Digipack

These are Digipack examples 'The Smiths' - The complete Picture and 'Kanye West' - Late Orchestration. The link below will take you to a PowerPoint, explaining all about Digipacks and Promotional packs, evaluation of the above Digipack covers and also ideas for my own https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BxKLKsQUugutMGYwYjIxMmEtMjAwYi00ODQ1LThhMjAtZTc1MTJiYTJjMDE1&hl=ena=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BxKLKsQUugutMGYwYjIxMmEtMjAwYi00ODQ1LThhMjAtZTc1MTJiYTJjMDE1&hl=enMGYwYjIxMmEtMjAwYi00ODQ1LThhMjAtZTc1MTJiYTJjMDE1&hl=en Flat Plans

These are the designs for the front cover of my Digipack.

The first design features a long shot of a girl looking into a forest. I liked this idea as it illuminates the emotions in our story of loneliness and desolation. Its also a good shot as it shows both setting and a full length picture of the character. This could be easily shot as our setting that our video is filmed in is a desolate forest. I like the idea of the two already existing Digipack that I have analysed of using capital letters. The capital letters in the font make the important information striking and eye catching. The colours I would try to capture would be earthy natural colours like greens and browns.

My second flat plan idea that I had was a profile shot, close up of the actors face. I would shoot the character in the same costume that she wears for the film to insure continuity for all aspects of the of the project. I would keep the make up minimal to keep with a natural feel all throughout the video. I have tried a fluid more decorative font in this flat plan although i think the bolder capital font works better from the first flat plan.

The final flat plan design will be the one I use. I have visited the location that I intend to take my photographs so I know my ideas will be accessible. The image will be a long shot that will also include elements of the setting. The location which the photographs will be taken will also be one of the settings in our music video which again reinforces the continuity throughout the project. The actor will be directly addressing the camera making full eye contact. One of the main ideas behind choosing this idea for the front cover was to have a opposite image on the inside of the Digipack for example an in front and behind shot so when you turn the page it creates the idea of a 360 degree image. (see below for details on the inside images for the Digipack) These are the flat plans for the back cover of the Digipack:

My first flat plan design was to have the song titles written on the branches of a tree. For this I would need a bare tree so that the branches are distinguishable. I would use a long shot to capture the tree and edit the image in Photo Shop. By selecting a curved, decorative font the lettering would follow the pattern of the trees branches creating a overall natural feel to the photograph.

My second flat plan is an image of the actor in the final third of the photograph, by placing the actor in the final third attention will be placed upon the actor. In the background of the photograph will be the forest setting. I would try and edit the photo so the background was slightly out of focus yet still recognisable to again enforce the importance of the actor. I experimented using a capitalised font for the track list, numbered from 1-10 on the left hand side of the photo. The texts stands out and would be clear to read.

My final flat plan is a mid shot photograph of the actor singing . I will use a speech bubble coming out of the actors mouth as positioning of the track list. This gives the image that the actor is singing the songs of the album. The mid shot photograph will show body language as well as the costume of the character. By capturing the picture against a white screen the image would be minimalist and effective.

Flat Plans for inside the Digipack:

These flat plans are of the inside of the Digipack cover, the image would be placed behind the C.D/ D.V.D. The most effective background would be something simple and a complicated image or a photo that has many different elements to it would be hard to be seen. My first idea would be black and white stripes, although extremely simple I believe the idea would be very effective. The actor in our music video will be wearing a black and white stripy top in every scene so this would link directly to our videos mise-en-scene. The second flat plan idea for beginning the DVD would be a photograph of the sky with clouds. A striking image of a bright blue sky and a few clouds would portray spiritual images of 'being free' and 'finding your self' again mirroring the story line of our video. Although the image would again be simple, the right shot edited well would be very effective The third flat plan idea was to use a close up image of a tree branch. By altering the brightness and contrast of the image I would intend to create a dark silhouette of the trees branches against a bright blue sky. This is the chosen plan for my final inside design, a vast amount of images on my Digipack will be shot in the forest to convey a naturalistic feel so this design will be in-keeping with that theme. This part of the Digipack will not include any text as it will be difficult to read behind a DVD.

These are the flat plans for the left-inside of the Digipack:

The first flat plan is a close up, portrait shot. The idea behind this shot was to use an image of the actor day dreaming and use related lyrics from the song above her head. I would use a more curvy, italicised decorative font to enforce the ideas of a day dream. The second flat plan design is an extreme close up of the actors eye, with the lyrics arranged over the eyebrow. Again I would chose a decorative, italicised font to follow the shape of the eyebrow. I would keep the colours of the overall image subtle and pick out the colours of the eye for the text for a final touch. The final and favorite flat plan design is the opposite image of the front cover image. As I have stated earlier this will be the plan that I chose as it creates a 360 degree image when the Digipack is opened and closed. I would create the shot by positioning that actor directly in the middle of the shot and insure that when the image is taken I am in line with the actor. I would have to pay particular attention in editing to reduce the risk of any differences in the images, for example the brightness on one picture would have to be identical to the other.

This is my final cover of my Digipack, the back and front cover:

My Digipack was inspired by our filming, we wanted a nature setting for our video (the forest) and I wanted my Digipack to reflect our final music video.

On the front cover I directed the actor to sit on log with her hands in her lap, closed body language, yet keeping eye contact with the camera and relatively smiley.

Her body language suggests venerability and the use of the desolate setting suggests the actors loneliness.

I have used a white text that is surrounded by a black box. I experimented with different styles of texts but i felt that this 'label' looking font portrays the alternative genre style and also is clear and simple to read. The black boxes also stand out on the background image, which again make the text stands out. I have used the same text on the front image in the spine of the Digipack, this is because the bands and songs name is arguably the most important information on a Digipack or CD cover. I used a more decorative italicised font for the back cover. I have positioned the text in between the branches of the trees and the use of the italic, decorative font reflects the branches of the trees. I blurred the image around the text to make the text stand out against the branches.

When taking pictures for the Digipack I had to find a tree that did not have leaves for the text to work really well amongst the branches. I edited the images on both pages by increasing the contrast and brightness, by increasing the brightness and contrast the colours of the images are more striking and ascetically pleasing. I used the paint tool to pick out the same colour green of the bushes behind the actor to use for the spine of the Digipack to keep with a similar colour scheme throughout.

I have included important elements on the Digipack such as the DVD logo to recognise that some of the tracks have accompanying videos, and duration(Aprox 50mins), disc format(DVD), colour mode(colour), language(English), the bands record company logo 'Infectious', a copy right warning, the bands website address, a recycle symbol and a barcode.

This is the final inside of my Digipack the right side is where the C.D will go.

I increased the brightness and contrast on the right hand image, this made the branches appear black against a bright blue background. The final image is beautifully shot and aesthetically pleasing. The tree branches are a close up of the tree shot for the back cover of the Digipack again adding continuity throughout the Digipack.

For the inside left hand page of my Digipack I took a photo of behind the actor, this creates a 360 degree style image when the Digipack is opened. I used the same text on the inside of the Digipack as on the outside for the song listing. By using the same text it simplifies the look of the Digipack by keeping the outside relatively similar to the inside. The text is song lyrics from 'Sweet Disposition' that read 'A moment, a love, a dream, a laugh, a kiss, a cry, our rights, our wrongs...' which mirror the emotions of our narrative, a girl going through a break up, remembering the past and finding her identity.

Evaluation of the final Digipack

I really enjoyed the creative side of making the Digipack from taking the photographs to editing the pictures. I used Photo shop to create the Digipack, by using the cropping tool I could edit my pictures so that they fitted within the borders of the basic outline. I then learnt editing techniques such as how to increase the brightness and contrast of the photos to make the colours of the image stand out, because of the time of year the photos were taken increasing the brightness made a picture take on a overcast day look like it had been taken on a summers day. I also learnt how to use the blurring tool, I used this on the trees branches to make the text stand out and more legible. I was further taught how to use the paint dropper tool to select a colour from the picture and fill a box with the same colour. I used this in the spine of the Digipack so that all the colours of the Digipack looked similar.

I converted my final Digipack files from a photo shop document into JPEG file so that i could upload them onto Facebook and gain feedback from others as one way of evaluating my work. I tagged other peers from my media group into the photo as well as friends and asked them to comment on things that they liked and stood out to them and also things that they think could be improved. I have print screened peoples feedback that they have commented under the image.

For the inside of the Digipack everyone agreed that the font for the lyrics above the actors head was slightly unclear, I could improve this by using the same font as on the cover of my Digipack with the boxes framing the writing. Although the decorative writing adds a personal touch to the image portraying the actor as day dreaming etc. It may not have been as clear as using a more formal font. People commented that they liked the idea of having a front facing and back facing image on opposite sides of the Digipack one person commented saying 'It gives the sense that you really know where she is' one of the main themes of our narrative is a young girl trying to 'find herself' and regain an identity so this has been portrayed through the image. Another person liked the 'simplicity' of the extreme close up of the tree and further said that both images worked well together.

For the front and back cover people have commented on how creative and effective the track list in the tree branches looks. On criticism of the image however is that the song titles are slightly blurred at first glance. Again this could be improved by framing the text in boxes, however I think by doing so it would have ruined the overall image. The chosen font follows the shape of the tree's branches well and boxes behind the text may be too heavy for the overall image. People have also commented on the high contrast of the photos and their overall appearance saying that the images look bright and effective as well as 'professional'. People also like that the front cover image of the actor also establishes the setting of the video, by keeping all four Digipack images relevant to our music video this creates continuity throughout all areas of the project.

Overall the majority of the feedback does seem to be positive however improvements can be made to do with the clarity of fonts and information on the Digipack. By using a clearer font or even bleaching the image behind the text the important information would be easy to read.

Shooting Script and Diaries

Working closely with our story board we managed to film, edit and execute a video that we were pleased with. We also used a shooting script on set to note problems with which we faced when filming to refer to when editing. For example when we were filming the first take of shot 6 the camera was not positioned correctly and the actors head was not in the frame, by take two we repositioned the camera and the shot worked well. This is also an example of an individual frame script that we used to in detail plan specific shots. It includes the shot number, shot type, description of action, camera movement and direction with notes from set. The detailed version allowed our group to know exactly how to direct the shot and also exactly how the actors in the shot needed to act.

Shooting Schedule

Shooting Schedule Our Shooting schedule has been planned around our free time between lessons at college and before and after the college day. Having a shooting schedule has been really helpful and has proven to be extremely important, working as a group we have to agreed on times and days to film and a shooting schedule has been a great way of organising our time. Below is a list of the dates and times that we agreed: Date: Tuesday 11th January 2011. Time: 9-10.30 Date: Tuesday 25th January 2011. Time: 9-10.30 Date: Tuesday 8th February 2011. Time: 9-10.30 Date: Tuesday 22nd February 2011. Time: 9-10.30 Date: Tuesday 8th March 2011. Time: 9-10.30 Equipment List We will need the following equipment to enable us to film our music video: Tripod - This will allow us to get quality footage, still footage which might be more difficult if just holding the camera. We can adjust the Tripods legs on uneven ground to ensure that the filming is always straight and focused. Camera - this is an extremely important piece of equipment as with out it we cannot film! Camera Tape - for recording footage Camera Bag - The bag means that all valuable and expensive equipment will be protected when we move from various different spots when filming. It will also keep our equipment clean and together. Shooting Script - If any problems were to arise on set we could make a note to remind ourselves later and we would also be able on reflection to rectify the problem by seeing how we went wrong. It would also be good for visual directions from the director to the actor to ensure everyone understands the next action. Call Sheet - each member of our group had a call sheet with contact emails and phone numbers on, this made it easy for everyone in the group to be contacted, to contact our tutor if there were any problems on set or before hand and also contact details of the technician when we needed to hire cameras. Locations We have a few different locations so we have organised what we are going to shoot when to ensure the best possible use of our time when filming. The bedroom/ getting ready scenes will be shot at the beginning of our schedule, through to the train and train station scenes and the journey to the forest and finally the forest. By organising whats going to be shot when everyone in the group knows where to be and when and also insures we get all the shots needed for our video.

Health and Safety

To ensure Health and Safety was addressed in our music video, every time we borrowed the cameras we had to fill out a risk assessment form. We had to look at every possible risk when using the equipment on set. Other elements of health and safety we had to consider would be filming in public areas. We had to insure when filming at the train station to make sure camera bags, tripods and other equipment was not left un-attended or on the floor in potential hazardous places. We had to take extra precautions when filming in another of our settings, the forest, as it was extremely muddy and slippery. Our group wore appropriate clothing and footwear and always assessed the situation before we started filming the shot. For example we did walk-through's of the take to insure that it was not too dangerous or unrealistic. We also took weather into consideration, in raining, windy or snowy weather conditions we could not film because it would be too dangerous for the group members and also the equipment.

Storyboard and Animatic

We have scanned in a annotated version of our storyboard. Our group felt that taking photographs of the shots and settings that we wanted to film would be clearer and easier to work from as neither of us are very good at drawing.

We stuck to our storyboard, the only changes we made were including a wine bottle as a prop to reinforce the image of the actor being drunk and also some of the techniques that we applied during editing.

The storyboard made both filming, directing and editing our video very easy. Our storyboard included annotations of shot types and angles, camera movements and a few for editing. For example shot 1 is annotated 'Mid shot, side view of character, getting ready. Static camera.' We also drew large brackets around shot 10. During editing we wanted to create a quick pace effect to the actor walking up stairs by cutting out parts of actor walking and placing the actor at the start, middle, end and finish all together. By planning this on the storyboard it helped us visually see the shot and made editing very easy.

The storyboard helped us to further plan our shots to ensure we had a good variety including, mid, long, close up, extreme close up, establishing and over the shoulder shots. We also noted the camera actions, for example static, tracking, zoom, slow zoom and pan which again helped us when filming on set.

The storyboard proved to be an amazing visual element along with the shooting script as all of the team, directors and actors knew what they needed to be doing and when they needed to be doing it.

This is a link to our groups anamatic:

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BxbvbzM5_eUWYzE3OGM5NmItNWM5NS00YjRkLTg3MjQtNTQwNGM2OGNjZGNj&hl=enare

We used windows movie maker to create our animatic, we used the photographs from our storyboard to create the slide show and added the soundtrack for our video. This allowed us to see how each shot would fit together and how we could fit each shot to the music. One example would be shot 9. on our storyboard in our final video we accompanied the footage of the girl watching the train with the lyrics 'watching you'. This allowed us to look closely at our footage so that it would illustrate the songs lyrics and keep to our narrative.

Mise-en-scene

Setting: our video combines a few different

settings - a girls bedroom, a train station and a desolate forest. The majority of the footage has been shot in an extremely desolate and gloomy forest. We chose the setting as it is extremely practical and accessible for our group. Visually the setting is bleak and isolated which also reflects the emotions of the character that we are trying to convey. Because the setting is so isolated our filming will not be interrupted and will also reinforce the idea of the characters loneliness.

Location: we have shot parts of our video at our own homes, Lewes station and a forest in Lewes that is situated nearby the station. This was a practical choice for our group as it meant that we did not need to travel far distances as each of our sets are relatively close to each other. This has also meant our filming was not restricted as if we had chosen locations far and wide apart, we would have needed to plan a way of getting there which would have been less time efficient.

Props: One prop we have used in our video is wine bottle, we wanted to portray the character as desperately and stereotypically seeking relief in alcohol and drugs. The use of the prop foregrounds the main elements of intoxication which intern reinforces ideas of delusional and confusion in the character.

Colour: the colour scheme for our video is extremely monotone, darker colours and contrasts have been used to create and eerie, unsure and uninviting atmosphere. By doing so we are also using pathetic fallacy, the darker colours mirror and portray the actor’s raw emotions as she tries to ‘find herself’ and overcome a state of depression. The use of darker distorted colours also enforces that artist’s genre, alternative rock.

Costume & Makeup: we continued to use the same costume each time we videoed to ensure continuity between cuts. We opted for a causal look which reflects our genre (alternative rock) well, Black leather jacket, black and white striped t-shirt, black leggings and Military style boots imply an understated look yet is effective when considering the character is in a state of angst which is further employed with the colour black. The black military style boots were also a practical choice as the majority of our footage has been shot in a muddy forest. We took inspiration for the idea of our music video, from popular teen drama skins. One character in particular ‘Effy’ fits the mould of what we are trying to represent, a troubled adolescent going through relationship trouble and resorting to drugs/ alcohol. If you look at a shot of the character comparisons can be made in costume, with the heavy style black boots and overall dark/black look. Make up was kept minimal and natural to suggest the character vulnerability, innocence and fear.

The Pitch

Our group created a pitch which we presented to the rest of the class, we used a powerpoint presentation (below) that included information on our chosen artists target audience and information on where the original video was featured. We also discussed some of the ideas for our own video making sure that we had considered the artists genre and target audience to insure that our video would not only reflect the artists own work but also appeal to the artists target audience.

This is a link to a video of our pitch.
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BxbvbzM5_eUWY2M3YTUwYzgtYzg5YS00NDJiLWJjY2QtZTQ4NDk3OTc4MTUw&sort=name&layout=list&num=50

Initial Ideas

This is a link to a Powerpoint presentation where I have outlined my initial ideas in a mind map:

Copying an existing video.

Our class have chosen to copy the existing song 'Teenage dirtbag' and music video by the artist Wheatus.

This is a link to the bands official video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jJVRcCdvyY&ob=av2e

And this is a link to our classes take on the video: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BxbvbzM5_eUWZGMyYzU1MmEtYThjOC00MGEyLTgzYmQtNjdhODNiM2I5OGMz&hl=en

The first initial task was a great way of introducing everyone to film preparation and production. In the first week we analysed the first ten frames from the official 'Teenage dirtbag' video learning what was required for each shot. This gave us experience filling in storyboards (see picture below) considering

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  Shot type: close up, medium shot, long shot, or extreme close up


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  Camera movement: Static(still) or dynamic(moving)


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  Description of action: What is happening in the shot


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  Sound or Audio: in this case this would be the lyrics of the song.

This picture is an example of the storyboard we used and annotated ready for shooting. Also before any test shooting we were shown how to use the shooting script, which is similar to a story board but has space to make notes if needed, on set to refer to when monitoring filming. The shooting script is used in conjunction with the clapperboard and is integral when it comes to editing. A simple written note is placed in front of the lens at the beginning of every scene that would read something like 'shot 3 take 2'. The Shooting script used together with the clapperboard would help you instigate in editing which shots were suitable and which were not.

We were also taught how to direct a shot. To allow the production to run smoothly it is important for the director and camera operator to work together to not only set up each shot but to make all participants in the scene aware of what is happening. After positioning all the actors and extras and checking the composting of the shot, the director calls the actors to be ready, then the camera operator who sets the camera recording. Finally the clapperboard is placed in front of the lens and the start of the shot is called out 'action' and 'cut' when it is finished.

I contributed to the class task by helping edit the footage on final cut pro. Firstly by choosing what parts of the footage would work, and cutting the parts that wouldn't. We then had to piece all of the different shots together being mindful to insure continuity and fluidity throughout the extract. I also helped when on set filming, i directed the actors by saying 'action' and 'cut' and gave further feedback to the actors if another take needed to be done. This team work meant that everyone knew whereabouts we were at all of the time and what was needed next.