Ideas for our CD cover

Jon has discovered a couple of sites which show how Adobe Photoshop can be used to create stunning images for the CD cover. He thinks that one of the best is an image of the words as a "meteor shower" as this is dramatic and stands out from many other CD covers due to its 3D effect. The trailing shower of sparks give the impression of words entering the Earth's atmosphere and burning up there. Our text would use the words "Ash Shark" in reverse order with the word "Ash" burning up first and disintegrating into dust. Above is the image from: http://psdtuts.com/text-effects-tutorials/create-a-spectacular-flaming-meteor-effect-on-text/ showing the final version, created using Adobe Illustrator to create the text and Adobe Photoshop to create the effects.

Roughcut Editing

Jon's thoughts about editing our roughcut:

1. we had problems uploading the track into final cut express. as a result we had trouble editing in time to the music

2. we had a temporary "work around" which was to play the music on iTunes at the same time as we did the editing

3. we managed to synchronise the narrative footage to the music using a variety of transitions e.g. by using fade ins/fade outs and slowing or speeding up certain clips of film

4. because we had to allow gaps in the video where performance-based clips will be inserted, the rough cut at certain points appears to be disjointed.

Digipack

Whilst researching for designs I (Jon) came across this site (http://psdlearning.com/2008/07/cd-cover-design/) which describes in detail how to use Photoshop to design a CD cover.

As they say on the site:

Some useful methods of enhancing workflow and efficiency are shown like using smart objects. The image we are creating will be in the style of some of the Ministry of Sound CD’s. We will explore a creative use of the displace filter in order to distort some of the image.

This is an interesting site which asks some ppl to "visualise" music in colours and shapes. These may produce interesting graphics for the CD cover:

http://justcreativedesign.com/2008/05/10/how-to-design-a-cd-cover-by-listening-to-music/

It also linked to this site which used Photoshop again for design:

http://justcreativedesign.com/2008/05/10/how-to-design-a-cd-cover-by-listening-to-music/


Some of these tutorials are very interesting and we could make use of their suggestions to improve our graphical design for the digipack.

Digipak

A ROUGH SKETCH BY JON OF THE A4 ADVERTISEMENT




Digipak is a trade name. Digipack is a better use. What is a digipack?

Digipacks are a type of CD packaging made out of card stock or other heavy paper/cardboard material. Digipacks can flip open like a book, or it can have three parts, so that one portion of the packaging opens to the right and one to the left, with the CD in the center portion. Usually, the portion of the digipack that hold the CD is made of plastic like a traditional jewel case CD - the plastic part is simply attached to the paper background.

Digipacks were first created by MeadWestvaco, and their product, called Digi-Pak, is trademarked. However, as the format became more popular and began to be used by more manufacturers, the generic "digipack" came to be used to describe all soft CD packaging.

Digipacks have pros and cons:

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They look nice, and many bands and labels like to use them for aesthetic reasons. The three section digipack sleeves opens up more design options because there is more room. However, they're more expensive than traditional liner notes and jewel cases.

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Digipacks don't crack like jewel cases do, but they will rip and eventually the paper begins to peel apart and separate.

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The trays in digipacks break much more often then in jewel cases. There's not as much protection since the outer portion of made of paper, so the teeth that hold the CD in place crack and fall out easily.

*

When the teeth of the tray does break in a digipack, the CD falls out of the bottom of the digipack, because unlike jewel cases, there is nothing to hold it in.

*

Digipacks can be more environmentally friendly than jewel cases because they can be made of recycled paper - however, they aren't always in fact made in this way.

From:http://musicians.about.com/od/ah/g/digipacksleeve.htm


So, the design will be important to attract our target audience. We also need to think about the A4 advertisement.

Jon recalls Ed Lovelace's visit to Long Road and two of his videos that show that budget does matter.

For example, with a budget of £100, you get:




But with a budget of £40,000 you can have:



So, we must be realistic about what we can achieve.

Video of "Arcade Fire"

Jon thinks it would be a good idea to follow something along the lines of the Youtube videos "Wake Up" by The Arcade Fire:










These videos have features we might want to include:

1. part of our video will be a live performance, so the Glastonbury video may be relevant

2. we could be influenced by these videos in our style of filming, such as using different camera angles (perhaps using more than one camera, or editing to give that impression). I think we could use pan and zoom features of the camera to give us material to link together such as wide angle and close-up shots

3. the transitions also need to be obvious as they are in these videos where band members change instruments e.g. the front drummer/tambourine switching to the accordion.

Rough Cut Analysis

Sadly we didn't get filming finished in one day, so we shall make a start on the editing process. Because some of the shots were badly executed eg. in one the camera bag is visible, we may have to rerun some of the shots. The editing may take some time, especially if we want to include some stills and CCTV footage. We will need to investigate if we can use CCTV footage due to (a) privacy laws and (b) copyright.

Thoughts on filming

Jon thinks that the following were problems:
1. As shots were from similar angles, there may be a lack of variation;
2. The camera batteries ran out, so we could not finish filming that day;
3. Location (CP) was quiet, so it may appear unrealistic as we wanted a busier setting;
4. As it was a bright day, we may not have created the ambiance we wished.

On the other hand:
1. Our planning worked well on the day;
2. Even though CP was quiet, this was an advantage in that we were not distracted too much by the public.

The Initial Shoot

We feel we'll only need one shoot for the narrative, but after the rough cut we'll decide on whether we'll need some more shots. The group ended up choosing Thursday 15th October as the day for the initial shoot of the narrative base for the music video. This was convenient as all of the group have a large gap in timetabled lessons and can spend time at Coleridge Park doing the shoot.

We hope the day will be clear and there will be no precipitation, to help with the limitations of our shooting. We have also agreed that three of the group will wear hoodies, as discussed in the 'Props' post. Using the story board that Rob composed and the ideas and influence we have gained over our research period, we hope we can gain a variety of shots that we can use for the video. We have also been advised to take a large amount of shots to help with editing later on. In this particular bit of the video, there will be no lip syncing, so no music playing devices will be needed.

Locations- The Final Choice

After looking at both possible locations (Coleridge Park & Midsummer Common) the group decided that Coleridge Park (or CP for short) was the best available option as a location for the narrative based side of our music video. We weighed out the pros and cons of the two and saw that CP was;

1. Closer- easier to access at short notice and easier to get to on a college day.

2. Quieter- Midsummer Common (MSC) would be more busy as it is a walkway into the centre of Cambridge and a busier area would be harder to film in.

3. More suited to our needs- CP is an area more suited to the conventions and ideas behind our video.

4. More Intimate- A more intimate enviroment adds to the whole tone of the narrative.

CCTV Idea

Jon thought that we should incorporate CCTV style clips into our music video, which would be in keeping with the tone of the video and, in a sense, the social comments we are trying to make. As a group, we decided that this would be a great idea and that it would be an interesting feature of the video.

However CCTV is, understandably, hard to obtain and hard to imitate, but we'll try to get around this using the college's camera, or, if there is any at Coleridge Park, obtain the footage from the local council.

There aren't many music video which use CCTV clips of youths in their music videos but here are some that use the idea of CCTV as a whole;

The Get Out Clause- 'Paper'

The Frames- 'Revelate'

Target Audience

It is important that the target audience is identified correctly, otherwise the video may become irrelevant to the fans of the music. Our key demographic would be;

-Mainly males,
-Late teens to early twenties,
-Rock/Alternative fans (Groups such as Feeder etc.)

Props

For our music video we'll need certain props of which include;

Performance Based

-Electric guitar

-Microphone

-Drums



Narrative Based

-Hoodies

-Pens for vandalism

-Lighters.

Stills

As well as including performance based and narrative based footage, Jon thought that it may be possible to include still images. The song "Shark" by Ash is a fast-paced song which was why it was chosen to accompany the car racing simulation game, 'Gran Turismo 3'; the most successful car racing program to date. Therefore, to accompany our video we thought it might be useful to include stills of incidents involving cars. One of the most dynamic events in car racing indeed on our roads, is car crashes. To use their images successfully would video short video clips which may have caused copyright or plagiarism problems. However stills of the consequences of car crashes are usually in the public domain and therefore we felt that we would be able to use them with appropriate web references to their sources.

Developed Ideas

After making an attempt at a story board, the group came up with some more, developed ideas which helped get the ball rolling a bit more and give us more inspirational.

Still thinking of the Justice video and the La Haine movie, we thought of the narrative based side of the video. We began to imagine ourselves dressed up in darkish hoodies and intimidating people. Furthermore, we could actually show us surrounding and pushing a member of the public in order to match the aggressive tone of the song. This idea in particular, reminds me of the lyric in the song 'violent mind, violent mind, violent mind'.

Rob also thought that at the very start of the video we would cut from the performance to the narrative showing the three hooded lads lined up in the shot. Firstly the shot would be fairly dimmed, but within seconds it would brighten until totally white. That's when the main guitar riff will begin

He also began to envisage the cuts. He realised that the video would look a lot more professional if we cut to the narrative at a different angle each time. We also thought that it would be good if we could match the cuts to the beat of the song. But we'll decide this during the rough cut.

For more information see the 'Story Board' post.

Location Scouting

It is important that the location for our music video is spot on. So we have gone into precise detail to get the correct locations.

We already know that we are going to use the college stage for the performance based side of our video. However the narrative based side is more complex. This is because we have to choose a location that is both going to look good in the video, stick to the conventions of the genre (i.e. locations seen in videos below) and within reach of all of the group members.

Here are the choices;

1. Midsummer Common, Cambridge.

Midsummer Common looks as though it could be quite good in the evening time. As we learnt from a previous project, we don't have the equipment to shoot late in the day, as most of the shot was too dark and viewers couldn't make out the action. But, Midsummer Common will be well lit as there are many street lamps. This place looks like it fits to our ideas. Its within close-range of the college and will be relatively busy with people who we can ask to be in our film (to intimidate).

2. Coleridge Park, Cambridge.


Coleridge park has the same qualities as Midsummer Common, as it would look like place that hoodies would congregate. Plus, it is just off Cherry Hinton Road, meaning it is very close to college and therefore a great place for shooting.

Influence- La Haine

Jon decided to take influence from the french feature film "La Haine". Produced in 1995 by award winning director Matthieu Kassovitz. The film shows a part of Paris which is often forgotten about- Life on the estates.

Below are a couple of clips he feels encapsulate the movie's link to the group's video;

Mood Board

We decided that it would be good to create a mood board of all the pictures and videos and sounds related to our own ideas;

The Lyrics to Shark by Ash

Head is pounding in a daze
Bruised wrists and your body aches
If you be mine I'll be your mirror
Glide inside pull your trigger

Violent mind, violent mind, violent mind
Violent mind, violent mind, violent mind

I know what you wanna do
We're on the line
I know what you wanna do
Got a violent mind
I know where you're going to
Eyes black and wide
I know where you're going to
Got a violent mind

Hedonistic, narcissistic
Erotic, nihilistic
Pupils wide gonna slide inside
Gonna blow your mind

Violent mind, violent mind, violent mind
Violent mind, violent mind, violent mind

I know what you wanna do
We're on the line
I know what you wanna do
Got a violent mind
I know where you're going to
Eyes black and wide
I know what you wanna do
Got a violent mind

Violent mind, violent mind, violent mind
Violent mind, violent mind, violent mind

I know what you wanna do
We're on the line
I know what you wanna do
Got a violent mind
I know where you're going to
Eyes black and wide
I know what you wanna do
Got a violent mind
I know where you're going to
Eyes black and wide
I know what you wanna do
Got a violent mind

Related Music Videos

Post-pitch we thought of some more videos that we could look at in order to gain some more ideas. Below is a culmination of videos which mirror both the ideas we have generated so far and the style of the music and genre. We won't steal overall ideas off these videos, more aim to emulate the conventions of the genre and the pace of the cuts etc.

The first video is;

Feeder- 'Just A Day'

Blur- 'Song 2'

Our Pitch

We had to create a pitch, as a group, our ideas for what our video would portray.

We decided that our video would include;

• mix of performance and narrative-based footage
  
• performance will include close ups of instruments, dipping out of focus at times
• narrative will include a trio of intimidating male youths in hoodies, walking the streets
• whole performance in black and white
• narrative areas in colour
  

Inspiration

As a group we tried to think of similar videos that would match the the style of our chosen song.

Ali thought of 'Stress' by Justice;

He also had the ingenious idea of when on YouTube, playing our song over Justice's video. We realised that the aggression within both forms of media matched, and that this is what we would work towards.