This is a video demo of how my website design looked after a few hours of designing from scratch using WIX (free website design) - this is the version we used in our focus group session. I received the following feedback:
more modern electronic font
darker colours
more modern electronic style graphics at top of page
shots of artist performing
more colourful pictures/filters
- I began to make the changes over the course of last week.
I changed the font to a more modern font with a slightly Italian touch.
I changed the graphics at the top of the page.
I added filters to the front page photos and found better pictures I had taken on my phone that suite the tabs better.
I changed the gallery page into a "subscribe to mail list updates" page because we did not have enough high quality and aesthetically pleasing photos to choose from - the subscribe tab is the other most popular tab on websites like Duke Dumont and Disclosure.
I embedded our final video cut onto the video tab.
I added some more dates to the artist's tour to make him seem more popular and busy.
I also redesigned the store tab to look more legitimate with a WIX "Buy Now" widget.
Each page on the tab has their assigned picture blurred out as a background .
Our focus group took place today - we successfully received some eye-opening feedback, although the group was very shy, and so, not as many thoughts were put across as we'd hoped. Here are the notes I took during the session:
Moving forward, we have identified the key representations of Ramoso's Star Image as modern, partying, cool and sexy. Therefore we need to make sure that our products (the website and digipak especially) strongly represent these ideas.
The response from our focus group circulates around the motions that:
The digipak design needs to be slightly darker or more modern and minimalistic to match the style of the website and video.
The shots of Gareth on the website and digipak need to feature him wearing more modern clothes (better representing electronic music).
The fonts and clip art on the website needs to suite the style of EDM better.
The website needs some stills of the artist performing/DJing "live".
The stills should have coloured filters instead of black & white.
The purpose of a focus group is to trial our three products (Video, Digipak & Website) on members of our target audience who have never seen them before. Note: it is not to get approval from the focus group. As a result of holding a focus group, we can receive observations that we were unaware of before about how the products may be interpreted and suggestions for how the products could be refined to make more effective. During the focus group, an unbiased facilitator will ask the group questions that are as open and neutral as possible, in order to get an honest answer on any topic. It is important that we show our Digipak and Website before we show the video, so that the actual style of music and artist image is not given away, therefore receiving an answer that is untouched by the knowledge of what the products are meant to look like. We must also not defend our products as this will intimidate our group and they will react in a more polite and filtered way - therefore we won't receive the full opinions and views. Here are some notes I made on how to carry out a focus group:
PREPARATION Firstly we exported the current version of our video onto a USB, printed out 5 of our digipak designs in full-scale and folded them into shape, and published the current version of the website.
Then we prepared around 8 questions to ask in the session:
We appointed Victoria (not in our group) as the unbiased facilitator to run the session and ask the questions - we gave her the questions.
We appointed myself as a scribe - to write notes on their feedback - and Ed as the recorder - using a phone to audio record the session (in case the scribe missed anything). We used an audio recorder because we thought that videoing would be off-putting for the group and facial expressions weren't so important to record. - we could also upload the audio recording straight to Soundcloud.
Ed has done a great job going through all the clips of the performance section of the video to put together a performance cut. During this time I often went to the editing suite to visit him and monitor his progress. He is a natural. The only little things I've asked for is for him to be a perfectionist - to not use a shot unless it is the perfect shot. Other than that, I asked him to increase the rate of the editing in order to make the video more energetic.
Ed is now moving on to adding the dance sections on top of the performance cut along with the special/slow-mo shots we got of water and dancers. He has been doing some awesome graphic match editing with the dancers mimicking each other.
WEBSITES I did some research to find conventions of websites for similar artists. We wanted to find the certain layouts, designs, styles and sections that we liked the most, and would work as ideas for the website of our artist.
In conclusion, we like the Disclosure 6-box home page layout for our homepage. We also like the Duke Dumont logo and section tabs style, but we want these to be bigger. We like the idea of a black background for a homepage, but want to have out-of-focus stills for the background of each specific "music/live/video/info" section of the website - similar style to Anna Lunoe's home page. DIGIPAKs David has been taking some sample stills for ideas we could use in both our Website and Digipak. We liked the style of Disclosure's Digipak for their new album so we thought we could include music technology equipment.
We also looked at other dance music artists album artwork and it's all very artistic...
David and I also really liked the simple design of the back page of Jessie J's Digipak...
David then made some mock-ups on Apple Pages with these ideas in mind...
(We used a crown emblem for the logo of the record label / artist)...
On the 3rd of November, my group and I shot our Music Video. I woke up with mixed emotions. I was nervous because it was the first shoot of its kind that I would direct and I wanted the shoot to go well. I was excited because we finally had the chance to put all the ideas and planning together and begin the creation of our own product. As well as this, I felt well prepared and was pretty certain that everything would go to plan thanks to all the preparation we had carried out. When we arrived for the shoot at 8:45am, I gathered together all the cast and ran through the events of the day, giving them a rough outline of when they will be needed and what they have to do before then. For example, I made sure they all had their costumes ready to get into and explained the makeup that they would need. We then checked over the set that we setup with the teachers the night before, and added in the drum pad, keyboard, microphone and their respective stands.
(no lights)
(with lights)
The makeup artist was late, so we called her to find out where she was. She was stuck in traffic but was only going to be 20 minutes late. When she arrived we got the first three members of cast (including myself) into makeup straight away, ready to shoot our first performance scene. Once adding some haze to the set, I feel it had a great atmosphere and look when seen through the lens. The pixel-line lighting fit well with the electronic style, paired with the instruments we used and the minimalistic and modern costume. It was clean, simple and modern, and that was exactly what we were going for.
Looking back, especially during the dance scenes, I do feel that we could have added more props or set design to make a slightly more interesting backdrop, but the professional lighting made up for this. During the performance section, I was involved on stage (performing on the drum pad), so Ed took control of the camera while David did various task including playback (holding the clapper and playing the backing track through the studio PA), checking for continuity errors and looking after the performers, getting them water etc. We made sure the makeup artist was always on standby to keep the performers looking top-notch in between takes. During the dance scenes, I had the opportunity to master the shooting. I made a lot of effort to make sure each shot was perfectly in focus (using the Black Magic "Peak" mode) and as aesthetically pleasing as possible. I often asked to add more haze (fog) to add to the atmosphere, while making any changes to the lighting we wanted. Once all the basic wide/mid/close shots were completed for each subject, I then got creative and searched for the special extreme closeups and slow motion shots of the dancers and the splashing water. I think I did a good job of keeping the shoot day moving while behind the camera, always trying to reduce the reset time in between each take, as well as making the calls "stand by" / "rolling" / "playback". We purposely saved money by only purchasing 2 x 2 pairs of dungarees even though we had 6 dancers performing individually. This turned out to be a slight problem, but we realised we could circulate the dungarees so that when some dancers were on camera, the others could swap dungarees, and vice versa. This made the transition process between take much swifter as we got into a rhythm of circulating the dancers on camera one by one. I feel that as time passed during the shoot we got more efficient at doing what we wanted to do. So, the last section, of shooting the girls dancing and splashing water, was the most successful. We got these beautiful slow motion shots with great lighting reflecting off a shiny floor. The extreme close-ups of the water splashing were my favourite shots of the day.
In my opinion, the whole day was a complete success and I don't feel like any part could have gone better. On the other hand, I wish we had got some better quality shots using the track and dolly. We were very lucky to use this great bit of equipment when shooting the performance section, but I think the shots we got were the weakest of the day.
As well as this, looking back at when the dancers were performing, there wasn't enough light to emphasise their moves.
I think I made a special effort to make sure Gareth (lead singer) and Victoria (keyboard) were happy and enjoying themselves. I tried to loosen them up as much as possible so that they were comfortable and confident in front of the camera. I hope that I got the best performance out of them - from what I saw, there was a lot of positive energy being given off, but I do feel like Gareth looked a little nervous and struggled to stay focused on the camera throughout takes. David and Ed looked after the dancers who always seemed happy and ready to perform which was exactly what we wanted. There were various times when some of the talent was not able to be there. For example, Matty (the back-flipper) had a Music Tech session at 3pm. So after lunch we made sure that we shot his flips before any of the dancers so that he could go to his session. As a group, we did well in keeping tabs on where the talent was at different times and if they were ready to hop in front of the camera.
I really enjoyed being in control of the camera. I finally had the opportunity to let my creative juices flow and it was an honour to be able to do this with the amazing equipment we had available. I'm especially proud of the shots that I produced. It was a great experience to be able to produce something like a pop video - a text that I regularly consume via YouTube as Music is a great passion of mine.
I'm really looking forward to seeing all the shots in the edit, but I am most excited to see the closeups of Gareth lip-syncing because I was performing while these were being taken and the lighting and haze was looking amazing.
I think our group worked well together because we were all happy to get involved and help out as much as possible, even if we weren't always in charge when we wanted to be. We gave each other the opportunity to put as much creative input into the process of shooting, throughout the day, and that was really nice for me to equally spread out the time to be in the spotlight (behind the camera). Not only this, we functioned well together, because we were very efficient at what we individually did which meant there were very few arguments (none that I can remember).
If there was anything I could take forward from this experience to the next time, it's that the process is easier than I thought it would be, so I feel I should definitely push myself to create something far more complex and unique next time.
As far as the website and artwork is concerned, the only thing that I think should link between all three products is the bright colourful lighting against black. Neon lighting was one of the main conventions of promo products for this type of music. As well as this, the lip-syncer wore a gold and red crown during some of the shots and I think we should definitely use the crown as a logo or motif in our other products.
Over the last few days, my group and I have done lots of last minute preparation for the shoot day. Emailing the Makeup Artist
David emailed our assigned makeup artist from outside of school in order to brief her on the looks we would like for each cast member and what times we would need the makeup to be done. Checking on Costume and Props We went to the studio to check that our costumes had been delivered. This included the 2x blue, 2x red, 3x white dungarees, +1 crown. We also tried them on to see if they would fit our cast well.
I went to collect the keyboard stands from the Director of Music at our school and stored them in the studio with the costumes, along with my drum pad. We also checked that the Media Dept had a keyboard ready to use for our shoot as well as a mic and stand. Talking to Teachers My group and I spoke to the media teachers the day before our shoot to make sure we were all prepared for the different sections of the shoot. Luckily, we could rectify the fact that the teachers had forgot we wanted to use a projector in one section by collecting a projector from IT. The teachers also gave us some last minute tips for shoot day:
stay calm
look after ur cast, makeup artist, and crew - keep them happy
stay hydrated
focus on everything but cinematography before the shoot
prioritise simple wide/mid/closeups before getting creative
be aware of continuity
Shooting Drum Pad for Projection video David and I went to the recording studio to shoot some footage of the Drum Pad being played. We are going to use this footage to project onto the lead singer while he lip-synced. We turned off the lights in the room to have the full effect of the LED drum pads. Here is a clip of the footage we got...
Learning How to Use the Black Magic Cameras We went to Paul, one of the Media Studio Technicians, to ask him to teach us the basics of how to use the Black Magic cameras, as we had never used one before. Here are the notes I made...
List of Shot Ideas I spent some time the night before our shoot to put together a short list of creative shot ideas for the video.
One of the dancers, Klaudia - blonde, brown jumper - isn't as technically good as the other dancers - we are going to re-choreograph her dancing into a more impressive gymnastic sequence.
The dancing can be repetitive & boring.
Gareth needs to learn his words ASAP.
Improvements
Search for cool editing techniques to use
Vary the choreography more
More variation in shots needed
Editing needs to be faster paced to suit fast tempo song
Focus on the best dancers
Cut song down by around 30 seconds to decrease boredom
Today we did some test shooting in the studio with some of our dancers. We showed our dancers some ideas of what we wanted in terms of freestyle commercial/street dance sequences, as well as lip sync performance.
We are now cutting together the footage on iMovie into a prototype video...
Lighting Experimentation We have been experimenting with different lighting options using some fluorescent tubes.
The Media Dept has one shade of red and one shade of blue.
The blue is a more powerful/brighter colour than the red.
Therefore, we need to balance more red lights than blue, or shoot blue and red at different times and just adjust exposure levels.
We also tried adding a white fluoro tube on the floor to accentuate the features of the lip syncer's face.
