In preparation for the livestream, I have done a lot of work for both myself and even other groups to make sure the show is as good as possible. For my own project, I decided that I wanted an animation doing for the showcase, and I also had to do an introduction to myself and my project. I like helping other people so I thought it was only right to assist people with their work if they needed it, but still, make sure my focus is on my own project as I could not get behind on my own work. I think I managed all of this very well as I was motivated and made sure I was managing my time and workload with each project I collaborated on. I find that I like to keep myself occupied with work so it may sound like a burden on my own project but I really enjoyed helping other people and learning new things!
My Project
To promote me as a musician and the college showcase, I partook in a solo photoshoot in a studio. I am quite used to having photos taken of me from my band so I didn’t really get bothered by it and I felt fairly confident. I can use these photos for my social media sites and anything else like streaming platform pictures. The photos will also be used in posters that promote the showcase. I think the photoshoot was very successful as I got many photos that I like and would use for future things. In terms of the look of the photos, I chose the purple and white background as I wanted to keep it bright and inviting, and purple is an extremely contrasting colour to the chair; this makes me stand out more.
For the showcase, I needed a way to present my songs instead of them being just a blank screen. For my song ‘Going Down’, I am using a part of it as background music for the showcase intro. I thought of doing a quick visualiser loop for my other single as you can find many royalty-free animations to download off of YouTube. However, I wanted something a bit more custom and that would fit with the song. So, we asked graphic designer Paul if he knew anything about animation and if he would animate me a loop for one of my songs. As it was a loop, the animation only had to be very short and simple, nothing extremely detailed and special as we had to gt=et it finished in two weeks as well. Paul doesn’t have too much experience in animating but he said yes and I started to gather ideas; I thought of me, Lucy, David and Lewis (who all contributes hugely to the song) travelling on a train all doing our own thing, as though we were a band on tour. I wanted the colours to be quite bright with a lot of contrast, and the overall composition would be in a cartoon style. I took inspiration from these videos:
Here is the official animation we made, with my song in the background:
As well as creating an animation for ‘No More (I Don’t Want You)’, I had to create an introduction for my project and me as a musician. This would be a videoed presentation where I explain what my project is and how I completed this in the time I had. As you can see in the video below, it took a couple of tries to get the draft well said and to make sure I mention everything; in the end, I ended up making a script for what I wanted to say which helped a lot. For the final professionally recorded take, I made sure I read through this script beforehand to make sure I got all the information in and so I would mess up less. This took a few tries as well but I thought it turned out really well in the end. I am quite used to doing interviews and intros from the band that I am in so confidence wasn’t much of a problem, I think I just struggled to get my words out as I had a lot to say but I managed it in the end. Here are the draft takes I did before:
Millie And The Floor Gang’s Project
The photoshoot with Millie and The Floor Gang was really fun, and I really enjoyed being with them for the photo opportunity! I’d say we are all a fairly confident, lively bunch, and we got some amazing photos that we can use for cover images and social media promotions. We chose a pink and white theme as these are the colours they initially thought of when making the brand and logo back in project one. given the name of our group, sitting on the floor or on other things is also a statement of the band so we chose this position for our photoshoot, using the sofa to give some levels to the set. We could have, however, used different props like guitars, microphones and drumsticks to show what instruments we all play and to add a more musical sense to the images. I edited the photo below to have our logo in the corner and this would work well for social media posts etc.
As I mentioned earlier, I have been working a lot with college band Millie and The Floor Gang and their project nearer the end of our projects. I noticed that they were lacking in the bass area during their rehearsals and asked if I could help them out by playing bass. They said yes so I joined their rehearsals and helped them with recording for the showcase and EP. Being in the recording studio playing bass was really fun as I had never really played bass before nor had I previously worked with the band except for rehearsing with them. The recordings came out really well and I am proud of how much we did considering I only joined halfway through their project! I think my bass parts were very successful and I learnt and refined them very quickly in time for the recordings. Here are the two songs we recorded:
For the video recordings with MATFG, we recorded in B25, which is a dark room meant specifically for performances. The room was a good size for a five-piece with instruments, and we all made sure we were spaced around the stage so the videographer could get an array of shots. We wanted plain white spotlights on us so we can be seen easily, and for clothing, we decided just to come in casual clothes as this illustrates us a band very well; it shows that we are a relaxed and confident group and we like to represent ourselves in an individualist way. To make the performance look more realistic, we used amplifiers on stage, but the leads just ran off into the edge of the stage, not actually plugged into anything. This is common for professional performance music videos; they don’t actually play the song and instead, they just pretend to use their instruments.
Here are the introduction drafts we recorded so we could get some ideas down before we were recorded professionally. We wanted to go with a more relaxed, fun feel as this represents us well. Tom is the main band member so he took the lead for the introductions, and we just followed what he was saying. We want to sound confident in what we are saying, but also give it that element of amusement. We are again, sat down as the band name suggests and this is a staple of our brand now. In the final introduction, we will do the same, but we will be based in the performance room with white lighting on us, just like the actual performance. Here are some ideas we had for the final introductions, and the drafts we made before this, but we didn’t stick to all of these:
Lucy And Meg’s Project
As well as working with a band, I was also asked if I could do some recording work with Lucy and Meg for their project. Their project consisted of doing three songs, one original and two covers. They asked me if I could help out by playing the Cajon for one of their covers, ‘Copycat’ by Billie Eilish. I agreed and we rehearsed the song together a couple of times before going into the studio to record it a few weeks later. Considering I have never really played the Cajon before, it was a fairly simple part for me to play and I picked the instrument up very quickly as a drummer. I recorded the Cajon in the control room and Lucy and Meg were in the live room, and we did this as my instrument would be picked up by the other microphones in there. The recordings turned out really well and doing an acoustic recording actually inspired me to write and record some of my own acoustic music in my spare time! Here is the song that I played Cajon on:
When it came to the day of filming, the video was really interesting to film. We recorded the set in the green room in college as it is very aesthetically pleasing and is a fitting scene for acoustic music. I sat on the Cajon to the left of Lucy and Meg who were on the sofa. I think the recordings turned out really well overall, and we got some really good moments that can be used for the showcase. However, I did struggle with trying to keep in sync with the recorded track as I couldn’t quite remember how I played my part in the studio recording but I think I managed it for the final recording and hopefully it should look like it was played live. Here is the green room, the place we recorded the video:
