Story Board

The lead singer with a spot light wearing jewels and dressed nice in the 1920's fashion to show off the star persona as a glamourous woman talking about money in the 1920's

Working class dancers to show a contrast of how people can enjoy the music whether they have money or not and this is showing the main theme of our video and message

We are planning to shoot one image and have the same this we will do in post to create a modern feel to the old fashioned video to go with the song

Digi pack exploring into the art deco and art nouveau

The 20's were known for their art deco styles and pre 20's the Art nouveau this was a hugley stylish aspect of the 20's and it influenced us very much into the design of our entire video and digi pack.

DIDGY PACK

This went through a serise of stages

The final decision however was to use the same image over and over again instead of different ones, this was becuase the others didnt compare to this and we could then put an extra twist on the album by using the idea of album covers being influenced by art. In this case Andy Warhole

first trial

Feedback

There are some sound entries here, but I would like to see the digipak blogged.  The use of photo's from the day are excellent, but could have been presented in a much better way as a slideshow or other presentation.
Your written account of the shoot day is brief - you need to reevaluate this and link your comments to that of production - consider film direction, set design, how the MV was shot etc - be as precise as possible with this and please post your CD design.

CD COVER AND POSTER

For our CD pack we had a few ideas that we tried out using photoshop.

The first idea was of was to pick a selection of images from our photoshoot on the shoot day and edit them into some cool effects. The first would be of the main singer only (Georgina). We thought that to use some close ups of her face to emphasis the style of the 20’s with the make up and the feather in her hair, and It would be edited using photoshop to manipulate the colour and make it look more like an old photograph, gone new like the song instead of the generic CD cover.

The name of our artist would appear vertically down the side of the front cover in a fancy red font. This we dcided to call ‘Dotty and the Deckz’ this was a spin off an old name with the new idea of how the song has been remixed using decks, this we wanted to make more stylaised so we changed the s to a z which we thought was a cool and catchy title.

here we have experimented with different medias, i have started with air brushing and enhancing areas such as eyes, hair etc. I then decided to try different areas of the image in black and white squares, this was to convey the ideas of the art deco that they had in the 20's as well as the modernising of an old song to reflect the poster. 

I started with a colored image or georgina that I air brushed and enhanced the eyes etc, Then I selected different areas of the image with the select tool and changed the hues, saturations and brightness of the different parts.  

We went through a few ideas from the original plan of having a different photo for each frame for front, inside front, inside back and back, we decided to make the Andy Warhol idea of the album cover being the same image but in a pop art style and in different colors.  

EVALUIATION OF SHOOT DAY

Our shoot was begun by an early start at 8.30 we had sorted out our set, our costumes our cast and the shoot day schedule.

We began by getting our first morning shoot ready,
our cast came in on time and we were ready to star.
The day seemed to be becoming more exiting by the minute; we all had our shifts of working the play back, directing the cast and the camera and checking the light balances between each scene. The morning was taken up of our performance and the dance sections; we had already decided that in post we were to do a lot in silhouette so to make a crisp like we decided to film a lot of the dance more on green screen. This enabled us to have the freedom to have some fun and experimentation in our post production editing stage.





The picture to the left is to show our star Georgina sat on the steps. we had the pillars and black steps with a light under each pillar to create a more show business style.

The back drop is a sheep of white with a red light behind it. this was like a curtain. that we could pull back and fourth when we needed it and when we were using the green screen.
The set was used for the main beginning and we plan in post to keep coming back to the more narrative section of our video when the music becomes old fashioned again. The narrative would subtly reflect that she lives well off. She has dancers and pillars and a big red curtain. This shows that the song could have her coming off as spoiled or very demanding due to the words "get outa here and get me some money too" when she has lots already

To the left this picture is the set from a wide camera shot with our dancers this is with the house lights on. this is to simply show the characters in positions that myself and my group put them in as experimentation's for the album cover and poster as well as the shoot day diary shots to help show our set from a behind the camera point of view

 This is the beginning shot of Georgina that we used for the poster. We edited it the colour and created a more sophisticated look with a dark grey background colour.

here she is wearing her full attire that she wore throughout the day which was wholly 1920's style. the dress, the pearls the feather and the eye make up and lipstick. we experimented this image into older looking effects and black and white which we used in the poster however this image is my personally favourite because of the coloring and contrasts.

The day went through with a steady and on time pace and we had finished the dancing we decided to include our Zoetrobe shots now. This consisted of us coming up with a repetitive action for our cast to do. This was already pre-determined these moves, we decided to do a passing of the hat and a cane etc. This was a nice experiment for our group and it made me even more exited about the editing phase of our production task.

The second half part of the day was when we built our second set. this was a big stair case and pillars for the beginning and end stage of the song this was a long process because we wanted to include lots of tracking shots, the beginning one when we track in when Georgina walks in and then the tracking shot following her as she walks in following the camera. This shot took a lot of takes simpley because the tracks were complex and required a huge amount of concentration and a number of times we had a small kink in the tracks.

All in all the day finished on schedule and it was very enjoyable and self full filling. we now need to look forward to the post production in the editing phase and after effects on the green screen shots.

This is the shots i took of the dancers in a pose that I decided to go into with some close ups of them to show the Mise en scene of our video, their  make up clothes and accessories.

This is also to show our Mise an scene to show her costume and make up in the setting of black and white which is what the majority of our video will be in.

=

LOOKING AT LABLES

I looked at this lables website 

SLAMJAMS

they have been going on since 1996 and its aim is to go against the major conglomerate companies

-They have info on all of the employees. They include their names their positions and an email address for each of them

- They include videos of all of their artists

- Gives the latest new articles on their artists

- You can download

-There also on My Spaces, Twitter and Face book

-They do tours

-They sell DVDs

Feedback

There are some proficient posts here which illustrate the development of your concept and planning of production  This is insightful and creative, for example planing of the set design and reflection upon this.

You do need to develop the evaluation of the animatic and also consider the following points in relation to your posts:

First to begin using a wider range of blogging tools - there are lots of well presented images, but use of Flickr or powerpoint will increase the creativity that is shown on your blog.  Images on the posts are good, but could be better if you started to use presentational tools

Second the valid, detailed and reflective comments that you make need to be developed further with  key media concepts and theoretical ideas;  for example, link the planning to star image,  or how set design and lighting link to mise en scene and/ or what model's of lighting you are using in relation to your set - key, fill, directional, discuss the untensity and colour and what you are trying to represent about your artist. This will help make a more thorough evaluation of your work.

Shooting list

08:30 AM: Gather cast and crew and talk through day

08:45 AM: Get into Costume/Makeup (Heather)

09:00 AM: Set up camera/tripod e.t.c 

09:15 AM: Start shooting close ups of Lead Singer

09:30 AM: Start shooting wide shots of Lead Singer

09:45 AM: Shoot the Zoetrobe (Close Ups/Mid Close Ups/Wide Shots)

11:00 AM: Wide Shots of Dancers on black rostra.

11:15 AM: Mid Shots of Dancers on black rostra.

11:30 AM: Dolly shots of Dancers on black rostra.

11:55 AM: Sillhouettes of Lead singer (poses against white backdrop)

12:15 AM: Breaking jewellary (Lead singer) to be reversed in post

12:30 AM: Coins falling to be reversed in post

12:45 AM: Lunch Break

01:20 PM: Finish Lunch and meet back in studio to get back into costume e.t.c

01:25 PM: Shoot Gramaphone with record on.

01:35 PM: Shoot DJ Decks and scratching.

01:50 PM: Shoot sillouettes (Mulitply slowly in post) against white.

02:15 PM: Ben & Tunde cleaning shoes (Close Up/Mide Shot)

02:30 PM: Roullette wheel spinning (be reversed in Post)

02:45 PM: Chair Crashing to the floor

02:55 PM: Shot of China Plates Falling and Smashing (Plates/mugs/glasses e.t.c)

OUR SET SKETCHES

We thought that our ZOETROBE would look a little bit like this. we wanted to make it work with the old legends of music.

This is what our band will look like we are still unsure whether it will look good with her within the band scene. However we are going to put her there and then if it doesnt work or look correct on the day as we will be able to hgave an acurate shot.

This is our stage and idea with the sillhouetes.

We have used this drawing to help show that we want a spot light on our main girl.

This is our big main stage area where we want the main area to be used for the majority of the filming.

PROP LIST

Double bass - for the band as it features heavily in the song

Trumpet - for the band as it features heavily in the song

Trombone - for the band as it features heavily in the song

A platform - For the dancers and the band to be used in silhouette to add height and distinction to these

DJ Decks - to show the contrast between old fashioned gramaphones and modern DJ decks and to show how music has changed over the century.

A gramophone – 20’s styled - to show what old music was played on, it also adds a cool shot and contrasts with the modern decks used later on in the video.

Old fashioned microphone – 20’s styles - it matches the style of the song and the era we are trying to portrey

A Zoetrobe (possible) - this adds cool effects and allows us to be more free with the images we use of African American artists from the past instead of having to recreate these images with a cast who won't fit with the intended images.

COSTUME LIST

1920's elaborate/expensive/illusive dress (central character)

2 lower class working outfits

Upper class gentlemen’s suit

2 middle class Suits

1920's middle class women’s dress x 3

CAST LIST

Georgina Morton - 1920's woman

Tunde Ogundare - Working Class man / dancer

Ben Ikanade-Agba - Working Class man / dancer

Lizzy ward thomas - Band

Bella Neal - Band

Bethany Quinn - Band

Connor Vickery - Upper class man / dancer

Glen Pegado - Working Class man / dancer

Storyboard Animatic

RESEARCHING BLACK AND AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSIC FROM THE EARLY 1900's

1900-1930's
The research i looked into was the main big names of the past century to help us in our group establish how we are going to make our video look professional and potray our idea.

BERT WILLIAMS  AND GEROGE WILLIAMS

DEVELOPING IDEAS ON THE ZOETROBE FOR OUR VIDEO, POST THE ANIMATION

Our main problem with the idea was our main message about how black music has influenced our music today was becoming difficult because we were struggling on finding people appropriate to play the parts as the cast would have to be able to play the instruments and be Black we couldn’t have our message being played by white boys as it contradicts the idea.

 So we decided to think about the idea of using images of Black music legends and introduce them into our video using a cool way to present them. A ZOETROBE. This would enable us to try and create moving images of stars that have influenced music into our video aswell as using our own castings to show other aspects for example DJ’s and Dancing.

a zoetrobe clip

This example shows how the ZOETROBE works when we see the flickering and not when we see the images spin without the break between the two different images, enabling us to differentiate subconsciously and see a moving bird.

This is another idea of how to present a ZOETROBE within a music video. The images repeat around a song and a video.

Sony created the largest one in the world that i belived to be the most impressive of all of the ones i looked up and researched. it was smooth and looked alot like an acxtual film, althouogh we want to have our Zoetrobe looking old and authentic i used this as a good referance towards our idea.

EVALUATION AND ANIMATION

To go towards our planning and our video we put together our story boards and edited them on final cut in time with the song to enable us to see what the cuts would look like, as well as to help us practice using final cut and sort out our shots in order with the time of the song.

We got off to very good start with all of our shots in order and t6hen we started to cut them together, it took  us around 2h30mins to complete and we spent a while re-evaluating our shot choices along with our narrative choice and the idea of the band. The reason this came up was because the nature of the song we chose was a difficult one to cut in time with as well as making sense of the video. So we decided to rethink an idea of portraying our story line and our message in a way that would make sense and not look messy to match the song.

After we cut the song and completed the animation we decided that the narrative did not work and it did look messy, this meant that we now were going to have to put some more ideas on the table. We originally and still want to show within the video how black music has influenced the music from the early 1920’s to 60’s to the now.

All in all our animation was not a great success in terms of its look but it helped us a great deal with the thoughts and ideas of how it would have looked if we had not done the animation, this has saves us from a disorganised shoot day with little progress with our original idea. We now know that the idea and layout of the video wouldn’t work and the animation has saved us a lot of time.

VALS OF A TARGET AUDIENCE

VALUES
Our target audience is teens from the age aproximetly 14 to 25, their values are very sentered around music culture. the music world is what is concidered 'cool' and so when they look for music they are looking at prodominatly mainstreem, techno is part of the main stream music genre now.

ATTITUDES
the target audiences attitudes toi music would be relative to this tune because the songs are what they would hear in a club or a night out as it is prodominantly a dance track. thye would be more interested in the mixing with the new technology that they are mostly enrapped in than the singer or the music comihng from the raw instruments in the stereotypical view of the 14-25 year olds however there is a good singing voice and quality raw instruments for the minority that apreciate that aspect of a song.

LIFESTYLE
their lifestyle will suite this type of contempory music as the clubs and bars play this type of dance music. the ages of 18-25 go clubbing and the under 18's tend to go to mainly house partys being under age to drink in public places. they are all places where people drink and dance, this song is a typical for a night out.

MICHEAL WELSCH

This youtube clip I thought was very good at potraying the theory of the media as a machine. Welsch's idea is that the machine is us as well as using us

THE MACHINE IS US/ING US

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Your response is soundand you have been creative with your blogs, I particularly like the use of headings with good layout and design.  You have a secure knowledge and understanding of who you want your artist to be signed to; perhaps you could link this further by stressing the advantages that your artist has signed to the particular record label. 

Your clearly identify your target audience and have profiled them well, but could develop this with the use of VALS  VALS.  Good research into CD covers and you have a wide range of examples, and this would be developed further if you can link the real product to how it will influence your own designs.

MORE ALBUM COVERS AND SIMILAR SONG SET UPS

similar song idea



thiese images are similar ideas to the image i want however this is presented thisthese are set in the modern era the glamor and bright colours are areas i would like to take from these images however we only want to include an aspect of the colour and make it all about the glamour of the 1920's and contrast it with the ways things are better and worse with society now.

RESEARCH INTO OUR ARTIST

Our artist would be signed to the label that signs techno remix music. The songs that our signed also are probably songs used in club mixes and dj's for example dance trance music and techno swing music. it will be a minor record company Hoxton Whores is a company likely to sign them because of their signed artists are similar to Renee’s song 'Why Don’t You Do'

Our target audience would be a group from the age of early and late teens to mid twenties as well as maybe the older generation wanting to see the new version of a well known song from the 50's set in the 1920's.
However it may not be their taste as it is not an old song any more.

Before starting to design potential CD covers, I looked into Peggy Lees version of the song and her cover and then the gramophondzie mix version, (the version we have chosen as our song). I started by looking at the original  it didnt really fit our idea's for our video.  The image shows the star off to beautiful woman who is very glamorous. and used to have money. The cover would help attract the target audience. We want to combine the ideas of modern and old so i thought the use of brighter colour was needed more in relation to ours but the coverfitted well with their theme.