Analyzing my first shoot

To analyse my first shoot i will elaborate of what is good and/or bad in one of my full shots (a video) and i will elaborate on a couple of screenshots which correspond to different angles i took some of the shots from.

This is one of the shoots that i took and i think this one had the best outcome therefore i can use this one to see what i can improve and get an overview of what worked and what didn't work


(video still to upload)

• My original idea was to fade from dark to medium light and then to well lit. i like the first bit of it when it goes from dark to medium light and i think it'll go well because it goes with the rithm of the song. However i feel that camera is quite low when it is dark, by this i meant that i know that you aren't supposed to see almost anything but i when you look at the dark part it does not look good. When i turned on the second part of the lighting (to well lit) i feel that because i had to manually switch on each light it does not look professional when you can see in the video that one light is switched one after the other (time) rather than they go on together.

• One other fault that i see when it is well lit is that the two guitarist and bassist are too lit in comparison to the lead singer. I think that have not used the 3 point soft lighting kit caused this problem because i had to use too much of the main stage lighting.

• I do like the amount of light that is on the drummer and the singer, however this takes away the eerie and dark effect that rock music videos tend to have.

• I do like the set up in this shot (where each band member is) and i'm glad that i tried to move them around before shooting to see what would work best.

• This clip is un-edited therefore the voice of the vocalist is faded away due to the noise of the actual drumming. This will of course be solved in editing stage as i will overlay the cover track on later.

• I think that what is missing in this clip are definitely props as we didn't have time to set up the amplifiers. However i think that this problem would be resolved if i did another shooting and i included the 3 soft lights (two of which would be visible in the background) and the cables to this would also full the stage a bit. Another thing that would help this, is that i should have shut the curtains at the very back and maybe added coloured lighting in the background to add interest.

These two angles are the ones i like most i think. It perfectly shows the band's unison and i think it would work great in my music video. Again, lighting is the only issue i have because in these shots you can cleary not see the drummer. One thing that would improve these angles however, would be to not leave too much space around the band. What i meant is that there shouldn't be as much free head space and side space. After all the music video is about the band.

These two shots are both from the same angle. The top one having the well lit lighting and the bottom picture the medium lighting. I think that from this angle it would have been great that instead of this being a still shot i would have made it the hand held shot and walked steadily from one side to the other. By doing this i could have also done the close ups that i wanted by passing by each member.

These two pictures emphasize my point of lighting. That the drummer is the one who suffers most in the medium light that i mostly liked. Another thing is that i shouldn't have filmed it straight on from the side, i should have instead shot it a bit diagonally.

 These are my wide to mid shots of each individual band member that i took. 

#1 - I do like the angle i shot this at, the only thing needed to tie this shot with the video would have been extreme/close ups of him playing the bass.

#2 - As mentioned previously i wish i had shot this at a slight diagonal angle therefore the only thing to tie this to the music video would have been extreme/close ups too.

#3 - I tries this one out and i did not like the low angle i created in this. Again, close ups would have been necessary.

#4 - This angle did not go well at all as i am filming "outwards" of the band, if i would have filmed this at the opposite angle which would have shown the band behind/to the side of him, it would have been a good shot too. And once again, close ups would have been needed.

The bottom picture shows the whole angle i shot at, the two above are a zoomed in version of either side. I think that this angle did not work at all and for me personally had no purpose. I feel that (top left) seeing the back of those two and members just did not look good at all. (top right) one of the band members completely faded away from this angle and that only the drummer would have somewhat benefited from this angle, however i it would have been a over the shoulder/close up as it shows on the zoomed in version on the top right.

I feel that overall the thing i have to work most at for my next/possible re-shoot is lighting. i have to make sure to include the 3 point soft light kit. Also close ups will be very important as i didn't manage to do so in this shoot.

Evaluation of the shoot (1)

• What worked:

- I stuck to my timing frames. So, i had an idea as to when i was supposed to do certain things which helped. I was able to start filming the band at the time i planned and we finished as planned too.

- Briefing the band was also effective as everyone was professional at the time of filming and they knew that whilst i was setting up the camera, lights and sound, they were going through the song and practiced.

- Because i kept to my 'other considerations' and talked to Charlie the day before about how to use the theater lighting i was quick to find a solution for when a problem came up *(mentioned in "What didn't work:".

- Making sure that the theater would be ready for that day and time along with making sure that we could borrow the music instruments beforehand made sure that i was actually able to film on that day and therefore not having to delay the shoot a few days back.

• What didn't work:

- There was a problem with the already programmed lighting that i did with Charlie the day before. I was only supposed to slide the button up in order for the middle lights to come up and then press the button underneath it, which would have gradually turned on the selected lighting. However when pressing the button as well as doing that, it turned on coloured light behind the band and i wasn't able to fix that within 10 minutes, therefore i opted to fade in the lights manually sliding up each individual button that corresponded to certain lights.

- Although i stuck to my timing frames i didn't take into account that to shoot the whole song one time through would take me around 7 to 10 minutes. Because i'd check that the camera was filming, then go and turn the lights down again, make them play the song through, go and check the camera had filmed it, set it up in a different angle, check everything and redo this over and over again. This caused me to not get as many individual shots of the band members as i planned to.

Shooting plan (1)

• Aims

My priority is to get some (3 to 4 different angles) individual shots of the drummer because he isnt as available as the other band members along with at least two takes from different angles of the whole band performing.

(Two indivual shots of the each guitarrist. Different angled shots (3 to 4) of the lead singer.) If there is time.

• Locations

School theater

• Personel

The band ( Conor, Rob, Sam, Dan)
And me.

• Equipment

SD card
Camera ()
Tripod
Soft light

• Date and times

Tuesday the 19th of November 2013
Preparation will be done from 12:00 until 3.15 (most likely by myself in order to check i have everything needed)
Directions given and practice shots form 3.15 until around 5 (due to one band member only being able to come at 5)
And the actual shoot will be done from 5:30 onwards in the theater.

• Other considerations

Make sure that baterry is full on camera
The SD card has enough space
Ask Charlie (the person that knows about lighting) on Monday (18th November), to go over what best lighting i can use for my shoot.

Risk Assessment

Research on Band CD Digipacks

Band CD covers are ways for artists to sometimes express themselves to further emphasise the meaning of either a particular song in the album or the whole album itself. 

A CD cover is also a way to bring synergy between the promotional/marketing side towards the content itself.

Band covers are somewhat logos or iconic pictures that define the artist and are there to make an impression on the audience thereby making it likely to be bought around the world. The CD cover can be as simplistic and as complicated as the artist wishes, but if this product is correctly marketed it will always have a big impact on its audience which makes it more likely to be sold.

However, one finds that in this day and age CD cover are getting more simpler and less important. To comparison, before, music artists were also involved with artist (paintings type art) which helped to produce a CD cover that would take the audiences attention and attract them in order to gain popularity. 

Pink Floyd 

This is Pink Floyd's front cover for the album "The Dark Side of The Moon" . It is extremety simple. It contained no band name not even the name of the album. This cover art was made by a graphic designer, Storm Thorgerson. He was involved in many other cover art work such as for the band Muse abd Led Zeppelin.

This cover was very unusual due to its simplicity. It didn't have anything that would be relatable to the band (as in an iconic symbol) nor did it have anything related to either the band's name or the name of the album apart from the word "dark".

However this was an album that became iconic for Pink Floyd. This became the album/cover that Pink Floys are still remembered by to this date.



This being Pink Floyd's back cover for the album "The Dark Side of The Moon". The back cover kept with the theme of its front cover. Although again, very simple it includes some common things that are usually included in CD digipacks. For example, this back cover includes the tracks included in the CD (which is the most common convention for digipacks), it includes by whom the album was produced by, it includes a copyright paragraph, a bar code, the band's website and the date for its UK release.



The gatefold for this same album, clearly also goes with the theme of the whole cover. It is black with the rainbow type feature running horizontally. As said previously, this album is a very simple design, therefore it is to be expected that this follows the same pattern in the gatefold. This gatefold simply inclued the reacurring theme of the outside bits and the lyrics to the songs that are included in the track list and/or in the cd itself.

Queen 

This is Queen's front cover for the album "News of The World". This was also a quite interesting CD digipack as it also includes actual paintings. For this front cover, the artist Frean Freas had agreed to alter his original paining which featured the same robot with a (random) dead man with the caption "Daddy can you fix it?..." to the robot hoding (and some falling to the ground) the four "dead" band members.

This cover however, does include the band's name and album name. Therefore following the convention of a vast majority of CD covers that include these two main features.



This is the back cover of this album. Its is the bottom part of the painting. As this painting must have been a vertically (rectangular) size, in order not to have emty space on the sides (if it were fitted in only the front cover), it was split in two so there is a continuity and same theme throughout the digipack. This back cover includes features such as the track list, the producer, the producing company and the record label. What i found interesting in this back cover is that it doesnt include a bar code as it would be normal to have. However i found that in different editions of this digipack it does include the bar code and i also found different editions that include a coryright paragraph.



This is the gatefold of this album. This art was made by the same artist that made the cover for this album. This gatefold is a painting of the same robot, but this time it is reaching for the (petrified) audience. I found out that due to showing the "dead" band members before and it showing a petrefied audience in the gatefold it created quite a controversy and one supermarket even refused to sell this album at first.

I find that this gatefold goes perfectly with the whole theme of this digipack. The digipack has its theme and it is represented in equal amounts by each of the features of this album. And although the paintings really stand out it is a very simplistic cover, as seen in this gatefold, the only thing that you can see is in fact, this painting.

However, today, technology has taken over and CD cover got less important. People will rather buy a song online and get it in digital form which enables them to easily transfer it to either their mobile phones or ipods for them to be able to listen to the song on a journey for example. The art covers nowadays tend to be the artists themselves that are displayed on the CD cover or a simple backgroung and lettering.

As much as the CD cover is still displayed on one of the most popular music download website (itunes), they dont matter that much aymore. One can simply type the artist or the song that they are looking for in the searchbar and it will pop up immediately and ready to download.

I thing that CD covers nowadays are not very interesting, or there is not much attention payed anymore. However they are still somewhat there and still have some effect on the market as far as sales go. Therefore i think that for the CD cover that i will be producing for Sleeping Serenity will remain simple, yet i hope that it will stand out enough for it to be easily recognizable and for it to portray the band.

Storyboard

As i'm not very good at drawing out my ideas i added some captions/symbols to my storyboard in order for it to portray what i actually wanted.

1) I gave each band member a number so that i could identify them in group shots (so i wouldn't get them mixed up) and so that i could identify them in individual shots.

2) The not filled in arrow represents where the camera/me would be standing. As in from which point of view it would be shot.

3) This symbol represents the shot being cut of (as i couldn't draw just the part of the shot i wanted), as in the shot would only be from end to end of that arrow.

4) This would be the panning action. To which direction i would be walking for my hand held shots.

5) The eye with an arrow pointing down represents looking down on the band. Therefore this is a high angled shot. 

6) The not filled in arrow again represents the pov of the camera, but for me to have it clearer i added a number (corresponding to a band member) to which i would be closest too when filming that particular shot

Live Video

 This is a video that was filmed a few months back of Sleeping Serenity performing live at Cox Green School.
 Although the sound quality of this video is not the best and i intend to use their cover of this song instead of the original, i think that i might be able to use sections of this video as a "before and after" feeling in my music video should i choose to do so.
 Just an idea being: the band starts to perform alone, with no audience and at the end of the song they would have gained fans and essentially an audience to perform to. In a way, meaning that they have grown in popularity.
 This video would also be perfect for me to include on their band website (should i choose to make the website) in order to give the audience a more approachable feel to the band. As they have another two videos besides this one at this concert i think that it would be a good idea to include those too.

Annotated Lyrics

I guilty stand before you
I know I misbehaved
I never meant to hurt you

I humbly beg forgiveness
Hope that my soul be saved
And if I had a final wish pretty Miss I would only ask this:

I want you to do me with a tommy-gun baby
With a tommy-gun baby do me, GUN-TOMMY
If you have to kill me use a tommy-gun baby
Use a tommy-gun baby do me, GUN-TOMMY

There ain't no use appealing
Your justice will prevail
This time I must be punished
No lawyer no attourney
No chance of breaking bail
So won't you grant this final wish pretty Miss?
Won't you save a last kiss?

I want you to do me with a tommy-gun baby
With a tommy-gun baby do me, GUN-TOMMY
If you have to kill me use a tommy-gun baby
Use a tommy-gun baby do me, GUN-TOMMY
I want you to do me with a tommy-gun baby
If you have to kill me use a tommy-gun baby

Gun-tommy (X 3)

Aaaah shoot me... 

I guilty stand before you
I know I misbehaved
I never meant to hurt you

I humbly beg forgiveness
Hope that my soul be saved
And if I had a final wish... 
I would only ask this:

I want you to do me with a tommy-gun baby
With a tommy-gun baby do me, GUN-TOMMY
If you have to kill me use a tommy-gun baby
Use a tommy-gun baby do me, GUN-TOMMY
I want you to do me with a tommy-gun baby
If you have to kill me use a tommy-gun baby

GUN-TOMMY!



These are the lyrics of the song that i have chosen.  I feel that there is not much meaning in them apart from the obvious 'he did something wrong and he is apologizing/asking to be punished for it'. Because of this, i think that visual representation is most likely not to occur in my music video.

The band

This is my chosen band which i will film my music video with. They have all agreed in advance to this (to which a form was signed for beforehand) and when talking to them we agreed on using their cover of the song "Tommy Gun" by Royal Republic.



Sleeping Serenity

Members:





Conor - Lead singer







Rob - Bassist








Sam - Guitarist







Dan - Drummer