Construction Post 1: Week 1 Production

Before our allotted time to film in the Seward Studio, our first week of production was all about making sure everything was set for the creation of the album, shooting in the Seward Studio, shooting outside of school, taking the promo shots, and planning the website.

One of the other process completed in this week was making sure we had permission for useing props and equipment for use in next weeks shooting in the Seward Studio. The props included a laptop, candle, projector, fake blood, stool, microphone on a stand, and a strobe light. Specifically the candle shot with a media technician lighting the candle supervising the use of fire and finding fake blood were the two priorities that differed from what we required for the test shoot.

Fundamentally the group looked through our test shoot for the music video, noting what worked well and what did not. We therefore brainstormed from our teacher feedback that we needed to have a greater variety of shots that weren't structured around the completion of each line in the verses of the song. After hearing that the teachers did not like the boring long shot introduction to the male narrative, I thought the best idea would be to have a hand held mid shot from a side profile of Andy to facing round him straight on, walking towards the tube stop. This shot was a variety of the different shots from the male narrative that were being drawn in the first week. Jerom and I assembled a storyboard for the male narrative, which I later converted into a shootboard for reference and structure for the location shooting.

The original unsuccessful establishing shot of Andy

One of the criticisms we had from the studio shooting was that the projection on Layla Obi blocked out her face. Therefore, we took initiative and realised that the projection video itself had to be reconstructed. I then went to edit the projection video I had created with more shots that were of a lighter balance still keeping with the same thematic idea of police brutality. Therefore, we could use the projection on top of Layla Obi as she is performing without the fear that she may have her face out of sight from the audience with dark imagery from the projection.

Projection that was too dark

After completing the new shootboard we needed for the next two weeks of construction, the group then started to think about the album itself. I created a list of song names that we could use for the album as well as coming up with the name London Colour. Each song name was aiming to be conventional with other artist's as well as keeping with the identity of Layla Obi's character with the connotations the song suggests, e.g. the name 'City Boy' would be talking about experiences with a Londoner, whom the artist found romance with and the name 'Fix Him' suggests that the artist may be going through hardship in a relationship, where there is much difficulty on helping the relationship move forward. This song name is similar to similar London female artists such as Rebecca Ferguson, who made the song name 'Too Good To Lose' or Adelle's 'He Won't Go'.