the website

We created a website for our band to make it seem more professional and also enable the band to accessible to everyone around the world. We used a website called wix.com, it set up a template for use which we then could change and develop it as we pleased. with colours, images and extra tabs for links to other pages.

This image below is the main page, it shows three pictures of the band and the bands name in the top left. Below the name is 4 tabs which are Home, Discography, tour'n'Gallery and Comntact'n'comment.



This image shows the discograpghy area of our website. It shows the tracks on our CD and also gives background information on how the band got noticed and the band members themselves. Plus the audience have a chance to listen to a track of our album. Also the speakers move with the music, giving it a more professional feel.



This is a screen shot of the Tour'n'Gallery page, this contains information about when the and where the band will be touring. Also shows all the bands photo's so the audience can feel closer to the band. Keeping the audience up to date will help keep the ticket sales as high as possible maximising the bands profits making us huge rock stars :)



This is the last page of our website, it enables our fans to get in contact with the band and this makes them feel valued. Also it helps the band make decisions on where to tour next in relation to fan demands.
This website was relatively easy to use and we soon got the hang of it and managed to produce a convincing official website for our band. We looked at other similar bands websites to try and get a feel for what the norm for this style of music is, and then add our own unique twists to make it individual and original to us. We were advised to ignore the prodigy website as we are already using a prodigy song and need to keep as far away from copyrighting their merchandise as possible. So we there for we looked at the websites of The Qemists, Pendulum, Chase and Status, Example etc.

Below is the link to our website, please take a look :)



www.wix.com/Sharradine/Proper-one

shooting diary

Day 4- Tuesday 18^th January.

Today we got the final parts to our chase sequence with ben the main character running through some alley ways we found around the local area. Today we stole Dan Norris away from the other media group to appear in our film. He wore a white mask like Sam did and they both appeared at random intervals throughout the film. This almost subliminal tactic should keep the audience’s attention throughout the film and keep them engrossed. Whilst filming Sam got on the roof of a garage to get the effect of CCTV footage watching Ben running to add a twist and some variety to the film. Jack will turn this footage into a black and white effect and then and a digital clock in the corner to make it really seem like a CCTV camera. After this we all had a short team talk to refresh ourselves of where we are and what still needs doing. After this we realised that there was a jump in the film and that we needed to film more footage of Ben being chased by Sams dog. Therefore we drove to mine and used my dog and my front gate. We set the tripod up in the road outside and then got the dog ready. However working with animals leaves nothing certain so to ensure that the dog pursued Ben we gave him a slice of ham that dog was very much interested in. The shot worked perfectly first time and filled the jump in our film sufficiently. Unfortunately after that scene was finished Dan had to be back in school and so we called it a rap and headed back to capture what we had filmed onto the computer. But after reviewing the tapes we noticed that we had accidently left the camera recording and managed to film a lovely 20 minutes of Dan’s shirt. Which meant it took longer to capture and then to edit the footage. Next week we aim to complete all of our filming by getting the final scenes with the clone and the Wild West style shoot out, and also any other little shots we need along the way.

Day 3- Tuesday 11^th January.

Today we spent almost all of our time focusing on the chance sequence, which is the main part of our music video. We went to an associate’s house which was free and were granted permission to use their garden. Whilst there we filmed Ben (the main character) appearing through a bush and then running around the house and out onto the street. Then we took around thirty minutes to film the important scene of Ben sending a text to his mate saying ‘Meet me in ten at the bridge’. He then walks round the corner to find his clone stood in the middle of the road staring directly at him. We then had to film the beginning of the chance scene which proved more difficult than we first thought because it required a great deal of concentration and patience as we had to remember when it was the clone or not, whether the glasses should be worn, whether the camera is in the exact same position. All at the same time as trying to get Ben to play two characters at the same time in the same shot, almost like in the Austin power’s movies where Mike Myers plays multiple characters in the film. However soon after finishing filming we realised we needed much more angles, close ups and cuts all of the exact scenes we just filmed, so this will have to be done either next week or the week after. We then went to they fly over to film our bridge scene where the main character is supposed to meet his mate, but runs past as the clone is chasing him. Yet no one else can see this ‘clone’. This scene proved more and more difficult to film as I had to play the part of the mate and turn to watch Ben run past, but then do it again but this time before Ben passed me as he was playing the clone which I am not able to see. This was tricky as the timing had to be just right or the whole scene wouldn’t work. Then we encountered another problem of pedestrians and cyclists wishing to use the bridge, proving ever more why a set is useful. We managed to take two cameras with us today so we were able to gather twice the footage in the same time and from different angles. Which proved very useful when it came to editing as we had a lot to chose from, enabling us to get the best out of what we got. Today was by far our most productive day of filming.

Day 2- 4^th January

 After our failed attempt on making the opening seen in our chosen location jack, Ben and I went back to re-film the footage we lost. Again we encountered many problems before we even started we had to return to school and pick up a tap. We made the location, character, costume and mise en scene, including the pool table to be kept the same to save any new complications arising. The only difference was that we included an extra actor/ character not originally in the script to make the opening flow more easily and show the audience that the party the night before did have others there. This resulted in me lying on the floor in a passed out pose with an empty bottle in my hand. Throughout our filming we tried to keep the continuity flowing as clean as possible this proved difficult because we had to film the same scenes over and over but from different angles. I had to remain extremely still in order to not ruin the continuity of the shot unless needed to. We decided to film two sides of the story shown through my character. A white mask appears, hopefully getting the audience more involved, this was all in hope to create a choppy effect when editing. We got this idea from “fight club” when Brad Pitt/ Tyler Derden appears and then disappears from the shot. On the receiving end of this technique we felt that this was a clever and almost freaky effect, the same effect we hope to create later in the film. 

We started off filming using a camera which chewed up the tapes. A quick change of camera meant that we could continue, however again only filming with one camera meant that we would have to change the camera angles and re-act the scenes over and over until we felt that we had enough to use and more, which lead to issues with the continuity as everything had to be exactly the same second time round.

We filmed exactly the same footage however this time we didn’t have my grandparents this time round to star in our film. The second day of filming was after a brainstorm and run trough of the script, all these changes effected what we filmed. The things that we changed were after the opening scene within the pool/ party venue. From there we filmed the first “clone” scene. This was again hard to achieve and unfortunately we weren’t successful when filming, breaking the 180 degree rule and also making us unable to film our clone.  This scene took place in my bathroom because of the shower (to make the psycho shower scene) and a mirror in which I was to be reflected in. Outside a window is a landing area which we used to show the character jumping from to escape.

Because we unfortunately were unsuccessful again with the filming of a scene we will re-record what we can and use previous footage which we can edit into our film. This is not a loss however we have not filmed what we wanted.  We hope to re-film this scene to how we envisioned it and begin to film the dog scene, running scenes and possibly the final scene in order to have more in editing. 

Day 1- 3^rd January

 Jack and Ben had an attempt on making the opening seen in our chosen location. We chose the costume, location and Mise en scene, including the pool table. Throughout our filming we tried to keep the continuity flowing as clean as possible this proved difficult because we had to film the same scenes over and over but from different angles, in hope to create a choppy effect when editing.

After setting up the scenery (scattering bottles, to create a previous drunken night illusion), cameras and actors, we were set to film. We have chosen to use a free hand approach when filming; we intend to do this as much as possible to create an effect that the audience is following the character and experiencing his episodes first hand.  We have inherited this idea from “Fear and Loathing from Las Vegas”, in this film the majority of the footage is with moving scenery, noting is still, stable or structured. This makes the audience and the characters seem unstable and the film edgy. We want to use this effect because we feel that this would be a good technique to involve the audience and make the enjoy it. It also fits in with the fact that the character is still recovering from a drug and alcohol fuelled party the night before.

Because of our creativity and improvisation we only had a rough guideline to what we were expecting to create, until I finally drew up a structured story board. With this we were able to play around with different use of shots. We felt that this was a good way to film because it meant that we got a lot of footage captured in a small space of time and with the weather slowly closing this was important to get as much as possible before the weather turned on us.  

We had filmed our first scene. Around 10 minutes of footage for 30 seconds worth of film. We felt that all of the footage could be used, and would look good with a hard cut from shot to shot. This is cleverly done in “Alfred Hitchcock’s psycho”, he uses different angle of the same action to create an edgy build up to the famous shower scene, some extremely subtle. 

The next scene we filmed was again spontaneously. We decided together that a running scene filmed from outside of a car would be a great way to film a chase scene. Films use tracks and from the sides of vehicles but because of our lack of equipment all we had was a car and a camera to film with.

We filmed a running scene but encountered a few problems along the way. This included the car moving the camera accidently jogging it and a few times making the car become in the shot.  Another problem was the pedestrians; a few times bystanders would suddenly appear in the film and look directly in the camera or get in my way whiles I was running.  This proved one of the most difficult scenes to crack however one clean run meant that we had a complete footage of which we could use and clips of good footage from other takes from which we could edit into the film.

They were at the location at the time and so we decided to see if we could use some effect that we researched and incorporate this into our storyline. We had a rush of creativity and came up with using a warp effect that could make my grandparents look evil. This effect is used in “” to scare the audience and hopefully this will be the same effect when audiences watch our film. We justified using an old couple to become devilish and demon like was to show  the audience that even kind innocent people are effected by our main charters trippy experiences, we expect to use this effect again later on in the film when a dog a kindly dog walker change into vicious, scary beings.

Unfortunately all of the footage captured on day one of filming was unable to be downloaded and put onto a computer. The 30+ minuets worth was useless and so we would have to film again using a different way of capturing our footage. The 30 minutes were the equivalent of 30 gigabits and so was pointless to download. We were disappointed with this however we decided to use our experiences and so on day two of filming we will be able to quickly and efficient capture all and more. 

The new cd cover

we had a meeting to descuss the progress that we had made on our visual elements for the digi pack so far. The over all feeling was that the CD cover that we had already designed didnt really fit in well with other examples of cd covers in the same genre:

This is an album cover from Dead Mau5' "for lack of a better name album. This album is of the same sort of electronic genre as the song we are using for our video. it incorporates a bold neon blue and black color scheme that is clear and easy for the viewer to recognise instantly. In contrast we felt that our current cd cover is too unclear and ultimately very confusing to look at which we feel impares its ability to be effective as a clear representation of our band image.

This is the "in silico" album cover by pendulum, another drum and bass/ electronica based band. It is effective in the same way as the Dead Mau5 album through its use of a clear colour scheme using basic shapes and bright colours, however what we really like about this particular album cover is the fact that it makes the veiwer 'look again' as there are elements within the cover that are not immediately obvious at first glance. we would really like to make this a key element of our CD cover which, in comparison isnt particulaly interesting to look at.

This is another example of a CD cover that makes the audience 'look again'. This time it is by Aphex Twin, what we really like about this album cover is that it uses a type writer as its basis but incorporates the name of the artist on the keys, we would really like to use this sort of 'incorporation technique' in our own cd cover.

After this discussion we decided to completely re-do our CD cover and hopefully make it alot more effective and similar to the examples of CD covers that we have looked at.

Firstly we decided that the basis of our album cover should be a circuit board. We felt that this would match the 'electronic' theme that we planned to run throughout our video.



This is the image that we used, we cropped it and zoomed in to find the element of the circuit board we wanted to use.

Next we created our loud noises logo, we used elements from non copyright signs for danger of loud noises and then used photoshop CS3 to edit it down until we got to a logo that we as a group decided was right for our band:

Over all we all agree that this is a much more successful CD cover than the last attempt, we have managed to incorporate all of the elements that we wanted to from our research including the bold colours, the incorporated idea and the clear design.

photos for Loud noises

To make our website and blogs looks more realistic and individual we took some photos of all of us in a band style. We used a photography student to come out with us around the grounds of our school to try and get some good quality and realistic looking band photos. These are the results:

Above: This picture incorporates the whole of the band, allowing the entire band to get media coverage. We altered the photo to make it black and white to give it a more sombre feel, which there by draws more attention to the faces as they have become the brightest object in the picture. This is a typical band style image focusing on the band members getting recognised.

Above: This image was manipulated and the contrast was altered along with the brightness to give the image a washed out feel. The shot was taken from a reverse angle to break away from the mould of typical band photos, just as our music is breaking away from typical conventional styles.

Above:  This is just a casual image, a filler image almost, of two members of the band (Jack Arnold and Ben Carey) sat in the street.

Above: This image is particularly effective; it shows three members of our group (Jack Arnold, Ben Carey and Sam Harradine) behind metal bars, almost caged in. This is a representation of how our band is trying to break out of the cage that society has put this genre in. Waiting for their big break to hit the mainstream crowds. 

Left: This picture is also a symbolic image. It represents our band breaking free of the cage that it has been forced into. Going against what society believes and doing what we what we want regardless of others opinions. Hence the steel bars with the open door.

Above: This image is basically our own recreation of the iconic album cover from the beetles’ Abbey Road, which can be seen next to our version. We tried to keep our version as similar as possible to keep the recognisability, but added our own modern twist on it to keep it individual and original. Enough said.

Left: we chose to use the negative and black and white effect again on this photo, just to give it an edge. However we removed the effect on both the members’ shoes to bring the picture to life. The way the characters are facing away from the camera resembles the way the band is not looking for attention and is happy doing their own thing, which is very similar to other bands in this genre of music, such as The Prodigy.

These photos help us to start generating an image and brand for our own band in the same way that the prodigy and other similar bands do with their publicity shots.

the cd cover is here!

I was delegated the task of creating a CD cover to go with the track that we chose to make a music video of. As a group we decided that we wanted to create the cover so that it would fit in with our theme. Some initial ideas were to Incorporated some kind of optical illusion to tie in with the 'trippy' feel that we wanted to create within the film itself.
I therefore began by doing some research into optical illusions on the Internet. what i found was that a lot of the more effective illusions seemed to use two similar geometric shapes or patterns that were layered on top of one another to give the optical illusion effect.

This is an example of such an image, by simply changing the pattern from horizontal to vertical the image creates a strange effect.
To create my own optical illusion for the CD cover i started by finding an image of many dots set out in horizontal and vertical lines:

I then imported this image into photoshop, enlarged the dots and colored them red. after i had done that i put a copy of the original image onto a new layer and put this on top. to create the title of our fictional album i then erased the layer on top to reveal the layer below, giving the effect of an optical illusion:

The next thing we discussed as a group was what should make up the rest of the CD cover. in the end we settled on the idea of making a representation of a sheet of LSD tabs. We felt that this would fit in nicely with what we wanted our end movie to be about, and it would also hint to the narrative.
To create this effect i went onto a website that provides free, non-copyright, stencils for public use and i put them above the title on the CD cover, i then added dots between the images to give the effects of perforations on the sheet of tabs... then it was done!!!

 During the time time i created this CD cover i encountered quite a few problems. Firstly trying to create the title of the CD as an optical illusion whilst also making it legible posed a slight issue, to solve this i made use of colouring the dots and making them larger to make them stand out.

Initially the idea was to have the word 'pirana' between the images rather than just dots, however this made the cover as a whole look too crowded and once i had tried using dots instead i found the more simple cover to be more effective and essentially 'easier on the eye'.

Animatic

After our descussion about our plot we set about creating an animatic to show our plot in a more coherent and cinematic way. Sam started the process off by doing some artwork that would represent how we hoped the film would look in the end. I then used a Dslr camera to take photos of the drawings and imported them into Adobe Premier Pro.

(screen shot)


Next I edited the photos together in the right order to allow the animatic to effectively show the narrative of our film. After I finnished this we had another group meeting and i showed the group what i come up with so far. We decided that the animatic should be as close to what we wanted our finnished product to look like so i started to look at other music films in a similar Genre to ours to get ideas of how to edit the animatic together:

Firstly, as i had already looked at Aphex Twin's Come to Daddy i decided that this would also be a good place to start when looking for inspiration on editing effects and ideas. I noticed that aswell as having a strang narrative as i already discussed on my blog it also used alot of quick, hard cuts throughout the editing. This helped the film to have a good pace and a sense of urgency that we as a group had already decided that we would like to include in our production.
Next i looked at the music video for Square Pusher's "Come On My Selector":

I found this video really inspiring as it is so well edited that it almost seems that the music was written around the video rather than the video being made for the music. Between 4:01 and 4:10 there is an especially good peice of rythmic editing that i thought was exactly the type of visual effect that would go really well with our genre of music.
After this research we had another meeting as a group and discussed how we would like our animatic to look. We decided that we liked the idea of using fast cuts and hard cuts so i started the animatic with these themes in mind. This is what i got:

Although the finnished animatic may not be true to exactly what our finnished peice will look like i think that my animatic gives a good idea of both the general look of our film idea as well as the pace.

The Plot

After we did some research into other music film productions in a similar area as our own (namely The Prodigy's "fire starter"  

video and Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy"

) we decided that there were a few critical things that we needed to include in our plot to help us to create an effective music film. We noticed that in both of these music videos the narrative, although sometimes obscure and often confused in terms of not being chronological, were integral parts of these music videos. We therefore decided to spend quite a lot of time on working on a good plot for our production. This is what we got:

Scene 1:
Opens with an establishing shot of our main character (played by Ben Carey) passed out on the floor of a poole room/ garage. The mise en scene of this scene shows the audience that he is waking up after a night of drinking and possibly drug taking. He gets up and leaves the room slightly dazed.

Scenes 2, 3 and 4:
Throughout the rest of the film the narrative follows the character as he moves through his house and out to the neighbourhood. His world becomes more and more fragmented as seemingly ordinary things like looking in the mirror or walking down the street become more and more twisted and reality becomes completely warped. A clone of the main character chases him throughout this section of the film heightening the tension and pace of our film. An enigma will be built into our film as there will be a sense of the narrative being detatced from reality so the audience will never be sure of weather the main protagonist is imagining things or if what he is experiencing is real. The film will climax in a direct confrontation between the main character and his stalker and the apparent death of both of them. However, the end of the film shows the main prtagonist waking up in nearly the exact position he was in at the start of the film, implying that he was merely hallusinating.