FILMING MEMORIES

Here is just a short video we made showing some of the many beautiful faces of our music video!

FILMING AT 5AM

Me and Elizabeth filming at Hamstead Heath at 5am in the morning.

SHOT IDEAS!

Here are just some of the shots which we have used and mentioned when discussing audience feedback and our editing!

-We feel these have helped us advance in our work from As to A2!

'ABUSE SCENES' FIRST EDIT

Here is the first edit of our original footage for the abuse scenes in our music video. one of the most highly praised aspects was our tracking, when the protagonist runs out across the car park, through the use of cars we managed to create a successful camera track as she ran, and dolly-type effect. However, there has been discussion on the realistic representation of the female character, as her run adheres to her strong, independence gained and reflected by the song, the acting in the abusive scenes is somewhat girlish, having re-filmed some of these shots we decided to keep the characters portrayal as strong and independent, although a victim in the relationship she will not adhere to female, weaker stereotypes.

QUESTIONNAIRE

Questionnaire

EDITING TO THE BEAT

I decided that, as we were to get our cameras next week and commence filming, I would practise editing some of our practise footage to the beat and music of Dog Days, it was quite challenging as we did not film much lip syncing I could not really incorporate much of it in the video, however it was useful to attempt to fit the footage we had to the song and lyrics. For example, one of the shots was taken with a hand held walking up a ramp towards a building, i used this shot to match with the lyrics:

"coming towards her"

Another example would be when i used footage of the protagonist walking around a corner, I included a slow paced clip of this to fit the timing of the lyrics:

"she hid around corners and she hid under beds"

Personally I feel that it was quite successful, but I will be able to produce something much better with a wider range of footage and lip syncing material.

SECOND COSTUME FOR ARTIST

For the artists second costume in the performance aspect of the video, in the fields, we wanted her to wear a white or light coloured dress to represent her new life and a pure and happy emotion that she feels. We asked a friend studying textiles at A-level to make us a "floaty, floral sort of happy type dress". So we went shopping to buy some fabrics and start making a dress.

(Left) Rachel starts to make the dress, she has cut up the

floral material into sections to create a bodice and pinned them together. (To the right) is our fabric that we have chosen to use for pars on the dress, including the bodice and parts of the skirt, we wanted to use a floral fabric as it fitted in well with the natural element of the location. The lighter colours present the sense of happiness the artist feels that her life is for the better and the feminine pattern contrasts directly with the leather jacket and boots worn in the previous location. This represents the direct contrast of the two stages in her life.

COSTUMES CONTINUED

For the second character (George) we felt that as his role was very minor he would just wear modern and casual clothes, possibly jeans or joggers and a t-shirt or jumper. The colours will be dark as well to represent his negative personality and character. However, we could include a red t-shirt or top to represent his angry nature, although we do not want to take focus away from the artist.

COSTUME

As we will start our filming in a few weeks we have decided to start seriously thinking about the costumes of the characters.

There are 2 characters in the video:

The lead protagonist/ Artist (Me)

Her Ex (who has a small role in the video, played by George)

As there are 2 different Locations, two costumes are required. The first location, where the majority of the video will be shot, is the roof tops. As this part of the video will represent a negative time in the artists life we feel her costume should reflect this alongside the band image and genre. We felt that the clothes I wore when we did some practise filming were effective and so decided to use them for part of the first costume (above, left and below) A leather jacket was effective as it presented the modern element of our band image, also incorporating the genre, which is

Alternative Rock, it also depicts the more gritty element of the video, connotations of a dark leather jacket can adhere to the rougher and darker image we are trying to create. We also wanted to keep the idea of using black leggings as the colour provided further representation of our dark and negative image, whilst the holes and patches can represent how the artists life is falling

apart.

Further more

if you look at the image on the right we feel that the darker colours really fits in with the urban background and setting that we are using in the video.

However, we will not have Ugg boots as part of the costume in the real video, instead we are considering using mini boots, preferably dark brown or black leather, these will firstly fit well with the image we are trying to create (the leather conforming to rock stereotypes) and as we found when filming, it is very difficult to run fast in Uggs and so some proper shoes or boots are required for the running footage to look effective. We decided as a group that we would not spend extra money on the element of the video as we have to make and buy the second costume for the performance location.

MONTAGE OF 'SAD TIMES' SHOTS

Here is a compilation of shots of the protagonist in the first location (the roof tops, representing the 'sad times') we have experimented with different speeds of clips and practised editing the beat and timings of the song we are using 'The Dog Days Are Over' by Florence and the Machine

PRACTISE FILMING

We decided to do some practise filming before we got all of our equipment and started filming our music video. These shots allowed us to experiment with different camera angles and editing to music, they also gave us an over view of some of the ideas we might like to use in the real thing.
The opening 'Argument' inspired us to film the characters actually fighting, not just shadows in low contrast lighting, although we are laughing half of the time and the emotion displayed does not have the same affect we felt it looked really effective to have our protagonist's bad relationship shown more explicitly to the audience. The second argument sequence, in front of the wall, we felt was particularly effective as it presented a really negative and almost desperate atmosphere to the scene (which is what we were hoping to achieve)I personally like the way in which the characters are shouting but you cannot hear them, I feel that this heightens the sense of helplessness our protagonist feels, almost as if nobody can hear her.
The 'running' shot provided us a number of difficulties when filming. It was difficult to run with a hand-held and keep the camera relatively steady, also it was harder for the person filming to keep up with my running, as they were having to concentrate more, we thought that we would try to overcome this by using a shopping trolley. This allowed us to keep the camera steady whilst moving but was not ideal for speed, another option is to use a car and have somebody film out the window, this will keep the camera steady and keep up with the protagonists pace.

MEDIA TRIP TO LONDON

As a class we travelled up to London, Shepard's Bush, to visit a small studio and listen to a talk and presentation about the music video industry and creating our videos. We took a camera with us to film some of the events that took place!

STORYBOARD DRAFT 2

Here is the second draft of our storyboard, it gives us a plan to follow for our first 40+ shots, by presenting them in picture form we were able to visualise our film coming together and rearrange shots and mini clips.
Storyboard Music Video.ppt Recovered]

PICTURES OF US ON LOCATION

Elizabeth and I preparing the camera and lighting for the shot

Elizabeth and I preparing for shots on location to use in our storyboard

PICTURES OF STORYBOARDING ON LOCATION

Here are a number of still shots of us taking pictures on location for our storyboard...

A mid-shot image of the protagonist in the narrative location, the urban setting and low contrast lighting presents the despair she feels in comparison to the bright rural setting in the performance location.

Me on location, this is a rough idea of a shot where the protagonist would start to sing, we thought we could follow this with a pan arund to the a close -up shot of her face singing.

Emily on location, here she is demonstrating a wide shot we could use for our performance aspect of the video.

STORYBOARD

Here is the first draft of our storyboard, it is not completed yet but this just gives a quick overview of what we are hoping to achieve. We wanted to gain a more overall view of our video and so we visited our location and took a number of photos a short videos of our ides so we could visualise what they would look life on film.

Storyboard Music Video.ppt Recovered]

STORYBOARDING PRACTISE

In our As Media course, we created the opening two minutes of a horror film, however our filming was problematic as we had to repeatedly re shoot footage and add more locations to add more to the video, we felt that this was down to a poor, and essentially absent storyboard.

Without storyboarding the groups ideas a number of problems may arise including,

Before sitting down and storyboarding our actual video we thought that we would do a practise one, as a group we made up a storyboard for the opening of the Pamola Faiths 'New York' video, we felt that this would enable us to gain an insight into storyboarding music video from a similar genre.

'DOG DAYS ARE OVER' - LYRICS

Happiness hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with her drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink


The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You cant carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses?
Because here they come

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had and what was left after that too, oh
Happiness hit her like a bullet in the head
Struck from a great height by someone who should know better than that

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses?
Because here they come

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your loving, your loving behind
You cant carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses?
Because here they come

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run

TREATMENT PRESENTATION

DOG DAYS ARE OVER: NEW IDEA

After a significant group meeting , we decided that the song, stone cold sober, was not ideal for our music video. We listened to the lyrics more closely and deciding that it would be difficult to lip sync to. We also researched int the making of the video it self, being really flamboyant and extravagant it cost a lot to produce. We also figured it would be difficult to lip sync to as the artist as a slight lisp.

Therefore..

We changed our idea and had a complete 'remodel' of our plan and video. Our chosen song is Dogs Days Are Over by Florence and the Machine

We have decided to produce a performance/ narrative video, filming in two locations. The performance side of which will be set in a wide natural open space and will juxtapose with the narrative being set in typically urban settings. The theme of the video will be getting over hard times and moving on with your life.

We all feel really positive about our new idea and there are many more details in our treatment!