Production Diary

Lesson 1: Today we found out our groups for our Music Video Task. We then started looking for music / songs that didn't have a music video to them already.

Lesson 2: today we started pulling together our ideas for our music videos. We have chosen our three songs with out a music video and Ben s is putting them into a power point to present to our class so that we can get feedback.

Lesson 3: Today we presented our three songs to our class and gained some feedback about each of our ideas. out of our three song ideas they preferred our third idea, saying how the second idea would be too complicated to do / too similar to previous ideas. They also made the comment on how the ideas for Bastille would have to be done first time as once there is mess there is no going back.

Lesson 4: Today we worked on our feedback and chose our final song, These Streets by Bastille we then started pulling in ideas and worked on a timeline
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Lesson 5: We drew inspiration for a powdered paint festival, inspired by the festival of love in India and also various videos online

Lesson 6: We added more to the story board today, we are having a constant flow of ideas so we decided just to draw them down and then cut out each scene and stitch them together.

Lesson 7: Today we had our song on constant repeat in class as we allocated shots to different parts of the song, we now have a storyboard that we have completed and allocated timings to each shot that we will try to stick to.

Lesson 8: Planning preparation for the powder festival including sourcing paint, mobile power options, reserving cameras and other recording equipment to make sure that we are prepared.

Lesson 9: Mass advertising around school fro our Paint party, we also spoke to groundsman who gave us the keys to the back fields where we are going to have the filming session.

Lesson 10: The Final countdown, Cameras were checked, the ground covering was also checked, its really sunny today should be a good shoot! absences recorded to collect Generator. We also split down the 20 Kg of powdered paint into handy bags so that it is easy to distribute and throw. We also sourced a MASSIVE speaker from music as well as an air blower for mass paint throwing. - The Paint party went really well, we now have about 20 students caked in powered paint, we have about 10 cameras and a go pro's worth of footage to sift though....

Lesson 11: With all the footage collected and stored safely onto the media computers, we have started sifting through the hours of footage and trimming different shots into an order that fits well and flows nicely.

Lesson 12: We continued to edit the collected footage from the paint party today. We also started planning when and where we need to be to film the rest of our shot list.

Lesson 13: With the editing of the paint party footage now on hold we sat together today to work out each other schedules and when we were free to films. We split the shots into 3 sections, Maldon Shots (anything rural or sea based) Chelmsford Shots (Graffiti, Time lapses, Paint Party) And Heavy Equipment Shots (The Paint Throw).

Lesson 14: We finalized plans for the rest of our shooting schedule with a major filming day the following Wednesday ( Maldon) as well as various test filming days in Chelmsford. We also planned what we were going to do about the Digipak and the Website constructions.

Lesson 15: Our plans for next Wednesday were confirmed and finalized. We also completed some plans for various photography shoots that we will use in the construction of the website and also the digipak. We started creating the website.

Lesson 16: Today we completed one of the first photo shoots. This contained lots of photos in various locations these photos will all be used in the gallery section of the website and also to be used in the creation of the Social media pages. Some of these photos are likely to be used in the tour poster and possibly in the Digipak.

Lesson 17: Today we went over to our test filming location for the graffiti wall section. Here we took footage of James walking across different sections of the wall in different costumes. When reviewing the footage we will decide what looks good and what costume we are going to get him to wear though out the rest of the music video.

Lesson 18: Today we looked over the footage from yesterday. we have finalized his outfit, a denim jacket with claret coloured t-shirt. We also split into two technical teams one to work on the digipak and the other to work on the website.

Lesson 19: Today we further developed our website and Digipak. towards the end we started pulling together ideas for the Tour poster.

Lesson 20: Maldon Filming day today! A 40 minute journey each way to get to our filming location. The sun is shining and the tide is rising, time to shoot some great shots!

Lesson 21: We pulled all of our footage off of the cameras today from the Maldon shoot. This filming session forms the bulk of our video. We are all pleased with how it looks, We have another filming day in Chelmsford tomorrow in which we aim to get the final shots we need for our music video.

Lesson 22: Today we took the final shots fro the music video. We have collated them all on to the media computers and will start on the final stages on editing tomorrow.

Lesson 23: today was spend editing our first draft for the video. We have screenings on Friday at which we are going to receive feedback on how we can improve them to turn our first draft into our final draft.

Lesson 24: Editing completed today for the first draft of our music video whilst we rendered the final video and uploaded it to you tube we finalized the tour poster and also the digipak.

Lesson 25: Today we watched everyone else's first drafts and gave feedback on them. We then received the feedback for our own videos. This has identified areas that we need to work on and improve. We have set another date for re-filming some of the Chelmsford shoots, we have also purchased all of the extra equipment we need for the 'Paint Throwing scene'

Lesson 26: Today we received feedback on our digipak and website. From this feedback we have lots of changes to make. After the session today we went to film the Paint Throwing Scene. James has volunteered to film the timeplase section we need for the choruses.

Lesson 27: We adjusted the digipak and tour poster in accordance with the feedback that we received from it. the final draft of the digipak is now complete and we have received positive feedback upon it.

Lesson 28: all of the footage is not together. We spent today editing all of the lasts bits of footage that we needed to produce our final draft.

Lesson 29: The editing finished today for the Music video and the YouTube upload began. We Are also making a few final tweeks to the digipak and some more major changes to the website.

Lesson 30: The digipak was completed today. We spent a lot of time on the website today, rearranging pages and changing the colour schemes. We also replaced the background image with one that we created today as well. The layout of each page was also changed so that it flows much better now and there is a concurrent theme across it all.

Website Progression after the feedback

The first thing that we noticed from our feedback is that not many people liked the background of the website. So we decided to change the background to a spectrum of colours which played on the role of Couleur which is French for colour. People also wanted easier links to the social media sites so we added the social buttons along the top under the navigation bar.

A lot of people picked up on that some pages were unfinished and that the tour poster was missing. We amended these problems quickly.

The last couple of negative feedback's said that we were missing the teaser trailer for our music video on the front page. We already knew this as it was still under construction at the time. People also said that the gallery page was a bit bare and maybe we should arrange the photos to have ones that stand out at the top.

Feedback on our Website

Today in class we evaluated each others websites. Our websites are only in the first draft stage so the feedback we gave, helps everyone further develop their website into the finished professional product. Here is the feedback we received:

Draft 3

This is the third draft of our music video My Face by James Couleur. There were a few changes that we made from our second draft, which included the walking reverse shot were James Couleur walks back past the wall with 'Mistakes' written on this, and you also see the paint going back into the bucket, as its been thrown, which gave a unique finish. However we changed the ending to this video, making it shorter as people picked up on the ending as something that needed to be improved, when we evaluated it as a class.

Teaser Trailer

Video of Teaser Trailer
Here is our teaser trailer finally finished and uploaded. When we were filming the shots for the final video we decided to carry on filming and massively overshoot in the idea that the more we overshoot the easier the task would be of making a teaser trailer with some really nice shots.
Originally we had an idea of the teaser trailer to not show any of James Couleur at all. Our idea was to get some food colouring and milk, as it gives you a really interesting, eye-catching effect, which we thought would be really different to the everyone else's teaser trailer. This was relevant to the music video also as you can see the whole paint theme with the paint being thrown onto the wall and the paint party in full flow!!
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Evidence of time lapse filming-day 7

On Saturday we needed to film a time-lapse to go in the chorus in our video. As we have a really nice shots of nature in our video, we thought it would be good to have a time lapse of the sun setting in the fields. Comitment was on show I had to stand still for an hour, with the exact same clothes I had been wearing in the pervious shoots which were not warm!!

Here is a picture of this happening!

Time-lapse Research

Equipment that's crucial.
Tripod
Camera
Moving background

When filming a time lapse its massively important that you hugely overshoot. When everything is sped up in the time lapse you will find out that the footage you have filmed, is over in a matter of seconds. For our music video we are planning on having a time-lapse for about 10 seconds. Therefore we will need to ensure that we film for at least 1 hour minimum to give us enough footage.

Here are some time lapses that we could give us help and guidance to making our own.



This time-lapse above just shows how good effective they can be when they are filmed well with spectacular images and settings. Obviously we will not be able to find the beautiful scenery you see in this time-lapse, however the idea of the time changing going from night to day is one we are aiming for.

Shooting Schedule

Here is a screenshot of our shooting schedule, giving us information and details about each shot, where they are being taken and who is involved in the shot. We printed this out when we went to film the shots, as it gave us a guideline that we were able to follow, but also alter if we came up with any other better ideas, whilst we were actually filming.

Digipak

MORE IMPROVEMENTS TO DIGIPAK

After taking everyone's opinions and feedback into account we released that there will need to be lots of changes to the original. Here we have firstly made a change to the CD. The main change we made was to the back panel. There is now not a picture of the back of James Couleurs head, as we got a few complaints about this. Therefore there were changes to this as you can see. This is not however the final finished digipak. We need to add a 6th panel for it to be completed.

Draft 2

This is the second draft to James Couleurs debut single 'My Face', after looking through the first draft we realized that some shots needed to be changed, and improved. Here is the second draft with these improvements.

My Face Feedback!!

Here is feedback about our firsts draft. The video averaged at 31 out of 40, so the score was respectable. However with the feedback there are clear areas of the film where we can improve on, to bring our video up to 35 plus.

Editing of First draft

Editing at work! Benjy is the master editor of our group! Our first draft of the music video needed to be done by Friday 5th December, So currently we are all hard at work to meet this first deadline.

Digipak Feedback

Digipak feedback

We sent out a survey monkey questionnaire to find out what people liked about our digi pack and what people thought that we could improve. We had many mixed results towards our digipak. Below are a few responses that we had from the class.

1. It's quite nice and the text goes with the genre however, I feel a bit trippy looking at it, there's colour then there's one random part of the digipak which is black and white.

2. This is the least professional of all the digipaks. I think there is no clear theme and all of the slides feel random.

3. Good variety of different pictures, however the front cover could include bright colours so it would fit in with the rest of the digi pack.

4. Love the entire top row of this, the composition, imagery and colour scheme are fab, but not sure how the last two panels fit in? The CD is pretty cool but why the long white background? The guitars look like they've been found on Google, maybe go up to music and get your own pictures of instruments.

5. I'm really sorry but I dislike the colours and the font. Looks a little 'childish' however my opinion might change when I see the video and have a better understanding of the singer. Would like to have seen the artists face clearer, but then I guess this makes its quite secretive. However I do really like the effort done into the editing.

6. This is a good attempt but it needs work. There is a lot of colour which means it captures the eye but the images are bad quality and don't look very professional. Higher quality images and some more professional shots would improve the final product.

7. Looks like it was done quickly/not quite finished. Some is colorful and some is black and white, doesn't keep continuity.

8. Nice idea to do lots of different colours, the font is appropriate and works well. Improvements: it looks really unprofessional and quite childish, make it so it works with an older audience a bit more.

9. The James Couleur digipak is very plain. It doesn't look very professional because of all the colours that are used are a bit overloaded. If the layout was all based on one or two different colours it could look more professional. The fonts that are used work well with the images that have been taken. The images all look professional.

10. James Couleuer's digipak is sticking with the theme "couleur" rench for colour because there is a lot of colour. I think that the cd looks good, but the colours everywhere make it look really childish and unprofessional. I think maybe you should just have each page a different colour rather than having so many different colours on every page.

We have taken all of this feedback on board and have made some changes to our digipak. The main points that we need to look at are making it less childish and more professional and also use higher quality images to make it digi pack look more professional and more of a realistic look. Below is the new digi pack that we have made based upon the feedback that we have received.

Day 6 filming- Wall Paint

Images from day 6 filming

We went back to the venue where we shot our first footage for the graffiti shot. This took loads of planning to ensure that the final outcome was top quality, giving the best shot we could have got. This was a time consuming process, but one which I personally feel has given us one of the best shots in the video.

Here is some pictures from the shoot.

First Draft of My Face

Here is the first draft to James Couleur's music video 'My Face'. There are a few changes that we realise need to be made, and they have been highlighted when we showed the whole class the first drafts, where feedback was given. Parts like the time-lapse need to be re-filmed where i'm going to have the delight of standing still for an hour while the sun sets behind me, so that should be fun! However apart from this the changes we need to make are relatively small, and shouldn't take too long to do, and finish off!

Institution

Institution 

What do record labels look for in new artists

Talent- to make it to the top you need to have a bit of individuality about you as either a band or artist. Record labels will want you to be unique as there are loads of people who can sing but will they sell out venues and sell records? 

Product- if an artist has the best products they will more than likely to be the most successful. Take DJ.s for example, the better quality equipment and software they the higher likelihood that their final product will be better. However with talent and artists that are unique,some of them make the most out of not a lot. An example of this is Seasick Steve who plays instruments he has made himself out of objects he has picked up in the street. Giving a unique aspect as well as making the most out of the product.

Placement- Different artists have different ways of selling their music. As the time has changed, gone are the days of vinyl records, even CD's are going down in sales. The modern way is for digital downloads through suites such as iTunes, Beatsport etc. As this is such a big, successful and growing market, the sensible thing would be to sell James Couleurs music on iTunes, with CD's produced.    

Promotion- Now that there is social media introduced into more or less every person is hooked with finding out when their favorite artist is releasing music or tour dates. This is not any different with James Couleur.  He has instagram, twitter, Facebook and you tube links. 

Transition- This is where you see the artists going from someone who is known but not a massive success and then something massive happens. This could either be a single that becomes really popular, a live performance that gets lots of viewings or a popular artist giving you backing.

Digipak Survey

As part of our grade we get marked on the strength of our Digipak we produce. The first drafts of the digitalis as a class were all produced this last week. As a media group it is part of our interest to give information, constructive criticism or feedback and praise to the digipaks that were created.

To give this feedback we filled out a survey on these digipak asking the questions which will be passed on to each group,