Photoshoot for Website/Digipak

Juli kindly agreed to take part in a photoshoot for our website and digipak. These are some of the photos which Fran then went away and touched up on photoshop:

An update on the Website

Having done some more research of her own, Hannah has gone away and created the template for the website. Having now planned out the digipak, she is going to change the colours and fonts so that the two are coherent to one another. We are also going to upload the photos which we will take during our photo shoot on Wednesday night, as well as all the photos we are going to take from our photo shoot on Saturday night.

I have offered to make the Social Media sites for our artist so that Hannah doesn't have to worry about them as well as the rest of the website - but so far, so good. Our group is very happy with the development of this ancillary product and look forward to it coming further to life with each day with customised merchandise, a customised playlist, soon a link to our video, pictures of our digipak, etc. etc.

An update on the Video

Progressing on with the editing of our video, I first of all made sure that the final third of the video had actually been edited and was no longer just the remnant of a performance cut. This meant including footage which hadn't already been used as to keep the video fresh and interesting, and finding logical ways to include such within the cut so that it didn't jar or look out of place.

First of all, given how this moment in the lip-sync went on for particularly long, I intercut it with snaps of each cast member looking up to the camera on each respective beat.

With the beat's drop, I then cut to shots of Juli dancing in the graffiti room, intercutting the sequence with shots of Louisa and Charlotte exploring that same room. With the echoed, slowed down man's voice, I used an edited version of Luca performing a skateboarding trick behind Juli. However, I am going to change this as the change of location is jarring. Instead, I believe that by ensuring that all of the shots are kept within the singular room, it gives the sequence purpose and reasoning, and thus creates a moment within the music video.

Aside from that, I haven't developed the music video much further at all. However, next time I am going to go into the editing process with a clear idea as to what to do, which is generally cleaning up the entire video. In particular, I wish to get rid of a number of the rapid snare-drum edits, as they become repetitive and overdone which lessens their impact and makes them predictable and boring, and equally, some of the lip-syncs are somewhat lengthy and would thus benefit from some cut-away shots edited amongst them. The quick spray painting edits should continue on for longer in time with the rhythm as it makes little sense to cut when it does, and the chorus' beat drop with the skateboard trick is somewhat stale and could thus have a little bit of life added into it with some different skateboarding shots and angels.

Whilst the video is slowly getting there, it is evident that I still have a lot to do!

First drafts of the Digipak

Fran went away and played with a few possibly designs of the digipak, coming up with the following rough edits (regarding the digipak's front cover only):

All play upon the reasoning that SIOUX's name means "little snakes" and thus are, in some way or another connected to snakes, be it overtly or subtly. Whilst Hannah and I appreciated Fran's efforts, we thought that none of the suggestions really worked. We thought we needed a picture of our model Juli, in order to establish her star image as SIOUX. We thought that as this is the artists' first album, fans need to become familiar with her face and appearance. That isn't to say, however, that we can't include some element of snake skins, etc.

Consequently, discussing as a group, we have arranged a photo shoot for Wednesday evening, and we plan to use the photos taken on both the digipak and website. Regarding the digipak itself, we have made a rough plan: SIOUX herself on the front cover, with name and album name, a snakeskin pattern on the inside of the digipak where the disk goes, and song titles within the album on the back of the digipak.

Researching Websites

Before Hannah started to develop the website, we decided to research websites as a group so that we may agree on a style or path to go down before Hannah put in countless hours and effort for no reason.

Consequently, we researched Bishop Briggs (our track's original artist) and from there found similar artists whom's websites we could inspect and take inspiration from. In total, we found 10 websites to research and make notes on.

Barns Courtney's, Elliphant's, Lorde's and Charli XCX's websites were basic — the had their names, new albums, a link to their Spotify/iTunes, links to their various social media sites, occasionally tour dates, and sometimes free downloads. The websites were limited and revealed very little information about them for new fans to research. Moreover, the websites just weren't very interesting or entertaining. As such, these are not websites which we are inspired to replicate.

Alessia Cara's, Declan McKenna's, Sia's, Jack Garratt's, Jess Glynne's and Grimes' websites were also quite simplistic (denoting to us that this was perhaps a convention of the genre's websites), but more detailed than that of the previous listed websites. A few had landing pages for their latest albums, most had their latest music video on auto-play, they all had links to their social media/Spotify/iTunes, some of the bigger websites had a contents option, news and updates, a collection of all their music, a listing of their tour dates, a tab for all of their past videos, a biography, and for some, even a store as well. Consequently, these are the types of websites we are instead going to try and recreate as whilst simple and stylish, they provide lots of information, and are both interesting and entertaining as well.

Developing the edit

Having already achieved a rough performance cut, I decided to plough ahead with the edit and tried incorporating other footage into the mix. As to spice up the video and make it more interesting, my aim was to edit in an interesting and effective way. As such, I tried to include this additional footage in a way which kept the video entertaining and not boring.

An example of this interesting, quick editing I played around with, is with a couple of shots of Luca spray painting. I could have left it as one continuous shot of Luca writing out our artist's name 'SIOUX', but instead cut the shots up to the beat which makes it a lot more entertaining. Whilst these were quick cuts, they were relatively simple to do. My only issue was making sure the direction of the hand made sense and didn't jump between places:

Another type of editing I played around with was rapid editing, in which numerous shots were constantly flashed between in time with the beat. Given how quick this was, it took me some time to achieve, using three different shots and then cutting between them practically every millisecond:

Likewise, I also tried to incorporate new footage with a 'jumpy' type of edit where the picture seemed to jump closer and closer. Of all the editing techniques I have tried so far, this is probably my favourite due to the very stylish quality associated with it:

Finally, I also played around with editing the drop of the song's beat by having shots of skateboarding tricks which I then 'jump' edited and reversed so that it fit in time with the song's track and beats. Whilst I think it is effective enough, I am not overly happy with this and will have to rack my brain for ways to improve it:

The aim behind all of my unique and different editing techniques was to distract the audience from our lack of footage and to create speed and pace within the video, which I think I have started to achieve, despite the fact that the video still has a long way to go in terms of editing:

The main thing I now have to be careful about is making sure the visual cuts make sense, and that my different styles of editing don't become too repetitive, as otherwise they will become boring. I also have to complete a full rough edit before I can show our teachers Luke and Phil for further advice as to how to clean it up and thus improve the video further.

Digipak Initial Research

Before Fran started her own personal work on getting the Digipak made, we researched a few existing digipaks from the indie-pop genre as a group. In particular, we initially focused on the same three artists we had done our conventions of the indie-pop genre research on:

From these broad searches we distinguished a mere few digipaks which caught our eye:

The black and white aspect to the album covers made them aesthetically pleasing, and each option allowed us to consider a different way of approaching the digipak for our artist, SIOUX. 

For instance, the top-left album cover showed a lot of bling and meticulous detail which we thought would be something to play around with for our artist. We liked how it made use of the actual artist but failed to show her in enough detail to be overtly recognisable. The artists' trademark name in a elaborate little symbol was something we also enjoyed. However, given how our digipak is for a new artist, we realised the importance in having her face visible as to establish her star image.

Consequently, whilst the top-right is very pleasing visually and would possibly fit our artist, we similarly have to go down a different route as we need to show our artists' image for potential fans to become familiar with her. However, we did enjoy the handwritten quality to the album cover's artist and name.

Given the importance of star image, the bottom-left cover is the most applicable to what we want to achieve. It shows the artist and gives an idea about what she's about: originality, eccentricity. Likewise, it has a handwritten and almost homemade quality which we really enjoy. Realistically, of the four, this is the one we will take the most inspiration from.

The bottom-right isn't something we want to replicate, but was something to consider: keeping the digipak simple, yet effective.

Doing a final sweep of our searches, we also found these above two qualities which we want to consider playing around with. Firstly, golden 'tinfoil' writing with a black and white photo as well as the previously mentioned handwritten quality which we liked so much.

After the lesson, I also did some research of my own, specifically that of solo female artists and came up with a design idea for the digipak, playing upon the notion that SIOUX means "little snakes" regarding her snake-skin costume:

The idea behind my suggestion was that we combined the most liked aspects of each researched album cover and combined them together. I suggested we used a colour album cover given how bright our video is. 

Equally, Hannah also did some research of her own, scouring through Pinterest in order to find some artistic inspiration based off of SIOUX's name. Generally, these focused on an interesting symbol or picture (not of our artist) as a possible digipak front cover:

Fran will now go away and do some more research on her own before we regather as a group and decide as to which route we are definitely going to progress down.

Beginning the editing process

Having learnt as to how to use the basics of Adobe Premiere Pro CC for our thriller opening sequences last year, I looked forward to being able to review our footage and begin the editing process as soon as our rushes had been uploaded.

Having filmed on Monday, we were ready to begin editing Tuesday afternoon. The editing process began with reviewing our footage as a group. Aware that we had not managed to get all the shots we had wanted and would therefore be perhaps a bit lacking on what footage we would be able to use when editing together our music video, our expectations were unfortunately met. Most of the shots we had were somewhat limited, and nor did we manage to get a great deal of variation. However, the lip-sync (although always expected to be good) turned out phenomenally and we are in great debt to our fabulous actress, Juli. This gave us confidence as at the very least we would have a stellar performance cut - and with good, interesting editing, we could possibly make up for our lack of footage.

Beginning the actual editing, we correctly lined up all of our footage to the corresponding musical queues and timing, specifically focusing on aligning all of the lip-syncs effectively. Unfortunately, for reasons unbeknownst to us, the clapper's timing failed in aiding us with the task, and so we were forced to time all the footage off of audio notes - noticeably the heavy bass sound preceding the actual track.

With this done, I then began to play around with the various lip-syncs in order to create a rough 'performance' cut (i.e: a full video to the track comprised up entirely out of lip-sync footage; the performance). Given how well Juli performed the track on the day, we had plenty of footage and three lip-syncs to chose between for this part of the editing process, which made my life significantly easier.

With this completed, my next job is to start playing around with the other footage we captured, and try incorporating it into my performance cut to get a more interesting and better balanced video.

Managing the work-load

Given our late shoot day and the quickly approaching deadline, as a group, we have a lot to do and not so much time to do it. Consequently, we have devised a means of getting the work-load achieved:

Given how there are three members of our group, and three products which must be created - a music video, a website and a CD Digipak - we have split the three products between the three of us so that each is in charge of one product each. This does not mean we will complete these tasks as individuals, but take control behind their production. Along the way, we will still continue to work with and help one another, and every day we will update each other on the production of our respected product, so that by the end of the course we will have created three stylish and coherent products of a high standard.

As such, I have taking charge of editing given my interest in it. Fran has taken charge of the CD Digipak's production given her studying of photography and ability to use photoshop to a high standard. And Hannah has taken charge of the website given her studying of photography and textiles, as well as her interest in art.

In order to keep our three products coherent we will use similar colours, fonts and conventions across the board and continuously update one another regarding how things are going to ensure the highest possible standard is achieved, helping one another whenever necessary.

Naming our artist

Thinking about our artist and her image, I thought that it may be interesting to come up with her name during pre-production so that we might feature it in our music video.

Initially thinking of actual names our artist could have, Hannah came up with possibilities such as Val or Sienna. Inspired by this, I proposed Mary Jane given how it is both an actual, common name as well as the street name for the drug Marijuana — which would immediately connect our artist to illegal activities and connotations such as rebellion, anarchy, etc. Whilst we all loved the idea of giving our artist’s name a double meaning or something to set it apart from the ordinary, we thought ‘Mary Jane’ by itself was a little cliche. Consequently, Hannah and I started ‘storming up some possible surnames. Monroe, Amelia, Martin… Whilst we liked the use of the second M to create some alliteration and thus have the name flow better, such as with Mary Jane Martin, we thought three words was a little bit of a mouthful when our artist is meant to be slick and cool. 

Realising this, we thought we should try again but with a different approach. Whatever name we ended up picking, it had to perfectly encapsulate the elements of youth, spontaneity and rebellion — given how that is what our artist’s image is. Hannah thought we might be able to abbreviate a name, for example, L. Scott, but I disagreed on account of its formality not suiting. In response, she came up with the names Minty, Tina, and Scarlett, and eventually gave me the idea of researching real-life gangsters’ wives for inspiration — Ramona, Goldi and Griselda being my top finds. However, nothing quite suited. As such, we returned to relating her name to drugs or drug use. Scar, Ice, Ganja, were all considered.

At this point Hannah suggested the name Yulia, and whilst I initially thought it was ‘too foreign’ for our artist, the suggestion caused massive development due to my realising of the fact that the actress playing our artist, Anjuli Vadera, is half-Indian half-German. We decided to play around with her unique heritage and take names inspired by these two very different nationalities but eventually decided that nothing quite fitted. Agreeing a stage name was more befitting of our artist then an actual name, I did a little bit of research.

Consequently, we decided to look at things which could have inspired our artist given similarities in what they represented. Playing with our actress’s German ancestry, I researched Norse gods and found ‘Freyja’ making the connection that war and death represented rebellion, and love, beauty and fertility represented youth which would make the goddess appealing to our artist. We considered giving her a surname (even though it wasn’t something we particularly liked), such as Freyja Rose or Freyja Thorn but eventually decided we could do even better. 

Looking at some Hindu gods, I considered Shiva and Parvarti (for similar reasons as considering Freyja) but eventually decided to look elsewhere.

It was at this point which I played upon my belief that Anjuli looked somewhat Native American and could thus effectively pass off our artist as being (or at least of having such an ancestry). Researching Native American tribes, I found that of the “Sioux” tribe and immediately knew we had found our name. Not only does it look very visually interesting and perfect for our artist, but it’s pronunciation as ‘Sue’ gives the name the double-meaning we had hoped for. Equally, it’s historical context and occasional translation as being ‘little snakes’ gives us so much to play with for the website and album cover.

I showed both Hannah and Fran and both of them equally loved the name. As such, we decided it then and there. Our artist would be called ‘SIOUX’.