Filming at the Junction

At the moment we are capturing the footage we got from the Junction yesterday.

Yesterday after school me, Louis, Hannah, Emma, Yasmine and Tilly went to the Junction, we al go there at 1pm and went to the reception to talk to the guy that Nick had arranged to show us the rooms. The dressing room was perfect for our music video, as it had the coat pegs we wanted and mirrors all around it. The other room we had to dress up a little to make it more convincing. We closed the curtains and eventually got a technician to help us sort out some lighting which was very effective. We also found some props such as the chairs we needed for the dance routine in a cupboard.

We started with filming the dance routine because Emma could only stay for an hour, and we got a variety of shots to the music, and a few cutaways for the dancers. When Emma left we started filming Hannah's lipsync to the music and then did the dressing room scene. I think we stayed until around 4.20pm doing these scenes.

Today we are starting the editing process (mainly sorting all of the clips so they are lipsynced) and we have one last cutaway shot to film which will be a group of people playing cards around a table. I bought the cards yesterday on the way to the Junction just in case we'd have time to film the scene there.

Sadly I think we have lost the whole Jazz bar theme, but with the costumes we kept the berlesque look at least, and if we film the card scene well it may still be possible to create the Jazz bar effect, though the actors there will not be in costume and there are only 10 of us in the class at the moment because everyone else is still filming.

Dance Routine

Today we are going to have to film this dance between 1pm and 2pm, because Emma will need to leave by 2. This should be enough time to get a variety of shots, as long as all goes to plan with the travel, and the setting up of the scene with lighting etc.

Apparently the people at the Junction might be able to help us with the lighting if we tell them the look we are trying to achieve.

Here is the video of Emma, and Yasmine practicing our dance (the parts where they don't move are the parts where Tilly will be doing some of the dance:

Dance Routine. from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Digipak Template

This is the template for a basic digipak. I think I will add in some parts like exclusive posters on the inside of it and I'll make two images for the 'front' because it'll be holographic.

There will also need to be a barcode:

And here is the tracklist for Esthero's album of 'Wikked Lil' Grrrls' found on this wikipedia page:

Plan for shooting today

Today we are going to be shooting the girls getting ready and the performance at the junction. We have booked the Junction for the day from 1.30pm and we have a dance routine sorted. We will be shooting the dancers (Tilly, Jasmine and Emma) and the singer (Hannah) seperately and will use the dance routine as a cut-away as it might not go with the theme of the place the whole way through. The Junction have a drum kit to use as well if we need it.

At the moment I am writing the song onto a CD. We have decided that we don't need to put the BBC style blips at the beginning because the song has such an obvious opening riff that we can sync anyway.

The Junction

To give us an idea of how much space there will be on the stage in the Junction, and what can potentially be done with it, me and Louis watched this video from last year's music video's:

L3/13 - UFO - NEWTON FAULKNER (Loz & Ash) from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Poster idea

This is one image idea I think I might use for the poster part of the ancillary task. I need to add more text to the image (I ran out of time in today's lesson). The image is of one of the stencils that my brother made and took a picture of. It can be found here on his website under 'art' and then 'Maya'.

For the digipak part of the ancillary task, I think I would like to use a different image, perhaps use Hannah (the actor for the main singer). I wouldn't use this image for that because I want it to have a holographic effect, so that when the image tilts, the photo/image moves slightly and the title etc. appears.

Ali's test footage

Also on Friday I went and helped Ali's group with their test footage. It basically involved dancing around and looking happy. But again I had to go out to the music/ drama rooms and sort out getting the instruments etc for everyone. I also had to climb into the drama studio and let everyone in through opening the door from the inside. Jahmal stayed upstairs on the balcony part so he could film from there.

Here is the finished footage:

L3 TEST FOOTAGE - 1.2.3.4 footage ali,jah,yas from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Test Footage

L3 TEST FOOTAGE - Louis, Charna and Hannah from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Here is our test footage we did to fit the animatic. During this lesson I started working on the digipak while they got the footage, and then helped with the editing. Also in that lesson, I helped Ali's group with their test footage, by going to the music room and getting the instruments again, opening the drama room for them, and also being a performer.

Thanks to everyone in the class for being in our test footage, because it really helped us think about camera angles, lighting etc.

With our test footage I really liked how we cut it quickly at the beginning between locations. The card shots work really well and I think in the real thing we should use more of that. Hannah performed really well, and the 'dukes up' intro to her on the stage worked well. The audience didn't quite go as planned because we wanted a different setup such as tables and chairs like a restaurant, not like a school assembly. This is because, as we are filming in a school hall, we need to make it clear that we're not trying to make it look like a school hall, we'll probably need more lighting to sort this out.

I think as test footage this edit worked really well, it's better that we focused on the first 30 seconds rather than attempting the whole thing because we got the opportunity to edit well.

Hannah and Louis's animatic

Here is the version of the animatic that Hannah and Louis made while I was away:

Digipak test

Here is a picture I edited from when our group took test footage of the dance routine.

Here is the original:

Here is an edited version:

Today

Today in lesson we talked about the trip we were going to go on to Bournemouth University and as a class we discussed what we would like the new diploma website to look like. Currently we share it with 3 other schools but they never update it and so we decided to make it our own unique website.

We talked about what websites all of us normally visit and why, and how we could change the website to appeal to us more. For example, instead of using Facebook to notify us and chat, we would have a personal message and chat systems for contacting each other.

Animatic

Here's an update to the animatic. It now has music because I found another version of the song what would work in movie maker. It now has 7 shots which I did over the weekend. Apologies for the alien looking hand.

Animatic

Today I couldn't make it into college because I was ill again. However, I realised that I had the animatic sheets in my bag and my group needed them today to complete the task. I don't have my school bag here so I can't take pictures of it to send in as well.

I felt quite bad for letting the group down today so I've decided to make the animatic over the weekend on Toonboom.

So far the main problem is that I only have Windows Movie Maker on my laptop, so when I try to import the song as a .mp3 it won't work.

Here is a screenshot of me starting the animatic:

I used this picture of a brick wall for the background. The rest I drew in Toonboom.

This is the start of the animatic:

I kinda forgot that the girl needs to wear an overcoat for his part of the music video. In the real video she will be covered up more while outside.

Schedule & Deadlines

1st Feb - 5th Feb

• Previsualisation
• Production Design
• Storyboard (Thursday)
• Animatic - Friday Deadline.

8th Feb - 12th Feb

• Test Footage - could use for the real video
• Whole Takes
• Experiment!!
• You can reshoot!
• Digipak Pictures?

22nd Feb - 26th Feb

• Look At Rushes
• Do All Filming
• Total Of Two Weeks To Film

1st March - 5th March

• Rough Cut
• Friday 5th March: 9 - 4.10 @ Coleridge
• Wednesday 3rd March = Day Off <-- Work On Digipak!

8th March - 12th March

• DEADLINE WEEK!!!!
• Friday - Finished Video
• Friday: 9 - 4.10 @ Coleridge
• Wednesday 10th March: 9 - 4.10 @ Coleridge
• Thursday 11th: Deadline for Digipak and Poster

15th Feb - 19th March

• Tasks on blog.
• EVALUATION WEEK!!!

HOMEWORK DURING HALF TERM:

INDIVIDUALLY COME UP WITH YOUR OWN DRAFT OF YOUR DIGIPAK &POSTER.

christina group location

I posted this on christina's blog as an offer to help with her group's music video location because I heard they needed a woodland area but also power for lights:

Todays lesson

The task for today was to get into our groups and go through what cut-aways we might want for our video. This would be outside of the main performance. We were given a sheet to draw what want on, and we also had to think a little about lighting, costume and props for our music video.

We decided that some of the cutaways we want are-

The girls getting ready:

• Putting on blusher
• Putting on costumes
• Hair stylers/ brushes.
• the door closing behind them

The Boys getting ready:

• Car arriving at scene
• Picking up deck of cards
• Looking through car window at group of other boys going in

In the jazz bar:

• Boys coming in late
• Performance
• Clinking glasses
• Lava lamps
• Chair moving
• Deck of cards
• Waitor
• Manager

Other:

• Clapping
• Whistling
• Instruments closeup
• Outside view of club (maybe)

Interview with Chris Cunningham and Bjork

This is an interview from Chris Cunningham and Bjork on the making of the All is full of love video.

Bjork is the Icelandic artist of the song. Chris Cunningham is a music video director, and has also made a few short films. He built the set to All is full of love and has previously worked on sculpture and animatronics in his contribution to the film Alien 3, so he had background in the area of building a robotic looking scene and character.

His working process seems to be to create a treatment for his idea, and then notice what's wrong with it and keeps adding to it. He starts of with the basics that he wants in his videos. He also needs some of his own working space.