The day before shoot day!

Today in the day before our shoot we decided to go to Cranleigh in a town near our school to buy the last couple of props that we needed. We got our 4 funnels and a blowdryer that has a "cool" setting so that the glitter will not melt as we pour it inside of it for the scene. As we returned to school, we found the rest of our props we also made the decision that for our small sequences in the bathroom we are going to have white tiles and we are also having a white floor so it has a very clean contrasting image to the glitter which is consuming everyone at will also magnify the color of the gold and purple shine of the glitter.

We painted our bathtub we are using white, because it had a brownish color. We then also thought we had a problem when we saw the amount of glitter that we had for our video. We then spoke to Laura who has been helping us out with our props. She explained to us how we are going to re-use the glitter continuously throughout the shoot. This made me realize that we can then only have one establishing shot of our band in the performance element otherwise the continuity will not fit. My three gold morphsuits arrives (we had fun trying them on), but they were not the color of gold that I expected but we can always colors them in post production. Here are a couple of pictures from the day:

Here we are cutting the big glitter curtains that are going to fall in our performance element.

Me trying on the morphsuit for size.

And then we all tried.. just to make sure..

Guitar / Problems

Tuesday when I came into class I was asking about the left-handed electric guitar that we need for our guitarist Maxim, I thought we had asked the school to provide one for us. As I speak to my group they tell me that he will be using a normal right-handed electric guitar but playing it with his left hand. I told them that for a musician to suddenly change their ways is not going to be good. We spoke and they suggested that he could just play the guitar as Jimmy Hendrix.. I told them that playing a guitar like Jimmy Hendrix is not something you do over night. As this drove me to stress I decided to tell them that I thought we should buy or rent one as I mentioned in my earlier post. They were not entirely keen on this idea but I decided to pursue it further.. I looked up guitars in the lesson and found a really great one from Rockburn for 68 pounds and would deliver for wednesday:

When I got my card to order the guitar but the guitar above was all of a sudden not possible to buy this guitar and since I wanted express delivery for wednesday my choice was limited. So I had to look for another guitar that could deliver for wednesday. I found another black electric left handed guitar for 90 pounds. I ordered this with my card and I was sure it went through. At night I got an email from Amazon telling me that my order had not gone through and that they could not charge my visa. Since my visa card is foreign sometimes I have problems with it.

This meant that they had not put my order through and since it would not be delivered by wednesday as we needed, the day before our shoot, I found there was no point in ordering the guitar. I then cancelled the transaction. But now we solved the problem, where Maxim the guitarist is going to play on the right-handed guitar but on the left side. This is the only way. On the plus side we are not going to hear his guitar, so as long as it look real it can still look amazing.

Props to Buy

We did a list of props that we had to buy and what the school was going to get for us, here it is:

Over half term I bought 3 gold morph suits over the internet that i'm having shipped to Hurtwood.

I went through websites to find a morphsuit in gold that would match to the gold glitter that we are using to cover them with. Here it is..

I got them in a 5'4 to 5'10 size so that both the girls and the boy will be able to fit them. They are arriving on tuesday so that wednesday we can start preparing them with glitter.

Screentesting the Band

Since we were rehearsing at two me and Lavinia met up at 1.30 in the studio that we had borrowed from Dave. As we came we wanted to get everything sorted before our band arrived. I realized when we were in the room that the drum set was missing a snare, since I used to play the drums I know how important it is in the drum set.

We were also missing a guitar. First we went up to the edit suite to get the camera we had borrowed and the tripod. We went down to the studio room and set it up, bubbled it and so on so that it was ready for them. We then went to one of the storage spaces at school to find the drum snare and a guitar. Since our guitarist is left-handed we are going to have to provide him with a left-handed guitar. He does have one himself as you will see in the video but it is acoustic. This does not fit our image of rock/pop therefore we need to provide him with a left-handed electrical guitar.

  

I did some research in case this was not provided for us and found a website "Preloved" where a guy is selling one for 40 pounds and they do shipping.

We gathered the instruments and set them up in the room. Here after we went down to the dining hall to tell them that we had set up and we were ready. Maxim had cleared his afternoon so he was ready to work. We spoke to Theo and he had realized that he had a Rugby Match game meaning he was leaving school grounds from 1-5 in our rehearsal time. I tried to speak to the manager of the rugby game and explained him our situation of our music video rehearsal, but he explained that they were short of players and it was vital that he had to play. Therefore we were one short of our 3 person band. Laila did show up on time and she had learnt the lyrics that we had sent her. Maxim did also know a few of the chords for the guitar meaning we were all able to do some work.

We set them up in front of the camera and placed them how we wanted them to stand in the real music video. We tried to make them feel comfortable by talking to them and getting to know each other a bit as this eases the pressure of the camera and the ability to let go in front of everyone else. We did a few run trough’s before they got the hang of it. As we continued and they improved I tried to direct them in different styles of performing they could try out. I tried to make them do a scene where after Laila had sung the first couple of lines she danced back and sang to Maxim playing the guitar he would look up and give a smirk and she would dance forward again. She was a bit shy to begin with as her and Maxim don’t really know each other but if she does take the correct direction and fulfils it on the shoot day it will be amazing, and a great shot.

We did several shots, we also videoed them individually trying to create some of the shots that we want to shoot on the day. Then we shot them a couple of them together. Here is a the screentest that Lavinia edited together. Press the link here under.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBjRmxbXs34&feature=player_embedded

Scheduling Rehearsals

We sent an email to Dave, who is in charge of the music tech department, who has and gives permission for people to borrow the studio rooms. We asked if we were able to have a room so that we could rehears our band.

We wanted to do a full rehearsal because we had not seen the entire band all together as we had taken the boys in together and Laila individually.

Copyright Requests

In this lesson I was alone since Anne-sophie and Lavinia were on an art trip so I decided to find the copyright holder of the song “Cities in Dust”.

I then saw that there was an original version of Cities in Dust which was originally made by Siouxsie & The Banshees.

I then looked further to find the copyright holder of the Junkie Xl version and went on their official website and found the contact email. 

I then sent them an email requesting permission for using their music in our student film. This is the email:

Then I looked further to find the Label company of Junkie Xl on Wikipedia which turned out to be “Artwerk” which is a dutch label company. 

I went on their website and sent them the same following email:

Our teacher told us that we did not need to receive the approval for using the music but we just needed to make the request. Which we did. 

Editing the animated video

Lavinia had filmed the shots for the animates video, we went to the edit suite to edit the shots together according to the song, according to length and the visual. To edit this we used the Final Cut Pro editing program for Macintosh. 

To begin with we re-named all of the files we had according to the shot order we had so that it was more organised and easier for us to handle the different shots effectively. 

The song for our music video is the one I chose and therefore I had it on my computer. I then used my usb to transfer my Itunes file to the computer we were using for editing. There is Itunes on the computer and I had to write my code for the music from my iTunes. 

We then realized that the computers in the edit suite are not connected to the internet and can not me connected.. therefore the Itunes registration could not be processed. We then had to find an alternative for editing the music as we did not find a website we could download it from temporarily. I then tried to see if it was possible to play the music from my laptop and editing on the computer next to it. Even though it will not be in-synch we tried to make an effort to make it possible. It did work for a tiny bit but it was hard to keep up. 

The storyboard and editing computer

Here after we realized that we should buy the music on a cd, which is avalible on Amazon.com. It is called “Original Music Feauturing Gossip Girl”. As the song has been used on the American series. 

We decided first to pursue buying the CD or another form of the song and then return back to the editing of the animatic video. 

Websites

I compared some Websites which are in the same genre as the song in my music video..
I started out by using the "Genious" function on my iTunes, which basically can take a song and then create a playlist with similar songs.. This is what i got:

I found that some of these were a bit similar to the song we are using, but i wouldn't say they are in the same ballpark.. So i did my own research through my iTunes of song that I think fit our category.

The ones that I found most similar in my iTunes that my "Genious" didn't come up with was "The Kills", "The Pierces" and "The Veronicas". I went on the different individual websites for the bands and the first thing that hit was how similar their star page was.. they 2/3 have their new video on the front page which begins immediately as you press the link, and the last website had their newest photoshoot on the first page, as so.. 

The Kills had their newest photoshoot come up and following you would have to press a button to enter the rest of the website where the first blog on the website is that you can buy a package deal with several of their cd's etc.

Then The Veronicas and The Pierces both have their video on the starter page, which is a smart tactic because as soon as you enter the site you will listen to the song and it might make you interested in looking further into their music or into buying that particular song. 

All of the websites have a similar feel to them, they are all quite dark and have a slight Rock/Pretty feel to them which relates to their music which is what the have to sell also through their image of themselves..

Further more all of the webpages have a clothing tab, tour dates, downloads, picture galleries and live events. This is very basic in every website you get for a band, and they all present themselves as being very approachable in the sense that that they have plenty of tour dates, and pictures from their events..

I really liked this picture as it is quite similar to our music video, in the way that we are also using the image of fakeness and where also thinking about using doll masks in our video.. 

This is a link on their website so that their fans can follow them on Instagram which is a way that their fans can feel really close to them as you can post any kind of pictures and tag them with different things you are doing in the moment.. 

This picture below is also a great way to show that they are emerging into the bigger world of music as they are going with Coldplay on a tour. This also means that a lot of Coldplay's fans will want to look into The Pierces as they might find it similar to Coldplay or that they are just interested in downloading a couple of songs. 

Here is a look at the different bands Myspace pages, which allows anyone using Myspace to listen to there music and then after you can also get a link to buy there music.

And here is a look at their Twitter pages, which is a website that countless celebrities use to get close and in contact with their fans. Their fans can "Follow" them on this website and when they "Tweet" everyone who "Follows" them will get this message. So if your a fan of The Kills and you follow them you can "personally" have an update on all the different tours they have, new music or just what they are up to..

I have found it very helpful looking at these websites and I am now more sure of what has to be on the Website that we create for our band and what kind of edge it needs to also express the music through the visual, I am also more sure of what kind of photographs we need to take with our band so that we can use them for our website and to create a gallery. I'm not sure if it is possible to create a Twitter, or something in that direction but there it has definitely helped me see the way in which the artist has to connect with the fans which refers back to the business model I studied over the summer which is Connect with Fans + Reasons to Buy = $ The business model 

Emailing The Cast

Here is a screenshot of the email that we sent to the cast.
With the email as you can see there is written about costumes, a pre-rehearsal before the shoot and the song + the chords for the guitar, and the lyrics as well.

Here are the attachments shown.

The costume for the boys:

Laila's Costume:

This is Laila performing at the Hurtwood Concert, which is almost the exact look we want for her in our music video, this is all her own clothes which is great because we don't have to worry about buying clothes and then not being sure if it will fit or not.