Tuesday 30 November 2010

Recent Changes

We have decided to re-film the Piano scene tomorrow, as there will be issues regarding the Great Hall since there's a potential clash.

Today we made a rough model of our digipak, and have decided that it would be a six-panelled digipak. One main point we all had different views on was whether the album title or the artist's name would be in bigger print on the album cover. Eventually, we decided on the artist's name being in a slightly bigger, more significant font as it is Jessica York's debut album, so the name and the photo is something that would appeal to the audience as it would be something memorable.

We as a group have decided that we need more footage of scenery shots, anything besides Jessica because all the six locations we have used mainly consist of static shots of Jessica. Of course we have used a few varied shots, but after reviewing artists whp play the piano in their music videos, artists like Delta Goodrem and Tori AMos, we have reviewed the difference between the shots used and the shots we have used - and there's a big difference. So, we drew up a list of the shots we're going to do during tomorrow's filming and it consists of a few smooth side to side pans of Jessica at the piano and possibly a long/medium shot of her profile at the piano. This idea we took from the Delta Goodrem video, however it's something we'll need to figure out well because we can't afford to get any of the background in because it's not something we can edit out.

Lastly, I woke up early yesterday morning and set my video camera on top of the dustbin outside my front door and filmed the sun rising, but the sun wasn't visible, only some pink in the sky could be seen. The first five minutes of the shot included trains going past and a few birds; however i was not satisfied with the train being in the shot, so i re-positioned the camera, tilting it further upwards so that I had a half hours worth of footage of the sky, so it's a potential time passing shot. A shot we could fast forward into a few seconds to show the passing of time within the music video, and adding to the change in location.

Nilufa (behalf of everyone)

Sunday 28 November 2010

Thames Barrier Park

We have decided that regardless of the weather, we are going to Thames Barrier Park in Pontoon Docks on Sunday 5th to film Jessica in the park (unless it snows - eep). However the outfit and make up for this scene is still undecided although we have several options. We will make our choice tomorrow on the deciding outfit and complementive hair style and make up, but we have decided that we definitely do not want her to wear a hat and we want the clothes to be slightly more than a casual look.

Nilufa on behalf of the Crew

Friday 26 November 2010

Re-shooting Piano scene! x3

We have found a mistake in the last piano scene we filmed. This was that the first time that we filmed with Jessica's hair down, the second time round we had it up in a bun. This was initially alright up until we watched back the footage and realised we had no other various types of shots that we did have wehen her hair was down. This meant we would have to use the one with her hair down because this footage was the better version of the piano scene. This is why we are filming parts of that scene again and an additional section of Jessica blowing out a candle, on Thursday 2nd after school. We also had her make-up drastically changed from the first time we filmed which was down tone but wanted the full glamour look, so we darkened her make up and put a lots of on including dark eye shadow and red lipstick. Hopefully this time round it will finally be successful overall and the last time we'd have to film in the Great Hall!

In addition to this, we're hoping the times we'd be filming will be a suitable time for everyone because last time not all of us could participate in the second filming of that scene, further, we were continually disturbed by members of staff and students making their way through the hall, distracting us and our actress causing significant divertions. This was because it made the actress feel uncomfortable and she didn't feel at ease having others gawping while going past. Plus, we had to rush the filming which is why we had such limited footage the second time round and were unable to get the more important shots, for example, close ups of her hands, her blowing the candle out, an over the shoulder shot. So, we have listed this all to ensure that we get all these shots done during Thursday's filming.

Shamima and Sabina
(and a little by Nilufa)

Filming

We have decided to film tomorrow in last media lesson but circumstances have it that it might snow. So therefore we have postponed our shoot to next saturday whatever the weather, as British weather will keep on changing regardless of what we want.


Shamima and Sabina (Behalf of the group)

Monday 22 November 2010

Weather Forecast

Here is a outlook on BBC Weather Forecast of London, this is a 5 day forecast which allows us to plan beforehand the day we can go and film at Thames Barrier also the days we are free as a group to go to Thames Barrier.




So far the weather seems as if this is the only week will be getting some sort of warmth and shine.
We have decided to wait for Saturdays weather as its the only day we are free.
Tuesday is a definate no as we do not want this part of the footage to be rainy nor gloomy as it will not fit in with our video.

Posted by Tamanna (behalf of everyone)

Friday 19 November 2010

Late night filming on Thursday 18th

On Thursday 18th, Tamanna and I, on behalf of the whole group, decided to re-film the whole piano scene; because - as previously stated on a blog post - we were majorly unhappy with the footage once uploaded. So, we prepped our actress with the correct make up (smoky eyes, clear complexion and red, glossy lips) and the best hair-do to compliment the make up - hair up in a neat bun.

Once we had done the hair and make up to perfection, we, including the help of our actress - strung the white net up! We had it strung up against a blue curtain so there was nothing that could be seen through the net. The difficulties found during this was that the string was not long enough to attach it to the window instead Tamanna offered to give her headphones to make it work, so we did :) and white taped it on, so it did not come off. Another was being interrupted by the caretaker who had to line up the benches, this meant that we had to allow him to switch on the main assembly hall lights which was a real let down. Despite that we carried on using the spot light to add the shadowy effect it also without the spot light, looking through the camera it did not look pleasant. (picture available below)  Plus, we managed to push the piano against the backdrop so it looked much more efficient than the first time round. Also, we had the fan again so we got a better ripple effect on the curtains, but we couldn't have it billowing because it kept separating the two pieces and exposing the blue curtain behind. Tamanna bought small tea light candles which we placed all over the piano (we were very cautious when lighting them...) adding a more intimate effect.

All in all, we were very pleased with last night's footage and are hoping that once it is uploaded we will be much more satisfied with the outcome and if need be, we'll only need to do this particular scene for a different range of shots.


















Headphones attached and taped down




















The main hall lights :(



Nilufa and a little by Tamanna

Monday 15 November 2010

Sample Footage

Below is a compilation of a few camera shots we tried out today that we may consider using in the music video. The shots we did today were; low angle shot, jump cuts, close up pan, smooth pan upwards from the subject to the sky, and a medium shot of Tamanna singing into the camera and lastly a circular pan around Sabina. We specifically selected these types of shots because we felt that these were the types of shots that would typically be used in a music video of our genre.

We also tried to do a smooth pan following Tamanna while she sang, however this wasn't very successful, the camera movement was shaky, we got more of the background than we did Tamanna and we didn't follow her smoothly. This is obviously something we'll have to practice a lot before we can use a shot like this in the music video.


Everyone

Rough cut 1

This is a rough sample of our course work. Its only a little bit of what we filmed. We have not uploaded the  audio track with it because we wanted to show how we filmed it and this was that we all (shamima, sabina, tamanna and nilufa) sang with our actress (jessica) to make her feel comfortable. As you can hear we are not the best of singers.

Shamima and Sabina

Animatic for Lisa's Song

This is the animatic for Lisa's Song, depicting how we're hoping our music video would be like after the editing. We have portrayed the variety of shots and locations throughout, however during this we realised that the song was too long, which is why we had to cut the last verse out and join the last part of the piano instrumental onto the previous verse. Tamanna used Garage Band to edit the music so that there were no technical glitches that could possibly have been heard if edited on iMovie.

When we watched the animatic back we also realised that there was a lack of footage, so there were certain scenes or images that we had to repeat at a later stage of the song, to fill the gaps in.

Tamanna and Nilufa

Friday 12 November 2010

Piano Scene Cancelled

Since last week's discussion about re-shooting the Piano scene in the Great Hall, We chose to do it today Friday 12th November 2010 after school, however this had to be cancelled as there was an exam in process which we did not know about.
Instead, as a group we chose to do some filming outside in the rain as we had our actress available today.
As the actress prepared herself with the make up and hair guided by the group, we also worked on the Storyboard so we could do it promptly as the weather was bad.
Before hand, we thought about having a raining scene, today was the best opportunity to take and do some filming. So we went down Jamaica street where there was a small area with grass, leaves and huge trees which was perfect to film, we believe this scene would fit in our music video as it would portray the actress in pain, lonely and emotionally wrecked.

Posted by Tamanna (behalf of the gang)

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Ancillary task research (CD Front cover)

The type of digipak that we are interested in is the type that the artist such as leona lewis has for her cd cover/ album. This is one of the example from her album that we want to aspire to. in addition  we would like to have our album cover like the artist Amy Macdonald, because we find the cover simple but elegant at the same time. Here are some exaples of Digipaks from the same genre of POP. From looking at the Digipaks we have got some ideas, like we would like to use one big picture of our actress wearing the glamour outfit. Also the type of font that both of the CD covers have is something we have to aspire to. The sort of bold, outstanding font that will grab the audiences attention. The same with the front image. We were thinking of some sort of eye contact that our actress Jessica could be doing. In addition we want to make a book digipak that will contain our CD and lyrics. 

























Shamima and Sabina

Monday 8 November 2010

Example CD artwork (Digipak)


This is the following example of CD artwork I found during my research, which fits in with the typical conventions that is similar to the one we have used in our music video.
From the CD cover it is obvious the singer has a glamorous look with the flowy dress and heavy make up and hair styling which makes it appealing to the audience.
The camera shot is a establishing shot along side a long shot of the actress on the left side of the framing as it makes it effective and eye catching to the audience as she is alone also the colour contrast between the singer and the sea, the singer stands out more bold because of the colour of her clothing which is alot darker than the sea and sky.

Posted by Tamanna(behalf of everyone)

Storyboard - Jamaica St

Well, this is the storyboard for the filming we are going to do in Jamaica St due to change of plans.
The weather in this filming is rainy/dark.
As you can tell from the picture of the storyboard, we are going to use more different range of shots of the actress.





Posted by Tamanna

Storyboard



The above images are of the storyboard for the Bow house Scene.
Along side the image drawn, there are breif notes about what shots we would use when filming.
As a whole, the storyboard produced by the individuals input in our group making of the storyboard has helped us a lot, we found it supportive when filming because we did not stand around wasting time nor improvise scenes as it is not professional and will come across as unplanned.

Posted by Tamanna

Story Boards

This is the canal scene that i story board as we (in our group) got allocated different scenes to story board.






shamima

Sunday 7 November 2010

Storyboardsss

This is the storyboard for the Bedroom Scene with short captions of how and what shots we would use when filming. This storyboard in particular was very helpful when filming, it gave us a more pin pointed vision enabling us to do exactly what we planned on the sheet making the filming more efficient.

Nilufa

Wise decisions

Tuesday 26th October 2010, as stated on a previous wall post blog, us (the film crew) and the actress made a trip to the house in Bow after shooting a footage in Regents Canal.
Once we had arrived to the location, we were afraid not being able to shoot a footage in front of the house due to because incase the residents were opposed by the idea. Therefore as a team we decided to ask for consent by the residents as we did not want any kind of trouble and went knocking on their doors.




Trying both doors with no luck, as a team we decided to follow our initial idea which was to shoot the scene and get out of the area as soon as possible. :)

ACTION!
Just before filming, the team spotted the litter bags piled outside the house, this was not the look we were going for, for that reason Nilufa (Ms Strong) decided to move the bins away from the frame of shooting.


Posted by Tamanna (behalf of everyone)

Recent changes and re-shooting a scene

We have now uploaded all our footage so far onto our laptop, but when doing this we watched it back and realised that we were all unhappy with the piano scene. This is because the hair and make up was all wrong - it was too plain. The piano scene was were we aimed for her to look really glamorous, but the hair and make up just wasn't right, this is because the make up was too low key and the hair wasn't in the right position, we had trouble makng our minds up, whether we wanted the hair up, or down or on a shoulder. So, we have decided how we want the make up to be, and will shoot the piano scene on Friday 12th November.

Further, we also had some problems hanging the curtain, this time we're hoping to put it up as high as we can get it so we get the right flow with it so when it's blowing it ripples backwards and forwards.

Nilufa (on behalf of the crew)