Feedback

Excellent presentations posted, lots of effort to achieve this.  It is clear how the product has been constructed and the decisions made.  I like the way in which you have recognised the conventions of the CD digipak and have worked with these in mind.  I would have liked a few more comments on the design and constructed meaning and how this would have appealed to the intended audience.  Well Done.  Can you embed the presentations rather than use links?

Evaluation of poster and digipack

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AcuvPz7iPH4JZGZwM3EzanRfNjk4ZmM3ejk1Z2s&hl=en_US

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AcuvPz7iPH4JZGZwM3EzanRfNzI5ZndnYjVnazQ&hl=en_US

Feedback

I like the Cd digipak and the product design which fits well with your music video shoot.  You are clearly in command of the process of construction, evident by using screengrabs. I also like the slideshow you produce through Google documents - very informative and understanding of CD conventions.  This could have been embedded in the post, rather than using a url link, it would improve the presentation on the blog.
Your evaluation of the digipak is very concise - you do not appear to have followed the advice that was given on how to evaluate this product, which has led to some descriptive work.  Can you please re-edit these posts as soon as possible

Digipak draft update

Ian added more colour to the design, it is still uncompleted but the theame is finnished. All that is left is replaceing the band members.

Digipack draft

This is a draft of the digipack. This will not be the final one as we are currently replaceing the cast. I t converges well with the poster to keep a reconasiable style and theame which the audience can connect to.

This was make on adobe photoshop by coping images from the internet. This is a picture of the back panel. And screen shots of the bar code and production company emblem so that the digipaki can fit the conventions set by the industry.





Lanmou poster draft

The Poster is a draft of what our poster will look like it will not be the final one as the cast has not yet been finalalized thanks to people agrreing to do the shoot but recantly pulling out for varius reasons. We hope to finalize the cast tomorrow as our shoot is at the end of next week.

Account of Shoot Day.

My groups shoot day was on the 18^th of November 2011. During the shoot day we had to set up the schools production studio, then film the music video and then clean up for the next production team that were coming the next day.

After school on the 17^th we set up as much of the set as we could in order to save time on our shoot day. We stayed on after at school to about 9 o’clock. In our set we initially placed a raised floor for the bases of the living room which we were trying to create. We wanted it raised so that we could use lighting effects around the side of the room for when the electric feel comes. We then put up the walls using large bits of ply wood and clamps. We decided in preproduction that we wanted our room to have some more shape so we produced an arc window. This made the room seem more believable and added character. We then wallpapered the wall; this was probably the most tedious part of the preparation as it did take some time. We then laid the carpet on the floor. This created the basic living room. We worked efficiently in order to create what we had previous wanted. The preparation we made that evening became very valuable the next day when we could quickly start filming, only having to arrange the furniture, the band and any additional lighting that was necessary.

Once we had finished setting up, we went to the dance studio to get the dancers who were starring in our video ready. They rehearsed a 30-second dance that they were all happy with and we made sure that this fitted the theme of our video and once we were all pleased with it, we got them ready with their costumes and make-up. We then went to find our other cast members and got them ready too. We got our band set up and asked them to play through the song a few times, mainly so they could get used to their instruments but also so they could be comfortable playing with each other and to tire them out a little so they looked more natural when we started shooting. We got our two main characters in costume and painted our main girl with UV paint so she could satisfactorily signify the ‘Electric Girl’, standing out from the rest of the cast. We started shooting just about on schedule which was a positive thing as it showed everything had gone as planned.

We started shooting at about 10 o’clock. We all had a go at being on the camera, directing and doing the playback, swapping around at certain intervals so we could all have a say in the different roles working towards our piece. We started off shooting the party scene, which we used for setting the scene and introducing our audience to the party. This allowed us to get shots of our two main characters in the normal situation of the party and we could therefore introduce the connection using the editing and post-production. Due to the fact that we had previously worked out which shots we wanted, we had organization on the day. This also gave us a chance to shoot any ideas we thought about on the day once we had got the definite shots, leading to more experimental shots we were key in the final product.

Admittedly, we encountered some pressure of time as the dancers were only available until lunch; therefore we had to get all of this section of the video done before then. We also had to get a lot of the party section done before lunch too as the dancers were a big part of our narrative and it would have looked empty without them. So this is another reason why we got shots of the party first and once we had finished this we could get everything ready to shoot the dancers in the dark with the UV paint theme. This included painting the dancers completely in UV and making sure the rest of our cast had at least some of the paint too so everything looked in place. We had previously ordered UV jewelry as well as UV contact lenses which were worn by our male protagonist. This paint made the party look more interesting and therefore showed this change in the song due to the change of set, make up and costume.  This created the juxtaposition we had hoped for between the first and second section of our video.

We knew we would have no problems with the UV paint as luckily we had previously tested the paint out on all of our cast members the day before for health and safety issues – making sure there were no allergic reactions. This also gave us a chance to make sure it fitted the scene and looked exactly how we wanted it. Therefore, this let us be perfectionists about the costumes in our music video, and it turned out exactly how we wanted it on the day.

So to start shooting our second part of our video we started with shots of the dancers. We got them on set and tried out different shots we wanted. We could all have a bit to say about what we wanted due to the fact we had a screen on set which we had attached a lead from the camera to the screen. Therefore, whatever was happening on the camera could be seen by the rest of the group on the big screen. This gave us a good idea of how the final product would look as not all of us could crowd round the camera at once. The lighting was very key in this part of the video. We had switched on lights around the side of our set and we had included a couple of extra lights which spun around as well as projections of patterns on the walls. The most important light however was the UV light which highlighted the paint on our dancers making the shot look very nice. After doing a couple of shots we decided the lights on the side were too much for the shot and so we turned them off and find a much better outcome. Once we knew that the lighting was right, we then played around with the aperture of the camera in order to lighten the image and bring out the features of our dancers as well as the UV paint. We started off with a wide shot of all the dancers and followed this with a close up of each dancer and a couple of experimental shots, letting the camera slide throughout the dancers as they performed their routine. 

After this, all that was left was to shoot the performance element. We did the first half of the narrative and found it to be very successful, getting shots of each band member and in good time too. We then did the ‘electric feel’ half, where again we changed the lighting and tried more experimental and interesting shots to depict the excitement and the juxtaposition during the video. After we had all the shots we had planned and hoped for of the band, we then had a chance to film any other shots we wanted of the party as we realized it would be a positive thing having as many shots as possible as we did not want to come short when it came to editing.

Preperation update for shoot

We have nine days untill to our video shoot. In this time we hope to finalize costumes for our cast and aquire some of the remaining props. We should be able to get the majority of this from the school as they have a large selection of costumes from prevouse performing arts productions. We should be able to order the remaining props off the internet. We are also currentcly designing our digipak covers and poster covers.

This is an example of what our poster could look like. This is unlikely to be the final one as it does not fit the theame of the digipak design. I produced this on photoshop by useing pictures I have found on the internet.