Planning - 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 Becky will also be bringing 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 and Becky has said that this would be a good idea. 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.

I 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. Becky has decided that she would want to be sat on the stool, centre stage so that she is centre of attention. We thought that two or three lights set on her would work and she wants 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 - 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 I have decided to start the journey from town. So when it comes to shooting on the days which we can all be available, no day would be more convenient than the next as we need to get into town each time we shoot.

Because I plan to shoot in town and we have considered that there will be a lot of people, busy so risk of an 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 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.

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)

Researching Music Videos - Newton Faulkner

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 client, an acoustic artist. This video is mad in a interesting way, one simple effect and it keeps the video gripping all the way through.

Researching Music videos - Student Video - Hurtwood House

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 have many similarities to the video which I intend to make for our client, 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 the video which we are making. Even though Becky's video will not be cut as much as this, I will try to use a short similar to it.

Researching Music videos - KT Tunstall

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 Becky Young, who is an acoustic artist.
I found a video that only stars her in the video and this was useful as I too plan to do this in the video for Becky. It shows the 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 From Becky Young

We gave our pitch to Becky Young (our client) today and here is the feedback which we received from her.

She thought that our idea may become too boring throughout the video and that maybe adding something else or tweaking something may help. For example, Becky 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. Becky also mentioned that making a variety of different shots for the journey would help too, as a lot of music videos use the journey idea, having different heights, angles and so on may help her viewers to be more interested.

Before pitching our ideas to Becky, myself and Alie had asked her on what she would want from the video and if she had any ideas for us. She came back to us and said that she would like a pitch from us and from there decide on what she wants from the video.

I think that we will have a lot of flexibility for this video but will have to make sure that we keeping Becky in mind throughout this project.

Rough Version of Pitch to Becky

Here is a rough version of our pitch, which we have pitched to Becky Young today. This includes our idea for her video and what we thought her video should be like.


'Alie: Our first idea and so far our only idea is to shoot you on your journey to a field. The field would be almost like your ‘gig’ but we would shoot you playing your 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 you in a car for part of the journey, which would be a close shot and then we would have a shot of you 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 you 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 you are wearing black and white and then use final cut to change the colours, this will make it easier to bring out the colours around you.'

Planning - Places to Shoot for Commission - 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.

Planning - Places to Shoot for Commission

Today I went out to look for the place which we could shoot Becky's video. I was looking for a big field which I could have Becky 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.

Progress Report

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

- Commissioner - Becky Young

- Her 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 produce our ideas Becky Young next week.

Coming up for an Idea for Becky's Video

When thinking about what I thought I wanted to do for the commission 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 the 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.

Advise From Nick on Video I Found

During the session at Coleridge, I found a music video on youtube that I 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.
I 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.

Researching Music Video's - HIM - Gone with the sin

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.

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)."

Video's From Her MySpace Page

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.

Commission Artist

My best friend Becky has come to myself and Alie to commission us to make her a music video for a song called 'Time'. I have accepted her offer as she is unsigned artist and think that this would help her career and also it will be a good commission for us to complete.
She is an acoustic singer and her 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 will have something to work with like this. It will be a challenge but a good commission.

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.

Request from Becky

This is the letter which I have received from my friend Becky Young, our client for this project. She has sent me a request for making her a video for one of her songs and some short details of what she wants.

'Dear Philippa,

I am interested in making a video for one of my songs and as you are part of a media course, I was wondering if you would be interested in making it for me. The song which I want a video for is called 'Time' and it can be found on my MySpace page; http://www.myspace.com/beckyyoungcambridge.
I will need this video completed within three weeks and I would like a pitch from you of any ideas that you may have and we can discuss further details. I am also willing for you to work in a group, if you are needing more people to produce this video.

I hope that you are willing to make this video.

Your Sincerely,



Becky Young'

From receiving this email I then went to send an email to my class mate Alie who is also on my course. I did not think that I could complete this video by myself and I am good friends with Alie and as I have permission from becky - I wanted to ask Alie if she would be willing to work with me and for Becky. This is the email that I sent to Alie;

'Hi Alie,

I have received the following letter from my friend Becky Young and I was wondering if you would be interested.

'Dear Philippa,
I am interested in making a video for one of my songs and as you are part of a media course, I was wondering if you would be interested in making it for me. The song which I want a video for is called 'Time' and it can be found on my MySpace page; http://www.myspace.com/beckyyoungcambridge.
I will need this video completed within three weeks and I would like a pitch from you of any ideas that you may have and we can discuss further details. I am also willing for you to work in a group, if you are needing more people to produce this video.

I hope that you are willing to make this video.

Your Sincerely,


Becky Young'

She has mentioned that she is willing for me to work with other people and I thought that we could work together on this video for Becky.

Let me know if you are willing to work with me and I will let Becky know and we can get started.

Philippa'

The Process of Making a Music Video

The Process of Making a Music Video

In the beginning of the year, Jake and Jim came in to see us and they talked us through the process of making a music video. This will come in very useful to us in the future, especially if we decide to go down that path for a career.

Below is a summary of what they told us and what the process included.
1. A commissioner from a record company will put out a single track and send it off to directors or production companies that may be suitable.

2. Then the directors would pitch an idea for the track, which would be based on a brief that was given to them by the record company

3. The record company will then choose the best pitch and then they will allocate a budget. Producer then will look after budget and arrangements for the process.

4. After this, the director of photography, along with the art director, would then over-look the planning for the look of the music video and the details which would be included in this would be, locations, actors, shoot etc.

5.Shoot takes place- usually one day

6. The editor would then get together all the footage over a few days and then the artist and record company would then see this and suggest any ideas which they may have.
7. Editor would then add in effects and get the final version ready.

8. The video is then sent to the client and played on the suitable place, e.g TV.


When making this music video, we didn't really follow this process to a T but we may have done a few aspects of it without realising. We pitched our ideas to Becky and got feedback on what was good and what changes we could make. This included a few of the stages and was very useful in moving on in our project. I also did a bit of planning which included looking for locations, actors etc and this would be included within the process too.
I think that when referring to this process, I could have got our project done a lot more smoothly and by realising this I think that we will use it in the future.

Previous Commission

Sawston Cinema Logo

At the beginning of the course we were commissio by Sawston Cinema to create a logo for their cinema. Our client did not give a detailed description of what they wanted, so we came up with a few ideas and each produced a logo within the class. I researched into other cinema logos which may have helped the development of my logo. I looked at the logos for the cinemas in town, such as, Picture House, Vue cinema and Cineworld. Below is the logo which I created with a partner within the class.

This was an interesting commission but I think that the communication between ourselves and the client was very slow and very vague at times. I think that it may have helped to have had more meetings face to face with the client so that we could have gathered some more ideas for the logo.

Cambridge Film Festival

In 2009, during the Cambridge Film Festival I worked at the Arts Picture House cinema, alone with the other members of my class. I was involved within making some podcasts for the festivals website, I helped to assist others who were making a promotional video for the festival and along with the rest of my class, I helped to make gift packs for delegates.

This was a new experience for me and it helped me to see how their festival was run and worked. However, they were getting low on the amount of jobs that were available for the people working to help with the festival and some people were let go in this process.

What is a Commission

Commission is a term used to describe when a person, group people ask you produce something for them and in most cases they pay you for this job. However, in our situation we are going to be doing this commission without being paid for the job.

With our commission and many commissions, the commissioner has seen your work before asking you do this job and go ahead with hiring you for the job because they like the work that you have produced before hand. After you have accepted the job, there is normally a meeting held to discuss what is wanted from the job and this is with the commissioner and the person completing the job. A pitch is then normally requested from the commissioner, as we have been requested by Becky Young and this is pitched to them and they then decide on whether your ideas are good enough and if they want you to complete the production.

Throughout the production, you have regular meetings with the client to discuss the production so far, what else they may want and any views they may have on what you have done. Rough cuts are run past the client and nothing is finalised until they are happy with what you have produced.