Tuesday, 30 November 2010

Update on 1st Blood Promo Vid

So many many problems later, were finally getting on with the promotional video edit for the band 1st blood. The footage itself looks really good, all it will take now is cutting the pieces into steady shots, layering live audio over a track provided by the band and sequencing everything so it makes sense to the purpose of the video, a live promotional artist profile.

As for the promo video for gatecrasher, we have been told by the clubs management that they cannot afford to pay us for the edit. Personally i wouldve done it as a freebie, but as there were 3 of us filming, I had to consider their needs as well.

Look out for the finished cut very soon!

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Sunday, 7 November 2010

Prof Green + 1st Blood @ Gatecrasher

So I and a few lads I know from Confetti Studios are going to be filming the gatecrasher night on the 12th of November. While our plan to begin with was to film and edit together a segment on a local hiphop group (1st Blood - Check below for links), the management at Gatecrasher have since asked us to shoot the whole night, including the likes of Professor Green, Killa Kela, 1st Blood (Live), Citadels (Live), Masters in France (Live), Club NME DJ's, + the Horseplay DJs.
This will require completing a seperate edit for 1st blood and then everything else (creating a promotional video for Gatecrasher's use + a live gig profile for 1st blood), as we have been hired by two clients for the same night (clients are aware of this fact)...

So to plan for this I have been collecting research together on capturing live music on film. I'v been looking at a number of different live videos including some of 1st bloods earlier attempts. My research included some DVD sources aswell, but its alot easier to link them via youtube than uploading:









I took note of the above video as it shows the kind of angles needed for a professional representation of a DJ live show. Not only does 1st blood include a DJ, but DJs will be a common focus with the Gatecrasher promotional video.





even though this is a amatuer video, it shows of a interesting artist/crowd angle. This is something that will be heavily used throughout the night if the crowd is lively and responding well.

Because of this research, we have decided as a group (theres 3 of us in total)to each rent out a z1 camera each. As theres no narrative involved, theres not alot of pre-production planning to be done. The bit of planning we have done includes:

Camerawork

With 3 people acting as cameramen on the day, we can cover alot of the performance, capturing a semi-professional array of different shots. We have discussed setting a main camera up, that covers the whole stage, with 2 cameras covering closeups of the stage, one focusing on closeups and side angles of the artists + instruments, the other can focus on sweeping crowd and atmospherical shots.

Lighting

Obviously we cannot light the live show independently, which may cause a problem as locations like clubs favour a darker feel. A high ISO and a well thought out post-production should help to solve the potential flaw.

Sound

As the gig itself is a show, within a professional club setting, we have arranged with sound technicians to record everything that goes through the mixer within the 1st blood gig alone. There is still crowd reactions to take into consideration though, so we have decided to take out a unidirecional microphone to pick up every cheer from the audience, this will be recorded via the 'full stage view' camera and then dubbed over parts of the final edit.

for the promotional video, we have arranged to take a single song recorded from the full night, as a promo video is usually accompanied by just one track, making the vid short and sweet. Material like this is often used on a website, which requires content to be easily accessible for its viewers (especially when talking about streaming).

Recce + Risk Assessment ECT ECT

As the location is a live music venue, there are alot of things to consider when filming. Firstly, in regards to risks + H&S, a venue full of the general public (especially intoxicated) is obviously full of issues. This is something we will be compiling and analysing once we visit the location further into this week, so we dont miss anything out.

Also, as some of the film will include shots of crowds and the general public, it is fortunate that Gatecrasher is fully licensed to use images of the people who go there. This is due to the club being heavily photographed (they hire photographers for most nights). This wouldve been something to consider if the gig was at a smaller and less popular location.

Friday, 5 November 2010

MI - Tea

Time to get cracking with our fiction project!

The group I am in for this project includes:

Myself - Lighting Manager & Sound Technician
Eric Yuan - Wardrobe Manager, Post Production Effects & Sound Assistant
Dave Roddis - Director
Daniel Stewart - Producer
Alessandra Chapman - Location Assistant, titles assistant
Leigh Harrison - Editor
Sonny - Camerawork & Lighting Assistant
Phil Bircham- AD, Locations Manager, Health & Safety rep, Photographer & Titles Designer

For my role i am responsible for the following:

- Resreach into different sound and lighting plans
- Sound Treatment
- Lighting plan
- Testing the lighting at locations specified
- Atmosphere tracks, recording audio on day of shoot
- Music tracks, if director decides to include

The script we have been allocated is called Tea.

Our adaption of the narrative twists the story of Tea into a tale of a relationship turning sour. A couple has just moved into a new flat, but all is not as well as it appears. As the film continues, it becomes evident that the couple are 'falling out of love' as the process of making and drinking tea is the only thing left that binds them together. The audience watches tensely as the pair begin to deteriorate, finally viewing the destruction of the couple. The qestion is how this 'end' comes to be... Surely it wont be their beloved tea thats responsible?

More on Tea to be posted v.soon!!!

DCR - Promotion

Well alot of stuff to catch up on. Good job im in the mood for blogging tonight.

Within my radio side project throughout the summer (and ongoing), promoting has been an obvious requirement. This is a transferrable skill aswell, which could help out in the future if i decide to work in the MI industry. Ill be posting another segment on DCR soon, about the sound and technical aspects that could provide invaluable skills.




ACCESSIBILITY

Because an internet radio station has the potential of a world wide audience, we had to make the site as accessible as we could. We did this by doing the following:

- Contact web directories (ie: Internetradio, shoutcast) for listings.
- Apply for a listing on media player listings such as itunes, winamp ect.
- Provide a balanced bitrate so listeners could stream easily without suffering too much audio quality.
- Provide URL links for different popular media players such as itunes, winamp ect. As an option.
- Provide a on site flash player

MARKETING

To market our radio station we went through a number of routes, although we havnt got a permanent bit of adspace out there currently.

Firstly we trawled the major music forums, targeting obviously those that were dominated with electronica and dud/reggae. We posted on those generating interest and in doing so built up a respectable postcount. I designed some banners, logos and graphics to use within the forums to give the impression of a semi-professional station.

Another route we took is partnering up with a few other internet radio stations. Swapping affiliate space for sharing traffic. This has provided other connections aswell, establishing a relationship like that has provided artists and Djs that we might have never got.

We then used facebook , twitter and other networking sites to gain further interest. I wont bore you with those details, I think we all know how a group and organisation is set up by now!

Dub Concepts Radio



www.dubconcepts.tk

Over the summer I was pretty busy setting up a new internet radio station. Now we are fully set up and consistenly on the air, I feel I can finally show off our hard work via this blog.

DCR Management & Development

The project is split between me and a good friend (Laurent Duval) as the co-founders of the company... Our named roles are as follows:

Me: Technical Admin, Web Developer & Assistant Promoter
Laurent: General Admin, Bookings Manager & Promotions/Advertisement

When we began to design the station, the first thing i did was to conceptualise the website itself. As I did this the co-founder to DCR (laurent) began to drum up interest on facebook and other networking mediums. This also includes communicating with different artists and getting mixes/releases of them to put within our archives (which would in turn play out within
After I introduced the basic design we then launched the servers and put the first lot of DJs on for a show that went from 7pm to 2am. This gained quite a few listeners and gave us the confidence that the project has potenital.

Designing the site was especially simple because of my past experience within web development, and the lack of advanced coding needed.
The site itself is done with basic HTML and javascript, with iframes supporting changeable features like the shoutbox and the schedule (as its in the format of a calender type document).
Although I, among many others, find iframes to be unstable and not worth using, they were definately needed as such features would be ever changing. Meaning that I could develop and change the code (or document within the code) seperately to the main sites.
The toughest bit of the site has been implementing a flash banner that acts as a slideshow, giving listeners latest news info and artist profiles all linkable to an internal or even external page. This is STILL in development I'd like it looking as good as possible, with smooth transitions and scripts to stop on hover/click ect ect.

DCR General Info

We are a fully licensed station (covering DJ sets with a creative commons license) who aims to bring the world the best in the bass driven, electronica music. We have recruited members within the local music community since going live. There is now over 10 regular DJs, an assistant tech admin and another promoter. We tend to view the project as one that belongs to the community. We are purely non-profit at the moment, and are willing to recruit anyone who is willing to help out for free.
We do have plans to introduce advertisement schemes in the the future, although this is something we want to avoid until we cannot afford to keep the site running without it.

We broadcast 24/7 with the majority being live DJs performing over our relay server, which is rented out from an american company called serverhostingcenter.com who offer out cheap shoutcast (which is a type of encoding used in broadcasting live streams on the web) servers.

So, please, if you like DNB, Dubstep, House, Jungle, Reggae, Garage OR anything else with a thumping bassline, stop by our site @ www.dubconcepts.tk (soon to be a .com as i cant bear the lack of a professional touch that .tk provides).