planning- where we are at.

We have just finished editing our music video, it has taken around 2 months to complete all together including the planning, researching, filming and editing. Although it has brought a lot of stress onto the group it was definitely worth it as I am pleased with the final product.

Last week we received feedback on our video from the class, we had taken into consideration what everyone had said about our video and put their ideas into our final video. Now we have finished our video we have to finish the last bit of our website which is to put photos of our artist into the gallery and finish up our digipak in time for the deadline.

On Monday after school me and Rachel have hired out the photography studio where we will meet our actress to take photo's of her. These photo's will be used on the digipak and also on the website. We will take a range of different pictures so they are not all the same that we can put onto both digipak and website however we will not put the pictures we have taken for our digipak onto our website and vice versa.

planning- our digipak.

As we have finished our first draft and the deadline is drawing upon us, it is time to start shooting for our digipak. We need to find a time we can get our artist into school as we will be taking some photo's in the photography studio as we liked the white backdrop as it gave it a simple look.

We have been researching into digipaks previously and we thought we could use some as inspiration. On the front of the digipak we definitely want something we can show our artist off with, e.g a close up of the artist. Here is a digipak we would like to take as an inspiration for ours:

 

We like how simple yet effective this cover is with the silver glitter and how it is in black and white. We would like to do our own interpretation of this for our cover however it may be tricky to get it to fit with our genre as Demi Lovato's main genre is pop. In the upcoming week we will research further into different digipaks from our genre and then do a photoshoot with our artist.

As our song is called 'Red Lines' we could include something to link with that on our digipak as it then looks like we have taken our main song into consideration, however we are not quite sure what we could do yet as it is a unique genre and there are not many artists with the same genre who have digipaks.

planning- feedback.

Earlier this week me and Rachel finished our first draft of our music video and therefore thought we should get some feedback from it from our class to see what they thought. The feedback can help us make any changes people think we should make, as also the class is in our target audience category so it would help a lot to see what they thought and also aid us with our evaluations.

Here is some of the feedback we were given:

-The editing fitted well with the song; the cuts were on point
- Locations suited the genre of the song and mise en scene is good, especially the light bulb part
- Lip syncing works well and is on point
- Simplicity of the whole thing works really well
- Could have a wider range of shot sizes; ECU, Long Shots etc.
- Could include more camera movement
From this me and Rachel have taken these points into account and included them into our music video to try and make it look better.

planning- our website so far.

We are currently half way through editing our website. After a lot of thought we decided that our webiste didn't look 'artisty' enough so we decided to scrap the original website and choose a new layout and style.

We chose to stay with wix.com as it is a very simple and easy website maker, also it gave us a 'music' category we could choose from. We feel the new style of the website is better suited to the genre our artist is in as it is rather 'different', also it is black and white which is conventional of our genre.

Here is the progress up to yet:

 

 

planning- conventions of a website.

I decided to make a prezi of the conventions of a website from artists in our genre. I thought this could help me and Rachel pick out ideas of what we could include in our website. I got the information by researching different websites from artists in a similar genre to ours.

planning- new filming.

At the weekend Rachel went out to film the rest of the performance section for our music video. She and the actress went to some old garages near to where they live as it is easier to get to and it also matches with the conventions of our genre. In one of Katy B's music video she walks through some estate past some garages which we have taken inspiration from as Katy B is an artist from our genre.

As the nights are getting darker earlier now Rachel needed to film quite quickly but not too quick that she would rush it and it would look unprofessional but just so the clips don't look different when it comes to editing. However when I was editing today none of the clips looked like they had different light which is good because if not it would mean we would have to re-film again. When she was filming she said it was kind of tricky because the garages she was at was on a kind of slope therefore it made the camera a little wonky. She told me she had resolved this by finding an old slab from where she was filming that she could rest one of the tripods legs on. None of the clips when playing back look wonky therefore it was a good idea.

As Rachel has filmed the majority of the video I thought I would take control on editing the music video, I am then learning how to use premiere pro and making contribution to our video.

planning- making changes to our music video.

Whilst we was editing our music video we realised that none of the narrative fit with the rest of the video. When previewing the video we thought that it didn't look right with the different locations, also in the narrative part she is meant to look rather depressed whereas in the performance section she is happy and enthusiastic therefore we soon decided that it doesn't make sense when pieced together. When thinking about it too we didn't make the narrative clear enough so the audience know what the video is supposed to mean.

Thankfully we still have the camera which means we can re-film and replace the narrative with more performance shots. We have decided to make the whole video to just be based on performance as most videos in our genre do this anyway. Even though we had filmed plenty before we think the best idea would be to re-film in another location. As deadlines are drawing upon us closely we need to get the filming done soon so we can edit again.

This weekend Rachel will go out with the actress to film again in the location she has decided on.

planning- website.

Earlier this week me and Rachel started our ancilliary task which was to create a website for our artist. We chose to do it on www.Wix.com which is a really simple, free website builder. We are halfway through completing it so we hope we can manage to get it done for christmas when our deadline is.

We previously looked up other well known artists websites that relate to our genre and we noticed they have a lot of information on their websites therefore me and Rachel took inspiration from these artists and came up with 8 different links/pages we can put on. Here is a preview of the pages.

Here are some previews of some of the pages we have completed:

 

 

planning- social media.

I have created a twitter, facebook, instagram and youtube page for our music artist Ninah J. Me and Rachel thought this would be a good idea as these days most music artists promote their music/products via social media. Also it helps you keep in touch with the younger generation more as they use a lot of social media websites today.

We previously researched that our target audience would range from ages 15-25, therefore making social media websites for our artist makes it easier for this audience as they tend to spend more time on the internet than reading books or magazines.

As well, social media websites keeps the audience updated at all times and fans find it great how they can 'stalk' their idols via the internet.

Here are the screenshots of the websites I created:

Twitter

 

 

 

Facebook

 

 

 

 

Youtube

 

 

Instagram

planning- location.

As I haven't already I have decided to make a blog post of all the locations we have filmed for our music video. Some are screenshots from clips we have taken.

Sutton Lawn

 

Bedroom

 

 

Living Room

 

 

University Halls 

 

 

 

Photography Studio

*PHOTOS SOON*

planning- filming finished!

We have finally completed filming all of our music video, we have looked at all the clips and chose the best from each repeated shot we filmed. They look really well done and I am proud of what we have managed to do.

We have done each clip to the best of our standards and hopefully that is enough and we don't have to re-shoot any!

We need to start to edit our music video now with the help of our storyboard/anamatic which tells us how long each clip lasts and where they come in the video. And then me and Rachel can also start doing our digipak and website for our artist.

This is the completed schedule we used:

planning- filming the outdoor shots.

On Sunday me and Rachel went out with our actress and filmed the outdoor shots. We also filmed some of the lip syncing and thought it went really well.
We found a graffiti wall that we thought would go well with our music video and fit our genre, which is where we filmed today. I thought it was a very fitting location and will look good in our final music video.
Here are some photos we took whilst out filming:

 

planning- filming in the photography studio.

Our final location for our music video was in the photography studio we have in school, we filmed today in our double media lesson after we had arranged it with our teacher and the photography teacher.

As our actor has a week off school we thought this would be the most suitable week to finish all of our filming. This part of the music video is more performanced based than the rest, the artist is a lot more dressed up in this scene.

At first we struggled to get the lighting right as it was too dark but with the help of our friend Molly we managed to get it right which made it look really good on the camera. We decided to use a white backdrop rather than a black one as we thought it would look better also our artist was wearing dark clothes so it contrasted well.

This is an example of a shot from the photography studio:
*PHOTO SOON*

planning- filming the living room shots.

Today after school we filmed the living room shots for our music video. Originally our plan was to stand the actor in front of an MDF board with her lip syncing but we managed to find an outdoor spot which already had the graffiti there for us, meaning we didn't have to fork out money ourselves.

As we had already chosen that location we needed to change this one, we looked at the music videos we had taken inspiration from before and most of them are set in houses. We went for the plainest background we could so it would fit well with the red bulb we had in shot. The red light adds effect to the scene and emphasises the actor more as it makes her stand out as the light is glowing onto her.

We managed to get all the lip sycning done we needed to and I felt it went really well, this is an example of what one of the shots in our video will look like:

planning- weather forecast.

We have researched into the weather forecast for this weekend as we are planning on filming our outdoor scene for our music video. We need to know whether we can work ourselves round the weather as we don't want it to be raining as our actor and cameras will get wet. Also if it is windy then the shots will look messy as her hair will be flying in front of her face.

We looked on bbc weather and the forecast looks ok for this weekend therefore we can go and film as planned.

planning- shooting schedule.

Rachel devised a shooting schedule so it would be easier for us to figure out when we are filming or not.
We have already filmed quite a bit of our music video anyway, but we will use this to help guide us to where abouts we are with our filming. We need to ensure we film each clip several times so incase some shots go wrong we have more that we can back it up with. Me and Rachel are going out tomorrow to film some shots in the city with our actor.

planning- outfit.

We have taken some pictures of our actor in the different outfits we have used in our music video and explained why they fit with the gnere of our music video.

Bedroom outfit

 

This outfit is very relaxed and 'simple' as she is only lay in a bed for the opening of our music video, the actor is meant to look depressed and sad therefore we decided to use an outfit that would show this instead of  her dressing up like we she has for the other locations. The leggings show comfort as she wouldn't really bother putting a pair of jeans on if she was just 'chilling'. However the denim shirt then adds some style to the outfit we have used because they are in fashion and look good with the leggings.

 

 

 

Outdoor outfit

 

This outfit has a rather unique style about it which matches how the other artists in our genre dress. We looked into how artists like Katy B and Jessie Ware dress and tried to dress similar as they do. Also because it is nearing to winter and is rather cold outside we decided to add a coat on top so she wouldn't freeze although it is a very fashionable coat so it doesn't look bad. As we are filming outside next to a graffiti wall the outfit fits well because it has a rather 'streety' and 'urban' look about it which also fits with the conventions of our genre.

 

 

 

Photography studio outfit

 

This outfit is very different to the others we have chosen, it is a lot more dressed up and glam. The actor is wearing a midi dress with big hoop earrings. Again most artists in our genre tend to wear big hooped earrings so we thought we could take inspiration from this. This part of our music video is more performanced based than the rest therefore we thought by dressing the artist up a little we could show this and it also shows a more 'glam' side to our artist. Also by adding in the heeled trainers to the outfit it still makes it link in with the conventions of our genre which is house, if she had worn fancy shoes it wouldn't have fit.

 

 

 

Living room outfit

 

In this scene the artist is sat on the floor lip syncing to the camera in front of a red light. The light emphasises the flowers on the jacket, we thought to use the jacket because again this is also a more chilled out scene but she's not depressed like the first one therefore we thought we could dress it up a little with the jacket so it didn't look so simple.

 

 

 

 

 

planning- people involved in our music video.

As a female is singing the song to our video we thought it would be more than neccessary to have a female starring in our video therefore Rachel asked her sister Ellie if she would help us out and luckily said yes. This is who our whole video, digipak and website will be about as she is the main artist.

As you may have seen from earlier posts you will see we changed her name to Ninah J, as it is a very unique name which we thought would fit well with our genre. It is very fortunate that Ellie also does musical theatre/drama as a hobby as it means that she won't mind being infront of the camera which also means we can get on with filming as she not be too shy to act out for us. She is also Rachels sister therefore it is easier for us to contact Ellie when we like to ask her to film as she also lives with Rachel meaning that we can get a lot more done in less time than we would if we had to meet up with our actor regularly.

We are also using my boyfriend Chris to play the male part of the music video, me and Rachel both got the feeling our music track was about being unfaithful to your boyfriend therefore we thought it would make sense if we put a few shots of the 'ex-boyfriend' in to help explain the narrative of the video a little more. As I am away visiting Chris at uni this week, it means I can get as much filming done with him as possible as he will  be available for the majority of the time. Also as he is my boyfriend I know that he won't let us down when it comes to filming, as well as Ellie.

These are the two people who are involved in our video:

 

planning- filming with the male.

As I am in Liverpool this week I have had time to film the male section of our music video as we are using my boyfriend. I filmed in the uni halls he is living in as they are quite stylish and the setting looks good. I filmed in the kitchen as most music videos film around different rooms in the house and this was probably the lightest and homeliest room there was.

It didn't take long for me to film as we are only filming 20 seconds with the male in but we repeated each shot several times to ensure we had enough and in case some of the shots didn't look so great.

Here is a screenshot taken from one of the shots I filmed:

planning- equipment and location.

LOCATION:

As me and Rachel are filming different parts for our music video we will be filming in quite a few different locations, this is common in our genre as other artists tend to film different shots for their videos. The locations that we will be using are: 

• Rachels Bedroom
• Liverpool University Halls
• Liverpool City Centre
• Nottingham City Centre
• Rachels Living Room
• The Photography Studio in Sixth Form

LIST OF EQUIPMENT:

Here is a list of equipment that we will be using in our music video, from the basics like the cameras and then to the things that will be shown in the background to create effect:

1 Canon Camera
1 Sony HD Camera
2 tripods
2 camera bags
2 Pens and notebooks
1 Storyboard
1 List of shots
1 Coffee Table
1 Lamp and red bulb
2 Mobile phones

planning- finished storyboard.

Me and Rachel have finally finished our storyboard for our music video which means we can now go onto planning when we will film.

As I am away this week we have decided to split the filming in half, I will film the majority of the outdoor shots and the male actor shots whereas Rachel will film most things that include our actress.

The storyboard is only a rough plan and is what we are hoping our final video will look like however, like last time we may make a few changes to things and some shots may not fit or look right therefore we will film differently to what is on the post-it notes. To help guide us through filming, on each post-it note we have included the name of every shot we want and how long it will last.

Here are the pictures of the completed storyboard and we will upload the anamatic shortly:

 

filming- bedroom shots.

As I am in Liverpool, Rachel decided to film the bedroom shots with our actor as it is her sister and it is best to get it out of the way.
She filmed quite a lot of shots to ensure she had more than enough and in case some of the shots she had taken went wrong. Each shot varied from different angles and distances so we have a mixture when it comes to editing of what we like the best.

As this doesn't take up much of our music video and Rachel has filmed so many shots its came to our realisation that we will definitely need to film a lot more when it comes to the bits which take up most of our music video.

Here are some photos Rachel took from filming the bedroom section:

planning- risk assessment.

I devised up a risk assessment of all the risks that could take place when we are filming our video:

 

planning- finishing storyboard and speeding up track.

In lesson we asked sir whether he could speed up our track a little so then when it comes to filming and we get the actor to lip sync it will match when we edit it. When we edit it we will slow the track down so we can match it, because it is a slow song without making the song faster it would look like she is lip syncing too quick when we finish it.

Also we have finally finished our storyboard for our music video, we have stuck to the conventions of our genre by taking inspiration from different music video's from our genre. We will be creating and uploading our anamatic shortly.

research- artist name and logo.

We have recently been thinking of some name ideas we can call our artist. It has taken us quite a while to think of a name as we wanted it to be something unique. Me and Rachel have been researching into the typical conventions of our genre and what kind of names the artists have.

Most of the artists names we have researched are kind of unique and different, so we thought we could take inspiration from these. There are: AlunaGeorge, Lorde, Katy B and Jessie Ware. We thought about it and realised most of these names are double-barrelled so we thought we could do something similar.

Eventually we came up with the name 'Ninah J' we originally thought of Nina but we thought by adding the 'H' it would make it more unique and more relative to our genre. We added the 'J' at the end as we thought it was the only letter that would fit well.

Here are some fonts that we have chosen to be our artists signature font from Dafont.com