Goodbye :)

 This has been a hell of a journey with lots of ups and downs. A lot of times I thought about giving up but now I'm glad I pushed through and made it to the end. A Level Media will always be special to me as it challenged me in ways I had never been challenged before and allowed me to tune into the creative side of myself more than ever. Everything I've learned throughout this journey will forever hold a special place in my heart and for that, I'm thankful. 

Prezi link

 Here's a link to my presentation detailing my journey.

Prezi

Creative Critical Reflection

 As mentioned in my early posts, we were tasked with creating a critical reflection of our products. Below is the link to mine.

Jada's critical reflection

Social media page

 @m4rcsidechain

Final digipak design

I decided to make a 5 panel digipak. The warm tones used in the digipak are reflected within the music video, making the themes consistent. Here's the final outcome

The final Healin' Me video!

 After all the changes and refilms, here's my finished product!

Healin' Me Music Video

Finishing touches

I received loads of useful feedback from my teacher, who suggested I add more clips in between the performance scenes as they drag out for too long. Additionally, my teacher also suggested that I scrap the last bedroom scene as the storyline was unclear. With that in mind, I filmed two additional scenes and for one scene, I used clips that I already filmed earlier. Here's my process

Social media engagement update

 I've been keeping up to date with all the engagement on my account and so far it's pretty positive. A lot of people have been sharing, liking and viewing my posts which is great as it helps push my products to a wider audience

Equipment list

The equipment used throughout the shoots was:

• Tripod
• Canon EOS 80D 
• Lenses(colored lenses, mirror lenses, etc.)
• Fisheye lens
• Iphone 13 
• Bose Bluetooth Speaker

Final videooo

Finally done with editing the video. This entire process was challenging, to say the least, but it taught me the importance of patience, time management and planning when it comes to projects. Additionally, I gained some technical skills that will definitely stick with me for life. That being said, here's the final Healin' Me music video

Healin' Me by Nam and Marc

Social media engagement

 So far, I've had positive responses to the social media page with satisfactory engagement with the content, though it's still in the works. 

@m4rcsidechain

Pictures used in the digipak

 These pictures were taken on the same day we wrapped up filming. This is because I felt that the location we were at had the perfect atmosphere for what I was trying to portray. Additionally, I chose a faceless picture to represent that this EP features songs about parts of Marc that he usually hides, hence, why he's hiding his face. The sunset added a pop of color and I tweaked the color scheme in Photoshop to ensure it matches the vibe of the rest of the panels. I also used a still from the video for one of my panels

Digipak design

 I ended up deviating from my inspo when creating the digipak but I believe it still came out fine. We decided to name the EP: 'Marc, Unfiltered'. This specific EP captures Marc in his most raw and vulnerable state, none like he's ever released before. He deviates from his usual rap style in this EP and leans more towards the R&B genre with emotional lyrics and gentle beats. Hence, the reason I decided to completely change the visual. I took inspiration from The Internet for the cover itself. Here's how it went:

My inspo:

Codes and conventions of a digipak

 As part of my research, I decided to familiarize myself with the codes and conventions of a digipak. Here’s a quick breakdown of the main conventions:

• Front Cover: A strong image, artist name, and album title that capture the mood and vibe of the music.

• Back Cover: Tracklist, barcode, credits, and visuals that match the overall style.

• Inside Panels: Extra artwork, lyrics, or thank-you notes, plus a custom design for the CD itself.

• Visual Style: Consistent colors, fonts, and imagery that reflect the emotion of the album and appeal to the target audience.

For Healin Me', I’m aiming for a dreamy, nostalgic aesthetic with warm tones and soft textures.
I want the digipak to feel personal and emotional, just like the music video. Almost like flipping through an old photo album.
The colors, fonts, and images will all reflect the themes of healing, growth, and finding peace.

Digipak research

 As part of the research for my digipak, I looked into fonts that I feel would best represent the theme of my music video. To reinforce that nostalgic vibe, I wanted to use fonts that resemble handwritten notes, so I got to searching. For the title I thought I'd use a basic font like Bebas Neue, just to make it stand out from the rest of the text

Post production-finishing touches

 The last thing I did was add an intro with the title of the music video, as well as the credits. For the intro, I searched for magazine letters to use as the title in order to reinforce the whole vintage vibe

Post production-color grading

 Once I was satisfied with how the video turned out, I moved on to the next stage, which was color grading. YouTube was such a big help when it came to this process, allowing me to create an atmosphere that was desirable to me. 

I wanted my color grading to be similar to that of the Peach music video by Kevin Abstract so I focused on making it have that warm, vintage and nostalgic look with vibrant colors for the flashback scenes and contrast this with cool color palettes for the present day(bedroom) scenes

Post production-Editing

 Once this was done I opened Premiere Pro and started cutting the clips. One challenge I faced was syncing the audio to the video for performance scenes. This was especially difficult because of the fact that a lot of the performance scenes cut to other scenes as well but once I got around that, this process was seamless

Post production

 After everything was finalized, it was time to start post production. First, I gathered all my clips and sorted them into different folders for easy access

Filming Day 5-Last Day!

 Production is finally coming to an end! The last thing I did was film the bedroom scenes, which are meant to be at the beginning and the end of the video. I started off by setting up the room with props which were; clothes from my closet, a suitcase with clothes, and a 'memory box' filled with a bunch of stuff. This was to give the impression that the character is moving out. Then I positioned the camera and got to work. 

I tried to recreate some shots from of my inspo to the best of my ability

Filming Day 4

 On this day, I contacted the artists to inform them that filming would be taking place. Needless to say, they really came through and it was quite a productive day. I relayed my ideas to them and they executed them excellently. The goal was to finish all the performance shots on this day, and we luckily achieved this goal. This scene was heavily inspired by one of the videos from my inspo, which I think was my favorite, so I tried to emulate that same vibe.

Inspo:

My attempt:

Filming Day 3

On this day, we filmed the sunset scene(though I ended up not using most of the clips). The location was at a rooftop at my house, making it easily accessible. With the help of my brother, we managed to get a few decent clips for the scene. This was after battling with the cloudy weather which was my biggest enemy of progress. Despite all that, we managed to get the desired outcome, which was a silhouette effect. 

Filming Day 2

 On the second day, I wanted to experiment with a fisheye lens, and use the props I created, specifically for the skateboard scenes. This is because majority of the skating videos I've scene are shot with fisheye lenses. Luckily, one of my friends owns one and so I was able to get my hands on it, and film a few test shots before I actually started the work. 

Propssss!!!

Here's a process of me creating props for the characters in my video to use. This idea was based off a conversation between me and Naim(one of the artists) who had the idea of characters holding up signs with lyrics of the song. 

Proper filming-skateboard scene

Getting feedback from my teacher really helped me and so I got a move on started filming my final

Today we filmed the skateboard scene — this scene is all about the character reminiscing about a time with her friends, along with a few performance shots with the artists, Marc and Nam, who were happy to help me capture my vision.

The goal was to capture the candid expressions of the characters, all while maintaining that nostalgic and vintage vibe to the video. Here's how the day went: 

The filming took place at a road near my friend's house, who was also a great help in this entire process. We did a few test shots of the performance shots as well as the skateboard ones. Thankfully, the weather was great so we managed to get a few good scenes.

Skateboard scene