On Set For Filming

Today is they day that we had planned to film the majority of our video and I'm happy to say that we have done just that! We still need to upload the footage and look through it but so far we are happy with the outcome.

British Film Institute Visit: Practical (INCOMPLETE)

As a class we visited the British Film Institute for a talk with Pete Fraser about making music videos. The talk included a music promo history as well as tips for making a music video and a Q&A with Jake Wynne.

Good examples of student's work:

 I like how this video has been well bought through and planned. I like that it's one take and the group have clearly rehearsed the routine with all the props involved as well as smooth on-screen costume and set changes.

This group have clearly looked into multiple genres for this video, making sure they include all the conventions.

Jake Wynne:

Jake Wynne is a director and editor who has done many popular music videos such as 'Let Me Entertain You' by Robbie Williams and 'Say You'll Be There' by the Spice Girls. During the talk Jake Wynne tolds us about how he progressed up to his career now and gave tips he'd learnt through industry. I found his talk very informative and I really like the videos he has directed and editited.

McBusted - Air Guitar (music video)

This music video caught my attention as I liked the editing and the concept of the instruments (and people) disappearing making them 'air' instruments to go with the lyrics of the song. What I thought was so good about it is that when the things disappear not all of it disappears. The peoples clothes/shoes  stay or the person playing the instruments/riding the skateboard.

Shooting Schedule

We have a shooting schedule planning to shot at all our locations in one day. We are lucky as  most of our locations are easily accessible from school so transporting our props should be okay. Also, as the locations are not far from each other we won't be spending too much time travelling, this means we can shoot for much longer and make sure we get all the footage we need.

Inspiration From Other Media

Here are three stills from real media I have seen that have inspired some of the ideas for our video.

1)

This still from Lily Allen's music video 'Our Time'. This shot shows the use of cloning as Lily appears to have three personas (four in the entire video). This inspired us to include multiple personas for our performer throughout the video.

2)

This is from the band Rixton's music video for 'Me and My Broken Heart'. This video has the narrative of a card game which is the same as our main focal point. This video includes a lot of shot takes and fast paced editing to reflect the intensity of the game, this is something we should think about when we get to the bridge section of the song as everything builds up to this part of the song.

3)

This is a freeze-frame from Taylor Swift's music video 'Safe and Sound'. This music video has a dystopian theme running through it and I like the fact that Taylor is alone and surrounded by trees making her seem disconnected from the rest of the world but is still in an open location. This makes her feel vulnerable, I think this would be good for our singer during the chorus' as the lyrics portray her to be confused and lost.

Stop Animation

Stop animation is a good way to fill in gaps you find in your footage. It's a creative and interesting way to keep the video flowing and can be on a large or small scale.

Star Quality - Richard Dyer

"A star is an image constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) from a range of materials - e.g. advertising and magazines, as well as films and music." Richard Dyer

 Richard Dyer's theory states that icons and celebrities are created through institutions for financial gain. These celebrities are targeted at one specific group/audience. The persona of the star created is not a real person but instead a fictional character making it so the star is not restricted to only music. Many often branch out to creating fashion trends and even popular phrases aimed towards their consumers.
Dyer's theory is can be broken down into 5 parts:

• The making of a 'star'
• Constructions
• Audience and institutions
• Hegemony / cultural beliefs
• Character and personality

McFly

 McFly's debut single was '5 Colours in Her Hair', which was released 29 March 2004 and entered the UK Single's Chart at no. 1 in April 2004 and stayed there a following week. This success was helped by them opening up for the band Busted on their tour in 2004.

5 Colours in Her Hair single artwork

McFly's debut album's cover

These classically feature all the band members, this was commonly done when bands were starting out as people are not too familiar with the members and this makes the band more recognisable and makes the image of the band stick in people's heads.

The font in both are identical, just different colours, this acts as the band's logo and makes their album and single artwork easier to identify.

2010

May 2011

McFly have kept themselves in the media to keep up their 'star image'. This involves magazine articles, interviews and social media but also on their own website.

McFly's image and target audience has developed over the years. When they first started out they were aimed at a younger audience of predominantly young female girls. As the band grew up and evolved so did their sound and therefore audience. More recently their music, although still aimed mostly aimed at females, their target audience has become older. A lot of McFly's original fans have grown up with the band and are still fans.

Our 'star' and music video is going to be aimed at what is McFly's fan base nowadays. For our digi-pack and magazine article will take the more refined format like McFly's later style. It is going to be more unisex rather than pink like their earlier magazine covers/articles. This is because we aren't aiming at such a young 'teeny-bopper' audience but an older audience which are more likely to understand the narrative of our music video.

   

Storyboarding Complete - Snapchat

We have finally completed our storyboard and are ready to start filming. Using the lyrics to block the areas we wanted things made storyboarding much easier than just trying to put it in the boxes straight away.

Another Way of Planning

We decided that the box layout of our storyboard sheets were making it harder to plan our ideas when we already know what shots we want and what order to edit them to make our narrative flow. Instead we decided to write on the lyrics what shots we wanted and when we wanted to separate from the narrative characters and our performer. We hope to have all our planning done by the end of this week so we can start filming as soon as possible.

Storyboarding again & Mirror Idea

We were storyboarding and trying to plan when we are doing the narrative and where we would have the lip-syncing. We also thought about the type of ending we are going to have which is something we hadn't had a chance to do until now.

For the chorus we decided we wanted to have our performer dressed seperatly from the other characters  in a completely different location lip-synching to the song before going into verse two and the other two characters' narrative.

We want a dramatic ending as the song builds towards the end and then stops abruptly. We also want to include voyeurism using a mirror which will smash at the end. We could use the smashed shards of mirror for interesting shots as the performer continues looking back at herself in the broken pieces. One shot I liked that has a similar composition is from American Horror Story's most recent episode 'Pink Cupcakes'. I like how you have the different Angles of Elsa in the different mirrors whilst only one has Stanley in it. In our video we could have the shatered mirror pieces reflecting our singer but also have a few fragments showing the faces of the other 'characters' from the narrative of the video.

Intertextuality - INCOMPLETE

Lots of music videos reference other texts such as Iggy Azalea referencing the film "Clueless" in her music video for "Fancy".

Shot Ideas For Around The Table

For our shots around the table not only do we want clones of our singer but we would also like them to interact with each other. An example of this in real media would be the Disney Channel show Liv and Maddie.

The YouTube channel Film Riot also covered interaction between 'clones' in their video 'Film Riot - Human Cloning and Camera Techniques' (4:46-5:18).

 

John Lewis' Christmas Advert 2014

This advert has literally taken over social media since it was released yesterday. Through the use of emotional music and the wistful narrative this music video really pulls on people's heartstrings. I really like the way it uses CGI to bring the penguin 'toy' to life which really makes you feel like the penguin is the boys friend/pet. I wasn't expecting him to turn out the be a toy!

Tips For Filming Outside

Film Riot have uploaded a new video for shooting outside and I thought it might be helpful as most of our video will be shot outside. Although some of the tips aren't useful for us I really like the idea of using a bounce board to control some of the lighting on the subject as well as thinking about the time of day to film to give us the best effect.

Band Name and Track List Ideas

Today I started coming up with ideas for our band name as well as song tittles for our track list. To come up with these ideas I started with using the random generator where you and a partner write down one or two words before folding it and passing it on. I done this 3 times and these are what came out of it:

Ideas that this produce include:

• Diamond Daisies
• The Wise Queen
• Party Goblins
• Golden Goblins
• Philosophical Forrest
• Worms and Daisies

These can also be used as possible song titles if not chosen as the band name.

For the song we are actually doing I quite like the idea of basing it around the card game or rumours, I quite like 'Just a Rumour', 'These Cards', 'Play The Game' or 'Show Your Hand'. Other less obvious names would be 'Astray' or 'So They Say'. Before a band name and song title is chosen I need to speak to Ashleigh to see if she has any ideas to add before selecting one.

I also went on the online song name generator www.songname.net for ideas and found a few that I liked. Some of my favourite ideas include:

• Putting An End To Words
• American Twister
• Wicked Promise
• Secret Pretence
• The All American Game
• Looking For Mercy
• Complete Lack of People
• Shining Accusations
• Proof of Karma
• Strange Massacre
• The New Pretence