Feedback for final project

we showed our video to the rest of the class in yesterdays lesson and they gave us feedback on things they liked about our video and things which they may have done differently. overall we were pleased with the comments we recieived.

Good Points:
Good use of colour
Good effects
Fast editing
Good balance between two narratives
Effective last shot
360 degree panning worked well
Representation of snakes was effective
Good use of props ie Jelly snakes - imaginative
Ambiguity of narrative worked well- left for the audience to make their own mind up about what was going on

Things we could have improved:
Not used the same shot more than once- ensure we have enough footage to last the entire sequence
Face paints should be used throughout
Could have used some 'as live' as apposed to all narrative based.

Final Video!!

2nd shotlist

1. istop motion of sweet snakes-get blank piece of paper to lay on table and link camera up to mac.

2. Onto field- shots of 'the strangers' and 'the girl'.

3. The courtyard- 'the girl'.

4.G block corridor- shots of 'the strangers' holding up cards saying 'i do not love you'.

...if we have time...

5. shoot more close up shots of 'the strangers'.

shooting- second time round

Although we managed to get a wide range of shots first time round filming, we were concerned we don't have enough footage to fill the whole track. Therefor we are having to have to shoot once more. We will shoot on campus in lesson time to save time. The shots were are planning to film are:

-i stop motion of sweet snakes.

-re-do the shots of 'the strangers' holding up the signs saying 'i do not lot love you'. This is because the lighting of the shot is too dark and also the writing on the cards is not very clear.

-shots of 'the strangers' in the courtyard, and general close up shots of our faces.

-Shots of Ella (possible location=the field)

the shoot- take 1

On Wednesday 8th October we arranged to shoot our video project. We aimed to leave college at 2.40pm however with having to wait for the cameras to arrive we did not leave until nearer to 3.00pm. with having a quite concise shot list and times of shooting each shot it meant that we were slightly behind schedule. However on arriving town, we met on Christ's piece and got straight to it. We began by filming the shots of Ella on her own, including the spinning around shot, some shots of her on the ground covererd in sweet snakes and then some shots of her walking down an alley way. we were very pleased with the way each of these shots looked. We then began shooting some shots of the rest of us, wearing our hoodies again walking down the alley way. For the majority of our shots we made sure that we used the tripod in order to achieve more effective, steady shots.
After filming down the alley way we made our way to the indoor shopping centre where we filmed a hand held shot of Ella from above. we were really pleased with the way this shot turned out.
Although we tried our best to stick to our original shot list, when we began filming we had lots more original ideas which we then incorporated this consequently made us slightly behind schedule.
We then left town and made our way to Ella's house. we managed to film all of the shots that we were hoping to and they all turned out well. we shot ella in the bed having a nightmare, her making the way down the stairs and her in the bathroom. it was here that we also mainly focused on the 'hooded figures' shooting many shots of them and dojng some lip syncing to certain lyrics, in time with the song.
Overall, we were very pleased with the way inwhich the shoot went, however, when getting back to college to begin editing, we realise that in fact we have not got enough footage and we may need to shoot some more.

ROUGH CUT

time line for shooting!

2.40- pick up carmera

TOWN:

3.30- arrive in town, do makeup and put on costumes ( grand arcade toiltes)

3.40- 'spinning around' shot (christ piece)

3.45- Ella lying on floor, the 3 strangers (Lizzie, Ana, Daniele), looking down on her

3.50- Ella walking through the Grand arcade in a slow and dreamy manner

HOUSE:

4.25- 'i do not love you' shot, paper on the wall, ripped down to reveal lyrics

4.35- Ella in bed (as if having a nightmare)

4.40-Ella walking towards mirror, sweet snakes in hand (dropping some) gets to the bathroom, snakes in sink, looks down again, snakes have gone. Ella rights on mirror 'i do not love you' in red lipstick.

5.00- shot of s strangers, slowly panning left to right of bottom of faces. Shot of the 3 strangers mouthing to words 'buy it buy it buy it buy it'.

5.20- shot of one of the strangers holding plain piece of paper.

5.25- istop motion of sweet snakes moving around.

5.40- shot of Ella leaving house, disorientated and slowly in pajamas, as she gets outside shes suddenly clothed.

Blog feedback

the groups came round and analysed our blog. they all said that there was nothing noticeably missing, however we have decided to incorporate a list of mise en scene.

Good points: location research was effective. and the 'what next' post.
we carried out some test footage.
good detail in most sections and detailed shot list.
we developed the idea since

To improve: Carry out a list of mise en scene.
alo give specific references to where we found or information on the band.
and more detailed reasons why we shot what we did.

Mise en scene

Costume=
3 randomers- black hoodies and colorful face paint.
the girl-pajamas

lighting=
in room- dark (as if night time)
Outdoors in town- dusky

props=
mirrors, snakes(maybe),lamp.

cinematography=
istop motion, zoom in/out, spiraling in...

editing=
lip syncing. lyrics in fitting to music, different effects using final cut

Shooting

We are hoping to book the cameras out on Tuesday 7th of October after college and Wednesday 8th of October.
we will hopefully get the majority or four shooting done over these two days as the rough cut for our project must be in by the end of our lesson on 10th October.

test footage

Yesterday we shot some test footage of the shots which we were most worried about shooting. this was the 'spinning around' shot which we were plnning on filming in town to show the situation the girl was going through.
we wanted to know whether the shot would work better by the person turning holding the camera, or whether it looked better if somebody else filmed the shot by circling the 'girl' with the camera. the idea we wanted to create was the idea that girl was still but the world her was moving.

Location

We will be shooting a lot of the video at my home in Cambridge





This is the room that we are going to use for the shots of the girl dreaming, and having a nightmare, she will be rithing around in her bed.




This is also the room where we will be shooting the 3 people with colorful faces, as the wall is blank and it is a good space to film in.





This is a picture of the stairs that the girl will walk down to the bathroom




This is the bathroom that the girl will be looking in the mirror, where she will see herself with the snakes in her hair.
Also we will shoot the girl slowly walking into the bathroom.

Autons-SNAKE VIDEO

We found this video on youtube, which the band produced for the song 'snakes'. we particularly like the shots where the people are holding up what seems to be a from of television which shows another shot happening. we thought this would work well in our sequence if we had the 'colored people' holding up a screen showing what the girl is doing. we could do this by using final cut and creating a small shot within another shot. we like this idea as it will link our two different ideas/sequences together.

We also noticed that the band used the lyrics for the second verse "In casino at the wheel i'm gonna gamble for your heart of steel" and interpretated it literally as gambling and the way that in one shot a lady is flicking the card and then later on they have reversed it so the cards come back into her hand, we could do something like this as well.

We also really like the way that the camera shots move quite quickly from shot to shot. we are hoping to incorporate this in our video by moving not only from shot to shot but with in the shot as well. this will emphasize the insanity of the song.

Location Shots-ideas

this image shows the market square in town where we were planning on filming the shots of the girl going a bit 'crazy' and maybe having people around her looking at her. on saturdays the market square becomes very busy, although we want other people in the shot, it may be better to film here on a quieter day.
I like this image in grand arcade. i thought it would work well if somehow we could make the girl to stand out amongst all other members of the public. this would also show that we can use a wider variety of shots.



this image shows another view of the market but this time with the church in the background i think this looks very effective. we wanted to shoot here as its usuall really busy so we can speed up people around and slow the girl down.

What Next?

We have now got a clearer idea of where we are going to shoot our footage. The majority will be shot at Ella's house in Cambridge, therefore it will be easy for us all to get to. here we will shoot the images of the girl having a nightmare and also the 'weird' people with colored faces in a darkened room. the rest of the footage will be shot in the main town in Cambridge.
Ella and Ana are going to take pictures of our location shots and blog them, therefore we will be able to look at the shots and get a clearer idea of what will be happening in these locations.
This weekend we are going to look for props to use in our video such as toy snakes and lots of mirrors. we also need to buy some colored hoodies to wear in the dark room when playing the people with colored faces.
By the begining of next week we should have a clear idea of where we are shooting and what will be happening in each scene, therefore we can begin to film 'test shots' around college, we could possibly film in the green room to practice our scene with the 'colored people' or alternatively a darkened class room. This will help us to see whether when shooting the shot on the day it will look effective. We could also try and show the unstability of the girl which we were going to do in town, in the quad of the college. I think these test shots will become useful and give us more ideas of what will work well and what needs improving.
After successfully filming test shots we can then begin to come together and find a suitable day for all of us to film on. working around echothers jobs and similar free peiods at college etc.

Feedback from animatic

The whole class looked at our animatic and gave us feedback on it.
We weren't that happy with the editing in our animatic as we wanted there to be flashes of the snake clip randomly placed in the animatic, but instead there was just a long shot of a snake. We realize that we should have put in a bigger input when the editing was taking place to make sure all the shots were in the right lace. For example the shot of, 'i do not love you' should have been in the right place with the correct lyric.

Animatic

this is our animatic showing roughly what the first minute of our music video will look like.

Autons-Snakes

Autons met auditioning to be extras in the cult English TV series, Dr Who. Failing in their attempts to appear as Autons (the plastic mannequins that came to life), they decided to form a band named after their beloved Dr Who adversaries. the band are well known for their songs mainly based on fantasy and disconnection.the band describes themselves as being mainly rock and roll but slightly electro. They have so far found quite alot of success across Europe. the first single the band released was infact 'snakes' which we are making our video on. The song was a 80mph thrash-fest that exploded across the UK when it was first released there in 2006, and landed the band in heavy rotation on Radio One and MTV Europe. They were selected as the first band to be featured on Dandelion Radio, a John Peel-inspired internet radio station.

Shot List

Overview
Here is a vague shot list that we have come up with so far, but it may be altered once we begin to film our video. the video is made up of three main strands, the girl who is a bit mentally unstable and thinks that the snakes she is dreaming about are actually in real life. this leads to the second strand of the flashes of snakes she sees throughout her day. She is also seeing colored people who control her thoughts... so she thinks! making the snakes she is seeing not go away.

Shot 1- Close up on multi colored faces during the intro (camera left-right)
in this shot the camera is going to be panning across there faces starting from the left to the right. This shot will last approximately 15 seconds with the camera moving quite slowly.

Shot 2- Girl in bed having a nightmare- med shot. In this shot the camera will show the girl lying in bed tossing and turning.

Shot 3-Flashes of snakes showing it's happening in her dream not real life(the snakes are not really there). these shots will occur throughout the video showing why the girl is so distressed.

Shot 4-another shot of her dreaming - close up shot -Distress on "try it"- speed up and slow down shots

Shot 5- Lyric 'Buy it Buy it Buy it'- back to the multi colored faces mouthing the words.

shot 6- girl awakens from dream and walks to bathroom- med shot (play forward-rewind-forward)?? shows things are a bit strange.

Shot 7- looks at herself in the mirror quick shot of 'snakes in hair'. mid shot. from behind her head showing her reflection in the mirror.

Shot 8- close up of the girl's reflection. snakes are not there but girl still looks upset. this shows that the snakes are not really there but in her imagination.

Shot 9- another shot of the mirror- close up 'i do not love you' written in red lipstick on the mirror. in time with the lyrics.

Shot 10- another shot of the colored people in the room singing the lyrics of the song. Holding the 'TV of the girl'

Shot 11- Girl leaving house. not walking in a straight line. her walking slow, world around her moving quickly. shot will be shown in the TV held by the colored people.

Shot 12- more flashes of the snakes. covering majority of the screen.

Shot 13- 'dizzy shot'. shows how she is not quite in reality. close up of girl holding camera towards her. she'll be still world around moving.

Shot 14- Colored people singing to the song/smashing of mirrors? mid shot.

Shot 15 - long shot of the girl walking through town. maybe overhead view from balcony of grand arcade. girl standing out from everyone else.

Shot 16 - Colored people holding up signs of some of the lyrics on white boards.

Shot 17 - another mid shot of the girl. showing her state of mind.

Shot 18 - Flash of people and snakes. very quick shot.

Shot 19 - Snakes flashing,on girl as she is walking along. long shot.

Shot 20 - Wall with paper and lyrics to end the song

Indications of Locations

Our location ideas as yet are not defined but we have some ideas as to where we may shoot our music video.
We will probably shoot some of the footage for our video in town. for instance in the market square where the 'girl' will be able to have room to run around and it will be clear that she id going a little 'psycho'. i also thought that maybe she could stand in lion yard near the entrance to the Grand arcade and it could be here that we could show that girl isn't stable by giving the impression of dizziness , by either her holding the camera and spinning around, making her look still and the world around her moving or somebody else filming this shot.
if we were to do the shot in the room, we would need to find somewhere dark. we could possibly use a room in one of or houses but that could cause difficulties as we may not all be able to get to the same place. if need be we could use green screen to film this scene but ideally we do not want to.
Also we like the idea of smashing up mirrors maybe as a reflection is projected into it. this means we would have to not only buy lots of mirrors but find a place where it would be possible to break mirrors, due to small pieces of glass being left on the floor.
These are just possibilities to think about but we are not sure yet where our locations are going to be.

feedback

We presented our pitch to the class, and gained some important feedback that will be useful to aid in our ideas.
one point we where given was to be more realistic in our ideas and think about locations and possible sets we could use.
We where also told to come up with more ideas as ours are quite brief and also our ideas are a little out of reach for our budget.
As well as discussing more ideas with our group we have also been inspired by the thoughts of the Autons with their email to us.

16/09/2008-Feedback from the band

Last week i emailed the band via Myspace to see if they had any ideas as to what the meaning of the song was as the song could have various different interpretations and whether they had any ideas about what the video could include.
the band emailed back saying that they got the idea for the song from a film called 'the gorgon' which is about a mythical creature with snakes in her hair, if anybody looked her in the eye she would turn them to stone, portrayed in the lyrics, 'if i see you i turn to stone'. He also said there was a scene in the film in which the man looks at the 'gorgon' via a mirror. which would explain the lyrics 'snakes in the mirror'. However he did say that this was not really what the song was about but where he got the idea from.
we were very grateful for his feedback and although we probably won't use the idea of a woman with snakes in her hair.
although i do like the idea of somebody looking at someone while they look at themselves in the mirror. i think if we could get the camera angle right then a shot like this could be effective.




From: ..Daniellaa*..♥..
Date: 12 Sep 2008, 12:12


hey
i'm at sixth form studying media studies and have chosen to do a music video on your song 'snakes'. just wondered if you had any ideas for us? what was your intentional meaning behind the lyrics.
we will be very grateful for any help/ideas you have
thanks
xx


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


Hey thats great

not sure if I have any actual visual ideas, but i got the idea from a Hammer film called 'The Gorgon' , which is about the mythical creature with snakes in her hair, who turned people to stone if you looked her in the eye. There is a scene in the film in which a man looks at the Gorgon via a mirror.

The song is not really about that at all, but thats just where i got the original idea from

Hope this helps!

David

Pitch

We have decided to do a music video for the song Snakes by Autons.
We have chosen this song as we feel it is upbeat and we came up with a lot of ideas for it.

We have decided to do an abstract video, with a non obvious narrative.
we decided that we would take the lyrics of the song and take a literal veiw on them, by including snakes in our video.
We are going to have 2 sets for our filming, we are going to have a narrative of a person goin crazy and seeing things, and running around town and seeing snakes everywhere.

Our other idea is to have mysterious characters in a abandoned house and we had the idea for these characters to be all in black but have colouful faces, and for the faces to be the most focused thing and for our background to be very dark.
we got this idea from the video "Atlantis to Interzone" by Klaxons.



the part of the video where the band are playing is simliar to our idea of the whole place looking dark and mysterious, which is what we are aiming for in out video.

we also like the idea for some of the shots to be quite abstract and we liked the jerky movement in the video "Blue Orchid" by The White Stripes, which has a stop motion feel to it but with people instead of animated objects. We want to learn how to do the jerky movement in our video to makeit have a more creepy, abstract feel.



We are going to iclude the lyrics in our video alot, which some people would argue would make the video boring, but we feel that as the lyrics dont really make sense and are quite abstract themselves.

We also like the idea of instead of having the band playing in the video, we would get other people in our video and they could be playing odd intruments or just banging walls and it would look like the music was coming from them. we got this idea form a music video by The Cure called "Close To Me" where it feachers the band playing combs and very small toy keyboards.



At the end of the video we would like the 2 different sorties of our video to meet so it becomes more of a story.

Imminent targets

- Completed pitch written up on blog by END OF NEXT LESSON
- Each group to present pitch to others in the class by END OF FRIDAYS LESSON
- Each group to have completed animatic storyboard and uploaded it by THE END OF THE WEEK

selection process

We were given a disc of 12 tracks from where we were told to select one track which we wanted to choose from are music video project.

1: Buss It Up - Kano
2: What Ever It Is - The Shivers
3: Piece - Field Music
4: She Said - Holly Golightly
5: 19-20-20 - The Grates
6: Cologne Cerrone Houdini - Goldfrapp
7: Succumb - Bassboosa
8: Precious - Depeche Mode
9: Tomorrow Will Be Like Today - Money Mark
10: Seen The Light - CosyCosy
11: Lotus - Cage The Elephant
12: Snakes - Autons
13: Plastic Hearts - Dirty Pretty Things

we decided to choice track 12 snakes- Autons because it had an up tempo and melody and beat.
The original lyrics gave us ideas of what we could do for the project

Lyrics

Track: Snakes- Autons


Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

Have I got the nerve to try it?

Have I got the wads to buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it?



Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

Have I got the will to try it?

Have I got the heart to fly it, sigh it?



Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

I'm gonna worship your appliance

I'm gonna sell my soul to the devil's science



In casino

At the wheel

I'm gonna gamble for your heart of steel

If I see you, I'll turn to stone

Call a doctor 'cause I'm having a baby



Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

Have I got the will to fly it?

Have I got the heart to sigh it, try it?



Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

Snakes in the mirror, man, I do not love you

I'm gonna shatter your reflection

Will I still be around next general election?



In your red dress

In my dreams

I wouldn't swap it for a thousand queens

If I see you, I turn to stone

Call a doctor 'cause I'm having a baby

Call a doctor 'cause I'm having a baby



Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

Snakes in the mirror and I do not love you

Snakes in the mirror and

Welcome to GROUP 39