Final Digipak

Our Progress So Far

We now have everything planned including story lines, camera shots and locations/actors. I started by researching indie bands and artists in order to get an insight into the genre and the styles/tastes. I also wanted to see what a typical indie music video was like, so that I could take ideas from it and incorporate it into ours, ultimately making it as realistic as possible. Since we knew what music genre we where doing we just had to find a band. We searched for local bands, who we believed were of a high standard and would be easy to work with. Thankfully, I had a friend who happened to be in a band which fitted into our genre perfectly.

They are called 'The Native'. We got in touch with them and asked if they would be interested in working with us and having a music video made. They instantly accepted and were very enthusiastic. We then remained in contact and sent them shooting schedules so they could free their time and prepare.

It took a lot of collective thinking, work and preparation but it was worth it in the end. We have just finalised with our band 'The Native' when and where we will be shooting, and are ready to go. Our first shoot will take place on Sunday the 9th of March and will involve us meeting our two actors - Connor Carson and Bronagh Walsh.

We will go to town, and get various shots of the 'couple' walking down the street and sitting with each other laughing and joking. We will then get shots of the girl finding messages on his mobile, and storming off in a rage. This will be followed by Connor attempting to ring her both on his mobile and on a pay phone - both times she rejects the calls. There will then be shots of him frantically chasing her, and shouting her name as he searches. After this, we will get shots of Bronagh rejecting the phone calls then storming down the street, looking very sad with tears in her eyes. She will then go and sit in front of a fire, continuing to cry. At this point, Connor will come running over and tries to talk to her. She will then stand up and they will talk before hugging each other and kissing.

After we got these shots, we went to Lady Dixon the following day to get landscape shots. We went during the day so it would be bright, and took a lot of footage at the lake. We then went into the forrest area and got shots of various trees and scenery. We also got shots of us walking down the steps to the lake, which we tried to make seem like amateur footage by making them quiet shaky. The reason for this is that we believe this will be effective in the music video and will fit in with the upbeat manic nature of the song.

Now that we have all our storyline shots, we just need to get our live performance shots. We have been talking back and fourth with the band, and trying to find a time and location which suits everyone. We have collectively decided to film it in a studio in one of the members house this week. We will get various shots of the band performing, both medium-range and close-ups. We will also get separate footage of each person in the band playing their individual instrument, or singing. We also plan on getting some footage of them warming up and laughing/joking with each other, which may or may not be used.

We have now finished filming the live performance of the band. We spent a few hours meeting the band, telling them about the music video, and then filming various shots of them performing. We took both mid shots and close-ups of the individual members and we are very happy with all the footage. We have now begun editing and putting in the remaining footage with the other scenes which include the actors/storyline and the shots from Lady Dixon. We are working very hard on this part of the process and hope to be finished by next week. We are paying special attention to detail and want to produce an extremely professional video for our final piece. This means using filters, colour corrections, stabilisation techniques, lighting modifications, and motion tracking, as well as various other editing procedures. 

Our audience feedback was extremely positive, which is something we are very happy about. We spent a lot of time in the research process looking at consumer trends and reviews from various critics. We wanted our video to appeal to as large an audience as possible, so to do this we needed to know our target audience and what they wanted from a music video. We then took these ideas and put them into practice, which helped greatly with our end result.

When we first showed the video to people, they were shocked at how professional it looked. They were very impressed with the use of filters and lighting modifications. As well as this, they loved the fast, frantic pace of the footage. This was a result of making the tempo faster, and using motion tracking. The audience feedback also indicated we had the perfect mix between storyline and live footage of the band. We knew this would be crucial in holding their attention, because if we used too much of one they may lose interest. 

Final Video

During Production

We began production on our music video when we started filming landscape shots in Lady Dixon park. These shots became very effective using different filters and titles to establish the band and the beginning of the music video. These shots were very easily taken as the surroundings in the park were extremely beautiful and suits the mood of our song when the filters are added to the shots. We then filmed our narrative shots, this meant getting actors to portray the storyline of our video. Connor Carson and Bronagh Walsh two budding actors from Lisburn agreed to act in our piece, which added to the production of our video because they were so professional about the filming and took direction from myself very well, and did exactly what we asked. The lighting of our shots proved a slight problem as we wanted to shoot our narrative at night but there was a lot of lights around the area where we filmed so we didn't need to use our own lights or spots. We then filmed the band The Native for the live performance element of our video, we did this in the band's own studio, we had them perform the song Stupid Girl three times to ensure we got every shot we needed and we were able to get close ups of each band member. One problem, we had was that when they performed live the speed of the song varied at times, also they had vocal harmonies in their live performance that weren't included in the recorded version of the song. During editing we have tried out different effects to add to the video and one effect that has seemed extremely interesting and intriguing is using double exposure with the band's live performance with the landscape shots. We did this by changing to opacity of the live performance shots and added the landscape shot on top of this shot. This created a shot with two layers, which made an interesting effect, almost creating a sense of a two sided story.

Progression throughout our task

At this point in time we have everything in place in order for us to begin filming. We started off by doing research on other similar indie bands to get an idea of what theme and concepts will be included in our music video. After we had decided what type of video we wanted to make, the next step was to choose a band suitable. The band we chose are called "The Native" and the reason why we picked this band is because we liked one song in particular (Stupid Girl) and believed that this song was suitable for the video we want to make.

After deciding that this band was the one we wanted to film our music video with, we now had to contact them. Luckily, a good friend of ours actually knew one of the band members very well and was able to contact him to see if the band was willing to film with us. After we got the go ahead, we contacted the band via facebook to discuss video ideas and to make a shot list. After the shot list was made we could now move onto the next step.

Our second action we took to progress closer to filming, was writing out a rough shot list, making storyboards based on these shots and then doing a final draft of an improved, more detailed shot list with better storyboards. After this was completed, the next step was to string together the storyboards to create an animatic. An animatic is basically a breakdown of our storyboards condensed into video format, as this way it is easier for the examiner to view and mark our work.

After we had finished the animatics and storyboards our next step was to get together to write out a shooting schedule, discussing dates and times which were suitable so everybody in the group could attend.

Connor carson and bronagh walsh are two of our actors. the two performers are friends of chris' and have experience singing and acting and we are confident that they will be able to act and perform at the level required of them. They are willing to travel with us to the destinations we need to go to. We have chosen a boy and a girl to act for us because the song represents a girl who doesnt listen and keeps making the same mistakes over again and we want to show the contrast of how things can go good and then in an instant go back to her stupid ways, hence the name of the song "stupid girl".

We want to have the band performing live in an amateur venue such as a garage to show that the band are quite indie and have their own style and do their own thing. This is an amateur set which means that the props involved are going to be amateur or even a little messy. The props are a big part of the video because attention to detail and continuity.

On the 18th march we started to film the narrative story for our music video, we filmed in such locations such as lady dixon park and queens university belfast in the centre of town. We used stuarts full HD camera on his samsung smart. In lady dixon we were attempting to shoot and capture more scenic shots to use in between the storyline and the band playing to spice the video up a bit. We also went to queen's university belfast to film part of the narrative. While we were out we got a chance to get to know the actors better and had finally filmed with them, establishing a better working relationship.

We aim to have the filming done with the band by the end of march. We are planning to film in one of the band members garages as we want to give an original, authentic look to the film. by doing so, the story and the band playing will switch more smoothly as the video is all in amateur locations and no professional stages etc.

When filming the shots we decided that we would need to have plenty of shots to break up the narrative so it felt more like a music video and less like a short film. To do this we decided to go to lady dixon and get a lot of scenic shots, and we also plan to record the band playing live out of their garage to break up the narrative more.

We changed the idea of filming in a garage to filming in a room in the house that the band use to chill out. We decided to make this change as the lighting was better and more suitable in the room and also it was easier for the band to set up in this room which was better for time efficiency.

Now we have reached the editing process, things have begun to really start looking well. Stuart is doing  the editing process through using final cut pro and we have all been helping arrange the order of the shots and also what effects need used. Stuart created the website and it was myself, ciaran and chris' role to add the content onto the page and to take the pictures that would be going onto the site. We also have Chris working on the album cover whilst myself and ciaran have been covering the research concerning indie music videos and how we can add effects and the same style to make the video appeal to the target audience we are aiming for.

Our next step is to get all the individual pieces of research each of us has done and put it onto the group blog. After this is done one will be able to see where we have got the ideas for our music video and who inspired us. We also hope to get feedback from an indie lover to find their opinion on the song, video, website and album covers.

codes and conventions continued

It is very common in indie music videos to include a live performance. This helps focus on them as a performer doing what they love to do. It also helps keep the focus on the actual music itself and the talent that the artists have.  This is typical in the indie genre as the genre itself was more about the music and passion rather than about the success of the artist. A good example of this is Ed Sheeran.  A modern twist is often put on this with a narrative included to break up the music video. There is also more room to play around with the video if a narrative is included so a lot of artists tend to use a mixture of performance and narrative in the music videos. It also allows Indie artists to compete with artists of other genres who do narrative videos that are heavily based around a story to make it memorable.  Live performances promote the artist as the audience will be able to see what the artist is like live and it may make them want to see the artist live.

Narrative in music videos is used to tell a story by using a sequence of imaged and videos to relate to the song. This is done in such a way that it makes sense to the audience so they can follow and link it to the lyrics. This links with Goodwin’s theory of illustration and amplification.  Narrative is very popular with all genres of music as it leaves room for the imagination. There are a lot of different variations and there is a lot of room for creativity which can leave the video very memorable to the audience. This is a great way of making a music video stand out and making it popular. This is because there are a lot of different variations so you can make it as different as you like. Also, now due to new technology, new storylines can be created by using special effects and after effects to make the video look a lot more realistic and exciting. Narrative videos also keep peoples attention better in comparison to performance as what you are seeing is always changing and keeps you entertained. Even people who aren’t necessarily a fan of the artist may still enjoy the video so this method could help gain success and status.

Mise en scene plays a large role in music videos and especially in the indie genre. This is because a lot of indie artists often have a retro look and this can be created through the sets they use, props and also their own appearance. Props can change the whole look of the video. A good example of this is Lana Del Rey’s – National Anthem. The audience can see her glamorous and expensive looking house. This suggests to the audience that she is wealthy and well respected. Costumes give people their identity and set them apart from the rest. Makeup is also important as it can give us an indication as to which era the video is set in. For example, Paloma Faith has very subtly makeup in her videos wit a pale face and red lipstick, this suggests that her music and music videos are supposed to be similar to the 50s.

Web design ideas- Sigur Rós