31st October-Filming

On Friday 31st october we started filming a bit delayed from what we origionally planned as it took a bit long for Antonia to do Bernices make up as soon as she was done we headded to shoreditch to film there. I carried the light and the batteries in my bag as it was too much equipment to carry so I put it in my bag whci was so much easier but really heavy. 

we built a set up for the purple background which was my bed sheets and flipped two tables and put the bed sheet on it like a bed, it looked really good on the footage when we looked over it. Antonia filmed and I wasnt the light person this time as there was already enough light and it looked like a spot light, instead Antonia said why not have a fan to make the bed sheets move to give it a nice effect but the man at lift couldnt find a fan bvut luckily bernice got a newspaper so i had to be the fan person and make the wind(which was very tiering).

after many hours of filming we decided it was time for a break and we had to to have lunch as we were very tired so we went to subway near lift so we could eat at lift. Someone in the building accidently set off the fire alarm so we all had to be evacuated and the firebrigade came this wasted our time and we needed to film as soon as possible. The guy that said he would be in our music video didn't turn up so luckily another guy over heard antonia asking the man at lift and he offered himself to be filmed which was great. 

Friday filming with pictures

video and pictures from filming today

Filming: Day 3

Filming process 31st Oct 2014

Today was a HUGE success. We all decided, learning our previous mistakes, that we were going to wake up and start filming early as well. Bernice came to mine at around 10am. I made a start on her makeup at quarter past 10 and finished by quarter to 11. Jessica arrived at 10:30am and we left my house at 11:30am prompt. Our first location was Shoreditch which is only 10 minutes away from my house by bus. We took the 135 to Shoreditch and as soon as we got to our first location set up straight up away. (Thank God we had learnt how to use the equipment on Wednesday or else we would have been stuffed!) Our first location was a dead end road, and we had no problems filming until we realised that the road wasn't long enough for our artist to sing the whole song through till the end. So we decided to use the pavement instead as it was longer. After we finished filming in our Shoreditch location we headed back to my house we dropped some of our bags in exchange for lighter ones and then made our way to our next location Lift, in angel. The good thing is that I live in central London so it is pretty much easy to get to all of our destinations. Before entering Lift, we made a quick stop at Subway (There's no way I was skipping lunch just to film. I love food way too much) When we got to Lift, we quickly had a break and ate our lunch before resuming to our filming. We brought along all of our makeup kit so that I could touch up our artist's face, rearranged the room we were using, hung our purple bed sheet cover over two tables and began to film our purple scene. I came up with the idea for Jessica to use a newspaper as a fan and stand beside Bernice waving the newspaper up and down so that Bernice's hair could move. I got this idea from many of the  R and B music videos I researched where most of them seem to have a scene where there hair is blowing for added effect. We shot this scene in fast, slow and normal motion. After spending an 2 hours doing this we were ready to shoot our next scene. However the boy who agreed to film with us yesterday hadn't even turned up! We began to panic. I went to the common room of Lift and began to ask around. In the end a boy who had said he couldn't do it when we asked him yesterday agreed to be in our music video. I then filmed the couple scene and we finished filming around 8pm.

29th October- Filming

The day we picked up the equipment on the (29th of october) we didn't get to film as planned because it was raining but we went to antonias house to re-schedule everything so that the next day we knew exactly where to film and what we were going to film.

On the 30th october Antonia done bernices make up and filmed around 5 for a bit outside but the footage was too dark and it didn't go with the rest of the scenes we have and it would have been too much of a contrast if we did put what was recorded in tot he film. Even with the dedo light that i was holding it just looked like a spot light and you could see our shadows and it didn't look right. I couldn't stay too long because I had to go to band rehersals which was changed recently in september, so I left at 6:30pm.

Filming process 30th Oct 2014

Today we planned to film our street shots of the camera tracking our artist as she walks down the pavement. We planned to start filming at around 2pm but because Bernice had an art trip and I spent way too long doing her makeup we ended up being ready to shoot at around about 5pm which was way too late as it was beginning to get very dark as you can see in the pictures below.

When we did get round to filming properly it was 6pm as we had to walk to our location and set up. But, Jessica had to leave at 6:30pm for her music class. I did attempt to film Bernice as well as hold the dedo light with its stand but that obviously didn't work out. It was a DISASTER! We were very frustrated especially myself as I had spent time and effort doing Bernice's makeup beforehand. We went back to mine and put all the equipment back. In order not to let the day we decided to take pictures that could potentially be used for our digipaks so as not to let the day go to waste. We then went over to Lift (one of our chosen locations) to confirm with Ian (a worker there) if we could still use the premises and decided to also look for a boy for our music video whilst we were there. After some persuasion, a young guy who uses the gym at Lift agreed to meet us at lift this Friday to film our couple scene. RESULT! Turn's out today wasn't such a disaster after all. From this, we definitely realised that if we wanted to get a successful day of filming down we were going to have to start filming a hell of a lot earlier.

Filming: Day 2

Production Schedule Update

We planned to film 29/10/14 but due to the weather we had to cancel these plans. Instead, we used the day to talk about the changes we had to make to our production schedule. Another problem we faced was that we didn't have a boy for our music video. So what we plan to do as our back up plan is ask around at one of our filming locations (Lift) to see if there are any boys available.

Thursday : (2pm - 5pm) Old Nichol street
                  (6pm - 9pm) Lift

Friday: (11am - 1pm) Barbican
             (1pm - 2:30pm) Lunch
             (3pm - 5pm) Scenery shots
             (6pm - 9pm) Lift

Saturday: Re-shoot shots (If necessary)

Filming: Day 1

Filming process 29th Oct 2014

Today as the weather forecast had predicted it rained. Bernice and I went to college to pick up the equipment whilst Jessica met us there. We picked up a fig rig, tripod, dedo light, dedo light stand, dedo light batteries, the college camera, the college camera batteries and  our memory cards. We then headed back to my house in hopes that the rain would stop and that we could get a bit of filming done. NO CHANCE! It didn't stop raining till about 6pm by which it was already pitch black outside. We didn't want to let the day go to waste so we decided to get ourselves familiar with all the equipment. In fact, I'm quite happy we didn't film today because the amount of time it took us to work out how to attach the dedo light onto it's stand and switch it on would have meant we would have probably started filming well past all of our bedtimes! Hopefully, we have more luck shooting tomorrow.

Research: Cultural Appropriation

Cultural Appropriation within music videos. Over the years music videos have

Weather

I decided to check the weather for this week over the weekend just so that we could make a final decision about when to film. Although we stated in our pitch production schedule that we wanted to film on the 29th, 30th and 31st of October we didn't have access to the weather forecast for this week. But now that we do, we won't be filming this Wednesday as it's going to be raining. Even though it's not going to be raining for the whole day, we don't want a situation where we are filming and the weather looks quite dull in comparison to our other shots from the other days. Because of consistency we want our shots to look relatively the same. On both Thursday and Friday, it is going to be partly cloudly with a bit of sunshine so we plan to film on these two days but due to London weather being very unpredictable we will still be taking our umbrellas with us on these days and will allow for an extra day of filming as backup (Saturday).



Weather 2

testing the camera

today we did some practise shots before we actually film so that we are prepared and so that we know how the music video will look using the college camera but the quality wasn't that good to be honest so we decided to go allong with bernices camera as her camera was much better quality as it was more focused and the colour of the film was better too. 

this is antonia filming bernice doing some practise shots that we will use in our real music video. we chose to film in this white brick wall because in our real music video we want to film on a brick wall as this is seen frequently in RnB music videos.

this is a quick behind the scenes video of us testing the camera of how it would look if we did film with the colleges camera

Reflection: On Progress Blog

This is just a quick note on how I think I am progressing with my blog. So far I haven't got as many blog posts I intended to have. have a lot of drafts saved, as the work is not fully complete, so cannot be published, i am hoping to catch up ASAP, as we will be filming next week, so I will have to focus on creating new blog posts for Music Video(filming and editing).

Planning: cast/actors/extras

Below I have created a fake actors cv

Akiva  Samuel

Height: 5'10    Weight: 169    Hair: Black    Eyes: Brown

 

Pitch Feedback Video

This is our pitch feedback video

Pitch Feedback

We got good feedback on what we could improve and mostly what we've done well. From the feedback and questions we got it was very good too as they made us question made us reflect on what we have and haven't thought about.

The good things about our pitch were:

- We have a back up plan incase we don't get certain locations and a male actor.

- Costume is detailed

- Ideas from other videos in other genres

- We have many close ups so that the artist can build a connection to the audience

- There's a pause and we'll have a black out

- Audience research

- Overall very detailed

To improve:

- re-do record label as we need to be on an independent label

Before the Pitch

During the pitch. Bernice presenting.

Planning - Pitch - Synergy - Jessica

We are going to have big earrings and body necklace that will be seen quiet frequently as it is part of our synergy and in our digi-pack. We will make an album cover, music video, advertisement some where(billboard, magazine ad)and promotion trailer.

\

Planning- Pitch- Post Production- Jessica

Planning: Revision notes to Pitch

I think the pitch was very successful! Everyone clearly understood our pitch, as their was very little to no bad feedback, which was great, however i did pick up on a few things we could change. I have brought it up with the group and we have agreed that we will change the label we originally planned as it is an american mainstream record label, owned by a famous rapper, P Diddy. Our artist would start off with a british company first and as her career grows, then she would branch out to a bigger one, we were going to create our own record label but found that a british artist named Estelle, who is of the same genre as our artist, has her own record label. This will be perfect for us as she is of the same genre as our artist and also would most likely be recruiting upcoming female artist. Estelle is also friends with a lot of american artists, some of which own a recording company too, so if our artist was to branch out this would be a route she would take. Below are some links to the each companies page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estelle_(musician)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Boy_Records

 As a group we also talked about changing some of our locations, as some will be impossible to get, specifically the cafe we mentioned in the pitch, as it only opens in the evening and during that time it is a a place for 'singles to mingle' and we don't that sort of setting. We have found a place called lift, which is a youth place, that has allowed us to use one of their rooms that has a kitchen unit as well as an open space.

Planning - Production Schedule- Jessica

Planning: Pitch - Evaluation

Planning: Pitch - Social Media - Bernice

We have created several social media accounts, in which we plan to share content and post updates of our whereabouts. We created a twitter and instagram account for our group but we had a discussion on how our artist would be upcoming, so she would be on twitter and instagram as it's a great way to build a strong fan base. We also created a vine and YouTube account, as we can create behind the scenes video.

Planning: Pitch - Risk Assessment - Antonia

Planning: Pitch - Animatic-Jessica

 This is our animatic of our music video, we've mixed the story board with some location shots that we are going to film in. The place that says lift outside with the couple is going to be inside where we are going to film them breaking up
 

Pitch feedback

This is the pitch feedback that we got when we finished our presentation. We mainly got that our research was good but we did get told that we needed to re-think our record label we want our artist to be signed to. The pitch was very helpful for us as we have a very clear idea of what we are going to do for our music video as everything is well planned out.

Planning: Pitch - Storyboard - Bernice

Planning: Pitch - Theory- Jessica

Our music video is going to be illustration because the song we chose is to do with her going through a breakup we will have some shots when from the present time and she'll be crying and looking sad but so that our music video goes with Andrew Goodwins Theory in our music video we are going to have different black and white flash backs to when the couple had fun and they were going out, and then some shots when they broke up so that the audience gets the idea. We chose to make it black and white to show the past and so it contrast to the present day.

Planning: Pitch - Industry - Antonia

Digi pack- draft 2

I decided to do a quick drawing of my Digi pack idea on to photoshop but for the real one I want to actually use a picture of bernice and I'll actually add some text to say the artist name

digipack-draft

Planning: Pitch - Draft Digipak and Advertisement

I have created two drafts of how I envisioned the album cover and the single. I was heavily inspired by other artists album covers, I found that most album covers were close ups of the artist or a full body shot. I want the image that will be on the cover to be from the music video, so it has a clear link.

Planning: Pitch - Digipak and advertisement ideas

 

Planning: Pitch - Costume - Antonia

Planning: Pitch - Setting and Location - Antonia

Audience

I made a prezi showing the type of audience yopu would expect for RnB by macking a profile for the target audience to make it more visually intresting. I have also added a conclusion

Planning: Pitch - Audience 2 - Bernice

The original artist hasn't been in the music industry for a year and doesn't actually have an official fan site, but a community Facebook page that hasn't been active since 2013, february.

We have found that in this genre a lot has changed, specifically that the genre is turning more into pop, I think this is because they want to branch out into a broad audience. Less focusing on race, but more expanding it, it will appeal to people of all races, who simply enjoy the music and style of the artist

Planning: Pitch - Audience 1 - Bernice

Our primary audience will be Young black british teen females, aged between 14 and above or wider audience would be 23 years+ women, these would be older sisters of the primary audience or cousins, this will also branch into a wider audience of mothers and grandmothers who will be interested as she is a black female and is trying to make a positive involvement into the music industry as well as the world.
Our audience will find our artist appeals to them as she will have a great sense of style, which the younger audience will like and want to copy, but also the older audience will like her style as it will be modest and they will probably want their daughters (who would be fans) to dress.

One thing I found out about artists in this genre, is that it is dominated by americans, so when a British R'n'B artist is coming up they usually start off in Britain to build a strong fan base but then all branch out to america and then other parts of the world.

Planning: Pitch - Initial Idea - Bernice

Planning: Pitch - Mood Board- Jessica

Planning: Pitch - Brand Image - Bernice

We have chosen name 'Vishay' for our artist, as there is no artist in the music industry at this moment with the same name. Vishay is a 20 year black british female, who has featured on other songs with different artists. She is now focusing on herself, trying to build a fan base, she will be dropping her music video in a few weeks time and then this will flow into the album/single release, whilst all this is happening she will be doing short interviews and her album debut will be featured on a one spread page in a magazine  newspaper and also a mini advert on the television. We decided that she would be 20 years of age as her primary target audience of fans would between from the ages of 14+ (at least up to her age of 20), so a good amount of those fans would few her as older and this will also mean she would be viewed as a role model to young girls, which is a good quality to have to your name. Her wider audience would be people of 25+ (at least up to the age of 45-48), so they would view her as very young and use that to encourage a young person (our artist) to keep excel.

Our artist Vishay is similar to a lot of artist who fall into the genre of R'n'B, i have shared some artist below who we specifically think are closely similar to our artist.

(artists: Jenifer Hudson,Young Mariah Carey, Lauryn Hill, Eryka Badu and Estelle)

  Below I have created looks of what our artist would wear.

     

Hopefully this will help to connect to a wider audience, people who are interested in fashion, this will help the artist as that means they will be in the media and it will prompt people to check out her music.

Planning: Pitch - Song Choice- Bernice

We have chosen the song 'Where Did We Go' by the artist Misha B. 

The song has no music video to it which is great as it allows us to have a very wide and open perspective. We have looked at this artists other music videos and find that they all are quite repetitive, as most of them include her dancing with a big group of dancers behind her, or her in different locations moving around a little while she performs the song. We have decided we will not have dancing in ours as it will not go well with our concept but we will focus more on the artist herself and her performing the song. In her other music videos her locations are either in a studio or outside in empty locations; on a rooftop, in a basket ball court, our own locations for our music video will mostly be outside in empty streets that have a lot of lighting above, but we will not use a studio as that would cost us money. 

The concepts in her music video are based around love, relationships and moving on from this 'heartbreak', our concept will be similar as the lyrics of the song connote these themes and we will also show this through our visuals in the music video.
 Below we have annotated the lyrics and brainstormed some thoughts the lyrics reflected to us.

Planning: Pitch- Concept

The concept of our music video is that our artist has broken up with her partner and is just reminiscing about the good times they shared

Original Artist website

Analysis of 3 Music videos

similar music videos

I researched 2 music videos that are similar to what we want to do in our music video for example the youth feel with the first song called "Tiffany-When I'm grown" and also flashbacks in the other music video.

Research: Analysing previous A2 work

22. Siobhan, Vanessa, Rebecca, Can from 283goswell on Vimeo.

This music video is really good as they have many different aspects that make the music video good and visually intresting for example:

- Fast motion at the begining goes with the song as

- There are many diffrent fades to show different things such as him moving around to locations or just to changes of locations and also to show him switching positions on the sofa.

- The music video is edited so that it looks faded as the song is like the artist is mumbling and sounds quite drowsy.

- There is an editing skill shown quite a few times where the clip goes backwards and forwards which really matches the song as it sounds like the song is going backwards and forwards for example when he shatters the glass and also when he's walking on the streets.

- The locations are outside in shoreditch, city streets, house outside and inside the house. The graffiti wall behind him whilst he's singing really suits the genre and the so does the clothes hes wearing becuase it looks like he just came out of a party.

- Some parts of the video is from the point of view of the guy lipsyncing

- Some parts of the song are shot really fast and then slowed down to match the song as the song sounds faded/echoey and he looks like he's drunk as he has props such as pills, beer bottle and he's smoking so the video matches the song really well.

Research:Mainstream vs Indie

scroll down on powerpoints that allow to view all

Social Media + Celebrities

I made a presentation on celebrities who use social media to self promote themselves and keep fans up to date with their lives and upcoming concerts, songs ect.

Analysis of song Digipak/CD

There is no digipak/CD for our song choice as this song isn't on Misha B's album. However I have still managed to analyse her Album cover below as I feel it is still relevant. Just click on the red circles on the picture below to view my analysis.

<img style="max-width:100%" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/597181926998016001/1024/10/scaletowidth#tl-597181926998016001;1043138249'" class="alwaysThinglink"/><script async charset="utf-8" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/jse/embed.js"></script>

Analysis of original video

The song we've chosen (Misha B - Where Did We go) doesn't have a music video. This is great as we won't be tempted to copy anything but rather we can focus and on making a great music video using are fresh ideas but sticking to the music video conventions of our song genre.

Planning our short music video with storyboard!

In today's lesson we started a planning for our short 50 second music video. We chose the song Delilah- Never be another one because this song doesn't have a music video and we want to explore different shots and experiment with different editing styles, we think this will also help us when we do start to plan and edit our own music videos, as this will help us establish what we want to 

do and don't want to do. First we shared our ideas and chose the one we liked best and then we began to create our story plan and wrote down which shots we are going to take. 

Here bernice is sketching out the storyboard.

 

Here are the props we selected in class.

Down below on the left side is our shot by shot list and on the right we have embedded a slide showing our storyboard.