Research into digipacks

The Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd

  The Dark Side of the Moon is the eights album by the English rock band Pink Floyd , released on 1st March 1973 By Harvest . The album built on ideas explored in earlier recordings and live shows but lacks the extended instrumental excursions following the departure of founding member and principal contribution , Syd Barrett in 1968 that characterised their earlier work . It thematically explores conflict , greed , the passage of time and mental illness . I think that a similar CD cover to this will really suit our song , as it is simple and abstract . The designer of this particular album cover was Storm Thorgerson . When he was creating this album cover , and when he was asked to take a photograph , he replied "What do you mean ? That's what I do . Pictures ... I do not do graphics" Thankfully , for the history of album cover design , he embraced the challenge laid down to him , using twin inspirations of Floyd's live light show and a triangle which is a symbol of thought and ambition - he created this cover and a piece of musical and art history . That is why I think it  might be relevant for us to have a look at .
Most of his album covers are really minimal - especially the second picture which is going to be shown below . It is just a white brick wall with text on it . I know that he is an old singer but I still wanted to use him to show the contrast between the contemporary artists and the old one .



Peter Gabriel



I found this CD cover and remembered about our idea with a dissolving face . It is not exactly the same , but something similar . I just thought that if our music video is about a crazy mentally ill person in a padded cell , for the front cover we can use either the face of that person or a face of a singer . We can also turn it around and make it look like he is hanging upside down like he is in the music video . I like that the colours of the cover are not bright and he only used black and white colour palette . This album cover gives me a sense of mystery and questioning his emotions .

“I’ve always loved artwork and album art. I think it’s been a huge part of what people identify and feel about the music and the records” said Peter Gabriel “I used to love gatefold sleeves… when you would sit with a new record and open it up it was just a precious moment. Now we’ve gone into this digital world a lot of that has been lost. We’ve being looking at ways of getting quality prints of the artwork for a long time and I’m happy now it has happened.” 

The third artist that I decided to include is the artist whom I saw on Gaby's blog and really liked it . His name is Flume .

   

It is completely different to my first two artists but I think that it is a good contrast for us . His album covers are really interesting , calm and the pastel colours look really nice with the flowers that he chose for his front cover . There is no writing except his name but I don't think that a lot of writing would work . As a group we want to use photographs for our front covers , as Gaby and Teddy are really good in it as they are doing photography . 

Brian Donnelly and Henrietta Harris

Brian Donnelly (KAWS) is a New York-based artist and designer who creates a limited edition toys and clothing . He has created a series of portraits that portray fading / dissolving faces . He named his series of work "Liquified Rainbow Portraits" because each image shows a person's face dissolving into a waterfall  of rainbow colours . The series is highly whimsical with the use of appealingly bright colours . The painting is designed to look as through each face simply vanishing - like something from a cartoon movie . He was inspired to create these fading faces to reflect his 'interest in human identity and vulnerability." The images are crafted to look just like real people , with a slight twist of literal identity confusion . The thought-provoking series is relative to many human emotions and will resonate with a variety of individuals .

    

Here are some examples of his work and that is our first idea with the dissolving faces . We thought that it might be interesting to use as a front cover of our CD pack because we wanted to do something abstract , as abstract art is open interpretation , and that is one of the beautiful things about it . Abstract art doesn't jump out and declare "This is what it is all about" . Instead , abstract art requires you to have an open , inquiring mind . Abstract art gives you the freedom to explore the artwork and assign your own meaning to the piece . This intensely personal process enriches a viewer's experience of an artwork . Understanding abstract art doesn't come naturally for everyone . What people do not realise is that the best abstract artists have excellent drawing skills , a finely honed sense of composition and a deep understanding of the working of colour . Most of the abstract artists have the ability to draw a perfectly rendered rose or a realistic portrait , but they choose not to . Instead, they choose to express their creativity by creating a visual experience that is more free and unencumbered by the weight of objects . That is a reason why we want to use abstract covers .  

The second artist that I found is Henrietta Harris . The idea behind her work is quite similar to the first artist . Her paintings and drawings are surreal portraits with a unique style , where faces are often covered in some way . It seems that the portraits were manipulated with weird interventions that look like a "glitch" where faces dissolving , but these effects only give to each work a more interesting point of view .

      

  After some research, we will think how we can develop these ideas of dissolving faces further . Maybe we will decide that we want to change faces and take objects instead of the faces . 

Catching up on shooting

When we had our shooting day , which was last Thursday , we run out of time and didn't have any time to film our DJ . So , our teacher gave us a time slot for today (24th November) and we were filming from 9 till 12 o'clock .We texted a couple of guys yesterday and we asking if we can shoot them in our video . Heath couldn't do that because of missing too many days when he was ill .

We have done many different shots starting from a wide shot and ending up with different  close-ups . We were trying to make all the shots look as interesting as possible . Now we have much more material for editing and will continue doing it tomorrow . 

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Our teacher Jason was also contacting us yesterday to make sure that we are prepared for today's shoot . 

Editing our music video

So , today we have started editing our music video ( even though we still need to shoot the last bit - the DJ part ) . We are now in a process of digital editing , which is the part of the creative post-production process of digital video making . The term editing is derived from the traditional process of working with film but now it increasingly involves the use of digital technology . The digital video editor works with the raw footage , selecting shots and combining them into the sequence to create a finished 'pop promo' .

So , ones the footage had been transferred from the digital camera , we started considering some of the following points . We started selecting the best shots for editing . We had many wide shots , close ups and middle ones . As well as choosing the best ones , we had to delete some of them ( that are not the best ones ) . Our group had to make a lot of decisions in order to select the best shots that can be used for our music video . In order to not mess up all the shots and keep them in order, we had to name all of them in terms of who is in the shot and how the shot was filmed . 

It is also important that we save what we have done all the time so that in something happens everything is saved and we don't lose anything . 

As our music video is supposed to be really creepy , we decided to do many different quick shots (most of the shots were close ups , to really show his emotions ) . 

In terms of technology we used - Adobe Premiere Pro , Adobe After Effects and Sound editing software e.g. Garageband / Soundcloud / etc. 

Generall information about editing

                 

Now we are done with our shooting , so the next step is to edit our music video . In general , editing is the stage in the film-making process in which sound and images are organised to construct an overall narrative . It is how filmmaker puts together and considers cuts and applies transitions , special effects , etc. , as without editing a film or a music video will not be interesting .

What are we looking for when analysing editing in a clip ?
- Order of shots / shot choices. The order of shots is really important , as the order of shots can reveal who motivates the edit . When editing we also need to know which character's perspective is privileged , so on whom the main concentration is going to be . For example, do we start or end with or cut to most often scene ? Who do we see eyeliner matches for , etc.
Screen time is also part of this - which character do we see most , or which character do we see the perspective of most , point of view shots . This also tells us which characters are most important in a scene or at a particular point in the narrative .
- Continuity
- Transitions - is the process of cutting from one shot to another usually involves a simple straight cut . However there are other means of transition available to a film editor such as - Fade to black , dissolve and wipe
- Shot duration - The duration of a shot will usually reflect the narrative context .
- Pace and rhythm
- Special effects - Can be used to further manipulate the mise en scene of a sequence .

Shooting day

We had our shooting day yesterday (17/11/2016) and all the preparations for the day took us a really long time . Unfortunately , the day before yesterday I was away when my group was setting up the room , so I couldn't help them , but on the shooting day, I was trying to be as involved as possible and to help as much as possible . We all had different roles , even though we were all helping each other .  My role for the day was to do a playback . It wasn't the most exciting job to do , but it was alright .

Our whole group was really nervous , as we thought that it's all going to go wrong , but actually , everyone who was in the studio really helped us . They were always suggesting what shots are better to do and from which angle it is better to film . 

Before we started shooting (which was at about 9:30 o'clock) we had to wait till Laura does the makeup for our hanging man , after which we started filming .        

The first half of the day was a bit easier than the second one , as we knew what we were doing and knew exactly what we wanted to get from the hanging man , so that's why a certain picture in our head of what we want has really helped us . The second half of the day was a little bit harder as we didn't have a clear idea of what to do , so we just had to improvise . (The idea was to make Mike a sick person mentally and the nurse had to walk around him and write something on a special table with all the titles that we have printed before ). We have asked him to change his mood every couple of seconds so that he looks like he is mentally ill . Mike appeared to be not a bad actor .       

Talking about things that could be improved - we needed to be faster and not spend a lot of time on something irrelevant . We could do their makeup faster a little bit faster and maybe shoot the whole thing a bit faster as well . 
Here are some pictures of how Laura was doing their makeup )

     

During our shoot we realised that we need one more person to act in our video , so we had a very little of time to find someone and we asked Vogue to help us .

Summarising our shooting day

We are shooting our music video in two days . Before that, we need to prepare everything and we need to know what exactly we are doing on the day . So , we have two set ups . The first one is a padded cell and the second one is a clean white room with only one chair inside it . The next step is characters . We have three characters in total . One of them is a band member , one person who is going to be in a straight jacket + lip syncing . The second person is a therapist (Fran) and the third one is Mike who is going to be a patient . We also have a band who are going to be playing in a padded room .
On Wednesday , we have to prepare our settings in the studio and build a padded cell . We also have to have a risk assessment of Harvey , who is going to be hanging . Harvey is not just going to be hanging , but also  lip syncing and swinging . The risk assessment will take place from 3 to 6 pm on Wednesday .
The straight jacket is coming to us on Tuesday .
We also need to think about makeup  and make it clear to Laura of what exactly we want her to do .

Shot list

Here is our shot list that we have created :

Music video production team - roles and responsibilities .

Music video production team - roles and responsibilities .

Here I decided to do a quick list of the main roles and responsibilities for the shooting day , so that later on me and my team can decide what each one of us is doing .

Director - Takes everything into account such as the script , storyboard , costumes , props , target audience , floor plan and location and directs an effective video that covers all aspects that has been planned in the pre-production .

Assistant director - Assist the director .

Producer - Purchases everything and helps chooses the correct brands .

Executive producer - Pays for the cost of the video .

Actors and actresses - Responsible for portraying the character in a film . The actors / actresses also work closely with the director and cinematographers .

Script writer - Writes all what is taken place within the video .

Script supervisor - Makes sure the director folows the script .

Cameraman - Shoots the video .

Emailing Mike and Callum

Teddy has emailed Callumn and Mike to ask if they can take part in our music video .
Here are screenshots of the emails .

   

Preparations for creating a shot list

We are now creating a shot list , as it will give us a great opportunity to run the production more efficiently . A shot list is similar to a storyboard because it identifies what's being shot . We are going to include the description of the shots and what shot types can be abbreviated , we are also going to write a description based on it . We need to be incredibly accurate and precise in describing how we want our shots to be filmed , as it will help us to visualize the action and have a better picture of how everything should be filmed . For example , "He walks into the room" doesn't describe whether he's walking in from the left or right and you can also picture them moving in from the left or right , and although you picture him moving left to right . We now need to have another look at our storyboard and arrange the shots into groups based on the order you plan to shoot . We need to group the shots based on their location and the actors appearing there . We also don't want our actors to be wasting their time , so we really need to minimise setups and prevent people from waiting around for their scenes and film location by location . We are going to divide the shot list between the group members , so that each of us can do a certain location .

Here are some examples of how the shot lists should look like .

Here is a reminder of the shot types :

Schedule

Here is our schedule with all the timings , people required , props and costumes required and locations .  

 

Prop list

Here is a detailed list of all the props that we need for the shooting day . As you can see we are not doing the CCTV room anymore , so we don't need any props for that . We have also removed a table and one chair from the interrogation room . There are not many things we need to buy , as many of the props, we can borrow from our friends , art department or costume department . We might still be adding some little things as we move along , but for now, this is the final version .