My ideas and pictures of our cartoon Digipack design

This is the my first idea for my cartoon digipack idea, this is the front cover. I drew the "5" using photoshop, and the whale and the sea. I used photoshop for the font as well. I used the background colour as yellow as the original cover idea of Noah and the whale is yellow and it is a cartoon design, this is why i was trying to use the whole idea of a cartoon cover.

Also, the bright colours i feel attracted audiences to pick up the CD and look at it, and if audiences saw this in a magazine they will instantly recognize it on the shelf in a shop. Our group and i have decided to go with the same idea as Mika, which is using the same picture as the front cover design for the magazine advert, and adding a few ratings on the page, also to say when it is out and what is included in the digipack.

Digipack design

As art director, i started to come up with some ideas for the digipack and magazine advert we are meant to create for this project. We are using a software on the apple macs at college, which is Photoshop.

My orginal idea was a cartoon design, also our cinematographer, Chris, also came up with another design which was still images used from our pop promo.

This a template of the digipack design we are meant to use. ---->

Filming

In the last week of the Christmas term we filmed in two locations, Christchurch Park and the Ipswich Waterfront. We gathered all of the shots we were scheduled to get on those days but unfortunately on the friday when we were due to complete our filming heavy snow and staff absence prevented us from doing so. However we are endeavouring to work out an afternoon or two when we complete our filming. For the time being further heavy snowfall has made filming in our locations impossible so we are for the moment spending our time updating our blog and beginning to log, capture and edit our existing footage.

During the filming we have managed to execute we have been keen to produce a variety of camera shots and angles which serve to add both texture and characterisation to our video. For example we have played around with focus in some of our shots so that our main character (Chris K) is at first out of focus and then comes into it as the camera comes across him. We hope that this technique will produce the effect of portraying the character as someone who is not quite in tune with the world because he is in mourning. As well as that we have used several tracking and panning shots to show the character's journey, moreover his meandering struggle with his own existence.

Research into the Super 8mm Effect for use with Final Cut Pro

Although I am not Chief Editor, and Josh is, I might be working in cooperation with Josh as the Co-Editor. Therefore Chris has devoted some research into the "Super 8mm" Effect we have discussed about in Group Production Meetings and agreed to use if possible for the flashback elements of our Music Promotional Video for "5 Years Time" by Noah and the Whale.

Chris found the information below on:http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/918311, when someone had posted on this forum "Can anyone suggest the best way to emulate a super 8 or an aged film look in final cut pro?":

• There are many plug-ins (Nattress is one) that simulate the effect. But if you want something cheap and free. Export the clip out of FCP using "Quicktime Conversion" Then, under Option-Filter-Special Effects, you can add some a film hair/dirt effect that's not too bad. Combine that with color correction in FCP and possibly some speed adjustment (Old 8mm always seems sped-up a bit) it might just work for free. Ernie Santella Santella Film/Video Productionshttp://www.santellaproductions.com/.

Chris also found the following useful information on this website:http://www.nattress.com/Solutions/solutions.htm#6:

• I want to make my video look like film: The Film Effects package was designed for you! Whether you are using PAL, NTSC, or HDV (or HD or SD) Film Effects has settings which will make your video look much more filmic. Film Effects does 25p conversion for PAL frame rates and 24p conversion (with 3:2 pulldown added) for NTSC frame rates. It has over 20 presets and you can make your own. There are over 27 plugins, all designed for different aspects of making your video look filmic and can be used in combinations or separately. Film Effects also gives you immense control over the gamma and tone of your image, so it can be a great tool even when you're not trying to make your video look like film.
• I want to make my video look like old Super-8 film: Film Effects has a preset called "Old Projector". This might be exactly what you're looking for, or you can use it as a starting point.

Analysis of our primary research, questionnaire

I asked a questionnaire to seven students in my class, who are aged between 17 to 19 and I asked the following questions:

1.Have you ever heard of Noah and The Whale?

2.What type of music do you like to listen to?

3.Which do you like better a pop promo with a Narrative or performance?

4.Do you like music with Lyrics or without Lyrics?

5.Would you watch the pop promo of a song even if you didn’t like the song?

From the first question the results were interesting as a lot of people have heard of Noah and the Whale, out of the seven six people have heard of them. This is good in a way because it means that these students have an idea of what type of genre Noah and the whale play, but at the same time it’s bad as these students can compare our pop promo with the original pop promo’s of Noah and the Whale.

There were a various different types of genre for music, but the main types of genres were: Metal, Rock, R&B, Hip Hop, Pop, Trance, and Classical. A lot of these students prefer many different types of genres rather than sticking to one type. There is a joint top of genre of music, which is: Metal, Rock, RnB, and Hip-Hop, pop. This is bad for our group as the genre of music that Noah and the Whale like to perform is indie type music, which the students have not even included in their favorite types of music.

Our group asked this number three because for our pop promo it is just a narrative and we are interested in what people are more interested in performance or narrative. The result of this question came out equal (five each) which is interesting because a lot of the students chosen both. But this is good for our group, as we now know that it is not that important to have any performance and no one will be disappointed.

Our group asked the question four because some people in our class are actually doing a pop promo without any lyrics and our group were wondering what these group of students actually prefer to listen to. This questions goes with what type of music people like to listen to all of those genre’s of music that they choose have lyrics in them normally apart from trance. This is good for our group as we have lyrics in ours also lyrics are good for a pop promo as it gives a narrative which we can follow rather than a pop promo without lyrics because then the pop promo has to go to the beat of the music rather than the lyrics.

The last question we asked because we want to know if any would actually be interested in looking up Noah and the Whale but the results of this showed that people prefer to watch a pop promo if they like the song, people who don’t mind watching a pop promo if they didn’t like the song only said that they would watch the pop promo for research. I think that this is a true point as if you like a song a lot most people want to see how the band have managed to create it on screen.

From our research of this questionnaire I can say that our group is on the right path of knowing how to capture this audience, but at the same time are really down side is that no one in our class enjoys indie, which might put our fellow students off our pop promo.

Own Individual Idea for CD cover & Magazine advert

Cd cover

For my Cd cover of Noah and the Whale – 5 years time, I was going to keep the same idea as the band’s original cover, which is a cartoon form. But instead I was going to have a picture of a whale in the sea and out of the blowhole comes the number 5 then just like the original Cd cover it was going to say in small font under “5” it was going to say “years time”.

Just like the Original Cd cover I was going to have bright colors e.g. Yellow, but instead have a blue skies look with the whale in the sea. I was going to do this as we had some group production meetings in which we thought that the song “blue skies” from the same artist, we were going to use because it was sadder and depression but instead we went back to “5 years time.”

The colour of the number “5” was going to be yellow so that it goes with the blue skies look and it would look good.

Mag advert

I was going to copy the same idea as the album by mika called “ The boy who knew too much” Mika had the same design in the mag advert as the cd cover, the only thing that was different was that the Mag advert had ratings from different magazines and also it showed when it was coming out and what came with it e.g. DvD bonus etc. I would like to do the same thing for my Mag advert because it is easier for people to spot the CD by the cover and the audience might buy it more, as they know what they are expecting. Also I would like to put some rating so for example, “well Done” but I think that it would be a much simpler and stronger message if we just put just 4 or 5 stars, then underneath put the name of the company who is rating but we will make up a random name for instance “ The daily Newspaper.”

Treatment for Editing - by Joshua Panyne

This is our treatment for Editing done by Joshua Payne.

Our narrative consists of two time scales so it will be important to make it clear which scale we are in by possibly using visually arresting cuts such as swipe edits when we switch time scales. Apart from those moments I intend to stick mostly to conventional edits although I may employ a couple of jump cuts during the argument to create an atmosphere of chaotic friction. I may also use a couple of graphic matches during the rapid cuts of the choruses in order to show the breaking symmetry of the periods.

In addition we have also discussed using a super 8 type of visual colour for the flashbacks as it creates a sense of hyper reality as well as harking back to a time in the past. It will also hopefully further distinguish between the different time scales keeping the audience abreast of what is happening in order to avoid confusion. It is also important to point out that editing can play a more significant role in this project than in our film noir project as cuts are often more obvious, numerous and stylised in pop promos. It will also be vitally important to integrate all of our establishing shots to highlight our changing locations as they play a vital role in showing the characters' relationship, i.e the waterfront is when they are calm and relatively happy (the smooth elegance of the boats and water) whereas the park with its wintery and wooded almost gothic atmosphere is better suited for the slightly souring nature of their relationship. Also the tennis court, a place of rivalry and competition, is ideal to show the first glimpses of conflict in their relationship.