Digipak

Final Editing

This is the last stage of editing that needed to be done before the deadline, and there was a few last minute things that teachers had fed back to us after watching the video. The principle focus was making the narrative 100% obvious to the audience, as we had to realise that because we had seen it so many times to us it is really obvious what the narrative is, but to other people it didn't seem as obvious. So to do this we added the colour changes to certain scenes, for example, the 20's we put in black and white with the footage flickering, for the 50's we had colour but a older tinted red colour to make the footage look dated, for the war scene, we had a sepia effect, again looking at the footage that was taken at that time, matching it to what it would it would have actually looked like if it was from that time, fir the 80's scene we enhanced the contrast and saturation to make the whole scene look brighter. For all of the other normal day scenes we enhanced the colour but to a normal effect, adding a nice bright feel throughout the whole video. Another thing we did to make the video more obvious that she was going back through different stages was add clocks at the start of each era that she was travelling through, we used a clock that was faded into the footage so that it was in the background but the video was still playing, this makes it obvious that the main girl is going through the different stages, but having the hands of the clock going backwards it shows that she is going back through time, showing the different stages of the past decades and then showing the audience that a quick visit to each is enough as the last scene shows her happy where she is at with her boyfriend in this stage and is happy in this decade.

Digipak Practice

As we are also at the stage of making our digipaks, I have had to practice again, as I wasnt sure what type of images I wanted or the colouring I should I have, I have found two images that I'd like to use and put the bands name on it to get an idea of what I'd like to have on the digipak, the two I have put in the post are the ones that I am going to use on the final piece. 

Website

The website is going really well, it started off quite slow as it was hard to get used to the sight and learn how to do things so I had to take a bit of time to practise and learn how to do certain things. However now I know how to do it it is really great! There are so many things that I've learnt and now as I use it  get more ideas to how I can improve the band website. Te stage I am at now with the website is the last finishing touches and getting some other peoples opinion, the pages are all the same layout with the images having a whole separate page as I wanted to really make a point of the artist and show his feelings towards the songs that the band present. There is a lot of interaction toward the audience as the band have been successful due to the fans. 

Making a logo

As we are in the process of making websites I thought it would be useful to make a logo so that i then had something to use on my merchandise and digipak. I wanted to keep it simple so that it was able to look professional and not look amateur. The focus on the logo was the font, I didn't want any artwork as I wanted to use the images more and I didn't want to draw the audiences attention away form the images. I decided to make the logo one word so that it had the effect of being a bit different, which is what the name is trying to present about the band, the colours are very simple again not taking the attention away form the pictures. 

Filning the performance - The ACTUAL performance

So eventually we finished filming, changing the location to Canbury Gardens, which was the prefect location as it was a lot prettier and looked a lot better for that type of footage we wanted. We used Grace's SLR to film the footage as there are still no cameras this gave us really great quality footage, even though it means it is going to take longer to upload because the files are larger. The other issue we had was that we didn't have a tripod or a dolly to film the tracking shots and because this was the central part of the footage we had to use it handheld which does meant that we have the risk of the footage being a bit shaky, however this potentially could be a look that would fit with the storyline. To sum up mine and the whole groups feelings of today is that we are all very pleased and that it went really well, although it took although it took a lot of planning, it showed that the worked well as a group and we are hoping that the planning and effort that we put in pays off and the footage is great!

Performance Filming

Today we were set on filming Connor walking down a road looking for the girl for the performance but due to the horrible weather there wasn't a lot of filming done, as it was so cold it not only effected the way Connor did his performance but also us being able to hold the camera! We decided to go back to Rhianna's house, which was local and change the idea and have him sitting at home and not really knowing what he is doing with himself. This allowed us to show him the lyrics on a screen that was not in the shot, so off camera, and improved his performance of the song. Although we didn't have everything we needed we had some interesting shots and photos that are going to possibly be used for the ancillary tasks we were given.

The changing of the performance

As it came to shoot the performance part of the video we thought we had it all planned! However it seemed that wasn't true as when we thought about the idea we had was going to e to difficult to do whilst still keeping it looking professional. The idea was to have the main character Connor singing to the t.v which had our video footage playing on it, this would have meant that we would of had to export the footage to a DVD and then film him watching it, this would have been very difficult as it would have taken a long time to export due to the large amount of footage, it was also decided that it was going to be too difficult because we would have to lip-sync the song with the bit that is being played on the DVD, this was going to be too difficult!

So after a long discussion and a few set backs, such as the primary character being ill, and the media department being burgled, which meant all of the Mac's being stolen and the cameras too! This was a bit of a problem as we needed to use the cameras to shoot the performance and also as we didn't have a computer to edit on, this set us back slightly!

However nothing that the Gear Girls couldn't handle and with a group discussion whilst we had no editing to do we planned our new performance idea. We decided to have Connor, the primary character walking sown a road looking for the girl, this was easier to do and still fit with the story line.

The Robbery

As the teachers walked into the office on Monday morning they were greeted with the shock that someone over night had broken in and stolen a lot of the department, as well as the 12 macs that were in the classroom, they also broke into the office and stole all of the cameras and a further three macs. This obviously put through a lot of stress and held a lot of people up with editing and filming, even have to re film and start the editing process again!

The department worked really hard to get the computers and cameras ordered and back to the department but obviously this took a while, as the software had to be re-fitted as they are new computers and the cameras took a while to arrive, the computers aren't going to be able to be used until after half term, which means that we had to use other cameras so that we could get the performance filmed so that we are able to get back from half term and set up the footage and start editing.

Band Name

The name of our band name was a important part of the process and although it was very stressful we knew that it was really important  get it right. We knew that it had to fit with type of band that we were presenting with the song and the image they portrayed with the song. Te band name we decided on was Suburban Typo, this presents the band as different as 'typo' means mistake or different. As this was the type of picture we wanted painted of our band as the band didn't fit the stereotyped suburban look,  this is the reason that we decided on this name for the band.