Biography for Fragment

I wrote the biography for Fragment, using DJ EZ's biography as inspiration in terms of the writing style.

Biography

 Fragment is a British DJ based in London. He was born and raised in Oxford and has been surrounded by music his entire life, he has always known he wanted a career in music and has been practicing using the decks since he was just 15 years old. In four years, Fragment has come a long way and as his natural talent flourishes, so does the size of his audience.

 At the youthful age of only 19, Fragment’s talent is evidently something unique and particularly rare, the energy he is able to project onto the audience is not something that happens frequently and it is because of this that Fragment’s new single “Don’t stop” is blowing up around the UK.

The DJ was attending school until the age of 18, meaning he was juggling his schoolwork as well as keeping up with his DJ-ing and ensuring he was able to learn as much as he could about both; his subjects, and the creation of his music. When Fragment graduated he straight away focused exclusively on his music and worked on getting himself better, in doing this his ability grew because he was concentrating solely on his music and was therefore able to work on himself to reach the level he is able to achieve.

“Fragment is a tremendously talented DJ and his instinctual aptitude for the creativity of music is what will take him so far within the music industry. Fragment has come a long way over the years, but he’s only got more to come, he will go far.” – DJ Mag

Website

This is the home page of our website and it is a picture of Jonty before filming. I feel as though this represents him well and the website has a good colour scheme thanks to this picture.

This is to display the music video we created as Fragment's "debut single" this page works really well and in the background there is a gif where the lights change.

This is an added extra to the website where a pop up email is shown to allow people to email "Fragment" immediately if they wish. This comes up on the contact page. 

Here is where the DJ's albums are shown and if you scroll down you can see more of his songs and play them on the website.

This page is called "Gigs" and it allows for audiences to buy tickets and see when the DJ is playing and where.

This page allows for audiences to see where DJ Fragment is based for contacting reasons.

Editing Process throughout

Monday
Today Callum and I continued to sync up all the footage in order for it to be in time with the music, we then began to put some of the footage together and in doing so found it intriguing to look at how all the shots we had taken on the day would finally come together and though we are not far in to the music video at all, I am pleased with the shots we have and I think this will make a very good video in the end.



Week 1
These days are when Callum mainly took charge of the editing process due to his skill in this area, and with the help of Vogue and I we agreed on certain aspects of the video and went with it. This is when we really focused on the drop of the video and Callum cut it quickly and on beat to make the drop as energetic and powerful as possible.



Week 2
This week we focused on the second half of the drop and for this we wanted to make it a bit different to ensure that the audience don't get bored.



Week 3
This week was used for us to perfect the video and we found that letting Callum get on with it on his own was the way forward to ensure we didn't get in each other's way or mess up the video. In the end I am so happy with the outcome. As a group we decided to cut the video as if it were the final performance, rather than doing a roughcut.

Digipack planning further

After doing more research into DJs digipacks, I found that the majority don't focus on their image but more on their music. This is shown in the way that the front covers don't show their face or the way they look at all, it is solely focused on the music. An example of this would be DJ EZ's digipack. I noticed how DJ EZ has his own symbol and I like this idea and I think I will attempt to create a symbol for "Fragment" the DJ it is focused on.

When looking at Flava D's album cover I noticed how simple it was and I like this minimalist approach and feel as though I will use this when designing my own digipack. 

Digipack Planning

I spent my time designing ideas for the digipack. The idea was to have Jonty's face fragmented with, due to his stage name 'Fragment', and to have pictures of the dancers interrupting the image of his face. I looked at many images for inspiration and found things like this one very interesting, and the idea of his face being distorted in some way could look really cool. 

I also looked at this image in which the face is again distorted and thought this sort of electronic interruption would work well and fit the sort of electronic music we are working with. 

Here are the ideas we came up with.

Music Video

After weeks of editing we have finally finished our music video and here is the end product.

Research into Websites

Research into Music Campaigns

Flava D

Flava D is a DJ similar to Boxinbox & Lionsize in the sense that they both create electronic dance music and remix songs to create new versions. Flava D is an independent artist and is popular among young people though not intensely well-known. She is more famous than Boxinbox and Lionsize, and this is mainly due to her release of the song “Rhythm and Gash” which has been taken and sampled in many other songs. 

This is an image of Flava D’s website and, as you can see, the focus is not on the artist herself, the main part of the website is her music and her most famous song, “Rhythm & Gash”. Though there is a picture of the artist herself, it is in the background and it is faded out and subtle. The main focus of the website is on the music itself, rather than the star image. This is important in realising that the artist herself is an organic artist, and is not trying to sell herself on her image, but she wants people to be much more fixated on her music.

Major Lazer

Major Lazer is another DJ similar to Boxinbox & Lionsize due to them also producing electronic dance music of the same feel and genre. Major Lazor’s website is also mainly focused on their music and because of this I feel as though when creating the website for our own artist within our promotional music video, we should definitely keep it focused on the music they create rather than their star image, due to the running theme of this within all the artists I have researched.

Hannah Wants

Hannah Wants is a DJ who shares similar qualities to that of BoxinBox and Lionsize due to both creating electronic dance music. Hannah Wants' website is completely focused on her music, and her tour. She is going on tour at the moment and her entire front page of her website is dedicated to this currently. This proves that Hannah Wants is an artist that focuses entirely on her music, and not on her star image. 

Here you are able to see how as you scroll on her website, the whole first page is taken up by advertising for her tour.

Taylor Swift

In contrast to these artists, someone like Taylor Swift is very much focused on her star image and the way in which she is presented to her audience, rather than her music. This is displayed in the way in which her website does not display her music at first, in the same way the other artist’s websites do, instead it is a series of pictures of herself being displayed in a sort of presentation. Along with the websites themselves being different, their music differs almost entirely too in the sense that Taylor Swift’s music is within the pop music genre.

Researching into music campaigns has made me realise that for our own music campaign, we need to focus on the music rather than the artist himself and, while his image is still important, the focus should mainly be on the music he creates and it should be evident that he is an organic artist.

Playback and Review

Once the footage had been transferred from the digital camera, we began by reviewing and selecting shots, and in doing so we found that we were able to get to know our footage and it then made it a lot easier to choose which shots to put where because we knew what type of shot we wanted.
 After reviewing them, we were able to name each of the shots, and it was at this stage that we realised all of the shots would come in handy at some point, even if they seem irrelevant, sometimes abstract shots of things like Jonty's hands on the decks can look really interesting when switching between shots very quickly. We found that all of our shots were necessary and so did not delete any because we thought all of them were how we wanted them and you never know when you might be needing them.
The timeline is where all the footage gets dragged to in order to begin cutting it together. It is useful in the sense that it is an area where we are able to keep all the footage and access it easily, it also makes it easier for us to be able to refer back to shots and using different parts of them.
This is what the timeline looks like.

The music track was the first thing we put onto the timeline as this then enabled us to match up the videos to the music itself. When it came to dragging the clips onto the timeline, it became apparent how useful it is to name and rename shots in a specific way, as it meant when it came to coming up with an idea for the next shot, it is easy to remember which one we were talking about due to the way in which we had named them. 
We were using conventions of a music video such as we begin the video with a wide shot and as we get further on we go from wide, to mid, to close. This is so that the audience does not get disorientated and it means that if we switch from a shot of Jonty to a shot of the dancers, it is evident that that is what we've done. It also means that a shot of Jonty's hand will not then get confused and mistaken for one of the dancer's hands.

The Media Suite

We edit within the media suite and here is where we are expected to get to work and focus solely on editing. Due to the high standard within the school already, we are expected to know pretty much what we are doing, due to the thriller opening sequence we created in AS. 

VIDEO PROCESS & PICTURES

In the beginning we were given a bit of help to get us back into the way editing works, and after that we have been able to get on with it ourselves quite easily. 

We are using Adobe Premier Pro to edit our video together, and we will not be needing any after effects so programmes like Adobe After Effects are also not needed. 

Post-production

Editing is preparing a piece of material for publication by correcting, condensing or otherwise modifying it. For us we are now assembling small clips and arranging them in a way that will mean we are able to form a coherent whole. The expression "editing" is derived from the traditional way of editing where it was all done physically, whereas now we edit through the use of computers. We are editing digitally using Adobe Premier Pro, this makes the whole process of editing a lot quicker and easier as we are able to work with the raw footage, selecting shots and combining them into sequences to create our own finished 'pop promo' or music video. 


As a process editing is something I enjoy, it is satisfying to watch something you filmed finally be put together and begin to make sense. It is also enjoyable to look at the way in which our vision is actually coming together and because we are all very happy with how it is coming along, it makes editing much more gratifying. It takes time however, and this is time we are willing to put in to make our music video the best it could possibly be. 



My role in the editing process, because I'm not the most talented within the group when it comes to physically cutting and playing around with the footage, though I believe I have a good eye for what works and what doesn't within the shots themselves, so I am able to voice my opinion and give ideas for which shots should go where etc. 

Before I began editing I knew it was going to be difficult to match up the music to the video, however once we had matched up all of the clips, the rest of the process is relatively straight forward. The intended outcome of the process is that the video is slick and has clean transmissions from one shot to the other, this can be achieved by simple things such as matching up the colours from one shot to another. 

Editing

This is when we first sat down to begin the editing process. We began by looking through all the footage and naming it, dragging down all the footage we may need to use. 

We then began by putting together the footage however, not from the very beginning as we were told the beginning is one of the hardest parts to do, so we went from just after the beginning. We are now editing as if this were to be the final cut, though of course we will edit it more even when we have finished editing in such detail. We are doing this because we feel as though doing a rough cut is a waste of time, because it simply just results in you going back and changing everything anyway.

Write up of shoot day

The day before my shoot day, Vogue, Callum and I spent the afternoon talking over everything and ensuring that we had everything in order. This was mainly focused on the dancers and making sure they knew the choreography. We also spoke to Matt to give him an idea of what it is we want within our video; this was to make sure that he could envision what it is we wanted.

         I felt very prepared before my music video, though of course there’s always more we could have done however, I feel as though we had the perfect amount of planning as it enabled us to get things done quickly and effectively, but there was also enough room for creativity meaning we got some interesting shots after we had filmed the basic shots we felt were necessary. Before we could start shooting we were going over the shot list and waiting for the set to be put up and ready. When we began shooting the studio was actually quite bare, which wasn’t what I was expecting, we had pixel lines circling Jonty and the decks set up in front of him, though the set looked simple from what we could see, it was actually highly impressive when we began filming.

On the shoot day we all had different roles, my role was sound playback and lighting desk as well as being the producer. This meant I was listening to the sound making sure it was okay and checking up on the lighting to ensure everything was how we wanted it. I was also in charge of looking at how to represent the song visually, in the way that we wanted. Callum was the art director and cameraperson, this meant he was in charge of looking at the location, props, costume and make up. Callum was also on the camera which meant he took some really interesting shots and took advice from both Vogue and me, as well as using his own good ideas to come up with innovative shots. Vogue was the director which meant she overlooked everything going on with the video.

I think personally I was good at organising the talent and actors, I watched their rehearsals before the shoot began to ensure everything was in line and gave my opinion to help them along and give them an idea of what we wanted, I also found that when filming Jonty he needed some “hyping up” almost, so that he wouldn’t feel embarrassed, this resulted in Callum and I dancing around him to make him feel better. On the shoot day, we had issues with timing. This is because we were meant to begin shooting the dancers at 10:45, but we ended up running over because the make up took longer than we would have thought, and so we began shooting the dancers when we were done with Jonty and when they were all ready, so it ended up being at around 11:30. We also ran over past 3:00 and ended up finishing at around 3:30, however this wasn’t too much of a problem because our sets were so simplistic, but effective, the cleaning up didn’t take long as all we had to do was get rid of the pixel lines.

I think the most successful aspect of our video were the creative shots we did, such as a bird’s eye view shot using the genie, and the shots we did tracking around with the dancers and Jonty. I think these shots are the ones which will really separate our video from any others that are also being made because they are unique and interesting. However, I feel as though the timing of our shoot could have gone better, as we did run over and that was not what we had planned. In this picture you can see the genie has been put above Jonty and the decks and the filming was done from up there where the genie's height level was being varied.

I think we managed our talent very well as everyone was acting very professionally but we were able to make sure we had a good time too. I enjoyed my shoot greatly and I think my favourite aspect of the video was the close up shots of the dancers as this is where we were able to see the enormous amount of energy within them, and the lights amplified this. I am most looking forward to the editing process so that I can put together all the shots and mix it up between the dancers and Jonty because I think the colours will work so well together and the shoot itself will look very intense and interesting.

         I feel my production group worked well together as we all knew our roles and were able to perform them. I learnt that the best way to work when in a situation like this is simply just to relax and keep the atmosphere chilled despite it potentially being a stressful day, we managed to keep calm and chilled. I think to match the website artwork I will have to incorporate the colour we used for the dancers, and perhaps do something creative with Jonty’s dreadlocks.