Last bit of filming

Today we filmed the last part of our music video. We were able to finish everything in the time we needed as soon as we get to school in January we will be able to upload the last footage and begin to start our rough edit of our music video.

Filming more of the performance

Because Jess and I ran out of time on the 11th December we had to re arrange a time to film. The day that everyone was able to do is the 19th December we made sure that everyone wore the same clothes and made sure they were in the same positions so that our continuity wouldn't be affected.

This is the group facebook message that was sent out -

How filming went on the 11th December

Yesterday we filmed our performance however we had many problems with filming. We ran out of time when filming as someone else had booked the studio after us,  so we didn't get all the footage that we needed to get done. This means that we will need to film the close ups of the performers in the holidays. We have booked a camera out and are hoping to film on the 20th December and by this point we will have bit of our video filmed. We will then be ready to edit our footage, as all previous footage is uploaded on final cut express.

Filming final Performance on 11th December

Tomorrow we will be filming the last part of our performance part of our music video, we will be filming the entire band. We are filming in a studio in Littlebury so we are having to get several cars to move all the equipment, we have had to change the day from the 10th to the 11th so that we have the cars to be able to move the equipment.

We used the social networking site Facebook to organise tomorrows filming -

Here is how tomorrows timings will run - 

4.20 PM - Meet at Rob's house to load equipment into cars 

5.00 PM - travel to the Studio

5.00 - 5.30  PM - set up all equipment and lighting 

5.30 - 6.00 PM - do whole band shots, several times through

6.00 - 6.45 PM - Film individual shots of each instrument  

In the studio we will be using studio lights so we will have a white back drop and bright lights that will contrast against the band members and instruments, making them standing out further. 

How filming went on the 5th December

Today we filmed the only narrative part in our music video.

We had a limited amount of time that we could film in and people had other committments, this meant we had to work effectively and we were limited to the amount of times we could film footage. However we did manage to get all of our filming and I am relatively happy with the footage, I think it could have been improved if we had more space but I think we filmed the best we could in the space we had.

We will be uploading this footage onto the macs into the next lessons where we will be able to review some of the footage, and if we are unhappy with it we can always re film it.

Item list for the 5th December

Here is the item list that we will need for filming on the 5th December -

• 2 cameras
• 2 tripods
• 2 SD cards
• Make up for the girl to apply
• Several magazines
• Shorts and a top for the girl to change into.

We have already got everything together and ready, this will make filming time shorter and more effective and directed at getting the filming done.

Filming Narrative on 5th December

Tomorrow we will be filming the narrative side to our music video.

We need to film -

• The female actor looking into the mirror upset about her body
• Several shots of her crying and upset
• The male actor walking into the bedroom
• The male actor picking up magazines that the girl has been fantasising about
• The male actor ripping and throwing the magazines across the bedroom
• The male actor leaving the bedroom angry.

This is the time line for how construction will go -

4.00 PM - Jess and I will go straight to my house
4.15 PM - All actors will arrive at my house, and equipment will be set up
4.20 PM - Film shots of girl upset with her body
4.45 PM - Film shots of male boy walking into bedroom and tearing up magazines
5.00 PM - Film shot of girl crying
5.10 PM - Filming finished

Uploading part of performance footage onto the Mac.

Today in class we uploaded the footage that we filmed for part of our performance side with the lead singer. We were able to some of our footage on screen, so far it looks like we managed to frame the shots well, which is good as we had a limited amount of space that we could film in.

We will upload all the footage and add this to our project on final cut express and we will begin our rough cut edit once all footage has been completed and uploaded to the mac.



What is our narrative?

 We have created our narrative based upon the lyrics of the song.
For example -

Your magazines, at people at the seams
But you still read
I must admit, I don't believe in it
But I see how you get sucked in
 

and

About your hair, you needn't care,

From this lyrics we have decided to create our narrative about a naive, insecure girl that is worried about her body and is under more pressure from the media believing she must look like the people in the magazines. And how through this fixation to look perfect she is destroying herself and the people she loves. 

How filming went on the 1st December - Part of Performance

Tonight we filmed the first part of our performance side to our music video. We had our lead singer sitting on a sofa and we took various shots and different angles and he sang the whole song. We also got the lead singer to do some acting that matched the narrative and the lyrics, this made sure that it fitted in with everything else we have done and fulfilled the audiences needs.

We got Sam to sing the whole song a numerous amounts of times the whole through, this enabled us to achieve different shots but this will also make editing a lot easier for us and we will have more footage to be able to choose from. I believe this will improve our video as we can choose shots that are well framed, steady shot, and are good artistic shots.

Filming went well tonight, we ran over slightly our schedule but we managed to get all the shots done that we had on our story board, over all it went very well although we did have a limitation on the space we were using when shooting but i think we over came this and shot some good footage.

Performers Auditioning

Jess and I decided that our performers need to have some ability to play instruments, we believe that this will make it easier for us to match tempo with action.

So here is Sam Moulsher this is him singing and playing the guitar an example of is ability and talent -

I also hope that the fact that Sam can sing will enable him to sing and not be shy when we film him, all of this will aid and improve our music video. 

Filming part of performance

Tomorrow we will be filming part of our performance with Sam Moulsher as our lead singer. This will be filmed on the sofa, with just Sam singing the lyrics.
We are going to film it in the evening so we will use artificial lights so that the shots can be seen and to create the right the atmosphere of upset and sadness that the lead singer will be feeling.

The props we will be using for this performance side is - 

A photograph of the boy and girl -

A bottle and glass of alcohol on a coffee table infront of the lead singer -

Here is the timing of the evening -   we will try and stick to this plan so that we can film quickly and efficiently, also so the actors don't get bored.

6.30 pm - Alison will arrive
6.40 pm - set up the cameras and decide what shots will be filmed first
6.45pm - get props and mise en scene ready
6.50pm - start filming
7.45 pm - finish filming

Item list for filming part of performance

Here is the item list for the performance filming, this is everything we will need to film -

• 2 cameras
• 2 Tripods
• 2 SD cards
• Photo frame
• Bottle and glass of alcohol
• CD player and CD to be able to play music for lead singer to sing along to

Costumes for Band Members and Lead singer ideas

The genre of the Song we are using is Indie Pop, so for our video to fit into this genre they need to be wearing appropiate clothing.

Here are pictures of Indie Pop band members, especially Kooks members as we need to fit in with this image and expectations of the audience.

We will make sure that our band members and lead singer when performing are in these types of clothes.

For example:

Skinny Jeans
Stripy tops
Blazer
Jumper
Cardigan

Research Representation

How is gender represented through Indie Rock videos?

The top ten Indie Rock videos found on Yahoo Music

Quantitative Research

·        How is gender represented?

Stereotypical, A typical

·        Is the gender passive or active?

·        How do costumes and shots create this representation?

I will look at a few videos and have these questions in my mind to see how gender are represented-


After looking at Foster the People the women were represented as girlfriends, or part of the band, they didn't play a large role in narrative or in the video at all. Where as men were seen to be dominant as they were the band members and the video revolved around the males a lot.



The next video I looked at was Dog days are over, by Florence and the machine -




In this video women are more dominantly presented and are seen to be powerful through the low angles used creating a larger presence and showing a more atypical approach to women,  where as men are not portrayed in this video showing a passive a typical portrayal of men.


Through this research I have found that in the indie genre gender does not follow set stereotypical rules and men and women can be portrayed as passive or active and research into kooks video shows me that women do not play a large role in the Kooks video -




however through planning my video already i hope to challenge this gender convention and have a more dominant female actor in my narrative side.

Chosen Performers

Here is the finalised list of performers we will be using for our band -

• Drums = Rob Smith

• Guitar and Lead singer = Sam Moulsher

• Keyboard = Phil Winter

• Bass = Joe Hayden

Here is the performer that we will use for the narrative side of our video - 

• Lead girl performer = Katy Ray

Intertextuality planning into my video

There are two types of intertextuality according to Fiske.

Horizontal - reference to another text but in the same meduim. film - film
Vertical - reference to another text but ina different meduim. Film - music video

I will try and incorporate intertextuality into my music video.

The first intertextual reference I will make is a horizontal reference from Christina Aguilera 'Beautiful'. In my video in the narrative side it is about an insecure niave girl that is feeling the pressures of mordern day and media on what she should look like. We are going to try and create similar shots to the actor in 'Beautiful' that also has body issues. The following shots we will try and create links from are -

Another smaller less obvious intertextuality is a vertical reference from film to my music video. The main shot we will have of our main singer singing the lyrics throughout the whole song is him on a sofa. We have got inspiration and a small intertextual reference to 'About a boy'. 

These are the shots that inspired our main shot for our lead singer. The shots portrays isolation from the one you love/ loved ones, depression and feelings of being overwhelmed manifested through the one person on a large sofa portraying feelings of alienation. 

Location Photos

Here is a photo of the bedroom that we will be using for the narrative of our video -

here is a photo of the props we will be using in the bedroom scene, this is the magazines we will be using - 

Here is a photo of the sofa we will be using for part of our performance with just the lead singer singing -

Here is a photo of the studio that we will be using for the band performance side of our video -

Locations

In our music video we will have 3 locations in which we film.

For our narrative side of our video we will be using a  girls bedroom - 

We have decided that we will try and make the room dark and use an artificial light onto the actor to create the feel that the curtains are opened and light is shining onto the actor as if the light is her freedom away from the feelings that she has - insecurity's about her body.

For part of our performance side of our music video we will have the leader singer alone on a Sofa - 

We will have him alone on a sofa to show his isolation and alienation from his girlfriend. We also will have a photograph of the boy and girl together which will be broken to show his frustration. There will also be a bottle and glass of bottle of alcohol this is a paradigmatic choice that will create the syntagm of a rockstar life style that is portrayed through most Kooks videos.

For the rest of the performance we will be using a band in a Studio - 


We are using a band in a studio where will have a white back drop, white floor which will create a professional feel to our video. This blank back drop will also let us to be able change to colours in the editing suite.

StoryBoard of Music Video

Before we could film any of our music video, we needed to plan and storyboard what will happen throughout the song. This will make it easier when filming as we will know exactly what shots we will need to film and when editing we will know what clips will be next and when narrative and performance will be shown.

Here is our storyboard for Shine on by The Kooks

i will use these to aid me when editing my music video

Possible Performers

Jess and I have decided that we are going to use a band as we have experience in shooting bands and creating artistic shots, so we will need performers to be in the band.

The performers we may use in the band will be -

• Drums = Rob
• Guitar = Sam Moulsher
• Lead singer = Sam Moulsher
• Keyboard = Phil Winter
• Bass = Joe Hayden

And then we will need a performer for our narrative side of the video -

• Lead girl performer = Katy Ray

Jess and I decided before choosing our performers that they need to be reliable, so that they would turn up on the day of shooting and would be ready and enthusiastic to film. We also wanted people who could already play instruments so that when we do close ups of the instrument work it matches tempo with action and is in time to the music. We believe that all of this will create a more professional feel to our music video.

Target Audiences

 

I need to know who my target audience is so that I can make sure meets the audiences needs and I can focus my questionnaire and focus group towards my target audience to achieve the best video possible. My target audience is the audience whom have a particular preference towards the Indie genre. However I can be more specific through the use of Youtube's statistics. 

To find Youtube's Statistics I had to click the icon next to how many views of the video 'Shine on' by The Kooks as seen in this picture  -

Through researching this I found that -

Audiences

This video is most popular with: 

Gender	Age
Female	13-17
Female	18-24
Male	13-17

I can now target my video specifically to these ages groups Females 13 to 24 and Males 13-17 to make my video ideal to my audience and meets their needs wholly. 

Research into The Kooks

As part of research and planning into my coursework production and ancillary task I want my video and promotion pack to represent the Indie Pop genre and to fit in and resemble the genre so my work looks of a professional standard.

To do so I have used the The Kooks official website to see what colour schemes they use, pictures of the bands and previous videos they have shot.

Here is the website -

http://www.thekooks.com/

Here are other Indie Bands websites

http://arcticmonkeys.com/

http://www.paramore.net/gb/

From this research these bands seem to use similar colour themes of black and white and the sepia effect, this is something that I will use in my video and ancillary task. They also use serif font, and use a bold, typewriter font (in some cases) contrasted with a harsh background. For example Black font against a white background this again is something I can use in my video and ancillary task.

The Vixens - A finished A2 video

To be able to understand what will achieve high grades in the coursework were shown a peice of A2 coursework that managed to achieve a high grade. This was produced by 4 girls and they have produced a music video to 'Voodoo child'.

After watching the video there are many elements of it that I believe contributed well to the high grade but also to add a more professional feel to the video.
One part was the location,  the studio background with a white sheet gives it an element of professionalaism, I really like the idea of the studio background and in my own music video I will have a band so I hope I can use a white sheet to have a studio feel to my own video.

Another element of the video that I really like and feel it adds to video and also interests and engages the audience is the editing and the use of changing the colour I believe it fits the video and genre well adding a sophisticated artistic video. If appropriate I would like to add colour change even if it is just black and white - I believe the black and white effect will fit suitably into the Indie genre.



Ideas for Narrative and Performance

Jess and I have wrote a list of what we roughly want to include in the performance and narrative sections of our video and what locations we will use. We have decided that we will do this before we storyboard so we have a direction and a focus and then we can research and plan the rest of our video around these ideas.

Here is the image of the ideas -

Shot ideas of performance in music video

Jess and I wanted to establish certain shots that we will aim to film of the band so that we have enough footage for when we edit but also to achieve good and a variety of different shots that are interesting and add to our video.
When creating the list for the shots that we want we were able to use our prior experience of Radar Love and filming The Strangers and our knowledge of what shots work well on screen and will make our music video better and what shots don't.

Here is a diagram of the shots that we hope to achieve -

Conventions of my chosen genre

In order to make sure that the music video I produce is in the correct genre, and fulfills the audiences needs and expectations of what should occur in an indie pop / rock video. I watched a wide variety of music videos in this genre to find common conventions that I can then use as a guideline to achieve a video that fits and satisfies the audience!

Here are some links to the videos that I used to produce this spider diagram -

I hope that through this research into the cnventions I will be able to produce a music video that meets the target audiences expectations.

Permission to use the song 'Shine on'

Before we can start to film our music video and before we go too far into the planning of what we will do in the music video. We must try and get permission from the band to be able to use the song for our video for copyright reasons. I have tried to contact The Kooks via the social networking site Twitter as I believe that many bands use twitter to keep in contact with their fans, so I will most likely get a response through this method. 

So far I have no received any feedback from the band so I will continue to plan and research my video to  Shine on by The Kooks.

Lyrics to Shine On

These are the lyrics to Shine on  -

Intro - 23 seconds

Safety pins holding up the things  0.23 - 0.26
               That make you mine   0.26 - 0.29 
About your hair, you needn't care, 0.29 - 0.33                  
You look beautiful all the time.  0.33 - 0.37
Gap - 4 Seconds
Shine, shine, shine on  0.41 - 0.44
Yes   0.44 - 0.46
Wont you shine, shine on 0.46 - 0.51
Gap - 4 seconds
Your magazines, at people at the seams 0.55 - 0.58
But you still read 0.58 - 1.01
I must admit, I don't believe in it  1.01 -1.05
But I see how you get sucked in  1.05 - 1.09
Gap - 2 seconds
Shine, shine, shine on  1.11 - 1.15
Yes 1.15 - 1.19
Wont you shine, shine on 1.19 - 1.22
(Sha la la la)  1.22 - 1.26
Shine, shine, shine on  1.26 - 1.30
Yes  1.30 - 1.33
Wont you shine, shine on  1.33 - 1.38

Because your not done 1.39 - 1.41
Gap - 4 Seconds
Why do you buy the hand that feeds you 1.45 - 1.50
Why do you 1.50 - 1.52
Why do you buy the hand that feeds...you! 1.52 - 1.59
Gap - 17 Seconds
Shine, shine, shine on 2.16 - 2.20
Yes  2.20 - 2.23
Wont you shine, shine on  2.23 - 2.27
(Sha la la la) 2.27 - 2.31
Shine, shine, shine on 2.31 - 2.34
Yes  2.37 - 2.38
Wont you shine, shine on 2.38 - 2.43
Gap - 2 Seconds
Safety pins holding up the things 2.45 - 2.49
That make you mine 2.49 - 2.51
About your hair, you needn't care 2.51 - 2.56
You look beautiful all the time 2.56 - 3.00

I have wrote the timings of when lyrics are sung and when there are instrumental gaps in the music. By doing this when I story board my music video I know what parts I will need to focus on the performance and when I will need to focus on the narrative. I will do the performance pieces through some lyrics and the instrumental gaps where I will have shots of the whole band and the main singer and then the narrative sections throughout when the lyrics are being sung. 

Finished Strangers

After filming our video in our group we had two lessons to then edit our video before we showed our class. Through this process it has given me extra practise in filming and editing performance side of music videos, but especially with a band. This is vital to me as in my own video I will be using a band.

Here is our final product -


The feedback we received of members of the class were that the lip syncing was good and the transitions were effective. However we could have used more editing skills to make the video fit into the genre and feel more proffessional. This could have been done by changing the colour to black and white or saturating the colours or using sepia effects. I will try and use this feedback in my own coursework video.

Research and Filming The Strangers

Today on the 9th November we had the opportunity to film an upcoming band called The Strangers.
 

http://www.youtube.com/user/bornstrangers

http://www.facebook.com/bornstrangers

The strangers music genre is dark pop, electronic and pop. 

We were put into groups, in my group was Harrison, Emma, Gemma, Becky, Josh and I. We had to plan to some extent to where we were going to place cameras and who was going to be operating which. We had allocated these positions so that when the band arrived at 11am we were ready and organised to film.
We chose for them to sing 'It was a sin'
here is there very own music video for it was a sin -



  

We only had one opportunity to film and the main issue we found when filming was getting all the cameras in sync so that when we go to edit the lip syncing and instruments are playing at the same time. Another problem when filming was trying to achieve good shots, for example Becky and I wanted to achieve some close ups of the drum work but keeping a good shot while zooming in was difficult.

I believe that through this opportunity of filming the Strangers we have relevant experienced of filming the performance side of music videos. This combined with Radar Love, I believe that when I come to film my own coursework I have the skills to shot a good performance side of the video.

What type of music video will our music video be?

After researching and watching many Kook's and Indie pop/rock videos, I have found that they are a hybrid genre of narrative and performance however they are largely performance. This is something that we will follow to make sure that our video follows a similar structure to other videos in the same genre, and that it meets the audiences needs and expectations of what should be in an Indie pop/rock music video. We will also contain a large amount of band performance shots another key element to Indie pop/rock music videos.

Genre of Song Choice

As part of our research and planning we are looking into what genre our chosen song is and what similar genre songs have in their video so we have a basic guideline of what we should add to our video so that it fits correctly into the Indie Pop genre.


Our genre is Indie Pop. 


A similar band in the same genre are the Arctic Monkey's - 




After watching this video I can use the genre theory presented by Dyer who explained genre in terms of either Utopian or distopian terms. I believe that many indie pop/rock videos carry the distopian theme of scarcity and isolation which is shown in this Artic Monkeys video.
1.29
I will try and create a distopian feel to my own music video so that it is in the same genre, and my target audience of Indie pop/rock fans will  agree that my music video has fitted into the genre and has satisfied their expectations of what a indie pop/rock music video should carry.

Song Choice

After much delibration Jess and I chose The Kooks 'Shine on'.


We were debating between Shine on and Let it all out by The Kooks but we have chosen Shine on.
Jess and I have chosen this song because we feel we could produce a good narrative and also after filming radar love we feel comfortable that we have the techniques to be able to film a band and each instrument successfully.

Feedback on classes construction of Radar Love

Today in class we looked at everyones videos of Radar Love. We had to give feedback on:

How successful were the group at -
(a) matching tempo with action
(b) meeting audiences needs

 One piece of work that I thought met the audiences needs well is
Harrison's, Frank and James's



I think that their use of high angle tracking shots into close ups of each instruments worked effectively as it introduces each performer something which is seen in the original Radar Love performance. Also i believe that this engages the audience as the whole class gave feedback that they felt the 30 seconds went extremely fast - something which we would all like to achieve in our own A2 coursework. This shows that they engaged the audience well - a key critera.
Through watching the classes attempts at Radar Love some common errors were clear to see that need to be improved on. The main errors were timing action with the beat, instruments were often out of time or lip syncing was, something that Jess and I will strive to achieve. Another common mistake was mise- en-scene for example in Micheal's performance a washing up bottle was seen, these are small corrections that can make a piece look more professional.

Analysis of my 30 second 'Radar Love' video

After my construction of Radar love, I have been able to analysis my video on what went well and what can be improved when I make my A2 final project.

I believe that what went well in my video was the quick shots between the bass and drums, we managed to make the shots on the beat. This has matched tempo with action, and engaged the audience and has made the video interesting to watch and would mean that more people would want to watch the video.
This is the quick shots:


Another part that went well in my performance was the use of split screen. This has been seen a lot in music videos and I believe we used it effectively to introduce the different band members and the borders in between create a more rock feel to the video.
Here is the split screen:


I believe what we can improve on for when we make our A2 final coursework is that we will film the shots in normal natural lighting and if in editing we want to change the colour we can make the changes in final cut pro, or use a fainter light that doesn't over power the video. Also another thing I believe we can improve on is getting the instruments more in time with the music if we focus more on it and spend a longer duration on editing.

Mini Project - Final Project

Here is our final 30 second music video for Radar Love

Mini project - Editing

Today in class we started to load our clips and start editing our mini project. The first thing we noticed about our clips was that the red lights we used were slightly too red and over powered the footage. So next time if we want to change the colour of the film we will do it on final cut pro software so that if it doesn't work we can change it.

Mini Project - construction

Today we filmed our 30 second music video. it took us 1:30 hours to film everything we needed.
here is a photo of me filming:

In order to achieve the look we wanted a dark room with a spotlight or lights on the performers we blacked out all windows and put red filters over the spotlights. We felt this gave the video a more rock feel - more appropriate to the song choice. When filming we had the song on in the background so that the performers could play their instrument in time with the music - this will make editing easier.

Mini project - photos of site and instruments

As part of our research and planning we have chosen a site that we are going to film our 30 second music video and the instruments we will be using.
Here are some photos of what the area will look like when we will be filming and the instruments we will be using: