Feedback from Pitch

After a very successful treatment and pitch to the class not much was said to improve upon. We had called our music video performance/concept based using Goodwins key music video theory and the class were a bit puzzled as to where the conept came in to it. We explained that the concept was about doing something, reaching for what you want in life. We explained that this is shown through performance as the energetic performance matches with the lyric 'Start Something'. We have also used feedback to make the decision to swap our vocalist actor. Nick who was originally on vocals in now on guitar and Simon is now lead vocals. It was also mentioned that we needed a clearer structure for the music video. Which is something we need to discuss in our next group meeting.

Muse - Dead Star

Another Muse song, even more weird and wondeful instrument shots. 0.07, 0.09, 0.42 and 2.41 are all very claustrophobic and different. Also, interestingly it only cost 50 pounds to make. I'll stop posting Muse videos soon, but I'm on a roll!

Muse - Hyper Music

Great video, with some energetic camera movement and great close ups which make the feel claustrophobic even in the big room. Nice inspiration. Makes the lack of variety not so noticable. Enjoy!

Cancer Bats - Deathsmarch

I stumbled across this video for Cancer Bat's 'Deathsmarch' on the TV and thought that we could gain a lot from it. There are a lot of CU instrument shots we can reference and the mise-en-scene is similar to ours. I believe it will be wise to use some of the shots here. Give it a good watch anyway.

Cancer Bats - Deathsmarch

Blue Version

I decided to spruce up the cover by adding some blue and use Nick's font by warping around the waves. I'm not too sure about this effect though, but let me know if you think its an improvement.

Lighting Expenses

Here below are links to the lighting equipment that we would ideally like to buy. We would not order on the internet, but instead go to Enfield for a shopping maybe with a lovely lunch interval.


http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=218015

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=28569

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=225770

Tattoo Sleeves

Here is a link to an ebay seller who retailing at a reasonable 4 tattoo sleeves at £12. We would like so very much to purchase these said sleeves with a portion of our designated budget in addition to some awe inspiring strobe lighting components.

We would choose the designs: T6, T8, T14 and T18.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/fake-tattoo-sleeve-stocking-temporary-fancy-dress-fun_W0QQitemZ200379777397QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Health_Beauty_Tattoos_BodyArt_SM?hash=item2ea790c175&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

Group Meeting today

Other than the final pitch being complete, thought we should put down our conversation about the opening.

We decided today on a few points for the opening:

-The lead guitar lick is very quiet at first so it would be stupid to focus on this guitar only when it's playing as it's not a main focus point. Instead we will use lots of arcs and pans to create a real sense of atmosphere and mise en scene, and also to introduce the different band members and their set up.

-The possibility of the vocalist coming and joining the band rather than starting with them. We have 40 seconds to play with so we can make a continuity sequence of him entering the room and walking towards the band. We thought maybe use lots of LA and tracks making use of our lighting to give the vocalist a sense of enigma, making the viewer intrigued to know who it is.

-During the brief 10 second or so period before the song drops (00:41) we thought we could really mess about with the editing and do lots of weird shots that ignore continuity to match the record scratches in the song. For example we might play around with the ordering of the frames and possibly reverse them to represent the scratching and pulling back of a record when being used on decks.

Can't remember anything else specific we discussed, but I'm sure during the test shoot we can give some stuff a blast :)

Final Group Treatment for the pitch!

The video will consist of three main sets of shots. One in a plain, clean space with the band all dressed in dark clothes, the next in a really messy workspace with very harsh lighting and strobes, and finally 5 individual claustrophobic band member shots. The video will be all performance and concept.

Goodwin

Genre Conventions

Hard Rock. Band layout (Vocalist, 2 guitars, bass, drums), distorted guitars (heavier sound in comparison to acoustic instruments), screaming and clean vocals (screaming adds t3h br00t4lz to the music), fast drums, use of double pedal in the drums, breakdown (slower section with very heavy feel, usually riff based).

Costume/Clothing. (baggy/straight cut jeans and shirts/quite plain/bit grunge/lots of black) Hair cuts (Medium length, styled). Generally dark colours associated with the style of the music (compliments) Generally male band members, young adults.

Live performance, electric guitars (Ibanez, ESP, Jackson, Gibson - these makes have specific tone and look for the music), drums (complicated set up, double pedal, lots of cymbals), electric bass (sometimes keyboard), vocalist as an individual member (not often playing instrument as well). Big equipment (amp stacks).


Audience Profile:

Age : mid teens to young adult (20s). Gender : mixed bag, males for genre (fans of heavy music), girls for sex appeal (apparently hot band). Clothing style, similar to that of the band. Music taste (similar bands e.g. Funeral For a Friend, The Blackout) (generally wider music taste, Lostprophets a half way point between Rock bands and Heavier music. Means quite varied crowd).


Concept

We are challenging conventions by ignoring the lyrics for our concept. Instead we are basing our concept around the performance and the music itself. To achieve this we are using our locations, lighting, editing, and shooting style to visually show the contrasts between the sections in the song. Our only reference back the lyrics is the title “Start Something” which represents the energy that our performance will give.
Iconography - We will use lots of tight camera angles to create visual hooks through out and stick close to our genre conventions. (references : Always, Writing on the Walls/still shots from other videos)

Location BREAKDOWN

The locations will be flicked between to show the contrast in song sections. The verses have quite a pop-punky positive feel to them while the chorus is quite heavy and almost like a beatdown.


The Plain location
The band will be performing in stage layout (drummer centre back, vocalist centre front, guitarists and bass in between). We will have a wide angle and individual band shots here that we will cut between to show a lively and energetic performance. There will be more arcs and pans and slower camera movement to contrast with the messy section.

The lighting, 8 floor lights positioned around the band. Each member has one and the rest are positioned around props (perhaps 3 under drums for extreme lighting). 2 Spot-lights from the side pointing at a slight downwards angle to contrast with the beams of light going up from the floor. There will be calm strobe lighting to add an extra dimension from the back of the band.

The band will be wearing dark colours to contrast the plain room. The lead vocalist will do all singing and the guitarists will do the backing vocals and screaming. Our main focus will be on movement and quite normal camera angles but rarely ever still shots (apart from the wide angle).


The Messy location
This room will be more full lit (lighter than upstairs) with more intense strobe lighting. The band will be less organised and more cluttered, moving all over the place to make the most of the weird equally cluttered location. A lot tighter, more use of handheld (almost all). There will be no wide shot, but lots of individual MS and above of each member to cut between. The band will still be united, and close together, but performing in a less uniformed, more energetic manner. Most of this will come together in the edit and the way we choose to cut it.


Individual Shots
Band separated in different rooms. Isolated performances with a claustrophobic feel. This will be achieved through CU camera work using HA and LA with a lot of movement. The image will be given a slight distort (possibly through a fish eye lens tool in post production) to vary it from the rest of the video. The lighting will be very extreme. It will light up specific parts of the band member leaving the rest of the room in darkness creating a solitary feel and an air of mystery. We will achieve this hopefully through the use of the cameras own backlight (TEST SHOOT) but we may have to resort to a dim spotlight.

Band Set Ups

Looking at a multitude of videos from the genre and taking our location in mind, there are quite a few band set ups we could use in our final video. We have three main band set ups in mind at our location, one downstairs, in any configuration that we'll decide after our test shoot. We'll aim for a really edgy set up downstairs to compliment the messy, cluttered environment downstairs.



We are envisaging something a bit different like this set up in the video for Bloodmeat by Protest the Hero

Upstairs, our band will perform in a standard circle facing outwards from the middle of the room. However, due to the presence of some rather exciting partition walls the band members will be separated, with some long arc shots rotating around the band. Truly exciting stuff.

Here's a shockingly bad animation I whipped up in a few minutes to illustrate what I mean. It probably won't work very well at doing that.

Also, between the two locations we may include another band set up where the band members are in different rooms, including this lovely lift.

Mise en Scene Referencing

There are two videos that I have mentioned a lot over the course of this project for inspiration and I still feel that they are perfect for our idea.


The first is Always by Architects. The performance is in a plain white room and is very open. The band are free to move around and the shooting is very mobile, making every shot interesting to watch. There are some absolutely fantastic angles that I want to duplicate in our project that me and Simon have put in our blog posts about Guitar and Drum stills.


The other is Writing on the Walls by UnderOath. This performance is a complete contrast as the band are crammed into this tiny basement, wearing very dark clothes and there is strobe lighting. It is not particularly strong but more the fact that it creates an air of mystery in the room (maybe I'll rephrase that for the pitch but I was just watching Poirot). All the band shots I THINK (double underline *crosses fingers*) with a fish eye lens at really weird angles and the band members are all very close to each other in this confined space.

I want to use both these concepts in our video to go along with my treatment for Start Something, where the more poppy bits of the track are shown in the clean white and quite large room, whereas the heavier parts are shown to contrast through the sudden claustrophobia and change in shooting style. These powerful mise en scene changes will provide very different performances and help to carry out our concept of energy and its illustration through performance.

Guitar Stills

Here are some of my favourite stills from Music Videos for guitars. They are from the videos "Always - Architects" and "Writing on the Walls - UnderOath".

1. ECU fret and bridge, canted angle (Architects)
2. 2-shot, fish eye lens, very claustrophobic and weird angle (UnderOath)
2. MS, amp in background to show off bands equipment (Architects)

Drums Stills

Here some shots of drummers that we can also take inspiration from:

Light Referencing Ideas

I'm going to look in to different lighting styles within this post, and learn about how lighting creates a feel and a mood in music video. The direction we want to go with the style of our music video can be decided tomorrow when we have a meeting. The first set are of Desaturated and Stylized lighting whereas the second set are Saturated and Colourful.

Vocalist Stills

Here are a few shots we can try to emulate for the vocalist shots in our video:

Lostprophets and similar artists

Lostprophets



Overview:
Lostprophets are a Welsh rock band from Pontypridd, formed in 1997. The band was founded by vocalist Ian Watkins, bassist (later guitarist) Mike Lewis, drummer Mike Chiplin and guitarist Lee Gaze. Since their formation, Lostprophets have released three studio albums and three EPs, and will release their fourth studio album, entitled The Betrayed, in January 2010.
The band has achieved two top ten hits on the UK Singles Chart ("Last Train Home" and "Rooftops"), one number one single on the Alternative Songs chart ("Last Train Home"), and several Kerrang! Awards and nominations.





Style:
Over the years Lostprophets have changed their image from casual jeans and shirts to a more stylised, fashionable look. I believe we would be more likely to opt to the earlier attire as it fits the track more.

Funeral For a Friend

Overview:
Funeral for a Friend are a Welsh rock band, from Bridgend, Wales, UK, formed in 2001. Their current lineup consists of Kris Coombs-Roberts, Gavin Burrough, Ryan Richards, Darran Smith and Matthew Davies-Kreye. They have released four albums and are releasing a Greatest Hits album later in October.

Style:

Similarily to Lostprophets, they used to have a very generic jeans and black shirt image, but with age have slightly changed to a more mature casual look.

The Blackout

Overview:

The Blackout is a post-hardcore band from the Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, formed in 2003. After some time backing Lostprophets on their Liberation Transmission Tour, they released their first mini-album The Blackout! The Blackout! The Blackout!. In October 2007 the band released their debut album, We Are The Dynamite. Their second record, The Best In Town was released on May 25 in Europe and June 23 in the US, both via Epitaph Records.

Style:
Over the few brief years they have been around, The Blackout have consistently kept the same image of black slim fitting clothing. One half of the vocal duo, Sean Smith, has also not changed his hairstyle for years as it has become almst synonomous with him and the band. This had lead me to think that the hair and makeup of our band is also a contributing factor to the look.

Location Reccy Photos and Thoughts

The location we visited on Tuesday injected a healthy dose of morale in to the group, and in this post I will look in to just what was so special about it, apart from the lovely management, flexibility, props, lighting extras and of course as Nick rightly pointed out in one of his posts the microwave.


To start off, here is a picture of most of the main warehouse space. If your looking at this and thinking - it's a mess, there's no space, this is exactly what we thought when we first walked in. Then we learnt that we can move whatever we want, so all the stuff against the far wall with the window is going to be moved out the way to make space. We thought if we shoot during the evening when it starts to get dark we could create some cool lighting effects - especially if we use a fair portion of our budget to get strobes. One idea which I think struck a nice chord with the group was putting up a white sheet to cover the window. A possible problem maybe finding the time to move all of the clutter at the back of the room.


This is a shot in the same place as the first one but is more deeper in to the room. The ladder to the far right of the picture shows a step ladder which we intend to use for high angle shots to add general variety to our camerawork. This is a technique we plan to test during our test shoot.


The next photo while showing more of the space also shows a number of carts which are basically dollies (see red arrow). They fold out and while being able to take amazing amounts of weight, are so so so so so smooth and will therefore give us a chance to do cool arcs and tracks.


The cool little contrapment in Ben's hands is a floor light the owner showed us. They are powered by double AA batteries and they have 8 of them which we can use. The picture was taken in full daytime light so you can see just how powerful they are. They should be a great edition to our lighting rig. Another picture in the dark:


It's pretty hard to top the light in terms of coolness but something which comes close is the lift which we were thinking of putting a band member in, possibly the guitarist.

Cover

I was bored so got on photoshop and using a name for the band that Nick told me about just minutes earlier I decided to design a cover. I know its bland at the moment, but I am quite fond of the bold design.

Referencing

I have decided to edit together some bits of other bands videos, such as shots I like that I feel would add to our music video. I realise that some may be impossible to pull off or very hard, but we could attempt to do some similar things to create the same effects.

Music Video Referencing from Simon Cardy on Vimeo.

The Pitch (This is a constant work in progress)

I thought that we could put this on our blog and update it as we know ready for the pitch on Thursday :)
Feel free to edit and add as you go.

1. The track itself
Start Something - Lostprophets

2. What you know about the track, and the original band/artist
Off the Welsh Nu-metal/alternative rock band Lostprophets second studio album "Start Something". It is the title track of the album but was not chosen for a single.

3. The genre of the music and the signifiers of this
Hard Rock. Band layout (Vocalist, 2 guitars, bass, drums), distorted guitars (heavier sound in comparison to acoustic instruments), screaming and clean vocals (screaming adds t3h br00t4lz to the music), fast drums, use of double pedal in the drums, breakdown (slower section with very heavy feel, usually riff based).

Costume/Clothing. (baggy/straight cut jeans and shirts/quite plain/bit grunge/lots of black) Hair cuts (Medium length, styled). Generally dark colours associated with the style of the music (compliments) Generally male band members, young adults.

Live performance, electric guitars (Ibanez, ESP, Jackson, Gibson - these makes have specific tone and look for the music), drums (complicated set up, double pedal, lots of cymbals), electric bass (sometimes keyboard), vocalist as an individual member (not often playing instrument as well). Big equipment (amp stacks).

4. The target audience you intend to appeal to
Clothing style, similar to that of the band. Music taste (similar bands e.g. Funeral For a Friend, The Blackout) (generally wider music taste, Lostprophets a half way point between Rock bands and Heavier music. Means quite varied crowd).

Profile:

Age : mid teens to young adult (20s). Gender : mixed bag, males for genre (fans of heavy music), girls for sex appeal (apparently hot band).

5. Your treatment for the video which should include visual references (stills and video)

6. Your treatment should give a strong sense of the overall style, mise-en-scene, mood and theme of your idea.

7. You should be able to discuss in terms of Goodwins questions on B2 (using B7 to help you)


"Your presentation should last about 10 minutes, you should all contribute. It can be informal. Use your blog for your visual aids, plus your treatment should be printed in colour as a handout. be prepared to answer questions, discuss feedback, note it down and adapt your treatment."

Nick

Location Plan B

On searching FilmLondon for a secondary location in case our current one has any problems, I found another larger warehouse, in the same location in Edmonton!

It might not be free, but the fact is it's just as convenient and nearby. I'll look into it if the other location flops.

http://directory.filmlondon.org.uk/locations/locview.asp?dsref=l3837431400&sp=1&kw=

But lets hope it doesn't...

Ben

Layout

Hope you guys don't mind, but I was bored so decided to spruce up our blog and I'm sure you'll agree it looks nicer as a result.

Simon

Copyright Check

We emailed Visible Noise, Lostprophets' Record Label today to ask about permissions for the track, hopefully they will get back to us seeing as we mentioned that we were using the track for educational purposes only.

Test Shot List

We have been having an extensive group meeting this afternoon and have decided on some shots and techniques to try out on our test shoot. We will add more to the list as we think of them.

- Arc through walls
As we have been told that the upstairs section is partitioned into different room we were thinking you could do some clever merging of shots to make it look like the camera arcs through the walls. At the moment we don't know what the location looks like particularly so we will need to see how possible this is as an idea even before we think about the practicality of shooting it, which we will do on our test shoot.
- Band Setup
As we have discussed the traditional band layout (mentioned in Nick's song treatment) is a bit boring and over used, we're going to try out lots of different variations of band positioning to see which looks best and provides the most interesting shots.
- Test angles in the individual shots (small, claustrophobic rooms)
We are going to simply try out different angles to see which make the subject look the most uncomfortable in the individual rooms (again mentioned in Nick's original treatment).
- Using the ladder for high angles
There is a ladder at the location and we are going to test out using this to get extreme high angles and different perspectives on long shots for example.
- Testing lighting (strobes, floor lights etc)
For this we will test out the floor lights we found in the reccy and also bring along any studio lighting we wish to use on the shoot. We can test out different strengths of light, using things in the room to make shadows/reflections, just generally lots of different concepts and ideas.

Nick's Treatment for Start Something

After a reccy of our location this evening I have a clear vision of this video. The video will consist of three main sets of shots. One in a plain, clean space with the band all dressed in black, the next in a really messy workspace with very harsh lighting and strobes, and finally 5 individual claustrophobic band member shots. The video will be all performance and concept.

The locations will be flicked between to show the contrast in song sections. The verses have quite a pop-punky positive feel to them while the chorus is quite heavy and almost like a beatdown.

The plain location will be used for the verses (00:41, 01:40). The band will be performing in stage layout (drummer centre back, vocalist centre front, guitarists and bass in between). We will have a wide angle and individual band shots here that we will cut between to show a lively and energetic performance. It will be very brightly lit to emphasize the cleanliness and plainness of the room. The band will be wearing all black except maybe the vocalist wearing either a white top or a bright colour to stand out. The lead vocalist will do all singing and the guitarists will do the backing vocals and screaming. Our main focus will be on movement and quite normal camera angles but rarely ever still shots (apart from the wide angle).

The messy location will kick in on the "1,2,3,4 MOVE" (01:19, 02:18). This location is a lot darker and will be lit harshly. This will be partially helped by the powerful hand-held lights we found on the reccy which we will cluster together to make beacons of light facing upwards around the band. This scene will also use strobe lighting to create a really crazy mood and the band will be even more energetic than before. We will mimic the shots from the plain location but put odd cants and twists to them maybe involving focus to really mess with the viewers head.

The five individual band shots will be done in small rooms around the location, one of which is maybe the old lift we found on the reccy. These will be cut-aways used regularly throughout the entire video. My idea for them is to shoot the band members playing along to the song at half speed then in post production add a fish eye lens to the shot and put the song back up to normal speed. If we get the angles tight enough this will give a really claustrophobic feel to the shot and also make all of the band members movements really jolted and weird.

There are specific moments in the song where I also have very clear visions of particular shots. At the beginning before the vocals kick in there is a reverse cymbal (00:38) at which point I want to do a montage of reverse shots. I was thinking of tying this in with the ending of the video where there is a gong in the music (02:54). I wanted to have the vocalist throwing his mic on the floor at the end smashing it, and at 00:38 showing this clip in reverse and the mic flying back up into his hands before the singing starts. Also I wanted to show the drummer hitting his cymbals in reverse, again giving a really weird, crazy edge to the video to confuse the viewer and make them more interested in the concept of the song and video.

Another bit I've been thinking of is in the breakdown after the second chorus (02:35), the band can start playing in slow motion. To do this we can do the reverse of the individual cut-aways and film the song at 25-50% extra speed and slow it down. It will look really weird as everyone will be moving slowly but playing in time and will really fit in with the rest of the weird concepts in the video. This shot may be harder though as it will need to be a very high frame rate to slow down effectively.


This treatment does not really have anything to do with the lyrics but I don't think that particularly matters. The song is about stopping being lazy and doing something with your life and I think we can choose to show that by making a very energetic video that reflects the musical style rather than the lyrics.

Location Recce - Clowntown

I have looked into filminf at Clowntown, and have made contact with an employee, Anna, who has told me about rates for renting out the centre for a day. If we decide to go with my treatment I will let her know and we will need to book quickly as there are lots of birthday parties occuring around the time of shooting.

Ben

Ben's Start Something Treatment

Start today, now show us how you feel

Make your way, it's time to choose

Have my say, I know, I know what I see

Have my say, they think you'll lose

For all this to mean so much to me

For all this, you make a move

Pass you by, it's all in this life you have

Pass you by, goodbye to you

[Chorus:]
1, 2, 3, 4 Move
If you don't stop there, you'll make it through.
Stop dreaming, start something
When it's in your hand just start anew

It's ok to use your ability
You must know, it's hard to choose
Time will tell, it's hard that the way you feel
means you always seem to lose
Seize the day, the one that you left behind
It seems so strange that you don't move
Frozen still in front of your own lights
Win or lose, its time to choose

[Chorus]


I have been thinking about a treatment for our chosen song, and I have come up with the idea of having the band performing in a nursery/indoor adventure playground, such as Clowntown http://clowntown.co.uk/ (there are two branches nearby, which would be perfect for filming + I have contacts working there) The band would perform in the ball pit, whilst a mosh pit of young children occurs in the playpen. The whole band would be joining in, and various slow mo shots of balls from the ball pit flying around and people sliding down the slide. In addition the frontman of the band would do battle with a giant Lego man. The camerawork and shots are going to be similar to the Serj Tankian video 'Empty Walls', with the lead vocalist lying in the pit for money shots with all the balls on his face. The editing would be frenetic, matching the beat exactly, and this would be disjointed by the slow motion parts. The theme would be fun-filled and chaotic and it would tie in with the lyrics; 'Move' and 'Start Something' and would meld with the central theme of laziness and going nowhere in life, the band are just big kids...


Advantages
Possible, location is easily had
Very unique look

Disadvantages
Morally grey

Working with kids can be difficult and unpredictable

Group Meeting 14/09/09

Today we successfully chose a song with Miss B! We have chosen Start Something by Lostprophets, a catchy number with a tad of screaming! (just how we like it)

In our group meeting we came up with a few different concepts for different Lostprophets songs between us and then presented them to Miss B at lunch time. However by far her favourite song was Start Something as it had a punchy opening which was surprising and in your face, and has many successful contrasting sections.

We had a throw around of some video ideas, including children hardcore dancing in a playpen, Simon dressed as Godzilla smashing a lego town in stop motion, and a general performance video.

We went with the latter.

Ta for now, looking forward to some cracking treatments for Start Something and our reccy tomorrow after school!

Location Reccy

Just thought everyone would like to know that I emailed the warehouse back and they said its all ok if we pop over after school on Tuesday. Oh, and I've done a labels and link list for us. Thats all for now chaps