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.