Diary Entry - Week One: 12-16th September 2011

This week was the beginning of the project for us, as we set about our first task of researching existing music videos, adverts and Digipacks to take inspiration and guidance, and ensure that our products are realistic and adheres to the codes and conventions of their type. We considered aspects such as camera angles a, movement, mise-en-scene and lyrical connection for the videos, along with elements such as lighting and concept in the printed publications. The minimum number of analyses necessary was 5, however we decided that we would have at least seven in total to ensure a thorough understanding and idea of what we are aiming to create. These have been uploaded to the blog.

     Following gaining an understanding of existing products, we were able to begin to share our individual ideas between the four of us, and create mind maps of our ideas for suggested artists and songs, the genres we prefer and the style of video we are aiming to create.

     Finally, on the Friday of this week, we gave a presentation to the class and our two teachers outlining our initial plan for the project; a little information about the artist himself and his background along with the ideas we have for plot and concept. This has been uploaded to the blog, and when we gave our presentation we included several more ideas in much more detail.

Diary Entry - Week Two: 19-23rd September 2011

As our idea is relatively complex and requires several changes in shots, lengths and location, we decided to devote a lot of time this week to creating our storyboard in as much minute detail as possible. So we could easily mpove the individual shots around to ensure the best order, I suggested a system of drawing the original sketches on squares of paper and positioning them while experimenting with changes until the entire group was satisfied. While I drew the original sketches and positioned them on our rough storyboard, David drew them onto the final storyboard, Lauren added the shot lengths and lyrics while Matthew added colour.
     In Friday’s lesson, we were able to begin editing the images into our Animatic video using Adobe Premiere Elements, after scanning them into the computer and cropping them down to makes sure they were the correct size before setting them to music.

Diary Entry - Week Three: 26-30th September 2011

In Monday and Tuesdays’ lessons this week, we completed the editing of the Animatic – unfortunately because of issues with technology the footage we edited on Friday has been deleted, however with focus and staying behind outside of lesson time I was able to reconstruct the video, which will be hugely helpful in determining which shots etc. we will need for our final product.
     The lessons on Wednesday Thursday and Friday were spent focussing on audience research, an element which we find to be essential because it is key to find out what the general public expect from a music video – our product needs to be one that would be viable in the market today and actually sell. Therefore we decided to create a video featuring interviews with students in our year of both genders to ensure a wide range of opinions. Matthew took charge of the filming, while myself and Lauren wrote the questions we feel will best give us a representation.

Diary Entry - Week Four: 3-7th October 2011

Monday and Tuesday this week were used to edit our footage of our audience research using Adobe Premiere Pro, which David took charge of while we all had a pert in deciding what should be included. This has been posted to the blog. On Wednesday and Thursday we planned in detail what we will need for Friday’s scheduled shoot of the narrative thread of our video – we wrote a list of every shot we needed to capture in order to ensure no time was wasted and no shots missed out.

     On Friday evening, we travelled to Newcastle Quayside to film the narrative for our video, using myself, Matthew Berry and Matt Harris as the actors. The rest of the group operated the cameras throughout the shoot, and in addition we had hired a digital SLR camera from school to take some still shots which we may possibly use for our Digipack and Advert.

Diary Entry - Week Five: 10-14th October 2011

This Monday during the lesson we uploaded the footage we captured on Friday, while after school we were in the school’s drama studio filming our casino section with our actors and extras.

     Between Tuesday and Friday we made several attempts to begin to edit our footage after uploading it, however we encountered constant problems with Adobe Premiere Pro, our work being deleted following editing several times and in the end, we were unable to edit. However, we decided to use this time wisely rather than wasting it, and therefore began to come up with ideas for our advert and Digipack, both sketched by hand and reviewing the images on the computer to begin editing them in Adobe Photoshop.

     We also spent a lot of time organising the shoot scheduled for Monday after school, in order to ensure maximum efficiency in filming our performance.

Diary Entry - Week Six: 17-21st October 2011

On Monday this week we were once again in the drama studio completing the shoot of our performance section, with leading actor Matthew Berry along with band members Dan Shaw, Jack Mowatt, Amy Glover and Lauren from our group playing the bass. With Lauren on-camera, I worked behind the camera and controlled the sound so that we could ensure the lips were synched properly. David controlled the moving camera, while Matthew took charge of the lights, and altogether the shoot went to plan.
    Tuesday this week was spent uploading and editing our newest footage despite more computer problems, while half past four on Wednesday was the deadline for the finished rough-cut of our video to be uploaded to the school hard drive. Having met the deadline, we received feedback on Thursday from both our teachers and from our peers, so that on Friday we could come up with a detailed improvement plan from rough to final cut.

Diary Entry - Week Seven: 24-28th October 2011

Half Term Week

Diary Entry - Week Eight: 31st October-4th November 2011

This Monday, the focus of the lesson was on brand image, and how we can use advice and apply it to our own project – see Lauren’s post for a write-up of the lesson. Tuesday and Thursday’s lessons were focussed on narrative theory, including different practitioners such as Todorov and how his theories apply to our work.

     The focus of Wednesday and Friday’s lessons was the planning and organisation of the scheduled re-shoot for all of our casino footage. Following feedback from the rough-cut stating that the lighting needed improvement along with the authenticity of the set, we have planned several improvements to ensure that the final product of the shoot is more professional:
-While still being filmed in the black-box drama studio at school, we will hang different coloured drapes in the background to add some variety to the colour and a luxurious aesthetic.
-Several more tables will be in the background with additional supporting actors playing different casino games such as Blackjack and Roulette - though they will not be the focus of the shot, they will greatly aid the mise-en-scene and altogether create a more believable casino scenario.
-An entirely new poker table has been created as a more realistic playing surface (see additional blog post).
-We have booked out low-level lighting in addition to the spotlights of the drama studio to combat the shadows on the actors' faces which so greatly affected the quality of the rough cut.
The final task this lesson was to go through both the rough cut and animatic as a group and make a list of every single shot we will need to capture, to maximise efficiency and avoid time-wasting.

Diary Entry - Week Nine: 7-11th November 2011

On Monday after school this week we refilmed the casino footage with great success, and we now feel it is much more realistic with the input of additional extras and better mise-en-scene in the background.
     This footage was uploaded on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we filmed our re-shoot of the performance and part of our narrative on Newcastle Quayside. This was a huge effort as I had sourced a petrol generator in order to power the school’s Redhead outdoor lights, and despite more technical difficulties we created a much more well-lit and overall higher quality performance, the footage from which were able to begin editing on Thursday and Friday. We are well on track to meet the deadline of Wednesday next week.

Diary Entry - Week Ten: 14 - 18th November 2011

In the final week we spent all lessons editing our footage and writing further documents for the blog. As we finished filming last week we left our selves enough time to edit the video with enough time to use after effects to correct some footage. As some footage was not as steady we used this software to correct it making our footage a lot clearer. Overall we are very happy with our finished product and we are happy with the progress we have made over the course of this project.

Final Cut

Evaluation

Below are our four DVD extras that answear the questions for the evaluation