EDITING DAY

Today we were given the opportunity to spend a day editing together our music video. This gave us the chance to really look at what footage we have previously filmed and start to piece together a rough cut. After a morning of editing a decision was made to go out and film some more shots to give a bit of background story to the song, therefore we headed to the park to film some shots which we want to add in as his memories of his ex and as we liked the effect of stop motion we thought we'd add more context to the memory clips by using photos of him with the girl. Overall the day editing and doing some final filming was really successful as we now just need to add transitions and choose the best ending.

EQUIPMENT

In order to get our filming done to a very good standard it's important we use the best equipment available to us.


This camera is one of the two we are using, while it is designed to take photos the footage it films is of a great quality and will also allow us to capture close ups and have bokeh backgrounds as well as in and out of focused shots.


The second camera we used was provided by the media department at school and was a handheld canon camera. We thought it would be useful to use two cameras as two of us can film at the same time which will make the filming process less time consuming and a lot more beneficial. This camera can be easily attached to the tripod to make sure it captures a steady shot and it will film the necessary shots needed for our music video with ease.

A tripod is a useful and necessary part of our equipment as it will allow us to film good, steady and unshaken shot. We will be able to film at a varying heights, as the legs can be adjusted accordingly.









To edit our music video and access our blog we have been using an apple iMac. This is a really beneficial piece of equipment for us to use and from previous work on it and having owning one at home I am completely at ease using it.

FILMING

 Yesterday we got our filming done! The picture to the right shows where we decided to film the indoor shots of our artist performing. As he talks about home in the song it could either be read as his actual home or the place he feels at home when he is with the girl. This could act as both. We decorated the walls with picture frames to relate to the lyrics 'pictures still hung up' and the cameras hanging from the ceiling were also put there because of this as they take pictures. The use of The Beatles poster and sign were put on the walls to show not only that he likes them but his audience will too as indie bands and artists get a lot of influence from past musicians, and as a band they are popular within our artists audience whether it be through listening to their music or just wearing clothes with the signature name on. Other little items were put around the chair as they were retro pieces and would fit into that vintage style indie artists give the impression of. The old telephone was in there to represent the relation to calling her and use of phone lyrics in the song. Over all I think the use of props in this location was effective.

DIGIPACK FONTS RESEARCH

From previous research into indie artists digipack albums, I already recognise that most if not all use capital letters and have 'logo' fonts for their band/artist name. It's important we look into an ideal font for our digipack, one that grabs the attention of our audience but is simple and easy to read. It must look effective and be pleasing to the eye. Below are some initial fonts I have found that fit into this criteria and look interesting.

PROPS LIST

In our music video we want to feature quite a lot of vintage/retro pieces as well as main props that link directly to the lyrics so we can put an image to the words when editing it all together.

Props relating to video..

- a window 'cos you always liked the windows opened wide' 

- picture frame 'pictures still hung up'

- lamp light/lamp 'under lamplight'

- pillow 'sleeping with a pillow'

- phone 'all you have to do is pick up the phone'

- home 'here when you make it home'

Other props..

- chair/sofa

- guitar

- bedside table/small table

- old radio

- mirror

- lanterns

I walked around my house looking out for anything that we could use or get inspiration from and took photos of odd pieces and potential props.

MISE EN SCENE

Jack is playing the artist, Lewis Watson, in our music video and will be throughout the photos for our digipack and magazine advert.

In order for him to look authentic in the sense that he comes across as our chosen indie artist, the clothes he wears is an important factor of his image. Most indie artists wear quite casual clothing, with the likely hood that some of it is one off pieces found in vintage shops like Rokit, Beyond Retro and the Renewal section in Urban Outfitters. This mixture of a casual high street, vintage mix presents a look which is individual to the person. Below I made a little mood board gif of the style I see our artist dressing like.

Jack will definitely be wearing dark skinny jeans as these are a great base trouser to style and work with. I think the colour pallet he should wear should be quite earthy with out doors colours such as burgundy, navy, dark green and blues. These all compliment each other well. Layering will play a big part of Jacks image, through tees, shirts, jumpers and a coat. Vans will be a suitable shoe choice as they are instantly recognisable and a lot if his fans will wear these too. Below is an outfit set I created on polyvore, this gives a good idea of what we expect Jack to wear, I know he has a few similar items to the ones below anyway.

RISK ASSESSMENT

In order to make sure our filming goes as smooth as possible and is carried out safely I have looked into possible risks which we may be faced with..

Getting to our location provides a few health and safety risks. I will be driving so I need to make sure I do so safely and park up in a suitable place so it's easy to get to our chosen location. We may have to cross a main road in order to get to it so carrying all the props across and keeping all the equipment safe as well as ourselves will be a main priority of ours.

During setting up and filming we need to make sure we stay safe by looking where we walk and tread, making sure we don't trip over or knock into any branches or trees as these are possible risks of filming in a forest because of the uneven ground and branches scattered everywhere.

WEATHER FORECAST

Realistically we would like some sun for our video as we feel it would look good in the shots we intend to use but the English weather has been very gloomy, foggy and cold over the past week or so. We have our chosen filming dates and now all we can do is hope it doesn't rain or snow on these dates! I have checked the weather forecast and it does look promising however closer to the days we'll be able to get a better idea of what the weather will be like and then we can plan what day to film what as some shots will look better with a little sun and others don't matter as much. Below are two screenshots from the BBC Weather page and there forecast looks promising.

FILMING DATES

As a goup we have decided on two filming days, Wednesday the 7th and Thursday the 8th of November. We all compared timetables and these days present us with the most possible time to film as on the Wednesday we have all have lessons till 3rd period (12ish) so I will drive us to our location after our lessons to start filming. Then on Thursday we all have lessons 5th period which starts at 2pm so that gives us a reasonable amount of filming time across two days.

INITIAL STORYBOARD

MUSIC VIDEO INCLUSIONS

POSSIBLE FILMING LOCATIONS

As we have decided that we will definitely be filming outside, and that it will most likely be in a forest/field location we looked into some possible places that would be acceptable to film in. Both locations below are vast forest and field locations, with one located by my house and the other by Rebecca's. We will need to go and look into the good/bad points of each place further and see which one we will be filming in.

Coopersale, Epping Forest

Foxes Wood, Bardfield Saling

FOCUS SHIFT

Another micro element my group wish to use within our music video is the effect of macro/close up focus shift. In a frame the camera changes focus from one object to another, usually from the effect of zooming and refocusing on a specific object. This technique not only looks very effective, it allows the footage to flow very smoothly and therefore engages the audiences attention to specific areas at certain points throughout. The video below, named 'Beautiful Clutter' incorporates this effect very well. The outcome is a beautiful filmed piece, and the content relates to what we want to film in our music video as vintage/retro objects such as film cameras feature in it and the whole product gives of a vintage vibe. I really like most if not all of the shots in the video and hope we can recreate some similarly effective shots in ours.

OUTDOORS/CARRYING OBJECTS/DAY TO NIGHT

Ben Howard's video for Keep Your Head Up, contains all three of these factors which we are thinking about using within our video as so far we have decided we would like to use an outdoor location. We've also noted down ideas about the artist carrying things ready to set up an outdoor house which can be seen in the video for keep your head up as he is seen carrying objects setting up a slide. As well as those two the video also goes from sunrise through the day which is something we intend to do in our music video as it is a common convention of indie music videos.

PERFORMANCE

After researching into the indie genre it was clear, even after looking just a few videos, that most indie videos  either contained the band or artist singing and playing instruments, usually acoustic guitars. As a performance is a big part of indie music videos, and music videos in general, we have decided that we want to include a performance from the artist not only to follow the indie conventions but to make the music video more personal to the target audience.

The music video to Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons is a perfect example of use of performing with instruments within their video. The song itself is classed as a indie/acoustic/country which is reflected through he use of instruments and locations. Throughout there is a lot of emphasis on the instruments being played by the use of close ups and in some cases extreme close ups. The video ends on a long shot of the surroundings and settings we were only shown close ups of which essentially summarises what we have just watched. They have only used performance in this video, no illustrative or narrative structures, however it was still interesting to watch because of the use of lights and singing.

LYRICS ANALYSIS

We printed out a copy of the lyrics to our chosen song and underlined and generally brain stormed potential links, meanings and actions that could be taken and used in reference to words in the music video we create. Therefore we colour coded potential locations, significant words, actions and props.