After some serious thoughts we decided that we still weren't happy with the digipack so we decided to change it, adding a few different images in it. As we are an Indie band it is essential to keep the black and white theme running throughout the digipack so we made sure we kept ever panel in black and white. We made sure we mentioned a special thanks to all the people that helped make our album as it further enhances the professional edge to our production. The song list was changed as previously we didn't like the font used as it was extremely hard to understand and also it wasn't positioned center of image. The CD cover was changed as previously it was too basic as there was just an image off of Google images of the sea, making it look easy and babyish. Whereas in this one Will used Photoshop to create a mist going over the CD, showing a lot more creativity and originality.
After hearing the feedback for the Digipack, Steve got to work on improving it. As you can see half the images are now in colour rather than all being in black and white. The reason behind this is to link the colours of the boiler suits to the colour of the water and blood, therefore including synergy. Steve improved on the album cover by morphing our bands name and the song into James's face. We made sure that James was the front cover so you can clearly state who is the main artist in the band
James made some improvements to the website based on the feedback we got from the first draft. As you can see he has added a merchandise page as requested. The merchandise ranges from phone cases to caps, each one having the No Individual logo on them. He has made sure he kept the moving water in the background as that was the main thing that each person liked about the website.
This image is going to be our album cover for No Individual. We are experimenting with the background as we think grey will look better as we feel the black is a bit too bold.
Here is our fist draft for our digipack. As you can see the bottom left photo isn't our final photo but we would like to base the final photo around it. Our theme is black and white, sticking with the Indie style.
After watching this 2nd draft we decided that we weren't 100% satisfied with it as there were minor adjustments we needed to make. These adjustments involved colour correcting and timing the shots better with the music. The colour correcting we did enhanced the footage, making it much more crisp and sharper to look at as some shots were very dim, such as the band acting causal in front of the camera. Will made the shots cut quicker when the pace of the music sped up to enhance the thought beats in the production.
James has been trying out different designs for our website background, He has decided to keep it as black for now to enhance our sinister image. However we all feel that it is too basic and bland so it fails to catch the readers eyes. The background will remain black whilst we identify other images that will suit our image
We have been looking for ideas for an album cover on our digipack and Will came across this video on YouTube explaining how to have a silhouette for an image on the cover. We feel that this would work for our bands image as we under the radar and quite a mysterious Indie band. This video also teaches us how to get a silhouette over a painted background. The painted background would work for us as it empathizes the natures-ck side to us as a band, which is shown in our music video.
Here is my 3rd and HOPEFULLY final draft for the magazine article after improving upon the style of which it is written in. I have improved upon the way it is laid out, making the text form around the images among it.
Steve has been working on a track list for our album. He used The 1975's album cover as a template and put the names of potential songs around the edge of the cover. As you can see each song is numbered in Roman Numerals. It is like this as gives a more ancient, traditional effect to the album cover.
Here is the first draft of our music video for 'Falling For You'. After showing it to our fellow peers and teachers we got positive and negative feedback:
Positive:
A lot of enigma codes so keeps the audience interested
Good high quality shots, especially in the water
Good range of shots
Clever effects where James is swimming
Clever cuts on the beat
Enjoyed the reverse shot of the water splashing Ben
Negative:
First shot is shaky even after stabilizing it
Some thought it cut too quickly as it is a slow song
Some didn't like the contrast from the swimming pool to the river and the road
One beat doesn't cut on time so is out of sync
The shot of Ben walking towards the camera is too long
After listening to a lecture about filming from music director Jake Wynne back in October we decided to use his advice for filming Steve on the drums. We used a wheeled chair in order to get tracking shots. However the problem we faced was maintaining a steady shot on the camera as the person pulling the chair had to keep stopping due to the surface being very slippery.
Here is an inspiring website design that James has been looking at for the website. Different aspects of the website are extremely easy to follow as the layout clearly shows the different links to each page at the top of the homepage.
In order to understand what went into an Indie Website, James thought he would look at the website for 'Catfish and the Bottlemen'. Immediately the black and white theme for an Indie band was shown on the home page and every other page on the website. The influence we took from this website was the merchandise as we were unsure as to what sort of items to sell. However after looking at their websites it gave us ideas as they sold all sorts of things such as:
James has made further progress on our website by updating the photos on the gallery. We showed it to other media members and asked them what they thought about it. They thought the photos were good however they wanted more consistency in the type of photo next to one another. For example the green screen photos should be next to one another than far apart.
In the second draft I improved upon the content, making the words more suitable for a magazine article, whilst including on the amount of content. However the problems I'm facing is making the the writing a suitable size to read as its came out too small when printing it. Also the detail column has too bigger spaces between each bullet point.
Here is the first draft of the magazine article. I showed it too the group and got feedback as to what what they thought about it. The main thing that needed improving was the amount of dialogue as there wasn't enough. However the dialogue that is there was approved. I now need to include information about the song as to where it stemmed etc
We needed to do an interview of the band together to show on our halfway evaluation presentation. This meant we needed inspiration as to how to go about doing our interview. We decided we would have the questions coming from behind the camera rather than showing the person questioning and have it free flowing so it wasn't edited at each question.
Steve is in charge of making the digipack and has been coming up with some potential ideas for it. We like the idea of having a black and white theme to keep with the sinister image.
As well as media, I have taken Drama as an A level. I am very keen on making my performance as believable and as realistic as possible. Therefore I done some research into how to be a good performer. I found the following things:
Be free. Try and be as natural as possible, therefore keep your limbs free.. DON'T BECOME ROBOTIC
James has been in charge of the websites design and we have decided to to follow suit with bands that are similar to us. The websites are neat and tidy and give information about the bands, tour and gig dates. We decided that our website would:
In order to improve upon our magazine article and website we needed to get more photos for it. So today we went out to get photos of the 3 of us that we could use. We used the a slideshare that explained how to capture the best images by using shapes as templates. The triangle rule stated that in each corner there should be an iconic image. Therefore we placed each person in one corner of the triangle.
For our magazine article I decided to follow this style due to its basic nature. As you can see the layout is extremely simple to follow making it easier for me to recreate. I like the fact that the image of the artists stand out the most as it overpowers the writing due to it taking up over half the page. We realize that our audience don't want to be reading too much writing so that is why I chose this style. However we do need to write information on the band and this style gives us a substantial amount of room to do so.
As our presentation for our half way evaluation was filmed, I was in charge of editing the it. As I hadn't edited in a while I faced a few challenges. The main challenge I found was using the software 'Screencastify' as it is completely new to the school so it took a while getting used to. The software allows you to record everything you do on your screen without using a handheld camera. The issue I had was finding a way it would let me upload the footage into Adobe Premier Pro as it wouldn't save as an accessible video to which I could edit. As it wouldn't save I resulted to using still images and voice overs to present our evaluation.
As I am recreating a magazine article from NME, I looked at what to include in the main body of text. I found out that most articles spoke about basic facts to do with the band. They mentioned things like when and where the banned formed, who created the band and also things like tour dates etc. The font is basic as well, being Roman Times Numeral to keep a professional edge.
What I feel I did well when filming 7th October - On this day we went to get some conceptual footage for our video. This meant that wee went to Essex record labels car park as we needed to get water from the river to put into the bath. I feel that I worked well as a team player to sort out the resources needed as I was in charge of getting the water from the river to the bath, a very wet task... Also I took one for the team and got in the bath, A job only myself and James manned up to!
30th October - On this day we got another conceptual shot of James walking to the camera whilst a girl stood in front of it. I feel that I did well here as I thought of the shot to portray the sinister theme in the video.
14th October - We needed to get another shot of Steve drumming on this day. I worked especially well here as when I took on the role of recording I remembered the advice from Jake Wynne on how to get effective tracking shots. We therefore used a wheeled chair and pushed it back and forth with myself sitting on it.
18th November - On this day we went to get shots of bottles smashing, so we could put them into slow motion in our video. I worked well here as I came up with different types of shot angles to capture the best footage possible
Even better if
On each of the filming days I feel that I could have helped more with ideas. As a lot of the time I left it down to Will to decide what types of shots we would get. Also we suffered from the battery's to the cameras running out a lot due to my lazy self not checking to see if they we charged. Therefore obviously I would need to ensure they were charged if I were to improve on my filming qualities.
James was in charge of making the website for our band. It includes details such as tour dates, information on the band, a gallery and the social media links
As we carry on to film our video we are requiring more and more ideas. We each searched for more ideas and Will found Jake Bugg's video 'Two Fingers' which had short focus shots which meant the mike stand was in focus but the performer is blurred. Will felt this was would be a good shot to use as it maintains a mystery as to who the performer is.
Today I was in charge of making a magazine article for our band. For this I looked at NME Radar as a template and then printed an example off and labeled every feature in it:
After hearing the feedback on our first logo draft, I made some improvements to satisfy everyone. I made sure that our name was clearly shown on the logo so everyone would be be able to tell who we were. I also made sure that our emblem of the 'N' was stated clearly in the middle of the logo, as this is what is going to draw the attention of the viewer.
For our logo we wanted it to be simple yet effective. We didn't want to show our whole name in the logo but enable the viewer to know that the logo says 'No Individual'. The way I got around this was to look for Indie Band logos. I found this one from 'Lix - records'. They have used their initials as the logo and I feel this would work for us too. As well as finding this logo I found that most Indie bands logos were in black and white, like 'The Arctic Monkeys' and 'The 1975'.
As we are doing a concept music video with a mix of performance as well we don't want to show the band on the front cover however we could be seen on the inside sleeve. We got ideas from 'The 1975' as their digipack's don't show the band but are basic and interesting to look at, something we are going to aim for.
We were really keen as a group to get a reverse shot in our video. For this we had to think of a shot that would work well in slow motion as well as reverse. We felt that a breaking glass bottle filled with water would look good as the disbursing water would have a good effect in reverse as well as the smashing glass. We also thought as well as a bottle, an egg could look good as the shell fragments would have a good effect coming back together in reverse.
We had an idea of filming under water using a Go Pro but we were unsure of how to get successful shots without them looking amateur. In order to overcome this I looked up music videos that were filmed underwater and found the song 'Runnin' by Naughty Boy. We liked the idea of a lifeless body just floating around in the water, as well as a close up of the face.
Here is a collection of photos of the filming we done in the River Wid. It proved challenging as faced many problems such as setting up the equipment in a strong stream without it falling over. Getting power was a struggle as it required us to get a generator, and carrying this down a muddy slope proved hard!
As a group we thought of many ideas for our costumes. We wanted to all be in the same outfits but have something slightly different about each outfit to distinguish each individual in the group. Our first thoughts were to get each person in suits grey suits but change the colour of the shirts however we felt this would cost too much money and wouldn't be obvious enough. We then thought of boiler suits and ordered three different boiler suits in red, white and blue. The reason we got these colours was to highlight the fact that we are an upcoming British band.
Here is images of our story board in progress. It has enabled us to follow a plan for our next shoot as we found it challenging to film without one in our previous shoot. The story board is half way through being finished and we look to film next week.
This mood board is filled with images that we would like to get into our music video. For example we would like to get shots of someone bathing in a bath of blood and we're extremely keen to use masks.
No Individual is now up on Twitter, tweeting exciting posts informing our followers how the shoot to the music video is going, showing behind the scene images of the shots.
After sharing our ideas with Pete he gave us some feedback as to what he thought about it:
Plan for everything - In order to give ourselves the best chance in creating a successful music video he told us to ensure that all our shots are put on a storyboard, props are listed, cameras are charged and to stay in contact with everyone in the group to ensure everyone knows what their roles are.
Know your equipment - Before shooting the shots, take test shots to make sure that you are aware of what your camera can do to use it too its full effect.
Over shooting - You can never get enough shots so make sure that you use the most of your filming time as you only have the cameras for a certain amount of time
The edit - Look to edit the whole performance rather than focusing on tiny details throughout the video and upload rough copies of your editing to get feedback so you can improve it if needed.
Look elsewhere for tips - Use different blogs and websites to obtain different ideas that you feel would be suitable for your work.
On Friday Pete Fraiser, who is the chief examiner for OCR A level media, and Jake Wynne, who is a music and film director and editor, came into school to share their experiences in viewing and making music videos. We were shown videos that Jake had made and how he went about making them whilst Pete shared with us his experience in examining student videos and what gains you marks. The videos Jake showed us started off as small budget which was more realistic to us as it showed us how we could make an effective music video with little money.
What we want to achieve - Shots of James and Ben in the bath of blood - Conceptual
High shots of James bathing in the blood lasting for 3 seconds
Mid shots of Ben spitting the water out of the bath over the camera lasting for 2 seconds
Tracking close up of James holding a beer bottle out of the bath lasting for 3 seconds
Long shot of James smashing a beer bottle against a lamp lasting for 2 seconds
Long shot of Ben singing whilst getting bloody water poured over him lasting for 5 seconds
Mid, high shot of Ben on the floor whilst bloody water is poured over him
Second Shoot - 13th October 2015
What we want to achieve - Shots of the band performing in the river Wid in Widford - Performance
Long shot of the band performing lasting for 5 seconds
Long, panning high shot of the band performing lasting for 2 seconds
Long shot of the bands equipment set up in the river lasting for 5 seconds
Long shot of the band standing together acting natural lasting for 3 seconds
Long shot of the band walking through a field, getting closer to the camera lasting for 4 seconds
Mid shot of the band walking in the river away from the camera lasting for 5 seconds
Close up of each of the band member performing in the river
Third Shoot - 15th October 2015
What we want to achieve - Shots of James floating in a swimming pool - Conceptual
Low shot of James floating above the camera, lasting for 3 seconds
Close up of James underwater looking directly into the camera lasting for 2 seconds
Close up of James screaming under water again looking directly into the camera lasting for 2 seconds
Mid shot of James singing underwater looking into the camera lasting for 2 second
Fourth Shoot - 19th October 2015
What we want to achieve - Shots of each band member singing the entire song - Performance
Close up of James singing the whole song into the camera
Close up of Ben singing the whole song into the camera
Close up of Steve singing the whole song into the camera
Fifth Shoot - 30th October 2015
What we want to achieve - A shot of James walking to the camera whilst a girl stood in front of the camera - Conceptual
Long shot of James walking to the camera whilst Aimee stood in front of it, making James look like a stalker, lasting for 4 seconds
Sixth Shoot - 6th August 2015
What we want to achieve - A shot of Ben looking into the camera a light moves around his face
Close up of Ben looking directly into the camera whilst a light moves around his face making it seem as if his face is changing, creating a sinister look, lasting for 5 seconds
Seventh Shoot - 12th August - 2015
What we want to achieve - James singing the song whilst lying down in the middle of the road - Performance
Long shot of James laying down in the middle of the road lasting for 4 seconds
Eight Shoot - 14th August - 2015
What we want to achieve - shots of Steve drumming in a field
Panning, mid shot of Steve drumming lasting for 2 seconds
Tracking, mid shot of Steve drumming lasting for 3 seconds
Close to long shot of Steve drumming lasting for 5 seconds
Long to close up shot of Steve drumming lasting for 4 seconds
Ninth Shoot - 17th November - 2015
Various shots of the band in a local park - Narrative and Conceptual
Low shot of the band walking over the camera lasting for 4 seconds
Long shot of the band walking past the camera lasting for 4 seconds
Close up, underwater shot of James stepping into the water, lasting for 3 seconds
Long, panning shot of the band standing in the middle of the park, lasting for 3 seconds
Tenth Shoot - 18th November - 2015
Various shots of bottles smashing - Conceptual
High shot of bottle dropping and smashing, lasting for 2 seconds
Close up of bottle smashing in front of the camera lasting for 2 seconds
Long shot of a rock being thrown and smashing a bottle lasting for 4 seconds
Reason
The reason I have given this grade is due to the editing. The editing is very slick and professional as shown through the moving images being made into a cartoon strip and also the lyrics being shown when they are sung for example when 'INDEPENDENT' is spelled out. Also the shot quality is quite good as the images are bright and not pixelated, which is a challenge to overcome.
Improvements
The improvements I would suggest is shooting in a less common location as London is used in many music videos so it gets a bit dull and repetitive to watch. Also I would have liked to see more convincing acting from the mime people as I felt that they didn't want to be there when they were singing.
Grade 38/40
Reason
I have awarded this video this grade due to the quality of each of the shots. I feel that each shot was thought about well and this clearly shows. Especially when she is singing in the rain I feel that this looks like a professional shot.
Improvements
As this song is sung by Adele the artist looks like her. I feel that this shouldn't be the case and I think that she should be more original in her image.
'Somewhere Only We Know' from Keane has been an extremely influential music video that we have chosen to follow as it incorporates narrative, and performance in similar locations that we would like to have in our video. The performance element in this video takes place in a river. This is a location we would like to use for our video to show the natural style we adopt. The narrative side shows the band carrying their instruments to the river. Again this is a shot that we would like to get as it shows the band on a journey.
This steelomatic is made up of all the different type of shots and locations we want to incorporate into our music video. The shots vary from long shots to reverse shots, whilst the locations vary from a swimming pool to a river.
Prior to the lyrics in the song, there is 20 seconds where the music is building in volume and rhythm. This atmospheric music is where we plan to use artistic and original master shots to grab the attention of the audience. This includes the close up of James underwater shouting towards the camera.
Opening verse - With the opening lyrics, I hope to show the performance element of our video. Using an extreme wide shot, the band will be playing in the river and singing the lyrics. This will act as our stabilizing shot and will last roughly two seconds. This will show viewers who the band are and what their roles are.
0.22 - 1.08
What time you coming down?
We started losing light.
I'll never make it right
If you don't want me around,
I'm so excited for the night,
All we need's my bike and your enormous house
You said some day we might
When I'm closer to your height
'Til then we'll knock around, endlessly
You're all I need
Second verse - This verse has the main chorus of the song in it. For this we are going to have shots of the band laying on the ground with the camera directly above us whilst we sing into it.
1.09 - 1.51
Don't you see me now?
I think I'm falling, I'm falling for you,
Don't you need me?
I, I think I'm falling, I'm falling for you,
And on this night and in this light,
I think I'm falling, I'm falling for you
Maybe you'll change your mind
I think I'm falling, I think I'm falling
Third verse - In this verse the pace of the song speeds up, meaning the shots will cut quicker. The shots will vary from us performing in the river, to shots of smoke flooding a room.
1.52 - 2.31
I'm caught on your coat again
You said, "Oh, no, it's fine,"
I read between the lines
And touched your leg again, again
I'll take you one day at a time,
Soon you will be mine,
Oh but I want you now (I want you now)
When the smoke is in your eyes,
You look so alive,
Do you fancy sitting down with me? Maybe?
Fourth verse - In this verse we would like to show more shots of us performing in the river and also shots of us in a car driving around.We want to show a more natural side to the band so we wanted to get shots of them when they're not performing.
2.32 - 3.00
You're all I need
According to your heart,
My place is not deliberate,
Feeling of your arms
I don't wanna be your friend,
I wanna kiss your neck
Fifth verse - Again this verse has the chorus in it so we will cut back to the band singing it on the ground, looking directly into the camera
3.01 - 3.40
Don't you see me?
I, I think I'm falling, I'm falling for you
Don't you need me?
I, I think I'm falling, I'm falling for you
And on this night and in this light
I think I'm falling, I'm falling for you
Maybe you'll change your mind
Here is our group availability for filming. As you can see we have labeled 'Y' for Yes, meaning they are available and 'N' for No they are not available.
Today we took time out of lesson to get photos for a potential album cover. We looked at photos online of Indie Group album covers and we were inspired by the positioning of the band members as we liked the idea of them standing in
a horizontal line.
Hype Williams is an American film and music director aged 45. He started directing in 1991 and earned his first music video award in 1996 for best director and best rap video of the year for 'Woo Haa!! Got You All In Check'. In 2006 Williams was honored by MTV with its Video Vanguard Award, presented in honor of his achievements as a filmmaker. Kanye West holds the artist record for working the most times with Williams and one of the most famous videos Williams made with Kanye was 'All of the lights' which premiered on February 19th, 2011.
Production Diary 31;
Again in this lesson I got more feedback on my magazine article after improving upon it. This time I had to improve on the icons in the text as the writing has to mould around them, this is something I found tricky to do but managed to over come it to make the final magazine article.
James finished the first draft of the website today in class, creating a gallery page where you can see behind the scene images of the filming in action.
Steve finished the first draft to the digipack, adding a few more pictures he found on the photo camera we used when filming whilst Will got back to editing the video.
Production Diary 30:
Like the lesson before, in this lesson I got given feedback again. But this time the feedback was on my logo. People said they liked the black and white theme as it matched the Indie style however they said that as we are a small Indie band not may people would be aware that NI stands for No Individual. Using this feedback I got on and improved the logo, ensuring that our bands name was shown in the logo.
Again James added to the website, getting on with the third page which was the tour dates. He researched locations where to play at and added them to the third page. Steve needed to get more photo's for the digipack as the images in the video weren't high enough quality. He needed to get pictures of the band together so at lunch we all went out and got a photo of the three of us standing in a line to use for the back cover of our digipack. Will took time out of editing to discuss potential digipack covers and it was Will's idea to get the picture of the three of us standing in a line.
Production Diary 29:
In this lesson I got the feedback from the magazine's first draft. I found that people really liked the template design as they thought I matched it very well to the original. However they said that there wasn't enough text in it and the text that was in it wasn't in the style of writing that most magazines are written in as it lacked the quirky element. Using this feedback I did some more brainstorming and enhanced on my knowledge of the band, adding to the text whilst ensuring that I get some humour in it.
James continued to experiment with the home page for our website, changing the background to try and meet the Indie image. He left it as black however we all felt that this was too bland and didn't keep the viewer interested. However he managed to complete the second page which explains each band member in depth, describing each one. Steve continued to gather photos for the digipack. He cleverly decided to get our theme of water clearly shown on the CD by going out in his own time and taking a picture of the ripples of water in a swimming pool. Over the weekend Will saw a music video that had water dropping onto the camera and thought that this would be a useful shot in our video. He took time to attempt to recreate this shot however he hand no way of getting the pipette, which he used for the water droplet, to get out of shot.
Production Diary 28:
After completing the first draft for the magazine article, I had to wait to get feedback from it. I took this time to look for ideas for our Logo. As we are an Indie band I looked at Indie band logos and found that most of them if not all of them were in black and white. Therefore I designed mine in black and white. I wanted to abbreviate the logo so that it didn't just say 'No Individual' as this could look quite bland and boring. So I experimented with the 'N' and the 'I' and came up with the 'I' moulding into the 'N'.
James and Steve continued carrying on with the website and digipack. James managed to get the theme of water in our music video showing in our website by making the background a flowing image of the sea. Steve trial ran a few pictures from our music video on the digipack. Turning them to black and white to fit the Indie image, whilst Will experimented with different effects on the music video such as fireworks in the background in the performance element of our video.
Production Diary 27:
In today's lesson I looked at magazine articles and chose one to base the design around. I chose to follow the design of NME magazine articles as they are the best magazine to follow where the music industry is concerned. I chose one article from NME and started copying the template it proposes. I then looked at what was written in NME magazine articles. Most of them talk about the band and how they originated so I got brainstorming and thought of information to include about the band.
James focused on doing research into websites, trying to find out what design to follow. He went on and looked at Indie band websites such as 'The 1975' and 'Alt J'. He found that most of the websites followed a bold theme, ensuring that everything stood out whilst Steve did the same but for the digipack. He looked at Indie digipacks and found out that the majority of them followed a black and white theme and started to base our design around what he found. Will carried onto edit the music video.
Production Diary 26:
Now most of the filming was done it was time to get onto the construction side of the course. This involved making a Logo, Website, Digipack and a magazine article. Each of us was assigned roles. James was to make the website, Steve was in charge of the Digipack whilst I was assigned to do the magazine article and logo.
Production Diary 25: TENTH SHOOT - This would be our final shoot and it would be a smashing shoot.. quite literally. We went to a wasteland and smashed bottles filled with water. We felt that this would represent the breaking of boys heart in the music video as he cant get the girl he loves. We would experiment with slow motion to capture the breaking glass and water spilling out.
Production Diary 24: NINTH SHOOT - We took time out of lesson today to go and get more footage. This time we filmed the band walking through Admirals park in Chelmsford whilst each member carried the objects they perform with. I carried the keyboard, Steve carried the drum set whilst James carried the mike and stand. Production Diary 23: EIGHTH SHOOT - Today was the day where we filmed Steve drumming in the middle of the school field. The challenge we faced was trying not to get the school in the background. Production Diary 22:
Today we focused on getting further filming ideas. We needed to get more shots of Steve drumming as the shots we got before showed him drumming off beat. We discussed locations and decided to have him drumming in the middle of a field. Production Diary 21:
Today we spent time planning on further shots we need to get. We needed to get reverse and slow motion shots but we weren't sure as to what objects to use. We brainstormed ideas and came up with balloons, beer and wine bottles.
Production Diary 20: SEVENTH SHOOT - Will and James filmed today in the street. James laid down in his blue suit in the middle of the road Production Diary 19: SIXTH SHOOT - Today Will and I took the time to get more shots done. We went in the green room and took shots in the pitch black where I sat whilst a flash light was used to light up my face, giving it a sinister look. Production Diary 18; HALFWAY EVALUATION: Today we presented our half way evaluation and were filmed in the process of doing so. We presented things such as our background and how we got to where we are today, to showing our website which includes information about each band member and where and when we are touring! Production Diary 17:
For our half way evaluation we decided that we would put an interview of the band into our presentation to give it more of a professional edge. Will was behind the camera and asked us questions to do with how we formed etc. Production Diary 16:
Today we were told that we had reached the half way evaluation point and are required as a group to present how we are doing so far. We each came together and gave each person allocated roles as to who would do each part of the presentation.
Production Diary 15: FIFTH SHOOT - Again in lesson we took the time to film again. This time we filmed a long shot of James in the distance walking directly to the camera as in front of the camera stood Aimee, who plays the part of the girl the song is written about. This looks like an extremely sinister shot as James has an expressionless look on his face and gradually gets closer and closer. Plus he is wearing a blue boiler suit which in its self is pretty sinister! Production Diary 14: FOURTH SHOOT - Today we took the time in lesson to film close ups of myself and James singing the whole of the song as we needed to get more filler shots. We also took videos of the whole group standing in a vertical line, one in front of the other as we we looked at band photos before shooting and came across looking impressive!
Production Diary 13: THIRD SHOOT - Another day another shoot! Today we went to our teachers parents swimming pool, who very kindly allowed us to film in it. We wanted to get a range of shots that varied from a lifeless body floating around to James, who was in the pool, screaming at the Go Pro under water. We found it difficult get the light we were holding above the water out of the shot as the Go Pro has a very wide shot.
Production Diary 12: SECOND SHOOT - Today we went to film our performance side of our video in Widford under the train bridge. We found it challenging to set the cameras up in the water as the ground was extremely uneven, meaning we couldn't get the cameras level correctly. To overcome this we had to clear some of the stones in the water to create a level platform for the cameras. Once this was sorted we got got extremely good shots which ranged from long shots to wave shots.
Production Diary 11:
As the time to filming is getting closer and closer we needed to check that the generator worked. It was a good job we checked that it worked as we had trouble starting it. We had to find the caretaker of the school and he helped us start it. Now we know that it 100% works. Production Diary 10:
In our lesson today we went out in search of a good location to shoot our performance element of our video. After a long time searching we came across a train bridge in Galleywood that had a stream underneath it which would be ideal to perform in.
Production Diary 9:
In our lesson today we did a production run through where we sung the first 2 verses of the song. It gave us an idea of how it would look and what we found worked and what didn't. We found that we needed a loud speaker in order for us all to hear the words. Production Diary 8:
In today's lesson I took on the role of emailing the company that released the song 'Falling for You' from The 1975.
Production Diary 7: FIRST SHOOT - Today we started filming and went to a car park in Chelmsford to place a bath in the middle of it. We then filled the bath with water mixed with red food colouring to symbolise blood and then got James to lie, lifelessly in it. We found it tricky to maintain a steady hand when filming with the Go Pro as we didn't have a tripod so some of the shots were shaky. However on the schools cameras, which had tripods, we managed to get good shots of the water pouring over my face. This shot was influenced by the song 'No Rest'.
Production Diary 6:
In today's lesson we did Lip Syncing auditions to find out who would be the main role in our video. Each person sang the chorus of the song. Each media class voted who they thought would best suit the role and came to the conclusion that it would be James.
Production Diary 5:
Over the weekend we thought of more songs that we thought would go with our sinister images. The song we came up with was called 'Falling for you' from The 1975. We all enjoyed this song as we could picture our thoughts to go with the song whilst is was more upbeat and interesting than 'Fantasy'.
Production Diary 4:
In our fourth meeting we were all having doubts about the song 'Fantasy' by The XX as it was too slow paced which meant our audience could get bored listening to it so it would put more pressure on us to get interesting shots to keep the audience entertained. We wanted to keep our sinister ideas the same so had to find another song that would match our thoughts. We another song from the XX called 'Angels' however it had the voice of a women so would look unrealistic in our video as we are a group of boys. This meant that we had to go away and find some songs for our next lesson. Production Diary 3:
In today's lesson we came together to discuss the availability of each member of the group from now up until half term which starts the 26th October. We were then able to plan when we would be able to start shooting.
Production Diary 2:
In our lesson today we had to focus on finding a second song to back up our first choice song 'Fantasy'. After a long time searching, we finally found the song 'Love is gone' from Oxford & Co. This song combined the Indie theme that Steve liked as he was a big fan of Ed Sheeran. This song also gave us a different way of how to shoot the video as it is a performance song. It gave us ideas of going to the country side and perform in a field due to the country nature of the song
Production Diary 1:
In our lesson today, our group had a meeting to discuss what song we should decide to do for our piece. Each member of the group had to find 3 songs and out of those 3 had to put forward their favorite one.
James Grimley suggested that we did the song 'My eyes are red' from Laid Blak. The reason he liked this song was because he thought we could do a lot of effects with the lighting as the song focuses around weed so we could recreate the feeling of being under the influence of weed. However the song had too many views on YouTube.
Steve Harrison suggested that we did the song 'Cold Coffee' from Ed Sheeran as he felt we could do a narrative music video as the lyrics Ed usually writes has a meaning too them. However the draw back again was that the song was too well known and the voice is too distinctive.
I suggested that we did the song 'Crunk' from Siege. This song is completely different to everyone else's as it is a dance song. I had the images of a journey, maybe traveling to a party. However the idea of doing a dance song didn't go down very well with the group as they weren't fans of dance music and thought it would be too hard to make images to go with the music.
Finally Will Craig suggested we did the song 'Fantasy' by The XX. When we all first heard this song we thought of a church setting due to the echoing noise we heard and it personally gave me the thought of it being set in the middle ages where monks were most common. As we carried on brainstorming, our ideas got more and more sinister as we listened to the song in more depth. We thought that this song would be perfect for a concept video as there isn't many words to sing so we would fill the shots with different types of images. An idea that sprung to Will's head was to have someone lying in a bath filled with red water (making it look like blood), whilst positioned in the middle of no where. This backs up the sinister theme in the song
