GROUP 08 - Music Video 2008/9: September 2008

30 September 2008

Call Sheet

PRODUCTION: CAGE THE ELEPHANT,
TINY LITTLE ROBOTS


Call Sheet No. 1- 25/09/08
Director/Producer: Emily Chillingworth

Call Times:
Camera/ Production Crew:
Loc 1@ 12:20

Locations:
1/ College Hall
2/ Cambridge Backs
3/ Kelvin Close[front bedroom]

Location Contacts
1/Long Road Sixth Form College Telephone: 01223 507400
Fax: 01223 507444
2/ N/A
3/ Emily Mobile: 07463856193


PRODUCTION CONTACTS
Producer/Director: Emily Chillingworth
Editor: Rebecca Sharon
Casting Director/Props: Victoria Roach
Camerawork: William Harris



SHOOTING SCHEDULE

{EDIT: Date has been changed from Friday 3rd}
Tuesday 7th October
TIME LOCATION SKETCH/SCENE CAST
10:50 LOC. 1 Performance scene. Band performing to track. Steve Patient/Adrian Pevley/Lloyd Smith/Vicki Roach.

12:20-13:00 Lunch

13:05 LOC. 1 People running. Up the stairs into the hall for performance. Cast TBC

Saturday 4th October
TIME LOCATION SKETCH/SCENE CAST
10:00 LOC. 2 People running through Cambridge Backs. Cast TBC

12:00-13:00 Lunch

13:30 LOC. 3 Girl in room in the music scene. Playing instruments and listening to music. Emily Chillingworth




REQUIREMENTS

Kit: Camera, tripod

Props: Guitars x2, Bass, Drum kit, Microphone, Posters, CDs, Paper, Pen,

Costume: Band t. shirts, skinny jeans, colourful t. shirts, bland clothes for runners [black or grey]

EMERGENCIES

Nearest A & E: Addenbrookes Hospital, Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 0QQ

USEFUL INFO

Public Transport:
Bus stations to get off at for each location:
Loc. 1: Addenbrookes bus station [citi 1 or 7]
Loc. 2: Drummer street bus station [any citi bus]
Loc. 3: Cherry Hinton Road [citi 1 or 3]


Location 2


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26 September 2008

Prop list

Props

guitar
bass guitar
microphone
microphone stand
drum kits
records
cds
amps
posters
cage the elephant stickers / leaflets


People
guitarist x2
bassist
drummer
singer
girl in room
people running x LOTS

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Todays lesson.......

Today we showed the class our animatic to get feedback.

All of the feedback that we got was positive.

Some of the things that they liked
+ drawing - good quality, they showed exactly what we wanted
+ drawing - the angles were good
+ the shots were all in time with the beat
+ the shot of singer - close up to extreme close up exaggerated the music nicely
+ narrative easy to follow

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23 September 2008

Finally Some Things Come Together !

In todays lesson we took some test footage around college to help us make final decisions for our music video.
We first filmed in the area behind the stage in the hall, possible shot ideas for when the girl is alone in her room and i think that we have finally concluded that we will be filming emily in her own bedroom.

We also took some footage on the stage in the hall of what it might be like when the band is performing and we think that if we closed the curtains around the side and possibly (we arent completely sure yet) had something on the projector screen then it would look quite effective.
As well as this, we think that if we used some clever filming, we could make the hall appear to be a lot smaller than it actually is and still wouldnt have to use too many people to make it appear to be crowded.

We took footage of us running and our legs as we were running and we think that we could get some very effective shots for people getting to the hall
and we have some people that are willing to run in front of the camera for us.

We also think that it would be fine to film running shots in the center of cambridge and we could use different groups of people because then it will be like lots of different people trying to get the gig.

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Location location location

Problems!!!
-we have no available locations-

1) Willingham parish council will not answer their phone regarding booking the public hall

2) Burgess Hall in St Ives looks far too expensive for us to even consider

3) Vicki's house is 'too cluttered'

4) Emily emailed the Salvation Army about using their hall but they have not replied


5) Hall at college. Too big, but will be used if no other options, because clever camera work would make it look smaller.

We now need to decide where we are going to film our ideas.



options! make it simpleeeeee
HALL or HOUSE?
HOW MUCH CAN WE REALISTICALLY AFFORD?
INSIDE OR OUTSIDE? - will it be possible to film outside??? Or will the wonderful British weather defeat us???



We are going to try to film on friday 3rd of October, because Emily and Beccy have a free from lunch onwards, and can set up the hall, and film the runners during their lunch[runners will be As students] and then we have media last and so all of us can film them and our band members are all free at this time.


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today's meeting

Today I think that we need to come to a conclusion on where we are going to film our video. This is because then we will be able to organise what band we are using [as we have 2 possibilities] and we will also be able to organise what days are possible for filming

We need to sort this out ASAP because we need to be organised with getting the band lifts and moving equipment. We also need to find a time when all of our group members are able to film.

Also, we need to start to think about shooting the people running to the gig. This is because we need to make sure we have enough people running and different locations.

This also ties into the idea of the fans getting to the gig because we cant get people to run through the door to the gig if they can't get to the location.

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19 September 2008

animatic

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17 September 2008

Even More Ideas

Viva La Vida - Coldplay





The reason that we have chosen this video to look at for ideas for possible shots in our own music video is that we really like how there are quick close up shots of the instruments, for example the close up of the drummer hitting the drums. We think that these shots are effective because they match in perfectly with the music and the close ups add more interest to the video rather than just normal performance shots all the time.
From this video we also got some ideas for how we could film the lead singer. There are shots looking down at him from above and close up shots looking at the side of his face, we think that these shots in particular would be effective in our video because


Never Miss A Beat - Kaiser Chiefs



This video has helped our own music video ideas because it has a lot of shots of people running, which we had hoped to incorporate in our video. There are many different types of shots including long shots of the people running towards the camera, mid shots of just peoples feet as they run and high angled shots looking down at the runners from above. These shots make the video more interesting because it stops the clips for being too repetitive and getting boring.
We also like the idea of using free running in our video because, as in this video, it adds something extra to the people that will be running. We thought of the idea of having people jumping over benches and other walls etc. would be a good idea to include in our video, and this music video helps to give us a small idea of how we could frame some of the shots.
All of the runners are all wearing masks or some kind of face paint to identify themselves with the different groups of people. This is effective because it adds an air of mystery to the video and it helps to re-create the different groups of people that are currently stereotyped in society.

The editing in this video is also an inspiration to our ideas because most of the cuts take place on the beat of the drums which makes it seem more exciting. The shot lengths also vary between short durations during the chorus and longer durations during the rest of the song. This makes the video more interesting as when the song is at its fastest points the video clips match by changing faster.

Also included in this video is clips of the band, so it includes our idea of using band performance as well as having a side narrative. Not all of the clips are of the band performing, which I think is effective because it is different from what is normally done in music videos. Lots of different shot types are used which include over the shoulder shots of the lead singer looking at a television, close ups of the bands faces and their instruments, longer shots of the band looking at them from the front and also mid shots of just two of the band members. There are also quick changes between shots of the bands instruments being played when the music speeds up slightly at the beginning of the chorus.

The location that the band are in when they are performing could give us an idea of another room that might be a good place to film the band in our video. The outdoor locations with the people running are mostly in housing areas and places that don’t seem very well cared for, which adds to the stereotype of gangs in today’s society.

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Locations

We still need to chose our locations for which we are going to be shooting our video. The locations we have in mind are:

Running Shots
-Cambridge town centre
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1157/729974937_7509b1d42e.jpg?v=

http://www.urban75.org/photos/cambridge/images/cam06.jpg




- A park

Cherry Hinton Hall, Cambridge

http://www.cambridge2000.com/cambridge2000/images/0005/P5311036.jpg

Jesus Green, Cambridge

http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/public/images/jesusgreen.jpg

Christs Piece, Cambridge

The tennis courts are situated behind the shrub bed

Parkers Piece, Cambridge

Parkers Piece

Lammas Land, Cambridge

Lammas Land play area



Band performance
- Burgess Hall [St Ives]

The Burgess Hall - (Photograph supplied by Roger Fish (01480) 350921)


- Salvation Army[Cambridge]

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/210/450555026_1a52373e70.jpg?v=


- Public Hall [Willingham]
- Vicki's house

Girl in room
- Vicki's Room [only if we shoot in Vicki's house]
- Emily's Room


We are all going to go and take photos of our different location ideas and then decide which looks best. We also need to find out about cost's of a hall. Emily is going to look at the Salvation Army in Cambridge, Becky is going to look at Burgess Hall in St Ives, Will is going to look at the Public Hall in Willingham and Vicki is going to get pictures of her house.


During this lesson, I e.mailed the people at the salvation army to ask if we could use the hall there. Hopefully we will get a reply soon.

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Production Meeting Notes

Aim for today's meeting.

- discuss storyboard - story board is drawn up we need to decide shot duration for each shot.
- choose locations - we have a few locations in mind but need to decide where we are filming each shot.

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12 September 2008

More Ideas

Since we are doing the side narrative of our video being the story of a girl I found this video online and found it seemed to fit.

Although there is less of a narrative in this video is still involves mainly performance and the small narrative in the story is about a girl on her own.

Band: The Blackout
Song: It's High Tide Baby
Album: We Are The Dynamite
Year: 2007



The video contains a variety of shots right from the beginning. It changes from a low angle shot to close ups on the instruments and then to mid-shots of the band within the first 5 seconds. This variety of shots makes the video look interesting.This is followed by a long shot including all of the band, which is almost a panoramic shot. The camerawork tends to move in time with the music. Especially at 14-19 seconds when the lead singer is jumping in time to the beat and when he flicks his hair it moves in time to the music. The shots also show each band member individually in close ups of themselves and in close ups on the instruments; it also shows each band member in their most prominent parts in the video. For example, close up on the guitarists when the guitars do a riff or solo and close ups on the singers when they are singing their lines. This video also uses a technique which shows each singer singing the same line as they do on the track but cuts quickly between the 2 of them showing each singer singing 'woah'. Straight after this however; it does not show the lyrics for the next line as it is introducing us to the female character by using a transistion by fading in to her. After showing us the female character the shot changes to a midshot of the singer with a bright bluish / white light behind contrasting to the shot of the girl who has a black background.

The lighting becomes a key feature as the band tend to have a bright, light background behind them and th girl has a dark background with no light at all. This is then emphasised from about 1.30 seconds in when the girl is walking with the camera behind her doing a low angled shot. This shows a contrast as the singer and the girl walk towards each other that are now silhouetted whereas before we could see the characters clearly. The camera seems to have more of a handheld feel when it is behind the girl and looks as if someone is following her. It could symbolise that we are in the sasme position as the girl and we are her shadow, following behind her.

The lyrics also match in with the narrative as when it's the line 'you're beautiful' it show the singer from the band run his fingers through her hair and go to kiss her. Then on the line 'are you worth fighting for' it shows the girl pulling away. On the next lyric 'say goodbye' it shows the singer walking back with his eyes fixed on the girl and then he goes out of focus. This emphasises the fact that she is gone and he'll have to say goodbye even though he doesn't want to.

When the singer and the girl finally meet each

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Storyboarding

We are now drawing up our storyboard and will be making an animatic from this to outline our video. We think that an animatic will help bring our video to life from the storyboard so that it's not just a few drawings but is animated. This also means we can try different transitions before we film and experiment with ideas. It also means that if something does not look as we hoped on the animatic then we still have time to change our ideas. To make our animatic, Will is going to draw up our storyboard ideas then we are going to scan these pictures in and animate the shots on Final Cut Pro.

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10 September 2008

Pitch review

We stood up in front of the class and delivered our pitch. We talked through all of our ideas and we showed the lostprophets video from last train home which influenced our ideas.

teacher feedback - A strong pitch with use of ICT to demonstrate your influences (lostprophets). Strong ideas about connecting narratives, editing, genre. The 'enigma' element could be a very strong aspect of your video. It is clear that you have also put a lot of thought into your mise-en-scene such as the positioning of posters in the running scenes. Well done.

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9 September 2008

Researching Student Work



The genre for this video is performance and narrative, which is what we have chosen to do for ours. The performance part of it is the band just playing the song, not with an audience. This is like what we want to do. At the start of the video, the singer picks up he microphone. This is like the shot that we have chosen to finis our piece. We were sure whether to have the camera at same level as the microphone, or have it looking down, but looking at their clip, we hve decided the lighting would probably look best at the same level as the microphone. We will still test both ideas when doing our test footage. The other angles that have been used through out he bands performance have given us ideas on how we can have the camera. This means we will have to do quite a lot of takes, in order to get all the angles we have planned. We want to have some where the camera is at the same level as the band, but also want some variation. To do this we will have the camera looking up at he band, maybe at a slanting angle aswell. We thought this would give the singer a good opertunity to sing to the camera, which we thought was very effective in this student work.

The narrative part of the video is actualy a guy running. This sort of ralates to the running people in our video. Although, in their video, they have lots of low shots of the guys feet, and lots of closeups. We will have a few close up shots, because they do look effective, but mainly we want to use long shots, in order to get lots of people running in each shot, but also to get the background in. We thouht it might be tricking filming outside because of the weather the lighting might not be okay, but from what we can tell the lighting did not effect ay of the outside shots fromhis video.







The way the performance is done in this video is how we want ours to be. We like how they are in a white wash room, with shots of the band all together. We are still trying to find somewhere like this, but if we cant, then we will just have to use the college hall, although we think this video looks good with a white wash wall in the background. It makes it look very professional, but also doesnt distract the viewer because it is a plain background. Also, a white background would be much easier for lighting, as if we use the hall, we can shut the curtains but would need to leave all the house lights on, which might not give us the effect that we had originally wanted, which was that a band is playing t a normal gig, but with no audience.

How the girl is portrayed in this video is sort of how we want the girl in our video to be, but less sad. In one of the shots they have the camera spinning around the girl. We think that looked really good, so we might use that sort of effect. The way they have dressed the girl, different from anyone else in the video, is how we will dress our narrative girl. We interrpreted the song as being about how everyone is very similar now a days, and so we want a girl who stands out from the crowd and who is different.

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PItch....

In brief

Our idea is for a band to perform in a room but with no audience and to have a group of people running to try to get to the gig. There will also be a side narrative of a girl sitting in a room by herself listening to music which incorporates the lyrics about a girl trying to be different. By the end of the song you realise that the girl is in the room next door and enters the room with the band. At the very end the band all disappear one by one and as the girl is the only one left all the people running burst into the room.

Mise-en-scene

Locations - Bedroom, lots of music influenced things, posters on walls, record deck, vinyls on the floor, cds everywhere.
- Empty room or hall for the band to perform in. Possibly in a garden if the weather is good enough.
- Streets / Locations in Cambridge of people running to get to the gig. Side alleys, town, posters on walls as they run past.


Actors

2 possible bands [in case one cancels at last minute]
Girl in the room - Emily
People running - Friends / anyone we can get involved


Styling / Genre conventions

Bands - Indie punk fashion. Skinny jeans, messy hair, skinny shirt and tie, band tshirt
Girl - Scene look [colours in hair, probably pink] colourful clothes, bright make up
People Running - Bland colours, black white neutral tones.


Props

Guitars
Bass
Drums
Microphone
Amps
Leaflets / Posters
Record deck / Cds / Vinyls / Headphones

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Professional music videos - ideas

Band : Lostprophets
Song: Last Train Home
Album: Start Something
Year: 2004

We discussed a few ideas and decided that we wanted to have people running to get to a secret band performance. We chose to look at this video as the narrative is kind of similar as it has people driving around to find a secret gig of the band performing on the back of a truck. It also has performance and narrative combined together which we definatly want to use, we decided that we want to have a video in this kind of style because we don't want to do ONLY narrative or do ONLY performance.

I think the idea of having people trying to get to a band performance is effective because it means that we can film our idea in a wide variety of different locations and it will all blend together quite well. It also means that we can have a short narrative without it being the main focus of the video like some other genres of video which are very much narrative based with performance only a side feature.



Band: You Me At Six
Song: Gossip
Album: TBC
Year: 2008


This video is mostly performance based rather than including much narrative but we found it helpful for our video. This is because the video is filmed in the bands house and this is what we were thinking about doing for our idea.. This video uses lots of different camera angles which could help us with our own ideas, and although we wont include the lead singer of the band walking around numerous areas with the camera, we do want to incorporate lots of different angles. This video has a handheld feel to it which we will not be doing. We will be following the group of people that are trying to get to the gig around, we could use a tripod or hold the camera really low to give different effects. We don't think we could do angles from above unless we go in a building and hold the camera from upstairs as we do not have all the equipment to do it otherwise. And when the band are performing we do not just want to use straight forward angles when filming the band performing as it will look dull and boring.

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Our Own Roles

Becky : Editor
Emily : Director
Vicki has skillz. Casting Director // Props
Will : Camerman

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Our Song

Song : Tiny Little Robots
Artist : Cage The Elephant

Lyrics : They’ve got you movin’ to the city
Oh my, you think you're lookin’ pretty
But they’ve got their pistols too
Tucked down beneath their shoe
It’s a new sensation
World annihilation
Moving to the music
Patiently it’s waitin’
The city’s screamin’
I can hear them breathin’
Cryin’ out for wisdom
Hungry minds are feedin’

I know that you're tired of this
Cause you're a robot
They designed your life
But true souls said you know what’s right
And you can join us on the other side

Are you scared? Are you scared? Are you scared?

They’ve got you marching to a drum beat
Oh my you got another nose bleed
They’ll keep you so amused
You’ll never taste the truth
It’s a new creation
Total domination
Chains across your shoulders
Social captivation
Kill our leaders
Persecute our teachers
Criticize our culture
Crucify free thinkers

I know that you're tired of this
Cause you're a robot
They designed your life
But true souls said you know what’s right
And you can join us on the other side

Are you scared? Are you scared? Are you scared?

Fill our eyes with money
Vanity that’s cunnin’
Only on the surface
Diamonds look so stunnin’
Mass deception
Altered our perception
Sold it to the children
Made a new connection

I know that you're tired of this
Cause you're a robot
They designed your life
But true souls said you know what’s right
And you can join us on the other side

Links to the band
Myspace
Website
NME
Last FM

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Meet Us !

Emily =]
Becky =]
Vicki =]
Will >:}

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DEADLINES !!

Pitch : 10th September
Animatic : 19th September
Rough Cut : 10th October
Final Video : 7th November
PictureHouse Screening : 12th November
Writing Draft : 1st December
Writing Complete : TBC...

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1 September 2008

Welcome to GROUP 08