Final Shooting

We are progressing well with our music video and ancillary tasks, however have a few final shots to get. In the planning process we decided as a group we would like a superior male to be the "boss" figure. We came up witht he idea of having Mr Mills play this character. So it is all arranged for Monday after school, we shall be shooting in the auditorium and Mr Mills shall be looking like Morpheus from the Matrix ( he looks scary and very dark/mysterious). We hope to use a black backdrop and then create a form of chiaroscuro lighting to create a shadow an element of mysetery to who this man is, yet still look powerful and devious. I think these shots will give a dark and more serious edge to the music video.

However, we shall be unable to use the lighting in the auditorium so we shall need to find and provide our own resources. Im on it now!

Also I want to congratulate Roish's hard work in producing an amazing new image which we may choose for the cd cover. It was taken on the last filming day and it is fab! Im sure it will be up on here soon for everyone to see!

A bit of editing here and there....

We are now doing our editing from filming in half term and the shots that we got from Cambridge. We still need to gets some shots of Mr Mills though and hopefully we'll be filming him on Monday but Danni will go more into detail. We have managed to edit about half of our music video but still we need a few touches here and there, we have edited some clips which were too long or were too slow for the pace of our video, we have used a lot of jump cuts to sync in with the music to create that pace and excitement. We have also used a lot of fast and slow edit techniques to allow it to sync with the music, we have related to Andrew Goodwin's 6 key features of music video, we definately know that we have included number 2 and 3 of the key features which are the relationship between lyrics and visuals - this happens in our video when 'the boss' tells vicky (superhero) that 'invaders must die' this then goes to me (villain) looking quite freaky and then theres the relationship between music and visuals - this basically happens throughout our video as because there is not a lot of lyrics it creates that attachment between the music and the lyrics and being able to make the video relevent. We have also split up as we only have a week left so we are doing different tasks, roish today was using photoshop to create pictures/covers for album from the photos she took of me and viki and they look fantastic, Ali firstly was doing a bit more on the website which again looks awesome and then her and danni switched around from editing with me, and we have managed to do a huge amount of editing in the last couple of days. So all is looking good and we are all very proud of our progress so far :D

Website Design

Today we've been working hard in the media room all doing different aspects of our task. I concentrated on the website for most of the time, and we think its coming along nicely :)

I used the same background as the blog to ensure product continuity. The colour scheme of grey black and white are all very gritty - perfect for our genre.

We used the picture of Vicky and Olivia on the front page as it's striking and provides a great colourful visual.

The yellow on Vicky's top breaks the darkness of the picture, showing her 'good guy' side. I then incorporated the yellow in the links at the top for Blogger, Facebook etc.
Due to our layout design we do not have a lot of room to work with yet we are certain we want to put the 'new CD' advertisement on the front page along with uncoming tour dates, something that is conventional of a band website.
We have included an ant on the layout to link to the blog and to The Prodigy on a whole.
For the 'news' part of the website I used a RRS link from the Prodigy's website therefore we don't have to keep manually updating it, this also helps us with the problem of space on the page.


For the moment i have used the same photo here as on the font page but this will change soon.
The biography is copied off of The Prodigy's website as we are aware that only one page is being marked, therefore we can spend our time doing more important aspects of the webpage.












In this snap shot of the official Prodigy page you can see the features i've included in our website:

- The main focus is the new video for Run With The Wolves

- The three images below the video are all updates and news, and as explained earlier i used these in an rss presentation

- Bottom right they're advertising the new album, we have allocated room for ours on our website.

- To the right are Upcoming Events - we've included this is the main part of our website.

- The links at the top are all on our website also.

- The three boxes at the bottom are focused on Tweets, something we didn't feel was essential on our website, but as mentioned we do have the Twitter link.

Self Assessment Pt 2

Construction: Film/Video

These are the reasons why we believe we deserve a level 4:

Where appropriate, we used a tripod to enable us to capture key dance and fight scenes as steady as possible. for the contra zooms and the 360 degree panning shots we felt it would look better hand held to create a sense of built up tension as it is the moment before the fight scene. Most oft the production was shot using a tripod to get a clear and steady set of clips where both Olivia and Vickee are dancing as having unsteady shots would have probably looked a bit messy and uncontrolled whereas we wanted the audience to be able to focus on the performance aspect of the cinematography.

The Framing for our production varies as some of the Urban settings were very conventional for a Prodigy video so we wanted to focus on the scenes such as the galley of graffiti and try to get as much of the art work in frame as possible without dominating the frame to a point where both Vickee and Olivia were not the main point of focus. the Staircase scene is particularly important as the framing was intended to get both characters in the shot and make it evident that they were not aware of each others presence.

We used both wide shots and close ups to establish both setting and performance. the main close-ups are to show reaction shots of the characters, for example: in the contra zoom and the over the shoulder panning are used to mimic a Mexican stand off which is effective in bring a sense of intensity along with the music.

The material we shot is appropriate in conveying both performance and narrative style which we wanted to bring to the music video. The dancing which is incorporated throughout the video is both expressive and revealing as to what we are trying to achieve.

The costume design for our production is very specific to the concept of 'goody' vs 'baddy' as Olivia specifically bought white contact lenses to make her look weird and evil along with her outfit which is basic and black making her look like a conventional villain. Vickee put together a more bright and colourful outfit and made a cape which creates a conventional super hero feel along with her bright make up. they both wear hi-top trainers to give a more urban feel to the video and looks good with the dancing. We were able to find some really great settings for the video and we were especially pleased with the graffiti scenes which really helped to convey an urban gritty setting for the video.

Although we are still in the process of editing a key example of how we used editing to make the meaning apparent to the audience is at the very beginning. At the start we've used graphic matches and similar shots whilst Vickee and Olivia are getting ready, connecting the main characters together.

We used fast pase editing throughout our video, using a variety of jump cuts, straight cuts and slow motion in the run up to the fight scene. We have avoided using over the top effects and transitions as we thought they'd be intrusive in telling the narrative and are not conventional in the music video genre.

We have continuously used the basic concepts of music video, an example of this is using the music to visually connect with the video through dance and editing. Although Invaders Must Die only has a few lyrics, where appropriate we have used visional images to connect to these in our video through the characters.

Self Assessment Pt 1

By looking at the assessment objectives we can see where we can improve and make further adjustments.
I'm looking at Planning & Research whilst Roish is looking at the Filming & Construction criteria.

Planning & Research
Looking at similar products: Examples of this is when Olivia looked at the official Prodigy website and noted features that we could include in our websiteand when I did research into the Prodigy's past albums noting their artwork and style.
I also looked into the official video for 'Invaders Must Die', whilst Roish looked at 'No Good,' Danni looked at 'Charley' and Olivia looked at 'Drop' by 'Pharcyde' for conventions we could include in our video.

Organisation: Olivia's involvement in the acting in the video was a good choice for us as she always knew what we were looking for in regards to framing and acting in shots, whilst Vicky was an external actor she proved just as reliable and helped by putting in her own ideas, overall producing a very focused and organised team.

The locations used for our video were The Grafton, and an old garage both in Cambridge. Roish has good knowledge of the Cambridge area, proving helpful when finding locations like the garage. The only negative to this is that Cambridge is quite far away if we had to re-shoot some shots, but we over compensated for this in our original filming so this wasn't a problem. We also used a skate park in Bury St. Edmunds, a close location that was easy to get to and proved perfect for the gritting atmosphere we were looking for. In addition we used my house and Olivia's for the introduction of the video, a location where we could easily visit at a flexible time as it only took 30 minutes to film at each house.

We were very wary of the continuity in the costumes we were using as we'd be shooting over three days. Olivia's contacts proved to be a pain, as when we were filming in Cambridge she found they irritated her eyes but they still gave off the effect we wanted - no pain, no gain!

Shots, layouts, drafting, storyboarding Our storyboard was very detailed, complete with shot angles and framing notes whilst also timings to help us when i came to editing, we brought these along to every shooting day, and although we weren't religiously sticking to them it provided a good place to start, and ensured we got all the shots we wanted.
We did some practice shots in the early planning stages, e.g. we filmed the backwards shots of Olivia jumping off the table in the canteen to see how they would look; we later filmed this at the skate park due to the success of the practice attempt.

Time Management We planned in advance what days everyone was free to film, and when we could borrow the camera, all resulting the smooth running of our film. We had all our planning done before we went to shoot, ensuring we all knew what we were doing making it easy to film on the days.

Presentation We also used the blog effectively to give an update of what we had been doing in lessons, we have all done a considerable amount of work on here, at a standard we feel is representative of our overall input within the tasks.

Overall i feel we deserve a high level four for planning and research because i cannot think of anything we have missed, but then again, i would say that!

Second shoot photos

These are some of the photos i took on the second filming day.

i used the location for inspiration to maximise the gritty urban look that wre trying to achieve. I will be using photoshop to edit all of the photo's from both the skatepark and Cambridge. i knew from the photo,s i took from Cambridge that i had to take a few more with both of them in shot so that is what i focused on, for the sake of our CD cover and website.

http://roadmusicvideo.blogspot.com/2009/12/picture-ideas-for-dvd-cover.html
in December i did a post on possible ideas for the DVD cover, for example using Olivia's hand as a close up with her in the background in a soft focus. I was keen to edit the logo of the ant from the new Prodigy album - something Ali spoke about in her CD cover analysis. Therefore in the recent shoot i took another photo, this time with her in costume to get the overall effect, i'll be editing this soon and be adding it to the blog.

CD Covers

As Ali said, we took many photos in Cambridge whilst filming and because they have all turned out so well we decided to use one of them as our CD cover. However, because there were so many good photos and we couldn't come to a decision we undertook some audience research. We printed off the possible photos, 7 in total, and we asked students and staff around our Sixth Form at random, which picture they preferred. We asked 33 people and these are the results:


Picture A received 33.3% of the vote

- Many people loved the contrast of this picture between the yellow of vickee's jumper, Olivia's red hair and the dark background.
- Another comment was made about how it would stand out on a shelf if it was in a store.
















Picture B received 12.12 % of the vote

- Comments made were on the love for the framing and the use of black and white; it captures the theme of the music video
- They also liked the grainy feel to the picture.





Picture C received 6.06 % of the vote
- Everyone loved the eyes and the framing of this picture, but some weren't sure if it would look right as an album cover.

















Picture D received 3.03 % of the vote
- Everyone said that it was a great photo, but again, they questioned whether it would look good as an album cover for a group of people, which The Prodigy are.














Picture E received 9.09 % of the vote - They loved the colours in this picture - Also the "tangled web" look, linking in with our theme aswell

PictureF received 3.03 %

-Similar to picture B, most people loved the framing and the gritty setting

Picture G received 33.3 % of the vote - The explosion of colour attracted alot of people - They loved the grafitti - Other comments were made about the framing

Therefore, looking at our results we could see that A and G were the favourites. As a group we were happy with these choices and are now deciding which one to choose out of the favourites!!

Here are some other pictures from our shoot which we may include in our digi pack

I particularly like the top left picture of the light, it really sets the mood of the genre we are looking at and I think is a great picture. However I also love the other two pictures; the picture of Olivia and Vickee staring into each others eyes I think is quite a powerful image.Then the picture of Vickee on her own really stands out to me as a picture to show her cahracters loneliness and the tiresome waiting for the villain.







Danni

Original CD Cover Ideas

The designs we made a couple of weeks ago. We all prefered the first option below, although we also took pictures whilst we were filming in Cambridge which we are now keen to include on the CD cover instead, these will be uploaded shortly by Danni.

Just a little catch up...

Okay, so we have filmed at my house on the 26th of January and we just finished shooting our Cambridge scenes on Friday the 29th of January, we were going to shoot today but it was a bit unorganised so we will probably shoot at Ali's next week instead for Viki's shots :) We have also booked the Auditorium for this Friday after school so we can have some good lighting for the Mr Mills shots! We have also got to film at the skate park in bury too but we will probably do that next week as well :D Cambridge went really well, we got all the shots we needed, but during the end it did get quite cold but over all it was a very good day!! So yeaaah we have still got to shoot on some locations but we are all feeling really positive :)

Olivia