Sunday, 20 December 2015

Filming Day 5- Location 4

Today, we filmed a few mirror shots using a dressing table mirror and a smaller make up mirror. We used two mirrors as we felt that it showed that I had two different sides to my personality (she is her own demon) so we are abiding by the hypodermic needle theory by injecting them with information to make them think a certain way.  In addition in these shots we have used the rule of thirds as i take up a large proportion of the frame.


Saturday, 12 December 2015

Filming Day 4

Today we started filming the indoor shots at our third location, which was my house! Before filming we sat down and decided to re-storyboard the shots for this scene because we decided to incorporate parallel shots of me and Tara (stillshots below). The shots were inspired by '-A' from Pretty Little Liars and is linked to the figure shown in the forest scene. We have storyboarded the images to flash to show that I am my own demond. When it comes to editing we aim to use a monochrome colour palette, sticking to the conventions of an indie music video.


Friday, 11 December 2015

Creative Decision Making


  • Colour- dulling down the colour in the shot however bringing the red out in red riding hoods cape
  • combination of FKA Twigs-Papi Pacify and Banks brain 

Update Vlog- slight change of idea

Thursday, 10 December 2015

Filming Day 3: Studio shots

Today, we stayed after school to film our studio shots. As we were unable to find a way to recreate the effect in the Puma advert we decided to replace it with shots inspired by both the 'Papi Pacify' video and 'brain' video. 

We loved the ideas and effects that both videos have so we decided to merge them together. We especially loved how the artist was inside a circle on top of the background shots of mountains in the 'Brain'. 

In the 'Papi Pacify' video we like the close up shot of the artist as well as the glitter effect. We originally tried to obtain this look with make-up however it didn't show up on camera as well as the glitter in the 'Papi Pacify' video, so we intend to see what effect we can create when it comes to editing. We used a hand-held LED light during filming in the dark room. We moved the lighting about in order to obtain a similar lighting effect as shown in the video. 

So when it comes to editing we hope to use the shots of the trees in the forest for the background shots (Brain video) and the studio shots of me (inspired by 'Papi Pacify' video) placed inside the circle. 
Banks-Brain

FKA Twigs- Papi Pacify 

Monday, 7 December 2015

After distribution our market poll research survey to our intended sample we found that our desired sample did in fact like the indie genre the best.

The favourite artists were predominantly indie- this helps us as it introduces us to some indie artists that we can look at for our genre research

examples of what people like in existing music videos

We also asked more specific questions that we would use to attract the target audience:



Our song has a mixture of faced and slow paced beats and we intend to edit to the beat so we should have a mixture of both

Here we asked about memorable adverts as this will come in useful when it come to constructing our ancillary tasks:



Wednesday, 2 December 2015

Capitol Records-Halsey

According to wikipedia Halsey is signed to 'Capitol'; a large American recording company which is a division of the Universal music group. They have signed many well established artists and groups such as 'The Beatles'. However I am aware that many indie artists do not have this type of exposure as Halsey does so they sign to smaller labels such as 'Young Turks' which FKA Twigs is signed to, as well as releasing songs on soundcloud. They tend to rely on marketing through the word of mouth process as well as using social media to their advantage, enabling them to reach a wide audience cost-free.

Monday, 30 November 2015

Filming Day 3





Our aim for today was to film the Rihanna puma advert inspired shots, however we were unsuccessful in our efforts to recreate the advert. In order to attempt to get the shots projected on my body we used a green screen and a projector. In addition we taped a handheld LED light for additional light for clearer shots.

We obtained both shots with the image projected on my body however this also projected onto the green screen which didn't work. So we then gathered shots with just me in front of the green screen to see if we could just layer an image just solely on my body without it appearing on the background. However when it came to editing the footage we were unable to find a way to do this.

In our final effort we filmed using a blue screen to if we could colour key, where we hoped to remove the background and then layer the image just on my body. Whilst testing this we found it extremely difficult and time consuming to achieve the effect, so we decided to move on and find an alternative to the effect used in the advert.










Thursday, 26 November 2015

Our trip to the BFI

Today my media class and I attended a talk in relation to our music videos at the BFI. The main speaker at the event was Tom Woodcock. He took us through the progression of music videos throughout history and how they've changed. In addition to that he gave us advice on how to obtain the highest marks for our videos and showed us videos from previous A Level candidates.

Below is the presentation he showed to us:


Below is the first video Tom showed us. The videos from the 1930s seemed to play around with colour and texture, it seems to be very different to what to appears it music videos today.


Toms advice for 10 steps to a successful music video:

1) Assess your resources

2)Warm up
   -lip sync task
   -remake a music video
   - photoshoot

3)Recce
   -limit locations
   -photos&footage
   -floor plan
   -assess lights&power

4)Pitch the whole package
   -Treatment
   -moodboard

5)Planning beats ideas
   -storyboard your ideas

6)Plan EVERYTHING
   -shooting schedule
   -shoot early
   -storyboard animatic (to see if it fits with the pace of the song)

7)Shoot
   -Plenty of cutaway shots
   -Shoot at least 10 times
   -Use different set-ups e.g. angles

8)Edit
   -Sync up everything
   -Paper edit
   -Cut and cut again
   -upload a rough cut to your blog and get feedback
   -Grade& effects in last

9)Evidence
   -research
   -all pitches
   -behind the scenes
   -screenshots
   -save all test footage

10)Evaluation
 

Wednesday, 25 November 2015

What is a digipak?

Often digipaks are used for a special edition of a CD or perhaps a deluxe album.







Why are digipaks seen as more convenient than the standard jewel casing?

  • More eco-friendly creating less impact on the environment
  • more compact 
  • shatterproof (more hardwearing)
  • larger space for graphics 
  • versatile packaging 
  • has a more premium look to it
What do they look like?
  • typically made from cardboard
  • dimensions: 139.55mmx6mmx125.5mm (based on a standard 4 page)
  • 30gsm card with matte or gloss 
  • can have spot varnish, lamination or embossing
  • gatefold
Generic Conventions:
  • parental advisory sticker
  • logo
  • track list
  • featured tracks 
  • album name 
  • artist name
  • record label 
  • social media e.g. twitter, instagram& website 
  • album of the year/reviews
  • produced by/songs written by

Wednesday, 18 November 2015

Market Research Survey

Yesterday we finalised our market research survey using a website called 'Survey Monkey'. We found this website extremely useful as it enabled us to quickly produce and distribute our questionnaire to a wide variety of people. We managed to distribute our survey on a variety of different social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. The website allowed us to easily view the trends ad statistics so it was easy to analyse and retrieve our results. We hope to use the information from our survey to produce a great music video which our target audience will love.

Below are screenshots of our survey:

WhatsApp screenshots:

Saturday, 14 November 2015

-A Big Bad Wolf

I titled this post '-A Big Bad Wolf' to bring to you our change in idea for our wolf in our red riding hood inspired music video. We have now been inspired by the ABC series 'Pretty Little Liars' portrayal of the anonymous character '-A'. My group and I decided on a whole that it would be extremely difficult to have a visually accurate image of a wolf without it looking cheap, tacky and unrealistic. So I suggested to not be overly explicit with the red riding hood concept and instead have a different representation of the wolf as at the end of our video it is revealed that the wolf is in fact her self. We all thought to have the '-A' inspired character dressed in a black jeans and a black hoodie hiding the face. In the series '-A' is known to be stalking the 4 girls just like the wolf in the red riding hood story and in the same way '-A' is seen to prey on the girls vulnerability just like the wolf.

Banks- Brain Music Video Inspo



All of us of Mac 5 really love this video and its abstract imagery and we hope to incorporate a variety of different ideas from this video to ours. We found the opening shot of Banks in the circle with the screen on screen editing to be really effective and find this visually appealing. When the music changed to a faster pace, the pace of the editing increased also. We hope to incorporate this into our music video.  The monochrome colour palette is very contemporary and abides by the typical conventions of an Indie music video.

Friday, 13 November 2015

Young and Rubicam Psychographics Model

MASLOW'S Hierarchy of needs:

Young and Rubicam designed a profile to use as a research tool to see where people stood with it. They called this the 4C's. They aimed for it not to be ethnocentric so it can apply to people of different cultures. 


THE EXPLORER:

They seek discovery.
These people are driven by a need for discovery and challenge. Explorers are often the first to try out new ideas and experiences. They respond to brands that offer new sensations, indulgence and instant effects.


THE ASPIRER:

They seek Status
These people are Materialistic and acquisitive and are driven by others’ perceptions of them rather than by their own values. As a result, they respond to what others perceive as being superficial: image, appearance, persona, charisma and fashion. These people believe that an attractive pack is as important as its contents.


THE SUCCEEDER:
They seek ControlThese people possess self-confidence and have a strong goal orientation. They tend to be very organised.
When it comes to brands, they seek reward and prestige, and will often seek out the best, because that is what they feel they deserve. On the other hand, they also seek out caring and protective brands – their aggressive attitude to life means they need to relax occasionally.


THE REFORMER:
They seek Enlightenment
Reformers are the most anti-materialistic of the seven groups, and are often perceived as intellectual. They are socially aware, and pride themselves on tolerance. Reformers seek out the authentic and the harmonious, and are often at the leading edge of society. However, unlike Explorers, they will not buy things just because they are new.


THE MAINSTREAM:
They seek Security
These are people who live in the world of the domestic and the everyday. A daily routine is fundamental to the way they live their lives. Their life choices are ‘we’ rather than ‘me’. As their name implies, they are the mainstream of society. They are the largest group of people within 4C's across the world. They respond to big established brands, to ‘family’ brands and to offers of value for money.

THE STRUGGLER:
They seek Escape
Strugglers live for today, and make few plans for tomorrow. Others often see them as victims, losers and wasters - aimless, disorganised people with few resources apart from their own physical skills. If they get on in life, it will depend more on a winning lottery ticket than anything they do themselves. They are heavy consumers of alcohol and junk food. Visual impact and physical sensation are an important element of their brand choices.

THE RESIGNED:
They seek Survival
These are predominantly older people with constant, unchanging values built up over time. For them, the past is bathed in a warm nostalgic glow. They respect institutions and enjoy acting in traditional roles. Their brand choices are driven by a need for safety and for economy. They choose above all what is familiar to them.

In our groups we took an online test to see which of the seven categories we fall into and these were our results:


Wednesday, 11 November 2015

Filming Day 2 : Location 1

Today we started filming much earlier than we did on the last filming day which gave us more time to get a variety of different shots we needed to retrieve. However we still haven't completely finished filming all the shots at this location although we hope to get it all the shots done on the next filming day. We have also managed to get the shot of the metaphorical wolf stalking red riding hood, so we have made a lot of progress since our last filming day. 
Below is a collage of a few of the shots we got:


Sunday, 8 November 2015

Filming Day 1: Location 1

Today we started filming in the forest of hilly fields park. We didn't film for long because we struggled with the light as it got dark rather quickly. However we managed to a few great shots including an establishing shot and shots of red riding hood running through the forrest. We did hope to get more shots but due to the darkness we had to finish filming earlier than expected. In order to get the relevant shots we plan to start filming a bit earlier in the afternoon so we have enough time before the sun sets.
The above photo was taken at 3pm whereas the below was taken at 4pm. It got dark really quickly and we found it really difficult to film.


                   

Saturday, 7 November 2015

Where do you watch music videos?

A music video or a song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Music videos can be found on a variety of different platforms, however MTV and YouTube have become the most popular places to view music videos. 

There are now different music channels which cater to different genres:

Top Charts: 
  • Kiss
  • Capital 
  • The Vault 
  • ChartShow 
Classics:
  • HeartTV
  • Magic 

Rock:
  • Kerrang 
  • Scuzz 

Friday, 6 November 2015

Recce/ Location day 1

Today all of us of Mac 5 went and visited the location. I was the only one who had previously viewed the location so today was a great chance for everyone to view it and plan out where each shot would take place. Once we saw the location we also generated new ideas for shots when we saw a quirky fallen tree. Originally we planned to gather some footage today and start filming however we found it more useful to use today to plan. (Also, it started raining so we wouldn't of been able to film anyway!)

Mutually when storyboarding we planned to film early morning (i.e. 7:30am) however after viewing our location we all agreed that it wasn't essential as filming when its approaching can also work in our favour as it creates and eery atmosphere. However we do understand we can manipulate the lighting through both lighting equipment and editing which we intend to do.

All of us in Mac 5 have arranged to start filming Sunday afternoon when it isn't forecasted to rain (we learnt our lesson to check it today).

Purchasing a costume

Red Riding Hood is known for her red cape, so in order to pull of the Red Riding Hood concept we needed to have our main protagonist wearing one. We were quite particular in what type of cape we wanted being a red cape with a hood because we had to be careful our protagonist didn't look like a superhero instead of red riding hood. A problem we faced when shopping for our costume was our budget as many of the good capes were very expensive and therefore out of our tight budget.

After looking on a variety of different websites and fancy dress stores we found this cape from amazon.co.uk we chose this one because it was inside our budget and we also found that we were eligible for free next day delivery with amazon prime which was great as we needed the cape as soon as possible so we could go and start filming.

Friday, 30 October 2015

Mac 5: storyboard animatic

Below is our animatic video of our storyboard. We found this task extremely useful as it enabled us to visualise what our actual video will be as we can see how our shots will appear in time with the music. Although the illustrations are quite basic we have more detailed annotations and illustrations on our original storyboard. We are all aware that this storyboard is not set in stone as will we most probably be making a variety of changes.

Saturday, 24 October 2015

Framing& Composition

In todays lesson we looked at framing and composition where we learned about the rule of thirds and the golden ratio.
  • When you centralise an object you are drawing attention to it 
The rule of thirds is applied by aligning a subject with the guide line and their intersection points, placing the horizon on the top or bottom line or allowing linear features in the image to flow from section to section. The rule of thirds states that you should put the objects of interest where the line intersects or where the line meets a point.




The Golden Ratio:
The Golden Ratio is found in architecture, paintings, sculptures and even music. An impressive array of infinite uniformity is all around us, and human kind has intuitively cued into this harmony through the arts as our own way of reflecting and resonating with the divine.

Friday, 23 October 2015

Years&Years- Take shelter video inspo


We really loved the video for 'Take Shelter' by years and years and we thought we would remove the track an replace it with the 'Empty Gold' track to see what bits we could possibly use for us music video.

Band/ Album Name Inspiration

In today's lesson we looked at a variety of artists from our chosen genre (Indie) and their album names. We wrote down a bunch that we really liked and found intriguing which we could use as inspiration when choosing our album and band names. Here are a few of them:
  • Cage the Elephant- Melaphobia 
  • Broods- Evergreen
  • Banks- Goddess
  • The 1975 
  • Kings of Leon- Boxed
  • Amber Run- 5am 
  • Aurora- Winter Bird
  • The XX- Co exist 
  • Pvris  (pronounced 'Paris')
  • Chvrches (pronounced 'Churches') 
The ones we feel that relate well to our ideas and find most inspirational, we have highlighted above in yellow.  The bands highlighted in blue above we found that the us of the 'v' was to be distinct on google and on social media. We also found that our chosen artist Halsey is in fact an anagram of her birth name 'Ashley'. 

Monday, 12 October 2015

Lip Syncing Task: BTS




1st storyboarding session



Overall we all find storyboarding quite difficult because we have a general concept but find it difficult to produce a start to finish idea with step by step shots with a duration. We sometimes struggle with visualising one another's ideas however we found by showing a example/inspiration from another video or photo often helps.

 
 

Lip syncing practice

This is our finished lip syncing practice for our song choice; Empty Gold. We both edited and filmed over the course of 2 days. I found the task really helpful as this helps us for the real thing as we know what to expect. We all had a go and lip syncing as we wanted to see who did it best and who felt most comfortable infront of the camera. We all found it best to actually sing the song rather than mime it as it is appeared to be more believable.

Thursday, 1 October 2015

Laura Mulveys Male Gaze Theory & Blurred Lines

When thinking about Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze, the first music video that comes to mind is Robin Thickes 'Blurred Lines'. This something feel strongly about avoiding in my music video.


On a whole this scopophillic music video is said to present women as a sexual object/ fantasy for the heterosexual male, reinforcing the patriarchal control in todays society as it represents women as being submissive. Throughout the video the women act as a source of entertainment for the men showing the theory of objectification of women.
The first shot immediately conveys his control over this woman and presents her as his 'possession'; objectifying her. He takes up a large proportion of the frame to convey his 'importance' and dominance. In addition he has his name in large bold font that goes across the whole screen which infers he has a big ego which relates to Mulveys theory with 'the needs of the male ego' and he may need this woman to fulfil the need of his ego. 

The female here is presented as a sexual fantasy of the male as the camera captures him gazing at the womans curves (scopophilia). 
This shot presents her as submissive to the male as she lights his cigarette for him. It appears to me that she is his to be controlled. 

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

Cigarette Daydreams Video


I personally love this music video and especially the montage editing which has a clear narrative. The video has mainly a monochrome colour palette but does switch to colour in some parts of the video which works quite well and is quite quirky. This inspires us as we wanted to achieve something similar with there being two of the same people which represents the two sides of her or even her old self.

Song Permission- Finding the producer

In today's lesson my group and I searched for the producer of 'Empty Gold'. We found through Vevo that it was Jim Eliot who produced the track. We then used Google to search for him and we came across his page on his managements website. So once we then found the managements email address we then sent him an email which is below. As we are using the track for educational purposes there shouldn't be any copy right issues.