Our Music Video

This is the music video we finally put together
The Song is called River by the Artist Lights


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Update!

We're almost finished! Music video, webpage and album package are all completed, we have filmed our final audience feedbacks on the completed video and website and our evaluation. The only thing we have left to do is edit the evaluation using Final Cut and Screenium, which Dean is currently doing. Gerdy created a title menu for our DVD, however, we are currently having problems putting the music video onto our DVD, but Gerdy is currently working on it, so by the end of today we should have everything complete!!

-Clare :)

FRONT COVER

 LYRICS PAGE

 CD BACKGROUND

LIGHTS INFORMATION PAGE

 ANOTHER COVER

BACK PAGE

Audience Feedback - Album Covers

Here's our audience feedback! Everyone pretty much agreed on the cover we intended on using and gave some constructive criticism, which we have taken on board.

Update!

Coursework is to be handed up for this Friday, so only three more days to complete everything! Almost finished everything, Gerdy is currently finishing off the inside covers for the album and has got the front and back covers done, which look really well! 
Dean is doing a few final touches to the video, we still have to refilm some footage of Deborah singing along to the song, as the filming we had for this felt a bit plain and we felt we could do it better. We plan to film this on Wednesday night at my house, which means on Thursday Dean can edit this footage into our music video and hopefully it'll be complete! 
Deborah is working on the website, which ties in with the colour scheme on the album cover, she's added loads of widgets and links on the site and it's looking pretty professional. 
I'm just uploading our audience feedback for our album covers, after that we just need an audience feedback for our completed music video and an evaluation from ourselves. Still a wee bit to do but we should be able to get it all done on time! 


-Clare :)

A Few More Potential Covers To Chose From!!

- GERARD

More Album Covers Ideas

Here are three more previous cover the group had made:

Album Cover idea

This is our initial album cover idea, however Mr Tierney feels we should first try a few other sample covers so we shall start on that.

new ideas!!!!

Dean and I are sitting in class now, Dean is working on the cover of the album and i am working on some new ideas for added shots and scenes for our video. We will continue brainstorming ideas for the duration of the class because we have around a minute to fill in our song still. We are also working on ideas for a photo for the website..Deb playing guitar seems to be the basis of the idea.

- Gerard

Audience Feedback

This is the feedback in which the group got back from our video idea.

Question for Monday!!!

1(a) Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.

(30 Minutes/25 Marks)

- Gerard

Feb 25th Update

Hopefully we have finally finished the filming of our stop motion part of the video. All that is left is to add in some sound effects and add it to our footage. It is looking really good in my opinion.

-Gerard

feb 24th Update!!

Deborah And Clare are both at an open day today, therefore Dean and I will try to get the work up to date as best as we can. We are looking at photos of yesterdays stop motion and as we did not get it fully finished we have decided to shoot it all over again today or tomorrow as the lighting as fully changed as today is cloudier. We will hopefully have all the stop motion completed by tomorrow.

- Gerard

Stop Motion!!

We have decided to redo our stop motion part of the video because our background wall ruins the video. I am going to take a camera and the city to my house tonight and finish it of, hopefully. Mr Tierney has recommended playing round with several angles so i am also going to try and mess around with a few ideas later on. We have also decided to add in a moon effect which clare is drawing now. Dean is still editing our footage and Deborah is working on the website.

- Gerard

update!

ok... maybe we aren't finished shooting just yet. We have decided to add some shots of Deborah miming and playing a guitar. After that all should be good and we will just have to edit the footage, create a dvd, finish the website etc.

- Gerard

Update!

We have finally finished filming! Last Thursday, the stop-motion animation filming was completed at Gerdy's house and we got the footage at the Waterfront filmed on Saturday, as well as doing the photo shoot for the website. The shots have turned out well so far; we have finished editing the stop-motion clip, at the minute Dean is editing the Waterfront footage on Final Cut Pro and is going to bring it all together. Deborah has uploaded the photos onto our webpage on iWeb and the website is almost finished, we're just hoping to add a few Flash applications to complete it. Hopefully we shall have the coursework finished in the next few weeks! 


-Clare

Stop Motion With Candles

Good idea!!



-Gerard

Dean is off!!!!!

Our faithful leader Dean McAlea is off today. . . again. We are very disappointed in him as the night before he was off we filmed and I quote Dean on this, "you want me to take the camera because i am more reliable than Gerard hahaha". Not so funny now ey Dean . . . get back so we can edit that highest of quality footage on our camera.

- Gerard

This would be a good idea in my opinion for the back or inside of our cover. for example, the spiralling effect,  changing the words to the opening or main line of the song. or possibly the name of the song or album and the artist Lights haha.

- Gerdy

Update!

We're going to do the stop-motion filming today at Gerdy's house, unfortunately I can't go but the rest of the group are going to go ahead anyway. We should be hopefully finishing filming on Saturday in Belfast, leaving us just to edit next week.
At the minute, Gerdy, Dean and I are researching album cover influences while Deborah is finishing off the webpage. We just need to do a photoshoot to get some pictures for our website and try get a audience feedback video for our CD layout!


-Clare

Album Cover Influences

 

I feel that this album cover could be quite influential for us; it has a very simple image and uses a sepia colour range. It's also really interesting how they have put the band name as the lights on the building in the image and have used a really simple, plain font for the album title. I feel that we could use similar simple fonts and neutral colours to make a cover that stands out. 

I really like the simple font teamed with the simple image on this album cover as it makes the title the main focus. We intend to have our front cover of our album package, therefore I feel that we could draw influences from the use of the font on this cover to make our album title memorable to the listener. 

-Clare

More Album covers

Below are the album covers for the suggested similar artists that Lights was linked to these were postal service and owl city. Both Albums pictures are similar to certain ideas that we had such a s having the Lit up City in the background (Owl City) and having a plain background and style (Postal Service).

Album influences

Below are some album covers which I feel have inspired the creation for our album and websites style...

The Lights actual album cover which is quite plain already.

Below are two images one with the actual people and the other with subbed in Lego people, this was an idea of ours to swap Lights with a lego character and have the lego piece act as the actual lights character.

We also like the idea of keeping the album plain, and simple and have a plain background which will fill all of the pages, this will be similar to the background of the below plain white T's album cover:

Album pretty much finished!

All of our album pages our finished apart from changing three of the pictures, the pages  are all of similar style which is to be kept plain so it fits with the acoustic song. Overall i think its looking good and hopefully when its finished it will fit with the website and the video! We are hoping to film when gerdy returns (impossible to tell) and then i can just swap the pictures over and its done!

-Dean

Quick update!

Gerdy is currently off, so filming is being put on hold until he is well enough to join us again! In the mean time, Dean is still finishing off our album sleeve, which is looking really good so far, and at the minute me and Deborah are starting work on the website using iWeb.
We have decided to have the webpage and digipack to have a similar appearance so the website will also have browny tones throughout. 


-Clare

Update

January has been a messy/busy month with regards to our studies.. outside of media. Each of us has had different modules at different times so our group hasn't actually been in class together for the whole of January. Test are finishing up this week though, so we're going to take another trip into Belfast town to get some more shots complete.


With Gerard and Clare off for study leave,  Dean and I have been working on editing the stop motion video, Final Cut Pro is being the worst not loading fully on the laptop we were using so he's currently transferring it all over to a different computer and we'll put that together so at least we've got one thing sorted.


We were discussing album colours and what we could use to fill up the 6 sided digi-pack. We've agreed on a bland colour to go in tune with the song, not that it's bland or anything! But, it's very simple and we feel that this should be reflected in our digi-pack. It will include lyrics of the song, a track list and certain pictures from our actual music video. This is well under way and we only have one more side to complete before we can print it off.


So we just need to film the shots at Clare's house and in town again then edit them to go in turn with the song and that's us. I'm working on a website at the moment on iWeb so everything is running along!

- Deborah 

Stop Motion Clips

We got the filming done for the stop motion in clares house last friday and they turned out pretty well, we also got some filming in her house done to which already lasts up to 2 mins so we should have enough clips when we get the town scene filmed to fill up the music video!

Google Docs

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqkB3UACeW0EdFNwYVQ3RC1ZMmhFMUU1a0lUa3pxblE&hl=en#gid=0

Work Schedule

Stop Motion paper city filming

Friday 14th - 6pm onwards

Belfast Town filming 

Saturday 15th - 2pm onwards

Shooting Script

Props- Paper city ( consisting of juice cartons and smarties tubes)
           Paper Boat (Origami)
           Lego Person
           Lego Trees


Costume- Casual clothes for the singer i.e. ordinary clothes
                Similar clothes to the lego character to try and emphasize that it is the singers view as the lego character.


Locations- Belfast, Waterfront, River
                 Clares' house(for the lego city)
                 Fanum House (Opening Shot)


Lighting- The Waterfront at night will be lit up and the lego city should be lit up by a lamp.


Expressions of singer- Sad, upset, shocked at the idea of the city ruining nature and the environment.
                                    Turns to happy whilst the paper city falls down and the lego trees emerge.

-Dean

Storyboard

- Clare :)

More CD cover pictures

This picture is at the waterfront and i could probably photoshop a paper boat into it so that it seems like the paper boat is floating down the river. Apparently we are not allowed to use these pictures so when we go to film at the waterfront ill try to get one like it.

We are also supposed to be filming tomorrow so Gerdy if you read this be in!


-Dean

Cd Cover

We have started looking at how to make our CD cover and also what is going to be on it. I've got a template for the design but we still have to decide on what is going on each part of the cover. Its a six panel digipack so we have 5 panels to fill and one panel for the actual CD.


Some examples of what could be in the Cover below:

The idea of the river flowing through a city. To fit with the idea of the destruction of nature.

-Dean

Update!

We're planning to get more filming done next week and the week after. Currently trying to seek lots of cardboard to make our paper city but overall things looking on track! :)

-Clare

Stop Motion- Its Magic!

This video is unbelievable, the idea of the video is great and the song is also amazing!




-Dean

Impossible!!!!!!!!!

This video is ridiculous and to quote my group member Dean "WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!!". We think there must have been some amazing type of effects used because there is no way this is possible without effects on ordinary stop motion.



-GERARD

The T-Shirt War!!!!

Another great stop motion video.



-GERARD

The Deborah Express

Deb is off today so we as a group thought we would give her something to smile about and ensure a speedy recovery (lol ;) ) so to restore our group to full potential. This was our first real effort at a paper boat and who better to dedicate it to than our fearless leader... Deb!!!!!!. Get well soon!!!

All the best from your loving group , -GERDY, - DEAN, AND OFCOURSE OUR WEE CLARE BEAR!!!

Inspired!!!!!

This guy is such a legend and this video shows that.



-GERDY

Best Stop Motion Ever!!!!!

I don't have a clue how long this take but its the best stop motion video i have seen and hopefully ours will be half as good.



-GERDY

Post -it sop motion.

This is the most famous stop motion video on youtube. It took the student over 6 months to make this video.



-GERDY

Clare & Deborah's Stop Motion Vids

Hello!


Clare and I experimented with stop motion during our free periods in school. It was so time consuming but we battled through it and created two videos! They're both just little testers on how to use stop motion but we're actually pretty proud :). The first follows the adventures of Jeremy the Bug, the co-ordinator of the Lights website so we thought it would be clever to make a video including him since we're using Lights music in our music video. Then it cuts to us just making a "Hello!" using the stop motion effect.






The second video follows Bernard and Sandy, two apples that our in love but then Sandy runs off with Cricky (The bottle) leaving Bernard heartbroken.




- Deborah & Clare

Paper City

Me and Gerard have been looking at how to build a paper city and the video below will be the closest we will probably get to creating a paper city. Some other videos show a lot more detailed paper cities but giving my previous attempt of the paper boat i doubt that will go well! So we will give it a go and see what happens.



-Dean

Stop motion tutorial and some examples!

Been looking at how to use stop motion and some examples of it being used in television.
It's quite a simple, but extremely time-consuming process and requires a lot of patience. The process involves taking pictures of an object, which in our case will be a paper boat, and moving the object very slightly each shot, these photos are then put together and speeded up to give the illusion that the object is moving.

Here's a simple tutorial on how to do a basic stop-motion animation (might want to turn the volume down though...)


I also looked at some examples of more advanced stop motion being used in television, film and just on YouTube.


This is just an amateur video from YouTube, it's very simple but is a good example of stop motion.


This is a television example of stop motion. The Magic Roundabout was created in the 60's and 70's, before CGI was created and shows a more advanced example of stop motion being used.


This is a trailer for 2005 film, Corpse Bride. It is a modern example of stop motion being used on a large medium. It gives the film a unique feel compared to modern animations using CGI.

-Clare :)

Time Lapse

We got the time lapse finished on Saturday there! I went to Fanum at around 2ish and recorded a scenic shot of Belfast from around 4 - 6, so got the day fading into darkness. Looks well! Now we just have to speed it up to fit into our music video, Dean and Gerard are currently working on uploading the shot and editing. Clare's researching how we're going to go about using the stop motion technique.

- Deborah

Audience Feedback

We just recorded a feedback session with Hannah, Michael, Cara, Catherine and Aisling; all people of our age group at whom our music video will be aimed at primarily.
Overall, we seemed to get good feedback and positive reviews of our idea and song, although they also provided us with useful critiques which may help us rethink a few ideas. 


-Clare :)

I completed the storyboard in school the other day, just thinking here though that it would be a good idea to have our video come full circle; so the beginning shot is the pan of Belfast and the end of the video should close with this shot too. Just to round it up nicely!


- Deborah

Shots being used.

Pan shot of Belfast with fade-in transition of over the shoulder shot of girl cutting/folding paper

Close-up shot of girl singing along to lyrics of the song

Cut to point-of-view shot of hands cutting paper out (making paper buildings) then continued point-of-view shot of hands which place completed paper building amongst a paper city (representing the skyline from the first shot)

High angle above paper city to give an overview

Cuts back to close-up shot of girl singing along to lyrics, camera zooms out to show her making a paper boat, girl is still singing along to lyrics

Mid-shot showing girl placing completed boat beside the paper city

Use of stop-motion, with a canted angle, to show boat travelling through buildings, this will create a jerky action - as the boat travels, the buildings it passes either fall or crumple down

Back to mid-shot of girl as she places Lego trees in the position where the buildings were.

Stop-motion used again as paper boat makes its way to an actual river and then is dropped in by a hand.

-Clare :)

Possible Ideas

We're currently looking into the idea of using a paper boat and using stop-motion to make it seem animated.
We have came up with a definite opening shot which will be a panoramic shot of Belfast and will be time-lapsed. Our idea for the rest of the video is to make a 'paper city' which will be knocked down as this paper boat makes it way to the river, as the buildings fall or crumple, they will be replaced by Lego trees. At the end of the video the boat will finally reach the river and sail away.

- Deborah, Dean, Clare :)