Hurtwood Media A2 - Finally

Finally, after a good long three weeks we have finished editing our music video!!!

 

The completed video has been liked and agreed by the whole of our group and now we are waiting on hearing from the Luke (creative director ;D) for his confirmation.

 

Following from this, the video will be converted into HD making the video look much more clean and professional. In addition to this the exposure of the footage will be heightened, hopefully getting rid of the most obvious creases in the curtain/backdrop behind the stage. By doing this the stage and set up will look as professional as possible, and stop irritating me as much as this fustrates me massively.

Thankfully everything flows nicely and works well, especially with this addition of the change in exposure.
I emailed the girls and crew that contributed to the productino of this video and they all responded with happy and kind words which is very satisfying to recieve.

 



Hurtwood Media A2 - Progress Update

slight PROBLEM

When we arrived we discovered an area of our video was missing and a result had moved all the syncing out of place. We think this may have been due to us selecting the delete button rather then the back space.

Fortunately we were able to fix this and continue on with our editing sequence.

 

• We've decided that the quickest and easiest way of getting our rough cut done and layed down is to do a full performance sequence and then later we can filter in the 'Modelling' shots afterwards.

• Also we've learnt that we need to be causious about how we cut certain shots next to one another. For example going from a wide band shot to a shot of their feet as this causes confusion to the audience and wont flow as well as it could!

I think working down the body - head through hands, to feet - or

cutting from a wide shot to a mid-shot stops it from becoming to jumpy.

• When shooting we have 3 narrative scenes, so on the day we devided the track in the right 3 sections where the scene changes to save time with unnesscessary shooting. So when we're syncing shots that were filmed at different points of the audio they are difficult to adjust to the beat of the music track and so it takes more time to sync.

Hurtwood Media A2 - Editing progresssss

We're continuing with lip-syncing the 'Make-Up' shots, importing them from the bins and  laying them to the beat of the music. Making it easier to trim and cut from.

Then, we began to discuss as a group which shots should go after one another, working to and against making sure the shots fit well and don't cause to much confusion due to jump cuts. Of course our original shot list and story board don't apply to the footage that we now have so we have to accustom the 'process of elimination' seeing what works and doesn't. 




During the introduction of the music we've decided to focus on introducing each band member, through using close-ups making it obvious that they are wearing make-up - bringing the narrative of our video through to the audience!!! 

A problem we have is that we keep forgetting that this 

is a rough cut that NEEDS to be done by the end of the 

week !!

Hurtwood Media A2 - Editing Progress

This was the first day that we begun to put together our video, laying all out and starting a 'foundation' with the music track and video footage.

We started by attempting to edit and then lip-sync the two together but then remembered the quicker technique which involoves laying the track down first and syncing each shot along with the music. We could then cut/trim each shot down. Through doing this we could be certain that each shot was timed perfectly and it also saves a lot of time rather than the hassle the previous technique would have caused us.

THUMBS UP 

Hurtwood Media A2 - Beginning Editing

So all our footage from our shoot day was transported onto the apple mac's in our editing suite where we used the software 'Final Cut-Pro'.

Final Cut Pro is a professional non-linear editing software application developed by Macromedia and produced to work on Apple computers. The program supports a number of video formats, real time editing and numerous editing tools allowing us to change, manipulate and finally produce our music video.

Firstly we looked through all our clips that we took, mainly just out  of interest to see how they came out on screen!
Following this we created indivual bins to organise all our clips and make sure we knew where each of our shots where. This enables a more easy and accessible route to finding shots when putting our video.

We had four main bins:

1. Make-up > this is the first set of shots where the girls are all done up.
2. Lips > the girls each have no make-up on except for their lips.
3. No make-up > the last of the shots, where the girls have been stripped.
4. Photo shoot > the snaping and video of girls modelling.

Hopefully now the process will be much smoother and more accessible.

Hurtwood Media A2 - Website

In addition to our Twitter page, we are currently in the process of building a website which will allow people to interact and find further information about the band.

On here people will be able to access image, videos, current news of what the band is doing. Information regarding to tickets and merchandise will also be located on here, its a general area in which people will gain everything there is in relation to the band.

Selling their image is so vital and going about it in the right way is key! So we have to take into account the colour, themes and font we use as well as being careful as to what images and information goes onto the website incase there are any complications.

We've also embedded a LIVE Twitter stream so everytime there is activity it will be instant onto the page and accessable in every way :)

Hurtwood Media A2 - Twitter

We've decided that a great way to sell our band is to take advantage of the vast variety there is available to us in this current onlline age.

So we've taken the band to Twitter

Through doing this we are exposing ourselves to an even large audience, imforming them of news and information that people may find interesting.

We are able to upload images as well as videos that will add to the look of our band and also show the audience how 'on top' and keen we are in getting our name known and be an interest to the public.

Visit the site yourself, here --> http://twitter.com/Reportage1 



Hurtwood Media A2 - Build day

Our shoot of course falls on Wednesday, and because all of our shots are in the studio we are very limited time wise and very

set dependent!!

As you know, the majority of our shots are done on our stage setup and to ensure that we have as much time on the day as we can, we had a slotted time allotment in which we are able to prepare for the day.

The stage came in pieces and assembling it all together was a task however we succeeded. Another pain was that we had to paint it white ourseleves sowemanaged to do this quite quickly and get everything looking vaguely okay.

A pain for me was seeing the white,curtain backdrop behind the stage appeared all creased but we were told that in filming and editing we would be able to make this okay and unvisible - fingers crossed.

We alsospent this time quickly running about and retreiving last minute props and costume s ready for the nextday, so it was all a bit rushed and stressful but we pulled through thankfully.

Hurtwood Media A2 - Shoot Day write up

The day before our shoot we had the whole preparation of the set to get completed, this involved  building the stage and collecting props such as clothing rail and band instruments. Honestly the morning of the shoot I wasn’t in a great mood, although I had a good feeling that the day would be productive and pull together in the end. We still had a sometime at the beginning of the day to pull together last minute bits and one of these was costuming the girls ready to be up on stage. However when it came to bringing out the bands blazers and suit trousers, to our surprise 2 pairs of trousers were in fact missing. I discovered that the problem occurred during the paying transition and so the company Matalan had misplaced our order. Of course this completely messed up our costume as there was only 3 girls with trousers and 2 left without, so I decided that the two guitarists and singer should wear the appropriate trousers as their legs are visible by the audience whereas the keyboard player and drummer are both concealed  by their items. Instead they wore some black leggings and trousers as they looked vaguely like our original intensions; thankfully this was the only hiccup before continuing with the filming.

The way the shoot day went was we were to film the girls in reverse, starting the shots with little to no make-up as this is how we asked them to turn up like on the day of the shoot. We practiced a few shots so the girls could understand and get a feel of  what was going to happen and then we began shooting a few full band shots. During the following 3hours or so, we managed to get close ups of each individual girls without make-up and we also decided to use this time to get some close up’s of the girls instruments and other body features as we are able to use these throughout the majority of the video as the ‘no make-up’ look isn’t noticeable.

All these individual shots did take a lot longer then we intended and so our time was running low, and we still had two other looks to complete as well as making sure the girls and crew weren’t getting too tired and fed up. After a sugar packed snack we were ready to power on and apply the lipstick for the next look of the day. This was very powerful we thought, having deep red lips on each girl, of course we then had to repeat the procedure of doing close-ups of each girls faces and also lip movements as this was a focus of the look after all.

Finally we got onto our full make over look, emphasising their eyes with heavier eye shadows. This however we struggled to connote the whole reasoning behind as its harder to emphasise to the audience, so we tried taking as many eye shots as we could; drawing attention to this aspect. Once we had completed all these stage shots we realised what the time was and unfortunately we’d spent a lot more time doing all the above and ultimately not left enough time for the ‘behind the scenes’ shots nor ‘catwalk’ shots.

Of course we had to come up with an alternative that was much more realistic but would still look professional and fit our whole criteria. So with the little time we had left we decided to create a ‘make-shift’ photo-shoot with the aim to capture the girls unaware that they are on a job, posing, having fun and also picturing them as a band. Through doing this we hope to make the audience recognise how they are all friends and have fun together, convincing the viewers that they are a friendly unit. We did this by having the girls pose and move about, as well as dancing on the white stage we used previously, this was incredibly handy as we didn’t have to re-organise any other set and therefore saved a load of time. Using a handheld camera made the footage seem more ‘home-video’ and personal as when you are watching it makes you feel much more personal with what is going on; almost as if it were you who was taking the film. Thankfully this all turned out really well considering the late idea and everyone actually had a lot of fun as it was much more free and spontaneous.

Now we have to go through all the footage that we have taken on this day and filter through what is good enough to keep and use in the video and what isn’t up to the high standard that we want for our final video.

Fingers crossed!

Hurtwood Media A2 - Success

 

 

 

Shoot day Complete and Successful

 

 

 

 

Hurtwood Media A2 - Costume

Whilst creating our CD and album cover we have still got to sort out last minute costuming and this invloves having to purchase some items due to the fact they can not be supplied be the costume department here at the school.

I sent an email round to each individual cast member asking for their top, trousers and shoe sizes and then started to hunt around the internet comparing prices and look.
I soon discovered this jacket from Tesco:

this was the best I could find, so we have bought 5 of these for each girl. Unfortunately they only had size 10s, but the cotume woman here at the school said she would be happy to take them in and make them to size.
Us 4 individually spend £19 each for the girls.

We also have to find matching shoes for each girl which has proved to be a mision. Online I found a few which were perfect AND at a low price BUT they never had enough of the right sizes so I went to Primark and found a few possibles:

Hurtwood Media A2 - Band name Brainstorm

We were all really struggling to come up with a band name that we all individually liked and thought was strong. Our intention was to have a name that reflected the image that we have produced and fits the theme accordingly.

The most affective way of producing these ideas was to make a spider diagram (above) where we placed our band name in the middle and brached of from there.
We put down the things/items that came into our head when we heard the word 'Reportage' (band name) and made links and connections, as well as getting other peoples opinions.

This turned out to work quite well and some hopefuls came out:

1. Exclusive Jelousy
2. Exclusive Headlines
3. Private Headlines
4. Explicit Headlines

HUrtwood Media A2 - Brainstorming

 

Between us we've thought up some designs for the album cover and also the CD Digipack:

 

 

Because we're not using a full image on the front of the album cover, we intend on putting a 'band' image on the inside opposite the CD. We still think it is important to include one such as this becasue it shows the group united together and promotes the idea that they are a union. We don't want the audience to get the wrong impression, and we also want them to be familar with them all. So by including this image here we hopefully make that connection.

 

 

Some initial sketches:

 

 

 

It was after these that we decided that a more unique and unusal image would work much better then the band shot.

 



Hurtwood Media A2 - Album cover desgin

INSPIRATION

We've been looking through a range of artists album covers and their artwork to gain some inspiration for our own creation.

Through doing this we have already established that a full lengthed body shot isn't strong enough and wont work well in a 'grabbing' kind of way as we feel each member either gets lost in the busyness of it all and also has the problem of being outshon by one another.

below are a few desgins and concepts that we'd like to
apply to our own desgins:

As you will see with the majority of the examples they all are headshots, no body of lengthy images. Close-up or Mid-shots is what we intend to use.











(below) Broken up/devided concept, thinking of the composition as well as the image.

Together, we feel that adding an element of art and/or illustration depicts the theme of fashion and retro quite affectively.

Block colours and graphics capture the viewers eye.

 

Colours and 'strange' concept is apealing to the viewer as it draws them in to find out more.

The printing aspect and artistic technique makes the album feel more retro and individual in comparrison to the typical 'band/group' covers.

 Overlaying images and manipulating our band members.

Whilst I was searching for these artists and albums I stubbled across this image:

This gave me the idea of maybe applying this affect to our cover album. Whats even better is that I have a polaroid camera we could use rather than adding the affect, making it look less realistic.

A possible idea is that we get one of the girls (probably the main singer, this being sunshine) to pull a simialr pose to some of the above and then add some elements of art and illustration to create the retro feeling.

Hurtwood Media A2 - Costume prep

We have just about two weeks untill our shoot day and we still need to get a few important bits for our shoot - costume related.

As we know, the drama department here at the school are providing us with suit trousers that are being adjusted to fit, as well as some white shirts. In addition to this Loz (the costume provider here) is going to see if she has any quirky and interesting items to accompany the overal costume.

We are also going to be looking for our own to, of course.

 

 

So our current mission is to get some tuxedo jackets and shoes, all matching to fit our desired look. We are restricted to the amount that we can spend as well, and its proved to be quite difficult but this is what we have found at present:

 

 

http://www.clothingattesco.com/coats+jackets/f+f-basic-jacket/invt/br211074/

 

 

 

 

http://www.matalan.co.uk/fcp/product/fashion-to-buy-online/%3Cb%3E%3Cu%3EALL-FOOTWEAR%3C/b%3E%3C/u%3E/Pointy-Toe-Stiletto-in-Black/57993&resultsPerPage=100&attrList=Dept,brand

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem with the shoes at the moment is that they only have sizes 5 and 6 and although the majority of the girls all have size 6, they are large size 6's and we want to ensure that they are as comfortable on stage as possible and this wont be the case if the shoes are smaller.

 

 

 



Hurtwood Media A2 - Shot Schedual

Shoot Schedule Sheets %281%29 Shoot Schedule Sheets %282%29-1 Shoot Schedule Sheets

Hurtwood Media A2 - Shot List

Shot List

Hurtwood Media A2 - Risk ascessment and Health check

Here I have created a table, detailed with all the possible risks and problems that could occur ono our shoot day and how we'd deal with the issue if we were unlucky enough to come across it.

Risk Acessment Table

Hurtwood Media A2 - Studio check

To be able to write our Risk Assessment we had to go into the studio and check around for some risks and hazards.

Below is a video of some of the things we found:

Hurtwood Media A2 - Further investigation into artist image

Below are some artists pages that we think fit our kind of image and look.

The way you present yourself as a band or an individual is extremely important as people make a judegment and first impression immeadiately.
As the modern day continues to grow and become a basis of peoples lifes, people will rely on websites such as these to gain information and research details about them.

http://www.thesaturdays.co.uk/

http://www.jmonae.com/

http://www.stooshe.com/

^^ http://www.gwenstefani.com/ 

http://www.nodoubt.com/#!news -->

Hurtwood Media A2 - Exploring album artwork possibilities

Okay, so we've recieved a load of inspiration from a variety of artists and now we're looking at mainly the IMAGE!

This invloves us coming up with an album cover and design that fits our theme and actracts our target audience. Some of the following are examples of some bands that have a similar look to what we intend to base our design around.

First of all Caro Emerald, her Retro and 'old school' feel that her album has is an element we'd like to portray in our album cover. Maybe we could do this by adding this 'drawing' type affect over an image of the girls that we'll capture on the day of the shoot.

Here is a link to her page which has more info on her: http://caroemerald.com/

This second album cover is named 'So Red the Rose' and is by 'Arcadia'.
I love the idea of an illustration for an album cover, if not maybe in the album booklet that we could consider including as part of the package.






 
Another aspect that I like about this cover is the amount of pure 'whiteness' that it includes. As our video consists of a large amount of purity and bold contrasts of black and white I think this will link nicely together. As well as this I think the pureness attracts the viewers eye.

http://www.arcadiacrew.com/index1.asp

This girl band is quite low key and unknown, and hasn't been a great success in the music industry.
However this album cover of theirs has a similar set-up as to what we've envisioned to do.









In this, I think the bands name is done in quite a tacky font and colouring aswell and I feel it ruins the cover as a whole. But the way the girls are positioned in the foreground and are individually powerful is an element I'd like to produce in our cover.

 Destiny's Child a girl band which is a perfect example of what we hope to achieve.
They have a reputation for promoting feminism and power. These of corse are elements that we want to portray throughout the creation of our band.

The album cover above is quite dated for our time period now but the set up of the girls is something we'd like to take further. They are in the foreground (simialr to the Stunners) and all dressed similary, making an impact on the viewer. The character on the far right, known as Beyonce Knowles, is a perfect, individual example. Her expression and body positioning is strong and this stregth has been emphasised by the contrast of the other three members.
Their smile makes them look innocent and weaker in comparrison to Beyonce, So we should definietly take this aspect into account when creating our cover and image.