Planning; Moodboard

Ross and Teigan made a moodboard to help define a brand image with visuals.

Progress - 25/11/11

This week we focused more on the print side of our project, and so we discussed names for our artist, and ultimately came up with Jessica versus the world. Teigan and Ross started work on a mood board, whilst Aaron and I started planning the 3 album panels we were going to be working on.
Next week we are going to be finishing the shooting of the music video, and then editing it and hopefully completing it soon before we break up for the Christmas holidays so as to be able to start our print project.

-Zaynab

Album Frames

We have to create an album cover to help build a bands profile. They are often used to promote a bands album and they store all the music they have recorded for this album. We are creating the template as a group;

• Teigan is doing the front cover and one of the templates inside the album cover. For the front cover Teigan is going to put one of her drawn pictures and creating the font which is going to be used for the bands name "Jessica Versus The World"
• Ross is going to do the back cover of the album, he is going to insert a picture and write up a track list for the album.
• Me and Zaynab are going to do three of the frames inside the album cover. The first two frames are going to include two pictures, one of good Jess and another of evil Jess. For the third frame we are planning to insert lyrics from our song with eight framed photos placed alongside the text.

Aaron Phelan

Planning; Making frames for the video

When making the frames in Photoshop CS3, I found a few things to remember;
*Remember to put the file size to pixels and not centimeters, as i did this by mistake and made a 10m by 10m file and it crashed both Final Cut and and Photoshop. Oops.

*I also worked out that the file can be saves as a PSP document and be used, to keep the transparency to use as a frame. A PNG file can also be used to maintain layers and keep transparency.

*I realised I can use the layers to make a 'Video sandwich' where there is a drawn background, the chroma-keyed out footage and the frames on top. I also used this to make Ross fly in my practice video.

-Teigan Kiss

Progress - 18/11/11

We managed to acquire our video shoot footage at the beginning of the week, and so set about editing what we had, though we still needed to get the rest. We imported all the clips into Final Cut, and made a rough cut of our video so far, by cropping out what we needed, and then we worked on the green screen. All of us had a chance to edit, and each one of us managed to do basic edits in Final Cut such as cropping, and also the more advanced editing such as Chroma Key, which we all now have learnt to do adequately, though Teigan did the majority.
We also did research into album covers for our print side of the project, and blogged about our favourite album covers and how they tied in with the artist's brand image etc.
We have yet to still complete the second video shoot and then finally make a rough cut in Final Cut of the actual video before it is edited, and then finally we would able to edit it and streamline it to make it into our finished product; we would do that next week, and also start planning what to do for our print side of the coursework.

-Zaynab

Album cover

The album cover that I really like that I have decided to analyse is the album 'Nightmare' by rock band Avenged Sevenfold.

The cover couldn't be mistaken as an album by any other than a rock band, with the horror elements and the dark lighting used, as it shows a terrified child with death/the grim reaper looking over her, and as there is also a tombstone there. The location adds to the 'dark' theme as it seems to be a bed in a cemetery, also as the fonts are very striking and are only in generic colours, not anything really colorful.

The back correlates with the theme of the whole album and also the front cover, as the setting is of a cemetery at night, hence the dark lighting and all the tombstones etc, with the full moon overheard, giving it an eerie feeling.

Avenged Sevenfold also have a heavy rock brand image, and this album is full of heavy rock songs, which is made apparent by the album cover.

Zaynab

Feedback 15/11/11

Some very good work Teigan, Ross, Aaron and Zaynab - well done!

Just a few suggestions below on how you can improve your grades...

Research:

It is very important that you clearly outline who your target audience is using demographics and psychographic profiling (Young and Rubicam and Maslow particularly) Link this to your ideas for your video and artist - how will it appeal to this audience? Without this post you could fail the project!

Planning:

Rough cuts of your video as you go along will get you extra marks

VERY IMPORTANT to blog weekly on your progress too!

Miss McNulty

Animatics

I created a rough cut Animatics video using our storyboard and what information etc we had so far, seeing as we hadn't discussed our artist's brand image or anything of the sort yet. So the only thing I had to go on was the actual storyboard and the song, and the planning of the music video.



-Zaynab

Planning: Ross' Album Cover Analysis

The cover I have chosen to analyse is that of Hammerfall's 2008 cover album, Masterpieces.

This album is a compilation of all the cover tracks Hammerfall had recorded to date, along with three previously unreleased new covers.

While most space is taken up by the band's unchanged logo and the presence of their mascot, Hector the Paladin, the lower half of the cover is littered with visual references to the bands being covered; a pumpkin referring to Helloween, the spray-painted logo of Twisted Sister, the Europe logo emblazoned on a rock and two signs referring to Skid Row's Youth Gone Wild and Kiss' Detroit Rock City, to name a few.

This placement of references to other, well-established bands will effectively draw the interest of older listeners amongst Hammerfall's fans, who are likely to recognise most of them very quickly having grown up with the bands and thus find themselves drawn to purchase the album out of nostalgia or curiosity.

- Ross

Planning; Album cover

An album cover I really like is Gazette's cover for their single 'PLEDGE'.
It has 3 variations of the same design. One, a young boy, next a middle aged woman and finally, an older woman. Each has the design of the person with white paint on their hair and he edges of their face. The paint on them seems to give the effect of being broken and cracked, showing fragility. This could link back to the lyrics of 'PLEDGE', as its a song about heartbreak and regret, the cracks in the skin could be looked at broken emotion, it also has a rough texture emphasizing this fact. . There is no writing on the cover, it draws all the focus onto the face of the the character.

The back cover, still has no focus on the words, as they are pushed into the bottom corner of the image, in small black font, where not much attention is drawn to it, so you would only really pay attention to it if you needed to see it. The back cover also has a continuation of the front image (each matching the person used on the front) covering his/her face. This, I believe is a bold statement, to hide from feelings and reality. Intertextuality is present as there is a link between the entire brand image of the single; the PV, the band's look and the album art.

-Teigan Kiss

Planning-Album Covers

 The album cover for Nickleback-All the right reasons is a bright and creative cover which catches the public eye. The vibrant mixes of colours which include different styles of blues and oranges. This can suggest that the album is vibrant and refreshing. The Genre of the band is Indie Rock like our own artist.

Kings of Leon- Only by the Night is a different kind of album cover to the previous cover. This cover mainly consists of dark green and it shows all of the bands faces mixed into one. The bands faces have all been collated and this has formed the shape of an eagle. The colour scheme and the Album cover suggests that the band are linked to the alternative rock genre.

Aaron Phelan

Planning; Straight Jacket prop!

In our music video, Jess will be fighting her evil alter-ego, called the Jesster (see what I did there?).
I got to make her costume, which consists of a bloody straight jacket.
To make it, I cut up two old white jumpers, belts and used lots of food colouring (blue and red).

There'll be another photo of Jess wearing it when I have it. 

-Teigan Kiss

Progress of individual work 11/11/11

Zaynab had to create comic signs to use for the video, and has documented her progress in pictures; Teigan created the costumes, whereas Aaron and Ross helped out with the lighting etc.
Also, each member of the group had to complete their individual research/planning tasks for this week's deadline, which is the end of today.

Also we are working on producing the animatics video.

Making the comic signs:

-Zaynab

Video shoot 11/11/11

Today we shot our music video in the green screen studio; we used props such as:
Video shooting equipment i.e. HD video camera
Digital stills camera
Lighting equipment
Costumes, i.e. gloves/belt/mask/socks/cape/glasses

Teigan and Ross alternated between shooting the scenes, whereas Zaynab and Ross and Jess were shot infront of the camera; Mike the studio assistant was on hand to help with the lighting and the technicalities, and Aaron and Zaynab were there to help out with whatever needed doing.

Only several of the scenes were completed, and we may have to complete the shooting some day next week.

We also took photos of our video shoot to show our progress.

-Zaynab

Research: Ross green screen (Flying with comic effects)

I used the motion tracker, rotation and chroma key in the editing settings to make a quick attempt to make ross fly.
When I do this properly, it will have more of a fluid movement, the character used will not be talking and it will be timed better with a better framed background, as with this I just wanted to see what I could do without any instruction on Final Cut Pro.
I think I did an okay job, I'm happy with the result.

What I learned  -
*Remember the times of each image when placing times on the motion setting (and rotation)
*I need to learn how to mask stray images on the outer frame of the chroma key, as they got in the way.
*Use larger images so that I don't have to use several incorrectly placed ones to cover the gaps
*In the actual video, give the images a grainy effect, like paper, to give more of a comic book texture.
*Make the sound effect bubble move and maybe change size
*Make the sky move in the opposite direction to how the character moves
*Use a really large image for the sky so it can be dragged to move.
*Make more efficient graphic 'frames' to make the process quicker.

All these will be useful to me, as I will be doing 90% of the editing, as I will be adding and doing all the illustrations.

-Teigan Kiss

Research: Popularity of Genre

The current Top 40 Charts are as following;

This shows that, as the Indie genre isnt as popular as Pop music and RnB, it is still shown in the charts, just not as hign up, showing it has a large popularity

-Teigan Kiss

1. READ ALL ABOUT IT - Professor Green ft. Emeli Sande
2. EARTHQUAKE - Labrinth ft. Tinie Tempah
3.WE FOUND LOVE - Rhianna ft. Calvin Harris
4. MR KNOW IT ALL - Kelly Clarkson
5. MOVES LIKE JAGGER - Maroon 5 ft. Christina Aguilera
6. WHEREVER YOU WILL GO - Charlene Soraria
7. SEXY AND I KNOW IT - LMFAO
8. WHEN I WAS A YOUNGSTER - Rizzle Kicks
9. LIGHTNING - Wanted
10. STEREO HEARTS- Gym Class Heroes
11. JAR OF HEARTS - Christina Perri
12. LEGO HOUSE - Ed Sheeran
13. WITHOUT YOU - David Guetta ft. Usher
14. PARADISE - Coldplay
15. VIDEO GAMES - Lana Del Ray
16. YOU MAKE ME FEEL - Cobra Starship ft. Sabi
17. GOT 2 LUV U - Sean Paul ft. Alexis Jordan
18 WHAT MAKES YOU BEAUTIFUL - One Direction
19. RUNAWAY BABY - Bruno Mars
20. THE A TEAM - Ed Sheeran

Research: Branding Case Study One; The GazettE.

The first case study I have chosen to look at are a J-rock band called The Gazette, as I believe they have a very well defined brand image. 

(pictured; Group shot from their single 'REMEMBER THE URGE')

'The Gazette; in addition to being one of the most popular and influential bands in the visual kei scene within Japan, the GazettE has gained a large international following. The band has managed to break the mainstream music barrier of Japan and continues to be one of the leading bands on the Japanese Rock stage' - Wikipedia; The GazettE.

If I had to sum up their image in three words; Striking, Cool, and Dark.
Their image matches their sound incredibly well, even listening to a fragment of the song, it has their unique sound found only to them, making them very recognisable in the VK scene. 
Recently, their new album 'TOXIC' was released on the 5th October 2011, where they developed their sound several times in the album with some tracks using techno/dub-step sounds, some using piano and focusing on more melodic tunes and the rest to their own sound. Yet, these differences still match their sound and brand image.

(Pictured; Their latest album cover for 'TOXIC')

A shown above, their album cover also fits their latest image, sticking to the mysterious look, black and white, with the title being subtle and not the key feature of the image. The girl looks very striking, and looks literally toxic with the use of shading and the not so well shown gas mask. She also could be referring to oil and pollution with her dark image. She literally looks like poison. 

 In this video for the song 'PLEDGE', they stuck to filming in black and white, which stuck with their brand image of the album, but even fits the more melodic songs such as this one. 



-Teigan Kiss

Feedback 6/11/11

Good progress group- however a big push on your planning is needed this week - the deadline is Friday 11th November!

Research:

- Scan a completed questionnaire as evidence of your research


- Don't forget to add more on narrative and representation and ideology - don't forget to include your PowerPoints and Word documents that you have already completed on this!


Planning:


- Once you have completed you storyboards, props and costume lists and mood boards, call sheets and health and safety forms - put them on the blog.


- Don't forget to outline your artist and their brand image in a post also - 3/4 words to sum up their brand. Images and moodboards to sum up their brand image would be good here - mise en scene etc...


- Don't forget from now on to blog on your progress every week - lots of updates! Images, videos would be good as evidence here.


A good student blog to look at is here - this got full marks - http://richardromanyemma.blogspot.com/


Miss McNulty

Week 1 Planning - Update Report

With props listed, casting completed and the storyboard done, progress so far is picking up the pace. We are scheduled to begin filming on Friday 11th November from 9am until 12:30pm, and will spend the rest of the day editing this footage. Teigan finished off the storyboard - all nine pages of it - Zaynab and Ross wrote up blog posts regarding our music choice and equipment, and Aaron began uploading a video of our green screen experimentation for use in a blog post.

Teigan Kiss

Research - Green Screen

For the video we are creating as part of our coursework, we are planning on using a studio for the production of our video. As we are planning on using the studio we have to use a greenscreen, as we intend to use the layout of a comic book in our video.

 For our Greenscreen practice, we used a picture of woodland in the background. We used Ross as our actor in the video and his role was to run around in circles. We felt this was a good first attempt of using the Green screen, this is because the wolf hat which was worn suited the woodlands background. However they are improvements we could make;

• The Lighting of Ross is too bright for Greenscreen background.
• Looks obvious that Ross is not their and is being manufactured.
• The background could have been more realistic.
• We could have added a lighting a filter to the video.

Aaron Phelan

Research: Inspirational video post

Scott Pilgrim vs The World (Trailer 2) - 

We've chosen Scott Pilgrim for inspiration as the film is based on a comic book and has lots of comic book style effects, such as when Scott gets hit, the word 'BANG' appears behind him and the plot of the story itself is very cartoon-esque.

Fall Out Boy "America's Suitehearts" -

- the use of combining reality with drawings and illustrations  is something we want to use, and this video does it incredibly well, making the drawings seem almost to be very twisted real people.

Fall Out Boy "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me" -

-Having a fight scene to break up the song it also an idea we would like to use, as we are getting inspiration from the 1960's Batman series, and want to use lots of ' POW' and 'BANG!' Sound effects, without them clashing with the music.

The Damned Things "We've Got a Situation Here" -

-The actual use of comic panels, with very slow pannining, to give the idea that the comic is real and that its slowly moving. The 'Page turn effect is another thing I would like to try. Also, the use of 'cheesy' comedy is inspirational.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu "PONPONPON" -

Again, the use of mixing real life with CGI and hevily edited graphic scenes in a good example. Also showing that there really is no limit in what we can do with our ideas.

Ready Set "Hollywood Dream" -
Fully animated and the video really matches the lyrics, showing different films with the main characters being played by the characters in the video (Jordan and Holly), my favourite being the Pulp Fiction dance scene.

-Teigan Kiss

Our music video

We chose an upbeat indie/punk song  because it is short and also it is fast-paced and as it was a female lead, as we had a female available for the casting role.

The lyrics within our music video are:

Don't bend, don't bleed, don't beg, don't scream, don't whine, don't fight, don't tell me.
Don't tell me, don't tell me.

Don't feel, don't tear, don't kiss, don't care, don't touch, don't want me.
Don't want me, don't want me.

Something's so sick about this, my misery's so addictive.
I'm halfway there watching Northshore from the floor singing to you over my shoulder.

Don't run, don't hide, don't hurt, don't lie, don't breathe, don't try, don't find me.
Don't find me, don't find me.
Don't cringe, don't clench, don't look, don't flinch, don't know, don't go, don't leave me.
Don't leave me, don't leave me.

Something's so sick about this, my misery's so addictive.
I'm halfway there watching Northshore from the floor singing to you over my shoulder.

Don't sing, don't talk, don't yell, don't laugh, don't think, don't speak, don't save me.
Don't save me, don't save me.
Don't stare, don't glare, don't heal, don't mend, don't take, don't send, don't love me.
Don't love me, don't love me.

Something's so sick about this, my misery's so addictive.
I'm halfway there watching Northshore from the floor singing to you over my shoulder.
Something's so sick about this, my misery's so addictive.
I'm halfway there watching Northshore from the floor singing to you over my shoulder.

Something's so sick about this, my misery's so addictive.
I'm halfway there watching Northshore from the floor singing to you over my shoulder.
Something's so sick about this, my misery's so addictive.
I'm halfway there watching Northshore from the floor singing to you over my shoulder.


-Zaynab

Work in progress

We are in the process of filling out our storyboard and have decided to make costumes and props for use in the video.

The props we have established that we would need so far are:

• Video cameras
• Lighting equipment
• A toy gun
• Make-up
• Costumes
• A mask
• A balaclava
• Comic signs i.e. 'pow' and 'wham' to insert into the video during various fighting scenes

Most of the shooting will be done in the studio, with some location shots, probably around the college buildings and premises.