Based on you research into existing media products...
I'm already leaning towards the brief in which we create a music video. Last year, I really enjoyed playing around with editing software & adding visual effects to my video. I feel as if creating a music video is a continuation of this style of editing. Saving time and effort writing a script and narrative, whilst putting more effort into the aesthetic style, which I currently find more manageable, especially considering the time constraints we are against.
Talking with the group, this seems to be the predominant consensus. None of us want to get too caught up forming a script & narrative, & feel our time & skills would be put to much better use creating a music video.
Preliminary Task
In preparation for our A2 coursework, we have been tasked with producing an original music video for a pre existing song, as well as designing an accompanying CD cover for the single.
Group
- Richard B-W - Filming/editing
- Kate Lankester - Filming
- Alice Western - Location, Casting
- Molly Collison - Casting, timing.
Our potential song choices were as follows:
Calvin Harris - Sweet Nothing ft. Florence Welch
David Bowie - Life on MarsBlink 182 - Another Girl Another Planet
DJ Sammy - The Boys of Summer
Sugababes - About You Now
Sia - Cheap Thrills
And the song we finally chose to produce our video for:
The Smiths - This Charming Man
We chose this song because it already has a rich narrative and interesting themes which we can draw on for inspiration and ideas. The main themes in the songs are about class divide and the pressures of working life. Additionally, the song itself is rhythmic & upbeat, despite it's serious undertones, which we thought was an interesting juxtaposition.
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Research
To research video styles I searched for 3 music videos for songs in a similar style/genre.
Pulp - Babies
This song is similar in the way that it features a prominent narrative in the lyrics. Essentially telling a story. Despite this, the music video mainly consists of a performance by the band, with related scenes and imagery interlaced throughout. I think this suits the 'storytelling' element of 'This Charming Man', because it leaves much to the imagination, whilst still staying relevant and interesting.
The Charlatans - The Only One I Know
Again, the video for this song consists mainly of footage of the band playing the song, however it is still visually interesting. I think that using band footage in our own music video is good, especially for rock/ alt rock songs, in which the aesthetics and playing of the instruments is often very prominent & important. Some of the angles used in this video would work well in our own work, especially the close ups of the instruments which would be also easy to reciprocate.
Inspiral Carpets - This is How it Feels
This video is also mostly band footage. I like the 'home video' feel, which is captured through the aspect ratio, gloomy setting and modest outfits. Also there are some cool visual effects & fast editing.
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Planning for our video: The Smiths - 'This Charming Man'.
In order to come up with ideas I decided firstly to deconstruct the lyrics of the song, whilst listening to the song and writing down what the lyrics meant, what visual imagery would work well with the particular riff/lyric.
Punctured bicycle
On a hillside desolate
Will nature make a man of me yet?
On a hillside desolate
Will nature make a man of me yet?
When in this charming car
This charming man
This charming man
Why pamper life's complexity
When the leather runs smooth
On the passenger's seat?
When the leather runs smooth
On the passenger's seat?
I would go out tonight
But I haven't got a stitch to wear
This man said "it's gruesome
That someone so handsome should care"
But I haven't got a stitch to wear
This man said "it's gruesome
That someone so handsome should care"
Ah ! A jumped-up pantry boy
Who never knew his place
He said "return the ring"
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things
Who never knew his place
He said "return the ring"
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things
I would go out tonight
But I haven't got a stitch to wear
This man said "it's gruesome
That someone so handsome should care"
La, la-la, la-la, la-la, this charming man
Oh, la-la, la-la, la-la, this charming man
But I haven't got a stitch to wear
This man said "it's gruesome
That someone so handsome should care"
La, la-la, la-la, la-la, this charming man
Oh, la-la, la-la, la-la, this charming man
Ah ! A jumped-up pantry boy
Who never knew his place
He said "return the ring"
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things
Who never knew his place
He said "return the ring"
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things
He knows so much about these things
I printed off the lyrics, and listened to the song multiple times, making notes each run through next to lyrics that I thought were significant and interesting, along with what shots/locations/actions I thought would suit the particular part of the song.
The lyrics have an important relevance to our video as they show the social differences in society. For example, the line 'why pamper life's complexity' demonstrates the idea that there is little need for wealth and that people can live without it. As a result of this, it is important that our video represents these ideas, therefore it means that our actors can't be wearing any fancy clothing and that we have to base our idea around the more important things in life, such as natural beauty of the countryside and things that make individuals happy, for example music. Casting is very important to the video as we need to make it look as though the actor could be the person singing this song otherwise the whole video will look out of place.
Format Of The Video
After viewing the original music video and analysing the lyrics we have decided to include live music and a narrative storyline. We feel it is important to have live music as music is often used to correlate to someone's emotions and as the song is about personal experiences we feel this is appropriate. Also, because the song suggests that money isn't needed to be happy we felt that it was important to include people being happy through something that doesn't cost a lot of money and music is something that can bring people together without having material things. However, we also felt that it was important to include a narrative to the video as the original video is all based on a live performance as we didn't want to copy that idea. We are going to include a lot of the narrative footage as we feel this will be the most challenge footage to film and therefore want to challenge ourselves and show off the skills we have used whilst filming.
Update From This Week
This week has been a productive start to the process of filming our preliminary task; we have decided the song, finalised the roles each member of the group will do, analysed the lyrics and come up the basic idea for the video (which has been a development on the original idea Richard had). The next job is roach the actors we have in mind to star in the video to see if they are interested in filming it and when they are free so we can decide on a date to film that we are all free.
Plot Ideas
For the idea of including a live performance in our music video, we are planning to use the main stage in our school hall, as we believe that we can make it look professional without giving off the idea that it was filmed in our school hall. It will start with the curtains being drawn back and the band on stage will start playing the song. For the narrative aspect of the song, we will show that main singer of the band walking round a deprived area, taking in his surroundings. We are also planning to demonstrate the singer rebelling against norms of society to show his attitudes towards the way society functions and state that society's norms can affect people negatively. We will also be filming in an area of natural beauty where we can demonstrate the lyrics in the song that material things aren't the only things that are beautiful and that people don't need wealth to witness beauty. We feel that all of these ides will correlate well to the song choice.
Shooting Schedule
We are going to be filming this week starting on Thursday the 14tyh July. We are filming this day because it is a day that we are all free and do not have any out of school activities, such as work. We are hoping that the weather when filming will be fairly cloudy, maybe with some rain to demonstrate the depressing feels of society suggested in the song, however the weather forecast is saying that it will be dry for the majority of the week and we can't afford to put off filming for any longer as we may miss the deadline. We have also filmed some of the live performance footage today (on the 12th), however the footage didn't turn out the way we had hoped and therefore on Friday the 15th we are going to be attending a band practice where they have said we can film them playing 'This Charming Man' as they are familiar with the song. However, we will still be using some of the close ups and opening footage we filmed on today as they are of good quality.
Update From This Week
We are spending our time now writing blog posts that we can before filming so that we use all of our time efficiently. Some members of our group haven't contributed to planning the filming and writing blog posts as much as others, however we are hoping that we will still have it done on time so that we can meet all of the deadlines. We have decided our dates for filming and hope to have all appropriate blog posts finished before we start filming.
Final Plot Ideas
At the start of our video the curtains will be drawn back and the music will start playing as the camera gets closer towards the band and the main singer. This will allow the song to be slowly introduced, which is a common thing in modern music videos. We will then switch to some footage of Harry walking through the less well maintained areas of Wymondham, a town local to us. Then we will have more shots of the band from different camera angles, we will also be showing every member of the band. After this we will show Harry walking around houses of an older time period to modern day, in these narrative shots he wont be lip syncing because we feel we have enough of the live music shots in our music video. We will then show some close ups of the band playing their music before cutting to footage of Harry on a train track, this is also where we show him running into the distance of the train track so it isn't just him stood still on the track. It will end with a shot of the band not playing their instruments and the song will slowly fade out.
We are hoping to get footage filmed both on a tripod and hand held shots to add to the effect and to see what looks best. We are hoping that in some of the band shots their instruments will be attached to them (such as around their neck) to demonstrate the idea that we are societies puppets.
PRELIMINARY: Casting Ideas
Main singer/Actor: Harry Buxton
Harry has experience in performing at gigs and has his own band so is comfortable and confident when playing music. As a result of this, it means that he can actually play the song instead of having to pretend to as we know that this wouldn't look as professional as it would probably be out of time. He is also a media student so it would be easy for us to contact him and run him through the ideas we have, as well as this he knows the quality that our work needs to be at and therefore will help us to produce a high level piece of work.
Singer/Actor: Richard Bate-Weldon
We decided to use Richard, from our group, because he has clear vision of what the idea needs to be and therefore will know how to execute it to get the best results. He is comfortable on camera and has band practice and therefore he can play the guitar as well and this will help make our video look more professional. We will have to see how he looks on camera when deciding whether to use him for the narrative storyline as we want to make sure we get the right person for the job.
Guitarist: Aaron Smith
We have an idea to use Aaron as he is in the band with Harry and Richard and therefore would fit well into the group and can play the guitar. Due to the gig practice we felt confident that he won't look uncomfortable on camera either.
Harry has experience in performing at gigs and has his own band so is comfortable and confident when playing music. As a result of this, it means that he can actually play the song instead of having to pretend to as we know that this wouldn't look as professional as it would probably be out of time. He is also a media student so it would be easy for us to contact him and run him through the ideas we have, as well as this he knows the quality that our work needs to be at and therefore will help us to produce a high level piece of work.
Singer/Actor: Richard Bate-Weldon
We decided to use Richard, from our group, because he has clear vision of what the idea needs to be and therefore will know how to execute it to get the best results. He is comfortable on camera and has band practice and therefore he can play the guitar as well and this will help make our video look more professional. We will have to see how he looks on camera when deciding whether to use him for the narrative storyline as we want to make sure we get the right person for the job.
Guitarist: Aaron Smith
We have an idea to use Aaron as he is in the band with Harry and Richard and therefore would fit well into the group and can play the guitar. Due to the gig practice we felt confident that he won't look uncomfortable on camera either.
We decided that we wanted to use a wide range of locations for our music video (preliminary task). We have chosen Wymondham High as one of the locations as we want to use the stage to film part of the 'live music' scene.
The other location will be filming the band practice in their normal studio. We felt by using two different locations of the band practising we had changed our version of the video from the original one.
The rest of the locations where we plan to film are all around the town of Wymondham we tried to find a run down area but this was quite difficult so we just chose somewhere that we thought was appropriate. We are also using shots of the countryside and a train track.
Which you can see in the photos below:
The other location will be filming the band practice in their normal studio. We felt by using two different locations of the band practising we had changed our version of the video from the original one.
The rest of the locations where we plan to film are all around the town of Wymondham we tried to find a run down area but this was quite difficult so we just chose somewhere that we thought was appropriate. We are also using shots of the countryside and a train track.
Which you can see in the photos below:
Synopsis
Rather than having a set narrative to our video, or even following the plot of the song, that our video should feature mostly performances from the band & singer. The plot & theme of the song will be portrayed in various ways: costume, location, imagery etc.
The video will be a mix of: band footage, playing instruments (drums, bass, guitar).
The singer singing & walking down a sunny country track and in a field with various angles. [This represents the theme of shrugging off the pressures of working life & living carefree].
The singer against a bare brick wall. [Represents the looming pressures of a working class person & their living conditions and sparseness of their life].
The singer in an armchair in a dark room, with the camera gradually zooming in. [The armchair represents the easy, cosy, but lonely life].
Casting
We devised a list of ideal traits for each role:
Main Singer: Male, young, serious looking. Confident in front of a camera. Experience singing.
We successfully casted Harry Buxton for this role.
He is 17, & is the lead singer and guitarist of a band. Therefore he can sing & play guitar for our video, and also, should be confident enough to appear calm in front of a camera.
Band Members: The appearance of the band members is less important as they will not feature as much. Pretty much, we needed to find a drummer, bassist & guitarist.
The band members that we cast were all members of the same existing band:
Harry Buxton - Vocals, Lead Guitar.
Aaron Smith - Rhythm Guitar
Aaron Browne - Drums
Richard B-W - Bass Guitar
All have experience performing, so should be comfortable on camera.
Location
We searched around the local area for places we could film.
We needed a natural looking, countryside path.
A sparse brick wall.
A dark, small room.
With the help of google street view & our own knowledge of the local area we found ideal locations for each shot.
Casting Auditions
Harry:
What makes you want to star in our music video?
"I am a big fan of the smiths before is started to really get into music and I really liked your idea of the music video so I was really excited to get involved and I am now a lot more confident to be on camera because of my gigs I've been doing recently."
Do you think that our idea is original and will the final video look good?
"I like how you've changed the original video into having narrative as well as live performance because it shows you've put thought into your idea and that you really want to show that you've thought about the lyrics and the whole song. I feel that after it has been edited it will look really good and well put together."
How do you feel about the locations we decided on to film our video?
" I think that you've chosen really good locations especially the stage in the hall because, it shows can show the and from loads of different camera angles. Also I think that the run down areas are very good because, again it shows though and time taken over where to film. Also the location on the train track looks really good because it does look like something from a smiths video and I think that its a really good place to film the music video."
Would you change anything about the props, location or the actors in the video?
"I would only change a few things because most of it sounds like it will look really good. But instead of a stage it would look better to film the live performance in a basement or somewhere more rundown because then the music video will be symmetrical with the narrative. I think the locations are fine but more rundown places would be better because some of them aren't that rundown and doesn't really show what the songs meaning."
Richard:
What makes you want to star in our music video?
"I have been a big smiths fan for as long as I can remember and I would really feel like I would fit into the role the best. I feel that I am confident on camera and can sing the song not just lip sync so it doesn't look fake. I am passionate about media and would really like to be involved."
Do you think that our idea is original and will the final video look good?
" I think that the idea is very new and that it will be challenging to get right because, it is hard to get the lip-syncing to look good. But overall the idea is refreshing and will look professional if it is done right."
How do you feel about the locations we to film for the video?
" I think that the locations are good because it fits well with the meaning of the song. I think that filming in a rundown place would be good and because they are hard to find it will show that you've done your research and that you've thought about the best place to do it. I feel that you could film it in a city where it is more rundown because it will really capture the song and show your effort."
Would you change anything abut the props, location or the actors in the video?
" I would change the time of day that you film for example, I think that it would look better at night rather in the daytime/ sunset, because I feel it would be more dramatic. I would also change the location to a city rather than a small town and the countryside."
We didn't audition the other band members because when we filmed they were doing band practise so it was like another normal day working on their music. They don't have any lip syncing roles so we just asked their permission to film them when they were playing their instruments and they agreed. The two other band members said that they liked the idea of being on camera and they liked the idea of our music video. We felt that we only needed to audition for the main role, so we chose between harry and Richard and came to the decision that harry fitted the role better and would look more comfortable on camera and not look awkward or out of place.
What makes you want to star in our music video?
"I am a big fan of the smiths before is started to really get into music and I really liked your idea of the music video so I was really excited to get involved and I am now a lot more confident to be on camera because of my gigs I've been doing recently."
Do you think that our idea is original and will the final video look good?
"I like how you've changed the original video into having narrative as well as live performance because it shows you've put thought into your idea and that you really want to show that you've thought about the lyrics and the whole song. I feel that after it has been edited it will look really good and well put together."
How do you feel about the locations we decided on to film our video?
" I think that you've chosen really good locations especially the stage in the hall because, it shows can show the and from loads of different camera angles. Also I think that the run down areas are very good because, again it shows though and time taken over where to film. Also the location on the train track looks really good because it does look like something from a smiths video and I think that its a really good place to film the music video."
Would you change anything about the props, location or the actors in the video?
"I would only change a few things because most of it sounds like it will look really good. But instead of a stage it would look better to film the live performance in a basement or somewhere more rundown because then the music video will be symmetrical with the narrative. I think the locations are fine but more rundown places would be better because some of them aren't that rundown and doesn't really show what the songs meaning."
Richard:
What makes you want to star in our music video?
"I have been a big smiths fan for as long as I can remember and I would really feel like I would fit into the role the best. I feel that I am confident on camera and can sing the song not just lip sync so it doesn't look fake. I am passionate about media and would really like to be involved."
Do you think that our idea is original and will the final video look good?
" I think that the idea is very new and that it will be challenging to get right because, it is hard to get the lip-syncing to look good. But overall the idea is refreshing and will look professional if it is done right."
How do you feel about the locations we to film for the video?
" I think that the locations are good because it fits well with the meaning of the song. I think that filming in a rundown place would be good and because they are hard to find it will show that you've done your research and that you've thought about the best place to do it. I feel that you could film it in a city where it is more rundown because it will really capture the song and show your effort."
Would you change anything abut the props, location or the actors in the video?
" I would change the time of day that you film for example, I think that it would look better at night rather in the daytime/ sunset, because I feel it would be more dramatic. I would also change the location to a city rather than a small town and the countryside."
We didn't audition the other band members because when we filmed they were doing band practise so it was like another normal day working on their music. They don't have any lip syncing roles so we just asked their permission to film them when they were playing their instruments and they agreed. The two other band members said that they liked the idea of being on camera and they liked the idea of our music video. We felt that we only needed to audition for the main role, so we chose between harry and Richard and came to the decision that harry fitted the role better and would look more comfortable on camera and not look awkward or out of place.
Final Cast:
Main Singer And Actor: Harry Buxton
Me: organising, writing blog posts and helping whilst filming
Kate: filming and editing
Richard: guitarist, editing
Alice: taking pictures and designing album cover
Main Singer And Actor: Harry Buxton
- comfortable on camera
- knows the song and will be able to sing it with his band
- good on guitar
- not used as the actor as he wasn't as comfortable being on camera
- didn't want a big role but he is good on guitar
- wanted to star in our video
Me: organising, writing blog posts and helping whilst filming
Kate: filming and editing
Richard: guitarist, editing
Alice: taking pictures and designing album cover
Images Whilst Filming
Rough Cut
Evaluation Question 2
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluating stage?
Construction and research
It could have been really difficult to construct and research our media product if we didn't have the use of technology. This was because we had to try and find good locations that would fit in well with the idea we had. As a result of that we used the internet to search around for a good location and then we used a online map service to tell us how far away it was from our school so we could see the accessibility of this location, as we needed to make sure that the actors and the members of our group could get there without difficulty. We also used technology while we went to look at the locations because we used phones and a Canon 60D camera to take photos of the locations. We then transferred and downloaded these photos onto Blogger.
Planning
The planning stages of our preliminary task used a lot less technology but we still chose to use a word document to plan our locations out decided who would take on what role within the group. The majority of planning was done by having discussions with our group as we found this the most efficient way to get things done. We also made a group chat on Whatsapp so that we could keep in contact easily throughout the task and be able to communicate quickly and easily if any changes were needed to be made to a location of filming date/time. We also used a reminder system on our phones so that we would get notification to tell us what we should be doing/have done that night, this allowed us to keep on top of our workload without getting too stressed towards the end of the task.
Evaluating
We would normally use quite a lot of technology in the evaluation stage as once the video was edited it would be uploaded to an online streaming site such as YouTube so that people could watch the video online and give us feedback for it. However, because the video is still yet to be edited we have had to show our friends and family little bits of the footage that we have managed to download onto our phone in order to get any evaluation. Kate, a member of our group, used PowerPoint to answer the first of the evaluation questions. Once again, we used our Whatsapp group chat to check how individuals were getting on with their evaluations and so that we could help each other out if anyone got confused on what to put.
Construction and research
It could have been really difficult to construct and research our media product if we didn't have the use of technology. This was because we had to try and find good locations that would fit in well with the idea we had. As a result of that we used the internet to search around for a good location and then we used a online map service to tell us how far away it was from our school so we could see the accessibility of this location, as we needed to make sure that the actors and the members of our group could get there without difficulty. We also used technology while we went to look at the locations because we used phones and a Canon 60D camera to take photos of the locations. We then transferred and downloaded these photos onto Blogger.
Planning
The planning stages of our preliminary task used a lot less technology but we still chose to use a word document to plan our locations out decided who would take on what role within the group. The majority of planning was done by having discussions with our group as we found this the most efficient way to get things done. We also made a group chat on Whatsapp so that we could keep in contact easily throughout the task and be able to communicate quickly and easily if any changes were needed to be made to a location of filming date/time. We also used a reminder system on our phones so that we would get notification to tell us what we should be doing/have done that night, this allowed us to keep on top of our workload without getting too stressed towards the end of the task.
Evaluating
We would normally use quite a lot of technology in the evaluation stage as once the video was edited it would be uploaded to an online streaming site such as YouTube so that people could watch the video online and give us feedback for it. However, because the video is still yet to be edited we have had to show our friends and family little bits of the footage that we have managed to download onto our phone in order to get any evaluation. Kate, a member of our group, used PowerPoint to answer the first of the evaluation questions. Once again, we used our Whatsapp group chat to check how individuals were getting on with their evaluations and so that we could help each other out if anyone got confused on what to put.
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