Beach Day

These set of images were taken when we were filming at Southend beach last week. It was an extremely productive day and we managed to get all of the footage we planned for. Not only did we film a large chunk of the lyrics but the weather turned out to be absolutely beautiful. We had previously checked the forecast for this week and when we saw 'sunny spells' it was a must that we filmed on this day. It was just a bonus that when we arrived it was lovelier than expected. However, even though the sun was shining, it was still absolutely freezing - especially being on a beach (as you can see in the below image we are wrapped up in coats and scarfs!). We had planned the costume, hair and make-up - which looks amazing and extremely effective for the location... however poor Claudia spent most of the time shivering!! - this is why I love her!
She is perfect for the role, she didn't moan once and kept in character the whenever the camera was recording. There was nothing I would do differently about this day, because it was such a success! The only problems we faced was getting the tripod to stay still and balanced - because some of the surfaces are un-even, such as the pebbles and the sand, trying to get the camera straight, especially in the close ups where it would be more noticeable was a slight challenge, however nothing we couldn't overcome! In the end, all it took was patience and precision.
Because we knew exactly what we wanted to film and Claudia being so cold, the filming only took around an hour long. This meant our whole day wasn't taken up by filming and obviously getting there and back took some time, but that wasn't an issue because it was so worth it.

No.4 Filming

Third Day Filming Evaluation

On this day of filming, we managed to fit in three sections that was on our list of 'things to film'. The main one being the 'now you see me, now you don't' which would be the narrative section of the video. We wanted to film someone younger and in this case it was lucky that I know someone close to my family who was willing to take part. We saw a John Newman video and this is where we found our inspiration... The theme of the visuals was to link with the lyrics - 'gone to find a place for us to hide' - where I would be the mother and Georgia would be the child. Therefore both of us representing the thirteen and thirty five year old in the song. The filming didn't happen how we had pictured it to. It was a lot harder to find a suitable location and even though we had one planned, there were a lot more cars parked around and just didn't have such a good effect. However, we will keep all of the footage because it isn't too bad and once it's edited, it could look better.
The filming that we started with on the day was back at South Weald park in Brentwood. We used this location for our practice filming and when it was fully edited, we loved the outcome! So thought it would be a good idea to re-film for the 'cha cha' section of the song. Filming went exactly to plan - the only problem was the weather! We had checked the forecast and there was a slight possibility of rain, however we needed to film! Thankfully, it was towards the end of the hour and we had already filmed plenty of footage. The lighting was dull but bright enough to film and created an effective look which was perfect to fit in the 'alternative' genre of the song. When we started to film, we was slightly unsure of the outfit - however it grew on us both and actually looks very impressive on screen.

The final filming of the day was a concept idea. It was to use smoke to create a mysterious look. By using a shisha pen I could slowly blow smoke from my mouth which looked placid and cool. We aren't 100% sure that it will be used, however it is something we can experiment with, especially if there will be more concept sections in the video. It only took a short time period therefore it won't be too disappointing if we don't use the footage.

INSTAGRAM

 We thought that setting up profiles on social networking sites would help us promote our artist - Lila Eden. Instagram is an online photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, apply digital filters to them, and share them on a variety of social networking services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. A distinctive feature is that it confines photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid images.
A lot of celebrities, mainly music artist use Instagram to promote their service. Because instagram allows you to upload short video clips, this means they can share snip-its of upcoming videos or behind the scene footage. They can also share images of fan art ect... Which creates a bond with their fans. It's a lot to do with advertisement and publicity. 


Rihanna is the perfect example.. she posts around 10 images (with occasional videos) a day, ranging from personal images, "selfies", what she's up to, where she is and most importantly things associated with her tour or performance. We've tried to create the same sort of thing on our instagram page. For example the image to the right shows our artist 'Lila Eden' posing. In the caption 'Hair by @hairat1... Now selling @edeneyelashes get some eves! Before they all run out!' The @ symbol represents someone being tagged, again a brilliant advertising technique. Normally a company or brand will send some free bee's to very famous celebrities and they will post an image onto instagram tagging the company, so the idea is that everybody that follows this certain celebrity will follow the tagged person and so on... We have done this to promote the eyelashes as well! Something featured on our website as merchandise. The reason we have wrote 'eves' is because Lila calls her fans 'Adam and eve's' - from the garden of eden.

Again, in this image to the right shows us on set filming for part of the video. A lot of music artists use instagram for this specific thing - to keep their fans updated and always interested. We have used different filters on the images that the app provides to make all of them look different. The images we use on instagram can be put on our website and also linked to our website so people can fin our instagram if they want to follow it.

Strong Similarities and Differences

We chose to analyse the websites as a pair, so the annotations are shared. We both thought it would be most appropriate to look at similar artists to ours. Eliza Doolittle and Ellie Goulding were two that were good examples. Dillon (our artist) was also someone that we thought would come in handy when designing and making our website (seen as it is her song!). We found some strong similarities with all three of the websites and therefore things that we should defiantly include on our website and then some differences - some that personally we don't particularly think are necessary for a website, but also things that we think all websites should have and therefore would consider using on our website.

The obvious similarities that aren't only on all of the websites we have looked at, but almost every other artist involved in the music industry is the advertisement. As soon as you click on the link to enter the site, immediately - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram... Tour dates and venues are almost popping out the screen to grab you attention. Artist need to advertise, and using their website, which is free to access, is the perfect way! It is important because it creates awareness and a sense of urgency to fans and consumers by informing them on sales and offers. Advertising also helps businesses in keeping up with the competition in the market and acts as a form of sales promotion method. There’s a desire to manipulate and encourage their target audience into not only desiring a them and their service (entertainment), but to feel a certain way about it and without this product or service, they will lack this feeling. For example, when you enter Ellie Goulding website, recent images posted from her instagram and her latest videos are previewed, instantly grabbing the viewer. All music artists like to post what they're doing, where they are ect.. to keep their fans up to date and constantly engaged - this is why their galleries are always being refreshed and full up!  Even if it's someone who isn't familiar with the artist, by scrolling through their gallery, they can get a feel of the artist and what they are like.

Because Ellie Goulding and Eliza Doolittle are both very successful and popular in the music industry, where they have been part of it for years now both with many singles and even a few albums; which is unlike Dillon - our artist. However, I am not implying that Dillon is not successful! She just hasn't fully emerged into the industry with such a 'big hit' like the others. They are similar artists however I think the popularity in the 'pop' genre, has changed them as individual's slightly. The demand for new up-beat tunes is constant, therefore to be in it you have to meet the required standards of what the mass target audience like and expect. This, as you can imagine, is reflected through their websites as well. For example, Dillon doesn't have a 'store' or 'merchandise' tab on her website and there is no where online where you can purchase any sort of Dillon merchandise - whether she sells it at her concerts, I'm not sure. However, this is an area where other artists will gain a lot of money. They can sell personalised or unique products that you can't purchase anywhere else; this is why I think it is quite an important aspect of a website - something we would defiantly incorporate in our website. 

Other Artist Website Research

What's Next?

Current Video and Feedback

This is our video so far, you can see that the first section and end part of the video is completed which is really good. We have plans for the next bit of filming which should take up a lot of the middle section of the video. I am really happy with how it looks at the moment and hope it only gets better! To help us, we arranged a selection of people who fit into our target audience to watch this video and feedback from it. Here's what we got:

The feedback we received was so positive! Most of the participants picked up on the most important things such as the editing techniques, cuts and transitions. They have picked up on the things we have worked hard on and noticed what effect it gives off. Which is perfect! They mentioned the lip syncing and passion that has gone into it, which again, is excellent seen as it was something we focused so hard on getting right. Overall, the feedback of the video so far proves that the detailed planning really pays off. What you put into the work is proven by the outcome, and from this I think it is very positive. The constructive criticism that was received is also a massive help - the things mentioned such as 'the off time click'  is something we can change and make correct. This is why gathering feedback throughout the making of the video is so important to having the best possible outcome. 

How It Went

This set of filming was a bit more fun. We had to experiment because we weren't exactly sure on what the location was actually like, even though we knew where it was and what it looked like, we hadn't actually gone up there! The location and setting turned out to be an absolute success and looked really awesome once we uploaded all of the footage - when filming we was unsure on what the outcome would look like, but now we're glad we just kept it because now it's all in sequence and edited together
it looks really effective and is not always the same boring background. This image to the right is Claudia laughing and holing up two fingers... This is because I was not only wearing my coat but Claudia's as well! As you can imagine, early December... she was freezing and we was joking about, when I was laughing Claudia's reaction was 'YOU HAVE 2 COATS, 2!' hence why she is holding up two fingers.

This image to the left shows some of the location. It was almost like a mini junk yard - it had an old heater, furniture and dustbin bags but actually looked really cool as a background for some of the shots (like in the image below). It created the rustic and 'left behind' kind of look. I think the outfit and look we went for really worked with the location.

After about half an hour of filming and we had the main bits we needed filmed, the sun came out! So the mood changed visually from dull with the cloudy grey skies and windy weather to bright an sunny.
Nothing was planned but we though we may as well do some filming and see what it looks like. To get a good set up I had to place the camera on the floor and where it had been raining and there were puddles a plastic bag needed to be place underneath it which was annoying because it kept blowing in front of the lense when we were filming! But this was the only was to only get a shine from the sun without it blinding and taking over the shot.

This is an image from we took from the location, as you can see Sainsbury's car park is directly in the background therefore this is something we had to take extra care to not get in the shot! Obviously it would've take away the whole feel of the shot and completely ruined it. When watching the footage back, there was only one shot where you can slightly see it and we deleted it regardless because we just thought it looked extremely unprofessional.

These two images (to the right and below) are of Claudia sitting on the bridge type thing that was also at the top of the roofing area. I love both of these images and I think a lot of images from the day would look good as part of our Digipack. They are simple yet effective - a lot like our artist we have tried to create. 

Second Filming

The Day and How it Went

So... First day of filming and we tried to shoot everything we planned for and had drew up in the storyboard for the sections we needed. We managed to get loads done and a little more than we expected/planned for. It was our first lot so we were very excited to get stuck in and start the video. We focused a lot on close ups of Claudia and introducing the audience to her. Doing the practice filming of Claudia before hand was a massive benefit as we had a better understanding of what looked good and what wasn't appropriate for the shot – including lighting, angle, background etc…

By using a lot of close-ups it meant when we begin to edit the footage we could use a lot of cuts to fit with the beat of the song. It turned out that collectively we filmed more than triple of what we planned on our storyboard; however we kind of expected this as it is our first time making a music video and it’s something we can lean from for future planning. We used our time wisely and efficiently and managed to get everything finished without rushing. What probably took the most amount of time was doing Claudia’s hair and make-up! The only overall problem we massively faced was the plug in spot light. We were able to hire it from our school, despite it being slightly faulty. There was something in the switch that was unconnected and made it switch of without even touching it.
However… We managed to use this to our advantage! Even though it was a massive distraction being in a dark room and this massive, bright spot light flickering on and off I told Claudia as I was filming to carry on acting and it turned out to look very superb. :-) The two smaller images below are from some of the filming from this day. The one on the left shows Claudia laying down and the camera filming from bird's eye view.
After filming we realised we didn't like this shot as all. The angle of the camera and Claudia laying down made it harder for her to song and pulled a strange face that we thought people would possibly laugh - especially people who know her.

The image on the right is extremely spooky. We used a projector to create this visual. The room was dark and the light projector was simply sitting underneath Claudia. Some of the light was a subtle light blue or white and this had more of an effect, however we decided not to use it because the shadows which were formed on Claudia's face made her features look distorted. Overall we are extremely pleased with what we go from our first day of filming - now all the footage has been sorted out I can begin to edit each other clips. This means a lot of cutting and moving around. Because we were able to film so much and wanted so much it just meant a lot of time and concentration. Especially for the 'clicks' - the click of Claudia's hand had to match exactly with the click in the song which was very hard to do and took a lot of patience.

First Filming