ROUGH CUT Vs. ANIMATIC

Today we finished editing the rough cut. At first we thought we had too much footage for the 2 minute 41 seconds song, but after cutting out unnecessary footage and speeding up certain sections of the video in order to be in tune with the beat of the music, the duration was edited down to 1 minute 57 seconds. This has raised a new concern for us to film more footage to last a further 44 seconds. We still have more scenes waiting to be filmed on our storyboard, we are hoping they will elaborate into longer scenes when filming.

Animatic:

Rough Cut:

In comparison we have made some changes to the original animatic, for example some scenes had lasted longer than expected which didn't fit to the beat of the music as exact as our animatic. This is an issue that we are going to improve after we have finished filming the rest of the scenes.

Concerns..

Today we continued editing. During this process, we realised that the lighting was too dark and in some shots you are not able to see the characters face. We are still trying to decide whether we should re-shoot the shots or just try and correct it on Final Cut Pro.

Next lesson we will be editing again.

These scenes are only seconds apart, the lighting in the second scene is much darker and more grey than the first scene, This is affecting the continuity of the video. We were too focused on camera angles and movement so ignored the importance of lighting when we were filming, this would definitely be an area to improve if we decide to film this footage again.

Technical Difficulties!

Today, we uploaded the footage we created on Friday to the computer. It took a long time because of the HD quality, and the fact the the computer was VERY slow. VERY. We struggled to edit anything as the computer would freeze every couple of minutes. Therefore we only cut about 5 shots in total. On Thursday we will be editing the rest and will hopefully get it done in that lesson.

Filming...take two

On the 3rd of December we started filming in Burnham. We only had a couple of hours available so we started straight away. We started at around 2.00pm and filmed non stop until around 5.00pm. We managed to get around half of the footage we needed so we will definitely need to go out and film again. During the filming session, we decided to film all of the outside scenes in a different location to where we originally planned. This is because we could not find a suitable place and could think of a better one. Also, the temperature was around -5 and we didn't want to freeze. As we have two members of the group away today we will decide when to resume filming on thursday.

Filming...take one

Yesterday, we arranged to film most of the music video. However, due to 'unfortunate' circumstances, we had to cancel at the last minute. Hopefully we are going to film on Friday the 3rd of December. This means that we can start editing next Tuesday.

Storyboard

Last week we completed our storyboard. It consisted of around 50 frames. This gave us a good indication of how long our footage lasted and if we needed to add on any extra scenes. It took us around 2 lessons to complete (with the help of our shot list).

Animatic

We have done an animated version of our music video by uploading pictures of our story board, and editing them to the beat of the song on Final Cut Pro. The order of the pictures is based on our shotlist which is also on blogger. It's good practice for the editing of our real product, and also gave us an idea of what our video would look like.

We ended up with 40 seconds of extra time after editing, this would be useful if we decide to add or extend scenes when filming.

The idea of switching between the alarm clock and the character's face to the beat of the music was inspired by Ferris Bueller's Day Off. There was a scene in the museum where Cameron stares at a painting, the camera just simply switched still shots between the character and the painting, and with each switch the shots get closer focus on the character and the painting till the painting becomes difficult to identify. It was extremely intense. We thought this would make an interesting start to our video, plus it would fit in well with the beat of our music. However due to technology limitations we avoided using the extreme close up effect.

location shots 4

SHOT LIST

1. Camera spinning around room-mid shot

2. Close-up of alarm clock going off

3.Close-up of protagonist's face he is asleep

4.close-up of alarm repeated

5.close up of face repeated

6.close up of alarm repeated

7.Mid shot from side waking up

8. close up of face-sat up awake

9.Long shot from side-running down stairs

10.Close up of hands. putting toast in toaster

11.Mid-shot. Brushing teeth. see reflection in mirror.
12.mid shot. Getting dressed
13.Close-up of hands grabbing toast
14.Mid shot. Opens door closes door. Turns around and closes door at work
15. Over shoulder shot-turned around looking into work
16.Close-up. Camera circles from behind him to the front. Facial expression
17.(DREAM SEQUENCE)Getting angry with work on hsi desk-throwing things around
18.Camera by desk area. Walks into scene
19.Midshot. At desk working. over shoulder shot
20.Midshot.looks over to clock
21. Extreme close up of clock. clock moves forward a few hours.
22.Mid-shot of him on phone
23. Boss walks in. Camera moves up boss slwoly from feet to head
24. Low angle shot. Boss shouting at him
25. Close up of protagonist's dream face
26. (DREAM SEQUENCE)Two shot. Gets angry with boss and hits him in the head.
27. Flicks back to reality. Boss still shouting at him
28. Goes through piles of work. Done pile and to-do pile- fast forwards through him working mid shot

29. Boss walks in and gives more work just as he finishes midshot.
30. Something indicates lunch
31. Long shot pan from his socialising workmates to him isolated
32. Over the shoulder of him opening his lunch box and he has a potato
33. Upset face, close up-switches to dream face
34.(DREAM SEQUENCE)Lunch box is full of muffins etc
35. Cuts back to eating a potato
36. soemone spills a drink on him mid shot
37. Walks back to office long shot sits down
38. Accidently staples tye to desk left diagonal midshot.
39. Computer freezes over the shoulder shot
40. Pencil snaps-ferris bueler repeat shot with incresing zoom
41. Snaps pencil close up
42. Throws paper on floor long shot
43. Pushes chair over long shot
44. Pulls tye off close up
45. Messes hair up close up switches to him seeing boss
46.Pulls potato from pocket follows hand to his face close up-throws potato
47. Boss reaction close-up

Filming and editing test

This is our test filming and editing footage for the day dream sequence in the video. Unfortunately we had difficulties exporting the video to Quick Time Movie format, there are a few jumps in this video and not all footages were presented at the end.

We tried 3 different ways of showing the character slipping in and out of a day dream. The first one was items appearing out of thin air when he dreams of it, then disappearing when he snaps out of his dream. This was done by pausing his action to place the water bottle in his hands and take it away again. This was difficult because it required perfect match on action and continuity. We were later told that it seemed more like real life actions than a day dream sequence.

Our second idea was inspired by the American series Scrubs, where day dreams and reality is heavily mixed up. Their characters often go straight from the reality to a day dream without any indication of such process, then snaps back to reality in a white flash. However their day dream sequences are normally made to be very unrealistic to avoid confusion. We tried this with a scene from our story board where our character was yelled at by his boss. It went well however it was difficult to tell which was the day dream, which was reality.

Our final idea was used commonly by many media products, an example of such was from Dumb and Dumber. The character is experiencing reality, then through a white flash he day dreams about the situation, then goes back to reality in a second white flash. We used the workplace scenario again, it worked very well to separate reality from his day dream. It also had positive feedback from our tutor.

Location shots 3

These are photos of my (Coco) house, so far we've decided this is the most suitable filming location due to the professional outlook of the office attached to the house. This would be helpful in making the scenes of his workplace look realistic.

As for the rest of the house, although it looks a little too big for the conventional bachelor flat, we could improvise this with close ups, different camera angles and mise on scene to produce an ideal presentation of our character in the video.

Such as the scenes in the kitchen, instead of having long shots of the whole view of the kitchen, we could use close up camera shots of typical kitchenware such as a toaster or a kettle. This would clearly establish being in the kitchen without having to show the whole view.

Location shots-part two

Location Shots

After deciding the shot locations needed to achieve the scenes in our music video: A bedroom, bathroom, a music room, hall, stairs, kitchen.. we agreed to all take photographs of these locations in our own homes to find out which house would work best for filming.

Charlotte -

MASSIVE CHANGE!

We have decided to change our music video's basic plot, and editing. Rather than use quick multiple shots and a rockstar dream thing, we decided to use a daydreams related to JD's daydreams in the television show Scrubs:







When he drifts off to his day dreams there is normally a distinctive noise and flash of a blank screen, to make sure the audience know he is daydreaming.
The storyline will be about a man living his boring, mundane life. When certain things happen to him such as teenagers/yobs on the bus giving him trouble, he will go off in a daydream, and in that day dream he imagines what he would like to do (in this case it would be shouting at them and standing up for himself) when he reverts back to real life he doesn't do anything and just takes it. This happens throughout the day with different problems.

Overall we feel that this would be much easier to film than the rock star idea in terms of props, locations and actors. The idea of a regular guy who is having a terrible day at work, and has been unhappy with life for a long time finally breaks down in the office would also be far easier for our target audience to relate to (less ambitious and more common than being a rock star). We would use the difficulties he faces at work to add humour to the video, as we intend to make a part comedy music video.

TARGET AUDIENCE

We talked about similar bands to Evanfly and discussed their target audience.

We decided it was best to play the song to people from different age groups and ask them what do they think of the song, what bands does it remind them of, and who would the target audience be.

We summarized the feedback we got from the interviews and concluded that the style of the band is similar to the Jam, and our audience would range from teenagers to middle age music lovers.

Actor-change of plans

The person who we originally cast as our main character has changed his mind and decided he cannot take part due to time limitations. So, we have thought of possible replacements. It can either be Jake ( group member) or one of our dads. We are also considering using a female character instead, which would be one of ours mums. This could possibly add humour to the video. We will update you when we have made a decision!

Digipak drafts

We sketched a few drafts of our possible Digipak cover:

Possible actors and locations

Actor choice: We originally thought about using Charlotte's stepdad Dale, as he is in his 40s, which is around the age of our target audience. He is also the guitarist in a local Burnham band called the Ginger Hitlas. We thought this is useful as we could use some of the footages from his gigs in our video to represent his rockstar dream.

We also thought about using Charlotte's brother, who is 12 years old. We thought it would make the video more humorous to have a child representing a grown up, similar media products such as the School of Comedy.

We have spoken to both of them and they have agreed to be in the video.

As for location, we thought about using One of our houses for the main characters house and an office. One is an office in a back garden (Coco's house), Jazmin's studio, Charlotte's music room and the other one is shickle shoes (Coco's workplace) and Jake's dirty room.

Digipak

SOOO, first we decided to research similar bands to Evanfly, and there Digipaks and advertisements.

Green day, we liked this idea of split screen because it is similar to ours in the way that although these two men are different they

are kinda the same because they are nimrods. We'll use this idea for our Digipak as it link to our storyline with the idea of a split life.

Oasis: we liked the background of this Digipak, it's down-to-earth and easy to relate to every day life, which is what we want for our music video. Also, the fact that it has the band name Oasis on the cover. It reinforces the band image therefore makes it memorable to the audience. This is similar to the Evanfly album we have, which has their designed Evanfly logo on the cover, and a picture of the band in the streets.

The Dandy Warhols:

We thought about having one strong image on the cover, which has no direct relation to the song, but it's memorable to the audience.

They also have their band name written right across most of their albums. They tend to use the same font so it appears as a brand name rather than just a music band. The fans would also recognize the band straight away. This repetition of a strong brand image is what we want for our Digipak.

A change

INSTEAD of using a reverse effect to give a strange physiological effect to our piece, we have decided to use multiple repeat shots(similar to the xx's islands) with slight changes to show the mundane repetition of his life. The dream sequences at the chorus will still stay the same. Only the verses will be affected by this decision.

The reason for this change was for many reasons. One, we felt using multiple shots matched the tempo of the song better than reversing everything. Secondly, it is much easier to understand the storyline, and finally it contrasts from his reality life to his dream as his dream would not be a repetition. Also, reversing didn't have a strong effect within normal activities .

TEST

We did some test filming for some of the techniques we decided to use for our music video:

1st: We filmed Jake closing a door, then reversed it on Final Pro which made it looked like he was opening it. However it didn't have a strong effect.

we also used the similar technique with him walking down the corridor, picking the 'wet floor' sign up etc, the finished video didn't look any different to how it would have looked with no reverse effect.

At the end we tried the reverse effect with a prop: scarf. It made the reverse effect more obvious. However this exercise has made us rethink about our filming ideas.

IDEA PITCH

We presented our blog to the class today and got feedbacks from other media groups. Here are the comments:

• Good ideas, confident pitch, lots of information, blog colours very vibrant and original.
• Exellent and unique and creative concept.
• Storyline of the music video sounds appealing.
• Relevant research into similar videos, ideas and experimenting different camera use and similar bands.
• Lots of information about influences.
• Good details about copyright permission.

Suggestions for improvement:

• include planing and film exercises (e.g split screen).
• Add treatment for secure target audience.
• Cut down ideas as it would be difficult to use all of them in the video.
• Add sketches of storyboard, digipack and magazine adverts.
• More research into the promotion of the video.

We also took ideas from other people's blog which were very well presented:

INSPIRATION

As inspired by the music and lyrics of Here We Go Again, we decided to have a charater who would appear to be an average middle age man stuck in a 9 to 5 job and has the same rountine every single day, however there's a rockstar inside of him dying to come out and embrace life.

We want to mix his real life and dream life on screen to show his frustration and confusion. We came up with many different ideas of how to present this dilemma. Here are some of them:

1st: to have two scenes happening at the same time on one screen so the drastic difference of his rockstar dream life and his reality can be on clear display. This is an example of how it can be done:

2nd: 10 second at the start to show his set rountine for the day, then repeat throughout the video making small variations every time. This shows his boredom and frustration of his own life. (Similar video: XX- Islands)

3rd: start the video at the end of the day where he goes to bed, then the video rewinds his whole day by reversing all motions (as seen in Coldplay-The Scientist), it ends by him waking up to the day with his alarm going off in the background (could relate to the last lyric:' here we go again...') signifies repetition of his boring life.

BRAIN STORM

This is a little sum up of our ideas and research for the video. We used mostly keywords from our notes that were inspired by similar songs and videos from the same music genre as Here We Go Again, which is punk/indie/rock as included above.

For our research we looked at the Dandy Warhols' Bohemian like you, the video had a very typical carefree rockstar spirit which we found useful in building our own character, which is a wanabe rockstar.

We also looked at Coldplay - the Scientist, the video starts off with a close up of Chris Martin's face and slowing zooming out, he appears to be on a bed in the corner of a street. As the video goes on everything appears to be reversed, as if rewinding a tape it goes through a whole day and gradually goes to the beginning of the story. We liked how this video grabs attention right from the beginning till the end, as by showing the end of the story at the start of video makes the viewers curious to find out about the story. This is something we would definately consider using in our own video. We also really liked the reverse effect, it's similar to Janoski's Nike advert as shown in previous post, however Janoski's idea was to film the entire video by backwards motions, then rewinding them to make the video look like its played in the right order.



Whichever way, we liked the reversing idea.

REWIND!

This is the video of Janoski's Nike advert, during some scenes the footage was recorded as the person did everything backwards, then the footage was played in rewind in the editing stage to give a strange surreal effect. We decided we would like to experiment with this technique. However we would use this throughout the majority of the video. We also like the technique of recording the sky throughout the day(00:41). It's a clever way of representing time change.

SONG CHOICE

This is a song by Evanfly, an unsigned band from around Weston. Here are the lyrics:



Here We Go Again



You've got that feeling in you don't let it slip away,

If you get lost for words i'll tell you what to say,

You like to walk around with your head in the cloud,

Well that's the way to be, don't let them bring you down.




It's all so wonderful, to live inside your head

Just wake up everyday, and tell yourself.....




Here we go again




You've got that rock 'n' roll look it's burning in your eyes,

I saw the hunger in you so i'm not surprised,

You're gonna rise up now and blow them all away

Your gonna give them everything they want today.




It's all so wonderful to live inside your head

Just wake up everyday and tell yourself.....



Here we go again Here we go again

We disagreed on the song choice a few times because we also liked one of their other songs called Just My Frame of Mind. In the end we settled for this song as its slightly shorter and has a faster tempo, which means we can play with editing a bit more to fit in with the beat.

FIRST POST

hellooooo, hey guys welcome to our blog. YAY super fun happy time. ENJOY our super RAD(radical) music video.

Song copyright/permission

We emailed Steve Mitchell yesterday asking for permission to use his songs and he said we were welcome to use them. Here is the conversation:

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

AND THE JOURNEY BEGINS

Today we looked at different unsigned bands on Myspace and Youtube, for example My Lost Obsession, Cosmo Jarvis, Bobby Cameron and many more, we also went on http://www.unsignedbandweb.com/ and looked at artists such as Anthony Cavazos. However none of their songs really appealed to us, in the end Jaz suggested a local band she knew called Evanfly, we went on their music profile on Myspace and listened to their songs. We all liked the one called Here We Go Again, but because the band has split up it would be difficult to gather them together for our music video. So we will write to them to get their permission to use their music, and look for people to appear in our music video.