Blog 15 - Digipack

A promo pack for a band is a different group of media that promotes the band. It includes a CD/ DVD with a collection of the band/ artists songs , it also includes a advert as well. The CD/ DVD digi pack and Advert should link in some way by a common theme that runs through the two things. For example similar imagery, fonts and catchphrases. This digipack is in a form of a jewel case which can hold one or more CD's or DVD's. The outer cover also is made out of card rather than plastic, this holds the CD/DVD part of the promo pack. As researched in Blog 5 - Target Audience of Artist/Band, there is no 'type' of person that listens to Wu Tang Clan. In Blog 5 - Target Audience of Artist/Band, the researched showned that the demographics of our target audinece is wideley varied from a wide range of ethnicity's, age and gender. However this is in the present day, so when Wu Tang Clan released their first single in 1992 the audience may of been more restriked. At the time of the first single release Wu Tang Clan dominate fan base was black males. Wu Tang Clan have only released one Digipack called 'Wu : The Story of Wu - Tang Clan' which I am going to analyse as well Dr. Dre's Digi Pack who is of the same genre of East Coast Hip - Hop / Rap. This is Wu Tang Clan's DigiPack: This Digipack main focus is the Band's logo. Inside this logo there are pictures of all the band members. These pictures are in Balck and white which contracts which the background which is a a vibrant red which stand out. The red background gives the impression of anger which links in with the images of the band members in the logo which are angery. These is a black edges on the sides of the digipack making it look rough around the edges which goes with the theme of Wu Tang's music and image they give. There is also a faded black and red picture of the New York skyline at the bottom of the Digi Pack which links in with there genre - east coast rap/ hip hop and where they come from. This gives a sense of pride from where their from and where / what their music is about.

In my Digi Pack I want to use similar imagdiy like black and white photos with a block colour and also use red, as it is a block colour and shows a strong emotions that links in with Wu Tang's kind of music which can be anger and violence. I think these things will brings the right message to my target audience. This is a back of the digi pack which features the same colour scheme as the front cover with the New York skyline running around the back. This shows the continuity of the digi pack which help illistate the theme and brand of the band/digi pack. The main feature of the back is the pictures running from side to side of extraxt of Wu Tang Clan music videos that feature in the Digi Pack. These pictures give off the same emotion of anger which links in with the theme as well as the picture in front of the digi pack and the red background. As the pictures are more action shots that static shots like the front, it gives a different take on the theme and shows the audinece what to exspect as well as giving the back more movement.

The back of the digi pack contracts with the front because of this action shots and the lay out which is good because it gives as good variety and makes the digi pack, in general look more eye catching. The back of the digi pack also looks the special features on the disk and the small blub about the band and their career and logos. These aspects of the digi pack makes the digi pack more realistic and special. This is what I want to have in my digi pack because it makes it more professional.

This is a Dr. Dre digipack called ' The Chronic'

This digipack takes a different approach from the Wu Tang Clan's. The Dr Dre digipack is not so eye catching and simpler. Some of these examples are that the Wu Tang Clan's photos are in black and white where the Dr Dre is in colour with a blueish tint. Because the image is colour it makes the image stand out then the logo or other things.

Blog 14 - Shooting Diaries

Like most groups we had the usual set backs when it came to filming. The first thing was that we needed 6 actors in our video, as there is 6 verses in the song. We found that finding 6 people who were willing to do it and were free at the same time hard. We thought we had 6 because three of Morgan's friends said that they could do it and then there was me and two of my friends. It ended up that we had to change from six actors to 3 as some didnt want to perform infont of the camera and the crew. This changed to each of the actors doing 2 verses each instead of 1.

After the setback with the actors it made us behind schelde so when it came to booking the TV studio (which we thought would be better for our video to do it in the TV studio as the actors would be more comfontable and it would be easier t film in there) it was already booked up for the next few weeks. However the cameras and lighting equipment were still avialable. Together we decided to use one of the college classrooms to film our video in, we felt this would be challenaging as we would have to create a studio feel to the video. We put the green screen in front of the white board and rised to the challege.


09/02/2011

A few weeks into our filming time we had our first filming day, this was worrying as we had lost lots of time.
We set the green screen across the white board in the classroom, cleared away the tables and chairs and set up the lighting rig, cameras and tripods. We had to use black tape across the blinds on the windows to block out any sunlight that was seeping though to create the desired lighting effect.

I was put of the actors so I had to jump from going through my lines for the last time to doing test shots and getting the lighting and the staging right. This was differcult as I had to be in two places at once.

Finially we started filming a few verses, sometimes up to the dozen times to get the shot, figure expression and miming. All the actors and I found that remembering the line was really hard, even though we are all performing arts student, the quick timing of the rapping and acting throw us off. Zara had the idea to write out the lyrics on paper and hold them by the camera like a tele promter. This really helped.

It was harder then I thought it would be to be in front of the camera. I did really get camera shy but it got better as my two friends were doing it with me and after we got used to rapping. It was really fun in the end because we all got really into it.

We manged to get 4 of the verses filmed leaving 2 to do on another filming day. We filmed for most of the afternoon and at the end of the I think we all were pretty happy with the out come. I think the best thing about the day was that all the actors were getting really into it and the behind the camera crew were really professional and it was a lot of fun.

11/02/2011, 18/02/11

We are meant to be editing these days but doe to absences in group it didn't happen.

Due to the fact that our actors have busy lives we have had a delay to the filming for the two weeks after the first shoot, this is worrying as we have lost a lot of editing and filming time and we are behind our schedule plan. Luckily there is this time to film.

03/03/2011

Due to the lack of available equipment and the actors and crew being unable to attend this filming day we had to reschedule again.

We managed to book the TV studio for the 09/03/11. On this day there will be a technisian to help us with any problems we might come across. This will also be a more light tight area which makes it easier to get the lighting perfect.

Because of some of us coming back from New York the filming was changed at the last mintues because everyone who went was jet lagged, actors and crew.

11/03/11

Because of the filming changed on the 09/03/11 we only had half of the footage to capture back.

16/03/11

As we are really behind in filming in stead of filming any last shots we filmed the rest of the video. One of the actors' were really busy on this day and was in and out of filming but for some of it she wasn't there so we had to make do but we did finish it.

18/03/11

Captured back all of the footage left.

22/03/11

Due to everyone's busy timetable we weren't able to edited today and we hope to do a lot of the editing on the 23/03/2011

Blog 13 - Shoot Schedule

09/02/2011

We plan to pick up the filming equipment at 12:00pm from the Media technisians office. From there we are going to head a classroom because the TV studio wont be available. We will then set up the equipment, costumes, props and jewellery by 1:00pm when the actors will arrive. After our actors get into costume we will be ready to shoot from between 1:15 - 1:30. We plan to get at least half of the versus' filmed by approcimately 5:00pm.


11/02/2011

In our lesson at 2:00pm we plan to start capturing back the footage from the tapes and start editing what bits of footage worked and what bits of footage didn't so then we can go over bits and re-take them to make them better.

21/02/2011 - 27/02/2011 - Half Term

03/03/2011

We plan to pick up the filming equipment at 12:00pm from the Media technisians office. From there we are going to head to the TV studio. We will then set up the equipment, costumes, props and jewellery by 1:00pm when the actors will arrive. After our actors get into costume we will be ready to shoot from between 1:15 - 1:30. We plan to get at least half of the versus' filmed by approcimately 5:00pm.

04/03/2011
In our lesson at 2:00pm we plan to finshes capturing back the footage from the tapes and edit the footage.

09/03/2011

We plan to pick up the filming equipment at 1:00pm from the Media technisians office. From there we are going to head to the TV studio. We will then set up the equipment, costumes, props and jewellery by 1:30pm when the actors will arrive. After our actors get into costume we will be ready to shoot from between 1:45 - 2:00. We plan to get at least half of the versus' filmed by approcimately 5:00pm.

Equipment List

- 3 XM2 Cameras

- Lighting Rig

-Green Scene

- 3 x Tripods

-Black tape to tape down the cables to stop tripping hazzard and made the rooms light tight.

- Clapper Board

Costumes List

- 6x Flat Caps

-Various Hoodies

-T-shirts

-High Tops

-Trackies

-Jeans

-Chains and other various Jewelry

Blog 12 - Health and Safety

This is a Risk assessment form that we had to fill out each time that we wanted to book the studio or equipment. This form highlights the risks there will be and how we can prevent them, it also is a call sheet of the crew members just in case anyone is needed to be get a hold of if for some reason we were late to the booking or forgot to give back equipment etc.

Before shooting we made sure that everyone in the room knew and were clear about possible hazzards and risks that could happening during filming. This was to make sure that everyone was safe and kept from harm as well as the equipment . Some things we did to prevent damage was;
1. Wires and tripods are a tripping hazard so lighting rigs and cameras have the protenial to be knocked down or broken. we resolved the isssue by taping down any wires that were lose on the floor to stop people tripping.

2.Lights are a hazard for burns as they are very hot. We made sure that everyone was warn that the lights were hot and asked if they would stay away from the lights while we come the lighting effect we wanted.
3. The lighting for our shoot is going to be dark and atmospheric which means that there is going to be a higher risk of breakage and injury as it will be harder to see. To prevent this we told everyone to take care when walking around the room when they were're infront of the camera

Blog 11 - Storyboard

Our idea for our video was based around challenging the racial and sexual stereotypes through rap videos by using the opposite genders and race to a 'normal' rap videos. We thought of this as there are too many dominating male videos where the male gaze you used and the women are just objects while the men and seen as the rulers of them and seen with more power. We thought by switching the gender's around it would make the audience to think twice about what is portrayed as the right way to them and see women as powerful and dominating characters. We also wanted to add humour into our video by the women being coruscation blonde and girly and them trying to be gangster. While the females lip sink the coloured male voices.

We decided to to draw out our key ideas and shots on the storyboard this co

ntained the continuous use of shots in each verse and character. We did this because it was a more improvisational technique. Our storyboard was a guideline for all of the group from crew to atresses because it let us go back to our first thoughts and ideas of what we wanted our music video to look like, it also helped as remember what you were looking for in terms of shots etc. We have decided to shoot against a green screen as we felt that it would be harder for the actresses to perform there and also because we can get the lighting to look more professional and add interesting background footage if we wanted too.

We wanted our actresses to dress how the males in 'normal' rap video would dre

ss as the public would associate it with the urban culture and the music; we want thigns like over sized grafic t-shirts. hoodies, flat caps, chains and high tops. These things are all typical of the Wu Tang Clan's appearance and other Hip - Hop rap videos, this will all add to our overall aim of stereotypes. This will also add to the humour we want to create to keep the video light headed and more enteraning as their white, blonde females.

We didnt have a narrative to our video as we wanted to stick true to what our genre presents and in most of our genre's kind of videos there are no narrtives and the characters generally just perform to the camera engaging with the viewer.

For our shots and movements we are going to use close ups, slow zooms in and out and slow pans across and up from the feet. many different angles from high up, from side and from below. We did this as well as using variation of people that filled the frame, sometimes as solos or

duets or groups of three. We thought these verity of shots will work well for our genre of hip hop rap and keep the viewers interested and engaged.

We have chosen to use close ups if the our characters faces so the audinece can see the expressions and emotions. We have chosen mid shots as they are the some commonly used shot in any genre of music videos and it makes the character a better presents as it shows the upper body showing body language etc. We want to add interest to our shots by adding profile shots and static shot of the characters standing still into the camera menacially as this will put across to the audinece a sense of power from the women.

The storyboard allows us to pre - visualise our video and document our initial ideas that we can keep up with through out the process if making our video. It will also refer to where at all times the project is going and where all memebers of crew are meant to be and how w

e are meant to be doing at all stages of the production and post production. I think the storyboard is good as it is a detailed description of what is going to happen so we dont get lost along the way and so we stick to what you want and what we want our audience to see.

Shooting Script

After making our story board we created a shooting script which is used for the actually filming. This shooting script is to help as schedule our shooting says and list what shits what want to film on what day. There are space in the shooting script which are for us to write information about every shot we take and which shots worked and which ones didnt. This saves us on editing when capturing back.

Booking Equipment

In our case of filming we didnt have to hire out our equipment or have a fee. The only thing that we had to follow by is that we had to book equipment 48 hours in advance and have it for 2 day maximum. This is because the equipment was on high demand due to other media student. Before shooting we will need to go a rish assesment form whenever we want to book out things.