R+P Post 33: Reflections on my role and contribution during Research and Planning

Overall, I think that as a group we all worked very well together during the research and planning stage, each of us playing to our strengths. Below I have summarised my personal contribution.

Lyric Analysis

As Cry Me A River is one of my favourite songs, I found it easy to break down each lyric and pin-point what emotion worked best for it and how that would translate into our music video. This was useful when it came to filming the test shoot as it gave Laith emotions he could portray for each line and section of the song to get an authentic performance.

Below is a picture of me putting together the lyric analysis.

Timeline

As the timeline and storyboard were being done at roughly the same time, we split our group based on strengths as to who should do what, and I took lead on the timeline. To be as organised as possible and to ensure that everyone's ideas were incorporated, before creating the actual finished timeline, we sat down and decided as a group roughly what shots would be in each section. I then went away and pinned this down into each individual shot with the exact timings and lyrics to match. I also finalised how we were shortening the song as its original length is too long for this project.

Creating our timeline

Rehearsals

Alongside Meera, I helped choreograph the dancing in the video and teach it to the boys.

Filming and directing

As Laith is in nearly every shot, Meera and I took turns filming and directing his lip-sync and dance shots. During the test shoot, as I have quite a steady hand and really enjoy using the camera, I filmed the hand held shots of Laith's lip-sync as well as acting as performance director, helping Laith portray the emotions needed.

On camera, checking performance

Hand held shot

Performing in the video

Throughout the video I am in some dance shots, crossover narrative shots and conceptual shadow shots with Laith and our extra actor, Adam. Some of the shots with both me and Laith in were quite hard to shoot as Meera was having to do everything else by herself but as a group we managed to make it work, with Laith and I stepping out to help set up as much of the shot as we could beforehand. Also, Meera and I both dance with the same set up in the video and as we both come from dance backgrounds this role really suited us and we really enjoyed performing. 

Example performance shot

Editing the test footage

I actually really like editing and enjoyed editing our rough cut and picking out the good parts as well as what we need to improve on for the main shoot. Doing the rough cut helped us learn the best and quickest ways to edit a music video and was a huge learning curve.

Laith and I editing

R+P Post 32: Test shoot and rough edit

Above is the rough edit of our test shoot footage that was shot in the studio. This was a huge learning curve for us and highlighted, both, things that worked well and what we need to change for our main shoot in order to have a successful and professional video.


The main thing the test shoot helped with was pinning down exactly what we wanted for our lighting and making sure that it worked. On the whole we are happy with how our lighting came out and perfecting it for the test actually went a lot quicker than we had first thought.

I am particularly happy with the blue back-lit set up we have for the female dancers, which can be seen below, as it looked very effective during the edit and gave the vibe that we were after.

I also really liked the 'flicker' light that we used for some of the lip-sync as it gave a darker, mysterious feel that fits with the lyrics.

R+P Post 31: My call sheet

We created a call sheet for every day of our shoot to give to all members of the cast and crew do that everyone knew what time they needed to arrive by and when they would be needed on set.

Below is an example of one of our call sheets

The call sheet also includes health and safety information and the locations of each station, costume, make up etc, which are vital if the shoots are to run smoothly.

R+P Post 30: My shootboard

So that our shoot days run smoothly and we get all of the shots that we need, we created a detailed shootboard with drawings of each shot, a column specifiying their framing, any props we need, location and the time we will start filming.

Below are example pages from our Saturday location shoot

For all of our shootboard pages, on location and in the studio, we have grouped shots together logically by set up, location and cast required to ensure that we aren’t wasting time unnecessarily switching back and forth between lighting or having people there when we don’t need them.


We also have left a space next to the shot number to record how many takes we took of each shot and which one we think at the time is the best to use in the actually edit. This will help save time when editing and will make the process of choosing our shots easier.

R+P Post 29: Rehearsals

To prepare for our shoots, we had rehearsals with all of our actors and dancers, so that on the day they weren't blindsided by what we needed them to do and also to ensure that they could believably portray the part we had cast them in.

Below is an example of one week's rehearsal schedule.

As an emotional song it was very important that Laith (AJ) had a believable lip-sync and emotions tied to the lyrics. To get an idea of where Laith was at with this, after we chose our song we did a quick screen test with him which can be seen below.

The screen test helped point out what areas needed more work before the main shoot for example, Laith needed to stay completely in character the whole way through and to really sing for it to look authentic.
To help with this we asked one of our friends Tyra, who is a drama student, to help Laith with his acting and really connect with the lyrics. This was actually really effective and the improvement from the screen test to the test shoot has been huge.

Below is an example from the screen test and test shoot showing the improvement in the lip-sync due to the rehearsals.

Fitting with R&B conventions, our music video has a lot of dancing and so it was important that we had rehearsals to teach our dancers the choreography, ensuring that it looks effective. These rehearsals actually went really well and I am very pleased with how the dancing has improved.

Below is a picture from one of our rehearsals

R+P Post 28: My kit list

For our shoots we will have two different kit lists - one for on location and one for the studio.

Location

Our Camera

• Canon Legria HFG30 Camera
• Libec TH-650HD Tripod
• Canon DM-100 Microphone
• Headphones
• 64 GB SD card
• Two batteries
• Three Point Lighting System 
• Clapper Board
• Whiteboard pen and cloth

Our Tripod

Studio

• Canon 5D MK 11 Camera
• 650 ARRI Turret Lights
• ARRI Studio lights
• Projector
• Cyclorama
• Monitor
• Dolly
• Shoulder support rig for the hand held shots
• Lighting and sound desk

Before our test shoot we had a technical training session in the studio and went over all of the health and safety issues in the studio to ensure that we could use the equipment properly and safely, getting the best footage possible.

R+P Post 27: Casting

In casting for our music video it was important for us to pick people that could give an authentic performance and are reliable, as the rehearsals and actual shoots are very time consuming.

Below is a table of our cast, summarising their strengths and why they were chosen.

R+P Post 26: Set design, locations and props

In addition to shooting in the studio, we have many shots on location both performance and narrative.
Below is a table summarising each location that we plan to use.

On the days of the shoot we will ensure that each location is properly dressed, for example taking down any photos of other people and removing any clutter.

The location performance shots, by the lampost, wall and alleyway, will hopefully look very effective and provide good contrast with the slick, studio lip-sync, especially with the old fashioned lampost. We will also ensure that we don't get any members of the public in the shots to keep the feeling of AJ's personal struggle going.

We also made a list of all the props that we will need when on location:

• Phones
• Plates
• Cutlery
• Full-length mirror

R+P Post 25: Costumes, props and make-up

Costumes, props and make-up are a key part of a music video as they help create the varying identities of the artist portrayed in the video. It is important that these looks are unique and memorable as they make up part of the artists branding and will in turn make it easier to sell them.

For our narrative sections in the music video we have several costumes for Laith, showing the passing of time in his life and relationship with his girlfriend. Below are the narrative costumes.

Also for the narrative shots Laith will be wearing glasses, to help portray AJ as the lovable geek and a shark tooth necklace which is his lucky charm and will be seen throughout all sections of the music video as well as the promo shots.




Our extra actor Adam will be dressed similarly but with a baseball cap to make him easily distinguishable from Laith, which will also help make him recognisable as one of the shadows in the studio screen set up.

For the performance shots in the studio Laith will be wearing black skinny jeans with a white t-shirt and casual black shirt with the sleeves rolled up. This costuming fits with the brand image we wanted to create for AJ and works with the genre of the song.

Performance costume

For the group dances all of the guys will be wearing plain white t-shirts, black skinny trousers and dark trainers. Even though these shots are completely back-lit, and so not much of the costumes will be seen, it is still important that they all match so that the outline is the same for all of the dancers, giving a sleek and professional look. Below is an example of this costume.

For the narrative sections I, as the girlfriend, will be wearing several casual yet stylish costumes, again showing the time passing in the relationship, which can be seen below.

Meera and I will be wearing plain crop tops and leggings for our dance sections, as seen below. We wanted to keep this costume simple because again the shots will be back-lit and also because we are supposed to just help give movement to the emotions in the song, leaving the focus still on Laith's performance.

In terms of make-up, Laith will have basic face make-up on to eliminate any redness or shine. My makeup will be kept fairly simple with focus on the eyes - mascara, winged eyeliner and a basic nude smokey eye with foundation and gloss. An example of the eye look I was inspired by can be seen below.

R+P Post 24: Planning my digipak panels

After our individual album cover research, our group came together and picked out the conventions we needed to follow and decided on the unique aesthetic we wanted to create to ensure our cover was eye-catching and did its job promoting the artist.

Below is the flat plan for our album cover.

Front and Back Panel

Inside Panels

Inspiration for our pose

Front Panel

Focal Image

• MCU of AJ  
• Angled on a slight diagonal to the camera but his head is turned back so that he is still directly addressing the camera
• Wearing smart black coat seen in music video
• Serious expression

Background

• Plain grey background - 'murky' 
• Similar background to Amy Winehouse's album seen below

Text

• AJ written in a slightly curved font in the top right hand corner
• His name written in this way will be repeated across all of the marketing
• Album name written in simple white bock capitals along the bottom

Back Panel

Focal Image

• LS of AJ on the right hand side
• Edited with different transparencies to show the movement of his arm up as he goes o run it through his hair
• Jeans, white v-neck top and black shirt

Background

• Same as front panel background

Text

• Song names along left hand side
• bar code, release date and institutional information along the bottom in conventional order and space

Inside Panel (Left)

Focal Image

• Words expressing AJ's personality, beliefs, emotions and thoughts on the album making the shape of AJ's side profile 

Background

• Plain dark grey

Inside Panel (Right)

Focal Image

• MCU of AJ
• AJ facing away from camera

Background

• Shot on location so background will be the alleyway from the music video
• Edited black and white to give a similar vibe to the front panels with their muted colour scheme

We got feedback after completing our flat plans from members of our TA and the responses were very positive with the colour scheme and word effect being picked out as what people were most looking forward to seeing.

R+P Post 23: Planning my web pages

An artist's website is a crucial part of their marketing as it acts as a hub for all of their information, creating a cross media converged, synergised website that is easy to access for the audience, fun and interactive.

After our website research we sat down as a group and discussed the styling for our website and a list of conventions we wanted to include before Meera draw out our final idea for the homepage.

Our website flatplan

The main focus for our homepage is the album release information with a direct link to buy it and a photo of AJ, following conventions we've seen on other websites.

The website home will also be a scrolling page, showing the most important information and catching the audience's eye with each section having a different cover photo. As well as the first page seen when the website is first opened, as the audience scrolls down they will see the music video, purchasing opportunities and social media links, including an embedded live Twitter Feed.

Below is a zoomed out screen shot showing a section of Jason Derulo's website, with the different cover photos.

Also on our website, inspired by the research seen in post 11, we will include a menu bar which will include the pages:

• Home
• as outlined above
• About 
• giving key information on AJ and a personal insight into his personality with fun interviews
• Music 
• purchasing opportunities for the album and individual songs as well as information into the writing process and what inspired them 
• Videos 
• the music video will be embedded here along with behind the scenes footage of the shoot and funny bloopers
• Tour 
• dates and address for AJ's live performances
• Photos 
• professional pictures of AJ and a link to his Instagram
• Shop 
• purchasing opportunity for merchandise such as T-Shirts, jumpers, posters and mugs

After planning out all of our pages, we showed members of our TA to see what they thought and the feedback we received was positive, with people saying that they 'really liked the layout' and 'could see it working in real life'.

R+P Post 22: Planning my promo shots

As the promo shots will be play a key part in presenting AJ to his audience, it is important that they showcase the various sides to his personality.

We want a mixture of location and studio promo shots following conventions we've seen from other artists showing both the smooth, professional side and the more vulnerable, 'real' side.
Below are some examples showing the vibe we are going for for some of our promo shots.

Promo shots from Raleigh Ritchie and Ne-Yo

I think these promo shots are very effective because they capture different sides of the artists and are all very striking. I particularly like Raleigh Ritchie's shot where he is frowning off camera giving the picture a spur of the moment feel as if it was unplanned. I think if we can combine promo shots like this with some of the more polished ones similar to Ne-Yo's, we could have some very eye-catching promo shots.

In addition to these more traditional and 'serious' promo shots, I would like to include some more goofy and fun on the website as well the artist's instagram. This will help show off AJ's personality as the slightly awkward, goofy yet lovable geek.

R+P Post 21: My key shots storyboard

After creating our timeline, we made a storyboard of key shots which can be seen below.

We split our storyboard into 4 sections: narrative shots, performance shots on location, studio lip-sync shots and studio dance shots. Splitting it like this and colour coding the shots by their framing made it very quick and easy to see if we had enough variety to keep the video visually interesting. In addition to this, the colour coding helped us see if we were following music videos conventions - having dramatic framing changes like extreme wides to ECUs.

Studio performance section

Dance section

Performance on location section

Narrative section

We did storyboard all of our narrative shots because we thought that this was the section that could get the most confusing and so if we had concrete plans for each shot we could try and stop any chance of that.

Overall, the storyboard has been very useful as it gave us visual references for our most important shots which will make out shootboard and actual filming easier.

R+P Post 20: My music video timeline

After our steal-o we created a detailed timeline in order to map out properly all of our ideas for the video.

Our timeline

We split the timeline into the introduction and each verse, bridge and chorus to make it easier for us to plan for. This was extremely helpful as it allowed us to quickly and easily see how long each section was and in turn each of our individual planned shots. This was also the stage where we finalised how we would cut down our song because the original is too long for this project and gets very repetitive at the end. 

Close up on all of the sections of our timeline

The timeline also helped us to see if we were getting too repetitive with our shots in terms of framing and location. In addition to this, we also put in lines for lyrics and lighting for each shot as we found that having all this information in one place very helpful and it also helped us see if our visuals worked with the lyrics.

Planning things out in this much detail at this stage will hopefully help us further down the line for our shootboard, schedule and edit. 

R+P Post 19: My influences and vision for the project

For this project we created a Steal-o-matic which is a moving, visual representation of our ideas with shots taken from a selection of influential music videos and is what we hope our finished video will look similar to.

Our steal-o-matic

This exercise was extremely helpful as it made us aware of exactly what our ideas looked like with the music and whether they gave the vibe that we wanted. It also helped us to pin down precisely what shots we wanted and made us aware of the kind f pace we needed to create in our real edit so that our video didn't get boring.

The steal-o-matic also made us go away and plan in more detail all of our shots so that every group member had a clear vision of what we were all after, instead of vague descriptions that would make the actual filming harder if we didn't sort out.

R+P Post 18: Analysis of my track's lyrics and instrumentation

Once we had our song, we wrote all the lyrics out onto sugar paper and annotated them with our original shot ideas, our interpretation of the words and the feelings/thoughts associated with them.

Below is part of our lyric analysis

As seen in our analysis we interpreted the lyrics in a way that easily built a narrative - the main character is cheated on by his girlfriend.


Equilibrium

• The artist is reflecting on the good times with his girlfriend and the love they shared
• Cute couple shots showing their relationship, ending with the girlfriend walking out the room

Disruption

• The realisation that something is wrong and the relationship isn't as perfect as he first thought
• She's distant with him
• Montage of the girlfriend with another guy

Attempts to resolve

• Both the main character and the girlfriend are aware that the relationship is failing
• They're arguing - trying to fix things
• She's begging him to forgive her

Resolution

• They both realise that the trust is broken and agree to end things
• The main character forgives the cheating but understands that he must move on and remove himself from that environment

We also wanted to ensure that we built in audio-visual theory, therefore having a strong relationship between the lyrics and narrative and performance shots. For example on lines that reference this 'other guy', such as 'I found out from him' and 'must have me confused with some other guy' we want to have shot of the girlfriend with the other guy to draw a strong connection.

In addition to this we also came up with a list of gestures to match specific lyrics which can be seen below.

R+P Post 17: My Chosen Track

Cry Me A River

Artist: Justin Timberlake

Album: Justified
Genre: R&B (contemporary)

Label: Jive Records

Writers: Justin Timberlake, Timothy Mosley and Scott Storch
Producer: Timberland
Released: 25th November 2002

We chose Cry Me A River by Justin Timberlake because it is a song that we all really like and were instantly inspired by - we found it easier to come up with ideas fro this song than any of the others we shortlisted.

Below is a list of pros and cons for our track

To be able to use this song for our project, we had to consider copyright and so I contacted Sony Music Entertainment, the parent company of Jive Records, which was merged with RCA Records in 2009 before being shutdown in October 2011. Although I haven't got a reply yet, here is a copy of the email that I sent.

R+P Post 16: My Band or Artist

Artist Profile

• Name: AJ
• Age: 19
• Lives in London
• Campaigns to raise awareness for mental health issues
• 'Lovable, goofy geek' character 

Brief notes on key aspects of AJ

We decided to go for a single name for our artist as this is very common for male R&B artists, for example Usher, Mario, Ne-Yo, and AJ, as well as being catchy, was well received by members of our target audience when we asked for their feedback. 

It was important to our group that our artist stood for something important and incorporated this into their music, which they genuinely had a passion for - creating meaningful songs that showcased his thoughts and feelings which could maybe help others when they heard it. This is why we decided that AJ would be a campaigner for awareness on mental health issues, having suffered from depression himself and hard hitting themes such as that would be covered in his music as well as the conventional themes of relationships and love. In addition to this, we believed that this would help him stand out in the genre and make his mark as a star.

Key inspiration - Stuart from The Internship

AJ's personality was inspired by the goofy, lovable geek character, showing his intelligence and awkwardness next to his fun, outgoing side. These characteristics aren't typically associated with R&B singers who tend to be very smooth and put together. This again helps AJ to stand out and capitalises on the trend of the growing popularity of less polished artists and celebrities on a whole, who with their authentic, down to earth nature, sell very well on the idea that anyone could become their best friend or follow in their footsteps with the right hard work.






Already well-established artists that also influenced our brand image for AJ include Raleigh Ritchie and Ne-Yo. Raleigh Ritchie inspired us with his goofy nature and authentic, down to earth personality and Ne-Yo influenced our decision to have our artist not afraid to speak out against hard hitting issues, such as racial stereotypes.

Creating a clear brand image for AJ through his debut single's music video, album cover, website and social media is very important and will ensure that he meets audience's expectations of conventions whilst still bringing something new and unique that will make him stand out and successful.