preparing for the shoot

In this lesson to prepare for our shoot in further detail, we had a production meeting to allocate tasks for each group member to complete. Layla was doing our production schedual/call sheet, chuffy and sarah started on ideas for the website, and I went to the editing suite and edited our run through with Emma and the boys.
When I went up I discovered that most of our footage had been accidentaly deleted by other people doing production. I was left with only 3 clips of what we had shot, and none of them included the things we had changed and definatly want in our music video, like Emma pulling one of the boys shirts etc, so our clip doesnt show the parts we filmed and directed that we really like. The clip I edited is now, rather than a showing to what our video may look like, an experiment of what works and what doesnt, it also is just a recording of a vague run through of 1 cafe/bar scene.
Here is the edited clip;

Copyright Permission

In order to be able to actually make a music video for our chosen song (Anti Love Song by Stereo Total) we had to find out if Stereo Totals record label would allow it. We found their details and then sent them an email to inform them that we were making this music video and ask if it was okay. As we were emailing them we thought it would be a good idea to ask if they could send us the music sheets for the bass and keyboard. If we had this, we could give it to our performers and they could learn it, making their playing look more legitimate and real.

setting up for the run through

 We had to do a full run through of our video so in my free before our allocated studio time at 3, I decided to set up.
I went to the studio with Phil and got some gaffa tape to mark out how big each set was. We measured 24 meters across which took up most of the studio, showng that we had hardly any space to move about within each set. I then tried to place props in each set to see how much room we had to work with and I found that in the cafe and bar, the bar would have to be next to the door and we would only be able to fit in 1 table.
I thought about maybe setting the space up diagonally so that when filming, the camera can go further back in order to be able to fit in the wide shot of all three sets that we wanted, or we would have to get a special lense.
Underneath is a diagram of of the dimensions and measurements of our set. Looking at it on a diagram, I discovered is very different to real life, as when i was setting up the gaffa tape, the set suddenly looked a lot smaller. So small that we had to alter how many chairs and tables we could fit in the bar and cafe.



 We met with all the cast in the studio and with everyone there the set looked EVEN smaller. This showed us that we do not need that much going on in each set as the people make it busy enough.

Audience Research

We have to research into our target audience and in order to do this we had to look at other artists that relate to our artist. I am using the same artists I researched for genre; Lily Allen and Avril Lavigne.
Lily Allen;
I looked on Lily Allen's twitter page to find her followers. I found a very diverse range of people that followed Lily Allen. She had fans from turkey, asia, england etc and her follows went from the early ages of 11 to over 50s.

I then looked at the search bar and decided to type in "Lily Allen Fans" to see what would come up. I got a huge list of twitter accounts with this name that her fans had set up in order to help poeple keep up with everything Lily is doing. This shows she has a lot of dedicated fans out there, obsession over her every move. I saw that her followers were all into very different things and had a huge diversity in jobs, like personal trainers, accountants etc. This shows that in order to fufill the asks of being a "pop-artist" you have to be popular with more than one genre or type of person.

I then typed "Lily Allen" into google and a number of fan sites came up. One I particularly looked up had the most hits, called 'OH-LILY'. The first thing I saw upon clicking on this website was the photograph they had of Lily. The page had a pink background and there was a cutely-posed photograph of her chewing a necklace. There were graphics all around her on this website and this is inkeeping with the reaserch I did on her tour posters where she always has graphic desgns around her. The photo is very girly, attracting her majority audience of teenage girls.

The welcome message talks about how this website provides people with updates of "Lilys every move". This shows that her fans are very very dedicated to her. There is even a game that was made for the Lily Allen fansite and its is about making a fashion doll and styling your own Lily. This shows that majority of her fans are very girly and into fashion. She attracts poeple who are into fashion as she has also created a fashion line for herself called "Lucy in Disguise".

 Here is a screenshot of the game on the website; "Perfect Look". I also decided to research her concerts on youtube so I could look further at the audience and see for myself the type of people that go to her concerts and gigs. I went to a Lily Allen concert went I was 15 and came to find I was one of the youngest ages there, showing how diverse her fanbase is.

researchingn into genre and similar artists

re shooting the storyboard

We re made the storyboard as in the meeting with the set designer we changed our idea slightly and added different photo shoots like the beach into our video.
In the lesson I re shot the storyboard and am in the process of editing it. This was vital as the storyboard will help our video run a lot smoother as it is a guide as to what we need to film at each time and how much of each set we need to film.

Shooting the storyboard

I went to the editing suite and shot the storyboard and then edited it so we could get a feel of how the video would look. Here is the finsihed edit and storyboard;

Ancillary Products

 Whilst Layla and Chuffy finalised the set design, I decided to work on our ancillary products.

 

While layla and chuffy were away, Sarah and I looked over costumes for the boys and extras. We thought about all the different parts there will be and to lower costs we asked the boys whether they could bring in their own clothes if they have anything like what we were looking for, either to wear themselves, or lend to other people. We decided it was better to be over stocked with costumes than under stocked. I sent them an email to inform them of these costumes. We decide we needed;

boiler suits - which we can provide

white shirts

black shirts (both collard)

black trousers

no trainers

aprons for the waiters- which we will have to supply from the theatre department

We also decided that we need a make up and hair artist for the shoot as thats how we open our video. i thought Francesca Wilson Waterworth would be perfect for the make up artist as she is fun and quirky and will be confident in front of the camera.

The little details like the aprons for the waiters will the be the things that really make it clear and determine who they are as characters.

 

Meeting with the Set designer

On Thursday we met with our set designer to pitch our final treatment on our 3 sets. We went through each set with the designer and got feedback;

Dressing Room- we talked about the general colour and decoration of the dressing room and came to a conclusion that we would have to supply most of the props ourselves and buy what we couldn’t find. We decided that we would put all the sets up together at the same time so even though they wouldn’t be as big as we would have hoped, we could do a very effective wide shot of the whole thing. We will be providing our own flowers, fairy lights and balloons for our photo shoot and we are keeping it pink/cream colour scheme.

The background for the café will be mobile and it will be a photo/picture/painting of a window with cade written backwards on so it looks like we are inside the café. We will have curtains to make it look more legitimate also.

We actually wanted a psycadelic background for our second photo shoot but decided it would be more practical to have a sheet come down from the ceiling in front of the photographer and the girl and when the photography camera flashes go off, you will see her silhouette, this was a way of nicely and creatively incorporating silhouettes in our shoot which we really wanted.  Whilst this is going on, the set boys will be laying down sand, which our designer is providing, ready for our beach photo shoot.
We decided a bistro was a better idea than a bar as we would have to only slightly change our original café setting so it’s more practical. We will visit the theatre department to ask for certain costume, for waiters and tables and chairs that go in the bistro.

Our meeting was a big success as we got a lot across to the designer and a lot of ideas were accomplished. It has also set us in a more solid idea about what will happen in our music video.

Polydor Records

Emily comissions music videos at Polydor and she came in t talk to us about what makes a good treatment etc. She told us that a team of 3 take care of visual content and talk about the budget for the video, which is determined by record and single sales etc.
When brainstorming a video you have to think about whether you want a;
performance?
narrative?
will it feature the band or actors?
When they decided the write a brief and send it to around 5-10 directors who are given a week to come up with a treatment. The band andbuisness both have a descision and input on what they what for the video.
Emily is a link between the label-the band-the production company-the director.
There is a formula to treatment writing. It has to be clear and simple, straight to the point (no babbling). You also have to make sure the idea translates to whoevers reading it as they will only have a few minutes to read your treatment and decide whether they like the idea. Visual references are helpful, you need to show pictures that are as close looking as possible to what you want. Always take the artist highly into account and include technical detail like whether you shoot shakey/handheld, if you want a pacy cut or slow scenes etc.
I really enjoyed this talk and as you can see i have learn a lot for her talk about giving treatments. I would now include more pictures and details about cuts and camera angles in my treatments.

Here are 3 music videos that Polydor records made;