Filming day 5

Today went to Tayla's house again, to get some more footage! We managed to get some mirror shots using two mirrors, which both showed Tayla's  reflection. We thought that this was very effective as it shows that she is unsure of who she is fitting in to our theme of confusion. It also signifies that she is more than one person or represented by more than one person even though (demon and protagonist) even though it actual one person. Tara edited these shots also to show what the final version of the shots will look like in iMovie. Here are some still images of the shots:

Ferdinand De Saussaure

Filming day 4

Today we filmed at our third location which was Tayla's house. We managed to get some parallel shots of both Tayla and Tara and through the use of editing we hope to flash these shots to show that she is her own 'wolf/demon'. Through editing we also hope to change the colour of these shots to a monochrome palette as this is another convention of Indie music videos. Tara managed to get some still shots from the footage and convert them to a monochrome palette so that we can get n idea of what the shots look like. Here are some of the still shots that Tara was able to edit:

The shots by the window were taken to show that our protagonist is very reflective and also gives a sense of escapism which is one of our main themes.


We think that this POV shot is very effective as it shows the 'wolf/demon' looking at her, however the 'wolf/demon' is her herself once again presenting our protagonist as being reflective. The mid shot also shows that our protagonist is not in happy happy state, therefore showing the audience that she may be struggling with certain issues e.g. growing up.

This is a shot of the 'wolf/demon' in our music video. The framing of this image is very similar to the framing of the second image as it will allow us to smoothly flash between both shots to signify that the 'wolf/demon; is infact herself.

Update vlog

Water Shots

Through our research into the Indie genre, we found that many of the music videos use water. We liked this idea so decided to experiment with water, and conform to this conventions. We liked the idea of ink or paint flowing through the water as when the paint/ink disperses through the water, it creates a smoky effect.
 
To create this effect I added paint, oil, washing up liquid and food colouring to the water. This coloured mixtures where then spooned into the large tank of water, to create this smokey effect. With the left over coloured mixes, I experimented further with the consistency and added flour to make a thick paste. I then spooned these mixes into the water also. I think that both techniques were very effective and would look particularly good in the close up/mid shots of our protagonist.

If we changed the colour to black and white the paint would look more like smoke, therefore matching the lyrics 'smoke as black as charcoal fills into our fragile lungs'. We hope to soon finish all of our filming so that we can start editing all of our footage together.

Third Filming Day

Today we stayed behind after school to film our studio shots. As we were unable to achieve the 'Rihanna Puma ad effect' we thought that studio shots would be a good replacement as they looked professional and may have be easier to execute. Our inspiration for these shots came from Banks Brain video:

And FKA Twigs Papipacify video:

We really liked the shimmering effect from the Papipacify video and tried to achieve this through make up. However, we realised that the shimmer on Tayla's face was only visible when the LED light was shone at particular angles so we moved the hand held LED light in a circle so that there was frequent glimpses of the shimmer on Taylas face.

To achieve the circle effect we plan to use Final cut Express, however as we have never used this software before hopefully we will be able to find some useful tutorials on Youtube to help us. We have footage of brambles in the forest so plan to use these as our background for the circle giving a similar look to the Brains video. Hopefully we will be able to complete editing these shots in the next few weeks.

Changing Colour Palettes

Today during our media lesson we uploaded our footage from the studio shots. Using iMovie we were able to change the colour palette to create a monochrome colour palette which we thought looked really effective. We then played around with the saturation to give the shot deeper tones, helping to give the shot a dark atmosphere. With this footage we hope to get it into a circular shape like the beginning of the Banks- Brains video. We still have more footage to shoot but hopefully it will be completed early on in the new year so that we can really focus on our editing.

Filming Schedule

Today during the lesson we completed our filming schedule, so that we now have a rough idea of when filming will be complete. I think that this will be very beneficial because it shows us the props, scenes to be filmed, other equipment that is needed and also the filming location, so that when we reach the location we save time as we already know what we need to achieve. Hopefully we will be able to stick to this schedule and complete filming by Sunday 20th December.

Digipak examples

Here our some examples of Digipaks from the Indie genre.

Digipack

In last weeks lesson we were looking at digipaks and what to include in ours. The definition of a digipak is a type of packaging for CDs or DVDs, typically made from cardboard with an internal plastic holder for one or more discs. Here is an example of one that I found at home:

Traditionally digipaks are made up of four panels and have a plastic case inside to hold the CD/DVD in. Their standard dimensions are 139.5mm x 6mm x 125.5mm, and the card used is 300gsm. The card itself can either be matte or gloss and often includes the track list, a bar-code, reviews and promotion sites e.g. the artists website or Facebook.

Digipaks are become much more popular as they are ecologically friendly and compact which helps to reduce waste material, they are a lot lighter than normal CD cases and are much harder to break, they allow great graffic display and helps the CD to look more premium than a standard jewel case. 

Filming:- Rihanna Puma ad

Today we tried to recreate the Rihanna Puma Ad, by trying to project moving images onto Tayla.


We tapped a hand held LED light to the top of the camera so that Tayla could stand out more compared to her surroundings. We used a green screen so that when editing we could remove the background, meaning that the projected videos would only be shown on Tayla and not on the background. However, this was unsuccessful because when it came to editing we could not find a way of removing the projected background.

So instead we tried filming Tayla without the projected videos, and filmed her on a green screen so that we could remove the background and add in the moving images on her body, through editing. However, this was also very unsuccessful as once we figured out how to do it, we could only remove the background per frame which was very time consuming and still would've looked unprofessional. 

Although we really like the idea of using a shot like this we have come to the conclusion that it would be best to leave out this shot due to time, and the unprofessional look we feel it would give our music video.

Shift K3y- I know

Although the actual concept of this video is very basic I think that the editing creates a sense of continuity, allowing all of the shots from the different scenes to be linked together.The editing is done to the beat which prevents the shits from looking random. If we can try and incorporate this style of 'on beat' editing into our music video, I think that it could help the shots to flow together nicely creating a sense of verisimilitude, especially when editing the match on action shots.

Ellie Goulding- On My Mind

During the chorus of the song there is fast paced editing of different inserts, which change along with the beat of the music. I think that this is very effective as it looks like flashbacks or makes you think that there are many different events happening at once. I think that it would be good if we could incorporate this kind of fast paced editing in our music video, in the fast parts of the chorus also. We could use it to represent the thoughts in our protagonists head, or flashbacks from the past which she is trying to get over. Doing this will help to subtly show one of our themes which is insecurity, meaning that the viewer is able to get an understanding of what is going on.

Adele- Hello

Over the past month this video has managed to accumulate over 500 million views. I think this is not just due to the song itself but also due to the sophisticated look of the video. The monotone colour palette gives the video a very professional look and although the setting and misé en scene of the shots are very basic, the execution and framing of the shots help to give it a classy feel. Some of the shots were taken in forest scenes which is where our music video is mainly based. We hope by using a monotone colour palette we can also achieve this sophisticated look. We also hope to look at the framing and composition of the the shots in the forest scene, to enable us to create a simple but effective music video.

Rule Of Thirds

This is an example of the rule of thirds. This rule states that objects should be placed where the lines as shown in the grid, intersect each other. We think that this rule helps the composition of the shot to look more natural as the main object is not based in the centre of the shot but is at a slight angle. If we could incorporate shots like this into a video it will help give a more natural feel.

Justin bieber

  I really like the fast paced editing of this video and think that it looks very effective. Although Justin Bieber's movements aren't very fast, the pictures that are added on into the scene help to give the video an animatic feel. The editing used is very abstract and helps to give the video a unique feature. I think it would be good if somehow we could include this editing in our music video but instead of using different drawings we could include the symbols in the video instead.


I also think that the editing of this music video is very effective. This is because even though the editing is of a slower paced it is still in time with the music. I think that the slow paced editing helps the viewer to appreciate the mise en scéne of the video which is useful especially if the concept of the video isn't very interesting. I think it would be good if we used slower paced editing in our forest scenes as the mise en scéne is really captivating and it may help the viewer understand the fairytale theme of our music video.

Questionnaire

Last night we finished making our questionnaire's on a website called Survey Monkey. Using this website made the questionnaire easy to produce and easy to distribute. This is because it was already online so we could share the questionnaire via social media websites e.g. Facebook.

Survey Monkey also has an analyse tab which makes it really easy to to see the trends in our data and take on the feedback produced. We hope to use this questionnaire to influence some of the further choices that will be made concerning our music video.

Whatsapp from Mitch

Second Filming Day

Today we were at the forest again, capturing some more shots for our music video. We still haven't managed to get all of our shots, but hopefully we will be able to get the rest of them on our next filming session there. We started filming much earlier so we didn't have difficulties with the lighting like last time. We filmed using two cameras so that we have a wider range of shots to choose from when it comes to editing. We managed to capture Tayla walking through the forest and Tara following her representing our metaphorical 'wolf' following our protagonist (Little Red Riding Hood). Here is a video showing some stills and behind the scene's footage from today:

David Guetta- Titanium

I think the idea of this song is quite similar to the idea we have chosen to use for our music video as it is about the protagonist having insecurities and trying to face. I particularly like the forest scene when he is running through the forest and think that we could us it for inspiration for our forest scene. The location and lighting help to create a dark atmosphere which is what we want to try and achieve for our music video. We are still not entirely sure whether to film the forest scene all in the day or whether to do some of it in the evening time once the sun has set. I think that this music video could help us decide on which types of lighting would be best to use.

First Filming Day

Today was our first filming day at Hilly Fields Forest. It was our first time using a tripod to film in the forest so we spent some time at the start trying to get the tripod steady on the uneven forest ground. However, we weren't able to get all of the shots we needed as the lighting went dark very fast. Within an hour it went from this:

To this:

Before the sun set however, we managed to capture shots of Tayla lip syncing to the first verse, the establishing shot and shots of Tayla running through the forest. Here is a still taken from some of our footage:

Recce

Yesterday we went down to Hilly Fields at about 8:30 to start filming, but the weather was horrible! So, we decided to use the day as a recce and check out the location to see the exact places we want to film in, when we go back. Here's a video of our day.

Search for the Wolf hand

Today Tara and myself went searching for the wolf hand for our music video. We wanted to find something realistic but not too explicit as we didn't want it to have an immature look. We tried Tesco to see if there was any left over Halloween stock however they only had witch costumes which wasn't what we were looking for.

Tara recommended stopping off at a fancy dress shop called Trimbles to see if they sold anything suitable.


We found these gloves which we thought were suitable as they had long painted nails giving the glove a feminine look however they did not look explicitly like wolf hands.

However, at a closer glance we realised that the gloves looked quite cheap yet they were being sold for £9.75. No other shops sold the type of gloves/hands that we were looking for so we thought that the best option would be to ATTEMPT making the gloves ourselves.

We went to superdrug and bought a pack of fake nails for £4 which we could then paint and stick onto an old pair of gloves. Hopefully we'll get the look we want. Here's a vlog of us looking for the hands:

Ordered cape

Today we found a cape that we all liked on amazon so we ordered it for next day delivery. Due to the amazon prime account we were using, we were able to get a free next day delivery so it would arrive on time for Friday. This Friday we hope to go for our first day of filming at Hilly Fields, hopefully the weather wont be rainy. If we could get some filming done on Friday morning it would be really good as our teachers gave us the morning off for filming, so it would be one of the only chances we get to film all together. Tomorrow, during me and Tara's free session we hope to go out looking for the wolf hand for our music video. We don't want the representation of the wolf to be too explicit, however we do need to represent it somehow, so we believe that showing a hand similar to a wolves e.g. long nails, hairy etc, we would be able to represent the wolf character without it being too explicit and immature.
This is the cape that we ordered.

Amazon

This week we've been looking on different websites that provide fancy dress clothing, as we will need our singer to wear a red cloak and possibly have a baskets for the music video. We thought that this would be a good time to look because as Halloween is near, these props may be more readily available for us. We found that amazon had quite a wide range of black cloaks and baskets that are suitable for what we are looking for, so we are hoping to continue looking on this site and soon make an order for the cloak and the basket. Here's some of the ones that we have found:

Animatic storyboard

Here is our animatic storyboard which we completed today during the lesson.


We edited it so that each scene from the storyboard lasts the same length as we want the real scenes to last for. We done this so that it could give as a rough idea of how we want our final music video to turn out and also so that during filming days we know how much footage we need to get, and therefore eliminate the risk of wasting time capturing unnecessary shots.

Story boarding finished

We've finally managed to finish our story boarding! Although it took a VERY long time to do we think that it will be really useful to us, especially during filming as we will know exactly what shots to get, and the duration of each shot. Hopefully we can start filming in the next week or so and be finished in the next couple of weeks, ready for editing.

Edited examples

Today, we matched the visuals of  the Years and years- Take shelter video and Banks- Brains video, to the audio of Halsey- Empty Gold. We done this to get a better understanding of how we could use some of these shots in our music video. It only took a few minutes to add in the video to the audio but we found it to be really helpful when we were doing the rest of our story boarding. Hopefully we will be able to finish our storyboard by next week so that we can start filming! Here are the edited videos:

Years and years- Take Shelter, Banks-BRAIN

We really like these two videos and are considering incorporating parts of these videos into our music video. From 'Take Shelter', we really liked the fact that parts of it was set in a forest as this is the same setting we want to use for our video. We also liked the scene where she was painting a symbol on the tree. We would also like to incorporate this idea into our video, however we may not be able to paint on the tree due to legal reasons, so to overcome this we could use chalk instead, which can easily be washed off. We are currently researching different symbols relating to 'the coming of age', which is the theme of our video, and hope that these symbols will be reoccurring in the video so that the theme is clear.

We also liked the abstract feel to the 'Brain' video. We found the first shot of BANKS in a circle was quite effective so we were thinking of incorporating this into our music video but using other shapes e.g. circles, triangles, squares etc.During the faster paced music parts, the shots are also cut faster along with the music, however these scenes are abstract and are mainly of different triangular shapes We also want to create this abstract feel to our music video but with the fast cut images of our different symbols so that we don't stray from the theme.

This week we are going to try and play our chosen song along with these visuals to give us a better understanding on what parts of the video we could use as inspiration for our music video.

Naming Game

Today in lesson we played a naming game to try and come up with track-list song names and our bands name. The rules of the game were to write down any noun/adjective that came into our head, fold over the paper and give it to another person in our group to do the same thing. It was quite funny as none of the final names made sense, but we can use some of these words to help to give us inspiration when it actually comes to deciding on the chosen names. These were the final names that came up:-

• Cage the Elephant- Melaphobia 
• Broods- Evergreen
• Banks- Goddess
• The 1975 
• Kings of Leon- Boxed
• Amber Run- 5am 
• Aurora- Winter Bird
• The XX- Co exist 
• Pvris  (pronounced 'Paris')
• Chvrches (pronounced 'Churches') 

The highlighted ones are the ones that we feel would be a good name choice for the song, so over the next week we hope to decide on a final track list, album name and song name for our music video.

Storyboarding

Today, we started story-boarding for our music video. We found it really hard to imagine as some shots might only last a second so everything has to be precisely matched up. However, this is not setting stone so if we don't like something we can change it. We decided to write in pencil and on post -it notes so that we can change the position of some shots and rub out anything that we don't like.  We are trying to make it as detailed as possible so that when it comes to the filming and editing of the footage, it is a lot easier to do. We hope to be finished by the end of next week so that we can start collecting footage.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is defined as 'the way in which one media text is referenced in another'


An example of intertextuality is Taylor Swift's 'Love Story' music video. The song references Romeo and Juliet and through the mise en scene of the music video we can see that the video is a modern day version of the Romeo and Juliet story, linking the viuals to the lyrics causing the video to conform to Andrew Goodwins theory.

An example of intertextuality that we our hoping to use in our music video is the use of the red cape and wolf hand which derive from our inspiration 'Little Red Riding Hood'. Through having these elements explicitly shown in our music video we will be referencing another media text and therefore intertextuality within our music video will be achieved.

Setting Inspiration

This morning I had to wake up early to get to Leeds University open day. However on the motorway it was very misty which is the kind of atmosphere we want for some of our shots in our music video. Here are some pictures and videos I took of the mist:

Lip sync Practice: Final video

Yesterday afternoon, we finally finished editing our Lip sync practice video. It took a while to do as we had to find the right footage and match this up with the right part of the song, to make the person lip syncing look like they were actually singing. However, we really enjoyed editing as it made us realise what it would be like for our real music video and the amount of time it would take us.

We think that when we are editing the real music video it may be a bit easier as we will have different scenes to choose from and we will also have a storyboard to follow, so we know precisely how each shot should be. Here is a video on how we found the overall process of making our final practice video:

Lip sync practice

This week, our task has been to film our lip sync practice to our chosen song. Here are some pictures that we took whilst filming:

We found it to be a really fun experience and it gave us an insight as to how it would be lip syncing for the real song. We used the laptop and speakers in the room to play the music from, and we also stuck the lyrics on the tripod so that we made sure we were singing the right words. We thought that filming in the classroom against a white background would be the best setting for this, as the focus would be on the person lip syncing, rather than the setting itself. Over the next few days, hopefully we will finish editing the lyrics and presenting our video to the class.