List of everything

Today in the lesson we got the track sped up double time so I could send it to the band so they can practise. We also went through the list for everything and allocated names of who to bring what, the makes sure we are organised and everyone knows what they need to bring so there is no confusion on the day or disappointment.

New Props List

Props and costume list

COSTUMES:

Scene 3- sheet scene

Performance outfit

Dress for lip sync

Flutter glitter

Sheer sheet 

Dry Ice

Guitar and amp 

Microphone and stand 

Frame

Tracing Paper

Meeting with the set designer

We met TA today to organise our set. Our slot for our music video is quite early as we have quite a big set. For the performance we are having a 15x8 inch Japanese window lit from the back. I have organised someone I know (Mark) to build this for us as he has built something similar for me before. We will overlay this frame with tracing paper and light it from behind.

The rest of our sets have black walls with reflective floor therefore these are quite easy to build and no complications. TA is going to buy the flutter glitter we need. We will be getting 1kg for £29.00.

Showing Luke our Animatic

This Friday we showed Luke our animatic to finalise ideas and make sure what we want to do is eligible. He is happy with all the ideas the main thing we discussed was the use of colours. In our animatic we use blue however with the lighting guy we discussed using more natural colours like oranges and yellows. He said to look at a colour chart and decide what end of the spectrum we want to go to, either midnight colours or sunset colours. Phil said to try this out so we can get lots of shots when filming instead of wasting time deciding what colours to use. 

Reflective floor research: The Collapse of Babel

In our video we want reflective floor during two strands; the performance, and the lip sync element. This group created this effect by mopping the floor with a lot of water so it becomes reflective. It is clear this is effective and will work therefore we all go ahead with the idea of having a reflective floor. 

Feedback from Animatic

In class today we showed our finished and edited animatic. There were both strengths and weaknesses raised, both helped us very much. 

STRENGTHS:

• They liked the pull focus on the guitar as it is conventional and fits with the pace of the gentle music. 
• They liked the colour scheme, and the contrast of the blue and the black and white. This was a slight issue to us as we had decided to just use the orange colour which we had turned into black and white in the animatic, therefore we will be rethinking this and question what is best for our video.
• They liked it when the actors laughed as this showed emotion and a side of their personality. 
• The glitter falling was effective as it looks cool, they liked the reverse part where the glitter is actually coming upwards - this fits with the aesthetics, gives and arty quality and fits with the beauty of the track. 
• Another factor they liked was bringing in new elements so late into the track as this keeps the viewer interested so there was no sense of boredom. They didn't get bored, my group as a whole thought it was quite repetitive however when we showed it to the class they did not think it was repetitive. 

WEAKNESSES:

• The lip sync and guitar playing was out of time however we just used these actors as we couldn't get our band in to come and do it for us. This will not be a problem in our real video. 
• Harry did not like the zoom into the shadow instead he suggested we should cut straight into it as it doesn't fit with the smoothness of the track. 
• The flour bit doesn't fit. 

WHAT HAVE WE GOT OUT OF THIS:

Generally my group had the same strengths and weaknesses as the class had suggested therefore this task gave us confidence. However, we still want to put more visually effective elements into the video to break it up a bit, these we will be practising in the next week. 

From writing this out it is clear we had more strengths than weaknesses that is defiantly a positive however we do need to concentrate on the weaknesses to make the video stand out.

Another factor we need to think about is the colour scheme, we either need to go to the blue end of the spectrum, or the orange however not use both as these clash together. We also need to shoot the video smoothly and beautifully to maximise the pleasing aesthetics of the video and therefore the track. 

Here we are just about to analyse the animatic after showing it to the class

Meeting with George - the lighting guy

Today we had a meeting with George, who helps us with the lighting. We sorted all the colours for each of the scenes and this was very helpful. He said that all the ideas we want to do will work easily. He also came up with a new lighting idea which will help us with stylistic elements such as a water wheel projection. 

Waterwheel projection

For the performance element we will create a 16x9ft window which will be orange and yellow. For the falling glitter scene we are shooting different types to create stylistic elements but also faster elements to catch their lip synch, we will need to send the band a copy of the track so they can learn to sing the song double speed. The colour lighting here will be just simple white. To add a more exciting element we will try to hang thin lights similar to fairy lights, from the ceiling. We are going to use dry ice smoke on the floor and add a layer of thin reflective material to create a more artistic feel. 
This was a successful meeting however we need something else in one of the scenes to make it more interesting.

Costume

Evaluation of Animatic

We have now filmed and edited our animatic, from doing this it has made it obvious what worked, what didn't and what else we need. 

POSITIVES 

• Lighting - the mood created related to the sound of the music.
• One of the strands - the glitter pieces falling from above and reversing this so it comes upwards. This was a very good stylistic strand. By making it into slow motion created a much more aesthetically pleasing style. For our actual video we want this to be much slower so we will film the lip synch part on a green screen with a composite shot and then overlay the glitter.
• I felt that the whole thing fit together however we just need more to fill up as I think it is quite repetitive which can lead to it being boring for people to watch.

NEGATIVES

• Although the lighting worked well, we feel we will just use one colour, which will most probably be orange as it creates a warm feel and will work well with smoke.
• To make it less repetitive we will come up with more stylistic elements.
• Looking back, we felt the bed scene was quite random and there was no need for the physical bed however we did like the idea of the sheets covering the floor to create an angelic, eary feel which connects to the music.

WHAT WE WILL DO NOW: 

1. Keep all the lighting colours in a similar range and keep them warm colours. 
2. Add more stylistic elements to make it less repetitive.
3. Do the slow motion with a composite shot so the lip sync matches up with the track easier and slows it down more. 
4. Change the bed scene and just have her lying on the floor instead and possibly think of a more surreal idea. 

We will film all of these new shots on Monday to make sure they work instead of finding that out on shoot day. There are two strands we need to re-try which is the bed scene (without the bed) and the slow motion glitter shot. 

Second rehearsal

This is our second rehearsal we asked Tertia and Will to do for our song Mr Nice Guy. 

Copyright permission

Filming our animatic

Today we filmed out animatic. This was very successful as it helped us get a feel of the piece and all the sets out together. I was more than pleased with the outcome of this, we now need to edit this together to see if the strands work in the short paced editing we will be using! 

Set designs

Before filming the animatic today we finished off our set designs for each strand. These will help us to explain our set idea and also help us get a visual understanding of all of our ideas.

Planning our Animatic

For our animatic we have to organise the sets for each scene therefore must get the props and equipment we need. This is the email regarding the smoke machine. 

I have also booked the studio for 1.30pm on Monday 6th October. 

We need to organise some boys to attend to shoot one of the scenes, we also need to get a mattress, gold/silver reflective sheets and a fan. 

Making an Animatic

An animatic is a prototype - left versions of the product which informs later production decisions. The more accurate the prototype the higher quality information gained.

To help us understand what an animatic is we looked at a video from one of the people from last year called "KOAN SOUND." This helped me understand the amount of shots we will need to use, in this video there was about 150 shots. By doing this we will be able to visualise the shots and then this could be a test run to see if all the different elements will work together. Additionally it will tell us if it fits the music and tell us if we have enough content.

BEAS VIDEO 

Instead of drawing out the whole animatic we can take photos instead of drawing as this can be more accurate idea o the final product and is also quicker, this enables us to experiment more. Even better than taking photos, we could video the shots as this gives movement which is very important to match with the track.

QUESTIONS:
Does this fit thematically? 
Does this fit the music? 
Do the visual elements work? 
Do we have enough content? 
Will this clash? 
Will this work? 

There's been a change!

We went through our finalised idea with Luke. He loved our idea of the performance element and the lip sync element. We added the idea of having a reflective floor to fit with the reflective confetti. However he felt that the narrative element was too concrete for the abstract feel we are trying to create.After thinking over this for a while we understood where he was coming from!
Therefore, we got our acts together and started looking for abstract videos that we could get ideas from. 

JAY Z - HOLY GRAIL

JAMES BLAKE - OVERGROWN

PINK - JUST GIVE ME A REASON

From the Jay Z video and the James Blake video we took the idea of movement under sheets as this is very abstract.We would use a silver colour sheet to fit with the reflection idea that we are carrying through the piece. From the PINK video we took the idea of having lip synch whilst she's lying on some sort of stand, not a mattress like in this video, but lying down to create and angelic effect.

Emails

We obviously need to hire the bus for our shoot therefore I emailed a bus company in Guildford, therefore local to us, and luckily they emailed us back saying with prices which were suitable for our price range. 

My email to them

The bus company reply

We also needed to get permission from the record store that we want to film in therefore I sent a request on the website and gave my email address for him to reply. 

Reply from Ben's records

What are we doing now?

We have now sorted out our video and come up with the ideas for each strand. We will put together a pilot and have already filmed the performance element. We need to do all the other strands but and then cut this together by Monday 6th October. 
We also need to get permission and we need to book the bus to hire and call the record store for permission to film. Additionally we need to organise the photoshoot, digipak and website therefore we have split the jobs for each person to sort out:
LEILA: Website
LIVVY: Calling bus and record store and sorting that out
PHOEBE: Photoshoot and cut together pilot
FRANCHI: Digipak

Polydor Records - Video talk

In our lesson on Monday we had a talk with two women who organised and pitched videos to artists and producers. It was so interesting hearing about their job as I did not realise how quick the process was for coming up with the video. 
They showed us 3 treatments for 3 artists who were Ellie Goulding, La Roux and Bipolar Sunshine. Bipolar sunshine is a new act therefore the budget would have been between £5,000 to £10,000 however for Ellie Goulding, a mainstream and commercial act the budget would have been between £15,000 and £25,000. For massive acts such as Cheryl Cole the budget can be up to £200,000. 
With these mainstream acts such as Ellie Goulding their videos must be safe, appropriate and appealing to a wider audience as they already have a massive fan base who are in multiple territories therefore they can't disappoint all these different audience groups. 
However, with new acts, you must 'position them' so their fans can decide who they are, and who they are similar to. This point was particularly important for my group as we are creating a video for a new band therefore must keep in mind their advice. This included, showing their face, you can be experimental but don't risk anything or be too weird otherwise their won't be an immediate fan base.
We went through all the treatments so we could see what the producer's pitched to the artists and the directors so we could see what the idea was and then the video was produced. 
I found this extremely helpful for what we are doing!  

"Music video is the biggest marketing tool we have, and it's the biggest spend."

Ellie Goulding - Goodness Gracious

La Roux - Kiss and not Tell

Bipolar Sunshine - Deckchair's on the moon