#a2production

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I also wanted to create animated GIFS of the pictures I used for my digipak and advert using the four pictures that I had taken of each shot. I already had the four edited frames of each of the different location and they were all already cropped and centred around the correct object. It was therefore fairly simple to animate the four frames into one GIF.

For the first GIF, I started by loading the four different frames as different layers on one Photoshop file (below left), starting with the first frame at the fourth frame at the top. I then duplicated the 3rd frame and added that as the top frame and then duplicated the second frame up to the top. This will result in a full loop of frames.

I then converted all of these 6 layers into the animation frames (below, top) and then set the interval to 0.1 second and the loop to ‘forever’. This meant that the frames would flick from one to the next rapidly, looping back to the start when it reaches the end.

With the animation complete, I just had to export it as a GIF file. This was done using the ‘Save for Web & Devices’ option on Photoshop. I then set the file type to GIF, the size to 50% (to help the GIF run smoother), the quality to ‘Bilinear’, and the looping option to ‘Forever’ (as shown below)

The final GIF for this candle picture can be seen below.

I then repeated this exact same process with the other sets of images to create the other GIFs below:

For these final two GIFs, I created PNG files of both the album cover and advert with a blank square where the image should go. I then overlaid this PNG onto both these animations to get moving versions of the album cover and advert (below). These could be used for online promotion.

Advert // Animated GIF

Front Cover // Animated GIF

Stage One // The Shoot

For the inside panels I needed four separate pictures. All of which I shot using the stereoscopic 4 angled techniques. I used the 4 camera/ stepladder technique for the shots from these two angles, (the one facing up the aisle, left, and the one at the altar, right). This required moving the stepladder rig and adjusting the height of the planks to get the right angle.

The final two pictures that I shot for the bonus panels were of the angles (below left) and of the alter (below right). These were shot using the single camera method, setting it to burst shooting mode with a fast shutter speed and capturing 4 shots as I steadily pan to one side.

Stage Two // Post Production

I then went through the same process that I had done previously to edit the pictures and to add a variation of the cover preset to each of the sets of four pictures. This would allow me to create the stereoscopic effect if I choose to later. However, for the production of the inside panes, I only required one of these four frames for each of the different locations.

Left hand panel

For this panel, I started with the same, plain, pinky off-white background that I had used for the bonus panel and added two of the stills – the shot looking up the aisle with the shot of the alter tucked behind it. To add to this, I took the “I need you, I want you” lyric from the song and added it to the panel, splitting the lyric in half, putting each half in the same font but in different colours. As for the colour of these two phrases, I chose to put the first in the same blue that I had used for the front cover border and the second in the same grey that I had used for the album title on the cover. The final edit of this panel is below.

Middle panel

This panel is where the disk is found, so I wanted to find a way to illustrate this on the digipak. I started with the light blue that had been used on the back cover and added in the edited version of the angels picture. I then used the selection tool to make a selection around the shape of the disk holder from the template, I then inverted this selection and deleted everything outside of it on the angles picture, making sure that the angels were central and weren’t going to be deleted. This step is shown in the picture below.

I then decided to add the title and artists name to the inside of the disk holder. To do this, I typed out ‘LOVE$ICK’ in the same Keep Calm font in white and placed a blue square behind the text layer to help the text stand out from the background. I then repeated this with the word ‘MURA’ and the word ‘MASA’ below it. Keeping the same colour scheme for the ‘MASA’ but completely inverting the colour scheme of the text and box for the ‘MURA’. I think this created a really simple but effective title and artist’s name on the disk holder and the colour scheme and font fitted really well with the rest of the digipak. To add one final touch, I rotated the ‘A’ of ‘MASA’ to make it look like a reflection of the ‘A’ of ‘MURA’. The final middle panel is below.

Right hand panel.

I started off this panel with a blue background and then added one of the edited pictures from the alter (below left). I then added another lyric from the song, “They only killing time, another second gone”, putting the first half of the lyric at the top of the panel in white, and the second half of the lyric below the picture in a dark red that I sampled from the red of the carpet in the picture. This edit is show below right.

However, I wanted to experiment with another technique which is the ‘rip and repair’ effect in Photoshop. This gives the impression that the picture has been ripped in two and the two halves have been placed next to each other. In my version, I decided to make one of the halves of the rip black and white and keep the second half as the original preset. To do this, I created I rip shape selection from one corner to other on the black and white layer and deleted the top half of this black and white image. I then copied the selection and inverted it to delete the bottom half of the ‘colour’ picture, leaving a gap in-between the two images.  This meant that the shape of the rip was the same but inverted in both of the two layers. To sell the effect I wanted to emulate the white edge that you get on ripped paper. To do this, I duplicated the black and white half of the image, filled this with white, placed it behind the black and white layer, offsetting it a few pixels to create a white edge to the rip. I then added the ‘splatter’ effect to this white layer to create the rough edge that you get on a ripped piece of paper. This final version can be seen below and I think it is much more effective.

Stage One // The Shoot

For the bonus panel I took pictures of an old cassette. This would fit with the analogue theme running throughout the digipak, and is also quite an aesthetically pleasing subject. To do this, I took a blank cassette tape and labelled it with ‘love$ick’ in pen and then set about setting up the shoot. I found a well-lit area in my house, with two floor-to-ceiling windows as the light sources, and laid down the tape on top of a sheet of white A3 paper, which acted as a backdrop.

I then put my camera on my tripod and used the extendable arm of the tripod to shoot the flat-lay shot. I made sure that the shot was well exposed with a fast shutter speed to get a really crisp picture. I also set the camera to shoot at a 2 second delay to remove any possible camera-shake. Then set up for this shoot can be seen below.

Stage Two // Post Production

I wanted this panel to be very simple, with just the picture of tape, the post production was therefore fairly simple. I started by making some basic adjustments to the contrast, exposure and levels curve before isolating the cassette tape from the background using the selection brush. This allowed me to change the colour of the background to the desired pinky off-white. I then added the same ‘cool film’ filter to the cassette layer, this time without the grain or scratches overlay, to help it fit in with the rest of the digipak.

I then added a few effects to the paper label of the tape to make it look a bit older. To do this, I gave it a slightly yellow-ier tint and added some paper blemishes to sell the fact that its an old tape. The original picture of the tape is above, and the final panel is below.

Stage One // The Shoot

The set up for the back cover photo was much easier than the front cover set up, shooting a candle on the side alter. I still wanted to capture four stereoscopic images for this shot however, the fact that I was back behind the camera and that the subject was still I instead opted to use a single camera method.

To do this, I set the camera to a fast 1/1000 sec shutter speed on burst shooting mode. I then moved the camera in a steady straight line at a side on view of the subject, capturing four evenly spaced images. After a few attempts to get this action smooth, I ended up with a series of four images, as seen below. This method allowed me to make the distance between each of the 4 different ‘perspectives’ much shorter, which will create a much subtler jitter effect in post, one much similar to the Nishika N8000 jitter.

Stage One // Post Production

In a similar process to the front cover image. I opened all 4 of the images as separate layers on a Photoshop file, aligned and rotated them all so that the cradle was in the exact same position in each of the photos and cropped them to the right size. I then also wanted the candle to appear lit in the 4 images. To do this, I overlaid a PNG of a candle flame and aligned it to the wick of the candle from the image, reducing the opacity of the flame to 85% to give it a more realistic look. With this done, I added the same preset that I had created for the front cover, adjusting it slighting by reducing the detail extractor and darkening the shadows quite a bit. This helped to help the candle stand out from the back ground. I then added this edited preset to all four frames and saved them all as individual images. The before preset and after preset is below.

I then started off with the edit of the back cover. I started with an off-white background and created a track list using the same font and blue colour that I had for the front cover. I then went through and put all the featured artists in brackets and in a smaller font size to help the actual track names stand out. This completed stage can be seen below left). I then continued to add the logo of the record label, removing the original white background using the quick select tool and changing its black colour to the same blue colour of the text. Next to this, I added a barcode and followed the same process, removing the background and changing its colour. I then added a section of legal writing in a thinner, much smaller font to make it less obtrusive in the composition. You can see this all completed in the image below right.

I then added the candle image and adjusted some of the track list to make room for the image and removing any overlapping. I then decided to change the background color to a really pale blue, identical to the one that I used for the ‘MURA MASA’ text on the front cover. The final back cover can be seen below.

Stage One // The Shoot

After shuttling all of the kit up to the church, it was time to start setting up the cameras. This was a similar process to the one I used in the music video, however this time I decided to set the cameras up on two planks of wood, on top of a step ladder, counterweighted with a weight. This would give me more flexibility on the positioning of the rig and also allowed me to get the cameras closer together that I had done using the 4 tripods on the music video rig. This would result in a slightly less severe jitter, closer to the ones created by the Nishika N8000, with the 4 different perspectives being closer less extreme. I then went through all of the cameras, setting them all to the exact same shutter speed, ISO and aperture so that they all capture a near identical image, as well as setting the focus mode to single servo and the shutter mode to ‘Remote Release’.

With this done, I went on to set up the frame that would stand just outside of the composition, and would allow me to suspend a glass of wine using the cotton string. This was made out of the metal tubing and joints that I had found and secured with masking tape to provide additional strength. I had also constructed two ‘feet’ at the bottom of the two ends of the stand to ensure the structure was freestanding. I then looped the string over the top of the metal frame and tied the wine glass to the bottom of the string, using two small pieces of Sellotape to unsure the glass would hand straight, stopping it from tipping over. The suspended glass can be seen below.

With this ready, I set up the softbox to fill in the fairly strong shadow that was being cast across the set from the bright sunlight. The full set can be seen below.

I then went about shooting the cover photo, getting my dad to press the shutter release which, when held in the right place, set off the four cameras at the exact same time. I then experimented with lots of different poses and positions of the camera rig, giving me lots of options to edit in post.

Stage Two // Post Production

After sifting through the 100’s of pictures from the cover shoot, I settled on a set of four pictures and loaded them as separate layers in Adobe Photoshop. I then lined them all up so that the wine glass was positioned in the exact same place in all of the frames and cropped the set of images to a square ratio. I then went trough each of the pictures and removed the string using the spot healing and clone stamp tool for each frame. The image below shows the before and after of this process.

I then repeated this process on the remaining three frames and went about creating a preset to add to the images. To do this, I started by adding a cool ‘Film filter’ from the Analogue Efex Pro plug-in that I had installed onto my Adobe Photoshop. I then; decreased the shadows and exposure; increased the detail extraction; deceased the saturation; and increased the contrast of the image. This gave me a colour filter that I really liked. This can be seen below left. However, to really sell the ‘film camera’ effect that I was going for, I then went through and added a fairly strong ‘film grain’ effect and even added a ‘dirt and scratches’ overlay to sell the fact that it is an old picture. The result of this can be seen below right. I then saved this ‘recipe’ as a preset and added it to the remaining 3 images.

For the rest of the production of the cover, however, I only needed one frame so I chose the most central frame and opened it up in Photoshop. I then went through all of the fonts and settled on one that I had previously downloaded called Keep Calm for all of the text. I then played around with the positioning of the ‘LOVE$ICK’ and ‘MURA MASA’ textboxes, settling with a ‘split’ look for the title which I made by duplicating the ‘LOVE$ICK’ textbox, positioning one at the top and one at the bottom of the frame. I then positioned the ‘MURA MASA’ above the ‘LOVE$ICK’ at the bottom, using a smaller and more spread out version of the same font. In terms of colour choice, I used a gray for the album title which I had sampled from the wall in the background, and a cream white for the artist’s name that I had also sampled, this time from the window. This sampling of colours from the image gave both the image and the text a very similar feel, linking them together. This was my first draft of the cover and can be seen below.

However, I wasn’t 100% happy with the composition and look of the cover so I made a few changes. First of all, I created a border around the image because I felt the layout of the cover was previously too claustrophobic. I filled this border with a blue that I had sampled from the shadows of the image. I then also added the ‘Parental Advisory’ logo, which is a convention seen on most album covers, changing the colour of the logo to match the same white from the window. Finally, I tweaked the colour of the ‘MURA MASA’, changing it to a really light blue to help if stand out in the composition. This final edit of the album cover can be seen below.