Filming!

Photographs

We started by taking photographs of Ellie before we did her make up to make her look as though she had just woken up. The photographs were very successful and we hope to use some of them in our ancillary tasks. Taking photos of each step is a very important process in designing and processing of our products, for we are able to show every aspect of our practical filming and also our making of storyboards and timelines.

We used a variety of angles and places to photograph Ellie, giving ourselves a wider range of photos that could be potential CD covers, posters, etc.

Lights, Camera and... Make up!

The clump of photos below show the process we went through in order to attain a good set of film. We prepared Ellie's make up to the appropriate state (which was waking up, consequently making her make up look smudged). We also set the lights accordingly in order to get the right lighting in the room, making sure our actor's face is not masked in shadow, etc.

Filming

Filming proved to take longer than we expected. This was merely because we did not realise how long it would take to set the lights up, get the shot right, get the set and props right, etc. However, after already filming one set of shots for our initial video idea, we have had some experience already. We found that after starting to film, it became easier to know where the lights should be in order to gain the best outcome in our film. When filming, some shots took longer because we had to get the lighting absolutely correct for the angle and distance we were shooting away from Ellie. Below are the scenes in the bedroom, which will be seen at the beginning of the video.

The bathroom scenes below were probably the hardest scenes to shoot. This was because the spacing in the bathroom was incredibly tight, making it hard to get the right lighting and also making it difficult to film because of the small spacing. We will have to re film a few of these shots in the bathroom because we realised when we played the scenes back that the camerawoman can be seen in the mirror. This is a minor mistake that we can easily rectify by filming again and learning from our mistakes.

Although we were very well equipped with lighting as you can see below in the bedroom scene just before Ellie leaves the room, we did have some problems with the sunlight coming in through the window. We had to cover it with a big white sheet to stop the sunlight from reflecting on the wall as Ellie walks past it. We wanted to follow Ellie down the hallway  with the camera and this was successful, but it took us a few tries to get the right shot, which, evidently is to be expected.

With Ellie leaving the house in the video, we wanted to make it look as though Ellie had gone to the bathroom to sort her make up, put her hair up and put her shoes on. Obviously, we had to take off her smudged makeup and make her hair look a little more tamed than it was when she first woke up. As she leaves the house she also has a coat on, making it evident that she is leaving the house. We have one shot where Ellie walks out the house and comes closer to the camera, looking ahead and consequently walking past the camera, which can be shown in the bottom picture below.

As I said before, the outside scenes were very significant to the story, for Ellie spends half her time in this video outside. We set the camera up on the other side of the road and filmed Ellie for about five minutes sitting on the wall watching cars, people and bikes go past. We wanted it to look as though time was passing, so when it comes to putting this scene in the video, we will speed it up to make it look as though she has been sitting on the wall for a long time. Sitting on the wall, Ellie looks like the type of person who does not care what people think of her, which is the exact characteristics to go for in this character.

Overall, filming went very well, for our first time properly filming our new idea. We have a variety of shots to put into the video, even though we need to refilm a few of them in order to attain a better quality and flawless film!

OUR ACTORS

Protagonist Female

ELLIE BLANCKE

Our chosen main female character is one of our close friends, Ellie Blancke. Ellie helped last year with Sarah's AS Media coursework, so is familiar with camera work and also confident with it. She has the same sort of look/appearance as Kesha, who I had previously decided would be a good model for Ellie to base her character on.

We know that Ellie will be reliable when it comes to filming, taking into consideration the fact that she lives close to all of us. The photo below is a comparison between Ellie and the famous singer Kesha to show the type of style that we want our protagonsit female to look like. We believe Ellie has the exact look that we initially thought of.

The photo above is just an example of our actress in the video. This shot is where some of the filming will be taking place. The carpet and walls are a neutral colour, which is significant as it does not take the focus away from Ellie.

The shot below is a print screen of one of the shots from our video. It shows a troubled young girl on the streets, which is what our music video is based on. We hadn't planned to film her by a road sign but when we saw it, we thought it would be in fitting to film her next to the road sign to blatently show our audience that she is on the street drinking.

 The shot to the left is a picure of Ellie outside the house, where more filming will take place. The clothing she has on are quite outstanding, showing her to be rather rebellious. There is a shot in the video in which Ellie stands against the wall. The photo below shows this.

Protagonist Male

HARRY PAINTER

Timeline

Timeline of events

Having already designed and planned a timeline for our initial idea, I think the practice really helped with this timeline the second time round. The timeline will help us greatly when it comes to filming our music video as it will give us some guidance and something to go by and stick to when filming. We have listened to the song over and over again in order to get each shot perfect with the song and the timing.



Storyboard

Storyboard Planning

To even begin contemplating filming our video, we shall need to create a big storyboard that is in fitting with our timeline. We each took a piece of the timeline to create into a storyboard, making the process of making it much faster and also much mroe efficient. The storyboard shows every aspect of what we expect to happen in our video, from the very beginning to the end. We have also included what sort of shots we would like to use in each frame.

The Storyboard below is our finished product. The frames show how far away we should film our actress and any significant shots of feet, etc.

Analysing the Lyrics

Before we can even begin to contemplate some sort of story to go with the music, we need to understand the meaning behind the lyrics. Zoe offered to do this and annotated a print out of the lyrics so that we can begin to come up with some kind of story to match the song.

We came up with one idea of having a girl who is clearly troubled after the break up with her ex boyfriend. We want the video to show her growing obsession with him and the annotations below show this rather well:

Filming

 PRACTICE FILMING

We began practice filming our media in the half term. We have had to do some serious thinking about what we are going to do with our music video. Here's a few shots of how we got on doing our first shoot for the music video.

 We had an incident in which the cameraman tripped over one of the wires. In order to save time and stop accidents like this happening, we taped the wire to the floor temporarily to proceed with our filming and get as much done as possible.

LIGHTING

We were very grateful for the lighting equipment that was lended to us, but it did cause a few problems with filming. This was merely because we kept catching the lights in the film and sometimes the lights did not fit with the type of shots that we wanted to do. Having said that, the lights were a lifesaver considering it was a very dull and dreary day! They really helped with the lighting for all of our filming.

Target Audience

Our targeted audience is people around our own age. I do not think that the target audience should be much younger than eighteen years old, as there are explicit scenes of smoking and drinking in our video that we would not want to encourage teenagers to do.

The genre of our music video is indie rock, and taking this on board we are targeting our video at indie rock fans. The real artist of the song is a band called paramore which is an alternative/indie rock band:

As you can see from the style of clothes that this band are wearing, we aim to target fans of this type of culture.

Definition of Indie Rock: Indie Rock is a genre of alternative rock. Indie Rock is a slightly softer type of rock music, targeting all fans of rock with it's extreme diversity.

Taking this on board, the genre of music we have chosen specifically targets young aged people, as they are more inclined to listen to alternative/indie rock.