Planning: The Book.

The opening to our music video starts with a very Disney fairy tale book, being opened and revealing images of our artist walking through a wood (like you see at the beginning of Disney Classics.) As Daisy had access to equipment and a spare note book, she has decorated and designed the front cover. Below are images of that long Sunday afternoon where coloured card met a lot of pritt stick.

Step One) I looked around my messy room and found an old revision book that I didn't mind losing. The pages are lined however I can stick plane paper to the ones were need and dye them with coffee or tea, to give the appearance of parchment. First I began measuring for the sizes of the front and the back of the book with a ruler and a white pencil. The reason I chose the colour dark green is because the colour links heavily to the forest and the wood location scenes within the video, and the colour is usually used for the cover of old fairy tale books. 

Step Two) Once I cut out the pieces, making sure I was cutting outside the white line in case the measurements were off. As appearance is crucial for our music video, I want to give the book a professional look.

Step Three through Five) I then stuck down the pages and examined the exposed spine, i took more measurements and began cutting out the binding for the fairy tale books spine. It's the same colour and, although it would not be the main focus of the shots it is in, I will try and add detail to it, for example, the artist logo at the top of the spine.

Step Six through Nine) Once I glued on the spine, I realised that when I shut the book part of the original blue cover was visible. I gained a second opinion and it was clearly a problem to the appearance. To correct this, I cut a long strip of the same green paper, measurements correct the the book, and I backed the top and the bottom of it with small tiles of card, giving it a raised look. This was a common look among old leather bound books. The card I used was pretty thick to begin with, cat food card, so to add a more obvious raised look I cut out two small tiles and glued them together.

Steps Ten through Thirteen) When I attached the stilts onto the strip of paper it was not visually pleasing, also the paper tilted at an odd angle when I opened it. I then decided to remove the card board tiles and I stuck down the green paper, regardless of the popping out effect. I then folded down the edge of the spine to give a more ancient feel to the book, giving the general appearance a pleasing look.

Steps Fourteen through Nineteen) I then took the black card I bought a drew out the lettering with my white pencil. I made sure the style of font fit the fairy tale theme of the video and look old fashioned looking, as I took Graphics in High School this was easy for me to do. I then cut them out and took out any of the black card in-between the letters with a compass. I then lay out the letters on the front of the book, with the end results being in the middle of the top roles. I then used a rubber and erased any of the white pencil on the letters and stuck them down on the front cover. When I began rubbing out on my "i" in "Striker" the "i" broke (I was really annoyed at this as I was adamant on not braking any of the letters.) To rectify this I re-shaped the "i" so I wouldn't have to do another one, once this happened I continued with the other letters until my front cover was complete.

I am now left with a dark green book with black lettering, in order to add colour and some representation of the artist I will either add the image of the artists logo or two acoustic guitars crossed (similar to a skull and cross bones design) this would be positioned in the centre of the cover, with the title of the song "Big Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" below it. In order to add some more imagery linking to the title of the song and to the fairy tale look of the book, I may cut out the silhouette of a horse and a tree, I would use red card to add the cherries. I will, of course, have to check with Jayne, but the idea seems pretty sound.