Album Cover and Myspace Photo Shoot

While we were re-shooting our footage in the dance studio we thought it would be a good idea to have a photo shoot for our album cover and Myspace at the same time in order for us to have the dance studio mise-en-scene in the background and to make it an ongoing theme throughout our products. Nisha and I both decided that we should look glamourous for the photo shoot, however still have an element of dancing involved with it, therefore we decided to have full makeup and quite a plain outfit with a few splashes of colour.
My costume was red lipstick, black eyeliner and eyeshadow, gold jacket, black vest top, 'I Love NY' t-shirt, leggings and wedges.  I would alternate between the black vest top and 'I Love NY' t-shirt in order to give the shots some variety.
I felt the overall shoot went very well and we got more than enough shots for our album cover and Myspace. Also when we were in the moment we found ourselves shooting various random photographs which we thought would look good on our Myspace as they seemed more personal and less posed. We got a wide range of shots from mid-shots, long shots to CU'S, two shots and individual shots. All of them are unique but yet all link due to the costume, therefore i think they can be used in a very positive way to help brand our products and sell our artist at the same time. The photo shoot went better than we hoped and hopefully we will see the rewards from this when it comes to creating our Myspace and album cover.

Dance Studio Reshoot

As some of our footage from the dance studio was not as good as we would have hoped it would look, due to the mise-en-scene being too cluttered and not looking like an actual dance studio and some of the shots being grainy, we decided to hire the dance studio again for £5 an hour to do a reshoot. This reshoot was very last minute as our deadline for the music video was for the week after but we felt it had to be done in order for us to achieve the best out of our video.
When we got to the dance studio this time we decided that it would be better to have the camera facing against a white wall and angled towards us dancing rather than having the camera pointing towards the cluttered back drop in order to have us dancing straight at the camera. We felt this would tie in better with the mirrored shots of the dance studio too as it would seem as if they were shot at the same time but just from two different angles making the dance sequence seem more believable.
Also when it came to reshooting the grainy shots we decided that the only way to overcome this was to have better lighting in the shot in order to enable the camera to focus better. We used a pag light for this as it was small enough to carry around and yet strong enough to direct a beam of light directly on us to light us up and make the shot less grainy.
When capturing this re-shot footage we really noticed the difference it made to the quality of our video and were very pleased we decided to reshoot, despite the amount of time we had left.

Editinggg

Over the previous 2 weeks we have been manically trying to edit our video together and to be honest we are a little bit addicted to doing it :)
We are aabout 65% done and i feel are doing very well and are on track for finishing, although it may be a little stressful. We are both keen about the video and share our ideas with each other allowing progression to be easy. We each take it in turns to edit and help each other out when needed. All in all i think the edit process is far easier when there are less people involved therefore allowing our group to be one of the most productive. I enjoy being ahead :)

Dance Studio

As Nisha and I's video revolves around a dance routine, we decided to hire out The Dance Studio in Winchmore Hill in order to film our dance routine and also our beauty shots.
We did this over the course of two days, shooting for 3 hours each day and this cost us £5 per hour which we felt was reasonable for what we were getting.
The shoot went well and the footage looks good, although in some of our shots we have a problem with lighting but after playing around with the shots, hopefully this issue should be put right. As we had planned what we were going to do, unlike our New York shoot, we were organised and managed to shoot everything we needed to and even have time for more. This was due to us getting down to work straight away and knowing the best use of our time within the studio.
Overall i felt this shoot went well and Nisha and I work as a team very well.

New York Filming

When we first came up with the idea of shooting in New York, we did not really consider all the things that could go wrong as we were too excited. However after speaking with our teacher she bought as back down to earth and made us truely aware of what we were planning to do out there and how difficult it could be as we did not really know the area and we could not plan properly as it was more a spur of the moment thing.
We shot together on the first morning we got there at 5pm. We had not initially realised that as it was so early it would still be dark therefore we would not be able to shoot any of our actual footage. However, despite this we managed to practice a lot of our shots in order for us to be able to shoot them in a few takes when it got light, therefore saving time.
We were very organised on the shoot and both communicated very well. With shots that we could not get we compromised and a lot of what we shot ended up was impulsive.
Over the duration of our holidays we both shot more footage in order for it to be used in our video as cut aways from the main performance.
I think Nisha and I worked really well together and we made the most out of the time we had. Looking back on our shots of New York when capturing them made me realise just how much we did shoot and how good it will look in our video if used in the correct places. It was a very productive shoot and one that i would love to do again :)