Our Finished Product...

Here is our finished music video for Fire with Fire by the Scissor Sisters...

Commentary

This is a directors commentary explaing about certain shots we used, and different effects we used.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I believe that our music video is a representative tribute to Scissor Sister’s version of ‘Fire with Fire’, I believe this because the whole idea of their music video is to have fun and ‘spread the love’, As you can see we do show this in our music video especially during the chorus when the people are dancing to the music.

We tried to keep the music video short enough for the audience to keep an interest and not become bored so unfortunately in the final cuts we had to shorten the music video by about 30 seconds. The final length of the music video was 4 minutes, which compared to 3 minutes 30 of the average music video is acceptable. Although our music video does share certain aspects of other music videos i.e. length; it still is original in the way it is directed and by using a narrative. We made sure that the music video had a narrative so the audience can relate to their own personal experience, which in this case was an audition. As you can see in the music video itself, we shown the audience that singing can be fun and once you are in the moment you can feel like an actual star. The audience can also relate to their own personal experiences when listening to the words within the song, for example “fight fire with fire” can relate to everyday situations.

The way we directed the music video did represent ‘Scissor Sister’s’ style and the way they perform. When we did research on similar music videos by the ‘Scissor Sisters’ we found that most of the time their videos were very fast paced which was the result of many jump cuts and high key lighting. We then took this research and merged them into our music video, This is evident throughout the music video by the lack of fade in’s and outs we use, as well as constantly changing the backgrounds, different type of shots and their transitions. We believed that our music video was true to the ‘Scissor Sisters’ style in many ways, this of course was fun. We accomplished this by using their filming techniques but at the same time not mirroring their other songs or their actual version of the ‘fire with fire’.

As a group we created a spider diagram (which is on the blog) about what the narrative could be for the music video, we did analyze all of ‘Scissor Sisters’ music videos and found that they vary in simplicity from ‘Mary’ which was low budget and very easy to replicate, to ‘Don’t feel like dancing’ which is very complicated and full of special effects which had 102 different transitions. We narrowed the ideas down to 4 scenarios; a bullying scene, a dream, listening to an Ipod and finally an audition. We decided to go with the audition because there are hardly any music videos based on this subject; as this is an original idea we believed that this would grab the audience’s attention and therefore making them want to carry on watching. We have also included comedy into out music video during the chorus, we believed that this would make the audience remember these parts and then will tell their friends and family which intern will broaden our sales and downloads.

On the other hand we have included certain aspects into out music that you normally would see on other music videos i.e. close ups and low angle shots. We did also take inspiration from other music videos such as Take That (who repeatedly use panning shots on roofs). We also took inspiration from the posters of other bands and used some of their aspects in ours for example Michael Jackson's CD covers are generally dark or grey which as you can see our music video is mostly black with fire. We believe that because the CD covers and posters are black, the fire on them is eye catching and therefore it sticks out from all of the other CD covers from various other singers.

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

for the video, CD cover and the advertisement we have but fire on them to link i with our song choice, Fire With Fire, aswell in our music video we have clipse of fire. by linking the theme fire if you see the poster the the video you will know it is related and this could attracts the buyer. As well this creates formiliarity

The style of the album cover is linked in with the lyrics and music video. The front page involves fire in the background and the performer in the foreground. The 2^nd page is of the singer singing and in the background there are stars shining this relates to the back cover and to the song he says ‘underneath the sky, there a million lights burning brightly just like fireflies.’ The 3^rd pages is of a circle of fire which would surround the CD this page is very minimalistic but it is effective. The last page is very similar to the 2^nd page which again has stars anda close up of the performer. For the titles we used the same font for all the products again this creates familiarity.

Comparing our Cd cover tothe original, the scissors sisters CD cover doesn’t have a narrative to the song it juxtaposes against it. There CD cover it is of a man behind with a black and white filter and red font which draws you to the title which says ‘night work’. Unlike our CD cover which is a direct response to the song. The CD cover is minimalistic like the original album cover by the Scissor Sisters. Our album cover is also very simplistic . In the original CD cover the artist takes a picture of a mans backside which is opposite to our cover, our album cover is more colorful and contrasting.

The advertisement helps sell the product as it has ratings from recognised sources, which boost the selling of the CD because of the high ratings. This is our main stratergy, also we have used a similar picture to the album cover this again creates familiarity.

We have clearly stated on the advertisement that you can download the album from iTunes which is now a world wide known site. Itunes is virtual library of a wide range of items to go onto a iPod, iPod touch, Nano, Ipad or iPhone ranging from music, video, eBooks and films this is very accessible and is accessed by the Internet and is more likely to be bought than someone going into the shops.

If selling we would advertise in magazines, newspapers, and billboards about the new album, which will hopefully create people talking about the album and will then help the album to be sold. . We would try and achieve what the creators of ‘CALL of DUTY: BLACK OPS’ created. They told buyers about the game months before it was released samples were sold and adverts when it was release records were broken and shops sold out.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback ?

Our audience has praised some aspects of our music video, such as; they said the lip sync was good and they really liked the combination of humour and seriousness that runs throughout the video. They also enjoyed the use of green screen and they thought that it fitted well with the flow of the music. however they have also gave us some constructive criticism this included a spelling mistake in the opening sequence to our video,however when we came across this problem we had already handed our video in to be marked and so there was nothing we could do to change it.

4. How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

During our time filming and editing we used a variety of media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of the project. Firstly during planning we started of with the use of the Apple Mac computers and went online to research what type of genre we could do. Through extensive research on video sharing websites such a ‘YouTube’ we all agreed to make a music video for the song ‘Fire With Fire’ by the Scissor sisters’. After agreeing on the song we then all came together to come up with shooting locations, for this we used Google Maps to find the precise places to film. Also before we went any further we went onto the website Blogger and created a blog to showcase our progress through this project.

Once the shots and locations were agreed on we started with the storyboard, for this we hand drew the storyboard and wrote the shots and lyrics underneath each scene, then with the use of a digital camera we took photographs of each individual shot and uploaded them into the iMovie. Once all the images were in iMovie we arranged them in order and imported the track over the top of the images. We then changed the length of each images to fit the actual length of the shot it represents. Once this was done with converted it to a MP4 file and exported it out of iMovie. Then we uploaded it onto the blog to show what we will be doing in each scene and how each shot will be laid out.

Next we went filming and the camera we used was a Canon Legria FS306. We used the camera on a tripod to capture most of our shots as this provided the steadiest shots. This camera was quite straight forward to use as it recorded straight from the memory card and this enabled us to quickly and easily upload the videos onto the Apple Macs, however we did stumble across a problem when uploaded as the editing program we used which was Final Cut Pro did not recognized the file format of the raw footage and so we used a video converter to convert all the files so they were readable on Final Cut Pro.

Once we had collected all the footage with the Canon Fegria FS306, we then used a JVC GY-HD250 camera with TV adaption’s to film our green screen scenes. These cameras were accessible to us through the use of the new facilities at the college. We filmed various shots using different camera angles. Once we had recorded the shots we then transferred them to the computer we were editing on, and again we had to convert the files so they were readable on the macs.

Once all the clips were uploaded and converted onto the computer we opened up Final Cut Pro and transferred them into this program, we then renamed all the raw footage to enable us to see exactly what we were working with. We also downloaded an mp3 version of the track ‘Fire With Fire’ and imported this into the timeline. Once editing we showcased a variety of skills such as the use of the chroma key, this enabled us to convert the green screen scenes into actual footage that we were going to use. To do this firstly we got the raw footage from the green screen (which showed the characters on a green background) and placed this scene onto the timeline one line above where we actually wanted to place it, then we got the shot that we wanted to put in the background and placed it underneath the green screen scene, after this we went into the effects tab on Final Cut Pro and choose the chroma key, we then dragged the chroma key onto this green screen footage and this allowed us to remove the green areas from the shot, once the green areas were removed the background was then visible in the original green screen shots and this was how we used the chroma key to edit the green screen.

The track we used was over 4 minutes long and through a little discussion we decided we had to trim it down a little, to do this we used the razor tool in the toolbar and took away approximately 35 seconds of the original track, this enabled us to get the best out the scenes and shots we had captured as we were not stretching them to make then fit or putting things into the video that were of no relevance to the rest of the video.

We used a variety of different effects throughout our music video these included; speeding up clips, to do this we put the clip we wanted sped up in the timeline and highlighted it, we then went into the edit tab and there was a tab for changing speed, to speed a clip up we increased the percentage and to slow a clip down we reduced the percentage, additionally to reverse the clip, under the same tab there was a optional box to tick if you wanted to reverse a clip. We also adjusted the brightness and contrast of each clip, to make them more vivid.

Additionally on the blog we have demonstrated the use of various technologies including mp4 files, photographs, links, and word posts. The mp4 files we put on the blog included the iMovie storyboard we had created. We also uploaded location shots of where we were going to film; we did this before we started filming, as it was part of our planning process. Other images we uploaded were screen shots of Final Cut Pro with our work near completion show, we focused on the timeline and preview window. We also took a lot of ‘behind the scenes’ shots while our filming both on location and in the green screen room; these are also on the blog. Finally the word posts that were published included daily entries of our time filming and editing (a description of what we did that day), other entries included location shots and an analysis of the original music video where we got our inspiration from.

CD covers and other ideas.

I believe that this CD cover is original therefore i believe that this is eye catching because of the bright colours and the simplicity of it. As a group, unfortunately we decided not to use this CD cover because it is not truly representative of the song apart from the fire in the back-ground. on the other hand we did use some aspects of this CD cover and use them in the final pieces of work. For example in the final Poster we inserted the Scissor Sisters logo to pay homage to the band.















This is another Cd cover which once again wasn't used as a final piece. we believed that it wasn't truly representative of the song or the style of the music video, we also realised that there wasn't enough information on the actual Cd cover itself. This was a group members second attempt at creating a Cd cover so the Scissor Sisters logo was used, but as you can see we agreed that the logo wasn't obvious enough and was difficult to see.





















This is supposed to be what the CD would look like, although it is a good idea there was no actual need to use it. we all decided that even though it did look good, there was some flaws. For example at places it is badly 'photo shopped', also the writing is difficult to read seeing as it is sideways. It was also argued that although it is the same colour scheme (yellow, orange, red) it did not represent the idea of fire. as a group we also believe that the eye did not relate to the actual song, therefore it would be better if the back ground was an image of fire.

Tuesday December 14th 2010

Today we are recording and finishing the 3^rd question for the evaluation and putting all four sections onto the blog once they are finished. The film is now finished and we have questioned another group about the music video and asked them how we can improve on it, which we will post onto the blog today when it has been edited. We are also gathering any other posters or CD covers that have been created which were not good enough in comparison to the final editions. Today we are also looking through any posts that we have created and making sure there are no spelling mistakes or anything else we can improve on.

The Process Of Our CD Cover...

We wanted our CD cover to reflect the lyrics of the song, in terms of theme. We made a variety of different CD covers and each one a little different but still representing the song in some way.

1st CD cover...

The first cover we completed was a little busy and we thought had to much going on, as it had a vary ‘in your face’ background and due to this the title and artist’s name did not stand out and got a little lost in the background. In addition there was nothing in this first CD cover that symbolized the music video.

2nd CD cover...

Secondly we chose to simplify the CD cover by replacing the busy background with a much simpler but effective image a flames. There is also a connection with the flames and the song lyrics as part of the lyrics for the song to our music video are, ‘We fight fire with fire’. Additionally the song title and artist name now stand our as they were created with a bold font and the font colour was black, as the flames were a red/orange colour the black contrasted against this. We also had a close up of the main character in the foreground and we choose to edit this close up in black and white as again it contrasted with the background. However when we completed this we thought it was a little too simple and we wanted something that was in between the first cover and second.

3rd CD cover...

Finally we came up with the end result, to get this we used a similar flame for the background, however this time the flame is not as dominant we also had a long shot instead of a close up of the main character. We believe that our final CD cover is the best representation of our music video.

Final CD cover insides and back...

Here we connnected all four sides of the CD, as you can see the dominant colour is black, we did this as the flames contrast witht eh colour. We believe this is a true representation of our music video. The first side is the frount CD cover, the second image is the left inside of the CD case, the third side is the right side of the inside of the CD cover (this would be where the cd itselft would go) and the last image is the back of the CD cover.

Plan For Today - December 2nd

Today we are completing any CD covers and magazine advertisements and reviewing which ones to use for our final product. This may be a lengthy process because every member of the team has done a variety of different pieces of artwork which vary in quality and each one demonstraits a diffrent concept of the video. For example a significant amount of the print products envolve the theme of fire whereas other are more focused on the characters face. We are most probably going to use the fire encorporated artwork for our final product as this fits well with the music video.

We will also begin the evaluation starting by taking one question each and answering it to our best standards and then getting other members of our team to look at each others answers and see how they can be improved and enhanced. To answer question 3 'What have you learned from your audiencer feedback', we will be making a video broadcasting audience members reactions whilst watching the music video and then afterwards we will do a short interview asking the audience a variety of questions including; 'what did you enjoy about the music video', 'how do you think it can be improved' and so on.

CD/ Poster

We have all decided to create a part of the CD cover and also have made a few of them so in the end we can choose the one that looks the best.

As well as the CD cover we also had to create a magazines poster again we cretaed different one and here are some we made but in the end decided not to use them


This was our first attempt at the poster we decided to use a billboard as it if differnt to orignal poster but we thought in the end it juxtaposed against the CD cover. So we decided not to use it.






This was our second attempt at the poster we like this design as it was simple yet effective, however we thought the grey wont wasn't that good to use, as it dosent stand out that much making it slightly difficult to read.


This our final magazine poster. it is similar to the one above although we have changed the font to white, because it is more pronoment manking it easier to read. As well we have changed the 'available to download now' By adding the word 'CD' it makes it sound like it is available in a different format not just download.
The poster is simple yet effective and with the rating on at the side it will attract viewers to buying the song as it is highly rated. The colour are similar to the rest of the products (video & CD Cover) This would create familiarity making it recognisable.

Editing

We have now converted all the green screen parts and put either a clip of fire or a picture of lights. With these on the video looks a lot for effective and it relates more to the song. As well as this we had to cut part of the song down as it was to long going over 4 minutes, this was unecessary.

Here are some screen clips of editing...

1)

The editing software we used was Final Cut Pro, here is a screen shot of our project. We used two screens to edit on on the left (top) screen we have the list of all the raw footage we took, which once we uploaded we found we had more than enough to work with turned out to be helpful as then we could pick out the best footage to work with. Also on the left (top) screen we had a tab for effects, as we were constantly using effects to convert the green screen shots with the use the chroma key. As you can see from our timeline we have used a variety of different shots, and have a lot of edited footage. We also have the track of the song which is 'Fire with Fire' by the Scissor Sisters at the bottom of the timeline. On the right (bottom) screen as you can see we had the video preview , this was advantageous as then we could see what we were doing when editing and cutting clips to make them fit with each other.

2)

Here is a close up screen shot of our timeline, as you can see the start of the song doesn't come in until 14 seconds from the beginining, we did this as we wanted to create the idea of a music audition to our video, so at the begining we have no sound and once our main character walks into the audition room and is about to sing that is when the music starts. We think this was the most effective way of creating this concept. The track has been cut 6 times in several places during the duration of the music video, we did this originally as the track was far to long as our limit was 3 miniutes and 30 seconds and the original track was way over 4 miniutes, we found the best places to cut the song and feel like the track still flows well throughout. At the begining of the song the shots are longer but as the chorus starts it gets shorter and chopier as we believe this is what happens in a typical song of this genre.

3)

This is the tab off all the raw footage we have collected over the time filming, as stated before we had more than enought to work with. we renamed all the footage to make it easier to work with as we didnt have to watch every video to find the one we wanted, but just find the name of the shot.

Editing November 23rd

Today is November 23rd and the deadline is closely coming up, we are well in the way to completing our final music video in time for the deadline. Today we are continuing with the editing and have collected a variety of short clips of fire to use for our chorus of the song, We plan to arrange them in the background of the clips of people singing the chorus on the green screen with the use of the chroma key in Final Cut Pro. We will be doing this as we believe the clips of the fire will link in with the lyrics of the song.

Filming, Tuesday 16th Nov & Editing, Thursday 18th Nov

Today we uploaded the last part of the scenes, and we are edited them. We have discussed a schedule to make sure we can finish the music video on time. We have decided to edit on Tuesday break time, throughout the whole lesson that day and possibly stay behind for a hour or so after college to hopefully finish the editing to the highest standard possible.

If we have more finish early than expected we will put on the blog some out take of the shot we have not used and explain the reason why we didn't includer them.

On Tuesday we filmed some of our last scenes which included the audition part. Shot that were included were a high angle shot of the performance, and a variety of panning shots and close up of Josh performing. As well that day we went in to the city centre to get a few more scenes done. We again did another shot of Market St as it was much busier and this would give more impact to the video. We also did another shot of Josh singing down Market St as the previous shot was to shaky to use. Plus we did a panning shot of Josh on the arndale roof singing, this included some shots of the surroundings. Also there was a large puddle on the roof creating a good reflection so we got Josh to walk through it creating his reflection, This shot looked interesting , we will try to fit it in the music video but if it doesnt fit we wont use it.

Editing (Green Screen)

Last lesson we continued with the editing. We placed the green screen scenes on to the time line. It was quite difficult getting the lip sync to fit in with the song, but in the end we managed to do it. We also learnt how to change the green screen background to the specific scene we wanted to put behind the characters who were on the green screen in this case it was a market street scene.

Firstly we collected and arranged the entire green screen clips and placed them in the appropriate places on the timeline just above the clips we wanted to put in the background. Once we had done this we then removed the green areas from all the videos, we had to do this one by one as it would not let us select them all, mainly because each shot was different and different areas of green needed to be removed from the different shots, although this was very time consuming we were focused and managed to get it done. After we had done this it was time to place the clips we wanted in the background and as we had already removed the green it was a simple process of using the chroma key and dragging it onto the green screen shot we wanted. We then did this for all the other green screen clips.

Media filming session Tuesday 9th November 2010

Last Tuesday we performed one of the final filming sections needed to complete the video, during this session planned to use a band in this section but due to lack of time and connections we could not do it. I do believe that the music video did not suffer with this loss because we still projected the fun and energy in the performance, which is representative to the original music video. We did a variety of shots for the starting of the video of the character walking down a corridor towards the audition room, we made sure we used a variety of shots i.e. low angle shots, close ups and action shots.

During this session we had close ups of the judges which we will use in the music video, we made sure that all the judges had subtle differences in the things they did either this being a facial expression e.g. a smile; or a physical factor like tapping the table or folding their arms. We did encounter some difficulties when creating this short section, this was when we tried to organise a space which fitted our needs and which was free at the time seeing as it is in a college; luckily enough this time it was free but we also had a back up plan where we would go out instead and re-film any parts on top of the Arndale or Piccadilly which was out of time or the camera was shaking when the original filming session was taking.

Green screen 'behind the scenes'

On Tuesday 2nd November we filmed our green screen shots. Here are a few photographs to show what we did and how we used the equipment.

This was one of three cameras which we used to capture our footage, this camera was called camera 1, We used it to film our close up shots and we used camera 2 for our long shots and camera 3 for our high angle shots. Aswell as this we filmed one continious shot of the entire song using camera 2. To make sure we had perfect lyp synching we connected a music device to a set of speakers and used this as a guide to the beat of the music. There are also two screens on this particulare camera one on the frount of the camera and one around the back. The screen on the frount is used for auto-cue, (however we did not need this for our shots) and the screen on the back shows us what will be in our shot. As you can see from the picture above the green screen is being shown in the back screen.

This is a collection of four photographs of camera 3 which was the camera that was set lower to the ground we used this camera primarilay to capture our high angle shots. As shown in the photograph we also used it to shoot a close up of the main character singing. Throughout the chorus we switch continiously from cameras 1, 2, and 3. The lighting was very important for shooting with the green screen as as we needed to avoid shaddows appearing in the shots as this would create a darker area and when editing it the software may not pick up this darkened area and it will create a hole in our backdrop. We also had to make sure that whoever was in shot was not wearing any visable green clothes as this would be picked up when editing and whatever was green would become part of the backdrop. Fortunatly we did not have this problem as our character was wearing all grey.

This photograph demonstraits how to use this camera, firstly the handle on the left alters the focus of shots and by twisting the handle on way or the other the focus will become in focus or out of focus, and you have to get the right balance on the handle to get a perfectly focused shot. Secondly there is a small switch just above the right handle which controls the level of zoom. This camera is set on a tripod with wheels so to stop the camera from moving there is a brake on the wheel, (similar to a brake on a shopping trolly) which secures the camera in place when doing still shots and also when not in use.

Here is a twp photographs one of the green screen that we used, this screen was actually grey not green but with the use of a green light ring attacted to the lens of the camera(as shown in the other photograph) it will project the colour green onto any surface. We plan to use the chroma key to inset another shot behind the greenscreen shot to make is seen as if the character is actually somewhere else. In our music video we will be doing this by haveing the main character shood on the green screen singing, and the with the use of the chroma key insert the backdrop of a busy town centre.

This is three photographs of the equipment that was used to actually record and save our shots. The keyboard has two rows of nublers that we used which were numbered 1-6 (these were the camera numbers), As we only had three camera we just used nublers 1-3. To use this all we had to do was press the number on the keyboard of the camera we wanted to record from and that camera would show up on the top right hand corner of the screen and to record what we had to do was click a small button underneather the top right hand corner which said 'Record' and when we wanted to stop filming we would just click the record button again and it would stop recording.

Filming so far...

On the 7th October we started our filming for the music video. We went into Manchester city centre and filmed the exterior shots. The first shot was of a variety of ordinary people walking up and down market street doing their daily business (e.g., going to work or shopping). As well as filming this we went onto the roof of the Arndale car park and filmed various shots of Josh (main singing character) walking and singing, These shots included a long shot of him facing the camera with the overlook of the city behind him. However when we looked at the storyboard we discovered that we had filmed the wrong scene, as we started filming from the beginning of the song and the storyboard states that the opening to the song will be a performace/auditon scene. So we reshot everything, to make it match the storyboard. We didn't get everything filmed we were planning to because of the mix-up during the beginning of the day so when we went out to film again we went back to the Arndale rooftop/car park and did a over the shoulder shot of Josh looking over at buildings and also various shots of buildings using extreme long shots. We also did a few extra shots that weren’t on the storyboard e.g., Josh inside the Arndale Additionally we shots extra footage of water fountains which are in the centre of Piccadilly gardens, these shots were difficult to shoot as we had to wait until the water go to just the right height to get the effect we wanted, but after a while of trial and error we were happy with the results. Finally we shot a scene of Josh singing one verse of the song whilst walking towards the camera through the middle of Market Street. We also decided to reshoot the footage we hade shot earlier f the people walking down market street and at this time it was buiser and there were more people which would give us a better effect in the long run.

Filming Schedule

We will be filming various scenes for our music video over the coming weeks, here is the filming schedule which we will use as a basis to enable us to know what to film, where and when...

Thursday 7^th OcT 2010...

We plan to start the day filming a variety of scenes in the centre of Market Street. The main shots we want to film include; long and extreme long shots of everyday shoppers walking up and down a busy market street, We will later edit these shots with the use of final cut pro to speed/slow and reverse the shots and use them in the chorus of the song. We also plan to shoot a empty shot with a busy background of people, transportation and/or buildings in the background as we will later add a person into the centre of this shot with the use of green screen.

Tuesday 12^th Oct 2010...

Todays filming includes shoots on top of the Manchester Arndale car park, whilst on the car park we will be shooting a long shot, extreme long shot and close up of the main singing character walking around the rooftop singing to the song and looking around at their surroundings, we will use low angle shots to emphasis the fact that they are high up looking down at the buildings. We will also be filming these same scenes but in a different location (Piccadilly gardens), and once it comes to editing we will mix and match different parts of both scenes to fit together with the song. Finally We will also film at the triangle in Manchester, which is a very popular place and as a result there will be many people around, we plan to place the main singer on a lofted area such as brick steps so they are higher than the surrounding people around.

Thursday 14^th Oct 2010...

We will not be filming and location shots today, instead we will upload all the footage we have onto final cut pro, we will then arrange the shots into the right order and rename then to keep everything organised. Once this is done we will get everything ready for our next day of shooting. On our next day of filming we will be shooting the audition scenes and so we will need to get hold of a drum kit, microphone and stand, a guitar, a keyboard and also a cd player. All of these will be available from the music and drama departments within college. Although we will not be filming location shots we will be doing some filming with the use of the green screen, we plan to complete a collage of different people singing the chorus and then with the use of the green screen we will drop a background into it. However we may instead film the same shots with the use of the green screen but instead of creating a collage of people we may just create a variety of quick shots instead. We will film both and see which one fits best. Also today we will be updating the blog with screen shots of our editing we have done so far and a description of what it is we plan to do with the uploaded footage.

Tuesday 19^th Oct 2010...

Today we will be filming the diagetic shots of the music video which take place at the begining and end of the music video. Firstly we will shot a long/medium shot of the band walking into the audition room, and also a close up of the audition poster. We will also film them actually walking into the audition stage and setting up there instruments, with close up and medium shots of the judges sat at there desk. we will also film the first few scenes of the begining of the some

Tuesday 26^th Oct

Today we will be filming the majority of the Audition scenes on location in the the theatre. We plan to film in a variety of shots including close-ups, extreme close-ups, long-shots, and extreme - long shots, as well as panning shots and high angle shots. we will be using a variety of props for this particular scene, these props will include, a guitar, a drum set, a keyboard, a microphone and stand and also a portable cd player or ipod docking station. This audition scene will be the performance section to our music video and we will cut back to it regularly throughout the duration of the song. As well as filming the performance we will also be filming shots of the three judges sat on the judges panel, and we will shoot close-up of there facial expressions, we will also film a panning shot of all three judges.

Thursday 28th Oct

Today we plan to edit all the footage we have recored to date. We will organize the shots into the timeline and this will help up to figure out what else, if anything we have left to film. at this point we should have all the footage we need and so all we have left to do it edit it together to make it work. We will add transitions, speed clips up and slow clips down, even reverse some clips. One thing we need to make sure of is to get the lip syncing correct so it matches the rythem of the song. Hopefully the lip syncing is fine as throughout filming we have made sure to bring the track with us and play it whenever we are shooting as it will allow us to get the right timing for the particular part of the song we needed to record. We will also be updating the blog to inform the readers what we have achieved so far.

Tuesday 2nd Nov

Today is a day for any touch-ups that are needed to our music video, or if we need to reshoot anything (e.g, if the lighting is bad or if there are unwanted people in the shot, or even if the shot is a little to shaky). Also if there is any last minute editing we need to do, although we should actually be finished or nearly finished with editing the music video. We will also be carrying on with our blog as it is a important factor that contributes towards the music video.

Storyboard

We have desided to create a video based storyboard as it has enabled us to visualize the desired outcome of our music video.

Examples

In our music video we are doing a part where the main singer is still and the people in the back ground are sped up, an example for where this has been done is Jason Derulo, What if at 3.35

We are also going to do a collage of people singing. In 'Example Kick Start' video they do a collage of feet tapping at the beginning of the song, and we want a similar effect.

Another example of a collage being done is in 'BoB ft Bruno Mars, Nothing On You' this is done through out their video.

shot list

For our music video we will use a variety of shots, like:

• Long shots

• Medium shots

• Close ups

• Extreme close ups

• Panning shots

• High angle shots

• Low angle shots

Props, Equipment, Costumes

Props

• Poster
• Radio
• Table & chairs

Equipment

• Camera
• Green screen
• Lights (may be)

Costumes

• In town, casual/smart duffle coat, jeans
  
• In audition, singer; smart/casual duffle coat, jeans, shirt,
  
• Others, smart/casual , jeans, shirt.

Music Video analysis

I Don’t Feel Like Dancing – Scissor Sisters.

The video we will be analyzing will be ‘I don’t feel like dancing’ by the Scissor Sisters. The genre to this video is pop/dance, we have chosen this video to analyze as it is a similar genre to ‘Fire with fire’ and this is the song we will be creating a music video to. The length of this music video is 4:22 seconds.

Performance

Firstly the music video ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing’ is mainly performance however it does have aspects of narrative running throughout. The performance is demonstrated through the use of green screen, and special effects, such as from the beginning of the music video right through to the end there are various shots that continue to overlap each other, these shots are juxtapose against each other as they are all different from each other and don’t relate. This creates an interesting yet confusing experience for the viewer. There is no repetition of shots throughout the video, which keeps the audience attention.

Narrative categories

There is a narrative aspect as the lyrics of the song talk about dancing and the performers are dancing. The amplification and disjuncture shows that the backgrounds that were used in the music video have no direct link to the lyrics. However this creates a unique interpretation of the song, as it has unusual and bizarre ideas, which makes it quite surreal capturing the audience attention.

An example of this from the time 3.28 to 3.34 there is a shot of a woman screaming at a man with a plain background. While thought the rest of the video the shots are very abstract

Audio/visual

There are various camera shots used in the video from beginning to end there was a total of 102 shots. All of theses shots were merged together with the use of video-editing software. The very first shot is a medium panning shot of a young boy looking at a poster on the wall, (which later turns into singing heads) this lasts from 0.00 to 0.05. Another example of a shot that was used an extreme long shot, (ELS) of the main singer this lasted from 0.31 to 0.43. The final shot that was used was a medium zoom out shot to a child watching the music video being played this lasted from 4.11 to 4.15.

Editing

The editing in the video is extreme as through out the video there is some sort of editing. E.g. People rotating in mid air and others moving across the screen in a way that wouldn’t be possible without the use of green screen. The background always changes but the editing of it is seamless. There is no jump cuts from scene to scene. However the shots seem to flow to the next. The editing move quite fast as the scene don’t last very long this mean the audience have to keep watching otherwise they’ll miss something. This may have been done purposely by the director so the audience keeps their interest in the video.

Lighting

The lighting changes throughout the video, because in the beginning the lighting is high key and the colour is very saturated. Although in other parts of the video the lighting is low key and the colour is slightly muted. The lighting effects in this video enhance the atmosphere as the use of special effects (such as the flashing lights) indicates a change in the beat of the music.

Mise-en-scene

The main performer is wearing a bright purple leather jumpsuit throughout the entire song, which helps him stand out from everyone else, as everyone else was wearing other fabrics such as cotton. This ‘out there’ costumes helps the viewer to identify his as the lead singer. This is the norm for pop videos as the main performer wears the more outrageous clothes. None of the music video was shot on location and so the mise en scene for the setting is very restricted, however the use of green screen aids the sensation of different locations.

here is the original music video.

http://www.muzu.tv/scissorsisters/i-dont-feel-like-dancin-music-video/196929

Treatment

Our music video will start with a male looking at a poster explaining about an audition. Then we see the group walk into the audition room. We have the judges sitting at a table, 2 of them happy while the other is not. We have the group getting ready and one will put a radio on the floor and he presses play. Then they start playing. One will play the keyboards, another will play the drums and we will have the singer playing a guitar and singing. During there performance we will see shots of the judges reaction they will be tapping there feet and bobbing there heads in enjoyment. Then when we will see a person holding up a sign with the number 1 in the city centre. Then the person will fade out. Them we will return to the band playing we will have close up of the instruments playing, and then cutting to a shot of the judges. Next the audition cuts to the singer on top of Manchester Andale car park looking over the city. The male will be walking around the roof looking at the buildings surrounding him. Then there a shot of the singer on Market Street with the public walking very fast while the singer is at normal speed. Then the public will freeze while the male is still singing. Next we have a collage of peoples faces sing in at the same time, but the faces moves around.

We will then cut back to the audition of the whole band playing together, after that again we will have close up of there instruments, and then back to the band and cutting to the judges. Again we will have a collage of people singing again. Then we will go back to the male singing in down cutting from al the different location in town. Ending we will have a close up of the singer finishing, It will then go back to the judges the quickly going back to the band who have moved to the front of the stage. The last shot will be an over shoulder shot of the judges giving a standing ovation and you can see the band.

location list

market st. We will film the busy streets with people walking. And in editing we will speed the up with our performer at regular speed.

Piccadilly gardens. We will film here in the day time

triangle ,corporation st. We will also film here in the day and at night

Manchester Arndale car park. We will shoot this at night

And Loreto colleges theatre.

Introduction

This is B1-10 group 6, consisting of Rebecca Smith, Rachel Ward, Joshua Gallagher and Connor Gallagher. We will be creating a music video and blog to compliment a song of our choice. During pre-production we researched online a variety of songs, which we narrowed, down to a final few. With the help of 'Muzu.tv' and 'lyrics mania' we all agreed that our final decision would be the song 'Fire With Fire' by the Scissor scissors. We believed this would be a good choice as the genre is very upbeat so it would give us various ideas to work with, and although it will be a challenge we are all ready to take it on. The lyrics to this song enable us to basically create any music video we want as it has a range of meanings. We chose this song as it has a great rhythm and beat to it and we are sure we can create an amazing music video to compliment the song. To start of we printed of the lyrics to this song and annotated it with notes, and brainstorms of ideas we had, and things we wanted to do.

Here are a few ideas we have for our music video...