The Start Of Our Filming

Yesterday was the first time the band and the group have met up to start filming. We filmed the scene of the music video where the "Carlisle" sign is passed amoungst the members. Harry was filming, with my assistance whilst Meg told us the shots we had to film and I was taking photos of the group working for the possible use of stop motion and to generally show evidence of filming. Unfortunately, Jess was unable to attend this filming session as she had work commitments, but the filming shoot only lasted under 30 minutes, so it was not vital that she should attend.

Here is a shot of the group and band working together:

These are the sort of shots that will be achieved from yesterday's filming:

Examples of other texts - Existing band photos

These images are examples of other existing band photo shoots, we have looked at some other photos before taking our own to gather inspiration and technique. The camera's used appear to be very high quality, we tried our best to use the best cameras we had, these consisted of two Canon 1000D SLR's and one SONY NEX-C3.

Stop Motion Experimenting

Here, i've created a stop motion video just to see what is possible for our music video, also, this could be used for further inspiration in our video.

Another Photoshoot #4

My feelings about how this photo shoot went are quite mixed. I think the location we had was better than last time because they definitely looked better being in a town, but I think the actually images aren't as good as the ones that were taken previously. The photos that were taken in the countryside were reasonably local so it didn't take it too long to get there, which meant we had lots of time to experiment and didn't have to worry about losing light. Whereas this time, we had to meet a little bit later on due to after school commitments and then drive into town which took us quite a while. There was also a lot of 'faffing' around when we got there which wasted even more time and we slowly began to lose light.
However, there were two plus sides to this photo shoot, and they are: I am very pleased with how Georgia looked this time because I don't think she stood out too much because we dressed her similarly to the males in the band. Secondly, I think we have learnt a good lesson from the shoot, which is to plan times in advance and know exactly what we are doing when we get there so no time is wasted.


Although I don't particularly think this is a great picture, because of facial expressions and order of the band, I like the idea and think it would have worked well if their height order matched the order of the band!

Another Photoshoot #3

Joe and Harry have both already made posts about our second band photoshoot on Wednesday 21st September; however I have a link to a small selection of photos that I chose to upload to my current Flickr account. On this account you can also find the rest of the photos I have taken so far for this A2 media project.

Flickr

Another Photo Shoot

Yesterday, we planned to meet up at Fosse Park at 5pm. We then commuted together to the Highcross car park in Leicester. We decided this would be a great place to practice stop motion and solve the problem of Georgia standing out so much (being the only girl in the band). We did this by dressing her more similarly to the boys.

Here is a picture of Steve driving us to Leicester:

Here is the group taking pictures of the band on top of the Highcross car park:

Jess then briefed the group on how she wanted them to behave and how to pose:

After a short while we managed to get many shots which were good enough to practice stop motion with. I will post at a later date with my first practices of stop motion.

I learnt that taking pictures for stop motion is not as easy as it looks, it takes time and patience and a band that is compliant. The group took some successful photos and we had a good evening - the band are getting to know each other really well now and they get along well together. they are so comfortable with each other, that Will thought he'd do a little dance:

Stop motion videos will be uploaded soon.

Ideas for Band Photos

As much as I liked the photos that we took in a country side area, as I said before I'm not sure it portrays the bands image in the correct way. We want them to seem fun and michevious with a less humble look like that have in those that we took. The closest image I could find of a band that was in our genre and that was similar to our outside shots was this Two Door Cinema Club one and I do think they seem quite a plain band and don't get up to anything exciting.



We have decided to take photos of our band outside in a more urban area, as stated previously, so I have decided to look at images of bands in our genre, from a town area and there was something that I notcied occured quite a lot in the photos. I observed that the majoirty of the bands shots, if taken in a town or urban setting, are put in black and white. I think this is something our group could think about so we stay convential to our genre. On the other hand, in our pitch we said how we wanted colour, and with colour comes the idea of fun, so this is something to have a discussion on.

 

However, the majority of bands that I have looked at from the indie genre have very simple photos, and these are with a plain back ground. I do like this idea but I think it will be hard to give the overall impression of the bands fun energy. The one below of Bombay Bicycle Club does give the idea of a typical indie band, but makes them look very serious and the only interesting part of the image is the 'super lame' tshirt and hat and glasses one of the members is wearing.

New Band Photos

We were all very pleased with the recent photos that were taken the other week, but after some feedback from our teacher we decided we needed to take some more. The two main problems that we have with the current photos are the location and the way Georgia is coming across in the images. To solve these, we all decided that Leicester City Center would be the best location for the shots as they'll be a complete contrast to the last ones. The problem with the last location was perhaps the country side isn't the kind of image we want our band to have, so we are going to try out a more urban location to see if that works better. To solve our problem of Georgia, we have decided to change the outfit that she'll be wearing so she blend in more with the male members of the band. To do this, we will have her wear black shorts with black tights so it'll look similar to the males black jeans, but the shorts will give her a feminine edge.

Due to us taking pictures outside tomorrow, I thought it would be a good idea to check the weather forecast, because if it's raining we will have to put off this idea and find something else to do. What we will do instead I am unsure of as we'll make the decision together; however, with the weather how it is we should be okay to go!

Edited Photos From The Photo Shoot

Here I have edited two of my favourite photos from the photo shoot of the band and have tried to go for two completely different approaches. One bright and emphasising the "cheeky" and "fun" side of the group and the other is a shot that we would like to be iconic and fashionable which shows the retro elements of this genre of music.

Evaluation of Test Shot Photoshoot

Our photo shoot went really well as the others will also mention, I think looking at other band images could be extremely helpful to us, we feel that if we take inspiration from existing bands it will influence our work to have better progress. Bands we could look at are: The Arctic Monkeys, Foals, The Maccabees and Little Comets. These bands however have all band members as males, so we will need to take some inspiration from a band featuring at least one female in to contrast the male dominance. These bands could be: The Pretty Reckless, Paramore and The Joy Formidable. The girls in these bands all stand out, however we are trying to do the exact opposite with Georgia from now on as we felt the clothes she wore during this photo shoot were too disctracting as she was dressed in bright colours and very summery style clothes. We will attempt to make her blend in more in our next photo shoot so that the four members look like one band, rather than a focus on one lead singer.

Photoshoot Test Shots #2

On Monday 12th of September, we organised to get all members of our band together for some practise shots for possible album covers and for some possible influence for stop-motion. We met at Whetstone Co-op and together commuted to Thurlaston (a small country village) which had some ideal locations such as: a ford; an old bordered up cottage; old church walls; corn fields and a hand made swing. We tried some conventions of photo shoots for bands by making our band not smile and remain expressionless and also to have the lead singer in the middle at most shots but with the female in the middle too at times to break down the sexes. I think for a first shoot it was quite successful, but in order to get the ideal shot more will need to be taken.

Photoshoot Test Shots #1

Here are a collection of photos taken by myself in the surroundings of Thurlaston. We arranged to meet in Whetstone one evening after school (Monday 12th September) to do a photoshoot of our 'band members'. The shoot was successful, the only thing lacking in my photos is the band's character, however I decided that I would focus more on the profile style shots - to give the audience a general image of the band and not a characterisation of them. I think the locations for the photos worked well as we used a crop field, a ford and the village area including the church wall and a boarded up house. I haven't edited any of these shots as they are test shots, but if we feel we may use any of these photos I will edit the lighting and colouring on some of them to enhance the band members as the focus of the image.
The link for Flickr is below the images.

Flickr - jessspardoe - skeletonboys