The Power of Editing- Inspiration

Bombay Bicycle Club's 'Carry Me' has a very distinct sound and after hearing it, I was eager to see the music video. The video works perfectly alongside the song as it is very creative and the use of artists work on top of the footage is very interesting for the audience. The shots and camera movements are minimal but the video focuses on the excellent and innovative editing. I previously believed that the camera footage was the most important part of creating a music video, but after watching this video, it has allowed me to see the importance of editing as a whole and how it can truly create a story.

Plans for the Christmas Break- Vlog

Here is a brief vlog to explain our plans for the Christmas holidays.

Kaleidoscope

We have edited our kaleidoscope footage and have decided to use it for the chorus. Here is the footage along with the music.

The Editing Continues

The group did a vlog where we discussed editing the footage from Grovelands park, creating the Kaleidoscope, and also whether to add an effect to our final video or not.

Inspiration- NoNoNo

A music video which I think we can draw inspiration from is 'Pumpin blood' by the NoNoNo. This video seems quite similar to ours in terms of both the shots and the camera movements, and also the fact that there is very little in terms of narrative. The simplicity of the video is why it works, and it is something I particularly like.

The idea and concept behind this music video is very uncomplicated and it predominantly focuses on the camera angles and movements. The slow motion panning and tracking shots are very effective as it shows the surroundings of the singer, which is similar to ours as we have decided to base the majority of our video outside. This could be the ideal way in order to show our surroundings as we really want to focus our audiences attention on the nature within our video as we feel we can get some great shots and it will also add to the relaxed vibe of our video.

This video highlights that simplicity is key and we intend to create something similar to this for our final product.

Change of Costume

For our second day of filming on Friday we decided to change our costume from our previous filming day. Anna and Rachel discussed this change, which came as quite a surprise to myself and Lucy as we were unsure whether to wear different clothes for continuity reasons. After researching further into other music videos especially those within the indie genre, we found it was quite usual for a variety of costumes to be worn within a music video and it was also appropriate for our video as we have no real narrative and we do have a change of location. Looking specifically at videos that fall in to the same indie genre as our song,it is evident that the costumes are changed regularly.

'Something good can work' by Two Door Cinema Club shows a change of costume. This close up shot showing the back of the band, shows both the change of costume and the change of location which is something that we have also done as we want to show a variety of surroundings and costumes.

This change of costume due to a change of location seems to happen regularly in music videos as it is also evident in The 1975's 'Girls' video.

These videos highlight how we have adhered to the conventions of an indie music video through our use of costume changes.

Vlog

An update vlog on our trip to Grovelands.

Filming

We began our second day of filming today, and admittedly we went with very little in mind when it came to narrative. We all had some idea of the camera shots we wanted but it was what was going to be filling the shots that was the problem. With a very broad idea of camera angles and shots we felt it would be best to just leave the camera rolling, which allowed us to capture any shots that we thought looked good and the more unsteady shots we discussed could potentially be used for our Kaleidoscope.

We hadn't actually planned where we wanted to begin the filming but the group liked the idea of filming around the stream in Grovelands Park as we thought it would fit very well with our other shots of nature from our filming day at Alexandra Palace. The stream and the very natural surroundings coincide with the vibe we wish to create for our music video. We really wanted to ensure that all four of us were present in the shots, which we found quite difficult as one person would have to be filming at any time but we managed to work around this and we don't think this will be an evident problem in our final footage as we have a great deal of shots with everyone present. 

All in all it was a very productive morning of filming and we plan to get cracking on the editing when we return to media on Wednesday. Here are a few photographs of the group testing some shots...

Preparation for filming

As a group we have been planning our second filming day which will be set at Grovelands park. Having both the open fields and the woods to work with, we can potentially get some really good shots. We are going with little in mind for a narrative but for us we think that this is best, as we are then not tied down to a concept and we can see what works well on the day in terms of shot types and lighting. Having discussed our locations, we feel shots from both Alexandra Palace and Grovelands Park will be quite centered around nature and the surroundings of the 'band'. This enables us to be adventurous with camera angles and shot types as we can focus on the band but also the bands surroundings. Here are just a few photographs of the very picturesque Grovelands Park.

Lip-syncing and Split-screen

Here is some more evidence of our editing process. We decided that lip-syncing would fit well within a small part of the chorus as 'falling' is repeated many times, which allowed us each the opportunity to lip-sync. Looking back at our practice lip-syncing footage, it was extremely useful as not only did it improve our lip-syncing but it also allowed us to experiment with split-screen. Whilst looking at the lip-syncing footage I thought that a split-screen would be appropriate for the final 'falling' as the entire band are involved, therefore it was a unique way of showing all the members of the band lip-syncing. Here is the final footage.

Inspiration- The Killers

I noticed that the opening few seconds of The Killers most recent video, 'Shot at the Night' is quite similar to our opening with the use of both the silhouette and the time lapse.It differs from our footage due to darker lighting used to create the silhouettes, whereas we have chosen for the sun to be our source of light behind the person, making ours a lot brighter coinciding with the mood of the song. 

I previously posted about our idea of changing from slow to fast motion and within The Killers video they also do this. Similarly to the 1+1 music video it is looks really effective and could fit well within our music video.

Make your own Album Cover

This weeks task was to follow these five steps on Pete's Blog to create our very own album cover.

The very first randomly generated Wikipedia article came up with... Trashman. So I got off to a great start.

I then had to find the name of the album by taking the last 4 words from the last quote on this page. This gave me 'You Put In The Hours'.

The third picture on this page gave me my album cover work. A very thought provoking image of an upside down umbrella...

After all of these steps it was time to put all of the parts together which created the final product...

Development of Music Videos/ Restrictions on Explicit Music Videos

Miss Foster posted this on her blog and I thought it was really interesting to see how music videos have developed and how the business has transformed over time.



There is also a huge deal of controversy now in the media about music videos and the content of them. Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke are big names in the industry that have been pointed out for having very explicit footage in their music videos. There is a new campaign being launched for music videos to have ratings on them, to try and limit what young children are watching. In my opinion I do believe that this is a good idea, although I don't think it will be effective as young people today will still be able to access these videos in some way or another. The ratings may force less explicit videos to be produced, as if they are rated, it will have an effect on the amount of people viewing them, therefore could lead to a decline in sales, which may encourage the artists and producers of these videos to create something far less sexually explicit.

Captain Philips

Yesterday, myself and Rachel took a trip to the cinema and watched Captain Philips. It is a phenomenal film based on a true story, and both the acting and cinematography was incredible. I noticed the majority of the shots were handheld, this disorientated and captured the audiences' attention, which really brought them into the action. There was also a great use of extreme long shots, showing the entire picture, but in contrast the use of extreme close ups were really powerful too, showing the emotions of the characters. It really highlighted to me the importance of sound and music in a film, as I now see that it can truly make a film if the music is done correctly. It was bursting with so many unexpected twists and the cinema was filled with 'Ohhs' and 'Ahhs' which came mainly from myself and Rachel. Overall, Captain Philips is a MUST see film.

Sunrise- Final Footage

We have now edited the first 43 seconds of our music video which is a time lapse of sunrise. Here it is is.

Costume

As previously decided, we all wanted to look a little bit 90s when thinking about our costumes. When researching 90's fashion, flannel shirts, denim jackets and doc martens seemed to be everywhere, so I took this into account and decided to use all of these items of clothing.

I don't think I could have possibly been anymore cliche than with a bit of denim and a pair of Doc Martens.

Anna was inspired by this image below and she managed to come up with the outfit on the right.

Lucy also opted for a denim jacket and boots but went for more of a 'rocky' kind of look.

Rachel had the perfect pair of jeans that coincides with our 90s theme and they were paired with a cream crop top.

Editing Vlog

We have experimented with both iMovie and Final Cut Pro, but have come to the conclusion that iMovie is more of a realistic challenge and we still believe that we can achieve a good final product. We have decided that most of our video is going to be edited in iMovie but we do hope to use Final Cut Pro when thinking about certain effects.

Since returning from half term, we have started the editing process. Today we sat down and uploaded all of our footage from last week and found that we have a lot of very good material that can be used in our music video. We began editing and managed to produce the first 8 seconds of our video. I know it doesn't sound like an awful lot, but its a start! Here is a quick Vlog discussing our progress.

Inspiration

When discussing slow motion, an idea that came up was to alternate from slow motion to fast forward. The extreme slow motions used below in Beyonces 1+1 video was an example that Anna and Rachel mentioned and the quick change of speed is something that we intend to create.

Split Screen

Me and Anna took some time to look into how to create a split screen when we were editing our lip-syncing practice, and it was far harder than any of us could have imagined. It was a very tedious process and took much longer than we first anticipated. Knowing how to create a split screen will benefit us greatly as we are all very keen to use it in our music video. Here are some shots leading up to the final product.

Filming has begun

Today, with a mug of tea, a croissant and a pair of socks for gloves, we began filming. With the sun set to rise for 6:50 we all got up bright and early to film, and managed to get to Alexandra Palace for 6:35. It was already bright outside, so we actually thought that we had missed sunrise. We got some good view shots but it wasn't what we were looking for, as we were hoping to create a time lapse of sunrise. 

Then all of a sudden the sun appeared. Myself and Anna ran for our lives trying to set up the tripod on the hill whilst Lucy and Rachel continued filming from the roadside. We were absolutely ecstatic and we managed to get some great footage for our time lapse.

Whilst we were filming the time lapse, it was pointed out that the lighting would be ideal in order to create silhouettes. We had the perfect weather conditions with the clear skies which really allowed for some good shots. Here are a couple of images of the group filming our silhouette shots.

Alexandra Palace Vlog

Postponed

The very day that we wish to begin filming, the UK is set for the strongest storm in a decade. Typical. Filming was meant to commence today but due to the storm we were unable to start. Many trains have been cancelled and as we were planning to go to Alexandra Palace today, we had no way of travelling up there. The rain and the very windy weather didn't seem to be a good idea in order to achieve the very best shots, so we have decided to postpone the filming.

Weather permitting, we will start on Wednesday and if we need more shots, we will plan a couple more days to film in the half term. It looks as if Wednesday is going to be a reasonably good day, so fingers crossed.

Storyboarding

We began to finalise some camera angles and camera movements to use in our video, so I decided to start over and create a new storyboard. There are a few blank boxes as we are yet to decide what angles and movements we will be using in certain parts of the video, but this will give us some guidance when we begin filming on Monday 28th. Below is the illustrations and a brief explanation of what will appear in each frame.

• Time lapse of sunrise [11 seconds]
• Silhouette of Rachel layered on the sunrise [9 seconds]
• Silhouette of myself layered on the sunrise [7.5 seconds]
• Silhouette of Lucy layered on the sunrise [7.5 seconds]
• Silhouette of Anna layered on the sunrise [6 seconds]
• Long shot of band [4.5 seconds]

• Close up shot of boots [2.4 seconds]
• Long shot of band [2 seconds]
• Low angle, 360 shot of trees [2.8 seconds]
• Kaleidoscope [10 seconds]

• Tracking shot of two members of the band [8.5 seconds]
• Close up of a member of the band [2.1 seconds]
• Mid shot of boots[5.3 seconds]
• Panning up of members of the band [8 seconds]
• Wide shot of a member of the band [1.1 seconds]

• Mid shot of a member of the band [1 second]
• Low angle shot of members of the band [2.2 seconds]
• Aerial shot of all four members of the band [1.2 seconds]
• Kaleidosope [15.6 seconds]
• Close up silhouette of Rachel [0.6 seconds]
• Close up silhouette of myself [0.7 seconds]

• Close up silhouette of Lucy [0.6 seconds]
• Close up silhouette of Anna [0.6 seconds]
• Split-screen including all four members [1.6 seconds]
• Panning shot of two members of the band [2.4 seconds]
•  Long shot of all four members of the group walking towards the camera [6.4 seconds]

• Kaleidoscope [0.2 seconds] (Kaleidoscope flashes on the beat)
• Long shot of all four members of the band walking towards the camera [0.8 seconds]- both are repeated 10 times until it fades to black at the ends of the song.

Lip-Syncing Outtakes

Lip-Syncing

In today's lesson we started to prepare for Mondays filming session. I thought it would be a good idea if we practiced our lip-syncing and looking at the outtakes which are to follow, I think you will agree that the practice was most definitely needed. We mimed our first couple of takes, but I mentioned whilst watching Lucy, that miming made it look very false, and the best way to make it look realistic was for us to actually sing. We then built up the courage to faintly sing along with the music and it looked far better.

Final Cut Pro

Looking at previous A2 students work the best videos, I believe were created when the students used Final Cut Pro and we hope to follow in their footsteps to create the best possible video we can. Last year, iMovie seemed like an enormous challenge but we quickly learnt how to work it effectively and therefore wish to push ourselves further. Here is a tutorial on how to use Final Cut Pro and an image of myself and Anna familiarizing ourselves with this new technology.

Story-boarding in Progress

Although we think that a lot of our video is going to consist of the group going "Oh that would be a good shot" on the day, we still think it is important to create a storyboard to have something to go off of. We have decided on many of the shot types that we want and also camera movements but we just need to complete our storyboard. Below is the opening shots and camera movements and also some notes on what is going to be included in our video.

The opening shot is going to be a time lapse of sunrise at Alexandra Palace. I liked this from Lana Del Rey's video 'National Anthem' and something similar to this would fit well with our song.

A side shot will then follow the opening shot. I found this in the Doctor Who trailer and we hope to replicate this.

Below is further evidence of the camera shots and movements, and effects that we plan to use throughout our music video. We have also discussed our costume and make-up choices which will coincide with the 90s feel we hope to create.