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.

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 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.

Location - My Bathroom

Weirdly one of the filming locations I have chosen to use is the upstairs bathroom in my house. I chose to use this room for filming as it is a well lit room, with lots of natural and artificial light, but the main reason that i chose this room were because there is a plain white wall that can be used as a nice clean looking background to the lipsyncing scenes such as the ones we filmed Thursday. I also thought this room would be ideal as it is ver close and easy to get to for Gracie and it is crazy-easy for me to get to it as it is in my house.

Planning - Shots

Planning - Name and Logo

I had the idea to call the artist '10,000 Broken Chains' [Ten Thousand Broken Chains] instead of just 'Broken Chains' because it can then be shortened to '10,000BC' which is an awesome artist name because it sounds like the year 10,000BC. I have adapted the logo from the original and have produced this logo draft

I really like the idea of a crossed out zero meaning broken chain because it looks like a chain link, it is crossed out to show that it is a broken chain link rather than a normal one, and also because if it weren't crossed out it'd look like the artist was just called '100,000'.

 

I need to have more of a play around with fonts before I make final descisions on the logo.

 

Another logo idea that I have had since deciding on '10,000 Broken Chains' as the artist's name is to just have 10,000BC as the logo. I had the idea that I could use a more digital looking font to contrast the fact that 10,000BC was a very long time ago. Although this does look very cool, I have decided against this as I dont think the song sounds digital enough for the logo to properly apply.



 

After playing around a bit more on Dafont I have found a few examples of good fonts to use to make my artist's logo. Here are some that I thought looked cool.

Font names (top left to bottom right) 'Face Your Fears','Inky','Levi Brush','L.C Smith 5 Typewriter','Bad Gudge' and 'c39hrp48dhtt'.

My favourite out of these 6 designs is 'L.C Smith 5 Typewriter' as it looks alternative without looking scruffy like 'Levi Brush' or 'Face Your Fears' which look as though they'd fit better with a more harcore, metal band. The barcode styled one is the collest looking but like 'Digital 7', I feel it looks like it'd suit a more digital or electro band a bit better.

I've spent lots of time exploring fonts and have concluded I'm going to use the 10,000BC logo in the font 'L.C Smith 5 Typewriter'. I've decided this looks better than the crossed out '0' logo and it is more obvious that it is supposed to represent an artist called '10,000 Broken Chains'.
 

Finalised artist logo

 

Website Research - How To Destroy Angels

 

How To Destroy Angels' Website

Website Research - KORN (Changes)

Korn update their site the day after I made my last post. Their website is now themed to reflect their ablum newest album 'The Paradigm Shift'. The changes include the obvious background change; the page has now been made blue with what is made to look like dirt marks at the bottom. They have also added the giant, weird, translucent faces at the side which is the main element on the album cover.

 

The page colour scheme as also been changed; the frame around the youtube video player has been changed to fit the new theme and all the navigation links and stuff have been made yellow to contrast the new blue background. The Register/Log in button has been moved to the top of the screen so as to not abstruct the images (of the faces) at the sides, the button still remains in place when you scroll down as it did before.

Website Research - KORN

KORN WEBSITE

Survival - Eminem

Being a huge fan of Eminem since childhood I was psyched when I heard he was back (again). On the 8th of October Eminem released the video for his new single 'Survival', which is incredibly different from his other awesome and recent single 'Berzerk'.

Eminem's music is incredible he's constantly producing great music. Just yesterday he released 'Rap God' which I think may be the best rap he's ever released (not the best song he's done but the best rapping). In 'Rap God' he is mainly just boasting like an obnoxious ass about how amazing he is at rapping; which would be annoying, if he weren't right.

Planning - Shot Ideas

Seeing as my video doesn't particularly need a narrative I have just drawn a few shot ideas rather than storyboarding. Instead of putting my crude little etchings on here I'm going to list a few of the shots and ideas in writing so as to not ruin my blog:

• I decided I'd get quite a lot of shots of my actor Gracie (who is transgendered and thus looks like a dude despite being mentally female) walking round abandoned places such as the few old factories and abandoned places in Kirkby whilst looking pretty vacant. I'll also get a few shots of her walking around town at night and in the rain.
• I'll use close-ups of her face looking serious as well as maybe one with her middle finger to the camera.
• There's a building site near my house that we used to go on and climb about on, we can break in and climb on there at night to get some cool idustrial shots
• We can use the chain link fence around the building site to look like a cage and use that shot to match the line "Come little fucker, can you let me out?" because "let me out" implies the artist is trapped or encaged within something.
• I'll use close ups and mid shots of her looking at the camera when it's raining showing her wet hair and clothes with a serious look on her face.
• For the line "followed by the vision of my God" I'm going to show the clouds and the sun because the sky connotes God and religion.
• Close ups of like moving worms and maggots and stuff that is 'angin'
• At the begining I'm going to have a picture of a perfect red apple and then at the end have it looking all gross.
• I'm going to get loads of shots of just normal things; I'm going to just film a busy road at night showing loads of cars.
• I'll get a bird's eye shot from a really high building like the big Westgate building thing in mansfield and film the town below .
• Shots down the Quarries including the running water in the little river thing. There's a little concrete shelter with grafitti everywhere, we could get a shot or two there of Gracie looking mysterious and sinister.
• Down the quarries there are some train tracks that we can get a few shots of Gracie on, just like walking about on them.
• POV Shots looking down on Gracie's feet walking around
• After feedback it was suggested that I just use few shots of my cat just doing cat stuff
• A blurred shot out of the bus window just showing the street, possibly when it's raining
• Sped up shots of people walking around, in groups eg. getting off of a train
• Feedback suggested I should only show the actor in blurred/unfocused shots, I may use this in a few shots to create more mystery around the actor.
• Something, like a glass or a window or something, smashing in slow motion
• Footage/ Stock footage of moths and other bugs
• A flickering light

 

Planning - Band Name Logo

After playing around on a few font sites such as Dafont, FontSquirrel and a couple others I have found some cool industrial fonts with which to write Broken chains.

This is a nice simple name logo thing that uses a stencil like design to create a bold, bulky logo

This is a cool creative name logo thing that also uses a stencil like design to create a bold logo however I feel this design looks more industrial as the writing is made to look worn and rusty. This is probably the font I'll be going with as it is may favourite of the 6 that i have found.

Planning/research - Band Name and logo

After listening to my song more and talking a bit with my actor for the video, we decided to take band/artist name into closer consideration and have pretty much concluded the artist's name shall be Broken Chains. This will be a solo artist under the stage name Broken Chains; similar to Pictureplane (Travis Egedy) and Marina and the Diamonds (Marina Diamandez). I have decided to discard the name Binary Future as it sound far too Electronic for the sound of the song and not nearly Industrial enough.

I figured bands and/or artists whom have a logo are more easily recognized. I came to this conclusion because loads of people know of H.I.M's famous heartagram logo, and Misfits' Skull logo. Many other examples such as The Rolling Stones' tongue logo are recognized frequently and it is for this reason why I have came up with this logo. The logo I have designed (in 5 minutes on MS Paint) shows a zero in italics, this represents a chain link. The zero has then been crossed out which shows the chain is broken (top right). Some more examples of widely familiar logos include Nirvana's drunken smiley face logo, Nine Inch Nails' simple NIN logo, Slipknot's aztec tattoo styled 'S', Van Halen's big VH and many more.

Band logos are useful to have if you want you want to get your band noticed because they often use simple ideas to create significant designs. An example of this is the use of backwards letters; NIN have their backwards 'N' as show above this teqnique is also used by Eminem whom has his second 'E' backwards, Korn who have the backwards 'R' and ABBA whom have their secon 'B' backwards this is done to add a feel of symetry to logos and to make the more distinct from other logos.

Many bands such as Van Halen, Anal Cunt, Nine Inch Nails, The Dead Kennedys, Skinny Puppy, Foo Fighters and probably thousands more have a logo simply built up of their band name initials, this is a good idea because the use of initials/acronyms is a great way to remember things this makes the logos simple and memorable.

Bands such as Prince, Aphex Twin, Throbbing Gristle, Bad Religion and  use logos that are just weird designs or well known symbols editied. For example Aphex Twin's logo is apparently just an alienified 'A' and Bad Religion  have simply put the Holy Cross inside a No sign thing . I have used the idea of creating an abstract logo like this rather than using BC (Broken chains) as I found it difficult to make BC look like a broken chain.

A lot of bands have a logo made of just their band name except in a certain font this is good because the font becomes part of the bands identitiy. They become recognised by their name being written in that font. I'm going to also come up with a band name logo like a lot of bands do for example Linkin Park have their LP logo and then they have their name wirtten in their chosen font and they use these 2 logos on different things.

Track 4 - Lyrics

The lyrics and lyric timings for the song

 

Research - Digipak

We have to, as part of this project, produce a digipak for the single/LP with our tracks on. These are the dimensions of a regular 6 paneled digipak are: 139.5mm x 6mmx 125.5mm.

This will be usefull as i can print this out and produce some little sketches of my ideas.

Homemade Music Video

Some girl and some friends made a video for 'Not in Love - Crystal Castles (ft. Robert Smith)' and has got over 4M views and 50K likes on it on youtube. This video is honestly awesome, I just hope my video for Track 4 comes out as good.

 

The video looks very proffessional and matches the song well. I really like the fact that it is filmed in the snow as it makes the video seem very cold, emotionally and physically. The shaky camera of the chase scenes creates a very hectic feeling and makes the fact that she is being chased even more scary.