Week Fifteen

This week I have begun to not only review the footage from the main shoot, but also to edit it using premiere pro cs4. I have so far created the ending 50 seconds of the video and various other sequences throughout the video. I had to have the footage from the camera (mov files), translated into wmv files which are compatible for editing on premiere pro cs4. The process was lengthy, but necessary and the footage quality has been reduced ever so slightly.

Week Fourteen - Shooting Week

This week, I have at last, shot my music video (22nd October). The evening went well, though the shoot was more challenging than expected. The camera was difficult to get used to, with the manual aperture lens, though I think the footage that was filmed was successful on the whole. The cast and crew were all very helpful and enthusiastic and not only did we manage to shoot the majority of the video, we all managed to enjoy ourselves too. The equipment failed us at certain points, the canon 550d battery ran out despite having charged all weekend, thus we were hindered from shooting for around half an hour to 45mins. The memory space on the camera was also full up by the end, but luckily we had filmed everything we could and would need that night. The schedule was also quite difficult to keep to, with added pressures from people needing to leave early and at different times. I also received a shock in the morning when the leading actress playing 'Alice' informed me she did not think she could make it! Luckily though she managed to avert her plans and the situation was fine. The location was good, with the garden becoming an ideal setting for the video. Though my uncle's house was empty (as nobody has moved in yet), it was still accommodating and warm. My uncle and my parents were in and out throughout the shoot and helped to keep people warm and fed - the temperature got very low as it got later into the night. The shoot was so large in sale that though everyone had left between 10.30-11, we still had to remain to clear up close till 1am. I shall also be arranging a reshoot, though it is difficult to do so as not everyone will be free on the same dates and I am uncertain as to who is needed again as I need to review the footage.

Here is a video presentation of some photos from the evening, taken by the principal photographer Natalie. The music will be the music used in the video, thus will give some inclination of what the actual product might be like:

Pre-production Documents

Here are the essential documents needed in preparation for my music video shoot. I have used scribd and slideshare to display these important documents, which include: the risk assessment, the personnel details, the running order and the call sheet.

Pre-production Documents

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Week Thirteen

This week I have been working to enhance my knowledge of my target audience and the collation of audience feedback on my idea for the music video. I also completed my storyboard this week, it totalled to a number of 7 A4 pages of drawn sketches of nearly 50 boxes. Using my blackberry, I took pictures of these pages and saved them to my computer. Then, on photoshop, each box was separated and saved as a jpeg. These were then dropped into Premiere Pro CS5 where they were put alongside the music on a timeline (my animatic).

Using social networking as a means to gather feedback, I used facebook's chat facility to ask members of my target audience (nearly all fans of indie music, aged 16 and upwards and frequent users of web2.0), I managed to send my proposal to them and see their reaction and response. Many also gave tips on how to avoid problems I might experience during the shoot.

I created a survey on this blog a few weeks ago. The results have been very helpful and I have collected the data and made pie-charts for them in a presentation which I have uploaded. The survey regarded the audience age, opinions on music video and digipak styles. I will use what I learned for the production of both.

Audience Feedback from survey results

Audience feed

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This is an audience feedback and research presentation I have compiled via PowerPoint and then slideshare. Having conducted an online survey on my blog, I have managed to deduce the preferences of those I am targeting - and shall use this data for later production.

Audience Feedback from Social Networking

Audience facebook

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I have made a slideshre document to showcase some audience feedback I have gathered from the social networking site Facebook, which will be helpful in the production of my tasks.

Storyboard and The Animatic

The stroyboard in its entirety. The 3 minute and 50 second music video stretches 9 pages in sketch form. I shall be creating an animatic to the music of my music video to enable me to visualise the finished thing more accurately.

Week Twelve

This week I completed a screen test and audition of an actor who is to be in my music video:

As well as this, I carried on with my storyboard which has reached 30 boxes thus far. My proposal has now been written, in which I discuss the technologies I will be using to aid me, some audience research I have carried out to find out my target audience and the idea and inspirations in general.

The Proposal and Goodwin's theory

The concept of my coursework piece is based on the narrative form of music videos. It will be performed to Cults ‘Oh My God’. My target audience will typically be both male and female genders in the 16-30 age range. From interviewing several female individuals I have ascertained that many females do not like both the sound and the idea of a female lead! Due to the fact my song features a female lead; the target audience may therefore be slightly more swayed towards men.

The video will be shot entirely at night in my uncle’s garden, which will be lit by a bright filming spotlight, with three extension leads to the house. There will be 13 actors – one of which is the lead protagonist, and three crew members including myself. Costumes will range from the personal dresses and items of the actors helping out, as well as things I have bought and borrowed items from my neighbour and theatre group. The camera will be a Canon 550D, chosen for its high quality motion-capturing, lighting gadgetry and the aperture lens which enhances the look and style of the colours and overall image. Once the footage has been transferred into a usable format such as vlr or wmv, I shall commence editing via Adobe Photshop Premiere Pro.

The narrative follows the lead protagonist as she ventures out from the security of her home during the night, to find herself being watched by a boy in a rabbit costume, an allusion to Carol’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’. After showing her his pocket watch (the referencing of being ‘late for an important date’), the rabbit dashes off into the further recesses of the garden, where it is dark and overgrown. The protagonist follows and is caught up in what appears some kind of masked ball/celebration, a mixture of nymphs, masked individuals, animal faces and ‘Wonderland’ allusions. At first wary, the protagonist is led to the picnic, where she spends a lengthy amount of time, before being engaging in a night of revelling and dancing in the dark. In the end, the protagonist has transformed from her simple white night dress, to a nymph-like frock. She has joined them.

Goodwin’s theory:

Links between lyrics and visual – no real explicit link, i.e. ‘I’ll leave you to stay inside dreaming’ is not entirely relevant to the music video plot, however it does focus on the theme of going outside and venturing out, breaking with norms – a heavy theme in the piece. Another link would be the fat the action plays along with the music – during climatic moments in the music; the events may also reach a pinnacle. This is what is known as working in a complimentary way.

There will be motifs seen in this genre of music video. These include, ambiguity, innocence into some kind of hardening or strengthening or even a darkening.

Intertextual reference to Lewis Carol’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ as well as other music videos I have cited in my blog previously.

Notions of looking will feature heavily, albeit in a much less sexualised manner. There will be a focus on the leads innocence, she first appears in a white night dress and untainted by maquillage. By the end, she will have gained a nymph outfit, a shorter cut dress, flowers and face paint. As the central focus, there will be much camera focus on her, she is being watched completely throughout. This links in with the theme of Voyeurism and a constant figure of attention. All the characters will be fascinated by her and she will seem oblivious to the camera’s presence save for a few dramatic exceptions.

There will be no demands on the record label as such as the artist is not being represented in the video.

Masks

Indie folk band; Boy and Bear's 'Rabbit Song' is an influential music video for me. It carries many of the themes I hope to achieve in my music video; escapism, mystery, the supernatural or fairytale and nostalgia of a gothic/pre-raphaelite, natural world. The video is shot using HD cameras which are lit to convey the natural surroundings as a form of paradise, with light pooling through the gaps between leaves. The costumes used also provide me with ideas and the band (after watching their other videos) appear to have a distinct 'mask' theme, implying obscurity and ambiguity - elements which I aim to borrow. Most importantly, the video is non-performance based (much like Chad Valley's 'Shell Suite' video) and involves the idea of a central character being led off into a world of masked outsiders.

Week 11

This week I took a photo using the Canon 550D which I plan to shoot my video and my digipak material with. Though the photos were heavily over-exposed (as demonstrated in a post below), the experience was a valuable lesson on how to use the camera and experiment with the aperture lense.
As well as this, I have embarked on a trip to all local charity stores and pound stores, party shops and the like, on a quest to find props for my music video. I have also invested in makeup and paints for the female actresses in my shoot.