Beginning of filming preparation

As will we begin filming our music video in the next two weeks or so, we need to make sure that a few things have been sorted such as ensuring people are available to start doing some shots, along with the days we are doing it on so that people can bring out any clothing that they have or need to buy before we start. We also need to see which car we will be using based on the size of the car options and also the availability of these cars on the days we need them. The cameras that we are using will need to be sorted so that we can take them out from the school (should we use one of these cameras) and not cross over with any other bookings from other people that  need to use them, along with the other pieces of equipment that we may be using e.g. dolly and steady-cam.
Another location that we need to book/ see if it is available to use is the drama room with the raised platform that we wanted to film our live performance in. I don't think that we will need to clear out the room just yet as these will be our first draft shots and will highly unlikely end up in the final video, so until we begin filming the final version of the music video we won't have to worry about preparing the room.

Update on location for our music video...

For our narrative that we have come up with, we will be needing a car which we are lucky enough to have two close friends who can drive. We believe that the best option will be our friend Alex's car who has a Vauxhall Corsa (Shown below) which has a bit more room in the car compared to our second option which is a Ford KA (Shown below). The bigger car will be the first option as we will then be able to have a good distance between the camera and the actors in our video, and be able to get all the angles that we want. We will be doing practise shots for this in the next week or so, showing to Shaun before the Christmas break.

Corsa

KA

We will also be experimenting with which camera we will be using for our music video with a   
 Go-Pro looking likely for us to use for some of our shots. Another camera that I think we will be using is a DSLR that I have worked with before for a previous project and was impressed with the results. Of course, there will be tests first before we actually take the final shots to see which will be the right camera and for which shots we will be using them for.

Our Music Video Idea...

From the start of this task, me and Christian both wanted to have a narrative for within our music video. However there was a small debate as to whether to carry on with this as we couldn't think of a good story line that we could make that went along with the lyrics of the song. We were going to then not have a narrative at all but instead have just the live performance of the band, with cuts going from the live performance and to just the band singing and playing around different urban looking locations in London such as Soho or Southbank. However, we persisted with the idea of having a narrative for our music video and came up with the idea of having two people who are on their way to the live performance. The idea being that we will have the two people getting into a car and putting on a "Waves" CD and when the song Undercover Martyn comes on it will show the band playing in the live performance. When there is the instrumental it will cut to the two people in the car who will be both air drumming and playing the air guitar. We will also be using a Go-Pro for some of these shots as we believe that these would give off the best effect but of course this will be considered more when we begin to shoot. The two people going to see the band play will end up at the live performance and will go through the doors and watch the performance. We believe that the two people who are going to watch the performance should be a boy and a girl so that there is more of a connection between the two and there could also be a small love story that is shown within the video.

Band Profile

Our band consists of three members, Sam Donovan (Me), Christian O'Brien and the third member is possibly going to be James Robertson but this is not confirmed due to his availability. However if it is not possible for him to be our third band member then we do have a back up who is our friend called Matt. We decided to have us three as the band members as we all dress in the indie band kind of way, and will not have to alter our appearances as much. We also enjoy listening to the indie kind of music so we all will have a good passion for the music in the video, creating a much more realistic feel to the video. 

 

 

Storyboarding/Animatics

For our music video we had to create a storyboard so that we could place it onto final cut pro and put our song over the top of it so that it turns into a kind of first draft of our music video. The storyboard will be showing all that we want to include in our music video including the narrative, shots and key details for it. The storyboard will consist of around 50 shots despite the actual video having way more with there being close to 300 shots in a minute for most videos.

Mood Board

Below is our mood board which we have created for our band. At first we had just used a plain piece of A1 paper with relatable pictures put on it, but after consideration we decided to make it more appealing to our band and make it more interesting. We did this by making our mood board into a suit and tie so it looked like it was one of our band members. We did this by cutting out black card to make a blazer and a tie, then Christian brought a pair of chinos in which we filled with paper so that they was like a pair of legs. We feel that it now looks better and helps to explain what kind of band that we are creating with ease.

Postmodernism

Post modernism is the idea that media produces an idea that any media product is of any greater value than another, all judgements of value is just taste. It is also said to reflect modern society's feelings towards alienation, history, process and also the truth. Jean-Francois Lyotard argued that due to recent economic changes, particular 'structures of feeling' or 'cultural logic' were being produced. MTV believe that we now live in a 'three minute culture' or that we are part of an over-visual society which is down to the television and also the internet shortening peoples attention spans.

A good example of post modernism is the use of the beats and tunes that are used in different music artists songs, such as Cher's song "Bang Bang" has been recreated by many many different artists since it had been released (as shown below as small section of artists/bands who have made a cover of the song).

Parodies of songs are another perfect example of Postmodernism and have in recent years became very popular. Singers such as Weird Al Yankovic used different songs to recreate them into a funnier version, changing the lyrics but keeping the beat from the song so that it was recognisable and when compared to the original songs it would become much more humorous and entertaining for the audience listening.

Photoshoot 1

We were debating whether to have the whole band on the digipak that we are creating or instead have perhaps just the lead singer to show their importance, and we both even considered taking and using a picture of a setting or of something quite random, so we tried out with all of the possible options to decide what to use. By doing this instead would mean that our likeliness to 'Two Door Cinema Club' would increase as on their album covers they do not really feature themselves on them as shown below.

I used a Nikon 18-55mm  camera to take the pictures and firstly focused on trying to get a good background for Christian to have around him so we went to a skate park which didn't end up looking the best due to the lighting that we had to work with. We then decided to use a near empty car park and I took photos of Christian walking around and posing. I also took some pictures of graffiti that I had seen when walking around which would help to add to the similarity of 'Waves' and 'Two Door Cinema Club'.

This is the picture of the graffiti that I liked as I felt that it also showed emotion due to the paint running down the eyes and the smile alike to tears.Alongside the picture of the smile is a picture of a light that was in the car park that I tested a shot out on which also turned out to be one of my favourite pictures that I had taken as I think it again links with the random pictures that 'Two Door Cinema Club' use for their albums. Below is a few pictures of Christian walking up and down the car park that we was in which I really like because of the lighting working well with it being dark outside. I also like how the car park is near empty but would like to try these shots out again with there being no cars in there at all.

I took these pictures below in the car park that we were in on one of the walls, and after speaking about it we think that we could use these pictures for our bands promo, with the name of the band 'Waves' written out next to the lead singer (Christian).

Below is some more of the shots that we had taken that are a possibility of what we could use for our digipak.