Omar’s A2 Media Blog

 Below is the final digipack. The way that it was created was that Anam had used an app called PicsArt after investing some time into it she was able to create an even better version of the digipack and we were both very satisfied with the results. 

 Our initial idea for the digipack was to create an Iris using photoshop. I was not really familiar with how to use photoshop but decided to use google for reference. Most people creating the iris were using the Flame effect that is available on photoshop but unfortunately, the flame effect was not showing up for me. I had tried to download different versions of photoshop too but it was still not showing up. After that I did some more research on how to create an iris, after watching a number of videos, I was able to find one that did not use the flame effect. Although we were not satisfied with the results, it was still a good attempt. This really helped me familiarise myself with photoshop and how to use it. Below is the final iris and the time-lapse:  Video link: https://youtu.be/zPFm8s95YLM The second thing that we had created and not used because we were not satisfied with the results was the back cover, I had downloaded different fonts from google and tried to creat...

 Below is the footage in which we were trying to get the mirror effect which is shown in our storyboard as well. We were not very sure as to how to make it happen but Anam had done research and watched numerous videos on how to apply a mirror effect which really helped in getting the result we wanted.  The footage also includes positioning a few of the shots and adding the cinematic bars. The reason why we had to reposition a few of the shots was because the cinematic bars were cropping our protagonists head. The time lapse also consist of us experimenting with the opacity masks again since we were trying to find the best way possible to achieve what we wanted.  Video link: https://youtu.be/HbDpFN7Nppc

 Below is the comprised 2 hour footage in which we got rid of the grains using the median effect that is available on premier. we had to create different masks for each frame so that the median effect would only apply to certain areas of the frame which were very grainy (Background) and we created the different masks for the face and body so that the face or the body of the protagonist does not get blurred because the median effect intensity was doing so without the masks. Below is the time lapse in which we were adding the masks and the median effect to different shots that had a grainy or noise backdrop:  Video link: https://youtu.be/UE95KtErZu0

Below is the time lapse of the assembly of the music video which contains mostly cropping and joining our footage altogether: Video Link: https://youtu.be/eGOeht2USEQ

 Shoot day 3 was mostly utilised to wrap up all the remaining shots, we had faced a few complications during the last day like our camera battery had ran out at the end, it was getting very late but we had no choice but to complete the shoot, Our light source had also ran out of battery. We were using 3 different lights for our shoot, our main light had ran out of battery and we had to rely on the remaining 2 to complete our shoot, although it was very difficult since the shots had grains and noise and we're really prominent. We made do with what we had and tried our best with the last shot, although it was very difficult, the final shot we had recorded did not have many grains and we decided that we would remove the tiny amounts of noise that was visible on the video during the editing phase of the music video. Below is the shot that we had a lot of complications with:  Video link: https://youtu.be/voQ-XIlwDbk

 Shoot day 2 was mostly utilised for the shots that we had to reshoot or were not happy with from day one. Although it was very time consuming it helped us get the best shots possible that we really wanted for our music video. One of our more difficult shots was the shot in which there was smoke coming from the side. The reason why it was so difficult was because being students, we were trying to reduce the expense of this music video as much as we possibly could since we had already made an investment on the first music video we had shot and were not satisfied with the results. Therefore Anam came up with the brilliant idea of using paper and burning it and after putting it out, there was large amounts of smoke that we had used for the shot. Another factor that we had to keep in mind was the fact that the paper was not supposed to be visible in the frame due to which we had told our friend Mariam to hold the paper right below the frame so the smoke would be closer and more promine...

 Starting off on our shoot day 1, we were able to get most of the beginning shots done for example the closeups of the eyes and knees and the shot in which her nose bleeds. We had a mutual friend Mariam who was really helpful throughout the shoot and helped us get the best results possible. Below is a time-lapse of shoot day 1 Video Link: https://youtu.be/zUJks2b9o2c

 Starting off our first day, a few of the thing's we still had to get in order was to have a black background and since we had already gone way over budget with the first short film and it was very difficult for us to buy a black background so we had decided to simply use a simple black bedsheet as our backdrop and we hung it using pins on the curtains so we would have the desired backdrop for our music video.  We also had to create fake blood out of corn flour and food colouring and a few more ingredients since fake blood was very difficult to find and after going to a numerous number of stores trying to find fake blood so we would not have to struggle with the issues that we had to deal with regarding fake blood. We also spent the day picking out all the outfits we would be using for our main actor.  overall, the rehearsal day was very productive since it made our shoot days much easier since we did not have to prepare everything. 

 The protagonist will sing about her confessions and how she wants to be portrayed as, which is what is reflecting upon the entirety of the project itself and she is giving it a sarcastic tone at the end of almost each confession to give it a more non-serious sarcastic vibe to it. The main intention behind this is for raising awareness about the control each of us as individuals have as to how we would want to portray ourselves to humanity and to ourselves. We will be using Red and Blue lighting for our opening shots. The whole story

 Below is the rough storyboard we have created for our new media project (Bad Guy - Billie Eilish) We used this rough story board to create the finalised official digitalised version of our storyboard.  Below is the rough storyboard: 

 Below is our official storyboard that I had managed since we wanted our storyboard to very clear for our teachers and for our own understanding.  Below is the digital storyboard. 

 The Equipment that we had used for the music video were as follows:  The Equipment other than the Gimbal was already owned by me due to our previous project but we had to rent out the gimbal since we wanted it for our 2 day shoot.  - Nikon D7000  - Benro Tripod:   - Nikkor 50mm AF-S f/1.4G   - ZHIYUN Crane 3 Lab  

Before we proceeded with our second Music video we wanted to get permission from the rightful singer due to which we sent her a text on Instagram since her email address was very difficult to locate. Below is the screenshot in which we explained the purpose of using her music video which was for educational purposes. 

 After thorough discussion with our teachers, and numerous discussions between me and my team member Anam, we had decided to redo our entire project and film an entirely different music video since we were not satisfied with the final project of the first one we recorded and the issues that arose with it were that the shots we're too grainy and the story we wanted to be portrayed was not portrayed in the exact way we wanted it to. We knew we had more potential of creating something better than the project we have created and decided to reshoot a different music video and take care of any obstacles we face along the way.