Update on Planning For Second Day of Filming : PRODUCTION

Today I contacted Talia, our artist and performer. Talia and I discussed possible days for Day 2 of filming and I suggested that it should be on a Thursday. Talia agreed and now we should be able to film all our required remaining shots, and move onto post production as soon as possible.

Teacher feedback

Hurrah - finally Saydul has done some blogging.  It's looking rather confusing though as your blogs Saydul are all out of order, but at least you are now up to date, which is great.  I look forward to reading all about how your filming is going.

PLANNING: Analysis Of 3 Music Videos That Influence Our Final Planning Decisions

The use of black and white and slow motion used in Beyoncé's 'If I Were A Boy' sets the tone and pace of the video from the start. We will be trying to use these techniques in order to effectively set the tone and make it clear what the theme of the music video will be. Its also an effective way for us to promote the artist through the use of slow-motion when using close ups of the artist to implement recognition and repertoire.



Pixie Lott - Turn it Up

We are going to use the shot of the artist walking and singing into the camera. we would use a close up similar to this video. This will make the viewers feel connected to the artist and the song.


Rhianna - Only Girl In The World

There is a part in this video which I think we could implement into our video, this is the scene where the artist is standing in front of a large rosebush that makes up the whole background and location. I think this gives out the idea that the artist may be pretty and nice to look at but as every rose has thorns, the artist also has a wild side. 

PLANNING: MOOD BOARD

This is the mood board I have created, it consists of images of the apparel, locations and artists.

SKILLS: Production Development

Doubles/Doppleganger

My production skills have developed considerably as I am now very comfortable with the editing process of the production phase. I have gained new insights and learnt new techniques that have enabled me to take my work a whole lot further. One of the new skills I have added to my repertoire is how to implement doubles of the same clip or similar clips. 

This was done through the use of some of the image settings in Final Cut Pro. Firstly we had to crop off half the image as you can see below simply by dragging one side of the image to a selected fixed point (we chose the centre of the bench) and then using the same clip/image but flipped horizontally to make it seem realistic. we then set the opacity setting to 100% and there you have it. 

Final Cut Pro

Although this scene was done with only one clip it is also possible to use this technique with different clips, provided the backgrounds are the same ofcourse. Here is an example of what I mean. the technique is still the same. 

As you can see the person in the clip is the same but wearing significantly different apparel. This is ONLY possible if the camera remains stationary and the paths of the people DO NOT overlap otherwise the edit will clearly visible. 

This technique would not have been appropriate for our thriller productions back in AS because this type of editing looks and suits the music video 'genre' more (unless you have double acting in a thriller).

RESEARCH: How the original artist uses their website

This is a Screenshot of Lilly Allen's Website. There is a free subscription service for fans but you don't need to sign up to stay updated on what Lilly is up to or planning. As you can see from the screenshot the artist's face is splashed across the screen making it the main focal point with relevant information and updates surrounding it. She also has a live twitter feed on her website to add that personal touch for her fans. As for the appearance of the site itself, I think its very good as it suits her style because she sings about dark and upsetting aspects of life in a cheery tone. This is done effectively through the use of the light grey background with headings in different bright colours.

PLANNING: OUR ARTIST - TALIA

 This Is our one and only artist/singer Talia. We think she looks the part for our video. We have already discussed when she would be available for filming and she has agreed on her full co-operation in exchange for a large bar of chocolate. We also think she looks a bit similar to Lilly Allen.

RESEARCH: Analysis Of Original Music Video & How Ours Will Differ

The original video follows a narrative where Lilly Allen is Elton John's stalker and then kidnaps him. Our video however will be about the artists feelings of loneliness and sadness. To show this we will use special effects such as black and white and slow motion. The original video is in colour and has the artist interacting with 'Elton John', this is because the theme of the original video is obsession whereas our video's theme is that of loneliness and sadness. Therefore, the only person in the video will be the artist, she will be alone in more or less all the shots and basetracks making her the main focus and thus amplifying the theme. Although the original seems to have some sort of narrative running through it our video will be solely about the lyrics which means that the narrative is of least importance and that the pace of edits and special effects have a great deal of relevance to the overall amplification of the song and its meaning.

RESEARCH: Skills Audit, Development of Research Skills

My research skills have developed since my AS work as now I research in more depth. Although I spend more time researching compared to my AS year I use the time efficiently instead of just reading through articles, blogs and watching videos I make notes on how relevant they are for my current work. Also when I take into consideration which techniques and camera shots I could use in the music video I also think of how to adapt them somewhat to suit the theme and pace of our music video. Another thing I take into account when doing research is what makes certain artists attract certain fans with certain lifestyles and interests so we can easily identify the target audience for our artist.

DAY 1 of Filming : PRODUCTION

Filming:

The first day of filming was on Thursday the 18th of October. Filming took place in two locations, the Barbican Centre and then the Old Street Canal. As planned my group and I went to film at the Barbican centre first. We shot 2 base tracks at the Barbican Location, a Mid Shot and My Idea of having the artist in the same shot 3 times all at once. I also decided that we should shoot some shots of the artist 'Talia' walking or sitting in the scenery, these shot could be used as cutaway shots in the Music Video.

Problems:

Just the planning of having our artist do three separate base tracks that then will be combined to make one flowing sequence was a great hassle. Firstly I had to lay markers down on the floor, this was so that Talia wouldn't move from the position she should be otherwise when we come to edit and she has moved the effect would no work.

The weather also played an important role in causing us alot of problems. Although it was clear sky's and mostly sunny, the temperature was not and it was freezing for the duration of filming, this made it hard because we needed our hand to be glove free in order to play the music via our phones. 

Moving Forward:

Out of the 5 Base tracks we need to run throughout our music video I believe that as of Day 1 of filming we have completed 2 and so must film on another day to complete filming.

RESEARCH: The State of The Music Industry

The music industry has changed over the years to adapt to the latest trends and customs in order to ensure their consumers get what they want through simpler and easier means. The formats in which music is distributed has progressed immensely due to the advancement of technology. Back in the early days record vinyls were the main format but were then replaced by cassette tapes which were then replaced by CDs in the late 1990s. However as technology advanced a major breakthrough in digital media resulted in the almost downfall of the whole industry as illegal downloading became the main source for consumers of music to get their favourite songs for free meaning sales and profit throughout the music industry plummeted. So now the industry has changed tactics in order stay afloat. 

Production: Artists in the early years had no choice but to book studio time in order to record their songs but seeing as studio is very expensive most artists and bands would have had to get signed by a record label such as Universal or Sony BMG in order to produce their music. However, as the years have gone by technology has enabled artists to produce their music without the need of a record label. Also a new kind of consumers has developed; PROSUMERS. Prosumers are consumers who use music that has already been created and released and make their own music e.g. sampling for freestlyes, mixtapes etc.

Distribution: In the early years, artists marketed their music through radio, live concerts, posters and guest appearances on talkshows. Now however artists have direct access to their fanbases via social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter. This is actually a good thing as artists have easier access to a global audience which in turn means more publicity and hopefully an increase in sales and profits. 

Exchange: As I mentioned before media formats have changed in order to make the consumers experience  easier and simpler. Vinyls were very fragile and not very compact which led to them being replaced by cassette tapes. Tapes also had few problems of their own as they could be 'wiped' clean if put close to a magnet and also led to people copying tapes using a tape recorder, this was the equivalent of illegal downloading back then. So tapes were then replaced by CDs, the first digital formats for music. Just like the vinyls, CDs were very fragile and although they were compact just meant that people could get whole albums 'ripped' and distributed to their friends and online for free. So piracy started becoming an issue as Napster cost the music industry billions in sales due to illegal file sharing. Even after Napster was shut down the music industry never really recovered since. Until Apple founder Steve Jobs introduced the iPod and iTunes. This revolutionised how music and now music videos are distributed and exchanged as users of iTunes can download singles from as little as 79p and entire albums at almost half the price of their Retail price. in addition, with the introduction of iCloud downloading and storing your favourite content has never been easier.

Although illegal downloading hasn't been stopped and is actually increasing every year, the music industry better come up with something fast to bring up sales or face crashing into bankruptcy.

iTunes

Review of todays filming (20.10.11) :FILMING

Today's filming went well considering the freezing cold weather and there not being a lot of sun. However it is very hard to film a music video and i never realised that until today. Its hard for a number of reasons such as when filming you cant exactly stick to the story board because you'll pretty much have to be in every base track at one time and that's not possible, plus the actual filming is very different from the story board as its just a still image, filming enables it to come to life. Another reason why its hard is because the performer cant act and sing at the same time which is hard for our song because we want her to be sad for the verses and happy for the chorus. When singing the chorus, it was hard for her to be happy at the same time luckily she did manage to do a really good job at it and it looks amazing. All in all it was a productive day, we managed to get round about 70% of the filming done we just have the last places to shoot and we'll be ready to edit it.

Pictures Of Us Taking Contingency Cutaway Shots : PLANNING

The scenery

Tahmid

Jade

We decided to go out and take establishing and cut away shots of scenery and location just in case we failed to get good enough shots when we actually film our music video.

The making of "Only Girl In The World" by Rihanna: RESEACH/PLANNING

Here is the making of "Only Girl In The World" by Rihanna. I've decided to post this because this videos theme of being the only person in the video is the same as our theme except ours is about loniless whereas Rihanna's one is happiness. I think this video is good because even though its very short it still manages to show some good parts of the filming such as towards the ending the area that they're are filming in is very windy and they wrapped her in a towel untill it was time to film. This is useful for many groups as we are approaching winter and some artists may be wearing cloths that are meant for summer so bringing extra clothing like towels and coats are handy. This behind the scenes video is also good because it shows us how some parts were filmed i.e the flower area where it looks like she is laying down on flowers but she isn'y, it is a wall with flowers on it.

My Ideas For Creating My Artists Brand : PLANNING

I created possible logos for our artist 'Talia'. I took a simplistic approach when trying to theme her logo, for example our artist isn't Lady Gaga and so her logo isn't going to be extreme. Above are the logos that I thought  would represent our artist the most.

This is how one of the logos would look in a Billboard to promote our artist.

Inspirational ideas for our own website for our artist Talia:RESEARCH

Here are some pictures of Lily Allen's Twitter and Myspace which is good research for our artist Talia, so we can make a official website for her and blog it which is good to compare to Lily Allen's as well to see how our website differs but also how it relates. 

        

Here is a picture of Ellie Goulding's official website, she is one of the artists that has inspired our group she is a successful English recording artist and her style is very similar to our artists' Talia. I think it is useful to put her official website here, as again it is good to compare not to just ours but to Lily Allen's as
well who is the original artist. 

Finally, here is a website for our artist Talia. This is one that she has already made herself on Facebook but the one that our group makes will be completely different. This is just a little sample of what it may look like compared to the two professional artists above. 

RESEARCH: Review of My Favourite Previous Student Music Video (Galvanize)

this music video, which was created by last years students is a very good example of previous music videos as the group effectively manipulated and controlled all aspects of sound,camera,editing and mise en scene.  just by looking at the video i was able to tell that every shot must have required in depth planning beforehand. They used jump-cuts and fast paced editing  as well as cutting to the beat effectively making the editing distinctive and yet fluid. Also the mise en scene is suits the music and the whole theme of the video whilst keeping the concept of their music video somewhat original.

They decided to base their video on dis-juncture as there is no clear narrative and most of it is just fast cuts to people dancing from different angles and shots. the lip-syncing was spot on and I think we have our work cut out for us if we want to compete.  

http://vimeo.com/17557406

Testing My Cinematic Effect Idea : PLANNING

We took this shot at the canal in Old Street. I changed the brightness and contrast to create a cinematic looking effect, i then changed the colours to make it look more professional. 

Firstly I went to Video Filters and selected both Image Control and secondly Colour Balance, I then fiddled with the settings to achieve a 'Cinematic or Film Look' to give it a more professional look.

Behind the scenes video: PLANNING

Here is  behind the scenes video of Justin Bieber's "Baby". I think this is a good clip to post because Justin tells the audience about the videos that he wanted to incorporate in his own video such as Micheal Jackson's "The way you make me feel". This is useful to me because this is something we had to do, find videos that inspired us to make our own video and use aspects of them.
I also like this behind the scenes clip because its something that i would like my group to do, it'll be very interesting as well.

RESEARCH: Analysis Of My Favourite Music Video

This music video by Lupe Fiasco singing 'The Show Goes On' is my favourite because not only do I enjoy his music but also because the visuals of this music video amplifies the message that is put across through the use of visual aids such as images and special effects. This is known as 'illustration'.

One of the reasons why I enjoyed this video in particular is due to the way the video is edited to not only the beat but also to the lyrics. An example of this is when he raps a verse about when he was a kid and the video cuts to what seems to be a younger version of Lupe. Also the special effects used when he names out different locations around the world and their geographic location is show using orange lights which also create an image of the artist being on stage and having all the spotlights on him.

There are quick cuts and also a varied use of special effects (slow-motion) throughout the video but key element in all this are the basetracks. One of the basetracks is of Lupe back stage where he says most of his verses, another is the green screen used for his verse regarding his global audience. These basetracks are used very creatively and ensure that the viewer is hooked right from the start as the chorus starts and a jump cut to his concert audience is shown. The use of lights and the crowd and the majority of the mise en scene that is 'seen' are all used to amplify the song/lyrics, the artist's message and what he represents(image).  

PLANNING: Audience Task

NAME: Samantha 
AGE: 17 years
JOB: College Student and works part-time in H&M
ETHNICITY: White British,
SHOPS AT : Top Shop, New Look, Peacocks
GROCERY: Tescos, Sainsburys, local grocers
FAVOURITE MUSIC TYPE: slow songs, up beat songs. Favourite artists are, Lilly Alan, Pixxy Lott and Ellie Goulding.
SOCIAL: Parties, Facebook and Twitter
MAGAZINES: OK magazine , soap magazines.
WHAT SHE CARRYS ON An EVERY DAY BASIS: Make up, iPhone , mirror , water
IDEAL CAR: mini cooper, Ford Fiesta.

ARTIST THAT INPIRED US : research

Ellie Goulding

She really inspires us because her character is her music videos are very relaxed and independent her presence is very different.  Her appearance also is a great inspiration as she is covered and does not wear revealing cloths at all. Her single “your song” had a quite slow but up beat sort of beat, slightly the same with us. But the main inspiration was her imagine and video, her video was independent which matches alongside her imagine, there was allot of close ups which allowed us to connect with her. This is something we want to aim to do when it comes to our music video.

AUDIENCE TASK

NAME : venessa
AGE: 17
JOB: college , works in h&m
ETHNICITY: spanish & white (mix race)
SHOPS AT : top shop , new look , burcsha ect
GROCERY: tescos , sainsburys
FAVOURITE MUSIC TYPE: slow songs , up beat. loves rihanna , lily alan aswell as pixxy lott
MAGAZINES: OK magazine , soap magazines ect
WHAT SHE CARRYS ON A EVERY DAY BASIS: Ipod , makeup , blackberry , mirror , water
IDEAL CAR: mini copper

MOOD BOARD : RESEARCH

RESEARCH: Ellie Goulding

What I love about both these videos is that it shows independence, but before the independence shows loneliness, I love how Ellie Goulding videos have allot of close ups allowing the audience to connect with her songs , this is  something we would like to do. In addition I was also moved by the shots in these videos the shots of her lying on the grass for examples goes so well with the theme this is something we are going to do , the editing also goes very well , the swift edits go well with the beat of her song. The whole story line was very inspirational, helped us see how slow songs go well with just simple storylines.  

Pictures Of Our Pitch Presentation : PLANNING

Describing our video in one sentence 'An amplification of loneliness' 

showing test shots of our artist 

talking about risk assessment, how to behave with camera near water etc. 

Tahmid, pitching his idea of the artist in the shot three times all at once

Production Schedule : PLANNING

click to make larger 

Final clothing decisions: PLANNING

This is a similar outfit for what our artist will be wearing in some parts of the song. She will look casual but classy and will look very stylish.

Here is another outfit that is similar to what our artist will be wearing. Again it is very casual but she'll still be able to make a statement with what shes wearing. The colours go well together and they suit the artist.

This is another outfit that i think will look really good on our artist. The combination of high tops, leggings, white vest and blue blazer really stands out

and the royal blue blazer will bring attention to our artist in the video.

Audience Profile: PLANNING

Name: Louise Cliffe

Age: 22

Lives: Central London

Job Description: Sales assistant and part time model

Grocery shopping: Waitrose, Tesco, M&S and Salisbury's

Favourite Restaurants: Nando's and TGI Friday

Hobbies: Modelling, relaxing with friends, listening to music, partying

Technical devices used: Ipod, Blackberry, Laptop

Magazines they read: Vogue, Heat, OK, TV times

Favourite drinks: Lambrini, K.A, Coke, Water, Orange Juice

Favourite places: Home sweet home & L.A

Favourite clothing shops: River island, Topshop, H&M

Favourite colours: Blue, Pink & Yellow

Celebrities they admire: Beyonce, Rihanna, Ellie Goulding, Kanye West, Ed Sheeran

Genre: She likes this genre because she feels that it can appeal to anyone. She is able to relate to it as it expresses everything that she can not say. This genre somes sup her lifestyle and she believes that when she listens to music she can be herself and let her imagination run wild!.

Our Pitch : PLANNING

Practice Of Our Music Video Effect Idea: PLANNING

Tahmid had the idea to show our artist three times in a single shot, the group decided that if we could pull it off then it would look great on screen. This sequence would be one of our main shots in the music video. Here is a practice of how we would use it in the video.

RESEACH: artist brand image

So as a group we thought we would go for the simpler but fashionable look, our artist will be playing a very lonely isolated character which goes behind the reason towards why our artist would look a particular way. First of all our main character will have short hair so we as a group we thought that  she would look most similar to Frankie from the group the Saturdays , mainly because she is not so overdressed but still is able to have that shinning glow towards her. As you can see the clothing is very simple this is because we are filming our scenes in areas such as the canal, barbican and parks. In addition we choose to have our artist makeup quite bold but not so much; this is done because when we do our close ups we want to be able to bring out her eyes. Final reason towards why we choose our character to be most familiar to Frankie is because the characters that we have choose has a very similar look towards Frankie so it would be much easier to go for that beautiful look that Frankie follows.

Animatic : PLANNING

Draft Storyboard : PLANNING