Review of previous lessons..

In the last three lessons our group have been getting on with filming but we have not been able to do loads in each lesson. The reason for this is that one of our main locations is in Bury St. Edmunds which we have to drive to and from when filming, which means this lessens the time we have for filming every lesson. However, we are usually able to get everything done that we have planned for each lesson. For example, in the first week we had an idea of using the skatepark for one of our locations. By filming here it meant that we could use various different angles in our shots. When we arrived there Ella had an idea that in one of our shots we should be walking up to the people in the skatepark and then take their bikes or skateboards after them so it shows that we are being different and having fun in order to get ready for the weekend. Unfortunately, we did not get this bit of our idea filmed but we got some good shots of people on their bikes going up and down the ramps. We will go back there and definitely get this idea done.

When we got back to school we thought that this was a good location and that maybe it would work better if we went their at night and used the lights in the skatepark for our source of light when filming at night. Because we thought this would look better we went back to the skatepark one night where we were able to  film more people on their bikes because there was more people there at night than in the day. Whilst filming we also found out the use of night mode of the camera which helped us a lot when filming. Also, this night we were able to go and get some shots of lights and we were able to play around with the focus on the camera so the lights go out of focus.

During the lessons we have either been filming or we have been putting our shots onto the computer so we can find out what pieces we have done from our storyboards and what we have not. From seeing what he have not done, this gives us an idea of what we have to do and allows us to come up with a few new ideas to piece our music video together.

Here is a quick clip on how we think our music video will begin but we are not totally sure whether we want this clip or another one so that will also be something that we will all discuss in our next lesson..

Unfortunately the quality of this clip isn't as good as it is on final cut express but it should be clear as to what it is and which part of the song it goes with.. Another idea that we could use for the first part of this song is that we could get loads of people together with our red american style cups to hide the drink, and we all put our cups up together and say "cheers". I have an idea that we could do which is go to a beach and all say cheers with together with our drinks together and then we run off towards the sea. Or.. this could be situated at a party or near a bonfire so them shots can link into the next shot. The only problem with this shot is that it looks as if it should carry on round the roundabout to go in time with song, but I think that this shot is effective as it is and it suits the mood that we want our video to be about. For example, the sun represents being bright, which can be linked to us having fun. Whereas, if we had a shot of it raining then this would feel like the music video would be a sad song.

Next Media Lesson.....

Thinking ahead, during our next media lesson we were thinking of trying to get a bit more filming done. As our music video is a concept, we have a very diverse set of shots which we hope to add in to again add the aspect of what we feel is 'fun' and 'free.'

For example we have the silly shots of us putting cones on our head just to show we dont care about what we are doing or who is watching us..... this will be easy for us to get the chance to film this as there seem to be several cones lying about at school so we can use them for parts of our video. Another random shot that we hope to include is hopefully trying to find a bunch of pidgeons on the ground which we can all just go and run into yet by doing this, it will be another good way of including a mroe variety of shots such as a 'worms point of view' shot where we could leave camera on floor so we are able to watch the pidgeons fly away. Yet we could edit the footage to make the it into slow motion to portray that sort of superior we have over them, however its another way to show our facial expressions having a good time just messing about with friends.

We have two other shots which we could also film tomorrow which purposely relate to Goodwins theory of matching the visuals to the lyrics. For exmample Rihanna sings "got my Ray Bans on and im feeling hella cool tonight" which we would include one of us having a close up shot of  our ray ban sunglasses on, however we were hoping to a shot of the sunset in the evening so its between the time of afternoon and evening to show we are still outside yet we are getting ready for 'tonight.'

The other shot is the other match with lyrics "got a drink on my mind and my mind on my money" where by we have bought fake money that's actually cerviettes which we will cut up and throw about and direct address it to the camera as if we are throwing the money on it, to show we are free because we have all this money. However, we were also thinking of when it comes to the editing process that we add a mind bubble into the persons head showing the money therefore literally showing that money is on her mind.

Hopefully we are able to get the majority of it all done what we have planned for tomorrow :)

Last Media Lesson

In our last media lesson we thought we should go out and do some more filming, therefore we drove to a field where Sophie keeps her house which we were hoping we could film some more of our shots that just show the random concept of our music video. However, we were planning on running round the field so the horses could chase us, as we just wanted to add a few crazy footage to show us having all a fun time. We did eventually get a few shots of the horses running about however we did give up on the idea so instead, we placed the camera on the tripod in the set position we wanted it so we could all be in the shot. Once we got that set up,  we went running away from the camera onto the rest of the field doing the random skipping/jumping/running around trees etc as we wanted to portray the element of being free and having a good time as its the weekend....to match the lyrics of the song.

Once we got back to school, we went round our sixth form, and placed the camera infront of people so we could get footage and lip syncing of different people saying the continuous verse in song which is "yeah yeah." We thought this would be a good idea as first of our we could show how we have the different elements such as lip syncing yet we filmed the different people from various angles, such as from down below, long distance shot, close up, over shoulder shot, and other random positions such as facing backwards and looking towards the camera and looking to and back from the camera.

We managaed to get it all on the mac ready for us to continue filming on our cameras, then eventually once we have enough footage, we are able to start editing.

We feel we are keeping on top of things, and being organised as to when we are going to film and what we are going to film so we are able to know how much time we have left and how long we think it will take us to film the rest of our music video.....

Filming!!!

Today we took it upon ourselves to get things going and go out of the media lesson to film! We now have the ability to drive so thought that it would be best to go out of our lessons to film as this will ensure that we are getting all of our filming completed giving us more time to edit! Today we chose to head to one of our locations and film there, this being TESCO's!  Whilst on the way to Bury, Charlotte and Ella were filming in the car (i was driving) whilst playing 'Cheers'. This gave us some good jokey shots in which we feel will come in handy when we need time filling! Whilst in the car Charlotte and Ella got used to the cameras so we were able to use them successfully at our planned locations! Charlotte and Ella played with angles and shots to see what worked and what didn't with the camera. To further this they also tried parts of lip sync to see how it worked and what effect it had. When looking back quickly of the footage i saw that they had shot some good things in which will give us lots of different concept ideas to add to the overall music video! i especially like on of Ella lip syncing with the wind in her hair as this looked quite professional and looked as if we were having fun representing the song perfectly as our interpretation is that we are looking forward to the weekend and having fun due to excitement. Whilst at Tesco's we messed around and had a laugh in and with the trolleys, we got this idea from other music videos such as Rihanna's other video to 'we found love'. We hope that this turns out to be as good as we hoped when we add effects and edit it together. We then continued to film some other ideas and shots at tesco's in which allowed us all to have a go with the camera ensuring we shared the roles out equally. Whilst in bury we visited a second location in which consisted of a MASSIVE hill and play area, this allowed us to joke around, once again gaining shots to play with when editing.

Today's filming was overall very successful and we feel that we are working incredibly well together and sticking to deadlines!!!
xxxx

Story boards!!!!

this post is still to be edited, we just needed to upload them onto here first! 

Monday lesson

In Monday's lesson the class looked at the auxiliary tasks in which we have to complete along with our music video.

We decided to have more of a focal point on Digi Packs and Websites as our school have been renowned for doing these two therefore we had some realistic previous examples we could focus on allowing us to see what we could achieve. I found this useful as it allowed us to begin to think about what we were going to do so that we could start gathering pictures and ideas for the tasks. In order to understand more about them we noted key things in which we would expect to see;

Digi packs

• Name of artist
• Name of album
• Track listing ( including bonus and extras such as 'behind the scenes' and/or 'making of' features) 
• Record label branding 
• Picture of the band members or relevant visual imagery to sell the song and they are often manipulated in some way
• Price
• Website
• Credits
• Recording information, producer, where it was recorded and when
• Who wrote the songs
• Logo
• Barcode
• DVD logo
• CD logo

Website

• Band logo at the top and large
• links to other pages on the website (home, about/bio, gigs, videos, photos/gallery, store, forum, sign in, log in) 
• main feature- large photo or video clip
• Strong design that might be minamalistic
• The home page would be predominately catered around a new single/album
• the use of still advertisement, videos and links
• the key is that the home page needs to be simple and eye catching, so fans are not swamped with information they don't want and can easily navigate their way around the website. 

Magazine advert

• get the customers attention
• Use colour
• Make the pitch simple yet precise
• make it easy for the customer to reach and order the product

After looking at all of these options i feel that the digipack and website will be more suitable for us as it will be interactive and fun to do! to further this i feel that the magazine advert will require good use of photoshop in which i believe our group may struggle with as none of us have used photoshop before so will have to learn many of the techniques from scratch! However me and ella did go and have a bit of fun with photoshop today so that we could get a headstart in how to use the programme and get a feeling for how it works and what we can accomplish. The previous student examples of these exillary tasks were good to look at as it allowed us to get a feel for what we will have to do and how they done it. in addition it showed us what worked well and what didnt, for example the use of big, clear, bold tabs on the website was much more identifable and looked more professional so i will ensure that we use that on ours. To extend i also noticed that we need to consider the picutres throughout the making of the video, this is something me, Ella and Charlotte are going to think about and plan so that we can begin to take pictures and gather ideas for it.

So far...

We have at last finished the story boards!! We are going to add a but of colour and then post them up here! We went ahead with filming a little bit last night in which proved to be a bit challenging...as we had planned to film at a real party it was hard for us to get the lighting right, therefore some of the footage is too dark! To further this, I made a error and somehow have not got the clip where charlotte is lip syncing to the music so I must of not have pressed record or something! This is something we need to look out for in the future!!! After looking back at the footage i feel we need to re shoot some stuff as it is a bit dark which may effect the overall look of the video! Charlotte, Ella and I will go through the recorded footage and see what we could do to improve it to ensure we have good clips for when it comes to editing! However for our first shoot I feel we worked well and all participated so were pleased with our efforts! Also we love the new cameras! The image quality is better allowing us to pic up more detail. Also they are very handy and easy to work (when I'm not being an idiot and not pressing the right button that is!).