Ready To Begin Filming

We are now completely up to date with everything that needs to of been completed and are ready to begin filming our video. We will start this as soon as we come back to school after the half term break, and are both really excited about the prospect of filming.

Planning Props and Costumes

For our music video, we will need certain props and different costumes for different people.
All together, we will have 23 different people in our music video.

I will go through each character, list their costume and the props they will need.

1. Robyn - Dress & Heels - Hair dryer, make-up, hairbrush.
2. Rob - Smart jeans, Polo shirt and CLEAN shoes - Weights
3. Koko - Basketball shorts + shirt & High-tops - Basketball
4. Ali Baxter - Trackies, Polo shirt & Trainers
5. Cristina - Sweatpants, Vest top, Jacket & High-tops - Cap
6. Lisa - Black leggings, Black vest top, Black socks - Black paint
7. Kim - White leggings, White vest top, White socks - White paint
8. Vidur - Casual
9. Ahmed - Casual
10. Simon - Casual
11. Jamie - Casual
12. Imogen - Casual
13. Dolphin - Casual
14. Corrina - Casual
15. Cat - Casual
16. Phoebe - Casual
17. Mikey - Casual
18. Henri - Casual
19. Lauren - Casual
20. Tom - Casual
21. Doug - Casual
22. Millie - Casual
23. Callum P - Casual

EXTRA THINGS WE WILL NEED :
-Floor lighting for dancing scenes
-White Backdrop
-Black Backdrop

More Audience Research

To expand the knowledge I have of perspective audiences in real-life situations, I looked at the Channel 4 website, who actually give realistic facts and figures about the public and what kind of thing they want to see in music videos and on T.V.

This was a very good taster of what kind of audience we would most likely be targeting.

Here is a screenshot of a page on the 4Music page, which was extremely helpful to the research and also to give us more of an idea of what we wanted to do and focus on whilst completing our task.

Make-up Tests

In regards to the make up of the two main girl characters who will be respresenting two different styles, Cristina and Robyn, I have managed to do two little make-up tests.

For Cristina's street style, I felt that a more smokey, dark coloured effect on her eyes would be most effective.
Looking at different picture on the internet and from fashion magazines, this is the look we desired, and the look we ended up with.

For Robyn's make up however, we decided to go for a more girly 'Barbie' kind of look with lots of pinks and more subtle colours which definately help to enhance the girly style even just within the make up.

Here were some inspirations from the newest MAC collection, which is called 'Barbie loves MAC'.

      



Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin has identified a number of key features which distinguish a music video as a form:

Voyeurism often plays a major part and is present in many music videos, especially in the treatment of females, but also in terms of systems of looking. Some examples are screens within screens, cameras, mirrors, etc.
He says that music videos are often constructed by the link between the visuals and the song plus the artist. Relationships are built between these in the video, and the close-ups of the artists gives them the representation and publicity they require. Voyeurism is used to increase the video’s attractiveness, particularly to males, whilst intertextuality is often employed in humorous videos.
Many of these features are present in all music videos, depending on the genre of the song and the aim of the record company/artist.

Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics:
Genres are complex and diverse in terms of music video related style, and iconography - Record companies will demand a lot of close-ups of the main artist or vocalist.
Black Eyed Peas are a pop and R’n’B band and therefore all of their videos contain the typical characteristics for a video of these genres. They generally contain lots of happy people and a clear storyline. We are going to replicate each of these different things as much as possible, without copying the original video.

Most pop videos have the same sorts of sounds; a ‘bouncy’ tune usually about love and although we are using a song with this stereotypical image we are changing the content to make contrary to what would be expected.

Another characteristic is a close-up shot of the artist singing into the camera with either things going on behind them or not, and we are going to do this in our video as we feel it is a necessity.

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals:
There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
The lyrics in the song ‘I Gotta Feeling’ narrate the action of the song – during the line of the chorus ‘I gotta feeling that tonights gonna be a good night’ you see people either getting ready or dancing and smiling.

There is a relationship between music and visuals:
There is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
For the rhythm of a music video to flow well it is necessary that the music and the visuals fit well together. When songs have a strong, fast beat throughout the editing is usually quick paced and the shots are of a short length.
This song has a fast beat throughout and therefore to fit with the upbeat music all of the shots are quickly edited together. This illustrates the light-hearted meaning the song is representing.

There is often intertextual reference:
There are likely to be intertextual references to other media texts, either to other music videos or to films and TV texts, these provide further gratification and pleasure for the viewers/fans.
This video is not specifially referencing towards any particular music video, or film. However it is referencing to a common theme within many films and other songs based on being care free and happy.

 Here is a mind map I made about all of these different points

Risk Assessment

Before we began to film, it was essential to complete a Risk Assessment form to acknowledge the fact that there may be some potential hazards whilst filming our music video, and to keep us completely aware of the actions that would be undertaken if the events happened to occur.

Practice Painting!!

Kim and I have several ideas integrated into our music video and one of those is actually involving us. We are going to be dancers in our video and our idea was to have two complete contrasts.
Kim will be painted white, wearing all white clothing and will be dancing against a black background and I will do the complete opposite. Black body paint and clothing dancing against a white background.

To practise this, we went to the art department today and did a sample of paint on each of our arms to see what the effect would be.
We both really thought the outcome was interesting and different which was the look we were going for.

Here is a video that we made documenting our practise:

Stereotypical Characters

I have been looking for the types of costumes that each of our main characters will be wearing. We want them to be the 5 different stereotypical groups.

 1) Chav - We want our chav to be wearing an addidas zip up jumper, brand new trainers so that they are as white as possible and white socks with tackies tucked into them.

2) Girly - We want the girly girl to be wearing lots of pink and to be constantly be smiling to come across as happy and care free.

 3) Hip hop - We want our hip hop person to be represent a basketball player - wearing baggy shorts and t shirt, with a basketball bouncing it.

 4) Lad - We want our lad to be using weights to show that he cares about his image. Also he's going to be wearing a tight fitting t shirt and some blue jeans to show that he wants to come across as though he isn't really trying but in actual fact he is.

5) Street - We want the street girl to be dressed like a break dancer wearing baggy jeans and hi-top trainers.

Animatic Video

Here is our animatic video accompanied with our chosen song. Lisa and I are pictured as the 5 main characters and we have posed in the way of what we want each different actor to be doing. We have also used the members of our class whom are going to be in the video as well for the 'dancing' pictures.

Shot List

This is our shot list so far of the actual shot we have decided on for the beginning of our music video.

1. Clock ticking.
2. Robyns shoes
3. Robs weights
4. Koko's ball
5. Ali's trackies
6. Cristina's hat
7. Stop motion shots 4 seconds
8. Robyn make-up
9. Rob Belt
10. Koko basketball
11. Ali socks
12. Cristina jacket
13. Person 1 dancing
14. Person 2 dancing
15. Person 3 dancing
16. Person 4 dancing
17. Person 5 dancing
18. Stop motion shots 4 seconds
19. Person 6 lyrics
20. Person 7 lyrics
21. Person 8 lyrics
22. Person 9 lyrics
23. Person 10 lyrics
24. Split screen dancing
25. Stop motion shots 4 seconds
26.
** TO BE CONTINUED**

Story Arc Shots

Kim and I have settled on 4 different arcs for our video, each different to maintain interest throughout the video by keeping editing fast and using a varied range of shots.

Section by section, I have drawn the kind of shots that we wish to use on a Post-It storyboard and this is what I came up with.

Film Casting

In our film, our idea was to involve as many different kinds of people as possible to keep interest in the video throughout.

We wanted to ask as many people as possible, so that even if their shots weren't the best ones, we still had a large selection to choose from. Better to have more than too little.

The people we have chosen to be in our video are people who have vibrant personalities and are not camera shy. The effect we want the video to have is that everyone is happy and having fun and I don't think this would be possible to portray if the cast were not comfortable in front of the camera.

' I gotta Feeling '

Starring:

 

We have decided to use a lot of different people because enables us to include lots of quick shots of the people and fast editing. Also we are using people with different hair colours as well as skin colours because this adds variety and a difference between one shot from the next.

We want to use a lot of 3 or more split screen shots so using lots of different people will add interest because we want to use 3 different people in each shot - one persons head, one persons middle and another persons feet and legs.

**To be Continued...**

Location Shots

Here are the location shots of where we are going to shoot all of our film. We have chosen to use the theatre in the drama department of our school to shot our video as it has everything that we need to successfully make our film with easy access.

We have decided that our background with either be plain white or black at different points in the video because this means that we can experiment with lots of different techniques.We are going to use floor lights as they will make our video bright and will look effective when our actors are wearing lots of different brightly coloured clothes that all contrast each other.

I am have spoken to the Director of Drama in order to seek permission to film our video here and he has given us the go ahead.

There are a number of different rooms in the drama department in which we could film so we have a wide range of choice as all of the rooms are different;




 




Room number 1 has brightly coloured walls but also has a black backdrop and floor which is useful as we need this for part of our film















This is one of the lights we have have permission to use if required, which we will deffinitally use if the floor lights don't provide enough light








Although room number 2 has a black floor as well, it has very bright lights in the room which could help but could also hinder the filming in our video








Room number 3 is well light with brightly coloured walls, and although we want colour I think the red colour will be reflected in the light against the white backdrop





 




Here is Mr Wills - the director of drama - giving us permission to film

I think we are going to do the majority of the filming in room number 1 - otherwise known as 'The Big Space - as it already has a black curtain and we can easily attatch a black backdrop to it in order to keep everything the same colour.

Story Arc

The story for our music video is about people getting ready to go out for the night and the different things each of them do. We want to show 5 different stereotypical teenagers that represent the different cliques they would be a part of in a way that is obvious yet subtle at the same time.

My Tribe

I went onto findyourtribe.co.uk and like Lisa, I also came under the stereotype of a townie

'You are a Townie! Your job might be a bit boring but it brings home the bacon and helps you save up for those two weeks away to Spain. Your weekends are set in stone – trip to the shops in town, buy yourself something nice, head to the All Bar One with friends, have a laff, maybe go for a club, as long as there’s none of the indie weirdo music. Keep it straight, you say.'

This discription is the type of people that we should be aiming target with our music video. 

Finding my Tribe

Today I went to [ http://www.findyourtribe.co.uk/ ] and I found out what my 'Tribe' is. This refers to the group of people I am most like throughout the styles in the UK, as researched by Channel 4.

I came up as a Townie.

'You are a Townie! Your job might be a bit boring but it brings home the bacon and helps you save up for those two weeks away to Spain. Your weekends are set in stone – trip to the shops in town, buy yourself something nice, head to the All Bar One with friends, have a laff, maybe go for a club, as long as there’s none of the indie weirdo music. Keep it straight, you say.'


I think that this is definately the main audience that we should be directing our music video to as this is one of the biggest groups in the mainstream.

Practice Film

Today I have edited together the pictures we took for the stop motion part of our film and added music to them. It took a long time to complete but was worth all of the effort as it looks very interesting and effective. This was another practice and now we are going to re-take all of the pictures with a professional camera and tripod with the piece of paper as the background taped to the ground so that it doesn't move at all as it does in this.

The Perfect Audience

A little bit of research had to be made to discover who was our perfect audience member, the people who we wanted to target with our music video and who it would appeal to most.
By searching on [ http://www.uktribes.co.uk/ ] we did some research of who we think our perfect audience would be and our opinion of who would be interested in our chosen genre of music.
Here are some screenshots of what we found:

We found this on YouTube which is made by Channel 4 looking at the different groups and tribes. Here are the ones we found most relevant.



Second Stop Motion Practice

Today Lisa and I took all of the photos for the stop motion part of our music video. Some of the shots are a little bit squint around the edges and in the corners so we're going to crop them in Photoshop.

Here are a selection of the pictures that we took, you will see them all when we upload them to a clip of music;

Here is our end product