Music video production: permissions letter

 Below is the letter that I wrote to the head of drama for the use of the school stage to film in for the cinema shot in my music video.

Following this letter I was given verbal permission to use the theater.

Ancillary digipack deconstruction 1

In order to deconstruct a digipak that would follow the conventions of the alternative indie genre I will deconstruct 3 digipaks from similar bands of the same genre in order to create a digipak that follows the conventions of a real alternative digipak.

Pre Production: Slow motion deconstruction

I have been inspired from the slow sections of the song (the ahhhhs') to play around with the speeds of the song. I believe that the slower sections of the songs with the slow motion would look interesting and grab the readers attention as it contrasts with the other (faster/100% speed) sections of the music video. The slow motion will also give me the chance to explore different editing techniques and play around with the visuals matching the speeds of the song.

Music video production: Mid progress review

(18th November 2013)
I am currently half way through my music video production but I have had some problems along the way.

1. Since doing the lighting check for my music video in order to see when the best times for filming would be - the evening have become increasingly darker earlier than expected. Therefore the footage is a lot darker than I wanted meaning that the amount of usable footage is filmed each day.
Therefore I will have to film on the 20th of November all the shots than need to be redone.

2. The second problem was that I was let down by my lead female as she wasn't able to film on the 13th of November. After searching around I found a friend to use that wasn't originally auditioned due to work commitments. Although this new lead female works well with the lead male and fits the part of the role, they were not my number one choice because I didn't want to put extra work load on Hannah Adams. .

3. I am also having a problem with uploading some images to my blog (hence the missing Pre Production work that will be uploaded when the problem is sorted.)
The documents that are done but still need to be uploaded with pictures are:
- Make up tests,
- Lighting tests,
- Deconstruction of slow motion/backwards music videos


Areas that are going well:
The editing and music video production as a whole is going well. The only sections left to film are the second date scene in the theater (19th November), some lip syncing needs to be refilmed in the woods (in daylight) and some shots to go in between cuts to make each cut smoother.
The rough cutting for each clip that has been filmed so far is complete and so now there are only some effects that need to be added.
The slow motion, reversed section at the end of the mucis video looks really good and the fathers work really well.

Update on timetoast:
 - So far my timing plan for all the filming is going accordingly to plan as I have filmed the sections that I had planned to on all of the planned filming days. However I will need to do some extra pick ups as I am not completely happy with the quality in one section due to the lighting so this section will need to be rearranged to be filmed again.
- In terms of editing, so far I am ahead of my plan as I have done rough cuts and therefore found the clips that I will use however the editing is not completely finished with the fancy speed changes and repetitions in the end section of the music video.

Pre production: Editing practice

Within my music video, the editing effects I will use is:
- Cutting clips together,
- Slow motion,
- Colour correction,
- Footage reversal,


I am learning whilst editing as i come across problems I face when I am editing by learning through tutorials such as the ones below:

Pre production: Make up tests

For the make up in this music video I have decided that I would like to have my female have a bruise on her right cheek from when the male slaps her before she falls on the bed.
Burise makeup tests:

In the next scene (Photo scene) when the male is trying to recreate the picture and therefore a happy time of when he was in control, I would like the male to try to cover up this bruise in order to represent the denial of what he has just done as well as trying to put her back to the way that he wants to remember her when they both seemed happy in his mind (before everything go out of hand when she wanted to leave).
 

Make up test 1. This is how I wanted the bruise to look in real life however I had to make it darker and bigger (below) so that it would come up on camera.

Pre production: Costume design

Female costume design
Within my costume designs for my female i would like to represent her innocence and femininity by having my female where a white dress with colourful butterflies on it.
The female will be wearing the same dress the whole time in order to show that she is dead and preserved and that the male character is keeping her in the same dress in order to remember how she was when the male was in control before things got out of hand and the female character wanted to leave.

This dress will be worn with black leggings, a belt and dolly shoes or bare feet.
The female will also be wearing an assortment of different tops and props (Christmas and birthday) for photos.

Male Costume design
My male changes costume a couple of times in order to show the different stages throughout the music video and the stages within the story. Just his T-shirt will change in order to make a representation of each stage rather than a continuity issue or a complete costume change just to show the development of time within the music video. These are the trousers and shoes that the male character will be wearing throughout the music video.

At first my male will be wearing this black and blue T-Shirt in the scene where he kills his girlfriend because the dark colours connote death, fear and sadness.

Complete first outfit - Death sequence in house

Production: Production planning

I will use this time toast as a rough plan of when I would like all my Pre production work to be done.

Pre production: Actor release forms

Roles each actor/actress auditioned for:
Charlotte Smith: Lead female
Michael Stephens: Lead male
Trudie Gilbert: Cinema Extra 1
Katie Bennett: Lead female
George Burton - Barker: Cinema extra 2
Robert Broughton: Cinema extra 3
Heather Curtis: Cinema extra 4
Hannah Adams: Cinema extra 5/ reserve for Lead female
Laura Greenfield: Lead female (became Cinema extra 5)

I have auditioned all the people who auditioned for the Lead roles apart from Hannah Adams who was my reserve. Only one male who fit the description wanted to and was available for the filming of my music video.  
The cinema extras were also not auditioned as the only criteria was that they looked like audience members who would be in a cinema audience with my male and female.

Pre production: Laura Greenfield and Michael Stephens Audition (COUPLES)

It is important that the people I audition and use In my music video look like they could be a couple in order to make my audition look realistic.
I think that Laura and Michael could look like a couple and therefore I feel that could easily play the male and female roles needed in my music video.

Pre production: Laura Greenfield's Audition (SINGLES)

Pre production: Michael Stephens's Audition (SINGLES)

Pre production: Woodland location shots

25th October 2013

On my woodland location shoot I wanted to look around to see if I could try to find a possible location for my woodland sections of my music video.
I wanted to find a tree/ two trees on a hill for my stereotypical date location as well as a shady covered walkway that has a mixture of types and colours of foliage.
The idea of having a woodland location is because I wanted to have a contrast between the house location and the woodland reflective scene.

Possible locations for the date location:

One of the above locations will be used as my date location as they are as close as I could find to my perfect location (One tree on a hill, characters sitting on the ground, leaves of the floor to create colour contrast and to represent changes over the year)

Below are some locations that I may use for the second woodlands section of my music video. In this section the male and the female will be in the woods together however the girl will be fading slowly to represent the fading on the male characters control as she wanted to leave the relationship as well as representing the love loss between the couple.

I also wanted to have the lip syncing happen in a woody location on a pathway with trees overhead because I wanted to make a connection back to the woodlands section of the video where the couple are on a date. I also liked the idea that the woodland location along with the white t-shirt that my lead male will be wearing, will represent his reflective stage of this story.

I really liked this location (Below) because of the trees that would be above my lead male and the path way that would represent the journey that the lead male is going through.

Pre production: Actor profile

In order to make my music video look close to a real alternative music video I would like cast my actors who look like people who may be alternative artists including a picture of the band Alt - J who I will be representing in my music video.
Here are some images of alternative artists:
 

A Rocket to the Moon

Alternative indie rock band

Alpha Rev

Alternative rock band

Belle and Sebastian

Indie pop band

Biffy Clyro

Rock band 

 Birds of Tokyo

Alternative rock

Cage the Elephant

Indie Rock band

From these deconstructions of alternative rock and indie bands I can see that anyone could be in an alternative band as there isn't really a conventional stereotypical alternative look as there is in other genres of the music industry, for example there is a certain "boy band" or "Emo Rock/Heavy metal" look. Therefore anyone that I cast for my music video will be right as long as they dont have a stereotypical look such as emo, punk, rapper/gangster.  

Pre production: Costume deconstruction

Costume deconstruction - Costumes and style of artists/ actors in alternative music videos.

Coldplay - Yellow (Alternative Rock)
In this music video the artist is dressed in all black waterproof, dark hoodie and dark trousers. The clothes aren't fashionable and are very simple meaning that there is more focus on the song. The clothes that this character doesn't connote or represent any personalities or traits of the character as this song is not a song with a character and a story.

Counting Crows - Mr Jones (Alternative Rock)
This music video is often interpreted by many as about two struggling artists who want to known as more than just 'Mr Jones' and want to be stars.
In this music video the character is represented as a normal guy (reflecting on the song meaning) and so therefore he is wearing old boots, jeans, a casual shirt and an over shirt.

Jimmy Eat World - Sweetness (Alternative Indie Rock)
Following the normal clothing of other alternative artists, the artists in this music video are wearing jeans and t - shirts.

Modest mouse - Ocean Breathes Salty (Indie Rock)
In this music video the costume is more interesting as the character/artist in this music video is wearing a black feather jacket. This connotes darkness in song content that is right because the song is about suicide.
The use of the jacket adds interest however there are still conventions that are in other alternative music videos as he is wearing black and other dark colours.

Default - Django Django (Electronic Alternative)
Although due to the video colour scheme of the music video means that we cannot see the colours of the clothing that the band is wearing - it is obvious from the types of clothing that they are wearing is casual jeans and a plain T-Shirt.

Cough Cough - Everything Everything (Indie pop/ indie rock)
In this music video the artist/ character is wearing a smart shirt tie and trousers, but also follows the convention of having dark clothes.



Overall through my deconstructions of the alternative genre I have found that:
- The costume is simple and normally casual as there is more focus on the music and the songs and mainly song lyrics are the main focus.