FILMING - WEDNESDAY 21ST SEPTEMBER

Wednesday 21st September


After school Sarah filmed the piano shots in the hall, this was whilst I was not there. 
She made sure that nobody was in the hall whilst she was filming. The curtains were drawn and the piano pushed into the middle of the hall, this is so she could get lots of angles of Kate playing and singing at the piano:


Below is a photograph of Kate at the piano:

Below are some screen shots of the piano footage that Sarah shot on Premier Pro:

You can see that we have placed all of the footage into Premier Pro, we have cut and edited all of the footage to the beat so it flows with the song. We have used the piano footage as a base and we are going to place all of the other shots which we are gong to film on the top.

SHOOTING SCHEDULE

Shooting Schedule

Remember to take still photographs of the locations, piano, Kate in costume, etc. And to write about what you have done.

Day: Monday 19^th September, period 1 and 2

         Monday 26^th September, period 1 and 2

         Any break or lunchtime

Location: Gifted and talented centre, school. Kate needs to be singing the whole song.

Cast: Kate Fenwick

Props:

• Guitar
• Drum sticks

Shots:

• Lots of different shots for the whole song.
• Wide shots, high shots, close ups, extreme close ups (lips, eyes), etc

Costume:

• Tutu skirt
• Black waistcoat/ black and white striped cardigan
• Converse sparkly shoes/ tramp boots
• Black net tights
• Straight hair
• Red lipstick?
• Black nail varnish?

Location: Piano in the hall – lights out move piano into middle of hall, draw curtains, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO USE IT! Kate needs to be singing the whole song whilst pretending to play the piano.

Cast: Kate Fenwick

Props:

• Lamp, you could maybe just use a torch.
• Piano

Shots:

• A variety of shots
• Close ups, shot of hands?, Wide shots, etc

Day: Thursday 13th October 2011

Location: Drama studio – Puppet

Cast:

• Kate Fenwick
• Tom Manson

Props:

• String, thick and thin
• Cross thing for puppet
• Scissors

Costume:


Kate:

• Straight hair (back combed)
• Sarah's red skinny jeans
• Black paint splat top
• Black jacket
• Sparkly converse shoes
• Red lipstick
• Black nail varnish
• Smudged eye make-up

Tom:

• Black skinny jeans
• Converse shoes
• Back top
• Black nail varnish
• Make up?

Shots:

• Long/mid shots
• Zoom into eyes (quick?)
• Shots of Tom controlling Kate
• Close up of Tom cutting the string

Day: Saturday 22nd October

Location: Lincoln

Cast: Kate Fenwick

Costume:

• Kate’s clothes, to be decided
• Red lipstick
• Black nail varnish

Shots:

• Still shot of Kate singing in Lincoln, with everybody walking past her sped up
• Variation of shots whilst there

We have decided not to film the Lincoln scene anymore as we were only using it for one line, and what we have filmed already is equally as good as what we were going to shoot in Lincoln, so decided to keep that.

Day: Sunday 6th November

Location: Sarah's house

Cast: Kate Fenwick

Costume:

• Kate’s clothes, to be decided
• Red lipstick
• Black nail varnish

Shots:

• Flower and photograph shot/ pan at Sarah’s house.

Day: Wednesday 19th October 

Location: Rasen graveyard

Cast:

• Kate Fenwick
• Tom Manson

Costume: 
Kate:

• Sarah's mums dress - skull/ roses
• Black blazer
• Red lipstick

Tom:

• Black top
• Black skinny jeans
  

Shots:

• Long shot of Kate grabbing Tom
• Zoom of Kate grabbing Tom in slow motion
• Close up of them arguing – Arch shot
• Performance shots of Kate singing

Day: Tuesday 8th November

Location: School common room kitchen and drama studio

Cast:

• Kate Fenwick
• Tom Manson

Costume:

• Kate’s clothes, to be decided
• Tom’s clothes to be decided
• Red lipstick
• Black nail varnish

Shots:

• Head shot of Tom whispering into Kate’s ears fade into..
• ..Head shot of Tom whispering into Friends ears
• Side head shot of Tom stroking Kate’s face,
• then slow motion of Tom pushing her face away
• Mid shot of Kate lying on the floor singing
• Zoom to close up of Kate singing.

We have decided to change the whispering shots above as we don't believe that it will work. Below is what we intend to do now:

• Wide shot of Tom, on one side of the camera frame, talking his friends, on the opposite side, with Kate in the background between them out of focus
• Then a focus pull from Toms friends to Kate
• We will then switch Kate and Toms friends around and do exactly the same thing to see which looks best.

LYRIC IDEAS

Below is our lyric ideas:

I realise that you can't see the lyrics and our ideas very well so I have included my prezi below where I have included all the ideas:













My Happy Ending Prezi

My happy ending on Prezi

COSTUME

Below are the costumes that we decided on, they are mainly emo clothes as that is what Avril Lavigne wears and what is known to be within the punk genre. 


Kate's costumes:

This is what Kate as a puppet

The image to the left shows Kate wearing:

• Stripes
• Bright coloured jeans
• Black (dark coloured) jacket
• Studded belt

These are all usual clothes that are worn by punks and emos and helps the audience identify Kate and the genre.











In the graveyard 

The dress which is being worn to the left has skulls and roses on, these images are big for our genre, so we decided to incorporate this into our music video so the audience can recognise the genre easily.












At the gifted and Talented centre

Tutu's, stripes and dark clothes are a common dress for punk people,as you can see from the image below of Avril Lavigne wearing a tutu:
 





In the hall (piano shots)

You can see that she is wearing bright blue jeans, a black top and a black waistcoat. You would usually see this outfit being worn be someone in the punk/pop genre.













Tom's costume:

The puppet scenes, we got him to wear a black top and dark trousers:




We decided that Tom should wear something that is plain and simple but highlights the genre which he is in. Black is often the most popular colour for the punk/emo genre, so decided to use this colour for Tom's costume, the colour black connotes death, evil and darkness, these were the reasons why we used this colour as we we wanted Tom to be portrayed as an controlling evil boyfriend figure. 

Argument shots


The costume to the left was not really thought about as such, because we were rushed for time and didn't really decide that we were filming on this day. This costume doesn't really matter too much as we re-shot the footage when our actors were in this costume, and the parts we did use we changed to black and white so nobody would really notice if they were not wearing punk or emo clothing.

LOCATIONS

Location ideas 

Gifted and talented centre at school - performance shots
This area gives us lots of opportunity to film a variety of shots as there is lots of space and obstacles to play with.

This is a shot of the front of the gifted and talented centre at school, as you can see it is a picturesque building and I believe that it would look great in our music video with our Avril character (Kate) performing around/ in front of it. We thought of having Kate sat in the door way singing, also stood playing the guitar. Although as you can see there are signs at each side of the door, so we have to be very careful when filming to not get those in the shot.

This shot is of the metal rails which lead up to the roof, this would give our music video a rustic, rebellious feel if we had some performance shots on them.

We have also though about filming on the roof as it's also seen as quite rebellious, which is a characteristic of our genre.

This shot was taken from the top of the rails (above), this gives us a good quality high shot.

We are thinking of placing Kate in the tree, between the two trunks, either sitting or standing singing the song.











We have also thought of using our drama studio at school. 


This is the drama studio, we were thinking of using the white wall which you can see for our puppet shots where we asre making Kate a human puppet, Tom will be standing above Kate on the top of the wall controlling her. We would turn off all of the lights and have just a spot light on Kate to make her stand out and show the audience that Tom is bigger than Kate which would emphasise the control which he has within this relationship.

 This photo and music video below explains our idea:

 













When we thought of the puppet idea we explained it to our teacher and he then showed us this music video below which demonstrates our ideas that we had of the controller being bigger an therefore more powerful then the puppet.

N sync - Bye Bye Bye:

At the beginning of this video you can see the band as puppets on the stage and at 0.15 you can see the pan up to the woman that is controlling them, she is made much bigger to show that she has control.

Below is another music video which is more up to date, this is 'Price Tag' by Jessie J:




You can see at 1.57 how she uses the puppet idea which I have just been talking about.

Common Room kitchen

This is where we were thinking of having our argument scenes, and the shot where tom strokes Kate's face and then pushes her onto the floor.

The common room

This is the location where we are having the group of friends shots, where Tom is with his friends and Kate is out of focus between them, then we have a focus pull from the group of friends to Kate. 

This pjotograph below is our school hall, you can see the piano which we used in the corner


This is where we are shooting the piano shots, which was our basis for the whole music video.












We are also going to use this graveyard below:

This is the graveyard location which we used, it is opposite our school so easy to get to. The reason why we used this particular location is because we thought using a graveyard was best for the lyrics that we had... 'It's not like we're dead' and 'In a city so dead'.

2ND STORYBOARD

This is my second storyboard.

The first shot is on the start shot of our music video, this is a close up of a photograph of our couple (Kate and Tom) and a rose and petals surrounding them. This shows the start of the music video as well as the start of their relationship, it shows that they were in love.

The second shot is of  Kate (our main artist) writing to Tom saying how much she love him, this is going to be a close-up, and we were thinking of zooming in on the word 'love'.

Next is a wide shot which becomes a close-up as we are going to do a fast zoom into Kate whilst she is sat on the floor in the puppet outfit so she will have strings attached to her. We are going to make her tilt her head upwards as we zoom in so its creates a great impact point and the audience can see the expression and vulnerability on her face.

The fourth shot is a wide pan of Kate at a graveyard, she will simply be walking through singing, we were also thinking of having her sat next to a gravestone singing with the guitar too. This is going to be shot at 'in a city so dead'.

Next is a shot of Kate playing the guitar which we will place throughout our music video and have lots of different shots and angles.

The puppet shot is next where Kate is being held up by Tom, we will then cut to Tom moving the puppet strings which will make him look much more powerful than her and make him seem controlling which is one of the characteristics which we want to put across to our audience.

Next is a pan of Kate and Tom, this is where Tom goes in to kiss Kate and them pushes her away highlighting the control he has over her. We will pan the camera when her pushes her so that the audience gets to see her reaction.

And the final shot is of the photograph and rose which is at the beginning but the photo is torn up and the rose will be broken. This is going to be a still close-up shot which ends the story.

STORYBOARD

Storyboard








Below is an explanation of the shot list above:

The first shot on the storyboard is a wide/mid shot of a photograph of Tom and Kate (Avril and boyfriend characters) and a vase of roses, this shot is going to be still and at the beginning of the song. The idea with this is that at the start, the photograph and roses are going to be on the work surface and at the end there is going to be another shot of the photograph and roses but smashed on the floor, we are then going to edit the shot so it is black and white and the roses red.


The second shot is a long shot of Kate and Tom, Tom is walking away after just having an argument, we then zoom in when Kate grabs him and pulls him towards her saying the line 'Let's talk this over'. We are going to do this in slow motion as we think it would be more effective.


The third is a close-up of the shot before but we are going to do an arch shot, which is where we (the camera) spin around the couple in shot.

Next is an extreme close-up of Kate's lips singing, we then thought that we could tilt up so we have extreme close ups of the eyes. We was thinking about doing this on the line 'Was it something You said'.


The fifth shot is a wide shot in Lincoln where Kate is going to be standing still whilst everybody else walks past her, We are then going to speed this up in the editing process. This is going to take place on line 8 'In a city so dead'.


The sixth shot is of Kate as a puppet, there is going to be lots of different shots of her like this, from different angles as this is one of the main parts in our music video. We was thinking of doing a quick zoom to her face as she lifts up her head so the audience can see her smudged make up. We were thinking of doing this on the line 'Don't leave me hanging on such a breakable thread'.


The next shot is a performance shot of Kate. This is a mid/long shot at the gifted and talented centre. Again there is going to be many shots there from close ups to high shots.


Then a mid-close up shot of a group of Toms friends whispering into Tom's ear on the line 'I know what they say' and then a fade to Kate whispering into Toms ear on the line 'They tell you I'm difficult'.


We have thought of doing a close-up of Tom stroking Kate's face on the line 'You were all the things I though I knew' Tom then goes from stroking her face to pushing her to the floor. This is going to be done in slow motion.


This next shot is linked to the one above as it is of Kate lying on the floor singing the next line 'And I thought we could be'.


The eleventh shot is of Tom cutting the puppet strings, on the line 'Thanks for watching as I fall'.


The final shot is a mid shot of Kate in the Mic room at school singing like in the Ashlee Simpson video for 'Pieces of me'. The music video is below:

PROPS

The props that we used throughout our music video are below: 

•  Guitar

This shot was taken whilst we were on the roof filming.

•  Drum sticks 

• Piano 

• Puppet:
• String, thick and thin
• Scissors
• Wooden cross for puppet  

CAST

We have chosen Kate Fenwick to play Avril Lavigne as she is a drama student, a singer and our friend. She will not be afraid to give it her all. Tom Manson will be playing Kate's boyfriends character, he is also a drama student so he will not be shy to get into character. Tom and Kate have worked together on many occasions so we are confident that they will do good job.

Below is a picture of Kate, our main character:

Photograph of Tom, the boyfriend figure:

TARGET AUDIENCE

Below is a photograph of what we expect our target audience to be like

This is Kate, she is 17 years old and lives with her mum, dad and sister. She is currently at sixth form studying her A levels. You could describe her look as emo or punk. This look is a style characterised by melodic music and expression often with confessional lyrics. The clothes and make up that she wears are often bold and are there to make a statement, make her different and stand out from the crowd. She enjoys listening to music such as Paramore, All Time Low and You Me At Six.

Below is an image which I have created of our target audience, it explains all of the things which I would expect and hope to find within our target audience:

QUESTIONNAIRE

We distributed our questionnaire amongst our media class which had around 10 people in, everyone filled in the questionnaire and they answered every question.

Below is a screen shot of the questionnaire which we created:



Below are the results that we got:

1. Are you male or female?

2. What age group are you in?  (13-16)  (17-19)  (20+) 

3. On a rating scale of 1 to 10, (1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest) how often do you listen to music?  

4. On a rating scale of 1 to 10, (1 being the lowest) how often do you watch/ listen to music videos?

From the above you can see that most people listen and watch to music videos

5. Do you like music videos?   Yes or No 

Everybody who answered yes to this question and then explained why....

Here are some of the comments that were given on our questionnaire:

'Yes I like music and I like videos, so put the two together and you come up with a wonderful form of communication.'

'They give a visual form to music instead of just listening to it.'

'They can add depth to the song. More entertaining than just music videos.'

'Yes, they expand on the music and create a new package.'

'Adds depth to the song.'

'Music videos often help visualise what the song is about.'

'When you're watching and listening to music it makes it more interesting.'

'I like them :).'

'Because they are enjoyable to watch it, i also think they are important as they explain this song.' 
 

6. What do you feel is important in a music video? (tick 3)

They could choose from the following: 

Attractive actors/actresses
Music content
Text on screen
Lighting
Story line
Artists/ Band
Visual effects
Dancing
Varied shots of instruments

 7. What would make a CD/DVD cover stand out to you?

They could chose from the following:

                       

Bold bright colours	Name of the band and album/song
Close-up of the artist/band	Sticker on the front ‘featuring the single...’
Instruments	Other, please say …………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………

8. Do you believe that it is best to have brand identity across all media products?

    Yes                   No

Everyone who we asked said that it is best to have brand identity across all media products.

They were then asked to explain why, the main answer given was something along these lines: 

'Yes, brand identity is best as it links all of the products together so that they can be identified from either just an image, song title or colour scheme, etc'

Although the gender of the people that we asked to fill in our questionnaire were mostly male, there is not much difference between them, this is good as we get both genders opinion. Also the results that we have got show that most people within our age group (17-20) and target audience watch music videos, this is what we were hoping to obtain as they will be the main people watching our music video, and this age group are more likely to watch videos instead of just listening to the song, so we value their comments.
Some people believe that a music video is essential as it adds depth to the song and gives a visual form to the music. This is an important point that they made as it seems that they like the content of the video to relate to the lyrical content, we have taken this into consideration as I believe that it is best to relate the two together because it 'gives a visual from to the music'.
From question 6 you can see that most people like to see the artist and/or band in a music video, also the music content is very important. Because of this we are making sure that the main focus is on the lead singer/artist (Kate) and that in parts she is playing instruments.


Question 7 and 8 relate more to the the digipak and magazine advert which we will be designing shortly, it is good to have audience feedback on these two topics as well as they play a big part in the promotion of the artist. As you can see from the results that we have, most of the people we asked believe that bold bright colours and close-ups of the artist/band is essential as it draws you into that digipak or magazine advert. 

Because of our feedback, we will definitely consider all of the things that have been mentioned by our target audience and peers, this is to make sure that we have all the right criteria to make our music video enjoyable and interesting for those who will be watching.

PERMISSION

Below is a print screen of the permission request that my partner Sarah asked Avril Lavigne on her twitter page.

We have not yet got a reply from the artist but we took this as we are able to use her song My Happy Ending as our music video.

NEW GROUP AND SONG CHOICE

Due to recent events I am now in a group of 2, this includes me and Sarah.
The reasons for this is because Sian and Megan have decided to do a different song.
We were still going to do the same song, 'Summer of 69 by Bryan Adams' but because it is now autumn there isn't much opportunity to film for the Bryan Adams song, as we need it to look like summer, which is does not with it being the end of summer. Also some of the shots that we have are not up to A2 standard, so we are thinking of doing a different song.

We thought that doing a solo female artist would be easier than a band music video, this is because, like in Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams, it made it very difficult as we had to get everybody together in the same place at the same time which was often not possible because of other commitments, whereas a solo artist is easier to organise with the filming schedule, etc. Also a female artist would be the best choice as our friend is a singer and a drama student and is happy to help us out.
Because we had already done some filming for Summer of '69 we didn't really want to start from scratch so we decided to choose a song that would represent the end of summer as we could fit some of the footage that we had already filmed into it as memories, because of this we thought that the song would be a sad song or a feeling of loss, like a relationship.

Regarding these ideas we then went onto YouTube and found 3 songs which we think would be good for our music video.

Our 3 songs are below:

Cool - Gwen Stefani





The main reason why we have chosen this song because it has good lyrics, and a good story, so we could film a lot of narrative shots.


My Happy Ending - Avril Lavigne





This song is about the loss of a relationship and Avril Lavigne not getting the happy ending that she wanted. This fits in well with, not necessarily the end/loss of summer, the end of a relationship, it also has a lot of opportunity to do performance shots as well as narrative.



Who Knew - Pink





The music video above is also about the loss of a relationship, how she looses someone that she loved, and remembering all the good times that they had together, which fits in well with the memories of summer and the good times that you have at summer, so we could use some of the footage that we have already shot.



After choosing these songs we printed out the lyrics and took them home and each of us came up with ideas for all 3 songs. The reason for doing this is so that we both had an input in what would be in our video and so we didn't influence any of the decisions we made. We then came back to school and showed each other the ideas we came up with, then joined them together and discussed performance locations. 

Out of these 3 songs above we have chosen Avril Lavigne, My Happy Ending for our music video, this is because we have loads more ideas for it than the other videos.