My name is Amber Mota, candidate number 9114, and for my A2 Coursework I am in Group 1. I am working along side Shayam Utting (candidate number: 9164) and Alistair Price(candidate number: 9137) to create a music video. The links to my work are on the right-hand side and are entitled: A2 Research and Planning, A2 Construction and A2 Evaluation.
'Trip Switch' By Come What May
'Trip Switch' By Come What May
Front Digipak
Front Digipak
Inside Digipak
Inside Digipak
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Showing posts with label A2 Research and Planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A2 Research and Planning. Show all posts
Looking back over the past few weeks I am very pleased with my group and our balanced contributions to the project. I think working together we have all been allowed to focus on our strengths whilst also challenging ourselves in some, perhaps more unusual ways.
I think that I have contributed quite significantly to the idea of the project and the theme of technology and I have really enjoyed working within a group in which we can all connect to the concept.
I have also enjoyed working on the album cover flat plans as it has really allowed me to experiment with the connotation of layered meanings through still images. In addition, I have found the balance between breaking and conforming to conventions quite interesting and it has allowed me to fully understand the power of synergy and has exposed the promotional marketing linked to the production of an album cover.
I also worked alongside Shayam to create the layout and design plans for the website. This task really taught me how strong communication and teamwork can be so beneficial to the creative output.
Furthermore, I was in charge of the costume coordination and design. Initially, I felt that this would be slightly out of my comfort zone, but actually, with the help of my group I felt quite confident in the role and I really liked experimenting with power of representations, through their outfits.
In addition, being a part of the band has also offered me some unique challenges and has really helped me to understand the acting process and the best ways to explain the necessary movements and facial expressions.
Overall, I have really enjoyed the pre-production stage of the project and due to our hard work and commitment, I feel that we are well equipped to start construction.
Similar to the rehearsal week, we have devised a timetable to split the studio time between the groups. Our group is keyed in orange, and like last time we will be shooting in one large block across Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
A shot of myself filming
One of the stencils I have created
The tests of the Bokeh technique have been very successful and despite having to spend a lot of my spare time creating the fragile filters, I really enjoyed the process and I am very pleased with the result.
Here is the our rough edit:
Overall, the week has run very smoothly, I am very happy with our final test edit. Although some of the band performance shots are not on location and the lighting is perfect, I feel a strong sense of direction and confidence in our idea heading into the final shoots.
I have learnt an enormous amount through the creation of a rough edit and it has been essential to the progression of our ideas and our overall project.
The three main points for improvement are:
1) Making sure we have enough interesting content to last the whole 3 minutes. We all felt that even in this first minute the video was two static and was lacking some dynamic excitement.
2) Emphasizing the progression throughout the paper concept scene and displaying the clear build in intensity through the growing of the wires.
3) Ensuring that there will be a connection between the two scenes. The creation of this extracted has highlighted the potential clash of scenes and the risk of a disjointed video, which is something I want to avoid.
In addition to the multiple other organizational document we have created, we decided that a call sheet would also be useful. I created the call sheet document below that includes who is needed, when they are needed and where, as well as the props and make-up as well. Furthermore, I decided to create a health and safety section on the last page that outlined the potential hazards and clarified the standard safety procedures. This document has now been issued to all cast and crew members to ensure that all the shoots will run as planned.
Overall, I think this document is extremely useful as it has allowed all members involved to stay on time and organized and I think it will prevent most issue in terms of missing props or late actors.
We have now produced two shoot boards; 1 for the studio shoot and 1 for the rooftop location shoot.
Rooftop Shootboard Page 1
Studio Shootboard Page 1
Overall, I think that using these shoot-boards were incredibly useful. It allowed us to work extremely effectively and therefore we were able to get the shots done quickly without having to rush at all. It also ensured that we were all in the right places in the right time and no props of costumes were forgotten. Furthermore, they aided communication between the my other group members and myself and made sure all footage was recorded without gaps.
In preparation for our upcoming rehearsals week we have met with the other two media groups and together we have separated the available studio time equally in order to produce the timetable on the right. Our sessions are denoted in orange and initially I was slightly concerned by the blocked nature of our sessions as it means that if there is a significant issue with one of our scenes, we will have little to no time to correct or improve them.
Therefore, in addition to this timetable, I have also created our own personal timetable (left) that outlines what we will be doing in each session and then we color coded our availability using the key underneath. This schedule will ensure that we are always using the time as effectively as possible and will also prevent us from an unbalanced time per scene management.
In hindsight, I think that scheduling of our sessions were perfect as it allowed us Monday to prepare and then both Thursday and Friday to reflect on our footage and the choices we had made during those two days of rehearsals. Furthermore, by having some really intensive and lengthy sessions it allowed us to really get involved and concentrated on the projects whereas the other groups said that they had found it difficult to get stuck in, during some of there shorter sessions.
Overall the rehearsals went very well and we worked productively throughout, however we did face multiple challenges as well as some large cinematographic questions.
The first of these issues was the lighting in our paper scene. Although we had initially chosen and planned to use infinite white we used this rehearsal opportunity to test this lighting effect as well as other potential set-ups. These various image below show the variety of tests we did and the reasoning behind each of them.
Although the purpose of trying these further style was to strengthen our confidence in using the infinite white, we have ended up feeling less sure of idea than before. Instead, we are considering adapting our idea to the deep blue set-up. In order to overcome this slight setback we have decided to do some audience and teacher feedback to help give us some TA information and guidance.
Here is the questionnaire that we asked people to complete.
Here is a list of the various different repeated comment both for and against each of the scenes. As you can see the points for image two are much closer to our intend effect and therefore we will continue to use the infinite white set-up.
The second, and arguably the most significant problem was with our UV face paint set-up. We spent quiet a large section of our time this week doing several different test with the paints, trying multiple different color combinations and light positions. Despite this, after seeing the footage we are strongly questioning the idea. This is because the we do not feel the connotations are clear enough and the link to the other scenes is not significant enough.
After weighing up the various different consequences, we have decided to scrap this concept. There are several risks in doing this, the most significant being that by taking out roughly a third of the whole video, we could be left with insufficient footage and therefore a stagnant and boring video. Despite this, we feel that including the footage would be more damaging to our project and there are still precautions we can take in order to bulk out our video. The video on the left is a timelapse of me testing the make-up on one of our actors.
Our last, and smallest tweaking point was to do with our performance. Here is a video of one of test shots from later on in the week.
Looking back at this footage we are all confident that we will have a strong and convincing band, because we all look natural and we gel well. However, we do feel that Luke, Shay and myself could use some choreographed moves that we could fall back on, when we left unsure of what to do.
For our shoots in the studio and on the rooftop, we will need a wide range of equipment. In preparation I have made a list of all the different pieces of technology we will need. I have split the lists, separating the studio equipment and the equipment we will need on location.
Location Shoot - Rooftop
The camera kit bag we will
use for the location shoot
When choosing our cast, there were three key thing that we were looking for; reliability, performance skill and the correct representations. We have had quite a few different people interested in the role, however the nature of the project is very demanding and there is a strong need for flexibility, especially when we will be filming on the the rooftop. As a result, we felt that a lot of the potential actors would not be suitable.
Jacob Blewett, a classmate of ours, was one of our initial actors. He performed in one of the music videos last year, meaning he was already well trained to act convincingly. Unfortunately, after having multiple conversations with Jacob, we have decided not to use him. This was due to commitment issues that we felt would complicate our shoots as well as his other work.
We have now decided upon all of our actors and I have created the table below which denotes who we picked, why we picked them and the references that have inspired their look. As can be seen below, we have carefully considered each actor and their potential for the role
I am very happy with our final cast list, and I think that we will all be able create an interesting and dynamic performance.
When organizing the set design, locations and props we have separated it into 2 sections - the rooftop shoot and the studio shoot.
Rooftop Location Shoot
We will be filming this section on the rooftop of Tapestry ( a design agency) on Frith Street, Soho.
This will be the perfect setting for our performance scene as it is conventional setting for alternative music video, without being too cliche. In addition, it has a very striking and industrial view of Central London which will help anchor the indie aspect of the genre. Having said this, using this setting is not without complications.
There are a few main issues that we will need to resolve prior to the shoot:
Due to the location in the middle of Central London, we will need to carefully plan out the transportation of our kit.
Despite the industrial setting, the rooftop is very plush and has been newly refurbished meaning that we will need to find a way to stylize it in order to fit our genre.
We having 4 band member and so without a ceiling lighting rack it will be quite difficult to light each subject equally.
To prepare for these issues we have done a recce of the area and the building itself. We have also produced a very detailed floor plan as well as taking multiple pictures.
Props:
- Fairy Lights x2
- Ibanez ART100 Guitar in Black
- SG Tanglewood Guitar
- A4 paper
- Drum kit
- Drumsticks
Studio Shoot
This will definitely be the easier location to film on, due to the fact that it is in school and therefore our usage hours are much more flexible. Furthermore, having the cyclorama and a lighting desk to our disposal will mean that we can easily achieve our infinite white background.
Despite our extensive knowledge of the studio, we decided that it would still be better to create a floor plan in order to be completely clear about how we would set everything up.
I have also shown my group several references of a infinite white set-up the main two being 'What's Happening in Soho?' and 'Fear and Delight' by The Correspondents.
Props:
- Desk
- Chair
- Piles of paper -I am in charge of this and have been spending many lunch times to collect the paper from recycling bins and other areas of the school.
- Laptop
- Fairy Lights
Costume, props and make-up are all key parts of production and they can complete change the representations of your character brand. As a result, I have decided to create these various documents below in order to ensure that all the costumes and make-up will work in symbiosis to further secure the band's marketing.
Rooftop Shoot:
Costume:
Firstly, Luke (lead singer) will wear the costume on the left.
We have chosen the top and jacket very carefully as we wanted him to wear something quite current and edgy without it being seen as too weird/ unstylish, as that could easily cause the audience to loose interest. Initially we planned to use a plain grey t-shirt, however we decided it would be more effective to us a graphic tee that could further enhance his representations. It was for this reason that I suggested this pizza slice t-shirt which is quite cool yet also offers a sense of comic relief. The chino trousers and the black leather converses we slightly more straight forward. We wanted something plain that did not conflict with the other connotation and enhance the overall representation.
Overall, I am very pleased with his costume and I think that it will work in symbiosis with our brand identity.
'Foals'
-Harrington Coat example
'Sleeping With Sirens'
- example of the use of graphic tees.
Here are the two main references I had for his costume. Although they were more inspirational for the top and the jacket, they also reaffirmed our choice of the black trousers and black shoes.
The image on the right depicts both shay's and my own outfits for the shoot. We have specifically chosen my beanie and Shayam's shoes in order to connote skater representations and help identify with that cool and quirky counter-culture. In addition we have created a color co-ordination between Luke, Shay and I, using black and checked red. We feel that this will help gel the band together and create a sense of synergy.
This band 'Haim' were our primary influence
Overall, I think that our carefully composed costumes will be very effective and will portray the necessary connotations to the audience.
Finally, this is the costume for Seb, our drummer. We have chosen the leather jacket as it is a very strong convention of the rock genre. In addition, we have decided to use the Royal Blood T-Shirt. At first the other members of my group were worried about using mercy from another band, however I showed them my research that suggested it is quite conventional, particularly for the drummer and furthermore, the name of the band was not denoted clearly, meaning most people would assume it was just a graphic t-shirt.
Matt Healy from 'The 1975'
- Leather Jacket Inspiration
We also thought that Shayam could wear a leather jacket as well, however after getting some audience feedback, the large majority said that may risk the over saturation of the convention.
Hair and Make-Up:
We are all keen to make sure that our band were not overly made-up as we want to protect certain representations. In order to ensure this I have created a table that depicts our band member and then a couple of references for their hair and make-up.
Now that we have finished planning our website pages we are going to begin planning our digipak panels.
I have decided to start this process by doing some extensive research of album covers from within similar genres. I have created this visual reference page, but I have also created various different diagrams and case study reports as seen below.
Now that I have a wealth of influences and references I feel comfortable with the conventions of album covers and I am ready to start drafting ideas.
Initial Ideas
We have started to come up with multiple different potential ideas and I do think that all my research has been really beneficial to developing and challenging my creativity.
Here is a spider diagram of our main theme ideas so far. As you can see below, ideas are very varied and we haven't really decided upon any particular type of concept. Although we are not that near a final planned choice, by roughly drafting a wide range of ideas it will help us reach a strong final design that has a very strong underlying concept and theme.
Our First Idea
We have now developed one of our ideas further and here is the flat plan that we have created for this idea.
Our Second Idea
Although we do like this idea, we have all agreed that we should consider our other different ideas so I created another couple of flat plans for this idea.
Overall, I quite like both of these ideas and I don't think that the fact that we haven't made a definite decision is negative at all. If anything I think would be good to continue to constantly reflect and develop our ideas in order to decide which concept has more validity.
After doing a wide range of research, across a number of different genres, I feel confident that I understand the key conventions of artist websites, particular from the rock genre and I feel ready and capable to begin drafting our pages.
Initially myself and Shayam began sketching out some rough flat plans on paper, however I felt that although useful as a first draft, creating computer generated visual designs would be much more helpful when referring back during production.
Through our individual research we had both noticed that using a banner at the top for the key pages is the most common and actually the most effective form of navigation. Below I have created a diagram of my key influences for this style of layout.
Overall, I am very happy with our planned web pages. Each page is full of relevant content and we have a reason and a reference behind each choice. This should mean that producing our website will be fairly straight forward and we will be able to produce a well thought out, effective, usable and professional site.
Over the past week, I have been doing a lot of research and trying to find specific evidence for our promo shots. In preparation for our shoot, I have drawn up various different sketches for the key 4 types of shots as well as a list for potential shots, provided we have sufficient time.
Sleeping With Sirens Promo Shots
The first of our key shots is a wide of the four band members. The different facial expressions on each character represent the 4 different versions we are planning to take of this shot. We want to have one where they are serious and looking straight at the camera, one where they are looking at each other, another where they are all smiling and lastly where they are all laughing.
This style of promo shot is very conventional in the rock genre, more specifically in the alt. indie sub-genre. The image to the right is a promo shot for 'Sleeping With Sirens'. This was my primary reference as I really like the soft yet striking nature of the image, as well as the clever color combinations. Furthermore, each different sitting position individualizes and aids the audience in personalizing each band member. However, it was not the only one; many bands such as 'Nothing But Thieves' and Catfish And The Bottlemen' also use similar shots that have the same effect.
Neck Deep Promo Shots
Secondly, we decided to do various different standing shots as well. We will do some where the band members are in two staggered line, another where they are all in line and a final one where Luke (lead singer) is in front of the rest of us. We will also vary our facial expressions throughout the shots, from serious to happy. This will give us as much flexibility as possibility when choosing the usable promo shots for our website.
The image on the left is my main reference for this shot. This is Neck Deep, an alternative punk rock band. I really like their subtly staggered effect and by placing Ben Barlow (lead) in the front it really helps to give the band "a star" who will act as the primary representative of the band. I have found that this style of shot is very typical for most rock bands as it draws attention to the lead singer without completely ignoring the rest of the band. As a result, I think this type of image is crucial for our promo shots.
These images on either side are the final two key promo shots. The sketch on the left depicts Luke in profile, however I wrote (x4) to signify that we will do the same for each band member. Likewise on the right I have drawn him in a headshot that we will reproduce for each character.
I had two main inspiration for the profile shots. The first of which was the Gorillaz album cover for 'Demon Days' (below left) and the second was Darlia's promo shots (below right). I really like the edge nature of the profile shots and i think it would compliment our bands image well.
The headshot is quite conventional and important when selling an artist as it clearly represents the band member without over complication. Having said this I really liked 'Madness' by Sleeping With Sirens as it incorporates the idea of the headshot, but through the use of striking shadows they do not completely adhere to conventions. I would like to take a similar approach when taking my headshots.
We have now completed our timeline, however we still feel that we would like to create a further in depth outline of our whole video. I feel very strongly about this because by compartmentalizing the video into small key very specific shots, we will all be able to have a strong visual understanding of what we are trying to achieve and which shots we know are essential to capture.
We have decided to use post-it notes to create our storyboard as from past experience i have found that it is really useful having the ability to move the shots around and add more shots without having to redraw anything. We have also created a key in order to differentiate between the framing of each shot. The green post-it note denotes close-ups the blue ones are mid shots and the yellow ones are long shots.
The first page of our storyboard
As you can see in the image above we are planning to start the video with a long shot of the band walking into frame on the rooftop followed by a similar one of Luke walking into the infinite white paper scene. In addition, we have used arrows to denote both the actors movement and the camera movement.
Overall, I am very happy that we have created this storyboard as it has really helped me to consolidate my ideas and thoughts and it has allowed all the potential shots I had been thinking about in my head to be turned into finite ideas that can be explained to others through the drawings. Furthermore, having this storyboard means that during post-production we will be able to constantly refer back to our original idea in order to give us some guidance during the editing process.
My initial breakdown and identification of the key lyrics in the song.
Now that we have all finished drafting our key inspirations and analyzing the lyrics in depth we are now ready to start consolidating our ideas and create a overall layout and structure for our video to follow. I think that this will be very useful for our group as it will really help us to ensure there is a progression throughout the video.
We have begun this process by listening through the song and writing down the timing of each key lyric and instrumental build in the song. Here is this initial break down that we have created.
00.13 - "Sharing secrets with another world"
00.24 - "Trip Switch"
00.29 - "Make a wish and"
00.40 - "Trip Switch"
00.45 - Chorus 1
00.56 - "Down down down"
01.12 - "Gimme data cause I need a hit"
01.23 - "Trip Switch"
01.28 - Chorus 2
01.39 - "Down down down"
01.50 - Bridge instrumental
02.01 - "They put out the lights"
02.12 - Chorus 3
02.23 - "Down down down"
02.34 - Chorus 4
02.44 - "Down down down"
02.55 - "When the lights go down....."
03.01 - Instrumental stops.
Although this is very useful, we are all still in agreement that we would like more visual representation of the song's outline as these time codes are still quite difficult to process.
Therefore we have now created this timeline on the computer:
Overall, I think that creating this timeline has been very crucial to my understanding of the structural outline of the song, however in terms of helping process our ideas I think a further detailed graphical storyboard will be much more useful.
After extensive individual research, we have pooled our ideas together and have collectively came up with the concept and visual styling of our music video. We have now created a 'steal-o-matic' in order to visually represent our ideas whilst also highlighting our key influences.
As can be seen from this video, there are 3 different key set-ups that we want to create.
Performance
Firstly, there is the performance scene. This part of our video will contain all four band members and will adhere to the key conventions of a performance rock music video. We used clips from 'King For A Day' by Pierce The Veil, as well as multiple other bands with similarly inspirational performances.
Paper Scene
The second third of our video will be taken up by the "paper scene" that we are developing. We really want the video to have a strong conceptual aspect that is slightly unconventional. I have had many inspirations for this part of the video, the most significant being 'Whats happened in Soho?' by The Correspondents. This video was extremely influential as it has really aided my visualization of our own concept and it has helped us learn how to build up the textures and layers of meaning without overcrowding a scene.
UV Face Paint
Finally, the last aspect of our video will be the UV black and white face paint. These images have been our main references, however the initial idea was from just a circuit . We feel that this section will help anchor the technology theme and expose the universality of its effect. These shots will add depth and give the concept more complex subtleties.
An inspirations and influences board that I made for our edit suite that we could all leave post-it notes on.
