Second day of Filming

After filming for the first time to our new song i was optimistic that it would go better than previously. We arrived and we were instantly handed the task of getting the hall decorated to the way we wanted. This was far more time consuming than we had thought it would be and it took an hour and a half to fully set up, which was far to long. After setting up we then had a problem of what shot to do and how to do it. Once again we hadn't learnt from our previous mistake. However we had got some filming done which we will upload to final cut and edit it to see exactly what we can do with original filming. Once again we failed to use our planning to help us film and i will address the group about this along with our overall effort to get the job done as i feel this is holding us back from getting our music video done. Overall this filming session wasn't as productive as i hoped it would be but we got enough work done to help us build upon which should leave us in good stead for our next day of filming on Saturday.

Animatic of Music Video

This is the animatic of our music video. This is basically a video that i made on behalf of the group that showed when we would use the shots with the song and it also shows where we would use our transitions. This is only a rough plan and i would expect us to use more shots than we planned and more transitions. I think that the animatic will be different from our final video as editing still images means you can't see the instruments being played but this is only a representation of what we want the video to look a little bit like.

Storyboard Images

These are some of the images we drew to help us plan what kind of shots we wanted to do whilst we were filming.

Pre-filming blog

After a change of song we decided to re-think some of our original ideas and look at new angles and new shots that were now available to us through a change of idea. We had moved away from the concept of doing a story-based video to the idea of video a live band. We had immediately brainstormed some ideas that we thought were very promising and we were all eager to get filming. We started to talk about where we should film. Our initial idea was to film in a garage where our selected band normally practice. This would look authentic to a 'band practice' session which we could be representing. However group member Jacob said he could get hold of a scout hall and excellent lighting which was a great opportunity we couldn't turn down. So on Sunday 30th January we were going to film for the second time. We had an early problem when the bassist was miss-informed about the time of our filming which was down to our poor communication with him. The problem was resolved when already had someone else available to play the bass which was a nice piece of planning on our behalf. We estimate we will have around 3 hours in which to film so we should get enough done to start editing next week.

Change of Song

After all meeting up in the classroom for the first time since filming we started to all blog. This was when Jacob turned to me and said he didn't feel the video was going to work if things stayed the same. I strongly agreed with him and told the rest of the group, Tom and Alex, that we should seriously consider changing the song and using more reliable actors. We then went back to our original shortlist to see if there was one song we could use. The choice that two of us believed to be a good enough song was 'Times like these' by the Foo Fighters. After learning from our mistakes we decided to focus on the prospect of filming a band rather than a 'story'. We had some ideas for shots that we would want to use and quickly drew up our storyboard. After putting our minds into this idea for the past two hours we discovered we had done more work in one lesson than we had done in a week. We have spoke to band we know that cover the song at their gigs which means all thats left to do is find a suitable location.

First Day of Filming

On Saturday we started to film our music video to Frank Turner's Photosynthesis. We all met at our actor Jon at his house where we planned to film in his basement. I had never been there before but was told it would be a good location. Upon arriving i saw that the room wasn't what i imagined and that there was only one corner of the room we could film. As the rest of the group started to arrive we placed our camera and tripod down and we were ready to start filming. Our only problem was that Jon, our actor, didn't know how to play or know the lyrics to our song. This meant a large delay on filming which then made us all lose attention and in the end we had no-where near enough footage to what had hoped to film. This is very disappointing as we had hoped to get a considerable amount done on our day of filming and to make matters worse, our actor was unavailable on the sunday which meant we had practically wasted a weekend of filming. We then discovered we may not be able to meet each others date of availability which put our while project into turmoil.

Video Analysis 1: Wonderwall, Oasis

Wonderwall is a multi-million selling record by British Rock group Oasis. The song and video were released in October 1996 as part of their multi-platinum selling album 'What's the Story, Morning Glory?'. The song was written by lead guitarist of the band Noel Gallagher and he claims the song is about 'an imaginary friend who is coming to save you from yourself'. The video has members of the band playing their instruments throughout the video to help show the viewer that this genre is rock. This is video is a personal favourite of mine and is in black and white all the way through. It also went on to win the Best Video Award at the 1996 Brit Awards.
The relationship between lyrics and visuals is very weak. The first sign on lyrics to visual representation is at 1:24 in the video where the lead singer Liam Gallagher sings "and all the roads we have to walk are winding", at this point Liam is sitting in a chair just as if its unwinding which shows a brief correlation with the lyrics. The next brief part of the video where the lyrics are expressed with visuals is at 2:40 of the music video. At this point Liam sings "and all the lights that light the way are blinding", at which stage their is a close up on Liam with the contrast changing quickly from black the white. These are the only parts where the lyrics and visuals have a direct relationship which is strange as the video has no real direct reference to the lyrics of the song, and this can be seen throughout the video.
I feel their is a strong relationship between the music and the visuals which would be a reason for why the lyrics and the visuals have a weak relationship. The video is cut in paces depending on the beat. At the beginning where Noel Gallagher is playing the opening of the song whilst sitting on a chair, the video cuts closer to him whilst keeping in time with the music he's playing. During the video this happens several time and the video also cuts around the drum beat as well. An example of this would be at 2:40 when a close up on Liam sees the gradient change in time with the drum beat. The pace of the song is consistent throughout the video with some shots of the video being spilt into 4 and 12 sections sometimes with the same image and sometimes with different images. The relationship between the music and visuals is why this video is as good as it is, because it shows you don't need to narrate the lyrics in a video to put your point across.
The clothes that the artists are wearing is very common to what they normally wear in their music videos which are jeans, shirts and jumpers. These common types of clothing may be to make the artists more relatable as their not exactly clothes ordinary people wear. One other similarity is the glasses the lead singer is wearing which are a pair of rounded dark shade glasses which are very common in their videos. This could be considered a statement as their inspiration John Lennon used to wear a pair the same. These glasses were in Oasis's next music video, Don't Look Back in Anger, and previous Oasis music video's such as Supersonic. Below shows 4 screenshots of 4 different videos of where the glasses in wonderwall can be seen again.

This music video isn't very narrative and i would say the majority of it is performance based as you can see either someone singing or playing an instrument on several occasions throughout the video.

Overall i think this is a great music video with a lot of the reason being the editing of it. The video does use the beat of the song to change shots but sometimes it will just change during a note. What impressed me most was how well the contrast worked as their was no colour except for the change in guitar colour throughout the video which may just be their to add extra emphasis on that instrument. The camera positions were also very ordinary but the way the people and mise-en-scene was used helped to add an extra dimension to this video. I feel that the video was shot very ordinarily but editing so well it helped make the music video a success. Below is the music video by Oasis called Wonderwall:

Song Choice

After reading though the lyrics for the final three songs on our shortlist and listening to them several times, we decided that Frank Turner- Photosynthesis would be our best bet. We chose this song for its strong lyrics and nice paced music. We started to brainstorm ideas and put them into a story board. We are now at the stage where we want to film our original ideas and this is going to happen on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th of January. (This week). I personally am very pleased that we are going to film this early because it will give us time in the future to do any additional filming.

Lyric Analysis 2- Frank Turner, Photosynthesis

1,2,1,2,3,4

Well I guess I should confess that I am starting to get old
All the latest music fads all passed me by and left me cold
All the kids are talking slang I won't pretend to understand
All my friends are getting married, mortagages and pension plans
And it's obvious my angry adolescent days are done
And I'm happy and I'm settled in the person I've become
But that doesn't mean I'm settled up and sitting out the game
Time may change alot but some things may stay the same

And I won't sit down
And I won't shut up
And most of all I will not grow up
And I won't sit down
And I won't shut up
And most of all I yeah I won't grow up

Oh maturity's a wrapped up package deal so it seems
And ditching teenage fantasy means ditching all your dreams
All your friends and peers and family solomnly tell you you will
Have to grow up be an adult yeah be bored and unfulfilled
Oh when no ones yet explained to me exactly what's so great
About slaving 50 years away on something that you hate, about meekly shuffling down the path of mediocrity
Well if that's your road then take it but it's not the road for me

And I won't sit down
And I won't shut up
And most of all I will not grow up
And I won't sit down
And I won't shut up
And most of all I yeah I won't grow up

And if all you ever do with your life
Is photosynthesize
Then you deserve every hour of these sleepless nights
That you spend wondering when you're gonna die

Now I'll play and you sing
The perfect way for the evening to begin
Now I'll play and you sing
The perfect way for the evening to begin

And I won't sit down
And I won't shut up
And most of all yeah I won't grow up
And I won't sit down
And I won't shut up
And most of all I will not grow up
And I won't sit down
And I won't shut up
And most of all I will not grow up

Lyrically this song was the song i liked best and it was also the song that i could gather the most ideas for a video of. Not only did i have this connection with this song but i think my other group members also thought this with themselves as we all unanimously chose this song. The song itself is quite upbeat which meant we could plan the tone of the music video to be happy. The lyrics have reference to Frank Turner watching himself and his friends grow old while the chorus seems to show his willingness to stay young. I felt the song didn't necessarily tell a story like some of the other songs in our shortlist but was far more general which meant we could have more idea's available. Although the song's tone is happy fast paced song the nearer the end you get the faster the song gets.

The song focus's on one man's summarising his feeling's about being an adult and missing his youthful days. The message that i get from this song is that Frank Turner wants to relive his younger days and one way to show this in a music vide would be to re-enact those days. There is one line in the chorus that says to me that Frank doesn't want to grow older and doesn't care if he acts as a child as the final line in each chorus and the final line of the song is 'and most of all i will not grow up'. I feel that this single line does give a representation for the whole song and we would be foolish not to exploit this in our music video.

I am really looking forward to making this song into a music video and as we are going to start our original filming tomorrow, we had some new fantastic idea's today which we hope to film even though we haven't got it in our planning. At the moment we have story-boarded our ideas which will be put on my blog in the future. We have also got sheets of other idea's some we are going to use and some we aren't. These will also be put onto my blog at a later date as they are very untidy at the moment.

Lyric Analysis 1- Frank Turner, The Real Damage

Frank Turner- The Real Damage

I woke up on a sofa in an unfamiliar house,
Surrounded by sleeping folks that I didn't know.
On failing to find my friends, I decided that it was
clearly time to go.
So I made my way out of the door as quietly as I could
–
There was no one there I knew to say goodbye –
Squinting in the sadly sobering sunshine of the Sunday
morning light.

I started the night with all my friends and I ended up
alone,
Oh yes I started out so happy now I'm hung-over and
down.
It was about then that I realized I was half-way
through
The best years of my life.

So I scanned the local landmarks, trying to find out
where I was,
And maybe even find a bus back home.
I was longing for a shower, and for clean sheets, and
a charger for my phone.
And suddenly it hit me that I got paid this Friday
last
And so I rifled through my pockets for some change.
But all I found was a packet of broken cigarettes and
sinking sense of shame.

I had to ask myself, well,
Is it really worth it?
Is any of this worth it?
Well the whole thing's far from perfect,
But I've yet to figure out a better way to spend my
time.

Too many suits and dirty looks made me rack my
brains,
And the real damage started to sink in.
It'd been quite a heavy weekend, but I could just
about remember where I'd been.

I stood on a street corner, and I felt a little sick.
It was about then that I realized I was half-way
through
The first day of the week.

This is the first Frank Turner song on our final three and the overall feel from these lyrics is a sense of regret. The lyrics tell a story of waking up after a party hungover and alone. These lyrics are important to the song as it sets the feel for the rest of the lyrics because we already know that the song is about his loneliness. 'The Real damage' is meant to be pyscological damage rather than physical. The lyrics also show he is remebering these years as the best years of his life.

In terms of making a video out of this song would have been very testing. The main theme of the song is a man hungover, feeling down and reviewing his life but this would have been difficult to express this in a video. Lyrically this song is too much of a story than a representation which is what we were looking for in making our music video. Our original ideas were dismissed as they were to narrative to the song.