Production for Music Video: Filming in Shoreditch during the Night and Day

This is the beginning of our 3rd day of Filming. At this point we were testing out filming our artist on different variations of the graffiti backgrounds. Interestingly, we managed to film on the exact same area of Shoreditch we had been researching.

Below is the second part of our filming, before we headed to a different location.

Production of Music Video: Permission to film at UCL Hospital

This is our reply from UCL hospital. They denied our request to use their highest floor to get a high angle of Euston Underpass. However, this did not greatly impact our filming because we had back-up options, such as filming the North Circular which has a bridge and also using other buildings for high angle shots, such as business centres around Euston.

Production of Music Video: Day 3 of Filming

 Here's some snaps of how Group 22's filming went...

PLANNING: Analyse 3 influential music video

Artic Monkeys - Only call me when you're high

Safety mode, can't get screenshots until i log out of this account :(

Bastille Pompeii

Camera shot from behind the main artist, highlighting the skyline or city. We will be doing the skyline if we can get access to the roof, otherwise it will be on a somewhat lower level location.

We will also be incorporating a similar bass track, me infront of a black wall, with sufficient lighting on my face, which will be inspired from the 1975s video, which is also detailed below.

in various shots of this music video, the camera person follows the main artist, this gives the feeling as if the audience is their with the artist, bridging the gap between audience and artist and making them feel closer.

The camera shots also seem to be in a rush, just like the main artist himself. in contrast to this, we will be having the camera along with the artist, but ours will be slightly slower paced due to the artists feelings.

The 1975 - The City

As i was mentioning above, we will be trying to have a scene with similar lighting. however i know that the music video above has a black and white filter throughout, so our  lighting is bound to be slightly stronger.


Calvin Harris - I need your love

The point of view shots in this music video will be another source of inspiration for us, we will be using the point of view technique to highlight our artists drunkness/not soberness/sadness/

Production of Music Video: Second day of Filming

 

Today, we went to Euston Underpass to try film an establishing shot of the city. However we ran into  problems filming here because of the huge billboard blocking a clear symmetrical shot we wanted to portray. The video explains further...

We came up with a better solution to try and get the great shots ...

The north circular is another option we came up with to see if we can film a better shot of a motorway/underpass scene.

The UCL hospital turned us away when we asked the front desk if we could film from one of the highest floors in order to film the city. This was a big shame however there are other places we had reserved as backup if UCL hospital rejected our request. 

Planning for Music Video: Editing Ideas to incorporate in the Music Video

Fast and slow motionjump cutsEffects e.g black and whiteTransitions
Fading
Match cuts

Planning of Music Video : Video of Group 22's Pitch

Below is an edited movie of our pitch

Planning for Music Video : Pictures from the Pitch

Heres a few photos of Group 22 before and in the process of our pitch ...

PLANNING: Audience

I have compiled a small personality profile for those who are most likely to watch our music video. 

Age: 21

gender: male

occupation: student 

favourite music genres: dubstep, indie, house,trance

//examples to be added when I get out this station 

PLANNING: Reflection on pitch

I believe our pitch went quite successful as we covered everything and had an answer for any question that was put forward

the pitch video is below. 

Planning for Music Video: Green Screen

I noticed that although we have decided against using the Green Screen, we did not mention our reasons why we came to this decision. I think it is important to mention our reasons against using the Green Screen, because it influenced a vast amount of our planning.

Without the correct lighting, green screen technology can leave boarders around the footage or blurred/coloured effects. For example, the image above has a grey boarder around the man who has been superimposed onto the island background. There is also a undesirable blurred effect around the man, which makes it look unprofessional. Therefore, when we talked about using the green screen, we took into account that there could be a risk in the quality of the end product. When we finally analysed the types of locations we would look into using, we found there would be no need for the green screen.

Another issue that could go wrong is that the green screen may not pick up some parts of the artist, as seen in the example above. This is especially common if the artist is wearing green or black clothing. This means, that if we were to use the green screen it would restrict the clothing we would be able to use on the green screen. Therefore, we decided that not using the green screen would allow us more range of clothings that we could use. Movement could also be problem, as the college green screen is not very long. Therefore, as this is our artist's first time featuring in a music video, we would want him to feel comfortable to move around and not restricted to certain boundaries. This might make the acting quite static and unnatural.

Generally we did not find any justifiable reason that meant that the green screen would be an integral piece of technology in making our music video. We were also aware that using the green screen could take away from our genuine and natural urban theme that we decided on as soon as we listened to the song.

Planning for Music Video: Individual analysis of Industry

Over the next few blog posts, I will be analysing different areas of the pitch that I have done extended research on, over the course of the last week. This is because, our pitch was just used a prompt for the information we had memorised to present. Therefore, it does not have detailed information on it. Also, each of us paid greater attention to certain areas of the pitch. Thus by recording my own research in depth on the blog, it will help me understand to a greater extent the areas of the pitch that I did not present and also serve as a place I can keep referring to when working on the more individual task of the digipack, which much like the music video, is tailored to a specific market and audience.

In our pitch we came to the conclusion that our artist would be signed to NonPlus+ records, So here is some background research about NonPlus+ Records, and why it suits our artist.

Planning for Music Video: Editing Techniques/Tips

In terms of editing techniques, I researched into the basics of what makes a good editor and came across this video which I feel highlights the most common yet important things you should consider when editing. 

One of the characteristics of high-end music videos is their high level of visual and stylistic coherence which means that every shot in those music videos looks like it was designed, lit and directed by the same person. This makes the whole music video gel together very well.

Planning for Music Video: Reflection on Progress

Compared to my 'Reflection on Progress' blog for planning, I feel I've progressed further as I've now begun to venture out, using different types of media such as Perzi and video recordings as another way of illustrating my findings in terms of my research thus far relating to this project.  As well as this, I've also begun to add additional blogs that weren't assigned to us, for example my blog post on different editing techniques. Although I have started using other media, I still feel I could use more in order for my blogs to be more creative, therefore I'd score myself a 15/20. 

Planning for Music Video: Letter to UCL Hospital

One of the locations we're filming at for our music video is Euston Underpass. We'd originally planned to film this in order to use it as a base track but upon studying deeper, we realised that the UCL hospital was in close proximity and thought it'd be a good idea to film from one of the top floors in order to capture the same scene but from and higher angle. 

     

PLANNING: Analysis of original video

The original video shows the main artist going out with a bunch of friends, while at the beginning in a cross scene the artists girlfriend is getting prepared for a birthday date with the artist, little does she know that he wont be turning up,

Shot in brightons lively scene, whereas ours will be shot in londons shoreditch/bricklane.

The original video is all about partying, going from pub to club and so forth. a typical lad night out with drugs, alcohol and ciggarettes.

The video crosscuts between the artists partying antics and his girlfriend in distress.

THEYRE ON THERE WAY TONIGHT REBECCA

Planning for Music Video: My Evaluation of the Pitch

Group 22's pitch was quite successful. 

We projected our main ideas and targets for our music video to the class and our teacher who finalized the go ahead for our filming.

-I believed we all worked well together, pitching our ideas however, I felt Vanessa was the strongest speaker of our group. This is because she developed key ideas and really took her time to explain them in order to make our listeners really understand what we're trying to portray and the research we found out relating to our project.

-I think I was the weakest because I was a little shy and I'm not a strong speaker like the others in my group. However I believe I'm a more practical person, meaning I'm more hands on deck and enthusiastic in the filming and editing part. (the part I look forward to the most)

-Rounding off, we had positive feed back and many questions from peers, which we answered reassuring them. 

Time to get down with some FILMING !!!! 

Planning for Music Video: Our Soundtrack

Originally we chose a 5 minute version of Skream ft Example - Shot yourself in the foot again and downloaded this to our hard drive. However, when it came to listening to the soundtrack in order to find a place to stop the music at an earlier point, this proved very difficult as the original artist's diction is not very clear and thus stopping the music at 3 minutes and 45 sec made it sound as though we had deliberately cut the soundtrack and not like a natural ending to the music.

So, I searched youtube for an alternative, as it is common for an artist to release two versions of a song if it is longer than 5 minutes, and I found the version that we have decided to use, which is exactly 3minutes 45, and works well with our original storyboard. This means we do not have to rearrange the order of our shots. The new version also solves the problem of the music suddenly stopping, because it has an instrumental which fades the music out. It also adds new meaning to our narrative. This because the beginning of our music video will start with shots of the surrounding area and cars, arranged with some establishing shots to coincide with the instrumental. The ending will then also drift out to the instrumental, showing our artist on the floor, surrounded with similar scenery and surroundings as the opening. This will subtly indicate a circular narrative, that the artist was hopeless in the beginning and through all the events of the night, he is still hopeless in the end.

(The shorter version of the song.)

Planning for Music Video: Reflection on the Pitch and Production Schedule

Refection on the Pitch

Evaluating The Production Schedule

Planning for Music Video: Our Pitch Presentation

Draft Storyboard

This is our pitch that we used to help present our music video plans and ideas.

 

Planning for Music Video: Risk Assesment

In the process of planning the filming for our music video, we thought of some risks and dangers that might occur whilst filming and how we can go about making filming hazard free. 

 - We are taking shots of a glass breaking so we need to be careful in the risk of getting hurt, yet capture a GREAT shot.         

 -In case of rain we have huge umbrellas to shelter the cameras. 

 -All equipment to be looked after carefully.

Planning for Music Video: Dividing the Pitch

We concluded as a group, that each of us could take an area of the pitch to concentrate on and then bring our information together as a group. So this is how we divided each section.

Can took charge of:

BRAND IMAGE
INITAL IDEAS
SOCIAL MEDIA
COSTUME

Rebecca took charge of:

SONG CHOICE
SETTING AND LOCATION
THEORY
ASPECTS OF SYNERGY

Siobhan took charge of:

AUDIENCE 1 (Core and Wider audiences)
INDUSTRY
RISK ASSESSMENT
ASPECTS OF SYNERGY

Vanessa took charge of:

AUDIENCE 2 (Fan sites and interacting with fans of the original artist)
THE ANIMATIC
PRODUCTION SCHEDULE
ASPECTS OF SYNERGY

Planning for Music Video: Incorporating Synergy

As I mentioned throughout my blogs, there is a theme that has influenced many aspects of our research and planning. This is the urban graffiti theme. Therefore we thought that Graffiti would be a good piece of synergy to use for our brand image because, it could be used to develop a logo that can be copyrighted and used across all our products, such as the example below.

 (BL4KE is the name of our artist)

This can then be printed on merchandise, which is more likely to be worn by our target audience, because of the urban look it will have.

Graffiti has also been known to be a source of propaganda and hold hidden meanings. Therefore, the Graffiti could be used on the album covers to subtly display messages from the album videos or song lyrics. An influence for this is the way in which Banksy uses graffiti.

 (Banksy)

Planning for Music Video: Investigating Audience Part Two (Results)

These are my results from signing up to "Dubstep Forum" in order to find out what audiences expect to see in a Dubstep Music Video.

 

(I have blanked out some swear words and abusive/immature comments)

Planning for Music Video: Production Schedule

Below is the production schedule that we are aiming to stick to throughout the rest of our production process.

Planning for Music Video: Audience Research Task

When considering our target audience...











UNFINISHED - POWER POINT TO BE POSTED

Planning for Music Video: Incorporating Synergy

As we've chosen a Dubstep themed song, I felt that when it comes to incorporating synergy in relations to our music video and our album cover, a way in which we can begin to drawing up ideas is by first thinking of the colours we want to use, before pin pointing a specific object or statement. Classic dubstep videos tend to be full of bright lights and colours, therefore we thought as we're shooting the majority of our music video outside, in urban areas such as Shoreditch, we could possibly use speeding cars and street lights as a form of synergy, or we could use the graffiti on walls or even a bridge. I also thought of a potential album name which is 'Evaded', as it relates to the narrative for our music video, in which case I think we should also include the artist on the front cover of our album cover wearing an outfit shown regularly within the video which would automatically becomes a form of synergy.

Planning for Music Video: Original Artists Website

The artist original artist Skream does not own his own official website as of yet but he does use other social media such as Facebook and Twitter, with the aim of staying in connected with his fans, as well as to help promote himself as a brand.

Facebook

 Twitter

 Instagram

Webstagram

Planning for Music Video: Investigating what the audience recognise as Dubstep conventions (Part of Andrew Goodwin's Theory)

As part of investigating Dubstep conventions and what our core and wider audiences expect to see, I created an account on Dubstep forum and posted a question for the users to answer, about what they would expect to see in a typical Dubstep music video. I will update the blog further when I start to receive replies.

Planning for Music Video: Three Influential Music Videos

The first video I feel influenced our song choice is Ellie Goulding's Lights, the Bassnectar Remix as it displays a continuous use of fast edited cuts, as well as having elements of jump cuts which we intend to incorporate within our music video as it's proven to be hugely successful in terms of making the music video in itself visual simulating. This remixed addition of Lights also fits into the genre in which our music video comes from and is similar in relations to the songs structure. Both songs have minimal lyrics which are repeated, as well as having sections within the song that's nothing but instrumental.  

The second video I feel helped shape our final decision is the Arctic Monkeys's, Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High? as it's inspired our music video it terms of its content. Although we do not plan on portraying the same exact 'storyline', we do plan to shoot the protagonist roaming the streets of Shoreditch in some parts of our video. While both songs come from different genres of music, I still feel that this idea will portray well in our music video as we're going for a more urban feel, although aiming to stick with and include all the elements that make up classic Dubstep music videos.

The third video I believe also helped to induce our ideas in terms of the effects we could possible use for our music video is The City, by The 1975. As a group, we were taken by simplicity of the music video that was yet, very much successful because of its high quality in relations to the thought put into the visuals for their music video and thought we could in integrate shots that have been slowed down as well as shots that have been taped and then sped up, such as the shot of the city traffic incorporated within The City's music video. We also felt that their use of black and white throughout allowed it to stand out as not many music videos are shot in this way, in which case we hope to possibly use this same idea, although not throughout our entire music video.

Planning for Music Video: Original Artists' Website

Example's Official Merchandising Website

Planning for Music Video: Audience Research

This is the sum of my research into Dubstep target audiences condensed into the key information and examples, and presented in a slide show.

 

Planning for Music Video: Analysis of music videos that have Influenced planning decisions

Planning for Music Video: Planning Locations - Feedback from Target Audience members

After analysing the location I got some feedback from people aged 16-18 on the streets of Shoreditch. I wanted to find out if they would expect to see city views and images of areas such as Shoreditch in a Dubstep video.

My two questions were:
What would you expect to see in a Dubstep Video?
and
Would you expect it to be filmed on the streets/places like this?

Below are the video recordings I found the most useful. I have uploaded an example of positive feedback, and the other is an example of negative feedback.

 (positive feedback on filming on Shoreditch streets)

 (Negative feedback on filming on Shoreditch streets)

Both however talked about lots of city lights and a club light setting, so although our video will go against the club-dubstep convention, we could manipulate the street lights to still resemble a typical Dubstep video.

Planning for Music Video: Audience

Through analysing Skream and Examples fan pages on Facebook, Tumblr and other websites I have identify a close to specific audience that follows the artists and genre.

From this Facebook post I recognised the target audience is those aged 18 to 24 who are particularly university students and where the club life dominate the Dubstep genre.

Merchandise of Example

Heres a festival that Example performed at in which majority of the audience are youth aged 18 and over.
Example was placed in this line up as he is relevant to this type of audience.

Judging from the artists fan pages  the target audience enjoy clubbing especially where dubstep and other genres such as house and electro are dominate genres thats being played.

Skream (The Original Artist)

                            SKREAM

Skream originally named Oliver Dene Jones, is a huge Dubstep producer, playing a important role in the genres development. Based in Croydon, South London, Skream made his way to the top producing beats, joining major Dubstep group Magnetic Man, being played countless on radio stations such as BBC Radio 1 and associating and producing with popular producer Benga. he expanded his sense and liking for genre's producing UK Garage, Electro, Dub, Disco and House. Skream has collaborated with many artists such as Goldie, Kelis, Miles Kane, Katy B, John Legend Example and etc. 

Planning for Music Video: Planning Locations

In class, my group and I decided on using Shoreditch as one of our main locations, because not only is it close to college so we can maximise our time filming, but it was also the first idea we all had of the type of location we wanted to use. This is because of it's urban city feel. I decided to start thinking in more detail about our choice of location and actually go to Shoreditch to see which particular streets would be good to use in our video, as well as settingl. With me, I took a trusty flip camera to record my thoughts and findings :)

The first video is of Shoreditch high street, a busy main road, and the second is of Scutton street, a quieter back road.

Planning for Music Video: Incorporating Synergy into Products

Incorporating key features into media products such the as album cover and music video, I want these elements to link to the artists and the album name. I've chosen a potential album name, which is STREET LIGHTS, for the artist, BL4KE. Street lights connects to the genre on the music video single 'Shot Yourself in the Foot Again'.

Here are there possible elements of synergy I aim to highlight in the music video and album cover
Street lights - lamp posts', car lights, traffic lights brings forward the urban city life which is an agenda to portray in the music video.

Graffiti walls is a possibility for this synergy.

Also I intend on creating a particular font for the artist BL4KE which will be on the album and possibly be planted at the beginning of the music video single 'Shot Yourself in the Foot Again', branding the artist.

Planning of Music Videos: Examining the Website of the original Artist

Skream doesn't have an original website yet he has man fan pages for example on Facebook, where I can identify the type of audience he appeals to what type of person Skream is through the type of other artists her listens to, types of films he watches and etc

Here are some screen shots of his Facebook fan page ...