NW Photos - Digipak and Advertisment

Posted by Nick

Above are all the images from the shoot, including ones that didn’t make the cut when it came to deciding which ones would be most suitable for the ancillary texts.

Below that are the images which we have taken for both our digipak and magazine advertisement which we have put into black and white, something which we hope will give the images a more ‘artistic’ feel, and perhaps connote to the audience that Peñate’s sound is quite retro, with complex instrumentation intertwined with simple lyrics.

We took the images in the same location as our video, the Tonbridge Woodland, as we feel that the song which we made a video for is a reflection of the whole album, with a very earthy and autumnal feel, thus connoted through the images of the trees. The magazine advertisement (bottom right) is a combination of three separate images which we took, panning the camera after each one, as we wanted to achieve a wide angle image for the size of our advertisement, 4cm x 7.2cm.

NW Filming 20th, 21st and 22nd November

Posted by Nick

Friday

This weekend, Mark and I decided to film all the footage which we needed to fill in the gaps in our music video.

After two weeks of filming stop motion animation and performance based shots, later capturing and editing them, we knew what needed to be done or re-done, because the stop motion and the performance only occupied roughly half of the song, thus we had to film a lot more. On Friday, we collected the camera and tripod and both headed back to my house.

Here we decided to film all of the make up shots which we would later put in stop motion, hiring my mother to paint my face with eye liner, forming a variety of patterns, as Mark decided he wasn’t as crafty with the make up kit as he originally thought.

The shoot was successful, and we also managed to shoot a variety of filler shots, including one where mark threw leaves on my face which we wanted to put in reverse time so they appear to be flying off, as well as a time lapse, where the trees were silhouetted against the sky, capturing the transition from day to night.

Saturday

We decided to get up early so that we could capture the majority of our footage in the light, as it was coming to the time of year when it became dark very quickly. Filming early also ensured that if we had to re-do shots that we weren’t happy with, we would have enough time to do so later on in the day.

We started out by filming the ‘building' of the snake, depicting the three individual sheets which make up the snake moving independently, with shots of them each rolling up in stop motion, plaiting together, and later having the sock ‘head’ move towards the plaited sheets, giving the snake life. This shoot took very long and was very strenuous, as we had to move each sheet individually which took three times longer than when we had been moving only the snake.

We tried to achieve as many angles as possible, using high and low angles, as well as pans and tilts showing the creation take shape.

When we headed home after a long day filming we decided to stop and quickly record some filler shots in the woodland, simply of panning and tilting around.

The shoot was successful as the weather meant that we could film all day, and we were now confident in the fact that roughly the first third of our video had been filmed.

Sunday

On the final day of shooting in the weekend, we decided to try and shoot all of the performance, as well as the door, but we knew we would have to work fast as we both had our own commitments at one o’clock, thus another day of early filming begun.

We headed to the area of woodland which we had shot the early performance shots at, and as we ventured further in, we realised that the previous night’s rain had made our location very damp and thus potentially more risky for the crew and equipment.

We begun with the performance regardless, capturing a lot of images of me playing the drums, as well as the drum rolling down various hills.

We also filmed a few shots at different trees where I repeatedly hit the tree, hoping that these would look similar to the arty yet random images present in Peñates other videos such as ‘Tonight’s Today’.

We also decided to film a few stop motion shots similar to what we had already filmed, where I wandered around the woodland, stopping at various trees, banging the drum. We were careful not to include any rubbish or the bridge which overlooked the woods in our footage, as this was what made us decide to re-shoot the footage in the first place.

Once the performance footage had been filmed, we realise we did in fact have enough time to shoot the door opening and closing. We quickly headed home and employed my father to unscrew the door. We then progressed back into the woods, and quickly set about filming the door in the woods.

This proved very difficult as we needed the door to open and close in stop motion, however, after a few attempts, we decided what worked best (the cameraman walking up to the door so that the person who was to open it by tilting it a small amount), and filmed this from a variety of angles.

Overall, this was a very successful shoot, as we now had the whole of the footage we needed, and thus anything else we needed to film would be decided when we had watched our footage back and decided if it was good enough for the final cut.

NW Digipak Idea - Text Layouts

Posted by Nick

Above are our print layout ideas for our digipak. We have chosen to go with a simplistic theme, with black and white text and background, as well as potentially, having black and white images for the whole of the album. The font we have used is called ‘Times New Yorker’, downloaded from http://www.dafont.com/.

I believe the font is very clear and simple, and will not detract from the images. The ripped effect around the text connotes that the album is very natural, and also, this is similar to the jagged and rough look of our location for the video, and thus presents a visual link for the audience.

NW Filming 17th November

Posted by Nick

Yesterday, Mark and I went to our woodland location in Tonbridge to film our stop motion animation, as well as some performance shots for the verses in the songs. We filmed for roughly three hours, with the first half being dedicated to the stop motion, and the second, the performance.

We managed to film a variety of shot sizes for our stop motion, and we tried out a few shots where the image is partially blurred to highlight the eerie feel of seeing the snake move through the woodland. In the performance part, we filmed a variety of angles as well as movements such as panning and tilting which maintain the pace started with the stop motion.

We found it very difficult to properly lip synch the words in with the song, and thus we have kept shots of the singers face to a minimum, choosing rather to include filler shots which we had already captured in and round the woods. As Peñate is an ‘Indie’ artist and has a specific audience, there isn’t as much need for meat shots as there would be for a boy band music video.

NW Digipak Idea - Group

Posted by Nick

This week we have set ourselves the task of completing all capturing the shots of what we have already, as well as potentially editing the majority of the performance aspect for our video. The stop motion animation has taken a lot longer than we had originally planned, as we have had to re-shoot on tapes we have already used, and this has corrupted two of our tapes which we have to now re-do.

Due to this happening we have now decided to do a digipak together instead of one each, as this will decrease our individual work load and thus free up more time to work on the video, which is, for us, the main priority.

NW Filming 15th November

Posted by Nick

On Sunday the 15th November, I went to our location to capture some stop motion animation footage of our ‘snake’ moving through the woodland. This was a successful shoot as I got a lot of footage in a short amount of time, shooting for roughly 2 hours and capturing the same amount of footage which previously had taken me about 6 hours to record, and I believe this is partly due to the fact that once I had got the hang of shooting the stop motion effect, I could do it very efficiently, and thus, hopefully, I will now be able to film a lot of stuff in a short amount of time. After showing our teachers and peers the footage which we had already, it was decided that we should have a wider variety of shots, and thus in this filming session I did a variety of POV shots, high angle shots, and lots of camera movements.

NW Filming 14th November

Posted by Nick

On Saturday I went to our only location, the woodland near my house, and shot as much of our performance based shots as possible. However due to weather conditions which brought on heavy rain and strong winds, we had to wait inside before clear conditions began to show, and this, this really dug into the time in which we had allowed ourselves to shoot in, taking into account what time it got dark. This meant that in total we were only filming for roughly 2 to 3 hours, and although we captured some good shots, this was not a sufficient amount for the performance in the video and therefore we will have to go out and shoot again this week.

NW NME Magazine Advertisment Sizes

Posted by Nick

As a group, we have decided to individually design our digipak, and work together to create a magazine advertisement. For this task, we have decided to use the popular British music magazine ‘NME’ (‘New Musical Express’), which is one of the frontrunners in showcasing new ‘Rock’ and ‘Indie’ music from various bands across the world. Established in 1952, the weekly magazine has continually raised its standards, with new bands coming in from far and wide to show off their music.

The back section of the magazine is dedicated to advertising artists’ new albums, tours or merchandise. There are also tour dates and locations in this section so that the reader can easily identify where their favourite musical talent will be.

This is the section in which our advertisement will be, and to do this we must create a commercial fitting to the magazines set sizes, these ranging from a whole page ad, measuring 24.5cm by 31.5cm, to a smaller corner ad measuring 4cm by 7.2cm. We will be making our advertisement for a 7cm by 15cm ad space.

NW Timeline (October and November)

Posted by Nick

Above is a print screen of our timeline planning sheet for the months of October and November (simply click on the image to enlarge it in a new window).

We have been using our timeline to plan shoots as well as what we will be doing in the lessons, whether we will be working on the digipak, adding to or editing the blog, or capturing footage. Once we have met deadline we set ourselves or feel we have finished what should have been in a certain week, we can tick it off the timeline and move on to other tasks which we need to complete.

From looking at the timeline and knowing ourselves, we can tell that October has been a successful month; our pitch was well received, with all positive feedback coming from our peers which subsequently has helped us to alter our idea to suit our genre. We have also completed reccie’s in this month, showing what locations are suitable to the task. As well as designing and filming our storyboard, compiling our visual ideas into the track so we can see what, hopefully, the finished product will look like. At the end of the October month was half term in which we set our digipak task to design visuals for the album front and back cover, as well as the interior, and also the magazine advertisement.

We are halfway through November at present, and in general we have once again had a successful few weeks so far. We have done a lot of filming, however, we have substituted some digipak designing task which we set on our timeline for editing, because we hadn’t realised the true time scale of using stop motion animation. Our blog has been edited sufficiently, and we have both altered the majority of our blog posts so that our teachers and peers can understand clearer what we have been doing on the course. For the rest of the November weeks to come we will hopefully be able to keep to our timeline, but with the gruelling process of stop motion, as well as having to adopt a wet weather contingency, we are not sure as to what we will be able to film as all our locations are outside, and the weather may mean that we have to postpone shoots which will, as a result, alter what needs to be done each week.

We have used a colour coding system for the timeline, and this has allowed us to easily identify what needs to be done when. The key is as follows:

Blue- Pitch
Yellow- Blog
Pink- Storyboard
Red- Filming
Peach- Capturing
Brown- Digipak
Grey- Booking equipment
Green- Deadlines

The November month is being completed in each lesson, and we have written down what needs to be finished by the end of the month, and once everything is complete, we can move onto planning for the December month, in which we will be compiling footage, interviews, images, voiceover, all for our evaluation task which is to be completed before the term finishes.

MS Digipak and Advertisment Ideas

Above are my ideas for my digipak front cover, and advertisement. The top two images are in keeping with urn woodland theme, the first being a low angle shot looking up a tree (a shot similar to one in which we are using in our music video), and the second is a computer graphic, where I simply changed the colour and the contrast of a photograph to make the image appear as a logo, representing the natural theme of Peñate’s music. Below these two images is a wide angle shot of woodland which we intend to use for our magazine advertisement. We will take three separate images of woodland, each progressively panning on from the next so that we can merge all three pictures together in Photoshop so it looks like one wide image. In the bottom right hand corner we will have Peñate standing beside a door (something which we will be using in our music video).

NW Digipak and Advertisment Ideas

Posted by Nick

As a group, we have decided to design our own digipak (consisting of a front and back cover, as well as two interior pages), and have decided to create the magazine advertisement together. As both of our digipak ideas involve woodlands, mark choosing to have an album cover of just trees, and I choosing to use the woodland as well as Peñate in the photograph, we will make our advertisement centred around the area in which we filmed our video in, a woodland area in Tonbridge, and hopefully this advertisement will be visual links to both of our digipak’s.

NW Digipak Idea - Fonts

Posted by Nick

Above are some of the fonts that I may use on my digipak as well as our group advert.

I have chosen to use these fonts as they are very simple, with connotations of a ‘no nonsense’ feel, which is reflected in Peñate’s album; he has produced music which is new and creative, whilst maintaining classic ‘Rock’ and ‘Indie’ beats.

As my digipak ideas are of photography, rather than using computer based graphics, I think each font will blend well with the images, as each is relatively plain, and thus this will enable the audience to focus primarily on the visuals rather than the text, the fonts not detracting from the ‘wow factor’ achieved by the images.

As you can see, all fonts are in black and white and I believe that I will keep them this way, perhaps altering them to have a white border so that they stand out against the photographs.

All fonts have a slightly ‘etched’ effect in which the letters look as if some of the colour has been rubbed out, and I believe this connotes age, as if they have been weathered, and this is something that I thing will help the audience to identify with the ‘woodland’ theme of both our digipak and music video.

NW Digipak Idea - Drawings

Posted by Nick

(The images can be enlarged by clicking on each, thus taking you into a new window. The real page is in our zip folders.)

Above are my digipak ideas for the album cover, back and interior of the Jack Peñate album ‘Everything is New’.

On the front page entitled ‘Digipak Ideas’ I have given my ideas for both the front and back cover, with ideas on visuals, characters involved, the positioning of the text and shot angles and sizes.

Here I have presented ideas such as using an elaborate border, having a low angle or high angle shot, and using detailed make up and costume. On the reverse page is my mood board for digipak ideas with Victorian imagery, using images of old circus workers, such as the ring master, a ballerina, and a strongman. As well as these characters, I have also included famous paintings, elaborately creating ideas of an idyllic world. When I was creating my mood board I liked the idea of ‘fantasy’ and my images here, with the circus characters, and images of fairies etc. have allowed me to develop my initial ideas on the front, of simply Peñate by himself, to an elaborate image which has a ‘fantasy’ theme.

On the back there are also images of the album cover interior, and these are simply photos of Peñate, again with a supernatural theme, with various elaborately dressed characters in each shot.

When the time comes for me to produce my digipak, I will take all images in the woodland area in which we are filming in so that our audience can create a visual link between the music video and the advertisement.

NW Filming 7th November

Posted by Nick

On Saturday I filmed some of the stop motion sequence in a woodland area behind my house.

The filming went well, with the weather conditions as well as the lighting meaning I was able to shoot a lot of footage across the day. We were using the snake which we had constructed out of three bed sheets plaited together, with a sock for a head, and after a while this got dirty due to it being dragged through the soil, and thus to maintain continuity, we will wash the sheets after every day of filming.

We used a technique for filming where we filmed the entire stop motion sequence, complete with me coming into the shot and moving the snake a small amount every shot so that it appeared to be moving. In the editing process we will capture all footage and then cut split each clip whenever I appear in the shot, thus the finished sequence will only be shots of the snake moving.

The shot was successful, however we still have a lot to do, all performance will be shot this Saturday coming and once we have captured all our stop motion, we will be able to see how much more of this we need to do.

NW NME Magazine

Posted by Nick

We have decided to ‘run’ our magazine advert in the hugely iconic and influential weekly musical magazine ‘NME’, standing for ‘New Musical Express’. The magazine has been going since March 1952.

It is now in its 57th year and still continues to be at the forefront of all new and esciting music from the genres which it mainly follows, thses being ‘Indie’ and ‘Rock’, although on many occasions the magazine do review and hold interviews with people in the ‘Hip-Hop’ or ‘Electronic’ genre.

It has recently moved into new areas of the media, having its own television channel, showcasuing all the latest music, as well as merchandise, such as compilation CD’s and clothing. We have chosen this magazine as our artist, Jack Penate, attarcts an audience mainly from those who are interested in ‘Indie’ music, thus the magazine is perfect for gaining interest in the singer.

Below is a link to the magzines web address, simply click on it and it will lead you to their site.

http://www.nme.com/home

MS - Risk assessment

Above is a print screen of our risk assessment. This is used to allow our teachers to know, as well as bring to our attention any possible problems or risks we may encounter when filming. On the risk assessment we must ask ourselves what the possible dangers are, from weather conditions damaging the camera, to filming in areas where we may encounter potential hazards to our health. Once we have acknowledged all problems we must write ways in which we can minimize these risks from happening.

MS - call sheet

Above is a print screen of our call sheet. This is used to tell both us as a group when were filming as well as our teachers what we intend to record on the day of the shoot, where we will film, what equipment we have as well as vital information such as people involved on the shoots mobile numbers, this is in case something bad happens that everyone can get hold of each other and know where everyone is.

NW Digipak Idea - Front Cover

Posted by Nick

Above are two different ideas for our digipak front cover.

They use the Victorian imagery which we discussed using when writing our pitch, however, as we have to use our own images we will use our own characters in elaborate costumes in a natural setting, (similar to the ideas above), with Peñate included on the front cover, either in normal ‘Indie’ clothing or like the rest of the people on the front, in costume.

Both of my ideas obscure the characters faces, and this is my ‘post-modern twist’, as this gives the digipak an artistic and challenging flare. Ideas on the interior and the back of the digipak will be similar to the ideas above.

MS - Lyrics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvbdSt5RKQA

Above are the lyrics to the song which we will be shooting a music video for, Jack Peñate’s ‘Give Yourself Away’ (just click on the image above and it will take you to a new webpage with the image on a bigger scale). Having the lyrics handy is vital to us when we are filming as when we are doing the performance aspect of the video, the singer will need to ‘lip synch’ the lyrics otherwise the video, when complete, will look as if the lyrics are not in time with the music. If you read the lyrics you will probably encounter one of our main problems as a group, and that is that the lyrics are very random, not making much sense and thus this is one of the main reasons why we decided to use a concept based video, relying on our artistic ideas to highlight the songs quirkiness rather than illustrating the lyrics which could in the final cut of the video, look confusing, and again, not make a lot of sense. Just in case you want to sing along, there's a link to the song on YouTube at the top of this post.

MS - Filming 4th November - Evaluation

On the 4th November myself and Nick went and started filming for our music video. Filming went well and we got a fair amount of footage shot. Unfortunately our camera ran out of battery, this is going to be a fairly big issue as, we are doing stop motion animation using a regular digital camera rather then a DV camera. We are going to have to consider using the DV camera as it has a lot longer battery life, and we can take two batteries with and camera that we can't with a digital camera. We have also discovered the sheer size of the task we are going to take on. It took us about an hour last night to get a sequence that is about 20 seconds long.

NW Shot Idea - Woodland

Posted by Nick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0unB04j_lw

Above is a video by Indie-Electro band Late of the Pier for their song ‘The Bears are Coming’ from their second album ‘Fantasy Black Channel’.

The video is shot completely in woodland with various groups of people, all in elaborate costume and make up, converging on a red cube with mysterious capabilities. I really liked the video when I first saw it, and when shooting for our own music video, we will keep in mind what the band have managed to achieve in their video with the woodland. They use a variety of shots of the trees at various angles, and this is something we hope to re-enact in our video.

MS - Filming 4th November

We plan on filming after school today. We will shoot the shots of our cloth, moving through the woods, and going along and up the trees. Hopefully the weather and lighting will hold out for us so we can get as much filming done as possible. As we are using stop motin animation it is going to take as a long time to film.