Filming 21/11/15

Today we filmed some more narrative scenes for the beginning of the music video to give the narrative more sense and depth. We used our team members for reliability. I decided on a range of mid shots to long shots and also an over the shoulder shot.

Hopefully when we edit the lighting will be okay. We made sure our shadows didn't get in shot or interfere.

Narrative Plan 2

We had a talk about what we need to do for the narrative such as creating a better story. To cut down on reliability we will use the 2 boys in the group as the other actors. We are planning on filming more narrative to give context to the narrative we also have. 

We aim to film a scene including 3 actors. They will meet up at a park and have a conversation/fight and then it will be revealed that he is leaving him for another boy. We will do this through varying shots such as him walking to the park, meeting then fighting and a few cinematic shots. 

We plan to film in South Park in Darlington. 

Comparison to professional products (Music Video)

Putting our video against the original gives me some interesting ideas. I was thinking about cutting our footage the same pace as the original music video to see if the pacing or the quality actually changes.

However in comparison the editing is quite similar to the actual video and some of the effects are the same such as the lighting effect around the first chorus of the video.

Learning from this i feel as though i need to improve this:

• Quicker Cutting
• More interesting narrative 
• A bigger ending 

Narrative Editing

I transferred all the clips from filming the narrative and then began editing it into the rough cut for the video.

After receiving feedback from Al it's clear that the narrative barely has any context, we need to film more and extend the narrative to have a clearer story and show the disequilibrium throughout and a lot more of a linear storyline. 

Filming 27/10/15

Group:

Olivia

Kirsty

Model Release Form:

Actor:

Jamie Richards

What we filmed:
We filmed the narrative, this included many shots that created a story. We did this from a cinema aspect and tried to be as cinematic as possible. 

How many takes:
We took over 5+ takes of each scene to make sure we had a lot to work with.

Re-take?:

I don't think we will need to re-take, the actor was very co-operable and none of the shots were ruined.

Reflection:
Since we already had performance i found myself wanting to do scenes that i thought would fit in inbetween the performance, i therefore had to think more of scenes that would work on their own even though we had performance already. This made it more natural and made sure we got a lot more scenes. 

Props For 27.10.15

For our narrative we will need more props than our performance.

• Phone (Me)
• Jacket (Me)
• Photo Frames (Me)
• Images for the photo frames (Conor & Daniel) (Me)
• Mirrors (Already There)
• Location (Olivia)

I bought four photo frames to put on our side, they were fairly neutral and will add a nice effect with images of the couple in it. 

Due to complications with Conor we didn't have any images we could use.

Therefore i had to get them. Since we weren't allowed to use images of peoples faces i had to find ones that a couple would have therefore i thought of

• Vacation photos
• Concerts
• Loved up Photos

I used google to find the images and found these four 

We could pretend this was our bands concert, this is good as it's non-descript and vague

Paris being the city of love, i thought this would be a good connection

I made all the images black and white using photoshop CS6 then i changed the levels so the shadows were a lot darker, since our music video is in black and white we don't need the colour.

They all fit apart from the concert one, this is concealed by the Paris photo and therefore will not get in the way. 

I also printed out more copies of this photo as we will be getting our actor to rip it up and we might need more than one take. 

Rough Cut Feedback

We aimed to get a lot of feedback through many sources such as through a form, through asking and tweeting.

Google Form - For the questionnaire we went with open questions to give us more qualitative data so people can write what they want and we can get a real response that's unique to each person.

I also sent an email out to my friends and people i knew including the questionnaire 

Music Video Feedback:
Jake Wynne and Pete Fraser - Jake Wynne's Twitter & Petes' Twitter

Asked over Facebook

Questionnaire Feedback:

From the responses we can see we mainly hit the right genre with what we have done. However the overall grading for the digipak could use some improvement. 

They really all like the black and white effect on the digipak and how it follows through the entire theme. However from the responses we clearly need to make the digipak stand out more and make it less generic from other albums. 

Overall the text does seem to fit however someone suggested "some text that looks like it's been hand written" and therefore we will test that to see how it looks. 

Overall the responses said we should change the images and some text. From feedback with nicola and al we are already thinking about changing the top left image. After this we will change the entire digipak to suit the new logo and change what has been said. 

After this we know that we leave the CD panel alone and that the general theme does fit with the theme of the band. 

Overall it was a tie with 8/9 since the video isn't complete this is understandable. 

Overall the shots we did and the black and white theme was well received and therefore we know that we dont need to re-shoot. Also the clip with " jump by the guitarist " we will keep after feedback from nicola saying we should remove it. We all like the shot and since we have secondary feedback that says it's a good shot we will keep it. 

Overall there is not much change that needs to be done they suggest location shots and the band getting more into it, however we feel as though the location will be okay if we include enough narrative to draw the viewer away. We're taking after what the 1975 did in Heart Out where there is one staged location.

It seems as though the homepage is their favourite, with starting a new website completely we will take all this into consideration and implement it in the new design. 

They like the images used in this initial design and the theme throughout the website. We are thinking of making a separate feedback form and comparing the new against the old seeing which we like more. 

Overall many people like the website giving it a 8-9 score and a yes to it fits the genre. The only negative is some said it only fits it to an extent. 

Again, Mixed responses some say "really well put together." then others say "a lot of dead space" therefore we have decided to make a new website taken all the responses. However the main outcome is that they liked this initial design.

Overall:

• Film The Narrative - Done
• Create a new website
• Change the panels on the digipak
• Quicker Editing 

Music Video Rough Cut

This is the initial rough cut of the music video - this doesn't include the narrative or is fully done and is just a taster to see how it looks. With feedback from Nicola she said:

- Fix the scene at 0:43

-Make sure the narrative fits in

-It looked professional

This also includes feedback on the video below 

We also created a music video rough cut with blocks of narrative to see how we could work it in: 

Narrative Ideas 19/10/15

Before filming we decided to create a page of ideas to film, We have also found a boy's room we can use, The theme we are going for is a break up - we won't give away what happened but it will follow an actors story after he has broken up and it will show how angry/sad he is after it. It will be intercut with the performance to make it a combination. We were initially going to scrap our ideas for a narrative however we think it will show off our skills and will add more to our performance. 

Editing 08/10/15 - 12/10/15

Today i began editing the videos for a rough cut. (8/10/15)

I managed to get up to the middle of the first chorus without having any narrative footage. To turn it black and white like we wanted I used Color Corrector. I turned the saturation down then went into the filters and played around with the level controls. this made the video darker and made it look a lot more professional since it blacks out some of the background 

Before

After

✦Update 25.09.15✦

Actors:

• Lang Hall dropped out of Saturday filming leading us to cancel, then told us he could do it
• We will only use Jamie Richards as he is so far been quite reliable - Still need to get his model release forms and call sheet. 

Narrative:

• Due to only using Jamie we will have to change the narrative
• We had a conversation in the group chat and I thought of a new idea
• New idea would mean more props and a location change
  
  

Location

• We will also need to change location and filming date due to the narrative change. I was thinking of just using a house it's safe and an enclosed space we will be able to film for a whole day

Overall:

• Location, Narrative and Actors changed
• Performance is still happening October 1st and the musicians are the same. 

✦Shooting Update✦

Instead of filming on Saturday 26th we will film narrative also on October 1st, The actors we chose were not reliable and have dropped out and therefore we feel it would be best to film when we can have full control over who come in or not.

Location Reece - Narrative

Narrative - For this we will use a function room we can easily gain access too and not change too much but enough to dress it up and get the image we want. For the narrative it'll be easy to shoot in this area as we can change it and it is a wide space we can get a lot of shots and easily move about with.

Shooting Schedule

We haven't decided a date for the filming of our music video yet as we are figuring out each others working schedule.

We are going to film everything all at once throughout the day but this will include alternative locations. We can do this as all the scenes will be indoors and therefore the element of the natural lighting won't be an issue as the day goes on.

When we officially get a location to film it will be clearer when we can shoot, we need to shoot when everyone is available for a long period of time so probably a Saturday or a Sunday.

Here are all the locations we are thinking of using

• Darlington Civic Theatre
• Richmond Georgian Theatre
• Longfield School
• Richmond School
• Dance Studio in College
• Travellers Rest Private Function Room - Narrative

We will start the day by moving all the stuff to the first location.

Costume & Props

Actors: 

For costume we have decided to go with a very casual and formal theme for the performance and actors. This links in with the genre of indie rock as they stereotypically don't dress up for their music videos. The actors in the narrative will wear opposing outfits to create a binary opposition (so white/black)

Props:

Band props from 046679

Initial Prop & Location Ideas

For the music video we will clearly need props to get the full effect of a music video. Props we might need include:

• Bedroom/House furniture
• Sunglasses
• Hanging Lights 
• Speakers
• Guitar
• Drums
• Bass
• Microphone
• Microphone stand
• Decorations
• Standing Lights in the background

For our location we want it to link in with the narrative. We have been thinking of places like warehouses, function rooms, Bedrooms (for the narrative) or a beach and other places that could play into the story. Also for our locations we have taken some from real life music videos such as Echosmith - Bright is filmed in a barn

Also Kodaline - Love Like This is filmed in a bar, we know we cant do this, but the enclosed spacing gives a better feel and closer connection with the band. The lighting in this is also really great as it goes through the windows and gives a slight light to the band making it look very natural.

Pitch - Letter To the record label

To whom it may concern,
I am a student at Queen Elizabeth Sixth form, We are in our second year of A-Levels and we have been tasked to create a music video of a song of our choice. We would love to create a video using the song Biblical by Biffy Clyro. Of course we need your permission to do this as to avoid copyright infringement. What we are creating is not commercialised and will not gain any profit. It is purely for academic purposes, we would love to hear back from you.
Kirsty Evers

We submitted this through the WMG question submitter.

http://www.wmg.com/culture#contact

Theories of Representation

Within the music industry the representation of females and males is still quite dated - it falls into a category of stereotypes and incorrect ideas.

Females

• Often sexualised
• Dancing provocatively 
• Women can however use their sexualisation to sell more albums/get more views
• However if males do this it can be seen as offensive
• Laura Mulvey - Women are objectified and have the 'to-be-looked-at ness' in films
• They are an object of desire and are there for the male gaze
• Many females began to challenge representation and they are rarely sexualised 
• Some subvert the ideas and try and use empowering lyrics or videos
• 
  

Males

• The more closely that a man conforms to what is expected and what we have all come to accepts as traditional characteristics of masculinity, the closer he is to being a “real man.”
• Evidence indicates little change in hegemonic masculinity and strong representation of the four themes of the male sex role (stoic, aggressive, dependable and not feminine). 
• Hegemonic masculinity is competitive and reflects a tendency for males to seek to dominate other males and subordinate females
• Characteristics such as drive, ambition, claims to self-reliance, heterosexuality ,misogynistic, and being aggressive 

There are a lot of two sided debates over videos.

In Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines - The woman are clearly sexualised and objectified in comparison to the males in the performance. The body language and the clothing is very sexual and in every shot this is shown. The lyrics of the actual song is degrading and demonising for woman. The camera has a lot of close ups on the women and it reinforces the patriarchal society.

In comparison someone like Adele - Chasing Pavements. The video doesn't sexualise women at all and focuses on a narrative. It's really respectful in comparison and in a lot of her videos she is barely ever sexualised unlike in other popular songs. However it could be up for debate that it's due to the genre and type of singer (male vs female singer or pop/indie)

Narrative Analysis

Due to our genre of indie pop/rock the band we want to pay close attention to is the 1975.

Todorov - Equilibrium

This theory suggests how most storys or plot lines follow the same path/pattern.

First - Equilibrium - The story will display a happy start where the characters are happy and content

Second - Dis-Equilibrium - Something will go wrong and the characters will begin to face a challenge.

Third - New Equilibrium - Everything will restore and come to a resolve where the characters are happy again.

A good example of this is shown in Robbie Williams - She's the One

This music video is done in a linear narrative. It shows the equilibrium as the beginning of the happy skaters winning medals

However the dis-equilibrium is shown as the male skater falls over and hurts himself and robbie realises he has to step in

But then the equilibrium is restored into the new equilibrium where he wins the medals.

Due to the fact we have chosen to create a combined type of narrative we might have to use an equilibrium to create a linear and easy to follow story and enough to make it interesting.