Album Cover Research (Miley Cyrus - Bangerz)

Costume Post 1

Editing Evaluation

One of the corrections we was tasked with after we produced our first draft of our music video was to use colour correction to fix certain shots that we had. Some examples are as seen below.

One section of the music video the we colour corrected was in the shots of the female character running around in the park.

 

The clip above shows our first draft, although there is evidence of colour correction, we did it to show what we wanted to achieve when colour correcting in our second draft. You can see the un-colour corrected shot had plain colours creating dull connotations which isn't what we wanted to portray. Therefore by colour correcting, adding some pinks and oranges and also making existing colours more vibrant to create connotations of excitement, freedom and serenity (as seen below).   

 



 

We also use a combination of colour correction and brightness adjustment to try to fix a series of shots so the brightness of the clips were as equal as we could get. As you can see, some of the lighting with these shot were off, therefore to make them match and to make the sequence flow better, we brightened some shots and darkened others to get them to match each other.

 



  

 

 

Music Video, Draft 2

Editing Effects

Editing Effects

Brief: This video shows the editing effects we added to our footage.

Album Cover Art Research - Indie Rock

Album Cover Art Research - Indie Rock

 Album 1: Bloc Party - Intimacy

Album 2: Kasabian - 48:13

Album 3: Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Album Cover Design Ideas

Album Cover 1
One of my initial album cover designs was to have the band name covering the majority of the cover, with a still image of the band members within the letters. This will have a very plain colour scheme outside of the letters, most likely a plain background, and coloured text. However inside of the letters there will be a lot of colour, contrasting the plain cover, along with the artists, allowing us to sell them to the consumers, making the cover more engaging with the audience. 

The mock version I made below is used to demonstrate my idea, and give an impression of what the final version will actually look like. For this I simply used a still image I had of the girl from our music video, and a large font that was able to fit the face in while still allowing the audience to see what it is.

Album Cover 2

The second album cover idea was to have a very conventional cover, with the album name largely shown at the top, with the band members covering the bottom and centre of the cover, giving direct address to the audience.

This draft version below shows my idea; 3 people standing side by side, trying to sell them to consumers. In the real version I would expect them to have a more unique costume,  composition and facials expressions to help them stand out and portray the band image more closely. The background is a plain bright colour, however I added small particle effects to help fill the background and make it look fuller and more lively.

Album Cover 3

We also had the idea of having a tie being the main focus of our album cover, with the band name written in the stripes. This is due to our lead singer wearing a tie around his head, as such a tie would allow the audience to identify and relate the singer to the album cover.

In the draft the name of the band does not curve with the bends in the tie, as such for my real album cover I would have to research how to distort the text to make it look more natural and flow across the creases in the fabric. 

After making the album cover I learned how to make the text flow with the curves of the fabric. This will make the album cover look more professional if we were to use this idea, and nicer to look at.

Animatic Feedback

Animatic Feedback

Brief: We were tasked with asking other group members what they thought about our animatic. We asked them several questions as to whether they felt it fit into our genre and if it portrayed what we were trying to create, and using this information we were able to implement it into our main project.

 

Feedback Reflection

Question 1 - The viewers agreed that the music video does indeed come across as being of the indie/alternative genre.  The felt that the personality of the artists demonstrated this well.
Question 2 - Conventions of the genre that the audience picked up on included the performance of the artists. This involved them playing instruments and singing. Another convention was the costume. The audience felt that the costume worn by the artists was fitting for the indie rock genre.
Question 3 - They stated that the costumes worn by the artists portrayed them as being upbeat and happy. This was due to the positive colours and brightness in the costume used. 
Question 4 - The viewers had various interpretations of the narrative; some things they picked up on were inline with our own interpretation, however some were completely different. This shows that we have successfully replicated the style of videos of our genre, as they tend to have a deeper meaning that can have multiple interpretations - like poetry.
Question 5 - Multiple viewers found the shot on the tube to be interesting. This is likely because they recognise this location from their own lives - therefore this shot allows our audience to successfully recognise with the video and therefore enjoy it.
Question 6 - One viewer felt that a faster pace of shots was required during the later part of the video. We have taken this feedback into consideration and have decided that we will cross-cut between shots in the field and shots in the studio and/or green-screen when in the editing stage to increase the pace of editing.

Music Video, Draft 1

Draft 1

Brief: This is the first draft of our music video, along with a short evaluation of our work thus far.

Positives

• The footage we filmed over half term (all footage that is not in the 'studio' is all up to the high standard we are aiming to achieve with this project. All of the lip syncing is correct, as well as the framing and duration of each and every shot.
• The performances of the characters, notably the band's frontman singer and the female character in the narrative, are excellent - the actors perfectly portray the envisionment we had for these characters.

Negatives

• As of this point, we have not filmed the entirety of our footage. This is due to the inability to film before half term and issues with the availability of our actors.
• Some shots, notably specific ones in the field scene, need to be colour corrected and otherwise edited in order for them to be of the optimum quality and match our envisionment.
• The shots filmed in the 'studio' were not, unfortunately, up to the standards we hoped, due to issues with framing and performance. We plan to reshoot this scene now that we have identified the problem and know how to avoid it.

Music Video Draft One - Evaulation

 

 

 

Above is our first draft of our music video, we are very pleased with the quality of shots and how the short into and outro came out as well (we did this to extend the length of the music video).

 

One element of the music video we are particularly pleased with is the 360 pan shot, 'teleporting' our character from the urban, inner city location to the natural environment, representing her finding her freedom. When we made our first test shot, we wasn't happy with the our come as the cutting between the two locations wasn't consistent enough for liking, therefore when we came to filming it for real, we took great care in where the came when into her back and where I came out of, making sure they were in almost exactly the same place. 

 

Another thing we are extremely happy with is the performance of the two main characters in the narrative. Isaac and Amy, two friend of the group do not do media, but out of a favour they agreed to help us in our music video, with both of the taking both drama and music, we felt with this experience it would help them preform to how we wanted, so we saw no one else who would be better suited for the roles. As you can see throughout the music video, you can see how excellently they played their roles and how well Isaac preform the lip-syning parts of the video       

 

However there are some things that we have identified which we are going to re-edit, re-shoot and add in. For example

 

Our music video is clearly un-complete, the black gaps in our music is where we are going to use shots filmed on the green screen which we haven't actually filmed yet but are planning to after school on Monday the 17th. We are planning to create and use stop go animation in the background of our music video, which we found was a common convention in our genre of music. 

 

Some shots, such as they 'Studio' footage, we felt wasn't to the standard we wanted compared to the other location shots that we had filmed. Also, we felt by re-shooting them, we can work on reducing the amount of shadows we had in certain shot ad we can all also work on the performance of the band members. We are planning on re-shooting these shot on Wednesday the 19th after school. 

 

   

Pop Album Research - Miley Cryus 'Bangerz'

Album Cover Research Video

Album Cover Research

During our research we decided to look up different types of album covers for our genre. As a result we found certain similarities and trends between covers, and decided to make a video to demonstrate the conventions of an indie rock cover. 

Pop Album Analysis

Pop Album Cover - Analysis

Brief: This is an analysis of all the connotations identified from the album cover from the Pop genre. The album is 'Bangerz' by Miley Cyrus

Green Screen Shoot

Green Screen Assembly

The green screen was assembled in order to film the shots we required control over the background for.

One stage of this assembly was putting together the lights in order to achieve multiple light sources to avoid shadow. This was desired as a lack of shadows creates more positive connotations about our artists and tone of video.

We also filmed some initial test shots to ensure no mistakes were made and our footage would be at the highest standard.

Intro and Tube Shooting - Evaluation

Shooting Evaluation Draft 1

Here is some footage that we didn't feel was up to standard for our video, as such we will re-shoot this at a later that. This is an evaluation of the footage to see what I can do to improve next time I go out to film.

These two shots are slightly out of focus. As such it makes the footage look unprofessional and low standard. We will have to re-shoot this, ensuring that the house and the character are both in focus.

After looking back at this footage we was able to notice our reflections in the window. This brings the audience out of the video and lowers the standard of the shot. When re-shooting this scene we will ensure that the other members of cast/crew are away from camera to ensure that the footage is usable.

Camden Town Shoot

Construction Post 3:

During the half-term, the other locations we filmed at was outside Jame house, On the London Underground and Camden Town.

We decided to film an intro for our music video to be played before the music comes in as the actual length of the song was quite short and we wouldn't have had a lot of time to show our media techniques through it. We filmed a short sequence outside James house showing the character leaving her house and making her way to work. Although a lot of the shot we filmed were fine, we did find some that we weren't happy with. For example, the shot below we felt was out of focus a tiny bit and we could find a better position of it. Therefore we re-shot it after during the next shooting day.

                             

We also we filmed on the tube on the way on to Camden town for a cut away we planned to use to show the character traveling to work. We found after that the reflection of me and someone else in the window of the tube, therefore on the way back, we re -shot the same shot so their is minimal reflection in the window which might distract the viewer when watching.   

When we got to Camden, the location we wanted to use was very busy and un-usable. This was surprising because when we went to look for locations, we chose it because it was relativity quite and out of the way. So we decided to look around for a another location and shortly after we found somewhere which wasn't busy so we decided to film their instead.

Nonsuch Park Shoot

Construction Post 2:
During the October half-term, we carried out a number of film shoots to get the majority of our footage for the cutaways and the other sections of the music video. One location we filmed at was Nonsuch Park in Epsom.

At this location, we filmed the last section of our music video, where we see the character free from her urban cage that is suppressing her. James and I filmed various different shot types, some including just the main character and some of the whole band together and separately. 

Also some of the clips will make up some of the cutaways we are going to be having in our music video. When moving on to film with our GO-Pro camera, we quickly realised that it wasn't completely compatible with our fig rig that we was using. Therefore we improvised and tightly taped the attachment to the camera onto the fig rig to make sure it wouldn't move or fall off. We did this as we wanted to film some footage in slow motion and couldn't achieve this with the normal DSLR camera that we had been using.

 

We filming during late afternoon, moving onto late evening whist the sun began to set. We did this to add the warm colours from the sunset to your shots to add a sense of freedom for our character.