Digipack Template Inspiration

Me and Paige used Lady Gaga's album as an inspiration for the template of our digipack with CD case and card sleeve.

The front cover

The back cover

The open CD case, with the advertisement

This shows what is behind the CD, and the back of the CD case

The inside of the digipack, with the lyrics

The thank you page and acknowledgements

The pictures inside the digipack

Digipack Templates

I used a spare plastic CD case to measure out the size of my digipack. The CD case shows where the digipack will go as well as a back cover, an insert advertisement and a card sleeve for the CD case.

The blank template

Card sleeve next to plastic CD case

The digipack booklet will slot in next to the CD like so...

The back of the case, there is an extra cut out for the back picture

The front of the CD case, the front of the digipack booklet

The CD case opened out; back of digipack booklet, back insert and CD rom

These are all the seperate pieces of our digipack, along with a mock CD. The digipack booklet, the card advertisment, the back picture and the card sleeve for the case.

Feedback from Mrs Allison

What works well:
- a strong retro feel created through B/W an costume
- good variation in camera angles particurlarly the alternaion between high angle and low angle
- mise en scene in interior shots shows planning and fits style well
- effective use of close-ups and profile shots- these are challenging to flm and yours are steady and well framed
- the POV shots with actors performance to camera works well
- powerful last image of Jack at graveside
- very well paced editing matching the song

What could be improved:
- lip synching, it still isn't quite right at times have you got anything else to add over it?
- reverse movement shot on the bridge doesn't work
- grainy indoor shots some things are indistinct, can you get more definition?
- have you showcased all your skills e.g match on action, shot reverse shot...

Feedback from Tom,Rob, and Stevo

-The lip sync throughout the song is close but out by a fraction
-The editing has been effective and creates a pace.
-All of the transitions in this video are fade to blacks, and although this does result in less variety it keeps with the style and pace of the film.
-A possible overuse of slow-mo in the video.
-A good variety of angles were used in the video and shots are framed well.
-The reverse speed shot on the bridge doesn’t seem to fit right.

Second Cut of Production

Today me and Paige presented our second cut of our production. This time it was the full length of the video, 2 min 18 sec, plus we added our titles to the start. We finished editing on Tuesday 16th March and showed our class today for feedback. Out teacher is also going to give us feedback to make improvements for our deadline on 31st March. We exported our video but did not use the highest quality picture, as this would take up a lot of memory. For our final draft, we shall use the highest quality we can.

Transitions

Transitions have been used to blend one shot to another shot. Me and Paige wanted to only use dip to blacks and cross dissolves for this, because transitions such as wipes and spirals do not fit in with the style of our video. The majority of the transitions are dip to blacks, are we were able to vary the length of the dips depending on the lenght of the scene. We also used cross dissolves in scenes such as Dani and Jack/cross dissolve/Dani, Jack and Paige because we needed to establish that Dani was aware of Jack and Paige together. Cross dissolves were also used when Jack is walking up the drive. This makes a simple shot more exciting.
We have used alot of dip to blacks because we did not need to vary the transitions- it would not fit in with our mood. At the second chorus, there are shorter scenes, so the dip to blacks are more noticable and maybe to frequent. However we did not want to use no transitions, as this would be too jumpy between scenes and not flow.

Lip Synching

Me and Paige had problems with lip synching despite playing the music when filming and helping Dani learnt the tempo of the words. When filming and playing back, the lip synching looked good, and managed to fit in well, however when we uploaded and started to edit in our shots of the chorus, it turns out the lip synching is slightly out. To over come this, we slowed down parts of the video to try to fit i t in. Strangely, in some parts of lip synching such as the shot 5, Dani's lips fit in with some words, but not others. This was a filming mistake, in which Me and Paige should of be more prepared with the music and teaching Dani the speed of words (despite us playing the music when filming!). Unfortunately, we are unable to re-film any more parts using Dani, as she has had an operation recently so is unable to film with us. Me and Paige are aware that it is not ideal for the lip synching to be out, but we have learnt from this that we should of prepared Dani more with the lyrics. Also, we should of checked several times back over our footage at the time of filming.

Here is where the lip synching is slightly out:

Colour Effect

Me and Paige decided to use a black and white effect on of our shots throughout our video; we were undecided on whether to use a sepia effect or black and white. However, we felt that black and white would give more of an emotion to our video, especially in the sad shots of Dani and Jack rowing. It was also easier to use contrast and lighting on a black and white effect. We wanted to make our shots very definant, so we use a high contrast and a low lighting level, however this caused us problems as the video pixalated too much. Me and Paige decided to do a test for the effects of contrast/lighting, as when the video is exported, it may be a worse or better quality picture, therefore illuminating the pixalation.

Here is our testing, where the contrast is high and the lighting is slightly lower:

Editing Over All

As we filmed over 3 days, we had to upload what we had on each day to the computer. We started off by deleting extra footage that we did not need, for example, rolling the camera before actually lip synching. This took a long time to decide which parts to delete, and what parts to keep, as Me and Paige shot atleast twice for every scene, so we had variation and extra if anything went wrong. To decide which scene we would use from each shot, we concentrated on the angle, the timing, the lighting and the mise-en-scene. Also, we played with contrast and effects to see how each shot would look with the effects we wanted to put into it.
To edit our whole production, it took about 10 hours all in all. When we had edited and cut down our shots, we decided to put them into storyboard order. We followed the stages up to the first chorus, from then on, we used new ideas to see what order shots would look best in. We had to consider continity and the storyline- would our audience understand the happy vs sad scenes? Our lip synching scenes had to be put in order of lyrics, so "Cry me a river..." obviously had to fit in with the chorus. When we filmed, we kept the camera rolling for the chorus so Dani could lip synch the whole chorus, therefore this gave us more footage to handle and edit.
Once our scene were in order, we started to cut them down to the music, so that each change of scene would fit in with the beat of the music as well as the lyrics. I found it difficult to edit very precisely, so that the shot would change at the correct time so I overcome this by making the scenes shorter or longer. It was rare that we sped up scenes, as slowing down the duration fit in better with our aesthetic style and mood.

3rd Day of Filming - 9th March

Our third and final day of filming focused on getting the inside shots finished, as well as going back over the Hartham to re-film the 3 shots that had erased from the last day of filming. We started at 4.30 and made sure Jack and Dani were ready in their customes, as well as hair and make up the same as the last two filming days.
Firstly, we filmed the shots that Jack was in inside, there were 4. Then we went over to Hartham which took 15 minutes to re-shot, and then back to Dani's house. We needed to shot 7 scenes of Dani to finish our storyboard. These were shots such as ripping up a picture and others such as re-filming Dani throwing things about. It did not take us long to film our final shots, and we experiemented with angles, such as a high angle shot looking down on Dani.
Our last filming day went well, and we got the scenes filmed very quickly as we needed the natural light in the bedroom!

2nd Day of Filming - 8th March

This was our 2nd of filming, and we aimed to get 10 indoor shots filmed and all the ourdoor shots filmed. We started filming at half 11, and got the outdoor shots of Jack filmed as we had to wait for Dani to finish school. We then filmed over Hartham, which took about 1 hour for the outside shots. Whilst we were trying to stick to our storyboard, we found this difficult, as we noticed that some of the shots were the same e.g. walking and holding hands. Me and Paige adapted these shots to our location- we used the Hartham Bridge to film low angle shots, and walking long shots. These were effective and give variety to our production. Also, we used long grass to film Dani in- but when playing this back, it was hard to see her lip-synching.
When filming the first couple of shots, we had to use continuity e.g. Dani walking towards Jack, and us filming her on the left side of Jack in shot 2. Also, in shot 3, we made sure that Dani walked towards the right of the tree, so in shot 4 Jack was standing to the left of her.
Although in our 2nd day of filming, we did not follow our storyboard completely, we used our creativity to adapt to our location and think of new varied shots. I feel that this was successful, and I am glad we did not follow our storyboard. From this I have learnt how important animatics are, as if I was to produce a storyboard again, Me and Paige would have to consider every shot, and vary them more.
We planned to finish filming all of out shots, and also re-filming some indoor shots that we were not happy with e.g. Dani throwing things around her room.
Unfortunately due to a really cold day (!) Dani and Jack wanted to film the next afternoon for the indoor shots, as they were too cold! As well as this, it was getting dark outside, and we wanted the natural outdoor light for the indoor shots.
Overall, our 2nd day of filming was succesful, as Paige and I got the majority of shots filmed. When playing back out footage at home the same night, the outside shots on the bridge (there were 3 different scenes) had been erased, so Me and Paige plan to go back to Hartham to re-film these the next afternoon for our final filming day.