Narrative Map - Safwana and Yagmur

This is our narrative map, we created this in order to help us while making the music video, we went through the song, and marked the chorus and wrote down the time, so we know what shots to put during the chorus'.

- Every chorus we decided to have shots of Yagmur and Selcan as the music is upbeat and it is recurring, to represent the past memories.

- When the chorus ends the verse starts, this is the slower part of the song, it gives us more time to understand the protagonists loneliness and set a down atmosphere. We have the protagonist alone exploring, however we will have hints of past memories with Selcan throughout.

- The 'Last Part/Final Verse' is where we will have the shots of the graveyard where the protagonist goes to visit the friend at her gave, and leaves her valuable and symbolic book on the grave. The music is much faster towards the end, and we will have distorted shots of the past memories.

Inspiration from CD covers - Yagmur

I decided to do some quick research and I found some CD covers that I liked and that could be used as inspiration for my groups CD digipak and magazine advert.

Pitch/Class presentation - Safwana and Yagmur

Song comments from Youtube - Yagmur

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. 

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

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