Group Planning Post - Creating Our Documents

Today I created our call sheet to help organise our music video shooting and make it easier for our actors to know where they have to be and when. to do this I searched the sunrise and sunset times for our shooting dates, this allows us to know when there will be enough lighting to get the shots that we need in the natural daylight. I also had to make a timetable of the times, location, day or night, interior or exterior shots and actors to ensure we have enough time to get everything filmed in time and that everyone knows exactly what is happening and when.


I also made our locations risk assessment, this is to allow any potential dangers to be planned for and prevented as best we can, the only risks we really have are shooting in the dark, and shooting in public places.

Planning: Full script

Name of music video: Dreams

Initial Shot-List

Actor, setting

Scene 1

Wide shot of the bed room, through a grainy filter making it look darker, no music playing (Joseph shepherds house)

Katie is asleep in the bed, and Luke is sat on the edge dressed in black head down hands in lap

Scene 2

Close up shot of Katie asleep, music starts to play

Scene 3

Close up of photo frames around the room establishing their relationship, music is playing but just the intro the song (Joseph shepherds house)

Scene 4

A wide high angled shot of the bed 

Katie wakes up and reacts to Luke; Luke sees her panic and tries to comfort her by singing to her and touching her (Joseph shepherds house )

“Now there you go again
You say you want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down”

Scene 5

A wide shot of them on the bed with Katie pushing away from Luke but then switches to an over the shoulder shot (Joseph shepherds house)

Katie is trying to push away from Luke, Luke sings to her

“It's only right that you should play it the way you feel it
But listen carefully to the sound
Of your loneliness”

Scene 6

A shot of Katie pushing Luke away, then a cut to the same shot with Luke missing and Katie looking relived, cut to Katie in the bath room looking into the mirror and singing ( Use Zoom, at Joseph shepherds house )

“Like a heartbeat drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering
What you had”

Scene 7

A close up of Katie’s legs walking down the stairs, in a pair of jeans

Scene 8

A shot of Katie walking into camera on the street with Luke behind her running towards her, then a bright fade transitioning into a montage  (Arch way at the church)

“And what you lost

And what you had

And what you lost”

Scene 9

ALL SHOTS IN THE MONTAGE ARE THROUGH A FILTER TO MAKE THEM LOOK AGED

Shot of their heads hanging of the bed as they turn to face each other and smile warmly, Katie kisses his cheek and he smiles at her warmly. A bright fade into another shot.

Scene 10

A shot of them in the park, walking down a trail hand in hand close together having fun

Scene 11

A shot of a phone showing various text’s like “ Sorry missed my bus” etc

Scene 12

A shot of them having a picnic in the park, Katie goes to kiss Luke but Luke pull’s away from her

Scene 13

A shot of them walking down the same trail, less happily and less in love but still touching

Scene 14

Katie is sat at an outside restaurant looking at her watch waiting for him, to turn up but he doesn’t

Scene 15

A close up on a text saying “ We need to talk now!” , Katie replies with “ I love you, please tell me what’s wrong “

Scene 16

A shot of them at lamppost arguing, bright fade

Scene 17

They are back at the lamppost in their clothing from the start of the music video, looking at each other

Scene 18

Over the shoulder shot of Luke singing to her , second to last verse

Scene 19

Katie looks at him, feed up she’s been put through enough and she’s finally over him, mid verse she turns her back and he’s gone, the only thing left is his voice.

Conclusions to research

CAMERA SHOTS. ANGELS AND MOVEMENT

This has influenced my planing as it has given me great examples as to how set up my shot's to make them seem aesthetic and how  a opening slate can be used to communicate the feel of a video.

One way that I could try and incorporate this into our video would be to include a series of shots to add a narrative to our video so its not just performance based which would be useful as we could also communicate our initial concept easier  we could add a story to help get the point across.

This influenced my creativity and planning as it made me aware of what makes a good closing shot such as if it completes the story  through doss ( Desire, objective, soloution , succsess ) etc or if it leaves it to your imagination etc

This influenced my creativity and planning as it made me aware of what makes a shot effective (The lighting, shot type , proxemics , costume and set design) I now know what I need to be aware of and pay attention to make sure all my shots are effective and capture my audiences attention

This research has made me aware of what is needed to make a establishing shot successful and able to captivate my audiences minds and make them want to carry on watching it. I learnt about this through seeing both good and bad examples of establishing shots.

MISE EN SCENE, SET DESIGN, LOCATIONS . AND PLANNING

The music influenced my creativity as it made me aware of some thing's that can be done to create a star image that I want to be seen for example crazy which could be done through shaky close up's and intense facial expressions. It has also made me aware that it is possible to communicate certain issues like the repression of creativity.

This influenced my planning as it made me aware of how to use intertextuality well and how to create 3 different images for a star at once a useful skill , but apart from that this song is not useful for my planning due to the genre change I am doing indie while this is pop.

This influenced my planning as it made me aware of all the different types of music video's and what you need to put into a music video to classify it as that type eg a performance video shows the band performing the song. I intend to draw on all of the different types of video when it comes to the video I will produce for my course.

This influenced my planning as it made me aware about how important a costume is when it comes producing a music video, I think one thing I need to start doing now is to plan the costumes on what I want people to wear . As costumes can be an important tool in communicating who they are right away

This influenced my planning as it made me aware about the importance of locations, a step moving forward for mine and Caity's project here would be to start planning out our locations we want to use so we don't fall behind. When we have our locations we can also plan our narrative around them.

This has influenced my creativity and planning as it made me aware that even with a low budget you can create a good music video, it has also made me aware and given me a practical example of how to link visuals to lyrics

This has influenced my planning as it has made me aware of how subtle little changes can really help emphasise certain points of other people's character

This has influenced my creativity and planning as I am now seeing how I could direct certain scenes based around the locations and whats available near by, such as a long shot of Katie sat by herself on the train station platform.

This post has helped me influence my planing as it has made me aware of where the music video has come from and the current trends that make success full music videos, its also made me aware of music video trends from over the past few years so if I decided to go retro with my video I can see what trends would be popular at the time.

It helped me realises about how to effectively use locations and how you can re use a location but dress it differently and it can look just as interesting, It also helped me to visually see how costumes can be used on colourful locations or any location to give it a visual appeal 

This influenced my planning as it made me aware of how the production stage of our video's we have to produce will be very tricky and we really have to know what we are doing to keep time efficiency 

EDITING

This influenced my planning and creativity as it made me aware of editing filters over our footage to make it look older and aged , this would be good for our montage sequence as it it would make it look different  from the other bits of footage.

Research: TA focus group 1 sound cloud

This is the recording we had during our focus group from this we got many different pieces of feedback and ideas. We got praise for our ideas which was a confidence boost so close to filming.

Today in class we conducted some target audience research. We formed focus groups to answer the questions we had planned to ask our target audience. This focus group was made up of 17/18 year olds and we had both males and females answer our questions.The questions we planned were...

1.  What images come to your mind when you hear this song? (We played the first minute of the song)

1. We gave feedback on our initial concepts and asked if it offended any one or if there was anything they could suggest to change.

1. We described our establishing shot and asked for suggestions

1. What do you feel about covers/rereleases of old songs?

1. Do you enjoy a narrative based music video?

1. Do you prefer modern or traditional representations of women?

1. What locations come to mind when listening to the song?

This focus group has given us a wide range of answers and we now have a lot to think about and changes to make to our initial plans. This is only one part of our target audience research as it is a re release of a Fleetwood Mac single so there will also be an older existing audience which we will have to do research for.


The results we got from our focus group research was largely in praise for our ideas on how we want to present the story of our music video with many people liking the idea on how we present the breakdown of the relationship 

Research: Filter

One thing I am interested in doing is to add a grainy filter in sections of the music video to make it seem darker in places and create more atmosphere or to use it to help communicate the idea of how its and old memory





How this influenced my planning and creativity 
This influenced my planning and creativity as it made me aware of editing filters over our footage to make it look older and aged , this would be good for our montage sequence as it it would make it look different  from the other bits of footage.

Research Music Video Research 9: All The Pretty Girls by Kaleo

This opening shot is amazing, the pink lighting creates such a romantic and feminine atmosphere, linking to the song name 'All The Pretty Girls'. This kind of effect would be perfect for the feel we are trying to achieve in our own video, maybe not pink particularly but the overall effect is desirable.

The lighting here perfectly shows every detail on the little branch, this soft yet natural lighting would be really useful for the more romantic scenes in our music video.

The subtle lighting in this shot just highlights the highpoints of the legs and feet, this looks so soft and gentle, it's so effective and pretty, I hope we can achieve this.

The way the lighting is used here is my favourite thing, it is so effective and beautiful as the light makes everything else look really dark and quite shadowy, giving a nice pink effect but it is so soft yet dark, I really want to be able to do this in my own music video but I am not sure when it would be suitable.

The lighting here, under the water highlights the people, one in particular, this is something I haven't seen used in music videos before and I think it is so effective and different, it is really alternative and indie.

How this research has influenced my planning

The lighting in my music video has not been thoroughly planned yet and so this was really helpful to be able to acknowledge what is going to be effective and work well for the particular style of video we are doing, I think, from this research that natural light is going to be the best bet, in the night time shots we will need artificial lighting but we mainly need natural light.

Group Planning Post- Beat Script

We had to create a beat script in order to have an idea of what we are doing in each shot, even if we didn't have entirely all of the details secured yet, this is going to be really helpful to finalise any details and it will help us to actually finalise a full script with all the details, locations and times etc.

Planning: Shot types

Goodwin's post music video analysis

Upon reflection I wish I had used Goodwin's method of music video analysis as I feel my research would of been alot more clearer and have alot more content to it as I haven't made use of these points as much as I should of.

Goodwin's music video analysis is as follows

• Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics ( E.g. stage performance in metal videos ) 
• There is a relationship between visuals and lyrics ( Either illustrative , amplifying , contradicting )
• There is a relationship between music and visuals ( Either illustrative , amplifying , contradicting )
• The demands of the record label will include the need for alot of close ups and of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work ( A visual style for the artist ) 
• There is a frequently reference to notion of looking ( screens withing screens ) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body
• There is often inter textual reference ( To films , tv etc ) 

I will now use this theory all the time to ensure I research & meet conventions 

Planning: Media theory

In this post you will find most of the theorists me and Caity plan to use when creating our video and planning it.

• Vladimir Propp. I.e., the idea of a hero, a princess and a villain, this is a narrative theory that has it's traces in almost all forms of narrative as it is the most used example of a plot. Mine and Caity's music video also follow's this structure as Luke will be presented as the villain as he is shown to be hurting Katie emotionally through the montage Me and Caity plan to film showing the breakdown of the relationship. This is a narrative theory.
• Mcdougall I.e in an online age it is getting harder to conceive a media audience as a stable identifiable group. Me and Caity plan to use this and try to appeal to as many different TA's as possible because  they are getting harder to appeal to if we can appeal to many then we are sure to attract at least one TA. This is an example of audience theory. 
• Richard Dyer I.e. a star is an image, not a real person. Me and Caity plan to use this when it comes to design our artists star image as we know that we can portray them larger than life as they are an image not a real person. This is a representation theory.

Proop

Our music video fits Proop's theory, We used his theory when coming up with the narrative for our video. We have changed it slightly to include a representation of a modern strong woman as she is both the hero and the princess,

Mcdougall

We made use of Mcdougall's theory when planning our TA, We knew that establishing a TA would be tricky so we looked at all possible TA's we could get and try to appeal to them all.

Dyer

Me and Caity used this theory when designing our star image for Katie and Luke, this theory served as a reminder and allowed us to help create a artist representation for them both as it enabled us to portray them as something they are not.

How duet's work in music video's

Since mine and Caity's music consists of a duo I thought it might be a good to research into how duo's are presented in music video's. What I understand is that duo's in music videos are presented in two way's the "Ft " at the end of the video or they are presented as a duo or a  group with a universal name they are known as e.g. catfish and the bottle men. It also depends on the genre with the how the duo or group dynamic works as in certain genre's like pop a group or duo is presented as having separate personalities like sporty spice in the spice girls for example.

That is not a thing in indie rock, a group is represented  as just caring about their music and wanting to release the best song or music video they can, This is something I intended to show through the digipack and our promotional products by not having any "Gimicky" Photos like what was done with the spice girls.

< = Not what we plan to do

                                                  What we plan to do =>

TA Profile

Gender

With mine and Caity's concept we decided that our video is going to be mainly aimed at females as we are going to be showing a strong independent woman, .

Age 

Since our song is a re release we have two initial audiences when it comes to the age of our TA, the initial audience who were a fan of the fleet wood mac version  of dream's and then the younger TA who are a fan of the Bastille and Gabrielle Aplin re release.

Race

The race our video will initially appeal to is caucasian as both of our actors are caucasian, but we now live in an age that is that diverse it could appeal to many different races.

Life style

The lifestyle we intended to communicate is one of having enough money to live comfortable but not enough to buy flashy thing's, we intended to show these through our costume and locations.

Class

The lifestyle our video will appeal to is middle to lower class as we are not using any expensive locations or prop's and shooting in a semi detached house so the rooms we use will be smaller and tighter decorated less flashy to communicate this.

Planning: Equipment

When it comes to producing our music video there is no question that we are going to need alot of equipment to produce our music video as it will defiantly be a long tedious process.

Some equipment we will defiantly need are

• Tripod
• Camera
• Speaker
• Memory card
• MP3 of the song 
• batteries
• bag to carry everything

However some items that might benefit us are

• Extra batteries
• Water for our actors
• Food
• Make up for touch ups
• Charger for the speaker
• Charge pills for phones 

Music Video Analysis 8: Closing shot

The closing shot is an often over looked part of the music video as it is the last thing the audience see's and can influence their decision on what the feel about the video all together. Mine and Caity's idea for our closing shot is to have Katie stood under a lamp post at light in the light dressed in black ripped jeans and a leather jacket showing how she is now over luke.

 I took this closing shot from the end of the video " Girls" by 1975. I think this is a good ending shot as it links the lyrics to the visuals in an interesting way through the the use of the different coloured neon lights. The aesthetic look to it would also leave the image in the audiences mind.

 I took this closing shot from panic! at the disco "Emperors new clothes" the bands signature wacky style is shown through it making it appealing to the bands fans but also interesting to anyone who may of just discovered their music.

This closing shot taken from "my type"  by Saint Motel. This video decided to use a flock of women jumping on the camera guy to end it appealing to the "Male Gaze" as it leaves the ending up to the imagination of the viewer.

This closing shot taken from " Shut up and dance" by walk the moon. This is a good closing shot as for the whole video we have seen the lead singer try and kiss this girl so we he finally does we get a positive feeling and feel good about the time we spent watching the video


How this influenced my creativity and planning 
This influenced my creativity and planning as it made me aware of what makes a good closing shot such as if it completes the story  through doss ( Desire, objective, soloution , succsess ) etc or if it leaves it to your imagination etc

We are unsure of what we want our closing shot to be, out idea at the moment is to have the closing shot provide a ending to the story we have established.

Music Video Analysis 7: Establishing shot

For this post I will be focusing on the establishing shot in 4 different music videos, to try and gain knowledge about what works and what dosen't. Mine and Caity's plan for our music video is to have our establishing shot take place in a bedroom with the camera focusing on Katie's face as she sleeps and then have Luke out of Focus as he sits on the edge of the bed to make the audience wonder why he is there.

This screen shot is from Saint Motel "My Type " This is a good example of an establishing shot to help establish a TA, as the retro feel of the TV and the bright colours on the screen right away attract the audiences attention and turns their brains on. It also appeals to a wide TA as the retro feel would appeal to the older generation and ever since retro came into fashion it would also appeal to a younger generation helping to make the TA as wide as possible.



I took this establishing shot from San Cisco " Fred Astire" this is a good establishing shot to hook the audiences attention as the tracking shot of actors moving into frame captures anyones attention. The drumbeat and vintage dance hall look is also captivating and unique.





This establishing shot is taken from "The Cave" Mumford and sons. It is a long shot with the band riding in on motor bikes it provides a unique start that right away makes the audience ask whats going on creating a active audience who is then interested in the video.




This is an example of a shot that I feel dosen't work as well for an establishing shot, as it dosen't capture my attention and make me want to carry on viewing it.






How this has influenced my creativity and planning 
This research has made me aware of what is needed to make a establishing shot successful and able to captivate my audiences minds and make them want to carry on watching it. I learnt about this through seeing both good and bad examples of establishing shots.

My establishing shot will be of Katie asleep as someone sleeping is such a personal thing it would make the audience wonder what is going on.

Music video research 6: Locations in the 1975 "Girls"

For this music video I will be focusing on location and how they are used. The band 1975 music video tend to be performance based so there main use of locations is to spice up their video and to make it more eye grabbing.

The first shot is the video is a long shot and the first location in the video is a studio shot, this is useful as it allows the band to show what they want to be shown without having to relay on outside conditions, this is one of the main advantages when it comes to studio shooting and outside shooting. One thing that distinguishes this music video as 'Indie" is the fact it is  in black and white something other genre's of music videos would not do as they want                                                       to use the colour to attract an audience.

The video then switches to a brightly coloured 3 person long shot sat down on sun beds in a studio looking like outside. The way this is done makes the video instantly more eye grabbing due to the bright colour's and the now different location. Music video's on average need around 5 or 6 locations to help keep the audiences attention and to help to tell the story of what is going on.

Later on the video reuses the same location but uses different proxemics ( Proxemics being where people are placed and what that distance communicates ) with the bright colours going on in the sun bed location and the band blacks clothing it creates a very aesthetic blend of colours that appeals to the audience making the location feel  new again.

The video then moves back to a studio, but a new set has been constructed to make it diffrent from the inital studio establishing shot.  We as the audience can tell that they are in a big space and see what is going on in the back ground which keeps our attention, The lamp posts also attract your eyes as they are in a lit room instead of a dark space. This is a good example os reusing a                                                                    location but set dressing it differently so it feels completely new.

How this influenced my planning and creativity 
It helped me realises about how to effectively use locations and how you can re use a location but dress it differently and it can look just as interesting, It also helped me to visually see how costumes can be used on colourful locations or any location to give it a visual appeal

Group Research post: Existing Costume (Female Artists)

The first outfit shown is a simple yet feminine and classy white dress. The lace detail gives a vintage and indie twist to an otherwise modern look. this would work well for our music video.

 The next look is just a simple white shirt but the vintage patterned cardigan again just adds that indie edge in a really simple way.

The outfits for mainly narrative based music videos are kept really simple, as seen here where the singer is just wearing jeans and a green sweater, this is really helpful for us and our limited budget as our video is narrative based too. There is few costume changes in this video but they are all very simple and subtle yet effective, something we can surely do ourselves.

How this has influenced my planning

Now I am less worried about finding lots of bold, in your face patterned clothes and more focused on just simple clothes that support our narrative which is helpful. I feel like these clothes are the kind of thing that would suit our music video as they are of similar genres and the videos are both a relationship breakdown based narrative.

Planning: Time and dates for shooting

Me and Caity have decided that the best time to shoot out music video would be in the october half term on the 26th  wednesday and the 27th of october a thursday , as both of our actors would be off of college and able to shoot longer and since we are in winter we would be able to have more time to shoot while the suns out

Planning: Beat script

This is our beat script we wrote during our workshop with Laura from the blue print film foundation

• Katie wake's up and sees Luke dressed in black sat on the edge of her bed, she freaks out seeing him as he's been gone for a while, Luke tries to comfort her by touching her and singing to her but she pushes him away from her and walks off.
• Luke disperses and vanishes afterwards Katie looks shocked and upset and starts to sing into cam as she walks away, luke appears from behind her and sings his lines before he starts to run after her as Katie tries to run away, then there is a bright flash fade 
• Montage of them happy together ( Head's hanging off bed and cute walking things, including the 4 shots of them walking showing the relationship breaking down among close up of texts ) 
• Cut to a shot of Katie in darkness under a lamp post, singing into cam with luke behind her. She turns around and looks into his eyes and knows it done and walks off and then luke vanishes in the light 
• Katie looks back over her shoulder and walks off free of him finally singing into cam to end it.

Research music video 5: P!ATD "LA Devotee" shot types

 For this post, I will be focusing on the shot types used within the video. The video I will be using for this is by Panic! At The Disco and called "LA Devotee" and is the same genre as "Dreams". After a cinematic intro where we see a boy being kidnapped. This is the establishing medium close up shot that starts the video, a close up of a boy singing in a white robe. This serves the purpose of an establishing shot well as right away it grabs the audiences attention and makes you question what is going on in the video. What I can take away from this is that I need to plan out every detail of my establishing shot so I can right away grab the audiences attention.

The shot following it is a extreme close up of the boy's wrist showing how he is bind to the chair, it add's narrative to the establishing shot and carries on with the established narrative. Other things that make these two shot's very effective are the lightening, costume and set dressing.

This shot in the video is very interesting, It breaks the forth wall and shows the boy is being recorded. It is framed nicely with camera being shown right of frame and then allowing us to see the set behind the camera which really communicates the idea of being kidnapped in an abandoned house clearly. This show's us how effective set dressing really is and makes me think about how it is not used as well as it could be

This in my opinion is one of the best shot's used in the video and really does demonstrate everything that needs to be used to make a shot interesting, it has action going on with the people in robes approaching and touching the kid,  The lighting creates a sense of mystery and the facial expressions and proxemics really finish it off as you can sense the relationships between the character in the shot right away.

From this video I noticed that costume can play an interesting part in what make's a shot effective, for example in "LA Devotee" the red cloaks worn in the video fill the shot in medium close up's and provide a contrast in colours which make the video creepy to view but also very aesthetically appealing as you have the set design of this abandoned house but then these grand red cloaks making the shot look.

After watching a few more indie rock video's I noticed these recurring shot types.

• Close up's extreme close up to medium close ups and normal close ups
• zoom in
• under cranking
• wide shot
• mid shot
• cut away
• cut in

How this influenced my creativity and planning
This influenced my creativity and planning as it made me aware of what makes a shot effective (The lighting, shot type , proxemics , costume and set design) I now know what I need to be aware of and pay attention to make sure all my shots are effective and capture my audiences attention