Production Diary
Meeting 1 we discussed song ideas in our group and thought of potential themes for the video. We listened to a number of songs on YouTube and discussed ideas with our eyes closed to see what we pictured with the music playing. From this first session looking for song ideas we began listening to a number of XX songs and these looked like likely contenders for our final music video.
Meeting 2 we split the group and carried out different roles. Me and James were in charge of choosing a certain song choice and analysing the lyrics to determine what ideas we could implement in our video. Will and Ben were in charge of searching for 1 more song to complete our 3 song choices, they showed us each song they found and asked for our opinion on them. During this meeting we listened to a lot of music videos and this ended up encouraging us to think about more songs and more ideas in order to make the best video possible.
Meeting 3 In this meeting I was in charge of searching for props on the internet to see how we could purchase or access these specific props. Props ranged from looking for a bath tub on ebay to finding enough paint and food colouring to create the effect of blood.
As a group we all came together around the table in order to discuss when we would be able to film the footage for our video and due to this we are able to organise ourselves and decide when we are able to begin filming our video
Meeting 4 we were all having doubts about the song 'Fantasy' by The XX as it was too slow paced which meant our audience would get bored listening to it so it would put more pressure on us to get interesting shots to keep the audience entertained. We wanted to keep our concept ideas the same so because of this we began looking around for other songs we could use however all we found were unsuitable because they featured the voices of female singers and this is unrealitec as we are a group of boys.
Meeting 11 the filming day is getting closer. We used this meeting to gather all the equepment needed t film and pack it away ready to be packed into cars ready for transportation down to the river. We also used this meeting to try and test the generator we will be taking with us to ensure we could start it and that it would power the lights and speaker safely. it was a good job we tested it because no matter how hard we tried we couldn't get it to start so we found the school caretaker who gave us a crash course on how to start this machine.
Meeting 12 The day of the big shoot! We packed the cars grabbed the generator and headed down to our location much to our amazement the field was being used but that wasn't a problem as we were given permission by the head teacher of the private school to use the field for access. We began unloading the cars pulling parts of drums and keyboard out of the cars and began the walk down to the river it was all looking amazing and then we wanted to test our music and guess what! We couldn't start the generator we just didn't have the gift. this wasn't a problem however as i remembers that i had a generator hidden in my garage we went to go and grab it while also taking the opportunity to grab a couple of pairs of wellies, a pair of waders and a pair of boots to ensure we didn't get too cold. To my amazement the generator which hadn't been started for the best part of 6 years started first time and then we could begin filming our video.
Meeting 13 Another day another shot! i wasn't personally there for this shoot as i had sporting commitments however the boys were able to head down to the teachers parents house to go and film some amazing shots with the go pro and a swimming pool. The footage looks amazing top work.
Meeting 14 We used this meeting to film some close ups of Ben and James singing the song to give ourselves some footage we could use to fill the bits we are missing from our big shoot at the river we played around with different lighting methods to give the best effect. We also took this time to take some photos of us as a band which could be used in the digipak or website.
Meeting 15 In this lesson we filmed some long shots of James dressed in costume following a girl across the field as our song is a love song we felt we should incorporate a little bit of love but with a strange and slightly creepy concept them.
Production Diary 31;
Again in this lesson I got more feedback on my magazine article after improving upon it. This time I had to improve on the icons in the text as the writing has to mould around them, this is something I found tricky to do but managed to over come it to make the final magazine article.
Production Diary 30:
Like the lesson before, in this lesson I got given feedback again. But this time the feedback was on my logo. People said they liked the black and white theme as it matched the Indie style however they said that as we are a small Indie band not may people would be aware that NI stands for No Individual. Using this feedback I got on and improved the logo, ensuring that our bands name was shown in the logo.
Production Diary 29:
In this lesson I got the feedback from the magazine's first draft. I found that people really liked the template design as they thought I matched it very well to the original. However they said that there wasn't enough text in it and the text that was in it wasn't in the style of writing that most magazines are written in as it lacked the quirky element. Using this feedback I did some more brainstorming and enhanced on my knowledge of the band, adding to the text whilst ensuring that I get some humour in it.
Production Diary 28:
After completing the first draft for the magazine article, I had to wait to get feedback from it. I took this time to look for ideas for our Logo. As we are an Indie band I looked at Indie band logos and found that most of them if not all of them were in black and white. Therefore I designed mine in black and white. I wanted to abbreviate the logo so that it didn't just say 'No Individual' as this could look quite bland and boring. So I experimented with the 'N' and the 'I' and came up with the 'I' moulding into the 'N'.
Production Diary 27:
In today's lesson I looked at magazine articles and chose one to base the design around. I chose to follow the design of NME magazine articles as they are the best magazine to follow where the music industry is concerned. I chose one article from NME and started copying the template it proposes. I then looked at what was written in NME magazine articles. Most of them talk about the band and how they originated so I got brainstorming and thought of information to include about the band.
Production Diary 26:
Now most of the filming was done it was time to get onto the construction side of the course. This involved making a Logo, Website, Digipack and a magazine article. Each of us was assigned roles. James was to make the website, Steve was in charge of the Digipack whilst I was assigned to do the magazine article and logo.
Production Diary 25:
TENTH SHOOT - This would be our final shoot and it would be a smashing shoot.. quite literally. We went to a wasteland and smashed bottles filled with water. We felt that this would represent the breaking of boys heart in the music video as he cant get the girl he loves. We would experiment with slow motion to capture the breaking glass and water spilling out.
Production Diary 24:
NINTH SHOOT - We took time out of lesson today to go and get more footage. This time we filmed the band walking through Admirals park in Chelmsford whilst each member carried the objects they perform with. I carried the keyboard, Steve carried the drum set whilst James carried the mike and stand.
Production Diary 23:
EIGHTH SHOOT - Today was the day where we filmed Steve drumming in the middle of the school field. The challenge we faced was trying not to get the school in the background.
Production Diary 22:
Today we focused on getting further filming ideas. We needed to get more shots of Steve drumming as the shots we got before showed him drumming off beat. We discussed locations and decided to have him drumming in the middle of a field.
Production Diary 21:
Today we spent time planning on further shots we need to get. We needed to get reverse and slow motion shots but we weren't sure as to what objects to use. We brainstormed ideas and came up with balloons, beer and wine bottles.
Production Diary 20:
SEVENTH SHOOT - Will and James filmed today in the street. James laid down in his blue suit in the middle of the road
Production Diary 19:
SIXTH SHOOT - Today Will and I took the time to get more shots done. We went in the green room and took shots in the pitch black where I sat whilst a flash light was used to light up my face, giving it a sinister look.
Production Diary 18;
HALFWAY EVALUATION: Today we presented our half way evaluation and were filmed in the process of doing so. We presented things such as our background and how we got to where we are today, to showing our website which includes information about each band member and where and when we are touring!
Production Diary 17:
For our half way evaluation we decided that we would put an interview of the band into our presentation to give it more of a professional edge. Will was behind the camera and asked us questions to do with how we formed etc.
Production Diary 16:
Today we were told that we had reached the half way evaluation point and are required as a group to present how we are doing so far. We each came together and gave each person allocated roles as to who would do each part of the presentation.
Meeting 2 we split the group and carried out different roles. Me and James were in charge of choosing a certain song choice and analysing the lyrics to determine what ideas we could implement in our video. Will and Ben were in charge of searching for 1 more song to complete our 3 song choices, they showed us each song they found and asked for our opinion on them. During this meeting we listened to a lot of music videos and this ended up encouraging us to think about more songs and more ideas in order to make the best video possible.
Meeting 3 In this meeting I was in charge of searching for props on the internet to see how we could purchase or access these specific props. Props ranged from looking for a bath tub on ebay to finding enough paint and food colouring to create the effect of blood.
As a group we all came together around the table in order to discuss when we would be able to film the footage for our video and due to this we are able to organise ourselves and decide when we are able to begin filming our video
Meeting 4 we were all having doubts about the song 'Fantasy' by The XX as it was too slow paced which meant our audience would get bored listening to it so it would put more pressure on us to get interesting shots to keep the audience entertained. We wanted to keep our concept ideas the same so because of this we began looking around for other songs we could use however all we found were unsuitable because they featured the voices of female singers and this is unrealitec as we are a group of boys.
Meeting 5 in this fith meeting we discussed more ideas for songs and we finally found the one we all liked and thought we would be able to use our origional concept ideas we were planning for Fantasy this also meant we would be able to film sooner rather than waste more time trying to find a song as by this time we were starting to be hassled by teachers to get on with it. The song we chose is 'Falling For You' by the 1975.
Meeting 6 this meeting mainly focused on choosing our lead singer. We held a mini audition in the green room of the media class room. We wanted to find out who is the best at lip syncing in time to the song we wish to make a music video for. After we had filmed the audition we all agreed that James was best Ben was second and I was last however it was commented i could act 'Spaced Out'.
Meeting 7 This meeting wasn't really a structured group meeting however this was indeed our first attempt at gathering some footage for our video. This filming session involved transporting a bath from Wills house to a carpark in chelmsford. We filled the bath up with river water and red food colouring to resemble blood in my opinion it looked very convincing. James and Ben took the hit for the team and both spent a long time in the bath while Will filmed and i took photos.
Meeting 8 in this meeting we set about emailing the company who owns the rights to the song Falling For You by 1975. Ben was the one to send the email however we all tried to contribute to ensure we didn't send something that didn't look professional.
Meeting 9 In this meeting we realised that we needed somewhere to film the production element of our music video and we wanted to film somewhere with water and because of this we were all thinking to film in the river however we scrolled across the length of the River Chelmer to no avail as we couldn't find somewhere close enough to transport all the equipment needed to the locations.
Meeting 10 in this meeting Ben came up trumps with a top shooting location which we would be able to gain access to from the private school playing fields opposite. The location was on the River Wid and under the train bridge on the outskirts of gallewood we all agreed that this location was what we wanted so we all went down to have a look and then realised that we would need a method of providing electricity to fuel the lights and speakers needed because of this we went back to the classroom and made a list of the equepment needed to film.
Meeting 7 This meeting wasn't really a structured group meeting however this was indeed our first attempt at gathering some footage for our video. This filming session involved transporting a bath from Wills house to a carpark in chelmsford. We filled the bath up with river water and red food colouring to resemble blood in my opinion it looked very convincing. James and Ben took the hit for the team and both spent a long time in the bath while Will filmed and i took photos.
Meeting 8 in this meeting we set about emailing the company who owns the rights to the song Falling For You by 1975. Ben was the one to send the email however we all tried to contribute to ensure we didn't send something that didn't look professional.
Meeting 9 In this meeting we realised that we needed somewhere to film the production element of our music video and we wanted to film somewhere with water and because of this we were all thinking to film in the river however we scrolled across the length of the River Chelmer to no avail as we couldn't find somewhere close enough to transport all the equipment needed to the locations.
Meeting 10 in this meeting Ben came up trumps with a top shooting location which we would be able to gain access to from the private school playing fields opposite. The location was on the River Wid and under the train bridge on the outskirts of gallewood we all agreed that this location was what we wanted so we all went down to have a look and then realised that we would need a method of providing electricity to fuel the lights and speakers needed because of this we went back to the classroom and made a list of the equepment needed to film.
Meeting 12 The day of the big shoot! We packed the cars grabbed the generator and headed down to our location much to our amazement the field was being used but that wasn't a problem as we were given permission by the head teacher of the private school to use the field for access. We began unloading the cars pulling parts of drums and keyboard out of the cars and began the walk down to the river it was all looking amazing and then we wanted to test our music and guess what! We couldn't start the generator we just didn't have the gift. this wasn't a problem however as i remembers that i had a generator hidden in my garage we went to go and grab it while also taking the opportunity to grab a couple of pairs of wellies, a pair of waders and a pair of boots to ensure we didn't get too cold. To my amazement the generator which hadn't been started for the best part of 6 years started first time and then we could begin filming our video.
Meeting 13 Another day another shot! i wasn't personally there for this shoot as i had sporting commitments however the boys were able to head down to the teachers parents house to go and film some amazing shots with the go pro and a swimming pool. The footage looks amazing top work.
Meeting 14 We used this meeting to film some close ups of Ben and James singing the song to give ourselves some footage we could use to fill the bits we are missing from our big shoot at the river we played around with different lighting methods to give the best effect. We also took this time to take some photos of us as a band which could be used in the digipak or website.
Meeting 15 In this lesson we filmed some long shots of James dressed in costume following a girl across the field as our song is a love song we felt we should incorporate a little bit of love but with a strange and slightly creepy concept them.
Production Diary 31;
Again in this lesson I got more feedback on my magazine article after improving upon it. This time I had to improve on the icons in the text as the writing has to mould around them, this is something I found tricky to do but managed to over come it to make the final magazine article.
James finished the first draft of the website today in class, creating a gallery page where you can see behind the scene images of the filming in action.
Steve finished the first draft to the digipack, adding a few more pictures he found on the photo camera we used when filming whilst Will got back to editing the video.
Production Diary 30:
Like the lesson before, in this lesson I got given feedback again. But this time the feedback was on my logo. People said they liked the black and white theme as it matched the Indie style however they said that as we are a small Indie band not may people would be aware that NI stands for No Individual. Using this feedback I got on and improved the logo, ensuring that our bands name was shown in the logo.
Again James added to the website, getting on with the third page which was the tour dates. He researched locations where to play at and added them to the third page. Steve needed to get more photo's for the digipack as the images in the video weren't high enough quality. He needed to get pictures of the band together so at lunch we all went out and got a photo of the three of us standing in a line to use for the back cover of our digipack. Will took time out of editing to discuss potential digipack covers and it was Will's idea to get the picture of the three of us standing in a line.
Production Diary 29:
In this lesson I got the feedback from the magazine's first draft. I found that people really liked the template design as they thought I matched it very well to the original. However they said that there wasn't enough text in it and the text that was in it wasn't in the style of writing that most magazines are written in as it lacked the quirky element. Using this feedback I did some more brainstorming and enhanced on my knowledge of the band, adding to the text whilst ensuring that I get some humour in it.
James continued to experiment with the home page for our website, changing the background to try and meet the Indie image. He left it as black however we all felt that this was too bland and didn't keep the viewer interested. However he managed to complete the second page which explains each band member in depth, describing each one. Steve continued to gather photos for the digipack. He cleverly decided to get our theme of water clearly shown on the CD by going out in his own time and taking a picture of the ripples of water in a swimming pool. Over the weekend Will saw a music video that had water dropping onto the camera and thought that this would be a useful shot in our video. He took time to attempt to recreate this shot however he hand no way of getting the pipette, which he used for the water droplet, to get out of shot.
Production Diary 28:
After completing the first draft for the magazine article, I had to wait to get feedback from it. I took this time to look for ideas for our Logo. As we are an Indie band I looked at Indie band logos and found that most of them if not all of them were in black and white. Therefore I designed mine in black and white. I wanted to abbreviate the logo so that it didn't just say 'No Individual' as this could look quite bland and boring. So I experimented with the 'N' and the 'I' and came up with the 'I' moulding into the 'N'.
James and Steve continued carrying on with the website and digipack. James managed to get the theme of water in our music video showing in our website by making the background a flowing image of the sea. Steve trial ran a few pictures from our music video on the digipack. Turning them to black and white to fit the Indie image, whilst Will experimented with different effects on the music video such as fireworks in the background in the performance element of our video.
Production Diary 27:
In today's lesson I looked at magazine articles and chose one to base the design around. I chose to follow the design of NME magazine articles as they are the best magazine to follow where the music industry is concerned. I chose one article from NME and started copying the template it proposes. I then looked at what was written in NME magazine articles. Most of them talk about the band and how they originated so I got brainstorming and thought of information to include about the band.
James focused on doing research into websites, trying to find out what design to follow. He went on and looked at Indie band websites such as 'The 1975' and 'Alt J'. He found that most of the websites followed a bold theme, ensuring that everything stood out whilst Steve did the same but for the digipack. He looked at Indie digipacks and found out that the majority of them followed a black and white theme and started to base our design around what he found. Will carried onto edit the music video.
Now most of the filming was done it was time to get onto the construction side of the course. This involved making a Logo, Website, Digipack and a magazine article. Each of us was assigned roles. James was to make the website, Steve was in charge of the Digipack whilst I was assigned to do the magazine article and logo.
Production Diary 25:
TENTH SHOOT - This would be our final shoot and it would be a smashing shoot.. quite literally. We went to a wasteland and smashed bottles filled with water. We felt that this would represent the breaking of boys heart in the music video as he cant get the girl he loves. We would experiment with slow motion to capture the breaking glass and water spilling out.
Production Diary 24:
NINTH SHOOT - We took time out of lesson today to go and get more footage. This time we filmed the band walking through Admirals park in Chelmsford whilst each member carried the objects they perform with. I carried the keyboard, Steve carried the drum set whilst James carried the mike and stand.
Production Diary 23:
EIGHTH SHOOT - Today was the day where we filmed Steve drumming in the middle of the school field. The challenge we faced was trying not to get the school in the background.
Production Diary 22:
Today we focused on getting further filming ideas. We needed to get more shots of Steve drumming as the shots we got before showed him drumming off beat. We discussed locations and decided to have him drumming in the middle of a field.
Production Diary 21:
Today we spent time planning on further shots we need to get. We needed to get reverse and slow motion shots but we weren't sure as to what objects to use. We brainstormed ideas and came up with balloons, beer and wine bottles.
Production Diary 20:
SEVENTH SHOOT - Will and James filmed today in the street. James laid down in his blue suit in the middle of the road
Production Diary 19:
SIXTH SHOOT - Today Will and I took the time to get more shots done. We went in the green room and took shots in the pitch black where I sat whilst a flash light was used to light up my face, giving it a sinister look.
Production Diary 18;
HALFWAY EVALUATION: Today we presented our half way evaluation and were filmed in the process of doing so. We presented things such as our background and how we got to where we are today, to showing our website which includes information about each band member and where and when we are touring!
Production Diary 17:
For our half way evaluation we decided that we would put an interview of the band into our presentation to give it more of a professional edge. Will was behind the camera and asked us questions to do with how we formed etc.
Production Diary 16:
Today we were told that we had reached the half way evaluation point and are required as a group to present how we are doing so far. We each came together and gave each person allocated roles as to who would do each part of the presentation.
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