Our second task is to create a promotional poster for our band. To do this we need to research existing posters for artists of many genres. Above is a poster of Eminem's album 'The Marshall Mathers LP'. Being one his first albums, he needed to create an image for himself that would define him for his career. That is what we need to do for our band.
For the promotional poster, there needs to be an interesting aspect of the band that would attract our audience, which we think should be a lighthearted approach. We want the band to show rap in a good light, making it seem fun and upbeat again like it was when it started all those years ago.
We could do this by use of colour, style, writing font and selction of photos.

Stills from the Final Video

Task 1 - Presentation on Digipaks and Music Conventions

Digipaks[1]

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After Effects

For the whole of the narrative strand, we needed to use after effects for the backgrounds as we filmed him in front of blue screen. With Adobe After Effects, we replaced the blue screen with backgrounds we found on the internet or made on Photoshop. We resized the shots and and used key light to affect the lighting so as much of the blue screen as possible was changed to be the background. For the beginning and end sequence of the video where the ship lands and leaves we used a basic key frame animation, where we place 3 points on the screen and After Effects fills a path for the image to take, resulting in a moving object in the shot.

Editing

We started editing our music video a few days after the shoot day was finished. We had 2 two and a half weeks to finish the whole music video, which Steph and I found quite difficult, especially as our video had lots of special effects. To start off with, we made bins for each type of shot, as well as those we wanted to use and those we weren't planning on putting in the final cut.
Once this stage was completed we then went on to doing the first narrative; the rappers. Before doing any of the editing we put the track down on final cut pro. We then put the first runthrough of the rap over it cutting it to the beat. Luckily our song has a very prominent beat which is easily identified, so syncing the sound to the image was very easy. Once this is done, the hard part comes when trying to layer other shots of the rappers over the top of it as we were only using smaller parts, maybe only a few seconds long. We only had a few shots of the rappers singing the actual song, so although we were limited in how many shots we could use, it made the process very simple with the selecting shots and inserting them, as we didn't have to go through many shots to find a specific movement or action we liked, as they were already in the shots we had due to good direction on the shoot day. We used shots from all of the runthroughs of the song, as well as the short shots of the rappers repeating the word from the end of each line.
After we had got the cut we wanted with the performance, we added the other element of the performance, like the reactions to what was happening to the alien character, and the part where the ship starts to fall apart. I think we managed this well, and were able to sync the rapping perfectly amidst the chaos of the scene.
The final part of the editing process was to put the narrative strand in. This was much easier as the shots were all similar, and all we had to do was to select a shot that could fill in the spaces that we had specifically left for these shots, which matched a certain point in the song.
Now all that had to be done was the after effects.

Account of the Shoot Day

Painting and co-ordinating the set was done on Friday afternoon, the previous school day before actually filming the footage. Our set really came together at this point; the painting and attention to detail on the plastic space-craft like panels truly made the set come to life. To give an idea of the set it was made from three silver painted walls in a rectangular shape, with three vent looking panel across the back walls. We also have a controls box of about four foot with painted knobs and monitors, on the other side there was another panel with many different buttons on it. We left school for the weekend looking forward to filming the music video on Monday.
The pre-shot preparation of giving the actors costumes make up, giving the three rappers a couple of times to warm up and be given ideas of what to do started at 9:00 AM. Luckily through taking measurements and buying costumes accordingly, the outfits fitted the cast and props of hats and gold chain were available to them. Everyone was dressed and prepped so we started the practise, sadly after the second time one of the rappers who was previously very ill sad he could not continue with the shoot. I therefore had to step in and perform he song with the two other rappers, we could not ask anyone else as they would not know the lines and teaching them would take time we just didn't have. After a quick costume change I was ready to continue the practises. When we felt that it was time to start filming we arranged the camera at a mid shot distance, directly in the middle of the set. The aim of the first couple of shots was to give the rappers the confidence to come to a very close vicinity of the camera and say the words with expression and their own interpretations. Being in the video was good as I could perform in a way that me and Steph wanted for the video, but it hindered my ability to judge the shots and direct them a I was no longer spending all the time behind the camera. With the initial mid shots done after three takes of the rap part, the other performers and I started to do a sort of free style take including completely improvised and spontaneous movements. For example, we did the canoe, robot and tug of war all adding to one of the main ideas of joking around in the video. I feel because we included so much of these quirky and individual shots into the whole rough cut it has made promoting the band in a light hearted way.
For the majority of the morning we experimented with new shots of the rappers, for the scene where it looks as if the spaceship is breaking we used a smoke machine tilted the with one side of the ship to the other, in the frame was on of the rapper in the foreground and two in the background running from side to side in complete devastation and worry.
After the lunch break, we came back and started to film the narrative strand, all of this was done in the blue screen with exception to the doors opening and closing with the alien either leaving or entering. In these scene I felt more comfortable as I was able to direct with Steph behind the camera and give ideas while seeing how the shot looked on film. The door scene was very hard to get right in the way that the two people pulling the door did not know how fast to go and when to open and shut it though eventually after 5 or 6 takes we managed to get it right.
After this shot was completed, we had to dismantle the set and make room in front of the blue screen to film the scene. We needed to gather shots of the alien running away whilst looking backwards, walking around looking very shocked and spinning around very slowly on the chair in both mid shot and close up.
The day finished at around 4:30 PM and we were very happy with how the day went all considered it could have been a disaster with one of the main people dropping out.

Props

We bought 4 jumpsuits the week before the shoot. We ordered the specific sizes after having measured the people we were using in the video, and using a spray can we painted them silver. For the headwear we had a construction helmet also painted silver, a white beanie and a red neck scarf in order to create the individual identities of the band members.

Building the Set

The afternoon before shooting Steph and I were able to go along and help with the painting and putting together of the set. The set for our video had three main functions: inside the space craft, the outside of the space craft and the blue screen background. Our first shot of the day according to the shooting schedule was the rappers within the space craft so we therefore set up the ship to save time the following day. Apart from the initial painting there were other areas like ensuring the panel on the set were straight and which colours to use on the knobs of the control pads that took up a lot of time. We felt that by putting in small details and paying attention to detail it would create more of a professional vide and ultimately make our video look better. One of the largest issues we had whilst set building was deciding what to do with the doors. Firstly we had decided to try to incorporate them into the set so they could be shown at all time and equally so the audience would be more aware that the alien was leaving the ship that had the rappers in, not that they were separate. But after a short chat, we felt that it would be more advantageous to not include the doors and have them separately and instead build up narrative of many reactions shots of the rappers from the actions of the alien. Now the only issue was getting the doors to open at the same time and at the same speed with people pulling them apart. This was very difficult, especially with lots of smoke and flashing lights but after around four attempts the doors were starting to move evenly and the monitor showed promising results.

Animatic of Storyboards

Beastie Boys - Intergalactic video