Locations

Below are the multiple locations of which we will use within our music video:

Primrose Hill:

 The first location of which we want to use is Primrose Hill which is located in London on the North side of Regents Park. We particularly chose this location as we wanted to have the city skyline of London in the background to set the location of the piece. We also wanted to have the city in the background to juxtapose the wide open nature we see in the shots. It would contrast the busy, chaotic streets of London to the tranquil, calm setting of the park that we see. This would be where the performance shots of the artist will take place and the setting itself will allow the audience to differentiate the artist to the actors of who are seen throughout the piece.

Drama Room:
Our second location we want to feature in our music video would be a drama room at Glenthorne High School due to it being easily accessable and allows us to shoot certain shots that we wish to see in the piece. By using a drama room it will allows us to use the lighting which is set up in there to have the room in darkness and have one spotlight on to create a dramatic effect, highlighting the actors and dancers when performing but to also highten the atmosphere of isolation, frustration and intensity which will link clearly to the concept of the video. The situations that will be shot in this location will be the interrogation scene and the dance sequences.

Gym:
The third location would be a friends home gym where we could access the punching bag that they have in order to shoot the shots where we see a male working out. We wanted to place the person on their own in an isolated enviroment to allow the audience to be clearly focused on the actor's performance so that the emotions and feelings of violence and anger are felt by the audience.

Office:
Our final location that we wanted to use is an office where the actor could also stand by the window to have him pacing up and down and staring out of it. The reason we wanted to have someone in an office enviroment was to show the stress and anxiety that somone of the working class may feel. We wanted the audience to sympathise with this character and by using this sort of location they can maybe relate to the stress that certain people may be going through in today's society. On the left is a gif showing the views from the window from the office.








Additional locations:

During filming our idea's have changed. For instance certain scenarios have been taken out (the office and gym) and we have added in the location of a dance studio which will show the artist rehearsing a dance. This location has allowed us to shoot interesting shots such as seeing the artist performing in front of and in the mirror which will really interest the audience and viewers I feel.

Storyboard

Story boarding:

In our groups we started work on creating our storyboards for which we will use to give us guidelines to what we will film when it comes to making our music video. We discussed what type of shots would be used in order to create an interesting visual effect but also what shots are conventional to our chosen genre of 'Disco Pop.' We decided that close ups would be most popular in our video as this is what is most conventional and it reveals the facial expressions of the artist and actors seen in the video. It is key that the emotions are clearly shown to the audience as our concept is mostly based around the emotions and feelings of the people seen within the video. As well as this we wanted to have a diverse range of camera shots in our video such as birds eye and long shots which would be accompanied by a variety of camera movements such as crabs, tracks and tilts. By creating the storyboard it allowed us to piece the video together more easily as we had it right in front of us so then we could swap certain shots around and experiment with the order of the video. On the left are two images which shows me working and also the group as a whole working to create our storyboards.

Here are simple scans of our storyboards:

 

After completing our storyboard we took photo's of each shot and uploaded them onto final cut. From here we made an animatic to work out the timing and placement of the shots within the music video:

Concept

Teacher Assessment (research and planning)

After making the changes that my peer had set me after marking my blog I made all of the necessary changes and then my teachers marked it again to see where further improvements could be made and what area's were going well. I will take on all feedback and make the changes accordingly in order to achieve the best possible grade. Below is the feedback I was given:

Image Annotation

Thinking about what we want the costume and image of the artist to look like we considered what exactly is conventional to our genre of Disco Pop but also what the song makes us picture whilst listening to it. My initial thought when listening to the song was an indie/ hipster kind of look with an edge to it, to almost go with the song itself. I thought the artist would look like this as from when watch previous Rudimental music videos you can see this sort of style shining through. Below you can see gifs which show a variety of different outfits which show everything the artist would consist of from accessories to footwear. The image that is conventionally seen within dance pop videos are of that which possess it's own style so that the audience can identify the artist as the image of a singer is key when a stylist comes to dressing them as they have to have that sense of style of which the artist's fan will recognise and are familiar with. The colours were also taken into consideration when thinking about the clothing and image as they had to not only show personal style but also had to fit in with the song, video and also represents the mood and atmosphere.

 

Lyric Annotation

Song details

 
After spending a long time choosing our song we finally came to the conclusion of using 'Not Giving In' by Rudimental. We chose this song as we feel it really fits in with our chosen genre of 'Dance Pop' as it has an almost rave element to it which is what we were looking for. In addition to this the song meets the criteria of being a British artist and the song can't have a music video to it already so then the video is entirely our own interpretation. Below is a clip of our initial thoughts when listening through the song. We thought of things such as having fast paced editing which would match the beat of the song successfully creating an energetic mood for the audience to enjoy which would contrast the start of the song where longer shots will be used as the song itself is more slow at the start. We thought of using a range of close ups and extreme long shots with the accompaniment of crabs to circle the artist. As well as this we thought of a few narratives that could be played within the video such as a domestic abuse relationship where the two characters aren't giving in to one another, a person is in an interrogation room and a stressed person feel pressure and not giving into it. Of course these are just a combination of ideas at this moment in time so we will experiment and see what works well together so we can create an overall effective music video which follows all the conventions of our chosen genre of 'Disco Pop'. Below is a video manoeuvring around our mind map of initial ideas:

 

Technical Tutorials

Green Screen Tutorial:
Below is a music video we filmed to the song 'Bet You Look Good' by Arctic Monkeys as a whole class. To record this specific video all of it was done by using green screen technology which is a way of creating visual effects such as the background to add a certain effect to the video. Once we filmed all the footage we got into our groups and then edited it all together using final cut to create one final piece.

Here is our groups video:


Below is an image of how the classroom was set up when shooting:

Reflection on using green screen:
When using green screen I learned a lot due to this being the first time actually using this piece of equipment. I learnt how to set up the green screen itself as well as all the lighting. The lighting needs to be positioned so it gives the best coverage over the green screen and the band. I learnt how there needs to be hardly any creases or shadows on the green screen itself as when the effect is placed on to it when being edited it wont appear as effective, which in turn makes the video appear less professional. As well as this you can use multiple cameras which are positioned in different places to record at the same time so all the footage can be taped in less time but as we used a figrig we realised that in certain parts of footage you can see parts of the person using the figrif come into frame, not allowing you to use it.

Evaluation of video:
When first watching the video you can clearly see that the syncing of the music needs to be much better syned to the person who is lipsyncing as it makes the video look really unprofessional and just not a very good music video overall. Adding to this, it would have looked better if the chosen background image filled the whole frame so then it would take up the whole space and would have black lines down the side of the shot. Overall, I feel more time needed to be spent on this in order to make sure everything was perfect and in sync, however, taking into consideration that this was the first time for my group using the green screen and learning how to actually place a background image into the piece, I think it works and looks really good, the only really negative thing is that the music and lip syncing doesn't match up. But from doing this task it goes to show how key attention to detail is and that it is all about practicing, learing and developing our skills.

Photoshop:
Below is a short screencast that shows how we learnt to add a blur effect and also play with the hue/saturation of an specific image.

From doing this task firstly it was my first time ever using the software of Photoshop so it was very important that I picked up on things that I needed to know and what will be usefull in the future when it comes to making our digipacks. The main thing I learnt is that when setting up your page it has to be on custom preset and the width has to be 297 and the height has to be 210. The resolution has to be 300 pixels per inch and no different so the image is at its best. I found out how layers are important when wanting to add different effects and to see different things to create an overall image which is what the next task of this tutorial was (see below). I learnt that you can duplicate the layer by clicking on layer at the top of the screen and then duplicate. To add a certain effect to the image you click on filters and then select a specific one, once chosen you can alter the strength of the filter in order to manipulate and change your image. Here is my final image I created:



After learning how to insert layers and play around with multiple tools on the software we then had a go in our groups at making our very own cd cover. We went out and took photo's of me against a plain background as it would then be easier to replace it with a different image if we wanted to. We used close ups specifically as when researching album covers that go with our genre we found that on pretty much all of them close ups of the artist(s) are used in order to really show them off to the audience and allowing them to see facial expressions. We chose to use a really visual background to the cover instead of a plain background so it immediately made it look more interesting. We played around with the rotation of the image on what would be the front and back to then go with the title we gave it of 'Making Waves' due to it resembling this. We used a striking font for the title so it really stood out against the background image and the close up of the artist which is another main convention of a Disco Pop album cover. The colours used were purposefully chosen in order to fit in with the background and to create an overall effective image so it would in turn engage the audience. We wanted to represent the theme of the album so by the simple use of venturing onto google images to find a background image this set us off to create a mellow and almost natural mood. The use of the two faces on the back of the cover is to obviously show off the artist more but it allowed us to put the tracklist on in an interesting way as its not just a plain background with the songs titles, it has effective images on there which almost create the illusion that the artist is staring at them. Instead of just using random song titles we were professional and tried to think of songs in which could relate to the title in some way and fit in with the overall mood of the album. If we had more time we would have added in a spine to the cover, a barcode to the back and placed on a record label to create an illusion of a real album cover.

Roles

Roles:

Director: All share
Filming: All share
Editing: All share
Storyboard: All plan and annotate
fill out the storyboard so that when it comes to filming there is a clear indication of what needs to be filmed such as shot types, camera movements and any additional information and also when editing we know what order the shots go in.
Location: Rachele
Finding a suitable location that fits the genre of Dance Pop. Getting permission from whoever owns the location. 
Costume: Scott
finding and providing suitable costumes for the actors and genre of music. 
Make-up: Fiona
gathering the right make-up; colours that will fit in with the video itself as well as representing the artist.
Props: Rachele
finding props for the music video. Getting permission to use props or buying them. 
Lighting: Fiona
bringing appropriate lighting to fit the mood of the song. 
Music: Scott
bringing along music and a music player to the location and also providing the digital copy for the music video edit. 
Actors: Rachele and Scott
will perform in the video if need to.
Special effects: Rachele
any additional visual effects which might need to be added during the editing stage.

Initial Ideas

Below is a mind map of all the initial ideas we, as a group came up with when first getting together. We came up with doing the genre of 'Disco Pop' as we all wanted to do a genre of which we already knew things about so that we could include our own knowledge of what normally associates with this particular genre. We all said what we most commonly listen to which is how we resulted in choosing 'Disco Pop' as our genre. When thinking about what artist's were associated with 'Disco Pop' we went on to YouTube to browse through artist's of whom we thought came under this genre, we watched an array of videos and then we researched them on the Internet to see exactly what genre they were. We then analysed a range of music video's and album covers which would help when making our own digipack and music video when we finally choose our song as we gathered valuable conventions of each so we knew exactly what needed to be included to make it easily identified as something from the 'Disco Pop' genre.

Peer assessment (research and planning)

Below you can see a feedback sheet which another member of my classed filled out when reviewing my blog. You can see what I did well and what needs to be changed and worked on, which I will do immediately. At the bottom of the page you can see over what went well's (www) and even better if's (ebi).