Shooting Script Changes

When talking to our teacher after she looked at our work, she gave us the idea of maybe changing a few shots in the script so that we could have more meaning in our music video. We added the idea of having inanimate objects in the video, but ones where you can see a face in them. By doing this, we cement the idea to the audience that the girl is always looking for friends. Also, we decided to have more shots of the artist singing to the camera as we want to sell the artist.

Reflection : Week Eleven

This week we finished most of our filming and also started to edit. It was a fairly hetic week as all of us had a busy week with university applications and other plans, so fitting in a time we could all film was difficult. In the end, we sorted it out and the shooting day was pretty good.




We filmed last weekend in Hainault County Forest with the new artist, Naveed. This day went much better than the last, we were more efficient and got all the filming done within 3 hours. I think this was quite good as we had many shots to do and we also took some extra footage of the artist lip syncing to the song. Also on Monday, we filmed the shots in the tent with Simran and the cardboard person at home. When filming these, we realised that the lighting inside the tent wasn't as good as we would've have liked and as it was a translucent tent, you could different colours in the background that wouldn't have been associated with the forest. So we ended up re-filming these shots on the Thursday. The lighting was better as we dotted lamps around and also put a white blanket ontop of the tent so other colours were blocked out. I think our production process has being going quite well so far, we've filmed about 90% of it, we just need to film a few more shots on the train and in the station. 

Also this week, we started to edit the footage of the forest. We were using Final Cut, a programme we used to make our Thrift Shop Remake. At first, I had forgotten slightly exactly how to do things the quickest way, but eventually I got used to it and we had a productive session editing. 

One of the concepts we have been focusing on this week was Genre. When filming, it was important to remember that video was for an indie song. This made us more concious when filming the lip syncing shots, as we didn't want the artist to be looking at the camera, which is more typical in pop music video. Another concept we focused on was Audience. We made sure the shots we filmed had movement and also looked interesting. We wanted them to be interested through out the music video.

Reflection : Week Ten

This week we finalised our digipak flatplan and then started to film on the weekend. During the week, as we couldn't go out and film, we decided to start making the layout and text for the digipak/magazine advert.

At the start of the week, after getting feedback from our teacher, we decided to change two of the panels on the digipak to make it flow better when it opens up. Before it looked a bit jumbled and odd, but I'm happy with the way it is now. 

During lesson times in the week, we started to make the text and then sort out of the layout for the digipak and magazine advert on Fireworks. we decided to use Fireworks as all of us three were comfortable with using that over Photoshop. After getting the text from dafont.com, we edited out the text and placed it onto the templates in Fireworks. We did this so that later on, we would just have to add in the pictures that we took and add in the artwork. 

On the weekend, we started to film the shots in the forest. This didn't go as well as we had hoped, although we were organised, everything seemed to go wrong. We will be refilming these shots next Sunday with a new artist as the male we had before was a university student so it was hard for him to have many available days. We've now chosen someone in our same year that will be more available. Next week, we will start to film the train station stuff and the tent shots. 



The key concept we focused on this week was representation. This was done through the typography and layout of the digipak and magazine advert. We also had to make sure that the message in the digipak would be something that the artist would say. Previously we had made the message more to connote the pop genre, but now we've changed that to enable a more indie feel. We also chose a handwritten font for the artists name and other typography. This was to connote his representation as a singer song writer. 

The main decisions we made this week were the correcting of the digipak and changing who we cast as the artist. I think these were both positive changes that will enable us to do better in this coursework.  

Reflection : Week Nine

This week we finished our production paperwork and also started filming for the music video. 

At the end of last week, we were told to complete our shooting script which would then be checked by our teachers. After the feedback from our teacher, we were told to add more shots of our artist in the music video. The reason for this was that we are promoting the artist in the digipak so we should include more of him within the music video. We didn't include him a huge amount, as he is an indie artist and conventionally, indie artists promote their music, rather than themselves. 

Also this week, we completed all the production paperwork. We had to do the call sheets, location reccie and production schedule. All of these were fairly simple to do as we had done them before when doing coursework in year 12. 

This week, we didn't focus on a concept, the week was more about planning our filming times and what we would film on the days. The location reccie helped us focus on what locations we were going to film at and how they were good for our video. The call sheets enabled us to keep productive and organised on the day as it had all the shots we would film for that day and the production schedule helped with all of the coursework planning. We had the dates for final deadlines and added dates in of when we would film/edit. 

During this week, we had a change to our group. Due to a complication in her previous group, San is now in our group. I see this as positive as we now have another member to bring more creative ideas and maybe think of things we haven't done before. Also, in previous years, it's just been Simran and I together, so adding another person into the mix could be interesting.   

Location Reccie

This week we did the location reccie for the locations for our music video. We had to evaluate locations against each other and take pictures to show the location. We also had to think about back up locations in case there was a problem with the original. Thinking of how we could use the location creatively was important as creativity is essential to keeping the audience captivated.

 

Call Sheets

These are the call sheets we have produced for our production days, we have made a total of 5 sheets, although 4 of these are on one day, they are in different locations so we will be travelling quite  a lot between them all. Therefore, we have separate ones to avoid confusion and if any re-filming is done they will most probably be done on separate days due to the different locations.

Production Schedule

Reflection : Week Eight

This week we completed our flatplans for the digipak and magazine advert. Also this week we finished our shooting script for the music video. 

With the flatplans for the digipak and advert we wanted them to have a similar vibe as we wanted them to be synergized together, so we kept the theme of autumn and song writing within both of the designs. In the digipak we incorporated autumn through the leaves and landscape scenery on the inside panels and the back cover. The song writing element was connoted through the artist holding a guitar on the front cover. Within the magazine advert, the main focus was the song writing. The advert shows the artists process of writing songs, it's his desk with music sheets on it. We placed the desk in front of a window so that the element of autumn was incorporated as well. Through the window you can see the autumn leaves on the trees and on the ground. I think the flat plans look good as I can imagine what they would look like when the product is finished, it also follows conventions of digipaks and magazine adverts. 

Click here to see the script

We also completed the shooting script this week. The task we were given was to produce a shooting script of 100 shots as a minimum that included a lot of movement. Movement was essential to add as this is a key convention of music videos, without movement in the video it tends to get boring. We took time with our shooting script as we didn't want to change shot ideas when filming as that would mess up the structure of the music video, it was important to have an idea and shots that we would stick to through out filming. I think the shooting script was done well as we had a lot of movement and many close ups to keep the video interesting. However, our script is only 97 shots long, so we may need to add more shots in, but as the song is quite slow, it may look odd if we add shots for the sake of it and not because we need them. 

The key concepts we focused on with the flat plans were representation. We wanted the designs to represent the artist as someone who's in touch with nature and writes their own songs. I think we connoted this clearly within in the designs. We also focused on genre within the designs. After analysing digipaks and magazine adverts of the indie genre, we wanted to add elements of them into ours so that it would be classed as an 'indie advert' or 'indie digipak'. After looking at the Mumford and Sons digipak, we noticed that they like to keep the designs simple and not represent the artist as much. We took this on board and only have the artist on two panels within the digipak, even within these shots, he's not the main focus of the shot. We kept the design simple by emphasising more on the beauty of nature rather than the artist. 

The main decisions we made were within the shooting script. We had to make sure that the shots we made up now were going to be the ones that we would film. In the past we usually think of different shots when filming and add them in, we couldn't do this with this shooting script as structure is important within a music video. 

Digipak and Magazine Advert Flat Plans

Above is the flat plan for the magazine advert. We went for a portrait advert and an autumnal feel to the advert. We also connoted the artist as a song writer through the music sheets and the guitar. 

This is the flat plan for the digipak. We decided that a 6 panel digipak would look best as we wanted enough panels to display a theme but not too many that it would be overcrowded. We carried on the autumnal theme in the digipak as well. 

Shooting Script

This is the shooting script we made for our music video.

Reflection : Week Seven

This week we completed our final treatment and discussed ideas for the flat plans for the magazine advert and the digipak. 

Me looking at the final treatment

At the start of the week, we were given a document which included everything we had to write in our final treatment. After looking through it thoroughly, we split up parts of the treatment and some parts we did together as we felt it was important that we both have a say in them parts of the treatment. The purpose of the treatment was to look at our music video idea and ancillary products in a more detail. We had to pick it apart and think why we were doing certain things. After assigning the different parts, we started to work on the treatment on PowerPoint. We started with the our vision in images slide as we thought that would be a good way to get all of ideas following by using pictures and colours that we would like to include in the music video and ancillary products. 

Simran starting on the final treatment

We focused on a couple key concepts within the treatment. There was slides on audience where we talked about who they were, what we know about them and how we would appeal to them. Through out the treatment we focused heavily on representation. We had to think carefully how everything in the music video and things in the ancillary products would represent the artist. For example, with the costume we had to think what the artist would wear to connote the indie genre, so we went with plaid shirts and skinny jeans. We also focused on the genre of the music video and the ancillary products. When looking at the indie genre music videos, magazine adverts and digipaks, we realised that most of these are quite minimalistic with a message in the music video. Our music video gives an insight to the everyday life of someone less fortunate then the everyday person and our magazine advert and digipak is quite minimalistic. The images they include are mainly landscape shots, with the artist only featuring once or twice. This is quite common within the indie genre as they like to show the audience more about the music with the packaging instead of selling themselves. 

We briefly spoke about our ideas for the ancillary products this week. We have decided that we may use a 6 panel digipak and the magazine advert will be portrait. We will discuss this more in detail next week. 

The main decisions we made were mainly within the final treatment. We didn't make any new decisions, just finalised the ideas we had originally. We hadn't made any revisions as we had done this after looking at our audience research.                                                                                                 

The Final Treatment

This is the final treatment for our music video idea and its ancillary products. We talked about our vision, artist and audience in more detail. We also described what technology we would use and how we would plan our production so that it would be successful.

Reflection : Week Six

This week we did quite a few things. First of all, we finished our questionnaires and completed our focus group and then analysed them. Also in the week, Simran and I got together and analysed the final music video together. We also did the meet my audience page. 

We completed our focus group during Thursday lunchtime where we showed five people our presentation and then talked them through our idea and asked them questions. I think the focus group was quite successful as we had participants that talked a lot and gave their opinions. At one point two of the participants had a discussion between themselves when we asked them if they would like the animation in colour or black and white. It was good to have a discussion as you can see how strongly they feel about different things. We tried to make the focus group interactive, so we placed white boards and pens on the table and got them to do things such as rating the idea/song out of 10. 

When analysing the research, I analysed to questionnaires and Simran analysed the focus group. We chose to split it up as I do Maths at A level and could work with the data to produce graphs, where as Simran does English as an A level and she could analysis what they were saying in more depth. Click here to see the analysis of the research. We also analysed the final music video - Oh My God by Mark Ronson ft. Lily Allen together, we chose to do it together so the work would be equally split. 

Later in the week, we made a page about someone from our target audience. This can be seen here. The task was to create a fake person and write about their age, gender, interests, location and ethnicity. We also included pictures so we knew what type of target audience we were going for.

The key concept we focused on this week was audience. This was done through our focus group and questionnaires. The questionnaires enabled us to find our target audience and then from these people we selected people for our focus group. Focusing on audience was important this week as we needed to make sure that we include things in the music video that people will enjoy watching as that's one of the main reasons for a music video. We want them to be interested and intrigued so in theory they will want to watch more videos from the same artist. 

The decisions we made from the questionnaires included; adding the themes of hope and happiness to the video more clearly and finalizing the costume for the homeless girl. We made more decisions about the video after the focus group. The people in the group gave us the idea of filming the homeless in London on a busy street where as before we were just going to have her in the park walking around and on a bench. I like the idea of her being on a busy street as it shows the contrast of her life compared to the people in the city. Also in the focus group, the participants suggested that we could have the animation in black and white to make it more obvious that he was only in her imagination. At first we were't sure whether to have the animation only in her mind or if other people could see him. But after talking to the focus group, they liked the idea of him being only in her mind as it made them feel more sorry for her and we want the effect of the video to be quite emotional. 

I think this week was quite productive in terms of research and analysis, as we researched our target audience and finished analysing music videos, digipaks, magazine adverts and the audience research.

Analysis of Music Videos

Analysis of Magazine Adverts

Analysis of Digipaks

Reflection : Week Five

This week we continued to do our research on audience. My partner and I gave out our questionnaires and are planning our focus group that will take part next week. We want the focus group to be interactive and a place where people will feel comfortable talking about our idea. The idea of the focus group is to get everyone engaged with the idea and give us feedback about it. We wish to include videos, pictures and anything that will stimulate them.




Also this week we learnt more about our ancillary products; the digipak and the magazine advert. We looked at what we had to include in both products and some examples of each. After this we had to analyse three digipaks and magazine adverts together. Doing this task was helpful as I could analyse the digipak and look at things I would want to include or things that I would change. After analysing the Mumford and Sons digipak, as they have a similar genre to our song, I wanted a similar digipak to theirs. Something simple, that doesn't emphasize the artist a lot as I want it to be more about the music as that is typical of the genre. For the inside of the digipak, I would like a landscape shot of some scenery as I want it to look simple. I think the landscape shots would reflect the type of songs to the audience, in that they would be quite calm and chilled out as the song we're doing for our music video is the same.

Inside cover ideas

Inside cover ideas

Meet My Audience

Analysis of Research

Audience Research

 Shown above is the focus group that my partner and I conducted with a group of 5 people within our target audience. They were all between the ages of 16 and 20 which we decided were our target audience, we decided this from our questionnaires, there is an image of some of these shown below.

This is the presentation that we showed the focus group. 

Research Plan

Reflection : Week Four

This week our lessons were based around researching our audience; we learnt about different types of research and decided what types we would use. In the other lesson we were taking apart our ideas and decided which one we would do.

In our first lesson on Monday, we were given 'SWOT' sheets - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. These sheets would help us to break down our ideas and decide which one we wanted to do after taking everything into consideration. 

The key concept we focused on here was a bit of everything. We took apart the idea in 4 different ways; Conceptually, Creatively, Technically and Logistically. We focused on the key concepts in the Conceptual break down; we talked about its audience appeal, how it fits the genre of the song, the representation of artists within the video and how strong the narrative is. I think the SWOT sheets definitely helped with picking our final idea as we could see the strengths and weaknesses of both ideas on paper. We made the right decision in the end to go with Simran's idea as I feel it has more conceptual strengths.

The key concept we focused on in the second lesson was audience. After having our lesson in which we discussed the different types of research; primary, secondary and all the techniques within them; questionnaires, surveys, we were sent off to decide what two techniques we would use to find out more about our audience. 

My partner and I decided to use questionnaires and a focus group. We went for these options as they're quite different and we would be able to obtain different types of data. With a questionnaire, we can obtain qualitative and quantitative data with open and closed questions. The focus group was chosen so that we can have detailed answers about things such as the mise-en-scene, actors and other things that we would need their opinion on. A strength about questionnaires is that you can give them to a number of people and have them back quickly, it won't take more then 5/10 minutes to fill it out.  A strength with focus groups is that we can get very detailed answers from a number of people at the same time, the group is able to discuss freely our idea while we jot down notes on how they feel about. Also with a focus group, we can show them videos and sounds that we couldn't necessarily do while getting them to fill out a questionnaire.  

Advanced Production Rationale

Narrative

Narrative Devices 

Omnipotent narrative - One More Night - Maroon 5

This music video has elements of the omnipotent narrative device when the mother starts packing and the father is at a boxing match and doesn't realise. Starting from 2:08,connoted is the woman coming into the room which a bunch of clothes. At first it doesn't seem bad, but later she starts putting the clothes into empty boxes and suitcases, connoting that she's leaving him. This section is omnipotent as the audience feel 'godlike' as they know what's going on where as the man doesn't. The emotional effect this has is that the audience feel sorry for the man as he's going to come home from his match and wonder where they have gone, but the audience know exactly where they are. 

2:33 - she starts packing the clothes

                                        

Plot twist - You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift

                                     

This video by Taylor Swift shows an example of two little plot twists, which change the narrative. At 2:22, you see the main male go to his girlfriend after he wins, only to see her flirting with another guy, leading to them arguing. This is a plot twist as it changes the course of their relationship, they probably broke up. This then leaves the male single for Taylor Swift. Another plot twist occurs at 3:25  when Taylor Swift ends up going to the prom and brings her 'I Love You' note with her. The male then also brings his 'I Love You' note and shows her. This plot twist changes the narrative as the audience didn't know that he loved her, it's an exciting twist. It makes the audience feel emotional and happy for Taylor Swift as she's finally with the guy she wants to be and she's happy, instead of being hidden away admiring him from afar. 

3:26 - she brings out her note.

Flashback - The One That Got Away - Katy Perry

At 0:26, the flashback starts with old Katy Perry stirring her tea, it then goes to her ex-boyfriend stirring the water with a brush. The scene then goes into them painting in their room and laughing, doing what couples do. In then goes back to old Katy Perry, then the young couple at a wedding party. This shows a flashback as the first scene is the old woman with her current husband, but the scene then goes to her reminiscing about her ex-boyfriend. This makes the audience feel sorry for the old woman as with the lyrics of the song, 'the one that got away' it becomes clear that she really loved that boyfriend, but in some way he slipped away. There's then a plot twist towards the end at 3:53 which shows the same boyfriend driving his car off a cliff. The plot twist makes the audience feel even more sorry for the woman as she didn't just lose him, he died.  

0:26

3:54

Music Video with Structure 

Taylor Swift's Blank Space video is one that shows Todrov's narrative theory well. At the start of the video, from the beginning to about 1:40, the narrative, is the state of equilibrium, the couple are getting along and they seem very happy. This fits the equilibrium as this would have been normality for the couple, they would be happy almost all the time. The disruption occurs at 1:49, when the female looks at the male texting and starts shaking her head. This connotes that the guy may be texting another girl or someone the girl doesn't like. This fits the disruption stage, as the girl goes from being happy and in love with him to being angry at him. The recognition happens at 1:59, when the female starts to argue with the male, he realises that he's doing something wrong. The arguing could also be a recognition of the girl realising the guy is cheating on her. Trying to restore the equilibrium happens at 2:29 when she slashes the picture of him and starts to cut up and set fire to his clothes.  This fits the restoration stage as she's trying to get back to normal, she's trying to drive him away so she can be happy again. The equilibrium is restored when the guy eventually leaves in his smashed up car at 3:45. The new equilibrium occurs when a second car, a red one this time comes into the house, copying the shot at the start of the video (0:04), but this time with a new driver. This is the new equilibrium as the situation is the same, but with a different male. This little cliff hanger makes the audience believe that the same thing will happen again, especially as the last shot is of the female smirking at 3:53, wearing the same costume and make up as the first shot. The whole cycle of Todorov's narrative will complete it's self again. 

0:49 - equilibrium

1:49 - disruption

1:59 - recognition

2:29 - restoration

3:49 - new equilibrium

3:53 - new equilibrium

Cause and Effect Music Video

This video, shows Barthes Narrative codes; enigma and action. The first enigma code happens when the wife starts to take her ring off at 1:15 and then starts to break down at 1:23. It's not clear to the audience why she's so unhappy as at the start of the video, she said to her husband 'give me a kiss' and sent him off to work. At 1:32, an action code then comes, it beings evident that the husband is cheating on her as he stares at another woman in a bar lovingly and touches her waist. This moves the story forward as we see why the wife is unhappy, yet however still question how she knows. Another enigma code happens at 1:56, when denote is the wife in the car, it looks like she's going to confront her husband, but will she? It's unclear where she's going, leaving a question for the audience. At 3:34, denoted is the wife burning a pile of her husbands clothes on the front garden. This is an action code, as it progresses the story. It makes the audience believe that she's going to confront him when he comes home, then leave him. The last enigma code happens right at the end (4:34), when the husband returns and greets her and she takes him in, smiling and lets him kiss her. It sets up the question of why she didn't confront him or say anything, and also the question of does he know that she knows? 

1:23 - Enigma

1:32 - Action

3:34 - Action

4:34 - Enigma

Character Music Video

The 'Black Widow' video is one that shows a few characters from Propp's narrative theory. In this video you see a hero, helper, donor and villain. At the start of this video in 'Big Wandas', it becomes evident who the villain is, the loud mouth man in the grey suit who acts rude towards the waitress. The hero is the waitress as she's taking everything from him and the helper is the girl who came in with the man as she's trying to help the waitress and be nice to her. This little scene is then foreshadowed in the waitresses imaginary 'ninja' life. It's clear that Iggy is the hero as at 2:32 she's the one being trained to kill and the one being helped by the donor. The donor is the old 'sensei' who helps her train in the room (2:39). He plays the character of the donor as he is preparing Iggy to fight and provides her with the skills to handle the weapons. The villain is again evident when Iggy recieves a piece of paper with the mans face and the word 'Destroy' at 2:52. He is also shown when the helper receives a message on her tablet at 3:30 with a picture of the same man saying 'Target'. Both of the girls have been ordered to kill him  which connotes him as the villain character. The helper character is connoted more clearly at 4:24, when she comes to help the hero when she's surrounded by the villains helpers, she rescues her from being killed. The good helper then starts to help the hero and kills all of the villains. 

Donor

Hero

Villain

Helper (left)