Shooting schedule

Shown in the table above are the shooting times we plan to film our music video. We aim to film our video over the time period of only two days, however, plan to work hard and for many hours to get the filming completed. As you can see, both schedule times are at the weekend as we can get all footage recorded in our free time at the weekend and edit and put the music video togther during the school week and in media lessons. In addition, we have phoned a local gym to ask if we can film in their facilities and they gave us a time when it is least busy and so we adapted our shooting schedule to correspond with the times they said we could film.

Music video story board

Filming

                                                           Filming Our Music Video

Tomorrow our group is going to start filming our music video. We plan to film for the majority of the day and aim to complete filming over the weekend. We shall go to various different venues for filming such as gym's, parls and our houses so that we are able to make our story board images come to together. The video below is a video we have found recently of a USA weightlifter, Kendrick Farris. The video contains lots of short motivational clips of the athlete whilst he trains.

As portrayed from the video, many black and white clips are used for additional visual effect for the audience, the shots create great tension and makes the video more dramatic which would work well for our video too.

I have taken screen shots from the video of our favorite clips of Kendrick Farris working out. The camera angles and shots portryaed in the pictures below are the ones we plan to do similarly in our music video as we think the clips and shots would suit our music video and song choice well which is an important factor to consider.

Shot Ideas

To the left are the shot ideas we have taken from the motivational video of Kendrick Farris. As you can see from the screen shots of the pictures taking from the video, the blcack and white clips of the athlete training look great and would work really well with our theme. I particularly like the top left one of him doing Triceps Dips and the top right one of the Plate being put on the olympic bar. The fact that the shots are in black and white too makes the clip seem more dramatic and works better than a standard coloured clip. This is an example of where editing can vastly improve a clip.

Music video presentation

The video shown above is our Music Video Presentation to which we discuss: our song choice, concept, ideas so far, story line and the particular audience we target.

Album covers

Posters

Poster 1 (For magazine advert etc.)

Poster Pictures

Poster 1 (Draft)

To the left is a picture of my first draft for my poster. The symbolic use of the silhouette of a boxer works well when layered on top of an original image of a boxer focusing in training. Although this is just a first draft, these ideas may be useful for helping me to create my final poster image. As these are not my photos, I can't then use these same photo's for my final album cover and so will take photos of my own with the same idea in mind. Also, the black and white colour scheme makes the image look more intense, perfect for a boxing theme.

                          Poster 2 (Draft)

Similarly to the first poster, I have used a background image blended with a foreground image to give the impression that one image is infront of the other. For the first poster i used a boxing silhouette to be the foreground on top of a picture of a man focusing whilst in a boxing arena. To the right, you can see my 2nd draft of a poster I have done where I have used a similar idea idea of using a background and foreground but instead of a silhouette for the foreground i have used an image of the band. This effect was made possible by the programme, Photshop. By using a picture of the band it portrays to the audience a visual image of the performers.

Audience Research Questions

1.Our genre is “Hip Hop”, what would expect to see in a music video to do with this genre? 2.In a music video, do you prefer a story line or performance? 3.How long do you think an average Hip Hop music video should last? 4.Would you expect to see the artist/band in the music video? 5.What images and ideas come into your head when you hear this type of music? 6.As our music video is about motivation and not giving up a passion, what would you expect to see? After asking various people the questions on this questionnaire, the answers that were given gave me a clear indication of what the average answer is for each question, making me and my partner also understand more about what our video's footage and conjtent should consist and include. In the end our target audience would be aimed at 17-26 year olds and so we mainly targetted people of that age category. Beolw is a video of an example of one of the groups we questionned using the questions in this questionnaire.

Audience Research

Magazine CD Advert Analysis

Digi Pak/CD Cover Analysis

Digipak cd analysis from 08thowe

Music Video Analysis from 08thowe

New A2 Coursework Project

Any posts on my blog from now on is work towards my A2 coursework which invloves creating a music video.

Final video with no sound

How have you improved since your preliminary task?

How did we get the CCTV effect?

1) By clicking the tab "Video FX" this gave us many options to edit our footage. However as the look we were going for was a "CCTV effect" ...the best option we found was the TV look effect. By editing the various different effect that came with this effect, we managed to make our footage look like a CCTV camera. The editing of this effect enabled us to increase or decrease the fuzziness of the camera.

2) In addition this is highlighting the fact that we included text for the CCTV footage. This is the text for the time of the camera to make it look even more realistic. By having numbers in the frame it makes the film even more believable. Overall we were more than pleased with how this effect turned out and it taught us a lot about vegas by trying out all the effects and how to use/find them.

What have you learned about technologies and the construction of your product?

1) Vegas Movie Studio 9.0 - To put together our films and clips to create the movie
2) Facebook - for contacting each other
3) Google - For gathering images
4) Youtube - viewing trailers and videos for inspiration
5) Blogger -Uploading posts
6) Powerpoint - Organizing slides
7) Itunes - Transferring music
8) IMDb - Movie database (viewing trailers and getting prouction info)

How would you attract your target audience?

Who would be the audience of your film?

What kinds of media institutions might distribute your film and why?

Warner Bros. Pictures

The production compnay that i would like to produce our film would be Warner Bros. Pictures. The famous company based in the US would be a great way to produce our film and get maximum popularity as quickly as possible. In addition by looking at the films they have produced in the past, it is clear that our film would fit in nicely with the rest of the films. The company produce many action films such as The Dark Knight which is very similar to our film.

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight's opening scene is very similar to the opening scene of our film and so Warner Bros. Pictures would certainly look to produce a film like ours. The action based opening scene of The Dark Knight is a great example of why I chose Warner Bros. Pictures as a production company I would choose to distribute my film.

How does your product represent particular social groups?

In what ways does your product, use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real films?

For our film, we specifically chose to look at a very particular audience group and that would be those who love action-based, dramtic films. Because of this, this obviously narrowed down the genres and types of films we could look at to get inspiration from. In addition, we wanted to capture the idea of getting the audience engaged by getting inspiration from films which engaghed us (James, Piers and myself). Due to this, only a few films captured our attention and therefore this made our devlopment and inspiration from films very limited.

We looked at the film introduction of James Bond's, Casino Royale. The chase scene in the film inspired us to look at the idea of a chase scene in the first place and so it's clear that we used this real life film to develop our ideas and motivation.

Moreover various different films caught our attention, but one in particular was the film Narc. The chase scene in the film inspired us to look at a dark and gloomy mise-en-scne and because if this, our final piece was edited to make the mise-en-scne look more dramatic by making the contrast and tones of the background similar to the background used in Narc. By doing so, our film was made to look gloomy and therefore more dramatic to the audience.

Finished video with 28 weeks later soundtrack.

Risk Assesment

When filming, it is vital that all risk possibilities and precautions are dealt with and looked at. In our film, due to the fact it’s a chase scene with lots of running, there obviously are going to be many risk factors (tripping up, running into objects, slipping etc).

·         Because of this, we have written down any possibilities and assessed them so that things hopefully won’t go wrong.  The list shown below:

o    The first problem that came into our heads was obviously climbing on the bins and jumping off them, clearly there is a big risk of falling etc their, however, we are aware of the problem and so will be careful when climbing and jumping.

o    In addition, another problem is obviously running on the road, due to the bad weather, the roads shall be icy and wet because of the now, however, we shall be careful and obviously not sprint. With a fast paced jog we should be fine and not slip.

o    Another issue which could potentially be dangerous is in our last scene when the criminal throws the bin bag behind him hitting the policeman’s body. The obvious potential injury is if the bag is thrown too hard or hits the policeman’s head. However, we shall fill the bag with a soft material, making it look like there is rubbish in the bag, when it will really be filled with pillows most likely.

o    Furthermore, during the last scene, it requires us chasing down a flight of stairs. The potential risk/injury here is clear, but we’ll be careful when running down the stairs whilst trying to make the scene still look dramatic and dangerous.  

Questionaire

I produced a questionaire for my class mates to answer to hopefully give myself and my group a better idea of what auidiences want to see in an action film (particularly children and young adults).

1) Blood and shooting or stunts and parkour?

2) what music do you like to hear when in an action film?

3) do you prefer a fast paced film with lots of different camera angles or a slow paced film with a good story line?

4) modern camera editing or old camera editing (victorian ages)

5) what would you expect an undercover cop to wear?

...These questions were to help us gain a rough idea of what the audience wants to see in an action film. In addition, it was to help us put the answers into our film to make it as good and appealing to the audience as possible.

Plot

Ending Scene

The opening scene will start with two policemen minding their own business looking for crime or any suspicion there may be. As they're walking a long a road, a criminal drug dealing criminal spots the policeman, gets etchy and nervous and so walks away breifly (they policemen don't notice him). However, as the policemen carry on with their journey, the criminal is found dealing drugs 2 minutes away from where he saw the policemen in the first place. The policemen set eyes on him and yell to stop him. The drug dealer see's them and runs away from the policemen. As the policemen chase after him, this creates the chase scene and this is the beginning to the action involved in the film. After doing stunts and using different camera angles to show off the effect making it more appealing for the audience the scene finishes with the criminal throwing a bag in slo motion at the policemen (as shown in the picture above). This leaves suspense and un answered questions to whether the policemen caught the criminal in the or not.

When/How are we going to shoot are scenes?

When creating a film, having set times and locations for shooting particular clips is very important. For organsiational purposes, as a group we have arranged what times we shall want particular times to be shot. Overall, there are 25 shots that we need to film in our opening scene (not including title shots). Filming shall start when we return to school after half term. We aim to film 5 shots a day, if all goes to plan, we shall start on Monday the 20th Feb and finish on Friday the 24th Feb. We are most likely going to film these shots during lesson time or between 5-6 o'clock after school, this way it will be a lot darker which will suit our opening scene; giving us the dramatic/actin effect we need. As there is very little dialogue in our scene a script is not going to be necessary, however we decided that we are going to film each shot multiple times in order to get it perfect. Then at the end of the week (and the week after if needed) we are going to go through the shots we filmed and pick out the best ones and then edit them together.

Whilst constructing our story board, we took the approach of using still shots (taken from a camera) instead of drawings. This helped us establish the location of each shot. The story board can be located further below my blog. All the locations we decided on are around the school, this makes it very easy for us to film. However we took a lot of time deciding where to do each shot as we want to make each shot look as if it is being filmed in an urban area. We did a trip round school and discussed which particular areas would should a particular clip. We came to a conclusion that the dust bins would be great for the parkour side to things; using stunts, variation and imagination to create a scene like the one from the opening scene shown in the video below.

 Also with the ability to get hold of a decent camera, hopefully this will make shots clearer and editing more easily. Sound effects shall be added whilst editing. Editing will take place on a Saturday and Sunday 25th/26th, if not then, we shall continue to edit on monday the 27th Feb. Hopefully our final piece shall turn out to be as good as we expect it to be.

Tony Jaa Ong-Bak Chase Scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELmykDQa6Yw

This particular chase scene caught my eye due to the action compact stunts portrayed throught the chase. The over-the-top stunts and flexibility of the stunt man attract audiences eyes due to the interest people have in crazy/wacky stunts.

At the beginning, the athletism of the stunt man is shown by hoping and jumping over/trhough objects. This is intelligent as it adds variety to the chase. In our final piece we aim to do stunts like this where objects will be in the way for us to jump over to make it more appealing to people viewing our video. My favorite clip is when the man is seen jumping through the boxes to get away, even though it may seem a bit obvious that the boxes were planned to pass by as that particular time, it adds great affect when the man is seen jumping through the middle. This parkour stunt is simple yet effective as it emphasises what chase scnes should involve. This stunt is definately appealing to the audience and we hope to do stunts similar to this.

In addition, the sound used it fast and up tempoed: we certainly aim to have music like this. The addition to music in this clip makes the clip seem more dramatic and interesting: this is why by having music that suits your clip is so important.

Opening Scenes

1) Batman -The Dark Knight

Genre:Thriller/Film Noir

The movie starts out with a bang…literally. An aerial attack begins when a window shatters on a skyscraper, allowing two robbers to glide across a zip wire on to a bank’s roof. On the street-level, a car screeches to a stop to pick up the last member of the ground attack. This opening clip creates an automatic suspense and interest towards the audience, capturing their attention right from the beginning.

The use of camera in the film in the build up to the robbery is slow with lots of pan and zooming to really capture the scene of which this is set. The zooming of the building they’re about to capture makes something seem suspicious. By using a helicopter, the film crew was able to do this, giving this great affect of elevation to the audience. In addition, another example of when the camera has zoomed in on a particular object is of the clip shown in picture form above. The camera zooms in on the mask held in the characters left hand, portraying that the mask may play an important part to the film and scene; once again making the audience think. By placing the camera directly behind the character, it makes you focus on him, engaging the audience’s attention.

This camera shot, zooming in on the building, gives hints to the audience that something may happen involving the building. We know that suspense is being created due to the slow, dramatic music. After that clip of the building, we next see two bank robbers flying down a zip wire rope leading to another building, with the rope starting at the building that the camera was zooming in on, in the starting clip. This proves that the camera was being used to create suspicion towards the audience to make them think why the building is being zoomed in on.

Another different type of camera used in this opening scene, is where the camera is stationary, and instead of moving towards the characters, the characters are moving towards the camera as the characters slide further along the zip-wire rope. This low angle shot makes the villains seem like the more dominant characters in the scene due to the camera being below them. Being close to the camera makes it more interesting for a viewer as you get a better idea of what the robbers look like. And for the first time, you see the clown painted masks more clearly and up close. However, as it is still at an early stage of the film, the audience is still unaware of why the clown masks are being used. This suspense technique is all part of creating this great action fulfilled opening scene. There are various different camera shots and angles shown in the opening scene of the film, however the ones I have given examples for are the ones that cropped up the most amounts of times due to the suspicious affect and dramatic affect they give.

The music and sound used in this clip is very basic, and is what you’d expect to hear in the background when watching an action movie or film. In the build up to the robbery, the sound is very soft, however still dramatic. The slow tone gives a suspicious vibe to an audience. However, once the bank robbers start to attack the building, the music dramatically changes with a faster tempo beat with drums and quick changing dramatic notes. Although the music in this particular scene of the film is very basic and simple, it still works due to the affect it gives, making the audience more engaged when they break in to the building due to the music being played louder and the tempo of the beat being faster. This only works well though if the music matches the film clip.

Editing in the opening scene of Dark Knight, a film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, is used to create a build up to the robbery, giving the whole opening scene once again a dramatic affect for the watcher. By using short clips, we know as an audience, that there is a build up to something and the utilization of short clips lead us to what the build up is in a more interesting, engaging and imaginative way. In addition, this is more purposeful for something dramatic (like a bank robbery). The dark colours of the opening scene create the film noir setting. Leaving the opening scene on a cliff hanger, ending with a loud explosion due to a bus crashing into the side of the bank, the opening scene is left on a cliff hanger. This makes the audience engaged within the film, wanting to watch on further to see what happens next.

2) James Bond – Casino Royale

Genre:Classic Action

An opening scene which can be found at the beginning of a James Bond movie which really caught my eye the first time I watched it was the opening scene in the film, ‘Casino Royale’. After this opening scene involving the free running chase to an embassy, Bond then kills his target and blows up a part of the building in order to escape. This chase was an excellent opening and build up for an action packed film. Starting off with this fast paced run through a town with flexible stunts, gets the audience ready and engaged to

There are many different camera techniques used in this particular scene. One of which being the technique of birds eye view, capturing the parkour (free running) chase from above giving the audience a clear image of how far away they are from one another and the speed at which they’re travelling. Especially in this particular clip where Bond is using a truck to ram the building down at which the runner is running on top off is clever due to the clear image it gives us of the situation. The quick pace and impressive skill of the free runner really shows off special effects towards an audience perspective to make the film and scene that bit more impressive and engaging for an audience. Another camera shot used is a very low shot to capture the feet of the free runner.

This particular shot for me shows off the different variation of different shots they have used to really capture the dramatic side to the chase. This is noticeable due to the ruble of the roof building in the background behind the runner where James Bond has just driven the truck into the building at a high speed to hopefully capture the runner to stop him. In my opinion, this is one of my favorite camera shots of this scene as the effect it gives really makes the action shot complete, especially for a running scene like this one.

Additionally, another shot which is used to highlight the runner, is a shot where the camera is placed behind the runner, and used to show what everything looks like from his perspective ( as if it were a first person shooter game). This also works well due to the affect it has in engaging audience members, whilst focusing on what the free runner is looking and aiming for.

The director has placed the camera well as it clearly makes the audience focus on the runner, whilst looking at what he’s aiming for, which highlights a good use of camera work. The noticeable different type of camera angles and shots really make the scene as dramatic as it is.

Finally, one last shot which again caught my attention the most was a particular shot which points the camera in a downward direction, showing the audience the height at which they’re doing certain stunts, whilst showing the expression of the runners face. This works well as it shows determination, and makes the scene feel more realistic and action packed.

The Director of Casino Royale, Martin Campbell used sound in this scene to add to the dramatic affect of the chase. The dialectic theme song of James Bond played by loud trumpets creates to the affect which director Campbell was trying to portray. This repetitive sound is played throughout due to the active impression it gives, which matches the fast tempo created within the chase.

Editing in Casino Royale, like The Dark Knight, uses short clips to emphasis the speed of the chase. However, the editing only slows down when James Bond is thinking, highlighting his intelligence to catch the free runner (villain). The Free runner is faster and more skillful than Bond and so the only way Bond will catch him is with intelligence and editing shows this by going inside bonds head, to see how he’s going to plan what he does next. This clever technique contrasts with the fact editing when running, and so when Bond stops to think and editing slows down, this stands out, therefore capturing the audience’s attention.

3) Saving Private Ryan

Genre: War/Drama

Saving Private Ryan is a famous war film, directed by Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg's master piece earned itself 5 academy awards, including the best director award in 1998. The all star cast starring Tom Hanks and Matt Damon brings to life the horror of war. The opening scene depicting the landing at Omaha beach contains some of the best film footage ever-made, of any subject. Steven Spielberg uses a number of camera skills to really put up the chaotic and live firing effect. Another reason Spielberg uses camera techniques is to capture the soldier’s emotions. This is portrayed by showing the nervous expressions on the soldiers face, or body language.

The close eye level shot of the camera here, clearly creates a focus on the face of the soldier for the audience. The scared face creates a tension and wait, as the soldiers are on the boat before battle, almost counting down the seconds before they die.

Furthermore, when they show the American soldiers finally storming the beach and taking cover from enemy fire after a long wait in a boat, Steven Spielberg uses handheld cameras moving along with the soldiers, this is called a panning view. Crouching when the soldiers crouch, running when the soldiers run, as if the viewers are watching the battle through a soldiers eye's, creating the documentary type effect, adding to the realism of the movie.

As shown above, this makes the audience feel like their part of the war, making it a more realistic experience, making the film more memorable. Another way Spielberg uses camera techniques to engage audiences in the opening scene is by planting the camera on the floor, and getting the battle from a ground perspective to add emphasis to explosions and gun shots. This is shown below from the screenshot of a man getting thrown into the air from the sheer force of a grenade explosion. It is not hard to tell why this films search for fame and popularity really succeeded.

There is very little music in the background of the clip, however many sounds of gun shots an explosions taking place to really emphasis the war situation, once again engaging the audience, making them feel like their at the historic battle of Omaha beach on D-Day in June 1944.

Story Board

Narc opening scene

The intro to the film Narc really caught the eye to our group due to the fact it's very similar to the idea we originally had. Here are a few points which we found worked well:

-The constant sound of the characters panting and heavy breathing throughout the chase makes the scene more intense and also adds a sense or realism to it. This also shows the characters fitness, and the audience may not think he is a cop due to his lack of fitness. There is no non-diegetic sound throughout the scene, this enhances the sounds the characters are making (panting, screaming) this also adds to the realism to the scene.

- The whole scene is shot as if following the character usuing a hand held camera. therefore the picture is very shaky. This also makes the scene very realistic and creates an intense atmostphere. In addition, by doing this, it creates a continuous feel to it, mking it look like it's one big clip.

mise en scene - as the chase happens they run through various places which establishes the area. they first off run through a filthy yard and then a scappy car park. later on he runs through what looks like a council estate. this shows us the characters background.

editing - the whole scene has a blue tint to it, this creates a cold feeling to it and creates a tense atmostphere.

Media main task research

Narc opening scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWJ1IfpenII

Narc opening scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWJ1IfpenII
The chase in the film is something we have caught inspiration from as well as a few other films with opening chases which really catch audiences eyes.

Preliminary Task

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL8PLwEPbag

First Blog

Good Morning, this is my first blog using http://www.blogger.com/ ...in the process of my coursework. With a lack of knowledge, I shall prepare to tackle any challanges that face me. I'm Tom Howe, a newly made frequent Blogger.