Finished Music Video

Editing and Things Changed

Editing has generally gone well and I have been able to stick to my storyboard quite well apart from changing the last 'expectations vs reality' scenes from the study room scene to the scene where Katie is waiting for a friend to turn up so they can go out, the friend turns up in her expectations but in reality she bails on Katie with a lame excuse. I have also added more shots of Katie lip syncing to the song as advised by my teacher, to make it look more like a music video instead of a short film.

There were two main issues I found when editing, the first being the split screen. When I had filmed my original footage, I had made sure that all the action was in the center of the frame in case the split screen cut off the sides, therefore my shots looked like this:

Before


After


Before


After


Before


After

I felt this only really affected the study room scene, especially in the shot where Katie is meant to look like she's sitting on her own with everyone talking with their friends around her. As the split screen cut off most of the people sitting around her I felt it didn't give the same effect, and with no time to re-film I decided to cut it from the video and only use this footage in the flashback montages. This, thankfully, did not affect the music video that much in the end as by the time I would have added that scene I would have run out of song time to use it anyway. I replaced this scene with the scene where Katie goes out with a friend in her expectations but in reality is stood up.

Another issue I faced was not being able to use transitions moving into the split screen scenes or after. When trying to do this, I was able to add the transition but it just ended up being a grey box on the editing screen and wouldn't work in playback. After researching, I found that this was not a bug or a problem with my iMovie but just the way it has been made. This unfortunately is very limiting for me, as I would have liked to use a cross blur, dissolve or circle open transition before and after these scenes to show they were flashback, however I have made sure to use the black and white effect on these scenes to make it clear to the audience that they are flashbacks.

I was able to use transitions in normal scenes however, such as a lot of flashing transitions made by using the 'fade to white' transition to use Goodwin's theory of matching the lyrics to visuals e.g. "When your life flashes before your eyes will it be beautiful?".

I also felt the 'singing in the field' shots didn't stand out enough, and so have used a vignette effect to make them darker around the edges, making Katie stand out more and making the shots look more dramatic.

I have also added the "Expectations Reality" titles to the split screen scenes, making the font white in order to stand out with the black and white and also to go with my house colours of white, black and green.

Lastly, I decided to speed up the 'twirling round the field' shot and splitting it into 3 sections, making the first clip 70% speed, the second 160% speed and the third 250% speed. I did this so that it sped up with the music using Goodwin's theory of matching the visuals to the music. I also used a 'dream' effect on these shots to make it seem almost as if Katie is glowing, giving it an angelic, supernatural feel which I felt went well with the soft music that went with that shot.

Hopefully the next thing I post will be my finished music video.

Things Changed From Storyboard

I changed the last 'expectation vs reality' scene. Originally it was the study room scene, however as I have stated earlier I had editing problems with this scene and therefore replaced it with the scene where Katie gets stood up by a friend. Also, upon showing my teacher the footage I had first filmed in the field, she advised I get some more angles. Therefore I have more angles for the lip syncing scenes than is stated in my storyboard. I have also added lip syncing scenes in between shots for the 'expectations vs reality' scenarios so that it still looked like a music video and not too much like a film.

Finished Digipak and Magazine Advert

My original idea for the CD cover was to take two pictures of Katie, one with the left side of her face looking as if she'd been crying, and one with the right side of her face looking happy. However, after doing this I found it extremely hard to line up both sides so they matched and looked like just one picture. Therefore to overcome this I decided to just use one picture that I had taken of her whole face looking sad, and edit the right side of her face to look happy.

This is the photo I used

In order to edit the right side of the face I used a program called 'Sugar' which is a make-over program I used to make the make-up more dramatic with fake eyelashes and more eyeliner on the right have of her face and modified her mouth to look like she was smiling on that half.

I then cut the image in half and placed it onto the template I had made for the album cover where there was a line separating them, carefully lining them up so that the face was even.

This is the end result:

Front cover


After measuring digipaks that I own myself I found that they are roughly 14cm by 12.5 cm, and therefore this is the side I used for my front, back and inside covers.

My other ideas went well and I was able to follow the plans I had previously posted without any problems.

Back cover

I took careful consideration when choosing what industry information to use, and what record to label my artist would be signed to. After researching I found that Sire Records may be the best seeing as they are an independant label dealing with pop rock/alternative artists much like Snakes Hate Fire. They also bought out the soundtrack for the film (500) Days of Summer, which my music video took it's inspiration from. The producer I chose is Matt Grabe, as he has produced a lot of the artists on Sire Records' albums, and these artist seem to be similar to Snakes Hate Fire musically. I have also included websites and social networking sites for the band and their label, as I have seen this a lot on CD covers I have researched such as:

Taking Back Sunday



Jack Johnson

Therefore I decided this was a vital piece of information to use on my digipak back cover. Although on these CD's they only show the band's website and the label's website, I felt it was important to include social networking sites seeing as my target audience would be more likely to look at the bands facebook/twitter/myspace instead of going on the actual website.

Inside left panel - lyrics booklet



Inside right panel - CD holder



Back and front cover together



Inside left and right panels together

My magazine advert was also successful however I split the lower right box into two for the 'Featuring the hit singles' and instead of putting stores in which the album could be bought, I decided it would be better to put where the album could be downloaded as my target audience are more likely to download music online rather than going out and buying CD's. In an earlier post I also suggested that I might use a different picture on my magazine advert than the one on my digipak cover. However, upon further research I found that artists tend to use the same artwork from their CD covers on their adverts, and therefore decided to go down this route instead. Examples of artists I researched are:

Ellie Goulding - 'Lights' album



Ellie Goulding - 'Lights' magazine advert



Goo Goo Dolls - 'Let Love In' album



Goo Goo Dolls - 'Let Love In' magazine advert

I also felt that this would be a better idea as to create a brand identity.

Magazine Advert

The magazine advert is A6 in size, as this size better suited the design and when looking through magazines I found that for an artist that is not very well known or on an indie label they usually have a smaller advert than a full A4 page.

Brand Identity

I have been able to create a brand identity successfully I feel by creating a theme of split screens throughout my music video and ancillary tasks. This enables people to connect the digipak and and magazine advert to the music video, recognising my artist. I have also used the same typography and house colours throughout my ancillary tasks, making sure to connect them to the music video. I have kept a theme of 3 house colours and 3 fonts, as I have been taught that it is a convention of CD covers to use no more than 3 fonts and colours in order to not overwhelm the promotional material. This has allowed my ancillary tasks to remain simple and pleasing to the eye, again connecting with the theme of my video.