CD Cover Ideas.

To begin my Digipak I first came up with a few ideas and different styles I could do. I used an online template to help me get the sizes right and make it easier to know which bit goes where.

Idea 1:

This was my first idea for my Digipak. I used my favourite image of the boys for the front of the CD and quite plain and simple writing as it's similar to what they've used previously. It's also similar to most CD's as it makes it simple to spot. I liked the dark background with the white writing as it made it eye catching. I also added the bevel and emboss effect as a subtle touch, it's barley visible, but I felt it just gave it something extra. I also kept the text on the spine the same as the front (Minion Pro and Arial) so it worked well together.

For the back page I used one of my images taken from the field by my house in the evening. I adjusted the brightness and contrast levels on the photo so it was more visible. I had taken this photo a few months ago and when thinking about my Digipak I instantly remembered the photo and thought it would work well as a simple but effective photo of my own. Here's the original photo:

I was uncertain on what to do for the middle page of my Digipak. Most CD's I looked at had a blank page with some copyright on the bottom. I didn't want to do this as I didn't have my own lyric booklet so I thought it would be a waste of a page. I found some CD's online which had put their 'thanks' page on the inside so I decided I would do this too. I wrote personal thanks from the 'band'. I originally put only their first name but on further inspection of other pages I found that they usually put both their first name and surname so I changed this on my final design. I thought it would be good to have another photo of the band on the inside as well so I chose a less serious one for this and chose one where they are genuinely smiling as I liked this photo a lot. Here's what's written in the 'thanks':



Idea 2:

This is my second idea for my Digipak. I decided to keep the front and the inside page the same as I liked the deign and thought it looked effective. For the back I decided to try a different image. I used one from a You Me At Six gig I went to in December. I thought it worked well as it's a roman numeral for six. I had to use the stamp tool to get rid of the black bits on the lights. I also turned up the brightness and contrast to make it stand out more. Here is the new one next to the orignal:

I liked the use of the image, but I didn't really like the colour as it didn't match the greys of the boys clothing and the almost black background.





Idea 3:

I decided to try the whole thing in black and white. I didn't really like how the front cover came out, nor the inside page, but the back was improved. The warm colours were taken from the six image so this matched the whole feel of the cover a lot better. I also changed the threshold on the six photo so it stood out more. I don't think I'll do this though as it's hard to see the writing and read the song titles. Here's how I changed the threshold of the photo:




Creating My Website.

I first started my website using a blank template on the website Wix. I decided to use one of the background Wix had avaliavble until I could create my own background. I had already decided that I would have a dark background so I chose a dark template so I could organise the text colours and boxes.

NEWS PAGE

For my first post on my website I chose to write about our video. I made it like we'd only just realeased the video. I also created a link to download a digital copy of the new CD. I used You Me At Six's amazon page for this:

In my posts on my website I wanted to make them as real as I possibly could. To do this I decided to link the 'hashtag' in my post so it would take you to the tagged page on twitter, just as the real website might do:

I decided to add a photo grid to display some 'fan' photos of a You Me At Six gig. These photos are actually a mixed bag of photos I took from two gigs I attended. One was infact a You Me At Six gig at Wembley arena in December and the other was the Black Keys, also in Decemember, at the O2 arena. I figured these two gigs weren't too different as they were both arena gigs so similar in size. I also thought it would look more authentic as I was on different sides of the arena for both so they would like like different people had taken the photos. I was also far enough away during the Black Keys gig so you couldn't tell that the band wasn't You Me At Six. To encourage social networking and make the whole thing more believable, I added my own and friends Twitter accounts to the photos so it looked like a 'fan' had sent it in. In the description box I wrote a 'tweet' which is where the website would have found the photos:

Below is an example of what the photos look like when you click on them and how the tweets look:

The next post was about the upcoming gig selling out. I created a quick tour poster for the event:

Then I added a 'SOLD OUT' banner across it and added it to my website:

I also created my own background for the website using my photo of the VI sign from the You Me At Six gig I went to. I turned up the threshold on the photo and made it small enough to fit in the bottom corner of the page so it would be seen at all times and stand out more against the black background:

I also added a small copyright line at the end of the page to make it look more legitimate:

LIVE DATES

To create my live date page I used actual dates from the You Me At Six website. I liked their design, but I wanted to make mine a little simpler and match my news page more. Here's You Me At Six'x official live dates page: 

Here is my own page of dates with the date, the venue and the city listed. With also a link to find the tickets:

Here is how I created the link to find tickets. I firstly went to the link that You Me At Six's ticket button links to. I then highlighted the words I wanted to link and copied the web address in the appropriate box:

GALLERY

For the gallery page I added my own slideshow by choosing the animated grid. I then uploaded all the photos I took of the boys the day I got them to dress for a photoshoot:

MUSIC

For the music page of my website I decided to make it a store where you can buy the You Me At Six albums. I first added photos and put a name underneath each album which if you click take you to their amazon pages so you can buy the album:

STORE

After making my music page more of a store I decided to rename the store page on my website to a merchandise page. You Me At Six's official website takes you straight to another link when you click on the store button, but I wanted to make mine slightly different. Here is the You Me At Six store page:

I took the photos from this page and added them to my own store page. I then added a link underneath the picture which would take you to the official merchandise site for the selected items:

CONTACT PAGE

For my final page of the site I couldn't take inspiration from You Me At Six's on website as they didn't have one so I had to improvise. Instead of making it quite a formal page I decided to dedicate it more to fans and give them an email address where they can email the band:

I got all the contact information from the bands official facebook:

Here is the link to my finished website:

http://milliemcgovern.wix.com/you-me-at-six

Website Research.

Here is a picture of the real You Me At Six's website. It is quite easy to navigate and looks professional. I think that I will try to recreate the font they use and the dark colour scheme. Hopefully I will be able to give my own website a professional feel!

Final Video.

Below is our finished video, we hope you enjoy it. We are quite pleased with how it turned out and think it accurately reflects how far we've come and the many techniques we have learnt. :)

Editing Our Video.

To edit and create our video we used iMovie on an Apple Mac laptop. This gave us lots of chances to create exactly what we wanted and gave us the opportunity to use effects.
We both started with limited experience with iMovie but after the initial few hours on it we felt much more confident and had got the general grasp of the software. Editing then became a quicker process, but still rather laborious and monotonous. We tried to share the workload evenly so that we could both have a chance to use the software and it wasn't too much pressure on one member. Unfortunately all the editing had to be done in school because we needed the same Apple Mac every time, this proved to sometimes be an annoyance as we would have preferred to work at home a little more. However, after a few weeks of hard work we managed to make the video almost exactly how we wanted it.
One of the biggest struggle for us was getting Matt's lip syncing to match the song in the background, even a millisecond out and you could see the difference. However, we didn't have to change almost anything on our storyboard which meant our timings were fairly accurate and when we had sorted out the lip syncing on what bit it would stay the same and we could move on to the next bit. The editing process is where our storyboard really came in handy and we could quickly find our clips and the order they were meant to be in which meant there was no time wasted.
A specific effect we used and really thought worked well was a Cross Dissolve effect (see photo). This was used when me and Sam were walking through the forest and it then cross dissolved to him walking alone. We had tried other effects for this scene but we found this one worked the best and looked most authentic. It took quite a while for us to be completely happy and for it to work in the way we needed it to, but we were very happy with how this effect came out.

Here are some pictures of us working together during editing process:

Day 4.

 

 

Today was our final day of filming. Today we got all the shots of me and Lauren with Sam done and we filmed these in our local town centre. We used Burger King as one of our locations for a scene where Lauren is out with Sam and talking away to him and he is distracted. We also filmed a part where it shows the contrast of the two dates and me and Sam are laughing, touching hands, and chatting together. We went early morning to make sure we beat crowds and could have room to film properly.
Another scene we filmed was the scene where Sam comes back to me. We decided to show me waiting on a bench alone so that the audience knew there was something was about to happen with me. We also shot a scene where Sam joins me on the bench and we talk a little and we hug. We decided to include the hug as it makes it obvious to the audience that we are back together, this is also reinforced by the last scene we shot where we walk off in the snow holding hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 3.

This was our third day filming and it was the second time we tried to shoot the band. I knew we had the hall until 6 and Matt was getting there just gone 4. This gave us pleanty of time to film all the things we needed. We used our storyboard to know which shots we wanted to use and to mae the whole process smooth and simple. Fortunately our and complied and were serious... mostly!
After hours of solid filming we had all the shots that we needed and were happy to tell the boys they could go. They'd all done a great job and we were extremley happy with Matt and his acting skills.
We took shots of the band from the front and the sides. We then filmed Matt standing in his postion with the band, but a close up so you could only see his face and we took some other shots of him on his own infront of a screen to change it up a little.

 

 

Day 2.

The second time we filmed was less successful than the first. Unfortunately, the lead singer of our 'band' was only available half 3:30 to 4:15 which didn't give us a huge window of opportunity. We did however get some good shots of the band. This first time of meeting up all together also meant that they got used to the song and learnt bits of it to make it look realistic.
This also gave us the chance to see Matt in action and he was great! We knew we'd made a good choice and we were pleased to know that what we had filmed would look professional and convincing.

Day 1.

For the first day of filming we went to Hampstead. We wanted to film some of the memories of me and Sam together here and we knew the hill was a perfect spot. We left about 11 and got there for 12. When we arrived it was unfortunately raining so we got a quick coffee in Starbucks, we also asked if we could film there, but they said 'no' unless we went to their media department (what a waste of £3!) We quickly resolved this and decided that we'd have to film this bit in our local town centre. Whilst we were there we got changed into our summer clothes so it would look like it was Summer. Safe to say it was pretty cold wearing just a dress!
Our first spot we decided to film at was this pretty cobbled street. We were lucky that it was not very busy, but still nice enough to get a good shot. After setting up the tripod, Lauren directed me and Sam in how we should look like we're in love. We held hands, but felt that we could do more so I took the opportunity to stop mid walk and he pulled me in for a hug. We felt this looked a lot better and more emotional than us just walking, holding hands.
After taking a few shots down this street we had to try and find Hampstead Heath. Unfortunately this was not as easy as we'd originally thought it would be and we ended up lost in Hampstead. We must have looked it too (me in a dress, Sam in shorts and Lauren holding a tripod) as a man soon approached us and gave us directions. Turns out we were going the opposite way! We then found the Heath with not much trouble and set off trying to find Parliament Hill.
Who knew the same group of people could get lost twice in the same day! After almost an hour and directions from two people, including the park rangers, we reached Parliament hill. We were tired and freezing but the view was amazing and we knew we'd made a good choice in location. We were blown away and thought this was the perfect place for a music video. We got some scenery shots and the shots we needed then went home.

CD Analysis.

I decided to look at some of You Me At Six's other album covers to get ideas for my own and make sure I don't stray too far away from their image, but that I'm not copying them either. These are two of You Me At Six's albums:

 

 

I'm going to name my album 'Sinners Never Sleep', but do a different cover and inside for mine. Both the album covers don't have a photo of the band on the front. I think I will change this when creating mine to be different and orginial, although I will keep the genral feel quite similar. I like the use of dark colours on the Sinners Never Sleep album cover and I think I will use dark colours also, but the I want it to be in colour instead of black and white.

 

The middle of the CD case usually has a pattern, but still quite plain. I plan to do something similar and have a small design on that page.

This is the inside page of SNS. I want to also make mine a page of thanks as it will make my whole deign more exciting.

This is the fron cover and back of SNS. I like that it is quite a simple design. HMD is quite simple, but a lot busier than SNS. I also noticed the small print at the bottom of each CD, I will reword this and put it on mine to make it look original.

 

After looking at these, I feel a lot better prepared for making my own CD and what I will need and is expected of me.

Shot Lists.

To help us when planning our shots we decided that a shot list would be good. This is to go alongside our storyboard which we numbered. These numbers are then added to the shot list sheet so we can see exactly where our shots need to be filmed as they are categorised by location. We feel this will save us valuable time and make sure we get all the shots we need. We also colour coded them to make them even more simple for us.
Here is some photos of our shot lists: