Adaptations On First Draft

Things that were changed were:

Two shots used on the first drum fill, close ups of the drummer from two angles.

I added in more live slow motion shots changing some the colours, making them more true.

I deleted a couple of clips on the first drum fill in the chorus like earlier stated I used two instead of four. This looks alot clearer, but still creates the same effect which I am pleased with.

The rest of the clips were letterboxed!

One of the big ones was the second verse's length of clips. I cut down alot of the clips and added more here and there. I think this makes it a bit more interesting.

We await feedback on this second draft.

Audience Feedback On First Draft

After showing our first draft to around ten people, the main feedback was that most liked the slow motion shots. A teacher mentioned that those type of shots are conventional of rock videos and maybe more should be used. In reaction to this, I think we could perhaps use the same shot as before, (obviously cut it at a different point) and just change the colours. This could be effective and create a psychadellic feel.

Another point mentioned was that the shots linked with the drum fills didn't quite work (the second in the first chorus, not the remix bit!) and each clip was too short. What I plan to do here is to half the clips to give the audience more of a chance to see what is in the shot, but still keep a similar effect.

Some clips were also not infact letterboxed yet which will most certainly be done!

A few people said that a few clips lasted too long and that it could be a lot more exciting if a couple of different things were done here and there. I think that looking at this, I will experiment over the coming weeks with different shots and maybe use close ups of people twice from different angles one after the other, but we will see.

This was all the feedback we got this time round. I think we just need to be a bit more imaginative.

Uploading And Editing For First Draft

Once the work in the studio was finished we were ready to upload the footage. We had about three hours worth so it did take a bit of a while to upload everything. We could now also use the new version of the song which is a better quality.

We drew a second story board after uploading our footage so that we could work with any extra shots that we hadn't planned that we might want to use. (This will be put up in a seperate post.)

The first shot on the second story board was a close up of the faders in the studio being pushed up, then the song comes in. We thought this was a good way to open the video and is often used in rock videos.

Next we had a couple of shots out in the snow before we started shooting for the actual video. This was for a bit of a scene setter, and makes the audience feel like they are part of it. Another technique often used in rock videos. The next few shots are from the solo footage. The guitarist is playing the intro by himself at this point so we thought it would be cool if, when the whole band come in in the music, they come in on the video. We thought this would make a good impact with the music.

As the drums come in, we had a close up of the drummer, one of Goodwin's six. We thought it best to put close ups in when that member was doing something different, ie a fill.

After this come long and wide shots of the whole band from different angles. We tried to used the amps as borders for the shot and I thought this worked quite well and looks really good in some shots.

During the verse, the singer is the main focus like in most videos. It seemed quite easy to match the footage to the music. I guess this could be because he actually sings it. A few different shots of the whole band are used, one from behind which is quite cool. Also there are a couple of close ups of the other band members, and one two shot with the rhythm guitarist and bassist. I used these two members because they are sort of a group within a group if you see what I mean? A section if you will.

At one point, the documentary style comes back with some black and white pre show footage which works really well. It shows 3 of the members just having a laugh before they go on stage, this is another technique to make the audience feel as if they are there.

The chorus starts in the snow, then the studio element comes in. The Jeff Buckley shot that I mentioned earlier is used here. It kind of takes you through what it's like to be in a band in this video, but we go on.

Because we only had a small amount of live footage, we had to work hard to make sure that we weren't using the same shots over and over again. I put them all in slow motion which seems to work really well in the chorus, and gives it an almost epic feel. I also adapted the colours of some of them.

I had the idea of, in a fill at the end of the first chorus, having a shot of the drummer repeated 3 times one after the other. It creates a remix kind of effect which I think works quite well, as long as people don't think it's a mistake in the editing! After this, I tried to match the shots with the lyrics, a match between visuals and audio (one of Goodwin's six) by placing a shot on each of the syllables, I think it works in a way, but could be changed later on, we will see.

As the next verse comes in, we change location to the hanger. There are various long shots and close ups similar to the first verse. We also go to the studio half way through this verse, the shots are all fairly short in length to match the beat of the song at that point.

My favourite shot is in the second chorus, it's a slow motion live clip from the front with strong blue lighting, the slow mo works really well. The chorus is in a similar format to the first one, based on live stuff.

In the breakdown, I have used slow motion close ups of each member. I thought this would be a good moment to show each member to the audience, and the slow motion links to the half time part of the music.

In the next part that we call the 'Jools Holland part' (because of the piano) we have used all locations and have tried to mostly keep close ups in to keep the intensity high. The guitar solo is pretty simple at the moment and could be changed. Although I do like the way the straight cuts match the beat at the end of it.

In the last chorus we cycled through the locations to round of the video and make it seem like the end, not something just random. I also tried to match a fill again with some shots but this will likely be changed.

The last 5 shots are all close ups of each member so the audience remember them.

It's not too bad for a first draft in my opinion but could be a lot tidier and more professional by maybe altering colours or changing a few shots here or there. Maybe also trying to create more energy by quickening the pace of the shots. We'll get some audience feedback and see what they say.

Michel Gondry Director Study

Gondry is a French director who works in both film and music video.

He started his career making music videos for the French band “Oui Oui”

He pioneered the “bullet time” technique used in the Matrix.

Gondry has collaborated with; Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, White Stripes, Beck, Bjork and Radiohead and has recently directed film The Green Hornet.

Gondry is most known for his manipulation of mise-en-scene in his work. An example of this is in the film “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind” Where Jim Carey plays the main protagonist. The locaton constantly changes around him showing Gondry's manipulation of mise-en-scene. Another example is in his music video for the Chemical Brothers song, Star Guitar, where images of landscape are effortlessly blended into each other and repeated to create the effect of one area.

White Stripes Fell In Love With A Girl

This music video is a stock motion, animation video. It uses Lego to construct a representation of a performance by the awful band, The White Stripes. It includes close-ups of the band, probably because the record label asked for them. This is another example of Gondry manipulating the mise-en-scene of a music video. He does this by changing the costumes and actors into Lego. This is based on a real performance which has been transferred over into the art of Lego.

Cibbo Matto Sugar Water

This music video is not a stock motion video. It uses a split screen where we see two of the band members. This is an unusual video because one side of the screen starts playing backwards, while the other plays forward, then at midpoint of the music video the two swap roles, with the other playing backwards and the first playing forwards.

They use visual representations of the lyrics. For example we see one of them pouring sugar on their hair while the other is in the shower. The video is meant to look like a continuous shot and it is mainly at a mid shot angle of the two band members through out.

This is another example of Michel Gondry manipulating the use of mise-en-scene by playing around with the props, visuals and framing. He plays with the framing by making a distinct confusion between either of the sides and makes the audience active by forcing them to try figure out what is happening.

I also went to see The Green Hornet recently. It was a really interesting film because, as he's more experienced in music videos, he looked differently at the effects and the basic directing of a film than other directors. He used slo mo and colours really well, for example, he used the Sin City effect whilst one of the characters was under pressure.

Filming In The Studio

After filming the live footage, I realised that we didn't have sufficient footage to make a really good video so, as the band had a week in the studio coming up, I decided to take some footage i there. We had drums and bass on Monday, guitars on Tuesday, vocals on Wednesday and mixing on Thursday and Friday. This was a preset schedule for the filming of the week too.

I concentrated on close ups on the first three days. While I was watching a Jeff Buckley video, I saw that most of the shots were extreme close ups of Jeff singing. I thought that these were really effective and decided to use them myself on our singer.

On the Monday I took close ups of the drums and the bass player. I got shots inside the live room and through the window in the control room. On the tuesday, pretty much the same thing. On the vocal day, I found that the tripod wasn't big enough to get the shot I wanted. So I decided to put each leg on a different chair. This helped me get into the singers eyeline.

On the last two days I mostly got footage of the desk and computer. It was almost like a kind of documentary kind of thing which is a cool convention of rock videos.

We will just have to see how the footage comes out.

First Day Of Editing

After shooting the solo, we wanted to get down to editing it as soon as possible even though we didn't have any other footage. We decided to use the demo version of Get Up rather than wait until the final version was complete because there were no differences in timing or anything like that.

We uploaded the footage and were fairly pleased with what we had, other than I played the solo quicker than in the actual song. All we had to do to get the timing right in Final Cut, was to alter the speed of some of the clips to 90 percent. Others were absolutely fine.

In the demo version there is a drum fill at the the end of the solo, so we matched the clips to that fill in a double jump cut. This worked really well.

One thing that didn't work was a close up shot that zoomed out. We didn't think the zoom worked very well thus could not use the clip.

The clips were quite dull, so we edited every one, and brought all whites up to make the snow brighter and to give a fuller colour to the picture. This worked really well and could be something we use in the rest of the video.

Update On Website

After the album artwork being designed for our EP, I made a few changes to the website. We now have a logo. This is conventional of rock bands and is a way for the audience to relate different things to the band. I also used the same background as the album art for the website. I thought these two things should link together and carry the same themes so the audience can put the two together and so they are easilly recognisable.

I also finished some of the other pages including news, the band and photos.

Music will be added when the tracks are ready!

Shooting The Solo

We were lucky enough to arrive at school one day and find the school field with an untouched, good covering of snow. We took our chance and got out there right away to film the shots for the guitar solo. We wanted that kind of distant from reality effect for this which is often used in guitar solos in videos. An example would be I Believe In A Thing Called Love by The Darkness. We don't want to go quite as silly, but we did want the guitarist to be very isolated from anything so we managed to get a few shots with really deep focus fields which should work really well.

We also got loads of close ups the guitarist himself and both his picking hand and fretboard. All of which are used in many solos in videos. Harry filmed this part of the video and we are both very pleased with what we came up with and can only hope to manage to match the footage to the song!

Day Two Shooting: Gig

We had planned to film at our next gig a few days after Christmas. The original plan was to film the final 4 or 5 songs from various angles with two cameras. In the end we had no one to film as I was on stage. We had to get our lighting man to film some which was frustrating because most footage is from behind. However there is plenty that can be used for the website and sufficient shots to use in the video, we will just have to replan our choruses.

We filmed a little bit of pre show footage that we thought might be useful in the video. (I got this inspiration from Paradise City by Guns n Roses.) All it was was just us having a drink and walking into the venue, but I feel they could be used to create that effect that it feels like you are there. Like in the Oasis video I analysed, The Hindu Times. A technique that I really want to use in our video.

The actual gig footage is good, but should have been much better with only half the group being there. We did not get as many, or as good quality shots as I wanted but there's nothing we can do about this and will have to work with what we have which is by no means poor footage, but it will need some kind of engineering to work in our video.

Second Half Of Day One Of Shooting

Once we arrived at the training dome, which we were very lucky to be able to use due to it being the ground staff kickabout night and two of our members being on the ground staff, we set up again, this time using my laptop plugged into an amp to hear the song. I basically went through the same procedure as the first location, long shots to close ups. What was quite annoying is that we could not have any moving shots with the whole band in because I had to play and was no one to man the camera. I could however during close ups and shots without me in which I tried to be as inventive as possible with a tripod or hand held camera.

I have noticed that in many videos, hand held cameras are used and are ever so slightly wobbly. I think this is to give it the feeling that you are there. I tried to incorporate this idea in my close up handheld shots which i think has worked.

My favourite shots were the low angle close ups of the drummer. I really enjoyed experimenting with framing and using the drums as ways of shaping the shot and working with different angles.

My only regret for these two shoots is that there are a lack of high angle long shots. This would have given it a really epic feel, something that alot of rock videos have. The only way I managed to get anywhere near this is by putting the tripod on the car, but this still didn't really work.

(WE NEED A HELICOPTER!!!!!)

1st Half Of Day One Shooting

After meeting up at 10 o'clock at my house, we made our way to our first planned location. Unchangable for us, but what maybe a blessing was that my village was covered with snow. We made our way to Grove Lane football ground with the drums, guitars, amps and mics. It was a good location as we had planned it to be. It was a very open space with nothing ruining the shot or anything like that. However, it was extremely cold to the delight of the band as you can imagine! As we had previously decided during our scouting session, we drove the cars to the bottom end of the ground and set up shop. We set up as symetrically as possible, although because there was no one behind the two cameras because i was playing in the shot, the rhythm guitarist went out of shot a few times, but there are definitely parts that are 100% useable.

So once everything was set up musically, i thought the two first shots of the whole production should be two long master shots. So I put one straight on to facing the band, and one on a slight angle. We moved the car out of shot and so that we could hear the song playing to mime to.

Next was to go to the next location. Ipswich Town's training dome.

Schedule For Next 2 Months

This is our schedule for filming and blogging over the next two months-

Schedule

• Final planning complete (not necessarily blogged) by 10^th Dec

• Story board and shotlist by 5^th Dec

• Textual Analysis by 30^th Nov

• Locations found and dates planned by 10^th Dec (filming schedule)

• First day of shooting- 21^st Dec

• Second day of shooting- 28^th Dec

• Any additional shooting- Done by 4^th Jan

• Ancillary texts completed by 1^st Feb

• Editing by 4^th Feb