A2 Digipak: Fireworks CS4

To make the digipak, I will be using the programme Fireworks CS4. It is a bitmap and vector graphics editor. This means I will able to create my able art with the many features it has. For example, there are cut tools, gradient adjusters and much much more.

Here is a screenshot of what the programme looks like:

A2 Digipak: Possible Images

For the inner panels, I have planned the collage/fabric effect with photographs. Because I want to keep the exterior looking as professional as possible, I thought it would be nice to include a personal feel for the inside. This is similar to existing products where bands/artists will include photgraphs of them with friends, family or during shoots. I thought that this idea could work very well so Freddie and I took some photos that we could both use in our digipaks.

Below are photographs of us working very hard! :) We hope that adding a few of these will make the digipak more personal but also maintaining a professional feel. I will also add the photo of Chris that is in the character/cast blog entry. I think it will be nice to give Chris some recognition for his hard work as without it, we would not have a music video.

A2 Digipak: Final Ideas

I am really keen on the fabric idea for my digipak. After I have a more detailed design, I can then plan what will go on the other panels. Existing digipaks usually keep a theme so having my initial CD cover, will help me develop the other panels. As you can see, I have kept with the theme of the colourful fabric and stitching. I feel that this is a successful idea because of the boldness, and the colourful theme will draw attention to it. Especially if it is amongst dull products. Although a conventional digipak consists of a track list and artists photos, I feel that these pages will keep the digipak looking more professional on the exterior.

Front Cover Plan:
Back Cover Plan: Although a typical convention for a digipak is the track list on the back, I have written the contents of my coursework CD. This represents a track list.

CD Slot:

Inside Center:

I am really pleased with these mock up CD covers, I will be using the programme Fireworks CS4 to create this digipak.

A2 Digipak: Digipak Ideas

The three images below are my initial Digiak Ideas. I haven't used free images for these, it was just get create a mock up of what the ideas could look like. I don't like them very much as they are quite plain and look very unprofessional. I think that I am going to pursue the collage/fabric idea.

The collage idea related quite well to my music video, I don't want a strong relation between the two. This is because existing digipkas do not usually represent just one video that an artist has made.

A2 Digipak: Front Cover Ideas

The image below is my first idea for a CD cover. I have decided that I don't want to use a photograph of a band/artist. This is because we didn't use any in our music video but we also do not have any people available to us. Also, when i was researching existing digipaks, I was most drawn to the covers that had used album art instead of photographs. The images below are simple basic ideas. The first one is White background with multi-coloured font, and a black border. I liked the use of bright colour. This along with the contrasting backgrounds would create a bold digipak that would stand out.

This next rough design is of a suit and tie. Again, I have tried use bright colours and bold lines to help make the CD cover stand out. This idea is more related to our music video, however, existing products never relate to just one promo video so it is unlikely that I will use this one.


Similarly to my first idea, I decided to use a white pen on a black background for contrast. This would make the album cover stand out. Although the cartoon-like woman isn't really relevant.


This is my favourite design so far. It is supposed to represent a compilation of several colourful fabrics with "Vampire Weekend" stitched on. Because I am not relating my digipak too much to the promo video, I think that this will be more of a challenge but also present a high result.

The one feature all CD covers have in common is that they include the artist and stand out. This is why I have tried to do this.

A2 Digipak: Template

I know that I would like to create a digipak with six panels. To help me out, I decided to look online for some templates. I came across a website called DiskWizards where I was able to get a free template:

A2 Digipak: What goes on each panel?

After looking at a few CD covers, I decided to have a look how a digipak is broken down. The examples below are six panel digipaks, the reason I have looked at these is because I have decided that I want to do the same.

The layouts of these digipak are pretty similar. I will use these digipaks as a guideline to help me decide what to design for each panel.

A2 Digipak: Existing Album Art

The front cover of a Digipak is the most crucial component. This is for several reasons. Firstly, it is what a potential buyer will see first. It needs to draw attention as it would be placed among many other albums. Secondly, the album art will give a potential buyer the preconceived idea of what the artist will be like from the art. I have decided to deconstruct a few album covers in order to understand what makes them successful.

My favourite CD cover from this selection is the fourth one down. This is because it is very colourful and busy. Creating an album cover that won't use a photo of an artist, I feel, would be more successful for me. This is because the music video doesn't contain an artist and it would seem inappropriate to take a picture of someone different at this stage.

A2 Digipak: About Digipak

Our brief was to make a promotional video/music video as well as two ancillary products. One of which is Digipak. A digipak is more than just a CD case with a CD. It is a packaged CD case capable of holding one and more CD's or booklets, photo etc.. They are usually used for special edition CD's or for having a CD, DVD combination.

From looking at these, I have discovered the typical Digipak Conventions:

Each Digipak includes the artist name: I already know that this is "vampire Weekend."

The album name: Contra, although, I may not include this on my digipak as it will only include the music video for the song "Cousins."

Images: Because I haven't used the real artist (or any artist at all) for the music video, I am thinking of including photo relevant to the course. For example, images of us working and filming etc..

Record label information: XL Recordings.

I have also noticed that the majority of Digipaks are usually made u using six panels.

A2 Music Video: My Opinion

Was the video appropriate for the song?
I personally feel that we captured the erratic, fun, fast paced music well with a character to match this style. However, Chris was quite slow paced in some places and it would have worked better if he had physically moved the pace we had sped him up to. For example, I think it would have been more entertaining at the scene where he brushes his teeth if he was physically moving that speed and becoming messier. Also, I think that if we had more people available to us then we could have included a band performance. This would have maybe promoted the band more successfully. Despite this, the name "Cousins" reminds me of family and presenting this small idea of the song with a family man has worked quite well.

Was it entertaining?
I definitely think so. Freddie and I have very similar senses of humor so the events that happened made us laugh and we enjoyed watching them back. It has been very rewarding to receive positive feedback to this question as it is quite difficult to make something funny and entertaining. It is easy to fall into thinking something is funny because one person enjoyed it. For example, a friend breaking into a laughing fit during filming is funny to us at the time, but no one else would enjoy watching that.

Was the balance of Story and Performance right?
This was one part that I wold maybe change, I am really pleased with the results of the music video considering we had a limited amount of actors. However, if we had more actors and a lot more time (and a longer song) I would try to include a band appearance/performance. This would tie the video together nicely and fit more with a typical music video convention. Although, I also like the secrecy of not knowing the artist, this is typical of the artist Bob Synclair.

Good choice of props, locations and costume?
I am very pleased with these elements. A lot of care went into selecting them and our idea relied on these to tell the story. However, it would have been good find an actual office for the office scene. Peterborough is not the greatest location offices, nor could we find anywhere in time.

Were the camera angles and movements interesting?
The tracking shots are the shots I am most pleased with! It was great fun to experiment with a range of angles such as the tracking despite our dolly not working. Our shot list was planned knowing that music videos include lots of cuts and we wanted to make these cuts interesting. There is no point cutting to another shot filmed exactly the same way.

Was it a success?
I am very pleased with the outcome. We had no issues editing and I feel the tie changing as he goes down stairs had a high standard outcome. We were very lucky for our storyboarding and shot planning to have worked out so well. We have definitely improved in our organisation skills since AS.
There is a shot, however, where Chris' singing looks as though it is out of sync. Unfortunately, no matter how much we edited this, it always looked this way. We have come to the conclusion that it is the way that Chris sang along to this part. If we had more time, I would have maybe re-shot this part. This and the lack of a band appearance is the only thing I would change.
Another mistake was that Chris was not wearing his tie in the running shots, this has worked to our advantage as I feel that the shot where Chris' tie comes off works better. It is entertaining and ties the running to the house exit nicely.
Our extensive planning, good actors, several filming sessions and improved editing skills have meant that our final music video has worked out better than planned. Our target audience has proved to like the music video. I feel that overall, the music video was a definite success.

A2 Music Video: Feedback Analysis

50% of survey takers were male, and they were all part of our target audience. This means that we have opinions from mixed genders and all of the response will be valid. As well as this, then people means there is enough data to analyse.

75% agreed that the music video was appropriate for the song with the other 25% feeling that it was only appropriate sometimes. No one said no, this means that we have overall, succeeded with choosing the action for our music video. Perhaps we needed to create a questionnaire that would have found out what people wanted from the song "Cousins."

100% of people agreed that the pace of the music video was appropriate for the song. This means that we have succeeded in fulfilling this audiences needs with this particular element.

75% of people found the music video very entertaining whereas the remaining 25% found it interesting enough. I feel that this is a very good reaction as no one found it uninteresting. Not everyone is pleased by the same things so having the majority of our target audience enjoy the video, is satisfying.

We were unsure whether the guitar solo performance at the end of the song would be enough of a balance between story and performance. Surprisingly enough, 100% of our survey takers thought it was. which means we planned the right amount of each element.

75% of our survey takers thought that our choice of props, costumes and locations successfully portrayed a married man experiencing a hectic morning and work day. I am pleased by this result as planning these elements took a long time. It is good to know that our worked had payed off and the majority of our audience could understand the story.

A surprising result of 100% of people said that they could see our music video on TV. This suggests that some viewers think that it is a god quality music video. It also is good considering that our brief was to make a promotional video. Television reaches millions of viewers and seeing it on TV as opposed to just a video sharing website would be an incredible opportunity for the band. MTV and Kerrang were voted the most likely channels to show the music video.

50% of our survey takers would check out "vampire Weekend" after seeing this video. Unfortunately, this isn't as much as we would have liked, however, ten people do not make up the target of teenagers and young adults. We'd like to hope more positive results from a far larger surveyed group. It also suggests that something in our music video is not successful in promoting the song, perhaps a band appearance would have been needed.

The reactions of the Music video from this survey, show that the product, overall, was a success. Despite a few responses, the majority of people gave the best answer possible which we are very pleased about.

A2 Music Video: YouTube Demographics

Insight is new to YouTube. It is a feature that allows us to see what kinds of people are looking at our music video. The results are presented in the form of graphs and charts as shown below:

The bar chart on the left demonstrates the age group of our viewers. All of our viewers are within the target audience. The majority of people represented through these charts are paged 13 - 17 making up 60% of our viewers.

The pie chart on the right displays an almost equal ratio of male to female viewers. It could be argued that our music video is doing very well by appealing to people over the age group, within the age group and applying to both genders.

A2 Music Video: Feedback Survey Results

First of all, we retrieved our feedback from YouTube. W have only received four comments, however, it has gained a fair number of views meaning that people have seen it. It also suggests that advertising it on Facebook has worked.

We also received a total of ten responses from Zoomerang:

A2 Music Video: Feedback Survey

Firstly, we asked what the persons age and gender was. This is so that we can look at the results knowing what kind of audience has taken it. Our target age group was teenagers and young adults so responses from them are most useful. The majority of our feedback questions are a reflection of the questions that we asked at the beginning of the year. This included questions such as;

Was the video appropriate for the song?
This question will give us an overall idea whether we made the right choice with our idea of a busy, office man.


Was the pace of the video appropriate for the song?
The song "Cousins" is fast paced so we wanted the music video to have a pace to match it. The question will enable us to discover whether we had achieved this successfully and if it was the correct move. Our audience also initially wanted a video to be in pace with the song.


Was the video entertaining?
Our audience wanted a funny, entertaining music video. We included events such as the orange juice spill and pushing a school girl over to create humour and entertainment. This question should let us know if we achieved this. We hoped that it wouldn't look amateurish and that our audience were entertained by our ideas.


Was the balance of Story and Performance right?
Our audience proved to want a combination of both these elements so we tried to achieve this by having the story of the man and his guitar performance towards the end. Hopefully, this has been enough for our audience to enjoy.

We wanted to convey a busy, married man. Was this achieved through our choice of costume, location and props?
We had carefully planned all of these elements with reference to existing products in hope to make our video convincing. This question will let us know if we did things correctly or whether we needed to do more.

Were the camera movements and angles interesting?
We included a range of shots such as the tracking shots for whilst he was running, wide shots, closes ups and high angles. We would like to know that we had successfully combined a good range of angles and movements.


Could you see this music video on TV?
We have asked this question so that we can know whether our product could challenge existing media products. If people could see it on TV, then we know that it is worthy of national views and air time.


What music channel?
This question has been asked to discover where it would be seen, this would create a more narrowed audience. For example, if our target select music channels popular with its age group, then we have been successful.


Are you more likely to check out the band "Vampire Weekend" after seeing this?
Our brief was to create a promotional video for an artist so this is an important question. Hopefully our music video will persuade viewers to take interest in the band.


We distributed this survey via social networking site Facebook and video sharing website YouTube. Both of these are very popular with our target audience so we hope to receive more valid feedback.

A2 Music Video: Feedback Survey

For the original Music video questionnaire we used survey website Zoomerang. We decided to use this again to create a feedback survey as we were familiar with it. The purpose of a feedback survey was to find out whether our music video had been successful with our target audience. Here is the survey:

A2 Music Video: Upload to Youtube

In order for us to recieve feedback we have decided to upload our music video to video sharing website, "YouTube." We have chosen this site because it is used widely by our target audience and is easily accessible. Here is our music video:

A2 Music Video: Editing; Part Two

This time we uploaded the new footage; entering the school, the tie coming off, the office scene and the part where Chris walks from the stairs and exits the house. Gain, we removed the bad takes from the rushes and chose our favourite takes.

Because we have gotten rid of the garden scene, we had to re-sync some of our edited footage to the music. This didn't take long though. We replaced the shots where Chris left the house and added the shots of his tie coming off. Then we matched the tracking shots to the music it had been moved to. We feel that it has worked out better than before and seems look more natural at the place of song it is at. This was done using the cut tool.

Editing the office scene was a little more challenging, once we had placed all the shots to the music and had him enter the office. We were faced with making the CCTV look real. To help us, we had a look at some existing CCTV footage:

From these two images, it is noticeable that a typical convention is the date and time along either the top or bottom. So we decided to superimpose a date over the action. (Chris walking into the office and at his desk.) We also liked the fact that the image on the left was in black and white, but they both also looked a bit grainy. To achieve this, we added the effects of Black and White, but also increased the noise in the images. We feel that this has worked effectively. The reason for using a CCTV was to catch Chris enjoying the music he was listening to for added humour.

The next part we edited was the paper transition. Using the cut tool we placed together the show to Chris throwing the paper with the shot of him playing the guitar. To make the paper fall over the lens smoothly, we placed a cut as son as the screen was covered in the paper throw part then deleted the end of it. Then we place a cut just as soon as the paper leaves the lens on the guitar part. This meant when it played, it looked as though the paper had fallen.

The final parts we edited were simple cuts and matching the action to the music. We inter cut the singing with the guitar playing. We also inter cut our special appearances with the final guitar parts. We then made sure that everything was as perfectly synced as possible.

For the finishing touches, we selected a default title from the programme and adjusted its positioning and length of appearance. We also added the transition fade from black at the beginning, and fade to black at the end. This finishes up the music video nicely.

We then exported the music video. :)

A2 Music Video: Editing; Garden Scene

Last time we edited, we noticed that we had too much footage in comparison to the length of the song. To resolve this, we have decided to remove the garden scene. As much as we like it, the music video doesn't suffer or lose quality without it.

Because we had got rid of the garden scene, we had to rearrange the footage, the music video is now ordered: wake up, get ready, breakfast, clothes montage, mirror, tie change, leave house,tie comes off, street and office scene.

Here is the deleted garden scene:

A2 Music Video: Re-shoot Day

Today we filmed four parts:

Office Scene: This was filmed exactly as before, he only difference being that the lighting was much better.

Tie Coming Off:
This went really well, just as we had planned, we used a mid shot of Chris standing like a cartoon character. We then changed to a wide shot of him in the same position as he ran off-screen. We threaded a piece of white thread through the end of the tie, this is almost un-noticeable so it doesn't look as though someone has pulled it away from him. He was not wearing it properly.
Unfortunately, the tie we used for when Chris exits the house was left an another location so we had to re-shoot the scene where he leaves the house.

Leaving the House:
Just as before, we used a pan to follow Chris from the stairs to the front door, followed by a closeup of a tap on the shoulder. We used my hand this time though as Gabriella wasn't available. Because Chris' shirt and tie isn't vi sable in the "Kiss" shot, we didn't need to re-shoot this.

Entering the School:
This was the final part we filmed today, using the automatic doors at Stanground College, we used a static, establishing shot to see Chris enter the "office", which is in fact, my bedroom. This shot is needed to provide that illusion.

Overall, filming was successful today and we had a lot of fun as a group. This hopefully is filming fully finished.

A2 Music Video: Re-Shoot Plan

After realising several issues during the editing process, we need to re-shoot the following:

Tie Coming Off: Although this isn't a re-shoot as such, we need to film it for continuity in our music video.

Office Scene: We will shoot this exactly the same as last time, the footage was previously too dark.

Entering the "Office": Again, this isn't a re-shoot, the school was closed during half term so we are going to be doing it then.

We have scheduled the re shoot day for the 10/11/09. It is on a Tuesday which is the only day that Chris is free. We should hopefully get everything we need as we know what needs to be done for the Office scene and the other parts we need are short.

A2 Music Video: New Plan

During the first part of the editing process, we realised that Chris was not wearing his tie for the tracking shot. To remedy this, we have come up with a new idea so that action is matched.

Similarly to cartoons, we thought it would be entertaining for Chris to run. His tie would come off as he takes off. We also thought that this would connect leaving the house, with the street run nicely. This will maintain the continuity that was broken when Chris wasn't wearing his tie.

The camera angles we plan to use for this is a mid shot of Chris standing outside the front of the house. He will lift his arms as though he is about to run, then we will cut to a wide shot of his whole body in that position. As he takes off, his tie will be left behind. We plan to achieve this by attaching some string to the bottom of the tie, and pulling it as he runs. (He will not be wearing the tie properly.)

A2 Music Video: Editing; Part One

For the editing process, we used the post production software Adobe Elements 7. It is an editing programme for moving images as well as photography.
The first part of the editing process was to upload our footage to the programme then get rid of all the bad shots in the rushes. This included bad takes, mistakes and inappropriate behaviour from the actors.

The tools we used for editing were as follow:

Cut Tool: This tool cuts the footage meaning we can separate parts of the footage.

Delete Tool: This does as it is titled; deletes any footage/cuts.

Horizontal Flip Tool: This tool enabled us to reverse the footage, almost like a rewind effect.

Timescale Tool: This enabled us to speed up or slow down the footage.

After deleting the bad footage from the rushes, we were left with several good takes from each scene. From these, we selected our favourite shots and deleted the rest.

To make the process easier, we placed the footage in chronological order in correspondence to our storyboard and shot list. This left with our favourite shots in order. In order to refine the music video, we uploaded the song "Cousins" to the programme.

Editing the first nine shots were pretty straight forward, we simply cut the shots and placed them together in time with the music. For example, the bedroom light comes on at the same time as a guitar strums, the next strum is accompanied by Chris sitting up.

After these, there was the shower scene. First of all, the footage needed to be sped up because Chris is quite slow moving which isn't good considering we wanted a fast paced action to match the music. We used the timescale tool for this and shrank the footage so that it played faster. An issue we came across was lighting. Unfortunately, whilst Chris was getting changed into his work clothes, the lighting had changed so that it was clear where we had paused the camera. To resolve this we decided to apply the colour correction effect. There is still a slight vi sable change, but it is a vast improvement to what it had been before.

The next shot that required more than cutting and matching to the song was the breakfast scene. Within this we had the watch zoom. In filming, we shot the watch with a zoom out due to the camera not being able to focus with a zoom in. This is why we reversed it. There is less of a lens focus and the original idea is achieved. Then there is the orange juice spill. Luckily, whilst we were filming we decided to shoot some close ups of Chris spilling the drink because he laughed during the wide shot. We had planned jump cuts of the spill so we decided to mix the wide shot with the several close ups, matching it to the fast drums in the song. This has worked successfully.

The clothes montage was quite simple to edit. After selecting our favourite takes we matched each outfit change to every other click during that particular verse. Each shot of an outfit lasted roughly the same time and similarly to the orange juice spill. We cut short snippets of the takes together to match to the drums. This created a fast cycle through the outfits which I personally feel has worked well.

For the shot with many hands whilst Chris is brushing his teeth, we used the time scale tool. Shrinking the footage made the whole event much quicker which is funnier and fits with the crazy, fast paced guitars.

The most challenging part to edit was the part where Chris comes down the stairs and his tie changed on each step. We had filmed him walking down the stairs in five ties. We decided to cut up each tie placing the cuts at the point in which Chris landed on a step. This meant that the cuts were in exactly the same place on each tie.

From there, we took the first snippet from tie one, then the second section from tie two. the third from tie three, the fourth from tie four, the fifth from tie five , the six from tie one and so on.. The result was that each step was Chris in a different tie working exactly to plan. However, it wasn't the speed we wanted so we had to apply the timescale tool exactly the same to each section. This made each part the same and a faster speed making the whole part where Chris walks down the stairs, faster and more energetic.

The next part we edited was the garden scene, for match on action we joined him disappearing through the gate from one side, with him entering it on the other. It was a challenge editing the part where Chris runs through the clothes on a washing line. This is because we had to cut together a tracking shot, a POV shot and wide shot. Because of the movement of the shots, we found it difficult joining them together so that it flowed smoothly. It took a lot of time but eventually, we found the best combination. The other shots in the garden were quite simple to edit; cut and match to the music.

For the running, tracking shots we removed the beginning and end of each take. This was so that we had a consistent speed. Again, we matched it to the music. Unfortunately, at this time in editing, we realised that Chris was not wearing his tie! This dilemma meant that we should either re shoot the tracking shots or create an explanation. Because of the time and success of our tracking shots, we have decided to insert something new.

As well as this issue, we have realised that the amount of footage lasts longer than the song, we need to condense the music video somehow.

Finally, when we began editing the office scene, we realised that the footage was far too dark in comparison to the rest of the music video, we have decided that we will re-shoot this entire scene on our scheduled re-shoot day.

A2 Music Video: Film Session Three

The weather was a bit poor today again, but no snow!

Garden:
We decided to film the garden scene first to make sure that the weather didn't get worse. The first part that we filmed was Chris entering the garden. This was done with two separate shots. One from the outside of the garden where we used a slight pan to follow him into the gate. Then another from the inside of the gate for match on action. Again this was a pan from the gate to halfway across the garden. After this we had a static shot of Chris running through the washing line. We then used POV and ran through the clothes with the clothes. Then we did another track shot in front of Chris following him through the clothes. We plan to cut these together to add variety. We then filmed one more shot of him running across the rest of the garden and down the little gap beside my house with a bra attached to his head.

After this, we set up the camera from outside the house facing a fence (he had just ran towards this.) This was a static wide shot of the fence where the audience can watch Chris jump over the fence with a bra on his head the run off screen. We are planning to join this to the street shots we filmed yesterday.

Office:
The first part that we shot for the office scene was the CCTV viewpoint. Typically, a CCTV is positioned in a high place filming a high angle. Due to the limited space in my room, we used the bed and bedside table for the height. The dots in my diagram show where there camera covered, to shoot this wide range, I slowly rotated from left to right, then back again following Chris as he walked to the chair and sat down. In editing, we plan to make the image grainy, black and white and add some digits. This shot was also used to film Chris singing the lyrics to Vampire Weekend. Although we had planned what parts we needed Chris to sing along to, we asked him to lip sync to two chorus' and a verse to be sure. We thought catching him singing on CCTV added to the humour that our target audience wanted. The only difficulty was for me to keep the camera in the same place for the number of takes we had to do.

We had planned to show Chris putting a "Vampire Weekend" CD into the laptop so to do this, we had the CD ready on the desk and held the camera above the CD. A high angle was used. Similarly to this show, we filmed a close up of Chris turning up the volume on the laptop indicating his enjoyment.

The next part that we filmed was Chris throwing paper up in the air, and using the paper as a transition. We set the camera up using the tripod. Freddie held a piece of paper big enough to cover the lens above the camera and as Chris threw the paper up in the air, Freddie covered the lens with the paper. We stopped recording at this point. This process took a few attempts because the paper didn't spread like we wanted. After we had got this right, Chris wore a bandanna and stood on the desk with a guitar. We placed the paper back over the lens, pressed record and moved the paper to below the camera to reveal Chris rocking to the song. After editing, it should look as though a piece of paper Chris has thrown, floats over the lens and as it comes down, he will be on the desk playing and singing along.

The next part we filmed was Chris playing the guitar and singing along, unfortunately, he cannot play the instrument. We decided that this didn't matter too much because the image of him dancing along, singing and guessing how the guitar should be played was much more fun and entertaining. The most of our video is supposed to convey energy, humour and fun so the fake guitar playing added to this nicely. All of the guitar shots we filmed were hand held and a bit shaky to give a more natural, fun image. We used a wide shot for Chris playing to see the whole of him, a close up of the guitar as he strummed it and we also had a shot from the fret board, looking down the guitar. This section was fun to film and we hope that the variety of shots will convey energy.

The final part we filmed in the day was the office workers reactions. This was easy to do as we only needed short shots. This was quite fun as we used ourselves for the talent. I held the camera whilst Freddie popped his head out from behind a board. The board was used as an office desk divider, his expression showed excitement and shock towards Chris. This was a hand held medium shot of Freddie's Face. Freddie then filmed a slight high angle of me entering the room with a smile on my face. I held some "documents" in my hand to help the audience identify me as an office worker. I feel that filming went really well today although it was getting a bit dark toward the end of the office scene, we hope that this didn't affect the footage.

Window Pan:

We waited for it to get dark to film the last part we needed which was a pan from one window to another. We needed it to be dark because we were using lit Windows to show where the character was in the house. Freddie was outside with the camera whilst I was inside, the window was partially open so that we could hear each other. I turned my bedroom light on and when Freddie shouted "GO" I turned the light off. When he shouted "GO" a second time, I turned the bathroom light on. Between the two "Go's" Freddie filmed a close up of the bedroom window, then panned to the bathroom window. This worked well.

Issue:

We have completed filming apart from one shot. We had planned to shoot Chris entering the "office" building. We have planned to use the school for this but because it is half term, we were unable to do this. Fortunately, we have planned a re-shoot day in December in case we need more footage so will shoot this then.

A2 Music Video: Film Session Two

It snowed today! And because we had planned to do our outdoor shots, the weather made this difficult. This is when we decided that we would finish the indoor shots that we didn't have time to complete.

Clothes Montage:
This took a long time to film, in the music video, the main character goes to get changed and cycles through a load of outfits in the mirror. This links to the fast, upbeat song. The first outfit we placed him in was the one he was wearing on Monday. The purple shirt and black trousers. Unfortunately, the shirt was washed and we had borrowed the shirt from my dad. He wasn't pleased about the orange juice spill so we weren't allowed to do it a second time. Luckily, we only needed the purple shirt for him to walk into the bedroom to begin the outfit montage. The outfits that he cycles through are listed in the costume section. To film this, we asked Chris to stand in front of the mirror and set up the camera on a tripod so that it was an over the shoulder shot, mainly with Chris' reflection in shot. The tripod means that the shot can remain the same for each outfit which is better for the jump cuts. We also marked the floor where he stood so that his reflection was also in the same place each time. Hopefully, the only changing element in the shots will be his outfit and expressions. It was very fun to do and we feel it has worked successfully. We filmed Chris posing in each outfit.

Bathroom:

This scene was also very fun to do, this is where Chris is doing several activities all at once. The first shot is Chris grabbing a toothbrush from a cup, we did this in one take, just a static, close up. After this we filmed him applying toothpaste to the toothbrush and look at the "mirror." In fact he looks at the camera lens as though it is a mirror and starts brushing his teeth. We set the camera up on a tripod for this part because both Freddie and myself were taking part. We both wore white long sleeved shirts to match Chris' costume although our bodies were out of the shot. I applied shaving cream and brushed his hair whilst Freddie shaved his face (the plastic cover was still on) and hair dried his hair. The first time we did this, we played it back to realise my body was in the shot, this was not good because it was supposed to look like Chris had several arms for humour. Our second attempt worked much better although it would have been even better if there was more space around him. I was stood on the bath and Freddie was leaning in awkwardly from the other side. I am very pleased with how this went.

We then filmed Chris spitting out the toothpaste with the shot being focused on the sink. We then stopped recording and moved to behind the mirror so that when Chris stood up from the sink, his reflection was a cleaned face and winked at the reflection. Spitting out the toothpaste was a close up of the sink from the side, then the mirror shot was level with the mirror and an over the shoulder shot of Chris.

Tie Change:

This part of filming took a very long time. I was looking forward to filming this part most. We had a total of five ties so we knew we had to film Chris coming down the stairs five times in a different tie, each time. It took us a few attempts before we realised that we must have a system that makes sure he walks down the stairs exactly the same each time. Our system was that he must put his right foot on the first step every time, he must keep his left hand on the banister as he comes down every time. Also, to ensure that he came down at the same pace, I sang the ABC, a letter per step.

Like most other shots today, we used a tripod to ensure that the composition of the shot was exactly the same each time.

Leaving House:

From the steps, Chris walked to the front door and as he was about to open it, his wife tapped him on the shoulder. This was filmed in two separate shots. One of which was a pan from the stairs to the front door, this was challenging as there is a large mirror in the room and we had to avoid a reflection, the second was a close up of Gabriella's hand tapping Chris' shoulder.

Kiss:

Next shot we did was from outside of the house, the snow/rain had stopped now. Kneeling on the floor outside, we filmed a static mid shot of Chris's and Gabriella's legs, Gabby's leg lifts up similar to cheesy love films to indicate that they had kissed. This is the end of indoor filming for the day.

Street:

It stopped snowing halfway through filming the indoor parts so we decided to get the street section completed. We were really excited about getting to use our dolly, however, when we attempted to use it, the wheels we used meant that it was really shaky. This is when we decided to shoot the tracking shots using my car.

Whilst I was driving (slowly), Chris was running on the path. Freddie was seat belted in the back and faced the camera out of the window and we drove along side him. Running in different directions, we filmed many shots of Chris running. We also needed Gabriella to play a school girl. We carefully arranged the stunt where Chris pushes Gabriella out of the way so that it happened just as we drove past. It took a few takes but the end result was just as intended. I feel that the car has worked far better than our dolly would have!

Despite not getting everything we wanted to film done, we have managed to catch up with the film schedule ready to soot the garden and office scene tomorrow!

A2 Music Video: Animation Experiment

During the initial idea stage, we thought about experimenting with some stop motion animation. This would add the the fast, erratic style of the song. As the main character gets ready, his tie will knot itself.

Using a tripod and the camera, we set it up so that the camera was tilted 90 degrees facing the floor. Underneath the camera, we dressed a pillow in the suit. This was to avoid a messy animation caused by using a real body. The flat body meant we could direct the tie in any way we wanted.

Using the still image feature, we took photos of the torso. In between photos, we moved the tie a tiny distance each time. We took a total of 80 picture then uploaded the frames to MonkeyJam, a free stop motion programme.

I feel that it worked out well, however, I don't think it will be appropriate to use with our live actor. Or if we repeat the dressed pillow idea, it will be an obvious change in "person." We will not fully disregard it at this stage:

A2 Music Video: Film Session One

26th October 2009

Waking Up:
The first action we filmed was the main character waking up. We got Chris dressed in his pyjamas and then he laid in my bed. A tripod could not fit at the end of my bed so we had to kneel down and hold and the camera as steadily as we could. Throughout the filming we used the song as a template to how fast Chris should do things. For example, the beats at the beginning of the song were used to determine the rate at which Chris had to sit up. We filmed this several times. We then asked him to do the same thing again, but we changed the shot from a wide shot to a close up of his face, filming him opening his eyes.

Alarm Clock:
The first action to be seen in the music video is the main character switching off the alarm clock. For this, we made my bedroom dark, set the alarm then as Chris pressed the switch, we turned the bedroom light on. This took several takes to get right. We will place the button/light switch on a beat in the song. We used a static, close up for this shot and didn't take too long.


To the Shower:
Whilst he was still in his pyjamas, we then filmed his feet running across the landing. The position of my landing in relation to the stairs meant that we could use the steps to lean on. This creates a steadier shot:







Next to film was Chris grabbing the numerous props: towel, shower toy and the shower gel. To make this as interesting as we could, we set up the three objects in different places. The towel was positioned over the door and we filmed it using a static, close up shot. We also filmed a high and low angle of this as safety shots. The shower toy we placed on the bed and using a high angle we filmed Chris snatching it, this was the same for the shower gel except it was positioned by a sink.

Shower:

This "stunt" required a little more patience. As he was going to be stepping into the shower in his pyjamas and getting out wearing his work clothes we used the tripod to ensure the camera was in the same position the entire time. Firstly, we turned the camera on, positioned it where we wanted then asked Chris to walk into the shower holding the three props (match on action) and fully close the shower door. We then stopped recording, using the remote so that we did not move the camera. Then Chris got out, and quickly changed into a suit and stepped back into the shower. Using the remote again, we pressed record and Chris stepped out and stood in front of the camera and adjusted his suit then walked out. Whilst he was adjusting his suit, we had to pan the camera up so that we could see Chris' body as opposed to his feet. Unfortunately, the first time we did this, we panned up too far ruining the shot. This meant we had to repeat the entire process to ensure that the camera doesn't move during the costume change. Unfortunately, the next time was ruined due to the talent laughing. As the saying goes "third time lucky", the third attempt worked out just as hoped.

Wife:

The next shot we filmed was of Gabriella calling Chris for breakfast in the kitchen. This didn't take long as all we needed to do was shoot her walk to the door (with rolling pin in hand) and hold her hand beside her mouth and shake her head a little. Because there is no dialogue in our music video, body language is needed to tell the story. We were happy with her acting so moved on after a few takes.

Coming to Breakfast:
To further help the audience know that Gabriella was calling Chris. we filmed two short sequences. One of Chris running down the stairs and the other of him sitting on the kitchen chair. The running down the stairs was filmed as a tracking shot. As Chris Ran down the stairs, Freddie stood along side them and followed him down like this:

The shot of him siting down was a simple static shot position on the chair, and then Chris entered the shot and sat down.

Watch Zoom:
The watch is a key prop to show that the character is late and sends him into the frenzy. To emphasize the time we decided to do an extreme zoom. However, in practise, the camera took a long time to focus. To resolve this, we decided to reverse the zoom in filming coming away from the watch. This means we can reverse the shot in editing and there will be less focusing and a successful zoom towards the watch.

Breakfast:
Despite our film schedule stating that we would get all of the indoor shots today, the breakfast scene was the last that we filmed this day. We were perhaps a little too optimistic and unrealistic with our schedule. We also didn't take into account that the shower scene may take a long time to film, nor did we think we would need several takes because of laughing etc.. On top of this, it began getting dark so filming after this scene would have meant that we got some dark, less successful shots.

For this section, we first filmed an over the shoulder shot from behind Gabriella (wife) of Chris finishing his breakfast then looking at his watch (we will put the watch zoom after this). He felt a little uncomfortable eating a non existent breakfast so we had to do this several times. Next to film was Chris spilling the orange juice down himself, to save a lot of time we needed this to be done in one take because of becoming messy. The shot of him drinking it then spilling it went well, however, as soon as it had been on him for a little while he burst into laughter. Although the first part was good, the laughing came a little too abruptly. We decided to shoot some unplanned close ups of his face and made him re-spill the orange juice (the already messy shirt wasn't in view) for some back up takes.
Because it had now become dark, we decided to stop filming for the day and order pizza. We hoped the pizza would bring us closer as a group and make our actor happy to film another couple of days. We were also apologetic for getting orange juice all over him. :)

Despite not getting everything we had planned done, I feel that the filming went very well with only a few mistakes.

A2 Music Video: Response from Vampire Weekend

Unfortunately, we have not received any form of reply from Vampire Weekend. However, we have assumed that the email has been looked at or the subject of the email has at least been read.

We have decided to use the song due to our extensive planning. On top of this, we have not received any objection to us using their song.

A2 Music Video: Film Schedule

With half term approaching and knowing that Chris has a tight schedule we have decided to film during the mornings of half term week. This will also be better for lighting because of Daylight Saving. Preferably, we should film whilst it is light outdoors to get the best natural light as possible. We do not have the resources for added lights.
Below is the half term film schedule, we also have another day on the 3/11/09 for any re-shoots that we may need. This allows us a week to edit the rushes. We've made sure that we schedule to save the most time as possible, this is why our scenes are not being filmed chronologically:

A2 Music Video: Equipment

We now have our locations, story, props, characters, costumes and shots planned, we now feel that we are ready to start filming,

The Camera:
The camera we are going to be using for our music video is a Canon MD235 MiniDV Camcorder.


Other equipment that we will be using is a Kodak Tripod , this should enable us to get some steady, static shots. We will also be using our D.I.Y Dolly that we made previously. I am looking forward to filming as we have planned a wide variety of shots to test out.