Speed/Duration

Timing is an important part of my video as I want lots of the editing of the video to fit in with the changes in the song. I think this will allow me to use harsher cutting with editing rather than transitional.
Especially as I use real people I don't want it to look like they are moving abnormally quickly or slowly.

I tested out different speed percentages to see what would fit in with the music but not look too unreal.
With the speed at 200% it did not look right at all, and then the speed at 45% looked too slow; I settled at 120% as then she was moving quickly but not soo quickly that the audience would question whether it was real or not. 

Untitled from vicki robbins on Vimeo.

Magazine adverts

After looking at different CD advertisments I have found that most keep it quite simple with the images not distracting from the text showing when it is on sale etc etc. They also resemble the front of the album cover perhaps so that it is easily recognisable from the origonal advert.

For example - British Sea Power's Valhalla Dancehall's LP advert is just the front cover of the album with some reviews at the bottom of the page and details of the sale.
Learning from this I think I may use the image from the front of my digipak of the shoes, chaging around the text making it slightly more eye-grabbing; and maybe add some comments about the song.

Album Cover

Magazine Advert

Digipak Analysis

While creating my own digipak I thought it best to look back what other artists have used for their own; looking at my own CDs I discovered that not many artists use the cardboard case, usually opting for the jewel case. But I did find actually that two of my favourite albums used a digipak; MGMT - Ocacular Spectacular and Arcade Fire - The Suburbs.
Both look asthetically different; with the MGMT album using images of the two frontmen on a bright cover to draw attention. While Arcade Fires members feature nowhere on the sleeve and drawings of cars and trees being the main focus of the front cover with only the bands name featuring in small text in the top right corner.


Arcade Fire Front Cover

The front cover of this album is very simple but the audience can tell that it fits in with the theme of the album 'Suburbs' you can see the family type car with a big white house and tree behind the fence. These things are all stereotypical things that you would find in the Suburbs. The fact that this picture looks to be hand drawn, makes it look even more different from what you usually see when looking at album covers. Usually they are photos of the artists themselves so that it is more recognisable. Especially as the name of the band is written quite small in the top corner. This shows how they want the album to be recognised due to the music not necessarily the name or the cover.

MGMT Front Cover

MGMTs cover is also quite simple but they follow more of the regular conventions; band members are featured on the front with just straight shots of them. The name of the album is not on the cover but in the centre is the name of the band; in a font that even though in plain colours is still eye-catching due to the fact is it different from what you would normally expect. I think that even though the two men are the main image and take up the majority of the cover space; you are still drawn to look at the background because of the different colours that make up the sky and the sea - you even notice the tiny details such as the moon in the background, even thought it would be tiny if you were looking from a distance.

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.