Lesson 29/11/10 - iWeb

In this lesson, I worked on the website again. When I looked at the work I did on the layout last time, I wasn't happy with the banner of Aliss on the decks. I found that some parts were blurry, the pictures weren't blended together right and that the colour in some places was not absolute black and so the edges didn't fade out properly. I think the top edge on the right side still needs a bit of work as a straight line is still visible. However, this will be easy to correct with a few clicks of the rubber tool.

Another thing I changed with the layout was the colour of the text 'Daft Punk'. I thought it would stand out better in white rather than grey. In doing this I had to redo all of the splats behind it. 

I plan to add more to both the left and right side at the top and to change the image on the music player to a pyramid.

Cara.

Still to film

- Banana fight
- Ninja 'Look out now!'
- Material movement
- Re-film dancing in performance studio

As a group we decided that the footage we got from filming in the performance studio was poor and so we want to re-film. The problem was that we had to rush filming because we only had 30 minutes to record by the time that the studio was free.

We plan to re-film next on 30/11/10 at lunch. We will then continue to film at lunches until we have finished and at a last resort we will use the enrichment time on 8/12/10 until we have finished what we need to capture.

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So we know exactly what we need to film, we have created a shot by shot plan for each scene as our written storyboard is wrong in some areas because of the decision to not go ahead with the paint fight.

SHOT BY SHOT

Scenes to film:

→ Banana fight

→ Ninja 'look out now'

→ material movement

→ Studio dancing

Banana fight shot by shot:

Banana mushed into HT face / CU / eyeline / filmed from front

HT & EB aiming banana's at each other / MS - 2 Shot / eyeline / Filmed from front

HT face & banana gun (evil) / CU / cantered

EB face & banana gun (evil) / CU / cantered

HT firing gun & knocked back / MS / turned side on to camera or filmed from side

EB dodging by ducking / MS / turned side on to camera or filmed from side

Looking up at HT / LA / tilt up?

EB fire at HT / HA

HT dodge fire by bending right / MS / pan way she bends

HT laughing / CU / eyeline

HT fires (concentrating) & misses / MS / cantered

EB dodging / MS / eyeline

HG banana to EB face / CU / eyeline / pan to...

...HG laughing / CU / pan to...

...HG & HT high five / 2 shot – MS / eyeline to...

...HG & HT Hands up 'hey!'

Material movement:

Dancers lift material to faces / MS – 3 shot / eyeline

waver material side to side / CU / cantered

(HT middle first, EB left, HG right)

waving material to floor / MS – 3 shot / tilt down

moving material around on floor / CU of each dancer / HA

dancers getting up in cannon / LS / eyeline

all waver materia toward camera / MS / eyeline / ZOOM BLUR

Dancing Scene:

Whole dance / LS / eyeline

Whole dance / MS / eyeline

head to side with jumps / CU / cantered

MS pan

Side shots – both directions

Ninja scene:

Ryan running across camera / LS / Pan to dancers until just off screen

Pointing sword towards dancers and lip synching / MS / looking at camera

dancers with scared expressions / MS – 3 shot / eyeline

dancers scatter in different directions / LS / eyeline

Zoom blur of setting

Cara, Emma & Harriet.

Filming 24/11/10

Above are photographs of the location we used for filming today. We thought the setting would fit well with our other footage because of the graffiti in both locations.

I took this photo through the basketball court fence which we have filmed a few shots through. We think it adds interest to the footage.

In the image above you can see our dancers practising the routine. Whilst we weren't filming, coats we're kept on because the temperature was freezing.

With the weather being so cold today we didn't get as much filmed as we had hoped. This means we will film the rest of our music video in the performance studio and edit the colours so they are vivid.

Cara.

Bananas!

A scene in our music video consists of a gun fight. Instead of toy guns, we decided on bananas because it would be a rather funny and conceptual prop. The whole theme for our music video is quite futuristic and electro. To continue with this theme we opted for them to be glittery gold. All the equipment was purchased from Hobbycraft. The process was quite messy, especially pasting all sides of each banana in PVA glue. The slowest stage was evenly covering the bananas in the gold glitter. After each banana had been glittered, I wrapped them individually in silver tin foil then put them in the freezer so that when we film the next scenes that need the bananas, they will be hard and won't fall apart. Altogether, I glittered three bananas; two for the fight and the other one is to be mushed into Harriet's face.

Emma

Filming Planning for 24/11/10

On this date we plan to film at our final location - a park located in Nottingham city centre. The cast we need at this location are:
-Harriet
-Emma
-Becca (Hollie cannot make this date so we will use a different dancer)
-Ryan
-Cara (to film)

We are filming for as long as it takes and plan to capture our scene of dancing outside using the dance we choreographed in the performance studio. In addition to this we need to film the banana fight scene which will be filmed with the masks on that the dancers are wearing.
The cast we need for this scene are:
-Harriet
-Emma

The scene will be filmed in crazy costumes as was in the performance studio and masks from drama.

We will need to film the whole dance from a long shot, mid shot and both side shots as well as a range of close ups from the front, left and right.

From filming last time we learnt that the dance routine needs to be spot on otherwise it looks shoddy. All dancers need to be using full energy and on time. As well as this, we learnt that we need to take our time when filming and careful frame every shot.

For the banana fight we have planned a series of shots starting with Harriet taking a banana to the face.

Cara.

Change of Plan

We have decided that we need to change some of the scenes we planned to film for our video. In particular the paint fight because of its messy nature and difficulty to make look impressive. It wouldn't be appropriate to film this scene in any of our locations because two are indoor (Aliss' garage and college performance studio) and the third is a public space (park in nottingham centre).

In the place of the paint fight we have decided to include more of the UV scene.

The other change we have made is the length of some of the shots. We have done this because we feel it makes the video fit better with the fast-paced nature of the song. Also, some of the shots we planned to film have changed because we thought of better alternatives when filming e.g. The beginning sequence.

Cara.

Website Progress 22/11/10

In today's lesson I created an image to go on our website by using pictures we took whilst filming our first scenes. To begin with, i edited the images to make them look less ordinary by applying the fresco filter and adjusting the colour balance. I wanted them to blend and overlap so the image looks continuous, which i achieved by feathering the edges of the pictures and then using the eraser tool with a splash brush on it. By doing this, the finished result looks rough and i like that the edges are random.
Next time i intend to achieve a smoother line inbetween the first and second image.




Cara.

Fast/slow reverse effect!

PROGRESS...

Here is a screen grab of our favourite shot of the music video. We filmed Aliss (actor) blowing confetti towards the camera on a mid shot. We then edited this on Imovie with "fast/slow reverse" effect and reversed the shot. We decided to reverse it quite fast to keep it in time with the fast tempo and we believe it is a successful, interesting shot. :)

Harriet and Emma.

Filming Session 2 - Performance Studio

These shots were taken from last Wednesday's filming session. The people performing were Hollie Dorman, me; Emma Bott and Harriet Taylor. Filming was done by Cara Wain. The dance was quite complex and fast. We didn't have a lot of time to rehearse and the space in which we practiced was small. We practiced in the girls changing room in the sports hall. The setting where we were filmed was the dance studio in college. We were allowed to use the enrichment period to shoot.

After looking through this footage, we are going to re film this because various elements e.g. seeing gaps in the curtains isn't very professional and it's not the look we are going for.

We have now decided that we are not going to have a paint fight. It's too messy and the time-scale in which we have to film is short. The filming deadline is the 1st December. 

Emma

Lesson 17/11/10 - Website Changes

In this lesson we decided to make the layout of the website wider because there was a lot of plain black on the sides. Also, we included an image that was taken when we filmed at our first location which we then edited to look more futuristic.

Above is the original image taken.

Photoshop was used to edit the image. Firstly I applied a filter called 'Fresco' which made the picture appear to have an outline and look graphically drawn.

The next step was to adjust the colour balance, which I did by increasing the amount of blue and cyan  using the sliders.

The final edited version is above.

I then used photos I took of a crystal pyramid as thumbnails for links to other pages that would be on the website but we will not create.

Cara.

Media Lesson 15/11/10

During the lesson today we started editing our music video using the footage we filmed in half term.

We managed to get the opening sequence done and edited to the beat. So far the only small problem we have found is that the establishing shot is a bit long. However. we feel it is acceptable because it is an opening shot and as long as no more of our shots are too long. If the whole video was full of shots this length it would not fit the song at all.


Cara.

Iweb continued...


To further develop our iweb homepage we decided to insert some pictures from our music video footage by "screen grabbing" u.v shots off imovie of our dancers. We then pasted these onto our temporary pictures on the iweb page.

Harriet.

Location Change

After re-considering our shooting locations, we decided that the street outside college would not fit well with our crazy graffitied garage location. To compliment this, we decided to change from a middle class estate to a run down graffitied area as we thought this would be dominant ideology of the genre.

Above is a map of where our graffitied location is located. It is a park with a basketball court in the centre of Nottingham.


Cara.

Iweb Experiments

THE PROCESS....

1/ To design our Website we began by experimenting with colourful paint splats that we found on Photoshop with a paint brush tool. We then went onto Google and searched for "Daft Font" and downloaded the font and used this to write Daft Punk as a main image. We decided to write this in silver/grey as it gave a robotic feel to the image with links with their electro genre. We believe that this is effective because Daft Punk use this font for all of their advertisement e.g. C.D covers and posters and is well known to national audiences therefore would be immediately recognisable to our audience as a Daft Punk webpage. 

2/ Further down the page we have begun adding more detail for example a link to the tour dates and an audio file playing "Crescendolls" our song choice. We have temporarily used pictures off google images to give us an idea of where we want our images to go, however we are currently in the process of the photo shoot of our actors/dancers which we will replace these existing images with. 

Harriet.

Drawn Storyboard

Above is the sheet where we drew out 4 shots we plan to film and the angle at which they will be filmed.

Emma.

D.A.N.C.E!

.......ROBO-DANCERS.......

For our music video we decided that we would like to have a trio of dancers dressed in robotic outfits dancing in unison (same time) to the beat of the music, "Crescendolls".  We thought this would be a good idea as not only have Daft Punk already done this in "Around the world" with a variety of different costumes succesfully, but because we thought it would provide an interesting location change (in which we are using a dance studio) and would show that we have carfully planned our music video. It will be easy to do as I do dance a-level therefore i am used to choreographing routines plus the dancers i will be using are in my class therefor it will not be hard getting hold of them.

Our main inspiration for this is "Yeasayer - One" who are also in the same genre.

Another inspiration as i mentioned above is "Daft Punk - Around The World" due to the interesting colours and costumes.

 And finally "New Order - True Faith" as the costumes and setting were so futuristic and out of the ordinary!

Harriet.

 

Digipack research

 DAFT PUNK:

Appropriateness of the digipack to the genre:

Cover:

·        Bright psychedelic metallic lettering on CD cover

·        Splodges of rainbow colours

·        The font is their signature style and appears on everything they own.

·        The font is futuristic and looks

·        Stands out on plain black background

Inside sleeve:

·        Monochrome black and white lettering and images.

·        The computers have a “techy” feel to them

·        How to sign up to the “Daft Club”

Booklet:

·        Picture of the band members in their space/biker helmets and futuristic costume.

Mise - en – scene and its meaning/effect:

Front cover:

·        Silver metallic writing Is futuristic and out of the ordinary which links to their electronic style

·        Colourful paint links with their experimental outfits and props.

·        Black background makes it striking and eye catching.

Inside sleeve:

·        Instructions towards entering “The Daft Punk club” in 6 stages.   

·        Written in black and white which is a striking contrast

·        Illustrations of computers to make it clear.

Booklet:

·        Illustration of two people dressed in black bike gear with bike helmets on, in a recording studio.

·        Links with the abstract alternative genre which attracts the audience.

The layout and font and its effect

Front cover:

·        The front cover says “daft punk” in “daft writing” which is daft punks own personal owned font which makes it immediately recognisable.

·        The title is written at an angle in the centre of the front cover which makes it the main image that people will read.

Inside sleeve:

·        The inside sleeve is written in block capital font in white writing so it is easier to read as it is much smaller print.

Booklet:

·        There is no writing on this image. This is to attract the attention to the illustration and style of the daft punk DJ’s.

                   The image and style – how does it sell the artist/band?

Front cover: 

·        Electronic/futuristic image to gain the attention of the audience as it is a unique style.

Inside sleeve:

·        Instructions in a robotic format consisting of computers resemble their image as electronic which matches their electronic genre.

Booklet:

·        Shows the DJ’s in the recording studio, wearing bike helmets, its unusual therefore this makes the audience want to know what unusual music they have created.

Basement Jaxx:

                             Appropriateness of the digipak to the genre

                                                                

Cover:

·        Interesting images, colourful and fun

Inside sleeve:

·        Collective bright images of people, posters, the band. Densely packed full of interesting images links to the exciting up beat music in the electro, pop, alternative genre.

                    Mise - en – scene and its meaning/effect:

Front cover:

-          The front cover consists of a colourful striped background and the name of the band in the foreground. The name is in black and white to contrast with the background.

-          The meaning of this is to show that the band is quite bright, energetic and fun with a poppy-rave style

Inside sleeve:

-          The inside sleeve is brightly coloured with a mish-mash of images. This emphasizes the styles of their songs. Some are more hard-edged and others are more poppy.

               The layout and font and its effect:

Front cover:

-          The layout on the cover is very basic. The title name is centred and easily visible. The font is white, bold, and quite funky inside a black box and works really well against the striped background.

Inside sleeve:

-          There’s quite a lot of text on the inside sleeve. The text is rather small and sometimes hidden by pictures. They look like band posters; the kind you’d see advertised music venues.

-          The layout is quite chaotic but has decent arrangement. This consists of text then people then more text then the band itself. The pictures of the band members are bigger than the rest to clearly show who they are.

                   The image and style – how does it sell the artist/band?

Front cover:

-          On the cover there’s no image of the band so it’s rather difficult to judge the band on their appearance, however, just by looking at the pattern it may conjure some ideas. Someone may look at it and think “the colourful stripes make me think that the band is quite funky and energetic and their songs have an upbeat rhythm”. These ideas would sell to a young adult audience; the kind that enjoys parties and having fun.

Inside sleeve:

-          On the inside sleeve you can get more of an idea of the band’s image and style. The large amount of posters shows that the band is quite famous and popular.

-          The pictures of the band member show that they’re all casual and ordinary people by looking at the way they dress.  

Emma



Digipak Design for Our Music Video.

1/ we would like our digipak to be similar to other artist’s digipak’s within the same genre so that our target audience can distinctly recognise our CD cover as an alternative, electro, experimental CD. However, we would like to be slightly more unique than simply copying the idea’s of other artists by going at it from a slightly different angle.

We plan on having an extreme close up of one of our dancer’s eyes which will be extravagantly decorated with glitter, face paint and false eyelashes. This will be on the front cover surrounded by oval shaped light drawings in different colours and directions on a black background. We plan to have this on the actual CD itself also. For back of the CD we would have 1-5 track titles in block colours against a black background along with 3 U.V painted faces on the left.

For the inner sleeve we would take a picture of a prop we made which was a paper masher, red painted button saying “Start Daft Music” which links with the artist name “Daft Punk”.

2/As I explained above the mis – en – scene will be colourful and eye-catching; our desired effect for this would be a futuristic quirky CD cover that will attract our target audience.

3/ We plan to use “Daft Font” as Daft Punk use for majority of their writing style. This is so that our audience recognise immediately that it is a song by Daft Punk.

4/The use of light drawing is extremely futuristic which is what daft punk is related to. The “Start Daft Music” button resembles an electrical process in which when the button is pressed the reaction will be music playing, we believe this links to the electro style and genre that Daft Punk posses.

Harriet