Evaluation

Music Video Fourth and final Draft

Here is the final draft of my music video task. Overall I am happy with the improvements that I have made from the last draft that was made and I have tried to do what I was told would make the video look much better. This final cut includes a lot more cutaways so that the video is much quicker and flows better along with the music.

Music Poster Advertisement Fourth and Final Draft

This is my final draft for the music poster advertisement ancillary task. I was told by my teacher to make the text at the bottom a lot more clearer so that the audience could understand it. I therefore made it white and changed it to a clearer font for the audience to see. Overall I am happy with this as my final music poster advertisement draft. 

Digi Pack Fifth and final draft

This is the final draft of my Digi Pack ancillary task. I have corrected the layout so that it is in the correct order and have also added a spine to it. I also added the record label to the digi pack so that it looks professional. Overall I am happy with this as my final draft. 

Teacher feedback for music video

I have shown my teacher my third draft of my music video and I have received some more major improvements. She said that I need to make the video a lot more fast paced so that it fits well more with the video. To do this she said I need to shoot more cutaways within the video so that some shots do not need to last as long. I will hope to achieve this for my final draft.

Music Video Third Draft

Here is the third draft of my music video. I have a made few changes from my previous draft which was explained in my last editing post. Overall I am happy with the video that i have produced over the course of the year so far however it could still do with some improvements. 

Music poster advertisement third draft

Here is my third and draft of the second ancillary task which is to create an advertisement poster which advertises the album. I created this all in Photoshop as I think this was the easiest tool to use to create what I wanted for this poster. The main changes made to this draft from the previous one is that it has been updated with my final Digi-pack front cover, which includes the rain effect added that I mentioned in my Digi-pack final draft post. I also made almost all the text the standard font that is a recurring theme across the project so that the audience can connect with it, I also think it looks good. I made the name of the artist and album much bigger on the poster as well so that people understand what it is and remember the name. This strategy was used a lot on the posters that I researched and so I thought it would be a good idea to do the same. Overall I think I still need to change the font so that it is more visible to people.

Digi Pack Fourth Draft

Here is my fourth draft for the Digi-pack ancillary task. I think that this is a good fourth draft because I have been able to create all the sides for the draft in a cohesive manor where it all fits well together to a point where I am happy with it. The front cover has remained the same from the previous draft however everything else is new. I decided to take screen grabs from the actual video and put them as artwork for the digi-pack because it then feels like the album is alive and that it all connects well together and the audience can identify themselves with it. I used a blurry photoshop filter on the bottom three pictures to give it a more artsy feel and I thought this fit well within the synth-wave music genre. I again used the same font and style for the song titles on the back of the Digi-pack as this helps keep the running theme. I chose the song titles based on the music-genre and thought that they fitted well with what the music video also presented. Overall I am happy with this draft so far and hope to add the final improvements in my next draft.

Editing the digi-pack/poster - rain effect

One of the main features that I added to the final draft of my digi-pack and advertisement poster was the rain effect on the front cover. This was all done using features in photoshop by using lots of different techniques to create the illusion that there is rain on the image.

The first thing I did was duplicate the background layer to create a backup of the original image. I then created a blank layer on top of these because this is where the rain effect would be added. I then filled this blank layer completely black by using the paint bucket tool. After this, I added a noise layer to the black layer and adjusted it to 150%. After this I then added the Gaussian Blur filter to the noise to create a bit of blurring that would make it seem like actual rain and it only needed a slight amount so I made the radius 0.5. I then used the levels tool to reduce the amount of noise and increase its contrast so that the rain would be more separated and not dotted around so much that you cannot see the original image. I then used some motion blur to adjust the noise to look like rain by blurring at an angle of 60 degrees and made the pixels distance about 50. After this was done I just needed to re-do the black and white sliders in the filters tool and thats how I created the rain effect.


Here are the images of before and after these effects were applied:

Third video shoot

Today I went and shot the final shots that I needed for my video. These shots needed to be done as they conclude the whole story to the whole video as these are the ending shots. These shots included me getting out of the car and walking away and also some additional and alternative shots of me in the car which I would like to add to the video. I think that it was a successful shoot as I managed to capture everything that I wanted to and so I now hope to edit these final shots into my video to create a final draft for the entire video.

Music video second draft

Here is the second draft of my music video product. So far I am happy with the additions that I have made from the previous draft which include new shots. However in future drafts I still need to add transitions between shots and in also a black and white filter to certain shots, to bring the story to life. Furthermore, the audio also needs to be matched with what is happening on screen because as of right now I am not totally happy with how it fits in with the video. 

Editing second draft

Today I had another editing session where I started to edit the footage from the second video shoot that I did the other day. The footage used was done so to create the second half of the video and would start to shape the main ideas behind the video. I am pleased with the shots that I have included however it is still at a basic stage where I still need to create a black and white effect for some parts of the video and also provide good video transitions between takes as I discovered in my research that lots of music videos do this. The audio also needs to be fitted properly with what is happening on the screen which is crucial to a music video and so I will work on this on the next draft.

Below is a screenshot of this editing session where you can see me previewing the shots in premier pro and then putting them together.

Main inspiration

My main inspiration for deciding to create a music video based around the elctonica/synth wave genre is the work of musician 'Kavinsky' and the film 'Drive'.  Kavinsky is an artist who is in the centre of the synth-wave frenzy and has created songs that really motivate me to create something similar.

The video is a music video for the synth-wave song 'Odd Look' by Kavinsky. It demonstrates a lot of the style that I would like to incorporate into my own music video. This includes the music itself as I find the whole theme of someone driving around with this kind of music playing very interesting. The idea of it also taking place at night also fits in well with what I would like to do as I think it plays in well with the music genre itself.

Above is the trailer for the film 'Drive' directed by Nicholas Winding Refn which also serves as a huge inspiration for what I would like to do in my music video. The main aspects that have inspired me about the film is the soundtrack which contains a lot of synth-wave aspects and so fits in with this theme especially with again the idea of someone driving to this music. All these inspirations are why Ia m deciding to go along with this idea that I have and so will use these inspirations to help create my own unique product.

Digi Pack Third draft

This is my third draft of my digi-pack ancillary task. I have now added some more visual effects to the front cover to have a good impact on the audience. I have added a rain effect to the front cover of the album to give it a more darker look as I did receive some feedback suggesting that it was too colourful beforehand with all the bright background colours and so I have compromised with this rain effect. I have also added the name of the artists song I am using now that I have the rights and have also stylised the font with one I downloaded called 'Haze Dark' which I really like and will be the font that is used consistently across all the projects because I think it really connects well with the synth-wave genre. However I still need to create the other sides of the digi-pack which will then hopefully give me my final draft.

Second video shoot

Today I went to shoot footage to create my second draft for my music video. I went to the shoot knowing the feedback that I received and so I re-shot a couple of scenes where the lighting was not particularly great. One of these scenes was where I got in the car and so to make it brighter we went to a different location to get better light and use some different angles. I also shot the second half of the video which was very important as i need to know if I have got the timings right for how long my video will be.

This time around we did not shoot from inside the car as we have now learned that you can sometimes see the person filming in the shot. We instead shot me in the car from the outside. This also enabled the video to be a bit more flexible and fluid rather than having the same shots over and over again. In addition to this the shots of me walking were easy to get lighting for because the location we chose was already well lit at night time and so this went very well for us. Overall I am happy with the progression that I have made and hope to edit these shots soon.

Teacher Feedback

Today I showed my video to my other teacher Mr Michie. He stated that he liked the music video however the main improvement that he suggested was that the pace needed to be picked up right after I got into the car. This is because he felt that the video slowed down when the music started to pick up. One of his suggestions to improve this was that the car should be driving off immediately after the lights come on. He also suggested that the camera work needed to be improved in order for the video to sustain its atmosphere. I will take these improvements on board for when I go out and shoot more footage. 

Feedback from music video first draft

Today in class we presented the first drafts of our main tasks. The main objective of this was to gain feedback from everyone for what was going well with the project and what needed improving. This will help me in improving my project when I go to re-shoot it in the future.

The main strengths that I received were that the music was interesting and kept the audience engaged with the video and fitted well in general. This is very helpful to me because I now know that I am on the right track and the idea is intriguing to some extent. Furthermore, people said that the editing of the shots and transitions between them fit well with the music. This is good because I know that I should keep editing the video like this as it seems work very well. It was also suggested that I used a good range of shots in the video such medium shots and close ups which is good because this keeps the audience engaged with the video itself along with the music.

People have also suggested a lot of improvements to the video that could be made to make it a better music video. Some of the main improvements that have been suggested our that there needs to be some colour correction in order to make the shots look good and effective and night time. It was also suggested that some of the shots were held for too long and so i need to try and create some more shots to maybe keep the viewer interested. I also got a lot of feedback suggesting that the colour of the title makes it hard to read and so I should think about maybe changing the colour or increase the spacing between the letters to make it much clearer to the audience. Some also stated that it was hard to see the narrative/purpose of the video and so maybe I should work on trying to improve the way the narrative is told and to try and give the character more of a purpose.

Music poster advertisement Second draft

This is the second draft of my poster advertisement for my digi-pack. I have kept the same layout from my first draft as from my research I think this works best in terms of an advertisement poster. I have mainly tweaked the colours of the poster and have also added the updated version of my digi-pack to the poster. I think matching the font and colour of the digi-pack is essential as from my research into posters and digi-packs this is how artists create a brand for themselves and so I have chosen this route as well.

Digi-Pack second draft

This is my second draft for my Digi-pack ancillary task. I have made the image a lot more striking in its appearance by changing the background to a purple and blue smoke. I have done this as I think it suits the theme of the music video and the whole synth-wave genre. I have also changed the font and made it pink to make it stand out more, however I still feel that I could change this a bit to suit the overall theme of the music video and the genre of music. I also still need to create the other sides of the digi-pack to expand on what I have already done.

Music Video First Draft