Brief & Proposal

Here is the brief and original proposal from the begining of the project


AS Brief: Film
To create the opening sequence of a new thriller, including the titles, aimed at a 15 or 18 certificate audience (approximately two minutes duration)

A2 Brief: Music Video Production
To create a music video for a song (approx 5 minutes in duration)

The main difference between the AS and A2 brief is that the medium has now changed from a film to a music video. Creating a music video means that we can now choose our target audience therefore allowing a lot more creativity to be put into the video. With the A2 project we now have control over the style of video we want to produce however it must correspond with the music genre. Unlike the AS project we also have to use lip syncing which will require the ability to edit the video with good timing. Many previous existing thriller openings just used a traditional film; however with the A2 project we now have the freedom to choose what format we create the video with, whether it is flash animation, stop frame animation or even documentary style. With the A2 project we have also reduced group sizes to pairs or individual work, this allows us to have greater responsibility for our own work unlike our AS project.



Proposal
I have decided to create a music video for my piece of coursework. I have chosen this area because I am highly interested in a variety of music and feel it would be more of a challenging project to work on. For my music video I was considering using a screamo indie song as it would appeal to a variety of audiences and this genre would also provide me with a lot of ideas and influences. For this genre I was also contemplating using a character instead of a band as it could provide me with a larger diversity of settings.

My progress

Since the start of my music video project, I have not only developed the locations, I have also gained a better understanding of editing pace and scene choice. The location choice in the beginning seemed as though it would suit the style of the video, however after creating my first anamatic, I found that the setting wasn’t appropriate to the chosen genre of music video and gave me a limited amount of room to film in. The shoot in a more urban location developed the authenticity of my music video and allowed me to progress other ideas on location. One of these ideas was to change the time of day, the second scene was no longer filmed in daylight as the location may not have fitted well with the codes and conventions of the rock genre, so being filmed at night made a significant improvement.

From this my ideas for the plot of the music video progressed slightly. I realised that with the new settings and lightings, the video was becoming more serious and for the narrative character to realise that the whole video was a dream wouldn’t fit with the rest of the video anymore.

Getting a band together with a crowd took a lot of organization with people, however not enough preparation was put into it on the day, so I ended up with no drum kit and the location not looking as it should have done therefore making little progress. From this I learned to give more time to the preparation on the day of the shoot so that I don’t have to waste time re-shooting it to make it look more professional. In the process of editing my first band footage, I realised that the frames weren’t fast paced enough, therefore slowing the video down and making it look less like a rock video. After re-shooting and getting more footage I was then able to shorten the frames and use a larger variety of shot choices which was a great success in bringing me up to the stage where my rough cut looks more professional.

Band scene

Tommorow night I am planning to shoot my band scene. I have found a bridge with lots of room under it, i have found a van to get the drum kit and large speakers there. It will be shot in the dark, whilst raining around the bridge, using 3 sets of car headlights to light the band...I hope it lights it well enough otherwise I will have to shoot it in daylight which wont look as good.

I have decided to not use a crowd as it's too hard to organize and the last crowd didn't give the right feel to the video. Also this way it will put more focus on the band themselves.

Then hopefully edit that footage thursday night and my music video will nearly be completed by friday and only a few minor things will need reshooting.

music video

At the moment, the band scene in this video looks too much like it's pretending to be in  gig, whereas i either need to make it look like it's a band playing at a house party, or a gig. 

Also because there is only one narrative character it may look too boring, and it might not establish the plot enough, so i have got to incorporate another character e.g. the girlfriend, to show that the relationship has ended. This could be shown with her inside the house looking through the telecom at him. I could also put an interval in the song where she tells him that it is over, which could make it easier for the audience to understand the plot.

Filming

After editing all of my first shoot I realised i needed a lot more clips and a wider variety of angles and depths, I hope to do this tomorow. On monday i filmed the band part of my video which i am currently editing, I got loads of footage of this just incase, however i think i need more shots of the crowd. I plan to shoot the 3rd scene tomorow.

Textual analysis of music video's

The Darkness - I Believe in a Thing Called Love

The frames in this video were very long, which is unusual of a rock music video. The characteristics of the genre aren't shown through the setting, but the lead character is very stereotypical of a rock band. The word love is being constantly reinforced by both the sexual nature of the character and the mise-en-scene which is red to symbolize love. This video is mainly concept and perfromance based.

Airbourne - Too much, Too young, Too fast

This video has lots of pans and tilts, which gives a faster pace to the video, this is also helped by the amount of movement from the band and the short frames. The plain background gives the audience nothing else to focus on but the band, therefore making the video more performance based. There are a variety of shots used and a lot of close ups of the vocalist, however not so many of the rest of the band.

Audience research

The qualitative data collected from my the questionaires confirmed my idea of what the characters in the band should look like. "Leather Jackets", "Emo fringe" and "Skinny jeans" are all characteristics which my band members need to have.