Further Delays

Our original plan was to film on Wednesday but Jack was not free despite the weather being good and then on Thursday the weather was not good so we could not film outside and Paul was not available and unfortunately those were the only days that people should have been free during the week.

This weekend the weather is supposed to be good but Alison is away from the area and so we can not film.

If we run out of time with our first draft we will just have to fill it in with the storyboard pictures.

Changes To Make For Video

These are a list of suggestions that Mr Smith and Mrs Somel made whilst watching our video draft so far. Also we picked some advice from last years examiners report that was published.

• Closer up Shots.
• Re-dress Paul and Jack.
• Show more emphasis on Mark as the "leader".
• Introduce Alison earlier.
• Why are we going after her? What connection do we have?
• Added alarm clock shots. Use variety.
• Buying the ice cream. Introduce the sequence. e.g. she is too warm, Paul gets the idea and gets her an ice cream, then finish the sequence.
• Give STRAWBERRY ice cream to Alison.
• More performance shots, all in the same place.
• Shorter shot lengths in places.
• Focus on having suitable locations per shot, but avoid repittion of the same area.
• Dont' use the same bit of footage twice, new footage for each shot (we've not done this, but it is something we need to be aware regardless).

Manic Street Preachers- Your Love Alone Is Not Enough

This is video is a good source of inspiration for the performance element of our own video. We originally had it so that each performer (the singing, the drums and the guitar) did their bit in different places. However, we decided that we want to change it so that they are all in the same place, and this video is a good example of how a band works together whilst performing. It also features all the usual music video close ups and mid shots of the band and their instruments.

Problems

In half term, on Thursday, we had a problem because my phone broke and so I could not contact Mark about what was happening about the filmig and what time we started, and so I missed some of the filming.

Weather Forecast Update

As you can see from this picture, the weather on wednesday is supposed to be decent weather, so we plan to film again then. The only days when everyone is free this week are wednesday and thursday, but the weather on thursday isn't great, so we may finish the indoor shots then. It is critical though that we finish our outdoor shots tomnorrow, which includes the flower giving sequence and the second waving sequence.

Editing

This week we have begun the editing process for our film. The program we are using is iMovie, which is simple and easy to use, and is much more accurate for cutting shots than Windows Movie Maker (the program used to create the animatic).

So far, we have filmed about 75% of the footage we need for our video. There are errors in it that we are well aware of, such as in one sequence Paul is wearing a coat when he leaves his house, and in the next shot his isn't wearing one. These are continuity errors that we will refilm for our final edit, but for the first draft we don't need to change it urgently.

Firstly, we uploaded the footage from our tape onto iMovie, which took about 20 minutes to do due to the amount we had filmed. Then we put the actual song onto the program, so we could remove all the audio from the shots as we put them onto the timeline and match them to the song properly. We are editing each sequence in chronological order, and we are leaving the correct sized gaps for the times when we don't have the footage ready.

Something that has become apparent as we reached the point where we are is that we are possibly a bit short on footage for the time. Even including the bits we have yet to film, we estimate we could be as short as about 20 seconds, whioch is obviously a massive error from the storyboarding process. For now, we aren't going to film anything extra (bar a few shots), and we shall then see how much of a gap we need to fill.

Even More Locations

Here are some more locations we have been filming at recently, including photos from the indoor shot locations, and a couple of the locations we went to whilst filming outside, like the park in Littlethorpe.

Our Filming Equipment

This is the camera that we are using to film our music video. Rather than take one from the school, when someone else might need it more desperately, I borrowed this from a friend to use. It's actually very similar to the school cameras anyway, so its not a massive adaption to use it. Our only issue is we couldn't scure the use of tripod for the camera, which was obviously a blow, but not the end of the world, as the vast majority of our shots require a hand-held appearance, or for my lip syncing require moving, and you can't do that with a tripod. We may go back and refilm bits when we have a tripod in the future for the final draft.

Accidentally In Love Drum Cover

This is the video that Paul used to get some idea how to mime playing the drums for Accidentally In Love.

Filming- Day Three Evaluation

Todays filming was a massive success thankfully, compared to our previous amounts of filming. We have managed to do the vast majority of the outdoor footage, with the exception of the giving the flowers sequence near the start of the video, as ran out of time. The last bit of filming we need to complete is the closing sequence, as in when the band have finally won over the girl.

We filmed in locations through Narborough and Littlethorpe today, and tried to keep each location in a well lit area, and tried to keep some blue sky showing in the shots to add to our mise-en-scene. This wasn't always possible however, due to obstructions, be it trees or walls. We also did our best to keep the shots as mid or close ups, to stick with the conventions of music videos. Our shots in general I'm quite pleased with, but there are certain bits I'd like to refilm though. My own part of the performance for example, I'd like to redo before the final draft, but for a first draft, its more than sufficent.

When Jack and Alison had gone, we decided to do some extra footage to waht we had planned, and quickly did some planning to include some performance shots of Paul on the drums. We had already filmed Jack on the guitar, but we didn't have any drums until Catherine managed to get some for us to use. This was quite a challenge for Paul, as he has no drumming experience, so we found a video on YouTube for him to get an idea off, and then we just did short 5 second bursts of him doing certain bits of the song, as it was too hard to do it all in one go.

Filming- Day Three

The weather today is way better than we expected it to be, so we've decided to make up for the washout of rain we had the other day and film as much as we can of our outdoor shots. We don't expect to do all of them, as Jack and Alison are both busy from 1.30 pm onwards.

The plan is to meet up here at my house at 11 am, and then go out as fast as we can. We will first head over to Littlethorpe park, as the best swings around are at that park, and there are some other good locations nearby (see later post). We shall also be taking the guitar we have with us to film Jacks performance part of the video. We need the weather to stay good today, as its vital we make progress.

Filming- Day Two Evaluation

Today, whilst the weather was decent and only Catherine and I were free, we figured it would be best to do the performance shots for our video. After much debate, we decided collectively that it would be best to one continuous shot of myself walking slowly fowards lip syncing the song. Then we can just cut the bits out of that shot thst we actually want.

We found a spot where the sunlight was fairly prominent, so we weren't in the shade (which wouldn't match our mise-en-scene). Then it was simply a case of filming it. After watching the footage back a couple of times, we have a lot of useable footage, but on reflection there are parts I'd like to retry, where the camera was slightly off-centre. In fairness to Catherine, it was very difficult for her to walk backwards without guidance and focus on keeping the camera in the right place.

Filming- Day Two

Today, two of the band members could not make it and we needed them for the girls shots so we decided to film the performance shots. Mark and I went to a place called Whistle Way and filmed there.

More Locations

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This is the bedroom that we decided to put band member number one in.

Filming- Day One Evaluation

Yesterday, the Met Office weather forecast site said it was supposed to be mianly sunny, but actually it was cloudy and it kept raining, so we were forced to do some of the indoor shots instead of those we had originally planned. The shots that we decided to do were basically the opening sequence of the video, which consisted of the three male characters waking up and then getting ready to leave their respective houses.

Applying Narrative Theory To Our Video

For our video, we are going to let our narrative develop the personalitys of our characters. As the guys in the band are constantly trying and failing to impress the girl, the audience is lead to sympathsize with them and root for them, in the same way they would in an underdog situation. The idea for the female character is not that she will be a hate figure, but more so that the audience can understand her initial relutance to the guys.

The narrative itself is set in a "day in the life" style, as it is all done in the space of a day. The progression of time in the day will be shown by a repeated shot of a clock that first features as waking up the lead singer of the band in the morning. Each time it is shown it will have a slightly later time on it. It is a sujective narrative, as we have different characters trying to impress the girl in different ways, as different times. The video is also a bit of highlight of the lead singers star persona, as in Andrew Goodwins theory, as he is the one who eventually gets the girl. It could also be argued as relating to John Stewarts theory, as it could be seen as an aspirational life-style, impressing and getting the girl.

The mise-en-scene will be full of bright colours, and the outside shots will be in theory filmed in good sunlight. Obviously that means our lighting for indoor scenes will need to be bright as well. This reflects in both the narrative and the song itself, which are upbeat and feel-good. As far as the lyrics of the song goes, we generally ignored them but for a few particular lines, for example "Well baby I surrender to the strawberry ice-cream" is accompanied by the sequence as one of the male characters trys to offer the girl an ice-cream, and she just walks off. By doing things like this, it means our video will be illustrative, according to Andrew Goodwins theory, as we are providing a literal representation of the lyrics.

Going back to AS theory, we can apply Propps theory of character roles to our video. We have our "hero" (leader singer), our "helpers" (the rest of the band), and the "princess" (the female character). This shows we have a 'stock' set of characters in our video. Also we can loosely apply Todorov's theory, as we have an equilbrium (band on their own), a disequilbrium (trying to win over the female character), and finally a new equilbrium (the band with the female character).

Filming- Day One

Today, the weather is bright and sunny, so we have decided to go out and film as much if the outdoor shots as we can. We have chosen to use Paul, Jack and myself as the male band members, and Alison as the female character.

Obviously a slight issue with this is that our plan was to have four band members, not three. However, we have struggled to get hold of another suitable person in time, so for today we are going to stick with three people, and see if we can work it this way. If it works, then we shall edit all the relevant storyboard bits and keep it that way (like a sort of Blink 182/ Green Day band style). If it doesn't work, then we shall add a fourth person in for our final edit, and re-shoot all the shots that require four people.

For the actual act of filming, Catherine will be mostly on the camera whilst I am acting, and I shall do filming when I'm not required in the shot. We plan to build on our experiences from last years filming and this years planning and focus on these key points-

• Close ups are very important, the shot looks busier and its a music video conventional regardless.
• We need plenty of short fast shots, to keep the pace of the editing quick and relative to the music.
• Consider the mise-en-scene of each shot carefully. Does the location and lighting match, are the characters in the right clothes, etc?
• Need to keep plenty of cross-cutting between locations, performance and narrative.

With this in mind, there is no reason why would should have any problems today whilst filming. Just have to hope the good weather holds out for the day.

Half Term Weather Forecast

This is the weather forecast for half term week, when we are planning to do the majority of our filming. Ideally, we want to do at least half of our outdoor shots on the tuesday, when the weather is at its best. And we can hold on and do all of our indoor shots later on in the week, when the weather isn't so great.

Narrative Adjustments

Our original idea for our music video was there would be two teenagers in love doing activities together such as watching a film and going for a walk in the park. They would be matched with the lip syncing person. We were also going to do some intertexuality with Shrek. This idea did not work because our class feedback said it would be a bit boring and the intertextuality would be too hard to do. So we decided to change it to being four guys who are the band and one girl who they are trying to impress.

My Job Roles

My job roles are:

• Main Director, when not acting.
• Actor.
• Need to make sure we are setting up each shot as stated on the storyboard.
• Taking photos as we work to document our progress.
• Planning ahead- Checking the location, getting everyone in the right place at the right time to film. Keep checking the weather as well for days when filming outside.

My Job Roles

My job roles are:

• Operating the camera when Mark is acting.
• Acting as director when Mark is acting.
• Making sure our actors are in the right clothes.
• Making sure we have the correct props.
• If our girl character cannot do it for some reason, I will step in to the breach.
• Need to make sure we are setting up each shot as stated on the storyboard.

Character Outfits

For our music video, we need our band to be dressed appropriately, and relevantly to our genre (alternative rock). Also we need to reflect the upbeat nature of our song choice. We therefore need to carefully consider what each person in the video shall be wearing.

Band:

For the band, we want to keep them all dressed so that they all match, but at the same time we need some individual differences.

Starting at the bottom, we considered going for grey plimsol type shoes for each band member. However, we decided against them because they don't quite fit our genre, they are more relevant to an indie music video. We eventually came to the conclusion that skater style shoes would be more in keeping with what we are trying to achieve. Here is an example photo...

Preferably, we would like to steer clear of mostly black shoes, and have white or bright colours. The basic style and shape of the shoe in this picture is what we are after for our four male actors. Also, we don't want very worn out shoes, we want newer and clean looking shoes, to make it look more professional.

Secondly, we discussed what kinds of trousers we want the male band members to wear. We at first leaned towards just going for the whole school uniform costume, in relation to the age of our actors and target audience, but due to the fact we aren't filming in school areas, it doesn't make a huge amount if sense. We therefore decided to go for plain blue jeans for all band members, to keep them matching and simple. Also, it fits in with the lighter colours theme we want.

Lastly, for the T-shirts, we want to keep them plain and bright coloured again. We want to avoid having any kind of logo or picture on them, as this makes the band seem plain and therefore not very noticable to the girl they are trying to impress. Chances are we will need to have the guys wearing jumpers, as the weather is likely to be too cold for just t-shirts. This will be zip-up hoodies like the ones below, although preferably a more plain colour.

As for our female actor, she will being wearing a sleeveless t-shirt such as the next three pictures. We want something like this because it is not too revealing, but at the same time it shows skin, which means the female character has the right image. Preferably, we'd like to avoid the first top shown because of its dark colour.

 

She will also be wearing a skirt either a frilly one or a denim one, again for the same reasons as above for the choice of top.

The girl will most likely wear tights or leggings because of the cold weather.

She will also be potentially wearing a cardigan.

She will also be wearing dolly shoes.

In short, we want the female character to be the stereotypical type of teenage girl, that all the guys go after. She is the type that is attractive but not chavy, and is very much the focus of the bands attention throughout the video.

The girl will also be wearing bracelets such as these.

 

Props List

For our music video, we don't need a huge amount of props. The main thing we need is a guitar and some drums for the performance parts of the videos. We have a friend who owns a guitar, which we need to check out and see if it looks right for our videos genre. We aren't going to bother with other instruments or microphones for the performance parts of the film, so that is something less to worry about.

For the ice-cream related part of the song, obviously we need an ice-cream or two. We could either buy the traditional style 99's from an ice van, or get a box of them from a shop as a multipack, so we have plenty spare if anything goes wrong. It depends on what we can find and which is cheaper.

Lastly, we need two mobile phones, which are very easy to come across, seeing as everyone has them. This bit is for the part where the band rings the girl and then panic over what to say. This will be simple to mime, as we don't even need to waste credit on making a phone call really. If we are short on shots though, we may include it last minute.

Plan For Half Term

After this week, we have a week off for half term, and in this time, we are hoping to get the majority of the filming out of the way and done for our first draft. Before we can do that, we need to have our actors sorted and our locations chosen, which will be done by friday.

In terms of when we are actually free to film, both Catherine and I are both busy over the weekend, and she can't do Monday either. I am free from  Monday onwards though.

A lot of our filming schedule will depend on when our chosen actors (see other post) are free during the week. We know from last years coursework though that it can take hours to film a mere 2 minutes, so we need to plan accordingly. Also a factor is the weather, as a lot of the shots are going to be outside, and we need it to be sunny weather.

Storyboard Animatic

This is the storybaord animatic we created with our original drawings for our video. We simply used a camera to take the photos and then uploaded then and the song to Windows Movie Maker. Unfortuneately, this program is very limited in terms of editing capability, and we were unable to do much to get the order of the pictures to match the right bits of the song.

We then had to upload the video to Mydeo.com, as for reasons unknown we couldn't get it onto YouTube. From this we have decided will be certainly be sticking with iMovie for our proper film editing, as it is much better for editing, in terms of accuracy and easy of use.

Storyboard

View more presentations from hirokram.

Accidentally In Love

Accidentally In Love by kram.b

Risk Assessment

We did a risk assessment on our music video, to show we have considered all the potential pitfalls whilst making our video.

One thing that we have to be careful of is when guy number 2 is jumping around trying to put on his trousers.
Also we have to be careful when the guys are jumping in celebration. If they trip and fall then it could be an issue.
We are filming in a park and so we need to be careful of getting in the way of other people and their children as they are public spaces, and also we need to bear in mind whilst we are outside, it'll be pretty cold due to the time of year. Therefore we need to make sure our actors and ourselves stay warm.
We need to be respectful of the people who own the houses that we are filming in as it is their house.

Our Current "To Do" List

So far, we have made good progress on planning out our music video. The first draft of it needs to be in in a few weeks time, so we still need to keep working hard.

Our most outstanding task at the moment is to choose who is going to be the actors for the characters in the film. So far we have 2 potential guys, and we will create a post about that in the not too distant future. It is vital we have it sorted by the end of next week at the very latest though.

Later on today, I will be finishing our storyboard animatic, and uploading it onto this blog. Here is a screen grab of it so far...

To finish it, I need to upload the song onto my school account, and then put it onto the animatic file. Then I will be able to work out where each shot starts and finishs. To get the song onto the school account, I'll be using my USB stick that I can plug a memory card into the back of. I have Accidentally In Love on my phone memory card, so all I have to do is copy the file into my documents.

Lastly, its important that we finish our location scouting by the end of next week as well. We have had a look at park locations so far, and uploaded those photos (see older post). We still need to choose the houses for the inside shots, and then we shall be done on that score.

Counting Crows

The Counting Crows official website:  http://countingcrows.com/

The band comes from San Franisco bay area, and is made up of:
Vocals - Adam Duritiz
Guitar- David Bryson, David Immergluck and Dan Vickery
Keyboard- Jim Bogios

20 million albums sold worldwide, Eight Top 5 singles, and four records having broken the Top 5 on the Billboard 200, Counting Crows success dates back to their 1993 debut release "August And Everything After" and the hit single “Mr. Jones.”

Subsequent albums include Recovering the Satellites (1996), Across A Wire: Live in NY (1998), This Desert Life (1999) and Hard Candy (2002) which featured the band’s Top 10 cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”. The Crows boast another # 1 hit with the song “Accidentally In Love,” which was featured on the Shrek 2 soundtrack, and honoured with nominations in 2005 for a Grammy Award, a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award.

Synopsis

Our music video starts of with four boys waking up and getting out of bed, and the following sequence involves them getting ready and leaving their respective houses and meeting up. It then becomes apparent that these four boys are trying to win over this girl, who is introduced in the next part of the video. The four boys who are posing are the "band", which can be broken down into parts (see other posts), and the girl is merely in for the purpose of a narrative.

The four guys see the girl and then run after her. Each one pops there head around the wall and then they push guy number 1 out to give her the flowers but she refuses and things similar to this keeps happening with other objects like an ice cream and a phone untill towards the end when she starts to warm up to them, and then she invites them into her house and at the very end she goes off with guy number 1.

In between there are a number of shots with just the singer singing and some shots of one of the guys playing the guitars. There is also an alarm clock which rings at the beginning and you see it throughout the music video and different times to show the day progressing.

Location Scouting

Places we need for our video-
- 4 houses ( 4 bedrooms/ front doors)
- Park (swings, bench etc)
- Somewhere to do the shots around the wall (near the start)
- Girls house (front door, lounge).

This shot is of one of the benches in the first park we looked at. It isn't really a suitable location because as the photo shows, it is in the shade and this will affect the shot quality. Also, the background is of iron railings and houses, which is a bit ugly, and doesn't fit in with what we want to achieve.

This picture shows the view in the other direction of the bench in the photo above. It adds to the shade problem, because we can't really avoid it there.

This shot is just of what kind of things there are in the park. The biggest problem is that there aren't any swings in this park, which means we'd have to change park in various shots. This would ruin the continuity however.

This is another bench in the same park. This is better than the other as the background around the bench is much better to look at, if you get the right angle. However, it still suffers from the shade issue.

This shot is basically just to show the things that are in this park that we could use if we choose to film there. Biggest issue is the lack of swings.

Next we went to another park, and this one did have swings. The issue with these ones is the background is a bit ugly, but it could be avoided with a good camera angle.

This is the swings again from the other side, which has a much better view in the background, and is worth serious consideration for our location to film.

This picture shows the rest of the stuff in the same park as the swings. It is never very busy at this park, so if we chose to film there we wouldn't be bothered much by other people.

Character Profiles

Our band name is Articulation.

In our music video, we will have five main characters. This is a breakdown of each of their roles within the video. All of the characters fit in the upper end of the target market group for our video (11-19).

Male character one: Jack Taylor

This character is the first member of the band. He acts as the leader, and also does the singing in the performance parts of the video. It is shown that he is the leader of the group in such situations like when the other three push him out from behind the wall to go up to the female character, and present her with flowers. He trys to act confident, but ends up making a fool of himself.

Male character two: Jonathan Briars

This character is the guitarist in the band, and also features a lot in the performance part of the video. In the narrative part of the video however, he and the other two band members all feature equally.

Male characters three and four: Mark Bramford and Paul Daulby

These two characters are the other two members of the band, and as stated above, feature equally in the narrative parts of the video. They don't appear in the performance areas however, because mainly due to our restrictions on instruments, and there isn't enough to go around. This is subject to change, depending on if we get any other instruments (bass guitar and drums preferably). These two characters generally follow the other two around, and do as they do.

Female character: Alison Binyon

This character is the one that the band is trying to impress and win over. She fits into the "popular teenager" type of appearance, through use of clothes and mannerisms. She starts the video as totally unimpressed with the guys efforts to win her over, but gradually is shown to come round and eventually chooses the leader (male character one).

Possible Actors

Possible actors for our music video are:

Band:

Jack Taylor

We think that Jack has the right kind of look for our music video. He generally dresses how we want him to anyway, and has the right kind of appearance facially.

Paul Daulby

With Paul, he would be better as character three or four, because he is unfamiliar with the lyrics of the song, and isn't as confident as the others infront of the camera.

Jonathan Briars

As with Paul, Jono would be better as character three or four, because he isn't very well versed with the lyrics of the song. Another factor is he is busy often, and as three and four are in less shots than one and two, it requires less of his time.

Mark Bramford

For Mark we are thinking that he would be better off as male character three/ four, or if push comes to shove male character one, as he is very familar with the lyrics and would fit the lead singer image well. The issue however is that he is director, and therefore needs to be behind the camera most of the time, limiting the number of shots he can be in.

Andy Hall

We decided against using Andy for our video, seeing as his appearance lends itself more to a heavier rock style song. Also he struggles to be able to do the lip syncing, so its a waste of time to get him up to speed.

Girl:
Alison Binyon

For Alison, our plan is to use her as first choice for our female character. She fits comfortably in the middle of our target audience range, and has the correct image for our video. All that we need to do is dress her according and she will be perfect. 



Catherine Monk

Catherine is our second choice as the female character, for the sole reason that she needs to be behind the camera for a lot to do the filming, when Mark is busy doing his part as the band.