Rough Cut 3

This is a link to my third rough cut. There are not a lot of changes in this rough cut because i am happy with how it turned out in the second version. What i have changed in this edit is i have colour corrected the footage, by changing the brightness and contrast of the clips. I edited each clip individually because if i did they same change to all the clips some of them looked overly edited or could be better. This was the only change with the video, i tried testing out a few ideas but none of them looked good so i didn't include them in the edit and left it as my preferred version. I want to see what the footage looks like in black and white, this is what i will do next, i will compare them both and make a judgement. I think that i will prefer the coloured version because there are quite a lot of nice colours in this edit.

Magazine Poster 2

This post includes screenshots of my first design of my magazine album poster which i have created. This magazine cover was created using my own photos that i too while out on my second shoot. While filming i was also thinking about taking photos for my magazine cover, i was thinking what would look best and how i could achieve a striking image which would capture someones attention. When taking this image i was thinking how it would look as a poster, this is why i too the picture in portrait, all magazine posters are shot in portrait and wouldn't work if i hot it landscape because i would have had to squeeze the image. When taking this photo i focused on my settings so try get the best image i could. The settings which i used to take this photo was f/ 8.0 1/125 and ISO 100. The image i used is not the original, i edited the image in photoshop before i started the adding the text. How i edited the photo was by decreasing the brightness slightly to enhance the silhouette effect. I then increased the contrast so that the colours were enhanced and more bold and vibrant. Then i slightly altered the hue to make the sunset a more stronger orange colour rather than yellow which it was before.

The first image below is the first draft of my magazine poster. What i did first was add the text to the poster. I made the name of the artist the largest of the text so that this is the first part of the poster which someone would look at, then they are informed straight away of who the artist is. I followed conventions by placing the name of the album (name of the album is not the real one, this album name is just there as a draft) directly underneath the name of the artist but in a smaller font but still big. There is a lot of blank space at the top of the image and this is where the biggest text would placed best, if the name of the artist and album name was placed at the bottom it would be covering up the picture of the artist, also putting the text in this order is following conventions from this genre, there is no posters with the name in big at the bottom of the poster. Then i added 'Debut Album' text to the bottom, because this is the first album the artist would have released, most artists releasing their first album would promote it as a 'debut' instead of just 'new'. Then underneath that text is the album release date, this is in a smaller text size because it isn't the most important piece of info on the poster. 

This is a second draft of my poster, there are only three changes made to this version. The first change is very small, i cropped the image from the top very slightly, so that there is not as much empty space. The second change which i did was adding a white border around the image, I'm not too sure if i like this and if it significant or needed. I don't think ill keep the white border in my next draft. The third change is that i made both texts at the bottom of the image smaller.

  

I now have the name of the song and album so the change in this version if the album name. I also decided to remove the white border.

Here i decided to increase the size of the date the album woul dbe released. The date is an important feature of the poster and in previous designs the date looked too small, so small that people may not catch it when glancing at the poster.

Here i added the additional texts which are conventionally on a magazine poster, extra information on the artist and album and reviews from music magazines. i think the location of these extra details is good because it not in your face its subtle but can still be seen, It also makes the poster feel complete.

I then added iTunes and GooglePlay icons to the poster. I downloaded these image as vectors, then i could easily just import them into the the software and change the size without it being effected by bad quality. I then did two designs for where i should put the placement of the logos. The first design i placed the logos in the centre of the image directly below the date.

  In this design i changed the placement of the icons to the side of the poster. After doing this i had to decide which placement i preferred and thought looked best

I decided to choose the first option for the final placement of download logos. I changed the size of the logos to how they where in ht first image by increasing the size slightly just so that they were easy to read and more noticeable.

Below is the final design of my magazine poster.

     

Magazine Poster 1

This post included my second magazine poster design. The design was created with another photo which i took on the second shoot with Josh, as well as focusing on the shoot i was also thinking about what would look good for my magazine poster and taking photos along the way. I edited the photo in black and white so that it links more to the Iceland part of the shoot because these shots are quite dull and bland.

For these first couple of versions i was moving about the text in  different locations just to see what fit best and worked well.

In this version i decided to increase the size of the date. The reasons for this was because the date is an important part of the info on the poster so if i was to increase the size of any text i thought that the date would be an important one to do. There was also a lot of empty space in this photo which i was trying to fill in and not make the poster look as empty.

I added more text to make the poster look more professional and like a real magazine poster. I added some reviews from well respected music magazines. I downloaded vectors of the logos then imported them into photoshop where i was editing the poster. 

I then moved about the text more just to try get rid of the empty space and make the poster look full. I didn't want to add to much information though because then the poster could look over whelming and full putting people off looking at it. The image below was the final design i ended up picking for this version of the magazine poster.

Rough Cut 2

This is a link to my second rough cut, with this second cut i took everything which went well in my first one included them in this then added to it with my improved ideas. I am a lot more happy with how this second cut turned out. This rough cut still includes the instrumental version of the song because at this time the vocals section haven't been recorded yet, but it doesn't make a difference to who the video will be. The cut is also still not colour corrected in any way, the clips which are used are raw.

Improvements and changes:

• The first change which i did for the second cut was with the titles at the start of the video. In the first cut the text which showed the name of the artist and name of the song were on their own with a black background. What i changed was i separated them, removed the line in between and had the text over the first shot, the first title is the name of the artist and this changed at the same time as the instrumental has a change to show the name of the song. I made sure that the length of the text was on screen long enough for the viewer to read it, this wasn't hard because it is just a short name and one word.
• The second change i made was with the first verse section. The problem i had is that not all the clips linked and there was a mix of water themed clips and woods clips, i felt like this caused a messy effect and got feedback that it didn't work very well. This is what i changed in the second cut. I used two clips at the very start of the video which aren't linked to the woods, but then from then on in it all links together surrounding the footage of josh playing. 
• The other thing i changed in the first verse and the whole video was in a few places i changed the type of transition from straight cut to cross fade. I didn't over use the cross fade because this can look cheesy and not necessary, i only used it when the clips were similar and they slowed well together.
• The first chorus is done in a pretty similar way tot he first rough cut, i didn't think they was many problems with it, the only changes which i did was change a few of the clips so they link together even better.
• The changes i made to the second verse section was that i only used clips that related to water, unlike in the first rough cut where i used footage which had no similarities to the others.
• The end of the video is very similar to the first cut the only changes made is that a few of the shots are different because i used one of the original ending shots somewhere else in the video

Overall i am a lot happier with the second rough cut. This version flows and works a lot better altogether because now there are no unnecessary shots which have no link to the shots surrounding them. There are not many changes left to fix in my next cut, i will try out different things but the big changes which i wanted to make i made in the second cut. The thing i will do next is colour correct the footage.

Rough Cut 1

This is a link to my first rough cut for my music video. This video only includes the instrumental of the song, the only thing missing on the song is the vocals. The video still works and can be edited the same as if the vocals where in there. Because the lyrics don't really have link to the video they are not necessary for the rough cuts. There are many changes which i wish to change about this rough cut which will be corrected for the next cut, this first cut has helped because it has helped me realise what works well and in which order i think things work best and also it has helped me find and choose my favourite and best clips which i will use. Has helped me discard the bad clips which i will not use. 

The first thing which i did for this cut was add the titles. I used a similar font to my digipak font for this rough cut,for my final cut the font used will be the same. I like this font because it fits with the theme of my video and also fits with the genre. The font would look out of place and not work if it was a bold fancy font. I put the text in white and over a black background. The text features the name of the artist and below the name of the song 'Hiding' separated with a thin white line. 

Instead of the song starting straight away i decided to start it after the text has been on the screen, so when the text goes off this is when the music start. Instead of starting the music at full volume i faded the sound in gradually for a few seconds. This makes the music not as stunning and out of no where when it comes on, i feel like this effect fits the style of the video better because it is more calm rather than urgent. I linked the first clip to the music, the way i did this was while the music was being faded in,i also put a video transition effect on the first clip 'Dip to Black' so that the first clip faded in at the same time as the music making them link and it starts the connected relationship between the music and footage stand out from the very start. Because the lyrics of the song don't directly match the footage in this video, i thought of another way to link the music and video. This is through linking the video with the instrumental. In my rough cuts i have made the music match the video in parts such as when there is a change in sound the clip changes at the same time. This makes the whole video feel more connected and like there is a relationship between the video and music rather than it just being two separate things.

The next section is the first verse which ends at 1min. I got shots of Josh playing the guitar in two different locations. My plan for these two locations was for one to be in the first verse and the other to be in the second, this will make the verses feel more different and not like the video is repeating itself when the viewer gets to watching the second half. So for the first verse i used the shots of Josh playing in the woods. These shots were quite difficult to match up with the music because you can see Josh strumming the guitar which needed to match, i think i was quite successful with matching the guitar and it works quite well, it defiantly doesn't look like the is playing the wrong thing so it wouldn't be noticed that it may not be perfect 100% match unless someone was trying to catch a little part of it out. Linking to the shots of Josh playing in the woods i surrounded these shots with other clips which i got when i was at the woods, i think these work well together. However i couldn't seem to fully fill the first verse with just images of the woods, so to fill the gaps i inserted footage from Iceland which was all water based footage so there was still some continuity. This resulted in the first verse including water themed shots mixed with woods footage, i would prefer it if i could fill this section with only woods footage so the video looks better put together and not messy with filler shots, this is something i will focus on fixing in my second rough cut.  

Then the first verse changes very suddenly, i matched this with the clips changing to very different to what they were. I made sure that the clip change was directly on the instrumental change, this also makes the music feel more connected and linked to the video. The theme of the clips used for the chorus are all linked to water, which slightly links to the first verse which is something i am hoping to change in the second cut, to make the footage from the first verse and chorus completely different. This will show a clear separation of the sections. Although making the clips change to the instrumental was important throughout the whole video i made sure that the shot changes were spot on in the chorus section because this is when you would notice if they didn't work the most.

The next part of the video is the second verse, this is where i used the second set of shots of Josh with his guitar. I prefer these shots which is why i put them later on in the video, this means the video builds up towards the better shots throughout the video. In the second verse i would have preferred it to be completely the shots of the sunset or linked to the reservoir/water. Unfortunately i had to use shots which don't link and look a bit out of place, thesis something which i will change for my next rough cut. With these shots of Josh playing the guitar he is facing away from the camera towards the water, this means that you can't see Josh playing the guitar properly which means i didn't have to sync up the strumming with the music because you can't see his hands playing.

Example of one of the filler/out of placed shots.

For the second chorus and ending of the song all the clips link together well. The first shot features a focus pull straight away which i think works well as being the opening shot for second chorus. The end of the video ends the same way as i started the video, with the shot fading out at the same time and speed as the music fading out. I think this is the best way to end the video rather than it ending with a straight cut, that wouldn't fit the calm feel of the video.

There are quite a lot of things which i will be changing in my second rough cut. For the secodn rough cut I'm going to re do it from scratch but take the best things that i got from this cut and use them for the second and then add to it making it feel like a more full video with no mistakes. The reason that in this cut i have had to use some filler shots which don't link tot he surrounding shots around them is because i edited all the clips so they were too short and made them change more often than they should. This resulted in me having a shortage valuable clips because i used them in another part of the video too quickly. I also think that the whole video is edited too quickly, the shots are on the screen too short, they should be longer. Instead of every clip changing with a straight cut and matching the instrumental, this is something i will change in the second cut and use different types of transitions e.g. crossfade this will make sure the video doesn't get boring because it not all the same thing throughout. So in my second cut i aim to mix up the transitions more, but not too much where it looks silly and not necessary, only when i think it will work best having a different type of transition. I added a cinematic border to the video, this was done because i think that clips look better with that aspect ratio.

Magazine Poster Ideas

Just before i am about to start creating my magazine advert i need to think about the ideas that i have for it.

Magazine Research

• When looking into the conventions of a magazine poster i have noticed that they all have one striking image which captures a viewers attention and draws them in. The image usually included a picture of the artist of a singular person that is linked to the artist in some way. This is so that it is establishing the brand image of the artist more and getting people familiar with the person.
• The poster follows the required size which is A4 portrait. This is because this is the size of magazine pages so for the poster to fit and look good in the magazine it should be made to these specifics.
• The poster always have big text at the top of the poster. This is to inform the audience of what the poster about giving them clear information so they are not confused and they know what they are looking at straight away.
• They usually have other additional information which is clear on the poster such as the date. Looking at the two posters below which are posters of artists in the same genre as the one i am using they do not have any additional information making them not follow conventions. 
• There is usually a colour scheme which is fitted across the poster, to make everything fit together and not look out of place.