Updated Storyboard

Storyboard:

Animatic:

*UPDATE: ANIMATIC RE-UPLOADED DUE TO COPYRIGHT ISSUES*

Original Video:

Update - Story Board

Today we have been refining our new story board as we changed our idea quite significantly form the original plan. This has been a lengthily process as it requires a lot of ideas and creativity as well as focus in order to get a good story board, in the next could of days it will be posted on the blog and we will complete an 'animatic' version of it.

Picture: Shot ideas we were coming up with

Creative Journey

1)      The idea I started with was having a picture of a Small Ruin in a forest.

2)      Then I had an idea of having just a picture of a forest or the idea of having the front cover based on nature.

3)      Having a trippy image on the front cover was one of my ideas.

4)      I decided to not do a nature or trippy image and copy a very simplistic idea of having the band members on the front of the magazine. I have taken Ideas from the Album cover of mystery by Brent McCollough with the black and white colour scheme and the simplicity of just having the artist with the name of the album and the name of the artist on it.

5)      For my digipak I was going to use the three pictures of band members on it. This is important because it gives the band members so kind of identity.

6)      Where some of my ideas came from was the album cover to the Pet shop boys, please. The simplicity and the gap between the picture and the writing of the name of the band and album.

7)      Another of my main helpers and tips came from the Pet Shop Boys album, actually. This is because of the simplistic nature of the piece and the way that the two members of the band have been cut out and placed against a white background.

8)      Jay-z’s ‘the black album’ was something I used for the font types and the idea of having the album name below the name of the group or artist.

9)      The two Weezer album covers have been very influential because of the simplicity of the two pieces. The idea of having just the band members on the cover is one I took and I was also interested in the way that they had the same kind of font for both the albums and that they use it in a good way.

10)   ACDC highway to hell I used as an example for the way the name of the band and album is set out. I was contemplating having the name of the album below the image and the name of the band above the image.

11)   The backstreet boys album cover is one I like because of the simplicity but also it has the band members and then the name of the band above it. I took the idea of the band members onto my digipak.

12)   The razorlight album cover is one of my main influences; this is because it is very simplistic. Having the band with the white background behind it was very appealing just like the Pet shop boys albums. I was contemplating having the band name in large like on the Razorlight album but that would have made it too close to it so I went against that idea. 

13)   The ‘Our Last Night’ album was going to be used as inspiration as I was contemplating using the black or white background but with then the band members on the strips with a different colour.

14)   This is the image I have used for the front cover of the band members. What I did was cut each member out one by one and added them to a white background.

15)   The white line which I am going to use as part of the album title, as a separator between the name of the band and the album.

16)   The different fonts I could have used for the name and title of the band and album respectively.

17)   The colour panel I used for the album. Very basic and simplistic as this is the kind of feel I wanted for my album.

18)   The finished Digipak. 

New Band Member Recruited

We have now been able to cast a replacement band member for Max (who is now permanently unavailable). And he will be introduced to the song and video ideas today ready for filming tomorrow.
We contacted a significant number of potential candidates, many candidates weren't available for briefing and filming on the three day we had chosen and therefore were unsuitable for the role.
In the end we narrowed it down to two candidates and chose Louis Grocott for the role.
We are happy with this decisions and see Louis to be a valuable addition to the team.

Creative journey // Nathan Beard

Band Member Permanently Unavailable

Due to a change in circumstances one of our band members is now unavailable to film anything by the deadline, and we are therefore having to re-cast that part which will be a challenge this close to the deadline (less than a week). However we are putting in every effort to make this possible and make the transition form one to another seamless.

Final Advert

FINAL DIGIPAK

Filming Dates

We have decided that we are going to film on the 26th and 27th of November, this will be at the location we plan to shoot in Leicester City Centre. The shots will be taken in places similar to those in the location mood bards of the urban environments, the lighting for our video is a mixture between sundown type lighting and darker more night like lighting. For this reason we are going to film from about 5PM until we finish with the shots we need on each day.
One of our band members is unavailable on one of the days so all of the shots relating to him will be done on the 27th.

The test shots taken on 20/11/15 were not of satisfactory quality and will only be used to demonstrate a vague representation of the ideas we have.

Filming Plan

Today we are planning to film for the draft music video, due to the fact that two of the band members are unavailable for filming today we are filming the lead singers parts. so that we can get some feedback on the style of video.

• The idea of the filming is to get a feel for the concepts that we are using and decide wether they are to be used in the final video.

2nd draft digipak

2nd draft digipak poster

Responding To feedback // Nathan Beard

This was my first draft for this style:

The feedback i received on my digipak was primarily focused around the positioning of some items. The items that needed repositioning where:

• The Logos of the band and record label on the left inside cover needed making smaller. 
• The record label logo on the back cover needed moving to the other side.
• The 'welcome' text on the inside left cover needs aligning better.

Other comments that where made:

• Could do with more songs.
• Needs a catalog number on the margin.
• legal information needs adding to the bottom of the back cover.
• Change the word 'digipak' to album and change 'The SmallRuin Team' to SmallRuin.

This was the resulting digipak with the changes made:

I changed most of the aspects that where commented on however I decided that I didn't need to change the amount of songs, as I think that it sits better with less songs, as the version I tried looked cluttered due to the blue blobs being to regular.

Original Poster

The feedback I received was that that the design was good, and that I should try some of the following versions:

• Move the 'SmallRuin' script above the album name.
• Try one with the record logo on.
• Correct the spelling error.

New poster 1:

New poster 2:

My personal preference out of the above options would be the 3rd so the 2nd new one (with  the record label logo) as this promotes the record label as well as the new album. 

Responding to Feedback- Ben Wakeford Digipak

Front cover, Picture was just of the lead singer and the text was slanted across the top of the singer’s head.  On my new front cover I changed the picture to accommodate the whole band. The band are cut out with the lasso tool on Photoshop.  I used the rectangle tool in order to get a white background on the front cover then used the colour overlay in order to make the background look the whitest it can be. I also changed the name of the album to make it sound better; I changed it from the Undercover Martyn to Expensive Sound. This is because Expensive sound is one of the names of the songs and I thought it sounded better to me. I changed the Font type to Calibri because this is a simpler font and it is easier to read than the slanted font over the artist.

Back, on my first draft the back cover was a black background which I did using the rectangle tool on the back cover. I then used text boxes in order to make the song names. On my new digipak I changed the back cover to not have the numbers down the side and just have the names of the songs; this makes it easier to read. I also took the ‘Small Ruin’ away from the top of the list because people would already know the band is called that. The back is now very simplistic like the rest of the digipak.

Tray disk, On the first tray disc I had one of the Small Ruin logo’s. I changed this from the disc because it was just a bit too much for the viewers to take so I changed it to a plain white background using the rectangle tool. On top of the white background I had the address to the Facebook, Twitter and online pages.

On the extra panel, I had that the it was the Small Ruin debut album. I also had a few reviews from people and magazines in music. On the new digipak I scrapped the extra panel and just had four panels.     

Inside left, On the inside left of my old digipak I had the name of the Band and the names of all the band members. Also I had a message from the band, I decided to take these off because the message was a bit ‘cringy’ and wasn’t needed. This is one of the sides that I took off because of the needlessness of the panel.

Inside Centre, On the inside centre of my old digipak there was a picture of the band. I decided to take this out on my new digipak because of the picture of the whole band being on the front cover. 

Plan of Action (02/11/15 - 08/11/15)

This week the emphasis is on reacting to feedback on our digipaks and adverts. We will also be filming more shots for our testing and planning, this will give us all chance to get used to our roles. There will also be a big push to learn all the lyrics for the song that we are doing and become familiar with the thinking behind our video in order to make the end product look better thought out.

This weeks tasks for the group members are:

Nathan Beard

• Get used to the equipment involved in the video
• learn the words to the song. 
• Gather an understanding of the video concepts.

Joe Ford

• Learn the words to the song.
• Plan the clothing that needs to be ready for the final shoot.
• Gather an understanding of the video concepts.

Ben Wakeford

• Learn the words to the song.
• Plan the clothing that needs to be ready for the final shoot.
• Gather an understanding of the video concepts.

There will be no more weekly updates or plans of action from this week onward, as the aims will be to get our video done and finalizing the research and planning.