JC: Finished Digipak Artwork

Our Album Artwork evolved substantially in the final week of production, and myslef and Alex were both pragmatic in our decision making process - taking on board criticism and responding quickly to the problems we encountered.

At the beginning of the week, following the completion of our filming we focused our efforts on printwork. Alex had skillfully designed three different images featuring our 'emergency exit man' which in effect told a story of the man going through different doors and arriving at different scenarios, showing his transformation. It was at this point that we decided to move away from our six-pane digipak design and instead opt for a four piece pullout booklet featuring Alex's designs, whilst I would design the front cover, back cover, inside right and inside left panes of the CD case.

This meant that Alex would have to create another design, whilst I now needed two ideas for the inside covers of the packaging. I decided to create one pane which would be the flames from our first emergency exit sign, as this would be in keeping with the core icon of our printwork. This would go benhind where the CD is placed. This flame was also used in Alex's final piece, which had a burning building (with the flames) and the emergency exit man flying towards it. For the inside cover of the digipak, I decided that it would be good to have a band photo, as this would allow the customer to see who's work they are purchasing, whilst also conforming to generic conventions by showing band unity. This is also in line with previous artwork from The Pigeon Detectives, as their photos show them together.

The font I decided to use - 'Heroes Assemble' - was taken from Dafont and connotes heroism as it is similar to fonts used in Superman, for example. I decided used it for both the Album and Band name, as well as Track listing and Inside Cover to make it's use continuous. Finally, after discussions we decided that it would be best to change the guitar that had been created from an emergency exit alarm sign to a normal guitar. This, if anything, enhanced the generic conventions of our piece as there is now another icon associated with our genre of indie/rock.

Therefore, I am now pleased to be able to say that we have completed our Digipak and thus our overall production has been completed!

Booklet Inner Cover

Booklet Outer Cover




Finished Digipak Design

 

AT: Thursdays lesson 1/12/11

In todays lesson we made the final tweaks to our video and have completed it, all that was left in the edit was to cut up the shots up abit more in order to flow with the tempo of the track, Miss Fernandez watched our video and gave us feedback ofwhich we made the changes to the video and then exported the video as a MPEG 1080i 30 FPS then had to re-export the 30FPS to the 25FPS in order to run smoothly on the DVD rather than it cutting out frames of our piecewhen it gets played back, this took sometime however once it was completed, the group was very pleased with the final result we had produced and we then shared it on youtube on our groups account. Also Jack and I had completed our Digipak, with an impresive Emergency theme running throughout the 8 Panes including a group photo.

CM: NME Final Advertisement for "Emergency" - The Pigeon Detectives

CM: Group Final production: "Keep on your dress" - The Pigeon Detectives

Group: Callsheet and Risk Assesment

Here is the example of our Callsheet and Risk Assesment of which we had to fill out for when we undertook a shoot.

AT: Tuesdays lesson 29/11/11

In todays lesson Cameron and I were editing our new footage in with the rest of the previous footage. We have now got every clip we want into the timeline and now just need to make a few tweaks and maybe move a few clips around and then cut them up even more in order to create a fast cutting rate when at the chorus parts of the song.

[Insert picture of performance, brighton and slow mo shot]

Overall Cameron and I were very pleased with all the footage we have and both agree that the video looks very authentic, now its just making the video flow better and a few bits to edit.

JC: In what way are your video and printwork rich in connotation?

In the lead up to the production process, we primarily undertook research into critical theories and secondarily into examples of other artists' work and how these theories had been applied to those, in order to understand how and where to use them in our piece. With just one week to go, I believe we have been successful in transferring a great deal of what we learnt into our own work.

I feel that one trait that is present throughout much of the cut (apart from when Cameron is singing into the camera) is that of comradery. Whilst for our studio shoot we all needed to be in shot together, there are various shots we took around Brighton where it is as if you are watching a home video (filmed on handicam) of the band, sometimes with arms around one another etc. This connotes the idea that we are a proper band who are regularly in contact with one another and are good 'mates' and each have individual traits - for example, I tried to connote a grumpiness that was unique to myself throughout every shoot, but which could also be understood by everyone else.

Furthermore, there are also references to popular culture in our printwork pieces. The subjects of our work - emergency exit signs - have been manipulated but remain recognisable to their original forms, which is why I believe they are ingenious. They represent a clever twist on the images to suit our genre because the guitar on the back cover [INSERT STILL] links to indie/rock and the uniqueness of the images again link to the indie part. When considering this piece I also looked at the cover for 'Stars Of CCTV' by Hard-fi, where althoughthe image is not manipulated there is a cartoon picture of a CCTV camera, which like the 'Emergency' signs is associated with Health and Safety and is using the title of the album to connote a visual.

Our costumes also connote ideas of the genre we are interested in representing. We can all be seen to be wearing chinos or jeans, tight t-shirts etc, whilst in performance and some shots in Brighton we have authentic musical instruments. In this way we are conforming to stereotypical assumptions of the genre, whilst also again making our band more convincing as a product and in terms of authenticity of performance.