Rough Cut 1

This is our first rough cut for our music video. As you can see it is very rough and we still need a lot of footage and we need to add some more things such as filters and film grain. However the footage we have, we have put in place of our animatic shots which has helped us as a guideline to decide where each shot goes. We have tried effects in some places, for example 0:40-0:46 where we have over-layed several clips of footage to create the double exposure look. 

For our next rough cut we are filming the footage of the band in the studio and footage of the female character in the park - nature footage. Afterwards we will think about adding more effects and stylistic filters to create the planned look of our final media product. 

Rough Cut 2

Rough Cut 2 includes move footage with the wide screen effect and adjustments with colour correction tools.

Digipak Construction 2

To progress further with the construction of the digipak, I have edited some images from our photoshoot from the studio and combined them with nature and earth elements to create interesting, experimental portraits. This idea was influenced by a photographer that i like: Matt Wisniewski. 

As planned in the planning phase of our project we are still going ahead with the idea of having interesting landscape shots combined with 2 panes filled with an image of each character. The final images on this post are the two that are going to be used for the characters. This leaves 4 panes remaining on the digipak: the front cover we are unsure what final image we are using yet, the back cover, and 2 extra panes that we are going to place some of our final landscape images in. 

The screenshots show how I have used Adobe Photoshop to create this images using various layers, masks and blending modes. 

 

These screenshots show the stages of progression when creating the image. To fit in with the stylistic concepts and artistic style of our chosen genre I have used a filter in photoshop to add noise to the image. This results in the final image(s) having a grainy appearance, combined with high contrasts this makes the images have an old, film style about them. 

The two final images can be seen below:

Album Artwork Moodboard

When thinking about producing our digipak we need to use creative ideas that we have been inspired by and influenced by from other various alternative rock artists. The album artwork will be the most important part of the digipak as it will give the band identity as well as be noticed by the target audience. In order to give me and the rest of my group some ideas I have put together a mood good of different rock bands album cover artwork. 

Researching a lot of digipaks and artwork in addition to those above it has become apparent that a lot of post-rock/alternative-rock bands have a very arty approach to the album artwork. For example none of the above artwork features the band or band members - it is all artwork, or characters that feature in a music video of the singles from the album. The Bon Iver and Arcade Fire albums do not even feature the bands name or the album title either. From this research we have agreed that we want to keep our cover of the digipak as minimal as possible and include some artwork instead of having the band featured. This also fits in with the stylistic "arty" conventions of our chosen music genre. 

The bands identity can be presented on the front of the digipak to strike the target audience straight away, rather than them having to physically look and explore the digipak to realise who the album is by. Bands such as Bon Iver and Arcade Fire can get away with not including the name of the band on the cover as the target audience will most likely already know what the front cover will look like from various advertisements and fan-base. 

The other digipaks include the bands name which is in a font that the target audience will recognise. It has become clear to us how important the typeface we use won our digipak will be as it gives the band a brand identity as well as meeting the audiences expectations. 

It is interesting that only the Daughter album has the text centred on the front of the digipak. M83, Mogwai and Mono also have centred text, but positioned in the top third of the frame. The Sigur Ros typeface is really small and quite hard to read at a distance - this strikes me as being deliberate so that the audience take care to see what the album is. Fleet Foxes and The National have their text in the top corners of the image. This results in the primary focus of the audience being on the image on the front cover of the digipak. 

From analysing these covers we have come to the conclusion that our digipak will be mainly artwork based, with scenery images that have been experimented with to create an arty film look. We have also decided to have the characters from the music video we have planned to feature somewhere on the digipak to contrast the landscape images. 

Music Video Trends

I have created the prezi which can be seen blow in order to explore and research some rock music video trends. This research will help me and my group when it comes to the planning stage of our project as it will give us initial ideas and remind us of the style of rock music videos so that we stick to the conventions of our chosen genre. 

Studio Photoshoot (Characters from Video)

 In order to create the final images for our digipak, we have constructed a second photoshoot that includes shots of me and Liam in the studio. We are going to combine these images with previous industrial and nature images to create final images that contrast each other as well as fit in with our initial ideas and reflect our chosen genre. The images will also fit in with the generic styles of similar bands as instead of having typical "band shots" we are taking an artistic/stylistic approach.