Planning

Test Shots

We filmed a short test sequence that was similar to a sequence that we aimed to film as part of our finished project. This would have been shot inside a cafe, in which the main protagonist sits at a table, relieved that he had escaped from the performer who chases him, who is simply a drug induced hallucination, who so you believe. It is purposely left ambiguous as to whether this pursuing performer is a figment of the protagonists imagination, or an oddball person of reality. As the main protagonist relaxes at the table, he recognises the performer across the way, after having something tossed at his head. The protagonist then stands up, as does the performer, who begins to mimic every movement that protagonist makes. While we never actually filmed this sequence for our finished production, it did allow us to experiment with shots that can liven up a scene.





Animatic Story board

Here is an animatic story board that shows a rough outline of what our music video is going to be like, although it is not necessarily vindictive of our final creation, as we already have a few different ideas from the story board, such as the idea that during the chorus of the song we will cut to shots of the hallucination performing with various instruments, and then return to the narrative when the chorus ends and the song goes back to the next verse.

The mind maps below in the 'Micro Exercise' section, still apply to our current choice of song, as the genre is still indie rock.

Micro Exercise
As a group we have looked on the site 'www.totallyunsigned.co.uk' to find a song that we would like to create our preliminary pice around. We went through the genre 'indie' on the site and went through the list listening to a small piece of each song. We comprised a list a songs that we liked the sound so that we could go back to them with ease. Once we had listened to the majority of the songs we went through the list, listening again to each song but for a longer period of time in order to help us gauge if this song would be suitable for our purposes, and if we still enjoy the song now it's beyond the first thirty seconds or so. At first we decided on a song called 'Thunderpoo' by 'Use Your F*cking Headphones'. However we found that this song was not available to download on the site and that it also may have been somewhat unsuitable due to the name of the song and band. We then looked into a song called 'Maybe, OK We'll See' by 'Fitsroy'. However upon further listening we decided that we didn't enjoy the song as much as our first impression made us believe. Also once again this song was not available for download so even if we wanted to this song would be unavailable to us. We've settled on a song called 'Funkchester' by 'The Would be Emperors'. We chose this song as the group enjoyed the song and it was available to download.

Here is a mindmap that the group created on the various genres of music and the various sub cultures that are often associated with the various genres of music.

As a group we shot some test shots for our main preliminary piece to test if the green screen idea was a viable option. This allowed us to test if our idea of having a blank robot thats face would turn on would be a option that would be possible to create in the short time span that we had. We would perform this by wrapping and actors face in a green fabric that would be used as a background when using green screen in a more traditional manner. We would then shoot footage of another actors face which could then be imposed onto the green fabric. At first we found it hard to do this as we thought that we would have to shots of the man with green screen and the shots of the actors that would be imposed onto the green screen, would have to be identical in order to make the face line up over the top of the green screen, but we soon discovered that on Final Cut Pro X, the programme we are using, that you could move the image around to line up with the green screen over the actors face.

Here is a mind map full of ideas that we feel are associated with the idea of Indie Rock.

 Risk Assessment

Throughout the shooting of our music video, there were a few risks that we had to take into consideration.
One risk is that when one of our actors has to plug in a cable there is a risk of an electric shock. To try and minimise this risk, we made sure that the socket was turned off and so were any adjacent sockets. We also used an old electric cable that no longer functions correctly, further lowering the chance of electricity surging to it and shocking an actor. The electric cable itself presented another risk, that one of the crew members could trip over it. To try and lower the risk of this we always tried to move the cable to somewhere where a crew member isn't going to walk, making it less likely that someone would trip over the cable. Another risk that was posed is when one of our actors had to use an electric guitar. We did not have a strap for the guitar, meaning the actor just had to hold the guitar themselves, this posed the risk that maybe the guitar could be dropped, not only damaging it but also possible injuring the actor or another crew member. To try and limit this risk at first we searched for a guitar strap but couldn't find one, so we re-worked the scene to have the actor with the guitar sitting down instead of standing, meaning the guitar could be rested on the actors legs, adding that little extra support lowering the chance of the guitar being dropped.

Shooting Schedule

On the first day of shooting, we shot after school and we filmed in one location, one of the colleges IT rooms. Here we shot the majority of our music video, most of the shots of the 'robot man' that we would need to use in our music video. On the second day of shooting we shot in lesson time, this time filming the crews faces and them lip synching to the song 'Funkchester' so that we could put these faces onto the green screen face of our 'robot man'. On the third day of shooting, we shot during lunch time in one of the many music rooms in the college so that we could film our 'robot' using some instruments. In the end we only used one of these shots in our finished production. After this we had completed shooting for our music video, and all that was left to do was to edit it all together.