The Website

As we near the end of production, we have designated the three tasks between us, so that Daniel is focusing mainly on the video, Adam on the album cover, and I on the website. For the website, I have been using a website called 'Wix', a web designing programme that allows you to create a website using preset options, or start from scratch. I started from scratch.

I've been working on setting it up, making sure all the pages link together, and putting the basic images in place, before I start to work on the actual content within the pages. As it stands though, the entrance page is pretty much complete, unless the teachers have any feedback that will alter it, and the website URL when published, will be www.wix.com/latymermusicvideo11g/influxmusic.

Wix is an interesting programme to use; it's very feature rich and allows for almost full customisation, however it's challenging to get to grips with, can be very unstable, and has crashed on multiple occasions, causing me to lose all my progress. However, it does produce a very professional website in the end!

Shoot 4: The Final Shoot

We finished our final performance shoot today, meaning that we have all of our footage! We set up everything again, and shot in exactly the same format, but we were far more efficient this time round, because the band were less inhibited and got into the performance straight away, and we had produced a shot list of everything we needed to do so we weren't wasting any time.

After reviewing our footage, we found that there had been a fault with the camera, and it had been putting grain on our footage. We made sure to correct the camera settings for this shoot, so that our footage would all be usable.

It's a huge relief that this final shoot went well, and I really look forward to editing everything together in the next week or so!

Photoshoot for Website and Album Cover

This project is not just about the music video, as we have to produce two ancillary tasks: a website and an album cover. In order to do this, we needed photos of the group in a variety of different costumes, so that we could put together galleries on the site and make the album cover.

So today we had a photoshoot with Daniel, Charley and Adam. I was the cameraman, and have been editing some of the photos today. I had Charley dress up in 4 different dresses, and took pictures with both DJ's, whilst I had the guys dress up in 3 different costumes.

I think I took a good variety of photos, and have been enjoying editing them, as I think some of them look gorgeous.

Shoot 3: Narrative 2.0

With Charley acting as our new teacher, we re-shot the narrative sequence.

Charley in her teacher costume.

We used our new narrative video storyboard to film the prologue, and did all the dancing about the classroom in one shoot. We feel that the shoot went really well, and that we should be able to use a lot of the footage.
I acted as the main student in detention, instigating the dancing, causing Charley to succumb to the music, whilst other media students acted as extras. Working with media students proved to be much easier than using other students, as they are very understanding with what we need to do and perform excellently.
I look forward to reviewing the footage, and starting our edit now that we have most of our footage!

Production Meeting 5: New Narrative Sequence Idea

We had another production meeting today to discuss the new narrative idea, and we decided on the final logistics and pitched the idea to Ms. Blackborow. We want to use Charley as our teacher, who comes into a room full of students in detention.
As she sits down to get on with her work, one student (who will be played by myself) starts to listen to the song 'Promises', whilst the others around him work/sleep/look bored. As the song builds, the student starts to gather the attention of the other students, preparing them for something big, then as the song drops, the student pulls out his headphones so that the song plays out loud, and all the students jump up and dance. The teacher freaks out at this, and desperately tries to calm the students down, but is pulled into the dance by the main student, where she ultimately succumbs to the music.
The music video would conclude with the two DJ's coming to collect her, and take her away from her dull life, to be part of their band.

Ms. Blackborow really liked the idea, and thought it worked really well, but suggested that we have a prologue before the video actually begins, to establish the situation. And she strongly recommended that we storyboard the sequence so as not to waste time, as the deadline is fast approaching.

We took her advice, but decided to make a video storyboard, so that we could actually walk through the sequence.

Shoot 2: The Narrative

Today we were shooting our narrative side of the sequence, with our friend Lauren. We were shooting in one of the Labs, with a selection of our friends acting as extras. The shoot didn't go particularly well. We shot from 8am to 1pm, and we don't feel that the narrative is quite right, and Lauren isn't quite right for the part. We'll review the footage on Monday, but for now we're reconsidering the idea.
We think that it might work if Charley, our singer, plays the teacher, who succumbs to the music and abandons her role as teacher, and is ultimately collected by the DJ's at the end of the video to join their group. We think this could make more sense, and might look better, as we will also change location to our Media rooms, where the lighting and setting is better.

Shoot 1: The Performance

Yesterday We had our first shoot! We were shooting the performance, with the 2 DJ's and Charley, in the Seward Studio. We began shooting after school, starting at 4pm and finishing at 9pm.
We spent a good hour setting up, doing the lights, letting the cast get ready, and setting up the equipment. We had the help of our technician Chris, and our friends Jess (who studies production at university) and Ming (who is a fantastic photographer, and took some pictures for us, shown below).
It was an exhausting evening, but we gave it our all and I think we got some brilliant footage. I think we will have to do another shoot though, because there are still some angles and particular shots that we didn't get, because we had to clear out of the studio, but I think that a lot of what we got will be usable. We're very happy that we're off to a good start!

Making our Masks

With our final idea in place, we are now in the end stages of pre-production, where are we are gathering all our props and organising our locations. As it is half term, and Daniel is away on holiday, we can't shoot, so instead Adam and I have been making the masks that we'll be wearing.

We want them to have masks to cover their faces, but rather than buying a generic mask, we decided to design our own, just as our DJ's would do if they were real.

We purchased plain white plastic hockey masks to use as our base, as well as a selection of paint colours, brushes and sponges, masking tape and spray paint.

We began by covering our masks in masking tape, so that the spray paint would dry on the surface.
Adam then proceded to paint the bottom half of his mask with dark blue paint, and used the black spray paint to cover the top half, as well as create a dripping paint effect. He finished the mask with silver paint across the eyes in jagged lines.

I made mask through a different process. I spray painted my entire mask black once I had covered in masking tape. I gave it a couple of coats, and once dry, I used the masking tape to create the arrow shapes. I left these on the mask, then used a red spray paint to go over the rest of the mask. Once the red had dried, I peeled off the masking tape, leaving the black arrows on a red mask.

The two masks are extremely different, and we hope that they create a unique persona for each of the DJ's, whilst making an interesting band image.

As well as the masks, the DJ's will be dressed in entirely black suits, and Charley our lead singer, will wear a black dress.