LF: Print Work Shoot

Today we completed a photo shoot that we hope to include throughout our print work. We used a simple brick wall and captured the images in black and white using a quick shutter speed, i am looking to place all three images on a simple black background with a silver graphic running across the back ground. All three members will be situated according to the rule of thirds.

JI: Printwork update

I have also been working on my print work today for our JLT digipak idea. Here are a couple of screen shots from my plans.

Group

With only one day left until the deadline, today we have been ruthlessly editing our footage, chopping and cutting clips to perfect our video. Here is a cut of our video with one day to go.



Tomorrow we will just go through the footage making any last alterations we feel our needed.

LF: 2 Days to Go!!

Today in the lesson I:

• Filmed some filler shots with James using numerous apparatus such as a dolly and a track.
• Helped James with editing the footage.
• Uploaded pictures of our night shoot onto Photo shop.
• Created a rough print work poster.
• Found the location to capture our pictures for the print work.

JI: 29/11/11

Today myself and Luca shot some more filler shots in an outside location within school up against a plain brick wall, to still gain a urban feel. We used the dolly and track to gain some smooth movement with the camera. Once we had shot this we uploaded the footage on to Premiere and turned the footage to black and white and time stretched some shots to fit in to some gaps as filler shots.

I also edited the footage of the girl Luca took last night. Although he had some trouble with the external location and the lighting, so he had to change the location to inside his house, which restricted movement and angles he could shoot, however we managed to cut a few shots out of the footage which was useable and fits well in to our concept.

LF:28/11/2011

Today I finished the editing of our question on how our band is represented throughout the promotional activity by cutting out the takes that were not successful. Furthermore I over looked James throughout editing the footage and came up with numerous suggestions such as; I felt in order to make the shots of the feet appearing in sync, we should fade out the second shot of my feet, in order to smooth out the cut to Blake’s feet as I thought it was too sudden and disrupted the rhythm of the video.

I also attempted to film some footage of a girl that we could have included in our video, however I planned to use certain external locations such as a plain brick wall and a large tree will yellow and brown leaves at the base. However due to the weather it was too dark to film in these locations at 4:10pm as a result I had to film inside, and did not complete all the filming. Nonetheless I am looking to capture the rest of the footage on Wednesday during the day.

TB:Update 28/11/2011

In today's lesson I printed out the rough copy of my print work and further analysed it so I could add detail to my slide rocket tonight. I also helped Luca upload the footage of his video entry question. Furthermore, I discussed with James what needed to be done tonight in terms of work and also discussed Blog format with Luca.

JI: 28/11/2011

Today I carried on with the editing process of our production. Getting in to the last week we now have to analyse our current footage with great detail, perfecting every aspect of the video to ensure our work is of the highest quality. I found some of the footage I had previously imported from another Premiere file had had some quality problems, and we saw a slight blur to the shots, so I had to re-export them and import them back on to our timeline. This meant I had to then re-edit the footage to match the previous clips which had to be replaced.

The rest of the week will consist of editing the footage of the girl which Luca captured tonight then getting some extra filler shots in either the studio or an outside location. Once this is complete we can touch up all of our footage to conclude our music video production.

Slide Rocket for Questions

Group: How have you represented your group across your promotional activity?

JI: Editing Studio Footage

On Wednesday we had a trip to the drama studio, and I am just now editing the footage on Premiere to see the good clips we can add in. Once we imported the footage into Premiere we decided the lighting wasn't the effect we wanted so I had to alter the 'Brightness and Contrast' and play around with the colours in the footage to gain the effect we wanted.





I also wanted to try some new effects so I used the 'Ghosting' effect to add some different looking shots in to our footage.

Group: Rough Cut Final

This is our final rough cut of our production 'JLT - Close To You'.



This is a stepping stone for our final piece which our deadline for is 2nd December.

JI: Editing Footage

After our shoot in London on Saturday I have been editing all the current footage along with our new night footage all onto a master edit. By importing our other files we have now got a whole 'rough' cut of our song, which will need to continue to fine tune this week.



The only footage we now need to capture is with a female which we are going to complete this week, to add the narative of a journey through a relationship including the good and the bad.

LF: Targets for the rest of the week

• Provide a rough cut of the print work and the video.
• Answer questions on how our band is represented throughout the promotion.
• Take still images for the printwork.
• Film shots including a female and extra close ups in the studio.

LF: London Night Footage Reflection

On Saturday we decided to complete another shoot to try and capture some night footage in London. We faced a few limitations whilst in London especially at St Thomas’ hospital as there was not a sufficient amount of light to capture a clear image of the subject. Therefore we tried to overcome the problem by using two strong torches and trying to reflect the light of a large piece of white card, however it still was not good enough for our liking.

 As a result we moved to a location which had more potential street lighting which we could use but still capture the same image when it came to framing. We tried to capture filler shots with iconic London sites in the frame such as the London eye, Tower Bridge, The houses of Parliament and the Gherkin.

A location that we felt will look extremely effective is at the base of the Gherkin building. The surrounding scenery was traditional however the modern twist of the glass Gherkin acted as a good contrast. We chose to use the area because there were circular lights coming from the ground as well as bright white lights situated on a nearby wall. We filmed some shots of an iconic boy band member sitting down on the floor under the white light.

After we decided there was not enough lighting at St Thomas’ Hospital we filmed on a very busy bridge which gave us a clearer image of the boy band and the houses of parliament.

London Night Footage Recce

Yesterday, all of us went up to London to film some night time footage for our video. We planned to shoot a bit of extra footage that was of a very high standard, while also getting some very scenic fillers to use throughout our video.

Overall the trip was a success, however, it did not start out that way as we encountered our first problem of the recce. We went back to the location we used in our last shoot, near south bank. When we turned the camera on, we realised that we couldn't actually see ourselves on the screen because it was too dark. Despite our best efforts, attempting to use the torches and reflector, we could not generate enough light to make the shot work. We decided to change location and moved to a more well lit area, right on the rivers age. We obtained a few filler shots and were getting into the swing of filming at night, however we still hadn't captured the excellent footage we were aiming to get. After this short stint of filming, we walked onto the London Westminster bridge. It was here that our recce really began to take off.

The lighting was much better and the houses of parliament provided an excellent backdrop to the shot, an iconic landmark that really lit up the frame. We also filmed a few filler shots because the lighting was so good and the atmosphere was very ''stereotypical London''.

After this filming we decided to film some footage at the base of the Gherkin. There were small lights placed around the building and there was also some blue lit lines that were on the walls surrounding it, giving the whole area a luminous blue effect. We are hoping the footage will be as good as it promised to be when we shot it.

Overall the recce was very successful and we think the night shots will accompany the other footage very well.

LF: Targets for the rest of the week

• Thursday: Film the studio footage, possible still images for print work.
• Friday: Editing studio shots during lesson or free periods, capturing footage of girl for the video.
• Saturday: Capturing night footage in London; Southbank, O2 Arena, St Thomas’ hospital

Audience Feedback

The following points were made after our class had watched the rough cut of our footage:

• Audience thinks that there should be some sort of reference in the footage to a girl. We like this idea and will be looking to intergrate a slight narative of a female presence into our video.


• Overall they thought there were some very effective shots and there was good camera movement throughout. We are pleased with this as we did pay particular attention to how we should use movement effectively in our piece.


• Another piece of feedback we recieved was that although our framing was good, we should try and stay within the frame more often.


• We are pleased with this feedback but even though it was very encouraging it is still early days and our editing is very rough. With more time for editing we hope to make our video extremely good.

LF: Rough Idea Print Work

Here is a rough hand drawn draft of my tour poster. Ideas I have tried to include are;

• Film noir theme of having half the face in darkness.
• I’m considering 3 types of background; Low depth of field of an iconic building in London, a brick wall leading to using a high contrast as scene in the take that tour poster, or simple use a completely black background, with the shots being taken in Photoshop.
• Although the three members of JLT are different height I would edit the photograph in Photoshop making them appear the same height.
• I am thinking of overlapping the images so only the left hand side of the face is in full view.
• The font will appear in the lower third of the poster. JLT will sit slightly above the name of the tour, ‘Close To You’. I feel this is the best place to locate the name of the band because I want the original focus of the poster to be the original black and white image.
• In relation to costume, I feel we should wear different clothing to that in the video, nonetheless I feel we should stick with the black and white film.
• I have chosen to reveal the left hand side of the face because I feel and iconic aspect of boy band culture is an earring, therefore by revealing the left hand side of the face I am trying to conform to the conventions of the genre.

LF: One Direction - Gotta Be You

One direction have recently released there new video which includes certain effects and shots that we feel we can use throughout our work.

• The use of filler shots.
• More filler shots with a canted angle.
• Having different members of the boy band on screen, even when they are not singing.
• The use of props ie Bags
• Include more shots of the entire band together.
• Include a vehicle in the video.
• Faster cutting rate.

LF: Print Work- Expansion on Tour Advert

Above are two mainstream magazines that JLS have marketed their band image in. Young girls seem to be the main target audience of the boy band however I feel I would also consider publishing my tour advert in Sunday Supplement newspapers try  and target the parents of the young girl. Parents of younger fans will be able to afford to buy the tickets for their children.

Furthermore I may be inclined to have samples on national television. I believe a great time to show the advert would be before of after X Factor results show. Seen as JLS came through the X Factor it would be a great way of branching out to the younger audience.

I really like the simple but effective photography JLS use in the picture. Clearly they have take four individual still shots and photo shopped them together, I like the tone of black and white, however I would include a simple background with my image and use a low depth of field to focus in on the band.

Again this is similar to the JLS album cover of using a simple black and white image. I like the way they have changed the colours of the fonts, however when I create my tour advert I will include more sponsors and fonts at the bottom of the advert.

Rough Print Work - Basic Idea

Here is my initial photograph of what I plan to take for my Q magazine advertisement. This is, in practice, my idea in terms of positioning, lighting and posture. However it is excluding Blake as the third member and also they are not in own clothes.

JI: Export Footage

During this lesson we are going to be presenting our footage we have captured so far to the rest of the class. Today I have been working on exporting the footage from premiere on to the external hardrive for us to share.



Here is a screen shot of premiere of how I exported the file into the shared file.



As we have edited our footage on seperate files I then put the files into one premiere and selected it with the track, so it gives us an idea of our video as a whole.

JI: JLS Behind the scenes

Here's a video of JLS' new song behind the scenes. This gives us an idea of their lighting they have used, and ideas about framing which is useful.

CF Feedback - planning

Well done Timo, James, Luca

This is evidence of L4- planning and research. You all contribute some excellent video and print analysis, using critical theory to underpin your observations. Technical analysis were outstanding and there is a real intellectual engagement with the commercial role of the video, using Dyer to inform your work.

Your shoots are clearly well organised, but risk assessments and call sheets for the London shoot need to be there.

Use of ICT is also an assessment criteria; you need to design your blog, change menu layout so I can read it(!) and also consider layout of all blog posts; where possible use image, embedded clips,highlight key words, bullet points. In other words, consider the form of your planning - web - and design accordingly.

In term of production, I can see the process being documented, however at A2 you need more detailed reflection; exactly what shots did you set up on shoots, technical issues, how is this informing work, linking to planning. At times 2 lines are appropriate, but for a big shoot, I would expect you to all post and comment and clearly state what your own role was in the filming. For editing, you will need to document clearly and use screenshots to show process - what approach are you taking? what problems encountered?

The following is missing - vital for L4

Luca/James - advert analysis

mock-ups of all print work

Audience resarch post needs detailed analysis of results

Pitch?

Brighton footage embedded and analysed

storyboarding process documented, image evidence, animatic, reflection on process

To sec

JI: JLS - Take a Chance On Me

Here's JLS' new music video 'Take a Chance On Me'. I feel this is a great video, similar to our production and the feel we want to create. The London setting works great which gives us an image of what ours could look like the right footage. The idea we've had of shooting at night is the same to this, which I feel looks great, so we can take some ideas from this to our next shoot in London! We may struggle getting the lighting as good as this, however this will be a challenge we will need to overcome either with external lighting such as lamp posts or by bringing some sort of lighting with us.

LF: 11/11/11 - Update

Today I have edited some of the footage we captured at Somerset House for the second verse of the song, I have tried to include a faster cutting rate with each shot fading in and out, a technique I decided I was going to use after analysing other JLS videos. However later in the editing process I hope to include some other shots such as some night footage and some studio shots, as we feel the framing of Somerset House is not exactly what we wanted. Below is a still image of what the background to the framing looks like.

LF: JLT Tour Advert Ideas

 

After analysing numerous boy band posters the emphasis mainly lies on the quality of the image rather than the glamorous effects. For instance as shown above the Take That tour poster is a simple black and white image with a bland background. The font they use is also very simple however the stand out part of the poster is the font in gold. This visual technique connotes a sense of glamour as the rich gold colour contrasts with the rest of the image. I feel we can create a similar effect with our poster however I would make a couple of changes to my poster. Furthermore I would try to reduce the depth of field by using a low aperture and taking a close up image of the subject to try and blur out the background allowing the subject to stand out.

Furthermore I would use a high shutter speed to allow the image to be contrasting and with my skills that I have developed in Photoshop I could produce a brilliant image. Furthermore we are thinking of having a black and white filmed photograph therefore with the contrast the colours would really stand out. I am thinking of using a bold font that captures the attention of the viewer but I am not quite decided on the colour of the font.

Toward the bottom of the poster I will include all the tour venues and dates that the band will be performing at such as the O2 arena, due to there mainstream pop status. In addition as you can see for the Take That tour poster they have included the main sponsor of the event of the poster a theme that I can include in my work.

LF:10/11/11 - Update

Today I spent the lesson editing the footage from our original shoot in London. We had a huge amount of footage so I had to sieve through it to find the best angles and shots and integrate it into premier along with the track. I found syncing the movement of our lips with the lyrics particularly difficult however it is all beginning to piece it self together. We also decided on a day to go and capture more footage at night.

Print Work - Poster Print Work

For my print work I plan to do a magazine advertisement for our album. I will choose a photo out of the photos we took in London and the photo's we plan to take in the drama studio. Once I have picked a photo (most likely a photo from the studi0) I will use photoshop to edit it and to start creating my advertisement.
The album above is ''Hot Fuss'' by The Killers. I have placed a picture above because I want to do a similar effect with the font. I want to place ''JLT'' at the top and have the song name below the band name. Obviously I will use different style font to suit out genre more and I will also use different colours to suit the location.
The above single is JLS' first single release ''Beat Again''. The element that I like in this image is the use of the ''In Stores 14th July''. This is accurate information being given to potential customers to directly tell them when the album is available. Aswell as this writting I will also inclue reviews from other magazines, website for more information, and perhaps inclusive singles within the album. I will most deffinitely be using Q magazine for my advertisement. The magazine is a mini-book packed full of album reviews, music-related movies, DVDS, download lists, key events in pop and up and coming bands (which we would be). Due to this detail of information inside the magazine, it is important to maintain the same characterisitcs of the magazine within the advertisement.

It is a combination of the above factors that make a successful album advertisement. This research is neccessary to reach our desireable audience.

JI: Finished Animatic

I finished editing our animatic last Thursday and now are just waiting for it to be uploaded on to the blog. Finishing this before our shoot was crucial especially when planning our shoot for the day, and gaining a feel for what our footage was going to look like.



We now have to start cutting and chopping the footage we gained from Saturday's shoot in London which went really well, and begin our editing process!

GROUP:Recce Reflection

On saturday all of us went down to London for our first main recce, where we planned to shoot most of our footage for our video. As a whole the day was very successful, we shot all the footage we planned to film there and also got some excellent stills for James's print work.
First we started at Charing Cross train station, where we filmed some band perfomance on the platform. We also filmed quite alot of filler shots for the beginning of our video, for example, we managed to film the train journey in and also the band getting off the train.

Next, we went to Somerset house to do some filming within the house grounds. We originally planned to use the fountains in our video however, the fountains had been covered by an ice rink. Despite this inconvenience we still managed to film some footage within the grounds.
After the location shooting at Somerset house we travelled to Southbank to film the rest of our shots. We filmed shots at the Southbank fountains and in the tree area behind them, the fallen leaves gave the footage a real autumn feel and also gave a coloured look suited the end of the song.

Individually, I spent the day doing camera work and helping direct the different scenes.

This Weeks Targets

- Upload our finished Animatic

- Edit some footage from our Recce (for a screening on thursday)

- Upload draft versions of our print work ( Advertising within magazines and a Poster)

- Reflection on Saturdays recce (5/11/11) to London

LF - 3/11/11 - Update

Today we have finished filming and editing our animatic as we had to add some new shots to the end. We decided too include a window shot  at the very end of the video to draw everything in a give the viewer a lasting image of JLT. Furthermore we also went into the drama studio again and took some pictures that give us a rough idea of what our posters and digipak will look like. After looking at the weather forecast on Saturday heavy rain is forecast nonetheless we are still going to film and try and use the rain to our advantage, as other stars have filmed in the rain to create a original effect.

JI: Digipak Prototype

Here are my ideas for my digipak production.

I am producing a 4 pane digipak to go with our music video. Here is a shot of my outer cover with the 'JLT' logo on to promote the band.



These are some sketches of the ideas for the panes, however these are going to be photographs which I am going to edit on photoshop.




Front Pane



Back Pane



2nd Pane



3rd Pane

Expanding On Location: Drama Studio

Aswell as the location for my print work photograph we have some ideas about using the drama studio to film some close ups of members of the band. We plan to position the band in front of a black screen with lighting infront of them to highlight their face. Light in this instance will be used for increasing clarity and showing the emotion on each band members face. The studio also gives us a range of different lighting effects and is not subject to weather conditions. This diverse alteration in light allows us to play around with the mood of the shot, for example, we dont want to end up cutting to a dim and cloudy shot in London followed by a very brightly lit studio indoors.


The photo above is the most similar actual album cover I can find that is roughly the same as what I want to photograph. Obviously I plan to take a photo of the band in a studio but the darkness in the background and the concentration on the star is perfect in terms of what I am aiming for. Our clothing will differ since we are conforming to a different genre but the posture is also similar to the positions we want to achieve.

Technically, to achieve the picture I desire, I will have a slow shutter speed to allow sufficient light to be captured on the image. The light is important as it gives the image good shadow and increases the effect of highlighting certain features of the band. The light behind them also signifies stardom and is synonymous with stage performances (spotlights).

JI: Process

Due to pre commitments our group were not available to do any shooting in the half term period, which is evident through the lack of posts on our blog. However planning was still involved, with the storyboarding now finished a vision of our video is now evident to us. This will now allow us to produce a animatic which will progress our production even further meaning a full shoot date will be planned in period 5 today.