Screening Our Final Video

As a year group, we have premiered our videos through a public screening in the Seward Studio, the same studio where we shot our video. We invited all our friends to come, through an event on Facebook, and by creating a short trailer to entice the audience.

The screening was a huge success, we had a great response to our video, and it was immensely rewarding. Everyone that came was given a question sheet, so that the best video could be chosen for the 'Peoples Choice Award', at the 'Laftas', a Latymer Media award, show next year.

Sign Off!

After working incredibly hard for the last two weeks, spending hours in the edit suites, we have finally managed to finish and meet our deadline! This evening, we had Ms. Blackborow come in and watch the final product, and would you believe it, there were tears in her eyes when it had finished!

Apart from a few minor changes in the website and album cover, and possible suggestions to the music video, we are signed off! Just in time for me to go to Oxford! It is a huge relief to know that everyone likes it, and has been incredibly rewarding to finally finish it!

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.

Treatment: Feedback from the Teachers

After pitching our idea to the teachers on Friday, we received some mixed feedback. The majority of the idea was received well - they liked the artist image, the performance part of the music video, the ancillary tasks, the marketing and the audience demographics.
However, they part they disliked was the concept side of the video - they didn't think the audience would understand the idea we were trying to convey.

They suggested a new idea, a new narrative to the song. They suggested that throughout the video we follow a very repressed woman - someone who is a school teacher and doesn't enjoy her job, she doesn't have a boyfriend or a social life, and doesn't enjoy herself.
They suggested a science teacher (as a apparently they're the most repressed), and we would see her giving a lesson to her class, possibly doing an experiment, to establish who she is and her role in society.
She would then proceed to sit down at her computer and watch the performance of the band (on youtube, for example), gradually getting more into the music, and ultimately succumbing to the escapism and the abandonment of the genre. This would then be shown by her stripping out of her boring school dress (a lab and goggles perhaps), into a stunning, sexy dress that a girl would wear to a club, and proceeding to dance. The environment of the classroom would change, the students she was teaching would disappear, and she would just let loose. In terms of camerawork and editing, there would be a lot of close ups and slow-mo shots, capturing lots of small details.
The video would end with her coming back to reality, with all her students back in the classroom, staring at her with their jaws dropped. The two DJ's would then appear to save her, and take her away from her boring life so she can continue to live free.

We will need to consider casting as we'd need to find a girl that looks the part and feels confident enough to perform, but this seems like a great idea.

Voice Recording of Our Meeting:

Production Treatment Feedback by mdcassidy

Treatment: Promises

THIS IS THE FINAL TREATMENT THAT WE HAVE CONSTRUCTED AND WILL PRESENT TO OUR TEACHERS IN A COUPLE OF DAYS

1. The Track
The track we have chosen to use for our music video project, is the song Promises by Nero (Remixed by Skrillex). The song belongs to the genre of Dubstep, a genre that has only very recently become popular. Due to its contemporary nature, there is not a huge range of existing music videos, allowing us to be very creative in what we do and giving us a lot of opportunities, whilst still having enough content for us to draw inspiration from. The song is very electronic and drum/bass heavy, giving it a unique sound and making it great to edit to







2. The Music Video

The idea for the music video is split between performance and concept. The performance will focus on the band and creating an image and identity for them, whilst the concept will relate to the song and the idea of promises being broken.

The Peformance
This will take place in a clean white room, well lit, with pale white and blue light. The two DJ's will be raised on platforms, playing on their decks, whilst the lead singer remains on the floor.
The group will be dressed in black - the DJ's in smart, cool suits, whilst still wearing their masks and headphones, whilst the female lead singer wears a sexy black dress, with tied back hair and striking make up.
The performance will all take place in this room, with a lot of fast paced editing and camerawork.

The layout of Chase and Status's performances will be similar to ours

The Concept
The concept will put each of the band members in a different situation, each with their respective partners. The band members will be dressed exactly the same as they are in the performance, but in very normal situations, such as at a dinner table or in the back of a car. Each situation will present the relationship in a negative way, with the partners emotions changing from happy to angry as the video progresses, until the band members leave their situations, get picked up in a car, and drive away. The final shot we see is of the cars number plate, with the band logo stuck over it, as the car drives off.
This is to show to the audience that our music genre is a source of fun and escape in an otherwise undersirable situation, such as a relationship going to shit, with promises that are hard to keep.



3. The Artist
Our artist is called !nflux.

Artist Name: Influx meaning an arrival or entry of large numbers of people or things. Chosen because it’s short, memorable, looks and sounds good. Has connotations of a gathering or massing of something, like a crowd or a build up on a song. It incorporates the X which is in the names of many dubstep artists.

In the band there will be three members - Female lead singer (Charley Packham), and two DJ's Red and Black (Adam Romo and Daniel Sheldon). The female lead singer will be the lead performer, whilst the DJ's identities remain anonymous, but their masks create a front. Overall, this creates a unique band identity, having enigma to create audience interest, but still having a strong identity to create a recognisable image.
The bands motif will be the headphones and the masks they wear, as the masks will have been personalised by them and will represent them in some way. They represent the club and rave scene, as they are a current band performing contemporary music, Dubstep/Drum and Bass.

The inspiration for the masks came from 'Hollywood Undead' who do a similar thing.

4.The Audience
We found that our audience could be categorised into 3 categories: Age, Gender and Genre.

Age: Our primary age group is 16-24 year olds because this is the age that has grown up with the discovery and development of dubstep. Also, this is the main age for becoming more independent and outgoing. Our secondary age group extends to 15-26, since this is really the limit for the age group where dubstep is popular. Also, you can get adults 30+ who still enjoy going to music festivals, concerts and clubbing, however this group is very niche.

Gender: Dubstep appeals to both males and females in our priamry audience, however in our secondary audiences mainly males are interested.

Genre: Of course, there are fans of the dubstep genre. Often, these fans like drum and bass as well due to the similarities in style and conventions of the genres.

Audience Demographics Profiles:

Name: Ben Kaye
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Occupation: University student in his second year - studying business management

Interests: He's an outgoing student, loves to go clubbing, partying and have a drink with his mates. He still thoroughly enjoys studying his degree course though. He regularly plays football for his university team and also goes to Powerleague to play football with his brothers and friends most weeks. Last summer, he went to Ayia Napa, a Greek "party" island, with his friends and felt an andrenaline rush when listening to DJs mixing dubstep and drum and bass tracks and dancing with and meeting girls. He particularly liked the music because the heavy beat and reverberations can be felt pulsing through your body, creating a euphoric and invincible sensation. He said that, "dubstep is like a legal high".

When I say dubstep, what do you think?
Chaos, craziness, colours, pure mental, clubs, an amazing time/night, strobe lights, drugs, alcohol & sex, current, RIGHT NOW! Subfocus, Magnetic Man, Skrillex, Ukf Bass Culture Concert

Name: Lauren Good
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Occupation: Year 13 at secondary school - studying art, english and politics for A levels
Interests: Very confident, outgoing with a strong, tight-knit group of friends, both boys and girls. She regularly goes to salsa dancing and has a passion for photography. Last summer, she went to Malia for a week with her best friends and never wanted to leave. She said "boys, best friends and dubstep / dance music is the best combination. Perfect Summer!"

When I say dubstep, what do you think?

DANCING! Incredible beat, boys, partying, clubbing, simply crazy, awesome, current, my iPod, mental, Flux Pavillion, Subfocus, Doctor P, UKF Bass Culture Concert.

In order to appeal to our audience, we would market the artist and the music in the following way.

5. The Ancillary Tasks

For the ancillary tasks, we will make an cover for the debut album, and a website that will be the hub of the marketing campaign.

Album Cover: Will have a black and white theme. The front cover will be white with influx in black in the top left corner and a picture of the band in the bottom right corner. The picture will be a high angle and shot of the band with the female singer at the front and the two faceless DJs behind. It will have a very simplistic look and the band will look like they are coming from the light.

On the inside cover will be one of each the faceless DJ’s on each side against a black background with possible light sound levels that you would find on a DJ mixer behind them. They could either be standing with arms crossed or playing on decks.

On the back will be a beauty shot of the female singers face along with all the relevant song information etc against a white background. The inside covers will be each of the DJ's, either similar beauty shots, or long shots of them behind their decks.

Website: The website will follow the same black and white colour scheme. It will have a very simplistic and modern colour scheme with shots of the members of the band all over it. It will have a link bar with links to Home, News, Events, Music, Video and Store.

The Home will have our debut video and specific news. One idea we would like to implement in the website is a remix competition - any member of the audience will be able to download the individual parts of the track and create their own remix.
The winners remix, judged by the audience, will then make a place on the next album and the winner will be publicized and endorsed by the band. The website will have lots of social networking opportunities with commenting and Facebook and twitter incorporated wherever possible. YouTube and UKF dubstep links will be on every page.

6. The Practicalities
The music video could be shot in a few shoot days - 1 day for the performance and 2/3 for the narrative performances.
The performance would be ideally shot in the seward studio as it has the best lighting facilities available to us. The narrative could be shot in Daniel's car, in a quiet car park (like that found in Forty Hall), in one of our houses and at a quiet bus stop.
In terms of casting we would use 2 out of the 3 group (Daniel and Adam), and Charley as our female lead singer, all of whom worked on the music video project last year and understand how to perform and lip synch.
As for the narrative, we would like to use Josh Pedro and Lauren Good, actors we know to be reliable, and another actor we have yet to confirm.

Problems that could arise could be the weather, for some of the outdoor shots. Setting up the performance in the seward studio would require a lot of prior planning to ensure it goes smoothly and looks good. We would also need to rehearse to ensure the performers feel a comfortable as possible and perform as well as they can.

Green Screen Testing

We went up to the Seward Studio (a new studio the school built) to try out the green screen, so we could test editing the infinite white. It was particularly important to test this because the infinite white would make up a lot of the performance and we would have to shoot everything in green screen, so we wanted to see how good it would look.

In the media department, we had two small green screens that were usually used for photography, and Daniel brought in a larger screen he owned. We set up in the studio, using lighting and a camera, but it was very difficult to get good shots as the green screens were too small.

We also decided to test out the 'faceless' idea, and so Adam painted his face green and we took some shots of him. The paint we used though was too dull, and overall the effect was not particularly desirable.

Upon capturing the footage and editing it in After Effects, we did not like the look of the final product. The screen was too small and so we would not be able to vary our shot types, and would not make for a very good final product. Similarly, the 'faceless' idea was not particularly successful, as the paint we used was strong enough and didn't produce a good final result.

Production Meeting 4: Meeting with Ms. Blackborow

After further considering the idea of the wedding whilst constructing our treatment, we felt that the concept was not appropriate for our target audience, and flagged up this issue with Ms. Blackborow. She understood our concerns considering our target audience, and we suggested a new idea of 3 young couples in 'promise breaking' situations. She liked the idea, but we need further develop it, so that it can sustain a 3 minute music video.
She also suggested that we explore green screening, because we could then make the performance take place in 'infinite white', and we could remove the DJ's faces, rather than having masks, but it's just a consideration.

Production Meeting 3: Brainstorming Ideas

After suggesting my idea to Ms. Blackborow in an informal meeting, she flagged up some issues with the idea, and set us up with a new concept to think about. This evening we were brainstorming ideas as a group over Skype, in preparation for our proposal in a weeks time. We were exploring the idea of a wedding, and of a girl that's been left at the alter, with the 'promises' of the wedding vows being broken. We came up with the premise whilst in a production meeting with Ms. Blackborow.

It's still early days, but the ideas are coming together. In terms of an artist identity, we have still have a solid idea as Ms. Blackborow really liked it, and are still considering actors.

My Idea

0.01 – ‘ding’, first note, open on a close up of the female lead singer… ‘you got me so wild’
continue with beauty shots of her and the other band members.

The performance takes place in a white room, well lit, but not to the point where it looks sterile and clinical, it should just look clean and plain and the band should be the focus.
The reason for this is as the video progresses, the room should gradually get more and more wrecked, perhaps with the use of paint all over the walls and floors – red and black paint, fitting with the choice of colours – until the point where the room looks very different. This can show some sort of progression, from the clean and calm of the original room, to the now broken down chaos of the room at the end, reflecting the break down in the relationship.

THE NARRATIVE BIT
The narrative will focus around a couple and their relationship (obviously). At the very beginning of the video, during the build up of the song, we see a vase type thing, filled with flowers, flying through the air, and hitting a wall in a house, all in slo mo. We don’t see anything else apart from that, creating some sort of interest as to what is going on. All this is cut between shots of the band. I think the band should be the main focus of the first part of the song, and the first drop should focus almost entirely on them and the room their in to show the progression and the change. During the drop/skrillex bit, there will be loads of quick cuts and cool editing.

We then have from 1.36 to 2.58 to do this next bit of narrative.
Second Verse
When we return to the verse, we are introduced to our two characters, a guy and a girl (for the sake of it, Harry and Sally). The two are sitting on a sofa, watching some tv, in each others arms looking happy, they are affectionate to one another. The guy then gets a text, from another girl, a provocative text saying something along the lines of ‘when are you gonna come round again baby ;)’ from a different female. From this, we obviously get an idea that he’s not a faithful guy. Sally see’s the text and reacts, being a bit like ‘what the is that?’, but Harry shrugs it off and tells her its nothing, and kisses her and takes her back in his arms, Sally still looks unsure though.
This obviously will have no sound, but we’ll get the idea of what’s going on. This will still be cut with the band, but to a lesser degree.

We then see Harry and Sally walking down a high street/a road with shops, and they see a guy selling roses. Harry stops to buy Sally a few – the same flowers that we see flying across the room at the beginning of the video. She looks happy and kisses him and they continue to walk on, but as they do so, they walk past another girl who Harry makes eyes with and we get the impression this is the girl that text him (for arguments sake, we’ll call her Sophie). Sally see’s Harry looking at Sophie and pulls away from him and walks away, but he runs to catch up.

The final scene is Sally coming home. We see her come through the front door, and look around a bit, but then she stops because she can hear something. She puts down her keys and walks back into the living room, where she see’s Harry and Sophie making out.
At this point, 2.59, she switches. She goes and grabs the vase with the flowers off the table, chucks them at the couple – maybe she then walks up and pulls the hair of Sophie? Maybe she just shouts a bit and runs out of the room. She grabs her keys, runs out of the house, leaving the front door open, jumps in her car and drives off. The music ends on a final ‘ding’, perhaps showing that she is finally triumphant and free of Harry.

All the while through this narrative there will be cuts to the band performing, particularly in the skrillex bits.

So with this idea, we have all our cool slow motion at the beginning, we have the symbolism of the flowers, we have progression with the band, (also, I really think we should have a drummer in the band, as well as the lead singer and the two dj’s, as we can some cool shots of him and its just something extra).

Production Meeting 2: Artist Identity

We had a group meeting today to discuss the artist identity. With our chosen genre of Dubstep, it is often that the music is promoted, and not the artist, meaning that people will recognise a song but not necessarily know who made it. This is not what we want, as the aim of the project is to create a debut ARTIST, so we need to come up with a unique identity for our band.

To do this, we began by exploring what we know about other similar artists. I suggested that we do something similar to 'Chase and Status', who wear somewhat smart clothing when they perform.

We took this one stage further and said, 'well, what if we use the idea of 2 DJ's, but we make them wear full suits when they perform, to make them that bit more unique, and we'll dress them all in black'.

This then lead us to 'Daft Punk', who are a DJ duo that perform wearing masks, and we liked that idea of concealing their true identities. We considered glasses and hats to try and hide the faces, but then Chris our technician showed us the band 'Hollywood Undead', who all perform using unique masks that they made themselves, that reflect them in some way.

With the DJ's image forming, we felt that we needed something more, as the DJ's themselves could not sustain a music video alone. So we looked at another dubstep artist, 'Nero', who always perform with the same female singer, and use her in all their songs. And so we have chosen to include a stunning female lead singer that will sing the vocals of the song, whilst the DJ' mix the track.

With the stunning lead singer, and unique masks, we hope to create a unique band image that will be unlike anything seen before!

Production Meeting 1: Song Choice

The three of us met with Mrs. Blackborow to discuss the possible song choice with her. We played her the remix and she really liked it - said that we could get really creative and do a lot with it.
So with that positive feedback, we've pretty much decided that this is the song we want to go ahead with, so we cut down the song to 3:30 as the song cannot be as long as it currently is.
We'll continue brainstorming ideas about the music video and the artist.

Production Meeting 0: My Group

Today, my group was decided and I'm very pleased. There are three of us, myself, Daniel Sheldon, and Adam Romo - the same group I worked with on my project last year. We work well together and we have similar tastes in music, so we are very excited to work on this project.

We began discussing choice of music, and Daniel and Adam both like the idea of doing a Dubstep song, in particular a song called 'Promises', originally done by Nero, but we would like to use a remix done by an artist called Skrillex. The song has a great tune to it, and has good lyrics to create a story to.



We're going to have a meeting with our teacher Mrs. Blackborow, to discuss the choice of music and get her feedback, but I am very excited to start work on this project.