Experiments

I tried some experiments with the most recent footage we filmed in the forest with the new camera...

In this first experiment i tried changing the speed half way through the shot to make it look more alive and possessed in a way. 

In this second experiment i played with reverse and how the leaves went up before she opens her eyes, which in a way triggers Noxa to open her eyes....

Filming 06/12/15

Today we went to the forest to film with the new camera. We refilmed some of the scenes we already had, but made them look better from different angles and as well as that we tried out the bleeding rose shot with food colouring...

Risk assessment 01/12/15

New Camera Experiments

Yesterday we filmed with the new camera to test out how it works and played with the settings and special features it has. In this first video we played with the focus of the camera and the lighting. As you can see the camera doesnt show that yellowy tone that the previous camera did, so this makes everything look smoother and more cinematic. Even though the entire shot is just us switching focus from the phone to what the reflection on the phone is showing, it makes it look very dramatic and adds an enigmatic effect if the reflection is important to for example the narrative of the video .

In this next video we again experimented with using slow motion, but the higher quality makes it look so much smoother than before. 

After this with the shots we had, as we used a skateboard for some of the pan shots and tried filming while riding it , we decided to make a short film, so we made it very dramatic with some reverse effects and change of speed as well as a black and white tint and this is what it looked like.

.....

New Camera

On the 27th of November, myself and my fellow media studies advocates aquired a new camera - The Cannon XF100!

As clearly shown by the footage recorded by this new amazing camera, we experimented with Focus and Panning on a skateboard and is far superior to our previous camera! We decided to reshoot some of the footage as it looked much more cinematic and professional. As a result, this vastly enhances the footage we will shoot in the future!

Media Trip

Today we went on a media trip to the British Film Institute to learn about music videos and learn about the history and making of them. There was a famous music video director called Prano Bailey Bond who was interviewed. She told the audience a lot of music video techniques that she used to direct and create her videos, which inspired me to use some of these effects. Some examples of the music videos she made are below ..

Reverse Effect (dripping wax)

In this image i tried dripping wax and put it in reverse to see how it would look and if it would be effective to use in the actual music video.

Update

Today we are going to the forest to film some footage and experiment with some creative objects such as smoke, fire or paint. We aim to film some destruction scenes today but we will see how it goes...

Playing With Fire Experiment (Slow Motion + Reverse)

As i like the idea of slow motion and reverse effects to make the music video look smoother and more artistic i decided to experiment using a candle, lighter, matches and incense sticks to see what kind of smoke or fire effects i could do and possibly play with. As well as this i also tried creating something with red wax dripping down, which makes it look dangerous in a way.

In this video i tried to experiment with the artistic concepts of the music video and see if anything would be effective. After making this video i thought that some bits could be effective depending on the lighting and angle. 

Drama Room Scene Editing (Reverse)

From some scenes that we took i decided to experiment and play around with different effects that could work for the actual music video. One effect i really like is the reverse effect, which gives everything a very surreal, but cool looking effect. If things are filmed to fall, in reverse it looks like they are flying away. 

The first scene i edited was the mask being thrown on the ground, but by reversing the image it makes it fly up, like it's alive...

In this second shot you can see the normal and the reverse side by side. The reverse effect gives it a different feel and it interprets the meaning of it differently. It changes its entire concept.

The next time we film i would like to experiment with filming smoke in slow motion or reverse, as it will give the video a very smooth and artistic effect and as well as this maybe play with light and colour within the smoke shots/

Inspiration

This music video inspired me in the way it is made using the smoke as mise-en-scene, sometimes in slow motion to make it look smoother and creepier, even more mysterious with the masks that the people in the video are wearing, so i thought smoke would be a good idea for a music video as it looks quite beautiful and artistic with the shots that we already have. The white room or background is also a good idea, which we could think about in the destruction shots.

Filming

Today we filmed in the drama room and experimented with lighting and different angles. Some angles gave us flares and silhouettes which were interesting to see. We could experiment with the footage by adding slow motion or reverse and see how that works, as we want our video to be quite artistic. 

Here are some screen shots of some of the footage we took today:

 In this picture we are experimenting with silhouettes in the light, so Noxa is standing in front of the light. This brings out the mystery in the shot. As well as this as we cannot see her face the identity is hidden in the darkness.

We tried to see what the light will be like if Noxa flipped her hair back aswell just like we planned on the storyboard beforehand and it worked quite well. The hair also looks quite gentle and smooth so that was a good way to portray that.

Update

Today i am going to watch some videos of the alternative rock genre and edit some of the footage we already filmed to see if there are any certain styles that music video directors and editors use to edit their footage. The footage we have is in the drama room again, so we experimented with lighting, silhouettes and flares. 

Inspiration

This picture inspired me to have a similar shot in the video as it related to the concept of destruction of something pure and innocent. As well as this the picture was taken in the forest which also relates to our location.

Audience Research Analysis

For my audience research I did an interview to see what the audience would like to see in an alternative rock music video.As well as this me and my group did an online questionnaire and handed out questionnaires as well to see what a range of people like. This helped us decide what to include in our final piece.  The feedback was very useful as we realised that a forest is a really good place to film our music video, as it is creepy and mysterious and it relates to the song that we are doing. In the interview we can see that people were confused by the name NOXA and had no idea what it meant, so we decided to keep it as it is quite mysterious in a way as well ans this is the star image we would like to portray throughout, so overall the audience research was very useful. If I were to conduct audience research again, I would get a more narrow target audience, which mostly listens to the alternative rock genre as they would be more familiar with what kind of connotations the music video could include or portray.

Music Video Treatment

The name "NOXA", which is our singer's stage name, comes from the Latin word for "harm". The reason we chose this name is because having a name in a different language especially an ancient one such as Latin gives the artist mysterious traits and a sense of a mystical appeal from the fan base, as they would want to know why the singer has such a unique name. The name of the original song is Narcissistic Cannibal by Korn and Skrillex. The version we are going to use is a cover by Earlyrise which is much more gentle and has a larger emotional impact in the way it is presented which we decided would suit Noxa's image, as the lead of Earlyrise is female. The genre of our song is alternative rock and so is the entire Noxa Album, which links it perfectly with the overall album theme and as well as that gives away the singer image. Our target audience is mainly people between the age of 16-25, as they are the broadest range of audience that listens to this type of music and is interested in that certain style and image, as well as genre. The style of our music video is a mixture of Narrative with Conceptual features throughout, making the video and an artistic piece of expressive emotion and explosive feelings kept inside. We wrote a copyright letter to Earlyrise asking for permission to use their song in our video, so that would not be an issue when filming.

The overall idea of the music video is that Noxa is stuck in a purgatory. Various different shots and concepts we have developed are based around that idea and symbolise it. The scenes we currently have and story boarded are 15, but these are the most important scenes we have which could be developed further possibly with different angles and cut down to more scenes or different locations. The first scene we wanted to film is Noxa lying on the grass in a forest and being sprinkled by white rose pettles wearing a white dress as white symbolises purity. In that scene her eyes are closed and the camera slowly zooms in from a bird's eye view. We planned to film this shot while climbing a tree, so we could get the right angle for the scene. This shot is also artistic and has some features of the narrative. There is no clear narrative of our song and it is mostly metaphorical and conceptual, therefore so are our scenes. Another powerful scene we planned out is Noxa crushing a red rose and it turning into blood, which would symbolise how the Narcissistic Cannibal has crushed her and as well as that loss of innocence and destruction of purity. We will show this on the line "I just wanna break this crown" We will also have some isolation shots showing her alone on a hill. As well as isolation this will represent loss of identity and independence as she will be a silhouette in a dark colour. Some creative and expressive shots will be towards the end of the music video when the song becomes more intense at "Sometimes i hate the life i made" which is the start of the last verse. At this point the shots will have Noxa breaking things, escaping, throwing objects, crushing meaningful or symbolical items, splashing of paint will be involved making it artistic and expressive of her explosive feelings gushing out of her. These shots could be appropriate for the lines "Everything is wrong every time!". As well as these shots we will have one of her being captured by vines. This will be filmed in the forest, next to a wall or tree showing that she is restrained and trapped in this state of mind. This shot will be during the words "Pushing on i can't escape" There will also be random shots of Noxa exploring her purgatory, but making them meaningful as well, with the use of Mise-en-scene, lighting, colour, angles and camera movement. A shot we will have when she says "Holding on I'm lost in a haze" will be an over the shoulder shot of her watching her two separate paths and being confused about the direction she will take. This could symbolise heaven vs hell and her confusion of which path in life to take next. The forest is her time to reflect on life. It is in her mind. Metaphorical. Other shots will be in a dark space possibly with doll make up and Noxa hung on strings showing how powerless she is and how she is being controlled by the Narcissitic Cannibal.


The characters we consider having are the main singer - Noxa, She will be in most of the shots. We might include shots of the Narcissistic Cannibal and not revealing his identity showing, not his face but his dark intentions, through the use of colours - him wearing a black mask. We might also include figures wearing masks, which could be the voices in her head in the darkness, angel/devil etc.

For now our locations include a forest and dark room. The forest includes shots in various places such as on hills, bridge, lake, rocks, which are arranged in a ceremonial dark and sacrificial way which could be quite interesting to film. Our audience research helped us develop the perfect locations to film this video, as a lot of them said that a forest and a dark place was a perfect location for an alternative music video and when they heard the song they thought of a forest.

Some forms of Mise-en-scene we are going to use are props, but as well as that it is lighting and colour that is key for the effect we want to produce over the audience. In order to capture the perfect atmosphere we are going to use the dark room to film shots that play with lighting. For example only half of Noxa's face showing and the other half hidden by darkness, would be a good way to show good vs evil. We planned to use a white dress and white rose to show purity and we will destroy both to show the destruction of purity and innocence. We will also use white and black masks to show loss of identity and one's self. White masks will show innocence ( the good) and black masks will show a dark soul and evil intentions (the bad). As well as this for the doll scenes we will need doll make up and possibly fake blood and paint for some of the scenes.

The equipment we will need is very basic, as to film this we will not need a studio or green screens. We will need a camera, tripod, lights - for the dark room scenes and reflectors. We might need further equipment during the filming, but this is all we plan to use for now, as we have planned each shot thoroughly,

Certain difficulties we might experience are the high angles, as we plan to have quite a lot and they are mostly in the forest we might have to climb trees, which could be quite difficult and dangerous to do. As well as this our high angle shots will probably not be that stable, as we cannot use a tripod on a tree. We might have difficulties finding the right props, such as the white dress and use a black dress instead. A difficulty we may also experience is when filming certain shots, we can only film them once, so we would have to be extra careful while filming them and make sure it goes to plan or they would not look right, such as throwing black paint on the dress, we would have to practice throwing water beforehand and see what the effect we want to achieve would be.

Overall we want to create a meaningful and artistic music video with elements of narrative that would capture the star image of Noxa as an alternative dark and twisted musical performer with surreal, and possibly psychological style.

Update - Storyboard

Today we finished our storyboard's first draft. 

Location

Today we visited our location and found several different places that would be perfect to film at.

(images from Jasmine's blog)

The raason why we chose a forest for our final location is because other songs of the alternative rock genre often film their music videos in forests. In  a way it looks very mysterious and the forest in our video is supposed to represent the purgatory state that Noxa is in, so this forest that we chose is perfect for what we want to achieve.

It is located near Motspur Park so it is not far from where all the group members live, meaning that we could go back and film at any time if necessary and we wouldnt have to spend a lot of money on the location because we can get in there and shoot for free, so it is perfect.

Some other music videos filmed in a forest with a similar concept are :

Update - Location

Tomorrow we will be visiting our location, so today we planned what we are going to do. Our main location is a forest so we are going to go and see what kind of shots we can do. The different types of shots and angles would depend on position, so we decided we are going to climb trees and see how high angles would look. Some more types of shots are a frame, so we are going to use bushes or tree branches to create a frame of the shot we are filming to create mystery and possibly hide certain faces we don't want exposed, such as the narcissistic cannibal's face which we considered keeping a mystery, so it creates an enigmatic feel. After we visit our location we are going to upload some pictures of the certain angles we need for the video and check out shots that are effective etc.

Music Video Analysis

This video by Bring Me The Horizon is made of different moving images edited together to make it look fragile and interesting. The setting is also quite cold as it is filmed in snow. This video is also quite metaphorical as the band's image is also quite cold and so is the song and it being filmed in a cold atmosphere adds a certain element of relevance to it. 

There are many interesting shots that also are made to look quite powerful. The lead singer is holding a flare which makes him dominant in the cold harsh weather. This is also a very powerful shot as he is in the middle of the screen and is holding it up like a flag. This shows that a video can be made creatively and have an interesting concept making it personal to the viewer as they could interpret it in different ways relating to their own life and see it from their own perspective. 

I think that as the flare symbolises power we could use something similar in our video to symbolise the authority of the "narcissistic cannibal" over the girl's life. The way that the lead singer is standing and his posture suggests that it is an important part of the video. This shot occurs a number of times throughout the music video and is usually in pink black and white. As white is very bright and visible it is on the lead's face to also symbolise the importance and authority.

Audience Research Part 2 (Interviews)

I did an interview with some of my friends to see what kinds of things they expect and like in music videos. Their answers helped me see how appropriate the ideas and setting are for our music video. They answered the questions from the survey we made in detail and reviewed certain elements

Audience Research Part 1

We have made an audience survey to find out what our target audience would want from a music video?

1)      How old are you?

-10 or younger

-11-17

-18-21

-22-30

-31-40

-41+

2)      How often do you watch music videos?

3)      What is your favourite music genre?

4)      What is your favourite thing about music videos?

5)      How appropriate do you think filming a music video in forest would be for an alternative rock genre?

1    2     3     4     5     6     7     8     9     10

6)      What is your favourite song?

7)      What is your favourite music video?

8)      Why do you like it?

9)      In your opinion where do you think is the most suitable location to film an alternative rock music video?

10)   Who are your favourite rock bands?

11)   Why are they your favourite rock bands?

12)   What word comes to mind when you hear the name NOXA? What does it remind you of?

13)   What does Narcissistic Cannibal mean to you?

14)   Do you prefer music videos with a story or something more artistic and meaningful?

15)   Do you like the idea of using a dark atmosphere in an alternative rock music video?

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is based on the assumption that music videos have a certain cinematic feel to them. This may also include elements of fashion, art and photography as well as cinema. Music directors choose to do this as it gives the music video a familiar atmosphere. This also includes synergy of soundtrack releases. An example of intertextuality is Avril Lavigne's Alice (Underground) music video. This is a clear example of intertextuality because it is completely based around the film Alice in Wonderland that came out in 2010. It was also used as a synergy technique to promote both.

There are a lot of refertances to the Alice in Wonderland (2010) film throughout the whole video. Some examples of this are:

 The bunny from wonderland is shown in one of the first shots and Avril Lavigne follows it , similar to the original story.....









There are shots of the Cheshire cat which also links in with the original Wonderland and the film.

This scene is from the actual film as she is falling down the hole.

She goes into a mysterious forest giving us the impression that she is going into Wonderland...

She is in the rabbit hole, strongly referencing the film and original book....

 In this shot we can see Avril Lavigne taking up the character of "Alice" from Alice in Wonderland and as well as that we can see the mad hatter and the original table from the film - their tea party...

In this shot we see she is in a forest again surrounded by massive mushrooms relating strongly to the film and book again.

Voyeurism

Voyeurism is when the human body is used for sexual appeal within the audience of a music video, for example showing certain body parts of a female/ male body to attract an audience, or making a video overly sexual.

The video Be The One by Lloyd has a lot of male and female voyeurism and is made in a very obviously sexual way for the audience to get attracted to and want top continue watching because of the nude and adult content.

 The body language of the performers also suggests that the video is very keen on voyeurism for a successful outcome.

Lighting Workshop Footage

By using the footage we filmed in the lighting workshop i edited it to create a part of a scary story. Although it is incomplete i tried out some techniques that i thought would work well in order to make the atmosphere more intense. The lighting we used in the drama room on one side of the face was an interesting effect which me and my group are considering using for the final video as it looks so good and it has such a powerful impact on the audience, as the shot and lighting is very meaningful as well as the lyrics and music of the song.

Update

We have been thinking about our band/artist's name and we decided that we are going to have a band. The band's name we decided on for now is INFERNUM, which translates to hell in Latin. The name is quite sinister and Gothic in a way, as the genre we have chosen for our band is also quite dark and deep and the style of it will be quite artistic and meaningful.

Website Analysis

Update - http://petrovaborie.wix.com/band

In today's first lesson we practiced making a website for our band on www.wix.com

I made the layout for what the band website should roughly look like after we have decided on a name and have done the band posters etc. The official link for this website is -http://petrovaborie.wix.com/band
In this website template that i made and might use for the real website in the future there are certain elements that other official bands have used so it is relate able. 

Band/Artist Websites

On almost every band page we can see that the main page is mostly black and white so the information about the artist pops up and stands out from everything else.

The home page usually starts with their new singles, for example when you go on The Weeknd's home page his new video comes up straight away before anything else. This is a method of marketing 

As shown above the Arctic Monkeys official website also has a plain black background with white writing. This clearly shows the content of the page and what the fans are interested in seeing and finding on the band's page easily. There are things like links to their songs, tours, social media, info page, new albums, pictures etc.

In comparison to these pages, Linkin Park's official page is a bit more complicated and not as simplistically made. It is very fancy and could be somewhat confusing for fans to find relevant information they're looking for,but their home page is still their new album photo, which is used to promote the album. This shows the website is kept up to date and relevant. There is also a section to find and listen to all their albums, which could be useful for fans as well as that upcoming tours are clearly displayed.

Carol Vernallis

Carol Vernallis is known to be a music video theorist focused on the editing of the videos. She has a theory of the four concepts of music videos:

- Narrative

- Editing 

- Camera movement & framing 

- Diegesis 

An example of a Narrative and Performance video is Not Afraid by Eminem.

This video is a clear example of a narrative based video as it has a lot of shots related to the lyrics that Eminem sings/raps. Each movement is related to the lyrics

For example Eminem says " You can try and read my lyrics off of this paper" as he shows the paper, showing the relativity of the lyrics to the video. This suggests that in this video the artists is trying to tell us a story and the editing cuts to each story he is telling to the lyric.

Another way of creating music videos is by their editing.In music videos most rules of editing tend to be broken, as there is no need for continuity editing if there isn't a narrative to follow. An example of this would be 

An example of a music video using Diegesis is Feel Good Inc by Gorillaz. The made up band has created not only its own fake members, but also a whole different world of their music videos and they remain in that made up world for the entire video.

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The music video is still related to the lyrics of the song, but as the lyrics are very metaphorical and might not mean exactly what the band is singing, about they have quite an interesting approach in dispraying what is being said. The images we see in the video are very literal and not quite what the actual meaning of the song lyrics might be.

The last element of a good music video is the Camera Movement. A good example of this is 212 by Azealia Banks. All the shots are very extreme and weird, cutting in sync with the music.

Star Image

Star image has a lot to do with the singer or band's style, appearance and how they present themselves in front of their fans. As well as this it really depends how the band characterise their image within other bands. For example a song can be presented in a completely different way by different singers or bands that would be controversial to one another for example: 

The song Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics which was released in 1983 is presented in quite a retro and positive way. It has a nice tune which the audience could dance to and its not a heavy song. The band's genre is considered "synth pop" or "pop rock" and has a quite mellow and happy feel to it. The band image is also very 80s and retro as this time is known as the "new wave" of music and the sound of the music is very chilled. In comparison to this style image has a lot to do with the drastic change in this happy song's style and genre. When the song is sang by Marilyn Manson, by using his star image he changes the feel of the song completely by making it dark and creepy. It adds a sense of irony to it as it is called "sweet dreams" and is turned into something not so sweet or positive as it used to be. 

This song came out in 1998 and as we can see from the video it has a spine-chilling style to it to match Marilyn Manson's Star Image.

It is also interesting how the same song, but presented by two completely controversial artists have a very different fan base. This relates to Richard Dyer's Theory on star image. Marilyn Manson fans use imitation:

Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Goodwin's Theory has some key ideas to the perfect music video and how each video is classified. As the genre of our song is alternative/rock, I have decided to analyse a video by Evanescence as they have a very similar style in terms of the way they present themselves in music videos, on stage while they perform.

Some genre characteristics of this video is the colour and lighting to it including the mise en scene and props used. The lighting and colour is very important for a genre to be identified. The stereotypes for an alternative rock song would be a darker atmosphere and in a way very surreal but still linking to the lyrics making it either with dark colours or very contrasting colours like black and white or in the grayscale. Evanescense has a certain star image as well as that so the tones of light and mise en scene are very important for the setting of the music video. It is filmed in various locations such as a forest and even the performance scenes are filmed in an outdoor space with provided darker light and colour to match the style of the artist and support and encourage their star image. As well as this consumers and fans have certain expectations of the band's image, so the genre characteristics help that image evolve. In the video it is snowing therefore it has a cold atmosphere both metaphorically and literally.

There is a clear link between the lyrics of the song and the actual music video visuals, it is less literal and more metaphorical, so as Steve Archer's theory states the video does match the song, but does not match it lyric by lyric, therefore it is known to be amplification. It takes the idea of the song and creates a piece to show the band's image clearer.

There is also a strong relationship between the music and the visuals that are seen in the music video. The visuals are quite dark in terms of concepts, and it is also very fairytale like. The main band member, which is the female lead singer is wearing a ballroom gown which makes the atmosphere feel like it is set in a dark fairytale world like Snow White etc. The atmosphere and visuals are cold and so are the strong lyrics, evidently linking the two.

There are usually a lot of close ups of the face and body of the lead singer linking this to voyeurism as the body parts usually shown in the video are exposed in a sexual way, but the concept of the videos is usually not that prone to voyeurism, but some sexual body language is incorporated in the band's visual style.

Evanescence, like any alternative/rock band has a certain style and star image, The audience and Evanescence fans have certain expectations of a band, Evanescence has a certain fairytale like dark style which resembles metal bands, but it is softer, dream like and surreal. This clearly shows that the music video matches a performer's star image. Certain elements and shots in the video are underwater, which is very symbolical and could show that the lead singer is suffocating and dying inside. It is made very metaphorically and is very artistic in the way the concepts are displayed.

Star image is also very important to their fans. Fan's get inspired by the band's star image and sometimes replicate their style in the way they dress or act. They get influenced by the band's style. As Richard Dyer's theory states their fans usually have emotional affinity to the band as they usually dont quite mimic or copy the band's image but are strongly influenced by the meaning beneath the lyrics, which is usually very personal and helps them get through personal problems, they might be having in their lives.

Second Song Choice

Another song choice for our music video was Narcissistic Cannibal. The original song is by Korn and Skrillex and is somewhat aggressive and wild in comparison to the version we decided to use.

The song and video are actually very violent or "badass" in a way that compliments the band's style and genre and matches it as the audience knows it. The audience has certain expectations when they see a song by a certain band or a music video and this video is acknowledged to represent these band's authentic style.

We thought that this song is way more aggressive than we wanted it to be so we found the cover by Earlyrise much more in the genre we were looking for, 

The song starts smoothly and serene and gets more powerful and strong towards the end. The lyrics give us a generous amount of narrative to use within our music video and the song is composed in a controversial way that we could do a lot with the setting eg film in a forest or inside a dark place with limited lighting, so it can have a symbolical meaning to the video we create.For now this song is our final choice. We are going to print out the lyrics and annotate the ways we could create the video using the lyrics and combine the whole groups thoughts and choose the best idea as the outcome.
In our video we could combine all three elements of narrative, performance and artistic as the genre allows us to incorporate these elements.

First Song Choice

As we decided that we want to create a darker more twisted music video in an alternative rock kind of style and set it out in a forest or a darker place, we wanted our song to match the atmosphere. example the drama room and add interesting lightning props and Mise-en-scene for it to look more appealing to our audience .. At first we looked at some songs that we all thought could be good for a music video,but some of them already had a well known style and appearance which could not be outdone, such as Evanescence. We also looked at some other interesting bands such as All Time Low, Cage The Elephant, Imagine Dragons etc, but they seemed to have male lead singers and as our group wanted the lead singer to be there at all times when needed we decided to use someone from our actual group as a lead singer, therefore it has to be female. One of our song choices was Demons by Imagine Dragons. As the lead singer in imagine dragons is male we found a cover by Jasmine Thompson:

I thought the cover for this music video is very soft and gentle and it would have a nice narrative to it as the song's lyrics are very powerful and full of emotion, as well as the way Jasmine Thompson sings each line. It is very simple and there would be quite a lot to work with in terms of narrative.

Some disadvantages for this song are that as the song progresses the pace or volume doesn't change and it is not as dark and twisted as we want it to be. The voice stays soft and gentle and the video might not be very appealing to our audience as it would not be controversial enough. 

Lighting Workshop

Today we did a lighting workshop in a drama room. We used the green screen and various different lighting effects, such as light reflectors and blue screens in front of the light to capture a creepy atmosphere. We also played with lighting angles and what they could symbolise for example we only put the light on one side of the actor's face which was blue. That symbolises how cold the story she is telling is and makes the audience uncomfortable and under pressure when they see it, which is why this type of lighting was perfect for When she told a scary story. Here is are some images of how these shots looked:

Industry Research

Genre Research

Constructing Music Videos

First Music Video Ideas

In this lesson my group discussed some themes and locations we could use for our music video. We thought about filming parts of the video in a forest and making the concept of the video dark and surreal like a fairy-tale e.g Red Riding Hood, Snow white. A more sinister version of the fairy-tales would be an artistically inspired approach, but might also have some elements of performance or narrative depending on the song we choose. So far we have not decided which song we will make a music video for, but it was inspired by Evanescence. We are considering using a band that is not well known to the public, so it does not have a certain image or the viewers would have expectations of the band before they watch our video, and it could also be a downgrade from what it already is.

Another idea my group discussed is if we make the entire video one shot, just like Sia's "Chandelier" or This is Gospel by Panic! At the Disco.

Influential Music Video Directors

History of Music Videos

AS Review

What Went Well

In my AS coursework we made a Psychological Horror opening sequence, which we won an award for. In my opinion it was a really good opening sequence because it had a lot of creative scenes, good editing and an enigmatic feel to it throughout, which was filled with suspense. The story was interesting and as we had done a lot of research on psychological horrors we 

Practice Music Video

Me and my group made a practice music video for the song "Let It Go" and practiced lip syncing and editing the words together with the music so they match which was tricky at first but got easier as we got used to it. We used different effects and scenes besides just singing, so it looks like a proper music video rather than just lip syncing. The singers' voices matched the people from our group's faces, so it looked really good when they sang. The only problem we had in the making of the music video is the american accent the singer had when they said "can't", so when our group member Jasmine was singing it, it did not match smoothly, but it was not that noticeable. Other than that i think that our music video was very successful.

Green Screen Exercise

Today we did a green screen exercise

Video Ranking

In this A2 year we are going to be creating a music video! Firstly we started off by watching some videos that have been made by students in the past so we can rank them and see which video is good and what features that are used make it good and realistic. The videos that I liked were:

The editing and creativity in this first video has inspired me to create a controversial and exciting music video with different effects and