Our Album Cover

Myspace

please click on the link below to visit our artists' website
http://www.myspace.com/harlemuk

Evaluation Conclusion

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2 (Part 2)

Evaluation Question 2 (Part 1)

Evaluation Question 1 Myspace

Evaluation Question 1 Album Cover

Evaluation Question 1 (Part 2)

Evaluation Question 1 (Part 1)

Evaluation Introduction

COPYRIGHT

We attempted to get a copy right clearance by emailing the record label, Interscope Records, and asking for their permission to produce a media product with their song. Although we never heard anything back from them, when we tried to put out music video on youtube it had been authorised by the record label as it is being used for an education purpose.

Album Cover and Myspace Photoshoot

Whilst reshooting our music video in the dance studio we decided to also to a photo shoot for our album cover and Myspace. We decided to do it here as we could then have the dance theme running throughout our products as the album cover and Myspace would also have the dance studio mise-en-scene.
We wanted to make us look glamourous, however still have a dancing edge and a New York theme connecting all the shots. Therefore we decided to have full makeup and hair, a gold jacket, black leggings, heels and both a black vest top and 'I Love NY' top.
We tried to vary the shots as much as possible with the use of all the different distances and shots with both of us and only single shots. This would allow us to have a lot more variety to play around with when it comes to putting together our album cover and Myspace. Here are a few images taken from the day:

Audience Feedback Questionaire

When conducting our audience feedback we created a questionaire in order for our audience to fill in and for us to gain maximum feedback. The questionaire worked really well as many of the people answered in constructively and we were able to get a large amount of feedback from our target audience. Overall the feedback we gained was positive, however there were one or two negative remarks. Here are a few examples of the many questionaires we got:

YOUTUBE

With uploading our music video onto youtube. This has enabled us to constantly check how many views and ratings we are getting, It also allows us to receive feedback from across the globe. Here is some feedback we have gained:

 Statistics & Data

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16RJ1 (20 hours ago)  

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i love thisss

GiJoe2226 (1 week ago)  

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The scenes in new york should have been all filmed at night, else it really doesn't fit the song...

TIMELINE

This is a bit late, but due to my phone breaking I wasn't able to make upload this photo for a while.
Here is the timeline Loren and I made to plan out our shots with the time to make sure we had something for every second of our song.

We wrote our ideas on sticky notes as this enables us to change shot order as often as we like and comparing it to how it will look with the other shots.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

The core target audience for our music video is 13 to 19 year old girls, fans of RnB music and dancers. We decided to screen our music video in a lunchtime to gain maximum feedback in order to make our music video the best it could be. We made a questionnaire which Loren will be scanning in some time soon and also asked a few people some questions individually.

Overall feedback showed that the New York and dance routine footage was the most interesting. I reckon this was perhaps because it involved a lot of camera movement, keeping the audience engaged.
However a lot of audience feedback suggested that the narrative wasn't very clear and that the choice of track wasn't a good one. However we think the track fitted the lyrics to the song very well and were fixed on producing a music video to 'Top of the World - PCD'
We also got feedback from our peers. Here are some criticism:
- The end shot ends very abrupt. Perhaps fade it
- Parts of the video were out of synch
- The long shots of Loren and I at the window are rather dark and should try lightening them.

Dearest Loren

Yes, I think thats a great idea. We'll just write up what we thought underneath our videos in our individual blogs. Good thinking Loren! Keep it up!

To Nisha

Nisha darling,
seeing as we have done one question each on our evaluation but planned them together, im thinking type up the stuff about the questions we never said...?

Evaluation

On Tuesday we conducted our evaluation for the project. To add some visual context to it we decided to record us saying it instead of typing it up. As a group of two Nisha and I thought it would be most effective if we split the questions up between us, me getting questions 1 and 3 and her getting questions 2 and 4. We had to speak for minimum of 15 minutes and a maximum of 30 minutes. At first we were worried that we would not be able to fill this time, however once we got started we could not stop talking and found that we were pushed for time rather than trying to fill up the gaps.
Both  Nisha and I hate performing in front of the camera and therefore found this task very nerve racking and hard. We both would of preferred to write an essay!!Overall though i felt it went okay, with us answering every question and using the maximum amount of time. However on my part i felt that i let my nerves get the better of me and left out some vital things which would of made the evaluation a lot better if i had put them in. Due to this i have decided to post a few bits that i missed out up on my own blog, filling in all the gaps. I felt that Nisha held herself together well and answered everything pefectly. Her questions came across a lot more fluent and well thought out than mine as she was able to overcome her nerves of performing in front of the camera a lot better.

Evaluation Planning

Before we did our evaluation we decided to plan it together to make sure we included everything we wanted to say in it. Here is evidence of our planning:
Goodwin Planning Chart

Vernallis Planning Chart

Album Cover Planning Chart

Myspace Planning Chart

Artist Name

Whilst editing together all our footage we had to come up with a suitable artist name in order to go on our album cover and myspace. After a long discussion we narrowed it down to two names which were M.E.T and Harlem.
We decided on these two names because Harlem is a borough in New York, therefore reflecting our New York roots within the artist and M.E.T because it is describing how we met in a metropolitan city so almost a play on words. When discussing it with a few more people, they felt that the best name for our artist would be Harlem because it is more catchy and easy to remeber and understand the meaning. The name M.E.T is a bit too complex for a band name. So after hearing this feedback we chose Harlem to be our band name and decided that M.E.T would be a good name for our debut album as it shows us starting off on our career.

FINISHED!

After 9 long hours of work on Friday we have finally finished our music video, myspace and album cover. All our hard work has paid off in the end though as the final product looks so much better than we could of ever hoped. We screened the music video to our media class today to see whether there are any final changes that need to be made before screening it to our target audience and this is the feedback we got:

• The contrast between the brightness of New York and the black and white performance shots work really well
• Nisha actually looks as if she is singing the lyrics and her lipsynching is really believable
• The line 'Won't let the city get on top of me' looks out of synch compared to the rest
• The last shot ends a little bit abruptly and could be faded to make it seem more natural
• The shot of blowing the kiss and the end posing shot could be swapped round
• The two shots are blurry - do not know whether it was intentional or not
• The shot against the window could be made brighter as it seems as bit dark at the moment

After hearing this feedback we are going to go and alter our video to take into consideration all of the feedback and hopefully make it perfect for screening.

Album Cover Feedback

When showing Miss Blackborow our album cover this is the feedback she gave us:

• Too much black and white at the moment
• It seems as if it is the single cover and not the album cover
• I like the front shot of the pair of you as it shows how you are different but yet similar - reflection of band image
• The image on the inside is stretched and should only be used for one side
• The back image is good of Nisha but not so good of you
• Try having just Nisha on the back then choosing a different picture of you to have on the front
• Make the title smaller and more subtle
• Nish's head on the front needs to be made bigger otherwise it looks strange
• The institutional information needs to be made smaller
• Make the album title the same colour as the red lipstick to make them both stand out and make it slightly smaller

Myspace feedback

When showing Miss Blackborow our myspace, this was the feedback she gave me:

• Too much text and not enough images
• Promoting the single rather than the album
• There are no visual images of you two girls apart from your profile picture promoting you
• The links are good, needs more of these
• Needs to be more exciting and capture your attention more when you look at it
• I like the colour scheme as it reminds me of New York and this is the part of your band that you are promoting to make you unique
• Needs record labels on it
• View other artists myspace's to get ideas
• Make up a name for the performing arts college to make it more believeable
• Banner needs to be more centralised at the top of the page
• Have a header with your name on it to make it identifiable who you are when you open the page
• Everything needs to be headed, no floating images or text
• When promoting the album, make sure you only use the album cover and not the whole template
• Everything that is an advertisement or a link needs to look like one

WEBSITE

So the myspace website is almost done. I'm still debating between a few images that I've put up. For example, the main image as soon as you open up the myspace could be either:

                                                                           OR

On the myspace slideshow I have put up photos of Loren and I during the shoot and also of us at partys to make it look as if we have reached our life long ambition of being famous dancers. The behind the scene photos allows the audience to engage with the artist and feel as if they personally know them. In the Pussycat Dolls official website, there are youtube clips of them behind the scenes. This gives a similar impact , as their target audience feels as if they feel special about knowing what goes on behind the scenes.  Here is a youtube clip featured on their website:

Reshoot

After watching back our footage from the dance studio we realised that it was not as good a standard as the other footage due to it being grainy and the mise-en-scene being cluttered. Therefore we felt it was letting the overall video down. This is why we decided to do a last minute re-shoot to see whether we could get better shots and therefore make our video look of a lot higher standard. We booked the dance studio again for 3 hours and decided to do as much reshooting as we could in this time.
In order for the cluttered mise-en-scene to be less noticeable we decided to put the camera at an angle and make us dance towards the mirror than towards the camera. That way we were shooting against a white wall instead of a wall with a piano and fire extinguisher etc. This made it look much more professional and also made the mirror shots more in context as it looked as if it was shot at the same time but from a different angle.
To make sure our beauty shots were no longer grainy we took a pag light along with us to the shoot. It allowed us to have a direct beam of light on us throughout the shot allowing the camera to focus better. When watching back these shots we noticed that it looked of a much higher quality and clearer due to the pag lights and therefore were very happy we made the desicion to reshoot them.
Overall i feel our reshoot was very productive and we achieved everything we wanted to.

Blackborow feedback

We have almost come to the end of our editing and have started getting feedback.  Here is some of the main issues with our music video.
- Mise en scene is a bit cluttered - this would look good if we are just doing dance rehearsals but not if its meant to be a studio where auditions are taking place.
- Crop the solo shots so that the framing is tighter
- Have a shot of Nisha spinning instead of simply walking past the window to make her the focus of the shot.
- Try replacing the wide dancing shots with in the mirror shots as the mirror shots look much more proffessional.
- Add effects, perhaps colour changes to the dance scenes to make it different from the rest of the music video.
- An idea is ending with a glamourous shot of Loren and Nisha to make it look like we have made it 'to the top'
- Change a shot of Lorens lipsynching to make it look more realistic.

The good parts!
- The seperate solo shots are the best shots of us
- The tight montage sequences in the beginning are really well edited to the bed and look very professional and glossy.
- The editing is unpredicatable, keeping the audience engaged throughout.
- Close up and hand held shots are the best shots in the dance sequence (try using as much of them as possible)

Website and Album Cover

As well as having to edit our music video, we also have to think about the website and album cover at the same time. As Nisha and I are only a two person group we are at a disadvantage to the others as we do not have enough people to delegate the jobs between us. After speaking about it to Nisha we have decided the more effective way to go about this would be to have me planning the website and her planning the album cover over this week. Then we will come together to show each other what we have come up with, give each other feedback and finalise our ideas. I will then begin on the website and she will begin on the album cover and once we have started it, we will each make changes or additions to each element.
This way we have delegated the jobs but yet are still putting our each individual ideas into each aspect of the project.

EDITINGGG

At the moment we are trying to complete our editing for our music video. We have been editing non-stop really from the moment we finished shooting our beauty shots.
We have been experimenting with different effects and different paces and have decided on a few final things:

1. After watching our beauty shots back on the screen, we thought in order to make it look distinctive from the other footage we would put it in black and white. Also our silohetted shots looked a lot better in black and white.
2. At first we cut up the performance with random shots of New York, however after listening to the song more closely we thought it may look more effective to have montages to the beat. After trying this out we felt this idea was very effective within the video as it gave it some pace.
3. We thought that the moments where they were getting ready for the dance scene should be fast edited in order to give it pace to make the audience know the music video is leading up to something and in order to give it a climax.

Although these are the only final ideas made we are still experimenting a lot with our footage and we will keep the blog up to date with any other desicions we make on the overall look of our music video.

DANCE SHOOT

Yesterday was our second shoot in the dance studio. It was probably the best shoot yet as we were very prepared and kept to our schedule. Although we had organised to wear dancer hoodies in the shoot in the shoot, after testing it out we decided it looked much more professional and effective without our hoodies as we had matching black vest tops underneath. Furthermore, the lighting wasnt the best in the dance studio, however we were lucky the sun came out!
We've now finished around 85% of our shooting and have started editing the footage we have. The only shots left now are those with the judges.

Shooting...

We just got back from New York and have all of our new york footage. We got a lot of the planned shots but also many more as there were so many good shooting opportunities. We aimed to make the footage make the most out of the City and i think that is what we did, shooting as many sites as we could all the time. Tomorrow we are planning to shoot our dance routine scene and hopefully this will go as well as the New York shooting :) We were perfecting our dance today and now i am looking forward to it.

NEW YORK

NISHA AND LOREN ARE OFF TO NEW YORK TOMORROW! Let the shooting commence...

Key shot ideas

WALKING TO THE AUDITIONS
- Loren tripping up over her heels
- Nisha dancing with earphones in down the street
- 'Graphic matches' ; Nisha looks in her reflection and sorts her hair/flicking it out in a vain way, whereas Loren looking in the reflection and sort out her alice band.
- Nisha walks in a much more confident way than Loren. Her street, trendy personality is shown by what she is wearing. Nike high tops, Jeans and a vest top.

Miss Blackborow Feedback

We spoke to Miss Blackborow for feedback today and here is a summary of what she said:

• Think of the narrative as seperate from the performance otherwise this is where the video could go wrong
• The girls are not rich and poor but instead street and suburban
• The street girl is sassy and confident
• The posh one is nervous
• The posh girl is classically styled but not trendy whereas the street one is very trendy and fashionable
• The street girl should be Nisha and the posh girl should be Loren as it fits with their character better
• Nisha should wear high top nike trainers and not heels to get the contrast between the girls more
• Nisha should be wearing big gold hoop earings and a flat cap. She could also have ipod earphones in.
• Loren should be wearing an alice band or beret to look very upper class
• There should be lots of body shots that are intense with the camera. It should give the sense of chlostrophobia.
• Use graphic matches to show off the different characters personality and show that they run parrallel to each other
• You should take a lot of time getting each shot making sure they are perfect

Dance Studio

Yesteday we managed to secure a dance studio on the 3rd of November for hiring. This will be used in the audition scenes as it will make it look more professional.
It will cost us £5 an hour to hire and we have hired it from 11am - 2pm. Hopefully we will get all our shooting done within this time as there are only a few shots needed in this location.

CALL LIST

Here is our call list, it is used to get hold of the actors quickly and makes the whole shooting process much more smoother.

PRACTISE LIPSYNCH

Here is a practise lip synch of Loren and I. We practised miming to the song we are going to produce our media project to - 'Top of the World - Pussycat Dolls' We done this to see how well  our performance on screen was and to plan who should sing/mime which parts. We also practised different shot types and angles to see which ones we could use for our real music video. Editing the sequence was pretty hard as we had almost forgotten how to even open the timeline and capture. However once we got the hang of it, it came  to us naturally.

Costume

These are the nike shoes i am planning to wear for the dance routine shots. Nike is a very well known dance brand and i think it connotes hiphop well.





This is the back of the jacket i am going to wear for the dance routine scenes. It is not a hoodie which is a bit disappointing, however i think it has a good hiphop feel to it and the writing on the back with the bomber jacket style is very stereotypical for hiphop artists. I like this jacket also because although it being very hiphop, it also is feminie due to the colour and quite stylish.



This is the front of the jacket i am going to be wearing in the dance routine shots. I love all the applique on it as i think it looks like it belongs in America and therefore fits well with the New York storyline. The fact it is not a hoodie also emphasises the fact that she is less street than the other girl.



In the performance scenes we were thinking about being dressed up almost identically but very glamourously. Nisha and I both own this style of dress therefore we thought it would be a perfect choice. It is stylish and sophisticated yet not too revealing or girly. It is in black and white which are two very timeless colours and as we were thinking about having the performance shots in black and white we thought this dress would look perfect.




These are the red shoes i am planning to wear for the New York street scenes. As i am coming from the posh end of New York we decided we wanted me to dress up glamourously like i have made a huge effort but i am not dressed very trendily. I decided to opt for red as my main colour therefore, as i think it can look dressy and very affluent. It also makes her stand out from the crowd showing she does not really fit in with the dance scene.



The red duffel coat was going to be worn alongside the red shoes in the New York street scenes. As i said before red can be a very striking colour and the fact it is on a duffel coat makes it seem more classy, however compared to Nisha it will not look very fashionable. As i will be wearing red shoes, a red coat and red lipstick it will connote to the audience that i am trying very hard but yet do not fit in very well as i have a much more upper class image than the street girl.

COSTUME

Here are photos of the outfits I can provide, they fit well with the genre of the music.

These black gladiator heels are very slick and are very similar to the ones Whittney wears in an episode of 'The City' - shot in New York. These will be worn when shooting in New York.

This hoody is from Nellys 'apply bottoms' boutique. Nelly is an RnB singer whose style mirrors the genre perfectly. Therefore, I think this hoody would work well with the RnB/hip hop theme of the song. The gold and diamonds gems is chavy and rather 'bling'. This will be worn in the dance routine.
The back of the hoody reads 'sexy to the core' the cockyness is brilliant for the genre!

Jewelry is a big signifier of RnB songs. Here are some gold necklaces we could wear in the dance routine or the beauty shots.

The tracksuit bottoms are very dancer like. The style is similar to the ones worn by many dancers in music videos. Such as Ciara

Story board

Here is the storyboard we made to visualize the shots and the order. The pink represents mid shot, green represents close up and yellow represents long shot. We thought it would be quicker and easier to use posted notes as we can then change shot order whenever we want without drawing it all out again.

Lyrical Timeline

In order for us to know what part of the song we were doing what we decided to annote our lyrics so we could make it clear exactly how many shots we needed and where the narrative progressed. Here is our annotated lyrics:

Nisha and Loren Lipsynch

This is our lipsynch that we used as practice for our real video.
From watching this we have decided that Nisha will be better singing the main vocals and Loren will be better singing the backing vocals as Nisha looks as if she has a stronger voice.
Both Loren and Nisha work well in front of the camera, therefore we both equally be performing in our music video.
The voices look a lot older than the actresses, therefore in order to make the lipsynching look more realistic we will need to dress up very sophisticated with lots of makeup etc.

ACTORS

We've decided to cut down our performers from a band of four to only two performers; Loren and I. Although the dance routine may not look as interesting and creative, the shoot would be much easier to organise as we are both committed Media members and therefore will be willing to shoot/perform wherever, whenever. Also, if we had four band members, the build up to the dance routine would be too long as we would have to show all four group members walking to the audition room. Having only two performers fits in really well because there are also only two distinct voices in the track. The only extra actors needed are in the judging room. We have decided to have three judges, two females and a male. These judges should preferably be older than us as this gives a real sense of a professional judging room/audition.