Post-FIlming Thoughts

After looking through my footage, I have decided to make some changes to my overall plan. The narrative is going to change slightly, but it wont effect any of my scheduling. Initially the narrative was about a girl who was bullied at school and was walking away and going somewhere where she could 'breathe'.
I have decided to change it to the girl mourning the loss of a friend, and so the video will have 'past' and 'present' footage. The past footage will be shot on a handheld camera and will be two girls vlogging (video logging).
My reasoning for this is because when i was looking through the footage from my first two-day shoot, i realised that i didn't have as much footage as i thought i had. And the footage i did have on it's own would have been fairly boring. I think with this footage interspersed would make it more interesting and wouldn't affect the narrative too much.
I would also include a shot of the girl at a church yard looking at a grave. Im aware that it would be really rude and disrespectful to film on a random persons grave, so i have chosen to film at my brothers grave. His gravestone is very big and pretty, which would help for the effect of the shot.

Lighting: 
I was lucky to be filming on a fairly sunny day, which meant that my shots are all fairly bright, the only problem i may have is continuity with lighting. Days are getting darker now, with it being winter, so i may have to improvise with lighting techniques. This may mean that i will have to shoot for more days but shorter hours because the day gets darker earlier. Another way to overcome this would be to look into getting some sort of industrial or builder's lights.

Locations:
This links to the lighting, but filming in the woods may get more difficult the closer to winter we get. There are issues with lighting, the days are darker anyway, but the trees are blocking any sun that may be out. Also, there is an issue with the leaves changing colour which will effect the continuity of the video.

Equiptment:
I was using a tripod trolly which can be used to make tracking shots, however i discovered that the wheels didn't work very well on roads or natural ground which are naturally bumpy. In an attempt to overcome the bumping i tried laying down cardboard and putting the wheels on that, but it was still slightly bumpy so i wasn't able to use the shot i would have preferred.

Digipak: Planning

Front Cover

This is a basic plan of the front cover of my digipak. i will be using the same location as in the music video, with the main character sat on the chair. At the moment im not sure how i want her posed in terms of looking at the camera, or not, smiling or not smiling.

Back Cover

The back cover has the same angle, but there is no girl in this. The song titles will fit around the outline of the tree. I will either list them as shown, or use a bulletproof etc to seperate the songs and have them carry on on the same line. Like this:

Filming Plan

Basic Plan

Digipak: Font

Font 1 (chosen font)

Font 2
 

Font 3



Font 4
 

Font 5

 

Locations

My first location is a public footpath in the countryside. this would work well because it is very pretty but also is not a very busy place, which means I will not have to stop filming whilst people walk past. It is mostly used by dog walkers and occasionally farm vehicles.

The location is fairly easy to get to, the only problem with it is that if it has rained the night before or that morning then the path will be extremely muddy, which would make walking on it very difficult and potentially dangerous.

My second location is called St John's Lock. It's quite a busy lock on nice days, however, when it is sunny but cold it doesn't get that much traffic. The only issue with using the lock is that im not sure whether I would need to get permission from the lock keeper. a short walk from the lock is a field with the river running next to it, this is a public footpath and I may also use this because it would mean I would be able to use the river without worrying about asking for permission.

My final location is the woods, this area is easy to get to by car and on foot which makes it practical. There are about three public footpaths running through the middle of the woods, with the very wooded area's being private property, they are strictly private because of the animals that live within the bushes etc. and the area's are also widely used for hunting and shooting. Which could make them potentially dangerous. I would have to find out whether anyone would be shooting here before the day of filming as a safety precaution. My plan was to also bring a chair and a table into this area which may be quite difficult as the entrance is a small path, however im sure there will be a way around that.

Digipak Initial Planning

Actress

I chose to use Letitia because she fits the style of video that I wanted to film. I specifically wanted a girl who was blonde and confident, as she would be the only person featuring in the video.

Letitia and I are good friends, which I thought might make the filming process a lot easier and would be easier to arrange times to film etc.

These are some ideas for costume, I really want my actress wearing a dress, but at the moment im not sure how dressy I want her to look.

I really like the casual blue and pink dress, it would work for maybe the school scenes, but I also think that the black dress would contrast with the various settings really well, and when she takes her shoes off that could be very dramatic.

My Artist

The Lost Ones

 

Very well established

Five members who all play their own instruments

 
 Comfortable in the music industry - dont need to be on the cover of every album and in all their music videos

Magazine Analysis

Blink 182 - Neighborhods

 

 Album artowork shows artist name - first thing to be read on the page
The artist name is then repeated lower down
Showing some of the hit songs featured on the advert
Date of release text is same size as album name and artist name

 

You Me At Six - Hold Me Down

 

The design looks like an explosion coming from the artist name - exciting, make the album feel epic

Release date stands out in big yellow writing

Website is at the bottom of the advert

"You me at six" and "Hold me down" are next to each other, so you automatically associate the artist name with the album name

Panic! At The Disco - Pretty Odd

 

 

Artis name is the first thing you read

The whole advert is very out of the oridinary, meaning its eyecatching

The yellow of the middle square contrasts with the purple drawing the eye

 



Initial Script

Music Video Credits

I like the idea of having credits of some sort at the end of my music video, i got inspiration from some of these:

Although, it is mainly done by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

Music Video Pitch

Treatment

My music video will be entirely narrative based, which highlights the bands popularity because they do not have to appear in the video for fans to know that it is their song. The song was written because the lead singer was bullied when he was in school and he wanted to make something to tell everyone that they will get through it etc. The message of the song is ‘just keep breathing’ and so I wanted to keep this theme for the music video.

The concept is that the girl is bullied at school or has a hard life at home, and she goes somewhere to escape and ‘just keep breathing’. The video will start with a small backstory about the girl, with various images of her at home or school looking upset and introspective – daydreaming about running away to her place. Then she will leave the house, and there will be a montage of the girl walking, running of sitting in different places, as though she is on a quest of sorts to find a place where she can relax and be herself and be happy. When she finally finds that place, it will be the first time we see the girl smile.

I want the locations to all be very different so that it feels like the girl has travelled a long way to get to where she can breathe. For instance, one location could be a busy high street and another could be Countryside River. If possible, I also want to go to an abandoned warehouse or building of some sort, and then contrast that with a very grand, estate home. The girl’s home should be very average; I don’t want to have the stereotypically ‘poor and depressed’ storyline, because it seems very cliché. I need a house which has a large garden so I can get a mid-shot of the house and have enough room to see the girl walking away from her house.

I wanted the video to be very arty and use lots of fancy camera techniques, but I’m aware that it may be hard to do things such as panning whilst keeping the camera flat, so I will either have to think of a way that I can do this without spending lots of money on hiring a steady cam, or settle with the video being handheld.

The girls costume will be basic but girly, she will probably be wearing a dress, although I want to make sure that the shoes are pretty and still practical because when she gets to the place where she can finally breathe, the whole concept is that she finally feels at home and so she takes her shoes off. So there will be a lot of close up of her shoes. They need to be practical because there will be a close up of her taking her shoes off and I don’t want it to take a long time to film and also I want it to look easy.

Digipaks Analysis

McFly - Motion In The Ocean

 

 

Key Conventions

Logo

Water theme (Which links with album title)

 

Appeal To Audience

The band are on the front cover

 

About The Artist

Shows them as fun and young

Colourful

 

 

Fall Out Boy - Folie A Deux

Key Conventions

Artists title and album name on front cover and cd

Colours

 

Appeal To Audience

Eccentric

 

About The Artist

Dark and mysterious

 

Paramore - Brand New Eyes

 

 

Key Conventions

Butterfly theme

Colour

Band logo

 

Appeal To Audience

Butterfly links to lyrics in song

Back cover from lead singers house

= feeling like they know the band well

 

About The Artist

Comfortable in their positions - dont need a picture of themselves

Not trying to be other people - using the frames from lead singers house

 

 

Target Audience

To decide what the target audience for my music video would be I looked at the fans that the band I have chosen already have. The bass player of the band is fairly big on YouTube for Vlogging, and so I watched some of his videos of them at shows etc and found that they mostly attract teenage girls. I then looked at other bands within the same genre and found that they also attract teenage girls.

So, my target audience is teenage girls, around my age so 16-20, who are very much into music and youtube, or other social networking sites.

Song Choices

Over the summer I've been thinking of possible song choices, and mostly trying to think of unsigned or unknown artists that I like listening to. Here are some that I've come across and have some ideas for:

We The Kings - Any Other Way

 

We The Kings - Just Keep Breathing

 

Paramore - One Of Those Crazy Girls

A Day in the Life of JC Caylen

This video was shot by American Youtuber JC Caylen, on a GoPro. I really like the whole style and simplicity of the video. It wasn't shot as a music video, but it ended up looking really good. I like the idea that I could incorporate the 'day in the life' theme with some performance scenes.

Another way I could use this, is to have the same idea of a day in the life but on a handheld camera, so the artist is vlogging something.

Making a Music Video

So, for our first mini project we were given the task to make/recreate a music video. We were told the first thirty seconds had to be shot-for-shot as close as possible in terms of editing, camera angles and movements etc. I worked in a group with three others and we decided to make a spoof of 'Thrift Shop' by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

We chose this song, because we could have a bit of fun whilst making it, and it was fairly easy to mimic. We ended up doing just over a minute as shot-for-shot perfect as was possible within a week. Here's what we ended up with:

This task allowed us to get the hang of what it would be like when filming our own music videos, and because it was such a small group we all got a go at directing, editing, filming etc. It was a lot of fun, but also showed me that it was possible to make something half decent within a week. The rest of the project is a lot less daunting now.

Pop Rock Music Videos

Mcfly - That Girl

 

The video used low key lighting and a dirty garage setting which fits with the style of music well. I liked the comic side of the video, showing Harry trying to get food out of the vending machine without paying money, Danny falling off the tyres and Tom tripping over. Also there is an even mix of narrative and peformance footage throughout which shows that although they are a band, they do still have fun. The performance side of the vidoe highlights the fact that they play their own instruments. The music video narrative fits with the lyrics, in that there is a girl they are all going after and at the end she is with another man.

We The Kings - Check Yes Juliet

 

The music video for this shows a girl with controlling parents who dont like Travis and are trying to keep the couple apart. It is a conventional theme for the parents to not like the lead singer of the band, the idea of them being rebellious and not fitting middle class conventions. There is a lot of low key lighting which is common for pop rock videos. Much like in the McFly video, the band are seen to be performing in a garage, which is stereotypical of pop rock bands.

Music Video Planning!

Music Genres
I want to focus on pop-rock and pop music for the music video, as these are my favourite types of music genres to listen to.

Pop-rock music videos tend to be edited in time to the music or the lyrics, depending on whether the music video tells the narrative of the song. The setting is typically in a garage or 'grunge' scene as this is stereotypically where bands start out, practicing in their parents garage. Im leaning towards this music genre beacuase i tend to listen to that sort of music anyway, and i like the variety they offer. Although there are conventions within this genre, it is not unusual for a pop-rock music video to break conventions. Pop-rock artists include:




We The Kings

McFly

Room 94

 

Pop music videos are typically very colourful, fun and light-hearted. There is an emphasis on the artist's good looks, which means that if the artist is female their costume will tend to be very revealing to show off how she looks. I would like to do this style of music video because I think it would leave more room for me to be creative and would give a lot of choice as to song choice. Pop artists include:

Passenger

The Wanted

Janoskians