Update on filming

Thursday 13th December:

Today was our first day of filming. It took us just up to two hours to record less than four minutes worth of footage. The fact that our actor had told us that he had learned the lyrics when in actual fact he had not, it put us to a real disadvantage because we we're so clueless on what to do. When he told us that he had learned the lines we should have made it our responsibility to run them through with him rather than just believing him and leaving it till last minute, so to be fair, it wasn't his entire fault. We were able to produce a few successful shots that we can use in our music video but overall, everything was just a completely disaster.

Friday 14th December:

Before going off to film, we re-looked at the footages that we filmed on Thursday so we could see what was left to be done and what needed to be filmed again.

Today filming went really well. We filmed all the footage that we needed in just under an hour. We filmed just over 15 minutes worth of footage. Everyone was really motivated today, especially considering how poorly yesterday went. Anthony really went for it and gave it his all. I think it was because he had to be somewhere in an hour so he was under a lot of pressure and time restrictions. I think it goes to show that some actors work better under pressure because on Thursday when we had all the time in the world, he wasn't able to produce anything productive but today he was just really great! The camera could not get enough of him and he had so much energy to give. As a group we all helped him channel his energy towards our music video. Lorrie and I we're constantly on our feet giving him ideas on what we wanted to see from him. Junior was in charge of the lighting; because we were filming in a drama studio we could control every aspect of the lighting. Rachel was like our live contingency plan, quite often when something went wrong; she already had an idea in mind to replace it.

Monday 17th December:

Today we're just looking over the footages that we filmed on Friday. We're actually quite pleased with what we produced but we have found a few faults that will affect us dramatically when it comes to editing unless we find a way of resolving the issues now. As a group we need to decide how we wish to address them. We could either think about filming the whole piece again or just leaving it all to relay on editing.

The faults we found:

Because we didn't check if the lens was clean, a lot of our footage wasn't focused and came out really blurry which is really disappointing because when we were filming it all, we were actually pleased with the facial expressions Anthony was giving us and how nice the lighting was looking.

We realised that most of the footage we filmed on Thursday and Friday was just the chorus. We filmed it so many times but with completely different ideas. That’s going to be stress editing because we don't have much footage of him saying the lyrics to the other verses. However, we did film a lot of extra clips that we could use to replace the lyric part because Anthony still hadn't learnt the lines, so we had to come up with something quick.

When looking back at the footage that we recorded we also realised that in the majority of shots, Anthony does look pretty tired. He would start off really energetic and stuff but quickly after he starts to get tired and the whole transaction shows on camera. If we had noticed that when filming then we could have had longer breaks, giving him more time to recover. But because we were so focused on filming the whole song without stopping, we completely forgot to check if he was tired or not. When editing as individuals, we have to be selective with the footages that we decide to use.

Why didn't filming follow our story board?

The original story board that we had planned was completely different to our final product. In the story board we had Anthony (our actor) doing all these crazy moves and just going on a total rampage which all could of been achievable if he was prepared to do all them things, and also if he knew how to. Before producing the story board we should have consolidated with Anthony and asked him what he was prepared to do and what he wasn't. Because he didn't have the acting skills that we needed, it made it a lot harder to follow our story board. Other scenes that we also had planned had to be cut because we didn't have the facilities needed for it. And other scenes when filming didn't really look like what we imagined in our heads so we had to cut them out too. We had filmed a few bloopers that we thought wouldn't be useful to us but when editing, I decided to go back and look at them and found that they would actually fit really well in our music video. For an example, there is one scene when a member of my group was just messing about on camera and rejecting Anthony and just pushing him away and stuff. When editing I decided to add it in because we had a scene where Anthony was begging the girl to stay, and the way we had filmed it, it made it seem like Anthony was talking to himself, so by me adding that seen it basically tied the whole seen in.

We experienced so many difficulties when filming; many of them were our own faults and could have been avoided. Before filming we continuously asked our actor if he had revised the lyrics that we gave him. He told us yes that he had but in actual facts he hadn't. It us up to us to follow him up and get him to sing the lyrics to us which would of taken less than 5 minutes but we didn't, no excuses can be made for that. However, luckily we we're able to think on the spot and replace some of the ideas that we had originally planned and replaced them different ideas. For an example, on our story board we had a scene where he was going to say some of the lyrics to when of our other actors with him looking all angry and upset. Instead we changed it up a bit, and instead of him saying the lyrics he would just be saying random things that made him look even angrier and upset. Things like "I hate you...I love you. Sorry...It's not your fault...You did me wrong" and so on.

Primary research

 

Friday 16th November 2012

Today we discussed how we we're going to find out who our target audience are going to be. We need to find out what interests them in the music videos and why they even listen to it to begin with. A key factor that we also need to find out is who their favourite artist is. Due to the work we had done before, we know that the easiest and cheapest way to find out all of those questions would be by conducting a questionnaire. As a group we thought it will be more then reasonable to hand out 10 questionnaires each to 5 males and 5 females. From those questionnaires we will then select the 4 that we felt we're the most successful in answering the questions and ask then to participate in our focus group. Before the lesson ended we decided that during the weekend everyone would go and think of relevant questions for the questionnaires so that on Monday’s lesson when it comes to producing the questionnaire, it won't take us that long. The time we have left will then be used to start thinking of our focus group questions and discussing which two will be up for analysing the data that we will be conducting from the questionnaire and which two will be up for analysing the data that will be collected from the focus group.

Research

Questionnaire Data

The original plan was for everyone to hand out 5 questionnaires each but because one person wasn’t in, we then had to divide it between three of us which then came to two people having 7 and one person having 6.

Here are the questionnaires that we handed out and collected back. There 20 in total.

After analysing them, these are the results that we had found:

Males

100% of Males are between the ages of 17 to 19

60% of Males said they listen to music everyday/regularly

80% of Males watch music videos

20% of Males don’t watch music videos

80% of Males watch music videos on YouTube

10% of Males watch music videos on Television

60% of Males favourite genres were RnB and Hip Hop

10% of Males favourite genres were Rock

10% of Males favourite genres were Jazz

20% of Males chose ‘other’ genres, which were country and rap

80% of Males rated RnB/Hip Hop a 10

20% of Males said SFX attracts them to music videos

20% of Males said action attracts them to music videos

20% of Males said nudity attracts them to music videos

10% of Males said dark colours attracts them to music videos

10% of Males said comedy attracts them to music videos

10% of Males said romance attracts them to music videos

10& of Males said nothing attracts them to music videos

Females

50% of Females are between the ages of 17 to 19

10% Females are between the ages 26+

30% of Females are under 16

100% of Females said they listen to music everyday/regularly

90% of Females watch music videos

10% of Females don’t watch music videos

70% of Females watch music videos on YouTube

30% of Females watch music videos on Television

70% of Females favourite genres were RnB and Hip Hop

10% of Females favourite genres were Jazz

10% of Females favourite genres were Contemporary

10% of Females favourite genres were pop

20% of Females rated RnB/Hip Hop a 10

20% of Females rated contemporary a 10

20% of Females said SFX attracts them to music videos

20% of Females said bright colours attracts them to music videos

10% of Females said sexy people attracts them to music videos

10% of Females story lines attracts them to music videos

This is our analysis from our questionnaire results.

 The data collected from this will be used to help us identify questions to ask during the focus group.  The focus group gives us the opportunity to ask follow up questions based on some of the answers we received from the questionnaire. The answers we received from our questionnaire allows us to find out in detail what our target market "honestly wants". For example, 20% of females said SFX attracts them to music videos; a follow up question of this would be why? What is it about SFX that grabs their attention and can there ever be too much SFX in a music video? However, only 20% of females said they like that, we have to also focus on what the 80% want. A more useful solution would be to ask follow up questions on questions such as why females like RnB and Hip Hop, because 70% of females said they liked RnB and Hip Hop. Therefore after noting down their reasons to why they like these music genres and what they expect from them, I would then need to detail their responses because it’s clearly what the majority of my target audience want. If I include their ideas to my music video, it is more likely to be successful because I’m giving my potential target audience what they want.

Focus Group

Why do you watch music videos?

Response 1

They make me calm, they make me like want to dance, its too live.

Response 2

Because ermm… I want to know what its really about. It will make me get an idea of what is actually going on.

Response 3

If I like the song I am interested in what the music video is all about.

Response 4

It helps me connect with the artist.

What helps you connect with the artist?

Response (4)

Their style, in terms of ermm… dress sense and make up.

On average what time during the day do you watch music videos?

Response 1

Late at night around 6 – 12

Response 2

Late at night as well “Around what time?” said by focus group conductor… Around 9 – 12… Replied responder 1.

Response 3

Ermmm…. About seven I think.

Response 4

From 10 because that’s when the good stuff starts.

What attracts you to music videos?

Response 1

Body

Response 2

Comedy

Response 3

Romance

Response 4

Errrr…. I actually don’t know but I don’t really like special effects I am not a child “All Laughs”

What music genre do you like and what attracts you to that music genre?

Response 1

Anything Catchy, apart from rap

Response 2

Catchy Music

Response 3

Country because errr I don’t know it make me relaxed and just chilled out

Response 4

Electric because erm.. Its got a good beat to it and its great

Who’s your favourite artist?

Response 1

Kelly Rowland

Response 2

Lady Angelo

Response 3

Adele

From the questionnaires, we were able to gather these questions for the focus group that are in bold writing. These are the answers from the focus group that will enable me to find out further information such as why people like those artists so much and what they mostly include in their music videos. In terms of their style and appearance in their music videos, I can include there features into my music video in order to get my target audience to not only watch my music video but to also buy the track and increase the Youtube views.

Deadlines leading up to the 19th

 As a group we set ourselves mini deadlines that would be hard for us to miss because we deadlines are missed, they cause delays. We decide to do mini deadlines instead of just waiting and hoping that everything would be done on the 19th. When choosing these deadlines we made sure that it fit everyone’s timetable that way, when it comes near the deadlines, no one can complain that they had other things on their agenda. We made sure that we avoided deadlines that were unnecessarily short because we didn’t want to undue stress and pressure upon ourselves to get things done.

The deadlines we came up with:

Thursday 13th of December will be our first official day of filming.

Friday 14th December would be our second day of filming.

After we decided on that, we then started to work backwards figuring out what would have to be completed before the filming deadline. That’s when we came up with the rest of the dates.

·         Copyright Permission - 29th November

·         Storyboarding - 7th December

·         Locations - 7th December

·         Contingency Locations - 7th December

·         Narrative pitch - 7th December

·         Casting - Monday 10th December

·         Risk Assessments - 10th December

·         Location Recce - 10th December

After setting the deadlines, we then thought it would be appropriate to assign everyone different job roles rather than all of us trying to complete everything together. If we didn’t split up the job roles, it would take us way longer than necessary.

Roles and responsibilities:

Junior

·         Locations

·         Contingency Locations

·         Location Recce

Rachel

·         Narrative Pitch

Lorrie

·         Casting

·         Story Boarding

Naomy

·         Copyright permission

·         Risk Assessments

Lyrics

Locations/Contingency Locations/Risk Assessments/Location Reccee

List of Props and their uses

 

Risk Assement - Not Your Fault by NaomyKitenge

Copyright permission:

It’s important that we asked for permission to use their track because it is copyright material, meaning that it doesn’t belong to us and that if we did not ask for permission, we could end up being sued in the near future.

Contingency Plan



We have decided to use Paresloes Park as our contingency location because it is always free, gives us a lot of space to work with and no permission is required for filming. Our artist in the music video will look as though he is stranded outside. However, if we film here the concept of using a darker room would need to be changed entirely mainly due to the fact that we can't control how dark or bright it is outside in comparison to how much control we have over lighting in the drama studio. The way the concept would be changed is that we would need to make the actor seem as though he is stranded rather than lost in darkness.

If an actor is ill

We will stress the importance to the actors/actresses that they will have to let us know beforehand if they will not be able to make filming as early as possible because it will then allow us to either delay filming or find replacement actors/actresses.

If the camera breaks

We will take all necessary precautions to avoid this happening, but in a scenario where something does stop us having access or use of the camera we have the opportunity to use a smaller, handy-cam. This will not stop us filming it will just alter the quality of footage.

If a member of the group does not show up for filming

We will have to reschedule because it is vital that all members of the team are there on the day of filming so that we are able to agree on the footage for the video.

Location Recce:

When visiting our locations we had to think of any possible problems that could affect our day of filming. In order for us to recognise these things we to create a location recce so we knew the suitability of each location that we wanted to use. If we we’re to film in the drama studio, there is enough space for us to accommodate the whole filming and casting crew. However we are exposed to wires and long black curtains, which could essentially be a hazard, therefore we would need to be exceptionally careful and make sure that the curtains are either pulled back and the wires taped over, or we can place someone there guarding it and helping to assist the filming crew to stay away from the hazard areas.

The lighting is just right in the drama studio because it is all controlled manually giving us full control over it. Our actor would be screaming and shouting a lot, so we could use flashing lights to represent our actor’s confusion, anger and frustration. Although this is not a big problem for us, but lack of knowledge on how to use these lights effectively could affect the way the whole music video may turn out to look like. We also have to take into consideration the risk of lights falling down (even though it’s very unlikely to happen) so we can make sure that we are protected as much as possible. We would put the actor in the middle of the room because the lights are mantled in a square shape, that way if the lights do fall down our actor is less likely to be injured.

Having lack of knowledge on using the lightening when filming could make the video look poorly planned and not to a professional standard, luckily for us, Lorrie and I have full training on how to use the lightings. An advantage of using the drama studio is the fact that the song can be played out loud motivating the actor to do more with his performance and really feel the music and that is the impression we want to get across to our audience when making the music video. The drama studio is only available to us for one day only so we have to make sure that we don’t forget to not film certain scenes.

Video

After looking at several other music tracks, as a group we made a decision to choose this one because we thought it was best suited for us. Our first initial idea was to do Awolnation - Sail but after giving it a bit more thought and consideration we decided to do a different song because when we looked on Youtube we saw that a lot of people had already created music videos to it and we didn't want to be influenced. When listening to Awolnation - Not your fault, I found it really enjoyable and the beat of the song gave us so much to work with. My imagination started flowing and I had all these really great ideas that we could implement into our music video such as Anthony going just tapping his feet to the beat, then clapping his hands to the beat, and perhaps we could even get someone on the drums playing on beat. Just starting off slowly, implementing Freitag's Theory to our music video. Also, because there is no music video to this song, my imagination wasn't influenced by previous ideas.