Brief Commentary

We filmed our music video a couple of weeks ago. We set up the studio in full black with panels of corrugated plastic that we had dancers dancing behind, we shone lights on these panels and varied the focus of the camera so it was about what you couldn't see. We filmed a variety of shots and angles of this and our other scenes like the two watchers on the sofa and club scene. We are now editing our music videos on mac computers using the editing programme Final Cut Pro. We started by downloading our song onto Final Cut Pro then playing through it and using markers to mark the beat throughout. After this we labeled our best shots so we knew which shots we definitly wanted to use in the video. We then began placing the clips into the sequence and seeing how they looked together before cutting it all together. We used the markers and slowed it down to find the beat and cut on it, we also have a lot of shots where the light flares into the camera so we used these to cut on as well as using the shots that move into black as a means of cutting.


The strengths of our rough cut so far are definitly the cutting between shots because we've made effective use of the flares that appear in our music video to try and hide cuts, also we've taken special care to make sure the cuts are on the beat of the song. The weakness and issue we've come up against in our editing process is the sensitivity of the material we filmed and trying to edit it in a way that is appropriately censored. Another main issue we've faced in the editing process is trying to edit the video so that it is sexually suggestive as oppose to explicit.

Evaluation of the Rough Cut Progress

Once we had finished editing together our rough cut of clips on final cut pro we put it on a hard drive in order to upload it to our blogs. The rough cut is used to show how the clips work together and to give us a basis of video to work around and put more into. It is part of the research and development of our finished product as it allows us to try out different clips together and begin creating meaning within the video before shaping it into the finished product. We still need to make it less explicit and shape narrative and characters into it as more key themes before the final cut, but the edit is strong in editing to the beat and cuts on lighting flares. It’s also allowed us to play around with the dominatrix character and the watchers to work out how we’re going to finally portray those characters before the final cut.

The Shoot Day

 Aside from this we had to dress the two watchers and make sure they were looking as identical as we could get them looking, for example making them switch their rings onto the same finger, take off one of their watches, do their hair the same way, make their suits look the same etc. After this we could begin setting up the lighting whilst one of us rehearsed the poses we created for them based on Man Ray photos.

Looking back at the Shoot Day

Our production group worked efficiently as a team, each swapping roles so everyone put equal effort into each aspect of the music video but also in learning off each other’s performance in each role and helping each other to perform each role to the best level. A lesson that I learnt during the shoot was to, in future, plan ahead for possible unreliability. In the case of our whole male cast dropping out, if we had planned for the unexpected we could’ve cast an understudy to step into their place and perform the roles we needed.

The only adjustments we may need to make to our website and album artwork designs are to take the focus of them off a male homosexual audience because of the issue of our male cast dropping out, however we still managed to create a similar looking club scene using women instead of a mix of both genders.

Problems and successes with the Shoot Day

We had one major issue in that our male cast for the dancing scenes didn’t turn up and we had to work around this by reworking the concept of no sexual identity, meaning that in this club there was no sexuality everyone did what they wanted. We had to rework this as it was pretty unclear without any male cast to play the parts, so we ended up just turning it into a female fetish bondage club with a minor freedom of sexuality theme. I think the scene with the plastic panels set was the best because the lighting and actors looked really genuine and it represented the most meaning throughout our video. The panels were almost like windows into a fantasy world where there were no rules or labels and no societal condemnations on what people did, this part for me was the most representational of our traditional idea of the ‘Grey Room’ taken from Fifty Shades of Grey’s ‘Red Room’.

The only part of the shoot I wish had gone better was the pole dancing in the dancing scene where the characters looked much less natural and looked more like they were performing to the camera rather than just in a club scene. We managed our talent well as we constantly had one of the group in a directory role constantly directing and telling the cast what to do how to act even throughout the shots were going on. The bit of the shoot I enjoyed the most was the plastic panels scene because there were parts of this that I filmed which I thought I filmed really well and it was also the most successful part in my opinion, especially in representation of the overall themes. The part I’m looking forward to most in the editing is the watchers scene with the rising floor as we filmed plenty of different shot types and angles for this scene and it’ll be interesting working out which shots to cut into and how create an interesting sequence that relates to voyeurism.

Dividing the roles on the Shoot Day

We divided the roles in the group into someone controlling playback so the cast could feel the mood of the song and act appropriately, someone filming and achieving varied angles to cut into, and a director to continually direct the cast and make sure they knew how we wanted them to act. We swapped these roles between the group members roughly every 40 minutes so that everyone could take an active role in each aspect of the music video production, however during the beginning scenes we needed someone to operate the inflatable floor as we filmed so we had to swap between this as well. I personally think I filmed one of the scenes particularly well where I had to film from outside the plastic into the plastic but varying angles and shot size whilst panning and blurring the shots, which I found difficult but much more interesting to film that just normal still shots.

Arriving for the shoot

 We were well prepared the next morning with all the costumes and props that we needed and the majority of the cast showing up on time, the two boys in the morning and the dancers in the afternoon, however only one male member of the dancers turned up so we had to work around this.

How I felt on the Shoot Day Morning

 I felt confident and ready, the next morning, about our set and shot list but was a little bit nervous about the reliability of the cast and whether they would show up on time, whether they would do what we told them etc.

What we did the day before to set up for the Shoot Day

The day before our shoot we set up the different parts of our set in the studio with Dan, the set designer, and collected up all of our props into a bag ready to use the next day. We started off by painting the set panels black and then setting them up using wooden props and stage weights, we then attached the panels of corrugated plastic to the black panels so we had three plastic panels with two black set panels. After we had prepared the plastic and panel set we set up the sofa with a fur rug cover

Setting up for our Shoot day

The day before our shoot we set up the different parts of our set in the studio with Dan, the set designer, and collected up all of our props into a bag ready to use the next day. We started off by painting the set panels black and then setting them up using wooden props and stage weights, we then attached the panels of corrugated plastic to the black panels so we had three plastic panels with two black set panels. After we had prepared the plastic and panel set we set up the sofa with a fur rug cover. I felt confident and ready, the next morning, about our set and shot list but was a little bit nervous about the reliability of the cast and whether they would show up on time, whether they would do what we told them etc. We were well prepared the next morning with all the costumes and props that we needed and the majority of the cast showing up on time, the two boys in the morning and the dancers in the afternoon, however only one male member of the dancers turned up so we had to work around this. By the morning we decided that the fur rug and the colour of the sofa didn’t work for the kind of scene we were trying to create so we covered it in a black sheet of plastic and stapled that around it to keep the sofa covered and fit in with the style of the scene our video was about. The studio looked like a blacked out club with the only points of contrast being the corrugated plastic strips which was exactly what we had planned. These pictures show how our set looked by the time we had set up every element.

Risk Assesment

Film production risk assessment form 

Researching Similar Artist Websites - Carl Cox

These are the loading screens for Carl Cox, a very successful British house music dj and producer. A running theme we've noticed throughout the websites we've looked at so far is not only the black background contrast but the attempts into energizing and bringing to life the websites which Carl Cox's website approaches in a different way by having animation within the top loading screen.

Which then follows onto this loading screen where a 4 second clip of him Dj-ing to a crowd plays which clearly displays his style of music, this is not the only utilisation of a new media technology in the website there is also an audio player in the top right corner which allows you to experience his music as you experience his website. This video and audio are crucial for getting his image across to the website user before they've even read any text.

Once past the animated loading screens you come to this homepage. This plays on Dj website conventions using the black background with red and white contrasting to the background. A big image of the artist is used in the background to still centre the website around him as a solo artist, as we've seen in the Sven Vath websites. A summer holiday style picture classes this artist into the techno rave, ibiza performing genre which we've seen with Coccoon at Ibiza.

Research into similar artists websites - Sven Vath

This is a screenshot from a similar techno trance dj called Sven Vath. We're looking to his website design as a way of introducing real world techno electronic artists influence to our artist image. His website conforms to traditional conventions of techno artists using a high contrast image of him in the middle of space, this supernatural spin on his image is often seen throughout techno artists particularly as the stars draw similarities to the lazer shows often put on in accordance with techno raves. The basis of the design of this is stille the constant theme of high contrast throughout, the bright green writing on a black background makes it stand out and seem much more colourful and bold, its done to reflect the style of music, bold and energetic.