GIFs

A GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) is a bitmap image format that uses a group of pictures in order to create a looping video. GIFs have become very popular and are very easy to create through websites like Giphy. GIFs are a good way to promote something in this case a band. Bands might have GIFs created of them which is audience participation which is a good audience promotion as the band doesn't have to promote themselves as the fans do it for them.  

There have been websites like Vine which in a way takes inspiration from GIFs as Vine was where people could create a 7second video and post it. But as times change and technology changes Vine have said that they are discontinuing the app. Quote from Medium "Today, we are sharing the news that in the coming months we’ll be discontinuing the mobile app." 

DIGIPAK #5: Update inside cover

Having discuss and though a bit more about the digipack we have decided to not use the picture of the guy looking at the sun as the back cover but instead have it as the inside cover going over both pages.

Doing this gives us the opportunity to edit other images inside the bricks and also have word be slanted following the wall.

WEBSITE: Links

On the website we have created a bunch of links so it is easy to navigate through the website. Through research we found out that the most common amount of links to different pages on the website is 6 and so we created 6 links as well. We research artists websites that are popular now and have been to narrow it down to how many links, for example Charlie Puth has 6 links that direct you through the blog. Then there is an older band such as AC/DC that has 8 links. The links we have are BMTH (Home Page), Merch (Shop), Tour (Upcoming tours), Gallery, The Band (Info on band members), and News (new videos we upload and other info). AC/DC also had a link for Fan Mail but we decided not to use that as we didn't want to have to many links and we prioritised the other links.

We decided to go for the word Merch instead of Merchandise or Shop because Merch is more appropriate for our audience. Through our research we found most websites have Merch as it is slang and therefore fits more with our age demographic which is young adults. "Bullet For My Valentine" is one example of a band the used Merch instead of Merchandise or Store.We also have links above the page links, these are links to different sites such as social media. The links are to Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and Spotify. We will add a Facebook link later as we couldn't create the link on the school system.

Instead of having a Home button we went for BMTH instead. The reason for this is because this was used in other websites of this genre such as Bullet For My Valentine. 

WEBSITE: Merchandise

For our website we created a merch site. In the merch site you can choose to buy merchandise that we have created for the band Bring Me The Horizon. Bronwen created the logo for the band as well as created the merch. At the moment we have six different merch items, 2 iPhone cases (black, white), 2 T-Shirts with a heart on it (Black, White) and 2 T-Shirts with the logo on (a small logo and a big logo). The reasons for using iPhone cases is beacuse most people own an iPhone and cases are very useful and because they are so small and cheap they are very often bought by fans.

Here you can see what they look like on the merch page.

When you first open the merch page you will see the six different products you can buy. When i am in the editing tool I can add new good or edit existing ones.

This is what the editing tool looks like.

When I click on a product it lets me add new or more pictures of the product and rename the product.

I can also change a lot of other things such as the price of the good, if the good is on sale or not, if the good is Out of Stock, the size on clothing and more.

PODCAST #11

SR

Script: 

Hey all, this is our 11^th weekly podcast, this week we have focused mainly on working on our website, digipack and our social media. Kristian and I focused on the website. We put up the merchandise that Bronwen created and I created texts for the band bibliography and the introduction of the website. Furthermore, Bronwen finished creating the band logo, which we intend to put up on our social media next week. Also, next week we intend to speak to our band members for a re-shoot of the performance scene. We discovered that we had a lot of shots that we couldn’t use due to a camera being in the shot or shaky footage. Therefore, we will re-shoot the performance shoot in January.

SR: Audience Feedback #1: Follow You

This is the first audience feedback that we got for our first draft of Follow You, it is only a 40 second clip and so the audience couldn't give that much feedback and said that the narrative wasn't clear yet.
UPDATE: Our audience feedback was also one of the reason's why we decided to change our track and idea. Some audience, including ourselves, didn't like the big difference in colour between the depressing narrative and the colorful performance.

EDITING: Colour correction

The colour correction was used in the lyrics video to make a specific colour stand out while the footage was black and white. The effect resembles that of the movie Sin City where the movie was filmed in black and white but some vibrant colours where shown.

I created this effect on Adobe Premiere Pro as there is an easy effect that helps you with this on Premiere Pro.
I found a video on Youtube that helped me create this effect:

DIGIPAK #4: Back cover

For the back cover we are thinking of using a photo that we captured when we where filming the narrative.

The photo is of the singer facing the sun, with the sunlight hitting the camera creating lens flair over his shoulder. We will edit this photo using photoshop to change the colour along with the other photos we decide to use.

The other photos we are planning to use we will have to take later on, this was the only picture we already had which we think will look good.

UPDATE: From feedback we where given this picture would work better as an inner panel as it gives opportunity to edit other pictures in the bricks and also have words be agains the wall.

SR: Rough Cut #1: Follow You

This is the first 40 second rough cut that I edited together. As Kristian mentioned in his post there is some footage that we can't use due to the camera being in the shot or other reasons. Unfortunately, I tried to see if there was some footage we could use, but didn't find any useful parts.

SR: PRODUCTION SCHEDULE update #3

This is the 3rd update of the production schedule I created and updated. It includes the tasks that we have completed so far, and the ones which are still to be completed. I always like to use color coding since it gives me a great overview of what still needs to be done. Unfortunately there is a big gap between the last task from November and the tasks in December. However, this is due to firstly difficult of coordination of the group and meeting up, since we all live in different parts of the country. 

Furthermore, we have been focusing on setting up the digipack, logo, website and our social media accounts, which we are each individually in charge of. Bronwen is in charge of our Instagram, Kristian and I are in charge of our Website and I am in charge of our Twitter. The Facebook page is something we split between the three of us. 

Production schedule Update 2 from Sophie2401

SR: CALL SHEET

This is the call sheet I created for our music video. I decided to do it a lot in depth, since this was one of my main targets this year - to do the call sheet better and be more organised in order to get a larger variety of shots. Personally, I believe that we were successfull with this task, since I brought the call sheets everytime we had a shoot. This allowed us to look exactly at what we had planned out and what we had filmed so far and hadn't filmed yet. With the simple use of color coding with blue for performance, yellow for narrative and orange for other events that required special equipment such as the balloon scene, we were always up to date on what to bring and what to film. 

I also believe that the call sheet contributed to the fact that it took us less time to film on the spot compared to last year, where we first had to discuss the shots on the scene of the filming. Furthermore, the amount of technology used on all the days of the shoots was great. We used 3 SONY Cameras and positioned them differently, 3 tri-pods, 1 Go-Pro and Kristian's Drone to film some drone footage. However, the drone footage was mainly for mise-en-scene purposes. 

I wanted to do this post after our shoot, in order to reflect on the effectiveness of the call sheet and what I definitely have improved on from last year. 

Call Sheet for Follow You from Sophie2401

LYRICS VIDEO: Draft #1

A lyric video for the song Follow You by Bring Me The Horizon put together using the footage we filmed for the performance shoot. It was edited using Adobe Premiere Pro, and a three way color correction was used to have the footage look black and white while still showing the color blue.

Improvements for draft #2:

• Sync the footage.
• Colour correct: use red as well to clearly show intertextuality to Sin city. 

PODCAST #10

SR

Script:

Welcome to our 10^th weekly podcast. This week we had our mock exam, so besides looking more at sample footage, there was mainly revision going on. Also, we didn’t manage to shoot the color powder scene, due to a lack of actors showing up. Hence we will try to film it on the 20^th of December. This week, we intend to create a full rough cut 1 with the narrative and performance together. I suggested that we for each week Friday create a rough cut, which we take turns on creating each week. Therefore this week it is my turn to edit rough cut 1. Also, we then intend to film audience feedback every week, in order to be able to provide evidence of our journey. This week we will be looking at our website and the creating of our merchandise. Furthermore, Bronwen will be creating our logo, which we will then photoshop and put up on our social media. I will be updating our production schedule and creating a post on call sheets and our social media.

FOOTAGE: Narrative Rough Draft #1

This is a very rough draft of the narrative. There is still a lot of editing still to do this was just to get feedback on what was good and what can be improved on.

Improvement's:

• Before music starts edit to the beat
• Remove shaky footage
• Might use layering (0:18)
• Use layering where one half of the screen is empty/out of focus
• Experiment with filters
• Don't have female protagonist on screen for to long, might ruin the immersion
• Experiment with having two of the same person on screen (eg 0:28 have him stand next to himself)
• Shot the drop through editing

Notes:

• Intertextuality to Blair Witch Project at 0:23
• The singer is not glamorized and due to this audience can identify 

DIGIPAK #3: Design

Here are some ruff idea of what the first idea is for the digipak. The front cover is of the singer holding an umbrella which is intertextuality to the real album that we are creating a digipak for where the logo is an umbrella the location of the band im not sure where to place but in this design it is on the right next to the medium close up shot of the singer with just the initials of the band (BMTH).

The back will have a long shot of the singer standing in a tunnel with the sun hitting the camera creating lens flare, The name of the songs in the album will be in the center going down the back. The font is not yet final we will do more research on that in a later post as well as the costume the singer will be wearing in the picture.

When you open the digipak there will be pictures of the band members in different locations with different filters on the picture. In the border of each picture there will be the initials of the band (BMTH). The CD will be in-between the covers so we can have a separate design for the cover. The costumes the band members will be wearing will also be experimented with but will be of the same concept as the performance shoot.

JP: Stabilizer

The school received some cheap new 3 axes gimbals for the media department. While they aren't as high quality and professional as a Steadicam, they cost about 10x less than one. A real Prosumer Steadicam Solo starts at around €300. These can go up to tens of thousands of dollars for professional film making.
For our needs in school the €30 AFUNTA Pro should do just fine. Kristian (a fellow student) and I began playing with and learning how to properly use and balance the gimbal. We made this short video on how to setup and use the gimbal with some test footage.

PODCAST #9

SR



As Sophie has been off school, she was the one to record our vodcast today. Before recording, Bronwen and Sophie went over everything we had done and wrote a script, which Sophie then recorded using Final Cut. 

Script:

Welcome to our 9^th weekly podcast. This week we each looked at our sample footage that we have filming over the past 3 weeks. Bronwen and I edited some footage and in our group of 3 we concluded that we need to shoot some more footage of the narrative, to show more of the relationship between the female and male protagonist. Furthermore, we looked at the digipack this week and decided that we should do individual photoshoots for each member of the band. Kristian also worked on our website to get it up and running. We decided to split the work between us by having Kristian and me looking at the website, Bronwen doing our band’s Instagram and Facebook and I will be running our Twitter account. 

Next week we will shoot our color powder scene, which is going to be the audience interaction in our music video. Also, we intend to film the missing narrative scenes and work more on blogging on digipack, merchandising, audience and website.

Performance Shoot Problems

This video shows a few of the shots we filmed for performance. These shots are shots that we can't use because there are either cameras in the background or the footage is to shaky.

• The first clip the camera is clearly visible and the camera isn't to shore where to focus. We do have footage from this angle where these problems are fixed. 
• The second clip the footage is to shaky and the camera is tilted which in some cases could work to get a message across but in this situation it doesn't work.
• The third shot was filmed with a drone and therefor was hard to film with when I was the only one with experienced with flying but I am in the band. The problem was that one of the band members are hard to see and the drone moved which resulted in cropping out half of the other band member. I think the drone footage would be good to have as it expands the use of technology and can look very good if its done right. 
• The last shot was filmed with a GoPro. Most of the GoPro footage can be used but this shot is to shaky.
• In the last shot the drummer is seen smiling which is not what we want as we want them to be sad and angry. 
• The things we really want to avoid next time is shaky camera, bad framing, and smiling.   

BV: Gun Footage: Why we won't be using it

For our music video, we decided to film 2 different endings, and choose which one to use after filming both. 
We have decided to definitely not use this ending- Where the main character pulls a gun to his head and there is a fade to black- As we thought it would be too problematic. 

Violence in music videos is less more common and tolerated than it would be in Film. Because of this, we decided to decrease the amount of violence in our video. 
To add to that, a violent ending to the video would restrict where it would be shown, (For example, certain TV channels may not want to show it), therefore giving our video less views and opportunities, specifically with our young adult Target Audience.

Using Final Cut Pro X, I edited some of the gun footage together. We shot this on two separate occasions (once without tattoos, as a practice, and once with)