New shooting script

We had filmed 80% of our music video last week and we had finished editing with the clips we had. However, after watching back our first draft, we decided as group to re-film some shots to make them more aesthetically appealing by improving the camera language. We have decided to re film this weekend and we will continue to edit next week. Due to some our of shots changing, we decided to create a new shooting script so that we were able to organised ourselves and know what shot came after the other, and so we could make sense of the sequence all together. I do not feel this is a problem because prior to filming, we had planned to leave an extra week in case we needed to re-film, therefore we are still on track and this does not feed into our ancillary design time.

Blog Reflection // Week 10

❤ ❥Starting our production work ❤ ❥

This week we went out to start filming in Hainault forest which is located in Chigwell Essex.
I first of all checked the Redbridge website to make sure it was open. The park is open from 7am and the closing times differ depending on the day, which you can know from the information boards adjacent to the car park.

 Hainault Forest ft our tripod

The reason why we chose Hainault forest was because it was a beautiful location that is large enough to have different areas and location drops for our music video. It is a great public park and has been around for a long time now, you can view more information about the park here. 

To make filming easier, we have split the filming over the course of three days. This was due to the natural sunlight setting around 4pm. Therefore, we have decided to film from the early morning and finishing before 4pm so our lighting can be consistent through out our music video.

google.com sunset calculator

Filming went great this week as we had no issues filming at all! We were able to film all the necessary shots, and infact, we finished rather early. We were all prepared to film, I suggested to have the lyrics already printed incase the actor/artist had forgotten the lyrics to sing along to, and I also remembered we needed a spare battery incase it died.

However, one of the main decisions we made this week was based on casting. We changed our actor from Jay to Naveed as he was not comfortable in front of the camera. Naveed happens to take drama so it was a great opportunity for him to add to his own drama portfolio. This was not an issues as we Naveed was our back up actor anyway.  It also has given me the expediences with working with trained actors which is something I look forward to in this industry as I believe it makes your production much more effective.

San filming our music video artist/actor Naveed

A glance at the natural lighting we used

Blog Reflection // Week 9

This week we finished the production paper work so our teacher could check our progress. We needed a final check on our paper work so we were able to film without any problems and to ensure everything was organised.

For our shooting script, we made sure each location was highlighted in a different colour. This helped us know what shots needed to be filmed where so we did not have to jump to each location back and forth, and instead, just film all the shots within each location once.

After receiving the feedback from our teacher, we were told to add more shots of our artist in the music video. The reason for this was that we are promoting the artist in the digipak so we should include more of him within the music video. It is also conventional for there to be closeups of the music artist as it lets the audience know who created the song, and who they are as an artist. 

This week we also discussed when we was going to film in each location and we agreed on what date and times were best for us, as well as our actor. We decided to only have one third party actor in our music video as sometimes its harder to have them available for filming, our other actor is Simran, she is part of my new group, therefore she has the same free time as will be reliable as this is her work too. We also discussed with our teacher about the deadlines for filming as we needed spare time in case we needed to re-film. We have decided to finish filming a couple of days before the deadline because it ensures us we have everything finished before hand, and allows us to have some spare times just in case. 

As we were not filming till Sunday this week, we have decided to start creating  the graphics for our ancillary products. I have been using fireworks for this as it is easy to use and enables me to create images from scratch, so that all our images are our own. This is important as a real product would not use images randomly grabbed from the internet as there would be copy-right issues with this. 

New project pre-production

Now that I have joined a new group, I decided to post the pre-production research for the new idea. Below I have embedded all the necessary pre-production research so we can get ready for our production work. I look forward to working with my new group because I am genuinely interested in forming a new style of music video that even includes stop motion, which is something I have not touched upon much myself!

Treatment : The treatment is a full analysis of the idea and how it was formed.


This is the final treatment for our music video idea and its ancillary products. We talked about our vision, artist and audience in more detail. We also described what technology we would use and how we would plan our production so that it would be successful.




Shooting script : The shooting script is our crutch for our production filming as we will use the information to help us determine the type of shot. It is very important for music videos to be shot as planned because it is shown to a big audience. I know that in the media industry, a script enables you to be organised with your filming.

In the shooting script we had originally aimed to have a minimum of 100 shots, purely because music videos have plenty of movement and the shots are always changing, however we found this goal very difficult to achieve due to the length of our song being a minute or so shorter than the average song and the tempo of our song. We were inspired by A-Team Ed Sheeran so when we realised we hadn't reached the full 100 we looked at that video, which also has less than 100-so this slightly reassured us, however we may still have to edit it and add a few more later on.

Digipak and Magazine flat plans : Our ancillary products needed to be carefully planned as they represent our music artist. We needed to have a design that would promote the artist and make them spend money on the product itself. 

Shown above is an image of my magazine advert for the digipak, we tried to communicate the idea of nature from the digipak through the large window, we also have the acoustic guitar and the orange mug carrying synergy of the orange coloured leaves on the digipak.

Above is the digipak, we decided to stick with the basic 6 sided template as we felt it communicates our artists simplicity. Two of the panels are very simple and have no text as we felt those two images connote his brand very well. We also chose these simple images as we may choose to do some artwork and stencil them with paint to add a creative edge to further communicate his brand and authentic music. 

Production schedule & Call sheets : To ensure we are organised with our filming, we have created a production schedule. We are working together to make sure this production is the best we can make, and we need to be organised with our filming , military style ;) This will keep us from rushing any filming plans and that all our shots are incorporated. It also allows us to have time to re-film if necessary. The call sheets are for each individual filming date so we know what is needed for each filming day so nothing is forgotten.

Location reccies: Before we started filming, we decided to venture out to all our planned location so we are definitely sure that is what we needed for our production aesthetically. We also added some back up options just incase we had to change locations. It's better to be safer than sorry.


This week we did the location reccie for the locations for our music video. We had to evaluate locations against each other and take pictures to show the location. We also had to think about back up locations in case there was a problem with the original. Thinking of how we could use the location creatively was important as creativity is essential to keeping the audience captivated.

 

Blog Reflection // Week 8 : Plot twist

This week was intense as some changes were made in terms of whom I was working with. I was formerly working with Eoin as we had not worked together before and we are close friends.

However, working together led to a few complications. Throughout the build up of workload, I personally felt as if I was doing more of the work than Eoin. Each week I was given firm deadlines for all my subjects as they are all course-work heavy and I was under a lot of stress. I kept myself organised and completed all my work on time and to the best of my ability. However, my partner was not completing his sections of the work on time. Due to the deadlines that were not met, the missing work he did not complete did affect me as we were doing partner work and we were being assessed together. After discussing with our teachers what was the best solution, Eoin is now working by himself and  I am now working with a new group, which I am extremely happy with. 

The new group I am working with are Paman and Simran. They have the same passion and commitment as me into media and complete the work together. The class has also supported me through this and these two girls have been helpful enough to allow me to be a part of their group.

I am extremely grateful for this and also have an interest towards their music video idea, which I am looking forward to.

Overall, this experience with Eoin has been taken into a positive perspective, as I am still close friends with him. I hope for the best for Eoin, as I know what he is capable of. It is necessary to organise yourself in a career and for media in particular, as you need to work with other teams, therefore your actions affect them too. In the real industry, you sometimes have to work with new people, and so I am going to establish what has happened as a positive outcome. My new group is aware of what happened so this ensures me that I will be treated more fairly.

This week, my new group and I have discussed what we need to do in order for our production and future work for this year to be a success. We have spoken about when we are going to film and when to produce the last parts of pre-production together. For the next few weeks we are going to start filming and working on our production, which I will be updating along the way. 

Call Sheets

Production Schedules

Location Reccies

Blog Reflection // Week 7

This week was an amazing but hard working week off of school as we had half term. During the week, me and my partner met up a few times to discuss the production work we needed to. We discussed how we was going to form our shooting script as it was very important we had the appropriate detail as it is a key to our music video being structured and well executed. We first discussed how we was going to cut to the song and we had decided to cut to the guitar  strums, this was exceptionally hard as the song was very fast and upbeat. However, we didn't want the shots to be excessive and fast. As the song is a love song we wanted to illustrate the contradictions people make when in love by using appropriately length shots to showcase the narrative towards the song which was fast paced which signifies the fast beating of someones heart ;)

We also discussed the ideas we had for the images for our digipak and magazine. We wanted to present our music artist the best we could in the most conventional manner. We used our treatment (which you can find on my blog) to help us as I had previously created a mood board and briefly detailed our former ideas.

In all, this week was rather busy as we had to contact the actors we wanted to use and confirm their roles, we also ventured out into Central London to ensure the locations we had decided on were the best and fit into the music video well.

Shooting Script