After making my song choice (She's So Lovely by Scouting for Girls) i needed to gain permission from the record company to use it. I went onto the Scouting for Girls website, to find their record company. I found out that they are signed to SonyUk and so i sent a letter which explained my situation and requested permission top use the track for my project. I sent the letter on the 9th of October and on the 20th of October Elizabeth Peers from the Legal and Business department wrote back giving permission under circumstances to use the song. It stated that i could only use it for educational purposes that i had already detailled in my letter, that i indemnify Sony Music against all liabilities which may arise and that i must credit: 'She's so Lovely performed by Scouting for Girls (p) 2007 Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited.
When i wrote my letter i didn't think i wouldm get a reply so i was very happy to get it. It added a profesional feel to my project and made it more complete.
After gaining permission i went on to do a risk assessment. I found a good layout on the internet and so drafted mine from there. The severity and liklihood of the risks were all low and no one was ever really at any risk. Filling out the risk assessment, although made it more professional and made the planning more complete, was very tedious as nothing that could be dangerous happens in my video and so all the answers were virtually the same.
Monday, 28 December 2009
Filming Schedule & Cast Packs
I am using six main characters in total for my video, three boys and three girls. Before any filming took place i gave out a cast pack to each person. On this it had details of their character's personalities, locations they would be filmed at, outfits they would need and the storyline of the video. Underneath this information was a copy of the filming schedule. This, i think was the most efficient and effective way to get the infomation to my actors, because all they needed to know was consolidated onto one or two pieces of paper. It was all clearly laid out so that when it came to filming everything was prepared and people knew what they were doing. The filming schedule had to be altered a few times due to other commitments of the actors. This resulted in my project getting behind schedule, this i found very frustrating and became the hardest part of the video. However i concentrated more on my pre-production work to make sure everything else was all up together. If i was to do the project again i would have started filming earlier so i could have it all done and more editing completed by the christmas holidays, this would have stopped the rush and given more time to a very important part of the production.
Storyboard & Animatic
I tried to make my storyboard as detailed as possible so when it came to filming it would be easier to shoot. In all my annotations i recorded where abouts in the song it would be and the timings, this gave me an acuarte view of how much film i would need. However when it came to my animatic i realised that some of my timings were too ambitious and so i had to reveiw my storyboard to see which bits were less neccessary to the narrative of the video. i made my animatic on windows movie maker, using photographs of my storyboard, i found this software easy to use and think that although the pictures do not show up very clearly, it has been a big help to my project. I ended up cutting five or six of the shortest and least important shots of the video to give more time to more crucial moments in the video. I think that the storyboard and animatic have been very useful to my filming and have helped me greatly improve and develop my ideas and planning.
Research
My research has been on-going throughout my pre-production work. After some initial research i had some ideas for my own video and as the research progressed, so did my ideas. Firslty i looked at three different types of music video, narrative, concept and performance. I then analysed a video from each and considered popularity in order to help me make a realistic choice in which way to take my video. To help with the more technical side of filming i focused on camera shots, angles and movement. I considered the effect on the audience and how they move the video along, this helped me to be more selective of the camera shots i used while filming. i then studied the timings of some videos to help me understand how long shots are in music videos, it is alot quicker than i first thought and so i realised i would need a lot of film to take bits from and in order to get all these shots i would need a good filming schedule. Finally i looked at three videos with a similar genre to my chosen song 'She's so Lovely' by Scouting for Girls, this helped with my planning as i could concentrate on characters, setting and storyline of videos with a similar theme. From this i really developed my ideas and made final decisions for my video, i then went on to write my treatment outlining my final plan.
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Finished video - first cut
This is the first cut of our finished music video. I really like the way it turned out. There are some issues, mostly mentioned in my post on editing, but I'm glad It's done and overall i think It's good.
Note on volume: The start sequence is meant to be quiter so don't increase the volume too much because the actual song comes in loud!
Group members (and candidate numbers)
Niall Lucas – 3125
Jordan Perrett – 3161
James Nash – 3148
Lewis Taylor - 3206
Editing done (first draft)
Completed on: 25th November
After several weeks I finished editing the film today. It will still have to be re-edited after being assessed so improvements can be made but the first cut is complete and any changes will most likely be minor things.
Overall I’d say the editing went well. I was the only one who edited because I know more about the narrative and the look and feel our video is meant to show. However, the rest of the group did give their input when needed to check my editing and to make suggestions and to voice their opinions.
The main problem I had when editing was the constraints that the program put on me. I filmed using HD video files (1280x720 pixels) and all together the file size is about 2.3gb. This is a massive load for the editing software to handle and the program I used (Sony Vegas) often struggled with all the data being processed. By the end of it the project was a very big file and after every action I did the program had to reload and this obviously put a big hindrance on my progress.
Also, the HD files I used ran at 25fps whereas Sony Vegas could only preview them at around 10fps. This meant that when playing the video back whilst editing the actual clips were slow and lagged. This made editing very stressful as I had to edit fine details using footage that wasn’t fine or detailed. This problem was most noticeable when trying to lip sync the video to the audio. The video files were playing at 10fps where as the audio streamed properly, meaning lip syncing was nearly impossible.
However, I was able to overcome this problem by completely changing the way I was editing. I decided that I would edit the narrative sections in their entirety first, and when they were completed I would position them in the right places and then insert the performance sections where there were gaps. This meant that the narrative, being the focus of our video, had priority and it also meant that I didn’t need to lip sync more than I had to.
I also worked out a way to lip sync without having to actually play the video files at all. By looking at the original videos I found where the song started within the video. Then, inserting the whole clip into Sony Vegas, I could trim the video to the start of the audio track, and then the song and video would align properly. After that it was just a case of trimming the clip to the slot required within the video track and repeating the method for every clip.
Although still a lengthy process it did speed up the editing but more importantly it was less stressful and easier for the program to handle. When this was finished I noticed a few errors with lip syncing, but nothing major and these were easily edited again where I thought they mattered.
Even though the editing process was laborious and often slow and problematic, I did enjoy it a lot. I find that as I edit a video and it starts to gain its structure and shape there is a feeling of completion and pride. As I completed every section and as the band sequences started to come together and the video eventually gained its shape I felt very proud and I felt as if the video was finally finishing off, something that made all the editing worthwhile. It’s also fun to move and place clips, I liked experimenting with different angles and trying out different approaches to each scene. The freedom of being able to move things around at will and being able to look at the video and assess what I wanted to do to make it look how I wanted was very interesting.
After the editing was finished I still had to add certain colour effects and filters, details to finish the video off. Mostly I had to adjust the brightness and contrast of the video sections to make sure they stayed constant and to give the video a better quality. Also, to show the difference between happy and sad scenes I added colour filters, blue to the sad scenes and orange to the happy ones, to make sure the emotions of the scenes were captured well in the video.
Finally, I added a ‘Q music’ logo that I created in Photoshop and also added in a title overview at the start and end to make the video look official.
Lastly, I added a part of the official video sound track to the start of our song, distorting the sound and adding a wind effect to make the introduction more interesting and to add atmosphere. I really liked doing this as I think it created a nice atmosphere for the video and it also made our video more original and unique.
Group members (and candidate numbers)
Niall Lucas – 3125
Jordan Perrett – 3161
James Nash – 3148
Lewis Taylor - 3206
After several weeks I finished editing the film today. It will still have to be re-edited after being assessed so improvements can be made but the first cut is complete and any changes will most likely be minor things.
Overall I’d say the editing went well. I was the only one who edited because I know more about the narrative and the look and feel our video is meant to show. However, the rest of the group did give their input when needed to check my editing and to make suggestions and to voice their opinions.
The main problem I had when editing was the constraints that the program put on me. I filmed using HD video files (1280x720 pixels) and all together the file size is about 2.3gb. This is a massive load for the editing software to handle and the program I used (Sony Vegas) often struggled with all the data being processed. By the end of it the project was a very big file and after every action I did the program had to reload and this obviously put a big hindrance on my progress.
Also, the HD files I used ran at 25fps whereas Sony Vegas could only preview them at around 10fps. This meant that when playing the video back whilst editing the actual clips were slow and lagged. This made editing very stressful as I had to edit fine details using footage that wasn’t fine or detailed. This problem was most noticeable when trying to lip sync the video to the audio. The video files were playing at 10fps where as the audio streamed properly, meaning lip syncing was nearly impossible.
However, I was able to overcome this problem by completely changing the way I was editing. I decided that I would edit the narrative sections in their entirety first, and when they were completed I would position them in the right places and then insert the performance sections where there were gaps. This meant that the narrative, being the focus of our video, had priority and it also meant that I didn’t need to lip sync more than I had to.
I also worked out a way to lip sync without having to actually play the video files at all. By looking at the original videos I found where the song started within the video. Then, inserting the whole clip into Sony Vegas, I could trim the video to the start of the audio track, and then the song and video would align properly. After that it was just a case of trimming the clip to the slot required within the video track and repeating the method for every clip.
Although still a lengthy process it did speed up the editing but more importantly it was less stressful and easier for the program to handle. When this was finished I noticed a few errors with lip syncing, but nothing major and these were easily edited again where I thought they mattered.
Even though the editing process was laborious and often slow and problematic, I did enjoy it a lot. I find that as I edit a video and it starts to gain its structure and shape there is a feeling of completion and pride. As I completed every section and as the band sequences started to come together and the video eventually gained its shape I felt very proud and I felt as if the video was finally finishing off, something that made all the editing worthwhile. It’s also fun to move and place clips, I liked experimenting with different angles and trying out different approaches to each scene. The freedom of being able to move things around at will and being able to look at the video and assess what I wanted to do to make it look how I wanted was very interesting.
After the editing was finished I still had to add certain colour effects and filters, details to finish the video off. Mostly I had to adjust the brightness and contrast of the video sections to make sure they stayed constant and to give the video a better quality. Also, to show the difference between happy and sad scenes I added colour filters, blue to the sad scenes and orange to the happy ones, to make sure the emotions of the scenes were captured well in the video.
Finally, I added a ‘Q music’ logo that I created in Photoshop and also added in a title overview at the start and end to make the video look official.
Lastly, I added a part of the official video sound track to the start of our song, distorting the sound and adding a wind effect to make the introduction more interesting and to add atmosphere. I really liked doing this as I think it created a nice atmosphere for the video and it also made our video more original and unique.
Group members (and candidate numbers)
Niall Lucas – 3125
Jordan Perrett – 3161
James Nash – 3148
Lewis Taylor - 3206
Research completed
Completed on: 17th September
We finished our research today, it took us a week to do in total but obviously it’s expected that as we progress things will continue to inspire us and be useful for our production.
We started off researching in a broad sense, looking at many music videos and focusing more in general on the techniques used and whether they were concept, narrative or performance based. After that we narrowed our research and went into more detail on selected videos, ones that were more useful to us than others.
During this time our ideas for our video came about and started to develop and because of this we were able to focus our research on areas we needed to look at. This lead to us look closely at The Killers and then Anthony Mandler, the director of some of their best videos.
I think the research went well. I was in charge of it and did a lot of the in detail research whilst the others focused on researching in a broader sense, gathering images and information etc.
More importantly, our research is detailed enough for it to be useful to us. By taking select images and details of each video and by focusing more on one specific band and their techniques, we are now able to take the bits of information we need, when we need them and apply them to our production to improve it.
Group members (and candidate numbers)
Niall Lucas – 3125
Jordan Perrett – 3161
James Nash – 3148
Lewis Taylor - 3206
Filming Narrative
Completed on: 17th October
Today I filmed the narrative for our production. Due to work and other commitments the rest of the group couldn’t make it so it was just me, the actors and Jon Campbell, another media student who helped me with camera work.
The filming went well, it took up most of the day and we were able to get almost every shot that I wanted. In the end we got about an hour of footage which is more than enough to work with. More importantly, I made sure to get a lot of different and varied angles so that we could produce the dramatic, emotion based narrative we’re hoping for.
As well as this, I was able to try out some more challenging shots which I hadn’t done before. We used a shopping trolley which I sat in to film the tracking shots we needed and for the aerial shot we wanted I used a ladder to stand on, leaning the camera over and swaying it for a dream like effect. These shots were quite hard to get because of the control needed and the equipment we had to use. Jon was pushing the trolley with me in it and supporting me on the ladder.
One of the main problems we had filming was getting the actors to produce convincing performances. They knew what I was expecting and were happy to do it but nerves sometimes got the better of them. For the kissing scene we had to agree that they wouldn’t actually kiss, which changed the way I shot the scene drastically. Instead of using close ups and longer, more intense shots I had to use mid shots that moved away from them quickly, something that I think will affect the video. Another scene we had trouble with was the falling scene, in which the female lead trips over. She was afraid to fall (understandably) and so the final shot isn’t that convincing, but it will hopefully do for the final film.
Overall however I was happy with the performances and the filming process. It went well and I think the final film will have a good, solid narrative that will focus on emotions and drama like we wanted.
Group members (and candidate numbers)
Niall Lucas – 3125
Jordan Perrett – 3161
James Nash – 3148
Lewis Taylor - 3206
Today I filmed the narrative for our production. Due to work and other commitments the rest of the group couldn’t make it so it was just me, the actors and Jon Campbell, another media student who helped me with camera work.
The filming went well, it took up most of the day and we were able to get almost every shot that I wanted. In the end we got about an hour of footage which is more than enough to work with. More importantly, I made sure to get a lot of different and varied angles so that we could produce the dramatic, emotion based narrative we’re hoping for.
As well as this, I was able to try out some more challenging shots which I hadn’t done before. We used a shopping trolley which I sat in to film the tracking shots we needed and for the aerial shot we wanted I used a ladder to stand on, leaning the camera over and swaying it for a dream like effect. These shots were quite hard to get because of the control needed and the equipment we had to use. Jon was pushing the trolley with me in it and supporting me on the ladder.
One of the main problems we had filming was getting the actors to produce convincing performances. They knew what I was expecting and were happy to do it but nerves sometimes got the better of them. For the kissing scene we had to agree that they wouldn’t actually kiss, which changed the way I shot the scene drastically. Instead of using close ups and longer, more intense shots I had to use mid shots that moved away from them quickly, something that I think will affect the video. Another scene we had trouble with was the falling scene, in which the female lead trips over. She was afraid to fall (understandably) and so the final shot isn’t that convincing, but it will hopefully do for the final film.
Overall however I was happy with the performances and the filming process. It went well and I think the final film will have a good, solid narrative that will focus on emotions and drama like we wanted.
Group members (and candidate numbers)
Niall Lucas – 3125
Jordan Perrett – 3161
James Nash – 3148
Lewis Taylor - 3206
Filming band
Completed on: 4th October
Group members (and candidate numbers)
Niall Lucas – 3125
Jordan Perrett – 3161
James Nash – 3148
Lewis Taylor - 3206
Me and Jordan filmed the band today in the afternoon. Lewis couldn’t make it and Nash was performing in the band so I filmed whilst Jordan observed and helped direct, he also took the role of checking continuity during the shoot.
It went really well and we got a lot of good, varied shots for use in our video. We got around 40/50 minutes of footage which is plenty to work with. Along with the narrative we’ll have more than enough to create a decent split between the narrative and performance sections.
We used 6 fixed angles for filming as well as some free camera shots and certain pans and tracks that we wanted to include especially. With all of them included we have enough angles to create varied sequences with the band which should make it a good video, so long as editing goes just as well.Group members (and candidate numbers)
Niall Lucas – 3125
Jordan Perrett – 3161
James Nash – 3148
Lewis Taylor - 3206
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Location shots
Completed on: 5th October
Not a lot to say. Just took some location shots of our exterior shooting locations.
We all went into town, talked about where we wanted to shoot and then i took the images. I also edited them slightly (mostly colour adjustments and cropping) to match the mood of the video.
This picture is a compilation of all of them, click for full view.
Group members (and candidate numbers)
Niall Lucas – 3125
Jordan Perrett – 3161
James Nash – 3148
Lewis Taylor - 3206
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Research and Planning
Hi guys
Please ensure over the Christmas holidays you access the blog and upload all your pre-prod work. I'm looking forward to reading all about it in Jan 2010.
Happy Christmas,
AJ
Please ensure over the Christmas holidays you access the blog and upload all your pre-prod work. I'm looking forward to reading all about it in Jan 2010.
Happy Christmas,
AJ
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