Begining Production

As I mentioned in my location post it is vital for my final production that I secure the 'summer' shots before the weather changes, due to this my group and I decided to begin filming for our final product before this happened.

My group and went to our location along with our cast members and began filming our 'summer' shots. Although the temperature was extremely cold the sun was shinning which enabled us to get some stunning shots, some leaves on the trees were turning brown and areas of the location looked autumnal however the orange tones paired with the sunlight created the look of sunset rather than sunrise which fitted our theme just as well. The shots we gathered are intended to be a memory of the girl so we aim to add a hazy filter to them during the editing process so I believe that any hints of autumn will be effectively masked. 

Above is preview of one of the practice shots we got during filming, due to Megan's sunglasses I had to be careful and angle my self so  that the camera was not show in the reflection. I feel the shot is able to portray the feeling of a summer season.

Mausi Consent - Reply

Previously I discussed the issue of gaining consent from my chosen artist due to copyright issues. I am pleased to say that a few days after contacting Mausi I received a reply to my request about using the bands music in my final production. Below is the response that I received via their Facebook page.

   

Location

Currently my attention is much more focused on filming the 'summer' scene of my final product as I am aware that the natural summer environment will soon fade seeing as it is already the end of October. My group have acknowledge this, and as a result we have become extremely organized and we have secured actors, location and a scheduled a production date. The whole concept of our final piece revolves around the cross cutting between scenes so it is crucial for us to get those shot completed as soon as possible.

My final product will include two main locations and action taking place during different seasons which will be summer and winter, it is important that my chosen locations are appropriate the season that they are being shot in as well as being able to emphasis the feelings of the characters and the narrative of the story. 


For the winter scenes I felt that it the location should be one that is built up and more urban than rural so I decided that the chosen location should take place in a city centre. Oxford city center is an ideal location for my group and I to shoot as we are all able to get there easily as it is not to far away from where we live, it also provided us with busy roads, a train station and bus stops, street life and built up architectural structures which will give us plenty of filming opportunities. 


This location will help portray the season of winter as well as the emotion of our main character as the location will be mostly grey in color with little greenery on show, especially during the time in which we wish to film. My group and I aim to film at this location before December or during the new year, any later than this would put a strain on our production as we want to make sure we leave plenty of time for editing. Filming early in the day would give us the best opportunity to gain the best shots as it will be fairly busy and bright enough to get clear and detailed images. 

The location for our summer scene should be one that is able to portray the stereotypes of a summer setting such as greenery, grass and wildlife. I felt that Blenheim palace would be an ideal location for my group and I to film as it is accessible as well as beautiful and it will really help create that contrast between the two scenes of my final product. 

This location is extremely open and provides us will all the elements needed to complete our filming such as trees and water. 

Now that I have chosen both locations I will focus beginning production as soon as possible. 

Editing Practice

As my production planning progresses I am aware that editing will play more of a significant role in my final product than when compared with my AS production. When researching existing products I have found that some include a range of editing techniques such as many cross fades and unusual color treatments. I felt that it was important for me to experiment with a range of editing techniques as I am aiming to include them in my final product.

We decided to experiment with colour treatments, cross fades, over exposure and motion blurs. My group and I decided to keep it fairly simple as we did not want to over complicate things during the earlier stages. I feel that this task has benefited all members of my group including my self as it has allowed me to explore and develop a potential style to how we want the edits to look. Appropriate editing will really help my final piece come across in the way I want it as it will help create the contrast between the two locations and the change in seasons as well as providing rich a dynamic visuals that will be appealing to the audience. 

Abstract shots

When researching existing music videos such as the Colbie Claillat 'I Do' video I have found that many use symbolism and metaphors that are fitting to the song and the overall message of the video. My group and I liked the idea of incorporating certain metaphors into our final piece in order to emphasize particular parts of the music and the narrative that will follow. I was also drawn to the idea of including these symbolic images as I feel that it will help add depth to my final product as well as add an interesting dynamic between story line and appealing visuals. Below are some images presenting some potential metaphors that I would like to include in my final product with some explanation.   

Heart shaped locket 

I liked the idea of including an item of jewelry within my final piece as it is an item of significance and many people, especially females often attach a lot of sentiment to items of this nature. I feel having an item of jewelry would be able to play on the feelings on love and emphasize the importance of the male character to the female one. 

Jig saw puzzle

Another concept that I would like to include is puzzle pieces as I feel that they are able to help visualize the coming together of two objects to the audience and symbolize that same notion in relation to my two characters. This would also being able to represent the idea of their being a 'missing piece' which will further emphasize the narrative of my final product. 

Candle flames are able to signify romance and feelings of love. My group and I would like to include this however we are unsure of how we would execute it so we will carryout a short practice task in order to establish the best way to include this in our final product.  

Part of the concept of my final product includes a passing of time, I feel that including images that are time lapsed such as clouds passing and a clock face will help indicate to the audience that time has gone by between the two main settings of video. 

Along with differences in seasons, having the time lapsed images will help the feeling the time has passed come across in an authentic and believable way. 

When including these ideas into my final product ideally I would want them to appear with a cross faded affect or being superimposed on other images such as the main character. I feel this would help them come across more subtle giving a more abstract and interesting look to my final piece. 

Production dairy

I am aware that in order to secure the flash back scenes of my final product my group and I will have to film fairly soon, considering that we need bright and vibrant colours and the season is soon to change which is likely to prevent us from achieving the desired effect. After further planning into my production, my group and I have chosen and secured the two locations in which we wish to film, we have also decided on who we want our main and side actors to be in the music video. Now that we are organised when it comes to location and actors we are ready to begin our initial filming.

In addition to production planning my group and I have also been testing out various editing techniques so that I feel that once we have filmed we will be ready to start editing in parallel with the further filming the we need to complete. I feel that editing as we go along will be very beneficial to my group as it will allow us to keep on schedule and save time as we will not have masses of editing to once filming is over and this will help us to meet our deadline. Editing as we go along will also help us to see if there are any additional shots that we need or want to add in. 

Audience research

The video below is able to show how people reacted to the my chosen song choice and what sort of imagery they saw in relation to the music.

Before recording each individual listened to the tack 'sol' by mausi and were then asked to describe what sort of imagery they felt you accompany the sound. I feel that the information gather here will be able to influence are choice of locations and the pace of our edit. 

Casting

It is important that when casting I choose the

people that will be the most suited as well as do the best job.

For my final production it will include two characters. The video will be following the story of one main character as well as include her memory of the second character. I felt as if the main character of my final production should be one that is female, I felt that a female lead would be more suited to my production as the role and stereotype of love and romance is one that is better related to a female characters. My song choice also features female vocals and although this did not necessarily mean the character had to also be female I felt the having the vocal match the character in some way would help my overall production feel more fluid and whole. 

My group and I agreed that our main character and female lead should be played by Megan, Megan is very comfortable around the camera and has good awareness of were and how she should stand due to her performing arts training. Megan also played the lead in my production and our experience working together as well as her being in my team will help to ensure that we get the outcome that is desired. Appearance wise Megan is also suitable as her hair colour is and complexion is fairly natural which when paired with appropriate costume with help with the switching between scenes. 

For our male supporting actor my group and I decided to cast our friend Joe, alike Megan, Joe has also previously acted in student media production and we felt the his experience would help us be able to work productively and efficiently. Joe's appearance was also suited to my final product as his look lacks mainstream style which is perfect for our independent song. Below is the images of my two chosen actors.

Megan

Joe

When deciding of the costume and the look of the characters, for the summer scenes, we want our characters to be dressed appropriately but still stand out to the audience. I would like to keep Megan with neutral hair and make-up as it will keep the natural and organic feel to the summer scenes. We asked Joe to ensure that he was in light colours which was able to maintain the seasonal feel.

Artist Consent

I am aware that due to the fact that I have chosen to complete the music video brief I am required to ask permission of my chosen artist if I would be able to use their song. My chosen artist is a band called 'Mausi'. Mausi are an independent band and I felt that the best way to contact them was through their official social networking pages including Facebook and twitter. I found their official pages by accessing their website at http://wearemausi.com/. 

Below is the following message that I sent to the band on Facebook.

I sent this message of behalf of my group and I felt that it was direct, consisted and polite. 

Audience Research - Music Video Questionnaire

Before I continued with further production planning I felt that it would be beneficial for me to carry out some audience research in order to find out the views of my peers about existing products.
My group and I created a simple questionnaire consisting of five short questions that allowed for a mixture of open and close answers. By choosing to carry out audience research It was able to help me establish my target audience in relation to gender as when compared the females who completed the questionnaire provided slightly different answers to the males. 
Below is a copy of the questions that I chose to ask.

Each question that I decided to ask was set in order to provide me with the specific information that I needed in order to benefit my final production. Initially I felt that specifying age and gender was relevant as it would help me to establish a demographic and a target audience which could potentially influence the way in I will market final product when paired with my ancillary tasks. All the people asked said that they felt that music videos were very important with in the music industry and most either answered sometimes or often when asked if they regularly watch music videos. Some answers to question three involved reference to song choice, if they enjoyed the song then that would draw them in to the music video. This factor is down to personal taste however my group and I feel that are song choice would appeal to many people who enjoy a mix of music genres. The majority of answers to what appealed to people when watching music videos was focused around the creative aspects of the videos and if it had a interesting narrative then they would be more likely to want to watch it. 

When asking what kept people engaged I found that many responses included reference to appealing visuals and a range of imagery, this finding is very important to my final product as I want to be able to create a product that keeps people's attention and wanting to watch on. In order to prevent people clicking away or becoming bored I will make sure that the visuals are aesthetically pleasing which will help keep peoples concentration throughout the duration of my piece. 

I feel that my music video would appeal to females more that males as when asking about story line more girls felt it important that music videos had one than boys did, this is relevant to my final product as my group and have a narrative and story line to our product. 

Lip Sync - Practise Task

After researching some existing products I found that there were reoccurring themes that appear in most music video productions. Many music videos that I have watched feature lip syncing as part of the the product, from this I felt it was appropriate to familiarize my self with this convention by exploring the technical aspects of creating a lip sync video.

Being able to practice lip syncing gave me the opportunity to discover how to achieve as well as execute it in a realistic and professional way. Below is the short clip of our lip syncing attempt.  

By carrying out this short practice I came to conclusion the shooting my whole product with lip syncing would be challenging technically and it could also potentially take the audience away from the creative elements of the product. Instead my group and I disused the possibility of including elements of lip syncing in order to emphasize certain parts of our music video. I am very pleased with the overall out come of the video above and I feel that it has benefited my group and I as we now feel confident that if we wanted to use lip syncing again at any point we would be able to and we would also be able to perfect it to a higher standard.  

Production Diary

Currently my group and I are in the pre-production stage and we will soon be entering the stages of early production. Since we created our production pitch we become more confident with our idea and we have also decided on our song choice. In addition to this we have completed the storyboards and completed a scene break down with shot lists, I now feel that we a prepared to begin further planning and we will soon be ready to begin filming. 

We still need to decide on location and actors and once this is complete we will be ready to start our initial filming.