Monday, 19 October 2015

Research


Researching and planning the moving image work

Research

After doing research on

 

Research

The skills I showed within the first year of Media have improved significantly, I now show professionalism, have organised my time well by keeping a diary for all my work . This allows me to be a lot more efficient in the way I do my work and allows me to complete work without rushing it so the quality of work has definitely improved. A massive change in the skills I have obtained are also in the use of software, I am capable of using final cut pro, using the DSLR camera with the lighting allows me to produce brilliant picture, If I had learnt to take pictures for my magazine for AS properly or more professionally with the use of lighting in the correct area I could have achieved higher grades. The final improvement has been the capability of blogging regularly this year which also allows me to be on track and know exactly what the group and I should be doing.

The research that I carried out during this task was by viewing and analysing songs which I had used in my case studies. I researched 3 different music videos Future  - blood on my money, The weeknd – can’t feel my face and Kendrick Lamar – swimming Pools. I picked these three music videos as I believed they had deeper meanings within them and demonstrated elements of rap culture and emotions which I could then use in my own music video, I also enjoyed listening to them repetitively to understand the lyrics fully. As the group and I were unsure about which music video to choose we used many methods to try pick out the best one. This included using multiple charts and preferences in the genre of the music video. The group and I evaluated all three case studies where we checked what genre the video was in, who the music video appealed to

The case studies I produced did help the group and I come to a decision.

The first case study was on The Weeknd who sang can’t feel my face, The Weeknd who produced a song which was full of emotion and meaning, what I took from the music video was the way, The Weeknd was in a close up shot showing his face and lip synching and as the beat drops the video has cuts into show his whole body as he dances, the timing of this synch of lyrics and beats with the shots are definitely going to be used our music video Do better – Chris brown.

The second case study was Future- blood on my money, this also allowed me to think about the emotions where the music video depicts a funeral taking place where the artist raps about his problems in great detail. The use of the scenery and the panning shots from right to left where after a tree the pan shifts to another scene where everyone looks to be in the same position but in a different scene. This motivated the group to do a scene like this where in Queen Elizabeth Park we used a solid oak bench to walk towards and sit on the floor as the emotional part of the song is present and the camera continues to pan. The song also inspired us to use the narrative element in our music video, where the music video wasn’t narrative but was actually performance based but the group felt as though it would have better been depicted if it had been narrative.

The last case study which was Kendrick Lamark – swimming pools, strengthened our inspirations from Future – blood on my money where panning was used. In this music video panning is also used but from a high pan to a low pan where Kendrick Lamar is continuously falling then, it pans into the darkness and the scene shows him in a white back drop rapping in the same position he was falling.

The composition of all three of these case studies allowed us to put together the different scenes we have accumulated for our own music video.  The following were also thought out due to the case studies: the angle of the camera which will depict a certain type of emotion or thought, to check if we used special effects which were not too shabby  and were in the range of professionalism, the locations such as the newly opened Queen Victorias Park, Rashaans Bedroom to use his bed as a symbol of comfort , the costume being used such as all black clothing or clothing which depicted a standard singer and finally the props such as a plant pot which may be used to represent the actors frustration.

 

Logistic planning

  • As we had a group of 3 we decided to communicate and have meetings through Whats App and Texting, the messages helped us retain information and organise our location and meeting points. We also used this method keep our group up to date on who will be acting. Also, we communicated online to know what part of the work was complete and when we could put all our tasks in, to hand in.
  •  
    Narrative planning
     

Team Meeting 19/10/15



Today Tyrell, Rashaan and I had a meeting which looked over what we have completed on our bloggers. To double check about the call sheets ( dates, actors and resources ). Even though the call sheet has been completed it does not seem to be present on our bloggers. We are working hard to find this sheet or re do the task. Also, I have seems to have uploaded a incomplete actor sheet which doesn't have the name of the actor.

Thursday, 15 October 2015

14/10/15 Filming

What we did

On Wednesday 14th October 2015, Our group shot our first night shots at our locations in Queen Elizabeth Park in Stratford. The park was basically empty apart from a few runners and cyclists. We shot the scenes such as for the first few lines of the chorus and the part before brandy comes into the video. Rashaan our actor lip synched and acted for a lot of the scenes from our Story board. Shots such as the one where he walks into the camera screen and then sits down, while the camera is panning from right to left, as he sits down the camera continues to pan. Another example of a shot we took was, where our actor Rashaan walked out of focus on the bridge full of light.


Problems

The first problem we encountered was that as we started filming, we encountered the park security who made it very clear to us that we would be unable to use the tripod. The security man also told us that we could ask for permission for next time, but he doesn't know who we should ask as the park is privately owned by a massive group of people such as MP's and Arabs. Therefore, we had to record the scenes manually. Since the temperature was really low, the video came out slightly shaky, we did manage to film all of the night scenes but with great difficulty.

Tuesday, 13 October 2015

Filming team meeting

Today we discussed where to film.
TV studio, photography studio or theatre to film our extra scenes which we can add in our music video. We decided upon the TV studio as it has the ideal conditions such as lighting and black back drop for our music. We booked the TV studio for Friday at 3pm.

Also, following on from this we will be filming in Stratford queen Elizabeth park after college around 4 pm.
We booked the DSLR to enhance our filming.

Monday, 12 October 2015

Shoot 11/10/15

Pictures From The Shoot


These photos were taken as
we recorded in London Olympic park.
I directed and Rashaan acted. These shots are behind the scene shots of our producer and camera man Tyrell.
We received big help from a lovely friend, Ashaana, who was there to guide and help with the shoot.































































Video from shoot

Discussions 12/10/15

Vanessa spoke to the class about filming  she stated that unless we are filming we should focus on
  1. Re-drafts for case study
  2. Team meetings : Filming - call sheets
  3. Research and planning reflection AS to A2
Todays discussion with the group was about choosing location. The location of south bank and the location of the olympic park was chosen specially  that members of our group either liked one location and others liked the other.

Saturday, 10 October 2015

The email to RCA records to have permission to use Chris Browns' music

The email to RCA records to have permission to use Chris Browns' music

I did not receive a reply for this email.