Final Video

Filming Day 7 - Studio

17/10/2015 - Studio

We decided to have another filming day as we were not satisfied with how we left the rough cut of our project. We went to a studio on campus and decided to try and get some artistic shots using coloured lights.

 Firtsly, we decided to chose pink as our main colour, this is because we feel that pink is a good colour to represent love. Not only this but the colour pink is largley linked to girls, and since Nova is a girl we thought that this could be a good way of representing woman around the world. Another reason why we chose pink was because our main colour scheme is blues and pinks therefore, this therefore shows continuity within our project.

The first few clips we decided to film was some lip syncing ones, our main focus was the ending of the song as we hadn't got any footage that we were happy with to be our ending; we feel that the ending of the video is probabaly one of the most important parts as it's the bit that leaves an impression on the audience. We also thought it would be best if I lip synced the chorus again as this is the part of the song that is going to need the most components therefore, we wanted to make sure we had enough, just incase we needed to chop and change some bits of our video.

Once the lip syncing part of the filming was done, Kate suggested filming some candid clips, this is so that we can have some shots to slot into our video and continue the theme of point of view shots. These shots include me flipping my hair, laughing and just looking at the camers, we feel that these worked well as they look natural and effortless.

The main types of shots we filmed were mid-close ups, and wide angle shots, having the camera positioned straight on; for us, we think that this will not only fit with the rest of our footage but also look more professional as we are focusing on one part of the shot instead of having a complicated frame that cna take away from the actual footage itself.

Costume

For this part of the video we wanted to keep my outfit fairly simple, black jeans and black boots being an obvious choice due to the edgy look however, to keep with the pink theme we chose to put Nova in a pale pink halter neck; this also shows the gilry side to Nova. We also decided to have natural wavy hair as we wanted Nova to look completel effortless in these sceens. The top that Nova is wearing has an extremely low back, we felt that this was a good choice as it showed off Nova's more rebellious and grown up side.

Review of Footage

 In this clip you can see Kate filming some candids of me for the point of view shots. I feel that once this clip is cut and edited that it will really look rather breathtaking in our video. One downside to this video is that you can slightly see the rest of the studio however, this is fixable by using the 'crop to fill' option on iMovie to get rid of this.

This video shows me lip syncing the chorus of the song. I feel that I done well with conveying emotion through the use of closing my eyes, I also knew the words very well so this looks fairlt realistic. Unfortunatly the overall lighting of this is quite dark so, if we use this clip, we will take to the editing suit to brighten it up a bit.

Second Ending

 After rewatching our rough cut and reviewing the audience feedback, we decided that we really were not happy with the ending therefore, we refilled some scenes on campus for the ending and began editing.

The original clip we used was one of me standing by a bush that had white flowers on it - we played around with the saturation and colour balance so that it matched in with the rest of our video however we were not that keen on the clip. We then came up with the idea of having an overlay on the clip, we chose one of the sunsets that we have used in our video. Once watching this we decided that we still didn't like it and that we wanted a more artistic look for the ending. Consequently, we decided to have another filming day to get the perfect shot.

Rough Cut And Reviews

We decided to put our video on social networking sites such as Youtube and Facebook to get digital feedback from our target audience of people ages 16-23. We posted the video during the final editing stages of the creation of our video. this is so that we could get some fresh ideas on how to improve the video to be the best it can be  - there were some part of the video that we weren't sure on therefore it was vital that we received some feedback.

Posting our video on Facebook was a quick way to reach a large amount of of our target audience. It was also effective because we could also receive some feedback from people outside our target audience, to see if our artist appeals to them as well.

When posting the video we got many likes and responses to help improve our video - a large majority of the audience liked the video however, they felt that the ending needed working on as it was rather "Simple" and "Unmoving." For this reason, we have decided to have another filming day as we feel that the footage we already have is not good enough for the last scene that our audience is going to see; it is the one scene that people will remember the most. For this filming day we are thinking of working in a studio to show some diversity within our piece. 

Another comment for improvement was on some of the Red Ivy shots; there is a tracking shot of Nova walking down the Ivy whilst lip-syncing however, as her hair falls in her face you cannot see what she is singing, this is something that our audience picked up on and suggested that we fill that space with some other clips - this is something we are definitley willing to change as we want to please our audience as much as we can.

Other than these improvements, everyone else seemed to think that our video was "of a professional standard" and was "enjoyable to watch."

Editing Of The Video

The editing for our video was mainly taken out by me as I have most experience with the sofware however, we did all have a go at editing as we felt it was important for us to all contribute to all areas of the creation of our coursework. Below are some of the steps we went through to create our video...

The first thing we done was try to figure out how to use Final Cut Pro however, after much time looking at tutorials on how to use the soft wear, we decided that it was best for us to edit on iMovie as we know how the software works; this will therefore lead to a more successful final video.

Obviously, to create this video we had to do the simple edits such as cropping and spliting video clips - this helps us create a more clean and concise timeline. 

One form of editing that we used was fast paced cuts - We felt that this form of editing was successful for us as the song is quite slow therefore, by having a collection of fast cuts,will bring a new dynamic to the video. Another reason why we chose to have a collection of fast cuts was to show a complete flash back, we wanted to create a sense of "life flashing before my eyes" this will again reinforce the idea of Nova's partner remembering parts of their relationship. In this series of shots we also used the tool to speed them up, this was to speed up the video - making it more like a continuous flashback. From the video to the right, you can see how this flashback looks, after some dispute we decided to change the series so that it only consists of a few clips, this is so that it cuts in time to the lyrics "Hello Hello C-Can You Hear Me" this will be satisfying for our audience as it all ties together.

Throughout our video we wanted a general colour scheme of blues and pinks therefore,with some clips we had to do a bit of colour correction. We thought that it was best to have a general colour as the video will then be aesthetically pleasing for our audience - we think this is important as we want the audience to feel at ease whilst watching the video. We chose the colour blue as it is a calming colour, which will be good for our audience however, it is also a colour to represent sadness, this then relates to the lyrics of our song. The colour pink was chosen to represent love.

We also used slow motion within our video - this was so that the clips could link to the pace of the song, We used this on multiple clips in our video to show some continuity.

Some of our clips had too much going on in the background or there was elements in the shot that were unnecessary - to fix this we used the 'crop to fill' tool to crop out these elements. We think that this makes our video looks more refined and professional, this is a look we want for our video.

Creating The Advertising Poster

This is the final outcome of our tour/album poster - It is an advert that you will find in a magazine taking up a double page spread. I feel that this poster is sophisticated and stylish due to its colour scheme and layout. The white writing compliments the colours of Nova's dress as well as standing out from the background. I feel that the layout of the poster is clean and sharp, making it easy to read and asthetically pleaseing. Below I have written a step by step to how we made this poster and the reasoning behind some of the choices we have made...

We chose to to a poster advertising a UK Tour (just the initial advert for it, meaning just the dates and venues) and the album instead of just the album as we felt that this is what most fans look for, they want to know when their idol is going on tour pretty much as soon as they hear that there is going to be an album.

1. Firstly, we unlocked the background layer so that we could move the image to the left slightly so that Nova was positioned off centre, this is to have continuity with our footage. We decided to go for a landscape advert as we feel that this will stand out against the other adverts that it will be near due to not many adverts being this orientation also, it allows Nova to then have a double page spread in adverts, giving her more publicity.

2. Next, we airbrushed Nova, just like Evie did when we were creating our album cover.

3. The next step in this task was to insert the text; we started off by inserting the artist logo and the album name. We originally had the font black however, we thought that the poster needed to be bright so we opted for the option of white font. 

4. We decided that we wanted the tour to be in the UK only due to Nova being an extremely new artist, and even though she has a large following on YouTube, we did not think that the rest of the world was quite achieveable yet. We chose May as a good month as it is in the spring, spring represents new life and in terms of the msic industry, Nova is a new born. To get the locations we looked at other tour posters for inspiration, we wanted to do a show in Cambridge since that is where Nova is from and we wanted it to be her last date as the last song on her album is called 'Home' therefore, it all links nicely - we researched into venues in Cambridge to find the 'Cambridge Junction.' The font used for this information is 'Basic Title Font,' the same as the album title's font; this is becuase the font is quite simple and we did not want anything too fancy that will be distracting from what the font actually says. Just like the back of the album we used the paint bucket tool to make some letters bolder than the others to give it an edgy look. We placed all of the font to the right of Nova as we felt that it would be better if all crucial information was together rather than spread out.

5. The next thing we decided to do was insert in her social media links, this is so that her fans can follow her and see what shes up too - this is where they need to look out for more information such as when the tickets go on sale and where you can buy them; we opted not to put this on the poster as this tour poster is just an initial one that gets printed way before tickets go on sale, it is simply to let her fans know that she is going on tour.

6.We then had a small advertisement of Nova's album, letting the fans know that it is currently avaliable on iTunes - we chose to advertise this on the poster as for those people who just stumble accross the poster, they can then go to iTunes to preview the album and hopefully become interested.

7. The final step to this process was to add in the Opal Records logo. We placed this next to the album advertisement as Opal Records, obviously, had a lot to do with all of this and the album was just the begining. We made the logo white so that it matched in with the rest of the poster.

Magazine Advert Photograph Selection

Option 1

This was a personal favourite of mine as I feel that I look natural and approachable towards my audience.

I am positioned off centre, this shows continuity within our work as most of the footage that we filmed of me, I am off centre. I like that my body is turned slightly to an angle as it connotes the idea of Nova being interested in her audience, this will be good for Nova as her fans will feel as if she cares about them. By having my hair half infront half behind, it swaps things up visually as this isn't something a lot of artists do. I also like that you can see my shadow, I feel that this looks quite a mysterious, which will intregue the audience. Personally, I feel that this image is a strong contendor for the final choice.

Option 2

The second option we had was one of Nova looking, rather simplistically, at the camera, with her body shifted slightly to the side. I don't particularly like this photograph that much as I feel that I look stiff rather than effortless, which is not what we wanted as we feel that if you look stiff, you look like you do not really want to be there, which obviously is not how we want to represent Nova. Notwithstanding, I like the way that I am looking rather mysteriosly and almost seductivly at the camera, this is because this type of eye contact will draw people in as they become intrigued.

We decided that for this image my hair should be pushed back so that you can see more of my face.

Option 3

We decided to experient with a differnt body position in this image by having me turn to the side so you can see my side profile. Experimenting with different body positions and angles is crucial in a photoshoot so that we can determine what angles work and what ones don't. I feel that this angle is successfull as it is different to any picture we've ever chosen of Nova before, this will give her fans something new to get excited about. When it comes to adding in text we could then do something a bit more creative like having the text morphe around the outline of my profile. We felt that this profile allowed us to be more creative and artistic. 

Option 4 / Chosen Image

This is the fourth and final imgae - this ended up being the image we all liked the most. My favourite thing about this image is the way im posing, I feel that it expresses an element of confidence which is something that we want Nova to inspire her fans to have. The way that I am starring right down the lense of the camera suggests an element of authroity  or power, this tells Nova's audience that she is serious about the tour and her music.

We chose to place my hair behind my shoulders to show off my face and keep the look in my eye as the main focal point. I feel that the quality of this photograph is professional, as if Nova is in the big leagues of the music industry. The shot we used (wide medium shot) works really well here as it shows off the right amount of Nova's outfit as well as leaving enough space either side of her for text to be inserted or for space to be cut out.

Magazine Advert Photoshoot

After planning what we wanted our images to look like we immediatly went to the studio to begin our shoot.

We needed to consider the outfit that we wanted Nova to wear; as we wanted to have a plain background we needed a bright outfit that was more of a statement piece; the dress we chose was blue with fragmented circles around it, we thought this was perfect as the geometric look of the dress matches our digipack and the blue of the dress matches the colour scheme to our video.

We specifically chose to do this shoot in a studio as we felt that a plain white background would come in handy when editing on the text, there wouldn't be anything distracting from the information. Also, we then had access to studio lighting, making our images look just that bit more professional; this also meant that Nova would be glowing and radient and the quality of the images would be sharper.

The aftermath of this shoot invovled us having a large amount of images to choose from, which we narrowed down to a final four to choose from. To me, this photoshoot was outstandingly successfull.

Creating Our Inserts

For the inserts in our album we wanted to go for a thankyou page, to show Nova's gratitude and a picture page. 

To create the thankyou page we took a still image from one of the videos that we shot on our filming day to Margate. We then inserted a short thankyou note in write writing, then we used the curves tool to arc the writing, we then moved the horizontal scale to make it flat to the wall. I think this looks really professional as the writing looks as if it should be there. We wanted a really plain font so that it didn't overpower the whole image.

We then decided that the image we wanted to put in was a selfie, as seen to the left, however after much debate we decided that this wasn't the way we wanted to go as we had some more professional pictures that we thought would work better. Unfortunatly, we couldn't all agree on what image to use so I came up with a solution to put all of the images in the frame, as seen to the right. After this was created we all thought that the inserts looked really professional and artisitc.

Song Selection

We wanted to go in an uplifitng direction with the order of our song titles; we wanted the album to be a 'finding yourself' album, in this case, finding yourself after a heartbreak. The first few songs are about being heartbroken with the last few songs being about self love and empowerment. As we have mentioned before, we want the song titles to be open for interpretation to our target audience, the descriptions below are just how we interpret the titles.

1. 'Without You'; As this is our chosen song, it's no secret that it is a real song by Lana Del Rey so we didn't create the title however, we feel that it was best to start with this song as we feel that it connotes the idea of Nova being unable to live without her now ex-boyfriend. This song therefore will show Nova at her most vulnerable.

2. '1811'; to the unaccustomed, this title is a challenge to figure out however, this is something we intended to happen as we want the audience to think about the meaning behind the songs, we don't want it to be obvious. As a group we wanted this title to represent a time; the time they broke up, the amount of times she thought of him, the time it clicked that they weren't together anymore. A time. We wanted it to represent her mind being so invovled in the moment that she can't focus.

3. 'Infactuation'; It continues on from the idea of Nova constantly thinking about her ex: it is rather self explanitory. She was and still is obsessing over their relationship and she finds it incredibly difficult to come to terms with her reality.

4. 'No Light'; This is the last heartbreak song on the album. For us it represents Nova at one of her lowet points, she can't see how she can live without the man she loves, she's really hurting. We feel that this shows that Nova feels like she has nothing good in her life, as if all of the light has been turned off.

5. 'We Are Human'; For me, this is the turning point in the album, this is where Nova begins to get better. She realises that it's okay to feel sad over the situation, everybody goes through it at some point and most people go through it multiple times. This song shows that its part of our nature to feel emotion.

6. 'Spectrum'; This title is quite vague but once explained it becomes fairly obvious. A spectrum is a large range of colours; this is a metaphor for Nova's emotions, she is letting them all out - releasing them to help her become happy again.

7. 'Recovery'; This is the breakthrough of the album, this is where Nova is putting in effort to become herslef again.

8. ' For Me';  I feel that this song represents Nova's self love, she realised that the most important love you need is love for yourslef, she now knows that her main priority is herslef. It is also a secret message of her recognising that she's made this album for herslef, when she goes through a heartbreak this album will help her through it.

9. 'Afire Love'; Afire love is a title that we feel shows Nova's passion and intense enjoyment for her career, her life and her friends; we feel that this title shows how grateful she is for being able to lead this life.

10. 'Home'; this is the final song on the album so we really wanted it to be a sentimental one. This songs symbolises her full recovery, she is herself once again. She went back home. The title 'Home' also connotes the overall idea of comfort, family and happiness.

Creating The Side Strips

To make our album complete, we needed the spines to be created. As the spines connect the front and back together we needed to have the geometrics again to make it all flow together. To do this we quite literally copied and pasted a strip of the shapes and then pasted on all of the text onto these strips. We wanted to have the Opal Records logo a different orientation to the other two pieced of font as we wanted to highlight that Nova is signed to Opal Records and they are responsible for advertisng the star.

Creating Our Back Cover

This is our finished back cover. The process of creating this began with us openeing a photoshop document the same size as a CD case. We then used the dropplet tool to select the grey from the front cover and used the paint bucket tool to turn the whole of the new document this cover.

The next step was to create the geometrics of the back cover, this was done so that there was a continuous theme throughout the cover. Just as we did with the front cover, we copied and pasted in the shape and used the gradienct tool to create a fade in colours, this time however, we had the shapes breaking off from further down the frame instead of right at the top.

Then we inserted the song titles, I will do a blog post on the meanings behind the titles at a later date. For these titles, we used the same front as the album title, again to create a link. We wanted to make the font slightly different though so we used the paint bucket tool to make some letters seemed thicker than others, we liked this as we thought that it showed a more creative side to Nova.

Finally, we inserted legal information, our record label logo and a barcode onto the cover - this was to make the cover look just that bit more realistic.

Creating Our Front Cover

In order to make our front cover we took to photoshop to begin editing. As Evie is more experienced with photoshop she was the Cone to do the main part of the editing here.  Firstly she started off by airbrushing the chosen image. I have written a step-by-step below of how she done this...

1. Change the colour mode to CMYBK and select the yellow channel, copy and past it and then invert it. Next, change the colour mode back to RGB.

2.You then copy the background layer and move it to the top of the list. To get rid of any blemishes you use the spot healing tool to conceal these - this makes the skin look clearer and more 'perfect'. Once this is done you convert all of the layers to a 'Smart Object.'

3.Next you duplicate the layer twice. On the first copy you go to fill, blur, surface blur; you need to move the scales so that you can barley make out the skin but can still make out the eyes. On the second copy you go to fill, other, highpass and move thescales so that you can make out the skin details. Once this is done you change the mode to 'Linear Light.'

4. Group all of the layers to create an airbrush folder and apply a layer mask - then use a soft paint brush to paint on the airbrush in the areas that you would like it to be applied to.

5. Merge all of the layers and use the dodge and burn tools to contour the face to make it look more defined.

Once the main airbrushing was done, Evie filled in my eyebrows and made my lips slightly brighter.

The second part to this edit was creating the actual cover itself, again I have listed a step-by-step below so you can see how we came to do this. For this part of the edit all four of us contributed to it...

1. First we turned the image black and white, this is because we are planning on having a colourful background therefore, we didn't want the image to clash with the colours - black and white photographs are a good way to avoid this.

2. Next, we put the image onto a light grey background, we done this by cropping the original image into a square shape and duplicating the layer onto a new photoshop document. We chose to have a light grey background as it will make the colours that we are going to use really stand out; it is also a similar colour to the photograph then, making the cover pleasing on the eye. This is the step that we made the document the correct measurements for a CD Case.

3. Thirdly, we inserted the font needed on our cover, this inludes Nova's name and the album's name.  We spoke about why we chose the font used for 'Nova' in a previous post, 'Final Logos'. For the album name 'Fragments' we used a font called 'Basic Title Font,' we liked this font as it is rather minimalistic, which is something that we wanted as we are planning for our cover to be quite busy. We chose to keep the fonts black as it matches the photograph on the cover.

4. This was the final stage of creating the front of our album cover, this was probably oen of the most difficult parts due to having to tesselate the shapes. We started off by copying in a basic hexagon shape from Google, we then used the gradient tool to create a smooth transition of colour throughout each individual shape. The closer we got to the titles the more we broke off the shapes, this is to make them look like fragments, just like the album title. The colours fade from blue into yellow like a sunset would, we done this so that it would show an obvious link between the album and our music video - we plan to use a large variety of sunsets throughout our video.

This is the final outcome of the front of our album. We are extremely pleased with how it turned out as we feel that it looks professional and it also shows continuity accross the board within our project. If we were to do this again we said that we would try to use a larger amount of colours to make the cover look more vibrant.

Filming Day 6 - Margate

14/10/2015 - Margate

We decided to go to Maragte to film for numerous reasons, one being that it is a seaside town therefore, we could do some more scenes by the sea and also Maragte is known for it's arcades, this is something we thought could incorporate into our video in some way.

We began our day by filming in a small café just opposite a stretch of the sea. This café had a really nice shabby chic, vintage look to it, this is something we want in our video as we feel that it fits the look of our vision really well we also thought this worked well in cooperation with Nova being surrounded by trinkety bits. The café also had a sentimental feel to it, which is important for us as the video is based on reliving happy memories that the couple had together. I feel that the café location worked really well as it matched other footage we have rather stylistically thus, connecting the locations together. I also filmed little sections of the cafe to use as filler shots if need be, I managed to film some small focus pulls that I feel will help us have more sophisticated work.

For the next part of our day we ventured over to The Turner Contemporary Art Gallery, we felt that we could gain some interesting and creative shots here due to its artistic nature. I feel that our visit was succesfull as the gallery consisted of projectors, coloured light sources, televisions and many more resources that we found useful. We found that this location was really helpful with the point of view shots as it allowed the camerwoman to follow Nova around to make it seem as if the boyfriend was following her, this gives the audience a more personal insight to the couple's life.

We then felt that we should proceed to the seafront so we can get some good lip sycning shots, on our way over we stopped at a sweet shop and by a mural to get some extra little bits that we can use in our music video. When at the sea front I changed my top so that we have a variety of outfits running through the video. All of the girls took it in turn to film and they used the tripod for extra stability as the weather was extremely windy - again, they filmed me off centre to match in with previous footage that we have gotten and to get a lovely pale blue background in a large amount of our shots.

The last part of our day consisted of filming some bits in the arcades, this is where we got a lot of point of view footage as we made it look as if the couple are playing games agasint eachother; we felt that filming indoors in a place with bright lights would give us some more unique footage that we could make useful. We took inspiration for this location from Lana Del Rey's 'Ride' video, in which she has a lot of scenes in an arcade.

Costume

The outfit that I wore for all but one shot was a dark grey one shoulder jumper with a black crop underneath, paired with black jeans and converse - this was to show the winter part of their realtionship. Again, we chose dull colours to fit with the edgy look that Nova has.  For the outfit that I changed into I just changed my top to a white ripped crop, this was to be similar to other outfits I have previously worn, whislt giving variety to the overal video.

Review of Footage

This is a clip of some of the lip syncing scenes that we filmed; unfortunately you cannot hear the music due to the wind overpowering the song. We decided to film the chorus up against a mural that consists of a collection of bright colours, we felt that this looks artistic and links in with the colours we have previously used on filming days - I personally really like this background as I feel that it shows Nova's interest in the country she lives in (the mural is a timeline of Margate's history), this will make her out to be a good role model to her younger fans. Something that I do not particularly like in this shot is the complexion of my skin, it is quite red however, this was due to severely cold weather so when editing we will use colour correction to make me look warmer.

This is one of the more candid shots that we wanted to film; Kate thought that this window in the café was a good location due to the Volkswagen parked up outside also, the natural lighting allowed the shot to be illuminated.  I think that this shot will be successful once placed to music as I think that it will be a clear candid shot. I do feel however that a more successful shot would be one of me pointing at the car, this is because it then creates a vintage feel to the video, which is something that we would like due to the overall video being a flashback.

Filming Day 5 - Projection

8/10/2015 - Projection

As previously mentioned we wanted to put some projections into our video. In this session we done both image projection and moving projection, we feel that this will make our video look more artsty and entertaining for our niche target audience.

When doing the photogrpah projection we went back to the darkroom like we did for the trails of this. The darkroom is a really successful location for us as it guarenteed us complete darkness without any light interuptions, this allowed the picture to shine brightly and vividly. As Evie has most experience with the projector she was incharge of positioning both me and the machine to give us the best result.

The first image we tried was a sunset with pinks, purples and oranges being the main colours in the picture, this image links with the video as it is an establlishing shot, which we have and plan to continue filming a lot of these - sunsets are something that we find beautiful and they fit in with our nature theme. We have filmed a sunset in Faversham and the one in the image is pretty similar therefore, this shows some cosistansy within our work. For this to work successfully had to be completely bareback, this is so that there was no distractions from clothing, we wanted the sunset to be the main focus of this shot. I feel that this has worked successfully and will help progress our music video into a more creative and sophistictaed final product.

The second image we used was one of our friend Louis, as mentioned in a previous post; we wanted to toy around with introducing Nova's love intrest to the audience and we thought this would be a good way of doing it. After reviewing our shots we decided that this was not a route that we wanted to go down -  we put ourselves in our audience's shoes and figured out that if we saw that in a video we wouldn't think it was clever, infact we would most likely laugh, this is not the reaction that we want for our video.

Majority of the camera work used for this part was simple panning up and down, we didn't want to distract from the images on my back.

We then decided to put some moving projection into our work as we feel that this is unique and visually different to the rest of our video; moving projection is really simple yet so effective so we thought that this was the way forward, one thing we needed to be carful of was that it didn't look like a green screen, this is not a look we want in our video. We decided to chose a cyrstal clear ocean moving as the video that we projected, this was because it links with the locations used in our previous filming and it didn't distort my face in any way.

To make this work we used the projector in our media classroom and I stood on a chair so that my face was covered by the video; I wore an all white outfit to make it easier for the video to be seen if it were to end up on my clothing. Tamzin and Kate were filming this scene and they chose to film wide shots and close ups as I was lip syncing, they wanted the shots to be concerntrated with no distractions.

Review of Footage

From this short clip you can see what the photograph projection looks like, I really like how this looks as I think it gives off an artistic flare that our video will really need. Obviously, from this clip, the footage doesn't look amazing however, onve edited, cropped and put to music I feel that this can look rather good. The only downside to this is that I do not really like how Nova's hair is in this clip however, it was the only way that we could successfully have projection therefore, it is something I am willing to compromise on.

Filming Day 4 - Projection Testing and Red Ivy

7/10/2015 - Dark Room and The Red Ivy

Within our video we wanted to experiment with projections both video and images. In the first half of this filming session we tried out the image projection.

We firstly printed a sunset landscape and a picture of our friend Louis onto pieces of see-through paper. This is so that we can easily create a projection image. We wanted to have a boy placed as a projection because it will give the audience an insight to who the boyfriend of Nova was - this creates drama in the video as they now have a face for the person.

We thought that by putting his image in black and white it would make the image seem more like a memory rather than something current therefore, this will help the audience understand that the couple are broken up.

The sunset is something we wanted in colour as it gives off an artistic flare to our video. Sunsets represent the end of a day and a new beginning therefore, this links to the situation that out artist is in - the end of her relationship and a new beginning as a singleton.

From the videos in the Footage Review below you will notice that we had the projections also shown on my bare back, this was to show vulnerability within Nova, typically, the naked body is a symbol for being vulnerable and for this reason, we decided that this was a good idea.

In this session I did not do any filming as I was in every scene - Tamzin, Evie and Kate all took turns in filming and Evie also styled and positioned me so that we could get the best shots.

Within the second half of this filming day we went out into the red ivy that our school grows to ge some lip syncing shots. We thought that the red ivy would be an excellent location to film at due to it's vibrant colouring that will immediatly grab the audiences attention. The red also connotes the idea of romance, in this case, recovering from one. The location is also extremely acessable for us as it is on our school campus, a simple minutes walk from our classroom.

The day that we done this filming, the sun was extrmemely bright which caused some issues with the sun getting in my eyes a lot whilst filming however, we managed to get the camera in the sun, for amazing lighting and me in the shade so I could keep my eyes open whislt filming. Inconsistant lighting did not put a damper on our day as we managed to get pleanty of filming done - our sole focus for this session was lip syncing as not only were we running low on it but the background, we felt would be a good pop of colour to add into our video, without Nova being swallowed up by it. We thought that this time it would be best to lip sync the whole song just for security reasons, we wanted to make sure we had at least one location with every lyric sung so that if we needed to fill in space when it comes to editing, we had that saftely cusion to land on. I personally feel that this session went really well, I made sure to be very expressive and I tried to use my body more to convey the emotion behind the song. As planned, we mainly filmed medium wide shots, keeping me to one side of the camera and the background running through to the other - we feel that these type of shots work best as they fit everything we want into the frame without looking too zoomed out or too zoomed in. Tamzin also filmed  tracking shot of me walking down the ivy as it faded from green to red due to changing seasons, we thought that this would work well as it could connote the idea of falling in or out of love; this is one of the most unique shots we have so far so I have no doubt it will make the final cut of our video. 

Costume

We chose to put me in a plain black top and a tanned suede skirt for this scene - this was because we didn't want any colours that would take away from the background also, as we want our video to show differet seasons, to show a lengthy relationship, we thought that a tanned coloured skirt would be really good as representing autum as brown is a rather autumnal colour. My hair for this scene was straight as we wanted me to look as natural as possible.

We did have some spare time so we decided to film against a white wall, to try and see what a studio setting would look like with the rest of the video. I personally, hated everything about this setting - the lighting was over exposed, the wall was too clean and just a studio setting doesn't fit with the overall look of the video. I placed an atumnle coloured cardigan over my outfit, so that it looked like a completely different setting.

Review of Footage

This is a clip of the tracking shot we filmed by the red ivy. From this you can see how well the fade of colours looks with the mise en scene of Nova. I feel that once this clip is cropped it will look really outstanding and could really benefit our video. The only thing I am not keen on is that my hair hides my face and you cannot see me lip syncing properly however, I do not think this is something to be worried about at the tracking will make up for it.

 I really hate everything about this clip, I think that I do not look like how we want Nova to look; I look tired and unproductive, I think that the lighting is quite grey but also too bright - this just is not something I would be happy with putting in  my video.

Filming Day 3 - Faversham

13th September 2015 - Faversham

For our third day of filming we decided to go to Faverhsam due to its more naturistic locations and calming vibes.

For the first part of the day we went to a lovely quaint creek that featured a long path that we thought we could taker advantage of for lip synching scenes. We decided that for the lip synching scenes her that I would walk towards the camera, with the camera moving backwards, tracking my movements - this would fit our video as we want majority of the scenes to be in the point of view of Nova's partner therefore, by having me walk towards the camera it looks as if I am singing to the partner. I personally, feel that the creek was an excellent location to film in as the greenary surroudning it is soemthing we would love to have as a running theme throughout our video, this will show good continuity, making our video look more professional. Also, the wide open space gave us a lot of scope for both, mid and wide shots.

We were eager to experiment with different angles and shots, especially with this location due to the amount of space we had around us, we were also excited that we had bright natural lighting to use, this gave us an opporutnity to get some lense flares within our footage, this will make our work look a lot more professional; throughout the day we managed to get a variety of lense flares so when it comes to editing, we will evaluate which ones we feel are best to use within our video. Whislt filming at the creek we found ourselves having to overcome some issues, one being that the tripod we had used had some parts missing, this is something we didn't realise when we booked out this equipment - to overcome this, Evie thought it would be a good idea to hold the camera still ontop of the tripod, this was so that we still had the height of the tripod; Evie held the camera as she has the steadiest hand out of the three girls that aren't in the video. We also had the issue of the battery life of the camers, it lost battery very quickly which is something we were unprepared for in a nature environment as, obviously, there were not any plug sockets to quickly charge up the camera. However, we powered through, making sure we knew what shots we wanted so we could film them without faffing about, wasting bettery. We also checked the footage afterwards to make sure we got what we needed. Unfortunatly, this did restrict the quantity of footage that we got as we ended up loosing power completely.

Fortunatly, Evie has some relatives that live in Faversham, only a 10 minute walk from the creek so we went and visited them so that we could charge up the camera for the next half of our filming. Evie's grandparents live on a farm, meaning they have a lot of open space, we decided that this would be an excellent place to film due to the greenary and open spaces. We were able to use this space as an advantage to get lots of intertesting scenes, including some on haybales, establishing shots of sunsets, and medium asthetic shots of me. I feel that this location was exceptionally successful as the natural lighitng created many lense flares and the amount of space we had to use allowed us to be creative and artistc without many limitations.

At this location we were able to build our own bonfire, we wanted to create a memory of the couple having their own bonfire, including activities such as lighting sparklers and dancing together. Despite using the bonfire to show some happy memories, we wanted to film some close ups of the flames to symbolise the burning love that Nova has for her (once) boyfriend, this could come accross as quite heartbreaking as she is still in love with a boy who no longer cares for her. Similiarly, fire is an intense symbole which can give of many connotations, making it acceptable for the audience to draw their own conclusions from the footage. The picture inserted to the left is a still from some of the footage we got on this day, from this you can see that the colours are profound, we feel that this adds range to our video as most of the colours we are wanting to use are soft blues and pinks so by having a harsh orange in our video, we feel that this could bring variety to it, making it more entertaining for our audience. One problem with having this difference, is that it does break continuity within our video however, during the editing process we can do some colour correcting to make it look more like any other clips used.

As we were filming a bonfire we had to consider the time of day we filmed at due to lighting, we needed it to be dark enough that the fire could be seen but also light enough so that the footage wouldn't turn out grainy. We researched what time the sunset for this day was so that we had the perfect lighting  - the time for this was around 8pm. From reviewing the footage, I feel that this was a successful time for us to film as the footage was not grainy and the fire also showed up. Filming a variety of shots such as high angles of the fire that panned up to me proved to be succesfull as we seemed to have created our own motif of panning up to me, this is something I feel that we should incorporate to our video so that we have our own personal touch.

Costume

For this filming day I had two outfits - one for the daytime scene and one for the after noon.

For the daytime scene, we felt that Nova should look comfty and farm like due to the greenary around therefore, I wore a grey cowl neck, bat winged jumper with black jeans and black calf boots - we wanted to stick with monotone colours as it fits in with the alternative genre and we felt that by having a slouchy jumper this would look comfortable and stylish.

Afternoon Outfit without the waistcoat

Morning outfit

For the afternoon, we wanted to stick with the 'farm girl' theme so I continued to wear the black boots however, I changed to dark grey jeans with a black crop top partnered with a long black waistcoat that had fringing on the bottom, this fringing gives Nova a boheemian look, which is something we want to incorporate into Nova.

Review of Footage

This is a short clip to show you one of the lense flares we managed to get. This shot is a wide off centre shot, you can see me on a haybale to the right of the shot, this is to match the lipsynching we done in Whistable. The lense flares in this shot work really well as they appear accross the whole screen, making the shot look more artistic, which is what we were aiming for - the flares are also red, this will help us symbolise both love and hatred, which are themes that come accross in our chosen song. I personally, cannot fault the collection of lense flares we got as I feel that is shows our skills both technologically and artistically.

This clip shows a tracking shot of me lip syncing part of the chorus - I really like this shot as I feel that it shows the audience a large part of the location as well as making them feel as if Nova is walking towards them, this is significant as it makes the audience feel as if they are invovled in the video and Nova's life. One thing that I do not like about this clip is that the lighting is rather weird, only one half of my face is in the light, I personally feel that this ruins the shot however, the rest of my group like this clip so it is more than likely that it will be used in our final poduct.