Final Music Video: No Social, The Shortwave Set

TILLY & TOM - 'NO SOCIAL' FINAL VIDEO from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Task 1

Part 1

1. This is a general shot of our performer in our location, i have chosen this shot as if you look back to our pitch you can see that we based our whole video around the lyrics "A dog dressed in clothes is still a dog." We obviously have taken the literal approach and dressed a dog in clothes, but a girl who may be dressed up in nice clothes, may still come from a bad background.

2. I chose this image to represent the way the record label may want our performer to be represented, as it is a close up, and you can see the way we done her make-up, not too over the top, and quite simple, but effective. The same wither her hair, loose curls, not anything too high maintenance.

3. I chose this image as the song is slightly indie, slightly abstract, and i think that this image can capture this.

4. This image is just an image of the bike that is used throughout our video, we were mostly inspired to use this in our video from the clip in the Sound of Music when they are on their bikes in the Do Re Mi scenes.

5. W picked this shot to use as you can see from this that we have used different camera angles, and not every angle is straight on.

6. I wasn't sure what shot to use for this clip, as we didn't use any lighting other than just natural lighting. Though in this shot i think this demonstrates this well.

7. In each scene, we haven't got much going on, the whole video is very simplistic, so i just took a shot of hannah sitting in the field, with our main prop, the bike.

8/9. I think that the top image shows this well as we didn't just plonk her in the middle of the shot, we thought carefully where we should have her the shot, and where would look good. And the second shot is a shot of hannah walking with the camera which is used in music videos also.

Part 2

1.

In this shot from The Sound of Music they are running when it says "Fa - a long, long way to run"

2.

JLS is a 4 man boy band, all dressed quite cleanly, for the female appeal. They are said to be 4 straight, single men, however there has been rumors that supposedly one's gay and in a relationship, another is gay and single, one in a long term relationship, leaving only one single and straight, though record companies believe that records will sell better if they come across as a single straight boy band.

3.

This is a shot from Razorlight's music video - America. Razorlight are an indie band, and as you can see in the shot they are doing just a performance based video, which it quite typical for an indie band.

4.

This is a shot of the Sound of Music, from Do Re Mi, when they are on their bikes, which inspired us to use a bike in our video.

5.

In this shot from Damien Rice's music video - 9 crimes, you can see that have thought about the camera angles, as this isn't a straight on shot, or a straight above shot, it's sat slightly above, giving it a nice angle.

6.

I like the lighting used throughout the America video by Razorlight. The little spot lights are really effective throughout the video.

7.

In this shot you can see the bins, and the rubbish behind them, and Damien rice in the background and Lisa Hannigan in the foreground. The mise-en-scene is really effective throughout the video, though it's quite simplistic the whole way through, it really sets the mood, and fits the lyrics.

8/9.

In both of the shots above they have thought about the positioning it the performers face on the screen, they aren't plonked in the middle, but they are slightly to left.

Task 2

As you can see from the collage above, consisting of our final digipak, and some grabs from our final video, to show the consistency throughout our digipak. As you can see above, our poster from our digipak is infact a screen grab of our footage, we have simply just messed with the contrast to give its final edgy look.

The front of our cover is an image of Hannah, our performer, biking away, as we have used a lot of footage involving Hannah on a bike throughout our video, and the back of our cover is simple just of the location we shot it, leaving it slightly simple for the track list to go over the top.

The inside of our cd case is just an image of the bike that we have used throughout out video, and that can also link back to the poster, making it easy to identify that the two are linked.

We decided to go with the font that we went with, as it had a sort of edgy look to it that we were going for, we didn't really look for many others, as this seemed to suit the sort of look that we were going for perfectly.

Task 3

Rough Digipak Feedback

**Click To Enlarge**

Above you can see the feedback from our Rough Digipak (also shown above), as you can see, majority of people though it was colourful, though the majority also thought it needed more consistency. We also needed to add a track list, and perhaps use a collection of images, which related to the video more. However, they did like the overlapping of images, and the contrast of colours. They also liked the font and thought it fit well with the genre of the song.

We took all of this into consideration when finalising our Digipak (Final digipak shown below), and we actually rethought our whole idea, baring in mind the string points that were said, so we kept our font, but changed our images. We ended up taking images from our footage and using them as our poster image and throughout our cover interior and exterior - being sure that they would all link together throughout the digipak and also to our video. We also messed with the contrast on the images to give it that edgy look, which proved effective.

Pitch Feedback

**Click To Enlarge**

As you can see from the feedback for our pitch idea, people mainly liked our concept, but while some people were saying it was realistic and possible, others were saying that our locations may be a problem, especially being outdoors, the weather may cause problems. However, we decided that our positive feedback outweighed the flaws, and we thought that we would be able to work around our locations, as we had several in mind, and had thought up a back-up plan if we weren't given permission, and we just had our fingers-crossed when it came to the weather.

Rough Cut Feedback

**Click To Enlarge**

Above is the feedback from our Rough Cut, and our main points were that we needed more footage, but that the costumes were good, and set a good contrast between the location and performer. People also still liked the concept and thought that we had a few good camera angles in there also. However, we were in desperate need of more cutaways along with more footage, and we also needed to make sure that our performer didn't look cold. There were other things that they didn't pick up on, like the editing needed neatening up a little, in some shots you could still see some footage behind the shot, and there were Toms shoes at the end of the track as well, but this was all stuff that we were willing to work on. And i think by the time we had completed our video we had taken everything into consideration and touched on each of these points

Below are some screen grabs from several points we had to improve upon.

Final Feedback

Tom and i haven't had any final feedback from our teachers, and only a few comments from our class, therefore, we didn't think it was appropriate to produce pie charts like we have the rest of our feedback. However here is what final feedback we have got:

"like the costume changes, good lipsynching. cycle shot is very nice"

"I like the good use of the different shots you have used. I especially like the shots around the bike, and also through the fence. Well done"

"It's quite samey all the way through, you probably shouldn't have used all your locations at once."

"I really like the bits where she's on the bike and behind the fence thing, these work very well.

I also love how she contrasts the rest of the background.

However some of the cuts are too sharp for the video and don't really fit with the rest."

"starts of with the girl not looking very happy but for about 4 seconds she has a happy moment, and that stand out from the video and does not really work as the rest of the video she looks lost which is good"

"Bright costumes on a greyish background works well. Nice camera angles."

Overall i am quite happy with the feedback that i have got back.

Task 4

Blogger: I used blogger to show my research and monitor my progress throughout the project.

Safari: i used this to access the internet.

Flickr: We upload any images on to flickr, you can also find out final Digipaks here too.

iTunes: We listened to our tracks on this.

CRam (cmdiploma.com): From here we can access our blogs, and our vimeo and flickr accounts.

Google: We used this to find out any information on the band, and other reseach. We also used this for images to.

Photoshop: We used this to create our digipaks.

MySpace: We used this to get information on our band, and help get in contact with them.

Photobucket: We used this for images, to get inspiration from in the early stages.

Youtube: We used YouTube to listen to our song, and also for research on other music videos.

Facebook: We also used facebook to get information on our band, and to help get in contact with them.

Final Cut Express: We created our video with this.

Vimeo: this is where we uploaded our rough cuts and also our final videos.

We also used a HD camera and tripod in the making of our video, and uploaded all our footage, created our video and did all our research on a computer.

Feedback from film-maker Ben Gee

"Bicycle one"

cuts a bit sudden; moving camera very good; good lipsynch; a bit jumpy. Nice location use, good performer, good range of shots.

Final Digipak

Now, we have completely changed our digipak design, as just yesterday we got more footage, which we are planning on using for the best part of our video, so we have taken a few of the screen grabs from the footage, and made them the main theme of our digipak.

Independiente Records

The label had most of their success the last 1990's and 2000, when they released Travis' album 'The Man Who' which turned out to be the 25t biggest selling album in the UK.

They also released The Shortwave Set's album in 2005 'The Debt Collection' and they also have groups like Embrace, White Rose Movement, David Ford, Sun House, Gomez, Firstborn and Howling Bells signed onto the group.

Digipak Research

I like this album cover by David Ford, as it's very simple, and is set outside like our video, thought as you can see from the image below (a screen grab of the video I'm Alright Now), it doesn't tie in with the video it's self as it's just shot in the studio and that's how it is throughout the video.

Rough Digipak Feedback

• colorful
• relates to music video
• good font
• needs more consistency
• needs a track list
• good contrast of colors
• effective imagery
• maybe use a collection of images
• like how there have been images used twice but have been manipulated and turned black and white and overlapping.

Rough Digipak CD Cover

Reflection

At the moment i am a little worried about how things are going. As it is vital that we get our extra footage, and get some cut aways in our video as at the moment it's looking quite thin, and i'm not too happy with it. Though i think once Tom and I get sorted and get that done and out the way, things will start piecing together, and looking up a bit.

I know that Tom and i are able to get our video completed in time, as we managed to get our rough cut done, in about a day, so if we get the extra footage this afternoon as planned, then we will have tomorrow morning and all of friday to get it complete, which is plenty of time.

I am looking ,forward t seeing how our video turns out, as it is already not looking how i imagined it to look, as our circumstances changed throughout filming. So it's quite exciting expecting the unexpected.

Rough Cut Feedback

Positives

• Costumes!
• Locations!
• Concept
• Contrast of the costumes and the locations
• Camera angles

Improvements

• More footage!
• More cutaways!
• Repetitive
• Performer could be more enthusiastic
• Performer looks cold

Rough Cut

TILLY & TOM - 'NO SOCIAL' ROUGH CUT from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

At the moment, i think our video is very samey, though i'm sure once we get our cut aways in it will look much better and bulk it up a lot, give it more substance, and will also give the audience a clearer idea of the concept.

Friday 5th March

After having wednesday day off college, and also thursday, as i was ill, we are finally back at Coleridge and back editing for our rough cut, which has to be done be the end of the day. So far the editing is going okay, though we have both realised that we still need much more footage, which we will go out and film next week. Also, we have had a problem with our footage on final cut express, whenever we move our footage about we have to render it which is causing a bit of a problem.

Tuesday 2nd March

Today is our first day of editing, and once we uploaded our footage, we realised that the track that we had to lip sync with while we were out shooting is different to the one that is on our computer, which caused a whole lot of problems for our lip syncing. However, Tom downloaded the other track to our computer so that we could match the lip syncing.

So far the editing has gone slowly, and we still have a lot to do to meet our rough cut deadline at the end of the week. But i think we can definitely catch up on friday when we have the whole day at Coleridge to edit.

Monday 1st March.

Today I had to help Emma, Christina and Rob's group film, and Tom wasn't in today so we weren't able to go out and shoot our cutaways. Tom said that he will be in tomorrow, after his exam in the morning so hopefully we will have the time to do some cutaways in the afternoon.

The filming for Emma, Christina and Rob's group went well, though it was very, very cold outside, and i had no tights on, and i had forgotten my little black pumps so i had to wear my UGGS which i had to hide while i was walking around the table.

Friday 26th Feb.

Filming went well today, despite the odd shower and extremely cold winds. We managed to get all our shots of Hannah done, which at times we didn't think we would manage, having to wait for the showers to stop etc. And i am pleased with the footage that we have got so far. Next week Tom and I intend on going out and shooting a few cutaways, and start on the editing.

Thursday 25th Feb.

This is the weather forecast for today, as you can see above, from the BBC weather webpage, it is raining most of the day here, however, we do intend to go out and shoot in the couple of hours we may have in between. I hope that this all goes to plan as we are running out of time to get our filming done. There is also another problem this afternoon, as Hannah's group needs me to feature in their video, and they are shooting this afternoon, however, i should be done there by half 2, ready for when the rain has stopped for a while. If we don't finish shooting today, then tomorrow afternoon we may be able to finish up. Below is the weather forecast from the BBC site, and it looks to be brighter in the afternoon. Lets just hope the weather brightens up a little.

The filming today didn't go as well as we planned, as i spent a little longer than planned, helping film for Hannah, Louis' and Charna's video, which meant that we only had about an hour and a half to get a few shots before it started raining. But hopefully tomorrow we will get everything else done.

Wednesday 24th Feb.

This is the weather forecast for today, we planned to go out and shoot between 1 and 4. However, as you can see from the image above, taken from the BBC weather forecast, it is forecasted to rain between 12 and 6. This means that we are unable to shoot out at Milton Dump due to the weather conditions. This is a pain so we are hopefully, if all goes well, shoot tomorrow, either in the morning or the afternoon, all depending on whether Hannah is available, as she still has her lessons to attend, and it wouldn't be fair if she took her own time out of college for our video.

Friday 12th Feb.

Today we planned to do the rest of our test footage, however Tom isn't well again so this means we have no test footage for to show for this week, as he has the camera and i am unable to get there without him.

Instead today I am going to work on our digi pack, with the photo's that we already have from each of our locations and the photo's of Hannah we have on her in the costumes. By doing this, although we will behind in one aspect I will hopefully bring us a little forward in another.

Costumes

This is Hannah (our performer) dressed in the costumes we are having her dressed in our video. We have chosen, quite colourful dresses/Tops/Skirts as these almost 'clash' with the dump and together creative a really diverse image.

Thursday 11th feb

Today we were meant to film all of our test footage, however as I was late in and Tom couldn't make it to our first lesson as his car wouldn't start, we were unable to shoot all of this test footage. And we only managed to get the the test footage from Newmarket Road Scrap Yard.

Although we didn't manage to get everything done today, tomorrow we should be able to catch up on this, as in the morning we could go to Milton Dump and shoot the rest of our test footage and do our lip synching test footage there, and when we come back to Coleridge we will be able to edit this, as perhaps if we have time start on our digi pack work.

Sound of Music

I chose to put this clip up of The Sound Of Music as it has a bike scene in it, which is quite relevant to parts of our video, and is also set outside, and in parts in very rural locations, such as fields.

Tuesday 9th Feb.

Today, Tom and i planned to do our test footage at Newmarket scrap yard, and Milton dump. However, Tom was unable to come in today, due to illness, and as we needed his car to get to or locations, this has left me at a bit of a loose end today, as i can't get to either of our locations to shoot our test footage.

This means we will have to most probably to this on Thursday morning if we have enough time, though this may step into our own time if we don't get the test footage completed by the end of the day.

With Tom being ill again yesterday as well I was unable to get in contact with the construction site manager at Milton. Therefore we still have no permission to film in the Milton dump, which may be a bit of a problem.

Tom and I really need to work on our organisation, as if we both had the manager's number, we would know whether or not we had the permission to shoot at the dump. This is something we will need to talk about when Tom recovers and comes back into college.

Instead this afternoon, I intend to create our shot list, and think further about our video, and think about how Tom and i can incorporate some cut-aways in our video, and how they will fit into our video, as Steve yesterday asking about how our cut-away idea's may not fit into the theme of our video, with it based around a 'glamorous quirky' girl who sort of lives at a scrap yard.

I have spoken to Tom today, and he has suggested he can take photo's of Hannah (our performer) in the costumes and he will blog these when he gets the chance. And also write a letter to the Milton Dump and Newmarket scrap yard for permission to shoot at these locations.

After a bit of a rocky start this morning, and unfortunately not getting to do the tasks intended. We have managed to get together a clear idea for a new plan for this afternoon, basically swapping today's original plan with Thursdays plan, and doing our test footage on Thursday instead, and perhaps on Friday morning too, and get them edited and all on our blogs by the end of Friday's lesson.

I am happy that, although today hasn't gone to plan, we have managed not to fall behind by readjusting and swapping our plans around.

Friday 5th Feb.

On friday the 5th, at Coleridge, we made our animation, as you can see on a post below. This was good, and i enjoyed doing it. Having to do the task forced Tom and I to start thinking about how we wanted our video to look, and what camera angles and set ups we would want. Drawing the storyboards was a really good way to be able to visualize our video, and also for others to be able to do the same. I like the way our animatic has turned out and I'm looking forward to creating our actual video, and hope it turns out well, as we have to make sure that we position each costume change in the same place. However, as long as we continue to be precise this should go according to plan.

Storyboards

Below are a few photo's of our story board we produced in class n thursday. We had a pretty clear idea how we wanted to open our video, and i think we have managed to put these idea's down clearly in our story board.

animatic

Tilly and Tom's animatic from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Schedule

2nd - 5th of Feb - Animatic week

This week we are going to be doing our animatics. This will be at least 30 - 40 seconds long and can be for any part of the song. Its purpose would be to give the band/manager an idea of what the video will look like. We will be trying to think of literally ever shot we could put in there so that it keeps up a pace and looks effective.

8th - 12th of Feb - Test footage week

This will involve making phone calls to get proper permission to film then once we have this we will drive over to all our locations and get as much footage as we can. We will experiment with different angles, static or moving and see how we will manage the suns position as this could very easily be a problem for us. We may then very roughly edit this together with the soundtrack and upload it to the blog.

15th - 19th of Feb

HALF TERM

22nd - 26th of Feb - Filming week

In this week we will be doing all our actual filming. We will take what we learn from our test footage and shoot everything. We will try to shoot more than what we've planned so that we can be sure we have enough footage.

1st - 5th of March - Rough cut week

This week will be focused on creating a rough cut. The deadline for this is friday the 5th. I am looking forward to this part as it is when we see all out work start to come together. Hopefully it will all go well and we won't have any problems with the amount of footage we get etc. We are tying to avoid this. Any time that we have free this week we will be spending on our digipaks as these are due in next week.

8th - 12th of March - Finished video week

Our final video has to be finished by the end of this week so we will be working hard to finish our edit. 11th of March is the deadline for our digipak.

15th - 19th of March - Evaluation week

In this week we will be doing a lot of evaluation tasks and looking back on our project.

Reflection

Over the past week or so i have enjoyed creating our idea, though at times it has been tricky, but once we were set on the idea this became easier. And the response we had to our pitch was very positive, which made me more confident with our choice.

However, we haven't managed to to pursue our idea much further yet. We still need to think about about shots and angles. Preferably we would have been better off staying at each location a bit longer to figure these out, and get more inspired by our locations. But we didn't have the time to do this within our lesson on friday.

To get the ball rolling Tom and I will sort out a plan up until our deadline, to keep us on track, and make sure Tom and I don't fall behind, and try and keep us on track.

Storyboarding

In thursdays lessons we started to storyboard our video. Tom and i found this quite tricky, getting all the different shots down to the music and trying to get different shots in with the different parts of the video, however once we got going, we came up with a few good shot idea's and we just now have to think about the camera shot angles. Now we have visited our possible locations this will be much easier to visualise. Here is a photo of Tom and i doing our storyboard.

How i am feeling about the project

Positives

Something i am looking forward to is comparing our finished video to the original, and how they compare and contrast as this may be interesting.

Negatives

I'm Worried about not getting permission to film on the dump/construction site, as we may not get it, and this would mean we would have to re-think our whole idea.

Solutions to problems

Re-think idea. Film at the back of my garden, near my tree house, and in a field/forest area.

Hurtwood House Music Video

This is the music video from Hurtwood House, i chose this out of the others as i really like how they have made their video filled with such a lively atmosphere. You can see that they have planned each shot carefully, and thought about the camera angles and positions, to create the atmosphere, in what i can imagine can only be a small room, which they have made look like a big club full of dancers.

Pretty Woman

Everyone knows the story of Pretty Woman, and the concept in this film is very similar to that in our video. Julia Roberts, playing a young prostitute - Vivian, goes from living in the slums of Beverly Hills, barely scrapping enough money for rent, to living the high life, with Richard Gere, playing a middle aged work-a-holic, giving Vivian the money to shop, and experience the ins and outs of the higher class in Beverly Hills. Though underneath her new exterior, still lies the young lady, with no educational background, and a poor upbringing.

Our music video may not be as deep as this, however the connection still lies. Our performer is nicely dressed but belongs to the dump, and Pretty Woman is beautifully dressed, but is a hooker.