Evaluation - Q4

Evaluation Q4 - Click here (or picture)

Evaluation - Q3

Evaluation - Q2

Evaluation - Q1

Music Video - Final

My Final video. I have sped up the music video to match the music and have gotten rid of boring bits by adding more shots and flashes. Using Adobe After Effects CS6, Mr Wallis taught me how to add in the CRT TV Static Effect which I think looks really cool as it makes the less flickery, less jumping chorus shots more interesting

Music Video - Draft

 

I have finished and exported my music video draft and it has been uploaded to the Ashfield School media channel on YouTube. This is a draft of my final product because there are are a few changes I need to make including issues with video speed not matching the speed of the song, there are some boring bits and shots I feel dont quite fit in where they have been place. I'm also going to put the video on facebook and get some feedback and ideas on how to improve it. I'll then make appropriate changes based off of my own views and the feedback I get.

Digipak is Finished

Turns out even with my crazy limited knowledge of photo editing and with only Pixlr for editing software I can still manage to put together an awesome Digipak in less than a day.

 I created the image for the front and back covers by taking a weird static-looking frame from one of my shots from my filming and edited this in such a way that it looked bot industrial and a bit digital. I added noise and pixelated the image then adjusted it with the colour editing tools available on Pixlr. I actually really like the way they came out.

Using made up names and the (real) company Warp Records I added all the necessary information that needs to go on the back of an album over the image that I had created for the front cover. I think that the similar covers are cool as it'd look as though the cover continues all the way around the back. The lack of focal point in the images is interesting also as it draws attention to the text without being completely lacking in detail; cool shapes and lines are visible in the image

My favourite panel of the design is the inside front cover. For the background image of this panel I used a still frame of the cloudy sky from one of my days of filming and edited it using tools such as Gaussian blur, Add noise, pixelate and many more. I again played with the colours until it looked perfect (to me, you may think otherwise). I then had to go onto paint to add the text in the font i liked as it is not available on Pixlr. The font I used was embarrassingly called 'MineCrafter 3' which I already had on my computer because I'm a bit of a Minecraft nerd. I came up with some names I thought sounded cool to go on there along with 'Transmission' the track for which I created the video.

Panel four the inside of the back cover wouldn't be attached on the seam nearest the fold (if it we're real) to create a sleeve for the disk itself to go in. For this panel I took a picture of Gracie which is actually already on the 10,000BC site and edited it on Pixlr until I was happy with it.

I really like the way all of the panels turned out, I feel they're all similar looking enough to be part of the same digipak and I feel they match the artist brand and the song really well.

 

Digipak - Template

I have decided to make a four panelled digipak as the examples of digipaks that I have seen that match my genre tend to have just four panel as opposed to six,

I have created a template using one at this link  and made a few changes on paint

I have chosen to make the Inside Back Cover a sleeve for the disk as the design on this panel will be easier to see without there being the casing for the disk like most digipaks and CD cases.

Website Update - Completely Completed

(Click the Image)

 

I was under the impression the site would automatically be at the domain name 10000bc.wix.com/

but it is instead at aaronweir1996.wix.com/10000bc which sort of sucks. To change the domain name of a wix website you have to pay for Wix Premium. If were going to do that the ideal name would be 10000bc.com but as I'm not going to do this I'll have to deal with it as it is

Website Update - Homepage Completion

I've finished the website homepage since the last post I made on here and I have changed the entire site's background to this crinkled paper background that I found as one of the preset background options on Wix. 

I quite like the way this looks. I prefer it to the plain white as that seemed a bit boring and empty. I have also finished the gallery page as I got Gracie to come round so I could take some cool photos, I chose the best ones to put on the site, I actually like the average quality and lack of editing oin the pictures as it makes it look a little less 'trying-to-hard'y. I also added a side scrolling galleryget on the info page. The info page and the music page are all that need doing now as I dont know what to do on either page.

Filming - Day 05 Kingsway Park

Itinerary: Light, Camera and my phone(to play the song)

Last night me and Gracie met on Kingsway park. I decided on this location as the batting cages on the park resemble well cages. I thought this'd be ideal for the 'Come on little Fucker you can let me out,' Lyric. I had originally planned to just use the side of a building site near my house as they mark the building site perimeter with a similar fence but Gracie suggested the batting cages which seemed slightly more appropriate.

I got shots of Gracie lip-syncing the 'Little fucker' lyric a few times. I think the shots look really cool as I filmed them without the tripod as the shaky look came out well in the other shots. I also again used the light as we filmed at night as the dark shots from our fourth day of filming looked really cool.

Website is Coming Along

Using a template on Wix.com called 'Black Barby' I have managed to make quite a bit of progress into building a Wensite for my artist 10,000BC. I really like how it's coming along

 

 

The Tour dates section at the side remains from the template but these will be changed to be 10,000BC's tour dates and it'll all look awesome. I still have to do the other 3 pages but they shan't take too long

Filming - Day 04 Filming in the dark

On Moday 25th November, Gracie came round so that we could filmed some more. We managed to get quite a lot of footage. we went back up to my upsatirs where there is the nice plain white wall to use as the backdrop. I filmed her lipsyncing the two main verses in the light because the original clips were barely usable. We then did the same again in the dark using my really bright 20 LED light. I filmed this by hand, without the tripod to make the shot less boring and make the video seem less repetative and dull.

The shots in the dark were particularly hard for Gracie as it was difficult for her to read the lyrics which wasnb't helped by the fact that she was without her glasses. We managed though, and I think a lot of the shots we got look really good.

Filming - Day 03 Commotion in the Quarries

Itinerary: Camera, Tripod, Lyrics sheet
Location(s): Portland Park, The Quarries

We managed to get quite few shots including a few lip syncing shots under a bridge on the way to the quarries, multiple shots of Gracie just walking around looking creep and a few other shots, like establishing shots of locations and a couple others such as water flowing in a river whilst it was raining.

 

Our filming was cut short by me noticing I had lost my phone so we had to go looking for it. We eventually found it though as we heard my gay-ass ringtone of  'A Thousand Miles - Vanessa Carlton' it had fell out of my pocket as we were walking down a hill, luckily it didnt fall out when we were jumping over rivers, that'd have been really bad.

 

Overall it was an alright day as we did manage to get a fair few shots and my phone was eventually found.

Planning - Album name

Using the site I used to get my idea for my artist name I found an idea for my album name. After clicking the 'This name sucks. Give me a new one.' button I came across the name 'The Grinding Mechanism ' which I think sounds pretty awesome.

Filming - Day 02 No Success

Itinerary: Camera, Tripod

Location(s): Portland Park

We took the camera and tripod to Portland Park, planning to get some cool shots there and down the Quarries but it was too dark by the time we got there and Gracie was barely even visible in the shots; She suggested brighteneing them up in editing but that would create a lot of static and noise so we went back to my house.
On the way back to mine we managed to find a little residential road right near mine called Sylvan Avenue, that looked creepy enough at night so I managed to film a few shots of her looking mysterious walking around under lamposts and stuff.

 

Filming - Day 01 Lipsyncing

Itinerary: Camera, Tripod, Gracie
Location: My Bathroom

Filmed in my bathroom we got the lipsyncing done. I chose that my bathroom would be an ideal location as there is a plain white wall to have as the background. In every take of the lipsyncing Gracie messed up a little bit but I think I can crosscut it together and make it look good enough, if not the we could always re-film it if needed as it wasn't a very taxing task.

 

I also managed to finally get the costume photos needed for my blog which I uploaded on the day we filmed. Obviously a lot more needs to be done 'til I get even nearly finished but it feels good having finally made a start.

Planning - Costume, Hair and Make-up

As Gracie is going to be the only one in the video, and there are no real, major costume changes only one costume needs to be planned for.
 

Throughout the video she'll be wearing her black, ankle length leather coat, with a black shirt underneath some black skinny jeans and her black converse.
 

 

I chose to go with the black shirt as it looks amazing, the white shirt simply didn't match the rest of the attire. Gracie actually has and incredibly Gothic waistcoat that I sold her because it barely fit anymore and it was far from my style. I figure this will look good with this outfit as it seems likely. Next time we do some filming,I'll have her bring the waistcoat along. Gracie independantly decided the studded choker should be added. I really like the choker, it makes the costume more alternative and less plain black however the plain blackness won't be an issue once the waistcoat ius added because although it is black it is also really cool.

 

The waistcoat is a black sort of denim material, the sleves look asthough the have been ripped off  which creates an awesome effect and it does up with a thickish steel zip along with keyring type clasps that lay over the zip. this should make the outfit look less boring and plain.

 

[Picture of waistcoat here]  [Picture of costume+ waiscoat here]

 

No major make-up should be required as her face is already very pale which will contrast the (/mainly) black costume and fit the alternative genre characteristics as a lot of alternative artists / actors in alternative videos are in dark clothing looking pale.
 

Gracie currently has dark brown hair, this may fit the video well and look good but if it doesn't then it wont be hard to make her hair look darker with brightness and contrast settings in editing. Her hair for this video will be made to be a bit messy so as to look industrial and alternative, but not so messy that it looks scruffy. 
 

Some of the scenes will just show Gracie lip-syncing to the track, these will be filmed in my house against the plain white wall of my bathroom, I think this is a good choice scene as there is a lot of natural light. For these scenes I may not have her wear the leather jacket and instead just have the shirt. As these kind of shots will be close ups - with just head and shoulders showing - it doesn't really matter what shoes and legwear are worn for these shots.

Planning - Actor/Actress

This is Gracie, probably my best friend. She will be playing the character of 10,000BC in my video and will be the "artist" of the song. The song is clearly voiced by a male; this isn't an issue as Gracie, previously Adam Saxton, is transgender and is thus biologically a dude despite feeling mentally that she is female. She has agreed, and wasn't offended with much relief to me, to play the guy in my video.

Planning - Name

After further thought into artist's alias, I've established that he will simple be know as '10,000BC' as oppsed to '10,000 Broken Chains' [Ten Thousand Broken Chains] and instead have the name '10,000BC' just stand for 10,000 Broken Chains. Just as the band 'H.I.M' [pronounced 'him'] go by 'H.I.M' but that stands for His Infernal Majesty.

 

The logo remains as what i posted on Tuesday.