Final Video

After much editing and filming we have finally produced the final video for encoded 'Call me Ishmael' enjoy!!

Production Diary

Production Diary.
Lesson 1, 5th September:We were put ino a group and we had to choose the song we wanted to make the music video about. To do this we split and went away to go and make a presentation each. In our presentation we all came up with a song ideas and a music video ideas that we liked.

Lesson 2, 8th September: In this lesson we came together with our ideas and discussed them and decided to do a music video for Disclosure's, Confess to me. For this we decded to go down the narrative and editing route for the video.

Lesson 3, 9th September: During the 3rd lesson we had we did a photoshoot for pictures we needed for things like posters and album covers. This went well and the picures came out very well.

Lesson 4, 10th September:We spent this lesson using Photoshop to edit the pictures of them that were taken and we came up with a group name.

Lesson 5, 11th September: We used this time to update our blogs with research and made sure that everything we need to have on the blog was on the blog.

Lessson 6, 12th September: During this lesson we edited the pictures and posters for our album covers and our posters, we added the group name and logo to our poster.

Lesson 7, 15th September: We had a group meeting and decided that in the future at some point we would film an interview with the band, we then spent the rest of the lesson perfecting the poster we had made.

Lesson 8, 16th September: We went on a location walk to look around and choose different locations we can film in.

Lesson 9, 17th September: We filmed in the music studio. We recorded the artist singing the song and using some instruments. After this went to the school drama studio and we recorded an interview with the 2 artists. In this interview we wanted the interview to seem natural. To do this we did not rehearse and I would ask the questions and the artists would not know what the questions would be.

Lesson 10, 18th September: During this lesson as a group we decided to change our song from Confess to me by Disclosure to Call me Ishmael by Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly. We decided on this because we are an all boy group and the main vocals in the Disclosure song are by a women.
Lesson 11, 19th September: We did our research again and looked into the different album covers for the new genre.

Lesson 12, 22th September: In this lesson we researched costumes for the genre we are now doing.

Lesson 13, 23th September: During this lesson Max Johnson worked on his blog and did research into directors, Sam Cook used photoshop to edit pictures and made a Twitter account.

Lesson 14, 24th September: I made an instagram account Max Johnson researched the genre.

Lesson 15, 27th September: During this lesson we sat as a group and re-planned our storyboard. We came up with fresh ideas and new locations.

Lesson 16, 28th September: In this session Max did a detailed shot by shot plan of the music video, Sam worked on his blog, and scouted locations. Richard also worked on the storyboard and updated his blog.

Lesson 17, 2nd October: In this lesson we did a peer assessment, Sam Cook made an Instagram account and Max Johnson did a film brainstorm.

Lesson 18, October 3rd: We did a photoshoot in this lesson, we then used the photo for posters and album covers. The LAP charts were all updated.

Lesson 19, October 6th: During this lesson, the group recorded a lip syncing trial run task. We then planned out the interview we are going to recorded. Max Johnson edited the lip syncing task. Sam Cook completed our digi-pack. Richard Jarrold edited the production diary and recorded the lip syncing task.

Lesson 20, October 7th: During this time we filmed new interviews with the new song choice. We worked on the presentation we need for Wednesday, Max Johnson edited the interviews, Richard Jarrold worked on the presentation, Sam Cook upload pictures to social media and worked on the presentation.

Lesson 21, October 8th: In this lesson we gave a presentation of our ideas to the class. They gave us very helpfull feedback which we then used to improve our music video ideas.

Lesson 22, October 9th: During this time we watch other groups presentatino and filled in feedback sheet for them so that they could improve there music video ideas.

Lesson 23, October 10th: In this lesson Sam Cook and Richard Jarrold spray painted a sign for the performance, Max Johnson researched the Genre.

Lesson 24, October 13th: The entire group worked on the blog.

Lesson 25, October 14th: Sam Cook sourced materials and the rest of the group planned the filming.

Lesson 26, October 15th: Sam Cook and  Richard Jarrold painted the encoded sign , Max Johnson created a planning sheet.

Lesson 27, October 16th: During this lesson we all worked more on the large sign and then all worked on our blogs.

Lesson 28, October 17th: Again in this lesson we worked on the sign to get it finished.

Lesson 29, October 20th: Sam Cook worked on our website, Max Johnson created a production plan and Richard Jarrold updated the production diary and also helped with the website.

Lesson 30. October 21st: The whole group worked separately to worked on there blogs and get tasks done.

Lesson 31, October 22nd: During this lesson we planned for the performance we were planning for friday, we decided in the group who would bring in which props.

Lesson 32, October 23rd: We continued planning and also all worked on our blog.

Lesson 33, October 24th: This was the day of the planned performance. We spent the lesson continuing planning. Then after school we all went to the drama studio and filmed the performance.

Lesson 34, November 3rd: This was the first time as a group we had footage. We all separated and looked thought the footage separately. This would good because when we reported back we all had different ideas and we merged them into a better idea.

Lesson 35, November 4th: We continued blogging and editing.

Lesson 36, November 5th: During this lesson Max Johnson and Richard Jarrold continued to blog and to edit the performance and Sam Cook edited the teaser trailer.

Lesson 37, November 6th: During this lesson we all blogged.

Lesson 38, November 7th: Sam Cook finished editing the teaser trailer, Max Johnson and Richard Jarrold edited the video footage.

Lesson 39, November 10th: We all worked on our blogs and then edited the video.

Lesson 40, November 11th: We had a group meeting and decided that we need more footage. We then began to plan another shoot.

Lesson 41, November 12th: We continued to plan our second shoot and all blogged.

Lesson 42, November 13th: Max Johnson edited the video, Richard Jarrold worked on his blog and Sam Cook worked on his blog.

Lesson 43, November 14th: We finalized the plans for the second shoot.

Lesson 44, November 15th: We continued to edit the video.

Lesson 44, November 17th: We extended the time of our second film shoot and then continued to work on the blog because as a group our blog were behind.

Lesson 45, November 18th: We continued to blog and edit the footage we had.

Lesson 46, November 19th: We got the equipment ready for the video shoot tomorow. We also emailed various teachers to make sure it was alright that we could miss a lesson for the filming shoot.

Lesson 47, November 20th: We were not in lesson and we spent the day filming the second shoot. This was spent at Richard Jarrold house and many different ideas were filmed.

Lesson 48, November 21st: We spent the lesson reviewing the lesson the footage we had taken the day before.

Lesson 49, November 24st: We started to edit the new footage we had.

Lesson 50, November 25th: We all blogged.

Lesson 51, November 26th: We kept going over all the new footage we had.

Lesson 52, November 27th: We kept blogging to get back up to speed in the work that we were behind with.

Lesson 53. November 28th: During this lesson as a group we worked on the digipack and the post production side of the video.

Lesson 54, December 1st: We continued to work on the post production side of the project and also debated weather or not we needed one more film shoot.

Lesson 55, December 2nd: This lesson was focused around editing the video.

Lesson 56, December 3rd: Again we spent a lesson editing the video. Also during this lesson we received feedback on the first draft of the video. The feedback that we received made us change some of the key choices and parts that we had made about the video and included in them.

Lesson 57, December 4th: This video we reviewed the feedback and started to implement it into our final construction.

Lesson 58, December 5th: We continued to follow up from the feedback that we received.

Lesson 59, December 7th: During this lesson we created a survey that would help us to get feedback on our Digi pack.

Lesson 60, December 8th: After receiving the feedback the entire group started work on changes the thing that were pointed out to us during the feedback. One of the main issues was that lot of people found the font to small and unreadable. For these reasons we reduced the writing on the digi pack, made it bigger, and change the color from black to white.

Lesson 61, December 9th: WE focused on polishing the 3 main construction. We mainly focused our time on perfecting the website.

Lesson 62, December 10th: Running up to the deadline we were increasingly aware that a lot more editing time would be needed to make the video the standard that we wanted it to be. For these reasons all 3 members focused in the 'Call me Ishmael' music video.

Lesson 63, December 11th: During this lesson we advanced our marketing campaign by updating the website with new and improved posters and digipacks.This massively improved the website and made it have a different and more professional look.

Lesson 64, December 12th: We all blogged about the recent tasks we have carried out and completed.

Lesson 65, December 15th: We finalized improvements to the video and uploaded it as a final version.

Lesson 66, December 16th: This lesson was used to finalize all other construction. After we had finished the video Sam Cook and I focused on the digipack. Max Johnson focused on completing the final touches on the Website.

Lesson 67, December 17th: After we had spent a lot of time focusing on the construction we realised that alot of our other smaller projects had fallen behind. We therefore chose a social media each and work on making them fulling up to date and making them the standard we were aiming for.

Lesson 68, December 18th: One day from the deadline we worked together to finish lots of small tasks that needed to be completed.

Lesson 69, December 19th: We reviewed our final tasks and then handed them in for the deadline.

Amended Digipack

After reviewing the feedback from our original Digi pack we have made a few changes based on the comments we received. The main changes were the background in a couple of our slides, we made the cloud background darker and changed the font to white so that it was easier to read and didn't get lost in the original light background.
   Below is our new amended digipack to be released with the album as part of our marketing campaign for 'Open Spaces' ...

Poster and Website Analysis

As part of our marketing construction campaign, we carried out some research into posters that we could produce. We looked at some examples from current artists similar to us and within our own genre, these included Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (a similar double act) and the Arctic Monkeys, who we have taken plenty of inspiration from also for our website.

  Whilst producing this poster research we also added some more brief website analysis to go with the extensive planning we undertook for our own site.

Following this research it led us to plan and produce our own poster. We wanted make something similar to the Macklemore display, bold and clear. He is the focal point of the poster which you can see is reflected in our own poster, where we as the two piece are the main point of the poster. We have also added some posterize effect and played around with some other effects in the software Adobe Photoshop, which allowed us to produce the desired look for our poster.
  Despite taking inspiration from these other posters in the slideshow above, we wanted to set our own convention of media by sticking with our crisp, slick monochrome theme of the encoded 'brand' this is reflected perfectly in the final poster we see below...

Final Photoshoot

Today we undertook our final photo shoot as part of our marketing campaign. We took a selection of images using contrasting lights and poses. To capture the images we used a Samsung Galaxy X camera which allowed us to capture some very high quality imagery. Below is a selection of the Photos taken after some editing using Photoshop software.

UK TOUR

As part of our constructions I produced a trailer for a UK tour that we are planning on taking on in the future. We believed that by producing a trailer and releasing it on various forms of social network and our website would help to try and create some hype online about the band. I  have inserted the video below...

Digipack

Filming and editing evidence

Shots So Far

These are all the shots we have to far. The shots on the left are all the live performance shots as these will take up the majority of the video. All the shots of the live performance are at least 3 minutes long meaning there will be enough footage.
The middle column are the shots that we recorded in the house, here we recorded lots of shots for a montage shot we intend to put in the video. This part of the video will involve us moving around the front room. We intend to make this shot look like the band is relaxing outside the show.
The last column are shots we recorded in the road messing around. These shots will be used throughout the video to show the band messing around. This will give the viewer a more personal look into the bands life.

Editing So Far

This is how are editing is going at the moment. We feel that the first 50 seconds of the video is sorted and looks good as we have lots of cuts and variety of shots with perfect lip syncing. The problem we have is that we don't feel there is enough shots to fill the whole 4 minutes. Because of this we will be looking to do one more shoot.

Editing Outline Adobe

We are going to be editing our final footage and produce our final music video using the software Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 which is a highly technical program and allows us to really experiment with our ideas and bring our planned videos to life really well.

   The picture below shows Max beginning the editing with some of the test footage we shot earlier in the week. As you can see the program CS6 is opened and in full use. Below is a a more detailed example of how the Adobe premiere program looks when in full use.

Merchandise

Below I have displayed some of the items of merchandise we have designed for Encoded. We chose to come up with these sorts of merchandise after investigating how some similar artists and bands like to advertise there act and make themselves more appealing to there desired audience. On this occasion we chose Macklemore and Ryan Lewis to observe (a two piece american hip hop band, who we are big fans of). Despite taking inspirations from some of there merchandise themes we did not want to completely steal there ideas and wanted to challenge the conventions of perceived media products by designing our own. We therefore came up with our own design T shirts, hats bags etc displayed below. These are to be made available on our website as well as on sale at our live shows in order for our fans to be able to access them easily.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' Merchandise page

Encoded Photobucket

As part of the marketing and social media campaign we created a Photobucket account for encoded displaying pictures and shots from all parts of the encoded band, from behind the scenes shots to official photo shoots and filming tasks. Once again it is another way for fans and potential audiences to access the band on a personal and communicative level. We feel that the more social sites we put ourselves on, the more chance we have of acquiring new fans and followers from them stumbling across them on occasions.

Website Planning and Construction

WEBSITE LINK: http://encodedmusic1.wix.com/encoded

In order to help raise the profile of the band and contribute to the accessibility of the group during the marketing campaign we have produced a website accessible to the fans and the public.Whilst reading this please feel free to open up the website via the link above In order to make it available for you to easily follow as well as exploring the many features of the site for yourself.
  Each Page of the website has been designed very specifically to tie in with the desired themes of the group as well as to make them as appealing as possible. Below I have highlighted each stage of the planning and design process as well as the constructions that have taken place. We used the website design program 'WIX' to construct our actual website domain and area. This program allowed us to achieve the exact plan that we desired after doing some further research into the program to uncover the various features it had to offer. As you can see further down during the construction stage this was highly beneficial.
  Immediately below is the very first designs that we came up with on how exactly we wanted our website to be layed out. Although it lacks any aesthetic color plans we wanted to stick to the them of our crisp,bold, black and white color scheme. Each page has each feature clearly labeled as well as some of the content that each of these shall include.

Home Page

The first homepage design seen here includes various feature to make it appeal to our fans. After studying the Arctic Monkeys website which we took a huge amount of inspiration from for our own, we wanted to make the home page very bold and clear so that a user/ fan can clearly see links to each area of the website, and make it easier for them to locate the link that they desire. One of the most important features that we came up with is the countdown clock, which makes it into the first actual construction of the website. We thought that this interactive moving feature would really bring the home screen to life.

     As you can see below not all of the original design made it into the first construction of our website. First of all we kept the top menu bar almost exactly the same as can be seen above. We also included the countdown bar in the same location, However we decided after playing around with different ideas to scrap the side pictures and use one of  our best posters as the background for the hole website, this picture as seen below is black and white edited so it sets the tone and the encoded theme for the rest of the website. We also decided to add more information to that of just the band and tried to turn it into more of a news feed similar to that of the arctic monkeys which can also be seen below as a comparison.

Arctic Monkeys News feed style home page...

Band Page
 The second page of our website is titled the band page. On this page we wanted to give a little bit of background information about the band and there personal life. We did so as we felt that it would give an insight in to there lives and make a personal connection with fans as we are a new fresh group starting out.
  As you can see we originally planned a very basic page with info and in depth background on the personal lives of the band. We also wanted to carry over the same menu bar and countdown clock to make this a constant throughout the website.

  However we quickly realized  during the construction of the website that this would not be enough to fill up the page, therefore to the right of the bold biography box we have added a live link to our instagram page which displays any of the current pictures that the group are uploading. This is also comes with a URL touch link which allows you to jump straight to the instagram website if so desired.

Gallery Page
Next up we have the gallery page which on paper was always going to be the most simple page on the website as we wanted the images to speak for themselves. We have achieved this by keeping the page extremely simple with just the slide show of images in the middle of the page with the same background and menu bar at the top. This as can be seen below was not on the original first draft draw up however we felt that it would be too bare without this. We therefore added these features to fit the theme of the rest of the website whilst also adding more depth to the page.

Here we can see the gallery webpage as it stands after the first construction. It really conveys the crisp structure of the hole 'Encoded brand' as such. We also plan to add many more pictures and images into the gallery than there is as it stands. This will take place after another photo shoot which we have planned in the near future.

UK Tour Page
The next page on our original plan was that advertising our first UK tour to promote our debut album 'Open Spaces' and the first chosen single 'Call me Ishmael'. At the group meeting we discussed this as being one of our crucial pages and that we wanted to make it stand out. We did this by linking the album in with the countdown clock which is present throughout the website counting down to the release date of the album. When asking people there opinion on the website first construction this was one of there favorite features (see website feedback post).

Only a couple of fundamental changes were made from the original plan to the first construction. Once again we added the standard menu bar at the top of the page to accompany the title and countdown. Also we added the video announcing the Tour which is really now the focal point of the page. It also plays automatically when you navigate onto the page so it draws the viewers attention in straight away which is a real benefit, almost acting as an automated advert system. The video can also be found on the home page further down the news feed style area.

Contact Us page
This was the final page that we planned in the original meeting and draft. It consisted of an area by which members of the public could get in direct contact with the band and make us feel a very like able and approachable act. This is important when starting out as a new music act as it helps to gather support quickly, backing this up with our accessibility on social media we believe it will help to kicks start the group on the right foot with the fans,

The original plan was pretty basic on paper but the structure once again coupled with the crisp and professional finish using the wix software help to create another very easy using stylish looking page. The only changes were the adding of the top menu bar and the countdown clock. As you can see below the final style was very effective.

After completing these parts of the website we felt that it was necessary to add some more pages to the website in order to make it complete. After researching some other websites as well as our older research pages we decided that we needed to add a page of information on the album and also a shop/ merchandise area on the site.

Album Page 
We decided to insert a page specifically on 'Open Spaces'. We felt that it was such a big part of the project that it needed it's own area specifically on the website for fans to access. As I said earlier we also linked it in with the countdown clock which was an extremely popular feature with some of the early feedback we received. After researching further into album pages on various websites we found that it was a popular feature throughout many artists websites. For example, the Kasabian website which can be seen below, has a page dedicated to all of there albums.

Although we took inspiration from including the album page we did not want to base the design of the page around any of these pages as we wanted to make it completely unique and themed with the rest of the website. This was the following design that we eventually made and came up with. As you can see its sits with our theme, including a picture of the album cover as well as some bold information about the album and its release.

Shop Page
The second and final page we decided to add was our shop and merchandise page. We found that this was an ever present theme throughout every website that we visited. We therefore decided that it was essential to incorporate this into our site. Some examples of inspiration can be seen below as the merch section of size records website and the shop section for kings of leon site.

Once again we wanted to source our own design into the page rather than taking any design inspiration from current sites. The other key factor to consider is that we are going to add plenty more merchandise once produced to the section as the current supply is very minimal and we will certainly be improving this as soon as possible.

Website Progression Home Page

Here I have shown, and will show for the rest of the website, how the construction of the website progressed into the final completed website that we now have.
  Above you can see the homepage during the construction process, as you can see the the back ground is plain black at this point in start contrast to the final version. It also lack the final news feed style element which can be seen in our final home page.  This was something that was identified by the group during the construction of the website as something that we needed to address and change in order to make the website look more professional and acceptable to the target audience and modern music environment.

Website Progressions Contact us Page

Once again as you can see above, the contact us page was relatively incomplete at this stage of the construction process. At this point we were quite unsure with what to do with the contact page and how best to make it work and look appealing to a fan wishing to communicate with the band easily. In order to make it more appealing, later on we added bigger bolder text as well as personal images of the band to make it look as if you were really closely connected with the artists, at the end of the process it was one of the pages we were most proud of and you can clearly see how it has progressed as the process went on.

Website Progression Tour Page

We didn't actually have an original construction for the tour page, this once something that came as a very spontaneous page that came much later on in the process towards the end of the website plan. It was quite easy to do as we used the standard template that had come previously from the other pages of the website.

Website Progression Gallery Page

When we originally began constructing the website, the gallery page was probably the most plain and basic page. Here we only have a basic gallery with a few images present, however as construction went on and more photo shoots were conducted we carefully added images to the slideshow and built up the gallery page around this.

Website Progression Band Page

Similarly to the home page, in the early constructions of the website we see a lack of the background image which has become a pivotal point throughout our final website, which gives the website its unique encoded identity. Its also missing the social media bar at the side for the instagram page which is present in the final version.

Website Progression

The Album page is pretty similar to the final construction, it is as expected missing the background image, however all that was changed was so shifting around of the the framing and formatting the location of the text. Apart from this the album page was the most complete for the longest period of time.