K.H. - Reflection on Group Editing Session

In order to ensure all work on the editing timeline was ready for the deadline, we decided to perform our the editing on our video in bulk. We were being held back by the limited technology and software available to us at school, Adobe Premier Elements 3.0 could not properly handle the high cutting rate of our footage and the sheer amount of it we had, and as such we suffered crashes, audio issues such frequent stuttering, audio cutting out or not playing at all which was a particular problem. Editing on more up to date software proved of Adobe Premier CS6 was extremely advantageous, as it allowed us to preserve the quality of the footage without having to compress it, and allowed to sync Eleanor's performance with the lyrics far more easily as the sound played smoothly. We spent 6 hours working on the footage at Harry's house in total, and divided the time evenly between us, we each edited in half hour slots and alternated roles, one person would edit, one person would contribute editing ideas, and the third person would read from the shot list and story board and provide time codes. As evidence of this, we filmed the whole thing and put the highlights of discussion and important decisions into a vlog.
There were problems and decisions we made that weren't clear from the vlog such as:

• The solution to the problem of initially establishing different lines of action that I raised in the video was to have text on the screen stating where they chronologically fell within the narrative in the establishing shot. However, we did not have any explanation beyond this to maintain narrative fuzz and encourage repeat viewings.
• Syncing Eleanor's performance to the track could be challenging as it was sometimes unclear from the raw footage which words she singing exactly. The solution to this was surprisingly simple and involved either using the footage with sound so we could sync the audio of the song being played on set with the track on the timeline, and listening to both in tandem until they matched, or finding a defined point in the footage where Eleanor is obviously singing a particular word, and using that to line up with the precise moment of the song where she is singing that word.
• We did some colour work with curves to differentiate the lines of action, for example in action line 1, the performance, we raised the levels of blue add some colour to fog and to compliment the lights in a way that made them look more glamorous, in action line 2, in the morning, we increased the brightness levels in the early part of the action line so that the light looked particularly striking and over-powering, as it would for the protagonist if she were hung over. In action line 3 we put a shadow vignette filter around the edges with a fairly low opacity to add some tension, and increased the layers of blue and decreased the brightness and contrast to imply that the sequence was happening during the night and to reflect the darker tone.

K.H. - Reflection on Editing

This week I primarily worked on print work in Photoshop, working on two panels for the digipak, one of the Eleanor's fangs and blood running down her chin, and one of the feather boa over her arm.

• First I used the clone stamp tool around Eleanor's left lip to remove the smudged blood. This proved more difficult than anticipated as the skin colour would often ended up warped in a way that looked very unnatural. As you can see from the first image, the skin tone around Eleanor's mouth is divided above the smudged lipstick between two colours of different shades. The solution to this was simply to use the clone stamp tool directly down the line of the two conflicting colours and then tracing the outline of the lip so that the right colour was used to cover the smudged lip stick.
• For this image, I changed the copied the yellow channel in CMYK mode, made it a separate layer and inverted it. I then changed the blend mode to soft light and reduced the opacity so that the effect wasn't too strong. I added a layer mask  and painted over the skin I wanted to change to efficiently remove skin flaws.
• I duplicated the background layer and added a layer mask which I filled the contents with 50% grey and painted over the wrinkles and blemishes with a the brush tool on black and adjusted the opacity so that the edits blended in more smoothly with Eleanor's skin.
• I then converted all the layers I had used up to this point into a smart object which I named "Original" so that I could edit them further after airbrushing if I needed to.
• I had to use two layers for airbrushing. For the first layer, I duplicated the original layer and applied a surface blur and adjusted the threshold and radius values until I could just make out the skin detail in the preview. I then duplicated the original layer again for the second layer , move the layer to the top and applied High Pass, adjusting this value until I could see the skin detail and changed the blending mode to hard light. I grouped these two new layers and added an inverted layer mask and painted over the layers with a feathered brush set to white. I then adjusted the opacity of the group to make it look more natural.
• With no layer masks selected, I used the eye dropper tool and set it to sample all layers and chose an appropriate colour (which was on Eleanor's cheek to the right of her nose) that I would colourise the skin towards. I added a solid colour adjustment layer and changed the blending mode to colour. I selected the layer mask and inverted it and used the brush tool to paint over the parts of the skin I wanted to change the colour of. I then adjusted the opacity so that it blended naturally. This helped considerably in reducing skin discolouration.
• For dodging and burning I created created a new layer and changed the blend mode to soft light. I then set the fill to 50% grey and set the burn tool range to Midtones. I then used the burn tool to darken the shadows on Eleanor's face and used the dodge tool to add additional brightness to the parts of her face that were well lit, and adjusted the opacity so that it didn't look too extreme. Dodging and burning gives the image an additional dramatic flair that is hard to create through photography, particularly with the limitation we had to work with.
• Finally, I used curves to adjust the overall colours, making them look more soft and saturated in the case of Eleanor's lips, by isolating the reds and adjusting them individually.

• I applied the same steps as the previous image to remove skin discolouration on Eleanor's arm, which looked grey in the original image, and then performed a number of steps which I went back and applied to the previous image.
• I applied a Gaussian blur effect and erased it from the centre of the image to aid the focal point of the boa and the text.
• To help make the text more defined, I added a blank layer and painted a rectangle shape in the centre, which I overlayed over the curves and skin colouration layers.
• I used curves to improve the intensity of the colours but was careful to place them in way that did not interfere with the detail on the glove, as this adds a richness and nuance to the image that we prioritised in the digipak over the print advert.
• Note: the text is not final, the text in this image is a place holder before we perfect the text we were going to use.

Group - Print decisions

• The original images we are using are generally loosely tied into the video, so that there is some continuity between the two, but the images are general enough that they could be from other music videos to songs in the album. The only image which directly ties into our video is the panel with the fangs and the blood which connects to the more gory and gothic visual motifs of the video.
• Broadly we tried to keep with the tone of the album in designing the digipak as the high saturation of the colours and the striking nature of the image in each panel feed into the title "The Shocking Miss Emerald", but the softness, colour saturation and strong blur effects of the colour scheme supports Emerald's bold "femme fatale" femininity as a star quality in her meta-narrative.
• The choice to airbrush the images used in the digipak and the advert was made to make the images look much cleaner and more refined, which is fitting of both the 1920s period and Emerald's meta-narrative in which she displays level of superiority and dominance over her audience, and her tidy and spotless appearance is significant part of this.
• The warm colours both differentiate the digipak from the video while simultaneously maintain some continuity with the video. The softness of the colours is exclusive to the digipak as the light in the video is typically quite sharp with heavier shadows, but the saturation of the colours and the colour palette in the digipak is closer to the music video. The softness of the colours also help blend each of the digipak panels together.
• Keeping the focal point of each image central in each panel of the digipak adds an extra layer of consistency that makes the composition of the digipak as a whole look collectively tighter and more refined.
• There were a number of visual motifs we experimented with when deciding on the more nuanced visual elements of the digipak, such as ornate borders which took the form of detailed half squares which filled each corner of the digipak panels. Initially there was some dispute in the group over whether these cluttered the image and made it ruined the simplicity of the image, but we decided in the end that they were simply too large, and by reducing their size we keep the minimalist layout of the image along with the detail that is appropriate of the period setting.
• We also used an overlaying layer to bring out some of the finer shadows on some of the images in the digipak such as the boa. However often-times this did not work for the whole image so we decided to exclude from certain parts of the digipak and only use it in very specific places. Typically we removed the effect from Eleanor's skin because it inconsistently muddied the colour and didn't compliment the clean and refined style we were aiming for.
• The font and colour scheme of reds, yellows and blacks will be consistent across both the digipak and the advert to keep with the 1920s period setting.
• For the advert we decided to use the image of Eleanor with the band as this felt like a logical extension of what was in the digipak, allowing the target audience to see Emerald with her band. However it also removed the detail that each panel of the digipak brings to Emerald, as each one is a close up of a different part of her body. This ensures that the digipak still has enough additional detail and content to differentiate it from the advert and justify its purchase if it were sold to the target audience

F.L - Reflection on Digipak Editing

Digipak Editing Reflection

This week we have moved on to editing the digipak and focusing primarily on the print work, due to finishing our video editing. I worked on Photoshop and this blog post shows how I edited one of the images that will be on one of the panes on the digipak.

Before this I had limited practice and use of Photoshop, so it allowed me to thoroughly improve my skills and knowledge of the software and also meant that I managed to have a creative input into the digipak.

  

First I applied a Gaussian Blur, this was necessary to create our 'blurred edges' effect which we have applied to each image for continuity across the digipak. I added this on a new layer to start with.

 

I then added curves to alter the levels of blue and red in the image, this helped me add a 'warm' tone to the photo. This is a continuous feature throughout all our digipak images. I did alter this later on though because I thought it needed higher levels of red in the photo.
 

Using the eraser tool I then erased any blur from the centre of the photo, this then left the photo with a soft focus blur around the edges. This allows the audience's attention to be drawn into the centre of the image and highlights the details of the props (which was our aim to be the central aspect).

After I had decided on the amount of blur, I then finalised my image by going back to curves and slightly altering the levels. Once I was happy with the levels of red and blue and the overall colouring, I then resized the image and made it appropriate to fit in the digipak pane.

Group - Audience Feedback

Rough Cut Preview - Feedback

We showed a 1 minute 30 seconds rough cut preview to our class, we then received some feedback regarding our work and any future changes to make.

Positive Feedback:

• They thought that the biting shots worked well and effectively portrayed our narrative.
• They thought the general mise-en-scene worked well in the performance scenes - they especially liked the costumes and the lighting, as they felt it effectively portrayed our period aesthetic.
• They also liked the bedroom shots and felt the furniture and costume was very appropriate to the period.
• They specifically liked the 'ocean liner' shot which used a Dutch Tilt movement.

Constructive Criticism:

• They thought that there were too many bedroom shots - we have decided to respond to this feedback by cutting out some of the footage and decreasing the amount of screen time given to this particular scene.
• Another issue raised was the use of American Dollars, which confused people as to why we used dollars despite a British location and a British accent at the start of the video. We are still undecided on how to fix this issue, but some suggestions are the use of an American accent overlay at the start, or getting rid of the scenes that feature the dollars.

H.P. - Logo Breakdown

We wanted to create an original, stylish logo for our print work that both conformed to our genre conventions while also appealing to a wide modern audience. As a group we decided that the best style of title we could create would have a strong 1920's appearance, but also be clear and bold to add a modern influence to it.

My process of creating the logo is broken down below. All processes took place in Adobe Photoshop CS3 and CC, with all screenshots from Adobe Photoshop CC.

• Starting with a blank work space, I typed out the word 'Shocking' with the Studebaker Regular font. This was to form the focus point of the image, so I chose to use the bolder font of the two I had chosen.

• I then typed out the other words in the album title in my second font, Aphrodite Slim Pro Regular, and positioned these words above and below 'Shocking'. I offset 'The' to the left to make a more natural line of reading throughout the text, and slightly overlapped 'Miss Emerald' over 'Shocking'. I turned these words a deep red, conforming to the colour palette we identified in our research.

• I then created four straight lines, two above and two below the word shocking, leaving gaps in the lines for 'The' and 'Miss Emerald'. This added emphasis to the title while also helping to keep it contained to a specific area, as the wavy second font made it look like it was sprawling out which was not intentional.

• I changed my mind about what colour I wanted these lines and the 'Shocking' text, so I applied a photo filter above these layers to make them yellow rather than white.

• Having done this, I converted the whole image into a Smart Object so that I could manipulate every component at once, while still having control over each component separately if I decided to change something later.

• Going to Edit, Transform, Skew, I adjusted the angle of the text. I decided to go this route rather than rotating the image as I wanted the individual letters to still appear mostly vertical and not at an angle.

• I then duplicated the whole image (Ctrl+J) and created a new group with this duplicated version inside it. On a new layer in the group I created a black solid that I applied a clipping mask to. This clipped the solid to the parameters of the duplicated text layer, making the whole image black. I offset this whole group, forming a drop shadow for the logo.

• Finally I downloaded a grunge texture from CGTextures, placed it above the logo, changed the blending mode to darken and the opacity to 76% then told it to clip to the layer below it. This added a rustic texture to the title.

H.P. - Font Research

Font Research

We did a significant amount of research into genre conventions in the planning stages of our project, however something I thought we needed to address further was fonts. Before making the logo I did some additional research into font styles for our genre.

• I began by looking into posters and prints from the 1920's. A commonality that presented itself from this research, especially among movie and entertainment posters, was the style of using bold, block fonts for the main title and a looser, more curved font for other words including conjunctives such as 'And' or 'The'. This style can be seen on the B-Movie poster below.

• Searching on font websites, I found a few fonts that I thought would be appropriate:

• I settled on two fonts in the end, a blocky font for the main body of the title and a more curved, handwritten style font for the remainder of the text. These two fonts were:

K.H. - Photo shoot reflection

We finished gathering all of the still images we needed for our print work last weekend. The shoot went well and we worked efficiently. We also learnt from our previous shoot at Freya's house, as we experimented with more poses from the actor, which gave us more choice when deciding on a  previously we only had a variety of angles and shot sizes to work with, which was more limiting as it could have been. This was of course easier with this shoot as we were only working with one actor, and weren't as pressed for time. These shots best represent how we organised the shoot and what we intended to get out of it.

This shots demonstrates clearly how we were careful to organise the shot size so that we have the freedom to exclude certain parts of the image if they do not work on a panel of the digipak. We have discussed in a group whether we should crop out Eleanor's eyes from the frame for example, to remove the notion of looking and further maintain the enigmatic air that is typical of Caro Emerald and stars of the electro swing genre, and this is a distinct possibility with this image. Harry also had the idea to use the rings a props that contribute to the artists meta narrative. The "E" on the ring on Eleanor's middle finger obviously ties into Caro's first name, and the ring on Eleanor's ring is actually an Emerald. This ties into the loose sense of pride and self importance Caro shows in some of her promotional material.

This image most obviously ties into our video, since it overtly uses the most distinct visual motif from the video. This will work well for the digipak as it is the only panel image that is a direct reference to the video, and is helped by the fact that the blood is the focus of the image not Eleanor's face so it will not feel to similar to the image above when both are used in the digipak. This was the best image out of all of the one's we captured using the prosthetic blood as the blood hasn't run too far down Eleanor's face. In all the others it had reached her chin, but the composition of the image looks much tighter if the blood close to her lip, as it is here, and it keeps Eleanor's lips and the blood as the focus of the image. These alternative images demonstrate clearly how the focus on the other images is lost:

This was the best image of the feather boa as it has the most defined focal point and has the strongest composition as the arm and glove make up a roughly equal amount of space either side of the boa. The lighting is more low key in this image than it was in the others, which look a little too warm for the tone of the digipak and general electro-swing style. After some editing in post, this image could work well for the track listing pane of the digipak as this not an image that is particularly striking when it stands alone, but it could accompany and compliment text quite well if it were placed in the background.

F.L - Photoshoot Reflection

Photoshoot Reflection

After taking some photos from our filming at my house where we took some photos of the band and Eleanor performing, we decided to do another photoshoot of Eleanor. After changing our digipak concept slightly, we thought it would be appropriate to gather a new range of images.

Some of the photos we decided to take were:

• Close-ups of Eleanor's face
• Photos of props on various parts of Eleanor's body
• Close-up of Eleanor's fangs (with and without blood)

We were pleased with how the shoot went and feel we got a large range of photos to accommodate our new concept.

Although we experienced no overriding issues on set, we did find issues when reflecting on the photos after the shoot.

Some of the photos we took are shown below:

 

 

This photo would be used on the front cover. We feel the pose clearly portrays the album title of  'shocking' Miss Emerald. However, we would crop the image and have less focus on her face, and more on her lips. We would also cover some of her face with the title.
 

 

This is another idea for the front cover, we decided to get a range of different lengths and close-ups to allow ourselves the option of finding the most appropriate image for the front cover.

 

We then decided to get some close-ups of her mouth with her fangs and some blood. We decided that the blood was too low on her chin to be used - luckily, we took a range of different photos so we had enough to choose from.
 



 

Reflecting on the previous image, we feel this photo looks better aesthetically and came out better. It also shows the redness of the blood better, therefore this would be a more appropriate choice.
 



 

We then took some photos of different props on different parts of her body. We experimented with different angles and distances. Here is an example of the beads and the dress she wore in the 'night before' and 'morning after' scenes. We feel this would look good on one of the other panes, and helps elaborate on our visual style.

H.P. - Digipak Progression

As mentioned in the previous post, Kurtis and I have managed to digitally retouch our chosen portrait shots to achieve a look that more closely resembles a professional photo shoot. After completing this, I then took on the task of creating the logo for the album.

I will post a detailed breakdown of the processes involved and my research into fonts in a separate post. Here is the finished logo, followed by a mock-up of the logo with one of the edited portrait images:

H.P. & K.H. - Portrait Retouching and Airbrushing

Over the past week our roles have shifted a little in our post production work. Freya has now taken over the majority of the editing, with Kurtis assisting regularly, while I focus on the VFX work. In addition to this, Kurtis and I have taken charge of the print work, again with Freya assisting when able.

A major part of our print work this week has been making visual adjustments to our portrait images. We'd like to make clear at the start of this post that we are incredibly pleased with the base images we captured with Eleanor. Our intentions in this process were to push these images even further using industry techniques in order to create inviting and compelling portraits that hopefully look as professional as possible. We have so far completed this process for two different images, we will be showing our process on one of these images.

All processes took place in Adobe Photoshop CS3 & CC. The screenshots are from Adobe Photoshop CC.

• Starting with the base image that we picked out from our shoot, we loaded this into Photoshop.

• We duplicated this image (ctrl+j) and renamed the new layer 'Blemishes'. On this layer we used the Spot Healing tool to paint over and remove any eye wrinkles, freckles or skin blemishes, natural features of everyone's faces. In order to achieve an industry standard look we had to complete this task, despite there being no actual obvious flaws on our actor's face.
• On this layer we also used the Clone Stamp tool to remove the chipped areas on Eleanor's painted nails.

• We converted these layers into a Smart Object so that they were flattened into one layer, but could also be opened and adjusted later.
• Next we duplicated the smart object and renamed it Smoothness. We applied a Surface blur effect and adjusted the parameters so that the details of the image were blurred but the facial features were still distinguishable.
• Then we applied a High Pass effect to bring back some of the skin details so that the smoothness did not look like plastic.
• We grouped these layers together in a group called Airbrushing. To this group we applied a layer mask which we then inverted by pressing Alt+I. We selected the Paint Brush tool, reduced the Hardness to 0 and then opacity to 50%. We then proceeded to paint over the areas that we wanted to apply the airbrushing effect to. This meant that the smoothing layers in the group were only visible where we painted the brush, allowing us to choose the areas that needed smoothing rather than apply the effect to the whole image.

• After this we used the Eyedropper to select a skin colour from Eleanor's face that we wanted to try and adjust the rest of the skin tones on her face to look like. We created a Solid Colour object with this colour, inverted the clipping mask again and changed the Blending Mode to Color. We then painted over the areas of her face that we wanted to adjust the colour of to give her face a more even tone, similar to applying makeup just digitally rather than physically.
• We repeated this procedure with a slightly different skin tone for her hands and fingers, as the ends of her fingers were a little red due to the coldness of the room we shot in.

• After this we created a 50% grey Solid Colour layer, changed the Blending Mode to Soft Light and renamed it Dodging and Burning. As the name suggests, on this layer we Dodged the areas we wanted to be brighter, such as her eyes and cheeks, and Burned the areas we wanted to be darker, such as her jaw and eyelashes.

• Finally we created a blue solid circle over each of her eyes, used the rubber tool to adjust the shapes to the coloured areas of her eyes only, and changed the Blending Modes to Overlay. This gave her eyes a brighter and more uniform blue colour.

• At the end we used a Curves layer and a Brightness/Adjustment layer to alter the colours of the image as a whole, making it brighter and warmer.

H.P. - Photoshoot Reflection

Last weekend we completed our photo shoot with Eleanor for the digipak and magazine advertisement. The shoot went as planned and we managed to get all of the images we needed for the print work sections of the project. Here are my favorite pictures from the shoot and the ones that we are most likely to use in our print work:

This image was a better pick in the selection as Eleanor's positioning is exactly as planned and the frame is wide enough to give us a lot of freedom to crop the image. Our intention for this image is to use it for the front panel of the album, so the image must be striking enough to attract attention. The shot is as planned, however significant editing will be required before it becomes our ideal album cover, a procedure which was planned from the outset.

This is another contender for the album cover. This image has the benefits of acting as an alternative to the image previously seen as Eleanor's eyes are open wider and some of her lips can be seen. It also has the benefits of a wider frame than some of the other shots, again allowing plenty of freedom to crop the image to just her lower face as in our plan, or in other ways if we change our minds after trying our initial plan.

Out of the shots featuring Eleanor with the blood and fangs, this was the best. By positioning Eleanor at a slight angle to the camera, the shot looks different enough to the front panel shots to not appear repetitive, while also having a desired commonality of theme with the cover shots. In this shot the blood had only run down her face a little bit, in all the other shots it had run much further. It makes the image much more contained and precise having only run a short distance.

I picked this image out of the other shots of the feather boa on Eleanor's arm because of the wide frame and perfect focal point. The feathers are a lot clearer in this image than in some of the other shots of the feather boa where the focal point was not quite correct. Again the framing is wide enough to allow creative cropping of the image to fit the square dimensions of the digipak panel.

I have chosen this last image as a favorite as the black backdrop being held behind Eleanor was in the right position to avoid any shine from the window. When we first set up this shot we found that the background became distracting to the eye, so we resolved to hold up a black coat behind Eleanor to act as a perfectly black backdrop.

K.H. Reflection on editing

• This week I worked on both the mock-up of the digipak and the editing timeline.
• For the digipak we were initially planning a pane inspired by the lyrics video to Liquid Lunch which utilises a number of props with visual motifs associated with the 1920s period setting. This would be quite simple in practice as we still have most of the props we bought for each shoot, and it would be a shame not to put them to further use. For the actual panel we were planning to arrange the props in a similar way to this on a green screen so that we could carry them all over cleanly and minimise the effort that would be required in individually arranging them on Photoshop.

• For the mock-up we used found images, cut out the backgrounds with the magic wand tool in a separate window, and added them to the mock-up. We arranged them neatly and in parallel to each other in a similar way to how they are in the music video, and imitated the vignette effect, although we used a red-background for our mock-up. Obviously the props we used in our mock-up were different, for example the feather boa would replace the train track.

• We encountered some problems with our footage earlier in the week, as Premier would crash under our footage which we had been unable to convert into a more accessible file type until recently.
• The scale of the project also makes editing more difficult as there is more footage and even though we done all three shoots we needed to, not all the footage was in school, meaning we had to edit with some gaps, which could pose a problem in the future when we insert the new footage, as it may not flow into the footage we already had in place, forcing us to retro-actively alter what we had already done.
• Editing music videos proved more difficult than editing the horror opening last year as we are far more restricted with the how long each edit has to be, and if a take is over the allocated time it has, then parts of it will have to be cut. This particularly proved to be a problem when editing the footage we captured at the Pantiles, as we were not as careful with our timings as we had been on previous shoots when the lyrics were more important, and we need specific time codes from the song to guide us. This is definitely a mistake I made while on location and something I would have changed if I had the chance.

F.L - Editing Reflection Week 2

Editing Reflection

After last week we had a few issues with our editing computer, which meant that editing was extremely slow and the programme would either crash or be constantly 'loading'. This slowed down our editing process. After investigation it was discovered that our DataDisk had crashed and explained the problems we had been experiencing.

To solve this we moved computers, however, this meant we lost the editing I had started last week. In our double period I had to redo the editing I had completed before, as well as getting new footage edited. 

This is an overall screenshot of the editing that I completed throughout the lesson. I mainly worked  through chronologically (with the story boards) however, we didn't have all of our footage at school, therefore I had to miss out the 'morning after' scenes in my editing. 

• My editing only focused on basic techniques, such as dropping and dragging footage onto the timeline, sorting through the correct/appropriate clips then choosing the best and simple cutting of footage. 
• This is enhancing my basic skills in Premiere and making me more confident in simpler tasks so I can confidently edit through and stitch together the appropriate footage.
• I also had to start matching up the lip synching with the lyrics, which is quite difficult to get accurate. I overcame this by zooming in closely to the timeline and moving the footage in very small and precise motions to the left or right, until it perfectly matched.

Once I had re-edited the footage that we lost when changing computers, I started editing more of the project, which included the new footage from the weekend filming at the Pantiles. This used similar editing skills, such as cutting and shortening of clips. As you can see in the screen shot below. 

This is a close up screenshot of the timeline, where you can see the new footage that I began to edit. Although I stuck closely to the call sheet, when editing you have the freedom to make individual choices about which clips are appropriate out of the variations of shots, and where to cut and edit. 

• Due to the fast cutting rate of music videos, all of the cuts I made were on average, every two seconds, this meant that I had to be very selective about the footage I chose. I had to make sure that continuity flowed throughout as well as ensuring that the narrative continued and that the best quality footage was used. 

However, once we have cut and finalised all of our footage on the timeline, we will then start with colour grading and visual effects, which will help me broaden my editing abilities. 

Group - Digipak Development

Digipak Ideas Development

When we first started the project we created a mock up image of our digipak ideas - we used stills from our reccie footage, as well as some of Caro Emerald's own photographs and print work.

This is what we created:

However, after further discussion and analysis we have decided that we would prefer some more original ideas and also a larger distance away from the video (creating a new concept for the album less related to the video visual symbolisers). 

Our new ideas include:

• We have decided that we still keep the black, white and red key colours for the digipak, as these are still key concepts within our music genre and video, and will keep a reoccurring theme throughout the whole project.

• On our frames we wanted to keep a reoccurring boarder/corner design, which adds to the 1920s aesthetic. We took inspiration from designs and digipaks like these.

• We decided that our front pane will have an extreme close up photo our main actress. Her eyes will be cut out the top of the frame, with focus on her brightly coloured, red lips, and her fingers held to her mouth (to support the word in the album title of 'shocking'). The title would cover her nose and eyes. We did an extremely rough sketch to signify how this would look. 

• Our back cover/song list pane will be kept extremely simplistic (unlike before). We decided that due to the busy nature of the other panes, we should keep one quite plain so as to not visually overwhelm or cluster the digipak. We would keep the boarder design and have simplistic writing down the middle. This rough sketch demonstrates our ideas.

• For our other three panes we will keep the images simplistic - they will be close up, plain images of body parts. The three basic ideas we thought of would be, a close up of red lips (with the fangs), an arm with the gloves that she wore in the video and perhaps a photo of her back/neck with the feather boa. An example of one is sketched below. The photos will comply with the red, black and white theme, and will be taken in front of a green screen to make sure the only image is the central focus with a plain, coloured background. 

We thought simplifying our concept would make it easier to accurately achieve, and fitted better with our concept. We are all pleased with our new ideas and feel like better represent Caro and her style of music.