Final Website Design

As my website is not live yet, I am unable to have a full link to it. Therefore, this is the file path for Mr Turner to get to it on my College account hardrive:

H:\Media A2

Overall, I am very pleased with my website as it contains nearly everything that I wanted to include. I managed to include the continuity of the song lyrics and CD case styles, such as hand drawn effects and the fire references. Again I believe that this will make people who notice the links very impressed as they wouldn't really be expecting everything to link together.

However, some of the site isn't as good as I hoped. At first, I wanted the buttons to all match up with the background but file restrictions and formatting prevented me from completing it as I had originally planned.

The one part of my site that went fully as planned was the blog part in the centre. I created a scroll bar which makes the page look really professional, as well as embedding my final music video and writing up some blog posts to show what the site would be like if it was real.

Below is an image of the website that I created, please click it to see in full size.

Final Video Edit

This is our final edit for our music video for the band; Canterbury, and their song; Diver. After reviewing the song's lyrics, Ash and I decided that the song was about a person who had split up with their partner who had been cheating on them. We decided that we wanted to make a story driven video that showed what the lyrics were saying, hence the boy and girl characters. From our draft work, we decided that we definitely wanted to keep the hand drawn/ photo album opening that we came up with when storyboarding. This suggests that the video is memories from looking at the photo album and follows the idea that the song is about two people's relationship.

The first shot that is shown is the long take of the couple walking, which eventually fades out to show just the male on his own. This straightaway shows that the video is about a couple who have split up. The next major decision we made was to try and link the images with the audio at the same time, such as the line "you should see this view", we show the pan of the hillside. This helps the audience relate to what they can see as the lyrics are represented. Another part of the video that was specifically chosen for how it was, is the instrumental after the 2nd chorus. We decided that it would be the right time in the song to show some flashbacks into what had previously happened to remind the audience what they had already seen, as well as showing the new hand held shot of the female as though you are seeing through the male's eyes. We used a black and white filter to create the flashback effect, as this makes the instrumental stand out more and helps to suggest that it is not continuing with the story shown in verse 1 and 2.


The chorus went through a few different stages before Ash and I settled on the final, 3 sections that are in the video above. Originally it was only going to be me singing, but it was too boring to watch, even with multiple angles. We therefore decided to try cutting between us both but again it was still slightly boring. Finally, we came up with splitting the screen and playing 3 different videos simultaneously. I am very happy with the final chorus design as it is unusual and like the intro, is a part of the video that really stands out as being slightly different.

Overall, I am very pleased with the video I created. I enjoyed making it, especially the editing side as I loved figuring out which clips to put where and what other effects to use. The video came out with a good style I think, due to the photo album intro and the chorus sectioning.

Final CD Case Designs

These are my final designs for my CD Case cover and insert. Underneath each picture I will describe what it is showing and why I have made it how it is.

This is the outside cover for the CD insert, this is the booklet that will contain the lyrics to each song on the EP. This is the outside covers, front and back. The front contains the CD title with the band name and a photo of our actors. I edited the photo so there was no background and added some filters to make the picture look more hand drawn to fit in with the style I was going for. I wanted the insert to look hand drawn, as though it was written by the band on some paper. This is why I chose the paper style background with a wooden table effect border.

This is the inside example of what it would be like inside the insert. The pages are supposed to be like a book, with the hand written style linking into the theme I was going for. I also added the background again so that it looked like a piece of paper on a table. The font helped to make it seem handwritten as it is quite a sans serif font.

This is the outside of the CD cover. The left panel is what would be the inside flap, the centre panel is the back and the right hand panel is the front cover. As can be seen, I went for a bright, cartoony style case to grab the audience's eye and draw them into the CD. This would help promote sales as they would hopefully be interested in the artwork. To create continuity throughout the video and CD case, I took certain lyrics and used them to inspire some of the artwork. As can be seen, the wide angled picture of the cartoon man looking out across the hills is similar to the shot and lyrics in the music video; "you should see this view from up here". Another bit of inspiration came from the lyrics; "I'm on fire when I'm in the sky". This inspired me to add some flame effects the floating writing and add a small image of a burning stickman underneath it as a bit of extra decoration. These small parts of continuity would impress purchasers when they release the links between the artwork and song.
The photo on the inside flap was used to try and make the audience see the band without it seeming as the band were being shoved in their faces. This makes it seem as though the music is more important than the band themselves, creating a nice, down to Earth vibe about the band. To make it seem like this, I decided to use the behind shot of myself, Ash and Robert. The photo is good because after I added some effects and neatened it up on Photoshop, it was really easy to tell who was who, without the in your face style that a lot of bands go for.

This is the inside cover for the CD case. The left side is the reverse of the front cover, the centre is where the CD is held and the right hand panel is the inside cover of the flap. As can be seen, the inside follows the same art style as the outside, adding more continuity. The CD also uses the same style to make it match into the background it is held on. I used the same font and text from the front cover, including the fire details, and placed them on the CD, making it clear who and what the CD is. I also added the cartoon man onto it to give it more detail as it was still rather plain with just the text. Finally, I created the background so that it matched into what was behind it. This created a nice 3D effect as it looks like the CD is part of the case, until you take it off and you are left with the plain green hills behind it. The inside flap contains a message that would be written by the band. It is a short thank you message to the customers which again makes the band seem very down to Earth and shows that they appreciate you purchasing the CD. It also contains a few related links, such as the band's MySpace site, main website and the company they are signed to. I also added a small promotional code onto the message panel to again link the product to the website.

Finally, the panel on the left is where the CD insert that contains the lyrics to the songs would go. As can be seen, the black lines would be extra material to create a pouch that would hold the booklet. This helps keep the booklet safe and in good condition, as it could be quite easy to lose.

Overall I am really pleased with how my CD covers and insert have turned out. The digipack has got exactly the feel and art style that I wanted when designing it and I believe that the small pieces of continuity between the lyrics and art really help make it stand out. The bright, cartoony styled art does as intended, and grabs people attention because it is unusual and contrasts against a lot of other CD artwork. This would hopefully help to promote the band due the unusual style.

Rough Draft 3

This is our 3rd draft video. We have ironed out as many problems as we can and have now decided on the final small parts that need to be edited. We are going to re film a slight part of the chorus section so that when we have the large and small boxes, the person in the large box has another video of them singing from a different angle in the small box. This will hopefully give the video more variety and hopefully will look better. We will also create a small intro sequence like we had originally planned, with the video being played in a book as though they are moving photos.

Rough Draft 2

This is our second draft video. As can be seen, we re filmed all of the verse parts and added different text for the intro. We realise that we have some problems with the lighting in a few shots and that the chorus is still a bit boring and we shall be updating that in a third draft.

Re-Filming

Unfortunately, our original female actor has had to drop out of the video as she has her own work to complete as she has been away recently and is behind. Therefore, Ash and I decided to change actors altogether.
Annie will replace the female character, whilst anotehr male named Ash will replace my group partner.

I have written a list of the shots that we will shoot and re-shoot so that it is easy for us to get it all done.

Intro sequence:

Annie and Ash walking along a path

Ash walking along above path

Verse 1:

Tilt down from the sky

Annie and Ash smiling and laughing walking along a pavement (front and back)

Annie and Ash holding hands walking

Annie and Ash holding hands close up

Ash sat on a fence, Annie below him

Over the shoulder looking at Annie below

Annie climbs up next to ash

Pan of the hill

Over Annie’s shoulder, Ash turns and smiles

Hug

Verse 2:

Ash sat on chair, using a phone

Zoom on ash using phone

Over the shoulder shot of ash using phone

Insert of phone screen

Ash gets up and storms out of the room

Ash pushes annie

Annie crying

Instrumental:

Ash gets off the fence and walks away

Annie and ash walk opposite ways on a path, annie stops and turns around ash keeps going