Rehearsal

Rehearsals are very important in our case because all actors, singers and players must understand what to play, how to perform and what it is like to be in studio. Therefore before half-term holidays we decided to have several rehearsals and this is the video of one of them. 

Here Maria ia playing the cello, she was told not to look in the camera and make the audience to feel that she's playing for herself therefore she sits in the darkness and plays very quietly. 

Afterwards I managed to do some editing and speed up her performance so we can see how we need to film and what we can then edit and which effects to add. This video represent our idea of the shooting.

A new props list

Today we went through the Prop list one more time so when we will come back from our holiday we will be 100% ready for the shooting. Therefore we made a new list where we divided tasks between four of us.

Props List

Research into the album cover style

Clean Bandit's music has been described as "fusion" music, mixing electronic music with classical and deep-house elements. Most of their music intertwines classical compositions, such as those from Beethoven, Dvorak, etc. (most typically, Mozart for their song "Mozart's House"). 

Therefore I thought about representation of classical art e.g. ancient greek sculptures and classical portraits from the Renaissance epoch e.g. Botticelli or Rafael. 

In addition to this, despite their postmodernist way of representation they use old fashioned classical instruments to produce their music: violin, cello, piano.


However, they work in a fusion style of
 music therefore to the classic way of interpretation we can add some postmodern art.




To sum up everything in one album cover which must represent their music and be acknowledged by their fan base the idea must contain these two abstract ideas including pop art and classic art.

Rehearsals

Two days in a row we managed to do the rehearsals with a cellist and a violin player.
It is impossible to get the chords of this song and therefore our musicians have to listen to the song and afterwards translate what they've listed to on the paper and only then play and practice it.
It was difficult from the beginning for Maria, however she managed to play first chords without any notes and she agreed with me in everyday practice during holidays.

Yesterday I had rehearsals with our violinist Jacob. He found it very difficult to play without the score, so for now, he just imitated playing. Over the half term I will try to find and send him the music score. What I did find great was that even though Jacob can't play just by his ear, he was very committed and said that he will try to find the score himself. He also said that once he has it, he will learn the song very quickly. 

Today we have rehearsals with Gen. We hope that she has learned the lyrics and so we will see exactly how she would look on the day of the shoot.   

Props list

We have divided our action plan in four different parts so now here are several things from the big list which we can and we need to get:

     
     1.make-up

• big eyelashes for Jan
• sparkles for the face drawing
• silver, blue and purple eye shadows 

     2. cello 

• every day practice with Maria Krechetova as well as filming her on the camera so then she'll get used to the feeling of constant shooting

     3. violin

     4. costumes

• silver sparky dress for Jan
• black suit for Maria Krechetova
• black training costumes for dancers and Jan too

     5. black dots 

     6. cherry blossom pack or petals 

And here is the list of props we need from the school:

      

      1. 2 white classic chairs 

      

Meeting with set designer

Today we had a meeting with Luke and set designer regarding our setting for the shooting. As I said previously in my "Set and Props" blog we are going to have 3 type of sets. These will be Mirror Room, Black-Purple set and the Blossom room.


After idea presentation we started the discussion regarding the colour synthesis in our video and the designer agreed with our decision on Purple-Black set and she also added that we need to understand how we are going to work out the dots on the purple background without any damages. After this we started talking about the Mirror room and she assumed that it would be helpful to use a specific way of gluing the mirrors to the walls and for this Luke brought her a Flinn catalogue where she'll find a solution for our idea production.

After this we went to the studio to decide what size of set we'll need so singer and dancers will be comfortable during performance. The Blossom part will be built especially for dancers' performance therefore we agreed to 16*4 feet and this sets altogether will consist of 12 boards which we'll pain during this week. The Black-Purple set will be a little bit smaller as the singer doesn't need that much space as dancers do, therefore we agreed on 12*2 feet and this will require only 10 boards and altogether we must buy 24 boards from which we are going to built out sets straight after they will be painted.

Meeting with the Lighting Supervisor

On Monday we met with George, who is in charge of the lighting design for all of our music videos. We were aware of the fact that our infinity lightroom was a huge ask and depended on George's view. When showing him the pictures of Kusama's original rooms, he was very impressed at our ambition and enthusiasm we were putting into our video. He also said that there are a few things he could try, but they would be a risk in the visual design and also very expensive. We also had to think about how we would light our lip-syncer in this room, as the lighting on her would also reflect on all of the mirrored walls. George said that he would do some research on what options there are to make the room look as effective as possible and then we could potentially try out the options before the shoot day. We also showed him the other set that we need to paint ourselves and he said that was very simple to light.

Feedback from screening our animatic to sample audience

The animatic we've done was introduced to Luke and the rest of the classroom. As it is a no developed project or test-run of our video we needed some feedback so then we can change some ideas and interpret audience's reaction on colours, sound etc.

Here are some comments regarding our animatic:

1. dancing fits with the track, the shadow “cross dissolve effect”, the repetitive image looks different- do even slower the jumping part

2. strong performance as Jen is very confident in herself!  

3. considering ballet jumps: try to develop more, more different movements

4. think about the location and mis-en-shot in the dance studio or studio, maybe the shot with 2 dancers and a cello players is too complicated and all these don't fit in it

5. cellist looks good and nice, cools out the track, links with the music, pulls out the sound when we’re watching it in very strong way

6. there must be no outside part, colourist it was a huge clash instead of this use indoor backgrounds!

7. door shots move away from ecstatic visual style, too naturalistic, can try different colour grades

8. cello justify the ballet

Props and set designs

Soon, we are going to have meeting with a set designer so therefore we need to finish our ideas about what kind of sets we need and the location of them.
The video will be shot in studio but there will be three different sets for it

1. mirror room with lights all over the floor and walls therefore the singer will be hidden in the darkness and with music step out of it

      2.  black and purple dotty set where the singer and also cellist and violin player will be, this set is mainly aimed at contrasting idea because from bright mirror room the audience must need a blank simple design of the set 

    3. electric blue blossom set is mainly designed for dancers to shot, the simple colour of walls and floor will not distract audi
ence from the slow motion shots of jumps

Finally, we've decided on these three types of sets and made a plan of what and when we can design and built them up. However, we have several questions about the production of these walls e.g. the number of boards, the easiest way to colour them and which colours are best to use so then they will work with each other.

Moreover, we worked on the props list as we need to organise all of these before the half-term holidays.

1. cherry blossom for Set 3
2. black dots for Set 2
3. cello for Set 2/3
4. violin for Set 2/3

In addition to this we were able to work on costume ideas and decided on more official way of dressing up therefore the singer in Set 1 will be in silver, sparkly dress or pale white so then she will step out as a miracle form the dark mirror set. At the Set 2 she will be dressed in black costume with purple dots on the clothing so she can move as a part of the setting. String players will be dressed in black-tie style. The dancers will be wearing their usual form e.g. black trousers and black body therefore they'll look more professional.

Evaluation of completed animatic

Finally we decide on the cast for our video and therefore it became possible to work with real actors and see them in action.

Cast: 
Jen(A2)- lip sync
Natasha(A2)- dancer
Ro(AS)- dancer 
Julia(AS)- cello
Jacob(A2) - violin

The way we did it is completely different to our final piece because the whole background idea will be developed in two weeks and now instead of filming in studio we used common room and the outdoor location. However, the animatic helped us to understand the way our actions react on a camera, how they look and how they act. Also, we realised how many shots it's needed to be done and what kind they must be: wide or long, shot-reverse-shot etc. Moreover, we worked on the lighting so now we now how it must be set up, where and what we need for our pic to look not very bright in the camera.

Animatic making

This week we need to organise the process of shooting an animatic for our video. Animatic is a preliminary form of a television commercial consisting of a series of drawings with a voice-over, prepared chiefly for test-marketing. This literally means that we need a test-run of our future music video and therefore we have several ways how to do it: storyboard, video or photos.

Our group has chosen a video animatic therefore we need to prepare already a singer, a dancer and props to understand what we’ll need in future, which ideas have to be changed and how in total it looks.

4 types of location:

1.infinity light room 

2.the blossom

3.the projections and patterns

4.the lake ( put a filter and make it contemporary) 

The main shots will be in a studio and the singer will be dressed in black so that we can pass on to the audience all emotions through singer’s face and tone of voice.

However, one of the shots will be a wide shot of a singer and in the background there will be different patterns which will change and with them her costume will be changing, every «drop» in the sound will be followed by an extra yellow circle on singer’s clothing.

There is a cast list of people whom we want to try in our animatic and understand finally whom we need because our song carries an oriental subtext therefore we are thinking about an asian cast which will perfectly suit the motive of the song.

Cast

1.Isabel- singer

2.Ro - dancing

3.Jane -dancing

4.Natasha- dancing( she is very flexible and for our dance we need a dancer who can split in the air, this is in what she’s excellent )

We e-mailed Isabel the lyrics and say her to prepare for the test-shooting next week. She agreed and promised to prepare for it.

Also in the process of filming we will need some instrument players. The will be shots of a person playing a chello and a ksilofon.

We found these instruments in our school and the only problem left is to find students who can play them.

Finally, we e-mailed the Warner Studio regarding the video which we want to shoot and asked for the permission on shooting. Here is the screenshot of our e-mail.

Final idea. Art direction planning

Today we decided finally on the song which we will use in our music video, it’s Clean Bandit - Rihanna. The song is quiet oriental therefore we changed basic ideas of our video.

The main location will be studio where the singer and the instrument players will be based. Also we will have a ballet dancer.

The main idea of the video will be an oriental asian theme with an asian singer in a black room with a light behind her and a dancer who will perform a contemporary ballet. In addition to this there will be two instrument players therefore we will have approximately 7 different shots.

The visual style must oriental also, therefore we found an artist whose works since 90-s are only concentrated on patterns and we took an inspiration from her works.

Her name is Yayoi Kusama and on this website we can see all her major work pieces, http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/art/picture-galleries/2012/february/02/the-fantastical-world-of-yayoi-kusama/

We will use patterns in the wall design, in studio and also there will responds on the singer’s costume. Also, we plan to project the pattern on her face while the rest of the body will covered by darkness.

The make-up is one of the most important things in the scenario therefore we thought properly about it and took an inspiration from Twiggy’s and Bardout’s photos, so the singer will have big childish eyes with a bright eyelashes, style of 70-s which now is spreading among the style industry. Her face will be covered with sparkles and the total look will be more alien than human.