Digipak - CD cover research

Along with the music video we also have to produce the digipak for the band, the pack will consist of four pictures. One on the front and back and two in the inside of the cover, therefore it is vitally important that we take a large amount of photos for each of the four pictures, we will obviously have to base the photos around the band and also around the concept and the imagery in our music video. For example the rose, that is used frequently in the video.

We will be taking the pictures when we film, for obvious reasons this will be the best time to take the pictures for many reasons. We are all going to be together, Claire and myself will be in the necessary clothing and in the characters we play. We can use Charlotte's white wall to take the majority of pictures, we can then just edit the pictures in Photoshop, I would really like the majority of our pictures in black and white, seeing as the song is called The Funeral. But then i think we would like Claire to be holding a rose in her hand or pinned into her top, then just make the rose really red and vibrant. We could also take pictures of gravestones with Claire behind it, then possibly blur Claire behind the gravestone to make her look like a ghost. We could take pictures of the suicide note and also the pills that she kills her self with. Our video is mainly based around the issue of cyber bullying. Bullying on the internet, using text messages and also Facebook. So an idea we had for one of the pictures is to write horrible and abusive messages on our characters Facebook page, to emphasize the whole cyber bullying issue, which in my opinion is the video's main theme!

I personally don't think that each page of the video should use the image of Claire or myself, I think the front page and one of the inside pages should, but I think some interesting graphic effects on Photoshop could make the back page look really modern, yet still keep the indie/rock effect that we are hoping for within the video. The song is called The Funeral, so I think a black and white graveyard with a dull cloudy sky could work really well with the theme of our video.

I think the three CD covers that I have chosen types of front covers that we should be considering, when it comes to taking our pictures. For example cover above (Bombay Bicycle Club) have just gone with something they like, quite an extraordinary picture that fits their style and their feelings on their album.

This one is The XX's album cover, clearly they have gone with simplicity and boldness, I do actually like the cover, it's clear, precise and the single X on it's own look's very sophisticated, however i don't think we could use this type of layout for cover, I don't think it would fit with the style we are trying to achieve with ours, I don't think any of the group would have the boldness and courage to just lay down a single letter for our cover.

The last album cover I have chosen is Lil Wayne's Dedication III. The reason why I have chosen this cover is because I love the effects used in and around the artist, it looks like he owns the city behind him, with the way he's standing in front of it. The way his name and the city is lit, with the three dominant colours red, white and yellow I also really like, and something that my self and the group can pull of in Photoshop!

Props

Our video consists of a small amount of props but they are actually very effective in the roles they play in the video, one of the main props that we use is the pills, that the girl in the end kills her self with. We purchased the pills at a local supermarket near where we filmed.

We used a rose a lot through out filming the video, for when the girl was laying dead clutching the rose on her chest and eventually draping it towards the ground, we also used the rose on top of the grave where her funeral was taking place, we filmed a three piece shot sequence with the girl holding the rose calmly, picking the petals of the rose slowly and then really taring apart the rose, quite violently actually. Also when the girl was walking towards and away from the camera, showing her isolation, the rose was just draped by her side.

Actors clothing

For the girl:

Outfit 1 - All black (top, skirt, tights) this is the costume we will be using for when the girl is depressed, isolated and lonely, for when she is arguing with her boyfriend and possibly when she is lying dead. (See below)

Outfit 2 - A long white dress, this will be used for the more happier scenes spent with the boyfriend and also when she is running through the forest alone after breaking up with her boyfriend. (See below)

For the boy:

The boy doesn't have a major part in the video, so casual everyday clothes i think will be fine, for example jeans and a jumper. However when we do film the last part of the video, the girls funeral, I think the boy needs to be wearing all black, possibly with a rose in his button hole.

Time management

To keep organized and to just be in general connection with one another , we put together this chart, so we all knew when we were free and available to film. As you can see above this when we filmed our video.

Locations

We chose Charlotte's house to do most of the filming for the video, it's spacious it has good light, and her garden is a perfect location for Claire's isolation to sit on her own and reflect on her past. We filmed in her garden for when me and Claire were together and having fun, and also when Claire was filmed showing how lonely and upset she was, after I left her. We also used her kitchen for the drug scenes, the shots of the roses, close up's of how depressed Claire was and also when she was lying down on the sheet clutching the rose, dead. When filming the cyber bullying, so the Facebook messages and the texts sent to her, we also did that in her house, simply because we had some time and it was an easy shot to do.

At around 4 - 4.30, it starts to get very dark and filming outside looks very unprofessional and is really just a waste of our time. So when filming during the day we made sure we did all of our filming outside, when there was plenty of light. Another problem we faced was the snow, Claire lives in Orpington so it was impossible for her to get over to Wilmington and Charlotte and Alysha couldn't drive out to pick us up, because of the amount of snow, so it as been hard filming in and around the snow, ice and slush on the ground. So we were faced with a little bit of a dilemma either wait for it to melt, or just film outside in the snow, but if some parts our snowy and some aren't the video won't feel very smooth and it will just look quite strange, jumping from a snowy field, to a clear grassy forest. We decided to just get on with it, most of our filming outside was done in Charlotte's garden because it was big enough for what we wanted to achieve in the video, and the snow in her garden was untouched so it looked fine. Funnily enough the snow was actually very effective, during the happy scenes with me and Claire it worked well to our advantage because we could have fun in it, but also when she was sitting alone it looked really good, because it looked like there was just nobody around her, no life almost.

This is Charlotte's house, where did the majority of our filming, for example we used her living room for the happy scenes with the boyfriend, her garden for the arguments and the girl running away, her bedroom for filming the Facebook scenes and the abusive text messages and her kitchen for small parts like filming the girl laying dead. On the right is me filming and lining up a possible shot.

Actors

The deadline for all of our filming to be done for the video was approaching me and the group very quickly, we had a short-list of actors we wanted to be in the video, but it was hard fitting there timetable around ours and also fitting their work hours for when we were free to shoot the video.

So myself and the group decided it was best if we were to do the acting in the video, we only really needed two people, and four or five extras to be in the background and at the funeral scene. So me and Claire decided to be in the video, her as the depressed and suicidal ex - girlfriend and me as the unpleasant and cunning boyfriend. I think at the time we didn't really know if it would work or not, but it turned out to be better for us, we didn't have to rely on other people, when we knew we had media or just when we arranged to meet, we knew everyone could make it, and we could all get to places in the car or walking to where ever we had to get to! I think me and Claire being in the video actually had brought a long a lot of positives to the final result, if we had used friends we would tell them how to react, where to sit and what to do next, using group members we knew what we wanted to achieve, we all knew how we wanted it to look like, and if me and Claire had an idea whilst being filmed we could let the guys filming know and they could incorporate into the shot.

We tried to match Claire's feelings and personality with her make up, clothes and props. So when she was with me she had bright make up on and bright coloured clothes just to reflect her feelings at that point in the video. But then when we split up and I start to torment her, we told her to wear black, have no make up, take of your jewellery etc. We wanted the scene to be really dark and dull, however we left the bright red rose just to contrast the colours and also for the memories she had with me in the video. The clothes she wore while filming were fine, we didn't have any complaints, they fitted into the genre and the feel of our video perfectly.

In terms of make up, the girls applied her make up and made sure her was correct for the type of scene it was, so for the happy scenes it was bright red lipstick and foundation applied. However when we filmed her on her own very distressed and lonely, we didn't apply any make up at all, Charlotte had the idea of using talcum powder to give a really pale and quite shocking effect to her face, we used the talcum powder a lot when we filmed her dead for example.

Below are pictures of me and Claire filming the video.