Evaluating Music Video Pre-Production and Production Phases

Rough Cut

After some intense editing, we have managed to create a rough cut of our video, which is roughly what the final product will look like. We feel that maybe a few things should be changed, for example, some of the editing could be smoother and we need to add a color grading to the video. However, after receiving mainly positive audience feedback, the video appears to be a success.

Audience and Group Feedback

We decided that as we finished editing our music video so promptly, that we would focus on audience feedback. Here are the questions that we asked:
1. What do you think of the video?
2.What audience do you think it belongs to?
3. Any improvements?
4. Do you think this is a band or session band?
5. Would you look further into the band due to this?
6. Do you think that we need to include more narrative shots?
7. Should we end the video on the handshake or the shop?

Our feedback was very positive, numerous people saying that they liked it, however, they did say that sometimes the instruments were out of sync with the music, and sometimes shots looked odd, such as the end of the video. However, all in all it was very productive, and we were able to collect some very useful information regarding our video and edit.
Here is the video of our audience feedback:

Editing Update

After 3 days of editing, we have managed to pull together, what we feel is a good video to exhibit to a public audience, although there are still a few things that we are not sure on and we still need to edit a little more, to finish the ending of the video, we feel that the position we are in now as a group is a strong one. The band look good, and the edit is smooth and genre-fitting, all we need now is a good ending and I feel that perhaps we could bring an audience in to watch and respond to the rough cut.

Editing Process

For our first few editing sessions, we were working towards making our footage sync up with the song itself. This was fairly simple, and it gave us all a chance to re-familiarize ourselves with the editing software: Adobe Premier Pro.

 The software is fairly simple to use, however Angel and Nikita have had the most experience with editing with Premier Pro, so they were relying on our opinions while they did the brunt of the editing.
While the band in general were very professional and looked very fitting for the role and genre of the video itself, the lip sync, in parts was out of time, as well as the drumming, so we immediately took time to make sure that we could find the usable footage and place it in a folder named 'Synced rushes'.
I've managed to find a few screenshots from Adobe Premier Pro, to demonstrate the layout and tools that we used to edit our video, they are shown below.

Both pictures represent the layout of the software as well as the different tools available. We mainly used the cutting tool and the extension tool in the edit of our video, as we wrestled with a coherent blend between narrative shots and performance elements. 

Shoot Day Preparations

Monday 23rd- 1 DAY UNTIL SHOOT!

As only one day remains until our shoot day we began to create the set for our performance element, we began by preparing the wooden slats, and setting them up to resemble a room. One of our main concerns was that lack of wallpaper that matched our prop list, as any sample seemed to be either too bright or had flowers on it, which we deemed inappropriate for the conventions of our video. I had the idea of painting on the wall instead of using wallpaper, and asked the set designer what she thought would look appropriate on the walls, she came up with the design of angular shapes on the walls on the left and right and a white circle in the center of the back wall. These were our results:

Shoot Day!

Tuesday 24th- SHOOT DAY!

The minute I woke up and realized that it was my shoot day I immediately packed various items of my clothing into a bag, to remember for the set, and for the band themselves, in case they had forgotten to bring appropriate clothes in for the shoot. After getting to school we began to put the finishing touches on the set, we finished off painting and scattered some clothes around. As the shoot's art director I began to dress the cast and remind them of the style we wanted them to play/sing in.

This was the set up of the band for our video, a drummer furthest back, both the lead and bass guitarist on either side of the set and the singer in the center. 

We kept this set-up throughout the music video, however we wanted the band members to be energetic, instead of static to portray the bands fun attitude.
As we were shooting, we encountered a few immediate problems, firstly, Josh, our drummer found it difficult to stay in time with the song. Although this could be expected as it was a difficult song to drum to, I had to help him stay in rhythm as I also drum, so I clapped to the beat of the song so he could use that as a guideline, and after this, he found it much easier. Secondly, Sam, our singer, had problems defining some of the lyrics, and remembering some parts of the song. However, we helped him out with the lyrics and gave him helpful instructions on what actions he should perform.
We managed to finish our studio shoot fairly quickly, half an hour early.
After packing our kit into the minibus we headed to Guildford. Fortunately when we got there the cast seemed to want a drink so we took them to the restaurant that we had reserved a table in and we bought them some Cokes. After the short relax, we headed into the record store and introduced ourselves to Ben. We started filming using Nikita's Black Magic camera with his shoulder mount, the quality of his camera was far better than the cameras used at school, so we were more than happy to learn from him how to use it. After getting to grips with his camera, we began filming the record store scenes, and this went far smoother than in the studio, all of the cast understood their roles and the filming passed very quickly, which was very helpful, considering the amount of footage we had to film.
Overall, I feel that the shoot went well, while occasionally our cast lost their concentration and our filming in the record store took much longer than we expected. However, our studio shoot finished almost half an hour earlier than we expected it to, which can only be seen as a positive.

Website Sketches

 We decided to examine some examples of artists websites to see if we could find any inspirations for designs, while also examining conventions of the genre of music that we were developing a video for. In our research, we found that a common inclusion among rock bands in their websites, was to include a photo of the entire band on the homepage, signifying unity and friendship. As well as a link to the song that we have created a video for, As our band's name is 'Sharma Marmalade' we would want their name to be at the forefront of the webpage.

For the Photo aspect of the website, we would want to incorporate both band interaction and professional work ethic into the page. While we would have one photo album of the band having fun and being friends, we would want another album showing the band at concerts and practicing with each other.

For the music category of the website, we would want to include the various albums made by the band, whether they are a single EP or a full length album, we would want to portray the amount of work that the band has done together through this page, while also being the direct access for fans to listen to their music. I would want a feature to be introduced where when an album is clicked on, a direct pop-up linking to Spotify would appear and you would be able to listen to the entire album.

https://play.spotify.com/

Here is the link to the music sharing website Spotify, it allows for free access to music, and also gives unlimited access to bands from across the world.

Inspired by websites from rock bands such as 'The Strypes', this feature of our website would be a database of sorts, full of information about the band, for example, age, instrument, a small interview with some personal information, to demonstrate a care for the fans, and offer them some exclusive information on the artists themselves.

Finalizing lighting and props

With only 5 days to go until the shoot, we met with Jack the lighting director to finalize what we wanted with the lighting and confirm any new props. After briefly reviewing the song, we discussed our ideas the last time we spoke, we again brought up the idea of warm lighting for the bedroom aspect and then Gobos for the bridge in the song. However, we came up with the idea of having the band's performance in nothing but spotlight, which we hope we can carry through to our shoot that is quickly approaching.

Joel also managed to buys some posters off the internet for a decent price, this will help set the atmosphere of a teenage bedroom, as well as a late 1990's rock vibe, which is exactly what we want to achieve.

Researching the Conventions of Homepages and Videos

In order to further our research into music videos, we have been assigned the task of researching similar bands to 'Weezer' and examining the conventions of the music genre, however, I was nominated by Jason to research a band who belonged to completely different genre of music.
After looking through some of my music I found a singer songwriter from the 90s called 'Cat Power', and decided to research her work and compare it to the rock genre.

http://www.catpowermusic.com/

As is shown from the website homepage, the indie songwriter genre is much warmer, and less aggressive than the rock genre that we have settled with, the use of a light blue connotes innocence and calm, while the font does not stand out, yet stays sharp to attract attention of viewers.

Comparing this to rock band that Joel studied, going by the name of 'Jimmy Eat World', various differences are the sharpness of the font, the atmosphere of the website, as well as the portrayal of the band.

This homepage focuses more on a darker color scheme, as well as more band related photos and news, I feel that our website would be more likely to end up looking like this, as it corresponds more with the particular genres that we are trying to encompass within our bands ideologies and star image. 

Digipack video

While researching digipacks, I found this video on the internet, and was interested in watching it, I found it helpful in describing a certain kind of digipack, in the form of a slide cardboard digipack, which we will probably use for our digipack.

Digipack Designs

Each member of our group decided to draw up a digipack idea for the band, and we would collaborate when we had all finished and decide on who's was the best design, and who's fitted the group most suitably. After drawing up some of my ideas I feel that my idea  fits the group well, however, it will be interesting to see the other's opinions, and what their ideas were.

My front cover idea consisted of four segmented images, each with a separate message or meaning to it. The first picture of the record store was to display how the band met, and what they all found a common interest over. The bottom left image was a shaded figure of a man surrounded by a pattern, that could reflect their target audience's search for their identity as individuals, being young and impressionable teenagers, which could attract them to the CD as they could relate to the image on the front. The top right picture displays the four band members dressed as stereotypical figures that they may see throughout certain stages of their lives. The clown representing their younger years, a police officer to represent the rebellious teenage stage in their life, a businessman to symbolize the stage in their life when they must grow up and get a job, the businessman representing their boss. And finally a nurse from a care home, to represent growing old. However, as the band are all male, a comedic factor could be added to the cover as we would evidently show that the nurse was male, but dressed in women's nurse uniform. The final image would then be a picture of the vinyl featured in the music video. 

Shot List

Filming Role

As our group draws ever closer to our shooting date on Tuesday the 24th, we have begun to look at filming roles within our production group, while we understand that we will all alternate through roles, we are beginning to decide which roles are best suited to which person. After much discussion we have decided the these shall be our roles for the filming:
Angel- Producer
Joel- Director
Nikita- Cameraman
Tom- Art Director

We have chosen these roles based on each of our specific talents, Nikita for example has the most experience using a camera to film with, however Joel has the strongest vision of what he wants from the video, while Angel's directional skills will give Joel guidelines as the producer. I feel that I best suit an artistic director as I feel that I can style and create the right star image for the band using costume and art direction.

I found this short clip of an art director on YouTube, explain what she has to do in her job, I felt that the clip helped me research my role specifically and will help me on the day of the shoot.

Audience Feedback For Animatic

After finishing the animatic, we were eager to get some public feedback to see the general reaction to our music video idea. As the animatic divulges, audience found it slightly confusing regarding the locations of the shoot, however, the performance elements were consistently recognized.




After watching the response to our animatic over, we have decided that we may need to make our record shop idea slightly clearer, however, overall, the feedback can be seen as constructive, and there were many elements within the video that were positively commented on.

Album Cover Ideas

As our group draw ever close to the shoot day, we have started to consider the digi-pack element of the production phase of the coursework. In order to do so, I've researched a few album covers which I think of as inspirations for my band's digi-pack.

The use of bright colors and interesting styles make this album cover from 'Egyptian Hip Hop' an interesting and inspiring album cover, we feel that it successfully portrays the band and their individual styles, while also proving interesting to look at, and eye catching.

A slightly duller album cover, this digipack from the band 'Everything Everything' shows the four way split shot that we would want, although the cover and styles of the band members is fairly bland, the principle remains the same.

We feel that album covers that show a band as unified as opposed to covers that show the singer as the main area of focus, and the band as simply a backup for the individual, were not the image that we wanted to portray within our digipack. 

Meetings With Artistic And Lighting Directors

After our meetings with the Artistic and Lighting directors that came in to visit us for the day, they gave us some advice while also giving their opinions on our video idea and the song itself. We met with the Artistic director firstly, and we discussed the idea of a tattered teenagers bedroom. She liked the idea, as well as saying that it would be relatively easy to do. She suggested that we use stained cream carpets and empty pizza boxes, as well as other items of junk, to demonstrate the rebellious attitude we want to convey. She said that the school would be able to source the bed, chest of drawes and the wallpaper and carpets. However we would have to source the band posters, however we checked on eBay and we were able to find posters that we likes for fairly cheap.

We then met the Lighting director who also said that he liked the idea of the teenage room, and gave us suggestions on the different lighting that could be used, he suggest using Gobo lights in the break of the song, to add some variety to keep the audience interested.

Questions For The Animatic

We decided that in order to make our interviews with the public more effective, we would invent a few specific questions that we could ask, regarding our music video. These were the questions that we devised:

• Does this storyline make sense? If so, what do you think is happening?
• What kind of person do you think would enjoy this video?
• Were there any elements of the video which you think you could improve?
• What did you think of the record shop idea? 
• Do you think that the style suits the genre?
• Do you think it's entertaining?
• Is there anything you see that is unconventional?
• Do you think that the band we have chosen are convincing?

Set Designs

We decided to draw sketches of our ideal setting for the performance element of our video, we felt that a punky teenagers bedroom would be the best setting, as it embodies the sense of anarchy and rebellion that we want to portray within our video.

We decided to make a quick rough sketch of our ideal setting, we felt that placing clothes and beer cans around the room would help demonstrate the rebellious attitude, which the use of band posters demonstrated music's influence in the band's life.

 This was our final, we felt that using t shirts from bands such as 'The Sex Pistols' would connote the punk culture and rebellion that we wanted to include subtly throughout the video.

This was our rough sketch of the inside of Ben's records, we mainly wanted to show how our band members would be dressed, we would want to incorporate a sense of individuality in each member, while sticking to the rough punk style.

This was our sketch of the outside of Ben's Records, we drew this to mainly add some perspective on where we would be filming, and how it would look.

Confirming The Band

This was our email to the students that we wanted to cast as the band in our video, so far Jamie and Sam have both said yes, and are in the process of emailing us with a confirmation.

Animatic Video

Confirming the Location

After talking to Ben on the phone, he was more than happy to let us use his shop for a section of our shoot, we emailed him to get written permission, and to give him some dates, he seemed fairly flexible with dates on the phone, but we assumed that we should give him a rough guideline.

Emily Teadrake Notes

                  ·         Polydor, subsidiary of Universal Records.

·         Video Commissioner- Oversee over the whole music videos.

·         Timelines, treatments, how a video is pitched.

·         Receive the budget, track, and deadlines.

·         Discuss with artists and managers, decide what they want to do with the video, a lot of people managing, and make sure that the brief is good, portrays the right image, while still allowing the directors enough creative freedom to work with.

·          MATCH THE ARTISIT TO THEIR VIDEO- e.g. Ellie Goulding, a beauty performance.

·         Narrative storylines are very popular, project their skills as a director of film.

·         Rudimental set a heavy president for what music videos should be like.

·         Newer artists are more likely to choose a smaller video with better ideas.

·         Directors commonly take ideas from things they’ve seen on the internet.

·         No more than 5 directors have briefs sent to them.

·         After the briefs are sent, the directors will send a treatment, envisioning their ideas.

·         Industry has changed, now, as soon as a track is played on air, then it is released. As opposed a 6 week run up on air, after which, the single would be released.

·         YEARS & YEARS VIDEO- Treatment summarises the video idea, and the elements of choreography around the video. Given the director’s spin.

·         Keeping it as concise as possible.

·         Breaks down idea and references, then goes into more detail.

·         Directors take images from the internet. However directors that are signed to record companies will be give financial backing and the facilities to make their own ideas.

·           Sometimes permits aren’t necessary.

·         Average budgets- UK- £30,000 International- £100,000

·         Director will sit with editors while they cut. A lot of the time, lip sync and performance isn’t usually involved very much.

·         Polydor are very strict on their pre-production phases.

·         A lot of directors use VICE and NOISEY for their inspirations, such as cultures, fashions and rituals.

·         [Insert Wiley Here]

·         Instead of hiring, just ask around, people know people.

·         Very small budgets, use natural lighting, it doesn’t matter if you have a good setting.

·         Start as interns. Start from the bottom and build up.

Filming Location

Ben's Records

After little positive response from a handful of the shops we emailed, Angel decided to ring Ben's Records in Guildford and approached him about filming in his shop. To our delight he said he would be more than happy for that, now all we need is written permission and we will need to visit his shop to make a risk assessment.

Storyboard

Animatics

After completing our storyboard we went upstairs to the media studio and prepared to film our story board, aiming to get around 10 seconds on a page, before turning over. We started filming and the process took us roughly 20 minutes to film everything, and we are now preparing to edit the footage together.

Epitaph Permission Requests

Before we started to plan the shoot, we needed to ask the record company who released the song 'Memories'. After some quick research I discovered that the record label was 'Epitaph Records', after searching through their website to find contact addresses, I found various addresses that I could email, and took liberty in emailing all of them. None of the addresses were valid, so I checked on their Facebook and other social media sites to see if there was an alternate address, which there was not. After asking Jason what to do, he told me that we are not responsible for the emails being invalid, therefore, permission was still asked, and we would still be able to use the song.

Location Inquiries

As a task of urgency, we have emailed various record shops near and around Guildford, inquiring as to whether we can use their establishment for filming a segment of our music video. We emailed several stores. Here is the record of the email that we sent to them.

Band Member's Instruments

For our music video we are also considering the style of the instruments that we could use. We would want them to extenuate the image of the band, while still looking professional. After talking to Joel about the instruments, he told us that he had several stylized guitars at home that we could choose from.
Here is an image of the guitars that he has:  

While the school owns a drum kit that we could use, we would consider what style of drumstick that we would want to use, as they can say a lot about the drummer and the band in question. Having played the drums myself, I have a collection of sticks that could be used. And I feel that using my carbon drumsticks could demonstrate that, despite being able to play the instruments, the drummer plays the drums with such passion that he would have to consider breaking his drumsticks.

For our singer's microphone, we would want to consider whether we would want a classic microphone, or a vintage silver one. I feel like the silver microphone would be aesthetically pleasing to an audience watching the video, while also incorporating the vintage image into the video:

Band Member's Style

As your music video come closer and closer to the production process, we are beginning to focus on the image and members of the band. While the band 'Weezer' incorporated the Geek-Rock image into their star image, we feel that we would want to include a grungier element into the bands image, yet keeping them stylized. Instead of focusing on their individuality as band members, as we originally planned, we feel that enveloping their own style within the image would display a unity within the group, and the similarities, to portray them, not only as influential artists, but also as friends.

 We feel that an incorporation of the Grunge style would be effective within our group. Bands such as Nirvana and Bush, who have a strong teen following, would be something that we would want to emulate. While we would not want the style to be a carbon copy of these bands, we feel like incorporation the styles into the star image would encourage a teen following, due to the empathetic dress sense.

We also feel like an addition of a more formal attire could be interesting, this would allow the band to keep their individuality, and a unique style, while also encouraging a different fashion sense. We would want this formality would reflect the serious nature of the band as an artist. However, the blend between grunge and formal would keep a warmth and an identifiable atmosphere to their image.

Music Video Timeline

Passion Pictures- Goldfrapp Video

Within Ollie Allgrove's talk with the class,I noticed that he mentioned his experiences with music videos. I was interested to see what his music videos were like, and see if I could gain some inspiration and knowledge from them that could help me with my video. One of the artists he mentioned working with was Goldfrapp, who I'd listened to before. While her music does not necessarily correspond with the genre that I'm thinking of using, her blend of synthpop and electronica in the song 'Annabelle' led to an interesting music video.

After watching the music video I was instantly struck by how idyllic it was. The opening shots all show a utopia, and while the video is very simplistic and uses little in the way of visual effects, it remains professional and interesting, we want to watch on to see what might happen to the young girl.

While the beginning of the video resembles a paradise, the black and white filter adds a coldness to the video, which unsettles the viewer a little, hinting that something isn't right. While some shots, especially within the forest appear haunting, and slightly unnerving from an audiences perspective. It is shots like these that demonstrate to an audience that all is not well, and add the tension that makes the music video interesting, besides visually striking.

From watching the music video, and having Ollie's perspective on making it, I was able to gain some possibly useful information that could be used within my music video. I feel like experimentation with various types of shots could help build tension and suspense in my video, which will encourage an audience to watch on. I also feel like experimenting with striking visuals would be interesting, while also having top quality professional cameras in the form of the new Black Magic Mini URSA cameras, which also happen to shoot in 4k, which would make visuals even more striking.