Final Music Video - Oceans

This is our Final Music Video of the song Oceans by The Coasts. 

Starring Charlie Boyden, Tess Harold and Euan Burgin. Filming done by Charlotte Aldis and Euan Burgin.

Editing done by Charlie Boyden, Euan Burgin and Charlotte Aldis.

Creating The Final Digipak.

Creating The Final Digipak.

During the process of developing and finalising the Digipak we changed many things and came across a lot of hurdles which meant we had to edit or change certain parts of the design. 
We showed our digipack to the class and asked for more feedback on what could be improved on. The main response which we got was the front page design. It was apparent that our digipack design was full of colours and bright pictures which had been edited through playing around with hue/saturation and seeing what could brighten up the pictures so that the digipak portrayed pathetic fallacy in the same way the video did. The comment which we received was that 'The front page wasn't as bright and summery as the other pictures throughout the digipack' - This meant I had to change the colours of the front cover, so it would match the rest of the vibrant colour scheme.

To make the front page brighter and more vibrant I went onto the Colour Balance and brought out more of a yellow colour so it looked like the sun was shining on us. I also brought a little bit of green out so the yellow didn't look unrealistic. The way we created the front cover image was by merging two pictures together. We took a picture of the sea and rocks(which we had taken the day of shooting our video), and then merged a picture of Euan Tess and I over the top so we could create an image which would involve the Ocean and would show the band and relate to the video. We then added an old school filter over the top which gave us the dark lines protruding vertically down the image. The old school filter connects with Instagram and the idea of editing pictures so they have a cool filter and aren't ordinary pictures as well as linking with the behaviour of the genre of music which we are creating our piece for; by editing pictures and creating something individual out of something rather normal.

The typeography used in the Front Cover of the Digipak is a completely different font to the original font we chose. We decided this font matches more with our bad genre and has a formal straight look to it which looks classy but also looks like the type of font which you'd expect to see on an indie record design or poster.

I decided to lower the opacity of the typeography on the front page. This would give the text the filtered old school lines through it and would allow the main image to be seen through the text. I chose the colour grey because it is a neutral colour, matches the darkness of the rocks and by adding a black stroke to the outside of the text brings the text out of the image and makes it stand out.

                              

                                                                                  Before the type opacity was lowered.

I also edited the other pictures which were used for the Oceans Lyrics and Track List. I used pictures which we had taken at the beach while filming our video. For the Lyrics page I had a real struggle to position the text in the right placer so all of the text could be seen. I started by using the the picture of the Casino for the Lyrics page, after playing round with the type and not finding a way to present the text in a neat and clear way I turned to using the other picture of the Heart In The Sand which was originally being used for the Track list. There was a lot of green in the Casino picture which led me to making this change so that the text could actually be seen over the top of the picture. 

I added a black colour overlay to the Heart In Sand photo which allowed the white text to be clearly seen, even on the lighter edges of the picture where my shadow wasn't being reflected.

I created the reflected images by duplicating the picture, reflecting it against the original picture and then playing around with colour balances and hue/saturation to make them look vibrant and colourful like the rest of the theme.

This is the image before I had added in a colour overlay to darken out the light edges where my shadow didn't lay. Before editing the picture to allow the white text to be seen above the image I also tried out using black font colour om the lighter parts of the picture to allow the text and image to be seen clearly. I had already added some pink filters to this image which gave it that summer glow. After more type positioning experiments I then aligned the text in the positioning which you can see to the left. The type still didnt stand out on the parts of the picture which were brighter, this is when I decided what if i played around with the colour curves and gave it a low black colour overlay? This idea worked great and meant the type was more visible and stood out from the bright edges.

This is the final Lyric Page, the type stands out and looks neat and tidy. It isn't scruffy and makes sense when you read the song lyrics.

Song choices

The songs which were put onto the Track list at the back of the digipak weren't made up songs, I took them from one of Coasts previous albums and then added them to the Oceans Track List in the order it was on the previous album with Oceans at the top. I did this because usually in an album the creators want the songs to be in a specific order, not so they look good but also because sometimes the songs tell a story of the album or of something which the creators are trying to get across. Ordering the songs in the same order as the previous album 'Queen Cities' was done purposely.

The Reflected Images.

This is the first reflected image which I created from the picture of the Casino we took while filming. I have played around with the colour balance and hue/saturation to be able to give the picture the vibrant colourful look to it which it has. I continued to play with colours etc once I had added the Track List on the main body of the image.

This is the image which I used for the Lyrics Page. Originally it was a picture of my hand drawing a heart in the sand but once reflected this heart gained an extra section in the middle of it. The heart is to portray love in the video, we knew that if we linked the digipak to the video it would make it easier for buyers and fans to relate on another to eachother. It would also show that not only was the beach used for the footage but to create the digipak too. I added colour filters to this image to create a vibrant feel to the image so it would match the rest of the digipak theme.

 

Digipack Experimenting

This was my first attempt at creating a digipack design. I wanted to use a record to go where the CD would be placed. I used the same design for the poster as I did for the front page of this Digipack. I have carried on using the text which was chosen after we did a type questionnaire to find out what typeface was preferred.

The image i the bottom left corner isn't my own picture, I plan to take my own photos to replace this image and others. Using pictures of our location in our digipack means it'll link to the video, and then we can even use one of these images in the poster too so that it all links together.

This record was not mine, so I created a record on Photoshop. I used lots of circles and circular lines and then joined the whole image together and put a reflective gradient on it which gave it that refection across the whole of the record.

Started by putting lots of circles together, getting smaller and smaller as they went into       
                                                                               the centre of the record. 

I tried putting a gradient on this record but the lines weren't thin enough, records have loads of grooves so I had to create one with a lot more lines, which are a lot thinner too!

The gradient looked cool on this record,  but I want it to be more noticeable which means a wider spread and a brighter silver gradient.

I started creating the lines a lot thinner so that I could fit more on the actual record and so that it looked more life like.

I added a stroke to the line to make it a little bit thicker or thinner in this case.

For the inside circle I used an inner drop shadow so that it also had a shadow and stood out.

Next was to choose the text.

I wanted to write the record name and the band name in a circle around the centre so I did this, using the text tool which allowed me to ark the text until it bent around the centre perfectly.

The finished record. The gradient I ended up using was the opposite gradient, still a reflected gradient just reversed so that it had the shaded part on the inside, allowing it to look more shadowed and shiny.

 

Digipak Progression

This is the next deisgn idea, it was designed after we had filmed, we were able to take photgraphs and use our own imagery for the deisgn of the digipak. This meant not only were be being original but we were also linking our digipak with the location of the song which would help our audience and fans make the link between both products. 

 

This was the design which I developed from the first idea to. There are a lot of the Instagram templates and it does look a bit crowded. If there werent as many Instagram tempates it would look more simple and wouldnt have as much stuff going on. Also all of the imagery used i very loction based, I want to inculde a band shot in th digipak so we all have our faces somewhere on the design.

Also, there isnt really a section of the design which has a plain background. This means it will be harder to show the track list and song lyrics, as it will be written onto the images which have a lot of colour in them, making it hard to find a text colour which will standout and be clearly readable.

 

 

 

This image is where the CD disk will go. I have designed it so that there is a circle in the middle which has been turned to give it an edge look. It also sticks to the theme of photography editing. Maybe I could play around wih the images on the other sections of the design to se if there is any way of presenting text over these images once they've been edited.

 

This image is quite dark, I might change it to something which matches the theme a bit more.

Experimenting with the Digipack Ideas

We came up with the idea to use Instagram as a part of our theme because Indie Pop groups rely heavily on social media to promote videos or upcoming events, even to promote theirselves and to get their name heard. Many Indy groups will post videos of them messing around or snaps from their music videos or tours so thats what we decided to do. We decided to make it look like we had upload videos to Instagram of our day out filming the music video. I created a template using the template of the real Instagram layout. We were then able to upload the template onto Final Cut Pro and put them around some of the footage of me and Euan. The footage which we put the template around was footage of me jumping in the air, singing on the beach and Euan singing on the rocks too. The footage was filmed with the camera on a portrait position which unfortunately was different to all of the other footage. Luckily we came up with this idea which meant we could add in the template meaning you couldn't tell it was a portrait shot and it wouldn't matter anyway because it was in the template and the whole shot wasn't seen.

We then decided we could progress with this Instagram layout and theme. We wanted to use some Instagram templates on our Digipack and possibly our Poster.

This is a mock up of what our Digipack could end up looking like. To tie all of the products togethr I want to use the same image for the poster as I use for the front cover of the digipack. This will allow them to match and all look similar in style making it easier for fans to relate each product to eachother. I want to use beach photos on the Digipack and poster so that our location and video are clearly matched to this and links in that way that the Ocean links to the song.

This design has a lot going on in it. I think it would look better if it was simplistic and neat, not using as many Instagram templates and focusing more on the text used, where to position the text and the photography and its positioning also. Too many Instagram templates makes it look messy and overpowering.

Euan had an idea that if we elected a circle in the middle of where the cd will be, this will allow us to turn part of the picture on an axil and make it look disjointed. We could even apply the circular image to the CD which will allow the CD to spin round and line up with the rest of the image. We could use any image to do this with but if we used the drum set picture it shows our other location that we filmed in allowing our fans to relate it to the video even further.

 This is the turned image in the middle, the selected circular image would be stuck to the CD allows it to spin round freely and choose any position it wants. 

We also added filter to the images on the digipack as that is what is done on Instagram and can give some really cool effect. As we are going with this Instagram theme it also allowed us to experiment with the photography side of the product design, we could now play around with the images we collected so that we can place text and other things over the top in a neat fashion and without the text not being seen over the image. It also gives a cool effect to the pictures when you reflect and add filters to them, still following on with the Indie Pop genre conventions of using social networking sites to promote and get known by the public an to fans.

I have reflected these images which we took when filming our video so that we can now use the Instagram template around them and then can also write down the middle where the colour change is different on both; allowing us to write lyrics or the song list so it can be clearly seen by the buyer and at the same time continuing on with that Indie style approach to the design of our product by using cool ways of presenting photography instead of plain photographs adding filters, reflecting etc.

Typeface Selection for our Digipack and Poster.

We chose 14 different fonts and wrote 'Oceans' with each different font. We used lots of different fonts. Some had curves, to represent the waves at the beach. Some were very 'handwritten' and looked posh but upon gathering feedback from our class we found that the posh looking texts were the most un-liked fonts.

Everyone seemed to like the standard serif fonts. We collected these fonts and put them onto one photoshop file on our computer, we then got the class to come around and select which fonts were their favourite by putting a blue tick next to the ones they liked, the ones which they didn't like we asked for them to put a red tick. This worked well as we could then ask why they didn't like the fonts which they had ticked red by asking the class asa whole and most of the answers we received were that the posh handwritten fonts didn't fit with the genre we were aiming for. As well as this some people said how they would want the text to be bold but friendly for their age as well, not too childish but still fun and sophisticated too.


The text below is our visual questionnaire that we asked the whole class to complete, some people chose in pairs but by the end these are the results we received back, along with the comments which we asked after we could look at the results and summarise some questions. 

We ended up going with this font^. This font is friendly, fun but is also a serif font. It twists the smartness about it by using curves within the type. instead of straight boring letters they are all a bit curvy and fun. Which will be popular for our target audience and hopefully suit all of their needs, while still catching their eye on the music shelf or online when searching through music streams etc.

The type that is ticked red is the type which doesn't stand out as well as the plain serif and sans serif text. A lot of them are very curvy and seem quite personal, almost like you'd see this type on a letter. We want the type to appeal to everyone not one or two people in particular. The text that was most voted looked a lot more open and clear, friendly and still cool looking and fitting with our genre of indie pop well.