Filming

Everyone in the group was here last friday so we were able to get some of our filming done, we filmed the scene with the homeless man on the bench in the park. We should now have all the footage we need for one of the verses in the song, but we may have a problem with continuity in our video. When we first started filming outside there was still some snow on the roads and the street, and when we filmed on friday there was a lot less snow. We wanted to make it look like it was all on different days by changing the clothing which Jacob was wearing, but the snow could make it look like a continuity error. We are going to leave it for but theres a chance we may have to film some of the scenes again.

Issues with filming

We have been having some issues with filming, we have not been able to stick to our filming schedule. On the days we were supposed to film people in the group have either been ill, had interviews or been on school trips. Another issue is the weather, because it has snowed everything is iced over which could be a hazard when filming. It is also not the right weather that we want to film, so we might have until the snow has gone. Myself, Jacob and Tori should all be here on Thursday and Friday so we have planned to film then.

Audience Research - Font Styles

We have been looking at different fonts to use for our digipacks, we thought it would be a good idea to get some feedback from our target audience. We chose four fonts which we thought would look good and asked students around the college which one they liked the best, these are the four fonts we decided to use:

These were the results:

1. Reklame - 15

2. Capture It - 7

3. Impact Label - 2

4. Seans Other Hand - 1



Filming Delay

We are currently behind on our filming schedule, last week I was ill and couldn't make it into college. The shot what we were supposed to film last week, I was supposed to be in it so we got no filming done. Whilst I was away the group started looking at digipacks and the poster and have narrowed down the choices for which one we will use, I just need to give my opinion so we all decide as a group which is the best one to use.

Beginning Our Production

All of our planning is now done and we have began our filming, we have filmed Jacob holding up the Oh Me Oh My signs in front of green screen for one end shot of the video. It was quite difficult because we had to film shot making sure we could fit him in the shot another four times using final cut, we filmed the shot a number of times so we could use the best take to put in the video. We have also filmed some of the other stop frame animation shots for the chorus, we are using stop frame animation a number of times in the video to spell out Oh Me Oh My. We have tried spelling it out in a variety of ways and we are discussing other ways we could do it.

Risk Assessment

We are not doing anything which would be counted as dangerous when filming our piece, we have a few normal risks which you would come across when filming anything. We will be using green screen for some of our filming so we will have a lot of wires from the lights trailing along the floor so we have to make sure no one will trip over them. There will be some filming done outside so we have to look out for cars etc, also one shot will be filmed next to a pond so we have to be careful and make sure no one falls in. There's a shot in the bedroom where the male in the video gets pushed onto a bed, we just have to make sure he is not pushed too hard because he could get hurt.

Storyboard

This is the storyboard for our video, it took us a while to get this finished because we tried to take timing into consideration. We thought about how long each shot will take and if it would fit with the music. We put a lot of effort into making sure each shot was in time with the correct part of the song so hopefully we wont have to make any changes when filming.

Mise en scene

In our video the main character will be Jacob, he is playing a teenager so he will be wearing his normal clothes, we want the video to look like its happening over a period of time so he will be wearing different clothes for most scenes. There is also a girl in the video, we have not decided who is going to play her yet but she will be wearing typical teenagers clothing as well.

There will be a scene in the video where Jacob walks by a homeless man in the park played by me, for this I will be wearing gloves and a wooly hat, and will be lying on a bench in a sleeping bag or a blanket. For this scene Jacob will walk by me and give me some money so we will need a few coins, we are also going to make a sign sayin I'm hungry or money for food on cardboard to have next to the bench and thats where Jacob will put the coin.

 

There are a few scenes where Jacob and the girl are doing things as a couple, such as walking the dog, so obvioulsy we will need a dog for that scene. There is also a scene where they are feeding ducks, so we will need to find a pond with ducks in it.

For the choruses we are using stop frame animation, we are using a number of ways to spell out the title of the song Oh Me Oh My. One of them we are going to use pens and pencils to spell it out so we are going to need a lot of stationary.

Shooting Schedule

Research

To get ideas for our production piece I have been looking at other videos for filming techniques, editing transitions and different shots. I was showed a video which a friend had made, its a music for the song Lets Go Surfing by The Drums. In the video he used a technique where a person is in the same shot a number of times, we wanted to do something similar in our video so we watched this to get ideas.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVynmcis2vE

Green Screen Experiment

Audience Research

We made a questionnaire for people to answer about music, we wanted to find out what kind of music people listen to and how they find it. We handed the questionaire out to some of the students around the school, we also asked some people around the school the questions and recorded their responses. These are the responses we got.

Planning

We have began planning for our music video, this is a spider diagram of the ideas that we have came up with so far. We are trying to relate the video to the lyrics in the song.

The main idea we have had for the video is to have it based on a relationship between a girl and a boy, we listened to the song a number of times and we thought that this is what the song was about. The general idea is that is that the couple start off happy but begin to argue, there will be many shots of them doing normal activities which a couple would do such as going to the cinema, shopping together etc. Something will happen and there would be an argument between the two, the rest of the video will be him thinking about their relationship.

Gaining Band's Permission

We need to ask the bands permission before we can start planning and filming so we decided to email them, the band left some of their member's email addresses so we contacted one of them.

This is the email that we sent to James Loughlin:



They emailed back on the same day, this is the email they sent us back:

 

Now that we have the bands permission we can start our planning for the video.

Finding A Band

We have to find a band to let us use one of their songs to make a music video for, the band has to be unsigned and we need their permission to use the song. We used a website called http://www.unsigned.com/ to find a band, this website has thousands of unsigned artists of many different genres. The artists have their own page where they can upload their songs and get feedback from people. We went through many bands but it took us a while to find a band which we liked, we narrowed our choices down to three bands with one song each.
Our three choices were:
The 99s
PK
The Painted Lilies
We decided to go with The 99s, we chose them because the other band's songs weren't quite what we were looking for. We thought The 99s song Oh Me Oh My would be good to make a video for and we liked the song so we would enjoy doing it.

Recovery Album Cover, Digipak and Poster

This is the front cover for Eminem's new album Recovery, the cover is quite simple and no effects have been used to edit it. We can see a long shot of Eminem on the left hand side from behind walking down a road on his own. On the right we can see power lines going down the road into the distance, the title Recover is in the top right corner. The 'O' in the title has been turned into a white cross in a red circle like a first aid symbol, the second 'E' is turned around to face the other way, Eminem does this most of the time with his other albums and posters. The artist is recovering from a drug addiction he has had over the past few years and the title explains what this album is about, his last album was called Relapse and this new album is showing the recovery hes made over the last few years.

This is the back of the album cover, we can see Eminem sitting down on a sofa with city buildings in the background. There are objects in the shot that you would normally find in a living room like the lamp and other furniture. There is also a sign in the background which says "Eminem Welcomes You To Detroit", this is probably just showing that he is from Detroit. Something else I noticed is that i could see a reflection of something around him.

This is one of the pictures in the digipak, its quite similar to the back of the album cover. There are the same buildings in the background but they are further away, all of the furniture from the back cover are still in the shot. The main difference is that he is a glass box with all the furniture and this is where the reflection came from. Eminem is casually sitting down reading a book, where as he was looking at the camera last time. This relates to what he says some of his lyrics, he talks about being in a glass cage, being in a zoo, and having the whole world constantly watching him.

This is the inside of the digipak, on the left we can just see a white page with Eminem in big letters in brackets and some information on his songs in red. on the right we can see a medium shot from side on of Eminem with his top off looking at the camera. I think the shot is to show off his tattoos on his left arm, the one on his forearm is a tribute to his best friend who died a few years ago, Eminem also dedicated the album to him.

This is in the middle of the digipak, the same picture is on both sides but one has been turned upside down, the rest of the digipak is upside down from this point onwards. In the middle is the recovery symbol. The picture is a close up of Eminem holding his hand over his eye, this part of the digipak represents the turning point in the album, the songs start off more aggressive and half way through they become more sentimental and meaningful.

This is towards the end of the digipak, on the left we can see half of the recovery symbol and some writing about the album, there is also a picture of his best friend Proof who died and this is who he dedicated the album to. There is also a quote which Eminem wrote to go with the picture telling people who are going through hard times, it does get better. On the right there is a close up picture of Eminem with his hood up, eyes closed and hands together. I think this picture is showing that he is praying for his best friend.

This is the poster for Eminem's Recovery album, the picture for the poster is the same picture for the album cover. A few things have been added to the picture such as Eminem name above the title, the date in the bottom right corner and information on the songs on the album and some record company logos.

Man On The Moon Album Cover, Digipak and Poster

This is the front cover for Kid Cudi's album Man On The Moon: The End Of Day. In the background we can see a real picture of the moon with stars around, the picture has been edited so the moons an orangey pink colour and the space and stars are a dark red colour. On the left hand side there is a picture of Kid Cudi face from the side, his face has been heavily edited so you can only just make out his facial features. His face is red at the top and fades into purple at the bottom, his face fades into the moon. On the right hand side we can also see light shining which I assume is coming from the sun.

This is a photograph which is used in the digipak of the Man On The Moon album, its a black and white shot of Cudi walking down the street whilst he looks over his shoulder. Cudi is wearing his trademark thick framed black glasses, whilst researching the artists I've found many similar pictures to this one. I found a lot of black and white photos of him done is this same style, in many of them he seems to be in the same sort of locations and wearing similar clothing, i think they may have all been done in one photo shoot.

This is the back cover for the Man On The Moon album,  Cudi has kept the same theme through out the front cover and the poster. The back cover is slightly different, the background is black and has a a picture similar to the one on the poster. Its an x-ray of a skull and brain, its a pinky purple colour and almost looks slightly neon. At the top there is a bit of information about the album and in the middle it has the separate acts and what songs are in which act in white.

This is one of the posters for Cudi's album, this is advertising the deluxe DVD edition. On the right hand side we can see the same picture he uses for the album cover of his face on the moon, on the left hand side we can see his face which has been edited to look like an x-ray of his skull and brain but still with his face and glasses. In the middle we have his name, the title of the album and information on it. At the bottom it says that it went out in stores on the 15th September 2009.

Make Her Say Video

Make Her Say is a single from the new and up coming artist Kid Cudi, this single features two other artists Kanye West and Common. The video was to promote the single and his new album Man On The Moon: The End Of Day, the single samples man acoustic version of Lady Gaga's hit track Poker Face. The director for the video Nez Khammal, both him and Cudi decided to go with an abstract feel for the video. Cudi said "We wanted to go for a real abstract and iconic-looking video, something real artsy. It's really dope. It's like split screen, and how he shot it is with multiple, different shots. It's almost like there's still shots and there's movement going on in them. It's really trippy." Nez has directed videos for other artists such as Paolo Nutini, Kano and Lily Allen, he said "We shot Kanye in L.A. and we shot Common and Kid Cudi in New York. I tried to find a place in New York that just felt - not that it had to be specifically L.A., but something that just jelled everything." The artists weren't all shot in the same place so Nez had to find locations that all fitted together. Nez had an idea of splitting the screen in two for the video, he wanted the top and the bottom half of the screen to have different shots going on. This technique is carried out through out the whole video, he switches between having shots that relate with each other, to shots that mirror each other, to shots that are completely different. The artists are never in the same shot, for the first verse in the song Cudi is in the video, the second verse Kanyes in the video and Common is in the final verse. At the end of the song Nez switches between shots to have one artists at the top and one on the bottom to get them to come together and then finishes with Cudi. The first shot is of the balloons floating in the sky and the bottom half of the screen is mirroring that shot, this techniques used with other shots in the video.

Each artist has there own set which they are doing their own part in, Kid Cudi does his part in several locations, the first is on the rooftop with the balloons, the second is inside building which looks like its being used for a photo shoot and the last setting is him driving in a convertible with a woman down a road, he has a different set of clothes for this set. In the first two sets hes moving around, theres shots of him dancing, sitting down on a sofa and him walking through the room and a variety of other shots. The shots through out the video are also shot from many different angles. When hes driving down the road hes not doing anything more than just driving but there are long shots, close up shots and shots from above upside down.

Kanyes part is next in the video, to the beat of the song the top half of the screen goes to a swimming pool and then the bottom half changes to a shot of a woman sitting on a diving board at the swimming pool. Eventually we see Kanye walking along side the pool on the bottom, the top half then changes to his reflection in the pool as he walks by. He then begins rapping, standing next to the pool, the shots change to him sitting in the stadium stands on an American football pitch using a variety of shots. His part then ends with him sitting in some kind of lecturing room. The places he was shot in were related to the things he was talking about in the song. The things he talks about are college related and the areas that he was in in the video are places that you would find on a college campus in America.

Common is introduced by using the same technique as when Kanye was introduced, the bottom and top half the screen change to the beat of the song. The first shot is a low angle shot of a building, we then see common walking past a woman on the phone behind some kind of reception desk. Above the desk there are three clocks which show the time in New York, Los Angeles and London. Common begins his part of the song sitting on the end of a bed with a woman lying in it, there are many different shots took of Common sitting on the bed from all different angles. It then changes to the beat of the song to a shot of Common walking down a spiraled set of stairs from above, the bottom and top half of the shot are the same but one has been turned around. The rest of his part in the video consists of shots of him standing and walking in front of a coloured glass window and shots from before.



Once Common finishes his part, various shots are used from before to show all three artists. There are also many other shots which fit Nez's abstract theme for the video. In the studio room from the start of the video there is a woman riding a chopper bike, also on the roof with the balloons there is a woman lying down playing on a DJ Hero console to the beat of the mixing in the song. I think Nez achieved what he wanted to do in this video, the shots make the whole video very abstract. The locations really go with the feel of whats being said in the song and works well together.

Lyrics


(Kid Cudi)


I make her say
(Lady GaGa) Chorus
Oh ah ah oh oh ah oh oh (When I)
Pa-pa-pa poker (poke her) face Pa-pa poker (poke her)face (I make her say)
Oh Ah Oh Oh Ah Ah Ah Oh Oh(What Up)
Pa-Pa-Pa Poker Face (Me First) Pa-Pa Poker Face


(Kid Cudi)
She Wanna Have Whatever She Like
She Can If She Bring Her Friend
And We Can Have One Hell Of A Night
Through The Day
Ay I Mean Stand Like A creeper Cuz You Gotta Beep her
I Mean Prime Might Be Sayin You Ain't Joggin Either
But Man Ol' Girl Gotta fat Ol' Ass
Yeah The Type To Make You Tell "Bitch Just Dance"
And Fuck Them Otha Niggas Cuz You Down For Her Bitches
And Fuck Them Otha Niggas Cuz She Down For The Stickin
And Fuck Them Otha Niggas Cuz Hope She Down For Some Lickin
And Fuck Them Otha Bitches Cuz She Down For The Trickin
I'm Hoping She A Rider
When It's Said And Done Will She Spit It Up And Swallow Nooow
I Ain't Got Trip Bout Them Niggas Who Like Her
Cuz Me And Mommy Know, Could Really Make Her Go


(Lady GaGa) Chorus


(Ay, What You Talkin Bout 'Ye)
(Kanye West)
She Say She Want Whatever She Like
She Say She Gonna Bring Her Friend
And We Gonna Have A Hell Of A Night
Threw The Day
I made Her Say
Hold up(Yea), Born In 88(Word)
How Old Is That(Damn)
Old Enough
I Got Seniority, With The Sorority
So, That Explains Why I Love College
Getting Brain In The Library Cuz I Love Knowledge
When You Used Your Medulla Oblongata
And Give Me Scoliosis Until I Comatose'st
And Do While I'm Sleep, Yeah A Lil Osmosis
And That's My Commandment, You Ain't Gotta Ask Moses
More Champagne, More Toasts'st
More Damn Planes, More Coasts'st
And Fuck The Bus, The Benz Is Parked Like Rosa(osa)


(Lady GaGa) Chorus


(Common)
She Said She Want Whatever She Like
But You Gotta Bring Your Friend
And We Can Have One Hell Of A Night
Through The Day
She Blamed It On The A-A-A-A-A-Alcohol
She Had Her Hair Did, It Was Bound To Fall
Down Down For A Damn, Cudi Already Said It
Her Poker Face Book I'd already read it
But Man, Her Head Was Gooder Than A Music
Electro Body, Known To Blow Fuses
A Stripper From The South
Lookin For A Payday
Said, Bitch You Should Do It For The Love Like Ray-J
But They Say You Be On The Conscious Tip
Get Your Head Right And Get Up On This Conscious Dick
I Embody Everything From The Godly To The Party
Its The Way I Was Raised On The Southside Safari
So


(Lady GaGa) Chorus
(Lady GaGa)
Can't Read My, Can't Read My,
No He can't Read On My Poker Face,
(She's Got Me Like Nobody)
2X


[ From: http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-poke-her-face-lyrics-kid-cudi.html ]

Final Production

Initial Planning

We had a choice of tracks to choose from to make a music video for, we had to pitch our idea for a video to get the track we wanted. We didn't get our first choice so we had to use one of the leftover tracks which was Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night by Tom Waits, we first thought we should have somebody driving in the video because the song starts off with car noises going on in the background. We were told to avoid having driving in our video because of the obvious dangers that could happen, we did use a car but we had the car parked and just filmed whilst static.

Storyboard

Pendulum Watercolour Video

Watercolour is Pendulums single off their new album Immersion, the single made it to number 4 in the UK Singles Chart. I feel the video to this drum and base track really goes well with the pace of the song. In the video the band have carried out the water theme they have used through out the whole album, the video is very dark and they use a lot of lighting effects which makes the colour of the video seem blue which relates to the album artwork. The main focus of the video is some kind of weird moving planet which the lead vocalist (Rob Swire) stares at as beam of light shines on him with the beat of the first chorus, water begins splashing over a crowd of around 70 people and the rest of the band as they perform. They slow some of the shots down to make the water coming off the crowd and the instruments look more dramatic, in other shots the camera is shaking and focuses on the water moving on the surface of the mysterious planet. Towards the end of the video the song begins to slow down, the planet has a light surrounding it and the shots become brighter, suddenly the the base in the song comes back and the planet explodes and the light surrounds Swire. I really think the video works well with the song, they put a lot of effort into making the beat fit with whats going on the video. They made good use of lighting to make the video start dark and gradually turn bright, also the crowd and band members are dressed in dark clothing to suit the lighting in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEPB7uzKuh4

Pendulum Immersion Album Cover

This is the album cover for Pendulum's newest album "Immersion", the electronic rock bands new album is themed around water. The album features tracks such as Watercolour, Under The Waves, and The Fountain. The band wanted to create a mysterious underwater scenario for their album cover and booklet. This underwater theme is carried out through the album cover, in the middle there is a naked man and woman, we can see the water surface at the top of the cover and there is light shining through onto the man and woman. On each side of the man and woman there are other people swimming towards them, some almost look like mermaids. Along the bottom and up the sides we can see strange creatures, corals and other sea life you would see on the bottom of the ocean. The artist who designed this cover wanted to include complex artwork with very high attention to detail, a lot of hand-drawn lines, electric bolts, water bubbles and lightning effects. I think the artist achieved what he wanted to create very well. I found an interview with the artist on the Internet and he said this is how he went about creating the cover, "I used a lot of additional photography. The first thing was to get the proper mood - colours, sun rays, water reflects and such. Then I started to build the composition by adding the sea bottom and stone walls, and covering them with corals. While I was doing this, I was also playing with the lights and shadows by drawing all glowing elements." He wanted to create an original, natural looking under water scenario and merge that with some creative artistic techniques and I think they did that well.