Weather

Catherine Kirk was supposed to be shooting some pictures for our second location during the end of last week. Unfortunatley we have had some weather problems, we have recieved some snow and rain which would not show the loaction to it's full potential. It would be far to dangerous to send Catherine down to the woods in these conditions, as it would be slipperly and dismal. The photos would have came out melancholy and would have not shown the real fun, happy feel we wish to have when using this location.

We have used the location before for our short music video we created at the start of the school year, I have previously blogged about the video which can be seen in the link below if you wish to see the second location we will be using for a few shots of footage in the music video.

http://ellielouisea2.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/short-music-video.html

Obviously if the weather conditions keep up this way it may cause some problems when we film on Wednesday 3rd of November at the beach. We are however going to have to keep checking the weather forecast and hope that there will be a sudden change so we can safely film our footage. As we are shooting the footage at the beach in black and white it won't really effect the quality of the music video if it isn't a bright day. However if there is some rain on the day, we may have to reschedule our filming day so we can produce a realistic muisc video.

Call Sheet X2

Time to Meet	After Sixth Form 3:20 on Thursday 8th November.
Location to meet	At Framwellgate School Durham, we will be walking to the location together.
Location	Newton Hall fields and woods.
Description of Location	The location is round Newton Hall by the bridge with the railway tracks. It is an isolated area, and surrounded by trees bushes and greenery.
Group	Ellie Snowdon, Kelly Senior, Sarah Hewitt and Catherine Kirk.
Characters	Catherine Kirk acting the part of the female character and Ryan Hawkins acting the male part.
Props	No props are needed for this section of filming.
Special Instruction	No special instructions.

Storyboard

 

This is the storyboard we created for our Indie Pop music video.

Location

We are using two different types of loaction in our Indie Pop music video. I have previously blogged about our first location (the beach). Our second location is closer to where we all live so it is easily accessable. This location is Newton Hall fields and woods, we will be filming the parts where the male and female character are shown to be in a relationship at this location, they will be in more casual clothes compared to the female clothing in the first location. They two people acting will be seen to be very playful and having a lovely time together. Even though we aren't showing the full faces of the two characters in these clips, the location will still play a big part as it links into the theme of nature. When we use such shots as extreme close ups, we will still be able to have some scenery of the location. We are hoping to have a shot of the two lying down together with flowers and plants surrounding them which we add extra emphasis on how the idea couple would be with one another, and also highlighting the theme of nature running throughout our music video. We have already used this location once before when we conducted our preliminary task, which can be seen in my previous blog posts. As a group we know what to expect from the location and the best places we should use to catch great shots for our music video. Catherine Kirk will later this week go to the location and take some pictures.  

Location

On Monday evening I went to South Sheilds to do a location scout of the area. I have found many picturesque places on the beach that links in with the ideas we came up with whilst planning. The only problem we face is that there is not a bench near the beach, so we won't be able to get the scenery in if we found a beach near by. The scenery plays a big part in the music video, so wanting to create the iconic bench shot without the scenery would be pointless, it would not be authentic or realistic. So I decided to look for something along the lines of the bench shot, and would report back my idea to the rest of the group. I found a sand dune right on the beach which is perfect, the dune is not very high so can be reached within safety, we can use the sand dune to replace the idea of the bench, but still have the female in the video sitting on the sand dune dangling her legs. Due to the sand dune being up a little height we will be able to get some great shots looking up at her sitting on the dune, but also right next to her.

The pictures below are some of the images I thought would be fantastic to use when shooting our music video. There are shots of the beach, sea, and near by scenery. Some of the pictures are places I found around the location of the beach, which will help us create  unique and peaceful shots of the female character. The beach has some amazing features that will feature in our scenery shots and pans.

 

 

 

 

 

Rough Idea

 

 

This short video is our very rough idea on things we wish to include in our own music video. We put this video together by using the clips we used for our practice shots, and put the song (not our actual cover) over the top. We have used black and white to create a strong contrast against the colour clips, it blatently shows the difference in the two different situations we are trying to show in the video. When the colour changes, the atmosphere and the mood also does as well, which helps us highlight to the audience the reflection of the past. The shots used are very basic but we just wanted to portray a few of our first ideas, the close ups on the females face lets the audince focus on the feelings of the character, she is shown to be unhappy but looks as though she is also concentrating and pondering on thoughts. The mixture of angles we have used helps us convey the clear effect we want to come across to the audience, it fixates on her expressions and emotions, the females face is dark, dismal and seems stern. 

 

 Everything that is shown in this short video will be taken into our real production of our Indie Pop music video. We will adapt and expand these ideas, to make them more complex and adventerous. The different transitions between the black and white then colour shots are really eye catching, each shot stands out as it is never a contionous shot they are always switching keeping the audience intrigued and on their toes with the story the video is telling. The different coloured shots are really interesting as they are shot with the same female character but she is shown to look, and feel completey different. In  the black and white ones, the female looks melancholy and typically 'down in the dumps'. Whislt when in the colour shots she is shown to be energeticm, and full of energy, connoting the power that 'young love' has over you, which some of the audience may be able to relate with. Whilst in the black and white images do seem sinister, we don't actually always want to show her in this way throughout the whole black and white shots even though she is unhappy with the way her relationship has turned out she is trying to think positvely and thinking ahead, which signifys the balloon when we shot the footage for the real production. We really have to empahsis this, as if not the whole music video will just seem as if we are focusing on the down fall of love.

 

In the rough idea we decided to use jump cuts to hightlight the difference in the shots, representing the change in the setting and story, we wont use jump cuts for evry transistion as I don't seem to think they are really nessessary it takes away the realistic feel away from the music video. When we come to the real editing process I think we should prehaps use a jump cut for a certain change we want to add extra emphasis too, but not soley rely on them each time the shots change. A cross desolve was used when we added the couples smiles, the overlapping of the male and females smile represents the connection they couple once had and how close they were, the fading of the smiles would go on to portray the distance between the pair and how their love has faded.

 

Additionally I think that creating a rough idea this early on in the planning process was an brilliant idea to do. We have been able to discuss what in the group what each of us think works and looks good or shots and angles that don't seem to be as effective. In completing this task we now have an insight to what our music video will look like and how we will cope with the task and also how to make the most of our abilities and facilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Call Sheet

Time to Meet	10am Saturday 3rd November
Location to meet	Durham Train Station
Location	South Sheilds
Description of Location	The location we are using in South Shields is the beach near the ammusements. It's is very near a lighthouse, pier and an old ruin of a castle which will all be used in our scenery shots. The beach is very clean, and there are plenty of sand dunes and dainty places looking onto the beach that we will be able to catch some fantastic shots in. Be prepeared as it will be cold.
Group	Ellie Snowdon, Sarah Hewitt, Kelly Senior and Catherine Kirk.
Characters	Catherine Kirk, playing the female in the music video.
Props	A bag of red balloons, a few will be filled with helium before the day of shooting the footage. String will be needed, to tie the balloon. The balloons without helium in them will be used as a back up plan.
Special Instruction	Bring warm clothing jackets, hats, gloves and scarfs. It will be very cold, so wrap up warm. We will provide a towel for Catherine Kirk during shooting. Also please bring some money if you wish to buy food and drink whilst we are filming, there are many facilitys near by.

Filming

We have decided that we are going to shoot the footage for our music video during the October/November half term. The date we have picked in the 3rd of November, which falls on a Saturday.

During this school week we will finish our storyboard and put it onto the blog, we are also going to be creating the schedule for our filming, and a call sheet for the actor.

Location

We have choosen our location of South Sheilds beach, which is easily accessiable by train, car or bus. We all have arranged that we will be getting the train to our location as the train station is near to where we all live and means we can all meet up together to travel to the location, the train will also be the quickest way of travel which means more time for shooting footage. Expecially with the dark night arriving we will go during the late morning and work our way through till the late afternoon early evening. I will be doing a location scout on Thursday where I will be able to get some images of the location we are using which we will all be able to blog about during that week. There are facilitys near by where we can use the toilets and many of places that we can get some refreshements from and gain shelter. We have also considered that it might be cold when we are at the beach so we will all be wrapping up warm and also we will have warm clothes for the actress (Catherine Kirk) when we are aren't shooting footage so she is warm and comfy. Hopefully there won't be many people on the beach during the winter which will help us create the lonely isolated feel, however if there are a few people on the beach it won't really make a huge impact on our music video as it will make it seem more realistic and believable.

Treatment

Clothing- 

The clothing we want the actress to wear in our music video is a vintage classy style, we decided on this type of clothing as when we conducted our research into the genre it was the most common type of clothing that was present during music video's with females in. The female artist would usually wear pastel colours in such things as dresses, bodys or long floaty skirts. This is something we will be having our actress dressed in. We will have her in dark colours, such as red, black or white to connote her purity and to show her being dainty. The vintage style of clothing is very cute and classy, so we will have the actress dressed like this when walking on the beach, the plain colours will emphasis the feel of the beach as we will be filming around winter, so having vibrant bold patterns for the clothing would not really match the atmosphere we will be creating. However when the actress will be reminising back on her past relationship the colours will be pinks, and more vibrant to connote the love, passion and happiness she once felt. There will be the use of bold colours for her clothing in this footage, but it will always have a link back to the plain pastel colours as we don't want to create a huge contrast with the female herself, just what she was feeling at the time.

Below are some images of the vintage clothing from music video's I have analysed during my research. In the black and white image featuring Lana Del Rey, she is wearing a bathing cosume/body that can be seen as revealing. This fits in with the love the music video 'Blue Jeans' is trying to portray that can be seen in my previous blog posts. The plainw white colour is something we will take on board and incorpret into our constume in the music video, it makes the female seem pure, innocent and care free.

The second image is from Paloma Faith's music video 'Picking Up The Pieces', the clothing she is wearing is very smart and sophisticated making her look elegent and again fitting in with the vintage feel. The pastel colours can be seen which makes the singer look very classy and appealing. This is again something we will be taking into account when getting our costume together for the acress in our music video.




The image above is an idea of the look we are wanting to create
for the actress in our music video when she is walking on the
beach. The style fits in with the vintage theme seen throughout
the videos we have researched, so will portray a realistic
Indie Pop music video.






 

Plot-

Throughout the music video we will portraying the down fall of a females relationship with her previous partner. We will be shooting footage of the female on the beach, starting with shots of her leaning onto a barrier looking over onto the beach. Whilst the female is on the beach we will be getting clips of her walking on the beach, splashing in the sea we want to portray her having a really care free time. We will be having shots of the female and then pans, and different camera angles of the surroundings, such as having shots of the waves coming in and out, crashing against rocks and the lighthouse, just typical things you see whilst at the beach. As the music video progresses shots will be used of the female sitting on a bench, this is when the first glimpse of her past relationship will come in, from the on we will switch between the female alone doing certain things on the beach, with the balloon to her with her old partner, the shots of the female and her previous partner will focus on features, body language and movment as we don't want to focus on the male too much. Shots of them holding hands, and laughing will be in the footage where we will be focusing on the grasp of the hands, from different camera angles and movements. We will also be getting many shots of the balloon by itself and the female holding it, at the end of the video a shot of the balloon in the water will symbolise the freedom the female has and the final end of her relationship.

Location- 

We are having the location of our music video on South Sheilds beach, we decided to have this as our location as the surrounding there are fantastic we wanted a realistic setting, so a place where we could capture nature within the theme of our music video. The beach is normally a place where you would go with family or friends to enjoy the time spent with each other and make new memories, which contrasts with our actress being alone and going to the beach to gain some freedom and reflect over her past memories. We will be able to capture shots of the beach, sea, sand, rocks, shells, the lighthouse and clouds which will all link in with the nature theme shown throughout Indie Pop music videos.

Props-

The only prop we will be using is the red balloon which will symbolise the females previous lover, but also the freedom and independance she has now her relationship has ended. The balloon will be red to connote love, romance and passion that she once felt. As balloons are full or air and the female will be holding the balloon it represents that she does not need a relationship in her life but oxygen is a nessessity and will help her live her life to better things and new beginnings.

Extra Shots

 

Again today we decided to use our time wisely and get some more picturers of shots we will incorporate into our music video. We decided that we would focus on the main charcter, it's difficult to portray the atmosphere we want for the video as we only have the use of  the school to shoot the footage. But still all the shots from today and yesterday are still very useful as we are able to see if the shots we want to use will look good when we picture them in the location we will be using. Also we've been using the actress for the real music video in the shots, so this let her know what certain things she will have to do on the real footagte days and how to overcome any difficulties she may come across when filming shots. 

 

 

We tried to find something around the school that looked a little like a barrier, like one on the loaction we are using. When we use this shot it will let us get the scenery of the location in which plays a big part as we are filming at the sea side. We want the female to be looking around to her left or right taking in her surroundings emphasising that she is alone and possibly looking for her once companion.

We are now in a low angle shot of the first shot moving closer to her face we will be able to create a different feel of her look when shooting this, we want the shots like this to be her thinking back of her memories with her previous lover, by having the camera looking up at the female is represnts that she will be the main focus of the music video and is highly important. Again we will be able to get the look of the sky in the shot, linking back to the theme of nature.

This is one of my favourite shots we took today in the practice shots, I can really imagine the female character looking down onto the sandy beach. We will be able to have some of the beach in the shot, the main location throughout our music video. Her body movement had changed and she is lookign ahead of her, representing that she is thinking of the future intead of the past when she is looking away to her side. After the shot like this I think we should shoot some footage of the waves in the sea, to add extra emphasis to the setting of the beach, it would be really good if we could catch some shots of the waves crashing against some rocks, portraying the downfall and the pain of her relationship but the pace of the waves could suggest the urgency she felt to leave her relationship and move on.

This shot used here is perfect for us to be able to set the setting of the music video, we are able to get the out look of the beach into the shot, with the waves crashing and hopefully a few people on the beach with luck. With the actresses back towards the camera, it portrays that the audience will be following her and we are looking into her story. We can see what the actress is looking out onto so the audience will feel as if they are apart of her, but they can also see her so they are recieving her interpretation of the story the music video will be telling, but will also be able to include their own thoughts also as they can see it through their own eyes but also hers.

This Week

As a group we have sat down and gone into a lot more depth on our ideas for our music video. We have particially focused on the different types of shots we will include in the production of our footage. We took out a camera and tripod, and shot some practice footage on the various movements and angles which would work with the ideas for our final piece and make the theme of the music video realistic and fit in with our genre. We have done shots such as extreme close ups, and close up's of the actress we will be using in the music video and of the body movement and lanuage we want to include which can be seen in previous and upcoming blog posts. In this time we wanted to focus most of our attention to how the couple in the reminising shots would interact with each other, we tried many practice shots and came up with some more unique shot ideas whilst shooting. We though the body language and movement shots worked very well as it wasn't to lovey dovey, but still showed the conections the couple have to the audience.

We are also in the progress of our story board, and we are deciding and dilberating on which shots would be appropriate in certain parts of the music video and how we are going to create the transison of each shot when the character is looking back on her relationship. Whilst creating our story board, we have come up with some new fantastic ideas that we think would be sutibale to include in the music video, we are now developing these ideas and hopefully next week we will be able to blog about them.

Lana Del Rey- Blue Jeans

Lana Del Rey's music video for 'Blue Jeans' does follow the indie pop genre we are focusing our own music video on, however it does not hold the full style of the video we wish to prouduce. The theme of the video is about love which is what we are also basing our music video around. I wanted to analysis a video that had this theme, but not in the way we will fully portray it in our project. I wanted to see if there was any effects, and shots we could incorpret into our music video, to make it edgy and unique but still in the Indie pop genre, just focusing into a different type of love shown in this video as dark, instead of the reminising love we want to base ours on.

Lana Del Rey's music video for this song, is very interesting and is all in black and white which will be in our own music video. However from Lana's video the audience recieve a different feeling from having the video in black and white, it gives it a vintage feel and makes it seem myseterious and vivid. Whislt we will be creating a calming, mellow tone with the use of the black and white. It's great to see how two music videos focusing on the theme of love and from the same genre creating such huge contrasts between the effect.

The first shot used in the music video is of water, this links to the nature we have seen throughout the research in the Indie Pop genre, by having the first shot being water is can represent that water is all around us, it's overwhelming this could link to love being overpowering and straight away tells the audience that this is not your typical 'love song.' We are then shown a shot of Lana Del Rey under the water, we can tell she is under water by the shadows of the ripples from the water. It makes Lana looks like she is swaying under the water, and could be seen as an odd figure of the imagaination suggesting that love is confusing and not simple as people make it out to be.

The video then dips to black, we are shown the next character being the male. The camera is on the side of his face not letting us get the full force of his emotion. Most of his face is in the dark and his is smoking portraying a bad boy character, that many teenagers are attracted to once in their adolecent years. The shot is very sinister, and shows the theme of dark love with the melancholy tones.

Lana Del Rey is then shown in the lightest light she can be in the black and white effect. It portrays the characters in two very different lights, comparing them to one another. It seems as if the music video is trying to represnt good vs. evil, Lana in the light being the innocent one and the male character being the one causing all the problems.

The shot of Lana under the water represnts that she is trapped, she can't get out. Love is shown to be overpowering always bringing her back down to rock bottom, being under water. As the music video continues there is a shot where we look down onto her, the audience get the impression that she is weak and feels as if she is below everyone else, she has no power in her relationship, like she is being controlled by her bad boy partner. An extreme close up of Lana's face is used emphasising her emotion towards love and letting us concentrate on her flawless beauty, making the audience question if she is this perfect then why is she in this complicated relationship, under strain and pressure.

We focus alot of the body movement of the male character when he is undressing, this is something we will be doing in our music video, which is usefull to see in Indie Pop love videos as if gives us confidence that we are fitting with the theme, and not braking boundrys of the genre. The male character seems very relaxed compared to Lana under the water, he seems care free which is ironic when contrasted to position the female is under as she can feel the strain of their relationship. As the video goes on, Lana starts to look up through the water at her love, he is blurred with the samel shadowing ripple effect that was used on Lana at the beginning of the video. By having the water between the lovers represnts that there is something holding back their love inforcing a gap between the two, this could be linked to intamacy.

The first shot of them together as a couple is very intamte, it focuses on the body language between the pair, we are shown from the shot that the male holds the authority in the relationship ,he is touching Lana's body and face but she is holding back her feelings. The male goes to dive into the water, representing that maybe he is going to rescue Lana, maybe their love will survive and all the melancholy atmosphere will dissapear. Straight after that shot one of Lana is seen, she is waiting for her lover to come and save their relationship, hoping that they will be able to strive for the lust and passion they once had.

Once she is out from under the water, is symbols to the audience that she is rescued and everything in the relationship is sorted, they are now the typical happy couple. However from the shot the male is in black clothing, his is still the mysterious character feared by the innocent character (Lana) dressed in a white provocative bathing costume connoting elegance and perfection. An extreme long shot is used, the shot is very symmetrical apart from the beautiful surroundings, Lana is straight in the middle of the shot walking into the swimming pool, the audiences attention focuses on her, instead of taking in the breath taking scenery, this again links to the nature seen in our research. This time we see Lana, walking into the water on her own accord suggesting that she has gained some authority and their realtionship could be on the mend.

However all thoughts of their relationship turning around and becoming positive are lost, we are shown numerous shots of a crocodile in the water, represnting that Lana is walking to her fatal death, love is a danger and not a pleasent thing. We then recognise that the crocodile is personifed as being the male lover, quick shots are used to represnt this showing that the male is the dangerous one and their relationship is still in the same place is was before he 'rescued' her. By having Lana being in the water with a crocodile, suggest that any power and control she did have is being lost, this can link back to the beginning of the music video as this could be seen as being a figure of her own imagaination, she realises that her lover is frightful and troubling.

Shots are shown of Lana Del Rey sinking back down under the water, again she is overpowered by his animal like qualities. He is taking her back to where she was at the beggining of the video, taking away the sense of any rescue. As she is sinking to the bottom she begins to swim, representing that she is trying to escape. The crocodile swimming next to her signifies the male lover, basically saying you can try and get away but I will always pull you back to the place I want you.

A switch between the atmosphere of the music video changes, Lana's face is now above the water she is getting away from his hazardous love, however the next shot is seen of Lana and her male lover swimming in the pool to meet each other, connoting that she is weak and their love is too powerful to pull and keep them apart, his whole face is above the water whilst Lana's mouth is a little under, so he still holds power of her but they are both becoming equal, suggesting to the audience that maybe their love is complicated but it is true.

However this feel of trur love, after a few shots completley changes again, the couple kissing each other quickly cuts back to the crocodile, represnting that no matter what her feelings are what she is doing is dangerous and not true love. Lana's leg is seen to be over the crocodile, portraying that she knows he is a risky character to fall in love with but she always needfs to be with him, she just can't let go.

The male character follows this by pushing her under the water, Lana seems to take two steps forward and three steps back in this video is represnts that love can do horrible things, and she is always seen to be the one getting hurt. The male character soon realises what he had done wrong and pulls her up over the water holding Lana intimately, this portrays to the audience of the music video that he did really care and love her, he just didn't know how to control his feelings so turned them into an act of power and authority.

 

Shots

 

As a group we decided that we would get in some pratice on shots that we will use in our music video, we deliberated what shots to use just to start us off with our planning. We were hoping that if we got some shots captured that we want in our video, it would then help us develop our story board as we would be able to see what the shots would look like, so we could imagine them in our final piece. Once getting the basic shots we will use we will now focus on developing our more difficult invent shots. These starting images are taken around our school, so they aren't how they will be seen and pictured in our music video.  

 

 

 

 

This close up is of the actress we will be using in our real music video, this is all of our preliminary shots. This shot will be used when she is on the beach looking at her surroundings, the shot will be very effective with the scenery in the background as it will be like she is thinking and taking in the peaceful scenery.

The shot used here, of the two people holding hands will be used in one our reminising shots of the former couple. The shot captures the romance between the couple and lets the audience focus on the embrace they have. It represents that their relationship was once happy and passionate. By having both of the actors taking part in the film wearing the same jesus bagle, it portrays a union between them suggesting that they are united as one.

The extreme close up used here, highlights the emotion of the actor, again this shot will be used in colour when looking back on her relationship, this will be used in shots when we will be showing clips of the happy times they once had together. The shot really emphasises the joy, and comfort she felt. This shot also links in with our idea of only showing the body language between the couple and not their full faces, as we connect with something through their eyes, and we felt if we loosened the connection between the characters it would show the relationship has come to an end.

Again thos shot is very like one previous, however this once is from the front of the couple not from behind, we can see that the male is in charge of the relationship by his body langauge, his hand is over the girls making the firm grasp of holding hands, he looks like he is in control which could represnt a reason why their relationship has come to an end. Looking for other suggestions, it obviously shows the love between them both and portrays the short story we are taking the audience on through the music video.

This shot is one we will be using on a bench, or a wall near the beach. We had to make do with table in our school's dinning hall, it still gives off the same impression but not in a believable way. We want to add a shot like this into our music video and it represnts that the girl is now alone, and single. Again we are not seeing her face, and just focusing on her body lanuage this could be taken many ways, it couldt suggest that she is lonely without her previous partner or that she is enjoying her time taking in her surroundings and content with her life. When we get the footage of the shot like this, we will follow the movement of her feet swinging, suggesting a movement in time, so the end of her relationship openinn new beginnings. As you can see from the picture below, it is the same pose used from the shot above just in a different camera angle, this shot will let us get some of the surrounding in so we can link back to the theme of nature we found throughout our research, it also lets us show the outfit the female is wearing, which will be vintage clothing to create a unique and quirky style for our character.

Video Clips

 

This short video is a mixture of music video clips from the Indie Pop genre. It has numrous different video's in from a range of artists across the gere, we decided to create this short video to express certain shots and effects we want to create in our own music video. We picked music videos that all have a link to nature in ,as that is a theme we will have throughout our music video, the body language used in shots is also something we will focus on. We put this together to show to our fellow Media students in our pitch presentation, we have the original cover of the song over the top so everyone was able to hear the song we wanted to use and give us their thoughts about the idea's we had to produce a realistic Indie Pop music video.

Copyright

The images below show the permission we have to use the cover of the song 'Lovers Eyes' we found on youtube. We are able to go ahead and create the music video with the original song we wanted to use.

 

This is the first email we sent to get permission of copyright so we would be albe to use the cover of the song for our music video.

 

 

This is the email we recieved back from our previous email, giving us permission to use the cover of Mumford & Sons 'Lovers Eyes'.

 

 

As you can see from the emaill the artist sent us, he asked us if we would be using his video in our project. We explained that we would just be using his song and creating our own video over the top of the music. We have the go ahead, to use his cover and will start to plan out our music video in full detail.