Final Cut Pro Practice - Yagmur and Safwana

Once final cut pro was installed on the Macs, we decided to start experimenting with different tools and just practiced using it in general so it would be easier for us once we actually started editing. As The Neighbourhood videos have a letterbox/widescreen aspect ratio, we decided to see how it would look with our shots and it actually looked better than the original full screen aspect. We first tried to crop the actual footage but we found that it cropped out the majority of what we want to show to the audience. We searched further and found the letterbox option which made it easier.

We also started to experiment with different filters. We tried a lot of filters and we stuck to black and white. The neighbourhood videos tend to have a grey tone to them rather than a regular black and white which can have a really high exposure and dark contrast which can sometimes look quite strong and sharp, whereas we're going for a more faded look.

We haven't quite decided whether we want our entire video to be black and white with the letterbox frame, or if we want it to be full screen with coloured filters like more green/yellow tones or purple/blue tones with a grainy effect over it to give it a more nostalgic feel. We think that both effects can make our video look nostalgic. With the black and white, it expresses the darkness and depressing theme of the video a lot more, and with the coloured filters it can still show the dark theme behind it because the old film effect can bring memories of the past (in our case, the death of the friend). We will experiment further with the different footage to see if these effects suit the entire video, but first we need to make sure that all of our videos are in order and in place.

Pitch/Class presentation - Safwana and Yagmur

Song comments from Youtube - Yagmur

Example of our music video - Yagmur and Safwana

We used the footage we already filmed and decided to make a quick trailer/montage of some of our shots together. Our actual music video is going to be black and white so we decided this will give a an accurate representation of the official music video because we're going to be using the same shots. We will be experimenting with a lot more editing techniques such as slow motion, speeding shots up, quicker cuts etc. This briefly gives a glimpse of the entire 3-4 minute video.

Inspiration from existing magazines - Yagmur

This is just some research for when we start designing a CD cover and print ad.

Annotated lyrics and shots - Yagmur and Safwana

 

We decided to print out the lyrics of the song as not only is it part of our brief, it's also very helpful for us to be able to visualize the video with the lyrics, and also see what shots go where. We listened to the song over and over again and at the same time we discussed where we can place our shots.

 

 

We made this list of the shots that we didn't think about before and we jotted down whatever we thought sounded good and was suitable. For example, the close up of the girl throwing flowers at the graveyard didn't come into our mind before but we came up with it whilst we were discussing different shots and techniques and thought it would be a good edition to our existing shots. This is also helpful for us on the day of filming as we can quickly take the list out to see if we forgot anything and then we can film it.

Filming schedule - Yagmur and Safwana

The first two schedules are from when we already filmed. We first planned out where we wanted to film and we decided to film at home and also at Liverpool St Station. We found these suitable as at home, the protagonist of the video (Yagmur) is isolated without her friend and is getting on with her artwork/photography without her. At Liverpool St, we can also see she's lonely as she's doing the same. We also have some deliberately 'random' shots as our video is going to be in the style of a montage (blurry lights, feet walking, the streets, buildings etc).

The last four schedules are what we're going to film with both the protagonist and Selcan who is the friend. The shots will be similar to what we filmed before but this time we will obviously have the two friends together, and the protagonist will look more cheerful. In terms of the costumes, it will be less dull than the casual clothing the protagonist wore before to show the contrast of how dull she is when she's lonely, versus how happy she is when she's with her friend. We're also going to be filming outside most of the time in the same type of locations (the streets, near Liverpool St station etc) to show that's where they went together.

Emailing for permission

http://www.columbia.co.uk/uk/artists
Sony music

As our song is Alleyways by The Neighbourhood, we found out that their record label is Columbia Records (Sony music) and The Revolve Group. We emailed both Sony for permission and The Neighbourhood themselves just to be sure.

Practice shots

These are some practice shots we did in school. We also had some footage of us filming outside for our actual music video which we talked about in some of our presentations on our blog. We wanted to experiment further with different shots, lighting and focuses. We tried to make the most out of a limited space as there isn't much to film in a school environment as it isn't as exciting as filming outside. 

Logo/Name ideas - Safwana

Me and my peer came up with the name Haze' as our band name, we wanted to come up with something with some sort of hidden meaning as bands do. As Yagmur mentioned, Haze is traditionally known as being an atmospheric phenomenon where dust obscures the clarity of the sky, therefore making it very blurry which is very much like our music video, where we plan on actually making parts of our music video blurry and unclear, especially when we are looking at creative shots. I have looked at a lot of other Indie rock bands and their logos, for example Coldplay which is alternative rock, and their Ghost Stories CD cover which influenced me to create the black background logo, this is one of my least favouriteas it looks more like a CD cover rather than a logo, therefore I will consider this we doing the CD covers, another band who I was influence by was Bastille, they have a very basic font, therefore I went for a very clear and basic look, as the logo will appear on everything, it must be able to fit all of out production. I combined many different fonts for example the top right, the A is from another font, I like the way in which it looked however I did not want to have a triangle in our logo as it is very common when looking at indie bands, therefore i went for a completely new look, where i have almost incorporated the triangle into the A, this is one of my favorite as it looks very professional and the outline outside gives it that enclosed look. Overall I think that me and my peer very much agree on the idea of having an outline of our logo, therefore we will definitely be using this when creating the logo, while the fonts we will come together and try and incorporate my favorite and her favorite together and create the perfect logo. 

Props/Costumes - Safwana

We put together different outfits that would compliment the music genre as well as working with our storyline in our music video. All the outfits are very casual, it suits the storyline of her exploring the world, also it has a very bohemian vibe to it, in which the target audience can relate to, as they would wear similar things. We tried many different outfits and looked at what was suitable, the clothing consisted of basic colours, such as black, white and grey, as well as some khaki and burgundy. Overall we decided to incorporate all the outfits in one, and went with the black jeans, white top which was covered by the burgundy jumper and we decided to add a leather jacket towards the end. Also these outfits will be seen in the different locations when we are filming.

This is a collage of the process of the make up, as you can see, the makeup was very simple, this compliments the way in which she was dressed, although it is very light, it looked good on camera and it suited the personality of the girl, who is also very simple. Yagmur does not usually wear makeup, and we have made her put on makeup to make her more suitable for the music video.

These are the props we used in the music video, we had books on a shelf, to show her interests, as well as figure dolls to show she enjoys drawings, we have shots of her painting, therefore we had pain and paint brushes and also in one scene we have her take a picture on her Polaroid and a closeup of the film, and lastly we use a candle which she blows out and the music video ends, all of the props have a significant meaning, which represents the girl. These pictures are not my pictures, however these will be the props we will have in out music video.

Storyboard with music - Safwana and Yagmur

This is what our final video will look like, we have incorporated the music into our storyboard, this will change throughout the process of making the video i.e. we might re arrange some shots or change some completely if we find that it may not work out.

Practice shots - Yagmur

Postmodernism & Identity - Yagmur

Practice footage - Safwana

Name ideas - Yagmur

Within our group we came up with the name 'Haze' as our band name. We are going to use it for our CD cover, print ad and billboard. The reason why we chose Haze was because it has two meanings which fit really well with our song and idea. Firstly, haze describes the atmosphere as being foggy, misty, smoky etc. (We want our video to look quite faded at times). Secondly, haze also means confusion and obscurity. (At times our video will be distorted, blurry, confusing etc.) I tried going on lots of different font websites to find a font which will look quite simply and plain. I found a few and I experimented with them on Photoshop. For example, I edited the top right one so the vertical line of the 'e' was gone and the horizontal line of the 'a' was also gone. I've noticed that a lot of indie bands do this with their logos. Every band has something signature about them. E.g. Bastille has a triangle replacing the letter 'A'. Enter Shikari uses Greek letters for their name and Korn uses a backwards 'R'. 

Location/Health & Safety - Yagmur

Interview - Safwana and Yagmur

We asked a few people from our target audience about the genre indie rock and our music video. They gave us insightful comments which we will definitely consider when creating our video. We were given recommendations which we will research further and use aspects of it in our music video.

Genre research, history and conventions - Safwana

Professional video influences - Yagmur

Professional video analysis (Inspiration) - Safwana

Storyboard - Safwana

This is the rough storyboard of our initial ideas for our music video, we had a change of ideas for our music video, we started off with looking at the psychological affects of dreams and the meanings behind them, we were going to portray these in our music video and have reference to Inception the film, however during the process of story boarding, we began rethinking out ideas as they looked very complicated. Therefore we started from scratch and we came up with the idea of having a girl suffering from anxiety and depression, we did not want to remove all the ideas that we had previously, hence why we decided to keep some of the shots and change the narrative.

previous idea 

previous idea

At the beginning of the Music video, we will have a black screen which then fades into a time-lapse of the sky, this will represent the change in time, this will symbolise the world and everyone in the world moving on in comparison to the girl who is stuck in time as her anxiety and depression is holding her back from moving forward.

We will then have another black screen which fades into another shot which is of drawings in the girls bedroom, showing she has an interest in Art. Art is a subject that allows one to express their emotions creatively, we want to show that the girl has nothing but art, and she expresses her feelings through art. The camera will be a close up, with one image focus while the rest are unfocused, the camera will pan to the next shot which shows the girls hand putting up another painting on her wall.

Then we will almost have an establishing/far shot where it will feel as though the audience are standing behind the girl and seeing what she is seeing, what we can see in this shot is a wall full of paintings and she is looking at her work, feeling very depressed and then this transitions to the shot of her putting on a jacket and leaving her house, the camera here will follow the girl leave the house, so throughout the video, the audience will feel they are behind her watching and seeing everything she does, making us a part of her life and reality.

We may then have a black screen once again, this may change, but we will have a creative shot of which will be on the floor, the camera will not be in focus at first but it will slowly go into focus, where it will have an object such as a leaf in focus, we will change the subject from the leaf to the feet, and we are able to see people walking in the foreground but it will be unfocused and blurry.

After we will have a shot of a puddle, and again we will be making use of the focus, this will allow our video to look professional, this puddle will show it is a rainy day, and be an example of pathetic fallacy, is this will represent the gloomy, depressed feeling that the girl feels. We will then have the girl step into the puddle, and there will be a far shot of her in the same location.

The girl goes out to explore the world, while she does this she will encounter many couples, and children, everyone seems to be happy, we will have shots of what the girl sees, as we can see above in the story board, she will see a couple holding hands, and she realises she is alone, she then encounters a child who looks very happy, but she is unable to feel that happiness as she depressed. This will be done in an open green park, and this will allow us to have many creative close up shots of tree barks, and have a time-lapse to show the shadow, again showing that time is moving.

We will have light flares, and the camera will make the light look blurry which then focuses into a silhouette of London bridge, this shot will consist of the sunset, the colours will look very vibrant, and if the camera is unable to capture the full depth of colour, we will enhance the colours on the computers. There will then be a time-lapse of the girl looking directly at the camera, while everything will be moving around her, this shot will be the most important as this will portray exactly how she feels, and what effects anxiety and depression has on a person.

Finally we have the girl at home, she takes out a canvas to create another piece of art from what she has learnt from the day, we will have a few cuts and close-ups of the paintbrush, the girl begins to pain but she is unable to paint, as she has flash backs of what she saw today, it all becomes too much for her to take, and these shots will be fast distorted shots of the previous shots of the couple holding hands and children swinging etc, at this point we have a very distinct beat in the song which gets faster and the shots will be in sync with the shots. Lastly the girl will drop her paint brush and this will be in slow motion and then she begins tearing down her work due to the anger and pain she feels of being alone. Then we will have a birds eye view of all her torn work around her and her sitting in the middle, crying. The camera will show a close up of the torn up art work and it will pan to the right, off the screen and we will finish with a black screen, and credits. This will leave the audience to wonder what happened next.

These ideas may change over the course of creating the video, we considered using photographs instead of paintings to make it more relevant to contemporary society, however we understand there is more meaning when drawing art, also we wanted to make use of intimidate cuts when she has flashbacks.

Postmodern video example - Yagmur

A2 music video research - Yagmur

This is one of my favorite A level music videos because of how creative it is. It's very professional looking because of the variety of shots and editing techniques used. For example, the slow motion of him jumping up in the air and he remains in that position for a while. Also when he falls back into the water. It's sped up at first but as the water splashes it's extremely slow. It fits well with the speed of the song. The video is about the character suffering from psychotic depression and takes drugs so he feels like he's in another world. I really think the black and white reflects the idea of depression, madness and mystery well and gives it a more dream like and dark feeling. This is exactly what I want to achieve in my groups music video.

This is also one of my favorite videos particularly because of the majority of the very artistic shots. I really like the lighting in the video and the filters compliment them really well. The silhouette shot of the girl and boy arguing looks really good because it doesn't look grey and dull, the backdrop has a slight purple tint which is more appealing. I like that there's also multiple story lines and the shots also fit them well. For example, when the boys are running, the shots change quite quickly and the camera follows them really fast so it fits how fast the shot is going by. Or the shots at the start when the boys are sitting on the grass, it's a lot slower because there's less movement and the atmosphere is more peaceful.

Initial music video ideas - Yagmur

These are some of our initial ideas which we brainstormed in our lessons. They're ideas from existing music videos we've watched and different elements and techniques we can use in our own video e.g. slow motion, close ups etc. We also talked a lot about what our video can be based on. As the song we chose is quite different and unlike a lot of pop/r&b songs which are popular in the music industry today, we also wanted our ideas to be surreal and unusual.

Audience profile - Safwana and Yagmur

Inspiration - Safwana

           

The music video inspired me and my partner, therefore we decided to use aspects of the video and model it in our own. The video is in colour as well as in black and white, as our initial ideas involve having two worlds, one being reality while the other being the dream world, we are going to make reality in black and white while the dream world in colour. The dark colours in the music video will go with out song and story line, also the video has a narrative, which is also what we are planning to do, and finally the fast cuts will be in sync with the music that we are planning to use.

Also we planned to use a DSLR camera and create a stop motion video, like I mentioned earlier we have two worlds, the reality world will be in video while the dream world will be in photos, this is because the stop motion is not smooth and this will create a more distorted vision, showing that our dreams can be distorted and to imitate the idea of how we perceive our dreams, and how we are not able to remember them fully.

Music Video Presentation - Safwana

Music video notes - Yagmur

I really like that this video has a message about feminism and how men are always being portrayed as dominant in the media. The setting and costumes look very 1950's and the fact that the lyrics are saying 'let it go' can suggest that in our society today, women aren't as oppressed as they used to be. The black and white throughout the video sets a mood of being depressed which reflects how the woman feels. One of my favourite shots would have to be the close up of the woman taking off her glasses and putting them on the camera (which is her husband). This point of view shot is trying to put the audience in her shoes so we can see what she is going through.

This video has a lot of good shots which fit really well with the song. There's a longshot of her standing and there's a lot of immediate cuts of the exact same image but duplicated all over the screen. It creates confusion and makes it a lot more surreal. It focuses on the girl who is supposed to represent cupid, hence the song saying 'give me love'. Towards the end of the song as it starts to speed up, the girl is dancing and it's in slow motion which is a good contrast as we can see the depth, almost giving it an angelic feeling. I think the filter used for the video fits really well with the song as it's very faded with grey/purple which gives it a gloomy feeling.

I really like this video because it focuses on the girl who is supposed to represent the artist Sia. She is contemporary dancing throughout the video which represents the emotions in the song. She's wearing a nude coloured leotard which shows purity as she's a child, and also represents a part of Sia's childhood. There is a close up of her when she's by the curtain and it looks like she's strangling herself. She also pretends to wipe a tear away from her face. This shows the audience how sad the meaning of the song is and is about real life issues such as depression, suicide etc. The lighting in the video is quite gloomy with a grey/blue tint and this makes it even more glum and down spirited.