The big news is that half of our music video is filmed!
Honestly, today was very tiring; to wake up at 5:30AM, be at somebody's house at 7:00AM and spend 9 hours working. I am glad though.
On the shoot, we decided to completely cancel the shots that we agreed weren't entirely necessary to ensure we stayed in time with the schedule although I think we could have shot more although I doubt much of it would have ended up in the final cut of our music video.
For the most part, the footage we got was great and we probably have enough to make an entire music video out of without having done any of the performance yet.
As it was such a long day, I did notice that everybody started to feel exhausted towards the end but we still managed to get what we needed before the sun went down.
We didn't encounter any problems we couldn't resolve, most of them were in the form of other people being very concious of the strange costumes and make-up our antagonists were wearing, one person really didn't like being filmed and a few people advised us to film in other locations although we still think that we were allowed to since it was in a public place.
As I said I would, I managed to get a few minutes of behind-the-scenes stuff filmed on my own camera and I'll edit that into a video in my own time once the performance is shot and the footage is captured.
Over the last two days, I've been setting up a YouTube, Twitter and Facebook account for our fictional band, Erwin's Felicide. Currently, I need to discuss with the group what colours and themes they should all have but this is just how I've temporarily styled them:
After looking through a list of independent UK record labels for inspiration, I have come up with 2 ideas for our band's record label based on the fact they would probably specialise in producing alternative music:
To give our actors and ourselves an idea of what we want to achieve on next Friday's shoot, we drew up this storyboard.
In addition to this, we also did a second reccie in London to find specific shots to take. In pairs, one of us filmed whilst the other one acted as if they were an antagonist or Angus or both. Recently, I've been editing the footage from this reccie into a sort of "filmed storyboard" after overcoming several technical problems with the fact that we were using HD footage. The actors have all just seen this and I've advised them to watch it again to make sure they get an understanding of what's expected of them next week.
As we're starting to think about our website's design elements, we've decided to post any ideas about fonts to use on the website. Here are my 3 suggestions:
I chose this font because it relates to our idea of a bar code in that the edges are geometric and square and the letters have a fixed width. Additionally, unlike quite a few fixed width fonts, it is still easy to read.
I think a 'destroyed' font such raises some connotations of aggression and anarchy which are both associated with the rock music genre. The reason I chose this particular 'destroyed' font is because it has a lower case alphabet and it's not destroyed to the point of it being illegible.
Partially inspired by Nirvana's band logo, I think a formal serif font would do a good job of subverting the genre conventions of aggression, etc. that I mentioned above. This should help brand our band as an alternative to the typical. Furthermore, it ties in with our idea of styling the band's costumes in a formal fashion. Bodoni XT does a good job of being more formal than most serif fonts and it looks good in most sizes.
Over the half-term, when we're filming the narrative part of our music video, it would also be a good idea to make a "Making of" or "Behind-the-scenes" video which we can place on our website as other artists have done in the past. A few of these videos are below:
By watching these, I have found 9 conventions to have in mind when I'm filming / editing our behind the scenes video.
This album cover is inspired from a scene in "Inception" where gravity shifts yet everybody is unaffected. Recently, I managed to photograph something similar with objects on a desk so I have several ideas of how to do this practically with real people. Should we be unable to get our band to lean against something and remain composed then we use a fan to blow them from the side or invisible thread to pull their clothes sideways. What makes this a good album cover is that it plays on the convention of showing the band but has them in a quirky position.
After hearing Claire's idea for a bar code on our album cover, I combined that concept with the knowledge of how printing works or the basic principle that we see a clearer image from a distance. Here it would be possible to read the name of the album and see the band in between the black bars on a printed album cover from a distance or as a resized digital image in Spotify or iTunes, etc.
One idea I had was to have all four band members holding up a sign saying the name of the band, for some symmetry, I think each arm should come a corner of the album cover.
Inspired from a magazine cover (see right) advertising Portal 2, I thought it would be a cool concept to create the illusion of transparency in the album cover. The front would be of the backs of the band members pointing up at the album name. The back would be of the fronts of the band members pointing up at the track list. Again, this works by subverting the convention of showing the band's friendly faces on the front.
From an article in "Media Magazine", I have found some great tips that I think we should remember when it for the planning, shooting and editing stages of transforming our idea into a music video:
We need to plan a lot, especially since the narrative part of it takes place in many different locations with several actors. This means we have to design a schedule factoring in things like transport issues, setting up the camera / lighting and so on.
As well as this, we should really need to make a call sheet with contact details, locations, etc. Hopefully between now and half-term, we'll have had enough meetings with our cast and crew to get all the information we need.
We need to know what to film, after having another, more refined reccie this weekend in our 5 main locations, we should be able to write up a shot list with a few photographs / videos showing exactly where we want to film from.
Around about the same time we're creating our schedule, we have to make a storyboard that clearly shows our actors and crew what we want to film. As we're filming outside, it will have to be durable and portable.
Although, we have most of them, we'll have to secure all of our props and costumes prior to the shoot.
By the shoot, we'll also have to find a way to playback the music on demand in a way that is loud enough for the performers to hear but also with the capability for it to play loud enough for the band to lip-sync to it without feeling embarrassed.
Ensure the camera is set for the best video quality. This means using manual focus if necessary or a different white balance to give the video a sense of 'warmth'. Also, the ensure the depth of field / exposure are good then the aperture and shutter speed may need to be customised.
Check the tape regularly to make sure the footage recorded properly and that nothing has to be shot again.
Shooting more than you planned can be extremely useful for cutaways in the editing.
When we finally capture the footage, we should split up the clips and name them to make it easier to work out where everything fits into the sequence.
We need to plan which special effects we're going to use if any and not just add them to create the entire music video.
Avoid long shots and cut a lot of times, this is also why we need to film a lot of different shots on the actual shoots.
Work to ensure our material is lined up for lip synced before anything else, in our case, the narrative.
Apply filters to make sure the footage looks consistent.
Consider transitions, cuts are advisable but perhaps fades could be good at other parts in the sequence.
The last 4 days have been very busy concerning this project...
Friday
On this day, we went around London from 10:30 to about 17:00, to find and inspect possible locations to film the narrative aspect of the music video on. I believe that today was incredibly useful, because it's one thing to look up places on Google maps but it's another to actually hold the camera in position and safely say that it would be a great place to film. Below are just some of locations we're considering.
Saturday
On this day, Wanda and I held a test shoot with some of the cast to be in our music video. Initially, we photographed two of our four potential band members.
Angus and Izzy trying out our initial costume ideas.
Then, we made them practise lip-syncing and guitar-playing respectively in front of the camera to assess their suitability. In my opinion I think that they'll both work in the band but that they really need to know the track otherwise it's not going to look at all convincing. As Angus is the lead singer of our band, I think we need to have another lip-synch with him.
Afterwards, we got some friends to try out our antagonists' costumes so we'd know what it would look like on a person. Personally, I like the concept although it seems too conventional for villains. It's typical for them to wear black, hoodies, etc. and they honestly seem more like muggers than figments of our protagonists' imagination. This is one area that needs to be adapted in my opinion though I'm not sure what I'd change about them.
Sunday
For a few hours at Kerry's house, Kerry, Claire and I worked out the details of treatment that we weren't sure of as a group. We also went over the information that had to be in the treatment so that me and Kerry could pitch to the class on Monday and got some more ideas as to what other things we could include such as pictures on the handout and video on the blog.
Monday
We finally finished the handout and I think we can be quite proud of it:
It gives all the necessary information
It's quite easy to find any specific information you want
It's simple to understand
It's visual with our use of photographs, illustrations, lyrics and flowcharts
In my opinion, the actual pitch went well. Obviously, we had to make a few changes before we were green-lit but I'm glad we got it out of the way and got the feedback we needed to know how to advance to the production stage.
This album cover is inspired from a scene in "Inception" where gravity shifts yet everybody is unaffected. Recently, I managed to photograph something similar with objects on a desk so I have several ideas of how to do this practically with real people. Should we be unable to get our band to lean against something and remain composed then we use a fan to blow them from the side or invisible thread to pull their clothes sideways. What makes this a good album cover is that it plays on the convention of showing the band but has them in a quirky position.
