We spoke today about what we were going to do with our Ancillary tasks, and came up with a few ideas of what our CD cover and poster could look like. We drew small, rough sketches to show our ideas, and wrote down the shot type, angle, and setting next to them.
Firstly, we had a simple shot, which was in the middle of the frame and it was a long shot/midshot in amongst the frosty trees.
The second idea we had was for the same framing, but overlaying different shots to make it look ghostly, in amongst the frostiness of the trees.
The third and final idea we had was to get 4 different shots, one long shot, one midshot, one close up, and one extreme close up. Then we'll overlay the layers together and then it will create a cool effect.
When we've done that, we'll add text to the cover and pick the perfect place for it.
With the poster, we've come up with 3 ideas again.
Firstly, the idea we had was that we could use 3 shots, exactly the same, we would fade the image out across the page. Add text to the top, and the bottom. The title and name of the album at the top, and the date at the bottom.
Secondly, we thought about maybe doing an Andy Warhol grid style thing. It would give a good difference between the rest of the ideas that we have had.
Finally, we would use a singular photograph, and draw on it with a wacom pad, adding swirls and making it look prettier. It would make it look interesting and look more professional.
Tuesday 7 December 2010
Monday 29 November 2010
JUST A COUPLE OF UPDATES.
This song can be interpreted in so many different ways, there isn’t actually a right way to interpret it. It can mean something different to everyone but who are we to say that its wrong?
The lyrics are captivating, and you can create a strong narrative from them as they are so metaphorical. For example, the lyric “And friends don’t stick around, they go which way the wind blows”, we had the idea of having a big group of people surrounding the main character and one by one they’d disappear. We actually did get some footage of this, just to try it out, and it works, we just need to get the technical aspects of it right and it should look really effective.
I know a lot of people that love Gabrielle’s music, and I know for a fact that they all have different ideas of what this song means. I know what it was written about, but my idea of what it was about, is completely different to the what Gabrielle wrote it about, but that’s okay because it means she has captivated her audience, and her lyrics actually mean something and people like it enough to actually listen to it enough to try and get a deeper understanding.
I experimented with a couple of fonts to see which looked the best.
The lyrics are captivating, and you can create a strong narrative from them as they are so metaphorical. For example, the lyric “And friends don’t stick around, they go which way the wind blows”, we had the idea of having a big group of people surrounding the main character and one by one they’d disappear. We actually did get some footage of this, just to try it out, and it works, we just need to get the technical aspects of it right and it should look really effective.
I know a lot of people that love Gabrielle’s music, and I know for a fact that they all have different ideas of what this song means. I know what it was written about, but my idea of what it was about, is completely different to the what Gabrielle wrote it about, but that’s okay because it means she has captivated her audience, and her lyrics actually mean something and people like it enough to actually listen to it enough to try and get a deeper understanding.
I experimented with a couple of fonts to see which looked the best.
Wednesday 17 November 2010
ANCILLARY TASK PLANS!
We are starting to plan our ancillary tasks (a poster and a cd cover). We've started looking at photographers that we can get inspiration from and base our ideas on.
The first photographer we have looked at is Tom Leishman, a talented, young photographer from London. He has worked for people such as The Saturdays, and other well known artists, but his personal work and album artwork is just beautiful. We've looked through the majority of his work, and we've come across some pieces that are really eye catching.
Here are some examples of his work that we really love.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
From looking at the pictures and deciding on which we both like, we've found out that we have really similar taste as to what we'd like to achieve with this.
We also looked at a photographer called Tom Barnes. He is well known in the music industry but also produces some really beautiful portrait shots. We cannot link or print screen the work that we love from this website, but the link is there so we can refer back to it whenever we need to.
The first photographer we have looked at is Tom Leishman, a talented, young photographer from London. He has worked for people such as The Saturdays, and other well known artists, but his personal work and album artwork is just beautiful. We've looked through the majority of his work, and we've come across some pieces that are really eye catching.
Here are some examples of his work that we really love.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
From looking at the pictures and deciding on which we both like, we've found out that we have really similar taste as to what we'd like to achieve with this.
We also looked at a photographer called Tom Barnes. He is well known in the music industry but also produces some really beautiful portrait shots. We cannot link or print screen the work that we love from this website, but the link is there so we can refer back to it whenever we need to.
ENGLISH WEATHER!
We can't film today as it is pouring down with rain. Unfortunately, because we live in England, this isn't something that is rare and it's just annoying that it stops us filming as the majority of our shots are outside.
So we've decided to use this lesson to figure out our targets for what needs to be done.
TARGETS:
Filming to be completed: This includes performance and narrative shots.
The performance shots that we've produced so far have looked quite good, we've cropped them down so that less of the background is shown, so we need to keep in mind not just the focus of the shot but what is in the background too. We need to film some more performance shots and refilm the performance shot that is sat at the window as it was out of focus.
The narrative shots that we have are minimal, all we have is the rough version of the leaf throwing which needs to be refilmed anyway so we need to crack on with the refilming and filming of completely new shots.
Start Ancillary Task: A poster and a CD Cover.
We need to take photographs of me, or something that is relative to the song. We then need to edit them to look like a poster and a CD Cover. We need to edit them to the best of our ability to make them look professional.
Finalise Our Blogs: Keep up to date with EVERYTHING!
So we've decided to use this lesson to figure out our targets for what needs to be done.
TARGETS:
Filming to be completed: This includes performance and narrative shots.
The performance shots that we've produced so far have looked quite good, we've cropped them down so that less of the background is shown, so we need to keep in mind not just the focus of the shot but what is in the background too. We need to film some more performance shots and refilm the performance shot that is sat at the window as it was out of focus.
The narrative shots that we have are minimal, all we have is the rough version of the leaf throwing which needs to be refilmed anyway so we need to crack on with the refilming and filming of completely new shots.
Start Ancillary Task: A poster and a CD Cover.
We need to take photographs of me, or something that is relative to the song. We then need to edit them to look like a poster and a CD Cover. We need to edit them to the best of our ability to make them look professional.
Finalise Our Blogs: Keep up to date with EVERYTHING!
A LITTLE PROGRESS!
Last week, we got a few people from our year together and filmed the part of our video that was massively influenced by Lisa Mitchell's Clean White Lve video. We went outside and looked for a good spot to film our idea. We found a huge tree surrounded by lovely crunchy brown leaves and decided this was the perfect spot.
"Friends don't stick around, they go which way the wind blows"
This is the lyric that we want to focus on for these few shots. Myself, and a few others positioned ourselves ready to start playing with the leaves together. I really like this idea because it looks cool and it's relative to the lyrics.
To get the 'disappearing' effect that we wanted, we stopped and started the filming process. When we had a little bit of footage with 5 people, we froze, stopped recording and one person left the scene. We repeated this until it was just me left in the frame.
When we got back to the lesson, we uploaded the footage and had a look at it. Unfortunately, we can't really use the footage even though it's quite good because the sun is shining down and it ruins the shot. We are going to refilm the exact same thing because we really liked the effect that it had but we will probably with people that are more willing and less negative about the ideas we have.
"Friends don't stick around, they go which way the wind blows"
This is the lyric that we want to focus on for these few shots. Myself, and a few others positioned ourselves ready to start playing with the leaves together. I really like this idea because it looks cool and it's relative to the lyrics.
To get the 'disappearing' effect that we wanted, we stopped and started the filming process. When we had a little bit of footage with 5 people, we froze, stopped recording and one person left the scene. We repeated this until it was just me left in the frame.
When we got back to the lesson, we uploaded the footage and had a look at it. Unfortunately, we can't really use the footage even though it's quite good because the sun is shining down and it ruins the shot. We are going to refilm the exact same thing because we really liked the effect that it had but we will probably with people that are more willing and less negative about the ideas we have.
Tuesday 9 November 2010
CHANGE OF IDEAS.
Unfortunately, because I spent so much time outside of college this term, we've had to compromise and change our ideas to fit the time we have left to do this video.
We've made the video much simpler, as it was relatively complex before. We've taken out most of the fiddly bits, and unnecessary complexities. Although, they would make our video look amazing, we just simply don't have the time to work out how we'll do it, film it and edit it to produce an amazing quality video.
We want to keep a few more difficult ideas so we've got a bit of technique and it'll look awesome. We would like to keep the 'friends don't stick around, they go which way the wind blows' idea. I had an idea that if we used 2 people, including myself, throwing leaves around and having fun, then each of the other two people just vanish leaving me stood on my own. I thought this would be a good idea because it would look really effective and it gives more depth to the video itself.
We want to make the video flow, and look amazing which is why we've taken out the difficult bits to film. This means we've got more time to plan, film and edit the bits that we will actually use and make it look really professional. We can piece this video together quite easily, as a lot of the shots are outside, but a few are inside. It should, when it is the editing process, fit together like a jigsaw.
I'm feeling quite positive about our change in ideas for this video, though it would have been nice to have had those cool ideas feature in the video, I know that we can make it look amazing without them.
We've made the video much simpler, as it was relatively complex before. We've taken out most of the fiddly bits, and unnecessary complexities. Although, they would make our video look amazing, we just simply don't have the time to work out how we'll do it, film it and edit it to produce an amazing quality video.
We want to keep a few more difficult ideas so we've got a bit of technique and it'll look awesome. We would like to keep the 'friends don't stick around, they go which way the wind blows' idea. I had an idea that if we used 2 people, including myself, throwing leaves around and having fun, then each of the other two people just vanish leaving me stood on my own. I thought this would be a good idea because it would look really effective and it gives more depth to the video itself.
We want to make the video flow, and look amazing which is why we've taken out the difficult bits to film. This means we've got more time to plan, film and edit the bits that we will actually use and make it look really professional. We can piece this video together quite easily, as a lot of the shots are outside, but a few are inside. It should, when it is the editing process, fit together like a jigsaw.
I'm feeling quite positive about our change in ideas for this video, though it would have been nice to have had those cool ideas feature in the video, I know that we can make it look amazing without them.
Wednesday 3 November 2010
PROGRESS: HOORAY!
On Tuesday 2nd November, myself and Abbie started planning what type of shots we were going to use to start filming our video. We decided that a shot with me, as I am now the actress in our video as we couldn't find anyone else, sitting on the window pane looking out the window, wishing she could be out there too. We experimented with pull focus on the new camera, and having the background out of focus, and slowly pulling it into focus makes a really cool effect, so we will probably use that in our video somewhere. We also looked at Lisa Mitchell's video for Clean White Love to gain inspiration for types of shots we'd like to use. We then uploaded the footage that we had taken and looked at it on iMovie and just looked at what worked and what didn't work.
On Wednesday 3rd November, we started filming properly. We got into the lesson and wrote a plan of what we wanted to film. We wrote what type of shots we wanted inside, and then what shots we wanted outside, and the specifics of where we wanted them filmed. We got the camera and tripod and went outside to film, we found two rows of trees that looked really awesome because they were symmetrical. Our teacher told us not to film complex bits yet, so we only filmed a little bit, the first verse, to see what it looked like. We then filmed me sing the entire song sat in a tree, so we can use bits and pieces from that shoot. The results of that shoot were actually really good, we might have to crop it so I'm in the frame more, but what we got was a really cool shot. Then I sang the entire song in front of the camera, it was a close up, and it was a shot similar to some of the Clean White Love video. These types of shots are useful as we are able to portray a significant amount of emotion through facial expression. It then started raining and it being a brand new camera, we didn't want to risk getting it wet, so we came back inside and uploaded our footage. We were happy with the progress that we had made in the filming aspect. We still had an hour spare after watching our footage back, and looking at what we could do with them whilst editing so we decided to set up shots to film inside, the window scene. It took about half an hour to set up the exact shot that we wanted, and it ended up being a low angle mid shot, which we then changed the focus to me, and the trees in the background were blurred. We didn't really like the lighting on this shot, so we got the natural light box and turned it on and it automatically made a massive difference to how it looked. Once everyone had left the room, we played the song, and filmed it from this perspective. I always sing when we're recording, because I feel that if I mime, that it will look really bad! Apparently, I looked out the window too much during this time, and we filmed it again with me just looking at and singing to the camera. In between filming these, we filmed some narrative shots of me just looking out of the window - again inspired by Clean White Love as Lisa Mitchell had some shots of her doing something, and the exact same shots of her doing the same thing but singing.
I'm really impressed with how much we got done today, next week I think that we are going to be refilming some of the shots we did today, as we accidentally left the camera on manual focus - oops! We will then probably film some more narrative shots as we have a lot of performance and then talk about what else we want in the video, and the ancillary tasks.
On Wednesday 3rd November, we started filming properly. We got into the lesson and wrote a plan of what we wanted to film. We wrote what type of shots we wanted inside, and then what shots we wanted outside, and the specifics of where we wanted them filmed. We got the camera and tripod and went outside to film, we found two rows of trees that looked really awesome because they were symmetrical. Our teacher told us not to film complex bits yet, so we only filmed a little bit, the first verse, to see what it looked like. We then filmed me sing the entire song sat in a tree, so we can use bits and pieces from that shoot. The results of that shoot were actually really good, we might have to crop it so I'm in the frame more, but what we got was a really cool shot. Then I sang the entire song in front of the camera, it was a close up, and it was a shot similar to some of the Clean White Love video. These types of shots are useful as we are able to portray a significant amount of emotion through facial expression. It then started raining and it being a brand new camera, we didn't want to risk getting it wet, so we came back inside and uploaded our footage. We were happy with the progress that we had made in the filming aspect. We still had an hour spare after watching our footage back, and looking at what we could do with them whilst editing so we decided to set up shots to film inside, the window scene. It took about half an hour to set up the exact shot that we wanted, and it ended up being a low angle mid shot, which we then changed the focus to me, and the trees in the background were blurred. We didn't really like the lighting on this shot, so we got the natural light box and turned it on and it automatically made a massive difference to how it looked. Once everyone had left the room, we played the song, and filmed it from this perspective. I always sing when we're recording, because I feel that if I mime, that it will look really bad! Apparently, I looked out the window too much during this time, and we filmed it again with me just looking at and singing to the camera. In between filming these, we filmed some narrative shots of me just looking out of the window - again inspired by Clean White Love as Lisa Mitchell had some shots of her doing something, and the exact same shots of her doing the same thing but singing.
I'm really impressed with how much we got done today, next week I think that we are going to be refilming some of the shots we did today, as we accidentally left the camera on manual focus - oops! We will then probably film some more narrative shots as we have a lot of performance and then talk about what else we want in the video, and the ancillary tasks.
Wednesday 13 October 2010
FALLING BEHIND
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to make it to quite a few lessons recently and I feel so bad that I've left Abbie on her own. We have had to change our location from Marshfield to Magpie Bottom, which are relatively the same so we won't have to change too much. Also, we will use one of our two bedrooms for the ripping down posters scene. After and during, the half term I will hopefully get loads of the work done and we will regain our status in the group.
Tuesday 28 September 2010
TARGET AUDIENCE RESEARCH
The internet is a wonderful thing. With the help of twitter and facebook I can research into who listens to Gabrielle Aplin, who is interested in a music video, their age and where they're from. This will then give me the ages that we need to aim this video towards.
She has over 15,000 subscribers on youtube, and is currently on high demand as she is becoming so popular in different places around the World. She is the 79th most subscribed - All Time - musician in the United Kingdom. She is the 76th most viewed - This Week - musician in the united kingdom. She is also the 97th most viewed - This Month - musician in the united kingdom. This shows how popular she actually is around the UK. She is also in high demand all across the world, which makes the research just a little bit harder as I can't actually talk to everybody from different places and see if their views are different or the same to those in the UK. The majority of fans that I have met have been female, and about our age (17), but she does have a few male fans too and we'll have to keep that in mind.
I posted on twitter a tweet about whether people were fans of Gabby, for them to post their age if they were so far, I've got:
I am! And I'm fifteen! She's amazing by the way! :)
The girl above, is from Singapore. The fact she is from almost the other side of the world, just shows how varied and wide her fanbase is.
15, singapore, f.
20, austrailia, f.
15, indonesia, f.
18, paris, f.
18, california, m.
15, bath, f.
26, denmark, m.
29, london, m.
I've also posted the same thing on facebook as I can get to a different group of people on there that way. I have recieved:
13, bristol, f.
16, birmingham, f.
17, northants, f.
17, bristol, f.
14, saudi arabia, f.
17, manchester, f.
18, london, m.
21, essex, m.
She has over 15,000 subscribers on youtube, and is currently on high demand as she is becoming so popular in different places around the World. She is the 79th most subscribed - All Time - musician in the United Kingdom. She is the 76th most viewed - This Week - musician in the united kingdom. She is also the 97th most viewed - This Month - musician in the united kingdom. This shows how popular she actually is around the UK. She is also in high demand all across the world, which makes the research just a little bit harder as I can't actually talk to everybody from different places and see if their views are different or the same to those in the UK. The majority of fans that I have met have been female, and about our age (17), but she does have a few male fans too and we'll have to keep that in mind.
I posted on twitter a tweet about whether people were fans of Gabby, for them to post their age if they were so far, I've got:
I am! And I'm fifteen! She's amazing by the way! :)
The girl above, is from Singapore. The fact she is from almost the other side of the world, just shows how varied and wide her fanbase is.
15, singapore, f.
20, austrailia, f.
15, indonesia, f.
18, paris, f.
18, california, m.
15, bath, f.
26, denmark, m.
29, london, m.
I've also posted the same thing on facebook as I can get to a different group of people on there that way. I have recieved:
13, bristol, f.
16, birmingham, f.
17, northants, f.
17, bristol, f.
14, saudi arabia, f.
17, manchester, f.
18, london, m.
21, essex, m.
Wednesday 22 September 2010
POSSIBLE LOCATIONS AND PROPS.
LOCATIONS
- Marshfield
- A house (Bedroom and front door specifically)
- A road with a stop sign
PROPS
- Matchstick house & 'Throne'
- Stop sign
- Posters
- Photograph
- Smile on paper
- Bed
- Group of people
- Marshfield
- A house (Bedroom and front door specifically)
- A road with a stop sign
PROPS
- Matchstick house & 'Throne'
- Stop sign
- Posters
- Photograph
- Smile on paper
- Bed
- Group of people
INITIAL VIDEO IDEAS.
I'm sick and tired,
Of hanging out my window.
(Singing out her window)
I've learnt from past experience,
Rain can't make flowers grow.
(Transition into next scene)
And friends don't stick around,
They go which way the wind goes.
(Group of people, one by one, disappear)
You're never safe and sound,
Until all your doors are closed.
(Stood in doorway, singing, slam door)
Doors are closed,
Doors are closed.
(Long shot of girl in field)
When you're awake on your own,
Shadows turn into ghosts. (x2)
(In field, doesn't want to be outside. Going crazy. Camera circles.)
Soon it will all fall apart,
And the roads will have no way.
(Walk towards a stop sign)
And you'll be the one laughing,
As their fences fade away.
(Singing out of window)
And instead of being left there,
Feeling all alone.
(Stood on edge of road, bag on back. Singing)
Breakdown the house you made of matchsticks,
And set fire to the throne.
(Matchstick 'throne' sets fire. House burns too)
To the throne,
To the throne.
(Watch burn until nothing left.)
When you're awake on your own,
Shadows turn into ghosts. (x2)
(Same as before. Different footage)
Home becomes what you're scared of the most. (x2)
(Front door. Walk towards camera. Singing)
When shadows turn into ghosts,
Its what you're scared of the most.
(Face in camera. Singing)
I'm pulling pictures off the wall,
(Posters/Photo of 2nd phrase on wall. Rip down)
Watching smiles as they fall. (x4)
(Smiles on paper. Drop. Frown/Split screen smiles frowns etc.)
When you're awake on your own,
Shadows turn into ghosts. (x2)
(Look around room)
Home becomes what you're scared of the most. (x2)
(Singing)
When shadows turn into ghosts,
Its what you're scared of the most.
(Fall on bed)
This isn't the final idea, this is just what we want to be able to incorporate into our video. We understand that we might not be able to fit it all in, and if we can't, we will compromise. I think our ideas for this video are complex, but not unachievable.
Of hanging out my window.
(Singing out her window)
I've learnt from past experience,
Rain can't make flowers grow.
(Transition into next scene)
And friends don't stick around,
They go which way the wind goes.
(Group of people, one by one, disappear)
You're never safe and sound,
Until all your doors are closed.
(Stood in doorway, singing, slam door)
Doors are closed,
Doors are closed.
(Long shot of girl in field)
When you're awake on your own,
Shadows turn into ghosts. (x2)
(In field, doesn't want to be outside. Going crazy. Camera circles.)
Soon it will all fall apart,
And the roads will have no way.
(Walk towards a stop sign)
And you'll be the one laughing,
As their fences fade away.
(Singing out of window)
And instead of being left there,
Feeling all alone.
(Stood on edge of road, bag on back. Singing)
Breakdown the house you made of matchsticks,
And set fire to the throne.
(Matchstick 'throne' sets fire. House burns too)
To the throne,
To the throne.
(Watch burn until nothing left.)
When you're awake on your own,
Shadows turn into ghosts. (x2)
(Same as before. Different footage)
Home becomes what you're scared of the most. (x2)
(Front door. Walk towards camera. Singing)
When shadows turn into ghosts,
Its what you're scared of the most.
(Face in camera. Singing)
I'm pulling pictures off the wall,
(Posters/Photo of 2nd phrase on wall. Rip down)
Watching smiles as they fall. (x4)
(Smiles on paper. Drop. Frown/Split screen smiles frowns etc.)
When you're awake on your own,
Shadows turn into ghosts. (x2)
(Look around room)
Home becomes what you're scared of the most. (x2)
(Singing)
When shadows turn into ghosts,
Its what you're scared of the most.
(Fall on bed)
This isn't the final idea, this is just what we want to be able to incorporate into our video. We understand that we might not be able to fit it all in, and if we can't, we will compromise. I think our ideas for this video are complex, but not unachievable.
Thursday 9 September 2010
TIME PLAN.
Myself and Abbie have created a time plan in a website we got told about called Tom's Planner. It is only a vague schedule as we don't know what may or may come up during this time. Hopefully we will be able to stick to it as best we can so that we don't fall behind.
Having a schedule like this allows us to keep checking where we should be at in our project. It means we will have this as motivation not to fall off track and have to catch up on loads of work. We carefully thought out what time we would give ourselves for specific parts of the project and we gave ourselves enough time to make sure it was actually complete. We sectioned the schedule into different parts; Pre-production, Production of Ancillary tasks, Production of Music video and Evaluation.
Having a schedule like this allows us to keep checking where we should be at in our project. It means we will have this as motivation not to fall off track and have to catch up on loads of work. We carefully thought out what time we would give ourselves for specific parts of the project and we gave ourselves enough time to make sure it was actually complete. We sectioned the schedule into different parts; Pre-production, Production of Ancillary tasks, Production of Music video and Evaluation.
OUR IDEAS SO FAR.
As we have had a few lessons already, and began thinking about this project at the end of last year, we have already got a few ideas in mind. We really want this music video to look as professional as we can get it so we are looking into using a tripod in parts to make sure everything is completely still. We are more than likely going to be using Adobe Premier Pro to edit the video which is good as we are used to this editing software. With the ideas we are coming up with, it requires a range of editing skills, so we will be experimenting before we use the actual clips for the video.
We've decided on the song, and now we just need to find some actors. We were hoping that Gabby would be our main actress but she didn't want to do it. Hopefully we will find someone who is 'free spirited', so to speak, as for the music video we want, we have a specific look in mind. We need to ensure that we can rely on this person/these people, as we don't want to fall behind schedule. Songs like this usually have a specific type of person being in the video, for example, we have a naturally pretty girl, who is slightly hippyish in mind. We just think that this type of person would make the video the best it could be as it would be similar to the song and who sings it. We also need other actors in the video for some specific parts so hopefully we can find people relatively similar to the actor we find for the main.
We have vaguely looked into locations, and they aren't exactly close but Abbie will be driving soon and these places will become much more accessible to us. Obviously we don't want to spend lots of money on travelling so if we were to go out to said locations, we'd shoot as much footage as we could in that day and see what we could use.
As there are only two of us in the group, it means there is a lot of responsibility on our shoulders so that we don't fall behind. It would be a good idea to start allocating duties for each other so that the work load is shared. We will probably take it in turns filming and editing as we both have different styles of doing so, and it would look good at the end if there is a range of different filming and editing styles in the video.
In the next few weeks we want to get a lot of the research done. This includes Questionnaires which will ask what types of music video people prefer, what they would like to see in a video of this genre, etc. We will look to get answers from people via Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Myspace as these are the main social networking sites at the moment. Teenagers these days spend a lot of time on the internet so hopefully we should get a decent amount of answers. We have already used social networking sites to communicate with Gabby about what kind of style she would prefer us to use for her video. She sent me the videos below saying she really likes that kind of video, so we will take all of that into consideration. Facebook is good to use for this project as it means we can all get in contact with each other easily and keep an eye on what we're doing and if we're up to date.
Hopefully me and Abbie will start looking at other music videos and what is put into them. We will look at the camera angles, the movement they use, what kind of shots they use and what lyrics they use them on. We will look at the colours used and what effect the colours used gives the video or the song. Sometimes videos are completely random and others they have a narrative, it is up to us to decide whether we want to work with a narrative or not. Personally, the type of song this song is, I think it needs a narrative, but we will discuss it further at a later date. As we also have an ancillary task to create a Poster and CD cover for the song, we will need to brainstorm ideas for this and start working on them as soon as we can. We will pick out a range of CD covers and posters and analyse them in detail and see what we think works and what doesn't work.
We've decided on the song, and now we just need to find some actors. We were hoping that Gabby would be our main actress but she didn't want to do it. Hopefully we will find someone who is 'free spirited', so to speak, as for the music video we want, we have a specific look in mind. We need to ensure that we can rely on this person/these people, as we don't want to fall behind schedule. Songs like this usually have a specific type of person being in the video, for example, we have a naturally pretty girl, who is slightly hippyish in mind. We just think that this type of person would make the video the best it could be as it would be similar to the song and who sings it. We also need other actors in the video for some specific parts so hopefully we can find people relatively similar to the actor we find for the main.
We have vaguely looked into locations, and they aren't exactly close but Abbie will be driving soon and these places will become much more accessible to us. Obviously we don't want to spend lots of money on travelling so if we were to go out to said locations, we'd shoot as much footage as we could in that day and see what we could use.
As there are only two of us in the group, it means there is a lot of responsibility on our shoulders so that we don't fall behind. It would be a good idea to start allocating duties for each other so that the work load is shared. We will probably take it in turns filming and editing as we both have different styles of doing so, and it would look good at the end if there is a range of different filming and editing styles in the video.
In the next few weeks we want to get a lot of the research done. This includes Questionnaires which will ask what types of music video people prefer, what they would like to see in a video of this genre, etc. We will look to get answers from people via Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Myspace as these are the main social networking sites at the moment. Teenagers these days spend a lot of time on the internet so hopefully we should get a decent amount of answers. We have already used social networking sites to communicate with Gabby about what kind of style she would prefer us to use for her video. She sent me the videos below saying she really likes that kind of video, so we will take all of that into consideration. Facebook is good to use for this project as it means we can all get in contact with each other easily and keep an eye on what we're doing and if we're up to date.
Hopefully me and Abbie will start looking at other music videos and what is put into them. We will look at the camera angles, the movement they use, what kind of shots they use and what lyrics they use them on. We will look at the colours used and what effect the colours used gives the video or the song. Sometimes videos are completely random and others they have a narrative, it is up to us to decide whether we want to work with a narrative or not. Personally, the type of song this song is, I think it needs a narrative, but we will discuss it further at a later date. As we also have an ancillary task to create a Poster and CD cover for the song, we will need to brainstorm ideas for this and start working on them as soon as we can. We will pick out a range of CD covers and posters and analyse them in detail and see what we think works and what doesn't work.
GABBY APLIN.
We have chosen to use a song called Ghosts written by my friend Gabby Aplin. She is a singer/songwriter who has risen to fame over the social networking sites Myspace and Youtube. She has a fan base of around 15,000 fans on Youtube alone. She recently has had a website set up which you can find at this link. She has managed to accumulate over 2 million total views on Youtube, and over 1 million on just one song on Myspace.
We thought that we would look at an unsigned artist to use for our music video, as it meant we didn't need to go through copyright as I know her. She posts not only covers of songs on Youtube, but original songs too and one of them caught our eye. That song was Ghosts. The lyrics are enchantingly beautiful and are written from the heart. They hold such meaning not only to Gabby, but to other people who will listen to it and interpret it in their own way. I think using a song like this is good because we can interpret it how we want to and incorporate different aspects of what we feel the song is about.
We thought that we would look at an unsigned artist to use for our music video, as it meant we didn't need to go through copyright as I know her. She posts not only covers of songs on Youtube, but original songs too and one of them caught our eye. That song was Ghosts. The lyrics are enchantingly beautiful and are written from the heart. They hold such meaning not only to Gabby, but to other people who will listen to it and interpret it in their own way. I think using a song like this is good because we can interpret it how we want to and incorporate different aspects of what we feel the song is about.
Thursday 15 July 2010
LOOKING AT OTHER MUSIC VIDEOS.
As the song we are using is by a friend of mine, we thought it was only right for her to have an input into what the video may look like. She forwarded me these links on facebook and told us that she liked some of the aspects of these 3 videos.
We then sat in our lesson and watched each video thoroughly. We selected ideas that we liked from each video and have thought about putting them into our video. There are aspects of each of these videos that we would love to incorporate into our video, we find that some of the concepts used are unusual and we really like that.
We also looked at the video for Example - Kickstarts, as it is a really random video, but cleverly made. It has so many different techniques that it uses and we find it really interesting. We're not sure yet, but there are some aspects that we could use, or at least experiment with and see what we get.
This is the video.
We then sat in our lesson and watched each video thoroughly. We selected ideas that we liked from each video and have thought about putting them into our video. There are aspects of each of these videos that we would love to incorporate into our video, we find that some of the concepts used are unusual and we really like that.
We also looked at the video for Example - Kickstarts, as it is a really random video, but cleverly made. It has so many different techniques that it uses and we find it really interesting. We're not sure yet, but there are some aspects that we could use, or at least experiment with and see what we get.
This is the video.
Tuesday 13 July 2010
GENRE OF MUSIC VIDEO.
We are looking at doing an Acoustic/Indie type genre of music video. The song fits this category and we have begun to look at music videos that would fit that genre.
We have come across videos that Gabby has sent herself, which I'll post in the next post, but ones we've found ourselves are:
Lissie - When I'm alone
Ellie Goulding - The Writer
Hana Pestle - Need
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
Each one of these videos are completely different, but each of them has aspects that we could use in our video. They are all roughly the same genre of music, and fit the conventions of this genre. Usually there will be some performance aspect of the video, as there is in most of the above videos, though I dont think that we intend on putting that into our video.
Some videos in this genre could come across quite dull as they tend to focus just on the main subject and their emotion, whereas others will have more in the video. These videos use a lot of close ups which captures the emotion that the character portrayed is feeling. A lot of these videos use a narrative throughout which is why I think that we should too as it follows the conventions.
We have come across videos that Gabby has sent herself, which I'll post in the next post, but ones we've found ourselves are:
Lissie - When I'm alone
Ellie Goulding - The Writer
Hana Pestle - Need
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
Each one of these videos are completely different, but each of them has aspects that we could use in our video. They are all roughly the same genre of music, and fit the conventions of this genre. Usually there will be some performance aspect of the video, as there is in most of the above videos, though I dont think that we intend on putting that into our video.
Some videos in this genre could come across quite dull as they tend to focus just on the main subject and their emotion, whereas others will have more in the video. These videos use a lot of close ups which captures the emotion that the character portrayed is feeling. A lot of these videos use a narrative throughout which is why I think that we should too as it follows the conventions.
Tuesday 29 June 2010
REVIEW OF AS PROJECT.
For our AS media project, which you can find here, we did a 2 minute opening to a film.
It was a really fun project to do, but it was time consuming and complex to acheive the standard that we acheived. Our development from our preliminary task (which is here - click) to our final piece (which is here - click) is in my opinion incredible. At the beginning of this course, none of us really knew how to film, edit or plan a film and the outcome that we acheived was of a high standard, so we were all really proud of ourselves. Our preliminary task was really poor, we broke a few of the things we shouldn't have broken, for example the 180 degrees rule. Though the editing and filming was of a low standard, the concepts and ideas we had were good. We took what we had learned from this excersise into consideration when filming and editing our final film opening and the fact that we had experience, and more knoweledge of what was and was not decent made us strive to make it the best that we could have made it.
PRE PRODUCTION:
Pre production for me, was the easiest part of this project. It involved looking into products that already existed, for example, Paranormal Activity as it was a film in the genre that we were looking into using. We also had to look at target audiences and planned a questionnaire to see what people in that age range would prefer to see. We had to plan what we were going to do in detail, the shots, the storyline, camera angles, actors, directors, camera persons etc. In our media blog, a lot of our posts were about the pre production part of the project, we had the answers to our questionnaire, 2 or 3 film opening analysis', conventions of that specific genre and more.
PRODUCTION:
During the production process, we stumbled upon a few hurdles, that eventually we got around. This was mainly due to lackluster planning and not thinking in enough detail about what we were going to do. Thankfully, we had locations that were close to college and if we had something we weren't too pleased with, we could go and re-film right away. In total, we spent about 3 days filming in Magpie Bottom and in the Cabot Eye. Many things went wrong during the process, we found out that we couldn't use a copyrighted song - which meant we had to change the soundtrack in the background. We eventually made it in garageband and spent about 2 hours writing and recording a voiceover for the film opening. Miss Street also said that we should add a bit at the end of our opening, so we quickly scripted it and then went back to where the 'flashbacks' were filmed to make it convenient. During production, we used our minds creatively whilst filming. We tried out new ideas, concepts and ways of filming and some of it came out really well. We were always on top of our filming and blog posts, which made the production process easier for us. We stuck to the conventions of our genre, and our filming went well.
POST PRODUCTION:
Post production, was a difficult process for us. None of us really knew how to edit on the machines well and it worried us due to the high standard that we hoped to get. Along the way, we learnt how to edit on Adobe Premiere Pro a lot better, and at the end of the process we had achieved a good standard of editing considering where we had come from. We had a bit of trouble with our music production and post production as we couldn't use the song we had actually based it around, we had to make another soundtrack in Garageband and then edit it into the film, then editing the levels to how we had needed it. We also had to incorporate the voiceover into this. After all of this, our film opening came out at a really high grade and we are extremely proud of what we have achieved in that year. We kept on top of our blogs, which kept our grade high, and we continuously posted new blog posts about what was going well, and what could have been going better. We uploaded our videos - preliminary task, final project 1, final project 2 - to youtube so that we could 'distribute' them and get feedback from people that don't know us personally, as there will always be a bias opinion from someone you know as they don't want to hurt your feelings.
At the end of this year, I am proud of both my blog and my final piece. Myself and my group worked extremely hard, and I think that we all complimented each other in the fact that we're all good at different aspects of the process. This is why we've decided to work together again on our A2 media project.
It was a really fun project to do, but it was time consuming and complex to acheive the standard that we acheived. Our development from our preliminary task (which is here - click) to our final piece (which is here - click) is in my opinion incredible. At the beginning of this course, none of us really knew how to film, edit or plan a film and the outcome that we acheived was of a high standard, so we were all really proud of ourselves. Our preliminary task was really poor, we broke a few of the things we shouldn't have broken, for example the 180 degrees rule. Though the editing and filming was of a low standard, the concepts and ideas we had were good. We took what we had learned from this excersise into consideration when filming and editing our final film opening and the fact that we had experience, and more knoweledge of what was and was not decent made us strive to make it the best that we could have made it.
PRE PRODUCTION:
Pre production for me, was the easiest part of this project. It involved looking into products that already existed, for example, Paranormal Activity as it was a film in the genre that we were looking into using. We also had to look at target audiences and planned a questionnaire to see what people in that age range would prefer to see. We had to plan what we were going to do in detail, the shots, the storyline, camera angles, actors, directors, camera persons etc. In our media blog, a lot of our posts were about the pre production part of the project, we had the answers to our questionnaire, 2 or 3 film opening analysis', conventions of that specific genre and more.
PRODUCTION:
During the production process, we stumbled upon a few hurdles, that eventually we got around. This was mainly due to lackluster planning and not thinking in enough detail about what we were going to do. Thankfully, we had locations that were close to college and if we had something we weren't too pleased with, we could go and re-film right away. In total, we spent about 3 days filming in Magpie Bottom and in the Cabot Eye. Many things went wrong during the process, we found out that we couldn't use a copyrighted song - which meant we had to change the soundtrack in the background. We eventually made it in garageband and spent about 2 hours writing and recording a voiceover for the film opening. Miss Street also said that we should add a bit at the end of our opening, so we quickly scripted it and then went back to where the 'flashbacks' were filmed to make it convenient. During production, we used our minds creatively whilst filming. We tried out new ideas, concepts and ways of filming and some of it came out really well. We were always on top of our filming and blog posts, which made the production process easier for us. We stuck to the conventions of our genre, and our filming went well.
POST PRODUCTION:
Post production, was a difficult process for us. None of us really knew how to edit on the machines well and it worried us due to the high standard that we hoped to get. Along the way, we learnt how to edit on Adobe Premiere Pro a lot better, and at the end of the process we had achieved a good standard of editing considering where we had come from. We had a bit of trouble with our music production and post production as we couldn't use the song we had actually based it around, we had to make another soundtrack in Garageband and then edit it into the film, then editing the levels to how we had needed it. We also had to incorporate the voiceover into this. After all of this, our film opening came out at a really high grade and we are extremely proud of what we have achieved in that year. We kept on top of our blogs, which kept our grade high, and we continuously posted new blog posts about what was going well, and what could have been going better. We uploaded our videos - preliminary task, final project 1, final project 2 - to youtube so that we could 'distribute' them and get feedback from people that don't know us personally, as there will always be a bias opinion from someone you know as they don't want to hurt your feelings.
At the end of this year, I am proud of both my blog and my final piece. Myself and my group worked extremely hard, and I think that we all complimented each other in the fact that we're all good at different aspects of the process. This is why we've decided to work together again on our A2 media project.
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