Now that we have finished the animatic, Jess and I were able to start arranging a schedule for when we will start filming. We originally planned to start filming on Wednesday 1st December, however we had to cancel this due to the snow which has delayed us being able to start filming. Now we have re-arranged to start filming on Friday 17th December.
On Friday 17th December we are going to shoot all of the scenes that are at home as this will be easy as we will not have to travel anywhere. This will definitely go ahead as long as all of the actors can get to our filming location.
On Saturday 18th December as long as transport is running then we are going to go up to London to film on the Millenium Bridge and Embankment. After this we will drive to Greenwich Park to film the memory scenes of the video.
If we do not have enough time to film in all the locations in the same day then we will film on Monday 20th December.
If we are able to film on these days then that will be most of the filming done and we will then be able to start editing the film and working towards producing the rough cut of the music video.
For the second ancillary task we have chosen to create a magazine advertisement for the release of the music video. We understand that the advertisement must relate to the music video and possibly show images from the music video on the advertisement. This would ensure that it follows some sort of house style and the music video becomes a kind of brand.
Looking at the advertisments below, they tend to include the singer or the characters in the video and have the details of the release under the photo at the bottom of the page. The artist name and title of the singer is usually in a bigger font than the rest of the text on the page.
All of the images above both have a similar layout to eachother, there is a main image that very much relates to the video, brand and overall style of the single. This seems to be the most common design of a single release advertisement with the main image and then the information at the bottom of the page.
I think that it is important that the artist's name is easily visible so that it is more recognisable to people if they see the advert. It is also important that the text showing the release date and any other information such as star ratings should be visible. This is why I like the 'Plan B' poster because the stars really stand out and contrast with the black background making the advertisement eye-catching and making it more likely that people will see it as they flick through the magazine.
This advertisement is a bit different to the other advertisments as the layout is different. I think that the text is quite eye-catching on the page as it is quite big but I think that it looks less professional than the other advertisments.
It also shows the digipak on the poster. I do not really think that this is needed on the advertisement as the advertisment and the digipak should relate to eachother so I do not think that the digipak really needs to be shown as the audience should be able to recognise the digipak anyway from the design of the advertisement.
If the advertisements follow a 'house style' then the 'brand' of the single will become more recognisable and its target audience are more likely to immediately recognise it if they see the advertisement.
Out of all of the advertisements in the research, I think that we would want ours to be most similar to the 'Plan B' advertisement. This is because we liked the black background and white writing which would follow in the digipak also. I also like the fact that the image does not take up the whole page of the advertisement and there is plenty of black space which I think does actually make the advertisement more eye-catching as the white writing is clearer and contrasts with the black background.
For the first ancillary task, Jess and I decided that we would make a digipak cover for the song. This will relate to the music video and the cover will visually link to the theme of the music video.
We both share the same opinion of what kind of look the digipak cover will have because we both have the same vision of our music video and we know that the digipak must convey the same image as the music video. We decided that we wanted the cover to be quite dark and reflect the mood of the characters in the video.
From the digipak examples that we found during our research, we decided that we liked the idea of having a black background with white writing as it is easy to read and also gives a 'dark' and serious feel to the single. I do not think that we would use a black and white image on the front cover of the digipak as I think that this looks too serious and would not fit totally with the single.
We liked the idea of having the main characters on the front cover so that it would follow the house style of the rest of the products in relation to the single. We also like the transparent look that this image has; however we would want the image to be more transparent and also have the other main character kind of 'looking' over the other characters.
After more research, I managed to find a couple of better examples of what we wanted with the 'transparent' effect of the digipak front cover.
I think that the idea of having a transparent effect on the images and making them 'overlap' each other. The Jimi Hendrix cover (below) shows this idea well; we could use this idea for having his girlfriend looking over them.
To create the effect of the 'overlaying' images, we would have to take a few different photos for the digipak and the put them onto different layers and change the opacity of the images to create the transparent effect that we are aiming for.
I also think that this digipak cover is very effective as you can see a couple of people with a transparent effect and then also the image of the eye in the background gives the impression that someone is watching over them. This would be a better example of what our digipak cover would look like because there are lots of different layers and also the colours used on the cover are quite dark which is definitely the look that we wanted for our digipak.
I also researched covers which will have two different people on the front so that I could see what kind of pictures were on the front of these digipaks and so I could get inspiration for my own digipak cover.
Once we had decided the story for the music video, we made the story board which showed us the idea of the music video. This will help us film the actual video as we will have a better idea of what to film and also what order each cut goes in when we are editing.
We chose our characters quite a while ago but we had many problems with trying to get all of the actors together at the same time due to other commitments. This resulted in a few problems and therefore a delay in filming which put us back quite a few days.
In the end we decided to find some new characters that could all come on the same days and we could start filming.
The main two characters are Rich and Annabel and then the last actor who will only be in one/two of the shots will be Rishan.
We needed to write a letter to the copyright holder of our chosen song for the video so that they could give us permission to use the song for the video aswell as the digipak cover and magazine advertisement for the ancillary tasks. When I was for which company to send the letter to I found that Snow Patrol were signed by Polydor but also were linked with a sub-company of Polydor called Fiction. I was not sure which company to send the letter to so I sent it to both record labels. The record labels did not supply an email address so we wrote a message in the 'contact us' box' on the website.
The full content of the letter is below:
The company did not reply to our letter, therefore we decided that we are going to use the music anyway. If the company did have any strong objections then they probably would have replied.
I have made a mood board which shows the general ideas of our video and what will be shown in the video. We thought this would make our ideas as it is a visual way to express our ideas. It includes the main ideas and also locations that we may use in the video.
We thought that these locations would be appropriate for the video as they are places which are likely to be memorable for the main character.
We decided that Danson Park in Welling would be a suitable place to film the park scenes of the video as it is a pretty location and is also easy to get to from where we live.
We have chosen the Millenium Bridge in London for the location where she sees him with another girl as it is a very busy location and we would like to use an effect which makes it look like everything is rushing past her.
We chose Embankment as another location when the characters are walking to the bridge where they will see each other. We wanted to use well known locations as it makes the story more realistic and recognisable.
We will also film ata my house in Joydens Wood as once again it is easy to get to and would be an appropriate location to film the scenes that are set at home.
After discussing what kind of effects that we might include in our video, we have come up with quite a few possible ideas:
Transitions
We have decided that we will have a couple of different transitions throughout the video. We are going to obviously have normal Cuts in the video as well as Cross Dissolves which will show when the scene changes or to show a different time period. Also we are going to have Fades In and Fades Out to show the memories; so a shot of a memory/flashback that the main character is having will be shown using a Fade In/Out transition.
Editing Effects
We thought that it would be effective if the memories in the video were shown in black and white so that it makes it obvious that they are in the past and also that the character is remembering them and they are not happening in the present. Currently, we are not totally sure how we would do this but nearer the time we will research into this in more detail and find out if and how we would go about achieving this.
In some parts of the video, we thought that it could be necessary to use a 'split screen'effect so that we can see the actions and reaction of two different characters at the same time who are in different locations. Again, we are not sure how we would do this during the editing process but we will research and find out if this is possible and how we would do this.
Now that we have decided on our song choice we can start to make some initial ideas of what our music video will be about and what will be in our music video. Jess and I sat together and came up with a few initial ideas:(click spider diagram to zoom in)
To ensure that our own music video will look like it could belong in the professional media world, we need to research and understand the conventions of typical Pop-Rock music videos. These are the typical conventions that we found:
The lighting is often quite dark.
Lots of different camera angles are used.
Black and white is used in parts of the video sometimes.
Sometimes live performance mixed with narrative.
The colours and lighting used in the video changes depending on lyrics and tempo of the song.
Singer/Band tends to wear casual clothing.
Close Ups are used quite often to show the emotions of the characters which also shows the audience the tone of the song and video.
The mise-en-scene reflects the mood of the characters and the tone of the music.
The artist/band tend to predominate the music video - they are usually the main character(s).
The pace of the editing fits the pace of the music.
A cameo is also quite common in a pop-rock/alternative rock music video which is where the band or artist features in the video (possibly as the main character) but they do not perform.
Now that we have chosen our song we need to ensure that our music video will fit the song and fit the right genre and will appeal to the correct type of people; it is important that we clearly know and understand our target audience.
Our target audience would be both male and female and roughly between the ages of 15-25; however it may also appeal to people above the age of 25 as it is a very diverse genre of music. The Pop-Rock genre appeals to a wide range and variety of people as it does not exactly fit into an obvious and specific genre such as Hip-Hop or Rock; it is more of a bit of almost every genre. Our chosen song has a meaning that will appeal to a diverse group of people as it is about a situation that a lot of people will be able to relate to.
We also understand that the younger generation are the audience that are most likely to see the music video as they are the people that get a chance to watch music videos and also enjoy being up-to-date. This is why it is important that we make our music video appealing to this audience.
After deciding that we wanted to make a music video with a genre of rock-pop, we looked on YouTube for appropriate songs. We had lots of songs that we liked the sound of and had some potential ideas for but we had to choose one song that we could definitely use and that we could find plenty of ideas for the music video.
After thinking of ideas of what we could do for each song, we decided that "Chocolate" by Snow Patrol would be the best song for our music video. It is a typical Pop-Rock song and after analysing the lyrics, we decided that the song is about a man who has lost the person that he really loves because he had an affair or has lied to his girlfriend and has lost her as a consequence. We came to the conclusion that the song is called "Chocolate" because his affair was a guilty pleasure like chocolate; he knew it was wrong at the time but did it anyway and now he regrets giving in to the guilty pleasure and now cannot get the person that he loves back because he has hurt her too much.
About Snow Patrol Snow Patrol are a Rock-Pop band from Northern Ireland. The band originally formed in 1994 under the name of 'Shrug', they then changed the band name to 'Polar Bear'. Shortly after one member of the band left and the band introduced a new drummer; then they finally settled with the name 'Snow Patrol'. Snow Patrol were signed by a scottish music label called 'Jeepster' in 1997 but the band's first three records were commercially unsuccessful and were consequently dropped by the label in 2001. Fortunately, Snow Patrol were then signed by the major label Polydor Records in 2002. Since then the band have become more successful and have now had a total of 5 albums and have won many awards.
Before choosing our song for the music video, we decided that we wanted to produce a video for a pop-rock/alternative rock genre. Alternative Rock or Pop-Rock is a mix of pop and rock music which uses a catchy pop-style with light lyrics and typically involves guitar-based songs. This genre has been described as an "upbeat variety of rock music." Examples of Pop-Rock artists include: Kings Of Leon, The Killers, Coldplay, Pink and Maroon 5.
For this genre of music, it would be appropriate to produce either a narrative music video or a live performance; however we decided that we wanted to do a narrative music video as it would make the story and meaning of the song more obvious. Another reason why we chose to produce a narrative music video is because we do not really have the resources to make a live performance look good in our music video.
Artists of this genre tend to wear similar clothes which makes them quite recognisable. A typical male Pop-Rock artist would wear smart/casual clothes which also tend to be quite dark colours, however, not all the time.
As part of the planning for the music video, I analysed the music video for "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol. I thought that this would be a useful video to analyse as it is a ballad; this allows me to see how music videos for these types of songs are filmed. This is probably a similar type of song to the one that I will choose for my music video; therefore it will be beneficial to me to see how it is filmed and what the music video is like overall. It could give me some ideas for my own music video and help me to make my music video to be realistic and look like it could be an actual music video for a band.
Music Video Analysis - “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol
This video is mainly a narrative and he is expressing his emotions to the audience about his feelings for his relationship. The lead singer of the band sings the lyrics throughout the video so we know that it is from his perspective. It is set in a busy town/city and the fact that he is alone throughout the video but singing about his feelings for another person could show that he is lonely and feels lost or insecure in this environment. However he does not really look upset and it is like he is in another world – like his relationship is like another world and more important than reality. Although the video is set in a busy city environment, there is no diegetic sound - the only sound we hear is the actual song. Throughout the entire video, we hardly see anyone else; this shows the audience that he is definitely the main focus of the song and video a and it is all about how he feels. He tends to be centre-frame throughout the video and many close-ups are used so that the audience can clearly see his facial expressions which tell us how he feels.
The first shot that we see is an over the shoulder shot of a man sitting alone at a table looking out of the window at the passing cars. He is clearly sitting alone and thinking or reminiscing about the person or situation that he is singing about. Straightaway a tracking shot is used which moves round the man sitting at the table until we can see a profile view of his face; the camera also zooms in slightly; this is where we see that he is singing the song, so the lyrics are clearly from his perspective and it is his story.
The next cut is a very quick, 3 second cut to his face as he looks down at his drink and kind of shakes his head, he looks lonely and as if he is thinking about what he is singing.
In the next cut we see that he is definitely sitting alone at the table and there is a couple sitting a few tables behind him in the background. He does not look sad and he smiles slightly as he sings “we don’t need anything or anyone” – it is like he is thinking about his relationship and he says that they need nobody else but them to be happy. This suggests that he believes that it is like his relationship os separate from reality.
The screen fades to black and then fades back in to the chorus of the song and we see him lying on the ground as he sings “if I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world” – the visuals relate to the lyrics. The chorus starts with a close up of his face and then the camera zooms out and also rotates slowly until we see a medium shot of him lying down. It is kind of like he is day dreaming and the rotation of the camera gives this effect. The video then cuts to a zooming in profile view as he continues to sing. I have noticed that throughout every chorus of the video, close ups seem to predominate making sure that the audience can see his facial expression which makes it clear to us how he is feeling about what he is singing.
At the beginning of the second verse it fades to black again and then fades in and we see the busy location of the city. When we first see this setting it is a natural light setting showing that it is during the day but then we see the streetlights turn on and it is very dark to show the audience that it is now night-time. This then cuts to him walking and shows how long that he has been walking. This could suggest the power of the love that he is singing about and that the thoughts in his head can keep him thinking for such a long period of time.
As he walks we see that he doesn’t look sad but he looks lost and here the lyrics relate to the visuals once again, “I don’t quite know how to say, how I feel”. Suggests that he is walking to try and figure out what to say to her but he cannot explain it - this makes it clear to the audience why he has been walking for so long.
The video then cuts to him standing still in the street and it is like he is trying to explain his thoughts and how he feels, “those 3 words are said too much, they’re not enough” – lyrics relate visuals again hint to the fact that he cannot explain how much he loves her.
Then once again the sequence fades out and back into the chorus where he is lying on the floor once again. The camera zooms out and we see that he is lying alone. Then video cuts and we see that he is lying in the middle of a busy road and the cars have had to stop for him. This shows that to him, he is in his own world. As he lies there, the rest of the world continues as usual. The camera moves to zoom into him and then moves above him but before it gets right above him to an aerial view, it cuts to a close up of his face as he sings. He smiles and once again it fades to black and then fades into the next location.
The next verse is divided into two cuts of him going up an escalator. The audience can tell that he is still thinking as throughout the first cut in the verse he stares still into one place as he sings.
At the end of the verse, we see him lying on the floor for the chorus again; this time he is lying at the top of the escalator. In contrast to the other choruses, this time we immediately see a profile view of him on the floor as before we saw an aerial view and we also immediately know where he is. Again then it cuts to an aerial view of him singing, “would you lie with me and just forget the world” – this happens in every chorus. It is as if he is not in the same world as everyone else as people just step over him as they reach the top of the escalator.
Next cut, we see train doors closing and then cuts to the train pulling away. Then we see a low angle shot of him lying on the train floor. Unlike the rest of the video, he is also lying on the floor throughout the last verse as well as the chorus.
The next cut shows a busy motorway and the lighting becomes brighter again, this shows the audience that it is the next day and that he has been out all night. This once again shows his confusion to the fact that words cannot explain how he feels.
The next cut zooms out of the motorway and onto a cliff side where he is lying. The camera zooms out until we can see almost his whole body. Then it cuts and zooms in again to a profile view, we do not see his whole face though, only his body and mouth - these shots are kind of like fragmented body shots; the shots are like this in each chorus throughout the song.
The video then cuts to a a frame of a front door; it looks like the front door to a hotel room or a flat and then for the next cut and the chorus again, he is lying on a bed alone. This could suggest that the relationship is in his surreal world and possibly does not exist or that this person is not around and he is reminiscing of when she is or was around. The empty side of the bed also appears much darker than the side that he is lying on; this again gives us a sense that she is no longer there. The camera zooms right out and then cuts to black showing the end of the video. He stays in the same clothing throughout the whole video showing that it is set over just one time - however, as seen earlier in the video, we know that he has been walking for a very long time.
Out of the three briefs that I could choose from I have decided that I am going to create a music video:
Briefs:
1. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:
a website homepage for the band
a cover for part of its release as part of the digipak (CD/DVD package)
a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package)
2. A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with two of the following three options:
a website homepage for the film;
a film magazine front cover, featuring the film;
a poster for the film.
3. The first level of a new computer game, together with two of the following three options:
the cover for the game's package;
a magazine advertisemnet for the game;
a radio advertisement for the game.
We have chosen to create a music video as we think that this is the brief that we know most about and it will be interesting and exciting to create our own music video. Although, we know mosta about music videos because we listen to music and watch the videos almost on a daily basis, we know that it will be a challenge as we will have to make sure that our video looks like it could exist in the real media world.
This advertisement is a bit different to the other advertisments as the layout is different. I think that the text is quite eye-catching on the page as it is quite big but I think that it looks less professional than the other advertisments. 
The first shot that we see is an over the shoulder shot of a man sitting alone at a table looking out of the window at the passing cars. He is clearly sitting alone and thinking or reminiscing about the person or situation that he is singing about. Straightaway a tracking shot is used which moves round the man sitting at the table until we can see a profile view of his face; the camera also zooms in slightly; this is where we see that he is singing the song, so the lyrics are clearly from his perspective and it is his story.
