Research&Planning: Current Animatic.

Recently I have been experimenting with a new software which makes its easier to create animatics as it helps with drawing and stop motion.

As we haven't finished our storyboard quite yet I only have 40seconds of animatic at the moment but I hope to make one for the whole song.

Research&Planning: Post-Production experimentation.

In class today we decided to experiment with the different effects that final cut pro let us add to our footage. We wanted to find out how to make the scene appear darker, like it was filmed later in the day or on a more overcast day as the test footage that we have at the moment was filmed on quite a sunny day. To do this we played around with the effects until we found how to change the saturation and this is what we used to change the lighting of a shot.

After doing this successfully we thought we should try to see if we edit on a strobe lighting effect on in post-production as at the moment we only own a few small strobe lights and we thought these might look a little weak for the shots we want to achieve. Also we have heard that when filming with strobe lights the after effect cannot look great due to the camera not being able to pick up details with the constantly changing lights.  So with this in mind we found a really good YouTube tutorial which explained how this could be done, we then attempted it ourselves.

At first it was quite tricky as we weren’t sure what all of the different colour levels did and how far to adjust them to create the best look for our footage however after a lot of playing around with the controls I feel we managed to get a really good effect.  

To make a strobe light effect on final cut pro we first chose the footage we wanted, then duplicated it, placing one lot of footage over the other by layering it. Then we altered the top layer by making the white level higher which made the scene brighter, we also changed the saturation and mid tones slightly so that it didn’t go grainy. Then we changed the second layer in the opposite way, making the black more prominent which creates the effect it was filmed in the dark. After this we used the video transition effect Blink which means the video alternates between light and dark, as if it were filmed with strobes. The final thing we did was change the speed of the transition so that it moved quicker so that it looked more effective.

The video tutorial we watched

 

Our attempt at strobes.

Research&Planning: Lyric analysis.

These are the lyrics to our chosen song This is Annihilation by RavenFace and below is my analysis of them.

Research&Planning: Shane Drake.

Shane Drake is a cross-genre music video director who has worked with the likes of hard rock bands, Trivium, Between the Buried and Me and Papa Roach as well as more pop/rock bands such as Panic! At the Disco, Fall Out Boy and Paramore all the way to artists like Dappy, Flo Rider and Gym Class Heroes.  He is known for his artistic and stylised videos, which often have a film-like quality about them, which may come about because he has also co-produced three films.


On himself Drake says “My original intention was to make feature films. Directors such as Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Gilliam, Oliver Stone and Milos Forman, as well as newcomers Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino, P.T. Anderson, and more helped to shape my artistic coming of age. My first significant mentor happened, however, to be a music video director, hence my foray into the world Musical Cinema.”

Although a lot of his music videos are for less heavy bands than RavenFace I still think we can learn a lot from watching his videos as he is known for his high energy and inspiring ideas which are skills that can be transferred to any type of music video.

One of my favourite videos by him is Panic! At the Disco-The Ballad of Mona Lisa

The overall feel of this video is very dynamic and theatrical, which is not that all that common in popular music videos. The mise-en-scene is very interesting and obviously a lot of thought went into it, the general theme being steampunk with devices such as the net gun and costume including tops hats, goggles and waistcoats. Panic! Are a band known for their kooky dress sense and this mis-en-scene ties in beautifully with their image and other videos such as I write Sins Not Tragedies (also directed by Drake won the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year).  In my opinion the video suits the song perfectly and is fantastically directed, incorporating performance from the band and a story narrative all whilst being set in this steampunk environment. Throughout the video there are lots of interesting shots and use of the camera such as the extreme close up on Brendon (lead singer) at the end and the enigma created at the start where the shots vary from a tilt down to Brendon, starting at the top of his top hat and an empty, derelict room covered in cobwebs. There is also a lot of camera movement throughout the video and not very many static shots and this is something that maybe I should think about when filming my video, although I would have to be careful not to make it look amature. The editing is also superb with the camera zooming into Brendon's coat and when it comes back it is now his alter ego.

There is a 'the filming of' video for this music video where Spencer and Bendon talk about Drake and this is a really nice way of them describing what kind of director he is.

ResearchPlanning: Audience.

To get some deeper audience research I went on to RavenFace's youtube channel and looked at some peoples profiles who have subscribed/like/comented on RaveFace's music and from this I got some god ideas of what else their audidence likes.

Other bands 'liked' by RavenFace listeners.

Evelensence
Sonic Koco
Aerosmith
Joan Jett
Scoropions
Cradle of Filth
Trivium
Capture the Crown

Other topics watched.

Assisins Creed
Skyrim
Britians got Talent
Derren Brown
Tattoos
ASMR role play
Doctor Who

This could give us some ideas about intertexuality in our music video.

Research&Planning: Pitch!

Here is the link to our media pitch in class.

The focus of the pitch was selling our ideas and concept for our music video to the rest of the class and get feedback on if they think it will be effective.

We gt some good ideas from the class and they highlighted that we must be careful when filming at night as it may be too dark for the camera to pick up, even when using lights an this made us think that maybe wee will film slightly earlier than first planned.

http://prezi.com/illppc_g02wg/pitch/

Research&Planning: Props Research.

 

After coming up with the idea for our music video we realised that certain props would be needed to create the effect that we are going for. We then looked at other videos to see what sort of props they used and if we could recreate this ourselves.

Musical instruments are obviously going to be needed in our video as we want to show the band performing however certain models of instruments are more popular than others.

The 'Flying V' and Explorer guitar shape is common in metal music videos as it looks different to the normal guitar shape and is often used by well known metal bands.



It is also common for bands to have their band name or logo on the bass drum of the drum kit rather than the make who made it so we are looking into creating a new skin for the drum that will have RavenFace on it as this will make the video look more professional.

We will try and find instruments which correspond with these so that our music video looks as professional as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

Research&Planning: Visualisations.

After listening to the selected track and thinking of an initial concept we found a few images which visualised what we were seeing in our heads.

Eyes watching the band in the dark, the idea of voyeurism.
 

Scary woods, typical of this genre.

An abandoned house/building.

This gave us some images to work with and helped us get a clearer notion of what we were trying to create in our music video.

Research&Planning: Music Video deconstruction.

Bullet For My Valentine - Your Betrayal

I think this music video, released in 2010 under JIVE records, is a perfect example of a metal music video as it incorporates a lot of different things into one video.

Throughout the video a red tint has been edited into the footage of the band whilst the footage of a woman cut into the performance shots has a yellow tint, this helps to distinguish and emphasize the difference between the two shots and also helps establish the flames that are present in some shots as red and yellow are the colour of fire.

Extreme close-ups are used in this video, such as on Matt Tucks face when he is singing and on the guitar in instrumental moments of the song. The camera is also constantly moving around the scene and this gives a sense of disorientation as it never really focusing on one thing a long enough, this goes with the fast tempo of the song.

There are a lot of interesting angles used such as at 0:30 a birds eye view is used above the drums to show Michael Thomas playing the beat out, as the drums have a very prominent part in this part of the song this works well. However if we were to reconstruct this idea of using shots like this we would have to edit it very well so that the visuals match up perfectly with the music.

The video is also based around the seven deadly sins, however there isn't that much emphasis on this part of the story but when watching closely the scenes with the woman in have the sins, eg. Pride at the beginning, written behind her. This is quite a good way to use the seven deadly sins as it makes it subtle as some may argue that they are quite overdone.

Throughout the video zoom is used a lot as the camera zooms in on certain parts of the instruments or band members, however with the equipment available to us I do not know if it would be possible to recapture this or if ours may end up looking a lot more amateur, however it is something we can practice with when doing some test shots.

There are also shots of the band head banging as they play which is something we would also like to use in our music video as we think it gives the video an energy and also head banging is something very popular with the sub culture of metal heads who are our target audience. Focus is used a lot in this music video, with the camera losing it or swapping focus from the foreground to the background and this creates the same effect of the disorientation. Whilst Tuck is singing most of the shots are dedicated to him, with him standing in the middle of the screen, or close ups of his face to show him lip syncing the words, whilst when it is an instrumental part the shots are split evenly between the other band members, this is quite common as in most bands the lead singer is the main focus.

As well as the two narratives of the performance and the seven deadly sins woman there are some more slightly random shots that are of a disturbing nature, such as the shots of maggots crawling.

Overall this music video has given me a lot to think about, both on camera technique and creative ideas.

Research&Planning: Voyeurism practical.

After studying the theoretical side of voyeurism we then put our knowledge into practical work where we filmed a series of voyeuristic shots. First we made a quick storyboard based on our shot list from the last lesson.

 

We then took the camera to the common room and tried to film these shots by using tracking shots, tilting and panning. We found that it was a lot harder than we had initially thought and we also ended up filming a lot of different shots which would hadn't planned but some of these worked quite well.

 

This exercise was very interesting and helpful as we realised that due to the genre and nature of our music video we should try to avoid using these shots too much as we don't really want to create an overall theme of voyeurism in our music video. However we would like some POV shots but we would use these to create enigma more than voyeurism.

 

Research&Planning:Voyeurism.

In class we started looking at the use of voyeurism in music videos, how this is achieved and what effect it creates on an audience. We started the discussion by watching a current music video to Heat Wave by Wiley.

We then wrote our initial reactions to the video on the board to collect everyone's thoughts and feelings to it.




We made many interesting points about the music video, especially on representation. For example we realised that there were only white girls in the music video and so race was not being portrayed
in a fair way. We also thought that the representation of women in general was quite demeaning and linked it to Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory.

Then we looked at wikipedia's definition of voyeurism:

Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practise of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviours, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions usually considered to be of a private nature.^[1]

However, in today's society the concept of voyeurism has evolved, especially in popular culture. Non-pornographic reality television programs such as Survivor and The Real World, are prime examples of voyeurism, where viewers (the voyeur) are granted an intimate interaction with a subject group or individual. Although not necessarily "voyeurism" in its original definition, as individuals in these given situations are aware of their audience, the concept behind "reality TV" is to allow unscripted social interaction with limited outside interference or influence. As such, the term still maintains its sexual connotations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyeurism

We then simplified this and made our own definitions:

Voyeurism is the act of looking in at someone, similar to spying, whilst they are engaging in acts of a private nature, eg. undressing. However in today's society it can also be the idea of having a glimpse into someones life, mostly seen in reality TV shows, eg. Big Brother.

We also briefly looked at a quote:
\
'There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (mirrors, screens within screens, stages etc.) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body'- Andrew Goodwin-Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992).

Even though this was expressed in 1992 it is still relevant today and it is incredible that the same things are expressed today as they were 10 years ago.

Lastly we thought about how we could recapture some voyeuristic shots our self and came up with a list of some voyeuristic shots we would like to try and capture

• Tilt up the body from the feet
• Panning across the midrift area
• Close-Ups
• Peeking shots
• POV shots.

Research&Planning: Portfolio work.

Whilst researching for my A2 music video I decided to experiment with the technique Stop Frame animation. To do this I used my phone to take a series of photographs which I then put to some jazz music.  This helped my knowledge of other ways to create music videos instead of just filming live motion.

Stop motion animation:

Research&Planning: Continued storyboard.

Over the last couple of lessons we have continued our storyboard: