Grading Tests

During the editing of the video we decided that the narrative parts of the video may appear more relective after changing the contrasts of the video. Appearing as reflective may be appropriate for our video because the live performance features a singer who also appears in the narrative. Having the singer appear in both the narrative and the live performance makes the narrative feel as though it might possibly be a memory that the singer is singing about. By making the contrasts of the video seem darker or possibly more vibrant then it can help emphasize the fact that the narrative is more of a memory than just a random narrative.

So far, the images above show the tests we have done on Katie's laptop. The first image depicts the narrative in a more black and white contrast. This would certainly indicate that the narrative is more of a memory which is the aim, however if I were to be picky then I would say that it may appear too dark, as in the fairly light hearted nature of the video would not link together with a more black and white image.

The second image is shows much more vibrant colours. The colours across the whole frame are exggerated to create a more dynamic elated effect. This may help foreshadow the drugs which will be taken later on in the video (at the point in the narrative the images are taken from, the characters are only just about to meet) however to be critical I would argue that the colours are possibly too vibrant which can make the narrative look unrealistic. In terms of when the characters actually take drugs then it perhaps may be useful to use but before the characters meet then I feel there is little point to it.

The third image I quite like, it is not fully black and white however it is dark enough to suggest that these parts of the video is a memory. The colours appear much more subtle and more in the background whilst the characters in the video seem much darker. This could help indicate an isolation aspect to the characters (a convention present in numerous alternative rock videos). In order to be critical then I would say that the characters are possibly too dark since the video was shot at roughly 1:00pm on a bright sunny day then it can seem to be an odd contrast with the characters being so dark. Also it may be hard to fully make out what the characters facial expressions are like which can differ the experience and understanding of the video greatly.

The fourth image has colours which blend much more noticeably, the colours are not vibrant and much more dark, representing the isolation of the characters at the beginning. However this image looks much more 'doom and gloom', not only is it dark but very grey imagery can create an atmosphere which we do not want to present. The final image appears to be more of a transition to the live performance using the effect 'luma key'. However this is not a transition and actually plays both the live performance segment and the narrative segment at the same time. This overall looks quite silly, the idea of showing the narrative and live performance at the exact same time is an interesting concept but using this effect I feel will decrease the experience from the audience. It will distract them from both the performance and the narrative since the audience will not know what to primarily focus on. Using this I feel would not be a very good idea. It has the potential to be more of a hindrance rather than a postive aspect of the video.

Overall I feel as though 1, 2 and 3 are the ones which have the most potential. 1 clearly identifies a memory but may appear too dark. 2 is vibrant and helps reflect the idea of drugs, however using this before the characters take drugs may seem very awkward and will not truly make sense. 3 is subtle and presents a memory but could still appear too dark in contrast to the video. All of these tests both have their positive aspects and negative aspects. I have attempted to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these images intentionally in order to show that using any of these may be a good idea in some respects and a negative idea in others. The final two I feel are too distracting, if 1 and 3 are potentially too dark then 4 almost certainly is too dark and grey. The final image would not make sense at all to use in the video. Perhaps when the characters take drugs it would be something interesting to use (as though they are being stripped from reality) but it still will most likely appear silly and the audience will not be able to understand what is happeneing or where to focus on.

Friday Filming/Update on Editing

On Friday me, Katie, Sean and Emily filmed the final part of the video. This part involved the characters me and Emily play going into a house and continuing to drink alcohol and have sex. This was done in order to conform to the typical teenage antics displayed in numerous alternative rock videos. We have continued the editing stage and now have only one verse next to complete. There are still aspects which need to be improved upon I.E some parts of the editing will be tightened. The editing at the beginning of the video is going to become much slower than orignally planned. It is being slowed and lengthened in the beginning parts of the narrative, the reason for this is so that is allows the editing to 'pick up' along with the tempo of the song, the editing near the end of the video will stay consistant with its fast paced nature but in order to highlight the urgency of the narrative (in the sense that the characters are getting more passionate feelings for eachother) then the editing must start off relatively slow and then gradually increase in speed.

More digipack images

Here are some more images which have been made possibly for the digipacks. These designs follow the same design and the same look. They both use black and white and have used Photoshop in order to add some colour back in to the image to create a similar mood. The mood and tone it creates is fairly dark. Possibly the images are too dark in contrast to the video. Peronsally I believe that the quality of these images are very good and present a tone which is very effective. The fact that the parts which have been coloured back in have affiliations with drugs helps signify the importance of drugs to the characters. It makes it appear as though they're the only part which matters. Drugs are a major theme of the video, however they are more celebrated which the images may not directly signify. However the images do make the idea of drugs stand out far more noticably which can help the digipacks link to the video and be effective in creating a tone.

Rough Cut

http://katsawesomea2blog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/music-video-rough-cut.html

Here is a rough cut to the video we have produced. Notably this is only from the live performance without the narrative. We can edit in the narrative in later. Overall I am happy with what has been acheived thus far. Some of the vocals do still need to be synchronised to the music however the majority of the vocals are syncronised already.

Digipacks with Lyrics

Here are some images developed for the digipack which implement the lyrics beside the image. Personally I prefer the second image as it does not alter the original image much and I believe the text is more bold and readable however the first image I think is still fairly effective, my personal preference is just laying towards the second image.

Other Digipack Designs

Here are some images of potential digipacks  that could be used, the first image is a cartoon type image of an alcohol bottle whilst the second is a needle simulating a drug injection. The themes of alcohol and drugs is prevelant in a our video and the more artistic approach to the digipacks seems appropriate based on Madina Lake's From Them, Through Us, To You and Linkin Park's Minutes To Midnight as these do not directly corespond with any of the videos however they do present an artistically dark theme.

Potential Digipack Images

Here are some potential ideas for the images which would be inserted in the digipacks. Sean created this using Photoshop and his tablet. Both me and him discussed potential designs together and drew up designs based on the themes of the video I.E sex, drugs and alcohol. Overall I am satisfied with the result. I feel as though they do present a fairly dark theme whilst still being relatively playful. Particularly the image of the cartoon-like alcohol bottles is very artistic and could potentially link together with Madina Lake album cover From them, Through us, Into You as they both present an artistic look which does not directly link towards any videos but still presents a fairly similar theme. Another image was again made with Photoshop which is supposed to link towards sex as it directly links towards genders colliding. I feel as though this image is more of an initial concept, it is certainly not going to be used in the actual digipack as the design is not particularly appealing right now however a concept which may end up like this is still a possibility. The final image is mixing the original picture of the cigerette being lit and the new cartoon-like image of the bottles of alcohol. I believe that both images look good on their own, however when combined together then they do not match and the result is slightly underwhelming, I feel as though both images (or at least the concept of both images) should be placed in the digipack but not directly together. Instead I would prefer to have the alcohol bottles on their own page without any (or much) information and then have the cigerette image on their page with lyrics written on the left hand side as I feel this would be more appealing.

Digipack Images

Here are some images Sean has designed himself for our digipacks. These designs would be placed on pages in which information such as song titles, band members, etc is shown. The pictures below have been edited using Photoshop and orignally come from either stills taken from the actual video or have in fact come from pictures which were taken from Katie's new camera on the day of filming. In terms of what the actual pictures show and the reason we chose to take these pictures is that the majority of them have an association with drug use or will have a direct link to the video. The first image is taken directly from the video and uses a "cut out" effect. Overall I feel as though this image does link towards the video (since it was taken from the video directly) however I feel the effect is fairly lackluster, it's still an interesting image to have and a similar concept may be used for the digipacks. However, as of right now I feel as though the other images are of a higher quality. The second image is of the whole band playing directly from the live performance, this is taken from some of the footage we filmed. I feel as though this one is better than the first image and helps set an effective tone far easier than the first one, although it is quite blurry which does degrade it somewhat, despite this though it does set an effective tone. The third image is an image that was taken on Saturday, it is not taken from footage, this helps simulate the idea of drugs and typical teenage antics (in this case, smoking) using the effect "monochrome" to create a dramatic effect. The final image is another image taken directly from Katie's camera, Sean edited this simply by giving it a very high contrast. The result has made this my favourite out of all the images edited so far, it creates dramatic effect whilst also indicating drugs and the reasonably dark tone. It is possible that this image is too dark (in the sense of the tone) however I think it does reflect the idea of drugs very fluently and effectively. This would fit perfectly in the digipacks as the main part of the image itself covers one side whilst the rest of the image is black, this means we can place text onto the entire half of the image and it won't look crude. I really like how this has ended up as the image was taken in broad daylight at around 2:00pm at a small area aound a bunch of trees.

Filming on Friday and Saturday

Here are some images that were taken on the days shooting. The last few images were taken on the Saturday at the weekend; these are images taken from the narrative section of the video. The images indicate the characters after they have taken drugs. We decided on the day that it might be best that the characters also took cigerettes, the reason for this stems from the fact that since the boy character initially gives the drugs to the girl, it may have seemed as though he was drugging her on purpose for other intentions, therefore if the girl then gave him cigerettes (as though she is saying thank you) then the boy's intentions do not appear as dark. Overall filming on Saturday went very well, there were a few problems at the beginning, this is namely due to the fact that we did not officially plan specific shots and the location descriptions we knew we had to film could have appealed to any street. We spent a considerable amount of time trying to find a street that we felt would suit the video. Eventually we found one and continued the shoot. The final two images are of the live performance which was filmed at the tennis court at night on Friday, this filming went reasonably well overall. The reason I say "reasonably" is because the ending of the filming was very abrupt, we filmed the whole song from a couple of angles, however we were told by Mr. Lamb (the teacher who we borrowed the instruments from) that the site manager was closing the school down for the night and we needed to leave, therefore filming was cut short. The first few images highlight the equipment we used on the day of filming, the acoustic guitar and base were used during the live performance whilst the speakers were used to play the song whilst we were filming, this would help the performance filming as I could be able to mime the song.

Permission for the floodlights

At lunch time on 16th November I managed to search for the site manager again and asked permission to have the flood lights on from 4:30pm (presuming this is when the weather would start to get dark). He promptly agreed and stated that they should be on till around 6:00pm tonight, this means we will have approximately an hour and a half to film, this is not fully ideal since we are unsure exactly how long filming will take and we will be unsure when the appropriate time will be to film since the weather will not get fully dark until around 5:30pm. However we are still grateful that the site manager has verbally agreed to have the lights on which means we will have the ability to film. Now the only question is whether the lights will actually be on. If they aren't switched on for any reason then we will have to either reschudule the live performance filming for another time next week or we can try and use the organised time we've aranged for filming tomorrow and film the live performance in the day. This would still conform to the iconography (being the same place) however the atmosphere will not be as prevelant, therefore it is vitally important that filming happens tonight and there are no issues, however if issues do occur then we will still have these options.

Call Sheet for Today

Here is the call sheet for tonight which I have personally created.

Time To Meet	3:30pm
Date	16th November 2012
Location to Meet	Framwellgate School Durham Sixth Form Common Room
Location to Film	Tennis Court
Description of Location	Should be filmed at night time with the flood lights on to create a dramatic, atmospheric effect.
Reason For Location	Live Performance
Characters	No characters needed that are not part of the band
Group	Reece Wilkins, Katie Boal and Sean Scott
Props	Bass guitar, acoustic guitar, acoustic drums, microphone stand, microphone
Equipment	Camera and tripod
Special instructions	No special instructions needed

Equipment

Here is an image of the equipment which we will be using tomorrow and tonight for our filming. This camera is very high quality which should counteract the lighting risk of the tennis court as it would probably appear to dark with a regular camera. All we need now is to get permission from the site manager to turn on the lights for approximately an hour and a half so we can get all of our footage for the live performance.

Katie's Clothes for Tomorrow

Here is an image of Katie's clothes which she will be wearing whilst playing the drums tonight, she chose this as a band t shirt resembles the typical fashion of alternative rock music fans therefore establishing the iconography. The reason the shirt is black (and mine is red) is because white is not picked up on Katie's camera as well which would cripple the footage severely.

Call Sheet for Tomorrow

Here is the call sheet needed for tomorrows filming which I have personally created.

Time To Meet	1:30pm
Date	17th November 2012
Location to Meet	Sainsbury’s, Arnison Centre
Location to Film	Streets around domestic areas, Newton Hall as a prime location.
Description of Location	Must be casual and urban, simulates regular, everyday life.
Reason for Location	Establishment between the two characters, they walk through the street after coming home from school. They bump in front of each other and start a conversation. Eventually they get close and begin to take drugs which leads them to the boy’s house.
Characters	Reece Wilkins
Group	Reece Wilkins, Katie Boal, Sean Scott, Emily Burns
Props	No props are needed at this point
Equipment	Camera, Tripod
Special Instructions	No special instructions needed for this point.

Clothing for Live Performance

Here are the clothes I will personally be wearing when we film the live performance, these clothes were chosen as they link into the iconography of alternative rock more effortlessly than anything else. A simple t shirt combined with lightly coloured jeans fits ideally with videos from the actual All The Small Things song as well as Sum 41's In Too Deep. This means they will help reflect the iconography of alternative rock subsequently conforming to the genre.

Step by Step Narrative

Here is a simple step by step on how the narrative would work, this is not a step by step in terms of shots, it is more to clearly identify and provide a brief describtion of what would actually happen in the narrative.

• shot of a boy and a girl sitting in opposite sides of a classroom, both hard at work, when the boy hits the table in anger (due to the work), which makes the girl turn around quite timidly, who catches the eye of the boy and vice versa, who smile at each other and then urn back to their work.
• Then a shot of the girl noticing the bell going, picks up her work and leaves to go away from the table, yet the boy is still working.
• Then a shot of a corridor (Time lapse) of people moving around, to mark the end of the day.
• Girl walking down the street with books in her hand and knocks into the boy, then which she drops her books and he offers to pick them up, they start to converse.
• We then cut to a bench scene, and the boy gets drugs (Tic Tacs) from his pocket and gives them to the girl. They both take them.
• Stumbling into house, as they get into the house they continue to take alcohol.
• Drug and alcohol begins to take effect as they start to kiss (Not actually kissing, the camera suggest this)
• Clothes are thrown against the wall and onto the floor to indicate ‘sex’ (again suggested) then cuts off to the end

iPod Download

I have now downloaded the cover we will be using for our project onto my iPod, this means that when filming the live performance tomorrow I can bring this (along with a pair of speakers) which can play the song whilst we film, therefore it will be easier for us to follow the song as we are miming the words/playing the instruments.

Sunset Time

This is a table which I have found which indicates that the time the sun will go down tomorrow will be 4:09pm. This is the time when we will be filming our live performance at the tennis court.

Testing Editing

http://mass-pug-effect.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/testing-editing-um-thing.html

Here is a link to a video in which Sean has posted in order to make an attempt at a shot he saw in the recent film Judge Dredd, he states he believed he "failed miseably", however he has ended up creating an effect that could possibly be suitable for drugs. Bearing in mind this is only a test and likely will not be used, however inspiration for this type of effect can be considered for the editing stage. 

Retrospect

Overall our research has indicated clearly that certain shots will needed to be implemented as soon as we film. After looking at the videos from the alternative rock genre it is clear that due to videos such as Lyla and Damage have the shots including the quick cut extreme close up shots of instruments which gradually zoom out throughout the first seconds of the video, these go from extreme close up shots towards mid shots which will include the guitarist, drummer or singer with their instrument, the shots then can become long shots in which the whole band. In terms of other shots which will need to be used this includes the side angled close up shot of the singer with the microphone by their mouth. This is clearly a shot which will need to be implemented after looking at the videos including Lyla and Damages as well as Numb it is clear this shot is used frequently. In terms of iconography it is very important to include a live performance and a narrative which is cross cut, this is featured in numerous videos such as Lyla and Numb. The general iconography in terms of clothing is made in accordance to the tone of the song, E.G in the official All The Small Things video the clothing is very sporadic and is very humerous and fits in accordance to typical teenage clothes such as a simple colourful T shirt and jeans, this is subsequently vastly different to clothing worn in videos such as Numb where the tone is shown to be very dark and bleak thereby causing the clothes to be very formal and dark in order to help set the tone of the song more thoroughly. The narrative is very different and, like clothing, will be associated with the song. In terms of audience, alternative rock is very much oriented around teenagers, this is due to the themes often focusing on drugs, sex and partying, all of these are themes which are typically associated with teenage antics. This means that love, drug addiction, escapism and partying are all aspects  which should be included in the narrative. In regards to editing these shots of the instruments would have to be edited very quickly in order to reflect the fast paced nature of the song. So far we have perpared the locations and the storyboard for the video and Sean has assured me that there is little doubt that he will not be able to get the instruments for the live performance which is very motivating. In terms of the location we thought it would be suitable to utilize locations which were very urban and atmospheric, this is why the tennis court felt suitable for the live performance as it is very urban and due to the floodlights the court appears very atmospheric and should create a reasonably dark tone which can be used for the video.

Location - Live Performance

Here I have attatched a number of pictures I have personally took myself earlier tonight, these pictures are of the location we wish to shoot for our live performance, the live performance was due to shoot friday however due to circumstance involving organization, namely of the instruments, as well as Sean not being in school today it was therefore impossible to shoot tonight the way we wanted, this pushes the shooting into next week, however I feel as though this may have a slight postivie affect in the sense that we can organize ourselves more thoroughly in the upcoming days. Obviously this will decrease the amount of editing time although nothing can essentially be done about that so we will have to carry on and do what we can. Thankfully in order to have the ability to take these pictures late at night I contacted the school caretaker and asked if I could have the lights on at night to take pictures (I also requested to have the lights on at some point next week as well, which he agreed to). If I had not done this then these pictures would have been very dark and hard to see so I am very grateful I did. Anyway, as it is evident the lights are quite effective, I personally expected the whole court to be lit up more powerfully, however the caretaker told me that there were recent issues with the lights and they were not working as powerfully as they had been in the past few weeks. The first image shows the enterance to the school, I wanted to get this because I thought the area may be another possible place to add to somehow, I'm not thinking this would actually happen but just as perhaps a slight back-up perhaps. Evidently the pictures reveal that one side of the court is lit up very brightly in a yellow-ish sepia-like tone whilst the other side of the court is quite dark since the lights on that side are not as prevalant, therefore the area where would film would have to be the side which is more yellow-ish and bright. The other images show what the court looks like when you actually stand on the court. I decided to take some Panorama images on my phone in order to gain a clear grasp of what the area as a whole looks like when standing in on the court itself.