Draft Music Video Feedback

The feedback we recieved fromboth teachers and peers was fairly positive. People were very impressed the proffesionalsim of the band, especially the lead singer, who perfectly displayed the charisma and appeal we wanted our band to have.

Some people had negative opinions on only having one location. However I feel that this is something we are unlikely to change. We feel that as it is a straight forward illustration video, of the band performing, the location works really well, fitting in with the bands cutting edge image. We do feel that the location worked really well and the issue of lighing was solved perfectly by using cars in the field.

One problem we had was with the weather. In our shot schedule, we decided to film the long shots last and we had 2 problems with this. One was that as the night went on, it became more foggyin the field and this became quite noticable on the camera. Also, due to the poor light in the field, the actors look quite far away and does not work as well as we like, so this may be something we cut out/refilm.

The editing process we feel went well, in the little space of time we had to do it. We have decided however that we are going to re-edit the film, getting rid of some of the "cringey" dance moves replacing them with more shots of the charismatic frontman. We are also going to sort the sync of the frontman at 1:20, as it is ever so slightly out of sync.

Shot Schedule

As Pat and I have both discovered after discussing with other students who have managed to film their videos, a lot of the time shots can get easily muddled up. Another problem is with continuity, rather than moving the camera back and forth between different shots we want to film all similar shots, with the same band member at the same time. So ideally, we will never move the camera from one angle back to the same angle, thus giving us a good oppurtunity to keep shot similarity and continuity.

A difficulty in our vision for our video also is that we have 2 different types of shots in terms of what they feature. Some shots feature the band performing the song with instruments then the others will feature them dancing. This will be a factor in deciding what order we shoot, so that we are not moving instruments, particularly a drum kit, back and forth from in and out of shot.

For this puropse, I have created a shot schedule. At first glance, this will not make much sense to anyone besides me or pat. Basically, all shots are on this page going in order. The highlighted orange numbers are shots which feature the band playing instruments, the non-highlighted are those with the band dancing.
This will be the sheet in which we will work from when filming.



Note: Shots 30 & 31 feature a band member setting off a firework, this may not feature in our draft so I have not included them fully in the shooting schedule.

Filming the music video - update

For the draft video, we will be filming using a canon 500d, which was kindly lent to us. One change we have made for the filming is that of the members of the band. As 2 of the band members are busy, we are going to replace them with Ed Price and Sam Burnham or Sam Hallam. For the final media shoot, we may use the original band members, depending on who we think suits the roll best.

Another problem we face ahead of filming is that of the weather. In an ideal world we would have filmed last week, when the weather as a bit brighter but I happened to be on work experience, without anytime in evenings to film. If rain does occur we will have to film at a later date, as everything is planned to be outside.

Prop List

Props that we will need for shooting our video:

Instruments:

• 2 x guitars
• 1 x bass guitar
• 1 x drum kit
• 2 x mic stand
• 1 x drum sticks
• 1 x maracas 

Other:

• 3x fireworks

Album name and tracks - update

For my digipak draft, I have chose to use Little Comets debut album title, "In Search Of Elusive Little Comets. I felt that as it has already being made, the title just works well with my digipak. I also used the same track-listings as on "In Search Of Elusive Comets", as there is a diverse range of track names.

Magazine Advert analysis 2

For LCD Soundsystem's album "This Is Happening" it is all kept fairly simple. There is a basic image of James Murphy, the creator of LCD Soundsytem, in motion, as if he was dancing on stage. He is dressed in a trademark suit and the photo has been rotated. The shot will have been taken as a mid shot of Murphy , from a fairly long distance as his arms are spread.

The layout is simplistic, with a large image in the top two thirds with the information about the album in the bottom third. The colour scheme is quite understated, with a black and white photo/background with a blue font.

The typography is in italics and all in capitals. The font is basic and there is large spaces between letters. Overall The design is made to look a bit blurred and this fits in with their sort of electronic music. I do quite like the idea of using just one image on my band poster/digipak, as it looks quite effective.

Magazine Advert Analysis

The first magazine advert I have chosen to analyse is for The Stone Roses, "The Stone Roses - remastered". The background image is a birds-eye view of a map, with what looks like a paint-splat where the information about the album is. There is also some images of oranges, representing the letter 'o' and then red, white and blue. There are also badges with ratings from Q, Mojo and NME magazine.


The layout is fairly simple, with the band name top centre, with the information below this. The red, white and blue is again used, representing Great Britain. Also, the ratings are dotted about like badges, which makes the layout less structured.


The colour scheme contains mainly red, white, blue and yellow font. The Stone Roses looks like its meant to look like cardboard. The shot is a birds-eye view with "The Stone Roses" planted on top.


The typography is all fairly basic, all in capital letters, so it looks clear. Overall I feel the design looks simple and effective, although when I create mine I want it to have a clearer colour scheme and to try to make it look more simplistic.

Album Cover

For my album cover, I have definitely decided upon using a very simple design. At the moment, I am trying to decide whether to use a photo of a person/band, or whether to create a design on photoshop.
The problem with trying to create a design, for me, is that I don't know if I can make it look professional enough.

The xx are a band that inspire me with their covers. As earlier analysed, Jamie xx keeps it simple and it's the same with his band. For every single they released the same cover, just with a different background within the "X. This consistency is something I definitely want to incorporate into my digipak. The element of using a band logo with an image behind it is something I'm going to experiment with when creating my digipak mock up.

Similar CD Covers

All these covers are very simple and have just one piece of art on the cover, this is something I may incorporate on my own digipak. My favourite cover design out of the three is the middle, Totally Enourmous Extinct Dinosaurs - Prehistory EP release, as I feel the design fits in well with his image.

Representation - Music Video

Who?

In the video will be Max Hallam (vocalist), Ben Harris (lead guitar), Jordan Halford (bass) and Callum Wills (drums). All will be featured heavily in the video, especially Max, the lead singer as we feel we need to get close up shots to display his persona and to aid the star image. At first, we were thinking of including numerous extras in the video (20-30), to just dance about so in keeping with the lyrics. However, we decided that this could make the video look over-complicated and it could just be an impossible task so decided to just use the band members in the video.


What?


For a music video, we just have a simple performance from the band, making it an illustrative video. In some cases, the lyrics go with shots in the video . For example when the lyrics say "this one's for dancing" the shot then shows the band dancing, so the actions will be in keeping with the lyrics. We did consider including a storyline but felt for the genre of music we were doing felt a straight forward illustration would be the best option.


Where?


We have only chosen to film in one location to shoot our music video, this being in an open field. We felt that this would be a good way to represent the song as for the genre being indie, makes it look quite alternative. The shots will be both high angle and low angle and as the field is large open space this enables us to to film these shots. As we still aim to shoot in night-time, the video being in a large open field allows us to be able to have lots of lighting without causing any disturbances.


Why?


We have chosen to use a simple performance video as it allows us to illustrate all the good conventions of the music video. Both Harry and I felt that if we tried to over-complicate the video, it would not look good quality and that by keeping it simple .


How?


We will make our video using 2/3 HD cameras, which we are borrowing. We also intend on using a set of ladders to enable us to get high and low angle shots. By producing our risk assessment and storyboard, this has allowed us to be prepared to film at any date. However, we still need to create a schedule so we can get the filming done as soon as as possible, which will save us time as we will then not have to film every shot as the order it is on the storyboard.

Star Image

Richard Dyer's theory of "Stars" would be fitting with out music video. In our video we intend on having a range of audience star relationships. The first would be to have emotional affinity. This would be a loose connection between artist and audience, as they may find them attractive/stylish.

It could also be taken to the self-identification level, where the audience takes on the same persona as the people seen in the video, as they may feel that they like them much. Also, imitation may occur as people may like their style and certain things about them, which is quite common for our audience on younger people.

Risk Assesment

There are many risks involved with the filming with the video.

Firstly, as the video is being shot in the field, there is long grass and will be equipment such as wires and tripods lying about, this will mean that actors and crew could fall over this making it a serious hazard. The severity would only be medium, as it cannot cause any extremely bad injuries but could cause things like a twisted ankle. The precautions we could take would be to try not to leave things lying about on the floor and to make sure all members of crew know about the equipment lying about.

There maybe some temporary structures such as ladders up, so all crew will need to know how to use it. It's severity would be high, as a big fall off the ladder could result in multiple injuries. The precations we would take would be to make sure that a person was always holding the ladder and that they are positioned safely.

As in the field, we will be using cars to light up the area where we are filming, we will need to make sure that they are in neutral and are positioned so they are not blocking anything off. The severity of the risk is low, as it is unlikely that something could go wrong but we have to make sure that everything is taken seriously. The precautions are, as previously mentioned to put the cars gears in neutral.

One other prop we are using in the video  is that of a firework. The severity of this risk is obviously very high, as it is a dangerous object which can cause many injuries. Precautions such as wearing gloves and keeping a safe distance will have to taken, so that nothing goes wrong.

Storyboard Animatic

This is our storyboard animatic, it shows the order of our shots but also with the correct timing to give us a better idea of how our video will look in terms of shot types, positions, movements etc. 

Storyboard

Here is are storyboard, unfotunately one shot was atached on the edge of the storyboard, so would not scan.

Location Night time

Here are some pictures of what the location would look like at night. The effect is better than the daylight, I think it would make the video a bit cooler, in my opinion. 

This shows the basics of how we will light our set. This just shows one car lighting the area, we hope to use about 3 or 4 to get a better affect. 

This shows the view from the camera angle with normal car lights on. 

This shows the lights on full beam, the effect is obviously that it is brighter and we can see more of the background which will show the setting better. 

Here shows a person in this full beam light, the worry was that the lights wouldn't be bright enough to light all features of the person. This picture shows the lighting would be good enough. Hopefully with more car lights it will look brighter. Below is the point of view of the band. 

Location Daytime

This is what our location would look like in the daytime, the setting is meant to be quite plain and this suits very well. The problem with shooting a music video in daylight, is that it is very variable and if we are filming for hours on end it will be very difficult to keep the same light. The advantage of shooting at night therefore, is that we can control the light. (shown in next post).

Lighting

One thing we have been thinking about during the storyboard process is that of lighting. We have planned to shoot our video in the darkness, as we feel that this would add the perfect effect, aswe also plan to use a firework in the video.


The problem is that we will need substantial lighting to make the band video and so they just not look like shadows. Or first idea was to bring 4 cars into the field and have them on full beam, something which we plan to test beforehand.


Our second option is to edit the video after filming in the day although this could be an issue with the skills we have and the limited to time.


Our third option was to just abandon the idea of filming in the dark and make it work in the day but this is something we will find out after doing a lighting test.




Above is a video by The Drums, for their hit single "Let's Go Surfing". At the time, The Drums were a fairly small band, so will have had quite a low budget, so we plan on taking some inspiration from this video.

What are you doing?

At the moment we are focusing on completing the storyboard (see Harry at hard graft)

We have also decided to mainly film the video in an empty field and we are currently deciding whether to film at night, in the day but change it to look like the night or to just film in the day. The problem with filming in the night would be that the lighting would be poor. One of our ideas was to try to get about 4 cars behind the camera, all with full beam shining on the band & dancers but this needs testing. Below are some pictures of the possible filming locations.

Update...

We have decided to make the band a four piece as we feel having four members will be better as we want them to be of the highest quality. The band members are...

Jordan Halford - Guitarist

Benjamin Richard Harris - Bass

Max Hallam Vocalist

Callum Wills - Drums

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