Problems and Changes

Our original plan was to film the performance with our band and narrative in school. We also had four ideas of filming the band performance:
* In a class room
* The drama room.
* The main school Hall
* London (Trafalgar square and Piccadilly Circus)
* Kingston (Bandstand, Telephone Boxes, Graffiti Wall and Park)
The main school Hall idea was dropped after realising we didn't particular like the layout of the Hall. We also thought of having school children in the crowd, like a typical band concert. This particular idea didn't work either due to lack of time and we had the issue of getting permission from teachers at a short notice as it was couple of days before half-term. We also thought about, if we were also going to get school children in our performance and filming was at the end of school, we would have to get parents permission as well. So due to the short notice and many other problems we had with the idea, we decided to drop it. We also decided to change our performance base. Sung-Min felt we needed to experiment a bit more in location by going into a town rather than just a simple location in school because she thought this would be more exciting and interesting for the audience. We then started exploring places to film in London. The choices was Trafalgar square and Piccadilly Circus. However, As we further investigated Louise told us the problem with Trafalgar Square was that we may have restrictions  filming there. So with risk of that we dropped it. We then initially decided on filming in Piccadilly Circus and a Gothic Shop basement in Piccadilly Circus which Louise suggested which also on doubt because of filming restriction. We then had problems with taking equipment all the way to London and the bad weather which followed. So we dropped the whole idea of filming in London was dropped and we went for something local to us and we thought about filming in Kingston, as we had a much more variety of things to do as we knew the area well, it worked really well for all of us it gaves us so many ideas of locations to film. We also filmed at Sung-Min's house and used her dad's car to film some of the performance. We thought it was a good idea to explore a bit more as we thought about this close space environement to film.So the narrative for our music video was in school and the performance was done in Kingston.   




By Narmadha Kothandapani

CD cover ideas

These are the some of the ideas that we had for our CD cover:

One idea that we had was to take a picture of the band in a coffin however we didn't have enough time to make it therefore we coudn't. From this I have learnt that we must always brainstorm ideas and if we need to do something than act fast to achieve it.

Also because we had to make an actual CD cover, we had to come up with other song titles that matches out band: -Is it me

-The kinda face you have

-Talk to the hand

-Lies, Lies and more Lies

-Fed up about you

-My Rules

-Can't I even dream?

-Bad girl, Good girl

-How long are you prepared to wait?

by Sung min

Photos that can be used for digy-pack

To give theses exposure coloured effects I used simple photo editing program in a website called 'cyworld' which is a social net working site. I used exposed colour effects because our theme of the song is punk and the lyrics made me think of complementary colours put together rather than just the normal picture.

by Sung min

History of girl band

Girl band known as all-female band are formed in the same way as existing bands but the artists are all girls. In the age of jass in 1920's, all-girl bands such as Helen Lewis and her all-girl jazz syncopators were popular. And in 1980's for the first time all-female rock band reached Billboards chart; Joan Jett;s I love rock 'n' roll. Therefore in 1980 the future for all-female band started to open but it was still very much a male-dominated industry. But now days femal bands have the same opportunty to have success as we have technologies for them to promote and reach widerinternational audience. Also the fact that girls playing electric instruments can be an attraction and lead to success.




 
by Sung min

Make up/ Hair style

Punk, rock and gothic make up style. Making the artist to look beautiful is the other method to sell the product so I researched some make up styles and the accessorises that they wear and hairstyle.

Some make up are extream but we know how to make the artist look punk,rock and gothic. There are colours such as red, black and grey used very often and the hair style are streched out.

by Sung min

Music Video Research

One music video that I looked at is CrushCrushCrush by Paramore. It is a band with a girl singer three guitarist and one drummer. Because we could not get another person to be in our band, I decided to join in. I looked at this video because it was done by filming a band but also to look at how the guitarist acts in the music video. I found out that they really get into the music and let themselves to be absored into the music. At the end of the music video they start to break their instruments, which we are familiar of when we look at a rock or punk bands when they perform. Our band don't want that kind of violence but I want to really show that I am enjoying being the band member and play the role of second guitarist well. To do this, I might give the lead guitarist more chance to play on her own also film her more. With the costume, the band are wearing similar clothes but one thing that caught my eye was the singer's hair. Because we are a small group band I thought of wearing our own characterised clothes which will make the audience easier to spot who is who. On the other hand, the location gave me the "WOW" factor. I don't think they  went to the desert but might have used greenscreen to do it. If our group get a chance to use the green screen, we would experiment and film in different location backrounds.

I found lots of interesting camera shots in this music video. Camera shots change to the beat of the music, to do this in our music video we have to film in different angles.There was a shot where the singer stays in her position and sings but the camera moves to the side and makes the audience to see the location which I want to try. This creates voyeurism because it places the audience as nosy people. Lots of close up of the instrument and the player together in a warm's eye view also the shot of pip hole creates voyeurism which works really well with the lyrics and visual which shows the theory of Goodwin. There is a 45 degree shot of the singer frequently in a high angle shot and shots where the singer looks at the camera but also when she isn't.




Another video that I looked at is the Ting Tings; That's not my name. There is only one girl singer and a drummer but because we only have three people in out band I thought it will be good to watch and learn how they fill their space in the frame and draw audience's attention to them. They don't have a specific location but they use simple coloured backrounds; white,blue and red. They don't use any other colours, I think they did this to match the lyrics, visual and the style of the artists that they have built up. In our band, i want lots of different but interesting locations but I think I will consider of using simple backrounds as well.
 
Lots of interestng camera movements are used in the video, there is a track top from bottom which leads the audeice to the singers and static shotsof the actors before they play. Lots of close ups of different things, not just faces but the drummer's feet and mic etc.
 

 
In addition, I looked at a korean girl band. They are called the Nia and sang Remember the forest. The band has one singer, one drummer and two guitarist. It was really interesting to see a girl band in Korea because usually there ar olny girl and boy dance groups. I picked this music video because it is set in a forest and the lyrics matches the visuals which again is showing Goodwin's theory put into practice. It is not a rock or punk style band because there aren't culture of punk in Korea yet. Because of this, the way they dressed are quite formal and lady like. We dont want this in our music video but the fact it is set in the forest and in the middle of the ally way of the forest it cought my eye. Using the forest as our location it might not match but if we make the singer act as she is running away from her bully it might work. There are lots of shaky camera shots but which works well with the lyrics. When I am filming I will shake when I do high angle shots but like this music video, we can use it on purpose and match it to the music.

by Sung min

Research on camera movements

There were lots of interesting shots which I looked at; music videos with bands. But because our group decided to include a narrative I researched a music video with similar narrative as ours. The artist is Eminem and the song title is No love. It is about a boy who is being bullied in school and later on he stands up for him self. Because I will be shooting the narrative i looked at the camera techniques which are used. There were close ups of the boy's face and use of slow motion whenever the bullies are bullying him. I think slow motion is used to make the audience feel the pain like the boy. We won't use slowmotion because it's a fast and punk music but we will shoot close ups of the faces to show the facial expressions of the actors. One thing that I found out that the editing skill sthat we diid for our fast and slow sequece is shown in the music video. At the end of the music video the boy's face keeps coming up matched to the music.

These are the shots that we will shoot:
-Back to back shots of the band
-Close ups (not only face)
-Static shots of the band
-Singer at the front singing and guitarist as the backround
-Film instruments in different angles
-Track the singer
-Film behind objects
-Hand motions from the singer

by Sung min

Narrative? or no Narrative?

On 1st of October we went to the drama studio to film performance scene. I think we rushed in to film because we felt that we were behind than everybody else in our class. We found out that we didn't plan specifically and in depth also we found out that because we were not proffessional band there were limits in performing shots and produce the music video with only performances. On the other hand, there was only one guitarist in the band when we filmed in the drama hut; we needed another guitarist so we decided that I will be the guitarist. And so we came to a conclusion that we should include narrative which is related to the lyrics.

These were the few ideas that we had:
-boy friend and girl friend relationship-place the camera as the point of view of the boy so when he looks down on her, the camera looks down the singer
-friend to friend relationship-best friends but starts to bully her and then through our the song she stands up for her self


We analysed the lyrics as well:

by Sung min

Results to questionnaire

1. Are you female or male?

• Female -> 13
• Male -> 7

1. How old are you?

• 13-15 -> 1
• 16-18 ->7
• 19-21 -> 5
• 21-23 -> 4
• 24+ -> 3

1. Whats your favourite genre of music?

• Pop ->3
• R n B-> 2
• Rock -> 5
• Classic -> 1
• Indie -> 6
• Punk -> 3
• Soft -> 0

1. Who is your favourite band?

• Paramore ->5
• Versa Emerge -> 4
• Ting Tings -> 2
• Veruca Salt -> 1
• Bring me the Horizon -> 4
• Bullet for my Valentine -> 3
• My Chemical Romance -> 2

1. Do you play an instrument?

• Yes -> 12
• No -> 8

1. How many times have you been to a music concerts?

• Many ->2
• Some -> 6
• 1 or 2 -> 7
• Never -> 5

1. Do you like all-female bands?

• Yes -> 7
• No -> 13

1. Do you buy CD's?

• Yes -> 4
• No -> 16

By Louise Thorne and Sung-min

Practice shots

This is our practive shots of what we will or might do in our music video. I wanted to have a go at editing, so for this clip I experimented editing with the music. I found out tha it takes a lot of time but when you know what you are doing it actually is very fun. Even though the singer doen't sing, I tired to match it with the visuals and the lyrics; like when the lyrics are 'I watch you change from light to dark', I used the fade to show this visully. Also when I researched other music videos I found out that they film behind objects in punk music videos so I tried this by shooting the singer behind bushes Further on different shots of the guitar as well as the singer, I found out that re-using editing will provide continuity and will make the viewer to become familiar with it.

Questionnaire

1. Are you female or male?
2. How old are you?
3. What is your favourite genre of music?
4. Who is your favourite band?
5. Do you play an instrument?
6. How many times have you been to a music concerts?
7. Do you like all-female bands?
8. Do you buy Cd's?

by Sung min 

Storyboard

After we had an idea what to do for our narrative in our music video, we started doing the storyboard. We started by dividing the seconds with the lyrics and planned what we are going to film and drew them. We knew that the storyboard will help us to be more organised; we know this when we did our opening sequence of a film. As we planned it we knew what kind of props we need as well as other equipments. Drawing by hand was difficult to show how we are going to do it but it is there to help us. To help us further we wrote down the lyrics beneath so that the singer know which line she will sing and for the camera man to know how to shoot that scene. We tried to put various of different camera shots like close up shot but in a high angle. We brought this to every time we filmed but as we did it lots of changes were made I think is due to not enough research and planning. For the music video to turn out better I think next time we should actually go to the location and do some practice shots and see if we could actually film as we would like to. Next time, when we do the storyboard we could add some colour and be more specific about each shots and also think the angles of the camera that will go well with different types of editing.

by Sung min

StoryBoard

The StoryBoard is in Order from 1-10, 1 at the top and 10 the bottom