PODCAST #23

SR

This is our 23rd weekly podcast. This week we focused on media theories for our written exam and started planning our evaluation questions. Bronwen worked on getting the digipack done, whereas Kristian worked on trying to include the newsfeed on our website by downloading several templates. I created rough cut 16, which should be a final cut next week. Next week, we will also film for our evaluation questions and we intend to have a final version of our entire package including digipack, video and website. 

SR: PRODUCTION SCHEDULE Update #12

This is Production Schedule Update 12, which I created. In this production schedule I added several  dates for rough cut 14, 15 and 16 and I changed the date for the final cut to the 4th of April.

Production Schedule UPDATE 12 from Sophie2401

SR: Rough Cut #16

This is rough cut 16, in which I worked on the fast paced sequence when the first beat drops. I put the narrative in black and white because it focused too much on the shot, since it was so much brighter than the other shots used. The next cut will be a definite final cut, since our audience feedback from our teacher was that everything was good except for the fast paced sequence in which I should make the takes longer rather than 4 miliseconds and I should take out the dark shot of the wood running sequence, because it made it look as if I had cut it to black in final cut.

Evidence of Directing

Here are 3 scenes where I direct, we did have some more shots of me directing the "Follow You" song but I coudnt find the footage.

Podcast #22

This is our 22nd weekly podcast. This week I edited together our rough cut 15 and we got audience feedback for it. Also, we filmed some more narrative with our female protagonist burning the pictures of her and our male protagonist Wayne. And I included this in our music video. Also, we focused on getting our social media accounts done, so I created some more posts and Kristian will try and include this social media on our website next week so that our website will be done as well. Next week we will all be working on Evaluation Questions and Bronwen will work on getting the digipack done, and I will try and get a final cut done.



SR

SR: AUDIENCE FEEDBACK #11: Rough Cut 15

This is some audience feedback that we got for our rough cut 15. The video was said to be pretty much done and our teacher argued that all that still needs to be looked into is the fast paced sequence. Also, another student said that in the fast paced sequence one shot was standing out too much, which might be because of the difference in lighting of the dark performance and the bright narrative.

SR: Rough cut #15

This is rough cut 15 that I edited after having gotten audience feedback from our teacher. In this version I have tried to achieve good instruments verisimilitude. Also, I have focused on the points my teacher mentioned in the audience feedback such as removing the layer behind the flickering effect and trying to layer the pool shot onto other shots. However, the pool take was too short and so I couldn't put it over 5 shots. Therefore I decided to put it in as a separate shot and not layer it.

SR: Reflection on Narrative Shoot #3

Kristian and I filmed some more narrative scenes, after having gotten audience feedback that our narrative was a bit thin, because we didn't have enough scenes of our two character's so that our audience could get to know them. 

Overall it went really well, we wanted to include some more scenes of them being happy together, which we did by filming some scenes of them cooking together and smearing cream on each other's faces. It was quite hard to film, because the actor's autmatically moved out of frame, which meant that we had to film 3 scenes in total and they had  but in the end we managed.

Also, we wanted to film some scenes, where our female protagonist burns the pictures of her and her "boyfriend", because we thought that the slap scenes weren't enough, since it is only a few seconds long and we wanted there to be more emphasis on the breaking up and the negative side of their relationship, since we thought it would also link better with the dark metal genre.

However, one problem that we experienced was that we were not able to film the burning pictures  and the cooking scenes at the same day, because it became dark quite early and we had to film the footage of the burning pictures outside, so that our female protagonist could throw them onto the concrete. Also, we had to print out the pictures first, which took some time.

For the polaroid pictures, we asked our two actors to take some selfies of themselves with out phone after, which we printed them out as the sterotypical polaroid picture. We chose polaroids because we would be able to attract a young female audience, due to the resurgance of polaroid pictures lately. 

SR: Rough Cut #14

This is rough cut 14 in, which I included the footage of our female protagonist burning some pictures of her and the male protagonist. I think the next cut will be our final cut.

SR: PRODUCTION SCHEDULE Update 11

This is production schedule update 11 in, which nearly all our tasks are now complete, except the final cut. One change is that I have added a date (24th of March), of when the Final Cut should be done. 

Production schedule UPDATE 11 from Sophie2401

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK #10: Throne Rough Cut 14

This is some feedback we got for the rough cut 14 from our teacher. If these are done, then the next one should be the final cut. 

remove flickering effect on the fast paced sequence

1.16 the fist seems a bit too much, try to layer with something else where he is not singing

1.20 try and put the cream fight in slow-mo and keep the pool shot layered until 1.26 

1.35 reverse the shot of the singer jumping and the singer running 

1.44 cross-cut the shot of the layered guitarist

SR: PRODUCTION SCHEDULE Update #10

This is update 10 of our production schedule, which shows that we filmed the narrative scenes and created rough cut 13, but will film more narrative scenes of burning pictures on Tuesday the  21st of March and upload rough cut 14 with this new footage

Production schedule UPDATE 10 from Sophie2401

SR: Rough Cut #13

This is rough cut 13, in which we included the new narrative footage that we filmed on Thursdsay the 16th of March, as stated in Production Schedule UPDATE 9. Besides the new narrative there are no major changes to it and we will film our female protagonist burning the pictures on Tuesday the 21st of March as stated in Production Schedule UPDATE 10.

Podcast #21

BV: DIGIPAK: Front Cover Final Version

This is the final version of the front cover.

Below you can see a vodcast, which I created, in which I explain how I created the final version in Adobe Photoshop. I edited the vodcast using Final Cut Pro X on our Mac's in school. While working in Photoshop, I took screenshots along the way, using cmd alt and 4 so I could select and control exactly what I was taking screenshots of.


I used my phone to record the audio for this, imported it into final cut and layered it over the images. I chose to do a vodcast rather than screen record as I plan to do a couple more screen recordings when doing either the back cover or inner panels.

BV: DIGIPAK: Front Cover Draft 8

This is a vodcast i created which will talk you through how I created the Final Front Cover of our Digipak. I edited it using Final Cut Pro

TECHNOLOGY: Polaroid Pictures

After they break up we wanted the female protagonist to burn some photos that where taken when they where together. We wanted to burn Polaroid pictures as this was more fitting for a couple stereotype. We got the actors to take selfies using an iPhone 6 which we filmed them doing. Then to get the Polaroid pictures we printed them out using a Bluetooth Polaroid Zip Instant Printer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKda-8GlY_A

SR: New Merchandise

Today I created a new T-Shirt for our website. At the beginning when we wanted to create Throne we wanted to include a wolf in our music video. However, we quickly discovered that it would be really hard to do and therefore I decided to add one on the T-Shirt with the lyrics "You can throw me to the wolves", as a reference to the lyrics.
The wolf I got from tumblr from someone who had drawn it. I thought it was the ideal picture because it was combined with grey and blue colors compared to loads of other wolves that were drawn in pencil or with pink reddish color.


Below you can see a timelapse of how I created it.






This is a screen recording I did, while creating the T-Shirt, it was also a fundamental Tutorial of how to use the basic tools of Photoshop.

SR: PRODUCTION SCHEDULE Update #9

This is the 9th update of the production schedule, which I created. 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. 

After last time it has changed quite a bit. First of all we have changed the name of our rough cut 1 draft 1, draft 2, draft 3 etc. to seperate rough cuts, now being called rough cut 1, rough cut 2 etc. 

Secondly, we need to film more narrative footage still, so we have put that into the production schedule as well for Thursday the 16th of March. Due to this the date of the final cut (17 March) might now be 21st of March instead. 

Besides that rough cut 10, 11 and 12 were completed on time. 

Production schedule UPDATE 9 from Sophie2401

SR: Rough Cut #12

This is the 12th rough cut of our music video Throne. In this video I have changed a few slight things such as layering a shot behind the fast paced sequence from 53 seconds onwards. Also, I have added a black and white effect on all of the narrative footage.
This could be a final cut, however the narrative is a bit thin and therefore we will be filming more on Thursday as I will also state in production schedule UPDATE 9.

SR/BV: DIGIPAK: Back Cover Draft 2

This is a whole new version of the digipack, since my teacher argued that the digipack draft 1, was a bit clumsy compared to the front cover, I decided to try out the smoke anyway. I also added the track list, record label and barcode, which you can see in the timelapse below. It shows the entire way of how I created this version of the back cover.

Below you can see a timelapse of how i created the back cover:

BV: Digipak: Final Draft

This is the final draft for our digipak. I used a digipak template that i found online and copied it into photoshop.

I created the spine using this template rather than in a separate document. The spine was mainly inspired by the spine for "The Resistance" by Muse. 

I had the spine running from the front cover. This was because the main three examples that i looked at had this feature. 

I felt that it would also flow better from front to back rather than the other way round. I did not add our logo onto the spine however, as it features on the front cover and i thought that the name of the band would suffice for the spine. Our spine is also a very thin spin as we only have 2 inner panels, and digipaks with 3 inner panels would usually have a larger spine. 

SR: Rough Cut 11

This is the rough cut 11, which I edited after having gotten the feedback from our teacher on rough cut 10. I believe that rough cut 12 will be the final cut.

Audience Feedback 9: Throne Rough Cut 10

Today, we had a special session in school, where we were able to show our newest rough cut to our teacher. I showed my latest version, which is rough cut 10 and got the following feedback:

• Add some narrative scenes into the fast paced sequence in the middle of the track when the beat drops 
• The layering of the band member in the happy couple scene at 1.15 minutes looks of, try to use a green screen shot instead of the performance shot from the woods for both layering shots
• The protagonist should fall into the pool at 1.20 instead of 1.19 so that it is 100% cut to the beat
• 1.27 minute when he beats his arm in the air should not come back up again during the same shot maybe later by splitting up the pool scene 
• 1.38 layering behind the guy maybe band or narrative/ pool shot?
• 1.41 again layering something different e.g. pool shot
• 1.33 different shot the second time he stands with arms looking like cross e.g. pool OR slow-mo running
• 2.09 balloons - take away balloons and put in pool shot
• use the water take more than once in the slow sequence
• dream effect is too much maybe try sepia/black white
• connotation he is drowning he is dying and he is drowning in his own memories
• more bass shot of drums
• crosscutting of drum shots

SR: Rough Cut 10

In this rough cut 10 I have changed quite a lot of small details but also some big ones.

Firstly I have layered some shots onto the narrative part where our couple is still happy. These shots on the left both had really good opportunity for layering, because there was a lot of empty space in the frame. I think the layering is better in the second shot than in the first one, because there is more movement in the first shot, which makes the layering look a bit off and therefore I will probably try to use another shot also to evidence some more shot variety. 

However, if we get audience feedback saying that these shots are good, I will leave them the way they are now. 

Another change to Rough Cut 3 Draft 1 is that I have put the fast paced sequence that was at the end of the music video when the beat dropped, I have put that in the middle of the music video instead after a beat drops there, because I thought it looked more fitting. Than towards the end I added some more fast paced editing of shots cutting to the beat, which is one of the 6 features of a music video (Andrew Goodwin Theory) and I think it works really well.

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

I have tried to achieve full lip-syncing verismilitude in this draft, because that was argued in the audience feedback that it wasn't synced enough. Since, it is one of the common conventions of a music video and one of the first things the audience notices is if it is not in sync.

BV/SR: DIGIPAK: Complete Digipak Version 1

This is the first draft for our complete digipak. Bronwen used a digipak template that she found online and copied it into photoshop. 

The feedback we got was that the front cover (hand), was good, but that the back looked quite clumsy in comparison to the hand, so Bronwen should change it. We thought we would then do a back cover with smoke, which I have done a post on. 

The feedback from my teacher on the inner pannels was that the image doesn't look like one flowing image, so it would be better to have a single flowing image. He suggested we use a shot of the male protagonist when he is in the water, just so the picture isn't so bare, or maybe layer a band photo onto the pool shot. 

Bronwen created the spine using this template rather than in a separate document. The spine was mainly inspired by the spine for "The Resistance" by Muse. She created that the spine was running from the front cover. This was because the main three examples that we looked at had this feature. She felt that it would also flow better from front to back rather than the other way around. She didn't add the logo onto the spine, as i features on the front cover and she thought the name of the band would be enough for the spine. Our spine is also very thin, since we only have 2 inner panels. Digipaks with 3 inner panels would usually have a larger and thicker spine

Audience Feedback 8: Throne Rough Cut 9

This is some audience feedback that we got for out rough cut 9. It was posted on March 3rd, but we asked the Year 10 students to give us feedback the Friday the week after again, because it is good practice for them as well moving on to their IGCSE's.

PODCAST #20

KO

This week we started rough cut 3 and we are getting close to a final cut, we’ve added a few new special effects like layering. Bronwen also created many different drafts for the front cover of the digipak and we all decided on one which we tweaked a bit by adding a Parental advisory sticker. We also got audience feedback for our 3^rd rough cut draft 1. Next week we will hopefully have a final cut and have a updated lyric video. We also hope to have a close to finish if not finished digipak which we can add on the merch store on our website.

SR/BV: DIGIPAK: Back Cover: Smoke

For the back cover, I wanted to include some smoke with color or anyway since our audience feedback argued that the draft 1 was very clumsy, if you compared it to the professional looking front cover. Color is also a big part of our music video, so it seemed like the right thing to do. I tried it out with the colors that were in our music video and then I also used the color tool on Photoshop to try out different colors. 

I liked each individual color. However in the end I decided to go for the grey smoke, because the neutral color scheme of it, fit better with our genre and the conventions of rock. 

SR/BV: DIGIPAK: Inner Panels Draft 1

This is the picture that we wanted to have as our inner panels in the digipak. Many of our viewers of the music video also liked this shot, since it is just very special due to the natural appearance of the bubbles and the waves. Also, I added an effect on all the pool scenes called Tint, in Final Cut Pro X, so that it wouldn't look as baby blue as the normal pool. 

SR/BV: DIGIPAK: Back Cover Details

There are several things that have to be on the back cover and spine of the digipacks. These include the record label, the copyright symbol, the track list, the barcode, a QR code and even if necessary a parental advisory explicit content symbol.

Bronwen found a website called barcode generator, where she could create a barcode and a QR code. This was very useful since she was able to create a QR code that would immediately link to our website, when scanned on a smartphone for example. The website also allowed her to type in what she wanted under the barcode, so she typed the usual random numbers in that are under a barcode and added 4 big letters B, M, T, and H for Bring Me The Horizon, which gives it a little extra something, since it becomes more individualised to our own band. 

SR/BV: DIGIPAK: Back Cover Draft 1

After having looked at an example from Muse, as you can see on the left, I decided to try and do something different for the back cover of the digipak rather than the smoke. I liked the blurry, black and white look of this picture and thought it was good, because you see the band members in the left side and then have the possibility to have the track listing on the right side and the barcode, record label etc. below the tracks. Also, I liked the color on the black and white, which I might want to do because then there would still be an element of color on our digipack. This is something we really want to have, since the color powder in our music video plays such a huge role. 

Using Adobe Photoshop, I came up with this version of our digipak. However, our audience feedback didn't like it because it didn't look professional enough. Bronwen, had created the front cover for the digipack first, which our teacher really liked. Then he argued that compared to the front cover this wouldn't be a suitable back cover since it looked a bit clumsy and not professional enough.

SR/BV: DIGIPAK: Back Cover: Research

Doing research about this is necessary, so that I could create a good digipack that achieves versimilitude, and that I would know where to put every little detail such as the barcode, the record label, the tracks and the other CD details. 

For the back cover, we did some research, looking at several back covers from different bands including Artic Monkey, the 1975 and Bring Me The Horizon themselves. 

The one example from BMTH's "That's the Spirit", as you can see it on your left included 11 tracks, the barcode at the top and the record label and copyright details at the bottom. Since our digipak is going to include all of their best tracks so far, we are going to use tracks from each of their 5 albums. The thing that would make the most sense would be to use the songs that have the best hits. We are also going to create our own names for some tracks and invent new tracks, because fans will then be more likely to buy the album. Old albums with old tracks have already been used, so we should make the digipak as if we are trying to access the market with a new album, that fans would buy.  

We thought that this back cover is a bit too simplistic, because it is just black. Since we are using colored smoke in the music video we might want to include some either colored smoke or some grey/white colored smoke. Bronwen might also try to use some color effects on the smoke, which I will be doing another post on. 

DIGIPAK: Inspiration (hand)

For our digipak we looked at other band in all genres for inspiration. I thought that the CD cover for Kaleos A/B could look good. The cover is of an x-ray of the 4 band members hands.

This also reminded me of a movie cover for "Identity" (2003) where you have a hand print and each of the fingers is a character in the movie.

Some ideas we could do for this is having one hand in the front with the logo of the band in the middle of the palm and have the faces of each band members on the end of each finger. We could get the hand print from scanning a hand and printing it out and the rest could be done on Photoshop.

Audience Feedback 6: Throne Rough Cut 6

This is some audience feedback that I got from 2 year 12 students. One of them was Emilie who is the female protagonist, which was very interesting since I wanted to hear what she thought of the result of all of the hours spent on filming.

AUDIENCE: BBFC Music rating

BBFC stands for British Board of Film Classification. They choose the ratings for physical movies, online streaming movies and music videos. I will be discussing the ratings for Bring Me The Horizons music videos and how this effects our audience as well as how they decide on the ratings.

BBFC was responsible for the music video ratings for videos created by the big 3 music company's (Sony Music UK, Universal Music UK and Warner Music UK) and their release in the UK. Later on they also started ratings for Indie music videos.

Unlike movies that have 6 different age ratings music videos only have 3. They dont have the U, PG and R18 ratings for music videos as this is not necessary. The ratings appear on Vevo online and on YouTube.

 The BBFC get send music videos by record labels that will be released online in the UK,  and are expected to receive at least a 12 rating. The issues the BBFC consider in classifying music videos include:

• Drug misuse
• dangerous behavior presented as safe
• bad language
• sexual behavior and nudity
• threatening behavior and violence

For more information about the BBFCs involvement in music videos you can click here.

BMTH ratings:

On the BBFC you can search for any content they may have been age rated. I searched for Bring Me The Horizon and got four hits. As you can see 3 videos got a rating of 15 and the othe video got a rating of 12. This brings me to believe that the other videos got a rating bellow 12. The fact that 3 videos got a 15 rating and one of them being a movie tells us that the Target Audience for BMTH are 15 and above. If their target audience where 12 then non of the videos would be 15.

However you could argue that because there is no way to stop a 12 year old watching a 15 age rated video the higher age rating might be motivating for a 12 year old to watch it. This could bring the secondary audience to be less then 15. But the movie which was filmed live at a concert was also given a 15 rating and to get into the concert would there would be guards to stop under-aged kids from entering.

PODCAST #19

SR

This week, we focused a lot on getting a final version of our music video done so that we would next week be able to correct and work on minor details. Also, Kristian created some more merch which he added to the website, whereas I added quotes from the individual band members and the bibliography to the website. Furthermore, Kristian filmed more narrative, which you can see a post on on his blog. I then added this new narrative footage to the video. Next week we will focus on working on the digipack, working further on evaluation questions and the video, and try to get the website done. Thank you for listening.

SR: Audience Feedback 7:Throne Rough Cut 9

For this particular draft we got feedback from several Year10 students, which you can see in the video below and we also got one of the Y13 students to look at the video (one of the band members/guitarist, to be exact) who saw the video for the first time.



These are some of the points they mentioned:

• Age range 15/16-19/20
• more effects that are darker 
• more close-ups of the singer are needed
• preferred reading anchored very well (Stuart Hall) 
• secondary audience could be younger and the color would make the video appeal to both genders
• Achieves verisimiltude because of the tattoos and the good lip-syncing  
• Different colors are good because it gives a good contrast (binary opposition) to the darkness
• clearer narrative - more couple shots 
• Achieved verisimilitude through costumes of the band (matching clothes)
• It was interesting during the entire video so I wanted to keep watching. 
• Good special effects - Dream, made it look like a memory

Year 13 student gave the following feedback:

• music always synced well with the video 
• When the beat dropped the footage went a bit faster, which signified the drop well/ when the song went slower the editing was past a bit slower 
• good narrative footage, well played by the actors 
• green screen was good, the background was really good with the colors because we put color powder/ink to life by using a green screen instead. 
• Good use of technology. 
• Overall really good video. 

Rough Cut 9

This is the full version of the video in which I created the last 15 seconds up until the lead singer is taking his headphones out of his ears in the bus.
I came up with this idea of the bus scene, since I though it would be a nice way to end the video.

Audience Feedback 6: Throne Rough Cut 6

This is some audience feedback that I got from 2 year 12 students. One of them was Emilie who is the female protagonist, which was very interesting since I wanted to hear what she thought of the result of all of the hours spent on filming.

SR: PRODUCTION SCHEDULE Update #8

This is the 8th update of the production schedule I created. 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. 

After last time it hasn't changed much, except for the fact that I have added the final dates up until the final cut of our music video. 

Production schedule UPDATE 8 from Sophie2401

SR: Rough Cut 8

This is the 8th rough cut in, which I focused on getting the final beat drop done with editing, by cutting it to 4 milliseconds per shot and then adding in the drums color powder scene in between. A challenge was to get it completely synced to the song and also sync the moment the drummer hits the drum to the beat. 

SR: Rough Cut 7

This is rough cut 7 in which I put in the new footage that Kristian filmed on narrative and moving the other narrative part where the couple fights towards the end of the video. Also, I have tried to play a bit around with editing for the last beat drop and will evidence to full result in Rough Cut 7. 

Y

WEBSITE: More merchandise

We have added 3 new merchandise for our website, Bronwen created two: the dog tags and a snap-back hat and I created a "That's The Spirit" vinyl. I also change the layout of the merch page so there are 3 products on each row and doing this is fixed a problem we had with the phone covers not showing what color they where as it was previously cropped but changing the layout fixed this. We are still planing to add more merch the main one being the Digipak.

The design for the Vinyl was inspired by the actual "That's The Spirit" Vinyl. The actual vinyl has the name of the album so what I did when I created it I added the logo Bronwen created and filled the cover of the vinyl with the logo.