So it begins. Day one and I've been given a brief, to plan and produce a music video. Going through multiple activities to break it down into feasible tasks. So of course the first task was my first goal. The task itself can be seen below in italics:
Activity 1
Create a 5 minute presentation to describe/explain/comprehensively explain the purpose of music videos (29.1) and demonstrate that you understand the requirements for producing a music video (1.1) to meet the following criteria.
29.1 criterion
Pass: Describe the purposes of music videos with some appropriate use of subject terminology
Merit: Explain the purposes of music videos with reference to detailed illustrative examples and with generally correct use of subject terminology
Distinction: Comprehensively explain the purposes of music videos with elucidated and consistently using subject terminology correctly
1.1 criterion
Pass: Outline requirements and sources of requirements for a specific media production
Merit: Explain in some detail and competently present requirements and sources of requirements for a specific media production
Distinction: Comprehensively explain and present to a quality that reflects near-professional standards fully detailed requirements and sources of requirements for a specific media production.
So my first task is to create a presentation explaining the purpose of music videos. I could approach this in several ways, but my way is Powerpoint. I'll need to go into detail, doing some research of my own along with my own intuition and knowledge of the industry.
Tuesday 17th November 2015
An update on yesterdays progress. I started off planning the powerpoint presentation by gathering information, mainly from a source that seems to have done extensive research into the whole subject of music videos in general. They have a lot of information regarding the history of Music videos, and as of yesterday, I had three slides full of information. The "Basic requirements" which listed a few reasons why music videos exist and what people hope to gain with them. I then sorted out a slide which listed the various types of music videos and explained what they consisted of. Turns out there are three kinds of music video! I then went on to grab a bunch of information about the history of music videos! Starting from way back in 1940 with Fantasia, all the way up to 1983 with Michael Jacksons "Thriller".
I also made a sources page, listing the one source I've used as of right now. With all the information I have, I think I can begin planning the presentation itself. I've created a new slide called "What is a Music Video". I'm thinking from a presentation standpoint, I'll be able to start off quite smoothly, listing the various traits of what makes a music video, and going on to why they exist as a branching point. I'll then go on to the various types of music video, using the information I've already gathered to show each type, how popular they are, and the purpose of each existing.
I'll need to fit in the history of music videos as well, but I'm still thinking about how I can implement this. Maybe some time mid way through I can start talking about how they came to be what they are today. Which may explain a little more as to their purpose. Which I must not forget, is the main point I'm explaining here. When we ask about the purpose of something existing, we must first explore it's origins, in order to get an idea as to why they were thought up. In this case, that the industry started creating them to experiment and see how popular they were. At the root, they wanted more ways to make money and explore creativity. They wanted to promote their material further. And what better way to do that, than by mixing things with other mediums.
I believe my layout will be something like the italics below:
- Very short Introduction
- What is a music video?
- What's the recipe for a music video?
- What kinda of music video are there? (Short video example of each)
- History of why they exist
- Summary: What is the purpose of a music video?
The above means I'll need a few short video examples. I'll also need to recognize time management. We have 5 minutes to present. So most of my information will be cut out. As well as the fact I'd prefer to keep it short and sweet as well. Pictures and illustrative examples will also be needed. I'll place some pretty simple pictures around the PowerPoint, letting the videos serve as my other visual pieces. Perhaps, I could experiment with a music track during the presentation itself. Which means scripting a few pieces with the correct timing may help out. I'm thinking experimentally here, but we'll see what goes into the final product. For now, I'll see if I can get planning.
Friday 20th November 2015
Two days later and I've made a few presentation design decisions! I've decided to theme my presentation around cooking! Because what is a creative project but simply a stew of talent and people with said talent mish-mashed together? Plus it's nice to have a theme. With most of the information already gathered, all I'll need to do is lay it out and make it look pretty. Which, now with my chosen theme, I can do!
Currently the layout of slides I have are:
- Intro slide
- The recipe for a music video
- Ingredients (Thinking of merging this with previous)
- Flavours of music video
- History (Need to theme this one)
- Summary
- Sources
I'll aim to stick with a similar structure to the first one I'd planned, with new names and layouts of course. I still have the intro in there, "What is a music video" has become "The recipe for a music video" and therefore merged with the slide below in the original structure. "What kind..." has become "Flavours" and History is still the same, along with the summary and sources being the page I decided to add to keep in line with showing my research.
I'm thinking of merging the recipe and the ingredients for a few reasons. 1: This needs to be a five minute presentation, and shortening it seems like a good idea with all the information I'll have to get across. 2: The recipe and ingredients are basically the same thing. If I leave it there, I'll feel like I'll be repeating myself and just using it as filler material. So I think the merging will have the happen regardless.
So then I decided to think up a few other names. I decided to call the History section "The History Bits", plain and simple. And the Summary page will take the form of the congratulations at the end of a cooking recipe of "Well done you now have a completed food item!" Whereas in this case it will take the form of the ending section. Something along the lines of "And here's your finished music video!" and then Explaining why we have them.
I have however decided against using this title, and have instead gone for "Do you smell something burning?" Purely for comedic effect, and maybe implying that no, you should not cook music videos. I have a couple of points I know I want to cover on this summary page. I want to quickly explain that we know what a music video is, and give a very brief explanation, followed by my slightly longer summary of their purpose. Followed by a bow, and a smooth exit.
Tuesday 24th November 2015
Today a small revelation was had. Turns out the presentation needs to include a separate grading criteria section. After reading ahead I found the extra Assessment Criterion. Seen below in italics:
Assessment Criterion 1.1
P1 outline requirements and sources of requirements for a specific media production
M1 explain in some detail and competently present requirements and sources of requirements for a specific media production
D1 comprehensively explain and present to a quality that reflects near-professional standards fully detailed requirements and sources of requirements for a specific media production
You should consider:
Types of production: e.g. film, television, internet, video, animation
Sources of finance and costs e.g. equipment, transport, talent, crew, materials, facility hire, clearances
Time - deadlines, availability of personnel, timescales for clearances
Personnel - size of team, roles, skills and experience, resourcing availability, costs, team or crew CVs
Facilities - production equipment, post-production equipment, outsourcing, availability, costs
Materials - type e.g. original material, archive and library, photo-library, internet, audio, script, costumes, props, recorded music, sources, costs, clearances
Contributors - type, e.g. specialists, experts, talent
Locations - identification, recces, limitations and risks e.g. distance, access, cost, weather
Codes of practice and regulation - clearances e.g. Mechanical Copyright Protection-Performing Rights Society Alliance (MCPS-PRS), model releases location permissions, legal, e.g. copyright, health and safety, insurance, e.g. public liability, completion insurance; regulatory bodies e.g. Ofcom, BBFC; trade unions e.g. Producers' Alliance for Cinema and Television (PACT)
So it looks like I'll have to implement these points into my 5 minute presentation. This could prove to be problematic. compressing everything so it all fits into 5 minutes, and still getting all the information across may not prove to be possible. So, I'll need to do some condensing and cutting. So that not all the information will make it into the final draft. This means I should be able to make room for the extra grading criterion.
For now, I'll focus on what I have and how I can lay it out so it makes sense. So far I have a lot of information on these slides. Some of it on the wrong slide. I'll post the screenshots of draft 1:
Ω At this stage I believe Draft 1 is complete. So far it isn't anywhere near aesthetically pleasing, but this will come later. For now, we have this bland title page.
 |
| Slide 1: The title page |
 |
| Slide 3: Ingredients (What makes up a music video?) |
 |
| Slide 4: Flavours (Types of music video) |
I will also explain that there must be a reason for music videos to be made, and that I will be explaining that reason in this presentation. I'll explain a little extra alongside this as well.
 |
| Slide 5: History |
 |
| Slide 6: Summary |
 |
| Slide 7: sources |
I also may go into a little detail on why these things are needed for a music video, and what they'll do for production resources, how much they'll save etc.
This slide will focus more on the types of music videos there are, of which there are 3. I'll comprehensively explain the way different music videos are presented and how each base works, then show a few examples, perhaps using pictures.
I'll need to make sure I explain there can be some crossover between the types but the fact that the base type will usually be the one that fits with the majority of the video. Whereas the other types features would be just that; featured types of footage in a certain type-based video.
This history section will be explaining the origins of music videos, how they came to be, and how they became big. I want to show this in a timeline fashion if possible, though if I could get it to fit the theme, then that'd work too!
The main reason for this slide is the logic that if you want to know why something exists, then you look at the reason it was created in the first place. And the fact that they've become so popular is part of how they've grown and become part of our culture. This will help explain why they exist in the form they do, today.
This slide will be purely for summarisation of all the points made. I'll do a very brief description of what music videos are and the reason they're around today. Though I'll need to make sure I get the information down in a short snappy format, so as to present everything we've looked at in a bitesize chunk, and still have understanding.
This will be where I wrap up, so I may choose to also play a music video right at the end, if I have time anyway.
The sources page! This technically isn't part of the presentation itself, and will not be shown. But it's good to have one in there for both myself and for the people marking it. A sources page keeps you organised, and means you can revisit any information you may have grabbed and not finished off. At the moment I have the source for the diagram at the beginning, and for the history slide. As well as information found on the 3 types of music video. Both sources have been very helpful, and have helped be grab several chunks of information.
And that's draft 1! Draft 2 will be a lit more focussed on the layout of things, and getting the second part of the brief down as part of the work. This means I'll have to move a great deal of information around as well as subtracting a lot of it to make it all fit in to 5 minutes as well as including the second part of the brief, so it can all fit in to 5 minutes. For now, I'll start working on draft 2 using information from draft 1.
Monday 30th November 2015
Almost a week later and the presentation day is here! I finished my presentation at home and made a few design decisions, such as reducing the amount of information on the slides. Unfortunately I wasn't given much time over the weekend to finish it up but what I have down should work. One difficulty I ran into was formatting between devices. Once I'd finished the presentation and laid it out exactly the way I wanted, I brought it in on a memory stick and got it up on the computer. However in college, they use a different program, and so the layout was completely changed with text going over the pictures and off the slide. So, reformatting was in order. Which really just required a few minutes to rearrange everything so it looked neat once more.
The slides below are what the finished thing looked like at college:
Wednesday 30th December 2015
It has been quite a few weeks since the last entry and for good reason. Production sped up significantly in these last few weeks, mainly on the radio brief instead of this one. Then of course, Christmas came about. But today, I have returned to the music video brief with new ideas, a new storyboard, and progress on paperwork needed for the other tasks involved.
First thing I did yesterday, was draw up a storyboard. The song had been chosen, as a band called Alf Red got in touch and requested my help in producing a music video for their new album ready to be released to the public. This was due to the founder of the band knowing me personally. The song chosen was called "Magic". The song itself was all over the place, heavily stylised and odd sounding. This is what made it so good however. I was given a choice between several songs and the one I chose was this one, named Magic, purely because it was so different and experimental.
I started considering an Alice in Wonderland theme for the video, capturing the madness of the story and implementing it into the video. I did want to add an underlying plot to the video however. Despite being incredibly vague, it meant there was some meaning to the madness, instead of being mad for the sake of it. I started off with a few shots that would be shown before the song started, introduced in the buildup. The story I planned out was that this person seen in the video had been kidnapped, locked in a room, and drugged. Quite a dark direction, but one I thought it needed. To have everything a little more sinister than originally interpreted.
So the first few shots consisted of the actor lying against a wall, a plate with some bread and water, with a bite taken out of the bread, and a flower, left on the plate with the food. The Alice in Wonderland aspect came in here. The actor had, for the story, been heavily drugged. And was, one could say, away with the fairies. He was in his own little land. And this land would be shown as a forest which is where the flower comes from, as a sort of bridge between reality and fantasy.
This meant that many shots would need to be filmed in a forest. I chose to use a location called the Malago. A privately owned forest/park area which is open to the public for whatever they wish. Filming included. Today, that's what we did. We went down to the forest and started off filming some shots using the storyboard I'd put together. Unfortunately, there were a few complications.
The first, was that in the storyboard, I'd had some specific locations in mind, which is what I modelled my shots around. On arrival, the areas I'd wished to use, were caked in mud from the rain, the day before. It was impossible to walk there let alone set down a tripod and get the shots I wanted. So we had to find slightly different locations around the Malago for the shots I wanted. The second complication, was that I hadn't been able to finish off the entire storyboard by the time filming had to happen. So quite a few shots, were shots that had to be improvised given the locations I had at my disposal.
We managed to get all the shots in the forest on my storyboard, and then some, after finding another section of river that was clear. The shots in which the actor walked across the stone bridge by the river, were in fact improved in the location. There were also meant to be a few shots with this flower I planned to have at the beginning. Though, the issue here was that I hadn't quite thought through the fact that it was Winter, and there wouldn't be any flowers in the forest. However, we found a much better alternative! A natural holly piece, complete with bright red berries.
Now, another part of the video was going to be a performance aspect, where the actual singer, would perform a concert-like rendition of the song, and we'd film it several times from several angles! We'd be using things like smoke machines, professional studio lights, and a microphone stand. Though we needed a location. So earlier on I got in contact with one of the elders of a Church I attend, asking for permission to film there. They give it saying it was no problem and we headed down to the Church after finishing up filming in the forest during the day. We arrived in a van full of all the equipment we needed, and the microphone stand was there already anyway. As it was now night time, we just had to turn off the lights, set up our own lights, and a smoke machine, and start filming.
We got the singer to sing the song several times while we filmed it all the way through each time from different angles, both close up, and side on. It looked quite rockstar-like. Midway through though, after we'd gotten several angles, the smoke machine set off the fire alarm. So we opened windows to let the smoke, which was actually just water vapour, out, and decided to finish up filming for the day. We'd still need more shots, like all the indoors shots, and maybe a few more in the forest, but I will be able to start the editing process tomorrow.
Thursday 31st December 2015
The next day! And I started editing the music video together! It's not nearly close to being finished but we have a framework now, and once I have the extra shots I can finish it up to look good all round. I also found out the song I'd heard was the raw version, and a new rendition would be put together soon for the video, including a slow buildup section, lasting as long as I choose before the song starts, to make room for the clips in place beforehand. The song is being customised around the video I'm making, I feel professional already!
Now there's not much else to add here today, it's mainly been editing and finding out when the next filming date is. It will be sometime after new years day, but that's all I know so far. For now, I think I've demonstrated few techniques for the song, such as cutting to the beat, lip syncing, and a very cinematic feel. Next update will be the day I film the final pieces!
Sunday 3rd January 2016
2016! A new year with new footage, we officially filmed the beginning of the video last year and finished it this year! Today we managed to find some time to film and got the last few scenes we needed. We filmed at the actors house first, just in one of the side rooms that looked a little more empty than the other rooms. This would be the room the character was supposedly put in when kidnapped and drugged. We got a bowl, a slice of bread, and a glass of water, along with the same holly piece we used last time. We found that thing last year and it's still fresh this year!
Once we'd filmed the pieces on the storyboard I needed, I also decided to go for some extra shots of a clock on the wall that looked especially characteristic. Next we decided to go back for more shots in the Malago, since after finishing the edits with the footage we had, it only took up about just over halfway through the song. We came back to find the river we filmed in beforehand was completely flooded so the stone walkway wasn't even visible. So we got some footage of it. We also got some unexpected footage of a dog sniffing around in some nearby bushes, and filmed in an open area where the actor would be popping around all over the scene.
We also introduced a second actor! My sister, dressed up in mysterious clothing, acting as perhaps the victims view of the kidnapper, or just an illusion following through his mind. We even got some unintentionally good shots, including when my sister was leaning in to the camera while it was rolling and she hadn't realised. Once all of this had been filmed and downloaded, I got straight to editing, making sure to fill in all the gaps that had been left previously. I finished off the music video, and started on the pre-video, just before the actual song began.
This pre-video came to about 40 seconds, which seems a while, but it does fit in with the rest of the video quite well. I let the band know and they quickly sent me the final version with a 40 second intro buildup. I put the song in place of the original and it fit perfectly, and even sounded better overall, with more professional sound quality. Finally, I'd finished "Magic" By "Alf Red."
Tuesday 5th January 2016
The day before the deadline, and I've completed the music video, had actor consent forms signed, and I now just need to finish task 2, and the evaluation. Then I'm finished. It's been a long ride, and I've enjoyed the experience, and hopefully I've made something worth watching for people who discover the band. For now, I shall get on with the remaining paperwork, so that I can hand it in tomorrow, hopefully to a good standard.
No comments:
Post a Comment