Final poster and digipak

Having completed our Digipak and magazine advertisement, I can now evaluate the journey it took to create these. In order to create these, we used the software of Photoshop, this was a difficult process due to the fact it was time consuming as I had forgotten how this programme worked, so needed some additional help on how it simply works. Due to the fact we only had photos of the set throughout the shoot day, we had to organize a photo shoot in order to take some pictures of our main guy Affie. These photos were taken in the photography suite against a white backdrop in order to make these easier when we used them for editing.

Using various angels and positions we took a couple of photos of Affie. It was important for Affie to be comfortable and be in his own clothes, to promote the fact that he isn’t all for show, he’s a singer whose relaxed and comfortable with his place in society. If I could compare him to other artists in society I would compare him to; ‘RZA, WU TANG and UGOD’, these artists portray similar characteristics within the hip hop world. Although I don’t think its right to compare Mikill pane to other artists, as he is individual in his own way and attracts and targets different types of audiences.

Having uploaded these photos to the computer, it was then time for us to select the best photos out of the lot. Karis and I brainstormed various ideas, which we could use and came up with the convict idea of Affie against a height chart they use in prison, when mug shots were taken. Originally this was our first idea, but somehow we had to link it in with the whole concept of our media shoot.

We came up the idea that Affie is portrayed as a badman who actually deep down is a caring guy who questions a lot of elements in life, some of his lyrics were ‘tell me the truth’, ‘do you really want to destroy the movement’ and ‘I guess this never really matter’. All these statements, tell us that Mikill pane is infact a concerned guy that cares about society, although very much involved in his genre of ‘grime’. Grime artists are portrayed as gangsters who have low attitudes on life, but Affie is juxtaposing against this stereotype.

There are many features we had to include onto our digipak, this consisted of barcodes, recycling signs, copyright and special edition stickers. All these factors contribute to making the digipak look more realistic. We also incorperated a blackberry messenger barcode and website which is to display that we are using the latest technology in order to promote this artist and album.  Allowing fans to access more information about Affie himself online. It was also important to come up with a list of song names which would also be on the back on the digipak, this was another factor that we had to incorperated into the design, as all artists display other songs. The record company we finally went with was ‘no hats no hoods’; this was a grime record company, which we felt matched our artist the best. We also used their logo onto our digipak and promotional poster as we felt it was necessary to advertise the record company Affie was part off.

Below is a detailed analysis of the process I went throughout in order to make the digipak and promotional poster, it shows screenshots of using Photoshop, logos and images that I used in order to complete these tasks. Our album title is ‘Return of the flat top’ which gives the audience an impression of the late 80’s and 90’s. Which is also a sense in changing of time. We are linking in the old with the new, such as the linking old school hip-hop with the genre of grime. In order to promote the idea of ‘Return of the flattop’ we have used Affies hairstyle in order to generate this point of view. It ties in with the album appropriately, which connects the album name to the character himself. The fact one of the backgrounds was star cloth, was to also introduce factors of the shoot day of ‘Party animal’, it also intertwines with the fact Affie is in his own world, possibly supporting the idea that Affie is special in his own ways and has abnormal powers, hidden underneath him. This also could be seen as the fans he has, which look up to him and see him as a superhero figure.

I believe so far we have produced a very successful digipak, which will only be improved as our process id developed.

The promotional poster was a very similar process, as we used all the same elements as we did in the digipak, such as the blackberry messenger barcode, Facebook, twitter, YouTube logos, in order to reach the youngest audiences who are using digital technology, this would therefore give them the best opportunity to research the artist and find out more. The fact we made the main focus point be Affies face, this emphasizes the fact that he is the most important thing we are promoting and advertising. Having finished our promotional poster and digipak, it was time to get some audience feedback, to see how other people interpreted and thought of it. Many people thought it was a very artistic approach keeping in with the modern technologies of society today. The liked the fact we based our idea on a black and white approach, in order to differentiate it from society and keep in with the modern feel, allowing logos and titles to stand out to the audience. They overall stated it was a clear concept of the artist and promotes him in a positive, cutting edge way. 

Feedback

Excellent posts - well done, fully reflective on the production process!

Process on promotional music poster

Having done a lot of planning and preparation for our poster, within our group we all came up with ideas which we could link together. Jake designed a poster as part of our planning- this poster was based on our music video shoot, using the pictures which had been taken throughout. Jakes idea was to use a simplistic approach, although this was just a rough idea.
In this poster you can see that this shot was taken upwards, to emphasize Affie is seen as a hero and a god like figure. The colour's Jake used stand out, therefore attracting the audiences attention and possibly allowing the audience to remember the artists name or any additional information about the artist.


From then on, Karis and i started our own poster using the photos we took from a photo shoot in the photography labs, these photos were against a white backdrop, model lights and flash lights. These lights were used in order to add to the ambiance and create  more professional photos.
These two pictures we used are very similar although catch the glimpse of Affie looking into the  future and possibly trying to imagine the return of the flatcap. In this picture you can see Affie against the white baackdrop, this also makes it easier for us to edit and add additional effects.

Part of our design process, we researched names which could tag along with our artists name Affie. We wanted a catchy phrase which we could give a twist to in order to attract audiences. Due to our genre being a grime track, we wanted to add a RnB/Grime feel to them. Some of the ones we came up with or generated on websites were-

1) Affie - A safe place in an unsafe world!

2) Don't play with fire!? Play with Affie!

3) See the world with Affie

4) Semper affie

5) Don’t just book it, Affie it.

6) Khaki voltage 

7) Eazy luv

8) Fresh flava

http://sloganator.org/index.php?t=Affie

http://thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan.cgi?word=Affie

So far we are in the editing process for our promotional process, using photoshop. So far Karis and i have designed this poster, one of them is in black and white, other one is in colour, this is all part of our planning and preperation. We have included a bbm barcode as we believe it is very important to use modern day technology, which all sorts of audiences can realte to. Also we have used the logo of our record company, 'No hats no Hoods', this is a grime record label which we believe is appropriate to add.

Choosing the font, is difficult as there are so many, although we decided we wanted to use an artistic font which would attract the audience but still be modern.
On this poster, we will have the name of the debut album- "Voltage mafia", we believe this name is a powerful album name which gives an electrifying idea.
voltage- we thought of this due to the powers Affie has as heroic symbol, also the star cloth and other lighting we used relate to voltage.
mafia- stereotypically we think of the mafia as an organized international body of criminal, although as a group we are juxtaposing this idea as Affie looks criminal although he is a one man show, and an innocent, honest guy in society. Just follows the grime appearance which people may associate with crime. 


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia?redirect=no 

Following the crime idea, Karis and i had another design idea, this would possibly be for the promotional poster or for the Digipak, going to the editing suite, we managed to photo shop a mugshot with Affie.
This is how it looked->
Although in the end we felt it would confuse our target market, as we are trying to portray that Affie isn't a criminal, or a bad guy, although in this case it clearly looks like he is. In order to change peoples views we would have to create a strong enough argument. This idea we are still keeping aside, as we believe it may become useful when designing our digipak.

Digipak and poster process.

A digipak is- a patented style of CD, DVD or BD packaging. Digipacks are a type of CD packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipacks can flip open like a book, or it can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the center portion. Usually, the portion of the digipack that hold the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digipak

A promotional poster- a promotional poster is a a4 sized poster which will be featured in a music magazine such as NME, Q, THE ROLLING STONE ETC. This poster will advertise and promote the band, tour dates, website and sell the brand image. It is a promotional tool, which is used by record companies in order to globally let society know about this various band. Many examples which we liked was firstly the record company were using, one reason for this is because it is a grime record label, fixing in with our genre of grime. 

http://www.nohatsnohoods.bigcartel.com/ 

For our Digipak and promotional poster i firstly researched all logos and aspects which i would like to feature on my digipak and poster. I used the Internet tool "google" in order to find the logos and pictures i wanted to use- these were. This picture is the logo i used, it includes bar codes, bbm bar codes, special edition sticker, a recycle sticker in order to fit in with the environmental scheme, the copyright logo to follow the laws. And the last logo is our record label logo.

Adding to our digipak on the back cover, we came up with a list of songs whilst designing our digipak. The list of tracks, included 'Party animal remix'.

Track songs.

      1)    Party animal

2)    The hood

3) Let me

4) Grindim

5) Kill the Dj

6) Say it

7) Warning

8) Sell me candy

9) Jump

10) Knockout

11)Up out my face

12) Getting past

This picture above is the starting process of creating our digipak, we are using Photoshop and a Digipak template, which gives us a starting point. As a group we would like our Digipak to follow the artistic route, although not be overcomplicated, simple at the same time. We have a lot of ideas up our sleves and as a group have finalized one idea, which are in the Middle of processing.
 

Health and Saftey

Health and safety - http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/health-and-safety-management.html

Definition- “Organized efforts and procedures for identifying workplace hazards and reducing accidents and exposure to harmful situations and substances. It also includes training of personnel in accident prevention, accident response, emergency preparedness, and use of protective clothing and equipment.” 

 

Health and safety in the studio was a vital aspect we needed to take into consideration, not only for our crew but the cast as well. This was due to the fact we had the responsibility of them for the day. One of the main hazards was the potential risk of fire, we were using a lot of smoke and due to being in an enclosed space we had the risk of the fire alarms going of if the fire doors weren’t shut correctly.

Another issue was smoking; this was prohibited by the studio as it was a potential fire hazard. Throughout our shoot day we had no complications with these fire hazards. Although there were others, we used a dolly in order to use a tracking device and this was a potential hazard as the camera man is pushed around sometimes at a fast pace and a third person has to wind up the wires in order for no one to trip up and hurt themselves. There was nothing obviously dangers on our set or in the studio. There were a few props hanging around which could have been in the way and a potential risk, due to the fact it was so dark and there were hardly any lights. But apart from that we had a safe shoot day.

Feedback

Excellent!  Next is to complete the CD digipack and get this posted.  Only one are for development is linking production to the construction of the star image via the look or mise en scene of the video - how well do you think this went?

Our roles within this pop video.

Our group is made up of four people, and we fairly distributed roles to each member of our ensemble.

It was important as to distribute jobs across the day as part of being an organized team. Working together or seperately was very important as every help contributed to the overall process.

Here the picture features us as a team, Karis, Jake, Hector and Emilia. Aswell as Affie in his chair, being the centre focus.

Over the course of our shoot day, I was given the role of a Director. "A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking.They control a film's artistic and dramatic aspects, while guiding the technical crew and actors". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_director . I really enjoyed this role due to being able to take charge of the crew and directing to the camera man (Hector) which shots worked and which didnt, as a role of a director i also wrote a detailed anaylisis of the certain shots we took, if they were good or not, the type of shot we did and diagrams as well. Being the director i had to keep the group alert, up to date with changes which may have occured throughout the day and also we couldnt be too relaxed and laid back throughout the day otherwise our work would have been sloppy and messy. I felt i was a good director and team leader, through my organizational and directing skills. I felt the group was kept tightly together throughout the day, even in Guildford and we had a succcessful shoot day.

Hector main role was camera man, although other peple in our group each had a turn on the camera, Hector did a very good job, he was able to white balance, focus and use saturation on the camera. Hector also got the opportunity to use the dolly, this specialised peice of equipment we were lucky to be able to use and it was a very vital peice of equipment for our group. 

 Karis also contributed to this, when i was helping out with the dolly, she took over my role as director for a few minutes. Karis mainly focused on playback, this was an important role as she had to manage when to play the track, pause and go back to the beginning, this was vital and she had to be on the ball, all the time.

Jake was mainly incharge of the lighting desk, he controlled the monitors and was able to adjust the various lights we had installed and positioned in the studio. Jake had to be careful especially when using the blinders due to when the exposrue was put up to much, the only thing that came out on camera was a white screen, so the picture was lost. But we resolved this problem when we could look at the monitor and adjust the buttons at the lighting panel in order to achieve the best light.

Photos taken by organized photographers.

As well as keeping a track of our shoot day by taking videos and photos on our phones, we also organized three photographers to come in and take some professional photos up to a high quality standard. We directed them to the type of shot and angle we were interested in and ended up with some professional photos. The photos have not only captured the essence and ambient of our music shoot, but the colours and shadows  are really effective to people who were not at the photo shoot. These photos range from many angles, colours and portray different messages.


This first image clearly shows our finished set with the lighting and setting in process, the highlighted area in this photo is the throne, this is to highlight the importance of the place were Affie belongs. His throne showed his authority and heroism. I really like the way the royal red colour is highlighted and brought out, although the shadows by the side of the pillars, create an eerie and mysterious atmosphere, juxtaposing against the star cloth due to the twinkly lights which gives of a relaxed, star-lit atmopshere, almost like the characters were in an imaginative world.

This collage of photos displays our main character, Affie sitting in his throne comfortably. He is also looking heroic and authoritive. This shot was taken from a very low position on the ground in order to emphasize his high status. We felt the chair was the most important prop within our set due to the idea of our grime artist juxtaposing his grime image against the setting. We hoped this contrast was visually interesting and exciting to the viewers and the message is portrayed that people may stereotype certain people but at the end of the today, people are equal and belong wherever they would like to be in society. 


The second photo is of the lighting we used throughout our set, as you can see there are four beams of light directly onto the set, and one extra large spotlight which was used in order to highlight the chair and Affie whilst sitting. The two read light which were directionally positioned in order to highlight the royal red curtains. The lighting we used was very effective and added the the ambiance of our music video as a whole. The First photo highlighted with the green background clearly emphasizes the lighting we used as well as our production team filming a certain scene, i like this photo as the essence of making this pop video was captured.

The three photos in the green block  demonstrate us as a team in action filming our pop video. the largest video is of Hector and i on the dolly, this piece of equipment was used in order to help us with our tracking, it was a slick, light piece of equipment which consisted of a chair and the camera attached on top, with another person from the team pushing them round the tracking on the set. We decided to go for an oval setting in order to give a twist and artistic flare to our video. As well as doing some slow tracking shots, we also did some very fast ones which was difficult at first as you had to make sure you didn't crash into anything or damage the set. Whilst hector was sitting on the Dolly i had to loop the wires in order for them to not get tangled with the dolly, otherwise this would have created obstruction. I enjoyed this job as not only was i able to watch the scene but i was able to contribute and help out with the tracking. Over the last year this was the first time i have used the tracking, due not having an appropriate exercise to use it with, i believe this was effective and we were lucky to use this in our video, in order to get some variation into our shots. 

Here these three pictures show our main character Affie, I felt he played the character of Mikill Pane very well, and it was almost a perfect match, he lip sinked the words exactly to the beat, although personally i thought  it must of been very difficult as it was rap so the lyrics had to be said extremely fast. In order to test Affies ability we did a few screen tests which was to see how he reacted in front of cameras and people. This turned out to be very successful so we knew he was appropriate for the character in this piece. At first we did face a few problem's due to Affie not knowing his lyrics, but after playing the track over quite a few times we managed to resolve this problem. 



These three photos display some of the props and how clever photography has portrayed them in an artistic way. In the first shot we can see Affie from a slight angle in his chair, but also the pillar and the hat is captured in it, most of the intention is brought to the cap due to this being in focus and the chair with Affie in is out of focus. I also like the shadows that the lighting has given off. 
Secondly we are paying attention to the wooden throne we hired out, it was a very tall chair, which we felt was most appropriate in order to leave head space between Affies head and the wooden engravements and detail on the chair. The wood was painted gold in order to give it the regal, royal look and the rest of the chair had red Velvet  seating and backrest.
Thirdly here is a picture of our lighting desk, we used this in order to control all the lighting, the exposure and brightness of the lighting too. It was a very useful piece of equipment and vital in order to produce an ambient throughout our set. 

Editing process.

The programme we used to edit our pop video was Final cut pro, an editing software.

" Final cut pro is an nonlinear editing system that allows users to edit video. Created by Apple Computer, Final Cut Pro allows you to edit everything from digital video, IMX and uncompressed SD to HDV, XDCAM HD, DVCPRO HD and uncompressed HD."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Cut_Pro 

What do Editor's in Final cut pro do?

"A Final Cut Pro Editor is an Editor whose specialty is Final Cut Pro. FCP is a professional non-linear editing system developed by Apple Inc. The program has the ability to edit many digital formats including DV, HDV, DVCProHD, XDCAM, 2K, and IMAX film formats"

http://www.media-match.com/usa/jobtypes/editor-final-cut-pro--jobs-404398.php

Why is film editing so important?

“Editing is one of the vital aspects in the process of film production. In general, editing is done to provide coherence and continuity to a film. Editing is the part of post production of film making. Good editing can make bad production look good and bad editing can turn a good production into bad. Through editing, shots are combined in accordance with the script to create finished movie. A shot must be short enough to fulfill the purpose.”

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2442010/why_film_editing_is_so_important.html 

We can link in editing as part of mise en scene, this is the arrangement of everything that appears in the framing – actors, lighting, décor, props, costume – is called mise-en-scène, a French term that means “placing on stage.” The frame and camerawork also constitute the mise-en-scène of a movie. Editing plays a huge part within mise en scene and this is what it is necessary to comment on.
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~landon/Local_Information_Files/Mise-en-Scene.htm 

Having had a successful shoot day, the next step is to upload our footage onto final cut pro and start editing. In our first session of editing, we checked in all our shots and started the process of choosing the best shots out of all of them, then placing them into the log bin. This took quite a while due to us having taken a wide range of shoots in three different locations. After our first session we had pacifically chosen the appropriate shots we wanted to use in our final video. Due to this pop video being a team effort a as a group we all contributed our editing skills along hte journey, although most of the editing was done by hector in the rough cut. This rough cut took a few hours in order to use all the selected shots we were happy with, we dragged them onto the timeline with the track and began to add in further detail and merge the clips together in order to try and make our first rough cut.  

Third set.

Despite the weather being a bit gloomy, we went ahead with filming in Guildford, once  we arrived in the Guildford it was late afternoon and we knew that we had left it a bit too late as it would shortly be getting dark. but that didn't stop us, we first of all went to our first location which was the bridge by the cinema, here we took shots from the other side of the river Thames in order to give a stalkerish, following approach of Georgia. Georgia is shot walking beside the river, having accomplished these shots we then moved on to filming  her feet by shooting from laying the camera very low down on the ground. Another shot we took was a close up and extreme close up of her face whilst walking. Moving down the river we took shots of Georgia against graffiti, to give it a rough edge of society, another was walking under a bridge and through these wooden sculptures on a patch of grass. Unfortunately it got to a stage where we lost the light and couldn't film anymore, i reckon if we had put more preparation into planning if there weather would be bad, then we would of had enough time to shoot all the shoots we wanted to, apart from that it was a successful day. 

Account of Shoot Day.

On Friday the 4th of November was our shoot day for our pop video, having set up our shoot the day before we felt confident and reassured that the day would go smoothly. In the morning before we started we had a few issues, due to the weather. The majority of our pop video was to be filmed inside the studio, which no doubt was a problem. Although the other half of our shot day was in Guilford, although the forecasted weather was rain and thundershowers. We decided to make a decision after lunch, whether we will go ahead with filming in Guilford or whether we will have to think of another idea. 

Our day didn’t follow our shooting schedule as such, but it was a helpful guideline tool. Having gathered our main characters, Affie and Georgia we briefed them about what was going to happen throughout the day. Not needing Georgia for a couple of hours, we sent her off and asked her to come back later. It was important for Affie to feel comfortably with the set and the surroundings, so we put the track on repeat so Affie could familiarize himself with the song and the set together, we had a few difficulties due to the fact that Affie didn’t know all the song lyrics, this caused a little frustration as most of the shots we planned to do were close ups or extreme close ups of his face. Although running through the song 7 or 8 times had helped Affie learn the lyrics. The pictures on the left hand side demonstrate our shoot day focusing on the first set lit, also the monitor is shown where we watch the recording live, in order to see how it looks on tv, also the lighting desk where we could control the lighitng and playback of the track.

he majority of our shots were taken on the camera and tripod, the various shots we took was,
- establishing shot http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/narratology/terms/establishingshot.html

-close up 
http://www.answers.com/topic/close-up

- extreme close up
http://www.answers.com/topic/extreme-close-up-graphic-arts

- extreme close up of half his face

-shots flipped to other side of his face

-shutter shot
http://www.ehow.com/about_6702380_definition-camera-shutter-release.html
-another shaking shutter shot

-side on view of hat/face.

- tracking shot 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracking_shot

I especially liked the tracking shot, as it give a different perspective of our set and our character, we did this tracking shot 10 times in order to get a few good shots out of this. We used the dolly in for the tracking to result in the best shots. We simply made our artist follow there camera around the set, in order for it to add to the ambiance of the music video.


Change of set- Blinders

Due to my group wanting a contrast in sets, we came up with the idea of having one wall full of blinders, these blinders are large lights which are very powerful. We discovered the lights erase all of our artists except for his shadow/outline. We took down the old set, and left the studio bare except from the wall of these lights, it then allowed us to assemble the tracking down so we could take some tracking shots. Using the blinders, we decided we wanted Affie and Georgie to have a shot with these blinders, using Affie first we asked him to behave and sing similarly to as before although over-express his actions and move around more frantically, in order to create more silhouettes and shadows. After Affies time with the blinders, we moved onto Georgia, here we focused more on her face and singing, we dimmed the lights a lot more so more of her body and face was seen, although the lights crept in between her body and displayed rays of light. I felt these blinders was a good alternative to a set as it was visually interesting, unusual and a very simple concept for us to achieve.

The only problems we had was occasionally when we turned the blinders up too bright, it was difficult to film and even track as we couldn't see anything through the camera as it was just a white light, also in this incident we had to get the right exposure of light in order to still get an image of the character. Above are a few images of Georgia and Affie in set with the blinders. 

Account of day before shoot day.

Having had a successful shoot day, now i am going to write an account of our shoot day.

Starting with the setting up of our set, which included the set, props and scenery.  Having been given the afternoon before our shoot day  to set up our set, we had to make sure that we use this time wisely and not waste any valuable time. As a group of four, we targeted different jobs at each other, firstly as a group we cleared this studio to ensure that we had the space we needed, and no additional props and items were left around. Karis and i started bringing in the props from the prop containers, into the studio. once all the main props were in the studio, we started to design our set, as we did in our sketch previously drawn throughout preparing our shoot day.  With help from the technians, they assited us and were able to do the difficult jobs we wernt allowed, able to do. Such as assembling the star cloth, which is shown in the first picture to the right, this starcloth was 10ft long and with the help of a crane, it was assembled. The starcloth was assembled on the back wall of the studio. Secondly we brought in platforms and steps in order to give height to the thrown, in order to show authority and royalty. This was then covered in a royal red carpert, in order to carry out the king theme and decorate the set. in order for the carpert to stay in place, we used staples although this wasnt so effective as they kept coming udone. Although in the end we had no problems, whilst the set was placed on top. Our final throne came from a theatre props website called

http://www.propit.co.uk/. This chair was gold and red velvet and suited our set appropriately, matching the drapes we then put up. These drapes were attached to metal poles and balanced with a weight at the bottom. At this stage, the star cloth, drapes, carpet and throne was on stage, finally we added the white pillars either side of the platform, and on top we used stone greblins in order to add an authentic look to the set. Although in order to add our character, Affies style to it, we placed flatcaps onto of these statues heads.

I felt setting up the day before was a wise decision and practically suited us, as when we had our shoot day the next day, we found we were organized and able to have a sucessful, smooth running shoot day.