Final - Colour Correction 1

Colour Correction 1

In Kenz and i's music video, we colour corrected a lot of our shots to try and make them seem more professional and all coordinate in a way so that they flow nicely with one another. In the clip below you can see how we colour correcting this shot of Alice and Jack walking in the leaves which we shot in a way that makes it look like Jack filming them. The original colour is quite bright and did not fit with our sequence of shots were we wanted it to so we made there be more highlights and less shadows and it gave us this effect which has a more muted and edgy feel to it. 

Final - Digipak Inserts

Digipak Inserts by Lola Gray and Mackenzie Dickey

Originally Kenz and i had only planned to include two inserts in our music album cover, but then after careful consideration we thought that it may be better to have another two just in case we need them. However, we did not want them plain and so instead we printed the lyrics of out song 'Crazy In Love' that we filmed and produced our music video too. I think that overall all of these pictures work well together as we edited them so they had a sort of muted effect of them so that the colors were not so vibrant and did not stand out as much. 

Final - Digipak

Final Digipak by Lola Gray and Mackenzie Dickey

Here is out final digipak, i am very happy with this final draft and think that it truly represents our music video as it includes some of the key elements that go alongside it. 

Front page

Insert on the left as case is opened 

Insert that sits behind the CD inside the case

The two below are behind the left hand insert in the case, to form a sort of booklet as such.

Back Insert

Final - Lighting

Lighting

Below are some of the different types of lighting that featured throughout out music video. the main and in my opinion the most effective lighting came from the pit as there was professional equipment that we could use in there so we took full advantage of this. The first four shots below are what we filmed in the pit, i think they turned out very well as we we could get different effects on the shots we wanted. For example, there were two different kinds of red lighting that we could depending on how many of the red washes over the lights we used. In the first shot you can see it is a lot brighter as we focused more lights on her face so that it just looked like a bright red spotlight. However, in the third shot the red is deeper and does not accentuate her features just as much, but i like how there is a difference and think this adds variety to out shots. We decided to use the red lighting as we thought that we could relate the fact that the song was about love and red denotes love. 

In the shots where we just used the white light in the pit, these were also different as we could change how many of the lights we used which all gave us a different effect. In some of the shots we were able to just get in half of her face with a shadow on the other side, i guess you could say that this relates to the fact that she is 'crazy' and that part of her is hidden. But then also, all of her face is in some of the shots. 

This shot is of Lauren in the dance studio which i know i have previously said that the lighting was not very good but once we discovered that we could dim the lights int he room we realised we could get some cool silhouette shots like this one of her stretching in front of the bar. I like these shots are they then coordinate with the shots below that of Alice and Jack which are also silhouettes. I think that all of these shots look professional and arty. Especially the ones with the couple as they have the added benefit of the lighting in the background giving the contrast between the two light types. 

Final - Digital Storyboard

Digital Storyboard

Here is our final storyboard, we decided to do it digitally so you would get more of an idea of the shots that we used. 

Final - Shot Types

Different uses of shot types

Below are a variety of different shot types that we used within our music video. I thought that i would just share a couple of my favourites. 

This first one is of Lauren where we have used a transition so that they it looks like there is two of her on the screen, we know that we could have overlapped the clips so that the Lauren's figure could have been more opaque but it did not look as good. If we did it that way then the background looked sharper and did not work as well. Overall i like this affect because there are two dances going on at the same time and mixes up the normal kind of long shot that can get repetitive. 

This is a close up of Lauren when she was dancing in the dance studio, we liked the fact that it was a close up and you saw her facial features whilst dancing whereas usually you would only be able to capture a dance in long shot or medium shot. It was quite difficult to get the shot but i think we did it well and was effective within the sequence. 

I liked this shot because it captures just Alice on her own but also gets in the fact that it was golden hour and so the beautiful scenery is blurred slightly and then Alice's hair is highlighted in the sun making her stand out. Also, you can see that she is looking at something which we liked as this 'thing' could be Jack. 

The next two shots coordinate with other as they come one after the other, we decided that they fit well with each other because as Lauren's leg lifts in the first shot it then goes straight into the next and spins but with more of a focus on her leg as the shot is a medium close up of the bottom half of her body. In the first shot it is a low angle of her as we thought that this create a change in our shots since a lot of them are filmed from straight on. Then we also thought that having a red light in the second shot would once again bring in the other shots from our music video so all of them relate. 

Final - Poster Advert

Final Poster Advert by Lola Gray and Mackenzie Dickey

This is the final version of our poster advert for our album 'The Lights'. I am happy with the way that this turned out and think that the image we have for it is perfect since it shows our artist is a beautiful light. The way we edited it was so that the background was darker that Lauren's skin so you could see the contrast between the two. I think that the pop of red really stands out and highlights the name of the song that we are promoting as this is the one we filmed our music video too and then also the 'S' on Scarlett and Simpson. We thought that having a touch of red throughout all of our ancillary products would be a good idea as then we could relate red to being Scarlett's (Lauren's) signature colour since also in our music video we film some shots with red lighting, we wanted to keep it consistent. 

Planning - Issues Encountered Whilst Filming/Editing

Issues Encountered Whilst Filming

When we were filming there were a couple of different issues the we encountered and had to overcome to carry on filming.The main one was the different lighting we came across in each of the locations as often it was not quite what we wanted when filming inside, this was mainly the case in the recording studio and the dance studio, all of the shots we got from both of these locations were not particularly high quality and so i was not overly pleased with them. However, i do think that the way we used them when editing by integrating them into our video amongst the shots that were captured outside made them seem a little better since there was a variety of different shots and lighting which we mixed up to make seem a little less obvious that they were different.

There were no other significant issues that greatly affected our filming, only a few small ones that were very simple to overcome. One was that we did have a time schedule for 3 out of four of our filming locations and so we had to not necessarily rush but for example, in the pit it would have helped if we had an extra half an hour, we could have gone back to film but we had a bit of a stuggle trying to get our actor to the location enough that we just worked with what we had. This was not an issue exactly as there were ways around it but it would have made our lives a lot easier if we did not have the restriction on time.  

Issues Encountered Whilst Editing

Whilst editing there were a couple of issues that came across, one of these was that we did not have enough shots of Alice and Jack that were varied. We received feedback on this from others and so we knew that we had to change this. We ended up finding footage from our memory cards that had not gone onto the computer and so we then integrated in a couple of these to split up the dance shots which were too consistent. However, there was still not a wide variety to pick from so we still did struggle a little due to the fact that we could now see that the narrative of the couple 'crazy in love' was lost near to the end which defeats the point of having them in there is the first place. 

Something else we came across that we had not planned on was once we had filmed in our final location which was Lauren dancing in the pit, we realised that one of our favourite shots of her moving captured the wooden staircase in the background which was very obvious. This then ruined the shot for us but we loved the move she made so we tried to work around it by attempting to mask out the wooden sides. However, because she is moving very quickly this was impossible as no matter how well we tried we could not edit exactly around her. This then lead to use just trying to blur around her to make the brown colour a little less obvious, although, this did not work and in fact i think it looked worse but we tried our best. 

Final - Music Video

Final Music Video by Lola Gray and Mackenzie Dickey

This is the final version of our music video to Crazy In Love. I am very happy with how everything turned out and think that there is not a whole lot more in which we could have done better. 

Planning - Location Shots

Location Shots

These are the locations in which Kenz and i filmed our music videos, they were all quite easy to organise but some did need more than others. For the dance studio we had to pay around £40 as it was an actual dance studio where others use it and so we had to book it out and make sure we were there for our time slot. Whereas for all of the other locations it was a lot more relaxed and we could take our time making sure that we got everything right. Although, as the recording studio and the pit were at school we had to make sure none else was using the areas and we needed to be done by 6PM as this was when the school shut, but this was not an issue as we had plenty of time. 

The pit

Recording Studio

Rhodes Center Dance Studio

Jack's House

Planning - Foreseeable Problems and Contingency Plans

Foreseeable Problems and Contingency Plans

• Camera battery runs out - charge multiple batteries before the day of filming
• Memory card becomes full mid filming - delete footage off memory card once its been uploaded to the computer and always carry an extra one or make sure that it can hold a lot of footage (16 or 32mb)  
• Actor/actress bails last minute - if it happens once then there is not much you can do but if it is a reoccurring theme then change actor, or you could make sure that the person who's going to be in your video was definitely going to be there and was reliable
• Bad weather - we need to make sure that we look at the weather forecast for the day we plan to film is bright and not raining, this is only for the shots at Jacks's
• Lighting may not be right for outside shots - when we filmed the couple shots we were outside and so we needed to make sure that the lighting was just right, luckily for us the day we filmed there was perfect light since it was golden hour which allowed us to get some fantastic shots on the pair

Other than these i cannot think of a lot more that may go wrong, other than drastic measure like camera equipment gets stolen then not much should go wrong.

Planning - First Draft Music Video Feedback

First Draft Music Video Feedback

We showed our first draft of our music video today and it was actually the third but was still the rough draft as we hadn't completely finished it with titles and what have you. The biggest piece of feedback that we got was that he narrative fades away nearer the end and there was too much of her dancing in the pit, which people liked as the shots were better but the narrative lost its feel. They said that near the end we should add a few more shots of Alice and Jack in between the darker ones of her in the pit since there is an abundance of Lauren dancing. 

Another point is that some people pointed out the fact that you could see the stairs in a couple of the shots in the pit. They said we should probably mask this as it was quite a noticeable detail that drew their attention away from the dance movement. We have decided that we will mask it as originally we did not like this either but we did not think it made much of a difference but since they all said that it could look better then we will change it. The reason that you could see the pit was because we had filmed her dancing at a lower angle and so the above wooden sides were on show. 

Our editing skills are not top notch but we did try our best to edit to the beat and make sure that the shots fitted with the lyrics as much as possible. However, someone in our class said that at points we should put in quicker shots at the faster bits as on the first chorus we just used the long dance movements to fit the faster paced sections. So, we think that we need to change this and put more varied shorter shots in on the build up to the first chorus.  

Planning - Advert Draft

Advert Draft

Here is our first draft of our poster to advertise our new album that 'Scarlett Simpson' is bringing out. I think that is is very eye catching and suits the pop genre very well so that our audience will know who and what the poster is about. I like the little red details as it think it works well with the fact that our single that we filmed our music video too was 'Crazy in Love' and so the red represents the love in some ways. Also, it makes some of the writing stand out so that the audience can clearly see the date and and the track that is supposedly most famous/important/the best. This image is edited a lot more differently compared to the digipak as it is a lot darker and the pop of red is a lot brighter giving a more vivid contrast between the two. However, this was inevitable as the two different ancillary products were created one by me and the other Kenz and so they were obviously going to end up as different styles. So, for the final draft we will have to work together to edit them so they are more similar and have themes that work together and are recognisable by our target market. 

Planning - Digipak Draft

Digipak Draft

Below is all of the pages that will feature in Kenz' and my digipak. We have created and edited all of the images that we took whilst filming for our music video to Crazy In Love and these were what we have come up with to feature in our CD case. The front cover is an image of Lauren or what we have renamed her for her star image, Scarlett Simpson. 

This is the back cover which is the first side that i laid out and designed. I think that it turned out well because this is where i was learning about how photoshop worked and how to edit photos so they didn't look like a 6 year had tried to edit them. I think that it worked out very well especially with how the whole image kind of looks muted. I tried to create this effect so that you can see that the image is Lauren but the main focus is the tracks that are featuring on the album which i decided to put in a white font. I thought that this worked with the colour scheme of the CD cover but also allowed it to stand out amongst the background. 

This next image is is going to go on the left side when you open the CD case so that your attention is immediately drawn to the couples legs. I like the fact that it is vintage looking as then the colours are muted down to fit with the rest of the images on our digipak. We thought that this image would fit perfect as you cannot see their faces and as they are only featured in one music video then it wouldn't make sense to have the didipak all about them and so i thought that this kind of image is ideal as it just shows a couple. 

Next, we have the image that is going to sit behind the CD in the case. Since it is going to be mostly covered we figured that it does not need to have a lot of detail but does still need to related to the rest of the images in some way and so by taking a screen shot from out actual music video and editing it on photoshop we got this colour correction which i think fits so well with everything. The contrast will show behind the CD but will not take the audiences focus of anything drastically. I think that the white lights will pop out below the Cd on the bottom left hand corner and just add a bit of extra detail so it is not too boring. 

Lastly, there is the front cover. This side was the one that i completed last as i feel like it is most important and i needed to make sure that it was one, eye-catching and two, fitted the genre well so our target audience would knew what genre it is by just looking at the front cover. I think that this fits with the rest of the inserts of our digipak, the colour scheme is similar but then also to add an extra twist the red 'S' is similar to the poster advertising the album so the audience know that they are talking about the same album and same artist. 

Overall i am very please with how my first draft of our digipak went, i think that everything fits together well and they feature good images that relate to the songs and our music video. Lauren was a very actor to have chosen to be in our music video because she co-oporated professionally and was available for us to use her when we asked. 

Planning - Actors and Actresses

Actors and Actresses

For our music video, Kenz and I used three actors that we wanted to perform in it. We knew that we needed a couple that was willing to act a little cringe and a dancer who was prepared to dance and lip sync for us to Crazy in Love. We knew that the performer needed to be someone reliable and that would be willing to spend a fair amount of time working with us to get the best shots possible at various locations. Straight away Kenz knew a girl who went to her dance school, Lauren Simpson. She was dramatic but not overly so it looked bad but was also professional about everything and would be the perfect candidate. Also, since she was a young girl we knew that it would not only fit with the pop genre but our audience would be able to relate to her as they are of similar ages. 

Next, we needed to decide on a couple that would not mind getting a bit PDA (personal display of affection) on screen. We thought that it would make sense to use a friend that is in a relationship as we thought that they are more likely to be themselves on camera and let the real chemistry show as they should not get as embarrassed. We went through all our options of who would suit our song and also a bit part of our decider would be who would do it since quite a few turned down our request due to the fact they thought it was too cringe. Finally, we came to the conclusion of using Alice and Jack which was a very good choice on our part as they were perfect for the role. 

Planning - Digipak Font Ideas

Digipak Font Ideas

First i created the draft for the back cover of the digipak, i thought that there would be more writing on this side and so i should see what font looks best on this side first. Below are a few examples of different fonts that i liked. I liked the curly ones since i thought they went with the genre of pop and were quite girly which then fits in with our target audience. Although, i thought that these did not really fit with the theme of our songs since they were not as such fun and girly but more deep and meaningful so we thought we should steer clear of anything that looked too childish. Then i just started looking into what serif fonts look like on the screen and thought that they were not the right kind for a CD back or front cover, they made it seem a bit too old school. Lastly, i looked at the font Nueva Std in Condensed Italic, i straight away knew that this was the one. Because it was italic i thought that it did add that pop of fun and immaturity into it but also since it was sans serif it was easy to read but looked professional, this was then the font we ended up using for the back cover of out album cover. 

Planning - Unplanned/Spontaneous Idea Changes

Unplanned/Spontaneous Idea Changes 

We started filming on the 28th of October and by this point we has not planned exactly when we would film the rest of our footage for our music video. We had just assumed that we would plan to film as we went along, and for the most part this scheme worked very well and we got enough footage from the four locations that we did film, these were at Jacks house, the dance studio, the recording studio and the pit. However, from our plan we had thought it would be a good idea to film with Lauren lip syncing over a projector screen with a video of her dancing on it, but once we had filmed in the four locations we believed that we had enough footage for our video alone without the extra scene involved. So, because of this we then decided to not film in this location. 

Another factor as to why we abandoned the idea was because we could not find the space to do, an obvious option would be for us to use a classroom at school because they all have projectors in but they would not have the kind of lighting we need for the atmosphere we wanted. We wanted to have a dark room where Lauren was lit up by the dance going on in the projector behind her and since we didn't have much time left to film we thought that we should just not waste our time in trying to find a location and fit it in and instead focus on the editing of the other footage that we had and that filled up the time space of the song perfectly. 


The effect we were originally going for was something like in the Ariana Grande video 'The Way'. In the video you can see Ariana dancing and singing in front of the film projected on the back wall, we thought that this would look very effective in our video as then we could relate the narrative and performance together. 

Planning - Shot of Busy Motorway

Shot of Busy Motorway

This is the clip that we then edited down and used at the very beginning of our music video, i think that it is very effective how we changed the focus of the camera manually so that it gave this effect. I think that the way it goes from in focus to out of gives a different look to things and was in beat with how the song started off slowly. When thinking about using this shot i had thought that it would be relatable to the fact that maybe she was once able to see things clearly but then love drove her crazy and that is why when it goes out of focus it is representing her losing her mind. Even though there were some very shaky points in this footage due to the fact that it was a very windy night, once we had edited it i think it worked well with out song. 

Planning - Day Four Filming

Day Four Filming

This was the last time we filmed and it was my favourite out of them all, we filmed her singing and then dancing both with a black background. We did this in the pit at school as the curtains were perfect to film in front of to get a solid colour background and originally we thought that it it would look like a curtain but it turned out better than i expected and it looks like just a plain black wall. Since we had the lighting system in the pit i think that this may be why the shots we got seemed so professional and vivid. The contrast between Lauren's skin and blonde hair compared to the dark background makes the shot as she really stood out. Also, being able to change the lighting allowed us to test out where she looked her best and where the light hit her face and accentuated her features best. The main two lights we used when filming were the main white light that came down from all around and is shown in the medium close up image above. We also played around a bit and used the red wash over the lights to see how it looked and i think that out very well and we got a decent amount of shots with her singing and dancing. I think that these add a pop of colour to our music video since most of our shots do not have a lot of vibrant colour. To add to this, it is red which can connote love and then relating back to the song where she is crazy in love. I think that this was a good idea since now there is a bit of meaning and synchronization between the lyrics and visuals. 

The dance shots that we got were a lot better than what we got in the dance studio mainly down to the lighting of where we caught Lauren's features. It was still very difficult to capture a moving shot of her dancing since she was all over the place performing and trying to get a stable shot of this proved almost impossible but we did out best. Since we knew that the lighting was best in either the white or red wash when we got to the dancing we just filmed using these and this meant we had more time to try out different angles and try to capture different ways of her moving. 

Planning - Day Three Filming

Day Three Filming

The next location that we filmed in was the recording studio which is located at our school, we had originally thought that a recording studio would fit our music video as it would give the effect of Lauren recording her new song which is what we are trying to promote with the ancillary products and our music video. Since this location was in school we did not get charged for using it and we just had to keep everything tidy and not actually use the equipment just film them. I think that the shots we got from this shoot were similar to the ones we got from the dance studio since these were both filmed inside and we could have used with some big box lights to highlight and contour Lauren's face. But considering we only had our little LED light i think we did get a variety of different angled shots. This was the shortest shoot we had filmed so far since there were not many different ways we could film her singing into a microphone but we got plenty enough that fit into our music video. 

Planning - Rough Draft of Music Video

Rough Draft of Music Video

This is the rough cut of mine and Kenz's music video. I am happy with our editing skills and how this draft turned out a part from a couple shots that i think we potentially need to change in our final cut. For example, near the end there is an overlay of two shots which i personally do not think work. The back ground shot is of Alice and Jack holding hands and then Lauren singing over the top but where the lighting flickers between white and red on Lauren throughout i think it is a bit confusing and will distract the audience. 

Another point to add is that we didn't know how to end our video, we were not sure if we should have a couple shot or Lauren walking out of the studio. But we have decided to wait until we get feedback from our classmates on how to end it so we have a second opinion. I think that once we know what others think of it, it might let us see the video in a different light. Since we have watched it over and over so may be oblivious to any errors or shots that do not fit together or with the song so hopefully they can help us fix this issue. 

Planning - Equipment List

Equipment List

Tripod (Mackenzie's)

The tripod helped up get steady different angled shots, we used it every time we filmed. There is not much to say about the tripod other than it holds the camera up and it did just that. 

Dolly (borrowed from school)

There is not much to a dolly either that is different from any other dolly. We borrowed ours from school and used it for any of the moving shots we wanted to create that were all at the same height, it came in handy for this as then they were steady. We mainly used this for when we filmed in the dance studio and the pit since these were the only places where the floor was flat enough to get a smooth movement. 

DSLR Camera (Nikon D900) (borrowed from a friend)

This camera is of a very high quality and we were very grateful to have been able to use it since it helped us create some of our better shots, without the level of cinematography that we had we would not have created some of the cool and interesting shots that we did. This camera allowed us to be able to change the focus of our shots and letting us be to film a pulled focus shot and the out of focus motorway cars. Since it was not our we had to take extra care in making sure it was always secured tightly to the tripod and that we had the strap around out necks when we were filming a moving shot of Lauren dancing. 

LED.... (Borrowed from same person as the camera)

This LED light can be attached to the front of the camera and is a ring light in which we have used for the majority of our shots so far. It does not make up for the whole lighting system if we do not have one but it did allow us to get a good view of Lauren's features during close ups and meant her features stood out on her face. It is a simple little object that attaches to the top of the camera where the flash pops up and then the actual light fits around the camera to allow maximum light all around the object we were filming. The ring that covers the lights was detachable and you could buy other colours or it did come with a some, blue, orange, yellow, white or clear. We only ever did use the white or clear one depending on how sharp we wanted the light since it was a lot brighter with the clear one and so sometimes we used the white to mute the vibrancy.