What Needs To Be Done?

After watching our roughcut we decided that there are many things that we need to do in making it into our final video here are some ideas that we have had.

We feel that there are some parts of the video where our performer looks convincing, but there are some bits where unfortunately, she either forgets the words or does not look convincing. So, to fix this we are hoping to re-film these parts, most of these scenes are highlighted in our blog post " Unsuccessful shots".

A problem that we had whilst filming, which could also occur again if we re-film parts, and lose track of time is that it got dark quickly, and due to the fact that we were busy filming, we did not notice how dark it had got until we watched over our footage again. We can try to avoid this by going to our location earlier, thereore catching more daylight in our shots, and less darkness.

The problems we could have with this though is being able to find a day/ time that all of us( group & performers) are free to film, due to having very different college timetables.We are going to film most of Emily`s parts either on a Monday(when we finish college at 3.25) or a Thursday morning, when the earliest one of us starts college is 10.50am. Unfortunately Tom can not make these times so we will have to film at the same time we did last time, but due to Tom only having a small part in our video we will be able to get his filming done on a Friday afternoon at around 4.30pm-5.00pm.
This week is half term, so we will not be able to film this week, we will however, be able to film the week afterwards, on Monday 2nd and Friday 6th November.

ROUGHCUT MUSIC VIDEO

High Quality:

GROUP 52 Music Video 2009 ROUGHCUT(H.264) from SATMEDIASTUDIES on Vimeo.

Mp4 Quality:

GROUP 52 Music Video 2009 ROUGHCUT from SATMEDIASTUDIES on Vimeo.

Blog

After a small feedback session from our media teacher, on the blogs he told us that we have the "best blog" in our class. Obviously we are very pleased with this comment, as we have put in a lot of hard work, and a lot of our spare time.
We hope to be able to keep up this standard in both the blogs, and the video.
Although it has seemed difficult at times, we now feel as though it is paying off!


This was a quick overview of our blog, and the blog posts that we have done.

Email

We e-mailed the band again via http://www.myspace.com/
as we wanted to know what they thought about our blog! We also wanted to know what they thought about the final project!
Here is the e-mail that we sent to them

" Hi again , we have produced our video, however at the moment it is just a roughcut. The final piece will be posted on our blog when it is finished which should be around November 12th 2009. The link to see how our project has gone, and the roughcut is http://www.blogger.com/home?pli=1
we are group 52.
We would greatly appreciate it if you could give us some feedback on this, and let us know how we have done in your opinion! Thank you! Natasha & Abbie x"


We are hoping that the band will contact us with their view on our video,whether this be compliments, or constructive criticism.

Unsuccessful shots

Although we feel that our project went well,after producing and reviewing the roughcut of our project , we feel that there are some shots that did not go as well as we had initially thought;

This is the main shot that we feel did not go as well as it could have, this is because our performer forgot the words, but tried to improvise, resulting in her looking very confused!(as shown in the photograph). Due to the fact that, at this point it was beginning to get dark, we thought that this shot had gone well enough, and we could cover it again at a different location.Unfortunately due to being rushed, and having to fit in the rest of the song as well , we did not have time to re-film this part of the song, at this location or another.We will however, be re-filming this part for our final piece.

This is another shot that we feel did not go too well, we think this because our performer is looking to the side, which we think implies that she feels nervous, or scared about doing this video for us. We will be re-filming this bit, so that our performer does not look as awkward as she does in this shot.

Best Shots From Filming

We like this shot as it is close to her face, and you can see her mouth clearly moving to the lyrics, we feel this is effective because it is necessary for the audience to believe that the performer is singing the song , and in time to the track.

We also like this shot as shortly after this she puts her hand across the camera on the word 'edge',wearing work clothes, then pulls her hand away, reappearing wearing a red jacket, and a dress(trying to show that she is getting ready for the weekend to begin, and for work to end).Although we had to film these shots over about 20 minutes, the way that we have editted them to fit together it looks as though we have filmed it straight away.




We also really liked this shot, this is the ending to our video whereby the two performers are standing at the top of the hill, close together with the building in the background brightly lit up and at the very end of the video the camera moves up pointing at the sky.We feel that this is effective because the song is called 'Glorious Day', and we feel that it is showing that she has had a brilliant day, everything has turned out the way she has planned, and that now(in this shot) it is the end of her 'Glorious Day, but a very good ending :)


This was the final shot of the video !

Effects-Sin City Effect

To create this black and white effect with colour, on final cut we chose a clip , and selected it, we then copied it , making two of the same clip. The first clip was then made into black and white, using the black and white effect. The second clip, we clicked on the chroma key effect button, chose the colour, (which in this case was red as this was the colour of the coat).

It then needed to be adjusted to mask the whole item that was going to be in the one colour(the coat). We then had to select revert. As we couldn't do this all in one clip, we had to do this in two seperate clips, clip 2 was the left side of the coat, and clip 3 was the right side of the coat.

Filming Overall..Evaluation

Do we feel that we made the right decision on the song?
Definitely, when we first heard the song we thought that we could come up with a good video for it, we hope that we have done that! We also really like the song as we feel it has a good upbeat rhythm to it, although some of the words do seem a bit strange!
What did we find difficult?
Due to having a particularly small group, we found it difficult to initially come up with ideas, but once we put our minds to it we came up with what we feel were some good ideas. Also, due to having a small group it was very hard to go out filming as we had many jobs that needed doing at once, such as; filming, controlling the camera,taking photographs for the blog,and directing. Because of these problems we found ourselves taking on more than one job, but this wasn`t too bad!
What have we particularly enjoyed about this project?
We feel that this project overall has been really fun to do, and has been very interesting, we have learnt techniques for filming, for using the camera, and we have picked up some techniques for editting. We have really enjoyed it and feel it has been very interesting.

Expenses !

We had most of the materials for our music videos, however there were some items that we did not have that we needed for our video, so we had to buy these!

They are as follows;

We had two of these Berol permanent markers, these were for marking the occupations, from the song lyrics onto pieces of card

price:£0.70 per pen

= £1.40

We wanted a necklace for Emily to wear,for after she had got changed into her `weekend, party ` clothes. However, we forgot to take on with us, so we bought one from the local supermarket.

Price :£4.00 per necklace

=

£4.00

We used these batteries(8 X Duracell Plus, size C)
to put into the C.D. player which we took with us, as the C.D. player needed 6 of these.

Price:£9.99 per box=

£9.99

We used these cards to write the occupations mentioned in the song, on the cards, so we could use them in the video.

Price:£0.15 per Pack of 5

=

£0.30

The total costs for mise-en-scene for this video was £15.69

Final filming!

As we were filming, time was getting on , and it was gradually getting darker, so as we walked

across to film the ending to our music video on 'Castle Mound' , we had to get everything set up quickly, and work very hard to get it all done in time. But I think we managed to get it all finished in time , and although at the end of the video it is very dark, we think it was effective in creating the feeling that it was the end of the day, and it had been a 'Glorious Day'

Another Location Change!

We had to change our location from Castle Hill, to a smaller road near it called Castle Row, this is because , our actress felt very self conscious, members of the public were walking past staring at the camera or acting silly in front of the camera, and because of the fact that there were so many cars in the background that it did not look right.















After filming the first verse or so , of the song we then had to move from this location as a lady came along and told us that she didnt luke us filming where we did as it was too near her house(although we had made sure that it was not near anybodys house, and the music was not too loud to try and avoid situations such as this.) To respect the ladies wishes though, we did move around the corner where there were no houses anywhere near, and we apologised to the lady.

Actual Filming!

We finally got down to recordng our footage, this photograph was from the first scene in the music video, whereby Emily comes out of the pub, closing the door and taking her hair down, which could also represent that she is metaphorically letting her hair down, and relaxing as she has now finished work and it is the weekend.

A problem that occured whilst filming was that , due to having a particularly small group, one member was taking photographs for the blog, and one person had to be playing the song on the C.D. player , whilst also filming.

Filming-Location and preparation!!

We have done most , if not , all of our filming now :). We feel as though it was very successful.


We met up at around 4pm, got to our location site at around 5pm, as we were afraid that it was going to get dark very quickly, we got to filming as soon as we could. So we used the local pub " The castle inn" for our actress, Emily Tofts to get changed, into her outfit. As we knew that we would not be able to use this pub to get changed again, she put one outfit on top of the other, but still kept it hidden.

More props and effects

We have decided that the girl in our video , will take off a leather jacket, and put on a short red jacket, as we feel that this fits in with the effects that we are planning to use better.








The effects that we want to try out , is an effect , where the video is in black and white, but there are certain parts of it that we want to be in colour, to stand out more, such as having the red coat standing out from the rest, contrasting.

Filming

We have chosen a day for filming,
the day that we have chosen is Friday 16th October 2009. We will be going to 'Castle Hill', Cambridge. After our group , and our cast all finish college. We have thought about any problems we may have whilst filming, and the only problem we can currently think of is that it could get dark, as we finish college at 4.10pm and we would not get to the location site until around 5pm. Recently it has got darker at around 6pm, so we are hoping to have our music video filming well planned so that we can get the filming done quite quickly, so we will not be filming in the dark. Another solution is also that , if we do not manage to film all of it in one day, we can organise another day for filming.

Change of cast

After changing our idea, we realised that we don't need to have three girls acting in our music video, but we only need one girl , and we do need a boy.

So we decided on using, Emily Tofts as our singer.
And as the boy, we decided on using a friend ;



Name: Tom McCarty

Age: 17 years

Hobbies: Acting, Singing,Dancing


We have chosen to use Tom as one of our actors as we feel that we could bring a lot to our music video , as his subjects at college are Theatre studies, Performance studies ,and music.



He, has been in many shows on the west end, here is a photograph from one of the shows that he was in .

Storyboarding

This is our first storyboarding sheet, in this it is the opening shot of the girl coming out of 'work'.
The girl then starts to get changed, and changes her shoes.











In this storyboarding sheet the girl puts her hand across the camera, and shortly after, pulls her hand away, revealing her wearing party clothes. She puts leather jacket on as she walks up the hill.She holds up cards saying 'Banker' and ' Student'









In this shot, the girl holds up cards saying ' housewife' and 'travelling football fan'(this is because they are the lyrics). The girl then throws the cards with the occupations written on, behind her.Girl sings chorus, shot from top of hill to represent "rendezvous".








in this shot we get introduced to the boy , who is at the top of the hill, he holds up cards saying 'Hero' 'Angel' 'Leader' ' All things to all men' (because these are the song lyrics again).
Girl walks to top of the hill where she meets the boy.













In this final sheet, the girl and boy meet at the top of the hill, then as the song comes to an end they walk off hand in hand, with their backs to the camera.

Props

The props that we will be using for our music video, are as follows;
-Party shoes, high heeled shoes for the main girl to change into after she leaves work.
-We want to use a party dress for the girl to change into after work.













- After the girl leaves work and takes off a shirt, we are hoping to find a top similar to this , that she could be wearing underneath her shirt.




























- We want to use a leather jacket for the girl to wear after she has taken off her work shirt, we are hoping that the girl will be in a similar style to the way that this manequin is styled.

Location!

We have decided to change our location, so instead of it being filmed at the beach, we are now planning on filming it locally, in Cambridge. The location we have chosen is the road leading up to Castle Hill. We have chosen this location as we feel it has all the qualities needed for our music video, we are going to have our main actor, walking up castle hill, after leaving 'The Eagle' . We feel that this is the right setting, as it fits the criteria that we wanted for our video, which is a large hill to walk up, and , the top of a grassy hill to meet the boy that we are going to have taking part in our video.


This is the pub that we are hoping to use in our video called 'The Eagle'

Change Of Plans..

After listening to our song, and going reviewing our storyboards and ideas , we have decided that we are going to change our idea for our music video.

Our original idea was to have girls walking along a beach singing the song, with a choreographed dance routine.

But we have now decided to have one girl , walking along a street singing the song, we wanted to create the feel as though the girl has just finished a long week at work, and it is now the weekend( as the music video begins) .

As the video progresses we think that the girl should be taking off her work clothes, and throwing them on the ground as she is walking eg.taking off a shirt leaving a t-shirt underneath on.

Then, when the occupations in the song come up, the girl should be carrying some cards with the occupation written on.

More Storyboarding

This is more of our storyboarding. This is the final 5 clips of our video. In this second sheet , we have the 2nd chorus, an instrumental, the next verse, the 3rd chorus, and the ending which is the sunset.

Filming

As the deadline draws closer we have been thinking about when to go out and start filming the actual video footage, and we have come to the decision that due to having jobs, and our cast have jobs ,and prior commitments . We feel that we should film sometime between 23rd-26th October. As we feel this would give us enough time to get the filming done that we need.

One of the problems that we feel we could come across whilst filming is, having to get all the filming done in one day. Our filming location is not going to be local, and due to the difficulties of actually getting there and back, we feel as if we can only make these trips once.A solution to this though, is simply arriving along at the location in the early hours of the day(which we would have to do anyway if we wanted to capture the sunrise), and leaving in the late hours of the day (which we also wanted to do anyway to capture the sunset) . If we do not manage to capture the sunrise/ sunset at the beach/ seaside , it will not be a big problem as we could find a body of water locally, and capture the image that we wanted.

SUCESS!!!!!

The band contacted us ! ! ! :)

We had a brief, but positive e-mail back from `Amsterdam`.

We`re going to contact the band as our video progresses, and continue to let them know how it is going, and we are hoping that they will be pleased with our final product, as we hope we will be too!

Cast !

We have spoken to two of our friends, who have agreed to be in our music video as two of the girls/singers/dancers.

The first girl, we thought could be our main singer, as she has experience of singing and dancing as she is currently studying Theatre Studies(drama), and Dance at A level standard. She also belongs to a very successful dance group in Cambridge , and she has been in many theatrical shows in the West End.She also appeared in our `Thriller opening sequence` project.

Name : Danielle Cross


Age: 17 years


Hobbies: Dancing , acting. singing

















The next person we chose to be in our music video is a friend who we also think could bring a lot to our video, as she is lively, and we feel she could act confidently , as she is good at taking suggestion.




Name: Bethaney Wallace


Age: 17 years


Hobbies:Shopping & Modelling

Crew List

In our group we have
Abbie Young
Natasha Wells

We feel that we would be better giving direction and suggestion to the music video as opposed to actually being in it.
We have asked some people to take part in the creation of our music video , and so far we have :

Name: Emily Tofts
Aged: 17
Hobbies: Playing guitar

We would like her to be in our video as we feel that she has the right look that we are looking for.










We have also asked a friend to choreograph a dance routine for us;

Name: Rowena Walmesley
Aged: 17 years
Hobbies: Dancing, Shopping

We have asked Rowena to choreograph our music video , as she is a dance teacher at her sisters dance school, so we feel as though she could bring a lot to our project.

Setting problems!

After narrowing down the 5 settings to 3( Holkham, Wells, and Felixstowe)
We started to think about the problems which could occur when going here.

For our video we need the weather to be quite nice to be able to capture the initial sunrise and the sunset , but due to the time of year that we will be filming (autumn/winter) we cannot guarantee that the weather will be nice. Nearer the time we will be checking the weather forecast for filming day(s). If it turns out that the weather is going to be awful, we could capture the sunrise/ sunset , but use an animation effect, or another effect to disguise this.



Another problem which we thought about was how to get to the location as none of our group drive, however we thought that we could asks friends/ family to take us. If not, we could use public transport, ie. trains and buses , although this could be quite costly.



We also thought that we could have a problem in the way of , not having much battery life on the camera, as we will not be near anywhere that we could recharge the battery.We have yet to think of a solution for this problem.

Contacting the band part 2!

One week after initiallly contacted the band, we have been hoping for a reply, but as of yet .. no luck. Although we are still feeling quite hopeful that we will get a reply, as, on mypsace it says that the band have not yet read our e-mail. :)

Ed Lovelace Talk

On Wednesday 7th October we had a talk in the hall at 9am, from Ed Lovelace, an ex media student of Long Road Sixth Form College from 2000-2002.After leaving Long Road, he went on to study media at bournemouth university.
After leaving university he went to work for a record label in London , called creation.
He wanted to get some foundational experience, so he told Creation that he would work for free.

He spoke to us about music videos which he had made ; some low budget and some high budget. Some if his music videos are:

...Gallows - 'Abandon Ship'
...Cage the Elephant - 'In One Ear'
...Cage the Elephant - 'Ain't No Rest For The Wicked'
...Cutting Pink with Knives - 'Laser Hannon'


He told us that he had based ideas for music videos on movies that he had previously viewed.
The budgets of the videos varied, some of his first few were around £100, such as the video he made for Gallows, however the video he made for Cage the Elephant had a budget of around £40,000.

He told us how to get where he is now, it has taken hard work , dedication , and enthusiasm.He also stated how he was lucky to get some work after leaving university, as most ex university students do not get work straight away.

Ed is now moving on to make full length films,he has recently made a documentary type film about a band which left home at the age of 14 and has been touring for 17 years.

We found this talk to be very useful, and insightful into the media business.

ED LOVELACE - TALK IN THE HALL - WEDNESDAY 7.10.09

Former Long Road Media student Ed Lovelace will be talking about his music videos and career path into the film industry.

Please remember to take notes on the talk and the videos discussed - In the next lesson you will be writing up the talk on your blogs and from YouTube adding the videos he will be showing in his presentation.

'Ain't No Rest For The Wicked' - Cage The Elephant


'In One Ear' - Cage The Elephant


'Abandon Ship' - Gallows


'Laser Hannon' - Cutting Pink With Knives

More Setting Research!

Two other locations we have researched into are
Holkham beach













And
Wells beach