Tuesday, 30 September 2014

Video of Treatment Pitch

Here is the video of our treatment pitch. It sums up all our ideas and plans for the video. It also includes some audience feedback from the class and answering some of their questions. I think presenting our ideas helped us as it made sure we both knew what we were talking about and on the same page. It also allowed us to see if members of our target audience would enjoy the concept, which they did seem to.

Monday, 29 September 2014

Progress Vlog

We decided we should do a group vlog showing a couple of the locations and explaining our ideas.

Wednesday, 24 September 2014

Treatment Pitch

A treatment pitch is used to give clients an overview of your plans for a piece of media. It also allows you to bring all your ideas together and make sure that the entire group understands what you are pitching too.

As a group we have created our treatment pitch as a Prezi ready to presented to the class on 26th Sept. for feedback on our ideas. Although the ideas in the pitch are mostly initial ideas and are not set in stone most of the ideas pitched will most likely be in our final music video. The pitch covers information such as our genre and it's conventions, the narrative, locations, costumes, props, characters and extras, editing and our unique selling point.




Here is the final prezi to show in our presentation:

Wednesday, 17 September 2014

Rumour Lyrics


When she turned eighteen she went astray
With her brother's dealer, so they say
She had a baby yesterday
Perhaps it's just a rumour

They kept her prisoner growing up
Told her Jesus was enough
She's really into dirty stuff
Perhaps it's just a rumour
And if you asked her she'd say



I'm just tryin' to work out
How to be like myself
I'm just tryin' to work out
These cards I've been dealt



See that girl she's looking great
She used to be quite overweight
She may not be entirely straight
Perhaps it's just a rumour
Always did as she was told
Apparently she's on the dole
Spends it all on alcohol
Perhaps it's just a rumour



I'm just tryin' to work out
How to be like myself
I'm just tryin' to work out
These cards I've been dealt



'Cause she did it, she did it
Her bed is forbidden
He's fit and she isn't
She keeps her face hidden
She told 'em good riddance
Her sister got with him
She wishes she didn't
And now they're all singing



Just tryin' to work out
How to be like myself
I'm just tryin' to work out
These cards I've been dealt



I'm just tryin' to work out
How to be like myself
I'm just tryin' to work out
These cards I've been dealt



'Cause she did it, she did it
Her bed is forbidden
He's fit and she isn't
She keeps her face hidden
She told 'em good riddance
Her sister got with him
She wishes she didn't
And now they're all singing



I'm just tryin' to work out
How to be like myself
I'm just tryin' to work out
These cards I've been dealt



Just tryin' to work out
How to be like myself
I'm just tryin to work out
These cards I've been dealt

We decided we liked the lyrics in this song as they contain many stereotypes and different identities of people, this allowed us to play around when coming up with characters for our video and stops them being obvious or cliche. The chorus in the song also mentions 'cards I've been dealt' which gave us the poker game theme for our video.

Tuesday, 16 September 2014

Mood Board


This mood board gives an outline of the initial ideas. The cards and chips are because our theme running through the song is a poker game. There is someone holding up a ripped photo over their eyes like a mask to show hidden ideas. I like the idea of using a woodland area for the poker game as it is an open public location but it also feels secluded and hidden. It also makes it easier to create mise-en-scene as the trees would hide any near-by building to make the set purer. All that we would be surrounded by would be trees. This also shows some of the styles of clothing/character types we want within the video as well as some of the other locations. I added in the picture of alice in wonder land as the low-key lighting and eccentric character is what I picture when I think of our characters sitting around the table playing cards. Low-key lighting is and idea as it would link into the deceit of the characters hiding behind masks.

Monday, 15 September 2014

Lip-syncing Video - Shake It Off

It seems lip-syncing videos are a rising trend. Here is one of my personal favourites. The lip-syncing is on point and the way they recorded the video in one long take was very entertaining. Their lip-syncing is definitely the goal for our music video!

The Cube - Behind The Scenes

On Saturday I got the chance to see the recording of the game show 'The Cube'. It was very interesting to see exactly how it was filmed and how much it differed from what we see as an episode on TV due to a lot of the effects being added on afterwards.

During the gaps between filming where the crew re-positioned the camera or set up the games Phillip Schofield was telling the audience why they do specific things. Like when they leave a 6 second gap between telling the cube to start the game and when the game starts, this is done so the crew can get enough shots of the player/the game so they have enough footage to edit. He also explained all the equipment and how they work which I found very interesting.

Unfortunately photos were not allowed to be taken on the set but her is a diagram of the set:
The bigger crane was used for aerial shots of the cube and shots moving around the cube. The smaller crane was used for audience shots and different angles of Phillip and the contestants and the other camera was moved around the floor for shots of the contestants inside the cube.

This following .GIF shows how they used the 90 SLRs that they had in a semi-circle. The cameras took photos one after the other at a high sped to create a 3D rotation effect. Similar technology was used during the filming of Got To Dance and the Olympics. 

NwKb7S on Make A Gif, Animated Gifs


This one was filmed by the camera on the track. This was a camera moving slowly half way around the semi-circle. The effect of the game was made by lapping a track with no game and a track with the game and then in post-production they made it look like the game is appearing inside the cube.


Here are some of the other effects that are added on in post-production. The last one if of the green floor after the demonstration has finished, this is done as the demos of the games end with a green floor. This makes it easier for the editor to link from the demo to the game play:



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Friday, 12 September 2014

Record Label

A record label is a brand which is associated with the marketing of music and music videos. Record labels are often under the control of a corporate umbrella organization called a music group. A music group is typically owned by an international conglomerate "holding company", which often has non-music divisions as well.

As our chosen song is a Pop track I have looked into record labels who  are known to produce Pop music videos.

Mercury Records
Mercury Records is an American-based record label owned by Universal Music Group. Mercury was founded in 1945. It's distributors consist of Island records (US), Virgin EMI Records (UK) and Universal Music Group (Worldwide). Mercury Records represents artists like Pixie Lott, Jessie J and Nina Nesbitt.
Mercury records logo.png

Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC is a major American record label that is part of the Capitol Music Group and is a division of Universal Music Group (previously EMI). Capitol Records was founded in 1942 by three industry insiders. It's only distributor is Capitol Music Group. Katy Perry is among those who are signed to this record label.
CapitolRecords Logo.png

Interscope Records
Interscope Records, Inc. is an American record label that operates as a division of Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1989 and was originally an exclusive Hip-hop label, however it now hosts a range of genres. Since 1999, the label is one of UMG;s most pre-eminent labels. Universal Music Group (US) and Polydor Records (UK) are Interscope's distributors. Interscope records has signed artists such as Lana Del Rey and Lady Gaga.
Interscope logo.png

Epic Records
Epic Records is American record label that runs as a division of Sony Music Entertainment. Originally created as a jazz label Epic Records has since expanded to represent various genres. Epic's only distributor is Sony Music Entertainment. Epic has signed artists like Avril Lavigne, Karmin and Meghan Trainor.
Epic Records 2011.svg

Hollywood Records 
Hollywood Records, Inc., founded in 1989, is an American record label under the ownership of Disney Music Group which focuses in Pop, Rock, Alternative, Hip-Hop and Country genres. It's distributors include Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group (Worldwide) and Warner Music Group (Russia/CIS). Hollywood Records represents artists such as Demi Lovato and Bella Thorne.
Hollywood Records logo.svg

Choosing Our Song

The song choice for our music video was a hard choice to make. We needed a song with a female vocalist, a good beat to sync shots with and it had to be a video we could come up with an original idea for.

We like the song 'Neon (Lonley People)' by Lena. This song has a steady beat. This song is also more underground so people would not be too familiar with it or it's original video so we wouldn't have our video compared to other people's expectations. We decided not to use this song as we could come up with any good ideas to make an original video with the lyrics.



Paramore 'Emergency' is another song we thought about. I liked this song as the theme of an emergency could be taken in different ways leaving the concept open for creativity. Paramore also has a female vocalist and is alternative rock so it would have been a good song. One idea I had for this was a CSI themed video but on reflection decided it would be too hard to make convincing on a very low budget. Also, par amore are very well known and our video would be compared to their original video which is something we don't want.



The song we finally settled on was 'Rumour' by Chloe Howl. This song is synthpop with a good, catchy beat to sync to. It also has a female vocalist and the theme is about searching for an identity and allows us to be creative. This song is also more 'under the radar' than paramore so fewer people will be familiar with it.


Rumour - Video Concept Initial Ideas

An idea Ashleigh and I have had is for the song 'Rumour' by Chloe Howl. We have decided as the song is pop/synthpop that our music video should follow the conventions which would mean making it narrative. Our story idea would be playing a game of poker as this links in with the lyrics "I'm just tryin' to work out//These cards I've been dealt" which features in the chorus. 


As the the song is pop genre it is important to have close-up shots of the singer performing the song meaning we will need to have someone lip-syncing. I think it would be good to have the singer performing separate from the story of the poker game (although there will most likely be lip-syncing within the poker game). This would mean a minimum of two locations. This is similar to the original video as there is a contrast with the singer when she's dressed in the blue blazer and playing the chess games compared to when she is wearing the black or white tops. This separation makes the video more interesting as it adds differentiation.



I also had the idea that because the song is about someone trying to find their identity that it would be interesting if we could have the same actor in the video more than once. This would mean filming each separate character and masking them in. This would take a lot of planning and editing and so far is just an idea but I think it would look good and have a positive impact on our video. It would also mean we wouldn't have to use actors outside of our duo. 

Here is a video from the youtubers 'Film Riot' who teach techniques for film making and gave me the idea for cloning:


They also have a 'How To' on making a music video: