Understanding Editing Software

From this we acquired more knowledge about the editing software we would use - Final Cut Express, and expanded our understanding from the limited knowledge we had from our preliminary task.

13th of December 2011

The band shot for our music video were in the main hall (with stage) at our school, Epsom and Ewell high school. It took us a duration of 4 and a half hours to complete the filming and we played the song with our band several times. 

We used the Sony HRV HD1000E for the majority of the filming, whilst some other SLR camera's to film obscure shots. 

Overall, the band shots today were a success and we got all the content we felt necessary. 

Some shots of the band shots we got:

High angle/birds eye shot using Pentax K-x hanging from rafters

shot with Sony HRV HD 1000E

Open letter to You Me At Six

To make sure that our video is not infringing the rights of the band we have drafted a letter to send to them, asking for permission to use their song. Here it is:

"Dear You Me At Six

I am writing to you on behalf of my school (Epsom and Ewell high school) to ask for permission to use your song “Stay With Me” in my 6^th form media class’ media coursework.

I’m an A level student studying media and as part of our coursework for the course, we have to create a music video, CD cover and advert to promote a single. Our group decided on your song and as such we are writing to you to ask for permission to use your song. We understand that under the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 we do not have to ask for permission as this is for educational and non-profit purposes, however out of courtesy we would still like to extend to you this letter asking for express written permission.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and we hope to hear from you soon,

Yours sincerely,

Tom Burlinson, Sophie Griffin, Pryank Patel and Shanice Farley"

Mood Board

We used the mood board to visually show the styles we were aiming for with the mise en scene of the music video, there is a strong association with youth culture.

Videos That Influenced Our Product

From this we found certain elements of a stereotypical rock music video that we liked and want to emulate, even though we have seen some conventions in previous research, we still thought it was necessary to look up other music videos to look at that we already like, to find ideas that we think would work with out video.

Props, Costume, Cast and Location

Props on Prezi

and here is a wordle of all the equipment we used:

Here is a video explaining the locations we are using:

Cast list:

Singer: Dan Anstiss

Bassist: Stephen Airey

Guitarist: Tom Daglish

Drummer: Matt Oates

Girl: Molly McCambridge

Boy 1: Ollie Maidment

Boy 2: Jay Singh

Filming and Editing schedule

Here is a plan for our filming and editing schedule, showing holidays as well. Most editing will take place from 3-6pm and filming will be done after school or during free lessons on planned days.


Key
Red = School holidays
Green = Filming
Blue = Editing

This is a plan of our filming and editing schedule, which we will use to help co-ordinate amongst the group and try to keep us all on track to have the work finished on time.

Storyboard

The storyboard is a visual plan of all the shots we have planned and will help us when it comes to the shoot and editing.

Shot list

1.       First of all there will be a mid-long shot on stage all staring straight into the camera before the music starts.

2.       Same as before yet this time start with a mid-shot pan across all the band members faces.

3.       We’ll start with an over the shoulder shot then do a shot reverse shot of the boy after the heartbreak has happened.

4.       Return to a shot of the band singing the song

5.       We will then start the flashback shots and show the boy and girl together as they were having fun together.

6.       Then we will do a mid-shot, slightly over the shoulder of the boy looking at the photo of him and the girl and we do a close up of the picture as a tear drop falls onto it.

7.       On the line in the song ‘the one who walked away’ we will have the girl breaking up with the boy and we will do over the shoulder shots of the two and shot reverse shot to show both of their emotions.

8.       There will be a wide shot of him sitting in his room. Maybe even a high angle to make him look inferior and timid.

9.       Then either zoom in to or do a close up of a jumper on the floor that in the next shot we will see him putting around her.

10.   We then cut back to a flash back and show him putting the jumper over the girl’s shoulders and try to present it in a voyeuristic way.

11.   Cut back to the present and show an over the shoulder shot of him talking to a friend on a laptop and zoom in to their conversation.

12.   Then have a split screen of the zoomed in conversation and him thinking about what he should do.

13.   Have a shot from behind of him putting on his jacket and have a side shot of him tying up his shoelaces.

14.   Then have different angles of him going to meet her maybe even do a 360 angle if possible.

15.   Have a shot of the new boyfriend walking towards the girl and cut to a shot of them together and her laughing flirtatiously.

16.   Have a shot that is a wide shot so we can see them all yet it is an over the shoulder shot of the girl, we can see the new boyfriends face and also see the old boyfriend coming round the corner.

17.   Then cut to a close up of the girl’s reaction when she sees him come round the corner and then cut back to a mid-shot of the boys reaction.

18.   Show the boy angry and turning to leave

19.   Zoom out of the boy leaving the girl as she tries to call after him/reach for him.

20.   Show the girl crying and use SFX to emphasise her emotion.

21.   Cut back to the band playing aggressively and then slow down as the tempo slows

22.   Show the sunset going down

23.   And show an extreme low shot of the band member’s feet as they walk away.

Treatment

Our music video is going to promote the You Me At Six single Stay With Me. The idea for our video is about the story of a boy and a girl, and the breakdown of their relationship. This (love, relationships, the breakdown of said relationships) is a common theme for You Me At Six’s songs and as such, we decided to continue with this theme. The tone of the song and they lyrics also played a major part in this.

The video will be a mix of narrative and performance. With the narrative taking a slightly fragmented form, it will be chronologically linear, but with flashbacks, the desired effect once editing is complete is that the mix of narrative, flashback (of which there are 2) and performance will create a video that feels fragmented. This is because we want it to reflect the emotions of our main character in the video. We will have the band perform in an empty room, as they are having a band practice, but also to show the significance of the lyrics "stay with me", the singer will be saying these to the audience watching the video, yet there is no one there in the room, other than his friends and band-mates.
 
The plot of the narrative is that of a young man who has just been dumped by his girlfriend, saying that she no longer wants a relationship. He then goes home and sees all of the pictures of them together, and possessions which start the series of flash backs, then we cut to some time shortly later (a week or 2 later) in which we see him talking to a friend via text etc, in which he is told to go after her. He does and as he is talking to her, her new boyfriend comes round the corner, resulting in him leaving and the girl now being the one who is upset. Intercut with this is performance video of the band and a few scenes of the girl out with her new boyfriend.

Analysis of You Me At Six

This helped us gain knowledge on other artists' website, this is useful as we could adapt the concepts to our own website. Analysing live websites helped us construct the design and lay out for our website as well.

Lyrics Analysis

By analysis the lyrics we can understand the meaning of the song, giving us potential to exploit those in the music video and create something that will play off certain lyrics and downplay others.

Stay With Me - You Me at Six Lyrics

Lyrics to Stay With Me :

You've got a lot to say

for the one that walked away.

I give you take,

its the way it's always been

oh how do i know?

if i should stay or just go

the bottom line is this way that i'll never know

stay with me

stay with me

you've got a lot to say

for the one that pushed me away

i give you take

some things they'll never change

just change

stay with me

stay with me

And I know that I could be this way

And I know that I could walk away

these things take time to grow

it's been said that time heals wounds

but no, i won't be controlled

and so, this story goes

stay with me

stay with me

And I know that I could be this way

And I know that I could walk away

Song We Decided On

We decided on this after much deliberation and thinking about what style of music we wanted to go with and then narrowing it down to a band and then song. This was difficult as we all have different music tastes, but we managed to compromise and came up with a good song in the end.

Collaboration Of Initial Ideas

Above is the mind map we created of all our initial ideas about type of video, genre of band and bands we like based on those genres. Those highlighted in orange were our favourites.

Genre Analysis

Genres

View more presentations from TomBurlinson

By understanding the different genres of music we can create a music video that tailors specifically to one genre 

Target Audience Research

We performed some research to find out what people like about music videos, and then to find a target audience for ourselves too. the results were as follows:

51% of respondants were male, 49% female.
20% aged 14-16, 48% 17-19, 10% 24-27 and 22% older.

Most importantly it seems that most people watch music videos every day and use websites like youtube and vimeo, rather than TV these days, with 90% of respondants saying they use youtube. Respondants said that this was because it was the easiest, most convienient method and they could whatever they want straight away.


we then found that most people like rock or pop music, this reinforced our decision to create a music video based around a rock band. 

Finally we asked people what they thought made a good music video, here is a selection of responses that were more popular

This helped us learn about our target audience and what type of music video to produce to gain the largest possible audience

Analysis of previous A level music videos

This gave us an insight into how other A2 Media students, like ourselves went about constructing and producing a music video.

History of Music Videos

From this we learnt how the music video industry has changed over time. This helped us adapt our work for a modern day audience, as we were able to see the change in codes and conventions.

Music Consumption

By understanding contemporary music video consumption in conjunction with our audience research we would know how best to advertise our products.

Analysis Of Music Videos

From analysing professional music videos we can understand the codes and conventions needed to create a music video, and see what common themes there are.

Evaluation of Preliminary task

For our preliminary task we had to work with a group to create a music video for Annie Lennox's A whiter shade of pale. This was part of a 2 day workshop that we undertook at school so that we could learn the basics of videography and how to properly construct a music video with all of the technical elements as well. This would mean that our preliminary task could have more focus and we could learn more from it, rather than attempting to make a video that although would teach us about the technical elements of using the camera, composing the shot, lighting etc. It would be lacking in context when trying to evaluate what we had learned and applying it to a music video, which is a very niche area with several key components.


Before we created our video, we were taught the key areas which often always appear in music videos, they are:

a link between the lyrics and visuals a link between the music and visuals genre specific iconography close ups of the artist(s) voyeurism intertextuality


Our group spent the first day brainstorming ideas, creating a treatment, then story-boarding the video, as well as creating a list of necessary locations and props. the remainder of the day was spent beginning the filming. On the second day we finished filming and then began editing our video.


I found the 2 days very useful. The knowledge we gained about the theory of music videos was and will be invaluable in creating an authentic music video and my group paid close attention to this, making sure we got all of the elements into the video.


Working in a group was useful also, we had not previously thought about making a music video on our own when we had heard that this would be the coursework, however after the preliminary task, we found that it would nigh on impossible and the benefits offered by working in a group, far outweigh the cost of doing this alone. When working in a cohesive sensible group allows for increased organisation and a greater pool of ideas from which to choose from, thus giving better creative and technical freedoms. It also means that more than one thing can be done at once and giving more momentum to your work, getting it done to the same quality but faster. However this relies heavily on a group that can work together and get along without clashing of egos and having the ability to be able to compromise.


We have also learnt about the technical side of videography, about framing a shot, lighting and how sometimes we have to deviate from the story board sometimes, either because the shot doesn't look good, is not possible, or because we have thought of something else to add/alter while on location/set. Labeling your tapes is also a crucial thing that we have learnt and then leaving them somewhere safe so that none of your footage is lost in the time between finishing filming and downloading al of your footage onto the iMac.


As well as learning about the cameras, we also learnt about Final Cut, the program that we will be using to edit our footage. We have all already used an iMac so that was not a problem, but Final Cut was important to understand, we feel that we very quickly picked up how to edit the clips in a way we wanted them. However adding effects to clips, such as making them Black and White (B&W) is something we need more practice on, and if necessary we will ask someone with more knowledge than myself to help me.


Overall we felt that we have learnt a lot from the preliminary task, but still have much more to learn and improve, thus improving our work too.