Album cover

 As I have experimented with certain pictures I took around my neighborhood, I found a filter on my Samsung called "Magic Pen" and it puts the opposite color of the palette into the object and creates a retro futuristic look of the 80's like the typical videogame or perception of what the future would be like in the 80's. 

Here I will display my first experimentation with the filters of the camera from which my band members rejected as concept ideas for the album even though I did accept them.

For your information this is a water post next to a rock colored in rainbows, which I found on my street :)

But the album cover that we decided on was this teeth that seems as if it is a radiography but in reality is a case where I keep my earrings. So by editing the actual colors of the picture, it had a really interesting look that fitted both an 80's "futuristic" look and also involves an unconventional object when it reality comes from a simple subject of a personal belonging. So we really found this interesting and I look towards this week continue editing the picture to add the logo of the band, from which I have not determined if I had to switch the colors of the emblem. I will have o work on that and keep you updated :)

For some reason the first pictures give me a feeling of Joy Division or The Smiths album covers.

Ideas for the Album cover

 Today I did a meeting with the band and we got to discuss how we wanted the look for the album. As I have researched many artists do either editing on a picture of the actual band like the Clash's "Combat Rock"; decide to approach it in a surrealistic manner by creating a piece through collage such as Tyler the Creator's "Flower Boy:; just display the band's logo like many Aerosmith's "Permanent vacation"; create an artwork like all Grimes's albums or approach it in the indie manner, which is to capture a simple element of the everyday life like Mk. Gee's "Over Here". Of course, there are plenty of ways to approach an album cover, but this is how I have summed it up according to the Alternative genres of either punk rock or indie music in general.

The Clash- Combat Rock

Tyler the Creator- Flower Boy

Aerosmith- Permanent Vacation

Grimes- Visions

Mk. Gee- Over Here

So as we were discussing we got to the conclusion that I should create a piece either by photoshopping a natural picture, like Mk. Gee's example or to create a mix media piece like my 2D AP portfolio is. For the idea that we are striving, it would be interesting to either include aspects of our personal identity such as the Venezuelan and Colombian background into a darker toner mixing the tropical environment with the punk rock aesthetic or for the natural picture, it would focus on an intriguing object that could be accommodated into an unconventional album.

So this weekend I will be planning on these concepts and viewing what matches better the band's aesthetic and the song's tone. Let's see what I come up with, specially how would I involve our logo.

Music video and song

I have been working again on editing the video. I go back and forth to it. As I have checked it recently, the only accommodations needed for the video would be to fix on the bridge of the song, the drum beat since I messed up for a second which eventually affect all the sound. So, the way in which I am fixing this is by cutting out that mistake and instead placing the beat that was done continuously throughout  the song. On the other side, Olga finally finished her bass lines and already putted together with the whole song's audio completed. And if I forgot to mention, the song's vocals have the effect of the "telephone" from garage band since it goes better with the mood of the song and style of starting bands such as Alex Turner did most of the time when Arctic Monkeys started off such as in the song Teddy Picker.

Lastly, I think we are back again on considering a filter for the music video in order to incorporate this nostalgic tone to the video since the Generation Z has shown the tendency on social media of appreciating the "vintage" or "nostalgic" to an era that we did not get to actually live, which is most of the times the 80's. Therefore, in the music video I am looking towards adding a filter that would soften the visuals to me it seem as a video tape from the 80's. Striving for the camera quality of the music video "Little Girls" by Oingo Boingo; an actual music video of the era; or how the current punk band The Garden did on the music video of "Thy Mission" with Mac Demarco, whom has been a constant inspiration for the music video.

Little Girls -Oingo Boingo

Thy Mission by The Garden 

Also I found fascinating how the music video of Thy Mission made references to the Punk/Goth Scene of the 80's as our video, without having known of this band. Overall, this music video and the band itself reinforces the idea that there is a current target audience of indie music specially on the punk genre inspired by the 80's; exactly what our band Flapper is striving for.

To do's

 Since I am almost finished with the project I need to have planned out the missing tasks for the portfolio to be completed. Overall, I need to further develop the Instagram account, and start the digipak which would involve both photoshoots of the band and the members and the content of the album itself; even though we are just displaying the song Memoria. For the record, the album will be named: The Last Rays of Light referring to the the experience of creating the music video, since we were going according to the time of day to film certain Rock genres. But during the process, we were definitely taking advantage of "The Last Rays of Light".

Therefore, for the album I could further develop on the idea of light to involve it for the art of the album along with the pictures taken during both of the filming days, the punk scene and in the aero plane station which together involve both playful and creative ways to approach the presentation of a band; and as I have discussed with the band, we have to agree on which pictures to include on the digipak.

So to do I have to:

-Ask Valentina (guitarist) for the pictures of the Photoshoot that we did, since we did it with her camera.

-Finish the editing of the video, for adding the bass line and possibly adding a filter.

-Start Digipak art

-Create album cover.

Instagram account

 So as I have been working on the Instagram account, I have started to plan out what I should do with the account since there I could share the moments from the band like great covers we have recorded or great pictures that we have together. But as I have seen through social media, other bands also create great content by involving the creation of Tik Toks regarding their band and material; for example, a great band that does this is the Tram Stamps, which is a contemporary Pop Punk band, composed by three young women; and their music has high quality but still is not recognized.

Such band, created enjoyable content since they made jokes regarding the music genre they did, or demonstrated what was the history or dynamic of the band, which I thought it was a good approach in order to share their content and give intimacy on the band. Therefore, I am looking forward for the account that I am managing, @flappertheband, to start creating funny content along sharing our memories and even or new song and music video. Also, I have been following many people that are Seniors from Cypress in order to have an audience for our content. The reason what I had such target audience, is because they will be people that appreciate our content by recognizing that we are from their same year as well as area. Lastly, probably I will adjust the "target audience" from the account in order to improve our presence on the "for you page" to the viewers, since there is an adjustment for the account in order to fit the age and gender group that you are striving to have more presence on. So yeah I will do that!

Completed the video

 Today I decided to start editing the video on iMovie, and since we actually ad great footage the editing was simpler than expected, so it is safe to say that I already finished the video :) 

As I have mentioned many times, I still don't have Olga's part of the bass lines so it could be added the video's audio but that could be filmed on the upcoming week to finally finish the video. But yes as I said before, I finished editing the video, and I am satisfied with the turnout since it does look playful and the quality of the filming, editing, performance is really good so yes everything worked thank God.

Also, it is amazing how our preparations on schedule the filming on certain times of the day according to the genre, worked; since we were relying on the natural light in order to have a sunny day for the Indie part; gloomy for the punk/goth and warm sunset for the Flapper band; and all that is captivated in our video. I'm so happy and excited to share the video through here but I will do so as soon as I have the music exactly as it should be without having the necessity to add any filters for the color or the "old" aesthetic since I think that will leave out much of the details that the changing and our performance is involving, and we don't really want to leave that out. On the other side I need to start working on the other requirements of the projects, such as the Instagram account. Meaning I have to recollect all the great pics we have as a band.

P.S: I forgot to mention that the video both starts and finishes with an oculus opening/closing. It's really fun to watch.

The music's audio

 Today I met up with Valentina, taking advantage that we are in the spring break to make additional touchups for the song's audio since as I was editing it, the vocals were not on the rhythm, so we adjusted both the lyrics and record again. Other than that, we planned out how the we would like the video to be composed, and its layering would be:

1st half: Indie (intro and 1st verse of the song)

2nd half: Punk/Goth (2nd verse of the song)

3/4: Parallelism on Indie and Punk/Goth and introduction of the actual band Flapper (Bridge of the song)

Ending: Flapper performance.

For this project I decided not to organize the shots of video with storyboarding because that was not the approach I desired for the video, but rather as I have mentioned it before; approach it by filming in full shot of the band, so the scene would be like  stage performance, and the other part would be composed by medium shots with hand held camera movements so there would be more intimacy with the band. Other than that, we filmed moments that we improvised or kidding around so we would use it as aside footage for the music video, as the band The Police does as well.

Overall, I discussed this with the band in order to start editing as finish as soon as possible so I would be more than good with following the schedule.

I just need Olga's bass part but I will put everything together and add that when I have it :)