Budget

Camera - £1000
Props (clothing, things in car) - £300
Petrol costs - £50
Actors - £60
Location hire - £260

Total - £1670

Time management plan

19/10/2009
Media: Plan/put together presentation on the work of Michel Gondry and Lasse Hallstrom.
Graphic Design: Put together a poster advertising a surf competition.
Photography: Darkroom work, photograms and pinhole photography.
Music: Talking about how to promote an artist, look at different styles used to promote different people. Learn basics on Logic Pro

13/11/2009
Media: Plan music video, storyboard and get ideas, look at other artists similar to see how they our artist could be branded.
Graphic Design: Continue Photoshop work, edit portraits taken with the built in iSight camera on the Macs.
Photography: Start looking at taking actual photos, use a film camera to do a series of photos on shadows.
Music: Look at recording a song with an artist, learn how to set up the studio. In conjunction with Logic Pro.

11/12/2009
Media: Film music video.
Graphic Design: Using previously developed Photoshop skills, make a front cover for our graphic design folder in 2 different styles, organic and grunge/urban.
Photography: Write an essay on the history of photography, take pictures for album art for music video.
Music: Explore and experiment with different styles of music video shots and camera angles for use in the video.

18/12/2009
Hand everything in, finish all projects and complete all work.

Some finished album art

The top two pictures are the inside and outside of my booklet and the bottom one is the bit under the CD so you only see it when you take it out.

Music video reflection

So far we've finished the video and I'm pretty happy with the result. Ben edited it really well, and the mood is exactly how we'd imagined it to begin with. There were a few problems with filming towards the start, because the weather was too good for the mood we wanted to create, but in the end the weather unfortunately changed for the worse (better? depending on how you look at it). I think the strongest points of the video are the amount of footage we had to edit with and how quickly Ben picked up the capabilities of the editing software. Some of the potential weaknesses are some people might not like the amount of effects added, or the length of the video (almost 10 minutes).

Please leave and questions or comments below :)

Album design

Today I took the picture I'm using for the album cover. While I was researching what size an album cover is I found an interesting article about how designing album art has changed. In the past people had a larger canvas to work on, because the record sleeve would have been a bigger image (Vinyl LP cover: 153.1 square inches), whereas right now, most people will see album artwork on the screen of their iPod (iPod Nano Cover Flow icon: 0.4 square inch). Due to this, more and more albums have much more minimalist covers, with a simple design, usually using bold colours that stand out together, making them easily recognisable on a small screen. Some examples:






















































This kind of made me think about my cover design, and I think I'll definitely take this info on board in future projects.


The article in question.
http://www.wired.com/culture/design/magazine/17-03/dp_recordart

Album Artwork!

Our promotional material will consist of the main music video, a fictional album complete with artwork and a CD, and some photographs. Today in photography I was researching a technique to create "Light Trails", a concept I started experimenting with in the last post. My current idea for the art will be a young man standing under a street light next to a busy road. The man will be possibly holding a guitar, and there will be no cars on the road, just trails of headlights passing in front of him. There will be no other people in the shot, maybe faint trails of people walking past, to show the passing of time and the man's isolation, which represents the isolation shown in the music video.

The image I want to achieve uses a long exposure time and relys on the person (Probably my brother) standing still for the duration of the exposure, so he stays sharply in focus while everything else blurs around him.

New group, new ideas, new stuff!

As of last week, I joined Ben's group, and now I'm working on a song he produced on Logic, not the Addiction, by Doctor Noise. I'm mostly doing photography for the album artwork, as well as some acting in the video.

My idea for the album art comes from the name of the song, Crazy Lights. I'm going to have a figure holding a guitar lit by a street light next to a busy road, and then have the camera on the other side of the road and do a long exposure shot of him standing really still and the headlights of cars will blur past. (Kinda boringly obvious as far as "lights" are concerned, but it should be a powerful image if I get it right.)

Here is my first few experiments with the long exposure. This was a technique I hadn't tried before, and was trying to see if it was possible on my camera. Also, I didn't have a tripod, so everything looks like there was an earthquake happening while I took it.




And then a few I took at home, using a pile of books to steady the camera, and using glow sticks as the lights

Digital Post-its (PLTS)

Soon, I'll be adding some images to old blog posts, to point out where thinks I've done can be applied to the Personal Learning Thinking Skills. There will be 6 different "digital post-its", as shown.

Project ideas

Things we've been doing lately

Media

We've been planning/story boarding for the music video, our next project. The video is going to be for a song by Doctor Noise, a musician who is based on youtube.

Graphics

For the past few weeks in graphics we've been using the graphics tablets to draw on pictures on pictures of ourselves we took with the camera on the macs. We also did some experimenting with filters in photoshop.

Photography

Since half term I've been taking pictures with a film camera and last week I developed my first film. I think most of the pictures turned out really well considering I didn't know how to use any of the settings on my camera when I took the first film. I prefer film photography to digital, because the taking digital photos is a throwaway process, whereas with film, you only have a few pictures per roll, so you take more consideration when you take pictures.

Music

In music we've been experimenting with camera shots for the video, and doing some work in logic. I linked my photography into music last week, taking pictures with the film camera, and I'm going to try and develop the film next week.

History of photography research

- Past and present photographic practice

Past: Calotype, Fox Talbot, Daguerreotype, Louis Daguerre


- Overview of changes in technology and working practice

- Timeline

- Factors that have influenced current practice, such as technology, society, censorship, commercialism and culture

Use images to give examples for every topic.

Lyrics: Dr. Noise - Addiction

Addiction

I must be going mad, I can not feel from my waist down
A pain surging thru my ability to keep calm
I'm not delusional, it is all so very real
I need this powder or I can not heal

Watch as it spirals thru your mind, you're flying to the sky
No it's over...no it's over again.
The frustration takes my mind, don't read into the signs
There's nothing wrong with me..

(C)I can not stop addiction, I can not stop myself from
feeling a need so powerful now, every single day
I can not stop frustration, the bleeding heart inside me
will cry out for an answer to my

Pray now for me to break off my path of nowhere

Ok So maybe I have a problem and, I need to solve it for the sake
of myself and anyone left who gives a shit
The Rampant motion in my head, the pidder padder of small feet
I can't hear I can't see, Right in front of me

no one can stand the smell of my, clothes or breathe as I walk by
disowned by everyone I ever knew
doing things I'd never do, just for a fix or maybe two
don't judge me for this

Pray now for me to break off of my
path of nowhere heading so fast
a train wreck couldn't stop me from
getting to artificial somber

In a perfect world I will conquer all
can't seem to put a touch on what it was
that made me feel so very cold
where did all the time go?
Another soul saved from a destined fate
another clouded mind is clear of hate
Welcome to my dreamworld where everything
happens just the way it should...

I can't remember you.

Presentation

In this presentation I will be looking at and comparing the work of two music video directors, Lasse Hallstrom and Michel Gondry, using their videos Waterloo (ABBA) and The Hardest Button to Button (The White Stripes).



Lasse Hallstrom, born June 2nd 1946, started off as a director when he made a short documentary in high school about a group of friends who formed a rock band. Later that year, he got his first break when the documentary was shown on Swedish television. Three years later he trained to be a television producer, and in 1974 ABBA asked him to make them some promo clips (forerunners to music videos) to send to radio stations they couldn't personally visit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVGSKVkkyhc

After doing many videos for ABBA, Hallstrom went into directing feature length films, starting with En Kille och en Tjej (A Guy and a Gal), in 1975. After this he directed ABBA:The Movie too, but his first real hit wasn't until 1985 with My Life as a Dog, where he received a nomination Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director at the Academy Awards. His style, while not developing much through his early work as a music video director, is much more obvious in his films.



Michel Gondry, born May 8th 1963, started making films for the band he drummed in Oui Oui. After making several videos in 1992 for the band, he caught the attention of Icelandic music artist Björk, who wanted something different for her song Human Behaviour, and following the success of the video, he worked on several others with her. Many artists looking to make a statement about their style use Gondry, as he usually makes videos with a visually impressive quality, while being simple in concept or execution.

Due to the fantastical simplicity of Gondry's work, he has been quoted by some as having "redefined the entire music video genre". When you see some of his work, it is easy to understand how, as his videos have almost a magical quality to them that doesn't appear before he made his way onto the director's stage.

Recently, Gondry won an Oscar for directing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and since has directed The Science of Sleep and Be Kind Rewind, all films that show the dreamlike quality of his work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLESpHrtvxs

Camera Angles: Research

I will be trying to imitate some of these camera angles in music when we practice filming music videos, either by posing with instruments or by filming a band practicing in the studio.

Presentation Notes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVGSKVkkyhc&feature=fvst

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLESpHrtvxs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB8XedMowDU

http://www.director-file.com/gondry/

Things we've done so far

Music Tech:

We experimented with loops and arranging them into songs, using pre recorded loops and things we recorded in lesson with the same techniques I mentioned in the previous post.

Film:

We looked at ABBA videos as an example of old technology/techniques, and videos from various contemporary directors as an example of new techniques/technologys.

Graphic Design:

We've looked at various basic photoshop techniques and created a poster for a surf club.

Photography:

More darkroom work, but now using pinhole cameras too.
AS Photography, we are looking at using techniques like reflecting the sun into the pinhole to create a dot effect on the photo.

Music production

Over the past 2 weeks in music we have been learning how to record instruments and vocals in the studio, then edit this with Logic Pro. We also learned the proper ways of miking an instrument and setting up a vocal microphone, with the pop shield to stop "p" and "s" sounds being louder. There is also a huge archive of pre-recorded loop tracks that can be used if you're missing an instrument.

The main steps to recording a drum track track on Logic are:

- Set up the microphones, two overheads, roughly the same distance from thhe snare; a kick mic, inside the drum and slightly towards the side; and a snare mic, over the snare drum. This is only to get the general sound though, for a more proffesional recording you would use a mic for every drum.

- Make sure the mics are connected to the input box and mixing desk.

- Create a track for each input and name them, eg. OH1, OH2, Snare, Bass.

- Have someone play the drums and set the "gain" levels so the bar in Logic goes into the yellow but not touching the red.

- Enable the tracks for recording.

- Click the record button and play the drums

Week one!

In my first week I learned about what the course was about generally and I met all of the lecturers and people I'll be working with over the course of the year. We also did some work with getting used to the cameras, darkroom and software we'll be using.