final music video

 

Final Digipak Design

My group and I have decided on this design to be our final digipak

Media Coursework Evaluation

DIGIPAK design

When designing our Digipak, we decided that we should stick to a dark colour palette of blue and red. Originally, we had the idea of a band photo being the internal CD cover, however, as we couldn't find an image which we could blend the colours with the external cover. So we changed our original design from the band photo to a picture of Joel and James under a strip of LEDs.

Upon reflecting on the design, we decided it would be best if the lead singer was visible as he is the most iconic member of the band. We then out Joel on the right side of the cover, with the song list whilst James was on the left side, which would be covered by the CD.

We believe our design properly conveys the bands high energy and 'city life' vibes through the colour scheme, pictures and layout used.

The band logo and album cover were designed to blend with the colour palette as well as present the bands rebellious energy. specifically as the song is called "I've had enough", we thought it would be best to show the songs initial intentions and meaning through a Stop sign and a music symbol in the background.

Social Media blog

I copied my plan for the band's instagram and used the app 'Preview' to create a realistic draft of the instagram account so I could see what all of the bands photos would look like when they have been uploaded to the account. We used a rough colour palette of blue, red and dark greys when creating the account so the posts convey the bands characteristic and their individual personalities.

We deliberately used a mixture of professional and unprofessional looking photographs to give the band a unique personality. The band themselves don't care about the quality of the photos they upload and take photos of them messing around and having fun. For example, the 'Meet the band post'- shows that they don't want to be taken seriously and make music because they enjoy it. We did this to target a specific audience of people who like the bands childish and non-professional career.

We also uploaded some more stylised and professional looking photos to show the band aren't completely novice and that they do have intentions of establishing a career.

https://www.instagram.com/metan0ia_music/

Ideas for social media

shoot day evaluation/evaluation essay

The day before our shoot day we worked with Fran organising our set and designing it. Firstly, we gathered all of our props out of the storage tent such as wall flats, amps, arm chairs, duvets, sound-proofing etc... and put it all into the studio. After Chris finished setting up the overhead lights on the support bars, we moved out props onto set and began building. We put the flat at a right angle to the breeze block wall and stuck up lots of sound-proof foam, egg boxes and posters onto the walls. Then we started to put the amps, instruments, furniture and smaller objects e.h. board games, bottles and cans, onto the set. When all of the set was finished we started to look at certain sections of the set to see which parts were more detailed than the others. We realised that the right hand side of the set was much more detailed and messy than the left hand side, so at the end of the day I went home and collected junk from my garage such as football boots, skateboards etc...

Initially, when I woke up in the morning I was quite confident and felt that we would get the footage we would need. I was concerned about some certain aspects of the shoot day such as the guitar solo and how well the Jazz cub would look on screen. Despite some of my concerns, I ultimately wanted to get the shoot day out of the way so we could begin editing, which is a much more vigorous and lengthy process.

When I arrived for the shoot I felt very well prepared. I had organised several of the props on set, created a shot list prior to the shoot day, made two group chats to inform the band and jazz club actors as well as frequently meeting up with members of staff to sort out more distinct pieces of set such as wall lights for the jazz club and amps for the garage set. I had arranged costumes for the band and told the jazz club actors what I would like them to wear with example images for hair, makeup and clothes. I also asked Fin if he could obtain any glasses for the jazz club, which he did in addition to my own props. The night before the shoot I rummaged through my garage and bedroom and tried to find typical junk items. Some of the stuff I found added nice detail and character to the set, for example football boots sung over a railing and a tennis racket and baseball mitt by some cardboard boxes.

The studio looked exactly like the easy, cramped garage set we wanted to create when we started to shoot. Each item on set really portrayed the characteristic of the band, for example, the drummer's drum kit was surrounded by posters of rock bands which he would like. Feel that we managed to create the exact cluttered habitat our band would have performed in with things like sound proofing, like one of their parents had said "you can practice in the band as long as we can't hear you". When setting up, I helped put up the sound proof foam as well as the posters, which was quite difficult as I had to staple them to egg boxes. After I helped beau collect tables from the canteen for the jazz club, brought in lots of typical garage items to place on set and helped change the lighting with Chris during our shoot to create a more chaotic atmosphere during the handheld shots. As we changed to the jazz club set, I helped carry tables back with beau and put away the junk items from the garage back into Fran's storage unit. The group and I then helped place the heavy tables and chairs where we wanted to make the set look bustling and lively with the actors sat around each other. When we put all of the set in, as director I moved some of the actors around when we change camera angles to make it look busy and to stop them from blocking each other on camera.

On shoot day we divided roles amongst ourselves to the best of our abilities. fin controlled the camera and James helped maintain set as well as lighting. Beau documented the process whilst I took the role of director and organised the band, actors and shots we were taking. Some of the key responsibilities I had were saying which shots we had to take and which angles they should be, organising ad helping the band play their instruments and act (same for the actors), designed some of the set and generally organised the shoot day. for example, I stood opposite the guitarist as we filmed his guitar solo and mimed playing the guitar so he could copy me as the pace of the song kept changing and I knew the tune very well.

In particular, I thought I worked around problems on the shoot day very well. At the beginning of the shoot the guitarist snapped one of his guitar strings and to save time, instead of changing the string, I asked if we could lower the lighting, change the colour to blue and strobe them so that when we filmed his solo, the audience will be too focused on the 'performance narrative' rather than the actual playing of the instrument. I also thought that I had good general management, helping my group decide which shot to film and instructed the actors on what to say, attitudes and how to come across well on screen as the camera is quite close to them, they don't need to have such large expressions and gestures. I ensured that we got the shots on the shot list and obtained a wide range of footage so we had plenty to edit with.

We had to work around a few problems when we were filming. Near the end of our shoot Phill pulled out one of our actresses, Hannah, as he needed her for a show rehearsal. To solve this issue, we set up the camera track at a different angle so that when we film the continuous shot of the Jazz club for the opening of our music video, we wouldn't be able to see the table Hannah was seated at. Another issue we faced during our shoot was that we had to change the way we designed our set as the previous music video would look too smilier to ours. We changed our set from a box of 3 flats to a 2 flat corner shot.

I thought the jazz club scene was the most successful part of the shoot as we filmed in order of the shot list and filmed the next part of the video we would cut to, so it felt more productive i.e. filmed shot of Oscar drinking and then cut to an over shoulder shot of him with the glass. Compared to the garage scene, the jazz cub felt like we were getting the exact shots we wanted and that if a mistake occurred e.g. drummer forgot to hit the correct rhythm, we could re-film the shot as it was only a few seconds.

I wish the beginning of the shoot had gone a bit better. It took a while for the band to get into the swing of things such as miming to the music and being aware of each other in the band space. It was quite difficult to get the band members motivated enough to embrace each others presence, like looking uo and chatting to each other whilst playing their instrument. It would have been better if the band felt confident enough to act as well as play their instruments so we could have saved time instead of re-shooting some specific shots.

I enjoyed directing the jazz club scene most as I found directing people on what to do as well as being able  to state a clear narrative and setting. One aspect of directing I enjoyed was getting the actors to repeat their sequence again but changing the angle we filmed at. I enjoyed directing as I felt it gave me an insight and experience to what it would be like if I chose to become a director.

I am looking forward to the editing process. Hopefully, the strobe chorus in the garage scene will give a chaotic effect and convey the message of the band "having enough". I am also really excited to see the transition between Joel walking out of the jazz club into the garage scene.

I feel that my group worked very well together. We all envisioned a similar atmosphere and band when making the video so it was easy to agree on things. Although at times I felt that it was up to me to organise the group with things like prop lists, costumes or rehearsal times, we all carried out our individual tasks very well.

Overall, I feel that a lesson I have learned before starting my next music video is to practice with the band more frequently so they don't feel as shy or nervous on the shoot day.