Construction Post 6: Website Post-Production

What we had to do:

Create a fully functional website for our artists.

Overall I am very happy with the final outcome of the website. I think we achieved exactly what we set out to and I feel it looks very professional and realistic. The Wix software was very convenient as it allowed us to edit the website without any prior knowledge of html or other programming languages.

What we wanted for our website

• Lots of interactive opportunities
• An online store
• Artist information

My contribution to the website

• I set up some of the tour page.
• Edited a lot of the record label contact page and artist information page (About Me)
• I also helped to decide the content for the shop.
• I also made the opportunites to interact with the artists in the form of the competions page

Audience Feedback

We to some members of our target audience to get their opinions of our website.

• They loved the large focal images of the artists on the various pages.
• They also liked the social media links, navigation bar and choice of pages. They felt everything felt very fluid and easily accessible similar to a real artist page. One thing they did say was that some of the links on some pages incorrectly redirected them. We fixed this by ensuring all links were working correctly.
• They also felt that although the pages were nice they could be more interactive, for example the "Info" page. We remedied this by adding a more interactive Q&A with "hover-to-reveal" answers.
• Teachers also said they liked the pages but we could use more brand links that would be suitable, we responded to this by adding a Beats tie-in competition, references to TV & radio appearances and a Nike collaboration.

Some of the problems we faced were:

• When setting us social media links, due to some inactivity in the accounts. We got suspended from twitter which meant that none of our twitter links were working. We managed to get around this by creating a new account and making sure to satisfy twitters terms and conditions.
• The content within the header was inconsistent on various pages meaning traversing the website was very disorientating. We were able to overcome this by creating one main header that we anted to run throughout the pages of the website and then making sure every page that was possible to visit was consistent with this ideal header.

Construction Post 5: Digipak Post-Production

What we had to do:

Complete the Digipak

With the other members of my group having less experience with Photoshop prior to this task, I took a lead role in the production of the Digipak. This included: sourcing the background image, recolouring the background image, cropping and spot healing the artists.

Overall I am extremely pleased with the final outcome of the Digipak and I feel we achieved what we set out to achieve.

What we wanted for our album cover:

• A creative and fun design to match the fun and care free genre of House/R&B
• Really clear mid shots of our do for the front and back panel
• Details: spine information, tracklist, record label, copyright information

Audience Feedback

The first step I took when constructing the digipak was deciding the two images we were going to use for our front and back cover as well as the background images. After choosing them we decided to show them to a small focus group to see what they thought about the images.
Here are the images:

Picture 1 - Front cover

Focus Group Response: They felt that due to the lack of symmetry in the neck line of the photo, despite how minor it may seem, it could draw attention away from the eyes.

Teacher Response: They also agreed that we needed to change the picture as the wonky collar looked awkward.

My Response: I responded to the feedback by using a different picture of Aisha that had a symmetrical neckline.

Picture 2 - Back cover

Focus Group Response: They ought the picture was good but it would need spot healing and need to look brighter.

Teacher Response: They thought it looked fine, we would just need to use the spot healing tool.

My Response: I responded to the feedback by using the spot healing tool on ray and using the skin smoother to make his skin tone brighter.

Picture 3 - Background image

Focus Group Response: Our focus group all thought the background was good.

Teacher Response: They thought the background was good and agreed with our suggestion of possibly changing the colours to make it look unique.

My Response: I responded to the feedback by changing the colour of the clouds and also adding a few more clouds myself using the close stamp and lasso tool.

Here is the finished product:

Album cover outside

Album cover inside

Construction Post 4: Music Video Post-production

What we had to do:

Edit the video using Adobe Premiere Pro.

The menu we used

I have experience using Premiere Pro from previous years of media so I felt that I was at ease using the software and trying to create something professional looking. We used multi track editing to easily edit various parts of the video. We found the software very useful as we using a workspace setting that made it easy to accesses our rushes and to pick the video we wanted to edit into our music video. The procamp tool and other colour correction were very useful in allowing us to grade the video and achieve a very professional finish to our edited video, it also allowed us to create the aesthetic that usually acompaines this style of music video.

My contribution to the edit

• I placed a lot of the clips and tried to gauge the general feel of the video.
• I was able to go over some of the edits the other members of my groups made and tighten cuts and improve the overall feel.
• I graded some of the video.
• I added some effects such as the montage at the end and some of the 'ghosting' shots.

Here is an example of some of the shots that were graded. Before and after

A challenge we faced was our video being too repetitive at times. We showed an early cut of our video to our target audience and were told it was good but repetitive and this in turn drew away from some of the postive factors of the video but we overcame this by replacing shots and trying to change the pace of the video as it progressed.

Here I am editing the video

Reflection on Audience Feedback

Overall, we received extremely positive feedback. The fan favourites included the peach coloured handheld shots and the siren beauty shots. I'm pleased with these as I worked the camera in both of these shots and set the colour for the background. People didn't have many criticisms but some thought that maybe the DJ should have been limited to just the studio shots as they felt it looked slightly awkward in the shots on location. This did not come as a surprise as we had already decided to cut some shots as they looked unnatural or forced.

We also recieved feedback from our teachers who felt that some of our extras looked unnatural and awkward, this in turn would detract from the rest of the video. We managed to remedy this by getting rid of the footage that seemed far too unnatural, we recorded the song the whole way from from all the different camera angles and setups that we had so we had a plethora of footage to replace this with.

Here is the finished product:

Construction Post 3: Week 3 Production

What did we need to do

Complete the studio portion of the music video.

The different setups we needed to do were:


A setup with alternating blue and red lights inspired by the music video for 'Tyrant' for Kali Uchi


A setup with a projector, projecting images and videos of kaleidoscopes and optical illusions. This was inspired by the video for 'We Found Love' by 'Rihanna'


A setup on a sofa with varying numbers of people on it inspired by the video for 'Stay The Night' by 'Zedd'.


A setup with the DJ deck and a stool which functioned as the main performance shot. This was inspired by various videos such as the XXL Freshmen Freestyle.

Reflections

Overall I think the studio shoot was very successful. We got all of the shots we needed and a wide range of extra cutaway shots and we also did it in a very speedy amount of time leaving us with a lot of extra time to spend trying out trickier shots and attempting to make them perfect.

I got to use the Canon 5D a lot more than I have in the past and as a result have become much more competent with the equipment than I used to be. I also have gained more knowledge concerning the sound and lighting desks.

We did run into some issues such as the lighting on some shots not being bright enough so they needed to be re shot and some shots dipping in and out of focus. We were able to resolve these by doing reshoots and effectively evaluating what we had shot and making sure that it was good enough. The vast amounts of extra time we had proved useful as it allowed us time to do this.

My contributions to the shoot:

• I did most of the camera work in the video.
• I made a brief cameo in some of the shoots
• I provided costume for the video.
• I directed the actors.

Construction Post 2: Week 2 Production

What did we have to do:

1. Complete the 2nd location shoot
2. Complete the 2nd photoshoot

WOOD GREEN LOCATION SHOOT 

In production week 2 we had our second location shoot on a car park in Wood Green. The shoot was quite successful, we managed to get some of the shots we intended but there were many obstacles we had to overcome. These issues were:

• The  camera battery was not completely charged when we set off so it was a rush to try and get the shots we wanted before the battery ran out.
• As it took longer than expected to leave school and get to the location, it was very dark when we got to the car park and so lighting was an issue. However the night setting complimented the overall aesthetic of the video and we were resourceful with the lighting and got some good shots.
• There were some members on the public that were curious in what we were filming and so watched us a lot, this put off some of our actors at first but they were able to get into role when these people left.

                                        

My contribution to the video shoot

• I directed and filmed almost all of the shots as I was not in these location shots.
• I helped to arrange some of the extras, this included making sure they knew what to wear and where to be at what time.
• I provided some of the costumes for the shoot.

Digipak Photoshoot

The shoot was very successful as we were able to get a wide range of photos for our Digipak. To keep some continuity with our artists' image we shot this in Brick Lane as well. We were well equipped for the shoot with a tripod and DSLR camera.

It was a great shoot and the only major we faced was obstructions in the shot, this was often in the form of cars driving along the street that was between our camera and the subjects of the shots. This is exhibited in the shot below:

This just meant that we had to be patient and smart in order to make the most out of the time we had and to get a wide range of shot types that we wanted. We also decided to take photos in other locations were this wasn't a big issue.

My contribution to the photoshoot

• I took all of the photos
• I helped pick some of the costume.
• I directed the actors
• I also brought in my DSLR as a back up.

Construction Post 1: Week 1 Production

What did we have to do:

1. Complete of the first location shoot
2. Complete of the 1st photoshoot for our website

Brick Lane Location Shoot Overview

Our first production week was very successful. As we were shooting on location, we had to consider many factors such as weather, health and safety. We managed to get all of the shots we needed and were very impressed with all the variations of shots we needed to get. We managed to avoid any major issues due to our careful preparation and it was a very great day.

Here is a picture of the location that we shot in:

Reflection

In reflection it is clear that there were 2 main problems that we faced in Week 1 of Production. These problems are:

The characterisation of the extras was not fully complete

• Before filming we had a brief conversation with the actors concerning the actors they had to play, this character was often carefree and fun. A more in depth explanation of the character would have been more useful as it would have made it easier for the actors to get into character and avoid having to re-shoot our shots as our actors were not able to adhere to their roles and ended up laughing or getting out of character in these shots. This meant that we had to constantly take multiple clips of the same shot as many mistakes were made. To overcome this solution, I would give out instructions whilst the camera was rolling telling each individual what to do so that it looked more natural, authentic and professional. We also gave our extras 3 moves that they use if they felt as though they had nothing else to do, this helped to keep up the atmosphere that we were trying to cultivate proving to be a useful technique.

Getting our extras to Brick Lane

• We intended 5 extras to come in but in the end only 4 could make it. This meant we needed to be resourceful and work out our shots with one less person. We did not let this ruin our day and we pressed on and created the illusion of a large group by having everyone close together.

R+P Post 33: Reflections on my role and contribution during Research and Planning

Overall, I feel very confident about what our group has accomplished in the research and planning stages of the process and I feel that we are well equipped to progress with the process. I've enjoyed the process thus far.

Here is what I have contributed to the research and planning so far:

Planning the video

• I contributed various tracks when we were deciding on what song to go for, including the song that we are using now.
• I thought of and drew some of the shots for our storyboard and timeline.
• I helped with casting and getting the costume for the video. 
• Aisha and I made and edited the screen test.
• Edited some of the rough cut.

Planning the website/ album cover:

• Researched examples and presented ideas for both website and album cover. Such as:

During test shoot:

• Considering I was not in any of the test shots I did the bulk of the filming and some of the lighting work.
• I helped to arrange costume.
• Tested out our shot ideas such as the siren shots.

Overall I believe that we all contributed an equal amount to the project and worked well as a team. I am looking forward to the stages to come.

R+P Post 32: Test shoot and rough edit

The test shoot was a very important part of the planning process as we were able to bring our ideas to life and see how they worked individually and how they worked together to make an effective music video. Here is our test video:

Here is the test shoot schedule that we used, we wrote down the various set ups and shots we needed to get.

A key aspect we were testing out in our test shoot was the various lighting set ups and the projector set up. Testing it before hand is very useful as it meas we can know what will and wont work when making the real video and it will also be much easier when we make the real video.

We also needed to test the handheld camera shots as we thought the aesthetic we could achieve from handheld shots would suit what we were going for.

Still of handheld DJ shots

The test shoot and the rough edit were both very useful as it allowed us to see how our ideas worked together and it highlighted the main issues that we may have faced later. Some of the issues we faced are:

• Projections- we had to ensure we used a good quality projector and image as lower quality videos would flicker when on camera.
• Handheld camera- the closer I got when filming the more prevalent the shadow.
• Lighting- sometimes when we used darker colours for the lighting, the subjects in the video wouldn't be visible. 

R+P Post 30 & 31: My shoot-board/ call sheet

This document doubled as our shootboard and call sheet for our  studio test week. It neatly laid out all of the shots and setups that we wanted to get and allocated a time to achieve said shot. We also were able to allocate time to try variations of the shots and see what worked well. It was a call sheet as we put in when everyone was available and would be in the studio, this made it easy to plan what we could do as we would know who would be available to do a certain type of shot. Also when we were there by ourselves we would be able to setup for shots in the future.

Overall we all found this document very useful as we could easily plan out what we would do and when we do it. Also it meant that we could easily communicate with the teachers and technicians our availability, when we would be using the studio and what we planned to do.

R+P Post 29: Rehearsals

In order to ensure that we were ready to make a professional looking music video we had rehearsals to practice our performance.

Although I was not going to be lip syncing in the video, it was still important to us as a group to properly research lip syncing to gain tips and insight that would help us make a better media product. Below is a video we used to research the are of lip sync:

We used rehearsals to plan out the types of shots we wanted to get and the intricacies we wanted to capture in each shot to further enhance the quality of the video.

Below is a behind the scenes still from one of our rehearsals.

Although I was not acting in this section of the video, I felt the rehearsal was very useful as it gave me an opportunity to rehearse the various shot types and camera movements and allowed us to make creative decisions whilst also being able to test the final outcome. The rehearsals also allowed us to test out costume and props and see if they fit with the general aesthetic of the video.

R+P Post 28: My kit list

For our shoots we had 2 different sets of kit for the studio and for shoots on location.

This is the kit that we used on location:

• Canon Legria HFG30 Camera
• Libec TH-650HD Tripod
• Canon DM-100 Microphone
• Sennheiser Headphones
• 64 GB SD card
• Two batteries
• Clapperboard
• Whiteboard Pen and Wipe

This is the kit we used in the studio:

• Canon 5D MK 2 Camera
• 650 ARRI Turret Lights
• ARRI Studio Lights
• Projector
• Cyclorama
• Monitor
• Samsung TV
• Shoulder support rig for hand held sots
• Lighting and Sound desk

During our test shoot we were briefed on all of the equipment and taught how to use it effectively and safely, we were also taught to safely pack and unpack all of the equipment. I really enjoyed using the equipment in the studio as the quality achieved through it is of a great satandard.

R+P Post 27: Casting

Casting was very important for both the performance aspects of the video and for the narrative aspects of the video. When looking for actors we actors we needed to think about who would fit the style we were trying to portray and also would would appear natural and authentic in the video. Here is a cast list:

Ray
Aisha
Kodie
Abigail
Sena
Budmi
Ayisha
Sadek
Sayo
Mel
Laith

R+P Post 26: Set design, locations and props

As well as shooting in the studio, we plan to have many performance and narrative shots on location. Here are some of our planned locations:

Here we plan to use the pathway that splits into two in order to add to the narrative.

Here is a wall with graffiti that we plan to use as a backdrop for performance shots.

Here is a car park that we plan to use for individual and group shots.

For the set design in the studio we have some key shots:

• Ray and Aisha (sound desk, laptop, table and stool)
• Ray DJ (sound desk, laptop, table)
• Sofa shot (Group, band and individuals)
• Projector shots

Example of sofa shots

Ray and Aisha

The props that we need to effectively create these shots and make them look authentic and realistic are:

• Phone
• Headohones
• Sofa
• Sound desk
• Table
• Laptop
• Stool

R+P Post 25: Costumes, props and make-up

Costumes are very important as it helps to create the look of the artist and it allows us a way to really signify that we are adhering to  youth subculture. We are sticking to a 90s vintage sportswear theme and it was very important to us to create the right aesthetic for our music video. For the overall costume theme we intentionally planned to have "street wear" costume that matched the type of locations we were filming at. These were brands such as Nike and Adidas.

General Costume theme

When researching DJ costumes we found that it was often relatively simple and usually involved plain t-shirts, coats/ hoodies and headphones.

DJ Costume

The choice of Make-up was very important as it helps add to the identity of the artist, makes them look younger, cooler and more appealing and it also matches the conventions of our target audience.

Here is the inspiration we had for the makeup, we felt it was important to have vibrant colours that popped and looked appealing

Props were very important as they helped to further the performances and make them look more realistic.

The props we used were: a phone, a pair of headphones and a sound desk.

We hope the costume, props and makeup all allow us to effectively convey the genre and our artists.

R+P Post 24: Planning my digipak panels

We all had different ideas for what we wanted for the digipak and decided to draw them out and see how they work. As we interviewed different members of our 16-24 year old target audience, we adapted some of our ideas in relation to what they said.

Here are our designs:

These are some of the initial designs that we had for our album cover. We initially intended for both artists to feature on the front cover, with props and a mid shot.

From our target audience feedback we found out that many liked the idea of having a central close-up of our female artist as the focal image was great for a debut album. Similar to the likes of Adele and Kali Uchis.

After sharing our ideas and looking at real digipaks we saw some overarching themes and decided to focus on those. Here are some of those ideas:

• One central close up of the artist on the front panels.
• Cloud like background
• Light colours
• Large artist name
• Smaller font for the album/song name
• Tracklist on the back

Here are some of the albums and singles we looked at for inspiration: