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RESOURCES…..
Final Music Video: Kid Cudi – Trapped in my mind
Ancillary Tasks:
QUESTION FOUR/HOW DID YOU USE THE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION, RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?
Technologies that we used for this project:
Over the duration of this course I have learnt a lot about all the different ranged and uses of the technologies that are around me on a daily bases. Therefore it made sense to use all these advanced technologies to do my research, planning creating and post-producing my media opening sequence.
RESEARCH:
When it came to researching I used the internet to find out information about music videos and all the different things that goes into contructing music videos. Ive mainly used Google as my main search engine to find out a wide range of information about the media industry. With the use of this search engine it gave the ability to research specific information about the directors and successful music videos in minutes, so using the Internet as a source of information was extremely easy and convienent. Not only did I decide to use the big global search engine I also used my local liabry to find information like the “dancing in the distraction factory”. This was a better way to find newspaper articles to get more realistic and reliable infromation due to the way its strutchured.
When using Google as my focused search engine I have also used one of the most well known websites Wikipedia as it holds all the information about the music industry there is available. Wikipedia has helped me hugely in the research stages as Ive learnt new directors and their roles and how people have become from ‘nothing’ into ‘a well known famous artist, director, etc. Which has been very inspiring as Wikipedia allowed me to look more in depth of their career paths, showing their upfalls & downfalls.
Using ‘YouTube’ in the research and planning stages become very useful, as youtube is the biggest steaming video site of all time, allowing myself to catch up with all the lastest music videos for inspiration of how music technologies are developing. Also youtube has mirrorball videos with interviews that has helped me expand my knowledge about the people behind the music videos who do most of the work and not get the credit. Therefore it has made me realise how much work is put into the planning of a new video.
Watching MTV in our free time and lunch times we watched a large variety of the latest music videos to help us research what music videos are the most effective and why? and look at artists and how their music videos represent them as individuals. This was an effective source of information as it helped the to all keep-up-date with who is making the best sellers singers and who isn’t in the charts.
PLANNING:
In the planning stages we used various technologies to help us prepare and organise ourselves for when it finally came to the filming process This organisation was enhanced by these modern technologies and without them we would have again struggled.
‘Google Maps’ became an essential source during our planning stages of filming, allowing us to access satelitte images of our chosen locations. The modern advancement of ‘street view’ on google maps has also let us explore further into the surrounding area where we were planning to film in a three dimensional perspective. This made organisation that extra easier as we selected our desired positions of filming via ‘paint’ in which I print screened an image of our location, copied and pasted onto paint and then applied the circular tool in red, demonstrating where the location is and where we are filming. Also by using paint I created a montage for our storyboard, applying my own touches as well as applying a black and white filter on‘befunky.com’.
Also during the planning stages I again used Wikipedia and Youtube as my vital sources for ’exploring music videos of my appeal’ and also ‘music genres’. This demonstrates how vital these websites are within this technologically advanced world. However I did feel let down by the modern technologies due to the fact I couldn’t find the lyrics of our chosen song. This isn’t down to the internet itself, but its the fact that I rely on these technologies to help answer unanswered questions. I also felt that these lyrics would be broadcasted more within the online community therefore I was quite suprised that the subject was quite low key. This demonstrates that modern technologies can’t produce everything you need at the most critical times.
DESIGN:
For designing ive decided to use some complex software to find ways of advertising and promoting our media product. For example Ive used photoshop for manlipulating images and creating inspiring effects of photoshop that was used on the CD album designing which included the front & back cover, booklet, and exterior and interior of the album. We also used photoshop for our band homepage site to create our main theme throughout the site. This included desiging the colour schemes and layout on each page which all corriponded with eachother.
I wanted to learn a new software in this media course which involved me learning how to use Indesign as this is a software package which mainly focused on layout designs and less of the photo editorials. I personally felt that this was a software that gave us a more complex ability to change any layouts that we were uncertian of. Using Indesign became very useful as it allowed me to experiment which the different technical aspects of the software to achieve a professional outcome of each design.
Learning this software became a good risk as I developed new skills during this course. It has also made desiging the layouts of the CD much more easier.
CONSTRUCTION:
When filming each individual scene we used a Sony camera that was a basic recorder that was easy to function and were a good enough quality to produce work at an efficient quality. Also we learnt that using a tripod would keep the camera in the same angle and in a secure place. It helped us so much throughout the filming process as we needed all 3 characters in one shot, and as we decided to film in an empty school there was no one around to hold the camera for us, so we replied on the tripod technology to hold the camera whilst we act. I don’t know how we would have managed to create any work without this technology, as it played a major role in our work. Plus not forgetting the actually recording camera it’s self, as it was comfortable and easy enough to use without too much problems and stress.
This is the type of camera we used when we began to film the first scene with the motion stop. As we needed a camera that would show each letter clearly, climbing up the wall individually. I’ve never used this type of advanced camera before as it had so many type of camera setting built in with it, it occasionally became difficult to get the lighting perfect for the gloominess of the room.Not only did we decide to use this digital camera for our first scene but we also used a more simple camera that did the job pretty well when it was on ‘text’ setting with a bright flash. Therefore each member of the group were either taking the pictures whilst the one person was sitting the letters slowly on the wall in a random order.
This is the main video cam recorder that we used throughout the whole filming process. I personally really did not want to use a basic camera again and I felt from my AS media coursework, it didn’t give a very good professional overall quality. However this camera is easy to use and allows us to take any shots needed for our media work due to its lightweight and flexibility. This type of technology made our filming process much quicker and stress-free.
This simple flip camera came in really useful when filming our scenes, as we were able to get the shots done more smoothly when it came to the editing. By the use of two cameras it made movement of the camera shots more consistent and professional, preventing us to make the mistake of the 180 degree rule. Therefore using more than one camera become a really handy as we made less mistakes and allowed us to have more choice and variety in what shots we would like to use.
For the production and post-production stages of the media course I have learnt how to use Vegas pro editing software. This software was very new to me as I had used it before, but once I had a little play around with it I adapted to the software really quickly. The more I messed around with it and watching Vegas tutorials on YouTube I managed to learn all the basics about how to navigate around the software. The more I used it I got more confident in using it and then I wanted to experiment with the advanced techniques, like fast motion, colour contracts and variations. All these little special effects made the editing of the process extremely fun, as we could see how much detail and advanced things we can do to our media work to improve it, like making it more professional and high quality. When using Vegan Pro editing software we were also able to add cool sound effects to the film, like the scratch record and adding up-to-date song soundtracks that adds anticipation by grabbing the audience’s attention. Music was a really big improvement and learning curve during the post production process. As I learnt how much it can make a piece of work much better by using it in the correct way and format. The last thing we did when editing the video was adding title credits of the cast and directors of the movie, so it will show the audience who has created and produced the film adding publicity to the work.
This is a very expenisive software that we tried to use, its extremely complex as its managed to make movies like ‘Happy Feet’ and moving characters from the “Pirates of the Carriabean”. It was a completely new software for me and my group and took hours of work trying to learn it, however we needed some form of annimation in our scenes, and therefore used ‘Youtube’ and magazines to learn the basics of this software package. We managed to create some usual object using this software and become a part of our music video.
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EVALUATING:
When evaluating the final media product I uploaded the work onto YouTube which allowed close friends and family to access and view the video I made from anywhere at any time giving me their thoughts and opinions towards the video produced. This allowed me to find out what people liked and didn’t like about the work and maybe any improvements that were recommended. Then from this feedback from other people it has made me learn what I could do better next year, if I was to carry on with media. Inspiring me to carry on and test the boundaries of the technologies used and push myself that littler further to improve and test my knowledge on the media industry and the technology equipment used.
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Once the you tube version was uploaded onto you tube, we used Facebook to communicate with people we know and share the link to a wide range of people. By doing this, we were making people more aware of our music video launch and get peoples opinions and feedback much quicker and efficiently. Therefore by the use of Facebook as a communication tool and YouTube to help share our video all over the social networking site. It has successfully helped us gain feedback in a much more technical option.
EVALUATION VIDEO FORQUESTION 4:
Overall, without any of these technologies I wouldn’t of know how I could produce my media work. With out knowledge of the media industry and planning I would not know where to begin. Making the media product without a camera or mobile device would be near to impossible, and putting the scenes together with special effects and music wouldn’t be possible. Therefore I made sure I looked carefully around my surroundings and used the technology that was available, so I could product a piece of work that was to a suitable standard. Learning how to use a new software like Sony Vegas was also a really good experience as it opened more doors to what I would like to do in my future. I used my ICT skills plus my creative abilities combined with Stevens to produce our opening sequence to a satisfying standard.
QUESTION THREE/WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?
Feedback and evaluation did affect our final product in many different ways, and proved to be a good technique in finding out the positives and negatives of our music video. In order to gather the feedback and evaluation comments, we used various methods that would later provide us with information about our music video, along with opinions from our target audience and what they think we could have done differently. Below are the following methods that we used to gather this information;
We found that the methods of feedback that worked most effectively were the last three points of; YouTube/Facebook posts and comments, second questionnaires to focus groups, and unforeseen feedback from the artists themselves. Once we had our final redraft of our video ready for viewing by our target audience, we were able to show a Year 12 and 13 media classes the final outcome. From this we were able to gather a wide range of information concerning our music video from our target audience awarding our video a mark out of ten, and then leaving additional comments on the sheet. The three essential questions on the sheet that we focused on were as follows;
Above is the questionnaire which we have handed out to 30 students and asked for their personal feedback.
The pie chart on the left shows the feedback data in both amount and percentage. The questionnaire sheets were given to a Year 12 & 13 media class of 30 students, who would then give our video a mark out of ten as to what they think our video deserved. Evidently from the pie charts shown on the left, the students of the media class scored our music video highly, with 57% saying that it deserved 10/10. The remaining 40% though the video deserved still a high score of 9/10, which to our surprise was a slight but noticeable improvement from the previous feedback, however 3% of feedback we received did believe that the video deserved a 5-6/10 which was understandable as they didn’t think the concept of the narrative worked
These results were EXTREMELY satisfying, as the students that we put the feedback to are out target audience for the music video, therefore we had successfully achieved the forms and conventions of the genre in which our target audience associate with Kid Cudi.
Feedback comments:
“Interesting use of text from the beginning. Camera angles and footage matches the song lyrics in a professional manor. Multiple angles follow the story line well. Great manipulating use of the footage and good use of transition between the footage (fading out at the end for example).”
“Put together well – matches the song nicely! Good job!”
“i like it – you got good camera angles and effects, the only thing i would say is it gets a little repetitive towards the end, however apart from that it’s good :)”
“You’ve really captured the creative style of the artist! I can clearly see the contrast between the light hearted notes of the song and the seriousness of the video!”
“really like the effect where are the two of him in the room, really works with the song and a good video in general, love it!”
The comments on our artist homepage are the following:
Daniel
“I have just seen your album cover and music video, and i must say they are brilliant, i love how they match with similar pictures. Each one is linked through the scenes and the actor is a brilliant way to show off Kid Cudi’s song.”
JT
“Love Kid Cudi!!!!!!”
Sam
“Thank you, this site has helped me find our much needed information on Kid Cudi”
David Taylor
“I love this site!!!! It tells me all the important information that I want to know, rather than all the random information that most band/artist websites have. I also love the transitions of the site making it really exciting to navigate! Love it thank you 
”
Kid Cudi Fan
“I love your music, please add more to this site. Also your music videos are amazing. 
”
QUESTION TWO/HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCTAND THE 2 ANCILLARY TEXTS?
Once we had finished with the production of our final media product for Kid Cudi’s single ‘Trapped in my mind’ we also had to do another two ancillary texts to produce, which will work alongside our music video. The OCR brief had asked us to choose from the following three options;
From these auxiliary texts we chose to produce;
By producing these additional ancillary texts to accompany our final music video, we hope to achieve an effective combination between our products and texts. Through creating our own; original website, magazine cover and preferably magazine advertisement, which all have well contruscted ‘image’ that deleivers the following aspects;
This first out of our two ancillary texts that we were required to produce was the unofficial kid cudi website. This meant we needed to create a basic structure for an fully functional website. We needed this website to consider our target audience greatly, as our target audience are the people who this website will be mainly appealing too. In order to make this website attractive to the users we needed to make sure we did the following points:
http://www.wix.com/modeyv/kid-cudi#!
The second ancillary text that we wanted to focus on was a magazine cover that would help support advertisements based around the promotion of Kid Cudi, through using the mass read, cultural music magazine NME. Due to the massive popularity of NME, I decided to base our magazine cover on NME’s unique style of layout and writing. By doing this it feels extremely satisfying to know how successful the magazine is in terms of marketing and promoting the singer. Therefore before I could begin to create the magazine cover and the advertising within the magazine, I wanted to research some aspects of a magazines design to make it visually appealing and successful;
TEXT – The text and fonts used in this advertisement has involved in all ancillary texts. In terms of the magazine design/article it has allowed the audience to associate with NME’s unique logo and layout. which was exactly what we did when regarding the advertisements and homepages, we all looked at Kid Cudi’s house style and what makes him different and recognizable to the public eye and tried to allow the audience to establish and recognised Kid Cudi within our media products.
IMAGERY – The images that are used and how they might portray certain artists in this music industry. NME usually have a band or solo artist in which the main article of the magazine is centered around as the central focus of the layout, surrounding this image are subheadings that give an idea what to expect within the magazine.
COMPOSITION – both composition of the front cover of NME and the advertisement have conventions in which we had to recreate. As mentioned above NME have a centred feature with surrounding sub articles, bar code and various other advertisements.
The main image of the magazine cover was designed on Adobe InDesign software. When it came to desiging the our own magazine I looked into existing magazines that had some correlation to music bands/artists. I found a well known company called NME to help advertise our artist regarding Kid Cudi and oiur music video Trapped in my mind. I done this by researching ino the previous NME issues nd was able to immediately identify their logo, fonts used, imergy and composition. From this research and obvservation we were able to use realisitic associaitions to NME such as the nutorious logo, which we used and cropped it to make it look presentable in our magazine. We made sure we kept the colour scheme and specific fonts the same as this is what successfully identifies the magazine to our target audience. When desigining a magazine I used the conventions of exisiting magazines and noticed that any imergy is normally the centre feature, referring back to the effective techniques of NME’s composition. Allowing me to create a perfect marketing point for Kid cudi and pull the main attention away from any subheadings and extra information about the organisation.
QUESTION ONE/IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MUSIC VIDEO USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE THE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF MUSIC VIDEO/PROMO PACKAGES?
It almost impossible to say what the conventions of a music video are because they have varied and developed tremendously over the years. However I believe that our final music video can be classed as an actual music video, as we have worked extremely hard to challenge the forms and conventions of a real music video to make sure it fits well to the categories requirements. In order to do this we have applied certain conventions of music videos and other media forms and technologies, as a result of this it has enabled us to create our own unique music video to Kid Cudi ‘Trapped in my mind’.
Throughout the making of our final media product we have challenged and developed certain music conventions such as;
Stop Motion:
Throughout our coursework this year, we have been able to base our initial music video idea around the technique of stop motion, illustration and artistic movements. As mentioned in the research and planning stages of my coursework, stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small steps between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence.
Our music video has challenged the forms of stop motion, and the forms of stop motion in music video in the first scene. Our opening introduction shot is composed entirely from 43 printed letters, all of which move by themselves within the contexts of stop motion around our desired room.
Synthesis/Narrative & Performance:
Synaesthesia is possibly one of the most important aspects of a music video as it works on the basics of building up visuals to a soundtrack. Whilst, allowing the viewer to create their own interpretation of sounds, taking into consideration the way they introduce a certain or mood. Due to the lack of performance in our final media product, we have decided to focus the aspect of synthesis around the sounds and the lyrics used in Kid Cudi’s soundtrack. For example we listened to the key sounds, tempo’s and structure of the song and managed to associate these beats during our music video. This allowed; the audience to associate the tempo of the song to the moving letter print out during the introduction scene. Also allowing the songs structure to enforce the visual images/loose narrative of our final music video.
In terms of narrative and performance we challenged the forms and conventions of music video through using our previous research and planning, to build a solid structure to our narrative. During the research stage, I studied Kid Cudi’s video for ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ to get a general feel of narrative and performance within the genre of Alternative rap that his music category falls in. The research stage has taught me the following points about narrative and performance;
In order to challenge the conventions of narrative within the alternative rap genre of Kid Cudi, our music video used the same technical aspects of narrative that are used in that genre, aspects such as;
Sometimes music videos are completely abstract, with visual images apparently unconnected to the artist or the lyrics. This is called disjuncture videos.
Disjuncture/Illustration:
Disjuncture type of videos ofter explores a concept, very loosely based on the lyrics.
Camera Shots/Angles/Movements:
In terms of Camera shots, I based my initial thoughts and ideas on the way that directors from Kid Cudi’s existing music videos used camera shots in the construction of videos like “pursuit of happiness” and the camera work used in a recent piece of work “no one believes me”
In order for our music video to challenge the conventions within the genre of electro/pop, we used a range of camera shots;
> Establishing shots(ES) – such as the start of Trapped in my mind – these shots established where we have set the video in the main scenes
> Mid Shots (MS) – These aided the establishing shots – It gives a larger view of the performance given, however in our video it gives a larger detail of the frame and the narrative.
> Close ups (CU) – These shots were the most important shots in our video – these shots gave our target audience a close up view of the moving photos and facial expression – allowing them to see the detail of the lettering as they move. Whilst the close ups in the face highlights expressions of the emotions and confusion Dom is experiencing in each room he appears in.
> Extreme Close Ups (ECU) – Extreme close helped to aid the audience in understanding the narrative – it also enabled us to pick out the fine detail through using the cameras and other available technologies.
> Camera movement on the other hand, we will be using simple methods that will allow us to follow the photos accordingly when filming the first scene and make the other scenes smooth together frequently.
> Panning & Zooming – to change setting and cover space – In Kid Cudi’s existing videos the director constantly zooms out to capture more of the scene within the frame. In our video it gave some variation of camera movement and gave a larger picture of the trapped room where the scene is set, allowing the audience to follow the moving letters and sentences around the confined room.
> Camera Tilt – tilting to various angles using the tripod allowed us to follow the actor’s movements as it was important to give the illusion that Kid Cudi is trying to escape but failing which adds confusion. Therefore to make sure our music video wasn’t too confusing and un relevant, we needed to use technical camera movements like the tilts.
Montage Editing:
Music videos rely heavily on montage editing with a wide variety of different footage juxtaposed etc. Live footage cuts to close-ups of singer’s face to show the expression and mood cutting to footage of the actor self harming or kicking off at random objects, etc. All showing that many random shots are repeating after each other constantly. We used this form of editing well in our music video throughout interesting narrative, as our narrative helps gather a variety of locations and then we have linked them together whilst still making sense and following the narrative, allowing us to have ‘freedom’ in our music video. This was a very clever thing to do as it allowed us to be much more artistic and creative without ideas, if something didn’t work then we had the ability to change the idea, which was a bit like a trial and error experiment.
When it comes to the speed of our editing we relied on the tempo and mood of the song, which then helped us develop the slow tempo and emotions of the soundtrack creating longer lasting shots. Developing upon this idea we used slow motion within a few of our scenes, one example would be what Dom Bennett slowly and painfully punches the door. This helped us use editing techniques to slow down the scenes with the tempo of the music. When it comes to the time management of the music within in the video and making them synchronise together perfectly we thought it would be a good idea to use cuts with the beat of the song by adding Gaussian Blur to the editing,. This successfully created a blur/fuzz every time there was a large beat taking place, matching the song whilst also adding movement to the music video. At the end of the day John Fiske quoted “music videos foreground the signifier over the signified” meaning that music videos are more based on the aesthetics than the narrative.
DIGIPACK:
Our final digipack which I strongly believe is a very unique and inspiring cover due to the strong influence of the lyrics within the soundtrack. As the name of the song is called ‘Trapped in my mind’ I wanted to represent the mind of a person who might be trapped and the damaging thoughts that might be occurring within the mind. This matches well with our music video and the song as it creates a strong sense of claustrophobia. When it came to designing the covers of the digipack we did try to challenge the conventions of albums arts, but using more illustrative work than having the main focus being the singer. The singer is only shown once the package has been opened which challenges some unusual convention of the artist being as its not been directly focused on. However we did include the most important aspects of a successful digipack and inserted bar codes and copyright acts on the back of the album artwork to show the institutional connects of our album, preventing people from copying our design work.
Existing cover artwork (Demonstrated more clearly on album artwork research)
As you can see from this digiback collection, this artist has used photo manipulation and some sort of illustrative aspect to this design. Which makes it look very eye catching and doesn’t have any photograph of the main artist. This was something that I was aiming at when in the design stages. I felt that the most effective album artwork are designs that show more creativity and thought. Therefore when I began to design the digipack I made sure I could show that I have use media technologies like Photoshop and other photo manipulating software that would enable me to create an artist piece of work.
Our final cover artwork.
Above is our completed digi-pack view on the computer before it was sent off too Fuzz Digital printers.
This is the final printed digi-pack which had finally arrived back from Fuzz Digital. I am extremely proud with our product, as it was the first time I’ve have designed something which actually got published in bulk. Unexpectedly we received 10 hard copies of our digi-pack, meaning each member of the group could take one home to be proud off.
QUESTION ONE/IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MUSIC VIDEO USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE THE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF MUSIC VIDEO?
QUESTION TWO/HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCTAND THE 2 ANCILLARY TEXTS?
QUESTION THREE/WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM YOUR AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?
QUESTION FOUR/HOW DID YOU USE THE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION, RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?
Homepage:
This is the homepage of our website! We wanted to give it a very modern, sleek and sexy twist you the sites design to make it appealing that also represents that artist. As Kid Cudi is a young hip/hop stylish type of guy we wanted to signify his personality and identity towards the layout and colour scheme. We have used our main artist who will be representing Kid Cudi on the Homepage instead of Kid Cudi himself. We wanted to include music onto the homepage so the users can immediately hear the most popular tracks and of course the new song with an unofficial video that we had created. We inserted 5 Kid Cudi’s songs in total which is set as a playlist so the music will play continuously throughout the site. If the user decides that they do not want to listen to the songs we have an music equalizer located on the top right of the page so they can simply click on a On/Off button.
Band Info:
We used some basic knowledge on Kid Cudi which is going to be all located on this page. Everything the fans will need to learn about the artist, to help increase their knowledge of Kid Cudi as a solo artist and how he has evolved from an ordinary guy to a famous celebrity.
Band Photos:
This page will have all the albums that Kid Cudi has ever created, so the audience can identify the released albums and help promote the songs. It also has some the designs which I have designed and created on Photoshop, etc which will help add to the small collection of his albums.
Tour:
This page will have all of Kid Cudi’s tour dates which people can be aware of, helping promote his concerts which are very useful for any band or artist to get more fans and recognition. It’s the tours that give the artist the most about of money therefore it’s important to have tour and dates within a website. Unfortunately our website isn’t going to be advanced enough for the booking tickets physically functional, so the fans won’t be able to order anything from out site; however it will make them aware of when to book tickets, which is just as effective.
Videos
On this page the final official music video will be located clearly. The aim and purpose of this page is to attract the audience to view the new video and make them want to download the single. We have also used an external link to YouTube so people can comment on the video etc on the YouTube site.
The Press
This page I have made some advertisements and a magazine cover that will help promote Kid Cudi’s latest releases and the official music video to develop recognition. I have decided to follow the OCR brief and designed a magazine cover for the DVD that will be eventually be constructed and an advertised poster that will be located anywhere to make the audience aware of the new release of the music video and single. The information is clearly structured making the user more aware of our magazine and also shows that we used a range of different Ancillary texts.
Contact us:
This page is simple and easy to use. We have made this page neat and clean and still kept a consistent theme. By having the use of this page it will allow the audience of this website to contact us, if they have any other queries about the information held on the website and give us some feedback, which we can consider. Therefore this page will reassure the target audience that they can contact us if needed.
This image is currently from our first filming day when we decided to use stop motion for our introduction scene.
Website: http://www.wix.com/modeyv/kid-cudi
Overall I am extremely pleased with our unofficial homepage as it had a wide range of feathers included making the website full functional and proffessional.
The features that we used include the following:
We were asked to create a band website that would help advertise and promote the artist or band to the audience. From my thorough research in my previous posts and pages, my group and myself have decided to find different ways we can represent Kid Cudi as a youthful artist and successfully promote his latest songs, tour, videos and information and show this within the appearance of the websites design.
Wix formally stands for Windows Installer XML which is free software that allows people to build their very own website that they can personalize to the specifications. They can design the layout to represent their requirements of the business or purpose. Once the designer is happy with the design of the site they are eligible to buy a private domain to launch the business or personal use.
Definition in more depth from Wikipedia:
“The Windows Installer XML (WiX, pronounced “wicks”), is a free software toolset that builds Windows Installer (MSI) packages from an XML document. It supports a command-line environment that developers may integrate into their build processes to build MSI and MSM setup packages. WiX was the first software released by Microsoft under an open-source license called Common Public License.
The WiX distribution includes Votive, a Visual Studio add-in that allows creating and building WiX setup projects using the Visual Studio IDE. Votive supports syntax highlighting and IntelliSense for .WXS source files and adds a WiX setup project type to Visual Studio.”
This is a screen shot of the Wix homepage which immediately shows the audience was Wix is about bus the main headings, subheadings and screen shots of what to expect within the site.
These are a list of what types of themes are available with Wix, as we are creating a band/artist homepage we needed to search through the music themed layouts on Wix which would help us gain more inspiration on layout and web design.
I searched through all the themes in the music section and came across this layout design called Mix.Master which I believed looked the most professional out of all of them. Once we had the basic layout from Wix.com I customized the layout to suit our artist Kid Cudi. Kid Cudi tends to use dark colours after observing his official website. (See image below)
After looking at Kid Cudi’s official webpage and using our template I decided to use the colour scheme red, grey and black so both Kid Cudi homepage contrast well together showing development.
This was the fist experiment that I did, creating the first visual view of the design. I wanted to use a dark but eye catching red against the black so the colours stand 0ut well against each other. The found a image on Kid Cudi which I placed in the center as a temporary image. Which will be replaced once we gathered correct images of Dom from the filming processes.
http://prezi.com/ucrcurummdah/edit/#0_27193272
This is a screen shot of my Prezi Presentation that I made, about music – band homepage, design and analysis. I wanted to use Prezi as it was a new professional way of creating a fun presentation about my chosen subject. Therefore I felt that it would be a great idea to do a presentation instead of using power point which also added a different media technology into my coursework.
After some research on peoples opinions on our desired digi-pack, we realised a few improvements could be made and finalized before getting professionally published. The back cover was mentioned a lot from the feedback we received, as not many people liked the lost ghost in the background. Therefore I wanted to consider the feedback comments critically and improved the back cover, by using one of our first designs, which was initially meant for the front cover previously, I manipulated it so it becomes relevant for the back cover image. Not only did I want to manipulate and edit the back cover, I wanted the edging to contrast more spontaneous on the sides, making the title stand out and blend in with the front and back cover.
We are extremely happy with our final Digi-pack design, however we do feel that we should have had a proper image of the Artist (Dominic) for the front cover. Unfortunately with major problems with Doms availability and access, we could physically not take the images of him before the printing release date. So for our website, we shall not make the same mistake and take professional images of Dominic when he is next available.
Overall, I love how we used photo manipulation and illustration for our main Digi-pack design as it represents our narrative of our media product clearly and effectively.
External:
For the front and back cover to the album I’ve tried to keep them looking very similar so the whole house style is consistent. I believe that this design will look very attention grabbing compared to the other CD albums out there on the shelves of stores and markets. Therefore with this unusual design it will be successful in the music market industry.
Internal:
This is the internal design of the finished Digi-pack. Ive really tried to keep the design very simple with meaning still within in. For example we used the lettering from the beginning of our music video and use these words to be creative. The initial idea was to have the artist name shows in the lettering then insert shots of Dom representing Kid Cudi, within specific letters. The colour of the inside contrasts well against the front of the package and will look really effective once the CD Rom is allocated inside.
CD Rom:
This is the CD’s final design which i think stands out from the rest of the digi-pack as the bold scattered letters look really eye-catching and original. The name of the song is located in a clear blank space, preventing any confusion from the rest of lettering in the Kid Cudi image.
Improvements/things to consider:
This is a print screen of our front cover digi-pack design built on photoshop CS5. To create this complex design, I had to use a wide variety of layers to add graduate tones and shading to the images.
Here I just put the picture that I will manipulate onto Photoshop.
Here I have tested many different adjustments, have found that this black and white adjustment with the addition of more brightness and contrast adjustments has created the best look for this picture. Whilst also linking to the overall cover look and feel based off the front and back covers.
To make the name of the song stand out ‘Trapped in my mind’ I have made the letters into a dark red colour to distinguish them from the other letters present in the picture.
I have added pictures of our actor ‘Dom’ inside the letters to create a cool effect, some of the pictures are straight from our music video. I had to crop and resize all the pictures, and use layers to place the pictures inside the letters, I decided to place the letters inside the pictures with the white fillings.
Here I have added another picture for the inside cover of our album digipack onto photoshop.
Just like the photo before I have used dark red to colour in the words ‘Kid Cudi’ to distinguish the artist name from the other letters present in the photo.
Adjustments needed to be done to the contrast and brightness of this picture to create the best look for the inside cover, the black and white did not fit this picture like the previous picture. Therefore I have used different adjustments to this picture to make it look great and fit the other pictures just as good.
Like the picture before I have inserted scenes and photos of our actor Dom into the letters on the wall, giving the inside of the album digipack and dark and great feel. Whilst still showing what song and artist is inside.
Final Designs for internal sides of the Digi-Pack:
Right hand side of the Final CD cover
Right hand side of the final CD cover
Photoshop CS5
This is a software that I shall be using in most of the designing stages of the CD cover artwork, Band homepage design layout, and promotional uses. I’ve decided to use Adobe Photoshop CS5 instead of Illustrator as im more familiar with this software, and its complex enough to give us the ability to experiment with different photo manipulation effects.
I will be mainly using photoshop CS5 for photo editing only as this is the better software for the job. Whereas, for getting the text and layouts correctly aligned I shall be using Adobe Indesign CS5 as this software is based mainly on layout design.
InDesign CS5
To begin with we opened InDesign package software, the first thing we would need to do before we can do anything is measure the CD cover compartments accurately and get the Photoshop page layout exactly to size, making sure all dimensions have been fitted and measured correctly. We need to do this because when it comes to getting the CD external and internal surfaces printed out commercially we need to make sure we go through quality control and testing using printing marks, etc.
Below is a screen shot of the blank document that will be the basic template to guide us when we are designing.
I’ve measured up each dimension of the front cover and attempted to get it done accurately. As you can tell from this screen shot it is immediately beginning to look like the shape of a CD cover, and its clear to see where the images and texts are allowed to go and where it shouldn’t placed.
Design 1:
This is design 1, my first attempt to create an Album cover which relates to our song perfectly. I found some images over the Internet and used Photoshop to merge the three images together, to create a meaningful design. I used a very bright colour font which stands out the most in this design and the font is very complex compared to the design, which made the overall impact look unbalanced. I also think that the empty room should blend in more with the brain/mind, otherwise it will look badly photoshop and therefore doesn’t give a very professional appearance.
Design 2:
This design is personally one of my favorite designs which I developed from the first design. I still used the same three images but used different editing techniques to manipulate the image. I used different opacity levels and fill levels to make the empty room more merged in the brain. Then I decided to use a dark human figure that appears to be trying to escape, so help it match the character in our music video. I wanted to use a simple font that would look really effective against the image “GTD” was the name of the font that I’ve found which had really interesting shapes and symbols to make up the words. I decided to try this font but using capitals which make the symbols turn into readable typography.
Design 3:
This design is very busy compared to the simplicity of the other designs. However I do like this design as it symbolised the fact that the album is about being trapped in an artisitic layout. I really like the way i’ve used the shaded hands on both edges of the album cover as this could represent a person trapped behind the CD case. Or it could have more meaning to it as the hands can signify the music industry of a working day life trapped in this hetic lifestyle that a celebrity has to face every single day and there is no escape from the paparazzi’s. Therefore the faded hands could somehow represent Kid Cudi trapped in a working day lifestlye which can eventually become his album being published.
Design 4:
Again the same hands are used in this design as myself and my group think it looks extremely effective. However this design doesnt say as much when it comes to the mind situation. Its basically an empty room with a broken sofa and a window which only symbolised the room that kid Cudi is trapped in within the video. But from the first impression of this design i dont feel it has as much meaning towards it than it does in the other designs.
When it comes to designing the back cover, I find it personally hard to mess around with the page and text layout as music singles tend to only have 1-3 songs on the back which wastes a lot of space. Therefore throughout the designing process of the back cover, we will need to find different solutions to cover the whole page to make it more eye-catching and visual appealing.
Design 1:
On this design I’ve tried to make it look consistent to the designs I’ve created for the front cover. So from using some inspiration from the front cover designs, I thought it would be a good idea to incorporate some of it towards the back cover. We have decided to use the same images from the front cover and duplicated a few images to use more of the page up.
Exterior
Design 1: This is a design that I randomly came up with from using the potential previous designs combined together. This is the exterior design of the CD booklet:
Interior
Design 1: This is one of the first designs that came into mind when thinking how to design an interior information page as simple as possible.
I really wanted to keep the inside simple but effective from the use of lines, colours and sharpness of the layout. I felt that less was really more in this situation. I really like the straight line which represents an heard beat rate, as I felt this could be incorporated well with the idea of being trapped in his own mind, which makes him crazy, possibly suicidal. We thought we could include some shots that will represent that, for example walking into the light to death.
When it comes to choosing a specific colour scheme, there are so many different shades and tones to experienment with. However, do we ever stop to think of people see when they are colour blind? Designers dont consider what the populations see’s, as long as it looks professional to viewers with normal eye sight. I would like to demonstrate what people see when it comes to choosing a certain colour. I have found a specific website that shows people what colour blind people see everyday and the difference in colours, compare to exactly what we view.
This normal vision (85.5% of the population) will see this bright colour red.
This is a drop down menu on http://colorschemedesigner.com/# where it lists all the types of colorblindness found, and the percentage of the population who has that specific blindness. This is extremely helpful, as not only will i be able to find out the types of colour blindness but the facts and percentages behind it, increasing my knowledge of how to design a successful product.
The types of colourblind are the following:
Looking at the reuslts from the bright vibrant red from a normal vision and comparing it to someone who is completely colour blind is shocking. I would have never thought that red could look anything like a dull colour grey. You would have thought orange or something similar would be the result. However from this investigation the different shades of greys and browns still contrasts well together, keeping the colour scheme consistent and therefore I will still keep the red colour scheme as from a colour blind vision, it still looks neat and professional.
Deuteranomaly (5% of men, 0.4% of woman) (PrntScr below)
The result from the highest blindness came back interesting. The colour scheme is extremely random compared to the other results. I haven’t changed the hue or contrast of the red chosen in the previous examples. But amusingly the colour scheme appears to be combined using hints of reds and pinks whilst still seeing some sections in grey and green. Like people who have Deuteranomaly blindness are half colour blind but still see selections of colours but not clearly. From observing the combination of the colours in this chart, the colours do sit well together, not too hard on the eye, however could be confusing to some people. However the minor percentage of people who see this colour scheme will be greatly lower than people with normal vision, therefore after carefully considering other peoples visions, I have decided to sick with a professional clean colour scheme of reds, grays, blacks and whites throughout our ancillary task, as the colours chosen don’t affect a wide variety of people in a negative way.
This is the final fully completed music video.
Once we had fully completed our media product, Modey had uploaded our music video on to YouTube, whilst the video quality looks good on YouTube some of the lip syncing looks out of place for some reason. In the original this is not the case and the lip syncing matches the song, but on YouTube there is a slight delay.
Once we had finished all the filming, editing and all the shots were placed together which satisied us and the audience we edited them furthur with full colour grading and synchronisation in the last final stages. One we were fully happy with our work the final thing do is is to render the whole music video onto one file format.
Below is a print screen of the final product. It clearly shows all the editing has been put in place and you can see how we have used a wide range of layering to achieve the complex techniques by overlaying some of the shots together for a smooth finish.
Problems and restrictions with rendering
Whilst we started to render our media product we have problems with the computers. The computers we user weren’t powerful enough to allow us to render the video in the highest setting/HD. Therefore we hade to set the computer in safemode to only utilise one programme at once. This worked as it just gave us enough processing power to render it but not in HD but the second highest setting. However before we put it onto safe mode, we made sure we tested the rendering on several differnt computers and tested different file types. unfortunately they all failed at an extremely low percentage. This was when we knew we needed to take furthur action.
Below is a screen shot of what it says when the computer is rendering our music video along with the full rendering process.
Rendering Music Video on Safe mode.
Overall I think the rendering process was successful as we had managed to process our music video is a good enough quality that still produced a clear image. If we were to re-do this process the other option to take into consideration, was to simplify our editing techniques. However to me this wasn’t an option to me as I personally feel that our editing techniques and transistions are what makes our music video more surreal and interesting. If we had to take these factors away from our product it would have been very dissapointing. Therefore I feel extremely luckly that we were allowed to render our media product on safe mode.
After we filmed the final scene, Modey and I sat down together and placed them onto Sony Vegas, our preferred editing suite. We cut them correctly and placed them into the spaces that we needed whilst syncing them to the music. This gave us a clear idea of what scenes are needed and where in the timeline.
We also created a Kid Cudi poster to add into our music video where the title of the song and artist will suddenly appear. We created the image on Adobe Photoshop by adjusting the colours to match our video more which meant using dull but contrasting colours.
Once we had managed to place the shots we had taken in place with the song timeline we got onto the Video FX stage in Sony. Video FX is basically a tool that helps us adjust the tone and colour of our music video shots. There were 5 adjustments that we both loved and wanted to use it in our music video. These adjustments are the following:
For the introduction of our music video we wanted to use still motion that were tightly together in a very small time frame. The main problem with the photo that I took was that some photos weren’t wide screen which was really annoying, therefore we decided that we could create a new layer in Sony Vegas timeline and placed the pictures onto that. Then we went onto track motion setting and disabled all of the locks that prevented me from moving around the screen. Once the images were locked it gave us the ability to stretch the narrow images and scaled them to fit the wide-screen setting which came out exactly what we wanted.
The Gaussian Blur is the adjustment I used to create the blurs that match the song in the introduction of the song, the alleyway scene and the ending of the song. The blur makes the video match the beat and tempo of the song, creating a better link between the two. An example of the Gaussian Blur before and After is located above in picture form.
The Gaussian Blur is a technique that we like to create blurs that matched the timing of the song for the introduction. This made our introduction much more interesting and complete. We also used a text from in the introduction with the name of the artist and song title after after the words appeared in the introduction, repeating what was read in the still shots.
We used Slow-motion in 2 areas of our music video, one where Dom falls backwards onto the sofa which we thought would look really effective in slow motion. The other slow-motion technique in our music video is where Dom shows his anger and frustration towards the end of the music video, which was really effective to do in slow motion as it really emphasis his emotions within his face and body language.
Transitions in my music video link the shots, most of the transitions I used are:
The most unique transitions are dissolve and portals. Dissolve is straight forward where two shots overlap and one dissolves whilst the other enters.
The portal transition was a good transition that created squares that makes the next shot appear. I really liked this transition and wanted to use it when there was a change of location in the music video, for example the choruses. This proved to be quite effective than other transitions or effects like the fades or wipes etc. As this transition looks much more technical, professional and made more people wanting to watch our progress as they were fascinated by our creativity of editing effects.
After observing the editing shots along with the lyrics sheet we knew exactly what type of shots are needed and how much filming space we still have available to fill in the gaps.
When choosing our final filming destination we decided to use eye as it was the most convenient location for all of us to get too, in a short period of time. In Eye we all met up and began to film the missing scenes within our music video. After searching around Eye Village we found a tight space between 2 walls and thought it would be a good idea to use our portable lighting at night to help us film this dark tight areas, which also allows us to use correct lighting. We filmed this scene extremely quickly due to us already having experience and knowledge of how to film each scene quickly and efficiently. Therefore for our last filming day we make sure the filming process will be much more organised that we have previously experienced. Not only did it help us increase confidence with the resources surrounding us, the actors also was confident with the scenes we require due to our organisational skills and expectations.
Above is a photo that we had taken to show the confined small space that we thought we would be a great place to film. The lighting of the shot is also very clear.
This is the light that we used to help us film this scene , we used an extension lead to plug it into a socket.
For another scene that we were filming in, we used Modey’s bed room, in this scene is demonstrates Dom waking up and singing the lyrics on a different sofa the he will gradually fall backwards in slow motion. This was quite a difficult shot to film as Dom wasnt very confident about falling correctly, therefore we had to take several shots to achieve the perfect shot. We eventually managed to take the shot as Dom’s confidence increased after practicing how he needs to move his body. Before be required this minor stunt we checked if it was safe enough for him to fall directly backwards, due to hazardous reasons. The falling scene was something that was not planning in our story boarding process however due to our editing constraints, we needed to fill in gaps that were missing due to the lack of knowledge of timing of the song against the length of the shots.
This is a shot of Dom’s laying in Modey’s sofa after his falling techniques.
I feel that we have successfully finished our filming scenes and if needed we shall return to re-film. However ever today was a short and simple sessions that was extremely productive, due to our increase of confidence and knowledge.
We have decided to show a few people our music video to get some feedback so we could make any necessary improvements to our overall media product. By getting some feedback we can increase the standard of our work and achieve a better grade. Here are a variety of comments and feedback we received;
When we had thought we had nearly completed the music video, we realised when we were editing that some gaps were missing as we under estimated how long the shots were compared to the timing of the music. Therefore to make things much easier for us and more time efficient we began to analyze the editing progress comparing it to the lyrics sheet and found a way of working out where the missing shots are in comparison to the song sheet. By doing this we have successfully worked out what shots are needed to re-film so we can complete the music video for the deadline in time. Modey and I sat in the editing suite and listened to the song lyrics carefully. Looking back at our story board in the planning process we were eligible to figure out what scenes are needed and how long then should roughly last for. This makes it much easier for us to meet up again and tell Dom exactly what to do. In results when it comes to editing the final touches (Editing 4) the editing will be much easier to complete as we have the perfect length shots.
This is a photo that I took of modey on Sony Vegas watching our video and working out the estimate time that we need to complete unitl the music video is finished. He listened to the music and watch the shots and anaylsed the lyrics sheet, creating our lyrics sheet into a story board. So we all can read the song sheet and immediately imagine what shots needs to be repeated and how long for. I helped modey with this process and dicussed what shots we can use and where the next location should be held.
This is the first sheet of the lyrics that we analysed together. As you can see from this image we have highlighed exactly where any animation should be held and agreed that the chorus should have a new location which can be repreated. 
As you can tell from this sheet, we decided to use the cloning effect towards the end of the song as we felt this would make an every interesting ending. We have also took our words of this lyrics sheet and made sure our narrative was inspired by the language used within this song. As we wanted the narrative and the music video to match which is called disjuncture and amplification as these are the two types of techniques that we used to generalise our overall music video.
Editing the cloning shots:
From watching tutorials on you tube I learnt a lot about the simple steps that are needed to take place when wanting to create the cloning effect. We first needed to create a new layers for each scene then move them both to each side of the window. We then had to cut out the opposite side of the shot to allow them to blend in with each other. Then a problem occurred the lightening of both shots were slightly different in shades which create a line between the shots when they were moved together.
To get rid of that line down the middle, we used Video FX again so we can combine different forms of colour grading to the shots to help get rid of the line. This is done by changing the colour brightness and contrast which allows us to blend the shots in together, to give the impression its one whole shot. It took a lot of trial and error to find the perfect adjustment in the Video FX section to find the correct colour grading adjustments to suit the cloning shots. The brightness and contrast setting was the most useful tool to use as it did the job much better.
On the screen shot above, it clearly shows that the brightness and contract of the colour corrections have made a massive difference. The Video FX adjustments have proven to be extremely successful during this complex and hard process.
Once we finished filming (Filming Day 2) I got onto editing the scenes into Sony Vegas at school.
One of the hardest part of making a successful music video was making the lip syncing matching the song in harmony. If the lip syncing is bad it ruins the whole music video’s effect. Therefore it was essential for us to make sure Dom’s Lips matched correctly to the song, luckily we practiced lip syncing for our preliminary task to test if we had the ability to create a little music video test, working out the best way to lip sync. (to view our preliminary task click on this link) Lip syncing exercise
Once had finished filming the alleyway scene we needed to make sure this could fit two parts of the song for example the chorus is normally repeated throughout music videos. We then cut this scene into parts and placed them along the timeline so it narrative makes sense.
Not much editing could take place apart from placing the scenes in the correct places and cutting them correctly to parts of the song. When all shots had been cut and placed in order, we did some further editing like colour correction practice, preparing ourselves for the later stages of the editing process.
OUR FIRST DEADLINE FOR VIDEO….
End of September 30th is our first big deadline for our music video. The requirements were the following:
Before we had decided to meet up again for the filming session on the 15th October we needed to make sure that we would not get kicked out of the school like before. Therefore to solve this problem we have spoken to Mr Zadi and asked him to create a letter for the site officers to open apartments that we need to film in and to be enabled to film within the school on a saturday without any problems getting in the way of the production process.
Once we had met up and began discussing our thoughts of what we could to for our next shots, Modey and I came up with a clever idea of creating a very unique shot that wasn’t been thought about yet to anyone in our media class. Therefore we wanted to show our originality and used a cloning technique. This shot includes having two or more of the same person all in one shot in one place, but each clone will interact with each other differently. To create this very unique shot we set up the camera and tripod in the correct place and cleaned the room up so it was empty with nothing else in the shot but the actor, also being in a clean and tidy location it would mean preventing the camera from moving. We then filmed Dom at one side of the room singing to one half of the song, then filmed again with Dom located on the other side of the room singing the second half of the song. But both lenghts of the shots would be playing at the same time and ending at the same time in harmony. This was a new way of combining a cloning technique in our post production to combine and merge two shots into one. Which appears that the same person is singing along with the song but is completely doing different actions, like they are different people singing a duet together.
Shot was added after filming and editing
One other shot that we thought we be a good idea to experiment with is where Dom is trapped and cannot escape from this empty dull room, therefore we wanted to show his struggle and frustration by telling him to hit the door and get really angry. This was shown by the high angle shot which makes him look vulnerable. We used boxes in the stock room to climb up to achieve the high angle show so we can film him coming into the room from a different angle. Modey suggested that we should place the camera really firmly against the wall so we can show that Dom is really trapped and that he needs to do that actions of confusion by his body language and facial expressions. The camera angle was chosen to remain the same during this scene as it gave us a wide shot of how small this room was when he is trapped, symbolizing a prison cell in some form.
When it came to the end of the music video we wanted to create a shot that would show fatigue and that Dom is getting to the point of giving up trying to escape. We directed Dom and told him that it would be a good idea to sit down in a way which shows that he is getting extremely depressed and upset, using vulnerable body language and shots to represent the mood of the actor. We asked him to tilt his head down and pretend to be upset to finalise the idea of him being trapped in this confusion.
On the 8th of October, we met up at 12.30pm and began to make our way to Glinton to do some filming. When arriving we successfully managed to get access into school to do the filming in the staff room where we would like to be located. After 30mins of setting up and filming a member of security had kicked the us out of our desired location, which caused massive amounts of time wasting and technical problems. The biggest problem that we are facing with our filming is that our main and only actor doesn’t attend Arthur Mellows Village College anymore; creating the dilemma of only having access of Dom in the weekends, when having part time jobs in the way. Arthur Mellows is not normally open during the weekends but luckily the school is currently getting newly refurbished in certain departments. Therefore we will need to get an approval agreement for the school to be open on the dates specified. We would also need a formal letter from our media teacher Mr Zadi, giving a written permission approval to use any area of the school. Unfortunately, when we arrived in school, we were forced to leave the property as no students are allowed to be located within in the school’s land during pupil closing times.
In conclustion not much filming could take place today, a lesson was to be learnt that no only do we need verbal permission but a formal permission letter with us at all times for our filming times and destination to be eligible. From this experience we shall be more organised and arrange a solid weekend when we can get the schools full permission and letter, allowing us to do some filming when Dom is fully available, preventing anymore problems occurring on our filming days.
On the 21st September we all began to edit the still shots to add movement in time with the music. The still shot also had to move in a special time which will make it easy for the audience to spot the artist and song title within the lettering. The benefit of placing each of the filming shots that we have produced so far, is so we can look careful at what shots are we dont want to use and the shots that were successful. Once all the desired shots are selected we began to put the shots in potential places of the song, so the lips syncing of Dom matched the song lyrics in harmony. Then with the blank spaces where there aren’t any shots in place, we listening to the song and looked careful at the editing and work out where the lyrics are needed. So we did a lyric analysis and compared the sheet of lyrics to the scene we have chosen. then when it comes to the next day of filming we can easily get Dom and will immediately know what part of the song he needs to sing and where it will be place. Not only will it help us and dom know when to sing, it will also indicate how long we need to re-film the shots and how long dom will need to lip sing for.
Colour Correction / Grading:
“Color grading or colour painting, is the process of altering and enhancing the color of a motion picture, video image, or still image either electronically, photo-chemically or digitally. The photo-chemical process is also referred to as color timing and is typically performed at a photographic laboratory. Modern color correction, whether for theatrical film, video distribution, or print is generally done digitally in a color suite. Considering such achievements in digital imaging, the artist has the ability to “paint” the image, thus the names “colorist” or “color painter” have become most applicable.”
“Color correction by using color gels, or filters, is a process used in stage lighting, photography, television, cinematography and other disciplines, the intention of which is to alter the overall color of the light; typically the light color is measured on a scale known as color temperature, as well as along a green–magenta axis orthogonal to the color temperature axis.”
Cloning / Layering:
This is a prime example of the cloning/layering technique used in our music video. We kept the camera in the same position and just moved the actor around in the room, layering both shots on top of each other, creating them both in the same shot. However problem with this, there is a different in lighting of each corner of the room, creating a visible line down the center of the shot; showing where the layer has been placed.
Still Motion:
“Slow motion (commonly abbreviated as slowmo) is an effect in film-making whereby time appears to be slowed down. It was invented by the Austrian priest August Musger.
Typically this style is achieved when each film frame is captured at a rate much faster than it will be played back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving more slowly. The technical term for slow motion is overcranking which refers to the concept of cranking a handcranked camera at a faster rate than normal (i.e. faster than 24 frames per second). Slow motion can also be achieved by playing normally recorded footage at a slower speed. This technique is more often applied to video subjected to instant replay, than to film. High-speed photography is a more sophisticated technique that uses specialized equipment to record fast phenomena, usually for scientific applications.
Slow motion is ubiquitous in modern filmmaking. It is used by a diverse range of directors to achieve diverse effects. Some classic subjects of slow motion include:
Fading / Dissolve:
“In the post-production process of film editing and video editing, a dissolve is a gradual transition from one image to another. The terms fade-outand fade-in and are used to describe a transition to and from a blank image. This is in contrast to a cut where there is no such transition. A dissolve effectively overlaps two clips for the duration of the effect. The lengths of the two scenes can be adjusted by trimming, which, if desired, can change the original durations of the scenes before the dissolve was added.”
Here is an example founded on ‘YouTube’ on the different types of dissolving techniques available and their technical terms:
To create my filming into a finished piece, I will be going to use “Sony Vegas”.
What is Sony Vegas?
“Sony Vegas is a professional video editing software package for non-linear editing systems (NLE) originally published by Sonic Foundry, now owned and run by Sony Creative Software. Originally developed as an audio editor, it eventually developed into an NLE for video and audio from version 2.0. Vegas features real-time multitrack video and audio editing on unlimited tracks, resolution-independent video sequencing, complex effects and compositing tools, 24-bit/192 kHz audio support, VST and DirectX plug-in effect support, and Dolby Digital surround sound mixing. It runs on Microsoft Windows XP (XP x64 not supported) , Vista and 7. In April 2007, Sony along with AMD jointly demonstrated a 64-bit version of Vegas running on 64-bit Vista.”
From my previous experience with Song Vegas over the last year, I have developed a greater understanding of how to navigate and function Vegas pro 10 and strongly believe its the most professional software to use, which will allow us to be more creative with the movements, effects and transitions. It has also been really useful for our AS A Level project which gave us the ability to product a good quality piece of work in high definition (HD). Therefore this is the reason why we shall be going to use the updated version of Sony Vegas as this will be best suited for our media product.
The other editing software’s out there are harder to gain reach or were too simple/basic, minimizing the chance to show our creativity and ideas. As the more simple and easy software’s to use aren’t as functionally complex as we required.
On the 4th September 10:30am we all decided to meet up in Glinton to prepare of filming, as it was the only day where everyone was off work and free to do some work. We first had some problems with the choice of actor as Joey Yeboah was meant to be the main actor, staring the role of Kid Cudi, then we asked a few other people who had potential to replace Joey due to him being slightly un-reliable, as he is working within a different group. Therefore I kindly suggested to Modey to ask his mate Dom Bennett who was a previous media student at AMVC in 2009. Luckily Dom agreed to take the role of Kid Cudi and met us all up in Glinton. Around 11:00am we all check if the equipment was fully charged and all props were accessible if needed. We all walked down to school to check if it would be open on a Sunday! Which it wasn’t, however this didn’t stop us from filming as we went to the local shop in Glinton to buy some Coco-cola as we knew we would need to use this at some point of the day.
Then we walked to Pekirk as this was one of our chosen locations, decided in our location report. We eventually found the alleyway which we wanted to film in. We successfully got permission to film in between the houses if we weren’t going to disturb anyone. After 15 mins later we created approximately 12 shots of Dom Bennett walking down the alleyway towards the bright light. This look extremely effective and exactly how I imagined it, as he looks really dark like a tall shadow walking towards the light. We also wanted to experiment with the use of shots, as we wasn’t sure how long we had Dom Bennett for and the lighting would change if we didn’t get it done in time, as i was really fond of the lighting, creating a glowing, dull type of natural lighting.
After all the filming in Pekirk was finished we walked back to Sam’s house to do the filming in the room and the shot where we advertise the coca-cola bottle in an unique way, by experimenting with the camera movement. We felt that using a flip camera would be the easiest technology to use when filming this complex shot that took a lot of time to get “near to perfect”. The type of camera movements that we were aiming for today was very difficult as the tri-pod didn’t come into use as the shots we needed to create could only be done by hand held. This did give us a lot of pressure as we didn’t want to make the camera look shaky when it comes to the editorial stages of the construction and production.
As we suddenly needed to use Dom Bennett as our main actor there was a lot of pressure on him to get the lip syncing perfect. I knew this was going to be a massive problem to whoever our actor was going to be, due to the song being extremely unknown. However, we strongly felt like we needed a song that wasn’t going to be compared to an official video by the same artist. Therefore we put Dom into the deep end and asked him to learn the lyrics to the shot we needed from him. To help it out a bit we played the song in the back ground so he can get the lips in the correct time and place, to make the video appear more natural. This was very hard and time consuming. Lip syncing was made really easy in our preliminary as we had a natural born singer who knew the lyrics of the Jazon Maraz song by heart. So filming today became very stressful and frustrating, however we still motivated Dom with the singing and produced some good effective shots.
Overall I felt that today was successful and we have managed to produce some really good camera angles and shots. Domic was a very good actor when he gained confidence with the whole surreal environment and unique shots, and the lighting was at our advantage today as the weather was raining and dull just how we wanted it to be. More dull and surreal when he is trapped and brighter colours and shots when he is in the ‘real world’.
On the 21st of July on the last day of school, myself and my group have decided to meet up to begin the first scene when the random scattered letters are developing into words. Modey and I met up in school at 8.30am to finish of the editing of the target audience interview 2. Whilst modey was finishing of the editing for the interviews and rendering it, I was printing out ‘KiD CuDi’ Letters in different text sizes and cutting them out individually. Overall we ended up with 50 letters of the Kid Cudi and Trapped in my mind all in different sizes from 700 to 300pt. Sam arrived at 10.45 to help us begin with the filming as we needed him if we were going to use more than one camera, plus to test the experiments we would need more than 2 pair of hands.
This is an image that I’ve take from the boys setting up out room into a working environment for our filming to begin. We managed to set up a fan in the corner of the room out of the way where we are going to be based. We thought we would need the fan as our original plan was to cut our different size letters that can be blown slowly by the fan with the letters landing into a set of words, which will introduce the artist and title of the song.
However our plan didn’t exactly work, as the letters blew extremely fast all over the place only giving us one split second to catch the flying letters in shot. Before my camera was able to take a picture the letters had already it the bottom of the floor therefore this idea failed to meet our expectations and we needed to find a different solution but keeping the same concept.
Instead of having the letters flying all over the room creating the sentences, we came up with the idea to stick each letter on individuality one by one on the wall in a random order, then gradually building up a sentence that is hidden on the wall. We have used a camera on a tripod, and a film on a tripod which gave us two different angles that gave us the ability to find the best angle for the shot we needed. Therefore Modey and I were behind the tripods and cameras taking shots of each letter that is applied to the wall. Whilst Sam was arranging the letters on the wall and moving out of the way before the shots were taken. This was a very quick and effective way of create some stop motion effects for our little introduction of our music video.
Difficulties & Constraints We had some difficulties during this process as my camera ran out of battery which I didn’t think would be a massive problem as I had my charger with me, plus a spare camera with a full battery in place. I changed the camera whilst attempting to keep the tripod in the exact same place. When I has successful managed to change the camera to the fully charged on, the angle has slightly moved making it extremely hard to get back into its original form. Modey had tried to help get it back to the same angle which was near to impossible! Another problem occurred when I realised that my spare camera had a different flash option of the lighting of some still shots where slightly darker than it was, on my original camera. I didn’t think this would be too much of a problem as we can Photoshop it to change the brightness and contrast. Luckily we still had the shots that Modey was taken on his camera which was more fluent with the lettering however the camera quality was extremely poor and the angle at the beginning was unclear. This left us with a decision to work out how to solve this problem. The options we had was to Photoshop the images on Modey’s camera to make them more clear and stick with the dodge angle at the beginning, merge our shots together and see what happens, or use the shots that I’ve taken with a more professional camera and see if the change of angle can be solved in the editing stages.
Overall, I think day one has been very successful and productive as we have developed new skills. Even thought we had made some mistakes during this filming process we managed to overcome these problems as a team! We have successfully filmed the first shot of our story board in just a few hours, and now know exactly what to do if we were going to re-take these shots to improve them.
This is our Risk assessment for filming.
Title: Trapped in my Mind
Writer: Rachel Taylor
Date: 28th October 2011
Date and time of filming:……
The possible hazards are as follows:
The safety measures we will take to avoid these risks:
Site officer (of the school) contact number: 01733 252235
My contact numbers in case of emergency are: Mother: 07926763522 Myself: 07907684350
We also have a contact number of our media teacher in-case of problems: (Mr Zadi : 07590430385)
In this section myself and my group will be looking at different types of 3D animations software’s available that we can self learn during this course to produce an effective finished appearance to our final media product. We thought it would be a good idea to add some scenes that are fully animated to symbolize the difference between realism and surrealism. Therefore, we want to learn another software that we can incorporate in our final piece.
Flash enables the ability to manipulate vector & raster graphics to provide animation texts, drawings and still images. It also captures the users imput such as Mouse movements, keyboards, microphones and camera. Adobe Flash strongly contains an object-orientated language called ActionScript that supports automations via Javascript flash language. Adobe Flash is a form of a multimedia platform mainly used to animations interactivity to webpage and other digital devices. Flash is frequently used for different methods of advertisements, games and flash animations.
AutoDesk Maya is a three dimensional (3D) computer graphics software that runs on Linux, Mac OSX and Microsoft Windows. It was originally developed by a company called Alias Systems Corporation and its now currently owned and developed my Autodesk, Inc. Maya is used to create interactive 3D applications, including video games, animated films, TV series or just simply to create visual effects.
This is a screenshot of something that is possible to create. From all the icons on display, it indicates the complexity of the software and it will takes years to full learn it. However as a group we are determined to buy tutorial magazines of this software to see if we are eligible to create an functional 3D animation that is suitable & relevant for our music video.
This image of the car looks extremely realistic and professional which shows how good this software is. This software is well known with all the film creators in animated films, as this is the exact software they use to produce the movies.
This is an example of what Autodesk Maya 2010 is capable of creating:
Overall, as a group I believe we will give a good attempt to use these animation software’s that we could use in our finished music video, however it all depends if we can find the time to learn these complex software’s in a few months that will be professional enough to be used. Out of the choice of software, I would like to use ‘Maya’ as it looks more effective but I have had some basic experience on ‘Adobe Flash’, so we shall be experimenting with both software’s and test what attracts the target audience more effectively…..
The most basic and common lighting setups for any film or music video are done with three main types of lights: Key, Fill and backlight. Each of these lights have its own function and have been usually found with the combination of each other to create the desired lighting effect. When lighting is used, the intent is to simulate the light that may occur under normal conditions in the filming area spaces.
The main function of the fill light is to fill in the shadows produced by the key light without casting a distinct shadow of its own.
Backlights, sometimes called hair, rim or edge lights, are placed on the opposite side of the subject from the camera, high enough to be out of view.
A fourth basic light, the set light, may be used to illuminate the background. Usually the background is partly lit by the key and fill lights, as well as by several set lights.
BACK LIGHTING
Back Lighting is used to illuminate the character from the back, therefore separating them from the background, this creates a ‘halo’ effect on the shoulders of the subject, and portrays the subject as more ‘pure’ & ‘heroic’. Less of a backlight makes the character seem secretive and hidden
This is a ‘YouTube’ video that I have found that clearly demonstrate the types of lighting that’s used in music videos and the visual impact it has on the overall appearance.
Jeans
From this list of props most of the objects will have logo’s and brand names therefore our music video will have different forms of advertising and branding. For example the apple laptop will most likely be instantly recognised and the mobile phone with headset will have some logo printed on, which would be hard to hide.
Colour in Kid CuDi- Pursuit Of Happiness
After researching KiD CuDi’s music video Pursuit of Happiness we were instantly inspired by the use of camera angles and how mise en scene is used when it comes to the use of lighting and colour. We wanted to use this inspiration and create our own visual representation of some shots that could be incorporated into the final media product. For the colour of the official video is very unusual in a positive way due the the colour being clean and clear showing exactly whats happening in detail but to the point where it still look surreal and dull making it more confusing.
The use of colours is naturally dark and boring in my personal opinion. I think the brightness and contrast of these shots haven’t been used repeating throughout each scene, as the director wanted to keep this theme very original and show its creativity from the use of weird camera angles and movements. Than spending hours changing the colour of each shot for example grey scale.
Colour in our music video
The colour in our music video will also be quiet dark and dull, however some parts of the song will be more colourful from the use of artificial lighting to brighten up some locations. For this shot we did use the natural lighting within a home as we wanted to show the actors emotions and lip movement clearly. We also needed to make sure the use of product placement of the ‘Coco-Cola’ was represented effectively, with the liquid pooring at an angle, we needed to show that the gravity of the liquid was surreal. Therefore the colour and lighting needed to be bright and colourful whilst keeping the scene natural and authentic like the rest of the shots during the video.
Lighting in Kid CuDi- Pursuit Of Happiness
For the lighting of the official video its appears to be very verisimilitude creating emotions and emphasizing the complex narrative.
The use of lighting in this music video is quite dull and bland, but this is quiet effective as the narrative links well with the overall mise en scene theme. Even though nearly every shot is naturally dark with hardly any artificial lighting it adds authenticity to the final appearance. So even though the narrative seems to be surreal, the lighting is mainly natural with little added lighting or LCD screens.
Lighting in our music video
For our music video we have tried to keep the same idea as Kid CuDi’s music videos with keeping things natural and authentic but in still add surrealism with in most of the shots. For this shot we have used the actor to emphasis the darkness of the scene, whilst using natural lighting to make him appear more out of place. In some of the shots in the scene will make Kid Cudi appear lost and confused from the use of the dark alley way, where he is either walking towards the light symbolising death and more meaningful moments or walking away from the light to represent him trying to escape.
• Establishing shots (ES) – such as the start of the Kid Cudi’s video – to establish the scene – where it’s set and to establish the surroundings.
• Mid Shots (MS) – These will aid the establishing shots – and give a closer view of the objects in the frame.
• Close ups (CU) – These shots will probably be the most important shots in the video – these shots will give the audience a close up view of the moving photos and character – allowing them to see the detail in the actual photos and facial expressions.
• Extreme Close Ups (ECU) – Extreme close ups will also aid the audience in understanding the narrative – it will also allow us to pick out fine detail through using one of the specialist settings on the Canon.
In this section myself and my group will be experimenting with lip syncing and will do some practicing and exercising to test the complexity of lip syncing and making it fit well, when it comes to the editing stages. If we were to use lip syncing in the final music video, it’s important to know weather is possible, otherwise ifs its more difficult than expected we can easily adapt our story board, and use less lip syncing in the final piece.
Below is a video that we have made to show my lip syncing techniques? We got Luke to learn the lyrics word for word so it will make the editing stages much easier, to get the whole outcome to synchronize smoothly.
Below are the videos that we have made to show our lip syncing techniques. We managed to get Luke to learn the lyrics word for word so it will be easier in the editing stages, giving the whole outcome to synchronize smoothly.
First attempt:
This attempt of lip-syncing is shockingly bad, as Luke wasn’t signing along with the song, he was just signing the song from memory with some lyrics with him, but there was no beat or soundtrack to guide him. Therefore this first attempt wasn’t acceptable and we were now determined to find different solutions to make Luke more comfortable and to get the lips and sound matching together in harmony.
Second Attempt:
Whilst filming Luke, we were playing the song in the back ground so he can get the tune of the song in perfect harmony. As the first time we tried lip syncing Luke was too fast with the song, which made editing extremely hard. So we asked Luke to try again with the song playing along with him, this made him feel more comfortable as he was now able to keep in time with the tune.
Overall, I personally think that lip syncing is much harder that I thought, as its needs to be perfectly smooth with the song, otherwise it will look terrible, giving a poor quality appearance, which makes watching a video unbearable to the viewers. I think we can lip-sync in our final product but it will include a lot of practice to get it perfect. Unfortunately Joey is not in our media studies group, therefore in our spare time we need to work with him and make sure he knows the words of the song from memory, to improve the overall impact. This is going to be hard, as Joey will need to jump from one group to the other which will be stressful, as Joey is going to be a key part in our media video. Therefore communication will be an essential part in our media work.
After a few days wait we got a reply from the HRP prison regarding our queries. Unfortunately the letter was unsuccessful, as we are not allowed to use their prison for our music video. This was a really big dissapointment as the use of location in mise en scene would have looked really effective, allowing us to be more creative with the use of shadows and metal bars. Luckily we do have a back up plan, we will now find an empty room that we can transform. 
The letter currently states the following: ” Dear Rachel, Modestas, Samuel & Joey, Visit to HRP Peterborough Thanks for your letter in which you request to use one of our prison cells to film a music video. Unfortunately I am unable to grant this request to come into the establishment. I wish you all the best of luck with your media studies. Yours sincerely Nick Leader (The Director)”
Just in case we can’t get the HRP Peterborough prison we have found out that the school has requested police officers to teach yr 9 students ‘How not to get into prison‘. They brought along props and an real life version of a prison cell to give the students a real insight of what it is like to be locked up inside. We managed to track down the police officers and asked for some permission to take some photos and possible to do filming within the cell.
These are a few photos of the portable prison cell that was shown to the year 9’s.
This was a good potential option for a location that we can film in, however the only problem we had was that the offers were extremely busy fitting in all students to see the prison in one day, so it was really difficult to every step foot in the cell to film. However seeing a real duplicate of a cell was inspiring and now we know exactly what is located in this small room as we can try to duplicate it ourselves
My favourite location is the prison cell idea, as it’s something that I feel no one else will think off or attempt to do. Asking to film in a public place is very hard and tricky as there are loads of complicated procedures that are needed to go through. As we are A2 media students we have tried our best to find somewhere we can film that will give us the most effective result. I am really passionate about using a prison cellar as its a plain boring room that we can use to do loads of creative things too. Therefore I have decided to call up the HRP prison in Peterborough and ask if we can have permission to film in this dangerous public place. When I called the HRP the woman from the operations department told me to send a letter through the post asking for permission as this is the most formal way of getting our message across to the correct people.
Here is the letter that I’ve sent to the HRP prison:
I’ve tried to make this letter as formal and persuading as possible to increase the chances of getting a positive reply response. If this letter isn’t successful we shall find other alternatives for location. This is the reason why im asking for permission first from the prison center as we can say we have tried and considered this area. If all fails we will still have plenty of time to think of other locations to use that will still link perfectly to our desired narrative. This shows our organisational skills during this project, showing we have good knowledge of the media industry and thinking like ‘real’ media students.
This is a photo that I’ve taken before I decided to post the letter. The letter has been printed and folded in a formal and presented way, to show we want this opportunity and willing to make an effort. Both addresses are on the letter so they can post us a reply with contact phone numbers if they need more personal details. The address on the envelop has been specially printed on, with a second class stamp.
Rachel Louise Taylor 