Production Plan Unit 36

Plan for Music Video Production

From my research unit I am taking influence from my analysis of Britpop music video and taking imagery from there to create my own product inspired by it.

Continued from my development of ideas I moved on to my plan for production and listed the equipment I would needed and discussed availability of my actress for filming.

I created a hand drawn Story Board during this time of the process, the image board gave me a structure for production as well as it being a resource I could show to my actress for her to get an idea of what it is I am aiming for:

I arranged for two shoots originally a little over a week apart, whilst I was available for other and more times I communicated with my actress and two Tuesdays were chosen as she was free then. The day before the first shoot I gathered my equipment borrowed from the store charging the camera and making sure the tripod was functional all was in order and ready. When shooting began however the camera would stop recording after a very few seconds this became an obstical that was halting the shoot. After a diagnostic we found out the cards write and read speed was too low for the quality of film information we were recording in. An order on line and a few hours later we went out to get a replacement card which when testing worked and we went outside to get some footage as the original plan of getting the interior shots out of the way was no longer an option due to people being back in the places I wanted to record. Production outside went well for a good hour before the sun had set too much and plans for an interior shoot were added for that Friday. From that more detailed discussion and the mix between relaxed and informal with the determination to not have things get in the way again the next two shoots went well with equipment returned afterwards.

A release form was signed by the actress in following good practice so all of the footage I used with her in it was allowed.

Snapshot into Editing Unit 36 Music Video

Editing My Music Video

 Here I edited in a spin on to a clip within my music video. I did this by accessing the properties menu in the top left corner selecting the second tab available. In this list there is the option to rotate which after a couple of key frames are placed you can free rotate with each cycle of 360 decrees being added on. I had to scale up my originally framed recording of the grit salt bin because the rotate effect cut through the corners. I scaled up the clip using the scale value and slid it higher until corners off the frame would no longer show. I did this to emphasise a guitar sound heard in the music track as that sound rings the object spins which links in with looking at moments in music video using Andrew Goodwin's theory. This was done because of my influence of Brit-Pop videos occasionally having affected editing to show humour for an example Blur's Parklife has a spinning man sped up but I instead had my clip to spin. It did not work as well as expected because when capturing the original footage I did not take into account the framing and so the scaled version is too close to clearly see what is being recorded. With future edits in mind I would avoid doing this unless at all unless it fit a comical/lighthearted production. If done in future I would be careful of how I captured the footage making sure that the object is central with enough of the frame around it. In editing I would have considered a tighter or rather more precise cut either side of the clip to achieve a better effect, listening closer to the music, perhaps checking frame by frame to cut along side the music track.

 Here I edited to the rhythm of the song track and added a dissolve transition to end the piece. Andrew Goodwin and his book Dancing in the Distraction factory highlights the effect that having edits and cuts to the rhythm of the song and also looking into Eisenstein's rhythmic montage I can create an audience friendly music video. In the above edit screen shot whilst I have more precise cuts to the songs beat but here you can see the peak in audio and that my cut is close to incorporate that rhythm. I used the "m" button to create markers to help at key changes in the music and in this closing section it has rhythmic hits that straight cuts to the rhythm gives them meaning. The dissolve was added by accessing the transitions menu after placed I stretched its transition time to match with the end of the audio signal. It is a simple, effective way to end a production as it clearly shows the audience that the information is over. The pace of the fade was rather important as too fast it comes out of nowhere and the audience may miss it or expect more if too slow it appears as a mistake feeling awkward. I feel I have got the balance right using the end of the audio track to be the end point of the footage and the end of music as the start of the fade.

 Here I attempted a match on action shot between two shots of my character closing the door.

looking at both frames that I used in and out points with I have captured the best frame to transition on where the character turns to close the door. I was lucky in the fact the character closed the door the same way. If done again I would have planned for that rather than happy accident but my choice of cut was good it follows the process of natural action by utilising this editing skill used frequently in the golden age of Hollywood.

Ideas and Development Unit 36

Music Video Ideas

Brit-Pop Themes and Conventions to use

• Urbanised areas - terraced housing, tarmac roads, shops (high street)
• British Culture - Iconography, Public transport, Tea, Post offices.
• Male centred - Lads mags, Beer, Pub, One guy walking around sultry.
• Narratives - Having fun in Britain, Every day life, Commentary of the general situation
• Band and star imagery - Having band members play or involved in the music video, Costume quite sporty urban mixed with casual jackets, sunglasses.

Examples from Sourced videos

Walking down streets - Bitter Sweet Symphony (The Verve)

Getting ready - Charmless man (Blur)

Humorous affected Editing - Parklife (Blur)

Ideas of Home - Morning Glory (Oasis) There's No Other Way (Blur)

Male Gaze - Country House (Blur) Boys and Girls (Blur)

British Cultural Imagery - All of the above

Deliberation of Ideas

I have looked into what I could possibly do in realistic terms and I have got one actress on board which would change my focus on what I will do. My original idea of a few male characters on a Lads' night out, showing getting ready walking to a venue seeing a British band and some stereotypical imagery of tea, beer, raucous behavior and a male gaze view at women. This would have fit in quite well with what information I garnered from my research making it an energetic lively youthful piece filled with British culture and a narrative many young persons today could relate to.

I decided to cut back a lot on this first idea after learning through previous units what I could get done in similar amounts of time. My narrative would now follow the songs title and structure having my character getting ready before traveling down reasonably empty streets. I looked into various streets near a couple of locations to find suitably urban homes, streets and shops that could give British symbolism. This helped further my ideas and linking it back to the codes and conventions of the genre I realised a lot of what was there 20 years ago was there to be found today. The mise-en-scene would become a focus informing on production ideas of deep focus or just shots of the environment.

Looking back on Ideas, how they developed into the product

I created a story board with my new intentions in mind featuring a series of long shots to incorporate New Wave film techniques and with the shot of a street face on with my character I tried to channel Bittersweet Symphony's aesthetics. The first day of shooting was done in the evening so we had some lovely bright shots with the low sun eventually turning blue which only informed more ideas after reviewing the footage in editing the next day and I thought it would make a good end to my narrative having the day end but the streets not to. Second day of shooting brought around the house focused stuff I decided to get a lot more of the getting ready routine than I had originally planned for good practice of more footage is better when looking for those extra few seconds. Things went well and the shots captured included some genuine reactions of my actress that I used in the final product. The third shoot not much was developed except by happy chance in the streets that I had looked at for recording it was bin day and there were a fair bit of road works helping my get a few symbolic shots referencing The Verve and Blur. Ideas were developed into the editing stage where following Andrew Goodwin's rhythm and thematic editing I increased the length shown indoors and a moment in transition was informed by the lyrics. There is a mention of catching the 5:14 to a station now rather than a train of a plane which seemed to be described I used footage of a bus as the public transport being caught by people. By my finished edit the piece had evolved into a product that had elements of my learning and work up to this date including information from my research of Brit-pop and the New waves of cinema that I studied nearly a year ago. It all came together in a piece with many varying yet complimentary themes.

Music Video Unit 36 Evaluation

Evaluation and Analysis of Music Video - Unit 36

My music video has new wave techniques (long takes, jump cuts and improvised life with non actors in background), evidenced of applied genre codes and conventions as well as reference to my biggest influence blur through their Modern Life is Rubbish and there being various imagery of rubbish.

 My music video has a pacing problem in various parts of the production the shots were too long and there should have been tighter cuts in its edit. The tighter cutting would make the piece flow more and give a consistency to the piece, with the faster pace we would avoid some of the tension that builds with my longer edits. The finished product feels basic, it could be improved by building on the good use of camera angles and adding in some depth with more substance. Substance that would work well to improve the piece would be more codes and conventions of Brit-pop music such as in Parklife by Blur we have many interesting moments from the window salesman at the start knocking on the door to cuts to over acting and over edited actors shaking their head. Editing in the final piece was lacking in this furthering of experimental or jovial editing in another example from Blur's Country House the speeding up of the point of view having Matt Lucas' hand chasing ladies like Benny Hill. This could be said it was attempted by the edited spinning of the bin but it didn't work because of the out of the blue element of it and that the original footage was incorrectly framed to be scaled and spinned. My recommendations for improvement would be to experiment more with a variety of footage, perhaps not on a major project or include it if it doesn't fit but for the style of Brit-pop it would have and may have improved the music video. There was very little intertextuality and what there was, in terms of bins and rubbish being linked to a Blur work and the first roadworks appearance is reference to The Verve, was not that clear and would only be addressed through similar deconstruction I did to the genres music video examples. I would revisit British works gone by and pay homage in shot form or in the miss-en-scene to make clearer intertextuality rather than going on vague inferences, examples of this would be Blur's Country House with the Benny Hill and the Bohemian Rhapsody shot by Queen.

My preproduction skills for this unit was lists and a story board. They both helped and for my production it was with that where I could run with the rest of it, the research was there in my head and I had my actress on board and equipment hired out. I understood though from seeing others work and trying different approaches to preproduction that a combination of all of them are needed for a coherent planning process. I had relative ease with production bar getting started with a insufficient memory card so I would improve that process by checking all my equipment not just in general but a test on what I want to use the equipment on.

The music video starts with audio from my footage taken played at a lower volume my production on the sound was taking the ambient sound on the in built camera. This worked for this but the quality is not brilliant to improve this I would take a Zoom mic in future to gather clearer ambient noise making sure that I had a dead cat to block out wind of course. I used a shot of a street with my actress in the distance at the start of the music video, this was a mistake as the first few shots are the start of my narrative of a morning in Britain where then we cut to inside the characters house, the feeling of morning is shown by going from a dim blue to a grey sky. I thought this would not be noticeable during editing as she was so far away it would appear as someone else but by editing on a half sized screen compared to the video dimensions I recorded and exported in it is clearly noticeable. I would improve this in future by taking more ambient footage for these establishing shots and also for cutaways. The additions of extra ambient footage would offer more clips to edit and could nicely break up a sequence that may have a wildly different take or in transition.

The track kicks in and I immediately cut to the kettle in my indoor shots. These shots are long and I didn't have multiple angles whilst I did have multiple takes this helped in getting a better shot but it meant that I had no complementing shot to cut too leaving me with the choice of holding on that shot or cutting to something new earlier. My productions skills did not shine through in this respect and my recommendations would be to alway grab at least two clearly defined angles.

When leaving the house I have shown some good production skills in my editing creating a temporal overlap with my actresses hair flick and also accomplishing a good match on action shot when closing the door. I achieved the temporal overlap by taking the same part of the movement in three takes and cutting so we see the flip three times, whilst I didn't have multiple angles. My improvement would then be to include more angles which I tried to remedy by zooming closer each time achieved throughout editing on the second clip whilst the third was already focused in more so it was finding the balance with the second. I have discussed the match on action in a different post.

Leaving the house we get the the second and main part of my production whilst this part takes approximately two thirds of the piece it makes it feel as if there should be a third part or that the time allocated to each parts should have been different. In my production I followed in editing as I felt and how the narrative would flow, so from being inside the house we leave outside to the streets and then it gets dark, in regards to the music. I did well in the production by having various elements happen in time with the music such as first showing the roadworks when the first break happens and in adding jump cuts to the longer takes that would happen in time with the music. I would improve this by allocating my space better within the track, have enough footage to fill in the changes and then to tie it together with a stronger destination. This would allow the audience the most enjoyment and information packaged with the visuals and music.


Product
Production skills

Unit 2 Bibliography

Bibliography of Information Used Throughout Presentation

• "What were they?" Slide - Various previously known background information dates checked through www.google.co.uk search engine using Wikipedia pages e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_discography
• Andrew Godwin - Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992) MINNEAPOLIS
• Laura Mulvey - Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema (1975) 
• Blur, Parklife (Music Video) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSuHrTfcikU (1994)
• Blur, Charmless Man (Music Video) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM8agr7_TxE (1995)
• Blur, Country House (Music Video) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci0fyRAw21Q (1996)
• Oasis, Morning Glory (Music Video) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr7MSSPNH9o (1995)
• The Verve, Bittersweet Symphony (Music Video) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lyu1KKwC74 (1997)

Research and results collected and gathered by me through audio and written work for Focus Group and by email and document for Questionnaire.