Props List

Here is a list of props required for our video:

No Set

When we were talking to Luke he concluded it would be better to film the majority of the music video in the carpark and the security guards office. In this case having the third element doesn't suit this music video narrative, as its would be better time spent filming in the carpark a majority of the day. Luke said that having the band playing in the carpark would give a more dynamic look for the music video. This meant our group would have to start to focus more towards the narrative to ensure we would enough or surplus footage. 

Talking to set designer

 

Today we spoke to a set designer discussing our ideas for our set.

.In our lesson our group spoke to a set designer (Jacqueline) and light designer (Jack). When we spoke to our set desginer our group was still undecided whether or not we would have a set. 

We spoke to the set designer Jacqueline about our set (which is the in the set below). We had talked about having a very urban look towards, as we wanted to have an illegal look towards the music video in the set. The set looks like a grundy basement with pipes at the background. 

Jacqueline said this set was very doable but she was wondering if it better to have a green screen in a background however we concluded we would prefer an actual set as our lighting would be dark (which would make it harder for the green screen to work).  

Another group has a similar set design to our set therefore Jacquline as looked if it would be better if we shared sets? Luke didn't recommended this as he said its very easy to tell that they were the same set therefore we didn't go for the sharing sets.

When we spoke to jack about having police spotlights over the band he said this could be easily done. As there are other group planning on using powerful lights for similar use. First our group initially thought we would use a police alarm but Jack said it would not be powerful enough to power to give the effect we would have wanted. 

One of the questions I asked was how would we power lighting on our location and Jack said our school has 2 daylight lights which would be powerful enough for filming in the carpark. Especially as our group would be filming on the second highest floor on the carpark therefore it would have lighting inbuilt.

Rehearsal Disaster!!

Today, we had planned to meet in the studio at 1:30, this included our singer Max, our drummer Thomas and our guitarist Giorgio. Unfortunately, the rehearsal didn't go according to plan.

First off, not everyone turned up. Only Max and Thomas appeared from the band, and one of our group members too didn't show up. This caused big issues as we still haven't played our new band together so we do not really know how they play together. It also brings up the issue of them actually looking good when they play too. 

Also, we did not have the guitar or microphone stand as well; we only had a drum kit which was not setup properly. This meant we could not even try out even one of our band members and to practice them. 

As a result, we will need to organize at least 3 rehearsals for after half term. This will give us the chance for the band to actually have some play time together, meaning we can be more efficient on set as the band will need less time to film their performance as they will be nailing it more often. 

Date Confirmed!

Today, we got the confirmed date for our music video. Our date is the Wednesday 18th of November.

Test Shoot 2 (outside in car park)

More Rehearsals

Here are some screenshots of rehearsals we have planned in the future:

Test Shoot 1 (Performance)

Our test shoot gave us good insight into how our band will look on the day of filming. We are very happy with our cast, however our drummer is no longer able to take part in our shoot. This means will are asking another guy to do it.

Despite previous worries, we are happy with using Max, despite the voice in our track being very deep and mature which meant we had to think about using older looking casting. However we are keen to keep Max.

All of the band members look very good at playing the instruments, and they all have the performance aspect too in which they all look entertaining to watch. They are all very keen too, to do the shoot which in self is a bonus too as they will be very enthusiastic and good to work with. 


Here is a picture of our new potential new drummer:

Request for copyright permission

Today, I sent an email to the record label which owns copyright to our song, to ask permission to use it in our music video. We did this in order to avoid any copyright infringements and to avoid any legal issues as we did not want any labels to think we are misusing or stealing their song. Here is a picture of the email I sent:

Rehearsals

Today, we filmed our first rehearsal in our studio with the band members we wish to have in our music video. This is a clip of our rehearsal:




What did we learn and like?

We established that we didn't need a pianist in our band, as the three band trio worked very well together. We also finalised the band members, as we very much enjoyed each of their performances as it suited the tone of the song very well and their appearance does too. 

We took a gamble in involving Max Boast as our main singer, as we originally didn't think he would look old enough for the part, as the singer in the real track sounds very old and mature and has a powerful voice. However, Max was very impressive and surprised us a lot as he ended up being the perfect singer which we wanted. 

One thing we did notice however, is that our guitarist stands still quite a lot, and that he did not actually play the guitar in the rehearsal very often. This means we will need to hold a few more rehearsals to make sure he perfects this otherwise it won't look as good in the real music video. Also, Max had not fully learnt all of the lyrics, so he will need to do that for the next rehearsal. 

More Pictures of the rehearsal:

Cast List

Final cast list sent to my Media Studies teacher. 

Talk from Polydor Productions

These are the notes that I made during the talk:

• video commissioner - oversee whole video

• talk about timeline, treatments and show us video

• budget based on expectations of sales of track
• pitches brief to make sure everyone on same page and gives director enough freedom for themselves
• some directors have specific qualities and great ideas and teams - inspired by different things and surrounded by best possible people
• encourage taking risks
• dont send out briefs to no more than 5-10 directors
• week later, read treatments received from directors
• Takes around 6-8 weeks from when they get track to finishing the video, then get puts up a week later
• if radio doesn't see change in listeners etc. then they will stop playing track

"YEARS & YEARS" TREATMENT AND VIDEO

• grab peoples attention immediately, visuals most important aspect - pick images of what you want video to look like and include references
• average UK budget for video 30-40 grand
• need to make sure everything is communicated well
• director and editor create final cut in 4-5 days, then sends off to get approved and/or give comments on what to include as well
• never have enough time in a shoot, make sure everything is planned out thoroughly to have the best possible and most efficient shoot

"SKANK" BY WILEY VIDEO

• Shot as a documentary style video
• no costume, styling etc. all real people who asked around 

Evaluation

In my opinion, I found the talk very useful as it gave us a good insight into how the music industry works and the crucial steps we must take into making a successful music video.

• The first important point, is that in the treatment, one must grab the immediate attention and generate lots of visuals aspects like color, images and font.
• Secondly, they were consistent in the point of making sure we are as organized as possible, otherwise we are preparing for a bad shoot and failure. They said that there is never enough time to shoot, so we have to make it as efficient and executed as well as possible. 
• Additionally, there was great emphasis on communication between our group and between our actors. They mentioned the point about if there is poor communication then you will be destined for a poor video.

What have we done in response to these points?

In response to these points, our group have created a social media group chat on Facebook, so that we are in constant communication with one another. This allows us to organize meet-ups and rehearsals easily and it shows that we are listening to the advice from Polydor Productions. 

Planning the Rehearsal

Today, we sent out emails finalising a time for when we will have our first rehearsal with the band in the studio, where they will lip sync and do a small performance with the song. These are pictures of the email we sent to our actors:

Our plan is to have the rehearsal on Wednesday at 2 o'clock, and we will also film and edit our test shoot at the same time of doing our rehearsal.

Finalizing Casting

Today, we finalised and chose our three band members to use in the music video. Our three band members will be Max Boast, Tom Saville and Thomas Guerlat.

Here is the audition video of Max Boast, who we want to have as our lead singer in the band.

Here is the official casting picture of Max Boast, who will be our lead singer.

Here is the official casting picture of Tom Saville, who will be our drummer.

Here is the official casting picture of Thomas Guerlat, who will be our are guitarist.


















We chose these three guys, because we feel that their look and image fits in with typical rock bands. They all have long hair, good looking and have a certain style when they play, which fits in with the tone of the song and what we are looking for in the performance. 

Possible shot list

Order of events in the car park:

• band carrying instruments into car park
• stumbles upon guard, who thinks nothing of it
• goes onto the roof, sets up instruments, starts playing
• guard on duty starts to hear noise, follows sound
• finds amp lead, follows it
• finds band playing on roof, playing it to the world
• Goes to small band member orders him to stop, big band member then intimidates guard and tells him to go away
• retreats, calls in backup with walkies talkie 
• sees colleges doing clean habits e.g doing tie up, drinking cup of tea, looking at the cctv casually
• they go up to roof
• start listening to music, 'let their hair down'  

Another idea we discussed is instead of the guards enjoying the music and 'letting their hair down', we would have the guards all team up and try to stop the band.

• Each band member is individually dragged away - guitarist dragged while still playing and pianist too, and are taken away. We don't see where
• Drummer is taken away, and his drum sticks maybe broken in front of him?
• Singer is left alone, still singing, then dragged away and thrown off the roof of the car park.

This still image is taken from the film 'No Escape', and it shows a young girl being thrown off a roof. This is exactly the type of effect and event we would like to have at the end of the music video.

New, final idea

Today, we discussed what could happen in the car park to include in our video to make it interesting to watch and entertaining

We decided to include security guards in our video, in which they will stumble across the band and try to shut it down.

We think this idea is better than the relationship narrative we should, as it provides a stronger image then just a couple arguing, and also because we can do a lot more with this idea than the other one.

These are a few ideas on what the guards we would have would look like:

Thinking about the uniforms, we will need to match the outfit with the location of a British car park, and the middle example above is from America, so we cant use that. These are snapshots of uniforms from a previous thriller video, which shows the uniform which we could possibly include.

Performance Ideas

After having reviewed some sets of existing music videos, we have decided to have a performance in the studio and also one in a public car park in Guildford if possible. We brainstormed lots of different ideas to shoot in the studio and the car park:

Studio Performance

• Possible different terrain levels in the studio; having each band member on a different block at different heights, then the band would all switch positions in time with the drum beat in the track.
• Have a projection of leaves/jungle in the background of the band, having the projections also hit the band in the process to create something visually appealing.
• Possibly have the drum kit setup on a rotating circular shape, so the drummer could be spinning around as the song went on
• Have each terrain block be covered in ghilli-suit like material, to match with the projections in the background and to create a jungle atmosphere. 
• Have the band dress up in some sort of jungle attire, to again match with the song.

Car Park Performance

Picture of the car park we would like to have:

• Have the band play in front of parked cars, possibly with their doors open and their alarms going off, which could be used to illustrate the danger and threatening atmosphere of a jungle.
• Have the band spread out across a large area of the car park, playing far apart from each other and possibly create separate backgrounds for each of the member, possibly a red background for the drummer, yellow for the singer etc.
• Use a drone to get cool hovering shots of each band member in the car park.

We have also taken inspiration from the Foo Fighters video 'The Pretender', as our idea of having some sort of security trying to interrupt the band is the main theme involved in their music video.

Short video on a narrative idea

We recently came up with the idea of having a very simple and short narrative in the car park whilst the band were playing. Our idea was that a couple would be arguing and fighting, then the singer would go up to them and break up the fight and take the girlfriend away from the boyfriend. This would then lead to a small 'hide and seek' sort of game in the car park, and we would have cool shots of the singer and girlfriend hiding from the boyfriend who is looking for them. We made some test shoots of what we thought could be included, and the girl used in the test shoot is a possible contender to be the main actress in the video if we go along with this idea, so this was a good bonus.





What did we learn?

The test shoot gave us a useful insight into what it would look like, and despite the humour and a few laughs in the shoot, it ended up giving us a good starting point on what we can now develop into a strong idea. For example, we tested out pushing and shoving between the characters which we liked as this links in with the jungle atmosphere and the causticness of the jungle, and the facial expressions we made would be an important detail as we could include close ups of the faces, and possibly use them in slow-motion to create a better effect.

New Ideas - Researching other Bands

Today, we all reasserted what we wanted to have and do in our performance of the band in our video. We all looked at similar genre of bands to our song, and their videos. We then took snapshots of their sets in their own studios and mixed up ideas of what looked good. Here is what we came up with:

Some bands we looked at included Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Linkin Park. After looking at these different bands, we have decided to create a list of cool elements we would like to include in our performance. And we have also come up with the idea of having the band play in a public car park, and have a list of cool things happening there too. 

These ideas include each band member on different levelled terrain, then switching positions on each drum beat. Also, we have the idea of them playing in front of a couple of cars with all their doors open, and there car alarms going off. We also have the idea of having the drum set on a rotating circular set, so that it is constantly spinning round in the video. 

Another Meeting - Change of Song

Today we had a meeting with Luke, and decided to change a few aspects of our idea. This is because it would not look any good in our video.

We have decided to scrap the idea of smashing up a room in reverse and the dancers, as we do not feel it fits we our song. The song is not Sail anymore too, it is JUNGLE by Ambassador X.

Casting update

We have contacted a few dancers which we would love to have in our video. 

Email asking if they are available to use:

We have already had a confirmation email from one of the dancers:

We would use these dancers to perform the dance part of the video. 

Complete New Idea

We have decided to scrap our old idea and even choose a different track. This is because we decided our narrative would be very difficult to do, as we thought it the end product would look very basic and not executed well. This is our new track which we have decided to do:

This track is Sail by Awolnation. 

New idea

Our new idea has three elements which we would like to do. First off, we would like to film the entire video in reverse, so everything is backwards. This opens doors to many cool ideas which we have thought of, such as rain, which we thought would look cool if it was travelling upwards. Our main elements are a dance performance, a lip sync and another scene with a guy smashing up a room. 

Dance performance

The dance performance would include two dancers, who would dance in the dark studio, with some cool neon lights etc. and also create some silhouettes of the dancers. This is our performance aspect of our video and we think it would fit well with the song if it looks good. Here is an example of what the dancers would look like:

The lip sync

The lip sync would be with a main male singer, again with the dancer in the background. We would like to shoot this in the dark, again with rain falling. This would create a cool image, especially if the rain is travelling upwards in the entire sequence. Here is an idea of what we would like to include:

Smashing up a room

With this idea, we would film a guy smashing up a room, including smashing windows, destroying chairs and possibly even grafting on the walls. In the final edit, the audience would start off by seeing a smashed up room, then as the whole thing would be backwards, the audience would end up seeing the process of him smashing it up backwards. This means by the end of the video, the room would be in perfect condition. We thought this would be a very cool and unique idea to have. This is what the smashed up room what start off looking like:

So by the end of the video, the room would be tidy and in its original state. And we could possibly include a reason for why he decided to smash up the room too.