Official Website

Here is our completed artist website for Cara Smith

Be aware that although the links are active for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, you can't access the page fully unless you have an account on the site. Please refer to other posts if you would like to see the sites without an account.

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http://kirstyanneheiss.wix.com/caramaysmith

Digipack in Layout

Official Digipack

Front Cover of Digipack

The CD in the slot completes the faded picture of the umbrella, and the merging of the photo of Cara Smith and the umbrella make it look as though she's opening it

This is the CD with a print of the merged photos on it, the list of tracks and artist name

CD slot without the disc in it. Without the CD, the photo in complete with the shape where the CD goes lightly faded.

The decision to place the Track List inside the album challenges the generic convention of having the Track List on back cover. When designing it, I simply preferred it placed on the inside, with a beautiful photograph on the back, and I think having all the information on the inside makes more sense even if it isn't the tradition. 

Lyrics

The Gallery enables buyers to view pictures and photographs of Cara Smith in action; at JAM sessions, rehearsals, while song-writing and composing and during photo shoots. It's also a nice, quirky idea that offers something else for the audience to enjoy and feel more involved in Cara's career. 

  

There will also a little thin strips of cardboard covering the photographs. This will protect the photographs and provide captions for each of the pictures.

Back cover of the digipack with Parlophone logo - the record label signing and supporting Cara Smith's career.

Digipacks - Process

I started designing the digipack by finding a layout of a conventional digipack with 6 panels, as required by our brief, and brainstorming some ideas. I then began making.

I decided to present the digipacks on Powerpoint, but actually designed them on Photoshoo. Merging the overlapped photographs using the opacity tool was done on Powerpoint, and the photos themselves were collected and downloaded using iPhoto, however, structuring and doing the titles was all done on Photoshop. Although I was more comfortable using Powerpoint, the program limited what I could do vastly in comparison to Photoshop e.g. the Titles looked a lot more professional and editing pictures was a nightmare on even the simplest things such as getting rid of a white background on an image. I was also speaking to Sir regarding my use of Powerpoint over Photoshop, and he said that although it won't make me lose marks on the digipack, it will restrict how professional the product looks which won't help it achieve the highest marks possible.

As a result, I felt the decision was made. Sir gave me a quick 15 minute tutorial on how the basics of using Photoshop were done and I transferred the work done on Powerpoint over to Photoshop. It was fairly easy to use Photoshop once I gleaned the basics and I enjoyed doing it.

When it came to designing the logo for the Front Cover, the group pitched in. We'd established the main font being used for our digipack was Zapfino, and this would be the font her name and title of the album would be written in as a general convention of indie-pop artist digipacks is that the font is feminine and swirly, calligraphic. Interlocking the initials of Cara Smith, "CS" looked good, although we wanted to extend her last name as "Smith" seeing as it looked better, and we wanted the artist to be more personable, rather than a brand. It also looked a bit like a "G" so we extended her name and the result is "C Smith".

However, when I got Sir to have a look at front cover and give his opinion on it, he thought it looked too much like a brand and not personable enough for a twee-pop(ish) artist like Cara. He thought we should instead just have her name down the bottom spelling Cara May Smith. This was too long, though, and so we shortened it to Cara Smith. This worked out in a way because Kirsty, when designing the merchandise for the website had used the logo of the "C" and "S" intertwined, her initials making her name appear as Cara Smith. Re-branded as Cara Smith, we chose this as what our artist would be known as, even if there is a minor variation of her name on the website address e.g. http://kirstyanneheiss.wix.com/caramaysmith  

Pool Scene

We were really eager to have a flashback of the couple swimming and frolicking about in a pool. Although we'd aimed to film it, using Kirsty's underwater camera, it has become much too cold to film with our actors and we are tight for time in terms of scheduling out a period to film. We also have to ask for permission and it has become a real hassle to organise.

After searching "Underwater scenes" on YouTube, we have decided that we are going to use a snippet of footage from the film "Whip It" instead, as we are allowed to use a small amount of pre-filmed footage from another source. We considered the "Romeo and Juliet" pool scene however, we couldn't get a good clip which hid the faces enough to pass for our actors.

I think the time period between 0:58 - 1:50 is the potential clip for our music video

Website Research and Update

Here is what our newly developed website. Kirsty was the website designer and has done a fantastic job as far as creating a professional site that’ll appeal to our target market.

At this stage, she liked the look of the website but felt there was something needed, keeping the audience from gaining a real feel for Cara Smith as an artist. This is how the website looks before it underwent further construction.

She visited the websites of similar artists a second time to see if she could pin point what was missing from  our artist’s website. From doing this, she came to the conclusion that the website was requiring a white background and lighter font colours. Adding these, the website would come across looking cleaner, more inviting and make the artist stand out more, since the audience focuses more on the water-on-glass image previously acting as the background.

These are examples of the websites she investigated of other artists. Generic conventions include white text boxes, spaced-out structure, neat, clean font, large, central images of the artist and clear ways to navigate.

Adding these conventions will hopefully appeal our website more to our target audience and with any luck, garner us a bigger following.

Cast Change!

Our initial casting for the music video was:

Phoebe as Cara Smith

Jason as The Soldier

Eliot as The New Lover







However, when casting, we had no idea how popular Jason was. As a professional actor and very busy person, it was too difficult to arrange time when he would be free to film, and as a main character who'd need to be free for re-filming as well as take days out to do initial shoots, so we decided to go with someone else. Eliot assumed the role of The Soldier and Theo, another classmate, was free at the last minute to act as The New Lover character.

Theo as The New Lover

Risk Assessment

FILM PRODUCTION RISK ASSESSMENT

Company Name Phoebe B, Phoebe T and Kirsty
Production Title “Is He Really Coming Home?” Music Video	Production Date(s) 25th October, 26th October and 1st November
Producer Name Phoebe Bower	Director Name Kirsty Heiss
Date of Risk Assessment 24th October	Risk Assessment conducted by Group

Hazard	Persons who may be harmed	Property which may be damaged	Risk controls already in place	Risk Assessment LOW, MODERATE, HIGH, EXTREME (see table)	Further action required to control risk ***
Filming on conservatory roof	Phoebe B	N/A	Practise and awareness of risk and whereabouts when on the roof	Moderate	999 on speed dial
Using kettle – risk of scolding from hot water	Phoebe T	N/A	Careful when pouring	Low	Ice packs and cold water

Copy to additional sheet(s) if further space is needed

***Where further actions are required, complete the action plan on the following page

FILM PRODUCTION RISK ASSESSMENT

ACTION PLAN

Further action(s) required	By Whom	Date Completed
Permission to use conservatory roof to film on	Phoebe T's father	25th October 2013

Organising timetable for filming

These are the timetabled dates for our shooting, when we'll be filming and where. The majority of the shots will be shot at Phoebe's house, as well as Tooting Common and Brockwell Lido.

Two Cameras to Work With

We can't believe our LUCK!

Kirsty's Dad is a professional photographer and so Kirsty said that she can bring another video camcorder to filming which is of much higher quality than the school's stash. She also has access to an underwater camera, which is ideal for the pool scenes planned for our couple. This is great news because it means we are able to do much more ambitious shots, as well as have our music video look professional and realistic, shot with a high quality camera.

Our Record Lable

We have chosen Parlophone as our record label, who will represent our artist, Cara Smith. We chose this specific label for a variety of reasons, such as that this label has signed and represented artist similar to ours, e.g. Garbielle Aplin and Eliza Doolittle. Both these artists target audiences similar to us, showing Parlophone has some experiences attracting females aged between 14-25, and getting them interested in something new. They target British artists who, in their career, become very successful and popular, the Beatles being a great example of this. Parlophone has a good track record and treats its artist well, with the listed female artist reaching fame quickly, ideal for our new, up-and-coming artist.

Parlophone

With more than a century of experience in discovering and nurturing iconic recording artists, Parlophone is among the best known and most loved record labels in the world.

Originally founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon, the British arm of the label was formed in 1923 under the name Parlophone Records, which quickly developed an identity as a leading jazz label. It has since diversyfied and now signs artists from a variety of genres.

In recent decades, Parlophone artists have continued to make their mark on modern music. The 1990’s saw the careers of Blur and Radiohead take off to huge critical acclaim. In 2000, Coldplay released their number one debut album in the UK, Parachutes, which went on to win a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. With artists as diverse as Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen and Pet Shop Boys, Parlophone flourished throughout the decade as a stalwart of the British music scene.

Most recently, Parlophone has broken influential and popular artists including Gorillaz, Tinie Tempah, Eliza Doolittle, Conor Maynard and Gabrielle Aplin.

Digipack Analysis

While conducting my research into digipacks, I found that they weren’t as popular as CD’s to make, despite the fact they were much more environmentally-friendly, made of reinforced cardboard. As a result, I chose to research albums of artists instead which are more popular, such as Nina Nesbitt (a soloist we’ve styled our artist on), Gabrielle Aplin, and Katy Perry, other Indie/Pop artists. Finding a layout of the whole album proved difficult and so I focused on researching album covers first, and published images of artists, to use as inspiration for our digipack.

Next, we researched the actual CD's and track lists of some artists we'd looked at and used for inspiration previously e.g. Nina Nesbitt, Eliza Doolittle, and Taylor Swift. We can glean inspiration from the actual CD's and Track List aspects of the digipacks which'll be useful when designing those parts of our own digipack.

A seemingly common convention of Indie-Pop albums, regarding the CD's, is that they are simple in design. Both the CD's are plain, with a block colour background and simple, constant font which links to the Front Cover design e.g. Eliza Doolittle's CD relates to the Front Cover because it uses the same baby pink and grey background, whereas Nina Nesbitt's album shares the punky font and use of a bright red colour.

Taylor Swift's Track List is also interesting. The panel is related to the title of the Album, heavily featuring the colour red which happens to be the title of the album "Red". The track list uses the same image of the artist as the front cover, but with a colour wash, and the font is shared as well. The colour of the text switches between red and white and the whole panel is fairly simple in design, easy to read and attractive in a toned down, subtle way, rather than being too in-your-face.

Props and Costume

Planning-wise, there isn't really a lot involving props. As the artist doesn't have a specific prop for any particular scene, we will just arrive on set and she will use whatever comes naturally to here.

Some shots will require a prop:

• The kettle our artist switches on when having tea with Theo (New Lover)

• A phone, which will ring and Theo's (the New Lover character) image will appear. The artist will promptly ignore it

• We also needed to make the photo of Eliot in his soldier's uniform which sits in the artist's house. We took a picture of Eliot on my iPhone4 and put different effects on it using the Instagram editing softer available on the app. We then we decided which to use

                                                     (Original)                (Uploaded onto Instagram)

(Different effects)

Costume will similarly require little prior preparation. When we did the photo shoot, we brainstormed some outfit ideas while investigating Phoebe's wardrobe, designing a vintage, nature-loving look for our artist (an emphasis on FLORALS!) Some of the costumes she wore for the photo shoot were mimicked or used for inspiration when deciding what she would wear in varying shots, and we came out with a nice array of outfits.

For Eliot's soldier costume however, more preparation was required. Before filming, we tried to track down a modern army uniform, investigating some charity shops and asking friends. However, nothing came up which would give the right feel to the music video, and wouldn't make it look very realistic in the slightest. Our last hope was to search the school. With permission, we raided the school drama department, finding an oversized 1940's soldier's coat, a range of caps and WW2 soldier trousers, which were extremely high-waisted. The reality of the situation was that we needed a soldier's uniform and if it wasn't for the complex preparation it would take to film a realistic-looking music video set in the 1940's, we would've had the era of the piece being World War II set, like Katy Perry's "Thinking of You". Plus, the idea of our music video was that it was to be set in modern day but with a vintage 40's twist, succinct with our artist's fashion style and personality. With this in mind, we settled for the uniform. 

Instagram

We used a lesson and lunch time of Friday to take publicity photos of Phoebe, our artist. I then uploaded them and some short clips of her singing onto caramaysmith Instagram. We were lucky with the lighting and designed a range of hipster-vintage outfits from Phoebe's wardrobe for her to wear in the photos, as well as her house being an ideal location in terms of her having a studio with a piano, and an autumnal garden.

Once I'd picked the image I wanted to upload it, I could add an affect to it, e.g. "Mayfair", "Rise", "Willow" etc. Some I added an affect to, a lot of them gave the photos an old-feel which fit into how we wanted to present our artist, as vintage-loving, natural, fashion-guru. We also took some abstract shots of the guitar and camera, usual Instagram fodder, just to fill out the artist's profile.





We also uploaded some short clips of our artist singing, giving the fans a sneak-peek at what might be included in the album, which were very well received by audience members.

Images of how the our artist's Instagram profile looks on the computer

Photoshoot

We did a photo shoot at Phoebe's house, for our artist. We can use these for the digipack, social media (Instagram, Facebook and Twitter) and for any other promotion schemes for the artist we need to do.

Animatic Feedback

We got fairly positive reviews from people we asked to view our animatic.

Sir was the first interviewee we approached, as his approval meant that we were on the right track and okay to continue onto the next stage.

I was a little concerned that we would be criticised for lack of clarity in pictures. Although Phoebe's drawings were very good, some of the shots she had to illustrate were complex, requiring a fair amount of detail and we were rushed for time. However, Sir was very nice and encouraging, saying that "We had a good layout and nice sequence of shots for an entertaining music video". He added that "Our shot choices and narrative were strong, the drawing legible and the animatic easy to understand. The syncing to the song was on-the-beat.”

We asked a few of our collective friends to feedback on our animatic as well, and the response was much the same. All of them liked the idea of the soldier returning home, the close-ups of the artist singing and the cute, couple feel the planned footage featured. There was a concern that they wouldn't be able to distinguish each of the two lovers from each other but we quickly tackled that worry by saying that not only would we be featuring a number of close-ups of both actors’ faces, but there would be an effect discerning the clips from the other. 

Animatic

Making of animatic

There were a number of steps we took to make our animatic. At first we brainstormed shot ideas so that we had an idea of what we wanted to include. After that, we delegated Phoebe T to drawing the shots, (I'm awful and lack any art skills whatsoever).

After the various shots were drawn, I took pictures of each on my iPhone then emailed them to myself  (phoebe-claireb@hotmail.co.uk). This caused a little trouble when I occasionally forgot which pictures I'd downloaded and had to re-upload some when putting them in an order. I also had to retake some photos because the light quality or clarity wasn't very good.

I imported the music, "Is He Really Coming Home?" (Track 3) to the program, and then imported each of the shots onto Final Cut Pro. I put them in order, cutting them down so that they fit with the music and cut to different shots on beat with the music or lyrics, dependent which part of the song it was needed. Then I added the information for each shots using the "Title tool" including stuff like what  type of shot it would be e.g. wide shot, close-up. After exporting the video to QuickTime, I uploaded the animatic onto YouTube.com, but had to leave it to load and go to another lesson as the computer predicted it would take around an hour.

Script

Location Shots

We used today to scout out Phoebe's house, a main part of the set. We also carried out a mini photo shoot, which we planned to continue on the Friday of that week, all publicity shots for the website, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Phoebe's house is ideal for filming. She has a old-fashioned brick doorway, which I think would be lovely for shots of the couple being cute and hugging etc after a late-night date. The house has a conservatory which provides a platform for filming through the window into the bedroom, which is ideal for certain shots of the artist singing out of the window, and the garden is really pretty, with a great autumn-colour pallet.

We also plan to use Tooting Common for the picnic flashback shots and couple walking as well as nature shots to fill in time in the video. Brockwell Lido is another location we will be using hopefully for the underwater shots.

We'll also shoot at a bus stop on Mitcham Lane for a flashback sequence and there'll be a range of abstract nature shots using Phoebe's garden as well as other smaller, spur-of-the-moment locations e.g. walking on my way to school.