential ideas for my digipak front cover.

I'll scan these sketches in properly at some point but for now I've just taken a photo... I do realise it's backwards but you can kind of get the idea. My first idea was a collage of photos that consist of either:
Layered photos that all form one big image like of a streetlight or of the characters in the video.
OR
Layered photos of different things that have relevance to the characters (e.g. a small part of one characters face or of someone picking a flower e.t.c)
My second idea was just of a photograph of the main female under a streetlight with different textures and shadowing.


Previously when planning CD cases in other subjects I have found it useful to draw images from the lyrics. So, that's the plan for this blog post...

i can’t help but wonder why

you can’t help but cross my mind

and i’m thinking of you (thinking of you)

hope one day it all be clear

i’ll be there or you’ll be here <-- like in out footage, have split screen of walking towards and back

i’ll be talking with you (long talks with you)

under streetlights

on long car rides <-- like in Del Rey video, long distance shot of car under streetlights perhaps?

i can’t forget your eyes

through the dark nights

two hours till sunrise

i can’t forget your eyes

through the years and through the miles <-- like in Del Rey video, POV shot of road

i just want to see you smile

and be happy with you (happy with you)

i think somehow we could always see

it’d end up being you and me <-- holding hands, you can see couple but not fully.

me and you (just me and you)

So possible ideas to consider now are:

Images of cars/ car lights/ car under streetlights.

More solid images instead of just layering many.

Split images of same place but different people (like in out video, hopefully).

Pop Folk Artists.

Brooke Annibale is an accoustic pop-folk artist. This genre is more successful than some people may know. I thought I'd pick out a few popular pop-folk artists and the videos they've produced for their videos. I thought this may give us some inspiration for our own video (even though we've made a detailed plan and are filming it in a few hours...) and may help with the editing and how we put it together. So, the first artists I've picked is Newton Faulkner who is very popular and I'm sure many people know...

The video for 'Dream Catch Me' focuses on the artist. We can obviously not go this but we are focusing on the representation of the artist we have made in Molly's character. The video focuses on memories and it travels through situations which is very similar to what we are doing and I really love how they've layered the lights over his face... it could be something we could try and do whilst editing as it would also fit with our 'Under Streetlights' theme and the lights at night.





This is probably the most stereotypical song I could have chosen for 'The Pogues' but hey ho. It's a HUGELY successful Christmas song and The Pogues are classed as 'pop-folk'. The video centres around a couple... it also deals with the past and memories and difficulties in a relationship. Our song is similar but the problems in Annibale's song aren't as apparent as in 'Fairytale of New York'. The video is largely set at night and their are some beautiful shots of lights at night... such as the trees draped with lights and the night sky.

Tuesday 6th December.

So, here are mine and Katherine's plans for our filming which is being done today! We wanted to use a whiteboard so we could doodle and plan our ideas and add and erase as we needed to.

So for our opening musical into (which last aprox 23 seconds) we are hoping to get quite a few different shots of our main person (Molly) walking around a countryside location and then make various split screens that will change in time to the music.


"Well I can't help but wonder why you can't help but cross my mind..."

Showing Molly walking alone, different angles, POV's e.t.c. Really zoning in on the fact she's alone and wondering... searching/lost.


(To be completed v soon)

Discussing Ideas

Me & Katherine discussing our wonderful ideas for our video. Well, mainly me but that wasn't intentional... I just talk too much, and play with my hair too much. ENJOY!

My storyboard...

So, this is my storyboard. I will now go on to explain in more depth. The number key is as follows...

1  2  3

4  5  6

1. POV shot (during musical intro) of country area, walking, sun setting, getting darker.

2. As soon as lyrics start... "I can't help but wonder why..." shows female lead character walking around in country landscape you have previously seen. Possible split screen of her walking from two different angles. Front and back? Two different sides?

3. "And I'm thinking of you". Zoom in closer of female. Her eyes look up, look around as if she feels a presence there of something missing. Looking around, hope?

4. "Hope one day it'll all be clear, I'll be there or you'll be here" looking out a window, dark outside, fire inside? Cosy house... waiting for someone. Longing for someone.

5. "Under streetlights, on long car rides" through the front window of a car, showing a journey... POV of someone but it's not made clear. Could be a memory. Shows streetlights, person(s) in car passing them. Then goes back to female character and similar stuff to before but she is in urban surroundings, multi-story car park. Retracing journeys?

6. "And be happy with you" shows guy but he is never fully revealed. You see parts of him, small memories. Possibly him laying down in a bed but only his mouth/hand or sections of him. At the end you may possibly see a car pull up but you never see who gets out, things may be hinted at but nothing is ever fully confirmed. Leaves a sense of mystery. 

I really like my storyboard and ideas and am interested to see Katherine's storyboard and her ideas. I think both of our ideas will combine to make something really interesting and using our skills we have acquired so far this year I'm really, really excited to start filming, editing and sharing our ideas with people and Brooke! :)