Final Days of Filming

We have filmed the majority of our music video, but now there are only a few things left. Due to timings and other difficulties, we weren't able to film our extras, but we are hoping to get this all done within the next week or so.

The weather has generally been on our side during this process. When we filmed our singer, it only rained once but the rest of the day was perfect for what we wanted. 

We plan on filming next Saturday (6th December) from about midday on-wards. I thought it would be a good idea to check the weather forecast well in advance, because we don't want any nasty surprises. 
I went onto the BBC website and took this screenshot:

Although we have checked in advance, the only problem is that it isn't hugely accurate. The good thing is that it will only be cloudy, but there is a chance that this may change over the course of the next week. 

The temperature will only be 7 degrees Celsius, so we will tell our actors and extras to bring extra clothing for when they aren't on set. 

-Janet

Magazine Advert Wordle

Making a Wordle for my first ancillary task has helped me to really think about what will need to be included in the final product. 

By writing out these words, I have now got an understanding as to how I should go about thinking of the staging, proxemics, mise-en-scene, and lighting. After doing research into music magazine adverts, I will have to think about the rule of thirds, giving me enough space to fit not only the main image on the page, but also the masthead and other conventions such as the album release date, and possibly some reviews as well. 

-Janet

Audience Feedback

Analysing Imagine Dragons

We thought that it would be a good idea to look at some music videos by Imagine Dragons, so we could compare ours to it. 

One of the reasons we thought this would be beneficial, is because we were worried about our singer not having enough screen time as The Singer, rather than the character. By watching "It's Time" has shown us that the singer in Imagine Dragons doesn't need to have loads of screen time as himself, because he is also the character. In the Imagine Dragons video, the first time we see him singing is about a minute into the song. 

Another reason why we chose this particular video, is because of the use of slow motion. We want to use slow motion in the establishing shot of our music video, so we have now seen how effective it can look in a music video.

It's also shown us how we should look at light and dark. Most of the video above will have been edited to be darker, as there seems to be a hint of blue to maybe connote coldness and danger. We are thinking of editing one of our clips to make it lighter, to suggest happiness at the ending. 

-Janet

Natural Lighting

When out filming our singer, there was a particular moment we noticed that natural lighting can have an amazing effect on the filming. 

This screenshot shows the sunlight giving the effect of a Light Leak even though it's all natural. This was a great boost in our esteem, especially when we edited it together and realized that we had also managed to sync the lyrics in time with the music perfectly. 

We also have a part when the lyrics go

"When the sky turns grey..."

For this, we decided it would look good to use our knowledge from the lighting workshop, and create almost a silhouette against the sky. 

This is an example of how our music video is illustrating the lyrics, to make it look more powerful.

-Janet

The Editing Process

Having filmed all the scenes with our singer, the final scene, and the dream scene, all we are left with now is the chase scenes in the forest with The Amazons. This aspect of the process so far has been the most troublesome, because we were hoping to have around 15 extras to do this. The problem was that many weren't available on the weekend we were hoping to film, and the fact that we ran over time when filming our singer. 
At the moment I'm not too worried, because we have got a lot of footage to work with and edit, and we are now starting to make some real progress. We had trouble at first with using Premier Pro, because we weren't used to it, and also because it often froze, or we couldn't find the footage, which took up a lot of time. 

Editing the final scene

The scene in the image is a different ending to how we originally planned it. We thought it would be effective to have the protagonist tripping, and then the rose is picked up by The Girl, but we only see her face right at the end. We still have the Amazon in the last clip before having a blackout. 

The hardest thing for me, has been trying to organize loads of people, which is something that came up in our initial presentation to the class. Secondly, I've found that syncing the song with the miming of our actor to be difficult, as there are some parts where it doesn't match up. We may have to film this again to make it really clear, but at the moment I'm hoping that we will find a way!

-Janet. 

Ancillary Tasks: Research

This is an example of a digipak template. It will help us to see what photos must go where, such as the front cover, back cover, and the inside sections. 

-Janet

Ancillary Tasks

Costume Ideas

Actor/Character Profile UPDATE

As Eddie was too busy to be our main character, we have now changed to... 

Nathanael. 

We chose him because he is available more often than our original protagonist and lead singer, as timing is a really crucial part of the process now, so we need to know that whoever is going to be our main actor will be able to come when needed. This is why we felt it was necessary to change now, before filming, rather than having to start all over again. 

-Janet

Filming Schedules

This was our initial time schedule for filming. It isn't in as much detail, because I wanted to plan it out first, before sending it to those involved in the music video. 

The only difficulty we will find with filming on Saturday, is that it is now getting dark really quickly. We are planning on filming all the scenes with the "Amazons", as there will be more of them and it will mean that they won't be waiting around. We are going to be filming a lot of running scenes, so we will try to get as many takes as possible, so we will try and avoid running over onto Sunday.

There are some people who can't make it on the weekend we are planning to film, but the nightmare scene with the "Amazons" faces will be filmed separately, in the school drama studio. This will either be during school times, or after school, so if our extras still want to be involved, they have this chance to experience some really cool shots with the LED lights we experimented with in the Lighting Workshop. 

-Janet

Lighting Workshop

After school, we stayed behind to understand how to use and experiment with the LED lights. I have seen them being used before, but I haven't been able to actually use them to create my own vision of what I want it to look like.

Although these were experimental, it will really come in handy when we do the scenes of the "Amazons" in the nightmare scene. 

-Janet

Copyright Permission Letter 2

We received an email back, telling us that the previous email address wasn't the right one to send our enquiry to. We then sent another email back, and are now waiting for a reply. 

-Janet

Practice Shots

We went out and experimented with the camera, the sort of shots that we were thinking of using in our music video. This task was really useful because we didn't use a tripod for any of them, and learnt that, especially with the zooms, we will need it. We also realised that some of the shots can be edited to be faster or slower, such as the over shoulder shots. 

-Janet

Risk Assessment

Representation

As I have said before, we were hoping to not stereotype too much in our final product. However, it has occured to me through my research that our "Amazons" will be based on stereotypes. Many of the photos used on my mood board on Pinterest are what we expect tribal people to wear, but a lot of it has been made to look fashionable. I also noticed that most of the images were of females, but I was initially planning of having a mix of both genders. Obviously, it will depend on who we can get, and I think when it comes to filming, if there are more girls than guys it won't be intended that way.

The Girl will be blonde, which is a stereotype often used to indicate that she is a "dumb blonde". This is not the case in our video. The point we were hoping to put across is that she is pure, or she is like the light. This links back to Claude Levi-Strauss' argument about binary opposition. At the point in our music video when she will come in, it will be the time that he needs to be shown the way through the darkness.

-Janet

Target Audience Survey (Results)

We decided it would be a good idea to create a survey on SurveyMonkey, in order to really see who our target audience will be. The link to the questions can be found here...

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/F2XV3QS

We then posted it on Facebook, and on Twitter, and asked people to take part in the survey, so we could get a wide range of answers. These are our results...




We found that most of our audience who participated in the survey were girls, aged between 16-20. Our initial target audience age range was 16-26, so we weren't too far off. This has shown us that the 16-20 age group will be our aspirational audience, where as people aged 21-26 will be our secondary audience.
The majority like rock music, and we feel that from their opinions on rock music videos, our idea will fit in quite well with what they want to see. 

-Janet

Actor/Character Profile

This is Eddie. 

He was going to be our singer, and the protagonist of the narrative. We thought he would make a good choice because he likes the band, Imagine Dragons, and knows the song we are going to use quite well. However, due to timings and schedules, it has been difficult to use him as the main character. So we are thinking of using someone else who isn't quite as busy, especially on weekends. 

This is Lucy.

She will be The Girl in our music video. We thought she would be a good choice because has similar music interests to the song we are using, and I know that she will be able to act the part well. She also has a red dress which will be ideal for the dream sequence. (Also, she is blonde, which is what we were thinking for The Girl.) 

-Janet

Story boarding

Above are our images of our final story board! It took absolutely ages to complete, due to timings, as well as the fact that we decided to go with probably the most complicated idea for an A-level music video in the history of ever. 

However, I'm glad that we finished it, as it taught us that planning these sorts of things is crucial, and also it meant that we could really think each part of the song through in detail, so there would be no missing gaps in the editing process. 

Next, we are going to have to start filming, and I think that by doing a story board, we can use it as a base, and when we are actually doing the practical side of it, we can properly visualize what's going on so it won't matter too much if we change something from the initial story board. 

-Janet