Problems

So far all that the editing has shown us so far is that there is so much that we still need to think about, there are major holes in the video where there is no footage to fill, we need much more footage of the lead singer for the verses as well as more energy from the lead guitarist and bassist. The drummer was a lot more energetic than the other two however looking back at the footage you can see that he keeps looking at the camera.

Editing, Pros and Cons

We have now started to upload and edit the footage that we took from yesterdays film session. Some of the footage that we had taken on previous days had already been uploaded and Jake had found some effects on Final Cut Express. Although not all of them were useable we thought it would be good to have a brief idea of what effects the programme has.

On this fourth set of filming we took much more footage . The lighting was stronger, enabling the camera to focus better on the Drummer, however some of the lighting is too intense in parts and we are having to look for ways to darken it in Final Cut.

Final film set?

The filming session that we had last night was much more productive than the previous ones. We worked a lot more as a team, with everyone having a go at directing and filming some of shots that they thought may work in the video. This time rather than Jake doing the majority of filming again, Alex did quite a lot of the shots.

I would have been taking a lot of photos and videos on my own camera however i have lost the SD card and would have been unable to save them as the camera has no internal memory. However i was able to take a few photos on my camera phone however i am not sure of the quality. As well as this i directed a number of the shots and provided ideas about camera movement etc.

Mood Board

Here is just a mood board of album covers that i liked the layout and design of.

The point of this is for inspiration when it comes to the ancillary task

4th day of filming

We plan to film again in the Red Lion pub on Tuesday the 23 of february. Although we thought there were some problems with the setting, feedback from our teacher as well as other media studies students suggested that we keep the location.

It is unclear whether the whole group will be able to turn up for the filming however we will do all that we can with the people that we have.

Shots

Here are a few stills i took whilst we were filming at the red lion.

Some of the shots that we had practiced were used in the video

Chosen Location

Our chosen location for our video is the basement of 'The Red Lion'

There are some factors about this location that aren't exactly perfect, such as the placement of their fire escape door as well as some of the fire bells etc, however we were unaware of them before we went into film. We plan to take something to cover them up, possibly band posters etc. or even just a black sheet.

Animatic

We spent some time writing up and sketching a storyboard for our initial song 'Photosynthesis'.

As we changed the song to 'Times like these' we had to change a large amount of the shots, as unlike in our initial video plan the entire video will be shot as a live performance, whereas the first had a mix of live shots and narrative.

As jake was able to scan in the storyboard onto his home computer he posted the finished version onto his blog.

The original post can be found here: http://jakeclementswgsbmedia.blogspot.com/2010/01/animatic-of-music-video.html

Ancillary task

For the two ancillary tasks we are planning to produce an album cover along with a magazine advert for the band. We chose these over the band website option as we have had more experience with photoshop than dreamweaver. For GCSE as well as AS the coursework was to produce the front page, double page article and contents page of a magazine. For GCSE we had the choice of making the magazine about a topic of interest such as sport, music or video games, however for AS and now for A2 they are on certain genres of music.

3rd Day of filming

Last saturday we were able to find a new location which we thought would be much more fitting for the video that we had in mind. The Red Lion is a pub in Gravesend which hosts live music. There are four separate stages, we chose to film in the basement as in the upstairs stage which may have been more fitting was already being used by bands.

The location was quite difficult to frame as the downstairs stage is right next to a fire escape. We had to try to keep it out of the frame as we did not have anything to cover it up with. At first the owners of the pub were reluctant to turn on the lighting to the basement however they did eventually, and i feel that the blue coloured lighting made quite a nice effect on some of the shots. We also had a high powered plain light, but due to its power there were quite a lot of shadows in a number of the shots. It was difficult to see the drummer in the majority of shots, so when we film again we will need another light in order to minimise the amount or at least the intensity of the shadows.

Copyright Letter

Unlike for our first song 'Photosynthesis' we were unable to find an E-Mail address to ask for permission to use the song 'Times Like These', which is the fourth track from the album 'One By One.'

We would have been unable to use this song if we could not contact them in some way, however i found the postal address for their record company in America, and Jake wrote out a draft letter by hand that we would send via post.

Photos - 1st Location Camera Placement

Camera Placement:

Photos - 1st Location Equipment/Safety

Equipment:

Safety:

Had to tape down wires from amps/guitars as they could be a tripping hazard

The lighting that we had was very powerful, and actually overheated due to it being in use for a few hours.

Photos - 1st Location Setup

I took the following photos on our first day of filming for the song 'Times Like These'. Setup: