key concepts in our research and planning

The track we have chosen to use of the website jamendo, has a fast upbeat tempo, fitting the genre of dance/electronic music. The song choice took a lot of researching in order to find the song suitable for our video. This song choice fits perfectly into the genre we are aiming to create for our music video, the genre of our music represents the people attending and matches our location choice, as many dance videos are set in dark, dull environments using low key lighting. The audience we are aiming to attract will be a mixture of male and females ranging between the ages of 16-21 as some scenes may be unsuitable for younger children. Mise-en-scene plays a cruical part in our video as our props need to be suitable for our narrative, the girl in our video needs to be wearing a plain, white dress to represent her innocence, this should be evident to our audience. Lighting throughout the scene in the warehouse needs to be minimal (low key lighting) we researched many sites in order to find a strobe light to allow some light into the warehouse, in the end we settled on ebay and purchased one the next day. By adjusting the settings we were able to make it flash in different sequences to create a party atmosphere and match the tempo of our music. to be finished....

Feedback 15.11.10

Lads, I am still concerned by the inactivity on this blog over the weekend and in your own time. The content here is basic (level 2). There are posts that have been left incomplete for weeks. If you have no footage to edit this week in lessons then you can use the time to produce the research and planning for the ancillary tasks - a digipack album and magazine advert for the album.

I am not in tomorrow but the lesson is still on. Mike will let you in the room and you can carry on with your project. Mike will be on hand to help if needed.

Mrs A

Day of shoot

We have organised to shoot in a warehouse on the study day. Lighting conditions shouldn't be an issue because although the party is supposed to be at night, it will be fairly dark in the building anyway with just enough natural light to be able to take to some good shots. The use of the strobe light will help create a party atmosphere. Locations are vital in our music video, we also intend to use pendle hill in our project as a focal point for our narrative.

Location Shots

These are the first location shots we've taken; of the protagonist's house in his old days and of the road the two will drive down. It was not possible to obtain pictures of the warehouse due to poor lighting conditions.

Casting

We have cast:

                                                                  -Tom Bousfield

 or Tom Warburton (undecided) - DJ

                                                         -Genevieve Ladd - Girlfriend

                                                             -Chris Black - Dealer


                                                         Friends of ours - party-goers

Shooting Schedule

It's proving difficult to arrange a time at which to film the scene in the warehouse because we need a time where it's between daylight and darkness, so that we have some natural light to work with but to make it look like it's in the evening, and because we need to arrange for a large number of people to meet at this time. We need to shoot the scene when the girl fights with the boy in daylight, so we will do that this weekend (13 November). At this point we will also film the scene where the protagonist buys the drugs. We will film the additional shots that are easier to do at a later date.

Costume

The girl will wear a quite plain-looking purple dress (as shown below) which we want to reflect her quite simple caring nature, however the colour purple could show that she is quite feminine and possibly emotional. We're considering doing a flashback shot of the protagonist picking up drugs, which means we need to dress the person he's buying them from appropriately, in a sport jacket(with hood up) and wearing joggers. The DJ himself  will wear the typical attire of a young male, sporting just jeans and a polo shirt with plimsolls or something similar. Other than this, we will leave the the characters at the party to wear whatever they choose on the day as this will show that they are just a normal variety of young people enjoying themselves, and because it will be too difficult to arrange costumes for every person we want to feature in our video.

Prop List

There are quite a number of props we're going to need for this video. Firstly, we need a lot of mise en scene in order to make the scene in the warehouse look authentic and realistic. We will need:

-A setup for the DJ - We will use a keyboard to look like a DJ's synthesiser, some old speakers, and an old record player to look like DJ decks
-A sheat of flyers (we will design a basic flyer saying there's a party which we will show being handed out to help establish the scene)
-Lighting - we are purchasing a cheap strobe light from ebay which we think will give a really good effect, possibly also using a laser machine from a friend if it still works
-Pro Plus tablets - we will use these to make them look like illegal pills
-Bottles of beer - which the crowd will hold
-Mobile phone- There will be a scene in which the man reads a text from his girlfriend asking him where his is or what he is doing, showing she worries about him, and so we'll need a phone.
-Car- We are using a silver Peugeot for when the two fight in the car.
-neon bangles- for people at the party to wear.

Synopsis

We've settled on using a copyright-free track from Jamendo as we couldn't obtain the permission to use the songs we wanted. The song we picked is a fast-paced and upbeat dance/electronic song, and would again be associated with the kind of music played in urban areas and so we're still going to use our location of the abandoned warehouse. We want to represent the kind of people that would listen to this kind of music and so we're to stage a (pretend) party inside the warehouse, in order to do this we are using our friends as characters at the party. with the protagonist being the DJ. We want to include a narrative, however, so we're also going to use flashbacks of the character's past days, to create this effect we are using the green screen in the editing suite ; to add more emphasis its a flashback we are going to edit the scene and turn the image into a negative effect. The song is quite long so we may have to crop a certain aspect, in order to do this we can use the imacs programme 'garage band'we will have time to include enough shots to make sure the audience understands what's going on. The character will see one of the people dancing and taking a pill, which will remind him of the days when he used to get into undesirable activities like taking drugs, to create this scene we will use the use of cinematography to make a close up shot, we will also use a jump shot to assure the viewers whats happening. We're going to edit all the flashback scenes in negative so that it is clear what is in the past and what is in the present. The character remembers how he had to hide his behaviour from his girlfriend, who then found leading to a huge argument. He remembers how the girl stormed off to her car (whilst alternating between shots of the present) and how he followed her, leading to another fight as they drive out of town which will be shown in a long shot. We want to leave the enigma unresolved to allow the viewer to create their own assumption.

Questionnaire Results

We have analysed the results from our questionnaires and found that on the whole, people have similar ideas about what they expect from a video of the type that we're making. People said they expected to find quite dirty looking urban locations such as 'on the streets at night', which ties in well with our idea for shooting at the abandoned warehouse. This could be because this genre of music os more popular in urban areas like towns and cities rather than in the countryside. Here are a couple of examples of what people said:

Equipment we will use

We will use a Canon mini Digital Video camera to film our sequence with the aid of a tripod to keep the camera steady so the shots arent jarring or uneven. We also have a Lumix digital camera to take the still pictures of our locations. Unfortunately darkness falls early at this time of year so it could be difficult to get the approriate lighting for our shots. Should it get too dark to take good shots, we are considering using powerful torches to create a spotlight-style effect, which could make our video look interesting and mysterious. In post-production we will be using an Apple Mac with Final Cut software to edit our video and to add effects and trim and arrange the shots, and to add the music on top of the video.

Storyboarding

We have produced a storyboard (a sequence of images to show how the finished video will look) to show the different shots and angles we're going to use. We will make a mock-up video by filming the still images and putting them in sequence so that we can see if there are any shots that dont look right next to each other, or if there are any shots that aren't going to look clear. This will include around 20 different shots (the less significant ones not included) which will be filmed on the location; we will then add the green screen shots of the rapper later on as they are the easiest and quickest to obtain, espescially as they are in college.

Feedback 8.11.10

Joe and Mark,

I am getting increasingly worried by the inactivity on this blog. So far you have minimal work on here so you will be losing 20% of your coursework mark!

The location post needs some location photos please!

Other than that you have only published 2 posts since the 3rd November - unacceptable! I can see there are some in draft but they too were last worked on last tuesday and wednesday. You have to work on this in your own time! You should now be filming and taking stills. You have 6 weeks to complete all the production tasks. If this is not complete by Christmas then you may be asked to leave the course.

See me if you have any questions.

Mrs Abell

Location Ideas

We've looked around the area of clitheroe for possible locations for us to film and have found several quite grimey looking places that look the part and fit the mise en scene for a video of this type. We have found an abonded warehouse which will be ideal for the footage, a small cellar, the top of Pendle Hill, and the green screen in the editing suite at college. We're still looking for more locations so that we can make our video as interesting and authentic as possible. The warehouse is ideal as there is low key lighting throughout which will help set the scene for our genre, it is also safe and pratical to film in. The cellar we chose to use is also perfect for our music video, we intend to use this mise en scene for our characters office, as above the lighting is low key and the props fit the image we want to create. The top of Pendle Hill is our main focus point for our genre we are creating, including the hills and scenery, reflects the changes the characters are going through in our video, creating enigmas and interests for the viewer.

Successful videos

We researched the most successful videos to find out whether or not they all follow any generic conventions; it seems that in recent times the most important quality of a video is that it's different and memorable. This is because videos with these qualities are the ones that are talked about the most on sites such as YouTube, which is the most popular medium for sharing videos. However, the most viewed music videos on YouTube to date are just those of the songs that are most popular at the time. Justin Bieber with Ludacris' "Baby" stand at number 1 with around 344 million views; however we suspect videos such as this are only viewed because people are using YouTube just to listen to the song rather than actually watching the video, because it doesn't contain anything particularly different from any of the other pop videos which aren't as successful. Lady Gaga took the number 2 with Bad Romance, amassing around 287 million views, which could be for the same reason or perhaps because this video is more interesting, using odd costumes, unique mise en scene and using varying levels of lighting to create strange effects.








One of my favourite videos is one which inspired us to create a video with a similar narrative; rather than the homogenous pop videos we might often find this one tells a proper story and has a very clear narrative.





I think this video is especially good because you can watch it even with no sound, just taking in the story, and it's still very effective. I think this is clever because the producers can tell a story without the use of any sound at all.

Target Audience

We have produced a questionnaire in order to determine the type of audience to target our video to. Hopefully we can use the findings to identify the elements that will captivate our audience and reflect on this when producing our video. We want to know whether or not audiences enjoy videos that stick to typical conventions or whether or not to take a more contemporary approach. using the theory of "GRASS" will give a broader insight so that we can 


 The questions will ask:

1)    What genre of music would you listen to the most?

2)    Does this genre of music stick to any particular conventions?

3)    List a couple of your favourite music videos

4)    What kind of things are in these videos?

5)    Do you see any titles/words in these videos?

6)    What kind of video would you expect for a grime artist’s song?

7)    Where might you expect to find a video like this?

8)    Are there any genres of music that are popular where you live? Eg rap/hip-hop in Blackburn etc

We will distribute this questionnaire in college because this would be the typical audience for a video of this type. 

Feedback 1.11.10

Mark and Joe,

This is disgraceful! By now, your research and planning should be complete. You have barely started. The 2 posts that you have created are far too brief and vague need proper exemplficiation with analysis etc. There is no evidence of research or proper planning. So far, you would have zero marks for this.

You must attend extra workshop time this week to make uop for this and I expect to see this work caught up this week. Please consider this as evidence of a stage one referral.

Any problems or questions then see me immediately. Otherwise, please see your checklist.

Mrs A