Organization to take images.

Screenshots of me organizing when to meet to take pictures for tomorrow:

I decided to use the social media platform Snapchat so that I could ask the artist for my video if she is available to take pictures for my digipak tomorrow. I am almost finished with the product and just need a couple more images to add to it. I am going to go and book it tomorrow morning so that I am sure that I will have the opportunity to take some pictures as otherwise someone else may want to use it. We are going to eat our dinner first and then go to the green screen room in media to take the images as this has a white backdrop that I want to use. I have a few ideas for the two images I want to create and am hoping that I can achieve what I aim to:

• My first idea is to get the artist in her kimono and take a few pictures of her (possibly two where the artist is slightly turned to the left and another where she is facing right) and merge these together and blur them so that it creates a ghostly effect. These will relate to the album as some of the titles of the songs I have chosen are 'Paranormal', 'Ghost' and 'Disappear'. I think that this will look really effective and could possibly edit the image into black and white to give it even more of a ghost-like quality.
• Another idea for one of the images that I am going to take tomorrow is to get the artist to wear a shirt that she has and make this look really bright and fun. This is to illustrate what happens in the video for the single 'White Teeth Teens' and demonstrates how this is how she feels most comfortable; she feels empowered by what she looks like and realises that popularity isn't everything.
• My third idea is to take four images of the artist all in the same composition and the same mise-en-scene (bright lighting but not overexposed and a chequered shirt) but all looking different. I am thinking of doing the 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' quote in image form, as this would portray the artist's calm outlook on life and shows how she looks on the positive side of things and is optimistic. I am also planning on taking an image of the artist looking directly at the camera so that I can have four images of all equal size together; ending on the artist being direct to the audience.

Update: I have now booked the room and have it to use from 1:00pm till 1:30pm, which I think will be more than enough time to take plenty of pictures that I can decide which to use.

Editing the video and techniques used.

In one part of my music video there is a shot where one of the actresses flips her hair close to the camera. I added this to the video and thought it looked really good but didn't take up the time that I wanted it to. I tried adding it again so that it filled the time slot I needed it to but this made it look really strange, so decided to slightly slow it down so that it filled the space. I think this looks really effective as it fits the rhythm of the song a lot better.

For one shot in my video, I wanted to film some cars for a long time so that I could speed it up to have the effect of time passing by really quickly. I altered the speed/duration when editing to create this illusion and think this has worked really well and fits in well with the beat of the song.

I then had a shot where I needed to place two videos on at the same time. I wasn't sure how to do this, so asked the technician, Ben. He told me that the way to do it was to experiment with the opacity to get the effect I wanted, and I am really happy with the outcome of it.

Filming this shot was really difficult to do because I didn't really want to capture shadows and wanted to film it from above. I was happy with the shot that I got because it was what I intended to film, but when it came to editing I decided that moving it around slightly would make it better which I feel it did, as the actresses arms fill more of the mise en scene.

Editing the spine of my album.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the image that I downloaded from Google of the logo for XL Recordings had a corner to it which was a dark colour, and this stood out and was really noticeable to me.

I used the Rectangular Marquee Tool to select the part that I wanted to fill in and then used the paint bucket tool to fill in this section of the spine. To fill the section in, I used the Color Picker to select the part closest to the mark that I wanted to remove so that it didn't look odd.

I am happy with how this has turned out and think that the product looks so much better due to the record label having no strange markings around it.

Filming on 08/03/15.

This is a vlog from when I went filming today:


I had a few problems with filming but I think that these were only minor so didn't make too much of a difference and didn't waste much time:
-One of the actresses who was supposed to be coming with us to film was feeling really unwell - this caused problems for filming as I had a lot of shots to do that involved the two actresses. I was then speaking with the actress that was available to film today and realised that I could just change the shots that involved the actresses which I think will end up looking better and will relate to the song a lot more.
-Framing the shots - this is something that I needed to get right as I wanted to perfect the shots today so that I don't end up having to refilm them. I asked both Chloe (the artist) and Zoe (the actress) if they thought that the framing was how I described I wanted it and felt that this was helpful because it gave me a second and third opinion.
Weather - as I started filming and getting all the shots done, it started raining slightly which caused a problem, but I decided to film the shots that were under the bridge where I was filming so that I didn't waste any time. It didn't rain very much, so this was a really good thing because this meant that I could film the shots that I needed that weren't under the bridge.

I think the filming that I did today went really successfully because the shots that I got seem as though they will work really well but, if when I get to the editing stage the videos don't look how I want them to, I am currently planning with Chloe to film again one day next week so this shouldn't be too much of a problem and can be done then. It also took a lot less time to complete than I originally thought which means that I have some time to do some other work that needs completing.

Downloading the fonts that I need.

I downloaded the fonts that I had looked at, so that I could use them when creating my products as this would allow me to place the text anywhere I wanted. This was very time consuming as I had to select each font individually, but I think this was worth it as this will make sure that my products all link together as they will have the same house style and will be consistent in their design. I simply had to install the font by opening the file, which then created the font onto my laptop so that I was able to use it on Photoshop where I will be editing my products. Although I downloaded all of the fonts that I looked at, I only installed the ones which I liked as this made sense because I didn't need to install some if I knew I wasn't going to use them.

This is how the first font installed onto Photoshop, and I am really happy with how easy it was to download and install the font onto Photoshop. This means that I won't have to keep going back onto dafont.com and finding each font, I can simply open up Photoshop and find the font right there.

This is a tester that I did to make sure that the font works and looked how I wanted it to. I am really happy that I have downloaded the fonts because I can now create my products easily, and quicker than if they weren't downloaded.

Experimenting with the design of the back cover and final design.

I made this quick edit of the back cover of my album:

I think that the back cover looks really empty, so am going to add an image I find on Google to make it look better and more professional.

I found an image of Lana Del Rey on Google to use, and added it to the left of the text and also to the right of it to see if it looked good and if it worked overall. I aren't going to use this design because I don't think it would be very conventional for an indie artist to include themselves on the back cover as it is usually quite a simple design.

The first thing I had to do was remove the marks on the image that had been caused from dust gathering on my lens when filming (this is the reason I am going to refilm this shot). I used the Spot Healing Brush for this (see below the first screenshot of the sky) and this worked really well as the sky now looks clear and I can now get on with creating the product.

I cropped the image down to a square size so that it would work as a back cover for an album. I particularly chose this part of the image because the colours work really well together and both the sky and the clouds can be seen together.

I then added the text and images to the back cover to follow the conventions of a back cover. - the album title, tracklist, record label's logo, artist's website and barcode. For the album title, I used the font 'Atelas' which is the exact same font I have been using on all my products to keep everything consistent, and for the tracklist I used one that is called 'Lemon/Milk' as this is a really bold font and I love how it capitalises all the letters - making the songs look even bolder and exuding confidence.

After looking at the product, I then decided to change the font's colour to white because I thought that the black font was a little too harsh and didn't compliment the image used as the background for the back cover.

Next, I moved all of the text so that they were aligned and were centralized.

I changed the font and colour of the artist's website because I felt that this was something that didn't work very well as it wasn't consistent with the other parts of the product. I also moved the record label's logo and barcode to the middle of the album because this made the back cover flow on a whole. I thought that the white border on the barcode was a slight distraction so searched for a new one that didn't have a background which I think looks a lot better. I also added some legal information as this is something that is very conventional on an album so that the artist and institution have legal rights to their product. 

Although a slight adjustment, I think that the last part of this really makes the product effective. I moved the text into the middle of the back cover so that it was perfectly centralized which I think makes it look really professional and tidy.

I then added a border around the text which I really liked off the album Glorious by Foxes, as I think this really defines the back cover and gives it a professional and neat finish. I also feel like it draws the back cover in slightly, giving the illusion that the composition is fuller and I think this is really effective because I don't want there to be lots of unused space as I think this looks unprofessional.

I then realised that I didn't have the contents of the other disc that I need to have in my digipak on the back cover, so added the text to the bottom of the track list showing what is on it. Because I am at college, I am unable to download the fonts that I require in order to make my products follow a consistent design. This means that I will have to edit this at home so that I can use the font that I want to use so that they all work as one.

I changed the font when I got home for the text in the 'bonus content' section. I also changed this to the phrase 'bonus disc' because it could be misconstrued as something that could be downloaded or something that is not in disc form. After looking at existing products and going back to the research I did before I created this, I realised that another convention is having the institution's website on, as the artist is signed to that company and therefore they need some advertisement. I edited the legal information on the back cover too because I needed a lot of information adding to it to make it look more like a professional product. I added the logo for the 'Anti-Piracy Warning' too as this is something that would need to be added as a prevention for someone so they don't illegally copy it or distribute it without consent.

Deciding on the track list for my album.

I thought that doing some research into existing products would be a great way of getting ideas for when I create the back cover of my album. This is because, if I just thought of any titles, the product may have ended up looking unprofessional and I want my product to look really good and also to reflect the artist I am creating. I decided that I would look at some products that were from a different genre to my artist as this would help me get an idea of the general track list and therefore could integrate this into my product. I also then looked into artists that are indie-pop as this helped establish the types of songs that are included on their albums.