Fourth day of filming- Final music video

So, today was the fourth day that we have used to film for our final A2 music video. On this day, we filmed from around 4.00pm-5.00pm due to inconvenience, and made sure that we had booked all of the equipment that we needed (DLSR and tripod) as well as all of the props (flannel shirt and black dress with a white cardigan).

• First, we re-filmed the mid shot of the girl's coat which match to the lyrics 'Leaves her coat'. We did this again as when editing, we realised that the shot we'd previously done had the main girl played by me walking past (when the shot is meant to be shown when the girl has already long gone and is in the wood) . Therefore, as using the previous shot wouldn't have made any sense, we decided to film another shot of the coat, but without getting the girl in the frame.
• We then filmed the long shots of the main girl rushing up the stairs and going back to her bedroom. 
• We also filmed a close-up of the main girl dropping the bag on her bed...
• And a mid shot of her on the bed with the shirt, and then one of her lying down on the bed.
• We then filmed the shots that fit with the instrumental parts of the song. This consisted of the shots where the main girl breaks down with worry and stress as she does not know where her lover is. Shots we filmed included a close-up of the girl hitting the wall and leaving a hole in it, a long shot of the girl throwing the shirt and a pillow, and a mid shot of her looking sad and frustrated.
• Finally, we filmed a close up of Tammy and I holding hands for the lyrics 'to the sound of love' (making it look as if one of the hands is a boy's, so as it fits with the narrative of the girl and her lover).

What went well: 

We were able to film everything we had planned on the shooting schedule and did a range of different shot types/angles to make it more interesting for our audience to watch. 

To improve:

We feel like we probably should have made sure that we had cleared everything that was in the shots (to make it more professional).

 Also, we feel like we also need to improve the match on action shot of when I punch the wall, as it did not look like a swift enough movement when we came to editing it. We will do this by not changing the camera angle too much when we re-do the shot.

Here are some screenshots of what we filmed on this day:

Thanks for reading.

Fourth filming schedule- Final music video

Hi everyone, here is the filming schedule for our fourth day of filming. There is everything that we want to film on it, so we can tick it off when we have finished the shot.

Here it is:

Updating our social media accounts

After yesterday's filming, Today my group and I decided that we should make sure that we keep our band's social media accounts active (like how real bands would keep fans updated). 

On Twitter, Elsie added a screenshot of some filming that we did on day 2 and I posted some photos that I had took behind the scenes 

Furthermore, Elsie then started to post on our band's Instagram using photos from each filming day.

Here is how it looks:

Third day of filming- Final music video

Hi everyone, so today my group and I thought that we should update you all on our filming and what we did with regards to it today. Today, we filmed shots including the 2 friends 'ripping' and 'drowning' the photo of the main girl's 'lover', the girl leaving the note and finally, all of the outside shots using the equipment we had booked (DLSR camera, tripod and shoulder mount). Because we were mainly filming outside we all made sure that we were wearing suitable footwear, warm clothing and reminded each other on what props or clothes we needed to bring over a group chat we have on Facebook.

 The shots that we filmed in order consisted of:

• A close-up of the tap running
• A high shot of the boy's picture in the sink
• A close-up of the picture being ripped by of the girl's friends
• A shot of the picture being thrown (which we had to do a couple of times to make sure that it was in shot. We also had to do this with a new photo that hadn't been wet, so as we were able to get it in the shot without it being too fast).
• Close-up of the girl opening the box which she keeps the photo of her lover in
• Extreme close-up of the girl's (Elsie's) eyes which fit to the lyrics 'I'm stunned'. Here we wanted the girl's eyes to look angry, so we took a fairly long shot to make sure that we can pick out the best part when we are editing it.
• Extreme close-up of the main girl's mouth lip syncing to the lyrics 'people marching to the drums, everybody's having fun to the sound of love', which we did to make sure that we still had some conventions of a music video (making sure that it didn't entirely drift off into something which looked more like a short film etc).
• A long shot which we filmed outside of the girl walking away from her home, as well as a mid shot of her turning around and looking back at her house.
• Long shots of the girl walking to a bench (outdoors). We then used a shoulder mount to film a shot of the camera craning around her while she was sitting on the bench.
• A long shot and a mid/close-up of the girl looking around the woods for her lover
• Long shot of his shirt hanging on a tree
• A low shot of the trees
• A mid shot/close-up of a globe spinning (we ended up using a different one than the one that we talked about in our props blog due to not having the access to it at this particular time).
• Long shot of the view from the window
• Ranges of different close-ups of Elsie playing the guitar
• A close-up of me marching from three different angles. (This filts with the lyrics 'People marching to the drums, everybody's having fun'. We did this to try and follow a convention of music videos with the visuals matching the lyric

Here are some screenshots of the filming that we did today:

What went well:

 We filmed everything that we had planned on the filming schedule. 

Also, with regards to the weather, we were lucky as it was forecast to rain but it didn't so we did not have to worry about lighting or finding a way to stay dry.

What could have been improved:

We needed to make sure we remembered all of the props as we had to use a different flannel shirt and globe. 

Furthermore, we had to think about how to throw the picture of the boy as we soon realised it was too light and damp to throw with force (after 'drowning' it). However, we did fix this problem quickly by crumbling a dry version up and using that.

Previous A2 music video analysis

Updating the music on our band website

Hi everyone, today we decided that it is probably a good idea to name our band's album 'Transylvania', named after the band's single that we are creating a music video for. Today, we also realised that to make our CD more realistic, we would have to add other songs on to it. Therefore, Elsie went and did some research and found the website www.purple-planet.com/ which allows you to use music from other students school projects (so all credit goes to them).

While updating the music on our band website, we added the rough draft of our album cover (however, this will change once we've finished it).

This is what the latest updates look on our band website:

Here is our album, along with the different songs that we are adding on our album.

Music page part 1

Music page part 2

We hope that you liked our updates, thanks a lot for reading...

Theories linked to our own ideas (our music video)

Vernallis' 'Functions and meanings of music video editing' theory- http://lozzykay.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/vernallis-functions-and-meanings-of.html (here is the link to my blog post on this theory).

With regards to our music video, we think that our music video will include some of the 'common features', however, we also think that our music video will challenge some of these features (as it is different to most music videos that are seen now). For example, Vernallis argues that a lot of music videos include a lot of close-ups to suggest that the appearance of the artist or band is important. As out music video doesn't include the band much, apart from a photo of the lead singer being in it, this therefore argues against this statement (as out music video is mainly narrative based and the story is being told than someone other than the band themselves). 
With regards to editing, Vernallis argues that music videos usually 'break the rules' of continuity (such as bands and artists changing their clothes, or the narrative from a story to the band themselves playing/singing the song). With regards to our own music video, our's kind of does this, as we have a band playing at a short part in our video. However, our music video mainly doesn't do this, as the most part of our video is one big narrative (one that is real and one that is imagined). This theorist also argues that music videos use a lot of jump cuts, which we are also using in our own music video to fit with the mood of the music, and how we want it to fit to the 'spooky' feeling.
This theorist also argues that the 'diegesis' is something which is revealed slowly throughout the music video and it's story. I also believe that this can be applied to our own music as the audience may be unsure what is happening until closer to the end of the music video, when it becomes more clear that one side of the narrative is imagined and is separate to the sleepover part of the narrative.
With regards to narratives in music videos, this theorist argues that it is sometimes disjointed (like our own), for the reason that I have stated above. 

'Two-step flow' theory: http://lozzykay.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/the-two-step-flow-theory.html (a link to my post on this theory).


This theory argues that information from media moves in 2 different stages. This means that the 'opinion leaders' receive the information, but then pass it on to the 'influentials' then receive this, but with the 'opinion leaders' own interpretations, meaning that it is bias.
Although this theory is kind of hard to apply to music videos, with regards to our own...

'Life Matrix' audience theory: theory: http://lozzykay.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/life-matrix-audience-theory.html (a link to my blog post on the different audiences described within this theory).

We think that our audience members are most likely to fit into the 'Fun/Antics' audience group (aspirational and fun seeking young individuals) as our music video's characters are played by young people (ourselves). Also, we think that these may also be the people who will enjoy interpreting our music video's narrative in their own ways. However, as we have previously said on some of our other audience blogs, we believe that anybody will be able to enjoy our music video.

John Hartley's 1994 genre theory: http://lozzykay.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/john-hartley-1994-theory_12.html (my post on this theory).

This theorist argues that genre limits creativity. However, our band's genre is considered (Pop Rock), I also believe that this is a genre which allows artist's to try different things with regards to their style and their music without really having to live up to certain expectations much. For example, an artist such as Marilyn Mason is an artist that people don't expect to do anything different to what he does (meaning he's not likely to come out with a pop song).

Andrew Goodwin's Theory: http://lozzykay.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/andrew-goodwins-theory.html (link to my post on this theory).

Genre characteristics: Our own music video mainly goes against some characteristics of a 'rock pop' music video. For example, the most part of our music video is narrative-based, with very little of the band being shown in a performance. However, as it does also include a small part of our band playing, it means that our music video does also fit in with this theory.

A relationship between lyrics and visuals: Our music video also includes this. For example, the line in the song 'leaves a note' in the song that we are using, we fit with a shot of the girl in our video leaving a note on the side/table.

A relationship between music and visuals: We are also using this in our own music video by fitting the shots to the music at some points. For example, the candle sequence that we are using at the beginning of our music video is something that we have recently edited. At this part of our music video, we sped up the shot so as it fits more with the music itself. However, as our music video is also mainly narrative based, there are times when the music isn't always fitting completely with the 'beat' of the song.

Demands of the record label (such as close-ups of the band/artist, mirrors, stages, and focusing upon the female body): Our music video does not include the band's faces themselves, meaning that our music video does not fit with this theory with regards to it arguing that music videos include a lot of close ups on the artist. 

Intertextual references: We have tried to add some of these in our own music video. For example, when the main girl in our music video leaves the house, various shots of the house and objects in it are shown, such as the TV which has been left on. Here, we used an intertextual reference by including a TV show on the screen (we tried to use a show which fit with the more 'dark' theme within our music video).

Stuart Hall's Reception theory: http://lozzykay.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/stuart-hall-reception-theory.html (A link to my blog post on this theory).

This theorist argues that an audience can see a certain form of media and take it either 3 ways, these being accepting the message, partially accepting the message, and being completely oppositional to the message. As in our music video, we aren't really trying to give out any certain message, I don't really think that many audience members will react to it in any of these 3 ways (however, this is still possible). Therefore, we expect our audience to 'accept the message'. However, some people may also interpret anything from it (this is possible with all music videos), so therefore have an oppositional view towards it. (For example, some members of our audience might just not like the story or think that it portraying something too 'particular'.

Richard Dyer's 'Star Theory': http://lozzykay.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/richard-dyers-star-theory.html (my first blog post on this theory, talking about what it argues) http://lozzykay.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-star-theory-applied-to-some-artists.html (my second log post on this theory, applying it to more artist's in detail).

This theory argues that different forms of media can demonstrate the star being 'constructed', by the record label presenting the artist's or band's look or style to be important. I think that our own band does not really apply to this through what we are creating (such as the music video for the single, the website, and the CD cover and back). This is because our band are never really shown (apart from their hands playing instruments, and in a photo in our music video, as the lead singer in our band plays 'The Boy' in our music video).
This theory also argues that 'stars' are a 'commodity', meaning that they are produced to basically create money for the record label. I also don't believe that this apply's to our own band, due to the some reason as my last point.
With regards to him arguing that stars are an 'ideology', he also states that stars will represent certain social groups/views so will therefore create certain ideologies. For example, he says that fans of the star will usually want to copy their style and be more like them. I think that this is something which could happen, as it can with any artist or band, however, our band obviously won't be big style icons such as how the Beatles were in the  60's/70's.

Third filming schedule- Final music video

Here is the filming schedule that we made for filming on Saturday at Elsie's house. Here is what we have planned to film:

Second day of filming- Final music video

Today my group and I focused on out second shooting our music video from 3:30pm - 7:30pm at Tammy's house again. For this we booked a DLSR and a tripod. As this was something on our 'what could be improved' part last time, we also remembered to take 2 batteries in case one ran out (giving us more time to film). Also, with regards to costumes, Elsie bought her dress and Tammy had her onesies (which her and I wear in our music video).

We used the shooting schedule more this time around, as we found that it helped us keep on track of what we needed to get done (we ticked off what we did as we went along).. The first parts of filming we did included the quick cuts of when the girl has left the house (which in editing we made into quick cuts to create the dramatic effect that we wanted to achieve). Other shots that we filmed included a long shot of the bedroom, a mug on the bedside table, the TV being left on and her dressing table with her jewelry left on it. We then filmed the main girl packing her bag, opening the door, going downstairs and leaving her coat before leaving her house.

We then filmed the footage for more of the sleepover part of the narrative. This included us filming a long shot of us all sat on the bed, but since looking at it we feel that we will need to make it darker in editing to keep the 'spooky' theme going. We then shot a quick close up of each of us with the torch being held underneath our faces (to once again keep the spooky theme). We also shot the close up shot of Tammy blowing out the matchstick (after she has lit the candles in the bedroom).

Finally, we decided to film me and Tammy lip syncing again, as before we felt that it didn't look realistic enough, and the lighting was not quite how we wanted it) . We were able to improve the lighting by using a torch on our faces. (Also, we remembered to take down the posters in the background, so it looked more professional).

What went well:

We believe that our time management went well as we were able to get most of the shots done that we were planning to do. Furthermore, we started filming shots from the other side of the narrative (the 'spooky' story). What also went well was the fact that we were able to improve the shot of me and Tammy lip syncing.

What could have been improved:

We feel that we probably needed to set up quicker and make sure that we had everything that we needed was ready for filming. For example, we were going to film the shots from the 'spooky' story narrative of the girl opening the box and looking at the picture of the boy the she likes, as well as the shots of the girls friends destroying it. However, there were technical problems with Tammy's printer so therefore we will have to film it at the next filming day we have at Tammy's house.

Here are some screenshots of what we did on this filming day:

Second filming schedule / updating info on band website

Hi everyone, so as I have previously mentioned, we decided to film another Wednesday to make sure that we have enough footage when it comes to editing our final music video (we are filming again tomorrow at Tammy's house).  

Here is the second shooting schedule that we made which will help us remember what needs to be done when it comes to filming. This means that we can get everything done that we need to done faster.

Elsie also thought that it would be good to add a bit of information to the 'ABOUT' page on our band website. On this page she wrote a review on our band (as if it was from a magazine) and also just some general information about what the band have been doing (therefore making it more realistic, as though are band is real).

Here is how it looks with the latest updates:

Updating band merchandise / Social Links & Contacts

Hi everyone, so today Elsie went and the new band wristbands that I designed yesterday to our band website, and she also duplicated the 'Buy Now' buttons next to them (so that they all matched and went well with our theme/colour scheme). 

We also decided as a group that we should make the price of the wristbands £2.50 (as usually, smaller pieces of merchandise are cheaper than the clothing, and our band are also a small band) Elsie also made sure to make the 'Price' button the same.

Here is how it looks the update looks on our website:

Elsie then decided that we needed to complete our social bar which is displayed at the top right-hand side of our website. This involved Elsie creating a YouTube channel (another platform to link to our website, and something that we can post our final music video on). She also changed the profile picture on it to our band logo (like we have done for our Twitter, Facebook) and the background of a tree (which also fits with our theme). 

Elsie then created an Instagram account for our band (so that we now have 4 platforms linked to our band website) and did the same thing that we have done with all our social media (same profile band logo, description and with a link to our website if possible). She then linked both of these new platforms to our 'social bar' on our band website.

This is what our new accounts look like for our band (YouTube and Instagram):

Elsie finally then added in things to the 'CONTACTS' page on our band website. On this page, she added some contacts for management, PR and booking. This meant that she had to come up with some fake names and emails (which also then makes our website more like a real band website).

Here is how it looks:

Thanks for reading, I hope that you like all of our new updates.

New wristbands- Band merchandise

Hi everyone, so tonight I thought it would be good to update our wristbands for our bands merchandise line (as we did with some of the clothing). Here is what I came up with. Obviously, I added a falcon iconn on the front of 2 of the wristbands, as well as adding the band name and some of our singles (Tranylsivania) lyrics on 2 of them. On the last one I dicided to draw a simple tree disign (to fit with the theme we have on our website and social media and also the CD design idea we came up with), and with the band name on the back.

I hope that you like our new updates, thanks for reading. 

We are going to add these to the shop on our website tomorrow.

Starting to use our social media and creating more

Hi everyone, tonight my group and I decided that we should start to use our twitter page (to make our band seem more realistic). I added a bio for our band, added our location, and put in a link to our website so as we are more connected, making it easier to get recognised. We also decided to tweet our first 2 times. Here is what I updated with regards to our information and the 2 tweets that we tweeted:

Tonight, we also decided to create a Facebook page (which can also be linked to our band website). We added our band logo as our profile picture and stuck tot he same theme as our Twitter page. We added a 'send email' button onto our page as well as the events that we put on our website (the gigs that we made up for our band). 

Here is a link to the page for our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/FirelightFalconsOfficial/

The first day of filming

Hi everyone, so today my group and I started filming for our final music video. We worked from about 3:30pm - 7:30pm and focused on interior shots. We were prepared and booked all the equipment that we needed (DLSR, Shoulder Mount and Tripod) and remembered what costumes were needed (vasically the onesies). 

We firstly filmed Elsie lip syncing to the whole song and made some lighting choices (making it quite dark to fit with the 'spooky story' feel). To achieve the lighting that we filming this in, we turned all of the lights off and lit some candles, as well as using a torch under her face.

After this, we took some short close-ups of Tammy lighting some candles which we did from a variety of angles. (These will be used at the beginning of the music video). We then did some shots of the candles burning and then been blown out. We decided to do this as it will make the structure of our music video clearer with the candles being lit at the beginning of the music video and then showing them being blown out at the end of the music video when the story is finished. 

We then filmed Tammy and I lip syncing to the parts that we are singing to in the music video when we are shown to be teasing Elsie's character. However, we feel that we will need to film this again as Tammy's posters in the background made our video not look as professional as we'd liked. Also, we think that the lighting in the shot needs to be improved.

Here are some screen shots of what we worked on yesterday:

Here is what went well and what we could have done to improve what we did:

What went well:

• Elsie's lip syncing was in time, the lighting went well with how we wanted it to look. We also filmed her lip syncing to the whole song, so this will come in handy when editing the video. (meaning that we have more footage than we need and will be able to use bits in our video whenever we feel that we need more lip syncing to be added).
• We also think that the candle shots turned out well, and the lighting also looked wanted it to be to fit in with the feel of the song (and the 'spooky' story that the girl is telling'.

What could have been improved/what we will do next time:

• Next time we know that we will have to take another battery. This is because the battery ran out quickly so we missed a lot of time that we could have spent filming. because of this, we also learnt that we shouldn't leave the camera on when we are setting up the shots, as this wasted it's life a lot.
• Trying to steady the shots more is something that web should try and improve on, as when watching some of our clips back, we found that they weren't as steady as we thought they were. To improve this, we will try and use the tripod and webcam as much as we can and try and avoid more handheld shots (apart from when we want it to look more shaky to fit with the 'spooky feeling').

UPDATE: We also had a think and also decided that we were going to film more again next Wednseday, as well as Saturday next week, as we feel that we need the time to get all of the footage that we want.

Final music video- First shooting schedule

Hi everyone, 

as I have previously said, tomorrow is when we are going to start filming some parts of our final music video. Therefore, in advance we wrote a shooting schedule to help us remember everything that we have to do, here it is:

Making a Twitter page for our band

Hi everyone, today my group and I decided to make a twitter page for our band so as we could link it on our band website. 

We decided to put our profile picture as our band logo and set the header as a picture that previously took when she went 'exterior location scouting'. We decided to use a photo where there is some red incorporated in it, so as it fits with the red in our logo. 

Here is the link to the Twitter page that we made:

https://twitter.com/Fl_Falcons

Here is a screen shot of what we have created so far:

Final music video- Narrative

• The music video begins at a sleepover where the main girl (played by Elsie) is telling a 'spooky' story to her friends while they all sit on the bed. Then the camera zooms into a book and it jump cuts to the story that is being told by the girl herself.
• The girl opens a tin which includes a picture of the boy then she packs, writes a note and leaves her home to try and find the boy. (With regard to the mise-en-scene here, it is shown to be raining outside to fit with the mood).
• The narrative then cuts back to the sleepover with the 3 girls where the main girl's 2 friends are teasing her and then they drown and rip up the photo of the boy and throw it away (which fits with the lyrics).
• The video then cuts to the band playing for some part of the chorus.
•  For the other part of the chorus, it again goes back to the sleepover. 
• It then switches back to the story that is being told (all of what the main girl is imagining) where she is seen looking around for the boy where they were going to meet, but she cannot find him. Instead she finds a flannel shirt which actually belongs to him (this is shown earlier on in the photo of him which the 2 friends destroy. 
• The girl then begins to worry and makes her way back home and clutches/hugs the shirt of him, hoping that nothing bad has happened to him.
• The narrative then cuts back to the sleepover to the girl telling the 'spooky story'.
• Suddenly it cuts back to the main girl in the imagined narrative, but she is going mad with stress and worry.
• Finally the music video ends at the sleepover setting, where all of the candles are blown out to signify the end of the story (making the audience wonder what might have happened next).

Developing merchandise, updates to website & CD inspo

Hi everyone, so today my group and I decided that we should update our merchandise, making it look more professional than what we previously came up with. We thought that it would be a good idea to use the eagle from the band's logo which we made, to show a consistency in the band's design and branding. Elsie also suggested that instead of using cartoon templates of clothing (like we did in our original ideas), we should use plain real clothing to make it more realistic for when people are viewing our website, thus making them more interested. Elsie went and used Google images to find some pieces of clothing and then added our eagle design onto them.

Here is what they ended up looking like:

Elsie then added these to our website and we all decided on pricing the t-shirts at £15 and the jumpers £20 as they are usually higher in price and we are a 'small band'. Elsie then added the buttons 'Price' and 'Buy Now' next to each one and decided on their placing and colouring. She then added two headers saying 'T- Shirts' and 'Jumpers' in a pastel orange as it matched our aesthetic and colour scheme of our website. 

Elsie then updated the 'Home' and 'Gigs' pages with some tour dates and where they would be taking place. We decided that we would choose small gigging places/locations as our band is not fully established but are just starting in their career, therefore, naming smaller places of performing would make more sense than an arena. 

Here our the updates that can be seen to our website:

Finally, while Elsie was checking her Twitter, she came across some artwork of a nature-based piece on animals and had the idea that something like it would fit with our tree theme shown across our website perfectly. This inspired us so we decided that I should draw a version of it but with a falcon. This is another idea that we think we could use this as part of our albums front or back cover.

Here is our inspiration and our version drawn by me:

Here is the piece that Elsie found on Twitter.

And here is the piece that I drew.

We hope that you enjoyed all of our new ideas and updates, thank you for reading.

UPDATE: I then thought of an idea for our CD cover that would incorporate both of our existing ides.  Here is what I came up with, obviously when it is the final design, the grey background on the falcon will be cut out so only the 'tree aesthetic' will be seen.