DRAFT - NW - The Pretender by The Foo Fighters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-EU-Xwm7RY

For my short response I have chosen to look at The Pretender by The Foo Fighters, as I have always liked this video as it is very simple and has a lot of very good performance shots and has a lot of energetic movement. The video starts of with the band performing in a large warehouse with a big red board behind them, slowly over the video riot police line up infront of the band until about 3:30 when they charge against them and the board explodes with a spray of red paint. The band continue to play normally eventhough the riot police are being thrown around by the spray of red.

The video is very bright as there is a lot of overhead lighting and the floor is white. The reflection off of the red backing is blurred and provides a nice enlongating effect on the room.

NW - Thursday 25/11/10

This lesson I have worked on finalisin and syncing some of the areas of the video that have been roughly put together earlier. I have also been looking at some of the areas that we need to fill with the shots we will be taking tomorrow in the drama studio and have storyboarded some of these shots.

OS - Work Done While teacher Was Absent

Yesterday I had a go at editing. I had most of the lesson and i played around with a few things. I did this 360 shot that wipes every second to either the boy or the girl. This took me a while to do as I had to get the timing right. I also added other shots to the timeline such as more drama shots that we needed to be put in.

NW - What I Have Done Or Am Doing

Have Done
Advert Ideas
Drama studio shoot
Lead editing
Drama studio shoot evaluation
Some of the shots in Camber (tripod)
Storyboarding
Call sheet/Risk assessment for Drama studio

Am Doing
Continuing lead editing
Advert

OS - What I Have Done Or Am doing

Have Done
Digipack Mock Up
Small Amount of Editing - (created my own version of the video)
Took most shot of the couple moving in Camber - (Shots without Tripod)
Camber Shoot Evaluation
Storyboarding
Shot Most of Animatic


What I Am Doing
Digipack
Still Involved in Parts of Editing

OS - 'Islands' by The xx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PElhV8z7I60&feature=channel

For my short response i have chosen the track 'Islands' by The xx. The video is incredible as it is simply all done in one room with dancers repeating the same dance throughout. The only thing that changes or is 'out of sync' is the act themselves. This is because they are sitting in different positions each time the video cuts back to the start of the dance which takes about eight seconds each time. Towards the end of the video the lead female singer stands up and leaves the shot with the big x in the background on fire. This is when the video changes slightly but it is only for about twenty seconds or so.

The video itself is quite dark with a spotlight coming out of the main x in the background. The only other real light is the fire towards the end of the video.

The image above shows the start of each repeated dance. It always starts like this apart from the end of the video. This is good advertising for The xx as you clearly can see the 'X' behind the dancers and that is where most of the light is coming from, contrasting the dark atmosphere around the room when we cut back further. Both lead singers are lip synching on the sofa they are sitting on however we get the star image created as they come across as cool and laid back as they dont really partake in the events in the video.

The shot above is them on the sofa singing with the dancers on repeat. The shot always pulls back untill we can see the whole of the room and what is going on but as soon as that happens it cuts back to the beginning of the dancers again. This video is quite absract in the way they do this as i dont believe this has really benn done before so it comes across as new and interesting. When i first watched it I thought it was quite boring and i nearly changed the video but after watching the full video i think it is amazing how they have created a music video like this.

OS - New Footage

With the footage Nathan caught on Friday, it looks like the drama studio went better than expected and we have some really nice shots and idea such as the screenshot of the two characters layered over each over in red and blue to contrast each other.

NW - Editing 22/11/10

Today I have worked on the shots I took on Friday and worked on the first idea we had that was the overlay of the two actors which i have successfully been able to do as the shots I used were took specifically for the overlay and made it a lot easier for me to edit.

I have also gone through every shot I took and taken out everything that I could use and is now on the timeline, however Premiere crashed so I had to do all of this again and did not have enough time to cut down each of the shots. That will only take me a couple of minutes as many of them are the completely usable.

NW - Reflections on Drama Studio Shoot for Narrative

Afterschool on friday the 19/11/10 we used our drama studio to take a series of shots for uses in our narrative, we have decided to included these shots in the drama studio as it will create a deep sense of them being alone as it will be completely black and the only light will be provided by a spot light.

I was able to take the shots that me and Owen had planned on doing and they have come out as I had hoped and have been able to do the overlayed image shot that I had seen in The Script video.

The shots that I took will only make up a very small amount of actual screen time but it allowed me to use the lights in the drama studio. After I had finished with the shooting of the planned shots I decided to experiment with what could be done in there in order to get a clearer idea of what we will shoot when we do the band shots in there.

The only problem with the shoot was Owen had to go to his dad's birthday meal which meant I had to shoot this on my own, but this did not cause too much of a problem as me and Owen had discussed thoroughly beforehand what we were going to shoot and have been coming up with the shots for the days prior to shooting.

After shooting at Camber Sands it was much easier to Direct the two actors as this wasn't the first time we had shot together which allowed everything to run much smoother and the shooting was done much quicker then before, this may have also been down to the fact we were shooting inside and we weren't worried about the harsh winds that we experienced at Camber Sands.

This is a short clip of some of the shots that I took in the drama studio.

OS - Digipack Progress

This is the digipack template I used and have edited with to  create a proper mock up of our digipack. As you can see it still looks simplistic as we have yet to complete the photoshoot however three are images that look similar of Midnight on there page. I have played about with colours and I like the idea of having each track name a different colour as it looks good because of the colour contrast between it and black. I need to decide on a font though as i have been playing around with many to see which font looks best on the digipack. We have kept the idea of having a poster as a lot of digipacks have some sort of added extra to make the album more interesting.

OS - Editing

Although Nathan is the lead editor I occasionally help with it and have saved a copy of a version I have created. In this copy I have altered the start of the video with more walking scenes instead of the initial band shots. The band shots then came after about 20 seconds however i also edited the cutting rate to be quicker so it is more like a music video. Furthermore i looked at the saturation and how we could use this effect to create flashbacks in our video.

DRAFT - NW - Advert Ideas

The advert that I am going to create would run in NME magazine the sizings for this would be 245mm x 305mm. My initial idea was very simple to have the band standing very casually against a red brick wall with a minimal ammount of information around the most likely just the; alubum name, band name and the release date. This will allow the advert to remain very simple but still get across the information and not confuse the advert with information that is not strictly needed.

The image above shows one of my initial ideas for the advert, it features the 4 band members up against a brick wall. They will be wearing clothes similar to those they will wear in our music video, the brick wall will also show the band as very cool and just a very down to earth band, this allows the audience to relate to them adding to the star persona and band image.

The reading line will take your eye across the band name then along their faces and you will finally read the album name and any extra text at the bottom.

NW - First week of editing

Over the last week I have been editting the camber footage and looking through all of the workable footage I could get from our first shoot, we have found that we will need to reshoot a few of the shot in the drama studio as we needed some more footage and felt that using the drama studio would add more depth to the video and give us more then just the one location.

I looked into changing some of the RGB levels of the shots as it provides us with a richer depth of colour in some of the shots and allows us to cleerly show the difference between the memories and what is happening "now". We have done this by slightly desaturating the memories and slightly changing the brightness and done the opposite in the other shots by increasing the saturation. With the RGB we will uniformly change it throughout as we have changed this simpley to get a richer depth of colour.

NW - Shot ideas from "For The First Time" by The Script

The overlay used in this shot would be useful when our male and female characters are apart as it will show both of there emotions in one shot and will link the two of them creating the juxtapostion of bright colours and meloncholic feelings.

The ghosting used in this shot may be useful to show memories as it creates a hazy feel and some sort of half remembering or dreaming of better times when the characters where together. This will also show how we can use editing to show mood in a quite overt way rather then just the changes in saturation and RGB levels.

I like how the black and white shots are used for the preformance shots in the studio and hope to replicate this in our video. I think that the use of spot lights and only picking out small parts of the performance in a studio like this really adds a deeper feel and creates a very clear divide between the narrative and the performance. Furthermore shooting in the studio will allow us to experiment with a very precise use of lighting as it will allow us to control the light to a very high degree, which is not easy with our shots that we did on location in camber sands.
The use of shadow created by the neck of the guitar in this shot will be very useful if we try to replicate it in the slower parts of this song or at the begining as it is just an amazing looking shot, with the siloette created by the guitarist and the guitar.

OS - Digipack Ideas 4

From creating  basic mock up of the Digipack for The Maccabees, we have come to the conclusion that it will be a six sided pack with the track listing, front cover for the album and the possibility of a poster attached all key ideas in the design. The whole Digipack will be black in colour however I am thinking the track listing maybe be in different colours. I think this would work well as would show the band to be dark and mysterious such as the Linkin Park advert i analysed a few posts below. We are still keeping the same ideas as previously stated however for one of the inside covers we will add Nathans Advert Poster as an addition to the Digipack.

I will also have one cover, probably the one next to the actual disc itself, filled with The Maccabees and a logo for them.

OS - Digipack Analysis

This is the draft for the digipack. We decided to follow through with the idea of having a 'Wall of Arms' with the band members of Midnight.

The image above is the one for the inside cover of the digipack I felt we should go for a similar style as Queen did for 'Bohemian Rhapsody' with the four band members with a spotlight on them. I think this would work well as most people we realise the reference to Queen quite quickly but obviously we don't want to copy them completely so we may change it slightly.

This image will be black following the theme as the other cover sides but this one will have the names of the tracks in different colours and fonts on them.

NW - Advert Analysis

The reading line starts at the top left with “the best of THE VINES” which then leads down to “OUT NOW” and the rest of the information. The white blank space in the background makes the rest of the images and words stand out much more and make this leading line seem very obvious and easy to follow. The album name and the images used enhance each other and make them seem earthy and feel quite eco friendly.

The linguistic signs of the advert are the name of the album and the general information about its release, the phrases "the best of" and "hit singles" connotes that they are a successful band with a good history of songs that have done well in the charts.

The major iconic sign would be the vines intwining with the text and this amplyfying the name of the band, this also shows the band may be going for a very eco friendly direction or decide to play quite folky songs as the vines connote the wild and links in with the idea of folky music.

The juxtapostion of all the signs creates the idea of the band being anti establishmentary by not showing the band image and being a picture of a tree is the idea of getting back to your roots and it doesnt fit with the stereotypical advert of this genre.

Feedback #7

Nathan? Ad analysis?

OS - Camber Shoot Evaluation

Organisation
We organised everyone a few weeks before half term so we could shoot in the holiday. This really helped us as last year we struggled to cope with organising everything on time.

Weather
The weather was almost ideal for what we wanted to shoot as it wasn't wet or sunny but it was very windy. In some shots the wind was useful to create a perfect scenario for the narrative but in some shots it was too strong and every ones hair was blown everywhere.

Specific Shots
We managed to accomplish a few good shots in the footage we shot such as the 360 pan of the girl with the wind blowing in her face and the guitar solo on top of the dunes.

Strengths
I think the main strength we had was having everyone being organised for this shoot as there was 8 of us and we had to take two cars and a bike to get there. Futhermore myself and Nathan managed to keep everyone under control and for them to stay with us and just do the work without them wanting to go off on the beach.

Weaknesses
I think the weakness of this shoot was that we got a lot of shots that are all very similar so there isnt a great deal of variety in the shots we took. Most of the shots are either on the beach or in the dunes so there are a lot of shots that look the same

Who Did What?
Both myself and Nathan had a go at directing. He would direct the shots with the tripod while i would direct the shots that involved handicam shots.

OS - Digipack ideas 3

Concept
For the other sides i see as a possibility that we have an arm extending through each side. So either one long arm or many arms being extended on Photoshop. We would then have the names of the songs on the back as most normal digipacks do. I think we would have all the sides black but the use of a spotlight definitely appeals to me more now than it did a week ago.

Other Sides
I was thinking of using an arm stretched out either across one side or across all the sides. I think the background would be black with a spotlight from behind so you could see the arm across the sides.

Feedback #5

Owen - I like the digipak idea - although you need to include all sides in the mock up due this weekend.

Nathan - where are your ad analysis posts?

Also - can you both post on the Camber shoot in much more detail, reflecting on shots, organisation, weather, issues encountered and how you overcame them. Some screenshots would be useful.

A Rough Cut / Animatic Of All Of Our Footage

This is the rough cut of all our footage we shot at Camber Sands. Along with the story boards of other shots that we are planning to do.

OS - Digipack Ideas 2

At the moment I am developing the idea that we have four people in like a huddle position and we take a photo from above with the album and artist name in the middle on the floor. This is a very basic outline of the photo i did on Photoshop earlier to try and grasp the idea of what it will look like.

Obviously this is very basic but we will have four people create what is shown above with the names of the band and the album on the floor. We will probably have the background dark or black with the possible use of a spotlight.

OS - Advert Analysis

This is Linkin Parks advertisement for there latest album 'A Thousand Suns'. I found this in a music magazine and decided to analyse it. First of all we look straight at the middle to see LP which is short for Linkin Park and we then follow down to see the date of the album release. The band don't give much away in this advertisement but this creates a star image of mystery and something new and modern. However they go for a misty black background which could connote something old or something that has aged. The font of there logo is also unique, as it looks almost like the Superman logo, so it looks like that of a superhero, enhancing the bands star image to be cool and a hero.

As the band didn't give too much away with this advert, they create a sense of curiousness within the audiences mind, as they have no idea what it will be like, other than it is released on the 14th of September and that they will have to wait until then. An iconic sign of this advert would most definitely be the dark colour background symbolising that this may be a new dark twisted direction for Linkin park.

The linguistic signs of the advert are the band name and the date of the the album release. Like previously stated the font is key on this advert as it creates a positive start image of them being 'heroes'.

#

This is the actual album cover they released for there album 'A Thousand Suns'. As you can see again they go for a simplistic idea with just a black smudge across the cover. This connotes mystery and it seems that they are trying to give away as little as possible about the album.

The sum of all these signs for the advert come to present the band possibly being a dark rock band but other than that they don't give huge amounts of detail away. I found another poster this time on the internet of another advertisement they have done, very similar to the top advert. The only real difference in this one is that they have they linguistic sign of the album name on the advert. Again they go for there 'superhero' logo and the rest of the background is in black possibly connoting 'death' or mystery.

OS - Digipack ideas and Design

For our digipack design we are thinking of using a simple four sided cover with the album name 'Wall of Arms' and The Maccabees written on it.

Ideas
My initial idea for the cover was four people, probably the band members of Midnight, locked in arms with the titles of the band and album on the floor. We would take the photo from a birds eye view so we would be looking down at the four people making a square with there arms and the words of the band on the floor.

Another idea i had was that we possibly take a photo of the beach with either the band or the characters on there. I would then use photo shop to cartoonize the photo which i think could be quite interesting, such as the cover of 'Plastic Beach' by Gorrilaz. I was thinking of keeping the four sided digipack cover as it will be easy and simple to create rather than perhaps going for a six sided one.