Today's Progress

Today i've been going through all our footage and splitting up the separate shots and labeling them with what they are, ready for them to be put into the timeline next time according to our written storyboard.

Final Website and Digipak Designs

These are the final designs for the Digipak, inside and out.

For the front cover we decided to use an image of the band and 'Robert Smith' holding a dolls head, representing the female actress in the music video. The way the colours have been effected is similar to how we plan to effect the colours in the video, including the colour bleaching at the top.
The image on the fron cover originally wasn't tall enough, so we extended the already bleached top upwards into white, which gave us plenty of space for the band's logo.
We have used the same logo we designed for the website on the cover, as well as the font we used for titles/subtitles for the song names/album name.
On the back we liked the look of this image taken during filming, as we liked the colours and the composition, we thought it would look effective with the song titles down the middle between the band members.
The copyright information was adapted from an existing digipak, but modified to fit our band and record label (Lies Records). The barcode was from an open-source/royalty free website found through google.



The inside of the digipak took more work than the outside.  The image on the left was originally a portrait shot and much narrower, as well as less colourful or exposed. In photoshop we added some exposure to the top of the image, and a yellow hue, as well as reflecting and warping the edges to extend the image outwards further. On the right side, we wanted a brick pattern, similar to the other side. We took a selection of the image on the left, made a pattern from it, and used that, with some colour editing (a simple linear black-to-white gradient layered above it created the dark to light effect) and tweaking. We couldn't decide what to do for the CD itself, though we had already placed the logo and title on there. It was suggested by a teacher that the fishnet pattern from 'Alice Glass's tights would look visually interesting, so we took a selection from an image, created a repeating pattern and enlarged it, creating a kaleidoscope effect.

Overall, I'm very happy with the Digipak design, and I think it reflects the band and music video well.

Final Website

This is the final design for our website. We decided to widen the main column from our last stage of design, and so move the Links and squares (Media, Merch etc.) into a grid shape, as opposed to simply down the side.
We also added a link to forum, and a space to Login or Register for it.
As well as this, we added Thumbnails of some images from the shoot in the News Feed. Given more time we would have added more hyperlinks to things such as the thumbnails, and the links at the bottom (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and RSS Feed) and separated 'Media' into 'Photos', 'Music' and 'Videos'.

second shoot short reviewing clips

 I wanted to capture on screen a personal review of the shoot and how it goes and with the input of the boys. It captures the essence of the enjoyment of the task I feel.

website update and comparison to initial design

Completing the website consisted of finishing touches, eg extending the black space so that the title could be bigger and the information too. I redid the video capture to make it look better so that it didn't say 0.00 for the length of the video which was an error but instead 3.51 and so the starting image looks intresting and well framed. Every word font very similar to the title with the 'old and cracked' style.

Comparing it to the initial plan of the website you can see some major changes but at the time of creation we had been inspired by various other things to enhanceour website. The idea of having a repeated picture of a run down wall links in with our idea of 'witch-house' music and the working class, with bricks being the background within shots in the video and on the cd cover also. We wanted this wall to consist of darker colours such as blues, greys and browns to go with the dingey effect of the band, but not so dark that it's black so it does stand out from the black inside strip. Initially we were to have the news feed in the middle but after trying it out and moving it around we decided it looked better on the left hand side, so that all different page icons could be grouped together. The website needed a big photo of us to clearly indicate the duo and thus having it merged in with the title and at the top in the middle, to fit website conventions.

More Website Progress

We've really started to flesh out the website design now, for example, adding an image for the MERCH link and transparent GIFs for other media (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and an RSS Feed). It's coming together nicely now, and all that needs adding to it now is images of the Band (beneath the Logo Masthead) and the final CD Cover image within the STORE link box, as well as more links in the Navigation Bar at the very top.

Photoshoot of Crystal Castles

Today I had very clear ideas of how I wanted us all to pose and the locations in which every shot should be taken, with the ideas of smoking and drinking present in quite a few shots. The brick theme is key because it's quite working class image and I knew the colours would work well. As I myself are in the shots, I gave the camera to a person and directed them upon exactly how I want every shot to look and I gave direction to the other actors as to how to pose with their bodies and faces and with the props, within every shot. I was overall very happy with the photos and I feel that my editing skills just added to them.

 I edited the image with contrast to lighten the colours and add a yellow tint, making the top of the photo look sunkissed which looks quite magical and cool, a good place to put any writing for the digipack. The idea of the dolls head is because the prop is quite quirky, it was very spontaneous on the day but we thought it looks like our female actress in the video with the blonde hair and blue eyes. It looks as if the neck is on my tshirt as if we've put it into the shot on the computer, it's very quirky and we believe it captures the bands image and our guest 'Robest Smith' very well.

With this image I was inspired by the grungey wall and wanted the cigarettes within the shots with the males. I lightened it to make the colours more vibrant and cropped the left hand side so the wall can only be seen. This image is nice but I feel that the one above is better to be used with the dolls head and with the colour coordinated costumes of blue and black we all fit very well together within every image.

 The photo is nicely captured photo with the cigarette and wine bottle key, with both our black leather jackets hoods up, inspired by Crystal Castles themselves we portray the duo perfectly. I wanted to again contrast the colours to bring out the orangey/reds within the picture to make us two stand out more so.

 This image was taken in one of the locations where we were filming and with the knowledge that on one of the bands album covers is of a girl besides a gravestone so keeping with their image, our shoot a photo of us beside the gravstone would look effective. I darkened the image believing that it would look good against the black background on the website and keeping with the dark colours idea. We took the leather jackets off and put different 'indie' looking jackets on to keep the photos looking abit different.

 The picture didn't need much changing apart from the colour brightening again, the composition is really well done. I saw the abonded building and knew it would be a good place to have a photograph and the graffiti and danger sign adds to the photo.

 The photo taken in the tunnel, again the use of the cigarette helps to capture the essence of working class 'witch-house' music genre. It was quite dark within the tunnel so we sat beside the entrance so there was enough light but as I was able to lighten it on the computer it enhanced the photo to a standard that could feature on the website.

We did take a couple of head shots but we didn't feel that they worked aswell for the image of the band, we wanted to keep with the bands style and the location shots work alot better with this.

I enjoy photography and thus this task allowed me to use my knowledge of shots and locations to capture images for the bands promotional packs.

Updates to the website

I uploaded a short video of random clips so that I could capture the image of it as if the finished music video is complete and on the website. I then created a news feed that reflected news about the band that I had found within my research of the band like the NME award they had won etc and integrated this with news on the creating of the new music video with Robert Smith. I then looked up the names of small and big venues within the UK that the band could tour and added them. The idea to then integrate the icons of social networks is key with new websites so I decided that they should be at the bottom of the page. The pictures from the shoot are needed to be done in order to do the store box for the CD cover.

2nd shoot preparation notes

Preparation- We will be capturing images for the album cover and website of 'Crystal Castles' and 'Robert Smith' together. We will be taking a fair few so we have a nice selection to pick from, including the use of props; cigarettes, alcohol, DJ decks and fake blood. 

We will also be doing a second shoot for the music video, the section of the male walking backwards and singing in the different locations eg graveyard, tunnel and house. 

website progress

CD COVER IDEA

We had a new idea whilst discussing the CD/Digipak front and back cover. The idea of a wraparound cover was raised, using the same location as this Digipak idea:

However, we would use this as the back of the digipak, and using the brick wall extending around to the front with 'Crystal Castles' standing against it.

Crystal Castles influential photo ideas

For our photo on the website and the CD cover we want to create a similar feel to the photos above of the band. We'll both be wearing black leather jackets and i will have the black bob wig and big black eyeliner. We decided that we like the blood used above as it's quite a conventional idea that suits they're image, as it's weird but appears cool, using this idea we will put fake blood around our mouths including 'Robert Smith.'

For the inside of the cover we really like this image of Crystal Castles, the smoking and drinking theme suits the target audience and it's in the music video too, so it's linking the video with the CD cover. We'll take a few natural shots with a white background and see which one works best and we'll use a black background for the CD side of the case.