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.