DigiPack Photoshoot

When styling the band for our video shoot it was fairly easy, as the hard part was finding a group of lads suitable for the indie genre, the sense of style came with the band. But for my digipack I had a specific goal on what I wanted my pictures to look like. I had researched indie bands photo shoots. I came up with 2 clear connotations.

1. Black and White 
2. Looking in Different Directions

My aim was to attempt to replicate some of the shots I had found and liked, to my make my product as authentic as possible. I asked the band to attend in there best clothes, preferably smart and they didn't disappoint. Here are some of the editing shots from our day shooting in the centre of Liverpool.

Diary Entry Week 19

Into week 19 of our coursework and the end is in sight, this week we have been putting the finishing touches to our final music video edit, as well as continuing to make progress on my digipack.

I have drawn out a plan for my idea digipack, chosen my final fonts and finalised my album front cover.

The plan for next week is to organise a digipack photoshoot with the band, and upload our final music video.

Front Cover

After planning my digipack yesterday I have now drawn and scanned my drawing onto the computer ready to be designed into my album.



After it was on the computer, I then edited my final front cover and added my chosen fonts.

And here is my final album cover.

Font Choice for DigiPack

As you can see above I have been researching Indie Albums endlessly, and the common theme for the font used on the front cover is sort of a hand writing style. I narrowed my choices down to 4 and took to Facebook to curate a modern day questionnaire. 

The font number three was clearly the most popular with the target audience, so 'Joyful Juliana' it is then. 

Planning my DigiPack

An essential part of my A2 coursework is curating a digi pack for the artist which we create for our music video, so today I spent my day drafting up my plan.

The main idea for my front cover is to replicate a theme I have noted from several indie genres, that I will draw it. I have planned to use the artwork which I have used on my website and merchandise that resembles the bands name 'the secret nothings', and is a finger covering the lips, implying a secret.

I want to contain several pictures of the band, as well as a thank you page, as you can see below.

Diary Entry Week 18

This week we took all our feedback on board and spent an entire day filming the necessary shots to be able to finish our music video, which we need to add the finishing touches to.
I also took steps on beginning my digipack by analysing more indie album covers, the plan for the next week is to create an actual plan of what mine is going to be like.

The Wombats - The Modern Glitch (Album Cover Analysis)

What I Made my DigiPak Lyric Page

Day of ReShooting

We have realised it is very hard to get of us together for filming on the same day, due to school and work and other commitments. So yesterday we jumped at the opportunity of us all having a free day, and spent an entire 6 hours reshooting the shots.

We set out with a goal - a shot list. Essentially a little piece of paper shoved in my back pocket. And on a cold December day we managed to shoot all of the shots we needed, we believe that now we have these shots the quality of our music video will be so much higher with people being able to understand the message more clearly.

Ellie at Bus Stop

This was the first set of shots we went out to get, purely because we all agreed they where the most important. During filming we directed Ellie, our actress to look concerned, worried and upset. We believe the outcome of this additional bus stop stops will allow the viewer to understand that she is waiting here for her boyfriend, thus where he is running to.

Ellie on Street Corner

We agreed that we needed to make Ellie look more like the bad girl we are portraying her to be and less like the victim people felt she was. This shot is a stereotypical waiting for drugs shot, which we thought was a good idea to help put across to the audience that she is not the innocent girl they originally thought in the first draft. 

Ellie with Other Males

Although we originally used the shot of Ellie walking up the stairs with another male we didn't believe it gave the message strongly enough that she was cheating numerous times with several different people. Using 3 different actors we now believe that this message is strongly portrayed, we are planning to keep the watching up the stairs shot to further amplify the message.

Ellie Eye Shot 

Our video idea is extremely powerful, with a strong message that being in a unhealthy relationship isn't good, especially when one half of the relationship is cheating, drinking and drug using. We believe this shot of the eyes we key when trying to look into the heart of the viewer, the aim is to play on emotions as if Ellie is looking into your sole.

Callum Checking Phone 

When our teacher was viewing our first draft of the music video he rightly pointed out that it should be clear to the audience what it is that Callum see's on his phone that alerts his sprint away. So by the use of the go pro on his head we shot his phone, to show several missed calls, which triggers his memory that he should be with his needy girlfriend. The go pro we used allowed us to get the point of view shot we needed and it gives it a more authentic look.

Callum Down Tight Alley 

We had a gap near the end of the video which we wanted to fill with a shot of Callum running, showing that this relationship was coming to an end. Jack had an amazing idea on how to portray this concept - but Callum running down a tight, restricted alley way. The tightness of the area is to reflect how trapped he feels in the relationship, and the lack of light to show there is no light at the end of this 'tunnel'.

Argument Scene Outside Shop

The final shot of the day we had to wait till dark for, with the aim to capture the darkness of the relationship. We believe these two shots of Ellie pushes Callum is what makes it clear that Callum is in fact the victim in the relationship. 

Diary Entry Week 17

During this week of analysing our first draft of the music video we have made a plan to make the changes we believe will be able to get the story across to the viewers, and also nail the genre. It was great using social media to gain feedback as it was a lot lesson time consuming that taking to the streets with a phone to show people the video, using twitter allowed for people to click on the video in the comfort of there own homes - watch it. Then tweet me a brief opinion.

I collected the opinions and placed them into a video, where I discussed what I believe will be the essential steps in creating the best music video possible. We have made plans to reshot this week!

Foster The People - Torches (Album Cover Analysis)

Twitter First Draft Feedback

Earlier today I sent out two tweets to my friends with the hopes of gaining several opinions on the first draft of our music video. I have put a video together of the outcome. 

After reading the feedback I have decided there are 5 main areas which we need to focus on. 

1) We are going to have less shots of the band, this is something which Megan suggested and we are going to take on board. A lot of people said that they where unsure on the story line, and also where far off when describing what they thought it was, which is simply unacceptable when you are trying to create a high standard music video. We aren't going to cut the band footage out completely, as it is essential to the indie genre - Just minimise it. 

2) We are going to have to film more shots of the female lead waiting at the bus stop. There seemed to be some confusion that she was drunk and passed out, which is not the case - She is waiting for him at the bus stop, where they had agreed to meet, before he forgot about her. An idea we thought might work is several different shots of her at the bus stop, which could also reflect the amount of time she has waited.

3) Although one person picked up on the fact that the girlfriend is cheating, we have agreed it isn't clear enough and we are planning to film more shots of her with other males. The holding hand shot is something we are also unsure on because we don't think it is clear enough that its not in-fact her boyfriend, but another male, another worry is that it is too PG and not amplifying the lyrics enough. 

4) Our initial video concept was the female lead to be portrayed as a sort of bad girl, and for the audience to feel towards the boyfriend. Something which has defiantly not worked as some people have mentioned that they thought he was abusing her, which is the opposite to what we are trying to put out. We have storyboarded several ideas of possible shots, such as waiting on the corner of a road, to imply waiting for drugs.

5) To nail the genre I think we need to continue our research on indie music videos, not one person mentioned what they thought the genre was and although this may just be because they didn't feel the need to mention it, we want to include and make sure all connotations are spot on before uploading our final product. 

First Draft of Music Video

After 2 weeks of editing solidly in class as a group we have curated our very first draft our music video, we are calling this our first draft as we are going to be asking for feedback on how to make improvements, both online and by word of mouth. We want to make sure our story line is clear, and to do so it is only right we gain opinions.

Diary Entry Week 16

Making progress on our editing was key this week as we are edging closer to competition of our final music video. This started by uploading all of our footage onto iMovie, and actually nailing the first 5 seconds the video. The beginning of the video was essential to our group as we wanted to set the genre as soon as possible and we believe by using edgy band footage we have achieved our goal.



I have also completed a lot more research towards my digi pack this week, looking into the history of album artwork and analysing indie albums. I think by this time next week I will have planned a rough digi pack and maybe even the front cover will be finished.

Video Concept Explained

So today we finished filming, and now it is time to begin post production I thought I best share the concept behind our indie music video.

Firstly our research (Genre Post) shows that indie bands use an aspect of performance and narrative footage throughout there music video and it is something we wanted to try and replicate, explaining the reason for the switch between the two.

The narrative of our music video is based around a young couple, the male in the relationship is frustrated as he feels that the relationship is too one sided and essentially he has fell in love too hard, while the female in the relationship is the stereotypical bad girl, involved in drink and is sleeping around behind her boyfriends back.

The video has two tenses, the present and the past.

In the present moment the male character has forgot about his plans with his beloved girlfriend, realising when he looks at his phone to see several missed calls. Throughout the video we can see him running endlessly to try and reach his girl, who is waiting at the bus stop which they agreed to meet. There are shots of the female character tiredly waiting around, and by the time the male character arrives she has got up and left. Leaving the male feeling deflated due to his mistake.

In the past we are portraying the happy and sad times during this troubled relationship. We have filmed happy times such as, the couple playing the guitar, goofing around, intimate moments. And not so happy times such as the female character being spotted around the town with several other males, in fact amplifying the lyric "fxxing the whole town," also arguments in public, and shots of female after too many drinks.

Now we have finished curating this footage we are now going to have to edit it to give the effect we believe the video / story deserves.

History of Album Artwork

Last week when the weather wasn't the best I decided to use my time and start researching album artwork for my genre - Indie. This is because as well as our music video we have to create what is called a 'digi pack', so it is important to research album's just as much as it is the music video.

Album artwork, or cover art by definition is either an artwork as illustration or photograph on the outside of a published music album and was created by Alex Stienweiss in 1938. He created the idea of custom artwork on record album covers and designed the first covers with original design, replacing the existing cardboard which simply said the name of the album and artist. His covers all seem to be abstract pieces of work with a lot of colour used to make it as eye catching as possible. The font and size of the font varies in each of the covers making all of them unique.

By the late 1940's, all major record albums featured their own colourful papercovers. Some used classic art while others used more original designs. Once the work of Alex Steinweiss was produced many more music producing companies followed in his footsteps and started producing the same, with all the albums containing art on the cover. These included the works or artists and designers such as: Jim Flora, Jim Amos, Rudolph de Harek as well as more of Alex Steinweiss’s work.

During the 1950's album covers didn't really develop, the trend was still bright colours with the artists name. But although the idea stayed the same there was a clear improvement between the works of 1940 and 1950, as there is a lot more thought to composition and style - this majorly being shown by the legendary Elvis Presley and through the creation of Rock and Roll.

In the late 1960’s album covers started to become more creative using cartoon drawings, and higher quality photography to give the albums a more modern look. The Beatles were the main artist making the most unique designs for their albums with all of them being very eye catching and abstract showing that there are no boundaries with the album art and that anything could be done.

One of the biggest influences on album cover art and art in today's society was the introduction of computer imaging. First made in 1973, computer imaging is art created by the use of software on a computer, it gave the artists a huge range of effects and styles to use. 

Throughout the 1970’s and 1980's punk was the most popular genre of music. Though being very controversial punk was undoubtedly a revolution, the era effected the album art with black usually being the main colour instead of the usual bright and colourful theme. Like the music the album artwork seemed to turn a lot more controversial with artists pushing the boundaries of what they could publish.

Through the late 1990’s and the 21st Century album covers have been developed even more with the use of computer graphics and more detailed covers being shown. The works of art are very high quality and even more interesting to look at. Artists have even found the effects album art has on the sale of there album and have thrived on making them as appealing as possible. Artist have also tried to pass messages through there art though some works are found to be offensive to some viewers.

Diary Entry Week 15

We are week 15 into our coursework and things are finally beginning to take place.
This week was a very exciting week for our group as we have completed all of our performance shots we require for our music video, we shot this on Wednesday on our school stage and everything went perfectly. The shoot itself lasted about 3 hours and we are really proud of the footage we shot.

This ended up being one of my favourite shots of the entire day, and it was originally an outtake. I think it is a perfect shot of the lead singer of the band, and it's a shot which we believe would make the fans of our fake band 'fangirl'.



Now we are roughly 75% finished shooting we have began the taskly editing process, it was all our first time using the software and we have realised how time consuming it is to even import footage. We know this is going to be a long task, but we have gathered Rian is our strongest editor already so me and Jack need to get some practice in.

Beginning Editing

Today in class we began the editing process and quickly realised Rian is the strongest editor in the group, as iMovie is a software we all aren't familiar with we all struggled at the beginning and Rian defiantly took to it the fastest.
As we don't have all of our footage completed right now, it was a case of inserting what we had, the song, and in place of missing footage we wrote what we intended to place in at a later date.

More Narrative Shot's

Today we battled the weather and finished 75% of our outdoor narrative shots with only the night time shot's to film and the indoor 'flashbacks' with the female and male characters.

We shot the very beginning shot of the music video and it something we are all very pleased with. As a group we are striving to make the narrative as clear as possible and I think this one shot itself is extremely effective when telling our story.

The 5 second shot begins with the male lead and an extra charlie walking along, the pair of them walking along together is to portray the closeness between them and how good of a friendship they share. As Callum pulls his phone out of his pocket he is clearly shocked about something, leading him to turn around and run into the opposite direction to where him and his friend Charlie was going. This shows that whatever has just appeared on Callum's phone, he values more highly than the time he was originally spending with his friend Charlie, and this is a shock to him as shown by his reaction. Also the speed in which Callum departs at shows that whatever he has read on his phone is vitally important and needs urgent attention.

  

Performance Shot's

The weather is brightening up meaning that hopefully later on in the week we will be able to film our narrative shots without getting blown away, but in the mean time we have decided to make use of our times and today we filmed our performance shots.

When choosing our 'indie band' we was extremely lucky, as we are friends with an already formed indie band, who regularly gig and even have an established EP out. This made the whole filming aspect really easy for me, Rian and Jack for many reasons. One of the main reasons was they was natural in front of the camera, the lads are used to being filmed and photograph as they do so on a regular basis so they wasn't shy in playing up to the camera and done exactly what we asked of them. Another aspect which was easier for us was the styling aspect of the video, we had an idea of what outfits we wanted the band to wear and when we shown them they made it work for us. That was so much easier that our AS Level piece of coursework which involved buying and borrowing clothes, this year the band themselves where already prepared.

We filmed the band on the school stage and I think we deserve a pat on the back for making a school stage not look like a school stage, as this was a big scare of ours. As we was trying to create shots which usually are on big stages in big arena's, in a school hall with a capacity of 200 it was defiantly difficult but I think we pulled it off. One of the main thing's which I believe helped a lot in making the stage look as professional as possible was the grey backdrop, it was an actual stage curtain and when we uploaded the footage onto the computer it gave a really indie affect and really completes the shots. Another aspect of filming on stage I liked was the speakers at the front of the stage, something I have seen in all professional gig ventures and when asked our lead singer Dean was happy to climb on them to bring attention to the professional features.

An aspect of the video which was important to us was the saxophone solo, we wanted to make it as spontaneous as possible, bringing as much emphasis to this section of the video as possible and our friend John fitted the role perfectly.  We styled him in complete contrast to the rest of the band and he played the role exactly how we wanted.

Diary Entry Week 14

This week the weather has not been on our side at all, meaning that we was unable to film any of our music video giving me time to focus on my digipack side of things.

I started the week in class by analysing our storyboard choices shot by shot and uploaded that into a detailed blogpost. I think the storyboard choices will end up being one of the most important blog posts as everything is based around that, so it is definitely an essential part of our creative journey.

In our final lesson of the week we had some time to concentrate on starting the digipacks, although I have finished my website side of it at the beginning of this week I hadn't even looked at a signal album cover and now I have a slight idea of what I am going to be going for. It's amazing how similar all indie album covers are and how now I know I could spot an indie album in any CD shop. I am going to be concentrating on the sketching side of my digipack as I think it really makes the album cover disgustable to others.

Storyboard Choices

Shot 1 - Band Setting Up

We have chosen to include a shot of our bad setting up the equipment before the music starts to give a sense of authenticity to the video, also the use of ambient sounds give it a really natural effect. The genre indie is all about live performance aspects so we wanted to get that in there early and set the genre.

Shot 6 - Guitar Close Up 

This shot is a close up on the guitar doing one of the solo's, we have wrote in big letters 'cuts on the beat'. We want to have the cuts on the beat to capture the energy and make the viewer feel apart of the video by giving it a real smooth professional effect.

Shots 8 - 12 - Facial Expressions

Shots 8 to 12 are 4 quick 1 second shots of the band members faces in the performance aspect and the actors face as he begins running on his journey to find his girl. We have chosen these shots as the calm expressions on the bands faces will contrast with the concerned male actor and emphasize his worry about his girl.

Shots 13-17 - Girl Moving 

These shots we decided would be ideal to show the audience how uneasy the female character is and also show that time is passing,and she is getting impatient waiting.

Shot 19 - Guitar Playing

We wanted to show flashbacks of the relationship between the two main characters and this is the first in the storyboard. As the lyric is 'beats are made for two', we are going to show on screen the two characters proportioned in the shot, while the male is effectively making 'beats' while playing on his guitar. The important aspect of this shot is the equality shown between the couple, that they both matter and love each other,

Shot 38 - Chest Out 

This shot was the one our group spent the longest debating over purely because we wanted to get it perfect, we had so many ideas what we could do with the lyric and it really allowed for alot of creativity. We decided on having a collision between the male actor and the bystander, with the bump of chests happening as the lyrics is sang.

Shot 40 and 41 - Controversial 

The lyrics which are in time with shot 40 and 41 is what almost stopped us from being allowed to use this song all together, with reference to drugs, sex and even swearing. We wanted to still use the song, with the promise we would play down the lyrics during the music video. So for the drugs reference of 'rocks and browns', we have used the shot of whiskey on ice, implying the rocks is ice and browns is the whiskey. The sex reference 'fu*king the whole town' we have played down subtly with a male walking out a room while the female is laying in bed.

Shot 59 - Rian's Idea

After seeing this edit in a two door cinema club music video a lad in our group Rian has been obsessing about it and to his luck there was a part of the song which would fit the slow motion edit perfectly. The concept is the lead singer singing his line in normal speed, with items in the background moving in slow motion. He even filmed an example video to prove to me and Jack it would look good in our music video.

Album Cover Research

Even though our main piece of coursework is the music video, the digipack aspect of it is just as important. The digipack includes my website, which is fully finished and an album cover which I have yet to have started, so today during lesson time I researched some previous indie album covers.

Pictured above is what appears when you type 'indie album covers' into google. It is clear that there are 2 common themes - Sketches and Animals, meaning that unlike other genres such as POP it is not common at all to see the actual indie artist face on the front of an album cover. This could be for many reasons, but the most obvious to me is that the indie genre is known for it's songwriting abilities and using that the sell records, rather than using the pretty face to sell records like the POP genre. I am defiantly going to take that into consideration and not use a band picture on the front as I want my piece of digipack to portray the indie genre perfectly. 

Wolves are also something you can see alot of while scrolling down previous indie album covers, which is strange and can be taken to one extreme or another as they are a symbol of both good and evil. This may be a popular animal to use because maybe the albums which use it have been going through good and bad times while writing the album, or maybe see it as a symbol of hope - If they are going through a bad time then there is always a good side, and the good side is coming. 

I think the idea of using a piece of artwork for my album cover is a idea I like, some of the sketches are so beautiful and although I have never even heard of some of the albums or songs I get the meaning just from the timeless piece of the front of the album. Some of the sketches I have found are off scenery and some are off people, I like the idea of using people on mine and maybe possible band members. 

Diary Entry Week 13

We have finalised our story board.

One of the hardest things we have had to do up to now is create a storyboard, this is because all the decisions require shots down to a second and there are 3 of us all trying to have our own input - so even though it took longer than expected it is finished.

During this week we have also filmed for the first time and successfully managed to curate numerous high standard shots for our music video, sticking to our storyboard for the majority.


This shot we had planned very accurately and even spoke about it in our location planning post.


 But this shot on the other hand was completely unplanned, and wasn't even on the storyboard. It came as a result of our main actor getting too hot in his outfit in real life, and as this is a true factor we wanted to include it in the video as we want the video to be as realistic as possible for the viewer. So that is defiantly something we have learnt on our first week of shooting that you sometimes have to adapt to certain situations, and make them work for you.

First Day of Shooting

Today we woke up early.. On a Saturday and managed to shoot numerous shots which we was extremely happy with the quality of. We are lucky as Jack has an incredible knowledge of film and camera angles and really helps when we are trying to think of a creative angle or an effective shot.

We learnt that sticking to the storyboard is harder than we expected, as there are factors out of our control that impact on the filming and our original shot ideas. One of which was that we started filming with our main actor callum wearing his coat, and as he was running in every shot this became impractical because he was complaining of being too hot. As we had already captured shots which in our eyes was perfect we didn't want to go back and reshot so we had to improvise by filming callum taking his jacket off and throwing it in a dramatic fashion. Even though the shot was unplanned we believe now it gives a sense of drama to the narrative and will hopefully help portray just how desperate the male lead is to find the female lead.

We was anxious about filming for the first time whether our ideas would be portrayed on camera as well as we thought they would in our minds and on paper, but now have done it once and filmed shots we are more than happy with we are looking forward to planning our next filming session.

Callum on the right with his bike is our male lead, and this is the first time a picture of him has featured on my blog. We used the bike to try and attempt tracking shots but the outcome was too shaky. 

Finalised Storyboard

Diary Entry Week 12

This has been a big week in taking steps in beginning to shoot our music video, as we have finally set a date for filming and have spent days looking at possible shooting locations for the narrative - we have made our final decisions and even made decisions just incase the weather isn't on our side. It's always important to have a back up plan.

The band we are using for our music video have agreed on a date in which we can film the performance, and we are using our school stage for this. Although the school stage does not sound the most professional of locations, I have planned a detail blog post on how it will work and why it will work for our genre.

I have also fully finished the website needed for our digipack side of the coursework, I am pleased with how the final product has came out and believes it suits the indie genre perfectly.

Location Idea's for Outdoor Filming

The location in which we are filming the narrative part of our music video needed to be accurate and portray the perfect image for the indie genre, this is why over the last week we have searched the entire town in where we live for several shooting spots. We are lucky as the area surrounding the school we attend is extremely rural looking, with cobbled streets and canal bridges so there inspiration everywhere we looked.

At first we literally sat with the lyrics open on the screen and the almost finished storyboard on the table and discussed what shot we wanted from each lyric, discussing lighting and costume, and what could really tell the story we wanted to get across to our viewers.

Brook Road 
Our initial thoughts was to set the whole running section of the video around a cobbled street, and that is what we think we are going to stick with. Starting and continuing in and around the local street. Everything about this cobbled road has came up with positive links to the indie genre, with many bands using locations similar to ours for photoshoots and album covers.

Opening Shot 
As discussed previously the narrative is going to be set around the area surrounding brook road, so we agreed that the first shot should include a possible pull focus on the road itself as the actor is initially running away. To set the scene.

Green Bridge
One thing we emphasized in our storyboard was the need for some sort of chest collision during the lyric 'stick your lack of chest out'. We wanted it to look dark and we decided one of our local bridges would be perfect for this shot. The bridge itself is green which has connotations of  envy and possession, and we plan to shoot in the dark giving it an edgy feel.

Dutch Tilt Shot
A Dutch tilt is a camera shot in which the camera angle is deliberately slanted to one side. We wanted to use this in music video for dramatic effect and helps portray unease, disorientation, frantic or desperate action, intoxication, madness, etc. We searched many possible locations where we could have just titled the camera ourselves, but decided it would give a more unique shot if we was to use the floor to tilt the camera on a hill. The shot used we are going to have the actor running, but the camera still and not panning - truly creating a unusual shot.

Website Update

After analyzing my own website I have decided to make some changes. I documented the before and after shots using powerpoint.

After researching some more I also added some completely new features.

Click here to see the BEFORE.

Click here to see the AFTER.

Diary Entry Week 11

This week there has been a lot of things happening.

It started when we made the official social media accounts, one on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. I wanted them to all look as professional as possible so I used the same icon and header throughout, I think this makes it appear like an actual bands social media - which is what we are trying to achieve. Since I have created the pages I have been updating them regularly with fake gigs and pictures we have took of our 'fake band'.

It was then time to plan our filming and creating a filming list was something which we would swear by during the process. During the filming list I noted down the song we are using, Heartout by The 1975 and the location's we are going to be filming at. Another important part of the filming list was the actors and extra's we are going to be working with, having a list of them will be essential when checking if everyone is in the right place at the right time. Costumes is also something we thought about as a band, so I also included that in the list.

The benefits of using an actual band was that they perform regularly allowing for plenty of opportunities for filming. Therefore I thought it would be ideal to create a YouTube page for the band and upload any extra footage to it. By doing so it creates a more realistic page and helps us appear to engage with the fans. I uploaded the video in black and white, which is suitable to the genre.

YouTube Channel

So our band is very much based on the visual aspect due to the huge passion for performance and theatre therefore I thought it would be ideal to create a YouTube channel to share this aspect with the 'fans'. Also by doing so it allows me to create a video tab on our website.

Filming Information

As our first filming date is nearing I thought it would be ideal to write down what we have decided on for our week of filming. Once everyone has finalised their schedules for the week of the 24th October - 2nd November I can write down an actual filming schedule, but here is our filming information so far. 

Social Media

Social Media is an important aspect of maintaining a strong fanbase so this week we have focused on creating an account on the most well known platforms.

First of all we started on Facebook.

Followed by Twitter.

And finally my favourite Instagram.

Diary Entry Week 10

This has been a busy week for our group as we have began working on the initial storyboard for our music video. Thursday was the first time we had sat down and actually discussed what our ideas actually was and between the 3 of us we had a lot and a lot we actually easily agreed on. We decided that we wanted both the performance and narrative aspect, using black and white in the narrative and colour in the performance. We also decided what locations we are going to be using and who is going to be playing in our 'band'. So during our lessons we have just been organising our ideas using post it notes.  

I also created more merchandise for our band today, this time I created phone cases. I used the same graphic on them as I did on the T Shirt, making sure that everything is consistent and professional throughout. I just need to create a merchandise tab on our website now to be able to sell it.

New Merchandise - iPhone Cases

As I have discussed before Merchandise is vital in a band's popularity and fame, but also it is a free way of promotion. That is why I have been spending more time on photoshop creating more, I have created 3 iPhone cases, all with the band's Shh Logo on. My research shows that indie band fans demand black and white phone cases, and no other colours. I have concluded this after searching numerous indie band merchandise stores and even fan blogs.

What is a Digi Pack?

As well as curating the music video half of our coursework task is to produce a digipack, by definition "this is a type of packaging for CDs or DVDs, typically made from cardboard with an internal plastic holder for one or more discs."

A digi pack is made up of several components.

1.  Front Cover
2. Lyric Pages
3. Pictures 
4. Thank You Page
5. Back Page 

And I will be creating all of these as part of my task. 

Starting The Storyboard

During today's lesson we sat down as a group and began to start putting our ideas together in an organised form - a storyboard.

Although we only focused on the first 26 seconds of the song today, we got many ideas wrote down and it really got us thinking about the rest of the video. Something which we all agreed on was the importance of both performance and narrative throughout, with the performance in colour but the narrative in black and white. Now with our performance location confirmed as Heebie Jeebies, we can picture exactly what we want our final product to be looking like, with close ups of the band members faces and long shots of them setting out featuring throughout the first 26 seconds.

We have also nailed the narrative for the first 26 seconds, showing onscreen what the lyrics are saying on paper - rushing in a small town. We have also decided on our location for these shots, as we want it on appear like the male actor is pushing past people we believe Bold Street would be able to give us that. Bold Street also gives us the vintage, indie look we want to be identifiable from the Music Video.

For the rest of the week we are going to continue to build on the storyboard and get more of our many idea's onto it.

Diary Entry Week 9

So this entire week has been taken up by the creation of the Secret Nothing's website - which is finally live.

I wanted to take a lot of time on it because I wanted to include all the themes which every indie band uses on their websites and although this is my first draft of it, I am happy for my reasonings behind why I put things in and designed it the way I did. I put the fans comment section in, which is something which I took note of when analysing other bands website, that the fans should be entitled to there own opinion. Also by having a fan comment section it makes the band appear popular, which is something we want to portray. I also offered a free sneak preview of our new single, which is another way to interact with the fans and get them talking. I documented my analysis of my own website by using powerpoint.

First Draft of Website

A Website is an important part of the band and it's image, after researching several indie bands I know the look I want to be going for. Although this is only my first draft at the website and there is plenty of room for improvement, I am happy with how well I have managed to get the indie genre across.

Check the Website out for yourself -

http://thesecretnothings.wix.com/thesecretnothings