Filming Music Video- 28/12/2009

On Monday the 28th of December 2009 our group started to film scenes for our music video.

Below is a list of the equipment and props we needed:

• Digital Video Camera- To film the scenes
• Digiatl still camera- to take location shots
• Tri-pod- To steady and hold the camera to stop the shaky-cam effect
• Tape- To record footage on
• Clothes and jewellry- For our artist to wear, the clothes and jewellry we used fiited the style of the artist/music and video (bohemian, eccentric)
• Other items- we also brought other oodd/everyday items that would look odd in our video such as a umbrella, dice, lights and a masquerade ball mask

We visited one of our locations (Darwen Forest) to film some of the scenes for our music video. Below is a shot of the location:

We filmed in a number of places in the forest and used many types of shots such as close-ups and establishing shots.

Below is a list of the roles each of us fullfiled whilst filming:

• Lauren Widdop- Directing where the artist should stand/types of shots, costume
• Lauren Pollard- Filming, helping with the type of shots we needed (angles)
• Hannah Tabor- Sorting out the camera and helped direct footage
• Muhammad Patel- helped with costume and with the music

We will take the footage and review and edit it.

By Muhammad Patel, Lauren Widdop, Lauren Pollard and Hannah Tabor

Our Ideology

Just like any other type of media product our project with have some ideologies embedded within it. We will be showing our artist as a strong independent female who is in control of her our life, this is the dominant ideology for a modern day woman. Due to our artist being young it will create a sense of youth, light-heartedness and freedom, this will be demonstrated in scenes were she will be walking bare foot. The use of natural make-up and unique clothing will give our artist a feminine feel.

These ideologies fit well with our product as both the music and the music video are of the indie genre and have unique aspects to them.

There are two ways that the audience can read these ideologies; the hypodemic needle theory and halls reception theory. hypodemic needle theoryis where the audience is seen as passive, “empty vessels”. The theory states that the texts function is a one directional communication process, many people believe the theory is out of date and that it vastly underestimates the audiences. From this theory others theories have been created and evolved, becoming more complex. Whereas reception theory suggests that audiences play an active role in reading texts and that each person has the ability to interpret the same texts differently. Our audience is more likely to read our ideologies from the aspect of reception theory due to the fact that our project is experimental.

By Hannah Tabor

Location shots from Manchester

Here are a few locations shots that were taken while filming in Manchester City centre

By Hannah Tabor

Inspirational Album Artist

Alex Steinweiss designed the first ever album cover at the age of 23, it revolutionised the way that records were being sold and a new art form was created.

In 1939 he became Columbia records first director; this is when Alex pitched the idea of replacing the plain cardboard record wrappers with an eye catching illustration. 70 years on album art is such a big part of music culture that it seems unimaginable that at one time cardboard was used for album covers.

Alex now 92 says, “Record sleeves were so drab, so unattractive. I convinced the executives to let me design a few so people could look at the artwork and hear the music”

His first sleeve, Rodgers and Hart, increased sales by 800% within the first few months of release. Before long every record company hired their own designers. During his career Alex Steinweiss created 2,500 sleeves but sadly says that, “the album cover has seen its best days. What they do now isn’t up to snuff. It’s lost it’s charm”

Here are some of Alex Steinweiss’s legendary album art:

Frank Sinatra – In the Wee Small Hours (1955)

The Beatles – Sgt Peppers Lonely Hears Club Band (1967)

Pink Floyd – Dark Side of The Moon (1973)

The Clash – London Calling (1979)

Nirvana – Nevermind (1991)

By Hannah Tabor

Inspirational CD Covers

When creating the CD package we will have to create all 4 sides of the package (outside and inside cover) below is an exmaple of the CD package:

Below are some examples of album covers from artists who use the kind of genre (pop/folk) music that we are using in our media product.

Below are examples of CD packages that have inspired us:

By Muhammad Patel and Lauren Widdop

The Ancillary Tasks

For the second part of our coursework we have to complete two acillary tasks to go alongside our music video. The tasks have to be authentic products completed within the required software packages.


For this task we will be working in pairs within our group:


Team 1

Lauren Widdop and Muhammad Patel


Team 2

Lauren Pollard and Hannah Tabor


Our aim is focusing on creating a brand which will support our main product (music video).


We have decided that we will be doing two of the tasks offered from the breif, the two tasks we have chosen to do are:

• A CD cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD package)
• A magazine advertisement for the didgipak (CD package)

to complete these we will be devising a logo for our artist and using it on both ancillary products, in order for us to creat a clear, distinct brand image for our artist. We will be designing both the CD cover and magazine advertisement using InDesign and Photoshop in order for us to achieve the look we are aiming for.


By Muhammad Patel, Lauren Widdop, Lauren Pollard and Hannah Tabor

Our Storyboard

As our music video is a montage of different locations and shots i have drawn the key locations and desecribed briefly what will be gonig on in the various shots.
Manchester City Centre

This shot is where we will be using the green screen in order to make the artist be in real time whereas the shoppers behind her will be in fast motion. It will be a medium shot of the artist whenever she is on screen. At time there might be just images of the shoppers in the background moving fast.


Carousel In this location we will have the artist on the carousel and shot in normal time with a few close ups of the artists cutting in between. Long shots of the carousel will be used in order to set the scene and then point of view shots.

Manchester Eye The clips of the ferris wheel will varying in speeds depending on which parts we use it within. This clip will be used throughout the music video to break up the artist performing. There will be long shots used here.

Caravan

Artist will be walking around the caravan bare foot, in a slight tint of sepia effect. Medium shots of the artists, long shots of the caravan and then close ups of the hand on the caravan, face and feet will be used.

Lauren’s Basement

In Laurens basement the artist will be stood miming to the music with nothing but her and the lights in the shot. It will show innocence in the character. Medium shots will be used.

Darwen Forest The artist will be walking through the forest with a slight high key lighting. Some long shots of her walking, close ups of her walking through the leave (feet) and close ups of her face. There will also be low angle of the trees to show the height.

By Hannah Tabor

Filming- 11/12/2009

On the 11/12/2009 me (Muhammad Patel) and a fellow team member (Hannah Tabor) went to one of our locations (manchester city centre) to film the busy shoppers in the centre.

We will use this footage and superimpose it onto a green screen (the footage will be speeded up). The artist will be performing the song in front of the green screen.

We have decided to incorporate this into the music video to show how lonely she feels in such a crowded world.

It was Hannah's job to set up the camera and to scout the right filming location. My job (Muhammad) was to help with filming.




By Muhammad Patel and Hannah Tabor

Shot Locations

Below are two definite shot locations for where we will be filming parts of our music video.

To the left is a caravan located not far from my house. We feel that due to its quirky appearance, it will be perfect for the look we are trying to achieve. We will have the artist walking around this location in bare foot, to give out an idea of freedom and independance.

By Lauren Widdop

Props

Here i am going to list the props used on locations:

Candle Scene

• Black Cloth to create a darkened effect
• Leaves to make it look as if it autum and give it an orginal/ obscure effect

Corporation Park

• Dice, to able us to through them down the steps and create a scene that will be able to fit inbetween the rest of the narrative

Also we will be using in no particular location

• Car bonnet for the artist to ley on and sing
• String for the Cats Cradle, so the artist can ....?
• Paper Swan to place on a record player as it moves around playing the record

By Lauren Pollard

Risk Assessment

In order to carry out the filming on locations and sets a risk assessment has to have been produced. A risk assessment is a careful examination of what could cause harm to people. It allows us to weigh up weather or not we have taken enough precautions or need to do more to prevent and damage being caused.
Therefore this will have to be produced for every location we use.
It involves:

• Identifying the hazards
• Deciding who may be harmed
• Evaluating the risks and deciding upon reasonable precautions
• Recording our findings
• Reviewing our assessment

By Lauren Pollard

Artist Name

As a group we believed that the artists name was a crucial part of this project and so we took this into consideration. We came to the conclusion that we needed to pick a specific name, such as 'Taylor Swift' or 'Calvin Harris', this was due to the point that it highlights that this is an artist and not as band which is what we are aiming our project on.
We went through many names such as 'Lucky Pineapple' which we thought would have been perfect if we had been using a band.
In the end we ended up with a long list of names, from which each member of the group chose four off, we then compiled our results and found that Harlow and Winter was on each persons paper.
We also believed that Harlow-Winter was a perfect name for the artist and that this would send out the right vibes for our target audience.
From this point we designed our first draft of our logo, in which we had previously decided on a simple signiture design.



Below is the list of the names we considered for our project:

We then decided to each write down our 2 favourite names for our artist on a piece of paper, then we collated results and decided on our artist name which was Harlow Winter.

Below are scanned images of the names each member in the group chose:

By Lauren Pollard

Logos

Here i have chosen Kesha as an example for the logo. I have chosen this one first of all due to the fact it is based upon her own name, and is quite a simple design which is what we as a group have decided to focus on. The use of just having the name of the artist as the logo helps promote her as an individual rather than as a member of a band.

We came to the conclusion that by having the logo as a certain design not including the name of the artist it may not trigger in their mind as to what is is, unless the band is extremely famous such as Take That, whereas by having the name in the logo it may reach a wider audience. They may feel the need to research and look up what type of music she performs.

This is also shown through the artists and bands such as :

- Goldfrapp

- Florence and the Machine

- Amy Winehouse

Our logo is therefore based upon a simple design of the name. Focusing specifically on the artists signiture.

Below is an image of the draft logo we created:

This is what our finished logo will look similar too...

By Lauren Pollard

Storyboards

When you write a story, or in our case listen to a song, you visualise what it happening throughout. A storyboard is all your thoughts and visions drawn on a piece of paper so that during shooting the product the director can look over at the sheet and see that everything is going to plan and running smoothly. It is laid out in a comic book style, which show all the crew the compositions, framings, cuts and actions that will take place. Also, when thinking of storyboards everyone envisions them as a piece of art and that they have to be well drawn in order for them to work however, you could use stick people but underneath described what was going on and how everything will work together.

History of storyboards

The first storyboard that was produced was by Walt Disney Studio’s in the early 1930’s, for the short production of “three little pigs” John Canemaker, author of “Paper Dreams: the art and artists of Disney storyboards” states that they made the storyboard in a comic book style using sketches to act out the story. Webb Smith, animator at Disney studio’s created the idea of drawing each shot individually on different pieces of paper and pinning them up on a bulletin board, resulting in the first official storyboard. The first live action film that used a completed storyboard was gone with the wind, Cameron Menzies was hired to designed every frame that was going to be used in the film. Many large budget silent films were storyboarded what they hoped to achieve. Since then storyboards have became a key element in the creation of a media product.

By the 1940’s the standards grew and Annette Michelson stated in 1993 that, “we can see the last half century... as the period in which production design was largely characterised by adoption of the storyboard”

Creation

When drawing by hand, the artist will sketch a thumbnail storyboard usually drawn by the director in the margin of the script. Thumbnails are used frequently with directors as it is a quick way to jot down ways in which the scene should play out and in big motion pictures.

Film makers rely heavily on storyboarding. If the thumbnails need more detail then a professional storyboard artist will be hired to supply detailed illustrations, these are better than amateur images as they include emotions, directions and costumes.

After that it is technical previsualisation (3D storyboarding) will be created. The advantage of using this software is it while show exactly what will be happening in the shot, if it will look right through the camera lens and the duration of the scene. However, the disadvantage is that it is extremely time consuming to create them. Some of the 3D storyboard making software is available to the public in order for them to create effective storyboards, some of these models include: Storyboard quick and Storyboard artists.

While storyboards can be helpful, it can also limit the director’s creativity. A classic example of this is Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” he created storyboards that the cinematographer thought was impossible to do in reality. Working on this for a long period of time they found some creative solutions and so the director’s visions came to life before his eyes. They worked so long on trying to find ways in which to shoot the film the way the director imagined because it is believed that you should never limited the directors visions to the normal or possible if you did this it would be just like every other film. This is when 3D programs can help the cinematographer plan what and how they can do things in order to achieve the almighty dream that is in the director’s head.

Benefits

The benefits of storyboarding are it allows the crew to experiment with the storyline so that it evokes reactions and interest. Flashbacks are not often in the original idea but when they talk over during storyboarding they will be used.

Also storyboarding allows the crew to brainstorm and the n arrange the story into an innovative sequence. Not only that but by getting the whole crew involved it make sure that everyone has had an equal say and that everyone knows the storyline.

Example of storyboarding in music videos

Storyboards are still used today in media products such as films but also in music videos. Here are the story boards that were used to create Britney Spears video for “If you seek Amy”

And here is what the finished product looks like.

By Hannah Tabor

Were all wearing ideological glasses and don’t know it

Every single piece of media text that is produced, all contain messages and attitudes; a secret agenda that the producers have used. These are ideologies and are shared by culture or society and influence the way in which society should function. In sociological terms, ideology is a body of ideas or beliefs that underpins a process or institution that leads to social relation.

Dominant ideology

Dominant ideologies are the messages that are repeated over a long period of time by important social institutions (e.g. church, education, law and the media). They start to become part of everyday life and often people follow the policy of no questions asked as they see it as common sense, this creates a sense of stability for the community.

Dominant ideologies include beliefs about gender, social status and the economy. One idea that is dominant in the more westernised countries is the idea of consumerism, which is where the person is only worth as much as they own, the more they have the more wealth they have and the happy they are. Another concept that is repeated subtly is the belief that violence and force can solve any problem or conflict as shown in action films like die hard.

Mainstream media use dominant ideologies as the audience is more likely to accept the media text, if they challenge societies ideologies then the majority outcome will be that the product will be rejected, resulting in loss of profits. It is very rare that audiences will accept products that challenge the normal format. One success story is rocky horror picture show which breached a lot of the ideologies that were around at the times of its release.

Marxist theory

Karl Marx was the founder of the Marxist theory; he argued that high or aristocratic classes could control the ideas that would be enforced subtly within society at the time. It would affect all aspects of life including religion which was sacred to civilians. He expressed the idea that it is “god’s will” that you’re born into wealth or poverty, if you were unfortunate enough to be born into poor families then you would be rewarded when you go into the next life. Resulting in the disguise of inequality that is present within the country, making it easier for ideologies to suppress the structure of domination and exploitation that exists within society.

Marxists view capitalist society as being one of class domination; the media are seen as part of ideological arena in which various class views are fought out. In both classical and fundamental Marxism, ideology is false consciousness which results from the emulation of the dominant ideology by those whose interest it does not reflect. From this perspective the mass media disseminate the dominant ideology; the values of the class which owns and controls the media.

Antonio Gramski

One theorist that criticized the Marxist view that the society was consuming the media was passive was Antonio Gramski. He claimed that the ruling classes (high class) controlled ideas due to naturalisation. They used ideologies to persuade audiences that the ideologies they were promoting were normal and natural.

Gramski believed that media industries are locked into a power structure resulting in conflict between there ideologies and the dominant ideologies in society.

By Hannah Tabor

Hardware and Software

Hardware

To shoot all the video footage we will be using a canon MD235 Digital video camera that the college has supplied for us. The video camera has 45x advanced zoom which captures more detail than previous other cameras and helps to eliminate camera shake making the overall production run smoother. The true wide high resolution is ideal for playback on a widescreen tv, it also has the option to shoot using wide colour EVF to conserve the battery this will be useful when the camera is running on low battery and there is that little snippet of footage we have to shoot. Quick start will also be useful as we will be able to film the spare of the moment events that may occur that we decide will be effective within our product. LCD video light will be helpful when shooting close up as it illuminates the object even when in poor lighting conditions. All of these features will allow us to make a more professional looking music video.

For both the music video and the ancillary tasks we will take pictures of the locations being used and also of the artist herself and to do this we shall be using a Panasonic lumix digital stills camera, which has also been provided by the college. It is 12 megapixel camera with a 5x optical zoom and a USB connection which allows us to upload the images onto the computer. The advantage of having a 5x optical zoom is the fact that when you zoom in on certain objects the resolution of the camera stays the same so there is no compromise in the quality of the picture. This will become extremely useful whilst performing the ancillary tasks as we can shoot pictures of the artist without making them feeling uncomfortable. Last but definitely not least is the Apple Mac, this will be needed in order to import, edit, store and distribute the footage that has been shot. The computer is fast, large memory and also the graphics on it are better so we can see our project in good quality.

Software

Final cut express is one of the most famous video editing software that Mac has created and because of its success it has gone on to evolve and regenerate. Final cut express allows the user to make professional looking video at ease. It is compatible with the most famous formats used in camcorders, DV, HDV or AVCHD. It has the essential editing for both the video footage and the audio but not only that it has advanced so you can add in titles and graphics, mix your audio tracks and adjust audio and video filters. Apple has also adding in more transitions, filters and effects to give projects a professional touch. For all of these reasons we will be using it to edit our music video. For the ancillary tasks, as it is more physical merchandise we will need to use Photoshop cs3. It is a quick way to make professional photo products such as magazine covers. Some of the main features include:

· Colour correction

· Cloning and healing tools

· Blending layers

· Quick selection

· effects

These features help make the image look pristine and flawless. The errors in the colouring can be altered and corrected.

By Hannah Tabor