Newspaper article

 For a section of my music video I had a news paper article I created myself to explain the significance of the death of the band member it showed 2 headlines "Foals Guitarist Dies At Age 18, "Alex Atkinson Found Dead" which both singularly appear after the original article appears, the article is one of mourning with pictures of the dead band member posing for a photo shoot and then also with fans of the band.

Two edited shots that I took for the main image of the Dead band member i went for the image above because it shows Alex staring into space and fits with the sadness of the article.

Location Shots

Other previous ideas for the Digi pack

All final products are derived from previous ones and lots of different ideas. Here are some of my other ideas that were experimented with for the digi pack. Eg. Foals written in 6 foot letters with acorns, skylines with surreal clouds and a view of the sky through woods.

Magazine cover

When creating the magazine cover i wanted to create an entirely new image that kept the ideals that the Album Digi pack had created, for this i kept the theme of the bright blue sky edited for a surrealistic feel, I started with this plain but aesthetically pleasing image of the sky which was perfectly blue and then to break up this consistent image a trail of a plain running through and stopping half way through the image.

At the end of this plane trail to keep a surrealistic view i took the original image of Alex Atkinson that i used in the three images in the Digi pack. I then made this photo very small and put it at the end of the plane trail as if the Character was creating the trail instead and looked at though he was falling from the sky to the Earth.

I then put the font from the Digi Pack and put it at the bottom of the image then used a clear white text to give information on the release date, then at the very bottom gave a 5 star review keeping a clear and precise text at the bottom of the clear and surrealistic image.

Back of Digi Pack

The back of the digi pack is somewhere where the songs are shown and the order in which they play in. The image has to support the songs being shown in a clear and distinct manor. I wanted the sort of retro 70's feel to continue to the back of the Digi pack but at the same time did not want another image to be on the back as generally it ruins the images look and also does not support the song title list in a clear enough manor, even the band Foals in their Total Life Forever album do not use a visual image.

For mine i started with the retro image pattern:

With this repeating pattern i used as a background image which gave the retro feel, i then added the text i had originally used on the front cover as this kept the consistency running through the Digi pack:

Then by adding the solid black retro surf like electro font for the band name 'Foals' kept the consistency then by adding the Transgressive record label and barcode which is consistent of most professionally produced Album's.

Inside and Back of Digi pack

When studying other Digi packs i realised that the inside pages were three 12 cm squares in a row, with this in mind i decided i wanted to create three images that somehow linked together. Starting with an image i took of home park which i'd spent time editing to a surreal point much like the front cover i decided to duplicate the photo and have it as the background in each square with something different happening in each square on the same background.

I decided the variant to be changing in each photo would be fittingly the character (Alex Atkinson) who plays the dead body in the video and as there is a theme of resurrection in the video i thought it would again be fitting to have a theme of resurrection in the three images, for this i decided to have the character appearing out of the water, further and further in each shot. To keep the surreal feeling continuing i decided to not just have one person resurrecting but to have the same person duplicated 12 times at different points in the water. I cut out the image on photoshop of the character and then layered it on top of the original image with in the first image just his head visible, then the second his head and chest visible then finally in the third image his whole body above the water and a couple of people appearing to fly towards the sky.

Digi Pack Planning

Foals generally go for a surreal tint to their art work using water clearly in their album cover, when doing my album cover I wanted to continue along a similar vein to foals, but take things further than foals generally do. With the thought of surrealism in my mind I went about creating what was to be my front cover of the album i wanted to produce something very eye catching to the viewer that was both real and imaginary at the same time. I started with the image of looking up through a canopy of leaves at a bright blue sky. I then edited it to have a tint of surrealism about it as all the colours I have enhanced to a non realistic state to give an almost retro 1970's look about it, I edited the photo using iphoto and played about with the editing software it provides until I found the right levels to make the photo achieve what i wanted.

I then on photoshop took a font i liked and put that on top of the edited photo with the words, 'Foals' and 'Total Life Forever' over the top showing the band and album name.

I then ended up with with my album cover in completion with a surreal feeling to a natural image.

The themes i presented in my album was important in connecting with my original film treatment as in the treatment as there is a question raised in what is reality, there are dreamlike qualities and the viewer is left with a question of was the dead friend character resurrected to spend one last day with his friends before returning to the grave or was the love so strong and the need to see the dead friend so strong that it was just a dream desperately held onto? so was important to create an image to the viewer that is real but with an unreal quality, a beauty to it but a sense of unreal to the image at the same time.

Other posible scene to fireworks

In order to see which handheld scene worked best, I decided to film two posible options, this is the scene of my music video i decided not to choose to use, it was a group of friends of the band member having a poker game. It shows friendship and fun in the same view as the firework scene, through the eyes of the dead band member incarnate. 

Costume Mood Board

 My costumes are simple but meaningful the classic black tie look this is good as it means my charictors all look very similar and in a way are all together as one, to achieve this my charictors all have to have the following:

Font Mood board

The font for the digi pack is very important as it needs to keep the tone of the video and song so it cant be too gothic for example but also not too happy and curly. However on sites like 'Da Font' there are many different types of font to chose from, this shows some of the varieties of fonts.

Digi pack demo

Today I made a handwritten album digi pack which has on the front page a small shot from the music video, then when opened out there is a large image 3 times the size of the first image of another lanscape image of a charictor walking down a path surrounded by trees which will be the end shot in my music video. On the remaning 2 pages on page which will be the back page has the album name and listings of all the tracks over a background image of another shot from the music video of Polaroid pictures being burnt. And the middle page will have all the information such as the music video director and producer.

Story Boarding

It is important to use story boarding as it makes sure everything you do is focused and organised when it comes to the actual shoot. With my storyboard i used post-it notes where i laid out what is happening in each of my shots throughout my video

For example In this photo i showed one of my opening shots of my character Charlie in a desolate field dressed in full black tie with the shot showing a 360 degree panning shot around him

Props and Casting List

The props i will need are:

7 Black suits - which each member of the cast will provide
A Ladder in order to achieve ariel shot from a birds eye view
Video Camara - This is self provided

Cast:
Alex Atkinson - Resurrected Friend
Charlie Lindsay - Mourning friend 1

UNFINISHED

Inspiration for Music Video

Chase and Status - Blind Faith

I took inspiration from this video especially on the video sequence for the car traveling sequence

Also i gained inspiration from the Mumford and Sons video 'Winter Winds' where it shows 4 people walking away from something and this some what boring sequence they have made to look very visually interesting to the viewer

This song also makes a person walking very visually exciting and also creates a somewhat similar tone to what i want to create

These videos have been a big help in backing up what shots i will use and although are not the same as what i will use in my video give me a good idea of visually how my video will look.

Background On Foals and Spanish Sahara research

Foals are an English indie rock band from Oxford. They are currently signed to Transgressive Records Sub Pop in the US. They released their debut album Antidotes on 24 March 2008 in the UK, and 8 April 2008 in the US. The band's second album, Total Life Forever, was released on the 10 May 2010 and was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize. in the UK and  

Spanish Sahara is the first song released from Foals' second album Total Life Forever. Although not an official single, it was the first song to be released from this album. It was premiered on 1 March 2010, on BBC's Radio 1. Later that night, a music video for the single was put up on the Foals' website. On 6 March, when the Total Life Forever site went up, Foals premiered instrument samplings of the tracks that would be on Total Life Forever in the track listing order. The fifth sample was a synthesizer sample of "Spanish Sahara".

The single was released on 17 April only as a 7", to celebrate Record Store Day. Only 1000 copies were printed and sold through independent record stores. The remix of the song by Mount Kimbie was later available as a free MP3 given to members of the Foals website.

"Spanish Sahara" peaked at number 148 on the UK Singles Chart. The song was number one in the NME top 50 songs of the year 2010. In February 2011 it won the award for 'Best Song' at the NME Awards. On 26 January 2011 the song was voted Number 98 on the Triple J Hottest 100, 2010.

Philippakis once stated that it was probably the first song to be completed of the album and that it has no reference to the real Spanish Sahara.

The song was used in a promotional trailer for Season 7 of the HBO TV show Entourage and in a Series 2 episode of Misfits. 

Location

Im able to show the location of my music video using Google Maps

The location i have chosen is the area of Home Park near Hampton court palace which is an area of open land with long grass covering which is aesthetically pleasing.
No lighting is needed for this as all the lighting is natural daylight, Also as the sequence is going to filmed using just a camera so there is nothing to worry about electrically.

Writing for Permision

Research Technologies

://www.xtranormal.com/watch/12953617/foals-spanish-sahara-research