Shooting Diary (silhouette shoot)

Silhouette Shoot and editing the footage

Inspired by a number of Michael Jackson music videos and the iconic iTunes adverts, I have recorded some silhouette work.

To achieve this effect, I used a shadow screen from the drama department and placed an over-head projector a few metres behind it. Heidi (a talented dramatist and dancer) placed herself between the screen and projector. She placed herself as close as she could to the screen which created this beautiful and detailed silhouette of her. However although the silhouette looked really good, the colourless screen looked really washed out compared to the rest of the colourful footage on Premier Pro....

Heidi dancing in silhouette

On YouTube I found a specially made music video for Michael Jackson’s unreleased song, Cheater, and at the very beginning of the video, there is some really nice colour, silhouette work and inspired by this I want to create something similar.

I used the ‘colour replace’ effect on this footage and set it to 100 which gave this beautiful appearance. I then did the same to other pieces of this footage and put them all together like so…

I am really pleased with this, as it looks both visually powerful and entertaining.

I also captured some of Heidi’s profile in silhouette, whilst she did a bit of lip syncing. This was great, particularly because Heidi’s energy and enthusiasm really fits in with the 80s style. As you can see I also used the colour replace effect on these pieces of footage as well. 

Editing Diary (drumming shots)

Editing the drumming footage and creative decisions

I was having second thoughts when editing my drumming footage. Though I did take extra care considering the mise-en-scene in my lounge, when looking at the footage properly in Premier Pro, I realised that the lounge setting was not exactly working. The reason why I shot the footage in my lounge was to give it an amateur feel, as I was trying to make something which my audience could relate to. From the various music videos I have looked at, I just liked the idea of having people lip syncing and ‘rocking out’ in domestic environments as I am quite certain that any audience member will watch the video and then reminisce about a time they too ‘rocked out’ or had a dance in their lounge or kitchen.

However, it simply was not working for the genre of my music video. I realised that if I really wanted to coin the 80s style, I needed to insert bold and vibrant colours in my footage to give it an artificial appearance and move away from anything too realistic. Both my magazine cover and album digipack are full of vibrant colours; therefore it is vital that I keep my music video within this theme as well.

The threshold effect I used with my images for my digipack (partly inspired by Andy Warhol’s Pop Art) worked really well, so I thought inserting a similar effect for my footage would be good and appropriate. So after experimenting with the various video effects on Premier Pro, I finally achieved the effect, this is how I did it….

I went to 'Video Effects,' then stylize

There were a number of different effects I could choose from but 'Threshold' was the one I wanted. When I set the theshold effect upon the video clip, this is the look I got...

In the 'Effects Control' panel, I set the theshold meter to about '100' which did not lose too much detail of the footage.

I then went to the 'Video Effects' panel once again, but this time I chose 'Image Control' and chose the 'Colour Replace' effect. In the 'Effects control' panel this brought up a colour grid, so I could choose the colour I wanted to make the clip. I then set the colour replace meter to 100, which gave a full blast of colour onto the video clip. I repeated this procedure to other pieces of footage as well...

I think the effect really worked and makes the mise-en-scene appear a much more artificial world. It certainly works better than the footage’s natural colours and also detracts attention away from the domestic setting.

The threshold ‘Pop Art’ effect was inspired a lot by Madonna’s 80s album, Celebration. On it, is her face coloured in with the threshold effect. Its artificial appearance is very typical of the 80s. I was also influenced by The Autumn Society’s (group of illustrators and artists) recent exhibition, ‘80s Pop Art Show. The group set up an exhibition of work reminiscent of 80s cartoons, films, games etc. The work was stunning and elements of the threshold effect were certainly used.



Madonna's Album Celebration



Autumn Society's 80s Pop Art Exhibition

Andy Warhol’s Pop Art has been another great inspiration to me as well, particularly for my album digipack. His work is very much in the style of the threshold effect and I love how most pf his pieces includes repetition of an image, but each one in different vibrant colours. This kind of style influenced my digipack a great deal.

As well as using the threshold and colour effect with my drumming shots, I hope to use the same effects for various other pieces of footage, yet I have used the threshold effect in some still JPEG images…

I am really pleased with discovering the threshold effect on Premier Pro and I am looking forward to the completion of my music video and seeing all this colourful footage together.

Shooting Diary (drumming shots)

Drumming Shoot

Today I did my first shoot for my music video. I set up my electric drum kit in my lounge and played ‘Summer Love’ on the nearby speakers so I could play the drums to the right pace. I got a variety of shots from placing the camera at different angles…

I also made sure that, in order to maintain a plausible Verisimilitude, the mise-en scene did not show anything too obviously modern. I made sure that everything in the camera frame was believable to be in the 80s. I also considered what I was going to wear. I knew that padded shoulders (from images of Abba, Guy, Bobby Brown) and backwards berets (from images of TLC  and MC Hammer) were particularly popular in 80s/New Jack Swing fashion, so I raided my wardrobe and found an appropriate black suit jacket with reasonable big shoulders and also a chequered patterned beret. I thought these would be perfect to wear as part of my outfit for the drumming shots.

The reason why I shot the footage in my lounge was to give it an amateur feel, as I was trying to make something which my audience could relate to. This idea was inspired by various music videos from both the 80s and more recent times. There are shots in them with the protagonists either playing instruments, lip syncing or dancing in domestic environments, something which I am sure everybody has done in their life. In particular, I am sure the people who are part of my target audience (who are now aged between 30 – 50) will have had parties, dancing or band bashes in their lounge to 80s music. 



Freddie Mercury lip syncing and dancing in a domestic setting in Queen's I Want to Break Free video (1984)

People air banding to Feeder's Just A Day in Feeder's Just A Day music video (2001)


P Diddy lip syncing and dancing in a garage setting (though not exactly clear from the screenshot) in P Diddy's muisc video Bad Boy For Life (2001)

However, there were moments when I had trouble with the lighting. During the filming of the moving camera shots, there was a flare of light from the lounge’s window which affected the vision of the shot. When it comes to editing this particular footage, I will either try to tone down the lighting or just cut out these bits of footage all together.

Next time I film, I will take extra caution about where I am placing the camera, so there is no flare of light from windows etc.

Overall, I am really pleased with how this shoot went today. I have managed to capture a variety of footage, so I will have lots to edit and experiment with in Premiere Pro. I think the biggest challenge will be is trying to get the drumming in sync with the song, however as you can see from my preliminary exercise I have already had experience with this.



Feedback on New Digipak design

I uploaded my new digipak design on my deviantart account (http://www.deviantart.com/) and then uploaded to an 80s fan group named 'Back-to-the-1980s' as I thought this would be a good place to get decent feedback from members of my target audience.

The Logo of the group

A few days ago, I recieved some very positive feedback from a long term member of the group and this reassured me that my digipak was aimed at the right kind of people. I am not sure of his age, but by what he said in the comment he clearly was a teengaer in the 80s and highly appreciated my digipak...

Digipak uploaded on Deviantart

Comment from a male member of my target audience

Interscope Records

I used Wiki to help me decide on the record company who were likely to be interested in my products and if they would want to work with me. Michael Jackson was an artist who has strongly influenced my ideas and through Wiki, I found that he had done a lot of work with Epic Records, therefore I thought this would be a good record label to work with.

However, whilst doing my research into the New Jack Swing, I found that the founder of this genre, Teddy Riley, had worked with a variety of late 80s and New Jack Swing music artists for Interscope Records. Therefore I thought this would be a more suitable record company, as the kind of products I have produced are likely to generate interest from Teddy Riley. I realised that comparing my artist to Michael Jackson is very illogical, as he was a world wide known and highly successful music artist.

On the spine of my album digipak, I have typed Interscope Records in a small font, as this is how most of the record label’s names are presented on an album.

Teddy Riley (works for Interscope)

New Album Digipak design

New Magazine cover

Here is my new and improved magazine cover. Inspired by the 2006/2007 and special editions of Mojo magazine covers (mentioned in the slide share presentation), I used bright colours and cartoon/comic book effect.

The font I used was Showcard Gothic as this seemed appropriate to the 80s theme, had a distinctive appearance and was still easily readable. The 2007 magazine of Mojo with The Beatles on the front cover used distinctive fonts as well, which made the general design a little more interesting. I think the font I have chosen adds more to the visual effect.

Both with the Q and Mojo magazine, most issues usually had an image that dominated and was enlarged to take up most of the cover space. This image would obviously refer to one of the main articles inside the magazine. As you can see, I have done this with the image of Heidi and me.

I noticed that on various issues of magazines, sometimes the main picture would overlap with the magazine’s title/logo and on others it would not. When creating my magazine on Photoshop, I tried both ways, however I preferred it when the main picture was behind the main magazine title because then it did not cover up the text.

I think my magazine is challenging media conventions because it has a very different style to the most recent music magazines I have researched. The inspiration to make this design came from older issues of the magazines both standard and special edition. A lot of the more recent issues of the magazines use darker and basic colours schemes and particularly with the Q issues, the background tends to be white or grey. However I am using vibrant colours and a colourful background in order to create an artificial and retro appearance because this is my own unique style I am developing across my three products. This distinctive style of mine makes my products more recognisable to my target audience.

I posted this design on Facebook and recieved some feedback....

Although I recieved a lot of positive feedback and a lot of people said that it was a lot better than my original magazine, the bottom comment was the most important to me as Angela is a key member of my target audience. The fact that she'd 'definately buy it' was a big compliment, and it is satisfying to know that my magazine actually appeals to my target audience!