Audience Feedback

We did a focus group with our class after they had seen our video to see what they thought of it. We also did an interview with a person interested in heavy metal music. These videos are shown below:

What further post production work is going to be required

The post production work that we will do in addition to the video is a website which we are going to put an interview on and also a CD digipak.

How is our project changing and developing

Our project has changed a lot from the very start of the term, when we started doing this project. Our first idea was to have a mechanic in a performance and narrative video to the song uprising by Muse. We then realised that this would never work, so we moved on to using Down And Out by Coma 69 making a performance based video. We were originally going to use the green screen to project firs and heavy metal band images, but due to the scaffolding we thought it looked better without it. We used lights and smoke to set the image of a heavy metal band, creating a great atmosphere.

Issues Within Editing

One of the issues we came up against was syncing the shots to the beat of the song, because if you moved it slightly when editing it would mean that we couldn't use that shot. We have done that with a few of our shots which has meant we couldn't use them.

Brief Commentary Of Our Rough Cut

Before starting the rough cut we re named all of out shots, therefore making it easier for us to find the good shots and the shots that weren't going to work naming them NG standing for no good. We also named them in terms of what they are making it easier to find each particular shot. We started our rough cut by dragging the song down on to the time line. Then we had to sync all of the shots. We did this by dragging the shot onto the timeline, then we muted the song so that we could hear where the beat started and where Rachel the singer started singing. We then cut it and dragged it to the start to sync each shot. We repeated this until we had used them all. After this we edited each shot normally to create a rough cut, which is a rough version of what we want our video to look like.

Strengths And Weaknesses Of Our Product So Far

So far on our rough cut we have found a couple of weaknesses amongst it. One of these weaknesses was that once we had synced all the tracks, we then somehow managed to unsync a few of the shots, which then meant we couldn't use them. Also, we haven't been able to all go and edit the rough cut altogether, so this meant we couldn't really discuss what everyone has done. The strengths of our product so far is the amount of different shots we have got such as tracking shots, slow motion shots, and lots more.

Coma 69 Timelapse

Coma 69 Post On Their Website

Coma 69 have posted a note of thanks on their website which is shown below: 

Editing Continued....

Max stayed behind after school to sync it and he also startes to edit the rough cut which at the moment is going very well. We have used the blade tool, to cut the shots to where we wanted them, then reusing them later on. We then dragged these shots onto the timeline and rearranged them into the order. So far the editing process is going very well and we are on track to completing it soon.

Research And Planning Evaluation

Research and Planning Evaluation

Behind The Scenes

Below is a link to a behind the scenes video I made with photos from the day:

Process Of Editing

Today we started to edit our music video. We started by syncing all our shots to the beat of the music, checking that the video of Rachel singing starts and when the start of the singing on the song started. We did this by dragging the shots onto the timeline and cutting the shots where it matches the song using the blade. We then started editing the shots, cutting it where we wanted the shots to go. Max and Bertie had a creative discussion about editing

Account Of Shoot Day

The day before our shoot day, we had to set up the scaffolding that the band are going to perform by. We also had to put up the lights on the scaffolding, to create the lights going amongst the band. Setting up the scaffolding took a while, as we had to bring the different sizes in and put them all in different locations to make it look effective.

When I woke up the morning before our shoot I was quite nervous about meeting the band. I didn't know what they were going to think of the scaffolding or even of us. I was also quite excited as our shoot day had finally come and all that we had been planning was finally going to be done. We could then see if it would work. We wanted to see all of our work come together as we had worked so hard over the past couple of weeks.

We had done as much as we could the day before. There was not a huge amount that we could do on the day. The band turned up slightly late because of traffic due to the rain, so there wasn't much we could do before they got there. This then meant that we didn't start filming till about 10 or 10:30. When they arrived we had to bring their instruments in and help to set them up.

Our studio set was not that complex. We used scaffolding to represent the heavy metal band and had LED strip lights screwed onto the scaffolding to light up the band. We didn't know what the band were going to think of it, as this was their first video, therefore it had to be how they wanted it.

We all played different roles. I started off by being the director, which was good as I got to watch it on the monitor seeing which shots we needed to add in to the music videos and which shots we didn't need according to our shot list. I then changed and moved on to playing the track. This involved playing the track when, whoever was filming said 'camera rolling' I had to say '3, 2, 1 go' and press play. I also had to pause it at then end, then repeat this. After doing this job, I moved on to doing a bit of filming. This involved much more than when we were creating our thrillers as the shot had to be accurate. It also enabled me to be able to see what the best shots would be to use in editing.

I think I did well at directing, as I am organised and I really enjoyed seeing the clips on the monitor. I also enjoyed filming the shoot as it enabled me to get involved and to develop my skills from AS on the camera.

One problem we encountered on the shoot day was that the band were late as they were stuck in traffic and flooding. This meant that we didn't start our shoot till much later than we wanted to. Having said this we still did manage to finish filming by 4:30.

I think the most successful part was when we started shooting the band. The video started to come together, we were really worried about what it was going to look like before the shoot day. On the actual day when we saw the lights all joint in with the band, we thought that it looked great. The tracking shot looked really good, especially when we did a tracking shot round the drummer, as we saw all sides of him playing the drums. This shot is going to be our opening shot in our music video I think.

The actors we used was an actual band so we did not have any problems with controlling them. They did what we wanted them to do and did it to the best of their ability. This made it much easier for us on the day, not making us stressed when trying to control them. I think it was also easier in that we had adults as our actors rather than students.

I enjoyed the whole day, I liked setting it up arranging it to how we wanted the scaffolding to look, I enjoyed meeting the band, which at first I was nervous about. I also enjoyed filming it seeing the shots we had sketched out in the animatic coming alive and seeing them work really well together, along with the lighting. The bit I didn't enjoy was taking it all down, because we were on a high from finishing and wanted to start editing, however we got on with it and had finished before we knew it.

I am looking forward to seeing all of our shots on the screen, seeing which shots worked and what shots didn't. I am also looking forward to editing it all together and seeing the finished piece.

I think our whole group worked really well as a team. We all put ideas forward saying how we wanted it to be done and what shots we wanted to include. We had Lydia who does photography, so she took photos of the day which was really good. Max and I worked on it all taking videos to put onto out blogs and seeing whether the shots looked good and we had Bertie who was really good at doing the lights. This worked really well as everyone did everything no one sat around doing nothing all day.

We asked the bands advice on the album covers that we had designed. They really liked them and said that they looked really effective and different. The one thing that they said they would like on our cover was the logo of the band so that the audience would know who the band were. Other than that they really liked our ideas. We filmed an interview with them so that we can put it onto our blogs, but also so they can put it on their website for the audience to see.

The Response To Our Email

Letter To Coma 69

CD Digipak Cover

Front Cover

Further Progress On The Album Cover

We have further developed our idea of food dye in water for the front cover and we are going to demonstrate it to see if it works and fits with how we want the front cover to look. The designs are shown below: Back and Front Covers

Record Label Options

We have had a look at record labels that support heavy metal bands. We have narrowed it down to 4. These being Nuclear Blast, GWR, EMI and Metal Blade. These record labels support bands that are in a similar category to Coma 69 such as Black Sabbath and Metallica. We now need to decide which one we want to be our band record label.

Here are the website to each of the record bands below:

http://www.nuclearblast.de/en/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_Records
http://www.emimusic.com/
http://www.metalblade.com/english/content.php

Album Cover Details

On the back of the album cover, we will have a list of all the songs that the band have written. These are:
From Hell
Karma
On The Edge
Down And Out
Heaven Help
The Truth
One Night Stand
Self Destruct
Sealed With A Kiss

We will also have a barcode on the back like a real CD cover has. We will also include the record label logo.

On the front we will have the name of the band

On the spine will be the album name and also again the name of the band.

Front Cover Options

The first cover we put up was going to be our front cover, but we decided that it would be better as a back cover so we have come up with some new ideas for the front cover which I have shown below:

Album Cover Designs

Progression Of Our Album Cover

Today, we decided to try and narrow down the ideas of what we wanted on our album cover. We all drew one of our designs, but we decided we didnt really like them. We thought that we had to look more closely into the title. The logo that the band have used is what we decided to use so that there was some of the bands influence into it. We then looked further into how they had written Coma 69. We looked at celtic images and found a celtic image of some fish. We have made a rough album back cover idea which is shown below:

 

 

CD Cover Template

Here is a template for a CD cover:

 

 



Research Into Artist's Website

This is coma 69's website and for the link to the website click here. The bands website is dark and gothic like the band themselves creating a sense of rebellion.












A website similar to this is Black Sabbath and a link to this website is here. What I like on this website is that the website is animated, so to click on the different sections you click pictures.

When designing our website I will be influenced by Coma 69's website being dark and edgy. I will also use Black Sabbaths idea of hovering over pictures to click on the sections of the website.

Planning A Photoshoot

One member of the band is planning to come to school in the next few weeks so therefore we can ask him the questions we want to ask and also take photos of him. This will be a very useful thing to do as it means that we can blog more in depth about the band.

Shooting Schedule

Shooting Schedule