Production Diary #35

Finally completing my final draft of my music video I am really happy and satisfied with the outcome of it all, with then waiting for feedback from my peers I am not worried at all about it as I, myself can only see a few minor errors in which I need to change which can be easily done.
Going to spend a week on this, I will look at my feedback first and then alter my video according to it to please my audience but also get some of their insight to what they want to see.
Already showing the band, they're comments were nice and phrasing towards me as they really did like it, making me even more proud of myself and satisfied.
I plan to still re shoot and improve my digipack as I am having some problems with my models, however I will make a change to this before the deadlines!

Merry Christmas from Alone Tonight

Final Draft of music video

Production Diary #34

Spending the majority of my time dedicated to my music video I am pretty happy that it is going along well and to the stage where it is nearly done. However I still am not as happy with it as I wanted some effects in which I've seen on other put onto mine. I have searched youtube and not found out how to do this yet. Reassuring myself I have then again gone back to watch the previous videos in which inspired me, most of them don't  have any effects and lack some elements I have included.
Looking back on my story board I have seen the massive progress in which I have taken in order to improve and change my video, following these guidelines has helped me structure my video however I have realised that the cuts need to be much faster and sharper.

Draft 2

My Second draft is now done, and as you can see  I have slightly changed some elementsof it, more importantly I have experimented with colour correction and also added in a moving picture sequence, I am not entirely sure on how it goes with the video, however I have made an online survey for people to tell me their thoughts and improvements to help me make my final draft and then final music video.

Alterations Made along the way

Alterations Made Along the Way

Story Boards

Here are some small sample sheets of my story board that I have roughly put together  as a draft to see how my music video would plan out.

1

2

3

4

5

Audience feedback on Digipack and Magazine poster

 I asked 8 people from my target demographic to give me some feedback on post-stick notes so that I could improve my digipack and magazine posters, here is what I found.

Production Diary #33

After completing what I hope to be my final magazine advert, I can say that I have worked very hard on it. Satisfied more with the landscape version than the portrait, I still feel like I need to improve that one.
However I have added a few more details than the draft had which were just minor, for example star ratings, links and social networking sites, record company and distributor, and an overall filter just to make it even more polished.
Asking my teacher for feedback along side this, she has given me some good advice in which I should change, as the portrait one looks more like a film poster, I can now edit this to either get a new image or move bits around.
This is just minor little things I can easily do before the deadline, as now I am going to put my full focus into my music video.
As you can see I have completed my first proper draft of it and I am pretty pleased.
However I did overcome more troubles with the exporting part.
Better than last time, my video still needs improvements as the resolution is not as clear, there are black bars along the top and bottom and it feels like it's moving slowly.

Music video draft

I have just about finished my first proper draft for my music video.
Looking on the feedback that I got from my rough cut, I have chosen to add some of this into my video, with new footage, quicker cuts which are speed up and a more clear structures narrative, this draft has been cleaned up quite a lot from the first one.
Although due to the limited time I have no had enough time to add transitions or colour correct scenes.
Baring this in mind, I had originally started editing my video on the wrong aspect as it was a square, I have now improved and changed this so that it fits the wide screen HD resolution I shot it in.
I have made the quality of my footage more vivid and re sized each frame individual to make sure nothing was cut out.

Also finding out that uploading it to vimeo produced a better quality than Youtube had.
I still have many improvements to do however I am really happy with what I have done so far and the progress I have made. However I followed the video with the right exporting settings but this didn't seem to work with my video. as there are black bars on the screen which I don't like, the quality still isn't as good as I hoped to be so i still need to play around with this and fix it. (vimeo version)

Magazine advert FINAL

I have made a few minor improvements to my final magazine advert for my album as just adding in star ratings and moving the title around can make all the difference. I feel now that it is much stronger and looks like an advert you would find in a magazine for an album. I am really happy with my final product and don't feel the need to change it, however If i do find a better image I may need to replace it because this is not what I originally planned, yet it still turned out perfect.

 Similarly with the landscape portrait, I have added a circle of white light which is portraying a moon lit sky. This position works better as you can see the full image and the beautiful scenery. Again I am really happy with how it turned out being a back up plan it still looks great. The star ratings at the bottom fit in perfect, making it look professional and finished.

Audience Feedback ( music video draft)

Magazine advert draft

I've been working very hard on my magazine advert as well as my digipack, Choosing to use my album image as the main background for my advert proves to be working well and conventional. As I was afraid that it would not look right or fit I have not had time to go and take more pictures so figured I would make do. By doing this it gives the audiences something to look out for when the CD comes out, making it easily recognisable to find.

I really like the image as it works brilliantly portrait as well as landscape.
Finding the right font and style I have chosen to use a similar typography to which the band uses, making it again relatable and recognizable to them.
By adding in a second font, it gives it another mysterious, nigh time feel as this links in with the themes of my album.

Highlighting this night feel I have then picked out the colour purple which really gives it a whole midnight feel and works perfectly with the atmosphere.

However I feel that it still looks really plain and I would need to add more text pictures to boost its appeal, I am still working on it as well with my digipack to make sure they both fit in.

Production Diary #32

Finally completing a finished version of my drafts for my digipack and magazine poster, I feel even more relived now that it's out of the way and I can fully focus on nailing them to get them spot on. I am warming to the pictures I took and think they would look great for the poster, however I did not plan the shoot well as I thought I was only taking digipack pictures so shot in landscape.
Now that I have more time I can also re shoot in different locations to get the best pictures, I am planning on doing this in the holidays.

Aslo getting advice of friends along the way, this has helped me a lot in seeing what my target audiences want to see.
Looking at some of the construction evidence, I have noticed that I haven't really got a script but a loose one, so I decided to talk about that in a powerpoint, along with the basic structure of my music video.

Script

Digipack draft 1

FRONT COVER

INSIDE FRONT

BEING CD (INSIDE)

Problems along the way

I had recently started my first proper draft on the schools computer, however I only have CS5 at home while I was working on CS6, so it wouldn't let me open my music video, I felt like I would do more work at home rather than school so this was a problem. I decided I would have to download the trial version of CS6 then, however another problem occurred and it took to long to load and wouldn't download, so now I have to re start my whole video using cs5, this way I would work on it at home and at school, it's going to set me back a bit now.

Production Diary #31

 Last night I wen't up to London to get some pictures for my digipack like I said I would.
My friend had told me about a perfect place to go, South bank as the Christmas market was being set up and the view of London would be perfect.

Going for the first time, she helped me with the camera settings to take a few pictures, I ended up taking  alot just in case however I did forget to do some in portrait for my advert. Despite this issue I came out with a few decent sots which I really like and will use for my digipack as they look the part.

The second image proved best to be on the front cover, it matches my draft however I wanted her full body in but felt it looked better this way, positioning her by using the rule of thirds.

I am happy with how they came out, however I do feel that I need a variety of scenes and would need to get some more of signs and streets so I would need to revisit this.

 Here I took some I Camden at Primrose Hill, it was really dark so I had to keep changing the camera settings and found the slower the shutter speed the better they came out. Using the night time setting I got this really cool picture of the lights all blurred like little hearts which was rather cute and interesting.

What I've done so far, Pitch

Here is a video which just explains my progress after the summer holidays in what I have done for my music video and what I plan to also add to this.

Production Diary #30

After finishing my rough cut I can see that there is a lot of editing to be done to make it look polished and finished, for example I would need to have a few different transitions rather than just cuts, as looking at other music videos constantly I have picked up on little edits they use and want to incorporate them into my video. For example the scratchy, movement from one clip to the next looking though as it was done in one shot. Like shown in the videos below, I want it to look something like that in the finish.
I am happy about the footage I have got and used as they all work and link in which has made me more confident in, however I have noticed there is hardly any shots of the band looking directly in the camera, which could be a weakness.  However I did say that at some point in the song I wanted to stop it and add in a funny scene which is slightly different I am yet to play around with this to see if it will work because so far it doesn't seem so.

Rough Cut

Below is a video for my rough cut I have just put together as part of my music video. I have not edited any of the footage as it was my first proper time playing around with adobe premier pro when constructing a music video. I had learnt how to render, and export the video to it's right size through youtube tutorials. I have also cut 10 seconds off the intro and a whole chorus out to make the song shorter as it was originally 4:10, it is now 3:35, which is a progressive start. However I did find some difficulties when doing this as the intro sounds a bit rushed it, but I can overcome this with being more precise when cutting the song, I may in fact keep the intro as this helps to build the music video as I also found another problem was that I couldn't fit all of the footage I wanted to. Looking at my storyboard I had found that my shoots were too slow so I needed to speed them up in order to get all of the right footage into the video. Despite my problems with this I think it overall came out how I wanted it to, There is a clear narrative which is easily followed throughout the video ad it actually looks like a real one.
I need to remember to change the exporting settings next time as it firstly came out in a quareish shape which was not what I wanted.

Production Diary #29

Researching previous magazine adverts and digipacks, I have now a very clear idea of what I am going to do. Most of them follow a basic theme and colour theme throughout, in which I have with being in a city alone at night. I will take this idea and place it into action, as now I am going to take pictures at various locations to see what works and what doesn't.
I haven't forgotten about my music video yet as I am working on the editing, right now I am just playing around with the colour correction to see if it will all fit in or if I should add filters to make it look neat.
I plan to start my draft this week.

Existing Digipacks

Location contract

Location Contract

Call sheet

Call sheet

Exsisting Magazine Adverts

Production Diary #28

I have just finished doing my draft for my digipack and magazine on the computer. It had been really fun to do actually and find the pictures for, I found that tumblr proved the best for this as I found the best pictures which suited my advertisement the most, but now is the hard part in actually taking these pictures myself. I already have my model who is my friend who will come down and find locations with me. I was thinking of Northolt hills, as they are very high up and show the scenery of the busy motor way, as well as the city. Primrose Hill in Camden, as it shows the beautiful view of London and would be magical at night. Camden lock as its always busy and lit up with lots of colours, this could be used as well for signs for the back of my digipack. I just can't wait to go and actually take these pictures.

Magazine draft

Here you can see that I have come up with an idea for my magazine advert. I am basing my advert and digipack on the theme of city's and being alone. It has taken me 1 week to come up with this final idea, as I got my insporaion from a long journey home on a bus at night, I was passing through central London with all of its beautiful lights and busy cars passing by, and thought "I'm a long way home, but the city's so pretty." It then hit me that this would be perfect to use for my music video coursework as by band is called Alone Tonight, in which i had felt, the album being called "A Long Way Home" ties in well with the music video as they are constantly on the road, traveling from one city to another, being a long way from home. The music video also does have the theme of travel and cities at night, in which I think this advertisement is going to be very strong indeed.

Surfing tumblr for ideas, I had stumbled on some of the most beautiful photos of cities at night and people wondering about alone, I came across several in which I loved and hope to replicate throughout my own photography.

Currently I am looking for these locations, as I have an idea of using Camden Lock, but not too sure.

Both my digipack and magazine advert are linked together as they both show the bus city life and how one can feel so alone and lost. This is just my first draft and I already have so many ideas, but before I progress I am going to ask my target audiences what they think through the use of social media.

Editing Software

Planning for Magazine advert and Digipack

I have just drawn out my first basic draft for my magazine advert and digipack. Here you can see that it is very basic as I a not a great drawer, but have shown what I want it to look like.
The main theme on this one was someone being alone in a big city with a suitcase traveling home. I have also looked at basic layouts of how they look and tried to copy it throughout mine. A lot of rock adverts use the whole page with their picture rather than just a small picture. This creates a more realistic theme and also ties in well with my idea of a busy city at night. I'm not too sure on the sizing and placements of things as when I actually do my first proper draft on the compute this will be more accurate along with the font. However The ideas are there and I am really proud of what I have come up with.



This is my draft for my front cover of my digipack. Following the same theme of a city at night from the magazine advert this one ties in with it as it will be the same model sitting high above on a hill or something, watching the city fade to night. The ideas all link and follow the same, lonely, lost theme of being away from home and trying to find your way back, again linking in with my song, so when you see my music video, it will have some link with the album and advertisement.

Not being very good at drawing, the picture is of a girl sitting alone at night looking down at the city view, the title and the album name sit in a faded circle, highlighting this. I've seen this done before on  many other digipacks and thought it would form to the conventions.

The back of my digipack again follows the city style, as I will take a picture of a road sign which will look like this, having many arrows pointing in all directions, each arrow will have the title of the song included in the album, again tying in with the themes of a city, lost and along, not knowing where to go.
It maybe hard for me to find a sign like this as they are old fashioned and hardly seen around, but if not I will compromise and either edit one together or take another picture of a sign in the street.

The background would be a faded, blurred scenery of the town at night with the street sign in full focus, along with the bar code and other record label information at the bottom.

Production Diary #27

I have just had a brilliant idea on what to base my digipack and magazine advert on.
Today I was coming home from a gig pretty late and decided to take the bus back, whilst on the bus it broke down a few times and the traffic was hideously large, so I found myself sitting there thinking. I then looked out to see I was in central London, where I saw the beautiful view of shops and buildings and cars all lit up in the dark sky, it was so beautiful to look at. It then hit me  that this would be perfect to use for my music video coursework as by band is called Alone Tonight, in which i had felt, the album being called "A Long Way Home" ties in well with the music video as they are constantly on the road, traveling from one city to another, being a long way from home. The music video also does have the theme of travel and cities at night, in which I think this advertisement is going to be very strong indeed.

However the only trouble now is putting these thoughts into pictures, I am going to do a draft and try to find a picture which matches the thoughts I have.
So excited and can't wait to try this out, I hope it all goes well!

Photos from filming

Here you can see that I have taken some pictures of the band whilst I was filming. I did not get a chance to get any of me actually filming the band because of the hectic environment of the set also it being short, I wanted to focus on getting the footage, i have many more photos from the gig which can be found at Alone tonight gig

I have just chosen a few to show you to prove that I was there actually filming this band.

Proposal

Actor Release form

Here you can see that I have got the band to sign this form to prove I have their permission in using them and their song in my project. I have also then signed it to show that this is me.

Production Diary #26

Now it's time to take a loot at all the legal things I need to consider. I have got my band to sign the sheets in which allow me to have their permission to use their song and them in my music video in order to avoid copy right and illegal claims against it. Also taking into account of good consideration of the health and safety factors, you will find posted recently on my blog, I have looked at them and found ways to avoid any harm to the band, people around me and also myself. Whilst filming I have used this helpful table in avoiding harm, as it has actually been useful, pointing out each thing to the band, making sure that they are aware also.

Risk Assessment sheet

Risk Assessment sheet

Alone Tonight's NEW MUSIC VIDEO

Check out the bands latest music video!

Production Diary #25

Reviewing my footage and just cutting small parts up into a short taster of what I have done and what I want to use in my actual music video. You will find this in the 9 minute video below, by doing this It has given me more ideas as to what to do in my video and how to make it interesting, I have previously reviewed a shot list you will see below which is pretty detailed with what type of shot, and what happens at what part in the song, this will then also match my storyboard, however you will see that there are some alterations in each, as my ideas have expanded and broadened whilst making each one. I now have a clear idea on what I am doing and plan to stick to these plans if all goes well.

Shot List

SHOT LIST

Summary of Footage/ Original Footage (unedited)

Which song to choose?

Here are two print screen examples of how I went about, asking people for their feedback. I knew who my target demographic is and thought the best way to get their opinion on a song would be to target them through social networking sites. I asked a few other friends on facebook who I know like the same genre as they will know what they are talking about the best. As with twitter, I follow a lot of teenagers with the same genre of music as me, this allowed me to get a much wider choice

of people who would reply to it. I shortened the songs down to two which would really fit my music video and help create a narrative along with it.

It came down to me choosing the first song "Lullabies & Alibi's" which I originally

choose as I got hooked on the intro its self. The fact that the into is 40 seconds helps to add tension to my music video and helps to build it up gradually, as this way it is catchy, and sticks to my audiences mind.

I also found that  alot of people agreed as they liked this song because of the catchy starting into, as well as the breakdown which kept chaning the tempo and beat, making it more interesting than the first one.

Production Diary #24

As you can see that I have made great progress in the final edit of my music video. I have now chosen the exactly clips I want to use and how long I want to use them for, in the video above you will a few clips of my footage that I have taken, this is just a rough idea on them as my overall footage goes over to an hour. It was hard to cut it down at first but then I realised that I had a lot of repetitive scenes which I could replace as easily.
Also you may have know I had a bit of trouble choosing the song, as I was torn between two of them, I finally put it to a vote, asking my target demographic via social networking sites such as twitter, facebook and tumblr. I then made a tally for each vote and found the "Lullabies & Alibi's" song to get more votes, I also liked this one better and finally landed on that. Each song had good elements about it, so I had to weigh out the pros and cons and see which one would do an overall better job for a music video.

Analysis of Song lyrics

Schedule

Scheduled by toystorybr0

Alone Tonight NEW SINGLE

Just a little update with my band, they have just released a new single in which you can buy on iTunes now the link is just below, if you wanted to have a listen or a browse about them.
NEW SINGLE 

Give it a review, drop a like, comment or rate.

Production Diary #23

Before starting my edit to the video I have made sure that I do in fact have the right to use the song, as spoken about before with the band they have allowed me to use any one of their songs as they currently do not have a video for any. Which is great for me, as it will be original and also if they like it they can use it for their own commercial use. I am happy that all of my filming has been done, but sifting through it I have found that I have filmed way to much, I have over hours of footage but this is not a bad thing, it just means I am more prepared than I though.

I was also thinking about making another scheduled as the first one I had stuck to well and everything had been completed, the only reason why I want to make another one is because I have quite a lot of other gigs lined up, in which I could possibly film some more footage, as you will find from the last date of my scheduled I have tried to put this in, but there are no exact dates as yet. I am feeling even more confident now.

Contact with the band

As you can see in this print screen I have not breached the copyright to the song , but ask them for their permission to use it before I start to edit it with my footage. I went onto Alone Tonight's facebook page and found their contact details to email them as they are currently not signed to any record label, I would have to directly contact the band and their own management team.

They in fact replied to be and said that this was all ok for me to do no matter what song it was, and they were also excited for the final video as they do not currently have one for that song, they may use mine if all goes well.

Raw footage of Locations

Production Diary #22

As you can see, I have just recently been collecting all my footage together and presented it back to show you what I have done and where I have been, because I got to film so early, all of my planning has been completed, but I still need to add to it, I will be regularly posting bits from my planning work up day by day, as soon as I've finished editing with it as some have changed due to my filming.
You can see a brief glimpse of my footage shown in the raw location video, and also the pictures of where I had shot at in three different locations, Sheffield, Newcastle and Guildford. I had also got some scenes from Camden Town which may be of interest to include.
But I just thought I would update you and tell you that I am well ahead as to what I had originally expected and am already picking out bits from my footage which I think can go into the final music video.

Props List

prop list

Here is just a brief list of things that I have taken into consideration whilst filming, as most of the props listed have been provided by the band as they are using them all the time. I have included nearly all of these when filming, making sure I have got different angles and zooms for each one to make sure I have variety within my shots, also highlighting its key importance.

I didn't actually need to have a lot of props as what you see in a live music video is what you get, the stage and crowd were my props to making the whole thing have a realistic and live feel to it, so my audience will feel like they are actually there.

Photographs Of Location

Progress report

Summer is now over, and i've had a 5 week holiday to do all of my research work. I was pretty happy that I got all of it done because it gives me a lot more time to focus on my filming and actual planning of my music video.
I finished all of my research then started to think about filming. At the start of the summer I knew that I was going to film the main part of my music video as my band will be going on tour however, the band I originally had backed out after a few weeks so I then had the trouble to find a whole new one in such a short space of time, at this

point I wasn't worried as it was still the summer and I had enough time to get a new one. Looking through my facebook wall, I found a band called "Alone Tonight" who I had seen live before a year ago, I also noticed that they were going on tour this August and thought it was a perfect opportunity to get a new band as I could just go on tour and film throughout.
So I messaged them and they replied almost imminently and said yes, I was glad that they were so on-board and keen to film. This gave me a week to make sure everything was in set, I planned to go to three of the tour dates as they were all in London or near and easy for me to access. However I found the London date was an over 18 show which I could not attend, and the one after that was on results day. This just set my schedule back a bit but not by too much as there were still four dates of tour left. I managed to attend the Guilford date on the Friday, and had prepared what I was going to shoot before hand, I had a rough storyboard of what I would do and would stick loosely to it, as gigs don't always turn out how you expect them to, anything can happen.

After I had filmed I got home and started to look back on my footage, with most of it, I was highly happy with the quality, shots and angles I got, however I felt that it wasn't enough to fill the whole video. So I spoke to the band again, and they told me their last date, which was their home town would pull a massive crowd, so I decided it would be in my best interest to travel all the way to Newcastle to film the final part. Before going I made a list on my phone what shots I would get and how I would get them to make sure that I got everything for this show.

It was perfect, as going all the way to their final show was so worth it! I got a solid 10 minutes of footage which was perfect quality and acceptable to use for my music video, the problem now was I just had way to much footage, but more is better than less. I shifted through all the footage and deleted any irrelevant parts and selected the ones I liked the most that I could use.

Now I am back at sixth form and starting year 13, I have a few goals in which I hope to achieve by November.
Within this month I want to have completed most of my planning in order to proceed forward to my music video editing. I want to finish this and also start to edit my music video, play around with the software and get used to it.