Tag Archives: TV

StAC Students Team Up To Form Souldrop

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band

The four members of Souldrop

Recently I caught up with Finn Perring, Anna Bennetto and Grace Dephoff who are part of a wider group of students that make up the band Souldrop. Anna leads the vocals, Finn plays bass guitar and Fin Gilzean (St Thomas of Canterbury College) plays lead guitar whilst Elliot Millar (Burnside High School) is on the drums. Formed in April 2016, their first single Mill Bay was released in August with an accompanying music video shot and edited by Grace Dephoff and their 5 track EP will be available from the 9th September 2016.

UPDATE 25/9/16 The band’s self-titled EP is now available and embedded below via Spotify:

 

I was particularly interested in the technology the band used to record the track as well as edit the video, however to understand all of this it was important to learn of the various musical influences on the band.

  • Elliot is a jazz and big band drummer, representing Burnside High School in various musical competitions.
  • Fin learnt blues and classic rock guitar, mostly from his father
  • Anna has been performing for over ten years in musical theatre shows, as a jazz singer in various bands as well as one soul band.
  • Finn is a classically trained guitarist who plays Spanish flamenco guitar, but bass for Souldrop.

Recording & mastering the audio track:

Most of the audio track was recorded in the St Andrew’s College recording studio with the vocals, drums and bass all being laid down in this environment. The lead guitar parts, however, were recorded in Fin’s bedroom using Apple’s Garageband. Once finished, these guitar recordings were sent to the other Finn (Perring) to add to the other instruments and mix the recording in Apple’s Logic Pro X. To this end, the band never played the entire song together in the same room during the recording process, instead relying on the use of over-dubbing to achieve the best sound.

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From a non-musicians perspective, I found this a fascinating way to craft a complete song, through the selective and judicious extracting of various takes of the song and merging them all together in an order that produces the best quality song. Additionally, the song was a very collaborative effort with the idea of the song first coming in a formative stage to Finn Perring around two years ago, before drummer Elliot and lead singer Anna co-wrote the lyrics for the song.

Recording & editing the music video:

Grace Dephoff filmed all of the footage for the video in a single afternoon using a Canon 70D camera with the 16-24mm lens and a 50mm lens borrowed from Mr Dave Jensen who works in the TV studio at St Andrew’s College. There was a limited script for the recording of the music video, instead a desire to keep it as natural as possible for the band members. One of the most clever features of the music video is the fact it is in slow motion, whilst keeping the music and singing in real time.

filming

Grace Dephoff filming the band

This was achieved by having the band perform the song at 1.5x normal speed from speakers that they could hear to help them keep time, whilst Grace filmed at 50fps so that it could be later slowed down to 67% normal speed and still look smooth after this editing had taken place. The end effect makes it look like the band are in time to the song, even though they are in slow motion. Grace had learnt of this technique from a former guitar teacher she and the whole band were thrilled with the end result and how it looked.

To edit the hours of video footage, Grace used Apple’s Final Cut Pro, a tool she was largely self-taught in after graduating from using Apple iMovie for a number of years, including winning numerous prizes at the annual St Andrew’s College Film Fest. All up, she spent around 10 hours editing the footage and another 6 hours completing the colour grading in the video.

Distributing and Promoting the single:

The band are using a combination of word of mouth and social media to get exposure for the first single Mill Bay, combining messages on Facebook, Instagram and, of course, the YouTube channel itself. They have added a number of live performances as well, including lunchtime shows in the St Andrew’s College Quad, an assembly at Burnside High School and a performance at St Thomas of Canterbury College as well. There is a planned interview on 98RDU radio station as well on 14th September.

TunecoreLogoThe song has been released through TuneCore which is a digital media distribution company which automatically publishes the song to the main digital music platforms including Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Shazaam and the YouTube channel the band have created as well. Anna and Finn’s focus at this stage is getting the song out to as wide an audience as possible and any revenue that is generated from the track being played is a bonus. TuneCore will send the band monthly statistics around the performance of the song on the various platforms.

In terms of copyright and protecting the song, the band have chosen to use the Creative Commons licensing platform. They recognise that this license might not stop another band from being able to sample their work, but they will be required to acknowledge Souldrop as the source of the original content for the sample.

What’s Next?

The band are keen to keep gigging and playing as many live performances as possible to increase their exposure and improve as a unit. They are also thinking about recording another music video for one of the other tracks on the soon to be released EP.

My Thoughts

I have been super impressed with the members of the band that I have met so far, both in terms of their musical ability but also their technical skills to be able to produce such high quality recordings and videos. It is always pleasing to see that skills that have been taught and learnt at St Andrew’s College are finding a creative outlet in the areas of student’s own interests such as being part of a band.

team

The wider Souldrop crew including Anna Bennetto (back row, second from right), Finn Perring (back row, far right) and Grace Dephoff (from row, first on the left)

This song and video highlight how technology has enabled students to create high quality, professional looking videos and promote them digitally to an international audience. When I pointed this out to Finn, Anna and Grace their reaction was a mixture of pride and nonchalance in the work they had created, highlighting to me just how natural the use of this technology is to students these days. Importantly, they had thought about using Creative Commons to copyright their work demonstrating an inherent understanding of the value of their music and video.

Finally, there is opportunities for this work to be credited against various NCEA internal Achievement Standards in some subjects (mainly English/Music) which would be a serendipitous outcome of what is essentially a passion project for these students. This is, perhaps, one of the biggest outcomes and reasons to pause for thought from this. If schools were able to recognise the creative output of students in areas of their interests perhaps we would finally see the flexibility of NCEA that is often talked about, yet rarely achieved.

Television & Film Studio – Published Article in Interface Magazine

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This article was published in the July Edition of the Interface Magazine and is reproduced with permission.

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St Andrew’s College has been running the only professional television studio in a New Zealand school for almost 20 years, writes Simon Williams.

Professional? Well yes, in that we use TV industry equipment and systems, it’s run by two people who have a background in the industry, and professional people look after it in a technical and production sense.

Of all the classes who use it, the Year 8 and 9 students are the ones I enjoy most. They’re so full of energy, they learn fast, nothing’s impossible, and they run a show just like the pros.

When a class of Year 9 performing arts students bounce though the door three times a week to make live television shows, they’re using the same sort of gear and systems that the industry uses. The studio has recently updated its cameras, while film classes have almost new Sony NX-Cam cameras, professional sound and lighting gear, with Adobe Premiere CS5 and CS6 to edit with.

The Year 9s spend a term in the TV studio and a term in drama, just as the Year 10 performing arts students do. The younger group makes live shows that will include three or four live musical items, an interview or two, perhaps six recorded items all introduced by hosts or presenters. The shows run live – in other words without stopping. The Year 10s also make short films to run in their studio shows.

Teaching professionalism and performance

3The whole idea is to teach team work, leadership, discipline, problem solving, the safe and effective use of professional gear, and, of course, on-camera performance. To watch a 13-year-old director driving a show, with her or his vision switcher, sound, lighting and videotape operators, floor manager, and four camera operators, plus performers, is one of the reasons I enjoy the role.

We recently had a delightful young director who understood that a performance in a studio is far more than
the performers – that it’s about the whole
team. I watched this young boy speaking

to the camera ops before the how, telling them exactly what he wanted them to do, getting them to show him, before thanking them. This boy had the crew in the palm of his hand. They wanted to do whatever he asked of them.

It’s like watching the Key Competencies from the New Zealand Curriculum in action.

Command and collaboration

2A cover of Colbie Caillat’s song ‘Bubbly’ (fizurl.com/bubbly) shows one of the 11 items in the live unrehearsed show. Just look at the way the cameras are moving, the way the vision switcher is mixing at just the right speed, all under the command of a director who is only 13!

Senior NCEA media classes also use the facility. This year the Year 12 TV class made a children’s show in collaboration with the St Andrew’s Preparatory School, using the studio linked to a second facility set up there, all linked by an outside broadcast truck. Continue reading →

Fusion: Collaboration Between Year 12 & Year 6 Students to Celebrate Chinese Culture With A Live TV Show

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Throughout Term 2 there had been whispers around the College of an ambitious media project being planned by Mr Simon Williams (Head of Media) that would involve collaboration between his Year 12 media students and a group of students from the Preparatory School.

The end product was called Fusion, and involved 19 Year 12 students, 42 Year 6 students, 8 TV cameras, 3 recording studios and an Outside Broadcast van to co-ordinate it all. Filmed over the course of a single day, the show incorporated a number of live acts alongside three children’s television items planned, filmed and edited earlier that were to be assessed along with the live show. Together, these formed the major NCEA Level 2 assessment for the Year 12 students of:

  • AS91252 (2.5) Produce a design and plan for a developed media product using a range of conventions
  • AS91253 (2.6) Complete a developed media product from a design and plan using a range of conventions

Background:

For a number of years now the Year 12 Media Studies class had produced a children’s programme for this assessment, but this year Mr Williams decided to see if the Preparatory School wanted to be involved in a collaboration of the actual making of the show, rather than just being the intended audience. After talking with Mrs Di Cumming and Mr Wilj Dekkers, it was quickly decided that the Year 6 students would be willing participants and that the theme of the live show should be based around China, a unit that the Year 6 students had recently been studying.

This theme was met with initial resistance by the Year 12 students, however they quickly came around to the idea as it would provide an authentic context within which their individual programmes could be incorporated through the live broadcast. These individual programmes would reflect the areas of learning of the Preparatory students and included:

  • Chinese paper cutting
  • Calligraphy
  • Dumpling making
  • Kung Fu
  • Fan dancing

To help out, volunteers from the Confucius Institute at the University of Canterbury agreed to come along on the day and provide guidance to the students.

The 42 Year 6 students were divided into four groups, three groups working individual programmes as part of the show and the remaining ten students helping out with the recording and broadcasting aspects of the production.

Recording The Show:

Whilst recording live studios is regularly done at St Andrew’s College, it is normally managed from within the one studio in the Secondary School. To make this a truly collaborative project with the Preparatory School, Mr Williams decided to run a second studio from within one of the downstairs open learning spaces in the Preparatory School that you can explore here (the recording was done where the chess pieces are visible):

To co-ordinate this venture, Mr David Jensen (who helped record an early Mystery Skype by Year 3 students) was parked in the Outside Broadcast van giving directions to the various camera operators, floor controllers and presenters of the different studios. To further support the show, a number of Old Collegians with experience in the Media Studio returned to support Mr Williams and the students, further highlighting how collaborative projects like this can truly engage the community and generate very authentic learning opportunities for our students.

Throughout the recording of the show, there were a number of challenges that required the students to think on their feet and try to resolve the problems themselves. When some turned to Mr Williams for advice, he encouraged them to make decisions, reminding them that they had more information as floor managers and presenters of their various programmes than he necessarily did at that point in time. A number of the Year12 students commented afterwards that they did not think they had worked so hard in their lives, yet they thoroughly enjoyed the experience of creating a live production.

Fusion – The Show:

Some short cuts to different sections of the show are below:

As you can see, not all of the transitions between the various components of the show and studios worked seamlessly – however it is precisely this type of live show that allows students to learn and understand the teamwork required to produce a quality live performance.

Reflecting On The Show:

Mrs Cummings provided some reflections from the Preparatory perspective as well, commenting that:

  • [The] children were incredibly excited about just working in the secondary school itself.
  • All children thoroughly enjoyed working with the year 12 students… this [is] beneficial in breaking down any anxieties about these ‘big people’. We often take for granted that because we are all on the same site that this will occur almost through osmosis but it does need to be planned for too.
  • The children were absolutely exhausted afterwards … I cannot recall a time when we have all been so tired. This reflects the intensity of what occurred and how involved the children were.
  • The children had to cope with change due to the nature of the live broadcast.
  • It provided very real purpose to the learning and children knew they were working to a deadline with their inquiries.
  • Many of the positive outcomes were those we could not have planned for – the feelings of urgency, the degree of collaboration, the opportunities for leadership, etc.

Mr Williams also commented that:

Most schools simply study films for their Media Studies classes. A real point of difference at St Andrew’s College is that students can actually be involved in making live shows such as this one – it is realistic, fun and gives them experiences that make them want to continue studying Media and potentially working in it when they leave school.

Behind the Scenes – The Making Of Fusion: