Process and Final Work - Bright Colours
INTRODUCTION
This page will take you through the creative process of our first collaborative piece for this project, the 'Bright Colours' piece which is another of our large group pieces.
This page will help to contextualize the ideas we came up with during the process of this work as well as show the final piece, which will be an interesting way to move through the different processes and decisions we made in order to get to the final piece.
These posts will consist of the different trial and error videos we made in order to come up with the final decision, tweaking different components such as costume, camera angles, location, and clarifying the transitions. as well as video clips, this page will also display the initial research taken place in order to come up with this project.
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BRIGHT COLOURS PIECE - FINAL
The link to the final bright top piece - https://youtu.be/pt9uy4ZdOxc
When you follow this link you will be watching a piece of art that has been weeks in the making from the very first weeks of the collaboration process and the first prominent structural idea which was heavily influenced by Exquisite Corps (42 choreographers, 1 dance) and And So Say All of Us (52 choreographers, 1 dance) .
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COLOURFUL PIECE - 1st TAKE
Here is the link to our first take of our collaborative group film piece we worked on.
https://youtu.be/Nld9NqiCwNc
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REHEARSAL FOOTAGE FOR EXQUISITE CORPS INSPIRED PIECE
Here is some rehearsal footage for the piece of work we created as a group inspired by the dance video Exquisite Corps by Mitchell Rose. This footage was made as a rough copy and wasn’t included in the final edited piece as we had not decided on everyone’s location or costume. During this piece of work, we all performed solos in turn, where one person's last move was the next person's first move. I found working on this piece extremely beneficial to my collaboration skills as a dancer and choreographer as I gained confidence by teaching the person after me in the sequence my own choreography. It also improved my communication skills as I was able to guide and talk to my partner in an efficient way to help them incorporate my own work into their work. I enjoyed creating this piece of work because as we engaged with creating the piece, it was interesting to see the transitions between people’s choreography and also I enjoyed seeing the contrast in people’s location choices.
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BRIGHT TOP - PROCESS - INITIAL VIDEOS
Therefore, before I began making the material I spoke to the person before me, Tyler, and made myself aware of her final movement so I was able to use this for the beginning of mine. As well as having to create movements that allowed the piece to be continuous, we also were given timings in which we had to make movement to, as these were the clear accents in the changes of the music.
This was my first trial of this solo;
After Laura editing all our videos together we watched it through and came up with different elements that we could tweak to make it work effectively and allow the transitions to be clearer.
These adjustments were;
- Everyone filming in landscape
- Making sure each person was clear on what movements they had to begin on and consider the direction or these
This is the second trial of my solo;
Laura then edited these videos together and we watched it back again so see how if these adjustments worked or not.
We agreed that changing the videos to landscape worked a lot better and everyone had appeared to consider the phrase before them more so in these videos which helped to enhance the idea we are trying to present.
We then began to work out how to finalise this work by discussing costume, location and camera angles.
We decided to wear bright tops for this piece. We also decided that it worked really well for some videos to be filmed outside and others to be filmed inside.
This was the my final video of my solo;
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BRIGHT COLOUR PIECE - PROCESS
Throughout the process of creating our 'bright colour' piece, I filmed three different variations of my section of footage.
The first version is my personal favourite, I have elaborated on this version in my post 'Dance in Collaboration with Lighting'. It involves the use of red and white lights and lighting changes within the piece.
The second version uses the same lights with a different effect, making them green and they have a more dotted look. I also used a different wall as a backdrop as well as incorporating the sofa into the routine.
The third version was filmed back home in my conservatory, (instead of in my flat like the other two) I placed the camera at a higher position to give a different point of view and it filmed the footage when it was just starting to get dark. This was to give it the same darkly lit feel of my previous footage whilst also making the bright top noticeable and clearly visible.
I have edited together my three versions of the footage to show the variation in movement, costume, lighting and location that took place during the making process. The music I've put behind the footage is just generic background music, but it gives an idea of what the footage looks like with sound behind it.
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BRIGHT TOP - PROCESS
To make this piece we started by taking the last move of the person before us to
follow on from to make the solo.
We were given certain timings within the song to make our solo.
This is the first take of the solo I made. I recorded it with and without lighting to follow
on from Megan's solo before me.
This is the second video that was taken on a stair case to get a different location.
After seeing the final edit that Laura had made of our videos, we decided that filming them again in varied locations to make it more interesting and have then filmed in landscape to get more of the background. We also made sure that we were clear on the movement of the person in front to get a cleaner transition on the edits going into another phrase.
After seeing this edited together, we decided that filming in landscape looked a lot
better overall. We then discussed a costume for the final piece and agreed that wearing
a bright coloured top would fit nicely in our piece.
This is the final video I filmed for the piece we made.
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BRIGHT TOP HOZIER PIECE - DAISY'S PROCESS
The Hozier performance piece was our first performance created in this unit. The video below is the second version of the footage taken for the piece. After each video we reflected on them as a group, and then we re-filmed with the developments we decided. Firstly, we decided on a change of setting to film in. We then wanted to tighten on our transition firstly by being in the same ending/ starting position and then by being in the same position in space.
The next stage in our process was to focus on the outfits we wore for the filming. We wanted a costume that was similar to each other . We did this too make the piece look more professional and effective.
As this was our first performance piece in the collaboration unit I feel we learnt a lot. On a personal level I know I haven't had to consider many production elements before, so I had to think about this in depth as to what looks professional and creates the better overall effect.
I have found that performing to the camera has altered colours and perspectives of how things appear, so this is something I had to learn throughout the process. As a group I think we learnt about how to vocalize an idea better to each other in this piece too.
This piece was inspired by Exquisit corps' piece "42 Choreographers" and the piece "And So Say All Of Us". As we had a clear objective for the piece and we communicated well, we all knew what we were aiming for.
I think we collaborated well on this piece, which made it quite easy to create.
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BRIGHT TOP PIECE COLLABORATIVE PROCESS
This piece was one of the first collaborations we made in this module.
Laura and Becky both suggested song ideas for this piece. These are the links to the
songs:
Laura’s - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-iHnbPb60Y
Becky’s - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSye8OO5TkM
We then voted, and chose to go with Becky’s song choice, which was
Movement - Hozier. Our task was too film a specifically timed phrase to a
part of the music. (Nobody had the exact same amount of counts, they ranged from
12 seconds - 20 seconds.) We chose a running order and we had to make sure that our
first movement was the same as the person before us, ending movement.
This is the video of my first draft: https://youtu.be/0zDl7laMFbQ
The next week we spoke about the piece as a whole and what we could do to improve it.
Firstly, we decided for everyone to film landscape, as it worked better when we
uploaded it to YouTube. I did this the first time round, however some did not.
We then spoke about the camera angles and how we wanted it to flow more smoothly,
as the first video, as a whole, looked jittery and unpolished.
After speaking about all of the improvements, we then all filmed our phrases for a
second time. This time, I completely changed my choreography. I didn’t like my first
video at all, and thought it didn’t run smoothly in between Daisy’s and Megan’s either.
This is my second video: https://youtu.be/JVA5j04hrDU
After our second attempt, we spoke about costumes and what we wanted to wear.
We thought that this would finish the piece off and make us look like more of a
cohesive, rather than 12 separate solos. We agreed on wearing black bottoms and a
bright coloured top. I had already worn this, accidentally, in my second recording,
therefore I decided to not re-film it (like everyone else has to) but to use my second
recording as my final piece. I chose to do this, as I felt like I danced my choreography
well, I liked the background I had and I also liked that it was a darker video to my first
one, as I filmed my second one at night time.
After everyone had filmed their final cut, we grouped all of the videos together to
make our final piece.
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BRIGHT TOP PIECE - BELLA
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BRIGHT TOP PIECE PROCESS
The Bright Top piece was one of the first creative idea's we decided to pursue together within collaboration, our main inspirations came from And So Say All of Us
Video Link - And So Say All of Us (52 choreographers, 1 dance) - YouTube
and Exquisite Corps Video Link -Exquisite Corps (42 choreographers, 1 dance) - YouTube
From watching these two video's we all loved the idea of everyone's last move being someone's else's beginning . It was a new way of working that we were all eager to try out.
From there on we set to come up with some rules of music timings etc. Our first initial music idea was put forward by Becky , so we decided to use the music by Hozier 'movement' , which we felt really in captured the essence of the final film that we wanted to create.
Myself (Laura Nuttall) thought it would be really exciting to try and edit a piece like this together , So i set out to be the editor of this piece.
Once this was all decided we all had time to create movements to our timings of the movement , which ever dancer would then send to myself to edit together . we had a se order everyone's phrase would go in . That never changed through this choreographic process .
Bella, Ava, Sarah, Becky , Laura, Daisy, Macy, Megan , Tyler, Mollie, Olivia and Amber .
Her is a clip of some of the first drafts of myself getting used to the movement and space I chose for my sections - https://youtu.be/Mqc-Ugs5zyw
For the first draft of putting all the clips together there wasn't much directions taken place in terms of how the movement should be filmed either landscape or portrait , the costume , whether someone would be filming or not . It was more about getting the clips together just to see how the clips would flow into each other. From the first rough cut we could see that with some corrections and more direction this could be created into a great little piece of work.
My thought when editing the first clip is I was surprised how well everything flowed into each other as I feel we all really tried to make a direct correlation to the music and our movement . As a whole I really enjoyed editing it all together . However there was main set back when editing the first draft and it was a technical one involving music working on the clips . No matter how hard I tried the music wouldn't play which was a great shame , as I believed the music to really help rive this piece . So The next video clip link you can see will be the second draft attempt .
Second Draft Attempt - https://youtu.be/Nld9NqiCwNc
In this clip we all tried to work on the positioning of our cameras and our stances especially in the beginning and ending to help make each transition smoother as if one person was melting into another , special wise. When I got these next set of clips in , it was clear and evident that the way the filming was done made the transitions glide much more seamlessly . During this time we were also trying to film music that would work with the video . We also established as a collective that we wanted the clips to be filmed in landscape therefore the overall finish of the film would be better, and took more time with our sets. Even thought many factors were being et in stone there was still many decision we were taking as a group in terms of costume.
After a couple of more weeks we decided to go with a bright top theme and black leggings , something that would make each dancer stand out a little bit more in their everyday surroundings. As I started getting the final finished clips in I was instantly seen the amount of progress everyone had made from our first cut video to our final one the timings and movement were sharper and clean, everyone's bright colours worked so well as our costume and I finally managed to get a piece of music that didn't have any technical issue with it and fit with out movement material also .
our final music choice was Hozier 'Take me to church'
link to our final bright top piece- https://youtu.be/pt9uy4ZdOxc
Film editor - Laura Nuttall
music sources - Laura Nuttall (final piece) Becky McFarlane (initial piece)
Dancers and Choreographers - Bella , Ava , Sarah, Becky, Laura, Daisy, Macy, Megan ,Tyler, Mollie, Olivia , Amber
My point of view of the editor throughout this whole process . From the beginning I was super excited to try and edit this piece together and work with transitions music and movement all together and see what could come from it. All the clips I receive and put together were great and the process of making draft after draft after draft and trial and error was so important in the production of this clip. There was some point were I would try and get a certain point perfect as best as I can either trim or transitioned into another which I would spend quite a bit of time on. But apart from that there was no real negative connotations of being the editor within this project. The music struggles weren't helpful and was quite disheartening at times because you wouldn't want to edit all thee clips together of everyone's hard work for the music to not serve the movement any justice . but in the end was challenging and rewarding and I would love to work on more projects lie this again in the future.
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PROCESS OF BRIGHT TOP
During the process of making our bright top piece, I recorded my solo 3 times. At the start of this process we agreed to take the last movement of the person before us and use that as our first movement, to make a seamless transition and make it appear as if it was one long piece of choreography. We had not yet decided on costume, but we had decided on music and which section each person was going to use. As this was our first draft, we filmed the videos and sent them to Laura to edit together so that we could get an idea of what we could improve on.
Here is my first video:
After watching back our first draft, we noticed a few things we could improve on to make our video a much higher quality:
- all videos to be filmed in landscape to look the same and make the video seamless
- Ensure we have watched the video of the person before us thoroughly to get direction, and camera placement accurate
- Be more accurate with music and counts, make phrase more complex if needed
- Agree on a set costume to have a running theme throughout
- Try to include as much of the body as possible in the shot, don't cut any body parts off
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