The shoot - complications/solutions

We planned that we would start filming around 5pm until about 8pm, have a break and then continue from 10pm until we finished when everyone else who would be in the video got there. We had marked off on our storyboards the shots we could do in the first time slot (the band shots and a couple of others) and done those first.

In reality, less people came to the party/filming than we expected, and so we had to adapt our storyboards to accompany less people. An example of this was the opening, which was originally going to be a POV of someone walking in to the party to evoke the party feeling in the viewer and make them feel part of the video. As there were not enough people to create the energetic atmosphere we wanted, we shortened the sequence to keep the pacing acceptable. Another was the final chase scene, partly due to the lighting conditions and having three people (in the band) running away from two people. To rectify this, we had one of the runners holding the camera, making the action feel more threatening and immediate.



We made notes on the day of where props and people were positioned in the frame in order to maintain continuity throughout. This was especially important between the two filming periods, as it was easy to move something (bottles, chairs, cushions etc) without thinking about it.

An example of which would be the arrangement of bottles in the background.

Some problems arose with a couple of shots we wanted to do, such as low angles filmed from the floor looking up. Since we couldn't use the tripod from there, we had to film several takes of the same scene to find one with the least amount of camera shake.

Response to our pitch

Our pitch, while unrefined, gave us an insight into our audience's expectations towards a music video in our genre. The song went down fairly well as its pace and lyrics give us a starting point on which to base a video. The ideas themselves were less well recieved, with concerns over the vagueness of some of our highlighted shots and plotlines.

Mood board

Music video:

The music video for Katy Perry's Last Friday Night is set during a teenager's party, similarly to ours, albeit with a more upbeat and typical American tone than what we are going for. The video uses panning and tracking shots and directly addressing the camera to make the viewer feel involved and creates a sense of busyness. Our video's tone will be much lower, created through low lighting and less addressing of the camera. This will maintain the busy atmosphere but will make the viewer feel like they are watching rather than participating in the action.

Found footage films, such as Paranormal Activity, have become very popular in recent years, especially with teenagers and young adults. Since this is the same audience our video and promotional materials are aimed at, it would make sense for us to use conventions that these films use as they are already proven to be popular. One of these conventions are deaths that happen off screen. This would be a good feature to use as lets the audience fill in the blanks, as well as death scenes being very hard to do well. 

We have taken inspiration from the running scene from Trainspotting for our own end chase scene. What sets this scene apart from other similar chase scenes is the camera angles. Where most have static shots, Trainspotting has a moving camera which is more involving for the viewer and shows facial expressions on all the characters. The changing of shots happens in time with the soundtrack, much like a well edited music video. The continuity is maintained throughout, with the characters staying the same distance away from each other and everyone got more tired with each subsequent shot.

Auxiliary tasks:

The silhouette from Hitchcock's Vertigo poster is a style we could emulate quite easily,  taking pictures of the actors from the music video in the typical "chalk outline" pose, then cut them out and change the colours in Photoshop. The style is recognisable by our teenage, young adult audience. An advantage of this style is that the images are easy to edit as we don't have to worry about the colours looking strange on the background and changing the size of the images does not make them pixelated.  

The 8-bit style is popular right now, an example of which is this iPhone case. While it would be hard to emulate the style exactly in Photoshop, we could do something similar by using the straight line vector tool to cut out portions of pictures or shapes.

The police line up is also a recognisable format for use in our Digipak photos. Again, it would be easy to Photoshop a picture of the actors in a line onto a blank line up background. It would be in keeping with the crime theme made by the song, the video and the other Digipak artwork.

The shoot - filming locations



 

 

 

 

This is a sketch of the layout of Matt's house. The labels on the left refer to the shots of the characters walking from the sitting room to his kitchen via the corridor, explained further in another blog post (The day of the shoot - complications/solutions).

 

The camera was positioned in many different locations:

• The sitting room for the most part, filming narrative segments and cutaways. We had the lights off but left the TV on, giving a faint light from a low angle in the room. The main shot type was a mid shot, although we did also use low angle and over the shoulder shots too. For all locations we filmed, we made sketched out the layout of the mise-en-scene as to not disrupt continuity.
• We filmed at the bottom of the corridor looking towards the sitting room, the problems with which I discussed in the aforementioned blog post. All of the scenes we filmed here were the same, long shots with the characters walking towards the camera. The only change to this format was in one of the final shots of Jamie and Ben walking towards the kitchen, which was a two shot.
•  Most performance shots were filmed in the same location, slightly in front of the last location, facing towards the band. We used close ups for the individual band members and long shots for the whole band performances. We panned up on the corpses, once with just Tyler and one with Tyler and Amy. There were a few long shots taken from a low angle with the feet of the bodies framing the shot, looking up at the band performing.
• We filmed in his toilet as it was the darkest place in his house we could find. This was a mid shot of all three band members saying two lines of the song. We wanted this shot to have a serious tone, so we used a torch pointing up from the floor to create atmospheric, low-angle lighting.

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 





The shoot - filming script

We had a couple of lines in the shoot, those being "Where's Tyler?" and "Where are they?", although these are intended to be mimed as they didn't record very well over the background noise and actor's name may confuse the viewer as it is not mentioned elsewhere in the video.

In the end, we didn't use the footage of the "Where's Tyler?" line as the timing of the line was too long to edit correctly into the video.

The image of the artist - David Bowie



David Bowie as pictured in the mid 1980's

Bowie as his alter-ego Ziggy Stardust

David Bowie is an icon of music spanning from the 1980's up to his latest album released in 2013. His camp image that came with the success of "Space Oddity" was compounded by his alter-ego, the resplendant, ultra-extroverted Ziggy Stardust. Attitudes towards sexuality coevolved with the advent of glam rock, men emphasising their feminine features while maintaining their strong stage presence. Ziggy's attire and behaviour was so flagrantly homosexual he became sexually ambivilent.

His androgyny put him in a unique position; women loved his power juxtaposed with the lack of sexual intimidation, while men appriciated a man that was so confident in his masculinity that he could feel comfortable dressing in the manner he does.

Glam rock hit its peak in the mid 1970's, with Ziggy Stardust being at the fulcrum. The percieved view that being ultra masculine would appeal to men was rubbished. Bowie took showmanship to the next level which was entertaining to both genders. The combination of costume, musical style and enthusiasm made the whole show quite feminine.

The image of the artist - One Direction v Take That



One Direction

Take That (modern)


 

Two boy bands, two different images. One Direction are happy-go-lucky boys next door, while Take That make music that both children and grandparents can enjoy.

Take That have not always had the mature image they adopt now. Back in the first half of the 1990's, they were the pioneers of British boy band, although they penned their own material, unlike most. The songs themselves had arguably more creative merit as they had deeper lyrics than most similar bands. Their breakup in 1996 left many fans heartbroken, but they did get their fair share of boy bands to fill the void in the interlude before Take That's revival in 2005. These include 5ive, McFly, Busted and Blue, among many others.

Take That (classic)

As time went on, boy bands had to change their image to stay unique in a flooded market. One Direction are a prime example. Instead of aiming for the 15-24 kind of age group like Take That, they aim primarily at the 8-16 age group, mainly girls. This benefits the band as younger audiences are more likely to become megafans and buy lots of merchandise as they are more succeptable to marketing and are naturally more loyal.

If something can be 1D branded, it probably already has been

How does this relate to sexuality? Take That of the 90's and One Direction shared similar demographics, but as time moves on, so do the band. The teenage girls that loved Take That in 1994 have matured along with the band, and so neither can relate in the same way as they used to. Take That's record label knew their prime audience is original fans of theirs over young people nowadays, so their image changed accordingly. Out with the goofy, scruffy hairstyles and dress sense, and in with sensible, smart replacements. Their sound changed to, moving from pop to ballads, more fitting for an older audience.


One Direction are boyfriends, whereas Take That are husbands. The members of One Direction were chosen partly for their voice and partly for their ability to sell. Their fans have little grasp on sex, and so they are marketed as attractive rather than sexy. A part of this is making the band look perpetually well groomed and happy, and as a result, One Direction appear more feminine than modern Take That. While not straight up gay like Bowie, they still toy with their fans to give them something to speculate about. Take That are not trying to sell merchandise as their fans are less willing to fill their houses with tat.

One Direction, living the dreams of teenage girls worldwide