Planning the final scenes

We have decided to film our scenes with the amazons over the Christmas holidays during the week because the problem we keep finding with doing at the weekends is that people are working. So we are planning to do it in the first weekend of the Christmas holidays on the 22nd or 23rd. We know that there are people who are free on these days so hopefully we will be able to get it done. We would also like to start taking some photos for our ancillary tasks so that when we come back after the holidays we can finish our video and start the other tasks.

Representations and stereotypes

Stereotype- A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or                    thing
Archetype- An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned

Countertype- A positive stereotype and emphasizes the positive features of a person.

Representation- The act or re-presentation.

In my video there are times where the 'characters' in the narrative part of the video, and the singer are portrayed in quite stereotypical ways. The singer is made to look quite masculine with a black leather jacket to make him look tough. However the red T-shirt gives him a slightly softer look to him as red often connotes romance and love.
When the girl appears in our dream sequence she is wearing a red flowing dress which again connotes love and romance. At this point in the video we have portrayed her as quite a feminine character as she is his love interest.

The colour red is a theme that runs throughout the whole of the video. The singers top is red, the girls dress is red, the rose is red and at the end when our character meets his love interest in person she is wearing a red necklace. The red necklace was meant to be a ( ) match with the red dress to show that they are the same person.
Nearly all our lighting is natural because about 95% of the video is filmed outside therefore there was no need for external lighting. I like this because it gives very much a feel of normality to it and a natural feel.

In a literal way, our video doesn't reflect the world we live in. There aren't tribal groups who live in the woods that attack people who steal their flower. However symbolically i kind of does. The tribal group could represent a group of people who are protective of a place or something. For example a gang who has their territory and doesn't like anyone else hanging out there.

Our target audience has always been males and females from 16-25 however our aspirational audience would be a bit younger from about 13-16. We have already found out that our video appeals to both male and females which is what we intended.

Audience feedback

 

We showed a mixed audience our music video so far and this is the results that we got.

From our 15 year old boys, they said:

• It was dramatic
• It changes emotion, so it goes happy and then sad
• It was very clear
• the Grey clouds give the video contrast 

Then we had 18 year old females watching as well. This is what they said:

• An attractive male- Had a great jaw line.
• Shots are visually appealing 
• There was strong imagery
• There was binary opposition with the femininity and masculinity
• There was a variety of camera angles.
• On of them said at the end 'ooh Scary'
•  

All this feedback was very positive as it means that our video is appealing to both males and females and also  that they think it is an effective video.

Binary opposition.

When showing our video to an audience one of our audience mentioned that there was a strong sense of binary opposition. This was from the femininity from our female and the strong masculinity from our lead male, as shown above.

We also noticed when into post-production that both our female and male put their hand at the same point on the tree which implies there is a link between them. Also when lyrics say 'And what was right was wrong', our lead female looked over her right shoulder on the word 'right' which emphasizes the lyrics.

Natural lighting

When it came to filming we had a pleasant surprise. At one part in our song the lyrics say 'When the sky turns grey', and where we were filming, although it was quite sunny it was also fairly cloudy, so we include this shot of our singer looking up to the clouds.

Also, one technique we were told about when learning how to apply lighting affects post-production was a Light leak. This is where you can create the effect that the sun is shining through and has created spots on the screen. However when we were filming under the trees we discovered that we got a natural light leak in the shot. We were very happy when we discovered this and it gave a great look to it

Editing process

This is the start of our editing process. At first we were thinking of using Imovie to edit it as we thought it would be easier and we already know how to use it. However we then realised that by using Premier Pro we would be able to use better effacts and transitions. It was a slow start because we had to get to grips with everything that we had to do with every clip like unlinking it and then rendering it, but after a while we got the hang of it and are now moving through it speedily.

Filming schedule

This is our initial filming schedule. This is basically saying, where we are going to be filming and what time and who is needed. This was so people weren't turning up at times that they weren't needed for.

  

 The only thing that we found was that it gets quite dark relatively early this time of year so our filming time was cut a bit short. We are hoping that we can get all the bits done with the 'amazons' done on saturday so that we wont have to run over to sunday but if we do we have it in the schedule.

 

There is part of our video which isn't going to be filmed outside. It is part of the nightmare sequence in our video. We are going to be filming this part in a really dark  room with some cool LED lights to create some really cool effects. This also gives the people who can't come at the weekend the chance to be in the video.

Costume

The mise-en-scene in any shot is important because they tell the viewers important information. The smallest detail can give clues to the audience to what it is about or what genre it is. Thinking about this information we had to chose our costumes very carefully.

For our singer we wanted him in some sort of black coat, a red t-shirt and black jeans.

    

Then for when he is the character we wanted him in quite scruffy clothing to show that he has had to go on a long journey to reach his lover.

For our female lead we want her to be in a red dress. this is because red connotes love and it is a visual match to the male protagonist's red top.

We were imagining something like this. We imagined to be shorter rather than longer because it gives it a more casual feel rather than a long ball gown and also we will be filming this part in the forest so we wouldn't want it to be ruined.

However at the end of the video when the male lead visits our female leads house she will be wearing more casual clothing but with a red necklace to include the visual motif of the red.

Then for our amazons we wanted them to be in quite scruffy clothing to give the image that they live in the woods. We want them to be in very earthy colours. So Dark red/brown/orange/ dark green.

Copyright letter 2

We received an email back from 'Imagine Dragons' record label saying that we needed to contact someone else regarding copyright. We have sent a second email and are now waiting a reply.

Cast change

We made a decision to change our actor for the protagonist. Eddie, who we originally had, was very busy and was working a lot at the weekends which was going to be our main time to film so we decided to change. So this is Nat.
We decided to use Nat instead. He still has the look that we wanted and I believe he will be very capable of full-filling the role.

Copyright Letter

We had to send a letter to 'Imagine Dragons' record label to request that we can use the song for our A-level music video. Below are some screen shots to prove that we have sent the letter and that it states that the only people who will se it is our media class, teacher and the OCR exam board.

Practise shots

We had the chance to practise some of our shots with each other before we film it in our actual video. These included zoom shots, panning, foot shots, running and over the shoulder. I found this session really helpful because with the zoom shots we knew how to make them smooth and consistant. Also we could see whether the camera would shake whilst we were following people in over the shoulder shots. again this will be helpful when it comes to shooting because we hopefully wont have to waste time practicing or experimenting with shots.

Audience Survey

We decided to create a survey to see what different people like and whether people would watch our video and How they would be likely to access it. Above is a powerpoint with the results of our survey.

We found that the majority of the people who answered were girls, aged between 16 and 20. Our original target age range was 16-26 so we were pretty much on target. 

Character profiles

This is Eddie. He will be playing our male lead as the singer and the protagonist in the narrative. We chose him because he likes our band- Imagine Dragons and he already knows the song so it will just be a case of learning the lines so he is in sync with the lyrics.


This is Lucy. She will be playing our female character in the narrative part of our video. We chose her partly because we envisaged our female with blonde hair because it gives a hint of innocence and Lucy has blonde hair. She also is a fan of this kind of music.

Storyboards

We have storyboarded our whole music video so that each shot contains what we want it to look like, what will happen in that shot, what lyrics it is going to happen on,the timing of the song, what type of shot it is and any editing techniques we will use e.g Zoom. We have tried to make the images as detailed as possible to include everything we need.
This took a very long time to complete as our video is quite detailed and complex so many of our shots are for one or two lines of the song but I am glad we finished it because It will help us so much in the long term.

This will help me with our music video, because I have a vision of what i want the video to look like and each shot has been planned out quite precisely. Also by creating this it will mean that we shouldn't take ages at each location because we know what we want to shoot, where we want to shoot it and for which parts of the video we are going to use this for. Therefore we should get it done quite rapidly.
The only thing I am worried about is that when we come back to our drawings when we shoot the video we wont remember what the videos mean but hopefully we will.

Lighting Experiments

We had a lesson where we learnt about using lighting equipment. We learnt about different light sources and different techniques which can be used and applied. Above is our final image. We were originally trying to create a silhouette effect but due to location and planning problems we couldn't exactly create the effect we were after. We had a light source coming from behind but with that combined with the light source from the window we slightly managed to create that effect. It was created through the hair and around the side of the arm. We also decided to turn it black and white which was a secondary thought and this actually made it look better.

By doing these experiments it has shown me how i can use lighting within my video to create effects or just to emphasize parts of the video.

Risk assessment

This is my risk assessment for my filming days. It is important to assess any risks that could occur so that we as filmers and our actors are safe whilst filming.

Target Audience Feedback

We described our music video to a group of people of our target audience and these are their responses. A lot of the reactions were very similar. They all really liked the idea and that it created some really great imagery, and similarly they all said that it is very complex and timing might be an issue which we were already aware of. However one person said that we would need to make sure that is is really clear when he is dreaming and when he's not, which i hadn't really thought of as a problem before hand. By doing this it has shown me that what we are creating does appeal to our target audience and that they think it will be good.

Moodboard

I have created on online moodboard on pinterest. This is to help me get down in on place all the things that are inspiring me for my video and the type of things that I want to include in my video. There are examples of things that we might want to use and the type of shots we are thinking of using. By doing this it has helped me clarify the feeling I want my video to have and also just to get down all of my ideas


http://www.pinterest.com/tamsinharvey/music-video-moodboard/

Music videos today

Recently the music industry has agreed that some music videos are too explicit for everyones views. Music artists that this applies to most are artists like Robin Thicke, Miley Cyrus and Rihanna. The industry have now decided that music videos are going to have age certificates similar to that of films. They are going to be 12, 15 and 18 so that viewers know what they are going to be watching.

I am not going to be using anything explicit in my video. I just thought that it was interesting fact about music videos and how they are evolving.

Preliminary task and directors commentary

We were asked to create a one minute copy of a music video as a preliminary task. My group decided to do a copy of Enemies by Shinedown. We decided to use the first minute as it was relatively easy compared to the rest of the video. The rest of the video involves choreographed fighting which would have taken up too much time trying to get hold of props and making it look realistic.

This is our copy. We are pretty happy with this copy as a whole. This is the first proper time that we have had to use movie software like movie maker so I think it looks really good. However there are a few things that we would have changed but we talk about them in our directors commentary.

We had a few problems syncing the music with the words, and also there is a part where the footage isn't long enough for the video. Then the biggest difference is that in the original video there is four guys whereas in ours there is 3 girls and 1 boy. I don't think this really makes a big different and overall I am quite proud of what we have achieved. Now we have listened to it we have realised that it is quite hard to hear our voices because there is a lot of background noise. This is a shame as we included what wasn't exactly right with our video. This has taught me that next time, when we make our video, when we do a directors commentary we need to make sure that we are either in the room on our own or we make sure that everyone else in the room is quiet.

Narrative theorists

This is a powerpoint on the main narrative theorists and how their theories can be applied to my work. By doing this it has made me realise how I have included these things without realising it and how easy it is to apply a theorist to your work.

Bleeding out lyrics

These are the lyrics of our song Bleeding out By Imagine dragons. We have decided that in our video we are going to cut from singer to the narrative and we have highlighted the lyrics Green for when its the singer and pink when it is the narrative. This was so that we were sure that there was going to be a strong sense of narrative running throughout the whole video, not just in parts of it. We have also annotated the lyrics of whats going to happen on which lyrics. We want to have a very clear picture of the whole video before drawing anything so that we think it will look good and it will be something that we will be proud of at the end. We have done this so that we have a clearer picture of what is going to happen and also so we can get organized when shooting the video and can separate out what we are going to do. We know that we are going to video all the singer parts on a different say to the narrative parts so that people aren't hanging around in parts of the day.

Our Pitch

This is all the feedback that we were given about our music video. I think this was a useful exercise as we found out what people think of our idea and any pitfalls that we hadn't thought of ourselves. It gave us other people's points of views. For example I had never thought of the fact that it reminded someone of the avatar film but as soon as one person mentioned it, I could see the similarities. After receiving the feedback I made me think that the narrative was a good idea and that although it is quite complex, when we have the finished product it will be something we are proud of.

Initial Ideas

One idea we have had is to use Bleeding out By Imagine dragons:

To me when I hear this song, I think of  a break up and for me that would be what i would base the video around. When the intro comes in the camera follows a man walking through an empty field next to a Forrest. He sees his girlfriend with another boy. They bump into each other and have an argument, but the argument is them singing some of the lyrics. They walk away from each other. The girl goes back home, walks straight through the door up the stairs and into her bedroom where she jumps on her bed. She re-reads messages and looks through photos. The guy walks into the forest and builds a fire. He stays by the fire for a long time staring into it as if it were his soul and he sees past memories of him and her. It jumps to her out on a walk with her dog at night with the stars out. She sends a message to him saying 'We need to talk'. The camera zooms in on her when it talks about red eyes to show that she has been crying and that her eyes are red. They meet, talk and at the end of this they go to hug but instead just shake hands showing a mutual agreement between them both.

music video deconstruction

Here we have examples of the Stereotypical groups within a school. For example: The girly girls, all dressed in pink, most probably the populars. The stereotypical signs of the girly girls are that they are dressed all in pink and white, they have blonde hair, usually have some sort of hair accessory and carries a handbag. These stereotypes are also myths that all populars /girly girls are like this. Then you have the individual who is obviously different from the other girls. This is shown through the colour of her clothes/hair, the style of her hair, and her expression. She is obviously different to other girls and can feel it. By the expressions on the other girls faces they do not accept that she is different. Through the setting the features are paradigms of a school which sets up a very normal setting.

Here we see the girl who is obviously different walking through the doors with her bag in her hands and the doors are still open. The fact that that the corridor is completely empty and the doors are still open, shows that she has gone through them at some speed and that she must be angry. I think this could be a myth that kids who don't fit in and who are different from the other children will end up doing something uncontrollable.

In this we see the main protagonist of this video just spinning on the spot, waving her arms and sheet music flowing around her. I think this connotes that music makes her feel free from all the troubles in her class and at school. This shows the myth that music changes you for the better and that it can transport you into a different world where everything is perfect. This is also the first time we see her smile in this video. This shows that music does make her happy.

By doing this deconstruction it helped me plan my music video. By looking at the shots in depth you can see that everything has been thought out and every little detail has been placed thoughtfully. For me this video is so much about stereotypes and by pointing them out this has shown me what not to include as we don't intend to include any sterotypes in our video. However it has shown me how to connote things together and link them, the last screen shot especially. The music obviously makes her happy and the producers have shown this in a very creative way.

Music video moodboard

Here is a link to my moodboard:
http://uk.pinterest.com/tamsinharvey/initial-moodboard/


It's all about things to do with Pop music videos as that is the type of video I'm most likely to create.


Now, I have decided to go in a completely different direction. At first a pop video seemed a good idea because I listen to a lot of music in this genre and I have quite a bit of experience in viewing these type of videos.
Pop music has much more of a broader audience, and there are quite a lot of sub genres for pop so there is usually something that other people will like. Now by changing genre we are creating something for more of a niche audience. I feel this is going to be an advantage because there will be less videos already out there and our audience won't compare ours to current videos as much.

Andrew Goodwin

In 1992 Andrew Goodwin wrote a paper called 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory'. It was all about how the music,lyrics and the band should link to the visuals in some sort of way. You can either Illustrate, amplify or disjuncture this.

For example:

• Pop music- everyone jumping around, bright colours, being happy. 
• Indie music- People sat round a campfire, someone playing guitar, telling stories, very laid back atmosphere.

If Illustrating the music should always cut the beat, the images should demonstrate the lyrics either literally or emotionally, and the band should look how they normally would.

If Amplifying the music may be off the beat, the lyrics add a story to the song giving it a narrative and the in the band the singer is dressed as a character in the narrative.

If using it to Disjuncture, the music is primarily off the beat, like in dance videos, the images don't match the lyrics which is used for very popular artists, and the band image completely changes from what it usually is and sometimes isn't even in his video.


His five main theories were:

• The use of thought beats
• The use of Narrative and performance during the video. As well as being a story the video is also an advertisement for the song and artist
• Creating a star image, this also helps promote the artist
• Relating the visuals to the song
• Use of technical codes- camera angles, mise-en-scene etc.

In my video I am going to use thought beats because it gives a starting point as to where to put the cuts in the video. I am also going to use narrative and performance in it as we are going to have it jumping from him on his own to a narrative involving him, which then includes star image because the narrative part of the video is all about him.
I think that our video amplifies the lyrics because the cuts are on the beat but the narrative doesn't exactly link to the lyrics, however there are moments where we are going to include shots in the video which the lyrics  mention, for example when the lyrics say the wolves will cry we want a similar sound. Also we are including the singer in the narrative.
This information also informs me as to how my music video is different from others and what other types of music videos are out there at the moment. For example Meghan Trainor's 'All about that bass' uses the star image as the whole video is about premoting her as an artist. The images in her video, very much, disjuncture because they dont really relate to the video. However, you take something like 'Roar' By Katy Perry and this video still uses the star image but i would say it Illustrates as the song is talking about a personality changing and it's like she has this tiger inside of her.

Briefs

We have been given a Choice of two briefs. They are:
1) A Promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:

• A (working) Website homepage for the band;
• A digipak for the album's release;
• A magazine advertisement for the digipak

        OR

2) A Short film in it's entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action, animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options:

• A poster for the film;
• A radio trailer for the film
• A film magazine review page featuring the film

I think that I am more likely to do a music video because I feel that It would be easier to get a meaning across and to build a strong narrative. Also I think that I listen to music a lot more than I do watch films so I would have more Ideas and then come up with a stronger video. I believe that it is much easier to find example music videos than film clips so I would be able to compare mine with already existing videos.

AS Blog

First of all on our media journey, here is the link to my AS blog to see how i progress:

http://tamsinharveysmedia.blogspot.co.uk/

Personally, I think that I learnt so much during AS media. On the coursework side, nearly everything I know now, I learnt during the year. I was shown and I realised how much planning and research goes into a product and that I needed to know who my product was for and what they liked . On Photoshop there are some skills that I used a lot more than others, like the clone tool, which I am very confident at, as well as the new tools I learnt to use. I, as well as my peers and my teachers, have seen an immense change in my skills and my confidence on a computer and on editing software. In general my computer skills have progressed a lot. I really like how the my contents came out the most, out of all my pages. The image was really bold and striking and there was a clear layout to it.


On the exam side to the course, considering it was a lot of essay writing i really enjoyed learning all the terminology and being able to apply it to a piece of TV drama. The essay writing has helped me improve, not just in media, but in all my other subjects and I think that it has helped my writing in general. I think I really got myself prepared for the exam and in the end I was very happy with everything I had achieved throughout the course. The last year has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. There have been times when I was really hating media, just because things weren't going right or they weren't going my way, and there were times when I felt on top of the world.
This year I want to get more on top of my blog posts and put them up more often along the year. I am going to make sure that I add more detail into my blog posts and go into the theory behind the videos in more depth.