Blog 15 - Digipack

For part of our coursework it is essential like when records are sold, that a digi pack is made, this consists of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.

Examples of digi packs who are within the same genre as Kesha are below;

Katy Perry's - Teenage Dream This digipak symbolises the music and lyrics of the album as its a background of a cloud which can be related to dreams, she is also nude which may symbolise the change of hormones within teenagers.

Take That - For the record Although Take That are pop/rock, their music and lyrics are similar to Kesha. It could be mistaken that Katy Perry's digipak is a normal cd but Take That's could be mistaken for a DVD because of the different sizes.

Target audience: The majority of Ke$ha‟s fans are female teenagers/young adults, this is clear as she has featured on the cover of ELLE girl magazine and out of a total of 740,000 readers 587,000 of them are aged 15-44. (NRS) Young British females are targeted due to disposable income and high levels of interest in the media and also Ke$ha‟s lyrics and videos can be related to. Ke$ha targets the lower classes D/E as she is a new pop artist which is probable to be liked by the younger generations who are likely to still be in education or unemployed.

This is my first idea, it relates to Kesha with the lightening bolt as she often has a lightening bolt on her face for make up for videos or photos, this will allow the audience to relate the album to Kesha. Also the art on the digipack relates to the name of the album. However the image of Kesha isn't similar to her other albums, as the photo is a long shot showing her full body, I decided not to use this as creating the digi pack to look similar to her other albums.

The inside of the digipack is simple, just including a faded picture of Kesha behind where the CD is held, although on the reverse I will include the lyrics of the song we have chosen 'party at a rich dude's house', this would enable the listeners to interact more with the album, however I believe I could produce more work for the inside cover of the album.

For the second flat plan, I tried to create something that was different to Kesha's usual albums to stretch to a wider target audience, however I don't like the idea of using a bomb on the front cover of an album as this may come across the wrong way.

The inside of the cover would include a black simple background for behind the CD, and another close up of Kesha. This idea is once again very simple and I would like to produce the same level of work inside the digipack as the outside.

This is my final idea, I chose this because I believed the front cover image was very similar to her previous albums, and the name of the album is also similar to something she would name her album, as it is random but has a meaning.

The back of the digipack includes three other pictures of Kesha that I will use to create something similar to the pictures that are devloped in a photo booth alongside this will be the album song list.

The inside of the digipack will be an image that goes along both sides, this will be of Kesha on a stage with the crowd, however I will fade it to enable the lyrics of the song to be seen on top of the image. Here is my finished digipack;

I chose to use this layout as it was very simple and also a close up which both of these elements are what Kesha has used in her previous singles/albums and I believe this will help sales if the album were to be released. The font I chose for 'Spirit' was based around the word 'Spirit' as I believe the font looks quite spiritual and I used a similar font that Kesha always uses for her name.

The back of the digipack will have a list of the songs on the album and I chose to place them in that layout as it was a little different to a standard tracklist. Throughout the digipack I only chose to use 3 colours, as the image used already had vibrant colours so because I wanted to keep the digipack simple and so the colours didn't clash I stuck to gold, black and white.

Here is the inside of my digipack;

The inside of the digipack only contains the song lyrics of the video included, I found that when there are lyrics included in a cd case, that as a listener/fan you feel more valued as the producer has thought about you and that lyrics may be useful for you and an added extra. I kept the colours and decoration the same inside too, as I wanted to keep the style flowing throughout and didn't want use any other colours incase it was 'too much'.

During this task I developed my Photoshop skills from my previous coursework. The screenshots below show the stages of making my digipack;

This is the stage where I was testing out different effects to make the image look more bold and different like Kesha would.

This shows the use of the 'brush tool' to create the background effect of smoke.

After creating my digipack, I asked for some feedback from my target audience, this is what I receieved;

The feedback states that the use of colours are good and the writing fits in with Kesha's normal theme.

Blog 14 - Shooting diaries

When filming we had to remember that there was a chance things may not go to plan and we would need back up plans etc. We chose to film over a weekend as this left us plenty of time incase we had any problems such as the house being occupied by other people. Luckily we didn't encounter any major problems, we did worry about the lighting, this was because we filmed during the day and our video is placed at a party where normally its night time and dark. This meant we had to improvise with the lighting but also be aware that it wasn't too dark as that may make it difficult to see our actress when the video is editted. We didn't encounter any other problems as we made sure before we starting filming that the location was available and empty, and also that we had all our props etc. I felt the filming went well as we both put equal amount of effort into it which meant filming was quick but effective as well. We both took it in turns to be the camerawomen, and the director who told the actress where to position herself and also checked the shot was exactly what we had wanted. We made sure we kept up with our shooting script; writing notes on why we did or did not use the shot we had just filmed, this made it easy when it came to editing the video. Whilst shooting we had to use several effects such as 'blurring' and give the effect that our actress had taken drugs, therefore we made the actress hold the camera (handheld) so that it was from her point of view as well as wobbling the camera whilst moving to show that she had become dizzy and unsteady due to the drugs.

During the filming we used a shooting script, this is similar to a storyboard in the way that it contains still shots of the video and shows whats happening in the shot and the camera movements etc. It also enables us to comment why we didn't use certain takes, this helps with the editting process so we know which takes to remove from the footage.

Here is the first 6 shots of our shooting script;

Blog 13 - Shooting schedule

In order to allow my project to run smoothly I am creating a schedule to ensure dealines are met and the things that need to be done are done on time and properly. As our music video needs more time for editing rather than shooting it, we are going to leave a month for editing and shoot within the first week. The dates are as followed; Friday 21st January - Location recce Saturday 22nd & Sunday 23rd January - Filming

On the Saturday of the weekend, we proposed to film the shots that were similar such as smoking/dancing etc so we got it all done at one point. We chose to film over a weekend as then we would be able to capture all the footage in one go, enabling us more time to edit. In order for us to have a productive filming session we needed to create an equipment list so we had everything we needed, this included; Camera Camera mount (tripod) Tapes Lights Props - Make up, empty bottles, shot glasses, cigarettes, ashtray.

As well as preparing all these things, we made a call sheet so that if anything went wrong, we had all crew members telephone numbers and emails to contact them.

This is the call sheet below;

Blog 12 - Health and safety

As a requirement before filming, we needed to outline any health and safety precautions needed to ensure cast and crew are safe when we are filming.

This included;
Tripping over any loose/trailing cables - to overcome this we would gaffer tape any loose cables as well as have someone holding the trailing cables so its not possible to trip over them.
Confined space - may be difficult to move around in, therefore we would move any un needed items out of the way so there was more space to use.
Access requirements - Although a house is being used, we need to be aware that there may be other people in the house or may be certain days we can use it, therefore we would contact the owner with plenty of time to make sure its accessable and free of anyone else.

Luckily due to our location being inside a house, the list of health and safety regulations was minimal.

Blog 11 - Storyboard and animatics

Before we could begin filming our music video we had to produce a storyboard as this depict all of the shots included and includes notes about; The shot type: for example close up, long shot etc. Camera movement: Static or dynamic Description of action: What will happen in the shot Sound or audio: Opening of the song or prehaps certain lyrics of the song.

Below is the first 24 shots of my storyboard;

We decided to vary the angles and camera movements to create a dynamic video which will attract our target audience as it will be edgy and different, similar to a music video Kesha would be seen in.

We chose to produce the storyboard after filming the video, this is because we hadn't completely planned our video out shot by shot because we thought it would work better if it was spontainious shots.

Blog 10 - Mise-en-scene

The house we will be filming in will be used as the main part of the video for a 'house party', it will include the normal props that are symbolized with a house party, such as music from a stereo system, empty bottles of alcohol, lights, a possible smoke machine to produce smoke, this will create the effect when filming of a party.

For our video we plan to use a friends house and swimming pool, this is because the house is of a similar size to one we would imagine to be used in the video. The swimming pool is sheltered therefore the weather is not really a concern, but the fact that the pool is sheltered adds to the effect that the owner of the house is wealthy.











We will have around 15-20 people involved in the music video which will be extras in the background dancing and socialising. They will be dressed in a similar style to each other, casual but formal clothes such as dresses and heels with standard make-up or jeans and top for the males.
However the character we will use for Kesha will be in a similar style to Kesha, so outrageous clothes and colours, with big hair and make-up for example in this picture;


This will represent the genre that Kesha is from as it is outrageous, bright and different and would be something similar to what Kesha herself would include in her own videos.

The actions of Kesha will be along the lines of Kesha/Lady GaGa's themes, such as un rehearsed, random therefore adding more to the reality that it is a house party, this type of filming will appeal to the target audience as it will feel like they are included and directed at them.

Blog 9 - Pitch

As part of our coursework we had to deliver a pitch to our class and teacher, this created the feeling of what goes into and what has to be done when producing a music video. Below is the link to our presentation that we delivered, we were also filmed and this is also below.

Presentation:
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BxS1If16SbtVODRkMTdlZTEtZDZjOS00YzFmLTkwMjktNGIyNjliODMxOWI5&hl=en

Video:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BxS1If16SbtVNDk3ZGEyODgtMGMzMS00NDI1LWE1ZDEtMThjZjNjODYxY2Ex&hl=en

We included information on our artist to increase the knowledge of the audience and to keep them interacted during our presentation, this pitch may also help the artist achieve popularity with a wider audience. The target audience was also inlcuded along with the socio-economic and demographics to fully establish the audience we are aiming our video to. The genre and the planning of our video was also included.

Blog 7 - Copying an existing music video

In another lesson within the Media Studies course, we are taught Media Production, our teacher is a music producer. He teaches us from using the camera to editing the production and putting it together. We have also worked in groups to produce our own version of the video 'Teenage Dirtbag' by Wheatus, by doing this we all have had a chance to work in the different roles e.g. director, camera man/women etc.

In the first lesson we were introduced to the camera we would be using to film the remake of the existing video and also our own music video later in the year. We learnt how to correctly set up the camera and the tri-pod, and the teacher also reminded us of the angles such as aerial and low angle shots, movements such as panning and tracking etc and depth of field and focus. We can use these to create the perfect shots.

We learnt how to create the right balance in colour in our shots too; this includes white balance and exposure.
White balancing the camera:
Automatic (AWB) - however this can be unreliable.
Indoor setting - a lightbulb picture on the camera
Outdoor setting - picture of a sun on the camera
Manual

Exposure:
Shutter speed - 1/12, 1/50 and 1/1000 (the higher the number, the faster the image.


We spent the next lesson working in groups to produce a couple of shots from the Wheatus video which we would then put together and edit. We were given a storyboard each which included the shot number, shot type, description, camera movement/angle, the location, info on props and costumes and description of the sound, we learnt the storyboard is very important in order to produce the exact shot needed. The roles in the groups alternated but included a main character and around 4 extras in the shot, doing this practically it meant we could better understand the equipment and how to use it and also have a hands on experience of filming a video.

After we filmed these shots in the next lesson, we were taught how to being editting the video on the computer using Final Cut PRO. In order to do this we learnt we had to;
Connect the camera to the computer using a cable called the Firewire.
Turn the camera on and set to VCR playback.
Choose the set up on the computer - which we discussed would be PAL as thats the european set up.
Next we had to set the scratch disk which is where the captured footage would be stored on the computer.
Then we had to capture back the video and learnt we could control the camera using the computer using device control. W
We experimented with timelapsing when editting a video, here is the clip;
http://bb.sdc.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_654_1%26url%3D

Now that we had our shots captured onto the computer we were then going to edit them to make the video flow, we did this first by distinguishing which shots we were to use (as there was many of each shot) we did this using the razor tool on this programme we could select the slot of time that was of good work, so this was moved onto another track- track 2 -seperate to that of the whole video, once all the good shots were seperate to the rest we were then able to delete the poor shots we had captured, this is the assembly edit.

Along with the technology of the camera, the organization of the set and filming is important, this includes the storyboard, clapperboard, shooting script and communication on set.
A storyboard and shooting script are similar in the way they are used to depict all the shots in the video which also have notes about the shot type, camera movement, description of action and the sound in the shot. The shooting script also has space for notes to be taken about each shot and why they weren't used.
The clapperboard logs each take on film, and makes it easier when editing if used alongside the shooting script.
The communication on set is important as it makes the shooting smoother and easier as everyone is aware of what they are doing.

Here is the video of 'Teenage Dirtbag' that we created as a group in class;
http://bb.sdc.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_654_1%26url%3D