Album song names

1. You & Me (feat. DoubleÜ)

2. Loyal

3. Golden

4. Fantasia

5. Fever

6. Right There

7. On & On (feat. Caroline)

8. Static

9. Poplar Trees

10. Regression

11. Settle

12. Amelie

Digipak development

To try and gain inspiration for an album name we could possibly use, I decided to scroll through my music and see if there were any songs or artists that had names that we could use as a jump start for our own.

Whilst doing this, I noticed all the different album artwork. I decided then to google this and see if I could gain any inspiration from album artwork that had similar concepts to ours.

After doing this, I could tell that most albums expressed the meaning of the album or the title. I decided to look up synonyms or other meanings for Isolation, Entrapment Or Going back. From doing this, I found the word 'regression.' We felt this was perfect for the album name as it expressed our music video song, the look we were going for as well as expressed her character.

Here is an example of an alteration of the album artwork with the name of the album:

After attempting to add the name of the artwork, we were not sure whether the set up was right and looked professional. I decided to play around with different layouts to see what looked right :

We are still unsure of what album artwork to go with, so we need to take some more photos to see what else we can work with.

Audience Feedback

Now we had finished our video. We wanted to get some audience feedback to see what the end opinions for the video was. 

The audience felt that our strengths were mainly through our dance, choice of lighting and pace. They said that they were constantly intrigued and never felt bored. 

The only weakness they said was that they might have liked to have seen more of the dance as they thought it was so good that it was a bit of a waste. 

Another positive is that the audience seemed to have understand our concept; isolation/entrapment. As well as this, they also understood that the dance was a reflection of the artist's song. 

Overall, a successful audience feedback. 

First attempt on the Digipak

Today we discussed several ideas that we could use for our album artwork. This included ideas for the front, inside and back cover. I came up with the idea of using a 'contact sheet' inspired inside cover. I feel like this is effective as it gives the audience an idea of who the artist is as well as upholds this dark persona. 

As well as this, I played around with making the front cover. I wanted to try out different layouts and ideas to see what would work and what wouldn't. This was what I came out with as a start point.

I had to ensure I kept with the same font and idea of the name as the website. As well as this, with the image behind our artist we felt it appropriate to add the 'explicit content' sign as it is a subtle furthering of her dark image. 

Performance Cut VS Final Cut

Here is a comparison between our performance cut and our final cut. There are several differences that can be seen between the two. 

• The beginning in the final cut has been made a lot slower. This is to allow the audience to be introduced to the artist and have a feel for her character. As well as this, it also allows for a more impacted build up as the song progresses. After receiving feedback, we were also told that slowing the beginning down might be more effective as it was quite fast paced. 
• The colouring of the video has been altered. This is because we wanted to make the video more professional by slicking the shots up. We played around with contrast, brightness, saturation and more. 
• We spent a lot more time focusing on cutting the shots on the beat instead of on the lyrics. This was better as our song was very fast paced and it worked better by cutting on the beat.
• There was a section in the middle that cut to black on a certain beat. After receiving feedback, we decided to change this. We replaced the black shot with a moving shot so that we still had the same effect, but it still maintained the pace of the song.
• Finally, we were able to add in the dance element and the other lip sync which we had not been able to do as a result of the power cuts. Through editing we can see that the dance and other lip sync became crucial in maintaining the theme, concept and audience interested throughout. The dance was particularly effective as it showed both the story of the song as well as added something extra to the video. 

Editing the final cut

As we now had all of our footage. It was time to edit the final cut. It was important to make sure that all the repetitive bits be removed and replaced with the new footage to have a slick and effective final cut. To ensure this, we watched through our performance cut and made note of all the places that need to be replaced by the new footage. Once we got started, it was slightly challenging as we did not have a clipboard on the shoot day as there was another shoot happening on location that needed it. This proved to be more challenging when matching up the lip sync with the music as we had to take our time to ensure it was accurate. 

From watching the performance cut, we realised we should probably slow down the beginning as there was not much build up. This was where we decided to put the beauty light set of Genny. It worked well as it was vibrant and strong, but also gave the audience a moment to establish who the artist is. 

However, whilst editing the beginning we came across some problems. We found that we did not get enough footage of Genny and this new set on the shoot day. This was because we were finding it hard to create a punchy opening that wasn't too repetitive as we had not been very creative with the shots. As well as this, several were out of focus as there was a problem with the exposure which we did not realise on shoot day. However, after a few days we managed to edit an opening that ticked the criteria, by bringing in the dance earlier than planned. 

The next bit which we needed to change was the middle. We received feedback from our peers who all said that the beginning was great as there was a really effective build up that keeps you intrigued, but then it suddenly slows down and loses pace during the middle of the song. We found that the best way to solve this was to add more dance. However, this also proved to not change much as it was missing pace still. We then came to the conclusion that the problem was the pace of our cuts. We spent a few hours re cutting and making the edit more fast and slick. This thankfully proved to solve the problem. 

Our teachers watched the video and gave us several different pieces of feedback. One was the opening and ending shot. This needed to be changed as we want the audience to feel intrigued from the moment they watch it till the last shot. Another was our choice of cutting on the dance shots. We were told to change them so that the shot would cut before they finished their movement. Lastly, they said that we needed to make sure that all our shots of Genny were in focus as there were some that looked as though they were out of focus and not on purpose. 

As we had spent so much time on the edit this week, we found it was best to leave it till Monday and finish the edit then.

Pick Up Shoot Day

Starting on the website

Whilst waiting to film the next part of our shoot, we decided to work on the website for our campaign. After discussing, we decided to come up with the idea of 'LOVA' as the name. As we took inspiration from Yolandi Visser for our artist, we thought of looking at Swedish names. There were several options but we felt LOVA was the best suited to our artist. 

We then proceeded to think of a logo for her name that could stand out. I did some research and stumbled across the artist 'MO' who played with the symbol through the 'O.' I thought this was very effective as it was recognisable and the artist MO was very similar to the image we wanted to create for our artist. This was the logo we came up with: 

We felt that the font 'Raleway' was best studied to this logo as well as it was professional and slick. 

When you first enter the website, this white box will appear. It will have the producer logo (for the time being Hurtwood Film Academy's logo) and the artist's name. The name will appear from left to right as we felt this looked more professional than just appearing. Behind the white box, our music video will play. This will be visually stimulating for the audience and keep them enticed. This may change however after we have done the photoshoot for our artist for the Digipak and potentially the website. 

First performance cut

Here is our first performance cut. As we were only able to shoot half our video last time due to power cuts, we had to work with only 2 parts to our video as much as possible to try and create a professional video. From this, there can be seen that there are several areas that become too repetitive or need to be less hectic. This will hopefully be achieved when we film on Monday. It will be important to remember to film the still shots of the artist and to achieve as much as possible of the dance as we can. 

Time-lapse of music video shoot day

Although we only were able to shoot half of the video due to power cuts, it can be seen that we still got a lot of work done despite the challenges we were faced.

Shoot day

ROLES DURING THE DAY: 

ELOISE : DIRECTOR

BEN : CAMERA 

HAYDON : PLAYBACK

DASHA : FLOOR MANAGER

Overall the shoot day was a success.
I first started by helping set up the day before the shoot day. As seen in the video, I painted the DJ set and put it together, as well as set up the lights so that we could be ready to start promptly in the morning.

I was very prepared for the shoot day. The night before I had rehearsed with the artist Genny to make sure she knew her lines. We had bought food to make sure that we kept both the staff and the artists happy as it was going to be a long day. I also made sure that all the tiny pieces of the costume were there and ready to go. I also pre warned Genny to come in with no makeup, wet hair and no jewellery so that she could be made up in the morning by the makeup artist. This made organisation easier when we were faced with the power cut difficulty. Despite this being our biggest problem, as soon as the lights came on, we were prepared and ready to go as we were organised.

Once we got shooting, the studio looked exactly as we had envisioned it to look. Specifically with the artist set, we definitely achieved our concept idea as the corridor made her seem trapped and isolated, which was the main part of our concept.
I think one thing that I particularly excelled in on the shoot day was my direction. I had been pre warned that it was very important to make sure you know what you want and to help guide the artist as they need guidance as the obviously don't know what you want. I ensured that throughout the day I was always communicating with the artists and Ben(On camera), to help try and achieve the look/concept we were trying to achieve.

 I think the most successful part of our shoot day was probably the DJ set. As there was quite a lot happening during this particular performance, it was important for us to capture as much as possible. With such a short shoot time frame, we managed to capture more than enough footage and we even managed to get the crane out and shoot some aerial shots of the DJ set.

However, I do wish that we would have been able to shoot the whole of the video as the energy was very high on that day and it would have been perfect time to have shot everything. However this was made impossible due to power cuts and time limits.

I think we worked very well as a team as we all gave each other opportunities to make inputs and explore different roles. I would say that Ben and I worked particularly well together as we both knew the concept back to front and we both wanted very similar things. This meant that as he was mainly on camera and I was mainly director, the communication was very successful. 

Makeup Artist

We emailed the makeup artist to ensure that she knew what we wanted and to see what we needed. She replied and said that she did not have any glimmer eye shadow or fake eyelashes so I have decided to go and buy some in time for Friday. 

Dance rehearsal

Shoot Day Schedule

Set 1 - DJ Set Up - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - DJ equipment - Black Jeans - Jumper
Set 2 - Light Corridor - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - Heels - Make up - Satin see through top - Black lacey bra -Black jeans
Set 3 - Blinders/ Dancers - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - Make up - Addidas red trackies - Megan's red trackies - Black bando -Black t-shirt
Set 4 - Shadows Genny - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - Make up - Black Dress - Straightners

Organisation

With only 2 weeks to go till the video, I felt it best to organise a meeting between the group :

This will help us to see where we are at with the dance, learning the lyrics and costume. It will also give us a chance to tell the artists what to expect on shoot day and what to bring. It is important to have this meeting to sort out any last minute problems that we might have before the shoot, before it is potentially too late. 

Animatic for Storyboard

This is the Animatic for our music video (Animatic: Animated storyboard put together with editing). We cut the animatic using Adobe Premiere in hope to achieve a close outline of what our music video will be like. 

The animatic helped us to understand what was missing from our music video and to also see how the video will potentially look all together. Personally, I felt that there were not enough of a range of shots and there needed to be more variety of the artist. We then decided to also potentially put the artist in front of the blinders on the day of the music video. On the real shoot, there will be far more wide shots and far more interesting perspectives of the dance, but this was hard to visualise as the dance has not been finalised yet. 

Feedback: 

• A technique to think about when it comes to shoot day/editing is letter boxing. When doing so we have been advised to record percentages of how much the screen is covered to make sure it is the same for the shots to follow. It keeps the professionalism of the video. 
• If we use letter boxing - there needs to be progression. It can't just appear in one part of the music video.
• We need to ensure that there is constant strobe throughout the video. Even if it is in small elements, otherwise it will look out of place. 

Social Media for Our Artist

To help promote Løva's 'Star image' and raise awareness of her, I made social media accounts to show what she had been doing that day and to make her simultaneously present and absent, linking to Richard Dyer's theory. I also made a Yahoo account to give fans a way to contact her. She most likely wouldn't have the time to reply or even read any of them but a reply every now and then would make her fans feel connected to her.
To start, I made an Instagram account where Løva can give details about her debut album and accompany this information with images taken on set, making her audience feel closer to her as they are aware of where she is and what she is doing. 

I then made a twitter account for Løva so that she can tell her audience how she is feeling or what is happening in her life, again making it seem to the audience that they know her really well.

On the right you can see that I made an Instagram account for our production company 'Beezy' as we can make links between the collaboration with Løva.

Over the course of the project, I regularly posted tweets for Løva to show that she is active and to keep her audience engaged.

To help increase the believability of her accounts, I followed well established artists or artists similar to Løva to make it seem as if she knows them or has worked with them before.

Despite not being able to get Løva's accounts 'official', she did gain some followers from the general public in a matter of days which proves that audiences are constantly looking for new interesting artists so that they can claim to be their 'number 1 fan' and can feel as if they have a more personal connection to the artist than anyone else.

Meeting with set designers

We had a meeting with the set designers to decide on whether our sets were appropriate and could be made.

The light corridor:
This had positive feedback. We decided to use LED strips and build them into the wall so that they would not stick out and look unprofessional. We chose to use these lights as we can have different colours and we can change the light speed and direction. This is helpful as it gives us more to work with on the day. We looked at whether the lights might be too heavy to build into the wall, but we came to the conclusion that it can be worked around.

The blinders:
This is the section for the dance. This was one of the easier ones as it was relatively easy to make as all it required was a large space with blinders. 

The DJ set:
This was the complex one. We wanted to have the DJ desk as a 360 degree mixing desk on perspex so that we could shine light through it and it would bounce off. However, the set designers said that it was hard for the perspex to hold up the mixing desks, and for the set to be big enough for 360 and for the light to properly bounce off. We came to the conclusion that we could have a 180 perspex mixing desk that would look as though it was 360 as it would only be half perspex and then half table. 

Shadow set: 
This was easy as we just wanted to bounce light off curtains to hit the artist's face in a shadow like manner. This was simplistic as all that was needed was black curtains and lights. 

Website inspiration

This is a perfect example of what we want our website homepage to potentially look like. We like the shadow capturing at certain angles as it is similar to what we have in our music video. It is important to remember to have correlations between the artist in the video and how they are portrayed in the website. However, there is the possibility that it might come across as slightly boring, which is not the image we want to give to our artist. 

This is a polar opposite example to the previous one. This is very animated and vibrant which we like as it makes the artist stand out. I also like the idea of having the cartoon drawing of the artist as it kind of proposes mystery. As well as this, I like the moving boarders at the side as it again attracts the audience as it is almost impossible to ignore. 

This is a third example of the website homepage we might potentially use. The black and white scheme is similar to our video which is important as we want to keep certain themes the same. I also like the abstract artwork as well as the artist as it stands out. 

In all the websites I have seen which are similar to our artist's image, they all seem to have recurring website layouts. 

Almost all of them seem to have a section that focuses on their videos. These often are their most popular ones or most recent so they can promote further.

They also all seem to have a section that focuses on merchandising. This is again so they can promote it and make more money. 

They also seem to all promote their social networking. In this particular example, AlunaGeorge is promoting Instagram. 

There is always a section focused on tour dates and links to where someone can buy them or Share them. 

Lastly, there will almost always be a promotion of their latest album or of their music. 

CD Cover Research

We have looked into different album covers which have a similar look to what we are going for. Above is a a photo of Sia and because she is standing facing her back to the audience it kind of brings a type of mysterious and closed off element to it. If we were going to go for a similar type of look, we would be able to have our artist be in the dark but she would look back and the Album Cover name or the artists name would play on the top or would be embedded around her. 

Below is Azealia Banks album cover and this could potentially be a possibility of the the actual image of the cover. Although, we would pick a different type of font as it doesn't fit with our artists image. 

Above is a very particular album cover which closes off the audience from direct contact with the artist. This could be a potential idea for our artist, as our music video is harsh and dark. 

Here are a couple more ideas:

Copyright

To ensure that we are allowed to use the song and publicise it on social media formats like YouTube, we emailed Universal Music to gain copyright on the song.

Who is our Target Audience?

Lova's target audience would fall under the category of being 16-25 year old females and males, this is because her music opens up and can relate to some problems that people could have that age and it lets them get away. Most of this generation would like her music due to the fact that it has a club like aspect to it and allows people to immerse themselves in that type of atmosphere. My group and I have discussed and feel that the video focuses on the aspect of the male gaze because she is being sexualized in the video as well as has a beautifying look that appeals for female audiences. This could be used for both genders as females might want to aspire to look like her. 

Who our artist is

In our song, we will have two artists, one being a DJ and one being the singer. The main artist will be the DJ as stereotypically it is the DJ who writes the music and then has a featuring artist on their song. However, the video will mainly be focused on the singer as opposed to the DJ because of the lyrics. 

The image we want for our DJ :

We want our DJ to seem as though he is very experienced with what he is doing. As our set will be a 360 degree mixing desk, we need the artist to uphold the image that he is very talented. The image of the artist will be similar to Jamie XX and DJ EZ. They will uphold the image of being cool, edgy and confident. For this particular artist, their target audience will be aimed towards around 15-25. This is both because of the music as well as their image as it aims towards this particular age group. 

We want our singer to have quite a few elements to her. We want her to have sex appeal and seduction to fit with the intensity of the song. As well as this, we also want there to be a lot of confidence as the lyrics in the song have very dark meaning that need to be shown through the performance. Lastly, we want her to have an element of darkness. This is to give the artist an edge. The target audience for this artist will probably be between the ages of 15-25 as well. This is because of the look as well as the talent. 

Finalised Cast List

Genny is going to be the main artist for our music video. She will be doing the lip syncs. We have chosen Genny as we feel she has the confidence, look and image that we want our artist to have.

We have chosen David Heal to be one of our dancers. This is because he is in dance company and will be able to pull off the intensity of the dance. We also think he will work well with the other dancer, Megan.

We have chosen Megan Mackay to be the other dancer. This again is because she is in dance company and we think she will be able to pull off the pace of the dance and the confidence.

Heath Ostrer is going to be our DJ. This is because he professionally DJ's which means that the performance will be more convincing. As well as this, he also has the look that we are trying to convey.