How to make sure your school gets involved in the final video ?????? 

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Over the last 4 years of the lifetime of the VATW project lifetime, we have received a lot of video footage of youngsters involved in our project. This is amazing! You can imagine how excruciatingly difficult it is to choose the video clips we use to go with the final recording ....suffice it to say there are many tough discussions here in the VATW studio!! We get video in all shapes and sizes from professional footage shot and edited by by people who clearly know what they are doing, to some very shaky video shot on a phone! 

What we look for, generally centres around short video clips that will be interesting and entertaining on final mix video - content that will make people laugh or show interest and drama so they will want to watch the video over and over.

With a bit of imagination it's surprising how you can really enhance your video clips. Here are some pointers:
  • ?First YES it is OK to send us phone video if you do not have access to using flashy cameras or professional level video equipment. The important aspect is to, as we know from basic photographic lessons...keep the camera/phone steady. As those who are in the project over the last few years know ...VATW regularly goes to our adopted school in Otjikondo, Namibia! Famously there, my good friend Sara always says OMG, please don't let Laurie near the video camera. This is partly because I always forget that just because it is called a MOVIE it does not mean the camera has to move all over the place! So basically the lesson is any scanning shots should be slow and steady!
  •  ?YES - shoot in good light. Shots taken in dark halls etc are rarely successful
  •  ?NO - please avoid shots from far away - generally close ups work the best, especially as it's often the expressions on faces that are the best bit to capture.
  •  ?YES - do listen to your students - often they  (especially older students) will give you some good ideas for shots.
  •  ?YES - if you are working with older students - why not give them the job of making the video - LET GO!
  •  ?YES/NO???  Getting parents involved in the video making?? One time we were wondering why a good quality video received, heavily featured one particular pupil. MMMMhh you can guess the rest. Joking aside there are sometimes some professionals/people proficient with video work out there who would love to help, but you just don't know about them....a letter to the parents can be a powerful tool! e.g. one school we went to in UK recently - they discovered that there was a parent who was also a BBC cameraman that they had not previously known about.
  •  ?YES entertaining video! To actually say what we mean here it is probably interesting to look at what we don't want.
  1.  As mentioned very shaky video or fuzzy video shot in poor light is not usable
  2. Static shots where students are not looking very happy about life and there is no song context i.e. no obvious involvement in the VATW song activities.
             Now - what we do want:
  1. Close up shots that show strong musical involvement and students generally getting a lot of fun out of working with the music
  2. Shots with students showing lots of expression and interacting with one another
  3. Dramatic shots - shots where students are acting out an associated bit of drama to go with the song. e.g. one piece of successful footage we took recently was of a class of students sitting in their classroom studying during the song intro -  Heads down. We filmed from above, standing on a table. When the singing started, they all looked up sharply at the camera and sung - giving a sense of a story starting to unfold. 
  4. We have a number of schools that have got into 'signing'  - this is always interesting and useful for our potential audience. Younger pupils can often be involved in simple word associated actions.
  5. DON'T FORGET - for the video you submit... the sound quality DOES NOT MATTER - we will synchronise any video you send to go with the final sound track. You WILL need to play the song for students to sing along with to help us place the video. You can explain to them that often when pop videos are made the artists are miming to the song or not singing along in a performance way.
  6. Location location location. You might have a local location that will be interesting for our audience e.g. what is distinctive in the place where you live that would make your video stand out as representing a country e.g. how cool to have a few camels or giraffes wandering across the back of your filming location. 
  7. Dancing moves ......ohh YES everybody loves to watch a few good dancing moves!

We could go on ....but by now you have probably got the idea.  So shake loose and have lotsa of fun with the video shoots and lets make this year's VATW video the best ever! Thanks as ever
Laurie

How to upload audio, video and picture files - Individual vocal recordings - VATW as an independent project for students. 

All recorded - what's the best way to send us your audio, video and picture files
The VATW Lighting Up The Flame instructions will give you full instructions about sending us your files and specifically how you can use the free Dropbox system to send us your vocal recordings, video clips and pictures. We always ask that you don't send these by email as it would clog up our email systems forever! Using Dropbox is actually very, very simple. However, this year we have made things even easier! You are of course still welcome to send us your recordings by Dropbox. However, we have also introduced an upload page onto our website. So all you need to do is go to  our new file upload page and follow the simple instructions for uploading files. We will always send you an acknowledgement to say we have received your files.

Have a look at what other VATW schools are doing - Photos from the recording action in Bahrain, Uganda, India, China, Brunei and Dubai
It's all happening on the Voices Around The World Facebook page

Individual vocal recordings - giving your students the chance!
Sometimes it is simply impossible in the busy whirl of day-to-day activities for schools to take part fully in VATW. Having worked in many schools over the years, we understand this! However, occasionally, we come across youngsters who are especially passionate about their music and join in our project by themselves. We are all for this. Please do not overlook this possibility. This may particularly interest older student. If you simply, haven't had the chance to organise involvement for your school this year - you could still make your students aware of the project. There is then nothing to stop them submitting a recording and video themselves. For example we have had students send in some quite good recordings made on a phone or tablet. The main thing to impress upon them if they are interested in this option, is that the recording must be only of their singing i.e. not with the backing track. This usually means using two devices - one as playback of the mp3 template listened to on earphones and one device to record the sound.

In some cases we have seen things go one step further where one or a few talented students have independently organised themselves into a group to record the vocals - all kinds of exciting possibilities here! Linked to this we have  also spoken to some schools spoken to this year where the students are expanding the project into making a video themselves à la MTV.
 

VATW as an independent individual/group project
This is about taking things to the next level. The possibilities are huge and link across into other subjects such as drama, IT, graphic design, art......

  • Student(s) organising their own song rehearsals
  • Organising vocal recording sessions
  • Students organising their own performances
  • Organisation of and making of a lively and interesting video to go with the vocal recordings - lip synching the video clips etc - location shoots - storyline videos
  • Making DVDs/CDs  sales for charity or for some school event/trip e.g Duke of Edinburgh award in British Schools


 

Voices Around The World ?Lighting Up The Flame? Important information and advice  

Dear All
The excitement is mounting at Voices Around The World! As usual we have been out and about visiting and supporting schools and have been listening to some fantastic choir and solo singing. Vocal recordings and videos have already started arriving at the VATW studio. Congratulations to all of you who are up and running with rehearsals and performances of this year's song - 'Lighting Up The Flame.' We are looking forward to receiving your vocal recordings, pictures and videos in the near future. If you have not yet got involved - It is still not too late to join in the fun! simply go to our website, register and download all of the free singing resources. The deadline for submitting recordings to VATW is 31 May.

More news, information and advice:

Rehearsals done ....ready for performances  ....but are your singers ready for recording? Here are some thoughts about how to get the best vocal recordings.
Those of you who are experienced with working with microphones will know there is a world of difference between making a good recording and making a good stage performance. There is a tendency for students who are recording for the first time, to become over enthusiastic and shout at the microphone or compete with each other to get their voice recorded. This usually ends up in an unusable distorted sound. While it is relatively easy to boost the sound on quiet, well sung recordings, there is nothing we can do to improve distorted/over recorded sound recordings. Here are some tips about this and other aspects of recording
1. Get your students to practise singing in a soft sweet tone - remind them that, unlike singing on a stage, the microphone will do a lot of the work in projecting their voices on to the recording.
2. Experiment with getting your students to stand at different distances from the microphone. Around about 1m is often the optimum distance for recordings.
3. Check the instructions and guidelines on our website for lots of other good tips 

To solo or not to solo ...that is the question. We are looking to feature a few gifted soloists on our July final mix this year. We have heard some 'mind blowing' and talented young vocalists in action this year. If you feel you have students in this category, please do take the trouble to record them separately. We are also very happy to look at students soloing in a way that interprets the song. Many older students, and sometimes younger students too, have a natural tendency to sing in a way using the vocal tricks that they hear their favourite singers using. We welcome students to contribute solos of this type - this may well be something we can use to enhance our final mix this year, but you need to be sure that any vocal ornamentation stays within the main framework of the melody and chord sequences in the song. This could be an exciting aspect of 'Lighting Up The Flame!' this year.

How many recordings should you send in? Should you record different choir part vocals separately?
Within reason we are happy to accept any number of recordings. You will often get the best recordings in small groups. It is highly recommended to put your very best singers together and, if necessary use them again on other recordings to support less confident singers. Recording choir parts separately ...the answer is YES YES YES. Please do make separate recordings - this makes for a far better final mix. 

The power of synchronisation. Many of you have worked with VATW now for a number of years and will know that the mainstay of what we do is to work closely with the MP3 choir parts. We can never stress enough the importance of making sure the recorded vocals sent in are in strict synch with the MP3 template vocals. Please DO check this carefully. It is quite easy for 'slippage' to creep in and it is a shame to let this spoil an otherwise good quality recording. A fix for out of synch singing sometimes is to turn up the volume of the MP3 track that your youngsters are singing along with. N.B. Always take care not to play music in earphones at too high a level. 

Planning ahead - meeting of World Leaders in 2018. Many thanks to those of you who have written to us in the past with ideas and suggestions for the project and for new songs that we produce. The project continues to gain momentum each year. Please continue to send any ideas to us as to how we can improve what we do. Any ideas from you or your students for future songs are always particularly welcome. 2018 looks set to be a very special year with an invitation by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office for VATW to make a musical contribution to the meeting of Commonwealth Heads of State due to take place in London in November 2018.

Opportunities for companies to sponsor the work of VATW. We are always looking for organisations, companies or individuals who would like to partner with us and support the work we do. We have been fortunate to work with some very supportive partner organisations in 2014-16 but are still in need of further support to expand our work over the next two years. For anyone reading this who may be in contact with an interested company or organisation, please do not hesitate to put them in touch with VATW or let us know how we can get in touch with them.


 

Are you making the most of your participation in Voices Around The World?  

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” 
― Albert Schweitzer

Are you getting the most out of Voices Around The World?

We know your students will be enjoying the Voices Around The World experience and excited about being part of this year's global song/video release in July. Their parents will be curious about what is going on. Some of your school staff will be curious about what is going on. There may be members of the local community who are wondering what you are doing. Here at VATW we sometimes notice that in the hectic rush and hurly burly of everyday school life, the idea of broadcasting to the wider community and celebrating what you are doing may not be the first thing you think about!  In one amazing and extreme example we stumbled on a while back, the only people that knew what was happening were the music teacher and a handful of students energetically practising away! By letting everyone know you will be 'Lighting Up The Flame' in more ways than one. It's great PR for the school to let people know that yourstudents are working on something that is very worthwhile and helping to change the lives of other students in difficult circumstances.
Albert Schweitzer

Many schools find that articles about the project are great for the school website and newsletters home to parents. Local newspapers and TV and radio stations often love to cover such 'good news' items as well. If you really want to go for broke...you could also organise special events featuring your fabulous choir/singing group and invite local dignitaries to come along - the press really love this kind of thing!

Congratulations to the many schools we know who are already making the most of things! Here is one local newspaper insert we were recently sent from the Middle East - you notice we stole their Albert Schweitzer quote!

Panaga School Brunei - link up with a local school 

It is very heartening to see music helping schools to join together. This is what Voices Around The World is all about. Here are some lovely pictures showing Panaga School in Brunei working with a another local school. Great work Panaga staff and students.

A Staff Choir - Involving your whole school staff in Voices Around The World - Staff INSET? 

Voices Around The World is a project that everyone in your school and all those associated with your school can be a part of. Participation is a chance to celebrate not just the achievement of your singers but the efforts of everyone involved. There is currently an idea circulating many top schools across the world  to involve staff in a school in something where they can all work together. One of these areas is music. We know that nearly everybody has an interest in music and sometimes a talent they are hiding away! There has been much incredible success in some schools in putting together a staff choir open to all - from the cleaning staff and ground-workers through to the senior management team. The spin offs from this are often quite surprising forging bonds between people in an unexpected way. Often some people who are initially reluctant participants find themselves taking on a whole new view of their school working life. In some cases such initiatives can turn out to be quite transformative for staff, helping to embed a very positive working atmosphere. If you get people pulling together on one initiative - it is likely they will want to adopt the same attitude with other initiatives. The ultimate vision here is a staff choir learning 'Lighting Up The Flame' and joining your students in a whole school performance - wow that would be something to inspire! We would love to hear any news about this, photos and video clips.

Warning - deadline approaching 

The deadline for submitting the vocal recordings of your students for this year's project ' Lighting Up The Flame' is Tuesday May 31st. The clock is ticking - it's time to intensify those rehearsals, prepare for recording students' vocals and schedule time for things to happen. We know how complex timetabling can be in some schools and senior leaders rightly expect advance warning of your intentions. It is always good practice to make sure everyone knows what you are doing - you end up winning friends and getting much more support this way. We hope it all runs smoothly for you.

Deadline May 31 - The clock is ticking 

The deadline for submitting the vocal recordings of your students for this year's project ' Lighting Up The Flame' is Tuesday May 31st. The clock is ticking - it's time to intensify those rehearsals, prepare for recording students' vocals and schedule time for things to happen. We know how complex timetabling can be in some schools and senior leaders rightly expect advance warning of your intentions. It is always good practice to make sure everyone knows what you are doing - you end up winning friends and getting much more support this way. We hope it all runs smoothly for you.


 

Making a great recording of your students' vocals 

Have you registered to be part of the Lighting Up The Flame project - don't miss out  click here to register

Getting it right

You do not need to be a technical 'whizz kid' to make a reasonable recording of your students' vocal efforts with 'Lighting Up The Flame. If you follow the guidelines in our instructions document you will find it is actually quite simple. We strongly suggest that you download the instructions and keep them close by throughout your work with the project. Click here to download the instruction documents now.

Vocals only
The most important part of recording your students vocals is that you ONLY RECORD THE VOCALS i.e. we do not want a recording of the vocals with the backing tracking playing as well. It is actually impossible for us to use recordings that include the backing track - it simply makes for a very 'muddy' sound on the final mix. This is why you see so many of the photos of students on our website wearing earphones. The idea is of course to listen to the relevant MP3 choir track on earphones and sing along with this while recording.

Sound leakage
One of the enemies of any studio sound engineer. Sound leakage often comes from some types of earphones - it is the sound of the music you are listening to leaking through onto the recording. You have probably experienced this - sitting next to someone who is listening to their favourite music on earphones and because the sound is turned up ...you are also subjected to listening to their music. So how to we prevent this leakage onto your precious recording. Basicallly, you may not be able to eliminate this completely but the lower the volume on the earphones the less the leakage will be. It can also be reduced or even eliminated by ensuring that your singers move back from the microphone. For most recordings - standing about a metre from the microphone is a good distance. There is one certain way of eliminating leakage and that is by using very expensive earphones that you will often see used in professional recording studios. However, by following the suggestions above you will be able to provide recordings that have minimal sound leakage in evidence. 

Distortion
This is the second and probably main enemy of sound recording work. It is caused of course when the recording level is too high and in the age of digital recording it can give a very unpleasant sound on the peak areas of the sound recorded commonly known as 'clipping'. The cure is obvious - reduce the recording level on the equipment OR stand further back from the microphone. It is better for us to receive recordings that are lower volume to be on the safe side - we can easily increase the sound level but as you can guess there is no way to undo the distortion on a recording received and usually we cannot use these.

The IPOD effect
You have probably smiled about someone sometime who has been singing away enthusiastically to something they are listening to on their earphones oblivious to the fact that they are singing extra loudly and providing an accidental audience with a cabaret show. The same thing might happen in your recording sessions when students are singing with earphones on for the first time. It can result in students suddenly forgetting all of the great singing lessons you have given them and half shouting the vocals - not great! The other problem is that most people find it hard to sing in tune when they cannot hear their own voice. The cure for this is to show your students that they can slip one of their earphones off slightly so that they can then hear their own voice

More resources - here's a very good piece of technical advice worth checking before you record   http://ehomerecordingstudio.com/recording-vocals/

To inspire your singers before a recording session, the 1985 recording session of We Are The World is worth looking at    https://youtu.be/M9BNoNFKCBI