Music Video First Draft Feedback 2

Our teacher gave us feedback of how we could possibly impreove our music video.


- 39.05 + 1.02  - my love - Nova sings out of time with song

- Contemplated if the mug should be used

- 1.19 - blurry

- Shot of Nova in a dress is very pixelated and does not fit with the other shots, so we completely removed it.

- The shot at 2.23 needs to be longer

- At 1.31 the lip sync is off

- There are 3 weird shots - eyes, spoon, shivers, sofa shot dissolves

- 39.05 - lip syncing out

Music Video First Draft Feedback

We presented the first draft of our music video to our class and we received a mixture of positive and critical feedback.

Here are some examples of positive feedback we received:

"Lots of really nice editing."
"I loved how the shots became distorted in correlation to the video."
"There use of bright colours goes in hand with the nature of the song."
"Editing flows well throughout - suits genre and her image."
"360 with the dogs is very effective."
"When is goes slower, I like how all visuals link with the pace."
Creative and interesting shots that clearly show the artist image."

Here are some examples of critical feedback:

"Some of the shots were used a few times."
"Gets slightly repetitive at the end of the video."
"Sometimes too many close ups lip synching."
"Not many transitions, mainly straight cuts."
"The shot with Nova on the sofa with the bubble bath image above didn't flow as well as the other editing."
"Leg and fairy light shot is used quite a lot."

Nova Music Video First Draft

The YouTube video above is our complete first draft of our music video.

Analysis of last part of the music video

This part of the video is the first draft of the last part of the song. Towards the end of the song the music changes from a more upbeat tempo to a contemporary abstract sound which creates a clear contrast. This can be reflected in the style of editing which we have used to slowed down the pace and length of shots to match the slow pace of music. A variety of editing effects have also been used to suit the style of music such as speed reverse this is used in the shot where charlotte is dropping the petals. The close up of the lava lamp has also been edited to drop at a slower pace in time with the music. Another feature that we have used to match the abstract sound is the different use of camera shots which creates a distorted representation this can be seen in the shot where Nova is leaning over the bath, this is a low angle close up shot where the audience is made to look up at Nova, it can make the viewer feel quite uncomfortable as its an abstract shot which has not been used before in the music video. In this part of the video Nova is also seen to 'break down the fourth wall' where she is beginning to engage with her audience and is aware where they are watching, we also done this to juxtapose with the start of the video, where Nova is performing and is unaware there is an audience. The last part of the song heavily contrast to the rest of it, therefore we felt that Nova should also change in order to exaggerate this concept. This reflects in the idea of making Nova aware of her audience and using more closeup shots. 

Nova Tour Dates

London, 02 Brixton Academy - 12/06

Liverpool 02 Academy - 14/06

Manchester  Academy - 17/06

Glasgow 02 Academy - 19/06

 Cardiff Golden Globe - 21/06

Brighton  Green door store - 23/06

                                                   

Digi pack Feedback

Digi pack feedback from katiedunning17

This is our Digi pack feedback. This presentation shows the positives and improvement feedback we received and the improvements we made as a result of this. 

First Draft Digipak

This is the first draft we have created for our digipak. I aimed to use the colour purple throughout  while incorporating Nova's different looks used throughout the video. On the bottom right is the official album cover, on the bottom middle is the back of the album, showing all of the tracks, the left bottom and top are photos of Nova from the 'Nobody Better' music video. The top middle is a picture of the CD inside and on the top right is another photo of Nova in her music video. I am happy with digipak draft as it is interesting to look at and it symbolises the music video well. To improve this however, I am going to work on making it all more cohesive so it looks like one body of work and flows nicely.                 

Digipak inspiration

The images above show the digipak for the artist Rihanna's Loud album. Within these images chosen for the digipak, our group has found inspiration in the colour scheme - Nova's digipak is primarily purple colour schemed, whilst Rihanna's has similarly got purple tints on the photos.

Above is an image taken from Nova's final digipak - this is similar to Rihanna's Loud digipak, attributable to the rose theme. Noticeable in the bottom three images of Rihanna's digipak, where she is photographed in front of a rose bush, which is similar to the use of the rose in Nova's rose image, especially with the same predominant red colour use.

Album title and songs

Album name - Nostalgia

Songs:
Nostalgia
Novacane
Too young to love you
Honey love
She
Neon demon
Wonky
After dark
Electrified
Spirits
Flame
Diamond in her eyes


Above is the album name and all the songs on the album we have decided.  We decided on the artist name Nova by researching galactic names, also we made a survey monkey which helped us narrow it down to the best name.

Alternative Magazine Covers

For the magazine cover, we decided that we wanted to do a 'Paper Magazine' spread because it is very well known for being artistic and modern, inviting all important and famous celebrities for being on their covers. However, as an alternative outcome for our magazine, we could have chosen a more music related brand such as: Billboard, Rolling Stone, Clash or Vibe. Even though we believe that our cover looks accurate and was successful, possibly we could have chosen a more 'interesting' magazine company to showcase our artist, as the Paper Magazine traditionally chooses a more simplistic design.

Examples of alternative magazines:

Magazine cover feedback

Magazine cover from katiedunning17

This is our Magazine cover feedback received from various people. It shows the positive and negative feedback of things we could do to improve on.

Magazine Cover

Magazine Spread Inspiration

The magazine cover that we have created for Nova was inspired by these 'Paper Magazine' covers where they appreciate art and explore different means of fashion and verticality. As a group, we thought that this would be an appropriate brand to advertise our image because of the abstractness and creativity it promotes among young artists and their followers.

Website First Draft Feedback

Feedback from first website draft
People in our class asked to evaluate the pros anc cons of the Nova website:

+ Love the videos on the background of the homepage.
+ The transitions are really interesting
+ Clear synergy and colour scheme
+ Original use of video on home page
+ Matches artist image
+ Like the original layout of the gallery keeps the page interesting.
+ I like the effect used wen you open a new subsection
+ Good variety of background images

- Gallery does not allow you click and enlarge the image
- Image under vidoe tab seems poor quality
- Should the social meida links be added to the 'connect' page.
- In the shop section, when a product is added to your cart it gives the user a zoomed image of the item.

With this feedback we will make these changes to the website.

Website First Draft

Artist Website Screencast

 This video is a screen recording of a tour through the artist SZA's website. I recorded this whilst exploring the website categories and explaining each one.

Halfway evaluation reflection

Halfway Evaluation Reflection
After presenting our halfway evaluation we received a variety of feedback, both positive and negative in order to move forward and improve our music video, website, digipak, brand image and target audience.

Music Video TeaserHere are a few examples of positive feedback we received:
-  "GIF is very useful and very good teaser trailer."
- "Good shot selection, image and timing."
- "Link to digipak. Outfits provide a clear artist image."

Here are a few examples of constructive criticism we received:
- "Not a lot of lip synching, could have slightly longer shots of Nova singing."
- "Not sure how it works together yet, what is your point?"
- "Quite dark in some shots."

Website
Here are a few examples of positive feedback we received:
- "Easy to read, nice font."
- "Good large image of artist. Gives a clear representation of the artists look."
- "Clear simple design."

 Here are a few examples of constructive criticism we received:
- "Quite simple, doesn't relate to much regarding synergy."
- "Quite plain, use images to create synergy."
- "Homepage doesn't fully portray the artists image. Include merchandise and links to social media."


DigipakHere are a few examples of positive feedback we received: :
- "Like the front and back cover."
- "Has lots of influences from the video. Good colour coordination/ strong stage presence."
- "Photos are good and stay with the theme."

 Here are a few examples of constructive criticism we received:
- "Needs more of a feel of 'synergy'"
- "Some photos were in different environments according to brightness."
- "Does not tell us much of what the artist is like."

Brand ImageHere are a few examples of positive feedback we received:
- "I thought it was excellent, they suited the image very well."
- "Nova is a good name, has connotations of stars which fits in with the quirky theme. Strong stage       presence."
- 'Very clear image with clear relation to the genre."
Half
 Here are a few examples of constructive criticism we received:
- "Not necessarily unique to other performers."
- "Needs to connect with the website, could have more options for merchandise."
- "Try to have an idea of which Nova is the main one."

Target AudienceHere are a few examples of positive feedback we received:
- "The audience are able to relate to the artist."
- "Good use of social media and marketing with regular updates and interaction."
- "The teenagers and females will easily reach the target audience and the bright colours will attract them."

 Here are a few examples of constructive criticism we received:
- "Think about merchandise which reflects Nova."
- "It could be targeted to the young adult population more."
- "Very wide target audience."

When reflecting back on our feedback, as a group we are focusing more on improving the website and making sure we create clear synergy across all of our platforms to make the whole body of work more cohesive and structured.

Halfway Evaluation

This is our Half Way Evaluation. We showed this presentation to the class in order to gain constructive feedback.This Emaze covers our artist back ground, target audience, and Music video. We have also aded our Digi pack, merchandise ideas and website although these are still incomplete.

Music Video 30 Second Teaser

This is all of our editing which we have completed up until the time to present the Halfway evaluation (6th of November).

Website inspiration

http://www.blondie.net/

As described by Nova herself in her interview, Blondie has always been an inspiration of hers from a young age for her music, performance skills, and style and image.

Blondie's website was rated number 6 highest on Winning WPs '25 Top Examples of Incredibly Famous Celebrity Sites' 

The website has clear synergy throughout the monochrome and red colour scheme which is continued across the website as a whole. This quality of synergy is an aspect of which we have implemented into our own website for Nova by using a purple colour theme.

Another admirable aspect of Blondie's website is the Video tab, found centre on the navigation bar. This page on the website presents all of Blondies music videos in order of popularity. Despite Nova only having one music video - due to being a new artist - this style of displaying the artists music videos was one which, as a group, we all expressed approval for.

What Makes a Good Website

What makes a great musicians website from Holly Connell

This is a slide show explaining the required components to a successful website. 

Shooting Schedule

This is the filming schedule we used in order to have more clarity whilst filming. 

Filming reflection: upon the first day of shooting is when we got the most filming completed. We shot the scenes of: outdoor with dogs, conservatory, bath shots, and an extra scene of the bedroom of Nova in her pyjamas that we decided not to use in the final product.
This day previous to shooting, we went into the town centre and bought some props, such as the glow sticks and light up balloons and bubble bath for the bath scene, as well as some makeup to put on Nova for characterisation purposes.
The productivity of this filming session on the 3rd of October was very high as we were all at peak motivation and managed to get a lot done during daylight hours.
Although, this day of shooting could have gone better if we had planned more as we didn't have a solid plan of each shot and timings, so went off of a general idea instead. However this process did end successfully as we still achieved our wanted shots for the video.

On day two of filming, on the 28h of November, we used this day for getting extra shots which we neglected on the first day. these scenes were the fairy light scene, and outdoor with foliage scenery - where we got other mini filler shots of items such as the red roses.
This day of filming, we only had three members of the group as Katie was absent, which lead to a slight drawback in the time consumption of the work.
However, this day was successful as we managed to get all of the shots that we aspired to get within that one day of filming.
What was not successful was that we did not plan accordingly to the weather, as this day that we did the filming was raining slightly, which harnessed a fluid filming process.

Risk Assessment

Issues we Overcame Whilst Filming

During filming, surprisingly most of it went smoothly and without many problems, but there were a few that we encountered which we had to either improve then and there, or later on when editing or re-filming. Such as:

• Lighting in the bathroom: In the bathroom shots, the lighting is dark and the only source of light are the glow sticks, fairly lights and the neon balloons. This however sometimes looked grainy which made the quality of the video look poor and unprofessional. To fix this, while filming we looked over our footage and used our phone torch lights behind the glowsticks to create a soft light on Nova's face, which made the video look a much better quality.

• Forgetting words: Sometimes, when filming, Charlotte would forget the song lyrics when lip synching for the video which would sometimes look strange. To fix this, because there was no sound in the clip (as the music was going to be layered over the top), one of the other members of the group would shout the song lyrics before it was time to mime them. This worked very successfully as it meant that the video looked more realistic and professional.

• 360 degree shot: When filming on the road with the wheely chair and the dogs, we found that as Holly was filming the 360 shot, the bumpy road meant that the shot looked wobbly and sometimes out of focus. We tried holding the camera more steady but it did not do much to improve the shot, so when editing, Anneka managed to find a 'stabiliser' effect to add to the shot to make it appear a lot smoother.

Filming reflection

Filming Reflection :  The filming went very well, we made sure we were organised and cleared our schedules completely for that day, therefore we had plenty of time to film and did not need to rush our filming, which could have resulted in lower quality shots.
What could have gone better was during the second time we went out to film, we could not find a spare battery for the camera, therefore we had to charge an old battery which wasted some time. 

Filming Techniques

In order to create the desired effect that we wanted for our music video (sleek and polished), we had to research into how to do some of the shots which we were aiming to recreate.

One shot which we wanted to implement in our music video was the 360 shot. This type of shot is one which tracks around one singular spot in a full circle (example below).

In order to recreate this type of shot, we put the person filming (Holly) in a desk chair, whilst Anneka spun Holly around Nova as she filmed her circumference.

The creation of this is exemplified in the image below.

Here is a gif of how we created this 360 shot in our video.

Another technique which we used was low light filming. We used this in order to create the purple hue in the bath scenes. Using low light additionally made the camera focus more on glow sticks and neon balloons, which was the desired look that we were aiming for.

Here is an image of what the bath scenes would have looked like if they were filmed well lit with flash or additional lighting, instead of low light. As seen in the image, the bathroom does not have the same purple hue and the light up balloons and glow sticks look dull and washed out.

Whereas in this screen grab taken from the video where we did not use any additional lighting (and if we did, it was on a very low light), the whole scenery has the desired purple hue and the glow sticks stand out compared to the darker background. 

The camera we used was the Canon 650D. This camera is of high quality and allowed us to make the most of our filming and our filming techniques.

Evidence of Filming: Photos and Footage

This is an evaluation of our footage and photographs taken from our first day of shooting. Overall we felt that the first day of filming went well, we managed to get quite a lot done considering we had only a limited amount of time. We spent time planning the outfits and props used for each individual scene of shooting so we were prepared and knew what we was doing therefore, we could be organised an efficient when it came to filming.

These photos are some which we took whilst filming.

 


 



These photographs were taken from the first location of the music video: a housing street and against a brick wall. We took photographs using the Camera and an iPhone 7 Plus camera as we could use depth effect to create a slightly blurred out background, focusing all the attention on the artist. These were the most successful photographs as they were clear in quality and focused on the artist. They could possibly be used for an album cover or as profile pictures for social media sites as well as featuring on the official website for our artist. 

Here are some of our unsuccessful photographs from our first shoot...

This photo was unsuccessful as the quality is not as clear, she is also 
quite far back which means she is over powered by the scenery which looses all attention and focus on her. The dogs were also facing the wrong way which it made it difficult to capture the 'perfect' photograph. This picture was just practise to see the positioning of where the artist was standing and to see what looked good. Therefore this photo will not be used but it was a good example oh how to improve and allowed us to see what worked and what didn't.





These were the next set of photographs taken. Charlotte had changed her outfit and we changed location to film in her conservatory. Here are some of the successful photographs...

We felt these photographs were successful as they were extremely clear and gave all focus on the artist as the scenery is quite simple and plain. The close up head shots also show the makeup we used to create that look. We felt these pictures made charlotte stand out from the background as she is seen wearing contrasting patterns which helps to create the star image. Again these images could be used to promote our artist either by the official website or social media sites.

The next set of photos taken from our first day of filming where taken in the location of Charlottes bathroom, where she is seen singing in the bath with bubbles and coloured neon lights, balloons and glow sticks...

We found this shoot the most difficult, as we had no natural or artificial lighting. This meant it was hard to make the camera focus and the quality looked quite grainy. We used a flash to help capture the dark shots. To create the 'pink' background we held  an iPhone torch against coloured glow sticks this enabled the colour to shine through into the background. This helped to create a colourful neon setting which linked well to our artists music.

This photo shows the camera we used to capture some of these photographs, we also used an iPhone camera.

Here are some of our unsuccessful photographs...

This picture shows the difficulties we had with the lighting and quality of the photos. In this picture charlotte appears out of focus and slightly blurred. Compared to our first shoot these pictures are significantly lower in quality, this is mainly due to the lack of natural lighting.

Font Research

To help build up Nova's bold brand image, we decided that it is very important to have a specific font, used for the logo and other things such as the alum cover, website and digipack, which fans will be able to recognise on it own, without even seeing it relating to a photo of Nova. We pondered on a few different fonts that were either in cursive or bold text, but we all decided that the font, 'Desdemona' suited our brand image best. This is because it is bold and recognisable to fans, yet also looks fun and slightly girly like Nova herself. Paired with a baby lilac colour, it creates the perfect logo for Nova's brand image.

Artist Name Research

The inserted images above are screen grabs from a survey which we created ourselves on SurveyNuts, after creation, we sent the survey to students and teachers around the school for them to complete. We collectively as a group chose 9 names: Aries, Holo, Cleo, Leo, Taurus, Mona, Nova. To decide on the 9 potential names, we searched astronomy names, such as names of stars, star signs and galaxies. Additionally, we aimed to make the proposed names correlate with our theme of "wonky funk"/ electric R&B, which is why we chose the names that we did.
The outcome from this survey was that "Nova" was the most popular name chosen by the recipients, therefore, this name is the now name of our artist.

Steal-O-Matic

This task is our steal-o-matic video. We chose different clips from different music videos which suited our song and our proposed theme and genre and edited them together to create a mini test version of our final music video.
This task was successful we felt as it gave us more clarity for our music video and allowed us as a group to find our own theme - purple and "funky". Additionally, it allowed us to practise editing on premiere before we began editing.