Animatic Feedback

We are one step closer to producing the real thing but, after watching this animatic and analysising it, it is clear that there is a lot to sort out. Our feedback involved a few teachers and the rest of the class.

- The biggest point we recieved is that the performance element - this needed to be MUCH more involving, meaning that we use more shots and 'cut-tos' of the band throughout the music video. Although we do still have the 'build up and reveal' of the band, we will plant little 'i want more' scenes into the music video.

- Another one was "What generates the girl to run upstairs?" - what is she running from or too. As a group we haven't yet decided on this, there are a few possibilities floating around like the Mad Hatter grabs her and throws her upstairs or she follows him or she is caught on something that practically drags her upstairs. We don't know yet but it isn't a major problem and something that can be easily decided.

- Also, a point that definitely needs to be decided is what exactly what needs is occuring in our wide shot chaos scene we need to individually pick out each aspect of the wide shot and list what exactly is going on. So who is on the stairs, how are we dressng the set? Because it is a large space, we need to really fill it and get down to specificity.

Costumes

As a matter of costumes, we agreed that we needed authenticity so as to not get the teenagers-dressed-in-tacky-costumes look. We wanted our costumes used to be the instantly recognizable costumes (taken from the "Fallen Princesses" photography series, juxtaposing the surrounding chaos with the fairytale characters we all know and love). However, to give the costumes a twist we were going to have the characters dirtied, muddied or ripped. We cannot do these with hired costumes presumably but the makeup of the characters with be ruined and their exposed arms will be muddied. After some research I found a few good 'local' hire shops with the right kind of stock we needed, we were also going to research into the Hurtwood Costume Department stock. 

http://www.fairygodmother.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=85_87


http://www.thedressingupshop.com/index.php?id=3


http://www.thejokeshop.co.uk/entered.php

Target Audience

• Both Male and Female
• Dresses in alternative/indie clothes
• Age - Teenage up to mid twenties
• Lives in Europe or US
• Not really into sports - more into the arty side of things. 
• Goes to festivals and live performers
• Any race. 
• Doesn't discriminate through classes nor is defined by a class of their own. 
• Prefers non-mainstream music
• Has a couple of tattoos

Location

Our original location ideas were focused on Leith Hill, a National Trust owned empty house just five minutes away from Hurtwood - but we soon ran into many different problems - we would need to book an appointment to see the venue, it is bare and we would need to supply ALL furniture within the shoot (which is a lot after much contemplation) and finally we would need to supply our own generator. So this was one of the many problems that initially disheartened us. However, we had a revelation that had been staring at me in the face - we decided to use my own home. Its staircase and multiple rooms (which we needed to be furnished) are all perfect for our shoot. I feel like we can really dress up the house and make it very theatrical for our film shoot. Such as draping the windows and dressing the house with random furniture. I am convinced that this location is the right one because we have much more control not as much as we would in the studio but this is a very location heavy shoot. 

Legal Letter

To:  VAGRANT RECORDS

We are a group of A Level students working on an A Level project for a qualification in Media Studies. We are writing to request permission to use the following track as part of this project:
EELS - FLYSWATTER

With your permission the track would be used as the accompaniment to a short form video that is made purely for assessment purposes and will have no commercial usage. The video will be viewed only by members of the school community and the assessor of the examination board.


The artist and the copyright holder will of course be fully recognised in the pre-production and evaluation material that accompanies the project. We can also include a full copyright notice if required both in the planning material and on the video itself.


Yours sincerely

 SABRINA SALMON, COURTNEY MADINCEA AND SARAH WICHALL
Hurtwood House School

Feedback

There is some good work here, Courtney, and it is pleasing to see that you have made up some of the ground missed during the HFA shoot.  As a result, your blog is developing effectively and there is a clear sense of direction emerging from your research.  One major omission is the target audience - you must set out a profile of your ideal listener upon which you can base your creative decisions.

James

Album Cover Art:

All our lives we've been exposed to album covers - be it iTunes art or Vinyl covers - and although we know the saying "don't judge a book by its cover"... we still do. The album artwork must represent where the song wants to take the listener. It shouldn't give everything away but it should be just a tasty temptation into what the song wants to unleash. So browsing the internet I found myself being drawn to the more hand drawn and antique-with-a-twist style album covers. Although the faces of the singers may be hidden or small in these styles of albums the artwork itself - in my opinion - adds so much to the whole star image. Having artwork instead of band members really makes a statement and shows to their fan base what "they are all about". I found that I liked the more abstract and arty covers. Especially from Panic! At The Disco and Fall Out Boy:

I think intriguing and non-mainstream album art-pieces are striking and grab attention almost immediately. This is a good technique to attract new followers of a band - another browsing on iTunes or somewhere like HMV will be drawn to the artwork and listen to the music to get a taste for this - and I cannot tell you how often this specific experience has happened for me. 

Our First Draft Timeline

PRE ROLL:


Little girl skipping down a path towards house, humming chorus of "Flyswatter" - with a box of cookies in her hands. Comes to the door -
Girl - "Knock knock" (Mad Hatter opens the door) "Excuse me sir, would you like to buy some cookies?"
M.H - " Why some cookies would be wonderful! I'm having a tea party, won't you come in?"

TRACK BEGINS 

00.02 - Mad Hatter puts his hand out
00.07 - Girl takes hand and walks into dark house (Door closes behinds her)
00.09 - Lights come on!
00.09 - 00.17 - tracking shot of overall of choas
00.17 - 00.21 - Cards falling from the ceiling, pigs running through ect.
21.00 - 00.25 - Pushed into tv lounge
00.25 - M.H singing
00.30 - sleeping beauty passed out of couch
00.33 - princesses fighting over tiara
00.40 - band preforming in bare room
00.45 - close up of mad hatter singing
00.53 - girl runs up stairs
00.57 - walking through dark creepy hallway
1:00 - Girl walks into bedroom and see little red riding hood and wolf in bed
1:04 - Red riding hood and wolf sit suddenly on the gutair riff
1:05 - Girl covers her eyes and runs away to bathroom and slams door
1:08 - turns around to see Captain hook in the bath playing with toy boats
1:16 - Girl runs out and down stairs
1:20 - Close ups on band preforming
1:32 - Girl wanders into tea party
1:43 - M.H stands on table singing
1:50 - March hare pours the tea and she drinks
2:00 - shots of characters around the room
2:04 - Girl eats a piece of cake with a toothpick that says "Eat me" on it
2:09 - 2:20 - Flashbacks of all the characters around the house
2:24 - Girls faints and lands in the cake
2:32 - Girls is shown under a tree clutching a book of fairytales and covered in cookie crumbs
2:42 - Girl wakes up confused
2:50 - Bunny hops past her
2:55 - Girl skips away...
Track ends - 3:03


The ending, I must point out, is undecided and we still have yet to figure it out - however, having said that we want a strong twist to finish our song and to have it all tie into each other. 

Institutional Context

Our band (not yet named) draws paralells to Panic! At The Disco so I looked up what record label they were signed to and saw to my satasfaction that they are signed with an independent pop record label.

Fueled By Ramen

Fueled By Ramen was started as a label by Less Than Jake guitarist Vinnie Fiorello and John Janick in 1996. The label is a key player in the development of Punk Pop and released early recordings by Fall Out Boy, Jimmy Eat World and Yellowcard. Among the key artists currently on the label are:

- Panic! At The Disco
- Less Than Jake

Very non-mainstream record label that originates from New York City and is a subsiduary of Warner Music Group.

www.fueledbyramen.com

Inspiration for Our Music Video

Once we had realised that we wanted to take a more stylistic and 'punny' take to our music video we found some great pieces that we drew inspiration from.

Panic! At The Disco's song below is very close to what we want to achieve, from watching this music video we found out that we needed a charaismatic leader - a ring master - who is the main singer and just short of crazy. We need charisma bursting from the seams if we want this to be a successful music video. This music video is a great inspiration to us and we will draw much from it.Ne


Next we looked to Tim Burton extracts and looked through thusands of Fairytale names to know what we really wanted. Tim Burton's movies are great for the kooky take we want on these fairytale characters. This Big Fish ending is definitely a strong collection of crazy characters that are all brought together by one cause.
All of Tim Burton's movies are fabulous but this one really emphasizes a more lightheartedness from the characters and is very diverse in both costumes and styles.

Additionally, the work of Dina Goldstein really inspired us. Her series entitled "The Fallen Princesses" is an amazing and innovative twist on the glamopuised princesses we all knew and loved. Dina's take on these curt and quite shocking pictures really are provocative and exactly the reaction we want to generate with our music video. The pictures show the princesses in an immediately recognizable attire amidst the chaos and reality of life. For our music video, we mutually agreed to dress the princesses as they are know but to twist it with seered make-up, dirty limps and dischevelled hair.

Feedback

Some good material here, Courtney, and I love the style of the blog - really distinctive!

I can't see any evaluation of the prelim music video task on the blog.  This would be really useful as the basis of developing your final year.  You should already have some ideas of what can or cannot be achieved.

Try to get this up for next Friday along with your initial ideas and the research carried out this week.

James

Creating Our Pop Video

Once the groups were established (I joined Sarah and Sabrina) the first thing we did was to establish what kind of music style we wanted. We are a pretty diverse group but almost immediately we all agreed that we definitely didn't want to do an indie-alternative pop video - not that we had anything against the music style but the genre itself was very overdone and seemed repetitive. So we knew we wanted to do something different and something visually engaging. I had an idea for a track called "Flyswatter" by Eels and explained it to the group, it got the greenlight from both Sabrina and Sarah so we agreed to do it.

The song itself has a very creepy nursery-rhyme-meets-its-doom kind off feel and it is an very evocative piece. We won't follow the lyrics, so much as the idea of the song. The flow evokes Haunted House meets Alice In Wonderland feelings that I think could really turn out visually delicious.

Now our idea is a combination of many - we want the zest of the carnival, a circus, the Haunted Mansion (Disney) and Wonderland all put together. I summarized it as "Tim Burton makes a music video". However, when researching we almost immediatley found that we didn't want to go down the creepy route. Artists like Metallica and Marilyn Manson had the idea of a crazy house party (haunted house party) but it was too creepy for us. So Sabrina suggested that we took a light hearted spin on it which was perfect. We would make fun of the characters and incorporate fun fairytale characters that are immediately recognizable - such as Sleeping Beauty would be passed out on the floor or the Mad Hatter would be having a tea party or Pinnochio would have his strings being pulled by other guests etc.

There are a lot of ideas and the next step is to pin them down and make sense of the sequence and the storyline of the music video. It should be a promising project.

Three Initial Music Video Ideas

1. "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" - Cage The Elephant.

Alternative

This song is a very provocative song inspiring me to think of this as a very costume heavy and contrasting music video. The main idea would include the Seven Deadly Sins in human form and very distinctive. The Seven Deadly Sins have all been arrested and are involved in a police line up along with one normal man, the singer. They all participate in singing the chorus that goes: "Ain't no rest for the wicked, money don't grow on trees, we've got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed and ain't nothing in this world for me." Its a nitty gritty song which I would want to display in a very rebellious and very charismatic light. Similar to those of Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rise Against the Machine. This music video would be very stylised and very crisp. (White studio contrasting the red costume of Lust).

2. "Flyswatter" - Eels

Alternative Rock

My second idea is quite a contrast to the first, this idea is again quite costume heavy but also dependent on the locationt too, This song is very haunting and very spooky with a twisted weird edge to it. My idea was to produce a clash between old and new - fairytale and modern world. An Alice-In-Wonderland-Meets-The-Haunted-Mansion. I wanted to show a little girl - the 'Alice' figure - being pushed and pulled through a haunted mansion that is infested with fairytale characters - the location is like a fairytale hideout. The band will be incorperated into the fairytale characters, for instance the main singer could be the Mad Hatter who first lures her into the house. The band will be presented as an edgy and sadistic band similiar to Panic! At The Disco or a more subtle Marolyn Manson.

3. "If I Die Young" - The Band Perry

Country

This is a very sweet, sad and soft song. This would be a very simple music video presented in the studio incorperating a lot of symbolism such as dying flowers and contemporary dancing. This song is all about saying good by 'just in case' and it's very honest which is how I wanted to present this music video. Very natural and very simple, just a three man band and an old microphone. The band would be based on other soft country bands like Lady Antebellum, Little Big Town and Gloriana.

Advanced Portfolio

The Advanced Portfolio will involve producing a main artefact, two ancillary artefacts and an accompanying blog containing your research, planning and evaluation materials. We will be working as a small independent production company to produce a music video. This also includes producing a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, and either a cover fir its release on DVD or a magazine advertisement for the DVD.The Advanced Portfolio will involve producing a main artefact, two ancillary artefacts and an accompanying blog containing your research, planning and evaluation materials. We will be working as a small independent production company to produce a music video. This also includes producing a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, and either a cover fir its release on DVD or a magazine advertisement for the DVD.

Band Logo and CD Case Cover

(Band Logo)

(Front Cover)

(Back Cover)

All photos were taken on set and further edited and created by myself in Photoshop.

I chose this particular format because of the type of band "Acres of Life" is, this punk/screamer band is very contrasting and coarse which is why I chose very stark and blocked colours. The band is very much reliant on one another which is why I chose to use the bass drum as the front cover, this is a live band more reliant on instruments than each other therefore the focus of the front cover had to be the instruments (particularly the drum set because their songs featured the drums heavily). For the back cover, I chose to focus on the band members and specifically the lead singer. The colour theme of black white and red is particularly grabbing and embodying of the attitude the band upheld.

Preparing For Preliminary Task

Research and Preparation:

In preparation to shooting "Acres of Life" we had to evaluate the band purely on hearing their music and seeing their image - once we did this we could compare them to current bands, both mainstream and up-and-coming bands, to see how they were represented on screen and through mise-en-scene, sound, lighting and editing.

The first band we looked at was Ocean Avenue, they are a punk/alternative band that solely focuses on the 'band factor' in this music video. What really stuck out to us was the 'profile shot' of the singer and the 'back shot' where the camera is placed behind the band giving a completely new perpective on the band's image.

The second band we looked was My Chemical Romance, again this video is very focused on the band and also includes the strong narrative of the song. The set never changes but solely focuses on the band and also the strong lyrical orientated song. This music video is especially effective because of the simplistic but very effective set dressings such as the sand floor and the roaring fire (which in the end we tried to copy as strong strobe lights) the 'dirty' quality of the music video (in the sand, outside, not in a crisp studio) is also very effective and personifies the band's persona.


The last band we looked at was Green Day and their song, "American Idiot", whhat we really liked about this particular music video (the qualities we could manage within our 30 minute allowance) was the shot of both the monitor (screen) and the preformer himself. Green Day is a band that has only three members and camera shots/cuts are very evenly distributed between all three band members bringing an element of equality between the band and not showvenism. This reminded us that we had to focus on all elements of "Acres of Life" and not solely focus on the lead singer.

How does the music video product sell its artist to the audience?

Narrative In Music Videos

Questionnaire...

One Audience Feedback Questionnaire

Name:
Age:
Nationality:


What was your overall reaction to the film?

What do you think would happen in the rest of the film?

Were the titles clear? Yes / No

What did you think about the use of sound?

What do you think of the actor's performance?

What do you understand the story to be (briefly)?

What genre would you classify it as?

Would you go see the film at the cinema?

Evaluation Task 7 :

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? 

The difference between our work techniques used in the Preliminary Task and our Opening Horror Sequence is quite significant. The style and efficiency of filming had changed dramatically, we have learnt more in depth details about filming, editing and preparation especially. 

Our Prelim was the first time we ever filmed as a group, so whilst shooting, we were still adapting to one another and sorting out group dynamics. The Prelim was also scripted, we were supervised and a set amount of shots was given to us (over the shoulders, wide angles and close ups - then any additional shots we felt it necessary to take). The Prelim was very uncontrolled by us and heavily guided by our teachers.

In complete contrast, we had a lot of responsibility over the Opening Sequence, from plot to editing, therefore much more rested on our filming techniques and abilities to control and command our project without the help of teachers or outside assistance. The difference between our prelim task and our opening sequence is the amount of creative freedom we were given and the compatibility between myself and my group members. 

Our idea for our thriller was not actually one single idea alone - in the end it was a collaboration of ideas we all put together and thought up. At first, we were fluctuating with ideas and plot lines but we managed to do some research and then all four of us agreed on plot, title and how this would be shot. Whenever we tried to assign one person to a certain position (like titles or casting) we found that this really did not work. We needed consideration from all four of us and reasoning for any arguments. We worked best together, this was apparent from the beginning before we even started to film. I loved working together because then we would all be happy with the final project and this was not just one persons idea but a collaboration of one groups imagination - we all had something to give and we all knew how to work with one another from the Prelim Task. Our group found a natural balance which is why filming and especially editing was so easy to do because we all knew when something didn't work or look right or fit or needed another take. 

Our filming techniques definitely could have been better - we found it hard to shoot because this was an opening sequence which was intended to be entirely compiled of match cuts, however, we had many complications due to the lack of knowledge (and awareness of space)  with locations and prop malfunctions and as a result our shots and takes were not all we could have hoped for. 


Our first time editing was nothing short of disastrous, when we tried to cut the film together we came out with nonsense our first try and our second was too hard to follow with too-fast cuts and a confusion configuration within the visual plot. We then decided to scrap everything and start again with focus on creating match cuts. This worked phenomenally, we matched all the action together then built in the material that would go before it or after it, adding music really helped with the climax and mood of the opening sequence. 


We made up with editing for what we lost in filming - and this is an unideal but realistic scenario in Hollywood, British Film or anytime when filming. We learnt a lot - usually the hard way - and the difference between the prelim and the opening sequence is large and incredible. A lot of progress was made within the gap of filming days.