CD cover research

We did a powerpoint presentation on CD covers and what subliminal meanings and messages they could represent based on the images, colours, layout and text used in preparation for our ancillary task.

Our progress so far... 2

We managed to film the Oxleas Wood scene, and it didn't take long as we storyboarded it in detail and it is a short scene. We found no major difficulties as it began to rain afterwards and some of the general public got in the way.

Our progress so far...

So far, we have filmed the kitchen scene, performance, and skate park scene but we will re-shoot this. Today, we plan on filming in the woods, and we have storyboarded this scene in detail so that every shot is perfect, but the weather might get in the way. We wanted to film in Dartford at the weekend, but again, it is supposed to rain all day.
We have edited the first part of our music video up until the point where Matt runs out of the house, and we are really pleased with it. The performance shots are proving to be harder to edit as we want it to match the beat, and we have a lot of shots to choose from.

26/10/2011

On Wednesday, me and Annaliese went to Matt's house to shoot the fridge scene. We began by filling our 'fridge' with food such as bacon and eggs in order to make it look as realistic as possible, and at first glance it looked very amateur, but then we realised it look a lot better through the camera lens and we're pleased with the way it has turned out. We then filmed Matt walking to his fridge from various angles, such as mid shots and close ups of his hand opening the door. One issue we had was that we wanted a shot from inside the fridge so that Matt could be seen opening the fridge and taking out some orange juice, but the camera kept having a blurry picture, probably due to the cold or darkness in the fridge. However, we tried the shot multiple times and it finally worked out.

Lighting ideas for performance scene

After looking at the locations, we decided to use lights for the performance section to create a better atmosphere. Therefore, we need to buy these props:

-fairy lights

-tealights

We think this is important as we want the mise en scene to be a key part of the performance, and lighting is a big part of that.

In preparation for the filming at Matt's house, we are also going to get spare orange juice.

15/10/11

On Saturday we went to Dartford skate park to film the skate scene of our music video. We all went and initially thought it would be packed and slightly awkward as other people would be there and may not participate, however as soon as we got the masks out a lot of people come over and got involved and we found that people were more then happy to help. A lot of the time we just filmed anything we felt would be good and not shots that were necessarily on the storyboard. In particular we thought of a shot where Matt would hold the tripod around him and it would film his face as he ran down the hill, this was not an original shot however we felt that it would really work.
We hope that we have got the right shots that we need however we as we have started early we are able to re shot anything, we are going to film the Oxleas wood and fridge seen on saturday.

Costume

We are all going to wear the same costume throughout shooting as we want continuity. Also, Alex and Annaliese and Matt will wear the same costume as we want the audience to be able to connect our masked characters to the band members at the end of the video.

As the band, we will wear clothes that are similar to that of the target audience which can be categorised as 'indie'.

These are the possible costume choices for Alex:

 

This is the possible costume for Annaliese: a plain white shirt with an indie bow-tie, a moleskin skirt along with black brogues.

Matt will wear a checked shirt with the top button done up and some rolled up skinny jeans.

Fridge idea

We decided that instead of green screening which can look amateur and is quite time-consuming and complex, we would re-create the inside of a fridge for the 'masked head in fridge' scene. We researched how we could achieve this and found this link:

http://www.coolest-homemade-costumes.com/coolest-frozen-head-in-fridge-costume-1.html

Taking reference from this, we plan on getting a cardboard box and spray painting it. To look as realistic as possible, we researched fridges to make sure that ours looked as real as possible:

In this case, we will need to make sure we have:

-a cardboard box

-an orange juice carton

-empty egg carton

-empty butter container

-white paint/spray paint

-a lamp

Green screen

Green screen is an example of chroma key compositing, which is a way of layering two images together. Blue screens are also used, but green is popular as it requires less light and image sensors in digital cameras are more sensitive to green, creating a clearer image with less 'noise'.

None of us have ever used green screen before so we have had to research the technique. 

The following are examples of music videos that use green screen:

Tony Christie ft. Peter Kay- Is This The Way To Amarillo

After some discussion, we decided that instead of using green screen, we will try to re-create a fridge as it should make the shot look more realistic.

Our Ghost Costume!!!

Ghost sheet before we have cut out the eyes - Annaliese

Ghost sheet before we have cut out the eyes - Matt

First problem we encountered - when drawing the outline of the eyes it left a stain on the back of the sheet...

After learning from our mistake the second sheet was done better, with no stains on the other side

Zara cutting out the holes

Teamwork of cutting the holes to finish quicker!

One eye successfully done!

The finished sheets! Matt and Annaliese

Close up of Annaliese's ghost costume



Close up of Matt's costume!

 To create the ghost costumes, we firstly put the sheet over the person who was playing the ghost and we leveled the sheet out so that it looked as good as we could get it. We then put a purple dot where the persons eyes were. After this, we laid the sheet down and put a bottle of water over the dot and drew a circle around the bottle. We then cut out the circles to have our eye holes and our final ghost costumes.
We encountered a couple of problems when creating our ghost costumes. The first problem was the purple stain which was left on the back of Matt's ghost costume, in the shape of circles. This is because the sheet was folded over when we started drawing the holes. It will cause problems in our music video because there would be some over the shoulder shots of the ghost, in which case the marks would be visible. To sort out this problem we are going to try bleaching the stain, or washing the sheet, if this doesn't work, we will just have to change and play around with some of the angles that were supposed to be in the video so that the mark isn't visible.
Secondly as you can tell from the pictures, the eye holes of the ghosts are a little too big. There is a lot more of the persons face visible than we had hoped. It isn't a major problem as there aren't too many close ups of the ghost so we can hide the fact that the holes are big when shooting the video. We also thought that we should colour in our eyes black so that the circles look dark and the skin and the eyes are not as visible. We will use face paint, and paint around our eyes black to give the ghost costume a better effect. We will test this out in test shot week, next week.

Test shot ideas

There are a few shots that we would like to practice shooting before we shoot the real video, as we need to practice the techniques in order to make them look effective.

We will do test shots for the following shots:

P.O.V from the eyes of the ghost as we need to make sure that we can see the outline of the eyes as well as what the ghost is looking at: we will need to make sure that Matt can be seen in the frame.

The 4-way split screen of the lead singer walking in various locations as although we have already practiced this technique, we need to make each frame equal in size and time the shots in sequence.

Green screen of the masked head in the fridge as we have never used a green screen before. We need to make sure that it looks realistic.

P.O.V from the skateboarder as we need to get the masked person in the frame, and also try to keep it as steady as possible so that it does not look amateur.

Dropping the orange juice as we want to be able to time the spilling of the juice with the shot of Matt's feet running away in the background, whilst making sure it is an artistically effective shot.

Location list

This is a list of all the places we will be filming our music video at.

Matt's house- the kitchen scene

Matt's Kitchen

The fridge where the head will appear which we will use green screens for.

Matt's garage- the band performance scene



This is where the performance scenes will be held. We will decorate this area to make it fit the video a bit more, maybe have it darker with candles, we are also ceating a back drop to go over the curtains or plain wall.



Oxleas woods- the wood scene

Dartford skate park- the skate park scene

Dartford Sainsbury's- the supermarket scene

Music video director: Marc Webb

Miley Cyrus- Start All Over

In this video, there are many examples of some of our own ideas that we can take inspiration from. For example, at the beginning, the lead singer closes her eyes and then wakes up in a different location. We would like to do this in our video, when Matt falls over after running from the hauntings and then wakes up in the performance room. Also, the setting of the skatepark which we will also use and the idea of costumed extras to add a whimsical atmosphere.

All-American Rejects- Move Along

In this music video there are many montages of the lead singer. In our video, we will use a similar idea, but instead there will be a montage of all the masked characters to the beat during the performance.

The director of this video is Marc Webb, who has also directed videos such as multiple My Chemical Romance and Green Day videos for over the past 10 years.

Final storyboard