Digipak development

During the process of making our digipak, we asked multiple people for feedback and gained some constructive criticism on the photos we chose to represent our artist on the digipak. Receiving feedback on the aesthetic, colour scheme and overall vibe of the photos helped us to gage what we wanted the final digipak outcome to be. 

While doing this, we ended up changing a lot of the photos that we had originally chose for the digipack for the front cover, back cover, inside and inside back cover. This is because, after receiving feedback, we thought it was best to have the artist wearing the same clothes in each photo as well as changing some of the images so that together, the whole digipak looks more coherent in terms of the colour scheme. After looking at these pictures together we realized that they didn't seem to work and needed to have a more coherent colour palette to help it look like it's meant to be a collective set and less individual or divided. 

Initial pictures we chose:

After we decided that it would be more successful having the model on the digipak wearing the same outfit, we edited more photos of the model wearing the plaid blazer so that the lighting in each image was similar (this was done by changing the hues of the images to more orange tones). 

In my next blog post about our digipak designs, I will post the final produce that as a group, we are all happy with; it will include all the titles in fonts that we think will suit out artist best. 

Social media development

We started to post and evolve our Instagram page; using an app called preview helped us to gage the best layout and order we should post our pictures in on the page so that is look as visually appealing as possible:

 

Through the preview app, we decided that our colour theme was green, orange, and yellow which are all very warm colours and also correlates directly to our music video 'Golden Hour'. We wanted to include pictures that weren't just taken from the shoot day and planned a photoshoot. Anna asked our model if she could take pictures for the page, which actually turned out really well and the pictures fit in very well with the page overall. 

To edit the photos taken, Tilly used photoshop and an app called Prequel, this was really helpful as it allowed us to put filters and effects onto the photos to make them fit our aesthetic. 

 

 

To make the Instagram page look as realistic as possible, we made sure to stay active on our personal Instagram stories so that we could try and engage audiences to keep up the artist's reputation. We also reposted stories from the shoot day of our music video so that it showed sneak peaks and more insight to our artist as it encouraged participatory culture. 

Reposting from the shoot day:                  Posting General stories: 

 

Editing session #3: Finishing touches and Colour grading

Today, I was confident that I would be able to finish my final music video edit as I had done the completed cut just without specific editing (like the split screen) and colour grading as well as adding sound effects. 

I began this editing session by showing the rest of my group members what I had completed so far and they were happy with the outcome so far. I then started to work on the non-sync shots of the dining table and was able to create the split screen of the artist looking at herself across the table. To do this I had to find two shots with the exact same lighting and then blend them together seamlessly to create professional looking shots. I was really happy with how this turned out and I think it successfully helps to make our music video more unique. 

After I completed this, I used a couple shots of clocks and turned down the opacity to overlay some of the artists lip-sync during the chorus, this was a subtle but noticeable difference which I think has helped to make our video look more sophisticated as I have payed attention to detail. 
I added 2.35 to 1 Cinemascope boarders to our music video to make it look more cinematic which I think also makes our video look more professional as they helped to frame the shots well. 

Now, the whole video was completed and all the needed to be done was colour-grading. This is done to make the video look more alive and helps to highlight the lighting used in the music video. 

We colour graded to each specific set and then had to add the colouring to each section of the video corresponding to each set. Finally, we added a match sound effect to the beginning of the video when the artist lights the match before the music starts, I think this was a nice little detail that helped me to round of the end of my music video as it made it feel more put together in my opinion. 

When I was finished, my group and myself watched the whole thing and we are all very pleased with how it turned out; although we did not edit it exactly to our shot list, I think we created a music video that exceeded our expectations. 

Editing session #2: Adding in non-sync

Today in the editing suite, because I had successfully completed my lip-sync cut yesterday, I was able to get going on reviewing our non-sync footage and overlaying that on top of our video.

To do this, I created a new arrangement on Premiere Pro so I could place the lip-sync cut all in one bar so it would then be easier to place the non-sync footage over the top. This also meant that if needed, I could go back and edit the lip-sync cut without having to change the non-sync cut. 

I began by reviewing all the non-sync footage and then placing all my favourite shots on the music video timeline on Premiere Pro. After this, I converted all the footage into 50% speed as we shot the non-sync in 50f.p.s; the shots that we got came out nice in slow-motion and I think will help to make our video more dynamic. I then started to place the non-sync footage in line with the correct set. However, we also filmed a whole set in non sync (the dining table containing a duplicate screen) so I placed this throughout the whole video creating a semi-narrative of the artist walking in into the table set and then walking out at the end of the music video. 

Matt discussed with me that it was important to contain some 'confident' non-sync shots meaning that they can't just be quick and snappy to mask a mistake, they need to look intentional so I took his advice and it made the video look much more professional. 

Today, I was able to finish the timeline of the music video containing both sync and non-sync meaning that now I just have to work on minute details as well as colour-grading and editing specific shots like the duplicate screen.