Lip Syncing

I haven't yet started filming Jacks lip syncing shots but have had an idea of using some of the footage I have filmed to make it seem as if Pippa is lip syncing, at first this proved difficult as she some of the shots where pippa fully opened her mouth weren't close enough for the audience to notice, but I have got footage of pippa sticking her tounge out, the part Pippa will be lip syncing is "toot toot" and "beep beep" I have used two different shots to create the lip syncing and had to change the speed of one of the shots to get her tounge to come out at the right time.

Artistic Shots

On the second day of filming I wanted to include some more artistic shots in the video to make the video look more professional and to add a wider range of shots to the video. For one of these shots I wanted to film Pippa and Penny running down a hill, to do this I found some long grass and used the touch screen on the camera to set the focus point on the grass. Behind the grass I showed Penny and Pippa running so that the audience could clearly see the activity going on in the background but also so that it was less focused on.

Linking the footage to the lyrics

In the actual song there are some lyrics that I have linked into the footage to make the footage revelent to the lyrics, when the lyrics "Sippin' on coke and rum" I included a scene of Penny drinking an alchoholic drink which works well with the song.

Another part of the song includes the lyrics "We got food everywhere asif the party was catered" to make this revelent to having a dog in the music video I filmed a scene where Penny feeds pippa some food which also fits well with the lyrics.

Footage from the second day

Before filming on the second day I rewatched both of videos that I am using as my stylemodels, in one of the shots from TIEKS - Sunshine there was a dog playing with a ball and I thought that I'd add a similar shot while out in New Brighton

For this shot I deicded to film away from New Brighton beach and went to a near by field and to make it revelent to the storyline and theme of the connection between Penny and the dog I showed Penny watching Pippa running with a football.

Second Filming Day

After reviewing the footage of today I am pleased with what has been filmed and currently, I don't think any more filming needs to be done with Penny and Pippa, I had learnt from the mistakes I made on the first filming day and have used them mistakes to produce better quality footage to avoid any refilming. While I was out I also took the opportunity to take some potential digipack covers as for the digipack I'm planning to have it revolving around Penny and Pippa whereas the poster will revolve more around the artist being Jack. After editing I will choose which of the following 4 photos will be best for the album cover.

New Locations

For my second filming day I will be adding in 2 new locations to my film, the first location will be New Brighton Dips, this is a large field where I will be filming Pippa playing football to resemble a fun day out.

I will also be adding in a ending shot on the sand dunes near Leasowe Beach, I will head there towards the end of the day when its still light but the sun is setting to resemble to the audience its the end of the day, I hope to get a shot of Penny and Pippa looking out to the sea.

The First 4 Shots

After looking at my style models my first four shots are inspired by one of my style models which is TIEKS - Sunshine. One of the shots of the dogs in the first 10 seconds of my style models video shows just the tail wagging on the dog.

I was inspired by this Extreme Close Up and thought I could use a similar idea to create almost an 'establishing' shot in the first 2 shots which showcases the two actors close up first and then it moves to a medium close up in the second two shots so the audience can see who the actors are.

 In the first two shots it shows both Penny and Pippas feet using an extreme close up to create an establishing shot for the characters.










In the next two shots we get a medium close up of Penny and Pippa allowing us to see the majority of the actors so the audience are able to follow the story of them throughout, It is almost used as an introduction to the characters.

1st Filming Day

After filming and reviewing the footage I have more than enough footage to fill the first half, today I focused on just Penny and Pippas parts on New Brighton beach and have tried to get a range of shots. I am really pleased with the majority of the shots, however, some of the shots where I am walking to follow the actor the video is too unstable and I will need to re film shots and take more care in the stability of the shots.

I am planning for 2 more filming days, the first one will be finishing the footage of Penny and Pippa on the beach finishing filming some scenes and also refilming parts that didn't go to plan and need to be included in the music video. The last filming day will be working on the lip syncing shots with Jack who is the artist of this song, there may be additional filming days that need adding but the current plan is only for 2 more.

Music Label

I have created a logo for the label behind my music video, album and poster. The label behind it all is called 'TB Productions'

I created the logo in Adobe Photoshop and used a bold font that was also current and stood out over a plain font. I put the text between two thin rectangles to make the text stand out more and added a crown over the top to make the logo look more proffesional and makes it more eyecatching.

Video Plan

Using the place holders in iMovie i have created a plan on what footage I want to include in my music video and in what order. Although I will likely change some parts and reorder the footage in the future this will help to guide me into what shots I need to film on my filming days.

Location

After looking at my 3 possible locations, looking at my style models and considering the theme behind the video I have chosen to film most of my video at New Brighton Beach

The theme of the video is happiness and the story behind it is the connection between Penny and Pippa (Dog) and them having a happy day out together. When I think about the beach it is a common place for people to go to for a fun day out and where they create memories and enjoy each others company, and I feel this location will fit well with the music video and allow the story to stand out more and for the theme to be recognised.

Style Models

Throughout my video, I am going to use a range of style models to inspire me to create my video, I will use a range of videos that will inspire me in different ways.

1. TIEKS - Sunshine feat. Dan Harkna - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALvep1RsGQ0

The reason I will be using this as a style model is because it features dogs throughout the video and my video is going to feature a dog throughout most of the video, I will be looking at what angles they use to film the dogs and using that to inspire the angles I will use to film Pippa (the dog).

2. American Authors - Best Day of My Life - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y66j_BUCBMY

As my song is quite an upbeat happy song and the video is going to show happiness and good times I will be using the music video as another style model, 'best day of my life' is a happy song and uses a range of shots throughout their music video so I will be using some of the activities they do in the video and recreate them in my video, and use the angles and framing in their music video to help decide on what angles I will use for my video.

Editing

In the pre-lim task, I used Final Cut Pro to edit the music video and found it easy to use, for the main task I am going to use a more advanced piece of software called Adobe Premier Pro CS6 to give me more tools to edit my video, allowing it to look more professional.

Although for the planning process I used iMovie to take advantage of one of the effects they have which allows you to use a placeholder which includes animations of what you want in that part of the film, this allowed me to get a more realistic view of what the final product would look like once complete.

Actors

For my music video I will be using 3 actors

Penny

Penny will be one of the main actors used within the video, Penny won't be the artist lip syncing within the video but instead telling a story of having good times to fit in with the music.









Pippa

Pippa is also one of the main actors within the video, she will be working with Penny to show the story of good times and to show the connection she has with Penny.







Jack

Jack (on the left) will be the artist in the video, he won't feature as much as Penny and Pippa but will be doing the main Lip Syncing parts to the video.

Video Storyline

In the video I am planning to include lots of 'happy' shots betwen Penny and Pippa. The video itself won't show a strong storyline that tells a long story, instead it will be a short storyline showing a day out between Penny and Pippa and the connection they have.

The song is very upbeat and gives off happy vibes so the video shown will show Jack having a good time while lip syncing, and Penny and Pippa having a good time.

Overall it is quite a simple storyline that doesn't really need to be closely followed to understand but instead gives off postive vibes making the audience feel happy after watching the video.

Potential Locations

I am currently in the process of choosing locations for my music video, 3 main locations I'm looking at are:

-Frodsham Hill
-Frodsham Caves
-New Brighton/Leasowe Beach

Music Choice

After planning I have chosen to move away from the idea of a love story and more towards and happy upbeat song, I have looked at different songs and come down to the final choice of:

R. Kelly - Ignition (Vicejoy Remix)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncNzC8WgtPI

Planning

I have chosen to produce a Music Video for my final task, I am currently in the process of choosing a song but have a few ideas, two of them being:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdneKLhsWOQ - Taylor Swift - Wildest Dreams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUkkaqSNduU - Disclosure - You & Me (Flume Remix)


They are both quite different songs with the second one being more upbeat but both would allow me to provide a love story about two people coming together which was my plan. I am currently also in the process of choosing my actors I'm looking for:
- 1 Male (main)
- 1 Female (main)
and an undecided amount of extras to be in the background or to be used to add to the story

Prelim Review

Overall there are alot of changes that I'd make for the final task to improve the overall video.

One of the changes I'd make would be location, I would use a wider variety of locations that were more thought out to work in the music video better, as the Prelim was only a short task we deicided that we would just film in one location and work with what we had, whereas for my music video I would only start editing once everything I had was to a high standard.

Another changing I'd make would be the lighting, for any indoor shoots I do I will be using light boxes for the filming, as this was a short task we didn't have as long to plan out things like lighting, audio and costume.

The last thing I'd change would be the actual content of music video, there wasn't really a meaning for the video, for my video I want to create a storyline for the views to engage in and understand.

Overall I felt I've learnt alot from this prelim task and this will allow me to take the skills I've learnt and create a better piece.

Final Closer Music Video

Prelim - Editing (Part 2)

After all the footage was in the correct place we then looked at effects, we didn't want the piece to be too childish and overloaded with effects so we tried to use ones that worked well on the clips used and not overuse them, we wanted subtle but engaging effect and played around with the clips to make it work, it was a long and repetitive process but I felt this helped to improve the audiences engagement on the video.

As we came to the end of the editing process we made some final adjustments by making the lip syncing more precise, we then muted all the clips so no background noise could be heard and rewatched the film over, we wanted to add a part where it flashed between three different shots so using my previous skills I managed to show all three shots which gave the feel of cross cutting, this worked effectivly as it built up suspense towards the chorus.

Prelim - Editing (Part 1)

For editing software I used Final Cut Pro x as I already have experience using this software and it is more advanced than IMovie, this allowed me to use more advanced effects to improve the video.

To start with we put the song in and cut it to the part we wanted to feature, after that we then sorted through the footage and choosed what parts we wanted to use and then placed it all onto the timeline. After it was placed onto the timeline we put it into a rough position of where everything was going to go and then went from start to end making sure everything was synced to the music correctly and then started cutting it down to the correct position as alot of footage overlapped.

Prelim Planning - Filming

As a group we discussed what times would be best for filming as we needed to plan first, we spend 2 lessons planning and chose to film everything within an hour, after filming we felt that the music video would have been poor with the small amount of footage we had, we managed to get a few good shots but we felt we could develop it more with another day of filming. The next day we planned to film again and use more of the space we had in the hall to get a wider range of shots, we also decided to open all the blinds to be able to use the natural sunlight to are advantage. After the second filming day we felt we had enough footage to be able to choose from and to edit to make the final cut of the music video.

Prelim Planning - Costume

For the costume of the Prelim task our group had to choose 3 different costumes as at different points 3 different people appeared, for the hand tapping shots we used one person to keep the style the same, we got the actor to wear nail varnish (like the photo on the left) with a faded effect, we did this to show the actor was a female as you can't see the persons face or body and also to get them to slightly blend into the background of the tapping shots.


For the actor doing the tapping shots with their feet we asked them to wear bright boots and leggings with a black and white theme to make the shoes stand out of the shot, we also asked the actor to try and wear big looking shoes to empathise the effect more in the shot. There is also a shot at the end where the same actor who has the white shoes on is wearing a different pair that flashes between me lip syncing and her walking down the stairs in time with the music, we asked her to use high black heel shoes to try and show a sophisticated look while walking down, the black was dark against the stairs but allowed us to use an effect called Prism effectively showing the shot in various different colours.

For the shot I was in lip syncing I kept my style black and white with a with a black adidas top and a black bomber jacket, I also wore black skinny jeans and black trainers, this worked effectivly against a low lighting background to make my face and my lips stand out more.

Prelim Planning - Location

My group looked at various locations for filming the music video that would provide us with good lighting and a location that isn't too 'busy' with colours and objects which could cause distraction to the audience watching the video.

For the shots which had tapping in we used different areas of the school hall to provide a mixed but linked in environment to keep the video connected, on the first shot we used the protector screen and the bright sunlight from the windows to create a shadow with the hands, on the second shot we then had someone sit on the stairs and tap their feet, we then had a different actor tap their hands on the mixing board and as the editor I made sure the tapping was all synced in.

After the tapping shots we then used a location which had a brick wall background for the lip syncing we also used the balcony to give an array of shots as it could get boring for the audience and make them loose interest if one shot goes on too long.

Prelim Planning - Song Choice

I have chosen for my first prelim task to work in a group to spread the roles out between 3 people. We listened to a variety of music to find a suitable song where we would be able to lip sync and tap along to the beat to sync in to practice editing. The chosen music video we are going to be doing for our prelim task is 'Closer' by The Chainsmokers ft Halsey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT2_F-1esPk