I used my mobile phone for a lot of my planning and research. For example, I filmed rehearsals of the dancers when we had just taught them new dances. I also used my phone to do test shots for lip syncing - I got hold of Bethany (our main performer) and our group would get together, stick the music on loud in a classroom then simply film her lip syncing the lyrics from the song. To get together our test shots, we cut and edited them together on iMovie on our phones to see if the lip syncing worked on camera. Using our phones helped because they were easy to get out quickly and film something, and everybody will always have a phone on them so it was very handy. It also helped in the fact that it made the cast less numbers, as pointing a camera in their faces could be quite off putting during rehearsals.
The use of using camera made my performers less shy. All the performance rehearsals such as the dance routines and the lip-syncers were all filmed; because we carried on doing lots of rehearsals, we made sure we filmed everyone, therefore every time the performers were doing their rehearsals they were getting more used to be filmed and becoming less camera shy. Then, on the day of the actual foot, they were all really comfortable being filmed and were aware of what they were doing.
What I learnt from filming the animatic and lip-syncing rehearsals was that we needed more performance and narrative elements to make the video more interesting. Although Bethany was good, we realised we needed more elements to make the video more eye catching.
Animatic:
Rehearsals:
Communication:
To get in contact with the cast members, or with my own group, I used email and Facebook to get in touch with them to remind ourselves of rehearsals and meetings with things that had changed etc. Facebook and email helped send out reminders and to make sure that rehearsals were confirmed so we could get stuff done.
Also, to be in communication with the rest of my group, we created a Whatsapp group so that we could update things we were doing such as planning, or if one of the group had been away etc.
Internet:
The internet was helpful in doing research into genres so we could get a feel for what costumes and looks what we wanted. It was also helpful in that we could buy costumes online on websites such as: Asos, Ebay, Amazon etc. Buying stuff online was extremely significant because it allowed us to get things ordered and done which was less time consuming for us as we had so much to get on with. Things online were also cheaper, rather than having to go out to the shop so it was cost effective for us as well. From filming our footage, we then uploaded our footage onto Youtube.
Production and Editing:
During our production of filming our music video we used technologies such as our camera which was a 'Sony FS 100', also because our idea was to have our footage projected onto a forest, we used a projection to achieve this. We used 'Adobe Premiere' and this was to help us edit our video. We had to sync all our video tracks to the base track which was downloaded on the software ready. Obviously this helped the construction of our video because it made the video visually good, it matched well so it didn't look odd or out of sync so it didn't look unprofessional. We used the software to help cut to the beat of the song - this helped integrate the song and image together and help compliment the track.
After having filmed all our footage, we then projected it all onto the forest using a projector in the middle of the night. Using this technology equipment allowed us to create an effect and look which helped create our hedonistic, mysterious theme within our music video.
When editing our video, we used a lot of overlay shots which was to create this unknowing feel so that it left the audience feeling like they don’t know exactly what’s going on. Again, it helps suggest the ideas of mystery and danger. This also made our music video visually interesting for the audience.
Digipak:
We first of all took the pictures, which were of Bethany, on our group members, Bella, camera which was on a Digital Canon 550D camera. We used 'CameraBag', an editing software, to help edit our pictures for our Digipak. This allowed us to make the photos look 'edgy', 'techno', 'rebellious' and 'hedonistic'. However, firstly, our idea was to have a male DJ on our digipak, so Liv in my group took photos of a male at our school sitting at a music deck station, but we then cut him due to the feedback from our focus group, which is when decided, as a group to use Bethany, and this is how the final product turned out:
Website:
To create our website, we used the website creator 'Wix' which was simple and easy to use for first comers. This allowed us to set up a website which created a look that supported the genre and feel of our artist and music video as the website creator was very flexible and easy to use. We then uploaded some of the edited photos onto the website. I also set up an Instagram account for our artist which I then mentioned and linked onto the website.
At first, from our focus group, we understood that the colours we were using didn't really reflect the overall image of our artist. We then matched the colours within the video to our website so we created the same look and themes within all our products and came out with this. We also looked at other DJ websites on our computers, such as: David Guetta, Avicii, Skrillex, to see how they had created and laid out there websites. Ours really took inspiration from David Guetta's; I looked at how the tool bar was laid out and the different options available, the website was very simple and clear, so I tried to recreate this with my website.
