SkateBoarding Scenes

We have filmed a few scenes of Luke (who was originally in our group) skateboarding for our music video. Here are some of the shots that we may edit and use;

Time-lapse Example

Here is an example of a time-lapse we will use in our music video. It is our filming. As you can see, it is of cars on the motorway. We used Adobe Premiere Pro to speed it up to make it a time-lapse.

Test shots 2 - Paper being thrown into the bin

These are shots that we may use for the end of our music video. Lewis is throwing the scrunched up piece of paper into the bin. We have 3 shots of this. We may need to re-film this bit if we don't feel it looks right when we do the rough-cut.

Past Work Analysis - Can't Hold Us

This music video for the song 'Cant Hold Us' by Macklemore was created by past students. In the shot I have used as the opening image to my research, you can already see the thought that this group put into their work. This alone makes the video perfect to analyse as it makes me want to reach the same standard of work in my own video. 

In the establishing shot, you can see that they have already thought about the presentation of their video by adding a transition rather than just having it cut straight from the group's names to the video. This puts a little more creativity to the video right at the very start. You also get to the narrative straight away with the first scene of the video as you get to see what happened to cause the song in the first place. This allows us as the audience to understand what is going on the rest of the video.

In this shot, the group has decided to make this section almost like a comic book. Not only does this imply them telling a story but it also adds a comedic feel to the the entire video by making it feel as though we are reading a comic book which has come to life. We also see this effect again at different points in the video. This makes the video stand out to me as its not like other music video which are mostly just dancing.

Mise-en-scene;

In this shot, we can see the costume of all three of the main 'characters' of this music video. I call them characters as I feel this music video is very good at telling a story rather than being for music, however, I do think that the song they have chosen for this narrative works well as it suggests that they don't want to be held in prison.
The two guys at the back are wearing black and white striped shirts as if they are criminals. They also have black masks and black hats to add to their costume so we can clearly see that these are the villains of the story. The one we can see at the front is wearing a suit (a shirt and tie in this shot) as if he is a wealthy business man. Through out the video, we can assume that this character is the protagonist as he is running from the villains.

Theory;

With this in consideration, we can see that this group has included Vladimir Propp's narrative theory by using character rolls. In this video, we clearly see a hero and two villains. Although there isn't any other characters featured in this video, we still have two character rolls. On top of this, Hero is the binary opposite of villain (good and bad) which clearly shows that they have also included the Levi-Strauss binary oppositions theory. This again stands out to me as I can clearly see the thought this group has put into their narrative theory which is what we want to include in our music video as a group.
In terms of Andrew Goodwin's theory, we can see how they have included a narrative by the story like presentation of the video as previously mentioned. We also see that they have linked their video to the lyrics of the song. For example, the lyric 'cant hold us' suggests that the villains are speaking and they are saying that they can't be held in prison.

HA! Comedy...

In these shots of the last scene, we see that the protagonist has opened the bag that belonged to the villains to see what they stole. In the first image we see the confusion in his face that he was not expecting a chicken to be in the villain's bag. As the audience I was also just as surprised to see that the villains had stolen a chicken. I assumed that the villains stole money or some other kind of valuable loot and by looking at the protagonist's face, I can tell that he thought the same thing.
This adds a comedic feel to the end of the video because it goes against all expectations and a chicken, of all things was what the villains were trying so hard to get back from the protagonist. The fact that the video pauses on a circular transition of the chicken just adds to this as they decide to also play the loony toons theme as they close the video.

- Celine Dior

Test Shot 1

The end shot is of the piece of paper being thrown into a bin. This is our first test shot for that scene. We used a bottle as an example.

Stop Motion Rough Cut

These photos will make the beginning of our music video as we will be using stop motion to create our opening. This is our first go at doing this. We may have to re-do it if we feel it doesn't look right once we have done our rough cut.

Analysis of Lorde Royals (US Version)

The first location appears to be a car driving down the street with a camera looking backwards. We then see Lorde in front of some window curtains, the song is playing the background, however Lorde herself is not singing. After this the location appears to be in a house. The camera stays in the house for a while. We first see the camera aimed at a bed with the cover off suggesting that someone has got out of bed. We then once again see Lorde in front of the curtains and this time she is singing suggesting that she is in a house. The camera then shows curtains. It could be that they are the curtains in which Lorde is singing from. It then shows a very small living room consisting of just a plant and a television. Lorde is then shown singing in front a plain white wall. It then cuts to a person sitting up in a bed then quickly cuts to a person leaning over a shower with water pouring over him. It then shows the man sitting in bed wearing a chain necklace. It then shows the man eating his breakfast. I think this because from the previous shots, I think that this person has just woken up in the morning. We then see a television set which is just showing static. We then see the person dressing himself in gym clothing. We then see the man biting on his shirt in a close up. It then zooms out to show the person underneath a basketball net in a hall. We then see the person in some type of water and it appears to be raining because we can see the rain droplets and we can see the water splashing. We then see a very quick shot of a camera pointing at telephone lines and it appears to be going at some speed. It then switches to the person throwing small punches with boxing gloves. We then see two people wearing boxing gloves walking around each other. We then see the person in a bathroom with a head shaver in his hand suggesting that he has just shaved his head. He is then seen lying on a sofa with headphones. He is then seen in the bathroom fully and is shown to be shaving his head. Another person is then seen to be shaving his head. These two people look similar suggesting that they could be brothers. We then see a neck of one of the people but not for very long as it very quickly cuts to one of them in a swimming pool. They are then seen to be boxing again but it looks like they are messing around because it looks like that they are laughing. One of them punches the other one but it still looks they are having fun because they are both still laughing. It then switches to one of the brothers sitting on a chair next to the television which is still showing static. There is then a shot of a swimming pool which is empty. After this there is a very quick shot of one of the people and then it very quickly changes to a moving shot of a camera looking at telephone lines. We then see one of the people looking in a mirror and his mouth is covered in blood. There is also blood on the mirror. This could be the person that was punched from earlier in the video. It then shows a complex of flats from a relatively long distance. It then shows one of the brothers looking from left to right. At this point it looks like he is outside because the background looks like buildings or grass. He is then seen lying down next to train tracks. He then seen sitting on a bench with three other people. The one on the far left is the same one that was lying down next to the train tracks and the one in the middle with the hat is the same person who looked from right to left. These four people might be friends because it looks like they are socialising with each other. The next shot is of the same four people but at a different angle. This shot makes it look like they are sitting at a bus stop or waiting for a train. The next shot is of the person who was on the end of bench is now on a bus or train with his head resting on the window. I would say that he is more likely to be on a train because it looks much brighter than a bus. We then see the other brother on possibly another train with him also looking out a window. The video then finishes of with the same shot as the beginning but going up the road instead of going down it.

Narrative Theory

For music video, we have investigated and considered a few narrative theories that we can include in our music video.

Andrew Goodwin;

Andrew Goodwin stated that most music videos had a narrative to them but creating a story within the lyrics which is played out in the music video.
We know that the lyrics for our song already contains a story even though they are not our lyrics. Lorde speaks about not having much and quote; "I'm not proud of my address, in this torn up town, no post code envy". However, she does not care so she is trying to tell the audience to be happy with what they have. they may "never be royals" but they still have their friends and can still have a good time.
We will link this to our music video by having parts of the lyrics acted out so it all links. For example, we will be including a shot of a worn down street to show that the artist is not happy with where she lives. This shot will will be shown during the line "I'm not proud of my address..."

Levi-Strauss;

Levi-Strauss argued that most, if not all narratives could be narrowed down to Binary Opposites. He examined how stories unconsciously reflect values, beliefs and myths of a culture. His research has been adapted by media theorists to reveal underlying themes and symbolic oppositions in media texts. For example, some basic binary oppositions are;

• Good - Bad
• Wealthy - Poor
• Weak - Strong
• Christian - Pagan

In our own music video, we will be using binary oppositions between the wealthy and the poor. We want to do this to show the difference between classes in today's society. We will be doing this by showing the contrast between the lifes of a group of higher class people and a group of lower class people. For example, we intend of showing the wealthy group going shopping and being happy while the other group are sitting at a train station waiting for a train. To follow this, will will have a shot of one of the poor group members leaning against the train window while the camera is in such a position we can see his reflection in the window (without getting the camera in the shot). We will also be having shots through out the video of the two groups walking towards each other.

Starting our filming

Yesterday (14th January) we started our filming.
We found a few scenes at the start and the end that we knew we could film during school time.
We asked the music department at Greenacre if we could use one of their recording studios/music rooms to film because we wanted the scenes to be set in a music environment.
They allowed us into one of the rooms.
We then started to take pictures of paper being scrunched up bit by bit for our stop motion at the end and at the beginning (although for the beginning the pictures will be reversed making it look like the scrunched up paper is being unraveled).
We also filmed a scene for the end, when Lewis takes the paper and throws it in the bin.
Using Corel Video Studio Pro X3 I put the photo shots together to create the stop motion. I then put the filming of Lewis at the end.
I have separated the end and beginning by leaving a black background for a few seconds in between.
It is a work in progress, and this is obviously our first draft. After watching it as group, we decided that we need more photos to make it more like a film, because at the moment it sort of jumps to each picture and it doesn't really look very professional or like a film. We can improve on that though.

Here is our first draft of our stop motion technique for our music video:

Katie Tancred

Filming Timetable - Update 08/01/2016

Today me and Lewis have started our filming timetable. We could only do a little bit as Celine is ill today and we really need her because she is the main person in the music video meaning we need her in many of the scenes and for the most of the filming. We are hoping she is back next week so we can finish this off, and start a bit of filming! 

On the 14th and 15th of January (next week) we plan to complete the filming timetable, storyboard (just need to draw pictures - all the information is there) and start filming shots 1,2,44 and 24 from our storyboard. Because they can be done at school, and we really want to start filming as soon as possible!

Location report

Places where we are going to film:

• Katie's house
• School - Greenacre Academy
• Sundridge Drive
• Hempstead Valley Shopping Centre (need to ask permission)
• Princes Avenue, filming on top of bridge outside Morrison's, onto road for time-lapse of cars.
• Chatham Train Station (most shots already taken)

Ideas for our Magazine Advert and Digipak

For our digipak we are thinking of doing a simple yet effective design.

We are going to take a photo of Celine in front of a dark background, making her stand out a bit.

We are then going to edit it on Photoshop, adding some effects that are simple, but also, again, effective. This can be on the inside of the digipak (maybe the booklet).

The front cover can be black with white text saying 'Royals'.

The CD can also be Black with 'Royals' text on it. This is very similar to what Lorde has done herself.

For our advert we are thinking of maybe using a screenshot of the time-lapse taken of the cars from our music video.