Our video

This is our completed video. It has now been uploaded to YouTube after being approved by our media teacher. We have also created a survey in order to gain some feedback on what others think of our video, which can used for our evaluation. We require as much feedback as possible for the video so if it is possible please leave a comment either here or on YouTube, and complete our survey.

To edit our video, we have been using Adobe Premiere Pro, software that we had only had the opportunity to use once previously when making a video at the end of last year. We used a number of techniques however this time around that we did not use last time. We lightened our footage in the editing suite in order to be more fitting with the general look of Coral videos and also to make it look more professional, as before the footage looked rather washed out. We also tried to make sure that all the footage fitted with the beat of the song especially when there are very specific drum beats. We made the cuts more jumpy when these drum beats were prominent in the song. We also put in a sound effect for the alarm clock, which we downloaded and the inserted into the song, just like we had to add the main song, and removed any background noise from the actual video.

The Advert

This is a photo of our completed advert. This will also be converted to PDF format when we submit the final version for our coursework. We have kept with the theme of the digipak here in a number of ways. One of the ways we achived this was by using the same front, but we did use a different colour as it tied in more with the colour of the photo, and white would not have shown up very well. We also used a picture from the back of our digipak, which continues the theme. We decided due to the fact that the front cover image was landscape, and advert portrait, this photo would not be appropriate. However, the bear by the lamp post was already portrait, so this was a much better choice of image. In order to make the advert look realistic, we also added the logo of a supplir of the record, HMV, and the record label logo. In the details at the bottom, we included a web address and legal information.

Digipak photo

This is an image of our finished digipak before we post the final version in PDF format. When creating the digipak in photoshop, we did make a change from our final draft, changing an image of just balloons for a photo of the bear with the balloons. We were going to use a screengrab from our video for this initial idea of just balloons, but this did not work as well as we had planned, with the image turning out to be rather blurry. Having never taken a screengrab from Adobe Premier Pro before, we did not anticipate the poor quality of this photo. However, we had already taken a number of photos on the days of the shoot, we simply chose one of those, and as the bear was holding balloons, we felt this would be inkeeping with the balloon theme for this side of the digipak.
The other photos we planned to use worked well, although we edited some in order to make them look more professional, such as darkening areas of the photo for our front cover, and repeating the same actions on the back cover in order to make them fit in with one another. The images to be used behind the CD and DVD were also heavily edited to give them a more professional feel, cropping and darkening areas of both of these.

The Digipak - Draft 1 and 2

These are the drafts for our digipak. Draft one features our initial plans for the digipak, but these changed a lot when we went out filming. This was due to the fact that we took a number of photos at the shoot that differ from those initially planned, and we preferred the ones taken at the shoot. We also felt that these photos would improve the standard of the digipak. Most of the photos we have chosen to use were posted in the previous entry, Photos for the Digipak. The only picture that hasn't already been posted is the photos of the balloons in the sky, shown in the plans, but we did not use this in the end. We instead choose the photo of the bear with the ballons, due to the poor quality of the photo of just the balloons.

Update of the Week

This week we have begun editing our video, and have already progressed a long way with it. We spent a long time choosing our favourite shots to be used for the video, as some of them couldn't be used due to passers by being in the shot. So far, we have a fairly rough cut of our video with plenty of room for making smoother, more professional cuts.
However, what has been sucessful already is fitting shots to an underlying beat in the video. During a small break from the song, where there is silence, we slowed the shot down as we felt it was more fitting. Where there is a very strong drum beat, we use some abrupt cuts for things such as coming down the stairs, and zooming in on the bus ticket. We also experimented with a jump cut for when our character leaps over some bollards. We use this cut to move him from one to the next rapidly, and then continue this as he moves closer to the camera.
Due to only having one version of one of the shots, we had to zoom in to cut a passer by out of the shot, and on another shot, we were able to use the program to straighten one of the shots.

Update of The Week

Due to half term, and being out filming the week prior to this, we were not able start our group work until we returned from the holidays. However, upon our return we have achieved a large amount of progress on our digipak this week. We had taken the majority of the photos for our digipak on our shoot, only needing one final photo which will be a screengrab from our video when we come to editing in Adobe Premier Pro next week.
We have been using Adobe Photoshop to create our digipak. We have been able to use a wide variety of features that we had not had the opportunity to use before in Photoshop. We had previously used the Magic Wand select tool, but once we had selected an area, we were also able to darken this part of the image, in order t0 make the image fit in better with what would be expected of an album front cover.
We also cropped images which we had done previously, and also wrote text onto our album cover. This allowed us to explore new features, such as putting a shadow on the text and importing a font that we had downloaded online.

Photos for the Digipak

These are a selection of the images we intend to use for our digipak. A first and second draft have now been drawn up for the digipak.