Filming the final murder scene

During the last week of school, we spent over 2 hours trying to perfect the murder scene.
We had to choreograph the fight between Connor and I so it looked slick and not 'fake'. Once we had all the different shots we put them into Final Cut and reversed the sequence, this adds to the effect when the beat drops.

Back of Digi-Pak

Over the last week, during our lessons, we have been shooting the back of our digipak.
We needed a dark room and a black background. Zach's room was in the corner of the house and didn't produce much light, and by using black cloth over the floor meant that it was just what we needed to shoot with. We used a soft box to create a natural light effect.

We lay the crumpled shirt down over the black cloth and rearranged it to look more edgy, making sure that the arm of the shirt was slightly rounded, to fit the crime scene numbers along the side of it.

Finally, we laid out all the numbers around the edge of the shirt, making sure that each number was straight and was the same distance. 

After all of the shooting, we realised that it would be better and easier if we just shot the shirt and took pictures of the numbers individually, meaning that we could add them to the photo in PhotoShop. 

We took the single shot of the shirt and edited it, to show it in black and white. Over the coming week we will be adding the crime scene numbers onto the original picture by PhotoShop.

Two more shooting slots

Due to the song that we have chosen, and the length of it, it is vital that we 'overshoot'. At the moment, we do not have enough footage from the mirrors sequence to fit in with the music. More shooting is being done on Tuesday 8th December, where we will also be filming a different part of the video.

On Tuesday we will also be filming a 'running scene'. This is the scene in which Connor find out that I've cheated on him, by seeing Zach waiting outside my house. He ends up running off in a mad rage. This scene will take a lot of time to work out and patience, as we are using a segway to film.

Although we have already attempted the murder scene at my house, we are not happy with it, meaning that we are going to re-film, on Monday (9th December) night. Before we do, we are going to try work out how the murder happens. We all have a few ideas of how we would think the murder would happen, and the struggle that I feel beforehand. On Monday during our lesson time, we will draw out a plan of what we would like to happen, meaning that we have something to work with on Monday night.

Creating Crime Scene Evidence Numbers

Over the course of a few days, Zach and myself created crime scene markers to use for our digipak.
We looked around on the internet for pictures of what exactly markers looked like, allowing us to know what we wanted our markers to look like. We created a page for each number and printed them off. After this, we stuck each number onto a piece of canvas paper, then guillotined the numbers down to a smaller size. This smaller size made the markers more realistic.

Mirrors Sequence Continued..

Although we've already made part of our mirrors sequence, but we looked over and made a few different changes. As Connor gets up we have added a close up of his face in the right hand corner of the screen. At the moment, this is not 'set in stone' as we will discuss whether this is effect or not, but it is a route that we could go down to increase the atmosphere.
At the end of the mirrors, we have added a longer still shot of part of my body after my murder. This hints to the audience of what is to come throughout the video.

 

Opening Mirror Sequence

Last night, we filmed the last few bits to go with our opening scene with the mirrors. We filmed lots of match on action shots and tried to fit the shots with the beat of the music.
In the opening scene, James and I made a shadow effect with our arms that covered half of Connor's face, creating an eerie atmosphere, implying the split personality.

Feedback from Fellow Students

Yesterday, the class watched each others pieces of work so far and evaluated them. Below, is what three groups thought of our video so far;

Differences between Blood Splattering Techniques

Above, is a video about the differences between our two takes of splattering blood against the radio. The first take turns out too gloopy and stringy, not looking as real and as effective.
For the next take, we decided to water down the fake blood and use a thicker and bigger paint brush. This looked much more effective and real looking. The blood moves more fluently like the girl has been stabbed brutally.

First Draft of Digi-Pak (Front and Back)

Yesterday, we had a play around on Photoshop to try and put together our ideas of our Digi-Pak together.

The image above is a rough picture of what we want the picture on the front cover to look like. The font that is seen on the rough cover, is similar to what font we want on our digi-pak. We were unable to find the right font, but over the next few days we are going to find the right font and download it into Photoshop. We feel that the red, black and white work well together as black and white is the filter that we use throughout our video. The red represents the evil, mystery and blood that is seen in the video.

The back cover has been completely made from scratch, as we did not have a photo of the crumpled shirt with blood stains on it. Neither did we have a picture of a wooden floor or the crime scene markers.

The shirt and the blood on the shirt, is in the right place of the back cover. The crime scene markers are going to be placed around the collar and sleeve of the shirt. We have decided, then rather than buying the numbers, James and I are going to make them by printing off the numbers and sticking them to card. This will still have the same effect as if the markers were real. The track name is going to be beside the markers, however, we haven't been able to work out what font to put the tracks in yet, as we do not want to use the same as the front cover, but it still needs to be similar. 

Prezi of Ideas for Digi-Pak

Here is a Prezi, that the group made about our ideas for our Digi-Pak.

 

Ideas for Digi-Pak

Above is our extremely rough copy of our ideas for our digi-pak.
On the front cover, we will have a picture of Connor surrounded by mirrors, with the title of the album in different looking writing.
The back of the album will have half of Connor's bloodstained, ripped shirt in the picture. Surrounding it will be crime scene number markers, which will represent the track number.
Opening the album up, there will be two sides. Spread over the two sides will be the CD on the left hand side, and in the background, the same use of the crime scene markers, will mark out different pieces of evidence to do with the murder.

Second Part of Filming

Over the weekend, my group and I got together to film a lot more of our music video. We had most of the day to film, meaning that we could 'over shoot' and experiment with different ideas, especially for the murder scene.
We began filming a scene in a bedroom, where I pretended to be asleep, and acted scared when Connor entered the room. In this filming, we used different shot techniques, especially match-on-match.

Next we decided to film Connor's drinking scene, which was all filmed in my dining room. The long table and drinking cabinet, really added to the effect of Connor feeling depressed. We filmed with a few over the shoulder shots and lot of long shots, with some zooming in and out. The deep red colour of the room makes the parts that we filmed feel more emotional and there's a sense of evil. 

Our last bit of filming for the day was a practise of the murder scene. We had a bit of fun splattering paint on me and attempting different bruises with make up on my face. We choreographed the murder scene trying to work out what would look best in reverse. 

Next week we are going to attempt the murder scene again, knowing what we want to do exactly. 

Blood Splatter Ideas

For part of our music video, the girlfriend is murdered. We have practised filming splattering blood on the radiator in my kitchen. We have realised that it was not the best blood splattering as the fake fake was too thick and 'gloopy'. Therefore, we have decided that when we film the real murder scene, we will water-down the blood to make it easy to flick onto the radiator. This will be done either using a paint brush or a pipet. 

Filming Style

The link below is to a website that helps provide tips on how to shoot a good fight scene. The website includes a video explaining and showing what a good fight scene will look. We will take tips from this and use it in our fight scene between Connor and myself, after he finds out that I have been cheating.

http://nofilmschool.com/2014/05/tips-shoot-killer-fight-scene

Discussion of what went well/what didn't go well in our rough music video

After putting together each part of our filming, into one big sequence, we watched it over and discussed as a group what we believe went well and what didn't go so well. At the beginning of the video, we edited the scene to the beat of the music, which we found extremely effective and found that it worked really well.
We all agreed that we need to work out the scene when Connor feels a hand on the back of his shoulder, the camera is not quite in focus and is slightly too close to Connor's face.
Throughout the video, we all contribute to the discussion and work out what needs more work to the video.

Rough Cut of Music Video

This video is a practise scene for our music video. This is the main relationship bit of our video, which includes flashbacks of happy memories between the couple and Connor revisiting the places where they had been happy. The final bit of the sequence is when Connor realises that his girlfriend is being suspicious and has been caught cheating.
Part of the clip has not yet been put into black and white which is what the rest of the video will look like. The aspect of black and white brings out the deep meanings behind their relationship.
 

Filming last week in two different locations

Last Thursday and Friday we filmed part of our music video in two different locations. On Thursday evening, we all went to my house in Shiplake to film part of the relationship sequence, which involved the scene in which the boyfriend finds out about his girlfriend cheating on him.
Friday afternoon, we ventured out into Henley in the rain to film part of the relationship scene and the depressing side of what how Connor feels after he finds out his girlfriend has cheated. He revisits the same places that they spent happy times together, here we get the contrast of happy and sad.

Email for Filming Permission

In order to film tomorrow afternoon, we will have to miss one of our Media lessons, this is an email asking the Headmaster for permission to leave school early for filming. 

Equipment List

Here we have put together a list of items that we need in order to film our different scenes for our music video.

Audience Research for Our Practise Shots

We asked people around school about their thoughts on our practise shots. Their answers will help us improve shots for our real music video, meaning that a wider range of audience will like and watch our video.

 

Draft/Ideas for Music Video

This 40 second video, are just a few ideas of what our video could entail and how the beginning of our video will hopefully look. We used iMovie to cut the frame in half to add the different facial expression to the same shot. 

Thinking about a location to film..

Over the weekend, our group went to Henley-on-Thames, near the river to look at possible places to films certain. We decided that along the towpath of Henley would create a happy atmosphere, for the relationship scenes, and yet an eerie feel to it, which will work well with the small heated argument that our couple have. 

Here you can see the shots that represent the scene in our storyboards.

Shooting Schedule

Here is an overview of when our group have discussed and decided when to film certain parts of our video.

Storyboards

Below is our storyboards that have been drawn as close to what we believe our filming will be like. Throughout filming our video, we have tried to stick closely to what the storyboards say as we have described the shots in detail. Later on when we have filmed more of the video, we will make different storyboards and add which lyrics go with what shot.

Practise Test Shots

Last night, our group decided that we should take a few practise shots in preparation for filming after half term. We filmed in one of our main locations, the Tithe Barn in the College. We used the lighting in the theatre, which included a red which made it warm looking. We placed the mirrors in a circle how we would like them to. The only problem with this was that there was a gap between the mirrors, meaning that we could see the stage and the chairs behind. After seeing this, we turned the lights down further, however, the footage was then too dark. For the future, we'll film the video after the stage and chairs have been moved.

Pre-Visualisation

Planning for our Music Video

Here is a discussion between our group about different aspects of our Music Video. In this discussion, we talk about our cover idea for our digi-pak by using a special app. I explain how we are going to use make-up to create the effect of bruising and the use of fake blood, which will make our male character have that edgy and eerie feel. We speak of lighting for our music video and the location of where we will film. We also talk in detail about our concept and how we will film each scene.

Mood Board

All of these photos, from the mood board, have been taken for inspiration from different music videos. We will use these aspects throughout our music video. We have taken our main influence from alt-j, 'Breezeblocks' and 'Coming Down', Five Finger Death Punch.

Time Lapse of Storyboarding

First Look at our Location Shots

Here are two locations where we think we are going to film our music video. The first four are taken in my kitchen, where we believe the murder will take place as we are able to splatter blood on the wall. The rest of the shots are from the Tithe Barn at school. This place is a good to film as it is a large space and has a set of mirrors, which allows us to move the mirrors around as much as we like.

Audience Research for Music Video

Here is our GoogleDocs questionnaire asking questions about music videos. We sent this questionnaire out to everyone in our year group and we also put in on social media. From this we can see what exactly people like and dislike about a similar genre of music to our music video.



We also asked members of our school to answer our questions about music and music videos. This will help us make our music video popular with lots of different audiences.

 Here is a time lapse of us editing the video.

Ideas of Make-up for Our Music Video

Here is a time-lapsed video of a possibility of what some of our make-up throughout the video could look like. This make-up will be used at the beginning of the video when the music sounds solemn.

Risk Assessment for Music Video

Media Risk Assesment

Treatment Video

Here is our treatment Prezi, which goes along with our video. During this we are explaining what song we have chosen and why, what is the concept of our video, our location, how we intend to represent our characters, what camera shots we are going to use and why, what we want our audience to think of our characters, who our target audience is, what influenced our idea for our video and secondary research we found.



Here is us presenting our treatment.

Magazine Advert - Jessie J

Magazine Advert - Jay Z

Magazine Advert - Ellie Goulding

Ellie Goulding Magazine Analysis

Magazine Advert - King of Leon

King of leon magazine advert analysis from Anna Davies

Magazine Advert - Chase and Status

Digipak Analysis - Teenage Dream, Katy Perry

Katy Perry Digipak Analysis

Digipak Analysis - Fame, Chris Brown

Digipak Analysis - Progress, Take That

Digipak Analysis - Born to Die, Lana Del Rey

Digipak Analysis - The Fame, Lady Gaga

Digipak Analysis Lady Gaga Fame

Video Analysis - Kanye West; Power

Video Analysis - Miley Cyrus; Can't Stop

Video Analysis - Chris Brown; Yeah 3x

Video Analysis - alt-j; Breezeblocks

Video Analysis - Rihanna; Umbrella

Video Analysis Young and Beautiful Lana Del Rey

Information about our song choice, The Love You're Given

The song we have chosen to create a music video for is called 'The Love You're Given' by Jack Garratt. The artist creates alternative music and is based in the UK. The song 'The Love You've Given’ was released in 2015 and was received well by listeners, with one review on iTunes saying- "great new talent" with a 5 star rating. On Spotify the song has close to 6 million listens as well as a 63% positive rating. It has 345,197 views on YouTube and Jack Garratt has 4 thousand subscribers to his channel. On Sound-cloud the artist has a following of 25 thousand people and the song has over 1 million listens. He has 14.7 thousand followers on Twitter as well has being verified with the signature blue tick to let followers know that this is real account. He also has 39,905 likes on Facebook. The artist played on the BBC introducing stage last year at Reading and Leeds festival with a positive reception being described by the BBC as "one of the most remarkable exciting and unique solo artists around" His music is popular amongst his following because of its mix of sounds as well as his unique voice that all come together to create a new and fresh style of music. There is also no music video for the song so this will allow us to be completely original with our ideas with no influence from a previously existing piece of text that could hinder our creative output.