Ancillary Task - Digipak Charley Photographs

As I do not need photographs of both of my actors together for the digipak ancillary task; it has become much easier to attain these photographs. I, therefore, today took the required photos with Charley - my main female actress - to then supplement them with Dave's when I can. A video of the photos can be found below, with the larger images provided:

Ancillary Task - Digipak design

In preparation for my new digipak design, I have created a flat plan of the main image that will feature on the front of the pack. The ovals are the characters holding polaroid images and these will alternate between the artist and his partner. I will alter the position of the actor so that the product looks more interesting and less repetitive.

Ancillary Task - Further Digipak research

Upon further research into digipaks, I found a very interesting band who are incredibly innovative in their artwork production. The Brett Domino Trio are very well known around the internet, where they began on You Tube. Unsigned, self-funder artists find it difficult to produce music as it is an incredibly costly process. Brett Domino have used this to their advantage, however, as they have produced two products that revolutionises physical media, bonding a connection with the digital distribution service. Their first product was the 'Songs off You Tube' digipak which literally was just the digipak itself with a blank printed disc. The buyer would then burn the album onto the disc which saved money for both them and Brett Domino. By producing the product this way, Brett Domino cut out the middle man of CD production and created a querky, never before seen product.

The second product is the fully online Reflections album. The album artwork is available entirely online to download and print. It can further be folded and assembled without glue or scissors. This raw, resourceful product would be perfect for my needs as it fits the theme of my project. I made a good majority of my previous design choices to work alongside this raw, acoustic feel and I feel an addition such as this would work great so that is the template I shall be basing my ancillary on. Below is a video that Brett Domino released for the folding of the artwork which would be a nice further project to facilitate the production were it a profitable business.

From Brett Dominos design, I have produced my own template to work from.

Shooting Plans

Unfortunately, I have had some issues contacting and organising dates with Rubix, my location, due to absences and a breakdown in communication. To resolve this, I decided the best tactic would be to visit the Manager during trade hours to ascertain a date that I could use the location for the remainder of my time. Upon visiting the Manager, it became clear he had agreed a date for me to use the location with a subordinate which hadn't been relayed yet, which meant there was little difficulty securing the date.

Concurrently, it was necessary to organise a second video shoot for the scenes that are not set in the night club, which was much easier to do as the location is my own home. This shoot will take place first, so that the final shoot will be in the night club and all of my footage will be complete.

Finally, I completed a shoot for the opening scene of my production the other day where I used my Dad, who featured in my AS production. After the shoot in Rubix, hopefully all of my raw footage should be available and I can complete the production.

Paper Elements

The next stage of ancillary design was compiling textures to use in them. To do this, I made my own so that the textures were exactly how I wanted them and, to another vein, free. I placed the paper on a purple background so that the background could be more easily removed to reveal the alpha channel.

When keying out the background, it is extremely important to keep a uniform colour across the frame so that the tolerance needs to be a low as possible. To achieve a better result, I used extra lighting other than my flash to cover the page. The piece at the top of the page is for the navigation bar at the header of the website, where the central piece is a love heart that, when scrolled, will align as one piece and then scroll away from each other as the user moves on. The other pieces are select tears that I wish to use throughout the site or on the digipak. The final sheet with a single piece is for the About section on my website where it will serve as the background.

Artist Logo

An important element of my ancillary tasks - and my main task should I choose to include it - is the artist logo. This reveals the identity of the artist and, in most cases, becomes the one image a fan or even anyone can look at and immediately know the artist.

Logos vary immensely; I carried out a small amount of research before beginning the task, but only to grasp an idea of what has been done as it is important that they remain original. I then began mocking designs, playing with the artists name, Daniel Lewandowski, to find a structure for his name:

Once I had done this initial planning, I moved on to experimenting in Photoshop. I had already formed the idea of what I wanted to create so it was up to following my plans from here. The most important element of all of my designs was the specific way in which I designed the lettering so the first port of call was to create that. My favourite, san-serif font is Helvetica and the slightest version of this is Helvetica Neue Ultralight so that was the end choice. The font needed a fair bit of editing, however, so I converted the letters to paths in photoshop and reshaped them until they resembled what I wanted. The image to the left is the original font where the right image is the final result: 

After this, I worked on my first draft. This design involved a crumpled piece of paper - in-keeping with my website -  that the text was formed to. To achieve this result, I used a displacement map in photoshop. This involved altering the contrast and brightness of the background image to make the contours much more obvious. The map is then applied to the text which then forms itself to the paper and appears to be written on it. This process created:

Logo 1

The second design involved the inclusion of a Polaroid picture background with a signature caption for a bit more personality as the first design wasn't overly complex or revealing of the artist/brand. The font I used was Jellyka Saint Andrews Queen as it caught my eye as a very detailed, personal font that could be mistaken as true handwriting, which is rare. Utilising the way the font alters characters to drawn images, I added some extra characters for decoration:

Logo 2

The design didn't look quite right to me and I even asked for feedback too, which a final idea flourished. I offered up the idea of a background image that was slightly blurred so as not to take away from the logo, but add colour and more of a persona. The logo then became:

Logo 3

I really like this logo as it feels like it contains all of the elements I wanted and serves as a memorable brand identity. Finally, I put the logos up for a vote amongst my peers to ascertain which was the best when my audience was concerned. Luckily, the final logo reined as champion and I agreed with my demographic. This design, therefore, will be the logo I will use in my tasks.

Website Plan

Due to the complexity of my ideas, it was important to have a fully fledged website plan before I began work on compiling it. This needed to be drawn by hand as it offers the most versatility when considering ideas and trying out options. The finished design is below and I shall be working closely to it in the final site:

Ancillary Task Research - Website Home Page

Concurrent with my Digipak research, I am carrying out research into Artist websites so that I can create a website conventional to these. After a little research, however, I wasn't incredibly impressed with a great number of the designs so I am also carrying out research into other websites to take inspiration from and form ideas to merge with the band's website. A feature I really liked, however, from Jake Bugg's website is the rolling video background which includes all of his music videos and some promotional films. This means the user can navigate his site while experiencing his content, creating an incredibly effective promotional site. I will most probably be using the HTML5 code here for this feature:

www.JakeBugg.com

As there isn't much content on the first page, though, I plan to merge this idea with the current structure of the Spotify website where images and backgrounds scroll and differing speeds which heightens interactivity and makes information transfer more efficient:

www.Spotify.com

After some further research, I found that the effect seen above is known as the Parallax Scrolling effect and can be achieved a number of different ways. As this is definitely my favoured idea, I have looked into certain source code and tutorials for creation; one of which, I found at www.GitHub.com and offers all of the code needed for including videos, backgrounds, sprites and text which covers everything I would need. This idea allows for a great deal of band promotion as images feature very heavily. I can take a number of photographs on our shoots to satisfy this. 

Another artist site that I think looks appealing is Tom Milsom's. The main feature that makes similar web pages lose appeal seems to be the over saturation of tour dates and the lack of organisation with these. Milsom's page isn't like this, but Like Bugg's has little content so any inspiration taken would have to be combined with others. The photography is very nice, however, so I can draw from this:

www.TomMilsom.com

The example to the left is of Joshua Radin's site, which overuses dates and is of a blog style. I want to avoid both of these to produce a smart, original site. The dates make the site very bloated and clunky which is unattractive. The blog form is also very unoriginal and so wouldn't be impressive at all.

In addition, I want to create a raw theme by including elements such as ripped paper backgrounds to lay titles over which I would create myself as quality stock photos of this are rare:

Ancillary Task Research - Digipak

As part of my end project, I am to create an accompanying Digipak and Webpage as ancillary tasks. The first I shall be working on is the Digipak, though before designing a concept for my own, I would like to look into preexisting Digipaks to replicate the conventions and to create a successful design that looks professional and legitimate. Below, therefore, I will be including a number of album artworks and Digipaks with analysis:

• The thematic design shows that digipaks must be a cohesive product where the designs of each face follow through the end result. 
• The printing on the disk is similar to an image on another face which increases the cohesion.
• Minimalist design with a nicely framed, simple image of the artist, accompanied by typography.
• Information on the inside cover

I really like the Tom Odell - Long Way Down album as it's simple and incorporates the widely used, but little perfected white on a light photograph, while still visible. The image is the entire album cover, however, which would be illfitted for the project due to the lack of skill showcasing. The depth of field is particularly effective with the focus purely on the model which looks very nice. This, I could incorporate in my final product as it's very minimalist, but technical.


The back cover is quite contrapuntal to the front; where the front has a soft focus depth of field, the back is more gritty though I like this. There is a synergy between the two covers with the second use of the model. Though his features aren't visible, his clothing is recognisable and forms a link between the two. The track list uses the same bold font, which is quite effective.

This is an alternative Tom Odell cover for an EP, but I feel it's very effective and shows a great deal of photographic skill and editing. The san serif, blocky typography seems quite conventional of this style of music so that could be something to think about. I like the fish eye lens use, but it would be very iconic of this album cover if I were to do the same.

The self-titled, Jake Bugg album is again very simple, but in my opinion it looks very nice. The raised contrast and desaturation shows a competence with graphic manipulation, but photography clearly shows the decision making process undergone. The model is arched forward, which leaves sufficient space for the title behind his head. The cropping also slightly takes the edge off of his hair line which is obviously intentional, it shows how the record challenges uniformity and polish.


Very much like the Tom Odell artwork, this cover reuses the model in the same clothing to create synergy. The perspective created by the street is very nice and connotes such things as journeying and moving on which seems to be the mantra of the album.




Edd Plant's Confidence Tricks skillfully shows how an image can be removed from the background and the backdrop can be manipulated. Having rendered clouds, the producer has introduced some interesting flourishes in red and black which connote playing cards and therefore back up the album's title. Card names such as the Ace of Hearts also feature which furthers this. The choice of props and clothing is also in keeping. The font, however, is quite common and therefore doesn't look as great as it could. I may take inspiration from this cover, but the font will be considered deeply and I will ensure to not use a famous, common one.

This album is particularly good because it showcases an extremely good set of editing skills. The photograph has been manipulated such that it now resembles a cartoon wth only two tones (for half of he image). The, then, introduction of a red pop art style gradient, really makes the art work pop out which would be the producer's intention. Logo wise, the incorporation of both names as one looks very nice and will clearly be memorable. The back cover continues the pop art style which I think looks really nice and achieves a great look while not overly difficult to reproduce. Again, the font is san serif and, in this case, entirely capitalised which is bold and iconic of the punky genre. The convention holds for more than punk, however, evidenced by the previous two album arts. The disc, which seems to be the same for most, merely continues the theme in terms of colour and logos or is fairly bare and quite minimalistic, such as the Jake Bugg disc.

Erase This by Alan Lastufka and Luke Conard is one of my favourite album covers. The abstract nature of the record really shines through with the paper design and title orientation. I am a real fan of the model being removed from their original background such as this and Confidence Tricks; I just need to be aware that making the image then look really nice will need some working. I also like the raw style overlay that has been used to merge the model with her background which is something I may attempt to use.

Green Screening and Rotoscoping

As part of my initial first video shoot, I incorporated a green screened shot which meant I could securely film my action without the shake or risk of being in a moving car. To embellish the chromakeyed area, I rotoscoped masks over the window behind the actress - having to form a mask around her facial features. 

Due to the complex movements she made, tweening the keyframes was not 100% effective so I manually altered it for every frame of the 6 second clip which amassed to over 150 separate frames. The end result does look professional and I'm very proud of the effect it produces. After changing my actors, however, and after receiving feedback from peers, I have decided not to use green screen for the refilming of the scene or for subsequent shots. The process if very time consuming and I do believe the achieved result may not be worth the time it will take away from the projects schedule. 

Actor Change

Unfortunately, the worst came to worst and I had to make the decision to change my Actors. Working around the schedules of my first lot of actors became to difficult and meant I wouldn't be able to make any of my deadlines which was not an option. Thanking my actors for their help, I began the search for people who would be more available. My difficulty was, however, that I did not know a great number of couples who would both be up for the project and suit my vision. I, therefore, chose to look for separate people who could hopefully act as a couple between the two of them. With this, I arrived at my friend Dave and a colleague from my school, Charley:

As they are not a couple, I had expected filming may be slightly awkward, but both were very good actors and followed direction extremely well. I was extremely happy with their participation in the first video shoot and the suspected barrier was not withstanding.

I have lost a small amount of footage due to this change, but my time has been saved in the long term and I don't begrudge having changed. 

Song Tutorial

As part of my production, I needed to learn the song to perform it in the music video on the guitar. As I was working with an unsigned artist, I asked them if they could write the chords down for me to work out the rest of the song. Not expecting much more than this, I was surprised when Daniel Lewandowski (the artist) sent me an email with the following YouTube videos attached. In the videos, Daniel aimed to teach me step by step the exact way he plays the song which ultimately lead to me having a greater understanding of the song than I could ever have had with the mere chords or tablature.

Permission for Venue

Concerning Café Con Leche, which I enquired about using as the venue for my Music Video, I have heard back from them and been granted permission to use the premises on a Monday or Wednesday afternoon; their least busy periods. I have also received permission from my teachers to use my lessons for filming in the venue, though I have decided that the best plan is to use my half term holidays; as my school operates a different system than most half terms so the venue will still be free and I will have the whole day to prepare and complete the filming without the need to go to school.

Venue Enquiry

For the remainder of my shots, I have enquired about Cafe Con Leche in Corby to possibly use it as my location. The up stairs area can and is used as a function hall so would work perfectly for my purpose. Fortunately, I know someone who works at the establishment so have enquired whether she can get be in touch with the management which I am waiting for a final response for. Hopefully, I will be able to use this venue as it has all of the desired elements I require - Stage, Bar, Tables etc. - and is near by for all of the Actors and Crew that I wish to use. An issue for filming may be open hours as it is open late most nights and I will have to secure a timing that is right for them where an employee will be around and it is either closed or not busy to not impede on their business.

Music Video Final Storyboard

After I had completed my draft storyboard of ideas for the production, I knew they would need refining into a comprehensive storyboard of shots complete with timings and detailed descriptions. I have compiled the final shots into a presentation which can be found below.

I wanted to wait until I had filmed a lot of my footage, because - as you can see - I knew I would be adding a number of revisions and retimings to make the shots fit. Due to the crossings out etc. the original idea are still apparent, however, so I feel this is a cohesive representation of my planning process. 

Equipment Choice

To achieve the greatest quality of production, I have realised that production equipment can not be skimped on and the better the quality of these, the more professional my project will be overall. As the purchase of a camera will eventually help for my work in University and will be useful for recreational activities, I decided to upgrade. Selling my Canon EOS 1100D which is Canon's beginners camera, I initially decided on a 650D which is a couple of models up, but essentially the same with 1080p video recording. As I found it on offer, however, and it essentially means I will never need to buy another upgrade, I opted for the Canon EOS 60D which supports 1080p video and also sports a much wider range of ISO and array of features unavailable on other cameras. 


Alongside this, I am using the tripod I used for my AS Production which is very lightweight, but sturdy so can be used for stable shots, but is portable enough for stabilised, handy cam shots. 

On top of these two, essential pieces of equipment, there are a number of specialist implements I plan to use which will embellish and accentuate my project perfectly, adding that desired professional feel. These include the Camera Crane I have already featured a post on and a soft box of my own design and build. Below are a few pictures of the process and explanation of it's components.
Soft Box

The soft box consists of:

• Clamp light
• White sheet
• Cardboard box
• Tinfoil
• Stand

Forming a small, lidless box out of larger sheets of cardboard, I began the softbox. I then measured the circumference of the clamp light so that it could be mounted in the box' back. 

Firstly, I placed the white sheet over the cardboard at this time, but the light did not reflect enough around the box and was too central (left). To remedy this, I decided to line the box with tinfoil which works by bouncing the light around the box and then through the dampening sheet. 

With this lining, the light spreads much better and it can even be used without the sheet as a powerful 'flood' light should my setting be dark enough for it. This is a very cheap, but effective way of achieving a well lit scene and it should help a lot for production. As the light bulb is a tungsten, indoor bulb I may have to alter the white balance on my camera for the scenes I involve this in - especially if it will be the main source of light for the shots.

Revision of Shot Design

Some of the shots in my storyboard are quite adventurous. Those that are adventurous can be categorised into those that I know will work, but may need some planning before hand and those that I have never tried before and cannot be sure will work. 

The most difficult of these is a ghosted shot made up of two identical shots, one with just the background and one with the background and actors. Overlaying these two shots and reducing the acting layers opacity produces a ghosting effect. 

I have other shots similar to this, but the difference here is I want the camera to slowly track around the characters. To produce the effect I would need to reproduce the exact same movement for two separate shots. Due to how difficult this is, I attempted to test the shot which added the obstacle I expected; producing the same movement is nigh on impossible and I can not be sure I will be able to do so smoothly. 

To remedy this, I revised the shot and now know how I will successfully produce it. Acquiring green paper from the Art department at my school, I have been able to redesign a working shot using a portable green screen where the background of the acting scene does not need to be the same and it can be superimposed over the top. To acquire the shot I will film the scene twice. The first shot is a 360 pan around a spot as if there were characters in the centre. To accompany this, the green screened shot will involve the actors dancing and spinning on the spot to recreate the camera movement. Editing these two together, if the speed is the same, will look like the shot was filmed as one and the movement is entirely natural.

Marketing and Distribution

In a hypothetical sense, if this project was to be produced by anyone other than a student in school, certain areas would need to be funded. I was able to secure locations and equipment through both the fact that I am a student and my own involvement in building and designing etc.

The night club that agreed to allow me to film, for instance, is a business. If the project was being produced for a profit, therefore, the hire of the room would be factored in to the budget and they would most likely charge whoever was producing the Music Video. I also used the resources to my disposal such as the actors car and my own home rearranged to suit the scene. A much more desirable affect could be achieved by designing a set from scratch and using a studio, for example. This would require funding for hire and materials to do so which must be funded.

In terms of equipment, both the camera crane and dolly were funded by resources I could acquire for free and individual budgets devised by my colleague and I. The best option would have been a professional jib, but again, funding factors in.

The funding for these purposes would most likely come from both the Production company producing the project and the artist who the project is for. Where funding from these two bodies is scarce, there is the option to apply for funding from public artist funding organisations or private charities. Organisations such as the Princes trust are interested in projects such as this as they promote both the producer and artists. They, also, offer mentors who are knowledgeable in the goal the fundee is attempting to help. This, however, is difficult and can not be done by many. Larger artists set to reap large profits, for instance, would not be entertained as they should have the capital to create the video to begin with. My own project, as it features an unsigned artist would be eligible for funding as they do not, necessary, have much backing.

Storyboard ideas

To complement my Moodboard and to begin fleshing out my initial idea, I have designed a storyboard of significant shots, detailing why they have been chosen and what they represent. The proceeding post will include a shotlist, which works along side the Storyboard, but goes into much greater depth and will, ultimately, aid me in completing the final Music Video.

Click the images above to enlarge them

Moodboard

To express a few ideas for the Video and to convey some direction, I created a small Moodboard that prefaces my next post which shall be a draft storyboard of ideas. This Moodboard shows much more visually the outfit and choice of mise-en-scene than storyboard as they are obviously limited by the drawings. I have, however, ensured to include sufficient detail in shot descriptions.