Production Diary 30th of January

I will not carry on doing production diaries as I will be creating blogs on my rough cuts. These blogs will be done for each and every rough cut I produce which will include explanations of how and why I made creative decisions in my editing process. I'm doing this because I have reached the point where I'm in the editing process so rough cut blogs will perform the function of a production diary.

Production Diary 28th of January

On the 28/01/17 I carried on editing the project creating shorter clips. This took several hours as of course I had to re sink all the cuts to the music. I intend to carry on editing for longer and longer as I wish to create the best edit possible. I had a few problems editing today as of issues with having the amount of film I had overrunning the size of the song as I had to vary the clip size, so it's hard to tell where the edit would end up when starting from the beginning.

Creating My Digipak and Devlopment

I have never created a Digipak before so it was all new to me. I'm using Adobe Illustrator to create it which again is something I have never done. So I plan to document my progress and new skills I've learnt.

This picture shows the text I had hand written in order to scan into my laptop which I have imported into my Adobe Illustrator project. From here I cropped the image as seen below.

Here we see I have used the image trace tool to separate the text from the lined paper, after this I changed the threshold settings to 128 as it meant I was able to get rid of all the lines already existing on the paper while still keeping the appearance I wished for.  

After changing the threshold I used the advanced options in the image trace settings and increased the paths to 57% in order to allow the program to pic up more individual lines. After this I also used the corners tool and reduced it in order to create a smoother appearance to the text. Finally, I increased the noise to 63 px as I felt it aesthetically improved the font I was looking for. 

Magazine Advert Ideas

I'm just about to start creating my magazine advert, I have some ideas already however they are yet to be developed. So I plan to create a set of blogs on conventions and development.

My first idea is to have a simple screenshot from the production preferably a close up of the protagonist, this will be done in order to create a brand image for the video. Meaning when people see the magazine advert they may look at the character portrayed and want to see his significance to the band and if he has a story behind him. I will also create my own hand written title using a scanner to digitalise it. With a completely black and white theme, however I may play with the idea of having all the colours as black and white apart from one so it highlights the parts of the image I want.

Secondly I may also use another image from another frame of my production of the shadow shot I plan to shoot at the end. This will then provide mystery and a very original album add as I have done vast research on the matter of album art and I'm yet to see anything like it. Again I will use a large title however I will use the vertical text tool to have the text fall down the sides. I will use a yellow and black colour scheme as lately I have seen a lot of yellows in graphic design, this may be due to it's connotations with happiness. Part of the reason I plan to make it black and yellow is because it is also another very popular colour combination as it contrast the very dark with arguable one of the most noticeable colours. However this is not my favourite idea as I feel that yellow isn't that synonymous with the indie music genre or the horror music video genre I have. It will be much like the Calvin Harris magazine advert for I created disco.

Thirdly I had the idea to have very large texted using a font that almost looked as If it was straight from a silent movie spread across a black background with on picture in the center splitting some text off at the bottom and the top, much like that of Kanye West's advert for his album Yeezus. The picture would have been of one of the important props within the production itself for example the expressionism book I have thrown into the caldron.



Finally, I had the idea to have a very simplistic design with no screenshots of my actual production but instead just have a plain black background with simple text that says the release date of the album and the name of the band and album. This is an option as I it will appear to very professional as it will appear simple and clean. However I'm tempted to see what it would look like if I was to use my own font by scanning in text as I mentioned before instead of taking a font from stock premiere. It may look similar to the magazine ad you see to the left for AM by The Artic Monkeys.

Digipak Ideas

I will soon start to create my digipak, I have two main ideas that I may peruse. However I first I felt the need to document which one I would like to do as if I plan it, then I will have the ability to picked the idea I want,

My first idea is to have a completely black and white front cover much like my actual video as I wish to almost create a brand that I will keep throughout as then it will bring a more professional look to the video and production. I plan to take stills from the video itself of the protagonist and set in order to piece together a front and back cover. I will have a close up of the protagonist as it is                     

not normally a convention however I feel as of the type of video I have I wish to develop more of a character out of my actor as it is a strong narrative . Furthermore I wish the text to have an aesthetic in which looks as if it has been hand written. I pan to do this by using a pen and paper and scan in the drawings and text I have done to then be placed into Adobe Illustrator. I took the idea to have creepy hand written digital text from another set of album art as seen below.






Secondly I again have an idea with the whole digipak being black and white. With the same theme of having the protagonist on the front or back however this time instead of having hand written writing it will be a silent movie style font as seen below.

I'm yet to decide which idea I wish to follow however I'm favouring my first idea as it is more unique but is also a regular site within the indie music scene.

Production Diary 22nd of December

On the 21^st of December, me and my actor had a successful filming session having got all the shots(the 31 we planned to obtain) we needed in that one day. Thankfully I had a shot list that I had printed out which is available on my this shot list helped speed up the process off filming as it gave me a clear view of what I needed to have in each shot and when I needed to do a set change. Unlike my AS film opening I had barely any problems, apart from when it came to the last few shots involving shadows when I ran into some issues regarding lighting. The filming consisted of 4 hours of production time, as the previous day which was the 20^th of December I had already prepared the set with the actor, this consisted of some DIY when it came to tables and surfaces as at the time I didn’t have the props I desired. However, that’s not to say my prop management wasn’t good enough as I also had prepared props such as the fake arm. So overall the shooting that has took place as of yet has been more than I could have wished for as I’m happy with the footage I now have and it has only taken a day with limited hiccups.

Production Diary 21st December

On the 21^st of December, me and my actor had a successful filming session having got all the shots (the 31 we planned to obtain) we needed in that one day. Thankfully I had a shot list that I had printed out which is available on my this shot list helped speed up the process off filming as it gave me a clear view of what I needed to have in each shot and when I needed to do a set change. Unlike my AS film opening I had barely any problems, apart from when it came to the last few shots involving shadows when I ran into some issues regarding lighting. The filming consisted of 4 hours of production time, as the previous day which was the 20^th of December I had already prepared the set with the actor, this consisted of some DIY when it came to tables and surfaces as at the time I didn’t have the props I desired. However, that’s not to say my prop management wasn’t good enough as I also had prepared props such as the fake arm. So overall the shooting that has took place as of yet has been more than I could have wished for as I’m happy with the footage I now have and it has only taken a day with limited hiccups.