Feedback from Class

We have gained feedback from two groups in our class, male and female. The evaluated our music video, and told us about shot quality, relevance according to genre and overall suitability.

- Sophie.

Final Video

This is our final edit of the music video This House Is A Circus by Arctic Monkeys.

Extra Footage

On Tuesday evening I took out a camera, tripod and light so that I could get some more shots of the girl playing with the dolls house so that it would fit with the footage inside the house. 

This was quite an awkward shoot to set up as I had to borrow the dolls house again and organize when the young girl, Kester would be available to film with. However once sorted I got the shots required just to bring the narrative of the video together. 

- Rebecca

Final Editing

 

In yesterday's lesson ( Weds 22nd ) me and Katie did the last bits of editing and some finishing touches as well as adding in the bits of footage of the dolls house.

As well as this, we improved the photo-frame moving clown scene by moving it more inline with the frame so it doesn't move out of place.

We got another group and Leanne, our teacher to watch the video and no one spotted anything that needed to be changed however we will keep returning to it so we can be certain. 

-Rebecca and Katie

Video Peer Assessment

Also in today's lesson we had to do a peer assessment. This is the feedback we got:

Overall creativity - Excellent 

Holding a shot steady, where appropriate - Excellent

Framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate - Excellent

Using a variety of shot distances as appropriate - Excellent

Shooting material appropriate for a music video - Excellent

Mise-en-scene appropriate for a music video - Excellent

Editing making the meaning apparent to the viewer - Excellent

Varied shot transitions, captions and other effects that are appropriate - Good 

Matching sound with images and editing the music - Good

Overall the music video so far is - Excellent

The group also made some comments which were that a caption over a part in the video is a bit slow because of the clip in between and that it is a bit bright when Tony lifts a cover up, revealing a clown. 

We will now continue editing and consider these comments. 

-Rebecca, Sophie and Katie

Today's Lesson

Today we came in early and edited for a good four hours so we got a lot done. We put it in a lot of shots of the band as clowns towards the end where the music builds up mixed in with the long shot of Tony with the fast movement of people behind him to show the chaos.  We also started to put effects on shots from Tony's perspective as well as on some of the instruments in the clown chaos at the end. To make it even stranger we used clips from the green screen of the clown to bring back elements already used in the film which all helps to build up to the climax of the video. 


The photo above is a shot of how the instrument looked after we put the swap Red and Blue effect on which we believe looks good and works well with the timing of the music. 


Becca and Katie

Editing the Music Video-

Today we have progressed with editing, we are now near to the end, all we need to do is add some effects to where tony's character is seeing things differently, to make it seem more 'trippy'. Here is a snapshot of our work today-

-Sophie, Rebecca & Katie. 

Today's lesson- editing the music video

Here's a snapshot of our progression from today's lesson, whilst working on the video. We have now successfully edited the first 30 seconds of the music video. And are now working on putting the rest together.

-Sophie & Katie.

Performance Filming Evaluation

On Thursday ( 25th November) we filmed the performance and intro to the music video at my house in the garden. Unfortunately after ringing around and visiting many schools, halls and public spaces, we could not get hold of a hall without it costing a lot of money. Despite this, we really like how the filming worked out as the dark, high contrast light from the garden with the vibrant green grass and hedge has given the footage a more creepy, odd feel which fits the rest of our film. 

Filming in the garden had some difficulties as we filmed at night we needed to light it well. To do this we used two halogenated lights and had extension leads so we could move the lights about. They worked well lighting what we wanted whilst giving everything a nice effect with the black background.

We filmed the band section from lots of different angles and used lots of different close ups of the instruments and singer playing along to the track which we had on in the background. As well a filming the performance section we filmed the short sections at the beginning and end of the video which don't have music. These required the 9 year old girl Kester playing with a dolls house and putting money into a hat which started the bands performance. 

Overall the filming was very successful and we have a lot of footage to chose from and edit with.

- Rebecca

today's lesson- editing the music video

Today we have progressed with editing the video footage. We've finished certain scenes, and have spaces for  where the performance scenes will go. Here's a screen grab to show our progression;

-Sophie and Katie.

Evaluation of Film Shoot.

Yesterday, we filmed the footage for our first location. Looking back on the shoot, it was very stressful, but we feel accomplished almost all of the footage, that we required to shoot.. we do intend to re-shoot a few scenes, as the lighting/ composition isn't quite right. All throughout the shoot we also took still photos, and before the film shoot we did a camera shoot, to gain the images for the website/Digipack.

-All Group

Change of plans-

So, we've had to change our original ideas and plans, as one of the locations is no longer available. We intend to find another location, with similar features. i/e a stage, and hall. We are going to ask permission to use a theatre in a school, and failing that, the theatre in our college.
Also, the house location has changed to Rebecca's house instead of Sophie's house, as it's easier to get to for the cast. We will post pictures of the new locations, and start shooting this week.
As well as shooting this week, we will do a photo shoot for the CD digipack, and website, so that we can start proper work on those, rather than just drafts, as we are not allowed to use images off of the internet.

- Sophie.

DETAILS FOR THE SHOOT

RECEE SHEET FOR THE YOUTH CENTRE

WRITTEN STORYBOARD

Test Shot

This is a picture of Antonio who we will be acting as our main character who wanders around the house. This is a good test shot to show the general image we want to give the Arctic Monkeys of a basic indie kid. He is wearing a blur t-shirt with a shirt on the top which is very typical of a teenage boy which also targets our audience.
-Rebecca

Recee of Hall

These are pictures on the hall that we are going to film the girl with the dolls house and the band in. The stage is where the band will be playing and the rest of the hall is where the girl and dolls house will go. 
This hall is available to us for no cost as it is a youth centre who organize band practices which we will use and get permission to film for. 


-Rebecca 

Costumes

For the clown costumes, in the hall location we were thinking we would have their faces painted (as Rebecca has posted) and obviously dressed as clowns. We know there's a cost issue in buying 5 clown costumes, so we were thinking in getting the band to dress in plain clothes - for the indie genre, jeans and t shirts, but using clown accessories like large bow ties, and wigs and fake water flowers etc. Which we've researched into, and only cost a few pounds each, rather than a whole clown costume. Here's a few examples of the accessories we will hopefully be using.

- Sophie

Makeup Tests - Clowns

These are two photos of me with clown makeup that my friend did for me. We copied the design from Alex Turners makeup when the Arctic Monkeys dressed up as clowns for Friday Night with Jonathon Ross. This makeup will be used on the band but we may switch between them looking ordinary and then clown. 

-Rebecca

Filming and Editing Practice-

So we don't make lots of mistakes when we film our actual music video we had a try out filming 'Fake Tales of San Francisco' which is a song off the first album by Arctic Monkeys. I came across a few problems as only two of the band members I used were able to help out which meant recording different parts of the song separately. As well as this, they had no backing track to mime along with so timings were difficult. Despite this I think the video has worked reasonably well and will help us learn how to make things run smoothly when we actually film the band part to our video.


I experimented with lots of different shots so that the video stayed interesting as a lot of videos where we are just watching a band playing can feel a bit boring. I used close ups on instruments such as the foot on the bass pedal on the drums, the hands on the necks of the guitars and close ups of the singer. These allow the audience to understand the music more and in a way visually see what they hear. This was good to practice with synching the movements in time with the actual track.


Other shots I used were over the shoulder shots of the other band members so we could see the other person but still get a feel of what the other was doing. It also gave a more perspective shot so the audience felt like they were there. I often did shots where I move into them from different directions rather than dead pan shots because it fits with the upbeat fairly fast paced music and more movement makes it appear as if more is going on. From about 1.05 I start to turn the camera onto a canted angle which then becomes horizontal. This was at the part in the song where it gets more chaotic and loud with two distorted guitars playing together so I wanted to show the change in music visually and to throw the audience off.


I occasionally put a red filter over the shots to experiment with what it will look like as it is something we are considering for This House Is A Circus. I liked the effect because it makes it look more serial which is what we want to get across. 





- Rebecca.