Filming Log

On the second day of filming we were able to film shots of the artist in and around college. This was effective as the viewer will not be able to tell that it was filmed around college. When filming our priority was to get footage of the artist with a cup of coffee, this was for the line where the lyrics said: ' I need to stay awake'. We were able to get this from different angles so that we could choose the best and use this within the video. This worked well even though the room was crowded and busy we were able to overcome this and shoot good footage.
For the second part of the filming we we able to film outside in a forest, this worked well as we had a different location to add in for the performance part of the music video, therefore holding the attention of the audience, so that the video did not seem repetitive. We had a close up of the artist's face while performing sat by a tree. For the second shot in the forest we had the artist walking towards the camera with the forest surrounding him, this was effective as the shot included forest all around him and the lighting worked well as it was quite dark as it was autumn. However whilst filming this shot we had a problem of the artist's head not appearing within the shot as he is tall. To overcome this we had the artist walk towards the camera then back to the starting point many times, this gave us footage of the artist performing without being out of the shot. Having this meant that there was enough footage to choose from for the music video.

Filming Log

Our first day of filming saw the very beginning of our music video. Our first priority was to get all the car footage shot so that we did not have to bring the car in again, we managed to get a variety of different pieces of successful footage using the car. We tried to use different angles to make the video more varied and not the same thing all the way through.

After getting all the car footage shot we then moved on to getting the shots of which we will be attempting to cut to the beat. This incorporated both our female and male characters and a park bench. We planned to make our characters move up and down the bench to the beat, this will hopefully speed up the video and with some clever editing should make our video look allot more professional and be allot more interesting.

We also decided to take our stills of the characters on the park bench, as this piece of footage should hopefully be strong enough to be the most memorable part of our video and so will help the consumer to recognize the album and artist when watching the video. Therefore we will use this strong relationship to advertise, and sell the artist.

The last piece of filming we shot on our first day was the argument between the male and female on the side of the road. This piece of footage worked well enough thanks to the two actors not being afraid of jumping in and shouting at each other, this made the argument look real which helped make the video look like it was shot and performed by professionals.

Test Footage

We carried out some test footage to see what it would roughly look like in our actual video. We think it was successful and we could make it even more precise if we had more time so we will do that in the actual video.

Auteur Presentation - Chris Cunningham

S1 Auteur Presentation - Chris Cunningham

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Music Video Analysis

S1 Music Video Analysis - Goodwin

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Initial Ideas For A Magazine Advert

Most magazine adverts that we have looked at are generally very basic and tend to include a release date, The artists name and the name of the song/album being released. We intend to use a couple of simple images of the instruments shown above in our Magazine advertisement to sell the pink spiders as an indie pop group. These images will be in black and white along with the rest of the information on the advert. However we plan to show the bands name in pink, this will make the advertisement stand out from the rest and also enhance the image of the band. The image of the instruments will be basic and in black and white. The image of the drums is the sort of angled shot that we would like to re-create. We will also include a bass guitar and an electric guitar in the foreground, these images will also be black and white. The inspiration for this idea came from the Radio 1 Live lounge album front cover (above and left). We really like the way the instrument cases are stacked against each other, this keeps with the conventions of the genre of music we are advertising for.

Production Meeting

» Tuesday 13th October 4:10pm :

Shooting:
-Filming Car Shots & Subway Shots in light if possible.
-M11/A14 Flyovers
-Non-Busy Cambridge street
-Fenstanton Subway

Equipment Needed:
-Tripod
-Camera
-Car
-Device to play song to lipsync with
-Storyboard

Actors:
-Main Artist

» Wednesday 14th October or Lessons

Shooting:
-Scenes on park bench
-Scenes involving female character
-Window Shoots
-Coffee Shop Shot

Equipment Needed:
-Tripod
-Camera
-Coffee Cup
-Sugar
-Device to play song to lipsync with
-Storyboard

Actors:
-Main Artist
-Female Character

Initial Storyboard

This is a animatic/storyboard for the shots of our music video in chronological order.

Auteur Spike Jonze

S1 Autuer Presentation - Spike Jonze

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Music Video Presentation - Goodwin

S1 Music Video Presentation - Goodwin

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Jonathan Glazer (Auteur Research)

S1 Auteur Presentation - Jonathan Glazer

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Music Video Analysis (Goodwin)

S1 Music Video Analysis - Goodwin

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Magazine Advert

I have looked at existing magazine adverts for popular artists. Most of them generally have little information (essentials e.g. release date) and a plain design or large photo of the artist or graphic design.

This one is for a similar band to The Pink Spiders.
It clearly shows the band's name at the top and release date at the bottom, it does not say much about the music. This one is for an album so for a single we could include the name of the song. This advert also includes the logo of the record label.
We will include the name of the band, the name of the song, the release date and website. We will use light/bright colours to relate to the song and the genre as it is up-beat and energetic. We will include a visual of the artist/band as the main focus which will take up most of the page.
Our target audience is teenagers so we will tailor our advert towards that age range. We will choose a modern style and colours, fonts etc to achieve this.

Teacher Feedback on Pitch and Blog

The feedback I wrote down for the track you originally pitched for stated that more thought needed to go into the magazine ad and the digipak, that is still the case to some degree. It is essential that you sketch out your ideas for both products so that the examiner can see a development from your initial ideas.
Your ideas for the new track are stronger and I really like the editing techniques that you are proposing.
You all need to add in the Auteur and Goodwin presentations that you did in the first few weeks, they are on slideshare.net (search under S1-Goodwin and S1-Auteur).
Also some more individual analysis of videos that influence you would enhance your blog further.
Take a look at blog of the week for further inspiration.

Editing Technique

After looking at The Franz Ferdinand video - Can't Stop Feeling, we had a discussion about it and have decided to use similar techniques for the section in the song when it says 'Say you'll stay'. While this is said we would have...(insert)

Driving

We have decided that aswell as following on foot we will follow each other in cars. We will use mostly the perspective of just a single car to include the artist, however we will have certain shots from outside the car using different perspectives. We plan to use various different shots from inside and outside the car. Above is a shot from the matrix reloaded. An over the shoulder shot including the driver and front passenger, we will use similar shots except there will be only 1 person in the front. We also plan to use close ups and extreme close ups on different parts of the car. The image of a speedometer is taken from the opening scene of 'The Transporter', we plan to try and mimic this image except we will be filming the revolution counter as we don't plan to be driving over the speed limits due to road restrictions. Therefore this shot for us will work better with the rev counter building and dropping. The still of a wing mirror is taken from the film 'The Quantum Of Solace' we again will try to mimic this shot to show the car following, and to introduce the notion of looking. The still of the front of a BMW is taken from the film 'Ronin', we plan to use a similar shot to illustrate the front of the artists car.

Pink Spiders - Truth Or Dare (CHOSEN SONG)

We have chosen this song to be our final song. However we are merging the ideas from The XX - Heart skipped a beat with the Truth or Dare ideas to make it more narrative and more successful.
We are going to experiment with abstract visuals by making the artist jump to the beat of the song via the footage. We are going to include the narrative a boy chasing a girl after cheating.

Some ideas for shots:

Small car chase
performance of artist/band in enclosed location (GRUNGY)
dance routine
shots of interaction of main artist with the person he is chasing towards the end to show the happy ending.

(ESTABLISHING SHOT OF HOUSE/BUILDING)
Was it easy all along? (CLOSE UP OF ARTIST LOOKING OUT OF WINDOW PERFORMING SONG)
As the days went on and on (SHOT OF MOTORWAY FROM FLYOVER)
Going through the motions (WHEELS ON CAR)
Holding on to better years. (CLOSE UP OF HANDS ON STEERING WHEELS)
'Cause now all you'll hear from me (SHOT OF ARTIST DRIVING)
Is a familiar melody
From the wires to the speakers to your tired ears

So truth or dare (PERFORMANCE IN GRUNGY LOCATION UNDER LIGHT)
Let me hear it
Say you'll stay
Like you mean it
Or don't let go
'Til it feels like nothing's changed and nothing's wrong

With the things you tried to take
That I need to stay awake (SHOT IN COFFEE SHOP WITH A CUP OF COFFEE INFRONT)
That I need to trade the action for the old routine

So truth or dare
Let me hear it
Say you'll stay
Like you mean it
Or don't let go
'Til it feels like nothing's changed and nothing's wrong
'Cause day by day
She's a little
Closer still
To the middle
So kiss and kill me
A little more and more until you're gone

'Cause every single minute I'm drowning out there
And every single argument's endless (ARTIST AND FEMALE ARGUING)
And I know every indiscretion is breaking your heart
And every bad decision is defenseless

Truth or dare
Let me hear it
Say you'll stay
Like you mean it
Or don't let go
'Til it feels like nothing's changed and nothing's wrong
'Cause day by day
She's a little
Closer still
To the middle
So kiss and kill me
A little more and more until you're gone

Cutting To The Beat

We will try to cut to the beat during our song to give the video a faster pace. To do this we will mix different shots of the same location but with the artist in different places around the scene. Below is a video of a past media group that have also used this method in the first 11 seconds of the video. The artist jumps to different sitting positions on the bench and because this fits with the beat it works particuly well. Other parts of the video are not done quite so successfully, however this group was restricted to college grounds and we will not be.

New Music Video

After not obtaining our first choice of music video we have decided to go back to "Truth Or Dare" by "The Pink Spiders". This was one of our original top 3 choices and so we already have some ideas for this video. We also have some locations for shooting lined up. However we will not keep our exact original idea as we have had more time to concider our options. Unfortunately there is no music video of this song, but the A copy of the song is embedded below.