Teacher feedback on overall project

Feedback on our website:

• Branding needs to be throughout, a picture of the band on the banner needs to be added
• Photos need to be edited to make them interesting/quirky
• Replace Behind The Scenes photos with Promo Shots and only put Behind The Scenes photos in a Behind The Scenes gallery

Video:

Narrative-

• Scene of the person trying to buy the guitar is not clear, possibly cut that out and simplify the storyline

Performance-

• More Close Ups of Shobnam
• Cut to Shobnam before narrative shots
• With the shot of the mum coming in for Daniel's narrative, show Daniel first

Further feedback on the Music Video:

• Many of the band shots have too much space around the members, crop the shots
• First vocal shot needs to be big, maybe from the front, let the shot last longer
• Grading takes time so we need to allow time to grade
• Start the guitar shot earlier

Narrative shoot feedback

Outdoor shoot 2:

After we had finished our second outdoor shoot, we came across the following issues:

• Lack of realism with busker seeing posters - Audition posters would usually be pasted all over a wall, not one randomly on a fence. This had to be re-shot the following week.
• Narrative sequence with someone trying to buy the guitar isn't clear - We simply didn't use this sequence and (Spoiler Alert) made a much simpler one of the busker just looking at his lack of money and looking dejected. 

Bedroom shoot 1

This test shoot was more a lighting test. The indoor lights were quite dim, and the natural lighting was not enough for our shots, therefore we used a portable lighting kit. The shots were successfully lit, however the narrative was slightly off as we did not have access to a drum-kit as we wanted.

Bedroom shoot 2

The lighting had already been decided and we had also decided to use an "imaginary" drum-kit to add to the meaning of our music video about the character having the dream of drumming. We also played with this footage and the actual performance drumming to convey this message. Furthermore, Aidan's mum was prepared to act as a parent in the video, and gave a realistic parental performance. We all directed the shots, giving her feedback when needed and the shots were realistic and successful. The feedback was:

• Well - lit
• Portrays meaning well and makes sense
• Good performance from both actors

Solo shoots

At times where all our group members were not available, we stuck to filming solo performances.

The hardest thing to keep constant was the lighting. Even though we had a lighting map and the colours and intensities of each and every light noted down, sometimes they did not look the same as before.

Performance shoot issues/Feedback

Some of our shoots were double booked, so we had to re-book or work around this. This meant that we had less time than we had originally though, so we had to work quickly. From previous performance shoots, we'd received the feedback:

• Lots of camera movement - good
• Improved performance from all 3 performers
• Better group dynamics
• Good lip-sync

We often experimented with handheld, and the result was shaky footage which we ended up using as it looked very conventional for music videos, especially of the rock genre, which often has very shaky fast-paced footage and editing.

Some of the targets we received were:

• More CU shot types (both faces and instruments)
• Too much distance between characters
• Lighting too dark at times
• Characters not lit properly (or dark faces)

In the end, we took all this into account for further shoots, and most of the final edit footage is from these later shoots.

First shoots

Here are some snippets from our shoots:

We started off by filming our solo parts in the music video. Sometimes, not everyone in the group was available for a shoot due to other A2 lessons, therefore we had to work around this.

Everyone filmed equally, and we encouraged each other's performance. Aidan and Daniel were especially keen to drop a beat.

Also, all of us have had experience setting up both our lighting set-ups using the lighting deck, electronic controls, and manual positioning.



We have an official The Defiance Drum decal!! All of us were quite keen to get started on performing.

Website flat plan

After the research we'd conducted on websites, we held a group meeting to discuss the basic ideas for our own website. 

We made this basic flat plan for home page ideas:

I then created a digital copy of out pencil flat plans:

This gave us the basic layout for the home page we wanted, which we could then reference when producing our website.

Music Artist website research

In order to plan our own website, we decided to look at music artist websites in general to identify conventions and styles. The websites of different artists differ mostly depending on their genre and target audience.

Home pages

This home page is mostly plain, with just a few images of the band. This promotes that the band are not the "bouncy" kiddie type, but a serious and sincere artist. From the dressing style of each member you can tell the alternative rock/soft rock genre. Their latest album #3 is the main advertising, and as live performances are the first thing we see below the banner, we can understand that the target audience are the type of people who enjoy gigs and like to interact with the band itself.

Alternatively, this home page is dark with hardly any advertising. The main image is a pair of Nike shoes, therefore the target audience may be teenage males who aspire to be like Tinie Tempah. 
Less so than the more interactive audiences of The Script, this audience may prefer this music genre to satisfy the gratifications of personal identity etc, while the other homepage suggests an audience who prefer social activities.

Female fronted rock bands:

The Paramore website has Instagram quite largely on the home page. This might suggest the target audience are social-media crazy teenagers most likely. There are many pictures of Hayley Williams the lead singer and more of the band altogether underneath. The website is gaudy and loud, therefore attractive to the younger audience group.

Similarly, the music video is the first thing we see on the Evanescence website, therefore fans may prefer to interact with the band.  This is also what is implied by the "recent news" just underneath the banner and like The Script website, fans may want to see when live concerts are etc.

In fact, the banner is not a static one, the pictures change between a set, and each leads to a different

part of the website. This make it more interactive for the audience.

Headers:

If we look at all the above websites, the headers are somewhat similar as they have options to interact via social media. With teenagers and young adults as their target audiences, these are the majority of social media users, therefore it is an appropriate and effective way to interact with fans.

Recent news of the artist also features on every page, again updating the audience, and encouraging interaction using social media regarding news/upcoming events etc.

Footers:

 The footers repeat the menus, keeping a consistent font and also offer social media options and information. Sometimes, there are link to contact/press/feedback/privacy pages, but not much attention is dawn to them as they are directly at the bottom and a lighter and smaller font. Lastly, the copyright information and institutions are credited at the very bottom of the page.

Main Features:

The menus themselves have a consistent colour scheme which is synergistic with the artist identity and rest of the website.

The main features might be present on a music artist website are as follows:

-Home

-Blog

-Videos

-Photos/Images/Gallery

-Music

-Store

-Community

Conclusion:

Social media is crucial to target our audience, therefore options for Facebook likes, or a Twitter widget will be useful for our own website. The colours will also have to be consistent across our entire brand. and font is important to connote our style as well to synergistically tie our branding together across all platforms.

The bands appear to have one (ore more) image as their banner, but simpler backgrounds, therefore drawing attention to the imagery. Often, a music video is available on the home page, perhaps the debut song, so this may influence our own website as well.

Track List

After deciding that we wanted the whole album's theme to be about not giving up and facing the odds, we came up with a track list that we believed would suit that theme:

Album cover background ideas

After already knowing what kind of style we wanted for our album cover, twe thought that the background was important to connote our genre, without dominating the image. For this reason, we chose something subtle, not bright in colour, and which adhered to a more serious rock image.

Background

We wanted a smoky background for our album cover front image. The smoke rising suits "Ascension" as the title, and represents "Rising from the ashes" which is on of our band messages, and them of our debut single "Unbreakable".

The idea od flight works well with our lyrics of being "unbreakable" and "take me where I've never been". Our research into smoky images encouraged us to work toward something similar to the top left-hand side image of the light above the smoke.

Ideas for album cover aesthetics

Before we can plan an album cover, we brainstormed the types of imagery we thought would look good and be appropriate for our band. The following are some of the ideas we came up with.

• We could have ourselves in on the album cover, and lighting could show the dark side as well as the good side of the band members by having one side of the bands faces in darkness.  
• The name of the band and album will be in a bold large font preferably in the centre of the cover.
• The colour scheme could be dark colours such as black and navy





Half in shadow

Inspirations/ Ideas

Using our ideas above, we can now finalise plans for the album cover (in posts to follow)

Album cover research - Similar bands

Here is a Prezi covering some of the album covers relating to our rock genre and "The Defiance" which we looked at before we started planning our own.




Through this research, we were able to decide the basic conventions of rock album covers, which we then wanted to incorporate into our own album cover.

Font research for Band Logo

The font is crucial in creating synergy across our entire brand and also in connoting our band identity and genre.  "dafont.com" allows us to browse through countless fonts in order to find one best suited to our band "The Defiance".

Here are some possible font choices:

These fonts are similar to the fonts used for the band logos that we researched into. They are all bold yet simple to read. However, what we noticed is that a band's logo often changes as they release more and more albums and get more recognition. The logos become more stylised and unique to their identity. As our band is releasing their debut album it would make sense to start off quite simple. But, that does not mean the logo cannot be striking as shown by our selection of fonts.

Below are the logos of some bands similar to ours:

Shoot schedule - Outdoor shoots

This is the shoot schedule for our first outdoor shoot. Everything went according to the timings, and we only required a few shots to be re-done.

The second shoot also went to plan, however we had some prop issues therefore couldn't get everything we needed. We do luckily, have another shoot, and probably will finish early enough for any pick-up shots.

In the end, we required a final shoot to film any re-shots, and the last shots we did not manage to get. This is the final shoot schedule:

The timing estimates were accurate and we worked according to the times set out, and therefore managed to finish without over-running on shoot days.

The advantages of shoot schedule was that it gave us clear set timings for all of our shooting. It also meant we always knew what we had to do and whether we were on schedule or not. Once we finished the first day of shooting we would know if our predicted timings were accurate or not and then adjust our next days timings accordingly. Fortunately, due to our prior knowledge of shoots in previous years we had quite accurate shooting times. The shoot schedule also solved problems about getting all the shots done. Being able to tick off each shot once it's done means we don't end up with the issue of a missing shot while we are editing. 

While filming we time how long each shot takes and how long we have planned it to be. We then write this down so we can change if this is different to what we have put on our video timing shot sequence. We then adjusted to length that we used of other shots so we included all of our narrative, then we also had to cut out some shots of the narrative to keep in our required length of the whole video.  

Shot list - Narrative sequences

Here is a shot list for our narrative sequences. As there are 3 characters, the shots are split accordingly to which character each sequence follows. 

Similarly, we wanted a 3-part narrative for each of them: 

1. Introduction of the character/ Establishment
2. Disruption/ problem/ conflict
3. Resolution

We will then transfer these shots into a shoot schedule to work from on shoots.

Shooting dates

After discussing our availability and the best time to shoot within our group, here are our final shoot dates: (These cover both our outdoor and studio shoots)

Studio shoots:

Friday 8th Nov: 09:30 - 10:50, 12:30 - 13:30, 14:25-15:45

Wednesday 13th Nov: 17:30 - 21:00

Thursday 14th Nov: 11:10 - 14:25

Friday 15th Nov: 11:10 - 13:30, 15:45 - 17:45

Wednesday 20th Nov: 08:50 - 13:30

Thursday 21st Nov: 15:45 - 20:00

Friday 22nd Nov: 15:45 - 20:00

These will be held in our school studio, which we have to book in advance.

On-location shoot:

Saturday 9th Nov: 09:30 - 16:00

Sunday 17th Nov: 09:30 - 16:00

Saturday 23rd Nov: 09:30 - 16:00

These will be held at the locations shown on a previous post. These are already booked and available for use.

Technical presentation

This is a Prezi covering all the technical aspects of our shoots and projects. We created it to present to our classmates and teachers in order to gain some feedback on our lighting ideas and locations. We hope to summarise in a concise way so that it is clear and we can also make reference back to it.

The following covers out shoot dates, props list, all our music video set-ups and references some exampled which have influenced us.



After watching our presentation, the feedback we received was positive in that our classmates and teachers thought that our ideas for both performance and outdoor shoots were practical, and would not be problematic to film. They also agreed that our location choices would work in the music video and we could then start planning our shoots.

Performance - Lighting ideas

In our studio session, we experimented with back lighting. Originally, we thought that coloured light would not suit our genre or song. However after trying out different colours, we found some that we liked.

Though here the light looks more blue, it is a dark purple.

Red for the guitarist would connote excitement and passion

Blue for the drummer implies coolness and contrasts with the fiery guitarist, therefore making each person distinct.

The 3 colours, red and blue on either side, and purple in the centre, merge well and the fact that the 2 side colours simply become one in the center gives the idea of unity.

Purple light frames my black hair

Red light complements Aidan's reddish hair

The bluelight  creates almost a cool and calm halo around Daniel - Aspirational figure.

We plan to experiment how we can use front lights for the performance, without washing out the coloured lights as well.

Performance video research - Technical

I carried out some performance video technical research to identify the shot types used and how frequently each were cut to. This could help in our own shooting and editing.

Performance music videos - Technical analysis

• Performance and narrative- based - Integrated format i.e seeing him on the tv.
• Cuts away to guitarist and drummer - LS to show instruments, then CUs of face (no steps slowly like continuous editing)
• WS of band performing with CUs of individuals: Singer shots/ Money shots - CUs of different angles 
• Cuts between MS and CU then other band members, and narrative - Shots cut to the music.  
• Majority of shots are MCUs or CUs, more narrative at beginning but more petrormancr during chorus and end. 

• Wide shots at begining - MLS, then MCU, then LS of band
•  LA pans of the band lots of movement, pans and tilts and zooms, 
• MS and MCU and CU of singer as he sings, with other members in BG. 
• Long pans of band and tilts, while cutting to CUs and MCUs
• Cutaway to band members (some integratred narrative) - obvious that its discontinuous.  
• Cutway to guitar when there is a musical change and constant cuts to violins. 
• Drummer, guitarist and keyboardist have individual shots. 
• Bird seye view shot of drummer
• Cuts match the beat - quick cuts to beat and to each individual
• Quick cuts between MCU/MS/CU
• Birdseye shots of band and members
• Lingering fade.

 

• Cuts to all the band members equally - indivduality connoted 
• MCU of singer of singing and not singing
• LA of all members - slight samera shakes and zooms. 
• MLS of standing members
• MS  - equal amounts of CU and MS/ MCU etc. 
• Mostly LS or WS when it's the chorus to show whole band
• Cut to the instrumental soloist
• 2 set ups with seperate costumes
• Quicker cuts at the end also match music

Character costumes

We wanted a smart but also somewhat messy/overworked look to connote the late nights. This fits with the overrun desk and lamp in the narrative.

Overall smart look

White blouse

Smart shoes and black trouser

Smart but also messy hair