Final narrative shoot

After school Michael and I (Daniel) stayed behind to plan the shoot and ensure everything is in tip-top shape beforehand so that we can begin the shoot early at 9:30am. We have written up a shot list to account for shots that aren't in the prologue and will be narrative during the track. We have organised the room in advance and even took a few final shots to test for composition, however lighting can only be tested when all the extras are there. All in all, we feel as ready as we can be (well, a lot more ready than before!) and we looking forward to a successful shoot!

The Album Cover

To create the album cover we used Adobe Photoshop CS5 picture editing software. During the production the plan for it changed. The plan for a plain white front and back cover was scrapped and we used a black and white beauty shot of Charley instead with a lens flair. The text overlay for the back cover was changed to white and is the same font as the front cover.

The front cover was changed to give a brush stoke effect with a city highrise building overlay. Links were added to the back cover for the band and record label Madhouse. On the inside cover the stage names of the DJs were added so they could be quickly identified. All the parts of the album were formated and put within the guidlines to be sent off for printing and production.

Our !NFLUX website

To create a website for our artist !NFLUX we used 'Wix', a free online website designer. Based on our previous research we feel it is necessary that we take the 360 degree marketing angle to appeal and reach our mainstream audience. The website should be easy to navigate and have aesthetics which you would easily relate to the band. We will include links to the home, !NFLUX, gallery, video, competition/events and shop.

Upon entering the site's URL, you will first go to a page of simply an image of the band in action and looking incredible with just a link saying "ENTER SITE" and links to !NFLUX's pages on social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter. We chose these sites since we know that the majority of the core target audience use the sites. Since 80% of 16-24 year olds both male and female use social networking sites, it is a very cheap method of advertising and creating a huge online hype about the band.

We feel that fan interactivity with the band and the site is vital in attracting new audiences and so not only will there be a link to Facebook and Twitter on every page, but there will be the opportuinty to download the album, images, wallpapers, videos and purchase other merchandise surrounding the artist. There will be free samples of some items, however the audience will have to pay for everything else via website.

A significant part of our audience interactivity is our competition. We researched that Pendulum held a competition when releasing their latest album 'Immersion' where they allowed the audience to download the individual components of a track for free and use there own editing software to mix the track together and submit their mix. The best track was released in the album. We are going to provide a competition of similar nature to our audience via the website because this music is contemporary and largely produced at home. By using Web 2.0 to our advantage, we could attract audiences through the user generated content produced and submitted and the overall interactivity between the band and the fanbase.

Narrative Video Storyboard

In preparation of our second narrative shoot this friday 18th, we shot a video storyboard to allow us to be more efficient with camera set ups on the day and to give us an overall feel of the practicalities and possibilities with shooting at this new location, the media classroom.

We feel it went successfully with much experimentation, however when looking through the footage at times it didn't look as professional as we'd hoped (i.e. when the teacher enters the class the walk to the desk is too long). So, to avoid this an alternative might be to have the teacher already in the class with a few students and just show a few students entering the classroom. From ehre the teacher could then simply stand up, tell the students to "be quiet" or some equivalent, and then sit down and allow the following events of the video to unfold.

Having said this, if we are not going to have a prologue then this won't be as noticeable and we can film on the day as initially planned.

This is a roughly edited version of our narrative video storyboard.

Added editing method

In editing, we've found it difficult to browse through each clip at the full length to find specific shots which may only last for less than one second in the performance during the very fast paced editing. So I thought that to allow us to be more efficient in searching for the required shots I created a new sequence in our project on CS5 Adobe Premier Pro in which I have cut out all the clips that could be used in the final video, so that we can simply drag and drop the shot into the edit of our music video.

I selected shots from `Freehand Takes 1-3` and `Freehand Focus Changes Take 1`.

I made a `Screenshots` folder in our group 1 folder on the edit suite hard drive and in our group 1 folder on topics.

Thoughts in Preparation of the Second Performance Shoot

As a group, we understand that it is of the utmost importance to turn up to the shoot with more preparation than a few ideas of shots kept in our head. We need to pay closer attention to detail in composition of the framing.

As well as including the list of shots mentioned in a previous post `Rough Edit Reflections`, I have also noticed that we will need more controlled vibrations of the camera to fit in with the chaotic madness of the chorus `drop` of the song. In particular, I feel that using this vibration technique in corporation with close ups, high angles and tilted frames should be appropriate for the pace and atmosphere.

When we shoot, I think we should have already noted down exactly which type of shot will be the key feature of that particulr take so aren't solely relying on spontaneous camerawork from the cameraman. This method of filming on the day will also allow myself (Daniel) and Adam to have an increased role in directing, since we are the DJs and so have less chance of utilising roles behind the camera.

e.g. Take 1 - CU Vibrating
       Take 2 - HA Tilted Angle

Reflections on First Narrative Shoot

The shoot took place on Saturday 4th July from 8am until 1pm. Using Lauren Good as our teacher character we shot the planned narrative but ran out of time to shoot the complete plan due to school time restrictions. Looking at the footage that we shot, we agreed as a group, with our teacher and technician that it was not the right look we were going for.

Here are the reasons why:

• The footage had little varience in terms of types of shots.
• The dancing was too provocative and sexual where we wanted more of a loss of control and freestyle dance.
• There was little interaction with the classroom setting and with the lighting there was too much of a studio feel taking our character too far away from reality.
• Too similar to performance.
• Not right for the style of music

We therefore decided that we will need to reshoot, deciding on a different actor as our teacher, changing it to our lead singer Charley due to the fact that she was very professional and would help to further promote a debute album. The initial narrative idea has been tweeked slightly also. Instead of using a biology classroom which gave us many restrains we will use a media classroom as a detention room and have a 20 second prologue of the teacher entering the room and speaking to the detainese. She will then listen to the video with headphones and at the drop of the song a cheaky child will remove the headphone plug from the laptop causing the music to play out load causing the class to start dancing and the teacher gradually joins in with this comotion the DJs would come in and take her away.

Rough Edit Reflections

I created a rough edit using Adobe Premier Pro editing software with the footage we captured from the performance shoot and have found it very helpful in pinpointing the details we need to improve in our next shoot(s).

When editing it felt like certain shots were "missing". In our next performance shoot we need to film:

• more angles, shot distances (particularly CUs) and with more emphasis on the DJs,
• more LAs of Charley,
• tighter CUs of Charley and the DJs,
• ECUs of Charley and the DJs, particularly their eyes,
• more free hand shots.

It is also clear that in the build-up to each chorus (drop) requires a much more increased pace in cuts between shots and to the beat of the song.

Promo Shoot

Today, we conducted a promo shoot for our artist, !NFLUX, in order to promote our artist image and create images for the fanbase on our website and album cover.

We varied the depth, lighting and mood of the shot to entice the audience into divulging further into our campaign.

At first, we used the same costumes we wore when shooting the performance for the music video (Charley: sophisticated black dress with a dropped shoulder strap, DJs: Black suits, shirts and shoes, along with our iconic masks and headphones.)

We then changed the costume for added interest and variety.

Finally, we had another costume change so that the DJs were wearing casual clothing, with particular emphasis on wearing a hooded jumper, since this type of clothing is commonly associated with the clothing that is worn by the target audience. With this added grunge look, we can look to reach further into our target audience because it allows the audience to relate to the band, and this interactivity that is contemporary and very popular with the audience.

Production Meeting with Miss Blackborow

After having 2 production shoots and capturing the footage (for the first shoot) we have realised there is still much to do in the way of constructing a believable and relevant narrative. Chris was with us in the shoot on Saturday 5th and we received feedback from him saying "the dancing felt inappropriate and didn't convey the ideas we wanted."

Today Daniel had a meeting with Miss Blackborow and discussed the issues to do with the teacher suddenly blaring music during the test in class and creating a narrative which is appropriate and works well with the performance and the artist.

We have decided to cast Charley as the teacher due to difficulties in getting Lauren to the school and ensuring time is used efficiently and we feel this way there is a stronger connection betweent he narrative and the performance. Effectively, we are going back to an initial idea by the group where the narrative merges into the performance.

I used the rough timeline Michael and I created at lunch to take notes. We are going to include a 20 second prologue in which there is the introduction to the class room environment (teacher entering classroom with test papers). The song starts as the ideas below take hold.

We have two possible ideas to be used for the entrance to begin the dancing:

1. After giving out the test papers and telling the class to begin, the teacher sits down, plugs in her headphones and starts listenign to music quietly whilst marking work - this is when the song will begin. A naughty student leans over the teachers desk allowing the music to blare loudly. This leads to many hysteric reaction from the class as well as the teacher and everyone starts dancing to the music.
2. Again, the teacher sits down after giving out the test and she opens an email with the !NFLUX music video in the email window. Suddenly, there is an error message and from hear the song would start. The image on screen begins to break away leaving behind the music video in full screen, with the music blaring and everyone dancing.

Currently we are more inclined to do the first option due to the practicalities involved in creating this email.

From the second verse, the DJs begin to get involved with the narrative. We will create much build up other their entrance through many slo mo shots of them approaching the classroom and with the reactions of the students and the teacher when they first see them. During the bridge, the DJs set up their equipment (decks and keyboard) on the teacher's desk and gradually students melt away from the classroom to leave just the band (now including Charley). At the drop following the bridge, there will be a BCU of Charley addressing the camera, with her jumping backwards (and perhaps a focus pull) to act as a transition between Charley as a teacher and Charley as a member of the band.

To bring the music video full circle, the final few shots will be of Charley leaving the classroom with the test papers.

Inspiration

Here are some videos we have taken inspiration from and that we feel are visually interesting for different reasons.

Designing Masks

For our DJ's, obviously 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.

Schedule Week 3: October 31st - November 5th

Actor Contract: Charley Packham

Group 1 Actor Contract (1)

Researching Masks

For the performance (and the end of the narrative) the DJ's will both wear masks. We were inspired to do this after watching a music video by Hollywood Undead called 'Young'.

The masks they wear have all been designed and personalised by them, to reflect them in some way. We would like to take this idea and create two unique masks that would be part of the bands motif. In particular I like 'Da Kurlzz' mask.

For this, I have been researching into masks that we could buy and customise.

I like the style of the Venetian masks, as they cover the entire face and can hide the eyes, whilst still remaining quite human looking. If we could get a plain white coloured mask, we could spray paint and design it to how we like.

I found a design I quite like, on a website that sells a variety of Venetian masks:

However the mask is hand made, thus making it extremely expensive, but this is the general idea of what we'd like the masks to look like.

Schedule Week 2: October 17th - 21st

Pitch Feedback

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.

Feedback on Treatment From Teachers

Production Treatment Feedback by mdcassidy

This is an audio recording of my meeting with the teachers, as they gave feeback on our treatment.

Treatment: Promises

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.

Feel Good - Modestep

This song, Feel Good by the group Modestep, is a big source of inspiration, being a very unique video in several ways.
The video is, in a way, a narrative based around a concept, that feeds into a performance. Dubstep videos are usually based entirely around narrative (Chase and Status - Let You Go/Time) and have very little, if any, performance. In this video though, the band perform throughout the video so that we get an idea of the band identity.
For us this could be useful, as we need to create a band identity and promote the band, not the song. So to do so, we would have to have a performance in the video, that would create identity, and this would be the way to do so.

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.

Schedule Week 1: October 10th - 14th

Week 1 Schedule - click to enlarge

Production Meeting 2: Idea Development and More

We had another Production Meeting today, where we further discussed the idea, and flagged up certain issues. After our previous meeting with Ms. Blackborow, we felt that the idea of a wedding just wasn't appropriate - it felt far too old for our audience of 16-24 year olds, and didn't feel right for the genre. The ideas regarding the performance though have remained the same, but Michael suggested that maybe we shouldn't use the 'faceless' editing, as it seems almost pointless if we're still going to cover up their faces with glasses and headphones, and yet still have lips etc. Regardless, we still plan on experimenting with it just to see.
In terms of Ideas, we have to decided to still work around the idea of a relationship, and still in a conceptual way, but with multiple younger couples so that the video can seem more relatable. The three of us spent the evening on Skype further developing the idea.

Although much of the meeting was positive, we did flag up certain issues. We had originally booked with the teachers to pitch our final idea today, but due to a severe lack of organisation on everyones part, the pitch did not go ahead and we have pushed it back, until later this week. This has made us realise that  we really need to get our act together, and so have devised a schedule to which we will stick to, without question. 

After a bit of a creative drought, we have come up with some good ideas, and are now very focused in what we need to do, and look forward to experimenting in the coming days, and pitching at the end of this week.

Copyright request to UMG

Here is an email to UMG, the record label that has ownership rights over 'Promises' by Skrillex, requesting the legal use of the song to accompany our video. If we were to recieve a reply we would be very lucky: 

Production Meeting 1: Song Choice

We met as a group for the first time and began discussing song choices. Adam and Daniel liked the idea of doing a Dubstep song, and upon going through a few on our iPod's, came upon a song called 'Promises', by an Artist called Nero, but remixed by another artist called Skrillex. The three of us really like the song, and there are just enough lyrics to make the song doable.



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.
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.