Digipak Research

Filming Day 2

Here I have put together some raw footage of our second day of filming:

During this day we were filming on the 'streets of Manchester', we managed to film a great deal of footage which will be used in our narrative and montage when editing this footage. I filmed a few bits at the start of the session in order to create some point of view shots due to the fact that I am featuring in the music video, however Charlotte was the main person in the group that produced this footage.

My group and I did come across some struggles during filming in Manchester, for example we didn't realise how dark it would become this caused us to improvise and create a lighting set up using our touch lights on our phones which did give a nice effect to some of the footage however was hard to do so. A further struggle was the amount of people in town, once again we underestimated how busy it would be. When reviewing this footage we realised the footage we took in inspiration to create a match on action element may not work due to the pedestrians in parts of the footage but we are going to attempt to work with what we have.

To improve on our next filming day I feel it will be more productive if my group and I plan what is needed to be filmed. I feel this is a useful target due to our loss of direction during this day of filming as we were filming different segments of our video rather than in an orderly fashion.

We filmed a range of shot types and angles from extreme close up and high angle shots. We really wanted to film a lot of footage so when it comes to editing we have a huge choice in different locations and costumes, this will make out video look much better and allow us to produce the best product.

Filming Day 1

DAY 1 FILMING - AFFLECKS PALACE
During our first day of filming on the 13th of January myself and my group along with our actors traveled to Manchester in order to film in our first location, thus being Afflecks palace. Due to this being our first filming session we took it slow to get familiar with our equipment, assign our roles at this particular location and get used to filming itself.

I was assigned with the camera work and the positioning of the actors, this was rotated through some of the shots so we would all feel comfortable with the camera and all had a chance to film shots. I also had the responsibility of the camera, Charlotte had to provide the storyboard so we had a guide to follow when filming and Lucy made sure all the actors attended and brought any props that were needed. We felt as a group we really came together were extremely organised and had great team work.

Within our time in the Northern Quarter we filmed small snippets of locations, shots, experimental shots and parts of the montage that will feature in our music video. Some of this footage we filmed for our blog in order to show the location fully. 

However, after reviewing our footage we have acknowledge areas that we could improve on and further add to, therefore we will be returning to this location to make further progress. From our past experience at AS we found ourselves having to re-film a great deal of the footage we had filmed, we don't want to repeat this mistake therefore we want to gather a lot of footage so we have a choice when editing and don't have to further re-film anything else.

Here are a few of the raw footage we filmed in which we will incorporate in our final product:

Updated Filming Log

Initially, we were meant to do our filming on the 6th/7th of January however we couldn't end up filming on these dates due to the weather; it was far too windy, rainy and dark. This would've left us with shots which didn't match the others because of different days/different weather.

If we went on the 6th/7th and filmed in the rain, the shots we shot on this date would have different weather to the shots from the 13th. We need to control the weather as much as we can to make our music video seem as though the narrative was all one day and so it appears to be realistic as possible.

Song Choice Update

As a group we sat down to talk about our song choice. Due to our original song choice fitting for our old narrative, including a couple in love, we realised that it did not suit our new narrative involving a group of friends. 
However, we still feel Lorde is an appropriate choice following from our research into the alternative genre and conventions as her style of music is unique which allows us a great deal of freedom when it comes to our filming and editing processes.
After listening to handful of Lorde songs once again we decided on 'The Love Club'. Within this song Lorde focuses on love shown in a group of friends and how life is precious so friends are extremely important in terms of happiness, this is a perfect song to reflect the love we want to also show within a group rather than a couple which will challenge the conventions of the alternative genre in the way that couple relationships are put in focus rather than friendships.

Here I have analysis the lyrics of the song to really understand what ideas are being denoted and connoted:

Research into Group Narratives

After reviewing all of our initial ideas and narrative decisions we collectively decided to make some alterations to our music video narrative and have decided to do a group narrative as opposed to a love story narrative.

This will allow us to explore more representations of different types of people and also use the conventions and symbolic codes of our chosen song more effectively as we have more freedom with what they actually do.

Although we have changed from a love narrative to a group narrative, all of my previous research remains of value as the conventions and way we are going to explore the genre are the same and so the only major difference is that we now have to explore how to effectively utilise a group narrative within our music video.

Following on from our story board production we now know we want to include a group of about 4 or 5 teenagers of mixed gender in our narrative and we want to know the best way to interpret this by reviewing other music videos within the alternative genre which do this and see ways we can get inspiration from as well as challenge the way they do things.

The research into group narratives will allow us to understand the most effective ways to incorporate a group of people into an alternative music video...

Arctic Monkey's Fluorescent Adolescent:

I was lucky to find a music video which shares so many of our existing ideas in some ways as I could see how a group of people within a friendship or gang can be incorporated into a Narrative. This music video features a group of supposed friends dressed as clowns, basically running riot and committing crimes together. Although this narrative itself isn’t what we plan to do at all, the way it is done gives us a lot of potential inspiration to how we will use this group narrative.

Firstly, the group are all wearing distinctive clown costumes, which firstly allows the audience to establish their unique and distinguishable style and the conventions of the song. Also, the fact that they are in clown costumes symbolises their isolation from society and as social outcasts, a very common convention within alternative/indie music video narratives. This distinctive costume shows how they as a group are separate from the rest of society whilst also reflecting themes of loyalty and gangs. We have already decided as a group that we want to take inspiration from this and have the group of friends in our narrative to be easily distinguishable and appear separate from the rest of society through their attire, although not to this extreme. We plan to have something about what they are wearing whether it’s the colour or style of their clothes very different to the 'norm' or 'trend' of clothes within the rest of society as again, this is a convention of the indie genre; that those amongst the artists of the indie genre or amongst the demographic are also separated from the mainstream society.

Additionally, this music video shows a group narrative which involves some level of destruction to society and themes of rebellion which is exactly what we also plan to incorporate, not to this extremity however. We see the group, already separated from the rest of society from their attire, but also through their behaviour; they are showing behaviour of being against 'the system' or the elite, a common occurrence within the alternative genre music videos.

 By reviewing this music video, we know from our own reaction how the audience can passively decode (Hypodermic Syringe theory) the narrative and how we feel about this type of group narrative which includes rebellion of some sort and how to include it effectively. The audience will potentially, according to the Uses and Gratifications theory, personally identify with group narratives as we will feel linked to this group of friends which we are following.

Overall I think that by doing a group narrative it will enable us to explore a variety of representations as well as complying with common conventions of the indie genre within relation to music videos and how the group narrative can show a separation from society and the mainstream.

Practice Editing

In order to feel confident and to further grow our understanding of Final Cut Pro X when we begin editing our footage for our music video, both Charlotte and I thought to prepare we would practice lip syncing and fading footage from one colour to another, in this case from black and white to red.
As it is seen on our storyboard we wanted to fade some of footage from black and white into colour. As you can see here, after experimenting with different techniques and effects on Final Cut we achieved this by using the transition 'Cross Dissolve'. After realising how to achieve this we felt extremely confident when using Final Cut and will be able to replicate this skill when it comes to actually editing our product.

Completing this task also refreshed our memory from AS, for example importing media and creating a new 'project' which further grows our confidence and means the editing process will occur at a faster pace.
In terms of the lip syncing both Charlotte and I learnt new techniques and abilities by practicing this. Due to this being a new aspects of media and Final Cut it was very challenging to complete this in a professional way, both of us found it hard to import the music itself in as we had never had to add a full song on final cut as we only have experience of using sound effects. However, we used the skills we had gathered from using sound effects to figure out how to import music, this took the majority of our time but is an extremely important skill to learn as we will be doing this with our raw footage for our video so we were determined to complete this.

This has also allowed us to collaborate together with our suggestions and learning from one another's mistakes, for example the angle in which we have filmed this footage due to it being filmed vertically rather than horizontally in order to avoid the surrounding black background. This is a common mistake we also made within preliminary tasks at AS, however, identifying this problem once again before recording and editing all of our music video footage will prevent us from repeating this.

Research into Montages in Music Videos

montage

noun

noun: montage

1. the technique of selecting, editing, and piecing together separate sections of film to form a continuous whole.

After the Production of our storyboard, we have decided to include a montage therefore I thought it would be fitting for me to do some research into montages featured in current existing media products. This will be extremely helpful as it means I will gain an understanding of the use of montages and how they affect the audience. 

Lorde - Perfect Places

This music video immediately introduces the montage by cutting to different settings; this allows us to view the artist, her costume and the genre in which this music fits into. This is helpful to acknowledge as I can mirror this within my own work in order to target certain audiences and allow them to decode the video at its beginning. Lorde's 'Perfect Places' video only features herself in a multiple of shots, ranging from close ups, long shots and mid shots which connotes to the song itself as there is not the one 'perfect' shot like there isn't a 'perfect place', this is further established through the use of different settings, for example, the beach and the forest. This is an example of how Barnes' Symbolic Coding is shown within some music videos.

Interestingly, she uses a point of view shot which allows the audience to follow her and almost be in her shoes, this engages the audience into the video itself allowing them to relate to the artist (Dyer's Star Theory).

The montage of settings are linked together through fast cuts and some of the setting angles are changed on the beat on the song, for example from a mid shot to a head and shoulder shot to then a side angled shot, this places a lot of emphasis on the song but also the setting and the artists facial expressions from different angles.

Lighting is very varied throughout this music video but mostly is very high key and always lit through natural lighting, whether that is daylight or a fire. There is no dialogue or diegetic sound other than the song itself. This is helpful to learn as it means we can challenge these aspects, for example incorporating diegetic sounds within our video or do some of our video in artificial lighting.

Halsey - Him & I 

This is another example of the use of a montage in a music video however this is more of an unstructured video. By this I mean like an everyday 'video blog' of their relationship. A filter has been placed over the footage in the video in order to make it almost like a recording making it retro and stand out from other videos within this genre, the originality however also conforms to the genres conventions as uniqueness is an important factor within the alternative genre.

The different settings and videos are fast cut between one another in order to follow the tempo of the song; this helps the audience to engage with the same and also follows Barthes' Enigma Code as it creates mystery for the couple feature in this video. The camera comes across as if it is being handheld which adds authenticity to the editing and makes the audience feel like it's real to engage further and relate to the couple shown. The video once again features a great number of shot types to portray the couple in different ways and angles. This then allows the audience to view the costume, in which is very basic and follows indie conventions, by doing this it gives the audiences a role model to follow and identify with (Dyer's Star Theory).

An edgy tone is placed upon the video through the low key lighting, it creates tension and thrill to the narrative (Barthes' Enigma Code) as it almost means the audience can't view the couple fully placing a barrier over them as if connoting the idea that we don't 'understand' the what seems to be dysfunctional relationship. However, the use of the montage allows us to see a great deal of what goes on within the couple's relationship as this montage features short cuts of their time together kissing, being reckless and driving. The Uses and Gratifications theory suggested by Blumler and Katz can be applied here as this narrative and the montage provides entertainment for the audiences by allowing them an insight into these two peoples lives which suits individuals needs upon Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Talent Release

Filming Schedule

Final Storyboard

After the change of our artist and parts of our narrative, we felt it was suitable to create our final storyboard. Due to the fact that out previous storyboard was hard to read and follow as group we decided it would be helpful for us to create this storyboard online. We have featured a variety of shots within our music video alongside the different settings. Through our collaboration of ideas within the storyboard we decided to map our choices to certain theories to explain our reasoning behind them and how they will especially impact our target audience and also follow conventions of the alternative genre.