Photoshopping for digipak

For the front of my digipak I chose to use one of the images I took while I was out filming the balloon floating away scene for my video. When I opened the image on the computer I noticed that there were a few imperfections in the background that I felt removing would make the image better.




Origonal Image

 





Photoshopped image

I then decided that if I changed the image entirely to make it different from the rest it would add to digipak making it different. So I then used a different image from the day - and made it into pencil crayons affect.



Photoshopped image 2

I like this image as the background is faded slightly which draws more attention to the girl and especially the balloon



Beach and Balloon problems

Two things that I thought would be easy making, making a stone heart and filming a heart shaped balloon  floating away, have turned out two be the trickiest things I have had to deal with when filming.

Wednesday 19th January -I checked the tide times for the local beach and found that the tide would be furthest out at 2.27 and as I wanted the waves to wash over the stones I wanted to get there before that. I set off from school at 11 thinking I would reach the beach by midday while the tide was still quite far in; due to unforeseen circumstances - mainly my mother and sister being slow to get ready- I did not get to the beach until 2.30 when the sea was as far out as it would be for the whole day. I then had to make the heart on an empty space of sand the closest one which I could was still quite a distance from the sea so there was unfortunately no chance of the waves washing it away. However I knew the audience would still be able to infer that eventually the sea would washing it away; carrying on the idea that the love does not always last forever.

Thursday 20th January - Today I headed into the city in the afternoon with my actor; to shoot one of the final scenes I needed for my video; the balloon floating away into the sky. I had thought that it would be difficult to find a heart shaped balloon and had even enlisted someone that was able to make balloon animals thinking that if needed she could fashion a heart out of one long thin balloon. After 30 mins of searching we found a small card shop that had some heart shaped balloons bought in for Valentines day - they were exactly what I had hoped for. We then went to the local park to take some photos I could use for my digipak or magazine article. This caused to be trickier than imagined as I had again forgot to think about the weather! The wind made it extremely difficult to catch the balloon staying in one particular place. It just would not stay still! Eventually after moving around to nearly every bench in the park we found one that had a tree slightly sheltering us from the wind, but still let through enough to have the balloon be blown slightly in the direction I wanted.

Hearts

As the song is about love I am going to draw on that and use different ways of making hearts to interject throughout the video. I think it will make the piece more abstract which is what I think the band and the song are.

I have thought of some that I am going to try and create. Many of the things that I am going to make or place them in are stereotypical things that a couple would do together or you would see on film them doing e.g. doing ot the beach, playing in the snow
1) heart made of footsteps in the snow
2) heart shaped balloon flying away
3) twigs in a shape of a heart pushed into the river
4) stones on a beach as the waves go back and leave them there
Another way I have seen which my friend enjoys doing is using the camera to spread the light. If it is dark and then there is just one light, such as a streetlamp or a car headlight, if you take a photo of it with the flash on and then move the camera in the shape you want while you take it, the light will spread make it look like the light was in that shape. However I think that this may be tricky and will take some practice as it doesn't work every time you try and making the heart shape in the air may not come out as expected making it look messy.

The Song

The song is 3.46 minutes long.
During the verses it is paced quite slowly with the fast underbeat; during the the chorus is is very fast paced as the backing starts to take over the vocals.
The first 15 seconds are of just synth noises with every 4 beats a stronger noise; I think that I will use this in my video and switch scenes then to make the cutting seem more edgy, stronger and abstract.
Lots of the song is just synth and noise with the vocals over the top there is not really a melody to follow. There is lots of beat repetitiion with the patterens reused throughout the song; I may use this to repeat different parts of the video - most likely to more abstract bits.

Actual Video

On Sunday 19th December 2010 I went out to start filming for my video even though it was around 5pm it was already very dark and with the street lighting in the area I was using I got the look that I had wanted. It had also been snowing in the days before so the remenants of it were on the ground. I thought this looked good and it also went with the snow footstep heart that I had made and filmed earlier in the week to go with the video so it would link the abstractness of it to the idea that maybe the girl had done it herself. It was a sucessfull start of shooting I felt as we left that evening despite the coldness. However when I watched it back I realised that there was continuity in the fact the girl had both checked her phone then used a pay phone. I think that it would look more realistic if she were to lok at her watch before using the payphone instead; as then the audience gets an idea that she is waiting for someone who she then finds out isn't coming.

So I planned to reshoot just that scene with my actor; but due to the change in time of year we will have to film later when it is dark. But the main problem is that now it had not been snowing the background will look completely different. So the option is now to leave in the continuity or completely refilm all those scenes and call that the practise run.

Shot List

Home
-Getting ready in room - mascara-close up, lip gloss, shoes
-Looking at a photo frame then putting it upside down on a table
-Picking up coat and leaving
-Using sparklers
-Pushing the rose petal heart off the table - shot from both the side and behind
Tombland
- Waiting at the bus stop and checking the time, before getting up and leaving - from the front, behind and then a facial close-up
- Going to telephone box and then storming out
- Running up the hill away from it all
Beach
-Picking up rocks to make the heart
-Throwing things into the ocean
-Walking along the shoreline
-Aerial shot of the heart
Bridge
-Making the twig heart before pushing it into the river
-Reading the letter before throwing that into the river as well - behind close-up
-Shot of the letter floating under the bridge and away
Chaplefield Gardens
-Sitting on the bench and letting the balloon float away
-Follow the balloon as it floats off into the trees
Miscellaneous
-Cars on the motorway
-Snow heart
-Light heart