Reflections: Reshooting the Performance Sequence

Aftre viewing our footage from our first two days of filming, we realised that there were a few problems. The narrative sequence was completely fine, but the performance was not. We shot both sequences in the same garage, but this proved problematic. We loved the whole construction site look for the narrative, but we decided that it didn't look good for a performance. As a convention, most performance sequences of music videos are shot in studios with lights, making the artists look like professional perfect popstars. The shots in the garage didn't look right, especially with the corrugated iron ceiling above. So after much discussion, we decided to reshoot in our school's Seward Studio.

To put it bluntly, our second shoot didn't go smoothly at the beginning at all. With broken floodlights, missing bass guitars and mic stands, it was pretty chaotic. However, after running around school scouting all of the correct equipment, we got onto our second shoot of our performance aspect of our video.
As we had the performance experience from our previous shoot, we already knew how large and over-the-top we had to act, therefore cutting the amount of time and tape wasted on bad takes. As we also knew which kind of shots we liked after seeing our footage from the first day, this also meant that we knew exactly how to direct our camera operator too. As we were in the studio and there was a trolley, this also allowed us to film a 'trolley pan', where the camera operator was pushed back and forth while filming.

Overall, after the horrible start, it was a great second shoot, and now after looking at the footage, it was very essential to our project. Comparing to our footage from the first day which seemed okay after viewing, it was actually much better, meaning that our decision to reshoot was a right one.

Looking at artist websites and their layouts

As we are now making our website for our band, we thought it would be beneficial to look at current websites at the moment, and use them for inspiration.
From looking at various websites we found that in general most websites had their navigation bars at the top across the website, links to social media: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and many photos and videos. On many of the websites the artists' image (the image used on all their marketing platforms at the moment for their current album) would be really large at the top of the page, either as a banner or part of the background.
On the homepage there is also usually a lot of information, including a newsfeed, tour dates and a twitter widget, all of which are layed out nicely in columns and boxes, making it easier to read.

We looked at Rihanna's website in particular because that had flash on the website, so making it similar to the flash websites we were creating with Wix. The homepage was really pretty with the photos moving and changing every so often, something which we may like to achieve with Wix. We decided that we would want moving images and transitions for our website, for example for an enter page.

Reflections: Shooting our Music Video

We decided that the best way to film our music video would be to film it during the half term, as we were all free and this meant that we still had time afterwards, for example if we had to reshoot. We shot our music video on the 27th and 28th October, the 27th being our narrative shoot, and the 28th being our performance.
The first shoot day turned out great; we all had a lot of fun and we created a logo and set we were really proud of. It was so much fun painting our logo onto the wall and then onto our actor, especially with all our friends around; on and off camera. We also produced a large replica of our logo onto the plasterboard which we were all incredibly proud of, as it looked pretty, professional and was just how we imagined it. The set was also done really well in my opinion, even though it did take quite a few hours in the morning! We spent a good while taping dust sheets to the walls and ceilings, but I think it worked effetively, producing the 'construction site' look we had in mind.

As we had painted the logo the first day, this meant that we could use it in the background of the second day shoot. Our second day was solely for our performance, meaning it was time for us to truly rock out and be the superstars we always wanted to be! But, as they say, being a popstar is not always as glamourous as it seems, and this was proven by the several cuts and bruises due to guitars and 5 inch heels. But all in all it was an incredible day; we had a lot of fun singing the lyrics and performing as if we were a proper band, and after the shoot, our friend took promo photos of us for our album artwork and website. The photos are all beautiful, and something I am really proud of and can't wait to show everyone!