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.