R+P Post 28: My kit list

The next step of our preparations was to create a list of all the equipment we planned to use in our shoot.

A couple of lenses we used, a 100mm prime,
 and a 75-300mm telephoto.

Due to the fact we are shooting the entirety of our music video in the studio at school, the majority with the green screen, we can use a lot more kit than we would have had we been shooting in another location.

The lectern was very useful as it allowed us to connect the
Macbook to the studio's sound system to listen to the track
whilst we recorded the lip-sync sections.

Kit List

• Canon 5D Mk II
• Canon 600D
• Lenses (50mm, 75-300mm, 24-150mm)
• Arri floor lights (x5)
• Leap Frog lighting desk
• Studio ceiling lights
• Tripod (x2)
• Dolley
• Batteries (x 6)
• SD Card (x 2)
• HDMI cable (to connect camera to TV)
• 50-inch TV Monitor (for us to see what we record in a much greater detail)
• Lectern
• Macbook Pro
• Studio control tablet

My Canon 600d

Cameras
We alternated between the media department's Canon 5D Mk II and my Canon 600d as not only did this allow faster shooting (as we could have one set up for a CU and another set up for an MCU), but it also allowed us to spend less time changing camera settings.

It allowed us this as for many scenes we required slow motion, and so we could leave my camera set to shoot at 50fps whilst the other was still 25fps.

The Leap Frog lighting desk.

Lighting

The Leap Frog lighting desk was very useful as it allowed us to save our settings for which lights were on or off, and what intensity we had saved them at.

It saved these set ups as 'memories', and these memories could be loaded to instantly pick up from where we left off when testing.

R+P Post 27: Casting

The casting process was probably one of the more difficult decision-making times for our group. We had several group meetings in which we discussed possible choices for each role, and debated how appropriate they'd be.

We initially cast Arian as the main
character.

Initially we chose Arian to represent the main character as he physically looks quite young, and felt he'd be fully capable of portraying the character in the way we wanted as he was very involved with the school's drama department. Alas many scheduling issues arose as it turned out he was involved in the school play, which held rehearsals and similar times to us.

After some quick deliberation, we settled on having Shay to play our main character. We chose her as she was very enthusiastic and we knew there would be no scheduling issues as she had almost the same lessons and free periods as me.




Main character
We ended up choosing Shay to play our main character. We felt that although she was not our first choice, EDM music videos often appear very gender-neutral, and thus we decided it wouldn't impact our video nor the audience's experience if we had a boy or girl. Furthermore, due to her studying media, we know she has already been on set in front of a camera and will be capable of performing.




Orlando
We chose Mario to play the role of our artist Orlando. We decided this mainly due to the fact that, as an avid consumer of EDM, he has been to many watch many different artists of the genre live. We believe that this means he can do a good performance in terms of impersonating how they appear on stage. To add to this, he has done lip-syncing videos before, and as he is in our group, no one else knows better the character we have designed.




DJ Ed-E
We agreed that I should play the character of the DJ. Like Mario, I enjoy listening to EDM music a lot. Furthermore, having performed before in other media projects as high-energy characters so felt I would be capable of pulling this off. To add to this, I have the same scheduled media lesson slots as the rest of the group, so scheduling won't be an issue for things like the shoot days.




Extras & Dancers
In terms of extras/dancers, for the most part we utilised the other students in our media class. The reasoning behind this was two-fold. Part of the reason was due to the fact they were happy to commit some of their free time to be in our video, and partly because we had discussed the concept of our video to them numerous times before. Mario also brought in a couple of friends from outside the media department as they were also prepared to commit to the shoot days and we felt they would fit the required roles well.

Pictured left: One of the dancers we cast.

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

The next stage of our research and planning was to consider set design, locations and props.

As we have decided to shoot virtually our entire music video on green screen, we realised we don't need to take backgrounds into consideration for the shoot. What we do need to focus on however is set design. We must do this in order to evoke to the audience a better sense of where each scene is supposed to be taking place, making it recognisable. There are some things, such as the flag, that we aim to add in in post-production however, so there aren't too many props we need to prepare.

The glow in the dark paint I bought that ended up not working.

Originally, I ordered pots of various colours of glow-in-the dark paint. This paint would be used to make signs such as one that says "Sun Goes Down", and we were also considering painting props such as the water guns. However once they had arrived, we tested them and found that they were far too faint for the camera to pick up, even when I lowered the shutter speed and increased the ISO. For this reason we decided to scrap the glow-in-the-dark pain idea and replace it with glow sticks.

The balloons, confetti, and party poppers Mario bought.

Mario ordered the glow sticks on-line, and also went to a party shop where he purchased balloons, confetti, and party poppers. All of these would be used in the party scenes.

Mario and Iggy tested the glow
sticks in the darkened studio, and
upon editing the footage I found
that adding the 'glow' effect in
After Effects brightened them nicely.

Full prop list for the shoot:

• Book
• Piece of paper
• Pen
• Desk
• Beats headphones
• Water guns
• Mixing desk
• Table
• Microphone and stand
• Part poppers
• Balloons
• Confetti
• Glow sticks

We weren't initially sure where to source the microphone and mixing desk, however after a group meeting we found out that the media department at school had these items, so we were all set.

Leap Frog lighting desk

We also tested lighting for our music video. Using the Leap Frog lighting desk I adjusted the intensities of various ceiling lights in the studio until the green screen appeared to be smooth with little shadowing. We also had green paper stuck to the floor in order to make sure the green screen extended far enough, as the actual physical curtain didn't trail along the floor that far.

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

The next stage of our research and planning was to determine our costumes, props, and make-up. We created a list of planned props, make-up, and costumes so that we would be prepared for the shoots.

For the three main cast members, we created a table listing the following:

• Their role
• A photo of them
• Their costume items
• Their hair & make-up
• A reference image (the biggest influence)

The character Shay was playing was intended to appear innocent and almost 'pure', hence we chose a white top, we also chose bright colours for her in order to give her the look of someone younger, almost like a child. Furthermore we plan to style her hair into pigtails to reinforce the youthful look. We believe that this combination should achieve the effect we are going for.

Shay's entry in our table of costumes

Mario's role was that of being the singer Orlando. Relying upon our previous research, in which we found black to be a very commonly worn colour by artists of the EDM genre, we decided that we would adopt it too. We decided Mario should wear a black t-shirt, black trousers and trainers, and sunglasses. These sunglasses will act as something to help create his 'signature look', ratified by the sunglasses appearing in other places such as the website and album cover.

Mario's entry in our table of costumes

My role was to be the DJ, the style for which we ended up deciding to keep quite straight-forward. We considered having a plain white t-shirt, however we wanted to demonstrate a clear difference between me and Orlando, so we ended up deciding on a black and white graphic t-shirt I had.

My entry in our table of costumes

We also created a dedicated props list for anything that we needed to remember to bring that wasn't part of the costume list for the cast. We structured the prop list by set-up as we felt that would be the most logical way of organising it.

Our prop list

These acts of preparation before the shoot were brilliant for us as it helped us organise everything early on. This included giving us time to ensure we had all props and costumes sourced well before the shoots, and furthermore allowed us to use them in our test footage.

R+P Post 24: Planning my digipak panels

The front and back panels of Calvin Harris' album, "18 months"

Having planned our website, we decided we would plan our digipak panels.

We decided the best approach to designing our digipak would be to first look at existing albums by other artists in the EDM genre, and ascertain what conventions seemed to be followed with their albums.


After looking at existing designs I found the following to be common conventions:

• The album name is usually displayed clearly on the front and on the spine.
• A track list is usually shown on the back cover.
• There is always a barcode, usually on the back.
• There is usually institutional information alongside the barcode.
• The artist name is usually shown by the album name.

Hardwell's album 'United We Are' also reinforced the aspects of
album covers I felt were conventional.

Most of our designs include pictures of our artist on the cover as the relationship between the audience and artist needs to be reinforced.

Initially we were not sure what to display on the inside of the digipak, we decided we should have a photo of Orlando on one of the inside sides.Feedback from classmates suggested we should also put something on the side the disk would be on. 

Our label's logo (we decided to use the same
style of vinyl record as a graphic underneath
where the disk would rest in the digipak.)

Ignacio suggested putting a vinyl disk (like our label's logo) on the disk side. This sounded like a good idea so we all agreed to it.

I decided to draw up a rough sketch of the design ideas we had come up with and agreed on, I then annotated this with the conventions of album covers that we were planning to include. The sketches are shown below.

The design I drew.

R+P Post 23: Planning my web pages

At first we considered creating hand-drawn flat plans for our web pages, however quickly realised that doing them digitally would be a better use of time. I suggested we used Microsoft PowerPoint for this as it is very easy to hastily add shapes, boxes, text, and images, and arrange however you could want.

We needed to create a website iconic of the genre, so of course we tried to follow the conventions of the other EDM big artists, such as Martin Garrix and Calvin Harris. We also knew we should follow the same colour/shape scheme throughout the website in order to keep synergy with the other media products, such as the digipak album cover.

Our "tour" page was inspired mainly by Martin Garrix's page
on his website, where fans can see dates/places, and buy tickets.

Calvin Harris' website uses the navigation-bar logo in the
top right, something we've decided to follow.

Front page

When the top right icon is clicked,
the nav bar is displayed.

 The screenshot on the left shows what the front page of the website would look like.

The clickable logos in the bottom right of the website would be across all pages, and would link to Orlando's spotify, instagram, twitter, and facebook respectively.

There is also a UK flag, which users could click in order to choose their language.

Tour dates

Image gallery

 We plan to have a tour page, so that fans can easily find out when and where the next concert is that Orlando is performing at. These would be clickable and link to a page where fans can buy tickets to these shows.



The gallery would show images of Orlando, allowing the audience to feel a part of his personal life.
These images will also be interspersed with Orlando's Instagram feed, which fans can follow.

"About" page with Orlando's bio.

Video gallery

 We have decided to include a bio page for Orlando. This is something that not all of the websites we've looked at include, however we feel that knowing an artists back story gives the audience a more intimate experience.



On the right the screenshot shows that we are planning to have a video gallery, this will act in a similar fashion to the image gallery, as a way for the audience to feel more involved with Orlando, and "in the know".

R+P Post 22: Planning my promo shots

Seeing as we were going to have promo shots on the digipak and website, we needed a photo shoot to capture these images. In order to sufficiently plan for this, we arranged a group meeting in which we deliberated the types of shots, what would be worn in the shots, and what poses we should have.

I drew some of the shots that we felt we definitely wanted to
try out during the photo shoot.

We knew we wanted a range of shots of Orlando and DJ Ed-E together, so we looked at existing promo material for various artists to get an idea of the type of poses conventionally used. 

In terms of costume, we ended up agreeing on two costumes centred around black and white colours. This was inspired by promo shots from Calvin Harris and Hardwell.

One of Hardwell's promo shots, mainly
wearing black and white.

Avicii's side profile headshot.

This shot of Disclosure is our biggest influence for
our ideas for the two-shots of Orlando and DJ Ed-E.

We felt that in most of the real promo shots we looked at, the artists usually had quite blank or serious expressions.

This seemed to suggest that most go for a style of trying to look 'cool' to attract their audience. This reflects the fact that their target audience is mainly young people, however the fact they don't have photos aiming to appear 'fun' suggests that there is a quite notable cut-off point for the lower ends of their audience.

In relation to our photo shoot, this suggests that perhaps we should be focusing on making Orlando appear cool, rather than just fun-loving. We should include a range of photos, some to give off both of these traits.