Upcoming Filming Session

We are next planning to go and film next Tuesday, this is because all of us in the group are free and the weather report has given good weather which is what we have been waiting for. We are going into Liverpool Centre to film at the Pier Head so it is important that we have good weather for this shoot because it is outside in open space.

Artist Logo/Header

This lesson I used Photoshop to create our artists's logo/header that will be used on our poster and album cover. We have looked at DJ logos and headers and noticed that most of them are just the name of the DJ and they look mostly plain so I have created these two based on what we have seen from looking at similar artists.

Out of the two we have decided as a group to go with the bottom draft because we think that it is a lot better than the top and it stand out more because it is bold. 

Contacting Revealed Recordings

This morning, I sent a message to Revealed Recordings to ask for their permission to use Hardwell's "Young Again" for our music video. I have done this because there are copyrights in place which means that we have to ask for permission for use of this song. 

If Revealed reply I will post this on the blog at a later date.

Filming Update

Today, me and my group were supposed to be going into Liverpool City Centre to continue our filming at the pier head. However, the weather today is not good as it is raining and it is very dull outside therefore meaning we have had to call filming off for today and reschedule for another day when the weather will be better.

First Day of Filming

On Wednesday we went out for our first day of filming. Here are a few photos from whilst we were out on location in a local park. This was a successful shoot and we got some good clips for our video. We are going to go back out and film next Wednesday in Liverpool City Centre. These images were taken whilst filming sections that we are going to use in the first verse of our music video.

Time Lapse Clips

Here are 2 more clips from when I was out in Liverpool tonight. I have used the same Ken Burns effect on these videos to get the best out of them. I went and filmed these clips based on our original idea of using time lapses throughout our music video.

This video was taken on the Dock Road in the middle of Liverpool.

This one is from Queen Square Bus Station.

I went out with one of my friends who is a photographer which gave me access to better equipment and I also had someone to discuss ideas with as I was not with my group on this particular day.

iMovie Technique - Zoom In

This is a time lapse that I did in the middle of L1 shopping centre earlier on tonight. This shot was good because I used a tripod to keep the camera stable but to make it look better I am going to add a zoom in effect. This is the video with no effect put onto it.

 

 To do this, open up your video in iMovie, highlight the video that you are using and click on the crop option above the preview.

Next, click on the Ken Burns option that comes up. You will then get a white square appear in the preview window. This will add the effect as your video plays. You can move your start point to change when the effect will take action. Adjusting the location and size of the white square will affect the zoom by choosing how far in it will go and to where in the video it will focus.

This is the same video with the Ken Burns effect added.

Photoshop Technique - Filters

Original Image

Painted Effect 

This technique is very short because it does  not involve layers like the others do, this is a very simple effect that can be done by just using filters. This particular filter that I have used has allowed me to make the original image look like it has been painted.

Album Cover Analysis

Here are a few examples of album covers from different artists in different genres. Each have their similarities and differences in style, colour and content.

This is Amy Winehouse' "Back to Black" album cover. This was a massive album for this artist and is her most popular from her career. The album cover is very straight forward as it is simply a picture of the artist in front of a blackboard. I assume this has been done to represent the "Black" in the title. The font on the cover gives the artist and album name, this font has been created for this artist as it is unique and is not featured anywhere else. 

Although this cover is simple, it manages to stand out and strongly represent the style of the artist.

This album cover is the newest Daft Punk album. This cover is again very basic and has the name of the album on the front in a signature style. This is something that we could possibly do for our artist using hand drawn images that we can scan and edit in Photoshop if we chose to go with this style. The main image is a divide of the two masks that the artists are known for wearing. This is likely why the name of the artist is not on the cover because it is instantly recognisable by the target audience of the album.

This is the "I Am Hardwell" album from Hardwell. Because I know this artist and this album I know that the space theme of the album comes from the name of the songs in it such as "Spaceman" and "Apollo". The album follows a space theme throughout so the cover has represented this well. The cover also features an image of the artist, the artist name and the album name. I like this album because it represents the music of the artist which is unique and fans of the artist will recognise this theme as a style of the artist and his music.

Finally, this is one of the most famous album covers created. This is Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album. This was the third best selling album of all time and this has also become one of the most famous album covers created. This is very different to the other covers I have mentioned because it has no text on the cover so there is no artist or album name advertised.

I have read about this album cover online through different forums and websites from other people's views on it. One of the views I read gave the idea that the use of the spectrum of light sown that the band is well educated, but can also be contorted to show a view of life. This idea says that life starts off straight and then everything changes (Represented by the refraction of light).

Other people think that it could possibly represent love or government. This could have been the idea of the cover all along, to get people thinking about what it could mean. 

These are the sources that I got this information from:

http://turnersmusicvideoblog.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/album-cover-analysis-dark-side-of-moon.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon

http://music-and-art-45.hubpages.com/hub/The-Meaning-of-Pink-Floyds-Dark-Side-of-the-Moon

Filming Locations

Today, I was in Liverpool City Centre. While I was there I took some photographs of different locations that I think that my group could use for filming our music video at. Liverpool is an iconic city with a lot of recognisable scenery that I think would allow us to create a very unique video.

This is the Pier Head.

This is outside the new slavery museum.

This is the Albert Dock.

This is along the waterfront.

This is near the Echo Arena/Liverpool Eye.

This is the dock area of Liverpool.

These photos have been taken around the dock areas of Liverpool. These are the more famous parts of the city and have been done up over the past couple of years so everywhere looks modern with the old buildings keeping the heritage of the city. I think that the mix of new and old scenery will highlight the lyrics of "Young Again" by showing the different generations of the city in the same place.

GoPro Filming

For our project we are looking at borrowing a GoPro camera from one of our friends. We are doing this because a GoPro camera will give us a lot of flexibility with the style of our video. A GoPro is a waterproof camera which is often used for action sports but because of the mounts that are available for the cameras it will be very easy to shoot first person footage with. 
Liam came up with the idea of trying to get hold of a mount to hold the camera to my wakeboard to see what footage we can get from me riding and seeing whether this would be a suitable idea to use in our video. I have looked at GoPro wakeboarding clips on YouTube to look for filming ideas and to see what it looks like using different angles and I am going to see what I will be able to do with it next time I go riding.

We have chosen to use this type of camera because they can film in 720p and full 1080p. There is also a GoPro app that we will be able to use which will allow us to control the camera and also stream the videos straight to our phones which will make clips much easier to sort out and edit. They also have waterproof housings with them which will allow us to take the water shots that we want.

This is a short video of wakeboarding footage filmed on a GoPro. This video shows first person shots which we would be able to use once we get hold of the camera. It also shows the quality that we will be able to film in which I think is very suitable for our music video.

Photoshop Technique - Flaming Text

In our lesson yesterday, we were taught another Photoshop technique which was to format text to look as though it is on fire. Above are print screens of the PowerPoint that I created whilst I was creating the flaming text and it is a step by step guide to explain how I created this effect. We are learning various Photoshop techniques so that we have a wider range of options when it comes to creating our posters and album covers. Although this effect looks good, I do not think this is something that my group would use because it does not really fit in to the genre of dance music. However, the same technique can be used on images so this is something that we could experiment with to see if we could make it work. I will try to create my own flaming image to see what sort of style I can expect to find from it and try to make it fit into our chosen style.

Mood Board

This is a mood board that I have created for the genre of dance music. I have created this to represent the styles and events that can be seen within this genre. This mood board features a range of genres and logos that fans of this genre would recognise, but acts as a model of the genre to people that are not too aware of what it is like.

I have created this mood board because the song that we have chosen comes from this genre so this will give my group's audience an idea of the sort of styles to expect from our music video and will hopefully give reason to some of the choices made in filming ideas and locations used.