Album Cover: Before and After Edits

This is the before and after of our album cover photos. It took a while to get the exact look that we were after as the main photo of Eoin was edited before the other two and then once we put them togeter, we had to do another colour grade to make it all even. Before this final edit, the photos of Robbie and George on the right were different, with long shots side by side but we decided that this didn't work and went with the size decreasing close ups/mid shots. This felt more natural to our album design and looked much better.

Some Shots from Promo Shoot

There was a rather long process to getting our final promo shot photos that we used on our site and album. We had to arrange a photoshoot with all band members, so had to book both George and the studio space. Eva took the photos and as none of us had any previous experience with photography particularly, we took as many as we could in as many positions as possible. We learnt that static shots with not much going on didn't work as well as photos where the model was doing something such as putting their hands in a prayer position like Robbie here:

Lighting was an interesting learning curve for us. We worked with three-point lighting to achieve the optimum quality of photos that we could during the photoshoot. We utilised the idea of silhouettes and took some great photos of the band's silhouettes individually. In editing we put three silhouettes together and made the final main picture that features across all our platforms:

 

As the days went by, we realised that detailed editing of every photo was not possible, so photoshop was only used to rid the pictures of obvious blemishes and a quick colour correct. We were then able to produce a large quantity of successful, finished pictures in a lot less time.

Some other examples of our edited photos:

Lighting Before and After

This is a short video detailing problems with our original lighting, and how we managed to correct these issues for the final piece.

Problems with Wix

After a week of editing the website, we came back to it today to find that our master page had been deleted, thereby losing all the content within the separated pages.

It will take too long to call up Wix to see if we can resolve this issue and we do not know why, how or when it got deleted and finding this out would be difficult.

Therefore we have decided to simply rebuild it; as designing it initially takes the most time it shouldn't bee too time consuming to simply replicate what we already have made.

UPDATE ON POST 06/12/11: Eoin had begun to make a mobile website so some data was saved and reused. However we had to rewrite the competition, tour dates, and every news and update post- this took very, very long! We have managed to completely redo our website and even managed to improve it slightly with added hindsight on what was wrong before. For example, we were able to format the site so we had room at the bottom to include institutional information, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and RSS feed buttons; we had not done this correctly the first time.

We learnt to save our progress much more frequent and to log off whenever we left our computer unattended; the computers are used by many people and could have been how we inadvertently lost our work in the first place.

We our very happy this major problem hasn't become too much of a disruption to our project as a whole.

Group Meeting on Website

Today we had a group meeting based purely around the website. We came up with several good ideas and now have a strong sense of direction in terms of colour scheme and feel of the website.

Our first idea was to include a competition page on our website. We decided that a competition is an interactive and personal way for the audience to get involved with the band. The competition idea has been dubbed "Secret Gig" and will ficticiously take place some time in february. The competition requires the user to type in their name, age, email and quater. If they are lucky enough they will be emailed with the secret location of a wristband allowing entry to the underground show. We thought that this is an interesting way of getting our audience to spread the word about our band.

We also wanted to have a large range of posts on the website orientated mainly around the live gigs. This is because we decided that THE STORM is all about the music. Taking inspiration from Pendulum's website, we have decided to place as many references to these gigs as possible.

Finally we decided on one other special event: A STORM/INFLUX combined gig. This was a colaberated idea with group 1 which promotes both bands. Each site will link up to the others and we will make a special promotional poster for the event!

Teacher feedback on first edit

This is our first finished edit (without colour grading).

We wanted feedback on our video so asked several teachers and friends. Here are some of their responses:

- More UV light at the ending

- Faster editing (opening and ending)

- More focus on lead singer; stronger singing shots

- Stairs section didn't work from 0:58

These improvement points where not plentiful; and we generally recieved much praise for the slickness and solid concept of our video; as well as the energetic performance.

Now we need to colour grade, and generally tighten the editing with quicker cuts and more shots used.

16th Wednesday UV Performance shoot

We had our final shoot today! Our very last shoot couldn’t have gone better. We have learnt from our filming experience what kind of shots to get and how best to organise this.

What we did well:                  We had planned well in advance what kind of symbols to place on ourselves and got them on ourselves quickly. We also managed to film a lot quicker than previous shoots purely thanks to gained experience.

What went badly:                   Not much went wrong. We were right down to the line on time but still managed to get everything we wanted.

What we’ll do next time:        If we were to film this again we wouldn’t do much more different other than to give ourselves more time.

10th Thursday Fight Scene shoot

Today was one of the most fun shoot days we’ve experienced. With Robbie and Eva really getting into the fight and a variety of fun build up shots (as well as the kiss scene) we are very happy to call this our final shoot day for narrative.

What we did well:                  We had planned every detail of the fight in detail and this meant the shoot day went by quickly and effectively, with time left over to experiment with some shots.

What went badly:                   Tripod was in many shots, but mostly our experimental shots. We also managed to scare a young mother with Eva’s eyes which was unfortunate.

What we’ll do next time:        If we were to film again I would put a lot more focus on the kiss to make sure we can get an effective ending when it comes to editing.

9th Wednesday Edmonton narrative

Today we left school to film around Edmonton. We improvised a variety of sections for the part of the narrative where Robbie is being followed.

What we did well:                  We got a variety of very good shots and managed to quickly choreograph loads of set ups.

What went badly:                   We were again rained out of what could have been a longer shoot day. A few of our ideas didn’t work but that was to be expected.

What we’ll do next time:        Next time we would plan in greater detail all of our set ups on location. We found it very helpful to set things up on scene.

6th Sunday Performance

Today’s shooting was just a continuation of yesterday. We now need no more standard performance shoots after today and only need to worry about finishing narrative and our UV shoot.

What we did well:                  We brushed past the technical problems yesterday and managed to get everything we needed quickly and effectively

What went badly:                   We often didn’t think about placement of props or cameramen and sometimes managed to get them in shot. However we have more than enough useful footage.

What we’ll do next time:        If we were to have another shoot, we would just be repeating ourselves. We have really got the hang of these shoots now and already have most of our footage.

5th Saturday Performance

Today we put into action everything we had been told to do last week. The performance was a lot more vibrant than last weeks attempt and, thanks to our set up being sorted much quicker, we were able to get a whole lot of different shot types. We especially made sure to get close ups of the drums which we felt we were missing. However, part way through our shoot two of the studio lights we were using blew. We had to spend time sorting out lighting with limited sources.

What we did well:                  We did brilliantly to get started so quickly and managed to get a huge variety of effective and beautiful shots. We will definitely use a lot of the footage we got today.

What went badly:                   Unforeseen events involving the studio lights set our shooting back and left us with both a tricky lighting set up and bad moods.

What we’ll do next time:        We will do exactly what we did over again, but this time, be prepared for all eventualities. We will also get some more of the shots we didn’t have time to get, for example a close up of the bassist’s fingers.

Set Design

We spent a lot of time dressing our set and are very happy with the way it works with our video. We first spent a lot of time cleaning out Robbie's basement, followed by spray painting and pinning up various black sheets.

We are very proud of how this has turned out. It was a gerat idea to use this symbol as a form of branding of our band. We are very excited to see how the UV paint turns out.

2nd Wednesday first performance shoots

Today we had our first shoot for performance. We were slow to get started, with lighting set ups and final set dressing to take care of, however when we got going we had a lot of fun. It was a very promising first attempt.

What we did well:                  The performance went well and we had a good chance to figure out lighting and quickly saw that the band members we chose were good together.

What went badly:                   Unfortunately, since it was our first shoot we didn’t quite get off the ground as quickly as we could have. After getting feedback on our footage, miss blackborow mentioned our lack of enthusiasm in our playing and the over exposed faces due to harsh lighting in certain shots.

What we’ll do next time:        Next time we can sort out the lighting quicker and make sure we don’t over expose the shots. We will also make sure to perform with a higher level of enthusiasm right from the word go (a lot of coffee will be needed)

30th Sunday Chase scene

We spent a very long time in the alleyway, getting every possible angle of a short running scene.

What we did well:                  We managed to get many effective shots that we will definitely use in the end product, including handheld shots of the running and close ups of the small fight. One shot even required Eoin to climb on a roof to film what we plan to be a cctv shot.

What went badly:                   Was difficult to keep up the pace when everyone was tired from running up and down the same bit of walkway. It started raining and our time was limited. This helped us however, as it gave us a sense of pressure and stresses of a real shoot.

What we’ll do next time:        We should have had a back up alleyway since we almost could use the one we planned to due to painters. We managed to film around them but next time more preparation will be needed. Our next shoot is our first performance one. We are very excited!

29th Saturday Walthamstow

Filmed Robbie’s first walking shots of him turning Eva around. We got the all important shot of Eva’s eyes and also found the location we are using on our next shoot.

What we did well:                  We managed to get a good range of effective shots and worked to a good schedule. We also spent extra time planning and had a wholly productive day.

What went badly:                   Had difficulty turning Eva during the first reveal, due to framing, spacing and the same problem we foresaw yesterday with the contacts hurting her eyes

What we’ll do next time:        Though we got a lot done we only have it sorted for a short section of the video and need a lot more content on our next shoot.

27th Thursday location scouting

Today we met up and did a lot of planning for future shots. We decided to do the performance shots when we get back to school. We did set dressing and location scouted using Google street view. We also tested with make up and used the white contact lenses which look great.

What we did well:                  Managed to get a lot of planning and set dressing done.

What went badly:                   Contact lenses were difficult to manage and hurt Eva’s eyes. We noticed that our set was quite small and took a lot of time to organise it well.

What we’ll do next time:        We will visit our locations we decided on today and we now know to only put in the lenses when necessary.

26th Wednesday Broomfield

Filmed opening narrative. Smoking in park on bench shots and Eva’s first reveal.

What we did well:                  For a first shoot we got into the swing of things very quickly. We got some beautiful shots of Robbie on the bench, particularly where he leans back. Definitely using them in the final edit.

What went badly:                   We got a lot of people in the background of shots but worked around it. Trying to make Robbie cry through blowing in his eyes didn’t work very well. We might not use the crying shots in the final edit.

What we’ll do next time:        More planning on location. Perhaps a day dedicated to location scouting purely?

Examples of Storyboard

Here is the storyboard for our first section of the video. We are planning to film this tomorrow in Broomfield Park.

See here the schedule for the day of shooting with shot numbers and times:


Shooting Schedule for 26th

(very early) Ideas for band logo and / or album cover

Edited Track Selection