#1 - 19/09/14
during our first meeting, we presented all of our music video ideas and
chose three of them to put forward for our final a2 music video. we
decided that we would like to produce a music video for either: paramore's
fast in my car, nina simone's
feeling good or paramore's
born for this. we all uploaded the three tracks to our blogs and
spoke about our opinions on them.
#2 - 22/09/14
in today's lesson we decided to produce a music video for paramore's
fast in my car. we conversed about our ideas for what we can include
in the video such as balloons, performance shots in the drama
studio, the inclusion of dom's car and silly string. we also began to
put together a narrative that would run throughout the video where we
are all picked up by dom in his car and i, as the vocalist of the band,
will sing in the passenger seat whilst the rest of the band play their
instruments in the backseats. for our music video, we
are hoping to all be dressed in colourful colours and be surrounded a
fun atmosphere. to create this vibe, we will invest in as many bright
props as possible.
#3 - 23/09/14
today we talked about what roles we are all going to play in the
production of the
fast in my car music video. after researching band
names, experimenting with 'shortcut' and 'backroads', we all decided
that our band will be called 'alleyways'. jonathan will be researching directors, i will be putting together the website, zahra
will be comprising a poster for the alleyways' ep and dom will be
researching similar artists. i will also take part in a lip syncing task
to prepare for performing during the video.
#4 - 24/09/14
during today's lesson we began working on our selected tasks. i started
putting alleyways' website together using wix, dom researched a few
similar bands and their digipaks. zahra helped dom. jonathan also created a song lyric timeline to help
us during production.
#5 - 25/09/14
during today's lesson, jonathan and dom researched some famous music
video directors such as spike jonze. i continued creating alleyways'
official website and zahra began designing a poster for the ep release.
we have decided to do our lip sync task tomorrow and to take some
professional photos of the band to be used in our digipak, on the
website and posters.
#6 - 26/09/14
in today's lesson time, we went to the music department's recording
studio to film our lip sync task. we all felt that we were particularly
successful in producing a good lip sync video and the others thought that i performed
exceptionally well.
#7 - 29/09/14
during today's lesson, jonathan researched similar artists' magazine
interviews. dom and zahra researched similar artists and
influences and i researched similar artists' video interviews. we all prepared ourselves for conducting a photoshoot
tomorrow for our website, digipak and social media platforms.
#8 - 30/09/14
today we made our first attempt at a band photoshoot. as there are four
of us in the group and all four of us are in the band, we had great
difficulty with taking photos, having instead to film ourselves and take
screengrabs. this was particularly hard and was one of our most
challenging tasks. we decided that we would redo the photoshoot using different equipment and in a different manner.
#9 - 1/10/14
in a second attempt at the photoshoot, we had a friend, george, take our
photos for us in different poses and locations around the school. this
photoshoot went much better than the first and we were very pleased with
the results.
#10 - 2/10/14
in today's lesson, we started our storyboard and began to put together a
risk assessment. we assessed each other member in our group and learnt our strengths and weaknesses.
#11 - 3/10/14
today we continued our storyboard and finished our risk assessment. we also put together a sheet of obstacles that we may encounter and how to overcome them.
#12 - 6/10/14
during this lesson we
focused on doing research for things such as cd covers and digipak, video interviews and written interviews. we also finished the storyboard and I created a halfway presentation for our band.
#13 - 7/10/14
we filmed our halfway presentation today explaining to the other groups
who we are and what we were about. we answered some questions about the
band. as we were the first group we weren't sure of what we were doing
but we think we pulled it off relatively well.
#14 - 8/10/14
the storyboard was filmed and uploaded onto the computer. dom recorded a voiceover explaining the shots using audacity. we also spent this lesson separated catching up individually on blog work.
#15 - 9/10/14
in this lesson we watched a presentation explaining about consistency
across brand products. we had to create a presentation of our own - the
album that i chose to look at was
don't panic by all time low. we used this exercise to think about how we would like to present our band's image across products.
#16 - 10/10/14
we had a visit from pete fraser during our lesson today. we had a
two-hour talk about music videos and how to achieve great results for
ours, as well as watching other student videos. the talk was very
helpful for all of us.
#17 - 14/10/14
first day of filming! we went out in dom's car to brook lane in
galleywood and filmed our first shots of the beginning of the video,
getting picked up in dom's car. this shoot didn't go so well as the aesthetic wasn't very good, so will require a re-shoot.
#18 - 15/10/14
we created a calendar to see what we would be doing in the next couple
of days as two of our members will be away in barcelona which could
cause a lot of problems so we need to stay on top of things. i completed
production diaries and created my own steal-o-matic, dom sent a letter
to fuelled by ramen to ask for permission to use their song, zahra did
the shooting schedule and jonathan emailed mrs cooper to ask about using
the recording studio after school - she said yes!
using the recording studio, and with the help of george brewer, we shot
full performances of the song, taking special care to get a variety of
shots with multiple cameras, to achieve the 'cramped' aesthetic we want
for our final video and to make it look realistic. this footage was a
lot better than our first footage, which we have to re-shoot.
#19 - 16/10/14
today, jonathan and zahra weren't available as they were in barcelona
for the weekend. dom and i uploaded yesterday's footage onto a computer
and put it into editing software where we gave it a black and white
filter, rifled through the shots to crop them and find the best parts
and slotted together several images from different angles to give
ourselves a taste of what the final product will look like.
#20 - 17/10/14
i drew out a rough draft of what we wanted our website to look like and
compared it to the website at its current state. dom looked through the
other classes' evaluations of our halfway presentation and uploaded them
onto his blog. we also wrote our 4 key choices: track, artist, audience and record
company. i also planned the outfits i would wear in the video.
#21 - 20/10/14
jonathan and zahra were back! we edited footage and went through our
blogs with miss brookes to see what we were doing well and what we
needed to go through. jonathan and zahra caught up with the stuff they
had missed whilst they were away.
filming day three. we spent an hour setting up lighting and background
in the drama studio and did two hours of performing our song with
cameras set up in various different angles. this was our best shoot yet
which came out with amazing footage. we were really happy with how it
went and it really boosted our spirits for the rest of the video.
#22 - 22/10/14
dom, jonathan and zahra planned their costumes for the music video. we
all looked through our performance footage, which we were extremely
pleased with, and i uploaded it onto our existing adobe premiere pro
project which has all of our best footage on it and will hopefully give
us an idea of what the finishing product will look like.
filming day four. we went to dom's house after school, picking batteries
up on the way for bubble guns. we arrived, got changed into our
costumes and sorted out the bubble guns and cameras. we shot in dom's
bath, on dom's stairs and in his living room in spontaneous shots that
we hadn't previously planned, just to see if they worked. we then went
into the garden and filmed bubble gun fights both static (with tripods)
and handheld to add dimension. we were attempting to make it look like
summer depsite the cold!
#23 - 23/10/14
in today's lesson, we discussed how we could change our digipak design
idea to suit the band more. we had conflicting ideas about the digipak before: one idea was that we should have the band on the album cover whereas i thought that, for a small band who were just starting out, having an image of us wouldn't attract much attention. i came up with the idea of having a simple image of our set on the front, as i originally proposed, whilst having a picture of the band silhouetted against the same background on the back cover. we all agreed that this is a good idea for the band, so i drew up a rough idea of our digipak.
#24 - 24/10/14
today we continued to complete blog work and allow others in the group
to catch up. this was our last lesson before we broke up for a week so wanted to get all the research and planning we could get done as possible.
#25 - 3/11/14
our first day back after half term. we decided to spend the lesson catching up on the new things that our teachers had put on the media hub.
#26 - 4/11/14
today we put together a digital version of our digipak using a collage maker, showing exactly what the finished product will look like. we also created a survey to see what our audience wants from our band.
#27 - 5/11/14
we filmed some extra filler footage, namely the close-ups of our lips which will be put at the beginning of the video.
#28 - 6/11/14
today i did a lot of work on the website. i updated every page and added a tour dates page and a sub-page for warped tour. i changed some of the design of the website and changed the url. we all put these changes on our blog. zahra created a steal-o-matic. i uploaded my own steal-o-matic. together we designed some alleyways merchandise that we will sell on tour and on our website.
#29 - 7/11/14
jonathan created a poster or magazine advert during this lesson. i edited the teaser trailer and attempted to make it a little less grainy and replace the grainiest footage.
#30 - 10/11/14
today jonathan and zahra were in an art class all day, leaving dom and i in class. today i created a kerrang! introducing article.
#31 - 11/11/14
i spent this lesson editing a lot of our footage together to the music to try and form some kind of draft of our music video. we edited together the footage we shot the other day to create an 8-second sequence that will go in our video.
#32 - 12/11/14
in this lesson we did reflections of our blog progress so far. i created an emaze presentation to show the progress i am currently making.
#33 - 13/11/14
today i created a powtoon on record labels that would potentially sign our band. dom continued his self-evaluation, jonathan updated the band's twitter and he and zahra did some work on institutions.
#34 - 14/11/14
we looked at weather forecasts to see which days would be good in the coming week to shoot some more footage as we are completely up-to-date on blogging, research and planning but are falling behind slightly on production.
#35 - 17/11/14
during this lesson i created a presentation on cross-media consistency and design work for the band chvrches and their album, eps, singles and gig posters. i also uploaded some edited footage of our bubbles sequence and put that on my blog. i planned how i would answer the evaluation questions when my group reaches that stage.
#36 - 18/11/14
today i created a poster using photoshop for the first time to promote the release of our ep. we also had a group meeting with miss brookes who told us how to better our blogs and also what we were planning for the coming days/weeks. we planned a photoshoot for tomorrow and discussed clothing, backdrops and props.
#37 - 19/11/14
in this lesson we completed our next photoshoot. the theme was posh, well-dressed with hints of messiness/grunge. it was a fun photoshoot rather than a serious one. i edited the saturation, hue, exposure, contrast and highlights of the photos to make them look more polished and professional and we were really pleased with the result.
we also did some more shooting after school. we travelled to dom's house testing out the gopro for the car shots we will do. we spent a while creating a fire - dom was brilliant and created a beautiful blaze whilst the rest of us set up chairs, gathered blankets and tested angles and exposures on the camera. by the time we'd gotten it lit, it was dark and we were ready to shoot. we did lots of experimental shots of all of us from different angles and different distances from the fire and some solo shots of my face with the blaze flickering in front of us. it went very well and we were all pleased and tired by the time we were finished.
#38 - 20/11/14
we uploaded the footage from last night and watched it and found that there are lots of little pieces of gold amongst general chit-chat as we filmed constantly throughout the evening. we will extract our best pieces of footage to put into the music video. we also evaluated other groups' websites and got feedback on our own, which we amended.
#39 - 21/11/14
today i continued editing the music video. jonathan uploaded our gopro test shots and zahra continued to analyse peer websites.
#40 - 24/11/14
i wasn't here during this lesson. our finalised digipak was uploaded as well as photos of evidence of filming and recce shots.
#41 - 25/11/14
i edited some more footage today, trying to piece together all of our best footage to see what needs to be re-shot, what else needed to be shot and what parts/timings we were missing.
#42 - 26/11/14
we uploaded finalised versions of some of our constructions - the digipak and the kerrang! interview. i also continued to edit and showed my group and miss brookes the first parts of our music video. notes were written down about how to improve and when we could film to get extra footage in. we planned to shoot some more footage of me tomorrow and to shoot some instrument shots on friday.
#43 - 27/11/14
we set up a black background and some studio lights and filmed several shots of me on my own - the footage was good quality however i am much more used to lip-syncing than actual singing, which miss brookes made me do. i don't look as enthusiastic as usual on these shots due to slight illness and a little bit of embarrassment! we also shot some group parts which i then uploaded and put onto the music video file.
#44 - 28/11/14
today jonathan wasn't here. i continued editing and also started to create a blooper reel, as is common with our group whenever we create a video! we also shot after school. in one of the music rooms where drums are set up, we put up a white sheet and some fairylights to try and emulate the drama studio performance shots and got some footage of zahra drumming. we then moved to the drama studio and got some of dom playing guitar. as jonathan was still too far away to come into school, we called it a day there. we will upload the footage on monday at school to see how well they turned out and if we can use them.
#45 - 2/12/14
today we filmed the interior car shots we needed with the gopro. we set out with just the gopro and a bag of party poppers in dom's car and drove around for the lesson filming performance from different angles in the car.
#46 - 3/12/14
we uploaded the footage of the car and i edited it into our first draft. we hunted for the camera that we shot zahra's drumming footage on, to no avail. we planned to film again on friday after school or thursday during lunchtime.
#47 - 4/12/14
we found the footage! i uploaded it onto the first draft and spent all day cutting and editing and adjusting the brightness/contrast etc. of the footage trying to make it as slick and flawless as possible ready for our first draft deadline on friday. i showed it to the group who said that they loved it and were very pleased with it. i uploaded it onto youtube.
#48 - 5/12/14
i wasn't in today but i know that the group looked at everyone else's first drafts and evaluated them, which i will do when i am back at school.
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