Retrospective Post

So, I have now started the filming and editing process as you can see from my previous blog entries and my skills have developed a lot in the last couple of months.

 

In terms of having to re-shoot my music video, I found it challenging; however the process was a lot easier than my AS process, as I had never been told to re-shoot before, which was huge challenge, however the organisational skills that I picked up during my AS project have helped me massively during A2. As I had to use a lot of organisational skills during my AS project as I needed to organise the location, the dates and also when my actors were free, I was able to apply the same ideas into my A2 music video, however I knew how to plan out the dates, times and locations from my previous experiences. As I had the same problem during my AS piece in terms of the acresses changing, I had to have a back up plan ready during AS incase the problem occured where the actress couldn't make it and this did happen, which worked out ok as I had already planned the senario; however during my A2 piece, I found it very difficult in terms of trying to think of another actress to use when my original actress dropped out, but when everything came together it seemed to flow well. This experience will benefit me in the past however, as I will know to solve the problem if it happens again.

 

Since my AS piece, I learnt that I would have to use a high quality camera as a result of the low quality sound; however now that I have used a higher quality camera, another problem has occured - light. I was shooting in extremely low light and there seems to be a 'grainy' effect on each film as the camera must have found it hard to pick up the detail in poor lighting. After many problems with the sound in my previous project, it is going to be much easier to sort out out the lighting problems as I will hopefully be changing the picture to black and white, depending on my audience feedback. We did combat some of the light problems as I wasn't able to film Stephanie walking home as I couldn't pick up her figure at all; however we used my Mum's car headlights to shine onto the street as she was returning home and this enabled the camera to pick up her figure which was great and very last minute thinking; however worked well and didn't look too artificial, but more like a street light. Although there was a few problems with getting my shadow in the shot, I managed to work around that by changing my position of where I was stood.

 

I feel like my editing has improved dramatically since having a lot experience from my AS project. Also during filming, I feel like I have been editing whilst filming as I am picturing how it will all fit together during post-production. I have been able to shoot a lot better quality angles and range my shots in terms of getting LS's, CU's etc. My filming seems to be a lot more 'professional' since I have gained a lot of experience through my rough cut during the summer (which helped A LOT!), my preliminary shooting tasks such as the different shots task and the continuity project etc and most of all my AS final piece which took a lot of effort in terms of editing as I had so many different scenes and characters to switch between.

 

Although I carried out audience research during my AS project, I have carried out a lot more during A2 in terms of creating surveys, asking a range of different people to watch my rough edits and give me feedback, asking their opinions on my CD cover etc, which has been extremely beneficial for me as it has given me some guidance in terms of the direction that I will take next. In terms of artist research, I have been able to carry out a lot more extensive research during this AS project as there has been more scope to look at different artists. I did carry out a lot of research and analysis during my AS piece and this did take me a very long time; however I have done exactly the same for my music videos in A2, just a lot more detailed. I ensured that I had broken down each key aspect of my artists music video and CD cover to make sure that my final project linked in directly with my research and I think this is going well do far, in terms of the way my CD mock-up's have worked out and also my music video.

 

The research that I have conduced for this project has been extremely indepth and beneficial in terms of helping me produce my final product. I have enjoyed deconstructing each piece of work from different artists and comparing them along the way to give me specific links between my research and my final product.

 

As a result, I have managed to produce a lot in the last 3 months as I was slightly stumped when I was asked to reshoot my narrative parts of my video to have more of a continuous flow to it. When I was asked to this, I came up with some ideas; however I was totally unsure on how and what I would do. When I chose my actress, the plan started coming together and I created storyboards, storyboards with lyrics and an animatic storyboard to make sure that I fully understood the route and plan that I was taking. When my actress changed this wasn't too bad as I was able to arrange new dates with Stephanie and plan  out what I would shoot and what dates and this has gone very smoothly and I am pleased with the footage that I have taken. If I am comparing my progress now to 3 months ago, I would say that there has been a dramatic change for the better, as I have been able to put my research into practise to produce my final idea, resulting in shooting my finished product. I couldn't imagine 3 months ago thinking that i'd be at the stage where I can start editing now, so that is extremely positive and my planning and research has paid off so far.

 

I have changed my narrative parts to fit in a lot more with Todorov's theory, as it is now a lot more continuous and shows a clearer 3 stage step, i.e disequllibrium (argument and running away), equillibruim (before the argument) and then the new equillibrium fits into Barthes' theory of the enigma code as the audience are left to decide what happens next after the curtains are shoot on Stephanie - does the new equillibrium happen by Stephanie knocking on the door and making up with her parents, or does the disequillibrium continue by her running back away? YOU DECIDE!

 

In terms of the genre, the narrative allows the genre to become clearer to the audience in terms of the way the song is structured and the meaning behind the song, which is that a teenager is going through a rough patch; however they need to learn to 'reach out and not to be scared' to ensure that they receive help from those who are around them. I have made the choice to use the specific locations that I have because I think that the woods symbolise loniless and a sense of someone trying to escape but they don't know how to (much like Stephanie wondering whether to return home or not), also I chose to use the busy city to symbolise that Stephanie was alone although there was a large crowd of people around her, yet none of those people could make her situation any better. I'm not sure that the audience would expect the ending, as I think they would be hoping for a new equillibrium like Todorov suggested, however the ending links more with Barthes' theory, as they're left with an unexpected enigma, which I don't think they wanted. I think what they would've wanted is for Stephanie and her parents to make up and life happily ever after; like audience's want to happen to make them feel better within themselves.

 

Overall, I think that I have made a lot of progress since my research to where I am now and I am very pleased with the way things are going. The next step now is to start my editing properly and see how that goes - I will keep you posted.

Tonights Filming

Tonight's filming was a huge challenge as we were working against the clock as we didn't want it to get too dark and unfortunately in the end it did, however we took out necessary actions to combat this. The light when we were filming the 'returning home' was extremely bad, as it was very dark by then, so we had to cut that down a lot by just having Stephanie leave the woods and then during post-production I will just cut it to where she is entering her street. We used the car headlights to give some light and they just make it look like there is a bright street light, which is fine as you could see Stephanie well. Also, whilst doing this, I had to try many different positions to stand in because I kept on getting my reflection in the shot from the headlights. 

The quality of the film seems extremely 'grainy' as the light was extremely low, however I will be able to change the settings/brightness during post-production, which should make it ok. I am still thinking of changing the narrative parts to black and white anyway, so this should work out ok. I am going to trial both black and white and also colour to gather some audience feedback on what they prefer and see what my findings are. 

Overall, I got everything filmed that I wanted to, so that was good as we managed to stick to the deadline and now the editing begins! 

I will post some footage of tonight's shoot asap.

Today's Filming

Today, we managed to get the Durham and Shincliffe scene filmed, where Stephanie is wandering through the city, lost and ends up a woodland environment, not sure where she is.

Tomorrow, we are going to film the woods scene, however I am hoping that it won't be too dark, as we can't start until 4pm and sunset is now at 3:50pm, however I am wanting the give off the effect that the sun is just starting to set as Stephanie enters the woods and begins to return home, so this should work out ok. If not, we will have to film the woods scene next weekend or another week day, however just earlier. 

I also need to film a Stephanie's phone ringing on her bed, to use as a cut-away to show that Stephanie's parents are worried about her, however because she doesn't call back, they lose touch and this is shown in the end when she returns home. 

This is a short rough cut of what we filmed today:

Durham Rough Cut

I am not sure whether the shot that I have taken from the other side of the river breaks the 180 degree rule, however if it does, I think it works. What do you think?

I made sure that I did a test shot before Stephanie walked down the stairs, as I wanted to make sure that I got her full body in the shot before we started to shoot.

I had a lot of trouble with the focus today for some reason as it wasn't very clear on the camera screen; however when I have uploaded the clips onto my laptop, I have chosen to use the clips that are in focus and that's partly why I did the log sheet with the clips on. 

I have also had to lighten up some of the clips as the sun way in the way, which made Stephanie just look like a shadow, however post-production should be able to sort it out.

As the Christmas Lights were being turned on today in Durham, it was particularly busy and people were getting the way of the camera etc and it was rather stressful; however we got there in the end! 

There are some slight changes to my initial plan in terms of the storyboard that I matched up with the lyrics, as this scene has overran slightly, as it was due to finish at the end of the second verse; however now it ends just before the middle, so that the woods scene can be playing as "this is nothing to be proud of" is playing, which I think will work extremely well.

Before editing this, I did watch the clips that I had taken today and made notes on what went well and what didn't:

I noted down the clip number, the length of the clip and also a tick/cross as to whether I could use the clip and I have given comments on some of them. This really helped when I was uploading the clips into iMovie, as I was able to just upload the ones that I needed.

Today's Filming

Today, I managed to get the bus scene filmed with Stephanie and that went surprisingly well (it went better than I expected), which is a bonus!

We had to do this scene twice, as the first time I couldn't see Stephanie that well once she has got on the bus and was looking out of the window and also the panning on the camera didn't work because I hadn't loosened the bolt on the tripod to make it pan easily, which was a bit of a nightmare, but a learning curve! So, the second time lucky, it went well and I managed to get Stephanie to sit down at a window seat and I panned as the bus moved away.

I did change the bus scene slightly as I didn't get on the bus too like i'd planned to follow Stephanie onto the bus and then get a shot whilst I was sat down at the front to follow her getting on. I thought it would be easier, however also much more sophisticated to just had a LS of Stephanie actually on the bus as I was stood filming from the other side of the road.

This was extremely difficult as I didn't have time to get everything in place and stop and start, I had to work fast to ensure that I got in the shots that I wanted as I was working with the bus times and how fast the bus was moving etc, which was an experience! 

I got some images of today's shoot:

These were the bus times that we had to work with today and as you can see, they weren't very often as it was a Sunday. Stephanie first got on the 10:58 bus and when that take didn't go too well, we filmed some more in the bus stop and then Stephanie got on the 11:19, which was a much better take. Here is some footage to show you:

BUS SCENE CLIPS

I have put together a rough version of what the bus scene will look like in my final piece and as you can see it is quite fast and this is the effect that I was going for. When I was editing this short piece, I thought I would have to make it longer in order to make it fit, however in the end, it all worked. I would like you to give me your feedback on what you think the jump from Stephanie being at the bus stop to being on the bus is like? That'd be muchly appreciated!

Whilst filming, I did have a few problems with getting my reflection in the bus stop glass and this was problematic. Some of the clips that I have taken today can't be used in my final piece for that reason, unless I crop it down, however I got a lot of footage that I can use. 

Next Sunday, I am planning on filming the Durham scene and then on either the evening or Monday evening, the woods scene and returning home. After that is finished, the footage will all be ready to start editing with and then my final piece should be done in no time! I will keep you posted with my progress. 

My P.O.V - Audience Feedback

After receiving the audience feedback on whether they prefered the black and white album cover or the colour album cover, I was rather shocked at the outcome, as I was expecting the majority of the audience to say that they prefered the black and white cover; however this was the complete opposite, as my previous post explains. I only got two explanations as to why they chose colour and they said that they preferred the colour version as it was more "cheerful" and fitted better with my style of music, in comparison with the black and white cover. The other feedback was that they preferred the colour cover as the black and white conversion wasn't good enough, meaning it wasn't the best of quality. I have taken the audience feedback into consideration and I understand that the conversion isn't the best quality because I only used powerpoint to create it; however it was only a mock-up, so if I was to produce a higher quality black and white cover, it would look much better. 

As most of the audience chose colour, I think I will have to go with the majority and use the colour image, which is fine, as it doesn't change my ideas for the booklet inside which I particularly like at the moment. If I go with the colour album cover, it shows that I have taken my audience's feedback into consideration and acted upon my research. 

ASSF - Aesthetica Short Film Festival

On Friday, I visited the ASSF in York, which was a fantastic experience and it enabled me to gain knowledge into my chosen subject area of music videos and also listen to the experience of Alice Lowe, an English actress and writer, mainly in comedy. She is also known for her work in Hot Fuzz and Sightseers, which she spoke about during her talk at the Theatre Royal which I attended. 

During her talk, I managed to take some notes on the work in which she has starred in, written and produced. She spoke about a competition called Straight 8, which is an independent filmmaking event (Straight 8 Event), and this enabled her to make a film called Stiffy (Stiffy Film) which is what she entered for the competition. This film took them a day to make and they couldn't edit it, so they had to take the shots with a camera and just stop and start when they wanted to cut the scenes etc. Her talk was extremely inspiring, as she talked about the amount of work that she has written and starred in, which was amazing. She said that she made a deal that she would make a short film every month for a year, which I thought was an extremely amazing thing to do, especially whilst still working on other productions.

Her most up-to-date production is Sightseers, which she starred in and co-wrote with Steve Orum and this film was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, which I feel is an amazing achievement (Sightseers Film). I love how Alice actually writes and stars in her own films, as she said that this enables her to do what she wants in terms of she knows how she wants certain scenes to be acted out etc. 

During the question and answer section towards the end of the talk, she explained how she improvises a lot of the scripts with Steve when they work together, as she obviously does comedy sketches, which has enabled her to do so. Before filming, she said they tend to do a read through of the script at different venues using their actors to pick up on mistakes, however they tend to film what they do anyway because it normally works first time!

She gave the audience a few tips when writing/producing a film and they were:
- interview actors
- rehearse with actors aside from the film
- improvise
- rehearse as much as possible for the film

Before writing scripts, she said she waits for inspiration to come to her and during her film Sightseers, she pushed female character to develop to have a bigger impact for women in the film industry. She also said that she listens to music during writing and the music that she listens to fits with the flavour of the film, which is interesting and I have done this before in a similar way. 

Everything was just extremely interesting about her work and the way that she has just worked her way up throughout the industry and worked with so many big stars.

Throughout the day, we were able to visit music video screenings and I did so, however I wasn't impressed with them at all. The music videos didn't seem to fit well with the song, they were extremely unusual and weren't a typical music video that you'd expect, however I guess they would have fit with the research that the producer had done. I wasn't able to watch the one music video that I wanted and this was Half Moon Run - Call Me In The Afternoon and I did some research online to try and find it, as it featured a girl in the woods and it looked like it would fit into my research/project perfectly:

This was the image that was in the booklet that we received for the day with all of the different events that we could go to. 

I really just wanted to see this video to have a look at the way the forest scenes were shot etc, to see if it would give me any tips for filming my forest scene. I have watched this video online and it is extremely strange and not want I expected at all. In a way it does fit in with my final piece idea, as the hands are "reaching out", however it isn't an explicit link: Half Moon Run Video

As well as visiting this, we then attended a Beggars Music Video talk. Beggars are an independent music producer and the talk was about the music videos that they have helped/directed for particular artists including, Adele, Gary Newman and Daughter. This is there website for more information: Beggars

Beggars is a Matador umbrella term and they have produced videos and worked with Adele, Dizzee Rascal, White Stripes and many more big names. They promote their music videos and they found that for Adele's music video "Rolling In The Deep", when they used behind the scenes footage of the music video, this promoted the actual music video even more as the fans felt more of a connection with the artist as their personality came through. One of the men, James, who gave part of the talk actually directed and edited Youth by Daughter, which is unbelievable and a great achievement - Youth by Daughter Music Video

Both of the speakers from Beggars music group spoke about how music videos can influence other things, such as when Kirsty Walk was in Thriller on Newsnight  and when The Beatles just made promotional clips for their songs in the 60's. 

They mentioned that the best way to start of making music videos, is to find a local band who would like to make a music video and deliver your idea to them in a sentence, being original. He said take ideas from Theatre films and other forms of media. They wanted to get across that "less is more" and the simple videos are the best. 

They gave their opinion on a bad music video and they believed for a music video to be unsuccessful, it has to be:
- complicated
- music doesn't fit with the visual
- no information about the band
- not good vive
- "too many cooks"

He said that the audience need to be in the bands world when they watch the music video. 

He gave us some ideas on how to promote our music videos and he said that we could use a company called Fast Tracks where you can send your music video to them and within the first 30/40 seconds, you have to get them hooked. 

They explained how YouTube is such a great way to promote music videos as it is instant, record labels use it as radio stations and there is no rule book - "anything goes". 

After mentioning what a bad music video could feature, they mentioned a successful music video would be due to:
- youtube hits
- lay ground for artist

The whole talk mapped out some great advice and at the end, I gave Craig, one of the representatives, my music card to try and promote myself further as an artist, so I will see where that goes.

In terms of reflection, for my AS work, I didn't have access to anything like this which could have boosted my inspiration, however now I feel like this project has been much more inspiring in terms of the opportunities in which we have been offered and the ASFF has really helped me in terms of the music video side of the project, which shows how much different my AS and A2 research is, showing a huge development and jump. 

The music video screenings were based in a clothes shop, upstairs, behind a curtain and in the room, there was a TV on the wall which just had the videos on a loop throughout the day which was really interesting and the venue shocked me as I thought it would be in a cinema.

Overall, this was a fantastic day and gave me some great tips and inspiration for my current and future projects.

Audience Feedback

I have gathered some audience feedback together on whether they prefer the colour or the black and white album cover, however I have had mixed responses:

So, out of the 6 people that I asked:

4 = Colour

1 = Black and White

1 = Black and White back cover

I prefer the black and white version personally, as I feel that it reflects better in my research, however I have been offered by one of the people who sent feedback, to go and use their editing equipment to make the black and white quality better. I am obviously going to make it better for my final product, however this was just a mock up.

I will have a speak to others and see what they think so that I can make the right decision for my final piece. 

Slight Changes to Filming Dates

Well, I was meant to be filming the bus scene and possibly Durham today, however my actress was unable to make today, so we have arranged to continue filming next Sunday (17th) from 11am - 2pm, filming the bus scene and hopefully Durham and then on Monday 18th I am hoping to film the returning home scene, however if we don't manage to film Durham on Sunday, we will have to postpone that, which isn't a problem, as we have to dates to play around with before the editing begins.

I have began to edit some rough parts, which I posted on my blog about a week ago, just to see how everything would pan out and it's going very smoothly so far! So I hope it continues to flow smoothly for the rest of the project.

Audience Engagement

Earlier, I sent out an email to a variety of different people, asking them to state their opinion on whether they prefer the coloured CD cover or the black and white CD cover. This is the email that I sent:

I will let you know when I received responses to this. 

Back of Albums

As I was creating my album mock-up's of my front and back cover, I have done some research into the type of things that feature on the back of my chosen artists albums, in terms of barcodes and record labels etc.

Gabrielle has the barcode at the bottom of her album in the middle, however I wouldn't be able to do that I have taken the back of my album inspiration from KT Tunstall. She also has Parlophone records icon above that and some writing below the barcode linking to the record label etc.

Taylor Swift has her social network websites on the back cover of her album which I don't like because I find them tacky and out of place. I prefer Gabrielle's set out, as she just has her website link above the barcode:

Taylor's fans would already know these, so it's a waste of space. She also shows her record label 'Big Machine Records', like Gabrielle does, however she just has her website above the barcode which is more sophisticated and appears to reflect her better as an artist I feel. 

 I have had much influence from Colbie's album cover as it doesn't really fit in with the rest of my research because although the colours do link with the the country-like feel off her video that I analysed, however the border doesn't fit in with the rest of the album's. Her barcode is in the typical place that a barcode would be on a CD and I prefer a quirkier place for a barcode, like KT Tunstall's below.

 

KT's copyright information and the information about the rights of the songs are below her song titles and I think this is the way I will have my credits.

 

On all of the albums that I have looked at, there is a barcode, an icon for their record label and then information about their copyright laws and who owns the rights to the songs etc. As an example, for Gabrielle Aplin, it explains that EMI own the rights, as they own Parlophone, her record label. 

This shows that I have thought about the positions of the different features on the back cover of my album, rather than just placing them anywhere.

Gabrielle's Booklet

Before I produced my mock-up's I looked extensively at Gabrielle's booklet for her album and I looked at the order and the type of style that she used:

This is Gabrielle's booklet in order from beginning to end and as you can see, she uses a different image for the background of the lyrics and then a black box which has a low opacity to enable the image to be seen, however the lyrics are still readable. 

The images that are shown on their own opposite the lyrics are of the same mise-en-scene as she is wearing the same clothing (red top and black shorts) and they're all seem to taken in the same/similar place. However to fit in with my research, I have had to vary my mock-up's to fit in with Taylor's too. 

Gabrielle has included credits and thank you's, which I will also use, as Taylor also does the same thing.

Mock Up's

After looking at my chosen artists more carefully and going off my previous digipack/album cover mock-up's, I have produced some higher quality mock up's after I posted about the link between Gabrielle and Taylor's booklets, as they were the only ones I could find out of my chosen outfits and I have produced a mixture of mock-up's, linking to both artists.

Here, I have solely focused on Gabrielle Aplin's album, as she uses black and white images or images with the same tone and same mise-en-scene and then has a range of lyrics on the opposite page. She uses a picture which links in with her album cover, which is leaf/nature images and this also links in with my front cover, as I am choosing to have a picture of me in the forest for my front cover, so this fits in perfectly. Obviously as this is a mock-up, I have just repeated the same lyrics throughout this page and for the mock-up's below to give you an idea of what I am trying to create. I really like this page of the booklet as I feel it has a sophisticated vibe to it, with the black and white image and the lyric page being in a different tone, however linking in well. Gabrielle also uses images of her in recording studios, practise sessions and I chose to use a variety of images of my artist performing at small gig venues as it looks like a small practise session. 

This also relates just to Gabrielle, as I have also used a white border around the image like she does in her booklet and the lyric pages vary throughout - see blog post with the order of her booklet. I have chosen to use an image behind the lyrics that I took when I was filming my woods scene in the summer and I think it works really well. I created all of these mock-up's in Photoshop and I created a black box and just changed the opacity of it to ensure that the picture below was showing through underneath the lyrics, which is what Gabrielle's is like too. 

This mock-up above is mainly focused on Taylor Swift's album booklet, however I have produced a slight mixture which the opacity of the box being changed to low so that the below image shows through, which is Gabrielle's idea. Apart from that, I chose to create a mock-up based on Taylor's booklet as I have used different text for the title's and also the lyrics, depending on what the song is about and I also chose the image to fit with both songs like Taylor does in her album. She also creates double pages so I wanted to see what it would look like to do so and I really like this style. I have chosen the colour of the boxes from the colour of the red poppy and varied the tone, as I realised that Taylor does this in her booklet. She takes the colour of the image and matches up the lyric boxes, text and colour to all fit together:

Here, she taken the tone and colour of the jeans and varied the colour of the boxes to fit in with the image. The blue could also relate to the sadness that she feeling within these two songs and both of the songs that feature on this page are of a sad tone and that's why I chose to put my two songs on the same page, as they both have a similar tone of 'questioning the meaning of life' and 'not really sure where you stand' etc.

Taylor also takes some of her lyrics and places them around the page that the lyrics are on, which is really interesting and a very unique idea:

Again I used the same colour tone as the image, with the use of the red poppies to create the pinky/red tone for the writing and the title. Taylor uses different font for each title depending on what song she is presenting and I did this for the mock-up above and I really like it and it works well.

I think I would like to go with a balance between the two artists as I really like the pages that I have produced and I think it would show two sides to the artist in a good way, as being serious with the black and white images and then also being fun with the use of the different fonts and colours.

I previously created a colour version of my front/back cover of my album, however I have created a black and white version too see what is better:

I think the black and white one fits in a lot better with my booklet mock-up's as well, as their is a tie between the two and it also links in with my research better because both Sara and Gabrielle use black and white for their front and back album covers and as I have been influenced by Gabrielle a lot, I think the black and white would be a better option to fit everything together and show a clear link between my research and planning. 

I am going to get some audience feedback to see which one they prefer and I will let you know the results. 

Just from this piece of research, I know that my skills in terms of research and planning have developed massively since my AS piece and I think that my research for this piece will be extremely more detailed as a result, which shows my jump from AS to A2, as I didn't produce as much audience research/feedback in my previous project. Although I used a lot of links between my research and final piece in my previous AS piece, for my A2 piece I have shown a more explicit link, which is much better.