Digipak fonts

For my digipak I chose a few key fonts which I used. The first was City life which I used on one of my extra panels. The second was Vintage College which I used as my main artist logo font. However this one might change as I continue with my digipak. The last one was City Burn which I used for the majority of my text. I am happy with all of these fonts, however my teachers have told me that the vintage college one might not suit the genre.

Chosen pictures for my digipak and magazine advert

Here are the photos that I have chosen to use for my digipak and magazine advert. These were all taken on the same day when we all went to Thamesmead for our photoshoot.

Photoshop work

During class whenever we haven't been filming I have been working on my digipak on Photoshop. So far I have got all of my digipak done as well as my magazine advert and am now waiting for feedback to improve it.

Production schedule

In a way to keep ourselves organised we have drawn up a production schedule. This holds all of the dates that we are filming, where we are filming and what we are filming. This is very helpful as it allows us all to agree on a date when we are all available to film. As you can see all of these dates are filming dates for our first edit. Once we finish this first edit and have feedback from our class and teacher will we begin our final edit. For this we will create a new production schedule.

Production Log Entry 5

Today our group filmed the starting scenes for our video. We enlisted the help of an extra from our Sixth Form to help with the gang member scene. We felt that the shots were good only we should have used a steadi cam or shoulder cam as we only used it handheld. Because of this the shots were a bit shaky and we will need to refilm these after our first edit. Other than this we had some good ideas and the shots were good, we only need to sort out the shakiness and these shots should be fine to include on the video. We were able to film in the local chip shop as well for one of the scenes in return for promotion of the shop in our video. We made an arrangement with the owner of the shop to promote his shop in return for unlimited filming time there.

Production Log Entry 4

Today we filmed a scene of our artist in a recording studio. We decided to use the music recording studio because it was very realistic and easy to get hold of to film in. Once we got permission from the teachers we set up our camera on a tripod and a studio light. We then turned the main lights off to just keep the separate light on King J to emphasise who the focus is on. We then filmed King J singing the song as if he was recording it. We decided to do this so that if the concert scene doesn't go to plan we have a backup idea. We felt that the shots were good in terms of lighting, however we are having some problems with the lip singing of the song. We keep finding that our performer is often out of time with the actual song and sometimes even forgets the lyrics. This means that a lot of our performance shots will have to be redone because the performer is out of time with the actual music.

Equipment and props we will use for our music video

To film the video we have decided to use Ghanshyam's camera as we feel it has a better quality and focus than the school provided ones. His camera is a Canon SX710 HS.

We will also use standard equipment such as dollys, tripods and shoulder mounts to help with the filming when needed.

In terms of props and clothing, we have made some clear decisions on how we want our artist to look. We want King J to look wealthy. In order to do this we have decided we want him to wear designer clothes and jewellery. However, we would also like to mix this with his past which would consist of track suits and snapbacks. We are undecided on whether to keep shots of him wearing track suits and we will discuss and make a decision on this at a later date.

For our party scene we will also need a smoke machine and party lights. This will help us to create a realistic and conventional looking party scene. We will also possibly need glass bottles and cups to make it look slightly more realistic.

Production Log Entry 3

Today all of our group went to Thamesmead during our 2 hour media lesson to film some more scenes for our video. We shot one of the scenes that comes in between the concert shots towards the end of the video. We felt these shots were good as we experimented with different ways of filming it. However, we originally intended to use a dolly so that the camera could follow King J when he was walking. We found that the ground was too uneven and it wouldn't have been possible to get one long smooth shot by using the dolly as it was getting stuck on the pavement. We instead decided to use the camera handheld to follow King J. Although this was quite shaky we decided we would stabilise it in Final Cut when it comes to editing. If it remains shaky we will have to reshoot with a dolly in some other way. We also shot a short scene of King J standing in front of a car and some extra shots of the car and the surrounding area. These shots weren't particularly necessary but they will useful to fill any gaps if there are any in the video.

Digipak first draft

This is the first draft of my digipak. I am yet to do the spines which I will complete in my next lesson but the 6 main panels for the digipak are done. My teacher had a look at my digipak so far and gave me some feedback on how to improve it. First she said that the "King J" font should stand out more seeing as it is the artist logo. She also told me to reduce the size of the tracklist, remove the album name from the left hand corner of that panel and take the background out of the Tri-Angle logo. Moving on to the far left extra panel she said to remove "King J" from  the right hand corner and just leave the picture. For the bonus disk she recommended removing all the text apart from "Bonus Disk". She also said to take the colour away from the image to make it black and white. Finally for the last extra panel in the top right she suggested to remove a lot of the font so to not over complicate the panel. I have made these improvements to my digipak now and will begin improving my magazine advert too.

Production Log Entry 2

Today our group filmed the party scene for our music video. We used a room in the drama department which we were able to book out for 2 hours in order to complete this. We then moved all of the tables and chairs and brought in our own props to make it look like a real party. We used different coloured lighting, sofas, casual clothes and a smoke machine to make it look realistic.The shoot was relatively successful, however in hindsight we could have got more people to have extra shots. Also we could have used more lighting to make King J stand out more, especially in the shots where it is supposed to look like he isn't enjoying himself whilst everyone else parties around him. Despite this we got quite a few good shots which we will use in the video, some may even make it into the final edit after we re-shoot some this scene.

Location scouting

Over the past few weeks our group has been discussing and visiting places that we could film our music video in. Our photoshoot was a good opportunity to do this and we went to several places in Thamesmead that will be very suitable locations for our actual video. We also visited Greenwich, around the university and the Cutty Sark, which is also a definite location that we will use. These locations will be used for the final edit of our video as our group has decided in order to save time we will shoot our first draft around the local area. This is to create a rough edit that people can give feedback on.

Digipak plan

A few weeks ago in class we started to plan our digipak and what we are going to put on all 6 panels.


As you can see I have my 6 panels planned out. For the front cover (bottom left) I ideally wanted a shot of the main artist himself in front of some sort of city background. However, when it came to our photoshoot we were quite limited for time so we weren't able to get this kind of picture. Instead I have decided to use a different kind of shot. On the left of the front cover we have the back cover where the track listing will be. For this I was looking for a more plain background with just the track listing. To the left of this is one of the inside panels. This and the panel on the top right are extra panels which I decided to use pictures we took on our photoshoot for. This one in the bottom left was purely a picture of our artist in some sort of setting or location. The one on the top right was supposed to be an extra panel which promotes some sort of exclusive competition for people who have bought the digipak. This is accompanied by a shot of the artist doing his "triangle" logo with his hands. The two panels to the left of this are the CD panels, one being the actual CD and one being an extra CD which shows a behind the scenes of the making of this album. This is included as another exclusive for those people who have actually bought this digipak. When it comes to actually making my digipak I will probably find that the finished product will look different to my plan as I may encounter issues or just favour a different method. However, this gives me a rough plan of what I want my digipak to look like and I will try to follow this as closely as possible.