Rough Edit

As soon as we had completed a day of shooting we edited the shots onto our sequence to see what worked well on screen, and consistently did this throughout the construction of the video. Here is an early rough edit we made about two thirds of the way through obtaining footage. Some sections are contain nothing as we had not made final decisions such as on shot order or what to include or miss out to create a video that made sense and had clear structure.

         

We took some feedback from peers and teachers at this stage to help determine our direction, and some of the main points were

• it seemed like a series of shots without a strong consistent performance really holding them together
• the story didn't have a proper order; it seemed more like sections of narrative had just been inserted in without enough consideration or any clear structure
• the rose in ice being broken is quite an aggressive action and looks out of place in a calm part of the song (the intro)
• we had intricately edited sections of the video such as the back shots but not thought about the whole picture

The staff were actually very pleased with the majority of our footage, and we were confident with this too, however as a group we acknowledged that we had jumped too quickly into the editing without planning how we would do so


Some of the important decisions made:

• insert performance bed
• take out some of the narrative shots that don't look as good
• aim to equally spread out conceptual shots
• begin with infinity white backdrop 'wet look' CU 

Shoot Day 5 - 11/11/14

Telling the boyfriend to leave her alone

This shoot day was used to capture footage for the club scene (first take), Tasha's dancing, the drumming shots, and the hair flick shot.

We confirmed our cast for the clubs well in advance by speaking in person and via texts to remind them. Since this day was when the school was celebrating remembrance, all of sixthform were dressed smartly, fitting our idea for the club scene; we did not have to organise everybody's costume or worry about some forgetting. Just in case too many of our extras dressed too similarly i.e. white shirts and black trousers, I brought two extra shirts in  two shirts and a pair of 

jeans, however these were not needed                                                                                                                                                             

Arriving at the club and greeting friends

We used the minimum amount of people possible to reenact a club environment so with the 9 we had it was important to fill the frame so it wouldn't seem empty. To the right is one of the practice shots with Harry and Yssy just arrived at the club, Josh on the camera, with me directing outside the shot using hand gestures aiming to get people close enough to the camera that it did not seem staged, before acting in the real shots.

Setup started at 1345 and we were shooting by around 1425 and finished with the club cast at 1545 as planned so we kept them content, leaving the possibility of reshooting (which we did) since they had confidence in our planning to time. Next were the silhouette shots starring Tasha, who was scheduled to arrive at 1630, allowing us to prepare the infinity-white backdrop and reconfigure the lighting. The track's complex beat make it difficult to dance to, but because we had sent Tasha the song 2 weeks in advance she was able to work out a few routines.

She showed us a practice run without the camera, and then we took 2 takes of her showcasing what she had planned (with 10 minute breaks for rest as this was very intense), and we were really pleased with the result.

Harry pointed out that it would be useful to capture some more slow, fluid dancing to fit the calmer parts of the song, and Tasha agreed to two more takes of this. The gif just above is an example of this, and a mixture of vigorous and smooth dancing made the final video.

Prior to this shoot I had already put myself forward for the drumming, while Harry, Yssy and Josh all gave directions. We set up the camera and lighting together and blacked out the studio again aside for spotlighting the individual drums, and faced the playback monitor in my direction so I could see what it looked like water cling film spray bottle

Shoot Day 7 - 22/11/14

This shoot day was used to retake our performance shots, acquiring a greater variety of angles, framing and bringing in some camera movement, since prior to this we did not have this. We also wanted to bring in more artist movement, because despite having good performance shots at the time we wanted to try and do more than solely lipsynching.


On this shoot day we had far more power to do this, since we were using a different tripod that had wheels attached - this gifted us the ability to achieve more different types of shot, having the freedom to experiment a little more.We were also using the higher quality Canon 5D camera, so the key performance shots that we were retaking had a far sharper resolution, making them more powerful and Yssy's emotions could show far stronger.

Camera movement using the advanced tripod and higher resolution

Subtitled Josh and I directing Yssy to use strong facial expressions

The first shots we took were the performance shots holding the roses, wearing the blue jacket. We really liked how the colours looked so striking the first time round, but on that occasion we shot it at the end of the shoot day where there was less time to really get the best out of it. While directing, I raised the idea of Yssy scornfully tossing a rose aside on the line 'chipping away at boulders' and it seemed to fit particularly well, so much so that it ended up in the final video.


Despite only having the studio for half a day as group 1 used it for the second half, after lunchtime, we shot some highly successful lipsynch performances. We did not aim to get a huge quantity of footage but we did well with what we did shoot; Yssy acted very effectively in conveying emotion so overall it was a successful day of filming. 

Shoot Day 4 - 10/11/14

On this shoot day we started midway through lunchtime, and shot the ice with a rose frozen inside being shattered by a hammer. We also took the shots with writing on my back and the first take of Yssy holding the rose and wearing the blue jacket in front of the black backdrop.

Above is the shootboard we planned for this day, organised in a group meeting. We were quite well organised for time so we managed to fit in the back-shots, thinking smart on our feet and using time to the best of our ability since the spotlighting and black background setup for of this day's shots were reasonably similar

           

Footage from the Canon 5D (left) and the HF G30 (right)

The rose in ice shot was first, and was part of the concept aspect of our video, representing the destructive nature of the love that she experiences.

I prepared the rose in ice, which took time and effort to prepare - to freeze ice and keep it transparent I had to boil the water in a pan and once putting it in a container and into the freezer it had to be shaken gently every half hour to remove air bubbles. The result was very visually appealing as the rose had accidentally dyed the ice pink, which actually looked good. I brought the ice in a box by car into school so it would not have time to melt and we started shooting straight away, making the most of the moment by shooting it with GoPro, the Canon 5D and HF G30. This gave us a variety of angles, frame rates per second and image quality. Josh, Harry and I each took charge of a camera while Yssy smashed the ice, as you can see above. The main problem was that the only the GoPro could film footage designed to be shot in slow motion as we desired, but the angle we shot from with it showed the tarpaulin laid out on the floor as it shoots with such a wide lense.

Despite the effort needed to create it, this shot did not make our final cut as the 5D's footage had too low a frame rate to use in slow motion, even with its image quality. We also could not find a place in the video where it would work well and not seem like a random and irrelevant shot.

Next were the back shots. I was the most comfortable to act in this shot, and there were no objections so I was happy to take on the challenge of conveying emotion solely through posture. Before setting out the lighting we prepared my makeup:

Since I have quite pale skin the tonal makeup was necessary, or the spotlighting on my back would have reflected too much light, as you may be able to guess from the image above and to the left.

I wrote some of these words down with Yssy on a notepad during a group meeting where we planned the back shot, allowing us to save time and delve straight into shooting it:

Some footage of my group writing the emotional words over me in the semi-permanent tattoo marker we bought:

          
The shot was designed to very literally express the countless emotions Roza feels in her relationship. I came up with the idea for this shot in an early group meeting when we were listening to the song and coming up with conceptual shots to work with the lyrics. I had a quite arty vision of how to interpret SZA's song and this is one of the shots that made it from idea to screen.

Until 5:30 where our studio time finished we tried some practice shots of Yssy holding the rose and wearing the blue jacket, so we could save time shooting it properly in terms of knowing the best way to configure the lighting. We wanted to spend more time getting it right and with greater variety of takes and framings than we had the time to shoot on this day, so practicing it was a useful way to spend our time.

Website Flat Plans and Development

During group meetings we looked at websites from some of our inspired artists and found a lot of things we liked from the contrasting websites of Jhene Aiko and The Weeknd.


Josh laid out a digital rough plan of the pages once we'd decided the key elements (colour, style, pages to include):

The basic outline plus the content and layout of the homepage - Roza's image and style being sold by her twitter, her music being sold by the album cover and her tour tickets being sold by gig advertising. Everything in mind to bring our artist success and give the audience opportunity to consume.

The gallery page allows the audience to get involved even more, and get a sense of style and personality in tandem with the Twitter account. Some of the proposed behind the scenes sections would have a similar effect.




The news page would be not only giving the latest in Roza's activities but also helping to sell her performances and music - this works with news since the album coming out and the tour that would follow is upcoming, the release and tour are product but also an event in their own right. Plus, any opportunity to consume must be given to the audience to aid our artist's success. The bio will give a clear sense of Roza's character and personality, so the audience can feel more involved and have a personal connection. Her entire persona is sold as well as her music, all together in one. Just like with Beyonce or Lady Gaga, the music is only one part of why their fans are so passionate.

The contact page is also an easy way to get involved, inviting the audience to interact with the artist - even hinting that they could be involved in one of Roza's own songs. This makes them far more likely to take the opportunity to do so, and allowing her own close fans (that become so in this way) to self promote using word of mouth and social media sharing as members of our audience definitely would if they had any involvement with an artist they liked.

7 out of 10 of the most followed accounts on the whole of Twitter are music artists. Their number of Tweets show that they are active users and the huge number of followers shows that their fans are also active users and want to hear from the artist. Regardless of genre, the fans of these artists are most prominently in our core audience age; mid teens to young adults.

A quick search instantly found a tweet from an audience member stating their 'claim to fame' with any involvement possible with the artist

Yssy and Harry proposed the idea of, like The Weeknd keeping to a fairly simplistic, bold, black and white style like that which we had used for the album cover, meaning the two could work in synergy as part of a consistent brand, which we all agreed on. This is reflected in Josh's plans (above) that came after this, right down to our final website.

The colour scheme and effortless style of this website was something we drew inspiration from:

Our navigation indicates clear inspiration from The Weeknd's website. The style is similar so we made the navigation link to the page you are on highlight itself...

...whereas on The Weeknd's, when you enter another page subtitle on the banner changes to let you know.

Josh and I were also quite fond of Jhene Aiko's website's more personal touch, which we felt The Weeknd had less of. I believe this reflected the trend that female PBR&B artists were more in touch with their emotions, mentioned back in my artist post earlier into the process. In particular I personally liked her written bio on her homepage as it gave an extremely strong sense of what the artist behind the music is actually like. 

Emotive writing on Jhene's website, her personality promoted as an important part of her as an artist.

I took charge of writing Roza's website bio as I am a fairly confident writer

I felt able to write in a style that was not my own because, working on Roza's Twitter I had a good sense of what some similar artists would write like, including Jhene from her bio. It is highly cliche and quite 'soppy', and made in a way that audience members can relate

A quick compilation I made exhibiting some of the ways PBR&B artists write on Twitter similar to the bio I wrote for Roza, inspired by this sort of style as well as Jhene's, which is also full of cliche

Another thing we planned (and executed) was a landing page for our artist. This also shows resemblance with Jhene Aiko's website and many other music artists' websites:

• When you open the Weeknd's website the first thing that you see is the music video to 'Often', his most recent song being promoted. This must be closed to take you to the rest of the website
• For JMSN's website his tour is advertised straight away, the first thing appearing on entry being the dates and locations as well as the tour's running image (of the artist)
• And on Jhene's the album cover comes up first with a link to purchase it, this again is what you face before entering the rest of the site

JMSN advertising his upcoming tour, which starts in January and runs until March

Publicity Shots

 We took promo shots during periods of our final 2 shoot days and edited them on Adobe Photoshop in school alongside the album cover, video and website. We used these for our Twitter page

The original image

The studio set in the background was edited out first, deleting everything around Yssy 

The magic wand tool on Photoshop sometimes selected too much and deleted chunks of hair, making it look unprofessional - so we undid the deleted sections and used the quick selection tool to go round and edit more specifically,

It

Shoot Day 1 - 28/10/14 - London

We began shooting as early as possible, utilising half term to make early progress.
For these first two shoot days, the focus was getting most of our narrative footage. On the 28th we met at Leicester Square, London to capture 'relationship' shots of Roza and her (ex) boyfriend for the video, as well as iconic shots to strengthen the British identity of our artist, as it is part of her niche/USP.


I took the initiative to arrive an hour early in order  to scout nearby locations such as Oxford Street, China Town, Soho Square This meant the group could have a good idea of how the natural lighting and density of people might look prior to shooting. These factors can be very unpredictable, so we found this useful.


Some of the photographs I took while scouting before the shoot, which I sent to the group through Whatsapp



Road closures, accidents and crime/investigation were also potential issues, but fortunately this was not an issue for us when carrying out our shots. I confirmed the availability of our locations and we proceeded as soon as everyone arrived. Strong sunlight that day provided opportunity for attractive shots, but was a challenge because shooting in late Autumn meant full daylight would last a small time frame of just a few precious hours. Another issue we took into account was the heavy shadows that the natural light would cast on tall buildings, so we had to wait for the right moments and use the right angles to obtain good lighting, which would be far less of an issue in a more open environment like a park or field.

Above is an initial shoot board for the Tuesday (London) shoot. Much of it changed more closely to the shoot, during Whatsapp conversations earlier in the holiday, as too much time travelling would have meant too little left to shoot.




Here is a map I created of the locations we actually ended up shooting at, all within around half an hour by walking or public transport. This demonstrates the more 'on the spot' thinking as we shot the more Northwesterly locations and then the South East of the nearby areas, before coming back up to Trafalgar square to finish and get the train home from there. We knew that if we planned locations too strictly in London, it would be to our detriment if an area was unavailable, so we planned the rough areas we wanted to shoot at, all within a reasonable radius of where we met.





At the end of the shoot, we recorded ourselves talking about the day. I speak about the many sources of light at the Trafalgar Square setting where one of our relationship shots was taken, which applied to all of central London, especially at night




The light sensitivity of the HF G30 made it difficult to shoot because when the lights changed, which many did, the footage can change significantly as the camera tried to adjust. We did not gain permission to use the more effective Canon 5D Mark II DSLR camera due to us shooting outside the school so the footage quality varied in lighting quality - we had to take into consideration that something might look good in our eyesight but this does not always translate onto camera.




One of my personal favourite shots that did not make it to the final music video was shot on London Bridge with the London eye in the background. The lighting was effective in terms of contrast but we felt the high levels of grain could compromise the quality of the video. Above you can see our attempts at rectifying this, however in the end we left the shot out as we decided to have a consistent performance bed of the fire projection, 'wet' infinity white and blue jacket and rose shots, and that it would not make perfect sense to use London for both performance and narrative.

Shoot Day 2 - 29/10/14 - Harry's House

The second shoot day was at Harry's house, again focusing on acquiring footage to use for narrative; both positive and negative relationship shots were key in providing a story for our video.

Some of our shoot board for shoot day 2 at Harry's house

                               
A location recce of Harry's taken before we came  gave a us a good idea what the setting was like as well as its lighting, before we actually shot there. We could get a rough idea where to set up the lighting kits and what issues could potentially occur.

We knew which shots we would obtain more so than in the previous shoot but again planned loosely for time, meeting at mid day and shooting until the evening. This left us the flexibility to see what worked best in terms of angles, composition, and shot distances.

Me giving direction on the kitchen shots

Since almost every shot from this day included both Yssy and Harry acting, Josh and I had more of a role in directing and lighting the shots. However, due to the rotatable monitor screen on the HF G30 camera, Yssy and Harry could see what shots looked like. This enabled them to provide valuable input in composition and lighting. 

Harry checking lighting quality and framing

We shot the fire poi later in the day once it had gotten dark so that the fire compelling lit the shot and contrasted with the lack of light from other sources. Olivia being the subject on camera, Harry and Yssy took much of the footage we recorded of her. Essentially, everybody was able to contribute to everything in different amounts but we all took a healthy responsibility in engaging with this shoot day.

Shoot Day 3 - 3/11/14

Our group all had a few free periods on the first day back from half term, making it a good day to book the school's studio. During school-time we were not all available together for most of it apart from the double lesson of media we had, spent in the studio, plus shooting at lunchtime, but our free periods were compatible in the sense that were would always be at least two of us there. Still, any studio time we got in school was quite broken up by lessons so progress was fairly slow. However if cast members were not present, the group members in the studio remained productive; setting up the next shot, planning the use of time for the rest of the day, and looking back over acquired footage.

This shot featuring in the final video showcases the stark contrast 
between light and shadow, further brought out by successful grading

The first shot we acquired was the silhouette shot with Yssy lipsynching in front of the ominous shadow played by Josh. The idea was that it represented her past and her inner demons and negative feelings following her. Josh and Yssy worked to choreograph the interactions and movement and with a few practices created a routine, and I directed the shot moving, in front and behind the sheet which we clipped up to a frame to create the effect.

Footage we didn't quite get right (Part 1)

and Part 2

On the left you can see Yssy responding to my direction to move into the centre to be in line with Josh as was desired. After this in the routine Josh lowers himself down out of the shot as if he has been 'fought away' by Roza after succumbing to the silhouette's implied torture of her on the inside. This took a few takes to get right as seen above, as one one take Josh didn't quite get out smoothly, however after a few more takes we got it right and achieved some powerful footage.

Next came the fire projection shots. We had to test these first to get an idea as to whether they would work so we rehearsed it on a smaller scale inside our media classroom with a projector and the lights off and curtains closed. We could not cancel out as much light as we would be able to in the studio but the result looked like it might be able to work, so we went ahead with it.

  

            


The fire looked far better in the studio where we had far more space to play with distance and create quite a spectacular shadow behind Yssy but when we looked back on the footage the colour didn't quite translate to the screen, as we had used the Canon HF G30 which struggles to pick up colour in a dark environment without parts appearing dull and grainy. The moving colours of the fire also affected its ability to focus.

HF G30 footage did not appear vibrant and sharp enough

We were still quite adamant to get the shot to work as we were really fond of the idea. We knew we did not have great finance or resource to make it perfect like our inspiration for the shot in Rihanna's we found love, where Rihanna