Filming - Hall Place

Yesterday, my group and I successfully filmed more footage for our project. We have managed to gain a couple of shots which we will upload onto Adobe Premier Pro CS3 to play around with once we get back to school. We have planned to have another day of filming tomorrow to ensure that we can go to different places and have more footage that we can play around with. I have included some photos below that were taken on our most recent filming day:

When filming these scenes we took the mise-en-scene into account. We believed that the theme of love and romance could be portrayed in these scenes with the romantic walks in the woods and walks across fields.

Artist Shots

Last Thursday we successfully managed to take several shots for our artist shots. We have taken a variety so that we can use them in our ancillary tasks too. I have included some of the images that were taken below:

We chose to do our images like this because from looking at previous examples of artist shots we were able to understand the common conventions. The first image is similar to the image taken of Daniel Merriweather (below) as we have made our lead singer, Peter, clasp his hands together. However, we have chosen not to make Peter have eye contact with the camera as we thought it may look more effective. I do, however, believe that now from looking at the image it may have been more effective if Peter had been looking at the camera so that the target audience felt more involved when looking at it.

Changing of Ideas

From changing our lead singer from Kyle to Peter we now have to reshoot the footage that we have already taken. This is because one of the shots that we took includes an image of Kyle and me in a photo, this now needs to change to an image of me and Peter. We will still be following the original narrative that we had created as we believe that if we were to change this we would be wasting valuable time.

From deciding that we need to reshoot, my group and I were going to reshoot today. However, after sitting down in our lesson and talking about it we decided that we were no longer going to film today as we needed to plan exactly what needed to be done. From doing this we have now told each other when we are free to film in the Christmas holidays, what we are going to film in the Christmas holidays and where. I have included an image of the new production schedule below that we hope to follow:

My group and I are still going to shoot our artist shots today though as we feel that this will benefit us well. From knowing that the artist shots are taken we would then be able to, individually, develop our print work ideas with the images that we have taken.

Shot List Remake

Due to the change of cast, my group and I had to change the shot list. We had to change the shot list because our previous lead singer, Kyle, was written in it whereas we need to now change that to Peter. I have included an updated version of the shot list below:

Recasting

Today my group and I sat down and spoke about the development of this task. We have decided to recast our music video by replacing our original lead singer, Kyle, with another boy, Peter. We chose to do this as we would need to film footage over the Christmas holidays but our original lead singer is on holiday. We have chosen to use Peter as he has the same study periods as we have at school, he is available throughout the Christmas holidays and has happily agreed to do it.

From changing our lead singer we had to make changes to our timeline of the shots we are going to create. Below is a copy of the changed timeline:

From deciding that we are going to change the lead singer in our production we now need to reshoot the shots that we took at the bakery. We need to reshoot as the image that I have in my hand in one of the scenes is of me and Kyle but we now need to change that to me and Peter. However, we do not think that this will be a problem as we can get a lot of our footage, if not all, done over the Christmas holidays now that we are using Peter compared to getting no footage done if we were using Kyle. We will still be using the same narrative as before for our production.

Artist Shots - Problem

Today, my group and I planned to take pictures of our lead singer, Kyle. We managed to book out the cameras that we needed to use, book out the art rooms and our lead singer turned up on time. However, we faced a problem that would not allow us to carry on our task as an art exam was occuring causing the art rooms to be locked at lunchtime which is where the cameras were. We will now have to reschedule our photoshoot for another day.

Magazine Advertisement Drafts

After completing the research for our magazine advertisments, I decided to create 3 different types of drafts of which I can use for my ancillary task. I have included the logo that we had created onto two of the drafts which would create iconography for the target audience as they will relate the text to Daniel Merriweather.  I have included images of these drafts below:

Magazine Advertisement Research

My group and I decided to continue working on our ancillary tasks once we had researched our cd covers. We have now decided to research magazine advertisements so that we all know the common conventions of magazines. From knowing this, we can all start creating our magazine advertisements in our own time. I have included 3 examples of magazine advertisements that we found below:

These magazine advertisements are individually different, the first one consists of a band shot, the second one consists of an artist shot and the third one consists of a location shot. I believe that the image used on the third advertisement is a CGI (computer generated image). The image used in the second advertisement consists of a head shot of the artist, from researching these magazines I feel as though the second advertisement is the most appropriate for my own project. I believe this because the song that my group and I have chosen consists of one artist therefore we would need to include a head shot of our artist. I will also consider using quotes in my magazine advertisement as I feel that this is another way to lure the audience into buying the album being advertised. 

Artist Shot Research

My group and I have decided that we want to carry on progressing in our task and in order to do this we thought that it would be a good idea to arrange an artist shot photo shoot. However, before we do this we need to research into the sort of shots we need to take in order to make the shots look professional. We also needed this research so that we could find out the common conventions for shots like these. Below are some examples of the shots we found:

From looking at these shots we found that a common convention was to use a white background. From knowing this, my group and I have decided to use the art room in our school as this is where a white screen is available which is appropriate for us to take pictures on. We have also noticed that all of the artists in these pictures have eye contact with the camera which helps to make the audience feel more involved. Below is a picture of Daniel Merriweather, the singer of our chosen song, standing in front of a white background and maintaining eye contact with the camera.

From completing our research, my group and I have decided to book our the art room next Thursday lunchtime in order to take pictures of our lead singer, Kyle, ready to use for our ancillary tasks.

CD Cover Drafts

After completing the research for our cd covers, I decided to create 3 different types of drafts of which I can use for my ancillary task. I have included images of these drafts below:

When creating these drafts I took into consideration the common conventions that I had previously found when looking at other CD covers made for Daniel Merriweather. I have included a close up shot of Daniel Merriweather for one of the CD covers as well as an extreme long shot for another.

CD Cover Research

My group and I decided to research various cd covers that had been created for Daniel Merriweather. Below are a few of the ones that we found:

We found that each cd cover consisted of the same font style as this can be easily noticed by the target audience. Two out of the four covers consist of close up shots of Daniel Merriweather whereas the other two are slightly away from the camera. This seems to be a common convention so my group and I will take this into consideration when creating our CD covers.

Shot List

After completing the timeline for our production, my group and I were able to come up with a shotlist to make sure that we knew which shots needed to be taken. We have written down a summary of each shot and then which type of shot that we are going to use such as a long shot and various others. I have included an image of the shotlist below:

Rushes

From completing our first try at filming, me and my group decided to try and edit our footage using Adobe Premier Pro CS3. We were able to do this as we had created a timeline of what we wanted the whole of our music video to consist of. I have included a print screen of the timeline below for your reference. Our timeline also consists of the various different shots that we are planning to use such as an over the shoulder shot, a close up and a long shot.

I have also included an image of my group and I working on Adobe Premier Pro CS3 editing the footage that we got from our filming day.

The First Try At Filming

From successfully passing our pitch, my group thought that it would be a good idea to proceed into filming. We decided that we would do the scene at the bakery as it was near and convenient to do at the time. We chose to film this section during our two media periods as this would give us time to film the scenes then upload them on to the school video editing machines. Below are some pictures that we took whilst we were filming. We chose to use a tripod when filming this as we believe that a hand-held shot would make the film look less professional and wouldn't give us stable shots.

The filming went quite well for this scene, however, we do need to look at what we have produced more closely by using Adobe Premier Pro. From doing this we can then see if the several shots that we took were the types of shots that we wanted.

To make sure that we keep filming whenever all of the group are free, my group have created a production schedule. This production schedule is only a draft and will show us how well we need to be with our time keeping. I have included an image of the production schedule below:
 

Storyboarding

I have included images of the storyboards that we have created below. These storyboards consist of a description of each of the shots that we are going to take as well as the type of shots used whether it being an extreme close up or a long shot.

By creating these storyboards, my group and I were able to think of the narrative of our music video. We also decided which locations we were going to use as well as the different shots that we were going to use whether it being extreme close-ups, long shots or other types of shots. By sketching out our ideas on these storyboards, my group and I always had something to relate back to if we had forgotten what we were meant to be filming.

Creating Our Logo

From looking at previous logos created by various different artists, my group and I decided to create our own. We have chosen to use the colours red and black as the song that we have chosen is called Red which goes with the house style that we have chosen. We chose to use this font style as it similar in ways to ones that have previously been created by Daniel Merriweather. We chose to make it bold as it was a common convention in previous logos that I had looked at.

On creating our logo we had to create a style sheet so that each group member would maintain the same house style for the ancillary tasks. I have included an image of the style sheet below.

Logo Research

When deciding what we wanted our group logo to be, my group and I decided to research the logo that Daniel Merriweather originally uses. An example of this can be seen below:

  
This logo has been used on every cd cover that Daniel Merriweather has created. This is a good idea as it allows the target audience to easily recognise which cd belongs to Daniel Merriweather as it follows the common house style of his traditional cd covers.

When deciding what we wanted our group logo to be, me and my group decided to research other logos rather than just Daniel Merriweather's so that we could get a better understanding of the common conventions that artists followed. Below are examples of some of the logos that we have found: 

Preliminary Task

For the preliminary task we were split into several groups. My group consisted of me, Sam Robinson, Gemma Vernon and Tayo Adeboye. We had to create an open day video in order to help us gain more confidence in Adobe Premier Pro so that we were able to confidently use it for our main task, the music video. My group had to make an open day video based on extra curricular activities and school trips. By doing this we were able to fully understand the amount of planning that we needed to do and the amount of time we needed to spend on editing our footage.

Above is one of the two final edits of the videos that me and my group had to create. We gained ideas for this project by looking at previous examples so that we could get an idea of the common conventions used in videos like these. From looking at our creations and comparing them to previous examples we were able to see what we could improve which would help us in preparation for our advanced task, the music video.

Pitching

Last week my group and I presented our pitch. We had to do the following:

- Preliminary research into the genre and type of project chosen
- Identification of the target audience
- Storyboard ideas
- Location ideas with scouting images
- Casting
- Mood boards
- Ancillary tasks for each candidate
- Production schedule
- Allocation of roles

When creating our pitch, my group and I decided that it would be a good idea to sit down at a computer and look at the sort of music videos which followed the same idea as we had for ours. Below is an image of my group and I looking through videos on the computer and seeing the sort of ideas that we could use from them in our own music video.

I have included two of the videos that we found beneficial when looking through music videos on the computer. Below each music video I will explain what we thought would be good ideas to take from these music videos.

The video above is called The A Team by Ed Sheeran. We liked the idea of the girl sitting in a busy street with everyone else looking as though they are walking past her in fast forward. We thought this would be a good technique as it would show isolation which is the idea we want to come across in our music video. We would film a long shot to show this isolation as this is a common convention when using this technique in other music videos.

The video above is called Stay by Jay Sean. This video gave us the idea of having the lead singer in our music video sing in a studio but then a narrative story following in line with it. We would then be able to use jump cuts in this which was follow a common convention of the sort of music video that we are making. We also liked the idea of using a projector in a music video as this creates a variety which will keep our target audience interested.

We successfully passed our pitch but had to make a few changes to our ideas. We had to change one of the locations that we had thought of, my house, as this does not represent the home of a young adult. We also had to produce a more detailed storyboard so that it would be easier for us to film our music video as we would know exactly what we want to do.


Even though we had to make a few changes to our pitch we still feel confident in our idea for our music video. The mood boards that we created helped us find confidence as it gave us ideas as to what sort of shots would be appropriate for our type of music video.


The image below is a picture of the mood board we created for the album covers.

The image below is a picture of the mood board that we created for the types of shots that we want to use. These are print screens from the music video Stay by Jay Sean which I have included above.

Love & War

Daniel Merriweather was born on the 17th of February 1982, he's an Australian R&B singer/songwriter. His debut album, Love & War, was released in June 2009 which consists of the song, Red, that me and my group are using as our song choice for this project. 'Red' and 'Change' from this album made it to the top 10 in the singles chart which shows that Daniel Merriweather has a strong audience and that the song we are using was successful. Below is an image of the album cover for 'Love & War':

Below is a tracklist of the songs included in the album 'Love & War', I have also included some of the music videos from the album as we looked at these to look at the common conventions that Daniel Merriweather had used within each of the music videos that he had created:

1- For Your Money
2- Impossible
3- Change (feat. Wale)
4- Chainsaw
5- Cigarettes
6- Red
7- Could You
8- Not Giving Up
9- Getting Out
10- Water and a Flame
11- Live by Night
12- Giving Everything Away for Free

Change:

The video portrays the emotions of which Daniel Merriweather is feeling. A clear narrative is shown in this video which is the concept that my group and I want to use for the video that we produce for 'Red'.

Getting Started

From creating this blog about a week ago my group have now decided which song we are going to create a music video for. We made our decision by writing down a list of potential choices then printed out a copy for each member of the group. Each member of the group then had to select 5 songs of which they liked the most. From doing this we were then able to see which songs were the most popular between us allowing a strong decision to be made, 'Red' by Daniel Merriweather. A print screen of the song ideas can be seen below.

The video below is the original music video for the song that we have chosen, Red by Daniel Merriweather.

We thought that this would be a good song to use as there is a clear narrative behind it. By having a clear narrative it makes it easier for my group to think of what to film. This should then appeal to our target audience which is important in the construction of this project.