Call Sheet and production schedule

Today, our group decided that I would be in charge of the contact list, production schedule and production schedule.  This would be vital to complete this as soon as possible so our group were prepared.

Completing the contact list was not too hard and Sarah emailed all our cast asking what their mobile numbers were.  Here is our contact list:

The production schedule however, was a lot harder as our shoot includes 3 different sets on at the same time with wide shots and tracking shots.  I had to decide what order we would film these so we could film the cafe and bar scene together (so the boys don't have to hang around) and to be able to get the wide shots with the dressing room and the different photoshoots.  After completing this production schedule, our group were told that our main boy cast were only free in the afternoon and therefore I had to change it so that Plum, Emma and Jack were filmed in the morning and the cafe and restaurant scenes filmed in the afternoon.

I began doing this straight away and should be done soon.


While I completed this, Chuffy sent an email requesting copyright permission for the song.

Furthermore, Sarah and Chuffy tried to organise where we would source a good enough version of our song:  this has been very difficult to find as you can only buy it off Itunes in the US.

Important emails about props

After the rehearsal, Chuffy and I measured how big our bar would be as we worked out in the studio the best size to fit all our cast, furniture and the door next to it.  Chuffy then sent these measurements to our set builder who is making the bar.  We also decided that the bar should have a shelf behind it on the wall so we can have glasses on it:

Earlier on in the week, Chuffy also emailed people about our old mic and couble bass that Alastair suggested to us:

Overall we decided that because no one had a double bass (only a cello) that we would use a bass guitar instead:

This is also a lot easier for our band to learn the music with because Theo plays the bass guitar and if he can't be in our video than the person replacing him (Max Lawrence) can also play the bass guitar.

Therefore, by the end of this week we would have needed to find the music for the bass guitar and keyboard for our players so they can learn this over halfterm.  We also need to make sure we have a bass guitar, which Chuffy will organise.

Rehearsals

Yesterday, our group had a rehearsal with our cast and went through each set discussing choreography and what they would be wearing.  We then filmed this to see what it looked like. 

Before the rehearsal, I emailed the cast once again to make sure they knew when they were needed:

We booked a camera for 3pm and Mina marked out the size of our sets with gaffer tape on the floor so were able to see how well the furniture and people that we wanted fitted in and if this needed to be changed.  We also had to make sure they weren't too big otherwise we wouldn't be able to fit everything in the studio and wouldn't be able to get a lens wide enough to get all three sets in the same shot.  Here is a sketch of the three sets that Mina marked out:

The things that we aimed to work out in that afternoon were:

1. Exactly what will happen during each part of the song
2. Who will be where in each shot and what will they be doing - this might need to be changed as we thought we might find the sets may be a bit cluttered/crowded, which would lead us to rethink what furniture or how many extras we would include

When I first came into the studio and studied the three sets that Mina had marked out, I realised how small the cafe/restaurant would be and therefore decided that we would only need one table and two chairs of the bistro set and have a man sitting at the bar reading a newspaper/drinking coffee.  Mina had also marked out the bar on the right hand corner, which gave even less space so I moved this to the left corner and we had more room.  She also hadn't considered the doors that we would have in each set so I marked these out, which gave us even less space.

We began our rehearsal with a production meeting with all our cast about what we would be doing.   Maxim and Theo also turned up to our rehearsal, which confused us as we were told the day before they weren't in it - this is significant that we organise who is definetly in our cast or not by the end of the week.   

As the majority of our cast that were present were in the cafe/restaurant scenes we began with the cafe.  A mistake that we made was that our team didn't clearly define our roles before the rehearsals and therefore, at the beginning our cast were recieving instructions from all of our group, which was confusing.  To make sure this doesn't happen on the day of our shoot, our group can swap roles and take sections of the video each for each role - this is something we would need to discuss in our next production meeting.

Eventually, our group organised ourselves and I directed most of the rehearsal as I had organised our choreography while Mina Sarah and Chuffy swapped roles in camera and sound and also helped direct at some points. 

The first thing we realised on the cafe set was that the boys dancing behind Emma didn't work as it was too awkward.  We then tried and filmed different ways in which we could do this scene with all our group coming up with various suggestions.  We finally decided that Emma would first go up to a man on the table (Toby) steal his hat and then walk away from him towards Maxim at the bar who she would dance infront of and then go towards the door, blow a kiss and then run into her dressing room. 


After we finished the cafe scene, we moved onto the bar scene.  We began this in the last photoshoot (the beach) where Jack Flamminger would be the photographer and then went through all our choreography right up till the end trying to use as much similar camera angles and shots as we could.  

Unfortunately, when Mina went up to the editing suite to edit all these clips, she discovered that many had been deleted and therefore she was only able to use the shots that we had left (note that some of these weren't our best but gave us an idea of what it would look like on camera).  Here is a short sequence of our rehearsal:


Overall I think our cast worked really well and we learnt a lot from this.  Thus, we have decided that the bar scene works and that our new cafe scene works a lot better.

After we finished our rehearsals and cleared the studio, our group had a production meeting and discussed what we had learnt from the rehearsal and what we still needed to do:

1. We learnt that preparation and planning will lead to a better shoot and a better product:  time spent rehearsing in our rehearsals will be time we don't waste on our shoot day, which will give us better footage and more time
2. We learnt that we will work better as a team if we have clearlt defined roles.
3. We decided that we should have one more rehearsal, possibly the Tuesday after halfterm.  This would be essential for Emma as we would need to film her lip syncing the song as she was shy about doing this in yesterdays rehearsal.  It is not essential that we call all of the boys back but maybe that we go through our dressing room scenes as we didn't concentrate this in our last rehearsal.
4. We discussed that maybe in our next rehearsal with Emma that we ask her to try and be a bit more sexy rather than theatrical as this began to look quite cheesy infront of the camera.  The boys were also doing this but once we made them aware, they stopped so we don't need to worry about this (just to remind them before we shoot)
5. We need to email or the cast once again and get them to take a picture of their costumes and send it to us so we can confirm that's all organised. 
6. We need to organise exactly who is in our music video as there is confusion whether Theo Bhat and Maxim Baldry are in it.  If Theo isn't in it, we have someone that can play an instrument instead but we aren't sure about Maxim yet.
7. We need to send the band the music (keyboard and bass player) so they know how to play the song

researching target audience

To find out who our target audience is, our group are researching into the artists: avril lavigne and Lily Allen.  These similar acts we have indentified for our genre research are the basis of our research into target audience of teenage girls. 

Lily Allen's Fans

1. This fansite is very useful in representing Lily's audience as it is very girly and fun. 
2. The website advertises the site perfect-look.org, which is a website that lets you know about the latest fashion.  Users can make a dress up doll, tag and share fashion pictures, e.t.c. which presents the target audience is very girly and young. 
3. On the website it quotes, ' Lily Allen is taking on a new adverture by opening up a store called Lucy In Disguise. But don't worry, we will still be following her every move! Stay updated with the latest photos, videos and news items! With a gallery which has over 23,200 pictures, oh-lily.com is the biggest Lily Allen fansite on the web today!' - again, it mentions clothes (Lily's store), which appeals to a female audience and the fact that that follow her 'every move' shows that the audience are very interested in her private life.  Therefore, on our website, our group should consider this by definetly using a gallery with the 'latest photos, videos and news items'

This fan site is a perfect example of something that helps distribute Lily's products as it keeps fans up to date with her latest music, concerts and news. 

 The affiliates use on this website present Lily's audience perfectly.  All these celebrities are very fashionable and have particularly appeal to a young female audience.

These Affiliates are from Britain as well as the US and therefore, they cover a widebase of fans. 

Although there most popular audience are female, all of these Affiliates (that have be chosen because they have a similar target audience to Lily Allen) attract a male audience also because they are attractive.  This is something we should consider for our artist. 

It's interesting to look at who the artist is 'into' and what there interests are as this gives an idea as to why the artist's star image appeals to their audience.  Looking at who Lily is following on Twitter helps this research.  Lily Allen is following her sister Sarah Owen who she opened a fashion renatl shop with (Lucy in Disguise - which she's also following) in 2010.  She is also following Lana Del Ray and Marina & the diamonds, who's star image appeal are beauty and fashion. 

Here is a image of Lily's audience at one of her concerts. This shows her audience are female and male but also are a bit younger than what we thought.  I'd say her target audience are more 11-18 years than 15-30 years.  This is supported by the fact that Lily's fan websites and her social media websites are constantly discussing fashion, beauty and relationships.

Lily Allen has nearly 4 million followers on Twitter:  an absolutely enormous number of fans.  This is primarily because she is very open and frank about her personal life and her fans particularly enjoy the intimacy and closeness this offers them. These are some pictures that she posted on her twitter that represent how intimate she is with her fans about her feelings and personal life:  (this is something we should consider with our artist)





This is a significant star image appeal that her target audience buy into as it's fun and entertaining - she let's her fans into her life instead of being detached and dull.

Her followers:

Mainly young girls and some young boys.  The majority are girls that seem to look at Lily Allen as a role model for fashion and beauty.

To them, Lily is fun, friendly and intimate which is exactly what her fans want.  This is very similar for our audience.  

  









Lily's audience help distribute her products through their fan sites and the fact that so many follow her on social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.

Her MySpace is also very successful in appealing to her audience:

This advertises her music extremely well and shows her own personal photos, which again appeals to her audience because it's more intimate:  she becomes a sort of role model to young girls this way.  













Lily's YouTube:

This is auto generated by YouTube and shows all her latest music videos that are available for all her fans.  It also shows her related channels, some of which are videos made by her fans such as lyrics to her songs, which will help circulate the artist's products even more.

It also gives a description about Lily Allen (From Wikipedia)  that perfectly represents why she is so appealing.  Her 'cheeky' attitude is attractive to teenagers as she is fun and entertaining and the fact that she first released her demos on the Internet support how important an audience are to distribute an artist's products - if she wasn't popular with them she might have not become successful.  












Avril Lavigne's Fans

Her official website immediately represents one star appeal:  she sells fragrances that will appeal to her female target audience.  This is something significant that we should consider with our artist as it is also a way of circulating the artist's products as girls will see their friends with the product and want to buy it.  

This image also illustrates how the artist keeps her fans up to date with the latest news that is appealing to an audience because she becomes more intimate.

Her fans are from a wide nationality because she appeals to a wide audience:  this image presents a video in reply to questions fans from Brazil asked the artist.  This is a key star image appeal that is perfect to attract a wide audience as she is friendly and attractive.  Using video updates in a website is something that we should consider as it's a fun a friendly tool that helps distribute the artist's products - becomes more popular.





Similar to Lily Allen, social media sites are a significant tool that Avril Lavigne uses, which involes her fans tremendously and therefore, is a successful star image appeal.

Here is an image of the artist's Twitter and some of the people that she follows.  This gives me an idea into why she is so appealing to her fans and therefore what her fans interests are because she is similar to these people:

One of the people that the artist is following is a snowboarder/skater, which attracts her fans that are quite tomboy and punk as this is part of her star image appeal.  Although our artist isn't like this, on her Twitter she could be following beauty and fashion things (similar to Lily Allen) as this is what her main star image appeal will be and what her fans will be interested in. 
Both Avril and Lily have this cheeky side about them, which is fun for their fans because it makes them more interesting.  They represent this through their social media sites, particularly through their pictures and videos, which allows their fans into their world.  This is something we should consider with our artist.  Here are some of Avril's images on her Twitter:

I definetly think that we should do this with our artist by taking some pictures during our shooting day (behind the scenes) and some pictures of the artist with her friends as both Lily Allen's and Avril's target audience love this.

Looking at the artist's website, it is clear that she has lots of fans across the world (lots of different nationalities).

This fan site I found is Spanish:

Furthermore, this is a 'rock' website and therefore presents her fans has quite punky, fun and also quite young.

This website also shows pictures of the artist at London Fashion Week, which also suggests that her target audience are interested in fashion (same as Lily Allen)

This image of Avril Lavigne's audience at one of her concerts is perfect in reflecting her target audience:

1. Age Profile = 11-18years
2. Gender = mainly female
3. Interests = beauty and fashion
4. Nationality = diverse

This is almost identical to Lily Allen's target audience and therefore this is the target audience, which we want to attract for our artist.

Props

In todays lesson, I sent an email to the head of our drama department asking if they had certain props. This was the email:

Hi Al,



Sorry you must be really busy at the moment but we thought we'd send you a list now of the props we need for our music video. This way, we know if you don't have something and we can get it ourselves during halfterm.

Here is the list:

1. Bistro Set (you mentioned you had 2 tables and chairs?)

2. An old-fashioned microphone

3. Double Bass (we emailed the music department about this but they haven't replied)

4. Keyboard on stand

5. Coffee cups/glasses for bar

6. Anything that would be suitable or a bar that you have

7. We need to get helium balloons and we were wondering if you new any contacts around here about this?

8. Stools for the bar

9. Table cloths...any french style ones?

10. Clothes rail

11. 60's beach things: sun lounger, chair, wind breaker, beach ball

Here are some images that are similar to what we want:

This was his reply:

Hi Layla,

 

          

 

     1. Bistro set - Yes we have one.

     2. Old fashioned Mic.  Miles has one and Doug Quinn has one so you can ask them.

     3. Double bass - I don't have one or know anybody who does. Talk to Miles, Dave P or Dave Tunstill for suggestions.

     4. Keyboard on stand - this is a pop shoot standard issue. They should have one.

     5. How many cups and glasses. I only have a few.

     6. We have a long bar in the studio or a smaller bar that we used in the A2 play last easter. I have no beer taps though.

     7. Helium balloons. Cheapest way is to look online but they have them at the non stop party shop in Guildford and horsham

     8. I have stools for the bar. 3 with green tops or our black wooden ones

     9.  I have 12 red and white checked tables cloths

    10. I have a clothes rail

    11. I have two metal framed fold up sun loungers. I have a wind breaker. I don't know about a beach ball. I will look

 

     I hope this helps!

 

Alastair

Therefore, I am now confident we have all our props except for the double bass, helium balloons and possibly some things for our bar.  On Monday, I will visit the department to check if the stalls, table cloths and the bistro set are what we are looking for.  I will also need to see how many glasses there are as otherwise our group will have to bring those in ourselves.  I will also have to check what the sun loungers and wind breaker look like. If we can't find a double bass by the end of next week than I think that we should either have a bass guitar or normal guitar, which I know we will be able to get. 

Emails to cast

In yesterdays lesson, Sarah sent some important emails to our cast:

From this we have decided that: Maxim will play on the keyboard in our music video as he is quite confident infront of the camera, Hendrik will be our barman for both the cafe and the bar shoots as he has the costume for this and Plum will be Emma's makeup artist in her dressing room. 

Research Task

These week, our group have been researching our genre for our artist, who our target audience is and what pleasure they get out of consumption. We decided that our genre for our artist was electro pop/punk pop and our target audience was definitely teenage girls.  Then we decided that our similar artists were Lily Allen, Avril Lavigne and Vanessa Paradis.  We then split up to analyse the conventions of videos, websites, digipacks and posters/photoshoot for each one of these artists, which would help us in seeing what generic templates they used to appeal to the same target audience we are appealing to.

I was in charge of researching their websites and this is what I found:

We divided up each area so that we could share our findings:  Sarah researched music videos, Mina researched the posters and Chuffy researched the Digipacks.  We then combined all of our findings together into a prezi.

Preparations

We began our lesson today with a production meeting to organise what each person should be doing for our preparations.  During this meeting we also discussed some important points:

In yesterday's lesson, Sarah sent a few emails to our cast about costume.  In one of her emails, she asked if one of the boys had a waiter costume and he replied he did.  Therefore, we went on to discuss the rest of our costume and if we would need to ask the drama department for anything.  In yesterday's lesson, Sarah looked at costume for our boys and we discussed whether what she had chosen was suitable.

Our final decisions:

Greg Fellows and Toby = big boots, denim jeans, white top (all can provide themselves).  We would need to provide two worker belts and we would ask the drama department for this.

Hendrick = He would be the barman in our music video and is providing the outfit himself.
Jack = He would be the photographer and would wear jeans and a top (providing himself)

We would ask the other boys to wear casual clothing as they will be in the cafe/bar or playing in the band.  This clothing would be things such as, black jeans and a shirt.

Plum = our make up artist would wear all black, hair in a bun and minimal makeup


In further discussions, our group decided that Chuffy would personally talk to Jack to make sure he was receiving our emails as he hadn't replied for a while.  Mina and Chuffy also decided to edit the animatic storyboard that I redid, which they filmed yesterday in the lesson.  While they were doing this, Sarah and I worked together on costume and props.

We began by making a list of all the props that our group would have to bring in ourselves:

We then made a list of the props we would need to ask the drama department for:

Therefore, by the end of the lesson Sarah and I had organised all props and costume.  The only thing we needed to discuss was if Emma had found anything in her wardrobe as I had sent her an email earlier on in the week asking if she had any costume herself:

Mina and Chuffy also finished the editing the animatic.  Sarah and I also emailed our cast booking a rehearsal:

Therefore, all we have left is to buy our props/costume, paint screens for sets, production schedule, call sheet, finish costume with Emma and to make sure that all our rehearsals take place and we book more if needed.  Overall, I believe this lesson was very useful for our preparation process.