Wednesday, 12 November 2008

Final video

Final video

Final Cut Feedback

Feedback from final video once showed to class-

Camerawork-
Plain shots
Work with the song
Simple
Sky shot-too long
Random shits
Pan is good from picnic to tree



White boarder- worked well-gave the impression of dreaming and heaven. (some people said it looked too cheesy.)
-also it covers his face during the tree shot so you cant tell that he is even singing.

Performance-
very cheesy and not convincing.
At some points it looks awquard-eg the hug
Wrong way round with the boy n girl
They look too old to be in the park
-pub scene is very good acting.

Editing-



Argument and forward is really good the rest is not as good.
Strong narrative-comes across very well, everyone understood it.

Mise-en-scene-
Locations are good, especially the pub scene.
Lighting looks good in pub shots-they work well with the colour of the shot glasses.

Demands from record label-
2nd half- does defiantly meet the demands
more lip syncing is needed

intertextuality-
Drink driving adverts- a few from current television
Has a very film like feeling and narrative.

Lyrics/Music/Visuals-
We could have died-car crash people all understood this as they could have died but didn’t.

Conclusion-
Different video to most as it has a strong narrative
Filmic feel-good

Tuesday, 21 October 2008

Editing.

Just an update on what we have done and what we have left to do on the editing front.
Today we finished editing the start and the end. It all looks really good and we are very happy with it.
However we still have a very big gap in the middle which should have the memories in it. Hayley and Christina are going to edit the memories. We have filmed the park scene but we need to do a lot more filming of memories as at the moment it looks like the only memories that they have of the relationship that they were supposed to of had is just them one day in a park.
We have planned to get a lip sync of the whole song from Waq. so at the end we will be able to fill in any gaps with him singing.

Technicals

Use of pans
1st pan-from car to bf on wall.
we shot bf lip syncing on the wall first, this proved difficult because our cameraman had to get the end of the pan to bf just as he starts singing.
the second shot for this pan was the car from the side, we did this numerous times to insure that the pan speed was the same as the first shot. In the edit of this pan we had to find the precise frame where both shots had the same frame then we had to transition between the two, to make it look seamless.

2nd pan picnic to bf on tree
first we shot the bf and gf sitting on a picnic blanket. then had to pan left and stopped on the tree. The second shot started on the picnic blanket then panned to bf lip syncing. This proved difficult again due to timing had to be correct when end of pan landed on beginning of line. Because there is such a big background there was even more risk of continuity issues when changing from pan to pan, as there was ever changing traffic and passers by. On editing we had to colour both shots due to a slight lighting change betweem the two takes.

Focus during shot scene
whilst filming the scene where they are drinking the shots, we used a focus pulling technique, on the point of view shots, which meant that our subject went in and out of focus thus giving the impression of a drunk persons vision.

Thursday, 16 October 2008

Update

To make the most of the muisic video production, Hayley and I have deicded that we are going to use the same footage that we have either acted in or directed; but we are going to edit t differently.

Wednesday, 15 October 2008

Third day of filming...

Today, we filmed the 'pub scene.' This scene included Brittany, Hayley and Waq for the acting. Cameron and Christina directed the footage and filmed. For the parts that Hayley was not acting, she also helped Cameron direct the footage. Brittany was in charge of organising the props used for the drunken scenes and I directed Cameron on how the shot should be portrayed; directing different angles and discussing how the shots would work best, changing them if need be. Our filming was successful as the landlord of the pub allowed us to flim inside and it was quiet so that we could focus without distraction. We already had permission to film outside the pub, however, when we arrived this is when the landlord allowed us to film inside. For sky to ground shots; Hayley used initiative and directed Cameron to film the footage from a higher angle; filming at the top of the car park of the pub. We used apple juice as a substitute for a pint of beer as Waq does not drink alcohol but we still needed the filming to look authentic. For this reason, we also used water as a substitute for vodka.

We worked well as a team, contributing indivual ideas about how a shot should be taken; if a certain angle needed to be corrected/altered to make it look more like what we are aiming for.

In connection to our call sheets, we are more a less running to our time schedule, we were not able to film more memories of myself and Waq but we have arranged to film this footage the following wednesday.

We are pleased with our footage as we feel that very soon we will be able to put our shots in their chronological, storyboard related order as the filming is almost completed.


We filmed the boy walking into the bar, with the camera panning round to follow him. He then sat down with a drink, we sat him by a window so that he would have some natural light coming in, it worked really well as it shone around his head and the light came from all around him. We worked very well as a team on this shoot, everyone participated and added ideas for what would look good, what angles to use and where we could film it from. We shot the drinking part loads of times from a lot of different angles and perspectives. When we edit this we will cut it so that it is fast moving and snappy. After this scene we filmed Waq and I getting into the car. I had the idea to film this from above as we had a long way to walk and it may have proved hard to move the camera steadily. The first time we shot this we didn’t look drunk enough so the second time we put as much effort as we could in and over emphasised being drunk, this worked really well. The long shot looked effective and it followed us getting into the car.

Tuesday, 14 October 2008

something to remind us

must film brittany and waq getting into the car together during tomorrows filming.

also aim to film:
- waq in the town standing still
- some lip syncing
- pub scene.

:)

Response to rough cut feedback

in response to our feedback we have realised that we need to get a bigger variety of shot types such as more close ups of lip syncing and a wider variety of angles.

one thing that most of the groups picked up on was that our footage of Christina on the swing went on for far too long. we were already aware of this, as we just put in the whole shot because we didn't have time to cut it. however we are now aware that the audience do notice when shots are too long adn lose attention. this has reminded us to try and keep all our shots short and varied to keep the audience watching throughout the duration of the song.

we had many compliments on the editing of making it look like the boyfriend was in 2 places at the same time, watching his own memories. this was very difficulat to edit so we are glad that people thought it worked well.

Rough Cut

This is our rough cut. It is very rough because we have only really been concentrating on editing the beginning and ending so the middle has just been thrown in at the moment.

rough cut feedback

Camerawork:
- zooming out at the end works really well
- spinning round shot at beginning is good
- few fuzzy shots (playground-swing)
- need more angles
- a couple of shots out of focus
- variety of shots

Editing:
- at the beginning when you hve the pan of the man and girl sitting down and then onto man - very good
- shots too long at times
- need more cuts and shots
- too much swinging!
- good

Effects:
- camera cutting well good
- really good effects- don't over use the cloudy effect

Mise en Scene:
- looks normal with the park location and happy

Performance/genre:
- good - well performed

Continuity:
- well good story!
- shock at the end
- strong story

Overall comments:
- very good
- Christina well done at the whole Frisbee throwing
- she got owned

Friday, 10 October 2008

car break sound effect

this is the sound we are going to use for the car breaking at the start of the film.

http://www.mediacollege.com/downloads/sound-effects/vehicle/crash/car-brake-crash-04.wav


It was really hard to find the right sound that didn't sound comical or that wasn't too loud or unrealistic.

Wednesday, 8 October 2008

2nd day of filming

Our second day of filming was very successful as we filmed a large amount of the footage we needed.
we managed to film the entire 'car accident' scene, and we also filmed it many times from many different angles so we have a selection to chose from, and we can see which angles work best and look the most professional.
we also worked extremely well as a team and each one of us took part in some way, and we enjoyed it too! hopefully this will come across in our work that we worked together professionally.

However, despite all the successful filming, we did come across quite a few issues whilst filming.
the first issue we came across was where to film. we had already chosen our location to film which was Rutherford road. we chose this location because its fairly quiet so we wouldnt be obstructing a main road or causing a scene. however, when we arrived, it was busier than we expected and there were a few cars driving around looking for parking spaces! we considered moving to a new location, but after we had discussed it and we decided to stay, otherwise we would be cutting into crucial filming time. i think we made the right deciscion to stay because after about 10minutes all the cars had gone, as it was mainly students looking for a parking space as we were filming at a time where students come in for lessons.

the next issue we faced was the issue of lighting. this could obvciously not be helped because it was the sunlight that was causing the problem. when we were trying to film inside the car, the positionning of the sun was causing unwanted shadows which completely changed teh effect we were going for. we tried to overcome this as best we could by re-positioning the car to get the best natural lighting possible.

a further issue was the lack of time. because we are using a student from a different class in our music video, he had to get back for lesson. therefore we were limited with just an hour and a half to get as much done as poosible. i think we managed to ivercome this very well by working efficiently and quickly as a team abd thinking on our feet.

Finally, one minor issue we had was during the last scene we filmed. we were filming an arguemet between waq and chrisinta and we did quite a few takes as they kept laughing when they were meant to be angry with eachother! eventually we got the perfect shot, however half way through the arguement we had a family of cyclists come past! this is obviously an issue we were bound to meet when filming in a public place. we kept this footage as we thought it might look more natural with people passing, but we also re-shot just in case it doesnt look good. therefore we have given ourself more than one option on how to overcome this.

so overall, our filming day was very very successfull and we still made it back to lesson so we have time to start editing the new footage.

Tuesday, 7 October 2008

call sheet 3 8th oct

Sunday Morning Song
CALL SHEET: 3



DIRECTOR: BRITTANY PEARCE

CASTING DIRECTOR: CHRISTINA RANKIN

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: HAYLEY AMIN

CAMERA OPPERATOR: CAMERON FORD

DATE: WEDNESDAY 8th OCT 2008

UNIT CALL: 13.10
EST. WRAP: 14.40




LOCATIONS:
Location 1:
Rutherford road, Cambridge
UNIT BASE:
Long Road Sixth Form
CB2 8PX


SUNRISE: 07:09 SUNSET: 18:21
WEATHER: SUNNY INTERVALS



SC. SET/SYNOPSIS D/N CAST
Intro and End EXT
Car scenes D 4

Argument EXT
Argument D 2


No ARTISTE CHARACTER
1 Waq Zah Boy Friend
2 Christina Rankin Girl Friend
3 Brittany Pearce Girl 1





REQUIREMENTS:


PROPS Hand Bag, A Coat,
EQUIPMENT Camera, Tripod, Tape, Umbrella, Plastic
SET: Car

Photo Edit.











Here(to the left, the picture below is the before image) is a rough idea of how i think we should edit the memories. I edited this image on photoshop. I made the contrast as high as it could go and slightly increased the brightness. I also increased the saturation a little bit to make the colours much brighter.

However it will be difficult to edit the part in this scene (in the picture) when the camera pans across to the left to show Waq standing against the tree, the question is is this going to be a memory or the present tense and will we have to change the colour settings for this part? and therefore will we have to blend it into the same part.

Friday, 3 October 2008

colour idea



this is the effect we are trying to create-the first 3 seconds of this video-on the boat.. but this effect was probably not intentional and it was probably just the brightness of the day.

color edit idea

For the memories i thought it would be a good idea to make it look different by editing so that it is obviously a memory and not in the present tense.
here is an example of a video i found on you tube thats edited some mountains and made them look less real and very colourful and bright.

Target Audience


Our target audience is aimed at mixed gender music fans who do not necessary know of Howie Day's music but yet enjoy a light rock/country genre who are interested in meaningful songs which are of a quiet tempo, as there is quite a lot of emotive language and the lyrics and story that Howie Day is trying to explain are both rather emotional. I would aim the song at older teenagers to young adults, as in our video it is of a love story which teenagers and young adults could associate with and also as there are scenes of uncomfortable nature with the girlfriend (me) dying; I feel that aiming the video at a younger audience maybe too sensitive as a similar case happened before with one of Britney Spears video's called 'Every time' where throughout the video she is severely depressed and then at the end she drowns herself in a bath.



This was controversial as her target audience is predominately females age between 8 - late 30's. As her target audience includes children, she had to alter her video so that at the end it showed her coming out of the bath so she didn't die. This is why we are able to have scenes of me dying in a car accident because the target audience is of an older age.

What we are doing in the lesson today...

Today, we are editing part of our footage from the park scene where Waq and I are playing with a frisbee and showing memories of our relationship together. We have already cross dissolved the shot of me and Waq having a picnic; which has allowed us to incorporate this shot into the next chronological shot being of Waq singing, leaning on a tree so that it looks like it is part of the same shot, (even though it is really two shots of which he is both in.)

In part of our footage, we have managed to crop the image and colour correct it to give the impression that some of the footage is made to look aged. Cameron has cut all the footage that we have filmed so far into shorter clips so that they will be easier to syncronise with the lip syncing and so that our timing will be perfected as it will be easier to recognise when a shot fits with a certain part of the song whether it be a chorous, bridge, or verse.

We have also been colour testing; the point of this is because the memory scenes need to be in a different colour so that our narrative is still clear, as to the story being about a boyfriend and girlfriend and the boyfriend looking back on the good times they shared together until the inevitable ending where the girlfriend dies in a car accident. We have also put in a transition which helps the audience understand that the boyfriend is looking back on the past.

Wednesday, 1 October 2008

Locations

one location we have chosen is a park.
here are some images of different parks...



this open space is similar to where we plan to have a game of frisbee between the boyfriend and girlfriend.





this is a picture of children playing on swings. although we are not using childrebn, this is the effect we are going for, with the boyfriend pushing the girlfriend on the swing.

Re-Cap on todays filming

Our main actor playing BF had to unexpectedly go up north for personal reasons. so today's filming has now been postponed to next Wednesday, meaning that the shooting planned for next Wednesday needs to be rescheduled.

our plan now is to plan for the computer chat filming on Friday, this shooting will happen on the Tuesday lesson.

Feedback from peer analysis of blog

The feedback which we received from our peer assessment of our blog was generally positive. Something that we need to add to our blog is awareness of our target audience and how to make our video suitable for all. We could also include a more detailed shot list.

Some of the positive feedback we received was that our call sheets were professional and looked feasible. Good location information. However, there was confusion over why we had two call sheets so we need to make it clearer that there was two seperate shooting days. Feedback also suggested that everything that was supposed to be included in the blog has been.

Altohugh this was not suggested in our blog feedback, from looking at other blogs we have decided that we should include more pictures of our shooting and some test footage of lip syncing and colour correction.

We achieved high levels of the overall assessment with level 4 overall over all areas.

Tuesday, 30 September 2008

Call sheet for second day of shooting and details of shoot

Sunday Morning Song
CALL SHEET: 2



DIRECTOR: BRITTANY PEARCE

CASTING DIRECTOR: CHRISTINA RANKIN

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: HAYLEY AMIN

CAMERA OPPERATOR: CAMERON FORD

DATE: WEDNESDAY 1ST OCT 2008

UNIT CALL: 13.10
EST. WRAP: 14.40




LOCATIONS:
Location 1:
Brooklands avenue, Cambridge
UNIT BASE:
Long Road Sixth Form
CB2 8PX


SUNRISE: 06.58 SUNSET: 18:37
WEATHER: HEAVY RAIN



SC. SET/SYNOPSIS D/N CAST
Intro and End EXT
Car scenes D 4



No ARTISTE CHARACTER
1 Waq Zah Boy Friend
2 Christina Rankin Girl Friend
3 Hayley Amin Girl 1
4 Brittany Pearce Girl 2





REQUIREMENTS:


PROPS Hand Bag, A Coat,
EQUIPMENT Camera, Tripod, Tape, Umbrella
SET: Car



The Actual Shoot


We began by parking the car where we thought would look good for the accident to have happened. It proved difficult as we couldn’t find a place which would mean we weren’t blocking the road. Eventually we had to park near to the end of the road, which kind of ruined the shot because you could see the end of the road and it didn’t look like they had been driving. Aside from that where we parked worked well, it was close to a sidewalk and it was on a road. We set up the first shot and filmed what looked like the crash, Waq and I flung ourselves forward and then sat back in our seats in shock, we filmed this several times until Cameron thought it was perfect. We then went on to film the side shots of us sitting in the car, then the pan to the boy on the side walk. After this shot we filmed the ending, Christina lied down in the road and Cameron tried several ways of filming from the car to girl 1 lying on the road. They all looked really effective and worked really well but we had some problems with the reflection of Cameron and the camera on the bar. After this shot we filmed the argument. This took some work, we had planned to film this in a house but because everyone lives so far away from college there was no time for this to happen. Instead we filmed it down a walkway. There was a line down the middle and the plan was to keep them on each side of the line to represent how they have broken apart. I filmed this part, I centred the camera down the walkway and they walked towards the camera arguing, at the end they split, it is from here that the boy goes to the pub.

Images of what Howie Day looks like-should Waq look like him or not?





Shooting plan


This is a rough plan of what we plan to shoot and when.

BF costume


This is a picture of what Waq was wearing last shoot, and needs to wear again due to continuity.

Pub found

After asking several pubs in cambridge it became apparent that it would be very difficult to be able to film inside as a lot of the pubs that I went to was funny about bringing a camera into them and said that we wouldn’t be allowed. It was also hard as it had to be in the day and a lot of pubs don’t open until the afternoon. I finally went to ‘The Man on the Moon’ in cambridge this pub said we would be able to film on their benches outside, which was very useful. this pub is also good as it is in a easy location to access from college and we should be able to get there and back in the time we have designated to film this part. we will buy a few drinks from the pub and then just film as many shots as possible of them drinking them. we may have to use water in the shot glasses and apple juice in the beer glasses.


this is another video with memories. but it is different as it uses the fact that she is hurt first.

Band Research*

Howie Day is an American singer-songwriter. He began his career as a solo artist in the late 1990s, he became known for his touring and in-concert use of samplers and effects pedals in order to accompany himself. He self-financed and self-released his first album, Australia, in 2000.

Howie started his career as one of todays "New Breed" of unsigned musicians looking to break into the music industry. Promoting, touring, building a fan base writing and recording his own songs without a recording contract, he soon attracted the attention of the powerful Chris Blackwell. Blackwell went to see one of Day's shows in Rhode Island and thought he was, in his words, "very very good". He was further impressed by the attendance, the venue being packed out with around 800 people. Blackwell spoke with Day after the show and told him, "You are the model of tomorrow's recording artist. You own your own records, you own your own copyrights, your playing to an audience which is growing all the time....what can I do for you? But word spread, and a bidding war broke out between major labels.

Day eventually signed a $2million recording contract with major label Epic Records in 2002 and has since re-released his debut as well as producing a follow up, Stop All The World Now. Despite initially sluggish sales, Stop All The World Now was certified gold in early 2005 [2] and has produced a number of singles, including "Collide", Day's most successful to date, and the hit "She Says".[3]

Day has received significant negative attention over two high profile arrests. In 2004, Day was arrested and charged over an incident in which he was accused of locking a fan in the bathroom of his tour bus and destroying the cellular phone of another, for which he was fined.[4] In December 2005, Day was arrested in Boston after reportedly verbally abusing the flight crew while under the influence of alcohol and sleeping pills. He was sentenced to one year's probation on April 26, 2006.[5]




*taken from wikipedia

Idea for the drinking scene

After watching the film 'Loaded' on the weekend there was a part in it where the main character was snorting lines of coke. During this scene the cutting and the editing was really fast and snappy, it gave the impression that he was doing a lot of coke really fast, it also gave the impression that it was from his perspective as it was unclear and the main focal point was the snorty and the coke. I think that it would be a good idea to use this in our drinking scene, to give the viewer the impression that the boy has drank a lot so is obviously not going to be fit to drive, instead of just filming him drinking a pint slowly, we could maybe film him and the girl drinking shots (by this i mean water in a shot glass :P) over and over again, we could maybe do a couple of shots from the perspective of the boy-looking at the girl and seeing her getting more and more drunk and laughing making the boy looking dizzy/wasted and maybe add a slightly delusional, with the girls picture having a shadow and lots of her to give the impression of how drunk he is.

Howie Day-research on the man!

Howie Day is an American singer-songwriter born January 15, 1981 in Bangor, Maine. Unlike most solo performers who perform mainly with just an acoustic guitar, Howie Day uses various foot pedals to enhance his playing and "loop" chords. This "looping effect" allows him to build up a song by playing rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass guitar, and even tap on his guitar to produce a drum sound. When the whole process is complete, it sounds as if a full band was on stage. Howie Day also uses this process on his voice, harmonizing with himself. The whole process is done in front of the audience in real time as opposed to pre-recording--a common misconception among audience members seeing Howie Day for the first time.

Friday, 26 September 2008

Todays work


< This is the synced scene mentioned below.





Today I continued to edit what we filmed on Wednesday. I have synced the scene with BF watching himself and GF on a picnic blanket. All the other park shots, have now now been logged and are in folders detailing exactly what they are. These are now waiting to be placed on the time line, but will be done when the narrative is complete on the time line as these are just filling gaps between. To recap on Wednesday and give an over view; I felt that the actor Christina got to play BF was really good, I was pleased with the acting with both actors. We had unknown time restrictions, I assumed we were all free for the rest of the day, but we didn't know that Waq (BF) had to be back for last lesson. This was a problem as I had anticipated filming all car scenes, but these will be re-scheduled for next Wednesday. The speed at which we worked at, was a little to slow, but we still got a fair amount done all of good quality. points for next shoot. - Make sure everyone is clear on the starting time, so we can start promptly. - When on location, have a quick scout for where to shoot, and prep the actors whilst the tech is being prepped. - Make sure we are equipped for weather problems. IE. umbrella's. Overall I am pleased with the progress, and am looking forward to the next shoot and hope to achieve a lot on the next shoot.



This first picture is an example of the Park footage. The second picture is the finished logging of all the good clips from the park shoot.

Wednesday, 24 September 2008

first day of filming

on Wednesday 24th September we did our first day of filming. to do this we went to a park near college and filmed a lot of the relationship narrative.
our day o filming went quite well as we got a lot of it done and worked well as a team.
we all knew what we were doing and we didn't face any problems. we managed to film every thing we had planned to at the park, but with a few changes. for example, one of the scenes was meant to be of the boyfriend and girlfriend on a roundabout together. however there was not a roundabout in this particular park so instead we used a climbing frame.

this is what we managed to get done on our first filming day:
-boyfriend and girlfriend on the swing
- boyfriend and girlfriend on the spinning post
- boyfriend and girlfriend having a picnic
- boyfriend and girlfriend playing frisbee
- boyfriend and girlfriend walking together, hand in hand
- boyfriend watching over himself and his girlfriend in the past, singing

the main problem we had to face was the weather! unfortunately we had some rain whilst we were filming so we had to work hard as a team to get all the required footage, adn keep the camera dry! luckily, the rain wasnt too bad and towards the end it dried up a bit so we were still able to film what we needed.

the other issue we had was time. As we are using an actor who is not part of our group we had to take into consideration his timetbale as well as our own, and therefore we had to be back in college in time for his lesson. therefore the time we had to film was very limited, but as we were prepared for this we worked quickly and efficienty and got everything done.

our first day of filming was very successful! :)

We decided to just film the boy and girl 1 playing in the park, trying to capture as many natural looking expressions and actions as possible. After a while this became easier and they started looking more like a couple, I feel that we got some good footage from this shoot but it was a waste of some time because it took so long to get started. We then shot the picnic scene in the field. This shot took a while to set up as it involved a pan from the boy with the girl on the picnic blanket, to the boy watching his memories leaning against a tree. We shot this several times to ensure that on editing it looks good. We had some difficulties with this. The main being the traffic in the background, it kept moving and we would not be able to put each shot together if the traffic was different. Other problems that we had here was that Waq did not know the words to the start of the song, so it proved hard to voice sync. Overall our first day of filming went well, we got some useful footage, but we still had a lot left we needed to shoot. We ran out of time to film any of the car stuff on this day as we had to be back for lessons.-Britt

Tuesday, 23 September 2008

call sheet

Sunday Morning Song
CALL SHEET: 1



DIRECTOR: BRITTANY PEARCE

CASTING DIRECTOR: CHRISTINA RANKIN

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: HAYLEY AMIN

CAMERA OPPERATOR: CAMERON FORD

DATE: WEDNESDAY 24TH SEP 2008

UNIT CALL: 13.10
EST. WRAP: 16.00




LOCATIONS:
Location 1:
Park, Nightingale Avenue, Cambridge
UNIT BASE:
Long Road Sixth Form
CB2 8PX


SUNRISE: 06.45 SUNSET: 18:56
WEATHER: LIGHT RAIN



SC. SET/SYNOPSIS D/N CAST
Intro and End EXT
Car scenes D 4

First Verse EXT
Picnic scene D 2


No ARTISTE CHARACTER
1 Waq Zah Boy Friend
2 Christina Rankin Girl Friend
3 Hayley Amin Girl 1
4 Brittany Pearce Girl 2





REQUIREMENTS:


PROPS Hand Bag, A Coat, Picnic Basket, Picnic Blanket, Food, Frisbee
EQUIPMENT Camera, Tripod, Tape, Umbrella
SET: Car

actors

the boyfriend: Waq Zah

the girlfriend: Christina Rankin

girl 1: Brittany Pearce

girl 2: Hayley Amin

prop and finding location

- a handbag
- a coat
- picnic basket
- picnic blanket
- clock
- computer
- food
- summer dress
- car
- camera
- tripod
- CD player

Location
Cameron told us of a park that was near by that we would be able to use to film the memories and hopefully some of the car accident. We went to look at it and decided it would be good as it has swings and slides, so we might be able to do something with that, it also had a big field so they would be able to have their picnic. We would be able to use any of the roads near the park for the car accident as long as it wasn’t too busy.

Props for Britt and Camerons part-
The main one obviously would be the car; luckily Cameron can drive and would be able to provide that for us. The other props would be the alcohol in the drinking scene, for this we had planned to use water and shot glasses and maybe a few pint glasses with apple juice in them. Apart from that there was very little props that we would need, only of course the costumes. The picnic scene would need a picnic blanket and a hamper, maybe a football or a Frisbee which could be played with and that was about it for that as well.

Monday, 22 September 2008

Analyses of music video

Media analyse of music video

The music video I have chosen to analyse is ‘Almost Lover’ by ‘a fine Frenzy’.

My reason for picking this music video is because the song is of a lost love, a love that could have been but never was, this is similar to the song we have chosen to make a music video on, we have interpreted our song as a love song, a song about memories of a better time in the relationship.

The genre of the song is a love song. The video is typical of its genre. It shows to people, male and female, and us as the audience get to see their relationship from a third person, often first person due to the way it is shot.

Its narrative is split; we have what is perceived as the present, where the female is standing in a house singing. We then have the past where we see the relationship.
Some of the past shots are in first person where the male has recorded the girl himself.

The visuals do not amplify what the lyrics say here. It takes the overall meaning and feel from the words and represents them in a similar mode in mind. There is very little literal visual representation of the words here.

The artist is in above 90% of the time in this video, there is very little focus on the male.

There is no obvious intertextuality. It is typical of a love story. It is peacefully shot, romantic. It doesn’t have explosions or guns, because that is not typical of it’s genre. So it could be said that it is intertextualising romance films in the way it is shot and what is in the frame.





http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HCeS-yorGtc

Homework (Analysis of Music Video) By Christina Rankin

"Pink - So What"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXfO09me3v4

I have chosen to analyse the music video "So What" By pink. I chose to analyse this video because of two reasons, firstly; it is one of my favourite videos as it is extremely catchy and I feel that the lyrics represent Pink the vocalist as a person, her whole image gives off a persona of a person that is going to do whatever they feel like and they don't care about other peoples opinions or attitudes. Pink is going to rebel when a negative situation arises; for example, in the first line of the first chorus, the lyrics are "I guess I just lost my husband, I don't know where he went." Pink's response to this is an I don't care attitude and this is how she turns a negative situation into a positive situation; with the lyrics and making the video look fun and enjoyable to make. Pink is not a very serious person, as when she says that she doesn’t know where her husband is, there is an element of slapstick humour, as we see in the video, he is actually behind her, covering her eyes so that she cannot see him.

Key conventions are used in this video, with star image, there are a lot of close ups of Pink, and body shots. The first shot is a medium, central shot to show that the video is going to be about Pink as she is the main character and the first shot we see is of her. With it being a medium shot, she takes up the whole screen; which emphasises that the narrative of the video will have something to do with her. The second shot is a close up of Pink driving a sit-on lawnmower, the immediate shot after is a long shot of Pink driving the sit-on lawnmower on a public road, with queuing traffic behind her and a man in the background in the car behind waving his arms, looking annoyed; implying that Pink is rebellious, choosing the sit-on lawnmower as her mode of transport on the road, instead of a car.

With the video being about pink telling a story that she is over her husband, voyeurism is incorporated into the video, as there is a lot of footage of Pink herself, she is the main focus. Panning is used with a zoomed shot of Pink on the lawnmower, to show that she is holding a can of beer in her hand. Lyrics and visuals are also used here as Pink says “So I'm gonna drink my money” and then it shows her drinking her can of beer. This also happens when Pink uses the lyrics “I wanna start a fight” and then she has a fight with a man in a guitar shop.

The genre of the video is pop, mainstream, with a slight edge of rock, the conventions of a pop video are rather minimal in this video, as there are not any choreographed dance moves; matching outfits, and the song itself is not about happy- go-lucky people, however, there are other elements of pop with one of the shots where pink is being photographed by journalists which is similar to the pop video by Britney Spears called “Everytime” where Britney Spears is being photographed by journalists. This also expresses intertextuality with the shot from the Britney Spears video. With the conventions of the rock genre, there is a shot where Pink throws a guitar on the floor, which is stereotypical of a rock artist.

There is a shot which expresses music and visuals, where Pink uses the lyrics “drum boy” and then there is a medium shot of a man using saucepans as drums and teaspoons as drumsticks and the sound of a drum in the background is heard.

There is an extreme close up of Pink when she says “fall” and then she falls to the ground, showing that sub consciously she is affected by her husband leaving her. Towards the end of the video Pink is reunited with her husband but they just fight showing that the video is still about them and there relationship enhancing the music and visuals together as the tempo is rather upbeat and the shot switches from long shot, to a medium shot (to show both Pink and her husband) and then an extreme close up to show their facial expressions, to allow the audience to see that they are annoyed with each other. Towards the end of the video, Pink then sings on stage which is often a characteristic of her personality, as in most of her videos there is a part where she shows herself singing on stage, or shows a clip of her performing live on stage in some part of her videos like her video for “Leave me Alone (I'm Lonely).” This is both conventional of her and of the genre pop/rock. There is an extreme close up of her face to show that she has attitude when she sings “So, So what, I’m still a rock star.” Her rebellious streak is still highlighted in the video where she has a pillow fight at the end, which would seem rather immature of someone who is in their mid twenties.

The last shot is a medium shot of her and her husband, with her leaning on his arm to imply that she is not that mad at him for leaving her, and then the final shot is of her sticking out her tongue to basically suggest that the video was just a tongue in cheek, fun video to make, although there is a narrative of her husband leaving her she explains that she is still a rock star and that it hasn’t affected her too much.


By Christina Rankin

Friday, 19 September 2008

Idea

this is a very clever video about a car accident, obviously we wouldn't be able to reenact it as it would cost a lot of money and a lot of equipment would be required but we could get some inspiration about it being in slow motion or something



Cold play-The scientist

inspiration

Another video that has a twist at the end is Sheila by Jamie T-in this video you realise the girl he is singing about is actually dead- like the idea we are using in ours.



Britt

Music Video inspiration



What hurts the most - Rascal Flatts

This video shows the story of a relationship. it shows flash backs of the memories that the boy and the girl shared together. You can tell that they are flashbacks because the contrast is a little higher and the camera angle for the flashbacks seems to be different to the present story. i think we could use this idea for our flashbacks to make it obvious it is from the past and not part of the present story.

This music video uses a twist like ours of someone dieing at the end however this story is told from the girls perspective. I think that using some acting in the middle of the video works well as it helps the viewer realize what the story is about.

This video shows a boy and a girl, it shows their relationship as memories and then in the present the boy dies in a car accident. I feel that this video is good, but could be improved as there are some parts that look old fashioned and cheap.

The main thing that I liked about this video was how it showed the difference between past and present tense. Last year I experience some difficulties when editing my Thriller project, as we used a lot of cutting between present tense and flash backs the audience got very confused about what was actually happened, to resolve that we changed the past to be black and white. In this music video the present tense is almost normal but slightly brighter, the past has a very high contrast and it looks a lot darker and more distorted than the present, there is an obvious difference here between what the girl remembers and what she actually has. I feel that it would be good to be able to do that in our video to show the difference between what is actually happening and what the boy is looking back on once he has killed girl 1.

Idea

as i was reading the lyrics i had an idea that instead of them all being flash backs we could do one of the verses of the bf looking at photos of the memories instead of it all just being flash backs, this will help the viewer realize that the good times were in the past and that he is remembering them.

britt

homework task - due tues 23rd

- do an individual analysis of a music video that is influential to your idea

- use Goodwin five points as a frame work

- tag it with your name

- title: how to analyse a music video

Animatic - First minute and timeline details and planning for ending




This is the first minute of our music vid in an animatic. we chose the first bit because we knew the what the intro exactly was and also the bit after is an example of the sort of memories, so is a good example of the rest of the song, apart from the end.

our video is broken into 3 parts, intro, memories of the bf gf, and the end wherew they argue and we conclude from the car accident.

We drew out a timeline of our song. The song is just over four minutes long, we broke the song up into an introduction which last for 22 seconds and then into the verses which lasted between 22 seconds and 30. We then decided when the end started and timed that. By doing this we were able to see how long we would have for each part of the story line.

We then discussed what would be needed for the ending. To start the boy and the girl would have to have an argument. We hoped to shoot this in some ones house, so that it would be possible for the boy to storm out. The girl would have to be wearing a bright colour, maybe red or yellow, so that the person watching immediately recognises her when the camera zooms out at the very end to reveal what the boy has hit. The boy and the girl must be wearing the same clothes in the argument and in the car accident.

Thursday, 18 September 2008

Camera Allocation - Teacher Post

Make sure you discuss and plan your filming times now. You can start filming next week, assuming you have returned your signed camera loan letter.
Cameras can be used in your usual class blocks (just for that hour and a half), in addition groups can book out either one weekend (Fri 16.10 - Mon 9am) or two overnights during the week (excluding Friday night, for example Tuesday 16.10 to Thursday 9am).
There are around 60 music video groups and nowhere near 60 cameras! Book your camera slot as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

Tuesday, 16 September 2008

relationship narrative

1) in the park
- having a picnic
- girl being pushed on the swing
- roundabout

2) in the street
- arguing
- crying

3) on the beach
- Make sandcastles
- eat ice cream
- eat fish and chips

4) in the home
- on the phone (laughing)
- having dinner

Friday, 12 September 2008

pitch response

Our pitch was not as successful as we had hoped. However, the class contributed valuable comments which we will use as constructive criticism to alter some of our earlier proposed ideas. We feel that the narrative of our video still resembles the genre of the song. Some of the chnages we may make as a response to our pitch, would be to avoid the use of blood and injuries and change the "car crash" into a less dramatic effect, as we were being over hopeful as to how it would turn out.

Feedback we received:
- plan the exact locations
- check out the past student videos, one particular has used a car
- re-think how we will perform the car accident
- to get permission to film in any locations we may choose
- get appropriate actors

the research will still need to do is to plan the exact locations, find a male actor who is willing to take on the role of the boyfriend and get a definite shot list.

Overall we feel that presenting the pitch has benefited our group and the feedback has been very useful to our group and has helped us to overcome some disagreements.

latest summary of pitch

To summaries the latest pitch:

We start off in a car, our main male character is at the wheel with three female passengers in the car, there expressions are blank although they are bruised and bleeding due to a car accident they have just had. we have a montage of the boyfriend girlfriend relationship. ie, picnic at the park etc. the male is singing the words in the background of these scenes watching himself and his girlfriend. towards the end of the video, the bf gf are having an argument inside their house, the gf gets her coat and bag and storms out the house. The bf leaves and goes to the pub, he has a few drinks their and meets these three girls. He has a bit more to drink than he should of concidering he is driving, we then cut to the scene of the collision in the car, the same as the first shot, we then move out of the car, down the road to see his gf lying on the floor dead due to the car accident.

Wednesday, 10 September 2008

Student videos




in this student music video there are a lot of similarities with how we want our video to turn out. there is a narrative in their video about a relationship that's breaking up, which is similar to our narrative. they also have used a scene in the park on the roundabout, which again links into our idea of filming in the park.
Another idea we have spoken about for our music video is playing around with colour. we have thought about making the narrative black and white or at least paler than the rest of the video. in this student video they made the narrative black and white.

insperation and ideas



This video shows a relationship between a boy and a girl. and there is a lot of relation to the lyrics in the visuals.





This song is a song about a relationship

Real videos that are similar to our idea

rihanna and ne-yo - hate that i love you

shows a break up!

Taio Cruz - She's like a star

Lily Allen - Littlest Things

Shows the couple together but the lyrics suggests that the relationship has ended.

New Pitch

As we faced a problem with our basic original pitch, we had to come up with a new one.
here it is...

The overall narrative of the video is that it is about a relationship that has ended. throughout the video, we will show the couple together having a good time and enjoying themselves, but the man in the relationship standing in the background as if he is watching over the relationship, and singing the song.

the video will start with the man sitting in a car alone, gripping to the wheel but not moving, looking traumatized and expression-less singing the song.


When the lyrics say,

"Your summer dress
A late down pour
and how they caught us on the stairs
That silent song you'd sing to me
keeps singing... "

we will make the video be literal by showing the girl wearing a summer dress singing (miming) to him in the pouring rain on outside stairs. this will show a close relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
However, we are aware that we can't control the weather, and so if we are lucky enough to have good weather during our filming then we will overcome this by using stairs inside and adding rain outside in the editing process through sound and visual effects. this shows that we have already thought about how to overcome possible problems!

To add to the narrative there will be a slight twist at the end, and that will be that the relationship hasn't just ended, but that the girl has actually died. she died in a car accident, which is why the man was sitting in a car at the beginning.
we got this idea through the lyrics
"Wouldn't I be more than livin' in your wake"
so the ending shot is going to be of him in a crowd of people all wearing black so it shows that he is at her funeral, and maybe add a picture of the girl in the center, just to make it clear.

the video will overall be a mixture of happy times in the relationship and chaos of a car accident, shown through the use of a car and an ambulance and paramedics. they will be cut into eachother so its jumbled up. however the focus will be on the relationship as there are a lot of practical limitations with filming a car accident.

The location of the music video will be in various places outside. it is unlikely that it will all be filmed in cambridge, or one area, as we all live in different places.
we have discussed having one of the shots of the couple happy together being in a park, having a picnic, maybe him pushing her on a swing or general just acting like kids and enjoying being young and together.

For the performers we will use our own group members and also ask our friends to take part in it too, as we only have one boy in our group who is not keen on miming the lyrics (which are originally sung by a male). therefore we will call on our friends for support! But, Cameron is happy to do the miming if we are unable to find anyone else, as a last resort.

We will consider what props to use at a later stage, after completing our storyboard as we will be using props that are natural to the scene.

Tuesday, 9 September 2008

TEACHER POST - What your pitch must include

All groups must produce and present a pitch as an integral part of the planning stage. Your pitch is a proposal for your music video to the record company thinking of hiring you:
It must include:

* A clear written summary of the content/key idea for the video (at least 500 words).
The summary should include a reference to performers, locations, props, target audience for the video, reference to research conducted on the band, genre of the band and the song, relationship between the music and the visuals, relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, if the video will conform to or oppose the generic conventions of videos within that genre of music

* 2-4 (embedded) actual music videos which you think are similar to yours or that contain something that has influenced your idea (plus analysis, use Goodwin’s framework for analysing music videos)

* 2 (embedded) student videos which you think are similar (plus analysis)

* 4-6 Images which indicate location choices, overall mise en scene, costumes, props


If there is more than one group pitching for the same song, ensure you have a back-up choice and also try to make your pitch memorable.
As the genre of the song chosen is quite a slow, and a rather depressive genre, we feel that it will be easier to create different transitions as the tempo of the song is not very upbeat so we will be able to perfect our timing as it will be easier to hear when we can add in transitions.

The lyrics are very clear which will help us to create voyeurism as we can understand clearly what the lyrics are implying and include these in our video, for example, when the artist sings 'summer dress' we can show a summer dress.

The song tells a story which will be beneficial to our video, helping us use it to our advantage as it shows that there is a narrative behind our video and there is meaning.

Research

After we had our initial pitch we searched the band on youtube and found that the band have already made a music video that has a lot of likenesses to our idea.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MxJCn8lk5k

Pitch

we intend to make track 9 into a music video. our initial idea is that it starts with a group of people in a car, the car is upside down due to a car accident, everyone has physical injuries but they are still awake and have no expression. there was going to be a man in the car with blood on his face not moving but still awake, singing the lyrics.

here is more detail about how we came about it-

Cameron and I had to the idea of a car accident; we got this from the first and second verse “It's not that bad, we could have died” “No morning drive, No blurred headlight” I initially saw a man sitting still in a car, the shot would be a close up on his face and he would be beaten and bruised, the camera would then proceed to zoom out and you would realise that he has had a car accident, we then saw it as the man would either get out his car (still in a bad state) and walk around telling his story, or that his body would be carried away in an ambulance and then his spirit would stay and tell the story. After bringing this idea to the girls they agreed that it was good but felt that it would be hard to achieve all of this with the limited time and equipment that we had. They then put to us their pitch which was that a boy and a girl have a really good happy life and there is loads of cuts and shots of them having fun and then right at the end you find out at the girl dies, they got this idea from the line “Wouldn't I be more than livin' in your wake”. Cameron and I felt that this was a good idea, but very bland and a lot like many other music videos. We agreed to merge them both together and came up with our final pitch. Our final pitch employees some aspects of Cameron’s and my original idea and some of Hailey and Christina’s. The music video would start with a man and a woman (girl 2) in a car having an accident; it would then cut to the man who is in the accident singing the song whilst watching what has happened from the sidewalk, as though he is an onlooker. The story then maps out to show the memories that the boy and the girl (girl 1) have shared together. Towards the end it will show that the boy and girl 1 start to argue and that the boys perfect memories become tainted, it then goes on to show the boy storming off and going to the pub. At the pub he meets girl 2, she buys him some drinks and they proceed to get drunk together. After their ‘session’ in the pub we see them stumbling into the boys car. It then cuts back to the beginning scene of the boy and girl 2 sat in the car after the accident, in shock. The camera will then zoom out and you will realise that girl 1 is lying on the floor and that she has just been hit by the boy. We feel that this is a very good compromise between the two initial ideas, and that by putting them both together we have come up with a very good original pitch. There will be an emphasis on drink driving in our story which we hope will be conveyed well.

Some examples of music videos that have this which we got some inspiration form are-




This video Snow Patrol Chasing Cars- this does not show an injury but shows a man lying down with not expression on his face just singing.



This video Chasing Pavements by Edelle she shows a boy and a girl lying down on the ground as though they have just been hit by a car, they act normal, as though they are actually walking but really it is just their limbs moving flat on the ground like puppets.

Initial Ideas

The two tracks that we liked the best were track 9 and track 10.

Track 9- We immediately thought of a story line and could see it as a music video. It has more of a story within the song than any of the others, the words are clear and there is a strong beat.

Monday, 1 September 2008

Initial Ideas

Most of the songs sound very similar and we were very disappointed with the overall selection of songs. However we felt that track nine had the most potential to be a music video. As on first listening we could immediately think of a rough story line from the lyrics and the music.


These are the lyrics-

It's not that bad
We could have died
Chalk it up to being young
Can you prove it was me?

No morning drive
No blurred headlight
from the corner of my eye
If only you were here right now,
you'd tell me...

Wouldn't it be somethin' if everything changed
Wouldn't I be somethin' in your way
Wouldn't it be more than livin' in your wake
If you and I would ever cease to be

Yeah...

Your summer dress
A late down pour
and how they caught us on the stairs
That silent song you'd sing to me
keeps singing...

Wouldn't it be somethin' if everything changed
Wouldn't I be somethin' in your way
Wouldn't I be more than livin' in your wake
if you and I would ever cease to be

No, my love
Hold on

We bend, I break
You fall, we scrape
I blame it all on being older now
I'm still singing...

Wouldn't it be somethin' if everything changed
Wouldn't I be somethin' in your way
Wouldn't I be more than livin' in your wake
if you and I would ever....yeah
if you and I would ever cease to be

Yeah....