Website

Ok, so in terms of researching for our ancillary tasks, myself and Will have decided to split off and spread the work load, with my focus on the website and his on the digipak. Having ploughed through site after site, I feel that the 'Arctic Monkeys' and 'Oasis' sites were coordinated in a way that, as a consumer, was simple to use, and replicating it should be quite managable. As opposed to sites such as the 'Coldplay' site that aimed to limit the amount of information on the main page and lead consumers to corresponding links; it seemed difficult and confusing to find the relevant information. The templates for the 'Oasis' and 'Arctic Monkeys' sites however, proved simpler to navigate through with information displayed almost like a blog, and with any relevant links clearly sign-posted.

http://www.arcticmonkeys.com/

This site seems a solid template for our site, with the band logo and links situated at the top of the page, and with news and gig information streaming down the page in columns.

On HD

We've decided to try doing our next shoot with a HD camera, mainly because, while our last footage wasn't bad, it wasn't the greatest quality either in terms of its graininess and lighting. Lighting, especially naturalistic lighting, has become an important element of our music video, and therefore we think it's worth using a better quality camera to really capture the lighting correctly, since the general aesthetics of our video remains of high importance. We'll see how this works out...

First Shoot

So we've obtained our first wave of footage that we shot at our first location in Bury last Thursday. The stills posted below are two examples of the footage taken, highlighting our desire to capture urban and natural usage of artificial lighting. Emphasising the contrast between light and dark is a prominent theme throughout the video and we're encouraged with the way in which this concept was realised in the first shoot.

In the next stage of shooting, we aim to concentrate on the narrative aspect of the video, and collect close-ups and reactions shots of our main character. We then hope to see our video really begin to take shape. With the foundations of the video in place we can then experiment in post-production with some conceptual elements we had planned to incorporate such as time-lapse and layering.

Shooting Tonight

So we've selected tonight as the first day of shooting, since this is the perfect day for everyone involved to be able to do it (Me, George and our 'cast'). Tonight won't be the most technically difficult shots - that'll come later after we've got some preliminary footage, as well as the chance to get some on-location test shots, maybe to try some more editing techniques in preparation for what we can get done in the future.

Layering

Posted below is a still image taken from some test shots we carried out a week or so ago. The image demonstrates the technique of layering, with apparently two of the same figure in a single shot. In actuality, we managed to achieve this using 'Final cut', splitting two different shots and layering them to display this illusion that there is more than one of the same figure in the shot. We're looking to use this techinque in the video, shooting our main character running on a bridge and then the passing traffic below. We'l then split the individual shots to create one shot with the character running in real time whilst the passsing traffic is sped up, creating an interesting illusion as well as refelcting the character's state of mind.

Additionally, we may seek to use this technique towards the latter stages of our piece, when the narratives of the piece collide. Cross-cutting between a mysterious roadside commotion and the unexplained anxiety of our main characters, we may look to eventually merge these two narratives, with the realisation at the end of the piece, that the injured civilian at the centre of the commotion is actually the same person as our main character. In order to illustrate this to our audience we intend on layering two individual shots, to create the illusion that, as our test shots demonstrate, there is two of the same individual.