cherry valley forever
sheepfilms
Xuebing Du
Product Placement
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YOU ARE THE REASON
Show & Tell
roma★
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tannertan36
Fai_Ryy
Noah Kahan
RMH
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Janaina Medeiros
oozey mess
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
NASA
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
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@finlaymcdonaldmedia
Evaluation // Blog Navigation
This post contains links to each stage of the course in chronological order: Research, Planning, Production, and Evaluation.
Research: https://finlaymcdonaldmedia.tumblr.com/tagged/A2research/chrono
Planning: https://finlaymcdonaldmedia.tumblr.com/tagged/A2planning/chrono
Production: https://finlaymcdonaldmedia.tumblr.com/tagged/A2production
Evaluation: https://finlaymcdonaldmedia.tumblr.com/tagged/A2evaluation/chron
Evaluation Question Four
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Link to the answer:
Evaluation Question Four // Video Script
Research and Planning
A key technology that was used throughout the planning and research stages of the music video was Google. This search engine helped me to conduct research into the music industry. This especially helped me to learn more about the theorists Andrew Goodwin and Laura Mulvey. I also used two of Google’s other websites to help me with the research and planning stages, the first of these being google Maps. This service helped massively with the location scouting aspect of the planning process. One location that Google Maps helped me find was our street location for the opening scene of the video. Going into the location scouting process, I knew that I wanted a long straight road that would give the drone a view towards the center of Bristol, without this software it would have required hours of driving around Bristol, trying to find a suitable location, but with Maps it only took about 20 minutes. The street view feature was also extremely useful for this stage as it allowed me to see the street in a first-person mode to make sure it wasn’t a main or busy road, and to also check that the type of housing was suitable for my desired representation of the area.
The next Google-owned website that was extremely useful in the planning and research stages was YouTube. This was the key to exploring existing music videos from my electro hop genre to not only evaluate some of them on my blog, but also to just get a better idea of the codes and conventions of the electro hop genre. It was also really useful when looking for videos to back up the theories that I was exploring.
In terms of presenting all of this information, I used programmes such as PowerPoint and Prezi. I usually used Prezi over PowerPoint when wanting to create a more detailed presentation as it allowed me to easily explore and present lots of different points and ideas in a clear fashion. Prezi also allowed me to add pictures and embed videos into the presentation, which was especially useful when analysing or making a point about a certain video.
Another website that was really useful for this stage, was Survey Monkey. This allowed me to easily construct, distribute, and collate responses to the audience questionnaire which was a key part of the research stage of this product. As well as this, Survey Monkey displayed the results really clearly in graphs and charts which made the presentation and analysis of these results much easier and clearer.
The next technology that I used in the planning and evaluation stages was Adobe Premiere. At this stage, it was used at a very basic level to edit together the focus groups, using simple cutting tools, adding titles and a gaussian blur effect to transition between the answers. This gave us a video version of the participants answers that we could further analyse.
Finally, I used Tumblr to post all of these different forms of research. This social media platform allowed me to easily embed all of the other forms of presentation that I had used to keep them all in one place and to easily add text to help explain each of the different posts. Not only did this neatly keep all of my work in chronological order, but I was also able to add hashtags to group the different posts to categorise them into their correct research, planning, production or evaluation or sections
Production
The technologies that I used for the production stages consisted largely of the cameras. My main camera for the duration of the process was a Panasonic Lumix LX15. This is a fixed lens camera but the fast Leica f/1.4-2.8 lens was extremely versatile throughout the production which resulted in the shots having a shallow depth of field when required and it also was able to handle low-light situations really well. The LX15 also gave me the option to switch into full manual mode, adjusting the frame rate, shutter speed, aperture and ISO independently to get the desired cinematic look and gave me the flexibility to adjust to changing light conditions easily. This included the option to shoot at 100fps while retaining a 1080p resolution to film the slow-motion shots that became a key feature that was used throughout the final music video. Additionally, I used a Nikon D3300 to take still shot of the production. This helped me build up a backlog of photos that would help me to visualize our ideas and show the construction of the product coming together. I also used four of these cameras in the creation of the 3D jitter effect in the church scene, these were paired with identical 18-55mm lenses and set up with the exact same settings to ensure they all captures an identical image but from different angles.
The final piece of technology that was used during the production stages of my product was a DJI Mavic Pro drone that was used to capture cinematic aerial footage and provided me with an effective establishing shot that helps to set the scene and introduce the characters perfectly. This gave me a huge amount of versatility with these shots, allowing to capture almost any angle of the subject with almost any form of movement. They were filmed in a RAW 4K format which not only captured a huge amount of information within the shot but would also give me much more flexibility when editing and colour grading the shot.
Post Production
I chose to undergo the first stage of the post production process of the main task using Adobe Premiere Pro. With lots of previous experience with using this software - from not only the Year 12 coursework, but also for lots of other personal projects – I felt very comfortable with the programme and using it to make the most of the footage that I has captured over the 3 filming days. I managed to make use of a whole range of the tools that this software provided for the rough edit. This included keyframing, transitions, and basic colour correction, as well as this, the programme made it really easy to cut all of the clips on the beat or to the right length, to synchronise clips to create effective match on actions, and to create the complex 3D jitter effect.
A lot of the more complex corrections and finishing touches were completed in Adobe After Effects, which included adding a colour correction to the whole video using a LUT and lots of other adjustments using the colour wheels, temperature sliders, exposure sliders and many more tools to create the desired effect. I also used After Effect’s warp stabiliser tool to stabilise any of the hand-held shots that weren’t as smooth as they could have been. This gave the video a much more professional feel, making some of the shots look like they were captured using high-end gimbals or Steadi Cams. As well as this, the static ‘TV on’ effect at the very start of the video was created on After Effects using a keyframed scale and exposure of some ‘TV snow’ footage and I also used the programme to add the masked title in the opening scene. This involved adding a Track Matte effect and keyframing the mask to the backs of the actors as they walk past, revealing the title.
Ancillary Texts
For the production of my ancillary text I set up the same four Nikon D3400s with 18-55mm lenses using a rig to get each of the lenses as close together as I could. I then used a remote shutter release to set off each of the cameras at the same time which I would used to create a 3D stereoscopic GIF of each of these pictures. For the pictures of other objects such as the candle or the statues of the angels, I was able to be behind the camera which allowed me to uses one camera to capture all four different perspectives. For this method, I used a Panasonic Lumix LX15 and set it to burst mode, this allowed me to capture the four pictures by slowly tracking the camera to the side of the subject and taking the pictures at regular intervals. I then opened the four pictures of each of the subjects in Photoshop and aligned the frames of all of these pictures from both methods centring them on one object, such as the glass in this picture. I then created a preset using a ‘film camera look’ overlay, adding a film grain and some authentic scratches to make the pictures look like realistic film camera pictures. This preset was then added to all of the frames from each of the different locations to give them all a consistent style. With this done, I opened the ‘Motion’ tab of Photoshop to create looping GIFs from the 4 different perspectives of each subject. I was really happy with the results and would be using the animated versions of the pictures for the online versions of the digipak and advert as well as online promotions on the artist’s website etc.
I then used still versions of all these pictures to create the advert and digipak, also on Photoshop. I started by creating the album cover, using text tools and a colour scheme that was sampled from different aspects of the image using the Colour Picker tool. I then kept the colour scheme consistent when creating the rest of the panels of the digipak and advert, using the same font and themes to produce a ‘house style’ throughout the products.
Evaluation
I also used these different technologies during the evaluation stages of this production. I used both Prezi and PowerPoint to present the evaluations of my products. These allowed me to clearly present the different sub-sections of each of the questions and once again embed videos and images to back up each point.
Additionally, I used my mobile phone as a Dictaphone which allowed me to voice over the director’s commentary video, letting me make comments over the top of our main task, outlining the reasons behind the creative choices made in the video. I then used Adobe Pro to edit the director’s commentary, as well as using it to edit this video.
The final technology that was key to the evaluation stage was YouTube, this was not only where the video was uploaded to and shared from, but also allowed viewers express their opinion on the video in the comment section. I was then able to use these comments to answer the third evaluation question regarding audience feedback.
EVALUATION QUESTION THREE What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Evaluation Question Two
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
In a general sense, a brand identity is how a company or business wants to be perceived by its audience, creating a continuity between all its products to be recognisable to their target audience. The brand identity or 'house style' details of the company's logo, name, tone and typeface and are created as a way of showing the receiver what the business or company is all about. In media products, such as Music Videos, Digipaks and Magazine Adverts, a brand identity or house style is extremely important as it gives the artist consistency across all mediums of their work, therefore making it easily recognisable to the audience. The link between the 3 mediums is often done visually through including imagery of the artist, or having a particular colour theme such as black and white therefore linking all the separate forms of media together. A strong brand identity is known to increase the sales of the product or music as it enables cross platform promotion which helps the artist to reach a wider audience.
An example of a strong brand identity is the one used in the promotion of the Arctic Monkeys’ fifth studio album, ‘AM’. Throughout the digipak and album cover (below) there is the consistent use of a very minimalistic and bold design which included the album’s ‘soundwave’ artwork. This became a widely recognised symbol for the AM album and the album’s official merchandise became extremely popular as a result (below).
Another house style that the Arctic Monkeys used throughout all of its products (their music videos, album cover, advert, merchandise etc.) was a high contrast black and white colour scheme. This is seen throughout all of the album’s digipak panels as well as in their music videos for three of the singles, ‘R U Mine’ (below), ‘Arabella’ and ‘One for the Road’. This is a common theme in other indie rock products and I think this house style is really bold and powerful, and effectively ties all of the products together.
I was therefore keen to create an equally powerful “house” style throughout the products that I created. It was fairly easy to create a similar style throughout the ancillary text. I did this through the use of a consistent colour scheme for all of the digipak panels and the advert. This colour scheme was kept consistent through the use of a preset that I created in Adobe Photoshop and applied to each of the images that I used in the products. This added the same film filter, colouring, levels, and other adjustments to all of the pictures as well as some film grain and a ‘scratches’ overlay. This kept the style of each of the photographs consistent throughout all of the products. As well as this, I used the same colour pallette and font for all the other elements of the digipak and advert. Lots of these colours were sampled from the pictures themselves to make sure that the text and pictures fitted together well. For example, the dark blue (below) was used in the border of the album cover, for all of the text and logos on the back cover, for the background for the inside right panel of the digipak, in the logo on the disk, in the title on the spine, and in some of the text on the advert (these are all circled in red, below). This colour was originally sampled from the shadows of the album cover’s photo. This is just one example that not only shows a consistent colour scheme throughout the different products, but also within different elements of the same product. This helps to create a colour pallet house style that viewers will link to the album and Mura Masa as the artist. As well as this, I made sure I kept the font that I used the same throughout the ancillary text, this is a simple thing but will be recognised by the audience as they view the two products.
As I have said, it was fairly easy to create a recognisable house style throughout the digipak and advert, however it was slightly harder to tie the music video into this same house style. Having said this, there are a few methods that I employed to help viewers make the link between all 3 of the products. First of all, the colour grade of the music video was similar to the one used in the pictures on the ancillary texts. The colour correction on the video was created in a slightly different way, using the colour wheels of the shadows, midtones, and highlights to get the desired colour, and then decreasing the temperature of the footage to generate the blue tones that are consistent throughout all three of the products. Another thing that links the 3 products is the location and mise-en-scene. This is because I used the same church location for the ancillary text photoshoots that I had used in the ‘Last Supper’ style scene of the music video. In fact, I used the exact same part of the church to shoot the ‘Last Supper’ and the photography for the album cover. I think this will result in the viewers recognising the location from the video when looking at the other products or vice versa, creating another link between the 3 products, the images below show the same locations.
As well as this, there is a consistent use of the wine glass as a prop in both the music video and album cover. This is something that you don’t see in many other products so I think it will stand out as being unique to this digipak and video.
However, I think the main thing that creates a house style is the use of the 3D jitter effect in the video and online versions of the ancillary texts. The synchronised 4-camera stereoscopic shot is used in moving video form in the music video and in a ‘freeze frame’ style in the digipak and advert. The effect is even centred around the same wine glass in both the album cover and music video (GIF and video below). This is a strong link between the two created by the unique effect that may be new to many viewers, it is therefore something that the viewer will associate with these products from now on.
This stereoscopic effect is something that will definitely catch the attention of the viewer, especially if they come across the online promotion that will use the GIF version of the products. This will take the viewer by surprise as it contradicts the usual convention of having a static album cover and advert. They may also take a minute to work out what is actually happening in the effect and ask themselves how it was done? The fact that this has captured the attention of the audience increases the chance that they will look further at buying the album or clicking the link to the online advert, resulting in higher sales for the artist.
I also think the overall style and aesthetic of the digipak will draw in the target audience of the album and video as the ‘film camera’ style is popular among this demography. I therefore think that if they are drawn to the look of the digipak then they will be much more likely to then go on and buy the album. This is also true of the advert. Finally, the clothing used in the images is typical of the type of clothing worn by the target audience, including brands such as Nike and Vans (below), which helps to create a strong affinity to the artist and the music.
I think the style also helps to convey the genre of the music. The brands and the loose, baggy style of the clothing used in the ancillary products is a convention that’s found across the electro hop genre such as in Mura Masa’s ‘What if I go’ video with the male protagonist wearing similar large, baggy clothing. Another element that helps to communicate the style of the album is the body language of the artist in the images. The reflective and almost solemn demeanour of the artist strongly links to the style of the music, with many of the songs in the album being of a solemn and slow nature. This body language also helps to convey the genre of the album, with similar body language being a convention of many electro hop albums such as on Drake’s ‘Take Care’ album (below left) and Khalid’s ‘Hopeless’ album (below middle) with the body language in my album cover for reference (below right)
Overall, I believe that I have succeeded in creating a very strong brand identity throughout. Using editing techniques and location choices to create a similar look for all of the products which will be recognised by the viewer, who will eventually link this style to Mura Masa and the album. As well as this, the creative design of the online animation versions of the ancillary texts will really help to capture the attention of the audience, drawing them in to look further into the advert or digipak and encouraging them to buy the album.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
Digipak and Advert // Physical Copies
To give me a better idea of what the digipak and advert would look like in real life, I decided to print them out and created physical copies of them both. This allowed me to see both products together as a pair to see if they worked well together as physical copies. I was very pleased with how they turned out and I think they both follow a very similar house style.
Due to the design of the CD case, the remaining inside panels and bonus panel of the digipak were included as a folded leaflet in the inside cover.
Director’s Commentary // Video
This is the director's commentary for our video, where we explain the reasons behind some of the creative choices that we made.
Director’s Commentary // Script
Kim: We added the static TV image using after effects to fit in with the sound on the track as we thought this produced an effective start to the video.
Fin: Drone shot was used to establish the urban setting. We thought by having the camera slowly track in it added a sense of excitement or anticipation for the audience as the characters slowly come into view.
Kim: The drone shots cut closer on the time of the snare. This both helps make the video look professional and adds more energy which is needed due to the songs genre.
Fin: We asked the main character to practice the lip syncing to ensure it was perfect for filming, making the video look as professional as possible.
Kim: The mis-en-scene of the actors clothing can be seen clearly in this shot. This was chosen carefully to convey our representation of the characters as ‘cool’ and youthful. It also shows the urban style of the video which is common in the dance genre.
Fin: The masked title is subtle but makes the video look more professional and increases its production value.
Kim: The inclusion of this extra was by chance as he happened to be there during filming. We included him as we thought it added to the youthful vibe of the video. We added a double fist bump to create some further interest to the scene and continue the sense of immaturity with the characters.
Fin: Here we ensured the match on action was edited perfectly by synchronising the three different camera angles to create a smooth finish.
Kim: This shot was taken through the glass giving the appearance of a point of view shot. The audience are left in suspense as the person watching them behind the glass isn’t revealed.
Fin: The slow motion chips as they are hit in the air was included because we though the shot look good on camera but it also adds a comedic element to the video.
Kim: We thought the slow motion action contrasted nicely with the fast pace song and added a more cinematic vibe.
Fin: The jump cuts when the two characters are walking down the street adds more interest to a shot which could otherwise be a little dull. Our aim was to keep the video constantly energetic and entertaining for our audience.
Kim: Cutting the shot in time with the heavy beats of the track is designed to add energy for the audience.
Fin: This shot took a long time to perfect on set and in post-production. We wanted it to seem as if the food appeared on the table when the characters hit their hands down. We though this edit would add a wow factor to the shot and would help to keep the audience engaged.
Kim: We included the 3D jitter effects as this added more energy to the scene and the variation in editing techniques helped entertain the audience.
Fin: The bounce back on the characters running up the stairs was to prevent the transition shots becoming dull and also extended the length of the shot to fit the gap before the beat drop.
Kim: We used slow motion shots again to tie the video together, again this helped make the video look more cinematic.
Fin: At this point we had planned for the drone shot to be higher up circling the actors. However unfortunately the drone didn’t have enough battery to do this so we had to settle for a lower circle, we were still pleased with the way the shot turned out but this would be the main thing that I think we would re film or improve given the opportunity.
Kim: We decided to cut back to some more cinematic slow motions shots from the church as this was one of the more aesthetically pleasing locations we used. The use of solely slow motion fitted with the slower ending of the song.
Final Focus Group
This is a target audience screening and final focus group for our music video for Mura Masa's 'Love$ick' ft. A$AP Rocky.
Final Focus Group // Analysis
During the audience reaction filming we asked the audience to point out parts of the film they enjoyed or thought could have been improved. The strongest points according to our audience were the post production, with the mask titles, four camera effect, slow motion and flicker effect and food appearing all being picked up on. The mis-en-scene of the characters clothing and the location of the church and shop were also liked by the audience. The camera sue which the audience said worked well included the crash zoom at the end of the video, the low angle of the shop keeper, the drone shots and the shots all being steady. We also asked some follow up questions to gather a better idea about the successes and failures of our final piece.
“What did you like about our video?”
The first audience member said the edits and the locations were her favourite part which was also mentioned during the reaction. We are happy with the amount and diversity of the editing in the video as I think it adds more interest for the audience and gives the song more energy. They also said the liked the locations we chose, especially the church. The next audience member said the drone shots and camera angles were good. I think the story boarding helped to ensure this as we had already planned out which shot typed would work best with each shot and ensured there was plenty of variety.
“What could be improved about our video?”
For this question the audience said they would have liked to have seen a few more locations to add some diversity. If we made the video again we could have added a fourth location between the drone shots at the beginning and the shop for instance an apartment block or park to maintain the urban theme. Another audience member said they would have liked to have seen more characters at the scene in the church so the link with the last supper was more obvious. I agree with this comment as it was our original plan to have 3 or 4 characters however we couldn’t find enough willing and suitable actors.
“What sort of image do you think we have given the artist?”
The Audience all agreed with the representation we were aiming for with the artist- cool, adventurous, rebellious. This is a common representation for males of this age group so we represented our characters in the same way in oder to attract the target audience of young males who might relate to or admire these characters.
“Would you buy this album as a result and why?”
This question was important as ultimately the main purpose of a music video is help promote the artist and their album. All three audience members said that after watching the music video they would be more inclined to buy the album. One audience member said the video made them think the rest of the album would be cool as the video was so therefore they would enjoy it. Another said that the music now reminds them of the video which they enjoyed so the association would make them more likely to listen to the song more and finally the last member said the narrative was interesting and they would like to see if the enjoy the other songs on the album as much.
This is the final edit of my music video for Mura Masa’s Love$ick ft A$AP Rocky
Advert
FullDigipak//Final
Digipak & Advert // GIFS
I also wanted to create animated GIFS of the pictures I used for my digipak and advert using the four pictures that I had taken of each shot. I already had the four edited frames of each of the different location and they were all already cropped and centred around the correct object. It was therefore fairly simple to animate the four frames into one GIF.
For the first GIF, I started by loading the four different frames as different layers on one Photoshop file (below left), starting with the first frame at the fourth frame at the top. I then duplicated the 3rd frame and added that as the top frame and then duplicated the second frame up to the top. This will result in a full loop of frames.
I then converted all of these 6 layers into the animation frames (below, top) and then set the interval to 0.1 second and the loop to ‘forever’. This meant that the frames would flick from one to the next rapidly, looping back to the start when it reaches the end.
With the animation complete, I just had to export it as a GIF file. This was done using the ‘Save for Web & Devices’ option on Photoshop. I then set the file type to GIF, the size to 50% (to help the GIF run smoother), the quality to ‘Bilinear’, and the looping option to ‘Forever’ (as shown below)
The final GIF for this candle picture can be seen below.
I then repeated this exact same process with the other sets of images to create the other GIFs below:
For these final two GIFs, I created PNG files of both the album cover and advert with a blank square where the image should go. I then overlaid this PNG onto both these animations to get moving versions of the album cover and advert (below). These could be used for online promotion.
Advert // Animated GIF
Front Cover // Animated GIF
Digipak // Inside Panels
Stage One // The Shoot
For the inside panels I needed four separate pictures. All of which I shot using the stereoscopic 4 angled techniques. I used the 4 camera/ stepladder technique for the shots from these two angles, (the one facing up the aisle, left, and the one at the altar, right). This required moving the stepladder rig and adjusting the height of the planks to get the right angle.
The final two pictures that I shot for the bonus panels were of the angles (below left) and of the alter (below right). These were shot using the single camera method, setting it to burst shooting mode with a fast shutter speed and capturing 4 shots as I steadily pan to one side.
Stage Two // Post Production
I then went through the same process that I had done previously to edit the pictures and to add a variation of the cover preset to each of the sets of four pictures. This would allow me to create the stereoscopic effect if I choose to later. However, for the production of the inside panes, I only required one of these four frames for each of the different locations.
Left hand panel
For this panel, I started with the same, plain, pinky off-white background that I had used for the bonus panel and added two of the stills – the shot looking up the aisle with the shot of the alter tucked behind it. To add to this, I took the “I need you, I want you” lyric from the song and added it to the panel, splitting the lyric in half, putting each half in the same font but in different colours. As for the colour of these two phrases, I chose to put the first in the same blue that I had used for the front cover border and the second in the same grey that I had used for the album title on the cover. The final edit of this panel is below.
Middle panel
This panel is where the disk is found, so I wanted to find a way to illustrate this on the digipak. I started with the light blue that had been used on the back cover and added in the edited version of the angels picture. I then used the selection tool to make a selection around the shape of the disk holder from the template, I then inverted this selection and deleted everything outside of it on the angles picture, making sure that the angels were central and weren’t going to be deleted. This step is shown in the picture below.
I then decided to add the title and artists name to the inside of the disk holder. To do this, I typed out ‘LOVE$ICK’ in the same Keep Calm font in white and placed a blue square behind the text layer to help the text stand out from the background. I then repeated this with the word ‘MURA’ and the word ‘MASA’ below it. Keeping the same colour scheme for the ‘MASA’ but completely inverting the colour scheme of the text and box for the ‘MURA’. I think this created a really simple but effective title and artist’s name on the disk holder and the colour scheme and font fitted really well with the rest of the digipak. To add one final touch, I rotated the ‘A’ of ‘MASA’ to make it look like a reflection of the ‘A’ of ‘MURA’. The final middle panel is below.
Right hand panel.
I started off this panel with a blue background and then added one of the edited pictures from the alter (below left). I then added another lyric from the song, “They only killing time, another second gone”, putting the first half of the lyric at the top of the panel in white, and the second half of the lyric below the picture in a dark red that I sampled from the red of the carpet in the picture. This edit is show below right.
However, I wanted to experiment with another technique which is the ‘rip and repair’ effect in Photoshop. This gives the impression that the picture has been ripped in two and the two halves have been placed next to each other. In my version, I decided to make one of the halves of the rip black and white and keep the second half as the original preset. To do this, I created I rip shape selection from one corner to other on the black and white layer and deleted the top half of this black and white image. I then copied the selection and inverted it to delete the bottom half of the ‘colour’ picture, leaving a gap in-between the two images. This meant that the shape of the rip was the same but inverted in both of the two layers. To sell the effect I wanted to emulate the white edge that you get on ripped paper. To do this, I duplicated the black and white half of the image, filled this with white, placed it behind the black and white layer, offsetting it a few pixels to create a white edge to the rip. I then added the ‘splatter’ effect to this white layer to create the rough edge that you get on a ripped piece of paper. This final version can be seen below and I think it is much more effective.
Digipak // Bonus Panel
Stage One // The Shoot
For the bonus panel I took pictures of an old cassette. This would fit with the analogue theme running throughout the digipak, and is also quite an aesthetically pleasing subject. To do this, I took a blank cassette tape and labelled it with ‘love$ick’ in pen and then set about setting up the shoot. I found a well-lit area in my house, with two floor-to-ceiling windows as the light sources, and laid down the tape on top of a sheet of white A3 paper, which acted as a backdrop.
I then put my camera on my tripod and used the extendable arm of the tripod to shoot the flat-lay shot. I made sure that the shot was well exposed with a fast shutter speed to get a really crisp picture. I also set the camera to shoot at a 2 second delay to remove any possible camera-shake. Then set up for this shoot can be seen below.
Stage Two // Post Production
I wanted this panel to be very simple, with just the picture of tape, the post production was therefore fairly simple. I started by making some basic adjustments to the contrast, exposure and levels curve before isolating the cassette tape from the background using the selection brush. This allowed me to change the colour of the background to the desired pinky off-white. I then added the same ‘cool film’ filter to the cassette layer, this time without the grain or scratches overlay, to help it fit in with the rest of the digipak.
I then added a few effects to the paper label of the tape to make it look a bit older. To do this, I gave it a slightly yellow-ier tint and added some paper blemishes to sell the fact that its an old tape. The original picture of the tape is above, and the final panel is below.
Digipak // Back Cover
Stage One // The Shoot
The set up for the back cover photo was much easier than the front cover set up, shooting a candle on the side alter. I still wanted to capture four stereoscopic images for this shot however, the fact that I was back behind the camera and that the subject was still I instead opted to use a single camera method.
To do this, I set the camera to a fast 1/1000 sec shutter speed on burst shooting mode. I then moved the camera in a steady straight line at a side on view of the subject, capturing four evenly spaced images. After a few attempts to get this action smooth, I ended up with a series of four images, as seen below. This method allowed me to make the distance between each of the 4 different ‘perspectives’ much shorter, which will create a much subtler jitter effect in post, one much similar to the Nishika N8000 jitter.
Stage One // Post Production
In a similar process to the front cover image. I opened all 4 of the images as separate layers on a Photoshop file, aligned and rotated them all so that the cradle was in the exact same position in each of the photos and cropped them to the right size. I then also wanted the candle to appear lit in the 4 images. To do this, I overlaid a PNG of a candle flame and aligned it to the wick of the candle from the image, reducing the opacity of the flame to 85% to give it a more realistic look. With this done, I added the same preset that I had created for the front cover, adjusting it slighting by reducing the detail extractor and darkening the shadows quite a bit. This helped to help the candle stand out from the back ground. I then added this edited preset to all four frames and saved them all as individual images. The before preset and after preset is below.
I then started off with the edit of the back cover. I started with an off-white background and created a track list using the same font and blue colour that I had for the front cover. I then went through and put all the featured artists in brackets and in a smaller font size to help the actual track names stand out. This completed stage can be seen below left). I then continued to add the logo of the record label, removing the original white background using the quick select tool and changing its black colour to the same blue colour of the text. Next to this, I added a barcode and followed the same process, removing the background and changing its colour. I then added a section of legal writing in a thinner, much smaller font to make it less obtrusive in the composition. You can see this all completed in the image below right.
I then added the candle image and adjusted some of the track list to make room for the image and removing any overlapping. I then decided to change the background color to a really pale blue, identical to the one that I used for the ‘MURA MASA’ text on the front cover. The final back cover can be seen below.
Digipak Advert // Front Cover
Stage One // The Shoot
After shuttling all of the kit up to the church, it was time to start setting up the cameras. This was a similar process to the one I used in the music video, however this time I decided to set the cameras up on two planks of wood, on top of a step ladder, counterweighted with a weight. This would give me more flexibility on the positioning of the rig and also allowed me to get the cameras closer together that I had done using the 4 tripods on the music video rig. This would result in a slightly less severe jitter, closer to the ones created by the Nishika N8000, with the 4 different perspectives being closer less extreme. I then went through all of the cameras, setting them all to the exact same shutter speed, ISO and aperture so that they all capture a near identical image, as well as setting the focus mode to single servo and the shutter mode to ‘Remote Release’.
With this done, I went on to set up the frame that would stand just outside of the composition, and would allow me to suspend a glass of wine using the cotton string. This was made out of the metal tubing and joints that I had found and secured with masking tape to provide additional strength. I had also constructed two ‘feet’ at the bottom of the two ends of the stand to ensure the structure was freestanding. I then looped the string over the top of the metal frame and tied the wine glass to the bottom of the string, using two small pieces of Sellotape to unsure the glass would hand straight, stopping it from tipping over. The suspended glass can be seen below.
With this ready, I set up the softbox to fill in the fairly strong shadow that was being cast across the set from the bright sunlight. The full set can be seen below.
I then went about shooting the cover photo, getting my dad to press the shutter release which, when held in the right place, set off the four cameras at the exact same time. I then experimented with lots of different poses and positions of the camera rig, giving me lots of options to edit in post.
Stage Two // Post Production
After sifting through the 100’s of pictures from the cover shoot, I settled on a set of four pictures and loaded them as separate layers in Adobe Photoshop. I then lined them all up so that the wine glass was positioned in the exact same place in all of the frames and cropped the set of images to a square ratio. I then went trough each of the pictures and removed the string using the spot healing and clone stamp tool for each frame. The image below shows the before and after of this process.
I then repeated this process on the remaining three frames and went about creating a preset to add to the images. To do this, I started by adding a cool ‘Film filter’ from the Analogue Efex Pro plug-in that I had installed onto my Adobe Photoshop. I then; decreased the shadows and exposure; increased the detail extraction; deceased the saturation; and increased the contrast of the image. This gave me a colour filter that I really liked. This can be seen below left. However, to really sell the ‘film camera’ effect that I was going for, I then went through and added a fairly strong ‘film grain’ effect and even added a ‘dirt and scratches’ overlay to sell the fact that it is an old picture. The result of this can be seen below right. I then saved this ‘recipe’ as a preset and added it to the remaining 3 images.
For the rest of the production of the cover, however, I only needed one frame so I chose the most central frame and opened it up in Photoshop. I then went through all of the fonts and settled on one that I had previously downloaded called Keep Calm for all of the text. I then played around with the positioning of the ‘LOVE$ICK’ and ‘MURA MASA’ textboxes, settling with a ‘split’ look for the title which I made by duplicating the ‘LOVE$ICK’ textbox, positioning one at the top and one at the bottom of the frame. I then positioned the ‘MURA MASA’ above the ‘LOVE$ICK’ at the bottom, using a smaller and more spread out version of the same font. In terms of colour choice, I used a gray for the album title which I had sampled from the wall in the background, and a cream white for the artist’s name that I had also sampled, this time from the window. This sampling of colours from the image gave both the image and the text a very similar feel, linking them together. This was my first draft of the cover and can be seen below.
However, I wasn’t 100% happy with the composition and look of the cover so I made a few changes. First of all, I created a border around the image because I felt the layout of the cover was previously too claustrophobic. I filled this border with a blue that I had sampled from the shadows of the image. I then also added the ‘Parental Advisory’ logo, which is a convention seen on most album covers, changing the colour of the logo to match the same white from the window. Finally, I tweaked the colour of the ‘MURA MASA’, changing it to a really light blue to help if stand out in the composition. This final edit of the album cover can be seen below.