Thursday 15 December 2011

Chosen Song Names for Our Album

Its oh so quiet
Carpe diem
Paradox
Tomorrow's Love
Lady of Shalott
Sapphire
Guinevere
Unrequited Love 
Cosmic
Lancelot 

Libby and I were brainstorming names for our album, the song "Its oh so quiet" is the one we are making our music video for. I chose a lot of the names I made a link to King Arthur and his love Guinevere as there is a love story of deceit as she cheats on him with Lancelot. So I wanted to make this link to our album and songs as are lead singer represents the character Elaine who has an unrequited love for King Arthur and kills herself many artists paint her as she is on a barge full of flowers on the river Thames and this is the lady of Shalott reference. The lead singer reminds me of Elaine as she is dainty and voices her emotions in powerful ways. I chose the other names cosmic to show the bands ethos of being in sync with the universe and the song carpe diem as they think there music can truly make a difference. All of the other songs were Libby's choice and she chose them as she thought they fit the other titles well and they do. I am overall happy with all of our song choices as I think they match our bands ethos of being natural and the strong force of love in nearly everyone of there songs and heart ache. 

Monday 12 December 2011

12/12/11 Journal

Today's Journal

Today was another day of filming, shooting another calm scene this time i brung in two clothes option changes for Molly, introducing a new floaty crochet poncho and a big pearl and rose necklace. We were lucky enough to shoot in the gallery again today, but we realised we will have to film all the quirky little parachute men and other effects after Christmas as the gallery will be empty from all the artwork then. Whereas at the moment we are able to use a free plain white wall in the corner. New camera shots were experimented today such as I had the brain wave of doing a worms eye view and getting a shot of Molly spinning with the glass roof above her, hopefully this turned out well. Tomorrow in our free lesson Si Hin and I are going to look over the footage and hopefully it all looks as good as we suspect it does. Also Molly wants to dye her hair blonde by New Years Eve, we first thought this could be an issue but today I suggested we simply shoot all of her shots now and film her in front of the firework projection with blonde hair. Artists in the music industry have different hairstyles and colours in their videos all the time such as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Nikki Minaj. We hope that this will not interrupt our continuity.

Location Shots- Behind the Scenes Shots

This is another location that we chose it is a piece of artwork in the drama corridor in our school, we wanted our music video to be simply so that's why most of it is filmed in the plain white exterior that the school's gallery gives us. However when we use other locations we like them to be bright and strange like this one, so you wouldn't notice it was filmed in a school.
This is a shot of the tripod down low, we used this low angle when filming Molly singing as the angle shows off her dancing her costume and the location to the best. We did use other angles such as a close-up of Molly singing by the cracked mirror effect.
This is just another angle of what I could see whilst filming from a low angle.
This is a behind the scene shot of me filming Molly, it was taken by Si Hin as he was acting as a runner helping with props and setting the shots up with me so that we got the best angles and locations.
This is another location it is a small picture that a student in our school made for their exam artwork. I liked the idea of using it as it fits our bands ethos of being natural and serene. However the lighting in this shot is rather bad, Si Hin will hopefully be able to lighten it up in final cut pro.

This is another location, the reason in which we could only start filming in the gallery in our school at the end of December is because of the Alternative prize at our school. This piano is an installation piece by one of the students and we were able to film next to it. It adds to our bands ethos of being in to their music that it is all about the instrumentals and lyrics.
We filmed Molly just singing by the piano and this is what it looks like from the front, the shot we had was a mid-shot that was tilted to look a little bit like a birds eye view shot also. We had Molly lip syncing a few lines from the song here.
This is a behind the scenes shot of what it looked like, Molly sat in the blue chair to give the illusion she was able to play the piano. However we were not allowed to touch the piano as it was a piece of artwork, I think how Si Hin and I set up the shot helped our illusion perfectly.
This is a behind the scene shot of Molly waiting as we were finishing up on setting up our shot. This is a wide angle to show the amount of space we had to play around with we did end up tightening up the shot to make it look far more realistic.
This is just a shot of Molly waiting whilst we set up our shot.
Another shot of Molly waiting, I took this photograph whilst Si Hin changed the batteries in the camera because I wanted to display the other work that was in the gallery, to prove how we had to tighten up our frame to not get it all in.
This is a view of what Molly would see when she was sitting down performing for the music video.
This is another shot to prove the space in which we had to make the shot look professional and realistic.
A similar shot to the last, to show how intimate the shot had to be in the end.
This is another location within the gallery, it was the only plain wall left in the gallery during the prize work. We filmed Molly lip syncing here and falling from a chair, this shot in particular worked well and will be used within our music video.
This is just another angle of our new location to again show the true amount of space we had to work within.
I took this photo as i liked the use of the sheets on top of the piano and the art work behind Molly. It shows the tiny factors within this shot.
Just a shot of the tripod and what it will look like when we start shooting our scene.
This is just a shot of Molly rehearsing for another scene, in which she would have to be spinning and in the editing process we will slow the shot right down.
This is again the view in which Molly would view from where she was sitting and about to perform from.

Friday 9 December 2011

09/12/11 Journal

Today's Journal


Today was our next day of filming, as Libby was not in Si Hin and I thought that the best thing for our groups schedule was to carry on with filming. Libby was fine with this as she will be present at all of the rest of the filming days. Today we were finally able to get in to the gallery, today we also shot the calm scenes in the music video, we were able to shoot in the gallery which we were very pleased about. The clarity to me of the scenes shot in the gallery compared to the shots every where else are just the best. I have thoroughly enjoyed doing all of the camerawork as not only do I stick to the storyboards but I am able to come up with new ideas on the spot whilst filming, based on inspiration from our locations. We also are able to find a lot of quirky backdrops in school, today a wall piece of artwork with faces and mirror work on it, was used as another backdrop which we enjoyed filming in front of. However there was a lot of noise from the music students so Molly's lip syncing was not so successful in the end, we'll have to look over the footage as we made need to re-film that shot. But so far the filming is up to schedule and looking good, there is a piano in the gallery that we are able to film in front of which heightens our bands ethos of being for the music. So far the filming looks like it's going well and editing to digipaks is continuing.

Wednesday 7 December 2011

07/12/11- Journal

Today's Journal


Today was our first day of filming in our gallery and school based locations, we searched the school for certain locations as the gallery was busy due to the schools annual "Alternative Prize" evening. So we chose a tone shade of blue glass brick wall, which was upstairs next to our schools sixth form centre. The light that was pouring this wall made it rather effective. We also found this massive painted heart on the wall in science which we thought would work perfectly with our music video, due to it all being about love and relationships. Our last location of the day was another picture this time of multiple drawn hearts, artwork by some students. The locations we chose I feel are the most effective, they were not what we intentionally had in store for our music video, but it anything i like all of our shots from today. I think it is far better for us to a wide variety of shots when it comes to us filming. As the last thing we want is for our audiences to get bored, as we want our video to be fast paced and very interesting and intriguing. We still have a lot more filming to do, but i shall try and upload a few un-edited clips of our rough footage, for examples of what our music video might look like in the end. 

Digipak Edited Photos


These two photos are just two of the many photos that I have already taken for my digipak. I am thinking of taking even more photos, to give myself more of a varied selection, but these two photos are definitely appearing on my digipak. So i have edited them on photoshop to make sure they look of the highest quality. I like the theatrical idea of masks, it sticks to the bands fun and quirky ethos. I know these photos do not look like my original ideas for my digipak but if anything i like these photos more. I definitely want to expand upon this theatrical idea, yet i will still be using ideas from my drawn digipak such as the photo of Molly with her microphone. I may take more photos in the next week or so, I shall also update my blog with a lot of the pictures i have taken for my digipak to show the variation in my ideas.

Location Shots and Behind the Scenes

This first shot, is our first location for our singer Molly. As the gallery is still in use at the moment we are scouting for locations around school that look interesting. This is just one of them, it is in the upstairs corridor next to the sixth form common room. The glass wall and it's cooling colours and texture add a nice contrast to Molly's crazy dance scene.

This is just a photo of Molly beside our first location of the day, we took a few tester shots on a still camera to see just how she would appear in front of the wall and if it looked good. We decided that this worked well but that the sunlight was too strong behind her so we had to move along to a similar wall but just further down the corridor.


This is just a behind the scenes shot of Libby setting up the camera and tripod and framing the scene for Me to then start filming Molly's scene. Libby was also playing our song off of her Ipod so that it would be easier for Molly to do her lip syncing.

This is just another behind the scene shot of me and Si Hin in between filming, we were conferring with Libby of what we should film for today referring back to the storyboards constantly.


This is our next location for the day, we found this artwork in the science corridor in school a little while ago. We thought it would fit the sadistic and crazy stance our lead singer has to love and the heart. We may use this location again to film in front of as it is a great backdrop. Molly was simply dancing crazily in front of it and acting as if she was stalking her prey.


This is a shot that we use in our music video to establish the emotions she has link back to her heart and are to do with love. The heart is a symbolism we want to appear throughout of music video through various different allegories such as this and the heart shaped pinata we are going to make.


This is another shot of our location but again with Molly standing in front of it so we can see how it will work with all of the other micro-features. Such as the mise-en-scene Molly's costume and her make-up and particular cinematography, as we realised this background looks far better in a wide shot.


This is a still of Molly's dance scene taken from behind the scenes, by Libby. Just giving a taster of the sort of acting that shall appear in our music video. Just how flamboyant and eccentric it is.
This is another still taken from behind the scenes of Molly's dancing, these stills do act as evidence for us but also are a good way for use to make sure it all looks exactly as we want it. Just in case we decide to film there again we can know what we want.


Again this is another still of Molly dancing, from behind the scenes.

This is just another behind the scene shot of Molly's dancing, but cropped so we can see what the shot would look like if it were not a wide shot anymore.
This is the final still of Molly dancing from behind the scenes, again it is cropped so we can see how it works and if the allegory of the heart is still prominent.
This is a behind the scenes shot of me filming Molly's dancing scene from another angle. We chose to film her from the front and to either side of her.
This is another behind the scenes shot of me filming Molly, but from my perspective how it looks on the HD Flip camera.
This is our final location of the day, it is another piece of artwork we liked and found in science. It is again another allegory for the heart in relation to literal love and "heart ache".
                 
This is our last behind the scenes shot for the day of Libby filming Molly in our final location. Molly was lip syncing again in this scene the lyrics "Zing Boom" we will probably film again here.