Editing continued.

Today we continued to finalising our editing. We are now in the penultimate stage of the process and working on the little tweaks & tying up all loose ends. There have been many things which have unfortunately been unachievable to complete, i really wanted to film the 1970's for example - finally deciding that we could use a wig wham i own & have our protagonist emerging into a world of 'free love' with people grouped round an acoustic guitar, wearing tie-die, long patterned skirts, loose shirts, and having their hair loose, long, wavy, and decorated with flowers. I felt this era would be able to give the piece that flash of colour that it desperately needed.

  

 Yet though this would have been aesthetically pleasing due to others exams & the robbery slowing down our filming availability (not to mention the lack of help for fellow students due to their own coursework deadlines & stress!) we were unable to orchestrate this decade. Another issue is the quality of our footage, the school cameras we used for most of the music video were extremely outdated, and naturally the clips (once imported) weren't as sharp as we'd have liked them to be. For our performance pieces however Grace's camera -  top end piece of equipment, was available for use (It was being mended prior to these filming sessions) which made a huge impact on the visual worth of the images. These aspects were unfortunately out of our hands, and today we felt it was important to just stop for a minute & work out strategically all the steps we needed to take in order to complete the deadline & exceed our expectations. 

1.) We needed to overlay a picture of a clock onto the start of each era, fading the image & dimming it out in order to establish overtly the fact she was traveling back in time. We were aware that music video doesn't have to establish itself in the same way as film, rigorously using master shots & close ups to link each action & reaction into a linear narrative (or at least one that will help you to connect the actions - or feel distanced & confused if aiming for an enigmatic feel). However we also knew that though some people would pick up on our historic references, others wouldn't, and we needed to exaggerate our ideas. The  'clock'  thus has been embedded in order to display a passing of time & distance Rhianna from Bing. Adding to the intensity of the piece by elongating the gap their is between their locations - years / decades. 

2.) We needed to colour correct all our clips - Making the current day shots a better quality of image (hoping to fix some of the problems posed by the camera quality), and making the earlier decades reflect the style of film used in those eras. We researched into the progression of colour filming & altered the saturation of the 1920's to nil. This monochromatic effect was aided by adjusting the backlighting, thinning the edge width, adding a striped effect, and a flicker effect. Overall we aimed to mimic the projected b&w films of the roaring 20's & clearly display to the audience that Rhianna was in another time frame - as although they may not be able to connect all of the iconography commonly associated with the era, they would be able to link the use of black & white to the past.

   

We also edited the 1940's sketch in order to make it sepia tone & are going to increase the saturation on the 1980's to parody the neon brightness of the decade. 
3.) what we were going to do about our fake band, we still haven't been able to group together 3 more boys to form 'Suburban Typo', so we are now most probably going to have to individually photo graph people in order to create the bio pages for our website (as our digi-paks /imagery used on our websites is mostly either of Bing or uses images unconnected to the band, seeing as most indie rock album covers tend not to use the actual band / artist and rely on images which connote their hedonistic life styles & anti authority ethos).  

Information to be included on an album

The Cover

The Band/Artist's name - Suburban Typo

Album title - Splintered Youth - although not all album's have the name on the cover.

Artwork/pictures - collage 

Parental Advisory Explicit Content notice (if applicable)

The Spine

The Band/Artist name - Suburban Typo

Album Title - Splintered Youth

Record label (if applicable) - GEAR PRODUCTIONS

UPC code numbers

Back Cover

Track numbers, song titles and length of songs - 1-10

*Credit

Most likely for the producers, but may also be for the artist, songwriters, musicians, producer, engineer and others who helped put the album together.

Songwriter credit should be given for each song, unless the same artist or the entire band wrote all of the songs, in which case “All songs written by [artist].” should be sufficient. Make sure to include this information for cover versions and samples as well. - The Vaccines?

*Publishing information “© [year] [publishing company name] ([ASCAP, BMI, etc.])” - 2013 / GEAR PRODUCTIONS - Copyright notices - CR OF GP

“© [year] [artist name]” = The copyright in the lyrics and music on the album. 

“(P) [year] [artist name or record label]” (the P should be in a circle just like the © symbol and denotes a copyright in the sound recording) – 

If the copyright in the lyrics and music and the sound recordings belong to the same person or entity (which is often the case), the following should be put on the album “(P)(C) [year] [artist name or record label]” 

“All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.”

“Manufactured in...Country - UK 

Artwork/pictures – Be sure to give credit to the artist(s). “[Artwork or Photographs] by:[artist]” or “[Artwork or Photographs] © [year] [artist]”

Website information 

Bar code 

Contact information (especially if this is a demo or you have a fan club)

Website wish list

Current Work

Presently I am trying to mainly concentrate on my website & building that up based upon The Vaccines web design & research into other artists site's which enticed me. I have completed a photo shoot of x4 young boys posing as the 'young' band & i hope to have an opportunity to photograph some older men as well in order to make my creativity more believable. We are currently aiming to set up a casual evening where we can photograph a group of friends in a natural environment in order to create a warm, indie vibe rather than getting an overly commercialised 'posed' feel from the images. I really need some contemporary shots for the 'group image' page using the lead male from the video in order to forge a connection between my website & work. I have started by looking up tour venues, setting up social networking links & editing images & the typography of my site (Something I viewed important to concentrate upon from the research I did into like-ability features of websites).  I am primarily concentrating upon the ancillary projects even though we still have x2 shoots to do & some editing of the performance pieces for our video. This is because there was unfortunately a robbery (which took place on the weekend of the Saturday the 9th of February) in the Media Department. Our teachers arrived on monday morning to find macs, cameras & cables stolen, which of course was devastating both for them & the media students. We are in the process of ordering all the equipment back on insurance (the macs are on their way & the cameras in the buying stage) so the incident should hopefully (to an extent) resolve itself soon. However of course this will hinder our preparation time & quality of our projects. Left with little computer availability at school & a 'make do and mend' attitude we've tried to concentrate on blogging, digi-paks or websites dependent on our individual needs. After our half term break the production process should hopefully fall into place (after all the new equipment has arrived, been installed & tested). However though we are currently trying our best to carry on, our coursework deadline was this friday and this halt in the development of our piece will really effect overall editing time & video quality, though we are trying to as positive as possible!

                                                

 

1970's shoot prep & storying boarding

Planning meeting #11

Today we continued to edit our current footage; so far we have created :

* A sequence of moving polaroids which have been placed on top of one another to create the effect of a stack of photographic memories - an emotional insight, which our protagonist is sharing with her audience. We added a photograph of a polaroid (we felt this type of frame would look more cheesy / romantic - which is the look (at this stage ) we were aiming to create. By placing the polaroid image onto the timeline & adding the footage above on a new stream (we also cropped, resized & rotated the footage using the image+wireframe tool & the motion tab) 

*Our first scene in the coffee shot - using only three of the original clips (we shot from a vast variety of angles in order to backup our editing scope) to create a short piece of continuity editing to compress the 'end' of the couples relationship. We didn't have to alter much, apart from trimming most of the clips down in order to make the sequence flow more naturally & reversing the actions of our male lead (Bing) to create the emotional effect needed. The key for this section was making sure that the x3 clips ran smoothly & didn't jump or jolt - which would detract from the performance & the concentration. We also had to ensure that there was a continuity transition between this scene and the next (1980's) in order to fulfil our 'time travel' vision and make it look as if our protagonist (Rhianna) had opened a coffee shop door and exited into the 80's (not just gone to another location on another occasion). 

*Finally when reassessing our 1980's footage & spending a lot of time cropping & trimming the clips; we decided we needed to add an establishing entrance to the era. Previously we only had footage (a long shot) of Rhianna (lead female) entering the gym (1980's) and it didn't fit our brief at all. There was no clear indication to the fact she had jumped from era to era & we needed our motif to present itself to our audience straight away. Thus we decided to film Rhianna (in our outfit from our first filming shoot), entering the gym (with a medium close up shot) looking extremely puzzled, then flip to the 80's aerobics actors choreographed sequence, and back to a floor to head shot of Rhianna's 80's attire. This shot - reverse - shot sequence enabled us to set up our thread for the rest of the eras & also gave us the correct transition from the coffee shop - to the gym. The angles & style & distance of the footage now allowed the x2 pieces to seem well connected & clever- rather than messily constructed, as they had before. 

Experimentation & Research

I have started to explore ideas for my album / digipak on adobe photoshop - by adapting the style of our opening visuals with photographs taken from our shoots so far. Though these are only rough thoughts, i felt that if i experiment with multiple concepts at an early stage, that when it came down to the final cut i would be in a much stronger position. For I would be able to combine my previously formulated ideas with any new technical skills attainted and consequently create a much higher standard of product.

 

* MUSIC MAGAZINES* 

Music magazine's are dedicated to music & it's surrounding culture / scene. These magazines typically include music news, interviews, photo shoots, essays, record reviews, concert reviews and often have a covermount (media freebees with the magazine - EG: free downloads / cd, or other merchandise or small gift) with recorded music.

Planning meeting #10

Today we continued to schedule our final x4 shoots and prioritise our filming days in order of immediate importance. One of our biggest hurdles in terms of our production has been securing all necessary cast members at convenient times for both ourselves & them - at times we have had to compromise on both terms  & at this current time trying to secure a full band for our performance sequences is proving extremely difficult. 

We have sorted out all of the details (location,props,cast,camera bookings) for our 1920's (in a Edwardian style house on a private estate) ,and 1940's shoots (in a real bomb shelter build during the second world way) which is really relieving - as both were extremely trick to orchestrate due to the securing of authentic spaces to shoot in & suitable costumes & variable actors. 

As for our 1970's shoots we have now decided on all cast members & costumes but are still in the process of tossing up between location choices. Furthermore we also continued (we have been doing so for our last x2 planning sessions) editing the opening sequence to our video. We are currently overlaying Polaroid photographs with snap shots of video to create a moving photograph effect in order to compress our protagonist & partners relationship in a simple/ explanatory format.

                                              

planning meeting #9

 

  

In today's meeting we managed to secure the use of : x1 camera, x1 tripod and x1 set of lights for our first filming shoot (on Friday the 23rd of November). We also contacted - via emailed the band's (The Vaccines - who are chosen track 'If Ya Wanna' is originally sung by) management in order to properly secure permission for borrowing their material. 

We also contacted 'Costa Coffee' in New Malden to receive permission to use their cafe as a shooting location - luckily we were granted with the go ahead and now have several public (more professional looking) locations as well as our own houses, making the ratio much more even and hopefully visually more effective. With the rest of today's planning meeting we carried on with our storyboard sequence which we have done three quarters of now and are rapidly approaching the stage of transforming our drawings into an animatic presentation. 

Finally we started to plan out shot sheets, noting down : cast, costume, props (we also managed to source & then track down an authentic 1920's silver wear dining set to use for our Jazz age scene) location, date and briefing of each of our scheduled shoots. It was a rather productive day today in which most of our admin was finalised or came close to completion. We knew ( especially when recounting on previous struggles & lack of organisation in our AS projects) that having a well thought out structure and clear division of every element was critical. Thus we spent much more time on thoroughly completing all of our prep rather than rushing into creation without a clear structure - which last year made editing a much more strenuous and stressful task! 

Planning meeting #8

Today we continued story-boarding and planning out the succession of our 1940s & 1950s scenes. We began drawing out all of our previous notes and manually story-boarding our planned shots and mes en scene from the other decades as well, in order to prepare for creating an accompanying animatic sequence. We sketched each shot onto post it notes, which meant that we could re-organize the angels & shot distances if needed, allowing a flexible structure in relation to both filming & the animatic - meaning we had the opportunity to alter decisions on set if creatively necessary. We then researched into suitable costumes  choices which we could perhaps purchase (for a small amount) from eBay or loan from a charity shot for a more authentic wardrobe. We felt that even though the acting style at times was hyperbolic and dramatized, that we still wanted to create a parallel to the past & display the extent of our research & detailed sourcing through our video.

                                              

Planning meeting#7

After the conformational booking of Frank B's diner for our scene set in the 1950's we began to discuss and create a written storyboard for the shots in this scene. To aid our development and construction  of a variety of more interesting or authentic (era representative) shots I create a 50's storyboard in order to visualise the decade & use this kinaesthetic insight as a tool to progress elements of the additional mis en scene that would be selected to appear as well as the shot types for the scene.  

                               

                     

NOVEMBER SCHEDULE

Planning meeting #6

Today we started to plan out the content for our animatic storyboarded sequence. We wanted to make a succession of brief notes first, before creating the artwork, in order to have a clear structure and basis for the visual elements. We began by discussing  possibilities for our opening sequence (intro) set in the modern day; timing the pre-lyrical instrumental piece at the beginning of 'If Ya Wanna', we found that we had 19 seconds to play with & decided that in this short gap of time a compressed montage of snap shots / small snippets of film would create a better overall view for the audience of our protagonist & the artist's (lead male in the video) relationship. We felt that if we started the piece on an extremely sour note breaking of their connection straight away that the passion and emotion of the relationship would be entirely lost & that some brief hint at their history would create a much more rounded video. Additionally though our lead singer takes A-level drama & music (something which will benefit us greatly in relation to their over-all performance and believability) we knew that stilted romance acting may lack authenticity and take away from the enjoyment of the rest of the video. We went on to list the serious of shot lengths, angles etc & discuss props / locations designed for each specific shot. We then worked through the rest of the era's finalising the location & casting for each & deciding on which shots to include in bullet form to then later bring to life on our storyboard. Finally we finalised email agreements with possible venues & rang up 'Frank B's Diner' in Kingston to speak to their manager about hiring out the restaurant. We managed to secure Tuesday the 27th of November to use the diner privately after hours to create our 1960's scene. We knew it was so vital to secure this placement as the location is perfect & authentically decorated and we we aware that needed as many high quality filming spaces as possible to have an overall watchable piece that didn't look sub-standard and completely amateur. 

 

     

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To Do List

Planning meeting #5

Today we planned to storyboard & begin our basic sketches in order to go on to create an animatic sequence. However when enquiring into renting locations for our 60s/70s style disco we had found that we were facing many more barriers that originally perceived. Financially & in relation to extras & props / dressing a venue, we knew that the idea's we had were perhaps to large for the reality of our resources. We decided that perhaps we should begin to think about other iconic events which we could perhaps twist into a visually interesting scene for the 60s or the 70s, I suggested touching on the liberation & push for change that was ever evolving throughout the decade. I felt that a protest (anti-war, anti nuclear development, women's lib, anti thatcher etc) may be a simpler way of creating an affective / multi casted scene without having to use a drab location that would look like a poor attempt at a 1970's location. The exterior locations which would be freely available EG: local streets in areas like Surbiton where the architecture is very 70s (being built in this decade) - would create a lack of any attempted & failed authenticity & hopefully therefore deliver a stronger final product. Additionally we had originally planned to devise a 1940's  war style hall dance or as a second choice a family style deferential dinner. However one of our group members informed us that they have an authentic bomb shelter in their back garden, and thus this seemed a perfect location for a war time scene. We want each location to denote such obvious connections to each particular era & clarify our intentional effect & internal meaning behind the female protagonists journey. Finally we needed to start thinking about where we would film our band performance shots, we debated between using a green screen & later editing in either a simple white backdrop or an exterior location + using either our school hall or booking in one of the drama studios. I felt that one of the drama studios would be most affective, as we would have the option to using the green screen in there or cut between this location and shots filmed on the GS. I spoke to the head of our drama dept and secured availability, I knew that this space would then allow us to play around with different lighting styles, something which when making our opening sequences the previous year we had little chance to do, and something which is key for effect & aroma in the most professional music videos / band concerts / gigs / performances in general.