CD case mock up

I have recently made
my small mock up of
the CD case I intend
to make.

I was originally making the digipack net I had found online, but while making it I realised that it wasn't the shape that I wanted so I kind of bodged it and made it how I thought it would be made. It did eventually create the shape I was hoping for.

 Below is the net that I created by cutting extra tabs off the net allowing me to create pockets where I wanted them. I then cut the center spine part of the CD case off and stuck it down, creating two flaps to the side

First rough cut

morrighan media first final rough cut from morrighan humpleby on Vimeo.

I have recently finished my first rough cut of the music video to show to my media studies class, my band but also the focus group I have put together.

I will add the feedback I received in a following post.

There are issues I am aware off, one of them being that the colour of the footage changes from camera to camera. I don't mind that the quality is different, as I previously stated I feel like it makes it look more grungy. Its just that some of the clips have a different colour to them and have a green tint to them, which I need to either change or make all the other clips like that too. In addition I am aware that I want the whole thing to be a little darker as it would create more of a dystopian feel to the music video, which is the scene I wanted to set for a zombie apocalypse.

I will create a questionaire for my audience who I wont meet face to face to answer. Whereas for my media studies class I will ask them the questions and film their responses.

Here is the link to survery I created that I will give to the band and the focus group, with the questions I will ask my media studies group.

feedback from morrighan humpleby on Vimeo.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7HK578P

Below is a Emaze presentation I created analysing the answers that I got from my audiences.

Contacting B2-Norwich

I was a bit stuck in terms of where to film the video as there were so many factors of things to include:

• Electricity
• Quiet/Empty
• Dark
• Dystopian
• Small-ish
• Easy Access
• Safe place to work- Meets health and safety

So I felt like a good thing to do was to message the band to see if they had any ideas as to where would work and if they think my previous thoughts on using the B2 were a good idea. 

So I sent the band a message explaining roughly what I needed the location to be like, and my previous ideas for using the B2.

Although he wasn't sure on what the final narrative was (which I then informed him and the rest of the band about) he agrees that the B2 would be a good option I just need to think about the issue of the public and sound. 

After talking the band through the narrative of the music video he agreed that he likes the idea of the music videos and informed me that the B2 would be up for it. The band really often play at the B2 so they have a good, close relationship with the band so are trusted.

I let the band know the day I was intending to film, December 19th;

And as you can see they were up for it. This day would also mean that I can walk down to the location with the majority or all of the actors and get them ready straight after school or just meet them at the location if they can't come straight there for some reason. 

I needed to email the B2 Venue to ask if this was possible but couldn't find an email address, but did find a facebook page, so I messaged the venue on their facebook asking if they had an email address or other means of contact to discuss my request. 

Equipment Update

I have recently bought a new £700 camera, that also has a filming function on it. It is a 20.2 mega pixel camera, with the ability to film in full HD 1080p quality.

http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_70D/

When it comes to filming my product the main camera I use will be with my own camera due to the high quality. I can also attach a microphone to make the audio quality better. http://www.amazon.com/Stereo-Video-Shotgun-Microphone-Pentax/dp/B003TTMFM0
However this isn't massively necessary as I will probably remove the sound from the footage and add the song in later, as they quality won't be perfect, but I will also been directing and probably talking over the filming of the footage.

When I bought the camera it also came with two lens adapters to add to the end; a telephone adapter and a wide angle lens adapter. The wide angle lens is used a lot in music videos, particularly heavy rock or punk music videos where the singer often leads close into the camera.

As you can see from the screenshots of Blink 182's music video First Date. You can see if also adds a small level of distortion to the image, it gives it almost a slight fish eye effect to the video; which is also an effect I can achieve built into my camera. 

The standard shooting setting on my camera gives and image that looks like this, you can see it isn't distorted at all.     

As I said, my camera comes with a fish eye setting and this is a photograph taken on the weakest level of fish eye. As you can see there is some level of distortion but not a huge amount, just has a slight bend on the walls if you look closely. 

The is the camera set to medium fish eye. As you can see it is much stronger and has a fairly high level of distortion. 

The is the camera on the highest fish eye setting and you can see it has a really high level of distortion to the image.

I also got a wide angle lens adapter for my camera. When it is zoomed in the distortion isn't that high, similar to that of the fish eye setting on the lowest setting- there is only a small bend on the edge of the walls and door frames. 

You can see when the camera is zoomed out the distortion is much stronger and adds a kind of fish eye effect to the view. But does also result in a vignette effect over the photograph. 

Problems With Final Cut Express

I have tried to work on Final Cut Express to make my practice/experiment, however we have had a huge amount of issues with the software.

The only computer in our class that has the license uploaded has no Chrome, meaning when I get stuck working on it, I cannot use the internet for helping, resulting in me constantly switching between computers. Also, Final Cut Express requires the files to be in a MP4 or MOV file type, but even when I converted my files using Handbrake into this format, they still didn't upload. I have now spent three lessons trying to get past this issue, but it still isn't working. My tutor has recently found the handbook for the software, so I will read through the booklet to help, in hope that by next lesson I will be able to work on the software.

Attempting to use iMovie to create a Music Video

Over the summer holidays I wanted to film to create a practice music video, to explore how I create a video that cuts between different shots and angles, in an interesting and coherent way. However I found it very, very difficult to do this. It was not easy at all to create a video that cuts between shots. On programs like Final Cut, you have the ability to layer video over the top of other videos, in different section, giving you the ability to play either one, more, or all videos. This means that to create a video that flows from shot to shot is very easy. You simply line the videos up to start at the same point, then cut out section of all the videos, bar one to leave just one shot.

Practice video from morrighan humpleby on Vimeo.
(please make sure you keep it quite at the beginning as there was a sound issue, causing the end section to be incredibly loud)

Here is the video of my first attempt at creating the music video. It isn't even a minute long, yet to create that it took me nearly an hour. The only way I could create the video, was try to cut all the shots to start at the beginning of the song, and cut each interval at the same size. So I cut all the shots of the song, to 13s, then 9.2s, 3.5s etc, and then cut the section together from different shots. [INSERT SCREENSHOTS OF THE PROCESS, AND THE VIDEOS CUT INTO DIFFERENT SECOND INTERVALS] As you can see, it was very hard to make it coherent, and flow from one shot to another.

Our media classroom has four licenses to Final Cut. Next lesson I will try to create the video using Final Cut, too see how I find that. I will then do a comparison between the two.