Planning - Rough - Props and Costume

Props - we don't really need a lot of props. The props which we will be using are the possibility of getting a car to use for the shooting and we shall also need Becky to bring her acoustic guitar for most of the shoots.

Costume - we have worked out that to make the effect which we are trying to achieve, it would be easier if Becky were to where completely black and white. This will consist of black jeans, black and white shoes, white or black top and it also happened that her hair is black now so this will also be a plus for us. We will also be paling out her face a little bit because she sometimes gets red cheeks and any eye make up she has will be black.

We also have to take into account that we will have the chance to shoot at the Junction. When it comes to this we will need to have an idea of what sort of set up we will want at the Junction for her live performance. Me and Alie have decided that we would want her to be sat on the stool, centre stage so that she is centre of attention. We will want two or three lights set on her and we are going to go for basic colours, either white or a blue. As she will be on the stage with her guitar, we will also need a mic for her guitar as well as her singing so it look more realistic. This is pretty much the only set up that we requirer but we will go to the Junction feeling free for any suggestions to make it better.

Planning - Rough Shooting Schedule - Place

When it comes to places to shoot, it is quite simple. We have chosen a field to be in part of our video and we want to capture the journey there so we have decided to start the journey from town. So when it comes to shooting on the days which we can be available, no day would be more convenient than the next as we need to get into town each time we shoot.

Because we plan to shoot in town and we have considered that there will be a lot of people, busy so risk or accident and people won't want to be shot so we are trying to get hold of a car to shoot some of the journey in. This will give us a variety of shots and also help with the problem of shooting in town. This concept, of not shooting unaware people, will be taken in to account every where we shoot and this will be become easier, the closer we get to the field.

Shooting in the field should be quite easy and this should be the quickest part of our filming. However, we shall have to take into account that some fen lands are private property so we will have to be careful and take good care that we aren't on someone else land.

Planning - Rough Shooting Schedule

Thursday 1st October - 13:15 First Junction Slot, Becky is free after 3 and may be a possible time to inform her when we will be shooting at the Junction and other shoots.


Friday 2nd October - 13:05 - Planning of animatic and story boarding animatic and finishing- we will get more of an idea of what we want each shot to look like so it will be easier for us to go out and shoot the following week.
There is a possibility of meeting up with Becky and Alie in the morning - may be a useful planning time.


Monday 5th October - 9:00 - more animatic work and feedback. This is not a good day to go shooting, as there is not enough time.


Tuesday 6th October - 12:20 - 14:35 slot possible shooting as the shooting site is close by, however we would only be able to have an hour to shoot.


Wednesday 7th October - 9:00 - Planning and possible shooting in the afternoon, this would be a good time if we can find out if Becky is free as college finishes at 12:30.


Thursday 8th October - 13:00 - Junction slot again, Becky is free in a small slot in the morning she is free and she is also free after 3 so this would also be an ideal place to shoot.


Friday 9th October - 13:00 - Long Road time to shoot - morning free so maybe more time to shoot else where with Becky.


(possible time to shoot on Saturday if we can organize everyone to get into town)


Monday 12th October - 9:00 Long Road time shooting and editing


Tuesday 13 October - 12:20 - 14:35 slot possible shooting but again we may only have an hour of shooting time.


Wednesday 14th October - editing and afternoon shooting if we can get Becky to be free.


Thursday 15th October - 13:00 - junction slot and again Becky should be free in the morning for a small slot and after 3.



Friday 16th October - morning shooting and afternoon possibly, just need find out when Becky is free.


(again possible Saturday shooting)

Permission From Artist

When it came to getting permission from our artist, we were very lucky, as Becky is my best friend and this made it easier to get permission. She was very happy to let us use for of her songs and to help us with shooting the music video. All we had to do regarding permission was just to ask her and to inform of her of what we intended to do and she was perfectly happy with everything.
However, if we were to write a letter of permission, this is how we would have wrote it.

Dear Becky Young,

We are Long Road students and we are currently working on a music video project. This video will be marked by examiners and also be featured on YouTube. We are writing to ask you if you would be willing to let us use one of your songs for our music video and also if you would like to star within the video.
This video will need to be completed within three weeks, we will notify you of the dates but if you were to be in the video, you would need to be available within that time period. We will also pitch to you our ideas we have so far and what we intend to do for your video.

I hope that you are happy to help us.

Your Sincerely,



Natalie Nicol and Philippa Price

Newton Faulkner - Research

Here is a video for Newton Faulker's song "Badman". I thought that this would help us as he is an acoustic artist and this also gives us a feel to how we should work with our acoustic artist. This video is mad in a interesting way, one simple effect and it keeps the video gripping all the way through.

Research on a Student Video

Here is a student music video from Hurtwood House. This video is made for the song Infra-red by Placebo. Even though this video doesn't any similarities to the video which I intend to make, I still think that it is a brilliantly edited video and everything that they have pieced together works really well together to make an effective video. 

What works really well is all the close ups of the artist singing, his mouth and his eyes. This shows the personality and mood of the artist and the song perfectly. I also like the range of different close ups and angles of the instruments played and I intend to do something like that for my video. Even though my video will not be cut as much as this, I will try to use a short similar to it. 

KT Tunstall - Research

I decided to research KT Tunstall, as she is an acoustic artist and this would be useful as I am also doing a video for a acoustic artist.
I found a video that only stars her in the video and this was useful as I too wish to do the same thing with my video. It shows her singer, playing all the instruments used in the song and the video cuts between shots of her playing each of them. As the tempo of the song gets fast, so does the cutting and this adds a good effect and keeps the song interesting. Which also keeps the video interesting is that they have added a simple effect, which was to add a mirror effect as the song moves through and gets a bit faster.

Here are a few pictures of video and also a link to the video, as the embed is disabled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQmDUEv939A

Feedback at Coleridge -Pete and Class

We gave our pitch to Pete today and here is the feedback which we received from Pete and the class.

Quite a lot people thought that our idea may become too boring throughout the video and that maybe adding something else or tweaking something may help. For example, that thought that we could add in some footage which will be shot at the junction and this could be put in along side the other footage, maybe flick between the two. Pete also mentioned that making a variety of different shots for the journey would help too, as a lot of people use the journey idea, having different heights, angles and so on may help the viewer to be more interested.

My class mates also gave us the feedback that we should research more into acoustic artists and what their videos are like. This would help use to get more of an idea on what we may want to get out of the video and what may look better with the type of music we are using.

Rough Version of Pitch

Here is a rough version of  our pitch, which we have pitched today to Pete. This includes our idea for the music video and what we went the video to be like. 

Philippa: The artist which we have chosen is called Becky Young, she is a solo, acoustic artist. She has made a few covers, along with her own work and we have chosen one of her own songs, called ‘Time’ (play song)

Alie: Our first idea and so far our only idea is to shoot Becky on her journey to a field. The field would be almost like her ‘gig’ but we would shoot her playing her guitar in the middle of the field towards the end of the video. The video would consist of a range of different shots, as we wanted to have a variety. This could include us shooting her in a car for part of the journey, which would be a close shot and then we would have a shot of her walking part of it which would be a long shot. 
We have also considered including the Junction shoot into the video but we haven’t yet thought about how that would fit in but we are still going shoot it, just in case. 

Philippa: To make this video a bit more interesting, we wanted to use some effect to add a different feel to the video. We came up with something simple which was to change the colours of footage. We want to keep our artist in black and white but change the colours of everything else around. To start of with, we weren’t too sure on how to do this but after getting advice we found that we could a do a few things make it easier. This could include making sure our artist is wearing black and white and then use final cut to change the colours, this will make it easier to bring out the colours around her. 

Research/Planning Places to Shoot - Video

Here is a short video to give you a bit more of an idea of where I want to shoot most of my music video.

Research/Planning - Places to Shoot

Today I went out to look for the place which I wanted to shoot my video. I was looking for a big field which I could have my artist sit in the middle of and then shoot the journey there. I took my phone with me and took some pictures of part of the journey and some of the actual field.
These are the pictures which I managed to get and they are helping me to get a better idea of what I want my video to look like and what I have to work with.

Music Video - Practise With Visual Efffects

Today we had a task to complete, which helped us to understand how to move images to the beat of music and to get used the kind of editing of our music video. This task was really useful and it really helped me to understand what I would be dealing with. I thoroughly enjoyed the task and thought that with what we were able to do within the short time was quite good.
To make this video was quite easy, it plainly consisted of dropping in different colours into the frame and then changing them to the same length as the bit and/or make them move to the music.

Wednesday 23rd of September - Progress Report

This report is to show where in my music video project I am up to. Here are some points to show where we are at. 

- Chosen artist - Becky Young

- Chosen song - 'Time' by Becky Young

- Brain stormed about ideas - come to a rough conclusion about what we want to be included in the video. 

- We have a rough idea of costume which consists of black and white

- We are currently looking at places to shoot, one will be the Junction and we are looking at field to shoot in. 

This is as far as we have got so far but we have a lot ideas and we organizing a lot before this weekend so we can work with Becky Young next week. 

Planning - Journey

When thinking about what I thought I wanted to do for my music video, I came to the idea that I could make the video a journey. The video could start of with the artist starting her journey to the 'stage', I could have a few shots leading to this and then have her at her destination.

As I was thinking about this for my idea, I thought I would research into some music videos and see if I could find any which followed a journey through out.

By doing this I found these few videos but because the embed for disabled on youtube, I have pasted the link to video.

Tenacious D - Wonderboy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBI4T3uoKUw
(this video, I found out, was also directed by Spike Jonze)

Blue October - Hate Me - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-w5EghjrN0

HIM - Gone With The Sin - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZtFLd_wNfI

These video all consist of some kind of journey, it may not be the one I am interested in but I decided to research them to see what they decided to do in the video.

Feedback at Coleridge - Effects in HIM video

During the session at Coleridge, we found a music video on youtube that we thought used a good effect and we would be interested in using. Me and Allie chose the video which we have blogged about before. which was HIM - gone with the sin.
We managed to get a lot of feedback and we got advised by the group and Nick on how we would go about doing it. They said that one way we could do it is by making our singer completely in black and white and then pick out the colours from the background that w shot. I thought that this would be the easiest, as spending a long time in photoshop or after effects, cutting around our singer or using green screen would be a lot more completed
I think that now we have found out that we could actual do this effect quite easily, we will definitely try it and test it out before we go shooting.

Bill Yukich - Research

When looking over the video HIM - Gone With The Sin, I noticed the director of the video. His name is Bill Yukich and I thought that I should look to see if there have been over music video which he has done. I found that he has been involved with a few others but not as the director.
I found out that he was the editor for the music video 'No one knows' by the Queens of the Stone Age. I found this quite interesting because the HIM video used colour in a interesting way and this was the same case with the QOTSA video.

Here is the link to the video and also some images form the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lliA2Av8dd8

Gone With The Sin - by HIM - Research

This is the link to a song by HIM. The reason I looked at this video was because of colours effect and why the black and white works well with the rich and intense colours. e.g the pink sky or bright green grass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZtFLd_wNfI

I have also managed to get some screen grabs of the video, which show how the colours work within the video. I am hoping to do a similar effect as this, in my video and it should be just a matter of adjusting some colours and settings.

Michel Gondry - Research

Michel is a well known music video director and he is known well for making some music videos entirely in one shot, without any cuts. Making a video this way I think makes the video a lot more interesting and as I found, Michel has also been good at making videos quite weird but in a creative way.
The link below is to a video directed by Michel Gondry, for 'Radiohead' - called 'Knives Out'. This video doesn't have an embed on Youtube so I have provided a link to the youtube video.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L86CfoOsdS8

Spike Jonze - Research

This is a music video made by Spike Jonze. Spike is well known for his unique styles when making music video. One style he is well known for is in the video for the band The Pharcyde and he made the footage of the band performing the song backwards and then the footage is replayed backwards. This gave his video a really odd effect and put together with the beat of the song, it fit really well.

Goodwins Six Points

These are Andrew Goodwin's six points on how to analyse a music video.


"1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics
(e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals
(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals
(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc)."

Live Videos From Gig in Swavesesy

This first video is Becky singing her song "Sands of Beaches" live at a gig in Swavesey. The event held a few other unsigned bands and was a general village festival.
She sung both of these songs with an acoustic guitar and had no other instruments or band members.




This next video is Becky singing the "My Imagination" and like the first video it was also done acoustically.

Becky Young - My chosen artist

I have always had the idea that I wanted to make a music video for my best friend Becky and I thought that as she is ,so far, an unsigned artist that it would be easier to get her approval to make the video.
She is an acoustic singer and he songs only consist of herself singing and playing the guitar. I thought that this would be a bit different because it will be a peaceful piece of music and not many people with have something to work with like this. It will be a challenge but a good one.

Becky has also got her own MySpace site, which people can see her music and learn a little about her. The website displays pictures of her, a few of her songs, band influences and live videos.

http://www.myspace.com/beckyyoungcambridge

This is the picture that appears on her MySpace page.