A bit of Audience Feedback...

Whilst we were editing today there were a few other people in the media room that saw what we were doing with the stop motion of the Soundboard and everyone seemed to really like that particular part of our video! Nice to hear positive feedback and see how people who haven't been staring at the footage for hours react to it!



Soon we are going to get a group of people to watch our most recent draft and film their responses on the flip camera to put onto our blogs.

Editing/Drafts...

We've just been editing our music video on the new iMacs that we have in our Media Studies room and here is what we have done so far on iMovie! Once we are happy with what we have done on iMovie we will eventually move it all over to the iMac that has Final Cut Pro on it in order to make the final touches on the video.

Today I have spent quite a while trying to fit the stop motion parts that we had edited previously into the blank spaces we had in our music video and as a group we edited the stop motion of the Soundboard and Charlotte and Sarah continued to edit the build up of the song with the flashing black transitions towards the end of the song, just like in this existing music video by The Wombats for their song Let's Dance To Joy Division;

Here is a still shot from The Wombats' video and the similar one in our own video that we created;

(although it's hard to see on a print screen of the videos but the shots gradually get darker until it looks as though they are flashing black)

We thought this technique would be perfect for the build up of the song in our music video as it is a simple way to gradually build up the momentum and pace of the video after taking it right down for the bridge, etc.

Here is the latest draft of our music video with black screens where we need to fill in with new footage;

I am really pleased with what we have done so far but obviously there is still a bit more footage that we need to slot into the blank spaces in our music video, but so far I am really pleased with how it has all worked out.

I've found that as a group we have had more differences in creative opinion with this year's work than we ever did in our AS foundation portfolio work; but I think this just shows how developed our skills have become, as we are all striving to produce the best possible music video. Even though we sometimes disagree on some aspects of the editing, etc. it has been a good thing because we have had a chance to really think through every single thing we do in our production of the music video.

Filming!!

On Tuesday 11th January we finally began filming some of the different shots for our music video at my house. We began by filming some simple shots of Charlotte (our main character in the video) putting on her make-up whilst looking directly at the camera as if it were a mirror. We wanted her make up to be quite bold with dark smoky eye make-up and red lips. This was because we wanted to hint at the fact that she wants to seduce the vocalist so we also put her in a bodycon dress which emphasises her femininity.

After this we wanted to film the shots of Charlotte laying down on the floor in a pile of magazine/newspaper cuttings with random hand drawn images laid beneath her. We wanted lots of random strange images on the floor around her to suggest the idea that she is a strange obsessive fan that draws photos of those she is obsessed with.
This shot composition was inspired by Paramore's video for their song 'Only Exception' shown below;



The filming ran very smoothly and we were very happy with the outcome as we also managed to come up with new shot ideas as we went along and improvised.

For example, these two examples of stop motion that we have edited already of the bass guitar with lip marks all over it and the drawings and photos of men piled up on top of each other.
The bass guitar is going to be a significant factor in our music video as we came up with the idea of the obsessive fan stealing the lead singers guitar because of the line in the song 'She stole my karma, oh no'. So we want to film a shot of her stealing the guitar after the vocalist has put it down and then the kisses suggest her obsession with him. Here is the editing we have done so far;

Stop Motion with Guitar;

Stop Motion with Paper;

Practice Music Videos...

On Tuesday, myself and Sarah (with the help of Dom from another group) filmed a practice music video to a song called 'Hey Little Mama' by The Puppies because we had heard it at the Richmix trip we went to and liked the song!

We tried out a few different shots that we will hopefully be using in our actual music video for 'Charmer' such as, the close up shots of mouths lip-synching, etc. It also helped me hugely in my editing skills as I spent a couple of hours editing all the footage to ensure that the lip-synching fit with the music and apart from the very first line it is all in synch.

It also helped me in my editing skills on GarageBand as I had to mute part of the song for comic effect and it took me a little while to figure out how to do that.

Here is our finished practice music video starring myself, Sarah Isaacs and Dominique Shiells-Edwards (with help from India Johnson and Oyinda Abiose) for 'Hey Little Mama!' by The Puppies;


Our group then decided to create another practice music video to Spice Girls 'Wannabe' so we filmed some shots at my house yesterday and began to edit them to the music. Here is the finished practice video;

PUT VIDEO HERE

Group Meeting: Filming Schedule/Actors/Props/etc.

Yesterday we were given our recording equipment which includes a camera, a tripod, a gorilla tripod, chargers, leads, a battery, tapes and the flip camera.

Now that we have been given all this equipment we can begin filming and get the majority of our shots done, ready to start editing.

Our storyboard is ready to go and I have now spoken to the different people that we are using as the band in our music video. I know a group of people that are in a band together already and thought it would be easier to get people like that to act in our video because they know how to perform well and make it interesting. They are also a bit older which makes the video look a lot more professional than if we got people our age to be in it.

They are in a local band called Malokai, and their style of music is Alternative/Punk so they are very close to the genre of Kings Of Leon as a band, so they would be used to doing the specific type of performance that we are looking for.

Here are videos of two of their own performances as a band which show their style;

I spoke to Alex on Friday night (the lead singer) and he said he and the band would be happy to participate in the video as they have helped people with their A Level media projects beforehand, which is good for us because it means they are used to being directed and told what to do!

Here is the A Level music video that they were part of before for their own song called Pieces;

This video shows that they know how to create an interesting performance. We also know that they will be reliable because my boyfriend Josh was the drummer of the band so we have very easy contact with them all.

As a group, we also decided that we would need to add a lot of props to the school stage in order to make it look more exciting in the video, as it looks fairly bland as it is.

Now that we have our equipment we can start filming and will probably get the bulk of it done over the Christmas holidays.