An issue with my music video - Fog/Smoke Machine

In my music video i wanted to use a fog machine to give the feel of being in a dream however i am unsure of that happening for a number of reasons

• I don't know where to find a smoke machine with the budget that i have in mind, i don't want to rent one out for £35.
• I'm not sure if i am aloud to use a smoke machine in the school building because it might set off the fire alarms. 
• I have asked alot of people if they have a smoke machine or know where to find one and nobody had any clue of where i can get one from. 

That gives me a couple of options, i can keep asking around until i find one, i could rent one out for a ridiculous price or i can use editing techniques to give the impression of fog, which i wanted to do regardless of having a fog machine.

Sophie Habibis – Teenage Dream Music Video
Shot List

Locations/Running Themes

Near The Theatre in school 

Boyfriend Shots Around School 

Relationship Montage

Theatre 
Outside School Building  

Shot 1 – Long establishing shot of school from the outside shot in daylight (1pm/2pm)

Shot 2 – Another establishing shot but this time it is shot from inside school, This is to show the empty corridor

Shot 3 – Long shot of the character walking down the stairs in school with her bag on. 
Shot 4 – A close up of the characters face as she walks down the staircase1

Shot 4 – Wide shot of the character walking down the stairs from a different angle in the corridor

Shot 5 – Medium shot at eye level when she gets to the bottom of staircase1.

Shot 6 – Tracking shot at eye level but from behind to watch her walk – The back of the characters head is in focus with the foreground in shallow focus

Shot 7 – Walking past a class (wide shot) walking from the right of the screen to the left.

Shot 8 – Cut away medium shot of a teacher grabbing the girl’s attention as she leaves her classroom turns into a medium long shot. 

Shot 9 – The teacher and the girl have a 15/20 second convo about work (Shot reverse shots – over the shoulder shots)

Shot 10 – Girl looks annoyed, medium close up of her face from a different angle from the reverse shots
Shot 11 – Cut in of a sheet of paper that the teacher hands her with the lyrics of the song that she needs to rehearse
Shot 12 – Panning the camera around as she moves away from the teacher – Medium close up
Shot 13 – A medium close up of the girl holding the lyrics to the song
Shot 14 – Cut in the piece of paper with the lyrics on, slow zoom on the lyrics 
Shot 15 – She looks up – shot from over her shoulder looking at her boyfriend flirting with someone else
Shot 16 – Her eyes meet his – Point of view Long shot from his eyes looking at her (shot crossing a room girl in focus, everything else out of focus)
Shot 17 – a close up of his face
Shot 18 – Tracking shot from behind walking towards her boyfriend, the boyfriend and the other girl are in the shot, start out of focus when she starts walking and they become in focus when she gets closer
Shot 19 – Medium 3 shot of the 3 characters standing there – starts off with utter silence.
Shot 20 – Over the shoulder shot of the main girl looking at her boyfriend and the other girl (Dialogue is shared) --- Arc shot connecting shot 20 to shot 21
Shot 21 - Medium 3 shot of the 3 characters from a different angle
Shot 22 – Medium close up of each girl, shot reverse shot giving a dirty look to each other
Shot 23 – Pan around when the other girl walks away (walks around the girl & kinda barges her)
Shot 24 – Over the shoulder noddy shot of the girl arguing with her boyfriend 
Shot 25 – Shot reverse shot of those 2 arguing (fast zoom for emphasis)
Shot 26 -  Fast different cuts from various angles cutting the argument - making the argument seem longer
Shot 27 – Argument ends by the boy walking away – Pan around the girl when he walks away.
Shot 28 – Medium shot turning into a long shot of him walking away, over the girls shoulder (slow zoom)
Shot 29 – Medium shot of his face. The reverse view with the girl behind out of focus, the focus changes and she becomes in focus.Cutaway -
Shot 30 – Girl walks up staircase2 (Near the theatre in school) Capture different types of shots from different angles of that happening. Emphasizing on her emotion portraying her as upset.
Shot 31 – over the shoulder shot, zooming on the name of the theatre becoming a close up
Shot 32 – cut away to her hand opening the theatre door
Shot 33 – Turning the lights on in the theatre – reversed
Shot 34 – High angle long shot of her walking across the theatre and onto the stage. This is to introduce the scene of the theatre
Shot 35 – A medium shot of her sitting down behind the piano panning across the empty dark theatre.
Shot 36 – Cutaway Pan across the keys of the piano
Shot 37 – Panning around the piano
Shot 38 – Smoke/Fog appears and spotlight on the main girl (High angle long shot of theatre)
Shot 39 - Her hands playing the piano (Extreme close up)
Shot 40 – Extreme close up of her face at eye level
Shot 41 – Half way through first verse it cuts to her boyfriend in another room of the school looks on his phone to see the time and the background is him and her together (over the shoulder, high angle looking down on the phone) (fades to shot 42)
Shot 42 – Medium shot of her singing at the piano eye level (Different angle)
Shots 43/44/45/46/47 – Different types of shots from many different angles shot in the theatre
Shot 48 – The couple holding hands walking down the street(Extreme close up on their hands)
Shot 49/50/51/52/53 - Different types of shots from many different angles shot in the theatre
Shot 54 – The couple lying in bed together, cuddled up(Birds eye view, medium 2 shot)
Shot 55/56/57/58/59 - Different types of shots from many different angles shot in the theatre
Shot 60 – The boyfriend running through school to make things right with his girlfriend
Shot 61 – Extreme close up of the girlfriends mouth singing
Shot 62 – Zoom out (Birds eye view of her playing piano)
Shot 63 – A shot of the legs of the piano in the smoke from the smoke machine (Close up)
Shot 64 – Boyfriend getting to the bottom of staircase2 listening to her singing and stopping
Shot 65/66/67/68 – Various shots of her still singing in the spotlight playing piano
Shot 69,70,71,72 – a couple shot of them meeting
Shot 73 – The girlfriend putting a load of emotion into the song medium long shot of her
Shot 74 – The theatre door opens with the boyfriend standing there, spotlight on the boyfriend (Medium long shot at eye level)
Shot 75 – Her eyes meet his (Close up of her face)
Shot 76 – His eyes meet hers (Close up of his face)
Shot 76 – Wide shot of both characters in the Theatre
Shot 77 – Boy walks over towards the girl (Tracking shot)
Shot 78 – They hug (over the shoulder shot, over the girls shoulder)
Shot 79 – Pan around the hug to see her face, she then closes her eyes
Shot 80 – She opens her eyes to see an empty room, no smoke and no spotlight (Close up of her face)
Shot 81 – Long shot of the empty Theatre, this represents emptiness  

Conventions Of A Music Video - Rihanna Ft Calvin Harris

Rihanna ft Calvin Harris - We Found Love

The music video for Rihanna’s We Found Love consists of many conventions of a music video. The camerawork has an impact on meaning that she is trying to portray. In Rihanna’s music video the camera is not perfectly still, it has a lot of camera shake, which I think connotes their relationship right from the beginning. Shots drifting in and out of focus represent the unease that Rihanna is feeling. The angles and shot distance both also play a part in the representation of Rihanna and her emotions in the song. During the scene where a group of people are dancing in the middle of the field and Rihanna is on her boyfriends back, high angle and low angle shots are used to show how hectic the scene is getting. Another way of showing fast pace and situations becoming hectic is with the editing.  The editing is a crucial part of a music video, it’s often cut to the beat of the music and that produces a fast-cut montage. Often enhancing the editing are digital effects, which play with the original images to offer different kinds of pleasure for the audience.

Back panel of my digipak (Development)

Sophie Habibis is not a professional artist and there are not really that many photos of her on the internet so i have to work with what i have got. I researched on loads of websites for professional looking photos of her and i found what was advertised to her 'her official fan' website and i was really drawn to this one photo.

This is the photo i wanted on the back, her style of clothing is a contrast to what she is wearing on the front of the digipak. She is portraying a different style in this photo, she is wearing all black and her hair is not as neat as the front cover. Her rock look is another element of her personality that i would like on my digipak, she is on the stage with a massive grin on her face. This shows the audience that she enjoys being on stage.

I began with this photo cropping it to size, so Sophie on the right hand side of the cover. I then slightly adjusted the background by adjusting the colours and added the circles growing out from behind her head, representing the 50's microphone.

I then added the track list next to Sophie, i made sure the track list was written in a clear font. I picked Verdana, however the font might change in the final stages of my digipak. I centered the track list, i find this makes it easy to read. I applied a suttle glow and a shadow to highlight the text and make it stand out more. The tracks were chosen by me, some names of the songs were made up and i decided to choose songs that she's already sung and/or i would like her to sing.

After seeing the panel like that i wasn't happy with it. I decided to make Sophie bigger in the frame, almost bringing her forward, like she is closer to the audience. I wanted to do this for a number of reasons, i didn't like how her belt was showing and i didn't think it looked interesting enough. Sophie also seemed kinda distant in the shot.

Digipak - Front Cover (Front Cover Development)

The front cover of my digipak consists of the artist on the right hand side of the cover, the name of the album and her name is beside her on the left hand side. Sophie is posing and there is direct contact with the audience with the use of eye contact. The background fades from red into orange and then into yellow, from the bottom left had corner to the top right. I added a drop shadow behind Sophie so she stands out more against the background.

To improve this basic design i added a drop shadow to her name and her album name to make the text stand out and look alot more clear then it did before. The shadow on the text is at the same angle as the shadow on Sophie, i done this because i thought it looked better and slightly more real, it's as if there is one light source casting a shadow on both Sophie and the text.

I then thought that the background needed more, it needed something to make it less boring. I played around with a new layer behind Sophie and the text. I added rings behind her head by using the radial gradient to conotate an old 50's style microphone, this is to match her style and voice.

I think adding the rings makes Sophie stand out a considerable amount more than she did before, i think this adds dimension to the front cover. The rings also conoate the style of microphone they sung in the 50's.
After adding the rings, i didn't think it was jelling together as well as i wanted it to, so what i did was change the colour of her dress from this peachy orangey colour to orange by using the colour balance. I selected the parts of her dress that i wanted to change the colour to and i copied and pasted it onto a new layer, to change the colour i played around with the colour balance. 

Font Type - Jellyka Delicious Cake

I have chosen a font that i found on a font website for my digipak. I thought that would be more unique and original than the standard fonts that you would find on programs like word and photoshop.


I tried a website called dafont.com; this website was fantastic and provided me with the font that I used to run through all of my digipack covers. It offers a massive variety of font possibilities, designs..etc. I decided to used a font named 'Jellyka Delicious Cake' because i think it suited the style i was looking for. It's written in a calligraphic style and I think it is quite a feminine font type because it's curly way it's written, I also think it's quite a sophisticated font. 
After deciding on this font i wanted to make it even more unique by playing about with the way some of the letters were written.

I took away some of the letter and added dots, i done this to represent the 14 tracks on her album. Each song being so emotionally connected to Sophie it's literally written in her name. I also joint her names together i think this jells it together and makes it look allot better 

My Digipak Ideas

For my digipak i wanted to create a brand for an upcoming artist so i could keep my ideas separate from ideas that have been done before. My artist is going to be X Factor evictiee Sophie Habibis, i like her voice, her style and her style of music so producing a digipak is going to be fun.

Font - for a font i was thinking something that either looked hand drawn or in a calligraphy style. For example Bickham Script Pro Regular or Edwardian Script ITC. I want to use old fashioned fonts and edit it on photoshop to make it original. 

Colour Scheme - I wanted to use red as a running colour through my digipak. The colour red connotes stability, love, warmth and high energy. The connotations of the colour red is also going to follow in the songs i put on the digipak. Some love songs, songs that make people feel warm inside and some high energy songs.  

Blog1 - Photoshop Skills

Our first project we done for A2 was to re create a digipack cover or back of the cover. First of all we looked at the cover we had chosen as a group, we then took photos in groups in the same style and our task was use photoshop to manipulate the photos we had taken to copy the look of the digipack. Originally we took photos to re create Jack Johnson's  

I already knew how to use photoshop so i got stuck right in, i used other peoples photos to create a photomontage of the back copying