Narrative Shoot

so our narrative shoot went quite well although we were stopped from filming in some of the places that we had tested out. our antagonists looked really good and got alot of stares from tourist, some even took pictures.

Storyboards

To work out the timings of our music video, to serve as a reminder to us of what specific shots to shoot and to give our actors a general idea of what we want them to do, we made a storyboard.


The storyboard on the wall of our edit suite

  Wanda put the effort into drawing the Post-Its because of her artistic abilities but we had all previously worked out generally what we wanted to happen and when.


Shot 57 - MS of Angus walks through market at 1:10

 The storyboard currently has considerably more shots of the narrative than the performance, this is because most of the performance shots will be repeated and also, it's not too much of a priority because our narrative shoot is in a week's time.

In further preparation for the narrative shoot, in pairs we went around London to film a reccie. When we got back to school, Dom spent a week overcoming technical problems to edit the footage into this.


We made this video because:

• We didn't know which shots we could actually get without visiting the location again.
• It's considerably clearer than the storyboard for us and the actors.
• Any of us can watch it outside of school to remind ourselves of what needs to be shot.

Antagonist Facepaint Tests

Angus' Performance Outfit

Test for Antagonist costumes

We tested the white hair spray used for the antagonists outfit on dark hair ensuring it looks effective

Logo

• Dead cat - 'felicide'
• Referencing the Blink 182 dead person logo - similar target audiences
• Bold, simple - looks good on t-shirts, stands out, albums

planning and organisation of tasks and ideas

post its of tasks to do

line by line lyrical breakdownbrainstorm of ideas for antagonists

Final Costume - Lead Guitarist

Wanda and I (Claire) put together the best of the clothes we got in for our female guitarist and have finalised this costume. We aimed to ensure its indivdual, colourful and trendy while still being comfortable enough to play guitar in.

Studio Hire

We have been researching studios we could use for the performance and have emailed the directors for rates, avaliable times etc.

To do for this week

The narrative shoot is in half term (next week), so before it we need to get done the following:

• Finish detailed shot list
• Storyboard
• Scheduele the day
• Practice the antagonists face paint
• Complete the antagonists costume
• Confirm Angus's costume
• Have meeting with all actors showing them the shots we need to get on the day
• Finalise with all cast and crew (Group x4, Angus, Antagonists x4, Tess, Robyn, Zarah) the exact times and arrangements of the day
• Plan food preparations for the day (snacks, drinks, lunch for the cast/crew)
• Organise make-up/hair stylings for the actors
• Get all filming equipment ready to go

Other:

• Group discussion on website
• Group discussion on album art/ideas
• Confirm studio for performance
• Confirm Angus and Tom's costumes for performance
• Ideas on band photo for album cover - and costume/props needed

Result from lip sync test

• He is excellent at convincingly miming the words as his cofindence grew
• More aggression needed to suit the tone of voice
• Angus can't wear glasses due to reflections and lack of eye contact with the camera
• The inprovised movements look good from Angus (head banging, leaning forwards) - choreographing needed to make these look more clean cut for real video
• Microphone limits movement - keep it to only a few shots, arm gestures for the rest

Lip Sync Test - Angus

Yesterday, Kerry and I (Dominic) used our lesson to film Angus lip-sycning to the song again now that he had practiced it more.

This was so that:

• We could get a feel for what the music video may look like
• Angus could rehearse the song some more and prove that he could perform confidently to the camera
• We had an idea of what shot types we could use in the music video

Antagonists

Graphic Match Test

Purpose of this test was to see if it was possible to seemlessly cut walking from one location into a completely new one without the audience noticing (a smooth graphic match). We filmed someone walking steadily in many different places around school, edited them together and this is the result:



From this test it was concluded that:

• The switches of location look smoothless providing it doesn't cut from in to outdoors
• The movement would look faster if the actor had a faster pace and there was fast editing to cutaways/inserts such as the feet/face etc.
• Changes of camera distance give the footage interest and don't stand out which works well
• We are not recording sound so the changes in the pace of the footsteps is not an issue

Make-up for female guitarist

This make up connotes a rock star, sexy, punky individualism which is the attitude that we are aiming to create for Izzy. We believe with the aid of a semi-professional make-up artist/hair stylist we can do this for Izzy and the other band members

Costume organisation

To get the costumes we need most cost effectively, we chose to use Facebook to email round to see if anyone has the costumes to offer

New Narrative Ending

When getting feedback on our line by line plan of the video, we realised that we had a problem with our narrative's ending.

In our very first draft of the treatment we had the antagonists being defeated by the lead meeting his band mates at the end of narrative. However, as our ideas developed we soon lost the idea of him meeting his band mates due to practical reasons, but we did not reconsider how we would now defeat the antagonists, so they just dropped away for no reason.

After a considerable amount of verbal brainstorming, we came to the conclusion that we would have to have some sort of confrontation.

Our final idea for this is the lead getting trapped in a dead end by the antagonists, but in this, he finally faces up to them and his acknowledging their presence defeats them.

This follows our symbolism of the antagonists as temptations of teenage life, as by standing his ground against their pressure and facing up to them he is defeating them

Group Meeting 5 (12/10/10)

Plan for today:

• Meet with cast for performance (Angus, Tom, Izzy, Jack)
• Sign contracts securing dates for shoot and practices
• Establish numbers between everyone for communication
• Get the actors dress/shoe sizes for costume purposes
• Inform everyone of action plan for the rest of the project

Results:

• All signed contracts and happy with dates/arrangements (Fri 29th Oct narrative, Sun 7th Nov performance)
• Tom is prepared to have his hair dyed and is happy with the costume arranged, and starting to rehearse backing vocals
• Angus has booked his lip sync practice and is memorising lyrics
• Everyone has swapped contact numbers
• Actors gave their cloth sizes so we can start looking for costume

This weekend:

• Detailed reccie, find 10 shots in designated location and photograph/film a walkthrough

Kerry & Claire - Southbank (3 temptations), Trafalgar/theatres (4 temptations, Westminster/Underground (Ending scene/entrapment)
Wanda & Dom - Covent Garden/Brick Lane (1 temptation), Camden/Roundhouse (2 temptations)

Narrative Prop List

Antagonist Costume (x4):

• White hair gel

• White/red/black face paint
• White long sleeved t-shirt
• White braces
• White belt
• White trousers
• Black boots

Protagonist Costume:

• T-shirt
• Open shirt
• Jeans
• Converse/vans
• Headphones (& mp3)

Group Meeting 4 (11/10/10)

We briefly went over what had to be done and generally when it had to be done by.

We finished our actor / extra contract (see below) so that they could sign them and agree to work with us.



We listened to the song to finish our lyrical / audio effects analysis so that we could complete our list of shot ideas for specific parts of the track.

[ Photograph of "Lyrics and Shots" ]

Band Name - Erwin's Felicide

We came up with the name "Erwin's Felicide" as it references the science thought experiment "Schrödinger's Cat". "Erwin" comes from the scientist's first name and "felicide", meaning the killing of a cat comes from the experiment itself where a cat is killed.


Graphic representation of the "Schrödinger's Cat" thought experiment

We think that this would appeal to our young alternative target audience because it appeals to a niche audience group that has the specialist knowledge required to understand the reference within in it. This should provide gratification to those who have such knowledge. Furthermore, we would hope that the explanation would spread through word of mouth.

Binary Opposites In Our Music Video

After learning about Levi-Strauss' theory of binary opposites and seeing how effective they work in our sequence, we tried to include several such as:

• Professional & Guerrilla style in performance and narrative
• Colour & Black And White
• Good & Evil
• Busy backgrounds & Plain backgrounds
• City & Studio
• Fast & Slow movement and editing
• Wide Shots & Close-Ups
• Surreal & Everyday
• Loud & Quiet sounds
• Smart & Casual costume

favourite idea for antangonist

These antagonists  are representing (drug) temptations and would have:

• white face paint with rosy cheeks and or big red smile
• head to toe in white
• white hair dye - may be hard to do without it being permanent
• white wigs/hair dye

We want them to represent the good, fun, nice appeal of temptations by using white signifying good and helping them stand out from the busy london background ; and a fake OTT smiling face to give the sense of a false friend.

They would look at and follow the protagonist (lead singer) but he would not directly interact with them to show they are thoughts in his head playing on his mind rather than real people.

We were thinking that at the end they would be overcome by collapsing in a pile showing that the music has protected the lead from the dangerous temptation.

Although we came up with the idea ourselves  - it would reference this all white look from clockwork orange as an effectivly creepy and disturbing antagonist.

Edit Room

Me and Kerry using the wall

Dom working on the narrative map

In our edit room we now have a series of things up on the walls to help group communication and organisation. These include:

Claire updating the to do list



• To do list
• Calander
• Line by line shot plan to the lyrics
• Band costume sketches
• Group proposal handout
• Antagonist brainstorm
• Narrative map
• Tube maps

We will also eventually put up our meeting schedules for week 1 and week 2 once the week one schedule has been finalised

Band Costumes/ Props

Angus

• Hornrimmed glasses
• Black waistcoat
• Black tie
• Black Dr Martens
• Orange shirt
• Dark striped skinnies
• Belt (possibly pacman)
• Sweatbands/bracelets

Jack

• Black shirt
• Coloured tie
• Baggy jeans
• Converse
• Bandana

Izzy

• Trilby

• Brightly coloured/wooden beaded necklaces
• Striped top/tshirt
• Chunky waist belt (brightly coloured/metallic)
• Denim skirt
• Plain tights
• Leg warmers
• Heels

Tom

• Band tshirt
• Black skinnies
• Chain
• Metal jewelry
• Sweatband
• Vans
• Band pins
• White belt

Instruments

• Guitar
• Bass
• Drum kit
• Microphone and stand
• Amps

Applying Goodwin's and Vernallis' Theories

We thought it would be a good idea to try and apply both Goodwin and Vernallis' theories of music videos to our ideas and see whether we are following them

Goodwin

• We are following the genre characteristics of rock bands by having a performance element to the video with a spontaneous live feel
• We are trying to create a link between the visuals and the lyrics, for example the idea of escaping through your headset
• We plan to edit to the pace of my music, creating a link between the visuals and the track
• The notion of looking will be created through the antagonists watching the lead
• We will include close ups of the band members performing, especially the front man, following the convention of 'money shots'

Vernallis

• The narrative is not necessarily complete and will pose unresolved questions as we will not obviously explain the presence of the antagonists
• The editing will match the beat
• We will break the rules of continuity editing as the lead will jump through space using graphic matches
• We will use extreme shot types
• We will have a running style of framing and movement where the lead goes out of the frame in one shot and comes into frame in another shot
• There will be gaps in the audiences understanding of the diegeses as they will not know how the lead is travelling between locations

Proposal Handouts

These were the handouts we gave out to go with our group proposals

Treatment (C,D,K,W)

Antagonist ideas

To increase the scary/weird/creepy style of the antagonists we decided to add some form of mask/facepaint to the characters.

• Clown style facepaint works well as it is symbolic of creepy circus/nightmare style characters

Insane Clown Posse - inspiration for facepaint ideas

Continued - was doing some research on how facepaint could be used and thought we could take inspiration from these (kerry)

maybe we could have a vegetable theme  - like playing on the idea that people are becoming lazy always playing video games, eating junk etc and turning into vegetables

more on this site

http://pinewooddesign.co.uk/tag/face-paint/

Also, as we were thinking of leaving the antagonists in a pile at the end of the video we could do a simplified version of this artist's work (Wanda)

More can be seen here