todays lesson

Today, we have worked on our digi pack even further.
We have decided to go with the 'shattered' picture, we then downloaded a font from 'Da Font' and put this across the image, we now have our front cover!!! We just uploaded this onto our website too :)

Digi pack editing!

In today's lesson, Caroline and I have continued editing our digi pack.
We carried on creating the collage of images which was influenced by the McFly poster in our previous blog post.
This is what we created:

However, when we placed this in our CD template, we realised that as a front cover it was a bit too busy. However, we still really like the look of it and the concept behind it (we wrote about this in our previous blog post). So, we are going to put it on the inside left.

We were then considering putting it on the right as well, but we have since decided to choose a different option.

We have manipulated the above image on Photoshop and created a new image.

We have two options:

The idea behind these two images is: the relationship has been messed up, just like the images.

The collage of the relationship represents a teenage couple in love; the images above represent a 'shattered' or 'ruined' relationship. The blur of contrasting colours also represent the ups and downs of the relationship.

Now Caroline and I really need to think about what can go on the front and back of our CD cover so that we can seriously get to work on our website!

More digi pack..

Today, Caroline and I have been looking at CD covers from other bands that appeal to teenagers (as our target audience is also teenagers).

Although this is a poster, we think a similar idea would work really well with our CD cover:

We chose this because we think it could fit in really well with our narrative. We are going to create this kind of collage of all the happy screen grabs on the top and all the unhappy ones underneath. This is the sort of thing you would imagine a young couple, happy and in love to do. Therefore it will appeal to our teenage target audience!

We have begun creating this, however we still have a lot of work to do.

Free period!

Today, during my free period, I decided to do some more editing seeing as our music video is due in so soon!
Again, I was just matching shots to the beat more seeing as this is one of Goodwins Seven, and I personally think it is vital in creating a successful music video as it happens in almost every music video ever!?!?!
Anyway, there were only a few shots that were out of time, I think first thing Friday's lesson Caroline and I should ask our teacher what grade she thinks we are heading for, and if there is anything else we can edit before we hand our draft in! :)

Todays Lesson!

Play the link below to see what I did this lesson!

Todays lesson!

This is what we created on Photoshop. It isn't perfect, and we're not too sure if we actually want to use it anymore, as we think it looks a bit cheap. But, we'll just have to see!

We did this by creating a collage, and then placing a heart template over the top, and then using the magic wand tool to select the pictures outside of the heart to create just the heart shape.

Now we're thinking of just creating a collage as it looked really nice before, and then putting You Me At Six and Crash over it. This is a bit simple, but if it works we will maybe use it. We will probably try this out next lesson.

Ancillary Task - Digi pack

Today Caroline and I are going to work on our digi pack.
Before we get started, we are going to make a plan of how we want our digi pack to look.

We are going to make our digi pack represent the relationship in our music video, this way there will be a clear link between our video and our music video.

Front cover - the front cover will represent the young, and happy stage of the relationship. we think we will make a heart out of all the happy images from the music video, or to have all the images outside the heart and then the logo in the middle. Or we might have half a heart and You Me At Six written on the cover.

Inside - the inside cover will represent the break down of the relationship. This will be black and white, and will probably include the unhappy sections in our video.

Back cover - we are not sure what to put on our back cover yet, but we might do the other half of the heart.

We are unsure about the colour change in our digi pack, but during todays lesson we are going to try and make a heart out of all the happy screenshots in our video. At the end of the lesson we will blog what we create on Photoshop.

Fridays Lesson

Today, Caroline and I made a few more changes to our music video. These are slight things that have been suggested by our teacher. For example, making the shot of me on the phone longer and clearer so the audience is able to read it. We also made the ending cut to the beat more, and to make it more in time with the music.

After this, we went onto photoshop and edited our You Me At Six picture. We wanted to get rid of their text, and put our own text on it.
We finally completed this! And have put it on our 'About' page on our website:

Possible Final Draft

During our free period today, Caroline and I did some more editing! We changed the brightness and the contrast of several clips so that they look softer and matched the others, we also changed one clip that was really fuzzy and reordered that whole part of the song! And finally, we put effects on all of the flashbacks.

We think our video is nearly complete. So here is a possible final draft:

Please leave us feedback!!!!! 

Even more editing!

In our lesson this Afternoon Amy and I asked Chris how he had got lens flares in his music video and they gave off the sort of colour we wanted for our happy flashbacks of Dj and Amy. They turned out to be shot video clips which he had downloaded that you just simply put over the shots you want to use them on and bring down the opacity. Chris allowed us to have his copied of these lens flares so we were then able to put them over our happy flashbacks. Once we did that we found that the colour movement of the lens flares was too obvious, because of this we brought down the speed so they were a lot more subtle and stayed the same colour.

 Amy and I then allowed Ms Hill to view our music video so we were able to have her feedback as well as Ms Mullen's. Ms Hill showed us where we needed to crop a clip because you are able to see Dj's leg bouncing up and down at the edge .. even though he's not meant to be in the shot. She also pointed out that one of our black and white clips is very harsh compared to all the others, to fix this we moderated the contrast and made it slightly brighter. Ms then showed us that the final montage of clips doesn't cut in time with the beat, we then spent most of the lesson cropping this and making it have more fast paced editing to go with the quickening beat as suggested. She also then suggested that we should add an effect to the argument scene with Dj and Amy to show how it differs. This was  great feedback as we had not thought of it. Amy and I then proceeded to play around with all the final cut effects, eventually we got the idea that we wanted to give it a sort of dull effect or maybe even blue. Amy found the Quicktime effect of HLS Balance we edited 2 of these (can't remember which ones at the moment). This made our argument scene look like it was grey and black and white whilst still having colour. We felt this looked really good as the next shots are in black and white, so it actually does really look like the clips are following on in the story!

Audience Feedback Video

This is David and Tyler's reaction to our music video. We let them watch it the whole way through, so we are able to see how they reacted to it. We then asked them what they thought about it, and why they liked it. They said it was good because it was very emotional and moving. They also liked that the video goes with the song (lyrics match visuals), and it goes with a beat (music matches visuals).

More editing!

In our free today Amy and I decided that we should finish putting effects on Dj's half of the split screen.   We think this has made a clear change in the mood while managing to keep it subtle enough to not be to dramtic. We still had yet to find the right effect to put over our happy flashbacks of Amy and Dj, we searched through all the ones that Final Cut Express already had installed, but there seemed to be nothing that was like what we were looking for. In the end we chose to use a colour tint of Sepia, we took down the amount that was used over the image and put up the amount of highlights that were used. After this we decided that this actually looked really good and went on to put over all the rest of our happy flashbacks- this gave it a sort of classic feel which made the shots seem warm and happy.

Amy and I watched our music video the whole way through as we have now filled in all the spaces. We know that there are many things that we still need to change, like when Dj and Amy are older and 'driving' in the car you can clearly tell they're not because you can see out the back windscreen, there is also that the end chorus of the music video is not quite edited in time with the beat at the momemnt. We decided that we

We also put a black and white effect over the second flashbacks of Dj and Sophie, just so they would match the other ones of him cheating at the start of the video. Then we edited the contrast and brightness because the black and white looked so harsh and didn't really match the rest of the music video. 

We went on to show Ms Mullen our music video so we could ask for her opinion, as we are pretty pleased with what we have done so far. She said that she didn't really understand what was happening when Amy was wearing a checked shirt, because there is such a long clip of Amy just standing looking sad. She also commented on how we needed to change the cutting at the end of the music video to be in time, which is okay because we haven't done that bit yet. She also said that when Dj breaks down, she feels like there needs to be more build to it which we aren't sure what we are going to change about it as of yet. Due to what she said about Amy in the checked shirt we edited in a short shot of Amy which was more close up, and one of Dj where he gets closer to Amy while he is shouting at her, after doing this we felt this part looked much better.

Last week we were short of clips, so when filming was done at the weekend Amy had the idea of filming a bit where Dj walks past her and ignores her. She took inspiration from the from the music video for 'Eminem and Rihanna - Love The Way You Lie' this actually turned out to really suit our music video. The fact Amy decided to hold a beer can also helps to show show Amy and Dj are older in this part of the song. 

Ours

Ours

Love the way you lie

Love the way you lie

More Tuesday.

At lunch Time Amy had a massive panic about how much there was to fill in at the end of the song, where we had originally planned to do a montage of images. So she spent some of lunch time using various clips of the argument, as well as reusing some of our older footage to fill this in, so we knew that we had enough to not have to film again.

In our final lesson of the day Amy planned to just show me what she had put in during lunchtime, however we had a lot of extra time so Amy suggested that we should edit things in time so they looked better other than just being placed. This didn't take too long but to begin with we struggled with getting the 'Just Crash' in time with Dj breaking down, in the end we chose to edit the lengths of various shots before this to make it fit! With our chosen song of Crash there is a constant beat which lasts throughout the song, when we were editing Amy and I discussed that we were't sure whether we cutting in time with the beat or the song lyric change, but we finally decided that it was kind of a mixture of both. But our cutting does look consistent throughout. I decided that we should begin to put effects on the various clips throughout so that our audience would be able to clearly determine what is present day and what is flashbacks of Amy and Dj at other points in their lives. We firstly did this by editing in Video transitions (mainly dissolve ones) between what was present day, them being young, and them being older, this went really well. However there is one image where Dj and Amy are older in the car and it cuts to Dj shouting at Amy, in the transition the view and the back windscreen of the car fades very brightly into Dj's face in the next shot, we tried to change it but didn't really have much luck and so decided to leave it for now.



Next lesson we will need to put effects on the shots of Dj and Amy when they were younger and having fun, we like the idea of a sort of Instagram effect, sort of like sepia but not that plain and bland, as we want them to look happy and in love.

Tuesday Morning!

Just a video to let you know what we did this morning!

Filming!

At the weekend, I filmed some more of the Needham lake scenes and the final flashback scene and the Christmas present scene! Hopefully this means all of our filming is complete, but we will see after editing. We are now currently uploading the footage.

We also realised that we had hardly any pictures for our ancillary text, so I took some! Here are a few of the pictures I took:

Friday's lesson

On Friday we didn't actually get to have our Media lesson as right at the beginning of the lesson we were all taken outside because there was a 'fire', and we were all sent home. However, that morning Amy and I used our free to get some extra work done. We didn't change anything on our actual music video though. We have been using Wix to start our website for the band, so far we have chosen the main font we will be using for our title and for our descriptive writing. We have also begun to create our own pages that we wish to include as part of the website, for example a Gallery and a News page, and fill these in. Amy and I have found Wix quite easy to use so far, but some of the ways to change things are complicated and we have gotten frustrated easily.

During our free we also edited a few images on Photoshop, which we may or may not use as part of our Digi-pack or website. The main image we were looking at was a shot from our music video where Dj and Amy are sitting in the field talking, one of the effects we used on this made Dj quite dark and Amy lighter.We said that we could use this to represent that Dj was the one in the wrong and is the 'bad guy' in our music video, and how Amy is innocent .

This is what we have created so far:

We do have one issue so far and that is during some of our filming we didn't really take any photos, but  to resolve this when filming is done this week we will just take a few extra ones. We also found it quite hard to make thing up about the band for the About page, before we can continue with it we have a few questions to ask!

Editing!

In today's lesson, we did A LOT of editing... We have completed the split screen... Nearly...
This is how much we've done:

Next lesson, we will concentrate on the flashbacks, and put a really nice effect on them :)

Editing!

During lunchtime today, I did some more editing.
We had a lot of gaps at the end of first period, and that really worried me! So I've worked a lot more on making it flow more evenly and come together more.
You can see that our footage has gone from:

to:

• The gap at the beginning is of the split screen, which we are going to do tomorrow's lesson
• The second gap is Dj giving me the necklace, which I will film this weekend
• The third, very small gap I think should be of a shot that follows Dj from behind as he runs up to me (as this is just before the 'just crash' bit). We don't actually have this shot, so I am going to have to go to Needham Lake and hopefully film it this weekend if we have the right weather!
• The final big gap, is another flashback which we haven't filmed yet, but shall film this weekend

So, the footage that we are hopefully going to get this weekend will be:

• The big argument scene, which results in Dj walking off to meet Sophie (my house)
• A shot from behind of Dj running up to me (Needham lake)
• I also think we need to go to Needham Lake again to get some more shots for the next 'just crash' bit. We need some more shots of us both really upset, and crying and stuff like that. It needs to be really dramatic as the song is really dramatic at the ending. We also need some more shots of us walking away from each other for our montage at the end as I don't think we have enough footage for this at the moment.

Hopefully we will be able to get this completed this weekend though. It is definitely possible, it just depends on the weather. So, fingers crossed the weather is good this weekend!

Unsupervised Lesson 2

Whilst our footage was uploading, we began creating a website on Wix for our ancillary text. We've decided on our fonts, and have made pages for our website.\

Once our footage was uploaded, we began editing. This is our progress so far:

We already have the footage for the first gap, and the last gap. The only bits we need to film, is the gaps in the middle! :)

Unsupervised Lesson!

In todays unsupervised lesson, we are importing the footage that we got at the weekend:

Afterwards we will begin editing it!

Filming

Unfortunately, we were unable to film the scene where Dj gives me the necklace, as the Christmas tree lights have not been turned on yet and seeing as we're going to film it in the dark, we need the lights to be on!
Fortunately, the lights are being switched on on the 30th, so Dj will come over next weekend so we can film the scene then! :) we will also film the argument scene then too!

Video blog!

This is just me talking about the filming that I got done today, rather than typing about it:

Also, I forgot to say (when I'm talking about the shots in the car) the reason I've decided to add these in, is because in the storyboard I often didn't anticipate the duration of each shot, lyric, interlude etc... and I'd rather have too much footage than too little! So if we can fit these shots in then we will :)

Change of plan!

Fortunately, it's reaaaally sunny today! YAY! So we're going to film the happy, young flashbacks today. And we're also going to film the scene where Dj gives me the necklace.
Next weekend we will film the argument scene, then all our filming will be done :)

Filming!

Filming hasn't quite gone to plan this weekend :(
I am over Dj's at the moment, and we have filmed his half of the split screen and him laughing on his phone. However, we were going to go outside and film the flashback where we are supposed to be young, happy and in love but the weather has been awful! It's been raining loads and the weather won't exactly mirror the emotions the characters are supposed to feel. I believe this will really affect our audience, as ultimately the message of them being happy and in love, will not be received.

So, next weekend. I have already checked, and it's supposed to be nice weather. So, I will film that flaskback then. I will also film the flashback where we have an argument at my house, and Dj goes off to meet Sophie. So, by next weekend all our filming shall be complete!!!!!!!!!!!

As you can see, Saturday is supposed to be sunny, which means we will be able to film the happy flashback scenes then :) and Sunday is not supposed to be sunny, which means we can film the inside scenes, where we have the argument then as the weather won't matter! :)

During next weeks lessons, we will have to perfect the split screen opening scenes, we will follow a youtube tutorial to acheive this as it may be challenging!
I've been looking online, and these videos seem like really helpful tutorials:

During next weeks lessons, I also think that we should really concentrate on the look we want our video to have. We already edited every image to make it appear 'softer' as some of the lighting was quite harsh, and we felt that the situation our chracters were dealing with was very delicate and sensitive, so we altered the brightness and the contrast to create this look. However, we haven't done anything with the cheating scenes other than made them black and white. I feel we could do something to all of the scenes we have to make them look better and have more of an impact on our audience. Hopefully we will receive some helpful feeback concerning this from our classmates who will hopefully comment on our draft that we uploaded in our previous blog post :)

Draft!

Before exporting a draft of our music video, we edited most of the scenes to make them look a bit softer, as some of the lighting is harsh and shiny. This also makes some of the shots match better!

After editing, we exported a draft of our music video so far. It's not complete and there are a lot of bits missing, but we have plans to film again soon!

You can skip the first 25 seconds, please leave us any feedback! :)

Editing!

Seeing as I won't be in Fridays lesson, I decided to do some editing this lunchtime as we are handing in a draft tomorrow!
I added in some more shots for the 'just crash' part of the song, which is pretty much just the chorus.
I think we will have to do some more shots at Needham lake now though, as I've realised that we have missed out some shots. For example, in the bit I have edited, I walk away too early and without Dj pulling me back, whereas in the shot list, he pulls me back and further into the song, I walk away.

However, I will talk to Caroline next week to see what she thinks :)

Todays lesson!

Todays lesson consisted of a photoshop trial/tutorial of the basics that we will need to know for making our digi pack. We played around with all the tools etc, and now feel a bit better about our ancillary task! :)
We then continued editing our music video, we have quite a lot done now, including this big section:

Ancillary Task

Whilst we're waiting for our footage to analyse for stabilisation, we thought we would look into our digi pack.
We already think we know what we're doing for the images, which we've already blogged about but we haven't decided the sorts of fonts, wording, layout etc.

Things that we are going to include on our digi pack will include:

• The name of the artist
• The name of the album
• Record label branding
• Pictures of relevant visual imagery
• Tracklisting
• Our website
• Credits - who wrote the song etc
• Logo
• Recording info
• Barcode
• Possibly CD/DVD logo

We think these things are important as they are the most common seen things on the most successful CD covers. For example:

The front of Adele's album cover:

The back of Chris Brown's album cover:

The back of Beyonce's album cover:

The front of Taylor Swift's album cover:

As part of our digi pack, we also have to include the inside of an album cover. Here we will include pictures of relevant visual imagery, credits, recording information etc.

We have chosen to include this sort of information inside as it past student examples with a high grade have included these sorts of things. For example:

This digi pack received a high A grade, and so we intend to take a similar approach and use the same marketing techniques. 

Importing footage

In todays lesson, we are currently importing our footage that we got last weekend, and we will then begin editing it all together!

Filming!!!!!!!

Unfortunately I was unable to film Saturday as the weather was really dull all day and it started to rain. However, I filmed today, and I think it went pretty well. However, undoubtedly some problems arose.

• Firstly, the camera didn't have enough charge so towards the end, a few of the shots were a bit rushed however I don't think it is going to affect our project too much.
• Secondly, I forgot to bring the list I had made that had all the shots I needed to get on it, so it was all based on memory, but I think I was able to get everything we need.
• And the biggest problem of all! There was a model boat competition at the lake. And the area where we previously filmed was completely swamped with competitors! So we had to re-film the entire 'present day' scenes on the other side of the lake. Although I think this has benefited us, as all these shots look so much nicer and better quality!
• A minor issue we had was that the part where I fall down just didn't look effective at all, so we had to change it. But I think it works so it's okay :)

After watching the footage, there were a few other problems. As the sun was behind us as we were filming; there is one shot where this is a complete silhouette of the camera on Dj's tshirt. We are hoping we could edit this out somehow! Yet this is unlikely and we may have to film this one shot again.

Also, there was one shot with someone really noticeably in the background, but they are right at the adge of the frame, so if need be, we can just crop the frame.

Filming tomorrow!

Tomorrow, I am going to film at Needham lake again, to reshoot some of the scenes we forgot to film the first time.

Thankfully it isn't going to rain:

So hopefully we can get the majority of our filming done! And only have a few flashbacks left to do :)

Editing 2

I didn't want to change anything drastic today as Caroline isn't here, so I've been trying to think about what shots should be black and white and what shots should be duller.
I just put the cheating scenes in black and white and it actually looks really good:

From our previous blog posts, you can see that we were debating what scenes should be black and white or not as we have LOADS of flashbacks. So, I think we should have the cheating scenes black and white, and Dj's half of the split screen during the intro should be really dull and my half should be really bright to create a contrast and evoke a mixture of different emotions. Although I will check with Caroline if she thinks this is a good idea :)

I think black and white will be more effective with the cheating scenes as it provokes a very sad feeling and it implies that there is no good (colour) in what he is doing. 

I also thought that the black and white made both of their clothing look darker, implying that both of their actions are bad.