First Draft

Sorry for the long wait for the update, we were just all too busy with finishing up the first draft of our video. After finishing up we had a meeting discussing all the extra shots that we need to film. We also decided on changing up the walking scene because this one just seems a tiny bit off.

Preview Unedited Footage

It's cold

We finally got around to filming the extra walking scenes outside, and let me tell you, it is FREEZING outside. But still, everything went smoothly and was quite fun. We got all the shots needed and managed to get in extra ones that we came up with while filming. We also got to experiment with glowsticks. I realised after seeing the strings for the glowsticks that I actually know basic poi spinning to we got that on camera in the dark because it looked amazing! I had the idea to get it on camera after remembering looking online and thinking how cool it looks!

Timetable avalanche

Tamara and Claudia spend some time today devising more and more timetables for everything. They were basically writing out the times and dates on when to come up and start editing the footage that we have, pretty neat if I have to say so myself. This project is looking better by the day!

CCTV ROOM

Today we tackled the cctv room scenes. We had a shot list but it didn't stop us from experimenting and getting extra shots that were not on the list before we started

Dark Party Scenes

We decided to tackle the horse and film all of the scenes that we have listed currently! It was not an easy feat filming so much but we did indeed manage. We were done by roughly 5:00pm and I believe we did very well. Using glowstics was also really fun!!

More shot lists!

• Close up shot of character's boots (from right to left of frame).
• Mid-shot (from the waist down) of character sitting down (from right to left of frame).
• Over the shoulder shot of character typing on the keyboard.
• High angle shot of character typing.
• Panning shot of character sitting down, watching the screen in front. (moving from out to in)

Tomorrows Shot List

DARK PARTY SCENES: 1st Verse

• Master shot of the party scene
• Mid-shot of the dancers dancing
• Close up of feet
• Mid-shots of two individuals dancing
• Close up of individual dancing
• Close up of individual dancing
• Mid-shots of body (from the waist down)
• A mid-shot of character walking into the crowd from the left of the screen
• Mid-shot of character's face
• Mid-shot of DJ's face
• Mid-shot of his back walking out
• Close up of his shoes walking out
• Close up of DJ bag
• Close up of boom box in their hand

DARK PARTY SCENES: 1st Chorus:

• Mid-shot of dancers dancing.
• Mid-shot of character walking through the crowd (in the centre of the frame).
• Low angle shot of the dancers dancing.
• High angle shot of character walking
• Mid-shot of DJs walking out from the back 
• Close up of the DJ shoes
• Close up of individual dancing
• Close up of individual dancing
• Mid-shot of dancers dancing
• High angle shot of dancers dancing.
• Panning shot of dancers dancing.

Emails

Today we emailed one of the drama teachers asking if we would be allowed to film in the drama pod! The answer that we got was short and sweet meaning good news to us!

Lighting test

Today we decided to experiment and test with the lighting that will be used in filming. Claudia found a video which had interesting lighting Who Owns My Heart - Miley Cyrus and we decided to try our hands on setting our lighting in a similar way to see the effect

And this is what we came up with

Take two

Made a schedule today too! Hoping for the best that it's not the timetables that we make a jinxing us hahaha!

Timetables

If everything goes to plan, we will be filming the last party scene and the walking scenes today. We decided upon sticking to a time table so it would hopefully help us stay organised!

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UPDATE

The filming was alright, even though we has a major issue. The place was couble booked with the Orchestra and we couldn't film until they were done at 4:00pm Setting up took us 30 minutes so we were able to begin filming at 4:30pm

5:00pm it was already dark so we went on to film the walking scenes outside. It went smoothly and so we were done by around 6:00pm because we HAD to leave by then. We filmed about half of the shots that we needed to, but it's okay, we will film the rest on another day.

Shot list for Tomorrow!

ISSUES

Yeah! So as you can see we are having major issues. None of us like how the filming turned out and the lack of our extras was very shocking and disappointing! We had a group meeting and decided that the best course of action would be to re film the scenes making sure that we have all the people present! Or atl east...most of them.

Bedroom Filming

Today we are filming the bedroom scene! And we managed to complete it quite quickly. We were done in two hours! We had so much fun too. This may be the reason why it seems like the two hours went by so fast.We didn't spend the whole time fooling around, I promise!

And as a treat, here's some behind the scenes footage

Collaborated full shot list!

DARK ROOM SCENES:

• Close up shot of character's boots (from right to left of frame).
• Mid-shot (from the waist down) of character sitting down (from right to left of frame).
• Over the shoulder shot of character typing on the keyboard.
• High angle shot of character typing.
• Panning shot of character sitting down, watching the screen in front. (moving from out to in)

DARK PARTY: 1ST VERSE/CHORUS:

• Master shot of the party scene
• Mid-shot of the dancers dancing
• Close up of feet
• Mid-shots of two individuals dancing
• Close up of individual dancing
• Close up of individual dancing
• Mid-shots of body (from the waist down)
• A mid-shot of character walking into the crowd from the left of the screen
• Mid-shot of character's face
• Mid-shot of DJ's face
• Mid-shot of his back walking out
• Close up of his shoes walking out
• Close up of DJ bag
• Close up of boom box in their hand

DARK PARTY SCENES: 1st Chorus:

• Mid-shot of dancers dancing.
• Mid-shot of character walking through the crowd (in the centre of the frame).
• Low angle shot of the dancers dancing.
• High angle shot of character walking
• Mid-shot of DJs walking out from the back 
• Close up of the DJ shoes
• Close up of individual dancing
• Close up of individual dancing
• Mid-shot of dancers dancing
• High angle shot of dancers dancing.
• Panning shot of dancers dancing.

BEDROOM SCENES:

• Wide shot of character sitting on her bed, looking through books/notepads/laptop (long take)
• Close up the character (placed on the right side of the frame) on her laptop.
• Mid-shot of the character (placed on the right side of the frame) on her laptop.
• Close up of the laptop

GLOWSTICK PARTY:

• Low angle shot of dancers dancing with glowsticks at an angle (10 sec)
• Wide angle shot of the glowsticks and the dancers (10 sec)
• Panning of the dancers with glowsticks (10 sec)
• Midshot of two dancers with glowsticks in their hands (10 sec)
• Wide shot of the dancers tapping with their glowsticks in the air (10 sec)
• Close up of one dancer with their glowstick in the air (10 sec)
• Tilt up of the camera at one dancer with her/his glowstick in the air (10 sec)
• Close up of the dancers feet jumping up and down (10 sec)
• Panning of the camera on the dancers with glowsticks (10 sec)
• Close up of two dancers with their glowsticks in the air (10 sec)
• Wide shot of the dancers with their glowsticks in the air (as the camera zooms in and out) (10 sec)
• High angle shot of the dancers tapping on their glowsticks as they dance (10 sec)
• Tilt up of the camera from midshot of the dancers to the glowsticks (10 sec)
• Panning of the camera on the dancers with glowsticks (10 sec)
• Mid-shot of dancers while tapping with their glowsticks in the air. (10 sec)
• Midshot of dancers tapping their glowsticks in the air as they move their heads from side to side.
• Extreme close up of the dancers dancing with their hand up in the air (10 sec)

BRIDGE: WALKING SCENES:

• Long shot of artist walking through the streets on the right hand side of the frame
• Over the shoulder shot of character walking through street
• Mid-shot of artist walking through street (from waist down)
• Wide shot of people walking in the street (towards the camera)
• Midshot of people walking into the camera
• Extreme close up of head looking to her right (off camera)
• Mid-shot of people walking
• Out of focus shot of people walking
• Wide shot of camera focusing on the note in the street.
• Wide shot of the camera filming the street 

FINAL PARTY SCENES: LAST CHORUS

• Mid-shot of dancers with their hands in the air.
• Tilt up of the dancers standing in the crowd.
• Extreme close up of one of the dancers swaying their head to the beat.
• Mid-shot of the dancers dancing in the crowd as the camera moves downwards.
• High angle shot of dancers' shoes/faces.
• High angle shot of dancers looking into the camera and smiling.
• High angle shot of one of the dancers with hands up in the air.
• Wide shot of dancers jumping up and down.
• Mid-shot of two dancers dancing while one runs fingers through hair.
• Panning of the camera while dancers are dancing.
• Mid-shot of feet dancing away (from a high angle)
• Mid-shot of two dancers spinning to the music.
• Mid-shot of one dancer (looking away) as the other dancer jumps up and down and smiles at the camera.
• High angle shot of the dancers feet moving their legs out and in to the beat of the track.
• Mid-shot of the one dancer moving their head from side to side as other dancers stand behind them.
• High angle shot of dancers dancing in a line (from mouth down).
• PART 2:

• Mid-shot of character walking through the crowd. (10 seconds)
• Mid-shot of DJ walking through the crowd. (10 seconds)
• Mid-shot of character walking through the crowd & looking at the camera. (10 seconds)
• Mid-shot of DJ behind the character (as the character walks off camera) (10 seconds)
• Mid-shot of DJ tapping character on the shoulder. (10 seconds)
• Close up of DJ tapping character on the shoulder. (10 seconds)
• Mid-shot of character turning around. (10 seconds)
• Close up of character turning around. (10 seconds)
• Close up of DJ's mask. (10 seconds)
• Mid-shot of DJ & character standing together. (10 seconds)

PERFORMANCE:

• Mid-shot/long shot/close up of character singing the entire track behind a black screen.
• Close up of character's lips singing the entire track.
• Mid-shot/close up of character singing bridge behind a wooden wall.
• Close up of glowstick in character's hand.

Shooting Range!

Here I present to you the shot list that we made for our upcoming filming. This is mainly to keep us on track and organised! Of course we might add more shots along the way, but these are the basic ones to have!

• Lead sitting on bed, investigating notebooks / wide shot
• Lead using laptop, positioned to the right of the shot / close up
• Lead using laptop, positioned to the right of the shot / mid shot
• Laptop screen / close up

Contacting!

Claudia was very lovely and volunteered to contact all the actors and provide them with all the information needed so they could make our filming happen. Here are some of the screenshots that she took for proof!

Finally!

After being so horribly stressed out by editing the montage in the beginning of the video I am finally done with it, including all the sounds that go to the montage as well! Not next on the agenda is extracting the audio from our teacher strike footage and then we can move on to filming other parts of our video!

Behind the scenery!

Changes to be made!

When arranging our filming times we had come to the conclusion that a lot of it would either not make any sense or would be too difficult to actually accomplish, especially since none of us own a car to actually take our props anywhere and the tube or buses might be too risky with our expensive equipment. We have decided that we are going to film most of our video in our black box drama pod inside the college, we also changed a lot of the shots used, therefore I am posting this updated version of our animatic that I drew and stitched together!

Lit up Ball Lights!

Our lovely Claudia went to a shop today to look for extra lighting and whatnots for our music video. When she came back to us she reported seeing so many different and interesting lighting, she was basically dazzled by all the sparkles and glam! She did see a disco light ball and some strobe lights. Told us that hopefully she'll be able to get her hands on everything needed!

Agreeing to be our video test bunnies!

Just getting our actors does not put us in the clear, we have to get them so sign their souls over to us for the time being so we could legally film them. So we got our hands on the neat agreement forms and made our actors sign them with blood! .....well not really, but I was just going for dramatic impact haha!

BOOMBAG!

I nearly forgot about this while making the blog post yesterday! While at Camden we also saw these amazing boombox bags, with a twist that they actually play music! We didn't buy one at the time because they are rather expensive, around £40 for a standard messenger sized bag. We will decide if this prop is actually needed for our music video in a meeting that we will be having soon!

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UPDATE

We had the meeting in which we discussed all the items that we got for our music video. After a long talk we finally concluded that even though the bag is nice, it is not worth it. It is VERY expensive and it is not essential for our video to make sense for it would only be used as a decoration. The final verdict - we are not coming back to buy the boombag.

Costumes and works!

Today we went out to Camden town to look for times, clothing and accessories for out lead singer. We managed to find everything that we needed, including the tutu skirt, the crazy tights and funky knee socks. I'd say that the day was a success! On the way back home we noticed this little thingie!

There is going to be a fireworks display! Well ain't that just spiffy? This is a great opportunity for us to possibly go out and film some fireworks in case we'd actually like to use them in the video! The only issue with that would be having to go out past dark with expensive cameras an equipment.........we might reconsider....

ALL ABOUT THE LOCKS!

Hello, Hello, Hello!

     THE WIG HAS ARRIVED! Ah the joy and glory, and the huge relief that it was actually a wig and not a pillowcase with feathers......you know....eBay and trust issues and stuff. Ah but yes, the long wait is over for the package from china has arrived. It's still hard to believe that when filtering fro closest so you the nearest country is China. Oh well, it being a global power and all. Back to the wig and it's blue glory. Ah....well......it's a couple tones darker than what I've ordered, but I will be happy because sending it back to China will take up way too much time. I mean.....it took it about a month to get here so I think I'll stick with that, thank you very much. It is beautiful any ways. Quite heavy and long too, but that's what I have signed up for. And I just LOVE how it looks......a tiny part of my brain is actually telling me that I should lady up and try wearing it casually outside.......well we'll see, we'll see. Now for the best part - I got a few pictures that I am so willing to share!

-Greta owo

Strike a Photo!

     Well then, back to business are we? Me and Claudia went to the teacher strike/march thingie and I must say, it was absolutely mental! So many people gathered with the same views for the same cause. Al was absolutely amazed by all of it. But I won't go on about it because me and my dear colleague did a short vlog after we had done our work, and that video is coming up soon. I'll just say what we actually did at the strike. Basically we all met up at the Russel Square tube station and walked on over to the place where the march will start. Me and Claudia decided previously on our jobs there. Claudia had to do some filming and I had to take a bunch of photos. And take a bunch of photos did I do, unless 294 is a small number to you. Well I couldn't show you all of them, a lot were horrible.So horrible that only 140 something left were any good. Of course there are amazing ones amongst them, but might as well keep all of those. If I am lucky, there will be two more instances where I will be able to take photos. I will trim down the bad future photos of those events, pile all of the good ones together and trim down everything from there as well until all is left are only truly amazing pictures captured in time forever...and ever....and ever....well the ones that we are going to use anyways. And now, dear friends, the photos;

We also made a cheeky little video to go along!

Contacts and Networking is KEY

Okay, time to get down to business....no not the kind where we defeat the Huns. I bean serious business concerning our video. So we gathered a BUNCH of people to be in our video and of course we need a way to get and keep in touch with them. And for that purpose we made this handy contacts list, just like they do it in the great bit world out there. Look, mummy, I'm like a big, high class director person now!

Recce

We might have issues happen when planning to film or even when filming. Because of that we need to do our best in order to avoid them before they even happen. We made a grid outlining everything that came to mind!

AUDITIONS!!!

To pick who is going to represent our lead singer in the video - we had to hold auditions. This helped us to find a girl who suited all the criteria that we had in mind on our lead singer for our video. We decided that the girls auditioning could sing or lip sync their own song. These are just some of the many video audition tapes that we received.

Assessing the Risks

Since we have a lot of locations to film at, we had to asses the risks of each of those individually and he ir what we came up with!

Flyer Fire

To spread the word of our music video we made and stuck flyers around the premises. We did so in order to get actors/dancers to be in our video. Experience in not necessary to be in our video and so because of that we will take anyone willing to participate.

Initial Idea Presentation

This is the presentation that me and my group did to present our idea and plan for our music video. Also included below is the video of us pitching the idea.

A readable version of our presentation if available here:
http://www.slideshare.net/claudiatbfh/friday-night-gurus-presentation

And here is a video of me and my group presenting our idea:

After pitching our idea we evaluated our plan we decided to make a couple of changes to our idea:

• We will film majority of the scenes in South East London, in Southbank
• A couple of scenes will be filmed in front of a graffiti covered wall
• Two men in our video will be given bunny masks so they would be an intertextual reference to Donny Darko
• We will focus our video on the change of a dystopian London to a multicoloured London of today

After the review we looked over our choices of filming outdoors, since we realised that the weather would get in the way because we cannot control the wind, humidity or temperature. We also made other changes to our video as follows:

• We will film the dark scenes in the drama pod, because it can be turned pitch black. In the end we will transition to the colourful scenes and will film them in the theatre for it would look more grand
• Because of the unpredictable weather we will film the clue searching scene in a bedroom instead of a wall littered with graffiti

Logo Inspiration

Thinking about the logos that I would like to possibly consider using, naturally I firstly looked into different DJ's and dance music artist and their personal logos.I noticed that there is a running theme, a convention even, of simplicity. Personally I am mostly attracted to circular or symmetrical designs of logos because oddly enough I feel that it would suit my fictional artist the most.

After looking at the logos of music artists I decided that it would be beneficial to look at general logos as well. I stumbled upon neon light sign logos and found that a lot of them are minimalist and symmetrical which I liked

Schedule & Personel

Props, Location, Costume & Other Magic

The list of props the we will be using!

• Boombox
• Camera
• iMacs
• Books
• Headphones
• Laptop
• Glows ticks

The list of costumes and makeup that will be needed!

• Black tops (for dancers)
• Black trousers (for dancers)
• Bright colored clothing (for female role)
• Blue wig
• Blue eyeshadow
• Red eyeshadow
• Red lipstick
• Bright colored clothing for the two men
• Masks for the two men

Outfits and looks to use as inspiration for the Lead Female's look!

List of locations where filming will possibly happen!

• Tower Bridge
• London Eye
• Houses of Parliment/Big Ben
• Piccadilly Circus
• River Thames/The Shard
• A street
• Empty room (party scenes)
• Bridge

Equipment that will be needed and will be used!

• Camera
• Tripod
• Lighting

Finalized idea for music video

Intro: Video begins with a fast paced montage pictures from riots and strikes in London

First Verse: The video carries on to show the female lead singer using spray paint. The reason behind that is to show that she is going against the flow of the zombified and watched society. This also displays how she is preventing the government from spying on people through CCTV cameras. The lead then notices two men in the same location that seem like they don't fit in just like her, thus this gives her an incentive to reach the men.

Chorus: Throughout the chorus the female lead is pushing though the crowd trying to get to the men. She fails to do so and the men disappear in the crowd. Unable to locate them the lead female decides to leave

Second Verse: We cut to the lead next to a graffiti wall where she finds the logo of the two masked men. The logo seems incomplete so she adds a couple of lines completing it. Then the lead takes a photo. We cut to her home where she has already assembled a load of photos of the logo from different locations. She pins the photos to a map which lets her pinpoint the location and she ends up at another party.

Chorus: The party at which she ends up at is filled with people dancing with glow sticks, dressed in colorful clothing, misfits like her. She looks for the masked men in the crowd because wherever they go color is left behind, but the lead fails to find them.

Bridge: The lead female leaves the party and we follow her as she walks trough the street and stumbles upon glow sticks on the ground. She follows the trail of them hoping to find the two men. The glow sticks lead her to the first location where she saw the masked men.

Chorus: In the first location everything is different, a color revolution is happening, change is happening and people are celebrating. The masked men approach her and we see fireworks in the background

Music Video Treatment

Hello, Hello, Hello!

     We spent the lesson finalising the idea of our video. We can't just leave it like a cloud on sticky notes. No no. We need to make sure that it's clear and well thought out. Most importantly, it MUST make sense. So here goes nothing.

     Outline of Ideas: Me and my group would like our idea to revolve around a party setting. We would have the main singer  travelling through different parties in search for the 'gurus'. We would have the spot the gurus in the first party then start looking for them. After finding clues the main artist would be lead to the gurus. Hopefully a circular narrative would be possible to complete. Meaning that at the end she would visit the exact same party that she visited first, though the colour scheme would be changed and this time she would actually be able to reach the gurus that she was looking for all along.

     What resources we need: We would need a female main performer, two supporting performers for the gurus and extras for the party scenes. For props we would need glow sticks, masks for the supporting characters, a wig, bright clothing, bright makeup and a pair of boots for the main performer. Hopefully we will be able to set our scenes in a black room or a theatre with curtains. Of course we will also need lighting equipment and a tripod to stabilise the camera.

     Justification of idea in relation to genre: Dance music videos usually include everyday scenes. Like parties and people coming together. Therefore having party scenes in our video will be justified. But dance music videos also tend to have an underlying story to them, this is why we will have the main girl looking for the gurus. We will be going slightly further away from conventions by having the main character actually perform in the video since usually there is no performance and the singers are not even present. We are doing so because our chosen song has lyrics throughout.

-Greta owo

Sticky Wall!

Hello, Hello, Hello!

     We sat down with the group and threw out ideas for the music video. In order to not be messy, we stuck the on sticky notes and stuck those on a page and took a photo of the page stuck to the desk. Was that sentence not a bit like Inception? I think so, hahah. Anyways apologies for the picture's reading quality.

-Greta owo

Picking a song

Hello, Hello, Hello!

     Time to get this show on the road. The groups are set and we sent the last couple of hours deciding on what we are actually going to do with our task of making a music video. As it seems so, we needed to pick a song first. It was an interesting task to complete and to make it more simple we chose a random song each and discussed pros and cons of each and this is what we all collectively decided upon.

Caravan Palace - Dragons

Pros: 

• Relatively unknown band.
• barely known musical style.
• Very upbeat song.

Cons:

• Song is way too long.
• Hard to put in performance.

Studio Killers - Friday Night Gurus

Pros:

• Unknown band.
• Dace music lets us take many approaches.
• Upbeat song.
• Performance opportunities.

Cons:

• The band is signed.
• Has one album out already.

Metric - Black Sheep

Pros:

• Unknown band.
• Rock music has easy to follow conventions.
• Plenty of room for performance.

Cons:

• Performers must know how to play instruments.
• The song has been featured in a film and is widely know because of it.

     After much discussion we decided that we are going to produce a video of Studio Killers - Friday Night Gurus. It had the most pros and our chat on what we could do for the video had the most ideas for the song.

-Greta owo

Narrative Structure Time

Hello, Hello, Hello!

     It's this time again, whoever reads my blog. Yes, yes time to learn things. Today we talked about narrative....the classical narrative I mean, so I would say it's time for me to relay the information here. The flood gates are open, the information is spilling out.......now!

     Narrative Structure is basically a framework in which the narrative is presented to a reader, listener or viewer, which ever applies in the context. The narrative structures include plot and the setting. Generally speaking narrative of any possible kind of work contains three aspects. They are plot, theme and resolution. This can also be divided into three sections too which would turn into the three-act structure: Setup, Conflict, Resolution. 

     Act One, the setup. Here all the main characters are introduced. This includes their personality, surroundings, relationships and what not, just the basic situation. But this only contains a primary and very shallow level of characterization. During setup, a problem is also introduced in order to more the story forward by giving the characters a sudden drive to change things and stop being passive. 

     Act Two, the conflict. This is usually the biggest part of the story. It begins when a catalyst forces the main characters to act out of their ordinary set days and this sets the whole plot rolling down the hill. Act two is also the part of the story in which characters undergo major changes in reaction to what is happening in the plot. Because of this the Conflict is also sometimes called Character Development or Character Arc.

     Act Three, resolution. The problem of the story boils over - forcing the character to face it. Think the epic battle towards the end of every more action packed film. In act three all of the elements of the story come together which inevitably leads the story to it's end.

     Of course not every narrative based piece follow this structure. Especially not music videos. Another quite popular narrative concept is the Non-Linear Narrative. It is a narrative that does not follow the story in a step-by-step fashion. For example it is often broken up. We might get to see the ending before even reaching the middle of the story. Though Flashback Narratives are often confused with true Non-Linear Narratives. The following ones are broken up in multiple sections, but in Flashback narrative  the audience starts by briefly seeing the end, but the going back to the beginning, experiencing the story in a linear fashion AND surpassing the previously seen ending. Music videos usually operate a non-linear narrative, moving back and forth withing the story line and rarely ever showing everything step by step, beginning-middle-end.

-Greta owo