Editing techniques.

Editing Techinques

Problems with Editing

For the editing part of our Music Video, we have been confronted with a big problem. All of our video clips which we shot with our own camera shoots in MOV files, and when we tried to import this into Adobe Premiere but we were unsuccessful because the software doesn't support this. Originally, we were going to use iMovie on the eMac, but we found that it was taking quite a long time to actually import the videos onto there because of the hardware of the eMac was older and slower than the PCs.


To overcome this problem we decided to convert the files in to MPEGs which we could use on Adobe Premiere although this was successful at first because of the amount of clips we had it slowed down my user area. I had to ask for more space on my area which initial made it quicker, however we found that during saving, loading files and rendering the clips the program was very slow and crashed from time to time.

We then decided to use the eMac with the MPEG files which although thought would be compatible with the eMac and quicker to load than the MOV files the eMac did not recognise Eleanor's external hard drive. We then put all the clips on to a memory card and used a card reader to upload them onto the eMac. This worked fine however the clips would not load which we discovered was due to the eMac not being compatible with the newer MPEG format because its an older system.

Therefore we have needed to convert the MOV files again to MPEG files with a DVD pal format which we will use in Adobe Premiere. To overcome the issues with the program running too slowly we have saved the scratch disk files in Premiere Elements to Eleanor's hard drive which has a bigger memory than our user areas. This should speed things up because the clip files, rendering files, scratch disk files and whole project will run off the external hard drive.

Hopefully once our files have been converted we can start using Adobe Premiere Elements more quickly.

Filming Bank lip-syncing.

We have re-filmed the lip syncing shots with Bank and feel that it works better. We also added a modern looking chair to show some context as the shots we did with Henry looked too bare. We kept the rest of the mise-en-scene very simple and made the lighting work so both sides of Bank's face were lit up.

We shot Bank lip-syncing to the whole song - standing up against the wall and sitting down to add some variation and we are going to cut between shots of him lip-syncing and the narrative. To link him to the narrative we created some shots with him with a photograph of Katie both on his phone and a printed picture. We are going to see what looks and works best and use that in the final edit of our music video.

It took a while to get the shots right and for Bank to get used to being in front of the camera but we are quite pleased with the outcome and think it works better as he looks like he is into and really singing the music.

Improvements made to my final digipak and poster.

For my final digipak I changed the style and layout from the CD pull-out leaflet that I made for the draft. I completely changed the style of the front cover as the main comment was that it did not reflect the concept enough. I decided to do a more art-like front artwork with a bright colourful countryside section that was dominated by the darker, underground city section. This is the original drawing before I edited it - I wanted the underground section to be darker and more threatening so it contrasted more with the soft colour of the countryside so I made the city section black and white to also link to the music video.

I used watercolour for the countryside to create a soft light colour and used a sponge for the tree to create a different texture to the grass and sky. I think it also gives it a simple almost childlike look which contrasts well with the harsh tones of the roots underground. I then scanned the image in and edited it in photoshop to create this final image. As well as editing the underground section I had to smooth the edge between the underground and countryside section to make it look like it was part of the same image.

I then added the text and enhance the effects so that it could be easily read.

For my draft I had not created a record company logo for Red Rose Records so I had to create one that looked professional and unique. For this I used illustrator - I drew a simple outline of a rose which then coloured in on illustrator.

I then chose a joined script font that joined the letters together which created a more fleunt logo. I decided it looked better with all the words joined together because there are a lot of Rs in the company name. I then drew some leaves to add to the captial R to create the idea of a stem and placed the rose at the end. I chose a dark green for the text to contrast with the bright red of the rose and to link to the country theme.

I also changed the country photographs to include Katie as the main subject to give it more of an appeal and to show the concept better. I used the idea of Dear Photograph with a photograph with in a photograph.

 

Improvements Made for The Final Digipak

For my final digipak, I have made some major improvements to make it look more professional and clean. From my feedback, the grade I received for the draft of this was a D, I knew that I definitely wanted to raise it up and in order for me to do so I had to make some drastic changes to it. 



The first change I made to the digipak was the layout of it, I have completely changed it from a CD insert to an actual Digipak which holds the CD inside. I chose to have the three panel layout, three outside and three inside. As this gave me more room, it gave me more creativity to experiment and try out new images and editing techniques to get the effect I wanted. Throughout the whole Digipak, I have chosen to keep the 'City' element of the 'Country Vs. City' Music Video Concept.

For the Front cover, I haven't made any significant changes, just some minor ones. In my draft, I felt that the picture featured on the front cover looked a bit dull, there was no life to it to attract the audiences if it was to be sitting on shopping store. In the draft, it was just a Black & White picture, I liked the idea of just using Black & White pictures on the outside so I decided to keep it like that for the Final. The only change I have made for this is to colour the circle part of the London Underground Sign red, using the same red as the 'Colours' bit on the album title. When trying to do this on Photoshop, I tried achieving the look in a number of ways but the most effective method of doing it was to create a another layer on top of the picture and colour parts I wanted, then I had to go onto the layer settings and choose 'Darken'. This gave me the dark see through effect I wanted, it gave the red more depth and life to it instead of just having a block red there which would've looked quite amateur.

For the Back Cover (Middle), I have made quite a lot of changes to it. I have changed the image used for it, originally it was an side angle shot of Millennium Bridge, but when I took a look at the photos I had taken in London, I found this particular picture in the London Underground which was completely empty, the timing of it was perfect. I took it straight after the train had disappeared into the tunnel. I think that this picture really works for the back cover because in the album, I wanted to portray the idea of Isolation; no matter where you are, sometimes you can always feel lonely even if you are in the busy and crowded city. The song list has also been changed in a number of ways, the first change was the colours used. On the daft, I found that by just using black, it wasn't particularly eye catching and it just looked a bit dull. But for my final, I chose the colours red and white, these particular colours because I wanted to keep in line with the colour scheme of the front cover. I have also changed the position of the song names, originally it was on the left hand side, but I thought that it would look more effective if I moved it to the left, showing more emphasise on the empty platform. Other crucial improvements I had to make was to add the Copyright Jargon and the Barcode. The reason for this is because when I went to look at my collection of CDs, every single one of them had some sort of copyright information and a barcode on them. I think that this is really important as it establishes that the band are in fact a REAL band, they are signed with a label and are not just amateurs trying to get people to buy their albums. 

The last panel I haven't talked about yet is the red classic British telephone box, I thought that this would be a good idea to include in the Digipak because it is the one of the most iconic and distinguished objects affiliated with London and British culture. I changed the original picture to Black & White and did the same editing technique as the London Underground sign and the red lines on the empty platform, just created a new layer and painted over it. Now looking at it, I think that this was very effective, for the outside, I had shown quite a lot of modern culture of the city, with the busy people, the bright lights and the Underground. Moving away from that but still keeping in tone with the City story, I wanted to show something there that was iconic and outdated, but still have that instant acknowledgement of where it's from.

Originally for the inside of the Digipak, I wanted to use images that portrayed elements of the country, keeping in tone with the 'Country Vs. City' concept we have used for our music video. Comparing the draft and my final one, I can definitely say that I have completely changed it from the original idea, the reason for this being for the feedback I had received for it. I found that the picture and the idea I was trying to convey didn't at all flow through the whole Digipak and the inside looked kinda out of place. 

So to improve it, I thought that it would be better and more effective for the 'Branding' of the band to keep to the city images used on the outside. This way, the whole digipak would connect and illustrate the other aspect of our concept, 'Isolation'. I think I have chosen the right images to go here, when looking at them, you get a feeling of being detached and separated from reality. In the moments of taking the pictures, I wanted the audience to understand the story I was trying to portray. Even though there are people in the pictures, they are quite far away from them, they are sort of looking through somebody's else's eyes. 

On both of the end panels, I had decided to put in the name of the band using the same font used on the front cover. This in my opinion, definitely branded the digipak more, giving it more identification and distinctiveness. I wanted it to look symmetrical to the eye so I placed the title of the band on the bottom corners. I think that this looks more effective and pleasing to look at, because if I had just had the pictures by themselves, it would look boring.  

By making these changes, I can hopefully achieve the grade I want. 

Final Poster.

Final Digipak.

Final Poster

Final Digipak

Filming our singer.

Today we filmed with Henry who is posing as our singer. We filmed in my room against a blank wall and used three lamps to light it up so there wasn't obvious shadows. We played the song so Henry could sing along however it took quite a few shots for Henry to relax singing in front of the camera.

Although we got some go shots and varied the camera angle we felt that Henry was uncomfortable which showed on the footage so we have decided to use Bank as the singer and to link the shots of him to the narrative by filming him looking at his phone with photographs of London and Katie. We will film the shots with Bank in the same location as it looked quite effective but we might add a simple, modern looking chair for him to sit on to give it some context and we need to improve the lighting so the light is equal on both sides of Bank's face.

Evaluation Of Poster

After having feedback, I found that two out of three of the posters did not connect with the rest of the Digipak. Even though one of them featured a classic London bus and the other having a close up of country leaves relating to the whole Country Vs City concept, I think it would be more effective for my final poster, that I choose to use the picture of the London Underground sign in Picadilly. By using this particular picture, it will relate and connect with the front cover of the Digipak and also make it easier for the audiences to recognise who the poster belongs to, creating a sort of branding for the band.

I am going to be keeping this particular picture, but I am going to be changing some elements of it. The first change I am going to make is with the colour of the 'Colours' bit in the title of the album, I am going to be changing this to the colour red as it is on the Digipak. For the picture, I think I am going to be converting it to Black & White, this will make it more alike with the front cover of the digipak and easier for the audiences to realise who the poster belongs to. Another change I will be making is the colour of the London Underground sign, I am going to be keeping the original colour of it which was red, and coincidentally this will match the colour of the 'Colours' bit of the album and creating a much warmer feel to the entire poster by just adding one colour. The release date of the album is almost invisible as the colour of it was black, it blends seamlessly into the high contrast of blackness of the picture therefore making it hard for the audiences to know when the album comes out which is bad for the band's album sales. Lastly, I need to add the record company's details to establish who is responsible for them. This is seen on most artist's posters and makes it look more professional and established that they have got an actual record company sponsoring them.

Development of Front Cover Picture.

I have decided that it would be best to draw most of the front cover as it will be complicated to manipulate the tube map in photoshop and it might not look as artistic. Also I have decided to include writing of the names of the tube stations in the style of Bold & Noble's work. They use simple fonts of name places to create prints of countries and cities which is really effective.

Although Bold & Noble use clear fonts and the emphasis is on making it readable, I think I will wear the text away slightly so it has a faded, aged look which will link to the concept and also not take the focus too much off the overall picture.

Change In Music Video

After we recieved feedbck for our music video, we have decided that it would be more effective to have a male singer lip-syncing the song. We have already chosen our lip-syncer, his name is Henry, although he doesn't look like a member of OneRepublic, we can always change that by changing his appearance, clothes, hair etc.

We are als going to try and intergrate the shots of him in with the narrative by using pictures of him with Katie so the audience understand that the two people are connected.

Re-thinking the panoramic image in the centre.

After experimenting with cutting out the individual landmark, I have realised that it won't quite look right creating a montage with landmarks to create a skyline effect.

It doesn't look right because the buildings do not have the same angle of light which creates shadows in different directions. Also it looks too cut out and moulded together to be effective it would have to look more natural.

The only way it could work would is if I did it as a silhouette of the buildings and trees. However I will then lose the contrast between black and white/ colour and the gritty look of the city.

So instead for the centre I am going to go back the individual photograph per page idea.

Evaluation of Digipak

After having the feedback , I found that a few improvements were needed for my Digipak and Poster in order for me to get the grade I wanted.

The first thing I have to do it to change the layout of the current Digipak as it doesn't look like a conventional Digipak that you would normally see. What I have created for my draft looks more like inserts for a CD cover. For my final Digipak, I have decided that it will have six panels altogether, three inside and three outside. Another decision I have made after having the feedback is that I am going to be keeping the whole Digipak City focused. I think it works and looks better instead of incorporating both the country and the city into it.

The front cover of the Digipak doesn't need any dramatic changes, but from the feedback I found that instead of keeping the whole of the picture  black and white I should consider changing the colour of the London Underground to Red matching to the colour of the 'Colours' bit of the album name. This picture captures the very essence of the busy life of the city, I like the way that it shows the fast paced environment of the city even when its late at night, it shows that the city never sleeps.  Also on the back, I need to place the record and copyright information and also the barcode to make it look like a real Digpak as all of them have this on. In order to do this, I am going to have to make up a record company and also create the logo for it.

There a a few improvements that are needed on the back cover, for example with the colour of the text. The song 'Falling Leaves' is hard to see against contrast of the picture because of the blackness behind it. I am thinking of changing the colour of the text, but I have to think about keeping the colour scheme with the front. I could use white, but I think this will be unable to read because of the colour of the sky, it would just blend into it and make it hard to see.

I am going to be changing the inside pages completely, I don't think that it works together with the low contrast pictures of the city on the front and back. I think for the inside pages, I will be using images of the city, therefore really emphasising the main feature of the video which is the city although it features the country side aswell. I think that the city will just make it more interesting to look at, and I also think that it would catch people's attention more on the shelves at stores.

I am also looking at making a booklet to go inside of the digipak featuring the different images of London. Just like a gallery book to give the owner of the digipak more things to look at and to also really portray the concept and dull emotions of the city the we're trying to portray in the video.

Image for Front Cover.

For the front cover of my digipak, I am thinking of showing the city vs country concept in a different way. Taking the idea of a tree and its roots underground I am going to connect the country with the city by incorportating the tube map and making the lines the roots of the tree.

I will have to draw the map out so the lines are going in the direction I want, I also think I will make it simpler and remove some of the station names. I'm not sure yet whether I want the map in colour or not so I am going to have to create a more detailed mock-up to see what it looks like with and without colour and the station names.

This is the mock-up sketch of my idea. I think I would have the underground darker and faded but more dominant taking up 2 thirds of the picture, and the country skyline brighter and in colour. However I'm going to have to make a more detailed developed mock-up to see what works best.

Re-thinking the style of my digipak.

The idea of mixing the city and country by layering and cutting photographs on top of each other has not worked out as well as I had hoped so I going to look into using a different approach.

I have thought about the effectiveness of the folding out sections of the digipak and realised that they have to follow to look effective.

 So I am thinking about creating a panoramic photograph that incorporates the city and country in a mixed skyline/ landscape image.

For the front cover I am going to look into have a simple but effective image that will be eye-catching that shows the concept of city vs country better than the layered photo of my draft.

Developing digipak images.

I think I need to look into create simple effective photograph images for my digipak. I have played around with the effects in photoshop to enhance the photographs and see what works best.

I think the city shots in black & white work better because it links to the music video and can contrast well to the colourful country shots.

I think some of the effects in photoshop are too arty and the effect of the photograph is lost so I think I am going to keep it closer to the simpler original image.

I think the strong contrast like in this edit works really well and creates quite an eye-catching image.