We spent the next week looking at our footage and beginning to edit it and fit it around our other footage of the band. It was beginning to look really good and we were becoming very excited about the outcome.
Editing the storyline was easier because we had a specific space in which we had to fit it. This meant that we had to be brutal about cutting things, hence only putting in the best of our footage.
Our idea of having the boys change into eachother like in the Next adverts left us technolocially overwhelmed and we were unable to use this idea. However, Danni and I found a cube spin which was a more than adequate second best. It was really just as good as the Next effect would have been, but also has the bonus of creating the illusion of time passing.
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Filming the Storyline.
The day started off as a bit of a disaster...
1) We realised that we didn't have a camera.
2) Jerome and Grace both had to pull out of the filming last minute.
3) My train was delayed to get into Berkhamsted.
Unfotunatley, the day didn't improve all that much...
Luckily, we managed to convince Danni's sister that she would like to be in our film and bribed Tom Baker to fill in for Jerome with promises of Dominoes pizza later that afternoon.
Danni then saved the day by going to get the camera from school. We (eventually) all met at Danni's house where we were expecting to film, but Danni's mum had decided to redecorate that week, so we all went down the road to her Gran's house which she kindly (and bravely) allowed us to film.
Danni went off down the road with her sister and Eamonn to take pictures of them looking like a couple which he would burn at the end of the video. Meanwhile, Charly and I set up the room to look as if a younger couple might live there. Being very careful to move photographs and ornaments which didn't fit in with the mise en scene. We started to talk about where we could put the camera and which angles and lighting we should use to create the right ambience.
We began filming the sofa scene, but because we hadn't had the camera that morning, therefore hadn't had a chance to charge it, it soon ran out of battery. We then had to wait for ages as we charged the camera.
Once it was charged we decided that it was best to move on and film Danni's sister walking out of the bedroom, down the stairs, out the door and into the car. As we were all standing outside filming Danni's sister walk out the house, she shut the door behind her. A feeling of doom fell over the group as we realised that the house key was sitting on the hall table! We had to wait a few hours for another key to be cut... perfect time for Tom to get his pizza! We filmed a few more scenes outside before the camera ran out of battery again.
By the time we got back inside the house, it was beginning to get dark so we quickly filmed the last of the outside scenes. We charged up the camera again before filming the rest of the inside scenes. ie. on the sofa, in the bedroom, and the girl being caught cheating by her boyfriend.
We charged up the camera, for the final time, and went down the road to film Eamonn, the estranged boyfriend, sitting on the park bench and flicking through photos before finally throwing them on the ground, burning them and walking away. When we reached the bench, we realised that the lamp wasn't very bright. Charly had the genius idea of using Danni's car headlamps as extra lighting. It illuminated him and made him look alone, but in control of the situation. Almost as soon as we had finished filming, the battery on the camera died, I kid you not.
So after a day of disasters, we had finally finished our filming. We all went home for a well earned rest!
1) We realised that we didn't have a camera.
2) Jerome and Grace both had to pull out of the filming last minute.
3) My train was delayed to get into Berkhamsted.
Unfotunatley, the day didn't improve all that much...
Luckily, we managed to convince Danni's sister that she would like to be in our film and bribed Tom Baker to fill in for Jerome with promises of Dominoes pizza later that afternoon.
Danni then saved the day by going to get the camera from school. We (eventually) all met at Danni's house where we were expecting to film, but Danni's mum had decided to redecorate that week, so we all went down the road to her Gran's house which she kindly (and bravely) allowed us to film.
Danni went off down the road with her sister and Eamonn to take pictures of them looking like a couple which he would burn at the end of the video. Meanwhile, Charly and I set up the room to look as if a younger couple might live there. Being very careful to move photographs and ornaments which didn't fit in with the mise en scene. We started to talk about where we could put the camera and which angles and lighting we should use to create the right ambience.
We began filming the sofa scene, but because we hadn't had the camera that morning, therefore hadn't had a chance to charge it, it soon ran out of battery. We then had to wait for ages as we charged the camera.
Once it was charged we decided that it was best to move on and film Danni's sister walking out of the bedroom, down the stairs, out the door and into the car. As we were all standing outside filming Danni's sister walk out the house, she shut the door behind her. A feeling of doom fell over the group as we realised that the house key was sitting on the hall table! We had to wait a few hours for another key to be cut... perfect time for Tom to get his pizza! We filmed a few more scenes outside before the camera ran out of battery again.
By the time we got back inside the house, it was beginning to get dark so we quickly filmed the last of the outside scenes. We charged up the camera again before filming the rest of the inside scenes. ie. on the sofa, in the bedroom, and the girl being caught cheating by her boyfriend.
We charged up the camera, for the final time, and went down the road to film Eamonn, the estranged boyfriend, sitting on the park bench and flicking through photos before finally throwing them on the ground, burning them and walking away. When we reached the bench, we realised that the lamp wasn't very bright. Charly had the genius idea of using Danni's car headlamps as extra lighting. It illuminated him and made him look alone, but in control of the situation. Almost as soon as we had finished filming, the battery on the camera died, I kid you not.
So after a day of disasters, we had finally finished our filming. We all went home for a well earned rest!
The aftermath...
The next week of media lessons were dedicated to uploading the footage and looking through it to see what we could use and what needed to never be seen again!
We used input and output points to break up the footage, rather than having one long piece of footage which we have to go the whole way through each time. We burned the song from the CD to iTunes, then imported it to Final Cut Express. We started to fit teh footage of the band to the chorus, doing it this way round means that we will have the lip syncing perfect, then we can fit the storyline around it, rather than having to do it the other way.
We had a slight cast change too. We decided that since James had cut his hair short he looked too much like Jerome. The band offered us a replacement who they assured us was perfect for the part. We also decided that Grace would work better than Danni as the girl in our film as she does A-level drama and was likely to be more convincing.
When checking the final details of our storyline, we decided that we would rather film the boyfriend finding out about his cheating girlfriend in his house than Costa for a number of reasons:
1. We would have to gain permission from Costa to film on their premesis, which would take up time that we didn't have.
2. To keep moving locations on the only day that we had available for filming would be a complete time waster.
3. We would have to get written permission from every person who walked through the background of the film, and have to organize people so that they weren't in the way of the film.
In light of this, we decided to have the boyfriend catching his cheating girlfriend at home because it made the whole betrayal more stinging. It also showed that the girl wasn't just out with a friend for coffee and was most definitley cheating.
We used input and output points to break up the footage, rather than having one long piece of footage which we have to go the whole way through each time. We burned the song from the CD to iTunes, then imported it to Final Cut Express. We started to fit teh footage of the band to the chorus, doing it this way round means that we will have the lip syncing perfect, then we can fit the storyline around it, rather than having to do it the other way.
We had a slight cast change too. We decided that since James had cut his hair short he looked too much like Jerome. The band offered us a replacement who they assured us was perfect for the part. We also decided that Grace would work better than Danni as the girl in our film as she does A-level drama and was likely to be more convincing.
When checking the final details of our storyline, we decided that we would rather film the boyfriend finding out about his cheating girlfriend in his house than Costa for a number of reasons:
1. We would have to gain permission from Costa to film on their premesis, which would take up time that we didn't have.
2. To keep moving locations on the only day that we had available for filming would be a complete time waster.
3. We would have to get written permission from every person who walked through the background of the film, and have to organize people so that they weren't in the way of the film.
In light of this, we decided to have the boyfriend catching his cheating girlfriend at home because it made the whole betrayal more stinging. It also showed that the girl wasn't just out with a friend for coffee and was most definitley cheating.
Filming the Band
I met the girls at 3pm to begin filming because I'd had a House Music rehursal. They'd done a brilliant job, with help from Mr Wellington, of setting up the lights and cameras in Dean's Hall.
We didn't have much time as the band had to be in Tring as they had a recording session at 6.00. This meant that we had until 5.30 to get everything we needed. The pressure was well and truly on!
We used two sets of four coloured lights which had already been set up for the school disco the night before, they were fitted so that they flashed in time to the music which was very effective. We also had four free standing spotlights, which meant that we could enhance and lighten the appearence of the band, taking away any shadow which may fall due to natural light, hopefully making the footage look more professional.
We set up the cameras so that we had Camera 1 directly in front of the stage, about half way down the hall. We had Camera 2 to the left of the stage, and Camera 3 to the right. We had the band repeat the song until we had a varied amount of angles and distances from the band.
After we had filmed from the floor, we moved the three cameras up to the stage and filmed each band member playing through the song individually.
Although it was a highly charged, stressful and busy afternoon. Essentially, the band were lovely to work with, it was enjoyable and very successful!
We didn't have much time as the band had to be in Tring as they had a recording session at 6.00. This meant that we had until 5.30 to get everything we needed. The pressure was well and truly on!
We used two sets of four coloured lights which had already been set up for the school disco the night before, they were fitted so that they flashed in time to the music which was very effective. We also had four free standing spotlights, which meant that we could enhance and lighten the appearence of the band, taking away any shadow which may fall due to natural light, hopefully making the footage look more professional.
We set up the cameras so that we had Camera 1 directly in front of the stage, about half way down the hall. We had Camera 2 to the left of the stage, and Camera 3 to the right. We had the band repeat the song until we had a varied amount of angles and distances from the band.
After we had filmed from the floor, we moved the three cameras up to the stage and filmed each band member playing through the song individually.
Although it was a highly charged, stressful and busy afternoon. Essentially, the band were lovely to work with, it was enjoyable and very successful!
Camera Angles
We had decided that we would film the band in Dean's Hall as it looked like a good 'gig' venue.
We broke down the song into sections and decided what each camera would film and for how long. We felt that this pre-preparation would help us on the actual day of filming as we wouldn't have to keep deciding where to move the cameras and we would be far more efficient. It was incredibly important that filming went as smoothly as possibly because it was the only day the band could film altogether.
We broke down the song into sections and decided what each camera would film and for how long. We felt that this pre-preparation would help us on the actual day of filming as we wouldn't have to keep deciding where to move the cameras and we would be far more efficient. It was incredibly important that filming went as smoothly as possibly because it was the only day the band could film altogether.
Storyboarding
We drew our storyboards to work out which camera angles would work best and which locations would be the most suitable to film in.
...Ready, Steady...
We recieved written permission from the band, and booked a date to film on October 11th. We were all now really excited about getting started.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Meeting the Band
On the 8th October Danni and Charlotte went to meet the band. The girls ran through our ideas with the band and took their views, ideas and input on board. It is important to listen to them as they are doing us a favour by letting us use their song. It will be their band name when the video is up on YouTube, and we obviously want to give them something to be proud of.
We began to get a feel for the band and decided to explore how they portrayed themselves.
'Everything you love, but slightly better!!!!'
'Feel free to paint your own influences and references on the Tramp Etiquette Sound....but no doubt that will change next week.'
These quotes suggest a versitile and easy going band who are open to all sorts of music and influences.
We then decided to research some Indie/Rock music videos to cement our ideas and find out which conventions we would like to follow.
Both of these videos show the band playing and singing, this helps the Showing the band playing live in what looks to be a ‘gig’ setting is very common in ‘indie/rock’ videos. It helps the audience to develop a real feeling for the band’s energy and enables them to feel as if they are part of the song, as well as helping the band to re-create and reflect what the atmosphere would be like if the audience watching the music video went to one of their gigs, which is in itself a form of self promotion.
We began to get a feel for the band and decided to explore how they portrayed themselves.
'Everything you love, but slightly better!!!!'
'Feel free to paint your own influences and references on the Tramp Etiquette Sound....but no doubt that will change next week.'
These quotes suggest a versitile and easy going band who are open to all sorts of music and influences.
We then decided to research some Indie/Rock music videos to cement our ideas and find out which conventions we would like to follow.
Both of these videos show the band playing and singing, this helps the Showing the band playing live in what looks to be a ‘gig’ setting is very common in ‘indie/rock’ videos. It helps the audience to develop a real feeling for the band’s energy and enables them to feel as if they are part of the song, as well as helping the band to re-create and reflect what the atmosphere would be like if the audience watching the music video went to one of their gigs, which is in itself a form of self promotion.
...all star cast?
Once we had established the storyline for our video, we started to think about what we wanted our actors to look like. We wanted to conform to certain ideas and conceptions of what the characters should look like. So we wanted to use attractive people who would appeal to the audience and fit the critera. We felt that a few people in our class were good contenders for the role.
We chose Danni because she is attractive and well put together.
We thought James would be good as the boyfriend as he has quite an 'indie' look and does drama which is a bonus!
Jerome was good for the 'other man' because he had shorter hair than James and would be easy to tell them apart in the video.
We chose Danni because she is attractive and well put together.
We thought James would be good as the boyfriend as he has quite an 'indie' look and does drama which is a bonus!
Jerome was good for the 'other man' because he had shorter hair than James and would be easy to tell them apart in the video.Friday, 19 March 2010
Research.
Once the band had sent us the lyrics, we decided that we wanted to create a video that had a poignant message behind it. I felt that if the storyline related to the video, the audience would enjoy it more.
We constructed a questionnaire to find out what our audience particularly liked and disliked about music videos.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/formResponse?formkey=dHgtNG1MOXVwUG1CT2NCVWZQbjZHcVE6MA&theme=0AX42CRMsmRFbUy1jZGZhYTJjOC0xYzc1LTQyYzEtYWM3MC1mMjQ1YzEwYWM3NzE&ifq
Once we had enough responses, we were able to create graphs and analyse our information.
Because we advertised our questionnaire through facebook, it was likely that we weren't going to have a particularly wide range of ages answering it. However, we felt that we had encapsulated our target audience within the age groups above, and this is who we needed to cater to.
This graph shows us that indie is the genre of the masses, at least for the sake of this graph. This stood us in good sted, as the band have quite an indie vibe.
This graph showed us that the storyline is very important to our target audience, we needed to make something exciting and enthralling that would maintain the audiences' attention throughout.
We decided that we should research other songs about cheating or being cheated on and watch their videos. A few of the most popular were...
1) I heard it through the grapevine - Marvin Gaye
2)Jolene - Dolly Parton
3)Me and Mrs. Jones - Billy Paul
4)Lips of an angel -Hinder
5)It wasn't me - Shaggy
6)Secret Lover - Atlantic Starr
7)Cry me a River - Justin Timerlake
8)Careless Whisper - George Micheal
9)Before he cheats - Carrie Underwood
10)Jealous Guy - John Lennon
'Before he Cheats' was a particular inspiration because it relates to the song 'Cheater' in the way in which it suggests getting revenge on their other half. We wanted to reflect the emotion of the song in our video.
From our research we decided that we wanted to have a storyline which reflected the lyrics of the song, ensuring that the viewer connects to the song and perhaps would draw on it emotionally. The song was about a girl cheating on her boyfriend, and the jilted boyfriend gaining power and moving on as the song moves along. We wanted to portray his growth from when he found out to the end.
We had a chat and started to come up with a few ideas that we could incorporate into our video...
Charlotte Lowe came up with the inspired idea of having the boyfriend throw pictures of the couple on the floor at the end of the film and setting them on fire. We felt that it was a nice symbolism of the end of their relationship and would also be a really effective ending to our film.
For the beginning of the film, we had been inspired by a previous A2 video, where a junkie revisits himelf from the future. The idea was that the beginning and the end of the film would be quite similar, and be the boy going through the photos at either end. This meant that the video almost becomes his train of thought with everything inbetween the photos being what he imagines or remembers.
Charlotte and I came up with the idea of the boys sitting on the sofa and changing faces. We asked Mr Van Straten whether our idea was technically possible to make with our limited skill and the available resources. He said that our idea was technically possible, but would require an unbelievable amount of work. There were a series of next adverts which we found to reflect what we wanted.
I had the idea that we could show pictures of the two boys at the same time to show that the girl had been getting away with cheating for a long time. I took this inspiration from the Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe prints. I am a big fan of his work and thought that this kind of style would be very effective.
We constructed a questionnaire to find out what our audience particularly liked and disliked about music videos.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/formResponse?formkey=dHgtNG1MOXVwUG1CT2NCVWZQbjZHcVE6MA&theme=0AX42CRMsmRFbUy1jZGZhYTJjOC0xYzc1LTQyYzEtYWM3MC1mMjQ1YzEwYWM3NzE&ifq
Once we had enough responses, we were able to create graphs and analyse our information.
Because we advertised our questionnaire through facebook, it was likely that we weren't going to have a particularly wide range of ages answering it. However, we felt that we had encapsulated our target audience within the age groups above, and this is who we needed to cater to.
This graph shows us that indie is the genre of the masses, at least for the sake of this graph. This stood us in good sted, as the band have quite an indie vibe.
This graph showed us that the majority of people listen to music everyday, this meant that we needed to create an image for the band which people will like and remember.
Because the lyrics in a song are so important to people, we decided to have a storyline which essentially goes along with the lyrics, since the song had a very clear meaning we felt that this would be the most interesting sort of video.
This graph showed us that the storyline is very important to our target audience, we needed to make something exciting and enthralling that would maintain the audiences' attention throughout.
This graph was very important to us, as it made us realise that we didn't have to have the band the same amount as the storyline, we decided, eventually, that we would stick to having the band appear just in the chouruses to keep it interesting.
We decided that we should research other songs about cheating or being cheated on and watch their videos. A few of the most popular were...
1) I heard it through the grapevine - Marvin Gaye
2)Jolene - Dolly Parton
3)Me and Mrs. Jones - Billy Paul
4)Lips of an angel -Hinder
5)It wasn't me - Shaggy
6)Secret Lover - Atlantic Starr
7)Cry me a River - Justin Timerlake
8)Careless Whisper - George Micheal
9)Before he cheats - Carrie Underwood
10)Jealous Guy - John Lennon
'Before he Cheats' was a particular inspiration because it relates to the song 'Cheater' in the way in which it suggests getting revenge on their other half. We wanted to reflect the emotion of the song in our video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-JzgxSvoRg&feature=related
The song 'Dilemma' by Nelly and Kelly was a good example of the type of video we took inspiration from as they had the story of the song being acted as well as the singers singing.
From our research we decided that we wanted to have a storyline which reflected the lyrics of the song, ensuring that the viewer connects to the song and perhaps would draw on it emotionally. The song was about a girl cheating on her boyfriend, and the jilted boyfriend gaining power and moving on as the song moves along. We wanted to portray his growth from when he found out to the end.
We had a chat and started to come up with a few ideas that we could incorporate into our video...
Charlotte Lowe came up with the inspired idea of having the boyfriend throw pictures of the couple on the floor at the end of the film and setting them on fire. We felt that it was a nice symbolism of the end of their relationship and would also be a really effective ending to our film.
For the beginning of the film, we had been inspired by a previous A2 video, where a junkie revisits himelf from the future. The idea was that the beginning and the end of the film would be quite similar, and be the boy going through the photos at either end. This meant that the video almost becomes his train of thought with everything inbetween the photos being what he imagines or remembers.
Charlotte and I came up with the idea of the boys sitting on the sofa and changing faces. We asked Mr Van Straten whether our idea was technically possible to make with our limited skill and the available resources. He said that our idea was technically possible, but would require an unbelievable amount of work. There were a series of next adverts which we found to reflect what we wanted.
I had the idea that we could show pictures of the two boys at the same time to show that the girl had been getting away with cheating for a long time. I took this inspiration from the Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe prints. I am a big fan of his work and thought that this kind of style would be very effective.
Putting pen to paper...
Once the band had sent us the lyrics, we decided that we wanted to create a video that had a poginant message behind it. We felt that if the storyline related to the video the audience would enjoy it more.
We constructed a questionnaire to find out what audiences particularly liked and disliked about music videos.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4OJQKtPtrr_46m-QM2uX1wSqnK4a1wM0dhY_LrluXMMv3tCO2FFPu0kRGO68D7L_qBMEvyPDe6n1xDotYx9gdq6_woAlY7R6fpo9VZxrC0tj-tcCcZN1kRJZwiWY1DS5yd5telUqRYHo/s1600-h/quetionair.bmp
We wrote a synopsis of our initial ideas.
After constructing our synopsis we timed the verses so that we could work out how long each clip would have to be to fit around what we wanted to do. This meant that we were able to physically see if our inital synopsis would fit around the song.
We constructed a questionnaire to find out what audiences particularly liked and disliked about music videos.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4OJQKtPtrr_46m-QM2uX1wSqnK4a1wM0dhY_LrluXMMv3tCO2FFPu0kRGO68D7L_qBMEvyPDe6n1xDotYx9gdq6_woAlY7R6fpo9VZxrC0tj-tcCcZN1kRJZwiWY1DS5yd5telUqRYHo/s1600-h/quetionair.bmp
We wrote a synopsis of our initial ideas.
After constructing our synopsis we timed the verses so that we could work out how long each clip would have to be to fit around what we wanted to do. This meant that we were able to physically see if our inital synopsis would fit around the song.
In the beginning...
In our first media lesson of the year, we got together in our groups and started throwing ideas around about what we could do. Eventually, we opted to make a music video, magazine advertisment and a DVD cover. We felt that making a music video would enable us to acquire the most new skills and to really challenge ourselves.
We went straight to 'myspace' the best place to find unsigned artists and stumbled across a few unsigned bands which we thought sounded good. We emailed them asking if we could use their music.
Danni then showed us a band called 'Tramp Etiquette'. We 'myspaced' them (www.myspace.com/tramp_etiquette) and had a listen to their music. One song, called 'Cheater' had really insightful lyrics and we thought that we could make a video with a story line to reflect this. We started throwing ideas around and getting very excited! Danni fortunatley knew a member of the band and was able to organize a meeting for the 8th of October to put our ideas across.
We went straight to 'myspace' the best place to find unsigned artists and stumbled across a few unsigned bands which we thought sounded good. We emailed them asking if we could use their music.
Danni then showed us a band called 'Tramp Etiquette'. We 'myspaced' them (www.myspace.com/tramp_etiquette) and had a listen to their music. One song, called 'Cheater' had really insightful lyrics and we thought that we could make a video with a story line to reflect this. We started throwing ideas around and getting very excited! Danni fortunatley knew a member of the band and was able to organize a meeting for the 8th of October to put our ideas across.
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