2nd Cut

This is our 2nd Cut for our music video called 'At Home'. We have included all of the things on our 'to do' list and is a possible final cut, we plan to show it to our teacher and other class members (who are infact our demographic) to make sure we can make any improvments before our final cut deadline.

There is not a deadline for a 2nd cut but we wanted to do another cut for our teacher to make sure we were going in the right direction, so at this moment in time we are ahead of our work as we are nearly finished and the deadline isnt for a few weeks.

Production Update

In todays lesson we filmed some more shots of ellie miming. We want to make sure we have a various of different shots with different settings to contain more conventions of a music video. We took inspiration from our shots from Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball music video. In scenes within her video it contains a close up of her face with a plain white background and she is miming to the song.

Setting up the studio to record

Here was our inspiration I was referring to previously. As you can see we didn't completely copy the idea as we have added different effects to make sure it links with my own work. But we wanted a close up of just focusing on Ellie miming the lyrics to the song.

As you can see from part of our timetable we are up to date with our work as we did film the shots of Ellie lip syncing on the 26th November.

Production Update

We have chosen a poem by E. E. Cummings to be read by Ellie during the opening sequence of our music video. We obtained the poem through the internet on a social networking site called 'Tumblr'. The target audience for tumblr are mainly to 15-25 years old which is similiar to our target audience which means our work is linking together and suitable for our audience. The poem will have overlays of other sounds such as: Light winds, birds tweeting and footsteps walking on autumn leaves. This is something we have been focusing on as we want to show how long the relationship has lasted as we have scenes implicating summer (underwater shots), spring shots (Ellie in the field) and now we have shots of Ellie and Max in the woods with leaves all around.

We chose this poem as we thought it would allow the audience to understand a bit more about the video. As the poem is all about love, it will give hints of how much they are in love with eachother.This is a technique used by many mainstream artisits such as Rihanna (We found love) and Beyonce (If I were a boy).

Production Update

Over the half term we have filmed a number of shots in the fields behind Ellie's house for the opening to our music video. Originally we had planned t film the opening at the beach but due to travelling reasons we chose to film closer to home. The meaning of this opening sequence to give the audience a slight insight to the music video, with a number of similar editing styles (light leaks and kaleidoscope effects) that will be seen during the music video. This opening sequence is to show Ellie at the present day looking back at her time with her then "boyfriend, this will be seen with the cold colour correction and single shots of her alone.

*video needs to go here*

This was completed on the 12th November so It means our work is staying organised and up to date

 

 

On the 12th November we also recordered the voice over for Ellie doing the poem. This involved us using special equipment such as a microphone rather than just usig the video camera as it makes the sound much more clear. We found a classroom that was quite small and was empty so we could make sure the sound could only pick up Ellies voice.

 

 

We completed this much earlier than the date was set which means we are ahead of our work meaning we have more time to focus on our blog and any other tasks that need tweeking.

Time Table Update

After complteting the first section of our table our group deicded to make another one to make sure we are able to keep track on how we are doing. With our first cut coming up we want to make sure we will plan to do any more filming before as we need to hand our final cut in on time.

After filling out the table it is much more clear what my group need to do to stay organised and what we need to do.

Psychodynamics

Creator - People who publish blogs on the magazine
Critics - People who post ratings and reviews of the magazine
Collectors - People who collects the magazine and people who visit the magazine website
Joiners - People who join the magazine through social networking sites and people who aspire to be like those who are into hip-hop
Spectators - People who read the magazine, listen to music of the artist featured inside the magazine or even the genre.

Demographics

A = Upper Middle Class - Higher, Managerial, administrative or proffesional job employment.
B = Middle Class - Intermediate managerial, administartive or professional job employment
C1 = Lower Middle Class - Supervisory or clerical and junior managerial administartive or proffessinal job employment
C2 = Skilled working class - Skilled manuel workers
D = Working class - Unskilled manuel workers
E = Casual/Lowest grade workers - Pensions and others who depend on the welfare state for their income

Here is the list of Demographics. For our production we would target the audience B. This is middle class families. The reason we have targeted Middle class is because they have a lot more disposable income. However, we are more targeting teenage girls within middle class families as the main character within our music video is about a teenage girl who is reminicing on her happy memories with her boyfriend. The age of the audience would be between 15-18 as these teenage girls can relate to the music video.

1st Cut

In today's lesson, myself, Ellie and Billy had to present our first cut for our production. We had to do it in front of the whole class and give a brief explanation on what our production is. We got good feedback from our class as we had a look what they wrote down on their sheet about our music video. Some said they like our underwater shots and some said they like our projector shots. However in next lesson we will be spending the lesson talking about the feedback so we can make notes on how to improve our production. Next lesson will be extremely helpful as we will also get feedback from our teacher Miss.Baker.

We managed to be on time with our first cut due to putting a lot of time into our work such as: staying after school, editing in free lessons.

Prouduction Update

On Thursday's lesson we decided to take the opportunity to film some more shots as it was a two hour lesson. We edited some more for the first hour, then we filmed some shots of our characters Ellie and Max. We wanted some more shots to establish how happy their relationship is within the music video so we needed some more shots. We decided to film in our nature reserve as it is out in the open which represents their relationship. We will then use these shots and edit them with techniques such as light leaks to create a much more happy atmosphere.

After filming in the lesson, Me Billy and Ellie stayed after school to film in the drama studio. We re-filmed the shots of Ellie with the projector over her body. as last time she didn't know the lyrics. This time we was prepared as we put the lyrics of 'Crystal Fighters - Home' on a huge board so it made sure Ellie knew the lyrics and we could get the shots we needed. It was inportant we got these shots as we want to make sure we have as many conventions for a music video as possible and lip syncing is one of them. Filming with the projector was one of my favorite things to film as it looked professional even on the camera before editing as it created really nice highlights and shadows in the shots. We looked through the shots and were happy that the lip syncing was correct.

We were behind filming in the nature reserve due to Max not being able to film with us as he also is taking A2 Media Studies and his priority is his own work.

Unfortunately due to restrictions and lack of availability of the drama studio we were unable to film in the drama studio until today.

Current Edit

Here is our current edit of our production. As you can see we have included our title over a shot of the water we filmed. We edited the color balance and changed the affect to create an up-beat, happy, cheerful atmosphere.

We are currently in front of schedule which means we are most likely to finish the first cut deadline on time. The first cut deadline is due 22nd October.

Target Audience

To be able to fully understanding my target audience for our media product, I have created a target audience mood board. It is built from images of items and things I believe my target audience would also be fans of. I have included alternative music choices of a similar genre to the song of our music video, I have also include the logos of music festivals that Crystal Fighters would most likely play at, as well as this, to think of a more personal denotation of my demographic I have included personal items such as brands, shops, phones, computers and fashion styles.

Production Update

In todays lesson, I helped ellie with the editing on our production. We made the editing look as if we used a kaleidoscope as that was the effect we planned to have at the beggining of the year. Billy had already previously done some editing of the shots like this but we wanted to put effort into the editing aswell so it's a team effort. While me and Ellie were editing Billy was experimenting with ideas for the album cover. We want to make our work proffessional so by doing an albbum cover will help do this.

Here is the example of our album cover:

Prouduction Update

Today we filmed in the drama studio and used an overhead projector to overlay time lapse videos to give the music video a professional style. We also used professional lighting to light the shots we want and give the music video a stylistic look. The projector effect is similar to music videos such as Rihanna's 'We Found Love', or Arianna Grande's 'The Way'. However Ellie still doesn't quite know the song lyrics so we were unable to record shots of Ellie lip synching. We plan to reshoot these shots on later day when Ellie knows the lyrics, until then we are still going to continue with the post production stages and simply replace them with the lip synching shots at a later date.

 

 Shots we were inspired by:

 

Unfortunately due to restrictions and lack of availability of the drama studio we were unable to film in the drama studio until today.

Production Update

In today's lesson we were focusing on the editing. As we had our new shots from filming under water we converted them so that they were ready to use to edit. However, as we filmed in HD they took a very long time so we didn't have enough lesson time to edit the underwater shots, so we decided to edit more on the 'memories' sequence. We decided to add layers to our shots and blend them in, as well as changing some of the light leaks from blue tones to more yellow and orange. We did this because our song we have chosen to do is an upbeat happy song so we needed warm colours to represent this.

We did some of the editing on the school computer as we needed to convert our shots and it was easier to do it on the school computers as they have all the software. However once we had finished over laying shots we changed to the Mac Book Pro to edit the new light leaks as on the Mac it has better editing software for the things we want on our project.

To gain time we have began to edit ahead of schedule in hope we will have finished at least half of the music video by the first cut deadline

Production Update

On the 4th of October we did some more filming. We arranged this in advanced with help from our teacher Miss.Baker. We filmed our underwater shots in a local swimming pool. We got all the props we needed before hand so that we were prepared. We used two cameras for our shots as it meant that both I and Billy could film a variety of shots to get different angles and effects. I liked the shots we did as it shows we are taking our work and effort to another level as this was quite a hard task to arrange and succeed to do. These shots were inspired from the music videos: Beyoncé - Halo, Rihanna - Diamonds and Lana Del Ray - Blue Jeans. We will use these shots at the beginning of our sequence as well as over lying to precede our goal of having our on visual style.

 

We have began to get back on track by sticking to strict times and keeping an organized weekly routine in our media lessons

Production Update

In today's lesson we uploaded all of our shots to premier to start our editing. We know the style of how we want to edit so editing is quite a straight forward task. We started with the memories section in our production. However this won't be the beginning of our production but we thought this would be a good place to start as it's hard to arrange times to film when we are including other characters that isn't in our group.

 

Here is a print screen of our editing line to show an update of how far a long we are with the production:

As you can see here we have decided to edit on a 'Mac book Pro' Apple laptop as the editing styles are much more complex which means we can make it look more professional  We have changed the colour as you can see of our shot as we want to create our own style.

 

Production Update

On the 1st October we filmed some new shots for our production. Our location of our filming was in a field which was near mine and Ellie's house. It was quite a windy day which was a bonus as it meant we could film shots of Ellie with the wind creating effect on her hair and the surroundings. E.g. The grass and the trees. After we took a lot of shots we looked through them to make sure they were a better standard than previously. We were happy with the shots as we used the rule of thirds to make sure our shots were even and look more professional. In the schedule we did before we started filming we planned to film on the 24th September and the 31st. However the second filming we have done was on the 1st of October. The reason for this was because we couldn't find a time where our entire group was free so by using this day off we were able to catch up with our schedule.

As you can see here we were behind schedule for this filming due to not being able to find spare time for all of us. The inset day for school allowed us to all be free at the same time to allow us to film.

Production Update

Last week we started filming for our production. We decided to choose one of the locations I discussed previously which was the Ware Priory.  We have managed to use a kaleidoscope case and film experimenting with the different effects the case can create.We filmed the memory scenes between Ellie & Max (the first of many) the scene included the two romantically sitting by the river talking. So far we have taken the footage and added a number of light leaks to create similar styles of cinematography as compared to Lana Del Rey's National Anthem. However after looking at the quality of these shots we are going to reshoot them on a camera with HD recording capability as the quality of the footage isn't very good.

Once again the completion date was delayed, to make up for lost time we began to edit straight away to develop our editing skills to give the music video a high presentation.

Characters

Ellie - Lead Roll

Ellie has taken on the roll to act in our production.. We thought it was better to have someone within the group to act as it is much more reliable and it is easier to set dates to film. We also think her appearence and fashion sense is very simniliar to the character we was hoping to create. Our music video will be all about her and her memories.

Max - Supporting Role

 

 

Max is a student in our media class who we asked to act in our music video. He is going to feature in mainly the memories part of the music video. We didnt't choose to make him a main character as he is doing his own production so we understand that he can't film most of the times we would want to.

 



Location

Before we start to film for our production of our music video we had to decide on what location we would film. Our group talked about what places we would film and we came up with a range of locations. Having a vary of locations keeps our music video interesting and would appeal to the videos I looked at previously. In them videos they have a various of locations with the singers in different outfits. Our locations we want to film in are:

• Maldon Beach
• Field/country places
• Drame studio in Chauncy School
• Ware Priory
• Fanshawe Swimming Pool
 

My group and I feel these are good locations to show memories and be able to show our own style through the camera work as well as the editing. We also have decided to go through with the idea of filming under water shots and have got permission to film in Fanshaw swimming pool. Our date to film under water shots is the 3rd October.

 

 

Costuming

For the costuming of our characters, we plan to base the style of Ellie in the music video around Lana Del Rey. This is because we have taken influences from her music videos and her image as a person over all. We are going to continue the same style and follow it through the production of our music video so that It links with our own style of filming and editing. We plan to have similar jewellery and casual wear, as Ellie’s character within our music video isn’t flashy or over the top. Most of Lana Del Rey's music videos have a naturalistic feel with an urban social realist atmosphere as seen in Ride; we plan to re-create these styles with the use of costume throughout out music video. As the narrative of our video is about a normal teenage girl, we don't want to have clothes that will make her look 'special' similar to what is don't in We Found love - Rihanna.
Most of the clothes Ellie will wear will be her own clothes, as we have noticed Ellie has a similar style to Lana Del Rey and Rihanna. As we want Ellie to have an ordinary look to make it relatable to our target audience she will be wearing her own clothes.

 

Here you can see the actual complete date was delayed by 6 days due to more contemplation over what style we wanted Ellie to have to allow her to have a similar style to the genre of music.

Production Timetable

This is our production timetable, it includes the dates of when we plan to film and edit. We have also included columns with added details to remind us later on what we filmed/edited and when it was completed of if it needs to be completed.

Shot List

• Fade from black
• Medium long shot of waves crashing onto rocks
• Dissolve to shot of Ellie walking bare footed along wet sand
• Dissolve to extreme close up of hair in wind
• Dissolve to over the shoulder shot of Ellie looking out to sea
• Music stars
• Close up of water
• Close up of water dripping into water
•  Close up shot of Ellie jumping into water
• Medium close up shot of Ellie underwater
• Extreme close up of Ellie’s feet swimming underwater
• Extreme close up of Ellie’s hands underwater creating bubbles
• Extreme close up of bubbles
• Close up shot of Ellie and hair underwater
• Medium close up of Ellie in studio lip synching
• Shots vary from above shot (medium close up, close up different angles)
• Fade to white, Ellie and Max are seen running through a field with light leaks
•  Medium close up Ellie and max are seen from behind sitting in a field
•  Fade to white
•  Kaleidoscope effect medium close up of Ellie with studio lights
• Fade to white home footage of Ellie as a child with light leaks
• Ellie and max seen walking hand in hand by river with light leaks
• Fade to white Ellie is lip synching in drama studio
•  Close up of Ellie underwater overlaid with shots of Ellie lip synching
• Fade to white Ellie catching Max doing drugs on toilet seat light leaks
•  Ellie and max seen arguing light leaks
• Ellie seen storming off light leaks
•  Ellie seen lip synching with kaleidoscope
• Ellie seen underwater 30.  Fade to black

 Here you can see the actual complete date was delayed by 6 days due to more contemplation over what style we wanted Ellie to have to allow her to have a similar style to the genre of music.

Music Video Research

The three music videos I will be looking at are: Rihanna - We Found Love, Lana Del Ray - Blue Jeans and Kanye West - All Of The Lights.

Rihanna - We Found Love

The music video was directed by Melina Matsoukas. It shows a complicated love story between a couple who are deeply in love but at the same time they always argue. The techniques in this video are what inspired me for my own ideas of what we could to for our own music video. All of the group liked the video, especially the scene with the projector shining over her. As you can see it in one of the photo's above. I like the lighting in the video as well because sometimes it's using natural lighting from outside making it bright and light and other times its using quite dark lighting. This juxtaposition also links with the story line as the couple are always up and down. I like the idea of using the same lighting techniques to make sure we create our own style to our music video.

Lana Del Ray - Blue Jeans

This music video was released in 2012 was to promote her new album 'The paradise Edition'. This song was released before the album to create awareness. The video was directed by Woolkid, who is a successful director. I like the style of this video as it's similar to what I pictured my music video to look like. Although this video and Rihanna's video are very different, I like both of the styles of these. The shots from this video are the most inspiring as there are under water shots, which myself and my group are going to do under water shots. Woolkid has a very distinct style with his work as you can see in this video it looks very much like Film Noir style, especially with the lighting and the chiaroscuro. The beginning of the video is my favorite part as the way Woolkid as filmed and edited looks really unique and interesting which is what I want to achieve. 

Kanye West - All Of The Lights

This music video is different in it's own way from all the others as the video is mainly about the hidden meanings of the song and how the music video is relating to this. The director of this music video is Hype Williams. I really like the style of this music video as it's all about bright, bold, eye catching colors. I also like the way he also included the lyrics to the music video, making it unique as not many directors did this. The reason why I chose to this music video as well was because i wanted three music videos which inspired me in all different ways to make sure mine and my groups music video will be the best to our ability as we are looking and researching things to help us with our ideas.

Animatic & Storyboard

Here is our groups animatic to At Home - Crystal Fighters. It includes our story board plan to our idea for our music video. It shows the effects we are hoping to achieve as well as transitions. We have also included a short opening scene which won't have the song of our choice playing in the background as we will have recorded our own sound effects at the beach. We are also going to the beach for a school trip which links in with what we want to do in our music video which will give us the opportunity to take the shots we need and go ahead and start with the project already. As you can see my group and I have included shots such as:waves, sea gulls, the sand ect. 

Here is our storyboard:

Practical Planning

For our A2 coursework we had the choice to do several projects: Music video, A movie trailer or a documentary. My group who includes: Myself, Billy Turner and Ellie Mcgregor-Davis. We all decided to do a music video as we all did the previous task at Knebworth house so we learnt from our mistake and as I previously worked with Ellie on that task we know where we went wrong within that task previously. We made a PowerPoint to show all our ideas into one, which means we wont forget good ideas we have come up with. This slideshow shows our music choices, cinematography, music video directors and planned shots. 

After we completed the slide show, we had to show it to the class to get feed back on our ideas to make sure it was achievable and to see if other opinions to make this idea better. The class said they liked the choice of songs as they were different which is what we was hoping to come across. Our teacher mentioned she liked the fact we were focusing on stylistic features as no other groups are really focusing on that. However, we did receive some criticism such as our idea on the under water shots we were planning to do as they thought it would be quite risky due to restriction. However, we have spoken to our teacher and to 'Fanshawe' a near by leisure center who have given us permission to record under water shots.

Here is our presentation:

Target Audience

To be able to fully understanding my target audience for our media product, I have created a target audience mood board. It is built from images of items and things I believe my target audience would also be fans of. I have included alternative music choices of a similar genre to the song of our music video, I have also include the logos of music festivals that Crystal Fighters would most likely play at, as well as this, to think of a more personal denotation of my demographic I have included personal items such as brands, shops, phones, computers and fashion styles.

Audience Demographics

The Music Video I will be creating will have a slight rock genre edge. With the styles I have previously introduced into what I want to include will have that genre feel. To be able to create a media product i must be able to understand the audience demographic and know who I am targeting my product at. Therefore I have created a target audience for my media product, below is my concluding demographic.

Genre
The music video myself and my group will be creating will be of the indie, alternative rock genre. This is a genre with a niche target audience, but proves popular amongst the fans and followers of this music. The popularity of this niche music genre is something I believe will prove successful when creating a media product. The song At Home is by Crystal Fighters, Crystal Fighters are a British alternative dance band, formed in London, United Kingdom in 2007.

Social Class  
The social class of my demographic is white British skilled working/lower middle class/in education. On the demographic scale this would be classed asC1/C2. it would not be classed as E as there is only a small collection of people in that criteria. This is due to the amount of merchandise and other commercial products the band could possibly market making it more likely for the target audience to purchase their merchandise. The ethnicity of the genre of music is also stereotypically white British.

Gender 
The gender of my target audience will not be specified as there is no specific stereotypical tastes of alternative rock. By classifying a gender on this already niche target audience it will make it hard to gain collectors {people who are fans and collect merchandise of the bands}. By having no specified target gender it allows both female collectors and male collectors to become fans of the band and our media product.

Age
The targeted age of my demographic would be estimated at 14-25 a young adult/teenager. Someone who has the time to find alternative music through the use of social media such as Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube etc. the music is also satisfied at this age groups taste due to the involvement in many music festivals around the country such as Reading, Glastonbury, Isle
of White etc. which target the same demographic as out media product.

Knebworth Music Video

For preparation for next year, my class went to Knebworth house in order for us to create a music video. We were allowed to choose our own groups which meant we could include a various of skills to create a project to the best of our ability. In my group there was Myself, Dan Greenall, Ellie Mcgregor and Beth Gray. 

The first preparation we did was in class a few days before the trip and this was to choose a song we would use for our music video. We all decided on a group decision was the song 'Heat wave' by Wiley. This was a current summer song in the charts which linked with the scenery as it was surrounded by plants and outdoor objects. Once we had chosen the song we decided on what rolls we were going to do individually and as a group. Myself, Ellie and Dan were going to be in the music video while Beth recorded with the video camera. We all put in our own ideas such as framing shots, Editing styles and costuming. Ellie had her own camera which was much more technically better which meant our shots would be a better quality. 

We were only allowed an hour at Knebworth house which meant that timing was extremely important in order to get everything we needed to finish this project. I feel that the shots we included show a good example of team work and I feel the lip sinking we did was also good quality. However, some of the shots are quite repeptitive, which is the only negative thing I feel there is about our project. But, saying this, when we looked at other music videos they tend to repeat shots to link with how they repeat the chorus of the song.