Organising rehearsal for dancers

We have decided to email Dave to see whether we would be able to get our A1 dancers out of this commitment to try and use them for a rehearsal because we wanted to get in one more rehearsal before our shoot day (Tuesday the 8th of November) However unfortunately the only day when our whole production gorup are available would be this coming up Friday. The problem is that A1 Students (Cressie and Oriana)  have a compulsory Enigma on that day and therefore in order to ensure that our dancers can be there Evelyn emailed Dave to see if she could get them out of Enigma for that day.

 Here is the email that Evelyn sent Dave:

Reply from Elizabeth re. costumes

We received a reply from Elizabeth shortly after we sent her an email and she responded saying that the majority of our requests could be met. The only thing that she said that didn't have access to was the steam punk goggles for the mad scientist although she did kindly send us an eBay link for us to consider. We will probably order a pair of steam punk goggles off the internet from either eBay or amazon as they are very inexpensive considering their good quality.  Fortunately, we have now sorted out the majority of our costumes especially because we believe that Mike Timson will be able to provide his own costume. We wil,probably go and collect the costumes and have a chat with Elizabeth about our options tomorrow.

Casting the mad scientist

Due to the fact that we couldn't use our first choice for the role of the mad scientist James Hartman as he is unavailable on our shoot day we have been thinking about who else would be able to take on the role. 

After much consideration we have decided to cast Mike Timson as our mad scientist because we believe that we will fit this role really well as he has the right look for the role and he is available to participate and is really keen to take psrt.

Evelyn was fortunate enough to be able to talk to Mike Timson after school. He apologized for not emailing back, however he was very enthusiastic about playing the part and he said that he had already been practicing the lyrics!

Here is the email we sent to Mike:

Organising costumes - emailing Elizabeth

Shortly after we had auditioned and cast the dancer s we decided to ask them for their sizes and contact Elizabeth about what costumes we are going to require. It was important that we emailed Elizabeth today as we needed to give her enough time to source the costumes and if she didn't have anything then it would give us enough time to order them online. Here is the email we sent to Elizabeth detailing the costumes that we will require:

Auditioning the dancers

Today we held auditions for the dancers for our music video. Unfortunately, the other girls that we emailed weren't able to come as they has prior commitments. However, we did have three girls show up and they worked really well together and they looked really good together and so we have decided to the cast the three girls who showed up. The three dancers that we have cast are Sally, Oriana and Cressie. They are all brunette which makes them a very good trio.

To start out with we didn't have a routine for them to learn as none of the members of our production group are choreographers! however, luckily the girls were able to choreograph something for themselves to show us and this proved to us that they would be a good pick for our video. We told the girls about our idea and concept and they came up with a short routine to show us of a 1920's style. Here is what they came up with:



In addition, to seeing the girls dance together we also thought it would be a good idea to see the girls dance individually. We decided to ask them to show us the routine on their own to see their potential. We told them that we weren't looking for the best technical dancers but rather some good performers who would be able to make it their own and look like they were having fun and have smiley faces when they were dancing. Here are the individual auditions:

 

We also asked the girls to come up with a short rotuine to show us what they could do for the futuristic element of the video and this is what they showed us. We were really impressed with what they could offer.



After this we asked the girls what tricks they were able to do as we were thinking for the transition we could use their tricks as a flash of footage before transitioning from the 1920's element to the futuristic element. 

We were really pleased to hear that the girls can do some reall impressive tricks including cartwheels, roundoffs, leads, jumps and lots more.

I'm really pleased that we have successfully auditioned and cast 3 very strong performers and I'm excited to see what they choreograph for the shoot!

Organising Dance Audition

We arranged to audition our dancers today at school as we needed to finalise who we were going to use and see who could do what. I was important that we found three strong dancers who worked wel togttehr and looked good togtehr as well as them being able to pick up a routine quickly and be availbale to ehearse and for the shoot day. I think it was a good idea auditioning them today because they now have a week to prepare and to learn the routine which means that they will hopefully be ready in time for the shoot day!

Here is the email we sent to the dancers: 

Research into futuristic dancing

I have been looking at pictures and video in the internet for inspiration as to what we could get the dancers to do for the futuristic dance element. 

  

We want the girls to look like they are doing some new, innovative and original. I think that including robotic, isolated and sharp movement will help to get this across to the audience. It is crucial that girls are in sync and that everything is very sharp and polished. 

I think that the dancing that the girls will be dong for this element will be very much of the robotic. hip-hop and commercial style which is very current ad modern and so their dancing will appear up to date which will help to reinforce the narrative and establish that we have moved forwards in time. 

Of course, their costumes and makeup will reflect the futuristic element but their dancing needs to be of  a sharp contrast to that of the 1920's element. 

Research into 1920's dancing

I have been conducting some research into the style of dancing that they did in the 1920's to get some inspiration for what kind of dancing we want our dancers to be able to do in our video.

I discovered that there are many different styles of dancing that were around in this era including Charleston, foxtrot, waltz, salsa and flapper style dancing. 

The Charleston involves big exaggerated leg movements and is very expressive and over the top. I think that we should include some of these movements as they will fit with the quirkiness that we want to bring to the video as well as working well with the robotic and mechanical style of the track. 

There is a smoothness to the foxtrot which I think could work well as a contrast to the sharp and exaggerated movements of the Charleston. However, it may not be possible to do the foxtrot because we are using three females and this is usually a male and female partner dance. The foxtrot is similar to the waltz and so these two styles could work well together.

The quickstep is another style of dancing that was popular in the 1920's and this would again tie in nicely with our music video as the track is very upbeat and we want the dance element to be fun, lively and quick. 

Animatic Feedback

We decided to show members of our target audience the animatic that we have created from the shots on our storyboard a thought that this would give us some insight into whether our target audience would enjoy and understand our music video concept. 

Here is the an audio clip we made of our audience feedback for our animatic:

NEED TO EMBED AUDIO

In order to ascertain this feedback we showed them our animatic, asked them whether the understood our concept and what they could understand from the video as well as giving us some information about strengths and weaknesses of our animatic to help us identify areas that are clear and coherent for audiences to understand as well as some that are ambiguous and difficult for the audience to figure out. 

Unfortunately, through this process we realised that our animatic was not as clear and easy to understand as we thought it may have been. The target audience said that it was quite ambiguous and unclear as to what was going on and they seemed to be quite confused by some of the elements. 

Surprisingly, the mad scientist working at the computer was the element that as most confusing for the audience as they seemed to think that it was on old woman watching TV! I think that it might be due to the fact that our drawings were not the best and maybe weren't clear enough in order to give the audience a good insight into what the narrative involves.

Another aspect of our music video which appeared to be quite ambiguous was whether the mad scientist was involved in the other elements or was present in the other elements. I think that because we are cutting between the three elements randomly during the video that this might be quite confusing for the audience as they may not fully understand the narrative because of this. 

One of the people that we asked for feedback from suggested that we should add colour to our storyboard in order to add more texture. I agree with this as I feel like this will also help us to establish the difference between the various elements of the video as through adding colour this may help us to establish the difference between the 1920's element and the futuristic element. 

The thing that they understood correctly from the animatic was the jazz band they really liked this as they thought that it was something quite different and alternative and this would make it stand out against the other pop videos.

From this feedback it has given me the opportunity to see if an changes to our video need to be made. The feedback has helped to establish areas that are weak and that aren't clear to audiences. I think that we should consider adding colour to our storyboard in order to make a clear contrast between the three elements and also to add more texture and depth to the shots. 

I agree with the majority of the feedback that we received from the audience because I believe that it is constructive criticism in order to improve our video and make our idea better and clearer for audiences to understand. The good thing that came out of this process is that we now have an idea as to which frames and ideas work well and translate well to an audience and which one need improvement and development in order to make the overall narrative an video concept clear and coherent for audiences. 

Organising Dancers

Due to the fact that there are November assessments going on at the same time a our shoot day and the few days leading up to our shoot day I thought that it might be a good idea to ascertain when the dancers that we are considering using have their assessments as this would help us to timetable rehearsals and auditions. It is really important that we can find a time to audition the girls so that we ca see their potential and choose the 3 strongest dancers for our video.

 

We have chosen Monday the 31st October as our audition day as we believe that this will be a convenient day for us to audition the girls as they should be available on this day. This also gives us enough time to rehearse a routine with the girls as well as give them enough time to learn it and practice it. 

Another issue that I have discovered is that we won't have a final cast until this date (Monday 31st) and therefore we won't be able to finalise costumes until only a few days before as we will need their sizes and have fittings to make sure that their costumes fit them properly. 

Email to dancers regarding the auditions

We have been trying to organise a time when we can audition the dancers, however this has proved to be quite a difficult task as everyone is very busy and it has been hard to find a time when everyone can meet. We have chosen Monday the 31st to audition them as this would be a convenient time for all of us. We have given them details regarding what they will be required to do in the audition and sent them a link to the track so that they can have a think about a routine over the half term break. 

I hope that this is a convenient date for all of the potential dancers and that we find a strong trio for our music video. 

Letter of Permission: Confirmation

Thankfully we received a letter from the record company who owns the track saying that they give us permission to use the track for non-commercial usage and just for assessment purposes and it is only to be viewed by members of the school community. This technically means that we have been given the rights to use the track for our music video. 

This is really good news as it means that we can proceed to use the track and make our music video. We will have to think carefully and consider the best way that we are going to share our final product with audiences as to ensure that it remains private and follows the requirements that the record company have given us. 

Here is the email that Wagram Music sent us:

Research into Valve Museums

Luke suggested to us that we have a look at valve museums that are near by because it is possible that we could go and film at one of these locations and then in post production we could wrap the footage of the jazz band members playing their instruments around the valves and this would make it look as through the mad scientist had created the musicians within the valves. 

I think that this is a really good idea as it would add something a bit different and quirky to our music video and it would also make the transition from the 1920's element to the futuristic element look more professional and make more sense to the audience. 

I think that the imagery of the valve works well not only with the mad scientist element of the video but also the use of the metals and the wires links in nicely with the mechanical sound of the track. 

I have been struggling to find a museum that has a specific exhibition to do with valves as this is quite hard to find but I have found some other museums that are in London and Brighton which we may be able to go to as they have exhibitions to do with mechanical objects, robotic style machinery and other things that would work well as a substitute for the valves. Ideally we would like to find a valve museum but I'm not sure where we are going to be able to find one. 

The next step is trying to decide on a museum and see which ones have the exhibition that it going to best suit our requirements and also let us film the exhibition for our video. 

I like the look of The Kemptons Great Engines Trust because it is a museum for engineering and steam engines and so it has the right kind of industrial look that we are going for as well as the fact that it looks like ti might have some interesting elements that we could film and would work well with the other elements of our music video. The issue with filming at this location is that it is in Feltham which is quite far away from school and so I'm not sure whether it is going to b possible to travel his far for a filming location. 

I need to have a discussion with the other members of my group and see if they have found any valve museums near school that would be possible filming locations as the ones that I have found and researched all appear to be quite far away from school. 

Casting Issues

Unfortunately I received an email from James Hartman yesterday saying that he is unavailable to play the role of the mad scientist in our music video due to the fact that our shoot day Tuesday the 8th of November and he has other commitments on Tuesdays.

This is of course really unfortunate as we really wanted to use Jams for this role as he is not only a very talented actor and would be able to lip sync, but he also has the look that we were going for with this character. 

I spoke to my teacher about this issue and he said that rearranging the shoot day around when James can be available is not possible and that we are going to have to have a re-think and re-cast this character.

My teacher suggested Mike Timson who is another teacher at school who he believes has the appropriate look for this character, however I am unsure as to what his lip syncing abilities are like and I need to discuss this issue with the other members of my group before we make a final decision. 

Confirmation of Production Date and Castings

Here is the email that I sent out to the cast members to let them know when the shoot day is.

Our production date is Tuesday the 8th of November and so we had to let them know about this in advance so that they can see if they have any other commitments or reasons why they wouldn't be able to be in the video. 

There are some of the cast members who will be required to have a Blue Card which is requirement from school to give them permission to miss their lessons to take part. Klaudia, Sally and Evelyn will require a blue card as they are A2 students and therefore require permission from their teachers to take part in the video. 

Hopefully all of the cats members come back and say that they are available to take part in the video and there aren't any issues!

Animatic Storyboard

Animatic = a preliminary version of a film, produced by shooting successive sections of a storyboard and adding a soundtrack.

We have decided to create an animatic for our storyboard rather than doing a test shoot as we decided that this would be much easier to organise an film as well as it being a lot quicker and will give us a better indication if there is anything that doesn't work or anything that needs to be added or removed from the storyboard rather than go out and use the actors and film it. We might, however still do some other test shoots such as testing to see the lip syncing abilities of James Hartman as well as auditioning the dancers to find the best three.

Simply put, animatic is an animated storyboard. Boards are brought into an editing program and are cut together with the correct timing and pace of the film. They include basic sound effects, dialogue recordings and scratch soundtrack.

Here is a video that I found online about how to create an animatic for the storyboard:

We created our animatic by cropping the images on our storyboard and then placing them on a time line and matching them with the beat of the song. I think that it turned out pretty well and it has allowed us to see what works well and what doesn't work as well and therefore we can make adjustments and changes if we need to.

Creating an animatic has been very useful for our group in terms of figuring out which elements work well and which ones need more development and thought. I think that creating an animatic has been very useful indeed as it has allowed us to see how our video concept is going to work and consider areas that work well and ones that don't work as well. I think that creating an animatic has been much more useful that doing a test shoot as it didn't require us to source any of our actors, dancers, props or costumes as all we had to use was the shots from our storyboard.

I think that the three different element to our music video, tie in really nicely in terms of the 2 dance elements and the mad scientist lab element because I believe that they do a good job at conveying the narrative and they also tie in nicely with the beat of the track and the genre of the music.



Unfortunately, I don't think that we have enough shots yet for our music video as in the animatic we had to reuse some of our shots. This means that we are going to need to think about some other shots that we could include to avoid repetition in our video as this could make it loose impact and bore the audience.

There are a few little things that need to change within our music video such as lighting or shot choice changes however these ill only be minor tweaks. The main thing that we need to change is the length of the song. This is why we are considering cutting our song as it is currently 3 minutes and 50 seconds and this could become an issue as it could be come quite repetitive, therefore we are considering cutting it down to around 3 minutes long to avoid this issue.

Here is the animatic for our music video:

Research into make-up

I have been doing some research into makeup and I have also been trying to find a makeup artist who would be available and willing to do the makeup on our shoot day. I contact Laura Smith who is a student at school as she is interested in pursuing a career in makeup and special effects makeup so I thought that she would be interested in taking p the role of makeup artist for the shoot. 

Here is the email that I sent her:

She then sent me some designs that she had done and some ideas that she had come up with from what I had told her about the idea. This was a very good idea as it allowed us to see what she would be able to do as well as what the final product might look like. I suggested to her that we could add a geometric element to the futuristic makeup as well as some silver gems. I thought that the design that she had come up with for the 1920's style makeup was spot on what I was visualising and what we had in mind. 

Here is her design for the 1920's makeup. I think that the thin arch for the eyebrows, the brown smoky eye and a red lip will look perfect in portraying the era. This makeup is very specific to the era that we are trying to replicate and I think that this could work very effectively. 

This is the design she has come up with for the futuristic makeup. I think that the use of the colour gradient over the eyes could be really effective as well as the use of the white for the eyelashes and lips. I like the idea that she has come up with for using white triangles on the cheek bones which will replace any contour. However, I think that it might be a cool idea to try incorporating geometric patters and designs into the look such as a white line that goes down the bridge of the nose as well as under the eye in order to create a triangle shape. It would be really cool if we could use silver gems, possibly to replace the eyebrows as these would be blocked out. I think that the ideas that Laura has come up with are really creative and imaginative and I think that they will work very effectively in portraying a futuristic element. 

I think that the designs and ideas that Laura has for the makeup for the dancers are really cool and will work really effectively with our idea. The other good thing is that she has all the materials and everything that she will need to create these looks which is good because it means that it doesn't have to come out of our production budget. 

Letter of Permission

We are required to send a letter of permission to the record company who owns the track that we are using in our music video due to copyright reasons and also out of respect. We have to ask for their permission to use the track and to create a music video for it. We had to explain to them that the video was only for assessment purposes for our Media Studies A Level Coursework and that the artist and copyright holder will be fully recognised in the material that accompanies the project.

Below is the email that we sent Wagram Music to ask for permission to use the track 'Beatophone' by Caravan Palace.



Surprisingly, they kindly responded within around 10 minutes saying that they are carefully considering our request. Hopefully this means that we will be able to use this track without any copyright issues.

Contacting potential cast

I have had replies from a few of the dancers saying that they are interested in taking part in the video and they are willing to audition to be featured in the video. Below are some of the emails that I received from the dancers saying that they are interested. 

So far I have had relpies from Sally, Cressie, Honor, Oriana and Emily saying that they are interested in taking part. I have also had Elise tell me in person that she is also interested in being involved. Unfortunately, Maddy and Megan have told me that they are unavailable to participate. This means that we have a good group of dancers who we can audition to find the best 3 for the video. 

We are still in the process of finding a suitable time to audition these girls.

I have also spoken to James Hartman in person to give him some more details about the role and the potential filming schedule. I spoke to him about the fact that he will be playing a mad scientist who is trying to hack into a computer and is doing some coding and I also reiterated the fact that he will be required to lip sync. 

I told him that Luke has said that we are likely to be filming in either the 2nd or 3rd week after half term and he said that this would be fine but that he needs some notice of exactly what day so that he can sort out a cover teacher for his lessons and he would prefer to not have to sort out a cover teacher for his lessons if this is avoidable. 

I think that it would be a wise idea to email him and ask him what days would work best for him and even ask him to send through his timetable so that we can plan as to what day would be most convenient for him. 

I'm also going to pass on this information to the other members of my production group so that they are aware and also ask Luke about the flexibility in the filming schedule if there are only certain days that James can do. 

I have also sent an email to Klaudia who is a student who plays the saxophone. We would like to use her in our music video as part of the Jazz Band and so I sent her an email to see if she would be interested in participating. If so she will be required to bring in her own saxophone, especially because she has a pink one! Here is the email that I sent her:

Luckily Klaudia emailed me back soon after and said that she would be interested in taking part. This is very good news as it means that we have a talented Saxophone player as part of the jazz band as well as the fact that she has her own saxophone which she can bring into school meaning that we don't have to source one. Here is the email she sent me back: