Costumes

The costumes of our performers, particularly the two narrative performers, we have had to give a fair bit of thought to. Both Frank and I agree that this particular aspect of mise-en-scène is key to clearly establishing the roles of our two characters. Those two are a vulnerable and frightened woman, as well as a man who needs to be in control and so feels the need to abuse his partner. The reason clothing can help establish the roles of the characters is that there are certain costumes which are stereotypically associated with their character types.



The sorts of clothing we would like our narrative performers
to wear.



One of the make-up styles we would like our performer to base upon.

The type of woman we would like in our video has, in past productions, been classically shot wearing fairly shabby sorts of clothing. This perhaps connotes the torment that they are feeling in their ‘relationship’. Specifically for ‘our’ woman we would like at least one item of white clothing to be worn, as research shows this shade to be a typical symbol of ‘Innocence’ (The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge. Encyclopedia Americana Corp. 1918. p. 329).

Our man has, in past productions again, also been shot in, well ... just not particularly upmarket clothing. The connotations of this are that the male is quite possibly out of control (of his mind). The clothing of our male we would like to be quite dark as stereotypically, darkness connotes antagonists.

For our singer we would prefer for her to be shot with a variety of different make up styles, however due to time constraints (i.e. getting people together and the amount of time we can spend together) this may not be possible. The reason we would like differing make up styles is that the singer could show off multiple colours of eye liner and so forth, which are typical conventions it seems, of both Nero videos and dubstep videos in general.

The costumes we would like our performers to wear are nothing glitzy or glamorous, or anything really out of the ordinary, so we will simply be asking our actors/actresses to provide their own, which will not be a problem as we told each person when we 'roped them in' that this might be the case.

Actors/Actresses

As our narrative concerns such a serious subject, and one that has the potential to upset audience members who have been affected by it in their own lives, we feel we need to get the most experienced actor and actress we can. Frank is friendly with many of the Drama students in our school and so has made enquiries about who could help us. By chance, Drama students need as much evidence as possible of them practising their acting for their own course, and so this is seemingly a ‘perfect’ arrangement so to speak. It was therefore not difficult attracting interest.

The two students we have decided to use are Amy McGregor (middle right) and Martin Baldwin (top right), who, from watching them in action, both appear to be comfortable working with each other and so should find it easier to act out scenes of the nature we are looking to shoot. Another actor whom caught our eye was Jay Khatri, and so we approached him about being our ‘reserve’ actor, as myself and Frank both know we have busy schedules in the coming weeks and so will need to film when we are both available, meaning our first choice actors/actresses will not necessarily be available as well.

For our performance shots we have been looking out for a good looking girl who has some sort of singing background. Luckily for us, a student whom Frank works with in Art fits the bill perfectly. That student is Emma Jenkins (bottom right), so she will be the singer in our video.

Declination of CCTV Footage Use

We have now heard from the store we enquired to about potentially using CCTV footage. Unfortunately they have turned us down.

The good thing is that this shot idea was not key to the meaning of our production and there are other shots we can take to get across to the audience what we want.

Location photos to come

We have been out scouting various locations that might fit the spec we have in mind, taking pictures of the places we wish to film in. Unfortunately due to technical issues we can't upload these photos at the moment however as soon as it is possible for us to do so, they will be uploaded.

Lighting Enquiries

We would like to film some of our scenes during the evening and so will require some form of lighting. We had a search on the internet to see if there were any portable lights available for hire. What appeared to be the cheapest we could find were from a company called Mammoth Holdings Limited (see right) and so we sent them an email and got a quick reply which can all be viewed below.

Having received this reply we decided that it would be easier, and frankly cheaper, to light our scenes using the headlights of cars. Frank has a car and it is possible for us to call upon a mutual friend to bring his car along so the scenes are well enough lit.

From: Webgroup[SMTP:WEBGROUP@MAMMOTHGROUP.CO.UK]

Sent: 29 November 2011 12:09:07

To: The Mammoth Hire Team

Subject: FW: Customer service enquiry from Mammoth Hire Auto forwarded by a Rule

Thank you for your enquiry. In order to give you a quote we would need to know how long you wish to hire the equipment for.

The floodlights are plugged into a transformer then would need to be plugged in to the mains.

Delivery & Collection is charged  @ £7.50 +VAT each way

If you require any further information or wish to book, please call our central number on: 0843 308 2301

Regards

Nicola

Nicola Hill
Hire Controller

8 Warren Road
Trafford Park
Manchester
M17 1QR
T:  0845 66 77 999
F:  0845 66 88 999
E:  nicola.hill@vpplc.com
http://www.hirestation.co.uk/

-----Original Message-----

From: Michael Jarvis [mailto:05jarvis_mi@swchs.net]

Sent: 29 November 2011 12:08

To: Mammoth Holdings Limited

Subject: Customer service enquiry from Mammoth Hire

We are interested in hiring your product - Floodlight with tripod Double

1000watt - and wondered whether you could tell us how long the normal

battery life is and how the pick up/delivery process works and the costs of

this?

Audience Research Questionnaire

This is a screen shot of our school's Sixth Form Daily Bulletin which is sent to all sixth formers every day via email. As you can see we were able to add our own post and ask people if they wouldn't mind completing an online questionnaire which we set up and looks like this: -

Intertextuality

In a recent lesson we took an in depth look at intertextuality. There are two types. Vertical intertextuality is where there is cross referencing between two different mediums. For instance, if you click through to this link, there is referencing of a film, The Godfather, in a television commercial. Horizontal intertextuality is the opposite, where cross referencing occurs between two texts of the same medium. A good example of this type is actually two music videos I analysed further back in my blog - Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal and Alien Ant Farm's cover of it.

Frank very soon after this lesson, was able to use his musical knowledge to come up with both a vertical and a horizontal reference that we can quite easily include into our video.

For our vertical reference we will shoot our performer close-up in a half light, which, as you can see (right), can be referenced to Example’s 'Playing In The Shadows' album cover. This shot does not really encompass a great deal of meaning (i.e. it does not connote ideas that we want to get across and so forth), however it was one we had thought about using to show off our creativity and willingness to explore different shot types. Example is an artist that is known for performing songs in the dubstep genre and so the reference should be easily recognisable to a fan of the genre.

For our horizontal reference, we have decided that we will add text to our video which flashes up on screen in multiple colours. If you view the video from this link, Kanye West, All Of The Lights, you will see exactly the type of shots I am referring to, as our idea is based heavily upon the video for West’s song. We feel it makes sense to incorporate a reference such as this because there are very few words in our song and so those that are should really have their importance conveyed across to the audience, which, as you can see, is why this flashing text effect has been used in the All Of The Lights video.

CCTV Shot Idea

Having watched a few exemplar shots (like the one above from Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé - Telephone) of one camera filming the image being filmed by another  (so for example filming the screen a CCTV camera is relaying images back to) myself and Frank both agree that this could potentially be a worthwhile shot, which could add something different and interesting to our music video.

To begin our enquiries we have asked a small store, local to us both, whether or not we could film their television screen which shows the CCTV images they are collecting. By telling them what it’s for we hope that perchance they might suggest a method where by they could actually give us the footage they have, however we recognise this is probably long odds, hence why we are not asking straight away about this possibility. The Store Manager has taken our query on board and will deliberate upon it, before, she says, getting back to us as soon as possible.

We feel shots such as the ones we are deliberating upon using would simply be helpful in connoting the ‘troubled’ theme of the narrative, as CCTV is stereotypically, and actually first and foremost for, helping to catch criminals and prevent criminality. The shot of course would also be quite unique and inventive and so would be a prime way of demonstrating our creativity and willingness to try new things.

Representation of Gender in Nero's music videos

I decided to carry out research into gender as there are a number of interesting representations, varying by video. This decision was also based on the fact that my own video's two main characters will be a person of each genre. The information I have drawn together will be helpful in choosing how to represent the characters in my own production.

If I Found Love, The Strangers

This is the final edit of our production.

Notes on filming of the Strangers performance

Problems encountered -

- Absent and late crew members
- Late change of staging position
- Only three SD cards (we had planned for more)
- Different song version
- Framing and lighting was difficult because of spatial restrictions
- Inadequate training for certain members on use of cameras
- No direction of choreography which meant cameras had to move with the performers, which proved difficult

Strengths -

- Choice of high and low angles
- Multiple members on cameras
- Organisation beforehand of crew members was assured

As you can see the problems we encountered outweighed the strengths of our filming. Perhaps what allowed us to battle around the problems was our organisation. We were ready to go in the small allotted amount of time that we had and so got enough shots that we were able to produce a half decent video. Unfortunately one of our camera 'crew members', the one we had on the floor, mistakenly pressed the record button twice and so failed to capture any footage, however our filming from above meant we were lucky enough to get away with it. Our camera nearest the band had a little trouble framing due to the late change in staging however again our organisation meant we had time enough to sort this. Further to this, once we got the footage back to the editing suite, we realised that the band had played a slightly different version to the recorded song we have to put the footage to. Fortunately our editors have managed to work around this and we have produced a worthy video.

Of course all of the trials and tribulations we experienced here, as well as the successes, will help to ensure we experience maximum success when it comes to producing our actual project.

The Strangers

On Wednesday (9/11) a band called The Strangers came into our school to play a gig. Beforehand they allowed us Media students, in small groups, to practice our filming of a performance by shooting them as they rehearsed their gig line up. This gave all of us I think, further insight to how to shoot a performance and the problems that can occur along the way.

I was assigned as the Director of my group and so I had to make sure everyone knew what camera they were working and the types of shots they were expected to take. Due to the late arrival of the band we had only one chance to shoot our footage. With the plans we had put together before the filming session we were quietly confident that we could do a good job, however the stage was at a slightly different angle to what we originally had thought and so suddenly framing became difficult from the angles we had positioned our cameras. With one shot and a small timeframe though, we simply had to make the best of the situation.

At the moment we have not begun editing, however it is at this stage that we will see just how well our plans pulled through. I will blog again on this issue after seeing our footage.

In the mean time this is the tune and original video of the song we filmed, called If I Found Love

Storyboards and the like are absent due to the small amount of planning time we had for this project.

Acceptance!

Below is the correspondence between myself and MTA Records. We have permission!


Hi Michael

Thanks for your email.

Providing that it is not for public domain and you will not be exploiting
the recording of Nero 'Innocence' in a public performance or earning any
revenue from such performances in any way, we are happy to grant one off use
on this occasion.

Good luck!

Thanks

Sophie





On 10/10/2011 17:34, "Michael JARVIS" <05JARVIS_Mi@swchs.net> wrote:

> To whom it may concern
> 
> My name is Michael Jarvis. I am writing on behalf of myself and Frank James.
> We are both Year 13 students at Saffron Walden County High School, currently
> taking a Media Studies A-level.
> 
> For part of our A-level we are required to produce a music video. I am writing
> to ask for permission to use Nero's track 'Innocence' for our's. The track
> would be used solely to examine myself and Frank's ability to construct a
> music video.
> 
> I do hope this proposition is acceptable.
> 
> Many thanks for your time
> 
> Michael Jarvis

Track Selection

I shall be working with Frank James to produce my final music video. We worked together successfully on producing a two minute film opening last year and so saw no reason not to work together this year.

When thinking about what track to produce a video for, we first told each other the types of genres we both like listening to, in order to see if we both enjoy a certain genre, having agreed that it will be hard to work with a track that we don't particularly enjoy listening to for the length of time we will be required to. The genres, it turned out, that we had a mutual liking of were Dubstep and R'n'B.Our primary thought when considering what tracks we could use from the R'n'B genre was that many of the tracks we prefer are produced by black artists and so we would need a black person to perform in our video to make it look authentic. As neither us knew of anyone who 'fitted the bill' so to speak, we decided to look more into the Dubstep genre.

When thinking about artists and songs we like, it quickly emerged that we both enjoy the music of the band Nero, who recently released an album earlier this year called Welcome Reality, from which has come five singles, one of which was even number one in the UK charts for a small period.

We both liked the thought of producing a video to one of the singles from the album but were weary that our production could be compared with Nero's own. Having watched the videos of each single on YouTube though, it occurred that one video was of the animation genre. This video was for the track 'Innocence' and so we decided to write to MTA Records, the record label with whom Nero are signed and ask for their permission to use this track.