First Studio Shoot

Construction Posts

'Studio' Filming Shoot:

The first filming shoot we did was our make shift 'studio' located in a drama room. Me, James and Harry, built the set up our selves by piercing holes in a white sheet and using ropes to hoist it over and onto a green screen frame and then wrapping Christmas lights around the structure to make the structure more colourful and stand out more. 

Once we finished creating the background structure, we filmed the whole band playing in front of it and we also shoot different cutaways and extra clips of all the band together and different the band members on their own. Once we filmed these shots, we found that due to it being our first shoot, some of the shots were out of focus and others unusable due to shadows of the filmier being seen in the shots, (as you can see from the shots below. Therefore we have decided to re-shoot these different shots to improve the quality of our material when it comes to post production.       

         
            

Studio Shooting - Evaluation

Shooting Evaluation Draft 1

After filming our studio scene, we noticed several problems with the footage when watching  it back. Looking at this we were able to pick up on key problems that we we ran into, and as such we can evaluate the footage and see how we can improve for future shots.

In both of these tracking shots you can clearly see the shadow of the cameraman. This was caused by the lighting set up in the room, and as a result makes the footage unusable as it looks very tacky and unprofessional. To fix this problem we have decided to reshoot these shots in another location with a different lighting setup to avoid shadows across the performer's faces.

The setting of this shows a piece of art hanging on the wall, along with the black curtain we were using running out. This really brings the audience out of the video and as such we will have to reshoot it.

The focus in this shot is slightly off. This means that we will have to reshoot as, although it is only a short segment of our video, it lowers the quality greatly and hurts our final product.

The framing and mise en scene in this shot aren't as we expected. This is due to the shot being framed at a slight angle, giving a large space on one side compared to the other, also we want to make the frame of this shot a lot tighter, cutting out a lot of the empty black space in the background. The mise en scene in this shot is very empty; we will try and add more lights and studio props to give it a more busy and interesting look, whilst also helping to create the impression of this being filmed in a set up studio.

Music Video Analysis (TV On The Radio - Happy Idiot)

Target Audience VoxPop

VoxPop Target Audience Research

Here is a VoxPop I made to gather research into our target audience. I asked them several questions on what they would expect our video to look like, allowing us to base our own video on our target audience's views, as well as helping to fulfil the aspect of the brief of making the video as conventional as possible.

VoxPop Questionare

Shooting Schedule

This is our shooting schedule

Our filming sessions outside of school (all except the first two) were completed accordingly to our schedule. The studio shoot (PDH) was filmed on the correct day however this footage will have to be re-shot. The green screen shoot was not filmed on the correct day due to green screen being unavailable therefore we also had to arrange a new time for this. After a series of complications involving actors being busy and equipment being available, we have organised two new days to complete our filming, as shown by our updated schedule below.

Artist Record Labels

Record Labels

I looked at several music record labels that I felt that would be suitable for our own band. This involved researching indie rock music labels that would realistically sign our artists, and thinking about which one would be the best.

 

Directors Study

Music Video Director Study

The slideshow below shows my research into different music video directors, who are responsible for a lot of recently popular videos. Researching these directors allows me to get an idea of what kind of directing style I want to use in my own video, and if I can put any aspects of these already established directors' work into my own video.

 

Artist Labels

Artist Labels

Brief: This is a list of potential labels that hypothetically might work with our artists.

Label 1: Loud and Quiet Records

Loud and Quiet started as a music magazine, specifically containing information about the latest rock, indie, alternative and electronic artists. The free monthly-released magazine is most popular in and around London. 5 years after the magazine was founded in January 2005, Loud and Quiet expanded to become a small time label, working with UK bands Metronomy and Alt-J.

An issue of Loud and Quiet

The fact that this label works with UK bands of the same genre as our artists make them ideal. As well as this, the fact that the company is also a magazine, featuring bands of the same or similar genre would mean that by working with this label, our artists would receive benefits in advertising themselves.

Label 2: XL Records

XL Recordings is a British independent record label owned by Richard Russell. Originating as Beggars Banquet Records, XL Records is part of a group of labels known as ‘Beggars Group’. They have worked with popular alternative/indie bands including Radiohead and Vampire Weekend – however they do not exclusively work with artists of this genre.

XL Records Logo (left) Richard Russell (right)

Similarly to the first potential label, XL Records is a British organisation and have worked with successful artists in the past which share the same genre as our artists. Therefore, they would be another good choice for our band.

Label 3: Frenchkiss Records

Frenchkiss Records is an independent record label, however unlike the previous two, is based in New York. The label was started in 1999 by Syd Butler, bassist and founder of Les Savy Fav. The label's first purpose was to release Les Savy Fav's second album The Cat and The Cobra, but has since been the label responsible for discovering a varying array among which are the indie-pop band Passion Pit. The label has also worked with the English indie-rock band Bloc Party and recently expanded their company into the region of music publishing.

This label is famous for discovering new talent in the indie-rock genre; thereby they would be a perfect label for our artists. The fact that they also publish music as well would an additional benefit.

Animatic

Animatic Video:

This video shows shot for shot the ideas that we have for our real video. It takes the storyboards we made and puts them in order to the music. This gives a real impression of what the final piece is going to look like, as such we can make improvements to parts that don't look right. Our animatics and storyboards are not exactly the same as during the making of our animatic we decided to add and remove multiple shots that we felt would make the video better.

Record Label Research

Costumes for Music Video

Storyboards (Updated)

 

These are the storyboards we used to produce our animatic from and then we will use this to tell use what to shot to do in each location on our group filming days.

Props

Props

Brief: This is the list of props we will be using in our music video with explanations as to where they will be used and why.

Instruments

This is the guitar that will be used by the lead singer, front-man.

The fact that this intrument is acoustic, we believe, will allow him to connect to the audience more. This is because acoustic guitars have a more folk feel to them as they are not commonly used on stage. This type of guitar is also linked to the indie/alternative audience as artists of this genre generally want to give off the feel that they are like a garbage band, in the sense that they are approachable and not immensely popular. The acoustic guitar demonstrates this feel as they are usually used by small-time artists.

This is the guitar that will be used by the rhyme guitarist.

Whereas the instrument used by the front-man makes him seem approachable and relatable; this instrument makes the user seem professional and skilled. This is because the owner of an electric guitar would likely be more serious about the music industry or more accomplished in the field. These connotations match how we want our artists to be perceived as we want our main artist to seem easy going whereas the rest of the band members to seem a bit more serious about the music.

This is the bass guitar that will be used by the bassit.

Similarly to the rhyme guitarist's instrument, this prop is electric and therefore provides the audience with a professional feel.

Other Props

This is a blue ribbon on a rod that will be used by the female character when she is in the field, later in the sequence.

We chose for the ribbon to be blue due to the fact that this colour has connotations of freedom, peace and tranquility - moods that we are trying to portray in this scene.

This prop will be ordered on Amazon.co.uk prior to production.

Update: ribbon ordered on 12th of October

This is the book that the female character will be reading when she is sitting on the tube and in the park.

Though this book will not be the focus of any shots, it is the colour blue which provides the connotations discussed above. This book being present early on in the sequence (before she reaches the field) foreshadows the later scene.

The title of the book 'Sophie's World' links to the narrative as the title implies that the book is about the life of one specific girl.

This is the bag that the female character will be wearing during the scenes before the field scene.

The fact that she is carrying around a bag implys that she is on her way to somewhere, such as work. The fact that the bag has straps and is made of a rough textured fabric subtly implys that the character has an adventurous side to her.

This is the phone that the female character uses at the beginning of the sequence when she leaves her house and then uses again when she is in the field.

Music Proposal Letter

Proposal Letter
For this task I was asked to write up a letter to ask permission to use the song we want in our video. To do this I wrote to the recording company who Little Comets are signed to; explaining who we are, why we want to use the song, and a small concept brief of our video.


Dear Dirty Hit,
My name is Harry Devonport and I am writing from Glenthorne High School. For my Media Studies A2 coursework me and several other group members have been tasked with creating our own conventional music video, and I would like to request the use of one of your band's song, Little Comets - Dancing Song from the album, In Search of Elusive Little Comets. We chose this song as it fit all of the criteria of our brief; English artists, no music video, decent length, and had multiple band members. It also fit into our own personal expectations of our music video; Indie rock genre, upbeat tone, and ambiguous lyrics. We decided on this personal criteria as it gave us a large amount of room to be creative, interpreting the lyrics' meanings, whilst also fitting with our own music tastes.

For our own video we have decided on creating an amplification video, in which we will try and create a message and meaning for the audience over primarily trying to sell the band. We will achieve this by cutting between a girl walking through an urban area and her dancing on an open landscape. This links closely to the lyrics and tone of the song, whilst also being a creative idea giving us room to try new and advanced editing and cinematography techniques.

I hope that you agree with our request as it would help us in achieving the highest possible grade in our work, and I am looking forward to a response.

Harry Devonport
Glenthorne High School

Age Ratings In Music Videos

Age Ratings

Following a report that age ratings are planned to be placed on music videos on the video sharing websites, YouTube and Vevo due to the inappropriate content being available to younger audience. I was tasked to research the reasons and effects of this change, and how this could effect our own music video.

 

Age Ratings for Music Videos

Age Ratings for Music Videos

Brief: This talks about the recent scheme to start applying age ratings and restrictions to music videos. It is also mentioned about this impact this would have on our group music video.

Age Ratings on Music Videos

Age Restriction Scheme on Music Videos

The age rating pilot scheme for music videos has been put into place to restrict children on what they are viewing. This has been created due to a complaint about artist Jessie J’s new music video ‘Bang Bang’ that it included sexually explicit and graphic content (images below). From next year, all artist music videos that are signed to British record labels with are given an age rating of 12, 15 or 18. This will restrict the content if the music videos that children watch.   

There are some advantages that come with the age restriction scheme, for example: It will give parents piece of mind about what their children are seeing when watching music videos. David Cameron states it will help parents to protect their children from inappropriate content. The music videos will be classified by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) which also rate films and DVD’s, therefore it will be easy to classify and easier for the audience to relate to when thinking about why this music video has been given a certain age restriction.

However, there are some disadvantages and limitations that come with this new pilot scheme such as; some artists such as Ben Howard believe it is pointless to introduce this age restriction to music videos. He considers that as due to the amount of different things that are accessible to anyone and a touch of a button, he believes that ‘they are back tracking on they have already done before’. Also, it will be very hard to enforce, when someone goes to watch a certain age restricted, they will have to provide identification proving they are old enough to be watching this film whereas on the internet, anyone can create and profile claiming they are someone when in reality they are someone completely different. Due to this it will prove difficult to police this scheme as you may never know who really someone is on the internet. As well as this, it causes artists to either scale back the content they want for their music video which may upset some artists as they may want a certain thing for their music video and therefore may make them rethink and have to wait a long time to think of another idea that they are happy with for their music video or they will have to make a number of different versions of music video if they have a concept in mind which may not be appropriate to some viewers, therefore they will have to produce different variations of their music video to accustom all audiences.    

I personally believe, just like artist Ben Howard that I feel the scheme won’t be as effective as the government and the public think. As I stated before, due to the vastness of the internet, anyone such as children can access near enough anything on the internet. Although there are ways of using protection systems to keep your children from seeing certain content that maybe not be suitable for them to see, there are common ways around these which will still allow them to view restricted content such as these music videos.    

I believe music videos that will be given an age rating of 15 will contain moderate threat, some strong language or some mild sexual content. Examples of this may be seen in the music video ‘Drunk in Love’ by Beyoncé featuring rapper Jay-Z. In this music video, the artist uses occasional strong language and refers to sexual acts but doesn’t explicitly say anything about having sex which younger viewers will understand. She also wears a costumes which revels her body but only slightly therefore cannot be classed as an 18 rated music video.

An example of a music video that might be classified as an 18 rated music video is ‘Booty’ by Jennifer Lopez featuring Iggy Azalea. This video contains the two artists wearing very revealing costumes which some parents might feel too inappropate for their younger children to see. Also in some parts there is some suggestive and erotic dancing with the two artists which may also be seen as inappropate for certain aged viewers.

Also another music video that could be classified as an 18 rated music video is the video ‘Thug Waffle’ by Flatbush Zombies. In this music video we see the artists swearing using their middle finger towards the camera, smoking and having possession of the drug Marijuana. This could inflict a negative image towards younger viewers which parents won’t want their children seeing as it could inspire them to take drugs, smoke or act like the artists do.

Our group’s music video would be appropriate for all audiences. In our video, we follow the journey of a girl metaphorically escaping from an urban society and finding here feel in a natural and free environment towards the end of the music video. As our music video doesn't contain any content that might be deemed inappropriate by viewers or the 'BBFC' officials such as sexual or explicit content or strong language therefore I see our music video being appropriate for all aged audiences and either wouldn't be given a age rating or a one such as a U which means the content is suitable for everyone to watch.    

Concept Pitch

Image Scans

Here are several images I drew to storyboard our practice shots. These allowed us to get a general idea of what the shot would look like, and to present it to our teacher before filming.

Storyboards (Original)

Orignal Storyboards. 

Here are the storyboards that we have done for our music video. The images are not ordered chronologically as we hadn't planned out what we wanted at the time.

Test Shots

Test Shots

This shot will be used to transition the character from the inner city to a field/park.

Upon making this test shot, we have realised that while the camera is behind the character, we need to have it as close to them as possible. In the test shot, the camera was not close enough to the character and therefore the transition was not seamless. The creases in the shirt also make the transition less smooth and therefore we will need to avoid this when filming.

This test shot demonstrates how the shot within the tube should be framed and performed. The character walks onto the tube and sits down in between the artists.

After reviewing this footage, we realised that to make our artists seem distinctive and outstanding to the rest of the narrative, it would be a good idea for the to sit up and seem abstract, like James on the right and as opposed to Harry on the left.


This test shot is meant to give an example of how a shot will be framed in the field scene, and how the character will be performing. We added an artificial light source and colour corrected the scene to have a yellow/red tint. This is because we want to film this shot at sunset and ideally we will have these lighting aspects when filming this scene.

This test shot tests what a tracking shot will look when we film our piece.

This has shown us that we will require steadying equipment (such as a fig rig) in order to make the shots as not-shaky as possible.

Slow Motion

After deciding that we might want to feature slow motion shots within the field scene, we used a GoPro (which is capable of recording at 100fps in 720p) to film things in slow motion - such as apple being smashed and the chemical reaction between cola and Mentos.

Green Screen

Here are several examples of us using the green screen, playing around with the ultra key tool on Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 to try and remove the background, allowing us to change the colour and add some form of animation behind. One idea for our final product is to have some form of stop-motion animation of characters dancing. This would allow us to demonstrate our editing abilities, create a very independent look for our video, and help to add to the positive tone that we are trying to create for our audience.

For our official music video there are several improvements that we must make:

• The images in the stop-motion background are all the same size and flow together. In our test shot the images were drawn very roughly to get a general idea of what it would look like, therefore not all the images were the same size, or flowed together very well.
• Ensure that no one appearing on the green screen is wearing green. This is seen in our test as one of the members is wearing an ID card attached to a green lanyard.
• Try to get the green screen as flat as possible to try and remove creases and shadows. This is due to the shadows making it harder to remove the background, as the ultra key will not delete the darker/lighter parts of the green.